commenced of the common prisoners. To spread the impression, gibbets
were erected all over London, and by Thursday evening eighty or a
hundred bodies[258] were dangling {p.114} in St. Paul's Churchyard,
on London Bridge, in Fleet Street, and at Charing Cross, in Southwark
and Westminster. At all cross-ways and in all thoroughfares, says
Noailles, "the eye was met with the hideous spectacle of hanging men;"
while Brett and a fresh batch of unfortunates were sent to suffer at
Rochester and Maidstone. Day after day, week after week, commissioners
sat at Westminster or at the Guildhall trying prisoners, who passed
with a short shrift to the gallows. The Duke of Suffolk was sentenced
on the 17th; on the 23rd he followed his daughter, penitent for his
rebellion, but constant, as she had implored him to be, in his faith.
His two brothers and Lord Cobham's sons were condemned. William
Thomas, to escape torture, stabbed himself, but recovered to die at
Tyburn. Lord Cobham himself, who was arrested notwithstanding his
defence of his house, Wyatt, Sir James Crofts, Sir William St. Lowe,
Sir Nicholas Arnold, Sir Nicholas Throgmorton, and, as the council
expressed it, "a world more," were in various prisons waiting their
trials. Those who were suspected of being in Elizabeth's confidence
were kept with their fate impending over them--to be tempted either
with hopes of pardon, or by the rack, to betray their secrets.[259]
[Footnote 258: Renard says: "A hundred were hanged
in London and a hundred in Kent." Stow says:
"Eighty in London and twenty-two in Kent." _The
Chronicle of Queen Mary_ does not mention the
number of executions in London, but agrees with
Stow on the number sent to Kent. The smaller
estimate, in these cases, is generally the right
one.]
[Footnote 259: On Sunday the 11th of February, the
day on which he exhorted the queen to severity from
the pulpit, Gardiner wrote to Sir William Petre,
"To-morrow, at your going to the Tower, it shall be
good ye be earnest with one little Wyatt there
prisoner, who by all likelihood can tell all. He is
but a bastard, and hath no substance; and it might
stand with the Queen's Highness's pleasure there
were no great account to be made whether ye pressed
him to say truth by sharp punishment or promise of
life."--_MS. Domestic, Mary_, vol. iii. State Paper
Office. I do not know to whom Gardiner referred in
the words "little Wyatt."]
But, sooner or later, the queen was determined that every one who
could be convicted should die,[260] and beyond, and above them all,
Elizabeth. Elizabeth's illness, which had been supposed to have been
assumed, was real, and as the feeling of the people towards her
compelled the observance of the forms of justice and decency,
physicians were sent from the court to attend upon her. On the 18th of
February they reported that she could be moved with safety; and,
escorted by Lord William Howard, Sir Edward Hastings, and Sir Thomas
Cornwallis, she was brought by slow stages, of six or seven miles a
day, to London.[261] Renard had described her to the emperor as
probably _enceinte_ through some vile intrigue, and crushed with
remorse and disappointment.[262]
[Footnote 260: Renard to the Emperor: _Rolls House
MSS._]
[Footnote 261: The Order of my Lady Elizabeth's
Grace's Voyage to the Court: _MS. Mary, Domestic_
vol. iii. State Paper Office.]
[Footnote 262: Renard to the Emperor: February 17:
_Rolls House MSS._]
{p.115} To give the lie to all such slanders, when she entered the
city, the princess had the covering of her litter thrown back; she was
dressed in white, her face was pale from her illness, but the
expression was lofty, scornful, and magnificent.[263] Crowds followed
her along the streets to Westminster. The queen, when she arrived at
Whitehall, refused to see her; a suite of rooms was assigned for her
confinement in a corner of the palace, from which there was no egress
except by passing the guard, and there, with short attendance, she
waited the result of Gardiner's investigations. Wyatt, by vague
admissions, had already partially compromised her, and, on the
strength of his words, and the discovery of the copy of her letter in
the packet of Noailles, she would have gone direct to the Tower, had
the lords permitted. The emperor urged instant and summary justice
both on her and on Courtenay; the irritation, should irritation arise,
could be allayed afterwards by an amnesty.[264] The lords, however,
insisted obstinately on the forms of law, the necessity of witnesses,
and of a trial; and Renard watched their unreasonable humours with
angry misgivings. It was enough, he said, that the conspiracy was
undertaken in Elizabeth's interests; if she escaped now, the queen
would never be secure.[265] In fact, while Elizabeth lived, the prince
could not venture among the wild English spirits, and Charles was
determined that the marriage should not escape him.
[Footnote 263: "Pour desguyser le regret qu'elle
a," says Renard, unable to relinquish his first
conviction.]
[Footnote 264: Renard was instructed to exhort the
queen: "Que l'execution et chastoy de ceulx qui le
meritent se face tost; usant a l'endroit de Madame
Elizabeth et de Cortenay comme elle verra convenir
a sa seurete, pour apres user de clemence en
l'endroit de ceulx qu'il luy semblera, afin de tost
reassurer le surplus."--The Emperor to Renard:
_Granvelle Papers_, vol. iv. pp. 224, 225.]
[Footnote 265: Il est certain l'enterprinse estoit
en sa faveur. Et certes, sire, si pendant que
l'occasion s'adonne elle ne la punyt et Cortenay,
elle ne sera jamais asseuree.--Renard to Charles
V.: Tytler, vol. ii. p. 311.]
As soon as the rebellion was crushed, Egmont, attended by Count Horn,
returned to complete his work. He brought with him the dispensations
in regular form. He brought also a fresh and pressing entreaty that
Elizabeth should be sacrificed. An opportunity had been placed in the
queen's hand, which her duty to the church required that she should
not neglect; and Egmont was directed to tell her that the emperor, in
trusting his son in a country where his own power could not protect
him, relied upon her honour not to neglect any step essential to his
security.[266] Egmont gave his message. The unhappy queen {p.116}
required no urging; she protested to Renard, that she could neither
rest nor sleep, so ardent was her desire for the prince's safe
arrival.[267] Courtenay, if necessary, she could kill; against him the
proofs were complete; as to Elizabeth, she knew her guilt; the
evidence was growing; and she would insist to the council that justice
should be done.
[Footnote 266: Renard to the Emperor, March 8:
_Rolls House MSS._]
[Footnote 267: La quelle me respondit et afferme
qu'elle ne dort ny repose pour le soucy elle tient
de la seure venue de son Altesse.--Renard to the
Emperor: Tytler, vol. ii.]
About the marriage itself, the lords had by this time agreed to yield.
Courtenay's pretensions could no longer be decently advanced, and
Gardiner, abandoning a hopeless cause, and turning his attention to
the restoration of the church, would consent to anything, if, on his
side, he might emancipate the clergy from the control of the civil
power, and re-establish persecution. Two factions, distinctly marked,
were now growing in the council--the party of the statesmen, composed
of Paget, Sussex, Arundel, Pembroke, Lord William Howard, the Marquis
of Winchester, Sir Edward Hastings, and Cornwallis: the party of the
church, composed of Gardiner, Petre, Rochester, Gage, Jerningham, and
Bourne. Divided on all other questions, the rival parties agreed only
no longer to oppose the coming of Philip. The wavering few had been
decided by the presents and promises which Egmont brought with him
from Charles. Pensions of two thousand crowns had been offered to, and
were probably accepted by the Earls of Pembroke, Arundel, Derby, and
Shrewsbury; pensions of a thousand crowns were given to Sussex, Darcy,
Winchester, Rochester, Petre, and Cheyne; pensions of five hundred
crowns to Southwell, Waldegrave, Inglefield, Wentworth, and Grey;[268]
ten thousand crowns were distributed among the officers and gentlemen
who had distinguished themselves against Wyatt. The pensions were
large, but, as Renard observed, when Charles seemed to hesitate,
several of the recipients were old, and would soon die; and, as to the
rest, things in England were changing from day to day, and means of
some kind would easily be found to put an early end to the
payments.[269]
[Footnote 268: _Granvelle Papers_, vol. iv. p.
267.]
[Footnote 269: Renard to Charles V., March 8:
_Rolls House MSS._]
Unanimity having been thus secured, on the day of Egmont's arrival
Renard demanded an audience of the lords, and in the queen's presence
requested their opinion whether the condition of England allowed the
completion of the contract. The life of the prince of Spain was of
great importance to Europe; should {p.117} they believe in their
hearts that he would be in danger, there was still time to close the
negotiation. The rebellion having broken out and having failed, the
lords replied that there was no longer any likelihood of open
violence. Arundel hinted, again, that the prince must bring his own
cook and butler with him;[270] but he had nothing else to fear, if he
could escape the French cruisers.
[Footnote 270: Arundel nous dit qu'il convenoit que
son alteze amena ses cuyseniers, sommeliers du
cave, et autres officiers pour son bouche, que
quant aux autres luy y pourvoyeroit selon les
coustumes d'Angleterre.--Renard to Charles V.:
_Rolls House MSS._]
These assurances, combined with the queen's secret promises about
Elizabeth, were held sufficient; and on the 6th of March, at three
o'clock in the afternoon, the ambassadors were conducted by Pembroke
into the presence chamber. The queen, kneeling before the sacrament,
called it to witness that, in consenting to the alliance with the
Prince of Spain, she was moved by no carnal concupiscence, but only by
her zeal for the welfare of her realm and subjects; and then, rising
up, with the bystanders all in tears, she gave her hand to Egmont as
Philip's representative. The blessing was pronounced by Gardiner, and
the proxy marriage was completed.[271] The prince was to be sent for
without delay, and Southampton was chosen as the port at which he
should disembark, "being in the country of the Bishop of Winchester,"
where the people were, for the most part, good Catholics.
[Footnote 271: Puis par la main de l'Evesque de
Winchester les promesses et paroles de praesenti,
furent dictes et prononcees intelligiblement par la
diet Egmont seul et la dicte Dame.--Ibid. Compare
Tytler, vol. ii. p. 327. The great value of Mr.
Tytler's work is diminished by the many omissions
which he has permitted himself to make in the
letters which he has edited.]
Parliament was expected to give its sanction without further
difficulty; the opposition of the country having been neutralised by
the same causes which had influenced the council. The queen, indeed,
in going through the ceremony before consulting parliament, though she
had broken the promise which she made in the Guildhall, had placed it
beyond their power to raise difficulties; but other questions were
likely to rise which would not be settled so easily. She herself was
longing to show her gratitude to Providence by restoring the authority
of the pope; and the pope intended, if possible, to recover his
first-fruits and Peter's pence, and to maintain the law of the church
which forbade the alienation of church property.[272] The English
laity {p.118} were resolute on their side to keep hold of what they
had got; and to set the subject at rest, and to prevent unpleasant
discussions on points of theology, Paget, with his friends, desired
that the session should last but a few days, and that two measures
only should be brought forward; the first for the confirmation of the
treaty of marriage, the second to reassert the validity of the titles
under which the church estates were held by their present owners. If
the queen consented to the last, her title of Head of the Church might
be dropped informally, and allowed to fall into abeyance.[273]
[Footnote 272: Pole's first commission granted him
powers only "concordandi et transigendi cum
possessoribus bonorum ecclesiasticorum, (restitutis
prius si expedire videtur immobilibus per eos
indebite detentis,) super fructibus male perceptis
ac bonis mobilibus consumptis."--Commission granted
to Reginald Pole: Wilkins's _Concilia_, vol. iv.
Cardinal Morone, writing to Pole as late as June,
1554, said that the pope was still unable to
resolve on giving his sanction to the
alienation.--Burnet's _Collectanea_.]
[Footnote 273: Paget to Renard: Tytler, vol. ii.]
Gardiner, however, saw in the failure of the insurrection an
opportunity of emancipating the church, and of extinguishing heresy
with fire and sword.[274] He was preparing a bill to restore the
ancient rigorous tyranny of the ecclesiastical courts; and by his own
authority he directed that, in the writs for the parliament, the
summons should be to meet at Oxford,[275] where the conservatism of
the country would be released from the dread of the London citizens.
The spirit which, thirteen years before, had passed the Six Articles
Bill by acclamation, continued to smoulder in the slow minds of the
country gentlemen, and was blazing freely among the lately persecuted
priests. The Bishop of Winchester had arranged in his imagination a
splendid melodrama. The session was to begin on the 2nd of April; and
the ecclesiastical bill was to be the first to be passed. On the 8th
of March, Cranmer, Ridley, and Latimer were sent down to the
University to be tried before a committee of Convocation which had
already decided on its verdict; and the Fathers of the Reformation
were either to recant or to suffer the flaming penalties of heresy in
the presence of the legislature, as the first-fruits of a renovated
church discipline.
[Footnote 274: Par feug et sang.--Renard to Charles
V., March 14: _Rolls House MSS._; partially printed
by Tytler.]
[Footnote 275: Ibid.]
Vainly Renard protested. In the fiery obstinacy of his determination,
Gardiner was the incarnate expression of the fury of the
ecclesiastical faction, smarting, as they were, under their long
degradation, and under the irritating consciousness of those false
oaths of submission which they had sworn to a power which they
loathed. Once before, in the first reaction against Protestant
excesses, the Bishop of Winchester had seen the Six {p.119} Articles
Bill carried--but his prey had then been snatched from his grasp. Now,
embittered by fresh oppression, he saw his party once more in a
position to revenge their wrongs when there was no Henry any longer to
stand between them and their enemies. He would take the tide at the
flood, forge a weapon keener than the last, and establish the
Inquisition.[276] Paget swore it should not be.[277] Charles V.
himself, dreading a fresh interruption to the marriage, insisted that
this extravagant fervour should be checked;[278] and the Bishop of
Arras, the scourge of the Netherlands, interceded for moderation in
England. But Gardiner and the clergy were not to be turned from the
hope of their hearts by the private alarms of the Imperialists; and in
the heart of the queen religious orthodoxy was Philip's solitary
rival. Renard urged her to be prudent in religion and cruel to the
political prisoners. Gardiner, though eager as Renard to kill
Elizabeth, would buy the privilege of working his will upon the
Protestants by sparing Courtenay and Courtenay's friends. Mary
listened to the worst counsels of each, and her distempered humour
settled into a confused ferocity. So unwholesome appeared the aspect
of things in the middle of March that, notwithstanding the formal
contract, Renard almost advised the emperor to relinquish the thought
of committing his son among so wild a people.[279]
[Footnote 276: Establir forme d'Inquisition contre
les heretiques.--Renard to Charles V.: _Rolls House
MSS._]
[Footnote 277: Ibid.]
[Footnote 278: La chaleur exhorbitante.--Charles V.
to Renard: _Granvelle Papers_, vol. iv. p. 229.]
[Footnote 279: Pour estre la plus part des Angloys
sans foy, sans loy, confuz en la religion, doubles,
inconstans, et de nature jaloux et abhorrissans
estrangiers.--_Rolls House MSS._]
As opposition to extreme measures was anticipated in the House of
Lords, as well as among the Commons, it was important to strengthen
the bench of bishops. The pope had granted permission without
difficulty to fill the vacant sees; and on the 1st of April six new
prelates were consecrated at St. Mary Overies, while Sir John Brydges
and Sir John Williams of Thame were raised to the peerage.
The Protestants, it must be admitted, had exerted themselves to make
Gardiner's work easy to him. On the 14th of March the wall of a house
in Aldgate became suddenly vocal, and seventeen thousand persons were
collected to hear a message from Heaven pronounced by an angel. When
the people said "God save Queen Mary," the wall was silent; when they
said "God save Queen Elizabeth," the wall said "Amen!" When {p.120}
they asked, "What is the mass?" the wall said, "It is idolatry." As
the nation was holding its peace, the stones, it seemed, were crying
out against the reaction. But the angel, on examination, turned out to
be a girl concealed behind the plaster. Shortly after, the inhabitants
of Cheapside, on opening their shop windows in the morning, beheld on
a gallows, among the bodies of the hanged insurgents, a cat in
priestly robes, with crown shaven, the fore-paws tied over her head,
and a piece of paper clipped round between them, representing the
wafer.
More serious were the doings of a part of the late conspirators who
had escaped to France. Peter Carew, when he left Weymouth, promised
soon to return, and he was received at Paris with a cordiality that
answered his warmest hopes. Determined, if possible, to prevent Philip
from reaching England, the French had equipped every vessel which they
possessed available for sea, and Carew was sent again to the coast of
the Channel to tempt across into the French service all those who,
like himself, were compromised in the conspiracy, or whose blood was
hotter than their fathers'. Every day the queen was chafed with the
news of desertions to their dangerous rendezvous. Young men of
honourable families, Pickerings, Strangways's, Killegrews, Staffords,
Stauntons, Tremaynes, Courtenays, slipped over the water, carrying
with them hardy sailors from the western harbours. The French supplied
them with arms, ships, and money; and fast-sailing, heavily-armed
privateers, officered by these young adventurers in the cause of
freedom, were cruising on their own account, plundering Flemish and
Spanish ships, and swearing that the Prince of Spain should set no
foot on English shores.[280]
[Footnote 280: The French and Calais correspondence
in the State Paper Office contains a vast number of
letters on this subject. The following extracts are
specimens:--
On the 24th of March Thomas Corry writes to Lord
Grey that "two hundred vessels be in readiness" in
the French harbours. "There is lately arrived at
Caen in Normandy Sir Peter Carew, Sir William
Pickering, Sir Edward Courtenay, John Courtenay,
Brian Fitzwilliam, and divers other English
gentlemen. It is thought Sir Peter Carew shall have
charge of the fleet. There be three ships of
Englishmen, which be already gone to sea with
Killegrew, which do report that they serve the king
to prevent the coming of the King of
Spain."--_Calais MSS._
On the 28th of March, Edgar Hormolden writes from
Guisnes to Sir John Bourne: "The number of Sir
Peter Carew's retinue increaseth in France by the
confluence of such English _qui potius alicujus
praeclari facinoris quam artis bonae famam quaerunt_;
and they be so entreated there as it cannot be
otherwise conjectured but that they practise with
France: insomuch I have heard credible intelligence
that the said Carew used this persuasion, of late,
to his companions: Are not we, said he, allianced
with Normandy; yea! what ancient house is either
there or in France, but we claim by them and they
by us? why should we not rather embrace their love
than submit ourselves to the servitude of
Spain?"--_Calais MSS._
April 17, Dr. Wotton writes in cypher from Paris to
the queen: "Yesterday, an Italian brought a letter
to my lodging, and delivered it to a servant of
mine, and went his way, so that I know not what he
is. The effect of his letter is, that for because
he taketh it to be the part of every good Christian
man to further your godly purpose and Catholic
doings, he hath thought good to advertise me that
those fugitives of England say to their friends
here that they have intelligence of great
importance in England with some of the chiefest on
the realm, which shall appear on the arrival of the
Prince of Spain. Within few days they go to
Normandy to embark themselves there, so strong,
that, if they do not let the Prince of Spain to
land, as they will attempt to do, yet they will not
fail, by the help of them that have intelligence
with them, to let him come to London."--_French
MSS._ bundle xi.]
{p.121} The queen indignantly demanded explanations of Noailles, and,
through her ambassador at Paris, she required the French government to
seize "her traitors," and deliver them to her. Noailles, alarmed,
perhaps, for his own security, suggested that it might be well to
conceal Carew, and to affect to make an attempt to arrest him. But
Henry, at once more sagacious and more bold, replied to the ambassador
that "he was not the queen's hangman:" "these men that you require,"
he said, "deny that they have conspired anything against the queen;
marry, they say they will not be oppressed by mine enemy, and that is
no just cause why I should owe them ill-will."[281] He desired
Noailles, with quiet irony, to tell her majesty "that there was
nothing in the existing treaties to forbid his accepting the services
of English volunteers in the war with the emperor: her majesty might
remember that he had invited her to make a new treaty, and that she
had refused:" "he would act by the just letter of his obligations."[282]
[Footnote 281: Wotton to the Queen: _French MSS._
bundle xi. State Paper Office.]
[Footnote 282: Noailles to the King of France:
_Ambassades_, vol. iii.]
Would her subjects have permitted, the queen would have replied by a
declaration of war. As it was, she could only relieve herself with
indignant words.[283] But Carew and his friends might depend on
support so long as they would make themselves {p.122} useful to
France. Possessed of ships and arms, they were a constant menace to
the Channel, and a constant temptation to the disaffected; and,
growing bitter at last, and believing that Elizabeth's life was on the
point of being sacrificed, they were prepared to support Henry in a
second attempt to seize the Isle of Wight, and to accept the French
competitor for the English crown in the person of the Queen of
Scots.[284] Thus fatally the friends of the Reformation played into
the hands of its enemies. By the solid mass of Englishmen the armed
interference of France was more dreaded than even a Spanish sovereign;
and the heresy became doubly odious which was tampering with the
hereditary enemies of the realm. In London only the revolutionary
spirit continued vigorous, and broke out perpetually in unexpected
forms. At the beginning of March three hundred schoolboys met in a
meadow outside the city walls: half were for Wyatt and for France,
half for the Prince of Spain; and, not all in play (for evidently they
chose their sides by their sympathies), they joined battle, and fought
with the fierceness of grown men. The combat ended in the capture of
the representative of Philip, who was dragged to a gallows, and would
have been hanged upon it, had not the spectators interfered.[285] The
boys were laid hands upon. The youngest were whipped, the elder
imprisoned. It was said that the queen thought of gibbeting one of
these innocents in real fact, for an example; or, as Noailles put it,
as an expiation for the sins of the people.[286]
[Footnote 283: "When the Ambassador replied that
his master minded to do justly, her Grace
remembering how those traitors be there aided,
especially such of them as had conspired her death
and were in arms in the field against her; and
being not able to bear those words, so contrary to
their doings, told the Ambassador that, for her own
part, her Majesty minded simply and plainly to
perform as she had promised, and might with safe
conscience swear she ever meant so; but, for their
part, her Grace would not swear so, and being those
arrant traitors so entertained there as they be,
she could not have found in her heart to have used,
in like matter, the semblable part towards his
master for the gain of two realms, and with those
words she departed."--Gardiner to Wotton: _French
MSS._ bundle xi.]
[Footnote 284: On the 29th of April Wotton wrote in
a cypher to Mary; "Towards the end of the summer
the French king, by Peter Carew's provocation,
intendeth to land the rebels, with a number of
Scots, in Essex, and in the Isle of Wight, where
they mean to land easily, and either go on, if any
number of Englishmen resort unto them, as they say
many will, or else fortify themselves there. They
council the French king to make war against your
Highness in the right and title of the young Queen
of Scots."--_French MSS._ bundle xi.]
[Footnote 285: The execution was commenced in
earnest. The prince, says Noailles, "fust
souldainement mesne au gibet par ceulx de la part
du Roy et de M. Wyatt; et sans quelques hommes qui
tout a propoz y accoururent, ils l'eussent
estrangle; ce que se peult clairement juger par les
marques qu'il en a et aura encores d'icy a long
temps au col."--Noailles to Montmorency:
_Ambassades_, vol. iii.]
[Footnote 286: Dict on qu'elle veult que l'ung
d'eulx soit sacrifie pour tout le peuple.--Ibid.]
Over Elizabeth, in the meantime, the fatal net appeared to be closing;
Lord Russell had received a letter for her from Wyatt, which, though
the princess declared that it had never been in her hands, he said
that he had forwarded; and Wyatt himself was flattered with hopes of
life if he would extend his confession. Renard carried his ingenuity
farther; he called {p.123} in the assistance of Lady Wyatt, and
promised her that her husband should be spared; he even urged the
queen to gain over, by judicious leniency, a man whose apostasy would
be a fresh disgrace to his cause, and who might be as useful as a
servant as he had been dangerous as a foe.[287] Wyatt, being a man
without solidity of heart, showed signs of yielding to what was
required of him; but his revelations came out slowly, and to quicken
his confession he was brought to his trial on the 15th of March. He
pleaded guilty to the indictment, and he then said that Courtenay had
been the instigator of the conspiracy; he had written to Elizabeth, he
said, to advise her to remove as far as possible from London, and
Elizabeth had returned him a verbal message of thanks. This being not
enough, he was sentenced to death; but he was made to feel that he
might still earn his pardon if he would implicate Elizabeth more
deeply; and though he said nothing definite, he allowed himself to
drop vague hints that he could tell more if he pleased.[288]
[Footnote 287: Ce qui faict juger a beaulcoup de
gens que Wyatt ne mourra point, mais que la dicte
dame le rendra tant son oblige par ceste grace de
luy rendre la vie qu'elle en pourra tirer beaulcoup
de bons et grandes services. Ce qui se faict par le
moyen dudict ambassadeur de l'Empereur par l'advis
duquel se conduisent aujourdhuy toutes les opinions
d'icelle dame, et lequele traice ceste composition
avecques la femme dudict Wyatt a laquelle comme
l'on diet il a asseure la vie de son dict
mari.--Noailles to the Constable of France, March
31. Renard's secrets were betrayed to Noailles by
"a corrupt secretary" of the Flemish
embassy.--Wotton to the Queen: _French MSS._ bundle
xi. State Paper Office.]
[Footnote 288: Noailles says: Wyatt a este condamne
a mourir; toutesfois il n'est encores execute et
avant que luy prononcer sa sentence on luy avoit
promis tant de belles choses que vaincu par leur
doulces paroles oultre sa deliberation, il a accuse
beaulcoup de personnages et parle au desadvantage
de mylord de Courtenay et de Madame
Elizabeth.--Noailles to d'Oysel, March 29. The
different parties were so much interested in
Wyatt's confession, that his very last words are so
wrapped round with contradictions, that one cannot
tell what they were. It is certain, however, that
he did implicate Elizabeth to some extent; it is
certain, also, that he did not say enough for the
purposes of the court, and that the court believed
he could say more if he would, for, on Easter
Sunday he communicated, and the queen was
distressed that he should have been allowed to
partake, while his confession was incomplete. As to
Courtenay, Renard said he had communicated enough,
"mais quant a Elizabeth l'on ne peult encores
tomber en preuves suffisantes pour les loys
d'Angleterre contre elle."--Renard to Charles V.:
_Rolls House MSS._]
At all events, however, sufficient evidence had been obtained in the
opinion of the court for the committal of the princess to the Tower.
On the day of Wyatt's trial, the council met, but separated without a
resolution; on Friday, the 16th, Elizabeth was examined before them in
person; and when she withdrew, Gardiner required that she should be
sent to the Tower instantly. Paget, supported by Sussex, Hastings, and
Cornwallis, said that {p.124} there was no evidence to justify so
violent a measure.[289] Which of you, then, said Gardiner, with
dexterous ingenuity, will be responsible for the safe keeping of her
person?
[Footnote 289: Holinshed says that a certain lord
exclaimed that there would be no safety for the
realm until Elizabeth's head was off her shoulders;
and either Holinshed himself, or his editor, wrote
in the margin opposite, the words: "The wicked
advice of Lord Paget."--Renard describes so
distinctly the attitude of Paget, that there can be
no doubt whatever of the injustice of such a charge
against him.]
The guardian of Elizabeth would be exposed to a hundred dangers and a
thousand suspicions; the lords answered that Gardiner was conspiring
their destruction. No one could be found courageous enough to
undertake the charge, and they gave their reluctant consent to his
demand. The same night Elizabeth's attendants were removed, a hundred
soldiers were picketed in the garden below her window, and on Saturday
morning (March 17) the Marquis of Winchester and Lord Sussex waited on
her to communicate her destination, and to attend her to a barge.
The terrible name of the Tower was like a death-knell; the princess
entreated a short delay till she could write a few words to the queen;
the queen could not know the truth, she said, or else she was played
upon by Gardiner. Alas! she did not know the queen: Winchester
hesitated; Lord Sussex, more generous, accepted the risk, and
promised, on his knees, to place her letter in the queen's hands.
The very lines traced by Elizabeth in that bitter moment may still be
read in the State Paper Office,[290] and her hand was more than
usually firm.
[Footnote 290: _MS. Mary, Domestic_, vol. iv.
Printed by Ellis, 2nd series, vol. ii. p. 255.]
"If ever any one," she wrote, "did try this old saying that a king's
word was more than another man's oath, I most humbly beseech your
majesty to verify it in me, and to remember your last promise, and my
last demand, that I be not condemned without answer and due proof,
which it seems that I now am: for that without cause proved I am by
your council from you commanded to go unto the Tower, a place more
wonted for a false traitor than a true subject: which, though I know I
deserve it not, yet in the face of all this realm appears that it is
proved; which I pray God that I may die the shamefullest death that
any died, afore I may mean any such thing: and to this present hour I
protest, afore God who shall judge my truth, whatsoever malice shall
devise, that I never practised, counselled, nor consented to anything
that might be prejudicial to your person any {p.125} way, or
dangerous to the state by any means. And I therefore humbly beseech
your majesty to let me answer afore yourself, and not suffer me to
trust to your councillors; yea, and that afore I go to the Tower, if
it is possible; if not, afore I be further condemned. Howbeit, I trust
assuredly your highness will give me leave to do it afore I go, for
that thus shamefully I may not be cried out on, as now I shall be,
yea, and without cause. Let conscience move your highness to take some
better way with me, than to make me be condemned in all men's sight,
afore my desert known. Also, I most humbly beseech your highness to
pardon this my boldness, which innocency procures me to do, together
with hope of your natural kindness, which I trust will not see me cast
away without desert: which what it is I would desire no more of God
than that you truly knew; which thing, I think and believe, you shall
never by report know, unless by yourself you hear. I have heard in my
time of many cast away for want of coming to the presence of their
prince; and in late days I heard my Lord of Somerset say that, if his
brother had been suffered to speak with him, he had never suffered;
but the persuasions were made to him so great, that he was brought in
belief that he could not live safely if the admiral lived, and that
made him give his consent to his death. Though these persons are not
to be compared to your majesty, yet I pray God as evil persuasions
persuade not one sister against the other, and all for that they have
heard false reports, and not hearken to the truth known; therefore,
once again kneeling with all humbleness of my heart, because I am not
suffered to bow the knees of my body, I humbly crave to speak with
your highness, which I would not be so bold to desire if I knew not
myself most clear, as I know myself most true. And as for the traitor
Wyatt, he might peradventure write me a letter, but on my faith I
never received any from him; and for the copy of my letter sent to the
French king, I pray God confound me eternally if ever I sent him word,
message, token, or letter by any means:[291] and to this my truth I
will stand to my death your highness's most faithful subject that hath
been from the beginning, and will be to the end." Elizabeth.
[Footnote 291: As soon as Noailles learnt that his
enclosure formed part of the case against
Elizabeth, he came forward to acquit her of having
furnished him with it; "jurant et blasphemant tous
les sermens du monde pour la justification de la
dicte Dame Elizabeth."--Renard to Charles V., April
3: _Rolls House MSS._]
"I humbly crave but one word of answer from yourself."
{p.126} Had Elizabeth known the history of those words of the queen
to her, to which she appealed, she would have spared herself the
trouble of writing this letter. Sussex fulfilled his promise, and
during the delay the tide turned, and the barge could not pass London
Bridge till the following day. The queen could not venture to send the
princess through the streets; and in dread lest, at the last moment,
her prey should be snatched from her, she answered the appeal only by
storming at the bearer, and at his friends in the council. "They were
going no good way," she said, "for their lives they durst not have
acted so in her father's time; she wished that he was alive and among
them but for a single month."[292]
[Footnote 292: Renard.]
At nine o'clock the next morning--it was Palm Sunday (March 18)--the
two lords returned to Elizabeth to tell her that her letter had
failed. As she crossed the garden to the water she threw up her eyes
to the queen's window, but there was no sign of recognition. What do
the lords mean, she said, that they suffer me thus to be led into
captivity? The barge was too deep to approach sufficiently near to the
landing-place at the Tower to enable her to step upon the causeway
without wetting her feet; it was raining too, and the petty
inconveniences, fretting against the dreadful associations of the
Traitors' Gate, shook her self-command. She refused to land; then
sharply rejecting an offer of assistance, she sprang out upon the mud.
"Are all those harnessed men there for me?" she said to Sir John Gage,
who was waiting with the Tower guard. "No, madam," Gage answered.
"Yes," she said, "I know it is so; it needed not for me, being but a
weak woman. I never thought to have come in here a prisoner," she went
on, turning to the soldiers; "I pray you all good fellows and friends,
bear me witness that I come in no traitor, but as true a woman to the
queen's majesty as any is now living, and thereon will I take my
death." She threw herself down upon a wet stone; Lord Chandos begged
her to come under shelter out of the rain: "better sitting here than
in a worse place," she cried; "I know not whither you will bring me."
But it was not in Elizabeth's nature to protract a vain resistance;
she rose, and passed on, and as she approached the room intended for
her, the heavy doors along the corridor were locked and barred behind
her. At the grating of the iron bolts the heart of Lord Sussex sank in
him: Sussex knew the queen's true feelings, and the efforts which were
made to lash her into {p.127} cruelty; "What mean ye, my lords," he
said to Chandos and Gage, "what will you do?" "she was a king's
daughter, and is the queen's sister; go no further than your
commission, which I know what it is."[293]
[Footnote 293: Contemporary Narrative: _Harleian
MSS._ 419. _Chronicle of Queen Mary_, p. 71.
Holinshed.]
The chief danger was of murder--of some swift desperate act which
could not be undone; the lords who had so reluctantly permitted
Elizabeth to be imprisoned would not allow her to be openly
sacrificed, or indeed permit the queen to continue in the career of
vengeance on which she had entered. The executions on account of the
rebellion had not ceased even yet. In Kent, London, and in the midland
counties, day after day, one, two, or more persons had been put to
death; six gentlemen were, at that very moment, on their way to
Maidstone and Rochester to suffer. The lords, on the day of
Elizabeth's committal, held a meeting while Gardiner was engaged
elsewhere; they determined to remonstrate, and, if necessary, to
insist on a change of course, and Paget undertook to be the bearer of
the message. He found Mary in her oratory after vespers; he told her
that the season might remind a sovereign of other duties besides
revenge; already too much blood had been shed; the noble house of
Suffolk was all but destroyed; and he said distinctly that if she
attempted any more executions, he and his friends would interfere; the
hideous scenes had lasted too long, and, as an earnest of a return to
mercy, he demanded the pardon of the six gentlemen.
Mary, as she lamented afterwards to Renard, was unprepared; she was
pressed in terms which showed that those who made the request did not
intend to be refused--and she consented.[294] The six gentlemen
escaped; and, following up this beginning, the council, in the course
of the week, extorted from her the release of Northampton, Cobham, and
one of his sons, with five others. In a report to the emperor, Renard
admitted that, if the queen attempted to continue her course of
justice, there would be resistance; and the party of the chancellor,
being the weakest, would in that case be overwhelmed. It was the more
necessary, therefore, that, by one means or another, Elizabeth should
be disposed of. The queen had condescended to apologise to him for her
second act of clemency, which she excused as being an Easter custom.
It was not for him to find fault, he said that he had replied, if her
majesty was pleased to {p.128} show mercy at the holy season; but it
was his duty to remind her that he doubted whether the prince could be
trusted with her.
[Footnote 294: Renard to Charles V., March 22;
_Rolls House MSS._]
This argument never failed to drive Mary to madness; and, on the other
side, Renard applied to Gardiner to urge despatch in bringing
Elizabeth to trial: as long as she lived, there was no security for
the queen, for the prince, or for religion. Gardiner echoed the same
opinion. If others, he said, would go to work as roundly as himself,
all would be well.[295]
[Footnote 295: Il me repliqua que vivant Elizabeth
il n'a espoir a la tranquillite du Royaulme, que
quant a luy si chascun alloit si rondement en
besoyn comme il fait, les choses se porteroient
mieux.--Renard to the Emperor, April 3: _Rolls
House MSS._ From these dark plotters, what might
not be feared? Holinshed says that while Elizabeth
was in the Tower, a writ was sent down for her
execution devised, as was believed, by Gardiner;
and that Lord Chandos (Sir John Brydges, the
Lieutenant of the Tower) refused to put it in
force. The story has been treated as a fable, and
in the form in which it is told by Holinshed, it
was very likely untrue: yet in the presence of
these infernal conversations, I think it highly
probable that, as the hope of a judicial conviction
grew fainter, schemes were talked of, and were
perhaps tried, for cutting the knot in a decisive
manner. In revolutionary times men feel that if
to-day is theirs, to-morrow may be their enemies';
and they are not particularly scrupulous. The
anxious words of Sussex did not refer to the merely
barring a prisoner's door.]
In this condition of the political atmosphere parliament assembled on
the 2nd of April. The Oxford scheme had been relinquished as
impracticable. The Lord Mayor informed the queen that he would not
answer for the peace of the city in the absence of the court; the
Tower might be surprised and the prisoners released; and to lose the
Tower would be to lose the crown. The queen said that she would not
leave London while her sister's fate was undetermined.[296] The Houses
met, therefore, as usual, as Westminster, and the speech from the
throne was read in Mary's presence by the chancellor.
[Footnote 296: Renard.]
Since the last parliament, Gardiner said, the people of England had
given proofs of unruly humour. The queen was their undoubted
sovereign, and a measure would be submitted to the Lords and Commons
to declare, in some emphatic manner, her claim to her subjects'
obedience.
Her majesty desiring, further, in compliance with her subjects'
wishes, to take a husband, she had fixed her choice on the Prince of
Spain, as a person agreeable to herself and likely to be a valuable
friend to the realm: the people, however, had insolently and
ignorantly presumed to mutiny against her intentions, and, in her
affection for the commonwealth, her majesty had consented to submit
the articles of the marriage to the approval of parliament.
{p.129} Again, her majesty would desire them to take into their
consideration the possible failure of the blood royal, and adopt
necessary precautions to secure an undisturbed succession to the
crown. It would be for the parliament to decide whether the privilege
which had been granted to Henry VIII. of bequeathing the crown by will
might not be, with propriety, extended to her present majesty.[297]
[Footnote 297: Noailles, vol. iii. p. 141.]
Finally, and at great length, the chancellor spoke of religion. The
late rebellion, he said, was properly a religious rebellion: it was
the work of men who despised the sacraments, and were the enemies of
truth, order, and godliness. A measure would be laid before the
legislature for the better restraint of irregular licence of opinion.
The marriage was to pass quietly. Those of the Lords and Commons who
persevered in their disapproval were a small minority, and did not
intend to appear.[298] The bill, therefore, passed both Houses by the
12th of April.[299] The marriage articles were those originally
offered by the emperor, with the English clauses attached, and some
explanatory paragraphs, that no room might be left for laxity of
interpretation.[300] Lord Bedford and Lord Fitzwalter had already gone
to Plymouth, where a ship was in readiness to carry them to Spain.
They waited only till the parliamentary forms were completed, and
immediately sailed. Lord William Howard would go to sea with the
fleet, at his earliest convenience, to protect the passage, and the
prince might be expected in England by the end of May. The bill for
the queen's authority was carried also without objection. The forms of
English law running only in the name of a king, it had been pretended
that a queen could not be a lawful sovereign. A declaratory statute
explained that the kingly prerogative was the same, whether vested in
male or female.[301] Here, however, unanimity was at an end. The
paragraph about the succession in the queen's speech being obviously
aimed at Elizabeth, produced such an irritation in the council, as
well as in parliament, that Renard expected it would end in actual
armed conflict.[302]
[Footnote 298: Renard to Charles V., April 7.]
[Footnote 299: 1 Mary, cap. ii.]
[Footnote 300: See the treaty of marriage between
Philip and Mary in Rymer.]
[Footnote 301: 1 Mary, cap. i.]
[Footnote 302: Y a telle confusion que l'on
n'attend sinon que la querelle se demesle par les
armes et tumults.--Renard to Charles V., April 22.]
From the day of Elizabeth's imprisonment Gardiner had laboured to
extort evidence against her by fair means or foul.[303] {p.130} She
had been followed to the Tower by her servants. Sir John Gage desired
that her food should be dressed by people of his own. The servants
refused to allow themselves to be displaced,[304] and, to the distress
of Renard, angry words had been addressed to Gage by Lord Howard, so
that they could not be removed by force.[305]
[Footnote 303: Holinshed says, Edmund Tremayne was
racked, and I have already quoted Gardiner's letter
to Petre, suggesting the racking of "little
Wyatt."]
[Footnote 304: Her grace's cook said to him, My
lord, I will never suffer any stranger to come
about her diet but her own sworn men as long as I
live.--_Harleian MSS._ 419, and see Holinshed.]
[Footnote 305: L'Admiral s'est colere au grand
chamberlain de la Royne que a la garde de la dicte
Elizabeth et luy a dit qu'elle feroit encores
trancher tant de testes que luy et autres s'en
repentiroient.--Renard to Charles V., April 7:
_Rolls House MSS._]
The temptation of life having failed, after all, to induce Wyatt to
enlarge his confession beyond his first acknowledgments, it was
determined to execute him. On the 11th of April he was brought out of
his cell, and on his way to the scaffold he was confronted with
Courtenay, to whom he said something, but how much or what it is
impossible to ascertain.[306] Finding that his death was inevitable,
he determined to make the only reparation which was any longer in his
power to Elizabeth. When placed on the platform, after desiring the
people to pray for him, lamenting his crime, and expressing a hope
that he might be the last person to suffer for the rebellion, he
concluded thus:
[Footnote 306: Lord Chandos stated the same day in
the House of Lords that he threw himself at
Courtenay's feet and implored him to confess the
truth. The sheriffs of London, on the other hand,
said that he entreated Courtenay to forgive him for
the false charges which he had brought against him
and against Elizabeth.--Foxe, vol. vi. Compare
_Chronicle of Queen Mary_, p. 72, note.]
"Whereas it is said abroad that I should accuse my Lady Elizabeth's
Grace and my Lord Courtenay; it is not so, good people, for I assure
you neither they nor any other now yonder in hold or durance was privy
of my rising or commotion before I began."[307]
[Footnote 307: So far the _Chronicle of Queen
Mary_, Holinshed, Stow, and the narratives among
the _Harleian MSS._ essentially agree. But the
chronicle followed by Stow makes Wyatt add, "As I
have declared no less to the Queen's council;"
whereas Foxe says that he admitted that he had
spoken otherwise to the council, but had spoken
untruly. Noailles tells all that was really
important in a letter to d'Oysel: "M. Wyatt eust la
teste coupee, dischargeant advant que de mourir
Madame Elizabeth et Courtenay qu'il avoit
aulparavant charge de s'estre entendus en son
entreprinse sur promesses que l'on luy avoit
faictes de luy saulver la vie."--Noailles, vol.
iii.]
The words, or the substance of them, were heard by every one. Weston,
who attended as confessor, shouted, "Believe him not, good people! he
confessed otherwise before the council." {p.131} "That which I said
then I said," answered Wyatt, "but that which I say now is true." The
executioner did his office, and Wyatt's work, for good or evil, was
ended.
All that the court had gained by his previous confessions was now more
than lost. London rang with the story that Wyatt, in dying, had
cleared Courtenay and Elizabeth.[308] Gardiner still thundered in the
Star Chamber on the certainty of their guilt, and pilloried two decent
citizens who had repeated Wyatt's words; but his efforts were vain,
and the hope of a legal conviction was at an end. The judges declared
that against Elizabeth there was now no evidence;[309] and, even if
there had been evidence, Renard wrote to his master, that the court
could not dare to proceed further against her, from fear of Lord
William Howard, who had the whole naval force of England at his
disposal, and, in indignation at Elizabeth's treatment, might join the
French and the exiles.[310] Perplexed to know how to dispose of her,
the ambassador and the chancellor thought of sending her off to
Pomfret Castle; doubtless, if once within Pomfret walls, to find the
fate of the second Richard there: but again the spectre of Lord Howard
terrified them.
[Footnote 308: Courtenay, however, certainly _was_
guilty; and had Wyatt acquitted Elizabeth without
naming Courtenay, his words would have been far
more effective than they were. This, however, it
was hard for Wyatt to do, as it would have been
equivalent to a repetition of his accusations.]
[Footnote 309: Les gens de loy ne treuvent matiere
pour la condamner.--Renard to Charles V., April 22:
Tytler, vol. ii.]
[Footnote 310: Ibid. And see a passage in the MS.,
which Mr. Tytler has omitted.]
The threatened escape of her sister, too, was but the beginning of the
queen's sorrows. On the 17th of April Sir Nicholas Throgmorton was
tried at the Guildhall for having been a party to the conspiracy. The
confessions of many of the prisoners had more or less implicated
Throgmorton. Cuthbert Vaughan, who was out with Wyatt, swore in the
court that Throgmorton had discussed the plan of the insurrection with
him; and Throgmorton himself admitted that he had talked to Sir Peter
Carew and Wyatt about the probability of a rebellion. He it was, too,
who was to have conducted Courtenay to Andover on his flight into
Devonshire; and the evidence[311] leaves very little doubt that he was
concerned as deeply as any one who did not actually take up arms. Sir
Nicholas, however, defended himself with resolute pertinacity; he
fought through all the charges against him, and dissected the
depositions with the skill of a practised pleader; and in the end, the
jury returned the bold verdict of {p.132} "Not guilty." Sir Thomas
Bromley urged them to remember themselves. The foreman answered they
had found the verdict according to their consciences.
[Footnote 311: It is printed at length in
Holinshed.]
Their consciences probably found less difficulty in the facts charged
against Throgmorton than in the guilt to be attached to them. The
verdict was intended as a rebuke to the cruelty with which the
rebellion had been punished, and it was received as an insult to the
crown. The crowd, as Throgmorton left the court, threw up their caps
and shouted. The queen was ill for three days with mortification,[312]
and insisted that the jurors should be punished. They were arrested,
and kept as prisoners till the following winter, when they were
released on payment of the ruinous fine of L2000. Throgmorton himself
was seized again on some other pretext, and sent again to the Tower.
The council, or Paget's party there, remonstrated against the arrest;
they yielded, however, perhaps that they might make the firmer stand
on more important matters.
[Footnote 312: Que tant altere la dicte dame
qu'elle a este trois jours malade, et n'est encore
bien d'elle.--Renard to Charles V.: Tytler, vol.
ii. p. 374.]
Since Elizabeth could not be executed, the court were the more anxious
to carry the Succession Bill. Gardiner's first desire was that
Elizabeth should be excluded by name; but Paget said that this was
impossible.[313] As little could a measure be passed empowering the
queen to leave the crown by will, for that would be but the same thing
under another form. Following up his purpose, notwithstanding,
Gardiner brought out in the House of Lords a pedigree, tracing
Philip's descent from John of Gaunt; and he introduced a bill to make
offences against his person high treason. But at the second reading
the important words were introduced, "during the queen's
lifetime;"[314] the bill was read a third time, and then disappeared;
and Paget had been the loudest of its opponents.[315]
[Footnote 313: He whom you wrote of comes to me
with a sudden and strange proposal, that, since
matters against Madame Elizabeth do not take the
turn which was wished, there should be an Act
brought into Parliament to disinherit her. I
replied that I would give no consent to such a
scheme.--Paget to Renard: Tytler, vol. ii. p. 382.]
[Footnote 314: _Lords Journals._]
[Footnote 315: Renard complains of Paget's conduct
bitterly.--Renard to Charles V., May 1: Tytler,
vol. ii.]
Beaten on the succession, the chancellor, in spite of Renard's
remonstrances, brought forward next his Religious Persecution Bills.
The House of Commons went with him to some extent; and, to secure
success in some form or other, he introduced three separate measures,
either of which would answer his purpose--{p.133} a bill for the
restoration of the Six Articles, a bill to re-enact the Lollard
Statute of Henry IV., _De Haeretico Comburendo_, and a bill to restore
(in more than its original vigour) the Episcopal Jurisdiction. The Six
Articles had so bad a name that the first bill was read once only, and
was dropped; the two others passed the Commons,[316] and, on the 26th
of April, the Bishops' Authority Bill came before the Lords. Lord
Paget was so far in advance of his time that he could not hope to
appeal with a chance of success to his own principles of judicious
latitudinarianism; but he determined, if possible, to prevent
Gardiner's intended cruelties from taking effect, and he spread an
alarm that, if the bishops were restored to their unrestricted powers,
under one form or other the holders of the abbey lands would be at
their mercy. To allay the suspicion, another bill was carried through
the Commons, providing expressly for the safety of the holders of
those lands; but the tyranny of the episcopal courts was so recent,
and the ecclesiastics had shown themselves uniformly so little capable
of distinguishing between right and wrong when the interests of
religion were at stake, that the jealousy, once aroused, could not be
checked. The irritation became so hot and so general as to threaten
again the most dangerous consequences; and Paget, pretending to be
alarmed at the excitement which he had raised, urged Renard to use his
influence with the queen to dissolve parliament.[317]
[Footnote 316: _Commons Journals._]
[Footnote 317: Paget to Renard; Tytler, vol. ii. p.
382. And compare Renard's correspondence with the
emperor during the month of April.--_Rolls House
MSS._]
Renard, who was only anxious that the marriage should go off quietly,
agreed in the desirableness of a dissolution. He told the queen that
the reform of religion must be left to a better opportunity; and the
prince could not, and should not, set his foot in a country where
parties were for ever on the edge of cutting each other's throats. It
was no time for her to be indulging Gardiner in humours which were
driving men mad, and shutting her ears to the advice of those who
could ruin her if they pleased; she must think first of her husband.
The queen protested that Gardiner was acting by no advice of hers;
Gardiner, she said, was obstinate, and would listen to no one; she
herself was helpless and miserable. But Renard was not to be moved by
misery. At all events, he said, the prince should not come till late
in the summer, perhaps not till autumn, not, in fact, till it could be
seen what form these wild humours would {p.134} assume; summer was
the dangerous time in England, when the people's blood was apt to
boil.[318]
[Footnote 318: Pour ce qui ordinairement les
humeurs des Angloys boulissent plus en l'este que
en autre temps.]
Gardiner, however, was probably not acting without Mary's secret
approbation. Both the queen and the minister especially desired, at
that moment, the passing of the Heresy Bill, and Renard was obliged to
content himself with a promise that the dissolution should be as early
as possible. Though parliament could not meet at Oxford, a committee
of Convocation had been sitting there, with Dr. Weston, the adulterous
Dean of Windsor, for a president. Cranmer, Ridley, and Latimer had
been called upon to defend their opinions, which had been pronounced
false and damnable. They had been required to recant, and, having
refused, they were sentenced (April 20), so far as the power of the
court extended, to the punishment of heretics.
Cranmer appealed from the judgment to God Almighty, in whose presence
he would soon stand.
Ridley said the sentence would but send them the sooner to the place
where else they hoped to go.
Latimer said, "I thank God that my life has been prolonged that I may
glorify God by this kind of death."
Hooper, Ferrars, Coverdale, Taylor, Philpot, and Sandars, who were in
the London prisons, were to have been simultaneously tried and
sentenced at Cambridge. These six, however, drew and signed a joint
refusal to discuss their faith in a court before which they were to be
brought as prisoners; and for some reason the proceedings against them
were suspended; but whether they refused or consented was of little
moment to the Bishop of Winchester; they were in his hands--he could
try them when he pleased. A holocaust of heresiarchs was waiting to be
offered up, and before a faggot could be lighted, the necessary powers
had to be obtained from parliament.
The bishop, therefore, was determined, if possible, to obtain those
powers. He had the entire bench of prelates on his side; and Lord
Howard, the Earl of Bedford, and others of the lay lords who would
have been on the side of humanity, were absent. The opposition had to
be conducted under the greatest difficulties. Paget, however, fought
the battle, and fought it on broad grounds: the bishops' bill was read
twice; on the third reading, on the 1st of May, he succeeded in
throwing it out: the Lollards' bill came on the day after, and here
his difficulty was far greater; for toleration was imperfectly
understood by {p.135} Catholic or Protestant, and many among the
peers, who hated the bishops, equally hated heresy. Paget, however,
spoke out his convictions, and protested against the iniquity of
putting men to death for their opinions.[319] The bill was read a
first time on the day on which it was introduced; on the 4th of May it
was read again,[320] but it went no further. The next day parliament
was dissolved. The peers assured the queen that they had no desire to
throw a shield over heresy; the common law existed independent of
statute, and the common law prescribed punishments which could still
be inflicted.[321] But, so long as heresy was undefined, Anabaptists,
Socinians, or professors of the more advanced forms of opinion, could
alone fall within the scope of punishments merely traditional.
[Footnote 319: Quant l'on a parle de la peyne des
heretiques, il a sollicite les sieurs pour non y
consentir, y donner lieu a peyne de mort.--Renard
to Charles V., May 1.]
[Footnote 320: _Lords Journals._]
[Footnote 321: There can, I think, be no doubt that
it was this which the peers said. The statute of
Henry IV. was not passed; yet the queen told
Renard, "que le peyne antienne contre les
heretiques fut agree par toute la noblesse, et
qu'ilz fairent dire expressement et publiquement
qu'ilz entendoient l'heresie estre extirpee et
punie." The chancellor informed Renard that,
"Although the Heresy Bill was lost, there were
penalties of old standing against heretics which
had still the form of law, and could be put in
execution." And, on the 3rd of May, the privy
council directed the judges and the queen's learned
counsel to be called together, and their opinions
demanded, "what they think in law her highness may
do touching the cases of Cranmer, Ridley, Latimer,
being already, by both the Universities of Oxford
and Cambridge, judged to be obstinate heretics,
which matter is the rather to be consulted upon,
for that the said Cranmer is already
attainted."--_MS. Privy Council Register._ The
answer of the judges I have not found, but it must
have been unfavourable to the intentions of the
court. Joan Bocher was burnt under the common law,
for her opinions were condemned by all parties in
the church, and were looked upon in the same light
as witchcraft, or any other profession definitely
devilish. But it was difficult to treat as heresy,
under the common law, a form of belief which had so
recently been sanctioned by act of parliament.]
The tempers of men were never worse than at that moment, Renard wrote.
In the heat of the debate, on the 28th of April, Lord Thomas Grey was
executed as a defiance to the liberal party. Gardiner persuaded the
queen, perhaps not without reason, that he was himself in danger of
being arrested by Paget and Pembroke;[322] and an order was sent to
the Lieutenant of the Tower that if the chancellor was brought thither
under warrant of the council only, he was not to be received.[323]
[Footnote 322: Renard to Charles V., May 13: _Rolls
House MSS._]
[Footnote 323: Noailles.]
On the other hand, twelve noblemen and gentlemen undertook to stand by
Mary if she would arrest Paget and Pembroke. The chancellor, Sir
Robert Rochester, and the Marquis of Winchester {p.136} discussed
the feasibility of seizing them; but Lord Howard and the Channel fleet
were thought to present too formidable an obstacle. With the queen's
sanction, however, they armed in secret. It was agreed that, on one
pretence or another, Derby, Shrewsbury, Sussex, and Huntingdon should
be sent out of London to their counties. Elizabeth, if it could be
managed, should be sent to Pomfret, as Gardiner had before proposed;
Lord Howard should be kept at sea; and, if opportunity offered,
Arundel and Paget might, at least, be secured.[324]
[Footnote 324: Renard to Charles V., May 13:
Tytler, vol. ii.]
But Pomfret was impossible, and vexation thickened on vexation. Lord
Howard was becoming a bugbear at the court. Report now said that two
of the Staffords, whom he had named to command in the fleet, had
joined the exiles in France; and for Lord Howard himself the queen
could feel no security, if he was provoked too far. She was haunted by
a misgiving that, while the prince was under his convoy, he might
declare against her, and carry him prisoner to France; or if Howard
could himself be trusted, his fleet could not. On the eve of sailing
for the coast of Spain, a mutiny broke out at Plymouth. The sailors
swore that if they were forced on a service which they detested, both
the admiral and the prince should rue it. Lord Howard, in reporting to
the queen the men's misconduct, said that his own life was at her
majesty's disposal, but he advised her to reconsider the prudence of
placing the prince in their power. Howard's own conduct, too, was far
from reassuring. A few small vessels had been sent from Antwerp to
join the English fleet, under the Flemish admiral Chappelle. Chappelle
complained that Howard treated him with indifference, and insulted his
ships by "calling them cockle-shells." If the crews of the two fleets
were on land anywhere together, the English lost no opportunity of
making a quarrel, "hustling and pushing" the Flemish sailors;[325]
and, as if finally to complete the queen's vexation, Lord Bedford
wrote that the prince declined the protection of her subjects on his
voyage, and that his departure was postponed for a few weeks longer.
[Footnote 325: Les ont provoque a debatz, les
cerrans et poulsans.--Renard to Charles V.: Tyler
vol. ii. p. 413.]
The fleet had to remain in the Channel; it could not be trusted
elsewhere; and the necessity of releasing Elizabeth from the Tower was
another annoyance to the queen. A confinement at Woodstock was the
furthest stretch of severity that the country would, for the present,
permit. On the 19th of May, {p.137} Elizabeth was taken up the
river. The princess believed herself that she was being carried off
_tanquam ovis_, as she said--as a sheep for the slaughter. But the
world thought that she was set at liberty, and as her barge passed
under the bridge Mary heard, with indignation, from the palace
windows, three salvoes of artillery fired from the Steelyard, as a
sign of the joy of the people.[326] A letter from Philip would have
been a consolation to her in the midst of the troubles which she had
encountered for his sake; but the languid lover had never written a
line to her; or, if he had written, not a line had reached her hand;
only a ship which contained despatches from him for Renard had been
taken, in the beginning of May, by a French cruiser, and the thought
that precious words of affection had, perhaps, been on their way to
her and were lost, was hard to bear.
[Footnote 326: Samedy dernier Elizabeth fut tiree
de la Tour et menee a Richmond; et dois ledict
Richmond l'on l'a conduit a Woodstock pour y estre
gardee surement jusques l'on la fasse aller a
Pomfret. Et s'est resjouy le peuple de sa departye,
pensant qu'elle fut en liberte, et passant par
devant la Maison des Stillyards ilz tirerent trois
coups d'artillerie en signe d'allegrie, que la
reyne et son conseil ont prins a desplaisir et
regret, et estimons que l'on en fera
demonstration.--Renard to Charles V.: _Granvelle
Papers_, vol. iv.]
In vain she attempted to cheer her spirits with the revived
ceremonials of Whitsuntide. She marched day after day, in procession,
with canopies and banners, and bishops in gilt slippers, round St.
James's, round St. Martin's, round Westminster.[327] Sermons and
masses alternated now with religious feasts, now with _Diriges_ for
her father's soul. But all was to no purpose; she could not cast off
her anxieties, or escape from the shadow of her subjects' hatred,
which clung to her steps. Insolent pamphlets were dropped in her path
and in the offices of Whitehall; she trod upon them in the passages of
the palace; they were placed by mysterious hands in the sanctuary of
her bedroom. At length, chafed with a thousand irritations, and
craving for a husband who showed so small anxiety to come to her, she
fled from London, at the beginning of June, to Richmond.
[Footnote 327: Machyn's Diary; Strype's _Memorials
of the Reformation_.]
The trials of the last six months had begun to tell upon Mary's
understanding: she was ill with hysterical longings; ill with the
passions which Gardiner had kindled and Paget disappointed. A lady who
slept in her room told Noailles that she could speak to no one without
impatience, and that she believed the whole world was in league to
keep her husband from her. She found fault with every one--even with
the prince himself. Why had he not written? she asked again and again.
Why had she never {p.138} received one courteous word from him? If
she heard of merchants or sailors arriving from Spain, she would send
for them and question them; and some would tell her that the prince
was said to have little heart for his business in England; others
terrified her with tales of fearful fights upon the seas; and others
brought her news of the French squadrons that were on the watch in the
Channel.[328] She would start out of her sleep at night, picturing a
thousand terrors, and among them one to which all else were
insignificant, that her prince, who had taken such wild possession of
her imagination, had no answering feeling for herself--that, with her
growing years and wasted figure, she could never win him to love
her.[329]
[Footnote 328: Le doubte luy est souvent augmentee
par plusieurs marchants mariniers et aultres
malcontens de son marriage qui venans de France et
Espaign luy desguisent et luy controuvent un
infinite de nouvelles estranges, les ungs du peu de
volunte que le prince a de venir par deca, les
aultres d'avoir ouy et entendus combats sur la mer,
et plusieurs d'avoir descouvert grand nombre de
voisles Francoises avec grand appareil.--Noailles
to the King of France: _Ambassades_, vol. iii. p.
253.]
[Footnote 329: L'on m'a dict que quelques heures de
la nuict elle entre en telle resverie de ses amours
et passions que bien souvent elle se met hors de
soy, et croy que la plus grande occasion de sa
douleur vient du desplaisir qu'elle a de veoir sa
personne si diminuee et ses ans multiplier en telle
nombre qu'ilz luy courent tous les jours a grande
interest.--Noailles to the King of France:
_Ambassades_, vol. iii. p. 252.]
"The unfortunate queen," wrote Henry of France, "will learn the truth
at last. She will wake too late, in misery and remorse, to know that
she has filled the realm with blood for an object which, when she has
gained it, will bring nothing but affliction to herself or to her
people."[330]
[Footnote 330: Ibid. p. 255.]
But the darkest season has its days of sunshine, and Mary's trials
were for the present over. If the statesmen were disloyal, the clergy
and the Universities appreciated her services to the church, and, in
the midst of her trouble, Oxford congratulated her on having been
raised up for the restoration of life and light to England.[331] More
pleasant than this pleasant flattery was the arrival, on the 19th of
June, of the Marquis delas Navas from Spain, with the news that by
that time the prince was on his way.
[Footnote 331: Nuper cum litterarum studia pene
extincta jacerent cum salus omnium exigua spe
dubiaque penderet quis non fortunae incertos eventus
extimescebat? Quis non ingemuit et arsit dolore?
Pars studia deserere cogebantur; pars huc illucque
quovis momento rapiebantur; nec ulli certus ordo
suumve propositum diu constabat.--The happy change
of the last year was then contrasted with proper
point and prolixity.--The University of Oxford to
the Queen: _MS. Domestic, Mary_, vol. iv.]
It was even so. Philip had submitted to his unwelcome {p.139}
destiny, and six thousand troops being required pressingly by the
emperor in the Low Countries, they attended him for his escort. A
paper of advices was drawn for the prince's use by Renard, directing
him how to accommodate himself to his barbarous fortune. Neither
soldiers nor mariners would be allowed to land. The noblemen,
therefore, who formed his retinue, were advised to bring Spanish
musketeers, disguised in liveries, in the place of pages and lacqueys;
their arms could be concealed amidst the baggage. The war would be an
excuse for the noblemen being armed themselves, and the prince, on
landing, should have a shirt of mail under his doublet. As to manner,
he must endeavour to be affable: he would have to hunt with the young
lords, and to make presents to them; and, with whatever difficulty, he
must learn a few words of English, to exchange the ordinary
salutations. As a friend, Renard recommended Paget to him; he would
find Paget "a man of sense."[332]
[Footnote 332: "Homme d'esprit."--Instructions
donnees a Philippe, Prince d'Espagne: _Granvelle
Papers_, vol. iv. p. 267.]
Philip, who was never remarkable for personal courage, may be pardoned
for having come reluctantly to a country where he had to bring
men-at-arms for servants, and his own cook for fear of being poisoned.
The sea, too, was hateful to him, for he suffered miserably from
sickness. Nevertheless, he was coming, and with him such a retinue of
gallant gentlemen as the world has rarely seen together. The Marquis
de los Valles, Gonzaga, d'Aguilar, Medina Celi, Antonio de Toledo,
Diego de Mendoza, the Count de Feria, the Duke of Alva, Count Egmont,
and Count Horn--men whose stories are written in the annals of two
worlds: some in letters of glorious light, some in letters of blood
which shall never be washed out while the history of mankind survives.
Whether for evil or good, they were not the meek innocents for whom
Renard had at one time asked so anxiously.
In company with these noblemen was Sir Thomas Gresham, charged with
half a million of money in bullion, out of the late arrivals from the
New World; which the emperor, after taking security from the London
merchants, had lent the queen, perhaps to enable her to make her
marriage palatable by the restoration of the currency.[333]
[Footnote 333: Gresham's Correspondence: _Flanders
MSS._ State Paper Office. The bullion was
afterwards drawn in procession in carts through the
London streets.]
Thus preciously freighted, the Spanish fleet, a hundred and fifty
ships, large and small, sailed from Corunna at the beginning {p.140}
of July. The voyage was weary and wretched. The sea-sickness
prostrated both the prince and the troops, and to the sea-sickness was
added the terror of the French--a terror, as it happened, needless,
for the English exiles, by whom the prince was to have been
intercepted, had, in the last few weeks, melted away from the French
service, with the exception of a few who were at Scilly. Sir Peter
Carew, for some unknown reason, had written to ask for his pardon, and
had gone to Italy;[334] but the change was recent and unknown, and the
ships stole along in silence, the orders of the prince being that not
a salute should be fired to catch the ear of an enemy.[335] At last,
on the 19th of July, the white cliffs of Freshwater were sighted; Lord
Howard lay at the Needles with the English fleet; and on Friday, the
20th, at three o'clock in the afternoon, the flotilla was safely
anchored in Southampton Water.
[Footnote 334: Wotton's Correspondence: _French
MSS._ State Paper Office. The title of the Queen of
Scots was, perhaps, the difficulty; or Carew may
have felt that he could do nothing of real
consequence, while he might increase the difficulty
of protecting Elizabeth.]
[Footnote 335: Noailles to the King of France, July
23: _Ambassades_, vol. iii.]
The queen was on her way to Winchester, where she arrived the next
morning, and either in attendance upon her, or waiting at Southampton,
was almost the entire peerage of England. Having made up their minds
to endure the marriage, the lords resolved to give Philip the welcome
which was due to the husband of their sovereign, and in the uncertain
temper of the people, their presence might be necessary to protect his
person from insult or from injury.
It was an age of glitter, pomp, and pageantry; the anchors were no
sooner down, than a barge was in readiness, with twenty rowers in the
queen's colours of green and white; and Arundel, Pembroke, Shrewsbury,
Derby, and other lords went off to the vessel which carried the royal
standard of Castile. Philip's natural manner was cold and stiff, but
he had been schooled into graciousness. Exhausted by his voyage, he
accepted delightedly the instant invitation to go on shore, and he
entered the barge accompanied by the Duke of Alva. A crowd of
gentlemen was waiting to receive him at the landing-place. As he
stepped out--not perhaps without some natural nervousness and sharp
glances round him--the whole assemblage knelt. A salute was fired from
the batteries, and Lord Shrewsbury presented him with the order of the
Garter.[336] An enthusiastic eye-witness thus describes Philip's
appearance:--
[Footnote 336: Antiquaries dispute whether Philip
received the Garter on board his own vessel or
after he came on shore. Lord Shrewsbury himself
settles the important point. "I, the Lord Steward,"
Shrewsbury wrote to Wotton, "at his coming to land,
presented the Garter to him."--_French MSS. Mary_,
State Paper Office.]
{p.141} "Of visage he is well favoured, with a broad forehead and
grey eyes, straight-nosed and manly countenance. From the forehead to
the point of his chin his face groweth small. His pace is princely,
and gait so straight and upright as he loseth no inch of his height;
with a yellow head and a yellow beard; and thus to conclude, he is so
well proportioned of body, arm, leg, and every other limb to the same,
as nature cannot work a more perfect pattern, and, as I have learned,
of the age of 28 years. His majesty I judge to be of a stout stomach,
pregnant-witted, and of most gentle nature."[337]
[Footnote 337: John Elder to the Bishop of
Caithness: _Queen Jane and Queen Mary_, appendix
10. Elder adds that his stature was about that of a
certain "John Hume, my Lord of Jedward's kinsman,"
which does not help our information. Philip,
however, was short.]
Sir Anthony Brown approached, leading a horse with a saddlecloth of
crimson velvet, embroidered with gold and pearls. He presented the
steed, with a Latin speech, signifying that he was his highness's
Master of the Horse; and Philip, mounting, went direct to Southampton
church, the English and Spanish noblemen attending bareheaded, to
offer thanks for his safe arrival. From the church he was conducted to
a house which had been furnished from the royal stores for his
reception. Everything was, of course, magnificent. Only there had been
one single oversight. Wrought upon the damask hangings, in conspicuous
letters, were observed the ominous words, "Henry, by the Grace of God,
King of England, France, and Ireland, and Supreme Head of the Church
of England."[338]
[Footnote 338: Baoardo.]
Here the prince was to remain till Monday to recover from his voyage;
perhaps to ascertain, before he left the neighbourhood of his own
fleet, the humour of the barbarians among whom he had arrived. In
Latin (he was unable to speak French) he addressed the lords on the
causes which had brought him to England, the chief among those causes
being the manifest will of God, to which he felt himself bound to
submit. It was noticed that he never lifted his cap in speaking to any
one,[339] but he evidently endeavoured to be courteous. With a stomach
unrecovered from the sea, and disdaining precautions, he sate down on
the night of his arrival to a public English supper; he even drained a
tankard of ale, as an example, he said, to his Spanish companions.[340]
The first evening passed off well, and he {p.142} retired to seek
such rest as the strange land and strange people, the altered diet,
and the firing of guns, which never ceased through the summer night,
would allow him.
[Footnote 339: Non havendo mai levato la berretta a
persona.--Baoardo.]
[Footnote 340: Noailles.]
Another feature of his new country awaited Philip in the morning (July
21); he had come from the sunny plains of Castile; from his window at
Southampton he looked out upon a steady downfall of July rain. Through
the cruel torrent[341] he made his way to the church again to mass,
and afterwards Gardiner came to him from the queen. In the afternoon
the sky cleared, and the Duchess of Alva, who had accompanied her
husband, was taken out in a barge upon Southampton Water. Both English
and Spaniards exerted themselves to be mutually pleasing; but the
situation was not of a kind which it was desirable to protract. Six
thousand Spanish troops were cooped in the close uneasy transports,
forbidden to land lest they should provoke the jealousy of the people;
and when, on Sunday (July 22), his highness had to undergo a public
dinner, in which English servants only were allowed to attend upon
him, the Castilian lords, many of whom believed that they had come to
England on a bootless errand, broke out into murmurs.[342]
[Footnote 341: Crudele pioggia.--Baoardo.]
[Footnote 342: La Dominica Mattina se n'ando a
messa et tornato a casa mangio in publico servito
da gli officiali che gli haveva data la Reina con
mala satisfattione degli Spagnuoli, i quali
dubitando che la cosa non andasse a lungo,
mormoravano assai tra di loro.--Baoardo.]
Monday came at last; the rain fell again, and the wind howled. The
baggage was sent forward in the morning in the midst of the tempest.
Philip lingered in hopes of a change; but no change came, and after an
early dinner the trumpet sounded to horse. Lords, knights, and
gentlemen had thronged into the town, from curiosity or interest, out
of all the counties round. Before the prince mounted it was reckoned,
with uneasiness, that as many as four thousand cavaliers, under no
command, were collected to join the procession.
A grey gelding was led up for Philip; he wrapped himself in a scarlet
cloak, and started to meet his bride--to complete a sacrifice the
least congenial, perhaps, which ever policy of state extracted from a
prince.
The train could move but slowly. Two miles beyond the gates a drenched
rider, spattered with chalk mud, was seen galloping towards them; on
reaching the prince he presented him with a ring from the queen, and
begged his highness, in her majesty's name, to come no further. The
messenger could not explain the cause, being unable to speak any
language which {p.143} Philip could understand, and visions of
commotion instantly presented themselves, mixed, it may be, with a
hope that the bitter duty might yet be escaped. Alva was immediately
at his master's side; they reined up, and were asking each other
anxiously what should next be done, when an English lord exclaimed in
French, with courteous irony, "Our queen, sire, loves your highness so
tenderly that she would not have you come to her in such wretched
weather."[343] The hope, if hope there had been, died in its birth;
before sunset, with drenched garments and draggled plume, the object
of so many anxieties arrived within the walls of Winchester.
[Footnote 343: "Sire, la Nostra Reina ama tanto
l'Altezza vostra ch'ella non vorebbe che pigliasse
disagio di caminar per tempi cosi
tristi."--Baoardo.]
To the cathedral he went first, wet as he was. Whatever Philip of
Spain was entering upon, whether it was a marriage or a massacre, a
state intrigue or a midnight murder, his opening step was ever to seek
a blessing from the holy wafer. He entered, kissed the crucifix, and
knelt and prayed before the altar; then taking his seat in the choir,
he remained while the choristers sang a _Te Deum laudamus_, till the
long aisles grew dim in the summer twilight, and he was conducted by
torch-light to the Deanery.
The queen was at the bishop's palace, but a few hundred yards distant.
Philip, doubtless, could have endured the postponement of an interview
till morning; but Mary could not wait, and the same night he was
conducted into the presence of his haggard bride, who now, after a
life of misery, believed herself at the open gate of Paradise. Let the
curtain fall over the meeting, let it close also over the wedding
solemnities which followed with due splendour two days later. There
are scenes in life which we regard with pity too deep for words. The
unhappy queen, unloved, unlovable, yet with her parched heart
thirsting for affection, was flinging herself upon a breast to which
an iceberg was warm; upon a man to whom love was an unmeaning word,
except as the most brutal of passions. For a few months she created
for herself an atmosphere of unreality. She saw in Philip the ideal of
her imagination, and in Philip's feelings the reflex of her own; but
the dream passed away--her love for her husband remained; but remained
only to be a torture to her. With a broken spirit and bewildered
understanding, she turned to Heaven for comfort, and, instead of
heaven, she saw only the false roof of her creed painted to imitate
and shut out the sky.
{p.144} The scene will change for a few pages to the Low Countries.
Charles V. more than any other person was responsible for this
marriage. He had desired it not for Mary's sake, not for Philip's
sake, not for religion's sake; but that he might be able to assert a
decisive preponderance over France; and, to gain his end, he had
already led the queen into a course which had forfeited the regard of
her subjects. She had murdered Lady Jane Grey at the instigation of
his ambassador, and under the same influence she had done her best to
destroy her sister. Yet Charles, notwithstanding, was one of nature's
gentlemen. If he was unscrupulous in the sacrifice of others to his
purposes, he never spared himself; and in the days of his successes he
showed to less advantage than now, when, amidst failing fortunes and
ruined health, his stormy career was closing.
In the spring he had been again supposed to be dying. His military
reputation had come out tarnished from his failure at Metz, and while
he was labouring with imperfect success to collect troops for a
summer's campaign, Henry of France, unable to prevent the English
marriage, was preparing to strike a blow so heavy, as should enable
him to dictate peace on his own terms before England was drawn into
the quarrel.
In June two French armies took the field. Pietro Strozzi advanced from
Piedmont into Tuscany. Henry himself, with Guise, Montmorency, and
half the peerage of France, entered the Low Countries, sweeping all
opposition before him. First Marienbourg fell, then Dinant fell,
stormed with especial gallantry. The young French nobles were taught
that they must conquer or die: a party of them flinched in the breach
at Dinant, and the next morning Henry sat in judgment upon them
sceptre in hand; some were hanged, the rest degraded from their rank:
"and whereas one privilege of the gentlemen of France was to be exempt
from taylles payable to the crown, they were made tayllable as any
other villains."[344]
[Footnote 344: Wotton to the Queen; cypher: _French
MSS. Mary_, bundle xi.]
From Dinant the French advanced to Namur. When Namur should have
fallen, Brussels was the next aim; and there was nothing, as it
seemed, which could stop them. The imperial army under the Prince of
Savoy could but hover, far outnumbered, on their skirts. The
reinforcements from Spain had not arrived, and a battle lost was the
loss of Belgium.
In the critical temper of England, a decisive superiority obtained by
France would be doubly dangerous; and Charles, seeing Philibert
perplexed into uncertain movements which {p.145} threatened
misfortune, disregarding the remonstrances of his physicians, his
ministers, and his generals, started from his sick bed, flew to the
head of his troops, and brought them to Namur, in the path of the
advancing French. Men said that he was rushing upon destruction. The
headstrong humour which had already worked him so heavy injury was
again dragging him into ruin.[345] But fortune had been disarmed by
the greatness with which Charles had borne up against calamity, or
else his supposed rashness was the highest military wisdom. Before
Henry came up he had seized a position at an angle of the Meuse, where
he could defend Namur, and could not be himself attacked, except at a
disadvantage. The French approached only to retire, and, feeling
themselves unable to force the imperial lines, fell back towards the
Boullonnois. Charles followed cautiously. An attack on Renty brought
on an action in which the French claimed the victory; but the emperor
held his ground, and the town could not be taken; and Henry's army,
from which such splendid results had been promised, fell back on the
frontier and dispersed. The voices which had exclaimed against the
emperor's rashness were now as loud in his praise, and the disasters
which he was accused of provoking, it was now found that he only had
averted.[346] Neither the {p.146} French nor the Imperialists, in
their long desperate struggle, can claim either approval or sympathy;
the sufferings which they inflicted upon mankind were not the less
real, the selfishness of their rivalry none the less reprehensible,
because the disunion of the Catholic powers permitted the Reformation
to establish itself. Yet, in this perplexed world the deeds of men may
be without excuse, while, nevertheless, in the men themselves there
may be something to love, and something more to admire.
[Footnote 345: "You shall understand that the
Emperor hath suddenly caused his army to march
towards Namur, and that himself is gone after in
person; the deliberation whereof, both of the one
and the other, is against the advice of his
council, and all other men to the staying of him.
Wherein Albert the Duke of Savoy, John Baptiste
Castaldo, Don Hernando de Gonzaga, and Andrea Doria
have done their best, as well by letter as by their
coming from the camp to this town, _viva voce_
alleging to him the puissance of his enemy, the
unableness as yet of his army to encounter with
them, the danger of the chopping of them between
him and this town, the hazard of himself, his
estate, and all these countries, in case, being
driven to fight, their army should have an
overthrow; in the preservation whereof standeth the
safety of the whole, and twenty other arguments.
Yet was there no remedy, but forth he would, and
commanded them that they should march _sans plus
repliquez_. His headiness hath often put him to
great hindrance, specially at Metz, and another
time at Algiers. This enterprise is more dangerous
than they both. God send him better fortune than
_multi ominantur_."--Mason to Petre, Brussels, July
10; _German MSS. Mary_, bundle 16, State Paper
Office.]
[Footnote 346: "The Emperor, in these nine or ten
days following of his enemy, hath showed a great
courage, and no less skilfulness in the war; but
much more notably showed the same when, with so
small an army as he then had, he entered into
Namur, a town of no strength, but commodious for
the letting of his enemy's purpose, against the
advice and persuasion of all his captains; which,
if he had not done, out of doubt first Liege, and
after, these countries, had had such a foil as
would long after have been remembered. By his own
wisdom and unconquered courage the enemy's meaning
that way was frustrated."--Mason to the Council,
Aug. 13: _German MSS. Mary_, bundle 16, State Paper
Office.]
{p.147} CHAPTER III.