_Fifty-nine_, in different prisons of London, in 1592, petitioned Lord Treasurer Burleigh to be brought to trial; complaining that “many had died in the prisons, that they had been imprisoned contrary to all law and equity, many of them for the space of _two years and a half_, upon the bishop’s sole commandment.” Among these was Henry Barrowe, a barrister of Gray’s Inn, who was apprehended when visiting his relative, Greenwood, a nonconforming clergyman, who had been in prison a long time. They were tried on a charge of “writing and publishing sundry books, tending to the slander of the queen and government.” Mr. Neal remarks, “They had written only against the church; but this was the archbishop’s artful contrivance, to throw off the odium of their death from himself to the civil magistrate. Being condemned, endeavours were made, but in vain, to induce them to recant. They were exposed under the famous gallows, at Tyburn, March the 31st; but this produced no effect on their pious minds, and they were executed, April 6, 1592. John Penry, a clergyman, and several others, were hanged for dispersing the writings of the nonconformists. Dr. Reynolds, the queen’s professor of divinity at Oxford, attended some of these martyrs for the Scriptures; and he reported to her Majesty the calm piety which they displayed, and how they had blessed and prayed for her, as their sovereign, and for their enemies; and Elizabeth’s heart melted; but she was urged forward by the chief-inquisitor, Whitgift, and she consented to sanction him in his bigotry, by a severer law against the nonconformists. To this was added a form of recantation; which, if the offenders refused to subscribe, it was further enacted, “that within three months they shall _abjure the realm, and go into perpetual banishment_; and if they do not depart within the time appointed, or if they ever return without the queen’s licence, _they shall suffer death without benefit of clergy_!!” Severities towards the nonconformists increased as the queen and the archbishop advanced in years. Dr. Aylmer, the persecuting and profane bishop of London, died in June, 1594. Dr. Fletcher succeeded him, and was banished by the queen. In 1596, Dr. Bancroft, a haughty, unfeeling persecutor, was made bishop of London. Elizabeth died, March 24, 1602, and Archbishop Whitgift, in 1604, when they were called to render up their awful account to God.