The case of John Clayton, whether we look to it merely as a well-authenticated fact of history, or seek from it ancillary evidence as to the principles and conduct of Henry in the matter of religious persecution, involves subjects of deep interest. The satisfaction with which it is believed many may view it, as one of the incidents which seem to imply that Henry was an unwilling, reluctant executor of the penal laws of his kingdom, and took the lead of his people in liberality and toleration, must be mingled with pain sincerely felt on witnessing the stewards of the word of life becoming the zealous and relentless exactors of a cruel and iniquitous law, straining to the very utmost its enactments to cover their deeds of blood, and sacrificing their fellow-creatures to the image they had set up. The case of Clayton puts the excessive enormities of the hierarchy (p. 395) of that day in a more striking point of view than many others of the more generally cited instances of persecution. Clayton's was not the case of a powerful man like Cobham, whose very character and station, and rank and influence, made him formidable: Clayton's was not the case of a learned man, or an eloquent preacher, or an active, zealous propagator of those new doctrines from which the see of Rome anticipated so much evil to her cause. His was the case of a tradesman, unable to read himself, and engaging another to read to him out of a book which seemed to give him pleasure; the place of reading being a private room in a private house, the time of reading being the Lord's day, and other festivals of the church; and the witnesses against him being his own servant and his own apprentice. Had the record of this sad persecution been written by an enemy to the priesthood, we should have suspected that the whole case was misrepresented, that a colouring had been unfairly given to the proceedings, to make them more odious in our sight; and though, at the best, such proceedings must be detestable, we should have deemed that in this case the facts had been distorted to meet the prejudiced views of the writer. But the proceedings are registered in the authentic records of the Archbishop of Canterbury,[298] and are minutely (p. 396) detailed in all the circumstances of time, and place, and person. [Footnote 298: Printed in "Wilkins' Concilia."]