Note 1171 — XXVI. THE ANGLICAN CHURCH.

This may have been true, for Dr. London was one of the miserable tools who are the fitting representatives of the time. His desire to discover the irregularities of the monastic orders arose from no reverence for virtue, for he underwent public penance at Oxford for adultery with a mother and daughter (Strype, Eccles. Memor. I. 376); and his zeal in suppressing the monasteries was complemented with equal zeal in persecuting Protestants. In 1543 he made himself conspicuous, in conjunction with Gardiner, by having heretics burned under the provisions of the Six Articles. His eagerness in this good work led him to commit perjury, on conviction of which he was pilloried in Windsor, Reading, and Newbury, and thrust into the Fleet, where he died.—Strype, Memorials of Cranmer, Book I. Chap. 26, 27.

In fact, Henry’s capricious despotism rendered it almost impossible that he could be served by men of self-respect and honor.