Mary invariably refused to give her sister Elizabeth the title of princess; and her obstinacy in this and other particulars, had often drawn upon her her father's displeasure, and he had frequently put her under confinement. These early mortifications increased the natural sourness of her temper. The first act of Mary's reign showed a compassionate feeling, which raised the people's hopes of her character. She restored to liberty the old duke of Norfolk, who had languished in prison, with his unexecuted sentence hanging over his head, ever since the death of Henry VIII. She released also Courtenay, son of the marquess of Exeter, a young nobleman whose youth and talents had been wasting in a prison from his childhood, but who, soon after he was restored to the world, acquired a degree of grace and accomplishment, that made him an ornament to the court. The queen's next act was to release Gardiner, Bonner, and Tonstall, who had been deprived of liberty, and of their bishoprics, in the last reign; and she hastened, with their assistance, to overturn the Reformation, and to restore the old religion, and, as much as possible, to replace every thing on its former footing. She was greatly anxious for a reconciliation with the pope, who, at first, made some difficulty to receive within the pale of the church such a country of heretics as England was now become: but this difficulty was at length overcome, and cardinal de la Pole was appointed legate in England. But Mary, though she could restore the mass, the praying to images, and all the other ceremonials of the Romish church, found it impossible to recover to their former uses the lands and buildings of the religious houses. The foreign Protestants, who had brought many useful arts into the country, now hastily left it, and were followed by many English gentlemen, who were glad to escape from the persecutions which they foresaw were at hand. Cran How did Mary regard her sister, and what soured her temper? Did Mary ever exhibit any generosity? Did Mary restore the Catholic religion in England? Could Mary recover the church property? How did Cranmer and other Protestants demean themselves in the present juncture? mer was advised to fly; but he said he had been too much concerned in every measure of the Reformation to desert its cause. The queen had early marked him for destruction. She was not of a temper to forget an injury, and hated him for the share he had had in her mother's di vorce; which many good offices he had done to herself could never atone for in her eyes. A marriage was agreed upon between the A. D. 1554. queen and Philip of Spain, only son of Charles V. The match was exceedingly disliked by the English; but the archduke was made to agree, that the administration of government should remain entirely with the queen and her ministers; and that no foreigner should be permitted to hold any public office. Still so great was the alarm excited, that a formidable insurrection arose in Kent, which was headed by sir Thomas Wyatt, who, having travelled in Spain, brought home such an account of Philip as added to the previous horror of him that had existed. The object of the insurrection was to dethrone Mary, and to place lady Jane Grey on the throne; and if her father, the duke of Suffolk, did not actually join, he at least showed some approbation of it. Wyatt, at the head of 4000 men, entered London; but many of his followers, perceiving that no men of note joined his standard, silently left him. He was summoned to sur render; and having done so, he was tried, condemned, and executed: 400 of his unfortunate followers suffered with hin; and 400 more were conducted to the queen, with ropes about their necks, and falling on their knees, received their pardon. Soon afterwards, lady Jane Grey, whose fate it was always to suffer for the faults of others, was warned that she must prepare for death. The queen sent a priest of the Romish church to harass her last moments, by attempting to convert her; but her constancy was not to be shaken, and she employed the small portion of time that was left her What marriage contract was made for queen Mary in 1554? What became of sir Thomas Wyatt? What sentence was passed upon lady Jane Grey? in prayer, and in writing, in Greek, a farewell letter to her sister, in which she exhorted her to be firm in her faith. Lord Guildford Dudley was also condemned to die, and entreated to have a parting interview; but Jane refused it, lest the affliction of such a meeting should overcome their fortitude. She appeared on the scaffold with a serene countenance, and declared that she had greatly erred in not having more firmly refused the crown; but that filial reverence, and not her own ambition, had been the cause of her fault. Her father was beheaded soon after; and the queen became so suspicious of almost every body, that she filled the prisons with nobles and gentlemen. The time now arrived that had been fixed A. D. 1555. for the archduke's coming to England; but the admiral of the fleet which Mary had sent to escort him, dared not.take him on board, lest the sailors should commit some violence against him. Such was the detestation in which he was held. At last he arrived: the marriage was celebrated at Westminster; and Philip, by his distant and reserved behavior, increased the previous dislike of the English. From this time the chief business of parliament was to guard against the encroachments of Philip; while Mary's only anxiety was to increase the power and influence of a husband, on whom she doated with a troublesome fondness, though he, on his part, could with difficulty conceal his own dislike to his unengaging partner. On one subject, however, they were perfectly agreed, namely, in the desire to extirpate heresy, by the most violent and sanguinary mea sures. Gardiner willingly entered into the views of Philip and Mary; but finding this work of cruelty more arduous than he had expected, he made it over to Bonner, a man of such inhumanity that he even delighted to see the dying agonies of the sufferers; and would often take on himself the office of executioner, adding to the misery of the poor creatures who suffered, by a mockery and levity, which, had it not What was the end of lady Jane and her husband? Was Philip of Spain liked in England? In what were Philip and Mary agreed? Was the extirpation of heresy, as the bigots of this reign called persecution, attended with manifestations of cruelty? been asserted by writers of undoubted credit, one would have thought impossible. In the course of the next three years, nearly three hundred persons were burned alive, martyrs to their religion; many more suffered imprisonments, fines, and lesser punishments. Two venerable and pious men, Latimer and Ridley, were amongst the first who perished; and they died exhorting each other to faith and courage. They were burnt, in the year 1555, in the public street at Oxford, near Baliol College. Hooper, bishop of Gloucester, was another martyr.When he was tied to the stake, and the faggots heaped about him, the queen's pardon was placed on a stool before him, and if he would have recanted, he might have stretched out his hand to take the pardon; but he rejected it on such a condition, and died without uttering a groan. If these scenes fill us with horror at the wickedness of Mary and her ministers, they also make us revere the constancy of the sufferers, who, sustained by faith and hope, could thus abide, without a groan, the horrors of a death of extreme torture. Far from extirpating the Protestant religion, these barbarities only set the hearts of the people the more resolutely against a church which could sanction such cruelty. The English law in regard to heretics, was nevertheless too mild to satisfy the ferocity of Philip, and he made an attempt to introduce the Inquisition into England, but happily without success. At the time when these executions took place, Gardiner also died. He was succeeded as chancellor by Heath, archbishop of York, a man of slender abilities, but of a furious zeal. Gardiner's death hastened that of Cranmer. The new chancellor made no opposition to the queen's wish that he should be put to death, and he was condemned to be burned at Oxford. In a moment of weakness the archbishop, hoping by such a measure to preserve his life, signed a paper, in which he avowed his belief in the pope's supremacy. But Mary sent him word this should not save him, Who were burned for heresy in England in 1555? What fortitude was exhibited by Hooper, bishop of Gloucester? Did the cruelty of Mary and her ministers extirpate the reformed religion? What became of Gardiner, and of Cranmer? and that he must acknowledge his errors in the church, before the whole people. The strength of Cranmer's mind now returned; and, when he was brought forth to the church to make his public recantation, instead of doing so, he bitterly bewailed his momentary weakness, and asserted his firm belief in the Protestant faith. He was immediately led forth to execution; and, when the faggots were set on fire, he stretched out his right hand, with which he had signed the paper, and held it in the flames until it was totally consumed, without betraying any symptom of pain, saying frequently, "This hand has offended;" then, as if his mind was more at ease for having made this atonement, his countenance became full of peaceful serenity, and he appeared insensible to all worldly suffering. The next day the cardinal de la Pole was made archbishop of Canterbury; and he showed so much lenity to wards the Protestants, as to excite the displeasure of the pope. Philip, who had soon become weary of England, went, in 1555, to Flanders; and the queen, seeing herself treated by him with indifference and neglect, spent her time in tears and lamentations, and in writing long letters to him, which he never answered, and, perhaps, never read. The more he slighted her, the more she doted on him; and to procure money, in the hope of winning him back by supplying him with it, she loaded the people with taxes. The emperor Charles V., wearied with A. D. 1556. the toils of royalty, which his intriguing and ambitious spirit had made a greater burden to him than to the generality of monarchs, took the extraordinary resolution of retiring from the bustle of the world to the retirement of a monastery, and resigned all his dominions to his son. Philip, who had his father's ambition, but not his talents, immediately declared war against France, and he expected England should do the same; but, the Spanish yoke being Was the constancy of Cranmer shaken at the prospect of death? Who succeeded to Cranmer as Archbishop? When did Philip of Spain leave England? When did Charles V. resign his dominions to his son? Did Philip induce the English to declare war against France? |