“What, pardon Cranmer, the apostate and heretic!” exclaimed Gardiner. “Pardon him who betrayed and enslaved the Church of which he ought to have been the protector!—who manifested the most abject compliance with the will of his royal master, flattering his passions, and humouring his caprices! Pardon him who shamefully promoted and pronounced the divorce between the King and her Majesty’s royal mother, casting thereby a blemish on their daughter! Would you pardon him whose life has been one of dissimulation, and who professed and practised what in his secret heart he disbelieved and abhorred? Would you pardon a Reformer, who subscribed the terrible Six Articles, though they were directed chiefly against his own sect, and who would have subscribed any other articles enjoined by his royal master—who on King Edward’s accession declared himself in favour of the principles of Zuinglius and Calvin—who abolished the ancient worship—attacked every article of our Church—denied its traditions—stigmatised its rites—brought over foreign sectaries, however anti-Christian their tenets, as Martin Bucer, Paul Fagius, Peter Martyr, Ochinus, and others, procured them churches, and recommended them to royal favour—and who filled up the measure of his guilt by supporting the treasonable projects of Northumberland, helping him to place a usurper on the throne, and preaching against the rightful claims of our sovereign mistress? Would you spare this hypocrite, this apostate, this heretic, this double-dyed traitor?” “His crimes are many and indefensible, but I would leave their punishment to Heaven,” rejoined Pole. “I could forgive him every injury he has done me, except the divorce pronounced against my sainted mother,” said Mary, her cheek flushing, and her eyes kindling as she spoke. “In pronouncing that unjust sentence, he uttered his own condemnation. His fate is sealed.” “Why has the punishment he so richly merits been so long delayed?” demanded Philip. “His offences, Sire, are of so heinous a nature,” responded Gardiner, “and so fraught with injury to our holy religion in its most vital part, that it has been necessary to refer them to that supreme tribunal before which such inquests can only properly be held. His case has been laid before the Pope, who has appointed the Bishop of Gloucester and a commission to try him. On their report, judgment will be pronounced in solemn consistory by his Holiness. What that judgment will be, cannot for a moment be doubted. Cranmer will be excommunicated and anathematised, deprived of the archbishopric of Canterbury, and of all ecclesiastical privileges. Furthermore he will be degraded and delivered to the secular power, and your Majesties will be required by his Holiness to proceed towards him as the law directs.” “For his offences the law prescribes death by fire, and by that death he shall die,” said Mary.