The execrable duplicity of these men is by Protestant priests made the
theme of unsparing invective, as if the burning of heretics and its
justification by Scripture were crimes peculiar to Roman Catholics, when
in point of fact both have been shamelessly committed by Christians
rejoicing in the name of Protestants. John Calvin burnt Servetus, and
Robert Hall, as we have seen, applauded the act. England, to say nothing
of other countries, has had its auto da fe, as well since as before the
Reformation. Heretics were first made bonfires of in England during the
reign of Henry the Fourth, who permitted the abomination in order to
please certain bishops he was under obligation to for assisting him to
depose Richard the Second and usurp his throne. But that the practice of
committing heretics to the flame prevailed in England long after Popery
ceased to be the dominant religion is notorious. If heretics were thus
sacrificed by Henry the Fourth to please Popish Bishops, they were also
sacrificed by Elizabeth with a view to the satisfaction of Protestant
Bishops. Cranmer literally compelled her brother, the amiable Edward, to
send a half crazed woman named Joan Boacher to the stake.
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