Turning, in conclusion, to Cranmer himself, Cole then "comforted and encouraged him to take his death well by many places in Scripture; bidding him nothing mistrust but that he should incontinently receive that the thief did, to whom Christ said, To-day shalt thou be with me in Paradise. Out of Paul he armed him against the terrors of fire, by the words, The Lord is faithful, and will not suffer you to be tempted beyond that which you are able to bear; by the example of the three Children, to whom God made the flame seem like a pleasant joy; by the rejoicing of St. Andrew on his cross; by the patience of St. Lawrence on the fire." He dwelt upon his conversion, which, he said, was the special work of God, because so many efforts had been made by men to work upon him, and had been made in vain. God, in his own time, had reclaimed him, and brought him home.
A dirge, the preacher said, should be sung for him in every church in Oxford; he charged all the priests to say each a mass for the repose of his soul; and finally, he desired the congregation present to kneel where they were, and pray for him.
The whole crowd fell on their knees, the archbishop with them; and "I think," says the eye-witness,[545] "that there was never such a number so earnestly praying together; for they that hated him before, now loved him for his conversion, and hopes of continuance: they that loved him before could not suddenly hate him, having hope of his confession; so love and hope increased devotion on every side."
"I shall not need," says the same writer, "to describe his behaviour for the time of sermon, his sorrowful countenance, his heavy cheer, his face bedewed with tears; sometimes lifting his eyes to heaven in hope, sometimes casting them down to the earth for shame—to be brief, an image of sorrow, the dolour of his heart bursting out of his eyes, retaining ever a quiet and grave behaviour, which increased the pity in men's hearts."
His own turn to speak was now come. When the prayer was finished, the preacher said, "Lest any man should doubt the sincerity of this man's repentance, you shall hear him speak before you. I pray you, Master Cranmer," he added, turning to him, "that you will now perform that you promised not long ago; that you would openly express the true and undoubted profession of your faith."
"I will do it," the archbishop answered.
"Good Christian people," he began, "my dear, beloved brethren and sisters in Christ, I beseech you most heartily to pray for me to Almighty God, that he will forgive me all my sins and offences, which be many and without number, and great above measure; one thing grieveth my conscience more than all the rest, whereof, God willing, I shall speak more; but how many or how great soever they be, I beseech you to pray God of his mercy to pardon and forgive them all."
Falling again on his knees:—
"O Father of heaven," he prayed, "O Son of God, Redeemer of the world, O Holy Ghost, three Persons and one God, have mercy upon me, most wretched caitiff and miserable sinner. I have offended both heaven and earth more than my tongue can express; whither then may I go, or whither should I flee for succour? To heaven I am ashamed to lift up mine eyes, and in earth I find no succour nor refuge. What shall I do? Shall I despair? God forbid! Oh, good God, thou art merciful, and refusest none that come to thee for succour. To thee, therefore, do I come; to thee do I humble myself, saying, O Lord, my sins be great, yet have mercy on me for thy great mercy. The mystery was not wrought that God became man, for few or little offences. Thou didst not give thy Son, O Father, for small sins only, but for all and the greatest in the world, so that the sinner return to thee with a penitent heart, as I do at this present. Wherefore have mercy upon me, O Lord, whose property is always to have mercy; although my sins be great, yet is thy mercy greater; wherefore have mercy upon me, O Lord, for thy great mercy. I crave nothing, O Lord, for mine own merits, but for thy Name's sake, and, therefore, O Father of heaven, hallowed be thy Name."
Then rising, he went on with his address:—
"Every man desireth, good people, at the time of his death, to give some good exhortation that others may remember after his death, and be the better thereby; for one word spoken of a man at his last end[546] will be more remembered than the sermons made of them that live and remain. So I beseech God grant me grace, that I may speak something at my departing whereby God may be glorified and you edified.
"But it is an heavy case to see that many folks be so doted upon the love of this false world, and be so careful for it, that of the love of God or the world to come, they seem to care very little or nothing; therefore this shall be my first exhortation—that you set not over-much by this glozing world, but upon God and the world to come; and learn what this lesson meaneth which St. John teacheth, that the love of the world is hatred against God.
"The second exhortation is, that next unto God, you obey your king and queen willingly, without murmur or grudging, not for fear of them only, but much more for the fear of God, knowing that they be God's ministers, appointed of God to rule and govern you, and therefore whosoever resisteth them resisteth God's ordinance.
"The third exhortation is, that you live all together like brethren and sisters: but, alas! pity it is to see what contention and hatred one man hath against another, not taking each other for brethren and sisters, but rather as strangers and mortal enemies. But I pray you learn and bear well away the lesson, to do good to all men as much as in you lieth, and hurt no man no more than you would hurt your own natural brother or sister. For this you may be sure, that whosoever hateth his brother or sister, and goeth about maliciously to hinder or hurt him, surely, and without all doubt, God is not with that man, although he think himself never so much in God's favour.
"The fourth exhortation shall be to them that have great substance and riches of this world, that they may well consider and weigh these three sayings of the Scriptures. One is of our Saviour Christ himself, who saith that it is a hard thing for a rich man to come to heaven; a sore saying, and spoken of Him that knoweth the truth. The second is of St. John, whose saying is this: He that hath the substance of this world, and seeth his brother in necessity, and shutteth up his compassion and mercy from him, how can he say he loveth God? The third is of St. James, who speaketh to the covetous and rich men after this manner: Weep and howl for the misery which shall come upon you; your riches doth rot, your clothes be moth-eaten, your gold and silver is cankered and rusty, and the rust thereof shall bear witness against you, and consume you like fire; you gather and hoard up treasure of God's indignation against the last day. I tell them which be rich, ponder these sentences; for if ever they had occasion to show their charity, they have it now at this present; the poor people being so many, and victuals so dear; for although I have been long in prison, yet have I heard of the great penury of the poor."
The people listened breathless, "intending upon the conclusion."
"And now," he went on, "forasmuch as I am come to the last end of my life, whereupon hangeth all my life past and all my life to come, either to live with my Saviour Christ in joy, or else to be ever in pain with wicked devils in hell; and I see before mine eyes presently either heaven"—and he pointed upwards with his hand—"or hell," and he pointed downwards, "ready to swallow me. I shall therefore declare unto you my very faith, without colour or dissimulation; for now it is no time to dissemble. I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth; in every article of the Catholic faith; every word and sentence taught by our Saviour Christ, his apostles, and prophets, in the Old and New Testament.
"And now I come to the great thing that troubleth my conscience more than any other thing that ever I said or did in my life, and that is the setting abroad of writings contrary to the truth, which here I now renounce and refuse,[547] as things written with my hand contrary to the truth which I thought in my heart, and written for fear of death to save my life, if it might be; and that is, all such bills and papers as I have written and signed with my hand since my degradation, wherein I have written many things untrue; and forasmuch as my hand offended in writing contrary to my heart, my hand therefore shall first be punished; for if I may come to the fire, it shall be the first burnt. As for the pope, I utterly refuse him, as Christ's enemy and Anti-Christ, with all his false doctrine; and as for the sacrament, I believe as I have taught in my book against the Bishop of Winchester."
So far the archbishop was allowed to continue, before his astonished hearers could collect themselves. "Play the Christian man," Lord Williams at length was able to call; "remember yourself; do not dissemble." "Alas! my lord," the archbishop answered, "I have been a man that all my life loved plainness, and never dissembled till now, which I am most sorry for." He would have gone on; but cries now rose on all sides, "Pull him down," "Stop his mouth," "Away with him," and he was borne off by the throng out of the church. The stake was a quarter of a mile distant, at the spot already consecrated by the deaths of Ridley and Latimer. Priest and monks "who did rue[548] to see him go so wickedly to his death, ran after him, exhorting him, while time was, to remember himself." But Cranmer, having flung down the burden of his shame, had recovered his strength, and such words had no longer power to trouble him. He approached the stake with "a cheerful countenance," undressed in haste, and stood upright in his shirt. Soto and another Spanish friar continued expostulating; but finding they could effect nothing, one said in Latin to the other, "Let us go from him, for the devil is within him." An Oxford theologian—his name was Ely—being more clamorous, drew from him only the answer that, as touching his recantation, "he repented him right sore, because he knew that it was against the truth."
"Make short, make short!" Lord Williams cried, hastily.
The archbishop shook hands with his friends; Ely only drew back, calling, "Recant, recant," and bidding others not approach him.
"This was the hand that wrote it," Cranmer said, extending his right arm; "this was the hand that wrote it, therefore it shall suffer first punishment." Before his body was touched, he held the offending member steadily in the flame, "and never stirred nor cried." The wood was dry and mercifully laid; the fire was rapid at its work, and he was soon dead. "His friends," said a Catholic bystander, "sorrowed for love, his enemies for pity, strangers for a common kind of humanity, whereby we are bound to one another."
So perished Cranmer. He was brought out, with the eyes of his soul blinded, to make sport for his enemies, and in his death he brought upon them a wider destruction than he had effected by his teaching while alive. Pole was appointed the next day to the See of Canterbury; but in other respects the court had overreached themselves by their cruelty. Had they been contented to accept the recantation, they would have left the archbishop to die broken-hearted, pointed at by the finger of pitying scorn; and the Reformation would have been disgraced in its champion. They were tempted, by an evil spirit of revenge, into an act unsanctioned even by their own bloody laws; and they gave him an opportunity of redeeming his fame, and of writing his name in the roll of martyrs. The worth of a man must be measured by his life, not by his failure under a single and peculiar trial. The apostle, though forewarned, denied his Master on the first alarm of danger; yet that Master, who knew his nature in its strength and its infirmity, chose him for the rock on which He would build His church.(Back to Content)
Not far from Abingdon, on the London road, was a house belonging to a gentleman named Christopher Ashton. Here, on their way to and fro between the western counties and the capital, members of parliament, or other busy persons, whom the heat of the times tempted from their homes, occasionally called; and the character of the conversation which was to be heard in that house, may be gathered from the following depositions. On the 4th of January, Sir Nicholas Arnold looked in, and found Sir Henry Dudley there.
"Well, Sir Nicholas, what news?" said Ashton.
"None worth hearing," Arnold answered.
"I am sure you hear they go about a coronation," Dudley said.
"I hear no such matter," said Arnold. "The news that are worth the hearing, are in such men's heads that will not utter them, and the rest are not to be credited."[549]
"There be news come out of Flanders, as I heard from Sir Peter Mewtas," said Ashton, laughing, to another visitor:[550] "The king has written to the queen that he will not come hither a great while, or, as men think, any more; and the queen was in a rage, and caused the king's picture to be carried out of the privy chamber, and she in a wonderful storm, and could not be in any wise quieted."[551]
"They have put me in the Tower for their pleasures," said Sir Anthony Kingston; "but so shall they never do more."[552]
At another time Sir Henry Peckham was alone with Ashton. Peckham[553] had been one of the sharers in the forfeited estates of the Duke of Norfolk. He was obliged to relinquish his grant, with but small compensation, and he complained of his treatment. Ashton bade him "be of good cheer."
"If you will keep my counsel," Ashton said, "I will tell you news that will bring your land again or it be long."
Peckham promised to be secret.
"Sir Anthony Kingston," Ashton continued, "and a great many of the western gentlemen, are in a confederacy to send the queen's highness over to the king, and make the Lady Elizabeth queen, and to marry the Earl of Devonshire to the said Lady Elizabeth. The laws of the realm will bear it, that they may do it justly; and Sir Anthony Kingston hath required me to hearken to King Henry VIII.'s will; for there is sufficient matter for our purpose, as Sir Anthony doth tell me. I pray, if you can, help me to it."
Peckham said it was to be had in the Rolls. Ashton did not like to put himself in the way of suspicion by asking to see it publicly, and begged Peckham to obtain a copy for him elsewhere.
"I will show you a token," he then said, and took out half a broken penny; "the other half is with Sir Anthony, and whensoever I do send this same to Sir Anthony, then will he be in readiness with ten thousand men within three days upon receipt of this token." If Lord Pembroke's men made resistance on the Marches, Kingston would cut them off, and would be in London in twenty days at furthest. And "when this is done," Ashton continued, "your father shall be made a duke; for I tell you true, that the Lady Elizabeth is a jolly liberal dame, and nothing so unthankful as her sister is; and she taketh this liberality of her mother, who was one of the bountifullest women in all her time or since; and then shall men of good service and gentlemen be esteemed."
Peckham, who had not anticipated so dangerous a confidence, looked grave and uneasy; Ashton said he hoped he would not betray him. "No," Peckham answered, and gave him his hand with his promise.
"I will tell you more, then," his friend went on; "we shall have that will take our part, the Earl of Westmoreland, who will not come alone, and we shall have my Lord Williams."[554]
"That cannot be," Peckham said; "he hath served the queen right well, and by her highness was made lord."
"I can better tell than you," Ashton answered; "the Lord Williams is a good fellow, and is as unthankfully dealt with as you, Sir Henry. I tell you that he is sure on our side; and Sir Henry Dudley hath spoken with all the gentlemen that be soldiers, that be about the town, and they be all sure ours, so that we have left the queen never a man of war that is worth a button."[555]
The scene changes. Readers of the earlier volumes of this history will remember Arundel's, in Lawrence Poultney Lane, where Lord Surrey and his friends held their nightly festivities. Times had changed, and so had Arundel's. It was now the resort of the young liberal members of parliament, where the opposition tactics in the House of Commons were discussed and settled upon. Here during the late session had met the men whose names have been mentioned in the preceding conversation, and who had crossed the queen's purposes; Kingston, Peckham, Ashton, Dudley, and with them Sir John Perrot, Sir William Courtenay, Sir Hugh Pollard, Sir John Chichester, and two young Tremaynes of Colacombe in Devonshire, one of whom had been concerned with Wyatt and Carew. Here also came John Daniel, in the service at one time of Lord Northampton, who, not being in parliament, was excluded from the more private consultations, but heard much of the general talk; "how they, with great wilfulness, as might be perceived by their behaviour, did sore mislike such Catholic proceedings as they saw the queen went about, and did intend to resist such matters as should be spoken of in the Parliament House other than liked them."[556]
The party broke up with the dissolution. Some of them, however, came back to London, and Daniel, one afternoon in March, was waiting for his dinner in the public room, when a ruffling cavalier named Ned Horsey came in, humming a catch of "Good man priest, now beware your pallet," "and bringing out a rhyme thereto of 'Fire and faggot,' and 'helm and sallet.'"
"I desire to live no longer than Whitsuntide next," Horsey said to Daniel; "for if I live so long, I mistrust not but my deeds shall be chronicled."
"Tush, my boy," he went on, "be of good cheer; for when thou shalt hear what the matter is, thou wilt take up thy hand and bless thee, and marvel that such young heads could ever bring such a matter as this to pass. I tell thee, the matter hath been a-brewing this quarter of a year at least, when thou wast in the country like a lout. Well, well, man, we shall either be men shortly, or no men; yea, and that very shortly, too."
"Tell me what you mean," said Daniel.
"Alas! good lout," quoth Horsey, "and do you not know, I pray you? hath not Harry Dudley told you of it?"
"No, by the faith of a Christian man," said Daniel, "Harry Dudley told me nothing except that he was going into France. But I pray thee, good Ned Horsey, tell me."
"By God's blood!" said Horsey, "then I will not tell you; for we have all taken an oath on the Testament, that no man should break it to any man, except as told first by Harry Dudley."
Horsey went on to talk of preparations, in which Daniel had been concerned, for an expedition to Southampton. Daniel, being a man of property, had undertaken to provide the horses, and had deposited a sum of money for the purpose; but, from Horsey's words, he perceived that schemes were on foot, which, having something to lose, he had better keep clear of. "His heart," he said, "rys in his body as big as a loaf;" he left the table, went down into the garden, and walked up and down an alley to collect himself; at last he ran into an arbour, where he knelt and said his prayers.
"What, man!" said Sir John Harrington, looking in, "you are well occupied on your knees so soon after dinner."
Daniel made up his mind that his friends were bringing him into a fool's paradise; "as they did brew, so they should bake for him," he thought, "and those heads that had studied it before he came to town should work the end of it." He stole away, therefore, and crossed the river to Southwark, where he took into his confidence a surgeon named Blacklock. Daniel pretended a broken leg, which Blacklock pretended to set: and thus the expedition to Southampton went off without him; the object of it being the despatch of one of the party into France, and the arrangement of the details of the conspiracy with the Captain of the Isle of Wight.
The characters of the persons who were concerned in this new plot against Mary's throne will not require much further elucidation. Sir Henry Dudley was Northumberland's cousin—the same who had been employed by the duke as an agent with the French court; the rest were eager, headstrong, not very wise young men, who, in the general indignation of the country at the barbarity of the government, saw an opportunity of pushing themselves into distinction. Lord Willoughby, Lord Westmoreland, and Lord Oxford were suspected by the queen of being unsound in religion; they had been reprimanded, and Oxford was thought likely to lose his lands.[557] If the first move could be made successfully, the conspirators counted on general support from these noblemen, and indeed from the whole body of the lay peers.
The plan was identical with that of Wyatt and Suffolk and Carew. Kingston was to march on London from Wales, and the force of the western counties was to join him on the Severn. One of the Throgmortons, called "Long John," had been at the French court, and made arrangements with Henry. Throgmorton returned to England, and Henry Dudley crossed the Channel in his place. The French promised to supply ships and money, while Dudley undertook to furnish them with crews from among the refugees or the western privateers, as Carew had done two years before. The Captain of the Isle of Wight, Uvedale, undertook to betray the island and Hurst Castle to the French. Dudley was to attack Portsmouth, where he would find the cannon "pegged;"[558] and when Portsmouth was taken, Hampshire, Sussex, and Kent were expected to rise.
Although known to so many persons, the secret was well kept. On Dudley's disappearance, inquiries were made about him. It was pretended that he was in debt, and had gone abroad to escape from his creditors. Some suspicion attached to the Tremaynes, who had long been connected with the privateers at Scilly. Strangways, the pirate, happened to be taken prisoner, and told something to the council about them which led to their arrest; but though the matter was "true enough," they bore down their accuser by mere courageous audacity of denial; and their resolution and fidelity were held up as an example in the secret meetings of the conspirators.[559]
The active co-operation of France was an essential element in the chances of success. From France, however, it became suddenly uncertain whether assistance was to be looked for. The English mediation in the European war had failed, because, after Mary's disappointment, France refused to part with Savoy; and the emperor could not bring himself to make a peace where the sacrifices would be wholly on his own side. But the negotiations between the principals were never wholly let fall; the emperor had now resigned. Philip, with an embarrassed treasury, with his eye on the English crown, and with trouble threatening him from the Turks, was anxious to escape from the exhausting conflict; and at the beginning of February a truce for five years was concluded at Vaucelles, by which Henry was left in undisturbed possession of all his conquests.
Terms so advantageous to the court of France could not be rejected; but past experience forbade, nevertheless, any very sanguine hope that the truce would last out its term. Unquestionably, in the opinion of the French king, it would be broken without scruple could Philip obtain the active help of England; and Henry would not, therefore, relinquish his correspondence with the conspirators. He instructed Noailles only to keep them quiet for the present till Philip's intentions should be revealed more clearly.[560]
The "young heads," of whom Horsey had spoken to Daniel, were not, however, men whom it was easy to keep quiet. Noailles replied, that they were so anxious to make an effort for liberty, and felt so certain of success, that he found great difficulty in restraining them; if the King of France would give them some slight assistance at the outset,[561] they undertook to do the rest themselves.
Dudley, therefore, remained in France, whither he was followed by Ashton and Horsey, and Henry admitted them to a midnight audience. He said that, for the moment, he could not act with them openly; but he would throw no difficulty in their way; if they were as strong as they professed to be (and they said that members of the privy council were in the confederacy), he would have them go forward with their project; and if he found Philip occupied, as he expected that he would be with the Turks in Hungary, he would assist them with men, money, and other things. Meanwhile, he gave Dudley 1500 crowns, distributed considerable sums among his companions, and advised them to go, as Carew had done before, to the coast of Normandy, and keep up their communications with their friends.
The interview and the promises of Henry were betrayed to Wotton, and by him reported in cypher to Mary;[562] but the fear or treachery of one of the party had already placed the government in possession of information, as the first step was about to be taken. Fifty thousand pounds were in the treasury: to embarrass the court, and to provide the insurrection with funds, a party of four or five—Rosey, keeper of the Star Chamber, Heneage, an officer of the Chapel Royal, a man named Derick, and one or two others—were chosen to carry off the money. Before the enterprise could be undertaken, Thomas White—perhaps one of the five, in alarm at the danger—communicated with the council; and on the 18th of March, Throgmorton, Peckham, Daniel, Rosey, and twelve or fourteen others, were seized suddenly, and sent to the Tower. Dudley was traced to Southampton; he was himself beyond pursuit, but Uvedale was discovered, and brought to London; Kingston was sent for, but died on his way up from Wales, probably by his own hand, in despair.
Information was, of course, the great object of the court; and they would shrink from nothing which would enable them to extort confessions. The prisoners knew what was before them, and prepared themselves according to their courage.
Throgmorton, when locked into the room which was allotted to him in the Tower, found that Derick was in the chamber underneath. He loosened a board in the floor, and "required him that, in any case, he should not be the destruction of others besides himself;" "for look," Throgmorton said, "how many thou dost accuse, so many thou dost wilfully murder."
Derick, it seems, was already thinking whether he could not, perhaps, save his own life. None of the party as yet knew how much of their secret had been discovered, or the value, therefore, which the government would place upon a full confession.
"He would do nothing," Derick answered, "but that which God had appointed; and if God would that he should do it, there was no remedy."
When a man has made up his mind that it is God's will that he should be a rogue, he has small chance of recovering himself. Throgmorton tried to reason him into manliness, and thought he had succeeded. Derick even promised to "abide the torture," "whereupon Master Throgmorton did sup his porridge to him, in token of his truth." But the torture was used or threatened, and Derick did not "abide" it; promises of pardon were also used, which the prisoners knew to mean nothing, and yet were worked on by them.[563]
Derick turned approver, so did Rosey, so did Bedyll: Uvedale, who was ill and feeble, yielded to the rack; and, piece by piece, the whole conspiracy was drawn out. The investigation was committed exclusively to the queen's clique, Rochester, Englefield, Waldegrave, Jerningham, and Hastings. The rest of the council refused to meddle,[564] for reasons which, perhaps, the queen hoped to learn from one or other of the prisoners. Throgmorton, however, who could tell the most, would tell nothing, though the rack was used freely to open his lips. How much he suffered may be gathered from a few words which he used to a Mr. Walpole, who was one of his examiners.
"Tell me, I pray you, Mr. Walpole," he said, "if the council may rack me, or put me to torment, after the time I am condemned, or no?"
"They may," Walpole answered, "if it shall please them."
"Then," said Throgmorton, "I fear I shall be put to it again; and, I will assure you, it is terrible pain."[565]
When torture would not answer, promises were tried, and promises apparently of an emphatic kind.
"I pray you, pray for me," Throgmorton said to his brother prisoners; "for I shall not be long with you. I cannot live without I should be the death of a number of gentlemen; and therewithal the said Throgmorton recited a story of the Romans, commending much an old man that was taken prisoner by the enemy, whom the Romans would have redeemed with a great number of young men, which would have been much more worth to the Romans; but this old man would in no case agree thereto, but received his death at the enemies' hand very patiently, considering his old years, and also what profit these young men should be to the Romans."[566]
The inquiry lasted till June, and much was learnt from those who had not Throgmorton's courage. Matters came out implicating Lord Bray and Lord Delaware. Lord Bray was arrested and examined; Lord Delaware was tried and found guilty. But they were powerful, and had powerful friends.[567] The court were forced to content themselves with smaller game. Successive batches of the conspirators were despatched, as their confessions were exhausted or despaired of. Throgmorton, silent to the last, was sentenced on the 21st of April, and suffered on the 28th. On the 19th of May, Captain Stanton was hanged; on the 2nd of June, Derick followed—his cowardice had not saved him—with Rosey and Bedyll. On the 7th of July, Sir Henry Peckham was disposed of, and with him John Daniel, who was guilty, if not of worse, yet of having concealed machinations dangerous to the state.[568]
But the danger did not pass off with the execution of a few youths. An inveterate conviction had taken hold of men of all ranks, that Philip was coming over with an army to destroy English liberty. Paget went to Flanders to entreat him to come back unattended, to dispel the alarm by his presence, and to comfort the queen; but Paget returned with a letter instead of Philip, and the poor queen looked ten years older on the receipt of it. She durst not stir abroad to face the execration with which the people now received her. She passed her time in frenzied extremities of passion, "because she could neither enjoy the presence of her husband, nor the affection of her subjects; and dreading every moment that her life might be attempted by her own attendants."[569] A fleet was fitted out in the Channel. A bishop in the queen's confidence was asked the reason by another bishop. "To overawe rebels," was the answer, "and to carry off Elizabeth into Flanders or Spain."[570] The government was conducted entirely by the legate and the small knot of Catholic fanatics who had adhered to the queen's fortunes in the late reign. Lord William Howard told Noailles that he and the other lords lived in perpetual dread and suspicion; if his honour would allow him, he would throw up his office, and retire, with those who had gone before him, as a poor gentleman, to France.
The general suffering was aggravated by a likelihood of famine. The harvest of 1555 had failed, and bread, with all other articles of food, was daily rising. The conspiracy exasperated the persecution, which was degenerating into wholesale atrocity. On the 23rd of April, six men were burnt at Smithfield; on the 28th, six more were burnt at Colchester; on the 15th of May, an old lame man and a blind man were burnt at Stratford-le-Bow. In the same month three women suffered at Smithfield, and a blind boy was burnt at Gloucester. In Guernsey, a mother and her two daughters were brought to the stake. One of the latter, a married woman with child, was delivered in the midst of her torments, and the infant just rescued was tossed back into the flames.[571] Reason, humanity, even common prudence, were cast to the winds. On the 27th of June, thirteen unfortunates, eleven men and two women, were destroyed together at Stratford-le-Bow, in the presence of twenty thousand people.[572] A schoolmaster, in Norfolk, in July read an inflammatory proclamation in a church. He and three others were instantly hanged. Ferocity in the government and lawlessness in the people went hand in hand. Along the river bank stood rows of gibbets, with bodies of pirates swinging from them in the wind. In the autumn, sixty men were sentenced to be hanged together, for what crime is unknown, at Oxford;[573] and as a symbol at head-quarters of the system of the administration, four corpses of thieves hung as a spectacle of terror before the very gates of St. James's Palace.[574]
On the 20th of August, twenty-three men and women were brought to London from Colchester, tied in a string with ropes to furnish another holocaust. A thousand people cheered them through the streets as they entered the city; and the symptoms of disorder were so significant and threatening, that Bonner wrote to Pole for instructions how he should proceed. The government was alarmed; "the council, not without good consideration," decided that it would be dangerous to go on with the executions; and Pole, checking Bonner's zeal, allowed the prisoners to escape for the time, under an easy form of submission which they could conscientiously make. They were dismissed to their homes, only, however, for several of them to be slaughtered afterwards, under fresh pretexts, in detail;[575] and Pole took an occasion, as will be presently seen, of reprimanding the citizens of London for their unnatural sympathy with God's enemies. That he had no objection to these large massacres, when they could be ventured safely, he showed himself in the following year, when fourteen heretics, of both sexes, were burnt in two days at Canterbury and Maidstone.[576]
Why, it may well be asked, did not the lords and gentlemen of England rise and trample down the perpetrators of these devilish enormities? It is a grave question, to which, nevertheless, some tolerable answer is possible.
On the 21st of January, 1557, the English ambassador in Paris wrote in cypher to Sir William Petre, of "a matter" which he desired should not be communicated to the queen, "lest it should disquiet her." A refugee had informed him, "that there was a great conspiracy in hand against the queen, which without doubt would deprive her of her estate." He had asked for names, but these his informant would not give, saying merely, "the best of England were in it," and "such a number agreed thereupon, that it was impossible but that it would take effect." There was no chance of discovery; "the matter had been in hand for a year or thereabouts," yet no one "had uttered a word of it;" should it become known, the conspirators were so strong that the catastrophe would only be precipitated. They would have moved already, "but for one man who had stayed them for a while."
Entreaties for more explicitness were fruitless. "By no means," wrote Wotton, "would he name any man unto me; but only said that the chiefest of them were such as had never offended the queen's highness before; that the matter should begin in the evening, and the next day by eight in the morning it should be done."
The queen was not to be killed; at least, not immediately. "They will not kill her," the man said, "but deprive her of her estate, and then might she chance to be used as she used Queen Jane;" and he added, "that they who went about the matter would not agree that any foreign prince should have any meddling in it; neither Dudley nor any of the English gentlemen in France were privy to the matter."[577]
That any such combination as this letter described ever really menaced Mary's throne cannot be affirmed with certainty. The last two sentences, however, point to the difficulty which had embarrassed all attempts which had been hitherto ventured. The vice of the previous conspiracies had been the intrigues with France. The better order of English statesmen refused to connect themselves with movements which would give the court of Paris a dangerous influence in England, and would entitle the French king to press the claims of the Queen of Scots upon the English crown. If there was truth in the refugee's story, if there really was a conspiracy of "the best of England," clear of all such mischievous elements, it must have consisted of the body of the nobility, whom Lord William Howard described to Noailles as equally dissatisfied with himself. The heresy acts had been restored by the help of the bishops against the sustained opposition of the majority of the lay peers. For the hundred and fifty years during which those acts had been upon the Statute Book, they had expressed the general feeling of the country, yet during all that time, fewer persons had suffered under them than had been sacrificed during the last twelve months. Having failed to destroy her sister, having been unable to alter the succession, the queen was desperate; the Spaniards were watching their opportunity to interfere by force, and would want no encouragement which she could give them; and every honest English statesman must have watched her with the most jealous distrust. Yet, on the other hand, she was childless; her life must necessarily soon close by the course of nature, and with her life the tyranny would end. If force was attempted, she would not fall without a struggle; the clergy would stand by her, and all whom the clergy could influence. Philip would have the pretext, for which he was longing, for sending Spanish troops; and though liberty might and would prevail in the end, thousands of lives might be sacrificed, and Elizabeth's succession would be stained. The appeal to strength was, and is, the last to which good men will allow themselves to be driven. The lords understood one another: they would not be the first to commence; but if an attempt were made to carry off Elizabeth, or to throw on land a single Spanish battalion, they would know how to act.
Meantime, Dudley, Ashton, Horsey, the brothers Tremayne, and "divers others," were safe in France, and were hospitably entertained there. In England they were proclaimed traitors. At Paris they were received openly at court. The queen wrote to Wotton with her own hand, commanding him to demand their surrender.[578] She sent for Noailles, and required that "those wretches, those heretics, those traitorous execrable villains," who had conspired against her throne should be placed in her hands.[579] Henry, with unembarrassed coolness, promised Wotton that they should be apprehended, while he furnished them with ships, which they openly fitted for sea at the mouth of the Seine; and one of their number, Henry Killegrew, went to Italy to look for Courtenay, who was in honourable exile there, to entreat him to put himself at their head. Courtenay promised to come, so Killegrew reported on his return;[580] his name would have given them strength, his presence weakness; but if he really thought again of mixing himself in conspiracies his intentions were frustrated. The last direct heir of the noblest family in England died at the end of the summer, of an ague caught among the lagoons at Venice.[581]
The refugees, however, could do their work without Courtenay. The Killegrews, the Tremaynes, young Stafford, and many more, put to sea with three or four vessels, and treated all Spaniards with whom they could fall in as their natural enemies. Before the summer was out, they had "taken divers good prizes," and "did trust they should take more." "In case the worst fell, the gain thereof would find them all;" and on the 4th of August it was reported that they had taken a fort "on one of her majesty's islands," probably in Scilly, where the dangerous and intricate navigation placed them beyond risk of capture. Making war on their own account, half as pirates, half as crusaders, these youthful adventurers seized the Spanish caracks on their way to Flanders, sailed openly with their prizes into Rochelle or La Hogue, sold them, and bought arms and ammunition. Their finances were soon prosperous. Wild spirits of all nations—Scots, English, French, whoever chose to offer—found service under their flag. They were the first specimens of the buccaneering chivalry of the next generation—the germ out of which rose the Drakes, the Raleighs, the Hawkinses, who harried the conquerors of the New World.
In vain Wotton protested. The French king affected to be sorry. The Constable said that France was large; things happened which ought not to happen, yet could not be helped; the adventurers should be put down, if possible.
"These men brought nothing with them out of England," Wotton doggedly replied, "and were in such good credit with the people in France that nobody would lend them a shilling, and yet had they found ships which they had armed, and manned with good numbers of soldiers. What would the queen's highness think?"
The French court, in affected deference to such complaints, armed vessels, which they pretended were to pursue the privateers to their nest; but, as Wotton ascertained, they were intended really to act as their consorts.[582]
It was plain that the French king did not anticipate any long continuance to the truce of Vaucelles. In fact, Paul IV., whose schemes in Italy that truce had arrested, had succeeded in inducing him to break it. Lest his oath should make a difficulty, the pope had an ever-ready dispensation; and Paul's nephew, Cardinal Caraffa, came to Paris in July to make arrangements for the expulsion of the Spaniards from Naples.[583]
To insure Henry the continued support of the papacy, Paul undertook to create French cardinals on so large a scale as would give him the command of the next election. Henry, in spite of the entreaties of Montmorency, promised, on his side, to send an army to Paul's support; and the pope, without waiting for the arrival of the French troops, seized the Duchy of Paleano, and excommunicated the Colonnas, as the friends of the enemies of the Holy See. Scarcely caring to look for a pretext, he declared the Spanish prince deprived of the kingdom of Naples; and himself attempted to put in force his sentence against the Duke of Alva, who was acting there as Philip's viceroy.
The event had thus actually arrived, of which the expectation the year before had appeared so alarming. The most orthodox sovereign in Europe found himself forced into war with his spiritual father. The parent was become insane; the faithful child was obliged, in consequence, to place him under restraint, with as much tenderness and respect as the circumstances permitted. To the English council Philip explained the hard necessity under which he was placed.[584]
The Duke of Alva crossed the Neapolitan frontier into the States of the Church with twelve thousand men, taking the towns that lay in his way; and protesting while he did it that he was the most faithful servant of the Holy See. Individually a pious Catholic, officially a military machine, Alva obeyed orders with mechanical inflexibility, and, irresistible as destiny, advanced towards Rome. The college of cardinals, who remembered the occupation of the city by Bourbon's army, implored the pope to have pity on them. The pope had been too precipitate in commencing operations without waiting for the French. He was forced to submit his pride, and sue for an armistice, to which Alva, in the moderation of conscious strength, consented.
The French, on the other hand, were preparing to strike a blow in a quarter where as yet they were unlooked for.
The pastoral anxieties of the English legate had extended to Calais, where the Protestants were in considerable numbers. A commission was sent thither which proceeded with the usual severities,[585] and the sufferers, or those among the garrisons in Calais and Guisnes whose sympathy with the Reformation was stronger than their patriotism, placed themselves in correspondence with Sir Henry Dudley, at Paris. The pay of the troops was long in arrear, and they were all mutinous and discontented. Neither Guisnes, Hammes, nor Calais itself were provisioned for more than three or four weeks; and the refugees, caring only to revenge themselves on Mary, were laying a train in connection with several of the "chiefest officers" in the three fortresses, to betray them into the hands of France. The existence of a conspiracy became known by accident to some one, who placed Wotton on his guard; and Wotton, by vigilance and by the help of spies, ascertained gradually the nature of the scheme. In the beginning of October he discovered that Senarpont, the governor of Boulogne, was silently increasing the garrison of the Boullonnois. Then he heard of troops collecting at Rouen, of large preparations of military stores, of sappers' and miners' tools, and "great files, which would cut in two without noise the largest [harbour] chains."[586] Next, it seemed that the leader of the adventurous party, which fourteen years before "took the town of Marano by practise and subtlety," was in Calais in disguise. Finally, he learnt that Henry himself was going to Rouen, to conduct the enterprise in person.
The disaffection had penetrated so deeply into the English garrisons that caution was required in dealing with them; while for some weeks either the queen disbelieved the danger, or the council took no steps to obviate it. The Catholic clique had, in fact, not a soldier among them, and possibly knew not in which direction to turn. The honour of his country at last recalled Lord Pembroke to the public service in time to save Calais for a few more months.
By the middle of November eighteen ensigns of French infantry and a thousand horse were at Abbeville. Dudley, with the refugee fleet, was in readiness to blockade the harbour, while Henry was to march upon the town. If possible, he would find the gates open: at all events he would meet with no protracted resistance. But the move had been anticipated. Reinforcements and supplies were sent from England, money was despatched to pay up the arrears of the troops, and Pembroke himself went over in command.[587] No open inquiry was ventured, but the suspected persons were quietly removed. The French withdrew, and the queen's government, through the bad patriotism of the refugees, recovered a momentary strength.
The faint good fortune came opportunely; for in England the harvest had again failed, and the threat of famine had become the reality. On the 23rd of December malt was sold in London for forty shillings a quarter, and white flour at six shillings a bushel. The helpless remedy was attempted of crying up the base money, but the markets answered only by a further rise.[588] In the utter misery of the people, some were feeding upon acorns; some, in London, more piteously, left their infant children at the doors of their wealthy neighbours, to save them from starvation.
A famine was considered to be the immediate work of Heaven, and to be sent for an immediate moral cause. And yet the monasteries were rising from their ruins. Westminster was again an abbey. Feckenham was installed abbot on the 29th of November, with the ancient ceremonies, and walked in sad procession round the cloisters at the head of his friars.[589] The remnant of the monks of Glastonbury had crawled back into the ruins of their home. The queen had spared no effort and no sacrifice where her own power extended; and she had exhorted and advised where she was unable to act. Yet enough had not been done. In Ireland, indeed, the Catholic spirit had life in it. The Earl of Desmond had allowed no stone to be thrown down from the religious houses which had fallen to his share in the distribution. He had sheltered and supported the monks in the bad times, he now replaced them at his private cost;[590] and the example was telling among the chiefs. But in England, unfortunately, the lay owners of the church lands, orthodox and unorthodox alike, were hopelessly impenitent.
This, perhaps, was one cause of God's displeasure—the heretics were another; the heretics, and the sympathy with heresy displayed by the inhabitants of London, which had compelled the temporary release of the prisoners sent up from Essex.
It has been mentioned that the legate took occasion to admonish the citizens for their behaviour. In the present or the following year[591] he issued a pastoral letter, laying before them, and before the educated inhabitants of England generally, their duty at the present crisis; with an explanation, not entirely accurate, of the spirit in which the church had hitherto dealt with them. "That by license and dispensation," he said, "you do enjoy, and keep, and possess such goods and lands of the church as were found in your hands, this was done of the church your mother's tenderness unto you, considering your imbecility and weakness after so sore a sickness that you had in the schism, at the which time your appetite served you to no meat, but to that fruit that came from the lands of the church; and by that you lived, which she was content you should keep still, and made promise it should not be taken from you. And so it was left in your hand, as it were an apple in a child's hand given by the mother, which she, perceiving him to feed too much of, and knowing it should do him hurt if he himself should eat the whole, would have him give her a little piece thereof, which the boy refusing, and whereas he would cry out if she would take it from him, letteth him alone therewith. But the father, her husband, coming in, if he shall see how the boy will not let go one morsel to the mother that hath given him the whole, she asking it with so fair means, he may peradventure take the apple out of the boy's hand, and if he cry, beat him also, and cast the apple out of the window."
The maternal tenderness, under this aspect of the secularisation, had been more weak than wise.
"As the English laity had dishonoured the ministers of the church above all people," continued the legate, "so must they now honour them above all people, remembering Christ's words—'He that despiseth you despiseth Me.' They must obey the priests, therefore, implicitly; they must be careful to pay their tithes honestly; what they denied their priests they denied their God; and they must show their repentance especially where they had especially offended, touching the injuries they had done to the ministers of God, whom God had set over them, to be honoured as they would their natural father."
"And this," he said, coming to the heart of the matter, "this you cannot do if you favour heretics, who being the very enemies of God and man, yet specially their enmity extendeth against priests. Here is another point that you must show worthy of a repentant mind: that whereas you have sore offended God by giving favour to heretics, now temper your favour under such manner that if you can convert them by any ways unto the unity of the church, then do it, for it is a great work of mercy. But if ye cannot, and ye suffer or favour them, there cannot be a work of greater cruelty against the commonwealth than to nourish or favour any such. For be you assured, there is no kind of men so pernicious to the commonwealth as they be; there are no thieves, no murderers, no adulterers, nor no kind of treason, to be compared to theirs, who, as it were, undermining the chief foundation of all commonwealths, which is religion, maketh an entry to all kinds of vices in the most heinous manner." ... "You specially of the City of London, you being the first that received the fruit of grace in the new plantation, the seed of benediction being first cast upon you, to make you a ground to bring forth all fruit of sanctity and justice; ... shall I say, that after all this done, more briars and thorns hath grown here among you than in all the realm besides? I cannot say so, nor I will not; albeit it might so seem, for a greater multitude of these brambles and briars were cast in the fire here among you than in any place besides; but many of them being grown in other places, and brought in and burned among you, may give occasion that you have a worse name without your desert. The thing standeth not in the name—bethink you yourselves how it standeth.... Wherefore cometh this, that when any heretic shall go to execution, he shall lack no comforting of you, and encouraging to die in his perverse opinion? that when he shall be put in prison he shall have more cherishing?... As it is now, this may not be suffered.... For their boldness in their death, it is small argument of grace to be in them; Christ himself showing more heaviness and dolour at his dying hour than did the thieves that hung beside him, which did blaspheme Christ, setting nought by him, specially one of them, showing no further fear. So do the heretics at their deaths like the blasphemer."[592]
Cruel and savage as the persecution had become, it was still inadequate. The famine lasted, and therefore God was angry.
The new year opened with the appointment of a commission, consisting of Bonner, Thirlby, and twenty other peers, gentlemen, and canon lawyers, on whom the court could rely. "Wicked persons" had invented slanders against the queen's person, and had sown "pestilent heresies" in the realm. The queen, therefore, "minding to punish such enormities," and having especial trust in the wisdom of these persons, gave them power to institute inquiries at their pleasure into the conduct and opinions of every man and woman in all parts of the kingdom. The protection of the law was suspended. The commissioners might arrest any person at any place. Three of them were enough to form a court; and mayors, sheriffs, and magistrates were commanded to assist at their peril.
The object of the commission was "to search and find out" the sellers of heretical books, or those who in any way professed heresy or taught it; to ascertain who refused to attend mass, to walk in procession, to use holy water, or in any way betrayed disrespect for the established religion. Those who "persisted in their bad opinions" were to be given up to their ordinary, to be punished according to law. The commissioners were themselves empowered to punish with fine or imprisonment those who yielded, or those whose offences were in the second degree, taking care to collect the fines which they inflicted, and to certify the exchequer of their receipts. They were not embarrassed by a necessity of impanelling juries; they might call juries if they pleased; they might use "all other means and politic ways that they could devise." No Spanish inquisition possessed larger or less tolerable powers; no English sovereign ever more entirely set aside the restrictions of the law.[593] The appointment of the commission was followed up by Pole in a visitation of the diocese of Canterbury. Persons were nominated to examine into the doctrines of the clergy; to learn whether those who had been married held communication with their wives; whether the names of those who had not been reconciled had been registered as he had ordered; and from every clergyman to ascertain the habits, beliefs, and opinions of every resident, male or female, in his parish.[594]
Other commissioners again were sent to the universities, with powers extending, not over the living only, but the dead.
Scot, Bishop of Chester, Watson, Bishop of Lincoln, and Christopherson, Master of Trinity and Bishop of Chichester, went in January to Cambridge, accompanied by Ormaneto, the Venetian, a confidential friend of the legate. Bucer and Fagius slept in St. Mary's and St. Michael's. The 10th of January, the day after the bishops' arrival, the two churches were laid under an interdict, as defiled with the presence of unhallowed bodies. On the 15th a summons was fixed to St. Mary's door, citing Martin Bucer and Paul Fagius, or any other who would plead on their behalf, to make answer three days after, before the commission, on a charge of heresy. The court sate, and no one appeared. The session was adjourned for a week, while the colleges were searched, and Primers, Prayer-books, Bibles, or other interdicted volumes, were hunted out and brought together. On the 26th the bishops met again; the accused remained undefended, and the heresy was taken to be proved; sentence was passed therefore, that the bodies should be disinterred and burnt. On the 6th of February the coffins were taken out of the graves, and chained to a stake in the market-place; the Bibles and prayer-books were heaped round them with a pile of faggots, and books and bodies were reduced to ashes.
Having purged Cambridge, Ormaneto proceeded to Oxford, on business of the same description.
Peter Martyr, when he came into residence as divinity professor at Christ Church, had outraged the orthodox party in the university by bringing a wife within the college walls; and Catherine Cathie, so the wife was named, had, like the wife of Luther, been a professed nun. She had died before Mary's accession, and had been buried in the cathedral. A process has now instituted against her similar to that at Cambridge.
An unforeseen difficulty occurred in the conduct of the prosecution. Catherine Cathie had lived quietly and unobtrusively; she had taught nothing and had written no books; and no evidence could be found to justify her conviction on a charge of heresy.
Ormaneto wrote to the legate for instructions; and as burning was not permissible, the legate replied that, "forasmuch as Catherine Cathie, of detestable memory, had called herself the wife of Peter Martyr, a heretic, although both he and she had before taken vows of religion; forasmuch as she had lived with him in Oxford in fornication, and after her death was buried near the sepulchre of the Holy Virgin St. Frideswide, Ormaneto should invite the dean of the cathedral to cast out the carcase from holy ground, and deal with it according to his discretion."
Catherine Cathie, therefore, was dug up, taken out of her coffin, and flung into a cesspool at the back of the dean's house, and it was hoped that by this means the blessed St. Frideswide would be able to rest again in peace. Human foresight is imperfect; years passed and times changed; and Elizabeth, when she had the power to command, directed that the body should be restored to decent burial. The fragments were recovered with difficulty, and were about to be replaced in the earth under the floor of the cathedral, when some one produced the sacred box which contained the remains of St. Frideswide. Made accessible to the veneration of the faithful by Cardinal Pole, the relics had been concealed on the return of heresy by some pious worshipper. They were brought out at the critical moment, and an instant sense of the fitness of things consigned to the same resting-place the bones of the wife of Peter Martyr. The married nun and the virgin saint were buried together, and the dust of the two still remains under the pavement inextricably blended.[595]
But Pole did not live to see the retribution. Convinced, if ever there was a sincere conviction in any man, that the course which he was pursuing was precisely that which God required of him, he laboured on in his dark vocation. Through the spring and summer the persecution, under the new commission, raged with redoubled fury.
The subject is one to which it will not be necessary to return, except with some brief details. In this place, therefore, shall be given an extract from a tract in circulation among the Protestants who were expecting death; and it may be judged, from the sentiments with which these noble-natured men faced the prospect of their terrible trial, with what justice Pole called them brambles and briars only fit to be burnt—criminals worse than thieves, or murderers, or adulterers.[596]
"The cross of persecution, if we will put childishness apart, and visibly weigh the worthiness thereof, is that sovereign, tried medicine that quencheth the daily digested poison of self-love, worldly pleasure, fleshly felicity. It is the only worthy poison of ambition, covetousness, extortion, uncleanness, licentiousness, wrath, strife, sedition, sects, malice, and such other wayward worms: it is the hard hammer that breaketh off the rust from the anchor of a Christian faith. O profitable instrument! O excellent exercise, that cannot be spared in a Christian life! with what alacrity of mind, with what desirous affection, with what earnest zeal, ought we to embrace this incomparable jewel, this sovereign medicine, this comfortable cup of tribulation.
"When a piece of ground is limited and bounded, it doth not only signify that it goeth no further, but also it tendeth and stretcheth to the bound. It is not enough to consider that we shall not pass the time that God hath limited and determined us to live, but we must assuredly persuade ourselves that we shall live as long as He hath ordained us to live; and so shall we do, in despite of all our enemies.
"And tell me, have men given us our life? No, forsooth. No more can they take it away from us. God hath given it, and God only doth take it away, for He is the Lord of death as well as of life; wherefore when the appointed time of our death is come, let us assure ourselves, that it is God only and none other that doth kill us, for He saith, It is I that kill and make alive again.