No More Learning

CRANMER _enters between_ SOTO _and_
VILLA GARCIA, _and the whole Choir strike up_ 'Nunc Dimittis. ' CRANMER
_is set upon a Scaffold before the people_.


COLE. Behold him--
[_A pause: people in the foreground_.

PEOPLE. Oh, unhappy sight!

FIRST PROTESTANT. See how the tears run down his fatherly face.

SECOND PROTESTANT. James, didst thou ever see a carrion crow Stand
watching a sick beast before he dies?

FIRST PROTESTANT. Him perch'd up there? I wish some thunderbolt Would
make this Cole a cinder, pulpit and all.

COLE. Behold him, brethren: he hath cause to weep!
--
So have we all: weep with him if ye will,
Yet--
It is expedient for one man to die,
Yea, for the people, lest the people die.
Yet wherefore should he die that hath return'd
To the one Catholic Universal Church,
Repentant of his errors?

PROTESTANT _murmurs_. Ay, tell us that.

COLE. Those of the wrong side will despise the man,
Deeming him one that thro' the fear of death
Gave up his cause, except he seal his faith
In sight of all with flaming martyrdom.

CRANMER. Ay.

COLE. Ye hear him, and albeit there may seem
According to the canons pardon due
To him that so repents, yet are there causes
Wherefore our Queen and Council at this time
Adjudge him to the death. He hath been a traitor,
A shaker and confounder of the realm;
And when the King's divorce was sued at Rome,
He here, this heretic metropolitan,
As if he had been the Holy Father, sat
And judged it. Did I call him heretic?
A huge heresiarch! never was it known
That any man so writing, preaching so,
So poisoning the Church, so long continuing,
Hath found his pardon; therefore he must die,
For warning and example.
Other reasons
There be for this man's ending, which our Queen
And Council at this present deem it not
Expedient to be known.

PROTESTANT _murmurs_.