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The order and manner of the burning of Anne Askew, John Lacels, John Adams, Nicholas Belenian, with certaine of the Councell sitting in Smithfield.

The priest cited him before the spiritual court. He replied by counsel, suing the curate in a praemunire. In return Hun was arrested on a charge of Lollardry and put into Lambeth Palace. And here shortly afterwards he was found dead. He had hanged himself, said the Bishop and Chancellor. The people began to murmur. Hanged himself? Why should so good a man hang himself? A coroner’s inquest was held upon the body. The jury indicted the Chancellor and two men, the bell-ringer and the summoner, for murdering Richard Hun. The King’s attorney, however, would go no further in the matter. By the Bishop’s orders the body was burned at Smithfield. But the murder—if it was a murder—of Richard Hun was not forgotten. Nor was it forgotten that without a trial his body was burned as a heretic’s. These things lay in the minds of the people. And they rankled.