comforted him, at that pass, to have assisted in reforming the
national religion, a member of the Council was seen riding up on
horseback. They again thought that the Duke was saved by his
bringing a reprieve, and again shouted for joy. But the Duke
himself told them they were mistaken, and laid down his head and
had it struck off at a blow.
Many of the bystanders rushed forward and steeped their
handkerchiefs in his blood, as a mark of their affection. He had,
indeed, been capable of many good acts, and one of them was
discovered after he was no more. The Bishop of Durham, a very good
man, had been informed against to the Council, when the Duke was in
power, as having answered a treacherous letter proposing a
rebellion against the reformed religion. As the answer could not
be found, he could not be declared guilty; but it was now
discovered, hidden by the Duke himself among some private papers,
in his regard for that good man. The Bishop lost his office, and
was deprived of his possessions.
It is not very pleasant to know that while his uncle lay in prison
under sentence of death, the young King was being vastly
entertained by plays, and dances, and sham fights: but there is no
doubt of it, for he kept a journal himself. It is pleasanter to
know that not a single Roman Catholic was burnt in this reign for
holding that religion; though two wretched victims suffered for
heresy. One, a woman named JOAN BOCHER, for professing some
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opinions that even she could only explain in unintelligible jargon.
The other, a Dutchman, named VON PARIS, who practised as a surgeon
in London. Edward was, to his credit, exceedingly unwilling to
sign the warrant for the woman's execution: shedding tears before
he did so, and telling Cranmer, who urged him to do it (though
Cranmer really would have spared the woman at first, but for her
own determined obstinacy), that the guilt was not his, but that of
the man who so strongly urged the dreadful act. We shall see, too
soon, whether the time ever came when Cranmer is likely to have
remembered this with sorrow and remorse.
Cranmer and RIDLEY (at first Bishop of Rochester, and afterwards
Bishop of London) were the most powerful of the clergy of this
reign. Others were imprisoned and deprived of their property for
still adhering to the unreformed religion; the most important among
whom were GARDINER Bishop of Winchester, HEATH Bishop of Worcester,
DAY Bishop of Chichester, and BONNER that Bishop of London who was
superseded by Ridley. The Princess Mary, who inherited her
mother's gloomy temper, and hated the reformed religion as
connected with her mother's wrongs and sorrows - she knew nothing
else about it, always refusing to read a single book in which it
was truly described - held by the unreformed religion too, and was
the only person in the kingdom for whom the old Mass was allowed to
be performed; nor would the young King have made that exception
even in her favour, but for the strong persuasions of Cranmer and
Ridley. He always viewed it with horror; and when he fell into a
sickly condition, after having been very ill, first of the measles
and then of the small-pox, he was greatly troubled in mind to think
that if he died, and she, the next heir to the throne, succeeded,
the Roman Catholic religion would be set up again.
This uneasiness, the Duke of Northumberland was not slow to
encourage: for, if the Princess Mary came to the throne, he, who
had taken part with the Protestants, was sure to be disgraced.
Now, the Duchess of Suffolk was descended from King Henry the
Seventh; and, if she resigned what little or no right she had, in
favour of her daughter LADY JANE GREY, that would be the succession
to promote the Duke's greatness; because LORD GUILFORD DUDLEY, one
of his sons, was, at this very time, newly married to her. So, he
worked upon the King's fears, and persuaded him to set aside both
the Princess Mary and the Princess Elizabeth, and assert his right
to appoint his successor. Accordingly the young King handed to the
Crown lawyers a writing signed half a dozen times over by himself,
appointing Lady Jane Grey to succeed to the Crown, and requiring
them to have his will made out according to law. They were much
against it at first, and told the King so; but the Duke of
Northumberland - being so violent about it that the lawyers even
expected him to beat them, and hotly declaring that, stripped to
his shirt, he would fight any man in such a quarrel - they yielded.
Cranmer, also, at first hesitated; pleading that he had sworn to
maintain the succession of the Crown to the Princess Mary; but, he
was a weak man in his resolutions, and afterwards signed the
document with the rest of the council.
It was completed none too soon; for Edward was now sinking in a
rapid decline; and, by way of making him better, they handed him
over to a woman-doctor who pretended to be able to cure it. He
speedily got worse. On the sixth of July, in the year one thousand
five hundred and fifty-three, he died, very peaceably and piously,
praying God, with his last breath, to protect the reformed
religion.
This King died in the sixteenth year of his age, and in the seventh
of his reign. It is difficult to judge what the character of one
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so young might afterwards have become among so many bad, ambitious,
quarrelling nobles. But, he was an amiable boy, of very good
abilities, and had nothing coarse or cruel or brutal in his
disposition - which in the son of such a father is rather
surprising.
CHAPTER XXX - ENGLAND UNDER MARY
THE Duke of Northumberland was very anxious to keep the young
King's death a secret, in order that he might get the two
Princesses into his power. But, the Princess Mary, being informed
of that event as she was on her way to London to see her sick
brother, turned her horse's head, and rode away into Norfolk. The
Earl of Arundel was her friend, and it was he who sent her warning
of what had happened.
As the secret could not be kept, the Duke of Northumberland and the
council sent for the Lord Mayor of London and some of the aldermen,
and made a merit of telling it to them. Then, they made it known
to the people, and set off to inform Lady Jane Grey that she was to
be Queen.
She was a pretty girl of only sixteen, and was amiable, learned,
and clever. When the lords who came to her, fell on their knees
before her, and told her what tidings they brought, she was so
astonished that she fainted. On recovering, she expressed her
sorrow for the young King's death, and said that she knew she was
unfit to govern the kingdom; but that if she must be Queen, she
prayed God to direct her. She was then at Sion House, near
Brentford; and the lords took her down the river in state to th
e
Tower, that she might remain there (as the custom was) until she
was crowned. But the people were not at all favourable to Lady
Jane, considering that the right to be Queen was Mary's, and
greatly disliking the Duke of Northumberland. They were not put
into a better humour by the Duke's causing a vintner's servant, one
Gabriel Pot, to be taken up for expressing his dissatisfaction
among the crowd, and to have his ears nailed to the pillory, and
cut off. Some powerful men among the nobility declared on Mary's
side. They raised troops to support her cause, had her proclaimed
Queen at Norwich, and gathered around her at the castle of
Framlingham, which belonged to the Duke of Norfolk. For, she was
not considered so safe as yet, but that it was best to keep her in
a castle on the sea-coast, from whence she might be sent abroad, if
necessary.
The Council would have despatched Lady Jane's father, the Duke of
Suffolk, as the general of the army against this force; but, as
Lady Jane implored that her father might remain with her, and as he
was known to be but a weak man, they told the Duke of
Northumberland that he must take the command himself. He was not
very ready to do so, as he mistrusted the Council much; but there
was no help for it, and he set forth with a heavy heart, observing
to a lord who rode beside him through Shoreditch at the head of the
troops, that, although the people pressed in great numbers to look
at them, they were terribly silent.
And his fears for himself turned out to be well founded. While he
was waiting at Cambridge for further help from the Council, the
Council took it into their heads to turn their backs on Lady Jane's
cause, and to take up the Princess Mary's. This was chiefly owing
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to the before-mentioned Earl of Arundel, who represented to the
Lord Mayor and aldermen, in a second interview with those sagacious
persons, that, as for himself, he did not perceive the Reformed
religion to be in much danger - which Lord Pembroke backed by
flourishing his sword as another kind of persuasion. The Lord
Mayor and aldermen, thus enlightened, said there could be no doubt
that the Princess Mary ought to be Queen. So, she was proclaimed
at the Cross by St. Paul's, and barrels of wine were given to the
people, and they got very drunk, and danced round blazing bonfires
- little thinking, poor wretches, what other bonfires would soon be
blazing in Queen Mary's name.
After a ten days' dream of royalty, Lady Jane Grey resigned the
Crown with great willingness, saying that she had only accepted it
in obedience to her father and mother; and went gladly back to her
pleasant house by the river, and her books. Mary then came on
towards London; and at Wanstead in Essex, was joined by her halfsister,
the Princess Elizabeth. They passed through the streets of
London to the Tower, and there the new Queen met some eminent
prisoners then confined in it, kissed them, and gave them their
liberty. Among these was that Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, who
had been imprisoned in the last reign for holding to the unreformed
religion. Him she soon made chancellor.
The Duke of Northumberland had been taken prisoner, and, together
with his son and five others, was quickly brought before the
Council. He, not unnaturally, asked that Council, in his defence,
whether it was treason to obey orders that had been issued under
the great seal; and, if it were, whether they, who had obeyed them
too, ought to be his judges? But they made light of these points;
and, being resolved to have him out of the way, soon sentenced him
to death. He had risen into power upon the death of another man,
and made but a poor show (as might be expected) when he himself lay
low. He entreated Gardiner to let him live, if it were only in a
mouse's hole; and, when he ascended the scaffold to be beheaded on
Tower Hill, addressed the people in a miserable way, saying that he
had been incited by others, and exhorting them to return to the
unreformed religion, which he told them was his faith. There seems
reason to suppose that he expected a pardon even then, in return
for this confession; but it matters little whether he did or not.
His head was struck off.
Mary was now crowned Queen. She was thirty-seven years of age,
short and thin, wrinkled in the face, and very unhealthy. But she
had a great liking for show and for bright colours, and all the
ladies of her Court were magnificently dressed. She had a great
liking too for old customs, without much sense in them; and she was
oiled in the oldest way, and blessed in the oldest way, and done
all manner of things to in the oldest way, at her coronation. I
hope they did her good.
She soon began to show her desire to put down the Reformed
religion, and put up the unreformed one: though it was dangerous
work as yet, the people being something wiser than they used to be.
They even cast a shower of stones - and among them a dagger - at
one of the royal chaplains who attacked the Reformed religion in a
public sermon. But the Queen and her priests went steadily on.
Ridley, the powerful bishop of the last reign, was seized and sent
to the Tower. LATIMER, also celebrated among the Clergy of the
followed. Latimer was an aged man; and, as his guards took him
through Smithfield, he looked round it, and said, 'This is a place
that hath long groaned for me.' For he knew well, what kind of
bonfires would soon be burning. Nor was the knowledge confined to
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him. The prisons were fast filled with the chief Protestants, who
were there left rotting in darkness, hunger, dirt, and separation
from their friends; many, who had time left them for escape, fled
from the kingdom; and the dullest of the people began, now, to see
what was coming.
It came on fast. A Parliament was got together; not without strong
suspicion of unfairness; and they annulled the divorce, formerly
pronounced by Cranmer between the Queen's mother and King Henry the
Eighth, and unmade all the laws on the subject of religion that had
been made in the last King Edward's reign. They began their
proceedings, in violation of the law, by having the old mass said
before them in Latin, and by turning out a bishop who would not
kneel down. They also declared guilty of treason, Lady Jane Grey
for aspiring to the Crown; her husband, for being her husband; and
Cranmer, for not believing in the mass aforesaid. They then prayed
the Queen graciously to choose a husband for herself, as soon as
might be.
Now, the question who should be the Queen's husband had given rise
to a great deal of discussion, and to several contending parties.
Some said Cardinal Pole was the man - but the Queen was of opinion
that he was NOT t
he man, he being too old and too much of a
student. Others said that the gallant young COURTENAY, whom the
Queen had made Earl of Devonshire, was the man - and the Queen
thought so too, for a while; but she changed her mind. At last it
appeared that PHILIP, PRINCE OF SPAIN, was certainly the man -
though certainly not the people's man; for they detested the idea
of such a marriage from the beginning to the end, and murmured that
the Spaniard would establish in England, by the aid of foreign
soldiers, the worst abuses of the Popish religion, and even the
terrible Inquisition itself.
These discontents gave rise to a conspiracy for marrying young
Courtenay to the Princess Elizabeth, and setting them up, with
popular tumults all over the kingdom, against the Queen. This was
discovered in time by Gardiner; but in Kent, the old bold county,
the people rose in their old bold way. SIR THOMAS WYAT, a man of
great daring, was their leader. He raised his standard at
Maidstone, marched on to Rochester, established himself in the old
castle there, and prepared to hold out against the Duke of Norfolk,
who came against him with a party of the Queen's guards, and a body
of five hundred London men. The London men, however, were all for
Elizabeth, and not at all for Mary. They declared, under the
castle walls, for Wyat; the Duke retreated; and Wyat came on to
Deptford, at the head of fifteen thousand men.
But these, in their turn, fell away. When he came to Southwark,
there were only two thousand left. Not dismayed by finding the
London citizens in arms, and the guns at the Tower ready to oppose
his crossing the river there, Wyat led them off to Kingston-upon-
Thames, intending to cross the bridge that he knew to be in that
place, and so to work his way round to Ludgate, one of the old
gates of the City. He found the bridge broken down, but mended it,
came across, and bravely fought his way up Fleet Street to Ludgate
Hill. Finding the gate closed against him, he fought his way back
again, sword in hand, to Temple Bar. Here, being overpowered, he
surrendered himself, and three or four hundred of his men were
taken, besides a hundred killed. Wyat, in a moment of weakness
(and perhaps of torture) was afterwards made to accuse the Princess
Elizabeth as his accomplice to some very small extent. But his