" To recover the memory of that event, let the reader fancy
himself on the top of the tower of St. Michael's, that is,
immediately above the city wall. No houses interfere between him and
the open country, in which Balliol stands; not with its present
frontage, but much farther back. A clear stream runs through the
place where is now Broad Street, and the road above is dark with a
swaying crowd, out of which rises the vapour of smoke from the
martyrs' pile. At your feet, on the top of Bocardo prison (which
spanned the street at the North Gate), Cranmer stands manacled,
watching the fiery death which is soon to purge away the memory of
his own faults and crimes. He, too, joined that "noble army of
martyrs" who fought all, though they knew it not, for one cause--the
freedom of the human spirit.
It was in a night-battle that they fell, and "confused was the cry of
the paean," but they won the victory, and we have entered into the
land for which they contended. When we think of these martyrdoms,
can we wonder that the Fellows of Lincoln did not spare to ring a
merry peal on their gaudy-day, the day of St. Hugh, even though Mary
the Queen had just left her bitter and weary life?
It would be pleasant to have to say that learning returned to Oxford
on the rising of "that bright Occidental star, Queen Elizabeth." On
the other hand, the University recovered slowly, after being "much
troubled," as Wood says, "AND HURRIED UP AND DOWN by the changes of
religion.
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