A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century Part 14

The agitation was so general that men caught at the hope of putting an end to all that was begun by a sudden rising. We find a statement which must not be lightly rejected, that the English n.o.bility, which had taken great part in the Reformation movement and put itself in possession of much church property, came to an understanding at Christmas 1553, and decided on a general rising on the next Palm Sunday, 18th March:[162] thus doing as the French, German, Netherlandish and Scotch n.o.bility had done, who took the initiative in this matter. In Cornwall Peter Carew was to have the lead, in the Midland Counties the Duke of Suffolk, in Kent Thomas Wyatt. As the Queen's Privy Council was even now not unanimous, they hoped to bring about an overthrow of the government before it was yet firmly established: and either to compel the Queen to dismiss her evil counsellors and give up the Spanish marriage, or if she remained obstinate to put her sister Elizabeth in her place, who would then marry Courtenay. The French, who saw in the Queen's marriage with the prince of Spain a danger for themselves, urged on the movement, and had a secret understanding with the rebels; their plan was to support it by an incursion from Scotland where they were then the masters, and an attack on Calais.[163] But as often happens with such comprehensive plans, the government detected them; the attempt to carry them out had to be made before the preparations were complete; in most of the places where an effort was made it was suppressed without much trouble. Carew fled to France; Suffolk, who in vain tried to draw Coventry over to his side, was captured. On the other hand Sir Thomas Wyatt's rising in Kent was formidable. He collected a couple of thousand men, defeated the royal troops, some of whom joined him, and as he had the sympathies of a great part of the inhabitants of London with him, he attempted forthwith an attack on the capital. But the new order of things had too firm a legal foundation to be so easily overthrown. The Queen betook herself to the Guildhall and addressed the a.s.sembled people, decided as she was and confident in the goodness of her cause; the general feeling was in favour of supporting her. All armed for defence. For a couple of days, during which Wyatt lay before the city, every one was under arms, mayor, aldermen and people; the lawyers went to the courts with armour under their robes: priests were seen celebrating ma.s.s with mail under their church vestments. The Queen had some trustworthy troops, whose leader, the Earl of Pembroke, told her he would never show his face to her again if he did not free her from these rebels. When Wyatt at last appeared in Hyde Park with exhausted and badly fed men, he was met and beaten by an overwhelming body of Pembroke's troops; with a part of his followers he was driven into the city, and there made prisoner without much bloodshed.

It has always been reckoned to the Queen's credit that amid the alarm of these days she never quitted the unfortified palace. She had now an opportunity to rid herself completely of Northumberland's faction.

Jane Grey, whose name at least had been mentioned, her father Suffolk, her uncle Thomas Grey, were executed; Wyatt also and a great number of the prisoners paid for their rebellion with their lives.[164]

NOTES:

[155] King Edward: My devise for the succession: in 'Chronicle of Queen Anna, with ill.u.s.trative doc.u.ments and notes' by Nicholls, 89.

[156] King Edward's Minutes for his last will. In 'Chronicle of Queen Anna, with ill.u.s.trative doc.u.ments and notes' by Nicholls, 101.

[157] Engagement of the council, the signatures all autograph. Ibid.

90.

[158] This was done by a correction. The original text was 'to the Lady Jane's heires masle;' instead of 'Jane's,' the King now wrote 'to the Lady Jane and her h. m. (Nares' Burghley i. 452. Nicholls, 87.)

[159] Lettre ecrite a l'empereur par ses amba.s.sadeurs en Angleterre 19 Juill. Luy (au roi de France) sera facile, d'envoyer 2 ou 3 m.

Francais et quelques gens de chevaux. Plusieurs de ce royaume sont d'opinion, si V. M. a.s.sistoit ma dite dame (Mary) de gens et de secours contre le dit duc, la dite dame ne diminueroit en rien l'affection du peuple.

[160] Proclama avec le dict herault Mm. Marie a haute voix. Lettre des amba.s.sadeurs a l'empereur. Papiers d'etat de Granvelle iv. 58.

[161] To the reports of the French and Spanish amba.s.sadors (compare Amba.s.sades de Mss. de Noailles en Angleterre ii. 269, Turner ii. 204, Froude vi. 124) may be added that of the Venetian: 'ch'ella si consiglierebbe con dio e non con altri.' I combine this with Noailles'

account; for these amba.s.sadors were immediately informed by their friends of the deputation and have noted down that part of the Queen's speech which made most impression on the bystanders.

[162] Soranzo Relatione 79, a testimony worth consideration, as Soranzo stood in a certain connexion with the rebels.

[163] So Simon Renard reports 24th Feb. 1553-4 to the Emperor after Wyatt's confession. 'Le roy feroit emprinse de coustel d'Escosse et de coustel de Guyenne (it should without doubt be Guisnes) et Calais': in Tytler ii. 207. Wyatt's statements in the 'State Trials' refer to a confession which is not given there, and from which the amba.s.sador may have taken his account.

[164] Renard a l'empereur, 8 Feb. The communications in Tytler, which come from Brussels, and the Papiers d'etat de Granvelle, which come from Besancon, supplement each other, yet even when taken both together they are still not quite complete.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE CATHOLIC-SPANISH GOVERNMENT.

The effort to overthrow Mary's throne had strengthened it: for the second time she had rallied around it the preponderant majority of the nation. And this was all the more surprising, since no one could doubt any longer in what direction the Queen's exclusive religious views would lead her. In her victory she saw a divine providence, by which it was made doubly her duty to persevere, without looking back, in the path she had once taken. In full understanding with her Gardiner proceeded without further scruple, in the Parliament which met in April 1554, to attempt to carry through the two points on which all else depended, the abrogation of the Queen's spiritual t.i.tle, which implied restoration of the Pope's authority, and the revival of the old laws against heretics. These views and proposals however met with unexpected opposition, both in the nation, and no less in the Privy Council and Parliament, especially in the Upper House. The lay lords did not wish to make the bishops so powerful again as they had once been, and rejected the restoration of the Pope's authority unless they previously had security for their possession of the confiscated church property. The first proposition could not, so far as can be seen, even be properly brought forward:[165] the second, the revival of the heresy laws, was accepted by the Commons over whom Gardiner exercised great influence, but the Peers threw it out. It was especially Lords Paget and Arundel who opposed Gardiner's proposals in the Privy Council and the Lords and caused their rejection.

Only in one thing were the two parties united, in recognising the marriage contract concluded with Spain: it was pa.s.sed unanimously by Parliament.

In July 1554 Don Philip reached England with a numerous fleet, divided into three squadrons, with a brilliant suite on board. At Southampton the leader of one of the two parties, the Earl of Arundel, received him; Bishop Gardiner, the leader of the other, gave the blessing of the church to the marriage in Winchester cathedral. The day before the Emperor had resigned the crown of Naples to his son, to make him equal with the Queen in rank. How grand it sounded, when the king-at-arms proclaimed the united t.i.tles: Philip and Mary, King and Queen of England, France, Naples, Jerusalem, Ireland! A t.i.tle with an almost Plantagenet sound, but which now however only denoted the closest union between the Spanish monarchy and the Catholics of England.

Philip was solicitous to gain over the different parties and cla.s.ses of England: for he had been told that England was a popular monarchy.

He belied his Spanish gravity and showed himself, despite the stiffness that was his natural characteristic, affable to every man: he tried to make the impression, and successfully, that he desired the prosperity of England. One of the chief resources of the time, that of securing the most considerable persons by means of pensions, he made use of to a great extent. Both parties were provided for by annual payments and presents, Pembroke and Arundel as well as Derby and Rochester. We are a.s.sured that this liberality exercised a very advantageous influence on the disposition of the country.[166]

Gardiner looked on it as a slight, that he was pa.s.sed over in the list, for these pensions were considered at that time an honour, but this did not prevent him from praising the marriage in his sermons as ordained by heaven for the restoration of religion.

All now depended on whether the King's influence would be sufficient to carry at the next meeting of Parliament in November, the proposals which had been rejected in the last session.

But for this, according to the view not merely of the English lords, but of the imperial amba.s.sador and of the Emperor himself, a previous condition was indispensable. The English n.o.bles must be relieved from all apprehension lest the confiscated ecclesiastical property should ever again be wrested from them. Cardinal Pole had been already for some time residing in the Netherlands: but he was told that his arrival in England would be not merely fruitless but detrimental unless he brought with him a sufficient dispensation with regard to this. In Rome the concession was opposed on the ground that it would be setting a bad precedent. But when it was pointed out that the English confiscations did not touch any church lands, but only monastic property, and still more that without this concession the restoration of obedience to the church could not be attained, Pope Julius III yielded to the request. Two less comprehensive forms were rejected by the Emperor: at last one was granted which would satisfy the English. The form of the absolution which the Pope was to bestow after their submission was previously arranged: it was agreed to avoid everything that could remind men of the old pretensions and awaken the national antipathies.

Meanwhile the elections to Parliament were completed. The proclamation issued gives the ruling points of view without reserve. An invitation to elect Catholic members of merit was coupled with the a.s.surance that there was no intention of disturbing any kind of property. The means lately used for preventing any hostile influence were not yet sufficient: the advice was given from Brussels to go back to the older and stricter forms.

The leading men of the Upper House were won over: there could be no doubt about the tone of the Lower. At their first sitting a resolution to release Cardinal Pole from the attainder that weighed on him, and invite him to return to England, pa.s.sed without opposition. Now the Emperor had no longer any scruple in letting him go. He said as to this very matter, that what is undertaken at the wrong time hinders the result which might else have been expected; everything has its time: the time for this appeared to him now come. From Philip we have a letter to his sister Juana in which he extols himself with much satisfaction for the share he had taken in recalling the cardinal and restoring the Papal authority. 'I and the most ill.u.s.trious Queen,' he says in it, 'commanded the Parliament of the three Estates of the realm to recall him; we especially used our efforts with the chief among them to induce them to consent to the cardinal's return: at our order prelates and knights escorted him to our Court, where he has delivered to us the Breve of his Holiness.'--'We then through the Chancellor of the realm informed the Estates of what seemed to us becoming, above all how much it concerned themselves to come to a conclusion that would give peace to their conscience.'[167]

The Parliament declared itself ready to return to the obedience of the Roman See, and repeal all the statutes against it, provided that the cardinal p.r.o.nounced a general dispensation, that every man might keep without scruple the ecclesiastical property which had fallen to his share.[168] On this understanding Cardinal Pole was allowed to exercise his legatine power, and the King and Queen were entreated to intercede that the absolution might be bestowed.

With heartfelt joy Cardinal Pole p.r.o.nounced it without delay, first at a meeting of the Parliament in the palace, then with greater solemnity at S. Paul's at a high ma.s.s attended by the Court with a brilliant suite; among those present were the knights who wore the Burgundian order of the Golden Fleece, and those who wore the English Order of the Garter. The King stood by the Chancellor when from the outer corridor of the church he announced the event and its motives to the great crowds there a.s.sembled. It made an impression on the imperial amba.s.sadors that no outward sign of discontent was heard.

The agreement that now followed bears more of a juridical than of a religious character. The jurisdiction was given back to the Pope which he possessed before the twentieth year of Henry VIII (1529): the statutes by which it was abolished were severally enumerated and repealed: on the other hand the Pope's legate in his name consented that the owners of church property should not be disturbed in their possession, either now or at any future time, either by church councils or by Papal decrees. Such property was henceforth to be quite as exclusively subject to the jurisdiction of the crown as any other; whoever dared to call in question the validity of the t.i.tle in any spiritual court whatever, within or without the realm, was to be punished as an enemy of the Queen. The cardinal legate strove long to prevent the two enactments, as to the restoration of obedience and the t.i.tle to the ecclesiastical property, from being combined together in one Act, since it might look as if the Pope's concession was the price of this obedience to him; he once said, he would rather let all remain as it was and go back to Rome than yield on this point. But the English n.o.bility adhered immoveably to its demand; it wished to prevent all danger of the restoration of obedience becoming in any way detrimental to its acquisitions, an object which was clearly best secured by combining both enactments in a single statute, so that they must stand or fall together; even the King's representations effected no alteration in this; the cardinal had to comply.

On the other hand the King's influence, if we believe himself, had all possible success in the other affair, which was at any rate not less weighty. 'With the intervention of the Parliament,' he continues in the above-mentioned letter, 'we have made a law, I and the most ill.u.s.trious Queen, for the punishment of heretics and all enemies of holy church; we have revived the old ordinances of the realm, which will serve this purpose very well.' It was more especially the statute against the Lollards, by which Henry V had entered into the closest alliance with the hierarchy, that was to be re-enacted by Parliament. Gardiner had not been able to carry it through in the previous session, though it was known that the Queen wished it. Under the King's influence, who was accustomed to the execution of heretics in Spain, the Lords after some deliberation let their objections drop and accepted the bill.

If we put together these four great Acts, the abolition of the Common Prayer-book, the Spanish marriage, the restoration of obedience to Rome, and the revival of the heresy laws, we could hardly doubt the intention of the members of the government, and of the Parliament, to return completely to the ancient political and religious state of things. With some members such an intention may have been the predominant one: to a.s.sume it in all, or even in the majority, would be an error.[169]

The agreement then legalised as to ecclesiastical property, and the abolition of the monastic system, already formed such an anomaly in the Roman Catholic church, that the ecclesiastical condition of England would have always retained a very abnormal character. And the obedience expressed was by no means complete. For it should have included above all a recognition of that right of dispensation, about which the original quarrel had broken out, and the revocation of the order of succession which was based on its rejection. In fact Gardiner's intention was to bring matters to this; being besides a great enemy and even persecutor of Elizabeth, he wished to see her illegitimacy p.r.o.nounced in due form;[170] the resolutions pa.s.sed seemed necessarily to lead to it. Men however did not proceed this time so logically in England. They did not wish to base the future state of the realm on Papal decrees, but on the ordinances once enacted by King and Parliament. They could not deceive themselves as to the fact that Elizabeth, though she conformed outwardly, yet remained true at heart to the Protestant faith; but not on that account would the Parliament deny her right to the English throne. It also by no means entertained exactly Spanish sentiments. The Emperor expressed the wish that his son might be crowned: his amba.s.sador's advice however was against proposing it in Parliament; since, with the high ideas entertained in England of the rights implied in the coronation, this would never be allowed. In the event of the Queen's dying before Philip, and leaving children, the guardianship was reserved to him: but even for this object conditions had been originally proposed which would have been much more advantageous to him: these the Upper House threw out. So little was even then the policy of the Queen and King at the same time the policy of the nation and Parliament. In the Privy Council the old discords continued. The government obtained a greater unity by the fact that Gardiner, who now followed the Queen's lead in every respect, carried most of the members with him by the authority which her favour gave him. As Paget and Arundel, since they could effect nothing, refused to appear any more, there always remained a secret support for the discontent that was stirring. In the beginning of 1555 traces of a conspiracy in favour of Courtenay were again detected: if the inquiry into it led to no discovery, it was because--so it was thought--the commission entrusted with it did not wish to make any.

At this moment the revived heresy-laws began to be put into execution.

Prosecutions were inst.i.tuted for statements that under another order of things would have been considered as fully authorised. Still more than to single offences was attention directed to any variations in doctrine. In these proceedings we can remark the points which were then chiefly in question.

The first of the accused, one of the earliest and most influential of the martyrs, John Rogers, was reminded of the article which speaks of the faith in one holy catholic church; he replied that by it was meant the universal church of all lands and times, not the Romish, which on the contrary had deviated in many points from the main foundation of all churches, Holy Scripture. Rowland Taylor, who gloried in a marriage blest with children, which Gardiner would not acknowledge to be a marriage at all, maintained that Christian antiquity had allowed the marriage of priests. Gardiner accused him of ignorance. 'But,'

said Taylor, 'I have read the Holy Scripture, the Latin and the Greek fathers;' a canon of the Nicene council, which was cited on the point, he interpreted far more correctly than the bishop. John Hooper was called in question because he held divorce to be permissible on the ground given in Scripture, and because he found that the view of the real presence had no foundation in Scripture.[171] Their offence was the conception of church-communion as resting on the foundation of Scripture and extending therefore far beyond Romanism: the most telling defence could not save them here, for only the carrying out of old laws was concerned, and these unconditionally condemned such opinions. As the condemned were being taken back by night to their prison, many householders came out of their doors with lights in their hands, to greet them with their prayers and thank them for their steadfastness: a deep and sorrowful sympathy, but one which scarcely dared to utter itself, and thus renounced the attempt to effect anything. Rogers suffered death in London, Hooper at his episcopal see of Gloucester, Taylor (who on the way showed as much good wit as Sir Thomas More had formerly done) in his parish, Saunders at Coventry, Ferrar in the market-place at Caermarthen. Their punishment, in every place where they had taught, was intended to confirm the doctrines they had rejected. There have been more b.l.o.o.d.y persecutions elsewhere: this was distinguished by the fact that many of the more eminent men of the nation became its victims. Among them, besides those we have named, were Ridley, who was looked on as the most learned scholar in England, the eloquent Latimer, Bradford a man of deep piety, Philpot who united learning and religion. How could Archbishop Cranmer, who had contributed almost more than any one to carry through the Reformation, who had p.r.o.nounced the divorce of the Queen's mother, possibly find mercy? He persuaded himself of it once; and, yielding as he was, allowed himself to be tempted into a recantation, in despite of which he was condemned to death. But then there awoke in him also the whole consciousness of the truth of his belief. The hand with which he had signed the recantation he held firm, and let it burn in unutterable agony, as an expiation which he imposed on himself, before the flame of the f.a.ggots closed over him. The executions extended themselves over the whole country and even over the neighbouring islands; the diaries show that they continued till 1558. Many could have fled, but wished to testify to the firmness of their belief by dying for it, and thus to strengthen in their faith the people from whom they were taken away. Most of them showed a sublime contempt of death, which inflamed others to imitate them. How many would have been prepared to throw themselves with their friends into the flames! And no one could say that here there was any question of tendencies to revolt. The Protestants had on the whole kept themselves far from it: they did not contest the Queen's right to the throne; they died as her obedient subjects.

But now what an impression must these executions produce, combined with what preceded and followed them.

Gardiner appears in all this imperious, proud, and with that confident tone which the possessors of power a.s.sume, implying that they regard themselves as being also mentally superior; Bonner Bishop of London fanatical, without any power of discernment, and almost bloodthirsty.

His attention was once drawn to the ill effects of his rough acts of violence; he replied that he must do G.o.d's work without fear of men.

Under the last government they had both had much to endure: they had been deprived by their enemies and thrown into prison: now they employed the temporal arm in their own favour; they felt no scruple in sentencing their old opponents to death in accordance with the severity of the laws which they had again brought into active operation. Such was the issue of the contest between the bishops under the changing systems of government.

As Queen Mary is designated 'The b.l.o.o.d.y,' we are astonished when we read the authentic descriptions, still extant, of her personal appearance. She was a little, slim, delicate, sickly woman, with hair already turning grey. She played on the lute, and had even given instruction in music; she had a skilful hand; on personal acquaintance she made the impression of goodness and mildness. But yet there was something in her eyes that could even rouse fear; her voice, which could be heard at a great distance, told of something unwomanly in her. She was a good speaker in public; never did she show a trace of timidity in danger. The troubles she had experienced from her youth, her constant antagonism to the authority under which she lived, had especially hardened in her the self-will which is recognisable in all the Tudors. A peculiarity found elsewhere also in gifted women, that they are weary of all which surrounds them at home, and give to what is foreign a sympathy above its worth, had become to her a second nature. She rejected with aversion the idea of marrying Courtenay, for this reason among others that he was an Englishman. She, the Queen of England, had no sympathy for the life, the interests, the struggles of her people: she hated them from her childhood. All her sympathies were for the nation from which her mother came, for its views and manners: her husband was her ideal of a man: we are a.s.sured that she even overlooked his infidelities to her because he did not enter into permanent relations with any other woman. Besides this he was the only man who could support her in the great project for which she thought herself marked out by G.o.d, the restoration of Catholicism.[172] This is the meaning of her pledging herself in her bedchamber before a crucifix, when she had not yet seen him, to give her hand to him and to no other. For with him and his fortunes were linked the hopes of a restoration of Catholicism. Mary was absolutely determined to do all she could to strengthen it in England. Gardiner a.s.sures us, and we may believe him in this, that it was not he who prompted the revival of the old laws against the Lollards; the chief impulse to it came on the contrary from the Queen. And as those laws ordered the punishment of heretics by fire, and Parliament had consented, and the orthodox bishops offered their aid, it would have seemed to her a blameable weakness, if out of feelings of compa.s.sion she had stood in the way of the execution of those laws, to the suspension of which the bishops ascribed the spread of heretical opinions. Many of the horrors which accompanied their execution may have remained concealed from her; still it cannot be doubted, that the persecutions would never have begun without her. No excuse can free her memory from the dark shade which rests on it. For that which is done in a sovereign's name, with his will and consent, determines his character in history.

The conduct of the Queen and her government, without whose help ecclesiastical authority would have been null and void, had a result that extended far beyond her time: men began to inquire into the claims of the temporal power. John Knox, who had now to fly from England before a Queen, as he had previously from Scotland before a Queen-regent, and whose word was of weight, poured forth his feelings in a piercing call, which he himself named 'a blast of the trumpet,'

against the right of women to the government of a country, which ought to be exercised only by men. And while Knox went no further than the immediate case, others examined into the powers of all State authority: above all, to prevent its taking part in religious persecution, they brought forward the principles according to which sovereignty issues originally from the people. Mary's government had awakened in Protestantism, and that not merely in England, the hostility of political theory.

But besides no man could hide from himself, that discontent, even without theory, had grown in England in an alarming manner. The French and Imperial amba.s.sadors both gave their courts information of it, the former with a kind of satisfaction, the latter with apprehension and pain. He laments the bad effect which the religious persecution produces, makes pressing objections to it and demands that the b.l.o.o.d.y zeal of the bishops shall be moderated; but the matter was regularly proceeding in a kind of legal way; we do not find that he effected anything.

The Queen had hitherto flattered herself and her partisans with the hope that she would give the country an heir to the throne. When this expectation proved fallacious in the summer of 1555 it produced an impression which, as the imperial amba.s.sador says, no pen could describe. The appearance had been caused by an unhealthy condition of body, which was now looked on rather as a prognostic of her fast approaching death. It is already clear, remarks the amba.s.sador, that least confidence can be placed in those who have been hitherto most trusted: many a man still wears a mask: others even show their ill-will quite openly. For so badly is the succession at present arranged that my lady Elizabeth will without doubt ascend the throne on Mary's death and will restore heresy.

While things were in this state, Philip II was led to resolve on going to the Netherlands by the vicissitudes of the French war and his father's state of health; he wished either to bring about peace, or to push the war with energy.

He had hitherto exercised a moderating influence on the government.

Not to let all fall back into the previous party-strife, he thought it best to give the eight leading members of the Privy Council a pre-eminent place in the management of business. He could not avoid admitting men of both parties even among these; but he had already found a man whom he could set over the others and trust with the supreme rule of affairs in complete confidence. This was Cardinal Pole, who after Cranmer's death received the Archbishopric of Canterbury, long ago bestowed on him at Rome, and was released from the duty of again returning to the Roman court. He was descended from the house of the Yorkist Suffolks, persecuted by the earlier Tudors with great severity; but how completely did this family difference recede before the world-wide interests of religion! He served with the most entire devotion a queen of the house of Lancaster-Tudor who on her side reposed in him unlimited reliance: she wished to have him about her for hours every day. Reginald Pole was a man of European and general ecclesiastical culture; he shared in a tendency existing within Catholicism itself, which approached very nearly to Protestantism on one dogmatic question: we also hear that he would gladly have moderated the persecution;[173] but when it is said, that the obstinacy of the Protestants hindered him in this, all that can be implied is, that they held fast to a confession which was now absolutely condemned by the hierarchic laws, while he was bound and resolved to carry these laws into effect. His chief care was above all not to be involved in English party-divisions: he therefore usually worked with a couple of Italian a.s.sistants who shared his sentiments and his plans. The union of the ecclesiastical and temporal authority is seen once more in Pole, as it had been in Wolsey: he combined the powers of a legate with the position of a first minister. His distinguished birth, his high ecclesiastical rank, the confidence of the King and Queen, enhanced by completely blameless personal conduct,[174] procured him an authority in the country which seemed almost that of the sovereign.

A singular government this, composed of an absent king, who however had to be consulted in all weighty matters, a cardinal, and a dying queen who lived exclusively in church ideas. Difficulties could not be wanting: they arose first in church matters themselves.

We know how much the recognition of the alienation of the church property, to which Julius III was brought to consent by the Emperor, contributed to the restoration of church obedience; among the English n.o.bility it formed the main ground of its submission. But in May 1555 Pope Paul IV ascended the Papal throne, in whom dislike of the Austro-Spanish house was almost a pa.s.sion, and who wished to base his ecclesiastical reputation on the recovery of the alienated church property. His third Bull orders its restoration, including the possessions of monastic foundations, and the revenues. .h.i.therto received from them. The English amba.s.sadors who had been sent to Rome under wholly different conditions, to announce the restoration of obedience, found this Pope there on their arrival. When they mentioned the confirmation of the alienation of the monastic property, he answered them in plain terms: for himself he would be ready to consent, but it lay beyond his power; the property of the church was sacred and inviolable, all that belonged to it must be restored to the uttermost farthing. And so ecclesiastically minded was Queen Mary that she in her heart agreed with the Pope. The monasteries in particular she held to be an indispensable part of the church-system, and wished for their restoration. Already the fugitive monks were seen returning: a number of Benedictines who had remained in the country resumed the dress of their Order; the Queen made no secret of her wish to restore the monastery of Westminster in particular. Another side of church life was affected by the fact that, owing to the suppression of the great abbeys, a number of benefices, which were dependent on them, had lost their incomes and had fallen into decay. That Henry VIII should have appropriated to the crown the tenths and first-fruits, which belonged to the church, seemed to Queen Mary unjustifiable; she felt herself straitened in her conscience by retaining these revenues, and was prepared to give them back, whatever might be the loss to the crown. But she could not by herself repeal what had been done under authority of Parliament: in November 1555 she attempted to gain over that a.s.sembly to her view. A number of influential members were summoned to the palace, where first Cardinal Pole explained to them that the receipt of the first-fruits was connected with the State's claim of supremacy over the church, but that, after obedience was restored, it had no longer any real justification. He put forward some further reasons, and then the Queen herself took up the word. She laid the greatest stress on her personal wish. She asked the Parliament, after having shown obedience to her in so many ways, to prove to her that the peace of her soul lay near their hearts, and to take this burden from her. But the conception of the crown and its property had in England already ceased to be so merely personal. The most universally intelligible motive in the whole church-movement was the feeling, that the resources of the nation ought to be devoted to national purposes, and every one felt that the diminution of the royal revenues would have to be made up by Parliamentary grants. In addition to this, it appeared to be only the first step to such an universal rest.i.tution, as Pope Paul IV clearly contemplated and directed. Was there not much more to be said for the recovery of the church revenues from private hands than for their withdrawal from the crown which used them for public purposes?--A member of the Lower House wished to answer the Queen at once after her address: but, as he was not the Speaker, he was not allowed to do so.

When the proposal came under discussion in the Lower House, it met with lively opposition. A commission was then appointed, to which the Upper House sent two earls, two barons, and two bishops, and to which some lawyers were added; by these the proposed articles were revised and then laid before them again. The decisive sitting was on the 3rd December 1555. The doors were closed: no stranger was allowed to enter nor any member to leave the House. After they had sat in hot debate from early morning till three in the afternoon--just one of those debates, of which we have to regret that no detailed account has survived--the proposal was, it is true, accepted, but against such a large minority as was. .h.i.therto unheard of in the English Parliament, 120 votes to 183. Queen and cardinal regarded it as a great victory, for they had carried their view: but the tone of the country was still against them. However strong the stress which the cardinal laid on the statement that the concession of the crown was not to react in any way on private men's ownership of church property, the apprehension was nevertheless universal,[175] that with the Queen's zeal for the monasteries, and a consistent carrying out of the Pope's principles, things would yet come to this. But the interests which would be thus injured were very widespread. It was calculated that there were 40,000 families which in one way or another owned part of the church property: they would neither relinquish it nor allow their t.i.tle to be called in question. Powerful lords were heard to exclaim that they would keep the abbey-lands as long as they had a sword by their side.

The popular disposition was reflected in the widespread rumour, which gained credence, that Edward VI was still alive and would soon come back.