“Undoubtedly; but as a modern historian, not usually credited with Catholic sympathies, says of the Carthusian martyrs who died for the same belief, ‘We will not regret their cause; there is no cause for which any man can more nobly suffer, than to witness that it is better for him to die than to speak words which, he does not mean?’”[58] “What a wicked monster Henry the Eighth must have been!” “Yet he had, perhaps, the majority of the nation with him; and doubtless his heart was hardened by continued prosperity and the flattery which he breathed as his vital air. I shall never forget the solemn thoughts which came upon me when I once stood over the plain stone which marks his grave at Windsor: the remembrance of his many victims, the devout Catharine, the stately Wolsey, the learned More, the pious Fisher, the faithful monks of the Charterhouse, the Protestant martyrs, the gallant Surrey, and a host of others. Then came the thought, he has long since met his victims at the judgment-seat, and he and they have been judged by One ‘too wise to err, too good to be unkind;’ let us leave him to that judgment, which also awaits us all. But hark, there is the Chapel bell.” _Exeunt omnes._ FOOTNOTES [58] Froude, Vol. III., Cap. ix. NOTES. _Note A, P. 2._--ANTIQUITIES OF GLASTONBURY. The town of Glastonbury is a place, whose historical traditions stretch back to a very remote antiquity. It was known to the early Britons as “Inis Avalon,” or the Isle of Apples, for that fruit was said to grow spontaneously on the rich soil. Thus Camden writes, or rather translates an ancient ode:-- “O Isle of Apples; truly fortunate, Where unforced fruit, and willing comforts meet; For there the fields require no rustic hand, But Nature only cultivates the land: The fertile plains with corn and herds are proud, And golden apples smile in every wood.” The cluster of hills was (as the name “Inis Avalon,” or “Insula Avalonia,” implies) once an island, surrounded by water from the inlet, we now call the Bristol Channel. It was not conquered by the English or West Saxons, until the year 658, when Kenwalk [Cenwealh] of Wessex, defeated the Britons after a hard fight, and drove them across the Parret, but it was Christian long before it was English, for it is certain that it was a centre of Welsh Christianity from the earliest times. Ancient legends relate that S. Philip the Apostle, anxious both to spread the knowledge of the Gospel, and to provide for the safety of his friend Joseph of Arimathæa, exposed to danger from the hatred of the Jews, combined these ends by sending him to Britain with eleven brethren, and some add that S. Mary Magdalene accompanied him.