[Footnote 90: Renard to Charles V.: _Rolls House

MSS._ _Queen Jane and Queen Mary_, Appendix.

Baoardo says, Northampton pleaded--Ch' egli non si

era mai messo in governo et che sempre attese alla

caccia.]

[Footnote 91: Ibid.]

But Northampton had indisputably been in the field with the army, and,

as his judges perfectly well knew, had been, with Suffolk, the Duke's

uniform supporter in his most extreme measures; the queen had resolved

to pardon him; but the court could not recognise his excuse. Norfolk

rose, in a few words pronounced the usual sentence, and broke his

wand; the cold glimmering edge of the Tower axe was turned towards the

prisoners, and the peers rose. Northumberland, before he was led away,

fell upon his knees; his children were young, he said, and had acted

under orders from himself; to them let the queen show mercy; for

himself he had his peace to make with Heaven; he entreated for a few

days of life, and the assistance of a confessor; if two of the council

would come to confer with him, he had important secrets of state to

communicate; and, finally, he begged that he might die by the axe like

a nobleman.[92]

[Footnote 92: _Queen Jane and Queen Mary_, p 17,

Renard says that he asked the council to intercede

for his life.]

On the 19th, Sir John and Sir Henry Gates, Sir Andrew Dudley, and Sir

Thomas Palmer were tried before a special commission. Dudley had gone

with the treasonable message to France; the three others were the

boldest and most unscrupulous of the Duke's partisans, while Palmer

was also especially hated for his share in the death of Somerset.

These four also pleaded guilty, and were sentenced, Palmer only

scornfully telling the commissioners that they were traitors as well

as he, and worse than he.[93]

[Footnote 93: So Renard states. The author of the

_Chronicle of Queen Mary_ says merely that he

denied that he had borne arms against the queen,

but admitted that he had been with the army.]

Seven had been condemned; three only, the duke, Sir John Gates, and

Palmer, were to suffer.

Crime alone makes death terrible: in the long list of victims whose

bloody end, at stake or scaffold, the historian of England in the

sixteenth century has to relate, two only showed signs of cowardice,

and one of those was a soldier and a nobleman, who, {p.041} in a

moment of extreme peril, four years before, had kissed swords with his

comrades, and had sworn to conquer the insurgents at Norwich, or die

with honour.

The Duke of Northumberland, who since that time had lived very

emphatically without God in the world, had not lived without religion.

He had affected religion, talked about religion, played with religion,

till fools and flatterers had told him that he was a saint; and now,

in his extreme need, he found that he had trifled with forms and

words, till they had grown into a hideous hypocrisy. The Infinite of

death was opening at his feet, and he had no faith, no hope, no

conviction, but only a blank and awful horror, and perhaps he felt

that there was nothing left for him but to fling himself back in agony

into the open arms of superstition. He had asked to speak with some

member of the council; he had asked for a confessor. In Gardiner,

Bishop of Winchester, he found both.

After the sentence Gardiner visited him in the Tower, where he poured

out his miserable story; he was a Catholic, he said, he always had

been a Catholic; he had believed nothing of all the doctrines for

which he had pretended to be so zealous under Edward. "Alas!" he

cried, "is there no help for me?" "Let me live but a little longer to

do penance for my many sins." Gardiner's heart was softened at the

humiliating spectacle; he would speak to the queen, he said, and he

did speak, not wholly without success; he may have judged rightly,

that the living penitence of the Joshua of the Protestants would have

been more useful to the church than his death.[94] Already Mary had

expressed a wish that, if possible, the wretched man should be spared;

and he would have been allowed to live, except for the reiterated

protests of Renard in his own name and in the emperor's.

[Footnote 94: The authority for this story is

Parsons the Jesuit, who learnt it from one of the

council who was present at the interview. Parsons

says, indeed, that Mary would have spared the duke;

but that some one wrote to the emperor, and that

the emperor insisted that he should be put to

death. This could not be, because there was no time

for letters to pass and repass between Brussels and

London, in the interval between the sentence and

the execution; but Renard says distinctly that Mary

did desire to pardon him, and that he was himself

obliged to exert his influence to prevent it.]

It was decided at last that he should die; and a priest was assigned

him to prepare his soul. Doctor Watts or Watson, the same man whom

Cranmer long ago had set in the stocks at Canterbury, took charge of

Palmer and the rest--to them, {p.042} as rough soldiers, spiritual

consolation from a priest of any decent creed was welcome.

The executions were fixed originally for Monday, the 21st; but the

duke's conversion was a triumph to the Catholic cause too important

not to be dwelt upon a little longer. Neither Northampton, Warwick,

Andrew Dudley, or Sir Henry Gates were aware that they were to be

respited, and, as all alike availed themselves of the services of a

confessor and the forms of the Catholic faith, their compliance could

be made an instrument of a public and edifying lesson. The lives of

those who were to suffer were prolonged for twenty-four hours. On

Monday morning "certain of the citizens of London" were requested to

be in attendance at the Tower chapel, where Northumberland,

Northampton, Dudley, Henry Gates, and Palmer were brought in; and,

"first kneeling down, every one of them, upon his knees, they heard

mass, saying devoutedly, with the bishop,[95] every one of them,

_Confiteor_."

[Footnote 95: Gardiner.]

"After the mass was done, the duke rose up, and looked back upon my

lord marquis, and came unto him, asking them all forgiveness, the one

after the other, upon their knees, one to another; and the one did

heartily forgive the other. And then they came, every one of them,

before the altar, every one of them kneeling, and confessing to the

bishop that they were the same men in the faith according as they had

confessed to him before, and that they all would die in the Catholic

faith." When they had all received the sacrament, they rose and turned

to the people, and the duke said:--

"Truly, good people, I profess here before you all, that I have

received the sacrament according to the true Catholic faith: and the

plague that is upon the realm and upon us now is that we have erred

from the faith these sixteen years; and this I protest unto you all

from the bottom of my heart."

Northampton, with the rest, "did affirm the same with weeping

tears."[96]

[Footnote 96: _Harleian MSS._ 284. Compare the

account of the chronicler, _Queen Jane and Queen

Mary_, pp. 18, 19.]

Among the spectators were observed the sons of the Duke of Somerset.

In exhibiting to the world the humiliation of the professors of the

gospel, the Catholic party enjoyed a pardonable triumph.

Northumberland, in playing a part in the pageant, was hoping to save

his wretched life. When it was over he wrote (August 22) a passionate

appeal to Arundel.

{p.043} "Alas, my lord," he said, "is my crime so heinous as no

redemption but my blood can wash away the spots thereof? An old

proverb there is, and that most true--A living dog is better than a

dead lion; oh that it would please her good grace to give me life,

yea, the life of a dog, if I might but live and kiss her feet, and

spend both life and all in her honourable service."

But Arundel could not save him--would not have saved him, perhaps, had

he been able--and he had only to face the end with such resolution as

he could command.

The next morning, at nine o'clock, Warwick and Sir John Gates heard

mass in the Tower chapel; the two Seymours were again present with

Courtenay: and before Gates received the sacrament, he said a few

words of regret to the latter for his long imprisonment, of which he

admitted himself in part the cause.[97] On leaving the chapel Warwick

was taken back to his room, and learned that he was respited. Gates

joined Palmer, who was walking with Watson in the garden, and talking

with the groups of gentlemen who were collected there. Immediately

after, the duke was brought out. "Sir John," he said to Gates, "God

have mercy on us; forgive me as I forgive you, although you and your

council have brought us hither." "I forgive you, my lord," Gates

answered, "as I would be forgiven; yet it was you and your authority

that was the only original cause of all." They bowed each. The duke

passed on, and the procession moved forward to Tower Hill.

[Footnote 97: "Not for any hatred towards you," he

added, "but for fear that harm might come thereby

to my late young master."--_Queen Jane and Queen

Mary_, p. 20.]

The last words of a worthless man are in themselves of little moment;

but the effect of the dying speech of Northumberland lends to it an

artificial importance. Whether to the latest moment he hoped for his

life, or whether, divided between atheism and superstition, he

thought, if any religion was true, Romanism was true, and it was

prudent not to throw away a chance, who can tell? At all events, he

mounted the scaffold with Heath, the Bishop of Worcester, at his side;

and then deliberately said to the crowd, that his rebellion and his

present fall were owing to the false preachers who had led him to err

from the Catholic faith of Christ; the fathers and the saints had ever

agreed in one doctrine; the present generation were the first that had

dared to follow their private opinions; and in England and in Germany,

where error had taken deepest root, there had followed war, famine,

rebellion, misery, tokens {p.044} all of them of God's displeasure.

Therefore, as they loved their country, as they valued their souls, he

implored his hearers to turn, all of them, and turn at once, to the

church which they had left; in which church he, from the bottom of his

heart, avowed his own steadfast belief. For himself he called them all

to witness that he died in the one true Catholic faith; to which, if

he had been brought sooner, he would not have been in his present

calamity.

He then knelt; "I beseech you all," he said again, "to believe that I

die in the Catholic faith." He repeated the _Miserere_ psalm, the

psalm _De Profundis_, and the _Paternoster_. The executioner, as

usual, begged his pardon. "I have deserved a thousand deaths," he

muttered. He made the sign of the cross upon the saw-dust, and kissed

it, then laid down his head, and perished.

The shame of the apostasy shook down the frail edifice of the

Protestant constitution, to be raised again in suffering, as the first

foundations of it had been laid, by purer hands and nobler

spirits.[98] In his better years Northumberland had been a faithful

subject and a fearless soldier, and, with a master's hand over him, he

might have lived with integrity, and died with honour. Opportunity

tempted his ambition--ambition betrayed him {p.045} into crime--and,

given over to his lower nature, he climbed to the highest round of the

political ladder, to fall and perish like a craven. He was one of

those many men who can follow worthily, yet cannot lead; and the

virtue of the beginning was not less real than the ignominy of the

end.

[Footnote 98: Lady Jane Grey spoke a few memorable

words on the duke's conduct at the scaffold. "On

Tuesday, the 29th of August," says the writer of

the _Chronicle of Queen Mary_, "I dined at

Partridge's house (in the Tower) with my Lady Jane,

she sitting at the board's-end, Partridge, his

wife, and my lady's gentlewoman. We fell in

discourse of religion. I pray you, quoth she, have

they mass in London. Yea, forsooth, quoth I, in

some places. It may so be, quoth she. It is not so

strange as the sudden conversion of the late duke;

for who could have thought, said she, he would have

so done? It was answered her, perchance he thereby

hoped to have had his pardon. Pardon! quoth she,

woe worth him! He hath brought me and our stock in

most miserable calamity by his exceeding ambition;

but for the answering that he hoped for life by his

turning, though other men be of that opinion, I

utterly am not. For what man is there living, I

pray you, although he had been innocent, that would

hope of life in that case, being in the field in

person against the queen, as general, and after his

taking so hated and evil spoken of by the Commons;

and at his coming into prison, so wondered at as

the like was never heard by any man's time. Who can

judge that he should hope for pardon whose life was

odious to all men? But what will ye more? Like as

his life was wicked and full of dissimulation, so

was his end thereafter. I pray God I view no friend

of mine die so. Should I, who am young and in my

few years, forsake my faith for the love of life?

Nay, God forbid! Much more he should not, whose

fatal course, although he had lived his just number

of years, could not have long continued. But life

was sweet, it appeared. So he might have lived, you

will say, he did not care how; indeed the reason is

good; for he that would have lived in chains to

have had his life, by like would leave no other

means unattempted. But God be merciful to us, for

he saith, whoso denyeth him before men, he will not

know him in his Father's kingdom."--_Queen Jane and

Queen Mary_, p. 24.]

Gates was the second sufferer. He, too, spoke in the same key. He had

been a great reader of Scripture, he said, but he had not read it to

be edified, but to be seditious--to dispute, to interpret it after his

private affection; to him, therefore, the honey had been poison, and

he warned all men how they followed his ill example; God's holy

mysteries were no safe things to toy or play with. Gates, in dying,

had three strokes of an axe;--"Whether," says an eye-witness,[99] "it

was by his own request or no was doubtful"--remarkable words: as if

the everlasting fate of the soul depended on its latest emotion, and

repentance could be intensified by the conscious realisation of death.

[Footnote 99: _Harleian MSS._ 284.]

Last came Sir Thomas Palmer, in whom, to judge by his method of taking

leave of life, there was some kind of nobleness. It was he who led the

cavalry forlorn hope, at Haddington, when the supplies were thrown in

for the garrison.

He leapt upon the scaffold, red with the blood of his companions.

"Good morning to you all, good people," he said, looking round him

with a smile; "ye come hither to see me die, and to see what news I

have; marry, I will tell you; I have seen more in yonder terrible

place [he pointed towards the Tower] than ever I saw before throughout

all the realms that ever I wandered in; for there I have seen God, I

have seen the world, and I have seen myself; and when I beheld my

life, I saw nothing but slime and clay, full of corruption; I saw the

world nothing else but vanity, and all the pleasures and treasures

thereof nought worth; I saw God omnipotent, his power infinite, his

mercy incomprehensible; and when I saw this, I most humbly submitted

myself unto him, beseeching him of mercy and pardon, and I trust he

hath forgiven me; for he called me once or twice before, but I would

not turn to him, but even now by this sharp kind of death he hath

called me unto him. I trust the wings of his mercy shall spread over

me and save me; and I do here confess, before you all, Christ to be

the very Son of God the Father, born of the Virgin Mary, which came

into the world to fulfil the law for us, and to bear our offences on

his back, and suffered his passion for our redemption, by the which I

trust to be saved."

{p.046} Like his fellow-sufferers, Palmer then said a few prayers,

asked the queen's forgiveness, knelt, and died.

Stunned by the apostasy on the scaffold of the man whom they had

worshipped as a prophet, the ultra-faction among the Protestants

became now powerless. The central multitude, whose belief was

undefined, yielded to the apparent sentence of Heaven upon a cause

weakened by unsuccessful treason, and disavowed in his death by its

champion. Edward had died on the anniversary of the execution of More;

God, men said, had visited his people, and "the Virgin Mary" had been

set upon the throne for their redemption.[100] Dr. Watson, on the 20th

of August, preached at Paul's Cross under a guard of soldiers; on the

24th, two days after the scene on Tower Hill, so little was a guard

necessary, that mass was said in St. Paul's Church in Latin, with

matins and vespers. The crucifix was replaced in the roodloft, the

high altar was re-decorated, the real presence was defended from the

pulpit, and, except from the refugees, not a murmur was heard.[101]

Catching this favourable opportunity, the queen charmed the country

with the announcement that the second portion of the last subsidy

granted by Parliament should not be collected; she gave her word that

the currency at the earliest moment should be thoroughly restored;

while she gained credit on all sides for the very moderate vengeance

with which she appeared to be contenting herself. Ridley only, Renard

wrote, on the 9th of September, would now be executed; the other

prisoners were to be all pardoned. The enthusiasm was slightly abated,

indeed, when it was announced that their forgiveness would not be

wholly free. Montague and Bromley, on their release from the Tower,

were fined L7000 a-piece; Suffolk, Northampton, and other noblemen and

gentlemen, as their estates would bear. But, to relieve the burdens of

the people at the expense of those who had reaped the harvest of the

late spoliations was, on the whole, a legitimate retribution; the

moneyed men were pleased with the recognition of Edward's debts, and

provided a loan of 25,000 crowns for the present necessities of the

government. London streets rang again with shouts of "God Save the

Queen;" and Mary recovered a fresh instalment of popularity to carry

her a few steps further.[102]

[Footnote 100: Renard to Charles V.: _Rolls House

MSS._]

[Footnote 101: Ibid.]

[Footnote 102: Noailles; Renard.]

The refugees were the first difficulty. They were too numerous to

imprison; and the most influential among them--men like Peter

Martyr--having come to England on the invitation {p.047} of the late

government, it was neither just nor honourable to hand them over to

their own sovereigns. But both Mary and her Flemish adviser were

anxious to see them leave the country as quickly as possible. The

emperor recommended a general intimation to be given out, that

criminals of all kinds taking refuge in England would be liable to

seizure, offences against religion being neither specially mentioned

nor specially excepted.[103] The foreign preachers were ordered to

depart by proclamation; and Peter Martyr, who had left Oxford, and was

staying with Cranmer at Lambeth, expecting an arrest, received,

instead of it, a safe-conduct, of which he instantly availed himself.

The movements of others were quickened with indirect menaces; while

Gardiner told Renard, with much self-satisfaction, that a few messages

desiring some of them to call upon him at his house had given them

wings.[104]

[Footnote 103: Renard to Queen Mary: _Granvelle

Papers_, vol. iv. p. 65.]

[Footnote 104: Renard to Charles V., September 9:

_Rolls House MSS._]

Finding her measures no longer opposed, the queen refused next to

recognise the legality of the marriage of the clergy. Married priests

should either leave their wives or leave their benefices; and on the

29th of August, Gardiner, Bonner, Day, and Tunstal, late prisoners in

the Tower, were appointed commissioners to examine into the conditions

of their episcopal brethren. Convocation was about to meet, and must

undergo a preliminary purification. Unhappy Convocation! So lately the

supreme legislative body in the country, it was now patched, clipped,

mended, repaired, or altered, as the secular government put on its

alternate hues. The Protestant bishops had accepted their offices on

Protestant terms--_Quamdiu se bene gesserint_, on their good

behaviour; and, with the assistance of so pliant a clause, a swift

clearance was effected. Barlow, to avoid expulsion, resigned Bath.

Paul Bush retreated from Bristol. Hooper, ejected from Worcester by

the restoration of Heath, was deprived of Gloucester for heresy and

marriage, and, being a dangerous person, was committed on the 1st of

September to the Fleet. Ferrars, of St. David's, left in prison by

Northumberland for other pretended offences, was deprived on the same

grounds, but remained in confinement. Bird, having a wife, was turned

out of Chester; Archbishop Holgate out of York. Coverdale, Ridley,

Scory, and Ponet had been already disposed of. The bench was

wholesomely swept.[105]

[Footnote 105: Some of the Protestant bishops

(Cranmer, Hooper, Ridley, and Ferrars were

admirable exceptions) had taken care of themselves

in the seven years of plenty. At the time of the

deposition of the Archbishop of York an inventory

was taken of the personal property which was then

in his possession. He had five houses, three very

well provided, two meetly well. At his house at

Battersea he had, of coined gold, L300; plate gilt

and parcel gilt, 1600 oz. Mitre, gold, with two

pendants set with very fine diamonds, sapphires,

and balists, and other stones and pearls, weight

125 oz.; six great gold rings, with very fine

sapphires, emeralds, diamonds, turquoises. "At

Cawood he had of money L900; mitres, 2. Plate gilt

and parcel gilt, 770 oz; broken cross of silver

gilt, 46 oz.; two thousand five hundred sheep; two

Turkey carpets, as big and as good as any subject

had; a chest full of copes and vestments. Household

stores: wheat, 200 quarters; malt, 500 quarters;

oats, 60 quarters; wine, five or six tuns; fish and

ling, six or seven hundred; horses at Cawood, four

or five score; harness and artillery sufficient for

seven score men."--Strype's _Crammer_, vol. i. p.

440.]

{p.048} The English Protestant preachers seeing that priests

everywhere held themselves licensed _ex officio_ to speak as they

pleased from the pulpit, began themselves also, in many places, to

disobey the queen's proclamation. They were made immediately to feel

their mistake, and were brought to London to the Tower, the

Marshalsea, or the Fleet, to the cells left vacant by their opponents.

Among the rest came one who had borne no share in the late misdoings,

but had long foreseen the fate to which those doings would bring him

and many more. When Latimer was sent for, he was at Stamford. On the

4th of September six hours' notice was given him of his intended

arrest; and so obviously his escape was desired, that the pursuivant

who brought the warrant left him to obey it at his leisure; his

orders, he said, were not to wait. But Latimer had business in

England. While the fanatics who had provoked the catastrophe were

slinking across the Channel from its consequences, Latimer determined

to stay at home, and help to pay the debts which they had incurred. He

went quietly to London, appeared before the council, where his

"demeanour" was what they were pleased to term "seditious,"[106] and

was committed to the Tower. "What, my friend," he said to a warder who

was an old acquaintance there, "how do you? I am come to be your

neighbour again." Sir Thomas Palmer's rooms in the garden were

assigned for his lodging. In the winter he was left without a fire,

and, growing infirm, he sent a message to the Lieutenant of the Tower

to look better after him, or he should give him the slip yet.[107]

[Footnote 106: _Privy Council Register, MS. Mary._]

[Footnote 107: Foxe.]

And there was another besides Latimer who would not fly when the

chance was left open to him. Archbishop Cranmer had continued at

Lambeth unmolested, yet unpardoned; his conduct with respect to the

letters patent had been more upright than the conduct of any other

member of the council by {p.049} whom they had been signed; and on

this ground, therefore, an exception could not easily be made in his

disfavour. But his friends had interceded vainly to obtain the queen's

definite forgiveness for him; treason might be forgotten; the divorce

of Catherine of Arragon could never be forgotten. So he waited on,

watching the reaction gathering strength, and knowing well the point

to which it tended. In the country the English service was set aside

and the mass restored with but little disturbance. No force had been

used or needed; the Catholic majorities among the parishioners had

made the change for themselves. The archbishop's friends came to him

for advice; he recommended them to go abroad; he was urged to go

himself while there was time; he said, "it would be in no ways fitting

for him to go away, considering the post in which he was; and to show

that he was not afraid to own all the changes that were by his means

made in religion in the last reign."[108]

[Footnote 108: Strype's _Cranmer_.]

Neither was it fitting for him to sit by in silence. The world,

misconstruing his inaction, believed him false like Northumberland;

the world reported that he had restored mass at Canterbury; the world

professed to have ascertained that he had offered to sing a requiem at

Edward's funeral. In the second week of September, therefore, he made

a public offer, in the form of a letter to a friend, to defend the

communion service, and all the alterations for which he was

responsible, against any one who desired to impugn them; he answered

the stories against himself with a calm denial; and, though the letter

was not printed, copies in manuscript were circulated through London

so numerously that the press, said Renard, would not have sent out

more.[109]

[Footnote 109: Renard to Charles V.: _Rolls House

MSS._ In these late times, when men whose temper

has not been tried by danger, feel themselves

entitled, nevertheless, by their own innocence of

large errors, to sit in judgment on the greatest of

their forefathers, Cranmer has received no tender

treatment. Because, in the near prospect of a death

of agony, his heart for a moment failed him, the

passing weakness has been accepted as the key to

his life, and he has been railed at as a coward and

a sycophant. Considering the position of the

writer, and the circumstances under which it was

issued, I regard the publication of this letter as

one of the bravest actions ever deliberately

ventured by man.

Let it be read, and speak for itself.

"As the devil, Christ's antient adversary, is a

liar and the father of lying, even so hath he

stirred his servants and members to persecute

Christ and his true word and religion, which he

ceaseth not to do most earnestly at this present.

For whereas the most noble prince, of famous

memory, King Henry VIII., seeing the great abuses

of the Latin masses, reformed some things therein

in his time, and also our late sovereign lord King

Edward VI. took the same wholly away, for the

manifold errours and abuses thereof, and restored

in the place thereof Christ's holy supper,

according to Christ's own institution, and as the

Apostles in the primitive Church used the same in

the beginning, the devil goeth about by lying to

overthrow the Lord's holy supper, and to restore

the Latin satisfactory masses, a thing of his own

invention and device. And to bring the same more

clearly to pass, some have abused the name of me,

Thomas, Archbishop of Canterbury, bruiting abroad

that I have set up the mass at Canterbury, and that

I offered to say mass before the Queen's Highness

at Paul's Cross and I wot not where. I have been

well exercised these twenty years, to suffer and to

bear evil reports and lies, and have not been much

grieved thereat, and have borne all things quietly;

yet where untrue reports and lies turn to the

hindrance of God's truth, they be in no ways to be

tolerated and suffered. Wherefore these be to

signify to the world that it was not I that did set

up the mass at Canterbury, but a false, flattering,

lying, and dissembling monk, which caused the mass

to be set up there without my advice and counsel:

and as for offering myself to say mass before the

Queen's Highness, or in any other place, I never

did, as her Grace knoweth well. But if her Grace

will give me leave, I shall be ready to prove

against all that will say the contrary, that the

Communion-book, set forth by the most innocent and

godly prince King Edward VI., in his High Court of

Parliament, is conformable to the order which our

Saviour Christ did both observe and command to be

observed, which his Apostles and primitive Church

used many years; whereas the mass in many things

not only hath no foundation of Christ, his

Apostles, nor the primitive Church, but also is

contrary to the same, and containeth many horrible

blasphemies."]

{p.050} The challenge was answered by an immediate summons before the

council; the archbishop was accused of attempting to excite sedition

among the people, and was forthwith committed to the Tower to wait,

with Ridley and Latimer, there, till his fate should be decided on.

Meantime the eagerness with which the country generally availed itself

of the permission to restore the Catholic ritual, proved beyond a

doubt that, except in London and a few large towns, the popular

feeling was with the queen. The English people had no affection for

the Papacy. They did not wish for the re-establishment of the

religious orders, or the odious domination of the clergy. But the

numerical majority among them did desire a celibate priesthood, the

ceremonies which the customs of centuries had sanctified, and the

ancient faith of their fathers, as reformed by Henry VIII. The rights

of conscience had found no more consideration from the Protestant

doctrinalists than from the most bigoted of the persecuting prelates;

and the facility with which the professors of the gospel had yielded

to moral temptations, had for the time inspired moderate men with much

distrust for them and for their opinions.

Could Mary have been contented to pursue her victory no further, she

would have preserved the hearts of her subjects; and the reaction,

left to complete its own tendencies, would in {p.051} a few years,

perhaps, have accomplished in some measure her larger desires. But few

sovereigns have understood less the effects of time and forbearance.

She was deceived by the rapidity of her first success; she flattered

herself that, difficult though it might be, she could build up again

the ruined hierarchy, could compel the holders of church property to

open their hands, and could reunite the country to Rome. Before she

had been three weeks on the throne, she had received, as will be

presently mentioned, a secret messenger from the Vatican; and she had

opened a correspondence with the pope, entreating him, as an act of

justice to herself and to those who had remained true to their

Catholic allegiance, to remove the interdict.[110]

[Footnote 110: Renard to Charles V., September 9:

_Rolls House MSS._]

Other actors in the great drama which was approaching were already

commencing their parts.

Reginald Pole having attempted in vain to recover a footing in England

on the accession of Edward, having seen his passionate expectations

from the Council of Trent melt into vapour, and Germany confirmed in

heresy by the Peace of Passau, was engaged, in the summer of 1553, at

a convent on the Lago di Garda, in re-editing his book against Henry

VIII., with an intended dedication to Edward, of whose illness he was

ignorant. The first edition, on the failure of his attempt to raise a

Catholic crusade against his country, had been withdrawn from

circulation; the world had not received it favourably, and there was a

mystery about the publication which it is difficult to unravel. In the

interval between the first despatch of the book into England as a

private letter in the summer of 1536, and the appearance of it in

print at Rome in the winter of 1538-9, it was re-written, as I have

already stated, enlarged, and divided into parts. In a letter of

apology which Pole wrote to Charles V., in the summer or early autumn

of 1538,[111] he spoke of that division as having been executed by

himself;[112] he said that he had kept his book secret till the church

had spoken; but Paul having excommunicated Henry, he could no longer

remain silent; he dwelt at length on the history of the work which he

was then editing,[113] and he sent a copy at the same time with a

letter, or he {p.052} wrote a letter with the intention of sending a

copy, to James V. of Scotland.[114]

[Footnote 111: Before his embassy to Spain.]

[Footnote 112: Opus in quatuor libros sum

partitus.]

[Footnote 113: "Scripta quae nunc edo," are his own

words in the apology, and therefore, in an earlier

part of this work, I said that he published his

book himself. There is no doubt, from the context,

that in the word _scripta_ he referred to that book

and to no other.]

[Footnote 114: "Eum ad te librum Catholice princeps

nunc mitto, et sub nominis tui auspiciis cujus te

strenuum pietatis ministrum praebes in lucem exire

volo."--Epistola ad Regem Scotiae: _Poli Epistolae_,

vol. i. p. 174.]

But Charles had refused to move; the book injured Henry not at all,

and injured fatally those who were dear to Pole; he checked the

circulation of the copies, and he declared to the Cardinal of Naples

that it had been published only at the command of the pope--that his

own anxiety had been for the suppression of it.[115] Thirteen years

after this, however, writing to Edward VI., he forgot that he had

described himself to Charles as being himself engaged in the

publication; and he assured the young king that he had never thought

of publishing the book, that he had abhorred the very thought of

publishing it; that it was prepared, edited, and printed by his

friends at Rome during his own absence;[116] now, at length, he found

himself obliged in his own person to give it forth, because an edition

was in preparation elsewhere from one of the earlier copies; and he

selected the son of Henry as the person to whom he could most

becomingly dedicate the libel against his father's memory.

[Footnote 115: "Qui si postea editus fuit magis id

aliorum voluntate et illius qui mihi imperare

potuit quam mea est factum, mea vero fuit ut

impressus supprimeretur."--Ibid. vol. iv. p. 85.]

[Footnote 116: "Nam cum ad urbem ex Hispania

rediens libros injussu meo typis excusos

reperissem, _toto volumine amicorum studio et opera

non sine ejus auctoritate qui jus imperandi haberet

in plures libros disposito quod ego non feceram_

quippe qui de ejus editione nunquam cogitassem,"

etc.

"Quid aliud hoc significavit nisi me ab his libris

divulgandis penitus abhorruisse ut certe

abhorrui."--Epistola ad Edwardum Sextum: Poli

_Epistolae_. The book being the sole authority for

some of the darkest charges against Henry VIII.,

the history of it is of some importance.

This was not the only instance in which his

recollection of his own conduct was something

treacherous. In the apology to Charles V., speaking

of a war against Henry, he had said: "Tempus

venisse video, ad te primum missus, deinde ad Regem

Christianissimum, ut hujus scelera per se quidem

minime obscura detegam, et te Caesar a bello Turcico

abducere coner et quantum possum suadeam ut arma

tua eo convertas si huic tanto malo aliter mederi

non possis." For thus, "levying war against his

country," Pole had been attainted. The name of

traitor grated upon him. To Edward, therefore, he

wrote: "I invited the two sovereigns rather to win

back the king, by the ways of love and affection,

as a fallen friend and brother, than to assail him

with arms as an enemy. This I never desired nor did

I urge any such conduct upon them. _Hoc ego nunquam

profecto volui neque cum illis egi._"--Epistola ad

Edwardum Sextum; Ibid.]

Edward did not live to receive this evidence of Pole's good feeling.

He died before the edition was completed; and as soon as

Northumberland's failure and Mary's accession were known at Rome,

England was looked upon in the Consistory {p.053} as already

recovered to the faith, and Pole was chosen by the unanimous consent

of the cardinals as the instrument of the reconciliation. The account

of the proclamation of the queen was brought to the Vatican on the 6th

of August by a courier from Paris; the pope in tears of joy drew his

commission and despatched it on the instant to the Lago di Garda; and

on the 9th Pole himself wrote to Mary to say that he had been named

legate, and waited her orders to fly to England. He still clung to his

conviction that the revolution in all its parts had been the work of a

small faction, and that he had but himself to set his foot upon the

shore to be received with an ovation; his impulse was therefore to set

out without delay; but the recollection, among other things, that he

was attainted by act of parliament, forced him to delay unwillingly

till he received formal permission to present himself.

Anxious for authentic information as to the state of England and the

queen's disposition, Julius had before despatched also a secret agent,

Commendone, afterwards a cardinal, with instructions to make his way

to London to communicate with Mary, and if possible to learn her

intentions from her own lips. Rapid movement was possible in Europe

even with the roads of the sixteenth century. Commendone was probably

sent from Rome as soon as Edward was known to be dead; he was in

London, at all events, on the 8th of August,[117] disguised as an

Italian gentleman in search of property which he professed had been

bequeathed him by a kinsman. By the favour of Providence,[118] he fell

in with an acquaintance, a returned Catholic refugee, who had a place

in the household; and from this man he learnt that the queen was

virtually a prisoner in the Tower, and that the heretics on the

council allowed no one of whose business they disapproved to have

access to her. Mary, however, was made acquainted with his arrival; a

secret interview was managed, at which she promised to do her very

best in the interests of the church; but she had still, she said, to

conquer her kingdom, and Pole's coming, much as she desired it, was

for the moment out of the question; before she could draw the

spiritual sword she must have the temporal sword more firmly in her

grasp, and she looked to marriage as the best means of strengthening

herself. If she married abroad, she thought at that time of the

emperor; if she accepted one of her subjects, {p.054} she

doubted--in her dislike of Courtenay--whether Pole might not return in

a less odious capacity than that of Apostolic Legate; as the queen's

intended husband the country might receive him; he had not yet been

ordained priest, and deacon's orders, on a sufficient occasion, could

perhaps be dispensed with.[119] The visit, or visits, were concealed

even from Renard. Commendone was forbidden, under the strictest

injunctions, to reveal what the queen might say to him, except to the

pope or to Pole; and it is the more likely that she was serious in her

expressions about the latter, from the care with which she left Renard

in ignorance of Commendone's presence.

[Footnote 117: He remained fifteen days, and he

left for Rome the day after the execution of

Northumberland.--Pallavicino.]

[Footnote 118: Caelitum ductu.]

[Footnote 119: "Nec destiterat regina id ipsum

Commendono indicare, eum percontata an existimaret

Pontificem ad id legem Polo relaxaturum, cum is

nondum sacerdos sed diaconus esset, extarentque

hujusmodi relaxionum exempla ingentis alicujus

emolumenti gratia."--Pallavicino.]

The papal messenger remained long enough to witness a rapid change in

her position; he saw the restoration of the mass; he was in London at

the execution, and he learnt the apostasy, of Northumberland; and he

carried letters from Mary to the pope with assurances of fidelity, and

entreaties for the absolution of the kingdom. But Mary was obliged to

say, notwithstanding, that for the present she was in the power of the

people, of whom the majority mortally detested the Holy See; that the

lords of the council were in possession of vast estates which had been

alienated from the church, and they feared their titles might be

called in question;[120] and, although she agreed herself in all which

Pole had urged (she had received his letter before Commendone left

England), yet that, nevertheless, necessity acknowledged no law. Her

heretical sister was in every one's mouth, and might at any moment

take her place on the throne, and for the present, she said, to her

deep regret, she could not, with prudence or safety, allow the legate

to come to her.

[Footnote 120: Mary described her throne as,

"acquistato per benevolenze di quei popoli, che per

la maggior parte odiano a morte questa sancta sede,

oltre gl' interessi dei beni ecclesiastici occupati

da molti signori, che sono del suo

consiglio."--Julius III. to Pole: _Poli Epistolae_,

vol. iv.]

The queen's letters were confirmed by Commendone himself; he had been

permitted to confer in private with more than one good Catholic in the

realm; and every one had given him the same assurances,[121] although

he had urged upon them the opposite opinion entertained by Pole:[122]

he had himself witnessed the {p.055} disposition with which the

people regarded Elizabeth, and he was satisfied that the queen's alarm

on this head was not exaggerated.[123]

[Footnote 121: "Le parole che haveva inteso da lei

disse di haver inteso da persone Catholice et digne

di fede in quel paese."--Ibid.]

[Footnote 122: "Et similmente espose l' opinione

vostra con le ragioni che vi movano."--Ibid.]

[Footnote 123: Julius III. to Pole: _Poli

Epistolae_, vol. iv.]

In opinions so emphatically given, the pope was obliged to acquiesce,

and the same view was enforced upon him equally strongly by the

emperor. Charles knew England tolerably well; he was acquainted

perfectly well with the moral and intellectual unfitness of the

intended legate for any office which required discretion; and Julius,

therefore, was obliged to communicate to the eager cardinal the

necessity of delay, and to express his fear that, by excess of zeal,

he might injure the cause and alienate the well-affected queen.[124]

Though Pole might not go to England, however, he might go, as he went

before, to the immediate neighbourhood; he might repair to Flanders,

with a nominal commission to mediate in the peace which was still

hoped for. In Flanders, though the pope forbore to tell him so, he

would be under the emperor's eyes and under the emperor's control,

till the vital question of the queen's marriage had been disposed of,

or till England was in a calmer humour.

[Footnote 124: "Onde se per questa molta diligenza

nostra, le avvenisse qualche caso sinistro, si

rovinarebbe forse (il che Dio non voglie) ogni

speranza della reduttione di quella patria, levando

se le forze a questa buona e Catholica regina,

overo alienando la de noi par offesa

ricevuta."--Ibid.]

About the marriage Charles was more anxious than ever; Pole was

understood to have declined the honour of being a competitor;[125]

Renard had informed the emperor of the present direction of the

queen's own inclinations; and treating himself, therefore, as out of

the question on the score of age and infirmities, he instructed his

minister to propose the Prince of Spain as a person whom the religious

and the political interests of the world alike recommended to her as a

husband. The alliance of England, Spain, and Flanders would command a

European supremacy; their united fleets would sweep the seas, and

Scotland, deprived of support from France, must become an English

province; while sufficient guarantees could be provided easily for the

security of English liberties. These, in themselves, were powerful

reasons; Renard was permitted to increase their cogency by promises of

pensions, lands, and titles, or by hard money in hand, in whatever

direction such liberality could be usefully employed.[126]

[Footnote 125: "Ayant le Cardinal Pole si

expressement declaire qu'il n'a nul desir de soy

marier, et que nous tenons, que pour avoir si

longuement suivi l'etat ecclesiastique, et

s'accommode aux choses duysant a icelluy et estant

diacre."--Charles V. to Renard: _Granvelle Papers_,

vol. iv.]

[Footnote 126: Ibid.]

{p.056} The external advantages of the connection were obvious; it

recommended itself to the queen from the Spanish sympathies which she

had contracted in her blood, and from the assistance which it promised

to afford her in the great pursuit of her life. The proposal was first

suggested informally. Mary affected to find difficulties; yet, if she

raised objections, it was only to prolong the conversation upon a

subject which delighted her. She spoke of her age; Philip was

twenty-seven, she ten years older; she called him "boy;" she feared

she might not be enough for him; she was unsusceptible; she had no

experience in love;[127] with such other phrases, which Renard

interpreted at their true importance. With the queen there would be no

difficulty; with the council it was far otherwise. Lord Paget was the

only English statesman who listened with any show of favour.

[Footnote 127: "Elle jura que jamais elle n'avoit

senti esquillon de ce que l'on appelle amour, ny

entre en pensement de volupte, etc."--Renard to the

Bishop of Arras: _Granvelle Papers_, vol. iv.]

The complication of parties is not to be easily disentangled. Some

attempt, however, may be partially successful.

The council, the peers, the Commons, the entire lay voices of England,

liberal and conservative alike, were opposed to Rome; Gardiner was the

only statesman in the country who thought a return to Catholic union

practicable or desirable; while there was scarcely an influential

family, titled or untitled, which was not, by grant or purchase, in

possession of confiscated church property.

There was an equal unanimity in the dread that if Mary became the wife

of a Spanish sovereign England would, like the Low Countries, sink

into a provincial dependency; while, again, there was the utmost

unwillingness to be again entangled in the European war; the French

ambassador insisted that the emperor only desired the marriage to

secure English assistance; and the council believed that, whatever

promises might be made, whatever stipulations insisted on, such a

marriage, sooner or later, would implicate them. The country was

exhausted, the currency ruined, the people in a state of unexampled

suffering, and the only remedy was to be looked for in quiet and

public economy; there were attractions in the offer of a powerful

alliance, but the very greatness of it added to their reluctance; they

desired to isolate England from European quarrels, and marry their

queen at home. With these opinions Paget alone disagreed, while

Gardiner was loudly national.

{p.057} On the other hand, though Gardiner held the restoration of

the papal authority to be tolerable, yet he dreaded the return of

Pole, as being likely to supersede him in the direction of the English

Church;[128] the party who agreed with the chancellor about the

marriage, and about Pole, disagreed with him about the pope; while

Paget, who was in favour of the marriage, was with the lords on the

supremacy, and, as the Romanising views of the queen became notorious,

was inclining, with Arundel and Pembroke, towards the Protestants.

[Footnote 128: Renard to Charles V.: _Rolls House

MSS._]

No wonder, therefore, that the whole council were in confusion and at

cross purposes. No sooner were Charles's proposals definitely known

than the entire machinery of the government was dislocated. Mary

represented herself to Renard as without a friend whom she could

trust; and the letters, both of Renard and Noailles, contain little

else but reports how the lords were either quarrelling, or had, one

after the other, withdrawn in disgust to their country houses. Now it

was Pembroke that was gone, now Mason, now Paget; then Courtenay was a

prisoner in his house; then Lord Winchester was forbidden to appear at

court: the ministers were in distrust of each other and of their

mistress; the queen was condemned to keep them in their offices

because she durst not make them enemies; while the Stanleys, Howards,

Talbots, and Nevilles were glooming apart, indignant at the neglect of

their own claims.

The queen herself was alternately angry and miserable; by the middle

of September Renard congratulated Charles on her growing ill-humour;

the five Dudleys and Lady Jane, he hoped, would be now disposed of,

and Elizabeth would soon follow.

Elizabeth's danger was great, and proceeded as much from her friend's

indiscretion as from the hatred of her enemies. Every one who disliked

the queen's measures, used Elizabeth's name. Renard was for ever

hissing his suspicions in the queen's ear, and, unfortunately, she was

a too willing listener--not, indeed, that Renard hated Elizabeth for

her own sake, for he rather admired her--or for religion's sake, for

he had a most statesmanlike indifference to religion; but he saw in

her the queen's successful rival in the favour of the people, the

heir-presumptive to the crown, whose influence would increase the

further the queen travelled on the road on which he was leading her,

and, therefore, an enemy who, if possible, should be destroyed. An

opportunity of creating a collision between the sisters was not long

wanting. The lords of the council were {p.058} now generally present

at mass in the royal chapel. Elizabeth, with Anne of Cleves, had as

yet refused to appear. Her resistance was held to imply a sinister

intention; and on the 2nd and 3rd of September the council were

instructed to bring her to compliance.[129] Yet the days passed, the

priest sang, and the heir to the crown continued absent. Gardiner,

indeed, told Renard that she was not obdurate; he had spoken to her,

and she had seemed to say that, if he could convince her, her

objections would cease;[130] but they had not ceased so far; she did

not attend. In the happiness of her first triumph Mary had treated

Elizabeth like a sister, but her manner had relapsed into coldness;

and the princess, at length, knowing how her name was made use of,

requested a private interview, which, with difficulty, was granted.

The sisters, each accompanied by a single lady, met in a gallery with

a half-door between them. Elizabeth threw herself on her knees. She

said that she perceived her majesty was displeased with her; she could

not tell what the cause might be, unless it was religion; and for

this, she said, she might be reasonably forgiven; she had been

educated, as the queen was aware, in the modern belief, and she

understood no other; if her majesty would send her books and teachers,

she would read; she would listen; she could say no more.

[Footnote 129: Noailles to the King of France:

_Ambassades_, vol. ii. p. 147.]

[Footnote 130: Renard to Charles V.: _Rolls House

MSS._]

Mary, at the moment, was delighted. Like a true Catholic, however, she

insisted that obedience must precede faith; come to the mass, she

said, and belief will be the reward of your submission; make your

first trial on the mass of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin.[131]

[Footnote 131: Ibid.]

Elizabeth consented. She was present, but present reluctantly;

pretending, as Renard said, to be ill; the next Sunday she was again

absent. The queen, knowing the effect which her conduct would produce,

again sent for her, and asked her earnestly what she really believed;

the world said that, although she had complied once, her compliance

was feigned, and that she had submitted out of fear; she desired to

hear the truth. Elizabeth could reply merely that she had done as the

queen had required her to do, with no ulterior purpose; if her majesty

wished she would make a public declaration to that effect.[132] The

queen was obliged to receive her answer; but she told Renard that her

sister trembled as she spoke, and well, Renard said, he understood her

agitation; she was the hope of the {p.059} heretics, and the

heretics were raising their heads; the Papists, they said, had had

their day, but it was waning; if Elizabeth lived, England would again

apostatise.

[Footnote 132: Renard to Charles V., September 23:

Ibid.]

There was no difficulty in keeping the queen's jealousy alive against

her sister. Courtenay was another offence in the eye of the

ambassador, as the rival to Philip, who found favour with the English

council. The queen affected to treat Courtenay as a child; she

commanded him to keep to his house; she forbade him to dine abroad

without special permission; the title of Earl of Devon was given to

him, and he had a dress made for him to take his seat in, of velvet

and gold, but the queen would not allow him to wear it:[133] and yet,

to her own and the ambassador's mortification, she learnt that he

affected the state of a prince; that he spoke of his marriage with her

as certain; that certain prelates, Gardiner especially, encouraged his

expectation, and one or more of them had knelt in his presence.[134]

The danger had been felt from the first that, if she persisted in her

fancy for the Prince of Spain, Courtenay might turn his addresses to

Elizabeth; the lords would in that case fall off to his support, and

the crown would fall from her head as easily as it had settled there.

[Footnote 133: Noailles.]

[Footnote 134: Renard to Charles V., September 19:

_Rolls House MSS._]

More afflicting to Mary than these personal grievances was the

pertinacity with which the council continued, in their public

documents, to describe her as Head of the Church, the execrable title

which was the central root of the apostasy. In vain she protested; the

hateful form--indispensable till it was taken away by parliament--was

thrust under her eyes in every paper which was brought to her for

signature, and she was obliged to acknowledge the designation with her

own hand and pen.

Amidst these anxieties, September wore away. Parliament was to open on

the fifth of October, and either before or after the meeting the queen

was to be crowned. The ceremony was an occasion of considerable

agitation; Mary herself was alarmed lest the holy oil should have lost

its efficacy through the interdict; and she entreated Renard to

procure her a fresh supply from Flanders, blessed by the excellent

hands of the Bishop of Arras. But the oil was not the gravest

difficulty. As the rumour spread of the intended Spanish marriage,

libellous handbills were scattered about London; the people said it

should not be till they had fought for it. A disturbance at Greenwich,

on the 25th of September, extended to Southwark, {p.060} where

Gardiner's house was attacked,[135] and a plot was discovered to

murder him: in the day he wore a shirt of mail under his robes, and he

slept with a guard of a hundred men. Threatening notices were even

found on the floor of the queen's bed-room, left there by unknown

hands. Noailles assured the lords that his own government would regard

the marriage as little short of a declaration of war, so inevitably

would war be the result of it; and Gardiner, who was unjustly

suspected of being in the Spanish interest, desired to delay the

coronation till parliament should have met; intending that the first

act of the assembly should be to tie Mary's hands with a memorial

which she could not set aside. She inherited under her father's will,

by which her accession was made conditional on her marrying not

without the consent of the council; parliament might remind her both

of her own obligation to obey her father's injunctions, and of theirs

to see that they were obeyed.

[Footnote 135: Noailles; Renard.]

With the same object, though not with the same object only, the lords

of the council supported the Bishop of Winchester. They proposed to

alter the form of the coronation oath, and to bind the queen by an

especial clause to maintain the independence of the English Church--a

precaution, as it proved, not unnecessary--for the existing form was

already inconvenient, and Mary was meditating how, when called on to

swear to observe the laws and constitutions of the realm, she could

introduce an adjective _sub silentio_; she intended to swear only that

she would observe the JUST laws and constitutions.[136] But she looked

with the gravest alarm to the introduction of more awkward phrases; if

words were added which would be equivalent (as she would understand

them) to a denial of Christ and his Church, she had resolved to refuse

at all hazards.[137]

[Footnote 136: Renard to Charles V.: _Rolls House

MSS._]

[Footnote 137: Ibid.]

But her courage was not put to the test. The true grounds on which the

delay of the coronation was desired could not be avowed. The queen was

told that her passage through the streets would be unsafe until her

accession had been sanctioned by parliament, and the act repealed by

which she was illegitimatised. With Paget's help she faced down these

objections, and declared that she would be crowned at once; she

appointed the 1st of October for the ceremony; on the 28th of

September she sent for the council to attempt an appeal to their

generosity. She spoke to them at length of her past life and

sufferings, of the conspiracy to set her aside, and of the wonderful

Providence {p.061} which had preserved her and raised her to the

throne; her only desire, she said, was to do her duty to God and to

her subjects; and she hoped, turning as she spoke, pointedly to

Gardiner, that they would not forget their loyalty, and would stand by

her in her extreme necessity. Observing them hesitate, she cried, "My

lords, on my knees I implore you"--and flung herself on the ground at

their feet.[138]

[Footnote 138: "Devant les quelz elle se mist a

genoulx."--Renard to Charles V.: _Rolls House

MSS._]

The most skilful acting could not have served Mary's purpose better

than this outburst of natural emotion; the spectacle of their kneeling

sovereign overcame for a time the scheming passions of her ministers;

they were affected, burst into tears, and withdrew their opposition to

her wishes.[139]

[Footnote 139: Ibid.]

On the 30th, the procession from the Tower to Westminster through the

streets was safely accomplished. The retinues of the lords protected

the queen from insult, and London put on its usual outward signs of

rejoicing; St. Paul's spire was rigged with yards like a ship's mast,

an adventurous sailor sitting astride on the weathercock five hundred

feet in the air:[140] there was no interruption; and the next day

(October 1), Arras having sent the necessary unction,[141] the

ceremony was performed at the Abbey without fresh burdens being laid

on Mary's conscience.

[Footnote 140: The Hot Gospeller, half-recovered

from his gaol fever, got out of bed to see the

spectacle, and took his station at the west end of

St. Paul's. The procession passed so close as

almost to touch him, and one of the train seeing

him muffled up, and looking more dead than alive,

said, There is one that loveth her majesty well, to

come out in such condition. The queen turned her

head and looked at him. To hear that any one of her

subjects loved her just then was too welcome to be

overlooked.--Underhill's Narrative: _MS. Harleian_,

425.]

[Footnote 141: Arras to Renard: _Granvelle Papers_,

vol. iv. p. 105.]

The banquet in the great hall passed off with equal success; Sir

Edward Dymocke, the champion, rode in and flung down his gage, and was

listened to with becoming silence: on the whole, Mary's friends were

agreeably disappointed; only Renard observed that, between the French

ambassador and the Lady Elizabeth there seemed to be some secret

understanding; the princess saluted Noailles as he passed her; Renard

she would neither address nor look at--and Renard was told that she

complained to Noailles of the weight of her coronet, and that Noailles

"bade her have patience, and before long she would exchange it for a

crown."[142]

[Footnote 142: Renard to the Regent Mary: _Rolls

House MSS._]

{p.062} The coronation was a step gained; it was one more victory,

yet it produced no material alteration. Rome, and the Spanish

marriage, remained as before, insoluble elements of difficulty; the

queen, to her misfortune, was driven to rely more and more on Renard;

and at this time she was so desperate and so ill-advised as to think

of surrounding herself with an Irish bodyguard; she went so far as to

send a commission to Sir George Stanley for their transport.[143]

[Footnote 143: "Mary, by the grace of God, Queen of

England, etc.... to all mayors, sheriffs, justices

of the peace, and other our subjects, these our

letters, hearing or seeing: whereas we have

appointed a certain number of able men to be

presently levied for our service within our realm

of Ireland, and to be transported hither with

diligence, we let you wit that for that purpose we

have authorised our trusty Sir George Stanley,

Knight," etc.--October 5, 1553. From the original

Commission: _Tanner MSS._ 90, Bodleian Library.]

The scheme was abandoned, but not because her relations with her own

people were improved. Before parliament met, an anonymous pamphlet

appeared by some English nobleman on the encroachments of the House of

Austria, and on the treatment of other countries which had fallen

through marriages into Austrian hands. In Lombardy and Naples every

office of trust was described as held by a Spaniard; the Prince of

Salerno was banished, the Prince of Benevento was a prisoner in

Flanders, the Duke of Calabria a prisoner in Spain. Treating Mary's

hopes of children as ridiculous, the writer pictured England, bound

hand and foot, at the mercy of the insolent Philip, whose first step,

on entering the country, would be to seize the Tower and the fleet,

the next, to introduce a Spanish army and suppress the parliament. The

free, glorious England of the Plantagenets would then be converted

into a prostrate appanage of the dominions of Don Carlos. The pamphlet

was but the expression of the universal feeling. Gardiner, indeed,

perplexed between his religion and his country, for a few days

wavered. Gardiner had a long debt to pay off against the Protestants,

and a Spanish force, divided into garrisons for London and other

towns, would assist him materially.[144] Partly, however, from

attachment to Courtenay, partly from loyalty to his country, he shook

off the temptation and continued to support the opposition.[145]

[Footnote 144: "J'estime qu'il desire presentment y

veoir une bonne partie de l'Espaigne et Allemaigne,

y tenir grosses et fortes garnisons, pour mortifier

ce peuple, et s'en venger," etc.--Noailles to the

King of France: _Ambassades_, vol. ii. p. 169.]

[Footnote 145: A look at Gardiner, at this time,

through contemporary eyes, assists much towards the

understanding him. Thomas Mountain, parson of St.

Michael's by the Tower, an ultra-Reformer, had been

out with Northumberland at Cambridge. The following

story is related by himself.

"Sunday, October 8," Mountain says, "I ministered

service, according to the godly order set forth by

that blessed prince King Edward, the parish

communicating at the Holy Supper. Now, while I was

even a breaking of bread at the table, saying to

the communicants, Take and eat this, Drink this,

there were standing by several serving-men, to see

and hear, belonging to the Bishop of Winchester;

among whom one of them most shamefully blasphemed

God, saying:

"Yea, by God's blood, standest thou there yet,

saying--Take and eat, Take and drink; will not this

gear be left yet? You shall be made to sing another

song within these few days, I trow, or else I have

lost my mark."

A day or two after came an order for Mountain to

appear before Gardiner at Winchester House.

Mountain said he would appear after morning

prayers; but the messenger's orders were not to

leave him, and he was obliged to obey on the

instant.

The bishop was standing when he entered, "in a bay

window, with a great company about him; among them

Sir Anthony St. Leger, reappointed Lord Deputy of

Ireland."

"Thou heretic," the Bishop began; "how darest thou

be so bold as to use that schismatical service

still, seeing God hath sent us a Catholic queen.

There is such an abominable company of you, as is

able to poison a whole realm with heresies."

"My lord," Mountain replied, "I am no heretic, for

in that way you count heresy, so worship we the

living God."

"God's passion," said the Bishop, "did I not tell

you, my Lord Deputy, how you should know a heretic.

He is up with his living God as though there was a

dead God. They have nothing in their mouths, these

heretics, but the Lord liveth; the living God; the

Lord! the Lord! and nothing but the Lord."

"Here," says Mountain, "he chafed like a bishop;

and as his manner was, many times he put off his

cap, and rubbed to and fro up and down the forepart

of his head, where a lock of hair was always

standing up."

"My good Lord Chancellor," St. Leger said to him,

"trouble not yourself with this heretic; I think

all the world is full of them; God bless me from

them. But, as your Lordship said, having a

Christian queen reigning over us, I trust there

will shortly be a reformation and an order taken

with these heretics." "Submit yourself unto my

lord," he said to Mountain, "and you shall find

favour."

"Thank you, sir," Mountain answered, "ply your own

suit, and let me alone."

A bystander then put in that the parson of St.

Michael's was a traitor as well as a heretic. He

had been in the field with the duke against the

queen.

"Is it even so?" cried Gardiner; "these be always

linked together, treason and heresy. Off with him

to the Marshalsea; this is one of our new broached

brethren that speaketh against good works; your

fraternity was, is, and ever will be unprofitable

in all ages, and good for nothing but the

fire."--Troubles of Thomas Mountain: printed by

Strype.

The portraits of Gardiner represent a fine,

vehement-looking man. The following description of

him, by Ponet, his rival in the See of Winchester,

gives the image as it was reflected in Ponet's

antipathies.

"The doctor hath a swart colour, hanging look,

frowning brows, eyes an inch within his head, a

nose, hooked like a buzzard's, nostrils like a

horse, ever snuffing in the wind; a sparrow mouth,

great paws like the devil, talons on his feet like

a gripe, two inches longer than the natural toes,

and so tied with sinews that he cannot abide to be

touched."]

{p.063} Mary, except for the cautious support of Paget, stood

otherwise alone coquetting with her fancy, and played upon by the

skilful Renard. The queen and the ambassador were incessantly

together, and Philip was the never-tiring subject of conversation

between them. She talked of his disposition. She had heard, {p.064}

she said, that he was proud; that he was inferior to his father in

point of ability; and then he was young, and she had been told sad

stories about him; if he was of warm temperament, he would not suit

her at all, she said, considering the age at which she had

arrived.[146] Moreover, when she was married, she must obey as God

commanded; her husband, perhaps, might wish to place Spaniards in

authority in England, and she would have to refuse; and that he would

not like. To all of which, being the fluttering of the caught fly,

Renard would answer that his highness was more like an angel than a

man; his youth was in his favour, for he might live to see his child

of age, and England had had too much experience of minorities. Life,

he added remarkably, was shorter than it used to be; sixty was now a

great age for a king; and as the world was, men were as mature at

thirty as in the days of his grandfather they were considered at

forty.[147] Then touching the constant sore--"her majesty," he said,

"had four enemies, who would never rest till they had destroyed her or

were themselves destroyed--the heretics, the friends of the late Duke

of Northumberland, the courts of France and Scotland, and, lastly, her

sister Elizabeth. Her subjects were restless, turbulent, and

changeable as the ocean of which they were so fond;[148] the

sovereigns of England had been only able to rule with a hand of iron,

and with severities which had earned them the name of tyrants;[149]

they had not spared the blood royal in order to secure their thrones,

and she too must act as they had acted, leaning for support,

meanwhile, on the arm of a powerful prince."

[Footnote 146: "Que s'il vouloit estre voluptueux

ce n'est ce quelle desire pour estre de telle

eaige."--Renard to the Emperor: _Rolls House MSS._]

[Footnote 147: Renard to the Emperor: _Rolls House

MSS._]

[Footnote 148: "Vostre Majeste seit les humeurs des

Angloys et leur voluntez estre forte discordantes,

desireux de nouvellete, de mutation, et

vindicatifz, soit pour estre insulaires, ou pour

tenir ce natural de la marine."--Renard to Mary:

_Granvelle Papers_, vol. iv. p. 129.]

[Footnote 149: "Les roys du passe on este forces de

traicter en rigueur de justice et effusion de sang

par l'execution de plusieurs du royaulme, voir du

sang royal, pour s'asseurer et maintenir leur

royaulme, dont ils out acquis le renom de tyrans et

cruelz."--Ibid.]

To these dark hints Mary ever listened eagerly--meantime she was

harassed painfully from another quarter.

{p.065} Reginald Pole, as might have been expected from his

temperament, could ill endure the delay of his return to England. The

hesitation of the queen and the objections of the emperor were

grounded upon arguments which he assured himself were fallacious; the

English nation, he continued to insist, were devoted to the Holy See;

so far from being himself unpopular, the _Cornish_ in the rebellion

under Edward had petitioned for his recall, and had even designated

him by the forbidden name of cardinal; they loved him and they longed

for him; and, regarding himself as the chosen instrument of Providence

to repair the iniquities of Henry VIII., he held the obstructions to

his return not only to be mistaken, but to be impious. The duty of the

returning prodigal was to submit; to lay aside all earthly

considerations--to obey God, God's vicegerent the pope, and himself

the pope's representative.

Mendoza had been sent by Charles to meet Pole on his way to Flanders,

and reason him into moderation. In return the legate wrote himself to

Charles's confessor, commanding him to explain to his master the sin

which he was committing. "The objection to his going to England," as

Pole understood, "was the supposed danger of an outbreak". Were the

truth as the emperor feared, the queen's first duty would be,

nevertheless, to God, her own soul, and the souls of the millions of

her subjects who were perishing in separation from the church; for no

worldly policy or carnal respect ought she to defer for a moment to

apply a remedy to so monstrous a calamity.[150] But the danger was

imaginary--or, rather, such danger as there was, arose from the

opposite cause. The right of the queen to the throne did not rest on

an act of parliament; it rested on her birth as the lawful child of

the lawful marriage between Henry and Catherine of Arragon.

Parliament, he was informed, would affirm the marriage legitimate, if

nothing was said about the pope; but, unless the pope's authority was

first recognised, parliament would only stultify itself; the papal

dispensation alone made valid a connection which, if the pope had no

power to dispense, was incestuous, and the offspring of it

illegitimate. God had made the peaceful settlement of the kingdom

dependent {p.066} on submission to the Holy See,[151] and for

parliament to interfere and give an opinion upon the subject would be

but a fresh act of schism and disobedience.

[Footnote 150: "Quanto grave peccato et irreparabil

danno sia il differir cosa che pertenga alle salute

di tante anime, le quale mentre quel regno sta

disunito dalla Chiesa, si trovano in manifesto

pericolo della loro dannatione."--Pole to the

Emperor's Confessor: _MS. Germany_, bundle 16,

State Paper Office.]

[Footnote 151: God, he said, had joined the title

to the Crown, "con l'obedientia della Sede

Apostolica, che levata questa viene a cader in

tutto, quella non essendo ella legitime herede del

regno, se non per la legitimation del matrimonio

della regina sua madre, et questa non valendo senon

per l'autorita et dispensa del Papa."--Pole to the

Emperor's Confessor: _MS. Germany_, bundle 16,

State Paper office.]

The original letter, being in our own State Paper Office, was probably

given by the confessor to Charles, and by Charles sent over to

England. Most logical it was; so logical that it quite outwitted the

intention of the writer. While it added to the queen's distress, it

removed, nevertheless, all objections which might have been raised by

the anti-papal party against the act to legitimatise her. So long as

there was a fear that, by a repeal of the Act of Divorce between her

father and mother, the pope's authority might indirectly be admitted,

some difficulty was to be anticipated; as a new assertion of English

independence, it could be carried with unanimous alacrity.

What parliament would or would not consent to, however, would soon

cease to be a mystery. The advice of the emperor on the elections had

been, for the most part, followed. It was obvious, indeed, that a

sovereign who was unable to control her council was in no position to

dictate to constituencies. There were no circulars to the

lords-lieutenant of counties, such as Northumberland had issued, or

such as Mary herself, a year later, was able to issue; while the

unusual number of members returned to the Lower House--four hundred

and thirty, it will be seen, voted on one great occasion--shows that

the issue of writs had been on the widest scale. On the whole, it was,

perhaps, the fairest election which had taken place for many years. In

the House of Lords the ejection of the Reforming bishops and the

restoration of their opponents--the death, imprisonment, or disgrace

of three noblemen on the Reforming side, and the return to public life

of the peers who, in the late reign, had habitually absented

themselves, had restored a conservative majority. How the

representatives of the people would conduct themselves was the anxious

and all-agitating question. The queen, however, could console herself

with knowing that Protestantism, as a system of belief, had made its

way chiefly among the young; the votes were with the middle-aged and

the old.

The session opened on the 5th of October with the ancient {p.067}

form, so long omitted, of the mass of the Holy Ghost. Two Protestant

bishops, Taylor of Lincoln and Harley of Hereford, who had been left

as yet undisturbed in their sees, on the service commencing, rose and

went out; they were not allowed to return. Two prebends, Alexander

Nowel and Doctor Tregonwell had been returned to the Lower House;

Nowel as a member of Convocation was declared ineligible;[152]

Tregonwell, being a layman, was on consideration allowed to retain his

seat. These were the only ejections which can be specifically traced,

and the silence of those who were interested in making the worst of

Mary's conduct, may be taken to prove that they did not know of any

more.[153] The Houses, purged of these elements, then settled to their

work; and, plunging at once into the great question of the time, the

Commons came to an instant understanding that the lay owners of church

lands should not be disturbed in their tenures under any pretext

whatsoever.

[Footnote 152: "Friday, October 13, it was declared

by the commissioners that Alex. Nowel, being

prebendary in Westminster, and thereby having a

voice in the Convocation House, cannot be a member

of this House, and so agreed by the

House."--_Commons Journal_, 1 Mary.]

[Footnote 153: Burnet and other Protestant writers

are loud-voiced with eloquent generalities on the

interference with the elections, and the

ill-treatment of the Reforming members; but of

interference with the elections they can produce no

evidence, and of members ejected they name no more

than the two bishops and the two prebends.

Noailles, indeed, who had opportunities of knowing,

says something on both points. "Ne fault douter,

sire," he wrote to the King of France, "que la

dicte dame n'obtienne presque tout ce qu'elle

vouldra en ce parlement, de tant qu'elle a faict

faire election de ceulx qui pourront estre en sa

faveur, et jetter quelques uns a elle suspectz."

The queen had probably done what she could; but the

influence which she could exercise must obviously

have been extremely small, and the event showed

that the ambassador was entirely wrong in his

expectations.]

Commendone, on returning to Rome, had disregarded his obligations to

secrecy, and had related all that the queen had said to him in the

open consistory; from the consistory the account travelled back to

England, and arrived inopportunely at the opening of parliament. The

fatal subject of the lands had been spoken of, and the queen had

expressed to Commendone her intention to restore them, if possible, to

the church. The council cross-questioned her, and she could neither

deny her words nor explain them away; the Commons first, the Lords

immediately after, showed her that, whatever might be her own hopes or

wishes, their minds on that point were irrevocably fixed.[154]

[Footnote 154: Renard to Charles V., October 19:

_Rolls House MSS._]

No less distinct were the opinions expressed in the Lower House on the

Papacy. The authority of the pope, as understood {p.068} in England,

was not a question of doctrine, nor was the opposition to it of recent

origin. It had been thrown off after a struggle which had lasted for

centuries, and a victory[155] so hardly won was not to be lightly

parted with. Lord Paget warned the queen that Pole's name must not be

so much as mentioned, or some unwelcome resolution about him would be

immediately passed;[156] and she was in hourly dread that before they

would consent to anything, they would question her whether she would

or would not maintain the royal supremacy.[157] On the other hand, if

no difficulties were raised about the pope or the church lands, the

preliminary discussion, both among Lords and Commons, showed a general

disposition to re-establish religion in the condition in which Henry

left it--provided, that is to say, no penalties were to attach to

nonconformity; and the Houses were ready also to take the step so much

deprecated by Pole, and pass a measure legitimatising the queen,

provided no mention was to be made of the papal dispensation. Some

difference of opinion on the last point had shown itself in the House

of Commons,[158] but the legate's ingenuity had removed all serious

obstacles.

[Footnote 155: Even the most reactionary clergy,

men like Abbot Feckenham and Doctor Bourne, had no

desire, as yet, to be re-united to Rome. In a

discussion with Ridley in the Tower, on the real

presence, Feckenham argued that "forty years before

all the world was agreed about it. Forty years ago,

said Ridley, all held that the Bishop of Rome was

supreme head of the Universal Church. What then?

was Master Feckenham beginning to say; but Master

Secretary (Bourne) took the tale, and said that was

a positive law. A positive law, quoth Ridley; he

would not have it so; he challenged it by Christ's

own word, by the words, 'Thou art Peter; thou art

Cephas,' Tush, quoth Master Secretary, it was not

counted an article of our faith."--Foxe, vol. vi.]

[Footnote 156: Renard to Charles V., October 28:

_Rolls House MSS._]

[Footnote 157: Ibid. October 15: _Rolls House

MSS._]

[Footnote 158: Ibid.]

Again parliament seemed determined that the Act of Succession, and the

will of Henry VIII., should not be tampered with, to the disfavour of

Elizabeth. It is singular that Renard, and probably, therefore, Mary,

were unaware of the position in which Elizabeth was placed towards the

crown. They imagined that her only title was as a presumptively

legitimate child; that if the Act of Divorce between Catherine of

Arragon and Henry was repealed, she must then, as a bastard, be cut

off from her expectations. Had Elizabeth's prospects been liable to be

affected by the legitimisation of her sister, the queen would have

sued as vainly for it as she sued afterwards in favour of her husband.

With unmixed mortification Renard learnt that Elizabeth, in the eye of

the law, had been as illegitimate as Mary, and that her {p.069}

place in the order of succession rested on her father's will. He

flattered himself, at first, that Henry's dispositions could be set

aside;[159] but he very soon found that there was no present hope of

it.

[Footnote 159: Renard to Charles V., October 21:

_Rolls House MSS._]

These general features of the temper of parliament were elicited in

conversation in the first few days of the session. The Marchioness of

Exeter, during the same days, was released from her attainder,

Courtenay was restored in blood, and a law, similar to that with which

Somerset commenced his Protectorate, repealed all late treason acts,

restricted the definition of treason within the limits of the statute

of Edward III., and relieved the clergy of the recent extensions of

the Premunire. The queen gave her assent to these three measures on

the 21st of October; and there was then an interval of three days,

during which the bishops were consulted on the view taken by

parliament of the queen's legitimacy. Renard told the Bishop of

Norwich, Thirlby, that they must bend to the times, and leave the pope

to his fortunes. They acted on the ambassador's advice. An act was

passed, in which the marriage from which the queen was sprung, was

declared valid, and the pope's name was not mentioned; but the

essential point being secured, the framers of the statute were willing

to gratify their mistress by the intensity of the bitterness with

which the history of the divorce was related.[160] The bishops must

have been glad to escape from so mortifying a subject, and to apply

themselves to the more congenial subject of religion.

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

As soon as the disposition of parliament had been generally

ascertained, the restoration of the mass was first formally submitted,

for the sake of decency, to the clergy of Convocation.

The bench had been purged of dangerous elements. The Lower House

contained a small fraction of Protestants just large enough to permit

a controversy, and to insure a triumph to their antagonists. The

proceedings opened with a sermon from Harpsfeld, then chaplain of the

Bishop of London, in which, in a series of ascending antitheses,

Northumberland was described as Holofernes, and Mary as Judith;

Northumberland was Haman, and Mary was Esther; Northumberland was

Sisera, and Mary was the mother in Israel. Mary was the sister who had

chosen the better part: religion ceased and slept until Mary arose a

virgin in Israel, and with the mother of God Mary might sing, "Behold,

from henceforth all generations shall call {p.070} me blessed." The

trumpet having thus sounded, the lists were drawn for the combat; the

bishops sat in their robes, the clergy stood bareheaded, and the

champions appeared. Hugh Weston, Dean of Windsor, Dean of Westminster

afterwards, Dr. Watson, Dr. Moreman, and the preacher Harpsfeld

undertook to defend the real presence against Phillips Dean of

Rochester, Philpot, Cheny, Aylmer, and Young.

The engagement lasted for a week. The reforming theologians fought for

their dangerous cause bravely and temperately; and Weston, who was at

once advocate and prolocutor, threw down his truncheon at last, and

told Philpot that he was meeter for Bethlehem than for a company of

grave and learned men, and that he should come no more into their

house.[161] The orthodox thus ruled themselves the victors: but beyond

the doors of the Convocation House they did not benefit their cause.

The dispute, according to Renard, resolved itself, in the opinion of

the laity, into scandalous railing and recrimination;[162] the people

were indignant; and the Houses of Parliament, disgusted and

dissatisfied, resumed the discussion among themselves, as more

competent to conduct it with decency. In eight days the various

changes introduced by Edward VI. were argued in the House of Commons,

and points were treated of there, said Renard, which a general council

could scarcely resolve. At length, by a majority, which exceeded

Gardiner's most sanguine hopes, of 350 against 80, the mass was

restored, and the clergy were required to return to celibacy.[163]

[Footnote 161: Report of the Disputation in the

Convocation House.--Foxe, vol. v. p. 395.]

[Footnote 162: Renard to Charles V., October 28:

_Rolls House MSS._]

[Footnote 163: Ibid. November 8: _Rolls House

MSS._]

The precipitation with which Somerset, Cranmer, and Northumberland had

attempted to carry out the Reformation, was thus followed by a natural

recoil. Protestant theology had erected itself into a system of

intolerant dogmatism, and had crowded the gaols with prisoners who

were guilty of no crime but Nonconformity; it had now to reap the

fruits of its injustice, and was superseded till its teachers had

grown wiser. The first parliament of Mary was indeed more Protestant,

in the best sense of that word, than the statesmen and divines of

Edward. While the House of Commons re-established the Catholic

services, they decided, after long consideration, that no punishment

should be inflicted on those who declined to attend those

services.[164] There was to be no pope, no persecution, no restoration

of the abbey {p.071} lands--resolutions, all of them disagreeable to

a reactionary court. On the Spanish marriage both Lords and Commons

were equally impracticable. The Catholic noblemen--the Earls of Derby,

Shrewsbury, Bath, and Sussex were in the interest of Courtenay. The

chancellor had become attached to him in the Tower when they were

fellow-prisoners there; and Sir Robert Rochester, Sir Francis

Englefield, Sir Edward Waldegrave, the queen's tried and faithful

officers of the household, went with the chancellor. Never, on any

subject, was there greater unanimity in England than in the

disapproval of Philip as a husband for the queen, and, on the 29th of

October, the Lower House had a petition in preparation to entreat her

to choose from among her subjects.

[Footnote 164: Ibid. December 8.]

To Courtenay, indeed, Mary might legitimately object. Since his

emancipation from the Tower he had wandered into folly and debauchery;

he was vain and inexperienced, and his insolence was kept in check

only by the quality so rare in an Englishman of personal timidity. But

to refuse Courtenay was one thing, to fasten her choice on the heir of

a foreign kingdom was another. Paget insisted, indeed, that, as the

Queen of Scots was contracted to the Dauphin, unless England could

strengthen herself with a connection of corresponding strength, the

union of the French and Scottish crowns was a menace to her

liberties.[165] But the argument, though important in itself, was

powerless against the universal dread of the introduction of a foreign

sovereign, and it availed only to provide Mary with an answer to the

protests and entreaties of her other ministers.

[Footnote 165: Renard.]

Perhaps, too, it confirmed her in her obstinacy, and allowed her to

persuade herself that, in following her own inclination, she was

consulting the interests of her subjects. Obstinate, at any rate, she

was beyond all reach of persuasion. Once only she wavered, after her

resolution was first taken. Some one had told her that, if she married

Philip, she would find herself the step-mother of a large family of

children who had come into the world irregularly. A moral objection

she was always willing to recognise. She sent for Renard, and conjured

him to tell her whether the prince was really the good man which he

had described him; Renard assured her that he was the very paragon of

the world.

She caught the ambassador's hand.

"Oh!" she exclaimed, "do you speak as a subject whose duty is to

praise his sovereign, or do you speak as a man?"

{p.072} "Your majesty may take my life," he answered, "if you find

him other than I have told you."

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

She dismissed Renard gratefully. A few days after she sent for him

again, when she was expecting the petition of the House of Commons.

"Lady Clarence," one of the queen's attendants, was the only other

person present. The holy wafer was in the room on an altar, which she

called her protector, her guide, her adviser.[166] Mary told them that

she spent her days and nights in tears and prayers before it,

imploring God to direct her; and as she was speaking her emotions

overcame her; she flung herself on her knees with Renard and Lady

Clarence at her side, and the three together before the altar sang the

_Veni Creator_. The invocation was heard in the breasts from which it

was uttered. As the chant died into silence, Mary rose from the ground

as if inspired, and announced the divine message. The Prince of Spain

was the chosen of Heaven for the virgin queen; if miracles were

required to give him to her, there was a stronger than man who would

work them; the malice of the world should not keep him from her; she

would cherish him and love him, and him alone; and never

thenceforward, by a wavering thought, would she give him cause for

jealousy.[167]

[Footnote 166: "Elle l'avoit toujours invoque comme

son protecteur, conducteur, et

conseilleur."--Renard to Charles V., October 31:

_Rolls House MSS._]

[Footnote 167: Renard to Charles V., October 31:

_Rolls House MSS._]

It was true that she had deliberately promised not to do what she was

now resolved on doing, but that was no matter.

The Commons' petition was by this time (November) ready, but the

agitation of the last scene brought on a palpitation of the heart

which for the time enabled the queen to decline to receive it; while

Renard assailed the different ministers, and extracted from them their

general views on the state of the country, and the measures which

should be pursued.

The Bishop of Winchester he found relaxing in his zeal for Rome, and

desiring a solid independent English government, the re-enactment of

the Six Articles, and an Anglican religious tyranny supported by the

lords of the old blood. Nobles and people were against the pope,

Gardiner said, and against foreign interference of all sorts; Mary

could not marry Philip without a papal dispensation, which must be

kept secret; the country would not tolerate it;[168] the French would

play into the hands of {p.073} the heretics, and the Spanish

alliance would give them the game; there would be a cry raised that

Spanish troops would be introduced to inflict the pope upon the people

by force. If the emperor desired the friendship of England, he would

succeed best by not pressing the connection too close. Political

marriages were dangerous. Cromwell tied Henry VIII. to Anne of Cleves;

the marriage lasted a night, and destroyed him and his policy. Let the

queen accept the choice of her people, marry Courtenay, send Elizabeth

to the Tower, and extirpate heresy with fire and sword.

[Footnote 168: "Il fauldra obtenir dispense du

Pape, pour le parentage, qui ne pourra estre

publique ains secrete, autrement le peuple se

revolteroit, pour l'auctorite du Pape qu'il ne

veult admettre et revoir."--Renard to Charles V.,

November 9: _Rolls House MSS._]

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

Paget.

If the queen sent Elizabeth to the Tower, Lord Paget said, her life

would not be safe for a day. Paget wished her to be allowed to choose

her own husband; but she must first satisfy parliament that she had no

intention of tampering with the succession. Should she die without

children, the country must not be left exposed to claims from Spain on

behalf of Philip, or from France on behalf of the Queen of Scots. His

own advice, therefore, was, that Mary should frankly acknowledge her

sister as her presumptive successor; Elizabeth might be married to

Courtenay, and, in default of heirs of her own body, it might be

avowed and understood that those two should be king and queen. Could

she make up her mind to this course, could she relinquish her dreams

of restoring the authority of the pope, of meddling with the church

lands, and interfering with the liberties of her people, she might

rely on the loyalty of the country, and her personal inclinations

would not be interfered with.[169]

[Footnote 169: Renard to Charles V., November 4:

_Rolls House MSS._]

Both the lines of conduct thus sketched were consistent and

intelligible, and either might have been successfully followed. But

neither the one nor the other satisfied Mary. She would have Philip,

she would have the pope, and she would not recognise her sister. If

she insisted on choosing a husband for herself, she felt it would be

difficult to refuse her; her object was to surprise the council into

committing themselves, and she succeeded. On the 8th of November, when

they were in session in a room in the palace, Renard presented Mary in

the emperor's name with a formal offer of Philip's hand, and requested

a distinct answer, Yes or no. The queen said she would consult her

ministers, and repaired in agitation to the council-room.[170]

Distrusting {p.074} one another, unprepared for the sudden demand,

and unable to consult in her presence, the lords made some answer,

which she interpreted into acquiescence: Mary returned radiant with

joy, and told the ambassador that his proposal was accepted.

[Footnote 170: "Visage intimide et gestes

tremblans."--Renard to Charles V.: _Rolls House

MSS._]

A momentary lull followed, during which Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of

Canterbury, Lady Jane Grey, Lord Guilford, Lord Ambrose, and Lord

Henry Dudley were taken from the Tower on foot to the Guildhall, and

were there tried, found guilty of high treason, and sentenced to die.

Lady Jane the queen still intended to spare; the Dudleys she meant to

pause upon. Cranmer, in a grave, mild letter, explained what his

conduct had been with respect to his so-called treason; but his story,

creditable to him as it was, produced no effect; Cranmer was

immediately to be put to death. That was the first intention, though

it was found necessary to postpone his fate through a superstitious

scruple. The archbishop had received the pallium from Rome, and, until

degraded by apostolic authority, he could not, according to Catholic

rule, be condemned by a secular tribunal. But there was no intention

of sparing him at the time of his trial; in a few days, Renard wrote

on the 17th of November, "the archbishop" will be executed; and Mary,

triumphant, as she believed herself, on the question nearest to her

heart, had told him that the melancholy which had weighed upon her

from childhood was rolling away; she had never yet known the meaning

of happiness, and she was about to be rewarded at last.[171]

[Footnote 171: Renard to Charles V., November 17:

_Rolls House MSS._]

The struggle had told upon her. She was looking aged and worn,[172]

and her hopes of children, if she married, were thought extremely

small. But she considered that she had won the day, and was now ready

to face the Commons; the House had chafed at the delay: they had

talked largely of their intentions; if the queen's answer was

unsatisfactory, they would dissolve themselves, they said, and return

to their counties. On the 16th of November a message was brought that

the Speaker would at last be admitted to the presence. The interview

which followed, Mary thus herself described to Renard. The council

were present; the Speaker was introduced, and the queen received him

standing.

[Footnote 172: "Fort envieillie et

agee."--Noailles.]

In an oration, she said, replete to weariness with fine phrases and

historic precedents, the Speaker requested her, in the name of the

commonwealth, to marry. The succession was perplexed; the Queen of

Scots made pretensions to the crown; and, in the {p.075} event of

her death, a civil war was imminent. Let her majesty take a husband,

therefore, and with God's grace the kingdom would not be long without

an heir whose title none would dispute. Yet, in taking a husband, the

Speaker said, her majesty's faithful Commons trusted she would not

choose from abroad. A foreign prince had interests of his own which

might not be English interests; he would have command of English

armies, fleets, and fortresses, and he might betray his trust; he

might involve the country in wars; he might make promises and break

them; he might carry her highness away out of the realm; or he might

bring up her children in foreign courts and in foreign habits. Let her

marry, therefore, one of her own subjects.

The Speaker was so prolix, so tedious, so confused, the queen

said--his sentences were so long drawn and so little to the

purpose--that she sate down before he had half-finished. When he came

to the words "Marry a subject," she could remain silent no longer.

Replies to addresses of the House of Commons were usually read by the

chancellor; but, careless of forms, she again started to her feet, and

spoke:--[173]

[Footnote 173: Renard is the only authority for

this speech, which he heard from the queen.

Translated by him into French, and retranslated by

myself into English, it has, doubtless, suffered

much in the process.]

"For your desire to see us married we thank you; your desire to

dictate to us the consort whom we shall choose we consider somewhat

superfluous; the English parliament has not been wont to use such

language to their sovereigns, and where private persons in such cases

follow their private tastes, sovereigns may reasonably challenge an

equal liberty. If you, our Commons, force upon us a husband whom we

dislike, it may occasion the inconvenience of our death;[174] if we

marry where we do not love, we shall be in our grave in three months,

and the heir of whom you speak will not have been brought into being.

We have heard much from you of the incommodities which may attend our

marriage; we have not heard from you of the commodities thereof--one

of which is of some weight with us, the commodity, namely, of our

private inclination. We have not forgotten our coronation oath. We

shall marry as God shall direct our choice, to his honour and to our

country's good."

[Footnote 174: "Ce seroit procurer l'inconvenient

de sa mort."]

She would hear no reply. The Speaker was led out, and as he left the

room Arundel whispered to Gardiner that he had lost his office; the

queen had usurped it. At the same moment the {p.076} queen herself

turned to the chancellor--"I have to thank you, my lord, for this

business," she said.

The chancellor swore in tears that he was innocent; the Commons had

drawn their petition themselves; for himself it was true he was well

inclined towards Courtenay; he had known him in the Tower.

"And is your having known him in the Tower," she cried, "a reason that

you should think him a fitting husband for me? I will never, never

marry him--that I promise you--and I am a woman of my word; what I say

I do."

"Choose where you will," Gardiner answered, "your majesty's consort

shall find in me the most obedient of his subjects."

Mary had now the bit between her teeth, and, resisting all efforts to

check or guide her, was making her own way with obstinate resolution.

The next point was the succession, which, notwithstanding the humour

of parliament, should be re-arranged, if force or skill could do it.

There were four possible claimants after herself, she told Renard, and

in her own opinion the best title was that of the Queen of Scots. But

the country objected, and the emperor would not have the English crown

fall to France. The Greys were out of the question, but their mother,

the Duchess of Suffolk, was eligible; and there was Lady Lennox, also,

Darnley's mother, who perhaps, after all, would be the best choice

that could be made.[175] Elizabeth, she was determined, should never,

never succeed. She had spoken to Paget about it, she said, and Paget

had remonstrated; Paget had said marry her to Courtenay, recognise her

as presumptive heir, and add a stipulation, if necessary, that she

become a Catholic; but, Catholic or no Catholic, she said, her sister

should never reign in England with consent of hers; she was a heretic,

a hypocrite, and a bastard, and her infamous mother had been the cause

of all the calamities which had befallen the realm.

[Footnote 175: Renard to Charles V., November 28:

_Rolls House MSS._]

Even Renard was alarmed at this burst of passion. He had fed Mary's

suspicions till they were beyond either his control or her own; and

the attitude of parliament had lately shown him that, if any step were

taken against Elizabeth without provocation on her part, it would

infinitely increase the difficulty of concluding the marriage. He was

beginning to believe, and he ventured to hint to the queen, that

Paget's advice might be worth consideration; but on this subject she

would listen to nothing.

{p.077} Elizabeth had hitherto, when at court, taken precedence of

all other ladies. The queen now compelled her to walk behind Lady

Lennox and the Duchess of Suffolk, as a sign of the meditated

change;[176] and the ladies of the court were afraid to be seen

speaking to her. But in reply to Mary's derogatory treatment, the

young lords, knights, and gentlemen gathered ostentatiously round the

princess when she rode abroad, or thronged the levees at her house;

old-established statesmen said, in Renard's ear, that, let the queen

decide as she would, no foreigner should reign in England; and Lord

Arundel believed that Elizabeth's foot was already on the steps of the

throne. A large and fast-growing party, which included more than one

member of the Privy Council, were now beginning to consider, as the

best escape from Philip, that Courtenay had better fly from the court,

taking Elizabeth with him--call round him in their joint names all who

would strike with him for English independence, and proclaim the queen

deposed.

[Footnote 176: "Elle l'a faict quelquefois aller

apres la Comtesse de Lennox, que l'on appelle icy

Madame Marguerite, et Madame Francoise, qu'est la

susdicte Duchesse de Suffolk."--Noailles to the

King of France, November 30.]

There was uncertainty about Elizabeth herself; both Noailles and

Renard believed that she would consent to this dangerous proposal; but

she had shown Courtenay, hitherto, no sign of favour; while Courtenay,

on his side, complained that he was frightened by her haughty ways.

Again there was a serious difficulty in Courtenay's character; he was

too cowardly for a dangerous enterprise, too incapable for an

intricate one, and his weak humour made men afraid to trust themselves

to a person who, to save himself, might at any moment betray them.

Noailles, however, said emphatically that, were Courtenay anything but

what he was, his success would be certain.[177]

[Footnote 177: Noailles to the King of France,

December 6.]

The plot grew steadily into definite form. Devonshire and Cornwall

were prepared for insurrection, and thither, as to the stronghold of

the Courtenay family, Elizabeth was to be first carried. Meantime the

ferment of popular feeling showed in alarming symptoms through the

surface. The council were in continual quarrel. Parliament, since the

rebuff of the Speaker, had not grown more tractable, and awkward

questions began to be asked about a provision for the married clergy.

All had been already gained which could be hoped for from the present

House of Commons; and, on the 6th of December, the session ended in a

dissolution. The same day a dead dog was thrown {p.078} through the

window of the presence chamber with ears cropped, a halter about its

neck, and a label saying that all the priests in England should be

hanged.

Renard, who, though not admitted, like Noailles, into the confidence

of the conspirators, yet knew the drift of public feeling, and knew

also Arundel's opinion of the queen's prospects, insisted that Mary

should place some restraint upon herself, and treat her sister at

least with outward courtesy; Philip was expected at Christmas, should

nothing untoward happen in the interval; and the ambassador prevailed

on her, at last, to pretend that her suspicions were at an end. His

own desire, he said, was as great as Mary's that Elizabeth should be

detected in some treasonable correspondence; but harshness only placed

her on her guard; she would be less careful, if she believed that she

was no longer distrusted. The princess, alarmed perhaps at finding

herself the unconsenting object of dangerous schemes, had asked

permission to retire to her country house. It was agreed that she

should go; persons in her household were bribed to watch her; and the

queen, yielding to Renard's entreaties, received her when she came to

take leave with an appearance of affection so well counterfeited, that

it called out the ambassador's applause.[178] She made her a present

of pearls, with a head-dress of sable; and the princess, on her side,

implored the queen to give no more credit to slanders against her.

They embraced; Elizabeth left the court; and, as she went out of

London, five hundred gentlemen formed about her as a voluntary

escort.[179] There were not wanting fools, says Renard, who would

persuade the queen that her sister's last words were honestly spoken;

but she remembers too acutely the injuries which her mother and

herself suffered at Anne Boleyn's hands; and she has a fixed

conviction that Elizabeth, unless she can be first disposed of, will

be a cause of infinite calamities to the realm.[180]

[Footnote 178: "La Reine a tres bien dissimulee, en

son endroict."--Renard to Charles V., December 8:

_Rolls House MSS._]

[Footnote 179: Noailles.]

[Footnote 180: Renard to Charles V., December 8:

_Rolls House MSS._]

{p.079} CHAPTER II.