“After I had reasoned to the Bill of Appeals,” he said, “Sir Thomas More, then being chancellor, sent for me to come and speak with him in the parliament chamber.  And when I came to him he was in a little chamber within the parliament chamber, where, as I remember, stood an altar, or a thing like unto an altar, whereupon he did lean and, as I do think, the same time the Bishop of Bath was talking with him.  And then he said this to me, I am very glad to hear the good report that goeth of you, and that ye be so good a Catholic man as ye be.  And if ye do continue in the same way that ye begin, and be not afraid to say your conscience, ye shall deserve great reward of God, and thanks of the King’s Grace at length, and much worship to yourself.”—­Throgmorton to the King:  MS. State Paper Office.

[362] In part of it he speaks in his own person.  Vide supra, cap. 3.

[363] BURNET’S Collectanea, p. 435.

[364] Note of the Revelations of Elizabeth Barton:  Rolls House MS.

[365] It has been thought that the Tudor princes and their ministers carried out the spy system to an iniquitous extent,—­that it was the great instrument of their Machiavellian policy, introduced by Cromwell, and afterwards developed by Cecil and Walsingham.  That both Cromwell and Walsingham availed themselves of secret information, is unquestionable,—­as I think it is also unquestionable that they would have betrayed the interests of their country if they had neglected to do so.  Nothing, in fact, except their skill in fighting treason with its own weapons, saved England from a repetition of the wars of the Roses, envenomed with the additional fury of religious fanaticism.  But the agents of Cromwell, at least, were all volunteers;—­their services were rather checked than encouraged; and when I am told, by high authority, that in those times an accusation was equivalent to a sentence of death, I am compelled to lay so sweeping a charge of injustice by the side of a document which forces me to demur to it.  “In the reign of the Tudors,” says a very eminent writer, “the committal, arraignment, conviction, and execution of any state prisoner, accused or suspected, or under suspicion of being suspected of high treason, were only the regular terms in the series of judicial proceedings.”  This is scarcely to be reconciled with the 10th of the 37th of Hen.  VIII., which shows no desire to welcome accusations, or exaggerated readiness to listen to them.

“Whereas,” says that Act, “divers malicious and evil disposed persons of their perverse, cruel, and malicious intents, minding the utter undoing of some persons to whom they have and do bear malice, hatred, and evil will, have of late most devilishly practised and devised divers writings, wherein hath been comprised that the same persons to whom they bear malice should speak traitorous words against the King’s Majesty, his crown and dignity, or commit divers heinous