The Pharisees therefore said among themselves, Perceive ye how ye prevail nothing? behold, the world is gone after him.
Ver. 19. Perceive ye how ye prevail nothing?] Thus they stir up one another to more madness, as if hitherto they had been overly mild, and used too much gentleness. So Stephen Gardiner, being charged of cruelty by Bradford, answered, I for my part have been challenged for being too gentle oftentimes. Which thing Bonner confirmed, and so did almost all the audience, that he had been ever too mild and moderate. So Bonner in open court to the Lord Mayor: They report me (said he) to seek blood, and call me bloody Bonner, whereas, God knows, I never sought any man's blood in all my life. But a certain unknown good woman, in a letter to Bonnor, told him his own in these words: Indeed you are called the common cut-throat and general slaughter-slave to all the bishops of England. And therefore it is wisdom for me and all other simple sheep of the Lord to keep us out of your butcherly stall, as long as we can, especially since you have such store already, that you are not able to drink all their blood, lest you should break your belly: and therefore ye let them lie still and die for hunger, &c. Thus she to Bonner. As for Dr Story, who was hanged, drawn, and quartered, for his treason in Queen Elizabeth's reign; I see (said he in open Parliament) nothing to be ashamed of (though he had been a furious persecutor under Queen Mary), so less I see to be sorry for, but rather because I have done no more; wherein he said there was no default in him, but in them, whom he often and earnestly had exhorted to the same; being not a little grieved, therefore, with them, for that they laboured only about the young and little sprigs and twigs, while they should have stricken at the root (the Lady Elizabeth he meant) and clean rooted it out. The Lord Paget in a certain consultation said, that King Philip should never have any quiet commonwealth in England unless the Lady Elizabeth's head were stricken from her shoulders. Whereunto the Spaniards answered, God forbid that their king and master should have such a mind, to consent to such a mischief. A writ came down, while she was in the Tower, subscribed with certain hands of the council, for her execution, Stephen Gardiner being the engineer. Mr Bridges, Lieutenant of the Tower, mistrusting false play, presently made haste to the queen, who renounced and reversed it. And yet of her, that was true that Josephus writeth of Alexandra, Ipsa solum nomen regium ferebat, caeterum omnem regni potestatem Pharisaei possidebant. She herself bore only the name of power, the Pharisees seized all the remaining authority of the kingdom,