I cannot too often repeat, for the saying is the very summing up of the whole history, that the Norman Conquest was not the wiping out of the constitution, the laws, the language, the national life of Englishmen. The English kingship gradually changed from the old Teutonic to the later mediaeval type; but the change began before the Norman Conquest. It was hastened by that event; it was not completed till long after it, and the gradual transition, was brought to perfection by Henry II.

Certain events indicate the remoter causes of the Norman Conquest. The accession of Eadward at once brings us among the events that led immediately to that conquest, or rather we may look on the accession of this Saxon king as the first stage of the conquest itself. Swend and Cnut, the Danes, had shown that it was possible for a foreign power to overcome England by force of arms.

The misgovernment of the sons of Cnut hindered the formation of a lasting Danish dynasty in England. The throne of Cerdic was again filled by a son of Woden; but there can be no doubt that the shock given to the country by the Danish Conquest, especially the way in which the ancient nobility was cut off in the long struggle with Swend and Cnut, directly opened the way for the coming of the Norman. Eadward did his best, wittingly or unwillingly, to make his path still easier. This he did by accustoming Englishmen to the sight of strangers—not national kinsmen like Cnut's Danes, but Frenchmen, men of utterly alien speech and manners—enjoying every available place of honour or profit in the country.

The great national reaction under Godwine and Harold made England once more England for a few years. But this change, happy as it was, could not altogether do away with the effects of the French predilections of Eadward. With Eadward, then, the Norman Conquest really begins. The men of the generation before the Conquest, the men whose eyes were not to behold the event itself, but who were to do all that they could do to advance or retard it, are now in the full maturity of life, in the full possession of power.

Eadward is on the throne of England; Godwine, Leofric, and Siward divide among them the administration of the realm. The next generation, the warriors of Stamfordbridge and Senlac, of York and Ely, are fast growing into maturity. Harold Hadrada is already pursuing his wild career of night-errantry in distant lands, and is astonishing the world by his exploits in Russia and Sicily, at Constantinople and at Jerusalem.

The younger warriors of the Conquest, Eadwine and Morcere and Waltheof and Hereward, were probably born, but they must still have been in their cradles or in their mothers' arms. But, among the leaders of Church and State, Ealdred, who lived to place the crown on the head both of Harold and of William, is already a great prelate, abbot of the great house of Tewkesbury, soon to succeed Lyfing in the chair of Worcester.

Tostig must have been on the verge of manhood; Swegen and Harold were already men, bold and vigorous, ready to march at their father's bidding, and before long to affect the destiny of their country for evil and for good. Beyond the sea, William, still a boy in years but a man in conduct and counsel, is holding his own among the storms of a troubled minority, and learning those arts of the statesman and the warrior which fitted him to become the wisest ruler of Normandy, the last and greatest conqueror of England.

The actors in the great drama are ready for their parts; the ground is gradually preparing for the scene of their performance. The great struggle of nations and tongues and principles in which each of them had his share, the struggle in which William of Normandy and Harold of England stand forth as worthy rivals of the noblest of prizes, will form the subject of the next, the chief and central portion of my history.

The struggle between Normans and Englishmen began with the accession of Eadward in 1042, although the actual subjugation of England by force of arms was still twenty-four years distant. The thought of another Danish king was now hateful. "All folk chose Eadward to King." As the son of AEthelred and Emma, the brother of the murdered and half-canonised Alfred, he had long been-familiar to English imaginations. Eadward, and Eadward alone, stood forth as the heir of English royalty, the representative of English nationality. In his behalf the popular voice spoke out at once, and unmistakably. His popular election took place in June, immediately on the death of Harthacnut, and even before his burial. Eadward, then, was king, and he reigned as every English king before him had reigned, by that union of popular election and royal descent which formed the essence of all ancient Teutonic kingship. He was crowned at Winchester, April 3, 1043. But by virtue of his peculiar character, his natural place was not on the throne of England, but at the head of a Norman abbey, for all his best qualities were those of a monk. Like him father, he was constantly under the dominion of favourites.

It was to the evil choice of his favourites during the early part of his reign that most of the misfortunes of his time were owing, and that a still more direct path was opened for the ambition of his Norman kinsman. In the latter part of his reign, either by happy accident or returning good sense, led him to a better choice. Without a guide he could not reign, but the good fortune of his later years gave him the wisest and noblest of all guides.

We have now reached the first appearance of the illustrious man round whom the main interest of this history will henceforth centre. The second son of Godwine lived to be the last of our kings, the hero and martyr of our native freedom. The few recorded actions of Harold, Earl of the East Angles, could hardly have enabled me to look forward to the glorious career of Harold, Earl of the West Saxons, King of the English.

Tall in stature, beautiful in countenance, of a bodily strength whose memory still lives in the rude pictorial art of his time, he was foremost alike in the active courage and in the passive endurance of the warrior. It is plain that in him, no less than in his more successful, and, therefore, more famous, rival, we have to admire not only the mere animal courage, but that true skill of the leader of armies which would have placed both Harold and William high among the captains of any age.

Great as Harold was in war, his character as a civil ruler is still more remarkable, still more worthy of admiration. The most prominent feature in his character is his singular gentleness and mercy. Never, either in warfare or in civil strife, do we find Harold bearing hardly upon an enemy. From the time of his advancement to the practical government of the kingdom there is not a single harsh or cruel action with which he can be charged.

Such was the man who, seemingly in the fourth year of Eadward, in the twenty-fourth of his own age, was invested with the rule of one of the great divisions of England, who, seven years later, became the virtual ruler of the kingdom; who, at last, twenty-one years from his first elevation, received, alone among English kings, the crown of England as the free gift of her people, and, alone among English kings, died axe in hand on her soil in the defence of England against foreign invaders.

William of Normandy bears a name which must for ever stand forth among the foremost of mankind. No man that ever trod this earth was endowed with greater natural gifts; to no man was it ever granted to accomplish greater things. No man ever did his work more effectually at the moment; no man ever left his work behind him as more truly an abiding possession for all time. In his character one feature stands out pre-eminently above all others. Throughout his career we admire in him the embodiment in the highest degree that human nature will allow of the fixed purpose and the unbending will.

We are too apt to look upon William as simply the conqueror of England. But so to do is to look at him only in his most splendid, but at the same time his least honourable, aspect. William learned to become the conqueror of England only by first becoming the conqueror of Normandy and the conqueror of France. He found means to conquer Normandy by the help of France, and to conquer France by the help of Normandy. He came to his duchy under every disadvantage. At once bastard and minor, with competitors for his coronet arising at every moment, he was throughout the whole of his early life beset by troubles, none of which were of his own making, and he came honourably out of all.

In 1052, William paid his memorable visit to England. At that time both Normandy and England were at rest, enjoying peace. Visits of mere friendship and courtesy among sovereign princes were rare in those days. Such visits as those which William and Eustace of Boulogne paid at this time to this country were altogether novelties, and unlikely to be acceptable to the English mind. We may be sure that every patriotic Englishman looked with an evil eye on any French-speaking prince who made his way to the English court.

William came with a great following; he tarried awhile in his cousin's company; he went away loaded with gifts and honours. And he can hardly doubt that he went away encouraged by some kind of promise of succeeding to the kingdom which he now visited as a stranger. Direct heirs were lacking to the royal house, and William was Eadward's kinsman. The moment was in every way favourable for suggesting to William on the one hand, to Eadward on the other, the idea of an arrangement by which William should succeed to the English crown on Eadward's death. The Norman writers are full of Eadward's promise to William, and also of some kind of oath that Harold swore to him. Had either the promise or the oath been a pure Norman invention, William could never have paraded both in the way that he did in the eyes of Europe. I admit, then, some promise of Eadward, some oath of Harold. But when the time came for Eadward the Confessor to make his final recommendation of a successor, he certainly changed his purpose; for his last will, so far as such an expression can be used, was undoubtedly in favour of Harold.

There is not the slightest sign of any intention on the part of Eadward during his later years to nominate William to the Witan as future king. The two streams of English and Norman history were joined together in the year when the two sovereigns met for the only time in their reigns. Those streams again diverged. England shook off the Norman influence to all outward appearance, and became once more the England of AEthelstan and Eadgar. But the effects of Eadgar's Norman tendencies were by no means wholly wiped away. Normans still remained in the land, and circumstances constituted secondary causes of the expedition of William.

It was in the year 1051 that the influence of strangers reached its height. During the first nine years of Eadward's reign we find no signs of any open warfare between the national and the Normanising parties. The course of events shows that Godwine's power was being practically undermined, but the great earl was still Jutwardly in the enjoyment of royal favour, and his fast possessions were still being added to by royal grants. But soon England began to feel how great is the evil when a king and those immediately around him are estranged from the mass of his people in feeling.

To the French favourites who gradually crowded the court of Eadward the name, the speech, and the laws of England were things on which their ignorant pride looked with utter contempt.

Count Eustace of Boulogne, now brother-in-law of the king of the English, presently came, like the rest of the world, to the English Court. The king was spending the autumn at Gloucester. Thither came Count Eustace, and, after his satisfactory interview with the king, he turned his face homewards. When a few miles from Dover he felt himself, in a region specially devoted to Godwine, to be still more thoroughly in an enemy's country than in other parts of England, and he and all his company took the precaution of putting on their coats of mail.

The proud Frenchmen expected to find free quarters at Dover, and they attempted to lodge themselves at their pleasure in the houses of the burghers. One Englishman resisted, and was struck dead on the spot. The count's party then rode through the town, cutting and slaying at pleasure. In a skirmish which quickly ensued twenty Englishmen and nineteen Frenchmen were slain.

Count Eustace and the remnant of the party hastened back to Gloucester, and told the story after their own fashion. On the mere accusation of a stranger, the English king condemned his own subjects without a hearing. He sent for Godwine, as earl of the district in which lay the offending town, and commanded him to inflict chastisement on Dover. The English champion was then in the midst of a domestic rejoicing. He had, like the king, been strengthening himself by a foreign alliance, and had just connected his house with that of a foreign prince. Tostig, the third son of Godwine, had just married Judith, the daughter of Baldwin of Flanders.

Godwine, however, bidden without the least legal proof of offence, to visit with all the horrors of fire and sword, was not long in choosing his course. Official duty and public policy, no less than abstract justice and humanity, dictated a distinct refusal. Now or never a stand was to be made against strangers, and the earl demanded a legal trial for the burghers of Dover.

But there were influences about Eadward which cut off all hope of a peaceful settlement of the matter. Eustace probably still lingered about the king, and there was another voice ever at the royal ear, ever ready to poison the royal mind against the people of England and their leader. It was the voice of a foreign monk, Archbishop Robert. Godwine and three other earls summoned their followers and demanded the surrender of Eustace, but the frightened king sent for the Northern Earls Siward, Leofric, and Ralph, bidding them bring a force strong enough to keep Godwine in check. Thus the northern and southern sections were arrayed against each other.

There were, however, on the king's side, men who were not willing to see the country involved in civil war. Leofric, the good Earl of Mercia, stood forth as the champion of compromise and peace, and it was agreed that hostilities should be avoided and that the witenagemot should assemble at Michaelmas in London.

Of this truce King Eadward and his foreign advisers took advantage to collect an army, at the head of which they appeared in London. Godwine and his son Harold were summoned to the gemot, but refused to appear without a security for a safe conduct. The hostages and safe-conduct were refused. The refusal was announced by Bishop Stigand to the earl as he sat at his evening meal. The bishop wept; the earl sprang to his feet, overthrew the table, leaped on his horse, and, with his sons, rode for his life all that night. In the morning the king held his witenagemot, and by a vote of the king and his whole army, Godwine and his sons were declared outlaws, but five days were allowed them to get out of the land. Godwine, Swegen, Tostig, and Gyrth, together with Gytha and Judith, the newly-married wife of Tostig, set sail for Bruges in a ship laden with as much treasure as it would hold. They reached the court of Flanders in safety, were honourably received by the count, and passed the whole winter with him.

Two of Godwine's sons, however, sought another refuge. Harold and his younger brother Leofwine determined on resistance, and resolved to seek shelter among the Danish settlers in Ireland, where they were cordially received by King Diarmid. For the moment the overthrow of the patriotic leaders in England was complete, and the dominion of the foreigners over the feeble mind of the king was complete. It was while Godwine dwelt as an exile at Bruges, and Harold was planning schemes of vengeance in the friendly court of Dublin, that William the Bastard, afterwards known as William the Conqueror, paid his memorable visit to England, that visit which has already been referred to as a stage, and a most important one, among the immediate causes of the Norman Conquest.

Stirring events followed in quick succession. General regret was felt among all patriotic Englishmen at the absence of Godwine. The common voice of England soon began to call for the return of the banished earl, who was looked to by all men as the father of his country. England now knew that in his fall a fatal blow had been dealt to her own welfare and freedom. And Godwine, after sending many petitions to the king, vainly petitioning for a reconciliation, determined to return by force, satisfied that the great majority of Englishmen would be less likely to resist him than to join his banners.

Harold sailed from Ireland to meet his father by way of the English Channel. Godwine sailed up the Thames, and London declared for him. Panic reigned among the favourites of King Eadward. The foreigners took to flight, among the fugitives being Archbishop Robert and Bishop Ulf. The gemot met and decreed the restoration of the earl and the outlawry of many Normans. The king yielded, and accorded to Godwine the kiss of peace, and a revolution was accomplished of which England may well be proud.

But a tragedy soon followed, in the death of the most renowned Englishman of that generation. During a meal at the Easter festival Godwine fell from his seat, and died after lying insensible for three days. Great was the grief of the nation. Harold, in the years that followed, became so increasingly popular that he was virtually chief ruler of England, even before the death of Eadward, which happened on January 5, 1066. His burial was followed by the coronation of Harold. But the moment of struggle was now come. The English throne had become vacant, and the Norman duke knew how to represent himself as its lawful heir, and to brand the king of the nation's choice as an usurper. The days of debate were past, and the sword alone could decide between England and her enemy.

William found one Englishman willing to help him in all his schemes, in the person of Tostig, Harold's brother, who had been outlawed at the demand of the nation, owing to his unfitness to rule his province as Earl of Northumberland. He had sunk from bad to worse. Harold had done all he could for his fallen brother, but to restore him was impossible. Tostig was at the Norman court, urging William to the invasion of England. At his own risk, he was allowed to make an incursion on the English coast. Entering the Humber, he burned several towns and slew many men. But after these ravages Tostig repaired to ask help of Harold Hardrada, whom he induced to prepare a great expedition.

Harold Hardrada and Tostig landed and marched towards York. A battle was fought between the Mercians and Norwegians at Fulford, in which the former were worsted, but Harold was marching northward. In the fearful battle of Stamford Bridge both Harold Hardrada and Tostig were slain, and the Viking host was shattered. The victorious English king was banqueting in celebration of the great victory, when a messenger appeared who had come at fleetest pace from the distant coast of Sussex.

One blow had been warded off, but another still more terrible had fallen. Three days after the fight at Stamford Bridge, William, Duke of the Normans, once the peaceful guest of Edward, had again, but in quite another guise, made good his landing on the shores of England. It was in August 1066 that the Norman fleet had set sail on its great enterprise. For several weeks a south wind had been waited for at the mouth of the River Dive, prayers and sacred rites of every kind being employed to move Heaven to send the propitious breeze. On September 28 the landing was effected at Pevensey, the ancient Anderida. There were neither, ships nor men to resist the landing. The first armed man who set foot on English ground was Duke William himself, whose foot slipped, so that he fell with both hands on the ground.

A loud cry of grief was raised at the evil omen. But the ready wit of William failed him not. "By the splendour of God," he cried, "I have taken seizin of my kingdom; the earth of England is in my hands." The whole army landed in order, but only one day was spent at Pevensey. On the next day the army marched on eastward and came to Hastings, which was fixed on as the centre of the operations of the whole campaign.

It was a hard lot for the English king to be compelled to hasten southward to dislodge the new enemy, after scarcely a moment's rest from the toils and glories of Stamford Bridge. But the heart of Harold failed him not, and the heart of England beat in unison with the heart of her king. As soon as the news came, King Harold held a council of the leaders of Stamford Bridge, or perhaps an armed gemot. He told them of the landing of the enemy; he set before them the horrors which would come upon the land if the invader succeeded in his enterprise. A loud shout of assent rose from the whole assembly. Every man pledged his faith rather to die in arms than to acknowledge any king but Harold.

The king thanked his loyal followers, and at once ordered an immediate march to the south, an immediate muster of the forces of his kingdom. London was the trysting-place. He himself pressed on at once with his immediate following. And throughout the land awoke a spirit in every English heart which has never died out to this day. The men from various shires flocked eagerly to the standard of their glorious king. Harold seems to have reached London on October 5, about ten days after the fight at Stamford Bridge, and a week after the Norman landing at Pevensey. Though his royal home was now at Westminster, he went, in order to seek divine help and succour, to pray at Waltham, the home of his earlier days, devoting one day to a pilgrimage to the Holy Cross which gave England her war-cry.

Harold and William were now both eager for the battle. The king set out from London on October 12. His consummate generalship is nowhere more plainly shown than in this memorable campaign. He formed his own plan, and he carried it out. He determined to give battle, but only on his own ground, and after his own fashion. The nature of the post shows that his real plan was to occupy a position where the Normans would have to attack him at a great disadvantage.

William constrained Harold to fight, but Harold, in his turn, constrained William to fight on ground of Harold's own choosing. The latter halted at a point distant about seven miles from the headquarters of the invaders, and pitched his camp upon the ever-memorable heights of Senlac. It was his policy not to attack. He occupied and fortified a post of great natural strength, which he speedily made into what is distinctly spoken of as a castle.

The hill of Senlac, now occupied by the abbey and town of Battle, commemorates in its later name the great event of which it was the scene.

The morning of the decisive day, Saturday, October 14, at last had come. The duke of the Normans heard mass, and received the communion in both kinds, and drew forth his troops for their march against the English post. Then in full armour, and seated on his noble Spanish war-horse, William led his host forth in three divisions. The Normans from the hill of Telham first caught sight of the English encamped on the opposite height of Senlac.

First in each of the three Norman divisions marched the archers, slingers, and cross-bow men, then the more heavily-armed infantry, lastly the horsemen. The reason of this arrangement is clear. The light-armed were to do what they could with their missiles to annoy the English; the heavy infantry were to strive to break down the palisades of the English camp, and so to make ready the way for the charge of the horse.

Like the Normans, the English had risen early. The king, after exhorting his troops to stand firm, rode to the royal post; he there dismounted, took his place on foot, and prayed to God for help. The battle began at nine in the morning—one of the sacred hours of the church. The trumpet sounded, and a flight of arrows from all three Norman divisions—right, centre, and left,—was the prelude to the onslaught of the heavy-armed foot. The real struggle now began. The French infantry had to toil up the hill, and to break down the palisade, while a shower of stones and javelins disordered their approach, and while club, sword and axe greeted all who came within the reach of hand-strokes.

Both sides fought with unyielding valour. The war-cries rose on either side. The Normans shouted "God help us!" the English called on the "Holy Cross." The Norman infantry had soon done its best, but that best had been in vain. The choicest chivalry of Europe now pressed on to the attack. The knights of Normandy and of all lands from which men had flocked to William's standard, now pressed on, striving to make what impression they could with the whole strength of themselves and their horses on the impenetrable fortress of timber, shields, and living warriors.

But all was in vain. The English had thus far stood their ground well and wisely, and the tactics of Harold had so far completely answered. Not only had every attack failed, but the great mass of the French army altogether lost heart. The Bretons and the other auxiliaries on the left were the first to give way. Horse and foot alike, they turned and fled. The whole of William's left wing was thrown into utter confusion.

The strong heart of William, however, failed him not, and by his single prowess and presence of mind he recalled the fleeing troops. Order was soon restored, and the Norman host pressed on to a second and more terrible attack. The duke himself, his relics round his neck, sought out Harold. A few moments more, and the two might have come face to face, but Gyrth, the noble brother of the English king, hurled a spear at William. The missile narrowly missed the duke, but slew the Spanish steed, the first of three that died under him that day. But William could not fight on foot as well as on horseback. He rose to his feet, pressed straight to seek the man who had so nearly slain him, and the earl fell, crushed beneath the blow of William's mace. Nor did he fall alone, for his brother, Earl Leofwine, was smitten to the earth by an unknown assailant.

The second attack, however, failed, for the English lines were as unyielding as ever. Direct attack was unavailing. In the Norman character fox and lion were equally blended, as William now showed. He ventured on the daring stratagem of ordering a pretended flight, and the unwary English rushed down the slope, pursuing the fugitive with shouts of delight. The error was fatal to England. The tide was turned; the duke's object was now gained; and the main end of Harold's skilful tactics was frustrated. The English were no longer entrenched, and the battle fell into a series of single combats. As twilight was coming on an arrow, falling like a bolt from heaven, pierced Harold's right eye, and he sank in agony at the foot of the standard. Round that standard the fight still raged, till the highest nobility, the most valiant soldiery of England were slaughtered to a man.

Had Harold lived, had another like him been ready to take his place, we may well doubt whether, even after Senlac, England would have been conquered at all. As it was, from this moment her complete conquest was only a matter of time. From that day forward the Normans began to work the will of God upon the folk of England, till there were left in England no chiefs of the land of English blood, till all were brought down to bondage and sorrow, till it was a shame to be called an Englishman, and the men of England were no more a people.

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JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE

History of England

James Anthony Froude was born at Darlington, England, April 23, 1818, and died on Oct. 20, 1894. He was educated at Westminster, and Oriel College, Oxford. Taking Holy Orders, he was, for a time, deeply influenced by Newman and the Tractarian movement, but soon underwent the radical revolution of thought revealed by his first treatise, the "Nemesis of Faith," which appeared in 1849, and created a sensation. Its tendency to skepticism cost him his fellowship, but its profound pathos, its accent of tenderness, and its fervour excited wide admiration. Permanent fame was secured by the appearance, in 1856, of the first two instalments of his magnificent work, "The History of England, from the Fall of Wolsey to the Defeat of the Armada," the last volume appearing in 1870. This treatise on the middle Tudor period is one of the most fascinating historical treatises in the whole range of literature. It is written in a vivid and graphic prose, and with rare command of the art of picturesque description. Froude never accepted the doctrine that history should be treated as a science; rather he claimed that the historian should concern himself with the dramatic aspect of the period about which he writes. The student may disagree with many of Froude's points of view and portraitures, yet his men and women breathe with the life he endows them, and their motives are actuated by the forces he sets in motion. Of his voluminous works perhaps the most notable, with the exception of the "History," are his "History of Ireland in the Eighteenth Century," 1871-74, and his "Short Studies on Great Subjects," the latter aptly exhibiting Froude's gifts of masterful prose and glittering paradox.

I.—The Condition of England

In periods like the present, when knowledge is every day extending, and the habits and thoughts of mankind are perpetually changing under the influence of new discoveries, it is no easy matter to throw ourselves back into a time in which for centuries the European world grew upon a single type, in which the forms of the father's thoughts were the forms of the son's, and the late descendant was occupied in treading into paths the footprints of his ancestors.

So absolutely has change become the law of our present condition, that to cease to change is to lose place in the great race. Looking back over history, we see times of change and progress alternating with other times when life and thought have settled into permanent forms. Such was the condition of the Greeks through many ages before the Persian wars, and such, again, became the condition of Europe when the Northern nations grafted religion and the laws of the Western empire on their own hardy natures.

A condition of things differing alike both inwardly and outwardly from that into which a happier fortune has introduced ourselves, is necessarily obscure to us. In the alteration of our own characters we have lost the key which would interpret the characters of our fathers. But some broad conclusions as to what they were are, however, at least possible to us. A rough census taken at the time of the Armada shows that it was something under five millions.

The feudal system, though practically modified, was still the organising principle of the nation, and the owner of land was bound to military service at home whenever occasion required. All land was held upon a strictly military principle. The state of the working classes can best be determined by a comparison of their wages with the price of food. Both were as far as possible regulated by Act of Parliament. Wheat in the fourteenth century averaged 10d. the bushel; beef and pork were 1/2d. a pound; mutton was 3/4d. The best pig or goose could be bought for 4d.; a good capon for 3d.; a chicken for 1d.; a hen for 2d. Strong-beer, which now costs 1s. 6d. a gallon, was then a 1d. a gallon, and table beer was less than 1/2d.

A penny at the time of which we write must have been nearly equal in the reign of Henry VIII. to the present shilling. For a penny the labourer could buy as much bread, beef, beer, and wine as the labourer of to-day can for a shilling. Turning then to the question of wages, by the 3d of the 6th of Henry VIII., it was enacted that the master, carpenters, masons, bricklayers, tilers, plumbers, glaziers, joiners, and others, employers of skilled workmen should give to each of their journeymen, if no meat and drink was allowed, sixpence a day for the half year, fivepence a day for the other half; or fivepence-half penny for the yearly average. The common labourers were to receive fourpence a day for the half year; for the remaining half, threepence.

The day labourer received what was equivalent to something near twenty shillings a week, the wages at present paid in English colonies; and this is far from being a full account of his advantages. The agricultural labourer held land in connection with his house, while in most parishes there were large ranges of common and unenclosed forest land, which furnished fuel to him gratis, where pigs might range, and ducks and geese, and where, if he could afford a cow, he was in no danger of being unable to feed it; and so important was this privilege considered, that when the commons began to be largely enclosed, Parliament insisted that the working man should not be without some piece of ground on which he could employ his own and his family's industry.

By the 7th of the 31st of Elizabeth it was ordered that no cottage should be built for residence without four acres of land at lowest being attached to it for the sole use of the occupants of such cottage.

The incomes of the great nobles cannot be determined for they varied probably as much as they do now. Under Henry IV. the average income of an earl was estimated at L2,000 a year. Under Henry VIII. the great Duke of Buckingham, the wealthiest English peer, had L6,000. And the income of the Archbishop of Canterbury was rated at the same amount. But the establishments of such men were enormous. Their retinues in time of peace consisted of several hundred persons, and in time of war a large share of the expenses was paid often out of private purses.

Passing down to the body of the people, we find that L20 a year and heavy duties to do for it, represented the condition of the squire of the parish. By the 2nd of Henry V. "the wages" of a parish priest were limited to L5 6s. 8d., except in cases where there was a special license from the bishop, when they might be raised as high as L6. Both squire and priest had sufficient for comfort. Neither was able to establish any steep difference between himself and the commons among whom he lived, so far as concerned outward advantages.

The habits of all classes were free, open, and liberal. In frank style the people lived in "merry England," displaying the "glory of hospitality," England's pre-eminent boast, by the rules according to which all tables were open to all comers without reserve. To every man, according to his degree, who chose to ask for it, there was free fare and free lodging. The people hated three things with all their hearts—idleness, want, and cowardice.

A change, however, was coming upon the world, the meaning and direction of which even still is hidden from us, a change from era to era. Chivalry was dying; the abbey and castle were soon together to crumble into ruins; and all the forms, desires, beliefs, and convictions of the old world were passing away never to return. A new continent had arisen beyond the western sea. The floor of heaven, inlaid with stars, had sunk back into an infinite abyss of immeasurable space; and the firm earth itself, unfixed from its foundations, was seen to be but a small atom in the awful vastness of the universe. In the fabric of habit which they had so laboriously built for themselves mankind were to remain no longer.

II.—The Fall of Wolsey's Policy

Times were changed in England since the second Henry walked barefoot through the streets of Canterbury, and knelt while the monks flogged him on the pavement in the Chapter House, doing penance for Becket's murder. The clergy had won the battle in the twelfth century because they deserved it. They were not free from fault and weakness, but they felt the meaning of their profession. Their hearts were in their vows, their authority was exercised more justly, more nobly, than the authority of the crown; and therefore, with inevitable justice, the crown was compelled to stoop before them.

The victory was great, but, like many victories, it was fatal to the conquerors. It filled them with the vanity of power; they forgot their duties in their privileges, and when, a century later, the conflict recommenced, the altering issue proved the altering nature of the conditions under which it was fought. The nation was ready for sweeping remedies. The people felt little loyalty to the pope. The clergy pursued their course to its end. They sank steadily into that condition which is inevitable from the constitution of human nature, among men without faith, wealthy, powerful, and luxuriously fed, yet condemned to celibacy and cut off from the common duties and common pleasures of ordinary life.

Many priests spent their time in hawking or hunting, in lounging at taverns, in the dissolute enjoyment of the world. If, however, there were no longer saints among the clergy, there could still arise among them a remarkable man. In Cardinal Wolsey the king found an adviser who was essentially a transition minister, holding a middle place between an English statesman and a Catholic of the old order. Under Wolsey's influence, Henry made war with Louis of France in the pope's quarrel, entered the polemic lists with Luther, and persecuted the English Protestants.

Yet Wolsey could not blind himself to the true condition of the church, before which lay the alternative of ruin or amendment. Therefore he familiarised Henry with sense that a reformation was inevitable. Dreaming that it could be effected from within, by the church itself inspired with a wiser spirit, he himself fell the first victim of a convulsion which he had assisted to create, and which he attempted too late to stay.

Wolsey talked of reformation, but delayed its coming. The monasteries grew worse and worse. Favoured parish clergy held as many as eight benefices. Bishops accumulated sees, and, unable to attend to all, attended to none. Wolsey himself, the church reformer (so little did he really know what a reformation means), was at once Archbishop of York, Bishop of Winchester and of Durham, and Abbot of St. Albans. Under such circumstances, we need not be surprised to find the clergy sunk low in the respect of the English people.

Fish's famous pamphlet shows the spirit that was seething. He spoke of what he had seen and knew. The monks, he tells the king, "be they that have made a hundred thousand idle dissolute women in your realm." But Wolsey could interfere with neither bishops nor monks without a special dispensation from the pope. A new trouble arose from the nation in the desire of Henry to divorce Catherine of Aragon, who had been his deceased brother's wife, was six years older than himself, and was an obstacle to the establishment of the kingdom. Her sons were dead, and she was beyond the period when more children could be expected. Though descent in the female line was not formally denied, no queen regent had ever, in fact, sat upon the throne; nor was the claim distinctly admitted, or the claim of the House of York would have been unquestionable. It was, therefore, with no little anxiety that the council of Henry VIII. perceived his male children, on whom their hopes were centred, either born dead, or dying one after another within a few days of their birth.

The line of the Princess Mary was precarious, for her health was weak from her childhood. If she lived, her accession would be a temptation to insurrection; if she did not live, and the king had no other children, a civil war was inevitable. The next heir in blood was James of Scotland, and gravely as statesmen desired the union of the two countries, in the existing mood of the people, the very stones in London streets, it was said, would rise up against a king of Scotland who entered England as sovereign.

So far were Henry and Catherine alike that both had imperious tempers, and both were indomitably obstinate; but Henry was hot and impetuous, Catherine cold and self-contained. She had been the wife of Prince Arthur, eldest son of Henry VII., but the death of that prince occurred only five months after the marriage. The uncertainty of the laws of marriage, and the innumerable refinements of the Roman canon law, affected the legitimacy of the children and raised scruples of conscience in the mind of the king. The loss of his children must have appeared as a judicial sentence on a violation of the Divine law. The divorce presented itself to him as a moral obligation, when national advantage combined with superstition to encourage what he secretly desired.

Wolsey, after thirty years' experience of public life, was as sanguine as a boy. Armed with this little lever of divorce, he saw himself in imagination the rebuilder of the Catholic faith and the deliverer of Europe from ecclesiastical revolt and from innovations of faith. The mass of the people hated Protestantism as he, a true friend of the Catholic cult, sincerely detested the reformation of Luther. He believed that the old life-tree of Catholicism, which in fact was but cumbering the ground, might bloom again in its old beauty. But a truer political prophet than Wolsey would have been found in the most ignorant of those poor men who were risking death and torture in disseminating the pernicious volumes of the English Testament.

Catherine being a Spanish princess, Henry, in 1527, formed a league with Francis I., with the object of breaking the Spanish alliance. The pope was requested to make use of his dispensing power to enable the King of England to marry a wife who could bear him children. Deeply as we deplore the outrage inflicted on Catherine, and the scandal and suffering occasioned by the dispute, it was in the highest degree fortunate that at the crisis of public dissatisfaction in England with the condition of the church, a cause should have arisen which tested the whole question of church authority in its highest form. It was no accident which connected a suit for divorce with the reformation of religion.

Anne Boleyn

The Spanish emperor, Charles V., gave Catherine his unwavering support, and refused to allow the pope to pass a judicial sentence of divorce. Catherine refused to yield. Another person now comes into conspicuous view. It has been with Anne Boleyn as with Catherine of Aragon—both are regarded as the victims of a tyranny which Catholics and Protestants unite to remember with horror, and each has taken the place of a martyred saint in the hagiology of the respective creeds. Anne Boleyn was second daughter of Sir Thomas Boleyn, a gentleman of noble family. She was educated in Paris, and in 1525 came back to England to be maid of honour to Queen Catherine, and to be distinguished at the court by her talents, accomplishments, and beauty.

The fortunes of Anne Boleyn were unhappily linked with those of men to whom the greatest work ever yet accomplished in this country was committed. In the memorable year 1529, after the meeting of parliament, events moved apace. In six weeks, for so long only the session lasted, the astonished church authorities saw bill after bill hurried up before the lords, by which successively the pleasant fountains of their incomes would be dried up to flow no longer. The Great Reformation had commenced in earnest.

The carelessness of the bishops in the discharge of their most immediate duties obliged the legislature to trespass in the provinces most purely spiritual, and to undertake the discipline of the clergy. Bill after bill struck hard and home on the privileges of the recreant clergy. The aged Bishop of Rochester complained to the lords that in the lower house the cry was nothing but "Down with the church." Yet, so frightful were the abuses that called for radical reform, that even persons who most disapprove of the reformation will not at the present time wonder at their enactment, or disapprove of their severity. The king treated the bishops, when they remonstrated, with the most contemptuous disrespect. Archbishop Cranmer now adopted a singular expedient. He advised Henry to invite expressions from all the chief learned authorities throughout Europe as to the right of the pope to grant him a dispensation of dissolution of his marriage. The English universities, to escape imputations of treasons and to avoid exciting Henry's wrath, gave replies such as would please him, that of Oxford being, however, the more decided of the two. Most of the continental authorities declined to pronounce any dictum as to the powers of the pope.

The Fall of the Great Chancellor

The fall of Wolsey was at hand. His enemies accused him of treason to the constitution by violating a law of the realm. He had acted as papal legate within the realm. The parliaments of Edward I., Edward III., Richard II., and Henry IV. had by a series of statutes pronounced illegal all presentations by the pope to any office or dignity in the Anglican Church, under a penalty of premunire. Henry did not feel himself called on to shield his great minister, although the guilt extended to all who had recognised Wolsey in the capacity of papal legate. Indeed, it extended to the archbishops, bishops, the privy council, the two houses of parliament, and indirectly to the nation itself. The higher clergy had been encouraged by Wolsey's position to commit those acts of despotism which had created so deep animosity among the people. The overflow of England's last ecclesiastical minister was to teach them that the privileges they had abused were at an end.

In February, 1531, Henry assumed the title which was to occasion such momentous consequences, of "Protector and only Supreme Head of the Church and Clergy of England." The clergy were compelled to assent. Further serious steps marked the great breach with Rome. The annates, or first fruits, were abolished. Ever since the crusades a practice had existed in all the churches of Europe that bishops and archbishops, on presentation to their sees, should transmit to the pope one year's income. This impressive impost was not abrogated. It was a sign of the parting of the ways.

Henry laid his conduct open to the world, declaring truly what he desired, and seeking it by open means. He was determined to proceed with the divorce, and also to continue the reformation of the English church. And he was in no small measure aided in the former resolve by the recommendation of Francis, for the French king advised him to act on the general opinion of Europe that his marriage with Catherine, as widow of his elder brother Arthur, was null, and at once made Anne Boleyn his wife. This counsel was administered at an interview between the two kings at Boulogne, in October, 1532.

The pope had trifled for six years with the momentous question, and Henry was growing old. At the outset of the discussion the pope had said: "Marry freely; fear nothing, and all shall be arranged as you desire." But the pontiff, reduced to a dilemma by various causes, had fallen back on his Italian cunning, and had changed his attitude, listening to the appeals of Catherine and her powerful friends. And now he threatened Henry with excommunication.

Henry entered privately into matrimonial relations with Anne in November, 1532, and the marriage was solemnly celebrated, with a gorgeous pageant, at Westminster Abbey in the following January. On July 24 the people gathering to church in every parish read, nailed to the church doors, a paper signed Henry R., setting forth that Lady Catherine of Spain, heretofore called Queen of England, was not to be called by that title any more, but was to be called princess dowager, and so to be held and esteemed. The triumph of Anne was to last but three short years.

Protestantism

Wycliffe's labour had left only the Bible as the seed of a future life, and no trace remained in the sixteenth century of the Lollardry of the fourteenth. But now Protestantism recommenced its enterprise in the growing desire for a nobler, holier insight into the will of God. In the year 1525 was enrolled in London a society calling itself "The Association of Christian Brothers." Its paid agents went up and down the land carrying tracts and Testaments with them, and enrolling in the order all who dared risk their lives in such a cause.

The Protestants thus isolated were waiting for direction, and men in such a temper are seldom left to wait in vain. Luther had kindled the spark, which was to become a conflagration in Germany, at Wittemberg, on October 31, 1517, by his denunciation of indulgences. His words found an echo, and flew from lip to lip all through Western Europe. Tyndal, an Oxford student, went to Germany, saw Luther, and under his direction translated into English the Gospels and Epistles. This led to the formation of the "association" in London. The authorities were alarmed. The bishops subscribed to buy up the translations of the Bible, and these were burned before a vast concourse in St. Paul's Churchyard. But Wolsey had for two years been suppressing the smaller monasteries. Simultaneously, Protestants were persecuted wherever they could be detected and seized. "Little" Bilney, or "Saint" Bilney, a distinguished Cambridge student, was burnt as a heretic at the stake, as were James Bainham, a barrister of the Middle Temple, and several other members of the "association." These were the first paladins of the reformation, and the struggle went bravely forward. They were the knights who slew the dragons and made the earth habitable for common flesh and blood.

As yet but two men of the highest order of power were on the side of Protestantism—Latimer and Cromwell. These were now to come forward, pressed by circumstances which could no longer dispense with them. When the breach with the pope was made irreparable, and the papal party at home had assumed an attitude of suspended insurrection, the fortunes of the Protestants entered into a new phase. The persecution ceased, and those who were but lately its likely victims, hiding for their lives, passed at once by a sudden alternation into the sunshine of political favour.

Cromwell and Latimer together caught the moment as it went by, and before it was over a work had been done in England which, when it was accomplished once, was accomplished for ever. The conservative party recovered their power, and abused it as before; but the chains of the nation were broken, and no craft of kings or priests or statesmen could weld the magic links again, Latimer became famous as a preacher at Cambridge, and was heard of by Henry, who sent for him and appointed him one of the royal chaplains. He was accused by the bishops of heresy, but was on trial absolved and sent back to his parish. Soon after the tide turned, and the reformation entered into a new phase.

Thomas Cromwell, like Latimer of humble origin, was the "malleus monachorum." Wolsey discovered his merit, and employed him in breaking up the small monasteries, which the pope had granted for the foundation of the new colleges. Cromwell remained with the great cardinal till his fall. It was then that the truly noble nature which was in him showed itself. The lords had passed a bill of impeachment against Wolsey—violent, vindictive, and malevolent. It was to be submitted to the commons. Cromwell prepared an opposition, and conducted the defence from his place in parliament so skilfully that he threw out the bill, saved Wolsey, and gained such a reputation that he became Henry's secretary, representing the government in the House of Commons, and was on the highroad to power.

The reformation was blotted with a black and frightful stain. Towards the end of April, 1536, certain members of the Privy Council were engaged in secretly collecting evidence which implicated the queen in adultery. In connection with the terrible charge, as her accomplices five gentlemen were arrested—Sir William Brereton, Mark Smeton, a court musician, Sir Henry Norris, Sir Francis Weston, and, the accusation in his case being the most shocking, Lord Rochford, the queen's brother. The trial was hastily pushed forward, and all were executed. The queen, who vehemently and piteously appealed to Henry, passionately protesting that she was absolutely innocent, was also condemned, and was beheaded in public on Tower Hill.

Henry immediately after the tragedy married Jane, daughter of Sir John Seymour. The indecent haste is usually considered conclusive of the cause of Anne Boleyn's ruin. On December 12, 1537, a prince, so long and passionately hoped for, was born; but a sad calamity followed, for the queen took cold, and died on October 24.

In 1539 monastic life came to an end in England. The great monasteries were dissolved; the abbey lands were distributed partly amongst the old nobility and partly amongst the chapters of six new bishoprics. On January 6, 1540, was solemnised the marriage of Henry with Anne, daughter of the Duke of Cleves, and sister-in-law of the Elector of Saxony. This event was brought about by the negotiations of Cromwell. The king was deeply displeased with the ungainly appearance of his bride when he met her on her landing, but retreat was impossible. Though Henry was personally kind to the new queen, the marriage made him wretched.

Cromwell's enemies speedily hatched a conspiracy against the great statesman. He was arrested on a charge of high treason, was accused of corruption and heresy, of gaining wealth by bribery and extortion, and, in spite of Cranmer's efforts to save him, passed to the scaffold on July 28, 1540. For eight years Cromwell, who had been ennobled as Earl of Essex, was supreme with king, parliament, and convocation, and the nation, in the ferment of revolution, was absolutely controlled by him.

Convocation had already dissolved the marriage of Henry and Anne, setting both free to contract and consummate other marriages without objection or delay. The queen had placidly given her consent. Handsome settlements were made on her in the shape of estates for her maintenance producing nearly three thousand a year. In August of the same year the King married, without delay of circumstance, Catherine, daughter of Lord Edmond Howard. Brief, indeed, was her reign. In November, 1541, she was charged with unfaithfulness to her marriage vows. The king was overwhelmed. Some dreadful spirit pursued his married life, tainting it with infamy.

Two gentlemen confessed their guilty connection with the queen. They were hanged at Tyburn, and the queen and Lady Rochford, who had been her confidential companion, suffered within the Tower. Once more the king ventured into marriage. Catherine, widow of Lord Latimer, his last choice, was selected, not in the interest of politics or religion, but by his own personal judgment; and this time he found the peace which he desired.

The great event of 1542 was the signal victory of the English over a Scottish army of ten thousand men at Solway Moss. King James of Scotland had undertaken, at the instigation of the pope and of the King of France to attack the English as heretics. The Scottish clergy were ready to proclaim a pilgrimage of grace. But the English borderers, though only shepherds and agriculturists, as soon as they mounted their horses, were instantly the finest light cavalry in Europe. They so disastrously defeated the Scots that all the latter either perished in the morass by the Solway, or were captured.

Henry died on January 28, 1547. He was attended in his last moments by Cranmer, having sent specially for the archbishop.

The king did not leave the world without expressing his views on the future with elaborate explicitness. He spent the day before his death in conversation with Lord Hertford and Sir William Paget on the condition of the country. By separate and earnest messages he commended Prince Edward to the care both of Charles V. and of Francis I. The earl, on the morning of Henry's death, hastened off to bring up the prince, who was in Hertfordshire with the Princess Elizabeth, and in the afternoon of Monday, the 31st, he arrived at the Tower with Edward. The Council was already in session, and Hertford was appointed protector during the minority of Edward. Thus, the reforming Protestant party was in full power. Cranmer set the willing example, and the other prelates consented, or were compelled to imitate him, in an acknowledgment that all jurisdiction, ecclesiastical as well as secular, within the realm, only emanated from the sovereign. On February it was ordered in council that Hertford should be Duke of Somerset, and that his brother, Sir Thomas Seymour, should be Lord Seymour of Sudleye; Lord Parr was to be Marquis of Northampton; Lord Wriothesley, the chancellor, Earl of Southampton; and Viscount Lisle was to be Earl of Warwick. The Duke of Somerset was the young king's uncle, and the real power was at once in his hands. But if he was ambitious, it was only—as he persuaded himself—to do good.

Edward's Guardian

Under his rule the spirit of iconoclasm spread fast, and the reformation proceeded to completion. Churches were cleared of images, and crucifixes were melted into coin. Somerset gave the popular movement the formal sanction of the Government. Injunctions were issued for the general purification of the churches. The Book of Homilies was issued as a guide to doctrine, care was taken that copies of the Bible were accessible in the parish churches, and translations of Erasmus's "Paraphrase of the New Testament" were provided as a commentary.

Somerset was a brave general as well as a great statesman. He invaded Scotland during the first year of his protectorate, on account of the refusal of the Scottish government to ratify the contract entered into with Henry VIII., by which it was agreed that Mary Queen of Scots should marry Edward. At the memorable battle of Pinkie, on September 10, 1547, the Scots were completely beaten. But Somerset was hastily summoned southward. His brother, Lord Seymour, had been caballing against him, and was arrested, tried, and beheaded on Tower Hill, on March 20, 1549. But the fall of the protector himself was not long delayed, for under his administration of three years his policy gradually excited wide discontent. In various parts of the country insurrections had to be suppressed. The French king had taken away the young Scottish queen, the king's majesty's espouse, by which marriage the realms of England and Scotland should have been united in perpetual peace. Money had been wasted on the royal household. The alliance with Charles V. had been trifled away. The princely name and princely splendour which Somerset affected, the vast fortune which he amassed amidst the ruin of the national finances, and the palace—now known as Somerset House, London—which was rising before the eyes of the world amidst the national defeats and misfortunes, combined to embitter the irritation with which the council regarded him.

His great rival, John Dudley, Earl of Warwick, by constant insinuations both in and out of parliament, excited the national feeling against him to such a degree that at length the young king was constrained to sign his deposition. He seems to have entertained no strong attachment to his uncle. On December I, 1551, he was tried before the lords for high treason and condemned. He was beheaded on Tower Hill on January 22, 1582. The English public, often wildly wrong on general questions, are good judges, for the most part, of personal character; and so passionately was Somerset loved, that those who were nearest the scaffold started forward to dip their handkerchiefs in his blood. Before this event, Dudley, by whose cruel treachery the tragedy had been brought about, had been created Duke of Northumberland. The great aim of this nobleman was to secure the succession to the throne for his own family. With this purpose in view he married his son, Lord Guildford Dudley, to Lady Jane Grey, daughter of the Duchess of Suffolk, to whom, by the will of Henry VIII., the crown would pass, in default of issue by Edward, Mary, or Elizabeth.

In April, 1553, Edward, who had been removed to Greenwich in consequence of illness, grew rapidly worse. By the end of the month he was spitting blood, and the country was felt to be on the eve of a new reign. The accession of Mary, who was personally popular, was looked forward to by the people as a matter of course. Northumberland now worked on the mind of the feeble and dying king, and succeeded in persuading him to declare both his sisters incapable of succeeding to the crown, as being illegitimate. The king died on July 6. The last male child of the Tudor race had ceased to suffer.

When Lady Jane was saluted by Northumberland and four other lords, all kneeling at her feet, as queen, she shook, covered her face with her hands, and fell fainting to the ground. The next Monday, July 10, the royal barges came down the Thames from Richmond, and at three in the afternoon Lady Jane landed at the broad staircase of the Tower, as queen, in undesired splendour. But that same evening messages came saying that Mary had declared herself queen. She had sent addresses to the peers, commanding them on their allegiance to come to her.

Happily, the conspiracy in favour of Lady Jane was crushed, without bloodshed, although it had seemed for a time as if the nation, was on the brink of a civil war. But, though Mary wished to spare Lady Jane and her husband, her intentions were frustrated by the determination of Renard, ambassador of the emperor. Northumberland was sent to the Tower, and beheaded on August 22, and in the following November Lady Jane and her husband were also condemned. Mary long hesitated, but at length issued the fatal warrant on February 8, 1554, and four days later both were executed. Lady Jane was but a delicate girl of seventeen, but met her fate with the utmost heroism.

Stephen Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, became the chief instrument of the restoration of the Catholic faith under Mary. His fierce spirit soon began to display itself. In the fiery obstinacy of his determination this prelate speedily became the incarnate expression of the fury of the ecclesiastical faction, smarting, as they were, under their long degradation, and under the irritating consciousness of those false oaths of submission which they had sworn to a power they loathed. Gardiner now saw his Romanising party once more in a position to revenge their wrongs when there was no longer any Henry to stand between them and their enemies. He would take the tide at the flood, forge a weapon keener than the last, and establish the Inquisition.

The Reign of Terror

Mary listened to the worse counsels of each, and her distempered humour settled into a confused ferocity. Both Gardiner and she resolved to secure the trial, condemnation, and execution of her sister Elizabeth, but their plans utterly miscarried, for no evidence against her could be gathered. The princess was known to be favourable to the Protestant cause, but the attempts to prove her disloyalty to Mary were vain. She was imprisoned in the Tower, and the fatal net appeared to be closing on her. But though the danger of her murder was very great, the lords who had reluctantly permitted her to be imprisoned would not allow her to be openly sacrificed, or indeed, permit the queen to continue in the career of vengeance on which she had entered. The necessity of releasing Elizabeth from the Tower was an unspeakable annoyance to Mary. A confinement at Woodstock was the furthest stretch of severity that the country would, for the present, permit. On May 19, 1554, Elizabeth was taken up the river.

The princess believed herself that she was being carried off tanquam ovis, as she said—as a sheep for the slaughter. But the world thought she was set at liberty, and, as her barge passed under the bridge, Mary heard with indignation, from the palace windows, three salvoes of artillery fired from the Steelyard, as a sign of the joy of the people. Vexations began to tell on Mary's spirit. She could not shake off her anxieties, or escape from the shadow of her subject's hatred. Insolent pamphlets were dropped in her path and in the offices of Whitehall. They were placed by mysterious hands in the sanctuary of her bedroom.

Her trials began to tell on her understanding. She was ill with hysterical longings; ill with the passions which Gardiner, as her chancellor, had provoked, but Paget as leader of the opposing party, had disappointed. But she was now to become the wife of King Philip of Spain. Negotiations for this momentous marriage had been protracted, and even after the contract had been signed, Philip seemed slow to arrive. The coolness manifested by his tardiness did much to aggravate the queen's despondency. On July 20, 1554, he landed at Southampton. The atmospheric auspices were not cheering, for Philip, who had come from the sunny plains of Castile, from his window at Southampton looked out on a steady downfall of July rain. Through the cruel torrent he made his way to church to mass, and afterwards Gardiner came to him from the queen. On the next Sunday he journeyed to Winchester, again in pouring rain. To the cathedral he went first, wet as he was. Whatever Philip of Spain was entering on, whether it was a marriage or a massacre, a state intrigue or a midnight murder, his first step was ever to seek a blessing from the holy wafer. Mary was at the bishop's palace, a few hundred yards' distance. Mary could not wait, and the same night the interview took place. Let the curtain fall over the meeting, let it close also over the wedding solemnities which followed with due splendour two days after. There are scenes in life which we regard with pity too deep for words.

The unhappy queen, unloved, unlovable, yet with her parched heart thirsting for affection, was flinging herself upon a breast to which an iceberg was warm; upon a man to whom love was an unmeaning word, except as the most brutal of all passions. Mary set about to complete the Catholic reaction. She had restored the Catholic orthodoxy in her own person, and now was resolved to bring over her own subjects. But clouds gathered over the court. The Spaniards were too much in evidence. With the reaction came back the supremacy of the pope, and the ecclesiastical courts were reinstated in authority to check unlicensed extravagance of opinion.

Gardiner, Bonner, Tunstal, and three other prelates formed a court on January 28, 1555, in St. Mary Overy's Church, Southwark, and Hooper, Bishop of Gloucester, and Canon Rogers of St. Paul's, were brought up before them. Both were condemned as Protestants, and both were burnt at the stake, the bishop at Gloucester, the canon at Smithfield. They suffered heroically. The Catholics had affected to sneer at the faith of their rivals. There was a general conviction among them that Protestants would all flinch at the last; that they had no "doctrine that would abide the fire." Many more victims were offered. The enemies of the church were to submit or die. So said Gardiner, and so said the papal legate and the queen, in the delirious belief that they were the chosen instruments of Providence.

The people, whom the cruelty of the party was reconverting to the reformation, while the fires of Smithfield blazed, with a rapidity like that produced by the gift of tongues at Pentecost, regarded the martyrs with admiration as soldiers dying for their country. On Mary, sorrow was heaped on sorrow. Her expectation of a child was disappointed, and Philip refused to stay in England. His unhappy wife was forced to know that he preferred the society of the most abandoned women to hers. The horrible crusade against heretics became the business of the rest of her life. Archbishop Cranmer, Bishops Ridley and Latimer, and many other persons of distinction were amongst the martyrs of the Marian persecution. Latimer was eighty years of age.

Mary's miseries were intensified month by month. War broke out between England and France. For ten years the French had cherished designs, and on January 7, 1558, the famous stronghold fell into their hands. The effect of this misfortune on the queen was to produce utter prostration. She now well understood that both parliament and the nation were badly disposed towards her. But her end was at hand. After much suffering from dropsy and nervous debility, she prepared quietly for what she knew was inevitable. On November 16, at midnight, taking leave of a world in which she had played so evil a part, Mary received the last rites of the church. Towards morning she was sinking, and at the elevation of the Host, as mass was being said, her head sank, and she was gone. A few hours later the pope's legate, Cardinal Pole, at Lambeth, followed her. Thus the reign of the pope in England and the reign of terror closed together.

THE END