It was he who
delivered me from the unholy bond with Catharine of Aragon: it was
he too who warned me of Catharine Howard, and furnished me with
proofs of her guilt. Of what misdemeanor do you accuse him?"
"He denies the six articles," said Gardiner, whose malicious face
now glowed with bitter hatred. "He reprobates auricular confession,
and believes not that the voluntarily taken vows of celibacy are
binding."
"If he does that, then he is a traitor!" cried the king, who was
fond of always throwing a reverence for chastity and modesty, as a
kind of holy mantle, over his own profligate and lewd life; and whom
nothing more embittered than to encounter another on that path of
vice which he himself, by virtue of his royal prerogative, and his
crown by the grace of God, could travel in perfect safety.
"If he does that, then he is a traitor! My arm of vengeance will
smite him!" repeated the king again. "It was I who gave my people
the six articles, as a sacred and authoritative declaration of
faith; and I will not suffer this only true and right doctrine to be
assailed and obscured. But you are mistaken, my lords. I am
acquainted with Cranmer, and I know that he is loyal and faithful."
"And yet it is he," said Gardiner, "who confirms these heretics in
their obduracy and stiff-neckedness. He is the cause why these lost
wretches do not, from the fear of divine wrath at least, return to
you, their sovereign and high-priest.
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