Chapter I: Queen Jane and Queen Mary (10)

"We, the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and the Commons of the present parliament assembled, representing the whole body of the realm of England, and dominions of the same, in our own names particularly, and also of the said body universally, in this our supplication directed to your majesties--with most humble suit that it may by your gracious intercession and means be exhibited to the Most Reverend Father in God the Lord Cardinal Pole, Legate, sent specially hither from our Most Holy Father Pope Julius the Third and the See Apostolic of Rome--do declare ourselves very sorry and repentant for the schism and disobedience committed in this realm and dominions of the same, against the said See Apostolic, either by making, agreeing, or executing any laws, ordinances, or commandments against the supremacy of the said See, or otherwise doing or speaking what might impugn the same; offering ourselves, and promising by this our supplication that, for a token and knowledge of our said repentance, we be, and shall be always, ready, under and with the authority of your majesties, to do that which shall be in us for the abrogation and repealing of the said laws and ordinances in this present parliament, as well for ourselves as for the whole body whom we represent. Whereupon we most humbly beseech your majesties, as persons undefiled in the offences of this body towards the Holy See--which nevertheless God by his providence hath made subject to your majesties--so to set forth this, our most humble suit, that we may obtain from the See Apostolic, by the said Most Reverend Father, as well particularly as universally, absolution, release, and discharge from all danger of such censures and sentences as by the laws of the church we be fallen in; and that we may, as children repentant, be received into the bosom and unity of Christ's Church; so as this noble realm, with all the members {p.173} thereof, may, in unity and perfect obedience to the See Apostolic and pope for the time being, serve God and your majesties, to the furtherance and advancement of his honour and glory."[396]

[Footnote 396: Foxe, vol. vi. p. 571. The petition
was in Latin; but, as I have nowhere seen the
original, I have not ventured to interfere with
Foxe's translation. Foxe, who could translate very
idiomatically when he pleased, perhaps relieved his
indignation on the present occasion by translating
as awkwardly as possible.]

Having completed the reading, the chancellor again presented the petition. The king and queen went through the forms of intercession, and a secretary read aloud, first, the legate's original commission, and, next, the all-important extended form of it.

Pole's share of the ceremony was now to begin.

He first spoke a few words from his seat: "Much indeed," he said, "the English nation had to thank the Almighty for recalling them to his fold. Once again God had given a token of his special favour to the realm; for as this nation, in the time of the Primitive Church, was the first to be called out of the darkness of heathenism, so now they were the first to whom God had given grace to repent of their schism; and if their repentance was sincere, how would the angels, who rejoice at the conversion of a single sinner, triumph at the recovery of a great and noble people."

He moved to rise; Mary and Philip, seeing that the crisis was approaching, fell on their knees, and the assembly dropped at their example; while, in dead silence, across the dimly-lighted hall, came the low, awful words of the absolution.

"Our Lord Jesus Christ, which with his most precious blood hath redeemed and washed us from all our sins and iniquities, that he might purchase unto himself a glorious spouse without spot or wrinkle, whom the Father hath appointed head over all his Church--he by his mercy absolves you, and we, by apostolic authority given unto us by the Most Holy Lord Pope Julius the Third, his vicegerent on earth, do absolve and deliver you, and every of you, with this whole realm and the dominions thereof, from all heresy and schism, and from all and every judgment, censure, and pain for that cause incurred; and we do restore you again into the unity of our Mother the Holy Church, in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost."

Amidst the hushed breathing every tone was audible, and at the pauses were heard the smothered sobs of the queen. "Amen, amen," rose in answer from many voices. Some were really affected; some were caught for the moment with a contagion which it was hard to resist; some threw themselves weeping in {p.174} each other's arms. King, queen, and parliament, rising from their knees, went immediately--the legate leading--into the chapel of the palace, where the choir, with the rolling organ, sang _Te Deum_; and Pole closed the scene with a benediction from the altar.

"Blessed day for England," cries the Italian describer, in a rapture of devotion. "The people exclaim in ecstasies, we are reconciled to God, we are brought back to God: the king beholds his realm, so lately torn by divisions, at the mercy of the first enemy who would seize upon it, secured on a foundation which never can be shaken: and who can express the joy--who can tell the exultation of the queen? She has shown herself the handmaid of the Lord, and all generations shall call her blessed: she has given her kingdom to God as a thank-offering for those great mercies which He has bestowed upon her."[397]

[Footnote 397: Descriptio Reductionis Angliae:
_Epist._ Reg. Pol. vol. v.]

And the legate; but the legate has described his emotions in his own inimitable manner. Pole went back to Lambeth, not to rest, but to pour out his soul to the Holy Father.

In his last letter he said "he had told his holiness that he had hoped that England would be recovered to the fold at last; yet he had then some fears remaining, so far estranged were the minds of the people from the Holy See, lest at the last moment some compromise might ruin all."

But the godly forwardness of the king and queen had overcome every difficulty; and on that evening, the day of St. Andrew--of Andrew who first brought his brother Peter to Christ--the realm of England had been brought back to its obedience to Peter's See, and through Peter to Christ. The great act had been accomplished, accomplished by the virtue and the labour of the inestimable sovereigns with whom God had blessed the world.

"And oh," he said, "how many things, how great things, may the church our mother, the bride of Christ, promise herself from these her children? Oh piety! oh antient faith! Whoever looks on them will repeat the words of the prophet of the church's early offspring; 'This is the seed which the Lord hath blessed.' How earnestly, how lovingly, did your holiness favour their marriage; a marriage formed after the very pattern of that of our Most High King, who, being Heir of the world, was sent down by his Father from his royal throne, to be at once the Spouse and the Son of the Virgin Mary, and be made the Comforter and the Saviour of mankind: and, in like manner, the greatest {p.175} of all the princes upon earth, the heir of his father's kingdom, departed from his own broad and happy realms, that he might come hither into this land of trouble, he, too, to be spouse and son of this virgin; for, indeed, though spouse he be, he so bears himself towards her as if he were her son, to aid in the reconciliation of this people to Christ and the church.[398]

[Footnote 398: This amazing comparison (for one
cannot forget what Philip had been, was, and was to
be) must be given in the original words of the
legate:

"Quam sancte sanctitas vestra omni auctoritate
studioque huic matrimonio favit; quod sane videtur
prae se ferre magnam summi illius regis
similitudinem, qui mundi haeres a regalibus sedibus
a patre demissus fuit, ut esset virginis sponsus et
filius, et hac ratione universum genus humanum
consolaretur ac servaret. Sic enim hic rex maximus
omnium qui in terris sunt haeres, patriis relictis
regnis de illis quidem amplissimis ac felicissimis
in hoc turbulentum regnum de contulit, hujusque
virginis sponsus et filius est factus; ita enim
erga illam se gerit tanquam filius esset cum sit
sponsus, ut quod jam plane perfecit sequestrem se
atque adjutorem ad reconciliandos Christo et
Ecclesiae hos populos praeberet."--Pole to the Pope:
_Epist._ Reg. Pol. vol. v.]

"When your holiness first chose me as your legate, the queen was rising up as a rod of incense out of trees of myrrh, and as frankincense out of the desert. And how does she now shine out in loveliness? What a savour does she give forth unto her people. Yea, even as the prophet saith of the mother of Christ, "before she was in labour she brought forth, before she was delivered she hath borne a man-child." Who ever yet hath seen it, who has heard of the similitude of it? Shall the earth bring forth in a day, or shall a nation of men be born together? but Mary has brought forth the nation of England before the time of that delivery for which we all are hoping!"

Unable to exhaust itself in words, the Catholic enthusiasm flowed over in processions, in sermons, masses, and _Te Deums_. Gardiner at Paul's Cross, on the Sunday succeeding, confessed his sins in having borne a part in bringing about the schism. Pole rode through the city between the king and queen, with his legate's cross before him, blessing the people. When the news reached Rome Julius first embraced the messenger, then flung himself on his knees, and said a Paternoster. The guns at St. Angelo roared in triumph. There were jubilees and masses of the Holy Ghost, and bonfires, and illuminations, and pardons, and indulgences. In the exuberance of his hopes, the pope sent a nuncio to urge that, in the presence of this great mercy, peace should be made with France, where the king was devoted to the church; the Catholic powers would then have the command of Europe, and the heretics could be destroyed.[399] One thing only {p.176} seemed forgotten, that the transaction was a bargain. The papal pardon had been thrust upon criminals, whose hearts were so culpably indifferent that it was necessary to bribe them to accept it; and the conditions of the compromise, even yet, were far from concluded.

[Footnote 399: Pallavicino.]

The sanction given to the secularisation of church property was a cruel disappointment to the clergy, who cared little for Rome, but cared much for wealth and power. Supported by a party in the House of Commons who had not shared in the plunder, and who envied those who had been more fortunate,[400] the ecclesiastical faction began to agitate for a reconsideration of the question. Their friends in parliament said that the dispensation was unnecessary. Every man's conscience ought to be his guide whether to keep his lands or surrender them. The queen was known to hold the same opinion, and eager preachers began to sound the note of restitution.[401] Growing bolder, the Lower House of Convocation presented the bishops immediately after with a series of remarkable requests. The pope, in the terms on which he was reinstated, was but an ornamental unreality; and the practical English clergy desired substantial restorations which their eyes could see and their hands could handle.

[Footnote 400: Renard to the Emperor: _Granvelle
Papers_, vol. iv.]

[Footnote 401: "It was this morning told me by one
of the Emperor's council, who misliked much the
matter, that a preacher of ours whose name he
rehearsed, beateth the pulpit jollily in England
for a restitution of abbey lands. It is a strange
thing in a well-ordered commonwealth that a subject
should be so hardy to cry unto the people openly
such learning, whereby your winter work may in the
summer be attempted with some storm. These
unbridled preachings were so much misliked in the
ill-governed time as men trusted in this good
governance it should have been amended; and so may
it be when it shall please my Lords of the Council
as diligently to consider it, as it is more than
necessary to be looked unto. The party methinketh
might well be put to silence, if he were asked now,
being a monk, and having professed and vowed
solemnly wilful poverty, he can with conscience
keep a deanery and three or four benefices."--Mason
to Petre: _MS. Germany_, bundle 16, _Mary_, State
Paper Office. It is not clear who the offender was.
Perhaps it was Weston, Dean of Westminster and
Prolocutor of Convocation.]

They demanded, therefore, first, that if a statute was brought into parliament for the assurance of the church estates to the present possessors, nothing should be allowed to pass prejudicial to their claims "on lands, tenements, pensions, or tythe rents, which had appertained to bishops, or other ecclesiastical persons."

They demanded, secondly, the repeal of the Statute of Mortmain, and afterwards the abolition of lay impropriations, the {p.177} punishment of heretics, the destruction of all the English Prayer-books and Bibles, the revival of the act _De Haeretico Comburendo_, the re-establishment of the episcopal courts, the restoration of the legislative functions of Convocation, and the exemption of the clergy from the authority of secular magistrates.

Finally, they required that the church should be restored absolutely to its ancient rights, immunities, and privileges; that no Premunire should issue against a bishop until he had first received notice and warning; that the judges should define "a special doctrine of Premunire," and that the Statutes of Provisors should not be wrested from their meaning.[402]

[Footnote 402: Demands of the Lower House of
Convocation, December, 1554; printed in Wilkins's
_Concilia_.]

The petition expressed the views of Gardiner, and was probably drawn under his direction. Had the alienated property been no more than the estates of the suppressed abbeys, the secular clergy would have acquiesced without difficulty in the existing disposition of it. But the benefices impropriated to the abbeys which had been sold or granted with the lands, they looked on as their own; the cathedral chapters and the bishops' sees, which had suffered from the second locust flight under Edward, formed part of the local Anglican Church: and Gardiner and his brother prelates declared that, if the pope chose to set aside the canons, and permit the robbing of the religious orders, he might do as he pleased; but that he had neither right nor powers to sanction the spoliation of the working bishops and clergy. Thus the feast of reconciliation having been duly celebrated, both Houses of Parliament became again the theatre of fierce and fiery conflict.

There were wide varieties of opinion. The lawyers went beyond the clergy in limiting the powers of the pope; the lawyers also said the pope had no rights over the temporalities of bishops or abbots, deans, or rectors; but they did not any more admit the rights of the clergy. The English clergy, regular and secular, they said, had held their estates from immemorial time under the English crown, and it was not for any spiritual authority, domestic or foreign, to decide whether an English king and an English parliament might interfere to alter the disposition of those estates.

On other questions the clerical party were in the ascendant; They had a decided majority in the House of Commons; in the Upper House there was a compact body of twenty bishops; and Gardiner held the proxies of Lord Rich, Lord Oxford, Lord {p.178} Westmoreland, and Lord Abergavenny. The queen had created four new peers; three of whom, Lord North, Lord Chandos, and Lord Williams, were bigoted Catholics; the fourth, Lord Howard, was absent with the fleet, and was unrepresented. Lord North held the proxy of Lord Worcester; and the Marquis of Winchester, Lord Montague, and Lord Stourton acted generally with the chancellor. Lord Russell was keeping out of the way, being suspected of heresy; Wentworth was at Calais; Grey was at Guisnes; and the proxies of the two last noblemen, which in the late parliament were held by Arundel and Paget, were, for some unknown reason, now held by no one. Thus, in a house of seventy-three members only, reduced to sixty-nine by the absence of Howard, Russell, Wentworth, and Grey, Gardiner had thirty-one votes whom he might count upon as certain; he knew his power, and at once made fatal use of it.

For two parliaments the liberal party had prevented him from recovering the power of persecution. He did not attempt to pass the Inquisitorial Act on which he was defeated in the last session. But the act to revive the Lollard Statutes was carried through the House of Commons in the second week in December; on the 15th it was brought up to the Lords; and although those who had before fought the battle of humanity, struggled again bravely in the same cause, this time their numbers were too small; they failed, and the lives of the Protestants were in their enemies' hands.[403] Simultaneously Gardiner obtained for the bishops' courts their long-coveted privilege of arbitrary arrest and discretionary punishment, and the clergy obtained, as they desired, the restoration of their legislative powers. The property question alone disintegrated the phalanx of orthodoxy, and left an opening for the principles of liberty to assert themselves. The faithful and the faithless among the laity were alike participators in church plunder, and were alike nervously sensitive when the current of the reaction ran in the direction of a demand for restitution.

[Footnote 403: "La chambre haulte y faict
difficulte pour ce que l'auctorite et jurisdiction
des evesques est autorizee et renouvellee, et que
le peine semble trop griefve. Mais l'on tient
qu'ilz s'accorderont par la pluralite."--Renard to
the Emperor, December 21: _Granvelle Papers_, vol.
iv.]

Here, therefore, Paget and his friends chose their ground to maintain the fight.

It has been seen that Pole especially dreaded the appearance of any sort of composition between the country and the papacy. The submission had, in fact, been purchased, but the purchase ought to be disguised. As soon, therefore, as the parliament {p.179} set themselves to the fulfilment of their promise to undo the acts by which England had separated itself from Rome, the legate required a simple statute of repeal. The pope had granted a dispensation; it was enough, and it should be accepted gratefully: the penitence of sinners ought not to be mixed with questions of worldly interest; the returning prodigal, when asking pardon at his father's feet, had made no conditions; the English nation must not disfigure their obedience by alluding, in the terms of it, to the pope's benevolence to them.

The holders of the property, on the other hand, thinking more of the reality than the form, were determined that the Act of Repeal should contain, as nearly as possible, a true statement of their case. They _had_ made conditions, and those conditions had been reluctantly complied with; and, to prevent future errors, the nature of the compact ought to be explained with the utmost distinctness. They had replaced the bishops in authority, and the bishops might be made use of at some future time, indirectly or directly, to disturb the settlement. A fresh pontiff might refuse to recognise the concessions of his predecessors. The papal supremacy, the secularisation of the church property, and the authority of the episcopal courts should, therefore, be interwoven inextricably to stand or fall together; and as the lawyers denied the authority of the Holy See to pronounce upon the matter at all, the legal opinion might be embodied also as a further security.

After a week of violent discussion, the lay interest in the House of Lords found itself the strongest. Pole exclaimed that, if the submission and the dispensation were tied together, it was a simoniacal compact; the pope's holiness was bought and sold for a price, he said, and he would sooner go back to Rome, and leave his work unfinished, than consent to an act so derogatory to the Holy See. But the protest was vain; if the legate was so anxious, his anxiety was an additional reason why the opposition should persevere; if he chose to go, his departure could be endured.[404]

[Footnote 404: "Le parlement faict instance que, en
statut de la dicte obedience la dicte dispense soit
inseree, ce que le dict cardinal ne veult admettre,
a ce que ne semble la dicte obedience avoir este
rachetee; et est passee si avant la dicte
difficulte que le dict cardinal a declare qu'il
retourneroit plutot a Rome et delaisseront la chose
imparfaite que consentir a chose contre l'auctorite
dudict S. Siege, et de si grande
prejudice."--Renard to the Emperor, December:
_Granvelle Papers_, vol. iv.]

So keen was the debate that there was not so much as a Christmas recess. Christmas Day was kept as a holyday. On {p.180} the 26th the struggle began again, and, fortunately, clouds had risen between the House of Commons and the court. Finding more difficulty than he expected in embroiling England with France, Philip, to feel the temper of the people, induced one of the peers to carry a note to the Lower House to request an opinion whether it was not the duty of a son to assist his father. An answer was instantly returned that the question had been already disposed of by the late parliament in the marriage treaty, and the further discussion of it was unnecessary.[405] Secretary Bourne, at the instigation of Gardiner, proposed to revive the claims on the pensions; but he met with no better reception. And the court made a further blunder. Mary had become so accustomed to success, that she assured herself she could obtain all that she desired. The object of the court was to secure the regency for Philip, with full sovereign powers, should she die leaving a child; should she die childless, to make him her successor. The first step would be Philip's coronation, which had been long talked of, and which the House of Commons was now desired to sanction. The House of Commons returned a unanimous refusal.[406]

[Footnote 405: "Ces jours passez, il y eust ung
personnaige de la haulte chambre, auquel il sembla
pour ne perdre temps debvoir porter, (comme il
fist) un billette a la basse par laquelle il
mettait en advant s'il n'estoit pas raisonnable que
le filz secourust le pere, voullant dire de ce roy
a l'Empereur. Ce qui fut si bien recueilly du tiers
estat, si promptment et avecques grande raison
respondu, comme par le dernier parlement et le
traite de mariaige d'entre ce roy et royne cela
avoit este et estoit tellement considere, qu'il
n'estoit plus besoing mettre telles choses en
advant pour les faire entrer a la
guerre."--Noailles to the King of France:
_Ambassades_, vol. iv. p. 76.]

[Footnote 406: "Je vous puis dire, Sire, que toutes
ces choses ont passe bien loing de l'esperance
qu'il avoit, puisqu'il s'attendoit de se faire
couronner, comme despuis six jours il en avoit
particulierement faict rechercher ceulx de la basse
chambre dudict parlement qui luy out tous d'une
voix rejette."--Noailles to the King of France:
_Ambassades_, vol. iv. p. 137.]

The effects of these cross influences on the papal statute, though they cannot be traced in detail, must have been not inconsiderable. At length, on the 4th of January, after passing backwards and forwards for a fortnight between the two Houses, the Great Bill, as it was called, emerged, finished, in the form of a petition to the crown:--

"Whereas," so runs the preamble,[407] "since the 20th year of King Henry VIII., of famous memory, much false and erroneous doctrine hath been taught, preached, and written, partly by divers natural-born subjects of this realm, and partly being brought in hither from sundry foreign countries, hath been sown {p.181} and spread abroad within the same--by reason whereof as well the spiritualty as the temporalty of your highness's realm and dominions have swerved from the obedience of the See Apostolic, and declined from the unity of Christ's Church, and so have continued until such time as--your majesty being first raised up by God, and set in the seat royal over us, and then by his divine and gracious Providence knit in marriage with the most noble and virtuous prince the king our sovereign lord your husband--the pope's holiness and the See Apostolic sent hither unto your majesties, as unto persons undefiled, and by God's goodness preserved from the common infection aforesaid, and to the whole realm, the Most Reverend Father in God the Lord Cardinal Pole, Legate _de Latere_, to call us again into the right way, from which we have all this long while wandered and strayed; and we, after sundry and long plagues and calamities, seeing, by the goodness of God, our own errours, have knowledged the same unto the said Most Reverend Father, and by him have been and are (the rather at the contemplation of your majesties) received and embraced into the unity of Christ's Church, upon our humble submission, and promise made for a declaration of our repentance to repeal and abrogate such acts and statutes as had been made in parliament since the said 20th year of the said King Henry VIII., against the supremacy of the See Apostolic, as in our submission exhibited to the said most Reverend Father in God, by your majesties appeareth--it may like your majesty, for the accomplishment of our promise, that all such laws be repealed. That is to say:--

[Footnote 407: 1 and 2 Philip and Mary, cap. 8.]

"The Act against obtaining Dispensations from Rome for Pluralities and non-Residence.[408]

[Footnote 408: 21 Henry VIII. cap. 13.]

"The Act that no person shall be cited out of the Diocese where he or she dwelleth.[409]

[Footnote 409: 23 Henry VIII. cap. 9.]

"The Act against Appeals to the See of Rome.[410]

[Footnote 410: 24 Henry VIII. cap. 12.]

"The Act against the Payment of Annates and First-fruits to the See of Rome.[411]

[Footnote 411: 23 Henry VIII. cap. 20. The Act was
repealed, but the annates were not restored.]

"The Act for the Submission of the Clergy.[412]

[Footnote 412: 25 Henry VIII. cap. 19.]

"The Act for the Election and Consecration of Bishops.[413]

[Footnote 413: 25 Henry VIII. cap. 20.]

"The Act against Exactions from the See of Rome.[414]

[Footnote 414: 25 Henry VIII. cap. 21.]

"The Act of the Royal Supremacy.[415]

[Footnote 415: 26 Henry VIII. cap. 1.]

{p.182} "The Act for the Consecration of Suffragan Bishops.[416]

[Footnote 416: 26 Henry VIII. cap. 14.]

"The Act for the Reform of the Canon Law.[417]

[Footnote 417: 27 Henry VIII. cap. 15.]

"The Act against the Authority of the Pope.[418]

[Footnote 418: 28 Henry VIII. cap. 10.]

"The Act for the Release of those who had obtained Dispensations from Rome.[419]

[Footnote 419: 28 Henry VIII. cap. 16.]

"The Act authorising the King to appoint Bishops by Letters Patent.[420]

[Footnote 420: 31 Henry VIII. cap. 9.]

The Act of Precontracts and Degrees of Consanguinity.[421]

[Footnote 421: 33 Henry VIII. cap. 38.]

The Act for the King's Style.[422]

[Footnote 422: 35 Henry VIII. cap. 3.]

The Act permitting the Marriage of Doctors of Civil Law."[423]

[Footnote 423: 37 Henry VIII. cap. 17.]

In the repeal of these statutes the entire ecclesiastical legislation of Henry VIII. was swept away; and, so far as a majority in a single parliament could affect them, the work was done absolutely and with clean completeness.

But there remained two other acts collaterally and accidentally affecting the See of Rome; for the repeal of which the court was no less anxious than for the repeal of the Act of Supremacy, where the parliament were not so complaisant.

Throughout the whole reaction under Mary there was one point on which the laity never wavered. Attempts such as that which has been just mentioned were made incessantly, directly or indirectly, to alter the succession and cut off Elizabeth. They were like the fretful and profitless chafings of waves upon a rock. The two acts on which Elizabeth's claims were rested[424] touched, in one or other of their clauses, the papal prerogative, and were included in the list to be condemned. But, of these acts, "so much only" as affected the See of Rome was repealed. The rest was studiously declared to continue in force.

[Footnote 424: 28 Henry VIII. cap. 7; 35 Henry
VIII. cap. 1.]

Yet, with this reservation, the parliament had gone far in their concessions, and it remained for them to secure their equivalent.

They reinstated the bishops, but, in giving back a power which had been so much abused, they took care to protect--not, alas! the innocent lives which were about to be sacrificed--but their own interests. The bishops and clergy of the Province of Canterbury having been made to state their case and their claims, in a petition to the crown, they were then compelled formally to relinquish those claims; and the petition and the relinquishment were embodied in the act as the condition of the {p.183} restoration of the authority of the church courts.[425] In continuation, the Lords and Commons desired that, for the removal "of all occasion of contention, suspicion, and trouble, both outwardly and inwardly, in men's conscience," the pope's holiness, as represented by the legate, "by dispensation, toleration, or permission, as the case required," would recognise all such foundations of colleges, hospitals, cathedrals, churches, schools, or bishoprics as had been established during the schism, would confirm the validity of all ecclesiastical acts which had been performed during the same period; and, finally, would consent that all property, of whatever kind, taken from the church, should remain to its present possessors--"so as all persons having sufficient conveyance of the said lands, goods, and chattels by the common laws, or acts, or statutes of the realm, might, without scruple of conscience, enjoy them without impeachment or trouble, by pretence of any general council, canon, or ecclesiastical law, and clear from all dangers of the censures of the church." The petitions, both of clergy and parliament, the act went on to say, had been considered by the cardinal; and the cardinal had acquiesced. He had undertaken, in the pope's name, that the possessors of either lands or goods should never be molested either then or in time to come, in virtue of any papal decree, or canon, or council; that if any attempt should be made by any bishop or other ecclesiastic to employ the spiritual weapons of the church to extort restitution, such act or acts were declared vain and of none effect. The dispensation was pronounced, nor could the legate's protests avail to prevent it from appearing in the act. He was permitted, only in consideration of the sacrifice, to interweave amidst the legal technicalities some portion of his own feeling. The impious detainers of holy things, while permitted to maintain their iniquity, were reminded of the fate of Belshazzar, and were urged to restore {p.184} the patines, chalices, and ornaments of the altars. The impropriators of benefices were implored, in the mercy of Christ, to remember the souls of the people, and provide for the decent performance of the services of the churches.[426]

[Footnote 425: "Albeit, by the laws of the Church,
the bishops and clergy were the defenders and
protectors of all ecclesiastical rights, and would
therefore in nature be bound to use their best
endeavours for the recovery of the lands and goods
lost to the Church during the late schism, they,
nevertheless, perceiving the tenures of those lands
and goods were now complicated beyond power of
extrication, and that the attempt to recover them
might promote disaffection in the realm, and cause
the overthrow of the present happy settlement of
religion, preferring public peace to private
commodity, and the salvation of souls to worldly
possessions, did consent that the present
disposition of those lands and goods should remain
undisturbed. They besought their Majesties to
intercede with the legate for his consent, and, for
themselves, they requested, in return, that the
lawful jurisdiction of the Church might be
restored."--1 and 2 Philip and Mary, cap. 8, sec.
31.]

[Footnote 426: "Et licet omnes res mobiles
ecclesiarum indistincte iis qui eas tenent
relaxaverimus, eos tamen admonitos esse volumus ut
ante oculos habentes divini judicii severitatem
contra Balthazarem Regem Babylonis, qui vasa sacra
non a se sed a patre a templo ablata in profanos
usus convertit, ea propriis ecclesiis si extant vel
aliis restituant, hortantes etiam et per viscera
misericordiae Jesu Christi obtestantes eos omnes
quos haec res tangit, ut salutis suae non omnino
immemores hoc saltem efficiant, ut ex bonis
ecclesiasticis maxime iis quae ratione personatuum
et vicariatuum populi ministrorum sustentationi
fuerint specialiter destinata, seu aliis
cathedralibus et aliis quae nunc extant inferioribus
ecclesiis curam animarum exercentibus, ita
provideatur, ut eorum pastores commode et honeste
juxta eorum qualitatem et statum sustentari
possint, et curam animarum laudabiliter
exercere."--1 and 2 Philip and Mary, cap. 8, sec.
31.]

Here the act might have been expected to end. The nature of the transaction between the parliament and the pope had been made sufficiently clear. Yet, had nothing more been said, the surrender of their claims by the clergy would have implied that they had parted with something which they might have legitimately required. Under the inspiration of the lawyers, therefore, a series of clauses were superadded, explaining that, notwithstanding the dispensation, "The title of all lands, possessions, and hereditaments in their majesties' realms and dominions was grounded in the laws, statutes, and customs of the same, and by their high jurisdiction, authority royal, and crown imperial, _and in their courts only_, might be impleaded, ordered, tried, and judged, and none otherwise:" and, therefore, "whosoever, by any process obtained out of any ecclesiastical court within the realm or without, or by pretence of any spiritual jurisdiction or otherwise, contrary to the laws of the realm, should inquiet or molest any person or persons, or body politic, for any of the said lands or things above specified, should incur the danger of Premunire, and should suffer and incur the forfeitures and pains contained in the same."[427]

[Footnote 427: Ibid.]

Vainly the clergy had entreated for a limitation or removal of Premunire. That spectre remained unexorcised in all its shadowy terror; and while it survived, the penitence of England went no deeper than the lips, however fine the words and eloquent the phrases in which it was expressed. As some compensation, the Mortmain Act was suspended for twenty years. Yet, as if it were in reply to Pole's appeal, a mischievous provision {p.185} closed the act, that, notwithstanding anything contained in it, laymen entitled to tithes might recover them with the same readiness as before the first day of the present parliament.[428]

[Footnote 428: 1 and 2 Philip and Mary, cap. 8,
sec. 31.]

Such was the great statute of reconciliation with Rome, with which, in the inability to obtain a better, the legate was compelled to be satisfied, and to reconsider his threat of going back to Italy.

This first conflict was no sooner ended than another commenced. The Commons would not consent that Philip should be crowned; but, as the queen said she was _enceinte_, provision had to be made for a regency, and a bill was introduced into the Upper House which has not survived, but which, in spirit, was unfavourable to the king.[429] Gardiner, in the course of the debate, attempted to put in a clause affecting Elizabeth,[430] but the success was no better than usual. The act went down to the Commons, where, however, it was immediately cancelled. Though the Commons would give Philip no rights as king, they were better disposed towards him than the Lords; and they drew another bill of their own, in which they declared the father to be the natural and fitting guardian of the child. The experience of protectorates, they said, had been uniformly unfortunate, and should the queen die leaving an heir, Philip should be regent of the realm during the minority; if obliged to be absent on the Continent, he might himself nominate his deputy;[431] and so long as it should be his pleasure to remain in England, his person should be under the protection of the laws of high treason.

[Footnote 429: "It was suspected," says Renard,
"que le dict act se proposoit a maulvais fin, qu'il
estoit contre les traictez et capitulation de
marriage pour hereder la couronne qui venoit de
maulvais auteurs quilz plustot desiroient le mal
dudict S. roy et inquietude dudict royaulme que le
bien."--Renard to the Emperor: _Granvelle Papers_,
vol. iv. p. 347.]

[Footnote 430: Ibid. vol. iv. p. 348.]

[Footnote 431: "Et que en son absence il y pourra
nommer qui luy plaira."--Ibid. vol. iv. p. 348.]

Taking courage from the apparent disposition of the House, the friends of the court proposed that, should the queen die childless, the crown should devolve absolutely upon him for his life.[432] But in this they were going too far. The suggestion was listened to coldly; and Philip, who had really calculated on obtaining from parliament, in some form or other, a security for his succession, despatched Ruy Gomez to Brussels, to consult the {p.186} emperor on the course which should be pursued.[433] On the whole, however, could the bill of the House of Commons be carried, Renard was disposed to be contented; the queen was confident in her hopes of an heir, and it might not be worth while to irritate the people unnecessarily about Elizabeth.[434] The clause empowering Philip to govern by deputy in his absence was especially satisfactory.[435]

[Footnote 432: "Aulcuns particuliers proposaient en
ladicte chambre basse que le dict S. roy deust
demeurer roy absolut dudict royaulme mourant
ladicte dame sans hoirs sa vie durant."--Ibid. vol.
iv. p. 348.]

[Footnote 433: "Ruy Gomez est alle vers l'Empereur
pour faire entendre les difficultez qu'ilz trouvent
de faire demeurer ceste couronne a son dict filz,
au cas que la royne sa femme allast de vie a
trespaz sans enfans, et d'aultant qu'ilz ont
congneu la volunte de ceulx cy estre bien loin de
leur intention; et pour ce scavoir par quelz moyens
il semblera bon audict Empereur qu'on puisse mettre
cela en termes devant la fin de ce
parlement."--Noailles.]

[Footnote 434: "Et quant a la declaration de
bastardise l'on n'est d'opinion qu'elle se doige
entamer aux dict parlement, puisque l'apparence
d'heretier est certaine et pour l'evident et
congneue contrariete que seroit en toute le
royaulme."--Renard to the Emperor: _Granvelle
Papers_, p. 348.]

[Footnote 435: Ibid.]

But the peers, whom the Commons had refused to consult on the new form of the measure, would not part so easily with their own opinions; they adopted the phraseology of the Lower House, but this particular and precious feature in it they pared away. The bill, as it eventually passed, declared Philip regent till his child should be of age, and so long as he continued in the realm; but, at the same time, fatally for the objects at which he was aiming, it bound him again to observe all the articles of the marriage treaty, "which, during the time that he should hold the government, should remain and continue in as full force and strength, as if they were newly inserted and rehearsed in the present act."[436]

[Footnote 436: 1 and 2 Philip and Mary, cap. 10.]

The disposition of the House of Lords was the more dangerous, because the bishops, of course, voted with the government, and the strength of the opposition, therefore, implied something like unanimity in the lay peers. The persecuting act had been carried with difficulty, and in the reconciliation with Rome the legate had been studiously mortified. On the succession and the coronation the court had been wholly baffled; and in the Regency Bill they had obtained but half of what they had desired. At the least Mary had hoped to secure for the king the free disposal of the army and the finances, and she had not been able so much as to ask for it. Compelled to rest contented with such advantages as had been secured, the court would not risk the results of further controversy by prolonging the session; and on the 16th of January, at four o'clock in the afternoon, the {p.187} king and queen came to the House of Lords almost unattended, and with an evident expression of dissatisfaction dissolved the parliament.[437]

[Footnote 437: "Ilz sont pour cejourdhuy bien
esloignez de ce qu'ilz pensoient faire il y a six
sepmaines en ce parlement, ou ilz faisoient compte
que ne pouvant couronner ce roy ou luy faire
succeder ce royaulme, a tout le moings de luy en
faire tumber l'administration, avecques tel pouvoir
sur les forces et finances qu'il en eust pen
disposer a sa volunte. Toutefois la chose a prins
telle issue que pour ce coup il fault qu'il se
contente a beaucoup moings qu'il ne s'attendoit.

"Ce qui a tellement despleu a cedict roy et royne,
que le 16 de ce mois ilz allerent par eau tous
deulx clorre et terminer ledict parlement, sur les
quatre heures du soir, assez petitement
accompaignez et sans aulcune ceremonie, monstrans
et faisans congnoistre a ung chascun avoir quelque
grand mescontentement contre l'assemble
d'icelluy."--Noailles to the Constable:
_Ambassades_, vol. iv. p. 153.]

I have been particular in relating the proceedings of this parliament, because it marks the point where the flood tide of reaction ceased to ascend, and the ebb recommenced. From the beginning of the Reformation in 1529, two distinct movements had gone on side by side--the alteration of doctrines, and the emancipation of the laity from papal and ecclesiastical domination. With the first, the contemporaries of Henry VIII., the country gentlemen and the peers, who were the heads of families at the period of Mary's accession, had never sympathised; and the tyranny of the Protestants while they were in power had converted a disapproval which time would have overcome, into active and determined indignation. The papacy was a mixed question; the Pilgrims of Grace in 1536, and the Cornish rebels in 1549, had demanded the restoration of the spiritual primacy to the See of St. Peter, and Henry himself, until Pole and Paul III. called on Europe to unite in a crusade against him, had not determined wholly against some degree of concession. In the pope, as a sovereign who claimed reverence and tribute, who interfered with the laws of the land, and maintained at Rome a supreme court of appeal--who pretended a right to depose kings and absolve subjects from their allegiance--who held a weapon in excommunication as terrible to the laity as Premunire was terrible to ecclesiastics--in the pope under this aspect, only a few insignificant fanatics entertained any kind of interest.

But experience had proved that to a nation cut off from the centre of Catholic union, the maintenance of orthodoxy was impossible: the supremacy of the pope, therefore, came back as a tolerated feature in the return to the Catholic faith, and the ecclesiastical courts were reinstated in authority to check unlicensed {p.188} extravagance of opinion. Their restored power, however, was over opinion only; wherever the pretensions of the church would come in collision with the political constitution, wherever they menaced the independence of the temporal magistrate or the tenure of property, there the progress of restoration was checked by the rock, and could eat no further into the soil. The pope and the clergy recovered their titular rank, and in one direction unhappily they recovered the reality of power. But the temporal spoils of the struggle remained with the laity, and if the clergy lifted a hand to retake them, their weapons would be instantly wrenched from their grasp.

If the genuine friends of human freedom had acquiesced without resistance in this conclusion, if the nobility had contented themselves with securing their worldly and political interests, and had made no effort to restrain or modify the exercise of the authority which they were giving back, they might be accused of having accepted a dishonourable compromise. But they did what they could. They worked with such legal means as were in their power, and for two parliaments they succeeded in keeping persecution at bay; they failed in the third, but failed only after a struggle. The Protestants themselves had created, by their own misconduct, the difficulty of defending them; and armed unconstitutional resistance was an expedient to be resorted to, only when it had been seen how the clergy would conduct themselves. English statesmen may be pardoned if they did not anticipate the passions to which the guardians of orthodoxy were about to abandon themselves. Parliament had maintained the independence of the English courts of law. It had maintained the Premunire. It had forbidden the succession to be tampered with. If this was not everything, it was something--something which in the end would be the undoing of all the rest.

The court and the bishops, however, were for the present absolute in their own province. The persecuting acts were once more upon the Statute Book; and when the realities of the debates in parliament had disappeared, the cardinal and the queen could again give the rein to their imagination. They had called up a phantom out of its grave, and they persuaded themselves that they were witnessing the resurrection of the spirit of truth, that heresy was about to vanish from off the English soil, like an exhalation of the morning, at the brightness of the papal return. The chancellor and the clergy were springing at the leash like hounds with the game in view, fanaticism and revenge {p.189} lashing them forward. If the temporal schemes of the court were thwarted, it was, perhaps, because Heaven desired that exclusive attention should be given first to the salvation of souls.

For all past political offences, therefore, there was now an amnesty, and such prisoners as remained unexecuted for Wyatt's conspiracy were released from the Tower on the 18th of January. On the 25th a hundred and sixty priests walked in procession through the London streets, chanting litanies, with eight bishops walking after them, and Bonner carrying the host. On the 28th the cardinal issued his first general instructions. The bishops were directed to call together their clergy in every diocese in England, and to inform them of the benevolent love of the Holy Father, and of the arrival of the legate with powers to absolve them from their guilt. They were to relate the acts of the late parliament, with the reconciliation and absolution of the Lords and Commons; and they were to give general notice that authority had been restored to the ecclesiastical courts, to proceed against the enemies of the faith, and punish them according to law.

A day was then to be fixed on which the clergy should appear with their confessions, and be received into the church. In the assignment of their several penances, a distinction was to be made between those who had taught heresy and those who had merely lapsed into it.

When the clergy had been reconciled, they were again in turn to exhort the laity in all churches and cathedrals, to accept the grace which was offered to them; and that they might understand that they were not at liberty to refuse the invitation, a time was assigned to them within which their submissions must be all completed. A book was to be kept in every diocese, where the names of those who were received were to be entered. A visitation was to be held throughout the country at the end of the spring, and all who had not complied before Easter day, or who, after compliance, "had returned to their vomit", would be proceeded against with the utmost severity of the law.[438]

[Footnote 438: Instructions of Cardinal Pole to the
Bishops: Burnet's _Collectanea_.]

The introduction of the Register was the Inquisition under another name. There was no limit, except in the humanity or the prudence of the bishops, to the tyranny which they would be enabled to exercise. The cardinal professed to desire that, before heretics were punished with death, mild means should {p.190} first be tried with them;[439] the meaning which he attached to the words was illustrated in an instant example.

[Footnote 439: The opinion of Pole, on the
propriety of putting men to death for
nonconformity, was strictly orthodox. He regarded
heretics, he said, as rebellious children, with
whom persuasion and mild correction should first be
tried. "Nec tamen, negarim fieri posse," he
continued, "ut alicujus opiniones tam perniciosae
existant, ipseque jam corruptus tam sit ad
corrumpendos alios promptus ac sedulus ut non
dubitarim dicere eum e vita tolli oportere et
tanquam putridum membrum e corpore exsecari. Neque
id tamen priusquam ejus sanandi causa omnis leviter
medendi tentata sit ratio."--Pole to the Cardinal
of Augsburg: _Epist._ Reg. Pol. vol. iv.]

The instructions were the signal for the bishops to commence business. On the day of their appearance, Gardiner, Bonner, Tunstal, and three other prelates, formed a court in St. Mary Overy's Church, in Southwark; and Hooper, and Rogers, a canon of St. Paul's, were brought up before them.

Rogers had been distinguished in the first bright days of Protestantism. He had been a fellow-labourer with Tyndal and Coverdale, at Antwerp, in the translation of the Bible. Afterwards, taking a German wife, he lived for a time at Wittenberg, not unknown, we may be sure, to Martin Luther. On the accession of Edward, he returned to England, and worked among the London clergy till the end of the reign; and on Mary's accession he was one of the preachers at Paul's Cross who had dared to speak against the reaction. He had been rebuked by the council, and his friends had urged him to fly; but, like Cranmer, he thought that duty required him to stay at his post, and, in due time, without, however, having given fresh provocation, he was shut up in Newgate by Bonner.

Hooper, when the unfortunate garment controversy was brought to an end, had shown by his conduct in his diocese that in one instance at least doctrinal fanaticism was compatible with the loftiest excellence. While the great world was scrambling for the church property, Hooper was found petitioning the council for leave to augment impoverished livings out of his own income.[440] In the hall of his palace at Gloucester a profuse hospitality was offered daily to those who were most in need of it. The poor of the city were invited by relays to solid meat dinners, and the bishop with the courtesy of a gentleman dined with them, and treated them with the same respect as if they had been the highest in the land. He was one of the first persons arrested after Mary's accession, and the cross of persecution at once happily made his peace with Ridley. In an affectionate interchange of letters, the two confessors exhorted each other {p.191} to constancy in the end which both foresaw, determining "if they could not overthrow, at least, to shake those high altitudes" of spiritual tyranny.[441] The Fleet prison had now been Hooper's house for eighteen months. At first, on payment of heavy fees to the warden, he had lived in some degree of comfort; but as soon as his deprivation was declared, Gardiner ordered that he should be confined in one of the common prisoners' wards; where "with a wicked man and a wicked woman" for his companions, with a bed of straw and a rotten counterpane, the prison sink on one side of his cell and Fleet ditch on the other, he waited till it would please parliament to permit the dignitaries of the Church to murder him.[442]

[Footnote 440: _Privy Council Register_, Edward VI.
_MS._]

[Footnote 441: Correspondence between Hooper and
Ridley: Foxe, vol. vi.]

[Footnote 442: Account of Hooper's Imprisonment, by
himself: Foxe, vol. vi.]

These were the two persons with whom the Marian persecution opened. On their appearance in the court, they were required briefly to make their submission. They attempted to argue; but they were told that when parliament had determined a thing, private men were not to call it in question, and they were allowed twenty-four hours to make up their minds. As they were leaving the church Hooper was heard to say, "Come, brother Rogers, must we two take this matter first in hand and fry these faggots?" "Yea, sir, with God's grace," Rogers answered. "Doubt not," Hooper said, "but God will give us strength."

They were remanded to prison. The next morning they were brought again before the court. "The queen's mercy" was offered them, if they would recant; they refused, and they were sentenced to die. Rogers asked to be allowed to take leave of his wife and children. Gardiner, with a savage taunt, rejected the request. The day of execution was left uncertain. They were sent to Newgate to wait the queen's pleasure. On the 30th, Taylor of Hadley, Laurence Sandars, rector of All Hallows, and the illustrious Bradford, were passed through the same forms with the same results. Another, a notorious preacher, called Cardmaker, flinched, and made his submission.