Note 389 — Chapter V

Camden, 449; Strype's Annals, ii. 288. The queen had been told, it seems, of what was done in Wyatt's business, a case not all parallel; though there was no sufficient necessity even in that instance to justify the proceeding by martial law. But bad precedents always beget "progeniem vitiosiorem."

There was a difficulty how to punish Burchell capitally, which probably suggested to the queen this strange expedient. It is said, which is full as strange, that the bishops were about to pass sentence on him for heresy, in having asserted that a papist might lawfully be killed. He put an end, however, to this dilemma, by cleaving the skull of one of the keepers in the Tower, and was hanged in a common way.