On  14th  February  1556  he  was  brought


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before  Bonner  and  Thirlby  in  Christ  Church
to  be  degraded.  He  made  some  fruitless
protests.  In  prison  he  was  pressed  hard  to
recant,  and  at  first  signed  a  declaration
accepting  the  Pope's  authority,  as  the  King
and  Queen  had  done  so.  This  not  being
held  satisfactory,  he  made  others  successively
more  and  more  explicit.  He  in  vain  tried
to  save  his  adhesion  to  Royal  Supremacy,  or
to  reserve  a  point  for  the  decision  of  some
future  General  Council.  His  two  first  sub-
missions were  made  before  his  degradation.
The  fourth  was  distinctly  dated  16th  Febru-
ary, and  declared  his  full  submission  to  the
teaching  of  the  Catholic  Church  on  the
Eucharist  as  in  other  things.  A  writ  for  his
execution  was  issued  on  the  24th,  and  he  was
told  that  he  should  die  on  the  7th  March ;
but  further  time  was  given  him  at  his  own
request  for  preparation,  and  he  made  what
seemed  to  be  a  final  submission  (the  sixth)
on  the  18th,  full  of  penitence  for  his  past  life.
He  was  evidently  sore  perplexed.  His  own
doctrine  of  Royal  Supremacy  had  driven  him
to  accept  the  Pope  again  as  the  King  and
Queen  did,  and  even  the  sacramental  doctrine
of  the  Church,  which  his  own  mind  could  not
see,  and  which  he  might  have  hoped  that  the
Church  itself  would  ultimately  define  other-
wise, but  that  the  matter  had  been  already
settled  a  few  years  before  at  Trent.  On  this
subject  he  had  conferences  with  orthodox
divines  in  prison,  and  he  seemed,  even  on  the
20th,  to  be  quite  sincere  in  his  conversion.
