By Means Whereof We Were All Soon
Apprehended In All Places, And All Our Goods Seized And Taken For The
Inquisitors' use, and so from all parts of the country we were conveyed
and sent as prisoners to the city
Of Mexico, and there committed to
prison in sundry dark dungeons where we could not see but by
candlelight, and were never more than two together in one place so that
we saw not one another, neither could one of us tell what was become of
another. Thus we remained close imprisoned for the space of a year and
a half, and others for some less time, for they came to prison ever as
they were apprehended. During which time of our imprisonment at the
first beginning we were often called before the Inquisitors alone, and
there severely examined of our faith, and commanded to say the pater
noster, the Ave Maria, and the creed in Latin, which God knoweth a
great number of us could not say otherwise than in the English tongue.
And having the said Robert Sweeting who was our friend at Tescuco
always present with them for an interpreter he made report for us in
our own country speech we could say them perfectly, although not word
for word as they were in Latin. Then did they proceed to demand of us
upon our oaths what we did believe of the sacrament, and whether there
did remain any bread or wine after the words of consecration, yea or
no, and whether we did not believe that the Host of bread which the
priest did hold up over his head, and the wine that was in the chalice,
was the very true and perfect body and blood of our Saviour Christ, yea
or no, to which if we answered not yea, then was there no way but
death. Then would they demand of us what we did remember of ourselves,
what opinions we had held or had been taught to hold, contrary to the
same whiles we were in England; to which we for the safety of our lives
were constrained to say that we never did believe, nor had been taught
otherwise than as before we had said. Then would they charge us that
we did not tell them the truth, that we knew to the contrary, and
therefore we should call ourselves to remembrance and make them a
better answer at the next time or else we should be racked and made to
confess the truth whether we would or no. And so coming again before
them the next time, we were still demanded of our belief whiles we were
in England, and how we had been taught, and also what we thought or did
know of such of our company as they did name unto us, so that we could
never be free from such demands, and at other times they would promise
us that if we would tell them the truth, then should we have favour and
be set at liberty, although we very well knew their fair speeches were
but means to entrap us to the hazard and loss of our lives; howbeit God
so mercifully wrought for us by a secret means that we had that we kept
us still to our first answer, and would still say that we had told the
truth unto them, and knew no more by ourselves nor any other of our
fellows than as we had declared, and that for our sins and offences in
England against God and our Lady, or any of His blessed saints, we were
heartily sorry for the same, and did cry God mercy, and besought the
Inquisitors, for God's sake, considering that we came into those
countries by force of weather, and against our wills, and that never in
all our lives we had either spoken or done anything contrary to their
laws, that therefore they would have mercy on us, yet all this would
not serve, for still from time to time we were called upon to confess,
and about the space of three months, before they proceeded to their
severe Judgment, we were all racked, and some enforced to utter that
against themselves which afterwards cost them their lives.
And thus having gotten from our own mouths matter sufficient for them
to proceed in judgment against us, they caused a large scaffold to be
made in the midst of the market-place in Mexico, right over against the
head church, and fourteen or fifteen days before the day of their
judgment, with the sound of a trumpet, and the noise of their
attabalies, which are a kind of drums, they did assemble the people in
all parts of the city, before whom it was then solemnly proclaimed that
whosoever would upon such a day, repair to the marketplace, they should
hear the sentence of the Holy Inquisition against the English heretic
Lutherans, and also see the same put in execution. Which being done,
and the time approaching of this cruel judgment, the night before they
came to the prison where we were, with certain officers of that holy
hellish house, bringing with them certain fools' coats which they had
prepared for us, being called in their language St. Benitos, which
coats were made of yellow cotton and red crosses upon them, both before
and behind; they were so busied in putting on their coats about us and
in bringing us out into a large yard, and placing and pointing us in
what order we should go to the scaffold or place of judgment upon the
morrow, that they did not once suffer us to sleep all that night long.
The next morning being come, there was given to every one of us for our
breakfast, a cup of wine, and a slice of bread fried in honey, and so
about eight of the clock in the morning, we set forth of the prison,
every man alone in his yellow coat and a rope about his neck, and a
great green wax candle in his hand unlighted, having a Spaniard
appointed to go upon either side of every one of us; and so marching in
this order and manner towards the scaffold in the market-place, which
was a bow-shot distant or thereabouts, we found a great assembly of
people all the way, and such throng, that certain of the Inquisitors'
officers on horseback were constrained to make way, and so coming to
the scaffold we went up by a pair of stairs, and found seats ready made
and prepared for us to sit down on, every man in order as he should be
called to receive his judgment.
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