Little Arthur's history of England

Mary, the daughter of Henry the Eighth, and of Catherine of Arragon, his first wife, was so cruel that she is always called Bloody Mary.

She was at Hunsdon when her brother died; but instead of going directly to London to be made queen, she went first to Norwich, for fear of the Duke of Northumberland, and afterwards to London, as you read in the last chapter.

One of the very first things she did was to order the heads of the Duke of Northumberland and several other gentlemen to be cut off. She then offended the people by forbidding them to say their public prayers or to read the Bible in English: she ordered all the clergymen to send away their wives, and she determined to restore the Roman Catholic worship again.

Many now began to be sorry that Mary was queen, and a number of people collected under the command of Sir Thomas Wyat and the Duke of Suffolk, to try to drive Mary out, and release Lady Jane, for this was before she was put to death. At one time Mary was in great danger, but Wyat’s men fell away from him, and he was taken and put to death.

The hard-hearted queen determined to be revenged on those who had been with Sir Thomas Wyat. Besides beheading Lady Jane, as I have told you, she ordered the heads of the Duke of Suffolk and of many more gentlemen to be cut off, and stuck up the heads on poles all about the streets. She had fifty-two gentlemen hanged, all on the same day, and the people called the day Black Monday. She soon sent to fetch her sister Elizabeth from her house at Ashbridge, and on her coming to London sent her to the Tower. For two months Elizabeth was kept close in prison, whilst her enemies strove hard to have her beheaded. At last her friends prevailed, and she went to live at Hatfield.

The next thing Mary did to offend the people of England was to marry the Spanish prince, who was soon after Philip the Second, King of Spain. He was as ill-tempered and as cruel as the queen, and encouraged her in hating the Protestants, and in trying to make all the English people Roman Catholics again.

The queen’s cousin, Cardinal Pole, was soon sent from Rome by the Pope. And one day Queen Mary and King Philip, with the nobles and commons, knelt before the Cardinal, and confessed the wickedness of England in casting off the power of the Pope. So the Cardinal forgave them, and received England back to the Romish Church.

The persons who helped Mary most in her cruelty were Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, and Bishop Bonner. These two men were the most cruel I ever heard of, and determined to burn everybody who would not agree with the queen in her religion.

The first person Gardiner ordered to be burnt alive was one of the clergymen belonging to the great church of St. Paul in London; his name was Rogers. That good man would not do what he thought wrong towards God to please either Gardiner or the queen, so they sent him to the great square called Smithfield, and there had him tied to a stake, and a fire lighted all around him, so as to kill him. As he was going along to be burnt, his wife and his ten little children met him, and kissed him, and took leave of him, for Gardiner would not let them go to him while he kept him in prison before his death.

The next was Dr. Hooper, Bishop of Gloucester. He died saying prayers, and preaching to the people round about him, and thanking God for giving him strength to speak the truth, and keep His commandments.

Altogether, there were nearly three hundred men and women burnt by Queen Mary’s orders; but I will only tell you the names of three more, for I hate to write about such wicked doings.

You remember I mentioned Bishop Latimer among the good men who were Protestants. He had come to be a very old man in Mary’s reign; but she would not spare him, but sent him with another bishop, a friend of his, as good and learned as himself, named Ridley, to Oxford, where they were burned together, only because they were Protestants.

At last Mary determined to order the death of the wise and good Archbishop Cranmer. He had always been very gentle and rather fearful, and he wrote to Mary, and tried by every means to get her to allow him to live. They made him hope to be spared if he would give up his religion, and promise to be a Papist. As soon as he had been so weak as to do this, she ordered him to be burned at Oxford. When he was taken to be tied to the stake, he stretched out his right hand that it might burn first, because it had written through fear what he did not mean. He took off all his clothes but his shirt, and with a very cheerful countenance he began to praise God aloud, and to pray for pardon for the faults he might have committed during a long life. His patience in bearing the torment of burning, and his courage in dying, made all the people love him as much as it made them hate the queen and Bonner.

Nothing did well in this cruel queen’s reign. She went to war with France to please her husband the king of Spain, and in that war the French took Calais from the English, who had kept it ever since Edward the Third’s reign.[2]

Queen Mary died the same year in which she lost Calais, after being queen only five years.