He Never Came to Travel in the
Coach Past Regal Fields with Me
‘A chain was provided to bind him to the stake, and after it had tightly encircled him, fire was put to the fuel, and the flames began soon to ascend.
Then were the glorious sentiments of the martyr made manifest; then it was, that stretching out his right hand, he held it unshrinkingly in the fire until it was burnt to a cinder, even before his body was injured, frequently exclaiming, “This unworthy right hand.”
His body did abide the burning with such steadfastness that he seemed to have no more than the stake to which he was bound; his eyes were lifted up to heaven, and he repeated “this unworthy right hand,” as long as his voice would suffer him; and using often the words of Stephen, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit,” in the greatness of the flame, he gave up the ghost.’ ~ Fox’s Book of Martyrs, ‘Archbishop Cranmer’
I used to pass a tree in Windsor fields
That thrust a limb out Thomas Cranmer-like
To be the first to burn when autumn wields
Misty fires, as if those leaves meant to strike
A pose of courage like that yes man changed
By royal lies to bravery. But now
I cannot spy that blazing gold estranged
So hotly from its trunk, that flaming bough
I used to see stuck out from others in
The row. I don’t know why. I always dreamed
That some bright fall my man would be my twin
In loving it and it would be esteemed
As much by him as ever it had meant
To me. But both are gone, by God’s assent.