“I pray to God that your Grace may take heed of the worldly wisdom which is foolishness before God; that you may do that [which] God commandeth, and not that [which] seemeth good in your own sight, without the word of God; that your Grace may be found acceptable in his sight, and one of the members of his church; and according to the office that he hath called your Grace unto, you may be found a faithful minister of his gifts, and not a defender of his faith:  for he will not have it defended by man or man’s power, but by his word only, by the which he hath evermore defended it, and that by a way far above man’s power or reason.

“Wherefore, gracious king, remember yourself; have pity upon your soul; and think that the day is even at hand when you shall give account for your office, and of the blood that hath been shed by your sword.  In which day, that your Grace may stand steadfastly, and not be ashamed, but be clear and ready in your reckoning, and have (as they say), your quietus est sealed with the blood of our Saviour Christ, which only serveth at that day, is my daily prayer to Him that suffered death for our sins, which also prayeth to his Father for grace for us continually; to whom be all honour and praise for ever.  Amen.  The Spirit of God preserve your Grace."[566]

These words, which conclude an address of almost unexampled grandeur, are unfortunately of no interest to us, except as illustrating the character of the priest who wrote them, and the king to whom they were written.  The hand of the persecutor was not stayed.  The rack and the lash and the stake continued to claim their victims.  So far it was labour in vain.  But the letter remains, to speak for ever for the courage of Latimer; and to speak something, too, for a prince that could respect the nobleness of the poor yeoman’s son, who dared in such a cause to write to him as a man to a man.  To have written at all in such a strain was as brave a step as was ever deliberately ventured.  Like most brave acts, it did not go unrewarded; for Henry remained ever after, however widely divided from him in opinion, his unshaken friend.

In 1531, the king gave him the living of West Kingston, in Wiltshire, where for a time he now retired.  Yet it was but a partial rest.  He had a special licence as a preacher from Cambridge, which continued to him (with the king’s express sanction)[567] the powers which he had received from Wolsey.  He might preach in any diocese to which he was invited; and the repose of a country parish could not be long allowed in such stormy times to Latimer.  He had bad health, being troubled with headache, pleurisy, colic, stone; his bodily constitution meeting feebly the demands which he was forced to make upon it.[568] But he struggled on, travelling up and down to London, to Kent, to Bristol, wherever opportunity called him; marked for destruction by the bishops, if he was betrayed into an imprudent word, and himself living in constant expectation of death.[569]