In the evening, at his own request, he was left alone. He slept undisturbed the early part of the night. From the time that he awoke till the guard entered, he was on his knees.

The morning was windy and wet. The scene of the execution was an open space opposite the college, near a large elm tree, where Hooper had been accustomed to preach. Several thousand people were collected to see him suffer; some had climbed the tree, and were seated in the storm and rain among the leafless branches. A company of priests were in a room over the college gates, looking out with pity or satisfaction, as God or the devil was in their hearts.

"Alas!" said Hooper, when he was brought out, "why be all these people assembled here, and speech is prohibited me?" He had suffered in prison from sciatica, and was lame, but he limped cheerfully along with a stick, and smiled when he saw the stake. At the foot of it he knelt; and as he began to pray, a box was brought, and placed on a stool before his eyes, which he was told contained his pardon if he would recant.

"Away with it;" Hooper only cried; "away with it!"

"Despatch him, then," Lord Chandos said, "seeing there is no remedy."

He was undressed to his shirt, in the cold; a pound of gunpowder was tied between his legs, and as much more under either {p.195} arm; he was fastened with an iron hoop to the stake, and he assisted with his own hands to arrange the faggots round him.

The fire was then brought, but the wood was green; the dry straw only kindled, and burning for a few moments was blown away by the wind. A violent flame paralysed the nerves at once, a slow one was torture. More faggots were thrown in, and again lighted, and this time the martyr's face was singed and scorched; but again the flames sank, and the hot damp sticks smouldered round his legs. He wiped his eyes with his hands, and cried, "For God's love, good people, let me have more fire!" A third supply of dry fuel was laid about him, and this time the powder exploded, but it had been ill placed, or was not enough. "Lord Jesu, have mercy on me!" he exclaimed; "Lord Jesu, receive my spirit!" These were his last articulate words; but his lips were long seen to move, and he continued to beat his breast with his hands. It was not till after three-quarters of an hour of torment that he at last expired.

The same day, at the same hour, Rowland Taylor was burnt on Aldham Common, in Suffolk. Laurance Sandars had been destroyed the day before at Coventry, kissing the stake, and crying, "Welcome the cross of Christ! welcome everlasting life!" The first-fruits of the Whitehall pageant were gathered. By the side of the rhetoric of the hysterical dreamer who presided in that vain melodrama, let me place a few words addressed by the murdered Bishop of Gloucester to his friends, a week before his sentence.

"The grace of God be with you, amen. I did write unto you of late, and told you what extremity the parliament had concluded upon concerning religion, suppressing the truth, and setting forth the untruth; intending to cause all men, by extremity, to forswear themselves; and to take again for the head of the church him that is neither head nor member of it, but a very enemy, as the word of God and all ancient writers do record. And for lack of law and authority they will use force and extremity, which have been the arguments to defend the pope and popery since their authority first began in the world. But now is the time of trial, to see whether we fear more God or man. It was an easy thing to hold with Christ whilst the prince and the world held with him; but now the world hateth him, it is the true trial who be his.

"Wherefore in the name, and in the virtue, strength, and power of his Holy Spirit, prepare yourselves in any case to adversity and constancy. Let us not run away when it is most {p.196} time to fight. Remember, none shall be crowned but such as fight manfully; and he that endureth to the end shall be saved. Ye must now turn your cogitations from the perils you see, and mark the felicity that followeth the peril—either victory in this world of your enemies, or else a surrender of this life to inherit the everlasting kingdom. Beware of beholding too much the felicity or misery of this world; for the consideration and too earnest love or fear of either of them draweth from God. Wherefore think with yourselves as touching the felicity of the world, it is good; but none otherwise than it standeth with the favour of God; it is to be kept, but yet so far forth as by keeping it we lose not God. It is good abiding and tarrying still among our friends here, but yet so that we tarry not therewithal in God's displeasure, and hereafter dwell with the devils in fire everlasting. There is nothing under God but may be kept, so that God, being above all things we have, be not lost. Of adversity judge the same. Imprisonment is painful, but yet liberty upon evil conditions is more painful. The prisons stink; but yet not so much as sweet houses, where the fear and true honour of God lack. I must be alone and solitary; it is better so to be, and have God with me, than to be in company with the wicked. Loss of goods is great, but loss of God's grace and favour is greater. I am a poor simple creature, and cannot tell how to answer before such a great sort of noble, learned, and wise men. It is better to make answer before the pomp and pride of wicked men, than to stand naked, in the sight of all heaven and earth, before the just God at the latter day. I shall die by the hands of the cruel men; but he is blessed that loseth this life full of miseries, and findeth the life of eternal joys. It is pain and grief to depart from goods and friends; but yet not so much as to depart from grace and heaven itself. Wherefore there is neither felicity nor adversity of this world that can appear to be great, if it be weighed with the joys or pains in the world to come."[447]

[Footnote 447: Hooper to his friends: Foxe, vol. vi.]

Of five who had been sentenced, four were thus despatched. Bradford, the fifth, was respited, in the hope that the example might tell upon him. Six more were waiting their condemnation in Bonner's prisons. The enemies of the church were to submit or die. So said Gardiner, in the name of the English priesthood, with the passion of a fierce revenge. So said the legate and the queen, in the delirious belief that they were chosen instruments of Providence.

So, however, did not say the English lay statesmen. The {p.197} first and unexpected effect was to produce a difference of opinion in the court itself. Philip, to whom Renard had insisted on the necessity of more moderate measures, found it necessary to clear himself of responsibility; and the day after Hooper suffered, Alphonso a Castro, the king's chaplain, preached a sermon in the royal presence, in which he denounced the execution, and inveighed against the tyranny of the bishops. The Lords of the Council "talked strangely;" and so deep was the indignation, that the Flemish ambassador again expected Gardiner's destruction. Paget refused to act with him in the council any more, and Philip himself talked more and more of going abroad. Renard, from the tone of his correspondence, believed evidently at this moment that the game of the church was played out and lost. He wrote to the emperor to entreat that when the king went he might not himself be left behind; he was held responsible by the people for the queen's misdoings; and a party of the young nobility had sworn to kill him.[448]

[Footnote 448: "L'evesque de Londres avec les autres evesques assembleez en ce lieu pour l'execution du statut conclu en dernier Parlement sur le faict de la religion, a fait brusler trois heretiques; l'ung en ce lieu et les deux autres en pays; et sont apres pour continuer contre les obstinez: dont les nobles et le peuple heretique murmure et s'altere; selon que l'ay faict entendre au roy par ung billet par escript duquel la copie va avec les presentes; et la noblesse tousjours desire d'avoir occasion d'attirer le peuple et le faire joindre a revolte avec elle; et prevoys si Dieu n'y remedie, ou que telle precipitation ne se modere, les choses prendront dangereux succes, et signamment les partiaulx, contre le chancelier ne perdront ceste commodite de vengeance.... Les dictes conseilliers se retirent de negoces. Paget se voyant en la male grace de la royne, et de la pluspart du conseil, se trouve souvent au quartier dudict Sieurroy ... le peuple parle contre la royne estrangement.... Comme j'entendz que l'on parle pour me faire demeurer, et sejourner par deca apres le depart du roy, je n'ay pen delaisser de supplier tres humblement vostre majeste me excuser ... je suys certain l'on me tueroit incontinant apres ledict parlement," etc.—Renard to Charles V.: Granvelle Papers, vol. iv. pp. 400-402.]

Among the people the constancy of the martyrs had called out a burst of admiration. It was rumoured that bystanders had endeavoured to throw themselves into the fire to die at their side.[449] A prisoner, on examination before Bonner, was asked if he thought he could bear the flame. You may try me, if you will, he said. A candle was brought, and he held his hand, without flinching, in the blaze.[450] With such a humour abroad, {p.198} it seemed to Renard that the Lords had only to give the signal, and the queen and the bishops would be overwhelmed.

[Footnote 449: "Et a l'on dict que plusieurs ... se sont voulu voluntairement mettre sur le buche a coste de ceulx que l'on brusloit."—Ibid. p. 404.]

[Footnote 450: "Un bourgeois estant interrouge par ledict evesque de Londres se souffriroit bien le feug, respondist qu'il en fist l'experience: et aiant fait apporter une chandelle allumee, il meit la main dessus sans la retirer ny se mouvoir."—Renard to Charles V.: Granvelle Papers, vol. vi. p. 404. The man's name was Tomkins. Foxe, who tells the story as an illustration of Bonner's brutality, says that the Bishop himself held the hand. But Renard's is probably the truer version.]

He expected the movement in the spring. It is singular that, precisely as in the preceding winter, the deliberate intentions of moderate and competent persons were anticipated and defeated by a partial and premature conspiracy. At the end of February a confederate revealed a project for an insurrection, partly religious and partly agrarian. Placards were to be issued simultaneously in all parts of the country, declaring that the queen's pregnancy was a delusion, and that she intended to pass upon the nation a supposititious child; the people were, therefore, invited to rise in arms, drive out the Spaniards, revolutionise religion, tear down the enclosures of the commons, and proclaim Courtenay king under the title of Edward VII.[451] In such a scheme the lords and country gentlemen could bear no part. They could not risk a repetition of the popular rebellions of the late reign, and they resolved to wait the issue of the queen's pregnancy, while they watched over the safety of Elizabeth. The project of the court was now to send her to Flanders, where she was to remain under charge of the emperor; if possible, she was to be persuaded to go thither of her own accord; if she could not be persuaded, she would be otherwise removed. Lord William Howard, her constant guardian, requested permission to see and speak with her, and learn her own feelings. He was refused; but he went to her notwithstanding, and had a long private interview with her; and the court could only talk bitterly of his treason among themselves, make propositions to send him to the Tower which they durst not execute, and devise some other method of dealing with their difficulty.[452]

[Footnote 451: Renard to Charles V.: Granvelle Papers, vol. iv. p. 403.]

[Footnote 452: Renard to Charles V.: Ibid. pp. 404, 405.]

Meantime, Philip, who had pined for freedom after six weeks' experience of his bride, was becoming unmanageably impatient. A paper of advice and exhortation survives, which was addressed on this occasion by the ambassador to his master, with reflections on the condition of England, and on the conduct which the king should pursue.

"Your majesty must remember," said Renard, "the purpose for which you came to England. The French had secured the Queen of Scotland for the Dauphin. They had afterwards made an alliance with the late king, and spared no pains to secure the support of England. To counteract their schemes, and to {p.199} obtain a counter advantage in the war, the emperor, on the accession of the queen, resolved that your highness should marry her. Your highness, it is true, might wish that she was more agreeable;[453] but, on the other hand, she is infinitely virtuous, and, things being as they are, your highness, like a magnanimous prince, must remember her condition, and exert yourself, so far as you conveniently may, to assist her in the management of the kingdom.

[Footnote 453: "Et combien l'on pouvoit requerir plus de civilite en la Reyne.—Renard to Philip: Granvelle Papers, vol. iv. p. 394.]

"Your highness must consider that your departure will be misrepresented, your enemies will speak of it as a flight rather than as a necessary absence. The French will be busy with their intrigues, and the queen will not be pleased to lose you. The administration is in confusion, the divisions in the council are more violent than ever. Religion is unsettled; the heretics take advantage of these late barbarous punishments to say, that they are to be converted by fire, because their enemies are unable to convince them by reason or example. The orthodox clergy are still unreformed, and their scandalous conduct accords ill with the offices to which they are called.[454]

[Footnote 454: "Les gens d'eglise ne sont reformees, il y a plusieurs abuz qui donnent scandale et maulvaise impression, et ilz ne respondent aux offices auxquelz ilz sont appellez."—Ibid. p. 395.]

"Further, your highness will do well to weigh the uncertainty of the succession. Should the queen's pregnancy prove a mistake, the heretics will place their hopes in Elizabeth: and here you are in a difficulty whatever be done; for if Elizabeth be set aside, the crown will go to the Queen of Scots; if she succeed, she will restore heresy, and naturally attach herself to France. Some step must be taken about this before you leave the country; and you must satisfy the queen that you will assist her in her general difficulties, as a good lord and husband ought to do.[455]

[Footnote 455: "Donner ce contentement a la royne d'avoir intention de asseurer et establir ses affaires et la secourir comme bon Seigneur et mari."]

"The council must be reformed, if possible, and the number diminished; those who remain must be invited to renew their oaths to your majesty. Regard must be had to the navy, and especially to the admiral Lord William Howard; and above all there must be no more of this barbarous precipitancy in putting heretics to death. The people must be won from their errors by gentleness and by better instruction. Except in cases of especial scandal, the bishops must not be permitted to irritate them by {p.200} cruelty, and the legate must see that a better example is set by the clergy themselves.[456] The debts of the crown must be attended to; and your majesty should endeavour to do something which will give you popularity with the masses. Before all things, attend to the succession.

[Footnote 456: "Que es choses de la religion l'on ne use de precipitation par punition cruelle, ains avec la moderation, et mansuetude requise, et dont l'eglise a tousjours use; retirant le peuple de l'erreur par doctrine et predication, et que si ce n'est un acte scandaleux l'on ne passe oultre en chastoy que puisse alterer le peuple et le desgouter, que la reformation requise pour le bon example, soit introduicte sur les gens de l'eglise comme le legat advisera pour le mieulx."—Renard to Philip: Granvelle Papers, vol. iv. p. 395.]

"You cannot set aside the dispositions of King Henry in favour of Elizabeth without danger of rebellion. To recognise her as heir-presumptive without providing her with a husband, who can control her, will be perilous to the queen. The mean course between the extremes, will be therefore, for your highness to bring about her marriage with the Prince of Savoy. It will please the English, provided that her rights of inheritance are not interfered with; and although they will not go to war for our quarrel, they will not in that case be unwilling to assist in expelling the French from Piedmont.

"If your majesty approve, the thing can be done without delay. At all events, before you leave the country, you should see the princess yourself; give her your advice to be faithful to her sister, and, on your part, promise that you will be her friend, and assist her where you can find opportunity."



{p.201} CHAPTER IV.

THE MARTYRS.

The protests of Renard against the persecution received no attention.

The inquisition established by the legate was not to commence till Easter; but the prisons were already abundantly supplied with persons who had been arrested on various pretexts, and the material was ready in hand to occupy the interval. The four persons who had first suffered had been conspicuous among the leaders of the Reformation; but the bishops were for the most part prudent in their selection of victims, and chose them principally from among the poor and unfriended.

On the 9th of February, a weaver named Tomkins (the man who had held his hand in the candle), Pigot, a butcher, Knight, a barber, Hunter, an apprentice boy of 19, Lawrence, a priest, and Hawkes, a gentleman, were brought before Bonner in the Consistory at St. Paul's, where they were charged with denying transubstantiation, and were condemned to die. The indignation which had been excited by the first executions caused a delay in carrying the sentence into effect; but as the menace of insurrection died away the wolves came back to their prey. On the 9th of March, two more were condemned also, Thomas Causton and Thomas Higbed, men of some small property in Essex. To disperse the effect, these eight were scattered about the diocese. Tomkins died at Smithfield on the 16th of March; Causton and Higbed, Pigot and Knight, in different parts of Essex; Hawkes suffered later; Lawrence was burnt at Colchester. The legs of the latter had been crushed by irons in one of Bonner's prisons; he was unable to stand, and was placed at the stake in a chair. "At his burning, he sitting in the fire, the young children came about and cried, as well as young children could speak, Lord strengthen thy servant, and keep thy promise—Lord, strengthen thy servant, and keep thy promise."[457]

[Footnote 457: Foxe, vol. vi.]

Hunter's case deserves more particular mention. The London apprentices had been affected deeply by the Reforming preachers. It was to them that the servant of Anne Askew "made her {p.202} moan," and gathered subscriptions for her mistress. William Hunter, who was one of them, had been ordered to attend mass by a priest when it was re-established; he had refused, and his master, fearing that he might be brought into trouble, had sent him home to his family at Brentwood, in Essex.[458] Another priest, going one day into Brentwood Church, found Hunter reading the Bible there.

[Footnote 458: The story of Hunter was left in writing by his brother, and was printed by Foxe. I have already said that whenever Foxe prints documents instead of relating hearsays, I have found him uniformly trustworthy; so far, that is to say, as there are means of testing him.]

Could he expound Scripture, that he read it thus to himself? the priest asked. He was reading for his comfort, Hunter replied; he did not take on himself to expound. The Bible taught him how to live, and how to distinguish between right and wrong.

It was never merry world, the priest said, since the Bible came forth in English. He saw what Hunter was—he was one of those who disliked the queen's laws, and he and other heretics would broil for it before all was over.

The boy's friends thought it prudent that he should fly to some place where he was not known; but, as soon as he was gone, a Catholic magistrate in the neighbourhood required his father to produce him, on peril of being arrested in his place; and, after a struggle of affection, in which the father offered to shield his son at his own hazard, young Hunter returned and surrendered.

The magistrate sent him to the Bishop of London, who kept him in prison three quarters of a year. When the persecution commenced, he was called up for examination.

Bonner, though a bigot and a ruffian, had, at times, a coarse good-nature in him, and often, in moments of pity, thrust an easy recantation upon a hesitating prisoner. He tried with emphatic anxiety to save this young apprentice. "If thou wilt recant," he said to him, "I will make thee a freeman in the city, and give thee forty pounds in money to set up thy occupation withal; or I will make thee steward of mine house, and set thee in office, for I like thee well."

Hunter thanked him for his kindness; but it could not be, he said; he must stand to the truth: he could not lie, or pretend to believe what he did not believe. Bonner said, and probably with sincere conviction, that if he persisted he would be damned for ever. Hunter said, that God judged more righteously, and justified those whom man unjustly condemned.

He was therefore to die with the rest; and on Saturday, the {p.203} 23rd of March, he was sent to suffer at his native village. Monday being the feast of the Annunciation, the execution was postponed till Tuesday. The intervening time he was allowed to spend with his friends "in the parlour of the Swan Inn." His father prayed that he might continue to the end in the way that he had begun. His mother said, she was happy to bear a child who could find in his heart to lose his life for Christ's sake. "Mother," he answered, "for my little pain which I shall suffer, which is but a short braid, Christ hath promised me a crown of joy. May you not be glad of that, mother?"

Amidst such words the days passed. Tuesday morning the sheriff's son came and embraced him, "bade him not be afraid," and "could speak no more for weeping." When the sheriff came himself for him, he took his brother's arm and walked calmly to the place of execution, "at the town's end, where the butts stood."

His father was at the roadside as he passed. "God be with thee, son William!" the old man said. "God be with thee, good father," the son answered, "and be of good comfort!"

When he was come to the stake, he took one of the faggots, knelt upon it, and prayed for a few moments. The sheriff read the pardon with the conditions. "I shall not recant," he said, and walked to the post, to which he was chained.

"Pray for me, good people, while you see me alive," he said to the crowd.

"Pray for thee!" said the magistrate who had committed him, "I will no more pray for thee than I will pray for a dog."

"Son of God," Hunter exclaimed, "shine on me!" The sun broke out from behind a cloud and blazed in glory on his face.

The faggots were set on fire.

"Look," shrieked a priest, "how thou burnest here, so shalt thou burn in hell!"

The martyr had a Prayer-book in his hands, which he cast through the flames to his brother.

"William," said the brother, "think on the holy passion of Christ, and be not afraid of death."

"I am not afraid," were his last words. "Lord, Lord, Lord, receive my spirit!"

Ten days later another victim was sacrificed at Carmarthen, whose fate was peculiarly unprovoked and cruel.

Robert Ferrars, who twenty-seven years before carried a faggot with Anthony Dalaber in High Street at Oxford, had been appointed by Somerset Bishop of St. David's. He was a {p.204} man of large humanity, justice, and uprightness—neither conspicuous as a theologian nor prominent as a preacher, but remarkable chiefly for good sense and a kindly imaginative tenderness. He had found his diocese infected with the general disorders of the times. The Chapter were indulging themselves to the utmost in questionable pleasures. The church patronage was made the prey of a nest of Cathedral lawyers, and, in an evil hour for himself, the bishop endeavoured to make crooked things straight.

After three years of struggle, his unruly canons were unable to endure him longer, and forwarded to the Duke of Northumberland an elaborate series of complaints against him. He was charged with neglecting his books and his preaching, and spending his time in surveying the lands of the see, and opening mines. He kept no manner of hospitality, it was said, but dined at the same table with his servants; and his talk was "not of godliness," "but of worldly matters, as baking, brewing, enclosing, ploughing, mining, millstones, discharging of tenants, and such like."

"To declare his folly in riding (these are the literal words of the accusation), he useth a bridle with white studs and snaffle, white Scottish stirrups, white spurs; a Scottish pad, with a little staff of three quarters [of a yard] long.

"He said he would go to parliament on foot; and to his friends that dissuaded him, alleging that it was not meet for a man in his place, he answered, I care not for that; it is no sin.

"Having a son, he went before the midwife to the church, presenting the child to the priest; and giving the name Samuel with a solemn interpretation of the name,[459] appointed two godfathers and two godmothers contrary to the ordinance, making his son a monster and himself a laughing-stock.

[Footnote 459: Wherefore it came to pass that Hannah bare a son, and called his name Samuel, saying, Because I have asked him of the Lord. 1 Samuel i. 20.]

"He daily useth whistling of his child, and saith that he understood his whistle when he was but three years old; and being advertised of his friends that men laughed at his folly, he answered, They whistle their horses and dogs: they might also be contented that I whistle my child; and so whistleth him daily, friendly admonition neglected.

"In his visitation, among other his surveys, he surveyed Milford Haven, where he espied a seal-fish tumbling, and he crept down to the rocks by the water-side, and continued there {p.205} whistling by the space of an hour, persuading the company that laughed fast at him, he made the fish to tarry there.

"Speaking of the scarcity of herrings, he laid the fault to the covetousness of fishers, who in time of plenty took so many that they destroyed the breeders.

"Speaking of the alteration of the coin, he wished that what metal soever it was made of, the penny should be in weight worth a penny of the same metal."

Such were the charges against Ferrars, which, notwithstanding, were considered serious enough to require an answer; and the bishop consented to reply.

He dined with his servants, he said, because the hall of the palace was in ruins, and for their comfort he allowed them to eat in his own room. For his hospitality, he appealed to his neighbours; and for his conversation, he said that he suited it to his hearers. He talked of religion to religious men; to men of the world, he talked "of honest worldly things with godly intent." He saw no folly in having his horse decently appointed; and as to walking to parliament, it was indifferent to him whether he walked or rode. God had given him a child, after lawful prayer, begotten in honest marriage; he had therefore named him Samuel, and presented him to the minister as a poor member of Christ's Church; it was done openly in the cathedral, without offending any one. The crime of whistling he admitted, "thinking it better to bring up his son with loving entertainment," to encourage him to receive afterwards more serious lessons. He had whistled to the seal; and "such as meant folly might turn it to their purpose." He had said that the destruction of the fry of fish prevented fish from multiplying, because he believed it to be true.

Answered or unanswered, it is scarcely credible that such accusations should have received attention; but the real offence behind, and is indicated in a vague statement that he had supposed himself to a premunire. The exquisite iniquity of the Northumberland administration could not endure a bishop who had opposed the corrupt administration of patronage; and the explanation being held as insufficient, Ferrars was summoned to London and thrown into prison, where Mary's accession found him.

Cut off in this way from the opportunities of escape which were long open to others, the bishop remained in confinement till the opening of the persecution. He was deposed from his see by Gardiner's first commission, as having been married; otherwise, {p.206} however, Ferrars was unobnoxious politically and personally. Being in prison, he had been incapable of committing any fresh offence against the queen, and might reasonably have been forgotten or passed over. But he had been a bishop, and he was ready caught to the hands of the authorities; and Mary had been compelled unwillingly to release a more conspicuous offender, Miles Coverdale, at the intercession of the King of Denmark. Ferrars was therefore brought before Gardiner on the 4th of February. On the 14th he was sent into Wales to be tried by Morgan, his successor at St. David's, and Constantine, the notary of the diocese, who had been one of his accusers. By these judges, on the 11th of March, he was condemned and degraded; he appealed to the legate, but the legate never listened to the prayer of heretics; the legate's mission was to extirpate them. On Saturday the 30th of March, Ferrars was brought to the stake in the market-place in Carmarthen.[460]

[Footnote 460: Foxe, vol. vii.]

Rawlins White, an aged Cardiff fisherman, followed Ferrars. In the course of April, George Marsh, a curate, was burnt at Chester; and on the 20th of April, a man named William Flower, who had been once a monk of Ely, was burnt in Palace-yard, at Westminster. Flower had provoked his own fate. He appeared on Easter day in St. Margaret's Church, while mass was being said; and provoked, as he persuaded himself, by the Holy Spirit, he flew upon the officiating priest, and stabbed him with a dagger in the hand; when to the horror of pious Catholics, the blood spurted into the chalice, and was mixed with the consecrated elements.

Sixteen persons had now been put to death, and there was again a pause for the sharp surgery to produce its effects.

While Mary was destroying the enemies of the church, Julius the Third had died at the end of March, and Reginald Pole was again a candidate for the vacant chair. The courts of Paris and Brussels alike promised him their support, but alike gave their support to another. They flattered his virtues, but they permitted Marcellus Cervino, the Cardinal of St. Cross, to be elected unanimously; and the English legate was told that he must be contented with the event which God had been pleased to send.[461] An opportunity, however, seemed to offer itself to him of accomplishing a service to Europe.

[Footnote 461: Noailles to the King of France, April 5 and April 17. Montmorency to Noailles, April 21. Noailles to Montmorency, April 30: Ambassades, vol. iv.]

{p.207} For thirty-five years the two great Catholic powers had been wrestling with but brief interruption. The advantage to either had been as trifling as the causes of their quarrel were insignificant. Their revenues were anticipated, their credit was exhausted, yet year after year languid armies struggled into collision. Across the Alps in Italy, and along the frontiers of Burgundy and the Low Countries, towns and villages, and homesteads were annually sacked, and peasants and their families destroyed—for what it were vain to ask, except it was for some poor shadow of imagined honour. Two mighty princes believed themselves justified in the sight of Heaven in squandering their subjects' treasure and their subjects' blood, because the pride of each forbade him to be the first in volunteering insignificant concessions. France had conquered Savoy and part of Piedmont, and had pushed forward its northern frontier to Marienbourg and Metz: the emperor held Lombardy, Parma, and Naples, and Navarre was annexed to Spain. The quarrel might have easily been ended by mutual restitution; yet the Peace of Cambray, the Treaty of Nice, and the Peace of Crepy, lasted only while the combatants were taking breath; and those who would attribute the extravagances of human folly to supernatural influence might imagine that the great discord between the orthodox powers had been permitted to give time for the Reformation to strike its roots into the soil of Europe. But a war which could be carried on only by loans at sixteen per cent. was necessarily near its conclusion. The apparent recovery of England to the church revived hopes which the Peace of Passau and the dissolution of the Council of Trent had almost extinguished; and, could a reconciliation be effected at last, and could Philip obtain the disposal of the military strength of England in the interests of the papacy, it might not even yet be too late to lay the yoke of orthodoxy on the Germans, and, in a Catholic interpretation of the Parable of the Supper, "compel them to come in."

Mary, who had heard herself compared to the Virgin, and Pole, who imagined the Prince of Spain to be the counterpart of the Redeemer of mankind, indulged their fancy in large expectations. Philip was the Solomon who was to raise up the temple of the Lord, which the emperor, who was a man of war, had not been allowed to build: and France, at the same time, was not unwilling to listen to proposals. The birth of Mary's child was expected in a few weeks, when England would, as a matter of course, become more decisively Imperialist, and Henry, whose {p.208} invasion of the Netherlands had failed in the previous summer, was ready now to close the struggle while it could be ended on equal and honourable terms.

A conference was, therefore, agreed upon, in which England was to mediate. A village in the Calais Pale was selected as the place of assembly, and Pole, Gardiner, Paget, and Pembroke were chosen to arrange the terms of a general peace, with the Bishop of Arras, the Cardinal of Lorraine, and Montmorency. The time pitched upon was that at which, so near as the queen could judge, she would herself bring into the world the offspring which was to be the hope of England and mankind; and the great event should, if possible, precede the first meeting of the plenipotentiaries.

The queen herself commenced her preparations with infinite earnestness, and, as a preliminary votive offering, she resolved to give back to the church such of the abbey property as remained in the hands of the crown. Her debts were now as high as ever. The Flanders correspondence was repeating the heavy story of loans and bills. Promises to pay were falling due, and there were no resources to meet them, and the Israelite leeches were again fastened on the commonwealth.[462] Nevertheless, the sacrifice should be made; the more difficult it was, the more favourably it would be received; and, on the 28th of March, she sent for the Lord Treasurer, and announced her intention. "If he told her that her estate would not bear it, she must reply," she said, "that she valued the salvation of her soul beyond all earthly things."[463] As soon as parliament could meet and give its sanction, she would restore the first-fruits also to the Holy See. She must work for God as God had worked for her.

[Footnote 462: Letters to and from Sir Thomas Gresham: MS. Flanders, Mary, State Paper Office.]

[Footnote 463: Strype's Memorials.]

About the 20th of April she withdrew to Hampton Court for entire quiet. The rockers and the nurses were in readiness, and a cradle stood open to receive the royal infant. Priests and bishops sang Litanies through the London streets; a procession of ecclesiastics in cloth of gold and tissue marched round Hampton Court Palace, headed by Philip in person; Gardiner walked at his side, while Mary gazed from a window.[464] Not only was the child assuredly coming, but its sex was decided on, and circulars were drawn and signed both by the king and queen, with blanks only for the month and day, announcing to ministers {p.209} of state, to ambassadors, and to foreign sovereigns, the birth of a prince.[465]

[Footnote 464: Machyn's Diary.]

[Footnote 465: These curious records of disappointed expectations remain in large numbers in the State Paper Office. The following is the letter addressed to Pole:—

Philip.—Mary the Queen.—Most Reverend Father in God, our right trusty and right entirely beloved cousin, We greet you well: And whereas it hath pleased Almighty God, of His infinite goodness, to add unto the great number of other His benefits bestowed upon us, the gladding of us with the happy deliverance of a prince, for the which we do most humbly thank Him; knowing your affections to be such towards us as whatsoever shall fortunately succeed unto us, the same cannot be but acceptable unto you also; We have thought good to communicate unto you these happy news of ours, to the intent you may rejoice with us; and praying for us, give God thanks for this his work accordingly. Given under our signet, at our house of Hampton Court, the —— of ——, the 1st and 2nd year of our and my Lord the King's reign.—MS. Mary, Domestic, vol. v. State Paper Office.]

On the 30th, the happy moment was supposed to have arrived; a message was sent off to London, announcing the commencement of the pains. The bells were set ringing in all the churches; Te Deum was sung in St. Paul's; priests wrote sermons; bonfires were piled ready for lighting, and tables were laid out in the streets.[466] The news crossed the Channel to Antwerp, and had grown in the transit. The great bell of the cathedral was rung for the actual birth. The vessels in the river fired salutes. "The regent sent the English mariners a hundred crowns to drink," and, "they made themselves in readiness to show some worthy triumph upon the waters."[467]

[Footnote 466: Noailles to Montmorency, April 30: Ambassades, vol. iv.]

[Footnote 467: Sir Thomas Gresham to the Council: MS. Flanders, Mary, State Paper Office.]

But the pains passed off without result; and whispers began to be heard, that there was, perhaps, a mistake of a more considerable kind. Mary, however, had herself no sort of misgiving. She assured her attendants that all was well, and that she felt the motion of her child. The physicians professed to be satisfied, and the priests were kept at work at the Litanies. Up and down the streets they marched, through city and suburb, park and square; torches flared along Cheapside at midnight behind the Holy Sacrament, and five hundred poor men and women from the almshouses walked two and two, telling their beads in their withered fingers: then all the boys of all the schools were set in motion, and the ushers and the masters came after them; clerks, canons, bishops, mayor, aldermen, officers of guilds.[468] Such marching, such chanting, such praying was never seen or heard before or since in London streets. A profane {p.210} person ran one day out of the crowd, and hung about a priest's neck, where the beads should be, a string of puddings; but they whipped him, and prayed on. Surely, God would hear the cry of his people.

[Footnote 468: Machyn's Diary.]

In the midst of the suspense the papal chair fell vacant again. The pontificate of Marcellus lasted three weeks, and Pole a third time offered himself to the suffrages of the cardinals. The courts were profuse of compliments as before. Noailles presented him with a note from Montmorency, containing assurances of the infinite desire of the King of France for the success of so holy a person.[469] Philip wrote to Rome in his behalf, and Mary condescended to ask for the support of the French cardinals.[470] But the fair speeches, as before, were but trifling. The choice fell on Pole's personal enemy, Cardinal Caraffa, who was French alike in heart and brain.

[Footnote 469: Noailles to Montmorency, May 15: Ambassades, vol. iv.]

[Footnote 470: Philip and Mary to Gardiner, Arundel, and Paget: Burnet's Collectanea.]

The choice of a pope, however, would signify little, if only the child could be born; but where was the child? The queen put it off strangely. The conference could be delayed no longer. It opened without the intended makeweight, and the court of France was less inclined to make concessions for a peace. The delay began to tell on the bourse at Antwerp. The Fuggers and the Schertzes drew their purse-strings, and made difficulties in lending more money to the emperor.[471] The plenipotentiaries had to separate after a few meetings, having effected nothing, to the especial mortification of Philip and Mary, who looked to the pacification to enable them to cure England of its unruly humours. The Duke of Alva (so rumour insisted) was to bring across the Spanish troops which were in the Low Countries, take possession of London, and force the parliament into submission.[472] The English were to be punished, for the infinite insolences in which they had indulged towards Philip's retinue, by being compelled, whether they liked it or not, to bestow upon him the crown.[473]

[Footnote 471: Noailles: Ambassades, vol. iv. p. 313.]

[Footnote 472: "Et la ou ladicte paix ou trefve adviendront ledict seigneur (l'Empereur) fera bientost apres repasser en ce royaulme le duc d'Alva avecque la plus grande part de sesdictes forces pour y fabvoriser les affaires de ce roy."—Noailles, vol. iv. p. 330.]

[Footnote 473: "Il n'est rien que l'Empereur ne fasse pour venir a la paix, tant il desire avant de retourner en Espaigne de faire couronner son filz, roy de ce pays. Et pensera par meme moyen se saisir des places fortes d'icelluy et chastier des Angloys d'infinies injures qu'ilz out faict recepvoir aux Espagnols, mettant grosses garnisons en ceste ville de Londres, et aultres lieux, a quoy ces roy et royne proposent ... s'y faire obeir absolument aux parlemens, suyvant ce qu'ilz n'ont peu faire par cydevant."—Noailles, vol. iv. pp. 332, 333.

In these reports the truth was anticipated but not exceeded. It will be seen that such projects were really formed at a later period.]

{p.211} But the peace could not be, nor could the child be born; and the impression grew daily that the queen had not been pregnant at all. Mary herself, who had been borne forward to this, the crisis of her fortunes, on a tide of success, now suddenly found her exulting hopes closing over. From confidence she fell into anxiety, from anxiety into fear, from fear into wildness and despondency. She vowed that with the restoration of the estates, she would rebuild the abbeys at her own cost. In vain. Her women now understood her condition; she was sick of a mortal disease; but they durst not tell her; and she whose career had been painted out to her by the legate, as especial and supernatural, looked only for supernatural causes of her present state. Throughout May she remained in her apartments waiting—waiting—in passionate restlessness. With stomach swollen, and features shrunk and haggard, she would sit upon the floor, with her knees drawn up to her face, in an agony of doubt; and in mockery of her wretchedness, letters were again strewed about the place by an invisible agency, telling her that she was loathed by her people. She imagined they would rise again in her defence. But if they rose again, it would be to drive her and her husband from the country.[474]

[Footnote 474: "Ladicte dame plusieurs fois de le jour demeure longtemps assise a terre, les genoulx aussy haultz que la teste.

"Se trouva hier fort malade et plus que de coustume, et pour la soulager, fust trouve a mesme heure en sa court plusieurs lettres semees contre son honneur," etc.—Noailles, vol. iv. p. 342.]

After the mysterious quickening on the legate's salutation, she could not doubt that her hopes had been at one time well founded; but for some fault, some error in herself, God had delayed the fulfilment of his promise. And what could that crime be? The accursed thing was still in the realm. She had been raised up, like the judges in Israel, for the extermination of God's enemies; and she had smitten but a few here and there, when, like the evil spirits, their name was legion.[475] She had before sent orders round among the magistrates, to have their eyes upon them. On the 24th of May, when her distraction was at its height, she wrote a circular to quicken the over-languid zeal of the bishops.

[Footnote 475: "The Queen said she could not be safely and happily delivered, nor could anything succeed prosperously with her, unless all the heretics in prison were burnt ad unum."—Burnet.]

{p.212} "Right Reverend Father in God," it ran, "We greet you well; and where of late we addressed our letters unto the justices of the peace, within every of the counties within this our realm, whereby, amongst other good instructions given therein for the good order of the country about, they are willed to have special regard to such disordered persons as, forgetting their duty to Almighty God and us, do lean to any erroneous and heretical opinions; whom, if they cannot by good admonition and fair means reform, they are willed to deliver unto the ordinary, to be by him charitably travelled withal, and removed, if it may be, from their naughty opinions; or else, if they continue obstinate, to be ordered according to the laws provided in that behalf: understanding now, to our no little marvel, that divers of the said misordered persons, being, by the justices of the peace, for their contempt and obstinacy, brought to the ordinary, to be used as is aforesaid, are either refused to be received at their hands, or, if they be received, are neither so travelled with as Christian charity requireth, nor yet proceeded withal according to the order of justice, but are suffered to continue in their errors, to the dishonour of Almighty God, and dangerous example of others; like as we find this matter very strange, so have we thought convenient both to signify this our knowledge, and therewithal also to admonish you to have in this behalf such regard henceforth unto the office of a good pastor and bishop, as where any such offenders shall be, by the said justices of the peace, brought unto you, ye do use your good wisdom and discretion in procuring to remove them from their errors if it may be, or else in proceeding against them, if they continue obstinate, according to the order of the laws, so as, through your good furtherance, both God's glory may be the better advanced, and the commonwealth more quietly governed."[476]

[Footnote 476: Burnet's Collectanea. This letter is addressed to Bonner, and was taken from Bonner's Register; but, from the form, it was evidently a circular. The Bishop of London had not deserved to be singled out to be especially admonished for want of energy.]

Under the fresh impulse of this letter, fifty persons were put to death at the stake in the three ensuing months,—in the diocese of London, under Bonner; in the diocese of Rochester, under Maurice Griffin; in the diocese of Canterbury, where Pole, the archbishop designate, so soon as Cranmer should be despatched, governed through Harpsfeld, the archdeacon, and Thornton, the suffragan bishop of Dover. Of these sacrifices, which were distinguished all of them by a uniformity of quiet heroism in the {p.213} sufferers, that of Cardmaker, prebendary of Wells, calls most for notice.

The people, whom the cruelty of the Catholic party was reconverting to the Reformation with a rapidity like that produced by the gift of tongues on the day of Pentecost, looked on the martyrs as soldiers are looked at who are called to accomplish, with the sacrifice of their lives, some great service for their country. Cardmaker, on his first examination, had turned his back and flinched. But the consciousness of shame, and the example of others, gave him back his courage; he was called up again under the queen's mandate, condemned, and brought out on the 30th of May, to suffer at Smithfield, with an upholsterer named Warne. The sheriffs produced the pardons. Warne, without looking at them, undressed at once, and went to the stake; Cardmaker "remained long talking;" "the people in a marvellous dump of sadness, thinking he would recant." He turned away at last, and knelt, and prayed; but he had still his clothes on; "there was no semblance of burning;" and the crowd continued nervously agitated, till he rose and threw off his cloak. "Then, seeing this, contrary to their fearful expectations, as men delivered out of great doubt, they cried out for joy with so great a shout as hath not been lightly heard a greater, God be praised; the Lord strengthen thee, Cardmaker. The Lord Jesus receive thy spirit."[477] Every martyr's trial was a battle; every constant death was a defeat of the common enemy; and the instinctive consciousness that truth was asserting itself in suffering, converted the natural emotion of horror into admiring pride.

[Footnote 477: Foxe, vol. vii.]

Yet, for the great purpose of the court, the burnt-offerings were ineffectual as the prayers of the priests. The queen was allowed to persuade herself that she had mistaken her time by two months; and to this hope she clung herself, so long as the hope could last: but among all other persons concerned, scarcely one was any longer under a delusion; and the clear-eyed Renard lost no time in laying the position of affairs before his master.

The marriage of Elizabeth and Philibert had hung fire, from the invincible unwillingness on the part of Mary to pardon or in any way recognise her sister;[478] and as long as there was a hope of a child, she had not perhaps been pressed about it; but {p.214} it was now absolutely necessary to do something, and violent measures towards the princess were more impossible than ever.

[Footnote 478: A letter of Mary's to Philip on the subject will be given in the following chapter, which reveals the disagreement which had arisen between them about this marriage.]

"The entire future," wrote Renard to the emperor, on the 27th of June, "turns on the accouchement of the queen; of which, however, there are no signs. If all goes well, the state of feeling in the country will improve. If she is in error, I foresee convulsions and disturbances such as no pen can describe. The succession to the crown is so unfortunately hampered, that it must fall to Elizabeth, and with Elizabeth there will be a religious revolution. The clergy will be put down, the Catholics persecuted, and there will be such revenge for the present proceedings as the world has never seen. I know not whether the king's person is safe; and the scandals and calumnies which the heretics are spreading about the queen are beyond conception. Some say that she has never been enceinte; some repeat that there will be a supposititious child, and that there would have been less delay could a child have been found that would answer the purpose.[479] The looks of men are grown strange and impenetrable; those in whose loyalty I had most dependence I have now most reason to doubt. Nothing is certain, and I am more bewildered than ever at the things which I see going on around me. There is neither government, nor justice, nor order; nothing but audacity and malice."[480]

[Footnote 479: The impression was very generally spread. Noailles mentions it, writing on the 20th of June to the King of France; and Foxe mentions a mysterious attempt of Lord North to obtain a new-born child from its mother, as having happened within his own knowledge. The existence of the belief, however, proves nothing. At such a time it was inevitable, nor was there any good evidence to connect Lord North, supposing Foxe's story true, with the court. The risk of discovery would have been great, the consequences terrible, and few people have been more incapable than Mary of knowingly doing a wrong thing.]

[Footnote 480: Renard to the Emperor, June 27: Granvelle Papers, vol. vi.]

The faint hopes which Renard expressed speedily vanished, and every one but the queen herself not only knew that she had no child at present, but that she never could have a child—that her days were numbered, and that if the Spaniards intended to secure the throne they must obtain it by other means than the order of inheritance. Could the war be brought to an end, Mary might live long enough to give her husband an opportunity of attempting violence; but of peace there was no immediate prospect, and it remained for the present to make the most of Elizabeth. Setting her marriage aside, it was doubtful whether the people would permit her longer confinement after the queen's {p.215} disappointment; and, willingly or unwillingly, Mary must be forced to receive her at court again.

The princess was still at Woodstock, where she had remained for a year, under the harsh surveillance of Sir Henry Bedingfield. Lord William Howard's visit may have consoled her with the knowledge that she was not forgotten by the nobility; but her health had suffered from her long imprisonment, and the first symptom of an approaching change in her position was the appearance of the queen's physician to take charge of her.

A last effort was made to betray her into an acknowledgment of guilt. "A secret friend" entreated her to "submit herself to the queen's mercy." Elizabeth saw the snare. She would not ask for mercy, she said, where she had committed no offence; if she was guilty, she desired justice, not mercy; and she knew well she would have found none, could evidence have been produced against her: but she thanked God she was in no danger of being proved guilty; she wished she was as safe from secret enemies.

But the plots for despatching her, if they had ever existed, were laid aside; she was informed that her presence was required at Hampton Court. The rumour of her intended release spread abroad, and sixty gentlemen, who had once belonged to her suite, met her on the way at Colebrook, in the hope that they might return to attendance upon her; but their coming was premature; she was still treated as a prisoner, and they were ordered off in the queen's name.

On her arrival at Hampton Court, however, the princess felt that she had recovered her freedom. She was received by Lord William Howard. The courtiers hurried to her with their congratulations, and Howard dared and provoked the resentment of the king and queen by making them kneel and kiss her hand.[481] Mary could not bring herself at first to endure an interview. The Bishop of Winchester came to her on the queen's behalf, to repeat the advice which had been given to her at Woodstock, and to promise pardon if she would ask for it.

[Footnote 481: Joanna of Castille, the emperor's mad mother, dying soon after, masses were said for her with some solemnity at St. Paul's. "Aux obseques que la royne commanda estre faictes a Londres, l'admiral d'Angleterre demontra ouvertement avoir quelque ressentment, de ce qu'il disoit le roy ne luy faisoit si bonne chiere et demonstration si favorable qu'il avoit accoustume, disant qu'il scavoit bien pourquoy s'estoit, inferant que ce fust pour ce qu'il avoit faict baiser les mains de Elizabetz aux gentilhommes qui l'avoient visitez."]

Elizabeth had been resolute when she was alone and friendless, she was not more yielding now. She repeated that she had {p.216} committed no offence, and therefore required no forgiveness; she had rather lie in prison all her life than confess when there was nothing to be confessed.

The answer was carried to Mary, and the day after the bishop came again. "The queen marvelled," he said, "that she would so stoutly stand to her innocence;" if she called herself innocent, she implied that she had been "unjustly imprisoned;" if she expected her liberty "she must tell another tale."

But the causes which had compelled the court to send for her, forbade them equally to persist in an impotent persecution. They had desired only to tempt her into admissions which they could plead in justification for past or future severities. They had failed, and they gave way.

A week later, on an evening in the beginning of July, Lady Clarence, Mary's favourite attendant, brought a message, that the queen was expecting her sister in her room. The princess was led across the garden in the dusk, and introduced by a back staircase into the royal apartments. Almost two years had elapsed since the sisters had last met, when Mary hid the hatred which was in her heart behind a veil of kindness. There was no improvement of feeling, but the necessity of circumstances compelled the form of reconciliation.

Elizabeth dropped on her knees. "God preserve your majesty," she said; "you will find me as true a subject to your majesty as any; whatever has been reported of me, you shall not find it otherwise."

"You will not confess," the queen said; "you stand to your truth: I pray God it may so fall out."

"If it does not," said Elizabeth, "I desire neither favour nor pardon at your hands."

"Well," Mary bitterly answered, "you persevere in your truth stiffly; belike you will not confess that you have been wrongly punished?"

"I must not say so, your majesty," Elizabeth replied.

"Belike you will to others?" said the queen.

"No, please your majesty," answered the princess. "I have borne the burden, and I must bear it. I pray your majesty to have a good opinion of me, and to think me your true subject, not only from the beginning but while life lasteth."

The queen did not answer, she muttered only in Spanish, "Sabe Dios," "God knows," and Elizabeth withdrew.[482]

[Footnote 482: Foxe; Holinshed.]

It was said that, during the interview, Philip was concealed {p.217} behind a curtain, anxious for a sight of the captive damsel whose favour with the people was such a perplexity to him.

At this time, Elizabeth was beautiful; her haughty features were softened by misfortune; and as it is certain that Philip, when he left England, gave special directions for her good treatment, so it is possible that he may have envied the fortune which he intended for the Prince of Savoy; and the scheme which he afterwards attempted to execute, of making her his own wife on the queen's death, may have then suggested itself to him as a solution of the English difficulty. The magnificent girl, who was already the idol of the country, must have presented an emphatic contrast with the lean, childless, haggard, forlorn Mary; and he may easily have allowed his fancy to play with a pleasant temptation. If it was so, Philip was far too careless of the queen's feelings to conceal his own. If it was not so, the queen's haunting consciousness of her unattractiveness must have been aggravated by the disappointment of her hopes, and she may have tortured herself with jealousy and suspicion.

At all events, Mary could not overcome her aversion. Elizabeth was set at liberty, but she was not allowed to remain at the court. She returned to Ashridge, to be pursued, even there, with petty annoyances. Her first step when she was again at home was to send for her friend Mrs. Ashley; the queen instantly committed Mrs. Ashley to the Fleet, and sent three other officers of her sister's household to the Tower; while a number of gentlemen suspected of being her adherents, who had remained in London beyond their usual time of leaving for the country, were ordered imperiously to their estates.[483]

[Footnote 483: Le dict conseil voyant que plusieurs gentilhommes s'assembloient a Londres, et communicquoient par ensemble, qu'ils se tenoient a Londres, contre ce qu'est accoustume en Angleterre, qu'est que ceulx qu'ilz eu moien ne demeurent a Londres en l'este, ains au pays pour la chaleur et maladies ordinaires qu'ilz y reignent, et que toutes les dicts gentilhommes sont heretiques, ains este pour le plus part rebelles, les autres parens et adherens de Elizabetz, leur a faict faire commandement de se retirer chascun en sa maison et se separer; qu'ilz ont prins mal et en out fait grandes doleances, en pretendant qu'ilz estoient gens de bien, qu'ilz n'estoient traistres.—Renard to the Emperor: Granvelle Papers, vol. iv.]

But neither impatience nor violence could conceal the fatal change which had passed over Mary's prospects. Not till the end of July could she part finally from her hopes. Then, at last, the glittering dream was lost for the waking truth; then at once from the imagination of herself as the virgin bride who was to bear a child for the recovery of a lost world, she was precipitated into the poor certainty that she was a blighted and {p.218} a dying woman. Sorrow was heaped on sorrow; Philip would stay with her no longer. His presence was required on the continent, where his father was about to anticipate the death which he knew to be near, and, after forty years of battling with the stormy waters, to collect himself for the last great change in the calm of a monastery in Spain.

It was no new intention. For years the emperor had been in the habit of snatching intervals of retreat; for years he had made up his mind to relinquish at some time the labours of life before relinquishing life itself. The vanities of sovereignty had never any particular charm for Charles V.; he was not a man who cared "to monarchise and kill with looks," or who could feel a pang at parting with the bauble of a crown; and when the wise world cried out in their surprise, and strained their fancies for the cause of conduct which seemed so strange to them, they forgot that princes who reign to labour, grow weary like the peasant of the burden of daily toil.

Many influences combined to induce Charles to delay no longer in putting his resolution in effect.

The Cortes were growing impatient at the prolonged absence both of himself and Philip, and the presence of the emperor, although in retirement, would give pleasure to the Spanish people. His health was so shattered, that each winter had been long expected to be his last; and although he would not flinch from work as long as he was required at his post, there was nothing to detain Philip any more in England, unless, or until, the succession could be placed on another footing. To continue there the husband of a childless queen, with authority limited to a form, and with no recognised interest beyond the term of his wife's life, was no becoming position for the heir of the throne of Spain, of Naples, the Indies, and the Low Countries.

Philip was therefore now going. He concealed his intention till it was betrayed by the departure of one Spanish nobleman after another. The queen became nervous and agitated, and at last he was forced to avow part of the truth. He told her that his father wanted to see him, but that his absence would not be extended beyond a fortnight or three weeks; she should go with him to Dover, and, if she desired, she could wait there for his return.[484] Her consent was obtained by the mild deceit, and it was considered afterwards that the journey to Dover might be too much for her, and the parting might take place at Greenwich.

[Footnote 484: Noailles, vol. v. pp. 77-82.]

{p.219} On the 3rd of August, the king and queen removed for a few days from Hampton Court to Oatlands; on the way Mary received consolation from a poor man who met her on crutches, and was cured of his lameness by looking on her.[485]

[Footnote 485: Machyn's Diary.]

On the 26th, the royal party came down the river in their barge, attended by the legate; they dined at Westminster on their way to Greenwich, and as rumour had said that Mary was dead, she was carried through the city in an open litter, with the king and the cardinal at her side. To please Philip, or to please the people, Elizabeth was invited to the court before the king's departure; but she was sent by water to prevent a demonstration, while the archers of the guard who attended on the queen, were in corslet and morion.[486]

[Footnote 486: Noailles, vol. v. pp. 98, 99, 123.]

On the 28th, Philip went. Parliament was to sit again in October. It would then be seen whether anything more could be done about the succession. On the consent or refusal of the legislature his future measures would depend. To the queen he left particular instructions, which he afterwards repeated in writing, to show favour to Elizabeth; and doubting how far he could rely upon Mary, he gave a similar charge to such of his own suite as he left behind him.[487] Could he obtain it, he would take the princess's crown for himself; should he fail, he might marry her; or should this too be impossible, he would win her gratitude, and support her title against the dangerous competition of the Queen of Scots and Dauphiness of France.

[Footnote 487: Elle a bonne part en la grace dudict Seigneur Roy, lequel par plusieurs lettres qu'il escript a la royne sa femme la luy recommende, comme aussy il a faict particulierement et par soubz main aux principaux seigneurs Espaignolz qui sont demourez en ce lieu.—Ibid. p. 127.]

On these terms the pair who had been brought together with so much difficulty separated after a little more than a year. The cardinal composed a passionate prayer for the queen's use during her husband's absence.[488] It is to be hoped that she was {p.220} spared the sight of a packet of letters soon after intercepted by the French, in which her husband and her husband's countrymen expressed their opinions of the marriage and its consequences.[489] The truth, however, became known in England, although in a form under which the queen could turn from it as a calumny.

[Footnote 488: Domine Jesu Christe, qui es verus sponsus animae meae, verus Rex ac Dominus meus qui me ad Regni hujus gubernacula singulari tua providentia ac benignitate vocatam, cum antea essem derelicta et tanquam mulier ab adolescentia abjecta, eum virum in matrimonium et regni societatem expetere voluis ti, qui plus caeteris imaginem tuam quam in sanctitate et justitia mundo ostendisti in suis meisque actionibus dirigendis exprimeret, et expetitum dedisti, cujus nunc discessum moerens defleo—quaeso per illum pretiosissimum sanguinem quem pro me sponsa tua proque illo et omnibus in ara crucis effudisti, ut hunc meum dolorem ita lenias, ita purges, ita temperes, ut quoties ille sanctis suis consiliis mihi adest, quoties per litteras quae ad salutem hujus populi tui pertinent commendat, toties illum praesentem esse, teque unicum consolatorem in medio nostro adesse sentiam, utque in illo te semper amem atque glorificem. Obsecro, Domine, ut in nobis tua imago sic indies per tuam gratiam renovetur in conspectu populi tui, quern nobis gubernandum commisisti, ut cum is justitiae tuae severitatem, in iis quae amiserat dum hi regnarent qui a recta fide declinantes sanctitatem et justitiam expulerunt, jam pridem senserit, quae nunc per tuam misericordiam recuperaverit sub illorum Regno quos nunquam a recta fide declinare es passus, cum gratiarum actione laetus intelligat ut uno ore tarn nos quam populus noster Deum patrem per te ejus unicum filium in unitate Spiritus glorificemus, ad nostram ipsorum et piorum omnium salutem et consolationem. Amen.—Epist. Reg. Pol. vol. v.]

[Footnote 489: Il me fauldroit faire ung merveilleux discours pour vous rendre compte de tous les propoz qui font dans les dictes lettres. Je vous diray seulment ce qui plus tousche et regarde le lieu ou vous estes. Et premierement la royne a tant enchante et ensorcele ce beau jeune prince son mary que de luy avoir faict croyre ung an entier qu'elle estoit grosse pour le retenir pres d'elle, dont il se trouve a present si confus et fasche qu'il n'a plus delibere de retourner habiter ceste terre, promettant a tous ses serviteurs que s'il peult estre une fois en Espaigne qu'il n'en sortira plus a si maulvaise occasion, etc....—Le Protonotaire de Noailles a M. de Noailles: Ambassades, vol. v. p. 136.]

Before the meeting of parliament, a letter was published, addressed to the Lords of the Council, by a certain John Bradford.[490] The writer accounted for his knowledge of the secrets which he had to tell, by saying that he had lived in the household of one of the Spanish noblemen who were in attendance on Philip; that he had learnt the language unknown to his master, and had thus overheard unguarded conversations. He had read letters addressed to Philip, and letters written by him and by his confidential friends; and he was able to say, as a thing heard with his own ears, and seen with his own eyes, that the "Spaniards minded nothing less than the subversion of the English commonwealth." In fact, he repeated the rumours of the summer, only more circumstantially, and with fuller details. Under pretence of improving the fortifications, Philip intended to obtain command of the principal harbours and ports; he would lay cannon on the land side, and gradually bring in Spanish troops, the queen playing into his hands; and as soon as peace could be made with France, he would have the command of the fleet and the sea, and could do what he pleased.[491]

[Footnote 490: Not the martyr; he had been despatched by Bonner among the victims of the summer; but a person otherwise-known.]

[Footnote 491: "Ye will say, How could this fellow know their counsel?—I was chamberlain to one of the privy council, and with all diligence gave myself to write and read Spanish, which thing once obtained I kept secret from my master and my fellow-servants, because I might be trusted in my master's closet or study, where I might read such writing as I saw daily brought into the council chamber."—John Bradford to the Lords of the Council: Strype's Memorials of the Reformation.]

{p.221} "I saw," the writer continued, "letters sent from the emperor, wherein was contained these privities,—that the king should make his excuse to the queen that he would go to see his father in Flanders, and that immediately he would return—seeing the good simple queen is so jealous over my son. (I term it," said Bradford, "as the letter doth.") "We," said the emperor, "shall make her agree unto all our requests before his return, or else keep him exercised in our affairs till we may prevail with the council, who, doubtless, will be won with fair promises and great gifts, politicly placed in time." "In other letters I have read the cause disputed, that the queen is bound by the laws of God to endue her husband in all her goods and possessions, so far as in her lieth; and they think she will do it indeed to the uttermost of her power. No man can think evil of the queen, though she be somewhat moved when such things are beaten into her head with gentlemen; but whether the crown belongs to the queen or the realm, the Spaniards know not, nor care not, though the queen, to her damnation, disherit the right heir apparent, or break her father's entail, made by the whole consent of the realm, which neither she nor the realm can justly alter."[492]

[Footnote 492: Elizabeth, when she came to the throne, refused to admit that she was under any real obligation to Philip. She was entirely right in her refusal. The Spaniards had sworn, if possible, to make away "with all those which by any means might lay claim to the crown."

"I call God to record," Bradford continues, "I have heard it with mine ears, and seen the said persons with mine eyes, that have said, if ever the king obtain the crown, he would make the Lady Elizabeth safe from ever coming to the same, or any of our cursed nation. For they say, that if they can find the means to keep England in subjection, they would do more with the land than with all the rest of his kingdoms. I speak not of any fool's communication, but of the wisest, and that no mean persons. Yea, and they trust that there shall means be found before that time to despatch the Lady Elizabeth well enough by the help of assured traitors, as they have already in England plenty, and then they may the more easier destroy the others when she is rid out of the way.

2. I speak not this, as some men would take it, to move dissension; for that were the best way for the Spaniards to come to their prey. Such a time they look for, and such a time they say some nobleman hath promised to provide for them.

3. God is my witness that my heart will not suffer me for very shame to declare such vile reports as I have heard them speak against the queen, and yet her Grace taketh them for her faithful friends. The Spaniards say, that if they obtain not the crown, they may curse the time that ever the king was married to a wife so unmeet for him by natural course of years; but and if that may be brought to pass that was meant in marriage-making, they shall keep old rich robes for high festival days.

"Alas, for pity! Ye be yet in such good estate that ye may, without loss of any man's life, keep the crown and realm quietly. If ye will hear a fool's counsel, keep still the crown to the right succession in your hands, and give it to no foreign princes. Peradventure her Grace thinketh the king will keep her the more company and love her the better, if she give him the crown. Ye will crown him to make him chaste contrary to his nature. They have a saying—'The baker's daughter is better in her gown than Queen Mary without the crown.' They say, 'Old wives must be cherished for their young fair gifts.' 'Old wives,' they say, 'for fair words will give all that they have.' But how be they used afterwards? Doth the queen think the king will remain in England with giving him the realm? The council of Spain purposeth to establish other matters; to appoint in England a viceroy with a great army of Spanish soldiers, and let the queen live at her beads like a good antient lady."—John Bradford to the Earls of Arundel, Shrewsbury, Derby, and Pembroke: Strype's Memorials, vol. vi. p. 340, etc.]

Struggle as the queen might against such a representation of {p.222} her husband's feelings towards her, it was true that he had left her with a promise to return; and the weeks went, and he did not come, and no longer spoke of coming. The abdication of the emperor would keep him from her, at least, till the end of the winter. And news came soon which was harder still to bear; news, that he, whom she had been taught to regard as made in the image of our Saviour,[493] was unfaithful to his marriage vows,[494] Bradford had spoken generally of the king's vulgar amours; other accounts convinced her too surely that he was consoling himself for his long purgatory in England, by miscellaneous licentiousness. Philip was gross alike in all his appetites; bacon fat was the favourite food with which he gorged himself to illness;[495] his intrigues were on the same level of indelicacy, and his unhappy wife was forced to know that he preferred the society of abandoned women of the lowest class to hers.

[Footnote 493: Prayer written by Cardinal Pole for Queen Mary: supra.]

[Footnote 494: Noailles to the King of France, October 21: Ambassades, vol. v.]

[Footnote 495: Noailles to Montmorency, December 5: Ibid.]

The French ambassador describes her as distracted with wretchedness, speaking to no one except the legate. The legate was her only comfort; the legate and the thing which she called religion.

Deep in the hearts of both queen and cardinal lay the conviction that if she would please God, she must avoid the sin of Saul. Saul had spared the Amalekites, and God had turned his face from him. God had greater enemies in England than the Amalekites. Historians have affected to exonerate Pole from the crime of the Marian persecution; although, without the legate's sanction, not a bishop in England could have raised a finger, not a bishop's court could have been opened {p.223} to try a single heretic. If not with Pole, with whom did the guilt rest? Gardiner was jointly responsible for the commencement, but after the first executions, Gardiner interfered no further; he died, and the bloody scenes continued. Philip's confessor protested; Philip himself left the country; Renard and Charles were never weary of advising moderation, except towards those who were politically dangerous. Bonner was an instrument whose zeal more than once required the goad; and Mary herself, when she came to the throne, was so little cruel, that she would have spared even Northumberland himself. When the persecution assumed its ferocious aspect, she was exclusively under the direction of the dreamer who believed that he was born for England's regeneration. All evidence concurs to show that, after Philip's departure, Cardinal Pole was the single adviser on whom Mary relied. Is it to be supposed that, in the horrible crusade which thenceforward was the business of her life, the papal legate, the sovereign director of the ecclesiastical administration of the realm, was not consulted, or, if consulted, that he refused his sanction? But it is not a question of conjecture or probability. From the legate came the first edict for the episcopal inquisition; under the legate every bishop held his judicial commission; while, if Smithfield is excepted, the most frightful scenes in the entire frightful period were witnessed under the shadow of his own metropolitan cathedral. His apologists have thrown the blame on his archdeacon and his suffragan: the guilt is not with the instrument, but with the hand which holds it. An admiring biographer[496] has asserted that the cruelties at Canterbury preceded the cardinal's consecration as archbishop, and the biographer has been copied by Dr. Lingard. The historian and his authority have exceeded the limits of permitted theological misrepresentation. The administration of the see belonged to Pole as much before his consecration as after it; but it will be seen that eighteen men and women perished at the stake in the town of Canterbury alone,—besides those who were put to death in other parts of the diocese—and five were starved to death in the gaol there—after the legate's installation. He was not cruel; but he believed that, in the catalogue of human iniquities, there were none greater than the denial of the Roman Catholic Faith, or the rejection of the Roman bishop's supremacy; and that he himself was chosen by Providence for the re-establishment of both. Mary was driven to madness by the disappointment {p.224} of the grotesque imaginations with which he had inflated her; and where two such persons were invested by the circumstances of the time with irresponsible power, there is no occasion to look further for the explanation of the dreadful events of the three ensuing years.

[Footnote 496: Phillips.]

The victims of the summer were chiefly undistinguished persons: Cardmaker and Bradford alone were in any way celebrated; and the greater prisoners, the three bishops at Oxford, the court had paused upon—not from mercy—their deaths had been long determined on; but Philip, perhaps, was tender of his person; their execution might occasion disturbances; and he and his suite might be the first objects on which the popular indignation might expend itself. Philip, however, had placed the sea between himself and danger, and if this was the cause of the hesitation, the work could now go forward.

A commission was appointed by Pole in September, consisting of Brookes, Bishop of Gloucester, Holyman, Bishop of Bristol, and White, Bishop of Lincoln, to try Cranmer, Ridley, and Latimer, for obstinate heresy. The first trial had been irregular; the country was then unreconciled. The sentence which had been passed therefore was treated as non-existent, and the tedious forms of the papacy continued still to throw a shield round the archbishop.

On Saturday, the 7th of September,[497] the commissioners took their places under the altar of St. Mary's Church, at Oxford. The Bishop of Gloucester sat as president, Doctors Story and Martin appeared as proctors for the queen, and Cranmer was brought in under the custody of the city guard, in a black gown and leaning on a stick.

[Footnote 497: Foxe says the 12th; but this is wrong.—See Cranmer's letter to the Queen: Jenkins, vol. i. p. 369.]

"Thomas, Archbishop of Canterbury," cried an officer of the court, "appear here, and make answer to that which shall be laid to thy charge; that is to say, for blasphemy, incontinency, and heresy; make answer to the Bishop of Gloucester, representing his holiness the pope."

The archbishop approached the bar, bent his head and uncovered to Story and Martin, who were present in behalf of the crown, then drew himself up, put on his cap again, and stood fronting Brookes. "My lord," he said, "I mean no contempt to your person, which I could have honoured as well as any of the others; but I have sworn never to admit the authority of the Bishop of Rome in England, and I must keep my oath."

{p.225} The president remonstrated, but without effect, and then proceeded to address the archbishop, who remained covered:[498]—

[Footnote 498: Exhortation of the Bishop of Gloucester to Thomas Cranmer: Cotton MSS., Vespasian, A. 25. A copy, more rounded and finished, is given by Foxe, in his account of Cranmer's trial: but the latter has the appearance of having been touched up afterwards.]

"My lord, we are come hither at this present to you, not intruding ourselves by our own authority, but sent by commission, as you know, by the pope's holiness partly; partly from the king's and queen's most excellent majesties; not utterly to your discomfort, but rather to your comfort if you will yourself. For we are come not to judge you immediately, but to put you in remembrance of that which you have been partly judged of before, and shall be thoroughly judged of ere long.

"Neither our coming or commission is to dispute with you, but to examine you in matters which you have already disputed in, taught, and written; and of your resolute answers in those points and others, to make relation to them that shall give sentence on you. If you, of your part, be moved to come to a uniformity, then shall not only we take joy of our examination, but also they that have sent us. Remember yourself then, unde excideris, from whence you have fallen. You have fallen from the unity of your mother, the Holy Catholic Church, and that by open schism. You have fallen from the true and received faith of the same Catholic Church, and that by open heresy. You have fallen from your fidelity and promise towards God, in breaking your orders and vow of chastity, and that by open apostasy. You have fallen from your fidelity and promise towards God's vicar-general, the pope, in breaking your oath made to his holiness at your consecration, and that by open perjury. You have fallen from your fidelity and allegiance towards God's magistrate, your prince and sovereign lady the queen, and that by open treason, whereof you are already attainted and convicted. Remember, unde excideris, from whence you have fallen, and in what danger you have fallen.

"You were sometime, as I and other poor men, in mean estate. God hath called you from better to better, from higher to higher, and never gave you over till he made you, legatum natum, Metropolitan Archbishop, Primate of England. Who was more earnest then in defence of the real presence of Christ's body and blood in the sacrament of the altar than ye were? Then was your candle shining to be a light to all the world, set on high on a pinnacle. But after you began to fall from the unity of the Catholic Church by open schism, and would no {p.226} longer acknowledge the supremacy of the pope's holiness by God's word and ordinance;—and that by occasion, that you, in whose hands then rested the sum of all, being primate, as was aforesaid, would not, according to your high vocation, stoutly withstand the most ungodly and unlawful request of your prince touching his divorce, as that blessed martyr, St. Thomas of Canterbury, sometime your predecessor, did withstand the unlawful requests of the prince of his time, but would still not only yield and bear with things not to be borne withal, but also set a-flame the fire already kindled—then your perfections diminished; then began you, for your own part, to fancy unlawful liberty. Then decayed your conscience of your former faith, your former promise, the vow of chastity and discipline after the order of priesthood; and when good conscience was once cast off, then followed after, as St. Paul noteth, a shipwreck in the faith. Then fell you from the faith, and out of the Catholic Church, as out of a sure ship, into a sea of dangerous desperation; for out of the church, to say with St. Cyprian, there is no hope of salvation at all. To be brief; when you had forsaken God, his Spouse, his faith, and fidelity to them both, then God forsook you; and as the apostle writeth of the ingrate philosophers, delivered you up in reprobum sensum, and suffered you to fall from one inconvenience to another, as from perjury into schism, from schism into a kind of apostasy, from apostasy into heresy, from heresy into traitory, and so, in conclusion, from traitory into the highest displeasure and worthiest indignation of your most benign and gracious queen."[499]

[Footnote 499: The address concluded with a prolix exhortation to repentance, which I omit. It may be read in a form sufficiently accurate in Foxe.]

When the bishop ceased, the crown proctors rose, and demanded justice against the prisoner in the names of the king and queen.

"My lord," Cranmer replied, "I do not acknowledge this session of yours, nor yet yourself my mislawful judge; neither would I have appeared this day before you, but that I was brought hither; and therefore here I openly renounce you as my judge, protesting that my meaning is not to make any answer as in a lawful judgment, for then I would be silent; but only for that I am bound in conscience to answer every man of that hope which I have in Jesus Christ."

He then knelt, and turning towards the west with his back to the court and the altar, he said the Lord's Prayer. After which, he rose, repeated the creed, and said—

{p.227} "This I do profess as touching my faith, and make my protestation, which I desire you to note; I will never consent that the Bishop of Rome shall have any jurisdiction in this realm."

"Mark, Master Cranmer," interrupted Martin, "you refuse and deny him by whose laws you do remain in life, being otherwise attainted of high treason, and but a dead man by the laws of the realm."

"I protest before God I was no traitor," said the archbishop. "I will never consent to the Bishop of Rome, for then I should give myself to the devil. I have made an oath to the king, and I must obey the king by God's law. By the Scripture, the king is chief, and no foreign person in his own realm above him. The pope is contrary to the crown. I cannot obey both, for no man can serve two masters at once. You attribute the keys to the pope and the sword to the king. I say the king hath both."

Continuing the same argument, the archbishop entered at length into the condition of the law and the history of the Statutes of Provisors and Premunire: he showed that the constitution of the country was emphatically independent, and he maintained that no English subject could swear obedience to a foreign power without being involved in perjury.

The objection was set aside, and the subject of oaths was an opportunity for a taunt, which the queen's proctors did not overlook. Cranmer had unwillingly accepted the archbishopric when the Act of Appeals was pending, and when the future relations of England with the See of Rome, and the degree of authority which (if any) the pope was to retain, were uncertain. In taking the usual oaths, therefore, by the advice of lawyers, he made an especial and avowed reservation of his duty to the crown;[500] and this so-called perjury Martin now flung in his teeth.

[Footnote 500: Although the circumstances of the time called properly for an open declaration of this kind on the part of Cranmer, yet every one of his predecessors, from the time of Edward I., must have been inducted with a tacit understanding of the same kind. If a bishop had been prosecuted under the Statutes of Provisors, his oath to the Papacy would have been no more admitted as an excuse by the Plantagenet sovereigns, than the oath of a college Fellow to obey the statutes of the founder would have saved him from penalties under the House of Hanover had he said mass in his college chapel. Because Cranmer, foreseeing an immediate collision between two powers, which each asserted claims upon him, expressed in words a qualification which was implied in the nature of the case—it was, and is (I regret to be obliged to speak in the present tense), but a shallow sarcasm to taunt him with premeditated perjury.]

"It pleased the king's highness," Cranmer replied, "many and sundry times to talk with me of the matter. I declared that, if I accepted the office of archbishop, I must receive it at {p.228} the pope's hands, which I neither would nor could do, for his highness was the only supreme governor of this church in England. Perceiving that I could not be brought to acknowledge the authority of the Bishop of Rome, the king called Doctor Oliver and other civil lawyers, and devised with them how he might bestow it on me, enforcing me nothing against my conscience, who informed him I might do it by way of protestation. I said, I did not acknowledge the Bishop of Rome's authority further than as it agreed with the word of God, and that it might be lawful for me at all times to speak against him; and my protestation did I cause to be enrolled, and there I think it remaineth."