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CHAPTER XII-CIVIL AND MILITARY HISTORY.-A.D. 1555-1558.

MARY.

Corimencement of the Marian persecutions-The married priests compelled to do penance-Execution of John Rogers, of Bishop Hooper, of Bishop Ferrar, of Dr. Rowland Taylor, of William Branch-Other executionsCruelties of the Popish bishops, Gardiner and Bonner-Trial of Cranmer, Ridley, and Latimer-Execution of Ridley and Latimer-Their behaviour at the stake-Philip leaves England-Mary alarms the holders of church lands-Demur of parliament in voting supplies-Death of Bishop Gardiner-Attempts to make Cranmer recant-His recantation-Treachery of his enemies His execution-Cardinal Pole made Archbishop of Canterbury-Fresh executions of Protestants-Summary of Popish atrocities-Treatment of Princess Elizabeth-Her politic compliances-Competitors for her hand-Cruel persecution of her tutor, Sir John ChekeAn inquisitorial commission established against the Protestants-Its despotic powers and iniquitous proceedings-Increase of immorality with persecution-Abdication of the Emperor Charles V.-He is succeeded by his son Philip-Designs and coalitions of the pope against Philip-Philip's successes in Italy-He revisits England-Endeavours to persuade England to go to war with France-His endeavours seconded by an accident-He obtains reinforcements of English troops-They distinguish themselves at St. Quentin-The Duke of Guise takes the command of the French army-He unexpectedly invests Calais-Careless defences of the town-Calais stormed, and its English garrison compelled to surrender-Grief of the English nation at the loss of Calais-Mary of Guise, Queen dowager of Scotland-Becomes Regent of Scotland-Endeavours to set the Scots at war with England-Marriage of Mary, daughter of James V., to the French dauphin-An English army invades France-Death of Queen Mary-Her character.

OR the Protestants this year (1555) opened most gloomily. The queen sent Thomas Thirlby, the new Bishop of Ely, the Lord Anthony Montacute, and Sir Edward Carne, or Karne, with a very honourable train of gentlemen and others, as ambassadors to Rome, to confirm the reconciliation of the nation with the Catholic church, and concert measures for the promotion of the old religion, to the exclusion of all others. But Mary wanted no foreign advisers to urge her into the paths of intolerance and persecution. The conviction was deeply settled in her heart's core, and in her brain-and there were bishops of English birth to insist upon it-that toleration in religion only led to indifference and the eternal perdition of men's souls-that any reconciliation of parties or sects was not to be thought of that it was the duty of religious princes to exterminate the heretical infection-that the mass of the people,' after all, were attached to the discipline and doctrine of the only true church; and that those of them who were not, would soon come back into the right way if all the heretical portion of the clergy, particularly the bishops, were taken

Notwithstanding the progress made by the Reformation during the short reign of Edward VI., it is probable that this statement was corrent. In London, and the great cities generally, there were many Protestants, but in the rural districts their number was comparatively small. There appears, however, to have been a great difference in this respect among the Norfolk and Suffolk, for example, were to a great extent Protestant, and no part of England suffered so much from Mary's persecutions, though they, in effect, had set her on the throne upon promises which her bigotry could never permit

counties.

her to keep.

| from them, and treated with wholesome severity. The prisons were already crowded—the inquisitors had only to choose their victims, and prepare their stakes and fagots. There were several preludes and preparations to accustom the people to the degradation of these spiritual teachers, whom, only two years before, all had been bound by law to revere and obey. Some married priests, who would not leave their wives, were sent in procession round St. Paul's Church with white sheets over them, and burning tapers and scourges in their hands; and when this humiliating ceremony was over, they were publicly whipped. These scenes were repeated in different parts of the kingdom; and the unlucky wives of clergymen were occasionally treated with equal contumely.2

The revived statutes against heretics—that is to say, the acts first passed against the Lollards in the times of Richard II., Henry IV., and Henry V.-were to take effect from the 20th of January (1555). Previous to that great day of rejoicing, Bonner, with eight bishops and 160 orthodox priests, made a grand procession through London to return thanks to the Almighty for the sudden renewal of Divine grace in the land. Then a commission sat in the church of St. Mary Overy, Southwark, for the trial of Protestants. The first man brought before them was John Rogers, a prebendary of St. Paul's, who had been lying in Newgate among cut-throats and desperadoes for more than a year. When questioned and brow-beaten by his judge, Rogers pointedly asked, "Did not you, yourself, for

2 Holinshed; Grafton; Stow; Strype.

twenty years, pray against the pope ?" "I was forced by cruelty," replied Bishop Gardiner. "And will you use the like cruelty to us?" said Rogers. The court sentenced him to the flames.' On the night after Rogers' martyrdom in Smithfield the Protestant Bishop Hooper, one of the pillars of the Reformed church, was told that he was to be burned, not in Smithfield, however, but at Gloucester, among his own people: and at Gloucester

PLACE OF BISHOP HOOPER'S MARTYRDOM, GLOUCESTER.2
From a sketch on the spot.

he was burned in a slow fire on the 9th of February. The same course was adopted with Robert Ferrar, Bishop of St. David's, a rigid man and of a rough behaviour, who was sent down from London to his own diocese, where he was burned alive on the 30th of March. About the same time fires were lighted in other parts of the kingdom. On the eastern side, on the very day that Bishop Hooper was burned at Gloucester, Dr. Rowland Taylor, who had lived for some time in the family of Archbishop Cranmer, who preferred him to the rectory of Hadleigh, in Suffolk, was burned in that town. This Taylor was one of the boldest of those who suffered for conscience sake, and, like nearly every one of those Protestant martyrs, he was a man of humble birth. From this Rowland Taylor descended the eloquent, the learned, the great and amiable Jeremy Taylor, the antagonist of the Church of

1 Fuller; Godwin; Blunt; Despatches of Noailles, the French ambassador. This execution produced a great effect upon the people, but one altogether different from what the wretched Mary and her bishops expected. Noailles, who was a Catholic, says, "This day the confirmation of the alliance between the pope and this kingdom has been made by a public and solemn sacrifice of a preaching doctor named Rogers, who has been burned alive for being a Lutheran; but he has met his death persisting in his opinion. At which the greater part of the people here took such pleasure that they did not fear to give him many acclamations to comfort his courage; and even his children

Rome, and yet the advocate of toleration-one of the first and best of that holy band who taught that God was not served by the torment of his creatures. The now prevalent fanaticism of the Papists occasionally awoke a like spirit on the part of the Protestants. On Easter Day, the most solemn festival of the Roman church, one William Branch, or Flower, who had once been a monk of Ely, but who had embraced the Reformed religion, stabbed a priest as he was administering the sacrament to the people in the manner of Rome in the church of St. Margaret's, Westminster. No crime could be so frightful as this in the eyes of the Catholics: there was no hope of escaping from a crowded church, and the enthusiast does not appear to have attempted it. On the 24th of April his sacrilegious right hand was cut off, and then, "for opinions in matters of religion," he was burned in the sanctuary near to St. Margaret's Churchyard.3

During the festivities of Easter the Princess Elizabeth was summoned to court, that she might congratulate the queen, who had taken her chamber at Hampton Court, to be delivered; and it should seem that Elizabeth acquitted herself very dexterously on this delicate occasion. But, to return to the chief business of this deplorable reign, John Cardmaker, chancellor of the church of Wells, was burned at London on the last day of May; and John Bradford suffered the same cruel death at the same place about a month later. A little before, or a little after these executions in the capital, Thomas Hawkes, an Essex gentleman, was burned at Coggeshall; John Lawrence, a priest, at Colchester; Tomkins, a weaver, at Shoreditch; Pigott, a butcher, at Braintree; Knight, a barber, at Maldon; and Hunter, an apprentice to a silk-weaver, at Brentwood.

Bishop Gardiner, the chancellor, who was far less cruel than many, soon grew weary of presiding in the horrible court at the church of St. Mary Overy: he withdrew as early as the month of February, when his duties devolved on an apter spirit, Bonner, Bishop of London, who possessed all the essentials for an inquisitor and familiar of the Holy Office in a greater degree than any Englishman we ever heard of. This prelate sat in the consistory of St. Paul's, where the

stood by consoling him, in such a way that he looked as if they were conducting him to a merry marriage."

2 Hooper was burned in the church-yard of St. Mary de Lode, in Gloucester. The spot on which his martyrdom was consum mated, long pointed out by tradition, was indubitably ascer tained in 1826, by finding upon it the remains of the charred stake to which he had been attached. It is now marked by the small monument represented in the engraving. In the back ground is the western gate of the abbey, from which the priests witnessed the martyr's sufferings.

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3 Stow: Godwin.

lord-mayor and certain of the aldermen were forced to attend. In this court he could, with ease and great comfort to himself, condemn men to the flames at the rate of half a dozen a-day; but even Bonner was too slow for the government; the privy council kept continually urging him forward in this frightful persecution; and Mary and her husband addressed to him one letter (if not more), as if even he wanted excitement to the prosecution of heretics. Cardinal Pole, whose moderation and mercy caused him to be suspected at Rome of entertaining himself some heretical notions, in vain endeavoured to stop the destructive torrent, and to prove to Mary and her government that the practice of persecution was not only highly dangerous to themselves but the scandal of all religion.

Ever since the month of March of the preceding year, Cranmer, Ridley, and Latimer, had been removed from the Tower to Oxford. The two latter, like the primate, had favoured the usurpation of the Lady Jane; and Ridley with great spirit, honestly avowed that he had acted with his eyes open that he had never been actuated by fear of Northumberland or of any one else, but merely by a conviction that that step was

NICHOLAS RIDLEY, Bishop of London.-From a rare print.

necessary and indispensable for the preservation of the Protestant religion. If Cranmer had had the same decision and courage, it is possible that affairs might have taken a different turn, or, at the worst, he would have had a better excuse to plead than that of his having gone into the scheme of excluding Mary against his conscience, being overpowered by the importunities of the dying Edward. Ridley, and Latimer also, were

Burnet; Strype: Hallam, Const. Hist. Burnet gives, in his

Collection of Records, a letter from the king and queen to Bishop

Tonner, recommending more activity.

amenable to the same charge of treason as Cranmer; but for very evident purposes it was resolved to sink this offence in the more awful charge of heresy. The timid character of the primate was well known, and the Catholic party seem to have considered it possible to force all three to recant.

On the 14th of April, about five weeks after their first arrival at Oxford, they were brought out of their prisons to St. Mary's Church, where questions relating to transubstantiation, and the efficacy of the mass as a sacrifice and propitiation for the sins of quick and dead, were submitted to them. They were allowed to debate these points in public, and, if they could convince their mortal enemies, then their prison gates would be opened. But the orthodox controversialists did not give themselves the trouble to preserve even the appearance of fair play; they would allow their opponents no books--no time for preparation-nor would they let them argue together. Cranmer was to face alone their entire battery on the 16th of April, Ridley on the 17th, and Latimer on the 18th. On the day appointed Cranmer appeared before the consistory assembled in the divinity school, and, with more courage than had been expected from him, he proceeded to support the tenets which he had taught; but there were many voices to one; the doctors called him unlearned, unskilful, ignorant; and the Oxford scholars very generally hissed and hooted, and clapped their hands, whenever he advanced any opinion they disliked. On the following day Ridley appeared in the same place, and met with much the same treatment; but Ridley had more nerve than Cranmer, and more learning than Latimer, and to him is generally attributed the glory of the contest on the Protestant side. But he might as well have held his tongue, for, whenever he pressed them closely with an argumentative syllogism, they all lifted up their voices against him together. "I have but one tongue," cried Ridley; "I cannot answer at once to you all." When poor Latimer was brought up to be baited on the following day, he was so weak and faint that he could scarcely stand. In spite of the persecutions which he had himself directed when the current ran in a different direction, his appearance was calculated to excite sympathy in every breast except those of controversialists and dogmatists. "Ha! good master," said the aged prelate to one of his judges, "I pray ye be good to an old man. You may be once as old as I am; you may come to this age, and this debility." Cranmer and Ridley had disputed in Latin, but Latimer spoke in his mother tongue, and was the better understood. But they would not permit him to proceed without frequent interruptions; and the Oxford scholars

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hissed and hooted and laughed at him, making | ger, a dial, and such other few things as he had altogether such a din that the divinity school about him; and among the by-standers were men looked more like a bear-garden than a scene ap- too happy to get any rag of him. In the helppointed for the discussion of dogmas deemed lessness of old age Latimer had left it to his essential to the salvation of men's souls. Poor keeper to strip him; but when he stood up in his Latimer, a man of humble birth, and simple, if shroud, erect and fearless, by the side of the fagots, he seemed, in the eyes of some of the beholders, to be no longer the withered and decrepit old man, "but as comely a father as one might lightly behold." Ridley was tied first to the stake. As they were chaining Latimer to the reverse of the stake, the hardy old man exclaimed, "Be of good comfort, Master Ridley, and play the man; we shall this day light such a candle, by God's grace, in England, as I trust shall never be put out." Then the flames arose, and Latimer was soon seen to expire in the midst of them; but Ridley's sufferings were long and dreadful. The Lord Williams of Thame, the vice-chancellor of the university, the other commissioners appointed by the court, and a multitude of Oxford scholars and gentlemen, stood by and witnessed the whole, and for the most part with pious and complacent countenances, like men that felt the happy assurance that they were doing God service. But there were other spectators who looked on with very different eyes. The fortitude of the sufferers confirmed Protestants in their faith; every execution made some converts, and went to awaken a thorough and most lasting abhorrence of the persecuting church.'

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HUGH LATIMER, Bishop of Worcester.-From a rare print. not rustic manners, said, with a naïveté which would be amusing in other circumstances, that in his time and day he had spoken before two great kings more than once, for two or three hours together, without interruption; "but now," he added, "if I may speak the truth, by your leaves, I cannot be suffered to declare iny mind before you, no, not by the space of a quarter of an hour, without snatches, revilings, checks, rebukes, taunts, such as I have not felt the like in such an audience all my life long." On the 28th of April he was again, together with Ridley and Cranmer, brought up to St. Mary's Church. They were asked by the commissioners whether they would now turn or not; but they bade them read on, in the name of God, for that they were not minded to turn; and so were they condemned all three! For various reasons the execution of their sentence was suspended for nearly eighteen months, and at the end of that period (on the 16th of October, 1555), Ridley and Latimer were led to the stake without Cranmer, who remained in prison five months longer. In the ditch on the north side of the pleasant town of Oxford, and over against Baliol College, a great stake was erected. It was usual to preach a sermon to the heretics before burning them; and one Dr. Smith, who, for interest or fear, had renounced Popery in King Edward's time, and who was now all the more zealous on that account, mounted the pulpit on this occasion, and delivered a vehement discourse on the text-" Though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing." When the sermon was over Ridley stripped himself for the fire, giving away his apparel, a new groat, some nutmegs and bits of gin

About six weeks before these executions at Oxford, King Philip passed over to the Continent, in no very good humour with our island, for he found that he had in a manner thrown himself away in a marriage with a disagreeable woman. Mary's uncomfortable fondness seemed to increase with his absence: she wrote him tender letters, to which he seldom replied, except when he wished her to obtain money for his use from her parliament; and he entertained his courtiers (if not a mistress) with unmanly criticisms on his wife's person and manners. On the 21st of October, five days after the death of Ridley and Latimer, the parliament met in a mood less obsequious than usual, and the queen, in her anxiety to serve the Church of Rome, excited a somewhat stormy opposition. Some months before, in her ardent zeal for the pope, she had the imprudence to consult certain members of the privy council touching the restoration of all the abbey lands in England, which she told them she considered had been taken away from their proper owners in time of schism, and that by unlawful means, and such as were contrary both to the interests of God and of the church. She told them that, for her own part, she considered an immediate surStrype: Fox: Godwin: Blunt.

was given to another ecclesiastic-to Heath, Archbishop of York; but, though keen in the persecuting of Protestants, the new chancellor had not the talent and address of the old one.

Meanwhile (A.D. 1556) Mary's unthankful husband kept pressing her for money, and still more

render of what the crown had received essential | ease on the 12th of November. The great seal to salvation. From her vehemence it was expected that she would press for the surrender of the lands by whomsoever held, and on this head the sensitive parliament were never at their ease during the short remainder of her reign. But during the present session she only required them to legalize her restoring the first-fruits and tenths, and the impropriations vested in the crown. Even to this parliament objected; and when the commons came to vote supplies, it was asked, with some violence, what justice there was in taxing the subject to relieve the sovereign's necessities,

to

when she refused to avail herself of funds legally at her disposal? -and it was also suggested that the Catholic clergy, who were grow. ing rich by the royal liberality, ought make large sacrifices for the relief of their benefactress. At last the house passed the supplies, but with a considerable deduction from the amount originally proposed; and they also passed the bills about the first- fruits, and tenths, and impropriations, but in such a spirit as showed that it would be unsafe to urge them to further concessions in that direction. After a short session, the queen dissolved parliament on the 9th of December.' During the session Bishop Gardiner, the chancellor, had gone to his final account. He attended at the opening of the houses, and displayed his usual ability and energy; but on the third day his bodily sufferings obliged him to quit his post, and he expired of a painful dis

Journals: Holinshed; Stow.

money. To make up for the scanty supplies voted by parliament, she and her new chancellor had recourse to a variety of illegal and violent expedients. All the money was spent as soon as got; the mass of it went to her husband or to Rome.

It appears that the court calculated that when Cranmer should

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be no longer supported by the more courageous spirit of Ridley and Latimer, he would temporize, as he had so often done before, and, in the fear of death, take such steps as would cover himself with infamy and bring discredit on the whole Protestant party; and that for these express reasons he was left alive. It should be mentioned, however, that there were other reasons, and that, as a metropolitan, his case was reserved for the pope himself, the tribunal which had despatched the two suffragan bishops not being competent, in canonical law, to take cognizance of it. By a grievous mockery the pope cited this close prisoner at Oxford to appear at Rome and answer for his heresies. At the end of the eighty days, having taken no care, as it was said in the Papal instrument, to appear at Rome, he was pronounced guilty, and Bonner, Bishop of London, and Thirlby, Bishop of Ely, were appointed commissioners to degrade him, and to see the sentence executed upon him. Cranmer, who was delivered over to the secular power-for by a delicate fiction the persecuting church was never the executor of its own sentences-trembled at the near ap

THE MARTYRS' MEMORIAL OXFORD.2 From a view by Mackenzie.

"This noble monument, designed to commemorate the deaths of the Protestant martyrs, Ridley, Latimer, and Cranmer, was erected in 1841, near the spot which witnessed their sufferings. It is executed in magnesian limestone; has a total height of 73 feet; and is placed in the centre of St. Giles Street, adjoining St. John's College and the University Galleries, Oxford.

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