During this long imprisonment " they were most godly oc-
cupied either with brotherly conference, or with fervent
prayer, or with fruitful writing, albeit Master Latimer, by
reason of the feebleness of his age, wrote least of them all
in this last time. But in prayer he was fervently occupied,
wherein oftentimes so long he continued kneeling, that he
was not able to rise without help." x At length, on the 30th
of September, 155|f he again appears before the commis-
sioners. Ridley had preceded him in examination, and in
the meantime he' had been kept waiting, as he complains,
" gazing upon the cold walls." Suffering and poverty were
depicted in his appearance as he bowed before them,
" holding his hat in his hand, with a kerchief bound round
his head, and upon it a nightcap or two, and a great cap,
such as horsemen used in those days, with two broad flaps
to button under the chin. He wore an old threadbare
Bristol frieze gown, girded to his body with a penny
leather girdle ; his Testament was suspended from this
girdle by a leather sling, and his spectacles, without a case,
hung from his neck upon his breast." 2 He was exhorted
to consider his estate, to remember his age and infirmity,
and to spare his body by admitting the claims of the
Papacy. He replied with something of his old spirit, tak-
ing up the special arguments urged by the Bishop of Lin-
coln, who had addressed him. Especially he exposed the
unfairness of a book recently published by the Bishop of
Gloucester, in which it was argued that the clergy possessed
the same authority as the Levites ; and whereas the Bible

1 Foxe. z Ibid., p. 529.
