The story has reference to Bainham's execution: "Among the lay officials present at the stake, was 'one Pavier', town clerk of London. This Pavier was a Catholic fanatic, and as the flames were about to be kindled he burst out into violent and abusive language. The fire blazed up, and the dying sufferer, as the red flickering tongues licked the flesh from off his bones, turned to him and said, 'May God forgive thee and shew more mercy than thou, angry reviler, shewest to me.' The scene was soon over: the town clerk went home. A week after, one morning when his wife had gone to mass, he sent all his servants out of the house on one pretext or another, a single girl only being left, and he withdrew to a garret at the top of the house, which he used as an oratory. A large crucifix was on the wall; and the girl, having some question to ask, went to the room, and found him standing before it, 'bitterly weeping'. He told her to take his sword, which was rusty, and clean it. She went away and left him; when she returned, a little time after, he was hanging from a beam, dead. He was a singular person. Edward Hall, the historian, knew him, and had heard him say, that, 'if the king put forth the New Testament in English, he would not live to bear it.' And yet he could not bear to see a heretic die. What was it? Had the meaning of that awful figure hanging on the torturing cross suddenly revealed itself? Had some inner voice asked him whether, in the prayer for his persecutors with which Christ had parted out of life, there might be some affinity with words which had lately sounded in his own ears? God, into whose hands he threw himself, self-condemned in his wretchedness, only knows the agony of that hour. Let the secret rest where it lies, and let us be thankful for ourselves that we live in a changed world." (_Froude, Henry VIII._)