Persecution.
Bloody Mary (1553-1558)
The Duke of Northumberland was more ambitious than able, and more
bold than skillful. In seeking to disturb the natural order of
succession he had undertaken a task beyond his strength; nor had
he appreciated the relative power of the two religions now
existing side by side; he thought the Catholics more weakened
than they were, and the Protestants more disposed to sacrifice
all for the accession of a Protestant sovereign than they showed
themselves to be; the project of taking possession of the two
princesses, Mary and Elizabeth, was thwarted from the first. The
death of the young king was kept secret, and an express was
despatched to the sisters to bring them to him. It was the second
time that Mary had been summoned, and notwithstanding her
repugnance, she had set out, when a note from the Earl of Arundel
warned her of the state of affairs; she immediately retraced her
steps, and shut herself up in her castle of Norfolk. Elizabeth
had also been warned in time. Northumberland henceforth had to
struggle against a rival, at liberty and fully aware of his
sinister designs.
{294}
Edward VI. had been dead three days, and precautions had been
taken in London when Lady Jane Grey, who had retired to Chelsea
during the last weeks of the life of the king, was recalled to
Sion House, the palace of her family. She was there alone on the
10th of July, 1553, occupied, it is said, in reading Plato in
Greek--for Lady Jane was as learned as she was gentle and
modest--when the arrival of the Duke of Northumberland, her
father-in-law, accompanied by several lords of the council, was
announced. Indifferent subjects were talked about; but the young
woman was troubled by the watchful looks and respectful tone of
her visitors, when her mother-in-law entered with the Duchess of
Suffolk. "The king, your cousin and our sovereign lord, has given
up his soul to God," said Northumberland; "but before his death,
and in order to preserve the kingdom from the infection of
Popery, he resolved to set aside his sisters, Mary and Elizabeth,
declared illegitimate by an act of Parliament, and he commanded
us to proclaim your Grace as queen and sovereign to succeed him."
At the same moment, the lords of the council prostrated
themselves before Lady Jane, vowing fidelity to her; she started
back a pace, uttered a loud cry, and fell to the floor. She was
young, timid, in delicate health, fond of retirement, and
addicted to serious studies; she protested, asserting that she
did not feel herself capable of governing. "But if the right is
mine," she said at length, raising her head with humble reliance,
"I hope that God will give me strength to bear the sceptre for
the glory and happiness of the people of England." She was
immediately conducted to the Tower, the usual residence of
sovereigns before their coronation; at the same time, the death
of King Edward VI. and the accession of Lady Jane Grey were
proclaimed in the streets and market-places, while the reason of
the exclusion of the princesses was explained.
{295}
The crowd listened in silence, without any tokens of
satisfaction, and the name of Mary was whispered among them. This
infringement of the ordinary rules of succession was evidently
viewed with no favour by the people of London.
In the country the movement was more vigorous. Mary had written
to the council, haughtily claiming her rights in a tone befitting
the sovereign power, and the lords had not yet replied to this
appeal, when a certain number of noblemen and gentlemen hastened
to join, their legitimate queen. The Catholics were not alone,
for Mary promised to change nothing in the laws and the religion
established by King Edward; she had a small army under her
orders, when the Duke of Northumberland, who had hesitated to
leave London, and the conspirators whom he held in some degree
captive decided at length to march against Mary, leaving the Duke
of Suffolk with his daughter to govern in her name. He had
scarcely issued forth from the capital, when the members of the
council crept out of the Tower under different pretexts, and met
at Castle Baynard, the residence of the Earl of Pembroke. The
Earl of Arundel was the first to announce his resolution of
passing over to Queen Mary. "If reasons do not suffice,"
exclaimed Lord Pembroke, "this sword shall make Mary queen, or I
will die in her cause!" All the nobles responded with
acclamation, and the Duke of Suffolk, who had rejoined his
colleagues, united his voice to theirs, thus basely abandoning
his daughter.
{296}
Mary was proclaimed in the streets of London, in the open places
where a week before the name of Lady Jane had resounded; at
Paul's Cross, where Bishop Ridley had preached on the preceding
Sunday in favour of the Protestant succession. This time the
people applauded, and the Catholics triumphed; the Protestants
had not learnt to connect religious principles with political
freedom, or did not foresee the evils which they were about to
suffer. On leaving London with his troops, Northumberland himself
had augured ill from the coldness of the populace. "They come to
see us pass," he said, "but nobody cries God bless you!" He was
at Cambridge when he learned of Mary's proclamation in London,
the defection of the members of the council, and that of the
forces which he had raised in the north and who had rallied round
Mary. Tears flowed down his cheeks when he repaired to the public
square of the city, and throwing his cap in the air, was the
first to proclaim Queen Mary. On the morrow he was arrested and
taken to the Tower, which Lady Jane had quitted to return to Sion
House as soon as Mary had been recognized by the council, but the
little queen of ten days had been arrested, as well as her
husband; the gloomy fortress began to be peopled by all the
actors in the drama of which this poor girl was to be the victim.
Mary advanced by short stages towards London, where she entered
on the 3rd of August amidst the joyful acclamations of the
populace; her sister, Elizabeth, came to meet her with a thousand
noblemen and gentlemen. The conduct of Elizabeth had been as
skillful as it was prudent, and worthy of the wise policy which
she was to practise upon the throne, and she was already indebted
for this to the counsels of the Secretary of State, Cecil.
{297}
When Northumberland had caused the accession of Lady Jane to be
announced to her, proposing land and riches in exchange for her
rights to the throne, Elizabeth replied that she had no rights to
renounce, since her older sister, the Princess Mary, was alive.
Then declaring herself ill, she awaited the event, knowing how to
forecast it to the exact extent in order to arrive before her
sister in London, muster her friends, and salute the new
sovereign upon her entry into the capital. During the five years
of the reign of her sister all the prudence of Cecil was required
for the service of the mistress whom he had chosen.
The first care of the queen was to repair to the Tower; the
prisoners awaited her, not those whom she had caused to be
detained there, but the old Duke of Norfolk, a captive for so
many years, the Duchess of Somerset, and Bishop Gardiner, who
delivered in the name of all a brief speech of welcome to the
sovereign whose accession restored them to liberty. Mary was
moved to tears. "You are my prisoners," she said, embracing them.
The Bishops Bonner and Tunstall were also delivered from their
long captivity; the latter was admitted into the council as well
as Gardiner, who soon became chancellor and prime minister. The
corpse of King Edward had scarcely been interred, and the public
obsequies celebrated according to the English rites, when already
the sermons at Paul's Cross changed their character. Bourn, canon
of St. Paul's, soon afterwards Bishop of Bath and Wells, rose
against the innovations introduced into the Church under King
Edward, declaring against those who had kept Bonner, the
legitimate bishop of that diocese, for four years in prison.
{298}
The people were not accustomed to such tirades; the canon was
upon the point of being beaten to death; two reformed preachers,
who were shortly to seal their testimony with their lives,
Bradford and Rogers, had great difficulty in conducting him back
to his residence in safety.
Queen Mary had been a fortnight in London, but six weeks only had
elapsed since the death of Edward VI., when the Duke of
Northumberland, his eldest son, the Earl of Warwick, and the
Marquis of Northampton appeared before the council as prisoners
charged with high treason. The crime was manifest, but the judges
assembled to condemn the guilty men were implicated in it like
themselves. Northumberland tried to shelter himself behind the
members of the council, who had all signed the edict emanating
from the personal will of the deceased king; the councillors
maintained that they had obeyed under the penalty of their own
lives; the Duke of Norfolk, who had but just escaped from the
Tower, presided over the court; Cranmer and the Duke of Suffolk
signed the sentence. All the base acts of Northumberland could
not save his head; in vain did he ask to confer with the doctors
sent by the Queen in order to enlighten his conscience; the only
favor granted him was that of being simply beheaded. The Earl of
Warwick behaved with more self-respect; four secondary
accomplices were condemned with the three great noblemen; but
Northumberland, Sir John Gates, and Sir Thomas Palmer alone
suffered their sentence. They died on Tower Hill on the 22nd of
August; the duke was interred in the chapel of the Tower, beside
the Duke of Somerset, his former victim; on his right and left
reposed the remains of Anne Boleyn and Catharine Howard.
{299}
The queen was urged to rid herself also of Lady Jane Grey and her
husband; but she called to mind the youth of the poor little
usurper, saying that she had been but a tool in the hands of her
father-in-law. Mary contented herself by detaining her at the
Tower.
The Catholic party was triumphant; the Emperor Charles V.
recommended prudence, advising that some few dangerous enemies be
struck down, but that the new religion should not be touched,
trusting to time the care of modifying errors, and taking care
not to plunge the people into despair by too much severity. This
wise policy agreed neither with the fervent convictions of Mary
nor with the firmness of her character, embittered by long
misfortunes, by reiterated acts of injustice and by shattered
health. "God has protected me in all my misfortunes," she said,
"it is in Him that I confide. I will not testify my gratitude
slowly, in secret, but at once and openly." The public
declaration promised to molest none of her subjects for religion;
but mass had already been re-established in the principal
churches in London, Cranmer and Latimer were sent to the Tower,
and the Princess Elizabeth, prudently bowing her head before the
storm, had renounced the practice of the Protestant worship to
return to the Catholic faith, of which she always preserved some
remains at the bottom of her heart; she accompanied her sister to
mass, had a chapel established in her residence, and devoted a
portion of her time to the embroidering of church ornaments.
{300}
Mary was crowned on the first of October at Westminister, by the
hands of Gardiner. Five days afterwards Parliament assembled; a
month had scarcely elapsed when the edifice raised with so much
care by Cranmer and the English Protestants was falling in its
entirety; matters had returned to the point at which Henry VIII.
had left them: the prayer-book was set aside, the service in the
vernacular tongue abolished, the marriage of priests and
communion of the two kinds prohibited; the Bishops who were
married, or were in favor of the reformed doctrines were deprived
of their sees, while the marriage of Henry VIII. and Catharine
was alone declared valid. The queen did not, however, renounce
the title of chief of the Church; she did not wish to alarm the
Protestants by placing them at the outset, under the yoke of
Rome, and above all she avoided touching upon the question of the
restitution of the property of the clergy, which would have
raised all the House of Lords against the new form of government.
The queen contented herself by setting the example by taking
measures to restore to the Church all the estates annexed to the
crown. Being reassured by this indulgence. Parliament voted all
that was demanded, and destroyed all that it had formerly
established; the convocation of the clergy returned in a mass to
the old practices; the priests who had sincerely embraced the
Protestant faith and who refused to repeat mass were replaced
without difficulty by the monks who were everywhere issuing forth
from their hiding-places. The prisons were soon filled by the
refractory; those who were not prisoners were able to go about
begging along the high roads with their wives and children; a
certain number fled abroad.
{301}
Violent persecution had not yet commenced; Cranmer was acquitted
upon the count of treason, but he was sent back to the Tower as a
heretic. The sentence of death pronounced against Lady Jane Gray
and her husband was not put into execution; the captives even
enjoyed a kind of liberty in their prison. Queen Mary was
occupied in a more important matter; although now thirty-seven
years of age, moved by the solicitations of her councillors, she
thought of marriage.
Many illustrious alliances for the Princess Mary had been
contracted and broken off in succession; when she was yet in her
cradle, the Emperor, the King of France, and the dauphin had each
in turn aspired to her hand; but it was whispered at the court
that the queen experienced some liking for Lord Edward Courtenay,
son of the Marquis of Exeter, executed in 1538; scarcely had she
released that handsome young man from the Tower, when she
conferred on him the title of Earl of Devonshire, with all the
confiscated estates of his father, and it was asserted that her
favours did not stop there. Edward Courtenay did not know how to
take advantage of fortune; he was thoughtless and a debauchee;
his convictions did not incline to the side of Roman Catholicism,
and he preferred, it was said, the society of the Princess
Elizabeth to that of her royal sister. The queen manifested much
coldness towards the princess, who retired to her residence at
Ashridge in Buckinghamshire, closely watched by two agents of the
court.
{302}
A union with Cardinal Pole, a cousin of the queen, and who was
not in orders, was also spoken of; but he was fifty-three years
of age, he was living in retirement by the Lake of Garda; and,
although there was a project at that time at Rome for sending him
as a legate to England, the Emperor increased the obstacles to
his departure, in order to have time to accomplish an undertaking
which he had greatly at heart and which the presence of Pole
might have hindered.
Queen Mary had learnt during her misfortunes to depend upon
Charles V., who had never failed her: since she had been upon the
throne she had taken his advice in all her affairs; the Emperor
took advantage of this circumstance to ask her for her hand in
favor of his son, the Arch-duke Philip, soon afterwards Philip
II., who had recently lost his wife, Isabella of Portugal. The
foreign powers, and especially France, seconded by the
ambassadors of Venice, dreaded this union, which was calculated
to cause the balance in Europe to incline against them; their
opposition was favored by a powerful party in the very bosom of
the council; Gardiner was at its head. He vigorously represented
to the queen the aversion which the English had always
experienced towards foreign sovereigns, the discontent which the
haughtiness of Philip had aroused among his own subjects, the
continual hostilities with France which must result from this
marriage, the anger and uneasiness of the reformed party. The
Commons even presented an address praying the queen to choose her
husband from among the distinguished men of her kingdom.
[Image]
Mary Vows To Marry Philip II.
{303}
Courtenay was the soul of all the intrigues, encouraged and
nourished by the French ambassador, M. de Noailles; but this
opposition only aroused the obstinacy of Mary; she was a worthy
daughter of Henry VIII., and on the very day on which the Houses
had manifested their aversion to a foreign prince, she caused the
Spanish ambassador to come to her private chapel; there throwing
herself on her knees before the altar, she took God to witness
that she plighted her troth to Philip, Prince of Spain, to belong
to him and no other as long as she should live. The marriage
treaty was communicated to Parliament on the 14th of January,
1554; the Emperor was very accommodating in the conditions,
counting, no doubt, upon the influence which Philip might acquire
over his wife. The queen was to remain sole mistress of the
government in England, without any foreigner being able to
participate in the offices or dignities; Burgundy and the Low
Countries were secured to her children, and in the advent of Don
Carlos, the son of the first marriage of Philip, happening to
die, all the possessions of the crown of Spain were to devolve on
the posterity of Mary. Gardiner himself unfolded before the two
Houses and the burgesses of the City all the advantages of this
alliance which he had so ardently opposed.
The arguments of the chancellor did not convince the country.
Conspirators were encouraged by the promises of France; projects
were various: some wished to place Elizabeth upon the throne
while giving her Courtenay for a husband; others counted upon
releasing Lady Jane Grey and proclaiming her again. They appeared
to have determined on this project, when, on the 20th of January,
the queen learnt that Sir Peter Carew had taken arms in
Devonshire, resolved to oppose the disembarcation of Phillip; he
had already taken possession of the city and citadel of Exeter.
{304}
Almost at the same time it was discovered that Sir Thomas Wyatt
was inciting the population of Kent to rebellion. He was a
Catholic, and had distinguished himself at the siege of Boulogne,
but he had conceived the most violent horror of Spain, and he
appears to have been disposed to support the claims of the
Princess Elizabeth, for he had refused, from the first, to enter
into the plot in favour of Lady Jane Grey. In London the terror
was extreme; the guards at the gates were doubled; the Duke of
Suffolk, whom Mary had pardoned, took refuge in Warwickshire, and
loudly protesting against the marriage of the queen, he called
the population to arms without much effect. The boldest as well
as the most popular of the conspirators was Wyatt, who held the
city of Rochester, against which place the old Duke of Norfolk
was advancing with Lord Arundel. As the Duke was ordering the
assault, five hundred men of the London train-bands, whom he had
brought with him, suddenly stopped at the entrance of the bridge,
and the captain addressing them said, "My masters, we are going
to fight against our fellow-citizens and friends in an unjust
quarrel: they have assembled here to resist the evils which would
fall upon us if we were subject to the proud Spaniard, and I know
not who is the Englishman who could say nay to them." The
train-bands immediately began to cry, "Wyatt! Wyatt!" at the same
time turning their field-pieces against the royalist troops. The
Duke of Norfolk was compelled to retire in haste, and his return
spread terror in London.
{305}
The queen alone remained firm, repairing with her ladies to the
City protesting to the Lord Mayor, the aldermen, and burgesses,
that she only wished to be married in a manner honourable and
advantageous for her kingdom; that nothing compelled her to marry
since she had delayed so long, and that she counted upon her good
subjects to help her subjugate the rebels. On this same day she
learnt that the Duke of Suffolk and Sir Peter Carew had been
defeated in the inland shires and in the West. A full amnesty was
promised to all the insurgents of Kent, the noblemen excepted; a
price was set upon the head of Sir Thomas Wyatt. He had delayed
in his march, but on the 3rd of February he entered the suburb of
Southwark with considerable forces without doing any damage,
except in the residence of Bishop Gardiner, which was pillaged.
Wyatt had counted upon the good will of the inhabitants of
London, but the gates of the City remained closed, and the
population of Southwark, who had received him well, soon begged
him to retire. When the cannon of the Tower began to roar, and
the cannon-balls to rain upon the bridge and the two churches
fortified by Wyatt, the insurgents directed their efforts to
another point, and contrived to cross the river at Kingston; but
Lord Pembroke awaited them at the head of the royal troops, and
when Wyatt, with a handful of brave men, had opened up a passage
for himself, the ranks closed behind him; he found himself seized
in the streets. The citizens did not rise in his favour, as he
had hoped; he defended himself bravely, but, overwhelmed by
numbers, was captured and sent to the Tower; a great many of his
followers were taken and hanged. The insurrection had miscarried.
{306}
The courage of Queen Mary had not belied itself for one moment;
while her terrified courtiers were hastening to bring the
grievous news she shamed them for their terrors, asserting that
she would herself enter into a campaign to support the justice of
her quarrel, and die with those who served her rather than yield
an inch to a traitor like Wyatt; but she had already caused her
anger to be felt by those whom she suspected of having taken part
in the plot. Three of her councillors had by her orders arrived
at Ashridge, where they found Elizabeth in bed. It was late, and
the emissaries insisted upon entering the residence of the
Princess. "Is the haste such that it might not have pleased you
to come to-morrow in the morning?" she asked haughtily. "We are
right sorry to see your grace in such a case," said the
councillors. "And I," replied Elizabeth, "am not glad to see you
here at this time of night." It was necessary, however, to give
way and get into the litter which the queen had sent; Mary wished
to see her sister, "dead or alive," she said. The house was
surrounded by soldiers, they set out; the journey was slow;
Elizabeth dreaded the arrival in London; some few noblemen who
came to meet her reassured her; she learnt, however, that
Courtenay had been sent to the Tower. She had not yet seen the
queen when she was informed of the sad fate of Lady Jane Grey.
{307}
The insurrection had scarcely been stamped out and Wyatt made a
prisoner, when Mary signed the order to execute Lady Jane and her
husband, both of whom had been condemned to death several months
before. The royal clemency had allowed a last interview between
husband and wife, but Lady Jane refused the favour. "I shall see
him again shortly," she said. She saw him, in effect, before the
eternal reunion, but dead and mutilated; the corpse passed under
her windows, on the return from Tower Hill. A few hours later, on
the 12th of February, 1554, Jane in her turn mounted the
scaffold, within the precincts of the Tower, after having firmly
repelled the Dean of St. Paul's who pursued her with his
arguments in favour of the Roman Catholic religion. She died in
the faith which she had embraced in her infancy, serene and
grave, without a complaint or a tear, simply avowing to the few
spectators of her ordeal, that she deserved death for having
consented, although with regret, to serve as an instrument to the
ambition of others. She implored the mercy of God and delivered
herself up into the hands of the executioner, moving all hearts
by her constancy and and meekness. Her father was beheaded on
Tower Hill, several days later, without arousing the compassion
of any one. Passing from one treacherous act to another, he had
at length found himself on the scaffold. Executions succeeded
each other without intermission. To the last moment Sir Thomas
Wyatt maintained that the Princess Elizabeth had been ignorant of
all his projects. The jury had the courage to acquit Sir Nicholas
Throgmorton, a devoted friend of the princess, compromised in the
conspiracy; the verdict saved his life, but this unusual
independence was to be dearly paid for by the jurymen: they were
all sent to prison, and only regained their liberty after a long
captivity, and upon the payment of a fine.
{308}
Meanwhile, appearances were unfavourable to Elizabeth; she had in
vain solicited an audience of her sister, and finally wrote to
her, absolutely disclaiming all complicity in the insurrection
and denying the correspondence which she was accused of having
carried on with the King of France. The order was nevertheless
given to conduct her to the Tower, and on Palm Sunday, while the
population of London thronged the churches, the princess
conducted by Lord Sidney, was brought by the Thames to the
Traitor's Gate. She refused at first to alight; then, as one of
the guards offered her his hand, she repelled him abruptly, and
placing her foot upon the gloomy stairs, she exclaimed, "Here
landeth as true a subject, being a prisoner, as ever landed at
these stairs; and before Thee, O God, I speak it, having none
other friend but Thee above." She sat down for a moment upon the
stone; the lieutenant of the Tower begged her to take shelter
from the cold and rain: "Better sitting here than in a worse
place," she said, "for God knoweth whither you bring me." She
entered, however, and found herself within the walls of a prison,
fearing in the recesses of her soul the fate of her mother; and
soon afterwards she was still more terrified, when a new
governor, Sir Henry Beddingfield, was nominated to the Tower. He
had the reputation of being harsh and cruel, and, several times
Elizabeth asked the guards whether the scaffold of Lady Jane had
been removed, expecting to ascend it in her turn. On the 19th of
May, however, Elizabeth was taken to Richmond, and thence to
Woodstock, where she remained, closely watched by Sir Henry
Beddingfield, while Courtenay was removed to Fotheringay.
{309}
The arrival of Prince Philip was now expected, and the
preparation for the marriage occupied all minds whether satisfied
or discontented. The population of London daily manifested its
aversion to the Spanish alliance and its attachment to the
doctrines of the Reformation; the queen's preachers began to look
upon the pulpit erected at Paul's Cross as a dangerous spot. One
of them, Doctor Pendleton, received a shot there, from which he
narrowly escaped death. The use of arms was thereafter
prohibited.
The manœuvres of the Emperor had succeeded; his confidential
ambassador, Renard, had prevailed over the intrigues of Noailles;
Philip arrived in England with the title of King of Naples,
Charles V. was unwilling, he said, that so great a queen should
unite herself to a simple prince: the marriage was celebrated
with great pomp, on the 25th of July, 1554; but the royal
bridegroom had taken care to surround himself with troops at the
moment of his landing, one of his emissaries, Count Egmont,
having been assailed shortly before by the people, who mistook
him for his master. The first care of the Houses of Parliament
when they assembled on the 1st of November, was to increase the
precautions against the Spanish influence in the councils of the
queen: all the liberality of Philip, who had brought a quantity
of money from Spain, could not lull a distrust, which on the
other hand was nourished by the haughtiness of his manners and
the rigid etiquette with which he surrounded himself.
{310}
The first Parliament convoked by Mary had voted the
re-establishment of the Roman Catholic worship; the second had
adopted the treaty of marriage; the third was summoned to declare
the reunion with Rome; but the interests of the House of Lords
were opposed to this measure. Before repealing the act of
supremacy, the Lords, enriched by the spoliation of the
monasteries, required guarantees from the court of Rome; the Pope
gave them, through the mouth of Cardinal Pole, who had arrived in
England as legate; Parliament then became submissive, and
presented a petition to the king, queen and cardinal, begging
them to intercede with the Holy Father to obtain the pardon of
the English people and their reconciliation with the Holy See.
Pole was furnished with the necessary powers, and he pronounced
the absolution. The work of Henry VIII. as well as that of Edward
VI. was destroyed; and the conscience of Queen Mary was able to
rest in peace. Parliament thought to have done enough; but Mary
desired to feel her way towards securing the royal crown to her
husband, but she encountered so much ill-feeling that she was
obliged to renounce her project; the commons also refused the
subsidies which she had caused the Emperor and his son to expect,
as an assistance in prosecuting the war with France. Philip in
vain endeavoured to win a little popularity by interceding with
the queen in favour of the prisoners of state detained at the
Tower. Several were restored to liberty. Courtenay received
permission to travel upon the Continent, and the Princess
Elizabeth reappeared at court, but she did not long remain there;
her position was difficult; she was constantly watched by jealous
eyes; when she returned, however, to her residence at Ampthill,
the queen began to look upon her sister with less uneasiness, for
she was now expecting an heir to the throne.
{311}
The year 1555 opened under sinister auspices for the Reformed
Church; the laws against heretics had been put in force again,
and on the first day in January the Bishop of London, Bonner,
followed by a great procession, repaired to St. Paul's, to return
thanks to God for the light with which He had once more illumined
the sovereign of the nation. A court commissioned to try heretics
was soon formed. The prisons were filled with the accused; the
first who was summoned belonged to the clergy of St. Paul's;
Gardiner presided over the tribunal. "Did you not pray for twenty
years against the Pope?" cried the prisoner, driven to
extremities by the questions of his judge. "I was cruelly forced
to it," replied the bishop. "Why, then, do you wish to make use
of the same cruelty towards us?" asked Rogers; but this simple
notion of liberty of conscience had not yet penetrated into the
most enlightened minds, Catholic or Protestant; each party, in
turn, had recourse to force, to aid what it looked upon as the
truth, to triumph, and William of Orange, loudly proclaiming
toleration towards the Catholics in a country which he was
snatching from the horrors of the inquisition, drew down upon
himself the censure of his Protestant friends. Rogers was
condemned to be burned, and was refused the consolation of saying
farewell to his wife. She was at the foot of the stake with her
eleven children, the youngest at her breast, encouraging her
husband until the last moment. He died worthy of her, augmenting
by his firmness the long series of martyrs of the Reformed faith
with whom the fanaticism of Mary was about to enrich the Church.
Executions succeeded each other.
{312}
Hooper, the dispossessed bishop of Gloucester, an eloquent and
austere divine, and Robert Ferrar, bishop of St. David's, were
burned in their former dioceses. Condemnations and executions
increased every day. Gardiner, weary of so many horrors, had
ceased to preside over the court commissioned to try heretics,
and the zeal of Bonner himself did not suffice to satisfy Philip
and Mary. Cardinal Pole in vain endeavoured to moderate the
persecuting ardour of the queen; the gentleness of his character
and the experience which he had acquired in Germany, equally
rendered him averse to executions as a means of conversion; but
the conscience of Mary was pledged to the work; she desired to
make England Roman Catholic; and, notwithstanding the terror of
some, the hesitation of others, and the servility of a great
number, she, day by day, found her task greater and more
difficult; it was not the moment for relaxing her efforts.
Upon the accession of Mary, the relative strength of the two
religions was about equal in her kingdom, although irregularly
divided according to localities. The Protestants were numerous in
nearly all the towns; the Catholics remained powerful in the
north; but great influences were struggling against the royal
authority, passionately engaged, as it was, in the struggle; the
great noblemen were imperfectly assured of the security of their
possessions, notwithstanding all the protestations and promises
of the Pope.
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The Protestant faith had taken firm hold upon a great number of
souls among the clergy and the people. The ranks of the nobility
did not furnish any religious martyrs, but the uneasiness which
their temporal interests caused them contributed to keep up the
agitation which produced so many political victims, and the
masses of the people sealed their convictions with their blood.
Two bishops and a great number of priests had already perished at
the stake, in company with a host of unknown and obscure martyrs.
The most illustrious witnesses of persecuted Protestantism were
still captives; two bishops and an archbishop, all three
celebrated for their eloquence and the part which they had played
in the past, Ridley, Latimer, and Cranmer, had been conducted to
Oxford, in the month of March, 1554, there to argue in public
with the Catholic doctors; all three had boldly maintained their
opinions, and all three had been declared obstinate heretics.
They had been awaiting their sentence for eighteen months, when,
on the 12th of September, 1555, the royal commissioners arrived
at Oxford. In his capacity of former Primate of England, Cranmer,
a prisoner, was summoned to appear in Rome within eighty days,
according to the forms of the canon law. Ridley and Latimer were
condemned to die forthwith. A learned Spanish theologian was,
however, despatched to them to enlighten them upon their errors.
Latimer refused to see him, Ridley combated all his arguments; he
was learned, eloquent, admirably versed in the Holy Scriptures,
and it was he who had maintained the discussions with the
Catholic doctors, with the most brilliant results. The day for
argument had gone by, that of martyrdom was arriving.
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On the 16th of October, 1555, the two prelates were conducted to
the stake prepared for them near Baliol College, where the
monument now stands which commemorates their execution. Latimer
was old and worn out; he walked with difficulty. Ridley, who had
preceded him, ran to meet him and embraced him "Be of good heart,
brother," he said, "for God will either assuage the fury of the
flame or strengthen us to bear it." The old man smiled, suffering
himself to be stripped by the guards; Ridley divested himself of
his clothing, which he distributed among the bystanders. When
both were clothed in their shrouds and fastened back to back at
the stake, the old bishop drew himself up, as though suddenly
endowed with that superhuman strength which his companion in
punishment had promised to him. "Be of good comfort, Master
Ridley!" he cried, "and play the man, and we shall see this day
light such a candle by God's grace in England as I trust shall
never be put out." The flames immediately suffocated him, but
Ridley suffered for a long time. One of the bystanders at length
had the charity to stir the embers, and the bag of gunpowder
which had been attached to the necks of the victims having
ignited, Ridley died by the explosion, while the prophetic words
of old Latimer still resounded in every ear. England has remained
illumined by the candle thus lighted by the martyrs of the
sixteenth century.
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Gardiner died on the 12th of November, and the queen confided the
seals to the Archbishop of York, Heath, a prelate more zealous
than his predecessor in the persecution of heretics, but less
skilful and prudent in the conduct of public affairs. Upon the
assembling of Parliament, Mary touched a tender chord; she asked
for authority to restore to the Holy See the first-fruits and
tithes, annexed under the reign of her father to the crown. "I
set more value upon the salvation of my soul," she said, "than
upon the possession of ten kingdoms such as England." The Houses
did not oppose the salvation of the soul of the sovereign, but
they trembled to see her lay hands upon _their_ property,
and the subsidies rendered necessary by the decrease in the royal
revenues which the return of the annats to the court of Rome
involved, were voted with ill-humor, and not without objections.
The queen was obliged to have recourse to many vexatious courses
in order to procure the money which her husband constantly
demanded of her, thus increasing every day, the unpopularity of
the Spaniards in the kingdom. All the English detested Philip.
Mary alone loved him, with the sad tenderness of an unrequited
affection. The king was almost always away from his wife, and
only replied to her constant letters when he demanded of her the
sums which he needed to maintain the wars with France. It was in
vain that English prudence stipulated that peace should be
maintained between France and England. What could laws effect
against the devotion of the queen for her husband?
The weakness and timidity of Cranmer, deprived of the firm
example of his companions in captivity, had been counted upon
with good reason. The eighty days had elapsed, and the Primate,
not having appeared at Rome, was declared guilty, degraded from
his holy office, and delivered up to the secular power.
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Then began the attempts at conversion. The prisoner was
transferred to the house of the Dean of Christchurch, where
indulgences were lavished upon him. It was represented to him
that he was still in the prime of life, healthy and vigorous; why
should he be obstinate in his errors and die like Latimer, who
had only renounced a few years of a miserable existence? The
unhappy archbishop suffered himself to be gained over, and signed
six abjurations in succession, adding each time something to his
shame. At the termination of these humiliations, at the moment
when he at length thought to have purchased his liberty, it was
announced to him that penitence did not absolve from punishment,
that his return to the bosom of the Church insured, indeed,
eternal life to him, but could not save him from the stake, and
he was condemned to die on the 21st of March. In view of this
perfidy, which deprived him of the fruits of all his acts of
cowardice, Cranmer at length saw the extent of his mistake, and
from the platform upon which he was placed, read to the people
his last confession, boldly rejecting the Papal authority and the
doctrines which he had recognized a few days previously,
protesting his attachment to the Reformed faith, and his
resolution to die faithful to it. At the same time he humbled
himself before God and men for the base fear of death which had
led him to belie the truth and his conscience. The agitation
among the people was great; something totally different had been
expected. "Recall your senses," said Lord Williams, "and show
yourself to be a Christian." "That is what I am doing: at this
moment," replied Cranmer; "it is too late to dissemble, I must
come to the truth."
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When he was conducted to the stake, before the flames reached
him, he plunged his right hand into the raging fire to punish it
for having signed the abjuration. "That is the one which has
sinned," he exclaimed. Motionless in the midst of the flames, he
appealed neither to the mercy nor the justice of men. "Lord
Jesus, receive my spirit," he cried, and expired. The impression
produced by his execution was immense; he had redeemed, by his
firm courage at the stake, all the vacillations and
inconsistencies of his life, and his executioners had placed upon
him the seal of glory as the Reformer of the Church of England,
by employing against him a base act of perfidy somewhat rare in
the annals of the persecutions under Mary. Those who recanted
sometimes died of remorse, like the diplomatist Sir John Cheke;
they were rarely dragged to the stake. Cardinal Pole was
immediately nominated Archbishop of Canterbury; but his counsels
were unable to arrest the persecutions, stimulated by the violent
zeal of Pope Paul IV., recently elevated to the pontifical
throne. Eighty-four persons perished that year by the flames. Nor
did the living only suffer condemnation; the bones of Martin
Bucer, who had died in England, whither he had been summoned by
Cranmer during the reign of Edward VI., were disinterred and
publicly burned. The body of the wife of Pierce., the martyr,
suffered the same outrage; after her grave had been first
desecrated she was buried in a dunghill. The reign of Mary lasted
but five years; but in this short space of time two hundred and
eighty-eight persons were legally condemned to execution on
account of religion, and it would be impossible to enumerate the
obscurer martyrs who died of hunger or suffering in the prisons.
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The greater part of the victims belonged to the middle classes
and the people; it was in those ranks that the most faithful
attachment to the doctrines of the Reformation was manifested.
The great enriched by by the spoliation and governmental reform
of King Henry VIII., took no care but for their property. The
poor defended their precious convictions by dying for them.
Secret discontent was great even among the Roman Catholic
population; the Spaniards were detested; crimes increased.
Notwithstanding the stern repression which they had suffered
under Henry VIII.,--seventy-two thousand murderers, thieves, or
vagabonds, had, it is said, perished upon the gallows during his
long reign,--the executioners of Queen Mary also had much to do;
several times men of good birth, who had degraded themselves to
the profession of highwaymen, were detected and seized. Certain
parts of the kingdom were secretly agitated, and it was amidst
this general uneasiness that Philip, who had become King of Spain
in 1556, through the abdication of the Emperor Charles V., at
length contrived to involve his wife and England in his quarrels
with France.
The personal influence of Philip over Queen Mary was alone able
to obtain this concession; the king was aware of this, and he
arrived in England in the month of March, determined to recruit
his armies with English forces. The whole of the council of Mary,
with Cardinal Pole at their head, at first opposed the measure;
in vain did Philip threaten to
leave her for ever.
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The ministers of the queen appealed to the marriage contract,
affirming that England would find herself reduced to the state of
a vassal if she allowed herself to be dragged at the heels of
Spain into a war of no interest to her. An enterprise attempted
by an English refugee in France, Thomas Stafford, who crossed the
British Channel with some few troops, and took the castle of
Scarboro by surprise, happened to second the solicitations of
Philip II. Being made a prisoner, Stafford asserted that the King
of France, Henry II., had encouraged him in his attempt, and the
queen eagerly seized this pretext to satisfy the wishes of her
husband by declaring war with France. When Philip quitted
England, upon the 6th of July, 1557, never to return, he was
shortly afterwards followed to Saint-Quentin, by a thousand
English knights and six thousand foot-soldiers, commanded by the
Earl of Pembroke. Queen Mary had great difficulty in raising this
small corps; for the first time, perhaps, war with France was not
popular in England.
It was destined soon to become still less popular,
notwithstanding the successes of the King of Spain in France. The
capture of Saint-Quentin, and the fear of seeing the victorious
army advance against Paris, recalled the Duke of Guise from
Italy, where he had threatened the territories of Philip; the
latter took up his winter-quarters in Flanders, when the French
general laid siege to Calais. The Spaniards had foreseen the
danger and proposed to strengthen the garrison, but the council
of England had jealously rejected this offer; they were preparing
to send reinforcements.
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Meanwhile, the French had appeared before Calais, on the 1st of
January, 1558; on the 8th, after a skilful and bold attack upon
the ramparts, the town capitulated and the garrison issued forth
with their arms and baggage, while the English troops were
waiting at Dover until the state of the sea should permit them to
proceed to the assistance of their fellow-countrymen. On the
20th, Guisnes succumbed in its turn, and the English lost the
last foot of ground which they possessed in France. Calais had
been in their hands two hundred and eleven years, and the loss of
it was bitterly painful to the queen and the people. Parliament
immediately voted subsidies for prosecuting the war more
vigorously. The Dauphin, subsequently Francis II., had recently
married the young Queen of Scotland (April 24th, 1558), and the
Scotch took up arms upon the frontiers, thus associating
themselves with the quarrel of their sovereigns, by one of those
aggressions towards which they were always disposed. They
refused, however, to formally declare war with England, as they
were urged to do by Mary of Guise, the regent of Scotland in the
name of her daughter. The English fleet, under the orders of Lord
Clinton, ravaged the coast of Brittany without much result; but a
small squadron of ten vessels contributed to the victory of
Gravelines by ascending the Aa, as Egmont was beginning the
combat, and opening fire upon the right wing of the French. The
Marshal de Termes, and a great number of French noblemen were
made prisoners in this battle, which cost France dearly, yet
brought nothing to England but a little glory in the wake of the
Flemish general.
{321}
Meanwhile, Mary had been taken ill; she had seen her deceitful
hopes of issue fade away, and the eyes of all turned towards the
prudent Elizabeth, in retirement at her house at Hatfield. She
professed a minute attachment to the practices of Roman
Catholicism, following, in that matter, without difficulty, the
counsels of her politic adviser, Cecil. She had refused the
proposals of marriage which had been made to her by several
princes, among others by the Duke of Savoy, and the Duke Eric of
Sweden. Philip II. would have been glad to rid himself of his
sister-in-law by causing her to marry, but Elizabeth contrived to
thwart his projects without offending her sister, who ordinarily
adopted all the wishes of her husband. She replied to the
emissaries of the King of Sweden, who had addressed themselves
directly to her, that she could not think of listening to any
overtures which had not been sanctioned by her Majesty. Mary was
touched by this confidence, and she manifested more friendliness
to the princess, who always walked with caution upon the brink of
abysses into which the imprudence or unskilful zeal of her
friends might have precipitated her. The great nobles attached to
the Reformation lived, as she did, in retirement. The Earls of
Oxford and Westmoreland, as well as Lord Willoughby, had been
reprimanded by the council, upon a question of religion. The Earl
of Bedford had even suffered a short imprisonment. Sir Ralph
Sadler, one of the usual negotiators of King Henry VIII.--a
gentleman who was afterwards often employed by his daughter--had
quitted the court, weary of the fanaticism which was displayed
there.
{322}
All awaited in silence the death of Mary, bowing their heads
under a yoke which could not last long. The queen, always
delicate, had for several months been deeply attacked by a slow
fever. She had vainly hoped to recover her strength at Hampton
Court. She was brought back to London, and expired in St. James's
palace, at the age of forty-three, on the 17th of November, 1558,
without having seen the king her husband again. She sighed so
bitterly in her death agony that her ladies asked her if she was
suffering, commiserating her for the absence of King Philip. "Not
that only," she said, "but when I am dead and opened you shall
find Calais lying in my heart." On the morrow morning, almost at
the same hour, Cardinal Pole died at Lambeth. The two pillars of
the Catholic Church in England fell at the same time. Pole would
have desired to insure the triumph of his cause by means of
gentleness and justice; Mary had supported it by iron and fire.
Both were equally sincere and convinced. Mary was of a narrow
mind; her character, naturally stern and harsh, had been
embittered by injustice and, suffering, but she was
straightforward and honest, avoiding the subterfuges and deceits
which Queen Elizabeth too often practised; she was animated by a
fervent faith, which she deemed it her right and duty to impose
by force upon all her subjects. In her breast the sufferings of
the heretics excited little compassion, she was hardened against
them, but in her private life, and towards her servants, she was
good, generous, and capable of affection and devotion. She
blindly loved her husband, who neglected and despised her on
account of her lack of youth, and the few charms which nature had
bestowed upon her.
{323}
Mary, however, was learned; she wrote pure Latin, she had studied
Greek, and spoke French, Spanish, and Italian with ease. She was
a good musician, and danced gracefully, her household was a model
of order and regularity, and she was a noble example of piety and
virtue. The memory of these good qualities and misfortunes pales
in the presence of a supreme fault; a terrible stain remains
imprinted upon the brow of the unfortunate queen by her
fanaticism and her conscientious cruelty. She persecuted piously,
she burned sincerely; her acts more than her character, merit the
odious name which history has given her. On examining her life
closely one is tempted to pity "Bloody Mary."
{324}