for papists. It is I, I alone, whom the Lord our God has chosen and
blessed as His hangman and executioner! I am the high-priest of His
Church, and he who dares deny me, denies God; and he who is so
presumptuous as to do reverence to any other head of the Church, is
a priest of Baal and kneels to an idolatrous image. Kneel down all
of you before me, and reverence in me God, whose earthly
representative I am, and who reveals Himself through me in His
fearful and exalted majesty. Kneel down, for I am sole head of the
Church and high-priest of our God!"

And as if at one blow all knees bent; all those haughty cavaliers,
those ladies sparkling with jewels and gold, even the two bishops
and the queen fell upon the ground.

The king gazed for a moment on this sight, and, with radiant looks
and a smile of triumph, his eyes ran over this assembly, consisting
of the noblest of his kingdom, humbled before him.

Suddenly they were fastened on Anne Askew.

She alone had not bent her knee, but stood in the midst of the
kneelers, proud and upright as the king himself. A dark cloud passed
over the king's countenance.

"You obey not my command?" asked he.

She shook her curly head and fixed on him a steady, piercing look.
"No," said she, "like those over yonder whose last death-groan we
even now hear, like them, I say: To God alone is honor due, and He
alone is Lord of His Church! If you wish me to bend my knee before