CHAPTER XI.

THE REIGN OF MARY.

Proclamation of Lady Jane Grey--Mary's

Resistance--Northumberland's Failure--Mary is Proclaimed--The

Advice of Charles V.--Execution of Northumberland--Restoration

of the Roman Church--Proposed Marriage with Philip of

Spain--Consequent Risings throughout England--Wyatt's

Rebellion--Execution of Lady Jane Grey--Imprisonment of

Elizabeth--Marriage of Philip and Mary--England Accepts the Papal

Absolution--Persecuting Statutes Re-enacted--Martyrdom of Rogers,

Hooper, and Taylor--Di Castro's Sermon--Sickness of Mary--Trials

of Ridley, Latimer, and Cranmer--Martyrdom of Ridley and

Latimer--Confession and Death of Cranmer--Departure of Philip--The

Dudley Conspiracy--Return of Philip--War with France--Battle of

St. Quentin--Loss of Calais--Death of Mary.

As Mary fled from the emissaries of Northumberland on the 7th of July,

after learning the death of her brother, she arrived on the ensuing

evening at Sawston Hall, near Cambridge, the seat of Mr. Huddlestone, a

zealous Romanist, one of whose kinsmen was a gentleman of Mary's retinue.

There she passed the night, but was compelled to resume her journey early

in the morning, the Protestant party in Cambridge having heard of her

arrival, and being on the march to attack her. She and her followers were

obliged to make the best of their way thence in different disguises,

and turning on the Gogmagog Hills to take a look at the hall, she saw

it in flames: her night's sojourn had cost her entertainer the home of

his ancestors. On seeing this, she exclaimed, as quite certain of her

fortunes, "Well, let it burn, I will build him a better;" and she kept

her word. She passed through Bury St. Edmunds, and the next night reached

the seat of Kenninghall, in Norfolk. Thence without delay she despatched

a messenger to the Privy Council, commanding them to desist from the

treasonable scheme which she knew that they were attempting, and ordering

them to proclaim her their rightful sovereign, in which case all that was

past should be pardoned. The messenger arrived just in time to see the

rival queen proclaimed on the 10th, and to bring back a reply peculiarly

insulting for its gross language, asserting her illegitimacy, and calling

upon her to submit to her sovereign, Queen Jane.

Mary on this occasion displayed the strong spirit of the Tudor. Though

Northumberland had all the powers of the Government, the military

strength, the influence of party, and the support of the nobility of the

nation apparently under his hand, and possessed the reputation of being

an able and most successful general, and though she had nobody with her

but Sir Thomas Warton, the steward of her household, Andrew Huddlestone,

and her ladies; though she had neither troops nor money, Mary did not

hesitate. Kenninghall was but a defenceless house in an open country;

she, therefore, rode forward to Framlingham Castle, not far from the

Suffolk coast, where, in a strong fortress, she could await the result

of an appeal to her subjects and, were she forced to fly, could easily

escape across to Holland, and put herself under the protection of her

Imperial kinsman.

Once within the lofty walls of Framlingham, she commanded the standard

of England to be cast loose to the winds, and caused herself to be

proclaimed Queen-regnant of England and Ireland. The effect was soon

seen. Sir Henry Jerningham and Sir Henry Bedingfeld had joined her with

a few followers before she quitted Kenninghall, and had served her as

a guard in her ride of twenty miles to Framlingham. Sir John Sulyard

now arrived, and was appointed captain of her guard. He was speedily

followed by the tenants of Sir Henry Bedingfeld, to the number of 140.

By the influence of Sir Henry Jerningham, Yarmouth declared for her;

and soon after flocked in, with more or less of followers, Lord Thomas

Howard, a grandson of the old Duke of Norfolk; Sir William Drury; Sir

Thomas Cornwallis, High Sheriff of Suffolk; Sir John Skelton; and

Sir John Tyrrel. These were all zealous Papists; and the people of

Norfolk and Suffolk hurried to her standard, impelled by the memory of

Northumberland's sanguinary extinction of Ket's rebellion, the horrors

of which still kept alive a deep detestation of the unprincipled duke in

those counties. In a very short time Mary beheld herself surrounded by an

army of 13,000 men, all serving without pay, but confidently calculating

on the certain recompense which, as queen, she would soon be able to

award them. Lord Derby rose for her in Cheshire, and Carew proclaimed her

in Devonshire.

Northumberland saw that no time was to be lost. It was necessary that

forces should be instantly despatched to check the growth of Mary's

army, and to disperse it altogether. But who should command it? There

was no one so proper as himself; but he suspected the fidelity of the

Council, and was unwilling to remove himself to a distance from them; he

therefore recommended the Duke of Suffolk, the father of Lady Jane, to

the command of the expedition. The Council, who were anxious to get rid

of Northumberland in order that they might themselves escape to Mary's

camp, represented privately that Suffolk was a general of no reputation,

that everything depended on decisive proceedings in the outset, and that

he alone was the man for the purpose. They, moreover, so excited the

fears of Lady Jane that she entreated in tears that her father might

remain with her.

Northumberland consented, though with many misgivings. He equally

distrusted the Council and the citizens. On the 13th of July he set out,

urging on the Council at his departure fidelity to the trust reposed in

them, and receiving from them the most earnest protestations of zeal

and attachment. At every step some expectation was falsified, or some

disastrous news met him. The promised reinforcements did not arrive, but

he heard of them taking the way to the camp of Mary instead of to his

own. He heard of the defection of the fleet; and lastly, a prostrating

blow, of the Council having gone over to Queen Mary. Struck with dismay

at this accumulation of evil tidings, he retreated from Bury St.

Edmunds, which he had reached, to Cambridge, and there betrayed pitiable

indecision.

Scarcely had he left London before the Council, whilst outwardly

professing much activity for the interests of Queen Jane, set to work

to terminate as soon as possible the perilous farce of her royalty. On

the evening of Sunday, the 16th, the Lord Treasurer left the Tower,

and made a visit to his own house, contrary to the positive order of

Northumberland, who had strictly enjoined Suffolk to keep the whole

Council within its walls. On the 19th the Lord Treasurer and Lord Privy

Seal, the Earls of Arundel, Shrewsbury, and Pembroke, Sir Thomas Cheney,

and Sir John Mason, left the Tower, on the plea that it was necessary to

levy forces, and to receive the French ambassador, and that Baynard's

Castle, the residence of the Earl of Pembroke, was a much more convenient

place for these purposes. As they professed to be actuated by zeal for

the cause of his daughter, Suffolk, a very weak person, was easily

duped. No sooner had they reached Baynard's Castle than they unanimously

declared for Queen Mary.

[Illustration: LADY JANE GREY'S RELUCTANCE TO ACCEPT THE CROWN OF ENGLAND.

FROM THE PAINTING BY C. R. LESLIE, R.A. IN THE POSSESSION OF THE DUKE OF

BEDFORD.]

Immediately after proclaiming the new queen, the Council sent to summon

the Duke of Suffolk to surrender the Tower, which he did with all

alacrity, and, proceeding to Baynard's Castle, signed the proclamations

which the Council were issuing. Poor Lady Jane resigned her uneasy and

unblessed crown of nine days with unfeigned joy, and the next morning

returned to Sion House. This brief period of queenship, which had been

thrust upon her against her own wishes and better judgment, had been

embittered not only by her own sense of injustice towards her kinswoman,

the Princess Mary, and by apprehension of the consequences to herself and

all her friends, but still more by the harshness and insatiate ambition

of her husband and his mother.

The Council despatched a letter to Northumberland by Richard Rose, the

herald, commanding him to disband his army, and return to his allegiance

to Queen Mary, under penalty of being declared a traitor. But before

this reached him he had submitted himself, and in a manner the least

heroic and dignified possible. On the Sunday he had induced Dr. Sandys,

the vice-chancellor of the university, to preach a sermon against the

title and religion of Mary. The very next day the news of the revolution

at London arrived, and Northumberland, proceeding to the market-place,

proclaimed the woman he had thus denounced, and flung up his cap as if

in joy at the event, whilst the tears of grief and chagrin streamed

down his face. Turning to Doctor Sandys, who was again with him, he

said, "Queen Mary was a merciful woman, and that, doubtless, all would

receive the benefit of her general pardon." But Sandys, who could not

help despising him, bade him "not flatter himself with that; for if the

queen were ever so inclined to pardon, those who ruled her would destroy

him, whoever else were spared." Immediately after, Sir John Gates, one

of his oldest and most obsequious instruments, arrested him, when he had

his boots half-drawn on, so that he could not help himself; and, on the

following morning, the Earl of Arundel, arriving with a body of troops,

took possession of Northumberland, his captor, Gates, and Dr. Sandys, and

sent them off to the Tower.

Mary dismissed her army, which had never exceeded 15,000, and which had

had no occasion to draw a sword, before quitting Wanstead, except 3,000

horsemen in uniforms of green and white, red and white, and blue and

white. These, too, she sent back before entering the City gate, thus

showing her perfect confidence in the attachment of her capital. From

that point her only guard was that of the City, which brought up the rear

with bows and javelins. As Mary and her sister Elizabeth rode through

the crowded streets, they were accompanied by a continuous roar of

acclamation; and on entering the court of the Tower they beheld, kneeling

on the green before St. Peter's Church, the State prisoners who had been

detained there during the reigns of Henry VIII. and Edward VI. These were

Courtenay, the son of the Marquis of Exeter, who was executed in 1538;

the old Duke of Norfolk, still under sentence of death; and the Bishops

of Durham and Winchester, Tunstall and Gardiner. Gardiner pronounced a

congratulation on behalf of the others; and Mary, bursting into tears at

the sight, called them to her, exclaiming, "Ye are all my prisoners!"

raised them one by one, kissed them, and set them at liberty. To extend

the joy of her safe establishment upon the throne of her ancestors, she

ordered eighteen pence to be distributed to every poor householder in the

City.

It was Mary's misfortune that she had been educated to place so much

reliance on the wisdom and friendship of her great relative, the Emperor

Charles V. He had been her champion, as he had been that of her mother.

When pressed on the subject of her religion during the last reign, he

had menaced the country with war if the freedom of her conscience were

violated. It was natural, therefore, that she should now look to him for

counsel, seeing that almost all those whom she was obliged to employ

or to have around her had been her enemies during her brother's reign.

Charles communicated his opinions through Simon Renard, his ambassador,

who was to be the medium of their correspondence, and to advise her in

matters not of sufficient importance to require the Emperor's judgment,

or not allowing of sufficient time to obtain it. Renard was ordered to

act warily, and to show himself little at Court, so as to avoid suspicion.

Charles advised her to make examples of the chief conspirators, and to

punish the subordinates more mildly, so as to obtain a character of

moderation. He insisted upon it as necessary, however, that Lady Jane

Grey should be included in the list for capital punishment, and to

this Mary would by no means consent. She replied that "she could not

find in her heart or conscience to put her unfortunate kinswoman to

death, who had not been an accomplice of Northumberland, but merely an

unresisting instrument in his hands. If there were any crime in being

his daughter-in-law, even of that her cousin Jane was not guilty, for she

had been legally contracted to another, and, therefore, her marriage with

Lord Guilford Dudley was not valid. As to the danger existing from her

pretensions, it was but imaginary, and every requisite precaution should

be taken before she was set at liberty."

[Illustration: GREAT SEAL OF PHILIP AND MARY.]

Mary's selection of prisoners was remarkably small considering the

number in her hands, and the character of their offence against her. She

contented herself with putting only seven of them on their trial--namely,

Northumberland, his son the Earl of Warwick, the Marquis of Northampton,

Sir John Gates, Sir Henry Gates, Sir Andrew Dudley, and Sir Thomas

Palmer--his chief councillors and his associates. Northumberland

submitted to the court whether a man could be guilty of treason who acted

on the authority of Council, and under warrant of the Great Seal; or

could they, who had been his chief advisers and accomplices during the

whole time, sit as his judges? The Duke of Norfolk, who presided at the

trial as High Steward, replied that the Council and Great Seal which he

spoke of were those of a usurper, and, therefore, so far from availing

him, only aggravated the offence, and that the lords in question could

sit as his judges, because they were under no attainder.

Finding that his appeal had done him no service, Northumberland and his

fellow-prisoners pleaded guilty. The duke prayed that his sentence might

be commuted into decapitation, as became a peer of the realm, and he

prayed the queen that she would be merciful to his children on account

of their youth. He desired also that an able divine might be sent to

him for the settling of his conscience, thereby intimating that he was

at heart a Romanist, in hopes, no doubt, of winning upon the mind of

the queen, for he was very anxious to save his life. He professed, too,

that he was in possession of certain State secrets of vital importance

to her Majesty, and entreated that two members of the Council might be

sent to him to receive these matters from him. What his object was became

manifest from the result, for Gardiner and another member of the Council

being sent to him in consequence, he implored Gardiner passionately to

intercede for his life. Gardiner gave him little hope, but promised

to do what he could, and on returning to the queen so much moved her,

that she was inclined to grant the request; but others of the Council

wrote through Renard to the Emperor, who strenuously warned her, if

she valued her safety, or the peace of her reign, not to listen to the

arch-traitor. On Tuesday, the 22nd of August, Northumberland, Gates,

and Palmer were brought from the Tower for execution on Tower Hill. Of

the eleven condemned, only these three were executed--an instance of

clemency, in so gross a conspiracy to deprive a sovereign of a throne,

which is without parallel. When the Duke of Northumberland and Gates

met on the scaffold, they each accused the other of being the author

of the treason. Northumberland charged the whole design on Gates and

the Council; Gates laid it more truly on Northumberland and his high

authority. They protested, however, that they entirely forgave each

other, and Northumberland, stepping to the rail, made a speech, praying

for a long and happy reign to the queen, and calling on the people to

bear witness that he died in the true Catholic faith. Though he condemned

it, he said, in his heart, ambition had led him to conform to the new

faith, the adoption of which had filled both England and Germany with

constant dissensions, troubles, and civil wars. After repeating the

"Miserere," "De Profundis," and the "Paternoster," with some portion

of another psalm, concluding with the words, "Into thy hands, O Lord,

I commend my spirit," he laid his head on the block, saying that he

deserved a thousand deaths, and it was severed at a stroke. Gates and

Palmer died professing much penitence.

[Illustration: VIEW FROM THE CONSTABLE'S GARDEN, TOWER OF LONDON.]

The accession of Mary was a joyful event to the Papal Court. Julius III.

appointed Cardinal Pole his legate to the queen; but Pole was by no means

in haste, without obtaining further information, to fill this office in

a country where the people, whose sturdy character he well knew, had to

so great an extent imbibed the doctrines of the Reformation. Dandino,

the Papal legate at Brussels, therefore despatched a gentleman of his

suite to proceed to London and cautiously spy out the land. Before making

himself known, this emissary, Gianfrancesco Commendone, went about

London for some days gathering up all evidences of the public feeling on

the question of the Church. He then procured a private interview with

Mary, and was delighted to hear from her own lips that she was fully

resolved on reconciling her kingdom to the Papal See, and meant to obtain

the repeal of all laws restricting the doctrines or discipline of the

Roman Church; but that it required caution, and that no trace of any

correspondence with Rome must come to light.

Mary was, however, inclined to go faster and farther than some of her

advisers, and Gardiner, though so staunch a Papist, was too much of an

Englishman to wish to see the supremacy restored to the Pontiff. But

others were not so patriotic. Throughout the kingdom the Protestant

preachers were silenced. The great bell at Christ Church, Oxford, was

just recast, and the first use of it was to call the people to Mass.

"That bell then rung," says Fuller, "the knell of Gospel truth in the

city of Oxford, afterwards filled with Protestant tears."

Four days after her coronation, on October 1st, Mary opened her first

Parliament; and she opened it in a manner which showed plainly what

was to come. Both peers and commoners were called upon to attend her

majesty at a solemn Mass of the Holy Ghost. This was an immediate test

of what degree of compliance was to be expected in the attempt to return

to the ancient order of things; and the success of the experiment was

most encouraging. With the exception of Taylor Bishop of Lincoln, and

Harley Bishop of Hereford, the whole Parliament--peers, prelates,

and commoners--fell on their knees at the elevation of the Host, and

participated with an air of devotion in that which in the last reign

they had declared an abomination. But such was the zeal now for the

lately abhorred Mass, that the two noncomplying bishops were thrust out

of the queen's presence, and out of the abbey altogether. There were

those who insinuated that the Emperor furnished Mary with funds to bribe

her Parliament on this occasion; but, besides that Charles was not so

lavish of his money, events soon showed that the Parliament, though

so exceedingly pliant in the matter of religion, was stubborn enough

regarding the estates obtained from the Church, and also concerning

Mary's scheme of a Spanish marriage.

The first act of legislation was to restore the securities to life and

property which had been granted in the twenty-fifth year of Edward III.,

and which had been so completely prostrated by the acts of Henry VIII.

Such an Act had been passed at the commencement of the last reign, but

had been again violated in the cases of the two Seymours. The Parliament,

looking back on the sanguinary lawlessness of that monarch, did not

think the country sufficiently safe from charges of constructive treason

and felony without a fresh enactment. It next passed an Act annulling

the divorce of Queen Catherine of Aragon, by Cranmer, and declaring the

present queen legitimate. This Act indeed tacitly declared Elizabeth

illegitimate, but there was no getting altogether out of the difficulties

which the licentious proceedings of Henry VIII. had created, and it was

deemed best to pass that point over in silence, leaving the queen to

treat her sister as if born in genuine wedlock.

The next Act went to restore the Papal Church in England, stopping short,

however, of the supremacy. This received no opposition in the House of

Lords, but occasioned a debate of two days in the Commons. It passed,

however, eventually without a division, and by it was swept away at once

the whole system of Protestantism established by Cranmer during the reign

of Edward VI. The Reformed liturgy, which the Parliament of that monarch

had declared was framed by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, was now

pronounced to be "a new thing, imagined and devised by a few of singular

opinions." This abolished the marriages of priests and illegitimatised

their children. From the 20th day of November divine worship was to be

performed, and the sacraments were to be administered, as in the last

year of Henry VIII. Thus were the tyrannic Six Articles restored, and all

but the Papal supremacy. Even the discussion of the ritual and doctrines

of Edward VI. became so warm, that the queen prorogued Parliament

for three days. On calling the House of Commons together again, and

proceeding with the Bill, no mention was made of the restoration of the

Church property, though the queen was anxious to restore all that was in

the hands of the Crown; for the Lords, and gentlemen even of the House

of Commons, who were in possession of those lands, would have raised

a far different opposition to that which was manifested regarding the

State religion. No sooner were these Bills passed than the clergy met in

Convocation, and passed decrees for the speedy enforcement of all the new

regulations.

[Illustration: _By permission, from the Painting in the Victoria and

Albert Museum, South Kensington._

CRANMER AT TRAITORS' GATE. 1553.

By F. GOODALL, R.A.]

The persecution of the Reformed clergy who had stood firm became

vehement. The married clergy were called upon to abandon their wives, and

there was a rush of the expelled priests again to fill their pulpits. In

the cities there was considerable opposition, for there the people had

read and reflected, but generally throughout the agricultural districts

the change took place with the ease and rapidity of the scene-shifting at

a theatre. Many of the married priests, however, would not abandon their

wives and children, and were turned adrift into the highways, or were

thrust into prison. Many fled abroad, hoping for more Christian treatment

from the Reformed churches there, but in vain, for their doctrines did

not accord with those of the foreign Reformers, who deemed them heretical.

About half the English bishops conformed; the rest were ejected from

their sees, and several of them were imprisoned. Soon after Cranmer,

Latimer, and Ridley were sent to the Tower, Holgate, Archbishop of York,

was sent thither also. Poynet, who was Bishop of Winchester during

Gardiner's expulsion, was imprisoned for having married. Taylor of

Lincoln and Harley of Hereford, for refusing to kneel on the elevation

of the Host at the queen's coronation, and for other heresies, were

committed to prison. On the 13th of October Cranmer was brought to

trial in the Guildhall, on a charge of treason, with Lady Jane Grey,

her husband Lord Guilford Dudley, and Lord Ambrose Dudley, his brother.

They were all condemned to death as traitors, and a bill of attainder

was passed through Parliament against them. Lady Jane's sentence was to

be beheaded or burnt at the queen's pleasure, which was then the law

of England in all cases where women committed high treason, or petty

treason by the murder of their husbands. The fate of Lady Jane, who

pleaded guilty, and exhibited the most mild and amiable demeanour on

the occasion, excited deep sympathy, and crowds followed her as she was

reconducted to the Tower, weeping and lamenting her hard fate. It was

well understood, however, that the queen had no intention of carrying

the sentence into effect against any of the prisoners; but she deemed

it a means of keeping quiet her partisans to hold them in prison under

sentence of death. She gave orders that they should receive every

indulgence consistent with their security, and Lady Jane was permitted to

walk in the queen's garden at the Tower, and even on Tower Hill.

The subject which created the greatest difficulty to this Parliament was

that of the queen's marriage. The wily Renard suggested to Mary as a

possible husband Philip the heir of Charles V., and she eagerly seized

on the idea though she knew that it would be very unpopular. The first

to remonstrate with Mary on the subject was Gardiner, her Chancellor,

who boldly pointed out to her the repugnance of the nation to a Spanish

marriage; that she would be the paramount authority if she married a

subject, but that it would be difficult to maintain that rank with a

Spanish king; that the arrogance of the Spanish had made them odious to

all nations, and that this quality had shown itself conspicuously in

Philip. He was greatly disliked by his own people, and it was not likely

that he would be tolerated by the English; moreover, alliance with Spain

meant perpetual war with France, which would never suffer the Netherlands

to be annexed to the crown of England. The rest of Mary's Council took

up the same strain, with the exception of the old Duke of Norfolk, and

the Lords Arundel and Paget. The Protestant party out of doors were

furious against the match, declaring that it would bring the Inquisition

into the country, to rivet Popery upon it, and to make England the slave

of taxation to the Spaniards. The Parliament took up the subject with

equal hostility, and the Commons sent their Speaker to her, attended

by a deputation of twenty members, praying her Majesty not to marry a

foreigner.

Noailles, the French ambassador, was delighted with this movement, and

took much credit to himself for inciting influential parties to it; but

Mary believed it to originate with Gardiner, and the lion spirit of her

father coming over her, she vowed that she would prove a match for the

cunning of the Chancellor. That very night she sent for the Spanish

ambassador, and bidding him follow her into her private oratory, she

there knelt down before the altar, and after chanting the hymn, "Veni

Creator Spiritus," she made a vow to God that she would marry Philip

of Spain, and whilst she lived, no other man but him. Thus she put it

out of her power, if she kept her vow, to marry any other person should

she outlive Philip, showing the force of the paroxysm of determination

which was upon her. The effort would seem to have been very violent, for

immediately after she was taken ill, and continued so for some days.

It was on the last day of October that this curious circumstance took

place, and on the 17th of November she sent for the House of Commons,

when the Speaker read the address giving her their advice regarding her

marriage. Instead of the Chancellor returning the answer, as was the

custom, Mary replied herself, thanking them for their care that she

should have a succession in her own children, but rebuking them for

presuming to dictate to her the choice of a husband. She declared that

the marriages of her predecessors had always been free, a privilege

which, she assured them, she was resolved to maintain. At the same time,

she added, she should be careful to make such a selection as should

contribute both to her own happiness and to that of her people.

The plain declaration of the queen to her Parliament was not necessary

to inform those about her who were interested in the question; they had

speedy information of her having favoured the Spanish suit, and Noailles

was certainly mixed up in conspiracies to defeat it. It was proposed to

place Courtenay, the young Earl of Devon, who had long been a prisoner

in the Tower, at the head of the Reformed party, and if Mary would not

consent to marry him, to assassinate Arundel and Paget, the advocates

of the Spanish match; to marry Elizabeth to Courtenay, and raise the

standard of rebellion in Devonshire. It appears from the despatches of

Noailles that the Duke of Suffolk, the father of Lady Jane Grey, was in

this conspiracy. But the folly and the unstable character of their hero,

Courtenay, was fatal to their design, and of that Noailles very soon

became sensible. It was suggested by some of the parties that Courtenay

should steal away from Court, get across to France, and thence join the

conspirators in Devonshire; but Noailles opposed this plan, declaring

that the moment Courtenay quitted the coast of England his chance was

utterly lost; and he wrote to his own government, saying that the scheme

would fall to nothing; for although Courtenay and Elizabeth were fitting

persons to cause a rising, such was the want of decision of Courtenay, he

would let himself be taken before he would act--the thing which actually

came to pass.

On the 2nd of January, 1554, a splendid embassy, sent by the Emperor,

headed by the Counts Egmont and Lalain, the Lord of Courrieres, and the

Sieur de Nigry, landed in Kent, to arrange the marriage between Mary and

Philip. The unpopularity of this measure was immediately manifested,

for the men of Kent, taking Egmont for Philip, rose in fury, and would

have torn him to pieces if they could have got hold of him. Having,

however, reached Westminster in safety, on the 14th of January, a

numerous assembly of nobles, prelates, and courtiers was summoned to the

queen's presence-chamber, where Gardiner, who had found it necessary to

relinquish his opposition, stated to them the proposed conditions of

the treaty. The greatest care was evidently taken to disarm the fears of

the English, and nothing could appear more moderate than the terms of

this alliance. Philip and Mary were to confer on each other the titles

of their respective kingdoms, but each kingdom was still to be governed

by its own laws and constitution. None but English subjects were to hold

office in this country, not even in the king's private service. If the

queen had an heir, it was to be her successor in her own dominions, and

also in all Philip's dominions of Burgundy, Holland, and Flanders, which

were for ever to become part and parcel of England. This certainly, on

the face of it, was a most advantageous condition for England, but had

it taken effect, it would undoubtedly have proved a most disastrous one,

involving us perpetually in the wars and struggles of the Continent, and

draining these islands to defend those foreign territories.

Another condition of the treaty was that Mary was not to be carried

out of the kingdom except at her own request, nor any of her children,

except by the consent of the peers. The Commons were totally ignored in

the matter. Philip was not to entangle England in the Continental wars

of his father, nor to appropriate any of the naval or military resources

of this country, or the property or jewels of the Crown, to any foreign

purposes. If there was no issue of the marriage, all the conditions of

the treaty at once became void, and Philip ceased to be king even in

name. If he died first, which was not very probable, Mary was to enjoy a

dower of 60,000 ducats per annum, secured on lands in Spain and Flanders.

No mention was made of any payment to Philip if he happened to be the

survivor. But there was one little clause which stipulated that Philip

should _aid_ Mary in governing her kingdom--an ominous word, which might

be made of vast significance.

Within five days came the startling news that three insurrections had

broken out in different quarters of the kingdom. One was a-foot in the

midland counties, where the Duke of Suffolk and the Grey family had

property and influence. There the cry was for the Lady Jane. Mary had

been completely deceived by the Duke of Suffolk, whom she had pardoned

and liberated from the Tower. In return for her leniency he affected so

hearty an approval of her marriage, that she instantly thought of him as

the man to put down the other rebellions, and sending for him, found

that he and his brothers, Lord Thomas and Lord John Grey, had ridden off

with a strong body of horse to Leicestershire, proclaiming Lady Jane in

every town through which they passed. They found no response to their

cry, a fact which any but the most rash speculators might have been

certain of. The Earl of Huntingdon, a relative of the queen's, took the

field against the Greys, who by their folly brought certain death to Lady

Jane, and defeated them near Coventry, upon which they fled for their

lives.

[Illustration: OLD LONDON BRIDGE, WITH NONSUCH PALACE.

(_From the View of London, made by Van der Wyngarde, for Philip II._)]

The second insurrection was in the west, under Sir Peter Carew, whose

project was to place Elizabeth and Courtenay, Earl of Devon, on the

throne, and restore the Protestant religion. These parties, as well as

the third under Sir Thomas Wyatt, had consented to act together, and

thus paralyse the efforts of Mary, by the simultaneous outbreak in so

many quarters. But the miserable folly of their plans became evident at

once. They did not even unite in the choice of the same person as their

future monarch, and had they put down Mary, must then have come to blows

amongst themselves. Carew found Devonshire as indifferent to his call as

the Greys had found Leicestershire. Courtenay was to have put himself at

their head, but never went; and Carew, Gibbs, and Champernham called on

the people of Exeter to sign an address to the queen, stating that they

would have no Spanish despot. The people of Devon gave no support to the

movement. The Earl of Bedford appeared at the head of the queen's troops.

A number of the conspirators were seized, and Carew with others fled to

France.

But the most formidable section of this tripartite rebellion was that

under Sir Thomas Wyatt. He fixed his headquarters at Rochester, having

a fleet of five sail, under his associate Winter, which brought him

ordnance and ammunition. Wyatt was only a youth of twenty-three, but

he was full of both courage and enthusiasm, and endeavoured to rouse

the people of Canterbury to follow him. There, however, he was not

successful, and this cast a damp upon his adherents. Sir Robert Southwell

defeated a party of the insurgents under Knevet, and the Lord Abergavenny

another party under Isley, and the spirits of Wyatt's troops began to

sink rapidly. Many of his supporters sent to the Council, offering to

surrender on promise of full pardon, and a little delay would probably

have witnessed the total dispersion of his force.

But on the 29th of January, the Duke of Norfolk marched from London

with a detachment of the guards under Sir Henry Jerningham. On reaching

Rochester they found Wyatt encamped in the ruins of the old castle,

and the bridge bristling with cannon, and with well-armed Kentishmen.

Norfolk endeavoured to dissolve the hostile force by sending a herald

to proclaim a pardon to all that would lay down their arms, but Wyatt

would not permit him to read the paper. Norfolk then ordered his troops

to force the bridge; but this duty falling to a detachment of 500 of the

train-bands of the city under Captain Brett, the moment they reached the

bridge Brett turned round, and addressed his followers thus:--"Masters,

we go about to fight against our native countrymen of England, and our

friends, in a quarrel unrightful and wicked; for they, considering the

great miseries that are like to fall upon us, if we shall be under the

rule of the proud Spaniards, or strangers, are here assembled to make

resistance to their coming, for the avoiding the great mischiefs likely

to alight not only upon themselves, but upon every of us and the whole

realm; wherefore I think no English heart ought to say against them. I

and others will spend our blood in their quarrel."

On hearing this, his men shouted, one and all, "A Wyatt! a Wyatt!" and

turned their guns not against the bridge, but against Norfolk's forces.

At this sight Norfolk and his officers, imagining a universal treason,

turned their horses and fled at full speed, leaving behind them their

cannon and ammunition. The train-bands crossed the bridge and joined

Wyatt's soldiers, followed by three-fourths of the queen's troops,

and some companies of the guard. Norfolk and his fugitive officers

galloping into London carried with them the direst consternation. In

City and Court alike the most terrible panic prevailed. The lawyers in

Westminster Hall pleaded in suits of armour hidden under their robes, and

Dr. Weston preached before the queen in Whitehall Chapel, on Candlemas

Day, in armour under his clerical vestments. Mary alone seemed calm and

self-possessed. She mounted her horse, and, attended by her ladies and

her Council, rode into the City, where, summoning Sir Thomas White, Lord

Mayor and tailor, and the aldermen to meet, who all came clad in armour

under their civic livery, she ascended a chair of State, and with her

sceptre in hand addressed them, declaring she would never marry except

with leave of Parliament.

Her courage gained the day. From some cause the insurgents had not pushed

forward with the celerity which the flight of Norfolk appeared to make

easy. Instead of marching on the City and taking advantage of its panic,

Wyatt was three days in reaching Deptford and Greenwich, and he then lay

three more days there, though his success was said to have raised his

forces to 15,000 men. Meantime the City had recovered its courage by the

valiant bearing of the queen, and the news of the dispersion of the other

two divisions of the rebels. The golden opportunity was irrevocably lost.

On the 3rd of February Wyatt marched along the river side to Southwark.

Coming to the end of London Bridge, he found the drawbridge raised, the

gates closed, and the citizens, headed by the Lord Mayor and aldermen in

armour, in strong force ready to resist his entrance. He was surprised

to find the Londoners determined not to admit him, for he had been led

to believe that they were as hostile to the marriage as himself. He

planted two pieces of artillery at the foot of the bridge, but this was

evidently with the view of defending his own position, and not of forcing

the gates, for he cut a deep ditch between the bridge and the fort which

he occupied, and then protected his flanks from attack by other guns,

one pointing down Bermondsey Street, one by St. George's Church, and the

third towards the Bishop of Winchester's house. He must still have hoped

for a demonstration in the City in his favour, for he remained stationary

two whole days, without making an attack on the bridge. On the third

morning this inaction was broken by the garrison in the Tower opening a

brisk cannonade against him with all their heavy ordnance, doing immense

damage to the houses in the vicinity of the bridge fort, and to the

towers of St. Olave's and St. Mary Overy's.

The people of Southwark, seeing the inaction of Wyatt and the mischief

done to their property, now cried out amain, and desired him to take

himself away, which he did. He told the people that he would not have

them hurt on his account, and forthwith commenced a march towards

Kingston, hoping to be able to cross the bridge there, which he supposed

would be unguarded, and that so he might fall on Westminster and London

on the side where they were but indifferently fortified. He reached

Kingston about four o'clock in the afternoon of the 6th of February,

where he found a part of the bridge broken down, and an armed force

ready to oppose his passage. His object being to cross here, and not,

as at London Bridge, to await a voluntary admission, he brought up his

artillery, swept the enemy from the opposite bank, and by the help of

some sailors, who brought up boats and barges, he had the bridge made

passable, and his troops crossed over. By this time it was eleven o'clock

at night; his troops were extremely fatigued by their march and their

labours here, but he now deemed it absolutely necessary to push on, and

allow the Government no more time than he could help to collect forces

into his path, and strengthen their position. He marched on, therefore,

through a miserable winter night, and staying most imprudently to

re-mount a heavy gun which had broken down, it was broad daylight when he

arrived at what is now Hyde Park, where the Earl of Pembroke was posted

with the royal forces to receive him.

Lord Clinton headed the cavalry, and took his station with a battery of

cannon on the rising ground opposite to the palace of St. James's, at the

top of the present St. James's Street, and his cavalry extended from that

spot to the present Jermyn Street. All that quarter of dense building,

including Piccadilly, Pall Mall, and St. James's Square, was then open

and called St. James's Fields. About nine o'clock appeared the advance

guard of Wyatt's army. The morning was dismal, gloomy, and rainy, and his

troops, who had been wading through muddy roads all night, were in no

condition to face a fresh army. Many had deserted at Kingston, many more

had dropped off since, and seeing the strength of the force placed to

obstruct him, he divided his own into three parts. One of these, led by

Captain Cobham, took the way through St. James's Park at the back of the

palace, which was barricaded at all points, guards being stationed at the

windows, even those of the queen's bed-chamber and with drawing-rooms.

Cobham's division fired on the palace as it passed, whilst another

division under Captain Knevet, holding more to the right, assaulted the

palaces of Westminster and Whitehall.

But Wyatt, at the head of the main division, charged Clinton's cavalry;

the cannon were brought up, and a general engagement took place between

the rebel army and the troops under Clinton and the infantry under

Pembroke. Wyatt's charge seemed to make the cavalry give way, but it was

only a stratagem on the part of Clinton, who opened his ranks to let

Wyatt and about four hundred of his followers pass, when he closed and

cut off the main body from their commander. In all Wyatt's proceedings he

displayed great bravery, but little military experience or caution.

His main forces, now deprived of their leader, wavered and gave way, but

instead of breaking took another course to reach the City. Wyatt, as if

unconscious that he had left the bulk of his army behind him, and had now

the enemy between it and himself, rushed along past Charing Cross and

through the Strand to Ludgate, in the fond hope still that the citizens

would admit him and join him. In the passages of the Strand were posted

bodies of soldiers under the Earl of Worcester and the contemptible

Courtenay, who, on the sight of Wyatt, fled.

On reaching Ludgate, Wyatt found the gates closed, and instead of the

citizens who had promised to receive him, Lord William Howard appeared

over the gate, crying sternly, "Avaunt, traitor! avaunt; you enter not

here!" Finding no access there, the unhappy man turned to rejoin and

assist his troops, but he was met by those of Pembroke, who had poured

after him like a flood. With the energy of despair he fought his way back

as far as the Temple, where he found only twenty-four of his followers

surviving. At Temple Bar he threw away his sword, which was broken, and

surrendered himself to Sir Maurice Berkeley, who immediately mounted him

behind him and carried him off to Court.

Mary had displayed the most extraordinary clemency on the termination

of the former conspiracy, for which not only the Emperor but her

own Ministers had blamed her. Her Council now urged her to make a

more salutary example of these offenders, to prevent a repetition

of rebellion. On the previous occasion she had permitted only three

of the ringleaders to be put to death. On this occasion five of the

chief conspirators were condemned, and four of them were executed,

Croft being pardoned. Suffolk fell without any commiseration. It was

difficult to decide whether his folly or his ingratitude had been the

greater. He had twice been a traitor to the queen, the second time

after being most mercifully pardoned. He had twice put his amiable and

excellent daughter's life in jeopardy; the second time after seeing how

hopeless was the attempt to place her on the throne, and therefore,

to a certainty, by the second revolt, involving her death; and to add

to his infamy, he endeavoured to win escape for himself by betraying

others. He was beheaded on the 23rd of February. Wyatt was kept in the

Tower till the 11th of April, when he was executed. Unlike Suffolk, he

tried to exculpate others, declaring in his last moments that neither

the Princess Elizabeth nor Courtenay, who were suspected of being privy

to his designs, knew anything of them. Wyatt seems to have been a brave

and honest man, who believed himself acting the part of a patriot in

endeavouring to preserve the country from the Spanish yoke, and who,

in the sincerity of his own heart, had too confidently trusted to the

assurances of faithless men. Had he succeeded, and placed the Protestant

Princess Elizabeth on the throne, his name, instead of remaining that of

a traitor, would have stood side by side with that of Hampden. His body

was quartered and exposed in different places. His head was stuck on a

pole at Hay Hill, near Hyde Park, whence it was stolen by some of his

friends.

Sir Nicholas Throgmorton was the sixth, who was tried at Guildhall on the

17th of April, the very day of Lord Grey's execution. His condemnation

and death were regarded as certain; but on being brought to the bar he

adroitly pleaded that the recent statute abolishing all treasons since

the reign of Edward III., covered anything which he could possibly have

done, and that his offence being only words, were by the same statute

declared to be no overt act at all. He stated this with so much skill and

eloquence, at the same time contending that there was not a particle of

evidence of his having been an active accomplice of the rebels, that the

jury acquitted him.

The execution which caused and still causes the deepest interest,

and which always appears as a shadow on the character of Queen Mary,

was that of her cousin, Lady Jane Grey. Till this second unfortunate

insurrection, Mary steadily refused to listen to any persuasions to shed

the blood of Lady Jane. She had had her tried and condemned to death,

but she still permitted her to live, gave her a considerable degree of

liberty and unusual indulgences, and it was generally understood that

she meant eventually to pardon her. The ambassadors of Charles V. had

strenuously urged her to prevent future danger by executing her rival,

but she had replied that she could not find it in her conscience to

put her unfortunate kinswoman to death, who had not been an accomplice

of Northumberland, but merely an instrument in his hands; but now that

the very mischief had taken place which the Emperor and her own Council

had prognosticated; she was importuned on all sides to take what they

described as the only prudent course. Poynet, the Bishop of Winchester,

says that those lords of the Council who had been the most instrumental

at the death of Edward VI. in thrusting royalty on Lady Jane--namely,

Pembroke and Winchester--and who had been amongst the first to denounce

Mary as illegitimate, were now the most remorseless advocates for Lady

Jane's death.

Accordingly, the day after the fall of Wyatt, Mary signed the warrant

for the execution of "Guilford Dudley and his wife," to take place

within three days. On the morning of the execution the queen sent Lady

Jane permission to have an interview with her husband, but she declined

the favour as too trying, saying she should meet him within a few hours

in heaven. She saw her husband go to execution from the window of the

lodging in Master Partridge's house, and beheld the headless trunk borne

back to be buried in the chapel. Lord Guilford Dudley was executed on

Tower Hill in sight of a vast concourse, but a scaffold was erected for

her on the Tower green. Immediately after his corpse had passed she was

led forth by the Lieutenant of the Tower, and appeared to go to her

fate without any discomposing fear, but in a serious frame, not a tear

dimming her eye, though her gentlewomen, Elizabeth Tilney and Mistress

Helen, were weeping greatly. She continued engaged in prayer, which she

read from a book, till she came to the scaffold; there she made a short

speech to the spectators, declaring that she deserved her punishment for

allowing herself to be made the instrument of the ambition of others.

"That device, however," she said, "was never of my seeking, but by the

counsel of those who appeared to have better understanding of such things

than I. As for the procurement or desire of such dignity by me, I wash

my hands thereof before God and all you Christian people this day."

She caused her gentlewomen to disrobe her, bandaged her own eyes with

a handkerchief, and laying her head on the block, at one stroke it was

severed from the body (February 12, 1554).

But this conspiracy had approached the queen much more nearly than in

the person of Wyatt or the friends of Lady Jane Grey. It was discovered

by intercepted letters of Wyatt, of Noailles, the French ambassador, and

by one supposed to have been written by Elizabeth herself to the French

king; that she was deeply implicated, and that the design of marrying

her and Courtenay and placing them on the throne was well known, and

apparently quite agreeable to her.

[Illustration: LADY JANE GREY ON HER WAY TO THE SCAFFOLD. (_See p._

232.)]

The refusal of Elizabeth to join her sister at the outbreak of the

insurrection, and the flight of Courtenay at the moment of Wyatt's entry

of London, excited suspicion, and this suspicion was soon converted into

something very like fact by the three despatches of Noailles, written in

cipher, and dated January 26th, 28th, and 30th. These despatches detailed

the steps taken in her favour. Besides these there were two notes sent

by Wyatt to Elizabeth, the first advising her to remove to Donington,

the next informing her of his successful entry into Southwark. Then came

what appeared clearly a letter of Elizabeth to the King of France. The

Duke of Suffolk's confession was again corroborative of these details,

namely, that the object of the insurrection was to depose Mary and place

Elizabeth on the throne. William Thomas supported this, adding that it

was intended to put the queen immediately to death. Croft confessed that

he had solicited Elizabeth to return to Donington; Lord Russell said

he had conveyed letters from Wyatt to Elizabeth, and another witness

deposed to his knowledge of a correspondence between Courtenay and Carew

respecting Courtenay's marriage with the princess.

With all these startling facts in her possession, Mary wrote to Elizabeth

with an air of unsuspicious kindness, requesting her to come to her from

Ashridge, informing her that malicious and ill-disposed persons accused

her of favouring the late insurrection; but appearing not to believe

it, and giving as a reason for her wishing her to be nearer, that the

times were so unsettled that she would be in greater security with her.

Elizabeth pleaded illness for not complying; but the queen sent Hastings,

Southwell, and Cornwallis, members of Council, whom she received in

her bed, and complained of being afflicted with a severe and dangerous

malady. Mary, well acquainted with the deep dissimulation of her

sister's character, then sent three of her own physicians, accompanied

by Lord William Howard; and the physicians having given their opinion

that she was quite able to travel, she was obliged to accompany them by

short stages, borne in a litter. She appeared pale and bloated. It was

said that she had been poisoned; but in a week she was quite well, and

demanded an audience of the queen; but Mary had so much evidence in her

hands of Elizabeth's proceedings, that she sent her word that it was

necessary first to prove her innocence.

Courtenay had been arrested on the 12th of February, at the house of the

Earl of Essex, and committed to the Tower. Mary was averse from sending

her sister there, and asked each of the lords of the Council in rotation

to admit Elizabeth to their houses, and take charge of her. All declined

the dangerous office; she was, therefore, compelled to sign the warrant

for her committal, and Elizabeth was conducted to the Tower by the

Earl of Sussex and another nobleman on the 18th of March. Even whilst

performing this duty, it appears that Elizabeth had influence enough with

these noblemen to make them dilatory in the execution of their office, to

the great anger of the queen, who upbraided them with their remissness,

telling them they dared not have done such a thing in her father's time,

and wishing that "he were alive for a month." Elizabeth on entering the

Tower was dreadfully afraid that she was doomed to leave it as so many

princes and nobles had done, without a head. She inquired whether Lady

Jane's scaffold were removed, and was greatly relieved to hear that it

was. But what alarmed Elizabeth still more, was that the Constable of

the Tower was discharged from his office, and Sir Henry Bedingfield,

a zealous Romanist, appointed in his place. The fact of Sir Robert

Brackenbury having been seventy years before, in like manner, removed,

and Sir James Tyrell put in, when the princes were murdered, appeared an

ominous precedent, but there was no real cause for apprehension; Mary

had no wish to shed her sister's blood. Elizabeth, spite of the evidence

against her, protested vehemently her innocence, and wished "that God

might confound her eternally if she was in any manner implicated with

Wyatt."

The Court of Spain, through Renard the ambassador, urged perseveringly

the execution of Elizabeth and Courtenay. Renard represented from his

sovereign that there could be no security for her throne so long as

Elizabeth and Courtenay were suffered to live. But Mary replied that

though they had both of them, no doubt, listened willingly to the

conspirators, and would have been ready had they succeeded to step into

her throne, yet they had been guilty of no overt act, and, therefore, by

the constitutional law of England which had been enacted in her first

Parliament, they could not be put to death, but could only be imprisoned,

or suffer forfeiture of their goods.

In spite of the many warnings and the most universal expression of

dislike to the match, Mary persisted in her engagement of marriage with

Philip of Spain, though he himself showed no unequivocal reluctance to

the completion of it; never writing to her, but submitting to his fate,

as it were, in obedience to the parental command. At the end of May the

unwilling bridegroom resigned his government of Castile--which he held

for his insane grandmother, Juana--into the hands of his sister, the

Princess-Dowager of Portugal, and bade adieu to his family. He embarked

at Corunna on the 13th of July for England, and landed at Southampton on

the 20th, after a week's voyage. He married his wife, who was much older

than himself, and whose importunate love soon began to annoy him, at

Winchester.

On the 11th of November the third Parliament of Mary's reign was

summoned, and she and her Royal husband rode from Hampton Court to

Whitehall to open the session. The king and queen rode side by side,

a sword of State being borne before each to betoken their independent

sovereignties. The queen was extremely anxious to restore the lands

reft from the Church by her father and brother to their ancient uses,

but she must have known little of the men into whose hands those lands

had fallen, if she could seriously hope for such a sacrifice. The Earl

of Bedford, than whom no one had more deeply gorged himself with Church

plunder, on hearing the proposition, tore his rosary from his girdle

and flung it into the fire, saying he valued the abbey of Woborn more

than any fatherly counsel that could come from Rome. All the rest of the

Council were of the same way of thinking as Bedford, and Mary saw that

it was a hopeless case to move them on that point, though she set them a

very honourable example by surrendering the lands which still remained in

the hands of the Crown, to the value of £60,000 a year.

Though Mary could not recover the property for the Church, she resolved

to restore that Church to unity with Rome. She expressed her earnest

desire to have the presence of her kinsman, Cardinal Pole, in her

kingdom, and he now set out for England, from which he had been banished

so many years. He rendered this return the more easy, by bringing with

him from the Pope a bull which confirmed the nobles in their possession

of the Church property, on condition that the Papal supremacy was

restored. The queen despatched Sir Edward Hastings to accompany the

cardinal; and Sir William Cecil, who had been Edward's unhesitating

minister in stripping the Church, set out of his own accord to pay homage

to the Papal representative. Cecil's only real religion was ambition, and

Mary knew that so well that, in spite of all his time-serving, she never

would place any confidence in him, whence his bitter hostility to her

memory.

Pole, on his arrival, ascended the Thames from Greenwich in a splendid

State barge, at the prow of which he fixed a large silver cross, thus

marking the entrance of the legatine and Papal authority into the

country, as it were, in a triumphal manner. On the 24th of November the

king and queen met the united Parliament in the presence-chamber of the

palace of Whitehall: this was owing to the indisposition of the queen.

Gardiner introduced the business, which, he told them, was the weightiest

that ever happened in this realm, and begged their utmost attention to

Cardinal Pole. Pole then made a long speech, reverting to his own history

as well as that of the nation. All listened in solemn seriousness and

yet apprehension when he announced to them the fact that the Pope was

ready to absolve the English from their crimes of heresy and contumacy.

But when he added that this was to be done without any reclamation

of the Church lands, there was a unanimous vote of both Houses for

reconciliation with Rome.

The next morning, the king, queen, and Parliament met again in the

presence-chamber, when, Pole presenting himself, Philip and Mary

rose, and, bowing profoundly to him, presented him with the vote of

Parliament. The cardinal, on receiving it, offered up thanks to God for

this auspicious event, and then ordered his commission to be read. The

Peers and Commons then fell on their knees and received absolution and

benediction from the hands of the cardinal, and thus for a time again was

the great breach between England and the Papacy healed.

Parliament proceeded to pass Acts confirming all that was now done,

and repealing all the statutes which had been passed against the Roman

Church since the 20th of Henry VIII., while the clergy in Convocation

made formal resignation of the possessions which had passed into

the hands of laymen. The legate also issued decrees authorising all

cathedral churches, hospitals, and schools founded since the schism, to

be preserved, and that all persons who had contracted marriage within

prescribed degrees should remain married notwithstanding.

The year 1555 opened with dark and threatening features. The queen's

health was failing; and, under the idea that she was merely suffering

maternal inconvenience, she was rapidly advancing in a dropsy which,

in less than four years, was destined to sink her to the tomb. The

king, gloomy, despotic, and, consequently, unpopular, though he often

endeavoured to act against his nature, and assume a popular character,

still hoping for an heir to the English crown, had obtained from

Parliament an Act constituting him regent, in case Mary should die after

the birth of a child, during the minority of that child. Thus, whether

the queen lived or died, he appeared to possess a reasonable prospect of

obtaining the supreme power in this country; and how he would have used

it, we may judge from his government of Spain and the Netherlands. If the

child was a female, he was made governor till her fifteenth year; if a

male, till his eighteenth year. Philip protested on his honour that he

would give up the government faithfully when the child came of age; but

Lord Paget asked "who was to sue the bond if he did not?"--a suggestion

never forgiven. With this flattering but illusive prospect before

him, the tempest of persecution soon burst forth; and, had Providence

permitted, England would soon have exhibited the same scene of tyranny,

bloodshed, and insult which Flanders did under his rule. As it was, for a

short period, terrible war for conscience' sake burst forth, the prisons

were thronged, and the fires of death blazed out in every quarter of the

island. Mary, with failing health, and doting absurdly on her husband,

was easily drawn to acquiesce in deeds and measures which made her name

a byword to all future times.

We are now called upon to pass through a reign of terror, a time of

fire and blood, such as has no parallel in the history of England. The

statutes against the Lollards enacted in the reigns of Richard II.,

Henry IV., and Henry V., were revived and were to come into force on the

20th of January. Bonner, accompanied by eight bishops and 160 priests,

made a grand procession through the streets of London, and held services

of public thanksgiving for the happy restoration of Catholicism. A

commission was then held in the Church of St. Mary Overy, in Southwark,

for the trial of heretics. The first man brought before this court, over

which Gardiner presided, was John Rogers, a prebendary of St. Paul's,

who had nobly distinguished himself by defending the first priest sent

by Mary to preach Papacy at St. Paul's Cross. The Court condemned him to

be burnt, and on the 4th of February this horrible sentence was executed

in the most barbarous manner. The day of his death was kept a profound

secret from him, and early that morning he was suddenly awakened out of a

sound sleep and informed that he was to be burnt that day. The condemned

man, so far from sinking under the appalling announcement, only calmly

observed, "Then I need not truss my points." He requested to be permitted

to take leave of his wife and children, of whom he had eleven--one still

at the breast--but this Bonner refused. As he was led by the sheriffs

towards Smithfield, where he was to suffer, he sang the "Miserere." His

wife and children were placed where he would have a full view of them

at the stake, and it was expected that this would induce him to recant

and save his life, and thus induce others to follow his example; but

outwardly unmoved, he maintained the most sublime fortitude.

Bishop Hooper, Ferrar, Bishop of St. David's, Dr. Rowland Taylor of

Hadleigh, in Suffolk, and Lawrence Saunders, Rector of Allhallows,

Coventry, were all condemned to the same death, and, like Rogers,

were offered their lives on recantation, which one and all refused.

The treatment of the pious Bishop Hooper was a most glaring case of

ingratitude. Decided Protestant as he was, and of the most primitive

simplicity of faith, he had from the first manifested the most staunch

loyalty to Mary. In his own account of himself he says, "When Mary's

fortunes were at the worst, I rode myself from place to place, as is well

known, to win and stay the people to her party. And whereas when another

was proclaimed [Lady Jane Grey] I preferred our queen, notwithstanding

the proclamations. I sent horses in both shires [Gloucestershire and

Worcester] to serve her in great danger, as Sir John Talbot and William

Lygon, Esq., can testify." Hooper was sent down to Gloucester, his own

diocese, to suffer, where he was burnt on the 9th of February, in a slow

fire, to increase and prolong his agonies to the utmost. On the same day

Dr. Taylor was burnt at Hadleigh.

This shocking state of things was interrupted for some time by the sudden

and extraordinary outbreak of Alphonso di Castro, the confessor of King

Philip, a Spanish friar, who preached before the Court a sermon in which

he most vehemently and eloquently inveighed against the wickedness and

inhumanity of burning people for their opinions. He declared that the

practice was not learned in the Scriptures, but the contrary; for it was

decidedly opposed to both the letter and the spirit of the New Testament;

that it was the duty of the Government and the clergy to win men to the

Gospel by mildness, and not to kill but to instruct the ignorant. A

mystery has always hung over this singular demonstration. Some thought

Philip, some that Mary, had ordered him to preach this sermon, but it

is far more probable that it was the spontaneous act of zeal in a man

who was enlightened beyond his age and his country. It is not probable

that it proceeded from Philip, for he could at once have commanded this

change; it is besides contrary to his life-long policy. Had it been the

will of the sovereigns it would have produced a permanent effect. As it

was, it took the Court and country by surprise. The impression on the

Court was so powerful that all further burnings ceased for five weeks, by

which time the good friar's sermon had lost its effect; and the religious

butcheries went on as fiercely as ever, till more than two hundred

persons had been slaughtered on account of their faith in this short

reign. Miles Coverdale, the venerable translator of the Bible, was saved

from this death by the King of Denmark writing to Mary and claiming him

as his subject.

[Illustration: ARCHBISHOP CRANMER.

(_From the Portrait in the Collection at Lambeth Palace._)]

Mary had now, according to the custom of English queens, formally taken

to her chamber in expectation of giving birth to an heir to the throne.

She chose Hampton Court as the scene of this vainly-hoped-for event, and

went there on the 3rd of April, where she continued secluded from her

subjects, only being seen on one occasion, till the 21st of July, after

she had again returned to St. James's. This occasion was on the 23rd of

May, St. George's Day, when she stood at a window of the palace to see

the procession of the Knights of the Garter with Philip at their head,

attended by Gardiner the Lord Chancellor, and a crowd of priests with

crosses, march round the courts and cloisters of Hampton Court. A few

days afterwards there was a report that a prince was born, and there

was much ringing of bells and singing _Te Deum_ in the City and other

places. But it soon became known, that there was no hope of an heir, but

that the queen was suffering under a mortal disease, and that such was

her condition, "that she sat whole days together on the ground crouched

together with her knees higher than her head." On the 21st of July she

removed for her health from London to Eltham Palace.

Gardiner took advantage of the pause in persecution caused by the sermon

of Di Castro to withdraw from his odious office of chief inquisitor.

Might _he_ not have instigated the friar to express his opinion so

boldly, for it is obvious that he wanted to be clear of the dreadful

work of murdering his fellow-subjects for their faith? He therefore

withdrew from the office, and a more sanguinary man took it up. This

was Bonner, Bishop of London. He opened his inquisitorial court in the

consistory court of St. Paul's, and compelled the Lord Mayor and aldermen

to attend and countenance his proceedings. Burnet gives a letter written

in the name of Philip and Mary exhorting him to increased activity; but

from what we have seen of Mary's condition we may safely attribute the

spur to Philip. Cardinal Pole did all in his power to put an end to the

persecutions, but in vain.

It was now resolved to proceed to extremities with the three eminent

prelates, Cranmer, Ridley, and Latimer. But the charge of high treason

was dropped, undoubtedly because it was hoped that they might, by the

prospect of the flames, be brought as heretics to recantation. On the

15th of April, 1554, they were led from their prisons to St. Mary's

Church, Oxford, where the doctors of the university sat in judgment upon

them. They were promised a free and fair discussion of their tenets,

and the still more vain assurance was given that if they could convince

their opponents they should be set free. The so-called disputation

continued three days, but it more truly represented a bear-baiting than

the discussion of men in quest of the truth.

On the 16th of April, the day appointed, Cranmer appeared before

this disorderly assembly in the divinity school. He was treated with

peculiar indignity, for they had a deep hatred of him from the long and

conspicuous part which he had enacted in the work of Reformation. It was

in vain that he attempted to state his views, for he was interrupted at

every moment by half a dozen persons at once; and whenever he advanced

anything particularly difficult of answer, the doctors denounced him as

ignorant and unlearned, and the students hissed and clapped their hands

outrageously. The next day Ridley experienced the same treatment, but

he was a man of a much more bold and determined character, of profound

learning, and ready address, and, in spite of the most disreputable

clamour and riot, he made himself heard above all the storm, and with

telling effect. When his adversaries shouted at him five or six at a

time, he calmly observed, "I have but one tongue, I cannot answer all at

once."

Latimer was not only oppressed by age but by sickness, and he was

scarcely able to stand. He appealed to his base judges to pity his

weakness and give him a fair hearing. "Ha! good master," he said to

Weston, the moderator, "I pray ye be good to an old man; ye may be once

as old as I am: ye may come to this age and this debility." But he

appealed in vain; his judges and hearers were lost to all sense of what

was due to truth and religion, of what was due to the age and spirit of a

veteran servant of God, whatever might have been his errors or failings.

The rude students only laughed, hissed, clapped their hands, and mocked

the old man the more. Seeing that all hopes of a hearing were vain, he

told the rabble of his judges and spectators, for such they truly were,

"that he had spoken before attentive kings for two and three hours at

a time, but that he could not declare his mind there for a quarter of

an hour for mockings, revilings, checks, rebukes, and taunts, such as

he had not felt the like in such an audience all his life long." The

three insulted and unheard prisoners wrote to the queen that they had

been silenced by the noise, not by the arguments of their opponents, and

Cranmer in his letter said, "I never knew nor heard of a more confused

disputation in all my life; for albeit there was one appointed to dispute

against me, yet every man spake his mind, and brought forth what him

liked without order; and such haste was made that no answer could be

suffered to be given."

On the 28th of April they were all three brought again into St. Mary's

Church, and asked by Weston whether they were willing to conform, and

on replying in the negative, were condemned as obstinate heretics,

and returned to their prison. There they lay till the October of the

following year (1555), when Ridley and Latimer were ordered to prepare

for the stake. On the 16th of that month a stake was erected in the town

ditch opposite to Balliol College. Soto, a Spanish priest, had been sent

to them in person to try to convert them, but in vain; Latimer would not

even listen to him; and now at the stake a Dr. Smith, who had renounced

Popery in King Edward's time, and was again a pervert, preached a sermon

on the text, "Though I give my body to be burned and have not charity, it

profiteth me nothing." The two martyrs cheered each other, and exhorted

one another to be courageous. Ridley, on approaching the pile, turned to

Latimer who was following him, embraced and kissed him, saying, "Be of

good heart, brother, for God will either assuage the fury of the flame,

or strengthen us to bear it;" and when Latimer was tied to the stake

back to back with his fellow-sufferer, he returned the consolation,

exclaiming, "Be of good comfort, Master Ridley, and play the man; we

shall this day light such a candle, by God's grace, in England, as I

trust shall never be put out." A lighted faggot was placed at the feet

of Ridley, and matches were applied to the pile. Bags of gunpowder were

hung round their necks to shorten their sufferings, and as the flames

ascended Latimer quickly died, probably through suffocation in the smoke;

but Ridley suffered long. His brother-in-law had piled the faggots high

about him to hasten his death, but the flames did not readily find their

way amongst them from their closeness, and a spectator hearing him cry

out that he could not burn opened the pile, and an explosion of gunpowder

almost instantly terminated his existence.

Cranmer was reserved for a future day. The punctilios of ecclesiastical

form were strictly observed, and as he enjoyed the dignity of Primate

of England, it required higher authority to decide his fate than that

which had pronounced judgment on his companions. Latimer and Ridley had

been sentenced by the commissioners of the legate, Cranmer must only be

doomed by the Pontiff himself. He was therefore waited on in his cell

by Brooks, Bishop of Gloucester, as Papal sub-delegate, and two Royal

commissioners, and there cited to appear before him at Rome within

eighty days, and answer for his heresies. As this was impossible, the

citation was a mockery and an insult. When the archbishop saw his two

friends led forth to their horrible death, his resolution, which never

was very great, began to fail, and he now presented a woful image of

terror and irresolution, very different to the bravery of his departed

friends. He expressed a possibility of conversion to Rome, and desired

a conference with Cardinal Pole. But soon he became ashamed of his own

weakness, and wrote to the queen defending his own doctrines, which she

commissioned the cardinal to answer. When the eighty days had expired,

and the Pope had pronounced his sentence, and had appointed Bonner, and

Thirlby, Bishop of Ely, to degrade him, and see his sentence executed,

he once more trembled with apprehension, and gave out that he was ready

to submit to the judgment of the queen; that he believed in the creed of

the Catholic Church, and deplored and condemned his past apostacy. He

forwarded this submission to the Council, which they found too vague, and

required a more full and distinct confession, which he supplied. When the

Bishops of London and Ely arrived to degrade him, he appealed from the

judgment of the Pope to that of a general Council, but that not being

listened to, he sent two other papers to the commissioners before they

left Oxford, again fully and explicitly submitting to all the statutes of

the realm regarding the supremacy, and professing his faith in all the

doctrines and rites of the Romish Church.

On the 21st of March, 1556, Cranmer was conducted to St. Mary's Church,

Oxford, where Dr. Cole, provost of Eton College, preached a sermon, in

which he stated that notwithstanding Cranmer's repentance, he had done

the Church so much mischief that he must die. That morning Garcina, a

Spanish friar, had waited on him before leaving his cell, and presented

him with a paper making a complete statement of his recantation and

repentance, which he requested him to copy and sign. It seems that his

enemies calculated that, having so fully committed himself, the fallen

Primate would not, at the last hour, depart from his confession; but they

were mistaken. Cranmer now saw nothing but death before him, and he most

bitterly repented of his weakness and the renunciation of what he felt

to be the holy truth. He therefore transcribed once more the paper which

had been brought to him, but in place of the latter part of it he wrote

in a very different conclusion. Accordingly, when he read his paper at

the conclusion of the sermon, there was a profound silence till he came

to the fifth article of it, which went on to declare that through fear of

death, and beguiled by hopes of pardon, he had been led to renounce his

genuine faith, but that he now declared that all his recantations were

false; that he recalled them every one, rejected the Papal authority, and

confirmed the whole doctrine contained in his book. The amazement was

intense, the audience became agitated by various passions, there were

mingled murmurings and approbation. The Lord Williams of Thame called to

him to "remember himself and play the Christian." That was touching a

string which woke the response of the hero and the martyr in the Primate.

He replied that he did remember; that it was now too late to dissemble,

and he must now speak the truth.

[Illustration: THE PLACE OF MARTYRDOM, OLD SMITHFIELD.]

When the first astonishment at this unlooked-for declaration had passed,

there was a rush to drag down Cranmer, and hurry him to the stake in

the same spot where his friends Ridley and Latimer had suffered. There

he was speedily stripped to the shirt and tied to the stake; through it

all he was firm and calm. He no longer trembled at his fate; he declared

that he had never changed his belief; hope of life only had wrung from

him his recantation; and the moment that the flames burst out he thrust

his right hand into them, saying, "This hath offended." The writers of

those times say that he stood by the stake whilst the fire raged round

him, as immovable as the stake itself, and lifting up his eyes to heaven,

exclaimed, "Lord, receive my spirit," and very soon expired.

The day after the death of Cranmer, Cardinal Pole, who had now taken

priest's orders, was consecrated Archbishop of Canterbury; and showed his

anxiety to check this fierce and impolitic persecution, but, as we shall

find, with no great result.

While these terrible transactions had been taking place King Philip

had quitted the kingdom. With all his endeavours to become popular

with the English, Philip never could win their regard. He conformed to

many national customs, and affected to enjoy the national amusements;

threw off much of his hauteur, especially in his intercourse with the

nobles, and conferred pensions on them on the plea that they had stood

by the queen during the insurrection. But nothing could inspire the

English with confidence in him. They had always an idea that the object

of the Spaniards was to introduce the Spanish rule and dominance here.

They had always the persuasion that it was no longer their own queen,

but the future King of Spain and the Netherlands who ruled. It was

clearly seen that Philip never had any real affection for Mary; it was

the public opinion that he had now less than ever, whilst the poor

invalid Mary doated on him, and was ready to yield up everything but the

actual sovereignty to him. And now came a very sufficient cause for the

departure of Philip from England. His father, Charles V., wearied of

governing his vast empire, was anxious to abdicate in favour of his son.

Philip embarked at Dover on the 4th of September, 1555. Mary accompanied

him from Hampton to Greenwich, riding through London in a litter, in

order, as the French ambassador states, "that her people might see that

she was not dead." The queen was anxious to proceed as far as Dover, and

see him embark, but her health did not permit this; and after parting

from him with passionate grief, she endeavoured to console herself by

having daily prayers offered for his safety and speedy return.

[Illustration: MARY I.]

Charles V., at the age of only fifty-five, had now resigned his vast

empire to his son and his brother Ferdinand; and Spain, the Netherlands,

Naples, Sicily, Milan, and the new lands of South America, owned Philip

as their lord. On the 25th of October, 1555, Charles, in an assembly of

the States of the Netherlands, resigned these countries to Philip, and

in a few months later he also put him in possession of the government

of other parts of his dominions, Ferdinand succeeding to the Imperial

crown. Charles then retired to the monastery of St. Just, near Placentia,

on the borders of Spain and Portugal, where this great king, who had

so long exercised so strong an influence on the destinies of Europe,

lived as a simple private gentleman, retaining only a few servants and a

single horse for his own use, and employing his now abundant leisure in

religious exercises, in gardening, and clock-making.

During Philip's absence, a series of insurrections took place which

disturbed the quiet of the queen, and in which the King of France seems

to have borne no inconsiderable part. His assiduous minister, Noailles,

disseminated reports that Mary, hopeless of issue, had resolved to settle

the Crown on her husband. This having produced its effect, a conspiracy

was set on foot to put Elizabeth on the throne, and depose Mary. Sir

Henry Dudley, a relative of the late Duke of Northumberland, was to head

it and the French king, to secure his interest, had settled a pension

on him. The worthless Courtenay, who was at this moment on his way to

Italy, whence he never returned, was still to play the part of husband

to Elizabeth, though the management of the plot was to be consigned to

Dudley. Elizabeth had again, it is said, fully consented to this plot,

though the health of Mary was such as must have promised her the throne

at no distant day. Dudley was already on the coast of Normandy with some

of his fellow-conspirators, making preparations, when the King of France

unexpectedly concluded a truce for five years with Philip. He therefore

advised Dudley and his accomplices to lie quiet for a more favourable

opportunity. This was a paralysing blow to the scheme of insurrection,

and the coadjutors in England had gone so far that they did not think

it safe to stop. Kingston, Uedale, Throgmorton, Staunton, and others of

the league determined to seize the treasure in the Tower, and, once in

possession of that, to raise forces and drive the queen from the throne.

But one of them revealed the design; several of them were seized and

executed, and others escaped to France. Mary applied by her ambassador,

Lord Clinton, to Henry II. to have them delivered up, and received a

polite promise of endeavour to secure them, which there was in reality

no intention to fulfil. Amongst the conspirators arrested were two

officers of the household of Elizabeth, Peckham and Werne, who made very

awkward confessions; but again the princess escaped, it is said at the

intercession of Philip, who was apprehensive, if Elizabeth was removed

from the succession, of the claims of the French king on behalf of his

daughter-in-law, the Queen of Scots. Elizabeth at all events escaped,

protesting her innocence as stoutly as ever, but receiving from the

Council in place of those two officers executed, two other trusty ones,

Sir Thomas Pope and Robert Cage.

But if Elizabeth was uneasy, Mary was still more so. The disquiets

which surrounded her, and the wretched state of her health, made her

very anxious for the return of her husband. She had lost her able

minister, Gardiner, who died in November, 1555, and his successor, Heath,

Archbishop of York, by no means supplied his place. Mary, therefore,

wrote long and repeated letters to urge the return of Philip, and,

finding them unavailing, she despatched Lord Paget to represent the

urgent need of his presence in the kingdom. At last his difficulties

with France and the Pope brought Philip home to his wife when all

conjugal persuasions on her part had failed. He sent over, to announce

his approach, Robert Dudley, son of the late Duke of Northumberland,

whom Mary had liberated from the Tower, and who already, it seems, had

contrived to win so much favour as to be taken into the royal service,

in which he continued to mount till, in the next reign, he became the

notorious Earl of Leicester and favourite of Queen Elizabeth. On the 20th

of March, 1556, Philip himself arrived at Greenwich. As he wanted to win

the English to join him in the war against France, he paid particular

respect to the City of London. During this visit there appeared at Court

the novel sight of a Duke of Muscovy, in the character of ambassador from

Russia, who astonished the public by the enormous size of the pearls and

jewels that he wore, and the richness of his dress.

Philip used all his influence to induce the queen and her Council to

declare war against Henry of France, who had broken that five years'

truce into which he had so recently entered. But the finances of the

country were not such as to render either the queen or her Council

willing to go to war with France, which, connected as France was now with

Scotland, was sure to occasion a war also with that country. Cardinal

Pole and nearly the whole Council were strongly opposed to it. They

assured her that to engage lightly in Philip's wars was to make England

a dependency of Spain, and Philip, on the other hand, protested to the

queen that if she did not aid him against France he would take his leave

of her for ever.

While matters were in this position a circumstance occurred which

turned the scale in Philip's favour. Henry II. of France, on deciding

to accept the Pope's invitation, and to make war on Philip, called on

Dudley and his adherents to renew their attempts on England. Dudley

and his coadjutors opened a communication with the families of the

Reformers in Calais and the surrounding district, who had suffered from

the persecution of the English Government, or who were indignant at the

cruelties practised on their fellow professors, and they concurred in a

plan to betray Hammes and Guines to the French. This scheme was defeated

by the means of an English spy who became cognisant of the secret. The

mischief, though stopped there, soon showed itself in another quarter.

Thomas Stafford, the second son of Lord Stafford, and grandson of the

late Duke of Buckingham, mustered a small army of English, French, and

Scots, and, sailing from Dieppe, landed at Scarborough in Yorkshire, and

surprised the castle there. But he soon found that, however much the

public might dislike the Spanish match, they were not at all inclined to

rebel against their queen. Wotton, the English ambassador in France, had

duly warned his court of the designs of Stafford, and on the fourth day

the Earl of Westmoreland appeared with a strong body of troops before

the castle, and compelled Stafford to surrender at discretion. Stafford,

Saunders, and three or four others were sent to London, and committed

to the Tower, where, under torture, they were made to confess that the

King of France had instigated and assisted their enterprise. Stafford was

beheaded on Tower Hill on the 28th of May, 1557, and the next day three

of his confederates were hanged at Tyburn.

The Council had been averse from the war, and had advised that, instead

of appearing as principals, we should merely confine ourselves to the

furnishing that aid which we were bound to by our ancient treaties

with the House of Burgundy. Now, however, it felt itself justified in

proclaiming open war against the King of France, as the violator of the

treaty between the nations, in having harboured the traitors against the

queen, and in having sent them over in French ships to Scarborough with

arms, ammunition, and money. Philip, having obtained what he wanted,

hastened over to Flanders, and neither Mary nor England ever saw him

again.

The Earl of Pembroke, accompanied by Lord Robert Dudley as his master of

ordnance, followed Philip at the end of July with 7,000 men. They joined

the army of Philip, consisting of men of many nations--Germans, Italians,

Flemings, Dalmatians, Croats, Illyrians, and others--making altogether

a force of 40,000 men, the supreme command of which was given to the

rejected suitor of the Princess Elizabeth, Philibert Duke of Savoy.

The duke successfully threatened an attack upon Marienberg, Rocroi, and

Guise, but he finally drew up before St. Quentin, on the right bank

of the Somme. There he won a great victory. The English fleet made

descents upon France at various points, menaced Bordeaux and Bayonne, and

plundered the defenceless inhabitants of the coasts. This was all that

was achieved, except what Philip probably most looked for, the drawing

of the Duke of Guise out of Italy. But this, while it removed all danger

from Philip's Transalpine possessions, led to a loss on the part of his

English ally which might be termed the crowning mischief of his union

with Mary.

The Duke of Guise, disappointed of his laurels in Italy, was now

planning an attack on Calais. The English were never less prepared for

the invasion. The fleet which had ravaged the coasts of France, and the

troops sent to Flanders, had totally exhausted the exchequer of Mary,

which at no time was well supplied. To victual that navy the queen had

seized all the corn she could find in Norfolk without paying for it,

and to equip the army sent to aid Philip, she had made a forced loan on

London, and on people of property in different places; she had levied

the second year's subsidy voted by Parliament before its time, and now

was helpless at the critical moment. Lord Wentworth, the Governor of

Calais, foreseeing the approaching storm, sent repeated entreaties for

reinforcements for its defence. They were wholly unattended to.

The Duke of Guise, after entering the English pale, sent a detachment

of his army along the downs to Rysbank, and led the other himself, with

a very heavy train of artillery, towards Newnham Bridge. He forced

the outwork at the village of St. Agatha, at the commencement of the

causeway, drove the garrison into Newnham, and took possession of the

outwork. The bulwarks of Froyton and Nesle were abandoned, for the

lord-deputy could send no forces to defend them. At Newnham Bridge

the garrison withdrew so silently that the French continued firing

upon the fort when the men were already in Calais; but at Rysbank the

garrison surrendered with the fort. Thus, in a couple of days, the Duke

of Guise was in possession of two most important forts, one commanding

the harbour, the other the causeway across the marshes from Flanders. A

battery on the heath of St. Pierre played on the wall to create a false

alarm, whilst another in real earnest played on the castle. A breach

was made in the wall near the water-gate, and, while the garrison

was busy in repairing it, Guise cannonaded the castle (which was in a

scandalous state of neglect) with fifteen double cannons. A wide breach

was speedily made. Lord Wentworth, well aware that the castle could

not be maintained, had ordered mines to be prepared, and calculated on

blowing the castle and the Frenchmen into the air together as soon as

they were in. Guise, seeing no garrison defending the breach, ordered one

detachment to occupy the quay, and another, under Strozzi, to take up

a position on the other side of the harbour. Strozzi was repulsed; but

at ebb-tide in the evening, Grammont, at the head of 100 arquebusiers,

marched up to the ditch opposite to the breach. No one being seen in the

castle, Guise ordered plenty of hurdles to be thrown into the ditch, and,

putting himself at the head of his men, forded the ditch, finding it not

deeper than his girdle. The lord-deputy, seeing the French in the castle,

ordered the train to be fired; but there was no explosion. The soldiers

crossing from the ditch to the breach, with their clothes deluging the

ground with water, had wet the train, and defeated Wentworth's design.

The next morning Guise sent his troops to assault the town, calculating

on as easy a conquest of it; but Sir Anthony Agar, with a handful of

men, not only repulsed the French, but chased them back into the castle.

The brave Sir Anthony, with a larger force, would have driven the French

from the decayed old castle too, but he had the merest little knot of

followers, and in the vain attempt to force the enemy out of the castle,

he fell at the gate with his son, and eighty of his chief officers.

Lord Wentworth perceiving the impossibility of continuing the defence,

destitute of a garrison, and having waited in vain for reinforcements

from Dover, that night demanded a parley, and surrendered.

[Illustration: THE HÔTEL DE VILLE AND OLD LIGHTHOUSE, CALAIS.]

The fall of Calais necessitated, as a matter of course, the loss of

the whole Calais district. Having put Calais into a state of defence,

Guise marched on the 13th of January, 1558, to Guines, about five miles

distant, to reduce the town and fort there. These were defended stoutly

by Lord Grey de Wilton, who had received about 400 Spanish and Burgundian

soldiers from King Philip, but they were in too miserable a state of

repair to be long held. The walls in a few days were knocked to pieces;

the Spanish soldiers were nearly all killed, and the remaining force

compelled their officers to surrender. The little castle of Hammes now

only remained, and situated in the midst of extensive marshes, it might

have given the enemy some trouble; but its governor, Lord Edward Dudley,

the moment he heard of the surrender of Guines, abandoned it, and fled

with his few soldiers into Flanders. The French were as elated at their

success as the English were mortified with it, and the poor queen felt

the loss so deeply, that she declared that if her body were opened after

her death, the name of Calais would be found graven on her heart.

[Illustration: SHILLING OF PHILIP AND MARY.]

In England, during the spring, preparations were made for the invasion

of France. Seven thousand troops were raised and diligently drilled.

One hundred and forty ships were hired, which the Lord-Admiral Clinton

collected in the harbour of Portsmouth, to be ready to join the fleet

of Philip, and, in conjunction, to ravage the coasts of France; whilst

Philip, with an army of Spanish, French, and English, should enter the

country by land. But this fleet and the English army, instead of aiming

to recover Calais, sailed to make an attack on Brest. But their progress

had been so dilatory that the French had made ample preparations to

receive them, and despairing of effecting any impression on Brest, they

fell on the little port of Le Conquêt, which they took and pillaged,

with a large church and several hamlets in its immediate neighbourhood.

They then marched some miles up the country, burning and plundering, and

the Flemings, in the eager quest of booty, going too far ahead, were

surrounded, and 400 of them cut off.

[Illustration: REAL OF MARY I.]

It appeared as if the war would be brought to a conclusion by a pitched

battle between the sovereigns of France and Spain. Philip had joined

his general, the Duke of Savoy, and they lay near Dourlens with an army

of 45,000 men. Henry had come into the camp of the Duke of Guise near

Amiens, who had an army of nearly equal strength. All the world looked

now for a great and decisive conflict. But Philip, though superior in

numbers, as well as crowned with the prestige of victory, listened to

offers of accommodation from Henry, and dismissing their armies into

winter quarters, they betook themselves to negotiation. From the first no

agreement appeared probable. Philip demanded the restoration of Calais,

Henry that of Navarre, and they were still pursuing the hopeless phantom

of accommodation, when the news of Queen Mary's death changed totally the

position of Philip, and put an end to the attempt. She died, desolate and

broken-hearted, on the 17th of November, 1558.

With all her bigotry, Mary had many excellent and amiable qualities.

No English monarch ever maintained a less expensive and less corrupt

court. She avoided all unnecessary taxation, and treated the cost of

her war with France as largely a private charge of her own. She lived

unostentatiously, went about amongst the poor with her maids, inquiring

into their wants and relieving them. She was an enlightened patron of

learning, and was the first to propose a hospital for old and invalid

soldiers, leaving a legacy for this purpose, which was, however, never

appropriated. Except in the matter of religious toleration, she showed a

scrupulous regard for the maintenance of the Constitution and the law.

Under her the administration of justice was pure and without respect of

person. Nor were the interests of trade neglected. She was the first to

make a commercial treaty with Russia, and she revoked the privileges of

the Hanse Town merchants, who had exercised them to the hurt of her own

people. By nature she was mild, but the persecution of her own faith in

the persons of her mother and herself, and, above everything, the fatal

Spanish marriage, produced a reaction which entailed all the calamities

of her short and miserable reign.