On the other hand, twelve noblemen and gentlemen undertook to stand by Mary if she would arrest Paget and Pembroke. The chancellor, Sir Robert Rochester, and the Marquis of Winchester discussed the feasibility of seizing them; but Lord Howard and the Channel fleet were thought to present too formidable an obstacle. With the queen's sanction, however, they armed in secret. It was agreed that, on one pretence or another, Derby, Shrewsbury, Sussex, and Huntingdon should be sent out of London to their counties. Elizabeth, if it could be managed, should be sent to Pomfret, as Gardiner had before proposed; Lord Howard should be kept at sea; and, if opportunity offered, Arundel and Paget might, at least, be secured.[324]
But Pomfret was impossible, and vexation thickened on vexation. Lord Howard was becoming a bugbear at the court. Report now said that two of the Staffords, whom he had named to command in the fleet, had joined the exiles in France; and for Lord Howard himself the queen could feel no security, if he was provoked too far. She was haunted by a misgiving that, while the prince was under his convoy, he might declare against her, and carry him prisoner to France; or if Howard could himself be trusted, his fleet could not. On the eve of sailing for the coast of Spain, a mutiny broke out at Plymouth. The sailors swore that if they were forced on a service which they detested, both the admiral and the prince should rue it. Lord Howard, in reporting to the queen the men's misconduct, said that his own life was at her majesty's disposal, but he advised her to reconsider the prudence of placing the prince in their power. Howard's own conduct, too, was far from reassuring. A few small vessels had been sent from Antwerp to join the English fleet, under the Flemish admiral Chappelle. Chappelle complained that Howard treated him with indifference, and insulted his ships by "calling them cockle-shells." If the crews of the two fleets were on land anywhere together, the English lost no opportunity of making a quarrel, "hustling and pushing" the Flemish sailors;[325] and, as if finally to complete the queen's vexation, Lord Bedford wrote that the prince declined the protection of her subjects on his voyage, and that his departure was postponed for a few weeks longer.
The fleet had to remain in the Channel; it could not be trusted elsewhere; and the necessity of releasing Elizabeth from the Tower was another annoyance to the queen. A confinement at Woodstock was the furthest stretch of severity that the country would, for the present, permit. On the 19th of May, Elizabeth was taken up the river. The princess believed herself that she was being carried off tanquam ovis, as she said—as a sheep for the slaughter. But the world thought that she was set at liberty, and as her barge passed under the bridge Mary heard, with indignation, from the palace windows, three salvoes of artillery fired from the Steelyard, as a sign of the joy of the people.[326] A letter from Philip would have been a consolation to her in the midst of the troubles which she had encountered for his sake; but the languid lover had never written a line to her; or, if he had written, not a line had reached her hand; only a ship which contained despatches from him for Renard had been taken, in the beginning of May, by a French cruiser, and the thought that precious words of affection had, perhaps, been on their way to her and were lost, was hard to bear.
In vain she attempted to cheer her spirits with the revived ceremonials of Whitsuntide. She marched day after day, in procession, with canopies and banners, and bishops in gilt slippers, round St. James's, round St. Martin's, round Westminster.[327] Sermons and masses alternated now with religious feasts, now with Diriges for her father's soul. But all was to no purpose; she could not cast off her anxieties, or escape from the shadow of her subjects' hatred, which clung to her steps. Insolent pamphlets were dropped in her path and in the offices of Whitehall; she trod upon them in the passages of the palace; they were placed by mysterious hands in the sanctuary of her bedroom. At length, chafed with a thousand irritations, and craving for a husband who showed so small anxiety to come to her, she fled from London, at the beginning of June, to Richmond.
The trials of the last six months had begun to tell upon Mary's understanding: she was ill with hysterical longings; ill with the passions which Gardiner had kindled and Paget disappointed. A lady who slept in her room told Noailles that she could speak to no one without impatience, and that she believed the whole world was in league to keep her husband from her. She found fault with every one—even with the prince himself. Why had he not written? she asked again and again. Why had she never received one courteous word from him? If she heard of merchants or sailors arriving from Spain, she would send for them and question them; and some would tell her that the prince was said to have little heart for his business in England; others terrified her with tales of fearful fights upon the seas; and others brought her news of the French squadrons that were on the watch in the Channel.[328] She would start out of her sleep at night, picturing a thousand terrors, and among them one to which all else were insignificant, that her prince, who had taken such wild possession of her imagination, had no answering feeling for herself—that, with her growing years and wasted figure, she could never win him to love her.[329]
"The unfortunate queen," wrote Henry of France, "will learn the truth at last. She will wake too late, in misery and remorse, to know that she has filled the realm with blood for an object which, when she has gained it, will bring nothing but affliction to herself or to her people."[330]
But the darkest season has its days of sunshine, and Mary's trials were for the present over. If the statesmen were disloyal, the clergy and the Universities appreciated her services to the church, and, in the midst of her trouble, Oxford congratulated her on having been raised up for the restoration of life and light to England.[331] More pleasant than this pleasant flattery was the arrival, on the 19th of June, of the Marquis delas Navas from Spain, with the news that by that time the prince was on his way.
It was even so. Philip had submitted to his unwelcome destiny, and six thousand troops being required pressingly by the emperor in the Low Countries, they attended him for his escort. A paper of advices was drawn for the prince's use by Renard, directing him how to accommodate himself to his barbarous fortune. Neither soldiers nor mariners would be allowed to land. The noblemen, therefore, who formed his retinue, were advised to bring Spanish musketeers, disguised in liveries, in the place of pages and lacqueys; their arms could be concealed amidst the baggage. The war would be an excuse for the noblemen being armed themselves, and the prince, on landing, should have a shirt of mail under his doublet. As to manner, he must endeavour to be affable: he would have to hunt with the young lords, and to make presents to them; and, with whatever difficulty, he must learn a few words of English, to exchange the ordinary salutations. As a friend, Renard recommended Paget to him; he would find Paget "a man of sense."[332]
Philip, who was never remarkable for personal courage, may be pardoned for having come reluctantly to a country where he had to bring men-at-arms for servants, and his own cook for fear of being poisoned. The sea, too, was hateful to him, for he suffered miserably from sickness. Nevertheless, he was coming, and with him such a retinue of gallant gentlemen as the world has rarely seen together. The Marquis de los Valles, Gonzaga, d'Aguilar, Medina Celi, Antonio de Toledo, Diego de Mendoza, the Count de Feria, the Duke of Alva, Count Egmont, and Count Horn—men whose stories are written in the annals of two worlds: some in letters of glorious light, some in letters of blood which shall never be washed out while the history of mankind survives. Whether for evil or good, they were not the meek innocents for whom Renard had at one time asked so anxiously.
In company with these noblemen was Sir Thomas Gresham, charged with half a million of money in bullion, out of the late arrivals from the New World; which the emperor, after taking security from the London merchants, had lent the queen, perhaps to enable her to make her marriage palatable by the restoration of the currency.[333]
Thus preciously freighted, the Spanish fleet, a hundred and fifty ships, large and small, sailed from Corunna at the beginning of July. The voyage was weary and wretched. The sea-sickness prostrated both the prince and the troops, and to the sea-sickness was added the terror of the French—a terror, as it happened, needless, for the English exiles, by whom the prince was to have been intercepted, had, in the last few weeks, melted away from the French service, with the exception of a few who were at Scilly. Sir Peter Carew, for some unknown reason, had written to ask for his pardon, and had gone to Italy;[334] but the change was recent and unknown, and the ships stole along in silence, the orders of the prince being that not a salute should be fired to catch the ear of an enemy.[335] At last, on the 19th of July, the white cliffs of Freshwater were sighted; Lord Howard lay at the Needles with the English fleet; and on Friday, the 20th, at three o'clock in the afternoon, the flotilla was safely anchored in Southampton Water.
The queen was on her way to Winchester, where she arrived the next morning, and either in attendance upon her, or waiting at Southampton, was almost the entire peerage of England. Having made up their minds to endure the marriage, the lords resolved to give Philip the welcome which was due to the husband of their sovereign, and in the uncertain temper of the people, their presence might be necessary to protect his person from insult or from injury.
It was an age of glitter, pomp, and pageantry; the anchors were no sooner down, than a barge was in readiness, with twenty rowers in the queen's colours of green and white; and Arundel, Pembroke, Shrewsbury, Derby, and other lords went off to the vessel which carried the royal standard of Castile. Philip's natural manner was cold and stiff, but he had been schooled into graciousness. Exhausted by his voyage, he accepted delightedly the instant invitation to go on shore, and he entered the barge accompanied by the Duke of Alva. A crowd of gentlemen was waiting to receive him at the landing-place. As he stepped out—not perhaps without some natural nervousness and sharp glances round him—the whole assemblage knelt. A salute was fired from the batteries, and Lord Shrewsbury presented him with the order of the Garter.[336] An enthusiastic eye-witness thus describes Philip's appearance:—
"Of visage he is well favoured, with a broad forehead and grey eyes, straight-nosed and manly countenance. From the forehead to the point of his chin his face groweth small. His pace is princely, and gait so straight and upright as he loseth no inch of his height; with a yellow head and a yellow beard; and thus to conclude, he is so well proportioned of body, arm, leg, and every other limb to the same, as nature cannot work a more perfect pattern, and, as I have learned, of the age of 28 years. His majesty I judge to be of a stout stomach, pregnant-witted, and of most gentle nature."[337]
Sir Anthony Brown approached, leading a horse with a saddlecloth of crimson velvet, embroidered with gold and pearls. He presented the steed, with a Latin speech, signifying that he was his highness's Master of the Horse; and Philip, mounting, went direct to Southampton church, the English and Spanish noblemen attending bareheaded, to offer thanks for his safe arrival. From the church he was conducted to a house which had been furnished from the royal stores for his reception. Everything was, of course, magnificent. Only there had been one single oversight. Wrought upon the damask hangings, in conspicuous letters, were observed the ominous words, "Henry, by the Grace of God, King of England, France, and Ireland, and Supreme Head of the Church of England."[338]
Here the prince was to remain till Monday to recover from his voyage; perhaps to ascertain, before he left the neighbourhood of his own fleet, the humour of the barbarians among whom he had arrived. In Latin (he was unable to speak French) he addressed the lords on the causes which had brought him to England, the chief among those causes being the manifest will of God, to which he felt himself bound to submit. It was noticed that he never lifted his cap in speaking to any one,[339] but he evidently endeavoured to be courteous. With a stomach unrecovered from the sea, and disdaining precautions, he sate down on the night of his arrival to a public English supper; he even drained a tankard of ale, as an example, he said, to his Spanish companions.[340] The first evening passed off well, and he retired to seek such rest as the strange land and strange people, the altered diet, and the firing of guns, which never ceased through the summer night, would allow him.
Another feature of his new country awaited Philip in the morning (July 21); he had come from the sunny plains of Castile; from his window at Southampton he looked out upon a steady downfall of July rain. Through the cruel torrent[341] he made his way to the church again to mass, and afterwards Gardiner came to him from the queen. In the afternoon the sky cleared, and the Duchess of Alva, who had accompanied her husband, was taken out in a barge upon Southampton Water. Both English and Spaniards exerted themselves to be mutually pleasing; but the situation was not of a kind which it was desirable to protract. Six thousand Spanish troops were cooped in the close uneasy transports, forbidden to land lest they should provoke the jealousy of the people; and when, on Sunday (July 22), his highness had to undergo a public dinner, in which English servants only were allowed to attend upon him, the Castilian lords, many of whom believed that they had come to England on a bootless errand, broke out into murmurs.[342]
Monday came at last; the rain fell again, and the wind howled. The baggage was sent forward in the morning in the midst of the tempest. Philip lingered in hopes of a change; but no change came, and after an early dinner the trumpet sounded to horse. Lords, knights, and gentlemen had thronged into the town, from curiosity or interest, out of all the counties round. Before the prince mounted it was reckoned, with uneasiness, that as many as four thousand cavaliers, under no command, were collected to join the procession.
A grey gelding was led up for Philip; he wrapped himself in a scarlet cloak, and started to meet his bride—to complete a sacrifice the least congenial, perhaps, which ever policy of state extracted from a prince.
The train could move but slowly. Two miles beyond the gates a drenched rider, spattered with chalk mud, was seen galloping towards them; on reaching the prince he presented him with a ring from the queen, and begged his highness, in her majesty's name, to come no further. The messenger could not explain the cause, being unable to speak any language which Philip could understand, and visions of commotion instantly presented themselves, mixed, it may be, with a hope that the bitter duty might yet be escaped. Alva was immediately at his master's side; they reined up, and were asking each other anxiously what should next be done, when an English lord exclaimed in French, with courteous irony, "Our queen, sire, loves your highness so tenderly that she would not have you come to her in such wretched weather."[343] The hope, if hope there had been, died in its birth; before sunset, with drenched garments and draggled plume, the object of so many anxieties arrived within the walls of Winchester.
To the cathedral he went first, wet as he was. Whatever Philip of Spain was entering upon, whether it was a marriage or a massacre, a state intrigue or a midnight murder, his opening step was ever to seek a blessing from the holy wafer. He entered, kissed the crucifix, and knelt and prayed before the altar; then taking his seat in the choir, he remained while the choristers sang a Te Deum laudamus, till the long aisles grew dim in the summer twilight, and he was conducted by torch-light to the Deanery.
The queen was at the bishop's palace, but a few hundred yards distant. Philip, doubtless, could have endured the postponement of an interview till morning; but Mary could not wait, and the same night he was conducted into the presence of his haggard bride, who now, after a life of misery, believed herself at the open gate of Paradise. Let the curtain fall over the meeting, let it close also over the wedding solemnities which followed with due splendour two days later. There are scenes in life which we regard with pity too deep for words. The unhappy queen, unloved, unlovable, yet with her parched heart thirsting for affection, was flinging herself upon a breast to which an iceberg was warm; upon a man to whom love was an unmeaning word, except as the most brutal of passions. For a few months she created for herself an atmosphere of unreality. She saw in Philip the ideal of her imagination, and in Philip's feelings the reflex of her own; but the dream passed away—her love for her husband remained; but remained only to be a torture to her. With a broken spirit and bewildered understanding, she turned to Heaven for comfort, and, instead of heaven, she saw only the false roof of her creed painted to imitate and shut out the sky.
The scene will change for a few pages to the Low Countries. Charles V. more than any other person was responsible for this marriage. He had desired it not for Mary's sake, not for Philip's sake, not for religion's sake; but that he might be able to assert a decisive preponderance over France; and, to gain his end, he had already led the queen into a course which had forfeited the regard of her subjects. She had murdered Lady Jane Grey at the instigation of his ambassador, and under the same influence she had done her best to destroy her sister. Yet Charles, notwithstanding, was one of nature's gentlemen. If he was unscrupulous in the sacrifice of others to his purposes, he never spared himself; and in the days of his successes he showed to less advantage than now, when, amidst failing fortunes and ruined health, his stormy career was closing.
In the spring he had been again supposed to be dying. His military reputation had come out tarnished from his failure at Metz, and while he was labouring with imperfect success to collect troops for a summer's campaign, Henry of France, unable to prevent the English marriage, was preparing to strike a blow so heavy, as should enable him to dictate peace on his own terms before England was drawn into the quarrel.
In June two French armies took the field. Pietro Strozzi advanced from Piedmont into Tuscany. Henry himself, with Guise, Montmorency, and half the peerage of France, entered the Low Countries, sweeping all opposition before him. First Marienbourg fell, then Dinant fell, stormed with especial gallantry. The young French nobles were taught that they must conquer or die: a party of them flinched in the breach at Dinant, and the next morning Henry sat in judgment upon them sceptre in hand; some were hanged, the rest degraded from their rank: "and whereas one privilege of the gentlemen of France was to be exempt from taylles payable to the crown, they were made tayllable as any other villains."[344]
From Dinant the French advanced to Namur. When Namur should have fallen, Brussels was the next aim; and there was nothing, as it seemed, which could stop them. The imperial army under the Prince of Savoy could but hover, far outnumbered, on their skirts. The reinforcements from Spain had not arrived, and a battle lost was the loss of Belgium.
In the critical temper of England, a decisive superiority obtained by France would be doubly dangerous; and Charles, seeing Philibert perplexed into uncertain movements which threatened misfortune, disregarding the remonstrances of his physicians, his ministers, and his generals, started from his sick bed, flew to the head of his troops, and brought them to Namur, in the path of the advancing French. Men said that he was rushing upon destruction. The headstrong humour which had already worked him so heavy injury was again dragging him into ruin.[345] But fortune had been disarmed by the greatness with which Charles had borne up against calamity, or else his supposed rashness was the highest military wisdom. Before Henry came up he had seized a position at an angle of the Meuse, where he could defend Namur, and could not be himself attacked, except at a disadvantage. The French approached only to retire, and, feeling themselves unable to force the imperial lines, fell back towards the Boullonnois. Charles followed cautiously. An attack on Renty brought on an action in which the French claimed the victory; but the emperor held his ground, and the town could not be taken; and Henry's army, from which such splendid results had been promised, fell back on the frontier and dispersed. The voices which had exclaimed against the emperor's rashness were now as loud in his praise, and the disasters which he was accused of provoking, it was now found that he only had averted.[346] Neither the French nor the Imperialists, in their long desperate struggle, can claim either approval or sympathy; the sufferings which they inflicted upon mankind were not the less real, the selfishness of their rivalry none the less reprehensible, because the disunion of the Catholic powers permitted the Reformation to establish itself. Yet, in this perplexed world the deeds of men may be without excuse, while, nevertheless, in the men themselves there may be something to love, and something more to admire.(Back to Content)
Mary had restored Catholic orthodoxy, and her passion for Philip had been gratified. To complete her work and her happiness, it remained to bring back her subjects to the bosom of the Catholic Church. Reginald Pole had by this time awoke from some part of his delusions. He had persuaded himself that he had but to appear with a pardon in his hand to be welcomed to his country with acclamation: he had ascertained that the English people were very indifferent to the pardon, and that his own past treasons had created especial objections to himself. Even the queen herself had grown impatient with him. He had fretted her with his importunities; his presence in Flanders had chafed the parliament, and made her marriage more difficult; while he was supposed to share with the English nobles their jealousy of a foreign sovereign. So general was this last impression about him, that his nephew, Lord Stafford's son, who was one of the refugees, went to seek him in the expectation of countenance and sympathy: and, farther, he had been in correspondence with Gardiner, and was believed to be at the bottom of the chancellor's religious indiscretions.[347] Thus his anxiety to be in England found nowhere any answering desire; and Renard, who dreaded his want of wisdom, never missed an opportunity of throwing difficulties in the way. In the spring of 1554 Pole had gone to Paris, where, in an atmosphere of so violent opposition to the marriage, he had not thought it necessary to speak in favour of it. The words which Dr. Wotton heard that he had used were reported to the emperor; and, at last, Renard went so far as to suggest that the scheme of sending him to England had been set on foot at Rome by the French party in the Consistory, with a view of provoking insurrection and thwarting the Imperial policy.[348]
The emperor, taught by his old experiences of Pole, acquiesced in the views of his ambassador. If England was to be brought back to its allegiance, the negotiation would require a delicacy of handling for which the present legate was wholly unfit; and Charles wrote at last to the pope to suggest that the commission should be transferred to a more competent person. Impatient language had been heard of late from the legate's lips, contrasting the vexations of the world with the charms of devotional retirement. To soften the harshness of the blow, the emperor said that he understood Pole was himself weary of his office, and wished to escape into privacy.
The respect of Julius for the legate's understanding was not much larger than the emperor's; but he would not pronounce the recall without giving him an opportunity of explaining himself. Cardinal Morone wrote to him to inquire whether it was true that he had thought of retirement; he informed him of the emperor's complaints; and, to place his resignation in the easiest light (while pointing, perhaps, to the propriety of his offering it), he hinted at Pole's personal unpopularity, and at the danger to which he would be exposed by going to England.
But the legate could not relinquish the passionate desire of his life; while, as to the marriage, he was, after all, unjustly suspected. He requested Morone, in reply, to assure the pope that, much as he loved retirement, he loved duty more. He appealed to the devotion of his life to the church as an evidence of his zeal and sincerity; and, although he knew, he said, that God could direct events at his will and dispense with the service of men, yet, so long as he had strength to be of use, he would spend it in his Master's cause. In going to England he was venturing upon a stormy sea; he knew it well;[349] but, whatever befell him, his life was in God's hands.
A fortnight after (May 25), he wrote again, replying more elaborately to the emperor's charges. It was true, he admitted, that in his letters to the queen he had dwelt more upon her religious duties than upon her marriage: it was true that he had been backward in his demonstrations of pleasure, because he was a person of few words. But, so far from disapproving of that marriage, he looked upon it as the distinct work of God; and when his nephew had come with complaints to him, he had forbidden him his presence. He had spoken of the rule of a stranger in England as likely to be a lesson to the people; but he had meant only that, as their disasters had befallen them through their own king Henry, their deliverance would be wrought for them by one who was not their own. When the late parliament had broken up without consenting to the restoration of union, he had consoled the queen with assuring her that he saw in it the hand of Providence; the breach of a marriage between an English king and a Spanish princess had caused the wound which a renewed marriage of a Spanish king and an English queen was to heal.[350]
The defence was elaborate, and, on the whole, may have been tolerably true. The pope would not take the trouble to read it, or even to hear it read;[351] but the substance, as related to him by Morone, convinced him that the emperor's accusations were exaggerated: to recall a legate at the instance of a secular sovereign was an undesirable precedent;[352] and the commission was allowed to stand. Julius wrote to Charles, assuring him that he was mistaken in the legate's feelings, leaving the emperor at the same time, however, full power to keep him in Flanders or to send him to England at his own discretion.
Pole was to continue the instrument of the reconciliation; the conditions under which the reconciliation could take place were less easy to settle. The popes, whose powers are unlimited where the exercise of them is convenient for the interests of the Holy See, have uniformly fallen back upon their inability where they have been called on to make sacrifices. The canons of the church forbade, under any pretext, the alienation of ecclesiastical property; and until Julius could relinquish ex animo all intention of disturbing the lay holders of the English abbey lands, there was not a chance that the question of his supremacy would be so much as entertained by either Lords or Commons.
The vague powers originally granted to the legate were not satisfactory; and Pole himself, who was too sincere a believer in the Roman doctrines to endure that worldly objections should stand in the way of the salvation of souls, wrote himself to the Holy See, entreating that his commission might be enlarged. The pope in appearance consented. In a second brief, dated June 28th, he extended the legate's dispensing powers to real property as well as personal, and granted him general permission to determine any unforeseen difficulties which might arise.[353] Ormaneto, a confidential agent, carried the despatch to Flanders, and on Ormaneto's arrival, the legate, believing that his embarrassments were at last at an end, sent him on to the Bishop of Arras, to entreat that the perishing souls of the English people might now be remembered. The pope had given way; the queen was happily married, and the reasons for his detention were at an end.[354]
Both Arras and the emperor, however, thought more of Philip's security than of perishing souls. Arras, who understood the ways of the Vatican better than the legate, desired that, before any steps were taken, he might be favoured with a copy of these enlarged powers. He wished to know whether the question of the property was fairly relinquished to the secular powers in England, and whether the church had finally washed its hands of it;[355] at all events, he must examine the brief. On inspection, the new commission was found to contain an enabling clause indeed, as extensive as words could make it; but the See of Rome reserved to itself the right of sanctioning the settlement after it had been made;[356] and the reservation had been purposely made, in order to leave the pope free to act as he might please at a future time. Morone, writing to Pole a fortnight after the date of the brief, told him that his holiness was still unable to come to a resolution;[357] while Ormaneto said openly to Arras, that, although the pope would be as moderate as possible, yet his moderation must not be carried so far as to encourage the rest of Christendom in an evil example. Catholics must not be allowed to believe that they could appropriate church property without offence, nor must the Holy See appear to be purchasing by concessions the submission of its rebellious subjects.[358]
This language was not even ambiguous; Pole was desired to wait till an answer could be received from England; and the emperor wrote to Renard (August 3), desiring him to lay the circumstances before the queen and his son. He could believe, he said, that the legate himself meant well, but he had not the same confidence in those who were urging him forward, and the pope had given no authority for haste or precipitate movements.[359]
The emperor's letter was laid before a council of state at Windsor, on the 6th of August; and the council agreed with Charles that the legate's anxieties could not for the present be gratified. He was himself attainted, and parliament had shown no anxiety that the attainder should be removed. The reimposition of the pope's authority was a far more ticklish matter than the restoration of orthodoxy,[360] and the temper of the people was uncertain. The cardinal had, perhaps, intelligence with persons in England of a suspicious and dangerous kind, and the execution of his commission must depend on the pleasure of the next parliament. He was not to suppose that he might introduce changes in the constitution of the country by the authority of a papal commission, or try experiments which might put in peril the sacred person of the prince.[361]
Once more the cup of hope was dashed to the ground, and Reginald Pole was sent back to his monastery at Dhilinghen like a child unfit to be trusted with a dangerous plaything. In times of trial his pen was his refuge, and in an appeal to Philip he poured out his characteristic protest.
"For a whole year," he wrote, "I have been now knocking at the door of that kingdom, and no person will answer, no person will ask, Who is there? It is one who has endured twenty years of exile that the partner of your throne should not be excluded from her rights, and I come in the name of the vicar of the King of kings, the Shepherd of mankind. Peter knocks at your door; Peter himself. The door is open to all besides. Why is it closed to Peter? Why does not that nation make haste now to do Peter reverence? Why does it leave him escaped from Herod's prison, knocking?
"Strange, too, that this is the house of Mary. Can it be Mary that is so slow to open? True, indeed, it is, that when Mary's damsel heard the voice she opened not the door for joy; she ran and told Mary. But Mary came with those that were with her in the house; and though at first she doubted, yet, when Peter continued knocking, she opened the door; she took him in, she regarded not the danger, although Herod was yet alive and was king.
"Is it joy which now withholds Mary, or is it fear? She rejoices, that I know, but she also fears. Yet why should Mary fear now when Herod is dead? The providence of God permitted her to fear for awhile, because God desired that you, sire, who are Peter's beloved child, should share the great work with her. Do you, therefore, teach her now to cast her fears away. It is not I only who stand here—it is not only Peter—Christ is here—Christ waits with me till you will open and take him in. You who are King of England, are defender of Christ's faith; yet, while you have the ambassadors of all other princes at your court, you will not have Christ's ambassador; you have rejected your Christ.
"Go on upon your way. Build on the foundation of worldly policy, and I tell you, in Christ's words, that the rain will fall, the floods will rise, the winds will blow, and beat upon that house, and it will fall, and great will be the fall thereof."[362]
The pleading was powerful, yet it could bear no fruits—the door could not open till the pope pronounced the magic words which held it closed. Neither Philip nor Mary was in a position to use violence or force the bars.
After the ceremony at Winchester, the king and queen had gone first to Windsor, and thence the second week in August they went to Richmond. The entry into London was fixed for the 18th; after which, should it pass off without disturbance, the Spanish fleet might sail from Southampton Water. The prince himself had as yet met with no discourtesy; but disputes had broken out early between the English and Spanish retinues, and petty taunts and insolences had passed among them.[363] The prince's luggage was plundered, and the property stolen could not be recovered nor the thieves detected. The servants of Alva and the other lords, who preceded their masters to London, were insulted in the streets, and women and children called after them that they need not have brought so many things, they would be soon gone again. The citizens refused to give them lodgings in their houses, and the friars who had accompanied Philip were advised to disguise themselves, so intense was the hatred against the religious orders.[364] The council soon provided for their ordinary comforts, but increase of acquaintance produced no improvement of feeling.
The entry passed off tolerably. Gog and Magog stood as warders on London Bridge, and there were the usual pageants in the city. Renard conceived that the impression produced by Philip had been rather favourable than otherwise; for the people had been taught to expect some monster but partially human, and they saw instead a well-dressed cavalier, who had learnt by this time to carry his hand to his bonnet. Yet, although there were no open signs of ill-feeling, the day did not end without a disagreeable incident. The conduit in Gracechurch Street had been newly decorated: "the nine Worthies" had been painted round the winding turret, and among them were Henry VIII. and Edward. The first seven carried maces, swords, or pole-axes. Henry held in one hand a sceptre, in the other he was presenting a book to his son, on which was written Verbum Dei. As the train went by, the unwelcome figure caught the eye of Gardiner. The painter was summoned, called "knave, traitor, heretic," an enemy to the queen's Catholic proceedings. The offensive Bible was washed out, and a pair of gloves inserted in its place.[365]
Nor did the irritation of the people abate. The Spaniards, being without special occupation, were seen much in the streets; and a vague fear so magnified their numbers that four of them, it was thought, were to be met in London for one Englishman.[366] The halls of the city companies were given up for their use; a fresh provocation to people who desired to be provoked. A Spanish friar was lodged at Lambeth, and it was said at once he was to be Archbishop of Canterbury; at the beginning of September twelve thousand Spanish troops were reported to be coming to "fetch the crown." Rumour and reality inflated each other. The peers, who had collected for the marriage, dispersed to their counties; and on the 10th of September, Pembroke, Shrewsbury, and Westmoreland were believed to have raised a standard of revolt at York. Frays were continually breaking out in the streets, and there was a scandalous brawl in the cloisters at Westminster. Brief entries in diaries and council books tell continually of Englishmen killed, and Spaniards hanged, hanged at Tyburn, or hanged more conspicuously at Charing Cross; and on the 12th, Noailles reported that the feeling in all classes, high and low, was as bad as possible.
There was dread, too, that Philip was bent on drawing England into the war. The French ambassador had been invited to be present at the entry into London; but the invitation had been sent informally by a common messenger not more than half an hour before the royal party were to appear. The brief notice was intended as an affront, and only after some days Noailles appeared at court to offer his congratulations. When he came at last, he expressed his master's hope to Philip that the neutrality of England would continue to be observed. Philip answered with cold significance, that he would keep his promise and maintain the treaties, as long as by doing so he should consult the interest of the realm.[367]
Other menacing symptoms were also showing themselves: the claim for the pensions was spoken of as likely to be revived; the English ships in the Channel were making the neutrality one-sided, and protecting the Spanish and Flemish traders; and Philip, already weary of his bride, was urging on Renard the propriety of his hastening, like an obedient son, to the assistance of his father. Under pretence of escort he could take with him a few thousand English cavalry and men-at-arms, who could be used as a menace to France, and whose presence would show the attitude which England was about to assume. Sick, in these brief weeks, of maintaining the show of an affection which he did not feel, and sick of a country where his friends were insulted if he was treated respectfully himself, he was already panting for freedom, and eager to utilise the instruments which he had bought so dearly.[368]
Happily for the queen's peace of mind, Renard was not a man to encourage impatience. The factions in the council were again showing themselves; Elizabeth lay undisposed of at Woodstock. Pomfret, Belgium, even Hungary, had been thought of as a destination for her, and had been laid aside one after the other, in dread of the people. If she was released, she would again be dangerous, and it was uncertain how long Lord Howard would endure her detention. A plan suggested by Lord Paget seemed, after all, to promise the best—to marry her to Philibert of Savoy, and thus make use of her as a second link to connect England with the House of Austria. But here the difficulty would be with the queen, who in that case would have to recognise her sister's rank and expectations.
The question should be settled before Philip left England, and he must have faced parliament too, and, if possible, have been crowned. If he went now, he would never come back; let him court the people advised the keen Renard; let him play off the people against the lords; there was ill blood between the rich and poor, let him use the opportunity.
The state of public feeling did not improve when, at the end of September, Bonner commenced an inquisition into the conduct and opinions of the clergy of his diocese. In every parish he appointed a person or persons to examine whether the minister was or ever had been married; whether, if married and separated from his wife, he continued in secret to visit her; whether his sermons were orthodox; whether he was a "brawler, scolder, hawker, hunter, fornicator, adulterer, drunkard, or blasphemer;" whether he duly exhorted his parishioners to come to mass and confession; whether he associated with heretics, or had been suspected of associating with them; his mind, his habits, his society, even the dress that he wore, were to be made matter of close scrutiny.
The points of inquiry were published in a series of articles which created an instantaneous ferment. Among the merchants they were attributed to the king, queen, and Gardiner, and were held to be the first step of a conspiracy against their liberties. A report was spread at the same time that the king meditated a seizure of the Tower; barriers were forthwith erected in the great thoroughfares leading into the city, and no one was allowed to pass unchallenged.[369]
The Bishop of London was called to account for having ventured so rash a step without permission of crown or council. He replied that he was but doing his duty; the council, had he communicated with them, would have interfered with him, and in the execution of his office he must be governed by his own conscience.[370] But the attitude of the city was too decided even for the stubborn Bonner, he gave way sullenly, and suspended the execution of his order.
Worse clouds than these nevertheless had many times gathered over the court and dispersed again. It was easy to be discontented; but when the discontent would pass into action, there was nothing definite to be done; and between the leading statesmen there were such large differences of opinion, that they could not co-operate.[371] The court, as Renard saw, could accomplish everything which they desired with caution and prudence. The humours of the people might flame out on a sudden if too hastily irritated, but the opposite tendencies of parties effectually balanced each other; and even the papal difficulty might be managed, and Pole might in time be brought over, if only there was no precipitation, and the pope was compelled to be reasonable.
But prudence was the first and last essential; the legate must be content to wait, and also Philip must wait. The winter was coming on, and the court, Renard said, was giving balls; the English and Spanish noblemen were learning to talk with one another, and were beginning to dance with each other's wives and daughters. The ill-feeling was gradually abating; and, in fact, it was not to be believed that God Almighty would have brought about so considerable a marriage without intending that good should come of it.[372] The queen believed herself enceinte, and if her hopes were well founded, a thousand causes of restlessness would be disposed of; but Philip must not be permitted to harass her with his impatience to be gone. She had gathered something of his intentions, and was already pretending more uncertainty than in her heart she felt, lest he should make the assurance of her prospects an excuse for leaving her. In a remarkable passage, Renard urged the emperor on no account to encourage him in a step so eminently injudicious, from a problematic hope of embroiling England and France. "Let parliament meet," he said, "and pass off quietly, and in February his highness may safely go. Irreparable injury may and will follow, however, should he leave England before. Religion will be overthrown, the queen's person will be in danger, and parliament will not meet. A door will be opened for the practices of France; the country may throw itself in self-protection on the French alliance, and an undying hatred will be engendered between England and Spain. As things now are, prudence and moderation are more than ever necessary; and we must allow neither the king nor the queen to be led astray by unwise impatient advisers, who, for the advancement of their private opinions, or because they cannot have all the liberty which they desire, are ready to compromise the commonwealth."[373]
So matters stood at the beginning of October, when parliament was about to be summoned, and the great experiment to be tried whether England would consent to be re-united to Catholic Christendom. The writs went out on the 6th, and circulars accompanied them, addressed to those who would have the conduct of the elections, stating that, whatever false reports might have been spread, no "alteration was intended of any man's possessions." At the same time the queen required the mayors of towns, the sheriffs, and other influential persons to admonish the voters to choose from among themselves "such as, being eligible by order of the laws, were of a wise, grave, and Catholic sort; such as indeed meant the true honour of God and the prosperity of the commonwealth."[374]These general directions were copied from a form which had been in use under Henry VII., and the citizens of London set the example of obedience in electing four members who were in every way satisfactory to the court.[375] In the country the decisive failure of Carew, Suffolk, and Crofts showed that the weight of public feeling was still in favour of the queen notwithstanding the Spanish marriage; and the reaction against the excesses of the Reformation had not yet reached its limits. On the accession of Mary, the restoration of the mass had appeared impossible, but it had been effected safely and completely almost by the spontaneous will of the people. In the spring the pope's name could not be mentioned in parliament; now, since the queen was bent upon it, and as she gave her word that property was not to be meddled with, even the pope seemed no longer absolutely intolerable.
The reports of the elections were everywhere favourable. In the Upper House, except on very critical points, which would unite the small body of the lay peers, the court was certain of a majority, being supported of course by the bishops—and the question of Pole's coming over, therefore, was once more seriously considered. The pope had been given to understand that, however inconsistent with his dignity he might consider it to appear to purchase English submission by setting aside the canons of the church, he must consent to the English terms, or there was no hope whatever that his supremacy would be recognised. If in accepting these terms he would agree to a humiliating reconciliation, only those who objected on doctrinal grounds to the papal religion were inclined to persist in refusing a return of his friendship. The dream of an independent orthodox Anglicanism which had once found favour with Gardiner was fading away. The indifferent and the orthodox alike desired to put an end to spiritual anarchy; and the excommunication, though lying lightly on the people, and despised even by the Catholic powers, had furnished, and might furnish, a pretext for inconvenient combinations. Singularity of position, where there was no especial cause for it, was always to be avoided.
These influences would have been insufficient to have brought the English of themselves to seek for a reunion. They were enough to induce them to accept it with indifference when offered them on their own conditions, or to affect for a time an outward appearance of acquiescence.
Philip, therefore, consulted Renard, and Charles invited Pole to Brussels. Renard, to whom politics were all-important, and religion useful in its place, but inconvenient when pushed into prominence, adhered to his old opinion. He advised the "king to write privately to the pope, telling him that he had already so many embarrassments on his hands that he could not afford to increase them;" "the changes already made were insincere, and the legatine authority was odious, not only in England, but throughout Europe;" "the queen, on her accession, had promised a general toleration,[376] and it was useless to provoke irritation, when not absolutely necessary." Yet even Renard spoke less positively than before. "If the pope would make no more reservations on the land question—if he would volunteer a general absolution, and submit to conditions, while he exacted none—if he would sanction every ecclesiastical act which had been done during the schism, the marriages and baptisms, the ordinations of the clergy, and the new creations of episcopal sees—above all, if he would make no demand for money under any pretence, the venture might, perhaps, be made." But, continued Renard, "his holiness, even then, must be cautious in his words; he must dwell as lightly as possible on his authority, as lightly as possible on his claims to be obeyed: in offering absolution, he must talk merely of piety and love, of the open arms of the church, of the example of the Saviour, and such other generalities."[377] Finally, Renard still thought the legate had better remain abroad. The reconciliation, if it could be effected at all, could be managed better without his irritating presence.
Pole himself had found the emperor more gracious. Charles professed the greatest anxiety that the papal authority should be restored. He doubted only if the difficulties could be surmounted. Pole replied that the obstacles were chiefly two—one respecting doctrine, on which no concession could be made at all; the other respecting the lands, on which his holiness would make every concession. He would ask for nothing, he would exact nothing; he would abandon every shadow of a claim.
If this was the case, the emperor said, all would go well. Nevertheless, there was the reservation in the brief, and the pope, however generous he might wish to be, was uncertain of his power. The doctrine was of no consequence. People in England believed one doctrine as little as another;[378] but they hated Rome, they hated the religious orders, they hated cardinals; and, as to the lands, could the church relinquish them?[379] Pole might believe that she could; but the world would be more suspicious, or less easy to convince. At all events, the dispensing powers must be clogged with no reservations; nor could he come to any decision till he heard again from England.
The legate was almost hopeless; yet his time of triumph—such triumph as it was—had nearly arrived. The queen's supposed pregnancy had increased her influence; and, constant herself in the midst of general indecision, she was able to carry her point. She would not mortify the legate, who had suffered for his constancy to the cause of her mother, with listening to Renard's personal objections; and when the character of the approaching House of Commons had been ascertained, she gained the consent of the council, a week before the beginning of the session, to send commissioners to Brussels to see Pole and inspect his faculties. With a conclusive understanding on the central question, they might tell him that the hope of his life might be realised, and that he might return to his country. But the conditions were explicit. He must bring adequate powers with him, or his coming would be worse than fruitless. If those which he already possessed were insufficient, he must send them to Rome to be enlarged;[380] and although the court would receive him as legate de latere, he had better enter the country only as a cardinal and ambassador, till he could judge of the state of things for himself.[381] On these terms the commissioners might conduct him to the queen's presence.
The bearers of this communication were Lord Paget and Sir Edward Hastings, accompanied, it is curious to observe, by Sir William Cecil.[382]
They presented themselves to the emperor, who, after the report which they brought with them, made no more difficulty. The enlarged powers had been sent for three weeks before; but there was no occasion to wait for their arrival. They might be expected in ten days or a fortnight, and could follow the legate to England.[383]
The effect on Pole of the commissioners' arrival "there needed not," as they said themselves, "many words to declare."[384] His eager temperament, for ever excited either with wild hopes or equally wild despondency, was now about to be fooled to the top of its bent. On the pope's behalf, he promised everything; for himself, he would come as ambassador, he would come as a private person, come in any fashion that might do good, so only that he might come.
Little time was lost in preparation. Parliament met on the 12th of November. The opening speech was read, as usual, by Gardiner, and was well received, although it announced that further measures would be taken for the establishment of religion, and the meaning of these words was known to every one. The first measure brought forward was the repeal of Pole's attainder. It passed easily without a dissentient voice, and no obstacle of any kind remained to delay his appearance. Only the cautious Renard suggested that Courtenay should be sent out of the country as soon as possible, for fear the legate should take a fancy to him; and the Prince of Savoy had been invited over to see whether anything could be done towards arranging the marriage with Elizabeth. Elizabeth, indeed, had protested that she had no intention of marrying; nevertheless, Renard said, she would be disposed of, as the emperor had advised,[385] could the queen be induced to consent.
England was ready therefore, and the happy legate set out from Brussels like a lover flying to his mistress. His emotions are reflected in the journal of an Italian friend who attended him. The journey commenced on Tuesday, the 13th; the retinues of Paget and Hastings, with the cardinal's household, making in all a hundred and twenty horse. The route was by Ghent, Bruges, and Dunkirk. On the 19th the party reached Gravelines, where, on the stream which formed the boundary of the Pale, they were received in state by Lord Wentworth, the Governor of Calais. In the eyes of his enthusiastic admirers the apostle of the church moved in an atmosphere of marvel. The Calais bells, which rang as they entered the town, were of preternatural sweetness. The salutes fired by the ships in the harbour were "wonderful." The cardinal's lodging was a palace, and as an august omen, the watchword of the garrison for the night was "God long lost is found."[386] The morning brought a miracle. A westerly gale had blown for many days. All night long it had howled through the narrow streets; the waves had lashed against the piers, and the fishermen foretold a week of storms. At daybreak the wind went down, the clouds broke, a light air from the eastward levelled the sea, and filled the sails of the vessel which was to bear them to England. At noon the party went on board, and their passage was a fresh surprise. They crossed in three hours and a half, and the distance, as it pictured itself to imagination, was forty miles.[387] At Dover the legate slept. The next day Lord Montague came with the Bishop of Ely, bringing letters of congratulation from the queen and Philip, and an intimation that he was anxiously looked for. He was again on horseback after breakfast; and as the news of his arrival spread, respect or curiosity rapidly swelled his train. The Earl of Huntingdon, who had married his sister, sent his son Lord Hastings, with his tenants and servants, as an escort. But there was no danger. Whatever might be the feelings of the people towards the papal legate, they gave to Reginald Pole the welcome due to an English nobleman.
The November evening had closed in when the cavalcade entered Canterbury. The streets were thronged, and the legate made his way through the crowd, amidst the cries of "God save your grace." At the door of the house—probably the archbishop's palace—where he was to pass the night, Harpsfeld, the archdeacon, was standing to receive him, with a number of the clergy; and with the glare of torches lighting up the scene, Harpsfeld commenced an oration as the legate alighted, so beautiful, so affecting, says Pole's Italian friend, that all the hearers were moved to tears. The archdeacon spoke of the mercies of God, and the marvellous workings of his providence. He dwelt upon the history of the cardinal, whom God had preserved through a thousand dangers for the salvation of his country; and, firing up at last in a blaze of enthusiasm, he exclaimed, "Thou art Pole, and thou art our Polar star, to light us to the kingdom of the heavens. Sky, rivers, earth, these disfigured walls—all things—long for thee. While thou wert absent from us all things were sad, all things were in the power of the adversary. At thy coming all things are smiling, all glad, all tranquil."[388] The legate listened so far, and then checked the flood of the adoring eloquence. "I heard you with pleasure," he said, "while you were praising God. My own praises I do not desire to hear. Give the glory to Him."
From Canterbury, Richard Pate, who, as titular Bishop of Worcester, had sat at the council of Trent, was sent forward to the queen with an answer to her letter, and a request for further directions. The legate himself went on leisurely to Rochester, where he was entertained by Lord Cobham, at Cowling Castle. So far he had observed the instructions brought to him by Paget, and had travelled as an ordinary ecclesiastic, without distinctive splendour. On the night of the 23rd, however, Pate returned from the court with a message that the legatine insignia might be displayed. A fleet of barges was in waiting at Gravesend, where Pole appeared early on the 24th; and, as a further augury of good fortune, he found there Lord Shrewsbury, with his early friend the Bishop of Durham, who had come to meet him with the repeal of his attainder, to which the queen had given her assent in parliament the day before.
To the fluttered hearts of the priestly company the coincidence of the repeal, the informality of an act of parliament receiving the royal assent before the close of a session, were further causes of admiration. They embarked; and the Italians, who had never seen a tidal river, discovered, miracle of miracles, that they were ascending from the sea, and yet the stream was with them. The distance to London was soon accomplished. They passed under the bridge at one o'clock on the top of the tide, the legate's barge distinguished splendidly by the silver cross upon the bow. In a few minutes more they were at the palace-stairs at Whitehall, where a pier was built on arches out into the river, and on the pier stood the Bishop of Winchester, with the lords of the council.
The king and queen were at dinner, the arrival not being expected till the afternoon. Philip rose instantly from the table, hurried out, and caught the legate in his arms. The queen followed to the head of the grand staircase; and when Pole reached her, she threw herself on his breast, and kissed him, crying that his coming gave her as much joy as the possession of her kingdom. The cardinal, in corresponding ecstasy, exclaimed, in the words of the angel to the Virgin, "Ave Maria gratia plena, Dominus tecum, benedicta tu in mulieribus."[389] The first rapturous moments over, the king, queen, and legate proceeded along the gallery, Philip and Pole supporting Mary on either side, and the legate expatiating on the mysteries of Providence.
"High thanks, indeed," he exclaimed, "your majesty owes to the favour of the Almighty, seeing that, while he permits you to bring your godly desires to perfection, he has united at this moment in your favour the two mightiest powers upon earth—the majesty of the emperor represented in the king your husband, and the pope's holiness represented in myself." The queen, as she walked, replied "in words of sweet humility," pouring out gentle excuses for past delays. The legate, still speaking with ecstatic metaphor, answered that it was the will of God; God waited till the time was mature, till he could say to her highness, "Blessed be the fruit of thy womb."[390]
In the saloon they remained standing together for another quarter of an hour. When the cardinal took his leave for the day, the king; in spite of remonstrance, re-attended him to the gate. Alva and the Bishop of Winchester were in waiting to conduct him to Lambeth Palace, which had been assigned him for a residence. The See of Canterbury was to follow as soon as Cranmer could be despatched.