I have mentioned Winchester House, the Palace of the Bishop, as being close to the Priory. On any map may be traced the extent of the Palace. On the north is Clink Street, the Clink Prison being at the west end of the street; on the west is now Park Street, formerly Deadman's Place; on the south is a continuation of Park Street; and on the east is a street running south from St. Mary Overies Church. Winchester House, which thus covered a large piece of ground, was, with its grounds, enclosed by a wall. Many of the buildings, especially the great gate, remained standing almost within the memory of man. The state and ceremony of a Bishop demanded a large retinue, and the Bishop's house must therefore be provided with a sufficient number of rooms for their accommodation. The map must not be accepted as laying down the exact site, the distances or the scale, or the arrangement of the courts and buildings.
We have now to speak, but briefly, of the Marian Persecutions and of the Martyrs. With these the Church of St. Mary and Winchester House had a good deal to do.
[Illustration: REMAINS OF THE OLD PRIORY, ST. MARY OVERIES]
On Monday, January 28, 1555, was seen the first of many melancholy sights. On that day Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, presided at a Court held in St. Mary Overies Church for the trial of heretics. The court was actually held in the Ladye Chapel. Hither were brought Bishop Hooper and John Rogers: they were heard: they argued their case: they were found obstinate: they were committed to the Clink Prison hard by: on the next day, with Bradford, Dr. Crome, Dr. Saunders, Dr. Ferrar, Dr. Taylor, and several others, they were sentenced to be burned. Bradford wrote to Cranmer after the trial: 'This day, I think, or to-morrow at the uttermost, hearty Hooper, sincere Saunders, and trusty Taylor, end their course and receive their crowne. The next am I, which hourly looke for the Porter to open me the gates after them, to enter into the desired rest.'
So began those fires from which the cause of Roman Catholicism long suffered, and is even now still suffering. For the popular judgment does not discern and separate. The burnings under Henry and Edward are lumped together in the mind of the people, and all set down to Mary. The names, places, and times of the martyrs and their martyrdoms as given by Machyn, not by Fox, show that if the Queen's advisers had deliberately done their best to make their form of Faith odious and hateful, they could not have devised a better plan than the burning of the people for religion's sake. It is generally thought and believed that the indignation of the people was aroused by seeing the Bishops and preachers burned. That I do not believe. The executions of great men do not affect the populace; they witness the passage of a Thomas More on his way to the block: or of a Cromwell: with equal indifference: these statesmen do not belong to the life of the people. In the Marian persecution they heard that Archbishop Cranmer had been burned at Oxford, but they offered little outward show of emotion: they heard that Ridley and Latimer had been burned: their constancy, no doubt, touched the crowd: but still, these martyrs were not of themselves. When, however, they found that not only Bishops and great people, but also their own brothers, cousins, fathers, were taken out from their workshops and tied three or four together to the stake, where they suffered the agonies of the fire and still continued to pray aloud with firmness: then the lesson went straight home to them; and for many a generation to come the people learned to loathe the very name of the religion which could thus burn innocent people by the hundred for believing, as they were told, what the Bible taught.