Note (Back to Main Text) — Chapter IV · THE MARTYRS.

They had been prisoners now for more than two years. What Latimer's occupation had been for all that time, little remains to show, except three letters:—one, of but a few lines, was to a Mrs. Wilkinson, thanking her for some act of kindness:[501] another, was a general exhortation to "all unfeigned lovers of God's truth," to be constant in their faith: the third, and most noteworthy, was to some one who had an opportunity of escaping from arrest, and probable martyrdom, by a payment of money, and who doubted whether he might lawfully avail himself of the chance: there was no question of recantation; a corrupt official was ready to accept a bribe and ask no questions.