PAGET. You'd not hear that. He pass'd out smiling, and he walk'd upright; His eye was like a soldier's, whom the general He looks to and he leans on as his God, Hath rated for some backwardness and bidd'n him Charge one against a thousand, and the man Hurls his soil'd life against the pikes and dies. HOWARD. Yet that he might not after all those papers Of recantation yield again, who knows? PAGET. Papers of recantation! Think you then That Cranmer read all papers that he sign'd? Or sign'd all those they tell us that he sign'd? Nay, I trow not: and you shall see, my Lord, That howsoever hero-like the man Dies in the fire, this Bonner or another Will in some lying fashion misreport His ending to the glory of their church. And you saw Latimer and Ridley die? Latimer was eighty, was he not? his best Of life was over then. HOWARD. His eighty years Look'd somewhat crooked on him in his frieze; But after they had stript him to his shroud, He stood upright, a lad of twenty-one, And gather'd with his hands the starting flame, And wash'd his hands and all his face therein, Until the powder suddenly blew him dead. Ridley was longer burning; but he died As manfully and boldly, and, 'fore God, I know them heretics, but right English ones. If ever, as heaven grant, we clash with Spain, Our Ridley-soldiers and our Latimer-sailors Will teach her something. PAGET. Your mild Legate Pole Will tell you that the devil helpt them thro' it. [_A murmur of the Crowd in the distance_. Hark, how those Roman wolfdogs howl and bay him! HOWARD. Might it not be the other side rejoicing In his brave end? PAGET. They are too crush'd, too broken, They can but weep in silence. HOWARD. Ay, ay, Paget, They have brought it in large measure on themselves. Have I not heard them mock the blessed Host In songs so lewd, the beast might roar his claim To being in God's image, more than they? Have I not seen the gamekeeper, the groom. Gardener, and huntsman, in the parson's place, The parson from his own spire swung out dead, And Ignorance crying in the streets, and all men Regarding her? I say they have drawn the fire On their own heads: yet, Paget, I do hold The Catholic, if he have the greater right, Hath been the crueller. PAGET. Action and re-action, The miserable see-saw of our child-world, Make us despise it at odd hours, my Lord. Heaven help that this re-action not re-act Yet fiercelier under Queen Elizabeth, So that she come to rule us. HOWARD. The world's mad.