Northumberland, finding that his arguments were likely to operate on the king, began to prepare the other parts of his scheme. Two sons of the duke of Suffolk by a second venter having died this season of the sweating sickness, that title was extinct; and Northumberland engaged the king to bestow it on the marquis of Dorset. By means of this favor, and of others which he conferred upon him, he persuaded the new duke of Suffolk and the duchess, to give their daughter, the lady Jane, in marriage to his fourth son, the Lord Guildford Dudley. In order to fortify himself by further alliances, he negotiated a marriage between the lady Catharine Gray, second daughter of Suffolk, and Lord Herbert, eldest son of the earl of Pembroke. He also married his own daughter to Lord Hastings, eldest son of the earl of Huntingdon.[*] These marriages were solemnized with great pomp and festivity; and the people, who hated Northumberland, could not forbear expressing their indignation at seeing such public demonstrations of joy during the languishing state of the young prince’s health.
Edward had been seized in the foregoing year, first with the measles, then with the small-pox; but having perfectly recovered from both these distempers, the nation entertained hopes that they would only serve to confirm his health; and he had afterwards made a progress through some parts of the kingdom. It was suspected that he had there overheated himself in exercise; he was seized with a cough, which proved obstinate, and gave way neither to regimen nor medicines: several fatal symptoms of consumption appeared; and though it was hoped that, as the season advanced, his youth and temperance might get the better of the malady, men saw with great concern his bloom and vigor insensibly decay. The general attachment to the young prince, joined to the hatred borne the Dudleys, made it be remarked, that Edward had every moment declined in health, from the time that Lord Robert Dudley had been put about him in quality of gentleman of the bedchamber.
The languishing state of Edward’s health made Northumberland the more intent on the execution of his project. He removed all, except his own emissaries, from about the king; he himself attended him with the greatest assiduity: he pretended the most anxious concern for his health and welfare; and by all these artifices he prevailed on the young prince to give his final consent to the settlement projected. Sir Edward Montague, chief justice of the common pleas, Sir John Baker and Sir Thomas Bromley, two judges, with the attorney and solicitor-general, were summoned to the council, where, after the minutes of the intended deed were read to them, the king required them to draw them up in the form of letters patent. They hesitated to obey, and desired time to consider of it. The more they reflected the greater danger they found in compliance. The settlement of the crown by Henry VIII. had been made in consequence of an act of parliament; and by another act, passed in the beginning of this reign, it was declared treason in any of the heirs, their aiders or abettors, to attempt on the right of another, or change the order of succession. The judges pleaded these reasons before the council. They urged, that such a patent as was intended would be entirely invalid; that it would subject, not only the judges who drew it, but every counsellor who signed it, to the pains of treason; and that the only proper expedient, both for giving sanction to the new settlement, and freeing its partisans from danger, was to summon a parliament, and to obtain the consent of that assembly. The king said, that he intended afterwards to follow that method, and would call a parliament in which he purposed to have his settlement ratified; but in the mean time he required the judges, on their allegiance, to draw the patent in the form required. The council told the judges, that their refusal would subject all of them to the pains of treason. Northumberland gave to Montague the appellation of traitor; and said that he would in his shirt fight any man in so just a cause as that of Lady Jane’s succession. The judges were reduced to great difficulties between the dangers from the law, and those which arose from the violence of present power and authority.[*]
The arguments were canvassed in several different meetings between the council and the judges, and no solution could be found of the difficulties. At last, Montague proposed an expedient, which satisfied both his brethren and the counsellors. He desired that a special commission should be passed by the king and council, requiring the judges to draw a patent for the new settlement of the crown; and that a pardon should immediately after be granted them for any offence which they might have incurred by their compliance. When the patent was drawn, and brought to the bishop of Ely, Chancellor, in order to have the great seal affixed to it, this prelate required that all the judges should previously sign it. Gosnald at first refused; and it was with much difficulty that he was prevailed on, by the violent menaces of Northumberland to comply; but the constancy of Sir James Hales, who, though a zealous Protestant, preferred justice on this occasion to the prejudices of his party, could not be shaken by any expedient. The chancellor next required, for his greater security, that all the privy counsellors should set their hands to the patent: the intrigues of Northumberland, or the fears of his violence, were so prevalent that the counsellors complied with this demand. Cranmer alone hesitated during some time, but at last yielded to the earnest and pathetic entreaties of the king.[*] Cecil, at that time secretary of state, pretended afterwards that he only signed as witness to the king’s subscription. And thus, by the king’s letters patent, the two princesses, Mary and Elizabeth, were set aside; and the crown was settled on the heirs of the duchess of Suffolk; for the duchess herself was content to give place to her daughters.
After this settlement was made, with so many inauspicious circumstances, Edward visibly declined every day, and small hopes were entertained of his recovery. To make matters worse, his physicians were dismissed by Northumberland’s advice, and by an order of council; and he was put into the hands of an ignorant woman, who undertook in a little time to restore him to his former state of health. After the use of her medicines, all the bad symptoms increased to the most violent degree: he felt a difficulty of speech and breathing; his pulse failed, his legs swelled, his color became livid, and many other symptoms appeared of his approaching end. He expired at Greenwich, in the sixteenth year of his age, and the seventh of his reign.
All the English historians dwell with pleasure on the excellent qualities of this young prince; whom the flattering promises of hope, joined to many real virtues, had made an object of tender affection to the public. He possessed mildness of disposition, application to study and business, a capacity to learn and judge, and an attachment to equity and justice. He seems only to have contracted, from his education, and from the genius of the age in which he lived, too much of a narrow prepossession in matters of religion, which made him incline somewhat to bigotry and persecution: but as the bigotry of Protestants, less governed by priests, lies under more restraints than that of Catholics, the effects of this malignant quality were the less to be apprehended if a longer life had been granted to young Edward.
1553.
The title of the princess Mary, after the demise of her brother, was not exposed to any considerable difficulty; and the objections started by the lady Jane’s partisans were new and unheard of by the nation. Though all the Protestants, and even many of the Catholics, believed the marriage of Henry VIII. with Catharine of Arragon to be unlawful and invalid; yet, as it had been contracted by the parties without any criminal intention, had been avowed by their parents, recognized by the nation, and seemingly founded on those principles of law and religion which then prevailed, few imagined that their issue ought on that account to be regarded as illegitimate. A declaration to that purpose had indeed been extorted from parliament by the usual violence and caprice of Henry; but as that monarch had afterwards been induced to restore his daughter to the right of succession, her title was now become as legal and parliamentary as it was ever esteemed just and natural. The public had long been familiarized to these sentiments: during all the reign of Edward, the princess was regarded as his lawful successor; and though the Protestants dreaded the effects of her prejudices, the extreme hatred universally entertained against the Dudleys,[*] who, men foresaw, would, under the name of Jane, be the real sovereigns, was more than sufficient to counterbalance, even with that party, the attachment to religion.
This last attempt to violate the order of succession had displayed Northumberland’s ambition and injustice in a full light; and when the people reflected on the long train of fraud, iniquity, and cruelty, by which that project had been conducted; that the lives of the two Seymours, as well as the title of the princesses, had been sacrificed to it; they were moved by indignation to exert themselves in opposition to such criminal enterprises. The general veneration also paid to the memory of Henry VIII. prompted the nation to defend the rights of his posterity; and the miseries of the ancient civil wars were not so entirely forgotten, that men were willing, by a departure from the lawful heir, to incur the danger of like bloodshed and confusion.
Northumberland, sensible of the opposition which he must expect, had carefully concealed the destination made by the king; and in order to bring the two princesses into his power, he had had the precaution to engage the council, before Edward’s death, to write to them in that prince’s name, desiring their attendance, on pretence that his infirm state of health required the assistance of their counsel and the consolation of their company.[*] Edward expired before their arrival; but Northumberland, in order to make the princesses fall into the snare, kept the king’s death still secret; and the lady Mary had already reached Hoddesden, within half a day’s journey of the court. Happily, the earl of Arundel sent her private intelligence, both of her brother’s death, and of the conspiracy formed against her;[**] she immediately made haste to retire; and she arrived, by quick journeys, first at Kenning Hall in Norfolk, then at Framlingham in Suffolk; where she purposed to embark and escape to Flanders, in case she should find it impossible to defend her right of succession. She wrote letters to the nobility and most considerable gentry in every county in England; commanding them to assist her in the defence of her crown and person. And she despatched a message to the council; by which she notified to them, that her brother’s death was no longer a secret to her, promised them pardon for past offences, and required them immediately to give orders for proclaiming her in London.[***]
Northumberland found that further dissimulation was fruitless: he went to Sion House,[*] accompanied by the duke of Suffolk, the earl of Pembroke, and others of the nobility; and he approached the lady Jane, who resided there, with all the respect usually paid to the sovereign. Jane was in a great measure ignorant of these transactions; and it was with equal grief and surprise that she received intelligence of them.[**] She was a lady of an amiable person, an engaging disposition, accomplished parts; and being of an equal age with the late king, she had received all her education with him, and seemed even to possess greater facility in acquiring every part of manly and polite literature. She had attained a familiar knowledge of the Roman and Greek languages, besides modern tongues; had passed most of her time in an application to learning; and expressed a great indifference for other occupations and amusements usual with her sex and station. Roger Ascham, tutor to the lady Elizabeth, having one day paid her a visit, found her employed in reading Plato, while the rest of the family were engaged in a party of hunting in the park; and on his admiring the singularity of her choice, she told him, that she received more pleasure from that author than the others could reap from all their sport and gayety.[***] Her heart, full of this passion for literature and the elegant arts, and of tenderness towards her husband, who was deserving of her affections, had never opened itself to the flattering allurements of ambition; and the intelligence of her elevation to the throne was nowise agreeable to her. She even refused to accept of the present; pleaded the preferable title of the two princesses; expressed her dread of the consequences attending an enterprise so dangerous, not to say so criminal; and desired to remain in the private station in which she was born.
Overcome at last by the entreaties, rather than the reasons, of her father and father-in-law, and above all of her husband, she submitted to their will, and was prevailed on to relinquish her own judgment. It was then usual for the kings of England, after their accession, to pass the first days in the Tower; and Northumberland immediately conveyed thither the new sovereign. All the counsellors were obliged to attend her to that fortress; and by this means became, in reality, prisoners in the hands of Northumberland, whose will they were necessitated to obey. Orders were given by the council to proclaim Jane throughout the kingdom; but these orders were executed only in London and the neighborhood. No applause ensued: the people heard the proclamation with silence and concern: some even expressed their scorn and contempt; and one Pot, a vintner’s apprentice, was severely punished for this offence. The Protestant teachers themselves, who were employed to convince the people of Jane’s title, found their eloquence fruitless; and Ridley, bishop of London, who preached a sermon to that purpose, wrought no effect upon his audience.
The people of Suffolk, meanwhile, paid their attendance on Mary. As they were much attached to the reformed communion, they could not forbear, amidst their tenders of duty, expressing apprehensions for their religion; but when she assured them that she never meant to change the laws of Edward, they enlisted themselves in her cause with zeal and affection. The nobility and gentry daily flocked to her, and brought her reënforcement. The earls of Bath and Sussex, the eldest sons of Lord Wharton and Lord Mordaunt, Sir William Drury, Sir Henry Benningfield, Sir Henry Jernegan, persons whose interest lay in the neighborhood, appeared at the head of their tenants and retainers.[*] Sir Edward Hastings, brother to the earl of Huntingdon, having received a commission from the council to make levies for the lady Jane in Buckinghamshire, carried over his troops, which amounted to four thousand men, and joined Mary. Even a fleet which had been sent by Northumberland to lie off the coast of Suffolk, being forced into Yarmouth by a storm, was engaged to declare for that princess.
Northumberland, hitherto blinded by ambition, saw at last the danger gather round him, and knew not to what hand to turn himself. He had levied forces, which were assembled at London; but dreading the cabals of the courtiers and counsellors, whose compliance, he knew, had been entirely the result of fear or artifice, he was resolved to keep near the person of the lady Jane, and send Suffolk to command the army. But the counsellors, who wished to remove him,[**] working on the filial tenderness of Jane, magnified to her the danger to which her father would be exposed; and represented that Northumberland, who had gained reputation by formerly suppressing a rebellion in those parts, was more proper to command in that enterprise.
The duke himself, who knew the slender capacity of Suffolk, began to think that none but himself was able to encounter the present danger; and he agreed to take on him the command of the troops. The counsellors attended on him at his departure with the highest protestations of attachment, and none more than Arundel, his mortal enemy.[*] As he went along, he remarked the disaffection of the people, which foreboded a fatal issue to his ambitious hopes. “Many,” said he to Lord Gray, “come out to look at us, but I find not one who cries, God speed you!”[**]
The duke had no sooner reached St. Edmondsbury, than he found his army, which did not exceed six thousand men, too weak to encounter the queen’s,[***] which amounted to double the number. He wrote to the council, desiring them to send him a reënforcement; and the counsellors immediately laid hold of the opportunity to free themselves from confinement. They left the Tower, as if they meant to execute Northumberland’s commands; but being assembled in Baynard’s castle, a house belonging to Pembroke, they deliberated concerning the method of shaking off his usurped tyranny. Arundel began the conference, by representing the injustice and cruelty of Northumberland, the exorbitancy of his ambition, the criminal enterprise which he had projected, and the guilt in which he had involved the whole council; and he affirmed, that the only method of making atonement for their past offences, was by a speedy return to the duty which they owed to their lawful sovereign.[****] This motion was seconded by Pembroke, who, clapping his hand to his sword, swore he was ready to fight any man that expressed himself of a contrary sentiment. The mayor and aldermen of London were immediately sent for, who discovered great alacrity in obeying the orders they received to proclaim Mary. The people expressed their approbation by shouts of applause. Even Suffolk, who commanded in the Tower, finding resistance fruitless, opened the gates, and declared for the queen. The lady Jane, after the vain pageantry of wearing a crown during ten days, returned to a private life with more satisfaction than she felt when the royalty was tendered to her:[v] and the messengers who were sent to Northumberland with orders to lay down his arms, found that he had despaired of success, was deserted by all his followers, and had already proclaimed the queen, with exterior marks of joy and satisfaction.[v*] The people every where, on the queen’s approach to London, gave sensible expressions of their loyalty and attachment; and the lady Elizabeth met her at the head of a thousand horse, which that princess had levied in order to support their joint title against the usurper.[v**]
The queen gave orders for taking into custody the duke of Northumberland, who fell on his knees to the earl of Arundel, that arrested him, and abjectly begged his life.[*] At the same time were committed the earl of Warwick, his eldest son, Lord Ambrose and Lord Henry Dudley, two of his younger sons, Sir Andrew Dudley, his brother, the marquis of Northampton, the earl of Huntingdon, Sir Thomas Palmer, and Sir John Gates. The queen afterwards confined the duke of Suffolk, Lady Jane Gray, and Lord Guildford Dudley. But Mary was desirous, in the beginning of her reign, to acquire popularity by the appearance of clemency; and because the counsellors pleaded constraint as an excuse for their treason, she extended her pardon to most of them. Suffolk himself recovered his liberty; and he owed this indulgence, in a great measure, to the contempt entertained of his capacity. But the guilt of Northumberland was too great, as well as his ambition and courage too dangerous, to permit him to entertain any reasonable hopes of life. When brought to his trial, he only desired permission to ask two questions of the peers appointed to sit on his jury; whether a man could be guilty of treason that obeyed orders given him by the council under the great seal; and whether those who were involved in the same guilt with himself could sit as his judges. Being told that the great seal of a usurper was no authority, and that persons not lying under any sentence of attainder were still innocent in the eye of the law, and might be admitted on any jury,[**] he acquiesced, and pleaded guilty. At his execution, he made profession of the Catholic religion, and told the people that they never would enjoy tranquillity till they returned to the faith of their ancestors: whether that such were his real sentiments, which he had formerly disguised from interest and ambition, or that he hoped by this declaration to render the queen more favorable to his family.[***] Sir Thomas Palmer and Sir John Gates suffered with him; and this was all the blood spilled on account of so dangerous and criminal an enterprise against the rights of the sovereign. Sentence was pronounced against the lady Jane and Lord Guildford, but without any present intention of putting it in execution. The youth and innocence of the persons, neither of whom had reached their seventeenth year, pleaded sufficiently in their favor.
When Mary first arrived in the Tower, the duke of Norfolk, who had been detained prisoner during all the last reign, Courtney, son of the marquis of Exeter, who, without being charged with any crime, had been subjected to the same punishment ever since his father’s attainder; Gardiner, Tonstal, and Bonner, who had been confined for their adhering to the Catholic cause, appeared before her, and implored her clemency and protection.[*] They were all of them restored to their liberty, and immediately admitted to her confidence and favor. Norfolk’s attainder, notwithstanding that it had passed in parliament, was represented as null and invalid; because, among other informalities, no special matter had been alleged against him, except wearing a coat of arms which he and his ancestors, without giving any offence, had always made use of, in the face of the court and of the whole nation. Courtney soon after received the title of earl of Devonshire; and though educated in such close confinement that he was altogether unacquainted with the world, he soon acquired all the accomplishments of a courtier and a gentleman, and made a considerable figure during the few years which he lived after he recovered his liberty.[**] Besides performing all those popular acts, which, though they only affected individuals, were very acceptable to the nation, the queen endeavored to ingratiate herself with the public by granting a general pardon, though with some exceptions, and by remitting the subsidy voted to her brother by the last parliament.[***]
The joy arising from the succession of the lawful heir, and from the gracious demeanor of the sovereign, hindered not the people from being agitated with great anxiety concerning the state of religion; and as the bulk of the nation inclined to the Protestant communion, the apprehensions entertained concerning the principles and prejudices of the new queen were pretty general. The legitimacy of Mary’s birth had appeared to be somewhat connected with the papal authority; and that princess being educated with her mother, had imbibed the strongest attachment to the Catholic communion, and the highest aversion to those new tenets, whence, she believed, all the misfortunes of her family had originally sprung. The discouragements which she lay under from her father, though at last they brought her to comply with his will, tended still more to increase her disgust to the reformers; and the vexations which the protector and the council gave her during Edward’s reign, had no other effect than to confirm her further in her prejudices. Naturally of a sour and obstinate temper, and irritated by contradiction and misfortunes, she possessed all the qualities fitted to compose a bigot; and her extreme ignorance rendered her utterly incapable of doubt in her own belief, or of indulgence to the opinions of others. The nation, therefore, had great reason to dread, not only the abolition, but the persecution of the established religion from the zeal of Mary; and it was not long ere she discovered her intentions.
Gardiner, Bonner, Tonstal, Day, Heath, and Vesey, were reinstated in their sees, either by a direct act of power, or, what is nearly the same, by the sentence of commissioners appointed to review their trial and condemnation. Though the bishopric of Durham had been dissolved by authority of parliament, the queen erected it anew by letters patent, and replaced Tonstal in his regalities as well as in his revenue. On pretence of discouraging controversy, she silenced, by an act of prerogative, all the preachers throughout England, except such as should obtain a particular license; and it was easy to foresee, that none but Catholics would be favored with this privilege. Holgate, archbishop of York, Coverdale, bishop of Exeter, Ridley of London, and Hooper of Glocester, were thrown into prison; whither old Latimer also was sent soon after. The zealous bishops and priests were encouraged in their forwardness to revive the mass, though contrary to the present laws. Judge Hales, who had discovered such constancy in defending the queen’s title, lost all his merit by an opposition to those illegal practices; and being committed to custody, was treated with such severity, that he fell into frenzy, and killed himself. The men of Suffolk were browbeaten because they presumed to plead the promise which the queen, when they enlisted themselves in her service, had given them of maintaining the reformed religion: one in particular was set in the pillory, because he had been too peremptory in recalling to her memory the engagements which she had taken on that occasion. And though the queen still promised in a public declaration before the council, to tolerate those who differed from her; men foresaw that this engagement, like the former, would prove but a feeble security when set in opposition to religious prejudices.
The merits of Cranmer towards the queen during the reign of Henry had been considerable; and he had successfully employed his good offices in mitigating the severe prejudices which that monarch had entertained against her. But the active part which he had borne in promoting her mother’s divorce, as well as in conducting the reformation, had made him the object of her hatred; and though Gardiner had been equally forward in soliciting and defending the divorce, he had afterwards made sufficient atonement, by his sufferings in defence of the Catholic cause. The primate, therefore, had reason to expect little favor during the present reign; but it was by his own indiscreet zeal, that he brought on himself the first violence and persecution. A report being spread that Cranmer, in order to pay court to the queen, had promised to officiate in the Latin service, the archbishop, to wipe off this aspersion, published a manifesto in his own defence. Among other expressions, he there said, that as the devil was a liar from the beginning, and the father of lies, he had at this time stirred up his servants to persecute Christ and his true religion: that this infernal spirit now endeavored to restore the Latin satisfactory masses, a thing of his own invention and device; and in order to effect his purpose, had falsely made use of Cranmer’s name and authority: and that the mass is not only without foundation, either in the Scriptures or in the practice of the primitive church, but likewise discovers a plain contradiction to antiquity and the inspired writings, and is besides replete with many horrid blasphemies.[*]
On the publication of this inflammatory paper Cranmer was thrown into prison, and was tried for the part which he had acted in concurring with the lady Jane, and opposing the queen’s accession. Sentence of high treason was pronounced against him, and though his guilt was shared with the whole privy council and was even less than that of the greater part of them, this sentence, however severe, must be allowed entirely legal. The execution of it, however, did not follow; and Cranmer was reserved for a more cruel punishment.
Peter Martyr, seeing a persecution gathering against the reformers desired leave to withdraw;[*] and while some zealous Catholics moved for his commitment, Gardiner both pleaded that he had come over by an invitation from the government, and generously furnished him with supplies for his journey: but as bigoted zeal still increased, his wife’s body, which had been interred at Oxford, was afterwards dug up by public orders, and buried in a dunghill.[**] The bones of Bucer and Fagius, two foreign reformers, were about the same time committed to the flames at Cambridge.[***] John Alasco was first silenced, then ordered to depart the kingdom with his congregation. The greater part of the foreign Protestants followed him; and the nation thereby lost many useful hands for arts and manufactures. Several English Protestants also took shelter in foreign parts; and every thing bore a dismal aspect for the reformation.
During this revolution of the court, no protection was expected by Protestants from the Parliament which was summoned to assemble. A zealous reformer[****] pretends, that great violence and iniquity were used in the elections; but, besides that the authority of this writer is inconsiderable, that practice, as the necessities of government seldom required it, had not hitherto been often employed in England. There still remained such numbers devoted by opinion or affection to many principles of the ancient religion, that the authority of the crown was able to give such candidates the preference in most elections; and all those who hesitated to comply with the court religion, rather declined taking a seat, which, while it rendered them obnoxious to the queen, could afterwards afford them no protection against the violence of prerogative. It soon appeared, therefore, that a majority of the commons would be obsequious to Mary’s designs; and as the peers were mostly attached to the court from interest or expectations, little opposition was expected from that quarter.
In opening the parliament, the court showed a contempt of the laws, by celebrating, before the two houses, a mass of the Holy Ghost in the Latin tongue, attended with all the ancient rites and ceremonies, though abolished by act of parliament.[*] Taylor, bishop of Lincoln, having refused to kneel at this service, was severely handled, and was violently thrust out of the house.[**] The queen, however, still retained the title of supreme head of the church of England; and it was generally pretended, that the intention of the court was only to restore religion to the same condition in which it had been left by Henry; but that the other abuses of popery, which were the most grievous to the nation, would never be revived.
The first bill passed by the parliament was of a popular nature, and abolished every species of treason not contained in the statute of Edward III., and every species of felony that did not subsist before the first of Henry VIII.[***] The parliament next declared the queen to be legitimate, ratified the marriage of Henry with Catharine of Arragon, and annulled the divorce pronounced by Cranmer,[****] whom they greatly blamed on that account. No mention, however, is made of the pope’s authority, as any ground of the marriage. All the statutes of King Edward with regard to religion were repealed by one vote.[v] The attainder of the duke of Norfolk was reversed; and this act of justice was more reasonable than the declaring of that attainder invalid without further authority. Many clauses of the riot act, passed in the late reign, were revived: a step which eluded in a great measure the popular statute enacted at the first meeting of parliament.
Notwithstanding the compliance of the two houses with the queen’s inclinations, they had still a reserve in certain articles; and her choice of a husband, in particular, was of such importance to national interest, that they were determined not to submit tamely, in that respect, to her will and pleasure. There were three marriages[*] concerning which it was supposed that Mary had deliberated after her accession. The first person proposed to her was Courtney, earl of Devonshire, who, being an Englishman nearly allied to the crown, could not fail of being acceptable to the nation; and as he was of an engaging person and address, he had visibly gained on the queen’s affections,[**] and hints were dropped him of her favorable dispositions towards him.[***] But that nobleman neglected these overtures; and seemed rather to attach himself to the lady Elizabeth, whose youth and agreeable conversation he preferred to all the power and grandeur of her sister. This choice occasioned a great coldness in Mary towards Devonshire; and made her break out in a declared animosity against Elizabeth. The ancient quarrel between their mothers had sunk deep into the malignant heart of the queen; and after the declaration made by parliament in favor of Catharine’s marriage, she wanted not a pretence for representing the birth of her sister as illegitimate. The attachment of Elizabeth to the reformed religion offended Mary’s bigotry; and as the young princess had made some difficulty in disguising her sentiments, violent menaces had been employed to bring her to compliance.[****] But when the queen found that Elizabeth had obstructed her views in a point which, perhaps, touched her still more nearly, her resentment, excited by pride, no longer knew any bounds, and the princess was visibly exposed to the greatest danger.[v]
Cardinal Pole, who had never taken priest’s orders, was another party proposed to the queen; and there appeared many reasons to induce her to make choice of this prelate. The high character of Pole for virtue and humanity; the great regard paid him by the Catholic church, of which he had nearly reached the highest dignity on the death of Paul III.;[v*] the queen’s affection for the countess of Salisbury, his mother, who had once been her governess; the violent animosity to which he had been exposed on account of his attachment to the Romish communion; all these considerations had a powerful influence on Mary. But the cardinal was now in the decline of life; and having contracted habits of study and retirement, he was represented to her as unqualified for the bustle of a court and the hurry of business.[v**]
The queen, therefore, dropped all thoughts of that alliance: but as she entertained a great regard for Pole’s wisdom and virtue, she still intended to reap the benefit of his counsel in the administration of her government. She secretly entered into a negotiation with Commendone, an agent of Cardinal Dandino, legate at Brussels; she sent assurances to the pope, then Julius III, of her earnest desire to reconcile herself and her kingdoms to the holy see; and she desired that Pole might be appointed legate for the performance of that pious office.[*]
These two marriages being rejected, the queen cast her eye towards the emperor’s family, from which her mother was descended, and which, during her own distresses, had always afforded her countenance and protection. Charles V., who a few years before was almost absolute master of Germany, had exercised his power in such an arbitrary manner, that he gave extreme disgust to the nation, who apprehended the total extinction of their liberties from the encroachments of that monarch.[**] Religion had served him as a pretence for his usurpations; and from the same principle he met with that opposition which overthrew his grandeur, and dashed all his ambitious hopes. Maurice, elector of Saxony, enraged that the landgrave of Hesse, who, by his advice, and on his assurances, had put himself into the emperor’s hands, should be unjustly detained a prisoner, formed a secret conspiracy among the Protestant princes; and, covering his intentions with the most artful disguises, he suddenly marched his forces against Charles, and narrowly missed becoming master of his person.
The Protestants flew to arms in every quarter; and their insurrection, aided by an invasion from France, reduced the emperor to such difficulties, that he was obliged to submit to terms of peace which insured the independency of Germany. To retrieve his honor, he made an attack on France; and laying siege to Metz with an army of a hundred thousand men, he conducted the enterprise in person, and seemed determined, at all hazards, to succeed in an undertaking which had fixed the attention of Europe. But the duke of Guise, who defended Metz with a garrison composed of the bravest nobility of France, exerted such vigilance, conduct, and valor, that the siege was protracted to the depth of winter; and the emperor found it dangerous to persevere any longer. He retired with the remains of his army into the Low Countries, much dejected with that reverse of fortune which in his declining years, had so fatally overtaken him.
No sooner did Charles hear of the death of Edward, and the accession of his kinswoman Mary to the crown of England, than he formed the scheme of acquiring that kingdom to his family; and he hoped by this incident to balance all the losses which he had sustained in Germany. His son Philip was a widower; and though he was only twenty-seven years of age, eleven years younger than the queen, this objection, it was thought, would be overlooked, and there was no reason to despair of her still having a numerous issue. The emperor, therefore, immediately sent over an agent to signify his intentions to Mary; who, pleased with the support of so powerful an alliance, and glad to unite herself more closely with her mother’s family, to which she was ever strongly attached, readily embraced the proposal. Norfolk, Arundel, and Paget, gave their advice for the match: and Gardiner, who was become prime minister, and who had been promoted to the office of chancellor, finding how Mary’s inclinations lay, seconded the project of the Spanish alliance. At the same time he represented, both to her and the emperor, the necessity of stopping all further innovations in religion, till the completion of the marriage. He observed, that the parliament amidst all their compliances had discovered evident symptoms of jealousy, and seemed at present determined to grant no further concessions in favor of the Catholic religion: that though they might make a sacrifice to their sovereign of some speculative principles which they did not well comprehend, or of some rites which seemed not of any great moment, they had imbibed such strong prejudices against the pretended usurpations and exactions of the court of Rome, that they would with great difficulty be again brought to submit to its authority: that the danger of resuming the abbey lands would alarm the nobility and gentry, and induce them to encourage the prepossessions, which were but too general among the people, against the doctrine and worship of the Catholic church: that much pains had been taken to prejudice the nation against the Spanish alliance; and if that point were urged at the same time with further changes in religion, it would hazard a general revolt and insurrection: that the marriage being once completed would give authority to the queen’s measures, and enable her afterwards to forward the pious work in which she was engaged: and that it was even necessary previously to reconcile the people to the marriage, by rendering the conditions extremely favorable to the English, and such as would seem to insure to them their independency, and the entire possession of their ancient laws and privileges.[*]
The emperor, well acquainted with the prudence and experience of Gardiner, assented to all these reasons, and he endeavored to temper the zeal of Mary, by representing the necessity of proceeding gradually in the great work of converting the nation. Hearing that Cardinal Pole, more sincere in his religious opinions, and less guided by the maxims of human policy, after having sent contrary advice to the queen, had set out on his journey to England, where he was to exercise his legatine commission, he thought proper to stop him at Dillinghen, a town on the Danube; and he afterwards obtained Mary’s consent for this detention. The negotiation for the marriage meanwhile proceeded apace; and Mary’s intentions of espousing Philip became generally known to the nation. The commons, who hoped that they had gained the queen by the concessions which they had already made, were alarmed to hear that she was resolved to contract a foreign alliance; and they sent a committee to remonstrate in strong terms against that dangerous measure. To prevent further applications of the same kind, she thought proper to dissolve the parliament.
A convocation had been summoned at the same time with the parliament; and the majority here also appeared to be of the court religion. An offer was very frankly made by the Romanists, to dispute concerning the points controverted between the two communions; and as transubstantiation was the article which of all others they deemed the clearest, and founded on the most irresistible arguments, they chose to try their strength by defending it. The Protestants pushed the dispute as far as the clamor and noise of their antagonists would permit; and they fondly imagined that they had obtained some advantage, when, in the course of the debate, they obliged the Catholics to avow that, according to their doctrine, Christ had in his last supper held himself in his hand, and had swallowed and eaten himself.[**]
This triumph, however, was confined only to their own party: the Romanists maintained, that their champions had clearly the better of the day, that their adversaries were blind and obstinate heretics; that nothing but the most extreme depravity of heart could induce men to contest such self-evident principles; and that the severest punishments were due to their perverse wickedness. So pleased were they with their superiority in this favorite point, that they soon after renewed the dispute at Oxford; and, to show that they feared no force of learning or abilities, where reason was so evident on their side, they sent thither Cranmer, Latimer, and Ridley, under a guard, to try whether these renowned controversialists could find any appearance of argument to defend their baffled principles.[*] The issue of the debate was very different from what it appeared to be a few years before, in a famous conference held at the same place during the reign of Edward.
1554.
After the parliament and convocation were dismissed, the new laws with regard to religion, though they had been anticipated in most places by the zeal of the Catholics, countenanced by government, were still more openly put in execution: the mass was every where reëstablished; and marriage was declared to be incompatible with any spiritual office. It has been asserted by some writers, that three fourths of the clergy were at this time deprived of their livings; though other historians, more accurate,[**] have estimated the number of sufferers to be far short of this proportion. A visitation was appointed, in order to restore more perfectly the mass and the ancient rites. Among other articles, the commissioners were enjoined to forbid the oath of supremacy to be taken by the clergy on their receiving any benefice.[***] It is to be observed, that this oath had been established by the laws of Henry VIII., which were still in force.
This violent and sudden change of religion inspired the Protestants with great discontent; and even affected indifferent spectators with concern, by the hardships to which so many individuals were on that account exposed. But the Spanish match was a point of more general concern, and diffused universal apprehension for the liberty and independence of the nation. To obviate all clamor, the articles of marriage were drawn as favorable as possible for the interests and security, and even grandeur of England. It was agreed, that though Philip should have the title of king, the administration should be entirely in the queen; that no foreigner should be capable of enjoying any office in the kingdom; that no innovation should be made in the English laws, customs, and privileges; that Philip should not carry the queen abroad without her consent, nor any of her children without the consent of the nobility; that sixty thousand pounds a year should be settled as her jointure; that the male issue of this marriage should inherit, together with England, both Burgundy and the Low Countries; and that if Don Carlos, Philip’s son by his former marriage, should die, and his line be extinct, the queen’s issue, whether male or female, should inherit Spain, Sicily, Milan, and all the other dominions of Philip.[*] Such was the treaty of marriage signed by Count Egmont and three other ambassadors, sent over to England by the emperor.[**]
These articles, when published, gave no satisfaction to the nation. It was universally said, that the emperor, in order to get possession of England, would verbally agree to any terms and the greater advantage there appeared in the conditions which he granted, the more certainly might it be concluded that he had no serious intention of observing them: that the usual fraud and ambition of that monarch might assure the nation of such a conduct: and his son Philip, while he inherited these vices from his father, added to them tyranny, sullenness, pride, and barbarity, more dangerous vices of his own: that England would become a province, and a province to a kingdom which usually exercised the most violent authority over all her dependent dominions: that the Netherlands, Milan, Sicily, Naples, groaned under the burden of Spanish tyranny; and throughout all the new conquests in America there had been displayed scenes of unrelenting cruelty, hitherto unknown in the history of mankind: that the inquisition was a tribunal invented by that tyrannical nation, and would infallibly, with all their other laws and institutions, be introduced into England; and that the divided sentiments of the people with regard to religion would subject multitudes to this iniquitous tribunal, and would reduce the whole nation to the most abject servitude.[***]