Robin Tremayne: A Story of the Marian PersecutionHolt, Emily Sarah
History
Robin Tremayne: A Story of the Marian Persecution
Holt, Emily Sarah
Great Britain -- Church history -- 16th century -- Fiction; Historical fiction
At length Mr Throgmorton found his expected opportunity, and offered his
petition for Mr Underhill's release. This petition set forth "his
extreme sickness and small cause to be committed unto so loathsome a
gaol," and besought that he might therefore be released, offering
sureties to be forthcoming when called upon: these were to be himself
and his brother-in-law John Speryn, a merchant of London, and a man
"very zealous in the Lord." Poor Underhill was still very seriously
ill. "I was cast," he tells us, "into an extreme burning ague, that I
could take no rest; desiring to change my lodging, and so did from one
to an other, but none I could abide, there was so much noise of
prisoners and evil savours. The keeper and his wife offered me his own
parlour, where he lay himself, which was furthest from noise, but it was
near the kitchen, the savour whereof I could not abide. Then did she
lodge me in a chamber wherein she said never no prisoner lay, which was
her store-chamber, where she said all the plate and money lay, which was
much." [Harl. Ms. 425, folio 91, a.] Mr Ive reported that Mr Underhill
could be no weaker than he was, and live. His friend Dr Record had been
to see him in the prison, whom he describes as "Doctor of Physic,
singularly seen [very skilful] in all the Seven Sciences [Grammar,
Rhetoric, Logic, Arithmetic, Geometry, Music, and Astronomy], and a
great devyne." Mr Rose took his deprivation very quietly. Some of his
friends thought he might be all the safer for it, if the persecutors had
done all they cared about doing to him. He had hired three rooms for
the present in a house in Leadenhall Street. Tidings of further
persecution came now daily. "Robin's orders do seem going further off
than ever," lamented Isoult. For Bishops Hooper of Gloucester and
Coverdale of Exeter were cited before the Council; and the Archbishop,
and the Dean of Saint Paul's; and mass was now celebrated in many
churches of London. A rumour went abroad of the lapsing of the
Archbishop, and that he had sung mass before the Queen; but it proved
false. Again the altar was set up in Saint Paul's Cathedral; and when
Bishop Bonner came from the Marshalsea, great rejoicing was made. Many
by the way bade him welcome home, and "as many of the women as might
kissed him." No Gospeller would have kissed him for a King's ransom.
On the 5th of September came Mr Ive, with news of Mr Underhill at once
good and bad. He was released from Newgate, but was so weak and ill
that they were obliged to carry him home in a horse-litter, and the
gaoler's servant bore him down the stairs to the litter in his arms like
a child; and for all this, those who accompanied him (Mrs Underhill, Mr
Speryn, Mr Ive, and others) were afraid lest he should not live till he
came home. They were compelled to go very gently, and frequently to
halt; so that two hours were required to pass through the city, from
Newgate to Aldgate, and night fell before he could get to his house:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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