A Student's History of England Volume II Part 3

CHAPTER XXVII

EDWARD VI. AND MARY

EDWARD VI., 1547-1553. MARY, 1553-1558.

LEADING DATES

Somerset's Protectorate 1547 First Prayer Book of Edward VI. 1549 Fall of Somerset 1549 Second Prayer Book of Edward VI. 1552 Death of Edward VI. and accession of Mary 1553 Mary's marriage with Philip 1554 Submission to Rome and re-enactment of the heresy laws 1554 Beginning of the persecution 1555 War with France 1557 Loss of Calais and death of Mary 1558

1. =Somerset becomes Protector. 1547.=--The new king, Edward VI., was but a boy, and Henry had directed that England should be governed during his son's minority by a body composed of the executors of his will and other councillors, in which neither the partisans of change nor the partisans of the existing order should be strong enough to have their own way. The leading innovators, pretending to be anxious to carry out his wishes, a.s.serted that he had been heard to express a desire that they should be made peers or advanced in the peerage, and should receive large estates out of the abbey lands. After gaining their object, they set aside Henry's real plan for the government of the realm, and declared Hertford (who now became Duke of Somerset) to be Protector. A council was formed, from which Gardiner and the Lord Chancellor Wriothesley were excluded as likely to take part against them.

2. =The Scotch War. 1547-1548.=--Somerset was as greedy of Church property as the greediest, but he was covetous also of popularity, and had none of that moderating influence which Henry, with all his faults, possessed. He had always too many irons in the fire, and had no sense of the line which divides the possible from the impossible.

His first thought was to intervene in Scotland. For some time past Protestant missionaries had been attempting to convert the Scottish people, but most of them had been caught and burnt. Cardinal Beaton, the Archbishop of St. Andrews, had lately burnt George Wishart, a noted Protestant. In =1546= the Cardinal was murdered in revenge by a party of Protestants, who seized on the castle of St.

Andrews. A French fleet, however, recaptured the castle, and Somerset, who had sent no help to the Protestants in St. Andrews, marched into Scotland in the hope of putting an end to all future troubles between the kingdoms by marrying the young Queen of Scots to Edward. He carried with him a body of foreign mercenaries armed with the improved weapons of Continental warfare, and with their help he defeated and slaughtered the Scotch army at Pinkie Cleugh, burnt Holyrood and Leith, and carried destruction far and wide. Such rough wooing exasperated the Scots, and in =1548= they formed a close alliance with Henry II., who had succeeded Francis I. as king of France, and sent their young queen across the sea, where she was married to Henry's eldest son, the Dauphin Francis. Somerset had gained nothing by his violence.

3. =Cranmer's Position in the Church of England. 1547.=--Somerset's ecclesiastical reforms were as rash as his political enterprises.

Cranmer had none of that moral strength which would have made some men spurn an alliance with the unscrupulous politicians of the time.

He was a learned student, and through long study had adopted the principle that where Scripture was hard to understand it was to be interpreted by the consent of the writers of the first ages of Christianity. As he had also convinced himself that the writers of the first six centuries had known nothing of the doctrine of transubstantiation, he was now prepared to reject it--though he had formerly not only believed it, but had taken part in burning men who denied it. It is quite possible that if Henry had been still alive Cranmer would have been too much overawed to announce that he had changed his opinion. His exact shade of belief at this time is of less importance than the method by which he reached it. In accepting the doctrines and practices of the existing Church till they were tested and found wanting by a combination of human reason and historical study of the scriptures, interpreted in doubtful points by the teaching of the writers of the early Church, Cranmer more than any one else preserved the continuity of the Church of England, and laid down the lines on which it was afterwards to develop itself. There was, therefore, a great gulf between Cranmer and the advanced Protestants, who, however much they might differ from one another, agreed in drawing inferences from the Scripture itself, without troubling themselves whether these inferences conformed in any way to the earlier teaching. This gulf was constantly widening as time went on, and eventually split English Protestantism into fractions.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, 1533-1556: from a painting dated 1547, at Jesus College, Cambridge.]

4. =Ecclesiastical Reforms. 1547-1548.=--In =1547= a fresh blow was struck at the devotions of the people. In the churches--by the order of the Government--there was much smashing of images and of painted gla.s.s bright with the figures of saints and angels. Gardiner, who protested that the Government had no authority to alter religion till the king was of age, was sent to prison as the easiest mode of confuting him. As Parliaments were usually packed in those days, it does not follow that the nation was eager for changes because Parliament ordered them. There was, however, no difficulty in filling the benches of the House of Commons with men who profited by the plunder of the Church, and when Parliament met, it showed itself innovating enough. It repealed all the statutes giving special powers to Henry VIII. and all laws against heresy. It also pa.s.sed an Act vesting in the reigning king the whole of the chantries and other like foundations which Henry had been permitted to take, but which he had left untouched. Cranmer, indeed, would have been glad if the money had been devoted to the relief of the poorer clergy, but the grasping spirit of the laymen was too strong for him. So violent was the race for wealth that the Act decreed the confiscation even of the endowments of lay corporations, such as trading companies and guilds, on the excuse that part of their funds was applied to religious purposes. It was soon, however, found that an attempt to enforce this part of the Act would cause resistance, and it was therefore abandoned. In =1548= the Government issued orders abolishing a great variety of Church practices, and, in consequence of the opposition offered by the clergy to these sudden measures ordered that no sermons should be preached except by a few licensed preachers.

5. =The First Prayer Book of Edward VI. 1549.=--In =1549= Parliament authorised the issue of a Prayer Book in English, now known as the First Prayer Book of Edward VI. The same Parliament also pa.s.sed an Act permitting the marriage of the clergy.

6. =The Insurrection in the West. 1549.=--Somerset's own brother, Lord Seymour of Sudley, was sent to the block by this Parliament. He had spoken rashly against the Protector's government, but it has been thought by some that his main fault was his strong language against the rapacity with which Church property was being divided amongst the rich. That rapacity was now reaching its height. The Protector had set an evil example in order to raise the palace which, though it has since been rebuilt, still bears the name of Somerset House. He had not only seized on a vast amount of ecclesiastical property, but had pulled down a parish church and had carted off the bones of the dead from their graves. The Reformers themselves, men of the study as most of them were, had gone much farther than the ma.s.s of the people were prepared to follow. In =1549= an insurrection burst out in Devon and Cornwall for the restoration of the old religion, which was only suppressed with difficulty.

7. =Ket's Rebellion. 1549.=--Another rising took place in Norfolk, headed by Ket, a tanner. Ket's rebellion was directed not so much against ecclesiastical reforms, as against civil oppression. The gentry, who had been enriching themselves at the expense of the clergy, had also been enriching themselves at the expense of the poor. The inclosures against which More had testified were multiplied, and the poor man's claims were treated with contempt.

Ket gathered his followers under a tree, which he called the Oak of Reformation, on Mousehold Hill, outside Norwich, and sent them to pull down the palings of the inclosures. The Earl of Warwick--the son of that Dudley who, together with Empson, had been the object of popular hatred in the reign of Henry VII. (see p. 357)--dispersed the insurgents with great slaughter; but it was noted that both here and in the West the Government was driven to use the bands of German and Italian mercenaries which Somerset had gathered for the war in Scotland. It was the first time since the days of John (see p. 182) that foreign troops had been used to crush an English rising.

8. =The Fall of Somerset. 1549.=--Somerset no longer pleased any single party. His invasion of Scotland had led to a war with France, and to carry on that war he had found it necessary to debase the coinage still further than it had been debased by Henry VIII. All the disturbance of trade, as well as the disturbance of religion, was laid to his door. At the same time he was too soft-hearted to satisfy his colleagues in the Council, and had shown himself favourable to the outcry against inclosures. Accordingly, before the end of =1549= his colleagues rose against him, and thrust him into the Tower. The Protectorate was abolished. Henceforth the Council was to govern, but the leading man in the Council was Warwick.

9. =Warwick and the Advanced Reformers. 1549.=--Religion was a matter to which Warwick was supremely indifferent. It was an open question when he rose to power whether he would protect the men of the old religion or the advanced reformers. He chose to protect the advanced reformers. Even before Somerset's fall Cranmer had been pushing his inquiries still farther, and was trying to find some common ground with Zwinglian (see p. 399) and other reformers, who went far beyond Luther. Foreign preachers, such as Bucer and Peter Martyr, were introduced to teach religion to the English, as foreign soldiers had been introduced to teach them obedience. Bishops were now appointed by the king's letters-patent, without any form of election. Gardiner and Bonner, refusing to accept the new state of things, were deprived of their sees of Winchester and London, and Ponet and Ridley set in their places. Ridley's moral character was as distinguished as Ponet's was contemptible. Hooper was made Bishop of Gloucester. For some time he hung back, refusing to wear the episcopal vestments as being a mark of Antichrist, but at last he allowed himself to be consecrated in them, though he cast them off as soon as the ceremony was over.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Nicholas Ridley, Bishop of London, 1550-1553: from the National Portrait Gallery.]

10. =Latimer's Sermons. 1548-1550.=--Latimer had refused to return to the bishopric from which he had been thrust by Henry VIII., but he lashed from the pulpit the vices of the age, speaking plainly in the presence of the court of its greed and oppression. It was not enough, he said, for sinners to repent: let them make rest.i.tution of their ill-gotten gains. In =1550= the courtiers became tired of his reproofs, and he was no longer allowed to preach before the king.

11. =Warwick and Somerset. 1550-1552.=--In =1550= Warwick was compelled to make a peace with France, and gave up Boulogne as its price. In =1551= he was very nearly drawn into war with the Emperor on account of his refusal to allow ma.s.s to be celebrated in the household of the king's sister, Mary. Finally, however, he gave way, and peace was maintained. There was a fresh issue of base money, and a sharp rise of prices in consequence. Now that there were no monasteries left to plunder, bishoprics were stripped of their revenues, or compelled to surrender their lands. Hooper was given the ecclesiastical charge of the see of Worcester in addition to that of Gloucester, but he was driven to surrender all the income of the bishopric of Gloucester. The see of Durham was not filled up, and before the end of the reign it was suppressed by Act of Parliament, and ceased to have a legal existence till it was restored by Edward's successor. So unpopular did Warwick become that Somerset began to talk as though he might supplant his supplanter.

His rash words were carried to the young king, who had for some time shown an interest in public affairs, and who now took the part of Warwick, whom he created Duke of Northumberland, against his own uncle. Somerset was arrested, and in =1552= was tried and beheaded.

12. =The Second Prayer Book of Edward VI. 1552.=--In =1552= Parliament authorised the issue of a revised Prayer Book, known as the Second Prayer Book of Edward VI. The first book had been framed by the modification of the old worship under the influence of Lutheranism. The second book was composed under the influence of the Swiss Reformers. The tendency of the two books may be gathered from the words ordered to be employed in the administration of the bread in the Communion. In the first Prayer Book they had been: "The Body of our Lord Jesus Christ, which was given for thee, preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting life." In the second they were: "Take and eat this in remembrance that Christ died for thee, and feed on Him in thy heart by faith with thanksgiving." There were some who urged that the Communion should no longer be received kneeling. It was significant that their leaders were foreigners--John Alasco, a Pole, and John Knox, a Scot, who was hereafter to be the father of a Scottish reformation more drastic than that of England. Cranmer withstood them successfully. The dispute marked the point beyond which the spirit of the Renascence refused to go. In the midst of his innovations Cranmer preserved not only a reverent spirit, but an admiration for the devotional style of the prayers of the medieval Church, which he therefore maintained even in the midst of the great changes made, mainly at least by himself, in the second Prayer Book.

Happily, amidst these disputations, there was one point on which both parties could combine--namely, on the encouragement of education. The reign of Edward VI. is marked by the foundation of grammar-schools--too scantily carried out, but yet in such a measure as to mark the tendencies of an age which was beginning to replace the mainly ecclesiastic education of the monasteries by the more secular education of modern times.

[Ill.u.s.tration: King Edward VI.: from a picture belonging to H. Hucks Gibbs, Esq.]

13. =The Forty-two Articles. 1553.=--Edward was now a precocious youth, taught by much adulation to be confident in his own powers.

He had learnt to regard all defection from Protestant orthodoxy as a crime. The statute which repealed the heresy laws did not altogether stop the burning of heretics, as the lawyers discovered that heresy was punishable by the common law. In =1550= Joan Bocher was burnt for denying the Incarnation, and in =1551= Van Parris, a Fleming, was burnt on the same charge. The persecution, however, was much more restricted than in the preceding reign. Few persons were punished, and that only for opinions of an abnormal character. In =1553= forty-two articles of faith, afterwards, in the reign of Elizabeth, converted into thirty-nine, were set forth as a standard of the Church's belief by the authority of the king. So completely did the reforming clergy recognise their entire dependence on the king, that by a slip of the pen Hooper once wrote of 'the king's majesty's diocese of Worcester and Gloucester.'

14. =Northumberland's Conspiracy. 1553.=--A religious system built up solely on the will of the king, was hardly likely to survive him.

By this time it was known that Edward was smitten with consumption, and could not live. Northumberland cared little for religion, but he cared much for himself. He knew that Mary was, by Henry's will sanctioned by Act of Parliament, the heiress of the throne, and that if Mary became queen he was hardly likely to escape the scaffold. He was daring as well as unscrupulous, and he persuaded Edward to leave the crown by will to Lady Jane Grey, the granddaughter of Mary, d.u.c.h.ess of Suffolk, the younger sister of Henry VIII. He secured (as he hoped) Lady Jane's devotion by marrying her to his own son, Lord Guilford Dudley. As Lady Jane was a convinced Protestant, Edward at once consented. His father, he thought, had left the crown by will in the case of the failure of his own heirs (see p. 411), and why should not he? He had been taught to think so highly of the kingship that he did not remember that his father had been authorised by Act of Parliament to will away the crown in the case of his children's death without heirs, whereas no such authority had been given by Parliament to himself. He forced--by commands and entreaties--the councillors and the judges to sign the will. Cranmer was the last to sign, and was only moved to do so by the sad aspect of his suffering pupil. Then Edward died, a.s.sured that he had provided best for the Church and nation.

15. =Lady Jane Grey. 1553.=--On July 10 Lady Jane Grey, a pure-minded, intelligent girl of sixteen, was proclaimed queen in London. She was a fervent Protestant, and there were many Protestants in London. Yet, so hated was Northumberland, that even Protestants would have nothing to say to one who had been advanced by him. Lady Jane pa.s.sed through the streets amidst a dead silence.

All England thought as London. In a few days Mary was at the head of 30,000 men. Northumberland led against her what troops he could gather, but his own soldiers threw their caps in the air and shouted for Queen Mary. On the 19th Mary was proclaimed queen in London, and the unfortunate Jane pa.s.sed from a throne to a prison.[9]

[Footnote 9: Genealogy of the Greys:--

HENRY VII. (1485-1509) | +--------------+----+------------------+ | | | HENRY VIII. Margaret = James IV. Mary = (2) Charles (1509-1547) of Scotland m. (1) | Brandon, Louis XII. | Duke of of France | Suffolk | +------+ | Frances = Henry | Grey, | Marquis of | Dorset and | Duke of | Suffolk | +----------------------------------+----------+----+ | | | Jane Grey = Guilford Dudley Catherine Grey Mary Grey]

16. =Mary restores the Ma.s.s. 1553=.--Mary, strong in her popularity, was inclined to be merciful. Amongst those who had combined against her only Northumberland and two others were executed--the miserable Northumberland declaring that he died in the old faith. Mary made Gardiner her Chancellor. Some of the leading Protestants were arrested, and many fled to the Continent. The bishops who had been deprived in Edward's reign were reinstated, and the ma.s.s was everywhere restored. The queen allowed herself to be called Supreme Head of the Church, and at first it seemed as though she would be content to restore the religious system of the last year of Henry's reign, and to maintain the ecclesiastical independence of the country.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Queen Mary Tudor: from a painting by Lucas de Herre, dated 1554, belonging to the Society of Antiquaries.]

17. =Mary's First Parliament. 1553=.--By taking this course Mary would probably have contented the great majority of her subjects, who were tired of the villainies which had been cloaked under the name of Protestantism, and who were still warmly attached to the religion of their fathers. She was, however, anxious to restore the authority of the Pope, and also to marry Philip, the eldest son of her cousin, the Emperor Charles V. It was natural that it should be so. Her mother's life and her own youth had been made wretched, not by Protestants, but by those who, without being Protestants, had wrought the separation from Rome in the days of Henry, at a time when only the Pope's adherents had maintained the legitimacy of her own birth and of her mother's marriage. In subsequent times of trouble Charles V. had sympathised with her and it was by her intervention that she had been allowed to continue her ma.s.s in her brother's reign. Mary also wished to restore to the Church its lands. On the other hand, when Parliament met it appeared that her subjects wished neither to submit to Rome, nor to surrender the property of which they had deprived the Church, though they were delighted to restore the worship and practices which had prevailed before the death of Henry VIII. Parliament, therefore, authorised the re-establishment of the ma.s.s, and repealed the Act allowing the clergy to marry, but it presented a pet.i.tion against a foreign marriage. Although the hatred of Spain which grew up a few years later was not yet felt, Englishmen did not wish their country to become a dependent province on any foreign monarchy whatever. Mary dissolved Parliament rather than take its advice.

18. =Wyatt's Rebellion. 1554.=--The result was an insurrection, the aim of which was to place Mary's half-sister, Elizabeth, on the throne. Lady Jane's father, the Duke of Suffolk, was to raise the Midlands and Sir Thomas Wyatt to raise Kent. Suffolk failed, but Wyatt, with a large following, crossed the Thames at Kingston, and pushed on towards the City. His men, however, were for the most part cut off in an engagement near Hyde Park corner, and it was with only three hundred followers that he reached Ludgate--to find the gate closed against him. 'I have kept touch,' he said, and suffered himself to be led away a prisoner. Mary was no longer merciful. Not only Suffolk and Wyatt, but the innocent Lady Jane and her young husband, Guilford Dudley, were sent to the block. Elizabeth herself was committed to the Tower. She fully believed that she was to die, and sat herself down on a wet stone, refusing for some time to enter. In many ways she had shown that she bore no goodwill to her sister or her sister's plans, but she had been far too prudent to commit to writing any words expressing sympathy with Wyatt. Being far too popular to be safely put to death on any testimony which was not convincing, Elizabeth was before long removed from the Tower and placed at Woodstock, under the charge of Sir Henry Bedingfield, but was after a few months allowed to retire to Hatfield.

19. =The Queen's Marriage.=--A Parliament which met in April =1554= gave its consent to Mary's marriage, but it would not pa.s.s Bills to restore the old statutes for the persecution of heretics. Though it was now settled that the queen was to marry Philip, yet never was a wooer so laggard. For some weeks he would not even write to his betrothed. The fact was that she was twelve years older than himself, and was neither healthy nor good-looking. Philip, however, loved the English crown better than he loved its wearer, and in July he crossed the sea and was married at Winchester to the queen of England. Philip received the t.i.tle of king, and the names of Philip and Mary appeared together in all official doc.u.ments and their heads on the coins.

20. =The Submission to Rome. 1554.=--After the marriage a new Parliament was called, more subservient than the last. In most things it complied with Mary's wishes. It re-enacted the statutes for the burning of heretics and agreed to the reconciliation of the Church of England to the see of Rome, but it would not surrender the abbey lands. Only after their possession had been confirmed did it give its consent to the acknowledgment of the Pope's authority. Then Cardinal Pole (see p. 399), who had been sent to England as the Pope's legate, was allowed to receive the submission of England. The queen, the king, and both Houses knelt before him, confessed their sin of breaking away from the Roman see, and received absolution from his mouth. To Mary the moment was one of inexpressible joy. She had grieved over the separation from Rome as a sin burdening her own conscience, and she believed with all her heart that the one path to happiness, temporal and eternal, for herself and her realm, was to root out heresy, in the only way in which it seemed possible, by rooting out the heretics.

21. =The Beginning of the Persecution. 1555.=--It was not only Mary who thought it meet that heretics should be burnt. John Rogers, who was the first to suffer, had in the days of Edward pleaded for the death of Joan Bocher (see p. 419). He was followed to the stake by Bishop Hooper, who was carried to Gloucester, that he might die at the one of his two sees which he had stripped of its property to enrich the Crown (see p. 418). He and many another died bravely for their faith, as More and Forest had died for theirs (see pp. 394, 398). Rowland Taylor, for instance (a Suffolk clergyman), was condemned in London to be burnt, and sent to his own county to die.

As he left his prison in the dark of the early morning he found his wife and children waiting for him in the street. He was allowed to stop for a moment, and knelt down on the stones, repeating the Lord's Prayer with his family. "Farewell, my dear wife," he said, as soon as he had risen from his knees; "be of good comfort, for I am quiet in my conscience. G.o.d shall stir up a father for my children."

"Thanked be G.o.d," he exclaimed when he at last reached the village where his voice had once been heard in the pulpit, and where now the stake rose up amidst the f.a.ggots which were to consume him, "I am even at home!" After he had been tied to the stake a wretch threw a f.a.ggot at his face. "O friend," he said gently, "I have harm enough: what needed that?" The flames blazed up around his suffering body, and Rowland Taylor entered into his rest. Ridley and Latimer were burnt at Oxford, in the town ditch, in front of Balliol College. "Be of good comfort, Master Ridley, and play the man," cried Latimer, when the fire was lighted at his feet. "We shall this day light such a candle, by G.o.d's grace, in England, as I trust shall never be put out."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Hugh Latimer, Bishop of Worcester, 1535-39, burnt 1555: from the National Portrait Gallery.]

22. =Death of Cranmer. 1556.=--Cranmer would have accompanied Ridley and Latimer to the stake, but as he alone of the three had been consecrated a bishop in the days when the Pope's authority was accepted in England, it was thought right to await the Pope's authority for the execution of his sentence. In =1556= that authority arrived. Cranmer's heart was as weak as his head was strong, and he six times recanted, hoping to save his life. Mary specially detested him, as having sat in judgment on her mother (see p. 389), and she was resolved that he should die. Finding his recantation useless, he recovered his better mind, and renounced his recantation. "I have written," he said, "many things untrue; and forasmuch as my hand offended in writing contrary to my heart, my hand therefore shall be the first burnt." He was hurried to the stake, and when the flames leapt up around him held his right hand steadily in the midst of them, that it might be 'the first burnt.'

23. =Continuance of the Persecution. 1556-1558.=--Immediately after Cranmer's death Pole became Archbishop of Canterbury. The persecution lasted for two years more. The number of those who suffered has been reckoned at 277. Almost all of these were burnt in the eastern and south-eastern parts of England. It was there that the Protestants were the thickest. New opinions always flourish more in towns than in the country, and on this side of England were those trading towns, from which communication with the Protestants of the Continent was most easy. Sympathy with the sufferers made these parts of the kingdom more strongly Protestant than they had been before.

24. =The Queen's Disappointment. 1555-1556.=--Mary was a sorrowful woman. Not only did Protestantism flourish all the more for the means which she took to suppress it, but her own domestic life was clouded. She had longed for an heir to carry on the work which she believed to be the work of G.o.d, and she had even imagined herself to be with child. It was long before she abandoned hope, and she then learnt also that her husband--to whom she was pa.s.sionately attached--did not love her, and had never loved anything in England but her crown. In =1555= Philip left her. He had indeed cause to go abroad. His father, Charles V., was broken in health, and, his schemes for making himself master of Germany having ended in failure, he had resolved to abdicate. Charles was obliged to leave his Austrian possessions to his brother Ferdinand; and the German electors, who detested Philip and his Spanish ways, insisted on having Ferdinand as Emperor. Charles could, however, leave his western possessions to his son, and in =1556= he completed the surrender of them. Mary's husband then became Philip II. of Spain, ruling also over large territories in Italy, over Franche Comte, and the whole of the Netherlands, as well as over vast tracts in America, rich in mines of silver and gold, which had been appropriated by the hardihood, the cruelty, and the greed of Spanish adventurers. No prince in Europe had at his command so warlike an army, so powerful a fleet, and such an abounding revenue as Philip had at his disposal. Philip's increase of power produced a strong increase of the anti-Spanish feeling in England, and conspiracies were formed against Mary who was believed to be ready to welcome a Spanish invading army.

25. =War with France and the Loss of Calais. 1557-1558.=--In =1557= Philip was at war with France, and, to please a husband who loved her not, Mary declared war against Philip's enemy. She sent an English army to her husband's support, but though Philip gained a crushing victory over the French at St. Quentin, the English troops gained no credit, as they did not arrive in time to take part in the battle. In the winter, Francis, Duke of Guise, an able French warrior, threatened Calais. Mary, who, after wringing a forced loan from her subjects in the summer, had spent it all, had little power to help the governor, Lord Wentworth, and persuaded herself that the place was in no danger. Guise, however, laid siege to the town. The walls were in disrepair and the garrison too small for defence. On January 6, =1558=, Guise stormed Calais, and when, a few days afterwards, he also stormed the outlying post of Guisnes, the last port held by the English in France fell back into the hands of the French. Calais was now again a French town, after having been in the hands of strangers for 211 years.

26. =Death of Mary. 1558.=--The loss of Calais was no real misfortune to England, but it was felt as a deep mortification both by the queen and by her people. The people distrusted Mary too much to support her in the prosecution of the war. They were afraid of making Philip more powerful. Mary, hoping that Heaven might yet be gracious to her, pushed on the persecution, and sent Protestants in large numbers to the stake. Philip had visited her the year before, in order to persuade her to join him against France, and she again fancied herself to be with child. Her husband had once more deserted her, and she now knew that she was suffering--without hope--from dropsy. On November 17 she died, sad and lonely, wondering why all that she had done, as she believed on G.o.d's behalf, had been followed by failure on every side--by the desertion of her husband and the hatred of her subjects. Happily for himself, Pole too died two days afterwards.[10]

[Footnote 10: The 19th is the date of Machyn's contemporary diary; but other authorities make it the 17th or 18th.]

CHAPTER XXVIII

THE ELIZABETHAN SETTLEMENT IN CHURCH AND STATE

1558-1570