In the spring of 1540 he, like Latimer, had the benefit of the general pardon, but was released only with a prohibition from preaching or coming near London or either of the universities, or returning to his former diocese. For some years he lived in obscurity. He held a parochial charge as curate at Hadleigh in Suffolk,Diarmaid McCulloch, Thomas Cranmer (1996), p. 353. and in the spring of 1546 was summoned to London to answer for maintaining false doctrine on the sacrament. He said when he left that he should either have to burn or to forsake the truth, and on 18 June he, with Anne Askew and two others, was arraigned for heresy at the Guildhall. All four were condemned to execution; but the king sent Bishops Edmund Bonner and Nicholas Heath, and his chaplains, Dr. Robinson and Dr. Redman, to confer with Shaxton and his fellow prisoner, Nicholas White, and they succeeded in persuading both of them to repudiate their heresy.
