79.
We have thrown together almost all the proceedings against heretics, though carried on during a course of three years, that we may be obliged as little as possible to return to such shocking violences and barbarities.

It is computed that in that time two hundred and seventy-seven persons were brought to the stake, besides those who were punished by imprisonment, fines, and confiscations.

Among those who suffered by fire were five bishops, twenty-one clergymen, eight lay gentlemen, eighty-four tradesmen, one hundred husbandmen, servants, and laborers, fifty-five women, and four children.

This persevering cruelty appears astonishing; yet is it much inferior to what has been practised in other countries.

A great author[*] computes that, in the Netherlands alone, from the time that the edict of Charles V.was promulgated against the reformers, there had been fifty thousand persons hanged, beheaded, buried alive, or burnt, on account of religion; and that in France the number had also been considerable.