Thomas Latimer

“ It has been summarized in the death by fire of the three famous martyrs at Oxford; for one of them at least, Latimer, was a reformer of the more robust and human type, though another of them, Cranmer, had been so smooth a snob and coward in the councils of Henry VIII. as to make Thomas Cromwell seem by comparison a man. But of what may be called the Latimer tradition, the saner and more genuine Protestantism, I shall speak later. ”

“ If in this confession he to some extent tampered with his conscience, there is every reason to believe that his culpable timidity was occasioned, not by personal fear, but by anxiety lest by his death he should hinder instead of promoting the cause of truth. After the consecration of Cranmer to the archbishopric of Canterbury in 1533 Latimer’s position was completely altered. ”

“ But since Hugh Latimer, who stalks forth incognito, [4c] whoever he is in propria persona, [4d] whether English, Irish, Scotch, or Welch, is to me a matter of small importance. I have nothing to do with the man, but with his evangelical matter: yet, I may be curious to ask, why such homo multarum literarum, [4e] as he affects to be, should be ashamed of his own name ”

“ His irony was yet more telling than his invective. "I would ask you a strange question," he said once at Paul's Cross to a ring of Bishops; "who is the most diligent prelate in all England, that passeth all the rest in doing of his office? I will tell you. It is the Devil! of all the pack of them that have cure, the Devil shall go for my money; for he ordereth his business. Therefore, you unpreaching prelates, learn of the Devil to be diligent in your office. If you will not learn of God, for shame learn of the Devil." But Latimer was far from limiting himself to invective. ”

“ He will not do that,” he added quickly, but looking questioningly at Latimer and speaking in a tone almost of command. “He will not undo all that he has done; I know him better than that.” But Latimer made no answer, and for a moment the two men stood watching each other and questioning each other with their eyes. Then Latimer turned, and without again so much as glancing at the girl walked steadily to the door and left the room. He passed on slowly down the stairs and out into the night, and paused upon the top of the steps leading to the street. ”

“ He shows large acquaintance with books; with the Bible, most of all; with patristic divinity and school divinity; and history, sacred and profane: but if this had been all, he would not have been the Latimer of the Reformation, and the Church of England would not, perhaps, have been here to-day. Like the physician, to whom a year of practical experience in a hospital teaches more than a life of closet study, Latimer learnt the mental disorders of his age in the age itself; and the secret of that art no other man, however good, however wise, could have taught him. ”

“ With a high reputation and an excellent cook he enjoyed a great popularity, both with his own party and the world in general; and he was the centre of a small, but distinguished circle of acquaintances, who drank Latimer's wine, and quoted Latimer's sayings, and liked Latimer much better, because, not being author or minister, he was not in their way.
Lord Latimer received Maltravers with marked courtesy, and even deference, and invited him to join his own whist-table, which was one of the highest compliments his lordship could pay to his intellect. ”

“ Other well-known men of the late seventeenth century were "tobacconists" in the old sense of the word. Sir Isaac Newton is said to have smoked immoderately; and a familiar anecdote represents him as using for the purposes of a tobacco-stopper, in a fit of absent-mindedness, the little finger of a lady sitting beside him, whom he admired, but the truth of this legend is open to doubt. Thomas Hobbes, who lived to be ninety (1588-1679) , was accustomed to dine at 11 o'clock, after which he smoked a pipe [86] and then lay down and took a nap of about half an hour. ”

“ Latimer looked at him plodding along in the scorching, pitiless sunshine, a weary, bent man dragging one ill-shod foot wearily after the other, a man who had no faith in tenderness or love, no belief in the kindliness of human nature. He felt he hated him for one brief second, and then he pitied him. And yet it shamed him to think he had fallen so low that this man was his mate. He would get out, he would. There was a man he knew in Adelaide, he would go to him and ask him to give him another chance, for his father's sake to give him another chance. ”

“ Latimer finished lighting his cigar, blew out the match, and dropped it carefully over the side.
"Indeed," he said. "It only shows how extremely inaccurate one's reasoning powers can be."
There was a short but rather pregnant pause. Then Tommy leaned forward.
"What do you mean?" he asked, in that peculiarly gentle voice which he keeps for the most unhealthy occasions.
Latimer's face remained beautifully impassive. "I was under the mistaken impression," he answered slowly, "that I owed my life to Mr. Neil Lyndon." ”

“ Danvers put his hand on the stooping shoulders. "I'm going home on the midnight train, and I'll send the old doctor up to see the lad; or," with a sudden thought, "why not wire him? I will do it as I go to the station."
"Perhaps you'd better," agreed Latimer. "I wish he had remained here for the convention; but I know he will be glad to make the trip for the sake of the boy, and the sight of his face will do me good."
"You've been working too hard. ”

“ Yet Latimer cursed beneath his breath.
“Let’s get on,” he said, and proceeded to feel his way towards the ravine.
In a few minutes they reached it. Here was another sentry-group. Assuring himself that all was in order, he began to retrace his steps. He was conscious of nothing except the procession of fantasies and memories within his brain: verses he had written last year beneath the young flowering laburnum in his father’s garden; a girl’s hand in which his heart seemed to be inevitably cupped; a flannelled figure, with a rapid, crushing serve, on the other side of the tennis-net ”

“ Latimer was the son of a Leicestershire fanner, and rose to be Bishop of Worcester, and to the far higher rank of a martyr for his faith. He has been pronounced by writers of this age as a good but not a great man. To our mind he was a very great man. Not in worldly wisdom, for he was simple and unambitious as a child; but he was a genius, true, racy, original, and inspired. He was made, as his sermons show, for a preacher to the people rather than to princes, though to them he bore a bold and unblenching testimony. ”

“ Just outside the gate stood a powerful five-seated car.
"Start her up, Guthrie," said Latimer; and then turning to us, he added, with a smile: "I want you in front with me, Lyndon. I know Morrison's dying for a yarn with you, but he must wait."
Tommy nodded contentedly. "I can wait," he observed; "it's a habit
I've cultivated where Neil's concerned."
We all clambered into the car, and, slipping in his clutch Latimer set off at a rapid pace in the direction of Queenborough. It was not until we had rounded the first corner that he opened the conversation. ”

“ In the list of the committee which he forwarded to the king, Latimer's name, marked, like others favourable to the king's purpose, with an A, appears in the class of 'masters in theology,' not in that of doctors. Latimer was at once appointed to preach before the king at Windsor on 13 March, to the deep annoyance of his opponents; and the king, highly commending his sermon, remarked significantly to the Duke of Norfolk that it was very unpalatable to the vice-chancellor of Cambridge, who was present during part of it. Latimer received for his sermon the usual gratuity of 20s. ”

“ I said. "I'm rather tired of being taken for the Knave."
"Isn't there a job for me?" asked Tommy pathetically. "I'm open for anything, especially if it wants a bit of physical violence."
"There will probably be a demand for that a little later on," said Latimer in his quiet drawl. "At present I want you to come back with me to London. I shall find plenty for you to do there, Morrison. The fewer people that are mixed up in this affair the better." He turned to me. "You can take the boat back to Tilbury alone if we go ashore here?" ”

“ Latimer's convenience.'
"'Ah, I understand!' she replied, with a gasp of relief significant of her fear that by some superhuman cunning he had found the bond she thought so safely concealed. 'I was wondering how Mrs. Latimer came to allow us to leave.' (I tell you they always talked as if I were not present.) 'Our goods are left as a surety, it seems.'
"'Half of our goods,' he blandly corrected. ”

“ Latimer married Anne, daughter of Sir Humphrey Stafford of Grafton, Worcestershire, who predeceased him. He contemplated marrying Mary, widow of Sir James Strangwishe, in July 1522 (ib. iii. ii. 2415) . By his wife he had issue John, third baron Latimer [q. v.] ”

“ He had bad health, being troubled with headache, pleurisy, coiic, stone; his bodily constitution meeting feebly the demands which he was forced to make upon it. [120] But he struggled on, travelling up and down, to London, to Kent, to Bristol, wherever opportunity called him; marked for destruction by the bishops, if he was betrayed into an imprudent word, and himself living in constant expectation of death. [121]
At length the Bishop of London believed that Latimer was in his power. ”

“ They felt that he was the most dangerous person to them in the kingdom, and they laboured with unusual patience to ensure his conviction. [128] With a common person they would have rapidly succeeded. But Latimer was in no haste to be a martyr; he would be martyred patiently when the time was come for martyrdom; but he felt that no one ought 'to consent to die,' as long as he could honestly live ”

“ When Latimer was preaching at Cambridge in 1529, in favour of an English bible and other religious innovations, Buckenham was one of his principal opponents, and, in answer to Latimer's sermon on the cards, preached on ‘Christmas dice,’ using the terms cinq and quater as suggestive of the four doctors of the church and five texts of scripture, but did not succeed in silencing him (see Demaus, Tyndale, 431) . His adherence to the papal supremacy and the old form of religion rendered it expedient for him to leave England. ”

“ Eva had treated him coolly for a few [261] days, and he had practically decided that he wanted neither Judge Latimer's wife nor Burroughs' money. But as he gazed at the lady's ripe beauty he became more infatuated than before. He changed the subject abruptly. "I must go down to the valley to-morrow, after the session adjourns. Will you come with me for a ride?"
"Are you crazy?" Mrs. Latimer spoke with scorn.
"No one will see us," he pleaded. "I can pick you up where you used to live. You can wear a veil if you like. What do we care if we do meet somebody we know? ”

“ The shock of seeing his brother dead, a brother who had apparently passed out of his memory, restored the mind of John Latimer; so that when he recovered from it he was again sane and mentally sound.
The wedding which took place in the big house on the mesa soon after, and which united the “mysterious” youth to the equally “mysterious” maiden, was a great event, and was attended by Buffalo Bill, and by Nomad and “Pizen Kate.” ”

“ I ain’t that kind of a hairpin! I’m a woman that knows her rights and is willin’ to fight fer ’em. And if he thinks he can hide, and that I’ll soon go away and leave him, why, then he is mightily mistaken.”
“Your hostler seems to have got into a good deal of trouble,” the scout remarked to Latimer, as they returned to the house together, leaving Pizen Kate hunting for Nick Nomad.
“Cody,” said Latimer, “that is the most absurd episode I ever saw, or knew about. I’m afraid that new hostler is a great rascal, in spite of what you informed me about him.” ”

“ No man less than a giant could have done what he did, once he had gained the foot of the ladder. Step by step, by the might of his arms, the whole pack of men striving to drag him back and down, he drew his body up from the floor till he stood erect. And then, step by step, hand and foot, he slowly struggled up the ladder.
The very last of all, I saw. For Latimer, having finally gone for a lantern, held it so that its light shone down the scuttle. Wolf Larsen was nearly to the top, though I could not see him. All that was visible was the mass of men fastened upon him. ”

“ I answered.
"The Dartmoor climate doesn't seem to suit it."
"But—but—" he stared for a moment at the card without speaking.
"Well, this beats everything," he exclaimed. "What in God's name can
Bruce Latimer have to do with your crowd?"
"That," I remarked, "is exactly what I want to find out."
"Find out!" repeated Tommy. "We'll find out right enough. Do you think he guessed who it was that sent the note?"
"Most likely he did," I said. "I was the nearest person, but in any case he only saw my back. You can't recognize a man from his back."
Tommy took two or three steps up and down the studio. ”

“ There was much that he had not told her, she suspected, and when she bade him good-by it was with a reserve which she had not shown at any other time during their interview.
“I wonder who that woman was?” she murmured, as young Latimer turned from the brougham door and said “Home,” to the groom. She thought about it a great deal that afternoon; at times she repented that she had given up the medal, and at times she blushed that she should have been carried in her zeal into such an unwarranted intimacy with another's story. ”

“ No one could have murmured against his punishment for treason two years before; but he died a martyr, for denying Transubstantiation and the Papal authority. Latimer was no theologian; but he was a pulpit orator of extraordinary power, an enthusiastic if erratic moralist, who had suffered for his own freely expressed opinions in the past and shown scant consideration for false teachers—a quixotic but heroic figure. ”