Chapter XIII: The Martyrs (2)

Giovanni Michiel also informed his Government that the execution of the sentences “against the heretics, the late Bishop of London, Ridley, and Latimer, Bishop of Worcester had been decided on, there being no hope or visible sign of their choosing to recant”.[554] Gardiner had nothing to do with the conviction of the two bishops, beyond the fact that, as Chancellor, he was at the head of the civil power which passed sentence upon them. He is known to have been personally averse from the persecution, and, as we have already seen, he substantially helped some of the suspects to leave the country before proceedings could be taken against them. None the less, however, Foxe goes out of his way to attribute to him the most horrible and inhuman desire for, and satisfaction at, their death. The apparent object of the martyrologist was to draw his favourite inference in regard to the temporal judgment of God on miscreants. He says, admitting that he obtained his information at _third_ hand: “The same day, when Bishop Ridley and master Latimer suffered at Oxford (being about the 19th day of October) there came into the house of Stephen Gardiner the old duke of Norfolk, with the foresaid Master Munday his secretary above named reporter hereof. The old aged duke, there waiting and tarrying for his dinner, the bishop being not yet disposed to dine, deferred the time to three or four o’clock at afternoon. At length, about four of the clock cometh his servant, posting in all possible speed from Oxford, bringing intelligence to the bishop, what he had heard and seen: of whom the said bishop, diligently inquiring the truth of the matter, and hearing by his man, that fire most certainly was set unto them, cometh out rejoicing to the duke. ‘Now,’ saith he, ‘let us go to dinner’. Whereupon they being set down, meat immediately was brought, and the bishop began merrily to eat. But what followed? The bloody tyrant had not eaten a few bits, but the sudden stroke of God’s terrible hand fell upon him in such sort as immediately he was taken from the table, and so brought to his bed, where he continued the space of fifteen days in such intolerable anguish and torments ... whereby his body being miserably inflamed within (who had inflamed so many good martyrs before) was brought to a wretched end.”[555]

The first thing to be observed in this story is the notable fact, that “the old duke of Norfolk” could not by any possibility have dined with Gardiner on the 19th October 1555, having been in his grave since August 1553. As for “the sudden stroke of God’s terrible hand,” by which the Bishop was brought to a wretched end, he had been suffering for some time from dropsy,[556] and died of it, not in his own house, but at Whitehall, to which place he had been removed, after making an heroic effort to appear at the opening of Parliament on the 21st October. It was an act of devotion to the Queen and the country; the long speech which he then delivered on the state of the royal finances, resulting in a subsidy which removed the most pressing difficulties of the Crown. But his strength was exhausted by the strain; he was too weak to be taken home, and was therefore accommodated in Whitehall Palace, till his death on the 12th November. He desired during his last hours, that the Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ might be read to him, and when the reader came to the contrition of St. Peter, Gardiner exclaimed: “Negavi cum Petro, exivi cum Petro, sed nondum flevi cum Petro,” alluding to his fall in Henry’s reign.[557]

Cranmer’s execution was delayed for more than five months after the execution of Ridley and Latimer, in the hope of his recanting. In the same letter, in which he communicated to Philip the fact of the burning of the two bishops, Cardinal Pole said:—

“The late Archbishop of Canterbury whose sentence of condemnation is now expected from Rome, does not show himself so obstinate, and desires a conference with me. If he can be brought to repent, the Church will derive no little profit from the salvation of a single soul; but they are awaiting what may be expected, from the next letters of Father Soto, and will certify it to your Majesty.”

From his prison in Bocardo, Cranmer had seen his two companions led to the stake, and the sight had awakened that natural timidity which underlay and prompted his least praiseworthy actions. It has been said of him that in his youth, he was cowed and crushed by a tyrannical master, and so deprived of all manliness of character.[558] He had a legal rather than a broad or elevated mind, and this was of service to him in keeping clear of the pitfalls, into which so many of his friends fell, at least temporarily. It had also enabled him to avail himself of the tide, which taken at the flood led on to fame and fortune. He went to Cambridge at the age of fourteen, but although he remained there for many years, his name does not once appear among the learned or distinguished men of the University. Erasmus, who knew every one with any claim to notice, lived in the same street with him, but makes no mention of him in his letters.

Cranmer took his degree of B.A. at the age of twenty-two, and proceeded M.A. three years later. The fact of his marriage, by which he forfeited the fellowship of his college (Jesus), implies that he had then no intention of taking orders; and he probably meant to adopt the law as a profession.[559] His first wife was the daughter of an innkeeper, known by the name of Black Joan. To support himself and her, he accepted a readership at Buckingham Hall, afterwards Magdalene College, and lived with his wife at the Dolphin, her father’s inn. But Black Joan died in childbirth, and Cranmer was then reinstated in his fellowship. He proceeded D.D., and was ordained in 1523, at the age of thirty-four. Either Gardiner, or Fox, Bishop of Hereford, first brought him to the King’s notice, by quoting a shrewd remark which Cranmer had made, on the subject of Henry’s “private matter”.

“Who is this Dr. Cranmer?” asked the King. “Where is he? Is he still at Waltham? I will speak to him; let him be sent for out of hand. This man I trow has got the right sow by the ear.”[560]

The interview proved satisfactory, and Henry charged Cranmer to draw up a statement of his view of the King’s marriage. In order to be able to confer often with him, he lodged him in the household of the Earl of Wiltshire, Anne Boleyn’s father, at Durham Place. A royal chaplaincy was conferred on him, besides the emoluments of the Archdeaconry of Taunton. He visited Rome with Lord Wiltshire, and the Pope, unsuspicious of what was being plotted, made him Grand Penitentiary for England. He then went to Germany, on private business of his own, and there married Osiander’s[561] niece. At this juncture Warham died, and Henry, who saw that Cranmer was “an admirable tool, so timid that he could ever be terrorised into submission, so tender with himself that the King’s policy admirably fitted in with his sensuality,” advanced him over the heads of better men, and made him Primate of all England. Probably the dignity was unsolicited, possibly undesired, and perhaps it was even thrust upon him with unwillingness on his part. If he had aspired to it, he would scarcely, as things then were, have married a second time, nor would he have delayed his return to England, after the death of Archbishop Warham. Ambition had no inordinate share in his character. But he had signified to the King, that sentence as to the validity of his marriage should be given, not by the Pope, but by the Archbishop of Canterbury, and it was to this opinion that his sudden promotion was due.[562] The bulls from Rome were to be obtained at the cost of any duplicity, and they were in Henry’s hands before the Pope had any inkling of what was intended.

The appointment was unpopular in England. Cranmer was still comparatively unknown, and had as yet done nothing to justify the extraordinary rise in his fortunes. Public opinion had designated Gardiner as Warham’s successor, and under normal conditions, he would probably have been chosen. But lately, he had shown himself less pliable than suited Henry’s convenience, and the King knew that he could count absolutely on Cranmer, who was accordingly consecrated on the 30th March, which that year fell on Passion Sunday. Immediately before the ceremony, the new Archbishop called four witnesses, and in their presence declared before a notary, that he did not intend to bind himself, by the oath of obedience to the Pope which he was about to take, to do anything that should appear to him contrary to the law of God, the King’s prerogative or the statutes of the realm. When he knelt to take this oath, he repeated his protest, and immediately afterwards swore obedience to the Pope in the usual form. Just before receiving the pallium, he made his third protest, and again took the oath of obedience.[563]

Immediately after pledging himself to obey the Pope, he took the following oath to the King for his temporalities: “I Thomas Cranmer renounce and utterly forsake all such claims, words, sentences and grants which I have of the Pope’s Holiness in his Bulls of the Archbishopric of Canterbury, that in any manner, wise, is or may be hurtful or prejudicial to your Highness, your heirs, successors, estate or dignity royal, _knowledging myself to take and hold the said Archbishopric immediately and only of your Highness and of none other_,” etc.[564]

Cranmer had been made Archbishop, solely that he might advance “the King’s matter” which had little chance of being settled at Rome according to the royal pleasure. Therefore on the 3rd May, he rendered his first service to Henry by pronouncing a sentence, declaring that his marriage with Katharine of Arragon was invalid. On the 28th, he further declared Henry’s union with Anne Boleyn good and valid,[565] and to stop men’s tongues, prohibited all preaching throughout his diocese till further notice, a measure that was significant of public opinion.

In May 1536, the man whom Anne had virtually made Archbishop, and who had made her Queen, at Henry’s command, declared and decreed that “the marriage between our sovereign lord the King and the lady Anne had always been without effect”. In January 1540, he married Anne of Cleves to the King, and six months later, pronounced her sentence of divorce. In 1541, he favoured Henry with yet another decree _nisi_, to relieve him of his fifth wife, Katharine Howard. He examined Friar Forest on his refusal to acknowledge the King as supreme Head, and handed him over to his executioners. But the visit of the German Lutherans, to negotiate the terms of union between the Church of England and the reformed Churches of the Continent, marked a crisis in his life, and the seeds of Protestantism were sown which were to bear abundant fruit in the next reign.[566] Nevertheless, he still maintained the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation, and condemned John Lambert and Anne Askew to the flames for maintaining the contrary, while later on, he sentenced Joan Bocher to death for holding that Christ was not incarnate of the Blessed Virgin Mary. He also handed over several Anabaptists to the secular arm, to be burned at Smithfield.

On Henry’s promulgation of the _Six Articles of Religion_, one of which forbade the marriage of priests, Cranmer was obliged to dismiss his wife. For some time past, it had cost him no little trouble and inconvenience to conceal her presence at Lambeth, where she lived in more than oriental seclusion. When he travelled, he was obliged to carry her from place to place in a chest, with holes contrived to allow of her breathing. On one lamentable occasion the chest was placed the wrong side uppermost, which so incommoded her that she was forced to betray her presence by screaming.[567]

Cranmer was never popular with his clergy. “Of all sorts of men,” he complained, “I am daily informed that priests report the worst of me.” Conspiracies were even set on foot against him, but he was too useful to Henry to fear a fall, and was the one man in the realm to whom the King was ever faithful. To all complaints against the Archbishop Henry turned a deaf ear. “I would you should well understand,” said he, “that I account my lord of Canterbury as faithful a man towards me as ever was prelate in this realm, and one to whom I am many ways beholden.” The praise was certainly not exaggerated. Even in matters of purely theological moment, Cranmer was never at variance with his master, for he held no opinion or doctrine that was not at Henry’s service. Incredible as it seems, Cranmer once said to him: “This is mine opinion and sentence at this present, which nevertheless I do not temerariously define, but refer the judgment thereof wholly unto your Majesty”.[568] Speaking in Cranmer’s defence, the Archbishop’s secretary Morice unconsciously deprived him of every vestige of fidelity to principle. “Men ought to consider,” he pleaded, “with whom he had to do, specially with such a prince as would not be bridled, nor be against-said in any of his requests.”[569]

In deference to the wishes of the Council, he made several alterations in the oath administered to the King at Edward’s coronation, but he said the prescribed Mass of the Holy Ghost, and also sang a Requiem for the repose of Henry’s soul. Nevertheless, the whole tendency of the new Government was in sympathy with his private feelings, and it was not long before he made up his mind to swim with the tide. He headed a commission which deprived Bonner and Gardiner, and held a visitation of his diocese, to ascertain whether the destruction of images had been fully carried out. A bill having been passed in Parliament, “to take away all positive laws made against the marriage of priests,” Cranmer sent for his wife, invested in Abbey lands the money granted to him by Henry and confirmed by Edward’s Council, invited Peter Martyr, Martin Bucer and other Calvinists to settle in England, and did all he could to promote union between the Church of England, and the reformed Churches of the Continent. He renounced the Mass, advocated the overthrow of the altars and declared transubstantiation to be heresy. The _Book of Common Prayer_ which he had compiled and put forth in 1551, under the auspices of the Government, having been criticised by the foreign Protestants, he set about its revision, aided by the Bishop of Ely. The so-called Black Rubric, which forbade the practice of kneeling at the Communion, was introduced a little later. Towards the close of 1552, the forty-two articles, afterwards reduced to thirty-nine, were published by the King’s command.

Cranmer was instrumental in Seymour’s execution, and by his treachery was partly responsible for Somerset’s fall. His abject submission to the upstart lords of the Council of Regency led to an act of high treason, by inducing him to sign Edward’s will drawn up by Northumberland.[570] Had Mary really possessed the vindictive feelings attributed to her, she had ample pretext for ordering his apprehension, thus avenging her own and her mother’s cause. But it was not until some time after the rebellion, when Cranmer had signalised himself by an act of open and aggressive opposition to her measures, that his liberty was threatened. Even then, opportunity was given him to escape if he had so willed. On his committal to the Tower, he was charged with having caused the Lady Jane to be proclaimed, and for sending twenty armed men to Cambridge to aid Northumberland. He pleaded not guilty, but afterwards withdrew the plea, and confessed to the indictment. He was then sentenced for treason, and would have been executed at Tyburn, but was saved by Mary’s clemency. Being sent to Oxford with Latimer and Ridley, to dispute with the most learned scholars in both universities, he appeared at St. Mary’s before the prolocutor, Dr. Weston, and thirty-three commissioners, and was presented with three articles setting forth the doctrine of the Mass, drawn up by Convocation. All three bishops refused to subscribe to them, and a disputation was appointed for the following Monday.

The day’s proceedings had been opened by a sermon from Dr. Weston on the unity of the Church, which he accused Cranmer of having violated by making, as it were, every year a new faith. The Queen, he said in conclusion, had commissioned the doctors assembled, on his repentance, to restore him to the unity of the Church.

On the day appointed for the disputation, Dr. Chedsey, Prebendary of St. Paul’s, afterwards a Canon of Christ Church, Oxford, was Cranmer’s principal opponent, and kept up the discussion for nearly six hours, at the end of which time the assembly dispersed crying, _Vicit Veritas!_ Cranmer wrote an account of what had passed, and complained to the Council that he had been unfairly treated in argument. He begged them to obtain for him the Queen’s pardon. Thereupon he was allowed to reopen the subject with John Harpsfield, a divinity student, and Dr. Weston,[571] but in the end, it was declared that neither Cranmer nor the other two bishops had successfully maintained their _theses_, and they were all sent back to Bocardo. Here they remained for eighteen months, continually pressed to recant. It was then decided that they should have a formal trial for heresy, and Cardinal Pole, as Papal Legate, was appointed to conduct it. The proceedings with regard to Cranmer, as Primate of all England, were different from those observed with the Bishops of London and Worcester. He was cited to appear at Rome, to answer the charges made against him, but this was a mere matter of form, as he was a prisoner, and the Pope commissioned Cardinal Dupuy, who delegated his functions to the Bishop of Gloucester, to represent his Holiness.[572] But Cranmer refused to recognise the Pope’s authority, declaring that he had sworn never again to consent to papal jurisdiction. On being reminded that he had also sworn obedience to Rome, he sheltered himself behind the protest which he had made before doing so. Sixteen charges in all were formulated against him, supported by eight witnesses. He admitted the facts, but not their interpretation, and objected to the witnesses as having also formerly abjured the Pope. A report of the trial having been sent to Rome, Cranmer wrote to the Queen, complaining that his “own natural sovereign” had cited him before a foreign tribunal. Judgment was at last pronounced against him for heresy in the papal courts, and he was accordingly deprived, but the sentence of degradation was not carried out for five months, during which time no efforts were spared to save him. A papal commission was then issued to Bonner, Bishop of London, and Thirlby, Bishop of Ely, for his degradation. The scene was a painful one, and Dr. Thirlby is said to have been moved to tears during the ceremony. The day fixed for it was the 14th February 1556. Cranmer was brought before the two bishops at Christ Church, and the function took place outside the church, in the great quadrangle. He was clothed successively in vestments proper to a sub-deacon, a deacon, a priest, a bishop and an archbishop, one over the other, but all made of canvas, with a mitre and pallium of the same material.

Lastly, a crosier was put into his hand, and Bonner standing before him, declared the cause of his degradation, Cranmer interrupting him at intervals with protests and retorts. When the ceremony of unvesting began, he refused to yield up the crosier, which was then wrested from him by force, and when the pallium was to be removed, he exclaimed, “Which of you, having a pallium is able to divest me of mine!” They replied, that they held their commission from the Pope. He then drew out of his sleeve a formal protest, appealing from the Pope to a General Council, and handed the document to Thirlby, who took it, saying, “Well, if it may be admitted it shall,” and bursting into tears, he promised to petition the Queen for a pardon. When Cranmer had been stripped of all the vestments, with appropriate words and ceremonies at each of them, he was degraded from his minor orders, after which his hair was closely cut, and Bonner proceeded to scrape his hands, at the places where he had been anointed priest. His gown was then taken off, and that of a yeoman substituted, in which he returned to prison. This was the regular form of degrading a bishop.

Thirlby was as good as his word. Cranmer had drawn up two separate forms of submission before his degradation, and in consequence of these, a pardon such as had been granted to other recanters, was contemplated by the Council. But it was finally decided that the enormity of his offences required that he should suffer “for ensample sake”. During the six weeks which intervened before his execution, he made repeated recantations “without fear, and without hope of favour” as he himself said, “for the discharge of his conscience, and as a warning to others,” abjuring his former errors, and “beseeching the people, the Queen and the Pope, to pray for his wretched soul”.

He signed in all seven recantations, and it was expected that he would read the last of them at his execution. But instead of doing so, at the supreme moment, he repudiated them all, expressing repentance for having written “contrary to the truth which I thought in my heart, and writ for fear of death”.[573] Being bound to the stake, he is said to have thrust his right hand into the flame exclaiming: “This hand hath offended”.[574] From first to last, he had proved himself so base a dissembler, that no confidence could possibly have been placed in the sincerity of his recantations. That he had lied therein also, he admitted by his final recantation of them all.

Cranmer suffered according to the notions of the day, on his own principles, and for causes which he had himself judged sufficient for death. He had not only sent men and women to the stake for the very same opinions which he afterwards professed, and had burned Catholics because they would not acknowledge the King’s supreme Headship, but had also burned Protestants because their Protestantism differed from his own. All things considered, it was wonderful that he did not receive shorter shrift, and we do not find that his miserable end excited much regret or pity among his contemporaries.[575]

It was part of Foxe’s method, in claiming for his martyrs the sympathy of his readers, to cast as much odium as possible on their judges. Thus, Bonner, Bishop of London, has been made to appear an extremely violent persecutor, although after the publication of his articles in 1554, he was rather the reverse of zealous in enforcing the revived statute. But whatever may be said for or against it, it was the law of the land, and Bonner could no more help sitting on the Bench in his own diocese to examine into the offences committed against it, than could any other judge of any court over which he had jurisdiction. His functions were purely judicial, and it does not anywhere appear that he was guided by passion, or that he overstepped his prerogative. He had, on the contrary, been somewhat negligent in the exercise of the duty which the law imposed on him, and hence the reprimand which he received in the following letter from the King and Queen in Council:—

“Right reverend Father in God, right trusty and well-beloved, we greet you well. And whereas of late, we addressed our letters to the justices of peace, within every of the counties of this our realm, whereby, amongst other instructions given them for the good order and quiet government of the country round about them, they are willed to have a special regard unto such disordered persons as (forgetting their duty towards God and us) do lean to any erroneous and heretical opinions, refusing to show themselves conformable to the Catholic religion of Christ’s Church; wherein, if they cannot by good admonitions and fair means reform them, they are willed to deliver them to the ordinary, to be by him charitably travailed withal, and removed (if it may be) from their naughty opinions; or else if they continue obstinate, to be ordered according to the laws provided in that behalf: understanding now, to our no little marvel, that divers of the said disordered persons, being by the justices of peace for their contempt and obstinacy, brought to the ordinaries to be used as is aforesaid, are either refused to be received at their hands, or if they be received, are neither so travailed with, as christian charity requireth, nor yet proceeded withal, according to the order of justice, but are suffered to continue in their errors, to the dishonour of Almighty God, and dangerous example of others; like as we find this matter very strange, so we have thought convenient both to signify this our knowledge, and therewith also to admonish you to have in this behalf such regard henceforth to the office of a good pastor and bishop, as when any such offenders shall be by the said officers or justices of peace brought unto you, you, to use your good wisdom and discretion, in procuring to remove them from their errors, if it may be; or else in proceeding against them (if they shall continue obstinate) according to the order of the laws; so as through your good furtherance, both God’s glory may be better advanced, and the Commonwealth more quietly governed. Given under our signet, at our honour of Hampton Court, the 24th May, the first and second years of our reigns.”[576]

It will be admitted that the above document does not correspond in any sense to the “rattling letters” by which popular historians suppose Mary to have stimulated the zeal of her “bloody executioners”. Its tone is calm, judicial, charitable and even wise, if we consider the stand-point from which the great majority then regarded any divergence from authorised doctrine.

Foxe would have us believe that Bonner entertained a furious, personal grudge against those who were brought to be examined, and the pages of the _Acts and Monuments_ teem with such picturesque allusions to him as “bloody wolf,” “the bishop being in a raging heat, as one clean void of humanity,” “he was in a marvellous rage,” “in a great fury,” etc.; but when we divest the stories of these adornments, there is little or nothing to support the epithets. As a learned writer has aptly remarked, this kind of description reminds us of the mountain being in labour, and bringing forth—a mouse.[577] For when we examine what Bonner, even according to Foxe, really did say, on the occasion of his appearing before the Commissioners of the Council in 1549 when he was supposed to be in such a “raging heat,” that he appeared “as one clean void of humanity,” we find that turning himself about to the people he said: “Well, now, hear what the Bishop of London saith for his part”. But the Commissioners “seeing his inordinate contumacy, denied him to speak any more, saying that he had used himself very disobediently”.[578] Equally unjustified by the context are most of the other vituperative epithets, by which the martyrologist sought to prejudice Bonner in the minds of his credulous and uncritical readers.

The truth is, that when brought before the bishops, the would-be martyrs, by Foxe’s own showing, frequently twitted their judges, gave them home thrusts and “privy nips,” and behaved themselves generally in a very insolent, provocative and irritating manner. In spite of this however, the judges seldom lost their tempers, and bore with these things in a singularly good-humoured spirit, doing their best to give the accused a chance of escape. Of the six who came under Bonner’s examination on the 8th February 1555, Foxe affirms that the bishop sentenced them the next day after they were charged, and killed them out of hand without mercy, “such quick speed these men could make in despatching their business at once”—a terrible indictment if it could be proved. But Bonner not only knew about the accused, long before the 8th February, three of them having been for months in prison, where he had again and again reasoned with them; but after sentence was passed, an interval of five weeks was the shortest respite granted for reflection, before any one of them was executed. The others we find suffered consecutively on the 26th, 28th and 29th March, and on the 10th June.

With as little accuracy did Foxe pen the following remarkable distich, which however served his purpose of vilifying Bonner.

This cannibal in three years space three hundred martyrs slew,
They were his food, he loved so blood, he sparèd none he knew.[579]

Of the 200 persons who were burned for spreading opinions considered subversive of public order, in the reign of Mary, about 120 came under Bonner’s jurisdiction, so that Foxe’s assertion that the Bishop of London “slew” 300 must be discounted by more than half, leaving a sufficiently heavy record. But his supposed thirst for blood has no foundation in fact, for we have many instances of his labouring not unsuccessfully in causing many to recant, upon which they were restored to liberty. Instances of Foxe’s perversion of truth might be multiplied, but enough has been said, to prove his untrustworthiness wherever his prejudices are involved. An appreciation of Bonner’s character from the pen of the late Dr. S. R. Maitland will fitly close this chapter.

“In plainer terms, setting aside _declamation_, and looking at the _details of facts_ left by those who may be called if people please, Bonner’s victims and their friends, we find very consistently maintained, the character of a man, straightforward and hearty, familiar and humorous, sometimes rough, perhaps coarse, naturally hot-tempered, but obviously (by the testimony of his enemies) placable and easily entreated, capable of bearing most patiently, much intemperate and insolent language, much reviling and low abuse directed against himself personally, against his order, and against those peculiar doctrines and practices of his church, for maintaining which, he had himself suffered the loss of all things, and borne long imprisonment. At the same time, not incapable of being provoked into saying harsh and passionate things, but much more frequently meaning nothing by the threatenings and slaughter which he breathed out, than to intimidate those on whose ignorance and simplicity argument seemed to be thrown away—in short we can scarcely read with attention any one of the cases detailed by those who were no friends of Bonner, without seeing in him a judge who (even if we grant that he was dispensing bad laws badly) was obviously desirous to save the prisoner’s life.”[580]

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 507: De Noailles told the Cardinal of Lorraine that the Queen of England caused incessant prayers and processions to be made for obtaining peace; and he declared that he believed her to be sincere, though he attributed less good intentions to the Emperor (_Ambassades_, iv., p. 336). One of Cardinal Pole’s letters in St. Mark’s Library at Venice, dated 20th April 1555, says that “last evening the Queen sent for him [de Noailles] to show him the despatch she was writing to her ambassador in France, charging him to tell the French King how much she rejoiced at his being so well disposed towards the peace, and that she also had performed every good office in favour of it with the Emperor”. A peace conference was about to take place at Ardres, to which Mary had pledged herself to send six commissioners.]

[Footnote 508: _Life of Jane Dormer, Duchess of Feria_, p. 64 _et seq._]

[Footnote 509: But it was not only to the poor that Mary showed kindness and a tender charity. All sorts and conditions of men experienced her help in the hour of need, one instance of which appeared in an article on Harrow School, in the _Quarterly Review_ for January 1899. This instance was taken from a letter belonging to the Roper family, in which it is recorded, that after the death of one of the family, who had been keeper of Enfield Chase and Marylebone Forest, “Queen Mary came into our house within a little of my father’s death, and found my mother weeping, and took her by the hand, and lifted her up—for she neeled—and bade her be of good cheer, for her children should be well provided for. Afterward my brother Richard and I, being the two eldest, were sent to Harrow to school, and were there till we were almost men.”]

[Footnote 510: _Venetian Calendar_, vol. vi., pt. i., 80, partly in cipher; deciphered by Signor Luigi Pasini.]

[Footnote 511: Strype, _Memorials of Cranmer_, vol. i., p. 499. _Ecclesiastical Memorials_, vol. iii., pt. i., p. 417.]

[Footnote 512: Stow, p. 624.]

[Footnote 513: See Machyn’s _Diary_, p. 84. Wriothesley (vol. ii., p. 128) gives the sequel to the outrage. “The xx day of April in the forenoon, in the consistory of Paul’s was arraigned the said Wm. Branch _alias_ Flower, who struck the priest on Easter Day in the parish church of St. Margaret in Westminster. And being condemned of heresy, he was delivered to the sheriffs of London and Middlesex. This Flower was once a monk in Ely Abbey, professed at his age of 17 years, and after made priest, and then married and had three or four children; and then ran about the country using the art of surgery. The 24 of April, the said Wm. Flower, for his said fact, had his right hand smitten off, and for opinions in matters of religion was burned in the sanctuary nigh to St. Margaret’s churchyard.” Flower is included by Foxe among the martyrs.]

[Footnote 514: Stow, p. 624.]

[Footnote 515: _Acts of the Privy Council_, vol. v., p. 30, new series.]

[Footnote 516: In a letter from Calvin to the Duke of Somerset in 1548, the Reformer says: “As I understand you have two kinds of mutineers against the King and the estates of the realm; the one are a fantastical people who under colour of the Gospels would set all to confusion; the others are stubborn people in the superstition of the Antichrist of Rome. These altogether do deserve to be well punished by a sword, seeing they do conspire against the King and against God who had set him in the royal seat. Of all things let there be _no moderation_. It is the bane of genuine improvement” (MSS. Edward VI., vol. v.).]

[Footnote 517: _Knox’s Works_, vol. iv., pp. 500-15, Laing’s edition.]

[Footnote 518: Wilkins, _Concilia_, iv., 44.]

[Footnote 519: Lingard, vol. v., p. 463.]

[Footnote 520: Froude, _History of England_, vol. x., p. 360.]

[Footnote 521: _History of the Rise and Influence of Rationalism in Europe_, vol. i., p. 45.]

[Footnote 522: Dodd, vol. iii., p. 400.]

[Footnote 523: Franciscan Chapter Register, p. 364.]

[Footnote 524: As late as the reign of Charles II, boiling alive was the penalty inflicted for clipping the King’s coin.]

[Footnote 525: _Summa Theologica_, S. Thomæ, Pars 2^a, 2^a, 2^æ, Q. I., Art. 3.]

[Footnote 526: Cap. 9.]

[Footnote 527: Wilkins, _Concilia_, iii., 739.]

[Footnote 528: F. W. Maitland, _Roman Canon Law in the Church of England_, p. 166.]

[Footnote 529: _Apology_, ch. xlix.; _English Works_, p. 925.]

[Footnote 530: Collier, vol. vi., p. 86, edition 1852. MS. St. Mark’s Library, Cod. xxiv., Cl. x., p. 208. For a translation of the whole document, which differs slightly from the version of the English fragment, see Appendix F., also three articles in the _British Magazine_, 1839-40.]

[Footnote 531: Reeves’ _History of the English Law_, edited by F. W. Finlason, vol. iii., p. 514 note.]

[Footnote 532: Reeves’ _History of the English Law_, edited by F. W. Finlason, vol. iii., p. 560 note.]

[Footnote 533: Strype, _Life of Archbishop Grindal_, p. 25.]

[Footnote 534: _Dictionary of National Biography_, art. “John Foxe, Martyrologist”.]

[Footnote 535: Part iii., p. 412.]

[Footnote 536: Quoted in Fuller’s _Worthies_, under Barkshire, p. 92.]

[Footnote 537: Anthony à Wood, _Athenæ Oxoniensis_, vol. i., p. 691 _et seq._]

[Footnote 538: _Dictionary of National Biography_, art. “John Foxe”. At Cheddar, not many years ago, a great black-letter volume of the _Book of Martyrs_ was chained to the reading-desk. In the _Life of Lord Macaulay_ it is stated, that as a child the sight of this book fascinated him, and that he sat in the family pew on a Sunday afternoon, longing to get at its bewitching pages. Lutterworth, until recently, possessed a chained copy of the book.]

[Footnote 539: _Dictionary of National Biography_, art. “William Laud”.]

[Footnote 540: Micronius, Superintendent of the Dutch Church to Bullinger, _Orig. Letters_, p. 557.]

[Footnote 541: _Ibid._, p. 70.]

[Footnote 542: Strype, _Ecclesiastical Memorials_, vol. ii., pt. i., p. 482.]

[Footnote 543: Hooper’s _Sermons on Jonah_.]

[Footnote 544: Council Book of Edward VI., 27th Jan. 1552.]

[Footnote 545: Hooper’s _Later Writings_, p. 132, Parker Society.]

[Footnote 546: _Ibid._, p. 150.]

[Footnote 547: _Acts of the Privy Council_, vol. iv., p. 337.]

[Footnote 548: _Ep._, p. 51, Oxford ed., 1703.]

[Footnote 549: Grenville MS. 11,990. _Letters and Papers_, vi., 600.]

[Footnote 550: _Latimer’s Works_, vol. i., p. 160, Parker Society.]

[Footnote 551: Foxe says that he resigned of his own accord, but Latimer himself declared the contrary.]

[Footnote 552: Nichols, _Illustrations of Antient Times_, p. 13.]

[Footnote 553: Venetian Archives, MS., St. Mark’s Library, Cod. xxiv., Cl. x., 26th (?) Oct. 1555.]

[Footnote 554: _Ibid._, 14th Oct. 1555, Michiel to the Doge and Senate.]

[Footnote 555: _Acts and Monuments_, vol. vii., p. 592. Burnet, who copied this story from Foxe, omitted the obvious fable as to the Duke of Norfolk’s presence.]

[Footnote 556: On the 16th September 1555, Giovanni Michiel wrote to the Doge and Senate: “After the Chancellor’s return from the conference at Calais, he fell into such a state of _oppilation_, that besides having become (as the physicians say) jaundiced, he by degrees got confirmed dropsy, and had it not been for his robust constitution, a variety of remedies prescribed for him by his English physicians having been of no use, he would by this time be in a bad way, his physiognomy being so changed as to astound all who see him. The Emperor has sent him the remedy he used when first troubled with dropsical symptoms, on his return from the war of Metz, and should God grant that it take the same effect on the Bishop of Winchester, it will be very advantageous for England, he being considered one of the most consummate chancellors who have filled the post for many years, and should he die, he would leave few or none so well suited to the charge as himself” (_Venetian Calendar_, vol. vi., pt. i., 215, Rawdon Brown).]

[Footnote 557: “The xiii day of November doctor Gardiner bishop of Winchester and lord chancellor of England died in the morning, between twelve and one of the clock at the king’s palace, the which is called Whitehall, and by iij of the clock he was brought by water to his own palace by Saint Mary Overy’s; and by v of the clock, his bowels was taken out, and buried afore the high altar; and at 6 the knell began there, and at dirge and Mass continued ringing all the bells, till vij at night” (Machyn, p. 96).]

[Footnote 558: Dean Hook, _Lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury_, vol. vi., p. 427.]

[Footnote 559: _Ibid._, p. 430.]

[Footnote 560: Dean Hook, _Lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury_, vol. vi., p. 439. Cranmer was being entertained at the house of a Mr. Cressey at Waltham. Henry was then at Waltham Abbey.]

[Footnote 561: Osiander was a disciple of Luther, with whom he afterwards quarrelled.]

[Footnote 562: Hook, _Lives of the Archbishops_, vol. vi., pp. 458-61.]

[Footnote 563: This oath, which is to be found in the original Latin, in Cranmer’s own Register, at Lambeth Palace, Strype claimed to have copied _verbatim_ therefrom, and he refers his readers to a document in the appendix to his _Memorials of Cranmer_. On turning however to this reference, we find only a shortened and garbled version of that which Cranmer wrote with his own hand. Strype evidently confused the two oaths, the one which Cranmer took before his consecration, and that which he pronounced on receiving the pallium, with the result that neither is correctly given, Strype omitting a whole essential paragraph. When the _Memorials_ were re-edited, in 1848, by the Ecclesiastical History Society, which declared that they had been verified as far as possible, and more correct references added, wherever it appeared needful, the learned Dr. S. R. Maitland, Librarian at Lambeth Palace, pointed out that no collation had been made between the oath, as it stands in the first edition of Strype’s work, and the original document. Canon Dixon, in treating of this matter, could not have been aware of Strype’s blunder, or have seen Cranmer’s Register, for he says; “When he took the oath or oaths of obedience to the Pope, he made many omissions, and then with an easier conscience proceeded to the oath to the King for his temporalities” (_History of the Church of England_, vol. i., p. 158). The form which Cranmer in his Register admits that he took on receiving the pallium is, with one or two slight verbal exceptions, the very same as that which Burnet prints (book ii., ann. 1532) as “the old oath of canonical obedience to the Pope”. For the text of Cranmer’s oath see Appendix E to this volume.]

[Footnote 564: Strype, _Memorials of Cranmer_, appendix.]

[Footnote 565: Gairdner, _Cal._, vi., 330. Grants in June 1533 (7).]

[Footnote 566: Hook, vol. vii., p. 30.]

[Footnote 567: Parsons, _The Three Conversions of England_, ii., ch. vii., p. 371. The author adds: “This is a most certain story, and testified at this day by Cranmer’s son’s widow yet living, to divers gentlemen, her friends, from whom myself had it”.]

[Footnote 568: Jenkyns, ii., 103.]

[Footnote 569: MS., Coll. Corp. Chr., Cantab., 128, f. 405. Printed in Nichol’s _Narrative of the Days of the Reformation_, p. 266.]

[Footnote 570: Cranmer’s name stands first on the list of conspirators, though the Archbishop was apparently the last to sign, having held out until it was no longer safe to do so.]

[Footnote 571: Strype, _Memorials of Cranmer_, vol. i., p. 484.]

[Footnote 572: _Ibid._, p. 527 _et seq._]

[Footnote 573: Strype, _Memorials of Cranmer_, vol. i., p. 557.]

[Footnote 574: _Ibid._, p. 558.]

[Footnote 575: For the opinions of two typical Englishmen on the subject of these executions see Appendix G.]

[Footnote 576: Foxe, vol. vii., p. 86.]

[Footnote 577: S. R. Maitland, _Essays on Subjects Connected with the Reformation_, p. 422.]

[Footnote 578: Vol. v., p. 765.]

[Footnote 579: Vol. viii., p. 482.]

[Footnote 580: _Essays on Subjects Connected with the Reformation_, p. 423, by S. R. Maitland, D.D., F.R.S., F.S.A., sometime Librarian to the late Archbishop of Canterbury, and Keeper of the MSS. at Lambeth.]