Heylin, p.

52.
*** Fox, vol.iii.p.

265.
The tender sex itself, as they have commonly greater propensity to religion, produced many examples of the most inflexible courage in supporting the profession of it against all the fury of the persecutors.
One execution in particular was attended with circumstances which, even at that time, excited astonishment by reason of their unusual barbarity.
A woman in Guernsey, being near the time of her labor when brought to the stake, was thrown into such agitation by the torture, that her belly burst, and she was delivered in the midst of the flames.

One of the guards immediately snatched the infant from the fire, and attempted to save it; but a magistrate who stood by ordered it to be thrown back: being determined, he said, that nothing should survive which-sprang from so obstinate and heretical a parent.[*] The persons condemned to these punishments were not convicted of teaching, or dogmatizing, contrary to the established religion: they were seized merely on suspicion; and articles being offered them to subscribe, they were immediately, upon their refusal, condemned to the flames.[**] These instances of barbarity, so unusual in the nation, excited horror; the constancy of the martyrs was the object of admiration; and as men have a principle of equity engraven in their minds, which even false religion is not able totally to obliterate, they were shocked to see persons of probity, of honor, of pious dispositions, exposed to punishments more severe than were inflicted on the greatest ruffians for crimes subversive of civil society.

To exterminate the whole Protestant party was known to be impossible; and nothing could appear more iniquitous, than to subject to torture the most conscientious and courageous among them, and allow the cowards and hypocrites to escape.