The protests of Renard against the persecution received no attention.
The inquisition established by the legate was not to commence till
Easter; but the prisons were already abundantly supplied with persons
who had been arrested on various pretexts, and the material was ready
in hand to occupy the interval. The four persons who had first
suffered had been conspicuous among the leaders of the Reformation;
but the bishops were for the most part prudent in their selection of
victims, and chose them principally from among the poor and
unfriended.
On the 9th of February, a weaver named Tomkins (the man who had held
his hand in the candle), Pigot, a butcher, Knight, a barber, Hunter,
an apprentice boy of 19, Lawrence, a priest, and Hawkes, a gentleman,
were brought before Bonner in the Consistory at St. Paul's, where they
were charged with denying transubstantiation, and were condemned to
die. The indignation which had been excited by the first executions
caused a delay in carrying the sentence into effect; but as the menace
of insurrection died away the wolves came back to their prey. On the
9th of March, two more were condemned also, Thomas Causton and Thomas
Higbed, men of some small property in Essex. To disperse the effect,
these eight were scattered about the diocese. Tomkins died at
Smithfield on the 16th of March; Causton and Higbed, Pigot and Knight,
in different parts of Essex; Hawkes suffered later; Lawrence was burnt
at Colchester. The legs of the latter had been crushed by irons in one
of Bonner's prisons; he was unable to stand, and was placed at the
stake in a chair. "At his burning, he sitting in the fire, the young
children came about and cried, as well as young children could speak,
Lord strengthen thy servant, and keep thy promise--Lord, strengthen
thy servant, and keep thy promise."[457]
[Footnote 457: Foxe, vol. vi.]
Hunter's case deserves more particular mention. The London apprentices
had been affected deeply by the Reforming preachers. It was to them
that the servant of Anne Askew "made her {p.202} moan," and gathered
subscriptions for her mistress. William Hunter, who was one of them,
had been ordered to attend mass by a priest when it was
re-established; he had refused, and his master, fearing that he might
be brought into trouble, had sent him home to his family at Brentwood,
in Essex.[458] Another priest, going one day into Brentwood Church,
found Hunter reading the Bible there.
[Footnote 458: The story of Hunter was left in
writing by his brother, and was printed by Foxe. I
have already said that whenever Foxe prints
documents instead of relating hearsays, I have
found him uniformly trustworthy; so far, that is to
say, as there are means of testing him.]
Could he expound Scripture, that he read it thus to himself? the
priest asked. He was reading for his comfort, Hunter replied; he did
not take on himself to expound. The Bible taught him how to live, and
how to distinguish between right and wrong.
It was never merry world, the priest said, since the Bible came forth
in English. He saw what Hunter was--he was one of those who disliked
the queen's laws, and he and other heretics would broil for it before
all was over.
The boy's friends thought it prudent that he should fly to some place
where he was not known; but, as soon as he was gone, a Catholic
magistrate in the neighbourhood required his father to produce him, on
peril of being arrested in his place; and, after a struggle of
affection, in which the father offered to shield his son at his own
hazard, young Hunter returned and surrendered.
The magistrate sent him to the Bishop of London, who kept him in
prison three quarters of a year. When the persecution commenced, he
was called up for examination.
Bonner, though a bigot and a ruffian, had, at times, a coarse
good-nature in him, and often, in moments of pity, thrust an easy
recantation upon a hesitating prisoner. He tried with emphatic anxiety
to save this young apprentice. "If thou wilt recant," he said to him,
"I will make thee a freeman in the city, and give thee forty pounds in
money to set up thy occupation withal; or I will make thee steward of
mine house, and set thee in office, for I like thee well."
Hunter thanked him for his kindness; but it could not be, he said; he
must stand to the truth: he could not lie, or pretend to believe what
he did not believe. Bonner said, and probably with sincere conviction,
that if he persisted he would be damned for ever. Hunter said, that
God judged more righteously, and justified those whom man unjustly
condemned.
He was therefore to die with the rest; and on Saturday, the {p.203}
23rd of March, he was sent to suffer at his native village. Monday
being the feast of the Annunciation, the execution was postponed till
Tuesday. The intervening time he was allowed to spend with his friends
"in the parlour of the Swan Inn." His father prayed that he might
continue to the end in the way that he had begun. His mother said, she
was happy to bear a child who could find in his heart to lose his life
for Christ's sake. "Mother," he answered, "for my little pain which I
shall suffer, which is but a short braid, Christ hath promised me a
crown of joy. May you not be glad of that, mother?"
Amidst such words the days passed. Tuesday morning the sheriff's son
came and embraced him, "bade him not be afraid," and "could speak no
more for weeping." When the sheriff came himself for him, he took his
brother's arm and walked calmly to the place of execution, "at the
town's end, where the butts stood."
His father was at the roadside as he passed. "God be with thee, son
William!" the old man said. "God be with thee, good father," the son
answered, "and be of good comfort!"
When he was come to the stake, he took one of the faggots, knelt upon
it, and prayed for a few moments. The sheriff read the pardon with the
conditions. "I shall not recant," he said, and walked to the post, to
which he was chained.
"Pray for me, good people, while you see me alive," he said to the
crowd.
"Pray for thee!" said the magistrate who had committed him, "I will no
more pray for thee than I will pray for a dog."
"Son of God," Hunter exclaimed, "shine on me!" The sun broke out from
behind a cloud and blazed in glory on his face.
The faggots were set on fire.
"Look," shrieked a priest, "how thou burnest here, so shalt thou burn
in hell!"
The martyr had a Prayer-book in his hands, which he cast through the
flames to his brother.
"William," said the brother, "think on the holy passion of Christ, and
be not afraid of death."
"I am not afraid," were his last words. "Lord, Lord, Lord, receive my
spirit!"
Ten days later another victim was sacrificed at Carmarthen, whose fate
was peculiarly unprovoked and cruel.
Robert Ferrars, who twenty-seven years before carried a faggot with
Anthony Dalaber in High Street at Oxford, had been appointed by
Somerset Bishop of St. David's. He was a {p.204} man of large
humanity, justice, and uprightness--neither conspicuous as a
theologian nor prominent as a preacher, but remarkable chiefly for
good sense and a kindly imaginative tenderness. He had found his
diocese infected with the general disorders of the times. The Chapter
were indulging themselves to the utmost in questionable pleasures. The
church patronage was made the prey of a nest of Cathedral lawyers,
and, in an evil hour for himself, the bishop endeavoured to make
crooked things straight.
After three years of struggle, his unruly canons were unable to endure
him longer, and forwarded to the Duke of Northumberland an elaborate
series of complaints against him. He was charged with neglecting his
books and his preaching, and spending his time in surveying the lands
of the see, and opening mines. He kept no manner of hospitality, it
was said, but dined at the same table with his servants; and his talk
was "not of godliness," "but of worldly matters, as baking, brewing,
enclosing, ploughing, mining, millstones, discharging of tenants, and
such like."
"To declare his folly in riding (these are the literal words of the
accusation), he useth a bridle with white studs and snaffle, white
Scottish stirrups, white spurs; a Scottish pad, with a little staff of
three quarters [of a yard] long.
"He said he would go to parliament on foot; and to his friends that
dissuaded him, alleging that it was not meet for a man in his place,
he answered, I care not for that; it is no sin.
"Having a son, he went before the midwife to the church, presenting
the child to the priest; and giving the name Samuel with a solemn
interpretation of the name,[459] appointed two godfathers and two
godmothers contrary to the ordinance, making his son a monster and
himself a laughing-stock.
[Footnote 459: Wherefore it came to pass that
Hannah bare a son, and called his name Samuel,
saying, Because I have asked him of the Lord. 1
_Samuel_ i. 20.]
"He daily useth whistling of his child, and saith that he understood
his whistle when he was but three years old; and being advertised of
his friends that men laughed at his folly, he answered, They whistle
their horses and dogs: they might also be contented that I whistle my
child; and so whistleth him daily, friendly admonition neglected.
"In his visitation, among other his surveys, he surveyed Milford
Haven, where he espied a seal-fish tumbling, and he crept down to the
rocks by the water-side, and continued there {p.205} whistling by
the space of an hour, persuading the company that laughed fast at him,
he made the fish to tarry there.
"Speaking of the scarcity of herrings, he laid the fault to the
covetousness of fishers, who in time of plenty took so many that they
destroyed the breeders.
"Speaking of the alteration of the coin, he wished that what metal
soever it was made of, the penny should be in weight worth a penny of
the same metal."
Such were the charges against Ferrars, which, notwithstanding, were
considered serious enough to require an answer; and the bishop
consented to reply.
He dined with his servants, he said, because the hall of the palace
was in ruins, and for their comfort he allowed them to eat in his own
room. For his hospitality, he appealed to his neighbours; and for his
conversation, he said that he suited it to his hearers. He talked of
religion to religious men; to men of the world, he talked "of honest
worldly things with godly intent." He saw no folly in having his horse
decently appointed; and as to walking to parliament, it was
indifferent to him whether he walked or rode. God had given him a
child, after lawful prayer, begotten in honest marriage; he had
therefore named him Samuel, and presented him to the minister as a
poor member of Christ's Church; it was done openly in the cathedral,
without offending any one. The crime of whistling he admitted,
"thinking it better to bring up his son with loving entertainment," to
encourage him to receive afterwards more serious lessons. He had
whistled to the seal; and "such as meant folly might turn it to their
purpose." He had said that the destruction of the fry of fish
prevented fish from multiplying, because he believed it to be true.
Answered or unanswered, it is scarcely credible that such accusations
should have received attention; but the real offence behind, and is
indicated in a vague statement that he had supposed himself to a
premunire. The exquisite iniquity of the Northumberland administration
could not endure a bishop who had opposed the corrupt administration
of patronage; and the explanation being held as insufficient, Ferrars
was summoned to London and thrown into prison, where Mary's accession
found him.
Cut off in this way from the opportunities of escape which were long
open to others, the bishop remained in confinement till the opening of
the persecution. He was deposed from his see by Gardiner's first
commission, as having been married; otherwise, {p.206} however,
Ferrars was unobnoxious politically and personally. Being in prison,
he had been incapable of committing any fresh offence against the
queen, and might reasonably have been forgotten or passed over. But he
had been a bishop, and he was ready caught to the hands of the
authorities; and Mary had been compelled unwillingly to release a more
conspicuous offender, Miles Coverdale, at the intercession of the King
of Denmark. Ferrars was therefore brought before Gardiner on the 4th
of February. On the 14th he was sent into Wales to be tried by Morgan,
his successor at St. David's, and Constantine, the notary of the
diocese, who had been one of his accusers. By these judges, on the
11th of March, he was condemned and degraded; he appealed to the
legate, but the legate never listened to the prayer of heretics; the
legate's mission was to extirpate them. On Saturday the 30th of March,
Ferrars was brought to the stake in the market-place in
Carmarthen.[460]
[Footnote 460: Foxe, vol. vii.]
Rawlins White, an aged Cardiff fisherman, followed Ferrars. In the
course of April, George Marsh, a curate, was burnt at Chester; and on
the 20th of April, a man named William Flower, who had been once a
monk of Ely, was burnt in Palace-yard, at Westminster. Flower had
provoked his own fate. He appeared on Easter day in St. Margaret's
Church, while mass was being said; and provoked, as he persuaded
himself, by the Holy Spirit, he flew upon the officiating priest, and
stabbed him with a dagger in the hand; when to the horror of pious
Catholics, the blood spurted into the chalice, and was mixed with the
consecrated elements.
Sixteen persons had now been put to death, and there was again a pause
for the sharp surgery to produce its effects.
While Mary was destroying the enemies of the church, Julius the Third
had died at the end of March, and Reginald Pole was again a candidate
for the vacant chair. The courts of Paris and Brussels alike promised
him their support, but alike gave their support to another. They
flattered his virtues, but they permitted Marcellus Cervino, the
Cardinal of St. Cross, to be elected unanimously; and the English
legate was told that he must be contented with the event which God had
been pleased to send.[461] An opportunity, however, seemed to offer
itself to him of accomplishing a service to Europe.
[Footnote 461: Noailles to the King of France,
April 5 and April 17. Montmorency to Noailles,
April 21. Noailles to Montmorency, April 30:
_Ambassades_, vol. iv.]
{p.207} For thirty-five years the two great Catholic powers had been
wrestling with but brief interruption. The advantage to either had
been as trifling as the causes of their quarrel were insignificant.
Their revenues were anticipated, their credit was exhausted, yet year
after year languid armies struggled into collision. Across the Alps in
Italy, and along the frontiers of Burgundy and the Low Countries,
towns and villages, and homesteads were annually sacked, and peasants
and their families destroyed--for what it were vain to ask, except it
was for some poor shadow of imagined honour. Two mighty princes
believed themselves justified in the sight of Heaven in squandering
their subjects' treasure and their subjects' blood, because the pride
of each forbade him to be the first in volunteering insignificant
concessions. France had conquered Savoy and part of Piedmont, and had
pushed forward its northern frontier to Marienbourg and Metz: the
emperor held Lombardy, Parma, and Naples, and Navarre was annexed to
Spain. The quarrel might have easily been ended by mutual restitution;
yet the Peace of Cambray, the Treaty of Nice, and the Peace of Crepy,
lasted only while the combatants were taking breath; and those who
would attribute the extravagances of human folly to supernatural
influence might imagine that the great discord between the orthodox
powers had been permitted to give time for the Reformation to strike
its roots into the soil of Europe. But a war which could be carried on
only by loans at sixteen per cent. was necessarily near its
conclusion. The apparent recovery of England to the church revived
hopes which the Peace of Passau and the dissolution of the Council of
Trent had almost extinguished; and, could a reconciliation be effected
at last, and could Philip obtain the disposal of the military strength
of England in the interests of the papacy, it might not even yet be
too late to lay the yoke of orthodoxy on the Germans, and, in a
Catholic interpretation of the Parable of the Supper, "compel them to
come in."
Mary, who had heard herself compared to the Virgin, and Pole, who
imagined the Prince of Spain to be the counterpart of the Redeemer of
mankind, indulged their fancy in large expectations. Philip was the
Solomon who was to raise up the temple of the Lord, which the emperor,
who was a man of war, had not been allowed to build: and France, at
the same time, was not unwilling to listen to proposals. The birth of
Mary's child was expected in a few weeks, when England would, as a
matter of course, become more decisively Imperialist, and Henry, whose
{p.208} invasion of the Netherlands had failed in the previous
summer, was ready now to close the struggle while it could be ended on
equal and honourable terms.
A conference was, therefore, agreed upon, in which England was to
mediate. A village in the Calais Pale was selected as the place of
assembly, and Pole, Gardiner, Paget, and Pembroke were chosen to
arrange the terms of a general peace, with the Bishop of Arras, the
Cardinal of Lorraine, and Montmorency. The time pitched upon was that
at which, so near as the queen could judge, she would herself bring
into the world the offspring which was to be the hope of England and
mankind; and the great event should, if possible, precede the first
meeting of the plenipotentiaries.
The queen herself commenced her preparations with infinite
earnestness, and, as a preliminary votive offering, she resolved to
give back to the church such of the abbey property as remained in the
hands of the crown. Her debts were now as high as ever. The Flanders
correspondence was repeating the heavy story of loans and bills.
Promises to pay were falling due, and there were no resources to meet
them, and the Israelite leeches were again fastened on the
commonwealth.[462] Nevertheless, the sacrifice should be made; the
more difficult it was, the more favourably it would be received; and,
on the 28th of March, she sent for the Lord Treasurer, and announced
her intention. "If he told her that her estate would not bear it, she
must reply," she said, "that she valued the salvation of her soul
beyond all earthly things."[463] As soon as parliament could meet and
give its sanction, she would restore the first-fruits also to the Holy
See. She must work for God as God had worked for her.
[Footnote 462: Letters to and from Sir Thomas
Gresham: _MS. Flanders, Mary_, State Paper Office.]
[Footnote 463: Strype's _Memorials_.]
About the 20th of April she withdrew to Hampton Court for entire
quiet. The rockers and the nurses were in readiness, and a cradle
stood open to receive the royal infant. Priests and bishops sang
Litanies through the London streets; a procession of ecclesiastics in
cloth of gold and tissue marched round Hampton Court Palace, headed by
Philip in person; Gardiner walked at his side, while Mary gazed from a
window.[464] Not only was the child assuredly coming, but its sex was
decided on, and circulars were drawn and signed both by the king and
queen, with blanks only for the month and day, announcing to ministers
{p.209} of state, to ambassadors, and to foreign sovereigns, the
birth of a prince.[465]
[Footnote 464: Machyn's _Diary_.]
[Footnote 465: These curious records of
disappointed expectations remain in large numbers
in the State Paper Office. The following is the
letter addressed to Pole:--
Philip.--Mary the Queen.--Most Reverend Father in
God, our right trusty and right entirely beloved
cousin, We greet you well: And whereas it hath
pleased Almighty God, of His infinite goodness, to
add unto the great number of other His benefits
bestowed upon us, the gladding of us with the happy
deliverance of a prince, for the which we do most
humbly thank Him; knowing your affections to be
such towards us as whatsoever shall fortunately
succeed unto us, the same cannot be but acceptable
unto you also; We have thought good to communicate
unto you these happy news of ours, to the intent
you may rejoice with us; and praying for us, give
God thanks for this his work accordingly. Given
under our signet, at our house of Hampton Court,
the ---- of ----, the 1st and 2nd year of our and
my Lord the King's reign.--_MS. Mary, Domestic_,
vol. v. State Paper Office.]
On the 30th, the happy moment was supposed to have arrived; a message
was sent off to London, announcing the commencement of the pains. The
bells were set ringing in all the churches; _Te Deum_ was sung in St.
Paul's; priests wrote sermons; bonfires were piled ready for lighting,
and tables were laid out in the streets.[466] The news crossed the
Channel to Antwerp, and had grown in the transit. The great bell of
the cathedral was rung for the actual birth. The vessels in the river
fired salutes. "The regent sent the English mariners a hundred crowns
to drink," and, "they made themselves in readiness to show some worthy
triumph upon the waters."[467]
[Footnote 466: Noailles to Montmorency, April 30:
_Ambassades_, vol. iv.]
[Footnote 467: Sir Thomas Gresham to the Council:
_MS. Flanders, Mary_, State Paper Office.]
But the pains passed off without result; and whispers began to be
heard, that there was, perhaps, a mistake of a more considerable kind.
Mary, however, had herself no sort of misgiving. She assured her
attendants that all was well, and that she felt the motion of her
child. The physicians professed to be satisfied, and the priests were
kept at work at the Litanies. Up and down the streets they marched,
through city and suburb, park and square; torches flared along
Cheapside at midnight behind the Holy Sacrament, and five hundred poor
men and women from the almshouses walked two and two, telling their
beads in their withered fingers: then all the boys of all the schools
were set in motion, and the ushers and the masters came after them;
clerks, canons, bishops, mayor, aldermen, officers of guilds.[468]
Such marching, such chanting, such praying was never seen or heard
before or since in London streets. A profane {p.210} person ran one
day out of the crowd, and hung about a priest's neck, where the beads
should be, a string of puddings; but they whipped him, and prayed on.
Surely, God would hear the cry of his people.
[Footnote 468: Machyn's _Diary_.]
In the midst of the suspense the papal chair fell vacant again. The
pontificate of Marcellus lasted three weeks, and Pole a third time
offered himself to the suffrages of the cardinals. The courts were
profuse of compliments as before. Noailles presented him with a note
from Montmorency, containing assurances of the infinite desire of the
King of France for the success of so holy a person.[469] Philip wrote
to Rome in his behalf, and Mary condescended to ask for the support of
the French cardinals.[470] But the fair speeches, as before, were but
trifling. The choice fell on Pole's personal enemy, Cardinal Caraffa,
who was French alike in heart and brain.
[Footnote 469: Noailles to Montmorency, May 15:
_Ambassades_, vol. iv.]
[Footnote 470: Philip and Mary to Gardiner,
Arundel, and Paget: Burnet's _Collectanea_.]
The choice of a pope, however, would signify little, if only the child
could be born; but where was the child? The queen put it off
strangely. The conference could be delayed no longer. It opened
without the intended makeweight, and the court of France was less
inclined to make concessions for a peace. The delay began to tell on
the bourse at Antwerp. The Fuggers and the Schertzes drew their
purse-strings, and made difficulties in lending more money to the
emperor.[471] The plenipotentiaries had to separate after a few
meetings, having effected nothing, to the especial mortification of
Philip and Mary, who looked to the pacification to enable them to cure
England of its unruly humours. The Duke of Alva (so rumour insisted)
was to bring across the Spanish troops which were in the Low
Countries, take possession of London, and force the parliament into
submission.[472] The English were to be punished, for the infinite
insolences in which they had indulged towards Philip's retinue, by
being compelled, whether they liked it or not, to bestow upon him the
crown.[473]
[Footnote 471: Noailles: _Ambassades_, vol. iv. p.
313.]
[Footnote 472: "Et la ou ladicte paix ou trefve
adviendront ledict seigneur (l'Empereur) fera
bientost apres repasser en ce royaulme le duc
d'Alva avecque la plus grande part de sesdictes
forces pour y fabvoriser les affaires de ce
roy."--Noailles, vol. iv. p. 330.]
[Footnote 473: "Il n'est rien que l'Empereur ne
fasse pour venir a la paix, tant il desire avant de
retourner en Espaigne de faire couronner son filz,
roy de ce pays. Et pensera par meme moyen se saisir
des places fortes d'icelluy et chastier des Angloys
d'infinies injures qu'ilz out faict recepvoir aux
Espagnols, mettant grosses garnisons en ceste ville
de Londres, et aultres lieux, a quoy ces roy et
royne proposent ... s'y faire obeir absolument aux
parlemens, suyvant ce qu'ilz n'ont peu faire par
cydevant."--Noailles, vol. iv. pp. 332, 333.
In these reports the truth was anticipated but not
exceeded. It will be seen that such projects were
really formed at a later period.]
{p.211} But the peace could not be, nor could the child be born; and
the impression grew daily that the queen had not been pregnant at all.
Mary herself, who had been borne forward to this, the crisis of her
fortunes, on a tide of success, now suddenly found her exulting hopes
closing over. From confidence she fell into anxiety, from anxiety into
fear, from fear into wildness and despondency. She vowed that with the
restoration of the estates, she would rebuild the abbeys at her own
cost. In vain. Her women now understood her condition; she was sick of
a mortal disease; but they durst not tell her; and she whose career
had been painted out to her by the legate, as especial and supernatural,
looked only for supernatural causes of her present state. Throughout
May she remained in her apartments waiting--waiting--in passionate
restlessness. With stomach swollen, and features shrunk and haggard,
she would sit upon the floor, with her knees drawn up to her face, in
an agony of doubt; and in mockery of her wretchedness, letters were
again strewed about the place by an invisible agency, telling her that
she was loathed by her people. She imagined they would rise again in
her defence. But if they rose again, it would be to drive her and her
husband from the country.[474]
[Footnote 474: "Ladicte dame plusieurs fois de le
jour demeure longtemps assise a terre, les genoulx
aussy haultz que la teste.
"Se trouva hier fort malade et plus que de
coustume, et pour la soulager, fust trouve a mesme
heure en sa court plusieurs lettres semees contre
son honneur," etc.--Noailles, vol. iv. p. 342.]
After the mysterious quickening on the legate's salutation, she could
not doubt that her hopes had been at one time well founded; but for
some fault, some error in herself, God had delayed the fulfilment of
his promise. And what could that crime be? The accursed thing was
still in the realm. She had been raised up, like the judges in Israel,
for the extermination of God's enemies; and she had smitten but a few
here and there, when, like the evil spirits, their name was
legion.[475] She had before sent orders round among the magistrates,
to have their eyes upon them. On the 24th of May, when her distraction
was at its height, she wrote a circular to quicken the over-languid
zeal of the bishops.
[Footnote 475: "The Queen said she could not be
safely and happily delivered, nor could anything
succeed prosperously with her, unless all the
heretics in prison were burnt _ad
unum_."--Burnet.]
{p.212} "Right Reverend Father in God," it ran, "We greet you well;
and where of late we addressed our letters unto the justices of the
peace, within every of the counties within this our realm, whereby,
amongst other good instructions given therein for the good order of
the country about, they are willed to have special regard to such
disordered persons as, forgetting their duty to Almighty God and us,
do lean to any erroneous and heretical opinions; whom, if they cannot
by good admonition and fair means reform, they are willed to deliver
unto the ordinary, to be by him charitably travelled withal, and
removed, if it may be, from their naughty opinions; or else, if they
continue obstinate, to be ordered according to the laws provided in
that behalf: understanding now, to our no little marvel, that divers
of the said misordered persons, being, by the justices of the peace,
for their contempt and obstinacy, brought to the ordinary, to be used
as is aforesaid, are either refused to be received at their hands, or,
if they be received, are neither so travelled with as Christian
charity requireth, nor yet proceeded withal according to the order of
justice, but are suffered to continue in their errors, to the
dishonour of Almighty God, and dangerous example of others; like as we
find this matter very strange, so have we thought convenient both to
signify this our knowledge, and therewithal also to admonish you to
have in this behalf such regard henceforth unto the office of a good
pastor and bishop, as where any such offenders shall be, by the said
justices of the peace, brought unto you, ye do use your good wisdom
and discretion in procuring to remove them from their errors if it may
be, or else in proceeding against them, if they continue obstinate,
according to the order of the laws, so as, through your good
furtherance, both God's glory may be the better advanced, and the
commonwealth more quietly governed."[476]
[Footnote 476: Burnet's _Collectanea_. This letter
is addressed to Bonner, and was taken from Bonner's
_Register_; but, from the form, it was evidently a
circular. The Bishop of London had not deserved to
be singled out to be especially admonished for want
of energy.]
Under the fresh impulse of this letter, fifty persons were put to
death at the stake in the three ensuing months,--in the diocese of
London, under Bonner; in the diocese of Rochester, under Maurice
Griffin; in the diocese of Canterbury, where Pole, the archbishop
designate, so soon as Cranmer should be despatched, governed through
Harpsfeld, the archdeacon, and Thornton, the suffragan bishop of
Dover. Of these sacrifices, which were distinguished all of them by a
uniformity of quiet heroism in the {p.213} sufferers, that of
Cardmaker, prebendary of Wells, calls most for notice.
The people, whom the cruelty of the Catholic party was reconverting to
the Reformation with a rapidity like that produced by the gift of
tongues on the day of Pentecost, looked on the martyrs as soldiers are
looked at who are called to accomplish, with the sacrifice of their
lives, some great service for their country. Cardmaker, on his first
examination, had turned his back and flinched. But the consciousness
of shame, and the example of others, gave him back his courage; he was
called up again under the queen's mandate, condemned, and brought out
on the 30th of May, to suffer at Smithfield, with an upholsterer named
Warne. The sheriffs produced the pardons. Warne, without looking at
them, undressed at once, and went to the stake; Cardmaker "remained
long talking;" "the people in a marvellous dump of sadness, thinking
he would recant." He turned away at last, and knelt, and prayed; but
he had still his clothes on; "there was no semblance of burning;" and
the crowd continued nervously agitated, till he rose and threw off his
cloak. "Then, seeing this, contrary to their fearful expectations, as
men delivered out of great doubt, they cried out for joy with so great
a shout as hath not been lightly heard a greater, God be praised; the
Lord strengthen thee, Cardmaker. The Lord Jesus receive thy
spirit."[477] Every martyr's trial was a battle; every constant death
was a defeat of the common enemy; and the instinctive consciousness
that truth was asserting itself in suffering, converted the natural
emotion of horror into admiring pride.
[Footnote 477: Foxe, vol. vii.]
Yet, for the great purpose of the court, the burnt-offerings were
ineffectual as the prayers of the priests. The queen was allowed to
persuade herself that she had mistaken her time by two months; and to
this hope she clung herself, so long as the hope could last: but among
all other persons concerned, scarcely one was any longer under a
delusion; and the clear-eyed Renard lost no time in laying the
position of affairs before his master.
The marriage of Elizabeth and Philibert had hung fire, from the
invincible unwillingness on the part of Mary to pardon or in any way
recognise her sister;[478] and as long as there was a hope of a child,
she had not perhaps been pressed about it; but {p.214} it was now
absolutely necessary to do something, and violent measures towards the
princess were more impossible than ever.
[Footnote 478: A letter of Mary's to Philip on the
subject will be given in the following chapter,
which reveals the disagreement which had arisen
between them about this marriage.]
"The entire future," wrote Renard to the emperor, on the 27th of June,
"turns on the accouchement of the queen; of which, however, there are
no signs. If all goes well, the state of feeling in the country will
improve. If she is in error, I foresee convulsions and disturbances
such as no pen can describe. The succession to the crown is so
unfortunately hampered, that it must fall to Elizabeth, and with
Elizabeth there will be a religious revolution. The clergy will be put
down, the Catholics persecuted, and there will be such revenge for the
present proceedings as the world has never seen. I know not whether
the king's person is safe; and the scandals and calumnies which the
heretics are spreading about the queen are beyond conception. Some say
that she has never been _enceinte_; some repeat that there will be a
supposititious child, and that there would have been less delay could
a child have been found that would answer the purpose.[479] The looks
of men are grown strange and impenetrable; those in whose loyalty I
had most dependence I have now most reason to doubt. Nothing is
certain, and I am more bewildered than ever at the things which I see
going on around me. There is neither government, nor justice, nor
order; nothing but audacity and malice."[480]
[Footnote 479: The impression was very generally
spread. Noailles mentions it, writing on the 20th
of June to the King of France; and Foxe mentions a
mysterious attempt of Lord North to obtain a
new-born child from its mother, as having happened
within his own knowledge. The existence of the
belief, however, proves nothing. At such a time it
was inevitable, nor was there any good evidence to
connect Lord North, supposing Foxe's story true,
with the court. The risk of discovery would have
been great, the consequences terrible, and few
people have been more incapable than Mary of
knowingly doing a wrong thing.]
[Footnote 480: Renard to the Emperor, June 27:
_Granvelle Papers_, vol. vi.]
The faint hopes which Renard expressed speedily vanished, and every
one but the queen herself not only knew that she had no child at
present, but that she never could have a child--that her days were
numbered, and that if the Spaniards intended to secure the throne they
must obtain it by other means than the order of inheritance. Could the
war be brought to an end, Mary might live long enough to give her
husband an opportunity of attempting violence; but of peace there was
no immediate prospect, and it remained for the present to make the
most of Elizabeth. Setting her marriage aside, it was doubtful whether
the people would permit her longer confinement after the queen's
{p.215} disappointment; and, willingly or unwillingly, Mary must be
forced to receive her at court again.
The princess was still at Woodstock, where she had remained for a
year, under the harsh surveillance of Sir Henry Bedingfield. Lord
William Howard's visit may have consoled her with the knowledge that
she was not forgotten by the nobility; but her health had suffered
from her long imprisonment, and the first symptom of an approaching
change in her position was the appearance of the queen's physician to
take charge of her.
A last effort was made to betray her into an acknowledgment of guilt.
"A secret friend" entreated her to "submit herself to the queen's
mercy." Elizabeth saw the snare. She would not ask for mercy, she
said, where she had committed no offence; if she was guilty, she
desired justice, not mercy; and she knew well she would have found
none, could evidence have been produced against her: but she thanked
God she was in no danger of being proved guilty; she wished she was as
safe from secret enemies.
But the plots for despatching her, if they had ever existed, were laid
aside; she was informed that her presence was required at Hampton
Court. The rumour of her intended release spread abroad, and sixty
gentlemen, who had once belonged to her suite, met her on the way at
Colebrook, in the hope that they might return to attendance upon her;
but their coming was premature; she was still treated as a prisoner,
and they were ordered off in the queen's name.
On her arrival at Hampton Court, however, the princess felt that she
had recovered her freedom. She was received by Lord William Howard.
The courtiers hurried to her with their congratulations, and Howard
dared and provoked the resentment of the king and queen by making them
kneel and kiss her hand.[481] Mary could not bring herself at first to
endure an interview. The Bishop of Winchester came to her on the
queen's behalf, to repeat the advice which had been given to her at
Woodstock, and to promise pardon if she would ask for it.
[Footnote 481: Joanna of Castille, the emperor's
mad mother, dying soon after, masses were said for
her with some solemnity at St. Paul's. "Aux
obseques que la royne commanda estre faictes a
Londres, l'admiral d'Angleterre demontra
ouvertement avoir quelque ressentment, de ce qu'il
disoit le roy ne luy faisoit si bonne chiere et
demonstration si favorable qu'il avoit accoustume,
disant qu'il scavoit bien pourquoy s'estoit,
inferant que ce fust pour ce qu'il avoit faict
baiser les mains de Elizabetz aux gentilhommes qui
l'avoient visitez."]
Elizabeth had been resolute when she was alone and friendless, she was
not more yielding now. She repeated that she had {p.216} committed
no offence, and therefore required no forgiveness; she had rather lie
in prison all her life than confess when there was nothing to be
confessed.
The answer was carried to Mary, and the day after the bishop came
again. "The queen marvelled," he said, "that she would so stoutly
stand to her innocence;" if she called herself innocent, she implied
that she had been "unjustly imprisoned;" if she expected her liberty
"she must tell another tale."
But the causes which had compelled the court to send for her, forbade
them equally to persist in an impotent persecution. They had desired
only to tempt her into admissions which they could plead in
justification for past or future severities. They had failed, and they
gave way.
A week later, on an evening in the beginning of July, Lady Clarence,
Mary's favourite attendant, brought a message, that the queen was
expecting her sister in her room. The princess was led across the
garden in the dusk, and introduced by a back staircase into the royal
apartments. Almost two years had elapsed since the sisters had last
met, when Mary hid the hatred which was in her heart behind a veil of
kindness. There was no improvement of feeling, but the necessity of
circumstances compelled the form of reconciliation.
Elizabeth dropped on her knees. "God preserve your majesty," she said;
"you will find me as true a subject to your majesty as any; whatever
has been reported of me, you shall not find it otherwise."
"You will not confess," the queen said; "you stand to your truth: I
pray God it may so fall out."
"If it does not," said Elizabeth, "I desire neither favour nor pardon
at your hands."
"Well," Mary bitterly answered, "you persevere in your truth stiffly;
belike you will not confess that you have been wrongly punished?"
"I must not say so, your majesty," Elizabeth replied.
"Belike you will to others?" said the queen.
"No, please your majesty," answered the princess. "I have borne the
burden, and I must bear it. I pray your majesty to have a good opinion
of me, and to think me your true subject, not only from the beginning
but while life lasteth."
The queen did not answer, she muttered only in Spanish, "_Sabe Dios_,"
"God knows," and Elizabeth withdrew.[482]
[Footnote 482: Foxe; Holinshed.]
It was said that, during the interview, Philip was concealed {p.217}
behind a curtain, anxious for a sight of the captive damsel whose
favour with the people was such a perplexity to him.
At this time, Elizabeth was beautiful; her haughty features were
softened by misfortune; and as it is certain that Philip, when he left
England, gave special directions for her good treatment, so it is
possible that he may have envied the fortune which he intended for the
Prince of Savoy; and the scheme which he afterwards attempted to
execute, of making her his own wife on the queen's death, may have
then suggested itself to him as a solution of the English difficulty.
The magnificent girl, who was already the idol of the country, must
have presented an emphatic contrast with the lean, childless, haggard,
forlorn Mary; and he may easily have allowed his fancy to play with a
pleasant temptation. If it was so, Philip was far too careless of the
queen's feelings to conceal his own. If it was not so, the queen's
haunting consciousness of her unattractiveness must have been
aggravated by the disappointment of her hopes, and she may have
tortured herself with jealousy and suspicion.
At all events, Mary could not overcome her aversion. Elizabeth was set
at liberty, but she was not allowed to remain at the court. She
returned to Ashridge, to be pursued, even there, with petty
annoyances. Her first step when she was again at home was to send for
her friend Mrs. Ashley; the queen instantly committed Mrs. Ashley to
the Fleet, and sent three other officers of her sister's household to
the Tower; while a number of gentlemen suspected of being her
adherents, who had remained in London beyond their usual time of
leaving for the country, were ordered imperiously to their
estates.[483]
[Footnote 483: Le dict conseil voyant que plusieurs
gentilhommes s'assembloient a Londres, et
communicquoient par ensemble, qu'ils se tenoient a
Londres, contre ce qu'est accoustume en Angleterre,
qu'est que ceulx qu'ilz eu moien ne demeurent a
Londres en l'este, ains au pays pour la chaleur et
maladies ordinaires qu'ilz y reignent, et que
toutes les dicts gentilhommes sont heretiques, ains
este pour le plus part rebelles, les autres parens
et adherens de Elizabetz, leur a faict faire
commandement de se retirer chascun en sa maison et
se separer; qu'ilz ont prins mal et en out fait
grandes doleances, en pretendant qu'ilz estoient
gens de bien, qu'ilz n'estoient traistres.--Renard
to the Emperor: _Granvelle Papers_, vol. iv.]
But neither impatience nor violence could conceal the fatal change
which had passed over Mary's prospects. Not till the end of July could
she part finally from her hopes. Then, at last, the glittering dream
was lost for the waking truth; then at once from the imagination of
herself as the virgin bride who was to bear a child for the recovery
of a lost world, she was precipitated into the poor certainty that she
was a blighted and {p.218} a dying woman. Sorrow was heaped on
sorrow; Philip would stay with her no longer. His presence was
required on the continent, where his father was about to anticipate
the death which he knew to be near, and, after forty years of battling
with the stormy waters, to collect himself for the last great change
in the calm of a monastery in Spain.
It was no new intention. For years the emperor had been in the habit
of snatching intervals of retreat; for years he had made up his mind
to relinquish at some time the labours of life before relinquishing
life itself. The vanities of sovereignty had never any particular
charm for Charles V.; he was not a man who cared "to monarchise and
kill with looks," or who could feel a pang at parting with the bauble
of a crown; and when the wise world cried out in their surprise, and
strained their fancies for the cause of conduct which seemed so
strange to them, they forgot that princes who reign to labour, grow
weary like the peasant of the burden of daily toil.
Many influences combined to induce Charles to delay no longer in
putting his resolution in effect.
The Cortes were growing impatient at the prolonged absence both of
himself and Philip, and the presence of the emperor, although in
retirement, would give pleasure to the Spanish people. His health was
so shattered, that each winter had been long expected to be his last;
and although he would not flinch from work as long as he was required
at his post, there was nothing to detain Philip any more in England,
unless, or until, the succession could be placed on another footing.
To continue there the husband of a childless queen, with authority
limited to a form, and with no recognised interest beyond the term of
his wife's life, was no becoming position for the heir of the throne
of Spain, of Naples, the Indies, and the Low Countries.
Philip was therefore now going. He concealed his intention till it was
betrayed by the departure of one Spanish nobleman after another. The
queen became nervous and agitated, and at last he was forced to avow
part of the truth. He told her that his father wanted to see him, but
that his absence would not be extended beyond a fortnight or three
weeks; she should go with him to Dover, and, if she desired, she could
wait there for his return.[484] Her consent was obtained by the mild
deceit, and it was considered afterwards that the journey to Dover
might be too much for her, and the parting might take place at
Greenwich.
[Footnote 484: Noailles, vol. v. pp. 77-82.]
{p.219} On the 3rd of August, the king and queen removed for a few
days from Hampton Court to Oatlands; on the way Mary received
consolation from a poor man who met her on crutches, and was cured of
his lameness by looking on her.[485]
[Footnote 485: Machyn's _Diary_.]
On the 26th, the royal party came down the river in their barge,
attended by the legate; they dined at Westminster on their way to
Greenwich, and as rumour had said that Mary was dead, she was carried
through the city in an open litter, with the king and the cardinal at
her side. To please Philip, or to please the people, Elizabeth was
invited to the court before the king's departure; but she was sent by
water to prevent a demonstration, while the archers of the guard who
attended on the queen, were in corslet and morion.[486]
[Footnote 486: Noailles, vol. v. pp. 98, 99, 123.]
On the 28th, Philip went. Parliament was to sit again in October. It
would then be seen whether anything more could be done about the
succession. On the consent or refusal of the legislature his future
measures would depend. To the queen he left particular instructions,
which he afterwards repeated in writing, to show favour to Elizabeth;
and doubting how far he could rely upon Mary, he gave a similar charge
to such of his own suite as he left behind him.[487] Could he obtain
it, he would take the princess's crown for himself; should he fail, he
might marry her; or should this too be impossible, he would win her
gratitude, and support her title against the dangerous competition of
the Queen of Scots and Dauphiness of France.
[Footnote 487: Elle a bonne part en la grace dudict
Seigneur Roy, lequel par plusieurs lettres qu'il
escript a la royne sa femme la luy recommende,
comme aussy il a faict particulierement et par
soubz main aux principaux seigneurs Espaignolz qui
sont demourez en ce lieu.--Ibid. p. 127.]
On these terms the pair who had been brought together with so much
difficulty separated after a little more than a year. The cardinal
composed a passionate prayer for the queen's use during her husband's
absence.[488] It is to be hoped that she was {p.220} spared the
sight of a packet of letters soon after intercepted by the French, in
which her husband and her husband's countrymen expressed their
opinions of the marriage and its consequences.[489] The truth,
however, became known in England, although in a form under which the
queen could turn from it as a calumny.
[Footnote 488: Domine Jesu Christe, qui es verus
sponsus animae meae, verus Rex ac Dominus meus qui me
ad Regni hujus gubernacula singulari tua
providentia ac benignitate vocatam, cum antea essem
derelicta et tanquam mulier ab adolescentia
abjecta, eum virum in matrimonium et regni
societatem expetere voluis ti, _qui plus caeteris
imaginem tuam quam in sanctitate et justitia mundo
ostendisti in suis meisque actionibus dirigendis
exprimeret, et expetitum dedisti_, cujus nunc
discessum moerens defleo--quaeso per illum
pretiosissimum sanguinem quem pro me sponsa tua
proque illo et omnibus in ara crucis effudisti, ut
hunc meum dolorem ita lenias, ita purges, ita
temperes, ut quoties ille sanctis suis consiliis
mihi adest, quoties per litteras quae ad salutem
hujus populi tui pertinent commendat, toties illum
praesentem esse, teque unicum consolatorem in medio
nostro adesse sentiam, utque in illo te semper amem
atque glorificem. Obsecro, Domine, ut in nobis tua
imago sic indies per tuam gratiam renovetur in
conspectu populi tui, quern nobis gubernandum
commisisti, ut cum is justitiae tuae severitatem, in
iis quae amiserat dum hi regnarent qui a recta fide
declinantes sanctitatem et justitiam expulerunt,
jam pridem senserit, quae nunc per tuam
misericordiam recuperaverit sub illorum Regno quos
nunquam a recta fide declinare es passus, cum
gratiarum actione laetus intelligat ut uno ore tarn
nos quam populus noster Deum patrem per te ejus
unicum filium in unitate Spiritus glorificemus, ad
nostram ipsorum et piorum omnium salutem et
consolationem. Amen.--_Epist._ Reg. Pol. vol. v.]
[Footnote 489: Il me fauldroit faire ung
merveilleux discours pour vous rendre compte de
tous les propoz qui font dans les dictes lettres.
Je vous diray seulment ce qui plus tousche et
regarde le lieu ou vous estes. Et premierement la
royne a tant enchante et ensorcele ce beau jeune
prince son mary que de luy avoir faict croyre ung
an entier qu'elle estoit grosse pour le retenir
pres d'elle, dont il se trouve a present si confus
et fasche qu'il n'a plus delibere de retourner
habiter ceste terre, promettant a tous ses
serviteurs que s'il peult estre une fois en
Espaigne qu'il n'en sortira plus a si maulvaise
occasion, etc....--Le Protonotaire de Noailles a M.
de Noailles: _Ambassades_, vol. v. p. 136.]
Before the meeting of parliament, a letter was published, addressed to
the Lords of the Council, by a certain John Bradford.[490] The writer
accounted for his knowledge of the secrets which he had to tell, by
saying that he had lived in the household of one of the Spanish
noblemen who were in attendance on Philip; that he had learnt the
language unknown to his master, and had thus overheard unguarded
conversations. He had read letters addressed to Philip, and letters
written by him and by his confidential friends; and he was able to
say, as a thing heard with his own ears, and seen with his own eyes,
that the "Spaniards minded nothing less than the subversion of the
English commonwealth." In fact, he repeated the rumours of the summer,
only more circumstantially, and with fuller details. Under pretence of
improving the fortifications, Philip intended to obtain command of the
principal harbours and ports; he would lay cannon on the land side,
and gradually bring in Spanish troops, the queen playing into his
hands; and as soon as peace could be made with France, he would have
the command of the fleet and the sea, and could do what he
pleased.[491]
[Footnote 490: Not the martyr; he had been
despatched by Bonner among the victims of the
summer; but a person otherwise-known.]
[Footnote 491: "Ye will say, How could this fellow
know their counsel?--I was chamberlain to one of
the privy council, and with all diligence gave
myself to write and read Spanish, which thing once
obtained I kept secret from my master and my
fellow-servants, because I might be trusted in my
master's closet or study, where I might read such
writing as I saw daily brought into the council
chamber."--John Bradford to the Lords of the
Council: Strype's _Memorials of the Reformation_.]
{p.221} "I saw," the writer continued, "letters sent from the
emperor, wherein was contained these privities,--that the king should
make his excuse to the queen that he would go to see his father in
Flanders, and that immediately he would return--seeing the good simple
queen is so jealous over my son. (I term it," said Bradford, "as the
letter doth.") "We," said the emperor, "shall make her agree unto all
our requests before his return, or else keep him exercised in our
affairs till we may prevail with the council, who, doubtless, will be
won with fair promises and great gifts, politicly placed in time." "In
other letters I have read the cause disputed, that the queen is bound
by the laws of God to endue her husband in all her goods and
possessions, so far as in her lieth; and they think she will do it
indeed to the uttermost of her power. No man can think evil of the
queen, though she be somewhat moved when such things are beaten into
her head with gentlemen; but whether the crown belongs to the queen or
the realm, the Spaniards know not, nor care not, though the queen, to
her damnation, disherit the right heir apparent, or break her father's
entail, made by the whole consent of the realm, which neither she nor
the realm can justly alter."[492]
[Footnote 492: Elizabeth, when she came to the
throne, refused to admit that she was under any
real obligation to Philip. She was entirely right
in her refusal. The Spaniards had sworn, if
possible, to make away "with all those which by any
means might lay claim to the crown."
"I call God to record," Bradford continues, "I have
heard it with mine ears, and seen the said persons
with mine eyes, that have said, if ever the king
obtain the crown, he would make the Lady Elizabeth
safe from ever coming to the same, or any of our
cursed nation. For they say, that if they can find
the means to keep England in subjection, they would
do more with the land than with all the rest of his
kingdoms. I speak not of any fool's communication,
but of the wisest, and that no mean persons. Yea,
and they trust that there shall means be found
before that time to despatch the Lady Elizabeth
well enough by the help of assured traitors, as
they have already in England plenty, and then they
may the more easier destroy the others when she is
rid out of the way.
2. I speak not this, as some men would take it, to
move dissension; for that were the best way for the
Spaniards to come to their prey. Such a time they
look for, and such a time they say some nobleman
hath promised to provide for them.
3. God is my witness that my heart will not suffer
me for very shame to declare such vile reports as I
have heard them speak against the queen, and yet
her Grace taketh them for her faithful friends. The
Spaniards say, that if they obtain not the crown,
they may curse the time that ever the king was
married to a wife so unmeet for him by natural
course of years; but and if that may be brought to
pass that was meant in marriage-making, they shall
keep old rich robes for high festival days.
"Alas, for pity! Ye be yet in such good estate that
ye may, without loss of any man's life, keep the
crown and realm quietly. If ye will hear a fool's
counsel, keep still the crown to the right
succession in your hands, and give it to no foreign
princes. Peradventure her Grace thinketh the king
will keep her the more company and love her the
better, if she give him the crown. Ye will crown
him to make him chaste contrary to his nature. They
have a saying--'The baker's daughter is better in
her gown than Queen Mary without the crown.' They
say, 'Old wives must be cherished for their young
fair gifts.' 'Old wives,' they say, 'for fair words
will give all that they have.' But how be they used
afterwards? Doth the queen think the king will
remain in England with giving him the realm? The
council of Spain purposeth to establish other
matters; to appoint in England a viceroy with a
great army of Spanish soldiers, and let the queen
live at her beads like a good antient lady."--John
Bradford to the Earls of Arundel, Shrewsbury,
Derby, and Pembroke: Strype's _Memorials_, vol. vi.
p. 340, etc.]
Struggle as the queen might against such a representation of {p.222}
her husband's feelings towards her, it was true that he had left her
with a promise to return; and the weeks went, and he did not come, and
no longer spoke of coming. The abdication of the emperor would keep
him from her, at least, till the end of the winter. And news came soon
which was harder still to bear; news, that he, whom she had been
taught to regard as made in the image of our Saviour,[493] was
unfaithful to his marriage vows,[494] Bradford had spoken generally of
the king's vulgar amours; other accounts convinced her too surely that
he was consoling himself for his long purgatory in England, by
miscellaneous licentiousness. Philip was gross alike in all his
appetites; bacon fat was the favourite food with which he gorged
himself to illness;[495] his intrigues were on the same level of
indelicacy, and his unhappy wife was forced to know that he preferred
the society of abandoned women of the lowest class to hers.
[Footnote 493: Prayer written by Cardinal Pole for
Queen Mary: _supra_.]
[Footnote 494: Noailles to the King of France,
October 21: _Ambassades_, vol. v.]
[Footnote 495: Noailles to Montmorency, December 5:
Ibid.]
The French ambassador describes her as distracted with wretchedness,
speaking to no one except the legate. The legate was her only comfort;
the legate and the thing which she called religion.
Deep in the hearts of both queen and cardinal lay the conviction that
if she would please God, she must avoid the sin of Saul. Saul had
spared the Amalekites, and God had turned his face from him. God had
greater enemies in England than the Amalekites. Historians have
affected to exonerate Pole from the crime of the Marian persecution;
although, without the legate's sanction, not a bishop in England could
have raised a finger, not a bishop's court could have been opened
{p.223} to try a single heretic. If not with Pole, with whom did the
guilt rest? Gardiner was jointly responsible for the commencement, but
after the first executions, Gardiner interfered no further; he died,
and the bloody scenes continued. Philip's confessor protested; Philip
himself left the country; Renard and Charles were never weary of
advising moderation, except towards those who were politically
dangerous. Bonner was an instrument whose zeal more than once required
the goad; and Mary herself, when she came to the throne, was so little
cruel, that she would have spared even Northumberland himself. When
the persecution assumed its ferocious aspect, she was exclusively
under the direction of the dreamer who believed that he was born for
England's regeneration. All evidence concurs to show that, after
Philip's departure, Cardinal Pole was the single adviser on whom Mary
relied. Is it to be supposed that, in the horrible crusade which
thenceforward was the business of her life, the papal legate, the
sovereign director of the ecclesiastical administration of the realm,
was not consulted, or, if consulted, that he refused his sanction? But
it is not a question of conjecture or probability. From the legate
came the first edict for the episcopal inquisition; under the legate
every bishop held his judicial commission; while, if Smithfield is
excepted, the most frightful scenes in the entire frightful period
were witnessed under the shadow of his own metropolitan cathedral. His
apologists have thrown the blame on his archdeacon and his suffragan:
the guilt is not with the instrument, but with the hand which holds
it. An admiring biographer[496] has asserted that the cruelties at
Canterbury preceded the cardinal's consecration as archbishop, and the
biographer has been copied by Dr. Lingard. The historian and his
authority have exceeded the limits of permitted theological
misrepresentation. The administration of the see belonged to Pole as
much before his consecration as after it; but it will be seen that
eighteen men and women perished at the stake in the town of Canterbury
alone,--besides those who were put to death in other parts of the
diocese--and five were starved to death in the gaol there--after the
legate's installation. He was not cruel; but he believed that, in the
catalogue of human iniquities, there were none greater than the denial
of the Roman Catholic Faith, or the rejection of the Roman bishop's
supremacy; and that he himself was chosen by Providence for the
re-establishment of both. Mary was driven to madness by the
disappointment {p.224} of the grotesque imaginations with which he
had inflated her; and where two such persons were invested by the
circumstances of the time with irresponsible power, there is no
occasion to look further for the explanation of the dreadful events of
the three ensuing years.
[Footnote 496: Phillips.]
The victims of the summer were chiefly undistinguished persons:
Cardmaker and Bradford alone were in any way celebrated; and the
greater prisoners, the three bishops at Oxford, the court had paused
upon--not from mercy--their deaths had been long determined on; but
Philip, perhaps, was tender of his person; their execution might
occasion disturbances; and he and his suite might be the first objects
on which the popular indignation might expend itself. Philip, however,
had placed the sea between himself and danger, and if this was the
cause of the hesitation, the work could now go forward.
A commission was appointed by Pole in September, consisting of
Brookes, Bishop of Gloucester, Holyman, Bishop of Bristol, and White,
Bishop of Lincoln, to try Cranmer, Ridley, and Latimer, for obstinate
heresy. The first trial had been irregular; the country was then
unreconciled. The sentence which had been passed therefore was treated
as non-existent, and the tedious forms of the papacy continued still
to throw a shield round the archbishop.
On Saturday, the 7th of September,[497] the commissioners took their
places under the altar of St. Mary's Church, at Oxford. The Bishop of
Gloucester sat as president, Doctors Story and Martin appeared as
proctors for the queen, and Cranmer was brought in under the custody
of the city guard, in a black gown and leaning on a stick.
[Footnote 497: Foxe says the 12th; but this is
wrong.--See Cranmer's letter to the Queen: Jenkins,
vol. i. p. 369.]
"Thomas, Archbishop of Canterbury," cried an officer of the court,
"appear here, and make answer to that which shall be laid to thy
charge; that is to say, for blasphemy, incontinency, and heresy; make
answer to the Bishop of Gloucester, representing his holiness the
pope."
The archbishop approached the bar, bent his head and uncovered to
Story and Martin, who were present in behalf of the crown, then drew
himself up, put on his cap again, and stood fronting Brookes. "My
lord," he said, "I mean no contempt to your person, which I could have
honoured as well as any of the others; but I have sworn never to admit
the authority of the Bishop of Rome in England, and I must keep my
oath."
{p.225} The president remonstrated, but without effect, and then
proceeded to address the archbishop, who remained covered:[498]--
[Footnote 498: Exhortation of the Bishop of
Gloucester to Thomas Cranmer: _Cotton MSS.,
Vespasian_, A. 25. A copy, more rounded and
finished, is given by Foxe, in his account of
Cranmer's trial: but the latter has the appearance
of having been touched up afterwards.]
"My lord, we are come hither at this present to you, not intruding
ourselves by our own authority, but sent by commission, as you know,
by the pope's holiness partly; partly from the king's and queen's most
excellent majesties; not utterly to your discomfort, but rather to
your comfort if you will yourself. For we are come not to judge you
immediately, but to put you in remembrance of that which you have been
partly judged of before, and shall be thoroughly judged of ere long.
"Neither our coming or commission is to dispute with you, but to
examine you in matters which you have already disputed in, taught, and
written; and of your resolute answers in those points and others, to
make relation to them that shall give sentence on you. If you, of your
part, be moved to come to a uniformity, then shall not only we take
joy of our examination, but also they that have sent us. Remember
yourself then, _unde excideris_, from whence you have fallen. You have
fallen from the unity of your mother, the Holy Catholic Church, and
that by open schism. You have fallen from the true and received faith
of the same Catholic Church, and that by open heresy. You have fallen
from your fidelity and promise towards God, in breaking your orders
and vow of chastity, and that by open apostasy. You have fallen from
your fidelity and promise towards God's vicar-general, the pope, in
breaking your oath made to his holiness at your consecration, and that
by open perjury. You have fallen from your fidelity and allegiance
towards God's magistrate, your prince and sovereign lady the queen,
and that by open treason, whereof you are already attainted and
convicted. Remember, _unde excideris_, from whence you have fallen,
and in what danger you have fallen.
"You were sometime, as I and other poor men, in mean estate. God hath
called you from better to better, from higher to higher, and never
gave you over till he made you, _legatum natum_, Metropolitan
Archbishop, Primate of England. Who was more earnest then in defence
of the real presence of Christ's body and blood in the sacrament of
the altar than ye were? Then was your candle shining to be a light to
all the world, set on high on a pinnacle. But after you began to fall
from the unity of the Catholic Church by open schism, and would no
{p.226} longer acknowledge the supremacy of the pope's holiness by
God's word and ordinance;--and that by occasion, that you, in whose
hands then rested the sum of all, being primate, as was aforesaid,
would not, according to your high vocation, stoutly withstand the most
ungodly and unlawful request of your prince touching his divorce, as
that blessed martyr, St. Thomas of Canterbury, sometime your
predecessor, did withstand the unlawful requests of the prince of his
time, but would still not only yield and bear with things not to be
borne withal, but also set a-flame the fire already kindled--then your
perfections diminished; then began you, for your own part, to fancy
unlawful liberty. Then decayed your conscience of your former faith,
your former promise, the vow of chastity and discipline after the
order of priesthood; and when good conscience was once cast off, then
followed after, as St. Paul noteth, a shipwreck in the faith. Then
fell you from the faith, and out of the Catholic Church, as out of a
sure ship, into a sea of dangerous desperation; for out of the church,
to say with St. Cyprian, there is no hope of salvation at all. To be
brief; when you had forsaken God, his Spouse, his faith, and fidelity
to them both, then God forsook you; and as the apostle writeth of the
ingrate philosophers, delivered you up _in reprobum sensum_, and
suffered you to fall from one inconvenience to another, as from
perjury into schism, from schism into a kind of apostasy, from
apostasy into heresy, from heresy into traitory, and so, in
conclusion, from traitory into the highest displeasure and worthiest
indignation of your most benign and gracious queen."[499]
[Footnote 499: The address concluded with a prolix
exhortation to repentance, which I omit. It may be
read in a form sufficiently accurate in Foxe.]
When the bishop ceased, the crown proctors rose, and demanded justice
against the prisoner in the names of the king and queen.
"My lord," Cranmer replied, "I do not acknowledge this session of
yours, nor yet yourself my mislawful judge; neither would I have
appeared this day before you, but that I was brought hither; and
therefore here I openly renounce you as my judge, protesting that my
meaning is not to make any answer as in a lawful judgment, for then I
would be silent; but only for that I am bound in conscience to answer
every man of that hope which I have in Jesus Christ."
He then knelt, and turning towards the west with his back to the court
and the altar, he said the Lord's Prayer. After which, he rose,
repeated the creed, and said--
{p.227} "This I do profess as touching my faith, and make my
protestation, which I desire you to note; I will never consent that
the Bishop of Rome shall have any jurisdiction in this realm."
"Mark, Master Cranmer," interrupted Martin, "you refuse and deny him
by whose laws you do remain in life, being otherwise attainted of high
treason, and but a dead man by the laws of the realm."
"I protest before God I was no traitor," said the archbishop. "I will
never consent to the Bishop of Rome, for then I should give myself to
the devil. I have made an oath to the king, and I must obey the king
by God's law. By the Scripture, the king is chief, and no foreign
person in his own realm above him. The pope is contrary to the crown.
I cannot obey both, for no man can serve two masters at once. You
attribute the keys to the pope and the sword to the king. I say the
king hath both."
Continuing the same argument, the archbishop entered at length into
the condition of the law and the history of the Statutes of Provisors
and Premunire: he showed that the constitution of the country was
emphatically independent, and he maintained that no English subject
could swear obedience to a foreign power without being involved in
perjury.
The objection was set aside, and the subject of oaths was an
opportunity for a taunt, which the queen's proctors did not overlook.
Cranmer had unwillingly accepted the archbishopric when the Act of
Appeals was pending, and when the future relations of England with the
See of Rome, and the degree of authority which (if any) the pope was
to retain, were uncertain. In taking the usual oaths, therefore, by
the advice of lawyers, he made an especial and avowed reservation of
his duty to the crown;[500] and this so-called perjury Martin now
flung in his teeth.
[Footnote 500: Although the circumstances of the
time called properly for an open declaration of
this kind on the part of Cranmer, yet every one of
his predecessors, from the time of Edward I., must
have been inducted with a tacit understanding of
the same kind. If a bishop had been prosecuted
under the Statutes of Provisors, his oath to the
Papacy would have been no more admitted as an
excuse by the Plantagenet sovereigns, than the oath
of a college Fellow to obey the statutes of the
founder would have saved him from penalties under
the House of Hanover had he said mass in his
college chapel. Because Cranmer, foreseeing an
immediate collision between two powers, which each
asserted claims upon him, expressed in words a
qualification which was implied in the nature of
the case--it was, and is (I regret to be obliged to
speak in the present tense), but a shallow sarcasm
to taunt him with premeditated perjury.]
"It pleased the king's highness," Cranmer replied, "many and sundry
times to talk with me of the matter. I declared that, if I accepted
the office of archbishop, I must receive it at {p.228} the pope's
hands, which I neither would nor could do, for his highness was the
only supreme governor of this church in England. Perceiving that I
could not be brought to acknowledge the authority of the Bishop of
Rome, the king called Doctor Oliver and other civil lawyers, and
devised with them how he might bestow it on me, enforcing me nothing
against my conscience, who informed him I might do it by way of
protestation. I said, I did not acknowledge the Bishop of Rome's
authority further than as it agreed with the word of God, and that it
might be lawful for me at all times to speak against him; and my
protestation did I cause to be enrolled, and there I think it
remaineth."
"Let your protestation, with the rest of your talk, give judgment
against you," answered Martin. "_Hinc prima mali labes_: of that your
execrable perjury, and the king's coloured and too shamefully suffered
adultery, came heresy and all mischief into the realm."
The special charges were then proceeded with.
In reply to a series of questions, the archbishop said, that he had
been twice married--once before, and once after he was in orders. In
the time of Henry, he had kept his wife secretly, "affirming that it
was better for him to have his own wife, than to do like other
priests, having the wives of others;" and he was not ashamed of what
he had done.
He admitted his writings upon the Eucharist; he avowed the authorship
of the Catechism, of the Articles, and of a book against the Bishop of
Winchester; and these books, and his conduct generally as Archbishop
of Canterbury, he maintained and defended. His replies were entered by
a notary, to be transmitted to the pope, and for the present the
business of the court with him was over.
"Who can stay him that willingly runneth into perdition?" said
Brookes. "Who can save that will be lost? God would have you to be
saved, and you refuse it."
The archbishop was cited to appear at Rome within eighty days to
answer to the charges which would there be laid against him; and in
order that he might be able to obey the summons he was returned to his
cell in Bocardo prison, and kept there in strict confinement.
Ridley and Latimer came next, and over them the papal mantle flung no
protection.
They had been prisoners now for more than two years. What Latimer's
occupation had been for all that time, little remains {p.229} to
show, except three letters:--one, of but a few lines, was to a Mrs.
Wilkinson, thanking her for some act of kindness:[501] another, was a
general exhortation to "all unfeigned lovers of God's truth," to be
constant in their faith: the third, and most noteworthy, was to some
one who had an opportunity of escaping from arrest, and probable
martyrdom, by a payment of money, and who doubted whether he might
lawfully avail himself of the chance: there was no question of
recantation; a corrupt official was ready to accept a bribe and ask no
questions.
[Footnote 501: If the gift of a pot of cold water
shall not be in oblivion with God, how can God
forget your manifold and bountiful gifts, when He
shall say unto you. "I was in prison, and you
visited me." God grant us all to do and suffer
while we be here as may be to His will and
pleasure.--Latimer to Mrs. Wilkinson, from Bocardo:
Latimer's _Remains_, p. 444.]
Latimer had not been one of those fanatics who thought it a merit to
go in the way of danger and court persecution; but in this present
case he shared the misgiving of his correspondent, and did "highly
allow his judgment in that he thought it not lawful to redeem himself
from the crown, unless he would exchange glory for shame, and his
inheritance for a mess of pottage."
"We were created," Latimer said, "to set forth God's glory all the
days of our life, which we, as unthankful sinners, have forgotten to
do, as we ought, all our days hitherto; and now God, by affliction,
doth offer us good occasion to perform one day of our life, our duty.
If any man perceive his faith not to abide the fire, let such an one
with weeping buy his liberty until he hath obtained more strength,
lest the gospel suffer by him some shameful recantation. Let the dead
bury the dead. Do you embrace Christ's cross, and Christ shall embrace
you. The peace of God be with you for ever."[502]
[Footnote 502: Latimer's _Remains_, p. 429.]
Ridley's pen had been more busy: he had written a lamentation over the
state of England; he had written a farewell letter, taking leave of
his friends, and taking leave of life, which, clouded as it was, his
sunny nature made it hard to part from: he had written comfort to the
afflicted for the gospel, and he had addressed a passionate appeal to
the Temporal Lords to save England from the false shepherds who were
wasting the flock of Christ. But both he and Latimer had looked death
steadily in the face for two years, expecting it every day or hour. It
was now come.
On the 30th of September, the three bishops took their seats in the
Divinity school. Ridley was led in for trial, and the {p.230}
legate's commission was read, empowering them to try him for the
opinions which he had expressed in the disputation at Oxford the year
before, and "elsewhere in the time of perdition." They were to degrade
him from the priesthood if he persisted in his heresies, and deliver
him over to the secular arm.
On being first brought before the court, Ridley stood bareheaded. At
the names of the cardinal and the pope, he put on his cap, like
Cranmer, declining to acknowledge their authority. But his scruples
were treated less respectfully than the archbishop's. He was ordered
to take it off, and when he refused, it was removed by a beadle.
He was then charged with having denied transubstantiation, and the
propitiatory sacrifice of the mass, and was urged at length to recant.
His opinions on the real presence were peculiar. Christ, he said, was
not the sacrament, but was really and truly in the sacrament, as the
Holy Ghost was with the water at baptism and yet was not the water.
The subtlety of the position was perplexing, but the knot was cut by
the crucial question, whether, after the consecration of the elements,
the substance of bread and wine remained. He was allowed the night to
consider his answer, but he left no doubt what that answer would be.
"The bishops told him that they were not come to condemn him, their
province was to condemn no one, but only to cut off the heretic from
the church, for the temporal judge to deal with as he should think
fit." The cowardly sophism had been heard too often. Ridley thanked
the court "for their gentleness," "being the same which Christ had of
the high priest:" "the high priest said it was not lawful for him to
put any man to death, but committed Christ to Pilate; neither would
suffer him to absolve Christ, though he sought all the means therefore
that he might."
Ridley withdrew, and Latimer was then introduced--eighty years old
now--dressed in an old threadbare gown of Bristol frieze, a
handkerchief on his head with a night-cap over it, and over that again
another cap, with two broad flaps buttoned under the chin. A leather
belt was round his waist, to which a Testament was attached; his
spectacles, without a case, hung from his neck. So stood the greatest
man perhaps then living in the world, a prisoner on his trial, waiting
to be condemned to death by men professing to be the ministers of God.
As it was in the days of the prophets, so it was in the Son of man's
days; as it was in the days of the Son of man, so was it in the
Reformers' days; as it was in the days of the Reformers, so will it be
to the {p.231} end, so long and so far as a class of men are
permitted to hold power, who call themselves the commissioned and
authoritative teachers of truth. Latimer's trial was the counterpart
of Ridley's: the charge was the same, and the result was the same,
except that the stronger intellect vexed itself less with nice
distinctions. Bread was bread, said Latimer, and wine was wine; there
was a change in the sacrament, it was true, but the change was not in
the nature, but the dignity. He too was reprieved for the day. The
following morning, the court sat in St. Mary's Church, with the
authorities of town and university, heads of houses, mayor, aldermen,
and sheriff. The prisoners were brought to the bar. The same questions
were asked, the same answers were returned, and sentence was
pronounced upon them, as heretics obstinate and incurable.
Execution did not immediately follow. The convictions for which they
were about to die had been adopted by both of them comparatively late
in life. The legate would not relinquish the hope of bringing them
back into the superstition in which they had been born, and had lived
so long; and Soto, a Spanish friar, who was teaching divinity at
Oxford in the place of Peter Martyr, was set to work on them.
But one of them would not see him, and on the other he could make no
impression. Those whom God had cast away, thought Pole, were not to be
saved by man;[503] and the 16th of October was fixed upon as the day
on which they were to suffer. Ridley had been removed from Bocardo,
and was under the custody of the mayor, a man named Irish, whose wife
was a bigoted and fanatical Catholic. On the evening of the 15th there
was a supper at the mayor's house, where some members of Ridley's
family were permitted to be present. He talked cheerfully of his
approaching "marriage;" his brother-in-law promised to be in
attendance, and, if possible, to bring with him his wife, Ridley's
sister. Even the hard eyes of Mrs. Irish were softened to tears, as
she listened and thought of what was coming. The brother-in-law
offered to sit up through the night, but Ridley said there was no
occasion; he "minded to go to bed, and sleep as quietly as ever he did
in his life." In the morning he wrote a letter to the queen. As Bishop
of London he had granted {p.232} renewals of certain leases, on
which he had received fines. Bonner had refused to recognise them, and
he entreated the queen, for Christ's sake, either that the leases
should be allowed, or that some portion of his own confiscated
property might be applied to the repayment of the tenants.[504] The
letter was long; by the time it was finished, the sheriff's officers
were probably in readiness.
[Footnote 503: A Rev. P. Soto accepi litteras
Oxonio datas quibus me certiorem facit quid cum
duobus illis haereticis egerit qui jam erant
damnati, quorum alter ne loqui quidem cum eo
voluit: cum altero est locutus sed nihil profecit,
ut facile intelligatur a nemine servari posse quos
Deus projecerit. Itaque de illis supplicium est
sumptum.--Pole to Philip: _Epist._ Reg. Pol. vol.
v. p. 47.]
[Footnote 504: Foxe, vol. vii. p. 545. It is to the
discredit of Mary that she paid no attention to
this appeal, and left Bonner's injustice to be
repaired by the first parliament of Elizabeth.
_Commons Journals_, 1 Elizabeth.]
The place selected for the burning was outside the north wall of the
town, a short stone's throw from the southward corner of Balliol
College, and about the same distance from Bocardo prison, from which
Cranmer was intended to witness his friends' sufferings.
Lord Williams of Thame was on the spot by the queen's order; and the
city guard were under arms to prevent disturbance. Ridley appeared
first, walking between the mayor and one of the aldermen. He was
dressed in a furred black gown, "such as he was wont to wear being
bishop," a furred velvet tippet about his neck, and a velvet cap. He
had trimmed his beard, and had washed himself from head to foot; a man
evidently nice in his appearance, a gentleman, and liking to be known
as such. The way led under the windows of Bocardo, and he looked up;
but Soto, the friar, was with the archbishop, making use of the
occasion, and Ridley did not see him.[505] In turning round, however,
he saw Latimer coming up behind him in the frieze coat, with the cap
and handkerchief--the workday costume unaltered, except that under his
cloak, and reaching to his feet, the old man wore a long new shroud.
[Footnote 505: The execution, however, was
doubtless appointed to take place on that spot,
that Cranmer might see it. An old engraving in
Foxe's _Martyrs_ represents him as on the leads of
the Tower while the burning was going forward,
looking at it, and praying.]
"Oh! be ye there?" Ridley exclaimed.
"Yea," Latimer answered. "Have after as fast as I can follow."
Ridley ran to him and embraced him. "Be of good heart, brother," he
said. "God will either assauge the flame, or else strengthen us to
abide it." They knelt and prayed together, and then exchanged a few
words in a low voice, which were not overheard.
Lord Williams, the vice-chancellor, and the doctors were seated on a
form close to the stake. A sermon was preached, {p.233} "a scant
one," "of scarce a quarter of an hour;" and then Ridley begged that
for Christ's sake he might say a few words.
Lord Williams looked to the doctors, one of whom started from his
seat, and laid his hand on Ridley's lips--
"Recant," he said, "and you may both speak and live."
"So long as the breath is in my body," Ridley answered, "I will never
deny my Lord Christ and his known truth. God's will be done in me. I
commit our cause," he said, in a loud voice, turning to the people,
"to Almighty God, who shall indifferently judge all."
The brief preparations were swiftly made. Ridley gave his gown and
tippet to his brother-in-law, and distributed remembrances among those
who were nearest to him. To Sir Henry Lee he gave a new groat, to
others he gave handkerchiefs, nutmegs, slices of ginger, his watch,
and miscellaneous trinkets; "some plucked off the points of his hose;"
"happy," it was said, "was he that might get any rag of him."
Latimer had nothing to give. He threw off his cloak, stood bolt
upright in his shroud, and the friends took their places on either
side of the stake.
"O Heavenly Father," Ridley said, "I give unto thee most humble
thanks, for that thou hast called me to be a professor of thee even
unto death. Have mercy, O Lord, on this realm of England, and deliver
the same from all her enemies."
A chain was passed round their bodies, and fastened with a staple.
A friend brought a bag of powder and hung it round Ridley's neck.
"I will take it to be sent of God," Ridley said. "Have you more, for
my brother?"
"Yea, sir," the friend answered. "Give it him betimes then," Ridley
replied, "lest ye be too late."
The fire was then brought. To the last moment, Ridley was distressed
about the leases, and, bound as he was, he entreated Lord Williams to
intercede with the queen about them.
"I will remember your suit," Lord Williams answered. The lighted torch
was laid to the faggots. "Be of good comfort, Master Ridley," Latimer
cried at the crackling of the flames; "Play the man: we shall this day
light such a candle, by God's, grace, in England, as I trust shall
never be put out."
"_In manus tuas, Domine, commendo spiritum meum_," cried Ridley.
"_Domine, recipe spiritum meum._"
{p.234} "O Father of Heaven," said Latimer, on the other side,
"receive my soul."
Latimer died first: as the flame blazed up about him, he bathed his
hands in it, and stroked his face. The powder exploded, and he became
instantly senseless.
His companion was less fortunate. The sticks had been piled too
thickly over the gorse that was under them; the fire smouldered round
his legs, and the sensation of suffering was unusually protracted. "I
cannot burn," he called; "Lord have mercy on me; let the fire come to
me; I cannot burn." His brother-in-law, with awkward kindness, threw
on more wood, which only kept down the flame. At last some one lifted
the pile with "a bill," and let in the air; the red tongues of fire
shot up fiercely, Ridley wrested himself into the middle of them, and
the powder did its work.
The horrible sight worked upon the beholders as it has worked since,
and will work for ever, while the English nation survives--being,
notwithstanding, as in justice to those who caused these accursed
cruelties, must never be forgotten--a legitimate fruit of the
superstition, that, in the eyes of the Maker of the world, an error of
belief is the greatest of crimes; that while for all other sins there
is forgiveness, a mistake in the intellectual intricacies of
speculative opinion will be punished not with the brief agony of a
painful death, but with tortures to which there shall be no end.
But martyrdom was often but a relief from more barbarous atrocities.
In the sad winter months which were approaching, the poor men and
women, who, untried and uncondemned, were crowded into the bishops'
prisons, experienced such miseries as the very dogs could scarcely
suffer and survive. They were beaten, they were starved, they were
flung into dark, fetid dens, where rotting straw was their bed, their
feet were fettered in the stocks, and their clothes were their only
covering, while the wretches who died in their misery were flung out
into the fields where none might bury them.[506]
[Footnote 506: Foxe, vols. vii. viii., _passim_,
especially vol. vii. p. 605. Philpot's Petition,
Ibid. p. 682; and an account of the Prisons at
Canterbury, vol. viii. p. 255. At Canterbury,
_after_ Pole became archbishop, his archdeacon,
Harpsfeld, had fifteen prisoners confined together,
of whom five were starved to death; the other ten
were burnt. But before they suffered, and while one
of those who died of hunger still survived, they
left on record the following account of their
treatment, and threw it out of a window of the
castle:--
"Be it known to all men that shall read, or hear
read, these our letters, that we, the poor
prisoners of the castle of Canterbury, for God's
truth, are kept and lie in cold irons, and our
keeper will not suffer any meat to be brought to us
to comfort us. And if any man do bring in
anything--as bread, butter, cheese, or any other
food--the said keeper will charge them that so
bring us anything (except money or raiment), to
carry it thence again; or else, if he do receive
any food of any for us, he doth keep it for
himself, and he and his servants do spend it; so
that we have nothing thereof: and thus the keeper
keepeth away our victuals from us; insomuch that
there are four of us prisoners there for God's
truth famished already, and thus it is his mind to
famish us all. And we think he is appointed thereto
by the bishops and priests, and also of the
justices, so to famish us; and not only us of the
said castle, but also all other prisoners in other
prisons for the like cause to be also famished.
Notwithstanding, we write not these our letters to
that intent we might not afford to be famished for
the Lord Jesus' sake, but for this cause and
intent, that they having no law so to famish us in
prison, should not do it privily, but that the
murderers' hearts should be openly known to all the
world, that all men may know of what church they
are, and who is their father."--Foxe, vol. viii. p.
255.]
{p.235} Lollard's Tower and Bonner's coal-house were the chief scenes
of barbarity. Yet there were times when even Bonner loathed his work.
He complained that he was troubled with matters that were none of his;
the bishops in other parts of England thrust upon his hands offenders
whom they dared not pardon and would not themselves put to death; and,
being in London, he was himself under the eyes of the court, and could
not evade the work.[507] Against Bonner, however, the world's voice
rose the loudest. His brutality was notorious and unquestionable, and
a published letter was addressed to him by a lady, in which he was
called the "common cut-throat and general slaughter-slave to all the
bishops in England."[508] "I am credibly informed," said this person
to him, "that your lordship doth believe, and hath in secret said,
there is no hell. The very Papists themselves begin now to abhor your
bloodthirstiness, and speak shame of your tyranny. Every child can
call you by name, and say, 'Bloody Bonner is Bishop of London!' and
every man hath it as perfect upon his fingers' ends as his
Paternoster, how many you for your part have burned with fire and
famished in prison this three-quarters of a year. Though your lordship
believe neither heaven nor hell, neither God nor devil, yet if your
lordship love your own honesty, you were best to surcease from this
cruel burning and murdering. Say not but a woman gave you warning. As
for the obtaining your popish purpose in suppressing of the truth, I
put you out of doubt, you shall not obtain it so long as you go this
way to work as you do. You have lost the hearts of twenty thousand
that were rank Papists within this twelve months."
[Footnote 507: See especially his conversation with
Philpot: Foxe, vol. vii. p. 611.]
[Footnote 508: Godly Letter addressed to Bonner:
Ibid. p. 712.]
In the last words lay the heart of the whole matter. The {p.236}
martyrs alone broke the spell of orthodoxy, and made the establishment
of the Reformation possible.
In the midst of such scenes the new parliament was about to meet.
Money was wanted for the crown debts, and the queen was infatuated
enough still to meditate schemes for altering the succession, or, at
least, for obtaining the consent of the legislature to Philip's
coronation, that she might bribe him back to her side.[509]
[Footnote 509: Pour le faire plustost retourner
elle fera toutes choses incredible en ce dict
parlement en faveur dudict Sieur.... L'on dict que
l'occasion pour laquelle le dict parlement a este
assemble, ne tend a aultre fin que pour faire s'il
est possible tomber le gouvernement absolu de ce
royaulme entre les mains de ce roy.--Noailles to
the King of France, October 21: _Ambassades_, vol.
v.]
As the opening of the session approached, Elizabeth was sent again
from the court to be out of sight and out of reach of intrigue; and
Mary had the mortification of knowing that her sister's passage
through London was a triumphal procession. The public enthusiasm
became so marked at last that the princess was obliged to ride forward
with a few servants, leaving the gentlemen who were her escort to keep
back the people. Fresh alarms, too, had risen on the side of the
papacy. Cardinal Caraffa, Paul IV. as he was now named, on assuming
the tiara, had put out a bull among his first acts, reasserting the
decision of the canons on the sanctity of the estates of the church,
and threatening laymen who presumed to withhold such property from its
lawful owners with anathemas. In a conversation with Lord Montague,
the English ambassador at Rome, he had used language far from
reassuring on the concessions of his predecessor; and some violent
demonstration would undoubtedly have been made in parliament, had not
Paul been persuaded to except England especially from the general
edict.
Even then the irritation was not allayed, and a whole train of sorrows
was in store for Mary from the violent character of Caraffa. Political
popes have always been a disturbing element in the European system.
Paul IV., elected by French influence, showed his gratitude by
plunging into the quarrel between France and the Empire. He imprisoned
Imperialist cardinals in St. Angelo; he persecuted the Colonnas on
account of their Imperialist tendencies, levelled their fortresses,
and seized their lands. The Cardinal of Lorraine hastened to Rome to
conclude an alliance offensive and defensive on behalf of France; and
the queen, distracted between her religion and her duty as a wife, saw
Philip on the point of being drawn into parricidal hostility {p.237}
with his and her spiritual father. Nay, she herself might be involved
in the same calamity; for so bitter was the English humour that the
liberal party in the council were inclined to take part in the war, if
they would have the pope for an enemy; and Philip would be too happy
in their support to look too curiously to the motives of it.[510]
[Footnote 510: Ce soit ung argument plus grand que
tout aultre pour faire entrer ceulx cy a la guerre
ouverte; estant ceste nation comme ung chascung
scait fort ennemie de sadict Sainctite.--Noailles
to Montmorency: _Ambassades_, vol. v. p. 188.]
A calamity of a more real kind was also approaching Mary. She was on
the point of losing the only able minister on whose attachment she
could rely. Gardiner's career on earth was about to end.
On the 6th of October, Noailles described the Bishop of Winchester as
sinking rapidly, and certain to die before Christmas,[511] yet still
eager and energetic, perfectly aware of his condition, yet determined
to work till the last.
[Footnote 511: Same to the same.--Ibid. p. 150.]
Noailles himself had two hours' conversation with him on business:
when he took his leave, the chancellor conducted him through the
crowded ante-chamber to the door, leaning heavily on his arm. "The
people thought he was dead," he said, "but there was some life in him
yet."
Notwithstanding his condition, he roused himself for the meeting of
parliament on the 21st; he even spoke at the opening, and he was in
his place in the House of Lords on the second day of the session; but
his remaining strength broke down immediately after, and he died at
Whitehall Palace on the 13th of November. The Protestants, who
believed that he was the author of the persecution, expected that it
would cease with his end; they were deceived in their hopes, for their
sufferings continued unabated. In their opinion of his conduct they
were right, yet right but partially.
Stephen Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, was the pupil of Wolsey, and
had inherited undiminished the pride of the ecclesiastical order. If
he went with Henry in his separation from the papacy, he intended that
the English Church should retain, notwithstanding, unimpaired
authority and undiminished privileges. The humiliations heaped upon
the clergy by the king had not discouraged him, for the Catholic
doctrine was maintained unshaken, and so long as the priesthood was
regarded as a peculiar order, gifted with supernatural powers, so long
as the sacraments were held essential conditions of {p.238}
salvation, and the priesthood alone could administer them, he could
feel assured that, sooner or later, their temporal position would be
restored to them.
Thus, while loyal to the royal supremacy, the Bishop of Winchester had
hated heresy, and hated all who protected heresy with a deadly hatred.
He passed the Six Articles Bill; he destroyed Cromwell; he laboured
with all his might to destroy Cranmer; and, at length, when Henry was
about to die, he lent himself, though too prudently to be detected, to
the schemes of Surrey and the Catholics upon the regency. The failure
of those schemes, and the five years of arbitrary imprisonment under
Edward, had not softened feelings already more than violent. He
returned to power exasperated by personal injury; and justified, as he
might easily believe himself to be, in his opinion of the tendencies
of heresy, by the scandals of the Protestant administration, he
obtained, by unremitting assiduity, the re-enactment of the
persecuting laws, which he himself launched into operation with
imperious cruelty.
Yet there was something in Gardiner's character which was not wholly
execrable. For thirty years he worked unweariedly in the service of
the public; his judgment as a member of council was generally
excellent; and Somerset, had he listened to his remonstrances, might
have saved both his life and credit. He was vindictive, ruthless,
treacherous, but his courage was indomitable. He resisted Cromwell
till it became a question which of the two should die, and the lot was
as likely to have fallen to him as to his rival. He would have
murdered Elizabeth with the forms of law or without, but Elizabeth was
the hope of all that he most detested. He was no dreamer, no
high-flown enthusiast, but he was a man of clear eye and hard heart,
who had a purpose in his life which he pursued with unflagging energy.
Living as he did in revolutionary times, his hand was never slow to
strike when an enemy was in his power; yet in general when Gardiner
struck, he stooped, like an eagle, at the nobler game, leaving the
linen-drapers and apprentices to "the mousing owls." His demerits were
vast; his merits were small, yet something.
"Well, well," as some one said, winding up his epitaph, "Mortuus est,
et sepultus est, et descendit ad inferos; let us say no more about
him."[512]
[Footnote 512: Special Grace appointed to have been
said at York on the Accession of
Elizabeth.--_Tanner MSS._, Bodleian Library.]
To return to the parliament. On the 23rd of October a bull {p.239}
of Paul IV, confirming the dispensation of Julius, was read in the
House of Commons.[513] On the 29th the crown debts were alleged as a
reason for demanding a subsidy. The queen had been prevented from
indulging her desire for a standing army. The waste and peculation of
the late reign had been put an end to; and the embarrassments of the
treasury were not of her creation. Nevertheless the change in social
habits, and the alteration in the value of money, had prevented the
reduction of the expenditure from being carried to the extent which
had been contemplated; the marriage had been in many ways costly, and
large sums had been spent in restoring plundered church plate. So
great had been the difficulties of the treasury, that, although fresh
loans had been contracted with the Jews, the wages of the household
were again two years in arrear.
[Footnote 513: _Commons Journals_, 2nd and 3rd
Philip and Mary.]
Parliament showed no disposition to be illiberal; they only desired to
be satisfied that if they gave money it would be applied to the
purpose for which it was demanded. The Subsidy Bill, when first
introduced, was opposed in the House of Commons on the ground that the
queen would give the keys of the treasury to her husband; and after a
debate, a minority of a hundred voted for refusing the grant.[514] The
general spirit of the Houses, however, was, on the whole, more
generous. Two fifteenths were voted in addition to the subsidy, which
the queen, on her side, was able to decline with thanks.[515] The
money question was settled quietly, and the business of the session
proceeded.
[Footnote 514: _Commons Journals_, 2nd and 3rd
Philip and Mary.--Noailles to the Constable,
October 31.]
[Footnote 515: _Commons Journal._ Noailles says
that the queen demanded the fifteenths, and that
the Commons refused to grant them. The account in
the _Journals_ is confirmed by a letter of Lord
Talbot to the Earl of Shrewsbury.--Lodge's
_Illustrations_, vol. i. p. 207.]
If her subjects were indifferent to their souls, Mary was anxious
about her own. On the 11th of November, a bill was read a first time
in the House of Lords, "whereby the king's and queen's majesties
surrendered, and gave into the hands of the pope's holiness the
first-fruits and tenths of all ecclesiastical benefices." The
reception of the measure can be traced in the changes of form which it
experienced. The payment of annates to the See of Rome was a
grievance, both among clergy and laity, of very ancient standing. The
clergy, though willing to be relieved from paying first-fruits to the
crown, were not so loyal to the successors of St. Peter as to desire
to restore their contributions into the old channel; while the laity,
who from {p.240} immemorial time had objected on principle to the
payment of tribute to a foreign sovereign, were now, through their
possession of the abbey lands and the impropriation of benefices,
immediately interested parties. On the 19th of November fifty members
of the House of Commons waited, by desire, upon the queen, to hear her
own resolutions, and to listen to an admonition from the
cardinal.[516] On the 20th a second bill was introduced, "whereby the
king's and queen's majesties surrendered and gave the first-fruits and
tenths into the hands of the laity."[517] The crown would not receive
annates longer in any form; and as laymen liable to the payment of
them could not conveniently be required to pay tribute to Rome, it was
left to their consciences to determine whether they would follow the
queen's example in a voluntary surrender.
[Footnote 516: Mr. Speaker declared the queen's
pleasure to be spoken yesterday, for to depart with
the first-fruits and tenths; and my Lord Cardinal
spake for the tithes and impropriations of
benefices to be spiritual.--_Commons Journals_,
November 20: 2nd and 3rd Philip and Mary.]
[Footnote 517: _Lords Journals._]
Even then, however, the original bill could not pass so long as the
pope's name was in it, or so long as the pope was interested in it. As
it left the Lords, it was simply a surrender, on behalf of the crown,
of all claims whatever upon first-fruits of benefices, whether from
clergy or laity. The tenths were to continue to be paid. Lay
impropriators should pay them to the crown. The clergy should pay them
to the legate, by whom they were to be applied to the discharge of the
monastic pensions, from which the crown was to be relieved. The crown
at the same time set a precedent of sacrifice by placing in the
legate's hands unreservedly every one of its own impropriations.[518]
[Footnote 518: 2nd and 3rd Philip and Mary, cap.
iv.]
In this form the measure went down to the Commons, where it
encountered fresh and violent opposition. To demand a subsidy in one
week, and in the next to demand permission to sacrifice a sixth part
of the ordinary revenue, was inconsistent and irrational. The laity
had no ambition to take upon themselves the burdens of the clergy. On
the 27th there was a long discussion;[519] on the 3rd of December the
bill was carried, but with an adverse minority of a hundred and
twenty-six, against a majority of a hundred and ninety-three.[520]
[Footnote 519: _Commons Journals._]
[Footnote 520: Ibid. The temper of the opposition
may be gathered from the language of a pamphlet
which appeared on the accession of Elizabeth.
The writer describes the clergy as "lads of
circumspection, and verily _filii hujus saeculi_."
He complains of their avarice in inducing the
queen, "at one chop, to give away fifty thousand
pounds and better yearly from the inheritance of
her crown unto them, and many a thousand after,
unto those idle hypocrites besides."