Chapter I: Queen Jane and Queen Mary (2)

Meanwhile the lords, with the mayor and the heralds, went to the Cross at Cheapside to proclaim Mary Queen. Pembroke himself stood out to read; and this time there was no reason to complain of a silent audience. He could utter but one sentence before his voice was lost in the shout of joy which thundered into the air. "God save the queen," "God save the queen," rung out from tens of thousands of throats. "God save the queen," cried Pembroke himself, when he had done, and flung up his jewelled cap and tossed his purse among the crowd. The glad news spread like lightning through London, and the pent-up hearts of the citizens poured themselves out in a torrent of exultation. Above the human cries, the long-silent church-bells clashed again into life; first began St. Paul's, where happy chance had saved them from destruction; then, one by one, every peal which had been spared caught up the sound; and through the summer evening and the summer night, and all the next day, the metal tongues from tower and steeple gave voice to England's gladness. The lords, surrounded by the shouting multitude, walked in state to St. Paul's, where the choir again sang a Te Deum, and the unused organ rolled out once more its mighty volume of music. As they came out again, at the close of the service, the apprentices were heaping piles of wood for bonfires at the cross-ways. The citizens were spreading tables in the streets, which their wives were loading with fattest capons and choicest wines; there was free feasting for all comers; and social jealousies, religious hatreds, were forgotten for the moment in the ecstasy of the common delight. Even the retainers of the Dudleys, in fear or joy, tore their badges out of their caps, and trampled on them.[50]

[Footnote 50: Renard to Charles V.: _Rolls House
MSS._ All authorities agree in the general
description of the state of London. Renard,
Noailles, and Baoardo are the most explicit and
interesting.]

At a night session of the council, a letter was written to Northumberland, which Cranmer, Suffolk, and Sir John Cheke consented to sign, ordering him in the name of Queen Mary to lay down his arms. If he complied, the lords undertook to intercede for his pardon. If he refused, they said that they {p.021} would hold him as a traitor, and spend their lives in the field against him.[51]

[Footnote 51: This letter is among the _Tanner
MSS._ in the Bodleian Library at Oxford. It was
printed by Stowe.]

While a pursuivant bore the commands of the council to the duke, Arundel and Paget undertook to carry to Mary at Framlingham their petition for forgiveness, in which they declared that they had been innocent at heart of any share in the conspiracy,[52] and had only delayed coming forward in her favour from a desire to prevent bloodshed.

[Footnote 52: "Our bounden duties most humbly
remembered to your excellent Majesty. It may like
the same to understand, that we, your most humble,
faithful, and obedient subjects, having always, God
we take to witness, remained your Highness's true
and humble subjects in our hearts, ever since the
death of our late Sovereign Lord and master your
Highness's brother, whom God pardon, and seeing
hitherto no possibility to utter our determination
without great destruction and bloodshed, both of
ourselves and others, till this time, have this day
proclaimed in your city of London your Majesty to
be our true natural sovereign liege Lady and Queen;
most humbly beseeching your Majesty to pardon and
remit our former infirmities, and most graciously
to accept our meanings, which have been ever to
serve your Highness truly, and so shall remain with
all our power and force, to the effusion of our
blood, as these bearers, our very good Lords, the
Earls of Arundel and Paget, can, and be ready more
particularly to declare--to whom it may please your
excellent Majesty to give firm credence; and thus
we do and shall daily pray to Almighty God for the
preservation of your most royal person long to
reign over us."--_Lansdowne MSS._ 3. Endorsed, in
Cecil's hand, "Copy of the Letter of the Lords to
the Queen Mary from Baynard's Castle." The
signatures are, unfortunately, wanting.]

The two lords immediately mounted and galloped off into the darkness, followed by thirty horse, leaving the lights of illuminated London gleaming behind them.

The duke's position was already desperate: on the 18th, before the proclamation in London, Mary had felt herself strong enough to send orders to the Mayor of Cambridge for his arrest;[53] and, although he had as yet been personally unmolested, he was powerless in the midst of an army which was virtually in Mary's service. The news of the revolution in London first reached him by a private hand. He at once sent for Sandys, and, going with him to the market cross, he declared, after one violent clutch at his beard, that he had acted under orders from the council; the council, he understood, had changed their minds, and he would change his mind also; therefore he cried, "God save Queen Mary," and with a strained effort at a show of satisfaction, he, too, like Pembroke, threw up his cap. The queen, he said to Sandys, was a merciful woman, and there would be a general pardon. "Though the queen grant you a {p.022} pardon," Sandys answered, "the lords never will; you can hope nothing from those who now rule."[54]

[Footnote 53: Renard to Charles V.: _Rolls House
MSS._]

[Footnote 54: Foxe, vol. viii.]

It was true that he could hope nothing--the hatred of the whole nation, which before his late treasons he had brought upon himself, would clamour to the very heavens for judgment against him. An hour after the proclamation of Mary (July 20), Rouge-cross herald arrived with the lords' letter from London. An order at the same time was read to the troops informing them that they were no longer under the duke's command, and an alderman of the town then ventured to execute the queen's warrant for his arrest. Northumberland was given in charge to a guard of his own soldiers; he protested, however, that the council had sent no instructions for his detention; and in some uncertainty, or perhaps in compassion for his fate, the soldiers obeyed him once more, and let him go. It was then night. He intended to fly; but he put it off till the morning, and in the morning his chance was gone. Before he could leave his room he found himself face to face with Arundel, who, after delivering the council's letter to the queen, had hastened to Cambridge to secure him.

Northumberland, who, while innocent of crime, had faced death on land and sea like a soldier and a gentleman, flung himself at the earl's feet. "Be good to me, for the love of God," he cried; "consider I have done nothing but by the consent of you and the council." He knew what kind of consent he had extorted from the council. "My lord," said Arundel, "I am sent thither by the Queen's Majesty; and in her name I do arrest you."--"I obey, my lord," the duke replied; "yet show me mercy, knowing the case as it is."--"My lord," was the cold answer, "you should have sought for mercy sooner; I must do according to my commandment."[55]

[Footnote 55: Holinshed.]

At the same moment Sandys was paying the penalty for his sermon. The university, in haste to purge itself of its heretical elements, met soon after sunrise to depose their vice-chancellor. Dr. Sandys, who had gone for an early stroll among the meadows to meditate on his position, hearing the congregation-bell ringing, resolved, like a brave man, to front his fortune; he walked to the senate-house, entered, and took his seat. "A rabble of Papists" instantly surrounded him. He tried to speak, but the masters of arts shouted "Traitor;" rough hands shook or dragged him from his chair: and the impatient theologian, in sudden heat, drew his dagger, and "would have done a mischief {p.023} with it," had not some of his friends disarmed him.[56] He, too, was handed over to a guard, lashed to the back of a lame horse, and carried to London.

[Footnote 56: Foxe, vol. viii. pp. 591-2.]

Mary, meanwhile, notwithstanding the revolution in her favour, remained a few more days at Framlingham, either suspicious of treachery or uncertain whether there might not be another change. But she was assured rapidly that the danger was at an end by the haste with which the lords and gentlemen who were compromised sought their pardon at her feet. On the 21st and 22nd Clinton, Grey, Fitzgerald, Ormond, Fitzwarren, Sir Henry Sidney, and Sir James Crofts presented themselves and received forgiveness. Cecil wrote, explaining his secret services, and was taken into favour. Lord Robert and Lord Ambrose Dudley, Northampton and a hundred other gentlemen--Sir Thomas Wyatt among them--who had accompanied the duke to Bury, were not so fortunate. The queen would not see them, and they were left under arrest. Ridley set out for Norfolk, also, to confess his offences; but, before he arrived at the court, he was met by a warrant for his capture, and carried back a prisoner to the Tower.

The conspiracy was crushed, and crushed, happily, without bloodshed. The inquiry into its origin, and the punishment of the guilty, could be carried out at leisure. There was one matter, however, which admitted of no delay. Mary's first anxiety, on feeling her crown secure, was the burial of her dead brother, who, through all these scenes, was still lying in his bed in his room at Greenwich. In her first letter to the Imperial ambassadors, the day after the arrival of Arundel and Paget at the court, she spoke of this as her greatest care; to their infinite alarm, she announced her intention of inaugurating her reign with Requiem and Dirige, and a mass for the repose of his soul.

Their uneasiness requires explanation.

While on matters of religion there was in England almost every variety of opinion, there was a very general consent that the queen should not marry a foreigner. The dread that Mary might form a connection with some continental prince, had formed the strongest element in Northumberland's cause; all the Catholics, except the insignificant faction who desired the restoration of the Papal authority,[57] all the moderate Protestants, {p.024} wished well to her, but wished to see her married to some English nobleman; and, while her accession was still uncertain, the general opinion had already fixed upon a husband for her in the person of her cousin Edward Courtenay, the imprisoned son of the Marquis of Exeter. The interest of the public in the long confinement of this young nobleman had invested him with all imaginary graces of mind and body. He was the grandchild of a Plantagenet, and a representative of the White Rose. He had suffered from the tyranny, and was supposed to have narrowly escaped murder at the hands of the man whom all England most hated. Nature, birth, circumstances, all seemed to point to him as the king-consort of the realm.[58] The emperor had thought of Mary for his son; and it has been seen that the fear of such an alliance induced the French to support Northumberland. To prevent the injury which the report, if credited in England, would have done to her cause, Mary, on her first flight to Keninghal, empowered Renard to assure the council that she had no thought at all of marrying a stranger. The emperor and the bishop of Arras, in assuring Sir Philip Hoby that the French intended to strike for the Queen of Scots, declared that, for themselves they wished only to see the queen settled in her own realm, as her subjects desired; and especially they would prevent her either from attempting innovations in religion without their consent, or from marrying against their approbation.[59]

[Footnote 57: I must again remind my readers of the
distinction between Catholic and Papist.
Three-quarters of the English people were
Catholics; that is, they were attached to the
hereditary and traditionary doctrines of the
Church. They detested, as cordially as the
Protestants, the interference of a foreign power,
whether secular or spiritual, with English
liberty.]

[Footnote 58: "Adversity is a good thing. I trust
in the Lord to live to see the day her Grace to
marry such an one as knoweth what adversity
meaneth; so shall we have both a merciful queen and
king to their subjects; and would to God I might
live to have another virtuous Edward."--Epistle of
Poor Pratt to Gilbert Potter, written July 13:
_Queen Jane and Queen Mary_, Appendix, p. 116. The
occasion of this curious epistle was the punishment
of Gilbert on the pillory. The writer was a
Protestant, and evidently thought the Reformation
in greater danger from Northumberland than Mary.
"We have had many prophets and true preachers," he
said, "which did declare that our king shall be
taken away from us, and a tyrant shall reign. The
gospel shall be plucked away, and the right heir
shall be dispossessed; and all for our
unthankfulness. And, thinkest thou not, Gilbert,
this world is now come? Yea! truly! and what shall
follow, if we repent not in time? The same God will
take from us the virtuous Lady Mary our lawful
Queen, and send such a cruel Pharaoh as the Ragged
Bear to rule us, which shall pull and poll us, and
utterly destroy us, and bring us in great
calamities and miseries."]

[Footnote 59: _MS. Harleian_, 523.]

But the emperor's disinterestedness was only the result of his despondency. While the crisis lasted, neither Charles nor Henry of France saw their way to a distinct course of action. Charles, on the 20th of July, ignorant of the events in London, {p.025} had written to Renard, despairing of Mary's success. Jane Grey he would not recognise; the Queen of Scots, he thought, would shortly be on the English throne. Henry, considering, at any rate, that he might catch something in troubled waters, volunteered to Lord William Howard,[60] in professed compliance with the demands of Northumberland, to garrison Guisnes and Calais for him. Howard replied that the French might come to Calais if they desired, but their reception might not be to their taste.[61] The revolution of the 19th altered the aspect of the situation both at the courts of Paris and of Brussels. The accession of Mary would be no injury to France, provided she could be married in England; and Henry at once instructed Noailles to congratulate the council on her accession. Noailles himself indeed considered, that, should she take Courtenay for a husband, the change might, after all, be to their advantage. The emperor, on the other hand, began to think again of his original scheme. Knowing that the English were sincere in their detestation of the Papacy, and imperfectly comprehending the insular distinction between general attachment to Catholic tradition and indifference to Catholic unity, he supposed that the country really was, on the whole, determined in its adherence to the reformed opinions. But the political alliance was still of infinite importance to him; and therefore he was anxious beyond everything that the princess whom he intended to persuade to break her word about her marriage should be discreet and conciliatory about religion. He lost not a moment, after hearing that she was proclaimed queen, in sending her his congratulations; but he sent with them an earnest admonition to be cautious; to be content with the free exercise for herself of her own creed, to take no step whatever without the sanction of parliament, and to listen to no one who would advise her, of her own authority, to set aside the Act of Uniformity. Her first duty was to provide for the quiet of the realm; and she must endeavour, by prudence and moderation, to give reasonable satisfaction to her subjects of all opinions. Above all things, let her remember to be a good Englishwoman (_bonne Anglaise_).[62]

[Footnote 60: Governor of Calais.]

[Footnote 61: Noailles.]

[Footnote 62: Charles V. to Renard, July 22:
_Granvelle Papers_, vol. iv.]

It was, in consequence, with no light anxiety that Renard learnt from Mary her intention of commencing her reign with an act which was so far at variance with the emperor's advice, and which would at once display the colours of a party. To give the late king a public funeral with a ceremonial forbidden {p.026} by the law, would be a strain of the prerogative which could not fail to create jealousy even among those to whom the difference between a Latin mass and an English service was not absolutely vital; and the judicious latitudinarianism to which the lay statesmen of the better sort were inclining, would make them dread the appearance of a disposition that would encourage the revolutionists. She owed her crown to the Protestants as well as to the Catholics. If she broke the law to please the prejudices of the latter, Renard was warned that her present popularity would not be of long continuance.[63]

[Footnote 63: Elle sera odieuse, suspecte, et
dangereuse.--Renard to the Emperor: _Rolls House
MSS._]

Yet, as the ambassador trembled to know, a carelessness of consequences and an obstinate perseverance in a course which she believed to be right were the principal features in Mary's character. He wrote to her while she was still at Framlingham, using every argument which ought, as he considered, to prevail. He reminded her of the long and unavailing struggle of the emperor to bring back Germany out of heresy, where the obstinacy of the Romanists had been as mischievous to him as the fanaticism of the Lutherans. "Her duty to God was of course the first thing to be considered; but at such a time prudence was a part of that duty. The Protestant heresies had taken a hold deep and powerful upon her subjects. In London alone there were fifteen thousand French, Flemish, and German refugees, most of them headstrong and ungovernable enthusiasts. The country dreaded any fresh convulsions, and her majesty should remember that she had instructed him to tell the council that she was suspected unjustly, and had no thought of interfering with the existing settlement of the realm."[64]

[Footnote 64: Renard to Queen Mary, copy enclosed
to Charles V.: _Rolls House MSS._]

With all his efforts, however, Renard could but bring the queen to consent to a few days' delay; and fearing that she would return to her purpose, he sent to the emperor a copy of his letter, which he urged him to follow up. Charles on the 29th replied again, lauding the ambassador's caution, and suggesting an argument more likely to weigh with his cousin than the soundest considerations of public policy. Edward had lived and died in heresy, and the Catholic services were intended only for the faithful sons of the Church.[65] He desired {p.027} Renard to remind her that those who had been her most valuable friends were known to hold opinions far from orthodox; and he once more implored her to be guided by parliament, and to take care that the parliament was free. She had asked whether she should imitate Northumberland and nominate the members of the House of Commons. He cautioned her against so dangerous an example; he advised her to let the counties and towns send deputies of their own choice; and if the writs were sent into Cornwall and the northern counties, which had remained most constant to the Catholic religion, these places might be expected to return persons who would support her own sentiments.[66]

[Footnote 65: Vous avez tres bien faict de
desconseillier a la dicte Royne qu'elle fist les
obseques du feu Roy, ce qu'elle peult tant plus
delaisser avecque le repos de sa conscience,
puisque comme escripvez il est decede soustenant
jusques a la fin, selon, qu'il avoit este persuade
de depuis sa jeunesse, les opinions de desvoyez de
nostre ancienne religion: par ou l'on ne peult sans
scrupule luy faire l'enterrement et obseques
accoustumez en nostre dicte religion. Et est bien
que l'ayez persuade par vostre dicte lettre a la
dicte dilation.--Charles V. to Renard, July 29:
_Granvelle Papers_, vol. iv.]

[Footnote 66: Et il seroit a esperer que y
appellant ceulx du Noort et de Cornuailles avec les
autres comme ce sont ceulx qui sont demeurez plus
ferme en la religion, et qui ont demonstre plus
d'affection en son endroit qu'elle trouveroit
envers iceulx pour tout ce qu'elle vouldroit
ordonner plus de faveur.--Ibid.]

If the emperor had been equally earnest in urging Mary to consult the wishes of her subjects on her marriage, he would have been a truer friend to her than he proved to be. But prudential arguments produced no effect on the eager queen; Renard had warned her not to resist Northumberland; she had acted on her own judgment, and Northumberland was a prisoner, and she was on the throne. By her own will she was confident that she could equally well restore the mass, and in good time the pope's authority. The religious objection to the funeral was more telling, and on this point she hesitated. Meantime she began to move slowly towards London, and at the end of the month the reached her old house of Newhall in Essex, where she rested till the preparations were complete for her entry into the city.

The first point on which she had now to make up her mind concerned the persons with whom she was to carry on the government. The emperor was again clear in his advice, which here she found herself obliged to follow. She was forced to leave undisturbed in their authorities such of her brother's late ministers as had contributed to the revolution in her favour. Derby, Sussex, Bath, Oxford, who had hurried to her support at Framlingham, were her loyal subjects, whom she could afford to neglect, because she could depend upon their fidelity. Pembroke and Winchester, Arundel and Shrewsbury, Bedford, {p.028} Cobham, Cheyne, Petre, too powerful to affront, too uncertain to be trusted as subjects, she could only attach to herself by maintaining in their offices and emoluments. She would restore the Duke of Norfolk to the council; Gardiner should hold office again; and she could rely on the good faith of Paget, the ablest, as well as the most honest, of all the professional statesmen. But Norfolk was old, and the latitudinarian Paget and the bigoted Gardiner bore each other no good will; so that, when the queen had leisure to contemplate her position, it did not promise to be an easy one. She would have to govern with the assistance of men who were gorged with the spoils of the church, suspected of heresy, and at best indifferent to religion.

In Mary's absence, the lords in London carried on the government as they could on their own responsibility. On the 21st Courtenay was released from the Tower. Gardiner was offered liberty, but he waited to accept it from the queen's own hand. He rejoined the council, however, and on the first or second day of his return to the board, he agitated their deliberations by requiring the restoration of his house in Southwark, which had been appropriated to the Marquis of Northampton, and by reminding Pembroke that he was in possession of estates which had been stolen from the See of Winchester.

On the 25th Northumberland and Lord Ambrose Dudley were brought in from Cambridge, escorted by Grey and Arundel, with four hundred of the guard. Detachments of troops were posted all along the streets from Bishopsgate, where the duke would enter, to the Tower, to prevent the mob from tearing him in pieces. It was but twelve days since he had ridden out from that gate in the splendour of his power; he was now assailed from all sides with yells and execrations; bareheaded, with cap in hand, he bowed to the crowd as he rode on, as if to win some compassion from them; but so recent a humility could find no favour. His scarlet cloak was plucked from his back; the only sounds which greeted his ears were, "Traitor, traitor, death to the traitor!" He hid his face, sick at heart with shame, and Lord Ambrose, at the gate of the Tower, was seen to burst into tears.[67] Edwin Sandys, Northampton, Ridley, Lord Robert Dudley, the offending judges Cholmley and Montague, with many others, followed in the few next days. Montague had protested to the queen that he had acted only under compulsion, but his excuses were not fully received. Lady Northumberland {p.029} went to Newhall to beg for mercy for her sons, but Mary refused to admit her.[68]

[Footnote 67: Renard to Charles V.: _Rolls House
MSS._ Baoardo. _Grey Friars' Chronicle._]

[Footnote 68: Renard to Charles V.: _Rolls House
MSS._]

In general, however, there was no desire to press hard upon the prisoners. Few had been guilty in the first degree; in the second degree so many were guilty, that all could not be punished, and to make exceptions would be unjust and invidious. The emperor recommended a general pardon, from which the principal offenders only should be excluded, and Mary herself was as little inclined to harshness. Her present desire was to forget all that had passed, and take possession of her power for the objects nearest to her heart. Her chief embarrassment for the moment was from the overloyalty of her subjects. The old-fashioned lords and country gentlemen who had attended her with their retainers from Norfolk, remained encamped round Newhall, unable to persuade themselves that they could leave her with safety in the midst of the men who had been the ministers of the usurpation.[69]

[Footnote 69: Ibid.]

Her closest confidence the queen reserved for Renard. On the 28th of July she sent for him at midnight. On the 2nd of August he was again with her, and the chief subject of her thoughts was still the funeral. "She could not have her brother committed to the ground like a dog," she said. While her fortunes were uncertain, she allowed Renard to promise for her that she would make no changes in religion, but "she had now told the lords distinctly that she would not recognise any of the laws which had been passed in the minority,[70] and she intended to act boldly; timidity would only encourage the people to be insolent;" "the lords were all quarrelling among themselves, and accusing one another; she could not learn the truth on any point of the late conspiracy; she did not know who were guilty or who were innocent; and, amidst the distracted advices which were urged upon her, she could not tell whether she could safely venture to London or not; but outward acquiescence in {p.030} the course which she chose to follow she believed that she could compel, and she would govern as God should direct her. The emperor, she added, had written to her about her marriage, not specifying any particular person, but desiring her to think upon the subject. She had never desired to marry while princess, nor did she desire it now; but if it were for the interests of the church, she would do whatever he might advise."

[Footnote 70: She, perhaps, imagined that she was
not exceeding her statutable right in the refusal.
The 17th of the 28th of Henry VIII. empowered any
one of the heirs to the crown named in the king's
will, on arriving at the age of twenty-four, to
repeal laws passed not only in his or her own
minority; but under circumstances such as those
which had actually occurred, where the first heir
had died before coming of age. The 11th of the 1st
of Edward VI. modified the act of Henry, limiting
the power of repeal to the sovereign in whose own
reign the law to be repealed had been passed. But
this act of Edward's was, itself, passed in a
minority, and Mary might urge that she might repeal
that as well as any other statute passed in his
reign in virtue of the act of her father.]

On this last point Renard knew more of the emperor's intentions than Mary, and was discreetly silent; on other point he used his influence wisely. He constrained her, with Charles's arguments, to relinquish her burial scheme. "Edward, as a heretic, should have a heretic funeral at Westminster Abbey; she need not be present, and might herself have a mass said for him in the Tower. As to removing to London, in his opinion she had better go thither at once, take possession of her throne, and send Northumberland to trial. Her brother's body ought to be examined also, that it might be ascertained whether he had been poisoned; and if poisoned, by whom and for what purpose."[71]

[Footnote 71: Renard to Charles V.: _Rolls House
MSS._]

Mary rarely paused upon a resolution. Making up her mind that, as Renard said, it would be better for her to go to London, she set out thither the following day, Thursday, the 3rd of August. Excitement lent to her hard features an expression almost of beauty,[72] as she rode in the midst of a splendid cavalcade of knights and nobles. Elizabeth, escorted by two thousand horse and a retinue of ladies, was waiting to receive her outside the gates. The first in her congratulations, after the proclamation, yet fearful of giving offence, Elizabeth had written to ask if it was the queen's pleasure that she should appear in mourning; but the queen would have no mourning, nor would have others wear it in her presence. The sombre colours which of late years had clouded the court were to be banished at once and for ever; and with the dark colours, it seemed for a time as if old dislikes and suspicions were at the same time to pass away. The sisters embraced; the queen was warm and affectionate, kissing all the ladies in Elizabeth's train; and side by side the daughters of Henry VIII. rode through Aldgate at seven in the evening, amidst the shouts of the people, the thunder of cannon, and pealing of church bells.[73] At the Tower gates the old Duke of Norfolk, Gardiner, Courtenay, and the Duchess of Somerset {p.031} were seen kneeling as Mary approached. "These are my prisoners," she said as she alighted from her horse, and stooped and kissed them. Charmed by the enthusiastic reception and by the pleasant disappointment of her anxieties, she could find no room for hard thoughts of any one; so far was she softened, Renard wrote, that she could hardly be brought to consent to the necessary execution of justice. Against Northumberland himself she had no feeling of vindictiveness, and was chiefly anxious that he should be attended by a confessor; Northampton was certainly to be pardoned; Suffolk was already free; Northumberland should be spared, if possible; and, as to Lady Jane, justice forbade, she said, that an innocent girl should suffer for the crimes of others.[74]

[Footnote 72: "La beaute de visage plus que
mediocre," are Renard's words to Charles.]

[Footnote 73: Renard; Noailles; Machyn; _Grey
Friars' Chronicle_.]

[Footnote 74: Renard to Charles V.: _Rolls House
MSS._]

The emperor had recommended mercy; but he had not advised a general indemnity, as Renard made haste to urge. The imperialist conception of clemency differed from the queen's; and the same timidity which had first made the ambassadors too prudent, now took the form of measured cruelty. Renard entreated that Lady Jane should not be spared; "conspirators required to be taught that for the principals in treason there was but one punishment; the duke must die, and the rival queen and her husband must die with him." "We set before her"--Renard's own hand is the witness against him--"the examples of Maximus and his son Victor, both executed by the Emperor Theodosius; Maximus, because he had usurped the purple; Victor, because, as the intended heir of his father, he might have been an occasion of danger had he lived."[75]

[Footnote 75: Et luy fust propose l'exemple de
Maximus et Victor son filz que Theodose l'Empereur
feit mourir pour s'estre attribue le nom d'Empereur
par tyrannie et l'avoir voulu continuer en son diet
filz Victor, escripvant l'histoire que l'on feit
mourir le filz pour le scandale et danger qu'en
eust peu advenir.--Renard to Charles V.: _Rolls
House MSS._ For the story, see Gibbon, cap. xxvii.]

Looking also, as Renard was already doing, on the scenes which were around him, chiefly or solely as they might affect the interests of his master's son, he had been nervously struck by the entourage which surrounded Elizabeth and the popularity which she, as well as the queen, was evidently enjoying.

Elizabeth, now passing into womanhood, was the person to whom the affections of the liberal party in England most definitely tended. She was the heir-presumptive to the crown; in matters of religion she was opposed to the mass, and opposed as decidedly to factious and dogmatic Protestantism; while {p.032} from the caution with which she had kept aloof from political entanglements, it was clear that her brilliant intellectual abilities were not her only or her most formidable gifts. Already she shared the favour of the people with the queen. Let Mary offend them (and in the intended marriage offence would unquestionably have to be given), their entire hearts might be transferred to her. The public finger had pointed to Courtenay as the husband which England desired for the queen. When Courtenay should be set aside by Mary, he might be accepted by Elizabeth; and Elizabeth, it was rumoured, looked upon him with an eye of favour.[76] On all accounts, therefore, Elizabeth was dangerous. She was a figure on the stage whom Renard would gladly see removed; and a week or two later he bid Mary look to her, watch her, and catch her tripping if good fortune would so permit: "it was better to prevent than to be prevented."[77]

[Footnote 76: Renard to Charles V.: _Rolls House
MSS._]

[Footnote 77: Signantment sembleroit que vostre
majeste ne se deust confier en Madame Elizabeth que
bien a point, et discouvrir sur ce qu'elle ne se
voit en espoir d'entrer en regne, ne avoir voulu
fleschir quant au point de la religion ny ouyr la
messe; ce que l'on jugeoit elle deust faire pour la
respect de vostre majeste, et pour les courtoysies
dont elle use en son endroit encores qu'elle ny
eust faict sinon l'assister et l'accompaigner. Et
davantage l'on peult discouvrir comme elle se
maintient en la nouvelle religion par practique,
pour attirer et gaigner a sa devotion ceulx quilz
sont de la dicte religion en s'en aider, si elle
avoit intention de maligner; et jacois l'on se
pourroit fourcompter quant a son intention, si est
en ce commencement, qu'il est plus sure prevenir
que d'estre prevenu et penser a ce que peult
advenir; actendu que les objects sont evidens.--Les
Ambassadeurs de l'Empereur a Marie, Reine
d'Angleterre: _Granvelle Papers_, vol. ii. pp.
64-69.]

The queen did not close her ears to these evil whispers; but for the first few days after she came to the Tower her thoughts were chiefly occupied with religion, and her first active step was to release and to restore to their sees the deprived and imprisoned bishops. The first week in August, Ponet, by royal order, was ejected from Winchester, Ridley from London, and Scory from Chichester. The See of Durham was reconstituted. Tunstal, Day, and Heath were set at liberty, and returned to their dioceses. The Bishop of Ely was deposed from the chancellorship, and the seals were given to Gardiner. "On the 5th of August," says the _Grey Friars' Chronicle_, "at seven o'clock at night, Edmond Bonner came home from the Marshalsea like a bishop, and all the people by the wayside bade him welcome home, both man and woman, and as many of the women as might kissed him; and so he came to Paul's, and knelt on the {p.033} steps, and said his prayers, and the people rang the bells for joy."[78]

[Footnote 78: _Chronicle of the Grey Friars of
London_, p. 82.]

While Mary was repairing acts of injustice, Gardiner, with Sir William Petre, was looking into the public accounts. The debts of the late government had been reduced, the currency unconsidered, to L190,000.[79] A doubt had been raised whether, after the attempt to set aside the succession, the queen was bound to take the responsibility of these obligations, but Mary preferred honour to convenience; she promised to pay everything as soon as possible. Further, there remain, partly in Gardiner's hand, a number of hasty notes, written evidently in these same first weeks of Mary's reign, which speak nobly for the intentions with which both Mary and himself were setting generally to work. The expenses of the household were to be reduced to the scale of Henry VII., or the early years of Henry VIII.; the garrisons at Berwick and Calais were to be placed on a more economical footing, the navy reduced, the irregular guard dismissed or diminished. Bribery was to be put an end to in the courts of Westminster, at quarter sessions, and among justices of the peace; "the laws were to be restored to their authority without suffering any matters to be ordered otherwise than as the laws should appoint."[80] These first essentials having been attended to, the famous or infamous book of sales, grants, and exchanges of the crown lands was to be looked into; the impropriation of benefices was to cease, and decency to be restored to the parish churches, where the grooms and gamekeepers should give way to competent ministers; economy, order, justice, and reverence were to heal the canker of profligate profanity which had eaten too long into the moral life of England.

[Footnote 79: August 1553. Debts of the crown.
Irish debt, L36,094 18s. Household debts, L14,574
16s. Further household debts, L7450 5s. Berwick
debt, with the wages of the officers, L16,639 18s.
Calais debt, beside L17,000 of loans and other
things, L21,184 10s. Ordnance Office, L3134 7s.
Public works, L3200. Admiralty debt, L3923 4s.
Debts in the Office of the Chamber, L17,968. Debts
beyond the seas by Sir Thomas Gresham's particular
bill, L61,068. Alderney's debt, L3028. Scilly debt,
L3071.--_MS. Mary, Domestic_, vol. i. State Paper
Office.]

[Footnote 80: Note of things to be attended to:
_MS. Mary, Domestic_, vol. i.]

In happier times Mary might have been a worthy queen, and Gardiner an illustrious minister;[81] but the fatal superstition {p.034} which confounded religion with orthodox opinion was too strong for both of them.

[Footnote 81: Another natural feature of these
curious days was the arrest of suspected persons;
one of whom, Edward Underhill, the Hot Gospeller,
has left behind him, in the account of his own
adventures, a very vivid picture of the time.
Underhill was a yeoman of the guard. He had seen
service in the French wars, but had been noted
chiefly for the zeal which he had shown in the late
reign in hunting Catholics into gaol. He had thus
worked his way into Court favour. During the brief
royalty of Jane Grey, his wife was confined. His
child was christened at the Tower church, and
Suffolk and Pembroke were "gossips," and Jane
herself was godmother. The day that Mary was
proclaimed, he put out a ballad, which, as he
expected, brought him into trouble. "The next day,"
he is telling his own story, "after the queen was
come to the Tower, the foresaid ballad came into
the hands of Secretary Bourne, who straightway made
inquiry for the said Edward, who dwelt in
Lymehurst; which he having intelligence of, sent
the sheriff of Middlesex with a company of bills
and glaives, who came into my house, being in my
bed, and my wife newly laid in childbed. The high
constable, whose name is Thomas Joy, dwelled at the
house next to me, whom the sheriff brought also
with him. He being my very friend, desired the
sheriff and his company to stay without for
frighting of my wife, and he would go fetch me unto
him; who knocked at the door, saying, he must speak
with me. I, lying so near that I might hear him,
called unto him, willing him to come unto me, for
that he was always my very friend and earnest in
the gospel, who declared unto me that the sheriff
and a great company was sent for me. Whereupon I
rose and made me ready to come unto him.

"Sir, said he, I have commandment from the council
to apprehend you and bring you unto them.

"Why, said I, it is now ten of the clock at night;
you cannot now carry me unto them.

"No, sir, said he, you shall go with me to my house
in London, where you shall have a bed, and
to-morrow I will bring you unto them in the Tower.

"In the name of God, quoth I, and so went with him,
requiring him if I might understand the cause. He
said he knew none."

Underhill, however, conjectured that it was the
ballad. He "was nothing dismayed;" and in the
morning went readily to the Tower, where he waited
in the presence chamber talking to the pensioners.

Sir Edward Hastings passed through, and as he saw
him, "frowned earnestly." "Are you come?" said
Hastings, "we will talk with you ere you part, I
warrant you." They were old acquaintances.
Underhill had been controller of the ordnance at
Calais when Lord Huntingdon was in command there.
The earl being in bad health, his brother Sir
Edward was with him, assisting in the duties of the
office; and Underhill, being able to play and sing,
had been a frequent visitor at the Government
House. The earl, moreover, "took great delight to
hear him reason" with Sir Edward, on points of
controversy--chiefly on the real presence--where
the controller of the ordnance (according to his
own account) would quote Scripture, and Sir Edward
would "swear great oaths," "especially by the
Lord's foot;" on which Underhill would say, "Nay,
then, it must needs be so, and you prove it with
such oaths," and the earl would laugh and exclaim,
"Brother, give him over, Underhill is too good for
you."

Hastings, it seemed, could not forgive these
passages of wit, and Underhill was too smart for
them. While he stood waiting, Secretary Bourne came
in, "looking as the wolf at the lamb," and seeing
the man that he had sent for, carried him off into
the council room. Hastings was gone, Bedford sat as
President, "and Bedford," says Underhill, "was my
friend, for that my chance was to be at the
recovery of his son, my Lord Russell, when he was
cast into the Thames by Lymehurst, whom I received
into my house, and gate him to bed, who was in
great peril of his life, the weather being very
cold."

Bedford, however, made no sign of recognition.
Bourne read the ballad; on which Underhill
protested that there was no attack on the queen's
title in it. No! Bourne said, but it maintains the
queen's title with the help of an arrant heretic,
Tyndal. Underhill used the word Papist. Sir John
Mason asked what he meant by that: "Sir," he says
that he replied, "I think, if you look among the
priests in Paul's, you shall find some old
mumpsimusses there.

"Mumpsimusses, knave, said he, mumpsimusses! Thou
art an heretic knave, by God's blood!

"Yea! by the mass, said the Earl of Bath, I warrant
him an heretic knave indeed.

"I beseech your honours," Underhill said, "speaking
to the Lords that sat at the table (for those
others stood by and were not of the council), be my
good Lords. I have offended no laws. I have served
the Queen's Majesty's father and brother long time,
and spent and consumed my living therein. I went
not forth against her Majesty, notwithstanding I
was commanded."

He was interrupted by Arundel, who said that, "by
his writing," "he wished to set them all by the
ears." Hastings re-entered at the moment, telling
the council that they must repair to the queen, and
the Hot Gospeller was promptly ordered to Newgate.

The sheriff led him through the streets, his friend
Joy "following afar off, as Peter followed Christ."
He wrote a few words to his wife at the door of
Newgate, asking her to send him "his nightgown, his
Bible, and his lute;" and then entered the prison,
his life in which he goes on to describe.

In the centre of Newgate was "a great open hall."
"As soon as it was supper time," the board was
covered in the same hall. The keeper, whose name
was "Alisander," with his wife, came and sat down,
and half a dozen prisoners that were there for
felony, Underhill "being the first that for
religion was sent unto that prison." One of the
felons had served with him in France. "After
supper," the story continues, "this good fellow,
whose name was Bristow, procured me to have a bed
in his chamber, who could play well upon a rebeck.
He was a tall fellow, and after one of Queen Mary's
guard; yet a Protestant, which he kept secret, for
else, he said, he should not have found such favour
as he did at the keeper's hands and his wife's, for
to such as loved the gospel they were very cruel.
Well, said Underhill, I have sent for my Bible,
and, by God's grace, therein shall be my daily
exercise; I will not hide it from them. Sir, said
he, I am poor; but they will bear with you, for
they see your estate is to pay well; and I will
shew you the nature and manner of them; for I have
been here a good while. They both do love music
very well. Wherefore you with your lute, and I to
play with you on my rebeck, will please them
greatly. He loveth to be merry, and to drink wine,
and she also. If you will bestow upon them, every
dinner and supper, a quart of wine and some music,
you shall be their white son, and have all the
favour they can shew you."

The honour of being "white son" to the governor and
governess of Newgate was worth aspiring after.
Underhill duly provided the desired entertainments.
The governor gave him the best room in the prison,
with all other admissible indulgences.

"At last," however, "the evil savours, great
unquietness, with over many drafts of air," threw
the poor gentleman into a burning ague. He shifted
"his lodgings," but to no purpose; the "evil
savours" followed him. The keeper offered him his
own parlour, where he escaped from the noise of the
prison; but it was near the kitchen, and the smell
of the meat was disagreeable. Finally, the wife put
him away in her store-closet, amidst her best
plate, crockery, and clothes, and there he
continued to survive till the middle of September,
when he was released on bail through the
interference of the Earl of Bedford.--Underhill's
Narrative: _Harleian MSS._ 425.]

{p.035} Edward's body was meanwhile examined. The physicians {p.036} reported that without doubt he had died of poison, and there was a thought of indicting the Duke of Northumberland for his murder: but it was relinquished on further inquiry; the poison, if the physicians were right, must have been administered by negligence or accident. The corpse was then buried (August 6) with the forms of the Church of England at Westminster Abbey; the Archbishop of Canterbury, who had so far been left at liberty, read the service; it was the last and saddest function of his public ministry which he was destined to perform. Simultaneously, as Mary had determined, requiems were chanted in the Tower Chapel; and Gardiner, in the presence of the queen and four hundred persons, sung the mass for the dead with much solemnity. The ceremony was, however, injured by a misfortune; after the gospel the incense was carried round, and the chaplain who bore it was married; Doctor Weston, who was afterwards deprived of the deanery of Windsor for adultery, darted forward and snatched the censer out of the chaplain's hand. "Shamest thou not to do thine office," he said, "having a wife, as thou hast? The queen will not be censed by such as thou."[82] Nor was scandal the worst part of it. Elizabeth had been requested to attend, and had refused; angry murmurs and curses against the Bishop of Winchester were heard among the yeomen of the guard; while the queen made no secret of her desire that the example which she had set should be imitated. Renard trembled for the consequences; Noailles anticipated a civil war; twenty thousand men, the latter said, would lose their lives before England would be cured of heresy;[83] yet Mary had made a beginning, and as she had begun she was resolved that others should continue.

[Footnote 82: Strype.]

[Footnote 83: Noailles, vol. ii. p. 111.]

In the Tower she felt her actions under restraint. She was still surrounded by thousands of armed men, the levies of Derby and Hastings, the retainers of Pembroke and Arundel and Bedford; the council were spies upon her actions; the sentinels at the gates were a check upon her visitors. She could receive no one whose business with her was not made public to the lords, and whose reception they were not pleased to sanction; even Renard was for a time excluded from her, and in her anxiety to see him she suggested that he might come to her in disguise.[84] {p.037} Such a thraldom was irksome and inconvenient. She had broken the promise which Renard had been allowed to make for her about religion; she had been troubled, it is easy to believe, with remonstrances, to which she was not likely to have answered with temper; Pembroke absented himself from the presence; he was required to retire and to reduce the number of his followers; the quarrels which began while the queen was at Newhall broke out with worse violence than ever; Lord Derby complained to Renard that those who had saved her crown were treated with neglect, while men like Arundel, Bedford, and Pembroke, who had been parties to the treasons against her, remained in power; Lord Russell was soon after placed under arrest; Pembroke and Winchester were ordered to keep their houses, and the court was distracted with suspicion, discord, and uncertainty.[85]

[Footnote 84: Monseigneur, je n'ay sceu trouver
moien jusques a ceste heure de communiquer avec la
royne, ce que je deliberois faire avec l'occasion
des lectres de sa Majeste, si sans suspicion,
j'eusse pen avoir acces, que n'a este possible pour
estre les portes en la Tour de Londres ou elle este
logee, si gardees que n'est possible y entrer que
l'on ne soit congneu; elle m'avoit faict dire si je
me pouvoys desguiser et prendre ung manteau, mais
il m'a semble pour le mieux et plus seur d'attendre
qu'elle soit a Richemont.--Renard to Charles V.:
_Granvelle Papers_, vol. iv. pp. 71, 72.]

[Footnote 85: Renard to the Emperor: _Rolls House
MSS. Queen Jane and Queen Mary_, p. 15.]

From such a scene Mary desired to escape to some place where she could be at least mistress of her own movements; her impatience was quickened by a riot at St. Bartholomew's, where a priest attempted to say mass; and on Saturday, the 12th of August, she removed to Richmond. Her absence encouraged the insubordination of the people. On Sunday, the 13th, another priest was attacked at the altar; the vestments were torn from his back, and the chalice snatched from his hands. Bourne, whom the queen had appointed her chaplain, preached at Paul's Cross. A crowd of refugees and English fanatics had collected round the pulpit; and when he spoke something in praise of Bonner, and said that he had been unjustly imprisoned,[86] yells rose of "Papist, Papist! Tear him down!" A dagger was hurled at the preacher, swords were drawn, the mayor attempted to interfere, but he could not make his way through the dense mass of the rioters; and Bourne would have paid for his rashness with his life had not Courtenay, who was a popular favourite, with his mother, the Marchioness of Exeter, thrown themselves on the pulpit steps, while Bradford sprung to his side, and kept the people back till he could be carried off.

[Footnote 86: Renard says it was at these words
that the exasperation broke out.]

But the danger did not end there. The Protestant orators sounded the alarm through London. Meetings were held, and inflammatory placards were scattered about the streets. If {p.038} religion was to be tampered with, men were heard to say, it was better at once to fetch Northumberland from the Tower.