Though adorned with the gentlest manners, as well as the purest integrity, he carried to the utmost height his aversion to heterodoxy; and James Bainham, in particular, a gentleman of the Temple, experienced from him the greatest severity.

Bainham, accused of favoring the new opinions, was carried to More's house; and having refused to discover his accomplices, the chancellor ordered him to be whipped in his presence, and afterwards sent him to the Tower, where he himself saw him put to the torture.

The unhappy gentleman, overcome by all these severities, abjured his opinions; but feeling afterwards the deepest compunction for his apostasy, he openly returned to his former tenets, and even courted the crown of martyrdom.

He was condemned as an obstinate and relapsed heretic, and was burned in Smithfield.[***] * Hall.fol.186.Fox, vol.i.p.

138.