CHAP. IV. would have driven her. The chancellor, indeed, during a sudden illness which befel the Queen, sent, on his own responsibility, a privy council warrant to the Tower for the immediate execution of the princess. But the lieutenant of the Tower, observing that the Queen's signature was not affixed to this illegal instrument, refused to obey it; and when Mary heard of it, she placed Elizabeth under Sir Henry Bedingfield, a stern Norfolk knight, in whose courage and probity she knew she could confide, who conveyed her to Richmond, and thence to Woodstock, where she long remained a prisoner. 15. Mary's Marriage. In the meantime preparations were making for the Queen's marriage, which parliament had fully sanctioned. On the 19th of July, Philip, attended by a magnificent and formidable train of Spanish and Burgundian lords, an army of 4,000 men, and the fleets of Spain, England, and the Netherlands, landed at Southampton, and on the 25th was married to Mary, in Winchester Cathedral, by Gardiner. Philip was in his twenty-ninth year, Mary in her thirty-eighth. The royal pair then proceeded to Windsor and the metropolis, where the most splendid pageants had been devised to welcome their arrival. But the stately reserve of Philip's Spanish manners did not lessen the repugnance of the English people to the marriage; no English lord remained at court but Gardiner; and a proclamation, issued in September, enjoining all vagabonds and servants out of place to quit London in five days, bore marks of gloomy distrust. When the herald took down the English arms at Windsor, to replace them by those of Spain, certain lords ordered him to set them up again. One of the paintings in the London pageants, representing Henry VIII. with a Bible in his hand, with the device Verbum Dei upon it, Gardiner threatened the painter with imprisonment, and the terrified artist changed the obnoxious book into a pair of gloves. Such were some of the significant signs of the times. Spanish silver, however, made its way in profusion in the capital, and the people were partially consoled. 16. England reconciled to Rome. On the 12th of November, a parliament was held at Westminster to complete the restoration of the ancient religion. Spanish bribes were liberally distributed among the courtiers, and the sheriffs had been ordered to secure the election of those candidates who were distinguished by their attachment to the ancient faith. Both houses were therefore ready to support the Queen and her husband in the measure * Strickland's Lives, IV., 98. + Knight's Pop. Hist., III., 75. 1554 which was now publicly talked of the reconciliation of the church with Rome; but there was the one great condition to which they would obstinately adhere their retention of the abbey lands. As a preliminary step, a bill was passed with the greatest expedition, restoring in blood the lord Cardinal Pole, who was waiting at Brussels to proceed to England as papal legate for the great object in view. Lord Paget, who had been raised by Somerset; and Sir William Cecil, who had contrived to make his way under all governments, were among the most forward persons to bring about this reconciliation. For a time it was difficult to reconcile either the cardinal or the Pontiff to the condition, that security should be granted to the possessors of the abbey lands, but the parliament positively refused to sanction the reconciliation with Rome on any other condition. On the 20th of November Pole arrived, with full powers to do everything which was desired; on the 28th he addressed both houses, and next day the reconciliation was formally solemnised with great dignity and splendour. On the following Sunday, Gardiner preached at St. Paul's Cross the celebrated sermon in which he lamented his conduct under Henry VIII., and exhorted all to seek the unity of the Catholic Church. On the 30th, a humble supplication from the Lords, Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, was presented to their majesties, praying them to intercede with the cardinal to be absolved from all ecclesiastical censures, and to be received into the bosom of the church, on condition of their proving themselves true penitents by the repeal of all the laws against the Catholic religion and the Holy See, passed in the season of their delusion. The intercession having been made, and the absolution pronounced, amidst the hypocritical rejoicings of those who, says the Venetian ambassador of the time, would have turned Jews or Turks if their sovereign pleased, the cardinal next published a decree (December 24th), stating that all cathedral churches, hospitals, and schools founded during the schism should be preserved; that all marriages contracted within the prohibited degrees without dispensation should be valid; that all appeals and judicial processes should be held valid; and that the possessors of church property should not, either now or hereafter, be molested under any pretence whatever. An act was then passed, which repealed all statutes, articles, and provisions made against the supremacy of the Pope's Restoration holiness or see apostolic since the 20th of Henry VIII.; of Popery. made the above decree good and effectual in law; enacted that the possessors of church property should hold the same in CHAP. IV. manner and form as they would have done had this act never been made, and that whoever should molest such possessors by process out of any ecclesiastical court, either within or without the realm, should incur the guilt of præmunire. A new statute of treason was passed against those who preached, or openly spoke, against the title of the King and Queen, and their issue; Revival of and it was declared treason to pray for the Queen's death. But the crowning glory of this degraded parliament was the revival of all the statutes passed in the reigns of Richard II., Henry IV., and Henry V.* the burning statutes. II. THE MARIAN PERSECUTION. 17. Who originated this persecution ? The parliament Bonner and With whom the persecution under Mary originated has been a matter of great dispute. In considering this, it must be observed, first, that "the executions were not sharp and passionate outbursts of ecclesiastical power, exasperated by popular fury; or of regal tyranny, hurried into extremities by rebellion; " but that "they Mary's were the calm and deliberate exposition of the principles by which guilt. England was to be governed under its Roman Catholic Church and sovereign."+ Mary wanted no advisers to urge her into the paths of intolerance and persecution. The conviction was deeply settled in her mind that toleration in religion led to indifference and perdition, and that it was the duty of religious princes to exterminate heretics. But whether she was the instigator of the persecution is a question of much less moral import than a clear analyzation of the evil with which selfish interests had infected the legislature. The majority of the members of both houses of parliament were dishonest, indifferent to all religions, and willing to establish the most opposing rituals, so that they guilty. might retain their grasp on the accursed thing with which their very souls were corrupted. Gardiner and Bonner, the leaders of the Marian persecution, were of this apostate class. They had, under the government of Henry, sent the zealous Roman Catholic and the pious Protestant to the same stake; Gardiner and after having, for the sake of worldly advantage, burnt and guilty. quartered the advocates, they now burnt, with the same degree of conscientiousness, the opposers of papal supremacy. Their caprice, or private vengeance, greatly aggravated the persecution, if they did not originate it.§ The benevolent disposition of Cardinal Pole led him to advise a toleration of the heretics; but these two men violently opposed him, and as the arguments for severity were more akin to the dark and gloomy character of the Queen, it was determined to let loose the laws, in their full vigour, against the reformed religion; and to give full exercise to those bloody powers which the guilty parliament had placed in the hands of a government eager for blood. We must, however, bear in mind, that the age in which these horrible atrocities were committed was intolerant. an age of religious intolerance, when to punish the professors of erroneous doctrine was inculcated as a duty, no less by those who rejected, than by those who asserted, the papal authority. The broad foundation upon which the rights of conscience and the principles of religious toleration are established, was undoubtedly laid by the Reformation. But it has required the struggles of three centuries to make these rights & living rule of charitable action, even in secular legislation. It + Knight's Pop. Hist., III., 80. § Ibid. || Hume, IV., 406. The age *Vide Normans and Plantagenets, p. 458. + Strickland's Lives, III., 542-543. 1555 would ill become us, therefore, to form too severe a judgment of these evil deeds of our forefathers. We ought rather to pity than to vituperate; while we ought not to forbear hating cruelty and oppression, in whatever form they present themselves.* Roman Catholic writers plead, in some justification of these proceedings, that Cranmer and his friends had made preparations for severity against the adherents of the old religion in the latter part of Edward's reign; and that "The Reformation of Laws," drawn up by them, only waited the sanction of parliament, when the death of the sovereign came to the relief of the doomed religionists.† But the code was never even laid before parliament; and there is no reason to doubt that the Protestant parliament would have altered all the articles of a persecuting spirit.‡ To hold that these laws, not printed till many years afterwards, could Papists have been the incentive of those who kindled the fires of Smithfield under had no excuse for Mary, is one of the most untenable of all positions. Truth and justice burning require it to be positively pronounced, that Gardiner and Bonner cannot the Proplead the example of Cranmer and Latimer for the bloody persecution which they now began. The anti-Trinitarian and the Anabaptist, if they had gained power, might indeed have urged such a mitigation, but the Roman Catholic had not even the odious excuse of retaliation.§ testants. conven 18. Martyrdom of Rogers, Hooper, Taylor, and others. The work of blood was actively commenced on the first day of the year 1555. Many of the leading Protestant divines were already in prison; these could be brought to judgment any time; it was therefore determined to attack first their brethren still at large. On the above day, Thomas Rose, a man whose intemperate zeal had brought him into trouble in the days of King Henry, was arrested with thirty of his companions, at a sheerman's house in Bow Churchyard. These men, driven from the churches Protestant by the abolition of the English service-book, often met ticles. thus in secret; sometimes in the ships lying in the river; in empty lofts; in the fields; and never in the same place twice together. They held correspondence with those in exile, and made collections for those in prison; and knowing that there was only one of two courses open to them-to apostatise or to diehad calmly made up their minds to fight the fight of the Lord, and withstand their adversaries boldly. Before the close of the month the storm burst on the heads of those in prison. On the 22nd of January these latter were brought before the chancellor and others, and, being apprised of the statutes recently enacted, were asked if they would become convert. They replied that they would stand to what they had taught, at which answer they were committed to stricter confinement. Next day the bishops all went to Lambeth to receive Cardinal Pole's blessing; on the 25th, Bonner, with eight bishops and a long procession of priests, went through London to return thanks to heaven for the recovery of the kingdom; and on the 28th, a commission, at the head of which was * Knight's Pop. Hist., III., 87-88. + Lingard, VII., 187-188. Mackintosh, II, 318. § Ibid, 319. CHAP. IV Gardiner, sat in the church of St. Mary Overies, in Southwark, for the trial of the Protestants. Six prisoners were brought before them, of whom five who refused to recant-viz., Hooper, the deprived bishop of Gloucester; Rogers, a prebendary of St. Paul's; Saunders, rector of All-hallows, in London; Taylor, rector of Hadley, in Suffolk; and John Bradford-were excommunicated, and then delivered over to the civil power to be burnt. Rogers. Rogers was the first victim. After his condemnation, he besought his judges to grant him an interview with his wife, a helpless foreign woman, who had borne him ten children. Gardiner had the brutality to aggravate his refusal at such a moment by saying she was not his wife. But he met them on his way to Smithfield on the 4th of February; he was unshaken by their sad farewell, and breathed his last triumphantly in the midst of suffocating flames. Hooper was sent to die in his episcopal city, where he arrived Hooper. after a ride of three days. It was market-day when he was executed; and the stake was fixed near a great elm tree in front of the cathedral, in the churchyard of St. Mary'de Lode. His sufferings were of the most lingering nature, but he died with feelings of triumphant piety (February 9th). On the same day Dr. Rowland Taylor was burned in the town Taylor. of Hadley. Of all the heroes of the Reformation he is the most interesting, because the most natural; and of the many beautiful histories in which Fox abounds, none is more beautiful than his. He was of a hearty, bluff English nature, full of kindliness and pleasantry, and, like most of the Protestant martyrs, a man of humble birth. He had been chaplain to Cranmer, but had left the archbishop's household to devote himself to the duties of his parish. It is impossible for us to enter here into the details of this thrice-told tale of sorrow; his zealous care of his parish, his merry and pleasant humour at his examination, his mournful meeting with his wife and daughter in London, as he set forth upon his journey early on a cold winter's morning, and his reception by his parishioners on the last sad day. Let the student read the story for himself in Fox's Acts and Monuments, while we draw a veil over the sufferings of the martyr, and see only his poor wife, who knelt at the stake to join in his prayers, and would not be driven away. The two remaining condemned reformers were burned-Saunders at Coventry, and Bradford in Smithfield. All these men were married; a fact which formed distinct evidence of their secession from the principles of the church of Rome. Hence they were easily marked |