The most skilful acting could not have served Mary's purpose better than this outburst of natural emotion; the spectacle of their kneeling sovereign overcame for a time the scheming passions of her ministers; they were affected, burst into tears, and withdrew their opposition to her wishes.[139]

[Footnote 139: Ibid.]

On the 30th, the procession from the Tower to Westminster through the streets was safely accomplished. The retinues of the lords protected the queen from insult, and London put on its usual outward signs of rejoicing; St. Paul's spire was rigged with yards like a ship's mast, an adventurous sailor sitting astride on the weathercock five hundred feet in the air:[140] there was no interruption; and the next day (October 1), Arras having sent the necessary unction,[141] the ceremony was performed at the Abbey without fresh burdens being laid on Mary's conscience.

[Footnote 140: The Hot Gospeller, half-recovered from his gaol fever, got out of bed to see the spectacle, and took his station at the west end of St. Paul's. The procession passed so close as almost to touch him, and one of the train seeing him muffled up, and looking more dead than alive, said, There is one that loveth her majesty well, to come out in such condition. The queen turned her head and looked at him. To hear that any one of her subjects loved her just then was too welcome to be overlooked.—Underhill's Narrative: MS. Harleian, 425.]

[Footnote 141: Arras to Renard: Granvelle Papers, vol. iv. p. 105.]

The banquet in the great hall passed off with equal success; Sir Edward Dymocke, the champion, rode in and flung down his gage, and was listened to with becoming silence: on the whole, Mary's friends were agreeably disappointed; only Renard observed that, between the French ambassador and the Lady Elizabeth there seemed to be some secret understanding; the princess saluted Noailles as he passed her; Renard she would neither address nor look at—and Renard was told that she complained to Noailles of the weight of her coronet, and that Noailles "bade her have patience, and before long she would exchange it for a crown."[142]

[Footnote 142: Renard to the Regent Mary: Rolls House MSS.]

{p.062} The coronation was a step gained; it was one more victory, yet it produced no material alteration. Rome, and the Spanish marriage, remained as before, insoluble elements of difficulty; the queen, to her misfortune, was driven to rely more and more on Renard; and at this time she was so desperate and so ill-advised as to think of surrounding herself with an Irish bodyguard; she went so far as to send a commission to Sir George Stanley for their transport.[143]

[Footnote 143: "Mary, by the grace of God, Queen of England, etc.... to all mayors, sheriffs, justices of the peace, and other our subjects, these our letters, hearing or seeing: whereas we have appointed a certain number of able men to be presently levied for our service within our realm of Ireland, and to be transported hither with diligence, we let you wit that for that purpose we have authorised our trusty Sir George Stanley, Knight," etc.—October 5, 1553. From the original Commission: Tanner MSS. 90, Bodleian Library.]

The scheme was abandoned, but not because her relations with her own people were improved. Before parliament met, an anonymous pamphlet appeared by some English nobleman on the encroachments of the House of Austria, and on the treatment of other countries which had fallen through marriages into Austrian hands. In Lombardy and Naples every office of trust was described as held by a Spaniard; the Prince of Salerno was banished, the Prince of Benevento was a prisoner in Flanders, the Duke of Calabria a prisoner in Spain. Treating Mary's hopes of children as ridiculous, the writer pictured England, bound hand and foot, at the mercy of the insolent Philip, whose first step, on entering the country, would be to seize the Tower and the fleet, the next, to introduce a Spanish army and suppress the parliament. The free, glorious England of the Plantagenets would then be converted into a prostrate appanage of the dominions of Don Carlos. The pamphlet was but the expression of the universal feeling. Gardiner, indeed, perplexed between his religion and his country, for a few days wavered. Gardiner had a long debt to pay off against the Protestants, and a Spanish force, divided into garrisons for London and other towns, would assist him materially.[144] Partly, however, from attachment to Courtenay, partly from loyalty to his country, he shook off the temptation and continued to support the opposition.[145]

[Footnote 144: "J'estime qu'il desire presentment y veoir une bonne partie de l'Espaigne et Allemaigne, y tenir grosses et fortes garnisons, pour mortifier ce peuple, et s'en venger," etc.—Noailles to the King of France: Ambassades, vol. ii. p. 169.]

[Footnote 145: A look at Gardiner, at this time, through contemporary eyes, assists much towards the understanding him. Thomas Mountain, parson of St. Michael's by the Tower, an ultra-Reformer, had been out with Northumberland at Cambridge. The following story is related by himself.

"Sunday, October 8," Mountain says, "I ministered service, according to the godly order set forth by that blessed prince King Edward, the parish communicating at the Holy Supper. Now, while I was even a breaking of bread at the table, saying to the communicants, Take and eat this, Drink this, there were standing by several serving-men, to see and hear, belonging to the Bishop of Winchester; among whom one of them most shamefully blasphemed God, saying:

"Yea, by God's blood, standest thou there yet, saying—Take and eat, Take and drink; will not this gear be left yet? You shall be made to sing another song within these few days, I trow, or else I have lost my mark."

A day or two after came an order for Mountain to appear before Gardiner at Winchester House. Mountain said he would appear after morning prayers; but the messenger's orders were not to leave him, and he was obliged to obey on the instant.

The bishop was standing when he entered, "in a bay window, with a great company about him; among them Sir Anthony St. Leger, reappointed Lord Deputy of Ireland."

"Thou heretic," the Bishop began; "how darest thou be so bold as to use that schismatical service still, seeing God hath sent us a Catholic queen. There is such an abominable company of you, as is able to poison a whole realm with heresies."

"My lord," Mountain replied, "I am no heretic, for in that way you count heresy, so worship we the living God."

"God's passion," said the Bishop, "did I not tell you, my Lord Deputy, how you should know a heretic. He is up with his living God as though there was a dead God. They have nothing in their mouths, these heretics, but the Lord liveth; the living God; the Lord! the Lord! and nothing but the Lord."

"Here," says Mountain, "he chafed like a bishop; and as his manner was, many times he put off his cap, and rubbed to and fro up and down the forepart of his head, where a lock of hair was always standing up."

"My good Lord Chancellor," St. Leger said to him, "trouble not yourself with this heretic; I think all the world is full of them; God bless me from them. But, as your Lordship said, having a Christian queen reigning over us, I trust there will shortly be a reformation and an order taken with these heretics." "Submit yourself unto my lord," he said to Mountain, "and you shall find favour."

"Thank you, sir," Mountain answered, "ply your own suit, and let me alone."

A bystander then put in that the parson of St. Michael's was a traitor as well as a heretic. He had been in the field with the duke against the queen.

"Is it even so?" cried Gardiner; "these be always linked together, treason and heresy. Off with him to the Marshalsea; this is one of our new broached brethren that speaketh against good works; your fraternity was, is, and ever will be unprofitable in all ages, and good for nothing but the fire."—Troubles of Thomas Mountain: printed by Strype.

The portraits of Gardiner represent a fine, vehement-looking man. The following description of him, by Ponet, his rival in the See of Winchester, gives the image as it was reflected in Ponet's antipathies.

"The doctor hath a swart colour, hanging look, frowning brows, eyes an inch within his head, a nose, hooked like a buzzard's, nostrils like a horse, ever snuffing in the wind; a sparrow mouth, great paws like the devil, talons on his feet like a gripe, two inches longer than the natural toes, and so tied with sinews that he cannot abide to be touched."]

{p.063} Mary, except for the cautious support of Paget, stood otherwise alone coquetting with her fancy, and played upon by the skilful Renard. The queen and the ambassador were incessantly together, and Philip was the never-tiring subject of conversation between them. She talked of his disposition. She had heard, {p.064} she said, that he was proud; that he was inferior to his father in point of ability; and then he was young, and she had been told sad stories about him; if he was of warm temperament, he would not suit her at all, she said, considering the age at which she had arrived.[146] Moreover, when she was married, she must obey as God commanded; her husband, perhaps, might wish to place Spaniards in authority in England, and she would have to refuse; and that he would not like. To all of which, being the fluttering of the caught fly, Renard would answer that his highness was more like an angel than a man; his youth was in his favour, for he might live to see his child of age, and England had had too much experience of minorities. Life, he added remarkably, was shorter than it used to be; sixty was now a great age for a king; and as the world was, men were as mature at thirty as in the days of his grandfather they were considered at forty.[147] Then touching the constant sore—"her majesty," he said, "had four enemies, who would never rest till they had destroyed her or were themselves destroyed—the heretics, the friends of the late Duke of Northumberland, the courts of France and Scotland, and, lastly, her sister Elizabeth. Her subjects were restless, turbulent, and changeable as the ocean of which they were so fond;[148] the sovereigns of England had been only able to rule with a hand of iron, and with severities which had earned them the name of tyrants;[149] they had not spared the blood royal in order to secure their thrones, and she too must act as they had acted, leaning for support, meanwhile, on the arm of a powerful prince."

[Footnote 146: "Que s'il vouloit estre voluptueux ce n'est ce quelle desire pour estre de telle eaige."—Renard to the Emperor: Rolls House MSS.]

[Footnote 147: Renard to the Emperor: Rolls House MSS.]

[Footnote 148: "Vostre Majeste seit les humeurs des Angloys et leur voluntez estre forte discordantes, desireux de nouvellete, de mutation, et vindicatifz, soit pour estre insulaires, ou pour tenir ce natural de la marine."—Renard to Mary: Granvelle Papers, vol. iv. p. 129.]

[Footnote 149: "Les roys du passe on este forces de traicter en rigueur de justice et effusion de sang par l'execution de plusieurs du royaulme, voir du sang royal, pour s'asseurer et maintenir leur royaulme, dont ils out acquis le renom de tyrans et cruelz."—Ibid.]

To these dark hints Mary ever listened eagerly—meantime she was harassed painfully from another quarter.

{p.065} Reginald Pole, as might have been expected from his temperament, could ill endure the delay of his return to England. The hesitation of the queen and the objections of the emperor were grounded upon arguments which he assured himself were fallacious; the English nation, he continued to insist, were devoted to the Holy See; so far from being himself unpopular, the Cornish in the rebellion under Edward had petitioned for his recall, and had even designated him by the forbidden name of cardinal; they loved him and they longed for him; and, regarding himself as the chosen instrument of Providence to repair the iniquities of Henry VIII., he held the obstructions to his return not only to be mistaken, but to be impious. The duty of the returning prodigal was to submit; to lay aside all earthly considerations—to obey God, God's vicegerent the pope, and himself the pope's representative.

Mendoza had been sent by Charles to meet Pole on his way to Flanders, and reason him into moderation. In return the legate wrote himself to Charles's confessor, commanding him to explain to his master the sin which he was committing. "The objection to his going to England," as Pole understood, "was the supposed danger of an outbreak". Were the truth as the emperor feared, the queen's first duty would be, nevertheless, to God, her own soul, and the souls of the millions of her subjects who were perishing in separation from the church; for no worldly policy or carnal respect ought she to defer for a moment to apply a remedy to so monstrous a calamity.[150] But the danger was imaginary—or, rather, such danger as there was, arose from the opposite cause. The right of the queen to the throne did not rest on an act of parliament; it rested on her birth as the lawful child of the lawful marriage between Henry and Catherine of Arragon. Parliament, he was informed, would affirm the marriage legitimate, if nothing was said about the pope; but, unless the pope's authority was first recognised, parliament would only stultify itself; the papal dispensation alone made valid a connection which, if the pope had no power to dispense, was incestuous, and the offspring of it illegitimate. God had made the peaceful settlement of the kingdom dependent {p.066} on submission to the Holy See,[151] and for parliament to interfere and give an opinion upon the subject would be but a fresh act of schism and disobedience.

[Footnote 150: "Quanto grave peccato et irreparabil danno sia il differir cosa che pertenga alle salute di tante anime, le quale mentre quel regno sta disunito dalla Chiesa, si trovano in manifesto pericolo della loro dannatione."—Pole to the Emperor's Confessor: MS. Germany, bundle 16, State Paper Office.]

[Footnote 151: God, he said, had joined the title to the Crown, "con l'obedientia della Sede Apostolica, che levata questa viene a cader in tutto, quella non essendo ella legitime herede del regno, se non per la legitimation del matrimonio della regina sua madre, et questa non valendo senon per l'autorita et dispensa del Papa."—Pole to the Emperor's Confessor: MS. Germany, bundle 16, State Paper office.]

The original letter, being in our own State Paper Office, was probably given by the confessor to Charles, and by Charles sent over to England. Most logical it was; so logical that it quite outwitted the intention of the writer. While it added to the queen's distress, it removed, nevertheless, all objections which might have been raised by the anti-papal party against the act to legitimatise her. So long as there was a fear that, by a repeal of the Act of Divorce between her father and mother, the pope's authority might indirectly be admitted, some difficulty was to be anticipated; as a new assertion of English independence, it could be carried with unanimous alacrity.

What parliament would or would not consent to, however, would soon cease to be a mystery. The advice of the emperor on the elections had been, for the most part, followed. It was obvious, indeed, that a sovereign who was unable to control her council was in no position to dictate to constituencies. There were no circulars to the lords-lieutenant of counties, such as Northumberland had issued, or such as Mary herself, a year later, was able to issue; while the unusual number of members returned to the Lower House—four hundred and thirty, it will be seen, voted on one great occasion—shows that the issue of writs had been on the widest scale. On the whole, it was, perhaps, the fairest election which had taken place for many years. In the House of Lords the ejection of the Reforming bishops and the restoration of their opponents—the death, imprisonment, or disgrace of three noblemen on the Reforming side, and the return to public life of the peers who, in the late reign, had habitually absented themselves, had restored a conservative majority. How the representatives of the people would conduct themselves was the anxious and all-agitating question. The queen, however, could console herself with knowing that Protestantism, as a system of belief, had made its way chiefly among the young; the votes were with the middle-aged and the old.

The session opened on the 5th of October with the ancient {p.067} form, so long omitted, of the mass of the Holy Ghost. Two Protestant bishops, Taylor of Lincoln and Harley of Hereford, who had been left as yet undisturbed in their sees, on the service commencing, rose and went out; they were not allowed to return. Two prebends, Alexander Nowel and Doctor Tregonwell had been returned to the Lower House; Nowel as a member of Convocation was declared ineligible;[152] Tregonwell, being a layman, was on consideration allowed to retain his seat. These were the only ejections which can be specifically traced, and the silence of those who were interested in making the worst of Mary's conduct, may be taken to prove that they did not know of any more.[153] The Houses, purged of these elements, then settled to their work; and, plunging at once into the great question of the time, the Commons came to an instant understanding that the lay owners of church lands should not be disturbed in their tenures under any pretext whatsoever.

[Footnote 152: "Friday, October 13, it was declared by the commissioners that Alex. Nowel, being prebendary in Westminster, and thereby having a voice in the Convocation House, cannot be a member of this House, and so agreed by the House."—Commons Journal, 1 Mary.]

[Footnote 153: Burnet and other Protestant writers are loud-voiced with eloquent generalities on the interference with the elections, and the ill-treatment of the Reforming members; but of interference with the elections they can produce no evidence, and of members ejected they name no more than the two bishops and the two prebends. Noailles, indeed, who had opportunities of knowing, says something on both points. "Ne fault douter, sire," he wrote to the King of France, "que la dicte dame n'obtienne presque tout ce qu'elle vouldra en ce parlement, de tant qu'elle a faict faire election de ceulx qui pourront estre en sa faveur, et jetter quelques uns a elle suspectz." The queen had probably done what she could; but the influence which she could exercise must obviously have been extremely small, and the event showed that the ambassador was entirely wrong in his expectations.]

Commendone, on returning to Rome, had disregarded his obligations to secrecy, and had related all that the queen had said to him in the open consistory; from the consistory the account travelled back to England, and arrived inopportunely at the opening of parliament. The fatal subject of the lands had been spoken of, and the queen had expressed to Commendone her intention to restore them, if possible, to the church. The council cross-questioned her, and she could neither deny her words nor explain them away; the Commons first, the Lords immediately after, showed her that, whatever might be her own hopes or wishes, their minds on that point were irrevocably fixed.[154]

[Footnote 154: Renard to Charles V., October 19: Rolls House MSS.]

No less distinct were the opinions expressed in the Lower House on the Papacy. The authority of the pope, as understood {p.068} in England, was not a question of doctrine, nor was the opposition to it of recent origin. It had been thrown off after a struggle which had lasted for centuries, and a victory[155] so hardly won was not to be lightly parted with. Lord Paget warned the queen that Pole's name must not be so much as mentioned, or some unwelcome resolution about him would be immediately passed;[156] and she was in hourly dread that before they would consent to anything, they would question her whether she would or would not maintain the royal supremacy.[157] On the other hand, if no difficulties were raised about the pope or the church lands, the preliminary discussion, both among Lords and Commons, showed a general disposition to re-establish religion in the condition in which Henry left it—provided, that is to say, no penalties were to attach to nonconformity; and the Houses were ready also to take the step so much deprecated by Pole, and pass a measure legitimatising the queen, provided no mention was to be made of the papal dispensation. Some difference of opinion on the last point had shown itself in the House of Commons,[158] but the legate's ingenuity had removed all serious obstacles.

[Footnote 155: Even the most reactionary clergy, men like Abbot Feckenham and Doctor Bourne, had no desire, as yet, to be re-united to Rome. In a discussion with Ridley in the Tower, on the real presence, Feckenham argued that "forty years before all the world was agreed about it. Forty years ago, said Ridley, all held that the Bishop of Rome was supreme head of the Universal Church. What then? was Master Feckenham beginning to say; but Master Secretary (Bourne) took the tale, and said that was a positive law. A positive law, quoth Ridley; he would not have it so; he challenged it by Christ's own word, by the words, 'Thou art Peter; thou art Cephas,' Tush, quoth Master Secretary, it was not counted an article of our faith."—Foxe, vol. vi.]

[Footnote 156: Renard to Charles V., October 28: Rolls House MSS.]

[Footnote 157: Ibid. October 15: Rolls House MSS.]

[Footnote 158: Ibid.]

Again parliament seemed determined that the Act of Succession, and the will of Henry VIII., should not be tampered with, to the disfavour of Elizabeth. It is singular that Renard, and probably, therefore, Mary, were unaware of the position in which Elizabeth was placed towards the crown. They imagined that her only title was as a presumptively legitimate child; that if the Act of Divorce between Catherine of Arragon and Henry was repealed, she must then, as a bastard, be cut off from her expectations. Had Elizabeth's prospects been liable to be affected by the legitimisation of her sister, the queen would have sued as vainly for it as she sued afterwards in favour of her husband. With unmixed mortification Renard learnt that Elizabeth, in the eye of the law, had been as illegitimate as Mary, and that her {p.069} place in the order of succession rested on her father's will. He flattered himself, at first, that Henry's dispositions could be set aside;[159] but he very soon found that there was no present hope of it.

[Footnote 159: Renard to Charles V., October 21: Rolls House MSS.]

These general features of the temper of parliament were elicited in conversation in the first few days of the session. The Marchioness of Exeter, during the same days, was released from her attainder, Courtenay was restored in blood, and a law, similar to that with which Somerset commenced his Protectorate, repealed all late treason acts, restricted the definition of treason within the limits of the statute of Edward III., and relieved the clergy of the recent extensions of the Premunire. The queen gave her assent to these three measures on the 21st of October; and there was then an interval of three days, during which the bishops were consulted on the view taken by parliament of the queen's legitimacy. Renard told the Bishop of Norwich, Thirlby, that they must bend to the times, and leave the pope to his fortunes. They acted on the ambassador's advice. An act was passed, in which the marriage from which the queen was sprung, was declared valid, and the pope's name was not mentioned; but the essential point being secured, the framers of the statute were willing to gratify their mistress by the intensity of the bitterness with which the history of the divorce was related.[160] The bishops must have been glad to escape from so mortifying a subject, and to apply themselves to the more congenial subject of religion.

[Footnote 160: 1 Mary, cap. 1.]

As soon as the disposition of parliament had been generally ascertained, the restoration of the mass was first formally submitted, for the sake of decency, to the clergy of Convocation.

The bench had been purged of dangerous elements. The Lower House contained a small fraction of Protestants just large enough to permit a controversy, and to insure a triumph to their antagonists. The proceedings opened with a sermon from Harpsfeld, then chaplain of the Bishop of London, in which, in a series of ascending antitheses, Northumberland was described as Holofernes, and Mary as Judith; Northumberland was Haman, and Mary was Esther; Northumberland was Sisera, and Mary was the mother in Israel. Mary was the sister who had chosen the better part: religion ceased and slept until Mary arose a virgin in Israel, and with the mother of God Mary might sing, "Behold, from henceforth all generations shall call {p.070} me blessed." The trumpet having thus sounded, the lists were drawn for the combat; the bishops sat in their robes, the clergy stood bareheaded, and the champions appeared. Hugh Weston, Dean of Windsor, Dean of Westminster afterwards, Dr. Watson, Dr. Moreman, and the preacher Harpsfeld undertook to defend the real presence against Phillips Dean of Rochester, Philpot, Cheny, Aylmer, and Young.

The engagement lasted for a week. The reforming theologians fought for their dangerous cause bravely and temperately; and Weston, who was at once advocate and prolocutor, threw down his truncheon at last, and told Philpot that he was meeter for Bethlehem than for a company of grave and learned men, and that he should come no more into their house.[161] The orthodox thus ruled themselves the victors: but beyond the doors of the Convocation House they did not benefit their cause. The dispute, according to Renard, resolved itself, in the opinion of the laity, into scandalous railing and recrimination;[162] the people were indignant; and the Houses of Parliament, disgusted and dissatisfied, resumed the discussion among themselves, as more competent to conduct it with decency. In eight days the various changes introduced by Edward VI. were argued in the House of Commons, and points were treated of there, said Renard, which a general council could scarcely resolve. At length, by a majority, which exceeded Gardiner's most sanguine hopes, of 350 against 80, the mass was restored, and the clergy were required to return to celibacy.[163]

[Footnote 161: Report of the Disputation in the Convocation House.—Foxe, vol. v. p. 395.]

[Footnote 162: Renard to Charles V., October 28: Rolls House MSS.]

[Footnote 163: Ibid. November 8: Rolls House MSS.]

The precipitation with which Somerset, Cranmer, and Northumberland had attempted to carry out the Reformation, was thus followed by a natural recoil. Protestant theology had erected itself into a system of intolerant dogmatism, and had crowded the gaols with prisoners who were guilty of no crime but Nonconformity; it had now to reap the fruits of its injustice, and was superseded till its teachers had grown wiser. The first parliament of Mary was indeed more Protestant, in the best sense of that word, than the statesmen and divines of Edward. While the House of Commons re-established the Catholic services, they decided, after long consideration, that no punishment should be inflicted on those who declined to attend those services.[164] There was to be no pope, no persecution, no restoration of the abbey {p.071} lands—resolutions, all of them disagreeable to a reactionary court. On the Spanish marriage both Lords and Commons were equally impracticable. The Catholic noblemen—the Earls of Derby, Shrewsbury, Bath, and Sussex were in the interest of Courtenay. The chancellor had become attached to him in the Tower when they were fellow-prisoners there; and Sir Robert Rochester, Sir Francis Englefield, Sir Edward Waldegrave, the queen's tried and faithful officers of the household, went with the chancellor. Never, on any subject, was there greater unanimity in England than in the disapproval of Philip as a husband for the queen, and, on the 29th of October, the Lower House had a petition in preparation to entreat her to choose from among her subjects.

[Footnote 164: Ibid. December 8.]

To Courtenay, indeed, Mary might legitimately object. Since his emancipation from the Tower he had wandered into folly and debauchery; he was vain and inexperienced, and his insolence was kept in check only by the quality so rare in an Englishman of personal timidity. But to refuse Courtenay was one thing, to fasten her choice on the heir of a foreign kingdom was another. Paget insisted, indeed, that, as the Queen of Scots was contracted to the Dauphin, unless England could strengthen herself with a connection of corresponding strength, the union of the French and Scottish crowns was a menace to her liberties.[165] But the argument, though important in itself, was powerless against the universal dread of the introduction of a foreign sovereign, and it availed only to provide Mary with an answer to the protests and entreaties of her other ministers.

[Footnote 165: Renard.]

Perhaps, too, it confirmed her in her obstinacy, and allowed her to persuade herself that, in following her own inclination, she was consulting the interests of her subjects. Obstinate, at any rate, she was beyond all reach of persuasion. Once only she wavered, after her resolution was first taken. Some one had told her that, if she married Philip, she would find herself the step-mother of a large family of children who had come into the world irregularly. A moral objection she was always willing to recognise. She sent for Renard, and conjured him to tell her whether the prince was really the good man which he had described him; Renard assured her that he was the very paragon of the world.

She caught the ambassador's hand.

"Oh!" she exclaimed, "do you speak as a subject whose duty is to praise his sovereign, or do you speak as a man?"

{p.072} "Your majesty may take my life," he answered, "if you find him other than I have told you."

"Oh that I could but see him!" she said.

She dismissed Renard gratefully. A few days after she sent for him again, when she was expecting the petition of the House of Commons. "Lady Clarence," one of the queen's attendants, was the only other person present. The holy wafer was in the room on an altar, which she called her protector, her guide, her adviser.[166] Mary told them that she spent her days and nights in tears and prayers before it, imploring God to direct her; and as she was speaking her emotions overcame her; she flung herself on her knees with Renard and Lady Clarence at her side, and the three together before the altar sang the Veni Creator. The invocation was heard in the breasts from which it was uttered. As the chant died into silence, Mary rose from the ground as if inspired, and announced the divine message. The Prince of Spain was the chosen of Heaven for the virgin queen; if miracles were required to give him to her, there was a stronger than man who would work them; the malice of the world should not keep him from her; she would cherish him and love him, and him alone; and never thenceforward, by a wavering thought, would she give him cause for jealousy.[167]

[Footnote 166: "Elle l'avoit toujours invoque comme son protecteur, conducteur, et conseilleur."—Renard to Charles V., October 31: Rolls House MSS.]

[Footnote 167: Renard to Charles V., October 31: Rolls House MSS.]

It was true that she had deliberately promised not to do what she was now resolved on doing, but that was no matter.

The Commons' petition was by this time (November) ready, but the agitation of the last scene brought on a palpitation of the heart which for the time enabled the queen to decline to receive it; while Renard assailed the different ministers, and extracted from them their general views on the state of the country, and the measures which should be pursued.

The Bishop of Winchester he found relaxing in his zeal for Rome, and desiring a solid independent English government, the re-enactment of the Six Articles, and an Anglican religious tyranny supported by the lords of the old blood. Nobles and people were against the pope, Gardiner said, and against foreign interference of all sorts; Mary could not marry Philip without a papal dispensation, which must be kept secret; the country would not tolerate it;[168] the French would play into the hands of {p.073} the heretics, and the Spanish alliance would give them the game; there would be a cry raised that Spanish troops would be introduced to inflict the pope upon the people by force. If the emperor desired the friendship of England, he would succeed best by not pressing the connection too close. Political marriages were dangerous. Cromwell tied Henry VIII. to Anne of Cleves; the marriage lasted a night, and destroyed him and his policy. Let the queen accept the choice of her people, marry Courtenay, send Elizabeth to the Tower, and extirpate heresy with fire and sword.

[Footnote 168: "Il fauldra obtenir dispense du Pape, pour le parentage, qui ne pourra estre publique ains secrete, autrement le peuple se revolteroit, pour l'auctorite du Pape qu'il ne veult admettre et revoir."—Renard to Charles V., November 9: Rolls House MSS.]

These were the views of Gardiner, from whom Renard turned next to Paget.

If the queen sent Elizabeth to the Tower, Lord Paget said, her life would not be safe for a day. Paget wished her to be allowed to choose her own husband; but she must first satisfy parliament that she had no intention of tampering with the succession. Should she die without children, the country must not be left exposed to claims from Spain on behalf of Philip, or from France on behalf of the Queen of Scots. His own advice, therefore, was, that Mary should frankly acknowledge her sister as her presumptive successor; Elizabeth might be married to Courtenay, and, in default of heirs of her own body, it might be avowed and understood that those two should be king and queen. Could she make up her mind to this course, could she relinquish her dreams of restoring the authority of the pope, of meddling with the church lands, and interfering with the liberties of her people, she might rely on the loyalty of the country, and her personal inclinations would not be interfered with.[169]

[Footnote 169: Renard to Charles V., November 4: Rolls House MSS.]

Both the lines of conduct thus sketched were consistent and intelligible, and either might have been successfully followed. But neither the one nor the other satisfied Mary. She would have Philip, she would have the pope, and she would not recognise her sister. If she insisted on choosing a husband for herself, she felt it would be difficult to refuse her; her object was to surprise the council into committing themselves, and she succeeded. On the 8th of November, when they were in session in a room in the palace, Renard presented Mary in the emperor's name with a formal offer of Philip's hand, and requested a distinct answer, Yes or no. The queen said she would consult her ministers, and repaired in agitation to the council-room.[170] Distrusting {p.074} one another, unprepared for the sudden demand, and unable to consult in her presence, the lords made some answer, which she interpreted into acquiescence: Mary returned radiant with joy, and told the ambassador that his proposal was accepted.

[Footnote 170: "Visage intimide et gestes tremblans."—Renard to Charles V.: Rolls House MSS.]

A momentary lull followed, during which Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, Lady Jane Grey, Lord Guilford, Lord Ambrose, and Lord Henry Dudley were taken from the Tower on foot to the Guildhall, and were there tried, found guilty of high treason, and sentenced to die. Lady Jane the queen still intended to spare; the Dudleys she meant to pause upon. Cranmer, in a grave, mild letter, explained what his conduct had been with respect to his so-called treason; but his story, creditable to him as it was, produced no effect; Cranmer was immediately to be put to death. That was the first intention, though it was found necessary to postpone his fate through a superstitious scruple. The archbishop had received the pallium from Rome, and, until degraded by apostolic authority, he could not, according to Catholic rule, be condemned by a secular tribunal. But there was no intention of sparing him at the time of his trial; in a few days, Renard wrote on the 17th of November, "the archbishop" will be executed; and Mary, triumphant, as she believed herself, on the question nearest to her heart, had told him that the melancholy which had weighed upon her from childhood was rolling away; she had never yet known the meaning of happiness, and she was about to be rewarded at last.[171]

[Footnote 171: Renard to Charles V., November 17: Rolls House MSS.]

The struggle had told upon her. She was looking aged and worn,[172] and her hopes of children, if she married, were thought extremely small. But she considered that she had won the day, and was now ready to face the Commons; the House had chafed at the delay: they had talked largely of their intentions; if the queen's answer was unsatisfactory, they would dissolve themselves, they said, and return to their counties. On the 16th of November a message was brought that the Speaker would at last be admitted to the presence. The interview which followed, Mary thus herself described to Renard. The council were present; the Speaker was introduced, and the queen received him standing.

[Footnote 172: "Fort envieillie et agee."—Noailles.]

In an oration, she said, replete to weariness with fine phrases and historic precedents, the Speaker requested her, in the name of the commonwealth, to marry. The succession was perplexed; the Queen of Scots made pretensions to the crown; and, in the {p.075} event of her death, a civil war was imminent. Let her majesty take a husband, therefore, and with God's grace the kingdom would not be long without an heir whose title none would dispute. Yet, in taking a husband, the Speaker said, her majesty's faithful Commons trusted she would not choose from abroad. A foreign prince had interests of his own which might not be English interests; he would have command of English armies, fleets, and fortresses, and he might betray his trust; he might involve the country in wars; he might make promises and break them; he might carry her highness away out of the realm; or he might bring up her children in foreign courts and in foreign habits. Let her marry, therefore, one of her own subjects.

The Speaker was so prolix, so tedious, so confused, the queen said—his sentences were so long drawn and so little to the purpose—that she sate down before he had half-finished. When he came to the words "Marry a subject," she could remain silent no longer.

Replies to addresses of the House of Commons were usually read by the chancellor; but, careless of forms, she again started to her feet, and spoke:—[173]

[Footnote 173: Renard is the only authority for this speech, which he heard from the queen. Translated by him into French, and retranslated by myself into English, it has, doubtless, suffered much in the process.]

"For your desire to see us married we thank you; your desire to dictate to us the consort whom we shall choose we consider somewhat superfluous; the English parliament has not been wont to use such language to their sovereigns, and where private persons in such cases follow their private tastes, sovereigns may reasonably challenge an equal liberty. If you, our Commons, force upon us a husband whom we dislike, it may occasion the inconvenience of our death;[174] if we marry where we do not love, we shall be in our grave in three months, and the heir of whom you speak will not have been brought into being. We have heard much from you of the incommodities which may attend our marriage; we have not heard from you of the commodities thereof—one of which is of some weight with us, the commodity, namely, of our private inclination. We have not forgotten our coronation oath. We shall marry as God shall direct our choice, to his honour and to our country's good."

[Footnote 174: "Ce seroit procurer l'inconvenient de sa mort."]

She would hear no reply. The Speaker was led out, and as he left the room Arundel whispered to Gardiner that he had lost his office; the queen had usurped it. At the same moment the {p.076} queen herself turned to the chancellor—"I have to thank you, my lord, for this business," she said.

The chancellor swore in tears that he was innocent; the Commons had drawn their petition themselves; for himself it was true he was well inclined towards Courtenay; he had known him in the Tower.

"And is your having known him in the Tower," she cried, "a reason that you should think him a fitting husband for me? I will never, never marry him—that I promise you—and I am a woman of my word; what I say I do."

"Choose where you will," Gardiner answered, "your majesty's consort shall find in me the most obedient of his subjects."

Mary had now the bit between her teeth, and, resisting all efforts to check or guide her, was making her own way with obstinate resolution.

The next point was the succession, which, notwithstanding the humour of parliament, should be re-arranged, if force or skill could do it. There were four possible claimants after herself, she told Renard, and in her own opinion the best title was that of the Queen of Scots. But the country objected, and the emperor would not have the English crown fall to France. The Greys were out of the question, but their mother, the Duchess of Suffolk, was eligible; and there was Lady Lennox, also, Darnley's mother, who perhaps, after all, would be the best choice that could be made.[175] Elizabeth, she was determined, should never, never succeed. She had spoken to Paget about it, she said, and Paget had remonstrated; Paget had said marry her to Courtenay, recognise her as presumptive heir, and add a stipulation, if necessary, that she become a Catholic; but, Catholic or no Catholic, she said, her sister should never reign in England with consent of hers; she was a heretic, a hypocrite, and a bastard, and her infamous mother had been the cause of all the calamities which had befallen the realm.

[Footnote 175: Renard to Charles V., November 28: Rolls House MSS.]

Even Renard was alarmed at this burst of passion. He had fed Mary's suspicions till they were beyond either his control or her own; and the attitude of parliament had lately shown him that, if any step were taken against Elizabeth without provocation on her part, it would infinitely increase the difficulty of concluding the marriage. He was beginning to believe, and he ventured to hint to the queen, that Paget's advice might be worth consideration; but on this subject she would listen to nothing.

{p.077} Elizabeth had hitherto, when at court, taken precedence of all other ladies. The queen now compelled her to walk behind Lady Lennox and the Duchess of Suffolk, as a sign of the meditated change;[176] and the ladies of the court were afraid to be seen speaking to her. But in reply to Mary's derogatory treatment, the young lords, knights, and gentlemen gathered ostentatiously round the princess when she rode abroad, or thronged the levees at her house; old-established statesmen said, in Renard's ear, that, let the queen decide as she would, no foreigner should reign in England; and Lord Arundel believed that Elizabeth's foot was already on the steps of the throne. A large and fast-growing party, which included more than one member of the Privy Council, were now beginning to consider, as the best escape from Philip, that Courtenay had better fly from the court, taking Elizabeth with him—call round him in their joint names all who would strike with him for English independence, and proclaim the queen deposed.

[Footnote 176: "Elle l'a faict quelquefois aller apres la Comtesse de Lennox, que l'on appelle icy Madame Marguerite, et Madame Francoise, qu'est la susdicte Duchesse de Suffolk."—Noailles to the King of France, November 30.]

There was uncertainty about Elizabeth herself; both Noailles and Renard believed that she would consent to this dangerous proposal; but she had shown Courtenay, hitherto, no sign of favour; while Courtenay, on his side, complained that he was frightened by her haughty ways. Again there was a serious difficulty in Courtenay's character; he was too cowardly for a dangerous enterprise, too incapable for an intricate one, and his weak humour made men afraid to trust themselves to a person who, to save himself, might at any moment betray them. Noailles, however, said emphatically that, were Courtenay anything but what he was, his success would be certain.[177]

[Footnote 177: Noailles to the King of France, December 6.]

The plot grew steadily into definite form. Devonshire and Cornwall were prepared for insurrection, and thither, as to the stronghold of the Courtenay family, Elizabeth was to be first carried. Meantime the ferment of popular feeling showed in alarming symptoms through the surface. The council were in continual quarrel. Parliament, since the rebuff of the Speaker, had not grown more tractable, and awkward questions began to be asked about a provision for the married clergy. All had been already gained which could be hoped for from the present House of Commons; and, on the 6th of December, the session ended in a dissolution. The same day a dead dog was thrown {p.078} through the window of the presence chamber with ears cropped, a halter about its neck, and a label saying that all the priests in England should be hanged.

Renard, who, though not admitted, like Noailles, into the confidence of the conspirators, yet knew the drift of public feeling, and knew also Arundel's opinion of the queen's prospects, insisted that Mary should place some restraint upon herself, and treat her sister at least with outward courtesy; Philip was expected at Christmas, should nothing untoward happen in the interval; and the ambassador prevailed on her, at last, to pretend that her suspicions were at an end. His own desire, he said, was as great as Mary's that Elizabeth should be detected in some treasonable correspondence; but harshness only placed her on her guard; she would be less careful, if she believed that she was no longer distrusted. The princess, alarmed perhaps at finding herself the unconsenting object of dangerous schemes, had asked permission to retire to her country house. It was agreed that she should go; persons in her household were bribed to watch her; and the queen, yielding to Renard's entreaties, received her when she came to take leave with an appearance of affection so well counterfeited, that it called out the ambassador's applause.[178] She made her a present of pearls, with a head-dress of sable; and the princess, on her side, implored the queen to give no more credit to slanders against her. They embraced; Elizabeth left the court; and, as she went out of London, five hundred gentlemen formed about her as a voluntary escort.[179] There were not wanting fools, says Renard, who would persuade the queen that her sister's last words were honestly spoken; but she remembers too acutely the injuries which her mother and herself suffered at Anne Boleyn's hands; and she has a fixed conviction that Elizabeth, unless she can be first disposed of, will be a cause of infinite calamities to the realm.[180]

[Footnote 178: "La Reine a tres bien dissimulee, en son endroict."—Renard to Charles V., December 8: Rolls House MSS.]

[Footnote 179: Noailles.]

[Footnote 180: Renard to Charles V., December 8: Rolls House MSS.]



{p.079} CHAPTER II.

THE SPANISH MARRIAGE.

The fears of Renard and the hopes of Noailles were occasioned by the unanimity of Catholics and heretics in the opposition to the marriage; yet, so singular was the position of parties, that this very unanimity was the condition which made the marriage possible. The Catholic lords and gentlemen were jealous of English independence, and, had they stood alone, they would have coerced the queen into an abandonment of her intentions: but, if they dreaded a Spanish sovereign, they hated unorthodoxy more, and if they permitted, or assisted in the schemes of the Reformers, they feared that they might lose the control of the situation when the immediate object was obtained. Those who were under the influence of Gardiner desired to restore persecution; and persecution, which was difficult with Mary on the throne, would be impossible under a sovereign brought in by a revolution. They made a favourite of Courtenay, but they desired to marry him to the queen, not to Elizabeth: Gardiner told the young earl that he would sooner see him the husband of the vilest drab who could be picked out of the London kennels.[181]

[Footnote 181: Renard to Charles V.: Rolls House MSS.]

Thus, from their murmurs, they seemed to be on the edge of rebellion; yet, when the point of action came, they halted, uncertain what to do, unwilling to acquiesce, yet without resolution to resist. From a modern point of view the wisest policy was that recommended by Paget. The claim of the Queen of Scots on the throne unquestionably made it prudent for England to strengthen herself by some powerful foreign alliance; sufficient precautions could be devised for the security of the national independence; and, so far from England being in danger of being drawn into the war on the continent, Lord Paget said that, if England would accept Philip heartily, the war would be at an end. Elizabeth of France might marry Don Carlos, taking with her the French pretensions to Naples and Milan as a dowry. Another French princess might be given to the expatriated Philibert, and Savoy and Piedmont restored with her. "You," {p.080} Paget said to Noailles, "by your Dauphin's marriage forced us to be friends with the Scots; we, by our queen's marriage, will force you to be friends with the emperor."[182]

[Footnote 182: "Le dict Paget me respondict qu'il n'estoit ja besoing d'entrer en si grande jalousie, et que tout ainsi que nous les avions faicts amys avecques les Escossoys, ce marriage seroit aussy cause que nous serions amys avecques l'Empereur."—Noailles to the King of France, December 26. Compare also the letter of December 23, Ambassades, vol. ii. pp. 334-356.]

Paget, however, was detested as an upstart, and detested still more as a latitudinarian; he could form no party, and the queen made use of him only to support her in her choice of the Prince of Spain, as in turn she would use Gardiner to destroy the Protestants; and thus the two great factions in the state neutralised each other's action in a matter in which both were equally anxious; and Mary, although with no remarkable capacity, without friends and ruined, if at any moment she lost courage, was able to go her own way in spite of her subjects.

The uncertainty was, how long so anomalous a state of things would continue. The marriage, being once decided on, Mary could think of nothing else, and even religion sank into the second place. Reginald Pole, chafing the imperial bridle between his lips, vexed her, so Renard said, from day to day, with his untimely importunities;[183] the restoration of the mass gave him no pleasure so long as the papal legate was an exile; and in vain the queen laboured to draw from him some kind of approval. He saw her only preferring carnal pleasures to her duty to Heaven; and, indifferent himself to all interests save those of the See of Rome, he was irritated with the emperor, irritated with the worldly schemes to which he believed that his mission had been sacrificed. He talked angrily of the marriage. The queen heard, through Wotton the ambassador at Paris, that he had said openly, it should never take place;[184] while Peto, the Greenwich friar, who was in his train, wrote to her, reflecting impolitely on her age, and adding Scripture commendations of celibacy as the more perfect state.[185] It was even feared {p.081} that the impatient legate had advised the pope to withhold the dispensations.

[Footnote 183: Renard to Charles V.: November 14, November 28, December 3, December 8, December 11: Rolls House MSS.]

[Footnote 184: Renard to Charles V.: Rolls House MSS. The queen wrote to Wotton to learn his authority. The Venetian ambassador, Wotton said, was the person who had told him; but the quarter from which the information originally came, he believed, might be relied on.—Wotton to the Queen and Council: MS. State Paper Office.]

[Footnote 185: "Un des principaulx qu'il a avec luy que se nomme William Peto, theologien, luy a escript luy donnant conseil de non se marrier, et vivre en celibat; meslant en ses lettres plusieurs allegations du Vieux et Nouveau Testament, repetant x ou xii fois qu'elle tombera en la puissance et servitude du mari, qu'elle n'aura enfans, sinon soubz danger de sa vie pour l'age dont elle est."—Renard to Charles V.: Tytler, vol. ii. p. 303.]

Mary, beyond measure afflicted, wrote to Pole at last, asking what in his opinion she ought to do. He sent his answer through a priest, by whom it could be conveyed with the greatest emphasis. First, he said, she must pray to God for a spirit of counsel and fortitude: next, she must, at all hazards, relinquish the name of Head of the Church; and, since she could trust neither peer nor prelate, she must recall parliament, go in person to the House of Commons, and demand permission with her own mouth for himself to return to England. The holy see was represented in his person, and was freshly insulted in the refusal to receive him; the pope's vast clemency had volunteered unasked to pardon the crimes of England; if the gracious offer was not accepted, the legacy would be cancelled, the national guilt would be infinitely enhanced. The emperor talked of prudence; in the service of God prudence was madness; and, so long as the schism continued, her attempts at reform were vanity, and her seat upon the throne was usurpation. Let her tell the truth to the House of Commons, and the House of Commons would hear.[186]

[Footnote 186: Instructions of Cardinal Pole to Thomas Goldwell: Cotton MSS. Titus, B. 11.]

"Your majesty will see," wrote Renard, enclosing to Charles a copy of these advices, "the extent of the cardinal's discretion, and how necessary it is that for the present he be kept at a distance." The pope was not likely to reject the submission of England at any moment, late or early, when England might be pleased to offer it, and could well afford to wait. Julius was wiser than his legate. Pole was not recalled, but exhorted to patience, and a letter or message from Rome cooled Mary's anxieties. Meanwhile the marriage was to be expedited with as much speed as possible; the longer the agitation continued, the greater the danger; while the winter was unfavourable to revolutionary movements, and armed resistance to the prince's landing would be unlikely so long as the season prevented large bodies of men from keeping the field.[187]

[Footnote 187: Renard dwelt much on this point as a reason for haste.]

The emperor, therefore, in the beginning of December, sent over the draft of a marriage treaty; and if the security that the articles would be observed had equalled the form in which they were conceived, the English might have afforded to lay aside their alarms. Charles seemed to have anticipated almost every {p.082} point on which the insular jealousy would be sensitive. The Prince of Spain should bear the title of King of England so long, but so long only as the queen should be alive; and the queen should retain the disposal of all affairs in the realm, and the administration of the revenues. The queen, in return, should share Philip's titles, present and prospective, with the large settlement of L60,000 a year upon her for her life. Don Carlos, the prince's child by his first wife, would, if he lived, inherit Spain, Sicily, the Italian provinces, and the Indies. But Burgundy and the Low Countries should be settled on the offspring of the English marriage, and be annexed to the English crown; and this prospect, splendid in itself, was made more magnificent by the possibility that Don Carlos might die. Under all contingencies, the laws and liberties of the several countries should be held inviolate and inviolable.

In such a treaty the emperor conferred everything, and in return received nothing; and yet, to gain the alliance, a negotiation already commenced for the hand of the Infanta of Portugal was relinquished. The liberality of the proposals was suspicious, but they were submitted to the council, who, unable to refuse to consider them, were obliged to admit that they were reasonable. Five additional clauses were added, however, to which it was insisted that Philip should swear before the contract should be completed—

1. That no foreigner, under any circumstances, should be admitted to any office in the royal household, in the army, the forts, or the fleet.

2. That the queen should not be taken abroad without her own consent; and that the children—should children be born—should not be carried out of England without consent of parliament, even though among them might be the heir of the Spanish empire.

3. Should the queen die childless, the prince's connection with the realm should be at an end.

4. The jewel-house and treasury should be wholly under English control, and the ships of war should not be removed into a foreign port.

5. The prince should maintain the existing treaties between England and France; and England should not be involved, directly or indirectly, in the war between France and the empire.[188]

[Footnote 188: Marriage Treaty between Mary, Queen of England, and Philip of Spain: Rymer, vol. vi.]

These demands were transmitted to Brussels, where they were {p.083} accepted without difficulty, and further objection could not be ventured unless constraint was laid upon the queen. The sketch of the treaty, with the conditions attached to it, was submitted to such of the Lords and Commons as remained in London after the dissolution of parliament, and the result was a sullen acquiescence.

An embassy was immediately announced as to be sent from Flanders. Count Egmont, M. de Courieres, the Count de Lalaing, and M. de Nigry, Chancellor of the Golden Fleece, were coming over as plenipotentiaries of the emperor. Secret messengers went off to Rome to hasten the dispensations—a dispensation for Mary to marry her cousin, and a dispensation which also was found necessary permitting the ceremony to be performed by a bishop in a state of schism. The marriage could be solemnised at once on their arrival, the ambassadors standing as Philip's representatives, while Sir Philip Hoby, Bonner, Bedford, and Lord Derby would go to Spain to receive the prince's oaths, and escort him to England. Again and again the queen pressed haste. Ash-Wednesday fell on the 6th of February, and in Lent she might not marry. Renard assured her that the prince should be in her arms before Septuagesima, and all her trials would be over. The worst danger which he now anticipated was from some unpleasant collision which might arise after the prince's landing; and he had advised the emperor to have the Spaniards who would form the retinue selected for their meekness. They would meet with insolence from the English, which they would not endure, if they had the spirit to resent it; their dispositions, therefore, must be mild and forgiving.[189]

[Footnote 189: Renard to Charles V., December 11: Rolls House MSS.]

And yet Renard could not hide from himself, and the lords did not hide from Mary, that their consent was passive only; that their reluctance was vehement as ever. Bedford said, if he went to Spain, he must go without attendance, for no one would accompany him. Lord Derby refused to be one of the ambassadors, and with Sir Edward Waldegrave and Sir Edward Hastings told the queen that he would leave her service if she persisted. The seditious pamphlets which were scattered everywhere created a vague terror in the court, and the court ladies wept and lamented in the queen's presence. The council in a body again urged her to abandon her intention. The peers met again to consider the marriage articles. Gardiner read them aloud, and Lord Windsor, a dull Brutus, who till then had {p.084} never been known to utter a reasonable word, exclaimed, amidst general applause, "You have told us fine things of the queen, and the prince, and the emperor; what security have we that words are more than words?" Corsairs from Brest and Rochelle hovered in the mouth of the Channel to catch the couriers going to and fro between Spain and London and Brussels, and to terrify Philip with the danger of the passage. The Duke of Suffolk's brother and the Marquis of Winchester had been heard to swear that they would set upon him when he landed; and Renard began to doubt whether the alliance, after all, was worth the risk attending it.[190] Mary, however, brave in the midst of her perplexities, vowed that she would relinquish her hopes of Philip only with her life. An army of spies watched Elizabeth day and night, and the emperor, undeterred by Renard's hesitation, encouraged the queen's resolution. There could be no conspiracy as yet, Charles said, which could not be checked with judicious firmness; and dangerous persons could be arrested and made secure. A strong hand could do much in England, as was proved by the success for a time of the late Duke of Northumberland.[191]

The advice fell in with Mary's own temperament; she had already been acting in the spirit of it. A party of Protestants met in St. Matthew's Church on the publication of the acts of the late session, to determine how far they would obey them. Ten or twelve were seized on the spot, and two were hanged out of hand.[192] The queen told Hastings and Waldegrave that she would endure no opposition; they should obey her or they should leave the council. She would raise a few thousand men, she said, to keep her subjects in order, and she would have a thousand Flemish horse among them. There was a difficulty about ways and means; as fast as money came into the treasury she had paid debts with it, and, as far as her means extended, she had replaced chalices and roods in the parish churches. But, if she was poor, five millions of gold had just arrived in Spain from the New World; and, as the emperor suggested, her credit was good at Antwerp from her honesty. Lazarus Tucker came again to the rescue. In November, Lazarus provided L50,000 for her at fourteen per cent. In January she required L100,000 more, and she ordered Gresham to find it for her at low interest {p.085} or high.[193] Fortunately for Mary the project of a standing army could not be carried out by herself alone, and the passive resistance of the council saved her from commencing the attempt. Neither Irish mercenaries, nor Flemish, nor Welsh, as, two months after she was proposing to herself, were permitted to irritate England into madness.

[Footnote 190: "The English," he said, "sont si traictres, si inconstantes, si doubles, si malicieux, et si faciles a esmover qu'il ne se fault fier; et si l'alliance est grande, aussi est elle hazardeuse pour la personne de son Altesse."—Renard to Charles V., December 12: Rolls House MSS.]

[Footnote 191: Charles V. to Renard, December 24: Rolls House MSS.]

[Footnote 192: Renard to Charles V., December 20: Ibid.]

[Footnote 193: The queen to Sir Thomas Gresham: Flanders MSS. Mary, State Paper Office.]

While Mary was thus buffeting with the waves, on the 23rd, Count Egmont and his three companions arrived at Calais. The French had threatened to intercept the passage, and four English ships-of-war had been ordered to be in waiting as their escort: these ships, however, had not left the Thames, being detained either by weather, as the admiral pretended, or by the ill-humour of the crews, who swore they would give the French cruisers small trouble, should they present themselves.[194] On Christmas-day ill-looking vessels were hanging in mid-channel, off Calais harbour, but the ambassadors were resolved to cross at all risks. They stole over in the darkness on the night of the 26th, and were at Dover by nine in the morning. Their retinue, a very large one, was sent on at once to London; snow was on the ground, and the boys in the streets saluted the first comers with showers of balls. The ambassadors followed the next day, and were received in silence, but without active insult. The emperor's choice of persons for his purpose had been judicious. The English ministers intended to be offensive, but they were disarmed by the courtesy of Egmont, who charmed every one. In ten days the business connected with the treaty was concluded. The treaty itself was sent to Brussels to be ratified, and the dispensations from Rome, and the necessary powers from the Prince of Spain, were alone waited for that the marriage might be concluded in public or in private, whichever way would be most expeditious. The queen cared only for the completion of the irrevocable ceremony, which would bring her husband to her side before Lent.[195]

[Footnote 194: Noailles to the King of France, December 6: Ambassades, vol. ii.]

[Footnote 195: The Bishop of Arras to the Ambassadors in England: Granvelle Papers, vol. iv. p. 181, etc.]

The interval of delay was consumed in hunting-parties[196] and dinners at the palace, where the courtiers played off before the guests the passions of their eager mistress.[197] The enemies of {p.086} the marriage, French and English, had no time to lose, if they intended to prevent the completion of it.

[Footnote 196: The 10th day of January the ambassadors rode into Hampton Court, and there they had as great cheer as could be had, and hunted and killed, tag and rag, with hounds and swords.—Machyn's Diary.]

[Footnote 197: After dinner Lord William Howard entered, and, seeing the queen pensive, whispered something to her in English; then turning to us, he asked if we knew what he had said? The queen bade him not tell, but he paid no attention to her. He told us he had said he hoped soon to see somebody sitting there, pointing to the chair next her majesty. The queen blushed, and asked him how he could say so. He answered that he knew very well she liked it; whereat her majesty laughed, and the court laughed, etc.—Egmont and Renard to Charles V.: Rolls House MSS.]

When the queen's design was first publicly announced, the King of France directed Noailles to tell her frankly the alarm with which it was regarded at Paris. Henry and Montmorency said the same repeatedly, and at great length, to Dr. Wotton. The queen might have the best intentions of remaining at peace, but events might be too strong for her; and they suggested, at last, that she might give a proof of the good-will which she professed by making a fresh treaty with them.[198] That a country should be at peace while its titular king was at war, was a situation without a precedent. Intricate questions were certain to arise; for instance, if a mixed fleet of English and Spanish ships should escort the prince, or convoy his transports or treasure, or if the English ships having Spaniards on board, should enter French harbours. A thousand difficulties such as these might occur, and it would be wise to provide for them beforehand.

[Footnote 198: Noailles.]

The uneasiness of the court of Paris was not allayed when the queen met this most reasonable proposal with a refusal.[199] A clause, she replied, was added to the marriage articles for the maintenance of the existing treaties with France, and with that and with her own promises the French government ought to be content. In vain Noailles pointed out that the existing treaties would not meet the new conditions; she was obstinate, and both Noailles and the King of France placed the worst interpretation upon her attitude. Philip, after his arrival, would unquestionably drag or lead her into his quarrels; and they determined, therefore, to employ all means, secret and open, to prevent his coming, and to co-operate with the English opposition.

[Footnote 199: Ibid.]

The time to act had arrived. Rumours were industriously circulated that the Prince of Spain was already on the seas, bringing with him ten thousand Spaniards, who were to be landed at the Tower, and that eight thousand Germans were to follow from the Low Countries. Noailles and M. d'Oysel, then on his way through London to Scotland, had an interview with a number of lords and gentlemen, who undertook to place themselves at the head of an insurrection, and to depose the queen. {p.087} The whole country was crying out against her, and the French ministers believed that the opposition had but to declare itself in arms to meet with universal sympathy. They regarded the persons with whom they were dealing as the representatives of the national discontent; but on this last point they were fatally mistaken.

Noailles spoke generally of lords and gentlemen; but those with whom d'Oysel and himself had communicated were a party of ten or twelve of the pardoned friends of the Duke of Northumberland, or of men otherwise notorious among the ultra-Protestants; the Duke of Suffolk and his three brothers, Lord Thomas, Lord John, and Lord Leonard Grey; the Marquis of Northampton; Sir Thomas Wyatt, son of the poet; Sir Nicholas Throgmorton; Sir Peter Carew; Sir Edmund Warner; Lord Cobham's brother-in-law; and Sir James Crofts, the late deputy of Ireland.[200] Courtenay, who had affected orthodoxy as long as he had hopes of the queen, was admitted into the confederacy. Cornwall and Devonshire were to be the first counties to rise, where Courtenay would be all-powerful by his name. Wyatt undertook to raise Kent, Sir James Crofts the Severn border, Suffolk and his brothers the midland counties. Forces from these four points were to converge on London, which would then stir for itself. The French Admiral Villegaignon promised to keep a fleet on the seas, and to move from place to place among the western English harbours, wherever his presence would be most useful. Plymouth had been tampered with, and the mayor and aldermen, either really, or as a ruse to gain information, affected a desire to receive a French garrison.[201] For the sake of their cause the Protestant party were prepared to give to France an influence in England as objectionable in itself, and as offensive to the majority of the people, as the influence of Spain; and the management of the opposition to the queen was snatched from the hands of those who might have brought it to some tolerable issue, by a set of men to whom the Spanish marriage was but the stalking-horse for the reimposition of their late {p.088} tyranny. If the Duke of Northumberland, instead of setting up a rival to Mary, had loyally admitted her to the throne which was her right, he might have tied her hands, and secured the progress of moderate reform. Had the great patriotic anti-papal party been now able to combine, with no disintegrating element, they could have prevented the marriage or made it harmless. But the ultra-party plunged again into treason, in which they would succeed only to restore the dominion of a narrow and blighting sectarianism.[202]

[Footnote 200: Noailles and d'Oysel to the King of France, January 15: Ambassades, vol. iii.]

[Footnote 201: "Sire, tout maintenant en achevant cette lettre, les maire et aldermans de Plymouth, m'ont envoye prier de vous supplier les vouloir prendre en votre protection, voulans et deliberans mettre leur ville entre vos mains, et y recepvoir dedans telle garrison qu'il vous plaira y envoyer; s'estans resoubz de ne recevoir aulcunement le Prince d'Espaigne, ne s'asservir en facon que ce soit a ses commandemens, et s'asseurans que tous les gentilz-hommes de l'entour d'icy en feroient de mesme."—Noailles to the King of France: Ambassades, vol. ii. p. 342.]

[Footnote 202: One of the projects mooted was the queen's murder; a scheme suggested by a man from whom better things might have been expected, William Thomas, the late Clerk of the Council. Wyatt, however, would not stain the cause with dark crimes of that kind, and threatened Thomas with rough handling for his proposal.]

The conspirators remained in London till the second week in January. Wyatt went into Kent, Peter Carew ran down the Channel to Exmouth in a vessel of his own, and sent relays of horses as far as Andover for Courtenay, Sir Nicholas Throgmorton undertaking to see the latter thus far upon his way. The disaffection was already simmering in Devonshire. There was a violent scene among the magistrates at the Christmas quarter-sessions at Exeter. A countryman came in and reported that he had been waylaid and searched by a party of strange horsemen in steel saddles, "under the gallows at the hill top," at Fair-mile, near Sir Peter Carew's house. His person had been mistaken, it seemed, but questions were asked, inquiries made, and ugly language had been used about the queen. On Carew's arrival the ferment increased. One of his lacqueys, mistaking intention for fact, whispered in Exeter that "my Lord of Devonshire was at Mohun's Ottery."[203] Six horses heavily loaded passed in, at midnight, through the city gates. The panniers were filled with harness and hand-guns from Sir Peter's castle at Dartmouth.[204] Sir John Chichester, Sir Arthur Champernowne, Peter and Gawen Carew, and Gybbes of Silverton, had met in private, rumour said for no good purpose; and the Exeter Catholics were anxious and agitated. They had been all disarmed after the insurrection of 1549, the castle was in ruins, the city walls were falling down. Should Courtenay come, the worst consequences were anticipated.

[Footnote 203: The house of Sir Peter Carew.]

[Footnote 204: Miscellaneous Depositions on the State of Devonshire: MS. Domestic, Mary, vol. ii. State Paper Office.]

But Courtenay did not come. After Carew had left London, he became nervous; when the horses were reported to be ready, he lingered about the court; he flattered himself that the queen {p.089} had changed her mind in his favour; and two nights before the completion of the treaty he sate up, affecting to expect to be sent for to marry her on the spot.[205] Finding the message did not arrive, he gave an order to his tailor to prepare a splendid court costume, adding perhaps some boasting words, which were carried to Gardiner. The chancellor's regard for him was sincere, and went beyond a desire to make him politically useful. He sent for him, cross-questioned him, and by the influence of a strong mind over a weak one, drew out as much as Courtenay knew of the secrets of the plot.[206]

[Footnote 205: Instructions to la Marque: Noailles, vol. iii. p. 25, etc.]

[Footnote 206: Noailles to the King of France: Ambassades, vol. iii. p. 31.]

The intention was to delay, if possible, an open declaration of rebellion a few weeks longer—till the Prince of Spain's arrival should raise the ferment to boiling point. Gardiner, who was determined, at all events, to prevent the Protestants from making head, informed the queen, without mentioning Courtenay's name, that he had cause to suspect Sir Peter Carew. A summons was despatched to Devonshire to require Sir Peter and his brother to return to London; and thus either to compel them to rise prematurely, without Courtenay's assistance, or, if they complied, to enable the court to secure their persons. The desired effect was produced; Carew had waded too deep in treason to trust himself in Gardiner's hands. He wrote an excuse, yet protesting his loyalty; and he invited the inhabitants of Exeter to join in a petition to the crown against the marriage, as a first step towards a rising.

But the Carews were notorious and unpopular; the justices of the peace at the sessions had been just occupied with a Protestant outrage committed by one of their nearest friends,[207] and their true object was suspected. The barns of Crediton were not forgotten, nor the massacre of the prisoners at Clyst, and without Courtenay they were powerless. Their invitation met with no response; and Chichester and Champernowne, seeing how the tide was setting, washed their hands of the {p.090} connection. Sir Thomas Dennys, a Catholic gentleman of the county, took command of Exeter, sent express for the sheriff, Sir Richard Edgecumbe, of Cotteyll, to come to his help, and as well as he could he put the city in a state of defence.[208] Carew retired to Mohun's Ottery, when an order came to Dennys from the court for his arrest.

[Footnote 207: "On the morning of Christmas-day came twelve neighbours of Silverton, being the parish where Mr. Gybbes dwelleth, and they complained to me of a cross of latten, and of an altar-cloth stolen out of the church before that time; and that the cross was set up upon a gate or upon a hedge by the way, where the picture of Christ was dressed with a paste or such like tyre, and the picture of our Lady and St. John tied by threads to the arms of the cross, like thieves." "Mr. Gybbes" could not be actually convicted of having been the perpetrator, but he was "vehemently suspected," and, when examined, had used "vile words."—Depositions of John Prideaux: MS. Mary, Domestic, vol. ii. State Paper Office.]

[Footnote 208: Depositions of John Prideaux: MS. Mary, Domestic, vol. ii. State Paper Office.]

Dennys, who desired Carew's escape more than his capture, replied that for the moment he could not execute the order. Mohun's Ottery could not be taken without cannon, and wet weather had made the roads impassable. Meantime he gave Sir Peter notice of his danger; and Sir Peter, disposing in haste of his farm stock to raise a supply of money, crossed the country to Weymouth, embarked in a vessel which "Mr. Walter Raleigh" had brought round to meet him, and sailed for France.[209]

[Footnote 209: Ibid.]

One arm of the conspiracy was thus lopped off at the first blow. But, although Courtenay's treachery was known, some days elapsed before the ill success of Carew was heard of in London. Courtenay had been trusted only so far as his intended share in the action had made it necessary to trust him, and the confederates were chiefly anxious that, having broken down, he should be incapacitated from doing further mischief by being restored to the Tower. Courtenay, wrote Noailles, has thrown away his chance of greatness, and will now probably die miserably. Lord Thomas Grey was heard to say that, as Courtenay had proved treacherous he would take his place, and run his chance for the crown or the scaffold.[210]

[Footnote 210: Noailles.]

They would, perhaps, have still delayed till they had received authentic accounts from Devonshire; but the arrest of Sir Edmund Warner, and one or two others, assured them that too much of their projects had transpired; and on the 22nd of January Sir Thomas Wyatt called a meeting of his friends at Allingham Castle, on the Medway. The commons of Kent were the same brave, violent, and inflammable people whom John Cade, a century before, had led to London; the country gentlemen were generally under Wyatt's influence. Sir R. Southwell, the sheriff for the year, had been among the loudest objectors in parliament to the marriage; and if Southwell joined in the rising he would bring with him Lord Abergavenny.[211] Lord Cobham, Wyatt's uncle, was known to wish him well. Sir {p.091} Thomas Cheyne, the only other person of weight in the county, would be loyal to the queen, but Wyatt had tampered with his tenants; Cheyne could bring a thousand men into the field, but they would desert when led out, and there was nothing to fear from them. Whether Southwell and Cobham would act openly on Wyatt's side was the chief uncertainty; it was feared that Southwell might desire to keep within the limits of loyal opposition; Cobham offered to send his sons, but "the sending of sons," some member of the meeting said, "was the casting away of the Duke of Northumberland; their lives were as dear to them as my Lord Cobham's was to him; let him come himself and set his foot by them."[212] The result of the conference was a determination to make the venture. Thursday the 25th was the day agreed on for the rising, and the gentlemen present went in their several directions to prepare the people.

[Footnote 211: Confession of Anthony Norton: MS. Mary, Domestic, vol. iii. State Paper Office.]

[Footnote 212: Confession of Anthony Norton: MS. Mary, Domestic, vol. iii. State Paper Office.]

Meantime Gardiner was following the track which Courtenay had opened. He knew generally the leaders of the conspiracy, yet uncertain, in the universal perplexity, how any one would act, he knew not whom to trust. To send Courtenay out of the way, he allowed a project to be set on foot for despatching him on an embassy to Brussels (January 23); and anxious, perhaps, not to alarm Mary too much, he simply told her what she and Renard knew already, that treasonable designs were on foot to make Elizabeth queen. In a conversation about Elizabeth the chancellor agreed with Renard that it would be well to arrest her without delay. "Were but the emperor in England," Gardiner said, "she would be disposed of with little difficulty."[213] Unfortunately, the spies had as yet detected no cause for suspicion on which the government could act legitimately.

[Footnote 213: Renard to Charles V.: Rolls House MSS.]

Mary, ignorant that she was in immediate danger, and only vaguely uneasy, looked to Philip's coming as the cure of her discomforts. "Let the prince come," she said to Renard, "and all will be well." She said she would raise eight thousand men and keep them in London as his guard and hers; she would send a fleet into the Channel and sweep the French into their harbours; only let him come before Lent, which was now but a fortnight distant: "give him my affectionate love," she added; "tell him that I will be all to him that a wife ought to be; and tell him, too [delightful message to an already hesitating bridegroom], tell him to bring his own cook with him" for fear he should be poisoned,[214] The ceremony, could it have been accomplished, {p.092} would have been a support to her; but the forms from Rome were long in coming. On the 24th of January the emperor was at last able to send a brief, which, in the absence of the bulls, he trusted might be enough to satisfy the queen's scruples. Cuthbert Tunstal, who had been consecrated before the schism, might officiate, and the pope would remove all irregularities afterwards.[215] But when the letter and the brief arrived Mary was at no leisure to be married.

[Footnote 214: Ibid.]

[Footnote 215: Charles V. to the Ambassadors in England, January 24 Granvelle Papers, vol. iv.]

Wyatt, having arranged the day for the rising, sent notice to the Duke of Suffolk, who was still in London. On the morning of the 25th an officer of the court appeared at the duke's house, with an intimation that he was to repair to the queen's presence. Suffolk was in a riding dress—"Marry!" he said, "I was coming to her grace; ye may see I am booted and spurred; I will but break my fast and go."[216] The officer retired. The duke collected as much money as he could lay hands on—sent a servant to warn his brothers, and, though in bad health, mounted his horse and rode without stopping to Lutterworth, where, on the Sunday following, Lord John and Lord Thomas Grey joined him.

[Footnote 216: Chronicle of Queen Mary. Baoardo says that Suffolk was sent for to take command of the force which was to be sent against Wyatt. But Wyatt's insurrection had not commenced, far less was any resolution taken to send a force against him. Noailles is, doubtless, right in saying that he was to have been arrested.—Ambassades, vol. iii. p. 48.]

The same morning of the 25th an alarm was rung on the church bells in the towns and villages in all parts of Kent; and copies of a proclamation were scattered abroad, signifying that the Spaniards were coming to conquer the realm, and calling on loyal Englishmen to rise and resist them. Wyatt's standard was raised at Rochester, the point at which the insurgent forces were to unite; his friends had done their work well, and in all directions the yeomen and the peasants rose in arms. Cheyne threw himself into Dover Castle: Southwell and Abergavenny held to the queen as had been feared; Abergavenny raised two thousand men, and attacked and dispersed a party of insurgents under Sir Henry Isly on Wrotham Heath; but Abergavenny's followers deserted him immediately afterwards, and marched to Rochester to Wyatt; Southwell could do nothing; he believed that the rebellion would spread to London, and that Mary would be lost.[217]

[Footnote 217: Southwell to Sir William Petre: MS. Mary. Domestic, State Paper Office.]

{p.093} On the 26th, Wyatt, being master of Rochester and the Medway, seized the queen's ships that were in the river, took possession of their guns and ammunition, proclaimed Abergavenny, Southwell, and another gentleman traitors to the commonwealth,[218] and set himself to organise the force which continued to pour in upon him. Messengers, one after another, hurried to London with worse and worse news; Northampton was arrested and sent to the Tower, but Suffolk and his brothers were gone; and, after all which had been said of raising troops, when the need came for them there were none beyond the ordinary guard. The queen had to rely only on the musters of the city and the personal retainers of the council and the other peers; both of which resources she had but too much reason to distrust. In fact, the council, dreading the use to which the queen might apply a body of regular troops, had resisted all her endeavours to raise such a body; Paget had laboured loyally for a fortnight, and at the end he assured the queen on his knees that he had not been allowed to enlist a man.[219] Divided on all other points, the motley group of ministers agreed to keep Mary powerless; with the exception of Gardiner and Paget, they were all, perhaps, unwilling to check too soon a demonstration which, kept within bounds, might prove the justice of their own objections.

[Footnote 218: "You shall understand that Henry Lord of Abergavenny; Robert Southwell, knight, and George Clarke, gentleman, have most traitorously, to the disturbance of the commonwealth, stirred and raised up the queen's most loving subjects of this realm, to [maintain the] most wicked and devilish enterprise of certain wicked and perverse councillors, to the utter confusion of this her Grace's realm, and the perpetual servitude of all her most loving subjects. In consideration whereof, we Sir Thos. Wyatt, knight, Sir George Harper, knight, Anthony Knyvet, esq., with all the faithful gentlemen of Kent, with the trusty commons of the same, do pronounce and declare the said Henry Lord of Abergavenny, Robert Southwell, and George Clarke to be traitors to God, the Crown, and the commonwealth."—MS. Mary, Domestic, State Paper Office.]

[Footnote 219: Renard to Charles V.: Rolls House MSS.]

The queen, however, applied to the corporation of the city (January 27), and obtained a promise of five hundred men; she gave the command to the Duke of Norfolk, on whose integrity she knew that she could rely; and, sending a herald to Rochester with a pardon, if the rebels would disperse, she despatched Norfolk, Sir Henry Jerningham, and the young Lord Ormond, to Gravesend, without waiting for an answer. The city bands were to follow them immediately. Afraid that Elizabeth would fly before she could be secured, the queen wrote a letter to her studiously gracious, in which she told her that, in the disturbed state of the country, she was uneasy for her safety, and recommended {p.094} her to take shelter with herself in the palace.[220] Had Elizabeth obeyed, she would have been instantly arrested; but she was ill, and wrote that she was unable to move. The next day evidence came into Gardiner's hands which he trusted would consign her at last to the scaffold.

[Footnote 220: Strype, vol. v. p. 127. Mr. Tytler appeals to this letter as an evidence of the good feeling of the queen towards her sister; but many and genuine as were Mary's good qualities, she may not be credited with a regard for Elizabeth. Renard's letters explain her real sentiments, and account for her outward graciousness. She had already consulted with Renard and Gardiner on the necessity of sending her to the Tower; and, on the 29th of January, as the princess did not avail herself of the queen's proposal, Renard describes himself to the emperor as pressing her immediate arrest.—Rolls House MSS.]

The King of France had sent a message to the confederates that he had eighty vessels in readiness, with eighteen companies of infantry, and that he waited to learn on what part of the coast they should effect a landing.[221] The dangerous communication had been made known to the court. The French ambassador had been narrowly watched, and one of his couriers who left London on the 26th with despatches for Paris was followed to Rochester, where he saw, or attempted to see, Wyatt. The courier, after leaving the town, was waylaid by a party of Lord Cobham's servants in the disguise of insurgents; his despatches were taken from him and sent to the chancellor, who found in the packet a letter of Noailles to the king in cypher, and a copy of Elizabeth's answer to the queen. Although in the latter there was no treason, yet it indicated a suspicious correspondence. The cypher, could it be read, might be expected to contain decisive evidence against her.[222]