Latimer, surrounded by the favors of the king and the luxury of the great, watched his friend from afar. He called to mind their walks in the fields round Cambridge, their serious conversation as they climbed the hill afterwards called after them the ‘heretic’s hill,’[146] and the visits they had paid together to the poor and to the prisoners.[147] Latimer had seen Bilney very recently at Cambridge in fear and anguish, and had tried in vain to restore him to peace. ‘He now rejoiced that God had endued him with such strength of faith that he was ready to be burnt for Christ’s sake.’ [Sidenote: Bilney And Petit In Prison.] Bilney, drawing still nearer to London, arrived at Greenwich about the middle of July. He procured some New Testaments, and, hiding them carefully under his clothes, called upon a humble Christian named Staple. Taking them ‘out of his sleeves,’ he desired Staple to distribute them among his friends. Then, as if impelled by a thirst for martyrdom, he turned again towards Norwich, whose bishop, Richard Nix, a blind octogenarian, was in the front rank of the persecutors. Arriving at the solitary place where the pious ‘anachoress’ lived, he left one of the precious volumes with her. This visit cost Bilney his life. The poor solitary read the New Testament, and lent it to the people who came to see her. The bishop, hearing of it, informed Sir Thomas More, who had Bilney arrested,[148] brought to London, and shut up in the Tower. Bilney began to breathe again: a load was taken off him; he was about to suffer the penalty his fall deserved. In the room next his was John Petit, a member of parliament of some eloquence, who had distributed his books and his alms in England and beyond the seas. Philips, the under-gaoler of the Tower, who was a good man, told the two prisoners that only a wooden partition separated them, which was a source of great joy to both. He would often remove a panel, and permit them to converse and take their frugal meals together.[149] This happiness did not last long. Bilney’s trial was to take place at Norwich, where he had been captured: the aged Bishop Nix wanted to make an example in his diocese. A crowd of monks—Augustins, Dominicans, Franciscans, and Carmelites—visited the prison of the evangelist to convert him. Dr. Gall, provincial of the Franciscans, having consented that the prisoner should make use of Scripture,[150] was shaken in his faith; but, on the other hand, Stokes, an Augustin and a determined papist, repeated to Bilney: ‘If you die in your opinions, you will be lost.’