potency, the virtues of which had begun to grow uncertain, however, to sceptical Protestants; and from doubt to denial, and from denial to passionate hatred, there were but a few brief steps.  The most famous of the roods was that of Boxley in Kent, which used to smile and bow, or frown and shake its head, as its worshippers were generous or closehanded.  The fortunes and misfortunes of this image I shall by and bye have to relate.  There was another, however, at Dovercourt, in Suffolk, of scarcely inferior fame.  This image was of such power that the door of the church in which it stood was open at all hours to all comers, and no human hand could close it.  Dovercourt therefore became a place of great and lucrative pilgrimage, much resorted to by the neighbours on all occasions of difficulty.

Now it happened that within the circuit of a few miles there lived four young men, to whom the virtues of the rood had become greatly questionable.  If it could work miracles, it must be capable, so they thought, of protecting its own substance; and they agreed to apply a practical test which would determine the extent of its abilities.  Accordingly (about the time of Bainham’s first imprisonment), Robert King of Dedham, Robert Debenham of Eastbergholt, Nicholas Marsh of Dedham, and Robert Gardiner of Dedham, “their consciences being burdened to see the honour of Almighty God so blasphemed by such an idol,” started off “on a wondrous goodly night” in February, with hard frost and a clear full moon, ten miles across the wolds, to the church.

The door was open as the legend declared; but nothing daunted, they entered bravely, and lifting down the “idol” from its shrine, with its coat and shoes, and the store of tapers which were kept for the services, they carried it on their shoulders for a quarter of a mile from the place where it had stood, “without any resistance of the said idol.”  There setting it on the ground, they struck a light, fastened the tapers to the body, and with the help of them, sacrilegiously burnt the image down to a heap of ashes; the old dry wood “blazing so brimly,” that it lighted them a full mile on their way home.[556]

For this night’s performance, which, if the devil is the father of lies, was a stroke of honest work against him and his family, the world rewarded these men after the usual fashion.  One of them, Robert Gardiner, escaped the search which was made, and disappeared till better times; the remaining three were swinging in chains six months later on the scene of their exploit.  Their fate was perhaps inevitable.  Men who dare to be the first in great movements are ever self-immolated victims.  But I suppose that it was better for them to be bleaching on their gibbets, than crawling at the feet of a wooden rood, and believing it to be God.

* * * * *