After this preamble, which was not very encouraging, the king asked Lambert, with a stern countenance, what his opinion was of Christ’s corporal presence in the sacrament of the altar; and when Lambert began his reply with some compliment to his majesty, he rejected the praise with disdain and indignation. He afterwards pressed Lambert with arguments drawn from Scripture and the schoolmen: the audience applauded the force of his reasoning, and the extent of his erudition: Cranmer seconded his proofs by some new topics. Gardiner entered the lists as a support to Cranmner: Tonstal took up the argument after Gardiner: Stokesley brought fresh aid to Tonstal; six bishops more appeared successively in the field after Stokesley. And the disputation, if it deserve the name, was prolonged for five hours; till Lambert, fatigued, confounded, browbeaten, and abashed, was at last reduced to silence. The king, then returning to the charge, asked him whether he were convinced; and he proposed, as a concluding argument, this interesting question: Whether he were resolved to live or to die? Lambert, who possessed that courage which consists in obstinacy, replied, that he cast himself wholly on his majesty’s clemency: the king told him that he would be no protector of heretics; and, therefore, if that were his final answer, he must expect to be committed to the flames Cromwell, as vicegerent, pronounced the sentence against him.[*] [14] Lambert, whose vanity had probably incited him the more to persevere on account of the greatness of this public appearance, was not daunted by the terrors of the punishment to which he was condemned. His executioners took care to make the sufferings of a man who had personally opposed the king as cruel as possible: he was burned at a slow fire; his legs and thighs were consumed to the stumps; and when there appeared no end of his torments, some of the guards, more merciful than the rest, lifted him on their halberts and threw him into the flames, where he was consumed. While they were employed in this friendly office, he cried aloud several times, “None but Christ, none but Christ!” and these words were in his mouth when he expired.[**] Some few days before this execution, four Dutch Anabaptists, three men and a woman, had fagots tied to their backs at Paul’s Cross, and were burned in that manner. Andaman and a woman of the same sect and country were burned in Smithfield.[***] * See note N, at the end of the volume. ** Fox’s Acts and Monuments, p. 427. Burnet. *** Stow, p. 556.