Finding all chance of escape cut off, he began confessing his sins; but it was rather too late, for, had his repentance been sincere, the catalogue of his crimes was far too voluminous to allow of his getting through one half of it before his dissolution. He had been in the habit of adjourning that court of conscience existing in his as well as in every man's breast, and he always postponed it sine die; but when the time to die actually came, or the die was really cast, it was rather late to move for a new trial. Henry died on the 29th of January, 1547, in the fifty-sixth year of his age, the thirty-eighth of his reign, and at least the forty-first of his selfishness, baseness and brutality.
He had been married six times, having divorced two of his wives, beheaded two more, and left one a widow. This leaves one more—Jane Seymour—still unaccounted for; and indeed her death was the most wonderful of all, because it was natural. He left behind him three children: but he did not care a pin's head, or even—to name an article of smaller importance to him—a wife's head, for any one of them. Such a very bad man was sure to be a very bad father, and he had declared two of his children illegitimate, for it was the delight of this monster to depreciate his own offspring in the eyes of the world as much as possible. His religious reforms, however wholesome in their results, were brutal in their execution and base in their origin. His insincerity may be gathered from the fact that he appointed masses to be said for his own soul, though he had burnt many persons for popery; and he seemed to think that, by taking up two creeds at once on his death-bed, he could make up for the utter irreligion of his last existence. He is said to have contributed to the cause of enlightenment, and so perhaps he did with all his blackness, as the coal contributes to the gas; and never was a bit of Wallsend half so hard, or a tenth part so black, as the heart of this despicable sovereign. He never had a friend; but he was surrounded by sycophants, whom, one after the other, he atrociously sacrificed.
Cranmer being a man of superior mind, exercised an influence over him, and was sent for to his death-bed, when he pressed the prelate's hand; but whether the pressure arose from cramp or conscience, rheumatism or remorse, penitence or "pins and needles," must be considered a question to which we will not hazard an answer. We regret that we have been unable to adhere to the excellent motto, de mortuis nil nisi bonum, in this case; but Henry was such a decided malum in se, that mischief was bred in the bone, and the nil nisi bonum becomes impossible.
Learning certainly advanced in this reign, and Henry himself affected authorship; but every literary man, from the highest flyer in the realms of fancy to the humblest historian of last night's fire or yesterday's police, will be honestly ashamed of his royal fellow-craftsman.
Several colleges and schools were founded in this reign, among the principal of which were Christ Church at Oxford, Trinity at Cambridge, and St. Paul's in London. Here it was that the lowly Lily, of Lily's grammar notoriety, first raised his humble head as the head master of the school; and, though there is something lack-a-daisy-cal in Lily's style, his grammar was at one time the first round of the ladder by which every lad climed the heights of classical instruction.
It may be interesting to the gastronomic reader to be informed that salads and turnips now first came into use, with other roots, towards which the people had shown until then a rooted antipathy. They swallowed spinach without any gammon, and even the carrot, that had formerly stuck in their throat as if they feared it would injure the carotid artery, was consumed with alacrity; and those who had disdained the most delicious of green food, by courageously exclaiming, "Come, let us try it," are supposed by some—though we disclaim the monstrous idea—to have given its name to the lettuce. The cultivation of hops came as if with a hop, skip, and jump across from Flanders, and the trade in wool was brought, under the fostering patronage of Wolsey, to a state of some prosperity.
With the exception of the burning of monasteries and the murder of his wives, there was little to render the reign of Henry remarkable, beyond, perhaps, the invention of beef-eaters. The word beef-eater is known to be a corruption of buffetier, and indeed there was corruption, to a certain extent, in everything connected with this detestable tyrant. It is said they were called buffetiers from attending at the buffets, or sideboard of plate, but it is far more likely that they got the name from the buffeting to which every servant of the royal ruffian must have been occasionally liable. The neck was so often in danger, that any menial of the malignant monarch might be expected to ruff it in the best way he could, and hence the enormous ruffs, which are conspicuous to this day, round the chins of the beef-eaters. The looseness of their habits may be considered characteristic of the Court to which these functionaries were attached, though it has been said by some authorities that the beef-eaters were puffed and padded out to an enormous extent, in order that the monster Henry might not appear conspicuous.
The reign of Henry was also remarkable for the invention of pins, to which somebody had given his own head with intense earnestness. The sharpness of the English had not yet reached so fine a point as to have led to the discovery of the needle, which was doubtless suggested by the pin, to some one who had an eye for improvement. The thimble is a still later introduction, the merit of which is considerable; for though at the present day every sempstress has the thimble at her finger ends, there was a time when no one had thought of this very simple but necessary appendage to the ladies' work-table. If the reign of Henry had never been devoted to anything more objectionable than the discovery of pins and needles we should have had little reason to complain, for a few pricks of conscience, no matter whence they emanated, would have done him good; but the scissors for cutting the thread of existence formed the instruments chiefly in use during this cruel and most disastrous reign.
AN enormous weight was taken off the whole country when the late lump of obesity was removed from the throne; but shameful to relate, the first use the nation made of the power of breathing freely was to give a few puffs to the departed tyrant. The chancellor Wriothesley announced the king's death to the House of Lords in tears, and there is said to have been much weeping; but there are tears of joy as well as of sorrow, and the former must have been the quality of the brine in which the memory of Henry was preserved for a few days by his people. The lamentations, whether sincere or hypocritical, were very soon exchanged for joy at the accession of Edward the Sixth, who was only in his tenth year when he woke one morning and found the crown of England over his ordinary nightcap. To rub his eyes and ask "What's this?" were the work of an instant, when, taking off the bauble, drawing aside his curtains, and holding the article up to the light, he at once recognised the royal diadem.
Young Edward was what we should call a little forward chit had he been a common lad, but being a king we must at once accept him as an infant prodigy. He had learnt several tongues from Mr. Cheke, and had been a pupil of Sir Anthony Cook; but many of such cooks would have spoiled the best "broth of a boy," for Sir Anthony was a pedant, "with five learned daughters"—being equivalent to a couple of pair of blue stockings, and an odd one over.
Henry, in his reluctance to leave to his son what he could no longer hold himself, had fettered the monarchy as much as he could by his will, which was, however, soon treated with the contempt it merited. He had appointed sixteen executors and twelve councillors, but all to no purpose; for all power was placed in the hands of the young king's uncle, Hertford, who was created Duke of Somerset. The vaulting ambition of this man, who turned Somersets over every obstacle that fell in his way, rendered his new title very appropriate. He was invested with the office of Protector, and he very soon set to work, but, still true to the name of Somerset, he went head over heels into a war with Scotland. The object of this proceeding was to demand the hand of Mary, Queen of Scots, for the child Edward; but the idea of a person coming to make love with a fleet of sixty sail and an army of eighteen thousand men, was a little trop fort to suit the taste of the Caledonians. They placed a ban upon the marriage, which was equivalent to forbidding the banns, and suggested, that if the young gentleman wanted to come courting, he had better come by himself to pay his addresses. After a little negotiation, which ended in nothing, a battle ensued, which is famous as the battle of Pinkey, where the combatants pinked each other off most cruelly with the points of their swords; and it is added by the inveterate Strype—who deserves two thousand stripes, at least, for this offence—that "on this field, which was within half a mile of Musselburgh, the soldiers on both sides strained every muscle." The English archers sent their arrows from their bows with destructive effect; and looking, as they did, like so many Cupids in a valentine, it must be confessed that that mode of warfare was, at least, appropriate to a war undertaken in the cause of Hymen.
The Scotch were sadly defeated, but they still refused to give up their little queen to the young fellow who sought her hand through his subjects' arms, and she was accordingly sent to finish her education in France; where, though only six years of age, she was betrothed to the Dauphin.
Somerset, instead of following up his successes, made the best of his way home; for he heard that his own brother, Sir Thomas Seymour, the Lord High Admiral, who had been created also Baron Seymour of Sedley, was making himself a great deal too agreeable to the royal ladies in England. Old Kitty Parr, Henry's widow, was so much taken with Tom Seymour's attentions, that she fell at once in his arms, and became his wife; but poor Parr soon fell to a discount in the eyes of her husband, who had become enamoured of the young Princess Elizabeth. The unhappy old Parr swallowed many a bitter pill at this time, until death put an end to her annoyances. Admiral Seymour was now free to pay his addresses to Elizabeth, but it would seem that he was not more free than welcome, for even during the life of her mother-in-law, that young lady had afforded him every encouragement.
In order to stop his flirtations, which were now becoming serious, he was clapped in the Tower, but his enemies were considerate enough to send a bishop to him to preach patience, and as Ely was selected, who prosed exceedingly, the preaching was accompanied by a practical lesson in patience, with which it is to be hoped that Seymour was sufficiently edified. He was accused of treason, and at a council the boy Edward, who had no doubt been crammed for the occasion, delivered an elaborate judgment, which his parasites puffed as extemporaneous. He regretted being obliged to sacrifice his uncle Seymour to the common weal—a weal that has brought woe to many, and to which the wheel of fortune bears, except in its orthography, a wondrous similarity. Seymour was executed on Wednesday, the 20th of March, 1549, and the last use he made of his head before it was struck off was to shake it, and observe that "'pon his honour, if he had been guilty of any treason against the king it was quite unintentional."
The country was about this time agitated by one of those fits of general discontent which prevail every now and then among the lower orders of society. As usual there was a good deal of reason mixed with a large amount of unreasonableness in their complaints, and the customary feeling of "not knowing exactly what they really wanted," became alarmingly general. Some cried for this, another for that, and another for t'other, while an almost universal shout for the privilege of ruling themselves was accompanied by a clear manifestation of an utter want of self-control on the part of the people. Their self-styled friends were of course busy in goading them on to acts of violence, and the Protector himself, instead of repressing tumult first, and pardoning it afterwards, pursued the opposite course, which only had the effect of clearing off old scores, that new might be ran up with fresh alacrity.
One of the most prominent ringleaders in the revolt was a tanner of Norfolk, named Robert Ket, of whom it was vulgarly said that such a bob was as good as two tanners; "and hence, perhaps," says my Lord Herbert, or someone else, "two tanners, or sixpences, came to be called in the vernacular equivalent to one bob, or a shilling." Ket had been cruelly provoked in having the mob set upon one of his inclosures by a gentleman who had suffered from the destruction of one of his own hedges; but the tanner retaliated by administering such a leathering to his assailants as they would have remembered to this hour had any one of them been left alive to indulge in such reminiscences. It was found necessary to send over to Scotland for Warwick to go and settle Ket, which was very speedily done, for, finding himself unable to keep upon his legs, he laid down his arms, after having run for his life, and crept into a barn among some corn to avoid an immediate thrashing. He was taken to Norwich and lodged in the castle, whence he wrote to a friend, saying, "I shall be hanging out for the present at the above address;" and his words were soon verified, for he was hanged out on the top of the building a few days afterwards.
Poor Somerset was now about to take the most formidable somerset in the whole of his career—namely, a fall from the extreme of power to the depths of disgrace, chiefly by the rivalry of Warwick. The Protector found it high time to think about protecting himself, and tried to muster his friends, to many of whom he wrote; but verbal answers of "Not at home," "Mr. So-and-So will send," and similar evasive replies convinced poor Somerset that there was very little hope for him. In the meantime, Warwick and party were meeting daily at Ely Place, Holbom, where they were settling, in that very legal neighbourhood, the draft of a set of charges against the Protector, who was accused among other things of having pulled down a church in the Strand to build Somerset House, and having spent in bricks and mortar the money intrusted him to keep up the wooden walls of old England, by paying the sailors and soldiers their respective salaries. A bill of pains and penalties was issued from Ely Place, which is to this day famous for its art in making out bills, and twenty-eight charges were brought against Somerset, who thought it better to confess every one of them, on a promise that he should be leniently dealt with. This leniency consisted in taking away almost everything he possessed, which caused him to remonstrate on the heaviness of the fine; but, on being told snappishly he might consider himself lucky in having got off with his life, he shrunk back in an attitude of the utmost humility. He was set at liberty and pardoned, but we shall have him at mischief and in trouble again before the end of this chapter.
Though a mere child was on the throne, the atrocities committed at Smithfield, in the burning of what were called heretics, went on as briskly as ever, the fires being stirred by Cranmer and Ridley in the most savage manner. Mary, the king's eldest sister, gave considerable trouble by insisting on the celebration of mass in her own household; and, though told by the council she mustn't, the truly feminine reply that "she should see if she shouldn't," and that "she would, though; they'd see if she wouldn't," was all that she condescended to say in answer to the requisition.
Somerset, since his liberation, had been still hanging about the Court, and had apparently become reconciled to Warwick, whose eldest son, Lord Lisle, had been married to Lady Ann, one of the daughters of the ex-Protector. Nevertheless, on Friday, the 16th of October, 1551, Somerset found himself once more in the "lock-up," on a charge of treason. He was accused of an intention to run about London crying out "Liberty! Liberty!" and, if that had not succeeded, he was to have gone to the Isle of Wight to try on the same game in that direction. If that had not succeeded there is no knowing what he would have done; but at all events, orders were sent to the Tower to set a watch upon the Great Seal, because Somerset wanted to run away with it. If he had made off with the seal, he might, perhaps, have taken the watch also; but this did not occur to the council. His trial took place at Westminster, on the 1st of December, 1551, at the sittings after Michaelmas term, when he denied everything, and was found guilty of just enough to get a judgment—with speedy execution—against him. His politeness was quite marvellous, for he thanked the Lords who had tried him, ana he threw as much grace as he could into the bow he was compelled to make on submitting his head to the axe of the executioner. "This," says Fox, on the authority of a nobleman who was present, "came off on Friday, the 22nd of January, 1552," and it is a curious fact, that of every execution that occurred in his reign the boy king had preserved the heads in his private journal.
Warwick, who had got himself promoted to the dukedom of Northumberland, seemed desirous of making government a business for the benefit of himself and family. He took the motto of "anything for peace and quiet," though he had blamed his predecessor, Somerset, for having done the same thing, and he bought off the hostility of France and Scotland by selling Boulogne regularly up, placing a carpet on the lighthouse, dividing the upper and lower town into lots, declaring that he wanted money down on the nail, and to hit the right one on the head he must resort to the hammer. He made excellent marriages for his children, and allied his son, Guildford Dudley, with the royal family of France by wedding him to Lady Jane Grey, a daughter of a son of the old original Mary Tudor of France, to whose descendants the English crown would fall in the event of a failure of a more direct succession.
The young King Edward, who had not yet passed through the ordinary routine of infantile complaints, now took the measles—or, rather, the measles took him—and he had scarcely recovered from this complaint when the small-pox placed him under indentures which seemed much too strong to be cancelled within any reasonable period. He was serving his time to this malady, when another latent illness that had hitherto been playing at hide-and-seek, set up a cry of "whoop," and his youthful majesty was in for the whooping-cough. Northumberland, taking advantage of the king's weak state, advised him not to leave the crown to his big and bigoted sister Mary. "True," said Edward, "but how about poor little Bet?"
"Why, she," replied the Protector, "is very little better." With such weak sophistry as this, he persuaded the poor invalid king to draw up a settlement of the crown on Lady Jane Grey, and the judges, with all the law officers, were summoned to approve the document. Sir Edward Montague, the Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, with Sir Thomas Bromley, one of his puisnes, came accompanied by the attorney and solicitor-generals, to say that the deed was illegal, and that they, one and all, would have nothing to do with it. Upon this, Northumberland rushed into the room, called Montague a traitor, * banged the door, threatened to bang the judges, and offered to fight in his shirt-sleeves any one of them.
He declared that if they could not see the deed in its proper light, he would pretty soon beat it into them, and he was squaring up to the poor puisne with an evident intention for mischief, when the judges offered to take the papers home and reconsider them.
The next day, they were again sent for, when, finding Northumberland as pugilistic as ever, and hand in glove with the king, the chief justice consented to the deed; and the puisne, on being approached by Northumberland in an attitude of menace, was glad to stammer out, "I am of the same opinion," as rapidly as he could give the words their utterance. The judges were promised that the deeds should be ratified by Parliament, and that they should be pardoned if they had done wrong; for otherwise, from the fists of Northumberland to the hands of the legislature, might have been analogous to getting out of the frying-pan into the fire.
All this row in the palace of an invalid produced the effect that might have been expected, for the poor boy died a day or two afterwards. A pugilistic encounter between a duke and a judge, was somewhat too much of a stimulant for a child in Edward's weak state, and his physicians having given him up, he was turned over to the treatment of a female quack, who finished him. She did the business on the 6th of July, 1533, when he sunk under a complication of evils, among which his medical attendant was undoubtedly the greatest. He had lived fifteen years, eight months, and twenty-two days, having been upon the throne six years and a half; affording a curious instance of a reign in which the part of the sovereign was so insignificant that it might just as well have been omitted.
This little fellow had been greatly eulogised for his talents, as shown in his journal; but on looking at this juvenile production we regret to say that we could not go the length of our old friend the evening paper, in stating that it is "a very remarkable production." He mentioned certain dinners and suppers with evident gusto, and alludes to the return of the sweating sickness, but misses the obvious point, that he hopes that it will not prove so perverse as to begin sweating sovereigns. Some of the historians of his reign allege that if we are to judge young Edward by the laws passed in his reign, there is no great deal to be said for him. Beggars were declared to be the slaves of those who apprehended them, and iron collars were permitted to be put about the throats of the latter; but this was too much for the pride of the stiff-necked people of England, and the law was repealed, within two or three years of its having been enacted.
There is no doubt that he was a most amiable little fellow, as docile as a lamb, if indeed his gentleness did not amount to absolute sheepishness. His flatterers say that he could speak five languages, and had a taste for music and physic, in the latter of which predilections we are quite unable to sympathise. We should have said he was a nice child but for the peculiarity to which we have just made allusion. As a quiet young gentleman at a preparatory school kept by ladies, Master Edward Tudor would have done credit no doubt to the establishment in which he might have been placed; but we would as soon select a sovereign from a seminary at once, and take him from the bread-and-butter to the throne, as see the spirt of the monarchy diluted in milk-and-water, and the sceptre dwindling down into a king's pattern spoon.
NORTHUMBERLAND having got the deed appointing his daughter-in-law the Lady Jane Grey to the throne, began to get rather nervous as to the effect of making known to the people such a preposterous arrangement. He was afraid to advertise the king's death, and walked about the palace at Greenwich, biting his nails, thinking what he should do, or shut himself up in a small apartment, which, from the colour of its walls, was known as the brown study. He subsequently sent for the Lord Mayor of London, half a dozen aldermen, and a dozen citizens, to whom he communicated, one at a time, but always in a whisper, the decease of the sovereign. "Mind you don't tell," was the precautionary observation he made to each; and a will was then produced, in which the boy-king had appointed Lady Jane Grey his successor. The cockneys expressed their readiness to swear allegiance to the lady, if it was "all right;" and Northumberland pledged his honour as a peer, that he would make it so. This happened on the 1st of July, and two days afterwards Lady Jane was forwarded by water to the Tower of London, some of the corporation, who had been gained over by her father-in-law, rowing in the same boat with her. After her safe arrival, the death of King Edward was publicly announced, and Lady Jane Grey was proclaimed amid very slight applause, accompanied by murmurs of the name of Mary. Poor Jane was sadly genée by the position into which she was thrust, for she was a quiet, unaspiring, lovely creature, whose only fault seems to have been that she read Plato in the original Greek, * which appears to us the very alpha and omega of absurdity.
In the meantime, Mary, whose sanguinary disposition, and love for cutting off heads in her father's style, fully entitled her to the name of the "chip of the old block," was raising friends to resist the views of Northumberland. Mary, whose Catholic predilections were known, promised those who were favourable to the Reformation, that she would make no change in the religion fixed by Edward; and thus, though she was understood to have mass celebrated at home, she silenced the scruples of the masses. The proclamation of Lady Jane Grey had been contrived at a packed meeting of the council, on the 10th of July; but it is said that a vintner's lad—or more probably a boy going round with the beer—entered a protest—possibly through an open window—to the arrangement. A policeman was instantly sent after him, and he was at once set in the pillory, where the tops of his ears paid the penalty of a juvenile offence, which he would not have committed had he arrived at the years of discretion. This little incident, trifling as it was, showed that there was a feeling abroad unfavourable to the elevation of Jane; for the pot-boy is always an authority on the subject of public measures. His opportunities of listening to the discussions of the people are great; and though he may hear much frothy declamation, as well as witness a vast tendency to half-and-half principles, in the course of his experience, he is nevertheless capable of judging, to a considerable extent, of the feelings of the multitude.
Northumberland, seeing that opinion was taking a powerful turn in Mary's favour, became fearfully perplexed, and hearing that an adverse force was being collected, came to the resolution that "somebody" must go and oppose the enemy. Who that "somebody" should be, was a very puzzling question, for Northumberland did not like the business himself, and was afraid to trust anyone else with a matter of so much consequence. At length he offered the task to Suffolk, the father of Lady Jane Grey; but that young lady began to cry very bitterly at the idea of her poor papa, who was "wholly unaccustomed to public fighting," being sent into battle. Whether it was an arrangement between father and daughter it is impossible to say; but it was well known that Suffolk was not over valorous, and even if he did not "cry off," Lady Jane did so for him, by keeping up a constant cry until they found her father a substitute. Northumberland, perceiving that Suffolk had made up his mind not to go, was looking about him for somebody else, when a general interrogatory of, "Why don't he go himself?" seemed to suggest itself to the council. With a reluctance that indicated the feelings in his mind of "Well, I suppose I must," he started off with a small army, which experienced a cold reception in its progress, and the silence of the spectators giving them the air of mutes, invested with the dolefulness of a funeral procession the march of the troops as far as Bury.
Northumberland had no sooner turned his back on the council than they turned their backs on him, by proclaiming Mary as Queen of England; and on a party being sent to besiege the Tower, Lady Jane Grey, by the advice of her own papa, resigned all pretensions to the sovereign dignity. Suffolk not only evinced no disposition to defend his daughter's claims, but turning his sword into a steel-pen, hastened to sign the decrees that were being issued in the name of Mary.
Poor Northumberland, who was waiting for succours which never came, and who was accordingly being victimised by the expenses of his soldiers, who acted as suckers of a different kind, heard of what had taken place in London, and having fallen back upon Cambridge, sent for a herald, or town crier, with whom he bargained for the proclamation of Mary, at the market-place. It has been atrociously hinted, by an old offender, whose family we spare by the suppression of his name, that Northumberland took this humiliating course in the hope that Mary would be molli-fied. He had scarcely finished the proceeding we have described, when he received a sharp letter from the council in London, desiring him to disband his army; but looking round, he perceived that it had disbanded itself, for all his followers had deserted him. They had, in fact, gone over to the other side, with a canting recantation of their opinions, and a whining declaration that they never should have thought of taking arms against their lawful queen "had not Northumberland made them do it." The unhappy duke himself was hanging about the streets of Cambridge the next day, not knowing whether to give himself up or "run for it," when the Earl of Arundel, coming up and tapping him on the shoulder, observed, "You must come along with me—you're my prisoner." Northumberland burst into a loud bellow, fell upon his knees, and begged for his life; but Arundel, contemptuously desiring an underling to "bring him along," lodged the captive in the Tower. Poor Lady Jane, whose representations of the part of queen had been limited to ten days, was already locked up, and, in fact, the State prison was full to overflowing of her unfortunate partisans. Her father, the Duke of Suffolk, obtained his pardon on the 31st of July, through Mary, who, on the 3rd of August, 1553, made her triumphant entry into London, accompanied by her little sister, afterwards the great Elizabeth. On the 18th of the same month, Northumberland, his eldest son John, Earl of Warwick, and two or three others, were brought to trial at Westminster Hall, when they pleaded the general issue; but the chief prisoner, finding it useless to throw himself upon the country, threw himself on the floor, asking, in the most abject terms, for mercy. This prostration was of no avail, for sentence of death was speedily passed upon him; the sycophant Suffolk (Lady Jane Grey's own father) being one of the judges who presided at the trial. The Earl of Warwick behaved with more spirit than his parent, and upon hearing that he was to die as a traitor, which would involve the confiscation of his property, he coolly requested that his unfortunate creditors might not be victimised. "Don't pay me off, without paying them off, also," were the chivalrous words of the young nobleman. The Marquis of Northampton, when called upon for his defence, said that he had been out with the hounds and engaged in field sports while the conspiracy was going on, so that he had been quite upon another scent; but this availed nothing for the sly old fox, who was immediately found guilty. Sir John Gates, as well as Sir Henry Gates, both of whom were fearfully unhinged, were also condemned; and Northumberland made a long penitential speech from the scaffold when, as if caught by the example, Sir John Gates opened out with extraordinary eloquence. Poor Gates having been brought to a close by a hint from the headsman, the axe and the curtain fell together upon this fearful tragedy.
Mary soon began to show her papist predilections, and after making Gardiner Chancellor, she proceeded to establish a most rigorous censorship of the press, like a person who, having evil designs, is anxious to get the watch-dog muzzled as speedily as possible. She prohibited all persons from speaking against her, for a time; but putting a prohibition on the press is like throwing coals on a volcano, which gets smothered for a while, but is sure to burst out with a stronger light on account of the attempt to extinguish it.
The fanaticism of Mary is said to have been caused by the wretchedness of her early life, during which a brutal father was continually threatening to chop off her head or make a nun of her. That unnatural parent was one of those monsters to whom it seems marvellous that children were ever given at all, for he could never appreciate the blessings they were calculated to afford, and he was for ever engaged in trying to mar their happiness. The stock from which she came was, however, so abominably bad, that there is nothing surprising in her cruelty; for when children happen to go wrong, it may be taken as a general rule that they get from their birth one half, and from their bringing-up the other half, of their iniquity. Mary proved herself a worthy descendant of a most unworthy sire, and turned the State prisons at once into warehouses for storing up the fuel of future martyrdom. Cranmer, Latimer, and others were stored away with this view, while the queen herself prepared for a coronation of unusual pageantry at Westminster.
The calm and philosophical Anne of Cleves—who will be remembered as the queen that Henry refused to have at any price—was a visitor to the show, and came to it in the same "fly" with the Princess Elizabeth. The latter, as sister to the queen, carried the crown in the procession, and was complaining of its weight in a whisper—for she was always flirting with somebody—to Noailles, the French Ambassador. "Be patient," replied the polite Parisian; "it will be lighter when it is on your head;" and an interchange of winks proved that the illusion was understood by the future sovereign of England. A parliament was assembled in less than a week, and the legislature that had lately been in favour of protestantism to the fullest extent, now relapsed into all the forms of popery. Both Houses opened with the celebration of mass, and Taylor, the Bishop of Lincoln, who objected to such flagrant apostacy, was fairly kicked downstairs, like a bill thrown out of the Upper House, where tergiversation was the order of the day throughout the session. Another bishop, of the name of Harley, the low comedian of the episcopal bench, whom Burnet calls a "drie dogge," was also ejected for exhibiting the same honourable consistency; but Harley restored the good nature of the House by throwing a little humour into his forced exit.
A convocation of the clergy was shortly afterwards held, to get rid of the Reformation as far as it had gone, and bring catholicism back again. Some of the bishops conformed to the new regulations laid down for them; but some few, who happened to be married, found that though shaking off an opinion was easy enough, getting rid of a wife was far more difficult. The celibacy of the clergy was, of course, insisted upon; but Holgate, Archbishop of York, however happy he might have been never to have linked himself with Mrs. Holgate at all, soon discovered that a divorce from that good lady was not so easily accomplished as talked about. Several bishops who had got entangled in the connubial noose, were nearly finding it a halter for their necks, inasmuch as they were all deprived of their sees, and some even of their lives, for having committed the offence of matrimony. An attempt was made to save them, by urging that the punishment accompanied the crime, and that it was hard to make those suffer who must already have endured a great deal; but the plea was not allowed to prevail, and deprivation was inflicted on all as an equal punishment. Several of the bishops conformed; and it has been said, in extenuation of their weakness, that their insincerity was not in changing from Protestant to Catholic, but had consisted in their originally veering round against their wills from Catholic to Protestant. It matters little whether, in turning from popery to the Reformation, they had been robbing Peter to pay Paul, or whether, in changing once more, they were guilty of some additional cheat, in order to restore what they had taken from Peter; but it is not to be denied, that on one occasion or the other they had been guilty of gross apostacy.
On the 13th of November, 1553, Cranmer, Lady Jane Grey, her husband Lord Guildford Dudley, and his brother Ambrose Dudley, were all condemned to die as traitors, by judges many of whom were the very people who had set on poor Jane to play the game, in which she had never taken the smallest interest. After sentence had been passed, execution was stayed. But Cranmer had no sooner been let out upon the charge of treason, than it was found on searching the office there was something else against him, whereupon he was taken and locked up once more upon an accusation of heresy. Lady Jane Grey had the freedom of the Tower presented to her in the shape of a permission to walk about the gardens, while Guildford Dudley and Ambrose were granted a few moderate indulgences—amounting, perhaps, to a set of skittles, a bat, trap and ball, or a couple of hockey-sticks.
This moderation was, however, accompanied by other acts of cruelty; and poor Judge Hales, who had really done nothing but refuse to change his religion, was, though he had stoutly defended the title of the queen, thrown into prison. The poor fellow went out of his mind, and though he was liberated, he had got so fearfully impressed with the idea of being burnt, that he thought to make himself fire-proof by running into the water; but it was so deep, and he stayed there so very long, that he unfortunately drowned himself.
Mary, who had been disappointed of several husbands—for nobody who saw her would think of having her—now resolved to make use of her position as Queen of England to draw some unhappy victim into a marriage. Comparatively old, exceedingly hard, and totally void of all the milk of human kindness, she was naturally very inflammable, and she had already fallen in love with young Ned Courtenay, a son of the Marquis of Exeter; but the predilection of that young gentleman for her half-sister Elizabeth had somewhat cooled the ardour of Mary, who found it was useless to set her cap at the young Earl of Devon, which was the title she had restored to the courteous Courtenay.
The project of a marriage continued to fill the head of the queen, but as it was evident there would be "nobody coming to marry her," and, indeed, "nobody coming to woo," unless she looked out pretty sharply for herself, she threw aside all scruples of delicacy, and began to advertise through the medium of her ambassadors. The Emperor Charles of Spain had been affianced to her thirty years ago, and though she might once have been accustomed to sing "Charlie's my darling," in her youthful days, that prince had, long ago, grown old enough to know better than to marry her. He nevertheless thought she might be a good match for his son Philip, or rather that the latter might be a match for the lady, inasmuch as the Spanish prince was crafty, cruel, and bigoted. Mary made a last effort to get a husband of her own choice by sending a proposal to Cardinal Pole, who would have nothing to do with her. Thus, even her indelicate eagerness to rush to the pole did not secure her election, and she was obliged to take Philip "for better, for worse," or rather for worse, for want of a better.
When the Commons heard of her intention they respectfully recommended her to wed an Englishman, but the idea that it was necessary for Mary to "first catch the Englishman" does not seem to have occurred to them. She announced her intention of marrying Philip partly out of old associations, but the oldness of the association was all on her own side, for the gentleman was young in comparison to the lady. It was not to be expected that Philip would make what he might justly have considered an "alarming sacrifice" without some equivalent, and it was agreed that he should have the honour and title of King of England, though he was not to interfere in the government. In case Mary survived him, he was to settle upon her £60,000 a year, but as he always flattered himself that he should, as he said, "see the old girl out," he looked upon this arrangement as merely nominal.
The English people had in those days, as they still have in these, an objection to Spanish marriages, and one Sir Thomas Wyatt, who had been in Spain, gave such a fearful picture of Philip, that the people of Kent, learning to regard him as something between "Old Bogie" and "Spring-heeled Jack," resolved to oppose his landing. Wyatt collected a considerable force at Rochester and marched upon London, when taking the first to the left, then the second to the right, they found themselves masters of Southwark. He had intended to give battle in Bermondsey, and put a cannon at the corner of the street, but it did not go off so well as he expected. In the meantime the queen's forces began pouring upon him some of the juice of the grape, from the Tower, and intimating to his followers that it might affect their heads, he withdrew as far as Kingston. His object was to march upon London by the other road, and he got about as far as Hammersmith when an accident happened to his largest buss, or blunderbuss—as he called his heaviest gun—and he wasted several hours in getting it, once more, upon its wheels again. By daylight he had got as far as Hyde Park, when he found that the royal forces were in the inclosure of St. James's, waiting to receive him, and having a large reserve in the hollow that now forms the reservoir.
The battle commenced with a noisy overture, consisting of the firing of cannons, loaded only with powder, and doing no harm to anybody. Wyatt's followers had dwindled very materially as he came into town; several of his soldiers having discovered, at Kew, it was not their "cue to fight," and others experiencing at Turaham Green, sufficient to turn 'em pale, and turn 'em back, at the very thought of meeting the enemy. Wyatt was nevertheless undaunted, and rushed upon the enemy, who, falling quietly back, let him regularly in among the troops, with the full intention of never letting him out again. Without looking behind, he charged, at full gallop, along Charing Cross, and continuing his furious career up the Strand, pulled up, at last, at Ludgate Hill, which he found closed against him. Finding no sympathy among the citizens he attempted to back out, and had got as far as the Temple, where, strange to say, his opponents gave him no law, and the unhappy old Pump, being at last caught in Pump Court, surrendered to Sir Maurice Berkeley.
Poor Wyatt was soon afterwards condemned to death, and executed, as well as about four hundred of his followers, but several were brought with ropes round their necks before the queen, who permitted them to find in the halter a loop-hole for escape, by an humble prayer for pardon.
Mary, exceedingly angry at the attempt to shake her throne, vented her animosity on her little sister Elizabeth, who was brought on a litter to London, though she was so ill that the journey might have killed her, had not youth, a good constitution, and some stout porters carried her through the dangerous ordeal. She was accused of having been a party to Wyatt's rebellion, and was taken to the Tower, though not without giving a good deal of trouble to the proper officer, for she insisted on sitting down every now and then upon a stone step in the yard, though the rain was falling heavily.
Mary, whose reign may be considered as the original "reign of terror"—though the brutality that distinguished it was confined to a few, while in the French edition the whole nation thirsted for blood—who exercised en détail the cruelties that France subsequently practised en gros, sentenced to death, in rapid rotation, all who did not quite agree with her. The unfortunate Lady Jane Grey and her husband, Lord Guildford Dudley, were both executed on the same day, and, indeed, the victims were so numerous that we should be inclined to say, "for further particulars see small bills," if we thought that any of the true bills found against the parties were still extant.
A curious commentary on the value of trial by jury was furnished about this time by the extraordinary case of Sir Nicholas Throgmorton—the father of Throgmorton Street, and friend of Sir Thomas Wyatt—who, after making his defence, obtained, to the surprise of everybody, a verdict of acquittal. Sir Thomas Bromley, the chief justice, began to cough and "hem!" and "ha!" as if there must be some mistake, and as though he would have said, "Gentlemen of the jury, do you know what you are doing?" The twelve honest men replied that it was "all right," they "knew what they were about," and persisted in their decision, until the chief justice, who thought every jury box ought to be a packing-case, hinted that the matter was one in which the Crown was interested, and that the Crown would stand no nonsense. The jurymen being still firm, they were hurried off to prison, and were only released upon paying enormous fines—which proved, at least, that the Government set a tremendous price upon their honesty.
On the 19th of July, 1554, Philip landed at Southampton on his way to fulfil his marriage contract with Mary; but he had taken the precaution to send on before him the Count of Egmont, who was intended to be mistaken for his master, and thus serve as a sort of pilot engine, in case of any collision with the populace. The expedient was very necessary, for the pilot engine—we mean Egmont—got some very hard knocks from several old buffers with whom he came in contact, and Philip, seeing the kind of reception he might expect, came, accompanied by a very long train, by way of escort, to his new station. On the 25th of the same month he was married to the queen, at Winchester, and the pair, whom we must call, by courtesy, "the happy couple," came to London, where a series of festivities, including the rapid descent of Il Diavolo. Somebody along a rope from the top of St. Paul's, * had been prepared in honour of the Royal marriage.