Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 10.djvu/88

In executing it, however, he took care to make the terms as advantageous for England as possible, and to make express provision that the Spaniards should in nowise be allowed to interfere in the government of the country. After the coming of Cardinal Pole, aml the reconciliation ' of the realm to the see of Rome, his influence suffered some eclipse, though he still remained in high favour. How far he was responsible for the persecutions which afterwards arose is a debated question. There is no doubt that he sat in judgment on Bishop Hooper, and on several other I’ro- testants whom he condemned to the flames. But being placed on a commission along with a number of other bishops to administer a severe law, it does not appear that he could very well have acted otherwise. On the bench he is said to have used every effort to induce the accused to make concessions and accept a pardon ; and a remarkable instance of his clemency is recorded by the church historian Fuller, who, notwithstanding his prejudices, acknowledges a debt of gratitude to him for preserving one of his own ancestors from the persecuting zeal of otheis. It would seem, moreover, that when he saw the results of the cruel proceedings against heretics, he very soon got tired of them. The persecutions raged with the greatest vehenience during his absence at the Calais peaee conferences in 1555, and when he came back he declared he would have no further hand in them, so that those afterwards apprehended in his diocese were removed into that of London in order to be adjudged to the flames. In October 1555 he again opened parliament as lord chancellor, but towards the end of the month he fell ill and grew rapidly worse till the 12th

November, when he died about the age of seventy-two.

Perhaps no celebrated character of that age has been the subject of so much ill-merited abuse at the hands of popular historians. That his virtue was not equal to every trial may be admitted, but that he was anything like the morose and narrow-minded bigot he is commonly represented there is nothing whatever to show. He has been called ambitious, turbulent. crafty, abject, vindictive, bloodthirsty, and a good many other things besides, not quite in keeping with each other; in addition to which it is roundly asserted by Bishop Burnet that he was despised alike by Henry and by Mary, both of whom made use of him as a tool. How such a mean and abject character submitted to remain five years in prison rather than change his principles is not very clearly explained; and as to his being despised, we have seen already that Henry VIII., at least, did not consider him despicable. The truth is, there is not a single divine or statesman of that day whose course throughout was so thoroughly consistent. He was no friend to the Reformation, it is true, but he was at least a conscientious opponent. In doctrine he adhered to the old faith from first to last, while as a question of church polity, the only matter for consideration with him was whether the new laws and ordinances were constitutionally justifiable.

His merits as a theologian it is unnecessary to discuss; it is as a statesman and a lawyer that he stands conspicuous. But his learning even in divinity was far from commonplace. The manual set forth in 1543 by royal and parliamentary authority, entitled A necessary Doctrine and Eruditionfor any Christian .llan, was chiefly from his pen ; and at a later date he was the author of various tracts in defence of the Real Presence against Cranmer, some of which, being written in prison, were published abroad under a feigned name. Controversial writings also passed between him and Bucer, with whom he had several interviews in Germany, when he was there as Henry VIII.’s ambassador.

He was a friend of learning in every form, and took great interest especially in promoting the study of Greek at Cambridge. He was, however, opposed to the new method of pronouncing the language introduced by Sir John Choke, and wrote letters to him and Sir Thomas Smith upon the subject, in which, according to Ascham, his Opponents showed themselves the better critics, but he the superior genius. In his own household he loved to take in young university men of promise; and many whom he tins encouraged became distinguished in after life as bishops, ambassadors, and secretaries of state. His house, indeed, was spoken of by Leland as the seat of eloquence and the special abode of the muses.

He lies buried in his own cathedral at Winchester, where his effigy is still to be seen.

(j. ga.)

 

Gare-Fowl, or Great Auk.

GARE-FOWL^[1] (Icelandic, Gehy'uyl ; Gaelic, Gcarb/ml),

the Anglicized form of the Hebridean name of a large sea-bird, formerly a visitor to certain remote Scottish islands, the Great Auk of most English book-writers, and the Alca impennis of Linnaeus. Of this remarkable creature mention has been already made at some length (Birds, vol. iii. pp. 731, 735), but since the species has a mournful history and several egregious misconceptions prevail concerning it, a few more details may not be unacceptable, particularly as many of them have been hitherto confined to works not easily accessible to the general reader, and the presumed extinction of the bird gives it especial interest. In size it was hardly less than a tame Goose, and in appear- ance it much resembled its smaller and surviving relative the Razor-bill (A lca torcla) ; but the glossy black of its head was varied by a large patch of white occupying nearly all the space between the eye and the bill, in place of the Razor- bill’s thin white line, while the bill itself bore eight or more deep transverse grooves instead of the smaller number and the ivory-like mark possessed by the species last named. Otherwise the coloration was similar in both, and there is satisfactory evidence that the Gare-fowl’s winter-plumage

differed from that of the breeding-season just as is ordinarily

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1. The name first appears, and in this form, in the Account of IIz'rta [St Kilda] and Rona, 4-0., by the Lord Register, Sir George )I‘Kenzie, of Tarbat, printed by Pinkerton in his Collection of Voyages and Travels (iii. p. 730), and then in Sibbald's Scolia Illustrata (1684). Martin soon after, in his Voyage to St Kilcla, spelt it “Gairfowl.” Prof. Owen has adopted the form “Garfowl,” without, as would seem, any precedent authority.