This executing of the laity for religion was a new thing in their experience.

The priest lifted the paper again.
"'I found that Mr.Sherwood had been racked many times in the Tower, during the six months he was in prison, to force him to tell, if they could, where he had heard mass and who had said it.

But they could prevail nothing.

Further, no visitor was admitted to him all this time, and I was the first and the last that he had; and that though Mr.Roper himself had tried to get at him for his relief; for he was confined underground and lay in chains and filth not to be described.

I said what I could to him, but he said he needed nothing and was content, though his pain must have been very great all this while, what with the racking repeated over and over again and the place he lay in.
"'I was present again when he suffered at Tyburn, but was too far away to hear anything that he said, and scarcely, indeed, could see him; but I learned afterwards that he died well and courageously, as a Catholic should, and made no outcry or complaint when the butchery was done on him.
"'This, then, is the news I have to send you--sorrowful, indeed, yet joyful, too; for surely we may think that they who bore such pains for Christ's sake with such constancy will intercede for us whom they leave behind.