Chapter XXXVI: Mary (1)

{1553.} The title of the princess Mary, after the demise of her brother, was not exposed to any considerable difficulty; and the objections started by the lady Jane’s partisans were new and unheard of by the nation. Though all the Protestants, and even many of the Catholics, believed the marriage of Henry VIII. with Catharine of Arragon to be unlawful and invalid; yet, as it had been contracted by the parties without any criminal intention, had been avowed by their parents, recognized by the nation, and seemingly founded on those principles of law and religion which then prevailed, few imagined that their issue ought on that account to be regarded as illegitimate. A declaration to that purpose had indeed been extorted from parliament by the usual violence and caprice of Henry; but as that monarch had afterwards been induced to restore his daughter to the right of succession, her title was now become as legal and parliamentary as it was ever esteemed just and natural. The public had long been familiarized to these sentiments: during all the reign of Edward, the princess was regarded as his lawful successor; and though the Protestants dreaded the effects of her prejudices, the extreme hatred universally entertained against the Dudleys,[*] who, men foresaw, would, under the name of Jane, be the real sovereigns, was more than sufficient to counterbalance, even with that party, the attachment to religion.

* Sleidan, lib. xxv.

This last attempt to violate the order of succession had displayed Northumberland’s ambition and injustice in a full light; and when the people reflected on the long train of fraud, iniquity, and cruelty, by which that project had been conducted; that the lives of the two Seymours, as well as the title of the princesses, had been sacrificed to it; they were moved by indignation to exert themselves in opposition to such criminal enterprises. The general veneration also paid to the memory of Henry VIII. prompted the nation to defend the rights of his posterity; and the miseries of the ancient civil wars were not so entirely forgotten, that men were willing, by a departure from the lawful heir, to incur the danger of like bloodshed and confusion.

Northumberland, sensible of the opposition which he must expect, had carefully concealed the destination made by the king; and in order to bring the two princesses into his power, he had had the precaution to engage the council, before Edward’s death, to write to them in that prince’s name, desiring their attendance, on pretence that his infirm state of health required the assistance of their counsel and the consolation of their company.[*] Edward expired before their arrival; but Northumberland, in order to make the princesses fall into the snare, kept the king’s death still secret; and the lady Mary had already reached Hoddesden, within half a day’s journey of the court. Happily, the earl of Arundel sent her private intelligence, both of her brother’s death, and of the conspiracy formed against her;[**] she immediately made haste to retire; and she arrived, by quick journeys, first at Kenning Hall in Norfolk, then at Framlingham in Suffolk; where she purposed to embark and escape to Flanders, in case she should find it impossible to defend her right of succession. She wrote letters to the nobility and most considerable gentry in every county in England; commanding them to assist her in the defence of her crown and person. And she despatched a message to the council; by which she notified to them, that her brother’s death was no longer a secret to her, promised them pardon for past offences, and required them immediately to give orders for proclaiming her in London.[***]

* Heylin, p. 154.

** Burnet, vol. ii. p. 233.

*** Fox, vol. iii, p. 14.

Northumberland found that further dissimulation was fruitless: he went to Sion House,[*] accompanied by the duke of Suffolk, the earl of Pembroke, and others of the nobility; and he approached the lady Jane, who resided there, with all the respect usually paid to the sovereign. Jane was in a great measure ignorant of these transactions; and it was with equal grief and surprise that she received intelligence of them.[**] She was a lady of an amiable person, an engaging disposition, accomplished parts; and being of an equal age with the late king, she had received all her education with him, and seemed even to possess greater facility in acquiring every part of manly and polite literature. She had attained a familiar knowledge of the Roman and Greek languages, besides modern tongues; had passed most of her time in an application to learning; and expressed a great indifference for other occupations and amusements usual with her sex and station. Roger Ascham, tutor to the lady Elizabeth, having one day paid her a visit, found her employed in reading Plato, while the rest of the family were engaged in a party of hunting in the park; and on his admiring the singularity of her choice, she told him, that she received more pleasure from that author than the others could reap from all their sport and gayety.[***] Her heart, full of this passion for literature and the elegant arts, and of tenderness towards her husband, who was deserving of her affections, had never opened itself to the flattering allurements of ambition; and the intelligence of her elevation to the throne was nowise agreeable to her. She even refused to accept of the present; pleaded the preferable title of the two princesses; expressed her dread of the consequences attending an enterprise so dangerous, not to say so criminal; and desired to remain in the private station in which she was born.

* Thuanus, lib. xiii. c. 10.

** Godwin in Kennet, p. 329. Heylin, p. 149. Burnet, vol.
ii. p. 234.

*** Ascham’s Works, p. 222, 223.

Overcome at last by the entreaties, rather than the reasons, of her father and father-in-law, and above all of her husband, she submitted to their will, and was prevailed on to relinquish her own judgment. It was then usual for the kings of England, after their accession, to pass the first days in the Tower; and Northumberland immediately conveyed thither the new sovereign. All the counsellors were obliged to attend her to that fortress; and by this means became, in reality, prisoners in the hands of Northumberland, whose will they were necessitated to obey. Orders were given by the council to proclaim Jane throughout the kingdom; but these orders were executed only in London and the neighborhood. No applause ensued: the people heard the proclamation with silence and concern: some even expressed their scorn and contempt; and one Pot, a vintner’s apprentice, was severely punished for this offence. The Protestant teachers themselves, who were employed to convince the people of Jane’s title, found their eloquence fruitless; and Ridley, bishop of London, who preached a sermon to that purpose, wrought no effect upon his audience.

The people of Suffolk, meanwhile, paid their attendance on Mary. As they were much attached to the reformed communion, they could not forbear, amidst their tenders of duty, expressing apprehensions for their religion; but when she assured them that she never meant to change the laws of Edward, they enlisted themselves in her cause with zeal and affection. The nobility and gentry daily flocked to her, and brought her reënforcement. The earls of Bath and Sussex, the eldest sons of Lord Wharton and Lord Mordaunt, Sir William Drury, Sir Henry Benningfield, Sir Henry Jernegan, persons whose interest lay in the neighborhood, appeared at the head of their tenants and retainers.[*] Sir Edward Hastings, brother to the earl of Huntingdon, having received a commission from the council to make levies for the lady Jane in Buckinghamshire, carried over his troops, which amounted to four thousand men, and joined Mary. Even a fleet which had been sent by Northumberland to lie off the coast of Suffolk, being forced into Yarmouth by a storm, was engaged to declare for that princess.

Northumberland, hitherto blinded by ambition, saw at last the danger gather round him, and knew not to what hand to turn himself. He had levied forces, which were assembled at London; but dreading the cabals of the courtiers and counsellors, whose compliance, he knew, had been entirely the result of fear or artifice, he was resolved to keep near the person of the lady Jane, and send Suffolk to command the army. But the counsellors, who wished to remove him,[**] working on the filial tenderness of Jane, magnified to her the danger to which her father would be exposed; and represented that Northumberland, who had gained reputation by formerly suppressing a rebellion in those parts, was more proper to command in that enterprise.

* Heylin, p. 160. Burnet, vol. ii. p. 237.

** Godwin, p. 330. Heylin, p. 159. Burnet vol. ii. p. 239.
Fox, vol. iii. p 15.

The duke himself, who knew the slender capacity of Suffolk, began to think that none but himself was able to encounter the present danger; and he agreed to take on him the command of the troops. The counsellors attended on him at his departure with the highest protestations of attachment, and none more than Arundel, his mortal enemy.[*] As he went along, he remarked the disaffection of the people, which foreboded a fatal issue to his ambitious hopes. “Many,” said he to Lord Gray, “come out to look at us, but I find not one who cries, God speed you!”[**]

The duke had no sooner reached St. Edmondsbury, than he found his army, which did not exceed six thousand men, too weak to encounter the queen’s,[***] which amounted to double the number. He wrote to the council, desiring them to send him a reënforcement; and the counsellors immediately laid hold of the opportunity to free themselves from confinement. They left the Tower, as if they meant to execute Northumberland’s commands; but being assembled in Baynard’s castle, a house belonging to Pembroke, they deliberated concerning the method of shaking off his usurped tyranny. Arundel began the conference, by representing the injustice and cruelty of Northumberland, the exorbitancy of his ambition, the criminal enterprise which he had projected, and the guilt in which he had involved the whole council; and he affirmed, that the only method of making atonement for their past offences, was by a speedy return to the duty which they owed to their lawful sovereign.[****] This motion was seconded by Pembroke, who, clapping his hand to his sword, swore he was ready to fight any man that expressed himself of a contrary sentiment. The mayor and aldermen of London were immediately sent for, who discovered great alacrity in obeying the orders they received to proclaim Mary. The people expressed their approbation by shouts of applause. Even Suffolk, who commanded in the Tower, finding resistance fruitless, opened the gates, and declared for the queen. The lady Jane, after the vain pageantry of wearing a crown during ten days, returned to a private life with more satisfaction than she felt when the royalty was tendered to her:[v] and the messengers who were sent to Northumberland with orders to lay down his arms, found that he had despaired of success, was deserted by all his followers, and had already proclaimed the queen, with exterior marks of joy and satisfaction.[v*] The people every where, on the queen’s approach to London, gave sensible expressions of their loyalty and attachment; and the lady Elizabeth met her at the head of a thousand horse, which that princess had levied in order to support their joint title against the usurper.[v**]

* Heylin, p. 161. Baker, p. 315. Holingshed, p. 1086.

** Speed, p. 816.

*** Godwin, p. 331.

**** Godwin, p. 331, 332. Thuanus, lib. xiii.

v Godwin, p. 332. Thuanus, lib. xiii. c. 2

v* Stowe, p. 612.

v** Burnet, vol. ii. p. 240. Heylin, p. 19. Stowe, p. 613.

The queen gave orders for taking into custody the duke of Northumberland, who fell on his knees to the earl of Arundel, that arrested him, and abjectly begged his life.[*] At the same time were committed the earl of Warwick, his eldest son, Lord Ambrose and Lord Henry Dudley, two of his younger sons, Sir Andrew Dudley, his brother, the marquis of Northampton, the earl of Huntingdon, Sir Thomas Palmer, and Sir John Gates. The queen afterwards confined the duke of Suffolk, Lady Jane Gray, and Lord Guildford Dudley. But Mary was desirous, in the beginning of her reign, to acquire popularity by the appearance of clemency; and because the counsellors pleaded constraint as an excuse for their treason, she extended her pardon to most of them. Suffolk himself recovered his liberty; and he owed this indulgence, in a great measure, to the contempt entertained of his capacity. But the guilt of Northumberland was too great, as well as his ambition and courage too dangerous, to permit him to entertain any reasonable hopes of life. When brought to his trial, he only desired permission to ask two questions of the peers appointed to sit on his jury; whether a man could be guilty of treason that obeyed orders given him by the council under the great seal; and whether those who were involved in the same guilt with himself could sit as his judges. Being told that the great seal of a usurper was no authority, and that persons not lying under any sentence of attainder were still innocent in the eye of the law, and might be admitted on any jury,[**] he acquiesced, and pleaded guilty. At his execution, he made profession of the Catholic religion, and told the people that they never would enjoy tranquillity till they returned to the faith of their ancestors: whether that such were his real sentiments, which he had formerly disguised from interest and ambition, or that he hoped by this declaration to render the queen more favorable to his family.[***] Sir Thomas Palmer and Sir John Gates suffered with him; and this was all the blood spilled on account of so dangerous and criminal an enterprise against the rights of the sovereign. Sentence was pronounced against the lady Jane and Lord Guildford, but without any present intention of putting it in execution. The youth and innocence of the persons, neither of whom had reached their seventeenth year, pleaded sufficiently in their favor.

* Burnet, vol. ii. p. 239. Stowe, p. 612. Baker, p. 315.
Holingshed, p. 1088.

** Burnet, vol. ii. p. 243. Heylin, p. 18. Baker, p. 316.
Holingshed, p. 1089.

*** Heylin, p. 19. Burnet. vol. iii. p. 243. Stowe, p. 614.

When Mary first arrived in the Tower, the duke of Norfolk, who had been detained prisoner during all the last reign, Courtney, son of the marquis of Exeter, who, without being charged with any crime, had been subjected to the same punishment ever since his father’s attainder; Gardiner, Tonstal, and Bonner, who had been confined for their adhering to the Catholic cause, appeared before her, and implored her clemency and protection.[*] They were all of them restored to their liberty, and immediately admitted to her confidence and favor. Norfolk’s attainder, notwithstanding that it had passed in parliament, was represented as null and invalid; because, among other informalities, no special matter had been alleged against him, except wearing a coat of arms which he and his ancestors, without giving any offence, had always made use of, in the face of the court and of the whole nation. Courtney soon after received the title of earl of Devonshire; and though educated in such close confinement that he was altogether unacquainted with the world, he soon acquired all the accomplishments of a courtier and a gentleman, and made a considerable figure during the few years which he lived after he recovered his liberty.[**] Besides performing all those popular acts, which, though they only affected individuals, were very acceptable to the nation, the queen endeavored to ingratiate herself with the public by granting a general pardon, though with some exceptions, and by remitting the subsidy voted to her brother by the last parliament.[***]

* Heylin, p. 20. Stowe, p. 613. Holingshed, p. 1088.

** Dépêches de Noailles, vol ii. p 246, 247.

*** Stowe, p. 616.

The joy arising from the succession of the lawful heir, and from the gracious demeanor of the sovereign, hindered not the people from being agitated with great anxiety concerning the state of religion; and as the bulk of the nation inclined to the Protestant communion, the apprehensions entertained concerning the principles and prejudices of the new queen were pretty general. The legitimacy of Mary’s birth had appeared to be somewhat connected with the papal authority; and that princess being educated with her mother, had imbibed the strongest attachment to the Catholic communion, and the highest aversion to those new tenets, whence, she believed, all the misfortunes of her family had originally sprung. The discouragements which she lay under from her father, though at last they brought her to comply with his will, tended still more to increase her disgust to the reformers; and the vexations which the protector and the council gave her during Edward’s reign, had no other effect than to confirm her further in her prejudices. Naturally of a sour and obstinate temper, and irritated by contradiction and misfortunes, she possessed all the qualities fitted to compose a bigot; and her extreme ignorance rendered her utterly incapable of doubt in her own belief, or of indulgence to the opinions of others. The nation, therefore, had great reason to dread, not only the abolition, but the persecution of the established religion from the zeal of Mary; and it was not long ere she discovered her intentions.

Gardiner, Bonner, Tonstal, Day, Heath, and Vesey, were reinstated in their sees, either by a direct act of power, or, what is nearly the same, by the sentence of commissioners appointed to review their trial and condemnation. Though the bishopric of Durham had been dissolved by authority of parliament, the queen erected it anew by letters patent, and replaced Tonstal in his regalities as well as in his revenue. On pretence of discouraging controversy, she silenced, by an act of prerogative, all the preachers throughout England, except such as should obtain a particular license; and it was easy to foresee, that none but Catholics would be favored with this privilege. Holgate, archbishop of York, Coverdale, bishop of Exeter, Ridley of London, and Hooper of Glocester, were thrown into prison; whither old Latimer also was sent soon after. The zealous bishops and priests were encouraged in their forwardness to revive the mass, though contrary to the present laws. Judge Hales, who had discovered such constancy in defending the queen’s title, lost all his merit by an opposition to those illegal practices; and being committed to custody, was treated with such severity, that he fell into frenzy, and killed himself. The men of Suffolk were browbeaten because they presumed to plead the promise which the queen, when they enlisted themselves in her service, had given them of maintaining the reformed religion: one in particular was set in the pillory, because he had been too peremptory in recalling to her memory the engagements which she had taken on that occasion. And though the queen still promised in a public declaration before the council, to tolerate those who differed from her; men foresaw that this engagement, like the former, would prove but a feeble security when set in opposition to religious prejudices.

The merits of Cranmer towards the queen during the reign of Henry had been considerable; and he had successfully employed his good offices in mitigating the severe prejudices which that monarch had entertained against her. But the active part which he had borne in promoting her mother’s divorce, as well as in conducting the reformation, had made him the object of her hatred; and though Gardiner had been equally forward in soliciting and defending the divorce, he had afterwards made sufficient atonement, by his sufferings in defence of the Catholic cause. The primate, therefore, had reason to expect little favor during the present reign; but it was by his own indiscreet zeal, that he brought on himself the first violence and persecution. A report being spread that Cranmer, in order to pay court to the queen, had promised to officiate in the Latin service, the archbishop, to wipe off this aspersion, published a manifesto in his own defence. Among other expressions, he there said, that as the devil was a liar from the beginning, and the father of lies, he had at this time stirred up his servants to persecute Christ and his true religion: that this infernal spirit now endeavored to restore the Latin satisfactory masses, a thing of his own invention and device; and in order to effect his purpose, had falsely made use of Cranmer’s name and authority: and that the mass is not only without foundation, either in the Scriptures or in the practice of the primitive church, but likewise discovers a plain contradiction to antiquity and the inspired writings, and is besides replete with many horrid blasphemies.[*]

* Fox, vol. iii. p. 94. Heylin, p. 25. Godwin, p. 336.
Burnet Vol. ii. Coll. No. 8. Cranm. Mem. p. 305. Thuanus,
lib xiii. c. 8.

On the publication of this inflammatory paper Cranmer was thrown into prison, and was tried for the part which he had acted in concurring with the lady Jane, and opposing the queen’s accession. Sentence of high treason was pronounced against him, and though his guilt was shared with the whole privy council and was even less than that of the greater part of them, this sentence, however severe, must be allowed entirely legal. The execution of it, however, did not follow; and Cranmer was reserved for a more cruel punishment.

Peter Martyr, seeing a persecution gathering against the reformers desired leave to withdraw;[*] and while some zealous Catholics moved for his commitment, Gardiner both pleaded that he had come over by an invitation from the government, and generously furnished him with supplies for his journey: but as bigoted zeal still increased, his wife’s body, which had been interred at Oxford, was afterwards dug up by public orders, and buried in a dunghill.[**] The bones of Bucer and Fagius, two foreign reformers, were about the same time committed to the flames at Cambridge.[***] John Alasco was first silenced, then ordered to depart the kingdom with his congregation. The greater part of the foreign Protestants followed him; and the nation thereby lost many useful hands for arts and manufactures. Several English Protestants also took shelter in foreign parts; and every thing bore a dismal aspect for the reformation.

During this revolution of the court, no protection was expected by Protestants from the Parliament which was summoned to assemble. A zealous reformer[****] pretends, that great violence and iniquity were used in the elections; but, besides that the authority of this writer is inconsiderable, that practice, as the necessities of government seldom required it, had not hitherto been often employed in England. There still remained such numbers devoted by opinion or affection to many principles of the ancient religion, that the authority of the crown was able to give such candidates the preference in most elections; and all those who hesitated to comply with the court religion, rather declined taking a seat, which, while it rendered them obnoxious to the queen, could afterwards afford them no protection against the violence of prerogative. It soon appeared, therefore, that a majority of the commons would be obsequious to Mary’s designs; and as the peers were mostly attached to the court from interest or expectations, little opposition was expected from that quarter.

* Heylin, p. 26. Godwin, p. 336. Cranm. Mem. p. 317.

** Heylin, p. 26.

*** Saunders de Schism. Anglie.

**** Beale. But Fox, who lived at the time, and is very
minute in his narratives, says nothing of the matter. See
vol. iii. p. 16.

In opening the parliament, the court showed a contempt of the laws, by celebrating, before the two houses, a mass of the Holy Ghost in the Latin tongue, attended with all the ancient rites and ceremonies, though abolished by act of parliament.[*] Taylor, bishop of Lincoln, having refused to kneel at this service, was severely handled, and was violently thrust out of the house.[**] The queen, however, still retained the title of supreme head of the church of England; and it was generally pretended, that the intention of the court was only to restore religion to the same condition in which it had been left by Henry; but that the other abuses of popery, which were the most grievous to the nation, would never be revived.

The first bill passed by the parliament was of a popular nature, and abolished every species of treason not contained in the statute of Edward III., and every species of felony that did not subsist before the first of Henry VIII.[***] The parliament next declared the queen to be legitimate, ratified the marriage of Henry with Catharine of Arragon, and annulled the divorce pronounced by Cranmer,[****] whom they greatly blamed on that account. No mention, however, is made of the pope’s authority, as any ground of the marriage. All the statutes of King Edward with regard to religion were repealed by one vote.[v] The attainder of the duke of Norfolk was reversed; and this act of justice was more reasonable than the declaring of that attainder invalid without further authority. Many clauses of the riot act, passed in the late reign, were revived: a step which eluded in a great measure the popular statute enacted at the first meeting of parliament.

* Fox, vol. iii. p. 19.

** Burnet, vol. ii. p. 252.

*** Mariæ, sess. i. cap. 1. By this repeal, though it was in
general popular, the clause of 5 and 6 Edward VI. cap. 11,
was lost, which required the confronting of two witnesses in
order to prove any treason.

**** Mariæ, sess. ii. cap. 1.

v Mariæ, sess. ii. cap. 1.

Notwithstanding the compliance of the two houses with the queen’s inclinations, they had still a reserve in certain articles; and her choice of a husband, in particular, was of such importance to national interest, that they were determined not to submit tamely, in that respect, to her will and pleasure. There were three marriages[*] concerning which it was supposed that Mary had deliberated after her accession. The first person proposed to her was Courtney, earl of Devonshire, who, being an Englishman nearly allied to the crown, could not fail of being acceptable to the nation; and as he was of an engaging person and address, he had visibly gained on the queen’s affections,[**] and hints were dropped him of her favorable dispositions towards him.[***] But that nobleman neglected these overtures; and seemed rather to attach himself to the lady Elizabeth, whose youth and agreeable conversation he preferred to all the power and grandeur of her sister. This choice occasioned a great coldness in Mary towards Devonshire; and made her break out in a declared animosity against Elizabeth. The ancient quarrel between their mothers had sunk deep into the malignant heart of the queen; and after the declaration made by parliament in favor of Catharine’s marriage, she wanted not a pretence for representing the birth of her sister as illegitimate. The attachment of Elizabeth to the reformed religion offended Mary’s bigotry; and as the young princess had made some difficulty in disguising her sentiments, violent menaces had been employed to bring her to compliance.[****] But when the queen found that Elizabeth had obstructed her views in a point which, perhaps, touched her still more nearly, her resentment, excited by pride, no longer knew any bounds, and the princess was visibly exposed to the greatest danger.[v]

Cardinal Pole, who had never taken priest’s orders, was another party proposed to the queen; and there appeared many reasons to induce her to make choice of this prelate. The high character of Pole for virtue and humanity; the great regard paid him by the Catholic church, of which he had nearly reached the highest dignity on the death of Paul III.;[v*] the queen’s affection for the countess of Salisbury, his mother, who had once been her governess; the violent animosity to which he had been exposed on account of his attachment to the Romish communion; all these considerations had a powerful influence on Mary. But the cardinal was now in the decline of life; and having contracted habits of study and retirement, he was represented to her as unqualified for the bustle of a court and the hurry of business.[v**]

* Thuan. lib. ii. cap. 3.

** Dépêches de Noailles, vol. ii. p. 147, 163, 214, 215;
vol. iii. p. 27.

*** Godwin, p. 339.

**** Dep. de Noailles, vol. ii. passim.

v Heylin, p. 31. Burnet, vol. ii. p, 255.

v* Father Paul, book iii.

v** Heylin, p. 31.

The queen, therefore, dropped all thoughts of that alliance: but as she entertained a great regard for Pole’s wisdom and virtue, she still intended to reap the benefit of his counsel in the administration of her government. She secretly entered into a negotiation with Commendone, an agent of Cardinal Dandino, legate at Brussels; she sent assurances to the pope, then Julius III, of her earnest desire to reconcile herself and her kingdoms to the holy see; and she desired that Pole might be appointed legate for the performance of that pious office.[*]

These two marriages being rejected, the queen cast her eye towards the emperor’s family, from which her mother was descended, and which, during her own distresses, had always afforded her countenance and protection. Charles V., who a few years before was almost absolute master of Germany, had exercised his power in such an arbitrary manner, that he gave extreme disgust to the nation, who apprehended the total extinction of their liberties from the encroachments of that monarch.[**] Religion had served him as a pretence for his usurpations; and from the same principle he met with that opposition which overthrew his grandeur, and dashed all his ambitious hopes. Maurice, elector of Saxony, enraged that the landgrave of Hesse, who, by his advice, and on his assurances, had put himself into the emperor’s hands, should be unjustly detained a prisoner, formed a secret conspiracy among the Protestant princes; and, covering his intentions with the most artful disguises, he suddenly marched his forces against Charles, and narrowly missed becoming master of his person.

* Burnet, vol ii. p. 258.

** Thuanus. lib. iv. c. 17.

The Protestants flew to arms in every quarter; and their insurrection, aided by an invasion from France, reduced the emperor to such difficulties, that he was obliged to submit to terms of peace which insured the independency of Germany. To retrieve his honor, he made an attack on France; and laying siege to Metz with an army of a hundred thousand men, he conducted the enterprise in person, and seemed determined, at all hazards, to succeed in an undertaking which had fixed the attention of Europe. But the duke of Guise, who defended Metz with a garrison composed of the bravest nobility of France, exerted such vigilance, conduct, and valor, that the siege was protracted to the depth of winter; and the emperor found it dangerous to persevere any longer. He retired with the remains of his army into the Low Countries, much dejected with that reverse of fortune which in his declining years, had so fatally overtaken him.

No sooner did Charles hear of the death of Edward, and the accession of his kinswoman Mary to the crown of England, than he formed the scheme of acquiring that kingdom to his family; and he hoped by this incident to balance all the losses which he had sustained in Germany. His son Philip was a widower; and though he was only twenty-seven years of age, eleven years younger than the queen, this objection, it was thought, would be overlooked, and there was no reason to despair of her still having a numerous issue. The emperor, therefore, immediately sent over an agent to signify his intentions to Mary; who, pleased with the support of so powerful an alliance, and glad to unite herself more closely with her mother’s family, to which she was ever strongly attached, readily embraced the proposal. Norfolk, Arundel, and Paget, gave their advice for the match: and Gardiner, who was become prime minister, and who had been promoted to the office of chancellor, finding how Mary’s inclinations lay, seconded the project of the Spanish alliance. At the same time he represented, both to her and the emperor, the necessity of stopping all further innovations in religion, till the completion of the marriage. He observed, that the parliament amidst all their compliances had discovered evident symptoms of jealousy, and seemed at present determined to grant no further concessions in favor of the Catholic religion: that though they might make a sacrifice to their sovereign of some speculative principles which they did not well comprehend, or of some rites which seemed not of any great moment, they had imbibed such strong prejudices against the pretended usurpations and exactions of the court of Rome, that they would with great difficulty be again brought to submit to its authority: that the danger of resuming the abbey lands would alarm the nobility and gentry, and induce them to encourage the prepossessions, which were but too general among the people, against the doctrine and worship of the Catholic church: that much pains had been taken to prejudice the nation against the Spanish alliance; and if that point were urged at the same time with further changes in religion, it would hazard a general revolt and insurrection: that the marriage being once completed would give authority to the queen’s measures, and enable her afterwards to forward the pious work in which she was engaged: and that it was even necessary previously to reconcile the people to the marriage, by rendering the conditions extremely favorable to the English, and such as would seem to insure to them their independency, and the entire possession of their ancient laws and privileges.[*]

The emperor, well acquainted with the prudence and experience of Gardiner, assented to all these reasons, and he endeavored to temper the zeal of Mary, by representing the necessity of proceeding gradually in the great work of converting the nation. Hearing that Cardinal Pole, more sincere in his religious opinions, and less guided by the maxims of human policy, after having sent contrary advice to the queen, had set out on his journey to England, where he was to exercise his legatine commission, he thought proper to stop him at Dillinghen, a town on the Danube; and he afterwards obtained Mary’s consent for this detention. The negotiation for the marriage meanwhile proceeded apace; and Mary’s intentions of espousing Philip became generally known to the nation. The commons, who hoped that they had gained the queen by the concessions which they had already made, were alarmed to hear that she was resolved to contract a foreign alliance; and they sent a committee to remonstrate in strong terms against that dangerous measure. To prevent further applications of the same kind, she thought proper to dissolve the parliament.

A convocation had been summoned at the same time with the parliament; and the majority here also appeared to be of the court religion. An offer was very frankly made by the Romanists, to dispute concerning the points controverted between the two communions; and as transubstantiation was the article which of all others they deemed the clearest, and founded on the most irresistible arguments, they chose to try their strength by defending it. The Protestants pushed the dispute as far as the clamor and noise of their antagonists would permit; and they fondly imagined that they had obtained some advantage, when, in the course of the debate, they obliged the Catholics to avow that, according to their doctrine, Christ had in his last supper held himself in his hand, and had swallowed and eaten himself.[**]

* Burnet, vol. ii. p. 261.

** Collier, vol. ii. p. 356.

This triumph, however, was confined only to their own party: the Romanists maintained, that their champions had clearly the better of the day, that their adversaries were blind and obstinate heretics; that nothing but the most extreme depravity of heart could induce men to contest such self-evident principles; and that the severest punishments were due to their perverse wickedness. So pleased were they with their superiority in this favorite point, that they soon after renewed the dispute at Oxford; and, to show that they feared no force of learning or abilities, where reason was so evident on their side, they sent thither Cranmer, Latimer, and Ridley, under a guard, to try whether these renowned controversialists could find any appearance of argument to defend their baffled principles.[*] The issue of the debate was very different from what it appeared to be a few years before, in a famous conference held at the same place during the reign of Edward.

{1554.} After the parliament and convocation were dismissed, the new laws with regard to religion, though they had been anticipated in most places by the zeal of the Catholics, countenanced by government, were still more openly put in execution: the mass was every where reëstablished; and marriage was declared to be incompatible with any spiritual office. It has been asserted by some writers, that three fourths of the clergy were at this time deprived of their livings; though other historians, more accurate,[**] have estimated the number of sufferers to be far short of this proportion. A visitation was appointed, in order to restore more perfectly the mass and the ancient rites. Among other articles, the commissioners were enjoined to forbid the oath of supremacy to be taken by the clergy on their receiving any benefice.[***] It is to be observed, that this oath had been established by the laws of Henry VIII., which were still in force.

* Mem. Cranm. p. 354. Heylin, p. 50.

** Harmer, p. 138.

*** Collier, vol. ii. p. 364. Fox, vol. iii. p. 38. Heylin,
p. 35. Sleiden, lib. xxv.

This violent and sudden change of religion inspired the Protestants with great discontent; and even affected indifferent spectators with concern, by the hardships to which so many individuals were on that account exposed. But the Spanish match was a point of more general concern, and diffused universal apprehension for the liberty and independence of the nation. To obviate all clamor, the articles of marriage were drawn as favorable as possible for the interests and security, and even grandeur of England. It was agreed, that though Philip should have the title of king, the administration should be entirely in the queen; that no foreigner should be capable of enjoying any office in the kingdom; that no innovation should be made in the English laws, customs, and privileges; that Philip should not carry the queen abroad without her consent, nor any of her children without the consent of the nobility; that sixty thousand pounds a year should be settled as her jointure; that the male issue of this marriage should inherit, together with England, both Burgundy and the Low Countries; and that if Don Carlos, Philip’s son by his former marriage, should die, and his line be extinct, the queen’s issue, whether male or female, should inherit Spain, Sicily, Milan, and all the other dominions of Philip.[*] Such was the treaty of marriage signed by Count Egmont and three other ambassadors, sent over to England by the emperor.[**]

These articles, when published, gave no satisfaction to the nation. It was universally said, that the emperor, in order to get possession of England, would verbally agree to any terms and the greater advantage there appeared in the conditions which he granted, the more certainly might it be concluded that he had no serious intention of observing them: that the usual fraud and ambition of that monarch might assure the nation of such a conduct: and his son Philip, while he inherited these vices from his father, added to them tyranny, sullenness, pride, and barbarity, more dangerous vices of his own: that England would become a province, and a province to a kingdom which usually exercised the most violent authority over all her dependent dominions: that the Netherlands, Milan, Sicily, Naples, groaned under the burden of Spanish tyranny; and throughout all the new conquests in America there had been displayed scenes of unrelenting cruelty, hitherto unknown in the history of mankind: that the inquisition was a tribunal invented by that tyrannical nation, and would infallibly, with all their other laws and institutions, be introduced into England; and that the divided sentiments of the people with regard to religion would subject multitudes to this iniquitous tribunal, and would reduce the whole nation to the most abject servitude.[***]

* Rymer, vol. xv. p. 377.

** Dépêches de Noailles, vol. ii. p. 299.

*** Heylin p. 32. Burnet, vol. ii. p. 268. Godwin, p. 339.

These complaints being diffused every where, prepared the people for a rebellion; and had any foreign power given them encouragement, or any great man appeared to head them, the consequence might have proved fatal to the queen’s authority. But the king of France, though engaged in hostilities with the emperor, refused to concur in any proposal for an insurrection, lest he should afford Mary a pretence for declaring war against him.[*] And the more prudent part of the nobility thought that, as the evils of the Spanish alliance were only dreaded at a distance, matters were not yet fully prepared for a general revolt. Some persons, however, more turbulent than the rest, believed that it would be safer to prevent than to redress grievances; and they formed a conspiracy to rise in arms, and declare against the queen’s marriage with Philip. Sir Thomas Wiat purposed to raise Kent; Sir Peter Carew, Devonshire; and they engaged the duke of Suffolk, by the hopes of recovering the crown for the lady Jane, to attempt raising the midland counties.[**] Carew’s impatience or apprehensions engaged him to break the concert, and to rise in arms before the day appointed. He was soon suppressed by the earl of Bedford, and constrained to fly into France. On this intelligence, Suffolk, dreading an arrest, suddenly left the town with his brothers, Lord Thomas and Lord Leonard Gray, and endeavored to raise the people in the counties of Warwick and Leicester, where his interest lay; but he was so closely pursued by the earl of Huntingdon, at the head of three hundred horse, that he was obliged to disperse his followers, and being discovered in his concealment, he was carried prisoner to London.[***]

* Dépêches de Noailles, vol. ii. p. 249; vol. iii. p. 17,
58.

** Heylin, p. 33. Godwin, p. 340.

*** Fox, vol. iii. p. 30.

Wiat was at first more successful in his attempt; and having published a declaration, at Maidstone in Kent, against the queen’s evil counsellors, and against the Spanish match, without any mention of religion, the people began to flock to his standard. The duke of Norfolk, with Sir Henry Jernegan, was sent against him, at the head of the guards and some other troops, reënforced with five hundred Londoners commanded by Bret: and he came within sight of the rebels at Rochester, where they had fixed their head-quarters. Sir George Harper here pretended to desert from them; but having secretly gained Bret, these two malecontents so wrought on the Londoners, that the whole body deserted to Wiat, and declared that they would not contribute to enslave their native country. Norfolk, dreading the contagion of the example, immediately retreated with his troops, and took shelter in the city.[*]

After this proof of the disposition of the people, especially of the Londoners, who were mostly Protestants, Wiat was encouraged to proceed; he led his forces to Southwark, where he required of the queen that she should put the Tower into his hands, should deliver four counsellors as hostages, and in order to insure the liberty of the nation, should immediately marry an Englishman. Finding that the bridge was secured against him, and that the city was overawed, he marched up to Kingston, where he passed the river with four thousand men; and returning towards London, hoped to encourage his partisans who had engaged to declare for him. He had imprudently wasted so much time at Southwark, and in his march from Kingston, that the critical season, on which all popular commotions depend, was entirely lost: though he entered Westminster without resistance, his followers, finding that no person of note joined him, insensibly fell off, and he was at last seized near Temple Bar by Sir Maurice Berkeley.[**] Four hundred persons are said to have suffered for this rebellion:[***] four hundred more were conducted before the queen with ropes about their necks: and falling on their knees, received a pardon, and were dismissed. Wiat was condemned and executed: as it had been reported that, on his examination, he had accused the lady Elizabeth and the earl of Devonshire as accomplices, he took care, on the scaffold, before the whole people, fully to acquit them of having any share in his rebellion.

* Heylin, p. 33. Godwin, p. 341. Stowe, p. 619. Baker, p.
318. Holingshed, p. 1094.

** Fox, vol. iii. p. 31. Heylin, p. 34. Burnet, vol. ii. p.
270. Stowe, p. 621.

*** Dépêches de Noailles, vol. iii. p. 124.

The lady Elizabeth had been, during some time, treated with great harshness by her sister; and many studied instances of discouragement and disrespect had been practised against her. She was ordered to take place at court after the countess of Lenox and the duchess of Suffolk, as if she were not legitimate:[*] her friends were discountenanced on every occasion: and while her virtues, which were now become eminent, drew to her the attendance of all the young nobility, and rendered her the favorite of the nation;[**] the malevolence of the queen still discovered itself every day by fresh symptoms, and obliged the princess to retire into the country. Mary seized the opportunity of this rebellion; and hoping to involve her sister in some appearance of guilt, sent for her under a strong guard, committed her to the Tower, and ordered her to be strictly examined by the council. But the public declaration made by Wiat rendered it impracticable to employ against her any false evidence which might have offered; and the princess made so good a defence, that the queen found herself under a necessity of releasing her.[***] In order to send her out of the kingdom, a marriage was offered her with the duke of Savoy; and when she declined the proposal, she was committed to custody under a strong guard at Wodestoke.[****] The earl of Devonshire, though equally innocent, was confined in Fotheringay Castle.

But this rebellion proved still more fatal to the lady Jane Gray, as well as to her husband: the duke of Suffolk’s guilt was imputed to her; and though the rebels and malecontents seemed chiefly to rest their hopes on the lady Elizabeth and the earl of Devonshire, the queen, incapable of generosity or clemency, determined to remove every person from whom the least danger could be apprehended. Warning was given the lady Jane to prepare for death; a doom which she had long expected, and which the innocence of her life, as well as the misfortunes to which she had been exposed, rendered nowise unwelcome to her. The queen’s zeal, under color of tender mercy to the prisoner’s soul, induced her to send divines, who harassed her with perpetual disputation; and even a reprieve for three days was granted her, in hopes that she would be persuaded during that time to pay, by a timely conversion, some regard to her eternal welfare. The lady Jane had presence of mind, in those melancholy circumstances, not only to defend her religion by all the topics then in use, but also to write a letter to her sister[v] in the Greek language; in which, besides sending her a copy of the Scriptures in that tongue, she exhorted her to maintain, in every fortune, a like steady perseverance.

* Dépêches de Noailles, vol. ii. p. 273, 288.

** Dépêches de Noailles, vol. iii. p. 273.

*** Godwin, p. 343. Burnet, vol. ii. p. 273. Fox, vol. ii.
p. 99, 105. Strype’s Mem. vol. iii. p. 85.

**** Dépêches de Noailles, vol. iii. p. 226.

v Fox vol. iii. p. 35. Heylin, p. 166.

On the day of her execution, her husband, Lord Guildford, desired permission to see her; but she refused her consent, and informed him by a message, that the tenderness of their parting would overcome the fortitude of both, and would too much unbend their minds from that constancy which their approaching end required of them: their separation, she said, would be only for a moment; and they would soon rejoin each other in a scene where their affections would be forever united, and where death, disappointment, and misfortunes, could no longer have access to them, or disturb their eternal felicity.[*]

It had been intended to execute the lady Jane and Lord Guildford together on the same scaffold at Tower Hill; but the council, dreading the compassion of the people for their youth, beauty, innocence, and noble birth, changed their orders, and gave directions that she should be beheaded within the verge of the Tower. She saw her husband led to execution; and having given him from the window some token of her remembrance, she waited with tranquillity till her own appointed hour should bring her to a like fate. She even saw his headless body carried back in a cart; and found herself more confirmed by the reports which she heard of the constancy of his end, than shaken by so tender and melancholy a spectacle. Sir John Gage, constable of the Tower, when he led her to execution, desired her to bestow on him some small present, which he might keep as a perpetual memorial of her: she gave him her table-book, on which she had just written three sentences on seeing her husband’s dead body; one in Greek, another in Latin, a third in English.[**] The purport of them was, that human justice was against his body, but divine mercy would be favorable to his soul; that if her fault deserved punishment, her youth at least, and her imprudence, were worthy of excuse; and that God and posterity, she trusted, would show her favor.

* Heylin, p. 167. Baker p. 319.

** Heylin, p. 167.

On the scaffold she made a speech to the bystanders; in which the mildness of her disposition led her to take the blame wholly on herself, without uttering one complaint against the severity with which she had been treated. She said, that her offence was not the having laid her hand upon the crown, but the not rejecting it with sufficient constancy; that she had less erred through ambition than through reverence to her parents, whom she had been taught to respect and obey: that she willingly received death, as the only satisfaction which she could now make to the injured state; and though her infringement of the laws had been constrained, she would show, by her voluntary submission to their sentence, that she was desirous to atone for that disobedience into which too much filial piety had betrayed her: that she had justly deserved this punishment for being made the instrument, though the unwilling instrument, of the ambition of others; and that the story of her life, she hoped, might at least be useful, by proving that innocence excuses not great misdeeds, if they tend anywise to the destruction of the commonwealth. After uttering these words, she caused herself to be disrobed by her women; and with a steady serene countenance submitted herself to the executioner.[*]

The duke of Suffolk was tried, condemned, and executed soon after; and would have met with more compassion, had not his temerity been the cause of his daughter’s untimely end. Lord Thomas Gray lost his life for the same crime. Sir Nicholas Throgmorton was tried in Guildhall; but there appearing no satisfactory evidence against him, he was able, by making an admirable defence, to obtain a verdict of the jury in his favor. The queen was so enraged at this disappointment, that, instead of releasing him as the law required, she recommitted him to the Tower, and kept him in close confinement during some time. But her resentment stopped not here: the jury, being summoned before the council, were all sent to prison, and afterwards fined, some of them a thousand pounds, others two thousand apiece.[**] This violence proved fatal to several; among others to Sir John Throgmorton, brother to Sir Nicholas, who was condemned on no better evidence, than had formerly been rejected. The queen filled the Tower and all the prisons with nobility and gentry, whom their interest with the nation, rather than any appearance of guilt, had made the objects of her suspicion; and finding that she was universally hated, she determined to disable the people from resistance, by ordering general musters, and directing the commissioners to seize their arms, and lay them up in forts and castles.[***]

* Heylin, p. 167. Fox, vol iii. p. 36, 37. Holingshed, p.
1099.

** Fox, vol. iii. p. 99. Stowe, p. 624. Baker, p. 320.
Holingshed, p. 1104, 1121. Strype, vol. iii. p. 120. Dép. de
Noailles, vol. iii. p. 173.

*** Dép. de Noailles, vol. iii p. 98.