14 INTRODUCTION. screen themselves from the notice of their persecutors, they often met in the night, and experienced many wonderful providential deliverances.. Their public devotions were conducted. by the following ministers : Edmund Scambler, afterwards successively Bishop of Peterborough and Nor- wich, Mr. Fowler, Mr. John Rough, Mr. Augustine Birnher, Thomas Bentham, afterwards Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, and Mr. John Pullain, afterwards an excellent puritan.+ During Mr. Rough's ministry among these people, he was apprehended, with Mr. Cuthbert Sympson and some others, at a house in Islington, where the church was about to assemble for prayer and preaching theword ; and being taken before the council, after several examinations, he was sent to Newgate, and his case committed to the management of Bonner. The character of this prelate, whose hands were so deeply stained with innocent blood, needs no colouring in this place : the faithful pages of his- tory will always hold it up to the execration of mankind. In his hands, Mr. Rough met with the most relentless cruelty. Not content with degrading him, and delivering him over to the secular power, the furious prelate flew. upon him, and plucked the beard from his face. And, at length, after much cruel usage, he ended his life in the flames, in December, 15574 Mr. Sympson, who was deacon of the church, was a pious, faithful, and zealous man, labouring incessantly to preserve the flock from the errors of popery, and to secure them from the dangers of persecution. At the time of his apprehension, the whole church was, indeed, in the utmost danger. It was Mr. Sympson's office to keep a book, containing thenames of all the persons belonging to the congregation, which book he always carried to their private assemblies. But it -was so ordered, by the good On one of these nocturnal occasions, being assembled in a house, by the side of the river, in Thames-street, they were discovered ; and thehouse was so guarded, that their enemies were sure none could escape. But among them was a worthymariner, who, seeing no other way of deliver- ance, got out at a back door; and swimming to a boat in the river, brought it; and having received all the good people into it, he made oars of his shoes, and conveyed them all away in safety.- Clark's Martyrologie, p. 515, 516. t Ibid.-Strype's Annals, vol. i. p. 292. Fox's Martyrs, vol. iii. p. 722, 726. - Mr. Rough had been a cele- brated preacher in Scotland, and also in England, in the reign of Edward VI. A sermon which he delivered in the parish church of St. Andrew, was made a great blessing to the celebrated Mr. John Knox, and proved the means of bringing him forth to engage in his public Ministry.-Bieg. Briton. vol. iv. p. 2865. Edit. 1747.
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