"Not one word more touching Robin. There be times when I feel as though
I could bear it no longer, though what I could do to end it, soothly I
cannot tell. I conceive well what David signified, when he saith he did
roar through the very disquietness of his heart. I dare not tell this
to Marguerite, for she is too nearly of the same complexion to give me
any comfort; and to say a word to Esther is no good, for she silenceth
me at once with some passage of Holy Writ as `Shall not the Judge of all
the earth do right?' And what can I say to that but Amen? Jack is
always loving and tender, but he can (I well perceive) see little
comfort herein himself; and to do so much as name the thing to Thekla
were wanton cruelty, though I do fancy she should be the best comforter.
So I must wait on, and cry unto God. It may be that is the very thing
He would have of me."
Bad news came by Austin, early in 1557--the death of the Earl of Sussex
[Note 4], Mr Rose's chief friend in high places. Poor Marguerite was
much downcast, saying they had now lost their best friend.
"No, Mother dear," answered Thekla, "not our best Friend. He is in an
higher place; and He dieth no more."
Another Easter came and passed; and King Philip returned to England.
Every now and then Austin visited the Lamb; but he brought no news of
Robin. Isoult thought she had never realised how dearly she loved the
lad till now. It was hard to thank God for such a blank in the home as
this; and yet deep in the inmost heart she knew, as every Christian
knows, that the Father was doing all things well, and that "there was no
must be without a needs be." To wait on the Lord is no easy task to
flesh and blood; but there is one thing yet harder, and that is to rest
in the Lord while waiting.
And meanwhile Thekla drooped and faded, day by day. She never spoke now
of Robin; but it was easy to see that she had not forgotten him. Slower
and more languid grew her step, and her face whiter and graver, with an
expression of sorrowful patience, which did not quit its hold upon the
lips even when they smiled.
"She is worn to a shadow," said Marguerite, bitterly. "Why cannot we go
home to God? What profit is it to Him that we do suffer?"
And Isoult was silent; but she remembered Robin's words about "believers
in the dark."
On the 7th of June, which was Whit Monday, there was a Passion Play at
Court. Isoult, coming in from a call upon her neighbour, Mrs Brent,
observed in a rather disgusted tone--
"Gillian Brent must needs go to see this mystery. For me, I might as
easily or as willingly go to see a martyrdom. She saith 'tis right
sweet and devotional, and maketh her to feel so good she cannot tell how
much. 'Tis a sort of goodness I covet not. It were like murdering the
Son of God over again, to see His blessed name taken upon himself of a
sinful man, and His bitter passion set forth to divert men. Gillian
saith none will see the thing as I do; but that cannot I help.
Perchance He may, when He looketh down upon it."
At her house at Chelsea, on the 16th of July, died Anna of Cleve, one of
the two widows of Henry the Eighth. She came to England a Lutheran, and
died a Papist. King Philip went to Flanders on the 5th of July; on the
14th of August came news of the great victory of Saint Quentin, which
the King had won there; and the next day there were great thanksgivings
and rejoicings over all the City. And on the 20th of October died Mary
Countess of Arundel, at Arundel House; she was cousin of Philippa
Basset, and when she was Countess of Sussex, Isoult had lived for some
time in her house with Anne Basset.
A fortnight previous, London was requested to rejoice again, for peace
was concluded with the Pope.
"Verily," said Dr Thorpe, "this is a marvellous thing, to bid us
rejoice, and to give us cause for mourning."
"Marry," responded Mr Ferris, "for me, when the war brake forth, I sang
the _Te Deum_ under my breath; now will I clothe me in sackcloth under
my raiment, and so shall I have both sorrowed and rejoiced, and none can
grudge against me."
The year 1557 closed heavily. The burnings went on, but they were
chiefly of poor men and women: sometimes, but not often, of children or
girls. On the 12th of December a Gospellers' meeting was dispersed, and
many taken by the Sheriff; but no friends of the Averys. All this time
Mr Holland, with his wife and child, were at his father's house in
Lancashire, and Mr Underhill with his household at Coventry. Isoult's
last entry in her diary for this year ran as follows:--
"Austin came yesterday, to tell us my Lady of Suffolk and Mr Bertie did
quit Germany, where they had refuged, in April last, and be now safe in
Poland, at a town called Crossen, and the King's Grace of Poland hath
set Mr Bertie over a province of his. I am glad to hear this. They
had, nathless, many and great troubles in their journey, but sith 'tis
all over, it is not worth grieving for.
"Ah, faithless heart and foolish! and will not all troubles be so, when
the last mile of the journey cometh? Yea, may we not find we had most
cause to thank God for the roughest parts of the way? So saith my sense
and judgment: yet for all this will mine heart keep crying out, and will
not be silent. O Robin, Robin! an other year!"
The Gospellers never entered on any year with heavier hearts than on the
year 1558. The year of all the century! the year that was to close so
gloriously--to go out with trumpets, and bells, and bonfires, and _Te
Deums_, and all England in a wild ferment of delight and thanksgiving!
And how often do we enter on a year of mourning with our hearts singing
anthems?
It is well that it should be so. We have abundant cause to thank God
that He has hidden the future from us. It is enough for us to know that
all things work together for good to them that love Him, to them that
are the called according to His purpose.
But very, very mournfully came this year in; for it opened with the loss
of Calais. Isoult had dwelt there for two years with Lady Lisle; and
there were few places nearer to her heart. Perhaps we can hardly
picture to ourselves how nearly that loss touched every English heart.
It was as if each man in the land had lost a piece of his estate.
Calais belonged to every Englishman.
"Well, my friends in the monastery!" was the greeting of Mr Ferris,
"that I promised Underhill I would look to by times. Hath your secluded
ear been yet pierced with the tidings this morrow--that be making every
man all over London to swear and curse, that loveth not his soul better
than his anger?"
"What now?" said John. "Nay, the Courts be not yet opened again, so I
have bidden at home."
"And I am an old man, burdened with an access," [a fit of the gout] said
Dr Thorpe. "Come, out with your news! What platform [Note 5] toucheth
it?"
"Every platform in the realm. Have it here--Calais is lost."
"Calais!" They said no more.
But a vision rose before the eyes of Isoult--of George Bucker in the
pulpit of the Lady Church, and Lord and Lady Lisle in the nave below: of
the Market Place, where his voice had rung out true and clear: of the
Lantern Gate whereon his head had been exposed: of the gallows near
Saint Pierre whereon he had died. His voice came back to her, and Lord
Lisle's--both which she had heard last in the Tower, but both which were
to her for ever bound up with Calais. Her eyes were swimming, and she
could not speak. And before another word had been uttered by any one,
the latch was lifted by Philippa Basset.
"There is not a man left in England!" she cried. "Calais had never been
lost, had _I_ been there to fire the culverins."
"No, Madam," said Mr Ferris (who did not know that she was a Papist).
"They have all been burned or beheaded."
"Upon my word, but I am coming to think so!" cried she. "Shame upon
every coward of them! Were there not enough to fill the first breach
with a wall of men's bodies, rather than lose the fairest jewel of the
Crown? Beshrew the recreants! but I had never come away from that
breach alive! I would have died with Calais!"
"I am sorry you were not there, Madam," said he, "for the sake of
Calais. For your own sake, 'tis well."
"I am sorry all over," answered she. "The Queen taketh it most heavily
of all. She said to her ladies that when she should be dead, they
should find `Calais' graved upon her heart."
Hitherto the storm of persecution had not come inside the little walled
circle of friends dear to the hearts of the Averys. It had raged around
them, had broken fiercely upon men whom they reverenced and loved as
afar off. But now it was to come within. One whose eyes had looked
into theirs, whose lips had smiled on them, whose voice had bidden God
bless them,--ay, upon whose knee the children had sat, and chattered to
him in childish wise,--was summoned from the midst of them, to go up in
the chariot of fire into the presence of the Lord.
Austin and Mr Underhill came together, both very pensive, on the night
of the 6th of May.
"There is ill news with you, I fear," said John.
"There is ill news, and that right heavy," answered Mr Underhill.
"Roger Holland is taken."
"Where and how?" they asked.
"With six other, in a quiet close near Saint John's Wood, where they
were met to read God's Word and pray together, this last May Day; and
carried afore my Lord of London. He had better have tarried at his
father's in Lancashire, whence he was but newly come."
"And Bessy?" said Isoult, compassionately.
"Roger left her and the child in Lancashire," said he; "where, if she
will take mine avisement, she will remain."
Mr Holland was examined before Bishop Bonner, Lord Strange being
present, with others of his Lancashire kinsmen. Austin reported that
"he confessed Christ right nobly, and kept up the Bishop in a corner by
his wise and gentle learning--such as I had not thought had been in
him:" and at last, after much discussion, the Bishop lost his patience
(a commodity of which he never carried much to market), called Mr
Holland a blasphemous heretic, and sentenced him to be burned.
Mr Holland replied, as the gaoler was about to remove him,--"My Lord, I
beseech you, suffer me to speak two words."
"Nay!" cried he, "I will not hear thee: have him away!"
Lord Strange interfered, and begged that his cousin might be heard.
"Speak?" growled Bonner, "what hast thou to say?"
Mr Holland answered, "Even now I told you that your authority was from
God, and by His sufferance; and now I tell you, God hath heard the
prayer of His servants, which hath been poured forth with tears for His
afflicted saints, whom you daily persecute, as now you do us. But this
I dare be bold in God to say (by whose Spirit I am moved), that God will
shorten your hand of cruelty, that for a time you shall not molest His
Church. And this you shall in a short time well perceive, my dear
brethren, to be most true. For after this day, in this place, there
shall not be any by him put to the trial of fire and faggot."
The Bishop replied that "he should yet live to burn, yea, and he would
burn, for all this prattling:" and so went his way, and Mr Holland was
taken back to Newgate.
But the Bishop, like many another, laid his plans without reference to
Him who sat above the water-floods. Roger Holland had an unction from
the Holy One, and his prescience was true. The commandment was gone
forth from the presence of the King--"Hitherto shalt thou come, and no
further." After that once, by Bonner, and in Smithfield, there was
never another "trial of fire and faggot."
Yet for that once, the Devil and Edmund Bonner had their way. Waiting
for Roger Holland were the white robe and the martyr's palm; and with
his name the muster-roll of soldiers slain in the great battle of
England was closed in Heaven.
It is not entirely unedifying to note _why_ this man was martyred. So
long as he pursued the profligate course on which he had embarked in
early youth, Rome had not a word to say to him. Sin does not come under
her cognisance, except to be muffled up in absolution, and hidden from
the eyes of the sinner--but not from the eyes of God. But the moment
that Holland's course was altered, and he began to try so to walk as to
please God, that moment he came under the ban of her who dares to stand
up in the face of the world, and with unblushing effrontery to call
herself the Church of God.
Very late on the 28th of June, Augustine Bernher brought the news of the
last martyrdom. His face told, before he spoke, that he came to say
something terrible. The first thoughts of those at the Lamb, as usual,
flew to Robin and Mr Rose; but Austin quickly turned them into a
different channel.
"I am come," he said, "from Roger Holland's martyrdom."
"Eh, Austin! is it over with Mr Holland?" cried Isoult.
"It is over with him, and he shall suffer no more pains of death for
ever. He and the other six taken with him were burned to-day in
Smithfield."
"And how went it with him?"
"When he was come to the stake," answered Austin, "he embraced it, and
looking up unto Heaven, he saith:--`Lord, I most humbly thank Thy
Majesty that Thou hast called me from the state of death unto the light
of Thy heavenly Word, and now unto the fellowship of Thy saints, that I
may sing and say, Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of Hosts. And, Lord, into
Thy hands I commit my spirit. Lord, bless these Thy people, and save
them from idolatry.' And so, looking up unto Heaven, and praising
God,--God stooped and took him."
"Alas, poor Bessy!" said Isoult, after a while.
"I must write unto her," said Austin. "I trust she is yet safe in
Lancashire."
Isoult did not forget her before God that night. It was easy for the
mass of the Gospellers to think of Mr Holland as he now was, at Home, in
the safe rest of the Father's house, and to praise God for him. But his
Bessy was not likely to do so as yet. When the night is very dark, we
cannot always lift our heads to see how fair the light shines on the
further side of the Jordan; and to us who are in the thickness of the
darkness, it is at times no lighter for that knowledge. And the night
was very dark now.
And yet some tell us--ay, some of us, Englishmen whose fathers passed
through these dreadful scenes, leaving to their sons such awful
memories,--they tell us it were better to leave those memories sleeping.
"Why rake up such disagreeable reminiscences? They belong to past
ages. Rome is different now, just as society is different. Is this
charity, peace, forbearance?"
I reply, it _is_ charity, and of the highest type. When a man sees his
friend in the grasp of a tiger, he does not drop his levelled gun on the
plea of charity _to the tiger_. And Rome is not different. She only
looks so, because the wisdom of our fathers circumscribed her
opportunities, just as the tiger looks harmless in a cage in the
Zoological Gardens. Shall we therefore open the cage door?
And we, who are bent on pulling down as fast as we can those bars which
our fathers forged in tears and blood,--let us be a little more
consistent. Let us take away the locks from our doors, because for ten
years there has been no attempt at burglary in that street. Let us pull
down the hurdles which surround our sheep-pens, because for some time no
lamb has been lost from that particular flock. We are not such fools as
to do these things. Men's bodies, and still more men's property, are
safely protected among us. But how is it about men's souls? How will
it be when the rulers of England shall stand at the Bar whence there is
no appeal, and hear from the great Judge the awful requirement,--"Where
is thy flock that was given thee, thy beautiful flock?" Shall we hear
about "want of power"--which generally means want of will--about "the
voice of the nation," and "the spirit of the age," and "respect to the
opinions of others," and the numberless little fictions with which men
wile their souls to sleep, here and now? Will the Bishop who swore
before God to "drive away all erroneous and strange doctrine contrary to
His Word," offer to the Judge then those convenient excuses with which
he salves over his conscience now? Will the statesman who followed the
multitude to do evil, instead of leading them to do good, urge in His
presence who seeth in secret the platitudes about majorities and the
national will which he finds satisfactory now? There is a very solemn
passage in God's neglected and despised Word, concerning him who knew
his Lord's will, and did it not.
Another Easter passed away, and left them safe. The summer was a
season, not so much of suffering, as of fear and waiting. They were
tarrying the Lord's leisure. A few months later, Isoult Avery wrote in
her diary--
"My birthday, and I am now forty-five years of age. It is not unmeet
that I should tarry a while at the milestones, and look back on the way
by which the Lord hath led me. This last year hath been very woeful and
weary. What shall the next be?
"O Lord, Thou knowest. All the way is of Thine ordering, all guided by
wisdom that never erreth, by love that never waxeth faint. I will trust
Thy wisdom to devise, and Thy love to effect. Father in Heaven! let me
not faint under Thy correction, neither let me despise Thy chastening.
Be merciful unto me, O Lord, be merciful unto me! And Thou (not I)
knowest best how and when I need Thy mercy. Hear (and if need be,
forgive) the cry which echoes in mine heart for ever--`If it be
possible,' give us back our darling!"
The great Emperor Charles the Fifth died on the 21st of September in
this year, in the monastery of San Yuste, whither he went to "make his
salvation" in his old age.
"I trust," said Isoult, when she heard it, "that he repented him, among
other sins, of his ill-using of his mother. There shall doubtless be
many masses for him here."
"_Il faut beaucoup prier_!" said Marguerite Rose, drily.
The end was at hand now. The eventful November of 1558 had set in.
Philippa told Isoult that the Queen suffered fearfully. She sat many
days on the floor of her chamber, her knees higher than her head. The
pain in her head was dreadful; and people began to say that she, who was
originally accounted merciful, had been merciful all through, for that
others had given orders for the burnings, and she, even in sceptring the
Acts, had scarcely known what she did. The last time that she went to
the House of Lords, she was too ill to walk, but was borne by her
gentlemen in waiting to the throne. James Basset told his sister, that
"he counted all burned or beheaded in the Queen's reign had not suffered
so much, body nor soul, as she."
James Basset, who had been ailing for some time, grew worse on the 16th,
when the Queen and the Cardinal were both so ill, that it was thought
doubtful which of them would die the sooner. All matters of state, and
many of business, were held as it were in the air, waiting the Queen's
death. Many of the Council had already set forth for Hatfield. "That
should not like me," said Isoult, "were I either the dying sister or the
living." And she who lay in that palace of White Hall must have known
(if she were not beyond knowing anything) that round her grave would be
no mourners--that she had done little to cause England to weep for her,
and much to cause rejoicing that she could harm England no more. Did
she know that men without were naming the day Hope Wednesday, because
every hour they expected news of her end?
"God save Queen Elizabeth! Long live the Queen! Yea, may the Queen
live for ever!"
These were the first sounds which Isoult heard when she was awoke from
sleep on the Friday morning. Indeed, there was far too much tumult for
sleep. Great crowds of men were pouring through Aldgate; and as she
looked from the window she saw men kissing, and embracing, and weeping,
and laughing, and shouting, all at once, and all together. And but one
was the burden of all--"The Queen is dead! The Lady Elizabeth is Queen!
God save Queen Elizabeth!"
"Hurrah!" said Mr Ferris, an hour later, flinging up his cap to the
ceiling as he came in. "Hurrah! now is come the Golden Age again! We
may breathe now. Long life to the Queen of the Gospellers!"
"I thought she were rather the Queen of the Lutherans," suggested John.
"All one," answered he. "Lutherans burn not Gospellers, nor clap them
into prison neither. What have Gospellers to fear from Queen Anne's
daughter?"
"They may have something from King Henry's," answered John.
"Jack, thou deservest--I cannot stay to tell thee what: and I have
shouted and danced myself an hungered. Mrs Avery, have you to spare of
that goodly round of beef?"
"Pray you, sit down with us, Mr Ferris," said she; "we shall not lack a
shive for you."
"Ah, but if I lack half-a-dozen shives, how then?" said he.
"Sit down, man," responded John. "Why, George Ferris! you are in a
fever!"
"Pretty nigh," answered he. "Is there any man in London out of one this
morrow?--except you."
"I am too thankful to be merry," he replied. "But how goes it with
Cardinal Pole?"
"His death is hourly looked for," said Mr Ferris.
That afternoon, at the Cross and other places, was Queen Elizabeth
proclaimed. Even by night men scarcely seemed to have cooled down: so
glad was England of her Protestant Queen, so freely she breathed when
the hand of the oppressor was withdrawn. In the afternoon of Friday
died Cardinal Pole, outliving his cousin Queen Mary only twenty-four
hours. John reported that the very faces he met in the streets looked
freer and gladder, as if every man were now at his ease and king of
himself. Now, he thought, or, at the farthest, when the Queen was
crowned, would the prisons be opened. Who would come out of them?--was
a very anxious question; and yet more, Who would not come? That day
Marguerite wrote to Mr Rose, by Austin, who set out immediately to carry
the news to the banished Gospellers; and they looked forward hopefully
to seeing him ere long [Note 6]. Might they look, with any thing like
hope, to see another? Their judgment had given up hope long ago. But
the heart will hope, even against all, until it knows assuredly that
there can be hope no longer.
"Isoult," said her husband, when he came home in the evening, "I have
heard tidings that methinks shall make thee a little sorry."
"What be they, Jack?" said she.
"The death of Mr James Basset," he answered, "yestereven."
Isoult wrote a little loving note to Philippa; but she heard nothing
from her.
Again on the 28th was all London in a ferment of eager joy: for the
Queen came to the Tower, in readiness for her coronation. She came from
the Charter House, sitting in a rich chariot, arrayed in a riding-dress
of purple velvet, and a scarf tied over her shoulder. All London Wall
was hung with tapestry; and beside her rode Lord Robert Dudley, who had
been made Master of the Horse.
"Lack-a-daisy!" said Dr Thorpe, "must we be ridden with Dudleys yet
again? Is the quotidian ague throughout England all this autumn not
plague enough, that my Lord Robin Dudley must needs bear the bell? A
fig for all the Dudleys--nor are they worth that!"
On the 4th of December the Queen went through the City to Somerset
House. Some trouble was feared concerning her coronation. The
Archbishop of York and all the Popish Bishops refused to crown her; nor
would they consecrate any not of their way of thinking. Thirteen
Bishops had died of the pestilence; but not Dr Bonner, to whom (alone of
all of them) Elizabeth refused her hand to kiss when they met her in
progress. How differently this year had closed from the last! The
Gospellers looked back, indeed, with trembling, yet with great
thankfulness; and there was no need to look forward (but for one thing)
save with hope. They must know soon now the fate of the missing one.
At least the waiting and fearing would be over. The knowledge might
leave their hearts sick; yet, even at the worst, it would be no longer
with hope deferred.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Note 1. An interesting notice of George Shipside, husband of Alice
Ridley, with an account of his Bible annotated by himself, will be found
in the _Sunday at Home_, 1871, page 789 _et seq_.
Note 2. Spanish Sovereigns sign in a manner peculiar to themselves, not
by the Christian name, but "I the King," or "I the Queen."
Note 3. With the exception of a few minor details, chiefly relating to
others than herself, this account of Queen Juana's gradual martyrdom is
strictly true.
Note 4. He died February 15, 1557, at "Sir Harry Sydney's house, Chanon
Roo, Westminster" (Harl. Ms. 897, folio 79).
Note 5. This old English word for _party_ we have so utterly lost, that
we fancy it a new one recently introduced from America.
Note 6. It might have been expected that the banished or escaped
Protestants would wait to see the line which Elizabeth's policy would
take before venturing to return: but no such misgivings troubled their
minds. So perfect was their confidence in her, that they flocked home
like doves to their windows.