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

Cut off in this way from the opportunities of escape which were long open to others, the bishop remained in confinement till the opening of the persecution. He was deposed from his see by Gardiner's first commission, as having been married; otherwise, however, Ferrars was unobnoxious politically and personally. Being in prison, he had been incapable of committing any fresh offence against the queen, and might reasonably have been forgotten or passed over. But he had been a bishop, and he was ready caught to the hands of the authorities; and Mary had been compelled unwillingly to release a more conspicuous offender, Miles Coverdale, at the intercession of the King of Denmark. Ferrars was therefore brought before Gardiner on the 4th of February. On the 14th he was sent into Wales to be tried by Morgan, his successor at St. David's, and Constantine, the notary of the diocese, who had been one of his accusers. By these judges, on the 11th of March, he was condemned and degraded; he appealed to the legate, but the legate never listened to the prayer of heretics; the legate's mission was to extirpate them. On Saturday the 30th of March, Ferrars was brought to the stake in the market-place in Carmarthen.[460]