though under arrest had been treated with great mildness and allowed
such liberty that they were able to meet together and to publish
writings and challenges against Mary's religious policy,[4] were
brought to trial before a commission presided over by Gardiner. A few
consented to sign a formula of recantation, but the majority,
persisting in their opposition, were degraded and handed over for
punishment to the civil authorities. On the 4th February the long
series of burnings began. John Rogers was committed to the flames in
Smithfield, Bishop Hooper in Gloucester, Taylor in Suffolk, Saunders
in Coventry, and before the year had elapsed about seventy prisoners
had met a similar fate. In September 1555 a commission was sent down
to Oxford to examine Latimer and Ridley. Both refused to admit
Transubstantiation, the sacrificial character of the Mass, or Roman
supremacy. They were condemned, and it must be said of them that they
met their fate like men. Judges were appointed by the Pope to take
evidence against Cranmer. He was charged with perjury because he had
broken his oath to the Pope, with heresy on account of his teaching
against the Eucharist, and with adultery. The minutes of the trial
were forwarded to Rome for the final decision, and after careful
consideration the Pope deposed him from the Archbishopric of
Canterbury, and excommunicated him. Meanwhile Cranmer's theological
views had been undergoing another revision. On the question of prayers
for the dead, Purgatory, and the Mass, he was willing to admit that he
might have been mistaken, and even on the question of papal supremacy
he professed himself ready to listen to argument. In his eagerness to
escape punishment he signed recantation after recantation, each of
them more comprehensive and more submissive than its predecessor,
acknowledging his guilt as a persecutor of the Church and a disturber
of the faith of the English nation, and praying for pardon from the
sovereigns, the Pope, and God. But in the end, when he realised that