On the occasion of the burning of Luther's writings in S. Paul's Churchyard in 1521, he had preached against the great reformer at Paul's Cross before Wolsey and Warham, a sermon which was subsequently handled with severity by William Tyndall. It is, in fact, not difficult to recognise in the various codes of statutes, which from time to time he gave to his college foundations, evidence of both the strength and weakness of his character. In 1516 he had given to S. John's statutes which were identical with those of Christ's College. But in 1524 he substituted for these another code, and in 1530 a third. In this final code, accordingly, among many provisions, characterised by much prudent forethought, and amid statutes which really point to something like a revolution in academic study, we see plainly enough signs of timorous distrust, not to say a pusillanimous anxiety against all innovations whatever in the future. But in one cause, at any rate, he bore a noble part, and for it he died a noble death. His opposition to the divorce of King Henry and Queen Catharine was not less honourable than it was consistent, and he stood alone among the Bishops of the realm in his refusal to recognise the validity of the measure. It was, in fact, his unflinching firmness in regard to the Act of Supremacy which finally sealed his fate. The story of his trial and death are matters that belong to English history. The pathos of it we can all feel as we read the pages in which Froude has told the story in his "History," and its moral, we may perhaps also feel, has not been unfitly pointed by Mr. Mullinger in his "History of the University." Here are Froude's words:--