A tract, the “Confessions” of Thomas Norton and Christopher Norton, reprinted in “State Trials,” vol. i., 1083-6, contains particulars of these executions. Thomas, the uncle of Christopher, was first hanged and quartered, in the presence of his nephew. Then the hangman executed his office on Christopher, “and being hanged a little while, and then cut down, the butcher opened him, and as he took out his bowels, he cried and said, ‘Oh, Lord, Lord, have mercy upon me!’ and so yielded up the ghost. Then being likewise quartered, as the other was, and their bowels burned, as the manner is, their quarters were put into a basket provided for the purpose, and so carried to Newgate, where they were parboiled; and afterwards their heads set on London Bridge, and their quarters set upon sundry gates of the city of London.” =1570.= The 25. of May in the morning, was found hanging at the bishop of Londons palace gate in Paules church-yard, a Bull, which lately had beene sent from Rome containing diuerse horrible treasons against the Queenes maiesty for the which one Iohn Felton was shortly after apprehended, and committed to the tower of London.… The fourth of August … was arraigned at Guild hal of London Iohn Felton, for hanging a bull at the gate of the bishop of Londons palace, and also two young men, for coyning and clipping of coine, who all were found guilty of high treason, and had iudgment to be drawne, hanged and quartered. The eight of August, Iohn Felton was drawne from Newgate into Paules Churchyeard, and there hanged on a gallowes new set vp that morning before the Bishoppes palace gate, and being cut downe aliue, he was bowelled and quartered. After this time the same morning the sherifs returned to Newgate, and so to Tiborne with two young men which were executed for coyning and clipping as is aforesaid (Stow, pp. 666-7). Here we have the quarrel between the Pope and Elizabeth come to a head, with dreadful results to English Catholics—results extending in an aggravated form over centuries. In “Pilgrim’s Progress” Bunyan describes the Pope in his cave, alive, indeed, but “by reason of age, and also of the many shrewd brushes that he met with in his younger days, grown so crazy and stiff in his joints, that he can now do little more than sit in his cave’s mouth, grinning at pilgrims as they go by, and biting his nails because he cannot come at them.” A sense of humour, or even a sense of proportion, might have counselled to laugh at this impotent railing. But there was the temptation, always present to governments, to appeal to the ignorance and fanaticism of the mass. And behind and above all there was the question of the abbey lands:— “The thief doth fear each bush an officer.” So for the next hundred years it became the most pressing duty of governments to tear out the bowels of men who acknowledged the Pope as spiritual father; and when governments became slack in the work, Parliament immediately set up a howl for blood.