Giovanni Michiel also informed his Government that the execution of the sentences “against the heretics, the late Bishop of London, Ridley, and Latimer, Bishop of Worcester had been decided on, there being no hope or visible sign of their choosing to recant”.[554] Gardiner had nothing to do with the conviction of the two bishops, beyond the fact that, as Chancellor, he was at the head of the civil power which passed sentence upon them. He is known to have been personally averse from the persecution, and, as we have already seen, he substantially helped some of the suspects to leave the country before proceedings could be taken against them. None the less, however, Foxe goes out of his way to attribute to him the most horrible and inhuman desire for, and satisfaction at, their death. The apparent object of the martyrologist was to draw his favourite inference in regard to the temporal judgment of God on miscreants. He says, admitting that he obtained his information at _third_ hand: “The same day, when Bishop Ridley and master Latimer suffered at Oxford (being about the 19th day of October) there came into the house of Stephen Gardiner the old duke of Norfolk, with the foresaid Master Munday his secretary above named reporter hereof. The old aged duke, there waiting and tarrying for his dinner, the bishop being not yet disposed to dine, deferred the time to three or four o’clock at afternoon. At length, about four of the clock cometh his servant, posting in all possible speed from Oxford, bringing intelligence to the bishop, what he had heard and seen: of whom the said bishop, diligently inquiring the truth of the matter, and hearing by his man, that fire most certainly was set unto them, cometh out rejoicing to the duke. ‘Now,’ saith he, ‘let us go to dinner’. Whereupon they being set down, meat immediately was brought, and the bishop began merrily to eat. But what followed? The bloody tyrant had not eaten a few bits, but the sudden stroke of God’s terrible hand fell upon him in such sort as immediately he was taken from the table, and so brought to his bed, where he continued the space of fifteen days in such intolerable anguish and torments ... whereby his body being miserably inflamed within (who had inflamed so many good martyrs before) was brought to a wretched end.”[555]