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execution; but the lords carried her to an inner apartment, and left her there in great dismay, after seeing the door well locked, bolted, and barred.'

though unwillingly, of the ambition of others, and that she hoped her fate might serve as a memorable example in after times. She then implored God's mercy, caused herself to be disrobed by her gentlewomen, veiled her own eyes with her handkerchief, and laid her head on the block, exhorting the lingering executioner to the performance of his office. At last the axe fell, and her lovely head rolled away from the body, drawing tears from the eyes of the spectators, yea, even of those who, from the very beginning, were best affected to Queen Mary's cause."

But before Elizabeth entered the Tower gates other interesting victims had issued from them to the grave. The Lady Jane Grey, who had been condemned to death three months before, was indulging in the hope of a free pardon when the ill-managed insurrection broke out. It appears very evident that Mary had no intention of executing the sentence upon her, but now she was easily made to believe that the life of the Lady Jane was incompatible with her own safety; and, in less than a week after Sir Thomas Wyatt's discomfiture, she signed the death-warrant both for Jane and her husband. On the morning of the 12th of February the Lord Guildford Dudley was delivered to the sheriffs and conducted to the scaffold on Tower-hill, where, after saying his prayers and shedding a few tears, he laid his head on the block and died quietly. The fate of this young man excited great commiseration among the people, and as it was calculated that that of his wife would make a still greater impression, it was resolved to execute her more privately within the walls of the Tower. Mary showed what she and all Catholics considered a laudable anxiety for the soul of this youthful sacrifice, and Fecknam, a very Catholic dean of St. Paul's, tormented her in her last hours with arguments and disputations; but it appears that she was steadfast in the faith which she had embraced, and the doctrines of which she had studied under learned teachers with unusual care. On the dreadful morning she had the strength of mind to decline a meeting with her husband, saying that it would rather foment their grief than be a comfort in death, and that they should shortly meet in a better place and more happy estate. She even saw him conducted towards Tower-hill, and, with the same settled spirit that was fixed upon immortality, she beheld his headless trunk when it was returned to be buried in the chapel of the Tower. By this time her own scaffold, made upon the green within the verge of the Tower, was all ready; and almost as soon as her husband's body passed towards the chapel the lieutenant led her forth, she being "in countenance nothing cast down, neither her eyes anything moistened with tears, although her gentlewomen, Elizabeth Tilney and Mistress He-picious: seventy years before Sir James Tyrrel len, wonderfully wept." She had a book in her hand, wherein she prayed until she came to the scaffold. From that platform she addressed a few modest words to the few by-standers, stating that she had justly deserved her punishment for suffering herself to be made the instrument,

Holinshed, from For

The father of Lady Jane, the Duke of Suffolk, who had been beaten and taken, like a blundering schoolboy, and who was not worthy of the child whom his ambition and imbecility sacrificed, was tried on the 17th of February. He went to Westminster Hall with a cheerful and a very stout countenance, but at his return he was very pensive and heavy, desiring all men to pray for him. There was need, for he was condemned to die the death of a traitor, and there was no hope of another pardon for this man, whose "facility to by-practices" had occasioned all or most of these troubles. On the 23d of February, eleven days after the execution of his daughter and son-in-law, he was publicly beheaded on Tower-hill. Other executions and numerous committals took place while Elizabeth lay in that state prison. Sir Thomas Wyatt met his fate with great fortitude on the 11th of April, solemnly declaring in his last moments that neither the Princess Elizabeth nor Courtenay was privy to his plans. About a fortnight after this execution, Lord Thomas Grey, brother to the late Duke of Suffolk, was beheaded on Tower-hill; and a little later, the learned William Thomas, late clerk of the council, who had attempted suicide in the Tower, was conveyed to Tyburn, and there hanged, headed, and quartered. Several times Elizabeth fancied that her last hour was come. Early in the month of May the constable of the Tower was discharged of his office, and Sir Henry Bedingfield, a bigoted and cruel man, was appointed in his stead. This new constable went suddenly to the fortress with 100 soldiers: the princess, marvellously discomforted, asked of the persons about her whether the Lady Jane's scaffold were taken down or not, fearing that her own turn was come. The circumstance of Bedingfield's appointment seemed very sus

had been suddenly substituted for Sir Robert Brackenbury, and in the night of mystery and horror that followed Tyrrell's arrival in the Tower, the two princes of the house of York had disappeared, and, as it was generally believed, had been savagely murdered in their bed.

"Bishop Godwin; De Thou.

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But Elizabeth's fears were groundless; her sister | cumstance which did not seem exactly calculated had no intention of taking her life; and a few to give him confidence. The Lord-admiral of days after, on the 19th of May, the royal captive England fired at the Spanish navy when Philip was conveyed by water from the Tower to Rich- was on board, because they had not lowered their mond: from Richmond she was removed to topsails as a mark of deference to the English Windsor, and from Windsor to Woodstock, where navy in the narrow seas. Four days after his

WOODSTOCK, as existing A.D. 1714.

she was finally fixed under the vigilant eyes of the severe and suspicious Bedingfield. Six days after her liberation, Courtenay, Earl of Devon, was delivered out of the Tower and sent down to Fotheringay Castle, where he was watched with equal vigilance. Meanwhile preparations were making for the queen's marriage, and the people of London occasionally gave unequivocal proofs of their hatred of it, and of the changes introduced in the national religion. On one Sunday in June, as Dr. Pendleton was preaching Papistry at Paul's Cross, he was shot at and nearly killed. A little before, the court and clergy were greatly enraged at finding a cat, with her head shorn and dressed like a Roman priest, hanged on a gallows in Cheapside; and a little after, a still more violent excitement was produced by a poor wench who played the part of a spirit, and anticipated some of the impositions of the Cock Lane ghost, "expressing certain seditious words against the queen, the Prince of Spain, the mass, confession, &c."1

On the 19th of July, Philip, Prince of Spain, arrived in Southampton Water. As the Count of Egmont, one of his ambassadors, had been violently assaulted some short time before by the people, who took him for his master, Philip came well attended with a body-guard and troops, and he lingered a few days at the place of his disembarkation, as if in order to ascertain the humour of the nation. There was a little cir

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arrival the prince travelled to Winchester, and there he was met on the following morning (it being a wet day), by his mature bride Mary, who took no pains to conceal her impatience, being enabled in her conscience to plead her anxiety for a legitimate and holy Roman succession as the only means of securing the faith in England. They had a long familiar talk, and, on the feast of St. James, the titular saint of Spain-their nuptials were celebrated at Winchester with great pomp.

Mary had summoned parliament some three months before her husband's arrival: both houses showed that they were still jealous of the Spaniard, and they adopted further precautions to prevent his ruling as a king in England. Philip brought large sums of money with him; but even money could not win him the good-will of the corrupt courtiers. In a word, no one loved him but Mary; and the fondness of a sick and excessively jealous wife was anything but agreeable. He soon showed her the real motives of his marriage, which were, to become absolute master of England, to wear the crown as if in his own right, and to dispose of all the resources of the country in his schemes of aggrandizement on the Continent. Though a bigot, he was certainly less anxious about the question of religion. Mary would have gratified him at the sacrifice of the interests and liberties of her people: she summoned a new parliament, and neglected no means likely to render it compliant. The Spanish gold was distributed with a liberal hand; and, imitating the precedent of former reigns, she wrote circular letters, commanding and imploring that the counties and boroughs would return such members as were wholly devoted to her interests and pleasures. This parliament met at Westminster on the 12th of November: the lords being as subservient as ever-the commons consisting wholly of Catholics or of men indifferent to the great question of religion. Both houses were ready to second the queen's bigotry, always with the old exception that she should by no means force them to surrender the temporal fruits of their late schism. In the preceding parliament, Mary had thought it prudent to retain

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the title of Supreme Head of the Church; but | to support her husband and the emperor in their now she resolved to obtain a repeal of the act wars with France. Philip found it necessary to passed in the time of her father, which irrevoca- court popularity, and recommended the release bly annexed that title to the crown. The jealous of some of the most distinguished of the prisoners possessors of abbey lands and monastic property in the Tower. The handsome Earl of Devon saw a long way beyond this mere renunciation received permission to travel on the Continent, of a title; and they would not repeal the Act of but he died soon after (in 1556) at Padua.2 Supremacy, until the queen caused to be submitted to them the pope's explicit confirmation of the abbey lands to their new proprietors, which confirmation had been conceded from a conviction that he must either receive the English penitents on their own terms or lose them altogether. The pope's confirmation was delivered through Cardinal Pole, the new legate for England, whose attainder had been reversed by the present parliament. With their minds thus set at ease as to their goods and chattels,' both houses were wonderfully compliant in matters of faith. They listened with contrite countenances to an invitation from the lord-cardinal to return to the bosom of holy mother church; they voted an address to Philip and Mary, acknowledging their repentance of the schism in which they had been living, declaring their readiness to repeal all laws enacted in prejudice of the only true church, and imploring their majesties and the lord-cardinal to intercede with the pope for their absolution and forgiveness. Gardiner presented this petition to Pole, and Pole, in the name of the pope, forthwith gave full absolution to the parliament and whole kingdom of England; and this being done, they all went to the royal chapel in procession, singing Te Deum. Without the least hesitation parliament revived the old brutal laws against heretics, enacted statutes against seditious words, and made it treason to imagine or attempt the death of Philip during his marriage with the queen. But when Mary's minister proposed that Philip should wear, if not the royal, at least the matrimonial crown, they showed a resolute opposition, and the queen was obliged to drop the project of his coronation, as well as that of getting him declared presumptive heir to the crown. Nor was she more successful when she attempted to obtain subsidies from the commons, in order

Michele, the Venetian ambassador, says that the English in general would have turned Jews or Turks, if their sovereign pleased; but the restoration of the abbey lands by the crown kept alive a constant dread among all those who possessed church property. The restitution of the church lands, which had been in the hands of the crown, cost Mary £60,000 a-year of her revenue.

2 Ambassades de Noailles; Stow; Holinshed; Godwin; Michele, Relazione; Strype; Burnet; Nares' Memoirs of Lord Burghley. The title of Courtenay, Earl of Devon, remained dormant, from the death of this young nobleman, for nearly three centuries, till the claim to the inheritance of the honour was established in 1831 by the present earl. For the history of the house of Courtenay,

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In her exceeding anxiety for issue, Mary mistook the commencement of a dropsy for the sure sign of pregnancy; and when Cardinal Pole was introduced to her on his happy return to England, she fondly fancied that the child was quickened, even as John the Baptist leaped in his mother's womb at the salutation of the Virgin! On the 27th of November the lord-mayor of London, with the aldermen all in scarlet, assembled according to commandment in St. Paul's Church at nine o'clock in the morning, and in a great fog or mist. Dr. Chadsey, one of the prebends, preached in the choir in the presence of Bonner, Bishop of London, and nine other bishops; and, before he began, he read a letter from the queen's council, the tenor whereof was, that the Bishop of London should send out certain forms of prayer,' wherein, after thanksgiving to God for his great mercies to this kingdom in giving hopes of an heir to the crown, and infusing life into the embryo, they should pray for the preservation of the queen and the infant, and for her happy delivery, and cause Te Deum to be sung everywhere. But the business did not end at St. Paul's Church: it was taken up in both houses of parliament, and it gave great occupation to the whole court. "For then," says Godwin, "by parliament many things were enacted concerning the education of the babe; and much clatter was elsewhere kept about preparations for the child's swaddling-clothes, cradle, and other things requisite at the delivery; until, in June in the ensuing year, it was manifested that all was little better than a dream." The parliament, in fact, passed a law, which, in case of the queen's demise, appointed Philip protector during the minority of the infant; but this was all that could be obtained in favour of the suspected Spaniard; and shortly after Mary dissolved the parliament in ill-humour.*

one of the most ancient and illustrious in Europe, see Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chap. Lxi.

3 Several of the prayers used on this occasion have been preserved. They were composed by different priests, who nearly all thought it necessary to pray that the child might be a male child, "well-favoured and witty," with strength and valour to keep down the heretics.

4 It appears from Mary's will, which was dated the 30th of April, 1558, or about seven months before her death, that, down to that time, she was confident of being enceinte, for she made a provision for settling the crown on her issue.-Sir Frederick Madden, Privy Purse Expenses of the Princess Mary; Introd. Me moir and Copy of Will in Appendix.

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