On the 16th of November, while London was ringing with the arrest of the Marquis of Exeter, the court was opened in Westminster Hall. In the grey twilight of the late dawn, the whole peerage of England, lay and spiritual, took their seats, to the right and left of the throne. The twelve judges placed themselves on raised benches at the back. The prisoner was brought in; and soon after the king entered, "clothed all in white," with the yeomen of the guard. [Sidenote: The appeal is heard by Henry in Westminster Hall.] The Bishop of Carlisle rose first to open the case. The king, he said, had put down the usurpations of the Bishop of Rome, but it was not to be thought, therefore, that he intended to give license to heresy. They were not met, at present, to discuss doctrines, but to try a person accused of a crime, by the laws of the Church and of the country. Lambert was then ordered to stand forward. "What is your name?" the king asked. "My name is Nicholson," he said, "though I be called Lambert." "What!" the king said, "have you two names? I would not trust you, having two names, though you were my brother." The persecutions of the bishops, Lambert answered, had obliged him to disguise himself; but now God had inspired the king's mind, enduing him with wisdom and understanding to stay their cruelty. "I come not here," said Henry, "to hear mine own praises painted out in my presence. Go to the matter without more circumstance. Answer as touching the sacrament of the altar, is it the body of Christ or no?" "I answer with St. Augustine," the prisoner said; "it is the body of Christ after a certain manner." "Answer me not out of St. Augustine," said the king; "tell me plainly whether it be He." "Then I say it is not," was the answer. "Mark well," the king replied, "you are condemned by Christ's own words--'_Hoc est corpus meum._'" He turned to Cranmer, and told him to convince the prisoner of his error. [Sidenote: The bishops' arguments fail.] The argument began in the morning. First Cranmer, and after him nine other bishops laboured out their learned reasons--reasons which, for fifteen hundred years, had satisfied the whole Christian world, yet had suddenly ceased to be of cogency. The torches were lighted before the last prelate had ceased to speak. Then once more the king asked Lambert for his opinion. "After all these labours taken with you, are you yet satisfied?" he said. "Choose, will you live or will you die!" "I submit myself to the will of your Majesty," Lambert said. "Commit your soul to God," replied Henry, "not to me." "I commit my soul to God," he said, "and my body to your clemency." [Sidenote: The appeal is rejected,] "Then you must die," the king said. "I will be no patron of heretics."