tion to the Catholic church of the only It was not long before the hopes so fondly great monarchy which had separated from nursed were utterly dispelled. The queen, her communion was solemnized with that soured by early injustice, derived little condignity and splendor which became the solation from an austere and morose husmost momentous transaction which had for band, who was as capable, indeed, of faithseveral ages occurred in Christendom. ful attachment, as he was inflexible in his The queen and the king being placed in odious qualities, but who placed his dignity regal state in the great hall of the palace, in coldness, and was not likely to be taught the legate, who was a prince of the blood by Mary to feel emotions so foreign to his as well as of the church, took his seat be- character as those of tender affection. It is side them at some distance. An humble sup- probable that he saved the life of Elizaplication of the lords spiritual and temporal, beth, not from pity, for of that infirmity he and commons, in parliament assembled, on would have been ashamed, but from the behalf of the whole realm, was then pre- influence of one of those under-currents in sented to their majesties, beseeching those human affairs which often counteract a royal persons, unpolluted themselves by general course of policy. With all his heresy, to make intercession with the lord zeal and ambition, one of his prevailing cardinal, the legate of the apostolic see, dispositions was jealousy, and fear of his for their readmission within the sacred formidable neighbor and rival the king of pale of the church, and for an absolution France. As soon as he despaired of issue from the consequences of their offences, on by Mary, he perceived that all consistent condition of their proving themselves to be Catholics would consider the hereditary true penitents by the repeal of all the laws right to the crown of England as devolving against the Catholic religion and the holy on Mary Stuart queen of Scots, the niece see, passed in the season of their delusion. of Henry VIII. by his eldest sister MarThe intercession having been made by garet.

Philip and Mary, the legate then pro- England and France had struggled for nounced an absolution of the parliament the disposal of the hand of this beautiful and the whole realm from all heresy and child. The ancient connexion with France, schism, and from all judgments and pains and long jealousy of the designs of the for that cause incurred. Many of the nearer neighbor against national independpersons present burst into tears of joy at ence, together with the blind and passionate this most happy of all human occurrences. measures of the English government, threw The news spread over Europe with glad- the prize into the hands of the French ness and speed. The pope celebrated the monarch. Her marriage to the dauphin second conversion of England to Christi- was hastened by a grasping policy, before anity by a solemn procession, and ratified the natural age of such connexions; after all the acts of his faithful legate. which the wedded pair were made to as

The king, queen, and legate, together sume the title of king and queen dauphin. with both houses of parliament, chanted To prevent England from falling under Te Deum in the chapel of the palace. The their power, after the death of a hypochonagitation of Mary was so great that she driacal and childless queen, it became an imagined some internal disturbance to be object of Philip's policy to preserve Elizathe first movement of an unborn infant, abeth, who by the will of Henry VIII., and who gave this sign of life. So entire was in the opinion of her Protestant subjects, the belief yielded to this female fancy, that had a preferable title to that of the queenthe parliament besought the king to under- dauphiness. To have a hostage in his hands, take the guardianship of the child thus an- with pretensions so specious, was on all nounced at an auspicious moment. The suppositions an object of the utmost importprivy-council had on the day before en-ance to him. Whether he destined her for joined Bonner to direct Te Deum to be the duke of Savoy or the king of Sweden, sung throughout his diocese "for the good or already contemplated the possibility hope of certain succession to the crown." ." of espousing her himself, it was equally Weston, dean of Westminster, framed a necessary to his design that he should put form of prayer for the safe delivery of on the unwonted garb of clemency. ElizMary. Another prayer contained these abeth had hitherto lived in a continued expetitions: "Give therefore unto thy ser- pectation of death. Bedingfield was disvants Philip and Mary a male issue, which gusted at the indulgence shown to her by may sit in the seat of thy kingdom. Give unto our queen a little infant, in fashion and body comely and beautiful, in pregnant wit notable and excellent."

* At Whitehall.

† Cabrera, Filipe Segundo. Madrid, 1619.

That he proposed himself to her on the death of

her sister is asserted in the Mémoires de Nevers, and somewhat countenanced by the president Henault. The last writer inquired and knew more than the shortness of his narrative, and a certain prudery of [station, allowed him to disclose.

66

Williams. He forbade her to amuse her- diocesan pronounced that the heretic should self by looking at a game of chess. The be left to the secular arm, the sheriff or access of her own attendants was on one other local magistrate was required "to occasion prohibited, and she suspected that receive the heretics, and then, on a high orders had been given to put her privately place, before the people, to cause them to to death. Many traces of her residence be burnt." On this statute was founded the were discoverable at Woodstock in very ancient writ "on burning a heretic," which recent times.* A New Testament is still appears to have been the only legal warpreserved, which bears the initials of Eliz- rant for execution by the lay magistrate. abeth the captive, in her own beautiful The act of the six articles had virtually hand-writing. She wrote the following abrogated the ancient statute against Lolwords on it, with a mixed allusion to her lardy, by denouncing inferior punishments religious consolations and solitary walks, against the greater part of such offences. which, though quaint, are yet touching :- With the statute was now revived the proI walk many times into the pleasant fields cess for its execution. Before that revival of Holy Scriptures, where I pluck up goodly it does not appear that there was any syssentences by pruning, eat them by reading, tem of jurisdiction or mode of procedure chew them by musing, and lay them up at for the trial of heresy; though in the case length in the high seat of memory; that of anabaptists and anti-trinitarians, who having tasted their sweetness, may the were considered as offenders against the less perceive the bitterness of this misera- essentials of Christianity, the ancient law ble life." One of her visits to her sister was followed as if it had been still in force. at Hampton Court displayed the subtle de- The Roman Catholic church was regarded vices of a Spanish politician in that age. as having preserved the fundamental artiBeing conducted at midnight, by torch-cles of the Christian faith, though encumlight, to the queen's apartment, when she bered and obscured by corruptions. No had fallen on her knees, and poured forth Roman Catholic was treated as a heretic in professions of loyalty, Philip was concealed the reign of Edward. It has been said that behind the tapestry, in order that he might "the Reformation of Laws," composed in seem, if it had been necessary, the protec- the latter part of that prince's reign, does tor of the princess from the passionate tem- indicate preparations for severity against per of her sister. She was sent to Hatfield, the adherents of the old religion. This a royal palace, under the mild guardian- statement is chiefly grounded on a text of ship of Sir Thomas Pope, a Catholic gen- that projected code, which directs that contleman, who did as much as he could to tumacious and incorrigible heretics, after mitigate her imprisonment; although the all other means have been exhausted, shall stress laid by historical writers on some in- be at length delivered to the civil magisstances of common civility manifests their trate to be punished. It is assumed that sense of the rigor of his instructions. the punishment must be death. Yet in the The situation of Elizabeth must have very first article of the code, which relates been embittered by the sufferings of all to atheists and unbelievers in Christianity, those who were attached to her, or whom death is denounced against them in express she was accustomed to respect. An act words. T was passed by the parliament of 1554, pre- The admission of it into another article, vious to the absolution, and, as if it were a by mere implication, is therefore unreasonfit preparation for it, for the revival of the able. It is too terrible an enactment to be statutes of Richard II., Henry IV., and admitted without express words. If punHenry V. against heretics, and especially ishment is held to be synonymous with capagainst Lollards; which revival was to take ital punishment, by force of this clause effect from the 20th of January 1555. The death must be applied to all heresies. If most important of these persecuting stat- it was intended to confer on the civil magisutes was that of Henry IV., which seems trate a large discretion in the infliction of alone to have prescribed or pointed out a inferior punishments for the enumerated regular mode of inflicting capital punish-§ 31 Hen. 8. c. 14. ment on heretics either refusing to abjure their errors or relapsed into them after abjuration. In either of these cases, when the

| "Ad extremum ad civilem magistratum ablegatur puniendus." (Reform. Leg., de Judic. contra hæresis, c. 3.)

The interval between "to be punished" and "to be deprived of life" is rather wide. Another passage is equally conclusive: heretics are expressly declared to be punishable by infamy and civil disabilities,surely excluding death. Reform. Leg. de Judic. contra hæres. c. 10.

I rather wonder at my friend Mr. Hallam's hesitation in a case which seems to me to allow none. ¶ "Vitam illis adjudicandum statuimus." Reform. Leg. c. 1.

2 M

heresies, the article is perfectly agreeable | 28th of January, a commission, at the head to the practice of the framers, and the of which was Gardiner, lord chancellor, and opinions of the times. It is incredible that bishop of Winchester, sat in the church of capital punishment could be denounced St. Mary Overies, in Southwark, for the against the whole of a long series of here- trial of Protestants. His great abilities, sies, of which the catalogue nearly oc- his commanding character, and the station cupies twenty quarto pages, besides what which he was now chosen to fill, do not is called a monstrous heap of other errors* allow us to doubt that he, at least in the less necessary to be specified, as being less beginning, was the main author of these prevalent in that age. Even admitting this bloody counsels, although perhaps he did unreasonable construction of the plan for a not mean that the persecution should exreformed code, it affects only the reputation tend beyond the eminent ecclesiastics whom of the projectors. It never was adopted he called the ringleaders of sacrilegious by public authority. It was not laid before rebellion. This is at least agreeable to the parliament. There is no reason to doubt maxim said to have been uttered by him that the Protestant parliament would have against mercy to the princess Elizabeth, altered the very articles in question, if, which, if he ever used it, must have been when they were communicated to that as- pronounced when the imperial ambassadors sembly, they could be supposed to establish urged a similar advice," that it was vain or countenance a practice perfectly at va- to cut away the leaves and branches, if the riance with that of the king and parliament root and trunk of rebellion were spared."+ of England in the reign of Edward VI. Hooper, bishop of Gloucester, an ardent, To hold that a few words in a Latin manu- austere, and scrupulous Protestant, inclined script, of projected but not adopted laws, to some of the opinions afterwards called not printed till many years afterwards, puritanical, and Rogers, a clergyman of could have been the incentive of those who Essex, were the first martyrs in this persekindled the fires of Smithfield under Mary, cution. Rogers, on his examination, said is one of the most untenable of all positions. to Gardiner, "Did you not pray against the Truth and justice require it to be positively pope for twenty years?"-"I was forced pronounced, that Gardiner and Bonner can- by cruelty," answered Gardiner.—“ Will not plead the example of Cranmer and you," replied Rogers, "use cruelty to othLatimer for the bloody persecution which ers?" After his condemnation, he beinvolved in its course the destruction of the sought his judges to grant him an interProtestant prelates. The anti-trinitarian view with his wife, a helpless foreign and the anabaptist, if they had regained woman, who had borne to him ten children. power, might indeed have urged such a So much had the sophistries of a canonist mitigation, but the Roman Catholic had not silenced the feelings of nature in the breast even the odious excuse of retaliation. of Gardiner, that he had the brutality to The year 1555 opened under the saddest aggravate his refusal at such a moment by and darkest auguries for the now devoted saying, "She is not your wife." On his Protestants. A solemn embassy was sent way to Smithfield on the 4th of February, to Rome, to lay at the feet of his holiness 1555, he met his faithful and beloved wife the penitential homage of his erring chil- with her ten children, one of whom she dren in England. On the 23d of January, was suckling. He was unshaken by that the bishops went to Lambeth to receive sad scene, and he breathed his last triumphcardinal Pole's blessing. He advised them antly in the midst of suffocating flames. to treat their flocks with gentleness. On Hooper was sent to die in his episcopal the 25th, Bonner, with eight bishops, and a city. He, too, was vainly tempted by a hundred and sixty priests, made a proces- pardon held out at the edge of the pyre sion throughout London, to return thanks which was about to be kindled to consume to heaven for the recovery of the kingdom. In the midst of these joyful thanksgivings effectual preparation was made for scenes of another kind. As soon as the solemnities of reconciliation were completed, at the earliest moment that the nation could be regard- with most alacrity. They were bearing testimony § "The married clergy were observed to suffer ed as once more a member of the Catholic to the validity and sanctity of their marriage; the church, a sanguinary persecution was not honor of their wives and children were at stake threatened or prepared, but inflicted, on the a virtuous example, combined with a sense of reprelates, ministers, and members of the re-ligious duty; and thus the heart derived strength formed communion. It was the first measure have weakened it." These are the just and beauti from the very ties which in other circumstances might of the restored church of Rome. On the ful reflections of a fine writer, who should have transplanted into his writings more of the benevo*"Possit magna colluvies aliarum hæresium accu-lence of his nature and of his life.-Southey, Book mulari."-Epilog. de hæres. of the Church, ii. 151.

† Fuller, book viii. sect. 2.

rant and liberal Roman Catholic, my learned and I quote with pleasure from the work of a tole venerable friend Mr. Butler. Hist. Account of Eng lish Catholics, i. 133.

the desire of leaving them an unsullied name,

and

66

him. The green wood burnt weakly. He vate on the detention of the goods of the called upon the people to bring more fire, church, of which it was necessary to refor the flames burnt his limbs without reach-store the uttermost farthing, because the ing his vitals. He was three quarters of things that belong to God never can be ap-. an hour in dying. One of his hands dropped plied to human uses, and they who withoff before his death. But he died with hold the least part of them are in a state feelings of triumphant piety. To pursue of damnation. It is not difficult to underthe particulars of these cruelties more mi- stand the expedients by which the ingeninutely is beside the purpose of such an un- ous and refined sophists of Rome might redertaking as the present. They excited concile this private language of the pope general horror, aggravated, doubtless, by with his public acts. True," it might be the consideration that they were not acts said, "his holiness had remitted all eccleof retaliation for like cruelties suffered by siastical censures, and dispensed with all Catholics. Gardiner, disappointed by so ecclesiastical prohibitions respecting the firm a resistance, withdrew from a share property of the church in England; but he in vain bloodshed. Even Philip was com- could not wash out the indelible turpitude pelled to cause one of the most celebrated of rapine, nor profane the things set apart of his Spanish divines to preach against for the worship of God. From the penalthese odious proceedings.* Many of the ties of the canon law he had released the Catholic prelates are recorded by Protestant holders of church lands, but he could not writers to have exercised effectual and per- release them from being answerable to God haps hazardous humanity. Tunstall, bishop for a breach of the eternal and immutable of Durham, appears to have sometimes laws of justice." Whoever, indeed, is spoken to the accused with a violence for- thoroughly imbued with the important diseign from the general tenor of his life. It tinction between an immoral and an illegal has been suggested that, according to a act, will own that this dangerously applied practice of which there are remarkable reasoning is not in itself altogether void of instances in other seasons of tyranny and some color. terror, he submitted thus far to wear the Mary was not slow in listening to the disguise of cruelty, in order that he might counsels of the supreme pastor. She rebe better able to screen more victims from stored that portion of the confiscated propdestruction. The task of continuing the erty which still remained in the hands of system of blood, devolved on Bonner, bishop the crown. But the pious princess, if we of London, a man who seems to have been may believe Pallavicino, "deemed it adof so detestable a nature, that if there had vantageous to use condescension to private been no persecution he must have sought individuals who held the greater part of other means of venting his cruelty. Pe- the confiscations, lest she might enrol the titions against the proceedings of govern- numerous usurpers of abbey lands under the ment were transmitted to the queen from standard of an ill-suppressed heresy."+ the Protestant exiles who took refuge The number of sufferers in the very abroad, and who too transiently and scantily humblest conditions of life has sometimes imbibed somewhat of the spirit of religious been mentioned as extenuating the merit liberty in the severe school of beggary and of their martyrdom. It may assuredly be banishment. represented with more reason as an instance

While the humanity of the people was of the power of conscience to elevate the roused against cruelty, the alarm of the lowest of human beings above themselves, nobility for their large share in the plunder and as a proof of the cold-blooded cruelty of the church was excited by causes of a very of the persecutors, who, in order to spread different and much more ignoble nature. terror through every class, laboriously dug The pope, who had received the English up victims from the darkest corners of soambassadors at Rome with all the splendor fit for the ministers of a great crown dispatched on so happy an errand, thought it necessary to expostulate with them in pri

Fra Paolo, lib. v. A. D. 1555. Storia del Cone.

Trident. In this case cardinal Pallavicino, who

wrote from the archives of the court of Rome for the purpose of discrediting Fra Paolo, confirms it by a remarkable and otherwise inexplicable silence. For while he impugns at great length the narrative of

* Burn. book ii. A. D. 1555. Carranza, afterwards the Venetian respecting the conversation of the pope the celebrated and unfortunate archbishop of Toledo, with ambassadors about the title of kingdom conwas one of the preachers who accompanied Philip. ferred on Ireland, he passes over in silence the reHe attended the emperor in his last moments. But monstrances of the same pontiff against the detenthough eighteen years a prisoner in Spain and at Rome, he seems to have been a zealous Catholic. tion of ecclesiastical property in England, which so Llorente, Hist. Crit. de l'Inquisition de l'Espagne, have contradicted if he durst.-Pallav. Istor. del acute and vigilant an antagonist would certainly iii. 183. 304. Conc. Trident. lib. xiii. c. 12.

He boasts, in his dying confession, of having caused the bones of heretics to be dug from their graves in England. Yet he might have preached a sincerely tolerant sermon.

the veracity of Fra Paolo.

In c. 13. there is almost a positive admission of

Card. Pallav. lib. xiii. c. 13.

ciety, whose errors might have hoped for might be perfectly evident in the case of indulgence from any passion less merciless this eminent primate. Unhappily for his than bigotry. Among the leaders of the reputation, he made some of those repeated reformed church, Ridley, the most mode- applications to Mary for pardon by which rate, and Latimer, the simplest and frankest he had before escaped out of extraordinary of Protestant prelates, perished in the flames peril: it is true that in his successive at Oxford, on the 16th of October, 1555. letters to her he reasoned and expostulated In this persecution, it is needless to add with her upon her own administration; but that their death was worthy of their cause; his enemies saw his infirmity through the for all the martyrs deported themselves disguise of apparent boldness and liberty. fearlessly, and often joyfully. Among the He was entertained, if we may entirely expedients employed to annoy them, one of trust Protestant writers, by the Catholic the most effectual was that of pretended dean of Christ-church, where he was treatconferences on the disputed doctrines, in ed with much courtesy and hospitality, while which the audience was so carefully select- his hopes and his fears were practised on ed that they always gave the honors and by men of whom some might have really applauses of victory to the prevailing fac-wished to save his life: in an evil hour he tion. These conferences were a series of signed his recantation. It has been plausiinsolent triumphs. On one of them being bly conjectured by Burnet, that the writ for proposed by Bonner to Philpot, a noted di- putting him to death was sent down to Oxvine among the Protestants, he answered ford early in the long period between the well, by quoting the words of Ambrose date and the execution, to be shown to him archbishop of Milan to the emperor Valen- in order to work more effectually on the tinian: "Take away the law, and I will fears incident to feeble age. Whether he reason with you;" .99** an answer to which, could have been persuaded to adhere to that though perfectly conclusive, few but the disgraceful act for the miserable sake of a weaker party appeal. few years of decrepitude, is a question Every reader of this part of history will which the unrelenting temper of Mary rendesire somewhat more information respect- ders it impossible for us to answer. On ing the fate of Cranmer, the first patriarch Saturday the 22d of March, 1556, he was, of the Protestant church of England,—a without warning, though not without exman who, with all his infirmity, would have pectation, brought fourth to be burnt in been blameless in an age so calm as to re- front of Baliol College, after a sermon quire no other virtues than goodness and preached in St. Mary's before the universibenignity. He was committed to the Tow-ty, by Cole, provost of Eaton College, who er for treason in September, 1553. In Oc- was sent by the queen to Oxford to preach tober he was convicted of high treason for on that dire occasion. After the sermon, his share in the lady Jane's proclamation. the demeanor of the archbishop cannot be In the next year he obtained a pardon, the so well described as it is in the letter of an government purposing to convict him of eye-witness, a humane Catholic, who conheresy, which from them he considered as demned the error of Cranmer, but was no reproach, though he had earnestly soli- touched by his gentle virtues, and could pity cited a pardon for a breach of allegiance. his infirmities. "I shall not need to deThe Tower was for a time so crowded, that scribe his behavior for the time of the serCranmer, Ridley, Latimer, and Bradford, mon; his sorrowful countenance, his face were thrust together into one chamber. In bedewed with tears, sometimes lifting his the month of April of the succeeding year, eyes to heaven in hope, sometimes casting Cranmer, Ridley, and “old father Latimer," them down to the earth for shame; an imwere removed from the Tower to Oxford, age of sorrow, but retaining ever a quiet for the purpose of a disputation. The de- and grave behavior, which so increased the meanor of Cranmer was acknowledged by pity in men's hearts, that they unfeignedly his opponents to be grave and modest. Lat- loved him; hoping that it had been his reimer declared that, by reason of his old age, pentance for his transgressions and errors." his infirmities, and the weakness of his But Cranmer, in his address to the audimemory, he could not bear a debate. Wes- ence, undeceived them concerning the ton the prolocutor, the enemy of Cranmer, cause of his contrition and the object of his commended his modesty and gentleness, as regret. "Now," said he, "I am come to well as his learning and skill as a disputant. the great thing that troubleth my conHe was permitted to survive his colleagues science more than any other thing that I for many months. A new commission was over said or did in my life, and that is the obtained from Rome, in order that the more setting abroad of writings contrary to the rigorous adherence to the forms of law

"Tolle legem et fiet certamen."

Strype's Memorials of Archbishop Cranmer, i. 544. ed. Oxford, 1812.