Chapter I: Queen Jane and Queen Mary (15)

"For God's sake, be my honourable masters, and rid
me out of this dungeon, for I do lie here a man
sore pained with the stone, and among the newts and
spiders. For the love of God, I ask it; for I do
all things in the place that I do lie in. My good
and honourable masters, for God's sake, be good to
me, and consider that I did never give my consent
to do no evil. Good Mr. Englefield, consider my
meaning, and be good master to me, and consider the
place I lie in, and the pain of the
stone."--Daniel's Confessions: _MS. Mary,
Domestic_, vol. viii.

The effect, however, apparently was what the
examiners desired. A note of the council remains to
the effect that--

"Daniel being yesterday removed, to a worse
lodging, beginneth this day to be more open and
plain than he hath been, whereby we perceive he
knoweth all, and we trust and think verily he will
utter the same."--Privy Council Minutes, Ibid.]

But the danger did not pass off with the execution of a few youths. An inveterate conviction had taken hold of men of all ranks, that Philip was coming over with an army to destroy {p.269} English liberty. Paget went to Flanders to entreat him to come back unattended, to dispel the alarm by his presence, and to comfort the queen; but Paget returned with a letter instead of Philip, and the poor queen looked ten years older on the receipt of it. She durst not stir abroad to face the execration with which the people now received her. She passed her time in frenzied extremities of passion, "because she could neither enjoy the presence of her husband, nor the affection of her subjects; and dreading every moment that her life might be attempted by her own attendants."[569] A fleet was fitted out in the Channel. A bishop in the queen's confidence was asked the reason by another bishop. "To overawe rebels," was the answer, "and to carry off Elizabeth into Flanders or Spain."[570] The government was conducted entirely by the legate and the small knot of Catholic fanatics who had adhered to the queen's fortunes in the late reign. Lord William Howard told Noailles that he and the other lords lived in perpetual dread and suspicion; if his honour would allow him, he would throw up his office, and retire, with those who had gone before him, as a poor gentleman, to France.

[Footnote 569: Estant en continuel fureur de ne
pouvoir jouir de la presence de son mary ny de
l'amour de son peuple, et dans une fort grande peur
d'estre offensee de sa propre vie par aulcungs des
siens.--Noailles to the King of France, May 7:
_Ambassades_, vol. v.]

[Footnote 570: Same to Montmorency, April 21:
Ibid.]

The general suffering was aggravated by a likelihood of famine. The harvest of 1555 had failed, and bread, with all other articles of food, was daily rising. The conspiracy exasperated the persecution, which was degenerating into wholesale atrocity. On the 23rd of April, six men were burnt at Smithfield; on the 28th, six more were burnt at Colchester; on the 15th of May, an old lame man and a blind man were burnt at Stratford-le-Bow. In the same month three women suffered at Smithfield, and a blind boy was burnt at Gloucester. In Guernsey, a mother and her two daughters were brought to the stake. One of the latter, a married woman with child, was delivered in the midst of her torments, and the infant just rescued was tossed back into the flames.[571] Reason, humanity, even common prudence, were cast to the winds. On the 27th of June, thirteen unfortunates, eleven men and two women, were destroyed together at Stratford-le-Bow, in the presence {p.270} of twenty thousand people.[572] A schoolmaster, in Norfolk, in July read an inflammatory proclamation in a church. He and three others were instantly hanged. Ferocity in the government and lawlessness in the people went hand in hand. Along the river bank stood rows of gibbets, with bodies of pirates swinging from them in the wind. In the autumn, sixty men were sentenced to be hanged together, for what crime is unknown, at Oxford;[573] and as a symbol at head-quarters of the system of the administration, four corpses of thieves hung as a spectacle of terror before the very gates of St. James's Palace.[574]

[Footnote 571: Foxe. This hideous story was
challenged by Harding, the controversialist, in the
next reign. He was unfortunate in calling attention
to it, for the case was inquired into, and the
account was found too certainly true.]

[Footnote 572: Machyn's _Diary_.]

[Footnote 573: Machyn.]

[Footnote 574: Ibid.]

On the 20th of August, twenty-three men and women were brought to London from Colchester, tied in a string with ropes to furnish another holocaust. A thousand people cheered them through the streets as they entered the city; and the symptoms of disorder were so significant and threatening, that Bonner wrote to Pole for instructions how he should proceed. The government was alarmed; "the council, not without good consideration," decided that it would be dangerous to go on with the executions; and Pole, checking Bonner's zeal, allowed the prisoners to escape for the time, under an easy form of submission which they could conscientiously make. They were dismissed to their homes, only, however, for several of them to be slaughtered afterwards, under fresh pretexts, in detail;[575] and Pole took an occasion, as will be presently seen, of reprimanding the citizens of London for their unnatural sympathy with God's enemies. That he had no objection to these large massacres, when they could be ventured safely, he showed himself in the following year, when fourteen heretics, of both sexes, were burnt in two days at Canterbury and Maidstone.[576]

[Footnote 575: See their stories: Foxe, vol. viii.]

[Footnote 576: Foxe, vol. viii.]

Why, it may well be asked, did not the lords and gentlemen of England rise and trample down the perpetrators of these devilish enormities? It is a grave question, to which, nevertheless, some tolerable answer is possible.

On the 21st of January, 1557, the English ambassador in Paris wrote in cypher to Sir William Petre, of "a matter" which he desired should not be communicated to the queen, "lest it should disquiet her." A refugee had informed him, "that there was a great conspiracy in hand against the queen, which without doubt would deprive her of her estate." He had asked for names, but these his informant would not give, saying merely, "the best of England were in it," and "such a {p.271} number agreed thereupon, that it was impossible but that it would take effect." There was no chance of discovery; "the matter had been in hand for a year or thereabouts," yet no one "had uttered a word of it;" should it become known, the conspirators were so strong that the catastrophe would only be precipitated. They would have moved already, "but for one man who had stayed them for a while."

Entreaties for more explicitness were fruitless. "By no means," wrote Wotton, "would he name any man unto me; but only said that the chiefest of them were such as had never offended the queen's highness before; that the matter should begin in the evening, and the next day by eight in the morning it should be done."

The queen was not to be killed; at least, not immediately. "They will not kill her," the man said, "but deprive her of her estate, and then might she chance to be used as she used Queen Jane;" and he added, "_that they who went about the matter would not agree that any foreign prince should have any meddling in it; neither Dudley nor any of the English gentlemen in France were privy to the matter_."[577]

[Footnote 577: Wotton to Petre, cypher: _French
MSS., Mary_, bundle 13. State Paper Office.]

That any such combination as this letter described ever really menaced Mary's throne cannot be affirmed with certainty. The last two sentences, however, point to the difficulty which had embarrassed all attempts which had been hitherto ventured. The vice of the previous conspiracies had been the intrigues with France. The better order of English statesmen refused to connect themselves with movements which would give the court of Paris a dangerous influence in England, and would entitle the French king to press the claims of the Queen of Scots upon the English crown. If there was truth in the refugee's story, if there really was a conspiracy of "the best of England," clear of all such mischievous elements, it must have consisted of the body of the nobility, whom Lord William Howard described to Noailles as equally dissatisfied with himself. The heresy acts had been restored by the help of the bishops against the sustained opposition of the majority of the lay peers. For the hundred and fifty years during which those acts had been upon the Statute Book, they had expressed the general feeling of the country, yet during all that time, fewer persons had suffered under them than had been sacrificed during the last twelve months. Having failed to destroy her sister, having been unable to alter {p.272} the succession, the queen was desperate; the Spaniards were watching their opportunity to interfere by force, and would want no encouragement which she could give them; and every honest English statesman must have watched her with the most jealous distrust. Yet, on the other hand, she was childless; her life must necessarily soon close by the course of nature, and with her life the tyranny would end. If force was attempted, she would not fall without a struggle; the clergy would stand by her, and all whom the clergy could influence. Philip would have the pretext, for which he was longing, for sending Spanish troops; and though liberty might and would prevail in the end, thousands of lives might be sacrificed, and Elizabeth's succession would be stained. The appeal to strength was, and is, the last to which good men will allow themselves to be driven. The lords understood one another: they would not be the first to commence; but if an attempt were made to carry off Elizabeth, or to throw on land a single Spanish battalion, they would know how to act.

Meantime, Dudley, Ashton, Horsey, the brothers Tremayne, and "divers others," were safe in France, and were hospitably entertained there. In England they were proclaimed traitors. At Paris they were received openly at court. The queen wrote to Wotton with her own hand, commanding him to demand their surrender.[578] She sent for Noailles, and required that "those wretches, those heretics, those traitorous execrable villains," who had conspired against her throne should be placed in her hands.[579] Henry, with unembarrassed coolness, promised Wotton that they should be apprehended, while he furnished them with ships, which they openly fitted for sea at the mouth of the Seine; and one of their number, Henry Killegrew, went to Italy to look for Courtenay, who was in honourable exile there, to entreat him to put himself at their head. Courtenay promised to come, so Killegrew reported on his return;[580] his name would have given them strength, his presence weakness; but if he really thought again of mixing himself in conspiracies his intentions were frustrated. The last direct heir of the noblest family in England died at the end of the summer, of an ague caught among the lagoons at Venice.[581]

[Footnote 578: The Queen to Wotton: _MS. France_,
bundle 13.]

[Footnote 579: Gens abominables, heretiques et
traistres villains et execrables.--Noailles to the
King, May 7: _Ambassades_, vol. v.]

[Footnote 580: Wotton to Petre, cypher: _French
MSS._ State Paper Office, bundle 13.]

[Footnote 581: His death was of course attributed
by the world to poison. Courtenay's birth, and the
fortune which was so nearly thrust upon him, give
his fate a kind of interest, and an authentic
account of it may not be unwelcome.

On the 18th of September, Peter Vannes, the English
resident at Venice, wrote to the queen from
Padua:--

"It hath pleased Almighty God, as the Author of all
goodness, and as One that doth nothing in vain, to
call the Earl of Devonshire to his mercy, even
about the hour, or little more or less, that I am
writing of this present; and being very sorry to
trouble your Highness with this kind of news, yet
forasmuch as the providence of God must be
fulfilled in all things, I shall somewhat touch his
sickness till the hour of death. True it is that
he, as I have perceived, for the avoiding all
suspicion from himself, hath chosen a life more
solitary than needed, saving the company of certain
gentlemen, Venetians, among whom he was much made
of. It chanced him upon three weeks agone, for his
honest recreation, to go to a place called Lio, a
piece of an island five miles from Venice, for to
see his hawks fly upon a wasted ground, without any
houses; and there he was suddenly taken with a
great tempest of wind and rain, insomuch that his
boat, called [a] gondola, could not well return to
Venice: and he was fain, for his succour, to take a
certain searcher's boat that by chance there
arrived, and so to Venice he came, being body and
legs very thinly clothed, refusing to change them
with any warmer garment. And upon that time, or
within few days after, as he told me, had a fall
upon the stairs of his house, and after seeming to
himself to be well, and finding no pain, took his
journey hither unto Padua; and for the avoiding of
the weariness of the water, and the labouring of
horses, chose the worse way coming; and so by
certain waggons called coaches, very shaking and
uneasy to my judgment, came to Padua upon Saturday
at night. Of whose coming being advertised, I went
to visit him on the morrow after, and found him
very weak; and since that time he began to appear
every day worse and worse, avoiding friends'
visitations; and drew himself to the counsel of two
of the best physicians of this town, and entered
into a continued hot ague, sometimes more vehement
than at another; and as I have seen and heard, he
hath been always diligently attended. I have
charged his servants in your name, and as they will
avoid your displeasure, that a true inventory shall
be made of such small movables as he had here, and
that especially all kind of writings and letters
that he had either here or at Venice, shall be put
in assurance, abiding for your commandment. I am
now about to see the order of his burial, with as
much sparing and as much honour as can be done; for
the merchantmen on whom, by your Grace's
commandment, he had a credit of 3 or 4 thousand
crowns, are not as yet willing to disburse any
money without a sufficient discharge of my Lord of
Devonshire's hand, the doing whereof is past. I
shall shift to see him buried as well as I can;
notwithstanding, I beseech your Grace not to be
discontented with me that I am at the next door to
go a begging.

"My said Lord of Devonshire is dead, in mine
opinion a very good Christian man; for after that I
had much exhorted him to take his communion and
rites of the Church as a thing most necessary, and
by whose means God giveth unto His chosen people
health, both bodily and ghostly, he answered me, by
broken words, that he was well content so to do:
and in token thereof, and in repentance for his
sins, he lift up his eyes and knocked himself upon
the heart; and after I had suffered him to pause a
good while, I caused the Sacrament to be brought,
and after the priest's godly exhortation, he forced
himself to receive the blessed Communion; but his
tongue had so stopped his mouth, and his teeth so
clove together, that in no wise he could receive
that same; and after this sort this gentleman is
gone, as I do not doubt, to God his mercy.

"I shall not let to say to your Grace, that since
his coming to Padua, by way of communication, he
showed unto me, that it had been reported unto him
that some one had said that he was better French
than English, and if God did recover him and send
him his health so that he might come to the
knowledge of his misreporter, he was minded to try
that quarrel by the sword."

In a letter written a few days later, Vannes said
that, in consequence of rumours having gone abroad
that the earl had been poisoned, the Podesta, at
his request, had ordered the body to be opened, and
examined by physicians, which was accordingly
done.--Peter Vannes to the Queen: _Venetian MSS._
State Paper Office.]

{p.273} The refugees, however, could do their work without Courtenay. The Killegrews, the Tremaynes, young Stafford, and many more, put to sea with three or four vessels, and treated all Spaniards with whom they could fall in as their natural enemies. Before the summer was out, they had "taken divers good prizes," and "did trust they should take more." "In case the worst fell, the gain thereof would find them all;" and on the 4th of August it was reported that they had taken a fort "on one of her majesty's islands," probably in Scilly, where the dangerous and intricate navigation placed them beyond risk of capture. Making war on their own account, half as pirates, half as crusaders, these youthful adventurers seized the Spanish caracks on their way to Flanders, sailed openly with their prizes into Rochelle or La Hogue, sold them, and bought arms {p.274} and ammunition. Their finances were soon prosperous. Wild spirits of all nations--Scots, English, French, whoever chose to offer--found service under their flag. They were the first specimens of the buccaneering chivalry of the next generation--the germ out of which rose the Drakes, the Raleighs, the Hawkinses, who harried the conquerors of the New World.

In vain Wotton protested. The French king affected to be sorry. The Constable said that France was large; things happened which ought not to happen, yet could not be helped; the adventurers should be put down, if possible.

"These men brought nothing with them out of England," Wotton doggedly replied, "and were in such good credit with the people in France that nobody would lend them a shilling, and yet had they found ships which they had armed, and manned with good numbers of soldiers. What would the queen's highness think?"

The French court, in affected deference to such complaints, armed vessels, which they pretended were to pursue the privateers to their nest; but, as Wotton ascertained, they were intended really to act as their consorts.[582]

[Footnote 582: Letters of Wotton to the Queen:
_French MSS._, bundle 13, State Paper Office.]

It was plain that the French king did not anticipate any long {p.275} continuance to the truce of Vaucelles. In fact, Paul IV., whose schemes in Italy that truce had arrested, had succeeded in inducing him to break it. Lest his oath should make a difficulty, the pope had an ever-ready dispensation; and Paul's nephew, Cardinal Caraffa, came to Paris in July to make arrangements for the expulsion of the Spaniards from Naples.[583]

[Footnote 583: Wotton to Petre: _MS._ Ibid. Compare
Sir James Melville's _Memoirs_, p. 38.]

To insure Henry the continued support of the papacy, Paul undertook to create French cardinals on so large a scale as would give him the command of the next election. Henry, in spite of the entreaties of Montmorency, promised, on his side, to send an army to Paul's support; and the pope, without waiting for the arrival of the French troops, seized the Duchy of Paleano, and excommunicated the Colonnas, as the friends of the enemies of the Holy See. Scarcely caring to look for a pretext, he declared the Spanish prince deprived of the kingdom of Naples; and himself attempted to put in force his sentence against the Duke of Alva, who was acting there as Philip's viceroy.

The event had thus actually arrived, of which the expectation the year before had appeared so alarming. The most orthodox sovereign in Europe found himself forced into war with his spiritual father. The parent was become insane; the faithful child was obliged, in consequence, to place him under restraint, with as much tenderness and respect as the circumstances permitted. To the English council Philip explained the hard necessity under which he was placed.[584]

[Footnote 584: "Pontifex, tantum abest ut
mollissimis obsequiis atque officiis acquieverit,
non potuit tandem sibi obtemperare quin pleno
Cardinalium Senatu Regni Neapolitani privationem
per suum fiscalem proposuerit, cum nullius nos in
ipsum Pontificem, aut sedem apostolicam contumaciae,
summae quin potius uti fas est observantiae nobis
simus conscii, ac ne in praefracta quidem ejus
obstinatione a solitis officiis destitum est, donec
cum nulla molliore ope malum posset mitigari;
magisque indies ac magis propagaretur videretque
Albae Dux copias eum undique contrahere, apparatum
facere, tempus ducere, quoscumque principes
quibuscumque conditionibus sollicitare, ut
ingruenti rerum omnium ruinae occurreret, ad hoc
extremum remedium invitus coactusque descendit. Quae
omnia quanquam vobis comperta quando in eorum
mentionem per vestras litteras incidistis, per nos
etiam vobis significanda duximus; atque id praeterea
ea temperantia ac modestia hoc bellum a duce geri
atque administrari, ut nihil nisi orbis Christiani
tranquillitas, sedis apostolicae dignitas, et
nostrorum regnorum securitas procuretur, neque
ullum nos ex hoc bello gloriae aucupemur, summum
potius dolorem animique aegritudinem
percipiamus."--Philip to the English Council: _MS.
Mary, Domestic_, vol. ix. State Paper Office.]

The Duke of Alva crossed the Neapolitan frontier into the States of the Church with twelve thousand men, taking the towns {p.276} that lay in his way; and protesting while he did it that he was the most faithful servant of the Holy See. Individually a pious Catholic, officially a military machine, Alva obeyed orders with mechanical inflexibility, and, irresistible as destiny, advanced towards Rome. The college of cardinals, who remembered the occupation of the city by Bourbon's army, implored the pope to have pity on them. The pope had been too precipitate in commencing operations without waiting for the French. He was forced to submit his pride, and sue for an armistice, to which Alva, in the moderation of conscious strength, consented.

The French, on the other hand, were preparing to strike a blow in a quarter where as yet they were unlooked for.

The pastoral anxieties of the English legate had extended to Calais, where the Protestants were in considerable numbers. A commission was sent thither which proceeded with the usual severities,[585] and the sufferers, or those among the garrisons in Calais and Guisnes whose sympathy with the Reformation was stronger than their patriotism, placed themselves in correspondence with Sir Henry Dudley, at Paris. The pay of the troops was long in arrear, and they were all mutinous and discontented. Neither Guisnes, Hammes, nor Calais itself were provisioned for more than three or four weeks; and the refugees, caring only to revenge themselves on Mary, were laying a train in connection with several of the "chiefest officers" in the three fortresses, to betray them into the hands of France. The existence of a conspiracy became known by accident to some one, who placed Wotton on his guard; and Wotton, by vigilance and by the help of spies, ascertained gradually the nature of the scheme. In the beginning of October he discovered that Senarpont, the governor of Boulogne, was silently increasing the garrison of the Boullonnois. Then he heard of troops collecting at Rouen, of large preparations of military stores, of sappers' and miners' tools, and "great files, which would cut in two without noise the largest [harbour] chains."[586] Next, it seemed that the leader of the adventurous party, which fourteen years before "took the town of Marano by practise and subtlety," was in Calais in disguise. Finally, he learnt that Henry himself was going to Rouen, to conduct the enterprise in person.

[Footnote 585: "There is a faction or dissension
within Calais for religion's sake, whereof it
seemeth that a commission of late sent thither, I
cannot tell whether somewhat rigorously used, may
have given occasion."--Wotton to the Queen, cypher:
_French MSS._, bundle 13, State Paper Office.]

[Footnote 586: Wotton to the Queen, cypher: _French
MSS._, bundle 13, State Paper Office.]

{p.277} The disaffection had penetrated so deeply into the English garrisons that caution was required in dealing with them; while for some weeks either the queen disbelieved the danger, or the council took no steps to obviate it. The Catholic clique had, in fact, not a soldier among them, and possibly knew not in which direction to turn. The honour of his country at last recalled Lord Pembroke to the public service in time to save Calais for a few more months.

By the middle of November eighteen ensigns of French infantry and a thousand horse were at Abbeville. Dudley, with the refugee fleet, was in readiness to blockade the harbour, while Henry was to march upon the town. If possible, he would find the gates open: at all events he would meet with no protracted resistance. But the move had been anticipated. Reinforcements and supplies were sent from England, money was despatched to pay up the arrears of the troops, and Pembroke himself went over in command.[587] No open inquiry was ventured, but the suspected persons were quietly removed. The French withdrew, and the queen's government, through the bad patriotism of the refugees, recovered a momentary strength.

[Footnote 587: The Council to Philip, November
22nd: _MS. Domestic, Mary_, vol. ix.]

The faint good fortune came opportunely; for in England the harvest had again failed, and the threat of famine had become the reality. On the 23rd of December malt was sold in London for forty shillings a quarter, and white flour at six shillings a bushel. The helpless remedy was attempted of crying up the base money, but the markets answered only by a further rise.[588] In the utter misery of the people, some were feeding upon acorns; some, in London, more piteously, left their infant children at the doors of their wealthy neighbours, to save them from starvation.

[Footnote 588: Machyn.]

A famine was considered to be the immediate work of Heaven, and to be sent for an immediate moral cause. And yet the monasteries were rising from their ruins. Westminster was again an abbey. Feckenham was installed abbot on the 29th of November, with the ancient ceremonies, and walked in sad procession round the cloisters at the head of his friars.[589] The remnant of the monks of Glastonbury had crawled back into the ruins of their home. The queen had spared no effort and no {p.278} sacrifice where her own power extended; and she had exhorted and advised where she was unable to act. Yet enough had not been done. In Ireland, indeed, the Catholic spirit had life in it. The Earl of Desmond had allowed no stone to be thrown down from the religious houses which had fallen to his share in the distribution. He had sheltered and supported the monks in the bad times, he now replaced them at his private cost;[590] and the example was telling among the chiefs. But in England, unfortunately, the lay owners of the church lands, orthodox and unorthodox alike, were hopelessly impenitent.

[Footnote 589: The new monks did not do credit to
their restoration. Anne of Cleves died the next
year, and lay in state in the abbey.

"The 22nd of August," says Machyn, "was the herse
of my Lady Anne Cleves taken down at Westminster,
the which the monks by night had spoiled of all
velvet cloth, arms, banners, penselles, of all the
majesty and valence, the which was never seen afore
so done."--_Diary_, p. 148.]

[Footnote 590: Desmond to the Queen: _Irish MSS._
State Paper Office.]

This, perhaps, was one cause of God's displeasure--the heretics were another; the heretics, and the sympathy with heresy displayed by the inhabitants of London, which had compelled the temporary release of the prisoners sent up from Essex.

It has been mentioned that the legate took occasion to admonish the citizens for their behaviour. In the present or the following year[591] he issued a pastoral letter, laying before them, and before the educated inhabitants of England generally, their duty at the present crisis; with an explanation, not entirely accurate, of the spirit in which the church had hitherto dealt with them. "That by license and dispensation," he said, "you do enjoy, and keep, and possess such goods and lands of the church as were found in your hands, this was done of the church your mother's tenderness unto you, considering your imbecility and weakness after so sore a sickness that you had in the schism, at the which time your appetite served you to no meat, but to that fruit that came from the lands of the church; and by that you lived, which she was content you should keep still, and made promise it should not be taken from you. And so it was left in your hand, as it were an apple in a child's hand given by the mother, which she, perceiving him to feed too much of, and knowing it should do him hurt if he himself should eat the whole, would have him give her a little piece thereof, which the boy refusing, and whereas he would cry out if she would take it from him, letteth him alone therewith. But the father, her husband, coming in, if he shall see how the boy will not let go one morsel to the mother that hath given him the whole, she asking it with so fair means, he may peradventure take the apple out of the {p.279} boy's hand, and if he cry, beat him also, and cast the apple out of the window."

[Footnote 591: "Three years and more after the
restoration of the people to the church," the
legate says in the body of the letter. The date of
it will be December, 1556, or December, 1557, as
the three years are calculated from the restoration
of Orthodoxy, or from the reunion with Rome.]

The maternal tenderness, under this aspect of the secularisation, had been more weak than wise.

"As the English laity had dishonoured the ministers of the church above all people," continued the legate, "so must they now honour them above all people, remembering Christ's words--'He that despiseth you despiseth Me.' They must obey the priests, therefore, implicitly; they must be careful to pay their tithes honestly; what they denied their priests they denied their God; and they must show their repentance especially where they had especially offended, touching the injuries they had done to the ministers of God, whom God had set over them, to be honoured as they would their natural father."

"And this," he said, coming to the heart of the matter, "this you cannot do if you favour heretics, who being the very enemies of God and man, yet specially their enmity extendeth against priests. Here is another point that you must show worthy of a repentant mind: that whereas you have sore offended God by giving favour to heretics, now temper your favour under such manner that if you can convert them by any ways unto the unity of the church, then do it, for it is a great work of mercy. But if ye cannot, and ye suffer or favour them, there cannot be a work of greater cruelty against the commonwealth than to nourish or favour any such. _For be you assured, there is no kind of men so pernicious to the commonwealth as they be; there are no thieves, no murderers, no adulterers, nor no kind of treason, to be compared to theirs, who, as it were, undermining the chief foundation of all commonwealths, which is religion, maketh an entry to all kinds of vices in the most heinous manner._" ... "You specially of the City of London, you being the first that received the fruit of grace in the new plantation, the seed of benediction being first cast upon you, to make you a ground to bring forth all fruit of sanctity and justice; ... shall I say, that after all this done, more briars and thorns hath grown here among you than in all the realm besides? I cannot say so, nor I will not; albeit it might so seem, for a greater multitude of these brambles and briars were cast in the fire here among you than in any place besides; but many of them being grown in other places, and brought in and burned among you, may give occasion that you have a worse name without your desert. The thing standeth not in the name--bethink you yourselves how it standeth.... Wherefore cometh this, that when any heretic {p.280} shall go to execution, he shall lack no comforting of you, and encouraging to die in his perverse opinion? that when he shall be put in prison he shall have more cherishing?... As it is now, this may not be suffered.... For their boldness in their death, it is small argument of grace to be in them; Christ himself showing more heaviness and dolour at his dying hour than did the thieves that hung beside him, which did blaspheme Christ, setting nought by him, specially one of them, showing no further fear. So do the heretics at their deaths like the blasphemer."[592]

[Footnote 592: Address of Cardinal Pole to the
citizens of London: Strype's Memorials, vol. vi.]

Cruel and savage as the persecution had become, it was still inadequate. The famine lasted, and therefore God was angry.

The new year opened with the appointment of a commission, consisting of Bonner, Thirlby, and twenty other peers, gentlemen, and canon lawyers, on whom the court could rely. "Wicked persons" had invented slanders against the queen's person, and had sown "pestilent heresies" in the realm. The queen, therefore, "minding to punish such enormities," and having especial trust in the wisdom of these persons, gave them power to institute inquiries at their pleasure into the conduct and opinions of every man and woman in all parts of the kingdom. The protection of the law was suspended. The commissioners might arrest any person at any place. Three of them were enough to form a court; and mayors, sheriffs, and magistrates were commanded to assist at their peril.

The object of the commission was "to search and find out" the sellers of heretical books, or those who in any way professed heresy or taught it; to ascertain who refused to attend mass, to walk in procession, to use holy water, or in any way betrayed disrespect for the established religion. Those who "persisted in their bad opinions" were to be given up to their ordinary, to be punished according to law. The commissioners were themselves empowered to punish with fine or imprisonment those who yielded, or those whose offences were in the second degree, taking care to collect the fines which they inflicted, and to certify the exchequer of their receipts. They were not embarrassed by a necessity of impanelling juries; they might call juries if they pleased; they might use "all other means and politic ways that they could devise." No Spanish inquisition possessed larger or less tolerable powers; no English sovereign {p.281} ever more entirely set aside the restrictions of the law.[593] The appointment of the commission was followed up by Pole in a visitation of the diocese of Canterbury. Persons were nominated to examine into the doctrines of the clergy; to learn whether those who had been married held communication with their wives; whether the names of those who had not been reconciled had been registered as he had ordered; and from every clergyman to ascertain the habits, beliefs, and opinions of every resident, male or female, in his parish.[594]

[Footnote 593: Royal Commission printed in Foxe,
vol. viii. p. 301, and by Burnet in his
_Collectanea_.]

[Footnote 594: Articles of the visitation of
Cardinal Pole: Foxe, vol. iii.]

Other commissioners again were sent to the universities, with powers extending, not over the living only, but the dead.

Scot, Bishop of Chester, Watson, Bishop of Lincoln, and Christopherson, Master of Trinity and Bishop of Chichester, went in January to Cambridge, accompanied by Ormaneto, the Venetian, a confidential friend of the legate. Bucer and Fagius slept in St. Mary's and St. Michael's. The 10th of January, the day after the bishops' arrival, the two churches were laid under an interdict, as defiled with the presence of unhallowed bodies. On the 15th a summons was fixed to St. Mary's door, citing Martin Bucer and Paul Fagius, or any other who would plead on their behalf, to make answer three days after, before the commission, on a charge of heresy. The court sate, and no one appeared. The session was adjourned for a week, while the colleges were searched, and Primers, Prayer-books, Bibles, or other interdicted volumes, were hunted out and brought together. On the 26th the bishops met again; the accused remained undefended, and the heresy was taken to be proved; sentence was passed therefore, that the bodies should be disinterred and burnt. On the 6th of February the coffins were taken out of the graves, and chained to a stake in the market-place; the Bibles and prayer-books were heaped round them with a pile of faggots, and books and bodies were reduced to ashes.

Having purged Cambridge, Ormaneto proceeded to Oxford, on business of the same description.

Peter Martyr, when he came into residence as divinity professor at Christ Church, had outraged the orthodox party in the university by bringing a wife within the college walls; and Catherine Cathie, so the wife was named, had, like the wife of Luther, been a professed nun. She had died before Mary's accession, and had been buried in the cathedral. A process has now instituted against her similar to that at Cambridge.

{p.282} An unforeseen difficulty occurred in the conduct of the prosecution. Catherine Cathie had lived quietly and unobtrusively; she had taught nothing and had written no books; and no evidence could be found to justify her conviction on a charge of heresy.

Ormaneto wrote to the legate for instructions; and as burning was not permissible, the legate replied that, "forasmuch as Catherine Cathie, of detestable memory, had called herself the wife of Peter Martyr, a heretic, although both he and she had before taken vows of religion; forasmuch as she had lived with him in Oxford in fornication, and after her death was buried near the sepulchre of the Holy Virgin St. Frideswide, Ormaneto should invite the dean of the cathedral to cast out the carcase from holy ground, and deal with it according to his discretion."

Catherine Cathie, therefore, was dug up, taken out of her coffin, and flung into a cesspool at the back of the dean's house, and it was hoped that by this means the blessed St. Frideswide would be able to rest again in peace. Human foresight is imperfect; years passed and times changed; and Elizabeth, when she had the power to command, directed that the body should be restored to decent burial. The fragments were recovered with difficulty, and were about to be replaced in the earth under the floor of the cathedral, when some one produced the sacred box which contained the remains of St. Frideswide. Made accessible to the veneration of the faithful by Cardinal Pole, the relics had been concealed on the return of heresy by some pious worshipper. They were brought out at the critical moment, and an instant sense of the fitness of things consigned to the same resting-place the bones of the wife of Peter Martyr. The married nun and the virgin saint were buried together, and the dust of the two still remains under the pavement inextricably blended.[595]

[Footnote 595: Wood's _Annals of the University of
Oxford_.--The story is authentic. The following is
the Roman Catholic version of it:--"Oxonii sepulta
fuerat digna Petro Martyre concubina, parthenonis
et ipsa desertrix sacrilega ut ille coenobii. Ejus
ossa refodi jusserat Maria et sterquilinio ut par
erat condi. Nunc aemulo plane sanctitatis et
virginitatis in Elizabathe ingenio requisita sunt
inter sordes sterquilinii publici quarum foedissima
pars erant, et incredibili studio inventa purgata
lota in thecam eandem reponuntur in qua S.
Frideswidae reliquiae colebantur, et cum his adeo
confusa ut nulla unquam possunt diligentia secerni.
Clauditur loculus et cubitalibus litteris hoc
epitaphio decoratur, 'Hic jacet religio cum
superstitione,' meliore titulo meretrici haeretici
pessimi concubinae; proh nefas! deteriore ancillae
Christi sanctissimae virgini attributo."--Foxe, vol.
viii. Editor's note.]

{p.283} But Pole did not live to see the retribution. Convinced, if ever there was a sincere conviction in any man, that the course which he was pursuing was precisely that which God required of him, he laboured on in his dark vocation. Through the spring and summer the persecution, under the new commission, raged with redoubled fury.

The subject is one to which it will not be necessary to return, except with some brief details. In this place, therefore, shall be given an extract from a tract in circulation among the Protestants who were expecting death; and it may be judged, from the sentiments with which these noble-natured men faced the prospect of their terrible trial, with what justice Pole called them brambles and briars only fit to be burnt--criminals worse than thieves, or murderers, or adulterers.[596]

[Footnote 596: An excellent epistle, translated
from French into English by Thomas Pownell, with a
preface, A.D. 1556. The copy from which I make my
extract is in the Bodleian Library at Oxford; it is
marked in the margin in various places with a
finger [Symbol: Hand] apparently almost as old as
the printing; and this finger was perhaps drawn by
some one whom the words were consoling or
inspiriting in the hour of his own trial.]

"The cross of persecution, if we will put childishness apart, and visibly weigh the worthiness thereof, is that sovereign, tried medicine that quencheth the daily digested poison of self-love, worldly pleasure, fleshly felicity. It is the only worthy poison of ambition, covetousness, extortion, uncleanness, licentiousness, wrath, strife, sedition, sects, malice, and such other wayward worms: it is the hard hammer that breaketh off the rust from the anchor of a Christian faith. O profitable instrument! O excellent exercise, that cannot be spared in a Christian life! with what alacrity of mind, with what desirous affection, with what earnest zeal, ought we to embrace this incomparable jewel, this sovereign medicine, this comfortable cup of tribulation.

"When a piece of ground is limited and bounded, it doth not only signify that it goeth no further, but also it tendeth and stretcheth to the bound. It is not enough to consider that we shall not pass the time that God hath limited and determined us to live, but we must assuredly persuade ourselves that we shall live as long as He hath ordained us to live; and so shall we do, in despite of all our enemies.

"And tell me, have men given us our life? No, forsooth. No more can they take it away from us. God hath given it, and God only doth take it away, for He is the Lord of death as well as of life; wherefore when the appointed time of our death is come, let us assure ourselves, that it is God only and none {p.284} other that doth kill us, for He saith, It is I that kill and make alive again.

"Let us follow the example of Christ, our Master, who seeing His death approaching, said to God, My Father, not as I will, but as thou wilt; thy will be done, and not mine.--Let us offer then, unto God our Father, ourselves for a sacrifice, whose savour, although it be evil in the nose of the world, yet it is good and agreeable unto God, by Jesus Christ his Son, in the faith of whom we do dedicate and offer ourselves, when we perceive our hour to approach.

"And, whatsoever betide, let us not fear men; let us not fear them. God doth inhibit and forbid us in the same, saying, by his prophet, Fear them not, for I am with you; and seeing God doth forbid us to fear men, can we fear them without sin? No truly. To what purpose do we fear them? Men of themselves can do nothing, and if at any time they have any power, the same only cometh unto them from God, and is given unto them only to accomplish the will of God. But peradventure ye will say to me that Jesus Christ himself, in the time of his cross, did fear death, and therefore it is no marvel though we do fear it, in whom is no such perfection and constancy. Truly the flesh doth always abuse herself with the example of Jesus Christ; she doth abuse it, for she cannot rightfully use it, inasmuch as the flesh is in all ways repugnant unto the spirit and the good will of God. Forasmuch as ye will herein follow Christ--well, I am contented--fear death, but fear it as he did fear it. If you will say that Christ had fear of death, consider the same also to be on such sort as the fear did not keep him back from the voluntary obedience of his Father, and from saying, with unfeigned lips, Thy will be done.

"Ye will say, We fear not death for any fear we have to be damned, neither for any diffidence that we have of eternal life; but we fear death for the human understanding that we have of the great pain that some do suffer in dying, and especially in dying by fire; for we suppose that pain to surmount all patience. O fond flesh, thy voice is always full of love of thyself, and of a secret diffidence and mistrust of the Almighty power, wisdom, and goodness of God."

While the true heroes of the age were fighting for freedom with the weapons of noble suffering, the world was about to recommence its own battles, with which it is less easy to sympathise. The attempt on Calais having failed, it became a question at the French court, whether, after having given so {p.285} just cause of quarrel to England, wisdom would not suggest an abandonment of the intention of recommencing the war with Philip. Noailles crossed to Paris in December, where the king questioned him whether Mary would be able to declare war. Noailles assured him, "that out of doubt she would not; for if she should send those whom she trusted out of the realm, then would they whom she trusted not, not fail to be busy within the realm."[597] Reassured by the ambassador's opinion, Henry resumed his intentions. In March, the Duke of Guise led an army into Italy. The pope recovered courage, defied Alva, and again laid claim to Naples; and it was to be seen now whether Noailles was right--whether the English people would unite with the court to resent the French king's conduct sufficiently to permit Mary at last to join in the quarrel.

[Footnote 597: Wotton to Petre: _French MSS._,
bundle 13, State Paper Office.]

Philip, anxious and hopeful, paid England the respect of returning for a few weeks, and in the same month of March came over to sue the council in person. The affair at Calais was a substantial ground for a rupture, but the attack, though intended, had not been actually made. The story might seem, to the suspicions of the country, to have been invented by the court; and, in other respects, Mary's injuries were not the injuries of the nation. The currency was still prostrate; the people in unexampled distress. The Flanders debts were as heavy as ever, and the queen had insisted on abandoning a fifth of her revenues. A war would inevitably be most unpopular. The attempt nevertheless was made. The queen produced the treaty of 1546, between England and the empire; and, in compliance with its provisions, laid before the privy council a proposal, if not to declare war with France, yet to threaten a declaration, in the event of an invasion of the Netherlands.

The privy council considered the queen's request; their conclusion was not what she desired.

The treaty of 1546, the council replied, had been abrogated by the treaty of marriage, so far as it might involve England in a war with France. "Her majesty would be unable to maintain a war, and, therefore, to say to the French king that she would aid her husband, according to the treaty, and not being able to perform it, indeed would be dishonourable, and many ways dangerous." "It was to be considered further, that, if by these means the realm should be drawn into war, the fault would be imputed to the king's majesty." "The common {p.286} people of the realm were at present many ways grieved--some pinched with famine, some for want of payment of money due to them, some discontented for matters of religion; and, generally, all yet tasting the smart of the late wars. It would be hard to have any aid of money of them. And in times past," the council added, significantly, "although the prince found himself able to make and maintain wars, yet the causes of those wars were opened for the most part in parliament."[598]

[Footnote 598: Answer of the Privy Council to the
queen's question whether England shall enter the
wars with France.--_Sloane MSS._ 1786, British
Museum.]

Objections so decided and so just would have hardly been overcome, but for an injudicious enterprise of the refugees, under French auspices. The French court believed that, by keeping Mary in alarm at home, they would make it the less easy for her to join in the war. They mistook the disposition of the people, who resented and detested the interference of France in their concerns.

Among the exiles at the court of Paris, the most distinguished by birth, if not by ability, was Sir Thomas Stafford, Lord Stafford's second son, and grandson of the Duke of Buckingham, who was put to death under Henry VIII. On the 27th of April, Wotton sent notice to the queen that Stafford had sailed from the mouth of the Seine with two vessels well manned and appointed. His destination was unknown; but it was understood that he intended to take some fortress on the English coast, and that the refugees, in a body, intended to follow him. Before Wotton's letter arrived, the scheme, such as it was, had been already executed. Stafford, with thirty Englishmen and one Frenchman, had surprised Scarborough Castle, and sent his proclamations through Yorkshire. He was come, he said, to deliver his country from foreign tyranny. He had sure evidence that an army of Spaniards was about to land, and that Philip intended to seize the crown by force. The queen, by her marriage with a stranger, had forfeited her own rights; and he himself, as the protector of English liberty, intended to bestow the crown on the next rightful heir, and to restore all such acts, laws, liberties, and customs as were established in the time of that most prudent prince, King Henry VIII. "He did not mind," he thought it necessary to add, "to work his own advancement touching possession of the crown, but to restore the blood and house of the Staffords to its pristine estate, which had been wrongfully suppressed by Cardinal Wolsey."[599]

[Footnote 599: Proclamation of Thomas Stafford, son
to the Lord Henry, rightful Duke of
Buckingham.--Strype's _Memorials_, vol. vi. p.
515.]

{p.287} The landing of Edward IV., at Ravenspurg, had made any wild enterprise seem feasible, and Stafford had counted on the notorious hatred of the people for the queen.

But if the Spaniards meditated a descent upon England, it was not by adventurers like the refugees that their coming would be either prevented or avenged; and the good sense of the country had determined once for all to give no countenance to revolution supported by France. The occupation of Scarborough lasted two days, at the end of which Stafford and his whole party were taken by the Earl of Westmoreland. Thirty-two prisoners were sent to London; thirty-one were put to death; and the council reluctantly withdrew their opposition to the war. A hundred and forty thousand pounds were in the exchequer, being part of the subsidy granted by parliament to pay the crown debts.[600] With this the court prepared to commence, trusting to fortune for the future. War was to be declared on the 7th of June, and, while seven thousand men were to cross the Channel and join Pembroke in the Low Countries,[601] Howard was to cruise with the fleet in the Channel to use his discretion in annoying the enemy, and, if possible, to destroy the French ships at Dieppe.[602]

[Footnote 600: Exchequer Accounts: _MS. Mary,
Domestic_, vol. xii. State Paper Office.]

[Footnote 601: Bitterly hating their work that they
were sent upon, "the people went to the musters,
said Sir Thomas Smith, with kerchiefs on their
heads--they went to the wars hanging down their
looks; they came from them as men dismayed and
forlorn."--Strype's _Life of Sir Thomas Smith_,
Appendix, p. 249.]

[Footnote 602: Instructions to the Lord Admiral:
_MS. Mary, Domestic_, vol. xi.]