for me on the cross, made partaker of the everlasting kingdom.

Feckenham.-Why, what do you receive in that bread do you not receive the very body and blood of Christ?

Jane.--No, surely, I do not believe so: I think at that supper I receive neither flesh nor blood, but only bread and wine; the which bread when it is broken, and the wine when it is drunk, putteth me in mind how that for my sins the body of Christ was broken, and his blood shed on the cross, and with that bread and wine I receive the benefits which came by breaking of his body, and by the shedding of his blood on the cross for my sins.

Feckenham.-Why but, madam, doth not Christ speak these words: take, eat, this is my body can you require any plainer words: doth he not say, that it is his body?

Jane. I grant he saith so; and so he saith likewise in other places, I am the vine, I am the door, it being only but a figurative speech: doth not St. Paul say that he calleth those things which are not as though they were? God forbid, that I should say that I eat the very natural body and blood of Christ: for then either I should pluck away my redemption, or confess there were two bodies, or two Christs: two bodies, the one body was tormented on the cross, and then if they did eat another body, how absurd: again,

if his body was eaten really, then it was not broken upon the cross, or if it were broken upon the cross (as it is doubtless) then it was not eaten of his disciples.

Feckenham.-Why, is it not as possible that Christ by his power could make his body both to be eaten and broken, as to be born of a woman without the seed of man, and as to walk on the sea having a body, and other such like miracles, which he wrought by his power only?

Jane.-Yes, verily, if God would have done at his last supper a miracle, he might have done so: but I say he minded nor intended no work or miracle, but only to break his body, and shed his blood on the cross for our sins: but I beseech you answer me to this one question; where was Christ when he said, take, eat, this is my body : was not he at the table? when he said so he was at that time alive, and suffered not till the next day; well, what took he but bread? and what broke he but bread? and what gave he but bread? look what he took he brake, and look what he brake he gave, and look what he gave that did they eat, and yet all this while he himself was at supper before his disciples, or else they were deceived.

Feckenham.-You ground your faith upon such authors as say and unsay, both with a breath, and not upon the church, to whom you ought to give credit.

:

Jane.-No, I ground my faith upon God's word, and not upon the church for if the church be a good church, the faith of the church must be tried by God's word, and not God's word by the church neither yet my faith: shall I believe the church because of antiquity? or shall I give credit to that church which taketh away from me a full half part of the Lord's Supper, and will not laymen receive it in both kinds, but the priests only themselves? which thing if they deny to us part, they deny us part of our salvation; and I say, that it is an evil and no good church, and not the spouse of Christ, but the spouse of the devil, which altereth the Lord's Supper, and both taketh from it, and addeth to it: to that church I say God will add plagues, and from that church will he take their part out of the Book of Life: you may learn of St. Paul, how he did administer it to the Corinthians in both kinds, which since your church refuseth, shall I believe it? God forbid !

Feckenham.-That this was done by the wisdom of the church, and to a most good intent to avoid an heresy, which then sprung in it.

Jane.-O, but the church must not alter God's will and ordinances, for the colour or gloss of a good intent it was the error of King Saul, and he not only reaped a curse, but perished thereby, as it is evident in the Holy Scriptures.

To this M. Feckenham gave me a long, te

dious, yet eloquent reply; using many strong and logical persuasions, to compel me to have leaned to their church: but my faith had armed my resolution to withstand any assault that words could then use against me. Of many other articles of religion we reasoned, but these formerly rehearsed were the chiefest and most effectual.

JANE DUDLEY.

In estimating the conduct of Feckenham, we must remember that the unfavourable descriptions of his conduct towards Lady Jane Grey are handed down to us from most prejudiced sources; a martyrologist is never an impartial biographer of a priest of the religion which produced the immolation of those whose virtues he records; and judging of Mary's chaplain by perhaps the only positive evidence which exists-the interesting dialogue before us-the conclusion which it allows is, by no means what his enemies have represented.

The respite offered by the Queen was, notwithstanding its refusal by Lady Jane, confirmed by the Council, and she consequently lived to be aware that her father was brought to the same prison, for the purpose of undergoing a similar fate. That she was not acquainted with his previous arrest, is inferred from her having written her celebrated letter to him.

It was on Saturday the 10th of February,

1554, that the Duke of Suffolk, together with Lord John Grey his brother, were conveyed to the Tower; and the Monday following was appointed for the execution of Lady Jane and her husband Lord Guildford Dudley. The last evening of her life was employed by her in religious duties having taken up a Greek Testament, and attentively perused it for some time, she discovered a few pages of clean paper at the end of the volume, "which, as it were awakening and inciting her zeal to some good and charitable office, she took her pen, and in those waste leaves wrote a most godly and learned exhortation" to her sister Katherine.

Her tormenters, worn out by a resolution which no arguments could shake, left her, as they styled it, in her obstinacy; though it is said that she was not permitted to pass the brief space of her existence which remained, without experiencing similar attempts.

It was also on this evening that she finished and corrected the following prayer:

A Prayer composed by Lady Jane Dudley shortly before her Execution.

O Lord, thou God and father of my life! hear me, poor and desolate woman, which flyeth unto thee only, in all troubles and miseries. Thou, O Lord, art the only defender and deliverer of those that put their trust in thee; and, therefore,