After a stubborn resistance they had acknowledged the royal Supremacy and taken the oath of submission prescribed by the Act.

But by an infamous construction of the statute which made the denial of the Supremacy treason, the refusal of satisfactory answers to official questions as to a conscientious belief in it was held to be equivalent to open denial.

The aim of the new measure was well known, and the brethren prepared to die.

In the agony of waiting enthusiasm brought its imaginative consolations; "when the Host was lifted up there came as it were a whisper of air which breathed upon our faces as we knelt; and there came a sweet soft sound of music." They had not long however to wait, for their refusal to answer was the signal for their doom.

Three of the brethren went to the gallows; the rest were flung into Newgate, chained to posts in a noisome dungeon where, "tied and not able to stir," they were left to perish of gaol-fever and starvation.