A Child's History of England.157

The next day, Hooper, who was to be burnt at Gloucester, was brought out to take his last journey, and was made to wear a hood over his face that he might not be known by the people. But, they did know him for all that [in spite of sth just mentioned], down in his own part of the country; and, when he came near Gloucester, they lined the road, making prayers and lamentations [deep sadness]. His guards took him to a lodging, where he slept soundly all night. At nine o'clock next morning, he was brought forth leaning on a staff [手杖]; for he had taken cold in prison, and was infirm. The iron stake, and the iron chain which was to bind him to it, were fixed up near a great elm-tree [榆树] in a pleasant open place before the cathedral, where, on peaceful Sundays, he had been accustomed to preach and to pray, when he was bishop of Gloucester. This tree, which had no leaves then, it being February, was filled with people; and the priests of Gloucester College were looking complacently [pleasedly] on from a window, and there was a great concourse [大群] of spectators in every spot from which a glimpse of the dreadful sight could be beheld [看]. When the old man kneeled down on the small platform at the foot of the stake, and prayed aloud, the nearest people were observed to be so attentive to his prayers that they were ordered to stand farther back; for it did not suit the Romish [of Roman] Church to have those Protestant words heard. His prayers concluded [结束], he went up to the stake and was stripped to his shirt, and chained ready for the fire. One of his guards had such compassion [同情] on him that, to shorten his agonies, he tied some packets of gunpowder about him. Then they heaped up wood and straw and reeds, and set [put] them all alight. But, unhappily, the wood was green and damp, and there was a wind blowing that blew what flame there was, away. Thus, through three-quarters of an hour, the good old man was scorched and roasted and smoked, as the fire rose and sank; and all that time they saw him, as he burned, moving his lips in prayer, and beating his breast with one hand, even after the other was burnt away and had fallen off.

Cranmer, Ridley, and Latimer, were taken to Oxford to dispute with a commission [委员会] of priests and doctors about the mass [弥撒]. They were shamefully treated; and it is recorded that the Oxford scholars hissed [发嘘声] and howled and groaned [抱怨], and misconducted themselves in an anything but a scholarly way. The prisoners were taken back to jail, and afterwards tried in St. Mary's Church. They were all found guilty. On the sixteenth of the month of October, Ridley and Latimer were brought out, to make another of the dreadful bonfires.

The scene of the suffering of these two good Protestant men was in the City ditch, near Baliol College. On coming to the dreadful spot, they kissed the stakes, and then embraced each other. And then a learned doctor got up into a pulpit [讲坛] which was placed there, and preached a sermon [讲道] from the text, 'Though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity [慈悲], it profiteth [profit] me nothing.' When you think of the charity of burning men alive, you may imagine that this learned doctor had a rather brazen [无耻的] face. Ridley would have answered his sermon when it came to an end, but was not allowed. When Latimer was stripped, it appeared that he had dressed himself under his other clothes, in a new shroud [寿衣]; and, as he stood in it before all the people, it was noted of him, and long remembered, that, whereas he had been stooping [弯腰] and feeble but [only] a few minutes before, he now stood upright and handsome, in the knowledge that he was dying for a just and a great cause. Ridley's brother-in-law was there with bags of gunpowder; and when they were both chained up, he tied them round their bodies. Then, a light [source of fire] was thrown upon the pile to fire it. 'Be of good comfort, Master Ridley,' said Latimer, at that awful moment, 'and play the man! We shall this day light such a candle, by God's grace, in England, as I trust shall never be put out.' And then he was seen to make motions with his hands as if he were washing them in the flames, and to stroke [抚摸] his aged face with them, and was heard to cry, 'Father of Heaven, receive my soul!' He died quickly, but the fire, after having burned the legs of Ridley, sunk. There he lingered, chained to the iron post, and crying, 'O! I cannot burn! O! for Christ's sake let the fire come unto me!' And still, when his brother-in-law had heaped on more wood, he was heard through the blinding smoke, still dismally crying, 'O! I cannot burn, I cannot burn!' At last, the gunpowder caught fire, and ended his miseries.

Five days after this fearful scene, Gardiner went to his tremendous account before God, for the cruelties he had so much assisted in committing.

tremendous: very great in scope or importance; terrible

Stephen Gardiner (1483 – 12 November 1555) was an English bishop and politician during the English Reformation period who served as Lord Chancellor during the reign of Queen Mary I and King Philip. Gardiner was a conservative and an opponent of Anne Boleyn, Cranmer, Cromwell and of any innovation in the Church, although he acquiesced [顺从] grudgingly [reluctantly, unwillingly] in the steadily increasing influence of the Reformation on the royal counsels.

六级/考研单词: lodge, lean, workforce, jail, bind, cathedral, accustom, preach, pray, bishop, priest, complacent, spectator, glimpse, dread, kneel, aloud, farther, compassion, prolong, agony, parcel, powder, heap, straw, damp, flame, thereby, roast, breast, commission, shame, scholar, howl, groan, guilt, ditch, embrace, charity, clothe, stoop, feeble, upright, handsome, pile, grace, stroke, linger, christ, miserable, tremendous, commit, reform, chancellor, reign, conservative, innovate, counsel