Protestant writer and theologian John Frith has been condemned to die for his faith. Thomas Cromwell - ever the pragmatist, though sympathetic to the reformers - is trying to convince him to recant: 'They will burn you.'John Frith was burned at the stake on July 4, 1533. He was 30 years old.
'And you think I cannot bear the pain. You are right, I cannot. But they will give me no choice. As More says, it hardly makes a man a hero, to agree to stand and burn once he is chained to a stake. I have written books and I cannot unwrite them. I cannot unbelieve what I believe. I cannot unlive my life.'
From Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall, p. 435.
