CHAPTER XV.

PHILIP AND MARY.

THE contention of religious parties amid which the reign of Mary commenced-the legacy of the preceding reign-still further weakened the royal authority at home, while it materially lowered England in the estimation of the great Powers abroad. The Protector Somerset had failed to accomplish the design to which he had devoted his best energies, that of Union with Scotland, whereby the United Kingdom should assert its position as the leading Protestant State in Europe. The innate cruelty of Northumberland's nature, as seen in the merciless malignity with which he brought his rival to the scaffold, and carried out the reversal of his policy, had caused him to be regarded with aversion by the great majority of his countrymen; while the humiliating circumstances under which peace had been concluded both with France and with Scotland had revealed alike the financial and the moral weakness of the nation. Not only had the rulers of the country themselves ceased to be actuated by a statesmanlike and definite foreign policy, but the leading Powers on the Continent had gradually come to regard England from a different point of view. The revenue of the English Crown was but a fraction of that which Henry II of France or Charles V could raise. And by degrees the country whose King, a generation before, had hurled defiance at Rome and treated on equal terms with Spain and France, had come to be looked upon by these latter Powers as one whose government and people were alike fickle and untrustworthy, and whose policy vacillated and rulers changed so often as to render its alliance a matter scarcely deserving serious diplomatic effort, its annexation far from impracticable. But whether that annexation would have to be effected by diplomacy or by force, by a matrimonial alliance or by actual conquest, was still uncertain. Such, however, was the alternative that chiefly engaged the thoughts of the representatives of the great continental Powers during the reign of Mary.

In the selection of her representatives at the foregoing Courts, Mary, on the other hand, does not appear to have been unduly biassed by personal predilections. Thirlby, Bishop of Norwich, afterwards stood high in her favour ; but when, in April, 1553, he was for the second time accredited ambassador to the Emperor, it was under the auspices of Northumberland. Expediency alone can have suggested that Nicholas Wotton and Peter Vannes, both of whom had taken an active part in the proceedings connected with the divorce of Catharine of Aragon, should be retained at their posts,-the one in Paris, the other in Venice. Wotton's loyalty to his new sovereign, his ability and courage, were alike unquestionable ; and when, in 1555-7, Mary's throne was threatened by the machinations of the English exiles, it was to his vigilance and dexterity that the English government was mainly indebted for its earliest information of the conspirators' intentions. At Venice, Peter Vannes discharged his duties as ambassador with commendable discretion and assiduity, although, at one critical juncture, he did not escape the reproach of excessive caution. But as a native of Lucca, and one who had been collector of the papal taxes in England, who had filled the post of Latin secretary to Wolsey, King Henry and King Edward in succession, and who had been employed on more than one important diplomatic mission, he offered a combination of qualifications which it would have been difficult to match. Although he was nearly sixty years of age, his energies showed no decline ; and Mary herself could suggest no one more fit to be her representative at the Venetian Court.

Edward's death, followed within a week by that of Maurice of Saxony from a wound received in the battle of Sievershausen, materially modified the aspect of affairs. On the Continent, Charles was now able to concentrate his efforts on the conflict with France ; while in England the remarkable change in Mary's prospects constrained both Catholic and Protestant writers to recognise in results so rapidly attained an express intervention of Providence.

While events were progressing thus rapidly in London Northumberland, accompanied by the Marquis of Northampton and Lord Grey, had arrived on the evening of Saturday, July 15, at Cambridge. Here he rested for the Sunday, and as both Lord High Steward and Chancellor of the University was hospitably entertained by the academic authorities. On the Monday he set out for Bury St Edmunds, expecting to be joined at Newmarket by the reinforcements from the capital. These however failed to appear, while defections from his own ranks became numerous ; and he now learned that the crews of the ships sent to intercept Mary's passage, had, on arriving at Yarmouth, declared for her, and their captains had followed their example. On the 18th, accordingly, Northumberland set out on his return from Bury to Cambridge, where at five o'clock on the evening of the 20th, the news having arrived that Mary had been proclaimed in London, he himself also proclaimed her in the market-place; and, as the tears ran down his face, ejaculated that he knew her to be a merciful woman. An hour later he received an order from the Council. It was signed by Cranmer, Goodrich (Bishop of Ely and Lord Chancellor), the Marquis of Winchester, the Duke of Suffolk, and the Earls of Pembroke, Bedford, and Shrewsbury, and directed him forthwith to disarm and disband his army, but not himself to return to London until the royal pleasure was known. If he would thus " shew himselfe like a good quiet subject," the missive went on to say, " wee will then continue as we have begun, as humble suters to our Soueraigne Lady the Queenes Highnesse, for him and his and for our selves."

On July 29 Henry at Compiègne signed the credentials of the Sieur Antoine de Noailles as ambassador to Mary ; and two days later it was intimated to Nicholas Wotton, Pickering, and Chaloner that the Queen desired to retain them in their posts as her representatives at the French Court. Early in August, Cardinal Pole, in his monastic retirement at Maguzzano on the Lago di Garda, received from Julius III his appointment as papal Legate to England, with instructions to visit both the Imperial and the French Court on his journey thither.

For the present Mary determined to be guided mainly by the advice of her cousin the Emperor, a decision the wisdom of which was clearly attested by subsequent events as well as by the letters, numerous and lengthy, which Charles addressed to his envoys at her Court in connexion with each important question as it arose. From the first he advised that the Queen should scrupulously avoid appearing to set herself in opposition to the prejudices and feelings of her people, and should above all things endeavour to appear " une bonne Anglaise."" It was from France alone, he considered, that she had reason to apprehend much danger ; although Scotland, as subservient to French policy, also required to be carefully watched. The French envoys had just presented their credentials to Courtenay, and, as a well-known sympathiser with the Italian Reformers, he was regarded by the Emperor with especial mistrust. It was rumoured that the young nobleman was making advances to Elizabeth. Such an alliance, Charles pointed out, was fraught with danger and must, if possible, be prevented. The Princess' attitude in relation to the new doctrines also required to be carefully observed. As for the rebels, let exemplary punishment be inflicted on the leaders, and the rest be treated with clemency. The Lady Jane doubtless deserved death, but it might be well for the present simply to keep her in close custody, where she would be unable to hold communication with traitors. Finally, Mary was advised to get the finances in good order, so as to have funds ready for any emergency, and, more especially, to exercise a vigilant control over the expenditure of the secret service money.

During these critical days Elizabeth had remained in seclusion at Hatfield, preserving an attitude of studied neutrality. But on July 29 she entered London with a large train of followers and took up her residence at Somerset House. Five days later, the Queen made her triumphal entry into the City in the evening, and was joined at Aldgate by her sister, the two riding side by side through the streets amid the acclamations of the populace. Mary, following the usual practice of royalty prior to coronation, now proceeded to occupy the State apartments in the Tower. At the Great Gate, the Duke of Norfolk, Bishop Gardiner, the Duchess of Somerset, and the youthful Courtenay awaited her arrival, all in a kneeling posture, and were by her command formally restored to liberty. Jane, on the other hand, found herself a prisoner, and was consigned to the custody of the new governor, Sir John Brydges. Gardiner was sworn a member of the Privy Council, and, on August 23, appointed Lord High Chancellor. On the 8th of the same month the funeral service for the late King was held in Westminster Abbey, being conducted by Cranmer and according to the Protestant ritual. Mary, however, commanded that a requiem mass should also be celebrated in the Tower, which she strongly pressed Elizabeth to attend. The Princess did not comply ; but by her regular attendance at Court gave evidence of her desire to conciliate her sister as far as possible, and six weeks later was to be seen hearing mass in her company. Her compliance, however, as Noailles himself admits, was generally regarded as dictated by fear rather than principle.

Not a few of the more eminent preachers among the Reformers, foreseeing the storm, had already fled to the Continent ; but a certain number still remained, such as Latimer and John Bradford, openly to call in question the prerogatives which the Queen still arrogated to herself as Head of the Church. Foremost, however, among those who refused to flee was Archbishop Cranmer, who at his palace in Lambeth confronted the reactionary tendencies around him with an intrepidity which marked him out for general observation. Already obnoxious, owing to his complicity in the diversion of the Succession to the Crown, he was by his open denunciation of the restoration of the Mass, which he declared to involve " many horrible blasphemies,1' exposed to the charge of open resistance to the royal authority. On September 8 he was summoned before the Council to answer for the publication of the Declaration in which he had given expression to his views. His defence, if such it could be termed, was rightly regarded as evasive. He pleaded that Scory, the deprived Bishop of Chichester, had published the Declaration without his formal authorisation, though he admitted that it had been his intention to give it. He was accordingly committed to the Tower, where Ridley, who had publicly proclaimed the illegitimacy of both Mary and Elizabeth, had already been a prisoner for two months. Latimer's committal appears to have taken place about the same time ; and, early in October, Cranmer was followed by his brother Primate, Archbishop Holgate. The latter was now more than seventy years of age, and chiefly obnoxious on account of the persistent energy with which he assailed all that reflected the Roman ritual and ornamentation in the churches.

There is no evidence that Reginald Pole ever aspired to marry Mary, or that she, in turn, ever regarded him in any other light than that of a much valued friend and counsellor. The personal graces and touching experiences of Edward Courtenay might well recommend him to a woman's sympathies. He was the son of Edward Courtenay, Marquis of Exeter, who had been executed in 1539 for his share in the conspiracy in favour of Reginald Pole, and was thus the great-grandson of Edward IV. Mary herself had just freed him from an imprisonment of nearly fifteen years and had created him Earl of Devonshire, while at her coronation he was selected to bear the sword before her. His mother, the Marchioness of Exeter, one of Mary's dearest friends, was now one of her ladies in waiting. His long isolation from society and neglected education had however ill qualified him to play a part in politics, while the fascinations which surrounded him in his newly acquired freedom proved too potent for his self-control, and his wild debaucheries became the scandal of the capital. Whatever influence Pole might have been able to exert would probably have favoured Courtenay's claims. As a boy, both he and his brother Geoffrey had received much kindness from the Marquis of Exeter, the young Earl's father-favours which Geoffrey had ill repaid by bearing evidence which brought the Marquis to the scaffold-and Pole's own mother, the Countess of Salisbury, prior to her tragic execution, had shared the captivity of the Marchioness. But Courtenay's indiscretions soon rendered the efforts of his best friends nugatory. It now became known that his conduct had completely lost him Mary's favour, and he was next heard of as conspiring against his would-be benefactress.

A selection which would draw closer the ties between England and Spain was naturally regarded with jealousy by the French monarch, and Noailles was instructed to use every effort to avert it. He accordingly plied his arguments and persuasions with untiring assiduity in every direction, and so far succeeded that the Commons were prevailed upon to vote an Address to the Crown, in which, while urging upon Mary the desirability of marriage, they also advised that her choice should be restricted to the peerage of her own realm. A week later Renard had an audience of the Queen, at which he made the offer from Charles himself of Philip's hand. Mary had previously made careful enquiry of the ambassador himself respecting the Prince's habits and natural disposition, and, after a short time had been allowed to elapse for apparent deliberation, intimated her acceptance of the offer.

The triumph of the imperialist party seemed complete ; and Noailles was fain to report to Henry that Mary seemed more Spanish than English in her sympathies. The Chancellor himself, now that Courtenay's chances appeared to be at an end, came forward as a supporter of the match with Spain, and proceeded to take a foremost part in the negotiations with respect to the various questions, direct and collateral, which such an alliance involved-the marriage treaty itself, the provisions in case of issue, and those in case of failure. On January 2, 1554, Count Egmont and other plenipotentiaries appeared in London, duly empowered to make the final arrangements. Courtenay himself gave them official welcome at Tower Hill, and conducted them to Westminster. On the 14th Gardiner read aloud in the presence chamber the articles which had been agreed upon and pointed out the political advantages which would result from such an alliance. The articles, originally extending over thirteen pages, had been expanded to twenty-two, and represented the labours of ten commissioners-those cooperating with Renard, the Counts Egmont and Lalaing, de Courrières, and Philip Nigri ; those appointed by the Queen, Gardiner, Arundel, Paget, Sir Robert Rochester, and Petre. As finally agreed upon, the treaty must be held highly creditable to Gardiner's sagacity and ability ; and when, eighteen years afterwards, the marriage of Elizabeth with the Duke of Anjou was in contemplation, it served as the model for that which was then to be drawn up. It has however been pointed out as a somewhat suspicious feature that the concessions were all on the imperial side. If, indeed, treaties could bind, Philip stood hand-tied in his relations to England. While nominally sharing the government with the Queen, he was pledged scrupulously to respect the laws, privileges, and customs of the realm ; he was to settle on her a jointure of £60,000; their offspring were to succeed them in England in conformity with the traditional rights, and might also succeed to the territories in Burgundy and Flanders ; and, in the event of Philip's son, Don Carlos, dying without issue, this right of succession was to extend to Spain, Milan, and the Two Sicilies. Should Mary's marriage be unfruitful, Philip's connexion with England was to cease at her death. Under no pretext was England to be made participant in the war between the Emperor and France.

Here the belief was fast gaining ground that the realm was destined to become a dependency of Spain ; while in France it was no less firmly believed that Philip's marriage would be made the opportunity for the subjugation of Scotland. Henry, placing no reliance on Mary's pacific assurances, deemed it advisable to send troops into that country, while Wotton, convinced that war was imminent, petitioned to be recalled. That Elizabeth should marry Courtenay and supplant her sister on the throne, now seemed to be the issue most favourable to French interests ; and while Henry's ambassadors at the English Court did their best to foment the growing suspicion of Spain, the monarch himself strove to spread the rumour of a fresh rising in England. Writing to his envoy | in Venice, he gave him the earliest intelligence of a rising in Kent; and on February 18 Peter Vannes, writing to Mary, enclosed a copy of Henry's letter : according to the intelligence he had received from Noailles, Henry added, it was almost certain that all England would imitate the example thus set and "prefer to die in battle rather than become subject to a foreign Prince." As early as Christmas, the con spirators, assembling in London, had concerted a general rising, which, however, was not to take place until March 18.

The chief danger arose in Kent, where Sir Thomas Wyatt, a bold and skilful leader, succeeded in collecting a considerable force at Rochester, which was shortly after augmented by 2000 men who had deserted from the standard of Lord Abergavenny near Wrotham Heath. This gathering was the response to a proclamation which he had previously (January 25) issued at Maidstone, in which Mary's supporters were denounced as aiming at the perpetual servitude of her most loving subjects. Englishmen were adjured to rise in defence of liberty and the commonwealth, while intimation was given that aid was on its way from France. With Noailles Wyatt appears actually to have been in correspondence. The Council were divided as to the course which should be pursued and distracted by mutual recriminations ; while they also evinced no alacrity in taking measures for the raising of troops. Mary, whom Renard dissuaded from quitting the capital, exhibited on the other hand a courage and resolution which roused the loyal feeling of all around her. While part of the City Guard at once set out to meet the insurgents, the Corporation proceeded to arm an additional force of 500 men to follow in their track. As they approached Rochester Bridge, the Duke of Norfolk, by whom they were commanded, sent forward a herald to proclaim that "all such as wolde desyst their purpose shuld have frank and free pardon." On February 1 the Queen herself, appeared at a gathering of the citizens in the Guildhall and delivered a speech which excited general enthusiasm. Wyatt, she said, had demanded to be entrusted with the care of her person, the keeping of the Tower, and the placing of her counsellors ; she was convinced that her loyal subjects would never consent that such confidence should be placed in so vile a traitor. As for her marriage, the conspirators were simply making it "a Spanish cloak to cover their pretended purpose against our religion." The Council had pronounced her marriage expedient "both for the wealth of the realm and also of you, our subjects"; should the nobility and the Commons deem it otherwise, she was willing "to abstain from marriage while she lived." Her courage and outspokenness produced a considerable effect; for two days later Noailles sent word that the populace, who had been reported to be meditating an attack on the palace and the consignment of Mary herself into Wyatt's hands, were actively occupied with putting the City into a state of defence and had mustered to the number of 25,000 armed men. To whoever should succeed in making Wyatt a prisoner and bringing him before the Council, a reward of an annuity of one hundred pounds was held out, payable in perpetuity to himself and his descendants.

Mary's former clemency had been censured by Charles ; and the Queen herself, justifiably incensed at the manner in which that clemency had been requited, was determined not to err again in the same direction. Gardiner, preaching in her presence on February 11, exhorted her now to have mercy on the commonwealth, " the conservation of which required that hurtful members should be cut off." On the following day the tragedy of the execution of the Lady Jane and Lord Guilford Dudley took place on Tower Hill. Of Suffolk's duplicity and entire want of good faith there could be no doubt, while his known sympathy with the Continental Reformers filled up the measure of his offence; and his execution followed about a week later. Wyatt and Suffolk's wealthy and ambitious brother, Lord Thomas Grey, suffered the same fate in the following April. On the same day that the executions commenced Courtenay again found himself a prisoner in the Tower ; here he was confronted with Wyatt, who directly accused him of complicity in the rebellion, and for a time his fate seemed doubtful. A few weeks later, however, he was removed to Fotheringay ; and a year after he was released on parole, on condition that he quitted the kingdom, when he selected Padua as the place of his retirement. The last of the rebels to suffer was William Thomas, Clerk of the Council under Edward VI, whose execution took place on May 18. According to the statement of Wyatt in his confession before the Commission, Thomas had been the first to suggest the assassination of Mary. In the Tower he attempted suicide; and no detail of ignominy was omitted at his execution.

The gain to the imperial power which would accrue from the marriage between Mary and Philip had been regarded by Venice with an apprehension scarcely less than that of France ; and it was an ascertained fact that a Venetian carrack, anchored at the mouth of the Thames, had supplied Wyatt with arms and a cannon. Suspicion fell upon Soranzo ; but on being interrogated before the Council he stoutly denied all knowledge of the transaction, although complaints against him continued to be urged, and the charge itself was formally preferred by Vargas in Venice. On March 27, accordingly, Soranzo's letters of recall were drawn up, and Giovanni Michiel was appointed his successor. On May 22 the latter arrived in England. It probably attests his impartiality in the discharge of his functions that, both by Renard and Noailles, he was subsequently reproached as favouring the opposite party. He appears in reality to have conducted himself throughout with discretion and probity ; and, while gaining the esteem of the most discerning judges with whom he came in contact in England, he continued to command the undiminished confidence of the Venetian Council.

In the meantime, the reaction which ensued after the insurrection had been suppressed had enabled Mary to make known her policy, and to carry it into effect with less reserve. In March, Egmont returned from Brussels, and in his presence and that of the Earl of Pembroke the Queen formally betrothed herself to Philip. Every effort was now made to diffuse throughout the country the belief that the marriage would prove conducive to the stability of the realm and to the increase of its prestige. Wotton, writing to Noailles from Paris, pointed out, at some length, that the involved alliance with Spain was England's indispensable rejoinder to the danger which menaced her through the conjunction of France with Scotland ; while he further maintained that it was as a means of defence against this ominous combination that Charles desired to bring about a union between England and Flanders, between the House of Tudor and that of Habsburg ; as for the intention with which France credited him,-the subjugation of the country and the disarming of its population,-such designs had no place in the imperial breast. In support of these views he adduced the fact that large numbers of the English malcontents were daily arriving in France, seeking service under Henry, " in order to carry on the war against the Emperor by sea."

The assembling of Mary's second Parliament (April 2, 1554) at Westminster also served, from the contrast it presented to its predecessor, to emphasise a new departure in public affairs. Not more than seventy of the members of the former House reappeared in the new; and the entire body evinced a spirit of far more ready compliance with the royal wishes. The leading members accepted gratefully the pensions which Mary, aided by the imperial liberality, was able to offer them ; and the marriage bill, as it came down from the Upper House, received a ready assent. The necessity for discussion, indeed, was diminished by the fact that the conditions already agreed upon between Charles and Gardiner were now restated with explanatory clauses to obviate misinterpretation. It was also expressly stipulated that the royal match should not in any way " derogate from the league recently concluded between the Queen and the King of France, but that the peace between the English and the French should remain firm and inviolate." Some opposition was offered, however, to the proposal to repeal the two Acts for the dissolution of the bishopric of Durham, the measure being carried by a majority of only 81 in a House of 321.

On November 20 Pole landed at Dover, and proceeded thence by Canterbury and Rochester to Gravesend. Here he was presented with two documents which finally cleared away all impediments from his path : the first, an Act of Parliament, passed ten days before, reversing his attainder; the second, letters patent brought by the Bishop of Durham, empowering him to exercise without restraint his functions as Legate. His progress from Gravesend to Whitehall, accordingly, resembled a triumphal procession, and on his arrival in the capital he was greeted with special honour by Philip and Mary. Writs, in which the title of " Supreme Head " was discarded, were forthwith issued for a third Parliament, to meet on November 12 ; and on the 27th the Legate delivered before the assembled members a Declaration, couched in highly figurative language, explanatory of the circumstances under which he had been sent, of the object of his coming, and of the powers with which he had been invested. At the conclusion of his address he was formally thanked by Gardiner, and after he had quitted the assembly the Chancellor declared that he had spoken as one inspired. On the following day the question was put to both Houses, whether England should return to the obedience of the Apostolic See ? The affirmative was carried without a dissentient among the Peers, and with but two in the Commons. On St Andrew's Day, Pole, on bended knee before Mary, presented her with the Supplication of the two Houses, " that they might receive absolution, and be readmitted into the body of the Holy Catholic Church, under the Pope, the Supreme Head thereof." After further formalities, and intercession made by King and Queen on behalf of the Houses, Pole pronounced the absolution and received the petitioners, by his authority as Legate, " again into the unity of our Mother the Holy Church."

The legislation of the two preceding reigns in all that related to the authority of the Roman see was now rescinded ; and on Advent Sunday Gardiner, at Paul's Cross, in the presence of the King and the Legate, called upon the nation to rouse itself from the slumbers and delusions of the past years and to return to the true fold, while he himself at the same time abjured the doctrine set forth in his De Vera Obedientia and declared his unreserved submission to the papal power.

For the merciless severities which ensued, the violence of the more intolerant Reformers also afforded a partial extenuation ; and it is now generally admitted that the part played by Bonner was not that attributed to him by Foxe, of a cruel bigot who exulted in sending his victims to the stake. The number of those put to death in his diocese of London was undoubtedly disproportionately large, but this would seem to have been more the result of the strength of the Reforming element in the capital and in Essex than to the employment of exceptional rigour; while the evidence also shows that he himself dealt patiently with many of the Protestants, and did his best to induce them to renounce what he conscientiously believed to be their errors.

On Hampton Court, whither, some two months before, Sir Henry Bedingfield had conducted the Princess Elizabeth, the main interest of the English nation now became concentrated; and probably no period in her whole life was marked by more torturing doubt and anxiety. Her days passed in almost complete solitude ; Gardiner, the Earl of Arundel, and other members of the Council were her only visitors ; the object of their visits, as she soon became painfully aware, being to draw from her some unguarded expression which might be construed into an admission of her complicity in the insurrection. Their design, however, was baffled by her indignant and persistent denials ; and when, early in July, Mary accorded her captive an interview, Elizabeth again, and in yet stronger language, asseverated her entire innocence. A visit from the King, addressing her with respectful demeanour and kindly words, encouraged while it somewhat mystified her; but before another ten days had passed away the sagacious Princess could easily interpret the change of purpose which his bearing had then indicated.

It now became known that Mary had been under a complete delusion, and that there would probably be no offspring from the royal marriage. Elizabeth's supporters at once took heart again, as they realised the change which had supervened in regard to her future prospects. They appeared in London in high spirits and large numbers, so comporting themselves, indeed, that the Council, in alarm, ordered the more prominent among them to retire to their estates, as suspected heretics and leagued with rebels. But Elizabeth herself was set at liberty and sought again her former seclusion at Ashridge ; and, as Mary slowly awoke from her fond dream of maternity, Philip, freed from the obligation which had detained him at her side, began to advert to continental politics and to plead that the affairs of the Continent demanded his personal supervision abroad. Before, however, quitting his island kingdom, he deemed it necessary to advise his consort with respect to the treatment of Elizabeth during his absence-advice which differed materially from that given by his father. It was no longer suggested that political exigencies might call for the sacrifice of a sister's life. On the contrary, Mary was now recommended to extend all possible indulgence to the Princess, and the changed conditions of Elizabeth's existence became obvious even to the public at large; nor did intelligent observers require to be reminded that the daughter of Anne Boleyn was the only barrier to the succession of Mary Stewart, the betrothed of the French monarch, to the throne of England.

The incidents which preceded his departure are described in detail by Michiel. Before embarking, the King summoned the lords of the Council to the Council Chamber, and there handed them a series of suggestions for the government of the realm during his absence, together with a list of names of those whom he deemed most eligible for the conduct of affairs. If we may credit the Venetian envoy, the judgment and ability displayed in this document excited the approval and admiration of all who perused it. At Greenwich, where Philip embarked, he took leave of Mary at the head of the staircase of their apartments ; the Queen maintaining her self-possession until he was gone, and then giving way to uncontrollable grief. Pole, whom the King had designated as her chief counsellor, was indeed now the only adviser to whom she could turn with any confidence, and her sense of loneliness and desertion was intense. The Cardinal, touched by her pitiable condition, compiled a short prayer for her use during her husband's absence.

It can scarcely be deemed surprising if, amid these new and vast responsibilities, Philip's insular kingdom and its lonely Queen might seem at times forgotten ; or that Charles, whose design it had been to set out for Spain as soon as possible, found his departure unavoidably retarded until the year 1556 was far advanced. But in the February of that year the Truce of Vaucelles ended for a time the hostilities with France, Henry thereby retaining possession of the entire territories of the Duke of Savoy. With his habitual want of good faith, however, the French monarch did not scruple, whenever an opportunity presented itself, still secretly to foment insurrection against both Philip and Mary in their respective domains.

At length, on August 9, the Emperor finally quitted Brussels, and embarked, a month later, for Spain. His departure was pathetically deprecated and deplored by Mary, who, now guided almost solely by Pole, had during the previous year been directing her main efforts to the suppression of heresy within her realm.

Worcester, had expressed his unreserved approval of a sentence whereby a number of Anabaptists perished at the stake ; and, on the occasion when Friar Forest met with a like fate for denying the supremacy claimed by Henry VIII, had preached against the papal claims to spiritual jurisdiction in England. Accordingly, just as the Reformers had resorted to political rebellion in order to bring about the downfall of theological error, so the Crown now sought to punish political disaffection on the grounds of religious heresy. The power which invoked the law could also enforce its own definition of the offence.

The Reformers had however frequently complained that they suffered persecution as heretics, while the exact nature of their offence remained itself undefined. It was accordingly resolved that no doubt should be suffered to remain in the cases of Latimer, Cranmer, and Ridley :-out of their own mouths should their condemnation be justified. Such was the design with which, in March, 1554, they were brought from the Tower to Oxford, and there called upon to defend, in a formal disputation, their doctrine respecting the Mass. Nor would it have been easy to take exception to the right of these three eminent men to represent the tenets of their party. The first had been Bishop of Worcester in the reign of Henry ; the second had filled the see of Canterbury for more than twenty years ; the third had been Bishop of London, and in that capacity had assisted at the deprivation of Bonner (his predecessor, and now his successor), and also at that of Gardiner. All three again had filled positions of importance in their University of Cambridge, and were presumed to be masters of dialectical disputation ; just as their opponents, who were eleven in number, had been selected from the two Universities. Latimer, however, was now in his seventieth year, and it was no reflexion on his courage that he declined an ordeal in which quickness of apprehension and a ready memory were essentials. The disputation was, however, vigorously maintained by Cranmer and Ridley in conflict with their numerous antagonists. But they did so only to be pronounced defeated ; and after proceedings which extended over six days, they were recommitted to " Bocardo," as the common gaol was designated (in allusion to a logical position from which a disputant finds it impossible to extricate himself). The condemnation involved the assumption that doctrines of faith and practice were amenable to the decisions of casuistry rather than to the teaching of Scripture, and was therefore contrary to the principles of the more advanced Reformers.

They also explained what their leading tenets were :-the acceptance of the doctrine of Justification by Faith alone, the repudiation of the doctrines of Purgatory and transubstantiation, together with the adoration of the Host, clerical celibacy, and Latin services. They, however, professed unqualified loyalty to the Queen and deprecated all conspiracies against her authority. With respect to this manifesto no action appears to have been taken; but the petitioners were still detained in captivity, and before the year closed Parliament enacted afresh the ancient laws against Lollardism, including Archbishop Arundel's notorious statute de haeretico comburendo, all of which had been abolished by Somerset. Conscious of the net which was being drawn around them, and that their heresy was becoming a question of life or death, the captives instructed John Bradford to draw up in their name a new Declaration, couched however in far from conciliatory terms. As against the newly enacted laws of Richard II and his two successors, they appealed to Parliament to re-enact the " many godly laws touching the true religion of Christ " set forth in the two preceding reigns " by two most noble Kings"; laws which, they affirmed, had been passed only after much discussion among the doctors of Cambridge and Oxford, and with the cordial and full assent of the whole realm. Not a single parish in England, they declared, was desirous of a return to "the Romish superstitions and vain service" which had recently been introduced. They maintained that the homilies and services adopted during King Edward's reign were truly Catholic, and were ready to prove them so ; or, if they failed in this, to give their bodies to be burned as the Lollard laws prescribed.

To the reactionary feelings which were discernible in Mary's third Parliament the martyrdoms that had taken place between February and October, 1555, had lent no slight additional strength ; while those of Ridley and Latimer, only a few days before the assembling of her fourth Parliament on October 21, must have been especially fresh in men's memories. The attention of the new House was first invited to the needs of the royal exchequer, and Gardiner, as Chancellor, exerted all his powers to induce the assembly to grant a substantial subsidy. His demands were acceded to, although not without some opposition ; and the gift of a million pounds-the payment of which, in the case of the laity, was to be extended over two years, in that of the clergy, over four-gave promise of effective relief; the latter body, if we may credit Pole, accepting their share of the burden with exemplary cheerfulness. To Mary, however, this satisfactory result must have appeared dearly purchased, involving as it did the loss of her Chancellor. In urging upon Parliament the necessities of the realm, Gardiner's oratorical efforts, combined with the dropsy from which he was suffering, brought on complete exhaustion; and although he sufficiently recovered to admit not only of his removal from Whitehall to Winchester House, but even of his presence at the Cabinet Councils which the ministers came from Greenwich to attend, it soon became apparent that his days were numbered. On November 12 he died. The reports which gained credit among his enemies, of his penitence and self-reproach in his last hours, have been shown by circumstantial evidence to be fabrications. Michiel, one of the least prejudiced, as he was certainly one of the most competent, observers, recalls the late Chancellor's untiring energy, wide practical knowledge, keen insight into character, and consummate tact, and represents his loss as irreparable ; an estimate which the undisguised joy of the French party at the event seems only to confirm. The great prelate was ultimately laid to rest in his own Cathedral, to which he had bequeathed a third of his private fortune, and where his chantry chapel, in the Renaissance style, still preserves his -ïiemory.

In the meantime the royal purpose was becoming more inexorable and pronounced. In the communications to Pole, above referred to, Mary gave it as her opinion that it would " be well to inflict punishment" on those "who choose by their false doctrine to deceive simple persons." It was, however, her express desire that no one should be burnt in London " save in the presence of some member of the Council,'" and that during such executions some " good and pious sermons should be preached." It was prodably under the belief that Pole's better nature would exert a certain influence, that Philip, when he departed for the Low Countries, had advised Mary to take the Cardinal for her chief counsellor. But firmness was never one of Pole's virtues, and when confronted by a stronger will, in conjunction with that more practical knowledge of men and affairs in which he was notoriously deficient, he deferred to the judgment of others and reluctantly acquiesced in a policy which he himself would never have originated. But he still at times vacillated ; and, as we have already noted, would recommend the Bishops to have recourse to gentle methods in their endeavours to reclaim heretics ; while in August, 1556, he succeeded in setting free no less than twenty prisoners whom Bonner had condemned to the stake. It was possibly in anticipation of his resignation of the office of legatus a latere that Pole aspired to succeed Gardiner as Privy Seal, for the incompatibility of the two offices was obvious; the seal was ultimately, at Philip's suggestion, bestowed on Lord Paget, who, as a Jayman and a statesman of known tolerance in religious questions, succeeded on January 29, 1556. The Chancellorship was not bestowed on Thirlby, now Bishop of Ely, -who had been discharging its duties as deputy and whose claims were favoured by Mary-his known Catholic sympathies rendering it inadvisable, even in the eyes of Philip, to continue him in the office ; and on January 1, the Great Seal was conferred on Heath, Archbishop of York. Pole, however, succeeded Gardiner as Chancellor of the University of Cambridge; and on March 22, 1556, the day after Cranmer was burnt at Oxford, he was consecrated to the Archbishopric of Canterbury.

The plot itself, in its origin, was not suggestive of any very deep or widespread agencies, being the outcome of a series of meetings among some country gentlemen in Oxfordshire and Berkshire,-Sir Anthony Kingston, Sir Nicholas Throckmorton (a friend of Courtenay's, who had already been pardoned for complicity in Wyatt's rebellion), Sir Henry Peckham, and Sir Henry Dudley, a relative of the late Duke of Northumberland. Further evidence, however, obtained at a considerable interval, implicated not only Noailles, the ambassador, with whom Dudley was in correspondence, but also Henry, at whose Court Dudley had been received and his proposals favourably considered, and finally Elizabeth herself. The fact that, in the preceding February, Charles and Philip had concluded at Vaucelles a truce with Henry, which was to last for five years and included important concessions to France, showed the faithlessness of the French monarch. Henry, however, advised the conspirators to defer the execution of their plans, and to their disregard of this advice the collapse of the whole scheme appears to have been mainly attributable.

Bishop of Acqs was wont to boast that Elizabeth was indebted to him for her crown.

Lord Clinton had been instructed to make a formal protest at the French Court against the countenance which Henry afforded to the English malcontents; but his remonstrance only drew from the King the splenetic observation that they were so numerous that they " filled not only France but the whole of Italy." In the Italian peninsula, indeed, Philip now found himself involved in relations far from amicable with the reigning Pontiff. Caraffa's aggressive nature did not dispose him to judge charitably of others, while he was believed by Philip to harbour designs against his Neapolitan kingdom. The Pope was especially indignant when he heard of the Truce of Vaucelles ; and, when in June, 1556, despatches were Äitercepted at Terracina sent from the Spanish envoy in Rome to Alva, Philip's viceroy in Naples, describing the defenceless condition of the papal territory, his suspicions became certainty. In the ensuing month his nephew, Cardinal Caraffa, arrived in Paris to concert measures with Henry for expelling the Spaniard altogether from Italy. The personal ambition of the Guises favoured the Pontiff's projects, and war was ultimately resolved on. Paul cited both Charles and Philip before him as vassals who had been unfaithful to their feudal obligations, pronounced the latter deprived of his kingdom of Sicily, and detained the Spanish envoy a prisoner at St Angelo. Alva issued a counter manifesto and conducted his army into the papal territory, while late in December the Duke of Guise in turn made a rejoinder by crossing the Alps at the head of a considerable force.

Such was broadly the political situation in Europe when the year 1557 opened ; England appearing leagued with Spain, on the one hand, against France aided by the temporal power of the Roman Pontiff on the other; while Englishmen in turn were divided between sympathy with those of their countrymen who had fled from persecution, and resentment at the manner in which they had deserted to the common foe.

Before Philip quitted England he received the gratifying intelligence that Alva's Fabian tactics had been successful against Guise, and that he had been finally driven from the Neapolitan territory. The mortification of Paul was equally intense, for he had scrupled at nothing to bring about an opposite result : had suggested to Solyman a descent on the Two Sicilies, and had brought over mercenaries from Protestant Germany,-and all this in order to defeat the forces of the eldest son of the Church.' When the Duke of Guist appeared to present his letters of recall the Pope's fury passed all bounds of decorum : " You have done little for your King, less for the Church, and for your own honour nothing." Such were Paul's parting words, although he little deemed how complete and how lasting the failure of the French intervention was to prove, and that the Habsburg rule was destined to remain unshaken, alike in the north and south of the Italian land, until the war of the Spanish Succession.

Although Mary is described by Michiel in his " Report " as friendly to the Scotch, the aid which she afforded Philip in his war with France almost necessarily involved hostilities with the former nation, in whose midst Mary of Lorraine, as Regent, had been for some time past installing her countrymen in official posts with undisguised partiality. The betrothal of the Queen of Scots to the Dauphin and the intimate relations which the Regent had throughout maintained with the French Court, served still further to strengthen the political alliance between the two countries. It was consequently no surprise when, in October, 1547, it became known in London that the Regent had built a fortress to prevent English forces from marching to the relief of Berwick; that Scottish troops were ravaging the country south of the Tweed; that there had been a massacre of some English troops which had ventured to land in the Orkneys ; and that a battle between the forces of the two nations on the frontier was regarded as imminent. The intelligence of the great disaster sustained by the French arms at St Quentin gave pause, however, to the Scottish ardour. A Council was convened in the church at Eckford, where the expediency of continuing the war was discussed, the decision being in the negative. The invading force was consequently disbanded, having achieved little more than the distraction, for a short time, of the attention of England from the war with France, and a certain addition to her military expenses. On April 24, 1558, the marriage of Mary Queen of Scots with the Dauphin was celebrated with great splendour in Notre Dame ; and to not a few it seemed that France, by a less costly process than armed conquest, had effected a virtual annexation of Scotland. In the following November the National Council, assembled at the Palace of Holyrood, decided to confer on the King-Dauphin (as Francis was nowtermed in Paris)the Crown matrimonial.

Early in the year Mary again became a prey to the delusion that she was about to become a mother, and Philip was at once informed. He affected to entertain no misgiving, and before the end of January the Count de Feria, who had married Jane Dormer, one of the Queen's maids of honour, was sent over to convey the King's congratulations. England was already known to the new ambassador, who now assumed a foremost place among the royal counsellors. De Feria, however, had conceived a thorough contempt alike for English institutions and the English character. He had been instructed especially to urge two important measures-the equipment of a fleet for the defence of the coasts and the enrolment of an army to guard the Scotch marches ; and he was unable to comprehend the slowness of the process by which the necessary supplies were eventually raised, when he also noted the apparent affluence and well-being of London and the surrounding districts. Like Antoine de Noailles before him, he pronounced the English character to be singularly changeable and wanting in firmness of purpose. His surprise, however, must be interpreted as illustrating rather the relative comfort in which the population lived, as compared with the invariably scanty fare and wretched huts of the people in Spain. Otherwise, the prevalence of ague fever,-an epidemic which raged with terrible fatality in the summer and autumn of the years 1557 and 1558,-together with the dearness of corn, the languishing state of trade and agriculture, and the heaviness of taxation, contributed to render the general condition of the country depressing in the extreme ; while the popular dissatisfaction became further intensified, when it was known that Philip was employing the new marine exclusively for his own purposes.

The disappointment and chagrin which weighed on Mary's spirits during the last few months of her life were deepened by her increasing ill health ; and her morbid' condition both of mind and body appeared to not a few to be finding expression in the revival of religious persecution. But the recurrence of secret meetings, open manifestations of fierce discontent, together with the malevolence which assailed Spaniards even in the streets of the capital, may be accepted as affording a sufficient explanation of the renewed severities which marked the administration of Bonner's Court, where treason and heresy had become almost synonymous. Although, however, opinion may differ with respect to the degree and character of the chief influences in operation, it is undeniable that feelings of aversion on the part of the people from foreign rule and papal authority, and of sullen resentment at the humiliation of the English name and the squandering of the national resources, were alike becoming intensified, when, in the early morning of November 17, Mary of England passed away, to be followed a few hours later by Archbishop. Pole-both eminent examples of the inadequacy of deep convictions and pious motives to guide the State aright.