The Reign of Mary Tudor Part 12

The choice of a pope, however, would signify little, if only the child could be born; but where was the child? The queen put it off strangely. The conference could be delayed no longer. It opened without the intended makeweight, and the court of France was less inclined to make concessions for a peace. The delay began to tell on the bourse at Antwerp. The Fuggers and the Schertzes drew their purse-strings, and made difficulties in lending more money to the emperor.[471] The plenipotentiaries had to separate after a few meetings, having effected nothing, to the especial mortification of Philip and Mary, who looked to the pacification to enable them to cure England of its unruly humours. The Duke of Alva (so rumour insisted) was to bring across the Spanish troops which were in the Low Countries, take possession of London, and force the parliament into submission.[472] The English were to be punished, for the infinite insolences in which they had indulged towards Philip's retinue, by being compelled, whether they liked it or not, to bestow upon him the crown.[473]

But the peace could not be, nor could the child be born; and the impression grew daily that the queen had not been pregnant at all. Mary herself, who had been borne forward to this, the crisis of her fortunes, on a tide of success, now suddenly found her exulting hopes closing over. From confidence she fell into anxiety, from anxiety into fear, from fear into wildness and despondency. She vowed that with the restoration of the estates, she would rebuild the abbeys at her own cost. In vain. Her women now understood her condition; she was sick of a mortal disease; but they durst not tell her; and she whose career had been painted out to her by the legate, as especial and supernatural, looked only for supernatural causes of her present state. Throughout May she remained in her apartments waiting-waiting-in pa.s.sionate restlessness. With stomach swollen, and features shrunk and haggard, she would sit upon the floor, with her knees drawn up to her face, in an agony of doubt; and in mockery of her wretchedness, letters were again strewed about the place by an invisible agency, telling her that she was loathed by her people. She imagined they would rise again in her defence. But if they rose again, it would be to drive her and her husband from the country.[474]

After the mysterious quickening on the legate's salutation, she could not doubt that her hopes had been at one time well founded; but for some fault, some error in herself, G.o.d had delayed the fulfilment of his promise. And what could that crime be? The accursed thing was still in the realm. She had been raised up, like the judges in Israel, for the extermination of G.o.d's enemies; and she had smitten but a few here and there, when, like the evil spirits, their name was legion.[475] She had before sent orders round among the magistrates, to have their eyes upon them. On the 24th of May, when her distraction was at its height, she wrote a circular to quicken the over-languid zeal of the bishops.

"Right Reverend Father in G.o.d," it ran, "We greet you well; and where of late we addressed our letters unto the justices of the peace, within every of the counties within this our realm, whereby, amongst other good instructions given therein for the good order of the country about, they are willed to have special regard to such disordered persons as, forgetting their duty to Almighty G.o.d and us, do lean to any erroneous and heretical opinions; whom, if they cannot by good admonition and fair means reform, they are willed to deliver unto the ordinary, to be by him charitably travelled withal, and removed, if it may be, from their naughty opinions; or else, if they continue obstinate, to be ordered according to the laws provided in that behalf: understanding now, to our no little marvel, that divers of the said misordered persons, being, by the justices of the peace, for their contempt and obstinacy, brought to the ordinary, to be used as is aforesaid, are either refused to be received at their hands, or, if they be received, are neither so travelled with as Christian charity requireth, nor yet proceeded withal according to the order of justice, but are suffered to continue in their errors, to the dishonour of Almighty G.o.d, and dangerous example of others; like as we find this matter very strange, so have we thought convenient both to signify this our knowledge, and therewithal also to admonish you to have in this behalf such regard henceforth unto the office of a good pastor and bishop, as where any such offenders shall be, by the said justices of the peace, brought unto you, ye do use your good wisdom and discretion in procuring to remove them from their errors if it may be, or else in proceeding against them, if they continue obstinate, according to the order of the laws, so as, through your good furtherance, both G.o.d's glory may be the better advanced, and the commonwealth more quietly governed."[476]

Under the fresh impulse of this letter, fifty persons were put to death at the stake in the three ensuing months,-in the diocese of London, under Bonner; in the diocese of Rochester, under Maurice Griffin; in the diocese of Canterbury, where Pole, the archbishop designate, so soon as Cranmer should be despatched, governed through Harpsfeld, the archdeacon, and Thornton, the suffragan bishop of Dover. Of these sacrifices, which were distinguished all of them by a uniformity of quiet heroism in the sufferers, that of Cardmaker, prebendary of Wells, calls most for notice.

The people, whom the cruelty of the Catholic party was reconverting to the Reformation with a rapidity like that produced by the gift of tongues on the day of Pentecost, looked on the martyrs as soldiers are looked at who are called to accomplish, with the sacrifice of their lives, some great service for their country. Cardmaker, on his first examination, had turned his back and flinched. But the consciousness of shame, and the example of others, gave him back his courage; he was called up again under the queen's mandate, condemned, and brought out on the 30th of May, to suffer at Smithfield, with an upholsterer named Warne. The sheriffs produced the pardons. Warne, without looking at them, undressed at once, and went to the stake; Cardmaker "remained long talking;" "the people in a marvellous dump of sadness, thinking he would recant." He turned away at last, and knelt, and prayed; but he had still his clothes on; "there was no semblance of burning;" and the crowd continued nervously agitated, till he rose and threw off his cloak. "Then, seeing this, contrary to their fearful expectations, as men delivered out of great doubt, they cried out for joy with so great a shout as hath not been lightly heard a greater, G.o.d be praised; the Lord strengthen thee, Cardmaker. The Lord Jesus receive thy spirit."[477] Every martyr's trial was a battle; every constant death was a defeat of the common enemy; and the instinctive consciousness that truth was a.s.serting itself in suffering, converted the natural emotion of horror into admiring pride.

Yet, for the great purpose of the court, the burnt-offerings were ineffectual as the prayers of the priests. The queen was allowed to persuade herself that she had mistaken her time by two months; and to this hope she clung herself, so long as the hope could last: but among all other persons concerned, scarcely one was any longer under a delusion; and the clear-eyed Renard lost no time in laying the position of affairs before his master.

The marriage of Elizabeth and Philibert had hung fire, from the invincible unwillingness on the part of Mary to pardon or in any way recognise her sister;[478] and as long as there was a hope of a child, she had not perhaps been pressed about it; but it was now absolutely necessary to do something, and violent measures towards the princess were more impossible than ever.

"The entire future," wrote Renard to the emperor, on the 27th of June, "turns on the accouchement of the queen; of which, however, there are no signs. If all goes well, the state of feeling in the country will improve. If she is in error, I foresee convulsions and disturbances such as no pen can describe. The succession to the crown is so unfortunately hampered, that it must fall to Elizabeth, and with Elizabeth there will be a religious revolution. The clergy will be put down, the Catholics persecuted, and there will be such revenge for the present proceedings as the world has never seen. I know not whether the king's person is safe; and the scandals and calumnies which the heretics are spreading about the queen are beyond conception. Some say that she has never been enceinte; some repeat that there will be a supposit.i.tious child, and that there would have been less delay could a child have been found that would answer the purpose.[479] The looks of men are grown strange and impenetrable; those in whose loyalty I had most dependence I have now most reason to doubt. Nothing is certain, and I am more bewildered than ever at the things which I see going on around me. There is neither government, nor justice, nor order; nothing but audacity and malice."[480]

The faint hopes which Renard expressed speedily vanished, and every one but the queen herself not only knew that she had no child at present, but that she never could have a child-that her days were numbered, and that if the Spaniards intended to secure the throne they must obtain it by other means than the order of inheritance. Could the war be brought to an end, Mary might live long enough to give her husband an opportunity of attempting violence; but of peace there was no immediate prospect, and it remained for the present to make the most of Elizabeth. Setting her marriage aside, it was doubtful whether the people would permit her longer confinement after the queen's disappointment; and, willingly or unwillingly, Mary must be forced to receive her at court again.

The princess was still at Woodstock, where she had remained for a year, under the harsh surveillance of Sir Henry Bedingfield. Lord William Howard's visit may have consoled her with the knowledge that she was not forgotten by the n.o.bility; but her health had suffered from her long imprisonment, and the first symptom of an approaching change in her position was the appearance of the queen's physician to take charge of her.

A last effort was made to betray her into an acknowledgment of guilt. "A secret friend" entreated her to "submit herself to the queen's mercy." Elizabeth saw the snare. She would not ask for mercy, she said, where she had committed no offence; if she was guilty, she desired justice, not mercy; and she knew well she would have found none, could evidence have been produced against her: but she thanked G.o.d she was in no danger of being proved guilty; she wished she was as safe from secret enemies.

But the plots for despatching her, if they had ever existed, were laid aside; she was informed that her presence was required at Hampton Court. The rumour of her intended release spread abroad, and sixty gentlemen, who had once belonged to her suite, met her on the way at Colebrook, in the hope that they might return to attendance upon her; but their coming was premature; she was still treated as a prisoner, and they were ordered off in the queen's name.

On her arrival at Hampton Court, however, the princess felt that she had recovered her freedom. She was received by Lord William Howard. The courtiers hurried to her with their congratulations, and Howard dared and provoked the resentment of the king and queen by making them kneel and kiss her hand.[481] Mary could not bring herself at first to endure an interview. The Bishop of Winchester came to her on the queen's behalf, to repeat the advice which had been given to her at Woodstock, and to promise pardon if she would ask for it.

Elizabeth had been resolute when she was alone and friendless, she was not more yielding now. She repeated that she had committed no offence, and therefore required no forgiveness; she had rather lie in prison all her life than confess when there was nothing to be confessed.

The answer was carried to Mary, and the day after the bishop came again. "The queen marvelled," he said, "that she would so stoutly stand to her innocence;" if she called herself innocent, she implied that she had been "unjustly imprisoned;" if she expected her liberty "she must tell another tale."

But the causes which had compelled the court to send for her, forbade them equally to persist in an impotent persecution. They had desired only to tempt her into admissions which they could plead in justification for past or future severities. They had failed, and they gave way.

A week later, on an evening in the beginning of July, Lady Clarence, Mary's favourite attendant, brought a message, that the queen was expecting her sister in her room. The princess was led across the garden in the dusk, and introduced by a back staircase into the royal apartments. Almost two years had elapsed since the sisters had last met, when Mary hid the hatred which was in her heart behind a veil of kindness. There was no improvement of feeling, but the necessity of circ.u.mstances compelled the form of reconciliation.

Elizabeth dropped on her knees. "G.o.d preserve your majesty," she said; "you will find me as true a subject to your majesty as any; whatever has been reported of me, you shall not find it otherwise."

"You will not confess," the queen said; "you stand to your truth: I pray G.o.d it may so fall out."

"If it does not," said Elizabeth, "I desire neither favour nor pardon at your hands."

"Well," Mary bitterly answered, "you persevere in your truth stiffly; belike you will not confess that you have been wrongly punished?"

"I must not say so, your majesty," Elizabeth replied.

"Belike you will to others?" said the queen.

"No, please your majesty," answered the princess. "I have borne the burden, and I must bear it. I pray your majesty to have a good opinion of me, and to think me your true subject, not only from the beginning but while life lasteth."

The queen did not answer, she muttered only in Spanish, "Sabe Dios," "G.o.d knows," and Elizabeth withdrew.[482]

It was said that, during the interview, Philip was concealed behind a curtain, anxious for a sight of the captive damsel whose favour with the people was such a perplexity to him.

At this time, Elizabeth was beautiful; her haughty features were softened by misfortune; and as it is certain that Philip, when he left England, gave special directions for her good treatment, so it is possible that he may have envied the fortune which he intended for the Prince of Savoy; and the scheme which he afterwards attempted to execute, of making her his own wife on the queen's death, may have then suggested itself to him as a solution of the English difficulty. The magnificent girl, who was already the idol of the country, must have presented an emphatic contrast with the lean, childless, haggard, forlorn Mary; and he may easily have allowed his fancy to play with a pleasant temptation. If it was so, Philip was far too careless of the queen's feelings to conceal his own. If it was not so, the queen's haunting consciousness of her unattractiveness must have been aggravated by the disappointment of her hopes, and she may have tortured herself with jealousy and suspicion.

At all events, Mary could not overcome her aversion. Elizabeth was set at liberty, but she was not allowed to remain at the court. She returned to Ashridge, to be pursued, even there, with petty annoyances. Her first step when she was again at home was to send for her friend Mrs. Ashley; the queen instantly committed Mrs. Ashley to the Fleet, and sent three other officers of her sister's household to the Tower; while a number of gentlemen suspected of being her adherents, who had remained in London beyond their usual time of leaving for the country, were ordered imperiously to their estates.[483]

But neither impatience nor violence could conceal the fatal change which had pa.s.sed over Mary's prospects. Not till the end of July could she part finally from her hopes. Then, at last, the glittering dream was lost for the waking truth; then at once from the imagination of herself as the virgin bride who was to bear a child for the recovery of a lost world, she was precipitated into the poor certainty that she was a blighted and a dying woman. Sorrow was heaped on sorrow; Philip would stay with her no longer. His presence was required on the continent, where his father was about to antic.i.p.ate the death which he knew to be near, and, after forty years of battling with the stormy waters, to collect himself for the last great change in the calm of a monastery in Spain.

It was no new intention. For years the emperor had been in the habit of s.n.a.t.c.hing intervals of retreat; for years he had made up his mind to relinquish at some time the labours of life before relinquishing life itself. The vanities of sovereignty had never any particular charm for Charles V.; he was not a man who cared "to monarchise and kill with looks," or who could feel a pang at parting with the bauble of a crown; and when the wise world cried out in their surprise, and strained their fancies for the cause of conduct which seemed so strange to them, they forgot that princes who reign to labour, grow weary like the peasant of the burden of daily toil.

Many influences combined to induce Charles to delay no longer in putting his resolution in effect.

The Cortes were growing impatient at the prolonged absence both of himself and Philip, and the presence of the emperor, although in retirement, would give pleasure to the Spanish people. His health was so shattered, that each winter had been long expected to be his last; and although he would not flinch from work as long as he was required at his post, there was nothing to detain Philip any more in England, unless, or until, the succession could be placed on another footing. To continue there the husband of a childless queen, with authority limited to a form, and with no recognised interest beyond the term of his wife's life, was no becoming position for the heir of the throne of Spain, of Naples, the Indies, and the Low Countries.

Philip was therefore now going. He concealed his intention till it was betrayed by the departure of one Spanish n.o.bleman after another. The queen became nervous and agitated, and at last he was forced to avow part of the truth. He told her that his father wanted to see him, but that his absence would not be extended beyond a fortnight or three weeks; she should go with him to Dover, and, if she desired, she could wait there for his return.[484] Her consent was obtained by the mild deceit, and it was considered afterwards that the journey to Dover might be too much for her, and the parting might take place at Greenwich.

On the 3rd of August, the king and queen removed for a few days from Hampton Court to Oatlands; on the way Mary received consolation from a poor man who met her on crutches, and was cured of his lameness by looking on her.[485]

On the 26th, the royal party came down the river in their barge, attended by the legate; they dined at Westminster on their way to Greenwich, and as rumour had said that Mary was dead, she was carried through the city in an open litter, with the king and the cardinal at her side. To please Philip, or to please the people, Elizabeth was invited to the court before the king's departure; but she was sent by water to prevent a demonstration, while the archers of the guard who attended on the queen, were in corslet and morion.[486]

On the 28th, Philip went. Parliament was to sit again in October. It would then be seen whether anything more could be done about the succession. On the consent or refusal of the legislature his future measures would depend. To the queen he left particular instructions, which he afterwards repeated in writing, to show favour to Elizabeth; and doubting how far he could rely upon Mary, he gave a similar charge to such of his own suite as he left behind him.[487] Could he obtain it, he would take the princess's crown for himself; should he fail, he might marry her; or should this too be impossible, he would win her grat.i.tude, and support her t.i.tle against the dangerous compet.i.tion of the Queen of Scots and Dauphiness of France.

On these terms the pair who had been brought together with so much difficulty separated after a little more than a year. The cardinal composed a pa.s.sionate prayer for the queen's use during her husband's absence.[488] It is to be hoped that she was spared the sight of a packet of letters soon after intercepted by the French, in which her husband and her husband's countrymen expressed their opinions of the marriage and its consequences.[489] The truth, however, became known in England, although in a form under which the queen could turn from it as a calumny.

Before the meeting of parliament, a letter was published, addressed to the Lords of the Council, by a certain John Bradford.[490] The writer accounted for his knowledge of the secrets which he had to tell, by saying that he had lived in the household of one of the Spanish n.o.blemen who were in attendance on Philip; that he had learnt the language unknown to his master, and had thus overheard unguarded conversations. He had read letters addressed to Philip, and letters written by him and by his confidential friends; and he was able to say, as a thing heard with his own ears, and seen with his own eyes, that the "Spaniards minded nothing less than the subversion of the English commonwealth." In fact, he repeated the rumours of the summer, only more circ.u.mstantially, and with fuller details. Under pretence of improving the fortifications, Philip intended to obtain command of the princ.i.p.al harbours and ports; he would lay cannon on the land side, and gradually bring in Spanish troops, the queen playing into his hands; and as soon as peace could be made with France, he would have the command of the fleet and the sea, and could do what he pleased.[491]

"I saw," the writer continued, "letters sent from the emperor, wherein was contained these privities,-that the king should make his excuse to the queen that he would go to see his father in Flanders, and that immediately he would return-seeing the good simple queen is so jealous over my son. (I term it," said Bradford, "as the letter doth.") "We," said the emperor, "shall make her agree unto all our requests before his return, or else keep him exercised in our affairs till we may prevail with the council, who, doubtless, will be won with fair promises and great gifts, politicly placed in time." "In other letters I have read the cause disputed, that the queen is bound by the laws of G.o.d to endue her husband in all her goods and possessions, so far as in her lieth; and they think she will do it indeed to the uttermost of her power. No man can think evil of the queen, though she be somewhat moved when such things are beaten into her head with gentlemen; but whether the crown belongs to the queen or the realm, the Spaniards know not, nor care not, though the queen, to her d.a.m.nation, disherit the right heir apparent, or break her father's entail, made by the whole consent of the realm, which neither she nor the realm can justly alter."[492]

Struggle as the queen might against such a representation of her husband's feelings towards her, it was true that he had left her with a promise to return; and the weeks went, and he did not come, and no longer spoke of coming. The abdication of the emperor would keep him from her, at least, till the end of the winter. And news came soon which was harder still to bear; news, that he, whom she had been taught to regard as made in the image of our Saviour,[493] was unfaithful to his marriage vows,[494] Bradford had spoken generally of the king's vulgar amours; other accounts convinced her too surely that he was consoling himself for his long purgatory in England, by miscellaneous licentiousness. Philip was gross alike in all his appet.i.tes; bacon fat was the favourite food with which he gorged himself to illness;[495] his intrigues were on the same level of indelicacy, and his unhappy wife was forced to know that he preferred the society of abandoned women of the lowest cla.s.s to hers.

The French amba.s.sador describes her as distracted with wretchedness, speaking to no one except the legate. The legate was her only comfort; the legate and the thing which she called religion.

Deep in the hearts of both queen and cardinal lay the conviction that if she would please G.o.d, she must avoid the sin of Saul. Saul had spared the Amalekites, and G.o.d had turned his face from him. G.o.d had greater enemies in England than the Amalekites. Historians have affected to exonerate Pole from the crime of the Marian persecution; although, without the legate's sanction, not a bishop in England could have raised a finger, not a bishop's court could have been opened to try a single heretic. If not with Pole, with whom did the guilt rest? Gardiner was jointly responsible for the commencement, but after the first executions, Gardiner interfered no further; he died, and the b.l.o.o.d.y scenes continued. Philip's confessor protested; Philip himself left the country; Renard and Charles were never weary of advising moderation, except towards those who were politically dangerous. Bonner was an instrument whose zeal more than once required the goad; and Mary herself, when she came to the throne, was so little cruel, that she would have spared even Northumberland himself. When the persecution a.s.sumed its ferocious aspect, she was exclusively under the direction of the dreamer who believed that he was born for England's regeneration. All evidence concurs to show that, after Philip's departure, Cardinal Pole was the single adviser on whom Mary relied. Is it to be supposed that, in the horrible crusade which thenceforward was the business of her life, the papal legate, the sovereign director of the ecclesiastical administration of the realm, was not consulted, or, if consulted, that he refused his sanction? But it is not a question of conjecture or probability. From the legate came the first edict for the episcopal inquisition; under the legate every bishop held his judicial commission; while, if Smithfield is excepted, the most frightful scenes in the entire frightful period were witnessed under the shadow of his own metropolitan cathedral. His apologists have thrown the blame on his archdeacon and his suffragan: the guilt is not with the instrument, but with the hand which holds it. An admiring biographer[496] has a.s.serted that the cruelties at Canterbury preceded the cardinal's consecration as archbishop, and the biographer has been copied by Dr. Lingard. The historian and his authority have exceeded the limits of permitted theological misrepresentation. The administration of the see belonged to Pole as much before his consecration as after it; but it will be seen that eighteen men and women perished at the stake in the town of Canterbury alone,-besides those who were put to death in other parts of the diocese-and five were starved to death in the gaol there-after the legate's installation. He was not cruel; but he believed that, in the catalogue of human iniquities, there were none greater than the denial of the Roman Catholic Faith, or the rejection of the Roman bishop's supremacy; and that he himself was chosen by Providence for the re-establishment of both. Mary was driven to madness by the disappointment of the grotesque imaginations with which he had inflated her; and where two such persons were invested by the circ.u.mstances of the time with irresponsible power, there is no occasion to look further for the explanation of the dreadful events of the three ensuing years.

The victims of the summer were chiefly undistinguished persons: Cardmaker and Bradford alone were in any way celebrated; and the greater prisoners, the three bishops at Oxford, the court had paused upon-not from mercy-their deaths had been long determined on; but Philip, perhaps, was tender of his person; their execution might occasion disturbances; and he and his suite might be the first objects on which the popular indignation might expend itself. Philip, however, had placed the sea between himself and danger, and if this was the cause of the hesitation, the work could now go forward.

A commission was appointed by Pole in September, consisting of Brookes, Bishop of Gloucester, Holyman, Bishop of Bristol, and White, Bishop of Lincoln, to try Cranmer, Ridley, and Latimer, for obstinate heresy. The first trial had been irregular; the country was then unreconciled. The sentence which had been pa.s.sed therefore was treated as non-existent, and the tedious forms of the papacy continued still to throw a shield round the archbishop.

On Sat.u.r.day, the 7th of September,[497] the commissioners took their places under the altar of St. Mary's Church, at Oxford. The Bishop of Gloucester sat as president, Doctors Story and Martin appeared as proctors for the queen, and Cranmer was brought in under the custody of the city guard, in a black gown and leaning on a stick.

"Thomas, Archbishop of Canterbury," cried an officer of the court, "appear here, and make answer to that which shall be laid to thy charge; that is to say, for blasphemy, incontinency, and heresy; make answer to the Bishop of Gloucester, representing his holiness the pope."

The archbishop approached the bar, bent his head and uncovered to Story and Martin, who were present in behalf of the crown, then drew himself up, put on his cap again, and stood fronting Brookes. "My lord," he said, "I mean no contempt to your person, which I could have honoured as well as any of the others; but I have sworn never to admit the authority of the Bishop of Rome in England, and I must keep my oath."

The president remonstrated, but without effect, and then proceeded to address the archbishop, who remained covered:[498]-

"My lord, we are come hither at this present to you, not intruding ourselves by our own authority, but sent by commission, as you know, by the pope's holiness partly; partly from the king's and queen's most excellent majesties; not utterly to your discomfort, but rather to your comfort if you will yourself. For we are come not to judge you immediately, but to put you in remembrance of that which you have been partly judged of before, and shall be thoroughly judged of ere long.