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to Mary, and caused her to be proclaimed at Cambridge. It was, however, too late; the lady Jane had already resigned the crown, and the queen's warrant was issued for the apprehension of those who had been foremost in the rebellion. The dukes of Suffolk and Northumberland, with twenty-five other nobles and knights, were arrested, and the lady Jane, with her youthful husband lord Guildford Dudley, was committed to the Tower. Northumberland and two others were alone executed.

On arriving in London, Mary immediately proceeded to the Tower, and restored to liberty the duke of Norfolk, the duchess of Somerset, bishops Gardiner, Bonner, and Tunstall, with other eminent personages who had been imprisoned during the preceding reign on account of their religion. These she admitted into her confidence and favour, and bestowed on Gardiner the important office of chancellor, which clearly showed the course she intended to pursue. No one had more reason to hate the doctrines of the Reformation than Mary-they were associated in her mind with the divorce and ignominy of her mother and her own sufferings and imprisonment; and although at first she professed that it was her intention not to interfere with the religion of the people, it soon became evident that the re-establishment of the Romish church was the object nearest to her heart, and in the attainment of which she was ready to sacrifice her crown, and even her life. To effect this vital change in the religion of the country, however, required the utmost caution and perseverance; for the Londoners were firmly attached to the Reformation, and showed their impatience to submit to the dictates of the court in matters of conscience. Mass, at first only tolerated, was soon introduced into most of the churches, and at length was celebrated, by the queen's order, in St. Paul's and Canterbury cathedrals. Ridley, Hooper, and Cranmer, who had hitherto behaved with deference to the queen's authority, could no longer endure these innovations, and petitioned the queen for their discontinuance; she professed to be provoked at their insolence, and ordered them to be committed to the Tower. The parliament which now met had been unduly influenced in the elections, and immediately proceeded to revoke all the statutes of the late reign concerning religion, and prohibited every other form of service. except that in use at the death of Henry VIII. The attainders against lady Jane Grey, her husband, lord Ambrose Dudley, and archbishop Cranmer, were confirmed, and when these illustrious prisoners were brought to trial at Guildhall, they all pleaded guilty. Cranmer, urged by the love of life, wrote to the queen, requesting her favour, and explaining the part he had taken in the affair of altering the succession, but made no allusion to the

eminent service he had done in securing her safety in her father's time. The queen, however, who had always regarded him with aversion, as the author of all her ills and the main promoter of the Reformation, made no answer to his application, although it does not appear that at that time she had any decided intention of taking away his life. The commons, although so subservient in religious matters, still entertained some regard for the liberty of the subject, and obtained from the queen the revocation of all treasons not contained in the statute of 25 Edward III., and of all felonies not existing prior to the reign of Henry VIII.

Mary, who had for some time been thinking of marrying, kept gay festivities at court, and received the proffers of many noble suitors the king of Denmark, the infant of Portugal, and cardinal Pole were all spoken of, but the queen had fixed her affections on Courtenay, earl of Devonshire, a young man of great promise, and related to the crown. It was generally hoped that this match would be successful, but, on after consideration, Mary determined to change her resolution, and accepted the offer of the prince of Spain, who was in his 27th year and heir to the vast dominions of the emperor Charles V.: gratified by the prospect of an alliance with so noble a house, and flattered that a prince eleven years her junior should have sought her hand, she gave her promise to the imperial ambassador, and taking him into her private chapel, laid her hand upon the altar, swearing that she would receive no other than the prince of Spain for her consort. As soon as this determination was publicly known, it filled the whole nation with consternation. Even the Roman catholic party, including Gardiner, who, with all his religious zeal, had the welfare of England at heart, objected to this alliance; but the dismay of the protestants was indeed great when they learned that the queen had resolved to bestow her hand on this prince; it was in vain that the commons petitioned or her ministers remonstrated, she answered that it was for her and not for them to choose in this matter. Gardiner, perceiving that the queen's resolve was unalterably fixed, used his eloquence in advocating the treaty with the lords of the council, and recommended the people to submit to the will of their prince, but nothing could overcome the antipathy of the English to the Spanish match; they knew well that neither treaties nor promises would bind Philip, if he had the power, from trampling on the constitution, and establishing the tribunal of the inquisition. These fears were further excited by Noailles, the French ambassador, who did not wish to see so great an accession of power placed in the hands of the enemy of France. By the spring of the following year (February, 1554), discontent had ripened into open rebellion, and the men of Kent, under the command of sir

Thomas Wyatt, entered London. On this trying occasion Mary exhibited all the courage of her race, and resolved to face the danger. Instead of seeking refuge in the Tower, as she was advised by her ministers, she entered Guildhall with the sceptre in her hand, and having directed the lord mayor to summon a meeting of the citizens, she addressed them with such energy and passion that the hall resounded with acclamations, and the citizens unanimously voted 25,000 men to be placed at her disposal. When the insurgents found that the citizens were resolved to oppose them, they gradually dispersed, and Wyatt having failed in forcing his way from the Strand to Ludgate hill, was made prisoner. Although lady Jane Grey had taken no part in the rebellion, the queen was determined to remove a princess of whom she was jealous, and the very next day signed the warrant for her execution. This measure had long been recommended by the emperor as requisite for the queen's safety, and it was only the fear of popular indignation that had hitherto prevented it.

On the 12th of February, the morning appointed for the execution, the lady Jane ascended the scaffold with firm step, and having expressed her contrition for having aspired to what belonged to the queen, and her firm attachment to the protestant faith, she knelt down, and with christian resignation placed her head upon the block; her husband and her father were likewise executed. Although the nation was certainly right in adhering to the hereditary succession, every circumstance in the life of this young and amiable princess conspires to engage our admiration and sympathy. The whole history of tyranny," says an eloquent historian,* "furnishes no example so touching as that of the lady Jane. She was a girl of seventeen, put to death by a female and relation for acquiescing in the injunction of a father, sanctioned by the concurrence of all that the kingdom could boast of that was illustrious in nobility or grave in law, or venerable in religion. The example of her fate was the more affecting, as it is that of a person who exhibited a matchless union of youth and beauty-with genius-with learning-with virtue-with piety; whose affections were so warm, while her passions were so perfectly subdued: it was a death sufficient to honour and dishonour an age.' Even the Romish historians, who are in general inclined to palliate the deeds of Mary, admit that this act of severity was uncalled for; but it was only in accordance with her barbarous conduct towards the prisoners who had been taken in the affray at St. James's; besides four hundred commoners, fifty gentlemen and officers were executed in cold blood, together with the duke of Suffolk and lord Guildford Dudley, who were beheaded on Tower-hill; and the

* Mackintosh, Hist. Eng. ii. 306.

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princess Elizabeth with difficulty escaped a similar fate. During these prosecutions a circumstance occurred which showed the arbitrary power which the crown still retained.

Notwithstanding the repeal of the extension of the treason and felony laws of Henry VIII., the authority which the council (or as it is frequently termed the Star Chamber, from the ceiling of the room in which the court sat,) exercised over the ordinary tribunals rendered the security of law insufficient to protect the subject from the vengeance of the crown. Sir Nicholas Throgmorton, a man of superior ability and determination, on being brought to trial, defended himself with such eloquence that he convinced the jury who were empanelled to try him, that his accusation could by no possibility be brought within the statute of Edward III.—the only existing law of treason, and they accordingly acquitted him: but as this example would have proved fatal to the interference of the crown in state trials if brought into precedent, the jurors were summoned before the council and committed to prison, some being fined in 1000 marks, and others in

2000, a stretch of prerogative which was not at all uncommon in these times, and under the house of Tudor threatened to overthrow the constitution by destroying the individual freedom of the subject; for although the privy council, as lord Brougham observes, possessed no criminal jurisdiction, its authority over the inferior courts rendered it virtually absolute, and the crown by veiling its arbitrary mandates in the disguise of its authority could punish at will those juries and officers who refused to conform to its wishes, however contrary to law or inimical to liberty. To such an extent had religious fanaticism deadened the natural sensibilities of Mary's mind, that she suspected her sister Elizabeth on all occasions of danger, and even it is said wished her death, lest she should succeed to the throne and restore the protestant religion : the emperor too urged the expediency of this step, and Wyatt was consequently reprieved from immediate execution in the hope that he might be induced to incriminate the lady Elizabeth and Courtenay in his projects; but failing to give sufficient evidence to satisfy the council, he was sent to the gallows, and at the moment of his execution voluntarily declared that his confessions had been gained from him under promise of his life, and that the princess Elizabeth had no knowledge of his designs. Arundel and Paget, who were two of the most violent members of the council, advised immediate proceeding against the princess Elizabeth, but Gardiner, who was a more wary statesman, informed the queen that by no possibility could the charges against her be brought within the statute of 25 Edward III., and unless she was willing to take the odium of her sister's death upon herself, extreme

measures had better be avoided. The prosecution was consequently abandoned, but Elizabeth was still retained in prison, and a short time after removed from the Tower to Woodstock, where she was more strictly guarded.

The subserviency of parliament which had been the disgrace of the preceding reigns was still more evident in the early part of Mary's reign; but in 1554, when a bill was introduced for enabling the queen to dispose of the crown and regulate the succession, by which was meant that she might leave it to her husband Philip, to the exclusion of the next heir, the commons rejected with disdain a measure which would have rendered England a province of the Spanish monarchy; they even went so far as to refuse to gratify the queen by renewing the law of the six articles or by making it treason to compass the death of her husband. It was in vain that Mary threatened or solicited, and all the arts of Gardiner could not prevail on the commons to acknowledge Philip as successor. The queen now became distrustful of her subjects, she felt that she could not rely on their affections, and whenever she went abroad she was surrounded by a numerous body-guard. This added to her depression of spirits, and a gloomy fanaticism foretold the coming persecution. A general sentiment of mistrust pervaded the nation, and many of the gentry sold their estates and went over to France. At this time Philip arrived in England to visit his queen, and was received with magnificent entertainments, but he could not help perceiving that his presence was anything but welcome to the English people, who identified the government of Spain with tyranny and superstition. His address, however, was grave and dignified, and he had the good fortune to recommend to Mary the liberation of the princess Elizabeth, and obtained the release of most of the political prisoners, which in some measure dispelled the adverse opinions which had been formed of his character. The parliament, which could not well do otherwise, sanctioned the marriage, but only on these conditions, that Philip, who was now king of Naples and duke of Milan, should not interfere in the government of England, which was to be carried on in the queen's name and by her sole authority; that the ships, treasure, and jewels of the English crown should not be taken away or employed in foreign service, and that in the event of the queen's death, without issue, Philip should have no right or title to the crown. These conditions were agreed to, and on the 25th of July the ceremony of marriage took place in the cathedral of Winchester. The queen's attention was now solely fixed on restoring England to the Romish church: knowing that nothing could be accomplished without the consent of parliament, she sent to the sheriff's

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