compelled to bear faggots for the offence of having listened to the reading of the Scriptures.

Broughton, Hampshire.-Miss Anne Steele, the poetess, born in this parish in 1716, was daughter of a Baptist minister. A few hours before the time appointed for her wedding, her intended husband was drowned whilst bathing. She bore the marks of her sorrow in much bodily weakness, but lived a most useful and pious life, and enriched our hymnology by many favourite compositions under the nom de plume of "Theodosia."

Broughton, Northamptonshire. -(See Blackburn.)

Bruin Stapleford, Lancashire. -The residence, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, of John Bruin, a type of the Puritan country gentleman of the age. His house was about a mile from the church. On the Sunday morning he left his home, with all his family and servants, taking his tenants and neighbours, as they lay on the way along with him. See the beautiful picture of this displayed in authorities quoted by Dr. Halley, Lancashire, p. 104.

Buckingham. About 1506, Robert Cosin, a miller of Missenden, usually called Father Robert, was burnt to death here for speaking against Romish errors. Above twenty persons were also

Buckland, Somersetshire. The only house of the female order of Knights Hospitallers established in England, founded here in the twelfth century.

Bumsted, Essex. In the year 1528, Miles Coverdale, who was at first an Augustine monk, then a student at Tubingen, afterwards at Cambridge, became an ardent promoter of the gospel, and preached most effectively and usefully in this village. He went into exile, and attached himself to Tyndale in the great work of translating the Scriptures. 1535, the faithful friends published the first printed whole Bible in English, at Hamburg, — John Rogers, the proto-martyr, acting as corrector of the press. Coverdale's work in this blessed undertaking is second only to Tyndale's. He returned to England under Queen Elizabeth, was made Bishop of Exeter, and died in 1568.

In

Burdon, Essex. - Dr. Joseph Mede, the famous and profound scholar, was born here in 1586. He was one of the most learned men of his age. He appears to have originated the saying for his pupils, when examining them, "To doubt nothing and to understand

nothing are nearly equivalent;" but he used this as an encouragement to them to come and open all their doubts to him every evening, that they might be allayed by mutual conference.

Burford,

66

Oxfordshire. One John Burges permitted his house to be used about the year 1518 for a Bible reading, for which the reader and audience were informed against to the persecuting Bishop Langland, and dragged into the Ecclesiastical Court for discipline. The same thing happened at Stanlake. The book then read appears to have been Wycliffe's translation of the Scriptures. Alice Colins was noted for her memory, and was much sought for to attend the meetings of the faithful, and recite to them epistles and other portions of Scripture which she had learned. In 1521, before the bishop, Joan Steventon denounced her for teaching her the Ten Commandments; then for teaching her the first chapter of St. John's Gospel." This is a sample of a long string of sad charges against a crowd of country folk. The punishments inflicted enable us to imagine the whole scene. "Imprimis, that every one of them shall, upon a market day, in the market time, go thrice about the market at Burford, and there to stand upon the highest step of the cross there, a quarter of an hour, with a faggot of wood, every one of them upon his shoulder, and every one of them once to bear a faggot of wood upon their procession on a Sunday, which shall be limited unto them at Burford, from the choir door going out to

the choir door going in, and all the high mass time to hold the said faggot upon their shoulders," etc, "and once to bear a faggot at the burning of a heretic, when they shall be admonished thereat." To fast, bread and ale only every Friday for life, to say once every Sunday and Friday for life "Our Lady-psalter," "not to hide their mark upon their cheek." Surely one of these rural penances would form a fitting scene for an artist's pencil.

In 1735, John Wesley, on his journey, preached to about twelve or fifteen hundred people, on "Christ made unto us wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption." "Finding many approved of what they had heard, that they might not rest in that approbation, I explained an hour or two after the holiness of a true Christian."

Dr.

Burnley, Lancashire. William Whitaker, an eminent Puritan divine, was born at Holme in this parish, in the year 1547. He obtained reputation and honours in both Universities, and became Professor of Divinity at Cambridge. There he promoted meetings of the professors for mutual inquiry and conference on of Protestantism. Scripture. He was the champion Bishop Hall says of him: "Who ever saw him without reverence, or heard him without wonder!"

Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk. -The leader here in the illustrious army of martyrs was Richard Bayfield, a monk, chamberlain of the monastery. In the latter capacity he had to arrange lodgings

for guests. Among the frequent guests was Dr. Barnes, with whose conversation Bayfield was delighted, as it opened to him the gospel. He learnt the truth, went to London, where he was apprehended for Protestantism. For aiding Tyndale he was persecuted with rigour, cruelly used in prison, degraded, absolutely knocked down by the bishop, and savagely burnt in Smithfield in November, -1531.

In the last years of Queen Mary's reign, first, three martyrs were burnt here together, Barnard, Foster, and Lawson, and then four, John Cooke, a sawyer, Robert Miles, alias Plummer, a shearman, Alexander Lane, a wheelwright, and James Ashley, who suffered together for denying the doctrine of the real presence.

In 1576, two clergymen, named Copping and Tyler, were shut up in gaol for nonconformity. Copping, with another nonconforming Puritan, named Thacker, was handed over to the secular power, accused of sedition in spreading books favouring independency, tried, found guilty, and executed.

In 1535, Cromwell's visitor to the monastery reports to his master that the abbot "he found delighted much in playing at dice and cards, and therein spent much money;" and that among the relics there purported to be "the coals on which St. Lawrence was toasted, the paring of St. Edward's nails, and St. Thomas à Becket's penknife and boots."

after James Abbes, much persecution, was condemned for Protestantism, and burnt here on the 2nd of August, 1555.

Bushey, Hertfordshire. - Dr. Stanton, the president of Corpus Christi College, had this living, which he held for twenty years. He not only preached, but was a constant catechiser, and taught from house to house. He set up a weekly lecture supplied by a rota of ministers. He was loved by all the godly, and feared by the wicked. Although much blessed in his labours, he was suspended for refusing to read the Book of Sports. He was appointed one of the Assembly of Divines. He retired to Rickmansworth, whence, as from a centre, he went throughout the country to preach. He first endeavoured to secure a church; when that was denied, used a room. He was called the "Searching Preacher." A cheerful, liberal, genial Christian. His success

in

conversation, with persons whom he casually encountered, was truly remarkable. His habit was to leave a text with every one whom he met.

Butler's Court, Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire.-Here on the 8th of July, 1797, died the great orator, Edmund Burke. His had, during his illness, declared biographer says: "He frequently that his intimates knew well before his thorough belief in the Christian religion, his veneration suasions, but his own preference for true Christians of all perof the Articles of the Church of England."

He established a large business at Warbleton as an iron founder, using the Sussex iron ore, then the chief source of iron manufacture. He was an able, prosperous, and patriotic man, one of whom the country was proud, and a public benefactor. But all this was of no avail against the hate of Romanistic fury. In one of his examinations before the Bishop of Winchester he says, "Let me go home, I pray you, to my wife and children, and see them kept, and other poor folk that I would set to work, by the help of God."

Byrbrook, or Birdbrook, Essex. -In 1532 and 1533, a large number of the people of this place were condemned to various penances and punishments on the charge of heresy. Of one of these, Richard Chapman, Foxe relates, that he was enjoined to go in his shirt, bareheaded, before the procession of ecclesiastics, and to kneel on the stone floor of the chancel all sermon time. A little lad beholding him in this plight, brought him his cap to kneel on, for which offence the lad was taken into the vestry and whipped unmercifully.

But martyrs struggle for a brighter prize, And win it with more pain. Their blood is

shed

In confirmation of the noblest claimOur claim to feed upon immortal truth, To walk with God, to be divinely free.

C.

Caistor, St. Edmunds, Norfolk, three miles south of Norwich.Richard de Caistre, born here in the latter part of the fourteenth century, and afterwards

vicar of St. Stephen's, Norwich, had the character of being a follower of Wycliffe, and a constant preacher of the gospel in | English.

The birthplace and residence of Sarah Martin, a humble, devout, and self-sacrificing dressmaker, who, from love to Christ, made it her business to visit the prisons, and sedulously attempt the moral and spiritual good of the inmates in every way. She died in the year 1843, aged fifty-three.

Calne, Wiltshire.—A council of the Anglo-Saxon Church was held here in 978, on the question whether learned laymen should be employed in divine services, or monks only. St. Dunstan espoused the cause of the latter, and prevailed.

Calverley, Yorkshire. See Horsforth, Yorkshire.

Cambridge. One of the humblest in spirit, and yet most constant of the Marian martyrs, was John Hullier, an Eton scholar, and of King's College, who suffered under the condemnation of the Bishop of Ely. He has embalmed his testimony in three admirable papers preserved by Foxe, two letters to the Christian congregation to which he had ministered, and a prayer in the prospect of his suffering. These breathe the most devout, evangelical, Christ-like sentiments.

On the 6th of February, 1557, was enacted the silly and disgusting pageant of burning the bodies of the two Reformers buried within the precincts of the University, Bucer and Fagius.