m: YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY Gift of MRS. JAMES H. ANDREWS CAMEOS ENGLISH HISTORY. (FOURTH SERIES.) REFORMATION TIMES. CAMEOS FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. REFORMATION TIMES. BY THE A UTHOR OF THE" HEIR OF REDCLYFFE. FOURTH SERIES. $orto having transgressed the statute of praemunire, which forbids English \ clergy to make any appeal, or receive any commission from the Pope, "\ without permission from the King. It was a monstrous accusation, since Henry had been very anxious < that he should become a legate ; but Wolsey, who constantly received kind messages in secret from the King, preferred trusting himself to his master's mercy, rather than to the judgment of his hostile peers ; so, though he could have shown the King's hand and seal to his appoint- ¦;; ment, he pleaded guilty. Then York House, now called Whitehall,! !i was demanded of him, as had been expected ; and he submitted, THE CARDINAL'S FALL. 37 though sending a message by the judge who had been sent to him at Esher — " Show his Majesty from me, that I must desire his Majesty to remember that there is both a Heaven and a Hell." Thereupon sentence was pronounced upon him, and all his possessions were declared to be forfeited — even his two colleges, a most bitter grief to him. He wrote to the King on his knees, to implore him to spare that at Oxford ; but he had no answer, He was broken-hearted. There had been real love between him and Henry, and the coldness of his master grieved him more than the loss of his splendours. The Bishop of Bayonne, who went to see him at Esher, found him incoherent with grief, and his face half the size it had once been. He was deeply grieved for the members of his retinue, who had depended on him for their maintenance ; for if he was ostentatious, he was really munificent and kind-hearted ; and he was grateful when Crumwell proposed that his former chaplains, who had been preferred to rich benefices, should each contribute something for their support. Many, however, had to be dismissed ; and this Wolsey did with much kindness and dignity, advising them to go to their homes as if on their yearly visit, and promising to recall them so soon as the King should take him into favour again. For all this time, Henry was comporting himself so that Wolsey really believed that his own disgrace was only intended as a means of frightening the Pope into dissolving the marriage ; and most likely Norfolk, Suffolk, and Anne Boleyn, his chiefest foes, so represented it to the King, for frequent messages came by private hands, generally by night, to keep up his spirits ; and when, at Christmas, he fell sick of a fever, Henry sent off his favourite physician, Dr. Butts, to attend him, and anxiously demanded, " Have you seen yonder man ? " "Yea, Sir," quoth Butts. " How do you like him ? " said Henry. "Sir if you will have him dead, I warrant him he will be dead within these four days, if he receive no comfort from you shortly, nor from Mrs. Anne.'' " Marry ! " cried Henry. " God forbid that he should die. I pray you, Master Butts, go again to him, and do you care unto him ; for I would not lose him for twenty thousand pounds." " Then must your Grace send him some comfortable message, as shortly as you can. " "Even so I will," said the King, taking off a ring with a ruby carved with his own likeness. " This ring he knoweth right well, for he gave me the same ; and tell him I am not offended with him in my heart nothing at all, and that he shall know shortly." Then turning to Anne Boleyn, he bade her, as his good Sweet-heart, to send a token also ; and she took a tablet of gold which hung at her waist, and sent it with' comfortable words. Henry sent three more physicians; and his solicitude, far more than their skill, contributed to restore the Cardinal, who was allowed to go and reside at Richmond Palace, instead of at his 3S CAMEOS OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. Cameo III. Wolseys re tirement. dismal house at Esher. Moreover, he was reinstated in the See of York, and allowed one thousand marks a year from that of Winchester; and the King, of his own accord, unknown to his council, returned him six thousand pounds' worth of the spoil of York House. Still he was much out of spirits ; and as he walked up and down the gardens at Richmond in the spring evenings, he showed it to his friends and chaplains. Cavendish says that one evening, when wailing to attend the Cardinal — who was in church — in his walk, he saw " certain images of beasts counterfeited in timber," standing in a corner, the which he repaired to behold ; and the Cardinal found him fixed in admiration of a dun cow, on which the sculptor had "most likely showed his cunning," "Yea, marry," said the Cardinal, "by this cow hangeth a prophecy — • ' When the cow masters the bull, Then, priest, beware thy skull. ' " The dun cow was a cognizance of the earldom of Richmond, and Boleyn— or Bull-en— had the canting arms of a black bull's head ¦ so that Anne might be termed the cow, and Henry the bull. The Cardinal was threatened with dropsy, and he seems to have taken home the warning ; for he was constant at his prayers, wore a hair-shirt,' and spent much time at a Carthusian convent at Richmond, in the cell of one of the oldest fathers, who, as Cavendish says, "converted him" from the vain-glory of the world. Commands came that he should reside in his diocese of York ¦ and in Lent he set forth— with a train, even in his diminished state, of one hundred and sixty horse and seventy-two waggons. He paused at ¦ Peterborough, for Easter ; and on Palm Sunday, bore his palm, or willow branch, in procession, singing with the monks of St. Peter's minster ; and on Maundy Thursday he washed and kissed the feet of fifty-nine poor men— the number of his own years —and gave each three ells of good canvas for shirting, a pair of shoes, a cast of red-herrings and three white herrings, and twelve pence. He took up his abode at Cawood Castle, twelve miles from York • and there turned his whole attention to his proper episcopal business, which he seemed thoroughly to enjoy. His people were delighted to have him among them, and all went well throughout the summer. He had never been installed in his cathedral, and he appointed the first Monday in November for the purpose, making the arrangements with, for him, unwonted simplicity— which was thought to prove his conversion. Kind messages from the King continued to come in, and he was very happy in them ; and by no means prepared for the blow, when, on the Friday before the intended ceremony, as he sat at dinner, the Earl of Northumberland arrived, and after a time begged to see him alone ; then, with much pain and grief, showed him a warrant for his apprehen- ' sion for high treason ! This earl was the same Henry Percy whose THE CARDINAL'S FALL. 39 marriage with Anne Boleyn had been hindered by the Cardinal. He had forgiven his old master, but she had not. It is difficult to tell why this blow was struck ; for Henry's private messages were as affectionate as ever. Thomas Crumwell, Wolsey's attorney, had passed to the King's service ; and it was from that 'time that the dark change came over Henry's counsels. Was he concerned ? Or was it that the Cardinal's popularity in the north alarmed his enemies, and that they persuaded the King to permit the trial, on the plea that it would clear him ? At any rate, the termination could not have been expected by anyone. The Cardinal's conscience was clear ; and he professed himself ready to take his trial. His people thronged about him, much grieved at his leaving them ; and all respect was shown to him, both by Northum berland and Lord Shrewsbury, with whom he spent a fortnight at Sheffield Park ; but while there, an attack of illness came on, which weakened him much ; and when the Constable of the Tower, Sir William Kingston, arrived, he was hardly fit to travel. When he heard the name of the keeper, he smote his hand on his thigh — remembering a prophecy that at Kingston he would die. Still, he would not accept the Constable's offer to wait for his recovery, thinking the delay might be turned against him. The journey increased his disease ; and on the third day, when he arrived at the Abbey of Leicester, he had already been nearly fainting on his mule several times. The abbot and monks were drawn up to receive him by torch light at the gate ; and his salutation to them was, "I am come to lay my bones among you." He went at once to his bed, where he lay sinking all the next day — a Sunday. On Monday morning, as Cavendish was watching him, he asked the time, and being told it was eight o'clock — " That cannot be," said the Cardinal, repeating "eight of the clock," several times over — "for at eight o'clock you will lose your master ! " However, he lived through that day, and had an interview with Kingston as to money after which the King was inquiring. On the next, he made his confession ; and afterwards saw Kingston, and sent a long message to the King by him, as a dying man ; in the course of which occurred the memorable words — " If I had served God as diligently as I have served my King, He would not have given me over in my grey hairs. But this is the just reward that I must receive for my diligent pains and study that I have had to do him service— not regarding my service to God, but only to satisfy his pleasure." He added that " He is a prince of royal courage, and hath a princely heart ; and rather than miss any part of his will or pleasure, he will endanger the loss of one half of his realm. For I assure you I have often kneeled before him for the space sometimes of three hours, to persuade him from his will and appetite, but I could never dissuade him therefrom. Therefore, Master Kingston, I warn you, if you chance to be of his privy council, be well advised what you put into his head, for you shall never put it out again." 40 CAMEOS OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. Cameo III. Death of Wolsey. 1530. He further sent strong dvice to the King to have " a vigilant eye to depress this new sort of Lutherans," adding numerous arguments from the example of Huss and Wickliffe, wondrously acute for a man whose life was so nearly ended — for he spoke on till his tongue faltered, ' his breath failed, and his eyes became fixed. His chaplains ' ' spake to him of the Passion of Christ," and the Abbot came to give him Extreme Unction ; and as the clock struck eight, on the eve of St. Andrew, 1530, this master spirit departed, dying, it would seem, of a broken heart. One day he lay in state in his chamber, and at four o'clock the next morning he was buried in the Abbey Church ; and then Kingston and his attendants, mounting their horses, rode for Hampton Court, where the King was residing in the stately palace raised " by the right triumphant Cardinal of England." Henry was really grieved and touched by his old friend's death, which had come about through the disgrace that he had permitted, rather than desired — yielding to a cabal with unwonted easiness, arising from his own flattered self-will and the blandishments of an ambitious and - malicious woman. CAMEO IV. THE CONFESSION OF AUGSBURG. (I523-I532-) King of England. 1509. Henry VIII. King of Scotland. 1514. James V. King of Spain and Germany. 15 19. Charles V. Kitig of France. 1515. Francois I. Pope. 1523. Clement VII. While Charles V. was struggling to pacify Europe, matters had gone to much greater lengths in Germany. Luther, as has been said, had been recalled from Wartburg by the need of checking the false teaching of Carlstadt on the subject of the Holy Eucharist. Luther himself held that the Holy Body and Blood of Christ are present together with the natural Bread and Wine ; but he rejected the idea.of the memorial Sacrifice, and his followers imagined that to join in worship was idolatrous, but he felt very strongly against those who like Ulrich Zwingle in Switzerland entirely denied the Real Presence. He came back to his old Augustinian Convent at Wittenburg and there published his translation of the Bible. It was indeed like leaven pro ducing a ferment. Soon there was a horrible insurrection, led by a man named Thomas Munzer. The German peasants were a miserable, down trodden race, mere serfs, and fierce and brutal in their ignorance, always ready to rise on any cry ; and the dues of the priest and the noble out of their scanty gains were paid with a burning of heart which was ready to burst into flames at any moment. To hear of the overthrow of the system of bishops and priests with tithes and fees, of convents as feudal lords, and monks as devouring locusts, was music to their ears, and a man named Thomas Munzer, from Luther's own country of Thuringia, became their leader, his spirit fired to fanaticism by the reading of Luther's Bible. All over the Black Forest the peasants rose, demanding abolition of tithes, freedom to hunt and cut wood, relief from serfdom, &c. &c, and, wherever a noble's family fell into their hands, using barbarous cruelty. At Weinsberg, the Count of Hollenstein, his wife, child, and sixty men were murdered, every castle was sacked, and such nobles as were spared were Cameo IV. The Peasants Insurrection 1528. 42 CAMEOS OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. forced to march in their rank and be treated as their inferiors. The nobles, both Catholic and Lutheran, were horrified and enraged. They united their forces, and the peasants met the usual miserable fate of Jaqueries, being treated most mercilessly in the hour of victory. The Markgraf of Anspach, hearing that eighty-five men had sworn never to see him again, had all their eyes put out, and left them to find their way home as they could. Villages were burnt and laid waste, and in the north of Germany 50,000 men altogether perished. Munzer, however, at the head of another host, was ravaging Alsace and Swabia, and then marched towards Saxony. Luther and Melanchthon watched, the one with grief, the other with terror, their progress, marked by the utter de-> struction of every castle or convent that was not strong enough to hold out against them, and the good Elector Friedrich mourned while they exhorted him to defence. " Perhaps," he wrote to his brother Johann, ' ' these poor people have had only too much reason for revolt. Alas ! the poor are too much oppressed both by their temporal and spiritual lords ;" and when he was told to what dangers he exposed himself by non-re sistance, he answered—" Hitherto I have been a mighty Elector, with horses and carriages in plenty. If it be God's will to take them from me, I will go on foot. " And this was the man to whom Munzer wrote to be converted ! How ever, his brother Johann, with the young Landgraf, Philipp von Hesse, Duke George of Saxony, and Heinrich of Brunswick united, and marching against the vast host of peasants, penned them up on the side of a hill, and ' then in pity offered them terms of pardon if they would surrender ; but Munzer, who knew there would be no hope for him, promised his wretched followers a miracle in their favour, and pointed to a rainbow, which at that moment appeared in the sky as its pledge, adding, " Fear not. All the balls that are aimed at you I will catch in my sleeve, " and he cruelly massacred the young noble who had brought the flag of truce. There was no help for it but to fall on the deluded host with the artillery, and of course there was then a slaughter as of wolves in a pit. Munzer was taken alive, and maintained the justice of his cause to the last. He was beheaded, and the princes of the Empire dealt with their subjects as they chose, George of Saxony being the most savage against them, while Friedrich would not put one to death. A nobleman seeing an intelligent-looking man among the prisoners went up to him and asked, " Well, fellow, which do you prefer, the rule of the peasants or of the princes?" " Ah, sir, " said the poor man, " there is no knife that cuts sharper than the mastery of the peasants one over another." The terror caused by these peasants made men much less disposed to consider of reformation calmly and moderately. Luther and Melancthon both felt the evil deeply, not only of this rebellious spirit, but of Carl- stadt's erroneous doctrine on the Holy Eucharist ; and the heart of the best and noblest man in Germany, Friedrich the Wise, was breaking at the sad prospects of what he had hailed as leading to the purification of the Church. THE CONFESSION OF AUGSBURG. 43 " If it were God's will," he said, when he fell ill, " I would gladly die I no longer see either truth, or love, or faith, or anything on earth. " His chaplin Spalatin heard his confession, and gave him the Holy Com munion in both kinds : then he sent for his servants, who came weeping. " Children, " he said, "ifl have offended any one of you, let him pardon me for the love of God, for we princes often give pain to poor folk, and that is ill done." He died on the 5th of May, 1525, and his physician could not help saying, "He was a child of peace, and in peace he departed." Lutherhad never seen the Elector except standing by the Emperor's side at the Diet of Wurms, but he might well mourn for such a man. " O death most bitter to all who survive," he said. The new Elector, Johann, was a more ardent Lutheran, but a much less wise and prudent man, and the loss of Friedrich soon made itself felt in the counsels of the Re formers. . Luther himself took very decided steps, which severed him more and more from the Church of his youth. He had come to the conclusion that the Acts of the Apostles justified the ordination of presbyters by the laying on of priestly, equally with episcopal, hands, and he therefore ordained the first Evangelical preacher for Wittenburg, the Evangelical Alliance being the title which the princes of his party had lately taken to themselves. He also gave up his convent life, and on the 13th of June, 1525, he married a nun. He had begun by regretting the imposition of monastic vows, seeing, indeed, that they were often flagrantly transgressed ; and then came the further argument in his mind that they ought not to be made, and when made ought not to be kept. The doctrine of justification by faith alone, exclusive of works, which he had come to think the greatest' of all, naturally made him jealous of all those dedications to prayer and asce ticism which might be viewed as attempts to earn Heaven for oneself. These teachings widely spread had found their way into many convents, and in 1523, nine nuns of Nimpsch, unable to endure the convent life any longer, persuaded two citizens of Torgau to assist their escape by carrying ¦ them off in empty casks going to be replenished with the convent beer. They had come to Wittenburg and presented themselves to Luther, who welcomed them and placed them with his friends, since their own families viewed them as disgraced and would not receive them. He persuaded his friends to marry eight of them, saying that for his own part he did not hold himself bound from marriage by his old monastic vow, but that he might be put to death any day as a heretic and therefore would not marry. But at the end of two years, when all were disposed of save one. named Katharine von Bora, and Luther had hoped to have found a husband for her, she refused, and told him that she would never marry anyone unless it was himself. He consented, saying he was going to play the world and the devil a trick — one does not quite see how. His old father, who had 44 CAMEOS OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. been grieved at first to see him a monk, was delighted, and he was very happy with his Kathe and her children, though the whole Catholic world was greatly shocked at this double violation of vows made willingly by persons of full age. And yet such beautiful sayings of his about little children are recorded that it is hard to regret his marriage. He said his youngest was always his dearest, " the little ones have most need of love and care, therefore the love of parents naturally descends. " He lost one little girl, and he bent over her saying, " Magdalene, my little daughter, thou wouldst willingly remain with thy father here, but gladly goest to thy Father yonder. " " Yes, dear father, as God wills it," said the child. His love went out to all around. Looking at his little dog's wistful eyes, and feeling as if even its life must last on, he said, "Fear not, Hanslein, thou too shalt have a little golden tail." When a pair of little birds in his garden flew away from him he said, , " Ah, dear little birds, do not fly away. I wish you well from my heart if you could only trust me, though I own we do not thus trust our God. " When standing before a fruit-tree, and admiring the fruit, he exclaimed, , " If Adam had not fallen we might thus have admired all trees," and with a fine pear in his hand he would admire the work of God in producing it from the sap. A musician, as he had always been, he began that large and beautiful collection of hymns which have always been the especial inheritance of Germany. In the meantime the Archduke Ferdinand held two Diets at Spiers, in 1528 and 1529, where the Evangelical Alliance made strong demon strations. In the first they were the strongest, and procured that the Edict of Wurms should not be carried out ; in the second they were less successful, and it was enacted that the Edict of Wurms should be strictly enforced wherever the reformed doctrines did not prevail, but where they did no further changes should be till a general council should have been held ; that the Mass should be restored wherever there were any ready to join in it, and that no doctrines against it should be preached, but that all preaching should be in accordance with the teaching of the Church on all subjects. The Lutheran princes and deputies from the cities who were thus controlled, collected and protested against the decision, saying it was illegal for one Diet to reverse the decrees of another, refusing to bring all preaching into conformity with the Church, or to restore the Mass. The princes who signed this protest were Johann, Elector of Saxony ; George, Markgraf of Brandenburg Anspach ; Ernst and Franz, Dukes of Bruns- wick-Luneberg ; Philipp, Landgraf of Hesse Cassel ; Wolfgang, Prince of Anhalt, besides the representatives of fourteen Imperial cities. They were called Protestants, and this term, though applying only to their protest against the Diet of Spiers, was used to distinguish all of their THE CONFESSION OF AUGSBURG. 45 party, and from being the name given to Lutherans, came in time to be applied to all who opposed Rome, whether they agreed in anything else or not. Having given Francois I. such a blow as might quiet him for some time, and secured a space of tranquillity on that side by the Ladies' Peace, Charles V. set out for Bologna, to receive the crowns of the Empire and of Lombardy. It was no unmeaning pageant, for only as Emperor of the West could he call together a general council, even if he could get the Pope's consent ; and only when Emperor himself could he obtain the appointment of a King of the Romans, and secure the succession to his brother Ferdinand, who as King of Hungary was fighting the desperate battle with the Turks. To obtain from the Pope this council, Charles was prepared to grant much in Italy ; and on the other hand, Clement VII., who added, to all the ordinary Italian hatred to reformation the certainty that a council would depose him on account of his illegitimate birth, was resolved to gain all he could for himself and his family, and therewith to stave off the council by fair promises. Pope and Emperor met at Bologna in the end of the year 1529, and remained for four months under the same roof, when Charles granted the Pope's cousin, Alessandro, investiture of the duchy of Tuscany, and undertook to overcome the Florentines for him. During their conferences, it seemed to Henry VIII. a fit opportunity for pleading for that separation from Queen Katharine on which his heart was more than ever set. On Wolsey's fall the King was resolved to have only laymen in his council, hoping, no doubt, that, as being less in awe of the Pope, they would best assist in carrying out his wishes. The president of the council was Anne Boleyn's uncle, the Duke of Norfolk, and her father, soon after created Earl of Wiltshire, was likewise included in it with the King's brother-in-law, Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, and Sir Thomas More became Lord Chancellor, the King no doubt supposing from his being known as one of the most open-minded men of his time, that he would assist in his purpose of cancelling the marriage. More, however, had no doubt a sense of the perilousness of the post to any honest man, for in his speech to the House of Lords, when the Duke of Norfolk led him to the woolsack, he spoke of the " sword of Damocles, which hung over his head, tied only by a hair of a horse's tail." His conduct as Chancellor was perfect as the chief law-officer of the kingdom, with such thorough impartial and conscientious work as had not always been the rule. Henry and his council had come to the resolve that a last attempt should be made on the Pope. In 1528, Dr. Thomas Cranmer, a Fellow of Jesus College, Cambridge, had been staying with two of his pupils at Waltham, whither they had fled from the sweating sickness at Cambridge. The King was at Tytynhanger, and his suite were dispersed in the houses in the neighbourhood, all 46 CAMEOS OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. being driven into the country for the same cause. The King's secretary, Dr. Stephen Gardiner, and his almoner Dr. Fox, here fell in with Cranmer, and as usual the talk was about the King's marriage. Cranmer, who had a peculiarly clear legal mind, said the point was this : The Pope had the power to dispense with the laws of the Church, but not with the laws of God. Was marriage with a brother's widow contrary to the law of God ? That was a question for universities and canonists. If so, had Arthur and Katharine been really husband and wife? Fox and Gardiner carried the report to the King, who was delighted. " Who is this Dr. Cranmer ?" he cried. "Where is he ? Is he still at Waltham ? Marry, I will speak to him ! Let him be sent for out of hand. This man, I trow, has got the right sow by the ear." Cranmer was brought to the court, made to write out his argument, and appointed one of the royal chaplains. The King asked him if he would undertake to maintain his argument at Rome ; and he answered that he would. In the meantime he defended his treatise both in Oxford and Cambridge, and won over several distinguished men to his view of the question. So when the embassy to Bologna was formed, he was one member of it, and at the head was placed the Earl of Wiltshire. Some objected that Anne Boleyn's father was hardly a fit person to choose ; but Henry answered that there was no one who had so much interest in the cause. Boleyn was to address the Emperor in French, and make full exposition of the cause of the Ring's demand, adding hints of his power, and bribes up to 300,000/. if the Emperor's consent could be gained. The King, perhaps that his words might be reported, declared that if he failed with the Pope, he should withdraw himself from Clement as illegitimate, simoniaeally appointed and ignorant, and that he would have a patriarch of his own for England. The Pope was to be warned against Charles as a treacherous friend, and every induce ment held out to either, or to both, to consent to the gratification of Henry's wishes. The embassy arrived in the interval between the two coronations. They both took place at Bologna, though that of Lombardy ought to have been in St. Ambrose's Cathedral at Milan ; that of the Empire in the Church of St. John Lateran at Rome ; but both cities were recover ing from the recent barbarities of the Imperial troops, and Charles avoided them ; so he was crowned King of Lombardy on his thirtieth birthday, St. Matthias' day ; and Emperor on the 24th of March. It was eighty years since an Emperor had been crowned in Italy, and Charles V. was the last, and a far more powerful one than any since his greatest namesake. It did, indeed, seem that only insular conceit could suppose this a favourable moment for proposing the degradation of the aunt and cousin of this triumphant Emperor ; but the essentially ungentlemanly spirit of the Tudors prevented Henry from having any conception of the chivalrous feeling that Charles had for the woman whose nearest protector he was. THE CONFESSION OF AUGSBURG. 47 ¦ A story is told that Lord Wiltshire, on being introduced to the Pope, refused to kiss his foot, but that his dog gave it a bite instead. This is most unlikely, for Boleyn's whole purpose must have been to conciliate him, and it stands on good authority, that the embassy were received graciously, and told that the Pope would do anything for the King that his conscience would permit. Cranmer was politely received, as was the wont with rising clergymen, and his treatise was accepted, though the Pope contrived to stave off the hearing it publicly read. But when the ambassadors appeared before the Emperor, Lord Wilt shire was at once silenced. "Stop, sir," said Charles. " Allow your colleagues to speak — you are a party concerned." Boleyn stood his ground, saying he was there not as father but am bassador ; he gave the King's messages, and even his offer of the money in restitution of the marriage portion. " I am no merchant to sell the honour of my aunt," said Charles. If the Pope decided against her, he said he would hold his peace. Otherwise* he would maintain her rights to the best of his power. This was all that was gained from either Pope or Emperor. The meeting broke up. Charles went to Germany, Wiltshire to England, Cranmer visited Rome, and then travelled through Germany, trying to interest the reforming princes in his master's cause ; but Luther saw no charms in the " defender of the faith," who only wanted to get rid of his lawful wife, and he gained no sympathy. Luther even wrote to Bames, the royal agent, that he had rather let the King have two wives at once than get rid of his lawful one. The Universities of Germany were still less willing to decide in the King's favour. Much was hoped from the fourteen Universities of France. Indeed, Henry had the assurance to write to Francois I. to interfere in his favour ; but the King of France replied that he could not offend the Emperor, while his sons were still in his power, nor could they be released till he had paid 2,000,000 crowns to the Emperor, and redeemed for them the lily of gold which Maximilian had pawned to Henry VII. This made Henry forgive the debt, make a present to him of the pledge, and lend a large sum, for which consideration the Count of Montmorency canvassed the Doctors of the University of Paris one by one ; and though the consciences of the majority were against it, dexterous management obtained a decision in the King's favour. A few of the others were also won over, and Oxford and Cambridge were subservient, so that Henry had outward justification, though everyone knew how dishonestly it had been obtained. In the meantime, in 1530, armed with these decisions, such as they were, Henry applied again to the Pope, but with no better success ; in deed' Clement had gathered courage to make what was tantamount to a' refusal to meddle any more with the matter, and a representation that if he were afraid of a disputed succession this was no means of preventing it. . The Emperor actually arrived in Germany, and issued summonses tor 43 CAMEOS OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. the Diet to meet at Augsburg on the 1 5th of May. This gave the Pro testants time to prepare the exposition of their faith which is called the, " Confession of Augsburg," and has ever since been looked on as the standard of Lutheran doctrine. It was drawn up by Melanchthon, and approved by Luther, and consisted of twenty-eight articles, twenty-one of which agreed with the Catholic faith of the whole Church, while the other seven contained the grounds of separation. Charles had sent full assurances of giving a full and just hearing, and he fully intended to do so, but all he had ever learnt and all the opinions of the men he most trusted were so entirely against them that perhaps impartiality was impossible. Luther was persuaded not to risk himself at the Diet, but all the other chief divines attended it. The Emperor could hardly fail to be provoked by the resistance of the Protestant princes, and what seemed to him contempt of that which was most sacred, while on their side they viewed the gestures of adoration at the Mass as idolatry. They refused in a body to attend at the Mass on Corpus Christi Day, when the Emperor had just arrived ; and when the Diet was to open with the Mass of the Holy Ghost, the Elector of Saxony, whose duty it was to bear the Sword of State, refused, though he ' was threatened with the loss of his office ;¦ but the Lutheran divines said, with unconscious profanity, that Naaman in the house of Rimmon was an example for him, though after all he did not bow down, and with the Landgraf of Hesse, stood upright while everyone else was kneeling at the elevation of the Host. Two copies of the Confession had been pre pared, one in Latin and one in German, and the princes insisted so strenuously on a reading of it that Charles was obliged to consent He caused it to be read, however, not in the great Council Hall, but in a little chapel which would only hold two hundred people, and then he wanted to have it read in Latin, which he himself understood much better than German; but the Elector of Saxony said, "Sir, we are on German ground, and I trust you will not order the confession of our faith, which ought to be made as public as possible, to be read in an unknown tongue." Charles yielded, and the Chancellor of Saxony went through the Con fession in so loud a voice as to be heard in the great hall and even in the courtyard. The reading lasted two hours, and the Emperor accepted the two copies, forbidding any to be published without his consent. His advisers were divided, some, such as Georg of Saxony, saying, " Either our religion or theirs must be extinguished," and others, such as the Elector of Mentz, thinking that they might yet be brought back. Charle". caused a refutation of the Confession to be drawn up and read in the same chapel, but he forbade any rejoinder, saying justly, that a Diet was not the place for theological arguments. He then made an adjournment for six months, in hopes of coming to some agreement, and Melancthon and the others had numerous conferences, but all in vain, and the very first day of these conferences, Philipp of Hesse gave great offence to the Emperor by a sudden flight from Augsburg. Expecting no doubt that THE CONFESSION OF AUGSBURG. 49 the other princes would follow his example and begin a civil war, Charles ordered the gates of the city to be shut, but accepted their promise to remain. Finding, however, that no attempt at conciliation was of any use, sn the 1 6th of November he published a decree, restoring all the rites and ceremonies of the Church, commanding all convent property to be restored and all married priests to be deprived either of wife or benefice, and this state of things was to continue until the decision of a General Council to meet in six months' time. Charles's next object was to provide for the present government and future succession of the Empire while he went on his intended crusade. His hereditary dominions of Spain and the Low Countries would of course pass to his son Philip ; but he had given up Austria to his brother Ferdinand, who was also King of Hungary and Bohemia, and he now desired to have him elected King of the Romans. Ferdinand was one of those men who without any great talents are able to fill their position in life with great credit. He was much more easy of access than his grave, shy, nervous brother, and had been so much more loved both in Spain and Germany, that Charles's absence of jealousy was a great proof of his nobleness of nature. In Germany he was very popular with all the Roman Catholics of the Empire, and he was unanimously chosen by the seven Electors, except by him of Saxony, who sent his son to protest against the election of a King of the Romans while the Em peror was in full health and vigour. In fact the objection was that the Protestants had little hope of prevailing if the hands of the House of Austria were to be thus strenother.ed. It led to the seven princes and the cities joining together in a League for their mutual defence, which, from the place where signed, is called the League of Schmalkalde. It was to last six years, and the protection of the Kings of England and France was entreated, much ao-ainst the wishes of Luther, who was always loyal, and throughout had a^great respect for the Emperor, in whom he perceived a sincere wish to do right, and of wrose self-control and judgment he thought highly. "See this young man," he said; "he does not say so much in a week as I say in a day." Henry VIII. would have nothing to do with the Protestants; Francois I. was ready to play fast and loose with them, and promised to befriend them, not as Lutherans, but as the defenders of the privileges of the Empire. However, Charles V. was far from intending either a persecution or a civil war, and he informed the princes of the League that if they would consent to his brother's election, assist in the crusade, and have nothing to do either with the Zwinglians in Switzerland or the Anabaptists at Minister he would leave all things in their present state, and consider of their complaints m the Council which he hoped 10 assemble in another ^berewas nothing that could be reasonab'y objected fo in this, for the VOL. iv. E Cameo IV. Choice of a King of the Romans. 5° CAMEOS OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. Cameo I. Marriage of Cranmer. Lutherans had already denounced the Zwinglian doctrines on the Holy Eucharist, and the Anabaptists were a wild and furious set of fanatics whom two years later Philip of Hesse assisted in destroying. So they agreed to his terms, and his desire was at last gratified of finding himself at the head of a united army of 120,000 men marching against the Turks, who under Solyman the Magnificent had crossed the Danube at Belgrade. They retreated without a blow on his advance, and he returned to Italy to endeavour to arrange for the Council. During this campaign died John, Elector of Saxony, who was succeeded by his son Johann Friedrich, an ardent Protestant. Cranmer had been sent to carry the University decisions to the Em peror, but he found it impossible to gain a hearing, and the chief effect of his visit was that he made a long stay with a learned German named Hoseman, or, as he called himself, Osiander, a great controversialist, neither quite Catholic nor quite Lutheran. He had a niece, and Cranmer was a soft-hearted man, who had once actually married an inn keeper's daughter at Cambridge, but happily for him had lost her within the year. So he married the fair Margaret Osiander, having come to the conclusion that there was no sin in the wedlock of a priest who was not a monk ; and yet not avowing his marriage openly. CAMEO V. ROYAL SUPREMACY. (I529—1534-) King of England. 1509. Henry VIII. A ing of Scotland. 1514. James IV. King of France. 1515. Francuis I. King of Spain and Germany. 1517. Charles V. Pope. 1523. Clement VII. In the meantime a religious revolution had been taking place in France, which had in the end a far greater effect upon English opinions than German Lutheranism. The first stirrings seem to have begun in the University of Paris, with one of the chief professors, Guillaume Lefevre, a most devout man, especially attached to the adoration of the Blessed Virgin, whose images he adorned with flowers. He was very learned, and had undertaken to revise the Lives of the Saints ; and this led him to a very deep study of the Holy Scriptures, in which he was joined by a much younger man, named Guillaume Farel, a scholar from Gap in Dauphine, a thoroughly devout man, and together they began upon a translation of the New Testament. They were much encouraged by the neighbourhood of Guillaume Briconnet, Count de Montbrunn and Bishop of Meaux, who had been French ambassador at Rome, and there, like Erasmus and Luther, had been shocked at the corruption. It set him thinking, and on his return he inquired into the state of his diocese, and found that most of the parish priests lived at Paris, amusing themselves and neglect ing their flocks, and that at the great festivals there was an influx of monks and friars, whose preaching was often only low buffoonery, tend ing chiefly to fill their own wallets. He tried to call the cures to order, and they cited him before his metro politan, but in vain, as he had only done his duty ; and he then called to his aid Lefevre, Farel, Gerard Roussel, and other priests who had felt the influence of the old professor. He himself preached — a new thing for a Bishop ; and the people of Meaux stood amazed when they heard of opening their hearts to God, instead of their purses. To hear nothing of E 2 Cameo V. Lefevre and Farel. 1525. 52 CAMEOS OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. Briconnet. 1529. Cameo V. , St. Fiacre, their Scottish patron, who was supposed to have been the death of Henry V., but in his stead to be told of holiness and mercy w:is perfectly astonishing ; and when their Bishop distributed the copies of Lefevre's translation of the Gospels, there was all the fervent eagerness with which the Word was then received. Sundays and holidays were spent in reading it, and it was taken into the fields and workshops to be studied in the noontide rest ; while a wonderful change in the habits of the people took place, and drunkenness, bad language, and violences seemed to be laid aside by the flock of the good Bishop, which consisted chiefly of clothworkers and farmers. A copy of the Gospels was presented by Briconnet to Marguerite, the King's sister, who praised it greatly ; but as it was an unauthorized trans lation, and Lefevre had moreover put forth some unsanctioned opinions' the University could not but condemn it. ' ' The Sorbonne," of which we hear much in all such discussions, was a college founded by Henri de Sorbonne, a chaplain of St. Louis's, for the special study of theology, and the masters and doctors of divinity were all attached to it, so that their decisions were usually called those of the Sorbonne. This condemnation took place just as Marguerite had gone to Francois in his prison at Madrid, whence he wrote that he should be much displeased if any harm were done to so excellent a scholar as Lefevre ; but no attention was paid to his letter. Lefevre was driven from the university and forced to take shelter at Meaux ; and Clement Marot, Marguerite's poet, who had written some verses on the evils in the French Church, was imprisoned. And when Francois returned, as it was his interest to ally himself with the Pope, and therefore to prohibit all that could tend to the dangerous opinions prevalent in Germany, Briconnet was summoned before a com mittee of two clerical and two lay committees of the Parliament, and fined 200 livres ; and severe punishments were inflicted on those of his diocese who in the ferment of the new opinions had burst forth in open denun ciation. One Jean le Clerc was first branded and then burnt for calling the Pope Antichrist. Louis de Berquin, a man of noble birth, had been long arguing with the Sorbonne, and even Erasmus had entered into con troversy with him. The quesrion between them lasted for years, but i French minds are so constituted that a doctrine or opinion is no sooner ' embraced than it is carried to all lengths, and finds vent in action. Those who had newly learnt the second commandment, as it stands in Exodus, could not keep their hands off the images, which, though in the theory of the Church they be only aids to devotion, were in practice worshipped. A stone was thrown at one of the images of the Blessed Virgin under which lamps burnt at the corners of the streets, and that stone was fatal to Berquin. Sacrilege was beginning, and must be stopped at once by conspicuous examples, and Berquin was condemned by the Parliament to abjure, and then to have his tongue bored with a red-hot iron, and be imprisoned for life. "I appeal to the King," he said. " If you do not submit, you shall never appeal anywhere," said the Councillors. "I had rather die," he answered. He was sentenced ROYAL SUPREMACY. 53 to be burnt in the Place de Greve, and marched thither as if he had been going into battle. The grand penitentiary Merlin declared that for a hundred years no one had made a more Christian death. Briconnet had withdrawn his protection from the reformers at Meaux. It is impossible to guess whether this was from cowardice, or from find ing that they outran Catholic truth ; and Lefevre had certainly taken up opinions that were universally condemned by the Church. The old man was eighty-five by this time, and Marguerite gave him shelter at Nerac, which belonged to her second husband, Henri d'Albret, King of Navarre, as Count of Beam, where he died, while Farel went to preach among the hills of Dauphine. In 1530, Leonor of Austria, the sister of Charles V., came as the King's bride to France, bringing with her the two sons of Francois who had been so long hostages in Spain. The Count of Montmorency met them on the frontier, while Clement Marot, Marguerite's poet, wrote poems of congratulation on the marriage and restoration. The same year died that mischievous person, the King's mother, Louise of Savoy. Marguerite had loved her heartily, and represents her as the wise Lady Oisille, in her Heptameron, or Seven Stories, a book in which, in imitation of Boccaccio, Marguerite has collected stories supposed to be told by a party of ladies and gentlemen detained by a flood of the Gave on their way home from the baths of the Cauterets in the Pyrenees. They begin with reading the Gospel ; but the stories are utterly unworthy of such a beginning. Marguerite, it is said, meant to show up the vices of the clergy, and alas ! she showed how the horrible atmosphere in which she lived could taint the imagination of a really good and religious woman, and one who was striving to bring up her little daughter, Jeanne (born in 1528), to all that was good and pious. Her chaplain, Gerard Roussel, was a pupil of Lefevre's, but a more moderate man — clinging to the Church, and only striving to make people study the Scriptures, feel the Lord Christ their One only Mediator, and show forth works of faith. Marguerite was fully of his mind, and assisted in the bringing out of the first complete volume of Lefevre's Bible, which was printed at Antwerp, and worked in many minds like new wine in old bottles. At this very time, disappointed and baffled on ali sides, Henry seemed about to drop the idea of the annulment of his marriage, when one after noon, when his perplexity and disappointment had been manifest, Thomas Cromwell, the clever layman, who had been merchant, soldier, lawyer, and secretary to Wolsey, begged for a private interview with the King- He had a plan. Cranmer's had failed, but his was a surer one. No thing was to be done with the Pope. Why should not Henry be his own pope? England was a. monster now with two heads, King and Pope. Cut off one, and let the King be alone. Had not the German Protestants renounced Rome ? Henry might do the same, not in faith, but in power. 54 CAMEOS OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. Henry was delighted. But how was it to be done ? All the clergy in England, though to a great extent prepared to resist Papal usurpation, still looked on the Pope as their Patriarch, and viewed him as the last appeal. Cromwell had a most ingenious expedient for taming them. The statute of praemunire, passed in Richard II. 's time for preventing appeals to Rome without the King's consent, which had been used to crush Cardinal Wolsey, would serve the purpose of silencing the whole English clergy. So a bill was filed in the Court of King's Bench declaring all who had acknowledged Wolsey as Legate as guilty of an act of praemunire ! that is to say, of contempt of the King's authority, his supremacy being thus taken for granted. However, it was intimated that a handsome vote of money from Convocation would prevent further proceedings, and to this the clergy thankfully agreed. But it was required that the grant should be so worded that the King's supremacy should be acknowledged, not as a new thing, but as always having been part of the constitution. Arch bishop Wareham, who had never loved Rome, agreed to this, and adopted the words, " The English Church and Clergy, of which the King alone is the protector and supreme head." This, however, the clergy would not endure ; not for love of the Pope, but because no layman could, without profanity, call himself Head of the Church ; but on this Henry consented that the clause should stand, " in so far as the law of Christ permits, even the supreme head ; " and to this no one objected, all being in fact glad to assert the independence of their Church, and not guessing of what this was the commencement. The Lord Chancellor, More, was too far-sighted to be happy about it ; but he obeyed the King's desire that he should go down to the House of Commons with twelve Lords Spiritual and Temporal, explain to them the scruple as to the King's marriage, and collect their opinions. The said opinions were written and thrown into a box, and were mostly what the King wished. Still he hesitated. At Whitsuntide, 1 53 1, he sent Queen Katharine a deputation at Greenwich, to entreat her to quiet her conscience and his own by submitting their case to four English bishops and four nobles. " God grant my husband a quiet conscience," said Katharine ; " but I mean to abide by no decision save that of Rome." So far, it would seem, Henry had carried most men's minds with him. " No Italian priest shall tithe or toll in our dominions," had long been the English sentiment, and, even as to the object of this assertion of Henry's, people probably thought that when the King had once had his own way matters would fall back into their usual state. But there was one far-seeing man, whose heart failed him as he looked into the future, and that was the Chancellor, Sir Thomas More. He was the same deep-minded, earnest man, with the same geniality about him as in his youth when Erasmus had known him. He still ROYAL SUPREMACY. 55 lived in his pleasant house at Chelsea, with trim gardens, divided by turf walks and terraces stretching down to the broad clear Thames, with his second wife, dame Alice, and his son and daughters. Mar garet, his one truly like-minded child, had married William Roper, a young lawyer, worthy to make one of the party he has so lovingly described. Here all the choicest society in England used to drop in familiarly and walk' in the gardens ; even the King himself, with an arm round Sir Thomas's neck, laughing his great laughs at the bright play of wit and merry quips and puns which played pn the surface of that deep and resolute mind. When the newly-created Earl of Rutland, whose family name was Manners, made Sir Thomas the doubtful compliment of his Chancellor ship of saying, "Ha, Sir Thomas, is it true that Howes mutant Mores V the ready answer was, "As true, my lord, as that Honors change Manners." To this house at Chelsea came noted foreigners, introduced by letters from Erasmus or other friends. One was Hans Holbein, the great portrait painter, who has left us a beautiful family picture of the Mores, aud whom Sir Thomas presented to the King, just in time to record the likeness of Henry ere his comeliness had entirely degenerated under the influence of the passion and sensuality to which he was beginning to abandon himself. It is said that when Henry was asked why he treated the painter with more consideration than his lords, he answered, " I can make ten lords of ten ploughboys, but only God Almighty can make one Hans Holbein." The same story is however told of Charles V. and Titian. More did not change his manners at least on his Sundays, when, instead of riding in state to Greenwich to pay court to the King, he walked with his wife and daughters to his parish church at Chelsea, and there put on his surplice and sang with the choristers. The Duke of Norfolk, coming in to dine with him, and finding him thus, took upon him to be very much shocked, and as they walked home ex claimed, " My Lord Chancellor a parish clerk— a parish clerk ! My Lord, you dishonour the King and his office ! " " Nay," said Sir Thomas, smiling, " your Grace may not think that the King, your master and mine, will with me, for serving his Master, be offended, or thereby account his office dishonoured." On the three Rogation Days of going in procession, singing litanies for a blessing on the crops, it was generally he who carried the cross ; but when, once, following it, he was counselled to use a horse for greater dignity, he answered, " It beseemeth not the servant to follow his Master prancing on cock-horse, his Master going on foot." His father, old Sir John, though nearly ninety, still sat as senior puisne judge in the Court of King's Bench, and there every morning, before going to his own Court, the Lord Chancellor knelt before the old man to ask his blessing. 56 CAMEOS OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. Cameo V. Chancellorship of More. Another story is told of him. Dame Alice had a little dog which had been given to her by a friend in exchange for a jewel. A beggar woman came to htm in his court, and declared that my Lady was keeping the dog from her. A message was at once sent for my Lady and the dog, and when they appeared the Chancellor took the dog in his arms, and sent the lady to one end of the court and the beggar to the other, bidding them both call the dog. It was to the beggar that it ran, whereupon he told my Lady to be contented, for it was none of hers ; but as she was vexed, he bought the creature from the beggar for a piece of gold, the cost of three such dogs. More has sometimes been accused of maltreating persons under sus picion of heresy, but it is certain that all this is founded on his having had a boy whipped — the son of one of his servants — for trying to teach another child in the house some errors he had picked up, and on Dne other case, that of a lunatic, who had, according to the fashion of the time, been whipped into sanity at Bedlam, and was relapsing again. Old Sir John died at the age of ninety, while his son was still in the height of his prosperity, and, not long after, the sense of danger began to press heavily on the Chancellor. When some one remarked on the King's affection for him, he said he set little store on that, for if his head could gain the King one French castle, it would not be long on his shoulders. As he was walking in the garden with his son-in-law, he said, " Would to heaven, son Roper, on condition that three things were well established in Christendom, I were put into a sack and thrown into the Thames." Roper asked what things he meant. He said they were " Peace among Christian princes ; the silencing of all heresies and union of the whole Christian Church ; and lastly, the safe conclusion of the affair of the King's marriage." The inquiry he had taken up so zealously with Colet and Erasmus was in other hands leading to consequences that alarmed him. "I pray," said he, " as high as we sit upon the mountains, treading heretics under our feet like ants, we see not the day that we would gladly be at league and composition with them to let them have their churches, so that they would be contented to let us have ours quietly. " He was preparing himself for danger by austerities. His childish daughter-in-law laughed at the discovery that he was wearing a hair shirt under his doublet. His daughter Margaret quietly told him that it was visible, and he prevented it from ever being seen again. It was clear by this time that the Pope would not separate Henry and Katharine, and this decided More to go no further in the matter. When next the King spoke to him he fell on his knees and reminded. Henry of his own words to him when delivering to him the Great Seal, "First look upon God, and after God upon me," and declared that nothing had ever so pained him as the not being able to do the one without a breach of obedience to the other. He could serve him no ROYAL SUPREMACY. 57 further in breaking his marriage; and Henry seemed satisfied, and promised to accept his service in everything else ; but as he saw the King grow more and more reckless, he felt it impossible to remain any longer in office, and on the loth of May, 1532, he resigned the seals, Henry promising to remain his good and gracious lord. His spirits rose at once when the responsibility was over. It was a holiday, and all the family were at church at Chelsea, where he had been singing in the choir. It was the custom at the end of the service for one of his attendants to come and summon Lady More by saying at the door of her pew, " Madam, my Lord is gone." He now went to the door himself, and announced thereat, " Madam, my Lord is gone." Dame Alice, suspecting some trick, would not deign to take any notice. Then he told her he had resigned, and when she began to scold at him, he called his daughters and asked whether they saw anything wrong about her dress ; and when they could not find anything amiss, he said, " Do you not perceive that her nose standeth somewhat awry?" His means being much diminished, he placed most of his attendants with bishops and nobles, and gave his jester to the Lord Mayor. He told his large family that as he had gone up, step by step, to the highest dignity of the law, so they would now, in their manner of living, come down step by step, until, when the worst came to the worst, they could go about in a body singing ballads. To Erasmus he wrote that he had always longed for a quiet interval to commune with God. And here we may finally close the better side of Henry's life. Here he broke with his last considerations of duty, and began the reckless course of his latter days. On the 14th of June he left Katharine at Windsor Castle, and sent her orders to leave it before his return. "Go where I may," she said, "I am his wife, and for him will I pray." She never saw him or her daughter again. She retired to Ampthill Manor, whence she wrote to the Pope, telling him how she had been expelled from her husband's house. One more voice was raised for her. Wolsey's two dioceses, York and Winchester, had remained vacant since his death, because the King intended one of them for his young cousin, Reginald Pole. He was the younger son of Margaret, daughter of George, Duke of Clarence, and Countess of Salisbury in her own right, who was the governess of the Lady Mary. He had studied at Padua, and had been a friend of the best and most thoughtful Italians, with whom " Polus " was a respected name. The Duke of Norfolk had been employed to give him a hint that the King meant to give him high dignity in the Church, but that his opinion of the marriage must first be known. Pole owned that he thought the separation would be a sin, but the Duke bade him take a month to consider. His brothers argued with him, but he could not see it as they wished, and at last he consented that the King should be told that he was ready to be convinced. 5S CAMEOS OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. The King and he met in the gallery at Whitehall, but there Pole showed himself unsubmissive. He trembled, and he shed tears, but he could not say that he thought that Katharine was not Henry's truly married wife, or promise to. support the King against what everyone by this time knew to be the honest opinion of the whole Church and all the Universities who spoke freely. Henry parted from his young cousin in hot anger, and Lord Montagu and the other Poles came and soundly rated their brother for setting up his own opinion and offending the King, but " Raynold," as he called himself and everybody called him, was not to be moved, and soon aftei left the court and went to live in Italy. Yet even then the King did not censure the letter of excuse he wrote, but told Lord Montagu that were he only of his opinion he would love him better than any kinsman he had in the world, and his pension of 500/. a year was continued ; but the see of York was given to Dr. Lee, and that of Winchester to Stephen Gardiner, no objection being made to their obtaining as usual the sanction of the Pope. Nor did Clement make any difficulties on the matter, but he did send a formal admonition to the King to take back his lawful wife and put away a certain Anne. On this, at the next meeting of Parliament, Henry asked, and the Three Estates granted, that the Annates, or firstfruits, a portion of the first year's income of a newly-presented benefice, which had always been allotted to the Pope, should be paid to the King. Henry had long been planning another meeting with Francois I. at Calais, and when it was fixed for the autumn of 1532, Anne Boleyn, whom he had created Marchioness of Pembroke, desired to be of the party. Might not the Queen of Navarre accompany her brother? This would have been a. great triumph for Anne, for Francois's own toleration of her went for very little, considering what sort of ladies he was apt to carry about with him. But Marguerite would not come, and though Anne went with Henry, it was not by any means another Field of the Cloth of Gold. At Boulogne, where Francois was entertained, she could only keep in the background, as there were only French ladies to meet her ; and there could be little compensation in receiving Francois at Calais in a banqueting chamber, hung with tissue of silver and gold, with seams of embroidery of gold and precious stones, where the banquet consisted of three courses of forty dishes. Anne and seven of her ladies came in as masquers in a fanciful dress on the Sunday evening, and danced with the King of France and his gentlemen. Henry's object was to secure Francois's mediation with Rome, Francois's to try to win allies against the time it should be convenient to break the peace of Cambrai, and he bound himself to meet the Pope at Marseilles and talk him over that very winter. He took his leave, and Henry and Anne, after waiting a fortnight for fair weather, returned to England. 1 his promise of Francois was all Henry had to build upon, when ROYAL SUPREMACY. 59 after five years of his blind pursuit of Anne Boleyn, he resolved to wait no longer. One inducement may have been that at that time the see of Canter bury was vacant. Good old Wareham had died in August, and though Henry had made up his mind to nominate Thomas Cranmer, who was still in Germany, no doubt he preferred that the new Archbishop should find the marriage an accomplished fact. So very early on St. Paul's Day, 1533, Dr. Rowland Lee, one of the royal chaplains, found himself summoned to say mass, and was led for the purpose into a garret chamber in Whitehall Palace ; where he found assembled the King, the Lady Anne, one other lady, and two grooms of the chamber, and was ordered then and there to perform the marriage ceremony between Henry and Anne, the King bearing down all his hesitation. They then separated, and Anne kept much quieter and more out of sight than usual, while her brother, Lord Rochford, was sent to Francois with information of the marriage, and an assurance that it should not be made known till May, when Francois's expected interview with the Pope would be over ; but the meeting was delayed, and it became impossible to conceal the marriage any longer, so on Easter-eve the ceremony was repeated before all the Court, and from that time Anne was called Queen. In the meaname Cranmer had been much perplexed by his appoint ment to the see of Canterbury, both on his own private account and on public ones. He kept his marriage a secret, and travelled slowly to England to give the King time to change his mind ; but Henry had decided irrevocably, and the Pope gave his sanction to the appointment as a matter of course, probably sharing that liking for Cranmer which everyone felt who had been personally concerned with him. The consecration took place at Westminster Abbey on the 30th of March, 1533, and Cranmer took all the usual oaths of obedience to the Pope. But the very first act required of him was actual defiance of the Pope. Cromwell had been preparing the way. First he had obtained an Act of Parliament re-affirming the old one, which forbade appeals from being carried out of the kingdom, thus closing up Katharine's appeal to Rome. Then Convocation was shown the opinion that Montmorency had elicited from the University of Paris, and called on to say whether the Pope could grant a dispensation to marry a brother's widow. Only three Bishops at first gave answer on the King's side, and thirty-six Abbots. But when the further question came on whether Katharine had been Arthur's wife or not, two more Bishops came over to the King's party ; the clergy had as a body declared their assent, and nothing more was left for Cranmer to do but to pronounce sentence. The Queen was at Ampthill, in Bedfordshire. Cranmer went on the ¦Jrd of May, 1533, to Dunstable, to a priory of black canons, in whose 6o CAMEOS OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. Cameo V. Dis-nissal of Katharine . chapel he established his Court. A summons was sent to Katharine to appear, but she took no notice of it, so she was declared contumacious; and on the 23rd of May, with all solemnity, the Archbishop pronounced that the marriage between Henry and Katharine had never been a marriage, but that they were separate, and both free to marry again ! The tidings were carried to Katharine by Lord Montjoy, her former page, as she lay on a couch, having hurt her foot. The letters were addressed to the Princess Dowager of Wales. She at once declared she was no such person, and when Montjoy tried by the King's orders to assure her that if she would give up the title of Queen her income should be augmented, she replied with scorn. Then he threatened her that if she chose to retain the title out of vain-glory, the King would withdraw his fatherly love from her daughter. She replied that she kept it not out of vain-glory, but as the King's true and lawful wife, and that neither for her daughter, nor her possessions, nor anything else, would she put her soul in danger. And to this she held fast with quiet resolution, though it led to tlie hiss of almost all her attendants, since Henry would not let them serve her as Queen and she would not accept their services as Princess Dowager. She removed to her manor of Bugden, where she spent her time in prayer, alms, and church needlework. One of the rooms had a window opening into the chapel, so that she could hear the service said from it. Here she was wont to shut herself in through great part of both night and day, leaning her head against the stones of the window-seat, and these were often found by her ladies wet, as though with a heavy shower. It was no doubt owing to those prayers and tears that when one of her women was reviling Anne Boleyn, she silenced her, saying there would soon be far more need to pity that lady. Anne meanwhile had come to the enjoyment for which she had waited so long. On Whitsunday she went in a state procession of barges along the Thames to Westminster Abbey, and was crowned with great splen dour, disregarding the sentence of the Pope that Henry should separate himself from her before September under pain of excommunication. Sir Thomas More was invited, and 20/. sent to him to provide himself with a dress for the occasion ; but his conscience would not allow him to be present, and from that time he was a marked man. Reginald Pole wrote indignantly, and a friar, one of the Order of Observants, named Peto, preached at Greenwich a sermon denouncing the crime to the King's very face. Henry endured the sermon patiently, as was his custom, but the next Sunday one Dr. Curwen preaching in his turn, reviled Peto. Another friar, named Elstow, defended Peto in his absence, and called Curwen a lying prophet. Both friars were brought before the Council, and Crom well told them they ought to be tied up in a sack and thrown into the Thames. Elstow smiled and said, " Such threats may move those clad in purple and fine linen. We know the way to Heaven by water as well as ROYAL SUPREMACY. 61 by land, and care not which way we go." The two friars were banished, their house broken up, and Curwen shortly after made a Bishop. Other sermons took the same course, and the other Bishops actually forbade all preaching for a time, and Cranmer, issuing new licences to preach, forbade'anything to be said on this question. In 1526 a translation of the New Testament into English from the Qreek was made by William Tyndal, John Firth, and William Bayes, and published in Holland, whence copies were brought into England. Unauthorized translations were always condemned, and Cuthbert Tunstal, Bishop of London, and Sir Thomas More when Chancellor, had bought up many copies and burnt them. But Miles Coverdale began to assist Tyndal in translating the Old Testament, in which Luther's Bible must have guided them, as the preface said "it was translated from the Douche and English." A more complete New Testament was put forth, with prefaces abusive of the clergy, and published at Hamburg, and the Books of the Prophets were published as they were finished, and smuggled into England. Tyndal was imprisoned by the Inquisition in the Netherlands before his work was complete, and was finally burnt at Villefort, near Brussels ; but his books spread throughout England, being brought in by merchants, and the readers were called Gospellers, and said to be given to the New Learning. Anne Boleyn had one of these Testaments, and her brother George, Lord Rochford, was also an eager reader of them. Hugh Latimer, a yeoman's son, who had taken Holy Orders, and was distin guished by the wit, force, and quaintness of his preaching, which was full of odd turns and racy anecdotes, was one of those who strongly wished to set forth the pure faith. He was imprisoned by the Bishop of London, but at Anne's intercession was freed, and made one of the royal chaplains, and soon after Bishop of Worcester. He is thought to have had a good effect on her mind, for she showed more serious thought, gave large alms, and educated promising youths, and she protected some of the merchants who were in danger for bringing in copies of the Bible, so that she was looked on as the partizan of the New Learning, as poor Katharine was of old Roman allegiance. In France the alliance between Henry and Francois was giving a little encouragement to the enemies of the papal system. In 1533 Queen Marguerite of Navarre kept court at the Louvre, and Roussel preached Lenten sermons there, which all Paris crowded to hear. The Sorbonne sent delegates to listen, and Noel Beda, one of their chief doctors, detected error, and complained to the King. Francois referred him to the Bishop. This was Jean du Bellay,, an able man and a statesman, and a friend of Melancthon, inclined to reform, who had placed friends of Marguerite in parishes in Paris, and who found no fault with Roussel, but laughed at the complaints of the Sorbonne. Violent agitation took place, aud the King ordered both Beda and Roussel to confine themselves to their houses ; but this was considered as an invasion of the privileges of the Sorbonne, and Beda walked abroad Cameo V. Coverdale' s Bible. 1533' 62 CAMEOS OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. Cameo V. Meeting of Francois I. and the Pope IS33- as usual while a deputation of doctors went to the King and threatened him with the Pope, whereupon he called them asses, and drove them away. A tumult arose in the University, and the movers in it were banished ; proceedings in Parliament against Roussel were quashed, and the King informed the doctors that complaints must be brought" to him self alo'ne, as head of the Church of France. One old doctor, expecting no doubt such a course as that of the English King, actually died of grief. All Paris was covered with lampoons in verse on the one side or the other, and the indifferent laughed, while the earnest contended, and Francois balanced between his desire to lay hands on the wealth of the Church and his wish to regain his footing in Italy ; while the far more noble and single-minded Charles was repulsing the Turks in Hungary and preparing to relieve the Mediterranean from the pirates of Tunis. The Pope, Clement VII., after the Conference of Bologna, saw that the only way to stave off the Council, or gain means to unite himself with Francois, was to form a fresh league with him and seal it by a mar riage between Henri, Duke of Orleans, the second son of Francois, and Catherine, the only legitimate child of the Medici. It was no match for a French prince, and Henry VIII. tried to set Francois against it, and to persuade him that if they did meet at Marseilles as Clement proposed, he should not abase himself before a Bishop, but should threaten Clement with a French patriarch of his own ; and Francois on his side promised to consent to nothing till the Pope had consented to Henry's divorce. On the 7th of September, 1533, just as King and Pope were setting off to their conference, Anne, at Greenwich Palace, gave birth to what had been so fondly anticipated as a son that circulars with the word "prince" had been prepared, and the little letter s was lamely added afterwards when the infant proved only a daughter. All that splendour could do to mark her as the King's heiress was lavished on her when she received the name of Elizabeth, which she was to render so illustrious, and she was forthwith created Princess of Wales. It seemed decidedly too late to announce that her father was not disunited from his first wife, but Francois had promised Henry not to marry his son to the Pope's niece till his consent to the annulment had been given, and Bishop Gardiner was there to watch how he kept his word, so he proposed that all hostile acts should be forgiven on each side, and the judgment committed to a Consistory of Cardinals, none of whom were to be subjects of the Emperor. But on the day this was proposed arrived Edmund Bonner from England with an appeal to the General Council. This affronted both Pope and King ; but Francois still held out for the judgment of the Cardinals, and wrote to persuade Henry over to it. Meanwhile his son Henry, aged fifteen, was married to Catherine de' Medici, aged fourteen, by the Pope himself— a most fatal marriage for France— and four Frenchmen were made Cardinals, among them Odet de Chatillon, of whorrj more will be heard. ROYAL SUPREMACY. 63 Francois's alliances with Clement had encouraged the Sorbonne. A book had been written in verse by Queen Marguerite, called Le Miroir d'une Ame Pecheresse, full of quotations from the Psalms, but without a word of purgatory or the saints, and Beda saw heresy in this, and encouraged the scholars of the College of Navarre to act a play in which she was caricatured ; and a Franciscan declared that she ought to be put into a sack and thrown into the Seine. This really did make Francois very angry. He had the authorities of Navarre College fined, and caused the University to disavow the censure of the Sorbonne, even threatening to treat the Franciscan as he had pro posed to treat Marguerite, but she interceded for him, and he was spared. The Consistory of Cardinals sat on the 23rd of March, 1534. Two- and-twenty were present, whose names had previously been shown to Henry, as free from all Spanish, Flemish, or Austrian influence. Nineteen, however, at once confirmed the validity of the marriage, and the other three only proposed delay in passing judgment. Even then Clement withheld the proclamation, in hopes of mollifying the King, but Henry had gone so far that there was no more keeping any measures. At that very time, the March of 1534, the Bill was passing the Houses of Parliament which severed England from Rome, giving the King all the powers of jurisdiction and supremacy which had hitherto belonged to the Pope. There was not much opposition, for the Italian exactions had always been hateful ; and there was a charm in making the Church independent, and defying the Pope. But the few well-informed and conscientious looked at the matter in its right light, and saw that, provoking and often unjustifiable as the con duct of Rome had sometimes been, the Pope was right now : he had judged and weighed fairly in a most difficult case, and that his refusal to gratify the King's passion was a shameful reason for defying his authority. Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, and Sir Thomas More were well known to think so, though they gave no open cause of offence, but Cromwell, now created Earl of Essex, and the Boleyn family watched them with a jealous eye, resolved to find occasion against them. More was actually summoned before the Privy Council to answer for having accepted bribes when Lord Chancellor. The first accusation was the story of a gold cup given by the wife of a man who had had a suit. More said that he had received such a cup as a New Year's gift. "Lo, my Lords," exclaimed Lord Wiltshire, " did I not tell you that you would find this matter true ? " "But, my Lords," said Sir Thomas, "hear the other part of my tale. After I had drunk to her of the wine wherewith my butler had filled the cup, and when she had pledged me, I returned it to her." Another cup proved to have been taken in exchange for a more valuable one, and a pair of gloves with 40/. in them had been kept as a lady's present, but the money returned. So the accusation utterly failed, but More's enemies were not thus Cameo V. The Consis tory of Cardinals. 1534- 64 CAMEOS OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. Cameo V. Tlie Nun of Kent. 1526. satisfied. Eight years before, in 1526, while Wareham was still Arch bishop, Elizabeth Barton, a Kentish girl, had fallen into what would be now called a hysterical state, in which she thought she saw visions and had revelations. She had been placed in the convent of St. Sepulchre at Canterbury, and there both Wareham and Wolsey had seen her. Her wild talk and absurd prophecies had been laughed at in those saner times, but her mind had been excited about the divorce, and she had said that if the King parted with the Queen Katharine, He would die in six months, and his kingdom pass to his daughter Mary. More had seen her, and had formed a pretty true judgment of the worth of her predictions, but he had taken care not to let her say a word to him of the King's divorce, supremacy, or any such dangerous subject. Yet this was not to save him ! Men's minds were excited, and the King was restless. The Nun of Kent must be silenced. She was examined, and made to confess that words had been put into her mouth, and then, with two priests of Canterbury, she was made to do penance both there and at St. Paul's Cross, and was finally hanged at Tyburn for treason and heresy. The poor woman had been a show for all these 5'ears, and it was easy to declare that any one who had listened to her had abetted her treason. So this was the plea that was found against Sir Thomas More and the Bishop of Rochester ! Fisher was an old man, who had been the friend of the Lady Margaret, Countess of Richmond, and to whom in his younger and better days the King had looked as to a father ; but he had steadily withstood the iniquity with regard to the Queen, and the King hoped to give him a lesson, by causing him to be accused of treason for not having mentioned the Nun's prophecy. Fisher answered, that in the first place she had told him that she had given the King the same warning to his face, and in the next she evidently intended no malice, nor spoke of any violence. The Lords of the Council, how ever, cut him short, and he was included in the Bill of Attainder, but allowed to compound for his freedom for 300/. More was sent for next, and desired to take a seat with the Council, who consisted of Cranmer, Cromwell, the Duke of Norfolk, and the new Chancellor Audley. But instead of examining him on his dealings with the Nun of Kent, the Council talked of the King's love and favour and great desire that he would give his consent to what the King, Parliament, Bishops, and many Universities had declared to be reason and Scripture. To which Sir Thomas answered, that his Highness had promised him that he should never hear of that matter any further, and he had seen no reason to change his opinion since. Then they blamed him hotly — of all things in the world, for having induced the King to write his defence of the Seven Sacraments, wherein the Pope's power was exalted ! Sir Thomas said that he had certainly looked over the book after it was written, but that he had advised some ROYAL SUPREMACY. 65 statements on the Pope's authority to be made more moderate, to which the King had answered, that too much honour could not be done to it, "for," said he, " we have obtained from that see our crown imperial, which," added Sir Thomas, "till his Grace did with his own mouth so tell me, I never heard before. " The Council dismissed him in displeasure, but he came down to his boat in such spirits that Roper, who was waiting for him, thought that he was assured of safety, and as they walked up the garden together said, " I trust, sir, all is well, you are so merry." "It is so indeed, son, thank God" : ' "Are you then, sir, put out of the Bill ? " "Wouldst thou know, son, why I am so joyful? In good faith I rejoice that I have given the devil a foul fall, because I have with these lords gone so far that without great shame I can never go back." He had passed the Rubicon, he had committed himself to the course of truth and conscience, plainly foreseeing the end, and he was thankful that his flesh had not failed him. The Lords of the Council reported the conversation to Henry, who flew into a rage, and swore that More should be included in the Bill ot" Attainder, and that he would come down to Parliament himself to secure its passing. However, they fell down on their knees and implored him not to put himself in danger of a personal rebuff from Parliament, saying it would encourage his subjects to condemn him, and likewise be to his discredit among foreign nations. They promised to find a " more meet occasion to serve his turn, for More was too manifestly innocent in this matter of the Nun." Sir Thomas was not deceived, for when Mrs. Roper came running to him with the glad news that Lord Essex himself had told her husband that he was put out of the Bill, he said, " In faith, Meg, quod dijfertur non aufertur (what is put off is not put aside)." The Duke of Norfolk came to persuade him to yield, telling him it was perilous to strive with princes, for " indignatio principis mors est (the anger of a prince is death)." " Is that all? " said More. " Why then there is no more difference between your Grace and me, but that I shall die to-day and you to-morrow." One day, when he had asked for news, and how the world went, and how Queen Anne did, "In faith, father, never better," said Mrs. Roper ; " there is nothing in the court but dancing and sporting." "Never better," said her father. "Alas, Meg, it pitieth me to remember into what misery, poor soul, she will shortly come. Those dances of hers will prove such dances that she will spurn off our heads like footballs, but it will not be long before her head will dance the «same dance." i- The means of serving Henry's purpose were not long in being devised. .A new oath of allegiance was drawn up, by which there was a distinct VOL. IV. F C^MEO V. More in the Tower. 66 _¦ 'I CAMEOS OP THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. approval of the King's marriage with Anne Boleyn and assurance of the succession to her heirs, and a declaration that it had been unlawful to marry Katharine, that the Pope had no power to grant a dispensa tion, and that the Pope had no jurisdiction ; also, that the King was Supreme Head of the Church of England. Many of the clergy had taken it without difficulty, but the Carthu sians and Franciscans were holding out against it, and Sir Thomas More was the first layman to whom it had been tendered — nor indeed had it been confirmed by Parliament. On the 13th of April, 1534, early in the morning, a pursuivant came to Chelsea to summon Sir Thomas to attend the Commissioners who were to administer the oath at Lambeth. There was still time for him to go to church, confess, and communicate, as he had always done be fore any great action of his life. Then he took leave of his wife and daughters with more affection even than was his wont, but would allow none to follow except Roper, into whose ear he whispered, ' ' I thank our Lord, the field is won." The oath was read to him, and he said he would swear to defend and maintain the succession to the crown as established by Parliament, and that he did not blame others who had taken it as it stood, but that it would be against his conscience to do so. He was sent to walk in the garden while it was being administered to others, and then brought back to be argued with and threatened with the King's displeasure, but in vain ; and he was then committed to the custody of the Abbot of Westminster while the King was consulted. Bishop Fisher had likewise made no objection to the political part of the oath, but declined the theological. So had the Carthusians, three Priors of whom had come to explain. Apparently Cranmer tried to do something on the side of toleration, and the King was inclined to permit the mitigated oath ; but Anne exas perated him with her complaints, and he caused all to be committed to the Tower. More had the attendance of his servant, John Wood, and occasional visits from his wife and daughters. To Margaret he spoke out his heart of deep resignation. To his wife, when she reproached him with the folly of lying there among rats and mice, when he might be enjoying himself at Chelsea with his books, and garden, and everything handsome about him, if he would only do as so many Bishops and wise men had done, he said, " I pray thee, good Mrs. Alice, tell me one thing ! Is not this house as near Heaven as my own? " Dame Alice could only tartly answer, " Tilly valley ! tilly valley." CAMEO VI. THE BEGINNING OF CALVINISM. (1534— 1536.) King of England. 1509. Henry VIII. King of Scotland. 1514. James V. King of Spain and Emperor of Germany. 1517. Charles V. King of France. 1515. Francois I. Popes 1523. Clement VII. 1534. Paul III. The unhappy and mischievous papacy of Clement VII. ended with the most hurtful act of all — the introduction of his niece into the French Royal family. He died in September 1534, and his successor was Alessandro Farnese, Bishop of Ostia, a man of a noble Roman family, who took the name of Paul III. He had been a friend of those who even in Italy had read and thought much on the subject of reforms in the Church : Gaspar Contarini, already a cardinal, and others, among whom were memorable the wise and excellent lady Vittoria Colonna, the aged king of artists Michelangelo Buonarotti, Renee, Duchess of Ferrara, daughter of Louis XII. of France, and the exiled Englishman, Reginald Pole. All these had been greatly struck by Luther's handling of the doctrine of Faith, and had come to dwell on the joy and blessing of personal faith ; but when they found that it was so pressed as to make salvation depend on this sense to the exclusion of works of righteousness, and when schism and sacrilege were seen to be the effects of the teaching, they drew back for the most part, not from half-heartedness or cowardice, but because they held fast by unity, and beheld greater evils in the reformers than were those that were denounced. But Paul III. was a zealous man, who saw great need of renovation in the Church, and hoped yet to reconcile the reformers by the Council, and possibly he might have done so, if by early vices he had not bound a clog about his neck in the person of an illegitimate son, Pier Luigi Farnese, who expected to be provided for after the usual fashion of Popes' relations. However, all was fair at present. The Pope invited Reginald Pole to Rome, and though he was not in- Holy Orders, and had not received the tonsure, sent him an appointment as cardinal, together with a barber to F 2 Cameo VI. Paul III. 1534- 68 CAMEOS OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. cut his hair. He also included in this batch of cardinals, Bishop Fisher, then a prisoner in the Tower. In November, Parliament met to make that oath law, for refusing which, More and Fisher were already suffering. The King was declared . to be Supreme Head of the Church, with power to visit, reform, and correct all abuses and errors within it. It was made high treason to deny any of the royal titles to the King or Queen, and the Bishops were made to take an additional oath against the Pope's supremacy. Then followed the Bill of Attainder against the Bishop of Rochester and Sir Thomas More for treason in having refused the Oath of Supremacy. This caused the immediate forfeiture of all their goods, and condemnation to perpetual imprisonment. The Bishop, in his 70th year, was left destitute of warm clothing in the depth of winter, while Sir Thomas owed his comforts to Mr. and Mrs. Roper ; and as spring came on persons were sent to converse with them, either to induce them to yield, or, if they would not, to make their refusal matter of accusation against them. What did they think of the matter ? Bishop Fisher said that no Act of Parliament forced a man to explain his private thoughts. More observed that the statute was a two-edged sword, for to accept it would be the death of the soul, to refuse it the death of the body. The three Carthusian Priors, the monk of Sion Abbey and two more who had refused the oath, were however the first victims. Margaret Roper happened to be with her father when they passed his window on their way to execution. "Lo, dost not thou see, Meg, how these blessed fathers go now as cheerfully to their deaths as bridegrooms to their marriage," and he then tried to prepare her for what he saw was near at hand for himself. It did but add to the King's rage that Paul III. placed the name of the Bishop of Rochester among those whom he appointed as cardinals. Fisher himself cared so little for the honour that he told the person who brought him the news "that if the hat were lying at his feet he would not stoop to pick it up ; " but Henry cried — " Paul may send him a hat, but I will take care he has never a head to wear it on;" and it probably precipitated his fate. He was tried on the 17th of June, 1535, accused of denying the King to be Supreme Head of the Church, condemned, and beheaded on the 22nd. His head was placed on London Bridge, looking towards his own diocese of Rochester ; his body lay on the ground till night, when it was buried in Barking churchyard. Then came More's turn. On the 1st of July he was placed before the Judges in Westminster Hall, where he had himself so often sat as Lord Chancellor. The chief charge against him was that he had deprived the King of his dignity and title by denying him to be Head of the Church. There he stood, in a plain woollen gown, his face keen and benevolent as ever, though his hair had turned grey in his imprisonment, a perfect lawyer still, and well able to defend himself. He declared that he had THE BEGINNING OF CALVINISM. 69 never denied the royal supremacy to any man, and when Solicitor- General Rich, who was one of those who had been sent to catch words out of his mouth, bore witness that he had said that no Parliament could make the King Head of the Church, he answered : "Mr. Rich, I am more sorry for your perjury than I am for my own peril." Two other lawyers had been present at the interview, but they professed to have been too busy packing up their books to have heard. It was only the word of More against the word of Rich, that of a man who had deliberately chosen death rather than untruth against that of a man "esteemed very light of the tongue," of little truth or honesty. Nevertheless the jury, in a quarter of an hour, brought in a verdict of guilty, and Lord Chancellor Audley, quite delighted, was beginning to pronounce sentence, when the prisoner quietly said — " My Lord, when I was towards the law the manner was to ask the prisoner whether he could give any reason why sentence should not be pronounced against him." Audley was wrong, and had to apologize ; and More raised a defence on points of law, which were overruled, and the terrible sentence pro nounced. More heard it calmly, and then made open confession that seven years of diligent study had only convinced him that it was impossible that a layman could be Head of the Church. He was asked if he would be wiser than all the learned men in Europe, to which he replied, that all the rest of Christendom was of his opinion. The Judges asked if he had any more to say. " Only," he said, "that as the blessed Apostle St. Paul was consentingto the death of St. Stephen and yet they were both together saints in Heaven and friends for ever more," so he trusted it would be with himself and his judges, "that we may hereafter in Heaven meet merrily together to our everlasting salva tion ; and so God preserve you all, especially my sovereign Lord the King. " As he was being led out, with the axe with the edge turned towards him, his son knelt down to ask his blessing, as he had so often done from his own aged father ; and when the barge reached the Tower Wharf, down through all the guards, with bills and halberts, rushed his daughter Margaret, flinging her arms round his neck and kissing him, with sobs of " Oh ! my father, my father 1" He blessed her and comforted her, but twice after he had moved on she came back and hung about him, so that the guards themselves were in tears. It was her last sight of him in life, though she had a precious note from him written with a bit of charcoal, and telling her she had never given him more pleasure in her life than by her daughterly conduct on this occasion, and he obtained as a last favour that she should be present at his burial. On the 6th of July he was to die, early in the morning, within the Tower. He was his true self to the last, with the old playful humour and deep devotion. The scaffold was not firm, and he asked for help in mounting it — 70 CAMEOS OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. " Master Lieutenant, give me thine hand, I pray thee see me safe up; for my coming down let me shift for myself. " Then he knelt and prayed the fifty-first Psalm most devoutly, and as the executioner asked his pardon, he gave it, telling him it was the greatest of services he was about to do him. Yet, even then his last word was to ask him to take his beard out of the way, " since it was no traitor ; it had never offended his Highness." His corpse was delivered to the family ; but the head was set on London Bridge, where it remained till late at night. The faithful Mar garet came beneath in a boat, while some friend above detached it in the dark, and threw it down into her arms. She kept it ^s her most precious relic until her death, when it was placed in her arms in her coffin. Henry, on hearing the execution was over, said fiercely to Anne Boleyn, with whom he was playing at tables, ' ' Thou art the cause of this man's death," rose up hastily, and left her ; but the moment's com punction did not prevent him from seizing the house at Chelsea and all More's property. Charles V. was greatly shocked. He sent for the English Ambassador, and asked if it were true that King Henry had put Sir Thomas More to death, adding, "And this we will say, that if he had been ours, we would rather have lost the best city in our dominions than such a counsellor." And at Rome the indignation was greatest of all, so great that on the 30th of August 1535, Paul III. sealed a Bull, summoning Henry to appear in sixty days and answer for his offences, and in default excom municated him, deprived him, and his children by Anne, of the crown, absolved his subjects from their oaths of allegiance, and called on Chris tian princes to dethrone him. It was as strongly worded as any Bull of Innocent III. against John or Philippe Auguste, but the days when it could have been carried out were gone by. The dissensions, the rapacity, and the disgraceful lives of a long succession of Popes had destroyed their moral influence. All good men had felt with the Popes in the contests of the eleventh and twelfth centuries ; spiritual and moral conscience went together ; but now the moral sense had so often been outraged, and the . more lucrative forms of superstition so put forward, that in the reaction many religious men thought freedom a gain, however brought about, There was no mighty feudal nobility to delight in any sanction to attack their prince, and as to stirring up foreign sovereigns to punish the offender, the Emperor had already quite enough on his hands, and Francois I. was Henry's friend. So Paul, though he had signed the Bull in his first indignation, decided on second thoughts, not to publish it, since it could not be executed, and would only increase the difficulties and dangers of those who still held to him in England ; but it was laid up in the Vatican, to be put forth when expedient. It was however known to exist, and this knowledge of course rendered the breach more irreconcilable, and thus the English Church was severed THE BEGINNING OF CALVINISM. 7i from Rome, and the connection cut which had subsisted ever since the mission of St. Augustine of Canterbury. It is strange that when the actions and many of the words of the chief personages concerned are so thoroughly known on documentary evidence, that it should be so hard to understand either motive or cha racter, but in fact the whole question became so vital to every succeeding generation, that feelings have never since been cool enough for a candid judgment. There have been a great many people so persuaded that everything they called Protestant must be right, and everything Popish must be wrong, that they make a saint of Anne Boleyn, because she married in the face of the Pope's affirmation that her wedding was a crime, and because she had an English Bible ; and who contemn Sir Thomas More for acting the part of Daniel before Darius, because they would not themselves wish to take an oath of the supremacy of the Pope. Perhaps the most reasonable view is that every one went on blindly, not knowing whither they were tending. Henry, the good-natured, clever despot, accustomed from early youth to carry everything his own way, no sooner met an obstacle to his will, than he chafed against the opposition, lashed himself into fury, and in the one desire to carry his point, entirely forgot its worthlessness in proportion to the forces that he set in motion. It was to his pride, and determination to brook no opposition, that the lives of his earlier victims, More and Fisher, were sacrificed. Of those who abetted him it is harder to speak. Cromwell appears "to have been simply a clever statesman, who had found the wished-for expedient at last, and used it unscrupulously ; Cranmer, a scholar of more piety than principle, led along by the habitual deference of all men towards the King, saw in the emancipation of the National Church the possibility of those reforms which Wolsey had been trying to bring about as legate ; Gardiner seems to have been simply a statesman-prelate of the old English school, caring chiefly to be free from the vexatious dominion of Rome ; and among all these was the separation made, which two cen turies before would have been repaired in another generation, but which was to grow wider and wider, and lead to mighty results for good or evil. The only blameless persons in the matter were those who suffered in the cause of truth and conscience. It was not that both More and Fisher were not aware of the evils of the Roman Catholic Church, and the former at least would have done everything to purify it. Even of the legality of the King's marriage he was— lawyer-like — not convinced till he had heard an honest decision ; but when convinced in his own mind that no layman could be Supreme Head of the Church, and that Anne could not be Henry's wedded wife, no peril could induce him to belie his conscience by declaring that they were. It was a sore struggle, but his was the victory, and he might well give thanks for it. Who would have thought, when More, Colet, and Erasmus held 72 CAMEOS OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. discussions together over matters deep and high, which of them was the one who should die for the truth, and that rather for personal than for ., abstract truth ? In France things had come to a crisis. Queen Marguerite of Navarre, Bishop Jean du Bellay, Gerard Roussel, and other large-minded per sons who had influence with Francois, were endeavouring to bring about the purifying of the Church without disruption, and a physician named Ulrich Chelius had come from Melancthon to hold a council on the subject. But this by no means agreed with the notions of the hotter spirits — Guillaume Farel, in the hills of Dauphine, and the man who was destined to be the leader and lawgiver of the great schism of France, Scotland, and Holland, Jean Chauvin. He was the son of a burgher of Noyon,- in Picardy, born in 1509, bred to the Church, and endowed with a benefice in early boyhood. So severe and grave was he, that when at school his nickname was "the Accusative Case." His theological studies first startled him by the discrepancy of their teaching with what he saw around him, and he abandoned them for the law ; but all the time he was reading the Scriptures, and his conscience was working within him, so that after three years he gave up all the three benefices he was holding ; and subsisting on his small inheritance, he dropped his legal studies and gave himself up to the spread of the Gospel as he knew it. In 1533 his friend Nicolas Cop, rector of the University of Paris, was to preach on All Saints' Day, and Chauvin wrote a sermon for him which brought them into such trouble with the Sorbonne that Cop fled to his native place, Basle, and Chauvin, in disguise, left Paris, and after much wandering came to the great refuge of the Reformers, Nerac, where he found old Lefevre, and took much counsel with him, when the old man beheld in him the person who should carry on the work he had begun, in piety and faith indeed, but in impatience. To such Reformers, what Marguerite, Du Bellay, and Roussel hoped to bring about seemed mere truckling. They thought, the Pope Anti christ, forms mere hindrances, and both the Holy Eucharist and the adoration of the Saints seemed to them idolatry. Farel determined to destroy all hope of union, and he sent into Paris a placard, which on the 18th of October, 1534, was posted on the church doors and the walls of all the most public places in Paris. The title was "Veritable Articles against the horrible great abuses of the Papal Mass, invented against the Holy Supper of the Lord, the only Saviour and Mediator." This was a most furious and bitter attack upon all that Catholics hold sacred, in absolutely blasphemous language, and a copy was not only affixed to the door of the palace of Blois, where Francois then was, but to his own bed-room door. The King was thoroughly roused to anger, and so were the people of Paris, who gathered round the placards with horror, and cried, "Death ! Death to the heretics '." The lieutenant of the Chatelet prison went round seizing all suspected of heresy, and Clement Marot was obliged to flee to the Duchess of Ferrara, with THE BEGINNING OF CALVINISM. 73 money supplied by his kind patroness, Queen Marguerite, who took his young son into her service as a page. Reparation to the Catholic faith was to be made for the blasphemy that had been uttered against it. The Cardinal of Lorraine and the Count of Montmorency were the great promoters of the endeavour to crush the heresy, and they even ventured to hint to the King that he ought to begin the purging of the kingdom with his sister. " Oh !" said Francois, ' ' she loves me too well to believe anything but what I choose." Marguerite did not wait to be asked, but went to Nerac, where she was out of his reach, and took Roussel with her, with all others whom she could protect. That placard had thoroughly startled and shocked all who had been half inclined to the Reformers, and on the 29th of January, 1535, a solemn expiatory procession was made from the Church of St. Germain I'Auxerrois, while all Paris crowded to behold it. Every roof, every window, every balcony or railing was crowded to behold the Bishop of Paris solemnly marching along, bearing the Host in his hands, while the canopy over his head was borne by the King's three sons and the head of the house of Bourbon, the Duke of Vendome. Then came the King with a lighted torch between the Cardinals of Bourbon and Lorraine. At every church he gave his torch to one of the cardinals, and prostrated himself to ask forgiveness for his people's sin. Afterwards he dined with the Bishop of Paris, and spoke hotly of the need of cutting off the authors of these outrages against the faith, saying that he would even sacrifice his sons if they fell into such heresies. Probably he was really moved, and it was the habit of the time to treat moral corruption lightly, compared with sins against the faith. It was a time when terrible harshness against heresy was thought right by all parties alike, and it was viewed as a proof of sincerity that six Reformers were burnt that very afternoon. So far it had been the custom to strangle the victims before burning them ; but their firmness was irritating, and these were burnt alive at a stake. After a time it became the practice to hang the victims by chains on a sort of see-saw, which dipped them into the fire, and then snatched them out again blazing, till the executioner chose to let them fall off into the fire. Twenty-four were burnt in this manner between November 1534, and May 1535. Chauvin went into hiding, and ended by making his way to Basle, where he began to write the great work which became ,the text-book of the Reformers, and, bringing him into the world of theological contro versy, whereof Latin was the language, caused his name of Chauvin to be resolved into its parent Calvinus, just as Luther was called Eleutherius (this from mere sound), and Schwartperd — Melancthon. The great points in the Institutes of Calvin which distinguished his doctrine from either Catholicity or Lutheranism was the way he dogmatized on the fore- 74 CAMEOS OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. knowledge of God, and on His having beforehand doomed some men to destruction and others to happiness, so that no free will of theirs avails — they are only machines working out a fore-appointed course ; whereas wiser systems — of course owning the Almighty Omniscience — believe that it is in the power of man to will and to choose his own lot. Calvinism also dwelt much on the wrath and indignation of God against sinful men, so as to represent the Atonement as satisfying fierce indignation, and yet its saving effects as depending rather on this predestination than on the willing acceptance of the beings whom it was to save, but that acceptance in those who were among the predestined elect came by faith, much according to Luther's doctrine. On the Holy Eucharist, too, he differed from all that had hitherto been taught, by denying that our Blessed Lord's words, " This is my Body," were to be understood in any literal way, and only accepting the Holy Sacrament as a memorial rite, wherein there was only the general Omnipresence of Christ as God ; and thus his followers always regarded with especial aversion the celebration of Mass and adoration of the Host, and fancied their horrid profanations to be protests against idolatry. As to the ministry being composed of elders or presbyters, who could ordain others by the laying on of hands in full assembly, he agreed with Luther ; but whereas the German was willing to retain everything existing, and all Catholic practices that he had not found misused or doing harm in their abuse, the Frenchman was bent on utterly sweeping away everything connected with the old ritual, and beginning afresh on one reasoned out from Holy Scripture, the only guide he acknowledged. Thus the Calvinist had no endurance at all for Catholicism, and attacked its emblems as idolatrous wherever it met them, applying to its worship all that the Old Testament had ever said against the worst apostacies of Israel ; and this,rin an intolerant- age, was the reason that the struggle was so much more terrible and destructive wherever Calvinism prevailed than where Lulheranism was the reactionary system. For it was a reaction. The Church of Rome had come to its worst under the Pagan influences of the cinque-cento in Italy, and the corrup tion of the French Church had been completed by the Concordat of Bologna, which made every bishopric and abbey a court appointment, so that the nobles freely gained them for mere children, and cures were utterly neglected ; while the horrible immorality of the King and his favourites was unchecked, partly from the fear of losing promotion, partly lest he should be exasperated into imitating Henry VIII., and partly from the fatal continental indifference to purity of morals com pared with purity of doctrine. Charles V., though by far the best monarch of the time, and deeply attached to his Empress Isabel of Portugal, was not free from trans gression of this kind. He had an illegitimate daughter named Marguerite, born in his early youth, and a son named Juan of Austria, whom he had committed to the care of a noble old Spanish knight, THE BEGINNING OF CALVINISM. 75 Don Luis Quixada, the very soul of honour, and said to have been partly pourtrayed in Don Quixote. Charles had driven the Turks out of Hungary without a battle, and then commanded in person an expedition from Spain to clear out the nest of Moorish pirates at Tunis, whence came ships that made the Mediterranean Sea most perilous to all merchant ships, and captivity in Moorish dungeons or galleys a frequent disaster to all the inhabitants of the coasts. The achievement was a most brilliant success, 20,000 of Christian captives were released, the Moorish prince was made tributary, and a garrison established at Goletta ; after which the Emperor landed in Sicily, to return through Italy, and have an interview with the new Pope respecting the Council. But Francois could not refrain from another attack, and he found two excuses. First he pretended to a claim to some part of his mother's dowry in Savoy, and accused his uncle of having received from the Con- ' stable de Bourbon crown jewels which had been given him in pawn for the payment of the army, and on this plea sent his armies to occupy the dukedom, it is said because Clement VII. had told him that no French army would ever be able to keep Italy without holding Piedmont. The other plea was the death of Francesco Sforza, upon which the old worn- out French claim of the Duchy of Milan was set up, and Francois dreamt of uniting that and Florence for his son Henri and Catherine de Medici, and made another league with the Swiss against the Emperor, also with the Turks ; and he would have united himself to the German Protestants, but they rejected him with horror. The war began again, and Charles, thoroughly stirred into indignation, resolved to give him a thorough lesson, and invaded in person Provence, which belonged to the Empire. Montmorency was sent to the defence, and his tactics were to devastate the country, break down mills and ovens, bum the wheat and forage, stave in the wine-casks, and spoil the wells by throwing the wheat into them, so that, it is said, the country has never recovered it, and the misery produced was very great; but it had the effect of starving out the Imperialists, and Charles was forced to retreat. While the King and his eldest son were moving forward to meet Mont morency, then returning home in triumph, the Dauphin, after heating himself with a game at tennis at Tournon, drank a glass of ice-cold water, which brought on an illness, of which he died on the loth of August, 1535, leaving his father almost broken-hearted. There was no vigour in the war after this, and the Pope began to prepare for the Council, which was convoked at Mantua for Whit suntide 1537. Cameo VI. Invasion of Provence. 1535- CAMEO VII. FOUR DEATHS OF QUEENS. (I536—I539-) King of England. 1509. Henry VIII. King of Scotland. 1514. James V. King of Spain and Emperor of Germany. 1517. Charles V. King of France. 1515. Francois I. 1534. Paul III. Cameo VII. Cromwell vicegerent. "535- Henry VIII. had gone on forcing the law to sanction whatever chanced to be his own will till he had become reckless. The difference between him and most other despots and wicked men was that, whereas they were utterly heedless of law and public opinion, Henry, having reached middle age without scandal, and being used to consider himself a model king, the admiration of his subjects, was determined not only to gratify himself, but to carry with him both the law and public opinion ; in fact, not only to do wrong, but to make wrong right, and to punish all those who could not own that his will was above their conscience. For this it was that More and Fisher died, and that all who were not prepared to confess his supremacy were in terror of their lives, though no doubt many Englishmen honestly preferred it to that of the Pope, and fancied it a mere assertion of the rights of their National Church, — as, in fact, it would have been, if the supremacy had been vested in a Patriarch, or in any clerical body, instead of making the flagrant assertion that a layman could be Head of the Church. Cromwell was appointed Vicegerent and Vicar-General to carry out the strange power, in addition to his more ordinary offices of Chancellor of the Exchequer and Master of the Rolls, with an accumulation of other offices. He had precedence of all other noblemen, even of the Arch bishop of Canterbury, both in Convocation and Parliament ; and by a still stranger Act, the powers of all the bishops were suspended until the Vicegerent should make a general visitation for the reform of abuses. He was apparently regarded as a sort of royal legate, and meant to carry on with a much more unsparing hand what Wolsey had intended. Wolsey had been his master, and he imitated him alike in splendour and in the means of obtaining an ascendency over the mind of the King. FOUR DEATHS OF QUEENS. 77 In the meantime Katharine, the unfortunate cause of all these troubles, was being taken away from her sorrows. She had been removed to Kimbolton Castle, a place affected by the marshy atmosphere of Whittlesea Mere, where her health declined still more rapidly — and by the beginning of January, 1536, she was dying. She sent an entreaty to the King to be allowed to see her daughter Mary, but was not per mitted, though her friend Lady Willoughby was sent to her, and likewise the Spanish Ambassador, probably that he might certify his court that there was no foul play. By him she sent a brief and touching letter to the King, "her lord and dear husband," putting him in remembrance of the "health and safeguard of his soul," commending her daughter to him, and pardoning him for all he had done to her. Shakespeare has made her last scene surpassingly beautiful, and all that we know of her patient suffering and dignity well bears out his picture. She died on the 8th of January, 1536, and was buried in Peterborough Abbey. Henry shed tears over her letter, and bade his court wear mourning as for his sister-in-law, but Anne Boleyn shocked him by her exclamation, "Now indeed I am a queen ! " and by wearing a yellow dress. Little did Anne think how soon she was to drain to the dregs the cup she had held to the lips of the long-suffering Katharine. That January was not over when she entered one of the rooms of her palace, and found the King with her maid of honour, Jane Seymour, seated on his knee, receiving complacently such caresses as she herself had been wont to encourage ! She broke into a violent passion of grief and indignation, and though the King tried to console her, she was taken ill that same night, and gave birth to a dead son. The tidings filled Henry not with pity, but rage ; and even at such a moment he rated her furiously for having caused the loss of his boy — while she retorted with the passion of weakness that it was all his own fault. He turned away in anger, and from that moment he never sought her company in private again. Her influence was gone. Henry was under the sway of Cromwell, who in his capacity of Vice gerent had begun a great visitation of all the monasteries and religious houses in the kingdom ; and the King's leisure hours were bestowed on Jane Seymour. This lady was the daughter of Sir John Seymour, of Wolfhall in Wiltshire. Like Anne, she seems to have been in the train of Mary Tudor when Queen of France, so that she must have been as old as Anne herself, and must have fully known what she was about when she played the like game, and supplanted Anne, even as that unhappy lady had overthrown her mistress. On her recovery, Anne endeavoured to obtain Jane's dismissal, but she found it was in vain, and she spent most of her time sitting in the quadrangle of Greenwich Palace, watching her little dogs, or setting them to fight. In truth, the King was determined to be rid of her, and not only that, but to make it right to get rid of her ; and unfortunately Anne was a 78 CAMEOo up I HE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. woman unguarded enough, and fond enough of admiration, to make it possible to bring a deadly, though false charge against her. As far as can be gathered, she was a woman with a good deal of ambition, with self-control indeed enough to have forced Henry to make her a queen, but of a coarse, unrefined nature, of much levity of manner, and with an unbounded taste for admiration. She had long ago turned the head of Lord Percy, and of Thomas Wyatt, the poet, whose farewell, when he found, after years of constancy, that she would regard none but the King, is really beautiful — " Forget not yet the tried intent, Of such a truth as I have meant. My great travail so gladly spent. Forget not yet. Forget not yet when first began The weary life, ye know — since when The suit, the service, none can tell. Forget not yet. Forget not yet the great assays (trials), The cruel wrong, the scornful ways, The painful patience and delays. Forget not yet. Forget not, oh ! forget not this, How long ago hath been and is The love that never meant amiss. Forget not yet. Forget not now thine own approved, The which so constant hath thee loved, Whose stedfast faith hath never moved. Forget not yet I " Even as queen, and in these sorrowful days, her manner seems to have had a tone of coquetry about it such as seems innate in many women. In the first week in April Parliament was dissolved. On the 24th of that month a secret committee was called together, consisting of the Lord Chancellor Audley, the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk, several of the Judges, and the Earl of Wiltshire, Anne's own father, who, however, was absent in Windsor Forest. No one knew the cause of their consultations ; but on the 28th, William Brereton, one of the queen's gentlemen, was summoned before them, secretly examined, and committed to the Tower. The next day, Anne found a musician of her household, Mark Smeaton, standing pensively in a window, and asked him why he was so sad. He said it was no matter; and Anne, in her spirit of vanity, thought proper to say, " You may not look to have me speak to you as if you were a nobleman." " No, no," he said ; " a look sufficeth me." The next day the unfortunate man was in the Tower, ironed heavily, as was not done with men of gentle blood. Then came May-day, when for the last time Anne appeared as queen in state beside the King at a jousting match at Greenwich, where her FOUR DEATHS OF QUEENS. 79 Drother, Lord Rochford, was one of the challengers, and Henry Norris one of the defenders. It is said that the queen's handkerchief fell into the lists, and Norris picked it up and drew it over his face before handing it back to her at the point of his lance ; and that moment Henry started up, changed colour, left the balcony in haste, and at the barrier caused both Norris and Rochford to be arrested. He rode to Whitehall that evening, and caused Norris's horse to be brought to his side, when he charged the unfortunate gentleman with having led the Queen astray, and exhorted him to obtain mercy by confession. Norris stoutly declared both his own innocence and the queen's, and so soon as he had arrived in London was sent off to the Tower, as was also Sir Francis Weston. The Queen knew nothing until the next day, when at her dinner-time she noticed the omission of the formal compliment hitherto sent to her whenever the King did not dine with her, " Much good may it do you." Before she left the table, her uncle, the Duke of Norfolk, entered, followed by the Constable of the Tower. She started up in terror, asking why they came, and the Duke bluntly told her it was his Majesty's pleasure that she should depart to the Tower. Still this might mean only to the royal apartments, and she went at once to the barge, without waiting to change her dress ; but on the way the horrible truth broke on her, and far more than the truth, for her uncle, who was only the King's obedient tool, did not scruple to tell her that her lovers had confessed their guilt. She defended herself with vehemence, but her uncle only shook his head, and answered contemptuously when she implored him to take her to her husband ; nor did anyone, except Sir Thomas Audley and Sir William Kingston, treat her with common civility. Norfolk left her in silence, and before quitting the barge, she fell on her knees, entreating, "O Lord, help me ; I am guiltless of that whereof I am accused." She asked if she were to be lodged in a dungeon, and when Kingston told her she would be in her own chamber, where she lay the night before her coronation, the remembrance overcame her, and she burst into a passion of hysterical tears and laughter. Then she begged to have the Host in her oratory that she might pray for the manifestation of her innocence ; and she inquired for her brother, when the pitying lieutenant answered evasively that he had last seen him at Whitehall, which was 'true. Weeping bitterly over the story that Norris and Mark Smeaton had accused her, she cried — "Mr. Kingston, I shall die without justice." "Nay, madam," said he, clinging fast to the legal fiction, "the poorest subject hath that ! " Well might poor Anne laugh more wildly than ever at the thought of such words coming from the man who had there received More and Fisher. She was like a little bird fluttering wildly and in vaiu as it finds the net closing about it. So CAMEOS OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. She was indeed in her own rooms, but constantly watched over by Sir Edward Boleyn's wife, who had all the petty spite sometimes shown by women to one of their own family greatly elevated above them, and by Mrs. Cosyns, a lady of her own, whom she much disliked. Anne's nature was a talkative one, and these two reported every word that fell from her, probably with additions of their own, for much of what she is declared to have said is perfectly incredible ; such as that she spoke of a joke with Norris for deferring his marriage as if he were waiting for her to be a widow, "for dead men's shoes," as it was elegantly expressed. To Lady Kingston she piteously said that ballads would be made on her, and none could do that better than Wyatt. How she must have longed after the faithful love she had heeded so little in the vehement pursuit of the crown that was destroying her ! The Archbishop, who had been all this time in his diocese, was ordered up to London to preside at the trial, but he was not allowed to see the King, and was kept a sort of prisoner at Lambeth, whence he addressed a cautious letter to the King in favour of the poor Queen ; but when the Lord Chancellor came to see him and reported the evidence that had been prepared against her, he was either convinced or gave up the cause as hopeless, so that those who were resolved on Anne's ruin saw no reason why he should not act as supreme judge. Anne seems to have spent the term of her imprisonment in wild hysterical talk, whenever she was not praying as wildly for deliverance. There is a beautiful letter purporting to be hers to the King, but it is discredited by the signature, which is "Anne Bulen," instead of "Anna the Queen," as she usually wrote. There is no record of the trial of the gentlemen involved in her destruction. It is only known that Norris, Weston, and Brereton asserted her innocence and their own with all their might ; but that the miserable Mark Smeaton, on being put to the torture, owned all that was required, but hesitated to sign his deposition till Sir William Fitzwiiliam said, " Sign it, Mark, and you will see what will come of it," and some hope of life led him to do so. Norris — when the con fession was shown him — declared he would rather die a thousand deaths than accuse her, on which the King cried, " Hang him up, then ; hang him." And they were all found guilty of high treason, in what exact manner is not known. Their trial was at Westminster. Anne and her brother, Lord Roch ford, were to undergo a. so-called trial by their peers, twenty-six of whom were selected as lords triers by the Duke of Norfolk ; Anne's first suitor, now Earl of Northumberland, was among them ; but he was taken ill the first day, left the court, and died a few months later. Monstrous above all measure was the including Anne's own brother in the charge. He was tried first, and it does not appear that anything was proved, but that he had once been seen to kiss his sister, and that FOUR DEATHS OF QUEENS. 81 she had said she loved him better than any other creature ; but his doom was already sealed, and he was found guilty. Then Anne, Queen of England, was called into court, and came attended by her ladies with queenly dignity. The records of the trial have again been destroyed, and all we know is that the King was deter mined that she should be guilty, and the Duke of Suffolk overruled the common-sense of the other peers, so that she was found guilty ; and her uncle, the Duke of Norfolk, sentenced her to be burnt or beheaded at the King's pleasure. The Lord Mayor of London, who was present, went away declaring that he could see nothing against her, only that they were determined to be rid of her. Another step in her wretchedness was her appearance before Arch bishop Cranmer on the loth of June, in a crypt at Lambeth, where his court was held, and he pronounced that the Queen had confided to him an impediment which had rendered her marriage with the King null and void, so that she never had been his wife at all, and her child was illegitimate. Whether this impediment was her promise to Percy, 01 an old attachment of the King to her elder sister Mary, nobody knows ; but she probably hoped that this separation would save her life and those of the five involved in her fall, since if she were not Henry's wife there was no legal crime against him, and she expected to leave England, and had decided on living at Antwerp. But all was in vain. On that very day Lord Rochford and the other three parties were beheaded on Tower Hill. Rochford was calm and courageous, and told the people who stood round " to live according to the Gospel, not in preaching but in practice. One good liver was better than ten babblers." He owned himself a sinner in the sight of God, but declared that he had never offended the King, and of his unhappy sister he said nothing. His companions made the same kind of con fession of general sinfulness, and Mark Smeaton, who was hanged, said, "Masters, I pray you all to pray for me, for I have deserved the death." Anne was grievously disappointed to find that he had not retracted the confession extorted from him. " I fear his soul will suffer from the false witness he hath borne," she said. " My brother and the rest are now, I doubt not, before the face of the greater King, and I shall follow to-morrow." All hope being gone, she began to prepare for death. One part of her penitence was very touching. She made Lady Kingston sit down in her chair of state, and kneeling before her with tearful eyes, entreated her so to kneel before her step-daughter, the Lady Mary, and ask her pardon in her name for all the wrongs she had done her. The hour of the execution was kept uncertain to prevent an influx of spectators, and this was a great addition to the poor Queen's sufferings. She rose at two o'clock, confessed, prayed and communicated, expecting to die at nine, as was usually the lot of criminals ; and when she found VOL. IV. _ 82 CAMEOS OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. the time was not to be till noon, the hysterical passion returned on her, and she laughed as she said she heard the executioner was good, and her neck was slender, putting her hands about it as she spoke. She sent a message to the King that from a gentlewoman he had made her a marchioness, from a marchioness a queen, and now he was going to give her the crown of martyrdom. Nobody, however, durst be the bearer of such a message. Henry had chosen that she should be beheaded by the sword instead of the axe, and the headsman of Calais was brought over for the purpose. The scaffold was erected close to the church of S. Peter in the fetters, and before it stood Cromwell, the Duke of Suffolk, the Lord Mayor, and a few other chosen spectators. She wore black damask, and a black velvet hood ; excitement gave colour to her cheek and brightness to her eyes, and she had never looked more beautiful than when Sir William Kingston led her to the scaffold, attended by six ladies, one of whom was Wyatt's sister. She made a brief address to the people, then herself took off her hood and put a little linen cap over her hair, for her ladies were too much overcome to help her. "Alas ! poor head," she said, "thou wast not worthy to wear a crown, and thou must soon roll in the dust." She then gave a little black and gold enamelled book of devotions to Mary Wyatt, and whispered a few words to her ; .then after her eyes had been bandaged, she knelt down, saying, "Lord have mercy on me," and her head was at once severed from her body by the sword of the Calais headsman. Meanwhile Henry VIII., in a hunting dress, with dogs and men round him, waited under a tree in Richmond Park till he heard a gun from the Tower walls announcing that the blow had fallen. " Ha ! ha ! " he cried ; " the deed is done ! " He spurred his horse, and galloped off to Wolf Hall, where the very next morning he was wedded to Jane Seymour. The long-desired son was bom to King Henry on the 1 2th of October, 1537, and as it was the vigil of the feast of S. Edward, he received that well-omened and truly national royal name four days afterwards. His two sisters, whose conflicting claims to the succession were both happily disposed of by his birth, were present — Mary as his sponsor, and Elizabeth, now four years old, carrying the chrism, and herself carried in the arms of the Queen's brother, Edward Seymour, who was created Earl of Hertford the same day as the baby was proclaimed Prince of Wales. A few days afterwards the Queen died, apparently of a chill caught during the ceremonial, and the King showed a good deal of sorrow for her death, continuing much under the influence of her brother. It is impossible not to contrast with Henry and Francois the feelings of Charles V., who, though, as has been shown, not entirely blameless, was a most tender husband to his wife Isabel of Portugal, who died on the 1st of May, 1539, after the birth of an infant which survived her FOUR DEATHS OF QUEENS. 83 only a few hours. She died at Valladolid, and Charles shut himself up for two months in a convent at Toledo, sharing the devotions of the brethren. The burial-place arranged by Fernando and Isabel was a great vault in the Cathedral of Granada, and the escort of the remains of Isabel was committed to the Emperor's friend, Francisco de Borja, Marquess de Lombay, eldest son of the Duke of Gandia, a very remarkable person. Though a kinsman of the scandalous Pope Alexander VI. his life from infancy had been deeply religious, and though a grandee of Spain, serving his master faithfully in war and policy, he preserved such strict self-discipline that he would close his eyes and turn his head on one side when his hawk was striking the quarry, lest he should lose his power of self-control in excitement ; and he abstained from all idle reading, only using the New Testament, the Lives of the Saints, and books of devotion for his entertainment. His wife was like-minded, and their household was so regulated that it was the admiration of the Emperor, who used to call the husband and wife the miracle of princes. It was the Marquess' duty to deliver over his charge to the Archbishop of Granada and his clergy, looking for the last time at the countenance of the dead, and making oath that it was indeed the Empress's corpse. The spectacle was a very painful one, and he declared that, save for the ' careful watch he had kept over the coffin, so that it could not have been opened, he should have hesitated to swear that this was the Empress Isabel. His meditations were such that on his return he sought the Emperor to entreat his permission to retire from the world and dedicate himself entirely to the service of God. He found the Emperor full of the same longing, but each felt that the other could not be spared, and they persuaded one another to remain, agreeing that when the Council should have been held to silence Church disputes, and their young sons be old enough to take their place, they would retire into a monastery, and attend only to the welfare of their souls. Charles was indeed a deeply affectionate man, though so grave and self-restrained in manner. He was of a gentle and tender heart too, as is shown by the pretty story of the swallow, for whose sake he forbade the tent to be struck on which she had built her nest, according to Longfellow's poem : — " Then the army, elsewhere bending, Struck its tents as if disbanding, Only not the Emperor's tent, For he ordered as he went, Very curtly, " Leave it standing." So it stood there all alone, Loosely flapping, torn, and tattered, Till the brood was fledged and flown, Singing over walls of stone, Which the cannon shot had battered." The Tangier pink is said to have been observed and brought home by him from his expedition to Africa. G 2 84 CAMEOS OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. It was a disadvantage to him that to the Spaniards he always seemed a German, and to the Germans a Spaniard, and he was only thoroughly at home and liked among the Flemings, who have preserved several stories of him. It seems that he liked to walk about in disguise, and that one day when loitering in the market of Brussels, as he was admiring a fine capon, he saw a good stout housewife bargain for it and carry it off. Curious to see its fate, he followed her home to a cord- wainer's shop, and having a desire to see the end of it, as he was a decided gourmand, at supper-time he knocked at the door. Two shoemakers, who were preparing to regale themselves on the capon, stared at the new-comer, who told them he came on the Emperor's business, and sat down with them ; but presently another knock was the signal for his admitting a basket of bottles of good old wine, as his contribution to the entertainment. All made merry together till the guest thanked them and went home. The next day the cordwainer was summoned to see the Emperor in full state, and was desired to name his reward. "Sire," said he, " I shall be for ever grateful to your Majesty if I may call my shop ' The Crowned Boot.' " Another time Charles lost his way in the forest of Soignies, and had, unknown, to sup with a faggot -maker, from whom he obtained his hidden store of venison in the mode well known to the readers of "Ivanhoe." This man's one desire was to be allowed to cut materials for brooms in the forest, and this Charles granted, adding, that he had better come ' and sell them on a certain great day at the palace gates. On that morning an order was issued that nobody should present himself with out a broom ! And thus the woodman and his wife sold their whole stock at a ducat apiece. A ruined man besought aid from Charles on the plea that we are all children of Adam. The Emperor told him he would send him a brotherly gift. It proved to be a leg of mutton. The man complained. "Brother," said Charles, "if every son of Adam sends you as much as I do, you will soon be richer than I." In one of his wanderings he entered an inn, where four thieves beset him, taking away his hat and cloak, and demanding his gold chain and medal. " Let me show you the use of the medal," he said, and putting it to his lips, blew a whistle conoealed in it, which brought his whole train to the rescue, when the four thieves were instantly hung. But when a shepherd sued him for the loss of a sheep that had been ridden over by one of his train, and judgment was given against him, he took care to show his approval of the uprightness of the judges. He was told of a grocer at Brussels who had grown very rich by never refusing to serve a customer day or night. He laid a wager that the man would not serve him. At one in the morning he knocked at the grocer's door. "What do you want? "called a voice from the window. " A farthing's worth of mustard," was the answer. Down came the grocer, and the Emperor lost his bet. Such stories were long current in the popular books of Flanders, FOUR DEATHS OF QUEENS. 85 , and though of course no one attaches any real credit to them, they show what Charles was among these honest burghers, or they would never have arisen. He was the only master whom the turbulent Netherlands ever really loved, and he showed his wisdom by placing them under the regency of his sister Marie, the widowed Queen of Hungary, after the death of Margaret of Austria, for they always brooked the government of a woman far better than that of a man. Cameo VII. Regency oj Queen Marie of Hungary. CAMEO VIII. THE DISSOLUTION OF THE MONASTERIES. (1536-1541.) King of England. 1509. Henry VIII. King of Scotland. 1514. James V. King of Spain and Emperor of Germany. 1517. Charles V. King of France. 1515. Francois I. Pope. 1534. Paul III. Cameo VIII. Visitation of tlie Abbeys. 1535 All this time the visitation of the Abbeys had been going on by com missioners appointed by Cromwell, who went about in pairs. There was a good deal of difference between the larger and smaller houses, but altogether they had never entirely recovered the harm done them by the Wars of the Roses, when their lands were ravaged, and still worse, soldiers were quartered on them. One rule of their foundation, which had done them much harm, was that the founder, by way of compensation to his family for any estates with which he endowed the religious house, preserved to it what were called corrodies, namely, the right of naming persons to be maintained there, without vows, and this was a convenient way of disposing of troublesome kinsmen and hangers-on, who, coming under no discipline, were a perfect pest and continual corruption to the monks. The spirit of ascetic devotion had chiefly passed either to the hermits or to the gospellers who studied the ' ' new learning " apart ; that of pious scholar ship was chiefly to be found in the universities, and the regular monks were chiefly younger sons of country gentlemen, comfortable men busied with their farms and cattle, and where the convent had become rector of a parish they were apt to have sharp struggles with it for their tithes. Many of them were, however, heavily in debt, and the smaller houses and priories were struggling with poverty and difficulty which did not conduce to good discipline, and some had fallen into notorious habits of sin. Some of these had been suppressed in the time of Cardinal Wolsey, who had used twenty-four of them to endow his foundation of Christ Church, and others had from time to time been absorbed in the larger monasteries. From a few, the creditor had THE DISSOLUTION OF THE MONASTERIES. 87 actually ousted the monks and was living in the building with his family. In the winter of 1535-6, the commissioners went the round of these houses, with instructions to exhort the inmates to surrender their pro perty on receiving pensions from the King. Seven houses availed themselves of this proposal as the readiest way out of their difficulties. The others were apparently reported of with tolerable justice, as slack in keeping rule, idle and slothful, and often as much worse. Probably their monks were little more than clowns put in to pray for some founder, and without discipline, ready to fall into the grossest vices. Of the larger houses, whose mitred Abbots sat in the House of Lords, they made no complaints. When Parliament met in March, 1536, a Bill was brought in, giving to the King all houses whose revenues did not exceed 200/. a year. He might give the houses and lands to any person of his choice, and the monks and nuns were to repair to the large and honourable monasteries, where they might leam a better rule. No one objected, and the King expected that the lands he thus gained would enable him to govern without taxation, and likewise to endow nineteen new bishoprics. The monks under twenty-four years of age were absolved from their vows, and desired to earn their own livelihood, and the poor nuns, each receiving one gown, were sent to their homes. Such was the intention, but the notion of the unbounded wealth that 376 religious houses must needs supply, made Henry lavish in grants to his courtiers, so that anyone who had his ear could obtain a present of any religious house he liked to ask for, and a good many were actually won and lost at dice. Murmurs were numerous : the ejected monks and their dependants became beggars where formerly they had dispensed alms ; houses that had been loved and revered for generations were made desolate, and Cromwell felt that he must do something to win the favour of the " new learning " party to counterbalance the indignation of the old. So, as vicegerent, he issued an injunction that a Bible in Latin and in English should be placed in every church, and that no man should be dis couraged from reading therein, but rather exhorted and persuaded thereto. This might rejoice one party, but to the other it seemed to be only leading to fresh danger, and in 1536, the country was in a state of ferment, which caused the King to direct Cranmer to publish an ex planation of what it was that the Church of England was really to hold. There were ten Articles : the first, confirming her faith in the three Creeds ; the second, declaring the orthodox faith in Baptism ; the third, on penance, i.e. declaring the necessity of confession and absolution ; the fourth maintained the Real Presence of our Lord in the Holy Eucharist, and these three were marked as above all other ordinances Sacraments, because ordained by Christ Himself; the fifth declared justification to depend on repentance, faith, and love ; the sixth allowed the use of images with a warning that worship was not directed to them, 88 CAMEOS OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. but to God ; the seventh permitted the invocation of saints ; the eighth continued the old rites and ceremonies with warnings against their superstitious use ; the ninth declared a belief in purgatory, and the tenth permitted prayers for the dead. This was the faith of the leading clergy of the time, but there were practices they all wished to reform now that they were free from Rome. The Litany, Creed, Lord's Prayer, and Ten Commandments were henceforth to be said in English ; the multiplication of holidays was felt as a hindrance to business, and cause of idleness, and these were reduced in number. The clergy might indeed keep them at church, but not with display, nor induce workpeople to attend them ; and village wakes were not to be kept on the patron saint's day, but all on the same day of the year, the 1st of October. This was because these days were times of great riot and excess, when all the country round would flock to hold a fair in the churchyard, often in the church itself, where jugglers, mummers, dancers, and all kinds of shows and revelry took place to the scandal of all good people, and by having them all at once it was hoped, at least, to confine each to its own village. These changes were very distasteful to the chief part of the people, especially the curtailment of holidays, and this, coming upon the dis solution of the monasteries, led to a rising in the North of England. Makerel, Abbot of Barking, under the name of Captain Cobbler, first raised it, and almost all the inhabitants of the north of the Humber bound themselves together for the restitution of the Church, and setting forth on a march which they called the Pilgrimage of Grace. They had banners worked with a crucifix, the chalice and wafer, and wherever they went they restored the monks to their convents. The Archbishop of York, and Lords Darcy, Nevil, and Latimer joined them, though the leadership was left to one Robert Aske. The castles of Skipton and Scarborough kept them out, but Hull, York, and Pomfret received them. At Doncaster, however, they were brought to a standstill by the Earl of Shrewsbury and the Duke of Norfolk, and they were persuaded to send delegates to lay their demands before the King. Promises were made them of what they most desired, and the rest was to be decided in a Parliament which Henry promised should meet at York. But such promises were never kept when once the danger was over, and in the spring of 1537 the Pilgrimage of Grace was proclaimed again ; but this time the Duke of Norfolk was better prepared, they were beaten at all points, their leaders taken, Darcy and Aske were sent to London to be executed, and great numbers were hanged at York, Hull, and Carlisle. Very exaggerated accounts had been carried to Rome of the first rising, and the Pope had been on the point of publishing that Bull of excom munication he had drawn up two years previously, but he was prevented by the intercession of Reginald Pole. Pole had been living in the North of Italy, where Henry had written to demand his opinion of the divorce and of the royal supremacy. The answer had been a long and elaborate treatise, but the drift of it had THE DISSOLUTION OF THE MONASTERIES. 89 further incensed the King, who had deprived him of his pension and prevented his family from sending him supplies. He had been invited to Rome by Paul III., and there received as one of royal blood, and there, with the Pope and some of the other really excellent Italians of the time, matters of discipline which could be reformed were discussed in preparation for the intended Council. At Christmas, 1536, Pole was appointed Cardinal by Paul. He had always been intended for an ecclesiastic, but he had never even been tonsured, so that the messenger who brought the offer, brought a hair- cutter with him. He was also made Legate, and sent to the Low Countries in the hope that the Pilgrimage of Grace would have prevailed, and that he should make terms between the Pope and the King, but before he had passed the borders of France, Henry was triumphant, and had denounced him to Francois I. as a freebooter and traitor. However, he reached Liege safely, and stayed there, peaceably and happily, reading St. Bernard, and daily expounding St. Paul's Epistles to his household, till he was recalled to Rome by the Pope. This expe dition made Pole of course doubly hateful in the eyes of Henry. It was reported that he meant to marry the Lady Mary, and put forward his royal Clarence blood as a claim to the crown, and though this was absurd, since he was only the third son, it rankled in Henry's mind, and though Reginald was out of reach, his mother and brothers were within the tyrant's grasp, and were watched from that hour. Another effect of the Pilgrimage of Grace was that it caused pro ceedings to be taken against the larger monasteries of the North, which were accused of having encouraged their tenants to take part in the insurrection, and the Earl of Sussex was sent to make inquiry, and eagerly hunt down all possible indications of the northern Abbeys having been implicated in the insurrection. These, such as Furness, Fountains, Rivaulx, Bolton, &c, were very magnificent, and had been the centres of religion and civilization in that remote country, their united Abbots were peers of Parliament, and it would have seemed hard to touch them ; but everyone was spell-bound by Henry, and whatever was his will seemed to become law, and the monks of each Abbey were examined privately, whether the rising had been encouraged, and if anything could be discovered against the brotherhood. It was easy to eject them as traitors, but when, as often happened, there was nothing to accuse them of, Ratclyffe (as at Furness) had a private interview with the Abbot, and often by baiting, threatening, and cajoling, per suaded him into resigning his Abbey to the King. The only hope lay in bribes to Lord Cromwell, whose rapacity was enormous, and who took estates from one Abbey, appointments from another, gloves and purses full of gold and silver from others, and even such men as Archbishop Cranmer and Bishop Latimer, when wishing to intercede for Abbots who were their personal friends, had to purchase his favour with large gifts. Three hundred and seventy-two small monasteries had been broken up go CAMEOS OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. by the Act of Parliament of 1535 ; 159 were destroyed or given up on the accusation about the Pilgrimage of Grace in 1537-8, and now Crom well sought at once to justify these proceedings, by a visitation which should expose all the frauds and cheats that had been perpetrated for so many years past in different shrines of saints ; frauds which good men had lamented and clever men mocked for centuries past, but the like of which are still permitted by the Roman Catholic Chutch from the futile notion that they encourage piety. The Archbishop himself had declared his conviction that the blood of Becket exhibited at Canterbury by the monks of Christ Church was not blood, but red ochre, or something of the kind. There can be no doubt that the commissioners did find much that was evidently false. Wood, said to belong to the true cross, was collected, enough to make many such crosses ; the impossible relics at Walsingham, which had shocked Erasmus thirty years before, were taken from their shrines. At Bexley, in Kent, there was a crucifix called the Rood of Grace, which turned the head, rolled the eyes, and moved the lips, miraculously, as the people thought, but as it was now proved — by wires ; and at Hales, there was a crystal vase of Holy Blood, which was said to become invisible to those in mortal sin ; but this was shown to depend on whether the exhibiting monk held the clear or the opaque side of the case to the spectator I The sense of having been deceived did much to justify the proceedings of the Court in the eyes of the people ; and the wealth of the King, his vicegerent, and all his rapacious clerks, was immensely increased by the seizure of the gold and jewels of the exquisite reliquaries in which such fragments were enshrined. At Canterbury, a pursuivant was actually sent by Henry to summon Thomas Becket, whilom Archbishop, to appear in person or by proxy, to be tried as a traitor against the King. Cromwell himself drew up the accusation, representing him as the partizan of the Pope — a foreign prince — instead of his lawful King. Judgment was given against him, he was to be no saint, his feasts were abolished, his name taken out of the calendar, his shrine destroyed, the jewels and gold — the wonder of England — were carried off for the King's use, and either given to Crom well, Seymour, or Russell, another favourite of the King, or gambled away, as one grand peal of bells had been for a pair of gloves. The great ruby ring, called "the Royale of France," given by Louis VII. as a thank-offering for the recovery of his son, was ever after worn by the shameless Henry upon his thumb. However, he was really deceiving himself into thinking he was going to make a good use of the revenues of the religious houses. The priory of Christ Church at Canterbury was broken up, but the King applied himself to the regulation of a new Chapter for the cathedral on a splendid scale, intending it to serve as a model for other chapters. It was filled up chiefly from the monks of Christ Church, though some preferred retiring on a pension. Up to this time Henry had not been treated as fallen from the faith THE DISSOLUTION OF THE MONASTERIES. 91 by the Continental Church, and had been invited to send his bishops to attend the General Council, which had been summoned in the first place to Mantua ; but he, with Cranmer and the other Bishops, questioned the right of the Emperor to summon an CEcumenical Council, saying that it should be done by general consent of Christian princes. There could be no precedent to decide- it, as the four Great Councils had been held when there was only one Roman Empire, of which that of Charles V. was scarcely the continuation, though it claimed to be so. But Charles was not yet enough at peace to hold the Council, and the German Protestants seeing in the English proceedings reason to think there was fellowship with them, sent a deputation of four divines to visit Henry, bringing the Confession of Augsburg, which they invited him to accept as that of the English Church. This the King would by no means allow, and he argued the matter with them personally, with all his love for controversy. What they cared most about was the administration of the Holy Com munion in both kinds, the abolition of private masses, and the repeal of the law against clerical marriages, a matter that interested the Archbishop greatly, since he was secretly married, and his Margaret was sometimes obliged to undergo strange and humiliating adventures when following him from house to house. Before long, Henry took offence at finding that the Elector of Saxony and Landgraf of Hesse considered themselves as his equals, and he treated the messengers with discourtesy, while they were so badly lodged that the Archbishop wrote to Cromwell to complain that the kitchen was close to their parlour and they were overpowered with its odours, and that the rats overran it daily and nightly, to their great disquietude. They went away without concluding anything, though it seems that their arguments had had a good deal of effect upon Cranmer's mind, and Cromwell was at that very time arranging a marriage between Henry and a Protestant princess, Anne of Cleves, sister to the wife of the Elector of Saxony. Paul III. was exerting himself with all his might to pacify Francois I., and he offered to meet the Emperor and King of France at Nice, the only place that remained to the Duke of Savoy, and try to mediate between them ; and though he was seventy-one years old, and the citizens of Nice declared they would receive no strangers, he set off, and arrived on the 2-lst of May, 1538 ; but he was not admitted, and was obliged to lodge in a little convent outside the walls. The Emperor came to Villa- franca, a little port of Monaco, and slept on board ship ; the King came to Villeneuve, two miles off, but they would not meet, and only had each separate conferences with the Pope, in which a sort of peace was at last ¦made, throwing over the poor Duke of Savoy, who was left with only his simple County of Nice, all the rest having been seized by Francois. The principal consequence, so far as England was concerned, was that both Charles and Francois agreed to support the Pope in the publication of the long-delayed Bull against Henry VIII., and he was therefore .excommunicated, to his great wrath and indignation. 92 CAMEOS OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. The readiest victims for his vengeance were the relations of Cardinal Pole, since the Cardinal was the friend of the Pope and reputed to be his adviser. His mother, the Countess of Salisbury, and his two brothers, Lord Montagu and Geoffrey Pole, and their cousin Henry Courtenay, Marquis of Exeter, son of Edward IV. 's daughter Katharine, also two priests, were committed to the Tower. Nothing, as usual, is known of the trial, except that Geoffrey Pole saved his own life by informing against the rest, and even then all that was proved against Exeter, the King's own first cousin, was that he had said, "I like well of the doings of Cardinal Pole ; I like not the doings of this realm. I trust once to see a change in the world. I trust once to have a fair day on the knaves which rule about the King ; I trust to give them a buffet one day. " The two noblemen were beheaded, but their mother remained in the Tower some years more in a, state of destitution, and so did Exeter's widow and son, and the son of Montagu. With this horrid execution began the new year 1539, and all the time Henry was vindicating his orthodoxy by burning at Smithfield all who dissented from the Articles of faith he had laid down ; at which, in the ferment of zeal awakened by the reading of the Scriptures, it was hardly to be expected that the more eager spirits would rest. Parliament and Convocation met in April as usual, and the first thing the King did, in order as it seems again to settle men's minds as to his doctrine, was to put out six Articles, to which he required full and unconditional assent : — 1st. That in the Holy Eucharist is really present the natural Body of Christ under the forms, and without the substance, of bread and wine. 2nd. _ That it need not be received under both kinds. 3rd. That priests may not marry by the law of God. . I 4th. Vows of chastity are not to be broken. 5th. Private masses are to be continued. 6th. Private confessions are necessary. The penalty for preaching against these Articles, or for refusing the Sacrament, was after a third offence felony, i.e. deserved hanging ; and such too was the punishment to ex-monks and nuns who had broken their vows and married, if they continued together, and the same to clergymen ; a strange enactment for the married Archbishop to be forced to carry through. These six Articles pressed so hardly on the new learning that they were sometimes called the whip with six thongs. It was not carried through the House without some opposition, which was typified by a pageant on the Thames, consisting of two galleys, one with the Royal, the other with the Papal arms, in which of course the English was victorious and the Papal thrown overboard. This same Convocation, however, enacted that all over the country the use of Sarum should prevail, i.e., the Liturgy and services THE DISSOLUTION OF THE MONASTERIES. 93 arranged by Bishop Oswald of Salisbury in the time of the Conqueror, and that the Creed, Lord's Prayer, and Ten Commandments should be used and taught in English. The Litany, Te Deum, and Magnificat were also translated, and were to be used in English, and Coverdale's Bible, being now complete, was to be placed in every church. In fact the six Articles were not intended as a trap to catch victims for persecution, but as an affirmation of the doctrines the Church was intended by its so-called head to hold, hoping to settle men's minds. There were twenty-eight mitred Abbots in the House of Peers at that time, besides the Priors of St. John of Jerusalem and of Coventry, but they had yielded to all the changes without opposition, and they made none when, on the 13th of May, 1539, a Bill was passed vesting in the Crown all the property of the monasteries which should be suppressed, abolished, or surrendered. The Parliament was told that the King, thus enriched, would be able to support earls, barons, and knights, and would require no taxes to enable him to protect them from foreign foes. No one bethought him, or at least dared to say, that the need of taxes was really the safeguard of the liberties men never seemed to heed under the Tudors. The exemption was one bribe, and the earls, barons, and knights had tasted enough of the King's manner of supporting them out of the smaller houses, to make them quite ready to share in the spoliation of the large ones. Indeed, the Abbots must have been struck dumb by what was already going on at Glastonbury, Reading, and Colchester. The first bore the reputation of having been the original seat of Christianity for Britain, visited by St. Joseph of Arimathea, and the burial-place of Arthur, and its more certain connection with St. Dunstan made it venerable ; while the beauty and richness of its vast buildings and magnificent church were famed throughout England. Abbot Whiting had written to Cromwell to excuse himself from attending Parliament on account of his old age and infirmities, and this was granted ; but his proxy was used against the monastic houses, and three of Cromwell's agents were sent to Glastonbury to try to find some accusation against him. There is a story that, like many other abbots, he tried to bribe his foe by the present of the title-deeds of the Manor of Mells sent secretly in the recesses of a pie, carried by one John Homer, who extracted the parchment, and carried the pie empty, keeping his treacherously gained prize until better times. This is said to be the plum extracted by the good boy of the nursery rhyme, and it is certain that the Manor of Mells still belongs to his family. The commissioners could not find the plate and jewels they expected in the treasure-house and vestry,sand thus concluded that they were either hidden and walled up, or else had been sent to the rebels in the Pilgrimage of Grace. However, most of it was found hidden away ; but a charge of treason was prepared, on which the Abbot was tried in November at Wells by a jury devoted to the King's will, sentenced and taken back to Tor Hill, overlooking his own glorious Abbey, and there 94 CAMEOS OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. hanged and quartered with two of his monks. Hugh Faringdon, Abbot of Henry I.'s Abbey of Reading, shared the same fate ; indeed there is a memorandum of Cromwell's to see that an indictment was well drawn against him, and John Beche, Abbot of Colchester, was also hanged. The Prior of the Charterhouse and ten of his friars were thrown into Newgate, where all but one died of want and cold, and that last was hanged. Otherwise there were no executions. These had perhaps intimidated the rest, and it was Cromwell's desire that the monasteries should be voluntarily resigned, and,that the people should not be exasperated. The poor Abbots and Abbesses, who thought they had staved off the danger by heavy fees to Cromwell, heard that the commissioners were at the gates. They came suddenly to prevent anything from being hidden. An inventory was taken of all the goods, cattle, and plate ; the house and lands were announced to have been sold over the heads of the proprietors, and they were only desired to " give great thanks to the King, and pray for him on their black beads, for' having let them stay there so long after the Parliament had granted him their house. " Then they were told to depart that very night, with nothing but what they had on their backs. The poor nuns were treated with the utmost hardness. At Wilton, the Earl of Pembroke drove them out to destitu tion, saying, " Go spin, you jades, go spin ! " Piteous looks were turned by the elders on the holy and beautiful house which had seemed their home for life, and which was given up to the spoilers. The plate, jewels, and vestments had been saved for the King ; but the marble, the brasses, the lead, the woodwork, were the property of the purchaser. Tombs were ransacked for the rings on skeleton fingers, books with costly illuminations destroyed for their binding, and the villagers round rushed in to seize the meaner spoil, not that they had ever disliked their monks ; but when the Abbey[was ransacked, they thought they might as well have their share as others— the excuse made actually by a father to a son many years later — and the Pilgrimage of Grace had perhaps served as a warning to Cromwell to throw a sop to the peasantry. By Cromwell's special desire, the chapels were desecrated, stripped down to.their stonework, and turned into stables, barns, and malt-houses, and the libraries were sold as waste paper for a few shillings — dispersed or sometimes sent off to the Continent. The whole work seems to have only occupied a year, and to have been carried out in haste rather by Cromwell than by the King, who had given himself up at the time to dissipation, feasting, and gambling. It seems to have been Cromwell's policy to keep him thus occupied, and to prevent him from turning his mind to business, while he himself conducted affairs at his own will, and kept everyone pacified by what seemed the inexhaustible wealth of the convents. He had secured a mighty fortune to his son Gregory, but he felt bound continually to find amusement or occupation for his terrible master, and his last device of this kind proved fatal to himself. Henry wanted another wife, and had a fancy for a French lady, pro posing that Francois should send some of the maidens of the hollse of THE DISSOLUTION OF THE MONASTERIES. 95 Guise or Vendome to Calais for his inspection. "I must see them myself, and hear them sing, " he observed, and when Francois declined this strange arrangement, Cromwell, who had all along hoped to get his master to consent to an alliance with the German Protestants, proposed the sister of the Duke of Cleves, and Holbein was sent to take her portrait. It was an exquisite performance, a miniature which was sent to Henry in an ivory box, most delicately carved in the likeness of a white rose, and the beauty there represented entirely decided King Henry's mind. The lady was reported to have been well brought up by an excellent mother, whose side she had never left, and in the winter of 1539-40, she was received at Calais with all the pomp and display of a Tudor Queen. Henry rode to Rochester to meet her, and hurried into her apartment, eager to see the beauty he had been led to expect, while she fell on her knees to receive him. He lifted her up, kissed her, placed her beside him, and tried to converse with her ; but she knew no English, and he hated the sound of her " High Dutch," so that he would allow no interpreter to assist ; and no sooner was supper ended than he left her, and, sending for his lords, complained bitterly of having been deceived, and declared that she was a great Flanders mare. In truth, she seems to have been a large tall woman, not ill-featured, but of a brown, muddy complexion, pitted with the small-pox, which of course would not be shown in Holbein's miniature, and though a good-hearted woman, very ignorant and dull, and a great contrast to the dignified, highly cultivated Katharine, and the lively, poetical Anne, or Jane with her French training and grace, and lovely English complexion. Nor was he gentleman enough to hide his disgust, but loudly abused those who had brought the poor lady, hardly listening to their representations that they were not charged to report upon her looks. There was an attempt to make out that there had been a pre-contract between her and the Duke of Lorraine ; this failed ; but the Arch bishop could not but say that no great impediment existed, and Henry passionately exclaimed, " So there is no help for it, and I must put my neck into the yoke, " not loving Cromwell any the better for observing that it would not be well to displease the princes of the Schmalkaldic League by sending home the sister-in-law of the Elector of Saxony as too ugly to suit his Majesty's taste. So poor Anne had a gorgeous entry into London, and was married a few days after her arrival ; but she was slow, dull, and awkward ; could neither play nor sing, nor do anything to please the King, whose notion of a wife was merely of a person to amuse him. He began to resume that hatred of Lutheranism which he had felt from the first ; but which Cromwell had persuaded him to keep some what in abeyance. In the Lent preachings at St. Paul's Cross, Bishop Gardiner spoke strongly against the doctrine of justification by faith alone ; but a fortnight later, Dr. Barnes, a friend of Cromwell, not only preached the reverse doctrine, but added personal abuse of the bishop. He was severely admonished, and though he apologised to Gardiner, ,96 CAMEOS OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. was committed to the Tower ; and there he seems to have confessed that he had been the agent of Cromwell in negotiations with the Schmal- kaldic League, which committed the King, without his knowledge, much further than he meant to go, and that he had been employed to bring about the distasteful marriage. This seems certain, and may account for Cromwell's sudden fall, and yet nothing in that strange reign ever went by ordinary rules of justice or probability. Cromwell was going on in full confidence apparently, punishing on the one hand those who would not take the Oath of Supremacy, and on the other those who could not agree to the Six Articles, until, on the ioth of June, 1540, he was arrested at the Council on a charge of high treason. He was accused of having taken bribes, and encroached on the royal authority ; also of holding heretical opinions and fostering heretics and their books. He demanded a public trial ; but the House of Lords chose to proceed against him by bill of attainder ; and Cranmer, though he had interceded privately with the King for him, voted against him ; his entreaties for mercy were disregarded, and he was sentenced to die. It is quite possible that Henry had tardily awakened to see into what his vicegerent had led him, to perceive the desolation he had wrought in the religious houses, and the misery of the monks and of the poor they had supported, and to ask where was the performance of his ' promises. Two poor bishoprics instead of nineteen — no chapters but that of Canterbury — the spoil devoured by a few nobility — the doctrines he hated'prevailing in the land — the blood of wife, kinsmen, and friends crying out against him — himself in a far lower position in the esteem of other princes than when he had cast off Wolsey — and, what galled him most of all, fettered by a marriage which he hated more than ever since he had seen the fair Mistress Katharine Howard at a dinner at Bishop Gardiner's. The ruin of Thomas Cromwell may very well have been the outcome of Henry's remorse ; but as usual he was trying to make the law serve his own will. He had discovered that it was a sin to have married a Lutheran heretic. Moreover, that convenient proposal of the Duke of Lorraine's was magnified into a betrothal, and the King was likewise said to have given no inward consent to his own marriage ! Poor Anne fainted when she first heard how it was to be ; but with the fear of the block before her eyes, she consented to be divorced, and receive the rank of his Majesty's sister ; and that obsequious person, Archbishop Cranmer, made no difficulties about dissolving the marriage, glad, no doubt, that there was no bloodshed. In fact, the house of Cleves could not have been attractive. In that very July of 1540, Anne's brother, Wilhelm, Duke of Cleves, was invited by Francois I. to marry his little niece, Jeanne d'Albret, the heiress of Navarre, then eleven years old ; but the young lady had a will of her own, and showed her dislike to her bridegroom as decidedly as Henry himself. She was dressed indeed for her wedding, but she THE DISSOLUTION OF THE MONASTERIES. 97 would not stir a step, and her uncle, the King, actually took her in his arms and carried her to church, where she still uttered no word of consent. The Duke was content to leave the unwilling bride to be bred up by her mother, and long ere she came to years of discretion, Francois' policy had shifted, and he was glad to declare that the bride's resistance made the marriage null. But Wilhelm was not to compare his misfortunes with those of his sister Anne. The King did not choose to send her home, keeping her as a sort of hostage, and she spent the rest of her life very quietly at the Palace of Richmond. Cromwell was executed on the 28th of July, unpitied by the nobility, or by any save those who viewed him as the secret friend of the new learning ; but he seems in truth to have been an unprincipled man, who took up the cause that served him best, and tried to play a game to which he was unequal, and to cajole a tyrant who was too strong for him. Henry was now ready to rush into a fifth marriage. Katharine Howard was the daughter of Edmund, the ninth son of the last Duke of Norfolk, a fair, lovely young woman with all the graces that the . King valued ; and early in August he married her, and spent six months in great content with her, but by that time terrible reports were afloat as to her conduct" before her marriage. Alas! these were too true. She had been left an orphan early, and brought up in the riotous and dis orderly house of her step -grandmother, the Duchess of Norfolk, where her childish ignorance and innocence had been cruelly abused, and she had been led into terrible indiscretion while a mere girl under fifteen, already almost believing herself the wife of one Francis Derham, a low-born attendant. All had been discovered, and the girl, placed under due restraint, had grown up graceful and modest, and like another creature. All that had passed in her unhappy girlhood had been hushed up, and when she had the misfortune to attract the King's attention, no one durst reveal it. The poor woman remained in the power of Derham himself, who came to court, and she tried to buy his silence by promot ing him ; but the miserable story oozed out, and the King's fury knew no bounds. The injury to himself was all he thought of, not the misery of the woman. " To the Tower and the block" was all the mercy he had for her who, a week before, had been his darling ; and as to her uncle Norfolk, all he thought of was how hard it was on him that his two nieces should have shown " such malice." Lady Rochford, the accuser of her own husband, the brother of Anne Boleyn, shared the fate of Katharine Howard for having con cealed her guilt. Katharine died with much patience and resignation on the 13th of February, 1542, "making a most godly and Christian end." as^a letter from a spectator describes. Another grievous execution followed at that same block, on the 27th of May, 1542; Margaret Plantagenet, Countess of Salisbury, after pining for two years in the Tower, where her father had perished, was .led forth to die, where her brother Warwick and her two sons had died. VOL. IV. H 98 CAMEOS OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. Cameo VIII. Margaret of Salisbury. 1542- She had been born in Clarence's stormy crossing to Calais in 1470, and was 71 years old. Starving and ragged, she had still been the great lady in her prison, and now, when apparently on some fresh offence of her son Reginald in Italy, she was led out to die, she protested her innocence vehemently, and when bidden to lay her head on the block, she said : "No, my head is no traitor, you must have it as you can." The executioner pursued her about the scaffold, and caught her by her long white hair, she was held down by force, and her last words were : "Blessed are they that suffer for righteousness' sake." She was buried in the Chapel in the Tower, and the beautiful chantry tomb she had prepared for herself at Christchurch, in the New Forest, stood vacant. These eight years, from 1534 to 154 1, were the most terrible years of the reign of Henry VIII., and the violences done in them were almost all the consequence of the claim that Henry had asserted to be Head of the Church of England, and that as a means of gratifying his passions without transgressing the law, but twisting the law to justify his' conduct. CAMEO IX. S O L W A Y MOSS. (1526— 1542). King of England. King of Scotland. 1509. Henry VIII. 1513. James V. King of Spain and Emperor of Gerjjzauy. 1519. Charles V. King of France. 1515. FranQois I. Popes. 1523. Clement VII. 1534. Paul III. It was the lot of Scotland to have long minorities alternating with a few vigorous years of monarchs unusually gifted with intellectual and attractive qualities, but in most cases marring these by violence or by dissipation. The orphan who had been crowned after Flodden at the mourning coronation had the Stewart propensities in their very fullest measure, some of their worst perhaps intensified by his inheritance of Tudor blood. The minority of James V. presents the usual dreary history of factious intrigue and growing savagery, while all the ground was lost that his father had gained, and the borderers of both England and Scotland became more inveterate in their warfare. The Red branch of the Douglas family, with the Earl of Angus at their head, ended by acquiring power equal to that of the Black Douglasses in past times, and bitterly they galled the young King ; until, in his seventeenth year, he broke loose from them, and throwing him self on his other subjects, gained the mastery, and forced Angus to take refuge in England, while all his retainers were so relentlessly pursued that Henry VIII. himself recommended mercy to the passionate boy, who bitterly hated the name of Douglas for the rest of his life, and never took into favour even those who had never personally offended him. He had been wont to call Archibald Douglas of Kilspindie, Greysteil, after a hero of romance, and to be very fond of him when a boy ; and in after times the old man, still in full vigour, put himself in James's way when returning from hunting to his palace at Stirling. James knew him, and said, "yonder comes my Greysteil;" but he would not take any notice of him, though Kilspindie, even under h 2 Cameo IX, James lr. I5!3- CAMEOS OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. a shirt of mail, ran along by his horse's side to the castle gate. The King entered the castle without a word to him, and when the old man sat down at the gate and asked for a cup of wine no one durst give it him. James blamed them for this, and said he would gladly have taken Kilspindie into his service had he borne any other name ; but he would not relent, and sent orders to his old favourite to retire into France. Henry VIII. himself said this was too harsh, quoting the saying — "A king's face Should give grace." James was perhaps more stern than most of his kindred, but he probably had not much to do with the death of Patrick Hamilton, whom Scottish Calvinists claim as their first martyr, though it was the doctrines of Luther and Melancthon that he had embraced. He was a youth of good family, who had received a benefice as a mere child, and while studying at the University of St. Andrews met with some treatises of Luther's, and with true Scottish ardour went to the fountain-head itself at Wittenberg. On coming home he published a Latin treatise on Justification by Faith, and preached the doctrine everywhere amid the corruptions of what was probably at that time the most rudely and coarsely corrupt of all the branches of the Church. He was seized and entreated to recant, but stood firm, and at last was burnt as a heretic in the great square of the old College of St, Andrews early in the year 1528. James was resolved on putting down the violences of the Borderers. Angus had been Warden of the Marches, whose business it was to keep them in order ; but he had rather chosen to attach them to his interests by permitting them to do what they pleased, and even binding them to him by covenants, called " bonds of manrent," which leagued the parties together for mutual defence. The Border castles were strongly fortified, and kept garrisons of moss-troopers, half warrior, half knight, always ready to rob the traveller, Scottish or English, or to make raids upon their neighbours, whether peace or war existed between the crowns. Scotts, Kerrs, Homes, Maxwells, were decidedly Scottish, and Dacres, Musgraves, Thirlwalls, and Ridleys, as decidedly English ; but there was a portion, called the debateable land, which was of uncertain right to all save the fierce Armstrongs and Graemes, though the Armstrongs figured in the roll of vassals of the crown of Scotland. These were the days of ballad lore, when the lady of the castle would put a dish with a pair of spurs on the table as a hint that her byre wanted replenishing from those of the hostile nation — when Jamie Telfer of the fair Dodhead described his harried stall-house : — " There's naething left in the fair Dodhead But a greetin wife and bairnies three, And sax poor calves stand in the stalls. An' routing loud for their minnie." James called his Parliament together and represented the need of SOL WA Y MOSS. maintaining order, and its impossibility when some would give no aid and others transgressed ; and while all agreed, and he was supported by- the presence of clergy and burghers, he seized and arrested the heads of most of the great Border houses, and then with 8,000 men marched to surprise the rest. So little did they think themselves offenders, that Piers'Cockburn of Henderland was in the act of preparing a great feast when the King caused him to be seized and hung before his own castle, as also was Adam Scott, called the King of the Border. Johnnie Armstrong of Gilnockie was the most noted victim. He levied black mail on everybody within reach of his moss-troopers, or else woe to their cattle, whether they called themselves Scottish or English ; but he thought himself a grand and princely personage, and came to meet the King with twenty-eight gentlemen well equipped, and he himself splendidly mounted arid arrayed — " Johnnie wore a girdle about his middle Embroider'd o'er wi' burning gold, Bespangled wi' the same metal, Maist beautiful was to behold. '.' There hang nine targets on Johnnie's hat, And ilk ane worth three hundred pound — ' What wants that knave that a king suld have. But the service of honour and the crown 1 ' " These were the very words of James, who, seeing only in Armstrong's splendour a proof of successful robbery, bade that he and his followers should be instantly hanged. Armstrong pleaded hard for his life, offering to keep himself and forty retainers always ready to do the King's bidding at a moment's warning, declaring that he would never again take a penny of Scot or Scotland, and that there was not a subject in England — duke, earl, or baron — but on any day the King chose to name, he should be brought to him quick or dead. But the King was relentless, and replied to the effect of the words the ballad ascribes to him — "Away, away, thou traitor strong, Out of my sight, soon mayst thou be, I grantit never a traitor's life, And now I'll not begin with thee." Armstrong then said, " I am but ane fule to ask grace at sic a grace less face ; but had I known you would have taken my life this day, I should have lived on the Borders in spite of King Harry and you both, for I know King Harry would downweigh my best horse with gold to know that I was condemned to die this day ! " Rather remarkably too he says in the ballad — " I've loved nothing in my life, I weel dare say but honesty ! " That a king might object almost as much to have his neighbour's sub jects harried as his own did not enter into poor Johnnie's views, nor into CAMEOS OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. those of the Border conscience, and it was long believed that the trees he and his men were hung upon withered away on the spot. They were buried in the lonely churchyard of Carlinrigg Chapel, where their graves are still seen. One, however, broke through the guards and reached Gilnockie Castle with the doleful tidings. His return is described in another ballad, called Johnnie Armstrong's Last Good-night, which, however, describes him incorrectly as being beset at Edinburgh, and fighting hard for his life — " My news is bad, Lady, he said. Which I do bring as you may see, My master, Johnnie Armstrong, is slain, And all his gallant company. " Yet thou art welcome home, my bonnie GrisseT, Full oft hast thou been fed with corn and hay. But now shalt thou be fed with bread and wine, And thy sides shall be spurred no more I say. " O then bespoke his little son, As he sat on his nurse's knee. If ever I live to be a man, My father's death avenged shall be. " The Armstrongs and their friends offered their services to England, the Scots and Kerrs were forgiven. But in spite of a great excommuni cation by the Archbishop of Glasgow, the Border continued to be1 a perpetual scene of violence. In the meantime there was a great disturbance in the Western Isles. The Earl of Argyle, who was the governor and lord of the isles, had given his daughter Lady Elizabeth to the Maclean of Dowart, who on some quarrel actually put her out on a rock between Lismore and Kells, which was only uncovered at low water. The poor lady was saved by some boatmen passing by, but the spot is still marked as the Lady's Rock. Her father and all the Campbells were furious, and one of the clan stabbed Maclean in his bed, on which there began a regular warfare between the Campbells and Macleans, and Argyle appealed to the Council for powers to reduce his enemies to order ; but James did not choose to trust him with them, and went himself with an army to the west, offering pardon to all the island chiefs who would come and do homage to him. This succeeded, and his authority was established more effectually than on the Border, and with less bloodshed. The lordship of the isles was taken from Argyle, to his'great offence, and given to Maclan, as well as the island possessions of the Lindsay s. James indeed went about his work hotly and passionately, as one con vinced that he could only deal with such a people by the promptest and sharpest measures ; but he was a gracious, graceful, winning person to his more peaceable subjects. He loved to go about in disguise, under the name of the Gudeman of Ballengiech, a pass leading down from the castle of Stirling. On one occasion the Highland Lord of Arnpryor, Buchanan by name, laid violent hands on all the venison SOLWAY MOSS. lhat was being brought down for provision for the guests at Stirling, and on being told it was for the King, made answer that there was no king in Kippen but himself. Thereupon the King in his disguise rode off to Arnpryor and found the door guarded by a tall Highlander, who would give no admission because the laird was at dinner. "Go to the laird," said the King, " and tell him that the Gudeman of Ballengiech is come to feast with the King of Kippen. " This brought Arnpryor down in great humility, but the King forgave him at once, and coming into the hall, feasted merrily on his own venison. Another adventure brought James into a sharp scuffle on the narrow bridge of Cramond with a party of gipsies. A man threshing wheat hard by, seeing one man beset by many, came to his aid and put the enemy to flight, then took him into the barn and brought him water to wash off the traces of the fray. Inquiring the name of his ally, James found it was John Howieson, and that his greatest wish was to own the farm on which he worked, and which belonged to the King of Scotland. In return James gave his own as Gudeman of Ballengiech, and said he had a small office about Holyrood House, so that if his friend would call on him on Sunday he would show him the royal apartments. John Howieson came accordingly, and the gudeman met him and led him through the palace, promising at last to show him the King, whom . he was to know by being the only person present with bonneted head. Then, when the two entered the great hall, full of nobles and officers of state, and every head was bared, the bewildered John turned round with ' ' the King must be either you or me ! " and James bestowed on him the farm of Braehead on the tenure of presenting a bowl of water to the King to wash his hands whenever he should pass the brig of Cramond. Sir Walter Scott, whose Lady of the Lake interweaves fragments of all these stories, had the delight of arranging the presentation of the silver bowl of water by the lineal descendant of John Howieson, when George IV. passed the bridge of Cramond. The ballad called the Gaberlunzie Man, where a maiden runs away with a supposed beggar, who had been housed for a night, is said to have been by James, who humorously describes how when the guest had vanished in the morning — " Some ran to cupboard, and some ran to kist, But nought was gone that could be missed." It is much to be feared that the Gaberlunzie Man was James himself, for he was terribly dissipated, and indeed his mother, Margaret, was no good ruler for his court. She was a sort of caricature of her brother Henry VIII., who was as much scandalised at her as people always are at absurd likenesses of themselves. After the birth of her daughter, Margaret Douglas, she had quarrelled with her second husband, Lord Angus, and of course discovered a pre-contract. When Angus fell into disgrace it was not difficult to get herself divorced from him, and in haste she married 101 CAMEOS OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. Harry Stewart, captain of the guard, whom, when her son forgave the ¦ marriage, he made Lord Methven, or, as Margaret wrote it, Muffin ; but . after a few years she took a dislike to him, and did her best to get another divorce and to marry a commoner called John Stewart. James's own marriage was much desired. After Henry's children he was next heir to England, and to Scotland there were no nearer heirs after his childless cousin, the old Duke of Albany, than the house of Hamilton, descendants of a daughter of James II. He wanted in his youthful folly to obtain a divorce for Margaret Erskine from her husband, Douglas of Lochleven, as he was madly in love with her, and therefore disregarded the proposal of marrying him to his cousin Mary of England,. which, if Henry could not divorce her mother, would have united the kingdoms. He chose instead to throw himself into the arms of France, Nay, when Charles V. and Francois I. made peace, and Francois tried as his ally to include Scotland in the general pacification, James refused, and the burning and forays continued on the Borders, though he was teaching I Scots at least to respect Scotch property, and could make the rush keep ' the cow, so that he had large flocks of sheep grazing on Ettrick side. The Pope sent an ambassador to attempt to mediate, and James took him and Queen Margaret on a summer progress through the Highlands, where they were welcomed with great hospitality. The Earl of Athole '¦ received them in a beautiful hunting lodge built of timber with glass ' windows, the walls hung with tapestry, and the floor strewn with flowers, where they were feasted on all the dainties that could have been procured at court, to the mirvel of the Papal ambassador ; but when the hunting match was over he was still more amazed to see the palace set fire to and lighting them on their way with the flames. " It is the use of our Highlandmen," said the King ; " be they never so well lodged at night, they will burn the same on the morn." In 1534, however, peace was made with England, and the Order of the Garter was sent to James, with many civilities, from his uncle, who wanted much to persuade him into following his example and breaking with Rome ; but for this James had no mind, and indeed he and his Bishops were pitiless judges to the men who had listened to Patrick Hamilton or taken opinions for themselves out of the English Bibles printed in Holland, which were smuggled into Scotland as well as England ; and an Act of Parliament was further passed against the importation of the words of the great heretic Luther. James had made up his mind that his wife should come from France. Long before his hand had been offered to Madeleine, the tliird daughter of Francois I. ; but the whole family were so fragile and delicate, the little maidens died so fast, and Madeleine's health was so weak, that her father dreaded trusting her to the cold north, and advised James to take instead Marie de Bourbon, daughter of the Duke of Vendome. James resolved to judge for himself, and sailed from Scotland with a goodly train ; but storms arose, and he was asked which way the pilot was lo steer. " Anywhere but to England," he said, and this his suite choseto SOL WAY MOSS. I°5 interpret as back to Scotland. He was very angry, but set forth again and in nine days reached Dieppe, where he disguised himself as a serving-man and rode with a few attendants to Paris, where he disported himself much to his own satisfaction, but not to that of a priest called John Penman, who wiote to Sir George Douglas that he was " running up and down the streets of Paris with only a servant or two, buying every trifle himself; he weening that no man knoweth him, whereas every carter pointeth with his finger, saying, ' La, vaila. le Roi d'Ecosse.' " Thence, with a gentleman named John Jeunant, he rode on to the Castle of Vendome, on the Loire, and entering the open hospitable hall, he mingled with the serving-men, but no doubt the auburn hair and hazel eye of the royal Stewart were remarkable enough to attract attention, and Marie de Bourbon hurried away to her chamber, where she had the portrait of her suitor ; and having made sure it was he, came down to the hall, stepped up to him, and taking him by the hand, said, " Sir, you stand over far aside. Therefore if it please your grace to talk with my father you may if you will. " So James was welcomed by the duke and duchess, and there was great feasting and merriment. Had James's wife been the sister of Louis de Bourbon, Prince of Conde, the whole colour of the next reign would have been changed ; but probably her forwardness offended him, for after some trifling, which won her heart, poor thing, he went off, saying he must consult the King of France. He rode on towards Lyons, where the court then was, after the meeting with Charles V. at Nice, immediately after which Francois, the Dauphin, a fine youth of eighteen, had died, after a very short illness, and the King had ever since been in a state of morbid depression. At the chapel of St. Saphorin, Henri, the next of Francois' sons, met James, whom he instantly recognised, embraced, and brought to the castle where his father was, eagerly knocking at the door of the room where the King was lying on his bed after dinner. The welcome had all the hearty grace and charm of which Francois was a master ; James, too, was a winning person, and the meeting greatly cheered and delighted the elder King, while there was a whisper that there were 20,000 stout Scots in the port, only waiting to fight the King's battles. The whole court travelled back to Paris, Madeleine in a chariot, for she was not strong enough for journeys on horseback. She was only sixteen, and seems to have been a most lovely creature, full of the softest and most delicate grace, and she and James fell in love on the spot, and were so earnest in their entreaties, that Francois yielded, though much dreading the Scottish climate for the tender girl. They were married on the 1st of January, 1537, with Ronsard to sing their praises in French, and Sir David Lindesay of the Mount in Scottish ; but happy as the old poet must have been to see his beloved pupil married, it did not inspire him with very effective verse on the occasion. ic6 CAMEOS OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. The bride and bridegroom stayed at the court of France till May, hoping to avoid the winter cold, then had so stormy a voyage that they were forced to anchor off Scarborough, and the Duke of Norfolk antici. pated "making them drink his wine at Sheriff Hutton;" but they sailed on, and arrived at Leith, where they were greeted with tumultuous joy. But the forebodings of King Francois proved only too correct, and this brought on a fever, and she died only forty days after her arrival in Scotland. James's sorrow was great and acute, but in less than a week from the funeral of the fair young queen, Scotland was ringing with tidings of plots against his life by the sisters of the banished Earl of Angus. One of them had married Lord Forbes, and her sou, the Master of Forbes, was charged with an attempt to shoot the King, and was thereupon executed ; but no particulars of the matter have come down to us. The other sister, Lady Janet Douglas, had married Lord Glammis, who died at the age of 37 in 1528. She was soon after summoned before Parliament for having assisted her brothers in keeping the King in captivity, but was forgiven, and seems to have made a pilgrimage. However, in 1531, she was again charged with communing with the rebels, and her goods were forfeited ; and he next year she was again tried for poisoning, or, as the charge ran, for the intoxication of her husband, but the charge seems to have fallen through, and she married Archibald Campbell of Skipnish. In this summer of 1537 s'le was again charged, together with her son, Lord Glammis, a lad of sixteen, her husband, and two others, with plotting the King's death by poison. The boy confessed having known and concealed the plot, and on this the unhappy lady was burnt on the Castle Hill. Her husband tried to escape, but was killed by falling among the rocks ; one accomplice was hanged ; but the very man who mixed and sold the poison escaped with only banishment and the loss of his ears. It is a mysterious affair, and there is no guessing whether there were justice or cruelty alone in either " of the prosecutions. At any rate, James, after seeing the world on his journey to France, and after the loss of his sweet young bride, was a much graver and more thoughtful man, ceased from his wild frolics, and applied himself to the affairs cf his kingdom ; but it was needful to marry as speedily as- possible, since an heir-apparent was needed as his best protection from the plots against his life. Among the ladies he had seen in France he recollected Marie of Lorraine, the eldest daughter of the Duke of Guise, who was the second son of that Rene de Vaudemont who had now this inheritance of Lorraine from Charles the Bold. Distinguished valour and graces of all kinds had made Claude, Duke of Guise, the most brilliant noble at the, court of Francois I., second only to the Constable de Montmorency : and his five sons and four daughters were noted for their stately beauty and grand courtesy. At the time of James's marriage, Marie of Lorraine had been the wife SOLWAY MOSS. 107 of the Duke of Longueville j but he had died only a month afterwards leaving her, with two infant sons, a widow of twenty-two; and in the August of the same year James sent her his proposals, and was accepted. His haste was not unnecessary, for his uncle, King Henry, was so much taken by the reports of her fine stature and noble presence that, though the French ambassador told him "she was insured to his nephew," he insisted on making her an offer, which was refused on the polite but false plea of intending to devote herself to her children. Henry was very angry ; but the King, as well as her father and brothers, sup ported her in her resistance to such wedlock as the old English King offered her. Meantime James made a royal progress in his fleet round the islands of the west, receiving the homage of some of the chiefs, and punishing others in his sharp and summary fashiou. David Beaton, Bishop of Mireproix, and nephew of the Archbishop of St. Andrews, was sent to fetch her, together with Lord Maxwell, who espoused her as proxy for James, and brought her to Scotland in June, 1538, when the royal pair married, she having been widowed rather more, he rather less, than a year ; and the next May there were great rejoicings over the birth of their son and heir. David Beaton, who had arranged the marriage, was made Archbishop of St. Andrews on his uncle's death in 1539, and became the chief adviser of the King. The Pope gave him a cardinal's hat, and he was on the way to become a great churchman-statesman. He had been educated partly in France, and was altogether more French than Scotch, but without the best sides of either nation, and with all the shameless licentiousness into which the higher ranks of the clergy had fallen in Scotland — at a time, too, when in all the fierce charges of party spirit, not one imputation of the kind was brought against their brother bishops in England. The more dissolute a hierarchy was, the worse they were sure to be as persecutors ; and James had been startled and shocked by the doings in England. When his uncle sent Sir Ralph Sadler to advise him to replenish his treasures by seizing the abbeys, he replied, with dignity, that he could live well enough on what he had. There was a good old 'man in France who would not let him want, and to rob the abbeys would be against the law of God ; besides, there was not an abbey in Scotland which would not grant him whatever he required. Sadler said monks were an unprofitable people who lived on the sweat and labours of the poor. "God forbid that if a few be not good the many should be destroyed ! " said James. And in truth his stem measures had so alienated his temporal nobility that he trusted his clergy far more ; and it somewhat lessens our admiration for his spirited defence of the monasteries to find that he was making them a provision for his illegitimate children. The son of the Lady of Lochleven, James Stewart, was Prior of St. Andrews, io8 CAMEOS OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. though still a young boy ; and there were others saddled on the Church of Scotland in the same manner. The present effect of the doings in England was persecution. One Friar Keillar was summoned before Cardinal Beaton, and several other bishops of equally vicious life, for having written a mystery-play on the Passion, in which the chief priests were evident portraits of the persecuting hierarchy of Scotland; With him was summoned Thomas Ferrat, the Vicar of Dollar, who had been led by reading the works of St. Augustine to preach to his flock, instead of leaving sermons to the friars, and even to explain the Scriptures. Crichton, Bishop of Dunkeld, told him that preaching every Sunday could not be allowed in a parish priest, for it might lead the people to expect it from the Bishops themselves ! Nevertheless, he added, " when thou findest any good Epistle or Gospel, setting forth the liberty of holy Church, thou mayst read it to thy flock." The vicar said he had studied the Old and New Testaments, and had not found in them one evil Epistle or Gospel, and begged his lordship would point out any such, that he might avoid them. "Nay, brother Thomas, my joy," said the Bishop, " that I cannot do, for I am content with my Breviary and Pontifical ; and yet thou seest how I have come on indifferently well. Take my advice, leave these fancies, or thou mayest repent when it is too late." Ferrat had likewise committed the enormity of returning the tithe to his poorer parishioners, and of teaching them the Creed, the Lord's Prayer, and the Ten Commandments in the vulgar tongue. This shows how much more fallen was the Church of Scotland than that of England, where versions of these had never ceasid to be current, and where there was not a Bishop who would not have been ashamed of such a confession, whatever conclusions he might draw from the Scriptures. Ferrat's example was too dangerous. He was burnt, with Keillar and three more clergy, on the Castle Hill of Edinburgh, 1 5 39; and in the same year a grey friar named Russell, and a youth called Kennedy, were likewise put to death at Glasgow, where the Bishop would have spared them, but the cardinal urged their death. The lad's constancy had nearly given way, but his elder companion encouraged him. James had established at Edinburgh a College of Justice, in imitation of the French Parliament, for the trying of causes, and was altogether. given to stern, quick treatment, often all too well deserved, but which alienated from him the nobles ; and, like his grandfather, James III., he incurred their displeasure by giving his confidence to a man of lower birth, but probably more cultivation, one Oliver Sinclair. Another attempt on his life was discovered in time, and the intended murderer, James Hamilton, executed. Probably he was haunted by the remembrance of the First James, whom he so much resembled, for he! grew moody and melancholy, and sometimes would start from his sleep, shouting loudly for lights, and calling his attendants to take away SOL WA Y MOSS 109 Hamilton, who had come with a naked sword and cut off his arms, and was coming back to kill him. The morning after one of these dreadful nights, at Linlithgow Palace, he received tidings that his eldest child, nearly eleven months old, was dying at St. Andrews. He rode thither hastily, but the infant died ere he came, and another message arrived from the Queen at Stirling that her newly-born Arthur, a babe of a few weeks, was likewise at the point of death ; and again the King arrived too late, and his grief and dismay were such that Mary of Lorraine had to exert herself with all her might to comfort him. His health and spirits both were failing, and Mary does not always seem to have been cheering, but to have been somewhat grasping as to the -wardrobe of her mother-in-law, who had died shortly before the little princes, for there is a French note extant from James, in which he entreats her not to be so foudroyante till she knows the truth about the gown and jewels. Cardinal Beaton was gone to France, and Henry VIII. suspected some intrigue. Besides, the Scotch Borderers — if they avoided Scottish homesteads — were foraying the English counties ; and moreover, the refugees who dreaded the Six Articles found harbour in Scotland. Henry wanted to have a personal conference with the nephew he had never seen, and offered to meet him at York. James accepted the invitation, and a safe conduct was sent ; but the Scots — now that he had no direct heir — would not let him risk his person, having no faith in the forbearance of King Henry. He, on his side, journeyed to York, and held court there for a week in vain, while his anger rose to .such a pitch that he set to work to hunt up all the old claims of England to supremacy over Scotland. He was further angered by the Irish chiefs, who, being affronted at his calling himself King, instead of Lord of Ireland, sent to offer their island to James in his stead. James never seems to have listened to the foolish proposal, but it added to his uncle's wrath against him. No one knows which side began the war, but some cattle-lifting there never failed to be on the Border, and the first serious attack was made by the English. Three thousand horse, under Sir James Bowes, and with them the banished Earl of Angus, were sent forward to harry Teviotdale. They were, however, routed by the Earl of Huntley, who made 600 prisoners, and very nearly took Angus himself. The next summer, however, Norfolk, with 30,000 men, invaded Scotland, and the whole force of the kingdom was mustered on Boroughmuir to meet them, and marched to Fala Moss, part of the Lammermoor ; but in the mean time the want of all food in the waste, wild country had forced Norfolk to retreat and disband his army. James wanted at once to march into England and take vengeance, but his subjects were unwilling to go, holding themselves not bound by feudal tenure to cross the Border, and moreover having consumed the forty days' provision each man brought from home. His threats and CAMEOS OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. entreaties were fruitless with most ; but Lord Maxwell, with 10,000 men, undertook to make an inroad into Cumberland. James had apparently intended to take the command, but a sudden attack of severe illness forced him to stop at Caerlaverock Castle, and unhappily he sent forward his favourite, Oliver Sinclair, with a commission to assume the : command. Sinclair unfolded it as soon as the army was on English ground, and he was raised on the men's shoulders to read it ; but no sooner did the army hear that he was to be their leader than there were shouts of indignation. The proud nobles thought it an insult, and all held his powers cheap. Lord Maxwell and the more loyal nobles tried to hush the clamour, but in vain ; and at that moment two English captains, Dacre and Musgrave, came to reconnoitre with 300 horse,, and seeing the dire confusion, charged into it at once with levelled lances. The unhappy Scots were in no state to withstand them, or indeed see who was their enemy ; 10,000 fled before 300, scarce standing for an instant. The mosses and the marshes round the Solway checked them ; 24 pieces of artillery and 1,000 prisoners were taken, among them two earls and five barons ; and this rout of Solway Moss, on the 25th of November, 1542, is perhaps the most disgraceful in Scottish history, and was the saddest in its effects. The King, already ill, became possessed with the idea that there was a conspiracy among his nobles to betray him. He scarcely spoke but to mutter, " Is Oliver dead ? Is Oliver ta'en ? " And thus he rode to Edinburgh in a dull stupor, and after a day or two he crossed to Haylands in Fifeshire, where lived Sir William Kirkaldy of Grange, his treasurer, and his mother, a good old lady, who strove to comfort him ; but he answered, " My portion in this world is but short, I shall not be with you fifteen days. " He was asked where he would keep his Christmas, and with a sad smile he answered, " Where ye list ; choose ye ; but this I tell you — ere Yule ye'll be masterless." He went to Falkland, and there the fever which consumed him overcame him. He took to his bed, and there lay almost without speaking, save the mournful words, " Is Oliver dead ? " " Is Oliver ta'en?" Presently came tidings that another child was bom to him at Linlithgow, on the 7th of December ; but it was a maid child, not a son, and when he heard it he sighed out, "It came with a lass, and it will go with a lass ! " — meaning the crown of Scotland, which had come to the Stewarts with Marjorie Bruce, and must end, or else pass to another family with Mary Stewart. He turned his face to the wall, and would never have spoken again if Cardinal Beaton had not roused him to sign a paper appointing four regents. It was said that he was hardly conscious, and that the Cardinal held his hand ; but he heeded little more till, on the 13th of December, he turned round, smiled on the friends who stood round, held his hand for them to kiss, and then died, in his 31st year, of a broken heart. CAMEO X. THE TREATY OF CRESPY. (I538—I546)- King of England. Queen of Scotland. 1509. Henry VIII 1542. Mary. King of Spain and Emperor of Germany. 1519. Charles V. King of France. 1515. Francois I. Pope. 1534. Paul III. Through all the turmoil round, Charles V. was persisting in his two great objects, which, as before, he deemed the only ones worthy of an Emperor — the war with the Infidel, and the Council. At the conferences of Nice, the real reason why he and Francois did not meet was that they would not do so in the presence of the Pope. No sooner was Paul III. gone home than Francois sent to propose a meeting to the Emperor, and Charles put in at Aigues Mortes, where Francois came on board his ship, and as Charles held out his hand to help him on deck, said, " Brother, I am again your prisoner." Charles landed the next day, and was welcomed with delight by his sister, the Queen of France. Montmorency, who had been made Con stable for resisting him in Provence, was presented to him, and was indeed the person who for a long time had the chief effect on French policy, and who was now really anxious to unite with Charles to put down the heresy, which alarmed him as a resolute, hard-headed soldier without much feeling for theology, only resolved on order and uniformity. The objection of the Germans to Mantua as the place for the Council was causing the next delay ; and another was caused by a great revolt of the citizens of Ghent, who offered to restore Flanders and Artois to Francois if he would take their part ; but he refused, and with much parade of generosity offered Charles a free passage through his dominions from Spain to the Netherlands to put them down. The invitation was accepted on two conditions, namely, that nothing should be said to him of either a second marriage, or of any treaty while he was in France. The King set out to meet him, but fell ill on the Cameo X. Meeting f Charles and Francois. CAMEOS OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. way, and stopped at Chatelherault, sending his two sons and the Con stable de Montmorency to Bayonne to offer to become hosfages in Spain while the Emperor was in their country. This Charles declined courteously, and he was conducted from city to city in a splendid progress, and at Chatelherault met most affectionately. They entered Paris on the 1st of January in great pomp, with all the prisons opened, and an amnesty proclaimed in their joint names, and there was a week of great festivity ; but Charles could have dispensed with this if the promise of abstaining from trying to treat with him had been kept. He was perpetually importuned to give Milan to the Duke of Orleans ; and when he avoided the discussion there were not wanting covert threats. Francois himself pointed to the Duchess of Etampes, saying, " Do you see that fair lady ? She would have me not let you go until you have revoked the treaty of Madrid." "If the advice is good, take it," said Charles coldly ; but he took care that when the lady held a bowl of water to him to bathe his fingers, a valuable diamond should drop into it. Francois' Jester was said to have pronounced the Emperor the prince of fools for coming to France, and that his master would be a still greater one for letting him go as he came. Once the Duke of Orleans, a wild boy of sixteen, leapt up behind the Emperor on his horse, clasped him round the waist, and shouted, "Your Majesty is my prisoner!" Charles visibly started. He was an intensely nervous, sensitive man; all his courage was moral, and it was through great self-control that he never was found wanting ; and this visit must have been a great penance to him. It was even said that Francois and the King of Navarre (whose Spanish kingdom Charles still held) had planned seizing him when visiting the Constable at Chantilly, and that Montmorency had real difficulty in showing them how disgraceful this would be. However, he reached Flanders safely, and thoroughly chastised Ghent, after which he tried to agree finally with France, offering to settle the inheritance of Navarre by marrying his only son Philip to Jeanne d'Albret, the little heiress, and to give Milan to Francois' youngest son, with one of his own daughters, or, if the King chose, to make Burgundy their appanage instead of Milan ; but even this would not content Francois. He wanted Milan for the Dauphin, so as to join it to the kingdom ; he would not give up Savoy, nor abstain from alliances with the Turks, and trying to do so with the German Protestants. Again Charles held a Diet at Ratisbon. Contarini, who had derived from the Scripture, doctrines upon faith not unlike Luther's own, had come to Ratisbon to try to bring them to an agreement. MelancChoh and Martin Bucer met him there, and they drew up an agreement' on a" confession of faith, to which they could all accede, respecting the nature. of man, original sin, redemption, and justification. Pole was delighted, and the way to peace seemed open. Charles further satisfied the Protes tants by enacting that they should be heard equally with Catholics in THE TREA TY OF CRESPY. H3 courts of justice, and all seemed in the way of peace. The Pope was ready to accept the agreement, but Cardinals Caraffa and San Marcello opposed it, and he gave no decided answer ; while Luther declared it was a mere jumble of the twofaiths, and contemned it utterly. Francois I., on the other hand, dismayed at the notion of the Emperor being freed from uneasiness at home, and making peace with his Protestant princes, raged at the Pope for having made any attempt at conciliation, and affected to think the Chuich in danger. And because this attempt failed, Charles V. is universally charged with insincerity in attempting it. He had set forth for another expedition against the Moorish pirates, attacking them this time at Algiers ; but the season was too late, and there were terrible storms, which did such dreadful damage to his fleet that he was forced to return to Spain and give up the attempt, with the loss of many of his best troops ; and thus a misfortune ended the year 1541. All the Christian countries which were exposed to the ravages of these pirates were grieved and dismayed except France, or rather except its King, who ungenerously rejoiced at any disaster to his rival. The ' King of the Romans had been defeated in Hungary by the Turks, and Francois was delighted, and began at once to make fresh alliances against Germany, and began the war by an attack both on the Low Countries and on Navarre, while he invited his friends the Moors to assist in making an attack on his uncle's only remaining city of Nice, which was plundered and burnt, all but the citadel; and Christian slaves were actually sold and bought in the market of Marseilles. Francois' defence of this conduct is said to have been, that a man attacked by wolves calls in the dogs to drive them off— but he seems to have been the wolf himself. In the meantime All Saints' Day, 1542, came round, the day which had been fixed for the meeting of the Council at Trent. Three Cardi nals, three Italian Bishops, and three Imperial ambassadors met there, and waited for the others to come ; but the French Bishops were kept away by the war, and Paul III. was trying to gain more for his grandson, Ottavio Farnese, whom the Emperor had already married to his own illegitimate daughter Marguerite, and made duke of Parma ; but nothing would content him but the dukedom of Milan ; and when the Pope found that nothing would induce Charles to yield this, he adjourned the Council till quieter times. The Emperor was in great difficulties, for the Protestants accused him of deluding them with false promises of a Council, and when he met his princes at Ratisbon, and proposed to settle the matter by a national svnod, the Roman Catholics declared that he was going in the course of Henry VIII. In the North of Germany all the Protestant princes had seized church and convent lands, and the Teutonic knights under Albrecht of Brandenburg had for the most part secularised themselves, and formed the eastern part of Prussia into a duchy, as a fief of Poland. The Imperial Chamber was prosecuting them for these robberies, and they were much affronted that the Emperor would not stop the pro- YOL. IV. 1 ll4 CAMEOS OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. ceedings. They therefore secretly formed alliances against him, and troubles seemed thickening about him. But just then Henry VIII. was greatly affronted with his old ally, Francois I. On the first news of the death of James V. he had exclaimed, "Woe is me ; I shall never have any king in Scotland so sib to me again ! But when he heard that James's child was a daughter, he instantly resolved that she should be the wife of his young son Edward, and that the kingdoms should be united. To bring about this, he immediately sent home the Earl of Angus, who had been his guest so long, and also most of the noblemen taken at Solway Moss ; but not till they had been paraded through London in black velvet coats furred with black rabbit-skin, soundly rated for invading the kingdom, and made to engage to promote this marriage, for the greater confirmation of which each was to send his eldest son or next heir as a hostage. Henry himself had just married his sixth wife, Katharine Parr, Lady Latimer, a widow, and the kindest stepmother his poor daughters had known ; and he was quite ready to receive the infant queen, and bring her up as his son's wife. Nothing could be further from the wishes of the poor child's mother, a devout Catholic, who clung to Cardinal Beaton, the French-bred Scotsman, as her chief aid. He claimed the custody of the babe in virtue of the paper signed by her dying father ; but the Scots, who hated him, declared that James had been too far gone to know what he was about, or that it was a forgery. By Scottish law a minor's property was placed in the keeping of the father's kindred, whose interest it was to preserve it in good order, while his person was in the custody of the mother's relations, who had nothing to gain by his death. Poor little Mary was thus allowed to remain in her mother's care ; but the regency belonged to Hamilton, Earl of Arran, who, since the death of the Duke of Albany, had become the next heir to the kingdom in virtue of his descent from the daughter of James II. He was a weak, soft-tempered man, very changeable, and quite unfit for his position, and opposition to Beaton made him at first look towards England. In fact the Scots were in a strange state. They hated Cardinal Beaton as one of James's political churchmen, and as the enemy of the "new learning " which was spreading among them; but they still more hated the English, so that Angus told Henry VIII. that if he tried to gain the mastery, " there is not so little a boy but he will hurl stones against it, and the wives will handle their distaffs, and the Commons universally will all die in it, and many nobles and clergy be fully against it." He advised Henry to invite the nobles to his court, and win them over by good humour and hospitality ; and in pursuance of this advice, Henry offered to Arran's young son the hand of his own little daughter Elizabeth, provided the little queen were sent to him. The Queen-mother, Mary of Guise, showed herself to the English envoy, Sir Ralph Sadler, as only wishing her child could be safe in England ; but it was even then shrewdly suspected that her real wish THE TREATY OF C It ESPY. i'5 was to have the little girl safe in her own native France, under the care of her father and brothers, and that Cardinal Beaton was secretly abetting her, on which suspicion Arran and Angus imprisoned the Cardinal. Sir George Douglas, the brother of Angus, went to England, saw Henry VIII., and persuaded him not to insist on having the custody of little Mary till she was ten years old. After this he persuaded the Scots to bind themselves to deliver up their little queen at Berwick to be wife to the Prince of Wales so soon as she should have attained her eleventh year, reconciling them to it by the fable of the physician, who, being commanded on pain of death to teach a donkey to speak, demanded ten years in which to do it, so as to give himself three chances : of the king dying, the ass dying, or himself dying. However, it was a very unwilling consent, and a fortnight later there was a great reconciliation between Arran and the Cardinal, so thorough that Arran actually abjured the reformed doctrines, and was received back again into the Church. Both next assisted at the coronation of poor little Mary, who, being but eighteen months old, screamed and cried throughout the ceremony ; and this was viewed by the Scots, used as unfortunately they were to ' ' mourning coronations " of babies, as a bad omen for her reign. Mean time Matthew Stewart, Earl of Lennox, had come forward. He was descended from Walter Stewart, the Wolf of Badenoch, son of Robert II., and was heir to the crown after Arran. On some plea of irregularity of marriage, he declared Arran to be illegitimate, and himself to stand next in the succession ; and he was the friend of most of the Highland chiefs, as well as of the Scots and Kerrs. Moreover he was in love with Margaret Douglas, daughter of Angus and of Margaret Tudor, and thus next in the succession to the Crown of England after the children of Henry, and the little Queen Mary. He and his friends, soon after the coronation, came down on Linlithgow and carried off the two queens to Stirling, as being nearer to the Highlands and safer than Linlithgow ; and this done, the Estates of Scotland refused to accept the treaty made by the nobles for the English marriage ; and Lennox, who had been drawn over towards Henry by the love of his niece, Margaret Douglas, whom he soon after married, made it evident that Arran and the Cardinal were in the interest of France, and that the ten years' plan had only been to amuse him. French galleys had been seen hovering on the coast, and Francois I. must be concerned in the mischief. ' This put Henry VIII. into a fury, and he allied himself with Charles V. once more, declaring war upon France and Scotland both at once, and in 1544 he sent the Earl of Hertford to invade Scotland, while he himself, though gouty and unwieldy, took the command of the army which landed at Calais. He was to march across Picardy, and Charles through Champagne, and they were both to meet at Paris, each promising the other not to stop to take castles ; and they really would have had France at their mercy if Henry had not paused to lay siege to Boulogne, where he was detained two months. ri6 CAMEOS OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. Charles had pushed on to Chateau Thierry, and Paris was in such exceeding terror, that Francois contrived through his confessor to com municate to the confessor of Charles his desire to make peace, and while the terms were being debated came the tidings that Boulogne had surrendered, and Henry had ridden into it, with the Marquis of Dorset holding the great sword before him. Francois in haste and alarm concluded the treaty at Crespy with Charles, who, as Henry had failed in his promise, did net think himself bound to his inteiests, though he reserved the right of admitting England to the treaty. The young Duke of Orleans was to marry a daughter of Charles V., and to have the Milanese as her dowry ; but this was prevented by the death of the young prince. Going into a house at Abbeville, he was warned of the danger of the infection of the plague, and laughing it to scorn, he ran his sword into a feather bed, and scattered the feathers over his brother. The effects were fatal ; he caught the disease and died in a few days, to the great grief of his father, whom he resembled in his lively, bright humour and handsome face. His brother Henri, who with one daughter, Marguerite, was all that was left to Francois, was a grave, inanimate youth, who would have been a good man with better surroundings. The King was one day com plaining of his indifference. " Make him fall in love," said one of the court ladies, holding as an absolute nonentity his young wife, Catherine de Medici, who was held very cheap in the French court. And he did fall in love with Diane de Poitiers, the widow of Louis de Breze, a woman twenty years older than himself, nor did he ever swerve in affection for her all his life, always wearing black and white in honour of her colours as a widow. He was equally constant to his one friend, the Constable de Montmorency, likewise much older than himself, and there were desperate quarrels between the favourites, male and female, of the King and of the Dauphin. Henry VIII. had gone home after garrisoning Boulogne, and having spent 400,000/. upon the siege. Hertford had in the meantime landed at Leith and pillaged it, then summoned Edinburgh to surrender. The Provost, Sir Adam Otterburn, went out to treat with him ; but he de clared the only terms were the instant delivery of the young Queen into his hands, and the Scottish spirit would not hear of this. Otterburn sought his own safety by remaining in the English camp, while the burghers closed their gates and chose another provost ; but they were not strong enough to hold out, and soon retreated by the further gates, carrying off their property, and leaving the castle well garrisoned. Hertford burnt and plundered the city, and the flames lasted three days — " a rough manner of wooing," as Henry himself observed. Hertford then marched southward through the Lothians, burning and destroying all the little towns and farms on his march. He could not take Tantallon, but the lands of Angus had been devastated by another expedition led by Sir Ralph Evers and Sir Brian Latoun, to whom Henry had actually granted all the lands they should conquer on the THE TREATY OF CRE SPY. H7 other side of the border, in 'his indignation at the Douglasses having gone over to the Scottish party. The Merse and Teviotdale were laid waste, and the savageness of the incursion was horrible. In one foray 192 towers were destroyed, 400 Scots slain, 800 made prisoners, 10,000 cattle, 12,000 sheep, and 1,000 horses carried off; also 7 convents, 16 castles, 5 market towns, 243 villages, 13 mills, and 3 hospitiums, are recorded with exultation as demolished by the English, who boasted that it was many years since so much damage had been done in Scotland. The tombs of the Douglasses at Melrose Abbey were plundered ; and when Angus heard of Henry's grant to Evers and Latoun of the plun dered lands, he grimly said, " Ay, I'll write their title deeds on their own bodies with sharp pens and in red ink." Such treatment united the Scots against the invaders. Arran came slowly and timidly with a force of 500 men, and Angus with his forces, and they advanced to Melrose, but were repulsed there, owing, it was said, to George Douglas's double-dealing. However they followed Evers to Ancrum Moor, and there were joined by Sir Norman Leslie, Master of Rothes, with 1500 lancers, and Sir Walter Scott of Buccleuch, with all his Borderers. By his advice Arran began to march down to the flat ground below the hill, where he had been encamped, and Evers, taking this move for flight, charged up the hill at him, and drew up breathless to find the Scottish army all arranged in good order and ready for action. Just then a heron rose up from the marsh and soared over the heads of the combatants. " Oh ! " cried Angus, " that I had my white gosshawk ; then should we all yoke at once." Evers charged the Scots, but was in no state to break their ranks. The Scottish spears were an ell longer than the English ones, the setting sun blazed in the faces of the English, and the wind blew the smoke of the harquebuses into their eyes and blinded them. They wavered, where upon ,600 Borderers of the Debatable Land who fought in their ranks, threw away their red crosses of St. George, and turned upon them. The English were totally routed, Evers was killed, and his ravages were revenged by as pitiless a slaughter of the English, in which even the women took part. A girl named Lilliard, who had followed her lover into the battle, was killed, and the spot is still called Lilliard's Edge, though the battle is known to history as Ancrum Moor. Arran thus recovered all the border side, and greatly raised the spirits of the Scots by their victory. Henry was exceedingly angry at Angus having taken part against him after his fifteen years' shelter in England, but the Douglas scoffed at him. "Is our brother-in-law offended because, like a good Scot, I have avenged on Ralph Evers the spoiling of my forefathers' tombs ? They were better men than he, and I ought to have done no less. Will he take my life ? Little knows King Harry the skirts of Cairntable. I can keep myself there against all his English host ! " The victory greatly encouraged Francois, who sent a force to assist the Scots under the command of Montgomery, Sieur Des Lorges, one nS CAMEOS OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. of the descendants of the Scots allies of Charles VII., and the same who had so nearly killed Francois with a snowball. He is the gentleman of whom the story is told that when, in imitation of the dames in chivalrous romances, his ladylove threw her glove into the pit where the lions were kept, and dared him to fetch it back ; he did indeed descend and bring it back safely, but then renounced the unworthy love which could imperil his life for mere vanity. He assisted the Scots during another horrible and destructive foray of Lord Hertford's, during which there was no battle, owing, it seems, to the double-dealing of that traitor, George Douglas, who (with various other Scotsmen had been plotting all the time for the killing of Cardinal Beaton, whom they hated more than King Harry himself, whenever it was not their own estates that were being ravaged. Many of the abbeys which were now desolated by the English have been laid to the account of the Scottish Reformers, who found their work done to their hand. Francois and his son meantime had been endeavouring to retake Boulogne, but were repulsed, and only skirmished with the English in the neighbourhood. One day at a supper of the Dauphin's, the court fool, Briandas, heard him settling all the changes he would make when he came to the throne. Running to the King's room, the jester saluted, him, "Save thee, Francois de Valois ! " ' ' How now ? " asked the King. " I swear thou art no longer King. I have just seen him ! M. ie Connetable will be here directly to take the whip-hand of thee, and teach thee to play the fool indeed." Francois no sooner understood what was meant than he flew into a rage, and darting to the Dauphin's room, found the company gone, but struck the servants right and left, and had all the furniture broken up, Henri kept out of the way for a few weeks, and then was forgiven. A fleet was fitted out to attack the coast of England, and actually anchored off St. Helen's. Henry himself was at Portsmouth, but Lord Lisle, his admiral, had not vessels enough to risk a battle, and the very best ship in the fleet, the Mary Rose, foundered before the King's own eyes with 700 men on board, through some mismanagement of her cannon. Descents were made in three places in the Isle of Wight, but the inhabitants made brave resistance, and the same thing happened on the coast of Sussex. But Henry's money was nearly exhausted. His avaricious father had left him the richest king in Europe, and since his accession he had despoiled all his monasteries ; but his exchequer was now so exhausted that he was debasing the coin, and taking forced loans from citizens of London, who resisted under the direful danger of being caught and sent to serve in the Scottish and French wars. He was thus willing to make peace with France, and on the 7th of June, 1 546, the Scots gave in their adherence to the peace of Crespy, which was already concluded between France and Germany. This peace, though not lasting long, is notable as being the last step in that woik for which Charles V. THE TREA TY OF CRESPY 119 had been labouring for twenty years, namely, such a pacification as would enable the Council to be held. It was the final treaty to which both Henry and Francois were to set their hands. Both, though not old in years, were on the brink of the grave. Henry had a diseased leg, most distressing and offensive to himself and everyone else, so that he was chiefly dependent on his wife, and she even ventured to argue points of doctrine with him, till one day he flew into a passion. "A fine thing," he cried, " when women become such clerks. Much is it to my comfort to be taught by my wife in my old age ;" and in his passion he bade the Chancellor Wriothesley and the Bishop of Winchester draw up an impeachment against her. Tidings were brought to the Queen, who instantly fell into a violent fit of hysterics. Her shrieks reached the King, who sent to ask what was the matter, and being really fond of her, and finding her the best of nurses, he caused himself to be carried in a chair to her room, when she was quite enough in her senses to show such humility and affection as touched his heart. The next day she made him a visit with the King's great niece, the young Lady, Jane Grey, then only nine years old, bearing the candles before her. Henry soon turned the conversation upon controversy ; but she was on her guard now, and meekly excused herself as in need of instruction from his majesty, " the Supreme Head of us all." " Not so," swore the King ; "you are a doctor, Kate, to instruct us." But Katharine made adroit answer that she had never presumed to argue, save because she saw that thus to instruct her best beguiled the King's weariness of his present infirmity. " Is it so, sweetheart ? " cried Henry ; " then are we perfect friends ! " And when Wriothesley came with forty gentlemen to conduct her to the Tower, Henry received him with a torrent of abuse, calling him beast, fool, and knave, so that Katharine was forced to intercede for him. Persecution had gone on all the time, and though the Lessons and Litany were read in English, the ferment produced by the study of the Scriptures had caused restrictions to be placed on it, which angered the gospellers. One of these, who was much compassionated, was Anne, daughter of Sir William Askew, and wife of a gentleman named Kyme. She is said to have been ill-treated by him on account of her faith ; at any rate, she quitted him, and resumed her maiden name, thus acting after the fashion of the Anabaptists, who held that marriage was void if only one party was of their sect. In London she spoke strongly against the doctrine of the Holy Eucharist, and gave books to the ladies about court ; till she was brought before Edmund Bonner, Bishop of London, a rough, hearty man, whose manner with heretics was half-scolding, half-threatening; and who thought he had silenced her, so that she was released from prison on bail but she was soon expressing her opinions as loudly as ever. She was again arrested and examined before Bishop Gardiner and Cameo X. Peace of Crespy. 1546 CAMEOS, OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. Chancellor Wriothesley, when she showed great knowledge of Scripture ; but she was resolute in her belief, and sentenced to death. Nicholas Shaxton, ex-Bishop of Salisbury, who had been deprived for denying the Real Presence, but recanted in fear of being burnt, came to visit her, and to persuade her to follow his example ; but she called him an apostate, and said he had better never have been born. She was tortured in the presence of Wriothesley, probably to obtain some accusation against the ladies, and then burnt at Smithfield, as well as three men, guilty of the like offences. Shaxton preached a sermon before the fire was set to the pile. By this time the unwieldy frame of the King was one mass of disease, and it was plain that he had not long to live. His only son was but nine years old, and the most natural guardians of the minority would be his two uncles, Edward Seymour, Earl of Hertford, and his brother Thomas ; but they were looked on as new nobles, and Henry perhaps recollected the combination of the old nobility against the Woodvilles and Edward V., though there was no Richard to head them. The chief of these old nobles was Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk, who, as uncle to both the King's murdered wives, was, in spite of having con sented to their death, not likely to be favourable to the son of their rival. His son, the Earl of Surrey, a poet and a man of great grace and popularity, was known to despise the new nobility, and Henry, on some faint whisper of danger from them, resolved to sweep them off. He had them both arrested on the 13th of January, 1546, when he himself lay dangerously ill, and they were proceeded against by Act of At tainder. The worst that could be said of them was that they quartered the royal arms (in right of their descent from Thomas of Brotherton), also the cross of Edward the Confessor; that they had wished to marry a daughter of the Duke to Thomas Seymour ; and that Surrey had spoken of the regency as his father's right. Even this much was only discovered by close examination of the ladies of the family, and turning out stores of old embroidery, for these quarterings had not been worn publicly. But Henry was like Herod, dying in the midst of cruelty. Surrey was tried as a commoner, sentenced, and executed on the 19th of January 1 547, simply for the treason supposed to be involved in Edward's cross and martlets ; but it took a little more time to get the Bill of Attainder through the House of Peers, and though Henry's sentence was passed against his old comrade the duke, his own sentence had gone forth. He was sinking fast. Sir Antony Denny took courage to tell him he was dying. He spoke of reconciliation to Rome, but Gardiner told him it could not be done without Parliament. He was asked what spiritual adviser he would see, and asked for the Archbishop ; but Cranmer was at Croydon, and by the time he was fetched Henry could only press his hand. Mass had, however, daily been said in his room, he had constantly communicated, and showed no sense of having been a sinner beyond THE TREATY OF CRESFY. other men. He died on the 28th of January, 1547, in his fifty-seventh' year. Francois I. was likewise near his end. He had never recovered his spirits since the death of his favourite son, and though he continued to travel through the country it was with much suffering and difficulty, and at Rochefort an attack of fever came on. He moved to Rambouillet, but there became worse, and died on the 31st of March, 1547, aged fifty-three, making what was thought a pious end, and signing the cross as long as he could move his fingers. If the three great monarchs of the early sixteenth century could have been put together, Francois would have been the most gracious, winning, and delightful in manner, and the best able to make his gifts agreeable, though they were the shallowest ; Henry the most frank, hearty, and jovial, as well as the most learned, and probably the most really clever and able man of all ; Charles, a stiff, shy, grave man, more refined, more courteous and more guarded than either of the others ; but the only one who had a high, fixed purpose and idea of his duty was Charles. The other two were far more highly gifted by nature ; but hatred and selfishness led Francois to perfidy and luxury that ruined his assumption of chivalry, and Henry's coarseness, and resolution that his own will should be law, and that what he willed should be right, and all should so own it, had turned his great gifts to evil purposes, and stained his name with direful cruelty and bloodshed. Cameo X. Death of Henry and Francois. 1547- CAMEO XI. THE CASTLE OF ST. ANDREWS (1543— 1549.) Cameo XI. Cardinal Beaton. Death of Wishart. 1546- Kings of England. Queen of Scotland. 1509. Henry VIII. 1542. Mary. 1547. Edward VI. King of Spain and Emperor of Germany. 1519. Charles V. Kings of France. 1515. Francois I. 1547. Henri II. Pope. 1534. Paul III. Scotland was rent by many parties all this time. The Reformers naturally looked to England ; the strong Roman Catholics, of whom Mary of Lorraine was the head, to France ; while the third with the Regent Arran wavered between the two, caring most for national independence. Cardinal Beaton persecuted the Reformers in the spirit of his French brethren, but fresh heresies sprang up everywhere. In 1543 a Scotsman, named George Wishart, returned from his travels full of the new doctrine. Indeed, he had been made, by way of warning, to carry a faggot at Bristol for denying the popular doctrines about the Blessed Virgin. He preached in different places in Scotland, and was much admired by the English party, who plotted with Henry against the Cardinal, and there is much reason to suspect that he knew of their designs. He was the marked man among the refonned preachers, and such was the enmity against him, that his fervent disciple John Knox always stood by him at his sermons with a two-handed sword — but at last he was taken in Ormistoun House by the Earl of . Bothwell, and was carried to the University of St. Andrews, where there was a council of Bishops and clergy to try him, when, of course, he was sentenced to die ; and on the 28th of March, 1546, was put to death. He was guarded by soldiers, but allowed to make a speech to the people. He kissed the executioner and forgave him, and was then strangled and his body burnt to ashes. The Cardinal himself looked on from a gallery hung with tapestry, little thinking that this execution was sealing his own doom. He made a progress soon after into Angus, and outraged all decency by celebrating, with great pomp, the marriage of one of his illegitimate daughters to David Lindsay, the Master of Crawford, endowing her like a princess, and on his return he summoned a meeting of the nobles, THE CASTLE OF ST. ANDRk. WS. 123 .and arranged to fortify the castle of St. Andrews, so as to have a more efficient stronghold in case of another invasion of the English. He was understood to be meditating a voyage to France, and this quickened the plans of the conspirators. Even Sir Ralf Sadler, Henry's ambassador, encouraged them, advising that the deed should be done without open participation on his master's part, but that he should afterwards protect the conspirators ! Norman Leslie, the Master of Rothes, had given up an estate to Beaton, and claimed a reward which had been refused, and there is no doubt from papers in the State Paper Office that Henry VIII. had long been promising the nobles of his party rewards for the Cardinal's death. Indeed, the Tudors seem to have viewed the Scots as a sort of wild beast, and to have shown far less sense of ordinary honour and propriety in dealing with them than was used towards any Continental nation. At any rate the Cardinal's death was resolved on, and on the 28 th of May, 1546, just two months after the death of Wishart, Norman Leslie rode into St. Andrews, and put up at his usual inn, where he found William Kirkaldy of Grange, a friend of the late king, and at night was joined by his uncle, John Leslie. Other conspirators came in one by one, and at daybreak they gathered in knots and drew near the castle. As soon as the drawbridge was lowered to let in the masons employed on the fortifications, Norman, with three attendants, entered the gates, and asked if the Cardinal were awake. Kirkaldy and another gentleman came in without suspicion, but John Leslie was a well-known enemy to the Cardinal ; and on seeing him the porter took alarm, and began undoing the fastening of the drawbridge, when Leslie leaped across the moat, and the poor man was surrounded, stabbed, his keys taken, and his body thowninto the moat, all without alarm to the rest of the house hold. Kirkaldy guarded the postem, and the others, going to the beds of the sleeping attendants, woke them one by one, and threatening them with death if they spoke, led them out of the castle and shut the gates. Beaton himself, however, heard some disturbance, and opening his bedroom window called out to those in the court below to ask what it meant. He was told that Norman Leslie had taken the castle. He hurried to the postern gate, but finding it guarded, he shut himself into his own room, and drew all the heaviest furniture against the door. — There came a knock. He asked who it was. " Leslie " was the answer. " Is it Norman ? I must have Norman. He is my friend," called the Cardinal. " Not Norman, ye must be content with John," was the answer. Fire was going to be applied to the door, when the Cardinal unlocked it, and John Leslie and another instantly threw themselves on their victim, but James Melville held them back saying, " God's judgments ought to be wrought with gravity, though in secret," and holding his sword over the Cardinal, he bade him repent his wickedness, and especially of Wishart's death, and told him to observe that this was no I24 CAMEOS OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND.. blow of a common murderer, but that of an avenger of the Holy Gospel. On which he struck the unhappy man his death-blow. The gates were all closed, and as the attendants roused the town, every one came round clamouring to speak with the Cardinal. Norman Leslie came to the battlements, and telling them they wished to speak with a dead man, hung the body over the walls by one leg and arm, and they retired in dismay, no one daring to attack the castle, and never guessing that it was only held by sixteen men ; but these had' found it well pro visioned, and determined to hold out against all comers. John Knox, Wishart's most devoted pupil, forced his way with the Barons of Ormistoun and Niddry into the castle, bringing about 140 men, and in the chapel he catechised and expounded the Scriptures. It is doubtful whether he had not been a priest degraded for his heresies, but it is more probable that he was a layman. He was forty-one years of age, of stern mould and fiery temper, and rude coarse eloquence, which so moved the fierce men who were making religion a cloak for their violeuce that they insisted on his assuming the pastorate. Provisions were at first sent them by sea from England, while Arran besieged them by land. Henry had expected to have the castle surren dered to him, but when he found that they would give it to the English as little as to the Regent, he became offended, and resolved to leave them to their fate, but even then they held out, and Arran had to raise the siege, leaving the castle untouched, when he went to arrange to meet tlie Estates and consider of a peace. But when the French, who greatly resented the murder of their friend Cardinal Beaton, sent a fleet under the command of a Knight of St John, Leo Strozzi, Prior of Capua, to attack the castle, he showed far greater skill than had been as yet known in Scotland, planting artillery on the steeples of the Abbey and of St. Salvador, and thus commanding the inner courts of the castle. The Prior expressed his wonder to Arran that nothing of the kind had been done before, and promised him an easy passage the next day into the castle. In the meantime, within the castle, an Italian engineer, who had been lent to the garrison by the English, was telling them that the cannon he now saw being planted were in the hands of truly skilful men, and John Knox was denouncing the crimes, cruelties, and profligacy, which he declared would immediately bring down the judgment of God upon the defenders, while they scoffed at his predictions, and talked of the strength of their walls and the aid expected from England. But the next day's cannonade soon made them change their note. The walls crumbled, a breach was open, and an assault was preparing, when the garrison, seeing their cause hopeless, decided on sending a flag of truce. They offered to surrender on their lives and property" being secured. But Queen Mary of Guise and the Regent Arran both rejected this proposal, and Strozzi said he was not even empowered to grant their lives, and could only do so under reservation as to the will of King Henri of France. THE CASTLE OF ST. ANDREWS. 125 Defence was, however, impossible, the castle was surrendered, the Cah- - _ , . 1 stores and the Cardinal's rich plenishing were plundered by the French, the garrison were taken on board ship, and Arran and his council decided to ' ' ding the castle down to the ground, " which was accordingly done, after it had held out fourteen months. The prisoners were taken to France and made to work in galleys at Cherbourg and Mont St. Michel ; where they viewed it as a confession of their notion of the faith to insult the Roman Catholic services when ever they were compelled to attend them. After all the crimes they had committed, it is strange to find that before making an attempt to escape, Kirkaldy of Grange, Norman Leslie, his uncle, and Peter Carmichael consulted John Knox on its lawfulness, and he told them that whatever they did without bloodshed might be lawful, but that he could not consent to their taking any life for their freedom. They were strong men, and contrived to lock up their guards at Mont St. Michel and escape ; Kirkaldy and Carmichael disguised themselves as beggars ; and made their way to La Coquette, a seaport in Brittany, where they engaged themselves as sailors, and after several voyages along the coast were able to cross to England. Knox and James Balfour were made to work at the oar, and in this manner had to coast along Scotland, where they beheld the well-known rocks and steeples of their own country. How they were released does not appear, but Knox was at liberty in England early in 1 549. Long before this, however, the two regents of England and Scotland had fought out their war. The English Protector Somerset's earliest enterprise was to accomplish the marriage between his nephew and the little Queen of Scots, and for this end he renewed his rough manner of wooing, making a treaty with the garrison of St. Andrews, who promised never to surrender to any of their own countrymen without licence from the King of England, to receive the English army which was about to enter Scotland to seize the little bride, and to deliver up the castle to the English as soon as she should be in England. In return, pensions were to be given to the chiefs, and the gairison was to receive pay. Tidings were carried to Arran by the traitor who was never wanting to either party, and being thus assured that the English did not hold themselves bound by the treaty of Crespy, he began collect troops. A border raid gave further cause of warfare, and Arran was retaliating on the English border while the garrison of St. Andrews were horribly ravaging the country round them, and brutally maltreating the poor creatures who fell into their hands. Somerset collected 15,000 men, including 200 Spanish carabineers, and marched northwards ; while Arran sent the fiery cross throughout the kingdom. It was a token consisting of a cross formed of two hazel rods, the ends seared with fire quenched in the blood of a goat. It was fastened to the point of a lance and sent from hand to hand throughout the country, and wherever it was seen the men rose to arms — 126 CAMEOS OF THE. HISTORY OF ENGLAND. ' Fast as the fatal symbol flies, In arms the huts and hamlets rise ; From winding glen, from upland brown, They poured each hardy tenant down. Nor slacked the messenger his pace ; He showed the sign, he named the place, And pressing forward like the wind Left clamour and surprise behind ; The fisherman forsook the strand, The swarthy smith took dirk and brand ; With changed cheer the mower blithe Left in the half-cut swathe his scythe. The herds without a keeper strayed, The plough was in mid furrow staid, The falc'ner tossed his hawk away, The hunter left the stag at bay." No one durst resist the call, and full 36,000 men mustered at Mussel burgh under his standard, but still many Scots were in the EngUsh interest. 200 gentlemen were under promise to England, and at Newcastle, Somerset had been visited by more than forty barons who were willing to promote the marriage, which would in truth have been the happiest measure for their country. This seems to account for the ease with which Somerset advanced into Scotland along the coast, so as to keep in sight of the fleet, dragging his heavy artillery through the steep ravine of the Peaths, six miles long, whence he could easily have been intercepted during the day it took to get his whole army past. He took several castles, crossed the Tyne by a narrow bridge, and came to Longniddry, where they learnt how near the Scottish army was. On the 8th of September Somerset encamped near Prestonpans, on a height called Edmonstone Edge, whence could be seen the Scottish camp, on the other side of the river Esk, about three miles off. There was a London citizen named Patten in the English camp who has closely described the whole campaign. He says the Scottish tents were in four divisions of rows, side by side, like four great ridges of barley. In the morning the Scottish horse, chiefly borderers, came out and defied the English by whooping and shaking their lances, but Somerset suspected that there was an ambush in their rear, and bade his men keep their ranks. Lord Gray, however, persuaded him to permit a charge to be made, and the weight of the English horse was far too much for the slight steeds of the borderers, and after a struggle of three hours the Scots were utterly broken and chased for three miles with great loss. That afternoon, a herald came with a proposal from the Earl of Huntly that the question should be decided by a battle between himself and Somerset with twenty men on either side ; but Somerset rejected this, and sent in return proposals to make peace, provided the Scots would agree to keep their little Queen in her own country, free from every contract until she was old enough to decide for herself. This offer, however, was suspected by the Scots to be only caused by Somerset's finding provisions run scarce, and the battle was resolved upon. THE CASTLE OF ST. ANDREWS. 127 On the 10th of September, 1547, the Scots committed the imprudence of descending from their heights and crossing the Esk, at sight of which Somerset and John Dudley, Earl of Warwick, gave thanks to Heaven, viewing their victory as secure, and hurried to their posts. The object of the Scots was to get between the English and the sea and cut them off from their fleet, but in doing this they came within fire of the ships, and suffered somewhat. It had been much against the advice of the best leaders of the Scots, and Angus had absolutely refused to obey till he was charged to advance on pain of treason. The Scottish clergy of the old Faith, together with all the Highlandmen, regarded the fight against the English as a religious war, and many priests and monks had collected into one large body, bearing a white banner, embroidered with a figure of the Church, as a woman kneeling before a crucifix, with " Afflict ce Ecclesice ne obliviscaris." Somerset, seeing the Scottish host turning to place Faeside Hill between them and the ships' cannon, commanded Lord Gray to charge them, and keep them in check. They drew up, by Angus's command, in a compact mass of pikemen. Each man had a spear eighteen feet long, besides sword and dagger, a jack and skullcap, a buckler and a -stout woollen handkerchief round his neck, "not for cold, but for cutting," and they ranged themselves with the first line kneeling, sup porting their pikes against the right foot, the second rank bent, and laid their pikes over the shoulders of this line, and the third over theirs, so that as in the Macedonian phalanx, there were three points presented to the enemy, and in the eyes of the Londoner, Patten, they were like nothing so much as "the skyn of an angrie hedgehog." As the English horse prepared to charge this forest of spears, shouts met them of " Come here, loons ! come here, heretics ! " and in fact the onset was very severe ; the cavalry was broken against those terrible spear-points, and fell back. The Scots, most imprudently, broke their impenetrable phalanx to pursue them, killing many indeed, but losing their own good order, and when they came to a deep ditch they were so disordered by it that Lord Gray was able to rally and form his men again. Somerset tHen determined to advance on the Scots with his whole weight of men, drawn up in full array, archers on the flank, and ar tillery on the brow of the hill, crushing down the hedgehog masses of Scottish spears. The Highlanders, who had begun to plunder the English who had fallen in this first attack, saw this great advance, and fled in panic. Arran, seeing them hurrying away, cried " Treason i treason ! " and thus bewildered the rest of his army. There was nothing more of real resistance, the rout was total, and the slaughter most fatal and deadly — 14,000 Scots were slain, the rivers ran red with blood, and the ground for four miles was covered as thickly with corpses as a well-stocked pasture with cattle. In Edinburgh alone 360 widows were made on that day ! This battle, from the adjoining fields, was called Pinkie Cleuch, and was the last of the terrible pitched battles between the kingdoms of England and Scotland. Somerset now expected to 128 CAMEOS OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. gain the whole kingdom, Queen and all, but Edinburgh, Stirling, and Dumbarton castles still held out, and the little Queen, now six years old, was placed in a small island called Inch Mahone, or the Isle of Peace, in the middle of the Loch of Menteith, famed for its Spanish chestnut trees. Here a priory still remained untouched, and the little girl, with her nurse Janet Sinclair, and her fair namesake-contemporaries, called the Queen's Marys — Mary Beaton, Mary Seton, Mary Fleming, and Mary Livingston — was placed under the care of the Prior, the son of the Lord-Keeper Erskine, who was to carry her off to the Highlands on the first sign of danger. The bower and garden of box-trees laid out for the pleasure of the little royal maiden still remain to witness of her life there. There she was sheltered while the English overran her kingdom. Somerset had been obliged to return home, but the devastation went on quite as fiercely as ever under Lords Gray and Wharton, only the indomitable spirit of the Scots still held out. To their joy, however^ the King of France declared that he would not see the old allies of his country trodden down, and as at this moment the national war bore the aspect of Reformer against Catholic, the Emperor showed signs of aiding Mary of Lorraine to save her child from being seized and married perforce to the little English schismatic, as he considered Edward VI. On the 16th of June, 1548, a French fleet brought 6,000 men and a supply of cannon, with an offer from Henri II. to receive the child and bring her up as wife to his eldest son, the Dauphin Francois. The little Mary was taken to Dumbarton, attended by three of her illegiti mate brothers, all provided .for by rich benefices, James, John, and Robert, mere lads, and Priors of St. Andrews, Coldingham, and Holy- rood. James, the son of the Lady Douglas of Lochleven, was >¦ very attractive person, and entirely won his little sister's heart while her fate hung in the balance. The Estates met at Haddington to consider the French King's offer. Arran had been promised his ward's hand for his son, being the next heir after her, and indeed, his brother John, Arch bishop of St. Andrews, had scorned him for not destroying the child's life. Perhaps he was willing to be free from the temptation, or the suspicion of having yielded to it, in case the maiden should die, for he made no opposition, only joining in the demand of the other Scots for the security of the independence of their country. It was Andre de Montalembert, Sieur d'Esse, to whom the young Queen was to be com mitted ; but her voyage was a matter of danger, for the English fleet under Clinton was on the watch to pounce on her on the way, like her ancestor James I., and probably, if they had caught her, her fate would have been far happier. So the Admiral of the Fleet, Villegagnon, sailed from Leith with four galleys as if going to France, but then the fleet turned suddenly north, swept round Scotland, and coasting westward, reached Dumbar ton, where it took in the young Queen, her brother James, her Marys, and the rest of her train, and set sail for France. Storms met them on the Breton coast, and they had to beat about for thirteen days, before THE CASTLE OF ST. ANDREWS. 129 they could run into the little Port of Roscoff, where she was received by the Sieur de Rohan, and the other Breton nobles, and conducted to Morlaix, where she attended a Te Deum as a thanksgiving for her safety. Just after she had passed the drawbridge, it broke down, and though nobody was hurt, the Scots began to shout " Treason ! treason ! " but Rohan, who was walking behind the little Queen's litter, turned round and shouted, " Never was Breton a traitor ! " She was taken to St. Germain, where were the children of the King, the little Francois, the Dauphin, her future husband, being a year younger than herself. She amused the nursery establishment by her readiness to be familiar with the great hunting dogs, and by dressing her own falcon, casting her off, and reclaiming her with her own hands. The king, Henri II. , a most good-natured man, was delighted with her, and could not praise her enough. His Queen, Catherine de' Medici, seems already to have felt some jealousy and distrust of her. Catherine's chief faith was in necromancy and astrology, and it is said that she asked her chief astrologer, Nostradamus, what he perceived in the little Queen's horoscope. "Madam," said he, "I perceive blood," — only too safe an augury in the case of a royal Stuart. The child was entrusted to the care of her grandmother, Antoinette de Bourbon, Duchess of Guise, though preserving her Scottish attendants, and was educated in the learning and accomplishments of the time, which were both considerable. The war with Scotland thus became the concern of France, which, however, was not otherwise at war with England. Fresh reinforcements were sent, but it was always the rule that the French allies were wretched in Scotland, and made themselves so unpleasant as to greatly lead the inhabitants to make peace with England in order to get rid of them. The French were disgusted with the savage warfare. The Scots would buy an English prisoner at any price, for the sake of revenging themselves on him. One Jean de Beaugne, who wrote an account of the campaign, sold an unhappy captive to the Scots for a horse, and then saw him surrounded by a circle of horsemen, lanced to death, and then hacked to pieces, each man carrying off a bit of his flesh on a lance-point ; and the English proclaimed that every Scot taken in arms should be put to death. However, the little Queen being out of reach, there was not much to fight for, and a great quarrel took place between the French soldiers and the citizens of Edinburgh, so that d'Esse was obliged to call off the latter to the siege of Haddington. The English had been dispossessed of all the fortresses they had seized, and all parties were willing to make peace. CAMEO XII. THE FIRST SITTING AT TRENT. (1545— 1549-) King of England. Queen of Scotland. King of France. 1547. Edward VI. 1542. Mary. 1547. Henry II. King of Spain and Emperor of Germany. Pope. 1519. Charles V. I534- Paul III. Cameo XII. Meeting of the Council. I545- Even before the full conclusion of the Peace of Crespy, Charles V. and Paul III. had convoked the Council of Trent, which opened in the December of 1545 with thirty-seven bishops. It was in this Council that the remarkable influence came into play which has ever since worked in such a wonderful manner in the Church of Rome, and has served above all to make her what she is. When the universities began, and reasoning was carrying away the scholars, and lawlessness the laymen, of the middle ages, the Dominicans and Fran- ciscans arose to grapple with it ; and now that classical study, criticism, and printing were again carrrying men's intellects beyond the grasp of the Church, the Order of Jesuits arose to fight her battles upon the ground of culture. For the origin of this Order, we must go back to the time of the first war between Francois I. and Charles V., when an attempt was made by the French to recover Navarre for King Henri d'Albret ; and in the year 1521, Lautrec besieged Pampeluna. In this fortress there once was a Biscayan gentleman, one of eight brothers, called Don lingo Loyola, a tall, handsome man of twenty-nine, of the most gallant type of the old Spanish chivalry, desperately brave, but courteous, gentle, and kindly, so that he was noted for making up quarrels among the soldiers ; and though no deep scholar, a lover of romance and poetry, by no means irreligious, yet more like one of his favourite heroes of chivalrous romance than a saint. When the city was stormed by the French, Inigo and one soldier succeeded in joining the garrison in the citadel, which he assisted in THE FIRST SITTING A T TRENT. 131 holding out until a cannon ball brought him to the ground with one leg broken, and the other wounded by a splinter of stone. The Navarrese sur rendered at discretion the next day, but Lautrec had been so much struck by the valour of the wounded man, that instead of keeping him prisoner or asking a ransom, he sent him in a litter to his brother's castle of Loyola, which was not far off, in the mountains. He arrived after his rough journey in such terrible pain, that it was thought the leg had been badly set, and it was broken again. Fever came on, and he was thought to be in extremity, so that he received the last Sacraments ; but he rallied, as he thought, miraculously, though only to undergo further torture. A bone projected below his knee, so that he could not wear his boot properly drawn up, and he insisted on having this sawn off, without allowing himself to be held or tied, and keeping perfect command over his countenance throughout the horrible operation ; and as one of his thighs had contracted, he had it stretched for several days by an iron machine, as if he had been in the rack, but all in vain, for it never could be drawn out to its full length again. So much did he bear, lest he should be displeasing in the eyes of his lady love at the Castilian court. During the long confinement to his couch which followed these dreadful surgical experiments, Ifiigo asked for the romances of chivalry which were the delectation of the knightly world in those days, and which made Lancelot and Roland, Amadis de Gaul and Huon de Bor deaux, the models by which the imaginative spirits measured their prowess. But the Pyrenean castle soon exhausted its supply, and the only books that could be borrowed for him were the Gospel History and the Lives of the Saints ; and as he lay and read and brooded, the high and noble spirit felt itself stirred and touched by the grand realities as even the brightest fancies had never moved it. The thought of the glory of the true conquest paled the dream of glory on earth that he had striven to win, and the heavenly love so filled his soul as to leave no room for the lady-love of his youth. He resolved to lay aside all thoughts of worldly distinction, and to dedicate his whole self to the higher chivalry ; and as he recovered, he spent nights and days in earnest prayer, using all the means of penitence and discipline ; and one night, in especial, he knelt watching before the image of the blessed Virgin, as he had watched his armour before he was knighted, and dedicated himself, body, soul, and spirit to the service of the Son and the Mother. His eldest brother persuaded him in vain to return to his career as a knight and soldier. As soon as his health was restored, he set out on horseback, as if only to pay a visit to the Duke of Najara, who had often sent to inquire after him ; but having done this, he sent his two servants home, and rode alone to the great abbey of Monserrat, standing on a mountain filled with hermitages, where he wanted to consult with a French monk, much noted for piety. This done, he bought at the foot of the mountain a coarse pilgrim's gown, hemp sandals, and a staff. K 2 132 CAMEOS OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. meaning ultimately to visit the Holy Land, but as his first stage going to the city of Manrezia, three leagues off, where the Dominicans had a hospital for pilgrims and the sick. He left his horse at Monserrar, and went walking with only his lamest foot shod, so that when he arrived he was never suspected to be the knight and courtly hidalgo, and could cany out his austerities undisturbed. He only ate bread and water, adding a few vegetables on Sunday, wore a hair shirt and an iron belt, scourged himself three times a day, slept on the ground, and forced himself to conquer his disgust at the filth of the whole place, trying to be indeed a beggar, and asking his bread from door to door, while the children pointed at him in the streets, and the devotion which kept him seven hours a day in Church, and made him a communicant every Sunday, was not popular among even his pilgrim comrades, who, mostly of the lowest class, must have felt their companion, do what he would, a strange element among them — with the grand keen face that nothing could disguise. After some weeks of tormenting him, the tide turned, and they began to view him as a saint. Then he crept away to a cave, covered with bushes, where he redoubled his austerities till he was found lying half dead at the entrance of the cavern, and carried back to Manrezia. All this time he had been at peace, but struggles of conscience and fear set in, though only for a short space. A Dominican in the convent, and the monk at Monserrat, both assisted him with their advice ; and the ten months he spent in this hospital trained and formed his mind and his purpose as to his manner of serving God. "It is not enough that I should serve the Lord," he said. "All other hearts must be brought to love Him, and all tongues to bless Him." And even then he began the book of spiritual exercises, by which he hoped to lead others in this course ; but he ceased to practise, or advise others to undergo the excessive rigours to which his first zeal had led him. He set forth alone, and on foot, as a pilgrim, begging his way to Barcelona, whence he sailed to Italy, paid his devotions at Rome, went on to Venice, and thence went by sea to the Holy Land, where he prayed at all the consecrated stations, and longed to argue with the Mahometans ; but the Provincial of the Franciscans, who was in authority over the pilgrims, forbade him. Probably he worked his passage out, for his was no amateur begging. The eighth son of a Biscayan hidalgo would have little fortune but his horse and his armour, and would have to earn his pay as a man-at-arms ; and when this was given up, Iriigo was destitute, though when the excitement of his change had lessened, he accepted from his friends the wherewithal to defray the expenses of his studies. He was thirty-three years old when he returned to Spain, and he had made up his mind that he should carry out his work best by becoming a student of theology, and set to work bravely to study the Latin grammar. It is said that he worked through it by turning his verbs THE FIRST SITTING AT TRENT. 133 Trai?ling of Loyola. into a spiritual exercise. " I love Thee, my God, Thou lovest me. To j Cameo XII love, loving, loved, and nothing more. " Strong will enabled him to prepare for the University at Alcala, where while he studied he lived on alms in an hospital, but could not help cate chising children and warning dissipated men, till he was denounced to the Inquisition as a dangerous person, and imprisoned for forty-two days ; and though he was then released as orthodox, the same thing happened to him at Salamanca, and after his liberation he decided on finishing his studies at Paris. Here again his zeal brought him into trouble while studying philo sophy at the College of St. Barbara. He gathered some about him, and they spent their Sundays and festivals in prayer and good works, so that one of the professors thought they were neglecting their studies, and complained to Dr. Govea, the Principal of the college. When a scholar was doing harm to his mates, the custom was that the whole college should be brought together by the sound of a bell, and that each of the authorities should strike him with a rod. This chas tisement was called la Salle, and Iiiigo was about to submit to it, as a wholesome discipline, when it struck him that the scandal might be the ruin of the young men he had been influencing ; and at the last mo ment he therefore went to Dr. Govea, explained matters, and said he was willing to undergo anything so far as he himself was concerned, but he begged that the effect on these younger spirits might be taken into account. The doctor made him no answer, and as the bell began to ring, led the way into the hall, where every one was assembled. Just as all the rods were ready, and the tall scholar, so much older than the lads around, was about to step forth to receive the blows, Dr. Govea fell on his knees before him, asking his pardon for having attended to false reports, and then rising, and taking him by the hand, said, " This is a saint, who seeks nothing but the good of souls, and would gladly suffer the most shameful punishments. " Among the students whom Iiiigo Loyola had attracted, were Pierre Le Fevre, a Genevese, who had made great progress, Francisco Xavier, a Navarrese like himself, and Iago Laynez, a Castilian. These, with three more, agreed to devote themselves to preaching the Gospel in Palestine, or if that proved to be impossible, to go and put themselves at the disposal of the Pope, in whom their unquestioning spirits saw the Vicar of Christ on earth. Le Fevre had just been ordained, and in a little subterranean chapel at Montmartre, on the Feast of the Assump tion, 1534, he said mass, and all the seven pronounced their vows to the above effect. While the other six were finishing their studies, Loyola, whose health had failed at Paris, went to Spain. He would not sleep in the Castle of Loyola, though he was affectionately welcomed, but lodged in the nearest hostel for travellers, and when he first saw all his old neighbours together, made confession to them of an orchard robbery of his boyhood, of which a poor man had been accused, and obliged to make compensa- 134 CAMEOS OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. Cameo XII. tion. He asked the man's forgiveness, and to make up for the past gave up to him his own two farms. Three other theological scholars joined those who had remained at Paris ; and the whole ten met in Italy, when their plan was approved by the Pope, who sanctioned their all being immediately ordained, but the war with the Turks made it impossible to go to Palestine ; and time and observation had by this time matured their projects. Loyola, Le Fevre, and Laynez went to Rome, and offered themselves unre servedly to Paul III., as the soldiers who should combat to the utmost vice, ignorance, and heresy, and fighting under Christ's banner should be termed the company of Jesus. Like a soldier as he was, Inigo Loyola formed his band on military principles. As has been truly said of them, the Jesuits are not so much a brotherhood as a regiment. The old abbeys were like great households, with a father, brothers, and servants, whereas the Jesuits are an army, officered indeed for convenience' sake, but all absolutely subject to their General, as he is subject only to the Pope. The spiritual exercises which were the work of many years of lingo's life are most deep, thorough, and devout, and require a great amount of power and concentration to be mastered. Those who undertake them and fail are not judged fit to become members of the society, so that no one enters it without train ing and capacity both religious and mental. To seize on the intellectual side of man, and bring it back to the service of Christ, was the main object, and for this end the brethren devoted themselves to education, to becoming confessors, and to missions among the heathens and the heretics. Loyola's view was to refuse promotions and benefices, and to avoid being confessors to princes and great men, but this — from the urgency of the times — could not be carried out ; and the Popes were obliged by the entreaties of Kings to command them to accept these posts. There was nothing of what is commonly known as Jesuitry in that per fect spiritual knight, Iiiigo Loyola, nor in the comrades he gathered round him ; and it is one of the painful problems of history why his society became what it was, and what it is. It may have been from a certain one-sidedness. He dedicated himself to the service of Christ, but he bound his society to the service of the Pope, and it is perplexing that such grand spirits saw none of the flaws that to men of that very time made it so impossible to erect the Papacy into an idol. It may have been that Paul III. was more a subject for veneration than Leo X. or Julius II. Yet it was probably more because the intellect of Loyola was intense indeed, and of immense force, but narrow, while his will and enthusiasm had taken their direction before his mind was instructed, and they forced all his acquirements into the same groove. Having thus set up the Papacy as the representative of the Master whose name they bore, the Jesuits necessarily defended whatever Rome sanctioned, or was thought necessary to its support, thus often leading to a distortion of views of right and wrong, and to thinking both of doctrines and of THE FIRST SITTING AT TRENT. '35 morality more in relation to the Popedom than to their abstract truth and right ; and thus, while the society numbered many saintly and devoted men, while the fathers fanned the dying flame of devotion in their Church, reclaimed many wanderers, gathered in many heathen, and trained many souls to the higher life, yet, on the whole, their influence both on the Church and on the world, has told both against the Truth, and against personal truth, and has done further harm by the reaction it has caused. The Bull establishing the Jesuit company was dated 1540. Their numbers filled up rapidly, and almost at the same time, six years after their foundation, the good Duke of Gandia built them the first of their many schools, the King of Portugal sent Francisco Xavier to carry the Gospel to India, and Paul III. asked Loyola for two theologians to assist his legates at the Council of Trent. Iago Laynez and Alfonso Salmeron were sent with instructions from Iiiigo to avoid useless disputes or display of knowledge, and to speak with modesty. He who had so long appealed to the Council was gone from this life before it met. Luther had lived on at Wittemberg, forming with Philipp Melancthon, Martin Bucer, and other scholars, a sort of Council of the Protestants, determining their doctrine and their policy. Here in 1540 they agreed to what is the greatest blot on the morality they had upheld, namely the sanctioning the second marriage of Philipp, Landgraf of Hesse, in the lifetime of his childless wife. It can only be supposed that they knew he would follow his own will, and feared to lose his support, for they who had condemned Henry VIII. boldly from a distance, relaxed their opinion in favour of their neighbour ; and permitted the marriage, only recommending that it should be secret, which it was, Melancthon and Bucer being actually among the witnesses. Martin Bucer was an Alsatian by birth, who had been a Dominican. He was more of a Zwinglian than Luther, and had not signed the Con fession of Augsburg, but drew up a more practical one, which was held by the four cities of Strasburg, Constance, Memmingen, and Lindau. Luther's health declined for some years before his death, and he re tired into the country for rest, but the University of Wittemberg insisted on his return, and in the winter of 1545-6, he was summoned by the Counts Mansfeld, to Eisleben, his native home, to make peace between the brothers. It was a trying journey, and he wrote to his wife in his humorous fashion of the floods. " We reached Halle at eight o'clock, but could not get on to Eisleben, for there met us a great Anabaptist with waves and lumps of ice which covered the land and threatened us with a second baptism. So we were fain to stop at Halle, watch the waters, and lie snug till they had abated. Not that we had any desire to drink the same, but took both good strong beer and Rhenish wine instead, and consoled ourselves therewith till the Saale thought fit to abate." He never quite recovered the fatigue and exposure, in spite of the Rhenish wine, though he preached five times, fulfilled his purpose 136 CAMEOS OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. of reconciling the Mansfeld family, and was diverted by reports of his own death, only two days before he fell ill of asthma and some pulmonary complaint, but he sat up to supper with his sons and his friend Justus Jonas, and conversed cheerfully. Soon after he went to bed, but awoke in the night in great pain and oppression, and tried to relieve it by walking about the room, but he became rapidly worse, and when Justus asked him whether he confessed Jesus Christ alone as his Saviour and Redeemer, he could only faintly say, " Yes." He died between 2 and 3 A.M. on the 19th of February, 1546. The Protestant pastor of Eisleben, his birthplace as well as his deathplace, preached over his coffin a sermon on the text, " The righteous perisheth and no man layeth it to heart, none considering that the righteous is taken away from the evil to come " (Isaiah lvii. 1 ). It must have gone home to the hearts of the hearers, considering their fears of the future. Wittemberg claimed his body, and he was buried there with princely honours, his old friend Burgenhagen trying to preach the funeral sermon, but being choked with sobs. Would that of those two most different yet most devoted men, Luther and Loyola, we could not say — " The evil that men do lives after them, The good is oft interred with their bones." On the 13th of December, 1545, Cardinals Pole, Monte, and Cervini, as Papal legates, had opened the Council in the Cathedral at Trent, going in procession, followed by five Archbishops, twenty Bishops, and five Generals of Religious Orders, together with a number of Doctors of Divinity and Lawyers, all chanting the Veni Creator. It was a small assembly were 400 seats had been prepared, and almost all the Bishops were Italian or Spanish, but there were a few French ones, and the first struggle in the first Session was whether it should be called the " Holy (Ecumenical Council of Trent, the Legates of the Apostolic See presiding," or whether the words " Representing the Universal Church" should be added. In those words was involved the whole question whether the Pope was or was not superior to the Council, and the French, together with a few of the Spanish and Italian Bishops, stood out staunchly for the addition of the words that guarded the National Churches, and orders were sent from Rome to waive that question, and proceed to that of disputed doctrine. More Bishops had arrived, among them the Bishop who had been appointed to Worcester on the resignation of Hugh Latimer ; but there were still only fifty-six, when on the 8th of February the question respect ing what was to be regarded as Holy Scripture was brought forward. The decree was finally that all the books of the New and Old Testaments were to be received as authoritative, as enumerated in the Vulgate, and moreover all the traditions of the Church, as the unwritten Word, handed down from the Lips of our Lord ; and next the authority of the THE FIRST SITTING A T TRENT. 137 Vulgate and the Vulgate exclusively was declared : no one was to teach that there was any incorrectness in the Vulgate, and no translation was to be accepted that was not made from it. The Vulgate, connected as it was with the name of S. Jerome, and Used in all the services of the Church, was infinitely precious to all those who joined in this decision ; but the decree disregarded all that the criticism of Erasmus and other scholars had made good from the study of Greek and Hebrew, and to the whole reformed body it was a declaration of war, since some of the controversial texts were much altered by the interpretation given by the Latin turn of language, some were in the Apocryphal books, and all the three new translations, into English, German, and French, had been done as far as possible from the original languages. Tradition too was entirely disowned by the Calvinists, and in great measure by the Lutherans, even while they observed Sunday, which rests on scarcely any ground but tradition. This decision, therefore, put an end to all willingness on the part of the German Protestants to send representatives to the Council, as the Emperor had wished. He had summoned a Diet to meet him at Regensburg, but was hindered from going thither by the gout. This, as usual, was set down to malice prepense on his side ; the Protestants .met at Frankfurt, renewed the League of Schmalkalde, and allied themselves with the Lutheran King of Denmark, refusing to give up the Church property they had secured. When, six months later, Charles convoked the Diet, they refused to attend, denying all recog nition of the Council, and would not even send Melancthon to explain their doctrine. Thereupon Charles, with the Catholic princes, found himself forced to levy war against them as rebels, declaring the refusal to attend his Diet to be treason. He put forth a manifesto declaring that he acted against them not as heretics, but as traitors warring against the State ; and that he must force them to obey their Emperor. At the same time he wrote to the Pope that he hoped that this would end in the putting down the Lutheran heresy, and Paul promised him troops and money for the purpose, even if he should have to sell his tiara to raise them, and, contrary to Charles's wishes, he published a Bull for a jubilee, and invited the faithful to pray for the extirpation of heresy. The League of Schmalkalde rose in arms, and published a defiance of the Emperor, under the title of Charles of Ghent ; but Charles was so forbearing as to place no one under the ban of the Empire save Johann Friedrich of Saxony and Philipp of Hesse, the latter of whom was loudly exulting that blood was about to flow. At that very moment, the prime Lutheran doctrine of Justification by faith was under discus sion at Trent. Pole, Contarini, and a few others upheld it, even as Luther did, but the two Jesuits argued against it, and the Papal party plainly saw that as Luther put it, it was uncatholic, and moreover ruined their system. So Pole was advised by his physicians to leave Trent, and was recalled by the Pope. This then was the dcctrine 138 CAMEOS OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. authoritatively declared, that " The sinner is justified inasmuch as the love of God is implanted in his heart, and dwells there, through the merit of the most Sacred Passion, and by the Power of the Holy Ghost. Thus become the friend of God, a man advances from virtue to virtue, and is renewed day by day. While he observes the commands of God and of the Church, by the help of faith and through good works, he grows in the righteousness attained through the mercy of Christ, and is justified more and more." Faith was declared to consist in historical acceptance of the truths of the Gospel, not necessarily, as Lutherans and Calvinists said, in the conscious feeling of the personal application of the Merits of Christ for the forgiveness of our own sins. This truly Catholic decision of course widened the breach with the Protestants, and confirmed the Emperor against them. Duke Georg of Saxony had lately died, and Moritz, who had succeeded him, was a young man of great promise, who had refused, on his accession, to join the League of Schmalkalde, as being on the verge of rebellion, although he was himself a Protestant, and had married a daughter of the Land graf of Hesse. Charles, viewing the Electorate as forfeited by Johann Friedrich, promised it to him, and treated him as a son ; but, unwilling to break entirely with the Protestants, the Emperor forbade Cardinal Farnese to publish a Bull of Indulgence for those who should die in the war with them, after the example of the Crusade against the Albigenses. The Protestants were not very active. They had for the time the largest army, but they would not closely beleaguer Regensburg, because they could not do so without trenching on the lands of the Duke of Bavaria, who was neutral ; and they only bombarded it from a distance. Indeed it was said of the Landgraf, "Philipp would not bite the fox, every ford and brook was too deep, every morass too wide," a character that does not well agree with his German title of "die Grossmiithige," commonly rendered "the Magnanimous." During the winter the Emperor was able to obtain troops from Spain, while the infantry, trained by the great captain, Was considered the best in Europe, and was besides commanded by Fadrique de Toledo, Duke of Alva, a stern, faithful, devout man, perfect in the old Spanish idea of loyalty, which would endure everything for the faith and the king, but viewed heretics and unbelievers as alike out of the pale of humanity. Johann Friedrich meanwhile was encamped at Meissen, hesitating whether to fight or to stand a siege at Wittemberg ; but on the Emperor's advance, he broke down the bridge over the Elbe at Meissen, and. marched along the bank to Muhlburg, where he left a detachment,, while he encamped with the main body a few miles off. The river in this place was 300 paces wide, four feet deep, with a rapid stream, and the highest bank on the Saxon side ; but the miller at Muhlburg mill had had his horses stolen by the Saxons, and in his anger went to the Imperial army and offered to show them a ford. Charles, THE FIRST SITTING AT TRENT. 139 therefore, decided on crossing, and early in the morning of April 24th, 1547, his infantry were drawn up on the bank, and fired with their long heavy muskets on the enemy, some standing in the water to take nearer aim ; and under cover of their fire, a bridge of boats began to be laid. There was a thick fog on the Saxon side, which made it difficult for the Saxons to take aim, and at last they set on fire the boats on their side, and began to retreat, upon which ten Spaniards swam across with their swords between their teeth, put to flight those who opposed their landing, and saved boats enough to finish their own bridge. Meanwhile, some way further up, the miller's ford was being crossed by the cavalry, chiefly Spanish and Neapolitan ; each man-at-arms with a foot soldier en croupe, passed, led by the Emperor in person, mounted on an Andalusian charger, wearing a gilded coat of mail and helmet, and shouting his war-cry of " Espana, Espafia ! " with an enthusiasm he seldom showed. Johann Friedrich, a large, heavy man, mounted his huge Flemish horse, and arrayed his men ; but his breath was soon spent, and panting, he took refuge in his carriage, whence he exhorted his men to fight worthily of the old Saxon reputation, and they did fight bravely ; one of his sons, after being cut down, shooting the Spaniard who was about to make him prisoner. But the resistance was in vain, there soon was a general flight to Wittemberg ; the Elector again mounted, but his great steed was soon blown, and he was surrounded by a troop of Hungarians, one of whom laid open his cheek with his sword ; but he still refused to surrender till a German officer came up, when he took off his rings and gave himself up. At that moment there was a sudden clap of thunder ; and the Elector, who thought his cause the same with the cause of Heaven, looked up, crying in his rude familiar German, ' ' Ach ! old Almighty ; Thy tongue tells me Thou livest, and wilt not forsake us." He was led to the Emperor over a field strewn with his wounded and dead subjects ; and, being helped off his horse, sank at Charles's feet, calling him " mighty and gracious lord. • " Am I thy gracious lord at last ? " said Charles ; " it is long since thou wouldst deign to own me as such." Charles marched on to Wittemberg, which, under Sybilla of Cleves, the Electress, closed the gates, and prepared to hold out. Then Charles V. intimated that, unless the city yielded, he should behead the Elector. Johann Friedrich heard the sentence while playing at chess with his fellow-prisoner, Ernst of Brunswick, and quietly went on with the game as if nothing had happened ; but his wife and subject? gave up the city to save his life. Charles entered in state ; and the Duke of Alva, his ablest Spanish general, advised him to take Luther's body from the grave'and burn it ; but his answer was, " Let him rest ; he has appeared before his Judge ere now ; I wage war with the living, not the dead." Nor would he forbid the Lutheian service, holding to his promise of not warring with 140 CAMEOS OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND.. Cameo XII. Captivity of tlie Land graf of Hesse. the religion, but with the treason ; and the Elector was forced to follow in the Emperor's train as a prisoner. The force of the League was broken, and the princes had to surrender one by one. Moritz of Saxony, who had received the Electorate, and the province of Courland of which his cousin had been deprived, tried to mediate for his father-in-law, and thought he had obtained an engage. ment, that if he yielded he should be safe in body and in goods, with out any (einiges) imprisonment, confiscation, or spoiling of his lands. Accordingly he came in June, 1547 ; the Landgraf presented himself and was led up by the Chancellor, and made to kneel down, while a long and solemn confession of his guilt was read in terms at which he could not forbear a scornful smile, so much angering the Emperor that he muttered, " I'll teach you to laugh." He found himself commanded to follow the Emperor as Johann Friedrich was doing, and shortly after they were both imprisoned. An appeal was made to the engagement, and the answer was that the promise was not " without any imprisonment," but " without perpetual imprisonment," and that Philipp and his friends had in fact read the word ewiges as einiges. Charles has always borne the blame of this as a piece of wilful trickery. It is impossible to say whether he meant it, whether his agents did, or whether the mistake were entirely the Landgraf's. A man of romantic generosity would have released the prisoner at once ; but Charles's patience had been wearied out, and the interests of State and Church seemed to him to forbid this, though as he thus lost the heart of Duke Moritz, the benefit was doubtful. A German named Sastrow, who was with the Imperial army, has left a curious account of the march made by Charles through Germany with the two captive princes in his train, and the hard work it was to keep the peace between the Germans and Spaniards, who hated and despised each other exceedingly. They used to steal one another's horses by means of cunning stable-boys. The stolen horse was kept out of sight for a few weeks, and then brought back into the camp with a clipped mane and tail. One of these stolen horses having been recognised by its master's groom, there was a regular fight in a meadow near Halle between the Germans and Spaniards. The Emperor sent a splendid-looking Spaniard, all over gold chains, to quiet the disturbance ; but the Germans cried, " Shoot down the Spanish miscreant," and killed him. Then the Emperor sent his nephew and son-in-law, the Archduke Maximilian, son to the King of the Romans, and German in all his ways ; but they were too furious to heed him, and cried, " Beat the Spanish miscreant." He received such a blow on his right arm, that for some weeks he had to carry it in a sling. The Emperor came forth him self and shouted into the tumult, " Dear Germans, I know you are not guilty ! I will repair the damage ! By my imperial honour, I will have the Spaniards hung by to-morrow at daybreak." After the uproar was over, an account was taken, by which it appeared THE FIRST SITTING AT TRENT. 141 that eighteen Germans and seventeen of their horses had been killed, and seventy Spaniards ; and Charles therefore persuaded the Germans to be satisfied with compensation for their horses, and not to claim the fulfilment of the threat of hanging the Spaniards. But Char'es was too Spanish for the Germans, too German for the Spaniards, and never was cordially liked anywhere but in the Nether lands. Sastrow was much scandalised because, when leaving Naumburg, the Emperor, having to wait a good while for his troops to assemble out side the town, as it was coming on to rain, sent for a grey felt cloak and hat, and in the meantime turned his velvet-bordered mantle inside out, and held his velvet hat under it, sitting bareheaded in the rain with a thriftiness which was thought unworthy in one who had " tons of gold to spend." The Spaniards were indeed the means of maintaining his power ; but that very fact made the Germans exceedingly jealous. They were accustomed to find their Emperors almost powerless, and viewed Charles now as a foreign conqueror ; and the Spaniards, used to lawless war in Italy, behaved atrociously to the Germans, whom they viewed as all alike " Luteranos." They went a day's march before the Emperor, the Landgraf in their midst, closely guarded ; and as he followed, the traces of their rapine and cruelty marked the road. He had a gallows put up in front of his tent, and hung all who could be detected ; but even thus he could not restrain them. He reached Augsburg in July, having left the Landgraf at Donau- werth under a close guard ; but the Elector of Saxony remained in his suite, guarded, but at large, and living on friendly terms with the Duke of Alva and the rest. All the most noted princes of Germany were at the Diet, and there was great splendour, Ferdinand, King of the Romans, being specially noted for his hospitality. Charles always dined alone before a select company, and a wonderful spectacle his dinner must have been. Young Princes and Counts served him, and brought up four courses of six dishes each. As the covers were taken off, he shook his head at those he did not like, such as pies or game, but nodded at what he approved and drew it towards him. A roast pig or calf's head were his favourites, and these he would not have carved for him, and made little use of the knife himself except to cut his bread into mouthfuls, and to loosen a corner of the meat, then feeding himself entirely with his fingers and holding the dish under his chin, eating, says Sastrow, " so neatly and cleanly, that it was a pleasure to see him." A row of physicians stood opposite to him, and when he wanted drink he signed to them, and they filled a crystal cup from two silver bottles. There was no conversation, but court fools stood behind his chair, cracking jokes which he never seemed to heed, except that he twisted his face into a half smile at anything extra good. As soon as grace had been said, he picked his teeth with a quill, washed his hands, the chairs and table were withdrawn, and he went and stood in a window ready to hear requests, or receive petitions. 142 CAMEOS OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. His Flemish chancellor, Granvelle, Bishop of Arras, received an im mense number of presents from Germans who wanted to be favourably mentioned to the Emperor, and to win their pardon. He packed all on mules and in waggons, and when asked what the load was, answered Peccata Germanice. Charles was steering a difficult course. He had had Augsburg Cathe dral restored to the Catholic worship, and this offended the Protestant party. The German landsknechts were always on the point of mutiny, and the princes, though for the moment appalled by his victory, bitterly resented it, and thought they were reduced to what they called ' ' beast-like bondage." On the other hand, they were most of them so coarse and boorish as to excite the contempt and derision of the Flemish, Italian, and Spanish gentlemen — princes, counts, and young Bishops rioting together on rude, familiar terms, all lying on the floor on carpets, calling one another names, drinking and gambling desperately at Peilke tafel, a game played with balls on a board with a rim round, and two channels at the sides. The Markgraf Albrecht of Brandenburg-Culmbach was one of the worst of these. However, the more reasonable princes were only there to submit and agreed to send representatives to Trent. Hermann, the Archbishop-Elector of Cologne, was genuinely anxious to reform his Church in the right manner, and had invited the assistance of Melancthon and Bucer in drawing up an account of the faith and a ritual to be used in his dominions. He was in correspondence with Archbishop Cranmer, and would gladly have seen reformation without schism. The French Bishop, Cardinal Quignon, had also — with the sanction of the p0pe — drawn up a breviary, simplified, shortened, and divested of the Office of the Blessed Virgin; and this was largely used in French churches, so that the reluctance was certainly not on the part of the German or French clergy to hear of improvement or alteration, and Charles was anxious above all things for free discussion in the proper place, a Council, though he would not have it in a secular Diet. He had now forced the Protestants to promise to go to Trent. But behold ! the Council was no more at Trent. The Pope had adjourned it to Bologna, and only a few German and Spanish Bishops remained, protesting against the removal ! The Pope said himself to the Cardinal of Guise, that he did it lest the Emperor should too easily succeed, and have everything his own way. Most likely he took credit with the French for this grand stroke of diplomacy, as it seemed to Italian minds, but he was affronted with Charles for not choosing to prosecute the Lutherans as heretics, and he had also failed in obtaining Milan, as a gift to his son Pier Luigi Ottavio Farnese, who had already the duchies of Parma and Piacenza, and who probably had driven the old man on to this measure, so fatal to the pacification of the Church and the Empire. Charles was most justly angry, and declared he would go to Rome, and there hold a Council ; but he had first to reduce an outbreak of the Hussites in Bohemia, who had risen too late to assist the German THE FIRST SITTING A T TRENT. 143 Protestants, and were put down in their turn. The Pope meanwhile made alliances, married his younger grandson to an illegitimate daughter of Henri II. of France, and felt himself strong and prosperous. But on the very day he had been recounting the successes of his life, and comparing himself for good fortune to the Emperor Tiberius (of all people in the world), his beloved son was murdered at Piacenza by a nobleman who had been offended by his tyrannical rule, and the Imperial troops marched into Piacenza. The widow Marguerite, daughter of Charles V. , was applied to to make peace between the Pope and the Emperor, but she replied that she would rather cut off her child's head than ask her father anything he disapproved. In this state of things the re-assembly of the Council was impossible, and Charles therefore employed one Lutheran and two Catholic divines to draw up a book of Articles to be observed in the Interim of the Council. It permitted the laity the cup, and also the marriage of the clergy, and Cardinal Farnese declared there were seven heresies in it ; but the Pope sanctioned it, expecting that it would get the Emperor into trouble. The Diet of Augsburg likewise accepted the Interim, as it was called, but the main body of the Protestants suspected it to be an attempt to bring them back, and the popular saying was — ' Das Interim, Hatt' den Schalk hinter ihm , but there was peace and apparent settlement of affairs for the present, and in the year 1549 the Duke of Gandia claimed the promise of being allowed to retire from the world, and making over all his estates and honours to his son, exclaimed, "My soul is escaped out of the snare of the fowler," and entered the brotherhood of Loyola es Fran cesco Borja. The Pope had meanwhile dreaded that Parma might be taken, like Piacenza, by the Emperor, and resumed it for the see. His two grandsons plotted to recover it by the Emperor's aid, and the discovery threw the old man, now eighty-three, into such a passion that he snatched Cardinal Famese's cap from his head and threw it on the ground. The agitation brought on an illness, and he died in ten days, on the 10th of November, 1549. CAMEO XIII. THE TWO SEYMOURS. (1547-1548.) Cameo. XIII. Will of Henry y III. King of England. Queen of Scotland. King of France. 1547. Edward VI. 1542. Mary. 1547- Henry II. King of Spain and Emperor of Germany. Pope. 1519. Charles V. 1534- Paul III. When Henry VIII. was dying, his chief thought was to secure the safety of his young son. It had been the rule that in case of a minority, the Council of Regency should be nominated by the House of Lords, but Henry had made his Parliament empower him to name the Regents for his successor, and had nominated sixteen persons, of whom the chief were the boy's uncles, Edward and Thomas Seymour, with Archbishop Cranmer and the Lord Chancellor Wriothesley, and a charge was left with these to " carry out the late king's intentions." There was a vague ness here which was easy to be interpreted after each man's views of what those intentions were. The little King and his sister Elizabeth were together at Hertford when their father's death was announced to them. They both wept bitterly, but when conducted to the Tower a day or two later, Edward was in spirits to enjoy the salute of ordnance with which he was greeted. He was led into the chamber of presence, where his Council received him with bent knee, a kiss from each on the hand, and the words "God save your Grace." The boy made his little speech gracefully, taking off his cap and saying, "We heartily thank you, my lords all ; and here after, in all that ye shall have to do with us for any suit or causes, ye shall be heartily welcome." The Tudors were a learned race, and the little Edward had from infancy been crammed with scholarship. At six years old he had been taken from his nurses and placed under two tutors, Dr. Cox and Mr. Cheke, under whose teaching he was able to write Latin letters to his father at eight years old, and he was capable of keeping a diary for THE TWO SEYMOURS. '45 himself, from the time of his accession, stiff, dry, and without any char acter, as could only be expected in such a mere child of nine years old, but very curious. He was a beautiful boy, with blue eyes, light hair, and the fair complexion of the royal line ; and his nature seems to have been very docile and amiable, though not without a certain conceit and obsti nacy such as could hardly fail to be developed in a little scholar-king, who would have been the good boy of a grammar school. He had a mighty conception of his own dignity, and brooked no opposition. His uncle Somerset kept him hard at his books, and he studied with all his might. The Council submitted eighty-four questions to him, on which he was to meditate. Here are a few specimens of this Statesman's Catechism : — Whether it is better for the commonwealth that the power be in the nobility or the people ? How easily a weak prince with good order may long be maintained, and how soon a mighty prince with a little disorder may be overthrown ? What causeth an inheritor-king to lose his realm ? Whether religion, besides the honour of God, be not also the greatest stay of civil order ? How dangerous it is to be author of a new matter? Certainly people in those days did not err for want of thinking out great principles. Just at first the removal of Henry's terrible rule seems to have left every one helpless at the will of the one man who was ready to profit by the occasion, namely, Edward's eldest uncle, Edward Seymour, Earl of Hertford, who at once demanded and obtained his own appointment by the other members of the Council to be Lord Protector and guardian of the king's person, and he then proceeded to make his nephew create him Duke of Somerset. He was a fine, handsome man, 01 some cultivation, but without great abilities, and his head was completely turned by his elevation. He was gracious in a grand and distant way to the lower orders, but his proud and haughty demeanour to the nobility gave infinite offence to those who could merely see in him a private gentleman, raised by the accident of his sister having been the mother of the king's only male heir. His pomp and splendour were excessive, and could only be maintained at the cost of the Church lands. He had no scruples, for his opinions were totally Calvinistic, and thus he viewed sacrilege as the overthrow of idolatry, and thought the wealth of the Church the natural prey of the Court— though he had even less excuse for stripping the crown. He well might be personified by Spencer's allegorical figure of Kirkrapine. Only two members of the Council, Paget and Danby, scrupled at robbing the king in his minority ; the others were ready to share with the Protector, who created them earls and barons, and gave them Church lands, while he himself took the lion's share, a landed estate of 800/. a year, besides 300/. a year out of a bishopric, the income of a deanery and six canonries of different cathedrals. He had already had three great VOL. IV. L 146 CAMEOS OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. abbeys granted him by his royal brother-in-law, and he helped himself to six more, including the monastery of Sion, near Brentford, and the glorious Abbey of Glastonbury, which he turned into a worsted manu factory. He began a splendid palace for himself in London, destroying for its sake the parish church of St. Mary in the Strand, blowing up with gun powder the foundation of that of St. John of Jerusalem, and pulling down the town houses of the Bishops of Chester and Worcester. The pleasure-grounds were to reach from the Strand to St. Paul's Cathedral, whose chapel and charnel-house in the churchyard were actually pulled down for them, the bones being scattered in the fields. The name "Somerset House" still marks the site of this monument of pride, rapacity, and sacrilege. His brilliant appearance and open-handedness made him a favourite with the populace, who called him "the good Duke," but those who came the nearest to him loved him the least. He was peremptory and domineering over his royal nephew, who could little brook being treated as a mere child, and greatly disdained his uncle's intention of making another Jane Seymour queen by wedding him to his own daughter. The boy's discontent was fomented by his younger uncle Thomas, who was already Lord Admiral of England, and had been created Lord Seymour of Sudeley, but who expected his brother to give him a larger share of the spoil. With unseemly haste the king's widow, Katharine Parr, had married handsome Thomas but six weeks after the death of Henry VIII. The thing was done privately, but very soon disclosed, to the great wrath and indignation of the Duchess of Somerset, who would not be induced to treat the wife of her husband's younger brother as queen, nor to bear up her train. Katharine, though a learned and clever woman, given to the religious controversies of the day, was coarsely good-natured and easy-going ; she was the kindest stepmother that the children of King Henry had ever known. Mary, who was of sufficent age to have an establishment of her own, and to whom the Seymour regency was intensely distasteful, both on religious and political grounds, held aloof at her own manor houses ; but Elizabeth, a girl of thirteen, was under the queen's charge, and was taken by her to Seymour's house, as well as the Lady Jane Grey, daughter of the Marquis of Dorset, who was only nine years old, and formed part of the queen dowager's court. Young Edward was fond of his stepmother, and much perferred his younger uncle, who had no authority, and who flattered him, to the elder one, who kept him in strict order. Very soon the Protector became jealous and distrustful, and forbade all intercourse with his brother's family ; but a secret correspondence was kept up, and the queen and the Admiral supplied Edward with money. For it appears that the boy, pious as he was, loved the court pastime of gambling, and that Somerset either kept him short of money, or, what is more likely, the Admiral THE TWO SEYMOURS. M7 taught him to think so. Old Bishop Latimer, who had no diocese to employ him, and was a very good-natured, merry old man, familiar everywhere, was the go-between, and carried the boy's notes and the secret supplies to and fro in a not very creditable manner, especially as the Admiral was a profligate, irreligious nobleman, who, while scoffing at his brother's strict profession of Calvinistic severity, was not to be brought to share the religious observances which his wife had brought from the late king's Catholic household. It must have been a strange abode altogether, and the ill-natured remark of the Duchess of Somerset was justified, that no woman who stood on her honour would have married either Henry VIII. or the Lord Admiral. She allowed habits cf rude horse-play between her husband and the Lady Elizabeth, actually holding the girl while he tickled her and cut her gown to pieces. Then when it came on the queen that her step-daughter was no longer a child, she could not stop what she had promoted, and became grieved and depressed. A little daughter was bom to her, and when severe illness soon after came on, she fancied that her husband was trying to put her out of the way that he might marry the princess, and she died heart-broken on the 5th of September, 1548. Jane Grey was at onee removed, but nobody cared enough about Elizabeth to take her away till Seymour was reported to be going to marry her. Then the Protector sent her off in haste to Hatfield House, and threatened his brother with the Tower if he tried to see her ; and to do her justice, she seems always to have disliked his rude conduct, and to have tried to prevent it. She was examined, and so was ner governess, Mrs. Ashley, on the terms they had been upon, and even the king himself was made to draw up statements of the conversations he had held with his younger uncle. " He said," writes the boy, " ' Ye must take upon yourself to rule, for ye shall be able enough, as well as other kings, and then ye may give your men somewhat, for your uncle is old and will not live long.' "I answered," says Edward, " ' It were better that he should die,' to which Thomas said, 'Ye are but even a very beggarly king now; ye have not to play, or to give your servants.' " And he proceeded to supply the boy with pocket-money. The Admiral was accused of intending to carry off the king to his estate in Denbighshire, and, altogether, thirty-three charges were brought against him, with which the whole Council proceeded to the Tower, but he would make no answer before them, and insisted on being brought to trial. A bill of attainder against him was brought into Parliament. The Lords passed it, but the Commons demurred, and declared it fitting that the Admiral should be brought to the bar of the House and plead for himself. This was overruled by a message from the king, that the Admiral's pleading was "not necessary," and only ten or twelve members had the courage to vote against the bill. L 2 148 CAMEOS OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. Cameo XIII. Execution of theAdmiral. On the 14th of February the royal assent was given to the bill, on the 17th the warrant for the execution was sent forth by the Council, signed by Seymour's own brother and by Cranmer among the rest. The Bishop of Ely was sent to prepare him for death, but he preferred the attendance of Latimer. The old Bishop does not seem to have made a kind use of his interview with the condemned man, for in a sermon he preached before the king a day or two after the execution, he said that Seymour had written two papers to the Ladies Mary and Elizabeth desiring them to conspire against the Lord Protector, and adding stories of his profligacy and irreligion. It is almost as if Latimer had been desired to overcome any regret of the king for his good-natured young uncle by blackening his character. The Admiral was no doubt a proud, selfish, dissolute, intriguing man, and the stories Latimer told of his avoiding the prayers at the canonical hours in his wife's chamber were probably quite trae, but they were unworthily brought up after his death ; and his condemnation was a wicked act. He was executed on the 20th of February, 1549. He was seen to whisper to his servant just before he laid his head on the block, and on examination the man confessed that the message related to two letters written with an aglet plucked from his hose, with ink of his own con trivance, and concealed in the sole of a velvet shoe ; but the substance of them is not known. He commended his poor little daughter Mary to the care of Katharine, the second wife of the Duke of Suffolk, to whom she was sent with twelve servants, and she seems to have been cast about the world all her childhood and youth, until she married a commoner of good family. CAMEO XIV. KING EDWARD'S FIRST PRAYER-BOOK. (1547— « 549-) King of England. Queen of Scotland. 1547. Edward VI. 1542. Mary. King of Spain and Emperor of Germany 1519. Charles V. King of France. 1547. Henri II. Pope. < 1534. Paul III. Before Edward's first parliament a visitation of the whole kingdom was determined on, to discover what was the condition of the Church, and how the services were conducted. There were several bishoprics vacant, and the appointments were of men sure to be favourable to a revision of the Liturgy. Among them the most noted was Nicolas Ridley, a son of the old Border family of the "fierce Ridleys of Willimonteswick, " but a learned and devout man, and chaplain to Cranmer. The commissioners were two laymen, a lawyer, a clergyman, and a registrar, also several preachers who instructed the people, while the commissioners examined the clergy and gave forth the commands of the council. These are very curious. In every church a sermon was to be preached at least once in three months, and four times a year the supremacy of the king, instead of that of the Pope, was to be preached ; so that some congregations were in danger of hearing of nothing else. However a book of homilies was promised, and in the meantime the Creed, Lord's Prayer, and Commandments in English were to be read, from the pulpit, every Sunday when there was no sermon. Every one who came to confession in Lent was to be examined as to whether he could say these in English. Image-worship, pilgrimages, offerings of tapers, praying upon beads, were to be put down. Only such things "as had been censed unto" were to be taken down, as this was rendering them divine honours ; no candle might be burnt before any image ; only two lights upon the high Altar, signifying that Christ is the true light of the world. Each Church that had not an English Bible was to provide one within three months, with Erasmus's paraphrase of Cameo XIV. The Com missioners. i5o CAMEOS OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. the Gospel as an exposition, the Lessons, and Gospels, and Epistle, were to be read from it ; the people were to be encouraged to read, and every person worth ioo/. a year was to maintain a poor scholar at one of the universities, no doubt to make up for the loss of educational power in the monasteries. The chief opponent to these commands was Stephen Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, who declared that it was the duty of the council to leave everything as it had been under Henry VIII., until King Edward should come of age to judge for himself, and neither promise nor threat would induce him to undertake to carry out the above commands in his diocese. He was committed to the Fleet for contempt of court, but lived there at large, visiting his friends in town, and consulting with them on Church matters. Meantime parliament met on the 8th of November, 1547, and their first act sent all the charities, and foundations of persons who were to pray for the weal of the soul of the founder, to share the fate of the monasteries. The fall of the religious houses had caused most terrible poverty, and likewise had taken away all the charities which had relieved the poor, so that the number of beggars and wanderers who had been thrown upon the country was immense, and the stronger and sturdier among them became actual robbers. The parliament found a cruel way of lessening the nuisance. Whoever lived "idlinglyand loiteringly for three days " was to be accounted a vagabond, and the nearest Justice of the Peace might brand him with the letter V, and keep him for two years as a slave, with a ring round his neck, arm, or leg, and set him to any sort of vile work. If he were a fortnight absent, his master might further bum the letter S on his cheek or brow, and he became a slave for life, and if he offended a second time, he was subject to a felon's death. In the hands of the rude country squires, this statute was so horrible that it had to be repealed within two years, but the poverty and misery caused by breaking up the monasteries continued. Gardiner had only been kept under arrest to silence him during the meeting of parliament, and he was released as soon as it broke up, being allowed to retire to his diocese, where he ruled with much diligence and earnestness. Further injunctions were put out this winter of 1547-8 against carrying candles on Candlemas Day, marking the forehead with ashes on Ash Wednesday, or bearing palms on Palm Sunday ; but these were in many places disregarded, as the people were much attached to their old habits. The order for the removal of the images which had been superstitiously used had led to disputes which were an excuse for ordering the destruction of all, "the clothes that covered their services being sold for the use of the poor." At the same time orders were given that the Mass should be said in English, and the administration be in both kinds, and the people were moved to accept the changes by Hugh Latimer, the ex-Bishop of Worcester, who preached to them at St. Paul's Cross, with the king KING EDWARD'S FIRST PRAYER-BOOK. 15' listening from a window, and afterwards to Edward himself in his garden. The old man's style was that of the preaching friars, full of racy and familiar anecdotes, but with real zest and earnestness ; and Edward, who had a great appetite for sermons, listened to them with satisfaction, imbibing from them and from his tutors a full and undiscerning hatred against Rome. Most of the Bishops made no resistance, but Stephen Gardiner of Winchester, and Edmund Bonner of London, held that it was unfair on the young king to make changes even with his full consent, until he was of discretion to understand the controversy. In order to remove the former, who was by far the most able and highly principled of the two, he was summoned to preach on St. Peter's Day 1548, before the King at St. Paul's Cross, and he was offered a ready-made sermon, or else advised to show his intended discourse to the Protector, both of which the Bishop refused. He was resolved that Edward should fov once hear his Church's doctrine on the Holy Communion, and he spoke it out bravely, though not going beyond what Archbishop Cranmer had himself uttered. However, for disobedience to the Protector's letter forbidding all controverted topics in the sermon, he was sent to the Tower, probably to get him out of the way when parliament met on the 15th of October, 1548. Convocation met at the same time, and the first proposal brought before it was the permission of marriage to the clergy. There was no primitive law against it ; but the careless and worldly lives of cathedral clergy had induced St. Dunstan to oblige these to become monks ; and Gregory VII., as a remedy for the tendency of benefices in the eleventh century to be treated as hereditary in their holders' families, had forbidden the wedlock of priests ; but the command had never been entirely obeyed in the more remote counties. Many parish priests contracted a sort of irregular marriage, which was not popularly considered a disgrace, and the permission was one of the first things that under pressure the Roman Church showed itself willing to grant. The Archbishop himself, being secretly married all this time, was most anxious to obtain the licence for the clergy, and Convocation agreed to the measure ; but in parliament the laity were more slow to agree to the Act which legalised such marriages, and for another generation there was a slur upon married clergy and their wives. Archbishop Cranmer, however, to his great joy, was able to bring home his Margaret; and live with her openly. Convocation and parliament, however, both rebuked those who were forgetting their fast-days, and, "turning their knowledge to satisfy their sensuality," had ceased to observe any abstinence on Fridays, Emberdays, Vigils, Lent and Advent. An Act was also passed to legalise the use of the revised and translated Liturgy, which had been for some time under preparation by Cranmer and others, but which was not yet ready. Bishop Osmund's forms of service for the diocese of Salisbury had always been the most commonly adopted in England ever since 1085, but there were others besides the " Use of Sarum." London, Lincoln, 152 CAMEOS OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. Hereford, and other dioceses had liturgies of their own, varying, but not in essentials, and all of them adaptations of the old Roman liturgy of Gregory the Great and the Gallican or Ephesiatt liturgy used by the ancient British Church. These were used in the parish churches and cathedrals. The monasteries, like their Continental brethren, had. had the Roman liturgy. There were numerous books belonging to all these uses, the most important of which were the Liturgy or Communion Office, the Breviary, or services for the seven canonical hours, and the Manual, or hand-book of occasional services. The old custom had been that Mass should be said every day in each parish church, and every priest was bound to say one each day. It was every one's duty to attend, though very few received except on the greater festivals or very solemn occasions, and the Mass was often irreverently shortened and hurried over. A hunting Mass was an abbreviated Communion Office adapted to men in haste. The Breviary services were also required of every monk, and as the chapter clergy had since St. Dunstan's time been Benedictines, the Hours were said in cathedrals as well as in monastic churches every day ; but except in very strict abbeys, the night Hours were joined with the morning ones, and two or three evening ones were said together, so that there were generally two daily services. To these, devout persons were apt to resort from without ; and in castles, and places where there were chaplains, this form of the Hours was kept up. All through the reign of Henry VIII., even during Warham's archie- piscopate, alterations and adaptations had been going on in the Use of Sarum, and more and more portions had been said in English. What remained to be done was to translate the rest, and place it in order, with such alterations as were made necessary by the administration of the Holy Communion in both kinds, and by the cutting off of some of the invocations of saints. The commissioners for the purpose met at Windsor on the 9th day of May, 1 548, and removed from the Breviary all that was unscriptural, making an order for matins and evensong, which is the framework of our own, and which was to be daily said in all churches instead of in only the conventual ones. The Missal, or Mass-book, was also revised and translated, and both were put together in the Book of Common Prayer, which was accepted by the Act of Uniformity, on the 1st of January, 1549, and first used in the Church of England on the Whit sunday of '549, being in fact the old services adapted to the new circumstances of the English Church. Whitsunday was most appro priately chosen as the day for beginning to have prayers in the vulgar tongue, and there were many who rejoiced, but there was a very large proportion of persons to whom the change from Latin to English, gradual as it had been, was shocking. Scholars missed the universal - language, and the uneducated felt as if some of the glory and mystery was gone when they no longer heard the flowing Latin, but their own tongue. The solemnity of the ritual, too, seemed to them much KING EDWARD'S FIRST PRAYER-BOOK. '53 curtailed. Some priests indeed followed all the old ceremonial, but there was a growing number whose tendency was to reject all observance and make their celebrations as bare and bald as those of the Calvinists. The people declared that the new ritual was " no better than a Christmas play," and they connected it with the distress they had been suffering ever since the suppression of the convents. This distress arose from various causes ; Henry VIII. had tampered with the coinage in his latter years, and this had made all articles of sale very dear. Moreover, there was such a trade in wool with the Low Countries that many landholders preferred sheep-farming to growing com, and thus employed far fewer labourers. When the peasants had been serfs on an estate, they could not indeed leave it to seek work elsewhere, nor rise in the world, but their lord was bound to see that they did not starve when old or sick ; but serfage had passed away, no one exactly knows how, in the fall of the great feudal powers during the Wars of the Roses ; and though freedom was good in the abstract, there were many to whom it meant starvation and beggary ; and beggary, without monasteries at every stage, was bad enough, even without the Protector's law — which young Edward himself terms " an extreme law " — for the branding of the letters V or S. A good many commons had also lately been inclosed, so that fewer people could feed cows or pigs on them, and thus the whole country was in a state of distress and discontent ; and when the old familiar services were altered, it seemed to light the smouldering flame. So when the new Prayer-book was read in church, there was a disturbance in almost every parish in Wilts, Sussex, Surrey, Hants, Berks, Kent, Gloucester, Somerset, Suffolk, Warwick, Essex, Herts, Leicester, Worcester, Rutland. Such a rebellion of the commons had not been known since the times of Wat Tyler or Jack Cade. In Wiltshire, Sir William Herbert raised a force and quieted the rioters, and in almost all the counties the gentry and farmers contrived to pacify the people for the time, and the Protector, alarmed at the risings, made fair promises of inquiring into the inclosing, and bettering the state of the poor, but this only quieted them for a time, and some counties were far more determined. Devonshire had risen that very Whitsun-week, and so had Cornwall, where the Comishmen, understanding neither Latin nor English, never theless could not endure to hear the latter. Humfrey Arundel, a gentle man, and governor of St. Michael's Mount, took the command, and a great number of clergy joined the rebels, who were in force enough to besiege Exeter. Lord Russell, whose possession of Tavistock Abbey fast bound him to the cause of change, was sent against them, but with too small a force to attack them. Arundel had no cannon, so he tried .to bum down a gate of Exeter ; but the inhabitants threw fuel on his fire, and kept it up till they had had time to raise a rampart behind it. However, he succeeded in so watching the gates that no provision could enter the place for a fortnight. The story of the siege was written by the chamberlain, named John Hooker, who describes how they had to '54 CAMEOS OF I HE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. make bread of bran, though they had good store of dry fish, rice, prunes, and raisins, as well as wine. There were a good many holders of the old opinions in the town, who had to be watched lest they should let in their friends outside, and there was also a great quarrel between two of the chief citizens, which ended in the mayor imprisoning one of them. His daughter, hurrying to the rescue, struck the mayor a furious blow on the face, which made him so cry out that there was a report that he was killed, and all the citizens rushed in armour to the Guildhall. Russell, not having forces enough to fight, offered to send the demands of the insurgents to the King. The chief of these were the restoration of the Six Articles, of the Latin Service, of the reservation of the Host, that those who refused to adore it should be punished, but that no one should be required to receive it save at Easter ; that the souls in purga tory should be prayed for ; that the Bible should be called in ; that Cardinal Pole should be of the Council ; and that each gentleman should only have one servant for every hundred marks a year he possessed ; and that their own grievances should be redressed according to the advice of Mr. Arundel and the Mayor of Bodmin. An answer was returned, but at the same time supplies were on their way to Russell, who had sent Sir Peter Carew to court to represent his need. Somerset received the knight with a sharp rating, as if it had been all his fault ; but Sir Peter made himself heard, and Lord Grey was sent down with a troop of Italian mercenaries under Spinola. Russell was thus enabled to relieve Exeter, and there was a fight on Clifton Down, in which the rioters were defeated. A terrible and reckless vengeance followed all over the two counties. Sir Antony Kynaston was specially distinguished tor his ferocity and mockery. At Bodmin he asked the mayor if the gibbet was strong enough. The mayor said he thought so. "Then," said Sir Antony, "go up and try ! " and thus the mayor was hanged on the spot. Coming to a mill, the miller was found to be not at home, and Sir Antony hung his ser vant in his stead, telling him it was the last service he should render to his master. Four thousand people are said to have been slain either in the field, on the gallows, or by the violence of the foreign soldiers. Arundel and others of the same rank were executed in London. In Norfolk the rebellion was not at all upon religious grounds, but was more caused by the desire to get rid of inclosures. There was an out- of-door play every year at Wymondham, to which all the county flocked, and which lasted a night and day. There the talk was that the commons of Kent bad prevailed to get all fences thrown down and have open commons again ; and some men began knocking down hedges in mischief. A gentleman named John Flowerdew, of Hetherset, who felt himself aggrieved by some inclosures made by a neighbouring tanner called Robert Ket, gave the rioters forty pence to throw these down ; but Ket retaliated, and found them quite as willing to pull down all Mr. Flower- dew's own fences the next morning, and he then assumed the leadership KING EDWARD'S FIRST PRAYER-BOOK. '55 of them, declaring that the poor were ground down by the rich, and that the king must be delivered from the evil councillors who were stripping him in his minority, and forcing new forms of worship on the people against the consciences of some. Under a great spreading oak near Mousehold, Ket made his head quarters, calling it the Oak of Reformation, and thither resorted 16,000 men, with a considerable amount of provisions and arms. Ket kept excellent discipline on the whole, allowed no violence, and had a number of officers under him who heard causes and judged quarrels. He allowed even those who were opposed to him to come and address the people from the tree, and had regular services from the new English Prayer- book under the tree, while many came from the camp to the churches at Norwich. Dr. Matthew Parker, the son of a citizen of Norwich, and at that time head of a college at Cambridge, was staying with his friends in the city, and preaching in the churches. He went out to the rebel camp with his brother and some other friends. When he reached it he found the Mayor of Norwich, whose name was Codd, an upright and wise man, arguing with Ket, who was urging him to give up the keys of the city, to which the honest mayor replied that he would die first ; and there was a great uproar going on under the broiling July sun, many of the people being half tipsy, and shouting for the resignation of the mayor. It seemed of no use to speak to them, and Dr. Parker went back ; but in the night his conscience reproached him, and he returned, this time to find the throng on their knees, with Thomas Conyers their chaplain and his choir in the midst, singing the English Litany, while they responded with all their might. When it was over, Parker mounted to the branch which served as a pulpit, and preached them a sermon on temperance, sobriety, and loyalty, and they listened with much attention ; but in the silence that followed, some lawless person shouted out, " How long shall we bear with this hireling doctor? He is hired by the gentry ! They have bribed his tongue. " This stirred up a tumult, in which some cried, "He has used bitter words : we had best pierce him with pikes and arrows, and make him come down." Nay, he fancied he felt the pikes under his feet ; but, in truth, those under the tree all respected him, and felt grateful to him for his coming. The chaplain Conyers at this moment caused his choristers to begin singing the Te Deum in English ; many of the people joined them, others listened, and Parker was helped down from the tree, and made his way through the camp in safety. The next day he preached in St. Clement's church, where were many of the rebels. He spoke out boldly against the riot, and they heaid him quietly enough ; but some of them followed him to his house, and told him that they knew he had two good horses, and that he must have them ready, for they meant to seize them "for the king's service." Parker held his peace, but when they were gone he sent for a farrier and bade him take off the horses' shoes, pare their hoofs and rub them '56 CAMEOS OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. with oil, so that they might look as if they were lame with much work, and in this state they were led out as if to pasture, their master himself walking quietly out on foot till he was far enough from the city to mount safely and ride to Cambridge. The lawless part of the rioters gained force and robbed the country round of cattle, deer, sheep, swans, and poultry, besides doing much damage to woods and parks ; and making the gentry prisoners to be put to ransom. Obedience was fast being lost, and violence setting in, when, on the 31st of July, a herald made his way to the Oak of Re formation, and there promised a free pardon to those who would dis perse and go to their homes. Ket and his comrades however denied that they had broken the laws or needed pardon, and they made their way into Norwich and seized all the weapons and ammunition they could find, while the herald made a few more severe and threatening procla mations from the market cross ; but the number of rioters only increased, and the herald's report convinced the Protector that serious measures must be used. The Marquis of Northampton was sent against them, with 1,500 horse, and a small band of Italian horse under a captain named Malatesta, these mercenaries being apparently Somerset's depen dence against his countrymen ; but in a fight in the streets of Norwich, the royal troops were beaten, Lord Sheffield and many gentlemen killed, and the town plundered, while Northampton retreated to London. John Dudley, Earl of Warwick, now led 6,000 men against the rebels, and on the 26th of August totally routed them at Dussingdale, Ket him self galloping away at full speed. There was a horrible slaughter of the poor fellows, who themselves had always spared life, and they were hunted and cut down for three or four miles round, so that the ground was cumbered with 3, 500 corpses ; nine more were hung upon the Oak of Reformation, and Ket, who was taken the next day in a barn, was taken to the Tower, tried, found guilty, and hung at Norwich Castle. Yorkshire rose somewhat later, and more on religious grounds ; but it was stimulated by a saying that no king should reign any more in Eng land, that nobles and gentry should be put down, and that four governors should be yearly elected. The whole was managed with great secrecy, and the first alarm was given by a few words from a drunken man. The gentry assembled and succeeded in putting down the conspiracy, but not till the rioters had assembled to the number of 3,000, and a good deal of mischief had been done. The lovers of the new Prayer-book were mostly the townspeople, who were intelligent enough to feel the blessing of the translation of the services, whereas to the rude peasantry its beautiful English was prob ably almost as much a dead letter as the Latin. The younger clergy too welcomed it, and some of the nobility did so sincerely, as did the king's sister Elizabeth, who, young as she was, read and studied the matter with all her keen and ardent intellect. Her sister Mary, on the contrary, would not admit the changes into her private chapel, and had a great correspondence with both Somerset and Cranmer on the subject ; but her KING EDWARD'S FIRST PRAYER-BOOK. '57 cousin the Emperor insisted that she should not be molested ; and when Edward actually forbade Mass to be celebrated at her manor of New Hall in Essex, Charles sent a Flemish fleet to lie off the coast of Essex, and in case her ritual was interfered with, or her person in danger, to carry her off to his sister Marie, the widowed Queen of Hungary, who was governing the Low Countries. Edmund Bonner, Bishop of London, had not prevented his clergy from using the English service, though he would never adopt it himself, and showed no favour to anyone who promoted it. He was suspected of being concerned secretly in the insurrections, and Somerset used his favourite method of getting rid of him by setting him to preach at St. Paul's Cross with a list of subjects to which he was sure not to adhere. John Hooper denounced his sermon to the government, and he was sent to the Marshalsea prison for contempt of court, and soon after deprived. Cameo XIV. CAMEO XV. THE SECOND MEETING OF THE COUNCIL OF TRENT. (1549— 1553.) Cameo XV. King of England. Queen of Scotland. King of France. 1547. Edward VI. 1542- Mary. 1547. Henri 11. King of Spain and Emperor of Germany. Pope. 1519. Charles V. 1550. Juuus III. Charles V. was bitterly disappointed by the failure of the Council of Trent, and indeed never seems to have again been the same hopeful man, full of glorious enterprise, since the Church herself in her chief ministers had failed him in his efforts for unity and improvement. When the conclave met on the death of Paul III., Cardinal Monte said : " Choose me, and the day after, I will make you my companions and favourites ; " and because they could agree on no one else, they elected him. He took the name of Julius III., and the Emperor im mediately called on him to reassemble the Council, which he consented to do, appointing it to meet at Trent in the spring of 1551 ; but much was to happen in the meantime. Charles's health was beginning to break. He was a great eater at all times of his life, and this was occasioning frequent and severe attacks of gout. During one of these he sent for his only son, Philip, to come to him at Brussels, from Spain, where he had been brought up, since it was, together with the Netherlands, the portion which was to fall to his lot. Charles had recovered before his son arrived, and the Flemings received him with all kinds of festivities, balls, dances, banquets, and jousts, but were disappointed, for Philip was a thorough Spaniard in manners, grave, cold, and unbending ; and in the country, where his father was thoroughly at ease and on friendly terms with the people, the chilliness of his deportment gave offence. He was then twenty-two, fair complexioned, and with the long chin of his father exaggerated ; very silent, except when alone with the five or six whom he accepted as friends, and often when the Emperor himself sent for him, he made excuses from love of solitude. The Netherlanders would have much preferred belonging to the good-natured, friendly King of the Romans, who adapted himself easily to whatever country he was in, but SECOND MEETING OF THE COUNCIL OF TRENT. '59 the inherited lands of Charles were, of course, due to Philip. He was already a widower, having been married to his cousin, Maria of Portugal, who had died at the birth of his son Carlos. The Diet met at Augsburg in July 1550, and Charles brought his son to it, and with him a strong Spanish guard, to overcome any disaffection among the princes of the empire. He again laid before them the need of attending the Council when it should meet the next year, nor did the Protestants dare to make any open objection, except Moritz, the new Elector of Saxony, who, though not present himself, had sent his deputies, and now caused them to declare that he would not acknow ledge the authority of the Council unless all the points it had already ruled were revised, unless the Protestants had a full hearing and decisive voice, and unless the Pope renounced his claims to superiority, and absolved the Bishops from their oath of obedience. Charles made no decisive reply, thinking discussion the great object, and writing to the Pope that it was vain to try to bring the Protestants to the Council by threats of violence, since " surely in vain the net is spread in the sight of any bird." To which Julius replied that he had rather not have the attendence of these heretics, as he did not want to fight with a cat in a net; and Charles must have felt himself again disappointed in the Pope. The free imperial city of Magdeburg had always refused to accept (he Interim, and the burghers had strengthened their fortifications and levied troops to defend themselves, an act of rebellion which Charles brought forward, asking the Diet to sanction and assist in its punish ment. This was agreed to, and each state was to send a certain amount of money, and of men, who, as the Diet requested, were to be under the command of Moritz of Saxony. This prince was a great favourite with the Emperor, and was treated by him like a son, but no entreaties of his could obtain the release of his father-in-law, the Landgraf of Hesse, who was by far too dangerous a person to be let loose till there should be some final pacification. When Moritz and the Elector of Brandenburg pleaded that they had made themselves responsible to the Landgraf for his liberty before he surrendered, Charles, by a public deed, annulled their bond as one they had no right to make. This was alarming to the princes of the empire, who did not view themselves as subject vassals like the barons of a kingdom, but as small sovereigns with. powers to ally themselves and make war, and over whose mutual engagements no emperor had any right Moreover Charles caused infinitely greater displeasure by an attempt to substitute his cold, stiff, unpopular son Philip, for that general favourite the good-natured, kindly Ferdinand, King of the Romans. His sister Marie, the Queen of Hungary, was sent to persuade Ferdinand to resign the dignity of King of the Romans, and accept instead some permanent duchy to be made up for him, but he would not hear of the arrangement ; and when Charles tried to induce the Diet to engage that Philip should be elected ,to be King of the Romans, whenever his uncle should succeed to the empire, they were not by any means inclined to prefer him to his i6o CAMEOS OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. cousin Maximilian, Ferdinand's son, a friendly, open-hearted young man, German in all his habits. All the Electors, Roman Catholic and Protestant, ecclesiastical and secular, were equally resolved against the plan, and Charles was obliged to give it up, though not till he had offended and alarmed everybody. He sent off both Philip and Maxi milian to Spain, the first to govern there, the second only to fetch his wife, Charles's own daughter Maria. All this, however, had grieved and offended the Germans. Magde burg was holding out resolutely, and was besieged by the Elector Moritz at the head of an army, chiefly of Protestants, for a full year, during which there were some great changes of feeling. The Cardinals in conclave had allowed Ottavio Farnese to retain the Duchy of Parma, but finding the Emperor desired to keep it, Julius II. had offered him in exchange the little Duchy of Camerino, and of this Ottavio would not hear, but sought support from the King of France ; and Henry II., who hated the House of Austria as much as his father had done,. promised him protection, and undertook to send him troops and money. Meantime, when the Pope announced the Council's second meeting, Henry wrote to his ambassador at Rome " that he had no occasion for a Council, since all his subjects were good Catholics, very obedient to the Church, and if any had erred, they had been so well punished that the rest had taken example." He even sent a protest at the opening on the 1st of May, 1551, by an ambassador, namely, Jaques Amyot, Abbot of Bellinzane, who is memorable for having made a very effective trans lation of Plutarch's Lives. The war in Parma hindered many Italian prelates from going to Trent, but about sixty met there, chiefly from Spain and from the Papal States, with a legate and two nuncios to open the Council, while the Emperor was striving to send thither the German clergy. He persuaded the three ecclesiastical Electors to go, and as many other Bishops as possible, and granted safe conducts to the ambas sadors of Brandenburg, Wurtemburg, and other Protestant States; but the Abbot Amyot, Henry's ambassador, began by presenting letters, not even addressed to the Council by that title, and there was a demur about opening them, but some one suggested that in the direction " Sanctissimis in Christo Patribus conventus Tridentini, " the word Council was only not used because it was not to be found in Ciceronian Latin, and so they were accepted. However they contained a protest against the Council as not representing the whole Catholic Church, and being held at a time when many Bishops were withheld by wars, and the rest were under the power of the Pope and Emperor, who were both enemies to France. The Spaniards and Italians, however, disregarded the protest, and proceeded to examine the doctrines respecting the Holy Eucharist, Penance, and Extreme Unction, but found that it was impossible to proceed properly, and adjourned till October, while Henry II. ordered his Bishops to stay at home in readiness for a national synod, and forbade any money for Rome to he taken out of his kingdom, Moritz of Saxony had devastated the lands round Magdeburg, but SECOND MEETING OF THE COUNCIL OF TRENT. 161 had.not pressed the siege, which was of course distasteful to his Protestant army. He had, in fact, made up his mind to desert the Emperor, and go over to the Protestant league ; but he carried on his arrangements with so much mystery, that though Charles sent persons to keep a watch on his movements, they were themselves deceived, and thought him zealous and loyal. He accepted moderate terms from the Magde- burghers, and entered the city most amicably ; and though he disbanded his army, it was at once enlisted in the service of another Protestant prince, Duke George of Mecklenburg, on the plea that he wanted to assert a right to part of his brother's dominions. At the same time, throwing aside all the scruples of loyalty which had withheld the league of Schmalkalde from alliance with foreign powers, be, with the Markgraf of Brandenburg, the Dukes of Mecklenburg, and the son of the Land graf of Hesse, signed a treaty with Henry II., by which he engaged to attack Germany from Lorraine, and to assist them with 240,000 crowns at once and 60,000 every month, to deliver Germany from Spanish tyranny, and release the Landgraf, allowing Henry as his reward the cities of Toul, Metz, and Verdun, the three Bishoprics as they were called, and promising that, if they elected a new emperor, it should be one of whom he approved. Moritz, however, took care to stipulate that the sons of the Elector Johann Friedrich should not be included in the league, and that if he recovered his liberty he should not be restored to his electorate. Perhaps it was to prevent his people from being able to help him that Moritz quartered the troops in Mecklenburg's pay upon Thuringia all the winter, where they did infinite damage, while, till the time of action should come, he kept the Emperor occupied jvith arrangements for the safety of Philip Melancthon and the other divines who were actually setting out for Trent. Charles's ablest general, Fernando de Toledo, Duke of Alva, began to suspect the Elector, but the Flemish Chancellor, Nicolas Granvelle, Bishop of Arras, laughed at the notion that " one of these German heads, always muddled with wine, could deceive Spanish and Italian wits ; " nor was any suspicion awakened by the complaints of the Bishops who bordered on Thuringia, that Mecklenburg's troops were robbing their churches. Indeed, Charles was at the time exceedingly ill with gout at Innspruck, whither he had come in order to be near Trent, and had no suspicion of any danger until the storm burst ; and on the 18th of March, 1552, Moritz put himself at the head of all the forces raised by the Confederates, and began to march upon the Tyrol with 20,000 foot and 5,000 horse, putting forth proclamations that he was going to secure liberty to the Germans, free worship to the Pro testants, and justice to the Landgraf of Hesse ; and at the same time Henry of France published a like manifesto, in which he assumed the title of Defender of the Freedom of Germany and of her captive Princes, and above it a cap of liberty and two daggers. He assem bled an army at Chalons, and marched into the empire. The Sieur de Tavannes began by persuading the citizens of Metz to let the King VOL. IV. M l62 CAMEOS OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. sleep in their town, then guarded the gates, seized the keys, and mastered the place. The Constable de Montmorency told the King that he would enter Strasburg and the other Rhenish cities like butter, and that the citizens were no sharper than those of Metz; but Strasburg was warned, and shut its gates, saying that if the king entered at all, it should only be with forty gentlemen at the utmost. However, Henry succeeded in gaining Lorraine ; for indeed Charles had been taken at unawares by the news that Moritz, whom he had so loved and trusted, was not only in arms against him, but was in actual possession of Augsburg, re-establishing there the Lutheran worship. Moritz had chosen his time well, for half Charles's Spanish troops were in Hungary fighting with the Turks, the other half in Italy attacking the Duke of Parma, and the Germans' were almost all in the insurgent army, so that Charles at Innspruck had scarcely more than a guard of honour round him, and was besides too ill to exert himself. He sent his brother, the King of the Romans, to try to come to terms and there was a conference held at Lintz, in which it was agreed to have a fuller meeting at Passau, on the 26th of May, from which time till the 10th of June there was to be a truce. It was now the 9th of May, and before the trace began, Moritz made a sudden dash at the Tyrol, beat 800 men stationed at the Pass of Eissen, and surprised the strong Castle of Ehrenberg, which was strongly garrisoned and thought to be impregnable ; but a shepherd showed the way up a mountain path to an undefended side, and the castle was won. Moritz, with his foot soldiers, who alone were of use in the Tyrolean mountains, now meant to hurry forward, seize the Emperor's person, and force from him what terms he chose. At that moment his troops chose to mutiny for compensation for the plunder of Ehrenberg, and for pay. He had nothing in hand, and could only entreat and promise the greatest rewards if they would press on and win such a prize as was to be had at Innspruck. This delay saved Charles V. The tidings that Moritz was advancing were brought to him late in the evening. The city was in no state for defence. He must needs fly, though it was a wild and stormy night, and he could only bear the motion of a litter, in which he was carried by torch-light over the mountain passes ; some of his attendants on horseback, some on foot, in such disorder as had never befallen the great Emperor before, and among them the unfortunate Johann Fried rich, whom he had released from his captivity before setting forth, but who chose rather to remain with him than to fall into the hands of his traitorous rival. The first halt was at the strong fortress of Villach, in Carinthia, where Charles waited for further tidings. Moritz reached Innspruck only a few hours after the flight of the Emperor, and went a few miles in pursuit ; but finding this in vain, he turned back, and allowed his troops to plunder the Emperor's baggage and that of all his suite, but kept the goods of the King of the Romans untouched. The tidings of his being so near caused great > SECOND MEETING OF THE COUNCIL OF TRENT. 163 consternation at Trent. The German Bishops all hurried home to provide for the safety of their dominions, and the Italians only wished to escape from the army of heretics. The Legate, who had from day to day been staving off the desire of the Imperial Ambassadors that the Protestants should be admitted to a hearing, gladly prorogued the Council for two years, and thus a second time was Charles baffled in his hopes. After thus putting the Emperor to flight, Moritz quietly made his appearance at Passau according to appointment, to meet the King of the Romans. Deputies from all the empire were present there, and in their name Moritz made three principal requisitions ; namely, the freedom of the Landgraf, freedom of worship to the Protestants, and some matters of civil government to be set in order. If this were done, Moritz promised himself to lead an army to Hungary against the Turks. Ferdinand seeing in this the only way to peace, went in person to Villach to persuade his brother. The concession was contrary to all Charles's principles, and he held out against it to the utmost ; but enfeebled by illness, separated from his army, and with half the empire in arms against him, he could not but give way ; and the treaty was signed on the 2nd of August, 1552. Thenceforth the Protestant form of faith was acknowledged in Germany, but as every prince was sovereign in his own dominions, and as each imperial city had full rights of self-government, each ruler could establish whichever form he chose and force the people into conformity with it. Moritz then set out for Hungary, but the Spanish general there was angry at being superseded by a rebel, and he could do nothing to distinguish himself Albrecht of Brandenburg, who was little better than a marauder, refused to be included in the treaty, and went on making war on his neighbours on his own account ; and a wild band of Hessians joined him. The tidings reached Marie of Austria, the Regent of the Netherlands, just after she had set the Landgraf of Hesse at liberty, and in her wrath at this disregard of the treaty, she seized on the poor man again and placed him under charge of the Spanish captain who had kept him so long ; but he was released again as soon as the matter was explained. Charles on leaving Villach collected an army to recover Metz from the French. On his way, he was met everywhere by horrible stories of the ferocity of Albrecht of Brandenburg, and saw with his own eyes the devastations which had been made by that wretch. A number of hostages, among whom were eighty burghers of Bamberg, had been starved to death by him in the tower of Hohenlandsburg. When a father asked him to spare the life of only one of his sons, he asked which was the favourite, and beginning with that one, put them all to death. He was encamped a little beyond Thionville, and Charles's march enclosed him between the imperial army and the French in 1 64 CAMEOS OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. Metz, whither Henry II. had sent Francois, Duke of Guise, to under- take the defence. Albrecht was trying to make friends on both sides, negotiating with the French as allies, sending his sick to their hospitals, purchasing provisions, and desiring conferences with Guise, but all the time trying to win his pardon from the Emperor, whose frail health detained him at Thionville. Albrecht's hope was to gain admission into Metz, and then to purchase forgiveness by betraying it , to the Emperor. Guise was, however, on his guard, and kept his brother, the Duke of Aumale, outside the walls with a small body watching Albrecht. The numbers proved to be too small, for Albrecht made a sudden attack on Aumale, wounded him and made him prisoner, killing 150 gentlemen, then appearing in the camp, gained pardon from Charles in consideration of the service. Alva was in charge of the siege operations, and was battering down the walls ; but Guise contrived to raise fresh ramparts wherever one was failing ; and he had been joined by the flower of the French youth, the Duke of Enghien and Prince of Conde, sons of the Duke of Bourbon, and the two sons of the Constable, all so full of ardour that they were always wanting to make sallies, and Guise had to have the gates locked and guarded to keep them in. Charles came himself to the camp, and for a little while operations went on more vigorously ; but winter was come on severely, the soldiers had to work in frozen , mud, and disease was such that in the fifty-six days of the siege he had lost 30,000 men. " I see," said he, in his dry way, " Fortune is a true woman, and deserts the old for the young ; " and on the 1st of January, 1553, he gave orders to break up the camp, and set offhimself. Alva and his staff followed, and there was terrible disorganisation, bag-, gage, artillery, ammunition left behind, and all the roads and villages full of sick and dying men, whom Guise treated with humanity only too rare in that day, causing some to be taken into the hospital, and sending others food, clothing, and comforts. The French found the camp was full of unhappy men, helpless and frostbitten, of whom 300 were alive, but out of these many lost their legs. Charles went to Brussels, where he was again very ill, but had the comfort of his sister's presence. The first news, however, that he received, was that ¦ Albrecht of Brandenburg had hired all the disbanded soldiers he could meet, and declaring that the Emperor had made him a huge grant out of the property of the Bishops of Bamberg and Wartzburg, to reward him for his support at Metz, had forthwith marched on their lands. He was utterly unbearable, and all the German princes were willing to unite against him. He was placed under the ban of the Empire, and Moritz of Saxony was placed at the head of the anny with the consent of the Emperor and the whole Diet. The battle, where there were 20,000 men on either side, was hotly contested at Si.evenhausen near Luneburg. Three Dukes of Brunswick were killed, Albrecht was wounded, and just as the cry was raised by the Imperialists — "They SECOND MEETING OF THE COUNCIL OF TRENT. '65 run, they run," Moritz himself was shot in the body, and died two days after, on the nth of July, 1553, in his thirty-second year. He left only one infant daughter, and his brother August, who was married to a Danish princess, claimed the Electorate, and gained it in spite of the petition of Johann Friedrich, who was only to preserve his right to the succession in case male heirs should fail in the other branch. Albrecht was pursued by the surviving brother of the house of Brunswick, and beaten in another terrible battle, after which he retired into France, and there gave himself up to excesses which soon ended his life. Two years later, in 1555, at Augsburg, the conditions proposed at Passau were solemnly ratified, namely, that each government of prince or city should absolutely fix the faith of that state whether Catholic or Protestant. The treaty took no notice of Calvinism, and to prevent such defections as that of the Teutonic knights, it decreed that the Roman Catholic Church should retain the benefices of those who renounced her doctrines. This arrangement held the mind of Germany tranquil for two succeeding generations. Pope Julius III. died that same year. He had never meddled more than he could help with European affairs since he had been dismayed by the Emperor's flight to Villach and the effect it produced on Italy, and he gave his mind to the architecture of the splendid villa that bears his name. His chief favourite was a young man whom he had adopted long ago, because he had seen him as a child at Parma seized by an ape, and carried about on the roofs of the houses. He had promised the boy promotion, and, though he did not turn out very deserving, made him a Cardinal ! Cameo XV. Death of Moritz. 1553- CAMEO XVI. KING EDWARD'S SECOND PRAYER-BOOK. (i55°-'552.) Cameo XVI. Foreign Re formers. King of England. Queen of Scotland. 1547. Edward VI. 1542. Mary. King of Spain and Emperor of Germany. 1519. Charles V. King of France. 1549. Henry II. Pope. 1550. Julius III. The first English Prayer-book had been now accepted in England, and was gaining favour by use there with sound Churchmen, but it dis pleased the foreign reformers. A Scotchman, named Alexander Ales, translated into Latin for their consideration all that was new; And Calvin, who in 1541 had been invited to Geneva to "build up the Christian Church " there, with a salary of 500 florins, twelve measures of wheat, and two tubs of wine, thought himself called on likewise to build up the Church in England, and wrote to the King and Protector, that all the old errors were retained, meaning of course all ceremonies and whatever did not agree with his theory of predestination, of the Atonement and the Sacraments. Archbishop Hermann, of Cologne, recommended Cranmer to receive the Alsatian Martin Bucer, who was made Professor of Divinity at Cambridge. Also a Florentine outlawed for heresy, named Pietro Martire Vermiglio, was placed at Oxford as a professor and Canon of Christchurch, where he cast out the bones of the virgin martyr, St. Frideswid. Both these were asked to give their opinion on the Prayer-book, while Somerset requested Cranmer to receive John Knox as his guest ; together with the Baron John A Lasko, a Polish noble, who had fled from Germany with a great many of his countrymen and of Germans. A Lasko begged for some disused convent church to worship in, without conforming to the English rite, and was allowed the church of the Austin Friars, with a pension of 100/. a year. Another reforming congrega tion of Walloons settled at Glastonbury, and a third of French and KING EDWARD'S SECOND PRAYER-BOOK. 167 Italians in London, all being put under the superintendence of A Lasko, who was to be accountable to Government for them, receiving a salary of 100/. a year, and taking care that only Lutherans and Calvinists were admitted, not the Anabaptists, whose excesses were exceedingly dreaded. John Knox was employed in the revision, though Tunstal, Bishop of Durham, had called him to account for his heterodox opinions, and he was actually made chaplain to the king with a salary of 40/. a year. Somerset's power was already tottering, abused as it had been by rapacity and haughtiness, which made the duke hateful to eveiyone, from his nephew, the king, downwards. John Dudley, the son of Henry VII.'s unjust judge, had been created Earl of Warwick, and had assumed all the honours of that grand old title. He became the leader of the discontented party, and in the October of 1549 there was almost open war. Somerset, who was with the king at Hampton Court, had, in the words of Edward's diary, " the armour brought down out of the armoury, about 500 harnesses, to arm both his and my men, with all the gates of the house to be rampired. " At the same time Warwick and eighteen more lords of the council met at Ely House, and informed the Lord Mayor and Aldermen that they were to take no orders from Somerset, but from the king's council, sending forth letters to the same effect to many of the nobles and gentry. Somerset sent his secretary, Petre, with a letter to the Lord Mayor, and at the same time, with his escort of 500 men, carried off the king by night to Windsor, and kept watch and ward there, await ing the return of Petre, who never came, having seen which way success was tending. Indeed, Somerset gave up hope of resistance after another day, and wrote that, provided they intended no harm to the king, he would agree to everything they demanded. Instead of taking any notice of his offer of coming to terms, the nineteen lords, now reinforced by Russell and others from the country, met at the Lord Mayor's house, and drew up a proclamation accusing Somerset of "malicious and evil government," of causing the late seditions and the losses in France, of his overweening ambition, ' and of heaping wealth on himself while the king's soldiers were unpaid, j and of having sown variance in the State. For all of which he was declared a great traitor, and the citizens were called on to help to remove him from the king. All agreed readily, hating the upstart Seymour quite enough to help the upstart Dudley to get rid of him, though how they might then regard Dudley was another question. Somerset wrote to Warwick, appealing to their former friendship. but in vain ; and on the 12th of October, finding that no one took his part, he made a virtual surrender by writing, in the king's name, to summon the council to Windsor, when at once his servants were re moved from the king's person, and Dudley's own substituted ; and on the 14th he was accused before the council of twenty-eight different mis demeanours. The same day, that impassive young gentleman, Edward, showing no outward elation at his emancipation, was conducted backj 168 CAMEOS OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. to Windsor, while Somerset was taken to the Tower, all the adjacent streets being lined with citizens and their officers, fully armed. Whether Warwick was as much of a Calvinist as Somerset is not certain. He was thought to be inclined at heart to the old religion, but if so, he had less honesty than his rival, for he pursued the same measures, the parliament absolutely forbidding the use of the old Latin services even in private, and, the Liturgy being finished, a new Ordinal was prepared for the Consecration of Bishops, and Ordination of priests and deacons, leaving out, to please the Calvinists, the delivery of the Chalice into the hands of the priest, his unction, and likewise the giving of the pastoral staff to the Bishop. The first Bishop con secrated in this manner was John Poynet, the' disgraceful person who had been appointed to the See of Rochester in spite of his coarse tongue and open vice, Nicholas Ridley being promoted to be Bishop of London in the stead of Bonner. This last remained a prisoner; but his old mother was most tenderly and carefully treated by his successor. Every day did Ridley send for her to dine with him at his palace at Fulham, placing her beside himself in an easy-chair at the head of the table. If any one of rank tried to take his seat there, the Bishop would say, " By your lordship's leave, this is for my Mother Bonner." His household was on the model of the ioist Psalm, which he used fre quently to read to his servants, and he would give them rewards for learning passages of Scripture by heart, especially the 13th chapter of the Acts. Gardiner was soon after deprived, and Poynet translated to Win chester, while Bishops Heath of Worcester, and Day of Chichester, were also deprived ; Heath for disapproving of the new Ordinal, and Day for refusing to give orders that the Altars in his diocese should be removed, and tables placed in the middle of the church. Each change furnished excuses for robberies. The new Bishopric of Westminster was suppressed, and its revenues divided between London and the king, and Winchester was cut down to 2,000 merks a-year, all the wealth of that grand See being seized by the crown and shared by those in power. The desecration of the Altars had been hotly insisted on by the Calvinists, especially John Hooper, on the plea that a stone Altar was Judaical. They wanted above all to obliterate the notion of Sacrifice, and substitute for it simply that of the Lord's Supper. The Catholic truth of the Real Presence, in a manner undefined, and a Sacrifice repre sented, but not repeated, was too delicate for the ruder minds, and while the Romanists insisted on the actual Sacrifice, and the absolute change of the Elements, the Calvinists, in the recoil, denied both with coarse virulence and unconscious blasphemy. Cranmer and Ridley, thouph of sounder views, gave way to the more violent party, and the Altar "of St. Paul's was overthrown, and those in other places removed, and set longwise in the middle of the nave. There followed a terrible stripping of the beautiful furniture and plate, so that Chalices were KING EDWARD'S SECOND PRAYER-BOOK. 169 used as carousing cups, and there was hardly a house that had not some of these Church ornaments, "if it were only a fair large cushion" on a chair or window-seat. Only the shrines of the saints had been stripped in the last reign, now the Altar itself was robbed and profaned, by being made a place to hold hats and write parish accounts. John Hooper was chosen for the See of Gloucester, but the altera tions in the Ordinal had not been sufficient to accommodate it to the taste of such a thorough -going Calvinist, and he declared that he would not take the oath of canonical obedience to the Metropolitan, and would never wear the episcopal robes — the livery of Babylon, as he called them. Calvin upheld him in his resolution ; while Cranmer and Ridley tried persuasion, Bucer said that to the pure all things are pure ; and Peter Martyr, though hating episcopacy and its garb, still thought the wearing of it a thing indifferent. The Earl of Warwick tried to persuade Cranmer to dispense with the ordinary rules in this case, but on this the Archbishop did not venture, and Hooper took to preaching so strongly against both the dress and the Ordinal, that the king's council had him committed to the Fleet. There he decided on submitting to be consecrated in the dress of a priest, and to wear the same when he preached before the king ; but it was not to be required of him at any other time, and he was then made Bishop of Gloucester and Worcester united. Within a year Worcester was suppressed and made into an archdeaconry, so that he had a larger diocese and a smaller income, for which perhaps he would care the less, ashe would not think episcopal state incumbent on him, and would not think of repairs of churches or the like calls upon a Bishop's purse. But Hooper was a diligent pastor, going constantly round his diocese and daily giving dinners to a certain number of the poor in his hall after they had received instruction in the Creed, Lord's Prayer, and Commandments. Everyone was thinking for himself, and trials for heresy were frequent. Four men who denied the Divinity of our Blessed Lord were cited to the Archbishop's Court, and on renouncing their errors were released, after each bearing a faggot to St, Paul's Cross and burning it, while a sermon was preached against them. A woman named Joan Boucher, who had been an agent for dispersing Anne Askew's books, bewildered herself so as to deny the Incarnation of our Lord, and when before Cranmer and his court taunted them with having burnt Anne Askew for a doctrine which, she said, they now professed themselves, so that they might yet, she said, come to believe that for which they were sentencing her. She was kept in prison a full year, in hopes of persuading her to renounce her errors ; and there was a story that at last Edward was so unwilling to sign her death-warrant, while, as he said, she would "go quicke to the devil," that Cranmer found great difficulty in persuading him to do so. However, facts are against this tale, for the order for her execution is extant, and, like the other orders of the time, is signed, not by the iyo CAMEOS OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. Cameo XVI. The M'aid of Kent. 1551- king, but his council, and his own diary expresses as little compassion ¦ for her as for anyone else. "May 9. — Joan Boucher, otherwise called the Maid of Kent, was burnt, being condemned the year before, but kept in hope of conver sion. And on the 30th of April the Bishop of London and the Bishop of Ely were to persuade her, but she withstood them, and reviled the preacher at her death." Somerset's imprisonment had not been long, and he was apparently friends again with Warwick, whose son, Lord Lisle, was married to his daughter, Lady Anne, in the king's presence, with much rejoicing, dancing, and foot-races. The next day Robert Dudley, the third son of Warwick, was married to Amy, the daughter of Sir John Robsart, also before the king, who entered it in his journal, together with the inhuman sport that followed it, namely, certain gentlemen striving "who should first take away a goose's head that was hanged alive between two posts. " Somerset still cherished hopes' of his daughter becoming a second Queen Jane Seymour, but the king, who seems to have had more of his own way under Warwick than under his uncle, was still bent on a foreign princess, and proposals were made in his name for Elizabeth, the daughter of Henri II. of France, and were accepted, the Marquis of Northampton being sent to make the arrangements. Three months before the young lady attained her twelfth year she was to be sent over " sufficiently jewelled and stuffed," and in the meantime there was an exchange of the orders of St. Michael and St. George between the two kings. Nor does any objection appear to have been made on the score of the religion of England, which, even now, seems to have been regarded in France as rather the outcome of a quarrel with the Pope than as a schism. All this time there was a deadly pestilence raging in England, called the sweating sickness. Ten hours decided whether it would be fatal or not. Sleep and cold were held alike to produce death, and, what was very strange, it was said that English people alone were subject to it, for foreigners did not have it in England, and English people died of it on the Continent, where no one else caught it. The most noted cases of death were those of Henry and Charles, the two young sons of the late Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk— not by Mary Tudor, but by his second wife, Katharine Willoughby. The deaths caused their half-sister's husband, Henry Grey, Marquis of Dorset, to be created Duke of Suffolk, while Warwick took to himself the old title of Northumberland. Henry Percy, called the Unthrifty, the discarded lover of Anne Boleyn, had only survived her * year, and as his two brothers had been concerned in the Pilgrimage of Grace, they were attainted in blood, so that they and their sons Were forbidden to inherit what the upstart son of an unjust judge took to himself, turning it into a dukedom instead of an earldom. Dudley now thought himself strong enough to make another attack KING EDWARD'S SECOND PRAYER-BOOK. 171 on his rival Somerset, and on the 16th of October, 1551, the duke was suddenly arrested at Westminster, as was also his wife and many others of his friends. The allegation was that a certain Sir Thomas Palmer had come and told Northumberland of a plot to murder him and his friends as they sat at a banquet, and to raise the people, especially the apprentices of London, get possession of the Great Seal, and cause the foreign guard to be killed. Was this true ? Somerset certainly kept a strong guard in his house, but whether he was the plotter, or was simply plotted against, there is no knowing. He had shortly before summoned Palmer to his own house and asked if anything were intended against him, to which Palmer had answered that, if the duke were innocent, he had nothing to fear. He had also written to the secretary of the council, Thomas Cecil, who had made the same answer. Probably he was guilty so far as that he hated Northumberland, and would gladly have got the king into his own hands again, at the expense of some violence ; but the proclamation of Dudley to the citizens, accusing him of intending to seize the Tower, burn the city, and carry off the King and the Great Seal to the Isle of Wight, looks much like an invention to set them against him. Whilst his trial was pending, tidings came that the queen-mother of Scotland, on her way back from a visit to her little daughter in France, had been driven out of her way by stress of weather, and forced to put in at Portsmouth. Henry II. had secured a safe-conduct for her before she went to France, so that for once there was none of the shameful lying in wait to catch Scottish royalty on the road ; but the queen sent word to court that she would take advantage of the safe- conduct and travel through England, offering a visit by the way. ¦ Immediately the Ladies Mary and Elizabeth were sent for, and arrived at court to receive her ; Mary dressed with ordinary princess like splendour, Elizabeth in a severely plain style, to suit the strict notions of the court. The Scottish queen halted at Arundel Castle, where the family opinions agreed with hers, and there she presented to Anne Arundel, the little heiress, who was betrothed to the heir of the Duke of Norfolk, a piece of silk tapestry, representing the Crucifixion, which her own little Mary was said to have embroidered at eight years old. She then travelled on by slow stages to Hampton Court, whence she came down the Thames to London, and was lodged by Bishop Ridley, all the citizens sending in large supplies of all kinds of meat, and also salmon, sturgeon, wood and coals, for her entertainment. She was escorted to Westminster in a chariot containing her sister-in-law, Lady Margaret Countess of Lennox, the Duchess of Suffolk, and Lady Jane Grey, her daughter ; and she was received with much pomp and also much embracing, by the young king ; but neither of his sisters were present, in spite of the summons at first sent, which looks as if they were avoiding some attempt to give Lady Jane the precedence of them. 172 CAMEOS OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. In five days, Mary of Lorraine proceeded on her way to Scotland, with the present of a diamond and two horses from the king and a hundred merks from the city. It was memorable as being the first amicable visit paid to England by a royal Scottish person since the days of the good Alexanders. Mary brought to Scotland a paper by which her daughter, the little Queen Mary, chose as her own guardians the King Henry II. of France and her uncles, the Duke of Guise and Cardinal of Lorraine, and they delegated their authority to Mary, the queen-mother. Little Mary was only eleven years old, and was not legally capable of choosing her own guardians till she should be twelve ; but the regent, Arran, was weary of his stormy rule, and let himself be bought off with the French duchy of Chatelherault. The Estates of Scotland accepted the appointment, and the stately queen-dowager was solemnly installed as regent, and was presented with the crown, sceptre, and sword. As soon as this visit was over, Somerset was tried at Westminster on the 1st of December by twenty-seven peers, defending himself, and at first objecting to the calling of some of the witnesses because they were his own men bound to him by oaths of fealty ; but this was overruled. He denied all the charges against him, except that he had thought of compassing the death of the Duke of Northumberland; but this he said he had given up. It was on this charge he was convicted, not of treason but of felony, and on this he was sentenced to die. He fell on his knees, and thanked the peers for their small mercy in so fair a trial, and commended Iris family to them. As he was acquitted of treason, the axe was not carried before him when he was taken back to the Tower, and the people, whose feelings had veered round to him as soon as he was in trouble, shouted six times for joy, so loud, that the sound was heard at Charing Cross. He was kept six weeks in prison, while Edward observed his Christ mas with great mirth, a Lord of Misrule, named George Ferrers, being . provided, who entertained the court with rare devices and wonderful sights, to the great amusement of all ; banquetings and feastings, rides and sham-fights, being duly jotted down in the king's diary. This may have been intended by Dudley to distract the boy's mind from the thought of his uncle, but except one line of Grafton's, saying " that he seemed to take his uncle's trouble somewhat heavily," there is no token of feeling on Edward's part, certainly not when on the 22nd of January, '552, he recorded that "the Duke of Somerset had his head cut off upon Tower Hill, between eight and nine of the clock." But, indeed, the young Tudors must have thought this almost the ordinary conclusion of life. It was intended that the execution should be private, and the Lord Mayor sent the constables of each ward to order everybody to keep within doors till ten of the clock ; but never theless there was a dense crowd on Tower Hill, when the duke came forth to his death in all the dignity of his noble presence, and the KING EDWARD'S SECOND PRAYER-BOOK. '73 piety, Which though obscured by ambition, presumption, and greed in his lifetime, had always existed, supported him at his death. He made a long discourse, in the midst of which a horse's hoofs were heard, and there was a cry of " A pardon, a pardon ! " but it turned out to be only Sir Antony Brown coming to see the execution, and the duke went on, ending by begging as a favour of the people that they would be quiet and still. " For," said he, " through your tumult you might trouble me, for albeit the spirit is willing, the flesh is frail and wavering, and through your quietness, I shall be much more quiet." After his prayers, he rose up, shook hands with all on the scaffold, took off his coat and collar, and arranged himself, a colour coming into his face after his eyes were covered. He knelt down, and as he uttered bur Saviour's name for the third time, the axe fell. So died Edward Seymour, who might have lived and died a noble and honourable country knight, had Henry VIII. never cast eyes on his fair sister. He was a man of some good qualities, some piety, and a certain generosity and sense of responsibility ; but these were overpowered by the besetting sin of the family, overweening pride, which made him rapacious in gaining and fierce in keeping, though lavish in giving and brooking no rivalry, and caused him to overthrow his brother. His religion was not insincere, but it was of the kind too frequent in his day, and viewed most of what the Church had taught before as mere superstition, and her revenues as the fair prey of all who could seize them, thus causing a most frightful amount of robbery and sacrilege. Fuller has picked up a story that as King Edward, while shooting at the butts, hit the mark, Northumberland called out, " Well shot, my liege." " But you shot nearer the mark," returned the king, " when you shot off my good uncle Somerset's head." From which reply, if trae, we should hardly suppose, as does Fuller, that grief for his uncle threw Edward into a consumption. Calvinism, however, seems to have had a fresh impulse. The foreigners had marked all they wished to have changed in the English Prayer-book. They took away all the Psalms or Anthems as introits before the Collects, except that for Easter Sunday ; they made away with the terms Mass and Altar, the use of oil in Baptism and Confirma tion, and the permission for extreme unction, also the sign of the cross in Confirmation and Matrimony. The prayers for the dead in the Communion and Burial services were taken away ; and the Holy Communion was administered with only the words, "Take, eat, &c," and the declaration about kneeling was inserted. On the other hand, the sentences, exhortation, confession, absolution and canticles, were added to matins and evensong ; the whole tendency being to make these two services, with preaching, more important than the Celebration of the Holy Eucharist, and to cut off as much ritual as possible. Neither '74 CAMEOS OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. Cranmer nor the clergy seem to have liked the alterations, but the young king declared to Sir John Cheke that if they were not accepted willingly, he should enforce them by his authority as head of the Church. It does not appear that Convocation ever did pass or approve this further altered Prayer-book ; though the parliament of 1552 sanc tioned it on the 6th of April, ordering it to come into use on the following All Saints' Day. Three editions were printed, but so badly that in September it was forbidden to issue any more of those already in print, and it does not seem as if many churches could have begun using it. At the same time forty-two Articles of Religion were drawn up under the direction of Archbishop Cranmer, to which every scholar on entering either University was required to subscribe, and according to which every minister was to undertake to teach when appointed to a benefice. They were in great part modelled on the Confession of Augsburg, and were intended to be such as might admit of many shades of opinion being honestly held, while excluding all actual heresy or false doctrine. The three that have been since rescinded related to delusions of the time, which died away in a few years. At the same time was put forth the Church Catechism, so far as the end of the explanation of the Lord's Prayer. It was authorised by Cranmer, and is said by some to have been drawn up by Alexander Nowell, who was then Second Master at Westminster School ; by others to have been the work of Godrich, Bishop of Ely, in whose palace are two stone tablets with the date I552, engraved with the Duty to God and the Duty to our Neighbour, an epitome of the teaching of the Commandments for which we may well be thankful. This Catechism was then part of the Confirmation service, as being what the children were required to know when coming to Confirmation. Indeed, they were actually examined in these answers ; nor was there1 at that time any vow made, save that implied in "Yes, verily, and by God's help so I will." In a sermon before the king, Bishop Ridley brought most strongly forward the piteous state of the beggars who were strolling about his diocese of London, deprived of the support of monasteries which had hitherto fed them. Young Edward was much touched, sent for the Bishop, thanked him, and desired him to consult with the Lord Mayor and Aldermen. Henry VIII. had made over sundry old foundations to the city, but nothing had been done to fit them for use, till now when things were vigorously set on foot, and on the 3rd of November, '552> a great number of sick and maimed people were taken into the hospital of St. Thomas on the site of the house of Gilbert Becket, father of the Archbishop, and at the same time 400 children were admitted to Christ's Hospital, to be taught, fed, and clothed as they are still, in the very costume of the time of King Edward. The palace of Bridewell was given over by the king for the correction' KING EDWARD'S SECOND PRAYER-BOOK. '75 of the vagabonds, and of such thriftless poor as deserved chastisement and to be kept to labour. Some other foundations were settled during this reign from the spoils of the monasteries, and generally are called after Edward's name, though they were chiefly planned in his father's time. ¦ John Knox was offered the Rectory of All Hallows, in London, but he would not pledge himself to any of the distinctively Catholic doctrines of the Church, and refused a bishopric which the young king wished him to take. Martin Bucer died soon after his installation at Cambridge, and was there buried. Peter Martyr's wife died at Oxford, and was laid in what had been the burial-place of St. Frideswid, in the cathedral. Cameo XVI. John Knox, 1552. CAMEO XVII. THE TWELFTH DAY QUEEN.' ('552-I553-) Cameo XVII. Illness of the King. 1552, King of England. Queen of Scotland. 1547. Edward VI. 1542. Mary. King of Spain and Emperor of Germany. 1519. Charles V. King of France. 1547. Henry II. Pope. 1550. Julius III. The Reformers in England had indeed made rapid progress, and hoped to overthrow mOre of what they deemed the dark remnants of super stition ; some acting out of sincerity, some out of greed. But an alarm came over them. The boy whom they had trained to be their instrument was dying. In the spring of 1552, poor young Edward VI., then only fifteen, noted in his diary: "April 2nd, 1552. I fell sick of the small-pox and measles. April 15th. The Parliament broke up because I was sick and unable to go abroad. I signed some bills, and sent the Lord Chancellor to dissolve them. " From this attack the youth never quite recovered. He continually caught cold all the summer, and in autumn a severe cough set in, under which he wasted away, so that in March, 1553, he was again ¦ unable to meet his Parliament. It is said that when he first came to the throne eight years before, he heard a voice in a dream saying, " Thou shalt reign seven ." At first he thought it meant seven days, but when he was alive and well at the end of a week he thought it was seven weeks, then again seven months, and that term having passed, he believed he should live seven years ; and as the seventh came in, the omen seemed about to be fulfilled, for every month took something from his strength. The boy himself, with those who surrounded him, had learnt to believe the old faith akin to Antichrist, and was barely withheld, by fear of the Emperor, from forcibly preventing his sister Mary from hearing mass in her own house. Indeed his own journal records his tears when the council absolutely refused to give cause of war by disregarding the THE TWELFTH DA Y QUEEN. 177 threats of the ambassador of Charles V. and coercing her. He did imprison one chaplain, and sent orders to the rest to abstain from all service save that in the Prayer-book. This order she would not allow to be made known, and when, four days after, the Council commanded the secular officers to hinder the Celebration in the old form, Robert Rochester made answer that they might send him to prison if they would, but that he would not carry such a message to his mistress. He was taken at his word, and sent to the Tower ; but no other officer of the household would do so, and Lord Chancellor Rich and some others were sent on a deputation to endeavour to reduce the Lady Mary to obedience, she being then at Copt Hall. Mary heard their business and replied : " Rather than use any service than that ordained during the life of my father, I will lay my head on a block ; but I am unworthy to suffer hi so good a cause. And though his Majesty, good sweet King, have more knowledge than any other of his years, yet it is not possible for him at present to be a judge of all things. For instance, if ships were to be sent to sea, I am sure you would not think him able to decide what were fit to be done, and much less can he, at his age, judge in questions of divinity. Howbeit, if my chaplain is to say no mass, I can hear none, nor can my poor servants. As to my priests, they know what they have to do. If they refuse to say mass for fear of imprisonment, they may act therein as they will, but none of your new service shall be said in any house of mine, and if any be said in it, I will not tarry in it an hour. " On the Emperor being mentioned, she said that she had in his own writing a statement of the promise made to him by the Council that she should be unmolested, letting them know that she should inform his ambassador. After she had dismissed them with a ring as a token to her brother, they called for the chaplains in the court outside, and threatened them, unless they ceased to use any form save that in the Common Prayer- book. Promises were given in the security that one of the priests had hidden himself, and thus would avoid being bound. He was missed, and while search was being made for him, Mary opened a window and called out to them to send home Rochester, who was comptroller of her household. " For since his departing," said she, " I have to take the accounts myself, and lo I have leamt how many loaves go to a bushel of wheat. I wis my father and mother never brought me up to brewing and baking. And to be plain with you, I am weary of my office ! I pray you may be well in your souls and in your bodies too, for some of you have but weak ones." This polite address, as Mary no doubt intended, put the Chancellor to flight before the remaining priest could be hunted up, so that he could carry on the service as usual. When she came to Hunsdon Manor, she was in the Diocese of London, and Bishop Ridley went to pay his respects, and endeavour to VOL. IV. N i78 CAMEOS OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. convince her. He was courteously received and entertained by Sir Thomas Wharton and her other gentlemen till eleven o'clock, when she came into her chamber of presence, and civilities passed between them, a conversation taking place about a wedding at which he had preached in her father's time. He then dined with her officers, and on his return to her presence, he told her that he came not only to visit her, but to offer to preach before her the next Sunday. " My Lord, as for this last matter, I pray you make the answer to it yourself," said the Princess. " Madam," said the Bishop, " considering mine office and calling, I am bound of duty to make to your grace this offer to preach before you." " I pray you," said Mary, " to make the answer to this matter your self, for you know the answer well enough ; but if there be no remedy but I must make you answer, this shall be your answer. The door of the parish church adjoining shall be open for you if you come, and you may preach if you list, but neither I nor none of mine shall hear you." "Madam, I trust you will not refuse God's Word," said the Bishop. To which Mary answered, "I cannot tell what you call God's Word. That is not His Word now that was His Word in my father's days." "His Word is one in all times, but hath been better understanded and practised in some ages than in others ! " Mary became angry and answered, "You durst not for your ears have vouched that for God's Word in my father's days that now you do. And as for your new books, I thank God I never read none of them, never did, and never will do." The special point that aggrieved her was that such important laws were passed in her brother's minority, and she held herself not bound to obey until he could judge for himself. There was much in favour of this argument, considering what base cliques they were that ruled the poor boy ; but Mary did not understand that she was reducing herself to the same state of incapable judgment by her refusal to look at both sides of the question. She asked the Bishop whether he were one of the Council, and when he said No, replied, " You might well enough, as. the Council goeth now." She ended by saying, " My Lord, I thank you for your gentleness to come to see me, but for your offering to preach before me, I thank you never a whit." Ridley then retired, and before departing drank a cup of wine, but then repented, and said to Sir Thomas Wharton that he had done ill to drink where the Word had been refused, when he ought instead to have shaken off the dust of .his feet. So vehemently did he speak that the bystanders "afterwards confessed their hair to stand upright on their heads ! " And now the young King was sinking out of the hands who used him as they would, and the crown was coming to this resolute woman, who so utterly despised and scorned the present Council, and viewed as invalid all that was done in her brother's nonage. THE TWELFTH DAY QUEEN. '79 What was to be done to preserve Dudley's power first, and secondly the cause of the Reformation ? which to a good many of the nobles did not so much mean the cause of pure doctrine and the English liturgy as the cause of their own pockets. The only plan was to raise a cry that the faith was in danger, and thus work on the dying boy, who was not old erough to be worldly, and had been bred up in detestation of Popery, viewing it in his sister with additional dislike because it was resistance to his will. Henry VIII. had so often declared his daughters legitimate or illegitimate, that no one could tell how he had regarded them, and in truth one could not have been born in lawful wedlock if the other was ; but it did not suit Dudley's purposes to bring Elizabeth forward, though she thoroughly conformed to the English ritual, and after the great shock of the Admiral's death had become so staid and sober in her dress and demeanour that the King, who was very fond of her, called her his "sweet sister Temperance." She was twenty-two, and Dudley had seen enough of her to know that she had a will of her own, and would never be ruled by a faction. Next in the succession stood the young Queen Mary of Scotland, but her marriage with the Dauphin removed her from all thought of the English as their Queen ; nor was it convenient to remember her aunt, Margaret Douglas, Countess of Lennox. After them, however, came Frances Brandon, the daughter of Mary Tudor. On the death of her two young half-brothers, her husband had been created Duke of Suffolk, but she had only three daughters, and it really did confirm the old belief that sacrilege led to the withering up and decay of families, that in the whole Tudor line there were nothing but female heirs to the boy who was dying at sixteen, the last male of his race. On the eldest of the Duke of Suffolk's three daughters Northumber land fixed his eyes. Suffolk himself was the descendant of Elizabeth Woodville by her first husband Sir John Grey, and had much of the love of learning of the Woodville race, though simple and meek in character, neither misliked nor much regarded, and following the stream so entirely that he was counted a warm friend to the Reformation. He had made his domestic chaplain, John Aylmer, tutor to his three daughters. Jane, the eldest, was a most eager student, and the pride of her master. John made her known to the great scholar Roger Ascham, who has put on record that she could speak French and Italian as well as English ; that she could write Latin exceedingly well, and had more than once spoken Greek, besides understanding Hebrew, Chaldee, and Arabic, and being also able to play, and sing, and work embroidery. He has left an often-quoted description of how when going to visit her parents at their house of Broadgate, in Leicestershire, he found all the family hunting deer in the park, save this one young girl, who sat reading the Pheede of Plato, the wonderful narrative of the last'hours of Socrates, the martyr to the light of philosophical religion, and how when he marvelled at her, she made answer, "All their sport N 2 iSo CAMEOS OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. in the park, I wis, is but a shadow to that pleasure I find in Plato. Alas ! good folk, they never knew what true pleasure meant." "And how," rejoined Ascham, "came you, madam, to this deep know ledge of pleasure, and what did chiefly allure you to it, seeing not many women, and very few men, have attained thereto ? " She answered, "Sir, God hath blessed me with sharp and severe parents and a gentle schoolmaster ; for when I am in the presence of either father or mother, whether I speak, keep silence, sit, stand or go, eat, drink, be merry or sad, be sewing, dancing, or doing anything else, I must do it as it were in such weight, measure and number, even as perfectly as the world was made, or else I am so sharply taunted and cruelly threatened, yea, presently sometimes with pinches, nips ' and bobs, and so cruelly disordered, that I think myself in hell, till the time come that I go to Mr. Aylmer, who teacheth me so gently, so pleasantly, with such fair allurements to learning, that I think all the time as nothing while I am with him, and thus my book hath been so much my pleasure, and bringeth daily to me more pleasure and more, that in respect of it all other pleasures in very deed be but trifles and very troubles with me." Poor Jane ! It was not a very amiable way of speaking of her parents. May it not be suspected that she was one of the first of the young ladies whose intellects are too much for outward graces, and that when she came back from Queen Catherine Parr's free and easy household she may have been an awkward girl, whom the nips and bobs of Duchess Frances were reducing to courtliness. Girls whom their tutors admire while they are a grievance to their mothers have not failed since her time. She had the characteristic dislike to finery backed by Puritanism ; for when blamed for not dressing more richly after the- fashion of the Lady Mary, she made reply, " Would you have me follow the Lady Mary contrary to God, and not the Lady Elizabeth according to God?" Jane was, with all her learning, a mere child, and grew up as she was trained, while the pertness of fourteen was magnified by the admiring reformers into a confession of faith. During a Court progress she was quartered on the Lady Mary at New Hall, and being taken by Lady Wharton into the chapel, saw her curtsey to the Blessed Sacrament reserved on the altar, and asked whether the Lady Mary were present, Lady Wharton said "No." " Then why do you curtsey? " asked the girl. " I curtsey to Him that made me," answered the elder lady. "But did not the baker make Him?" said the poor maiden, who had been bred to think it right to insult the doctrine of the Real, though Spiritual, Presence in the visible Elements. Lady Wharton reported this conversation to her mistress, who was much shocked, and never treated Jane quite in the same manner again, caring far more for this irreverence than for the girl's refusal to wear the rich dress she had given to her. THE TWELFTH DAY QUEEN. 1S1 The King does not seem to have been fond of his cousin Jane, at ' least he was indignant at the notion of her becoming his queen ; but as his health failed fast, Dudley had thought of a better expedient, and in May, 1553, brought to a conclusion the treaty he had made with Suffolk for the marriage of their children, and the wedding took place in the King's own presence ; Jane being married at fifteen to Guildford Dudley, Northumberland's fourth son, two years older, and her next sister, Katharine, to Lord Herbert, son of the Earl of Pembroke, though this last couple were too young to begin their married life ; for the Duke hoped to bind Pembroke to the interest of the Grey suc cession. A course of feasts was kept up at Durham House around the brides and bridegrooms, and the King, though not well enough to be present, sent frequent gifts and messages. Northumberland, early in June, saw that no time was to be lost, for the King was rapidly growing worse. Contriving that Mary and Elizabeth should be kept at a distance from their dying brother by delusive reports of his improvement, he worked upon young Edward's mind by representations of the overthrow of the godly work of the Reformation which would take place if the crown went to Mary, declaring that if she were excluded, Elizabeth must be, and assuring him that Frances Brandon was ready to resign her rights to her daughter Jane, whom all the Court viewed as a prodigy of wisdom and goodness only surpassed by the King himself. Edward had never been allowed to see much of his sisters. He had1 been encompassed with state ceremonies such as his hearty father would never have endured, and which shocked the French ambassadors, feeding, no doubt, his high opinion of his royal self. Elizabeth, the Venetian ambassador says, would have to drop on one knee five times before her brother before taking her seat, and if either princess dined with him she had to sit by herself on a stool or cushion at a distance from the royal table, where the dishes were placed by the lords and gentlemen, kneeling on one knee as they did so. He had been taught to think himself a young Josiah, and feared that Mary would be a Manasseh ; besides, he was thoroughly English himself by many descents, and looked with horror on the chance of either sister marrying a foreign prince to rule over England. So he listened willingly, and with his own hand drew up a rough draft of his will, settling the crown first on the Lady Frances' heirs male, then on the Lady Jane's heirs male, and then on her sisters' heirs male. So the King drew it up, but there was one alteration made in it, changing "the Lady Jane's heirs male "to " the Lady Jane and her heirs male," so that she stood first in the succession, her mother having no heirs. A fair copy having been made, Edward signed it three times — above, below, and on the margin. To make all secure, the Judges were sent for to the sick chamber at Greenwich, with the Attorney and Solicitor-General, and the King, ex plaining the purport of his settlement of the succession, commanded 1 82 CAMEOS OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. Cameo XVII. them to draw it up in legal form. It was so entirely illegal that they demanded time to study the Acts of Succession, and said they would bring back an answer in two days' time. The reply was that such a deed would be contrary to law, and that to draw it up would be treason. This they told first to the Lords of the Council, at which Northumberland burst in on them in a great fury, trembling with rage, calling them traitors, and declaring he was ready to fight in his shirt with any man in so just a quarrel. Then he sent them away, but they were summoned to attend the next dav, all but the Solicitor-General Gryffin. Then they were taken into the presence of the frail, dying boy, who nevertheless had in him all that fierce obstinacy of the Tudors which brooked no opposition. He asked them sharply why his command had not been obeyed. The Chief Justice, Sir Edward Montague, answered, that to obey would have been dangerous to them and of no service to his Grace, for the succession had been settled by statute, and could only be altered by Act of Parliament. Edward answered that he meant to have the deed of settlement executed now, and ratified in the Parliament which was to meet in September, and he commanded the Judges on their allegiance to obey him. The Lords of the Council stood round, upbraiding and threaten ing the Judge, and Montague yielded, provided he might have, under the Great Seal, an order to draw up the deed, and a full pardon for having drawn it. The other two Judges then consented, the deed was drawn up, and twenty-three of the Council signed it ; but the Archbishop was not present, being no friend of Dudley's, and when it was offered to him for signature he desired to see the King. This was granted, but he found the Lords Northampton and Darcy present, and he begged to see the King alone ; but Northumberland rebuked him for exceeding his powers by endeavouring to move the King from his will. The deed, which was called the King's device, was brought forward for signature, but Cranmer said it would be treason on his part, since he had signed the settlement by King Henry on the Lady Mary. The Councillors answered that they had all signed it, and that their consciences were at ease on the matter, to which the Archbishop rejoined that no man's conscience but his own could be a rule for him. Then he was told that the law officers had pronounced the King capable of disposing of his crown by will, but this did not move Cranmer, and Northumberland then admitted him, as a last expedient, to the chamber of the King. The boy was evidently near death, and perfectly determined, be lieving religion itself at stake, and he implored Cranmer, his godfather, not to stand out and refuse to sanction his will, so earnestly that the Archbishop, awed by the dying condition of the young Edward, and feeling his entreaties doubly binding, consented to set his name to the THE TWELFTH DAY QUEEN. 183 deed, which deprived the two sisters and made Jane heiress of the j Cameo crown. | _ After this Edward grew rapidly worse, and there was a report Death of among the people that Northumberland had placed him in the care of i ™"!" ' an- ignorant old woman, who had done him so much harm that he I was dead or dying. The sisters, alarmed, set out to see him, and a huge assembly of people assembled before the Palace of Greenwich calling out for their young King. Edward was supported to the window, and once more looked out upon the people, making them feeble signs of his good will. His last signature seems to have been to a yearly provision of 700 marks and a grant of beds and bedding to Bridewell Hospital, which was then supposed to be a charity rather than a prison. After this he sank rapidly, but his two sisters, who had both set forth to see him, were turned back by reports that he was much better, while he was actually dying. The physicians it was said were then recalled, and found it too late to save him ; but as his lungs were fatally diseased, it is not likely that anything could have prolonged his life for many months. He died on the evening of the 6th of July, 1553, his last connected prayer being that his people might be saved from papistry. Then, exclaiming, "lam faint ; Lord Jesus, receive my spirit ! " he sank back and died in the arms of Sir Henry Sidney. He had been pious and good according to his training, an eager student, with already an iron will and strong determination not to be opposed, and apparently without very warm affections, though of the real character of a boy, living such an unnatural life, it is not easy to judge. Northumberland's first endeavour was to gain time by concealing the King's death. The guards had been doubled, and no one was allowed to enter the sick chamber. The Council, as soon as the breath had left the boy's body, met and agreed on their measures, and a letter was written and sent off to each princess, bearing a message from the King that he was very ill and desired to see her, the intention of course being to capture her as soon as she arrived. Sir William Cecil seems to have warned Elizabeth, who was either ill or pretended so to be ; but Mary actually set off, and had gone as far as Hoddesden, when she was met by her goldsmith, who told her that she was deceived and that her brother was dead. She asked how lie knew: it, and he replied that he had been sent by Sir Nicholas Throckmorton, who had witnessed the King's decease. This made Mary mistrustful, for Nicholas Throckmorton was a strong Calvinist, and she thought he was laying a trap to induce her to be proclaimed Queen in her brother's lifetime, and thus become guilty of treason, so adding, "If Robert had been at Greenwich I would have risked all things, and gaged my life on the leap." The elder brother, Robert, she knew to be her friend. The younger was more trustworthy than she thought him, being resolved not to see her entrapped. She turned aside and rode towards Sawston Hall, near Cambridge, where Mr. Huddleston, a zealous. 1 84 CAMEOS OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. Roman Catholic, received her. It is said that the next day, as she rode on to Kenninghall, she saw it in flames, having been set on fire by a Cambridge mob, and promised to build Mr. H uddleston a better house ; but this is strange, since the news of Edward's death had not yet got abroad. Having, as he thought, gained two days, Northumberland sent for the Lord Mayor and some of the Aldermen and other citizens, to whom he declared Edward's death, and showed his will and letters patent making Jane his successor. The Lord Mayor and his followers were convinced, and swore allegiance to the Lady Jane as their Queen, binding them selves also under heavy penalties not to divulge these secret passages till they should have permission from the Council. Jane herself was at Chelsea, knowing nothing of all this, neither of her nomination by her young cousin, nor of his death ; and on the 9th, when everything was prepared, Lady Sidney, the daughter of North umberland, brought her orders to repair to Sion House, and there await the King's orders. She obeyed, and never found out the King's death, though her father- in-law, and Lords Northampton, Arundel, Huntingdon, and Pembroke came to visit her, and treated her with a respect and formality which, accustomed as she was to nips and bobs, began to alarm her, as she remembered that hints of greatness had been given to her. Soon after her mother and mother-in-law came in together, and the Duke then told her of the King's death, and explained to her that she had been appointed as his successor, with the reasons, after which all the lords present, her husband and his father among them, fell on their knees and did homage to her. The poor, girl, in consternation, gave a shriek and fainted away. On her recovery, she besought that this might not be laid on her, and even refused her consent ; but what could a young creature of sixteen do against her father and mother, her husband and his parents, who on the one hand threatened her with harsh usage, on the other hand persuaded her, and bade her not hold back and peril the cause of the Gospel for faintheartedness ? She yielded at last, and, as she afterwards wrote to Mary — "I turned myself to God, humbly praying and entreating Him that, if this which was given to me were rightly and lawfully mine, His Divine Majesty would give me such grace and spirit that I might govern to His glory and the welfare of this realm." When she had recovered from the shock, and had been arrayed for the occasion, Jane was taken by water to the Tower. She entered it in state, her train being borne by her mother, and at her entrance the Lord Treasurer presented her with the crown, while her relations saluted her on their knees. At six the same evening heralds proclaimed around the city of London the death of Edward , and the accession of Jane, and a printed paper, signed by her, was sent round to make the grounds of her claim known; but the Londoners saw in it nothing but the pretentions of an upstart family, and not one creature cried, "Bless the new Queen," though THE TWELFTH DAY QUEEN. '35 only one voice was heard against her, and that was traced to an unlucky vintner's boy, who the next morning was punished by the loss of his ears, by way of inclining him to Queen Jane. " They have made this poor young lady but a Twelfth Day Queen," said De Noailles, the French ambassador. In the meantime Mary had safely reached her own house at Ken ninghall, and thence she sent off a letter to London, claiming her rights as Queen. It arrived the day after the proclamation, but no heed was taken of it. Meantime Mary had set up her royal standard at Framlingham, and caused herself to be proclaimed as Queen. The people of Norfolk and Suffolk hated the name of Dudley on account of the cruelties with which he had punished Kett's rebellion, and they flocked round her to the number of 13,000, including all the gentry, among them Thomas Howard, son of the Duke of Norfolk, who had been in prison through out the last reign. Six ships of war were making for Yarmouth, having been sent by Dudley to carry artillery and stores for the siege of Mary's castle. Sir Henry Jerningham. was at Yarmouth when they arrived, and went out in a boat to hail them. The sailors demanded what he wanted. "Your captains," he said, "who are rebels to your lawful Queen, Mary." "If so," said the sailors, "we will throw them into the sea, for we are her true subjects." Thereupon the captains sur- xendered themselves, and the ships were taken possession of by Queen Mary. At the same time the Council in the Tower had sent out Sir Edward Hastings, whose brother, the Earl of Huntingdon, was to marry a daughter of Northumberland, to raise troops for Jane ; but Hastings was son to the only daughter of Lord Montague, that brother of Cardinal Pole, who had been executed by Henry VIII. Mary wrote to him as a cousin, and he immediately proclaimed her at the head of the forces he had raised for Jane, sending to Framlingham to offer to storm Westminster Palace itself for her. Placards were set up on Queenhithe Church on the 1 6th of July, proclaiming Mary's right, and the nobles began to desert the Council in the Tower ; but Mary did not accept Hastings's offer, writing to desire him to dismiss his militia and come to her at Framlingham. The Earls of Bath and Sussex likewise left the Council and joined her, and the whole country was rising on her behalf. Northumberland saw the difficulty was far greater than he had expected, and he wanted to send Jane's father, the Duke of Suffolk, to command the forces against Mary, while he himself remained to keep the city in allegiance to her. But Suffolk was a weak, good-natured man, whom every one knew to be no general ; those who were ' under him distrusted him, and his daughter could not endure that he should run into danger on her account ; so there was a general outcry against his going; and North- iS6 CAMEOS OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. umberland was forced to set forth himself to take the command ; but he was much out of spirits ; and as he rode though the streets of London at the head of his troops, he said to Sir John Gates, " The people crowd to look on us, but not one cries ' God speed ye.' " On Sunday Bishop Ridley preached from St. Paul's Cross in favour of Queen Jane, explaining the defects in Mary's right, and dwelling on her enmity to the Gospel, as shown in her recent rejection of himself, and exhorting them to maintain the cause of truth ; but the sermon fell flat, for the people did not see in Queen Jane anything but the puppet of the Council, which the more part hated far more than they loved the changes in religion. To have had two new Prayer-books in five years was no satisfaction to these Londoners, who were sure, like all Englishmen, to hate innovations. They had loved King Harry with all his faults, and had no liking for upstarts. Northumberland, on arriving at Cambridge, had another sermon preached there that same Sunday against Mary by Dr. Edwin Sandys, the Vice-Chancellor of the University, during which a yeoman of the guard held up to the public derision a missal and a grayle, or gradual (a book of chants), which had been taken from the sack of Mr. Huddle- ston's house ; and then he marched on to Bury. His army was smaller than Mary's ; but it consisted of trained bands well disciplined, and some hired from foreign nations, while hers was only of the gentlemen and commonalty of the country, whom he could probably have defeated, and thus driven Mary to the coast to take ship for Flanders ; but he saw too plainly that the whole spirit of the country was against him, and Queen Mary's Council had proclaimed him a traitor, and set a price on his head. So he went back to Cambridge, and then heard that Suffolk had not been able to keep the rest of the Council within the Tower, but that they had gone to Baynard's Castle, and there the Earl of Arundel had brought them all over to Mary's cause. The Earl of Pembroke proclaimed Queen Mary from St. Paul's Cross, amid loud shouts of joy from all the people. Te Deum was sung in the Cathedral ; there were bonfires, illuminations, and all the tokens of joy that had been wanting at Jane's proclamation. On the next day, the 26th of July, just twenty after her royal state began, Lady Guildford Dudley was taken back to Sion House. Her whole time during her brief reign had been rendered miserable by her husband and his mother, because, though she would have made him a duke, she had made up her mind that she ought not to make him a king. He scolded, tormented, and upbraided her, and then sulked, and, by persuasion of his mother, as Jane thought, left her alone both by day and night. She fancied, too, that his mother had given her poison, in consequence of which — as she declared in her letter to Mary — all her hair fell off; but this was probably the nervous fancy of a prisoner, who attributed to poison the failing health, which was the effect of captivity and anxiety. The moment she was gone, the Lords THE TWELFTH DA Y QUEEN 1S7 of the Council united in sending orders to Northumberland to disband his forces and accept Queen Mary. Northumberland had already done so ; he had seen his cause lost, and hoped at least to save his own life by being the first to proclaim Queen Mary in the market-place, tossing his cap in the air, though with the tears running down his cheeks. Beside him stood the Vice-Chancellor, Edwin Sandys, who scorned his weakness ; and when the Duke began to talk of Queen Mary's mercy and general pardon, could not resist bidding him not flatter him self, for whoever else escaped, he would not. An hour after Sir John Gates's own retainer arrested him when he was undressing, with his boots half off, and unable to fight or fly. However, Gates did not escape, for Arundel arriving the next morning, arrested both him, Sandys, and Northumberland, and sent them off to the Tower. Some of his party, including his son, Robert, and the Marquis of North ampton, went on to Framlingham to see what submission would do, and so did Bishop Ridley ; but they were all sent to the Tower for security's sake. Mary had had only to assert her right to make her adversaries' schemes fall to pieces of themselves, and now, free of all enemies, on the last day of July set forth for her capital, and her sister Elizabeth set forth on the same day to meet her. At Ipswich, her first stage, she met Mr. Secretary Cecil, who offered such excuse for having acted as the tool of the Council that she forgave him, though she never would give him office. At Wanstead, Mary dismissed her army— a great proof of confidence in her citizens — but at the same time sent orders to arrest Suffolk and his daughter, and lodge them in the Tower ; but Duchess Frances hurrying to Wanstead, made such representations of the state of her husband's health, that Mary consented to his release, though Lord and Lady Guildford Dudley were still kept in ward, nor does the Duchess seem to have interceded for them. The two sisters met at Wanstead, and made their entrance into London together, on the 3rd of August, 1553, through the Aid Gate, on the top of which were perched the Christ's Hospital boys, singing welcome ; and all the streets were hung with tapestry, and lined with the guilds and crafts in their appropriate dresses, while the Lord Mayor and his aldermen, in their full state of robes and collars, met and received their Queen. She rode a small white horse, with gold-fringed housings, and was dressed in violet mourning for her brother. She looked her full forty- three years, and was worn with care and ill-health ; small in stature and spare of figure, but with the majesty of her race in her dark eyes. Elizabeth, at twenty-two, with her father's bright blue eyes, yellow locks and fair skin, a figure small indeed, but looking imposing from her stately bearing; "her lion port and awe-commanding face" took people's fancy far more as a true Tudor princess ; but both alike out- 1 88 CAMEOS OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. Cameo XVII. Entrance of Elizabeth. '553- shone the poor little Puritan's gentle, thoughtful, though resolute face •and studiously simple dress. Mary rode direct for the Tower, where she was received by a strange and touching group, all kneeling on the green, in front of the church of St. Peter in the Fetters, being the state prisoners of her father's and brother's time. There were Gertrude, Marchioness of Exeter, and her son, Edward Courtenay, Earl of Devon, both prisoners ever since Edward had been ten years old, for the crime of being descended from Edward IV. ; there was the Duke of Norfolk, the sentence of death given seven years before, in Henry's time, still hanging over his head ; there were the Bishops of Durham and Winchester, Cuthbert Tunstal and Stephen Gardiner, prisoners for their constancy to the Church ; there was the widowed Duchess of Somerset, captive for her husband's ambition ; and further off Northumberland, his sons, and poor Lady Jane. Gardiner pronounced a short congratulation, which must have come from his heart as he felt that the reign of Calvinistic factions was over, and that the true daughter of his old master was coming in, by the will of her people, to show herself indeed an obedient child of the Church. Mary burst into tears at the sight of the foremost group. " Ye are my prisoners," she said, and she went from one to the other, kissing them and raising them from the ground, as she assured them of their liberty and restoration ; and she sent a gift of eightpence on the same day to every poor householder in the city, at the same time issuing wholesome orders that every one was to abstain from miscalling others either idolators or heretics, and promising liberty of conscience ; but another proclamation soon followed, declaring that religion was to be guided by common consent. She felt obliged to form her Council of those lords who had seceded from that of Northumberland, adding to them some of her father's old ministers, especially the Bishops Gardiner and Tunstal, the first of whom had more influence with her than any one else. She made the Marchioness of Exeter lady of the bedchamber, and took her to sleep with her, and the three daughters of Somerset became maids of honour, while their brother was restored to the marquisate of Hertford, but not to the dukedom of Somerset. The young Earl of Devon hung about the court full of ambitious fancies ; but though he was handsome and graceful, he was totally uneducated, and showed himself weak and foolish. The poor young King was lying unburied all this time at Greenwich, and Mary's first care was to provide for his funeral in Westminster Abbey, which seems to have been conducted by Archbishop Cranmer on the 9th of August. It is thought that he celebrated ; and it is known that Day, whom he had deprived of the Bishopric of Chichester, preached a political sermon in which he reviled all the late King's advisers. If Cranmer were present, it must have been by special • permission, for he was confined to the precincts of Lambeth by order of the Council as a partizan of Jane. THE TWELFTH DAY QUEEN. 1 89 1 Mary in the meantime had a dirge and requiem performed for her brother in her private chapel in the Tower, where it is said one of her chaplains thrust aside a married clergyman who was about to cense the Queen, as if his officiating there were profanation. The new Queen stood strangely and sadly alone, for every councillor had been against her at one time or other, and almost all had so wavered in attachment to the Church that she could not trust them. She wrote to her cousin, the Emperor, whose able envoy, Simon Renard, had kept him informed of the progress of affairs in a correspondence which is one of the best authorities for the events of the time. Charles V. had always been her staunch friend, and she wrote to ask his counsel on the treatment of those who had conspired against her, on her own marriage, and on the restoration of the Church in her country. On the first head the Emperor's advice was excellent. She was to blend justice with mercy, make examples of the worst offenders, but spare the rest. Accordingly, out of the twenty-seven prisoners in her hands, Mary marked out seven for trial, Northumberland, his son, Warwick, Sir Andrew Dudley, Sir John and Sir Henry Gates, and Sir Thomas Palmer. Nothing would persuade her to include in the list Jane Grey and her husband, whom she viewed as a mere girl and boy, the puppets by Northumberland's ambition ; and she was strengthened in this by the long letter which Jane addressed to her, of which the English original is lost, but two Italian translations exist, probably made for the benefit of the Pope and the Emperor. Renard and his master held her lenity to be a mistake ; but Mary would not be argued out of it, declaring that she did not even believe that Jane was Guildford's wife, since an old contract had been broken by their marriage, and she was certain to make no future attempt, adding that precautions to that effect might be taken before her release. The seven were tried, the peers of course, by their peers, and with the Duke of Norfolk, so lately their prisoner, acting as high steward. Northumberland's defence was that he had acted under the warrant of the Great Seal and the coercion of the Council ; but such a plea could of course not stand in justice, when he had used the Great Seal himself, and he was condemned to die as a traitor. He made request to the Queen for an able divine to prepare him for death, for mercy to his children, and that he might be beheaded, to all of which Mary acceded. Sir John Gates and Sir Thomas Palmer were also condemned, only three out of twenty-seven, proving indeed that Mary was a merciful woman when only her personal affairs were at stake. Northumberland's request for a divine of the Queen's was perhaps an attempt to melt her heart ; but he seems at heart to have been more inclined to the Catholic faith than to the Calvinism he so boldly avouched, for he had been known to say to Sir Antony Browne, that "he certainly thought best of the old religion ; but seeing a new one begun, run dog, run devil, he would go forward." 190 CAMEOS OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. Cameo. XVII. Execution of Northum. berlanl. 1553- Gates and Palmer were also convicted, and all three met On the scaffold, where they professed to forgive one another, but exchanged reproaches with being the cause of their failure. Then Northumberland made a long speech, in which he upheld the Catholic religion, and expressed much contrition, and then repeating the Miserere, De Profundis, and Paternoster, laid his head on the block with the words, "Into thy hands I commend my spirit," and adding that he deserved a thousand deaths. Gates made a somewhat remarkable confession. He said he had been as great a reader of Scripture as any man of his age, and a worse follower of it than any man living, for all he sought was food for arrogance and disputation ; and he cautioned men how they read what was better left alone than taken in a wrong spirit. Palmer made a dignified speech, saying he thanked God for having made him know more in that little dark cell in the Tower than in all his life before. "There," said he, "I have seen God for what He is. I have seen myself thoroughly and what I am ; I have seen the world and how little it is worth ; and should I fear death or be sad therefore ? " Northumberland was buried before the High Altar of St. Peter of the Fetters in the Tower, where he lies in one line with his victim Somerset, .with Anne Boleyn, and Jane Seymour. So ended his endeavour to use the "new religion" as a stepping stone for his ambition. The others concerned with him remained in ward, but in a gentle captivity ; Jane and Guildford Dudley being allowed to walk in the Tower gardens, and Archbishop Cranmer so kept at Lambeth that every facility was offered him for escape, but he mis calculated his own constancy, and would not leave his post. CAMEO XVIII. WYATT'S REBELLION. ('553— 1554-) Queen of England. Queen of Scotland. King of France. 1553. Mary. 1549. Mary. 1547. Henri II. King of Spain and Emperor of Germany. Pope. 1519. Charles V. 1550. Julius III. Few persons were ever more lonely than was Mary Tudor when she found herself Queen at thirty-seven years old. She had been kept apart all her life from making friends, and she had no one whom she could fully trust, save her cousins, Charles V. and Reginald Pole, and perhaps Bishop Gardiner. Reginald sent her letters from Rome, urging her to decide on a single life, so as better to preserve the love of her people, and thus bring them to be reconciled to the Holy See. But Mary felt the necessity of leaning upon some one, and thought over the three matches possible to her — Reginald himself, who, though a Cardinal, had made no vow of celibacy, and whose banishment had been for his staunchness to her mother's cause ; young Edward Courtenay, Earl of Devon, a selection which would have charmed her people, and which she may have con sidered for a few days, for the Earl was very handsome, with the Plantagenet beauty, and of graceful mariners, but his education had been totally neglected, his liberation from the Tower threw him off his balance, and he was falling into vice and dissipation, and he also was evidently preferring his more attractive cousin Elizabeth. The third choice was of Philip, Prince of the Asturias, whom the Emperor, his father, offered to her, and in whose favour she at once decided. The Papal envoy, named Commendone, with some difficulty made his way to Mary, and delivered to her letters from Julius III., when she mentioned to him her intention of marrying the prince, and of doing all that in her lay to restore the kingdom to the Roman Church, begging that Cardinal Pole might be sent to her, though she soon was CameoXVII. Mary 192 CAMEOS OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. obliged to follow this up by another letter to say that he must not come as Papal Legate, since the people would not yet endure the notion of one. In fact, though her counsellors were divided in other matters, all were averse to the Spanish marriage. Friar Peto, who had nearly suffered for a bold sermon in defence of her mother, roundly wrote to her that she would be a mere slave to a young husband, and that her age did not give reason to hope that she could bring heirs to the crown ; .and Gardiner, whom she had made Lord Chancellor, was unwilling to add England to the already huge dominions of the House of Austria, or to have that part of Henry's work undone in which he had heartily concurred, namely, the assumption of the supremacy of the crown. Mary made a wise answer to this : " Women have no right to speak in Church. How then should the Church have a dumb head ? " Mary's headship for the present enabled her to restore the deprived Bishops and turn out the intruders ; but she did not attempt to forbid the use of the Anglican service ; only she had, as before, Mass cele brated in full form in her own presence, and showed herself pleased when her example was followed. Banished or fugitive priests, or those who had unwillingly conformed, took up the old Latin ritual, but those who had accepted the new order of things preached vehe mently against the return of the old superstition. There was a riot at a Church in the Horsemarket, on an attempt to celebrate Mass, and the Council reprimanded the priest ; and the Queen, sending for the Lord Mayor, ordered him to repress all tumults. However, when only the next day the Queen's chaplain, Bourne, in preaching at St. Paul's Cross, spoke of the late despoiling of the Catholic Bishops, there was a cry, " Pull him down ! ". and a dagger was thrown at him. He escaped with difficulty into the Cathedral, escorted by Bradford and Rogers, two reformed priests. Elizabeth would not attend Mass in her sister's household, and held out all the month of August, though early in September she yielded, and even wrote to the Emperor to ask leave to procure in Flanders the furniture of an Altar — which looks as if her compliance had been from fear of the Spanish influence. In Canterbury Cathedral the Vice-Dean restored the Mass, without information to the Archbishop, who was under arrest at Lambeth. On receiving the intelligence Cranmer instantly wrote an indignant letter to a friend, which, however, he did not send ; but it was read by his friend Bishop Scorey, who begged for a copy; and who probably was the person who spread it abroad in MS. copies all over London, where it was publicly read at Cheapside. In it Cranmer indignantly refuted the allegation that he had sanc tioned the old form of the Mass in Canterbury, or had thus officiated at Edward's funeral ; and he offered, with the assistance of " Mr. Peter Martyr," and four or five others, to defend the present English Canon on the grounds of Scripture -and primitive usage. It delighted, the Reformed, but the Court viewed it as a defiance, and Cranmer was WYATTS REBELLION. '93 summoned to the Star Chamber, where he was treated with much civility, and told that if he would express sorrow for the circulation of a document which, as he avowed, had got abroad without his con sent, the matter might drop. To this, however, the Archbishop replied that he had only regretted the publication of his letter because he meant to have revised it, and made it fuller, to have sealed it with the archiepiscopal seal, and to have had it set up on the doors of all the London churches. He was remanded to Lambeth, and there the Council, who wished for nothing so much as that he should follow his wife and children to Germany, and rid them of the difficulty of dealing with him, sent Bishop Gardiner to offer to withdraw his licence to act as Archbishop, and give him an income as a private gentleman without molesting him farther. Cranmer refused this offer, and remained at Lambeth till Queen Mary, on the 14th, caused him to be taken to the Tower ; but there he, with his old friends, Bishops Ridley and Latimer, John Bradford, Lady Jane, and the young Dudleys, were allowed the freedom of the Tower, and lived in society together as they might have done in any castle, except that they might not walk beyond the gardens. In the meantime Parliament and Convocation had both met, both as usual prepared to do exactly what their sovereign chose to tell them ; indeed the Reformed cause was deprived of all the heads, who were accustomed to lead either in Church or State. Most of them had been guilty of treason in supporting Jane, and were either prisoners or fugitives, or were afraid to assert themselves. Only six clergymen in Convocation opposed the reversal of all that had been done in the last reign. The Prayer-book was denounced as " very abominable," and the Forty-two Articles as " pestiferous and full of heresies ; " and when the six brave clergy tried to argue, they were put down by being told that debates were contrary to the Queen's pleasure, "and," said the Prolo cutor, Dr. Weston, her spokesman, " ye have the word, but we have the sword." The use of Sarum was preferred by many, but the Court encouraged the Roman use, and it was decreed that after the 20th of December no service should be used but such as had prevailed before King Henry's death, thus returning to the older forms of the Mass itself, whichever might be preferable, but leaving it possible to use the English Litany and read the Lessons in English, and no doubt many did this ; while the more ardent of the Reformed refused to make any change, and some began to prepare for flight to the German or Flemish dominions of Charles V. or to Switzerland. Martin Bucer had died just before King Edward, but Peter Martyr fled, leaving his wife buried in Christ Church Cathedral at Oxford, in the very shrine of S. Fridiswid herself. Meantime the preparations for the coronation were going on ; Mary formed her household, showing warm affection to all whom she viewed as faithful, especially the old Earl of Sussex, whom she actually favoured vor •" n 194 CAMEOS OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. with a patent under the Great Seal authorising him to wear his cap, coif, or nightcap, or any two of them, in her presence, he being apparently afraid of standing bareheaded. She took up her abode in the Tower, accompanied by her sister, and there, on Michaelmas-day, made her new knights, not, however, taking the sword herself, but committing it to the Lord Steward, the Earl of Arundel. At three o'clock the next day she made her public proces sion through London, in a splendid litter, supported by six white horses with trappings of cloth of silver. She wore a dress of blue velvet furred with ermine, and a caul of gold beset with pearls, so heavy that she was fain to hold up her head with her hand. Then came an open carriage with Elizabeth, and the survivor of Mary's five step mothers, Anne of Cleves, and after them no less than seventy ladies, the most noble four together in chariots, the others on horseback, themselves and their palfreys alike richly decked, and it is pleasant to find that among them was Mis. Roper's daughter, Mrs. Basset, in whom the family talent had not declined, for she had translated the Church history of Eusebius from Greek into English. The Queen slept at Whitehall, and was crowned the next day at Westminster, with all the accustomed pomp and glory of English royalty. The officiating Bishop was Stephen Gardiner of Winchester ; and Elizabeth and Anne of Cleves were kept close by her side. Elizabeth carried the crown from the Abbey Church to Westminster Hall on a cushion. She complained to the French ambassador, De Noailles, that it was very heavy. ' ' Madame will not find it so heavy," answered the courtly Frenchman, "when it is on her own head." De Noailles was indeed Elizabeth's chief ally in the court, or so appeared to be, for his great object was to banish the Spanish influ ence for the present, and to secure the succession to the young Mary of Scotland, wife of the Dauphin, and with this purpose he sowed dissension between the sisters with his whispers to Elizabeth, while Simon Renard, the Flemish ambassador of the Emperor, viewed her as a dangerous influence, and lost no opportunity of setting the Queen against her. The Queen, left to herself, showed much kindness and consideration to her young sister, and felt for her when, on an Act being passed establishing Mary's legitimacy, Elizabeth hotly resented it as denying her own, and wanted to leave the court. Mary tried to propitiate her with a handsome string of pearls, and showed her that nothing had been said about her ; and that it was better to leave the matter untouched. Those at the Court who held the Spaniards in aversion longed for the coming of Reginald Pole, and the Pope was most anxious to send him off; but the English nation were known to have a horror of a Legate, and it was held they would suspect his appointment as such, even if it were rot annminrprl - and. on trip nthpr Tian/1 flip WYA TT'S REBELLION. '95 Spaniards held that the Pope's dignity was compromised by concealing his rank. The Emperor believed Pole to be anxious to prevent Mary from marrying Philip, nay, perhaps to intend marrying her himself ; and when the Cardinal set forth with a grand retinue provided by the Pope, he was met on the borders of Flanders, and informed that it was not the Emperor's pleasure that he should at present proceed ; so he remained at the monastery of Dillengen on the Danube, the guest of the Cardinal Archbishop of Augsburg. Mary's mind was, however, too much set on the Spanish match to be turned aside from it. Her cousin the Emperor was the only person who had never swerved in his kindness to her, and though she had never seen him, her heart naturally yearned to the kinsman of the mother who had suffered so cruelly. In all her errors, virtues, and faults alike, poor Mary was a thorough woman, with just enough of the Tudor force of character to persist vehemently in whatever she did. Gardiner remonstrated in vain, and the House of Commons sent up an address begging of her to marry, but only to give herself to an Englishman, and by no means to any foreigner. Mary thought this was Gardiner's doing ; her Tudor pride arose, and she declared that she would be a match for his cunning. So that evening she sent for Simon Renard, and taking him into her private oratory, she knelt before the Altar, where the Holy Sacrament was enshrined, repeated the Veni Creator, and called God to witness that while she lived she would never wed any save Philip, Prince of the Asturias. This was on the last of October, and for a fortnight she was too ill to meet the Commons ; but when she did so, on the 17th of November, she gave them a sharp rebuke, telling them that the mar riages of her predecessors had always been free ; which was true enough ; but the choice of a Queen Consort was a very different thing from the marriage which would bring in a foreign dynasty, or make England a dependency of Spain. Leaving this parliament only time to conclude the necessary business, Mary then dissolved it early in December. The marriage was almost as much dreaded by the French as by the English, and Noailles was sparing no intrigue against it. His plan was for Elizabeth and Courtenay to marry, and, at the head of a patriotic and Reformation party, to claim the crown, in which case their success would secure the English alliance to France, or their fall would clear away one competitor for the throne from the path of Mary of Scotland. The French Embassy became a place of plotting and secret confer ence for such as hated the Spanish match, whether Catholic or Re formed ; Courtenay himself was often there at midnight ; but Noailles wrote to Henry II. that he was so timid that he would allow himself to be taken rather than act. Elizabeth herself was much too wise to become involved in such a plot. She might listen to the delicate flatteries of Noailles, and coquet with her handsome cousin, but no CAMEOS OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. deeper would she go. However, Noailles wrote that the plotters meant to kidnap her, take her into Devonshire, marry her by force to Courtenay, and raise the western counties in their favour. Elizabeth continued to petition her sister to allow her to retire to one of her country houses, and Mary had given permission, when Renard came forward to accuse her of plots against his master, and she was kept a prisoner in her own apartments, while her household was examined on her doings. It was even asserted by Renard that she had held interviews with Noailles at midnight, and a very unseemly alterca tion took place between the two ambassadors on the subject. Never was there such an unbecoming interference on the part of foreign ministers, and no wonder the English blood rose against it. Renard wanted to have Elizabeth sent to the Tower, but Mary heard her in her own justi fication, and she fully cleared herself, as did all her household, from any such unmaidenly act, or from any such unprofitable conspiracy. So with much kindness and a handsome present from Mary, Elizabeth was allowed to depart for Ashridge, in Buckinghamshire. In the beginning of January, what had been dreaded, when rumoured, began to be openly carried out. One of the most splendid and bravest of the Flemish nobles, Lamoral, Count of Egmont, and' Prince of Guevres, landed in Kent, formally to demand the Queen's hand for his prince. He was a handsome, princely-looking man, and was taken for Philip himself, so that the men of Kent mobbed him, and he was in danger of being torn in pieces ; but he arrived safely, and made his master's proposals in full form to the Queen at Westminster. Mary answered that a lady could not discuss such a delicate subject in public, but the ambassador must confer with her ministers ; and, looking at her coronation ring, she added that her realm was her first husband, nor could she break her faith to her people. It would have been well if she could have understood what this declaration implied. The marriage treaty secured the government to herself, Philip was only to give her aid, and the son he already had, Don Carlos, would succeed to Spain, with Lombardy and Naples, while if any child should spring from this marriage, the Low Countries should be added to England ; but the Queen was never to be taken out of England without special request, nor any of her possible children without leave of her nobles ; and foreigners were to hold no offices in England, nor the country to be embroiled in any quarrel of the Emperor with France. Mary hoped that these articles would satisfy the English, but the only consequence was the outbreak of the displeasure that had long been brewing. All sorts of stories of the cruelty of the Spaniards, and the grim morose character of Philip, were current, and many said that the Queen had promised to marry no foreigner, and thus had for feited her right to the throne. Even the children played at the Queen's marriage, and the representative of Philip was hardly saved from being actually hanged. WYATT'S REBELLION. '97 In Devonshire there was a rising under Sir Peter Carew ; in the Midland counties one among the Grey vassals ; but the most dangerous was the plot nursed up by Noailles, in which most of the chief courtiers were concerned, in especial the Duke of Suffolk and his brothers, and Sir Thomas Wyatt, the son of Anne Boleyn's unhappy lover. He was a graceful, accomplished gentleman, and held the Queen's own faith ; but he had once formed part of an ambassador's suite in Spain, and there had been so horrified by the Inquisition, and the autos da fe", that he was ready to go to any length to hinder a Spaniard from gaining any power in England, and he was much worked on by the disgraceful Poynet, who had been intruded into the See of Winchester. Henry II. meantime sent 5,000 crowns for the promotion of the plot, wrote letters to Elizabeth, and made all manner of promises through his ambassador ; but it was the depth of winter, and it would not be easy to act, so it was decided to wait for Philip's actual arrival, and then carry off Elizabeth to Devon, marry her to the earl, and begin the rebellion ; but all this could not pass without suspicion ; letters in cypher from Elizabeth to the French king were seized on the 21st of January, and Bishop Gardiner forced from Courtenay the avowal of the whole scheme. The conspirators found that they were betrayed ; Suffolk went off to Warwickshire to take the command of his tenants, Sir James Croft to the borders of Wales, and Sir Thomas Wyatt to Kent, sending a letter by young Russell, the heir of the Earl of Bedford, to warn Elizabeth not to come to Court. The messenger was intercepted, and Mary of course summoned her sister to attend her ; but Elizabeth professed illness, and fortified her house at Ashridge. Suffolk's people are said to have proclaimed Queen Jane, but this does not seem certain ; at any rate they could not induce any one to join them, and were defeated near Coventry by the Earl of Huntingdon Their men dispersed, and Suffolk, fleeing alone, trusted to one of his tenants, named Underwood, who hid him in an hollow tree, but then betrayed him ; and he was brought back to the Tower as a traitor who had rebelled a second time, after a most kind forgiveness. Carew was also easily put down, and he fled to France ; but Wyatt's insurrection was much more formidable. Fifteen hundred armed men assembled around him at once at Rochester, where he took possession of his castle, and more flocked in, to the number of 5,000, as soon as the Duke of Norfolk advanced against him with the London trained bands under Captain Brett, and the more loyal men of Kent, led by their sheriff. But Brett was in league with Wyatt, and when the castle was to be stormed, turned round and asked his men if they could shed the blood of Englishmen who only wanted to save them from the dominion of foreigners. They cried out "A Wyatt ! a Wyatt !" and Sir Thomas just then appearing, they cheered him and joined his ranks. The Duke was forced to fly to Gravesend, and the insurgents, gathering in strength, advanced to Deptford, 15,000 in number. CameoXVIII. Risings against Mary. 1554- ig8 CAMEOS OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. There was great consternation at Westminster, where lawyers and clergy went about with armour under their robes, and Mary herself went to the city to stir up the loyalty cf the Lord Mayor and Aldermen, and made such an effective speech, sitting on her throne in the Guildhall, that the citizens threw up their caps, and cried, "Long live Queen Mary and the Prince of Spain ! " Loyalty to her was the predominant feeling, in which the "hot Gospellers," as they were called, warmly shared ; and such a defence was made, that Wyatt and his men were obliged to retreat from Southwark, where they plundered Bishop Gardiner's library so wantonly, that they waded knee deep in the leaves of torn books. The Queen was lodging at Whitehall, and at two in the morning there was an alarm that Wyatt was about to attempt an attack. Her ladies wept and wrung their hands, and all the Council intreated Mary to go off by the river to the Tower. A boat was ready, and Bishop Gardiner fell on his knees to intreat her to place herself in safety ; but she answered that she would not set the example of cowardice, and that if the Lords Pembroke and Clinton held their posts, there was no danger. At four in the morning a strong force of 10,000 men began to be drawn up in the fields and parks that then extended round Whitehall, and as the February morning came on, pouring with rain, they watched for the enemy, and saw them struggling along, about nine o'clock dragging their cannon through the mire. One great gun stuck, and the carriage breaking, made great delay ; many deserted Wyatt in the confusion ; among others Dr. Poynet, who, saying he would pray for their good success, made his way to the coast, and thence to Germany. One division attacked Whitehall. Mary stood in a gallery over the gate, watching a sharp fight in which her guards were beaten and driven in ; but the courtyards and gates were held against the enemy. Another division, under Wyatt himself, attacked the troops towards Ludgate Hill, among whom was Courtenay, who galloped off on his first advance, not choosing to fight against his own party. Wyatt made his way to the city gate and summoned the warder to open it, but the answer was "Avaunt, traitor! " and Wyatt joined the battle which was raging round Charing Cross and in front of the Palace. Courtenay actually rushed into the Queen's presence, told her all was lost, and advised her to fly ; but she saw through the device, so traitorous and cowardly, and declared that if she were to lose, she would rather die with the brave men who were fighting for her. Coming down from her gallery, she actually stood between two of her guards, within arquebus-shot of the enemy, while Pembroke charged them, for the last time, and bore them down, with cries of " Down with the draggle-tails ! " for they were covered with mud after their morning's march. Wyatt was driven down Fleet Street, from whence he could not escape, and sitting down exhausted by a fish-stall, near the Bel Sauvage WYA TT'S REBELLION. 199 Inn, a knight, named Maurice Berkeley, persuaded him to surrender to save further bloodshed, and brought him on the croup of his horse to the Tower. Mary then thanked her brave defenders in person ; but made a special exception of the Earl of Devon, and likewise of the Earl of Worcester who had shared his flight. The next day she came to Temple Bar to thank the citizens, but also to do the first deed which stained her history — to sign the death-warrant of Guildford Dudley and his wife for the treason of six months ago, for the poor young things had been guiltless of all share in the recent rising, having been captives in the Tower all the time. But unhappily for them the Queen had heard that Jane had been proclaimed by her father and uncles, and was so incensed by such ingratitude, that in the vehemence of the recent strife she listened to Renard and the others who had thought her leniency dangerous, and ordered them for execu tion the next day. All through their imprisonment Mary had sent her chaplain, Dr. Feckenham, to visit them constantly, in hopes of bringing them to renounce the English Church and turn to that of Rome ; and he went at once to offer to reconcile them to his Church. He was a kind man, of sweet disposition, and Jane had talked to him readily before. Now she told him that she was prepared for the tidings he brought her ; but that she could never return to the errors of Rome, and when he would have argued with her she replied, " Controversy may suit the living, but not the dying. If you do indeed pity me, sir, suffer me to be left alone to make my peace with God. " Feckenham then hastened back to the Queen, and obtained of her a reprieve of three days, since they both believed that, could they have brought her to die in their own Communion, she might at least have been admitted into purgatory, and thus saved in the end. But Jane, when he brought her back the tidings, said she had wished for no reprieve, but rather hoped for death, as her entry into eternal bliss. She then held the argument he desired with him, and even took full notes of it afterwards ; but she was not shaken one whit in her attachment to the faith which taught her to look full on her Saviour, and she rejected all he adduced as of human invention. She then wrote a letter to her father, and on the blank leaves of a Greek Testament another letter to her sister Katharine, in Greek also, no doubt to prevent its being read and commented on by her guards. The earlier part of the letter dwelt on the preciousness of Holy Scripture, and the dearness of the doctrine to her soul, with a warm exhortation to Katharine not to swerve from the truth, bidding her rejoice at her death, which would deliver her from corruption into ineorruption. The letter and book are 6till preserved. Katharine was a mere child as yet, whose marriage was considered as invalid, and overthrown by Lord Herbert, and who afterwards had a sad little romance of her own. CAMEOS OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. What messages passed between Jane and her young husband we do not know. They had not been one another's choice, and Guildford at eighteen may have been much younger in character than the deeply- thinking, scholarly girl of sixteen, who had withstood so much pressure to make him a king. She was offered an interview with him ; but she seems to have feared that he might shake her calm resolution, for she said that in a few hours they should meet in heaven, and that she had rather not see him here. It is as if they had had little in common, or she would have striven to comfort and encourage the poor boy, of whom nothing is recorded, save that he was led out early in the February morning to Tower Hill, and that Jane looked from her window as he walked by ; then an hour after as he was carried back a corpse to the chapel. She then wrote on her tablets in Greek, " If his slain body shall accuse me before men, his blessed soul shall vindicate me before God." In Latin, "Man's justice destroyed his body, God's mercy preserves his soul." In English, "If my fault deserved punishment, my youth and imprudence were worthy of excuse ; God and posterity will show, me favour. " The using different languages probably was a relief in the awful tension of spirits in her condition. She gave these tablets to the Lieutenant of the Tower, Sir John Brydges, who came presently to lead ' her to the scaffold, which, on account of her royal descent, was erected within the Tower. She rose readily, and walked forth. She made a short speech, declaring that she had done wrong in consenting to Northumberland's scheme, but adding that it was none of her seeking, and desiring the prayers of those who stood around. Then she and Feckenham together repeated what they could join in with their full hearts, the Miserere, and then the fair and thoughtful young head was laid on the block and severed at a stroke. That strange and apparently heartless person, Frances, Duchess of Suffolk, though closely intimate with the Queen, does not seem to have stirred in the matter. She never appears to have loved this daughter, and she remained as intimate as ever with the Queen. Of the deserters, about fifty were hanged in different parts of London, so that no one could go about without the dismal sight of a traitor's body ; but the rest, about 400 in number, were marched up to Whitehall with ropes round their necks. Mary came out on a balcony, pardoned, and sent them home ; but Suffolk and his brother, Wyatt, and a man named Thomas, who had been Edward's secretary, were in the Tower, and also Devon, and Elizabeth was sent for from Ashridge. Her great-uncle, Lord William Howard, and two physicians were sent to ascertain whether she were well enough for the journey. They decided that she might be brought by easy stages, and though she seems to have been really ill and weak when she set out, she gained strength on the journey, and entered London with her litter open, dressed in white, looking very pale, grave, and resolute. A hundred gentlemen in velvet marched before her, and a hundred behind in red cloth guarded WYATT S REBELLION. with black velvet. The roads were lined with people, who wept and bewailed her unhappy fate ; but she was only taken to Whitehall, not to the Tower. She was not allowed to see her sister, and could only send her a ring, which she had been bidden to send if ever there should be anger between them. She was sent to Westminster Palace with six ladies, two gentlemen, and four servants of her 'own. They were a kind of prisoners at large, and could neither go out nor be visited without the knowledge of the guard. Examinations went on all the time, and debates upon her fate. Simon Renard, with the Lords Arundel and Paget, were all for her death, believing her guilty of any amount of treason, and viewing her very existence as an insult to the Queen. On the other side, Mary herself and Bishop Gardiner upheld her, and declared it contrary to English law to condemn any person who had committed no overt act of treason, which she had certainly not done. Courtenay said nothing to implicate her : but two notes from Wyatt had been seized, one advising her to remove to Donnington, the other informing her of his entry into Southwark. There were also despatches of Noailles to the King of France, which had been captured, and whicli spoke of the rebellion as on her behalf, and the Duke of Suffolk thought it looked better to persist that it was she whom he wanted to make Queen, not his daughter. The secretary, Thomas, went the length of saying that they had meant to put the Queen immediately to death ; and Wyatt, Russell, and Croft all confessed to her having had letters about their designs ; but there was no evidence that she had agreed to them, no fragment of reply. Renard was angered, and declared that while she and Courtenay lived it would not be safe for Philip to venture his person in England ; but Mary would not give up her sister, nor Gardiner his old master's daughter. All that Mary would agree to was that, while Elizabeth was suspected, she must be kept under surveillance, and one by one she asked all the lords whom she could trust to undertake to receive her; but royal requests were not then equivalent to commands, and no one would undertake the care of the dangerous young lady, so that Mary had no choice save to send her to the Tower. The Earl of Sussex was sent to convey her thither, and informed her that she must make ready to enter her barge at once, that the tide might carry them through London Bridge. Elizabeth, however, in sisted on waiting to write a letter to her sister, declaring that, whatever letters Wyatt or others might have written to her, she had received none, and imploring to see the Queen face to face. By the time she had finished the tide would no longer serve, and Sussex took the letter to Mary, who was so angry at his disobedience that she told him she only wished her father could be alive for a month, feeling her own weakness, and resenting any resistance. The next tide was at midnight, so Elizabeth was obliged to embark CameoXVIII. Examination of Elizabeth. 1554- CAMEOS OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. on the next day, the 1 8th of March. Hoping that all Londoners would be at dinner, her guards hurried her, so that the barge was too early for the tide, and the boatmen were afraid to shoot the arch ; but the nobles, not choosing to wait to collect a crowd, insisted, and the thing was safely done. The barge was brought up to the Traitor's Gate, a low browed arch opening on the river, but Elizabeth protested against landing there, saying, " It is for traitors, and I am none; nor can I," she added, "unless I step into the water above my shoe." " Madame, you may not choose," said one of the peers, offering her his cloak, as it was then raining ; but she " dashed it from her with a good dash ; " and, as she set foot on the stone step— "Here lands as true a subject as ever landed at these stairs. Before Thee, O God, I speak it, having no other friend but Thee alone." " If so, it is the better for you," said the nobles ; and she came up the steps into the court, where the warders were drawn up in rank ; and some, as she passed, knelt, and prayed aloud for her safety. When she reached the building itself — "by many a foul and midnight murder fed " — she sat down on a stone, not choosing to enter its prison portion. The Lieutenant, Brydges, said, "Madam, you had best come in out of the rain, for you sit unwholesomely. " " Better sit here than in a worse place," she said. " God knoweth, not I, whither you will bring me. " Her gentleman usher burst out into a fit of weeping, for which she reproved him, saying he ought to be her support and comforter. She submitted at last to be led into her apartments, and the door was made fast on her with locks and bolts, whereupon she gathered her servants, called for her book, and betook herself to prayer. She was examined by Bishop Gardiner and nine other Lords of the Council two days later. When she was asked the cause of her intended move to Donnington, she at first made as if she had never heard of the place, but afterwards, when Croft was brought in, she answered more reasonably that she was free to go to any of her own castles. Something in her demeanour so struck the Earl of Arundel that he knelt down, saying that ' ' her Grace said truth, and he was sorry to see her troubled about such vain matters." "Well, my Lords," said Elizabeth, "you sift me narrowly; but you can do no more than God hath appointed, unto whom I pray to forgive you all." Arundel's feelings had been so much touched that, though an earnest Roman Catholic, he thenceforth laboured to save Elizabeth, and she put forth all her powers of fascination to hold him in her toils, and lead him on by hopes of marrying his son and heir to her. She was kept in very close imprisonment, and called on, with her household, to hear Mass. One of her ladies, Elizabeth Sandys, was removed for refusing, and Lady Harrington was imprisoned for the like reason. Calvinism had persuaded these ladies that the Catholic ritual was idolatrous, and attendance there had become the great touchstone. yVYATTS REBELLION. 203 Great debates took place respecting her fate. Renard was pressing upon Mary that she could not expect his prince to trust himself in England while she let the conspirators go unpunished. He wanted to have Noailles sent home for transgressing the privileges of ambas sador, forgetting that he was doing the very same thing himself ; and therefore the Council would not consent ; but Mary took no pains to hide her displeasure, or to be civil to him, and often answered him sharply. The trials of the really guilty were proceeding. Suffolk was tried in Westminster Hall by his peers. He went with a cheerful counte nance, but came back very sad, with the axe turned towards him, and begging all men to pray for him. He died on Tower Hill on the 23rd of February. Wyatt was examined again and again, and wavered and tergiver sated a good deal ; but when he was actually condemned and led out to die on the 1 ith of April, he made a full confession, entirely clearing the Lady Elizabeth and the Earl of Devon. Thomas Grey, Suffolk's brother, and William Thomas, the secretary, were both executed as mischievous men. Sir Nicholas Throgmorton made such an able and spirited defence that, in spite of the charge of the Chief Justice, and the threats that followed it up, he was acquitted by the staunch and high-spirited jury : for which — after the Tudor fashion — they were committed and fined, spending no less than eight months in prison. Nothing available had come out against Courtenay or Elizabeth. Renard still continued to press for their death, but the Queen and Gardiner still held out in their favour. Elizabeth's health began to suffer from her close imprisonment, and she was allowed to walk in the Tower gardens, where a little boy of five, named Martin, the son of one of the warders, used to run up to her with flowerj, and a little girl, named Susanna, only three years old, one day ran up to her with a bunch of little keys, telling her that now she might unlock the garden-gate, and take her walks abroad. It was suspected that little Martin's nosegays contained letters from Lord Devon or from Lord Robert Dudley. He was sent for to the Council and interrogated ; but the Lords could make nothing of him, so they only forbade his nosegays ; and as soon as he came home, he ran to her door and cried through the keyhole, " Mistress, I can bring you no more flowers now. " Sir Henry Bedingfield was appointed Governor of the Tower in May. He arrived with a guard of 100 men in blue coats. Elizabeth really thought her hour was come, and asked if Lady Jane's scaffold had been removed. But this was the beginning of better days for her. She was, on the 20th of May, removed under Bedingfield's charge to Woodstock, and there lived as a sort of prisoner at large, but with a. new set of attendants appointed by the Queen. She was much' 204 CAMEOS OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. depressed, and said she envied the milkmaid she saw singing over her work ; but on the whole she had escaped well. Already in April, the three Bishops, Cranmer, Ridley, and Latimer, had been proclaimed guilty of treason, and had been removed to Oxford, to be there examined in the University, by learned men appointed by Convocation. They were not told why they were removed, nor allowed to take anything with them, and were placed at first in Bocardo, the common prison, but were afterwards separated, . Ridley and Latimer being placed each under the charge of an alderman. It would seem to have been resolved to let their party stand or fall by their answers on three heads, namely : — ¦ Whether the natural Body and Blood of Christ be really present in the Holy Eucharist ? Whether the substance of bread and wine still remain after con secration ? Whether the Mass be a life-giving, propitiatory sacrifice for the sins of the dead and the living ? In St. Mary's Church, Oxford, the examination was to take place. Dr. Weston, the Prolocutor of Convocation, presided, and thirty-three Doctors of Divinity, in their scarlet robes, were seated round, including all the most learned men of the opposite party. The three prisoners were brought in singly, Cranmer first, alone and leaning on his staff. Dr. Weston (a man of bad character) read a Latin discourse on the unity of the Church, and accused him of having broken it, but offered him, on his renunciation of these doctrines, to reconcile and restore him. Cranmer, also in Latin, agreed to all he had said as to unity, but argued that he had not broken it ; and then the three articles were read to him. He did not accept them, and he was to be allowed till the next Monday to prepare his answer, for which he was permitted the use of pen, ink, paper, and books. He was then led away, guarded by billmen, many of the people shedding tears at his plight. Then followed Nicholas Ridley, who, on hearing the articles, called them false and unscriptural, and denied ever having preached the same doctrine. He was allowed till Tuesday to prepare his defence. Poor old Hugh Latimer, who was a good deal over seventy, and had been incarcerated in the alderman's house, where he was quartered, without his servant, made a sad and grotesque appearance when he was brought in, with a handkerchief and two or three caps on his head, and his spectacles hanging by a string round his neck. A chair was placed for him in consideration of his infirmity, and the articles were read over to him. On his denial of them, he was told to make his answer on Wednesday. He exclaimed that, what with age, sickness, disease, and want of books, he was as meet to dispute as the Captain of Calais, but that he would deliver his mind, and stand to all they could lay on his back. Then he complained that he had been allowed no book, save the New Testament in his hand, which. he said he had WYA TT'S REBELLION. 205 read seven times over deliberately, without finding the Mass in it, neither the marrow, bones, nor sinews of it. The Prolocutor told him that he would show that it had marrow, bones, and sinews there ; to which Latimer returned, "That you will never do, Master Doctor. " Cranmer sent in his answer on Sunday evening — a comment in Latin — accepting the Spiritual Presence, but denying the Corporeal Presence of Christ in the elements, and declaring that the One Sacrifice could not be repeated. On the Monday the discussion began by an absurd blunder on Weston's part: for he called the very doctrine he maintained "a detestable heresy." A laugh began ; and during the whole time there was most indecent behaviour — hissings, hootings, bursts of laughter, clappings of hands among the spectators, who were sitting in. judgment on one who was still their Archbishop, and who differed from them only slightly on the point in dispute — one of the most sacred of the mysteries of Christianity. However meanly Cranmer had at times acted, his mild, dignified and reverent conduct on this occasion contrasted with that of his opponents, who evidently felt it their business to hunt him down ; and at last the clamour grew to such a height that Weston dismissed the assembly with "a shout of Vivat Veritas!" The tumult was just as bad, or worse, when Ridley answered the next day. Nobody argued with him ; they only hooted and laughed. In truth, the opinions Cranmer and Ridley held, of a Real though Spiritual Presence — the more real because spiritual —and of a com memorative participation of the Great Sacrifice, though not a repetition of it, are those of the Church of England, and had as yet never been condemned by the Church of Rome. They were not the opinions of those who were trying these two men ; but they were unable to find any authoritative condemnation of them, and clamour was the easiest way of meeting them. Latimer had gone much further in with Calvinism, and being old and unlearned, was much better game. He was faint, sick, and weak, knew no Greek, and was out of use with Latin, and it was much more easy to discomfit him, and show that his faith did not conform to St. Augustine and St. Chrysostom. He said, " I believe them when they say well." "Forty years agone," said Weston, "whither could you have gone to have found your doctrine ? " "The more cause we have to thank God, that hath sent light into the world." "The light!" cried Weston, punning and alluding to Latimer's popular sermons. "Nay! light and lewd preaching ; for you could not tell what you might have. Ye altered and changed so often your Communion and Altars, and all for this end— to spoil and destroy the Church." 206 CAMEOS OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. Latimer said he was not answering for what other men had done ; and Dr. Weston, after a discourse on the danger of being outside Noah's ark, dismissed the assembly, which had only held its tongue and listened decorously during the answer of the feeblest of the three men who had been placed there, not to be heard, but condemned. The doctors, however, felt that they had allowed Weston to hurry them into unbecoming conduct, and they took advantage of Arch deacon Harpsfield having to go through the disputations for his doctor's degree to cause him to debate the point with Cranmer, hoping that he would confute the arguments that had been only bawled down. The dispute was very long, and at the end Cranmer was publicly thanked for his modesty and moderation, and all the doctors present took off their caps. The next day all three were led out together to hear themselves asked, for the last time, whether they would change their opinions. " We are not minded to turn," they said. Then the Court, though only of priests, adjudged the three Bishops to be guilty of heresy, and therefore under sentence of death by fire. The Archbishop replied, "From your judgment I appeal to the judgment of God Almighty, trusting to be present in Heaven with Him, for whose Presence on the Altar I am condemned." Ridley said : "Although I be not of your company, yet doubt I not but my name is written in another place, whither this sentence will send us sooner than we should in course of nature have come ; " while Latimer cried out, " I thank God most heartily that He hath prolonged my life to this end, that I may in this case glorify God by that kind of. death." Weston muttered, " If you go to Heaven in this faith, then will I never come thither." But Dr. Glyn, in the name of his colleagues, asked Ridley's pardon for the unscholarly way in which the debate had been conducted. They were taken away — Ridley to the house of Alderman Irish, Latimer to the bailiff's, Cranmer to Bocardo, whence he sent a protest against the manner of their trial ; and, though he was not answered or noticed, the Council evidently felt that it had not been a proper or reasonable trial, and did not act upon it, keeping them, however, in their several places of confinement. They had all three been really guilty of high treason, but the matter of doctrine was held as the more important. CAMEO XIX. OUR FIRST EXPLORERS. (I496—I5S4-) Kings and Queen of England. 1485. Henry VII. 1509. Henry VIII. 1547. Edward VI. 1553. Mary. Kings and Queen of Scotland. 1488. James IV. 1513. James V. 1542. Mary. King of Spain and Emperor of Germany, 1519. Charles V. Popes t^.g-2. Alexander VI. 1503. Pius III. 1503. Julius II, 1513. Leo X. 1522. Adrian VI. 1523. Clement VII. The reign of Edward VI. is memorable for the first English Arctic Expedition. The spirit of exploration had affected the greater part of Europe, and the English had always regretted that the caution and economy of Henry VII. had prevented him from becoming the patron of Columbus. The Bristol merchants, especially the Canynges and the Thornes, were specially inflamed with eagerness in the matter. Those of Bristol were continually, according to the Spanish ambassador to Henry VII. , sending out ships to search for an unknown island of Brazil, some where in the far Atlantic. The report of that mysterious land had lured many fancies. The ancient Greeks believed that Ulysses, unable to rest at home, had sailed beyond the Pillars of Hercules for an unknown world. Dante had clenched the belief by a piteous inter view with Ulysses in the Inferno, where his condemned spirit says ; — " Five times above us had the orb of night Lit o'er the sea its radiance, and in turn Five times had paled its ineffectual light, Extinguished at the coming of the morn. While o er the unfathom'd ways our bark was borne, Land dawned at last upon our eyes that yearned, A dim mount at the far horizon's bourne, Loftiest of hills that ever eye discerned, Cameo XIX. A re tic Ex pedition. i497i 2o8 CAMEOS OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. Joy smote upon our souls, joy soon to weeping turned ; For, as to th' unknown land we nearer drew, A mighty blast swept from the mountain's brow And whirl'd the waters on us as it blew. Thence to the eddying gulf that raged below In the wind's stress, dipped down and rose the prow. Then for the last time did the helmsman see, High on the stern the downward plunging prow, And the unknown Power, that will'd such end should be, Folded around us all the mighty shroud of sea." The Irish believed in isles of the blest beyond their western coast, the Norsemen had actually discovered and made a sort of settlement in what they called Vineland, somewhere in North America ; the un fortunate runaway lovers, Robert Machem and his Anna had actually lived at Madeira, the brave Infante Enrique of Portugal had dis covered the Canary Isles, and the great Genoese had put the crown on the work by his discovery of the lovely islets, which he and all the world took to be the further side of the Indies — the West Indies. The men of Bristol traded with Don Enrique's settlement in the Canaries for soap and other articles of British produce, and much desired to go further. Among these Bristol merchants was one Giovanni Gabotto, a Venetian by birth, but always known as John Cabot, who in 1496 obtained from Henry VII. letters patent for him self and his three sons, Ludovico, Sebastiano, and Sanzio, authorising them to navigate the eastern, western, and northern sea, under the English flag, to discover the lands of the Gentiles, infidels, or other heathens, and set up King Henry's banner there, paying him a fifth part of any profits they might gain. In May, 1497, Cabot sailed with his son Sebastian in two ships of their own, with three hundred sailors, accompanied by three lesser ships, and in June they reached land, which he took to be "Cathay, the country of the great Khan," visited two hundred years before by his countryman Marco Polo. He landed, but saw no human being, though he found some snares for game, a needle for making nets, and trees evidently felled by man. On this he returned to his ships, and after sailing along the coast, expecting to find the north-west passage, returned to England. The place is supposed to have been what is now called Labrador, after many changes of name. The King was proud of the discovery, and promised Cabot ten ships to sail with next year, to be manned by all the prisoners then in ward, except those for high treason. Old Cabot walked about in silk attire, and was much admired ; but he left his son Sebastian to sail with this delightful crew in 1498, several merchants sending " slight and gross wares " to trade with the natives. They sailed at first towards Iceland and coasted along America as far as Chesapeake bay, but they did not dispose of their wares. The King grew tired of the unprofitable voyages, and though Sebastian sailed again in 1499, we know nothing of his voyage. There ,is reason to think that he resided for a time in his " New-found-land," OUR FIRST EXPLORERS. 209 and was visited by other adventurers, who brought home wild cats, hawks, and popinjays as presents to the King. However, he was in Spain, acting as map-maker and nautical adviser to old Fernando the Catholic, till the cabals in the young court of Charles V. sent him back to England. There he persuaded Henry VIII. to send him out to " go in at the back side of the New-found-land until they came to tlie back side and south seas of the Indies Occidental, to return through the Straits of Maghelhaen." They did actually make their way into Davis' and Hudson's Straits, and thus it is somewhat hard measure in their chronicler to ascribe their failure in their programme to the faint heart of Sir Thomas Sprott, who shared the command with Cabot. Henry VIII. did not like these expeditions, and only one more took place in his time. John Thome, a Bristol merchant of great wealth and reputation, and Dr. Lee, who had been Ambassador to Charles V. , persuaded him to send Cabot again to find the north-west passage, using the quaint argument that there was perpetual daylight at the North Pole, "a great commodity for the navigators." In 1527 accord ingly, Cabot with two ships left Plymouth, but they found none of the riches of Cathay, only ice-bound islands, and a country full of woods and mosses, and marked by "footing of divers great beasts." They gave up their enterprise at what still bears their name of Newfoundland. Henry VIII. allowed no more such enterprises, though he treated the Thornes with great favour, and Sebastian tried to get employment in Spain and Italy in vain, till he drifted back to England, and found more willing auditors in the council of Edward VI. A company was formed in London for discovery by sea, especially of the northern route to India. It was called " The. Mystery Company and Fellowship of Merchant Adventurers for the Discovery of Unknown Lands," and the king himself took much interest in the plans. Sebastian Cabot himself was too old for the hardships of such a voyage, but a leader was found in Sir Hugh Willoughby, a Warwick shire knight, of good family, who had served in the Scottish wars, and whose total inexperience of the sea does not seem to have been thought any objection to the choice. There were five ships : the Bona Esperanza, which carried Sir Hugh, and had William Jefferson for sailing master; the Edward Bonaventura, under Richard Chancellor ; and the Bona Confidentia, under Cornelius Darfoorth. Each vessel was sheathed in lead, and had two boats, and instructions were carefully drawn up by Cabot, prohibiting all " card-playing, drams, or devilish games," and instructing the crew not to be afraid if they saw the natives in lions' or bears' skins, or with long bows and arrows, since such were often assumed only " to feare strangers." Less conscientiously Cabot advised that the natives might be made to drink, that the secrets of their hearts might ooze out. This voyage was to attempt, not the north-western, but the north-eastern, passage round the north of Norway and Russia; and young King VOL. IV. P CAMEOS OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. Edward furnished them with letters in Latin, Greek, English, and other languages, to all kings beyond the empire of Cathay, i.e., China. No less than 6,000/. was spent on the outfit of the ships ; and not only was Sir Hugh Willoughby a man of mark, but Chancellor was the husband of- one of the daughters of Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, now in full power. Thus the whole court, as well as the nation, were interested. The vessels set sail in the summer of 1553, from the Thames. At Ratcliff there were numerous relatives of the crew bidding them a last farewell. At Greenwich there was an immense number of people crowding the houses and towers to see the mariners, who were all clothed in walchet, i.e., blue, and stood exchanging greetings cheerily. The Privy Council waved adieux from the palace windows, but -the young king was too ill to show himself. At Gravesend old Cabot came on board with a large party of gentlemen and ladies, tasted their cheer, rewarded the sailors, and gave them his last advice ; but they were so long getting out of the Thames that they were not fairly at sea till the 23rd of June. It was the first time any Englishmen had passed the North Cape. There the ships soon lost sight of one another. Chancellor reached Wardhuys, in Norway, and waited in vain for the rest, then sailed on, and entered what he considered to be the land of perpetual sun shine ; nor was he there long enough to see night begin again, for he found his way into the White Sea,, and landed at the mouth of the Dwina, where he found a Russian governor, to whom he gave King Edward's letters, and these were forwarded to Moscow. The Czar was Ivan the Terrible, then in the brightness of a promising youth, too soon overclouded by that frightful insanity which is so often the effect and the scourge of despotism. He was .delighted with Edward's letter, and begged that the English captain would visit him. Chan cellor was conducted 1,500 miles to Moscow, and was delighted with his reception, having feasted in the Kremlin with the young Czar out ' of plates and goblets of pure gold ; and he brought home a most courteous reply and offer of alliance with the English, reaching home in the spring of 1554. Meanwhile nothing had been heard of Willoughby, nor does more seem to have been known till, in 1555, Chancellor was sent back to Russia to arrange a treaty of alliance with Ivan. It then appeared that in the last summer some Russian fishermen had seen some large vessels near the black, craggy islet of Nokojuff, near Nova Zembla. Examining them, they found the bodies of seventy men, the captain himself sitting stiff and frozen at his cabin table, on which lay his diary, open. Happily the fishermen respected them, and information was sent to the Czar, who had everything sealed up, and made all over to the English. It appeared by Sir Hugh's diary that he had sailed on to the north-east till he was caught in a whirlpool off Cape Natai Noss, and this decided him not to go on. If he had he would have reached the White Sea and the great monastery of Ssolovetz ; but OUR FIRST EXPLORERS. unhappily he put into the bay of Nokojuff, and there, under black cliffs rising 400 feet above the sea, he was caught by the cold and the darkness. He had neither provisions nor fuel, and his journal is a frightful record of bravely borne suffering. At the time of his last entry, late in the January of 1554, he had seen sixty-five of his seventy comrades die, and he himself seems to have perished alone, leaving this sad tale not to daunt, but to win, followers in his track. Chancellor had another feast with the Czar, who drank Queen Mary's health as his dearest sister. Chancellor so arranged with him that a [ body of merchants formed the Russia company, still existing, and built a | factory at the mouth of the Dwina, which became the foundation of the city of Archangel, and where cloth, knives and sugar were exchanged for furs and skins. Chancellor brought home with him an ambassador laden with sables and ermines for the Queen, from the Czar, and in return Mary sent a lion and lioness from the Tower. This was the beginning of a long course of daring adventures by sea and by land. One Anthony Jefferson explored Tartary and visited the Caspian Sea ; but he did not see much promise of traffic at Astrakhan except in children, of whom he said he could buy a thousand for a loaf of bread ! Cameo XIX. Loss of Sir Hugh Wil loughby. 1554- CAMEO XX. THE RECONCILIATION WITH ROME. (I554-I555-) Queen of England. Queen of Scotland. 1553. Mary. 1542. Mary. King of Spain and Emperor of Germany. 1519. Charles V. 1554-1555- King of France. 1549. Henry II. Popes. Marcellus II. Paul IV. Cameo XX. The Spanish marriage. 1554- To us English, the Spanish marriage has always seemed like bringing in a gloomy and cruel alien to persecute us ; but it appeared in a very , different light to the parties chiefly concerned. To Charles V. himself it must have seemed a step to the fulfilment of the hope of his life, namely, the restoring peace and unity to . the Church, when the daughter of his persecuted aunt offered herself and her kingdom to his guidance, only longing to be brought home again ; probably, if Philip had had the large heart, kindly nature, and concili ating manners of his uncle Ferdinand and his cousin Maximilian, or the upright spirit and grand dignity and wisdom of Charles himself, the result would have been very different. Charles was a Netherlander,' bred up by his aunt in an openness of spirit which could appreciate characters unlike his own, but Philip had been brought up from his infancy in Spain, among the straitest and sternest forms of Roman Catholicism, hardened by continual resistance to the Moors, and by. the constant practice of the Inquisition, which had, ever since the days of the Albigenses, ruthlessly punished the lingering Manichsean heresy, or the secret profession either of Islam or Judaism. Philip's own nature was grave, shy, and conscientious, within the narrowest possible limits. He was a most scrupulous and indefatigable man of business, who scored the edges of his ambassador's papers with minute detailed remarks, and gave them close directions, and he was unflinching in his ideas of duty. He would rather have reigned over a desert than over heretics, and probably, if ever he realised that the heretics could feel pain and torment, he deemed pity for them a human weakness which ought to be conquered. His thoughts and sympathies THE RECONCILIATION WITH ROME. 213 were limited, and, like other princes "born in the purple," he was so used to regard loyalty and self-sacrifice as his due, that he showed little gratitude. He was very devout, believing heartily, and most minute in fasts and observances, though Italian writers of the time accuse him of gross debauchery in private, saying that he prowled the streets in disguise, and gave himself up to the coarsest amusements. He had been married to a Portuguese princess while yet a boy, and had lost her at the birth of her first child, Don Carlos. To the Spaniard, brought up in the lovely climate of Granada, and the stately streets of Burgos, the marriage into cold England, with a half-barbarous Tudor, a woman of thirty-seven, while he was twenty-six, seemed a sacrifice to be endured only for the sake of bringing back the country to the Church, and raising up heirs who would keep the land in allegiance to Rome. He submitted, but he had not the qualities to mahe him endure with a good grace, and a Spanish Bishop actually compared his resignation to that of Isaac when about to be sacrificed. Mary's heart, however, so yearned after the kindred of her mother, that the love-making of the clever Fleming, Simon Renaud, was quite enough for her. In April, 1554, the Lord Admiral Howard was sent forth with the fleet to Coruiia to meet those of Spain and the Netherlands, to escort the Prince to his bride, but they were kept waiting for a month, while Philip wound up the affairs of Spain, and placed them in the hands of his sister Juana, the widowed princess of Portugal, also going to take leave of his unhappy grandmother, Queen Juana, whose long widow hood and insanity were nearly ended by her'extreme old age. Meantime the English and Spanish admirals had a quarrel, and whenever the sailors met on shore, the Englishmen took every oppor tunity of elbowing and pushing the Spaniards, even on their own ground, so that the Spanish commander, aware how fatal a quarrel would be, stopped all leave to his own men. Renaud, less wisely, complained to his Emperor that Lord Howard, in his letters, spoke scornfully of the Spanish ships, and called them mere mussel-shells. Philip came at last to Coruiia, and embarked on the 13th of July. As the fleets sailed up the Channel, Howard made the Spaniards and Dutch strike topsails in homage to England's sovereignty of the " narrow seas," just when Mary was combating the persistency of the Council in giving her precedence above him, which she held to be contrary to the Divine law. His father had given up the two Sicilies to him that he might meet her as a king on equal terms, and the Council consented to their being Philip and Mary, not Mary and Philip ; but as to crowning him King of England, as she desired, they would not hear of it, nor would they even consent to crown him like a consort, in which they showed their wisdom. Lord Russell was sent to welcome the bridegroom at Southampton, and Mary set out for Winchester, where she meant to be married by her Chancellor Gardiner, the diocesan, so as to avoid difficulties about 214 CAMEOS OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. the Primate, who was in prison for high treason, and under charge of heresy. Though the height of summer, the weather was wet and stormy. Mary rode into Winchester and up to the Bishop's Palace at Wolvesey in a great storm, and Philip was no better off, when he was rowed ashore in a state barge by twenty men in green and white coats. The Duke of Alva and the rest of the suite came in twenty other barges, and as Philip came to the top of the stairs up the quay, the Earl of Arundel met him, and buckled the Garter on his knee. One of his attendants, an Italian named Bacardo, kept a close account of all that passed, so that we know all as minutely as if it had happened. yesterday. A beautiful horse was ready at the landing, and Philip rode at once to Holy Rood Church to return thanks for his safe landing, then was taken to a palace where the tapestry was of the late King Henry's time, bordered with all his titles, among which " Defender of the Faith, and Head of the Church," startled the foreigners. Through " cruel wind and down-pouring rain," these poor Spaniards and Italians had their first ride in England, Philip doing his best to be courteous, talking Latin to the English gentlemen, telling them he meant to live like one of themselves, and, as a beginning, drinking ale and commending it. On the Monday, he set forth to ride the twelve miles to Winchester, but after going two miles, he met an English lord, who gave a ring to the Prince with a message, which he fancied was a warning against some uproar of the people, and called Alva and Egmont apart to consult on it, when the Englishman relieved them by saying in French that the Queen only hoped the Prince would not come on in such dreadful weather. He persisted, however, and was presently met by the High Sheriff, who made him a Latin speech, putting all the country at his disposal, and rode all the rest of the way bareheaded, though often entreated to put on his hat. Scarlet aldermen and splendid nobles met Philip, when, at six o'clock, he at last rode into Winchester, and was lodged at the Deanery, where he dressed for his interview with his bride. He was a pale man, blue-eyed, with yellowish hair cut very short, a long grave unimpassive countenance, and the Austrian upper lip. He was arrayed in white and silver hose and nether stocks, and a black velvet coat bordered with diamonds, in which he was conducted to hear a Te Deum at the Cathedral, and after supper to Wolvesey," where Mary at last had the joy of receiving him, and they conversed in Spanish for an hour right lovingly. The gentlemen of his suite saw all that was to be seen at Winchester, and especially noted King Arthur's Round Table in the Castle Hall. On the 25th of July, S. James's Day, the marriage took place. Mary came on foot through the cloisters from Wolvesey, her train borne by Margaret Douglas, Countess of Lennox, her first cousin, THE RECONCILIATION WITH ROME. 215 ¦ and attended by all the nobility not in disgrace, while Philip was attended by sixty nobles, Alva and Medina Sidonia from Spain, Egmont from Flanders, Pescara, the nephew of the great Marquis, from Naples. Bishop Gardiner performed the rite. Mary was given away in the name of the realm by the Marquis of Winchester, and the Earls of Holland, Derby, and Pembroke, when the people in the Cathedral gave a great shout and wished them joy. The ring, which Mary had, with good taste, insisted should be a plain hoop of gold, like that of any other maiden, was laid on the book, with a handful of gold and silver coins, as a sample of the worldly goods wherewith she was endowed. The kiss of peace was given, sops and wine served to them, and they returned under one canopy with the sword of state borne . before them, to the Bishop's palace, where a royal banquet took place, and the next day the court set forth on its return to London, where they were received with the usual display of pageantry, the citizens being pleased to see ninety-seven great chests of solid bullion being carried to the royal treasury. A court was held at Whitehall for some weeks, and the King and Queen then retired to Hampton Court, where they lived with a privacy which offended the neighbourhood, used to the hearty ways and open doors of their kings. Poor Mary ! it was the one bright gleam that illuminated a life which, from twelve years old to thirty-six, had been spent in unmerited disgrace and seclusion, while with unchanging constancy she held by the truth as she had learnt it. At last she was a queen, and as she believed, divinely appointed to heal the breach, and bring her country back to what she held as the only true Church. She had triumphed over her enemies, and had wedded the heir of her injured mother's family, the object of so many hopes, the son of the great champion of the Church. Her heart, withheld from all kindred love ever since her mother's divorce, lavished all its tenderness upon him, and she had not yet perceived that he had married her only as a matter, of business, and that the affection of a worn, faded woman embarrassed and repelled the grave, shy young Spaniard, who felt himself in a dismal banishment in the English autumn. She was at last thoroughly happy. Moreover the Pope, though his al liance with France made him far less ready to welcome England back than if it had not been as a dependency of Spain, had promised to remove the sentence of excommunication, and her cousin and champion Cardinal Pole had, now that the wedding was safely over, been released and permitted to set forth for England as legate to pronounce the abso lution. The only drawback to her happiness might have been the attacks of illness which befell her during this autumn, but as she ascribed them to the hopes of an heir, they only increased her joy. In the warmth of her heart she decided on forgiving and recalling her sister. Elizabeth had been amusing herself with study, needlework, and poetry, while at Woodstock. There is a small book of S. Paul's Epistles in the Bodleian, bound in embroidery by her own hand, and with the following sentence on the fir leaf : — 216 CAMEOS OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. "August. — I walk many times into the pleasant fields of the Holy Scriptures, where I pluck up the goodlisome herbs of sentences by pruning, eat them by reading, chew them by musing, and lay them up at length in the high seat of memorie, by gathering them together, that so, having tasted their sweetness, I may the less perceive the bitterness of this miserable life." She made no difficulty about hearing mass, but when questioned on her opinion regarding the Sacred Elements, she replied in the following lines, which she had probably composed and laid up in her memory for such an emergency : — " Christ was the Word that spake it, He took the Bread and brake it, And what that Word doth make it, That 1 believe and take it." She was, in fact, an English Catholic in faith at heart, though the Calvinists looked on her as their heroine and their hope, and the Roman party hated her on that account, and sought her destruction. Philip had, as an act of grace, requested the liberation of all the remaining prisoners of Wyatt's rebellion, and Elizabeth was escorted from Woodstock to Hampton Court, but still kept under guard, and not admitted to her sister's presence till Bishop Gardiner had tried to obtain a. confession from her, telling her that her liberty depended upon it. Elizabeth replied that she would stand to what she had said, and she was kept in confinement and in much anxiety for a week before. At ten. o'clock one night, she was summoned to her sister's bedroom. There she fell on her knees, and protested her innocence. "You will not confess your fault, I see," returned the elder sister, "but rather stand stoutly on your truth. I pray God your truth may become manifest." "If it is not, I will ask for neither favour nor pardon at your Majesty's hands." " Well, then, you stand so stiffly on your truth, belike you have been wrongfully punished," said the Queen. " I must not say so to your Majesty." " But you will to others." "No, an please your Majesty. I have borne and must bear the burden thereof ; but I humbly beseech your Grace's good opinion of me as I am, and ever have been, your Majesty's true subject." The Queen turned away, murmuring something to herself in Spanish, . | and adding, " God knoweth ! " But she was bent on forgiveness, and putting on her sister's finger the ring which had been already a pledge be tween them, she said, " Whether you be guilty or innocent, I forgive you." Protestants were in the way of forging every kind of accusation of cruelty against Queen Mary, and it was said that all this time Philip was behind a screen, ready to interfere if his wife could not be're- strained from laying violent hands on her sister ! Whereas we have seen even Mary's deference to his father's suggestions had never made THE RECONCILIA TION WITH ROME. 217 her swerve from her resolution not to sacrifice Elizabeth ; moreover, Mary was the only woman of all her family who was always a lady in demeanour. If he were hidden there at all, it was more probably because he feared his wife's tenderness of heart towards her young sister, whom Renaud viewed as a formidable intriguer. Early in November the Parliament met, after the Queen had sent forth an injunction to the sheriff's to cause the electors to return gentlemen attached to the old faith, which they seem obediently to have done. On the nth, the Queen, most splendidly dressed, rode to open it, with Philip by her side, in the black velvet which was the favourite dress of the Austrian princes. Mary made her queen's speech by the mouth of her Chancellor, Gardiner, who told them that the Queen's first parliament had restored the ancient worship, her second had arranged her marriage, and that she expected that the third would restore the realm to unity with the Church, and as a beginning she - asked them to reverse the attainder of Cardinal Pole. There was only one thing to which this same parliament really objected, and that was to disgorging the spoil of the abbeys. As long as the Queen did not take that from them she might do what she pleased, and they made no objection to the recall of Pole, a man of the princely and noble stock now so rare among them. - He was a very different person now from the eager youth who had given up his fair prospects in his championship of the ill-used queen and her child. That was almost thirty years ago, and he was now prematurely aged, broken in health, and far more of an Italian than an Englishman. His mother and brothers had been put to death for his sake, and, except the queen herself and one young nephew, there were no kindred to greet him ; but he must have felt that the work he was called on to do was a requital for all he had suffered in what his whole heart believed to be the cause of the Church. So feeble was he that he was forced to be lifted in and out of his litter when he left Brussels, conducted by Lords Paget and Hastings. He was met at Calais by a joyous welcome, shouts and bonfires in the streets, and a Te Deum in the churches. Ten ships of war escorted him across the strait, and the men of Kent welcomed him enthusiastically, more no doubt as a long-persecuted exile than as a Cardinal, but with their generous feelings stirred for one of the last remnants of the blood royal, and apparently with no thought of the Archbishop, always to them a gentle ruler, in his captivity in the Tower. The Cardinal was not to be treated as legate till the temper of the people had been felt ; but at Canterbury he was greeted with great respect, and welcomed by Archdeacon Harpsfield in a fulsome speech on the Providence that had brought the Queen to the throne, the Cardinal all the time sitting wearily on his horse, having mounted to ride into the town. He endured it as long as he could, but when it came to " Thou art Pole, and to us the polar star," it was no longer bearable. "I heard you with pleasure while you were praising God." said Pole, 2l8 CAMEOS OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. " my own praises I have no wish to hear ; " and pushing past the Arch deacon, he repaired to his own chamber. He received a message from the Queen that he was to assume the state of a legate and cardinal, and thenceforth his two silver pillars and silver poleaxes (the old axes of the lictors, as a Roman dignitary) were borne before him and the legate's cross. His joy at his welcome revived his health, and he arrived at Gravesend full of gladness, slept there for one night, and then embarked in the royal barge, all decked with purple, to meet the Queen. Though it was the 24th of November, the sky was clear and the sun bright ; the Italian suite of the Cardinal were agreeably surprised in the aspect of the Thames, broad, silvery, undefiled, and bordered by the stately houses and trim gardens of the nobility and great merchants, while hosts of boats of all sizes attended the procession. When the Cardinal arrived at Whitehall the King and Queen were at dinner, but Bishop Gardiner came down to meet him at the landing, the servants drew up in splendid array, and at the bottom of the great staircase Philip stood, giving his arm to help the feeble old man to mount to where the Queen stood, eager to greet her mother's defender, and kissing him on the cheek after the EngUsh fashion. There was much complimenting under a canopy of state between the three, before Pole went on to Lambeth Palace, whicli he was to inhabit as administrator of the See of Canterbury till it could be settled what was to be done with the Archbishop. The members of the two Houses of Parliament having been assured that the estates they held should not be imperilled, were induced to petition the Queen to obtain the reconciliation of the kingdom with the rest of the Church. The Queen received the address at Whitehall, under a canopy of state, and on St. Andrew's day the Parliament repaired to Whitehall, as Mary was too unwell to go to them at Westminster. The splendour of the scene was great, as the Chancellor presented the resolution of the two houses to the Queen, that the Pope should be entreated to pardon them and resume his supremacy ; and then Mary and Philip knelt down before Reginald Pole, who remained seated, while, with great dignity, he accepted, and welcomed, their sub mission. Then, after the rehearsal of all the bulls and briefs empowering him to act, he pronounced the solemn words of Absolution over the three estates of the realm, all kneeling before him, and Te Deum was performed in the chapel. It was followed up by the separate Absolution- of the city of London at St. Paul's, and at Lambeth of the clergy. A decree of the Legate was then put forth removing all fears that abbey lands should be taken from their owners, confirming the foundation of the hospitals and schools formed on their rains, and declaring valid the marriages contracted during the separation of the Churches. The Queen much wished at least to restore the lands that had remained with the crown, saying that she preferred the peace of her conscience^ ten such crowns ; but Gardiner well knew that the example would not have been tolerated, and she could only give the income to the poor. THE RECONCILIATION WITH ROME. 219 Thus satisfied, Parliament passed a bill restoring Church matters to what they had been in the earlier years of Henry VIII., and Lord Montagu (Pole's nephew), the Bishop of Ely, and Sir Edward Came were to be ambassadors to the Pope. Christmas was kept splendidly. The great hall was lighted with 1, 000 coloured lamps on Christmas Eve, and Mary kept her court, the pardoned Elizabeth and Earl of Devon both being there. Elizabeth sat next to the Queen, and was treated as the next lady in the kingdom. She attended mass with her sister, dressed in white satin and pearls, and was beside her at the tournament fought on the 29th of December, by not only the English nobility, but by men whose names sound strangely in our ears as feasting and jousting together ; for there was the stern and loyal Spaniard, Fernando de Toledo, Duke of Alva, and the genial and confiding Fleming, Lamoral, Count Egmont, and his friend Count Hoome ; and before the festivities were over arrived William of Nassau, Prince of Orange, the Emperor's trusted young friend, and Emanuele Filiberto, the Duke of Savoy, dispossessed by the French, and intended by Spanish diplomacy to marry the Lady Elizabeth. Meantime prayers were put up for the safe birth of the Queen's expected heir, and Parliament, before being prorogued, petitioned Philip to undertake the regency in case the Queen should die leaving a living child. Mary must have felt as if her hopes were crowned in all respects, and as if she could well die in peace. It is sad to think of one so honest and good in heart, so devout and earnest in purpose, who so entirely wasted all her hopes, and was so deluded by a phantom. After a long, weary time of patience, she had reached the pinnacle of her hopes. She had her chosen husband, her sister had come back to her, she had recalled her banished cousin, and seen him restore her country from schism, and she might well regard herself as the chosen instrument in the hands of Heaven that all her surroundings told her that she was. When things done with so good and devout an intention turn out so lamentably ill as did these actions of Mary Tudor, we look anxiously to detect what could be the flaw in them which made them bring no "blessing, but rather sin and misery, on all concerned, and infinitely widen the breach they were meant to close. To explain all is past all power. Much might be owing to the retributive justice which blinded men to the right, and gave them up to work their own will ; but if we look at obvious causes, we see that the absolute, unconditional surrender to Rome was a mistake that Elizabeth would not have made, nor indeed Reginald Pole himself, before his long absence from England had identified him with Papal interests and feelings. Mary was highly educated, so far as learning went, but had no breadth or grasp of mind, and was incapable of understanding that there was a grander, truer Catholicity than that of Rome. The seclusion and disgrace in which her whole youth had been passed, had further CAMEOS OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. narrowed her scope of understanding, so that she had no knowledge of the traditions of English feeling, and of the spirit of unity without uniformity. The cause of the Reformation was to her identified with the terrible personal wrong which had broken her mother's heart and saddened her life. She had seen churches despoiled and sacrilege committed in that name, her father disgraced, her poor little brother in the hands of greedy tyrants who cloaked their robberies under the name of godly zeal ; and lawlessness and sacrilege, schism and heresy — heresy not only in Mary's sense of the word,, but much besides of the deepest dye, had been growing worse and worse in the last seven years. She must have been a woman of most exceptional wisdom if she had not thought the only remedy was to bring things back to what they had been before the disruption. And the man she had married had been bred in even a narrower, harsher school than her own. Neither of them could perceive that there had been evils that called for remedy. The contumacious conduct of the German Protestants and the sacrilege of the Calvinists in France and Holland supported them in the belief that no compromise or concession would avail, and considering that all the framers and promoters of Edward's First Prayer-book had either died as traitors to her brother or were in prison as traitors to herself, she could not be expected to perceive its merits. At the time of the first meeting at Trent, a strong force of English Bishops might have given the Germans the strength to accomplish such changes as would have saved the Christian unity. The time had gone by, spirits were embittered, and the evils and iniquities that had stained the beginnings of Reformation in England were to bring retribution, not only in the suffering that was coming, but in the hatred of what was truly Catholic which that persecution aroused, a temper that affected the English Church for centuries later, and confounded Catholicity with Romanism. Julius III. was dead before Mary's embassy could reach Rome, and an excellent Cardinal, called Marcello Cervini, was at once elected, using his own name as Marcellus II., and verifying the fancy that it, was dangerous to do so, for he only lived twenty-two days after his election. Mary much wished Cardinal Pole to have become Pope, and wrote letters in his favour ; but the Italians were jealous of any save a native " Pontiff, and elected Gian Pietro Caraffa, a Neapolitan, seventy-nine years old but full of vigour. He was pious and austere, spending whole. , nights in study, and of blameless life. His tall, thin figure seemed all sinew, but his great dark eyes were full of youthful fire, and his fiercely passionate temper knew no restraint. Paul IV., as he called himself, brought all his national feelings as a Calabrian to the Papal throne, and abhorred the house of Austria as the tyrants of his native land, so that he saw in the emperor his own enemy instead of the protector of the Church, and in the adhesion of England, less the restoration of a nation than the acquisition of another country by hateful Spain. CAMEO XXI. THE INFLUENCE OF CALVINISM ON THE REFORMATION. (I535—J556.) Kings and Queen of England, King and Queen of Scotland. Kings of France. 1509. Henry VII I. i5I3. James V. 1515. Francois I. 1547. Edward VI. 1542. Mary. 1549. Henry VI. 1553. Mary. King of Spain and Emperor of Germany. Popes. 1519. Charles V. J534. Paul III. 1550. Julius III. 1555 Marcellus II. IS45- Paul IV. When Jean Chauvin, under his Latin designation of Calvinus, published his Institutes of the Christian Religion, he did for the Reformation much what Mohammed did for the wild Arab tribes. He built up a new system, with a power and force in it that bound to it master minds in a manner that Lutheranism had never done, and had an amount both of truth and aggressiveness in it that enabled men to die and to fight for it, and that preserved its vitality for many genera tions. It probably did good in arresting the progress of many who, in the reaction from .the overgrowth on Catholicism were lapsing into frightful and anti-Christian heresies ; whereas Calvin held fast to the three Creeds and to the morality of the Commandments. His Institutes were a fabric built up on his own understanding of the Bible, casting aside, as he supposed, all traditions or human interpretation that did not accord with his first impressions ; and whereas a one-sided under standing of St. Paul on faith had actuated Luther's opinions, so Calvin took up therewith a theory respecting the eternal foreknowledge of God, which, carried to its utmost limits, amounted to fatalism. He represented the Atonement in the light of an appeasing of the wrath of a terrible Judge, Who needed the sacrifice of His Son to turn away His anger from man. All merit in human works was absolutely denied, and though the two great Sacraments were retained as Scriptural, the idea of a commemorative sacrifice and a real presence were denied. Every kind of worship not directly paid to the Invisible God as a Spirit was treated as idolatry, and thus the adoration of the Saviour Present in the Holy Eucharist became the great touchstone of faith. The denuncia- Cameo XXI. Calvinism. CAMEOS OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. Cameo XXI. Calvi tions against the Israelite apostates who worshipped Baal or the calves were applied to those who bowed down to the Holy Sacrament, to crucifixes, relics, or images, and to all who invoked saints. The doctrine was thus intolerant and aggressive as Lutheranism never had been, and it was in its way a consistent system of theology, so that it gained a great number of adherents, addressing itself as it did to the reasoning powers. Those who had broken loose from Catholicity found in Calvinism the only refuge from infidelity. It rapidly made its way among the Lutherans, and infected many of the leading men in England. So far the work of Reformation there had been done by Englishmen who wished to mould a National Church on Catholic foundations ; but Calvinist opinions were fast leavening English minds, and making them long to bring their Church into the pattern of the Institutes. Calvin had at first gone to Ferrara, where the Duchess Renee of France gave a warm welcome to the Reformer, and after that he intended to settle at Basle ; but he had to pass through Geneva on his way, and the council of the city in treated him to remain and assume their chief pastorship, though he was but twenty-nine years of age. He did much to bring the congregations back from the anti-Christian heresies into which they were lapsing, and established a strict discipline, which kept its own members in ascetic severity but was merciless to outsiders whom it did not reclaim, but rather drove to the recklessness of despair. At one time Calvin was driven to leave the place and take refuge at Strasburg ; but he returned after two years, and for the rest of his life remained as the chief authority of the congregations in Geneva and the rest of Switzerland, while his doctrine spread far and wide, and attracted all who had been revolted by the superstitions that Rome [ permitted, yet who wanted some definite system to be rooted into. One of the refugees at Geneva was Clement Marot. He had trans lated the first thirty Psalms into French verse, and at first every one was delighted with them ; the court gentlemen and ladies went about singing them, and Henri II. when Dauphin used one of them as a hunting-song ; but as being a translation of Holy Scripture they came under the cognisance of the Sorbonne, and as the Queen of Navarre could no longer protect him, he fled to Geneva, where he translated twenty more ; but the man who had been a court poet all his life was no congenial element in the stern centre of Calvinism and among the Republican Swiss. He was disliked there and was not happy, and he died, still under fifty, in Piedmont in 1544. The last letter of his, which is still preserved, ends with the words La Mart ny mord. His version of the Psalms was completed by Theodore Beza, a young Burgundian of Vezelai, who had come to study under Calvin, and was - afterwards associated with him in the pastorate of Geneva. These metrical Psalms greatly inspirited the souls of the Reformers, and the example of translating them into the vernacular was followed in England by Thomas Stemhold and John Hopkins, whose fervent though ragged verses so charmed the English that it took two generations to find out CALVINISM AND THE REFORMATION. that — as Fuller declared — these good men had drunk deeper of the Jordan than of the Helicon. The death of Francois I. had brought to the throne Henri II., a man who would have been good in better times, for he had the qualities of warmth of heart and constancy of affection in a high degree. His two chief attachments to the Constable Anne de Montmorency and to Diane de Poitiers, Duchesse de Valentinois, never wavered throughout his life, though the lady was twelve years older than himself. His wife, Catherine de Medici, was at present only known as a smooth, gentle, cat-like woman, not handsome in face, but stately and courteous, the mother of a large young family and much occupied in embroidery. She was not crowned till two years after her husband's accession, on the loth of June, at St. Denys, with five cardinals assisting, after which the king and queen made a solemn entry into Paris ; there was a tournament which lasted a fortnight, and the king showed great grace and dexterity ; and afterwards there was the novelty of a sham sea-fight of thirty-two galleys on the Seine. Roman sports seemed to be returning, and among them that of the execution of believers. During the preparations for these festivities the Duchesse de Valentinois had thought to amuse the king by teasing a poor tailor named Hubert Bourre, who was busy stitching together some hangings for the palace, about his religion, as he was suspected of being a Reformer. The man was well read in his Bible, and Henri's knowledge was but shallow ; so that he soon had to call the Bishop of Macon to his aid, and then Diane put in her oar ; whereupon the Calvinist turned upon . her with hot, outspoken indignation that such as she should dare to intrude into holy things. The spirit of Herodias was aroused, and Bourre was sent to prison, where the Dominican Inquisition found him guilty, and with three more he was burnt in front of the episcopal palace on the last day of the festivities. The king and court had heard mass and dined with the Bishop, and came to the windows to watch the execution. The tailor, in the midst of the slow fire, fixed his patient eyes steadily on the king, and never took them off while they could still gaze. Henri never forgot that look ; it haunted him by day, and at night his slumbers were broken by phantoms of the tailor standing beside his bed still bending that look upon him. He made an oath never to be present at another execution ; but he did not make persecution cease, though he did put forth an edict which rendered it less profitable in a pecuniary point of view to accuse and sentence a heretic. The king's aunt, Marguerite, queen of Navarre, died on the 21st of December, 1549. La Marguerite des Marguerites, as she had been called in her youth, was a good, true-hearted, pious woman, who had been attracted by the new learning when it first showed her deeps that her teachers had concealed from her, but who never seems to have Cameo XXI. Persecutionin France. 224 CAMEOS OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. broken her union with the Church. She had lived entirely at Bigorre since her brother's death, and had most carefully brought up her only child, Jeanne, the same who had so resolutely rejected the Duke of Cleves. Jeanne was now twenty-one, and was married to Antoine de Bourbon, >r Duke of Vend6me, a man far inferior to her in force of character. Her first two children died in infancy, one from being let fall over a balcony by his nurse. Her father, old King Henri d'Albret, declared that her next child should not be a crabbed, fretful being, and that if she would • be singing at the moment it came into the world, she should be rewarded ' by the sight of his will, about which he knew her to be very anxious. Jeanne promised and kept her word, singing a Bearnese hymn, invoking the aid of the Blessed Virgin — ' Noste Donne deou cap deou pon, Adjouda me in aqueste houre.' (Our Lady of the head of the bridge, Aid me in this hour.) When the child was born the old man wrapped him in his cloak and rubbed his lips with a clove of garlick as a mode of making him manly. He was rocked in a huge tortoise-shell, still preserved in the Castle of Pau, and as soon as he could walk was allowed to run barefooted about the hills with the peasant boys, and like them eat black bread and garlick, so that he might well be known as Henri le Bearnais. The old king lived till I555> an(l though he never became a Calvinist,, his dominions were a refuge for the persecuted, the Sacrementaires, as it was the custom to call them in France. Jeanne herself was still adverse to anything serious, and passionately,,. fond of dancing, and when her husband was curious about the Reform, she advised him not to harass himself "with all these opinions." In 1551 the Edict of Chateaubriand was put forth, by which Henri II. prohibited all importation of books from Geneva and Basle, the two great places for the printing of the literature of the Reformation. Booksellers were placed under close inspection from the magistrates, and the most stringent means were adopted for keeping heretics out of all offices of the state, detecting and punishing them. The court and. clergy little knew that it was their own vices, clearly against their own. Catholic law, that were the great incentives to earnest and conscientious " people to embrace the stern doctrine and morality of Calvin. And all the time there was going forth from Lyons, at first unsus pected, heresies far more remote from truth than the doctrines main tained by Calvin and Melanchthon. It was a strange time, for every kind of heresy and false doctrine . had awakened in the agitation of man's whole spiritual nature. Lelio Socini, a native of Siena, was holding arguments with Calvin, in which. he expressed doubts of the divinity of our Blessed Lord, doubts which his nephew Fausto brought to a head in after times, when he founded the great Socinian or Unitarian heresy. CALVINISM AND THE REFORMATION. 225 Another heretic was the Aragonese Miguel Serveto, commonly known as Servetus, a man of the same age as Calvin, who had begun life as a proUgi of Father Quintana, confessor to Charles V. ; but being disgusted with what he saw at Rome, had gone among the Reformers, and had shocked both Zwingli and Calvin by the blasphemy of some of his opinions respecting our Blessed Lord. Then he went back to Quintana's suite, where his views were not suspected, till in 1531 he had published at Basle a book containing them ; everyone was horrified at the attacks on the most sacred mysteries of the faith. Quintana declared that he had never guessed that the young Spaniard could have borne such impious thoughts ; Melanchthon advised the Swiss to clear themselves of such opinions ; Bucer declared from the pulpit that the author of such a book ought to be torn limb from limb, and the government of Basle imprisoned him. However, he was allowed to leave Basle, and going to Paris there gave lessons in medicine, mathematics, and astronomy, and was much sought after, till he put forth his heretical opinions again, and was denounced by the Parliament of Paris. He then got employment under a printer at Lyons, changing his name ; and afterwards, calling himself Villanneva, practised as a physician at Vienne for twelve years, outwardly conforming to the Church, but contriving all the time to send forth books full of the wildest heresies. The Calvinists declared that while the Roman Catholics persecuted them, this far more violent heretic went scot free ; and on this the In quisitor General and Cardinal de Tournon cited him before them. But he had destroyed his papers, denied all heresy, and there was no ground on which to convict him, till the Catholics wrote to the Calvinists at Geneva, who supplied them with full pro'of of his tenets in his books and correspondence. He was imprisoned again ; but he had many friends at Vienne, and he was allowed to make his escape before the court sat, and con demned him to die the death of a heretic by fire. He wandered about for some months, then appeared at Geneva, where the Council caused him to be arrested, and immediately after his trial began and lasted two months. He now put forth a Pantheism which shocked his judges. He demanded that the pastors of the other Swiss towns which held by the Reformation — Basle, Zurich, Schaffhausen, and Berne — should be consulted ; but their answers were all gravely sorrowful, and con demned the doctrine and the man. The great council of Vienne, two hundred in number, condemned him to die, unanimously, Calvin giving his vote among the rest. Calvin endeavoured to obtain a remission of the special horror and agony of being burnt alive, but could not succeed, and Servetus and his books were burnt together in the September of 1553, in accordance with the universal feeling of the age that false doctrine ought to be visited with death. John Knox arrived at Geneva a little after his execution. He had vol.. IV. Q 226 CAMEOS OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. fled from England almost as soon as Mary's accession became secure, and had landed at first at Dieppe, whence he made his way across France to Geneva, and was presented to Calvin on a Sunday after prayers and sermon, when, to his surprise, he found the great Pope of the Reformed playing at bowls. In truth the English nation has always been more strict in spending Sunday than any Continental people, and it was probably . in England that Knox had adopted decided views as to the exact observance of the Fourth Commandment. His stay at Geneva seems to have made his views less indefinite and heretical than they had been. He grasped the system of Calvin with the utmost force of a strong intellect and stern will, feeling in it some thing congenial to the metaphysical brain of Scotland, and he applied himself to study as he had never done before, beginning to leam Hebrew with all the ardour of a youthful student. Knox went back to Scotland in 1555, thoroughly imbued with Calvin's doctrine, and resolved to "spare no arrows." He began preaching hotly against the existing customs, and was cited to appear in the Church of the Black Friars at Edinburgh, on which he addressed an appeal to the Queen- Regent, worded no doubt in his usual violent and grotesque style. She gave it to the Archbishop of Glasgow, saying with a smile, " Please you, my lord, to read a pasquil." John Knox heard of it, and hated her with redoubled bitterness, calling her Jezebel and himself Elijah ; but the letter inviting him back to Geneva decided him to leave Scotland with his wife, and he did so in good time, for the Bishops decided against him, and he was burnt in effigy at the Market Cross at Edinburgh, upon which he returned abuse in his own choice language. Most of those who were strongly committed to the Reformation ' began to flee from England if they could muster the means to do so. The pacification of Passau had enabled the free cities to choose the pro fession of faith preferred by the majority of their government, and those which had become Protestant served' as havens of refuge. StrascW and Frankfort were the first places chosen as refuges. The English, mostly clergy, with their families, were surprised, however, to find that - the Germans would by no means fraternise with them, and denied them the name of Protestants. Nay, they were viewed as worse than Papists unless they wholly accepted Lutheranism ; nor could Melanchthon : obtain any favour for them. If they spoke of their martyrs they were told that heretics could be persecuted, and that they were only dsrif s martyrs. The Calvinists treated them more as brethren, and there was a con gregation at Strasburg ministered to by Edmund Grindall, a Cambridge scholar, who had been a favourite pupil of Bucer's, and afterwards a chaplain of Bishop Ridley. These adhered to the English liturgy, namely, the Second Book of Edward VI. ; but at Zurich they seem to have accepted the form of prayer which Calvin had xlrawn up, and which was used in almost all Sacramentariah congregations. CALVINISM AND THE REFORMATION. 227 The Frankfort English, who were the most numerous, were allowed to share a church with the French refugees, but on condition not only that they should have their prayers at different hours but that there should be no occasion of offence given by doctrine or ceremony. On this they altered the Confession, gave up the responses and the Litany, the surplice and other ceremonies, and soon after invited Mr. John Knox from Geneva to be their pastor, apparently hoping to bring together all the scattered English, by promising them the attraction of his preaching, and of the two great annual fairs at which all Christen dom met together. Little as was left of the English liturgy, Knox did not like it, and sent Calvin " a platform of description to it " to pass judgment on it, to which that pope returned that there was in it " many tolerable foolish things," and recommended that it should be further filed from rust. To this decree the English at first submitted ; but when King Edward's tutor, Dr. Richard Cox, and his friends arrived from England, they made the responses as of old, and one of the clergy actually read the Litany, which the Calvinists specially denounced for what they termed vain repetitions. Knox in return preached a fierce sermon against the English Prayer-book as "superstitious, impure, and imperfect." There was a great commotion, Cox maintaining the Liturgy, Knox declaring he would never consent to its use, and in this little congrega tion beginning the breach that has rent the Church in England and divided Scotland ever since. The Germans threatened to take away the use of the church if the Calvinists' fashion did not prevail, and Cox.retaliatedby calling attention to the seditious writings that were pouring forth from the presses of Frankfort and Geneva. Bishop Poynet was lavishing abuse from his refuge in Germany. He speaks of Caligula trying to have his image set up in the Temple at Jerusalem, adding, "as not unlike, Saint Gardiner's shall be shortly by anticipation in England. " Christopher Goodman likewise printed at Geneva a book against paying any obedience to kings or magis trates guilty of idolatry, i.e., papistry, and called the book of Deu teronomy to witness that "no person is exempted by any laws of God from this punishment, be he king, queen, or emperor that is either openly or privily known to be. an idolater, be he never so near or so dear to us, he must die the death." Whittingham wrote in the same style and so did Kethe and others. John Knox moreover put forth a most truculent book called A Blast against the Monstrous Regiment of Women, by which he meant their government, and argued hotly against female rale in general, and in particular that of his own Scottish queen-dowager, whom he said a crown befitted as well as "a saddle an unruly hack," and equally abusing the English Mary, calling her in his address to her English Subjects " your Jesabell." Many more of such books were printed at i Frankfort and Geneva and circulated in England, some of them actually Q 2 228 CAMEOS OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. Cameo XXI. The exiles in Germany. impugning Mary's purity of life, and these cut her to the heart more than all, so that she shed tears of passionate sorrow over them. Utter ances like these against the wife of the Emperor's son amounted to treason. Moreover Knox did not spare the Emperor himself; in an EngUsh book called An Admonition to Christians, he spoke of Charles as "no less an enemy to Christ than was Nero, " with seven moi'e passages to the same effect. Whether it was fair in Dr. Cox to lay these before the authorities at Frankfort is another question. The Calvinists thought it was taking a mean advantage, but his EngUsh blood might well be stirred at this Scotchman's abuse of his queen, her husband, and her father-in-law. At any rate, the magistrates of Frankfort were alarmed, and desired Knox to return to Geneva. On his departure the exiles formed themselves into a body, with Mr, Whitehead as chief pastor, Mr. Horne as Hebrew reader, Mr. Mul- ¦lings as Greek reader, Mr. Traherne, divinity lecturer ; but William Whittingham, Knox's chief supporter, and his party, still objected to the use of what they called "the great English book," and their protest not being heeded, they went off to reside at Basle and Geneva. After this secession there was a fresh quarrel, though this time appar ently on matters of precedence rather than of principle, when the magistrates of Frankfort had to be called in to settle the dispute ; and then a third broke out, which divided the small congregation of fifty- two into parties of forty-two and ten. In fact they were men deprived of their natural employment, and having once cut themselves loose from the old standards of faith and virtue, had each a different one of his own, so that it would have taken superhuman charity not to fall out. They lived partly by printing and translating, partly by teaching, and Peter Martyr set up a sort of college in his house with Jewell as his vice-president, where a table was kept at small expense for those who had not families and could mess together. Contributions were largely sent to their support by Sir John Cheke, Sir Francis Knollys, Sir Antony Cook, Sir Peter Carew, and other gentlemen; also by several merchants in London, and the Germans were also very bountiful in assisting them, all the more readily as the probability lessened ihat the rule of Mary would be long, or would pass to a successor of the same tenets. One of the fugitives was Katharine, third Baroness Willoughby de Eresby in her own right, and wife of Charles Brandon, Duke of Suf folk. She had, after his death, married a gentleman named Richard Bertie. She was strongly set against the mass, and her husband, who was treated as a friend by Gardiner, declared to him that it would not be possible to persuade her to attend it. Thinking herself in danger she resolved to leave England, and Bertie went to Gardiner and begged for a pass to go backwards and forwards to the Netherlands to deal with the Emperor about some money due from him to Katharine as executor CAL VINISM AND THE REFORM A TION. 229. to her first husband ; Gardiner consented, and promised that he should not lack help, so he set off in June, 1554, and returned for the duchess. They set forth in the January of 1555, she in the disguise of a merchant's wife, and went to Leigh, but did not sail till February. They made their way with their child to the Netherlands, intending to take up their abode at Wesel, but by different accidents they lost their whole suite of servants on the way, and arrived late in the evening on foot, Bertie carrying the child, and the duchess his cloak and rapier. They knew not a word of the language, but Bertie overheard two school boys using Latin words, and spoke to them. The lady meantime seems to have taken shelter with her baby in the church porch of St. Willibrod where she waited till her husband had found, by the help of the boys, a minister whom he had known in England, and who took them in till they could hire a house. There in October a son was born to them and christened Peregrine, or the stranger. After a time they feared to be arrested there, but Lasko had interested the King of Poland, Siegmund August, in them, and he invited them to his dominions. The duchess and children travelled in a waggon, Bertie and the servants riding, but on the way they had a dangerous scuffle with an officer of the Landgraf of Hesse Darmstadt. Their spaniel seems to have offended forest laws, and the officer and his men thrust their boar-spears through the waggon, while Bertie galloped on into the town near at hand, and defended himself with his dagger till a Latin-speaking magistrate came up. They remained in Poland until theythought it safe to return to England. Hitherto the French Calvinists had been only a scattered flock, without any ministry or organisation, only reading the Bible at home, singing the metrical Psalms, and ceasing usually to go to church. Some of the scholars among them, who had had their homes broken up, wan dered about from one family to another, praying with them, and exhort ing them, and bringing the last instructions from Geneva. Those who had entirely broken with the Church lived without the Sacrament, or repaired to Geneva or Lausanne for what Calvin had substituted for the Holy Eucharist ; and others kept up an occasional conformity, taking their children to the priest for baptism, and communicating at Easter, also being married by the clergy, or else their children would not have been acknowledged. But in 1555 a gentleman of Maine, named Le Ferriere, who had come to Paris because it was easier to avoid persecution there than at home, collected a number of his friends in his house and told them he would not see his child baptized with what he called idolatrous cere monies, and called on them to appoint a minister. After fasting and prayer the assembly met again, and chose a young man of twenry-one, named La Rivieres, who was to be supported by elders and deacons, according to Calvin's pattern, chosen by the con gregation ; and the example was followed at once at Meaux, Angers, Poitiers Agen, Bourges, Issodun, and Tours. Cameo XXI. The Bertie family. 1555- 230 CAMEOS OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. The plan was favoured by Gaspard de Chatillon, Admiral de Coligny, the son of a sister of the Constable de Montmorency, and greatly re spected for his high and noble qualities. He, with his brothers, Oder, Cardinal de Chatillon, and Francois, Sieur d'Andelot, had their hearts in the cause of Reform, and still hoped to see the Gallican Church at last brought to accept it. Coligny, however, thought that the path of safety for his friends lay across the seas, in the New World. Nicolas Durand de Villegagnon, a knight of St. John and Vice-Admiral of Brittany, who had been much employed on the coast of Brazil, offered to lead a Reformed colony to settle in South America. Neither he nor Coligny had as yet broken with the Church, and by representations of the benefit of a settlement such as the Spaniards were already making, they obtained consent from the king. Villegagnon sailed from Havre in August 1 555, with three hundred settlers, whom he landed on an island near Rio de Janeiro, which they called with all the magniloquence of their nation, Antarctic France. There they made a fort named Coligny, and made friends with the natives, but quarrels soon arose, and the settlers suspected that' Villegagnon cared less for their religion than for getting a footing in America. Some of them decided on returning home, and he offered them letters of recommendation to the magistrates of Hennebonne. When opened, these proved to be denunciations of them as turbulent heretics, but as the magistrates were themselves inclined to the Reformed faith, they showed the treacherous correspondence to the intended victims and let them escape. Villegagnon's remaining settlers were too few to resist the Portuguese, and after a year or two of misery and bloodshed, Antarctic France was wrested from him, and the scanty remnant returned home. It was about this time that the French Calvinists began to be called Huguenots. Long before the people of Geneva had been termed Eidgenossen, or oath comrades, when they allied themselves with the Swiss against the Duke of Savoy— French-speaking confederates mispronounced the word, connected it with Hugues of Besancon, who negociated the alliance ; and Huguenot seems to have been used as equivalent with Genevan; but later the wandering habits of the preachers made the people confuse their name with the Wild Hunts man, who was called in some parts of France King Hugues, or Huet, or Huou, and thought to be the ghost of Hugues Capet. ° CAMEO XXII. THE SOUTHWARK COMMISSION. (15550 Queen of England. Queen of Scotland. King of France. 1553. Mary. 1542. Mary. 1547- Henry II. King qf Spain and Emperor of Germany. Pope. 1519. Charles V. 7554. Paul IV. Mary's counter-reformation had been accepted by most of her people. The old ritual was comfortable to the ears of many who had only been six years used to hear the prayers in the vernacular and had missed the accompanying teaching of the eye. As to the nobles, the stout, turbulent old earls had been nearly destroyed, and those whose ranks stood highest were mostly new men raised by the Tudors, greedy and subservient, with little religion among them. It would take some generations to mould their sons into any right sense of the responsibilities of their position ; the untitled nobility were rough and unlettered, and had not felt their strength ; and public opposition to Mary, after Wyatt's failure, there was none. Such resistance as there was came chiefly from the townspeople, and from such of the clergy as had embraced the new opinions. Most of these were married, many held the preferments from which those who would not accept the EngUsh Prayer-book had been ousted, and those who had been under the teaching of Bucer and Peter Martyr were in general strong Calvinists. Some had fled ; the others, who, either from principle or poverty, remained at their posts, were required, if they wished to retain them, to give up their wiyes, do penance, and conform to the Ritual, and all preaching on controversial subjects was prohibited, in curious con tradiction to that statute of Edward VI. which prescribed nothing else. The penance consisted in the putting on of white sheets and being scourged round the cathedral ; and this was a scandalous sight to the people, who had sometimes seen priests go unpunished for leading absolutely sinful lives. Those who openly refused to submit, or to give up benefices into Cameo XXII. 232 CAMEOS OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. which they had been intruded, were arrested. Of these were Bishops Coverdale, Hooper, and Farrer. Another was John Rogers, who had been bred at Cambridge, and had then been chaplain to the EngUsh Factory at Antwerp, where he met Tyndall and Coverdale, and assisted in their translation of the Bible, after which he married, and settled at Wittenburg in charge of a congregation, but had been invited home by Ridley, and had been made Divinity Lecturer and Canon of St. Paul's. Refusing to give up his wife or to conform to the old Ritual, he was confined to his house till, on Wyatt's rebel lion, it was thought safer to send him to Newgate. Another specimen of the clergy thus committed was Dr. Rowland Taylor, who had been of Cranmer's household till the living of Had- leigh had been given to him, where he was a kind and conscientious pastor, full of almsdeeds, and much beloved. He refused to adopt the Latin Ritual, and one of his neighbours, the vicar of Aldham, appar- ently intending to make a beginning, went over to Hadleigh to say the first mass there. Dr. Taylor was told what was going on, and ran to his church, where he found an Altar decked, and the vicar of Aldham beginning to say Mass, with two or three men with drawn swords to protect him. "Thou devil !" broke out the rector, regardless of all reverence, " who made thee so bold as to enter this Church ? " " Thou traitor ! " retorted the vicar, " what dost thou here to hinder the Queen's proceedings ? " " I am no traitor," said Dr. Taylor, "but the shepherd whom God hath appointed to feed his flock. I have therefore authority here, and I command thee, thou Popish wolf, to avoid hence. " The Popish wolf stood his ground by the help of the swords, but the Hadleigh people showed their sympathy with their rector by throwing stones and breaking the windows. • Taylor, however, kept his church, and remained at Hadleigh, though advised to fly, saying he was too old and had lived too long, since he saw such evil days. " I am determined to face the Bishop, and tell him to his beard that he doth naught " (the word meaning evil or wickedness). Taylor was arrested and brought to London, where he still refused to escape. There also was Laurence Sanders, who held livings in London and in Leicestershire, and had preached strongly against the Mass, refusing to listen to Bonner's admonition to return to the old service or to be silent on controversy. They had reason to think that they should be sent to Cambridge, to hold such a disputation as Cranmer, Latimer, and Ridley had done at Oxford, and as this had been so unfairly conducted, they, with five other clergy, joined in a protest against being examined, save by the Queen's Council. Meantime further provocations went on. The Frankfort books in sulted the Queen, her husband, and her religion, and a false miracle was played off at an old house in Aldersgate Street, where a voice THE SOUTH WARK COMMISSION. 233 spoke out of the wall, and when the people cried, "Save Queen Mary ! " answered nothing, but to " Save Queen Elizabeth ! " said "So be it !" and when asked "What is the Mass?" replied "Idolatry! " Lords Howard and Paget found a woman hidden in the house, who onfessed that she had been set on to excite the mob. The pillory was ,.er punishment, but the prisons were overflowing with clergy and with ;>eople who in one form or other had resisted the ordinances of the Queen, and it was needful to try them. The statute of Henry IV., "'De heretico coviburendo," fixed the fate of those convicted of heresy, and both Mary herself and Gardiner seem for that very reason to have put off the trials as long as possible ; Gar diner at least well knowing the temper of the English, and that severity would be sure to alienate them. But Pole was legate, and likewise administrator of the see of Can terbury. He was a gentle-tempered man, and by no means a bigoted Romanist, but the new Pope had been always his personal enemy, had accused him of heretical opinions at the time of the Council, and more over hated the Spaniards. On his own account, therefore, the Cardinal was afraid to leave matters as they were. So as the prisoners had desired to be examined before the Queen's Council, a Court was assembled at Southwark on the 22nd of January, 1555, with Gardiner, as Lord Chancellor, presiding over it, and con sisting of several lay lords and five more bishops. Coverdale had been saved by a letter of the King of Denmark claiming him as his subject ; but there were the other two bishops and about eleven priests, with a few laymen, who had either preached heresy or mocked the Roman Catholic ceremonies. The Londoners were much disposed to sympathize with them when they were brought backwards and forwards from their prisons ; so it was done as early as possible' in the day, and at night officers were sent before to put out "all the costermongers' candles," the costard, or apple, sellers among the provision shops being the only ones lighted up at night. Rogers wrote an account of his own trial. He says there was an immense crowd, in spite of these precautions, so that he and Bishop Hooper, who were arraigned together, could hardly get along the street. Rowland Taylor has also left a letter, with an account of the examin ation. It was not a discussion, for the opinions of all were well known, through their books or their preaching, but the question was whether they would stand by these tenets or give them up. There was a certain awkwardness in Gardiner thus sitting in judg ment, after he had gone along with Henry VIII. 's measures. When Rogers reminded him how for twenty years he had prayed against the Pope, he said he had been forced by cruelty, and when his oaths against the Roman domination were cited against him, he said they were Herod's oaths, sinful and not to be kept, an honest answer, and there fore the best he could make. The great question was with all these prisoners whether they adhered to their new opinions, and likewise in 234 CAMEOS OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. the case of the married ones, whether they would give up their wives. The Chancellor asked Hooper if he were married. "Yea, my Lord, and will not be unmarried till death unmarry me." Cuthbert Tonstall, Bishop of Durham, exclaimed, "Thou beast!" being shocked at the open defence of marriage in a Bishop. Then the crucial question as to faith in the Mass was put to Hooper, and he answered as an undeniable Calvinist. There was little going into detail. What Cranmer and Ridley had avouched at Oxford, had there been declared to be heretical, though in truth there had been no authoritative judgment of the Church which could make it such ; and it was from perceiving this, the EngUsh Council had never yet carried out their condemnation. There was a curious complication in the matter. Many of these men, especially the three Bishops at Oxford, were by the law guilty of treason against the Queen, and therefore liable to death : but Mary, for the sake of example, and also from a lofty feeling that she might forgive her personal enemies, but not those of her religion, chose to have them tried for heresy rather than treason. Now as this involved death by fire they could not be expected to appreciate the generosity, which they might well take for malignity. The others, who stood before the Commission at Southwark, were not all under the accusation of traitors, though both Rogers and Brad ford had openly preached against the Queen, but if they avowed their accordance with the views which, after a fashion, had been condemned at Oxford, they came under the act for heresy. In point of fact most of them went far beyond Cranmer, and though what he had said had been accordant with opinions never condemned by the Church, their doctrine of the Holy Eucharist was entirely un-Catholic. But no detail was entered into, only Gardiner, as Chancellor, offered them grace and favour from the Queen, saying, " If you will -now rise again with us from the fall which we have generally suffered in this realm," thus classing himself with them, for the separation from Rome, and the other deeds of Henry VIII. , in a manner that was really fine and generous, considering how he had been imprisoned and deprived for withstanding the further innovations of Edward VI. Taylor made answer that "So to rise would be the greatest fall I could receive, for I should so fall from my dear Saviour Christ to Antichrist." Such was the tenor of all their answers, and on the 29th and 30th of January sentence of excommunication and judgment eccle siastical was pronounced against Hooper, Rogers, Taylor, Bradford, and Sanders. Farrer was remanded. Crome desired a respite, and as well as a herald named Tomson, seems to have recanted. Another lay man, named Cardmaker, likewise made some submission which led to his being spared for the time. The others were all under sentence of burning, a law not made by those who sat in judgment, but by the Parliament of Henry IV., 150 years before, in imitation of the persecuting system first invented by the false Emperor Maximus, and condemned by. St. Martin and St. THE SOUTHWARK COMMISSION. 235 Ambrose, but afterwards revived, when in the end of the tenth century, the love and faith of the Church had grown cold, and Robert the Pious of France caused a heretical priest to be shut up in a hut which was burnt over his head. In the outburst of the Albigensian and other heresies of the thirteenth century, Innocent III. had sanctioned perse cution to the death, and the Dominicans had been instituted as defenders of the faith, and therefore Inquisitors, in France, Italy, and Spain. There were few men in Europe who did not believe that to kill a heretic was an act of faith, in accordance with the commands given to the Israelites as to idolaters, and who did not overlook our Lord's own repeal of that law in answer to St. James and St. John. As to the burning, it was to avoid actual bloodshed, and most punish ments weie cruel. Thieves, in some parts of Germany, were actually boiled alive, robbers in France were torn to pieces by horses ; to be broken on the wheel was far more protracted torture than to die by fire, and England had horrible modes of death in her statute-book, compared with which beheading and hanging were absolute mercy. To let the law take its course did not argue any exceptional cruelty in Mary or her councillors. It rather appears that they had waited, hoping to give time for submission, till Cardinal Pole led them to action to vindicate his own character, and perhaps the presence of the Spaniards made them ashamed of being so loth to put convicted heretics to death. So the sentence was spoken, and then Bonner, as diocesan, had to go to each priest and bishop in his prison to degrade him from his sacred office. Edmund Bonner was viewed afterwards as an absolute ferocious monster, and the poet Cowper declares that " Bonner, blithe as shepherd at a wake, Enjoyed the show, and danced about the stake ; " whereas, so far from indulging in any such extraordinary episcopal per formance, he had an educated English clergyman's natural dislike to witnessing executions, and as a kindly-tempered man, always tried to persuade the victims to recant, when he went to degrade them, about which he had no choice. They, of course, looked on these persuasions like those of heathen magistrates to the early Christians, and their writers record them as enhancements of cruelty, though Bonner could not but mean them in mercy to both body and soul. Brave and affectionate letters had passed between Bishops Ridley and Hooper, forgiving one another for all that had passed between them, when Hooper was trying to Calvinise the Church more than Ridley could endure, and declaring to one another that they died for the truth. Bonner and his chaplains held many arguments, even now, both with Hooper and Farrer, and actually persuaded Farrer to receive the ' Holy Communion in one kind only ; but Bradford's indignation made Ijim return to his former opinion ; and Hooper never gave way an inch, being greatly grieved at a report that he had recanted, saying "The false report of weak brethren is a double cross." This was in 236 CAMEOS OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. a letter written two days before Bonner came to Newgate to , degrade him and Rogers by stripping off one by one the canonical vestments and symbols. Bishop Hooper, who had scarcely submitted to wear these robes at all, and who attached no import to them, endured with out a word. It is to be observed that his degradation was, in fact, a full acknowledgment of the validity of his consecration. All the priests ordained in the last reign were treated as true priests, and it was not till after 1700 that Rome disputed the validity of English Orders. Rogers said he had one petition to make, namely, that he might see his German wife, but Bonner could not grant it ; and he answered, ' ' Then you declare your charity what it is." The marriage of priests being declared null, the wives were not recognised, and therefore these last interviews were forbidden. However his wife, with her infant in her arms, and her other ten children round her, waited for him as that same day he was led to Smithfield, singing the Miserere, and exchanged a few words with him. His pardon was offered him for the last time if he would recant ; and he was then fastened to the stake with a chain, and burnt, holding himself resolutely, and ' ' washing his hands in the flames " as they rose round him. His wife and son, going to see his cell after wards, found hidden under some stones a packet containing the history of his examination, which he had written while in prison. This was on the 4th of February, and the same night Hooper was sent off to Gloucester to die there, at which he rejoiced, thinking that his martyrdom would confirm his people in his doctrine, as indeed it did : for in Elizabeth's reign Bishop Cheny found it impossible to bring them back to trae Catholic doctrine or practice, and retired in despair. Hooper was a good man, in earnest in his Calvinist doctrine, and was much beloved, so that his people came out in crowds to meet him. Among the persons appointed to preside at his execution was Sir Antony Kingston, his personal friend, who burst into tears as they met, and implored him to save his own life ; but he answered that, though death is bitter and life sweet, his mind was made up to the torment of the fire rather than to deny the truth of God's Word. Sir Antony wept bitterly, for Hooper's preaching had reclaimed him from a vicious life, and he thanked God for having known him. The mayor and aldermen of Gloucester likewise saluted him with respect and affection, and for this he thanked them warmly, saying the only favour he asked was a quick fire. The sheriff would have lodged him in the gaol for the night, but the guards interposed, saying he was so mild and patient that a child might have kept him, and that they would rather watch all night with him than see him sent to the common prison. So he was taken to a private house, and could make his devo tions alone. It was market-day, and 7,000 persons were assembled when he was led out to die on the spot now occupied by his statue, in front of his cathedral. Some crowded the windows and roofs, and the great elm near the stake was filled with gazers. THE SOUTHWARK COMMISSION. 237 He came forth, halting a little with sciatica ; and as he saw the throngs around he lifted his eyes to heaven, but kept a cheerful coun tenance. He knelt down to pray, and the moment was chosen for placing beside him a box containing his pardon, if he would recant. He cried out, ' ' Take it away — take it away, if you love my soul ' " His prayer was made aloud, but all the people were ordered back from listening to it, and when it was finished his clothes, all but his shirt, were taken off, and he was chained, standing on a high stool above the faggots, so that, being a tall man, he was visible to all. Provincial executions were not frequent enough for the deadly work to be understood, and, though there was a bag of gunpowder under the stool, and one tied to each arm, the request for a quick fire was unful filled, and this most terrible of the burnings actually lasted three- quarters of an hour, before the sufferer, with both legs and one arm burnt off, fell over at last and died, having never failed in his resolute patience. Laurence Sanders, a scholar of Eton and King's College, held pre ferment both in the dioceses of London and Coventry. He was in the Marshalsea, and was there degraded by Bonner, on the 4th of February, giving thanks, as he said, "that I am none of your Church." He had written strongly against the Mass, and he was also married. His wife being, as usual, excluded, the gaoler kindly carried her infant to its father ; and as those around admired it, he appealed to them whether he could declare his marriage null, and make that child illegitimate. All the poor woman could do for him was to send him a shirt of her own sewing to suffer in, ere he was sent off to Coventry, where he was burnt on the 8th of February. Rowland Taylor's degradation did not proceed so quietly. He seems, though a good and charitable man, to have been of quick, hasty temper, and, being of low birth, had no habits of good breeding to prevent what was rude and unworthy in the testimony he meant should be dauntless. Bonner, as usual, begged him to save his life, temporal and eternal, by recanting ; but he again said it would be turning to Antichrist. Then he was bidden to array himself in the full vestments of a priest, but this he refused flatly to do, and when they had been hung upon him, he marched up and down the room in scorn, saying, " How say you, my masters? Am I not a goodly fool? How say you, my masters ? If I were in Cheapside, should I not have boys enough to laugh at these apish toys and toying trumpery ? " The final ceremony was a blow on the breast with the reverse end of the crozier, as to dismiss the unfaithful shepherd, and the Bishop's chaplain called out — " My lord, strike him not, for he will sure strike again." "Yea, by St. Peter will I," cried Taylor. "The cause is Christ's, and I were no good Christian if I would not fight in my master's quarrel." 238 CAMEOS OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. Cameo XXII. Degradation of Taylor. Bonner, of course, not wishing to lead to an unseemly broil, made no attempt to strike, in fact after the first exhortation to recant, he does not seem to have said anything that his melancholy office did not put into his mouth, while Taylor did his utmost to provoke him, and when the curse was uttered, taking it as if Bonner was speaking it out of private malice, he answered — "Though you do curse me, yet doth God bless me. I have the witness of my conscience that ye have done me wrong and violence, and yet I pray God, if it be His will, to forgive you ! But from the tyranny of the Bishop of Rome, and from his detestable conspiracies, Good Lord deliver us ! " This, be it observed, was from the Litany Bonner himself had used under his master, Henry VIII. The threat to strike again had been made in jest, for when Taylor went back to his cell, he laughed with John Bradford over the having made the Bishop believe he would do so, though really his conduct was so strange under such circumstances, that no one could have guessed what he would do. The jailor admitted his wife, one of his sons, and the faithful servant, John Hull, to sup with him that night, and he spoke much to them, advising his wife to marry again as soon as possible one who would be a good father to her poor children, and saying he should soon be with the five out of his nine who had died before him. Mrs. Taylor, thinking he was sure to be sent to Hadleigh that night, went with one of her daughters and an orphan girl whom he had adopted, to watch for him at Aldgate, in St. Botolph's Church porch, and there the three poor women waited through the long February night, till it was nearly day, for he did not set out till two o'clock. The cavalcade had no lights, but the orphan heard the sound and cried — ' ' O my dear father ! Mother, mother ! " " Rowland, Rowland," called the wife, " where art thou ? " The sheriff, Sir William Chester, let him dismount, and they all knelt down in the porch together, and said the Lord's Prayer ; he blessed the two girls, and took leave of his wife, who said she should meet him at Hadleigh ; but the sheriff, in mercy, caused her to be taken to her mother's house, and kept there. He had wept all the time of the interview, and he now had to give up the prisoner to the Sheriff of Essex, but not till another piteous parting had taken place, for John Hullihad brought Taylor's youngest son to the gates, and the boy was lifted up before his father on the horse, while Taylor prayed for him, blessed him, kissed him, and handed him down, saying — " Farewell, John Hull, the faithfullest servant that ever man was blessed with." By daylight he was made to wear a hood, with two holes for the eyes, lest he should be recognised. At Chelmsford. the sheriff of Suffolk met him, and, halting for the night, he supped with the two sheriffs, who spared no pains to persuade him to save his life. He answered THE SOUTHWARK COMMISSION. 239 with his dry humorous tone, that he himself and many in Hadleigh would be much deceived in their expectations. The words were received with joy, declared to be those of a wise man, and the most comfortable that had been heard for a long time. But, said Taylor — " I am, as you see, a man that hath a very great carcase, which I thought should have been buried in Hadleigh churchyard, if I had died in my bed, as I well hoped I should have done. And thus a great number of worms in Hadleigh churchyard should have had jolly feeding on me, for which they have looked many a day. But now I know we be deceived, both they and I, for this carcase must be burnt to ashes, and so shall they lose their bait." Numbers of gentlemen met him on his way, and tried to shake his constancy, but still in vain ; and when he came near home, he said, in reply to the question how he fared — "Never better ; — I am almost at home. I lack but two stiles to go over, and I am even at my Father's house." His own flock at Hadleigh thronged the streets, weeping and wailing, calling him their good shepherd, and dwelling on the many kindnesses he had done them, while they prayed aloud for him. At the alms houses he gave away what was left of the money that charitable people had supplied him with, tying up the last of it in his glove, and throwing it in at the window of a room, where lived a blind man and woman. He then found himself at Aldham common, and being told that this was the spot, he tore off the hood, and his face was seen with a long, grey beard, and hair which had been clipped to obliterate the original tonsure. There was a general cry of affection, and he would have spoken, but the sheriff bade him remember his promise to the council. Yet when he had taken off his clothes, and given his boots to a poor man to whom he had promised the reversion of them in better days, the sight of the sympathisingfaces made him exclaim — " Good people, I have taught you nothing but God's Word, and I am come hither to seal it with my blood." One of the guards struck him on the mouth with a halberd, saying — " Is this thy promise ? " He then knelt in prayer, kissed the stake, and got into the barrel of pitch prepared for him. Many of the bystanders refused to heap up the faggots, though they were threatened with prison, but others obeyed with savage or cowardly readiness, and one threw a faggot so that it hit Taylor's face, and he mildly said — '.' O friend, what needed that ? I have enough." He began the fifty-first Psalm in English, and one of the gentlemen struck him on the lips, bidding him speak Latin. After the fire had been kindled, one of the men cleft his skull with a halberd, so that he fell dead, having hardly felt the flames. He was the grandfather of the great and eloquent writer, Jeremy Taylor. 240 CAMEOS OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. This was on Saturday, the 9th of February. On the Sunday, Alfonso de Castro, a Spanish friar, confessor to King Philip, preached before the court a sermon strongly condemning these horrors, which he declared to be contrary not only to the spirit, but the letter of the Gospel, saying that men were to be reclaimed by mildness, not by severity, and that Bishops were sent not to kill, but to teach their flocks. The sermon had a great effect, and for five weeks more no arrests or trials took place, only the men who already lay under sen tence of the commission were executed in different places. The last of these was Bishop Farrer, at Caermarthen. He was a stern, hard man, not loved by either party, but most resolute. He bade a man who pitied him give no credit to his doctrine if he saw him flinch, nor did he show any token of pain in the midst of the fire, till he was killed by a blow on the head. The more violent reformers were wrought up to a maddened state by these spectacles, and by the books and ballads smuggled in from Geneva, Zurich, and Frankfort. They insulted the ruling religion by ribald jests, such as hanging a cat in Cheapside in priestly garments, stealing the Host from the Easter sepulchre, and mocking at the crosses newly set up. On Easter day, 1555, one William Branch, or Flower, once a monk at Ely, but now a furious fanatic, horrified the congregation of St. Margaret's, Westminster, by rushing at the celebrating priest as he was actually administering the Holy Communion, and stabbing him, so that his blood was sprinkled on the Host and on the worshippers, though the wounds were not mortal. Flower was brought before Bonner, who offered him pardon for his crime if he would submit to the Church, and argued with him long, but in vain ; and the punishment took effect, the hand that had committed the blow being cut off before he was burnt in front of St. Margaret's. A Consistory Court was held at St. Paul's at the same time by Bonner, where he, with two other Bishops, tried six more prisoners, most of whom had long been in Bonner's hands, at his palace at Fulham, where he had been trying every means to reconcile them to the Church. They were not in prison, but according to their rank lived at his second or third tables, and associated with the attendants and servants. Thomas Tomkins, William Hunter, and Thomas Hawkes were the most remarkable among these. Tomkins, a weaver, had been making hay in the park, where Bonner addressed him— " Well ! I like thee well, for thou labourest well. I trust thou wilt be a good Catholic." " My lord ! " he returned, " St. Paul saith, ' If a man wiU not work, neither let him eat.' " Then, observing that Tomkins wore a great beard, apparently from some freak of fanaticism, the Bishop said — " If it was off, he would look like a Catholic." THE SOUTHWARK COMMISSION. 241 ' "My lord ! " said Tomkins, "I was a good Christian before my beard grew, and so I trust to be, my beard being on." It seems that Bonner roughly plucked his beard, and ordered a barber to shave it off. On another occasion the Bishop, when arguing with Tomkins, tried the effect of holding his hand in the flame of a candle to show him what burning was like, but the weaver was resolute, and after a trial before the Bishops of London and St. David's, he was found guilty. Hunter was an apprentice to a silk-weaver, and only nineteen years old. When he refused to communicate at the Easter Mass, and argued hotly, his master sent him home to his friends at Brentwood, but there he walked into the chapel and began reading aloud, after the fashion that had before made so much confusion. Father Atwell, an officer of the Bishops, came in, and began arguing with the youth, but being un able to stop him, fetched the vicar of South Weald. Hot words passed on the doctrine of the Mass, and Hunter fled, but the two clergy de nounced him to a magistrate, and finding that his father would get into trouble if he did not surrender, he gave himself up, and was sent to Bonner. The Bishop tried hard to persuade him to recant. " I think thou art ashamed to bear a faggot and recant openly, but if thou wilt recant thy sayings, but speak the word between me and thee, I will promise thee that it shall go no further, and thou shalt go home again without any hurt," said he. " My Lord ! " returned William, " if you will let me alone, and leave me to my conscience, I will go to my father and dwell with him, or else with my master again ; and if nobody will disquiet or trouble my conscience, I will keep my conscience to myself." "I am content," said the Bishop, "so that thou wilt go to the Church and be shriven, and receive, and so continue a good Catholic Christian." This Hunter refused, and Bonner had him for two days put in the stocks, with a crust of brown bread and a cup of water, hoping to break his spirit ; but on going to see him, he found the bread and water untouched. However, he had the lad released, desired that he should breakfast with the servants, and then saw him again. Finding all persuasions vain, he had Hunter kept in close imprisonment for nine months, until in a Consistory Court at St. Paul's he was brought out and condemned with Tomkins and five more, though not till after they had resisted much persuasion on the part of the Bishop, who offered young Hunter forty pounds, and to be a freeman of London, if he would abjure his opinions ; but his constancy was unshaken. Hawkes was of gentle blood, and had been a retainer to the Earl of Oxford, but broke with him on religious grounds. It was Oxford him- ¦self who accused him of keeping his child unchristened, and he was sent up to Fulham, where he lived at the steward's table, and had a good many conversations with Bonner, Archdeacon Harpsfield, and vol iv. R 242 CAMEOS OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. Dr. Chedsey. Also Bonner called him to see Bird, the old feeble ex-Bishop of Chester, whose marriage had been pardoned, though he was deprived. The old man gently began — "I would I could do you some good; ye are a young man, and I would not wish you to go too far, but learn of your elders somewhat." Hawkes answered that he would hear nothing that was not in the word, and looking up, saw the old man asleep. Bonner elicited from Hawkes that he should not object to the child being christened after the service in King Edward's book, and tried to show him that the essentials were the same, after which he proposed that the baptism should take place while the father was at Fulham without his knowledge of the time or manner ; but Hawkes said that offer had been made before, and he would not consent. He would not attend Mass, saying that he knew no Latin, and therefore was not edified, and he refused to read any books but those of his own party. By his own account he was by no means ill-treated, but lived at large in the palace, eating at the Bishop's second table, and opportunity of instruction being given to him, while any concession on his part would have saved his life. At last, finding his recantation hopeless, Bonner threatened him with Newgate, and some of the Queen's soldiers arriving, threatened and abused him, crying — "Faggot ! burn him ! hang him ! " He was then sent to Westminster prison, and after a few days' experience of it, he was again summoned before Bonner, who vainly tried to persuade him to sign a confession of error. He was sentenced by the Consistory Court in February, though he did not suffer till the next May or June, when there was a fresh renewal of persecution. Gardiner was distressed enough at what had already been done. " Ohejam satis est " (Alas ! now it is enough), he was heard to exclaim, and after the six Southwark and six St. Paul's condemnations, there was a pause, while the kingdom awaited the birth of the heir, which was expected at Easter. The Queen had taken to her chamber, prayers were put up in the churches, the obsequious parliament had decided that if she died, and the child lived, her husband should be regent, notices were prepared for the loyal subjects ; but time passed on, and the heir did not appear, though at Norwich there were rejoicings on a false report of his birth. Mary meanwhile was suffering from fearful headaches, which swelled her head, and violent hysteria, the more overwhelming because her sense of dignity would not let her utter shrieks or shed tears. At last one of her physicians ventured to hint that her hopes were but a delusion, and that her malady was a dropsy : he sent her into the country for change of air, and while she grieved over her cruel disappointment, and still nourished vain hopes, England breathed more freely, trusting that she was rescued from the danger of a Spanish-Austrian dynasty. Philip was weary, disappointed, and made ridiculous by the poor Queen's THE SOUTHWARK COMMISSION. 243 passionate affection and causeless jealousy, no doubt aggravated by her terrible hysteria. " Better the baker's daughter in her russet gown Than Queen Mary of England without her crown," said the scurrilous ballad, and no doubt he so felt it, yet there is no real evidence that he gave cause for her distrust and despairing jealousy. There is indeed one tale of his looking in at Lady Magdalen Dacre's window, and receiving a box on the ear for his pains ; but his morose, shy nature never seems to have unbent, though the English hated him enough to believe that Mary's jealousy could not have been without foundation. Cameo XXII. Mary's ill ness. IS56- CAMEO XXIII THE ABDICATION OF CHARLES V. (1555-I557-) Queen of England. Queen of Scotland. King of France. 1553. Mary. I542- Mary. 1547. Henri II. King of Spain and Emperor of Germany. Pope. 1519. Charles V. 1555- Paul IV. Cam °:o XXIII. Charles's in tentions of retiring. Long since had Charles V. and Francisco de Borja promised one another to retire from the wo'rld, and attend to the affairs of their souls during their old age. Borja had fulfilled his purpose, and was already a Jesuit father, and Charles thought his time had now come. He had not succeeded in the purposes of his life. He had been frustrated in collecting the Council of Trent, or keeping it together ; he had been forced to sanction the pacification of Passau, and he had been unable to carry out his plans of defeating the Mahometans ; but though only fifty-five years o'd, his health and strength were failing him. Gout, his great enemy, was gaining ground on him, and he felt that if he . waited to accomplish all he had hoped to effect, when in the prime of his youth he had taken Plus idtra for his motto, he should die in the fetters of royalty. Even before Philip had left Spain, Charles had written to him to build at the Hieronomite Convent of Yuste, in Estramadura, a house large enough to contain him and his servants and greatly had the friars wondered and gossiped over the mysterious building, which was three years in hand. The death of the unfortunate Queen Juana his mother, on the Ilfh of April, 1555, made his plans more feasible. For half a century had she been watching her husband's coffin, but during the last few days of her life her reason returned, and she sent her last words to her sons by Father Francisco de Borja. Her name had always preceded that of her son in all acts and proclamations, and he was only now legally King of Spain. Having made all his arrangements, Charles summoned his sen to meet him at Brussels. Mary had recovered some slight measure of THE ABDICATION OF CHARLES V. 245 health during the summer, but was still in a state of spirits which made her disproportionately unhappy at letting her husband leave her. She was committed to the care of Cardinal Pole, while Philip early in September sailed for the Netherlands, and met his father at Brussels, where he also found his two aunts, Leonor, the widow of Franr^ois I., a sweet and gentle lady, much beloved by the emperor ; and Maria, widow of the King of Hungary, a much more high-spirited lady, much like her aunt Margarita, whom she had succeeded as governess of the Low Countries. She could hunt for days and nights together without fatigue, and did not shrink from the acts of slaughter usually performed by foresters, but she was an excellent ruler, and had kept the turbulent Low Countries for twenty years quieter than they ever were before, or ever would be after her time. On the 25th. of October, 1555, the emperor called together the deputies of the provinces of the Low Countries, clergy, nobles, and burghers. These were the men with whom he was most at home. He was more a Fleming than anything else, and of all the orders and decorations of his realms, he chiefly prized the Golden Fleece, insti tuted by his forefather, Philippe the Good, of Burgundy. On the 22nd of October he had held his last chapter of this order, comprising the noblest and most able men of Flanders, Holland, and Spain, men whom he had trained to war and statesmanship, and who were devoted to his person. Egmont was among them, and so was William, Count of Nassau, on whom the little principality of Orange, on the borders of Provence, had descended through his grandmother, Claude de Chalons, sister of that Philibert who had figured in the sack of Rome. The possessions of the house of Nassau were immense, and the family had always been favoured by Charles. William had been his page, and had been observed by him as likely to be capable of great tilings. At present he was living the life of a magnificent noble, or rather prince. His palaces at Brussels and Antwerp were splendid, and so was his hospitality. Twenty-four nobles and eighteen pages belonged to his household, and he had no less than twenty-eight master cooks. Egmont's splendour was scarcely inferior to that of Orange ; indeed, his wife was of the electoral family of the Rhine. The other Flemish nobles were in their degree all wealthy, and full both of liber ality and courage. They had been deemed, ever since the days of Philippe the Good, the finest chivalry in the world, and the Golden Fleece had always ranked as the grandest order of knighthood. " See, my son," said Charles, " I make you chief and sovereign of the most noble Order of the Golden Fleece. Keep it and maintain it in dignity and honour, as I, as my father, and all my ancestors have guarded and maintained it. God give you grace to prosper and increase. Then turning to Philip, he continued, " Prince, my son, you see all these knights? They have been the chief and most faithful props of my empire. By their support I have surmounted so many perils^ and dangers, and therefore I have vowed to them a singular love. If you 246 CAMEOS OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. deal with them as I have done, I am sure they will show you the same. affection, but if you treat them otherwise, they will be the cause of the loss and ruin of your state. Love them and honour them." This was his manner of giving to Philip the Grand Mastership he had hitherto held. There is something in the ring of the words as if he knew that it was not in Philip to give the same hearty and generous trust as he had given, and that towards those whose minds and opinions were not in the same groove as his own, the prince was full of distrust and dislike. At any rate, when we remember that Orange, Egmont, and Hoom were among the knights who stood round, the words have a melancholy significance. On the 25th the States- General met. Three chairs were set for Charles, Philip, and Maria as the regent, in the great hall of the palace at Brussels. The whole of the deputies took their places, and then from the chapel advanced the emperor, leaning on the arm of the Prince of Orange, and followed by his son, his two sisters, and his nephew Ferdinand, the second son of his brother the King of the Romans. All rose as he entered, and when the muster-roll of the deputies had been gone through, he commanded the Counsellor Philibert de Brux- elles, the President of the Council of Flanders, to explain the causes of their being thus convoked. Philibert explained that it was not age, but exhaustion from his labours and infirmities, that caused the emperor to resign the govern ment to his son. The gout was the only enemy over . 4? '*¦ ¦<*«* to sino- the deeds of REFORMATION IN IRELAND. 267 his forefathers and his own, and to incite the clan to battle. They had seldom any castles, but lived in villages built up of timber and turf, the chief's own hall being of no better material, but vast enough to afford board and bed to any number of his followers. The chiefs themselves were like panthers of the wilderness — graceful, noble, and brave, often generous, but with deadly hatred and capable of horrible ferocity, and their followers loved them and hated every hostile clan, and the English above all. Their ground was chiefly pasture land, and they went out with their cattle to the best grazing places, living in bothies, or, as Spenser calls them, "boolies," and removing when the grass was exhausted, in consequence of which Spenser considered that "many great enormities arise unto that commonwealth." They wore "long glibbes," or curled bushes of hair, hanging down over their eyes, long shirts of linen dyed with saffron, and mantles. These mantles greatly roused Spenser's ire. "It is a fit house for an outlaw, a meet bed for a rebel, and an apt cloke for a thief. When it raineth it is his pent-house, when it bloweth it is his tent, when it freezeth it is his tabernacle. In summer he can wear it loose, in winter he can wrap it close, at all times he can use it, never heavy, never cumbersome. Likewise for a rebel it is serviceable ; for in his war that he maketh (if at least it deserves the name of war, when he still flieth from his foe and lurketh in the thick woods and strait passages, waiting for advantages), it is his bed, yea, and almost his household stuff. For the wood is his house against all weathers, and his mantle his couch to sleep in. Therein he wrappeth himself round, and coucheth himself strongly against the gnats, which in that country do more annoy the naked rebels when they keep the woods, and do more sharply wound them, than aU their enemy's swords or spears, which can seldom come nigh them.' Yea, and oftentimes their mantle serveth them, when they are near driven, being wrapped about their left arm instead of a target, for it is hard to cut through with a sword ; besides, it is light to bear, light to throw away, and being (as they commonly are) naked, it is to them all in all. Lastly, for a thief it is so handsome as it may seem it was first invented for him, for in it he may cleanly convey away any fit pillage that eometh handsomely to him." It is equally convenient to a bad housewife and inconvenient to a good one, according to Spenser. He was chiefly bent on making out similarities between the Irish and ancient Scythians, and thus only mentions the customs that serve his purpose, such as the war-cries, the "keening," which he calls "dispaireful outcries," at burials, the charming of weapons before a battle, the saffron shirts, wicker shields covering the whole body, and the broadswords, and the drinking the blood of their enemies. He was not much more delighted with the Irish of English descent than with the natives, and those who had adopted Irish names and spoke Erse (as the MacMahons, who were once Fitz-Urses) displeased him greatly, though he admired their personal beauty and wonderful 268 CAMEOS OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. riding, for they could leap upon a horse in motion without using a stirrup. They wore quilted breastplates instead of armour, and long hose, and their chief force consisted of footmen, called " galloglasses " {gall ogla, English yeoman), who carried axes, and kernes, with the mantle, and a long skene knife, and they, like the native Irish, kept bards, for whom the poet of the Faery Queene had little fellow-feeling. For "a share of a stolen cow," he says, they will thus vaunt " a most notorious thief and outlaw." "That he was none of the idle milksops that was brought up by the fireside, but that most of his days he spent in arms and valiant enterprises ; that he never did eat his meat before he had won it with his sword ; that he lay not all night slugging in a cabin under his mantle, but used commonly to keep others waking to defend their lives, and did light his candle at the flames of their houses to lead him in the darkness ; that the day was his night and the night was his day ; that his music was not the harp nor lays of love, but the cries of the people and the clashing of armour ; and, finally, that he died, not bewailed of many, but made many wail when he died, that dearly bought his death." This elegy, it seems, was bought for forty crowns. However, Spenser allows that some of the poetry was " sprinkled with pretty flowers of their natural device, which gave good grace and comeliness to them, the which it is great pity to see abused to the gracing of wickedness and vice, which with good usage would serve to adorn and beautify verse." Morality and decency were at the lowest ebb among both natives and English in Ireland. Even when Ireland had been the Isle of Saints, these saints had been of a very strange kind, to judge by their legends, and at the best they had never exercised much influence over the people at large. The country was divided into twenty-six dioceses after the Conquest, and sprinkled with abbeys and religious houses, 1,000 in number ; but the Bishops were mostly of the soldier kind, the clergy — in these remote regions — very ignorant and irregular in life ; and, though the native Irish continued to be baptized, nobody «eems to have thought of giving them real religious instruction or making the Latin ritual comprehensible to them. Still they were passionately attached to the old national sanctuaries, where S. Patrick, S. Bridget, S. Kevin, and other saints had lived, where cures were supposed to be wrought, and where the septs had a much cherished right of burial. When Henry VIII. claimed the supremacy over the English Church he demanded the same acknowledgment from the Irish ; but he was opposed by the Primate, Cromer, Archbishop of Armagh and Chan cellor. Henry thereupon made George Browne, one of the Reforming clergy, Archbishop of Dublin, and carried through the Irish parlia ment bills for acknowledging himself, not lord, but king, of Ireland ; and making the island not only independent spiritually, but temporally, of Rome. This claim to be king excited the ire of the native chiefs, who con sidered it to interfere with their freedom. The O'Neil of Ulster set REFORM A TION IN IRELAND. 269 up the red hand, proclaiming himself chief of the north, and wasting the countiy. When the Lord Deputy, Leonard Gray, would have marched against O'Neil, the Butlers refused to follow him, accusing him of the escape of the young Fitzgerald ; but he obtained men from Cheshire and also the assistance of a hostile clan from Drogheda, and with these he met O'Neil at Bellishoe, on the borders of Meath, and routed him entirely. But the accusers of Gray prevailed, the jealousy of Henry VIII. was excited, and Leonard was sent to London, where he underwent the usual fate of his family, and was beheaded. Con O'Neil, who had been persuaded to make his submission, returned, " richly plated," i.e. with rich presents, and created Earl of Tyrone, in order to give him a seat in the Irish parliament. He had made it his special request to the King that his illegitimate son, Matthew, who was created Lord Dungannon, should succeed to the earldom, to the exclusion of his legitimate son, Shan, who was then very young. Several other Irish chiefs received peerages, as well as some of the English pale. The O'Byrnes and O'Farrells, of Wicklow, begged to be taken under the EngUsh law, but were refused ; but Meath was accepted, and divided into the two counties of East and West Meath. Regula tions were put forth forbidding laymen and boys to hold benefices, sup pressing the huge trains of idle followers of all noblemen, and likewise forbidding chiefs to have more than twenty cubits of linen in their shirts, or to dye them with saffron. This was under Sir Antony St. Leger, in 1542, and he further pro moted the carrying out of the edicts for the destruction of images and the dissolution of monasteries. Archbishop Browne carried out the enactments with right good will. The staff of S. Patrick, the rood of Ballybogan, the image of our Lady at Trim, and many more like treasures, were publicly burnt, and the same destruction of monasteries went on as in England, within the English pale ; but in Tyrone, Tyr- connel, and other regions where English law did not penetrate, the religious orders were undisturbed, and the Irishry for the most part held that the Pope was the true king of Ireland. Still Henry VIII. had managed to gain sufficient hold of the imagi nations of the Irish to prevent either Pope or French king from succeed ing in their attempts against him. On the death of Archbishop Cromer he made Primate, George Dowdall, a native of Louth, the ex-Prior of the Crutched Friary of Ardace. Dowdall obtained confirmation from the Pope, and continued to follow the old customs for the short remnant of Henry's reign. When in the name of Edward VI. Somerset sent orders for the adoption of the English Prayer-book, Dowdall resisted it, giving as one objection, "then shall every illiterate fellow read mass." St. Leger replied that there were many priests illiterate enough not to understand their Latin, but now both clergy and people would under stand. Then there was a sharp little dispute between him and the Viceroy 270 CAMEOS OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. on the question whether St. Peter were the head of the Church, ending by the Archbishop rising, with all the Bishops of his province except the English Staples, Bishop of Meath, and quitting the assembly as a protest. There remained the Archbishop of Dublin with his suffra gans, and he accepted the new Liturgy, saying that he submitted to the King as our Lord to Caesar. It was used in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, for the first time on Easter-Day, 1551, the Archbishop preach ing a sermon on the text, " Open Thou mine eyes, that I may see the wondrous things of Thy law." Sir Antony St. Leger was recalled, and Sir James Crofts sent out, as being more likely to carry out the changes with a high hand. The clergy who resisted the new edict were deprived, and the troops sent to drive them out plundered their churches. In especial the sanctuary of Clonmacnois, where was a cluster of nine churches, was plundered and laid waste by the garrison of Athlone. It had a cross fifteen feet high, carved out of a single stone, and sculptured with scenes from the life of S. Kieran. Some of the churches had painted windows and considerable treasures, and these were all plundered and dispersed. The sanctuary, like all those strange clusters of shrines among the mountains, was very dear to the Irish. Con O'Neil began to waver in his allegiance ; his son Matthew accused him to the deputy, and Sir James Croft threw the old man and his wife into prison, where they died. Shan O'Neil then declared himself Lord of Ulster, fortified a strong island in Tyrone, which he called " Foogh ni Gall," or, " the hatred of the English," and there reigned like an independent prince. He was an ideal Keltic chief, brave and ferocious — so deadly in his hatred that he hung one of his men for eating EngUsh biscuit ; treacherous in the true savage fashion, and yet so just that wrong was always redressed in his domains, and so devout and charitable that, whenever he sat down to eat, he always cut off a portion for the poor before touching the food himself, saying that Christ's portion must come first. The O'Mores and O'Carolls of Leinster had also risen, but Sir James Crofts persuaded their leaders to go to England and lay their grievances before the King. They were thrown into the Tower, where O'More died shortly after of grief, while their lands were divided by Somerset's favour ites, and their clansmen driven out of Leix and Ofally, whereupon they began a warfare like that of the Red Indians upon the intruding colon ists, as deadly and as terrible. Government proceeded to deprive Archbishop Dowdall, who left the island ; the primacy was transferred to Dublin, and Armagh was offered to Turner, who very properly declined, because he said he understood no Irish and " should have to preach to the walls and stalls." Cranmer assured him that English was spoken in Ireland, though whether in Armagh he very much doubted ; but Turner still refused, and Hugh Goodacre was appointed. To the bishopric of Ossory was appointed John Bale, an Englishman, educated at Cambridge, and so hot a REFORMA TION IN IRELAND. 271 reformer that he had been obliged to leave England in Henry's time, though Bishop Poynet had brought him back and made him rector of Bishopstoke, near Winchester. He did not choose to receive the wafer bread still used in the Holy Communion, but caused a white loaf of manchet bread to be placed on the altar. A good many clergy were turned out, and others put in their places, with little heed to anything save that they took the oath of supremacy and promised to use the Liturgy ; but there was no care taken to instruct the Irish speakers in what was as incomprehensible as the Latin, and less familiar. Bale knew no Irish, but he preached all round his diocese in English, and was much disturbed that his clergy were in no hurry to accept the Second Book, alleging, as he says, "the lewd example of the Arch bishop of DubUn, which was always slack in things pertaining to God's glory." This, Bale understood to be bare Calvinism, and this he forced on the unwilling dwellers at S. Canace for the six months till Edward's death, which was only shortly preceded by that of Hugh Goodacre, so that Archbishop Dowdall could return unmolested. Mary released the unfortunate Irish chiefs who still survived, and restored young Lord Kildare to the honours of the Geraldines. She at once sent permission to restore the mass, though there was no penalty against those who persisted in the English service. Bishop Bale has left a curious account of the doings at Kilkenny the day the Queen was proclaimed. He says — " What ado I had that day with the prebendaries and priests about wearing the cope, crozier, and mitre in procession, it were too much to write." He told them these were Mosaic, not Christian, and that ceremonial shadows had departed ; and then he preached from the market-cross, from Romans xii., while the procession took place, when the chapter caused the mitre and crozier to be borne by " two disguised priests." The young men in the fore noon played a tragedy of the promises in the Old Law at the market- cross, with organ, plainges, and songs, very aptly. In the afternoon they played a comedy of St. John the Baptist's preachings, " and the temptations in the wilderness " ; but why one was tragedy and tlie other comedy does not appear. While he was away for a few days the dean and clergy of Kilkenny took advantage of his absence to restore the old ritual ; and it must have been to the great delight of the people, for Bale in great wrath tells how they rang all the bells of the cathedral, minster, and parish churches; how "they flung up their caps to the battle ments of the great temple with smilings and laughings most disso lutely," and had a grand procession, singing the Latin Litany. " They chattered it, they chanted it, with great noise and devotion ; they banquetted all the day after, for that they were delivered into a warm sun." Sir James Crofts was recalled, and Sir Antony St. Leger sent back in his place, affecting much zeal for the Queen's religion ; but, 272 CAMEOS OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. unfortunately for himself, he had shown equal zeal for that of the late King, and had composed so'me satirical verses on the doctrine of the mass, which were shown to the Queen, in his own handwriting, and destroyed all her confidence in him. Armagh was restored to the primacy ; Archbishop Browne was deposed on account of his having married, and he soon after died. Archbishop Curwen took his place. Bale had given bitter offence by his coarse and almost blasphemous denunciations of what his flock held most sacred, and an Irish mob attacked him at his house at Bishop's Court, and killed five of his servants. He shut down the iron grate over his door, and defended himself until some soldiers came and escorted him to Dublin, whence, thinking his life still in danger, he fled to Basle ; and three more of Edward's Bishops were deposed. Thomas Ratcliffe, Lord Fitzwalter, afterwards Earl of Sussex, came as deputy, to find Shan O'Neil paramount in the north, two O'Briens fighting in North Munster, the Geraldines and Butlers in South Munster, the dispossessed O'Mores marauding in Ofally, the De Burghs fighting one another in Connaught, and "the Tooles and Kavanaghs cockish in the countie of Dublin, ranging in flocks of seven or eight score." Their " cockishness " was soon put down by Ratcliffe's strong hand. He would not listen to the petition of the O'Mores and O'Farrells, but hunted them down with fire and sword, and even changed the names of Ofally and Leix into King's County and Queen's County, with Philipstown and Maryborough for their capitals. What was possible was done towards the restoration of Church pro perty, but there was no persecution. Indeed a whole English congre gation came over from Cheshire, with their clergyman, and lived safely in Ireland unmolested. There is a curious story that one Dr. Cole was sent off by the Privy Council in England with despatches, and, halting at Chester, was there visited by the mayor at his lodgings, when, taking a leathern box out of his cloak-bag, be observed, "Here is a Commission that shall lash the heretics of Ireland." This was overheard by the good woman of the house, who had a brother at Dublin named John Edmonds, whom she thought in danger of coming under this lash. Therefore she watched her oppor tunity, and, while the mayor was taking his leave, and the doctor complimenting him down stairs, opened the box, took out the commis sion, and popped in a sheet of paper enclosing a pack of cards, with the knave of clubs uppermost. Unsuspecting, Cole brought his box to the Lord Deputy, and the Irish Council opened it, expecting to produce the Commission for the persecution, and found the knave of clubs grinning in his face. " Let us have another commission," said Ratcliffe, " and-shuffle the cards in the meantime." Before another Commission could be procured from England, Queen i Mary was dead. REFORMATION IN IRELAND. 273 This account, which comes from Ware's Annals, goes on to state that Sussex told Queen Elizabeth the story, and that she was so much obliged to the good woman, Mrs. Mattershed, for saving the lives of her Protestant subjects, as to give her a pension of 40/. per annum. It was so unlike Queen Elizabeth to reward any one for tampering with the royal despatches, that we much fear that this casts a. doubt upon the story. Cameo XXV. The knave of clubs. CAMEO XXVI. LOSS OF CALAIS. Cameo XXVI. Paul IV. IS55- (1556-1559.) Queen of England. Queen of Scotland. King of France 1553. Mary. 1542. Mary. 1547- Henry II. King of Spain and Emperor of Germany. Pope. 1519. Charles V. 1553. Paul IV. It is one of the curious facts of history that the brief reconciliation to Rome took place almost in spite of a hostile Pope, who did not see in Mary I. the devoted and dutiful daughter of the Church, trying to tread in the steps of the Countess Matilda, but merely an offshoot of the hated House of Aragon, and the wife of the usurper of his country, Phihp of Spam. For Paul IV. was not so much a Pope as an Italian, and not so much an Italian as a Neapolitan, who viewed the Spaniards as the oppressors of his country, and was ready at all costs to do his utmost to expel them. He was seventy-nine years old, and his life had been free from scandal, and often ardently devout. He was very tall and thin, as if his whole frame was sinew, and he was the creature of impulse, sometimes studying all night and sleeping all day, and flying into a passion with those who tried to remind him of the hour. He would sit for hours sipping the fiery black wine of Naples — not intoxicating himself, but inflaming the heat of his temper. At his first appointment he took measures for reforming the monasteries, but he was soon turned aside from this good work by his hatred to the House of Austria, stirred up by his nephew. This nephew, Carlo Caraffa, had been a Knight of St. John, and had fought in the Austrian armies so savagely that his uncle said he was dyed in blood up to the elbows. He had been affronted by the Emperor, who, he said, had deprived him of the Priory of his Order that he expected, and of the ransom of a wealthy prisoner, and he therefore abhorred the Austrians. No sooner was his uncle made Pope than he contrived to be found by him kneeling before a crucifix, apparently in agonies of penitence, and so acted his part that the old man grew passionately fond of him, and soon believed that the Church was in bondage to the House of Austria, and LOSS OF CALAIS. 275 that the first step towards her deliverance was the driving them out of Italy. Three kings of France had begun their reigns with a raid upon Italy —why should not a fourth do so ? The truce of Vaucelles was the worst news that Paul could hear of, and no sooner was it concluded than he sent off an Italian cardinal to carry his compliments to Brussels, with orders to travel as slowly as possible, while his nephew Carlo, whom he also created "a cardinal, was hurrying as fast as he could to France, to see what could be done with Henri II. Full powers were sent to absolve the King from his oaths to keep the five years' truce, and he was to be lured with the hope of dukedoms in Italy for his sons, whose mother, Catherine, was the only legitimate offspring of the House of Medici. There were to be intermarriages with the children of the other members of the House of Caraffa, and the family were so uplifted with vanity that, when some one admired the little jewelled barrett cap of one of the children, the mother exclaimed, " This is a time for talking, not of barrett caps, but' crowns." The French Court was divided by the jealousies of the Montmorencys and Guises, of the Queen, and the Duchess de Valentinois ; but the Cardinal of Lorraine, the brother of the Duke of Guise, was a friend of Caraffa, and Francois of Guise himself had married Anne of Este, the daughter of Renee of France and the Duke of Ferrara, a warm adherent of the Pope's party. Nor could Guise forget that the claim to Naples had been ceded to the crown of France by King Rene, when it properly belonged to the House of Lorraine, of which he was a member. His party were therefore all for the war, and won over Madame de Valentinois. The Queen did not oppose them, for she hoped to see her sons enriched in her native country, and Montmorency was not sorry to see his rival, Guise, rush upon one of those Italian wars which had uniformly been fatal to the French armies, So Henri II., who was at every one's beck, decided on accepting the Pope's offers. All his scruples were removed by absolution, and war was declared again ; but one ally was gained for the Spanish cause, namely, Ottavio Farnese, Duke of Parma, the great-nephew for whose sake Paul III. had failed Charles V., and who was married to the daughter of that Emperor. He held with Spain, and, as a 'pledge of fidelity, sent his son Alessandro to be educated at the Court of Philip II. In 1556 the war was begun by Guise, in Piedmont. Rome declared war against Spain in January, 1557, and the Duke of Guise soon made his way into the States of the Church. Philip felt the need of bringing all his available forces against them. England was loth to break the truce, although the French had been, as usual, stirring up insurrections in England, and trying to involve Elizabeth in them, though the trust and affection of the sisters were not disturbed. An impostor rose in Devonshire, pretending to be Edward Courtenay, and was proclaimed at Yaxley together with Elizabeth, who was so much harassed by risings in her name and the suspicions of the Council that she sent the 276 CAMEOS OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. Countess of Sussex to the ambassador Noailles, asking him to arrange her escape to France. But Noailles, with a view to the Queen's pre carious life, advised her, if she hoped for the crown, to remain in England ; and probably she never really meant to leave it, for she refused offers of marriage from the kings of Sweden and Denmark and the Duke of Savoy. Another disturbance was made by Thomas Stafford, second son of Lord Stafford, who left Dieppe with a body of English exiles and some French adventurers, seized Scarborough, and declared that Mary had forfeited the throne by her marriage with a Spaniard. But not a man in England heeded the proclamation, and the English ambassador at Paris, Wooton, had discovered the plan in time to warn the Queen, who sent the Earl of Westmoreland with sufficient troops to force Stafford to surrender. Yet, in spite of these provocations, Mary was most reluctant to draw the sword and break the alliance with France ; but Philip himself came over to persuade her, and she revived into gladness while he was present, giving her consent to raise an army against France, and stipulating that the late rebels might earn their pardon by serving in it. Cardinal Pole agreed to this war, and thereby filled up the measure of his supposed offences against the Pope. He was well known, since Gardiner's death, to be Mary's chief adviser ; and how could this be compatible with his position as legate ? Threats that he should lose that office came to him, and he added to the rage of Paul by writing him a letter of expostulation against the war. Paul viewed the letter as such an impertinence that he laughed over it, and then visited the offence by cancelling his credentials as legate, and at the same time reviving the old charge of heresy. All the burnings at Canterbury were not enough to vindicate the Archbishop's orthodoxy ; and when Mary and he sent representations that a legate was needed in England, Paul replied by appointing old Friar Peto, Mary's confessor, now eighty years old, as cardinal and legate. This was going too far. Mary's Tudor blood was up. She sent to intercept the papal messengers on their way, so as to hinder any official notice against Pole, or for Peto, from coining ; and she let Peto know that, if he accepted the red hat or the legation, he must do so at his peril, for she should look on him as a traitor. The old man was quite willing to acquiesce, and Pole sent off his chancellor to Rome to plead his cause. Meantime a banker of Lucca, who had ruined himself by his extra vagance, had become a hermit on a hill overlooking the flourishing city of Douay. There he marked the weak points in the defences, and conceived a plan for repairing his fortunes by going to the Admiral de Coligny, then governor of Picardy, and offering to lead- his men into the city while the revels of Twelfth Night, 1557, were going on. The Peace of Vaucelles had not yet been broken on the Flemish frontier ; but Coligny knew that the war had begun elsewhere, and accepted the offer. However, while his men were stealing into the streets, an old LOSS OF CALAIS. 277 woman awoke, began screaming, and roused the city so effectually that he was forced to draw back, and console his troops with the plunder of Lens. This began the war ; and at the same time Norry, King-at-arms, was sent in disguise to Henri at Rheims, with Mary's complaints and challenge. Henri declared that he only received him civilly because he was a lady's messenger. Meantime she had sent 7,000 English men, clad in blue, under the Earl of Pembroke, to join the army, which her husband was collecting in Flanders, and placed under the command of Elizabeth's suitor, the Duke of Savoy, who might well be the foe of France, since Francois had robbed him of his inheritance, The army amounted to 47,000, and it began to threaten the French borders. All the best French troops were in Italy with the Duke of Guise, but Montmorency collected 20,000 men, and hastened to the frontier. St. Quentin, which France had gained on the fall of the Count of St. Pol, was situate on the Somme, with large orchards and gardens all round it, and defended by the river and by a lake, in some places very deep, in others mere swamp and bog. It was a wealthy place, full of rich merchants, and the Duke of Savoy marched at once against it, while Coligny threw himself into it in haste with 700 men, and an excellent engineer, named De Renty, who set to work at once on the crumbling fortifications. The Spaniards invested the place, and Teligny, a brave French captain, making an imprudent sally, was killed. Provisions grew scarce and messages were with difficulty sent between the besieged Coligny and his uncle the Constable, who lay at La Fere. Coligny's brother, Francois, Sieur d'Andelot, was charged by their uncle Mont morency to throw himself into the city with 450 men and some pro visions. His guide lost his way in the great marsh in front of the town, and he failed ; but Coligny sent a messenger to explain that there was a passage unknown to the Spaniards, by which they might reach the river, where he would have boats ready, and a platform of boards, which he laid down by night and removed by day. If this project had been carried out by night it might have succeeded, but Montmorency chose that d'Andelot should wait till the morning of the loth of August, and be covered by a cannonade upon the head quarters of the Duke of Savoy, saying he would teach that young man an old soldier's trick. Philibert fell back, but presently Louis de Bourbon, Prince of Conde, brother to the King of Navarre, perceived that the Spaniards were really marching round the town and would in two hours' time shut in the French between them and the bog. He hurried to tell the Constable and point out a road and a windmill, which, if occupied, would discon cert the manoeuvre ; but Montmorency was affronted. " I was serving under the banner before M. le Prince de Conde was in the world," he replied, " and I hppe still to teach him a few lessons." Cameo XXVI. Siege of St. Quentin. 1557- 278 CAMEOS OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. So he lost the two hours, and in the meantime d'Andelot was crossing in the boats, but could not find his brother's wooden stage for landing on the soft, marshy bank of the river. He himself and the first boat loads managed to' land, but their trampling made the ground impassable for those who foUowed, and all who attempted it above or below fell into the hands of the enemy. Montmorency at last sent the Duke of Nevers to guard the wind mill, but desired him not to provoke a battle. On the other hand, Count Egmont had spied the blunder, and a council of war had been held in his tent. He had talked down with fiery energy the doubts of the Duke of Savoy and prevailed, so that 2,000 men had taken possession of the windmill before the French could reach it. Hampered by Mont morency's order, instead of charging them, Neveis fell back on the Prince of Conde. Montmorency, knowing that his army only amounted to half the number of the Spaniards, would have retreated, but it was too late. He was shut in, and though he fought desperately it was in vain. His leg was broken by a shot, and he was forced to surrender. Nevers and Conde made their way to La Fere up a narrow valley with their troops, and Francois de Montmorency also joined them there. All of the rest were taken prisoners with all their cannon and standards. Philip is said to have been much terrified by the battle, and to have spent the time in invoking St. Lawrence, whose day it was, and vowing to build him a convent and church shaped like a gridiron. The vow was afterwards fulfilled by the Palace of the Escorial. Montmorency's sword was brought to him by a Spanish man-at-arms, who in simple phrase demanded of him " something to eat in his house." The man's captain, however, declared the prisoner belonged to him. " The Con stable is a Christian," said the Spaniards, "let us ask him." "My sword," then said Montmorency, "I gave to the trooper, my word to the captain." The soldier then received 10,000 ducats from the King on condition of giving 2, 000 to the captain. Tidings were sent to the Emperor, who at once exclaimed — "My son must be at Paris by this time." It was not the fault of the Duke of Savoy that he was not there. He urged marching straight on Paris, to which the way lay open, but Philip was always cautious, and insisted on taking the cities on the way. Coligny kept him a fortnight before St. Quentin, knowing that each day's delay was so much gain to the kingdom, but its walls were ruinous ; and on the 27th of August the city was taken by assault, and he was made prisoner in the streets by a Spaniard, while d'Andelot escaped through the marshes. The slaughter was horrible, all the men were killed, and the women stripped to prevent their carrying off anything, after which they were driven out of the city into France. The King was then at Compiegne, Queen Catherine was alone at Paris, and for the first time she showed her abilities by hastening to the parliament, and speaking so well and eloquently as to obtain supplies from them, so as to put the city in a state of defence. LOSS OF CALAIS. 279 The King sent in haste for the Duke of Guise, who had in the mean time entered Rome, where the Pope had caressed him, and sent a few troops to help him in the design of conquering Naples, but the Caraffa nephews, after all their promises, would make no strongholds over to the French, quarrels broke out, and the troops of the Duke of Alva effectually guarded the frontier, and began to drive back the Romans into the States of the Church. At Palliano there was a sharp fight between the Roman troops and the Imperialist Italians, together with Swiss and Germans on either side. The Papal troops were routed, and immediately after came a letter from Henri with the tidings of St. Quentin and a summons to Guise, adding, " I hope the Pope will do as much for me in my need as I did for him." So far from this, the Pope insisted that the French army should stay and protect him ; and when Guise declared that chains should not hold him from the defence of his master, the old man passionately exclaimed — " Go then, having done little for your King, less for the Church, and least of all for your own honour. " Paul was left to his fate, and Rome was in terror of another sack, but in the Duke of Alva it had a very different enemy from the Constable of Bourbon. Do what Paul would, he was still in Spanish eyes the head of the Church ; and Alva kept his army at a safe distance, though the Romans in their terror could make no defence but by putting lights in all their windows. They wished the Pope dead, and clamoured for capitulation. A conference was held in Pavia, and peace was made between Spain and Rome. Philip sent instructions to do anything rather than go to war with His Holiness ; Alva came to Rome and asked pardon on his knees for having made war on the Sacred City, and when he had kissed the Pope's foot he told his friends he had never feared the face of any man so much. All the conquered places were given back, and much more conceded than the wise old Emperor approved. He would not hear the paper read through, and the day after it came he was laid up with a fit of the gout. When Guise reached St. Germain en Laye, where the Count was, October had begun, and Philip, after taking Ham and a few other places, had put his army into winter quarters. All Guise's rivals were in captivity, and he felt that while the field was free one grand stroke would secure everything. Some little time before, two Italian engineers, Strozzi and del Bene, had entered Calais in disguise, examined the forti fications, and found that since the time of Henry VIII. they had fallen into great disrepair. Guise then devised a plan for surprising this place, the last English possession in France and a terrible thorn in the side of the kingdom. In the middle of the winter the army was collected at Compiegne. Every one supposed it was to attack St. Quentin, except a few in the secret, and Philip himself, who had spies everywhere, and sent a warning 28o CAMEOS OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. to the governor of Calais, Lord Wentworth, offering him a reinforce ment ; but English pride and jealousy made Wentworth suppose that this was only a trick for introducing Spanish troops and seizing the place, so he refused. On the night of the 1st of January, 1558, Guise was in the English ground. One part of his army marched along the Dunes to Risbank, he himself marched to Newnham Bridge. The garrison was so small that both these forts had to be abandoned, and on the third day Guise brought his cannon to fire on the castle, which was in such a state of decay that it crumbled at the first shot, and a great breach was made through which Guise and his men charged. They met no resistance, Wentworth had retired into the town and laid a train to some barrels of gunpowder, hoping to blow up the castle and the French together ; but the train was imperfect, the French found it, wetted the powder, and saved themselves. Wentworth hoped for aid from Dover, but the navy was in a wretched state and no help came ; and, after fighting all day and losing eighty men, he asked for a parley. The Duke of Guise insisted on hard conditions. Wentworth and fifty of his captains were to remain cap tives, the other soldiers might go free, but without their weapons ; and every man, woman, and child was to be expelled from the city. They were to go at once to certain places appointed for them, and then, after being compelled to lay down all their plate, jewels, and money on the altars of the churches, they departed homeless and beggared, to the number of 4,200, to make their way to England as best they might. " When shall you come back again ? " asked a Frenchman of Lord Grey de Wilton. " When your crimes exceed ours," was the answer. For 213 years had Calais been held by our kings, and was a little English colony, sending two members to parliament. The whole country was full of grief and rage at the loss, and Mary declared that when she died the name of Calais would be found written on her heart. A few ships had been appointed to relieve the place, but were hindered by storms. Guisnes, which was defended by Lord Grey de Wilton, was forced to yield, and Lord Edward Dudley thought it useless to defend the little castle of Ham, so that the French conquest was entire. The foUowing distich was found over one of the gates : — " Vraisemble sera que Calais on assiege Quand le fer ou le plomb nagera comme liege." Henri was in transports of joy, and went in haste to visit Calais. He then went back to Paris to the wedding of his young son Francois, with Mary Queen of Scots, the niece of the victorious Guise. The marriage was performed on a platform in front of Notre Dame, with a pavilion over it of blue silk beset with gold fieurs de lys, and LOSS OF CALAIS. 281 the officiating priest was Francois, Cardinal of Lorraine, uncle to the bride, a beautiful girl of sixteen, while her bridegroom was a small and sickly boy, three months younger. After the marriage the whole bridal procession repaired to the high Altar, where the Archbishop of Paris said mass ; and there was afterwards magnificent banqueting. The young Francois was held to be King of Scotland, and was called le Roy Dauphin in France, while Mary's Scottish subjects termed her the Queen Dolphine. Thus for a short time the two parts of Great Britain both had a Queen Mary, and both Maries were married, one to the heir of France and one to the heir of Spain, so that the inde pendence of our island had never seemed in so much danger. In the distress and indignation at the loss of Calais, Mary summoned her parliament, obtained a grant, and hired ships to attempt the recovery of Calais, in conjunction with the Flemings and Spaniards. Guise had left the wedding feast to besiege Thionville, where he lost the Italian engineer Strozzi, who was mortally wounded by a shot from the walls while Guise was leaning on his shoulder. The Duke came to see him, and was shocked to find that he accepted no Christian consolations, declaring that he denied all faith in God. " You will soon be before His Face," said Guise. "I shall be where all the dead for 6,000 years have gone," said Strozzi, and so he died. Blaise de Monluc, a brave Gascon, took the last tower in Thionville's fortifications, and the place surrendered on the 22nd of June, 1558. Then followed the attack on Arlon ; Guise laid all his plans and went to bed, tired out, intending to make the assault the next morning. The first news he heard on waking was that Monluc had surprised the town in the night. But at Gravelines the French Governor of Calais, Marshal de Termes, who had made an inroad into Flanders and burnt Dunkirk, was inter cepted by Count Egmont, and had to fight his way home. De Termes was himself very ill, but, on hearing of the approach of the Spanish army, he mounted his horse and led his troops along the sands by the mouth of the river Aar, near Gravelines. The armies were equally matched, and the valour on either side was great, but Egmont and his Flemings fought for their ravaged country. The issue was still doubtful, when the English fleet, attracted by the sounds of battle, came into the river Aar and seconded the Flemings by a vigorous cannonade. The French gave way on all sides, De Termes was forced to yield, and almost all his men were cut to pieces. Two hundred were taken on board the English ships, but most were murdered by the Flemish peasantry in revenge for their cruelties. Calais was left so unprotected that had the English Admiral, Malin, ventured thither he would probably have recovered it ; but he had only a few ships for the main expedition, was only plundering the coast of Brittany, and was repulsed at Brest. Philip II. and Henri II. had both themselves taken the field, and lay, the one at Dourlens the other at Amiens, but both were weary of the 282 CAMEOS OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. Cameo XXVI. Mortality in England. 1558. war, and Montmorency was very anxious to put an end to his captivity, so as to counterbalance Guise's influence ; messages were sent between them, and hopes of peace began to arise. Philip insisted, however, that Calais should be restored to the English, and the French were equally determined not to give it up. ¦ Meantime poor Queen Mary pined for her husband's presence with a piteous hysterical longing, born perhaps of disease, and the more dis tressing because it was tearless. Fits of passion sometimes came on, in one of which, under some jealous access, she cut her husband's portrait to pieces ; but in general she tried to solace herself with devo tion, and she worked constantly with her needle among her ladies. Whether her heart ached over the horrors perpetrated in so many market-places, we do not know ; but no doubt she was grieved that the severity meant for the few seemed but to extend the resistance further . and further; and alas ! after the first shock, cruelty hardens the feelings. Even Pole, who had no drop of Tudor blood, and had once been humane and gentle, made his edicts against heretics more severe, bade search to be made for them, and commanded that those who concealed them should be punished. The question about the legateship was not settled, but the Pope was less ill-disposed towards England since he had been forced to make peace with Spain, and Pole's secretary, Ormanetto, had been sent to plead his cause. The country was in a state to grieve both Queen and Archbishop. There had been no real government since King Henry's death. Par liament made small grants in its hatred of Spain, and the royal estates had been devoured by favourites ; so there was no means of keeping up roads or bridges, and while the travellers were delayed, robbers plundered them. Even the streets of London were infested with highwaymen, and horrid crimes were rife among all ranks. Cold and wet seasons added to the general misery, and phosphoric lights flitting on the damp soil were thought to be a sort of ghosts of the flames where the Reformers suffered. A deadly fever was bred by all this misery, attacking all classes, and fatally. The clergy caught it while attending on their parishioners, and died in large numbers. Tidings came that there were not labourers to gather in such remnants of the harvest as the storms had spared ; priests were dying in every parish ; half the Bishops were dying also. Arch bishop Dowdall, the Primate of Ireland, who had just come on a visit to England, died on the 1 5th of August of the prevailing fever. Most saw in all this the anger of Heaven. The Reformed held that' it was for the burnings ; the Roman Catholics might hold that it was for the schism and profanation they had tried to check, yet surely their hearts must have had some misgivings as to the means. At any rate, when the two cousins, Queen Mary and the Cardinal Archbishop, were both attacked by the prevalent fever, they had only worn-out frames and broken spirits to resist it. It was probably of the nature of typhus, for its course was slow, and there was time for Mary to be grieved LOSS OF CALAIS. 2S3 by tidings of the death of her great kinsman, and father in-law, Charles V. The stormy season had extended to Estremadura, and had tried him greatly. Nor would he be prudent as to food or exposure, so that his physicians continually predicted that his constitution would break up suddenly. His health failed more and more in the end of the summer of 1558. He was in the constant habit of attending masses for the repose of the souls of his wife and his other relations, and those for the funerals of knights of the Golden Fleece, who died after his retirement ; and in August he asked his confessor whether he might not attend his own funeral mass, holding that while he was there to pray for himself, it would do him the most good. On the 3rd of August the ceremony took place, a catafalque was set up in the Church, and all the friars of Yuste, and all the Emperor's servants, in deep mourning, were present. Charles himself was there, and gave a taper to the officiating priest, as a token that he was willing to render up his soul to his Maker. He was not well, but he said' he was the better for the service. However he sat on his terrace in the evening, and sent for the portrait of his wife, which he gazed at for a long time in silence, and then, as if he had put away his earthly affections, he sent for a picture of the Agony in the Garden, and then for another, a sketch by Titian, of the Last Judgment. Over this he mused so long that at la-t his doctor roused him, and he then complained of feeling ill. It was a fever, and was his last sickness, for on the twenty-first day of it, the 20th of September, he was dying. He was full of devotion, and when the Sacraments were administered to him, responded fervently. Bartolome Miranda de Carranza, who had been in England with Philip, and was now Archbishop of Toledo, was present, and said a few words to him on the hope of sinners, and the forgiveness of the sins of those who trust in the Infinite Merits. They sounded unorthodox to one of the friars present, and he repeated them to the Inquisition. Charles was sinking all the 20th of September, and with a call on the name of his Saviour, died at 2 a.m. on the morning of the 21st. He was far from being, as his faithful Quixada called him, " the greatest man that had ever lived, or would live in the world ; " but he was one of the ablest, and by far the best, of the sovereigns of his own time. He was laid for a time before the altar at Yuste, until the great edifice planned by his son should be ready, and solemn requiems and dirges were everywhere performed for him. Mary, of England, whose happiness for life had in truth been wrecked when her father broke the promise that had bound her to him, and whose staunchest friend and best protector he had always been, was greatly depressed by hearing of his death, and reports of her dangerous state were sent to King Philip ; but he could not come himself to her, only sent her the Count de Feria with a ring, and a message that it would be well to acknowledge 284 CAMEOS OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. her sister as her successor. For Elizabeth had made no demon stration against the Court religion since her pardon, and be she what she might, Philip preferred her as the heiress of England to the Queen of Scots, the wife of the Dauphin. Moreover he might hope that dispen sations would allow him to wed her, and thus keep his hold on England, which he did not love, but could not drop. Mary accordingly named her sister as her heiress, charged her to pay her debts, and bade her keep the Church as she found it. The sisters did not meet. Elizabeth remained at Hatfield House, and all the courtiers came thronging to her, in a way which she recollected afterwards with horror and disgust, and which made her believe that to name a successor would be the signal for desertion. White, the Bishop of Winchester who had succeeded Gardiner, was attending the Queen, and he declared that her last hours were free from suffering, peaceful and composed. For indeed she was leaving a world which had been very hard to her, and all that she had attempted in sincerity and dutifulness had turned out one grievous and cruel error, producing evil which she indeed could not understand, but which we still feel. Probably her fires have been the greatest of all hindrances to any reunion of the Churches, for intead of extirpating schism, they filled the EngUsh with a great and irreconcilable dread and hatred of Popery ; and Popery it really was, not Catholicism, that caused them. Mary died just as the celebration of the Holy Communion in her chamber was ended, so as to depart with the benediction, on the 17th of November, 1558. Reginald Pole, who was already in an almost hopeless state, learnt her death from an unguarded Italian, but he must soon have gathered it from the ecstatic shouts of the people, as Queen Elizabeth was pro claimed in the streets. He was long silent ; then he talked over his friendship for her, and the parallel between their two lives. A fresh attack of fever came on, and after going through the final rites with tears of penitence and devotion, he fell into his last sleep twenty-two hours after the Queen. Mary was buried in Westminster Abbey, Reginald in Canterbury Cathedral, and with them ended the effort to bring back the old order of things. Had they been wiser they might perhaps have healed the wounds of the Church, and carried out the needful purification ; but Pole was even more harmful as an Archbishop than Mary as a Queen, since his persecutions were not so much out of mistaken zeal, as from a cowardly desire of self-justification. Philip, after duly attending the obsequies of his father and his wife, performed at Brussels, applied himself to the treaty with France, called the Peace of Cateau Cambresis. Henri was very anxious to set his favourite Montmorency at liberty, and the treaty was signed on the 2nd and 3rd of April between France, Spain, and England. France was to keep Calais for eight years, after which England might ransom it for 500,000 gold crowns. France also kept Metz, LOSS OF CALAIS. 285 Toul, and Verdun, and resumed St. Quentin, le Catelet and Ham, but gave up forty-eight places to Flanders, Piedmont, Tuscany, and Corsica. Guise thought this far too much to give for his rival's freedom, and told the King, "a scratch of your Majesty's pen has cost France more than thirty years of war ; " while his party more openly declared that Mont morency's had been a more costly ransom than that of Francois I. This treaty put an end to those Italian wars which had lasted through four French reigns, and had been provoked by Ludovico Sforza playing on the ambition of Charles VIII. The peace was to be confirmed by the restoration of the Duke of Savoy to his dominions, and his marriage with Marguerite, the only surviving daughter of Francois I., while Elizabeth, the second daughter of Henri II., was, when a little older, to marry either the unpromising Don Carlos, or Philip II., who no doubt meant to take her himself if he could not obtain that greater Elizabeth who had England for her portion. Among the Spaniards and Flemings sent to conclude the treaty, was the Prince of Orange. Finding himself left alone with him on a hunt ing party, and knowing him to be a trusty counsellor of the Emperor, Henri began to talk to him of a secret article in the treaty by which the Reformed, both in France and Spain, were to be exterminated. The Prince, Catholic though he was, was horrified ; but he kept his counsel, and showed no token that he was initiated, gathered all he could from Henri, and told nothing on his return to Brussels ; but from that moment his part was taken, and thus it was that he earned his title of William the Silent. Cameo XXVI. Peace of CateauCambresis. 1559- CAMEO XXVII. THE REMODELLING OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH. (1558— 1560.) Cameo XXVII. Elizabeth. 1558. Queen of England 1558. Elizabeth. King of Spain. 1556. Philip II. Queen of Scotland. 1542. Mary. Emperor of Germany. 1556. Ferdinand I. Kings of France. 1547. Henry II. 1559. Francois I. Pope. 1555. Paul IV. The wonderful woman whom Mary's death had placed on the English throne was one of those in whom the full glare of day reveals so' many inconsistencies, and who has been on the one hand so enthusias tically praised, on the other so vehemently abused, that it is hardly possible to arrive at any real understanding about her. Everything about both her character and position was exaggerated and contra dictory ; she was by turns so mean and so grand, so base and so noble, so petty and so patriotic, that we know not whether she was our pride or our disgrace ; and take refuge in the famous speech of her minister, Cecil, that she was sometimes more than a man and less than a woman ; and in the dictum of another historian, that she had noble ends, but pursued them by a tortuous policy. Her very hold on the throne was only through the common sense of the English people. She had no real right that could stand inquiry ; but her safety lay in the fact that her enemies could not join against her. The heiress, Mary of Scotland, was Queen of France and niece of Francois of Guise ; and though Philip II. might abhor the heretic Queen of England, he still more detested the French royal family and the Duke of Guise. Indeed he had no cause to conclude that Elizabeth was a heretic when he sent advice to his dying wife to recognise her as her heiress, for she had conformed to the Roman Catholic Church ever since her brother's death. Nay, he even entertained a scheme of securing England by getting a dispensation and marrying her himself, not per ceiving perhaps how she would thus annul and condemn her own claim to the throne. THE REMODELLING OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH. 287 Elizabeth waited at Hatfield during the last days of her sister's life, surrounded by courtiers, and daily hearing reports of the Queen's death. Sir Nicolas Throckmorton first brought her the real tidings, but she refused to act on them till one of the ladies, whom she trusted, should have sent her the black-enamelled spousal ring, which never left Mary's finger. Before the ring came, however, the councillors themselves had arrived, and paid their homage to her as their undisputed Queen. She sank on her knees, and exclaimed in Latin, " This is the Lord's doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes." The Archbishop of Canterbury, Cardinal Pole, was even then dying, and the Archbishop of York, Heath, had to stand foremost. As Lord Chancellor, staunch Roman Catholic as he was, he called on the House of Lords to acknowledge Queen Elizabeth, and declare itself dissolved. She was immediately after proclaimed in front of Westminster Palace and at Temple Bar, as Elizabeth, Queen of England, France, and Ireland, and there was great rejoicing, for everything was in a miser able state ; people were sick of persecution, even when they themselves did not fall under it, and the late Queen's long illness had led to all sorts of misrule and disorder. The Queen at once appointed Sir William Cecil as her Secretary of State, having made proof of his sagacity and fidelity to the Crown, and her trust in him never wavered from that moment. That part of her which was wisest knew that he was the safest pilot, and though she might twist and turn, oppose, question, and refuse his decisions, act for herself, and do everything save throw him out of office, her real confidence was in him to the very end of his life, and was even transferred to his son. She retained all her sister's old council, but added eight lords, who had shown their attachment to herself, and among them Sir Nicolas Bacon, who had married Lady Cecil's sister. On the 23rd of November the Queen entered London, attended by a noble retinue of lords and ladies, at whose head she rode, a bright and spirited young Queen in the bloom of womanhood, her eyes glancing, as her heart glowed with love to the multitude who greeted her with cries of ecstasy. At Highgate she was met by the Bishops in their robes. Two more, those of Chichester and Rochester, had died of the same fever as their Metropolitan; but all his survivors then in London knelt to offer their allegiance, when she gave them all her hand to kiss, except Bishop Bonner, whom, as foremost in the perse cution, and proved to be resolute against the Prayer-book, she was resolved not to favour. The Lord Mayor and Aldermen, all in scarlet, likewise met her, and conducted her to the Charter House, which was then in the grasp of Lord North. There she waited till the 28th, while preparations were made for the reception at the Tower, whither she was taken on horseback, clad in purple velvet ; and beside her, as Master of the Horse, Lord Robert Dudley, second son to Northumber land, "one of the handsomest men of the time. She had known him at 288 CAMEOS OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. her brother's Court, and both alike had suffered for Northumberland's rebellion and Wyatt's rising. They had seen enough of one another for Robert to know how great the mistake had been which had united him to Amy Robsart, instead of letting him fly at higher game in the plenitude of his father's power. Amy was at his distant home in Cumnor Hall, lonely and depressed, and he was riding at the Queen's side, enjoying favour, the bounds of which he could not yet guess at, for no one could ever have imagined Elizabeth's distinction between the men she trusted, and the men she loved and toyed with. With Lord Pembroke and the sword of State before her, she rode along beside London Wall, which was hurg with tapestry up to Market or Mark Lane, even then the central English corn-market, where she was greeted by the voices of the Tower guns, and the more peaceful songs of choristers and speeches of the scholars of St. Paul's school. She answered all graciously, whether in Latin or English, and soon entered the Tower, whither, five years before, she had been taken as a prisoner. Well might she fall on her knees and give thanks ! Anxious councils were held in the Tower and in Somerset House, whither she soon removed, over the future moves ; and the first steps taken were to forbid the political sermons at St. Paul's Cross, which were used by both parties as means of stirring up the people, and while stopping the persecutions, to send orders to Sir Edward Carne, the ambassador residing at Rome, to confer with the Pope on the con dition of the Church, and assure him of her determination to offer violence to no man's conscience. Meanwhile mass and all the services, re-established by Mary, went on as usual. The Queen attended her sister's funeral, at which there was a Latin sermon, preached by Dr. White, the Bishop of Winchester who had succeeded Gardiner. He greatly praised Mary's renunciation of the Supremacy over the Church, saying that she had well understood that the Church could not have a dumb head, since St. Paul had for bidden women to speak in the Church. He wept so bitterly as to choke his voice during the description of Mary's sufferings and virtues, but unfortunately was perfectly audible when he strengthened his exhor tation to obey the new Queen, with the text that "a living dog is better than a dead lion," and adding that "Mary had chosen the better part." It was a foolish and unnecessary offence in the actual state of affairs, when Elizabeth had done no wrong to the Catholic party, and it can only be explained by supposing that either he did not realize how well the Queen understood him, or that he meant it merely as a proverb. But Elizabeth was not a lady likely to submit to be com pared to a living dog, so she ordered the preacher into arrest for a week in his own house. However, the Archbishop and the two Bishops were buried with the full ancient ritual, and a requiem mass for Charles V. was duly celebrated ; but, on the other hand, all the THE REMODELLING OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH. prisoners for conscience' sake were released, though only on bail to appear when called for. The Queen hoped to steer between the two parties, continuing herself a Cath ilic, but not offending the Reformers, on whom she knew she must, depend for support in case her title to the throne should be disputed. The oath of supremacy, such as it had been made by her father, was however administered, and the first to refuse it was Archbishop Heath, upon which he was deprived of the chancellorship ; but the office was not given away, only the Great Seal was entrusted to Sir Nicolas Bacon, with the title of Lord Keeper. The next step was to command (in virtue of that supremacy) that at mass the Host should not be elevated, probably because this part of the service always was a special stumbling- block to the Calvinists, who, denying the Real Presence, viewed all adoration of the Holy Eucharist as an infraction of the Second Com mandment, and would sometimes work themselves up to horrible pro fanation out of fancied zeal for the honour of God. Elizabeth trusted to conciliate them, and gain their support by this concession without going any further. However, Bishop Owen Oglethorpe, of Carlisle, who was to celebrate for her on Christmas Day, refused to omit the elevation, and Elizabeth, to mark her anger at his resistance, or to curry favour with the Reformed, retired out of the chapel immediately after the reading of the Gospel. Three days later, December 28th, she put forth a proclamation for bidding all preaching for the present, as a dangerous and inflammatory exercise for both parties, and only permitting the Gospel, Epistle, Commandments, Litany, Creed, and Lord's Prayer to be said in the vulgar tongue, without exposition and comment, until consultation should have been held between her Majesty and the three estates of the realm. No doubt she was waiting, not only for the meeting of Parliament, but for the answer of the Pope, as to the terms he would grant to her and to England. Unhappily Paul IV., the fierce old Caraffa, heeded little save his personal hatred to the House of Austria. He had never forgiven even the devoted Mary for marrying Philip II., and he expected to be asked at once for a dispensation for a second marriage with Elizabeth. Moreover, the French Ambassador was representing the claims of his own young Queen, Mary of Scotland,, a grandchild of the devout House of Guise, a niece of the Cardinal of Lorraine ; and Paul was at present more blindly devoted than ever to the cause of France against Spain. So he replied to Sir Edward Carne that he could not understand the rights of one bom out of lawful wedlock, and that Mary of Scotland was the right heiress ; but that if his mistress would submit her claims to him, she should receive indulgence and forbearance. However, on the 13th of January he published a bull in which he declared heretical VOL. IV. it 290 CAMEOS OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. Cameo XXVII. princes incapable of reigning, but without naming Elizabeth, who had" given him no reason for pronouncing her a heretic. There was no doubt, however, that it was aimed at her, and thus he threw away the chance of regaining the English nation, while he continued a course of violent severity at Rome, himself presiding constantly at the meetings of the Inquisition, and hunting down men whom he had formerly favoured. This lasted tiU the 18th of August, 1559, when he died after a short illness, having spent his reign at first on Italian politics, and then on savage persecutions. Mary of' Scotland and her husband had at once assumed the title of Queen and King of England : and all this made it plain to Elizabeth and her council that the Roman party were past conciliation, while the Reformers might be gained. Till her coronation she could not legally act, and it was therefore to take place as soon as possible ; but the difficulty was, Who was to crown her ? The Archbishop of Can terbury was dead, and the Bishops, led by Heath, Archbishop of York, all refused to perform the rite, not that any of them questioned her claim, but because they would not endure to celebrate, without elevating the Host. At last BLhop Oglethorpe declared himself willing to officiate, even with this omission, provided the Queen would take the ancient oath to maintain the Church, and this she was perfectly willing to do. He borrowed Bishop Bonner's robes for the occasion, and . all the other Bishops were present as peers. The day was the 15th of January, 1559, and began with a procession through London from the Tower to Wesminster Abbey, where the Queen wa. rapturously greeted at every turn, as her chariot slowly moved along under a canopy, and she had gracious smiles and thanks for all. It was specially observed that a branch of rosemary, given her by a poor woman, was kept by her the whole time. Her bright, cheerful, responsive countenance spoke for her, and her heart was stirred so as to meet, as they were meant, all the speeches made by ' ' fair children " in pageants, and to do as full honour as Theseus, in the Midsummer Nights Dream, to the shows and speeches which some would have felt as mere obstructions and wearinesses. At Cornhill one of the knights who bore her canopy pointed out to her an alderman who was weeping. " I warrant it is for joy," she said ; and afterwards, in Cheapside, she smiled and said it was because she had heard one in the crowd say: "I remember old King Harry the Eighth." When Truth gave her a Bible, she put it in her bosom, and when Time appeared with scythe and hour-glass, she said, " Time had brought her hither." That night she slept at Whitehall, and came by water to Westminster the next day. The coronation differed in nothing from her sister's, except that the Epistle and Gospel were read in English. The Queen received the homage of the nobility, and held her banquet at Westminster Hall. THE REMODELLING OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH. 291 It was the custom that the newly-crowned sovereign should release -prisoners, and on her entering her chapel the next morning, she was met by a petition that four or five more prisoners might be released. She asked who they were, and was answered that they were the four Evano-elists and the Apostle Paul, who were locked up in an unknown tono'ue, and could not converse with the common people. She gravely answered : " It is b&t first to inquire of them whether they will approve of being released." In fact she had no desire to pledge herself before she saw what course affairs would take abroad and at home. She had sent for Dr. Matthew Parker, whom she intended to make Primate, and, in con- " sultation with him and Cecil, declared that she meant to put forth the First Prayer-book of Edward "V I. ; but Parker already perceived that the exiles of Geneva and Strasburg, who hardly tolerated the Second Book, would view the First as Popery itself. It was Dr. Cox, Edward's tutor, who had made such a stand for the Prayer-book at Strasburg, who preached the sermon at the opening of Parliament, on the 25th of January, telling the estates of the realm of the Queen's wish to settle matters of religion. The first thing, however, that the Commons did was to petition the Queen to marry, and raise up heirs to the realm. She gave them no hopes of so doing, certainly not of being directed-by them, and holding up her coronation ring, told them that " When she received that ring she had solemnly bound herself in marriage to the realm, and that it would be quite sufficient for the memorial of her name, and be her glory, if, when she died, an inscription were engraved on a marble tomb, saying : ' Here lieth Elizabeth, which reigned a virgin, and died . a virgin.' " And "the virgin queen" remained her favourite title, though she really loved Leicester, and though she coquetted with many another suitor. She had dismissed at least half-a-dozen during her sister's lifetime, and had just returned a decided negative to the very speedy courtship of Philip II. ; and this had caused Feria, the Spanish Ambassador, to absent himself from the coronation on the plea of illness, but no doubt to avoid the recognition of one whom it niight be convenient to declare to be no lawful sovereign. To obtain an act of recognition from Parliament was the first requisite, and this was done by declaring Elizabeth "rightly, lineally, and lawfully descended of the blood royal ; " and, by another act, which restored her in blood on her mother's side, but without reversing her mother's attainder. Then came Church matters. The title of Head of the Church was dropped at once, as Elizabeth perceived how unfitting and offensive it was, though it, was not in her not to be quite as imperious as Defender of the Faith, the name which she retained, as she could have been as Head of the Church. The Pope's refusal to make terms with her threw her more on the support of the Reformers, Protestants as they U 2 292 CAMEOS OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. had learnt to call themselves in Germany ; and Parker and Cecil found that the leading men among them would not accept the ritual of King Edward's First Prayer-book ; nay, it was as much as could be hoped that they would endure the Second. Convocation mainly consisted of clergy appointed to their benefices in Queen Mary's time, who would have been for the old Latin service ' and unconditional surrender to Rome, and the laity, still smarting with the thought of the fires hardly extinguished, and less worthily dreading a call for restitution, would never have endured this. So, by her own authority, Elizabeth, with her advisers, altered a few passages in the Second Prayer-book. They left out a clause in the Litany praying to be delivered from the tyranny of the Pope ; they restored the essential clause in the administration of the Holy Com munion, and drew up a Sunday Lectionary. Then, too, they enacted that in cathedrals, college chapels, and the like, such ornaments should be used as in the first year of Edward VI., not making them com pulsory elsewhere, no doubt on account partly of the poverty of tha places where they had been destroyed, and partly to avoid forcing them upon men whom they could not afford to alienate. In the same spirit they forbore to command the restoration of the Altar to the chancel, though in the Queen's own chapel there is no doubt that it was so placed, as indeed the arrangements were the same as had prevailed in Mary's time. These orders were called "Advertisements," and were never submitted to Convocation or Parliament, though the Prayer-book thus arranged was adopted in an Act of Uniformity, and legislation on Church matters began. First, on the 30th of January, a bill for the surrender to the Crown of first-fruits and tenths on ecclesiastical promotions. These had belonged to the Pope ; had been seized by Henry VIII., and restored by Mary : and Elizabeth now claimed them again. The Bishops all opposed her ; but the tem poral peers, always willing to make the Church a prey, overpowered their votes, and the Crown kept the spoil till the time of Queen Anne. Next came an Act of Royal Supremacy, which was opposed by the Bishops, but passed by the lay peers, and which made the Crown the appeal in spiritual matters, instead of the Pope. The Act of Uniformity was brought forward. There was much opposition in the House of Lords from Mary's bishops, and among the Commons from Mr. Story, who boasted of having thrown a faggot in the face of one whom he called an earwig and thrust a thornbush under his feet to prick him at the stake ; but English blood rose at such cruelty, and advocacy such as this only told against his cause. There were also several Acts tending to prevent the profanities of Edward VI.'s reign ; and lastly a mischievous Act was brought forward for enabling the Queen to make what changes she pleased during the vacancy of a See in its property, so that she could give away its estates, and grant iirstcRd the tithes of rectories which had been seizsd by the monasteries. THE REMODELLING OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH. 293 This was strongly resisted, but was carried by a small majority in the Commons. Convocation, led by Bishop Bonner and Archdeacon Harpsfield, protested against these Acts, and were upheld by the Universities. On this, a disputation was appointed to take place in Westminster Hall on three great points, namely, whether service or sacraments ought to be in the vulgar tongue, whether the Church hath power to alter cere monies, whether the mass be a propitiatory sacrifice for the living and the dead. Bishops White of Winchester and Watson of Lincoln were the chief on the one side. On the other we find the names of Robert Horne, Edwin Sandys, Edmund Grindal, and John Jewel, the latter three of whom had been exiles during the last reign. Archbishop Heath and Sir Nicolas Bacon were to be moderators, and by Heath's desire the argument was to be in English and in writing, and the Roman Catholics were to begin by stating their case. The first day was peaceable, but the Romanists found themselves inferior in learning and eloquence to their adversaries, especially Robert Horne, who took the strong ground that the English Church is Catholic, but not Roman. They were allowed to have Feckenham, Abbot of Westminster, added to them, but they complained that the Lord Keeper was their enemy ; and though Archbishop Heath strove bard to keep the peace, White and Watson behaved with great violence, and only Feckenham showed himself wise and moderate. The dispu tation was necessarily broken up, and men like Heath and Feckenham saw there was no hope for their cause, since the more violent would endure no compromi-e, and could as little separate Romanism from Catholicism as could the most intolerant Calvinist. Drs. White and Watson were sent to the Tower for a week for con tempt of court, and the debate was closed, their party still complaining of unfairness, as was perhaps inevitable, though they really seem to have been the favoured ones till they seceded. The Act of Uniformity was then passed, to come into operation on the 24th of June, 1559. It was now April, and Elizabeth had to con sider what to do, with the whole bench of Bishops arrayed against her ! Fortunately for her, their numbers were few. No less than nine had formed what Fuller calls the death-guard of Mary, having died either ju-t after her, or so little before her that their Sees had not been filled up ; and three more had fled to Italy. The eleven who remained were summoned before the Queen in the Privy Council, and called on to take the oath of supremacy and enjoin the use of the Engli-h Prayer-book. Heath, speaking in the name of all, entreated her to remember her sister's zeal towards the Holy See of St. Peter, declaring that if she did not keep Mary's engagements, the kingdom would be brought to ignominy and dishonour. Elizabeth replied with dignity, " As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord." She added "that her covenant was not with the 294 CAMEOS OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. Roman See, but with the Lord ; " that her sister had no power to make such agreements as she had done, for the Pope's power over England had been a usurpation, and that her crown was subject to no power but that of the King of kings. The Bishops made no answer then, but afterwards wrote her a letter to the same effect, and made known their determination, with only one exception, Kitchin of Llandaff. Of the ten who remained, several — especially Heath himself— had been placed in their sees by Mary while their deposed predecessors were living, so that there was nothing un- canonical in displacing them ; but Elizabeth proceeded first to fill up the Sees vacant by death. She had always intended Matthew Parker to be Archbishop, but he was out of health, and refused the task. The Queen then made the offer to Nicholas Wootten, Dean of Canterbury, lately a privy councillor of Mary's ; but he held himself not to have sufficient theological learning. Abbot Feckenham was then proposed, but he could not take the oath of royal supremacy ; and, finding that no one else of Catholic mind would undertake the charge, Parker accepted it. Constraint in the present state of affairs was unsafe, and people did much as they chose. The returned exiles were more averse to forms and ceremonies than when they went away, and the name of Puritans began thenceforth to be applied to them from their pretensions to purity of worship. The Chapter of Canterbury duly elected Matthew Parker; but a new difficulty arose. Three — nay, one Bishop — may be sufficient to impart the episcopal power in the consecration, but Henry VIII. had passed a statute requiring that at least four should assist at the consecration of a Primate of all England. For the purpose the Queen summoned Cuthbert Tunstal, of Durham, and five more ; but of these, Tunstal and two more refused to assist in the consecration of an Archbishop whose election had not been sanctioned by the Pope, and the question came up whether they — though there was no question as to their law ful appointment — could be retained in their Sees without taking the oath which withdrew their allegiance from the Pope, or acknowledging the Primate appointed by the Queen and the Chapter of Canterbury. The Emperor, Ferdinand I. , wrote to the Queen on their behalf, and urged her to allow them to officiate as " vacant Bishops " with churches in large towns, but she decided against this, lest it should be the begin ning of a rival Church ; and these Bishops were therefore deposed, and lived either on their own estates, or were quartered in episcopal houses. The Puritans were discontented at the establishment of episcopacy, and Knox in Scotland was doing his best to lash them into fury, abusing as before all female "regiment," and calling the cross in Baptism, kneeling at the Holy Communion, and the "mumbling or singing of the Litany " diabolical inventions ; but there was a more reasonable body among them, who, though they were prejudiced against these things, were willing to tolerate them for the sake of thj; THE REMODELLING OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH. 295 protection and recognition of the English Government ; and it was to this body that Elizabeth was compelled to look to fill up the vacancies in the bench of bishops, since Catholic-minded men like Parker, who would uphold the Church while denying the Pope's exaggerated power, were very rare. As to the consecrations, four Bishops were to be found who had been themselves undeniably consecrated, and who would officiate under the mew order of things. They were William Barlow, made Bishop of St. Asaph under Henry VIII., who had held Bath and Wells under Edward, and had resigned and gone abroad in Mary's time, but who was quite free from Puritanism. John Hodgkin, Suffragan of Bedford, had also been consecrated under Henry VIII., and John Bale of Ossory was invited, but did not come. The other two, old Mdes Coverdale, and John Scory, had been consecrated under the Reformed ordinal of Edward VI. These four consecrated Matthew Parker, at Lambeth, on the 17th of December, 1559. There were present many officials, nobles, and clergy ; Parker wore the scarlet doctor's gown, three of the Bishops their full robes, Coverdale only a cassock ; Bishop Scory preached the sermon, and the service was according to Edward's Second Prayer-book, all the four joining in laying- their hands on their brother's head. All was duly registered in Latin, and at night Parker wrote in his private diary, " On the 1 7th of December, 1559, I was consecrated Archbishop of Canterbury. Alas ! alas ! O Lord God, for what times hast Thou kept me ! " and proceeding to a prayer for aid and direction. AH this is the more worth observing because one Thomas Neale, who had been chaplain to Bishop Bonner, was said forty-four years later by one Thomas Holywood, a Jesuit, to have told him that he had peeped through a hole in the wainscot at the "Nag's Head'" tavern, in Cheapside, and there seen Bishop Scory consecrating Parker. Grindal, Aylmer, Sandys, and Merrick, by laying a Bible on their shoulders, and bidding them rise up Bishops, as though it were an order of knighthood ; and this absurd fiction is believed by ordinary Roman Catholics, though denied by all their real historical writers. The next day the new Archbishop took the foremost part in the consecration of Grindal, Sandys, Cox, and Merrick to London, Wor cester, Ely, and Bangor ; and in the course of the spring the other vacant benefices were filled up. Coverdale, who was seventy-two years old, would not return to his diocese, but begged for the first- fruits, 60/. , saying that " if poor old Miles should be thus provided for, he should think this enough as good as a feast." He had the hap piness of hearing his Bible read in every Church, and received the living of St. Magnus, London Bridge, from Grindal. There he died in 1568. " So much forthe Bishops," says Fuller. " As for the inferior clergy under them, the best that could be gotten were placed in pastoral charges. Alas ! tolerability was eminence in that a^e ; a rush candle 296 CAMEOS OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. seemed a torch where no brighter light was ever seen before. Surely preaching now ran very low, if it be true what I read : that Mr. Tavernor, of Water Eaton, in Oxfordshire, high-sheriff of the county, came in pure charity, not ostentation, and gave the scholars a sermon in St. Mary's, with his gold chain about his neck, and his sword by his side, beginning with these words : — " ' Arriving at the mount of St. Mary's, in the stony stage where I now stand, I have brought you some fine biscuits baked in the oven of Charity, and carefully conserved for the chickens of the Church, the sparrows of the Spirit, and the sweet swallows of Salvation.' " It appears that this benevolent sheriff really had a licence for preaching. Archbishop Heath and the other Bishops addressed a remonstrance to the Archbishop, but it was only in the way of amicalele correspon dence, and all respect and consideration was shown to the ex-bishops. Archbi.-hop Heath, who had property of his own, lived at his own estate at Chobham, in friendly intercourse with the Queen. Bishop White also lived at his own cost. Thirlby and Tunstal, both friends of Parker's, found a home with him at Lambeth as guests, where they said they were happier than with diocesan cares upon them. They , remained in communion with the English Church, and did nothing to disturb the Queen's authority. Bonner and Watson were also quartered, the one on the Bishop of Lincoln, the other on Bishop Grindal of London ; but they could by no means agree with their hosts, and Bonner was hated by the people for his share in the persecutions ; so that, partly for his safety, he was placed within the bounds of the Marshalsea prison, living in a house of his own till his death. Watson, after being transferred to Bishop Cox of Ely, was placed at Wisbeach Castle. Feckenham, Abbot of Westminster, was quartered on Bishop Horne of Winchester, and for a time lived with the family ; but contro versy ran so high between him and his host that it was agreed between them that he had better have apartments of his own in the palace, and only mingle with the family as a visitor. The absence of the spirit of persecution is noteworthy, and it appears that Parker never tendered the oath of supremacy without necessity. Other works followed, with the co-operation of Convocation, of which may be specially noted the re-enacting of the Articles, omitting, however, three out of the forty-two as applicable only to short-lived errors, and a great revision of the Holy Scripture, published under the name of the Bishop's Bible, though this was not done till seven years later. Thus, then, was the English Church raised out of the ruins left by the two previous intolerant and destructive reigns. Elizabeth would fain have made it like her father's Church, only with her own supre macy. Parker's'was a far higher and more Catholic ideal. The attacks THE REMODELLING OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH. . 297 of the Romanists, the clamours of the Puritans, and the necessity which grew on Elizabeth of maintaining herself by Protestant aid, prevented Parker's standard from being carried out, but it has never been entirely lost, and from time to time has been brought to light. The inner life which proves ours to be indeed a part of the visible Church had been preserved through all the vicissitudes of the past reigns, and the Church of England continued her existence as a branch of the Church Catholic, showing her unbroken connection with the foundation of the Apostles. Cameo XXVII. Parker'sPrinciples. CAMEO XXVIII. THE FALL OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH. Cameo XXVIII. (1549—156°)- Queens of England. Queen of Scotland. 1555. Mary.— 1558, Elizabeth. 1542. Mary. King of Spain. Emperor of Germany. 1555. Phihp II. 1557- Ferdinand I. King of France. 1559. Francis II. Pope. 1559. Pius IV. When we have to tell the lamentable story of the fall of the Scottish Church we have to bear in mind that a people, naturally the shrewdest, cleverest, and most metaphysical in Europe, had been for centuries under the most degraded of all the branches of the Roman Church. The long succession of minorities had fostered the natural turbulence and ferocity of the nation ; they were almost out of reach of general public opinion, and the great endowments which St. David had bestowed on the bishoprics and abbeys made them such prizes for younger sons that they were seized on by the great families, and bestowed on men without a single qualification for the charges involved in them, and who were quite as savage and violent as those whom they were supposed to teach and tame. Here, more entirely than anywhere else, the salt had lost its savour. Few and scattered were the good men, and little effect could they produce ; but when Cardinal Beaton, the greatest and most prominent of the scandalous clergy, had come to his terrible end, there were some endeavours at improvement. A synod of the clergy was held in 1549, which took order for the reform of many gross scandals, and recommended pains to be taken for the instruction of the people ; and two years later John Hamilton, Archbishop of St. Andrew's, put forth an excellent catechism on the most essential doctrines of religion. But the attempt at doing in the time of danger what should have been done in the time of safety, came too late. Every student who had fallen in with the foreign reformers, every English fugitive from the Marian persecution, increased the discontent against the manifest evils around, and the nobles had not seen their English neighbours enriched with the spoil of the abbeys without wishing to follow their example, while Knox's Blasts and Counterblasts added rage to the fire. 7HE FALL OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH. 299 One John Willock, a Franciscan, who had imbibed Protestant teaching in Friesland, produced a great effect upon people's minds. Just then one Walter Mylne, a priest who had been condemned for heresy in the time of Cardinal Beaton, but had escaped, was found preaching in Angus. He was captured, tried at the court of the Bishop of St. Andrew's, where, though feeble and more than eighty years old, he made a powerful defence. He was condemned and burnt, and from the midst of the fire he declared that a hundred better should rise out of his ashes, and he trusted he should be the last to suffer such a death in Scotland. And so he was. That same winter the Earls of Argyle, Glencairn, and Morton, with some others, came together and signed a bond to support the Reforma tion, calling themselves the Congregation of Christ. They presented a petition to the Queen demanding that the English Common Prayer- book should be used, the Scriptures read in the vulgar tongue, and any person properly qualified (which meant who so fancied himself), should expound hard places, and the wicked and scandalous lives of the clergy be reformed. Mary made answer that " all they could lawfully desire should be granted them in a proper season, and for the present they might use their prayers in the vulgar tongue ; but she desired that they should not assemble publicly except in Edinburgh or Leith for preventing ' tumults." The Queen Dowager was much respected, and the Congregation was satisfied, and the preachings went on and inflamed the people. The images of the Saints were either knocked down or stolen in many places, and on the 1st of September, 1558, St. Giles' Day, the Patron Saint of Edinburgh, when the Queen Regent herself was about to take part in the procession in his honour, the image was missing. It proved that a party of revellers had stolen it, carried it in a mock procession, and thrown it into the North Loch. The Queen sent to borrow another effigy from the Grey Friars, and hoping to restrain mischief, held to her purpose, and walked in procession with the clergy and the devout of her own Church. She was so much tired, that after going down the High Street to the Cross in the Canongate, she left the procession to dine in a private house, and the instant she had retired there broke out a cry, " Down with the idol ! " and the figure, which, being smaller than the first, some called a marmoset idol, was hacked to pieces on the pavement, while a laugh was raised at the exclamation— "Fie upon thee, young St. Giles, thy father would have stood four such ! " The friars fled, there was a terrible confusion, and the Queen durst not punish any one for the outrage, but was forced to overlook all as a mere tipsy frolic on a holiday which was always a day of licence. She could not indeed afford to offend the Lords of the Congregation till the crown matrimonial had been given to the Dauphin. This was now secure. Moreover, the death of Queen Mary of England had, in 300 CAMEOS OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. the opinion of the partisans of the stability of the first marriage of Henry VIII., made her daughter Mary the right heiress of England. The Sieur de Bethancourt came over on a secret mission to explain to her that the Reformation was to be put down by a great combination between the Kings of Spain and France and the Guises, and she, as a" faithful daughter of the House of Lorraine, mus: do her part, and cease to tolerate that English party who wanted to use English services and overthrow the ancient rites. Mary, who knew the temper of Scotland, pleaded against the im possible task, but in vain, and her conscience was no doubt urged to repress the doctrines she had almost encouraged. A provincial council was held in March. It was a thorough-going synod, and enacted many excellent rules for the reformation of the lives and habits of the clergy and the many abuses in doctrine and practice ; but it came too late," and was the last of the Church of Scotland. The Lords of the Con gregation demanded the election of parish Priests by their flocks, and," of the Bishops by their clergy ; but to this a decided refusal was returned, and at the same time the English Service-book was forbidden, Latin was to be always used, and religion was again to be uniform throughout the realm. It was curious that just after the Prayer-book was proscribed in England it was adopted in Scotland ; and as soon as it was re-established in the south, it was prohibited in the north. Some of the Lords remonstrated with the Queen, and she showed them the orders she had received from her brothers, but of course did not convince them. She also summoned the Reformed preachers to appear before a Parliament at Stirling, and when reminded of her promises of toleration answered — " Princes ought not to be urged with promises further than suits their convenience." It was the petulant answer of a hard-driven woman, and the natural reply was that if she did not keep her promise neither could she expect them to be bound by their oaths, on which she quailed, and promised to consider their requests. Meanwhile the people of Perth were seizing and profaning the churches and maltreating the clergy. Mary sent Lord Ruthven to bring them to order. He replied that he could deal with their goods and lives, hut not with their consciences. She was much displeased with this "malapert reply," and again summoned the chief Reformers to appear at the Stirling Parliament on the loth of May. On the 2nd, John Knox returned to Scotland, thoroughly imbued with Calvini-m, and hating the English Prayer-book as much as the Latin Missal. No sooner did he learn the summons that was out against Willock and the rest than he repaired to them at Perth, declaring that he would cast in his lot with them, and appear before the Parliament. Such a number of fierce, turbulent men proposed to go with them, that John Erskine of Dun decided on going to have a private interview with the Queen, and warning her of the resistance she was provoking. The Reo-ent as usual gave way to the pressure of the moment, and assured THE FALL f)F THE SCOTTISH CHURCH. 301 them that if the people would disperse, no measures should be taken against their preachers. Not trusting her, they did not choose to disperse, and only the gentle men went home, so that Mary did not hold herself bound by any promise ; and on the appointed day the preachers were summoned, and not appearing, were " put to the horn," i.e. declared outlaws after a blast on the bugle horn. Erskine was very angry, though scarcely with justice ; and at a supper at his house at Dun there was a consultation. Many of the Scottish gentlemen were still in the habit of attending Mass, but John Knox vehemently declared that such compliance was not lawful for a Christian. St. Paul's going to pay his vow at the Temple was cited, but it was replied that the example told the other way, since his peril and imprisonment resulted therefrom ; and Knox, by his own account, thoroughly convinced everybody, especially young William Maitland of Lethington, the cleverest man and chief politician of the party. Probably what he was convinced of was that the men with whom he had to work would go all lengths — -not rest in a purified Church like the English ; for he"was by no means a religious or upright man, and was connected with most of the worst crimes of blood and treachery of the time. Indeed there are very few of the Reformers of Scotland who did not need to begin their reform with themselves, or can be acquitted of horrid deeds of violence and rapacity, always tending to gratify their own revenge and avarice. The morning after this council, "Knox preached in St. Johnstone, at Perth, a furious sermon, full of blasphemies against the Blessed Sacrament, which was eagerly listened to. Immediately after, a priest entered, and prepared to celebrate High Mass, opening the tabernacle above the Altar. A boy standing by cried out, ' ' This is intolerable ; " uttering further irreverences, which the priest chastised with a blow ; whereupon the boy threw a stone, which hit the shrine and broke an image. This was the signal for the " rascal multitude " to rise and deface and plunder all the ornaments of the building, and when that was a complete wreck, to hurry on to the two convents of Grey and Black Friars. They began by overthrowing and ruining the churches ; but " thereafter the common people began to seek some spoil," and they took to themselves all the household linen and provisions — viewing it as a great enormity on the part of the monks to have sheets, blankets, and beds as good as any earl in Scotland — fine napery, and store of salt beef, ale, and wine. The monks seem to have been allowed to depart safely with what property they could carry, but of the churches nothing was left but the bare walls ; and at the Carthusian Church even the tombs of James I., his Queen Joan, and of Margaret Tudor had not been spared. Mary of Guise was shocked and horrified, and sent for the Duke of Chatelherault, calling on him to do his duty for the defence of the Church, and a considerable force was raised. Letters were written on 302 CAMEOS OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. both sides, which made matters worse ; but the Queen's stepson, James Stewart, Prior of St. Andrew's, who managed to be on fair terms with both parties, so mediated that both armies were dispersed, and the Queen was admitted into Perth, on granting a free pardon to all the sacrilegious wreckers of the churches, and on promising that no French- > man should come within three miles of the city, and no French garrison be placed there. Accordingly she rode in, in state ; but unfortunately a shot was fired, and killed a boy of thirteen, who was leaning over the' balcony of the house of his father, one Patrick Murray, "a godly burgess." His corpse was carried down and laid before the Queen'. She asked whose son it was, and on hearing, said she could not be held accountable for such accidents ; and it was further reported that she said that it was a pity it was the son and not the father. Who fired the shot was not known. Bullets always flew about on any public occasion in Scottish streets, and no one took any notice unless they did fatal mischief to some one of note ; but now the Reformers declared that the Regent had brought in Frenchmen who fired maliciously. She added to the general displeasure by deposing the Provost and other magistrates for not having hindered the riot ; though, as she did not punish the actual rioters, and introduced, not Frenchmen, but Scots in French pay, she held herself to have kept her treaty. The Reformers did not think so. The Congregation met again in a fury and burst into the grand old city of St. Andrew's. The Archbishop vainly tried to resist them, Knox preached, and all the passion for destruction and plunder, under the name of zeal, was roused. "Pull down the nests, and the rooks will fly away," he said ; and the devastation of all save the bare walls was complete. Other Abbeys followed ; and wherever a mob was ready to rise, every image, every painted window, every vestment, even carved wood and stone, were broken down and burnt. In no country had the Church been so utterly heedless of setting an example or giving instruction to the people, and thus no doubt the images they overthrew had been absolute idols to them, so that the reaction was the more extreme ; but though there was honest fanaticism in some few, there was little religion in the leaders. Mary of Guise, in horror and dismay, collected her troops ; but she could rely on none but 2,000 French under D'Oysell, and the Scottish Congregation far out -numbered her force. They held out St. Andrew's against her, turned her garrison out of Perth, and tried to get the aid of England ; but though Mr. Secretary Cecil, who was very Calvinistic himself, and moreover wanted to sever Scotland from France, would1 gladly have taken their part, Queen Elizabeth could not endure file name of the author of the Monstrous Regiment of Women, and was not propitiated by the nearest approach to an apology Mr. Knox could bring himself to make, namely, that she was evidently a chosen instru ment, and would prosper if she would humbly acknowledge her own nothingness. From this time forth began Elizabeth's crooked Scottish policy, her sympathies being always with the Queen, but her interests THE FALL OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH. 3°3 with the rebels, whom she would not openly support, even while she hindered them from being too easily subdued. Scone and Linlithgow Abbeys, both glorious and historical old build ings, one the coronation place, the other the favourite dwelling, of the kings, were sacked, and on the 29th of June the Lords of the Congre gation were in Edinburgh, and the Queen Regent and her friends shut up in Dunbar, waiting in hopes of succour from France, while the destruction of monasteries went on all over the southern half of the country. Finally the death of Henri II., and the struggle in which her brothers became involved with the French Calvinist party, lessened their powers of assisting her. James Stewart was suspected of intending to seize the throne, and examined on his plans, partly as a suggestion, for England regarded anything as better than French power in Scotland. Elizabeth was unwilling to take up arms, and tried to mediate, but in vain, and late in the autumn some French troops joined the Queen Regent at Leith. A few days later came a message from one of the burghers of Edin burgh that there was to be a great preaching which would last many hours and occupy everybody. The French took this opportunity of seizing the cannon which were being prepared to fire on them, and a few days later defeated Lord James in a skirmish. This led to a sudden retreat of the whole army of the Congregation, leaving Edinburgh open to the Queen. Lord Erskine, the governor of the castle, would not however yield it to her, as it had been committed to him by the Parlia ment, though he promised to protect her in case of need, and she took up her abode in a small house under the Castle Hill. Her health had broken down under her di-tresses and toils, and she longed to make peace ; but the tidings that her youngest brother, the Marquis d'Elbceuf , was about to bring a fleet to her aid, had aroused the jealousy of Eng land, and Queen Elizabeth consented to receive Maitland of Lethington, and make a treaty with the Lords of the Congregation, saying nothing about religion, but only undertaking to assist them in delivering them selves from French tyranny. The Scottish Lords felt themselves doing something unnatural and unpatriotic in combining wdth their old enemy, England, against their old ally, France, and they were highly punctilious as to the manner of meeting between the Commissioners. The place was the middle of the Tweed, where high platforms of boards were erected, on which the Duke of Norfolk on one side, and the Scottish Commissioners on the other, sat perched, and when this position, in the middle of January, proved too uncomfortable for diplomacy, the pride and precision of the Scots was such that the Duke had to finish the affair on the northern bank. So soon as the Treaty of Berwick was signed, Admiral Winter was sent off with 6,000 men in his ships to the Firth of. Forth, while Lord Grey and 8,000 men joined the army of the Congregation. Poor Queen Mary watched anxiously for her brother, to whom she intended to yield her 3t=4 CAMEOS OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. sore task of the regency, while she sought rest in her native country ; but he came not, his fleet having been repeatedly driven back to Normandy by storms, and only 1,000 soldiers managed to reach Scotland. Admiral Winter, sending her polite messages all the time, proceeded to blockade Leith, and the poor broken-hearted, perplexed, and sick- lady had no choice but to remind Lord Erskine of his promise to receive her into the Castle of Edinburgh. She was admitted with the Archbishop of St. Andrew's, the Bishops of Dunkeld and Dunblane,. the Earl Marischal, and a few more, all unarmed, and in another week there was fierce fighting all round the walls of Leith. , Mary still exerted herself for peace, and held two conferences with the English leaders, in one of which she broke down and wept and sobbed piteously, as the English despatches report, while Knox described her falsely as "hopping" for joy (when she could hardly walk with a stick), and calling the corpses of the slain the fairest tapestry she had ever seen ! She was actually dying of dropsy. She begged Lord Erskine to let her see D'Oysell, her constant adviser, but he would not consent and then she sent a letter to her apothecary at Leith, entreating that it might pass through the English camp. Lord Grey thought the sheet suspiciously large for the quantity of writing, held it to the fire, and discovered that it was covered with secret ink. He did not choose to read it, and burnt it at once. Cut off from all her friends, the dying Queen wished to try to. reconcile herself to her enemies, and begged the Lords of the Congre gation to come and see her. Fancying that she intended some " Guisian malice, " they would not all come together, only by twos and threes ; but her nobleness and forgiveness touched most of them, and many shed tears as she gave them a kiss of pardon. Some of them begged her to see Willock, whom she had formerly known as a friar, and she admitted him. He exhorted her to put her whole trust in the merits of the Saviour, and she gently replied that she relied on nothing else ; but when he began to utter the customary denunciations of the doctrine of the Blessed Sacrament, she held her peace. She died the next day, the nth of June, 1560, quite worn out, though only forty-five years of age. Foreseeing that there might be hindrances to her due funeral rites, she had desired to be buried in the Convent at Rheims, where her sister Renee was Abbess, and her body was lapped in lead and placed in St. Margaret's Chapel till it could be sent home. Already all ¦were weary of the war. The party who wanted to maintain the French influence had felt their weakness, and there was too much to employ the Guise family at home in France to enable them to support their young niece, whose husband, though King of France, was a helpless boy. So by treaty with England, D'Oysell and the French troops were to depart, , and thereupon England withdrew her fleet and ships. But there was no treaty made between the real Queen THE FALL OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH. 305 of Scotland and her nobles. In fact they had never professed to rebel against her, only to make war against the French, and though placing her name at the head of their Acts, the Lords of the Congregation acted as if her existence were a mere fiction. The English Queen Mary and Bishop Gardiner had justly complained of the iniquity of making important changes in the minority of the sovereign, though there the innovators took the child's consent along with them, and brought him up to approve ; but in Scotland the rulers were acting in direct opposition to the well-known opinions of their Queen, when she was of legal age to govern. The Estates of Scotland met in August, 1560, without any .commis sion from the Queen, though the crown, mace, and sword were laid on the throne ; and after a speech by Maitland of Lethington a petition was brought, denouncing the whole Roman Catholic Church in the most outrageous terms Calvinism could prompt. It actually declared that " in all the rabble of the clergy " there was not one lawful minister, and it dealt with the sacred mysteries of the Church in terms of the grossest abuse. The Parliament was divided. Some of the nobles were sincere holders of the old doctrine, but almost all who had joined the Con gregation had shared in the plunder of the abbeys and seized their lands, and they did not like Knox's vehement preaching from the Prophet Haggai, that such property ought to support the ministry and endow schools. The majority, however, were for change, and bade the ministers draw up a Confession of Faith. Knox, of course, was the chief influence, but a large portion of the formula resembled the forty-two Articles of Edward VI. The Catholic party were in the minority, and the Reformers were ready for any violence. The Duke of Chatelherault threatened his brother with death if he exerted himself against it, and though he, with the Bishops of Dunblane and Dunkeld and the Earls of Caithness and Cassilis, opposed it, it was but feebly, and no doubt they held back knowing that the proceedings of such a Parliament, being utterly illegal, could be set aside if ever the sovereign were strong enough. Thereupon the Confession was adopted, and three Acts were passed, the first abolishing the jurisdiction of the Pope, the second repealing all former statutes on behalf of the Church, the third absolutely for bidding the celebration of Mass, or even hearing it. For the first offence, the punishment was confiscation ; for the second, banishment ; for the third, death. This was perhaps the most monstrous enactment ever made, considering that it was the religion professed by their Queen that they thus proscribed. Indeed, that same Christopher Goodman, who had so truculently abused Queen Mary of England, addressed a letter to Cecil, blaming him severely for not putting to death the " bloody Bishops " of the last reign, and abolishing all relics .of superstition. VOL. IV. X 3o6 CAMEOS OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. The ministers next proceeded to compile a Book of Discipline, by which the choice of ministers was committed to the people, and they were then to be approved by the Congregation of the elders, but with out imposition of hands, which, while owning that it was done by the Apostles, Mr. Knox and his -fellows declared to be unnecessary. Readers were appointed to the care of parishes for which ministers could not be provided. They were not to administer the Sacraments; but to read the Book of Common Prayer. Whether this meant Edward's Second Book, as cut down to Frankfort use, or Calvin's Geneva service, is not quite clear. The country was divided into ten dioceses, where the " superintendents " were to look well after the ministers under their charge, and in every parish was to be a school, where Latin and grammar should be taught, and the children instructed in the Geneva catechism. This Book of Discipline was hateful to a great number of the Lords, who had gorged themselves with Church property, and would not give up a fragment to ministers or schools. They stripped the Bishops, and kept the plunder, while all over the country the remaining churches and abbeys were dismantled and ruined in the most ruthless manner, and the clergy, and monks, and nuns expelled, with no provision, as in the case of the English monks. What became of them does not appear, but probably some went abroad, and others would find shelter in the households of the Roman Catholic nobles, who were biding then- time till the Queen should interfere. The devastation was probably the more complete and rapid from the desire to secure as much as possible. Glasgow prided itself on having only purged its cathedral from superstition, not injured its architectural beauty, but in most places the wreck was of the most savage kind, and little but the shell was left. At the same time a council was appointed to carry on the govern ment, and to confirm the Treaty of Berwick with Queen Elizabeth, with an offer of marriage to Queen Elizabeth with the Earl of Arran, son of Chatelherault, and heir of Scotland after Mary. Sir James Sandilands, Grand Prior of the Knights of St. John, who had apostatised and married after the fashion of the Teutonic knights, was sent to carry the tidings to Mary, and Maitland, with the Earls of Morton and Glencairn, to Elizabeth. Very justly offended were Mary and her uncles with such a message and such a messenger. The English ambassador, Throckmorton, vainly tried to talk them over ; Cardinal de Lorraine declared that his niece's subjects had set up a Republic, and that she would have nothino- to do with them unless they returned to their duty, mocking at the same time at the notion of Elizabeth condescending to marry Arran. Mary herself refused to recognise a married man as Grand Prior, and though she received him civilly, flatly refused all consent to the Acts of a Parliament summoned without her authority, and she finally dis missed him, with the advice to do his duty uprightly between his sovereign and her subjects. THE FALL OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH. 3°7 , Had a child been born of Mary's marriage, to be heir at once of France, Scotland, and England, Elizabeth must have been driven to marry, and the Scots have sooner broken into open rebellion. As it was, all parties still remained waiting and watching. Sandilands saw the English ambassador, Throckmorton, and begged him to recommend the cause of the Congregation to his Queen, who gave them reason to hope for her support, and maintained a spy, named Clark, in Scotland, to report upon events. Meanwhile, the Guise family seemed to have deemed themselves the appointed means of crushing the Reformation in France and Scotland, and to have been only hindered from beginning at once in the northern kingdom by the opposition they were meeting at home. Cameo XXVIII. Projects of the Guise Family. 1560. CAMEO XXIX. THE GUISARD PERSECUTION. (1559-1561.) Queen of England, 1558. Elizabeth. King of Spain. 1555. Philip II. Queen of Scotland. 1542. Mary. Emperor of Germany. 1557. Ferdinand I. Kings of France. 1549. Henry II. 1559. Francis II. 1560. Charles IX. Pope- 1559. Pius IV. Cameo XXIX. Factions at the French Court. 1559- The Peace of Cateau- Cambresis left the King of France free to deal with the Reformed, who seem about this time to have acquired the nickname of Huguenots, inexplicable, as are most party names, but most plausibly derived from the German Eidgenossen, or oath comrades. They had made great advances both in numbers and in regulations during the war, and various causes brought them notable adherents. The Court of Henri II. was divided between the two factions of Guise and Bourbon, the old Constable de Montmorency standing between both, secure of the King's personal attachment. There were six brothers of the House of Guise, sons of Claude de Lorraine, second son of that Rene de Vaudemont who had won the Dukedom of Lorraine at the sword's point from Charles the Bold of Burgundy. They had become entirely French, but they could trace back a lineal male descent from Charles the Great, and in his right claimed to be princes. The head of the family, Francois, Duke of Guise, was one of the noblest cavaliers of his time, brave as a lion, a fairly skilful captain, gentle-tempered, honourable, and humane, and fascinating every one by his gracious deportment ; but he was too apt to be led by his next brother, Charles, Cardinal of Lorraine, a much cleverer and better read man, of correct life, but stained by ambition, avarice, and falsehood, and terribly vindictive. All the brothers were men of great beauty and form of feature, and the Cardinal, then about thirty-six years old, was the ruler of the whole family, while the Duke, for his recovery of Calais, was viewed as the popular hero of France. He ' maintained a great following, all distinguished by the white cross of Lorraine. He was a devout man after his fashion. His mother, Anne of Este, in strong reaction from her mother, Renee of Valois, the patroness of Calvin, had brought up all her sons in the utmost aversion THE GUISARD PERSECUTION. 3°9 to the Reformation, and they considered themselves as the champions of the Catholic faith. This would have been almost enough to set the Bourbon family in opposition. The title of Duke of Bourbon had died with Pierre, husband of Anne of France ; but two branches of the House of Bourbon survived, those of VendSme and Montpensier, alike with a direct male descent from Robert of Clermont, son of St. Louis, and thus standing next in succession to the Valois family now reigning. Of the branch of Vendome, there were three sons— Antoine, the Duke, who, as husband of Jeanne d'Albret, was called King of Navarre ; Charles, Cardinal de Bourbon ; and Louis, Prince of Conde. The two elder were insignificant men. Antoine was vain, good- natured, weak, and self-indulgent, without much faith in anything; and Charles never put himself forward at all ; but Louis was a man of considerable fire, energy, and ambition, not less dissipated than his brother, but with more power of throwing himself into a cause, and more self-respect. He was small, with regular features, dark com plexion, and dark, quick eyes ; while the Guise family were very tall and fair. His course seems to have been determined in some degree by jealousy of the Guises, and likewise by disgust at the savage persecu tion of the Huguenots, which inclined him in their favour. His sister- in-law, Jeanne d'Albret, had become a fervent Calvinist as soon as she had outgrown her youthful levities ; and his companion in arms, Gaspard de Chatillon, Admiral de Coligny, was one by sincere conviction. The Chatillons were another trio of brothers — Gaspard, the Admiral; Odet, a Cardinal ; and Francois, Sieur d'Andelot. They were men of blameless life, closely united in affection, the two laymen distinguished soldiers, and all favoured at Court because their mother was sister to the Constable de Montmorency. Their niece was the wife of Conde, and even if there had been no religious differences, the whole connection would have been opposed to the Lorraine princes. While the King was absent from Paris after the wedding of his son, the Huguenot ministers, who had often been reproached by Calvin (him self a runaway) with cowardice and lukewarmness, held a procession of 4,000 Calvinists through the Faubourg St. Germain, protected by armed gentlemen, while they sang the Psalms of Clement Marot. The Bourbon princes were among them, but Coligny was in his Flemish prison, and d'Andelot had abstained from the imprudence, though on going into his estate in Brittany he had taken with him a Calvinist minister, who had publicly preached to his vassals. Henri was fond of d'Andelot, and sent for him to Court, telling his brother, Cardinal de Chatillon, and his cousin, young Montmorency, to prepare him for the interview, by informing him that the merest disavowal of heresy would be taken as sufficient, after which he was invited to supper. He was too honest to conceal his opinions, and what he said of the Mass so irritated the King as to make him throw a dish at the bold speaker's head, but missing its aim it knocked the Dauphin down. 3io CAMEOS OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. Henri then deprived d'Andelot of the chief colonelcy of the infantry, and committed him to the custody of the Bishop of Meaux, and after wards to the castle of Melun. He studied controversy during his imprisonment, but though he confirmed himself in his anti-Roman opinions, he was induced to feign compliance by his brother the Admiral, who thought outward conformity allowable. He consented to be present at Mass, and was liberated. The King had in his zeal requested the Pope to grant him a bull, establishing the Spanish Inquisition in France, and this was readily granted, the commission to establish it being sent to the Cardinals of Lorraine, Bourbon, and Chatillon; but the Parliament of Paris re fused to register it. The Parliament, established by St. Louis, was chiefly a court of justice, consisting of lawyers and peers of the original kingdom of France. It had no power to originate laws, but no edict was valued until it had there been registered, and the Parliament was resolved to stand out against the Spanish Inquisition. The French was bad enough, but not so utterly arbitrary, and the Parliament itself was the ultimate judge, and gave sentence. Now, there were two courts of justice within it, one called the Grand Chamber, which was exceedingly severe ; the other, called " La Tournelle," which was much more merciful, and banished where the other burnt. On Wednesday, the 14th of June, 1559, Henry II. came down to the Parliament, attended by both sets of rival princes, and commanded that the discussions should be continued before him. Every Wednes day it was the custom that the two courts should compare their adju dicature, and accordingly the King came in — as he intended — on a discussion regarding the discrepancy on the manner of treating heresy: He expected to overawe the Counsellors of the Tournelle, but his presence made them resolve to speak out the more plainly. > " It is needful to understand who are those who trouble the Church ! " said one, named Dufaur, " lest it should be as when Elias said to Ahab, ' Art thou he that troubleth Israel ! '" And another, named Du Bourg — " Crimes worthy of death daily go unpunished — such as murder, adultery, and blasphemy — while new punishments are daily invented for .men who could be reproached with no crime at all. " Henry thought by Ahab, Dufaur meant himself, and that Du Bourg was aiming at his relations with Diane de Poitiers. He sent for the roll of counsellors, verified their names, and ordered the captain of his Scots Guards to arrest them both as a dishonour to the Parliament. He went home to dinner and ordered the arrest of six more counsellors, of whom three escaped. Even for a king of France this was an amazing stretch of preroga tive, and every one was startled. On the nineteenth they were brought to trial before the Bishop of Paris, the Inquisitor, and four other commissioners named by the King. Du Bsurg appealed to his right, as a councillor, to be tried only by THE GUISARD PERSECUTION. the whole Parliament, but this v. as unheeded, and he was questioned on his faith. He made replies which led to his being immediately pro nounced a heretic. Like many lawyers, he was in Holy Orders, and the Bishop of Paris degraded him on the spot, and handed him over to the secular arm ; but he appealed to the Archbishop of Sens, and thus caused some delay. All around the Bastille, whither he and his five friends were con veyed, was festivity. Emmanuel Philibert, the gallant young Duke of Savoy, had come for his wedding with the King's sister Marguerite. A grand tournament took place the next day, after the trial, in lists at the end of the Rue St. Antoine, just below the Bastille. Henry II. , the two Queens, and the whole Court were there for three days, and the King rode in several encounters. The sports were almost concluded when he declared that he would break another lance, challenging Des Lorges, the eldest son of that Count of Montgomery who, when himself called by that second title, had nearly killed Francois I. with a snow ball, and had been the hero of the glove among the lions. In the first encounter both riders broke their lances, and Montgomery ought to have thrown aside the shattered truncheon, but he was not quick enough ; the tough wood encountered his opponent's helmet, and slipped along it, till a splinter entered Henry's eye, and instantly he fell forward on his horse's neck. The Huguenot historians say that as he was lifted up, with his face turned towards the Bastille, he was heard to mutter, ' ' They were inno cent ; I am justly punished." But this is probably a mere report, for he appears never to have spoken again during the eleven days that he lingered insensible. His sister was married in the private chapel of the palace just before his death, which took place on the loth of July, when he was a few months over forty. He was a man with very little character of his own, but who was wrecked by the bad times on which he fell, and the evil surroundings which perverted his always loving and constant heart. He had left seven chUdren — Francois, then nearly sixteen ; Charles, nine years old ; Henri, and Hercule, were the^sons ; the daughters were Claude, just married to the Duke of Lorraine ; Elizabeth, contracted to the King of Spain ; and Marguerite. The whole family left the palace immediately, and Queen Catherine at once made her daughter-in-law, Mary Stewart, take the precedence, saying, " Get in, madam ; it is yours now to walk before me." She shut her self up in a chamber hung with black, and only lighted by two tapers on an altar also black, while a black veil enwrapped her whole head and face so closely, that her voice could hardly be heard out of it. However, this was conventionality. She had not much reason to regret Henry, who had never loved or respected her ; and though it was not in his nature to be unkind or discourteous, had left her to herself, heeding none but his own favourites. Kings of France ceased to be minors at fourteen, so she could not be regent ; but she hoped to rule 312 CAMEOS OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. through her boy son, and to satisfy his young Wife, only a few months older, by giving her all empty distinctions of rank. Indeed, it was to the Guise party that she inclined, having hitherto made common cause with them ; and when the Deputies of the Parliament came to ask the young King with whom they were to confer, he answered, "With the consent of the Queen, my mother, I have chosen my uncles, the Duke of Guise and the Cardinal of Lorraine, to direct the State. The one will take care of matters of war, the other of finances and justice." Meanwhile, Henry lay in state, under a tapestry canopy embroidered with the Conversion of St. Paul, and the words conspicuously wfought, " Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me." His old friend the Constable was struck by the possible application of these words, and caused the hangings to be altered, as the last service he could do a King who had loved him with real faithfulness. The Constable went to visit the Queen-mother, who, through her black veil made him understand that his power was over, so that he thought it wise to ask permission to retire to his Castle of Chantilly, As to Diane of Poitiers, she received a message, as from the King, that for her evil influence over his father he meditated severe chastisement ; but that in his royal clemency, she should only have to give up the jewels the King had given her ; but Diane still felt it prudent further to bribe Catherine with the most pleasant of her estates. The coronation took place in September at Rheims. This was the Archbishopric of the Cardinal of Lorraine, who thus had to officiate at the crowning of the boy through whom he was for a few brief months the chief power in France. A splendid reception had been prepared at Rheims. At the gate there was a stage, bearing a huge figure of the Sun in gold, which opened as the King advanced, disclosing a scarlet Heart, which again parted asunder to let out a little Girl of nine years old, with fair ringlets hanging down to her waist, who presented the keys of Rheims to the King, with some appropriate verses. Queen Mary, who followed in a litter, received presents from the same little daughter of the Sun, but she was not to be crowned with her husband, since a Queen-consort of France had to vow to do nothing without her husband's consent, and this would have by no means suited the proud realm of Scotland. In compensation, perhaps, no other lady was allowed to appear at the coronation in anything but plain black, either silk or velvet ; so that she alone wore jewels, while, with her three sisters-in-law, she watched the coronation from a gallery in the cathedral, and the banquet from another in the hall. Queen Catherine's recent widowhood forbade her presence, and she had moreover discovered that the Guises would leave her no influence at all over her son, so that it would be wise —according to her Italian policy — to try to balance them by the Bourbons and the Huguenots. So she had actually appointed the coronation-day as one when she could hold a secret conference with a Calvinist minister, but she was interrupted, perhaps purposely, and it came to nothing. THE GUISARD PERSECUTION. 313 Du Bourg's sentence had been confirmed by the Archbishop of Sens, and he could only further make an appeal to the assembled Parlia ment. This was, however, refused him, but he was to plead by counsel before the Grand Chamber alone, and on his challenge of the Cardinal of Lorraine as his greatest enemy, and therefore no fit judge, the Cardinal withdrew. His advocate, Louis de Merillac, drew up for him a confession of faith blinking the points of difference, and then made him promise to remain silent during his defence. He kept his promise, though he heard his advocate confess that he had been led astray by impostors, and entreat the mercy of the tribunal ; but it was only his promise that restrained his tongue, and he immediately wrote letters disavowing all that had been put into his mouth. Interest was made for him, especially with the Queen-mother. She was told that there was a strong body of men who would no longer endure such tyranny, but to this she answered with spirit — "Do they threaten me ? Do they think to make me afraid ? Patience ! Things have not gone so far." Still she professed a desire to converse and be instructed by their divines, and she requested the admiral to bring her a young poet, Antoine de Chandieu, a gentleman of good family ; but the admiral suspecting that if she could not talk him over she would sacrifice him, sent him out of Paris. Here is a fragment of his poetry : — '"* The glories of this world decay, Swiftly as winds that pass away, As swiftly as the flower we see Fade from its former brilliancy, Swiftly as doth the billow fly Before the one that follows nigh. What is this world and all its power — A wind, a billow, or a flower ? " Huguenots mustered so thickly in the Faubourg St, Germain that it was called "Little Geneva," and there were horrid reports, which they denied, and declared to be the invention of runaway apprentices, as to blasphemous caricatures of Church services. These excited people's minds all the more, and Du Bourg was thrown into one of the iron cages of the Bastille and fed on bread and water. He had, however, not yet been sentenced when one of the presidents of Parliament, Minart, his special enemy, was shot dead in the street. The murderer was probably Robert Stewart, a hot Calvinist, who was accused about the same time of having formed a conspiracy for breaking into the Bastille and releasing Du Bourg and the other prisoners. He threw himself on the protection of the young Queen, with whom he claimed a kindred which she would not acknowledge. He was put to the torture, confessed nothing, and at last made his escape while being transferred from one prison to another. This crime left no hope for Du Bourg. His friends conformed, apologised, and paid fines, but he was led into Court to receive sentence 314 CAMEOS OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. Cameo XXIX. Execution of Du Bourg. 1559- of death, his judges, so lately his colleagues, granting him the favour of being strangled before he was burnt. He showed no token of quailing, and uttered his forgiveness of the judges, who he said had acted according to their consciences in condemning him. Then turning to the Parliament he said — "Quench the fires ye have kindled, and turn unto God with a penitent heart and mind, that your sins may be Hotted out. Let the wicked man turn from his wickedness and the Lord will have mercy. For you, my brother councillors, farewell, and prosper, and think without ceasing in God, and of God. For myself, I go cheerfully to death." He died with perfect calmness and resolution. " Father, forsake me not, nor will I forsake Thee," were his last words. There had been so much fear of a rescue that faggots had been placed as if for an execution at all the open spaces in the city to keep the populace from collecting at the Place de Greve, where he actually suffered death in the December of 1559. At the same time the persecution waxed hotter. The savage temper of Paris was awakened, and the mob collected round the street shrines of the Blessed Virgin to pounce upon any person who did not salute them, or would not drop a coin into their box for contributions to buy tapers. Either the victim was dragged before the magistrates as a heretic or was horribly tormented by the populace, even if he were ever so good a Catholic. The cry of " Lutherien," " Sacramentaire," or " Christaudin" was like that of " Armagnac" a century before, or of " Aristocrat" two centuries later, a signal that the wretch was to be hounded down to destruction. The meeting-houses of the Calvinists were broken into by the archers of the guard, and often were found to contain not only the artizan or the bourgeois, but people of rank and influence. They were thrown into prison, their houses were sequestrated, and their children wandered begging and starving in their streets, actually perishing, because to feed a heretic's child was supposed to show dangerous sympathy with false doctrine. The dominion of the Guise family was hateful to many, not only on account of the persecution, but because its princes were regarded as foreigners, and they took no trouble to conciliate the nobility. An edict in the King's name recalled all the grants made in his father's lifetime. Even the just debts of Henry II. were repudiated, and as complainants and petitioners thronged the Court, the Cardinal of Lorraine had a tall gibbet set up at Fontainebleau, and proclaimed that whosoever had come to beset the King with requests, complaints, claims, or accounts, should be hung on it if he did not depart within twenty-four hours. Indeed the Cardinal was so wrapped up in his almost absolute dominion in France that he would not go to Rome for the chance of being elected to the Papacy, but only sent his younger brother, the Cardinal de Guise. THE GUISARD PERSECUTION. 315 The state of things was becoming intolerable, and by Christmas the Bourbons, Montmorencys, Chatillons, and even the Queen-mother had resolved to resist the tyranny. A representation was laid before the Parliament that the King was not old enough to rule, that it was absurd to let him choose his own regents, and that the House of Lorraine were specially dangerous,, since they professed to have rights to Anjou and Provence, and even to be of the blood of Charlemagne. Le Tellier, the Secretary of the- Parliament, could, however, only reply that Kings of France attained their majority at thirteen years old and one day, and that Francois IL was thus free to do as he chose. Then the malcontents loudly called for the convocation of the States- General, the real representative assembly of the kingdom, which had not met since the time of Charles VIIL But the Guises told the King that whoever mentioned the States-General was his enemy, and that it only meant that the people were to give the law to their sovereign. The King of Navarre was disposed of for the present by a commis. sion to take the young Madame Elizabeth to Philip II. , who had decided on marrying her himself instead of giving her to his son ; and Catherine, who, though she hated the Guises, wished to stand well with them, and did all they told her, was made to write a letter to Philip complaining of the Bourbon princes, who wanted to reduce her to the condition of a chamber-maid, and Philip replied by denouncing all interference with the King's authority, and promised his aid in repressing it. This letter was shown to Antoine, and as Beam lay so near Spain, it for some months made him quite obsequious to the Guises, lest he should lose that last principality. He was, however, dragged on by stronger spirits. The wiser men asked counsel of lawyers and theologians both in France and Germany whether it were lawful in conscience and without the guilt of treason to seize the persons of the Duke of Guise and the Cardinal of Lorraine and force them to give an account of their administration. The lawyers made answer that it would be lawful, provided it were done with the consent of the princes of the blood royal, and of magistrates born in the kingdom, or with the consent of the States-General, or of the majority of the orders that composed them. On this there was a meeting at VendSme (the home of the Bcurbons) of all the chief Huguenots and many Catholics, including d'Ardres, Constable's confidential secretary. Conde was for taking up arms and directly attacking the Guises, but Coligny and d'Ardres declared that the time was not ripe for his appearing openly against the King's chosen advisers. He was to be the real head, "le Capitaine Muet," of the enterprise, but the actual outbreak was to be made under one Godefroy de Barri, Sieur de La Renaudie, a man who had served in the army under Guise at Metz, and had been kindly treated by him while prose cuted for forgery by the Parliament. He had been convicted and had fled to Geneva, where he had become such an ardent Calvinist as to be quite ready to turn against his former patron. No one seems to have 3>6 CAMEOS OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. been startled by the foulness of the treachery either of the acting or the sleeping partner, and La Renaudie repaired to the provinces to arrange his plot. The King was, however, in weak health. He had rapidly become so tall that it was said that he could be almost seen to grow, and his strength failed so fast that his physicians became uneasy, and sent him and his young wife, now mourning for her mother, to the palace castle of Blois, His coming produced terrible dismay, for a report preceded him that his disease was leprosy, and that his physicians had ordered him to bathe daily in the blood of infants. There was a general flight of all the mothers and babes of Blois, and it really seems that people were sent about taking lists of the names and ages of the children around. Guise, very indignant, seized one of these persons, but was disarmed by hearing that he had been commissioned by the Cardinal, so that the whole alarm was probably caused by an attempt to ascertain whether any children had been kept back by Huguenot parents from Catholic baptism. The panic was favourable to the Huguenot plans, A great many petitions were to be prepared from all parts of the kingdom, praying the King to stop the persecution, and this would give an excuse to a large number of gentlemen and citizens with their servants for coming into Blois. Meantime 500 horse and 1,000 infantry, all resolute and devoted Huguenots, were to assemble under the command of La Renaudie, surprise the castle, seize the persons of the Lorraine princes, and insist on the King following the counsels of the Bourbons ; while all the other disaffected would rise in the provinces to support them. La Renaudie having arranged all this, came to Paris in February to confer with the Prince of Conde, and fix the day of the attack. He lodged in 'the house of a Huguenot lawyer named Avenelles, to whom he was obliged to explain his plans, because the number of persons coming and going to his room excited suspicion. Avenelles appeared to accept the plan with delight, but soon his courage must have failed him, for he betrayed the whole to the Cardinal of Lorraine. He, the only one of his family who was a coward, was terribly alarmed, and the young King took the conspiracy much to heart. "What have I done to displease my people?" he cried; and then, turning to the Guise brothers, " I wish you would leave me to myself, then we should see whether it is at me, or at you, that the blow is aimed." The Cardinal, however, told him that the Huguenots aimed at overthrowing the Church and the Throne, and turning France into a Republic. The Queen-mother had in the alarm seemed to side with the Guises, and the whole Court was carried off to Amboise, a much stronger place than Blois, where the royal guards were doubled and made more vigilant. This move was made under pretext of a hunting-party, for Guise himself wished that the conspiracy should actually break forth, that it might be crushed, but the Cardinal THE GUISARD PERSECUTION. 3'7 would have had concessions made to prevent the rising, while troops were collected to intimidate the disaffected. After holding council together and agreeing that some one much greater than La Renaudie must be at the bottom of the plot, the two brothers and Catherine decided that she should invite the Admiral to Court and try what she could worm out of him. What he knew of the plot is uncertain, for if he were informed of it he betrayed nothing, but made a straightforward representation that peace could never be maintained while there was such severity. The Chancellor Olivier, a good and moderate man, supported him, and on 1 the 2nd of March an Edict came out suspending persecution and grant ing liberty of conscience to aU the French until the decision of the General Council, which Pius IV. was again hoping to assemble, and an amnesty was granted to all those who might have taken up arms against the King, the Queens, or the Princes. The preachers were also ex cepted, and further qualifications were added secretly when the Edict was registered. Warnings were whispered about that the plot was discovered, but it was persevered in, and the petitioners began to arrive at Amboise on the 17th of March, Conde the foremost of them. He was at once informed of the plot against the King, whereupon he manifested great surprise, and offered his services ; therefore Guise entrusted one of the gates to his care. Sixty gentlemen had promised La Renaudie to get into Amboise by night, and thirty into the castle, and they meant to surprise one of the gates, and admit La Renaudie and his troop ; but they found that the guard, with whom they had hoped to tamper, had been changed, and the gate was waUed up, while troops were scattered in the forest, who fell on the parties that were stealing through it, and instead of surprising, were themselves surprised. Many were killed, and those who were taken were hung from the battlements of Amboise, armed as they were, without form of trial. Still there was a large body of insurgents under arms at Noizai ; the King — -too weak of body to have the personal courage of his race — was greatly terrified, and the Duke of Guise obtained from him the rank of Lieutenant-General of the kingdom, much to the annoyance of the Queen-mother, who thought this exaltation most perilous. So did the Chancellor Olivier, who at first refused to seal the appointment, but yielded on being persuaded of the gravity of the crisis. On the 1 8th of March, La Renaudie was met in the forest of Chateau Renaud by a kinsman of his own, and after a sharp combat was killed. Still, the remnant of his party expecting that success might have caused carelessness, made an assault upon Amboise on the 19th, but were repulsed with great loss, Conde and Coligny themselves fighting among the defenders. La Renaudie's two servants were tortured, and gave up his papers ; while the prisoners were taken and put to death, without trial or sen tence, as being taken in arms against the King. The principal prisoners CAMEOS OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. were executed in front of the castle windows, where the King and his three little brothers stood watching them. "See, sire," said the Car dinal, "how impudent they are. Fear of death cannot abate their pride. What would they do if they had you ? " Conde and Coligny durst not absent themselves from the terrible spectacle, and no one seems to have dared to utter -a word of pity except Anne of Este, mother of the Duke of Guise, who burst into tears, saying to Queen Catherine, ' ' Ah, madame, what a storm of hatred is gathering over the heads of my poor children ! " And Chan cellor Olivier, who was very ill at the time, said in a low voice as the Cardinal of Lorraine was leaving him, "Ah, Cardinal, thou art making us all lose our souls." Jean d'Aubigne, a gentleman of Saintouge, was passing through the market-place of Amboise, with his little son Agrippe, then eight years old, on his way to a fair, when he came to the heads upon the stakes, and standing before them, he said to the boy, " My child, spare not thy head after mine to have those brave chiefs avenged. If thou sparest, thou shalt have my curse. " Still there was no substantial charge proved against Conde. His papers were seized, and he was forbidden to go away ; but he made so proud and defiant a declaration of his innocence that Guise was struck by it, and he was allowed to leave the Court. The States-General were so much dreaded that there was an attempt to satisfy the people by convoking the Notables at Fontainebleau. These were the persons of most mark in the kingdom, but not popular representatives. There was a new Chancellor, Michel de L'Hopital, who had been chosen by the influence of the Queen-mother on Olivier's death, and who proved himself a wise, loyal, and moderate man in difficult times. Both parties were represented, but the Constable brought 800 horse with him to keep order, and the Bourbon brothers did not appear. The Chatillons were there, however, and they obtained that their religion should not be persecuted until the General Council should have decided on the true faith, and that the States-General should be assembled. The writs were then issued, but the Guises were in an anxious state, and arresting a gentleman who was carrying letters to Conde from the Constable, they opened the correspondence, and put him to the torture, thus learning that old Montmorency was promising to join the princes in the overthrow of the Guises, and that the Vidame of Chatres, a ruined spendthrift, was exciting the Bourbon princes to begin a civil war. This last was at once thrown into the Bastille, and the King wrote urgent letters to the King of Navarre and the Prince of Conde pressing them to come to Orleans, where he then was, and disprove the " slanders of the wretched heretics who accused them of treason." They came, but to their surprise no officer came to meet them, and they passed through streets lined with guards and perfectly silent, till they reached the great gate of the castle, which was closed against THE GUISARD PERSECUTION. 3i9 them, so that they had to go round to a wicket like servants, and enter on foot through a double line of gentlemen who looked defiant and insolent. Thus they reached the King's apartment, where they found him attended by the Guises and their suite, who neither saluted nor spoke. Francois, however, led them to his mother's room, where she received them with tears. Guise and his brother had not followed them thither, that the King might seem to speak more independently as he bitterly reproached the Prince of Conde with levying troops against him and encouraging sedition. The Prince protested that he knew nothing of all this. " Well," said the King, " in order to prove your innocence, you must be proceeded against in the ordinary course of justice ; " and he com manded his captains to seize Conde, and lead him off to a place prepared for security. The Queen-mother began to speak consolingly to the King of Navarre, and when he lamented and complained, she cast all the blame on the Duke of Guise. Antoine was lodged in the palace and closely watched. The elections of the members of the States-General were so stormy as almost to amount to civil war, and there had been attempts to waylay those of the more exclusively Huguenot districts ; but though this failed, the majority were Catholics, and the Council decided that a Confession of Faith drawn up by the Sorbonne should be presented to each member of the States-General, and to all the Knights of the Order of St. Michel, and whoever refused it was to be instantly degraded, and given over to the secular arm to suffer the death of a heretic Meantime the trial of Conde began. He maintained his right as a Prince of the Blood Royal and a Knight of St. Michel, to be judged only in a Parliament where knights of his order should be present ; nor would he answer any questions, saying that he appealed from a king ill counselled to a king better counselled. The Duke of Guise said, "It was not to be borne that a little gallant, prince though he were, should make such bravados ; " for Conde was one of the smallest men at Court, and Guise was over six feet high. An officer who was sent to converse with the prisoner told him that it would not be impossible for him to come to terms with the Duke of Guise. " My only terms with him are at the point of my sword, "said Conde, undaunted. Quite treason enough had been proved against him to lead to his con demnation, if the Guise family were to be regarded as identical with the King, and his death was fully decided on. He was condemned on the 26th of November, and was to die on the 20th of December, the very day of the opening of the States-General. It is said that there was a plan for likewise cutting off the King of Navarre. He was brought to the King's room, and Francois was in structed to pour such reproaches on him that he could' not help defending 320 CAMEOS OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. Cameo XXIX. Plot against the King of Navarre. 1500. himself, on which Francois was to cry out that he was insulted, and his attendants were to draw their swords and despatch the King of Navarre. Antoine himself expected never to return from the interview to which he was summoned, and said to Renty, one of his attendants, " If I die there, carry my bloody shirt to my wife and son, and bid my wife send it to foreign princes that they may avenge me, since my son is not yet old enough. " But Francois showed himself gracious and gentle, Antoine answered ' in a friendly manner, no dispute arose, no signal was given, and Guise muttered between his teeth, " What a coward ! " There is every reason to hope that it was not cowardice that made Francois hold back from sharing this murder. The boy was in fast- failing health, and voices were round him which could not but make an impression. The Princess of Conde and her mother, Madame de Roye, were pleading hard for her husband's life, and old Renee of Valois, Duchess of Ferrara, who was then in France, spoke to her grandson, the Duke of Guise, with tones of warning. "You are opening a wound," she said, "which will long bleed. It never prospers "with those who attack persons of the blood royal." The Cardinal of Lorraine actually forced the Princess of Conde away from kneeling at- Francois' feet, and put forth an edict that no one was to approach the King with petitions in favour of those whom his council judged worthy of death. The poor boy was ill and miserable, with constant pain in his head, and the council decided on sending him away with his young Queen to Chenonceaux, a hunting-lodgerin the forest, till they had worked their will on Conde, and he should be wanted to open the States- General. His journey was hindered by a fainting-fit as he was going to mount his horse ; but on the 3rd of December he was well enough to intend moving, all his furniture was sent off, and he and Mary attended vespers in the church of Ste. Croix in their travelling dresses, but in the midst the pain in his head and ear became agonising ; he was carried back to his rooms and laid on a mattress, as all the beds were gone. An abscess in the ear, with acute inflammation in the brain, declared itself, and Ambroise Pare, the royal surgeon, though a staunch Huguenot, sent word to the prisoner that the King's hours were numbered. Francois, surrounded by the Guises, did their bidding so far as to tell the King of Navarre that the prosecution of Conde had been his own doing, not that of the Guises ; he commended his wife to his hiother, and then became speechless except for an inarticulate moaning. Thus he lingered, tenderly nursed by Mary, and with all the Court standing round him, till at last the Admiral de Coligny rose from his knees and said, " Messieurs, the King is dead. This should teach us how to live. " At that moment the Constable was entering the gates of Orleans, and going straight to his niece, the Princess of Conde, filled her with hope for her husband ; and at the same time, a servant picking up THE GUISARD PERSECUTION. 321 something the prince had dropped, whispered in his ear, " Our man is devoured." Francois died on the 5th of December, 1560, in his seventeenth year, the least corrupt of all the brothers, since he came least under the influence of his mother, and he prevented the murder that depended on him. The next brother, Charles IX., was only ten years old; the regency naturally belonged to his mother, and she was only too glad to depress the House of Guise, so that her very first step was to release the Prince of Conde. Queen Mary, who was far more regarded as niece of Guise than Queen of Scotland, was shut up for forty days in apartments hung with black, but in a perfectly white dress, nor did she see any person of the other sex but the Uttle King. She remained in France till the end of July, and then returned to her native kingdom, for whose stormy throne she had been ill prepared by the intriguing Court where she had grown up. Her memorable exclamation on the deck of her ship, " Farewell, happy France, I shall never see thee more ! " must have been due to the girlish enjoy ments she had had ; for hearts were as sore and perplexed, violence and treachery as rife, in France as in Scotland ; but in France Mary had been the darling of all save her mother-in-law, and had no responsi bility, whereas she was now going home to take the reins, in a country where an always ungovernable people had had their full swing for the year since her mother's death, and where all that was possible of her Church had been swept away. Cameo XXIX. Death of Francois II. 1560. VOL. IV. CAMEO XXX. THE O'NEIL. (1558-1567.) Q ueen of England. 1558. Elizabeth. King of Spain. 1555. Philip II. Queen of Scotland. 1542. Mary. Emperors of Germany. 1557. Ferdinand I. 1564. Maximilian II. King of France. 1560. Charles IX. Pope. 1559. Pius IV. Cameo XXX. Shan O'Neil. 1558 When Queen Mary's death took place, the chief war in hand was with Shan O'Neil, in his fortress island in Ulster. So entirely had this chieftain gained the hearts of his people, that one of these Irish, hearing him proclaimed as a traitor, said, "Is traitor a higher title than O'NeU? — for if so I will henceforth so call him." The Lord Deputy deemed it well to see Queen Elizabeth himself, and take her instructions in person ; so he left in charge Sir Henry Sydney, with orders to march to Dundalk, and call O'Neil to account. In answer to his summons, Shan replied that he could not leave home, as he was holding a great feast for the christening of his child, but that he invited Sydney to come and stand sponsor and join in his feast, when no doubt they would come to a good understanding. The persons about the little Court of Dublin who wanted to destroy O'Neil and divide Tyrone, Tyrconnel, and Ulster, as Leix and Ofally had been divided, tried to persuade the Vice-deputy that the invitation was a snare ; but Sir Henry Sydney was one of the able men of the time. He was an amiable man, who had managed to keep well with all varieties of government. He had married the daughter of North umberland, and she, at least, had attended Jane Grey during her brief royalty. Yet he had so made his peace with Mary, that Philip of Spain had stood sponsor to his eldest son, and he was so firm, and yet so gracious, as to be popular among both English and Irish within the pale. Shan received him with all the wild grace of a hospitable Irish chief tain. The christening was a splendid one, the feasting was royal ; the host, who had been described as a mere savage, showed all the lofty courtesy worthy of the descendant of the great Neil of the Nine Hostages; the friend of St. Patrick ; and, with all the fascination of THE O'NEIL. 3-3 his people, he won the ear of Sir Henry. It was quite sure that he was a much-wronged man, driven into rebellion by the flagrant injus tice of his father and of King Henry. The only son born in wed lock was, by all laws, the only heir to the Earldom of Tyrone, or to the old chieftainship, which last he held besides by the 'election of all the O'Neils. He had only taken up arms to protect his right. Sydney was convinced, and advised Shan to come to Dublin to plead his cause with the Lord Deputy, promising him safety and his own assistance. The Lord Deputy came back to Dublin Earl of Sussex, and was received at Christ Church Cathedral with a Litany and a Te Deum, both in EngUsh. He brought orders that the English services should begin again ; but, during the singing of the Litany, ¦ the congregation at Christ Church were astonished by seeing blood oozing from under the Crown of Thorns of a great marble crucifix which had once been removed, but had been restored by Archbishop Curwen. There was a general cry ; some fell on their faces, others knelt thumping their breasts, the aldermen and mayor among them. A man cried out that it was because heresy had come in, and the Lord Deputy and his suite made haste out of the choir, fearing mischief. Archbishop Curwen kept his head, and bade the sacristan mount on a form and examine and wash the image. The sacristan found a sponge saturated with blood, hidden behind the head, and close inquiry traced the profane trick to one Leigh, a monk, and a few others, whose attempt to promote their cause by a fraud turned out to its great injury, for it utterly disgusted the Archbishop, nominee of Mary as he had been. The next Sunday he preached on the text, " God shall send them strong delusion that they shall believe a lie," while below him, on a table, stood Leigh and his confederate's, with their hands and legs tied, and papers on their breasts declaring their crime. It is on the authority of a letter from Curwen himself to Archbishop Parker, and it seems to have had some effect in deciding both the Queen and the Primate on clearing away those images, which had been put to a superstitious use. The Irish Parliament adopted the Act of Uniformity, but with the curious permission that where the people understood nothing but Irish, the Latin might be used. The native tongue, it was said, could with difficulty be printed, and few in the whole realm could read the letters, nor had anybody at that time mis sionary spirit enough to learn the language. Archbishop Dowdal, who had been one of Mary's many episcopal attendants to the grave, and seventeen out of the nineteen surviving Irish Bishops, conformed ; but Bale would not return to his unwilling flock at Kilkenny, and resigning the See of Ossory, retired to a Canonry at Canterbury. Armagh remained vacant till 1563, when Queen Elizabeth gave the primacy to Adam Loftus, a young Yorkshire gentleman, who, on her first visit to Cambridge, had pleased her by the graces of his person and oratory in some of the speeches with which the students were wont to receive her. He went to Ireland as chaplain to Sussex, was made Y 2 324 CAMEOS OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. Dean of St. Patrick's, and then Archbishop of Armagh, though he was only twenty-eight when he was consecrated, and could not take his degree as Doctor of Divinity till four years later, since he had not till then been twenty years a student of theology. Nobody in his See understood English, and the land had been horribly wasted by O'Neil's inroads, so that there seems to have been nothing to live upon ; and as the elegant Cantab had no missionary spirit, he procured his transla tion to the somewhat more comfortable See of Dublin upon the death of Curwen. Thus were the opportunities let slip ; through the neglect and con tempt of these English clergy was missed the opportunity, never to be recalled, of winning to the Church those Irish spirits, always fervently devout amid all their contradictory qualities. Many of the priests had refused to conform, and the parishes were filled up by the dregs of the English Church. Men who could not get ordained in England came to Ireland and got preferment, while their flocks resorted to the ousted priests. One of the statutes of the Parliament enacted that every parish priest should establish and support a school for the poor, where they might learn the English language, and be instructed in religion. Every one took this oath when inducted to a living ; but with very few exceptions it remained a dead letter till the last generation of clergy began to wake to an understanding of their duties, when it was too late. Meantime Sussex had marched against O'Neil, and Shan had collected all the forces of Ulster ; but again he listened to terms. The Earl of Kildare came to visit him, and held out to him hopes of obtaining recognition from the Queen if he would lay his statement before her in person. Shan made up his mind to the attempt, and came to Dublin with his train, when Sussex received him kindly ; but the lords of the English pale were mortally offended. They felt as may be feared the English colonists would feel if the Maori king were received at Auckland as an EngUsh earl, and they did worse than the New Zealand settlers would do, for they formed a plot for murdering him. Sussex and Kildare could hardly have prevented it, bat they took care that the chieftain should have timely warning, and he embarked at once for England, together with a band of his choicest gallowglasses. He walked through the streets of London, to visit the Queen, at their head. They were fine, tall men, the grandest type of the Irish, and they wore linen vests, deeply-dyed with saffron, with wide ODen sleeves, displaying the brawny arms that carried a broad battle-axe over one shoulder. A short sword was girt to each man's thigh over a light coat of mail, and his head was bare of all but his flowing tresses. London was enchanted with the spectacle, and Shan and the Queen were delighted with one another. She was a stately and queenly lady, well able to be winning, and he vowed allegiance to her with all the warm-hearted fervour of his nation, showing himself as simply graceful and chivalrous a gentleman as any who stood around her. Convinced that he was no savage, and perceiving the justice of his claim, Elizabeth THE O'NEIL. 325 confirmed him in the rank of Earl of Tyrone, and sent him home enthu siastic in her cause, like most of the men who came in contact with her. He was thought even to be inclined to the English Church. Scots from the Hebrides were wont to descend and plunder Ireland, and O'Neil had hitherto used them as his allies, but by way of proving his affection for the Queen he attacked them immediately on his return, and entirely defeated them. Elizabeth wrote him a letter of thanks ; but nothing could exceed the hatred and jealousy of the Lords of the Pale at the manner in which this native Irishman was treated as their equal. Unable to believe in his good faith, they declared that his attack on the Scots was only a blind to enable him to raise an army, and letter upon letter, fuU of accusations, was poured upon Elizabeth, till, becoming a little ashamed of having yielded to the "blarney " of the brilliant Irishman, and impatient of the reiteration of his supposed intentions, she exclaimed that after all, if he did revolt, they would be satisfied, for there would be enough for them all. Sussex went home in 1565, and Sir Henry Sydney came out as Deputy. The universal outcry against O'Neil led him to decide on placing a fort with an English garrison at Derry, in the heart of Ulster ; a very foolish measure, since the country was quiet, and it not only showed distrust towards O'Neil, but was an insult that lowered him in the eyes of his own followers. Most likely the Council took advantage of Sir Henry's recent arrival to force on him the measure on purpose to affront the object of their hatred. Shan was offended, but he was too cunning to strike the first blow. He only paraded a band of men in front of the new castle so provok ingly that the garrison broke forth and attacked them, not without severe loss. O'Neil sent a complaint to Sydney, offering to meet him at Dundalk, expecting no doubt that another personal conference would establish his rights again. Before the meeting could take place, how ever, the Church, which served as a powder magazine for the castle at Derry, caught fire, the powder exploded, and so much harm was done that the garrison had to make the best of their way back to the pale. The Church had been sacred to St. Columb Kill, and it was reported all over Ulster that the saint had sent a huge she-wolf with a flaming firebrand in her mouth to drop into the heretic arsenal. The story was firmly believed in the early part of the present century, and the imme diate effect was a universal rising of the people, thinking the time of vengeance come. O'Neil was carried along by it. He refused to meet Sydney, and set up the red hand, disowning his allegiance to Elizabeth, and giving up his earldom. " Can aught of glory or remwn To thee from Saxon tales spring ? Thy name a kingdom and a crown. Sir Owen's chieftain, Ulster's king.'' So cried his clansmen, so they said the spirits of their forefathers cried. At any rate O'Neil, tired of his attempt to be a peaceful earl, and 326 CAMEOS OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. harassed by universal distrust, relapsed into his native ferocity, raised the Bloody Hand, declared himself the defender of the old religion, burst upon Armagh, took the city, and burnt the Cathedral because it had been used for the Reformed service. He professed to hold the castle for Mary Stuart as rightful Queen, and she sent two Highland gentlemen as ambassadors to him. He was known to the French at her court as "le Grand Honvel." He ravaged Fermanagh, and attacked Dundalk, but was repulsed, and he found that the O'Donnells and other of his Ulster allies were in correspondence with the Deputy. He sent messengers into Connaught entreating the Geraldins of Desmond to join him in restoring the old faith, but all in vain. He besieged Drogheda, but Lady Sydney, in her husband's absence, sent reinforce ments, and he was again defeated. His faithful clansmen perished round him, those of other septs deserted him. Sir Henry Sydney pressed him hard, and after living a hunted life in the mountains and bogs, the unhappy chief consulted his secretary, Neil MacCommar, whether he should give himself up to the Deputy in submission with a halter round his neck. The secretary reminded him how it had fared with O'More, and he decided on the far more perilous measure of seeking protection from a band of 600 of the island Scots, his former allies, who had lately landed in Clandeboy, and set up a camp there. He had, however, attacked and driven a party of them away when he had been fighting in Eliza beth's cause, and the nephew of one of them, MacGilly Aspuck, nourished plans of revenge. O'Neil arrived with fifty horse, and was well received ; but while feasting, a quarrel was raised by some of the Scots with O'Neil's secretary, and at a signal given, Aspuck burst in with a band of armed men, killed O'Neil, slaughtered all his troop, and threw the bodies into a pit within an old chapel. Four days later an English officer, Captain Pierce, to whom the Scots sent to claim the reward of their treachery, arrived, disinterred Shan, cut off his head, and sent it to Dublin. Sydney marched through Ulster without opposition, and procured the election of a feeble member of the clan as Tanist, while Dungannon was given to Hugh, the son of Matthew. So ended one of the best of the few hopes of conciliating the Irish — chiefly from the meanness and spite of the Council at Dublin and the Lords of the Pale. They, however, were hotly quarrelling among themselves. The Earl of Kildare was a peaceable man, but the Geraldins of Desmond, and Butlers of Ormond, hated each other furiously, and were always at war. The Earl of Desmond was wounded and made prisoner. " Where is the great Desmond now ? " he was insultingly asked when he was borne from the field. "In his fit place," he answered, " on the necks of the Butlers." Ormond visited the Queen and gained her ear. She bade Sydney judge between them, and when he was in favour of Desmond, she sharply bade him revoke his decision. Desmond took up arms, but THE O'NEIL. 327 was defeated, and begging to be sent to London to plead his cause with the Queen, was immediately committed to the Tower, and remained in prison for several years. There still remained living Kathleen Fitzgerald, widow of that Earl of Desmond who had only burnt the Cathedral because the Bishop was in it. She had been married when Edward IV. was on the throne, the Duke of Gloucester had danced with her as a bride, and she maintained that he had been a very graceful, well-shaped man. She retained an old castle at Inchquin, and there lived on till the English settlers so encroached on her lands that her maintenance was taken away, and she came in a sailing vessel to Bristol to petition the Queen with her daughter. The daughter was so infirm with age that she had to be brought in a little cart, but the mother, though a hundred years old, trudged the whole way to London and presented herself to the Queen. Her portrait was taken, and represents her in a hood and lace collar. Itseems'to be uncertain whether this journey was made in the time of Elizabeth or of James I. She lived long enough for this last, for she remained vigorous, cut a new set of teeth, and at last died of a fall from a nut-tree in 1604, at the age of 140 ! The English had a much more wild and formidable enemy in the south, in Connemara, a.name which means the "bays of the sea" — in the "Sea Queen" or piratess — Graitlme O'Mailhe ; by translation, Grace O'Malley. She was the daughter of Owain O'Mailhe Dubdhara, or of the Black Oak, Lord of Murrisk and Borrishoole and likewise of the Isles of Arran ; and the saying went that, " Never was there a good man of the O'Malleys, but a mariner," and Dubdhara was not behind his ancestors, but was a terror to the Spaniards and French on the western seas. His daughter, a dark-browed, dark-haired girl, sailed with him and joined in his piracies, and at his death, being then nineteen, and her brother an infant, she became leader of the sept, and was the ruler of all the coast of Connemara, where in the deep gulfs her ships and boats found shelter and lay in ambush for the galleons. Her stronghold was Carrigahooly Castle, on Clare Island, in Newport Bay, where her flotilla of coracles were moored together by a rope, the end of which was passed through a hole, and wound round her arm at night in her bed. She married O'Donnell O'Flaherty, and the day her first child was born she assisted in discomfiting a Turkish corsair which had attacked her fleet, firing two '.' blunderbushes, " which killed their chief officers. She was a dangerous foe to English ships. She was proclaimed an outlaw, a price of 500/. set on her head, and an attempt was made to besiege her castle of Carrigahooly, but she repulsed it, and reigned prosperously in her own way till her husband died. Then she lost all claim to his lands, and, her brother having grown up, she was left to subsist solely by her piracies until she married Sir 32S CAMEOS OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. Cameo XXX. GraceO'Malley. Richard Burke of Mayo, called by the Irish Richard-in-Iron, because he wore plate armour. He was on better terms with the English, and introduced Graithne to Sir Henry Sydney, who seems to have persuaded her that if she would confine her piracies to Spanish ships, she would be esteemed an ally by the Queen. Forthwith she set sail for the Thames to visit Elizabeth, and on the way gave birth to a son, who was christened Theobald, and commonly called Toby of the Ship. The Queen seems to have been rather taken with the wild chieftainess, and offered to make her a Countess ; but Grace declared that this could not be, for she was the Queen's equal in rank already, being the child of Irish kings ; but she would accept a title for her baby, who was accordingly created Viscount Mayo, and became the ancestor of the present Earl. When Queen Elizabeth offered her a lap-dog, she said it was a useless beast, but offered the child in return, saying that she should never make a man of him, for his father came of a bad stock. Altogether the wild woman seems to have looked down on the civilised ' Queen as a helpless being, who could not steer a ship or fire blunder busses at a Turk, and wanted crowds of people to wait on her, all unconscious what a mighty vessel Elizabeth was steering, and through what a tempestuous sea. On her way home Grace touched at Howth to ask hospitality, but the castle gates of the St. Lawrences were shut, the family being at dinner. In her anger she helped herself from the farms around, and finding the young heir at nurse in a cottage, she carried him off in her ship, and only restored him on a promise that thenceforth the castle doors should always be open at dinner-time and a place left vacant. The custom is still faithfully kept up at Howth. Piracy was, as Grace wrote it, her "thrade of maintenance," and she pursued it for forty years ! She remained a friend to the English, and maintained a nunnery in Clare Island, where she was buried. Her history is undoubted fact, but the dates are uncertain. CAMEO XXXI. THE CONFERENCE OF POISSY. (1559— 1562.) Queen of England. 1558. Elizabeth. King of Spain. 1555. Philip II, Queen of Scotland. 1542. Mary. Emperor of Germany. 1557. Ferdinand I. King of France. 1560. Charles IX, Popes. 1553. Paul IV. 1559. Pius IV. The fiery old Neapolitan, Paul IV., had most unwillingly made peace with Philip II., but having done so, he had time to open his eyes to the real character of the nephews by whom he had allowed himself to be led. Cardinal Carlo Caraffa fell sick, and the Pope coming to visit him, found men of the worst character in Rome sitting with him, and began to mistrust the prepared surprise of five years ago. A short time after, there was a great street uproar in Rome, on the New Year's night of 1559, in which young Cardinal Monte, the same who owed his promo tion to the monkey's exploit, drew his sword. Caraffa hoped to keep it from his uncle, but the Pope was privately informed, and was exceed ingly offended by the endeavour at secrecy. People saw that it was safe to tell him the truth, and a lady, one of his relations, placed a paper in his Breviary, mentioning some of his nephew's crimes, and saying that if he wanted to hear more, he had only to sign his name. He did so, and a fearful shower of accusations were laid before him. He had just read them, when he had to attend the meeting of the Inquisition, where, with his usual vehemence, he rebuked Monte, and declaimed against the general corruption, crying out, "Reform! Reform ! " "Ah ! Holy Father," said Cardinal Pacheco, "we must begin with ourselves. " The old man was cut to the heaft. He answered not a word, but went to his own room, and began to investigate the conduct of his nephews. Good men whom they had sedulously kept away from him were summoned to his presence, and disclosures were made which filled Cameo XXXI. Fall of the Carajfe. IS58. 33° CAMEOS OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. him with such grief and horror, that he could neither eat nor sleep, and had a fever which lasted ten days. Then he summoned a consis tory, where, with passionate grief and anger, he dwelt on the behaviour of his nephews, declaring how utterly he had been deceived, dismissing and banishing them and their whole families. Their mother, his sister- in-law, threw herself at his feet as he returned to his palace, but he drove her away with harsh words ; and the young Marchesa di Monte- bello arriving from Naples, found her palace closed against her, and could gain admittance into neither inn nor house within Rome. The only exception he made was in favour of one young man of eighteen whom he had made a Cardinal, but whom he cut off from all his relations, and never permitted to speak a word in their behalf. The poor youth was silently broken-hearted, and looked miserable ; the Pope was as stern and grave as ever. The only change was that he was more than ever bent on purifying the Church and his own court and city, and this in the most unsparing manner. A chest with a slit in it was set up, into which papers with complaints might be thrown ; and he went round the city making personal investigations. All gains in money were forbidden to the clergy, even the saying of masses for payment, an abuse long authorised ; he forbade all sale of dispensa tions, cleared out all heathenish pictures from the churches, and deserved the medal struck in honour of him, representing the cleansing of the Temple. It shows how dreadful the abuses must have been when his preaching himself, and making his Cardinals preach, observe the fasts and make their Easter Communion, were viewed as strange novelties. He swept away abuses in patronage, and even planned restoring to the provincial Bishops powers that had been absorbed by the Papacy, and preventing that centralisation of everything at Rome which he saw ' did Rome as much harm as it did to the subject Churches. But he had begun too late. He had wasted the earlier years of his reign in his hatred of the House of Austria, and he had only seven months in which .to attempt his proper work ; and he made himself greatly hated by those who could not endure to be reformed. He was indeed pitiless to all offenders, heretics as well as criminals. He repelled Elizabeth's advances, and pressed on the Inquisition upon France ; and even the Spaniards who had been held as persecutors in England and the Netherlands — yes, even Charles V.'s own Confessor — were called in question on the doctrine of Justification by Faith. He fell sick in August 1559, called all the Cardinals around him, and recommended his work to them — then died in an attempt to rise from his bed. The people rejoiced as they did at the death of the last reforming Pope, Adrian VI. They plundered his buildings, drove out his monks, maltreated his servants, and dragged about the heads of his broken statues in the streets. There was then an interval of four months while the Cardinals were assembling, and they ended by electing Gian Angelo Medicini, the son THE CONFERENCE OF POISSY. 331 of a small tax-gatherer at Milan. He had begun life as a student, and owed his advancement to his brother, Gian Giacomo, whose history had been that of the wild adventurers bred by the stormy intrigues of Italy. As a mere bravo, Gian Giacomo had been hired by the chiefs of the government at Milan to commit a murder, and soon after was sent with a letter to the governor of a castle in an island on the lake of Como. Suspecting danger, he opened the letter, and found that it contained orders to put him to death. However, he went on, used the letter to obtain entrance to the castle, and there managed to gain possession of it, and lived as an independent chief, marauding on all parties, till having won himself a name as a terrible leader, he entered the Empe ror's army, and was created Marchese de Marignano, commanded the aitUlery in the German war, and helped to take Sienna. He killed peasants, who tried to bring in provisions, with one blow of his iron staff, and was said to have put 5,000 men to death ; but this made him only the more esteemed, and he married one of the noble Roman Orsini. His quiet, studious brother, profited by his prosperity, as well as by his own merits. He was an excellent lawyer, and was an amiable, good-natured man. Paul III. made him a Cardinal, and at a dinner given by Alessandro Farnese, a boy who was singing as an improvisatore, being bidden to carry a wreath to him who would become Pope, took it to Medicini. Paul IV. hated him, and he therefore chiefly lived at Milan and the Pisan baths, spending his time in study, and his wealth in splendid buildings at Milan and in bounty to the poor, so that he was called their father. He was blameless in life, free, open-hearted, and good-natured, and there was hardly any opposition to his election. He took the name of Pius IV., and immediately showed himself a kindly, friendly Pope, with little love of state or ceremony, — who walked about the streets of Rome with very fe.w attendants, and spoke freely to those he met. But he did not neglect to punish the Caraffa family. One of them, the Duke of Palliano, had murdered his wife ; and on this, the two brothers, and two more equally wicked, were brought to trial for their crimes, and condemned to death. The Cardinal Carlo had not expected this. He was told early in the morning, before he was up. He hid his face in the bed-clothes, and then, silting up, clasped his hands and said, " Bene Pazienza." His last confession lasted so long, as weU it might, that the officer who was waiting hurried the unhappy man : "Monsig- nore must have done. We have other work on hand." The other Caraffe were only made to disgorge their plunder, and the more dangerous among them were kept at a distance from Rome. Pius had nephews of his own, not sons of his brother, but of his sister Margherita, who, in the general promotion of the family, had married Count Gilberto Borromeo, of the Castle of Arona ; and she had two sons, Federigo and Carlo, the latter of whom had, from his very infancy, treated the worldly decision, which made the Church his provision, a dedication to the life of a saint. 332 CAMEOS OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. He had passed unscathed through the temptations of University life, and was just twenty-one when his uncle was chosen Pope. Federigo hurried to Rome to congratulate him at once. Carlo, not choosing to seek preferment, would not come till he was summoned, and almost immediately was appointed Cardinal, and, though only in Deacon's orders, Archbishop of Milan. He did not refuse. Custom and Papal authority were too much for so young a man, and he never seems to have doubted that he was doing right ; and his palace at Rome and his whole conduct were regulated by the highest and purest standards, and he was studying with all his might to enter into the duties of his office. His brother Federigo died in a few months of a fever, leaving him head of the family ; and all his relations, Pope and all, were desirous that he should return to the secular life, and marry ; so to make this impossible, he quietly went one morning to one of the churches, and was ordained Priest by one of the other Cardinals ; but even then the Pope detained him at Rome, and indeed he felt himself needed there, to bring all influence to bear on Pius for the reassembling of the Council of Trent. The representations made by the moderate French Catholics at Fon- tainebleau convinced the merely politic Romanists that something must be done, or they might unite with the Huguenots, and set up a national Church after the example of England. Both the Emperor Ferdinand, and his nephew Philip II. , were as anxious for a Council as their great predecessor had been, though for very different reasons, the one wishing to make the tenets of the Church wider, the other to make them narrower ; but they, as well as the French, wished to have a new Council not bound to the decrees already made at Trent. Tlie Emperor sent a memorial begging that it might be held in some place in Germany, and concern itself more with the reforms needed in the Church than with new articles of faith ; also that the Communion in both kinds and the marriage of the clergy might be permitted. Pius would not have been unwilling to grant these, but he wished to continue the old Council ; and on the 28th of November, 1560, put forth a bull summoning the Council to reassemble at Easter, at Trent, and sent nuncios to invite not only the Romanist kingdoms, but those who had left the dominion of Rome, there to assemble. The German Protestants had assembled at Nuremberg, summoned by August of Saxony, the son of Maurice, and there they were hotly quarrelling among themselves, Friedrich, Pfalzgraf of the Rhine, having become a violent Calvinist. But when Cardinal Commendone appeared with the Papal briefs, they only went so far as the first word " Sons," declaring that they would not acknowledge the Bishop of Rome as any father of theirs, and did not acknowledge his power to convene a Council. They even received Cardinal Commendone with personal abuse, to which he made a dignified reply. " What mean ye, sirs, by these bitter words against one who hath undertaken so long and painful a journey in the service of Christian unity ? It would seem that you wish to supply by ribaldrous invention what you lack in argument. What con- THE. CONFERENCE OF POISSY. 333 tention reigneth among you on account of Luther's doctrine ? Not a city, hardly a house, is free from theological bickerings. Wives dispute with their husbands, children with their parents, on the interpretation of Scripture. In company, in taverns, over the wine-pot and the dice- box, women and children pronounce on the most awful mysteries of religion." His arguments had no effect but to inflame the Protestants. The whole idea of unity had been lost, and the present generation had succeeded to the hates of the first without their religious fervour ; and though they signed an agreement to adhere to the Confession of Augs burg, there were fierce dissensions among them, especially between two sects Of Lutherans in Prussia. An invitation was also sent to the English clergy. A nuncio was despatched to Elizabeth, with a kindly letter offering to receive her with joy, like the prodigal son in the Gospel ; and with instructions to promise to recall the sentence on her parents' marriage, to sanction the English liturgy, and allow the cup to the laity. Such a message two years sooner would have been gladly accepted ; but Elizabeth was by this time committed to the Anti-Roman party, nor had she any guarantee that Rome might not revoke its permission, so she would not allow the nuncio to set foot in England, and the Council lost the great influence that theologians such as were some of the English Bishops would certainly have exerted, so that another chance of unity was lost. France was in a divided state as usual ; but insignificant boy as Francois was, his death had made an immense change by putting an end to the exclusive influence of the Guises, and throwing the reins oi government into the hands of Catherine. She was at this time about forty-three years old, and the little, brown, insignificant-looking girl, whom every one had neglected as a child, had developed into a grand, stately, graceful-looking woman, with a cat-like suavity of manner and address. She was entirely without principle, and had no firmness nor strength of character ; but she liked the power and influence which had been so long in coming to her, and hoped to maintain it by judi ciously balancing the parties in the state, and keeping them amused and fascinated by the pleasures she provided for them at the Court, whilst she permitted no influence but her own to approach her little son, whom she made to sleep in her room, and educated very slightly in the hope of prolonging her power. She filled her Court with a great number of the most beautiful and brilliant ladies she could collect, who were usually called " The Queen Mother's Squadron." With these around her she sat in the spacious, exquisite, and beautiful halls of the Louvre, Blois, or Fontainebleau, usually engaged in embroidery, while romances, Italian, or French borrowed from the Italian, were read aloud. Court poets, such as Ronsard, declaimed Arcadian or epigrammatical verses ; jests were bandied about, songs, music, and games of all sorts amused them ; the most admirable Italian works of art decorated the walls and niches. 334 CAMEOS OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. Out of doors, the sports were hunting, hawking, tennis, and pall-mall, a garden game probably nearly the same as croquet, and played by both sexes ; and the evenings were spent in music and dancing, while the sports were diversified by masques and pageants in which the young nobles themselves took a part. Nothing could be more attractive and charming. The gentlemen of the Court wandered about among the ladies, and the language of romance was the language of common life ; but all the time this was a school of corruption, and there was an undercurrent of treachery, vice, and cruelty too foul to be described. The purpose of the Queen, who presided, was to flatter into quiet, and then sap the strength of all the strong and earnest men whom she feared, the stanch Catholic Guise, the loyal Montmorency, the turbulent Bourb on, or the earnest Coligny. She began with flattering the Huguenots, as the most dangerous party. She sent for the King of Navarre at once, and not only talked him over, but employed one of her squadron to captivate him. The States-general had their meeting as already arranged, the three estates of the realm all meeting in one chamber, but the clergy, the nobles, and the third estate, all sitting together. A harangue was made by the orator of each. The two lay orders blamed the corruptions of the Church, the clerical one found fault with the innovators ; but no step was taken, financial matters were debated, and the assembly was dis missed early in January. The Queen seemed wholly under Bourbon and Chatillon influence. During Holy Week, the Churches were almost wholly deserted by the courtiers, who thronged to the Huguenot preaching, so that the Constable de Montmorency and the Duke of Guise found themselves almost alone in the royal chapel, and there they made up their differences, communi cated together on Easter Sunday, and agreed to sink their jealousies in the defence of their religion. On that same Sunday, Cardinal Odet de Chatillon celebrated mass in his Cathedral of Beauvais, with alter ations, which the people thought were in the Huguenot direction. They rose against him, murdered a schoolmaster whom he patronised, and would have broken into his palace and murdered himself if he had not been rescued by troops from Paris belonging to his cousin, the Marshal de Montmorency. Moreover he was married, and his wife was allowed to sit on a stool in the presence of the Queen. No one attended to the summons of the Pope, and when on the 9th of April, 1561, his four legates proceeded to Trent to reopen the Council, they only found nine Bishops there, for even the Spaniards had taken offence at some civilities of Pius to the King of the ill- gotten kingdom of Navarre, and a nuncio had to be sent to appease Philip II. ; so that poor Pius might well say to the Venetian ambas sador while in bed with the gout, " We have good intentions, but we are alone." With a view to the Council, as soon as the boy Charles IX. had been crowned in May, a Conference was held at Poissy in June, between THE CONFERENCE OF POISSY. 335 the clergy and the Huguenot ministers, to consider what should be demanded of the Council, and whether the Calvinists could be represented. Most of the Cardinals and Bishops refused. " What is the use of dis puting with such obstinate people ? " said the old Cardinal de Tournon ; ' ' if they want to defend themselves, let them go to Trent ; we will give them safe-conducts, and they may justify themselves there." But the Queen wrote to the Pope that it was not to concern faith, only discipline ; and that it might prove the means of bringing heretics back to the Church, mentioning also points which might be in her opinion safely conceded, such as the Cup to the laity, the vulgar tongue in the prayers, the relinquishing of unnecessary ceremonies in Baptism, and even the removal of images from Churches. Pius answered kindly that such weighty questions must be referred to the Council, and that he trusted to the Queen to allow no discussion except on any corruptions that might have crept into the discipline of the Gallican Church, and even for that he hoped she would wait for the arrival of a legate. The Conference had, however, met. There were only fifty out of the hundred and thirty Bishops of France, headed by Cardinal de Lor raine. Twelve pastors had been invited, and twenty-two lay deputies. Calvin had been invited, but the magistrates of Geneva demanded that hostages of high rank should be given them for his return ; and as this was not granted to them, he was represented by Theodore de Beze, one of the most able men of the second generation. He was a native of Vezelai, in Burgundy, of a noble family, who had been brought up in Calvinist opinions, but had led a very gay and thoughtless life in his first years at Paris. He published a volume of light poetry by the name of Juvenilia, and afterwards married, but kept it a secret in order to be able to hold some ecclesiastical benefices which had been given up to him by a clerical uncle ; a severe illness awoke his conscience, and he avowed his marriage, gave up all his dissipations, and threw himself irrto the cause of the Reformation. Having given up his former maintenance, he became a printer, but he was soon nominated Greek professor at Lausanne, and afterwards professor of theology, rector of the college, and pastor at Geneva, where he became very intimate with Calvin. Being the more eloquent man, it was said that he was to Calvin what Melanchthon was to Luther ; but he was by no means so much on a level with his master as was the gentle Philip, who was in many points Luther's superior. In 1560, Beza (as he was Latinised), had preached before Jeanne d'Albret, at Nerac, and became known to her husband and his brother, by whose influence he was summoned to the Conference. His letters to Calvin are the chief authority for what took place both in public and private. He arrived at St. Germain-en-Laye on the 23rd of August, and the next day preached in the haU of the Prince of Conde, and in the even ing was invited to the lodgings of the King of Navarre, where, besides 336 CAMEOS OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. Doctrine of tlie Calvin ists. 1559- his two brothers, the Prince and the Cardinal, there were present the Queen and the Cardinal of Lorraine. Catherine was very gracious in manner ; she talked of her wish for peace and unity, and asked a few questions about Calvin's age and habits. Then she asked Beza if he had ever written in French, and he named a translation of the Psalms, and a reply to the Duke of Northumberland's recantation on the scaffold. Then the Cardinal of Lorraine entered into a discussion on the Holy Eucharist, probably for the sake of sounding the Calvinist champion, and he expressed himself glad to find that Beza's opinions were much nearer to those of his Church than he had been led to expect. He concluded the conversation by saying, " I am delighted to have seen and heard you, and I call upon you in God's Name to confer with me, in order that we may acquaint ourselves with each other's reasonings ; and you will find that I am not so black as I have been painted." The Reformed continued to preach, and they were promised that the Bishops should not act as judges, and that the dispute should take place in the presence of the King and Queen and Council. The Sorbonne sent a deputation to object to any argument at all with heretics, more especially in the hearing of so young a child as the King, but the Queen would not brook the remonstrance. On the 9th of September the Conference was opened in the refectory of the nunnery of Poissy, the pale, thin, dark-eyed boy, Charles IX., sitting on his throne, with his mother beside him, and the great officers of state around. Five Cardinals and fifty Bishops, with many doctors of theology, were seated on each side of the room, and the young King said a few words, after which the Chancellor del'Hopital made a speech opening the Session, and declaring that the Scripture alone was to be accepted as the groundwork of the arguments. The Cardinal de Tournon showed much displeasure at this, but he was overruled by the chancellor ; and the Duke of Guise introduced Theodore Beza, ten more pastors, and twenty-two laymen. Pietro Martire Vermiglio was the twelfth pastor chosen, but he had not yet arrived. The pastors, in square caps and plain black gowns, were not allowed to advance beyond a barrier placed across the hall. There Beza knelt down and made a public confession of the sins of the people, after which he presented a written confession of faith to the King, and began to make a speech declaring the chief points on which the Reformed. differed from the Church. There was profound silence till he came to these words — "If we are asked whether we hold that our Lord is absent from the Holy Supper, we answer that we do not ; but if we look at the distance of place, as we must do when we are concerned with His Bodily Presence and Manhood separately considered, we say that His Body is as far from the Bread and Wine as the Heaven is from the earth." The Bishops broke out into the cry " Blasphemy," and some would THE CONFERENCE OF POISSY. 337 have risen and gone out. Cardinal de Tournon begged the. King to silence the speaker, but Charles was instructed by his mother to insist on order, and a hearing for the mouthpiece of the Reformed. Beza finished his speech, and then Tournon, trembling and stammering with horror, said to the King, "We thought these "new Gospellers might say many things unfit for the ear of the most Christian King, but we entreat you not to believe them, and to wait for the answer. We hope you will be brought back to " and there he caught himself up, and said, " No, not brought back to, but kept in, the right way." After this the Conference broke up, and the clergy considered of the answer, the Cardinal of Lorraine saying that he wished Beza had been dumb or they had been deaf. The most able of their divines, Claude d'Espence, was desired to draw up a statement of the faith, to be uttered by the Cardinal, and at the same time orders were sent off to the Governor of Metz to send up express to Poissy some ministers of the Lutheran Church, in the hope of showing the discordance of the sects, and, as the Cardinal said, escaping like St. Paul between the Pharisees and Sadducees. At the end of a week the reply was ready, and was pronounced by him with much acclamation from the Bishops ; but Beza undertook to make answer, and a hearing was appointed for the next week. In the meantime the Legate arrived. He was Cardinal Ippolito di Este, son of the Duke of Ferrara, who had married Lucrezia Borgia, and brother of him who had married Renee of France. Legates were almost as much out of fashion in France as in England, and he was insulted on his way by pasquinades on his mother, and by shouts of "The Fox ! " " The Fox ! " He was a fine-looking, stately man, and kept his temper imperturbably through worse provocations ; for Chan cellor de l'H6pital would not seal his commission as Legate, and when expressly commanded to do so by the King, wrote above it, " Me non consentiente," (not with my consent) ; nor would the Parliament register it, so determined was the GaUican Church at that time to assert her independence. The King had reason to be obliged to the Legate, for on his repre sentation the poor boy was released from the necessity of being present at the controversies, which he did not relish, as Edward VI. might have done. No one was now present but the Qneen mother, the Queen of Navarre, the Princess, the Cardinals, and a few of the Bishops and doctors, and the place was a small chamber of the Prior's, instead of the great refectory. The Lutherans of Metz did not appear, for on their arrival at Paris, one of them had died of the plague, and the others were kept in quarantine ; and the Calvinists had been rein forced by Pietro Martire, and the Catholics by Diego Laynez, the General of the Jesuits. The argument was carried on between them for some time on the VOL. IV. L 338 CAMEOS OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. Cameo XXXI. The Confer ence. 15.50. Real Presence, and finally the King proposed that five deputies on either side should meet and draw up a declaration, so worded that both parties could subscribe to it, and such as might be offered on the part of France to the impending Council. This was the form it finally assumed : — • " We confess that Jesus Christ, in His Holy Supper, truly presents, gives, and exhibits to us the substance of His Body and Blood by the operation of His Holy Spirit, and that we receive and eat sacramen- tally and spiritually and through faith that very Body which died for us, that we may be bone of His Bone and flesh of His Flesh, to the end that we may be vivified by it, and perceive through it all things necessary for our salvation. And since faith, established on the Word of God; renders present to us things which are promised, and since through that faith we receive truly and indeed the true and natural Body and Blood of our Lord by virtue of the Holy Spirit, in that manner we confess the presence of the Body and Blood of the same our Lord in the Holy Supper." The foremost ecclesiastic who had assisted in drawing this up was Montluc, Bishop of Valence, who was always much inclined to reform; but even the Cardinal of Lorraine declared this had always been his belief, and that he was ready to sign it and present it to the Council. But the doctors of the Sorbonne pronounced the formula heretical, as indeed it made the Presence 'only through faith, 'and the Cardinal confessed that heliad been misled into accepting it, and thus the con ferences of Poissy failed ; but Catherine claimed Beza as a French- . man, and he remained, on her promise not to obstruct the Calvinist worship. Whole villages embraced the Reformation en masse. Old Farel and other ministers returned, and even in the cities there were great demon strations made, and the Churches were despoiled of their crucifixes, relics, images, and stained glass, almost as recklessly as had been done in Scotland. The numbers of the Calvinists are uncertain, but L'Hopital, in a letter to the Pope, called them a fourth part of the French, and Coligny presented a petition on the part of 2,150 congre gations. In Paris, when Beza himself preached, there were assemblies of 8,000 or lo.oco— some say 40,000, but of course this proved nothing. In Paris the lower and upper classes were chiefly Catholic; the bourgeoisie were divided. There was a great meeting-house called the Patriarchate, close to the Church of St, Medard. Here, on St, John's Day, 1 561, 1, 200 people were assembled to hear a sermon, when they were interrupted by the church bells ringing for vespers, and some person among the congregation went out and requested that they might be stopped. This was of course resented as a great act of insolence, and the man was beaten, pelted, and killed. The alarm was given, and the guard of sixty archers, who had a sort, of authority to protect the Huguenots, rushed upon the THE CONFERENCE OF POISSY. 339 Church, followed by the men of the congregation, who sat on benches outside those for the women. These Beza kept quiet by setting them to sing Clement Marot's ver sion of the sixteenth Psalm ; but in the meantime there was a great uproar in the Church, where the priests were driven to take refuge in the tower, while the rabble joined the Huguenots, beat and wounded the Catholics, and plundered and outraged all that was sacred in the Church. The archers ended by dragging off fifty-six Catholics to prison, among whom were ten priests, after which the men came back to Church, and the sermon was quietly finished. The court of justice held on this affray released the prisoners, and sentenced the captain of the archers ; and as he was being led out to execution, the mob took the law into their own hands, seized him, tor tured him, dragged him about, and at last threw his body into the Seine. Such disturbances took place in other cities, and at last, what was called the Edict of January was put forth, forbidding all attacks on Churches, but sanctioning assemblies of the Huguenots, provided they were held outside the cities where no offence could be given to the populace, and the ministers were to swear between the hands of the magistrates to preach nothing contrary to the Holy Scriptures or to the Nicene Creed. The law was acceptable to the ministers themselves, for they were by no means willing to admit the wild heresies then afloat. Beza con tinued in favour at court, supported strongly by Bishop Montluc, and holding arguments on the use of images, with the doctors of the Sorbonne in the presence of the court. One of the Sorbonnists committed himself to the argument that St. Denys, whom he took for Dionysius the Areopagite, had put up painted windows in the Church of St. Benoit, which he was supposed to have founded ; and Beza got the laugh on his side, by declaring the argument as fragile as glass. Altogether things looked tothewoild at large very much as if France was about to follow the example of England, and set up a national Church, a compromise between antiquity and reform. However, this conference was declared by the King of Navarre to have convinced him that the Catholics were right, and he turned round on the Huguenot ministers, calling them charlatans and impostors, and taking his young son Henry away from the Calvinist scholars, to whom he had confided him, he gave him Roman Catholic tutors. His high-spirited wife, Jeanne d'Albret, who knew that he acted not from conviction, but because he had been caught by the queen and one of her squadron, hotly remonstrated, telling him, as one of the few arguments likely to weigh with him that he was somebody among the HugUenots, but nobody among the Catholics. Catherine advised her to be patient, and submit to her husband ; but she answered — "Madame, rather than go to Mass, if I had my kingdom in one Z 2 340 CAMEOS OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. Cameo XXXI. The King of Navarre. 1560. hand, and my son in the other, I would throw them both into the bottom of the sea ! " Her kingdom did not exist for her, but her son did ; and she wept over him passionately, telling him she would disinherit him if he left her faith ; but the Duke of Alva, in the name of Philip II. , was hold ing out to Antony hopes of compensation for Navarre, by making him either King of Sardinia or Tunis. Jeanne meantime betook herself to her two little counties of Foix and Beam, which she regulated according to the institutes of Calvin. All Roman Catholic worship was proscribed, the Churches stripped, the convents turned into schools and hospitals, vice and drunkenness were put down, and the people seem to have conformed themselves, and accepted the changes, so that under her there was great prosperity and good order. CAMEO XXXII. THE TWO ISLAND QUEENS. (1560— 1565.) Queen of England. 1558. Elizabeth. King of Spain. 1555. Philip II. Queen of Scotland. 1542. Mary. Emperor of Germany. 1557. Ferdinand I. King of France. 1560. Charles IX. . Pope. 1559. Pius IV, It was a strange coincidence that Great Britain should be shared by two young queens, the one heir to the other, and one a widow, the other a maiden. Their possible marriages were the great anxiety of the country as wellas of one another. Elizabeth had made up her mind that marriage could hardly be for her, but she could not make up her mind to refuse and discourage all the pleasant preliminaries so dear to a vain woman. She flattered the hopes of Henry Fitzalan, Earl of Arundel, whose descent from the Plantagenets might have made him a fit mate for her, and she let him feast her at Nonsuch, entertain her by a play performed by the boys of St. Paul's School, and present her with a cupboard of plate. He was a widower of forty-seven, and attached to the old doctrine, but hope and real affection held him fast to her, and his vote in ParUament was always on her side. She also was mortified on hearing of Philip II. 's marriage with Elizabeth of France, saying that he was an inconstant suitor, who could not wait four months to see whether she would change her mind. But it was Robert Dudley whom she chiefly loved, and called her " Sweet Robin," and he so enjoyed her patronage that he never suffered his wife, Amy, to appear at Court. There are letters from this lady still extant about sheep and other farming matters, and she may have been a busy house- wife,. whom Dudley thought not producible at Court, and therefore kept secluded at Cumnor Hall. It was in September, 1560, shortly after she had written a desponding letter to one Mr. Flowerdew, that tidings came to Court that Lady Robert Dudley had died by a fall down stairs, and that an inquest was , sitting at Abingdon. Cameo XXXII. RobertDudley. J 560. 342 CAMEOS OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. Lord Robert sent his " good cousin Blount " with a letter to the fore man of the jury. The staircase was a stone one, leading from the long gallery to the quadrangle below, apparently outside the house. The two chief persons of the household, Sir Richard Vamey and Master Anthony Foster, were borne out by the rest of the attendants, that Lady Robert had sent every one to the fair at Abingdon on the morning of Sunday, the 8th, and on their return she was found lying dead at the bottom of the stairs. The jury sat three days, returned a verdict of " Mischance," and declared Varney and Foster free of blame. Thp lady was buried in great state, at St. Mary's at Oxford, all the poor in new gowns, all the colleges and the corporation forming the procession, besides officials sent by her husband. His absence added to the impression that she had met with foul play. The Cumnor people went on saying that she had fallen ill from melancholy and a complaint in the chest, and that Varney and Foster had sent for one Dr. Walter Bayley, a fellow of New College, Oxford, to prescribe for her, but that she, thinking that they had tampered with the potion they sent her, refused to take it ; also they said that only the servants were sent away, but that Varney, Foster, and one servant remained — that they killed her in bed, and then had dressed her and put her at the bottom of the stairs, for it was remarked that her ruff was undisturbed by the fall. She had been, they said, hastily buried, without an inquest ; but her father and Sir John Robertson coming down, insisted on having one held, and this inquiry apparently was frustrated by the presence of Leicester's retainer, and after it the grand funeral took place. It was also said that the servant was afterwards apprehended for a felony in Wales, and that he was made away with in prison to prevent his confession, that Varney died in great misery and full of blasphemy, and that the whole crime was confessed by one Mrs. Butler on her death-bed. Anthony Foster lies buried in Cumnor Church, with a most laudatory inscription ; but for many years later it was thought that Varney and Foster were guilty, and that their lord knew of their intention of removing this obstacle in the way to a throne. The form of a fair lady weeping was said to haunt the stairs, and Julius Meikle wove the legend into a pathetic ballad — " Th° dews of summer night did fall, The mcon, sweet regent of the sky, Silvred the towers of Cumnor Hall, And many an oak that grew thereby." On this ballad, Scott founded his novel, wonderful for the accuracy of the local colouring, the sketches of historical characters and manners, and the Shakesperian flow of the dialogue ; but according to the licence he deemed essential to his craft, altering the facts so as to make them weave into a much more effective trairedv. and niacin? the r-afaitrrmriq THE TWO ISLAND QUEENS. 343 at the time of Elizabeth's visit to Kenilworth. This took place fifteen years later, when Dudley had so entirely resigned hopes of her hand, as to have married secretly Douglas Howard, Lady Sheffield. Amy's death made the reports of the Queen's affection so strong, that the Spanish, Venetian, and French Ambassadors wrote scandalous re ports to their employers, and these being heard by the English Ambas sadors, were sent home again to her minister. Now Sir William Cecil knew likewise that the country was in an angry state, ready to be much displeased at the prospect of ." Robin Dudley " being king. So he tried a broad hint, when he had to tell her that her cousin, old Frances Brandon, Duchess of Suffolk, and mother of poor Lady Jane, had married her equerry, Adrian Stokes. " Married her horsekeeper ! " exclaimed the Queen. " Yes, madam," said Cecil, " and she says you would like to do the same." Duchess Frances seems to have been singularly heedless of her daughters at all times. Two remained, Katharine and Mary, the elder of whom was at this very time falling into grievous trouble. Her contract to Lord Herbert had been dissolved as invalid, on account of her youth, and she had been kept at Court nominally as an attendant lady of both queens, but really to prevent her forming any connection which her royal blood might render dangerous. There, however, she became a friend of Lady Jane Seymour, the daughter of the Duke of Somerset, who either from love or ambition adopted the dangerous scheme of bringing about a marriage between her brother, the Earl of Hertford, and this' descendant of royalty. Hertford was ordered to join in an embassy to France, but before he went, the three found excuses for staying away from a hunting party, and went to his house, whither Lady Jane fetched a priest, and he and Katharine Grey were married. Before many weeks were passed a sudden illness carried off Jane Seymour ; her brother was abroad, and the poor Countess was without any helper, when, in the midst of a royal progress to Ipswich, sudden discovery came on her. What would have angered the Queen in any one. of her ladies was absolute treason in the granddaughter of a Tudor, and Katharine was instantly ordered off to the Tower, where shortly after her arrival she gave birth to a son. Her husband was likewise sent to the Tower on his arrival in England. They were allowed to be much together, and had another child, but after its birth they were kept apart. When Katharine had languished and died in her captivity, her husband was forgiven, and allowed to reappear at Court. In the meantime, Sir Nicholas Throckmorton, ambassador at Paris, after consulting with Cecil, resolved at last that Jones, Throckmorton's secretary, should crave permission to tell the Queen all that was said in foreign Courts and in England about her supposed intention of marrying Dudley. Jones could not have spared her, for more than once she put her hands before her face, but she laughed proudly, and said she had known it all before ; and when he spoke of the suspicions as to Amy 344 CAMEOS OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. Robsart's death, she said she was satisfied by the inquiry. However, she had felt the temper of the people enough to convince her that any happiness she might have dreamt of with the man she preferred must be given up. It would have been more for her dignity if she had fore gone the pleasures of courtship, but she delighted in believing that homage was paid to her as woman as well as queen, and there must have been a grandeur and a brilliancy about her that really attracted men's hearts, and bound them fast to her with adoration that was more than loyalty. Her foreign courtships by princes, she permitted out of a sort of national coquetry, never indeed being certain that she might not be so hard pressed as to be compelled to obtain a defender at the price of her hand. A Swedish prince was one of the earliest of the suitors, and so was Charles, the son of the King of the Romans, whom she might weU treat With honour, since his grandfather was doing his best to prevent the Pope from proceeding to extremities with her. Besides, such a recognition of her royalty was precious, when nothing but the old hatred between France and Spain prevented these two powers from espousing the cause of her dangerous heiress, Mary of Scotland. Throckmorton was constantly watching the young Queen Dowager in France, and sending home reports of her plans, and of the hosts of suitors who pretended to her hand, Don Carlos, an Austrian Archduke, and many more ; and at the same time her own Calvinist subjects were in consternation at the notion of her return, backed by the power of Guise. The Lords of the Congregation felt uneasy, especially as she at once-refused to marry the next heir to Scotland, the Earl of Arran, a weak man, whom they could have managed. They sent off her half- brother, Lord James Stewart, to see what could be done with her, and promise her their obedience, provided she brought no French force with her, and in fact was prepared to do their bidding. If Lord James con sented to her having Mass performed, either publicly or privately, Knox and the other preachers warned him that they should consider him as a traitor to the cause of Heaven. James replied that he would not consent to the restoration of the Mass in public, but that it was unreasonable to forbid the exercise of her religion in private. He was to pass through England, and see Elizabeth, with whom the Lords of the Congregation were in correspondence ; and he held inter views with her and Cecil, in which they stipulated that he should obtain from Mary the ratification of the treaty of Edinburgh. This he avoided by declaring that he was not an accredited envoy, but was only going to visit his sister out of affection, and likewise to secure the continuation of his pension from the French Court. Some suspected him of designs on the crown, but perhaps he knew too well the miseries of a king of Scotland to entertain the ambition. At any rate, Mary, who was Very fond of him, was indignant when the notion was hinted to her and received him affectionately at Joinville, where she was spending her time of seclusion with her grandmother, Antoinette de Bourbon. THE TWO ISLAND QUEENS. 345 Very hard did she and her uncles try to win him to support her in restoring her Church, promising him not merely pardon from Rome for his lapse, but even a Cardinal's hat, if he would throw himself into their cause. James was probably honest in his resolve to stand by the Reformed faith, and in truth he wanted to marry the daughter of the Earl Mareschal, and made his sister understand that he should much prefer the earldom of Moray to any ecclesiastical preferments, and indeed he had plenty of these already, without any of their duties. Mary said she could not confirm the treaty of Edinburgh till she had met her Scottish parliament, and she talked over her future plans with him, and promised to send after him a commission to govern till she should return. All this he thought proper to communicate to Throckmorton on his way through Paris ; and then, against his sister's express desire, he chose to go home through England, and visit Elizabeth. Mary in dis pleasure withheld the commission, and he came to London to concert with Elizabeth all means for keeping her in France, while Maitland of Lethington wrote cunning letters, intimating that the Scotch Catholics were making up old feuds in order unanimously to support their queen, and that French gold could only be met by EngUsh gold, reminding them of a line of Chaucer — " With empty hand men should no haukis lure." Poor Mary was in lio hurry to return home. She enjoyed the rever sion of all Queen Elizabeth's suitors, and would not have been sorry to have again become a foreign queen consort, but all the proposals came to nothing ; and her mother-in-law, Catherine de Medici, did not pro mote her longer stay in France. Mary never loved her, and did not want to be involved in quarrels with England, so she made up her mind to go, strengthened by the assurance of her uncles that she was chosen as an instrument for the restoration of her Church in her kingdom ; and she sent D'Oysell to Elizabeth to ask for a safe conduct. But as she had refused the treaty of Edinburgh, Elizabeth refused a passport through England, unless she would confirm it ; and Mary, much wounded at the denial, prepared for her voyage. She made a last visit to the French Court at St. Germain-en-Laye, whence Catherine and her sons went one stage with her, and all the six brothers of Guise and their mother even to Calais, travelling with slow and stately tardiness, —so that Mary had ample time to compose hef simple and touching spng of farewell : — . ¦ 'Adieu, plar