w%i^: CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY DA 317.8:P6L47"""''''>' '•"'"^ The original of tiiis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924027958028 KEGINALD CARDINAL POLE. KEGINALD POLE CARDINAL ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY sen J|i^t0rical ^ftrtcft WITH AN INTRODUCTORY PROLOGUE AND PRACTICAL EPILOGUE FREDERICK GEORGE LEE, D.D. / '', I ' '^ ',. ;ipit|) an ttUffn ©orttait of Cartinal IPole NEW YORK: G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS LONDON: JOHN C. NIMMO MDCCCLXXXVm. CHISWICK PRESS :—C. WHITTINGHAM AND CO., TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE. IS HUMBLY DEDICATED To His Gbace the Eight Hon. akd And to His Eminence the Most Most Reveebnd Eevekend Loed (Edtoari), l^enrp CDtoarti, ILorlr arcpisfiop of ffiantcriurg, CarJiinal=awI)tifiSDpDf fflaamminBttr, The respected occupiers of two Archiepiscopal Sees, founded by like Authority; with the fervent hope that, in the face of advancing Infidelity, Each, emulating the charitable labours of CarDinal Pole, whom both claim as their Predecessor, may be enabled by Divine grace to plan and carry out, once again, The Coepobate Reunion or the Ohuech or England "WITH THE ChUEOH UnIVEKSAL, for the peace and benediction of their countrymen, for the joy of Angels and Saints, and for the greater Honour and Glory of God. " I heartily join in this prayer for Christian Unity, and gladly would surrender my life for such a consummation If all Christian sects were united with the centre of Unity, then the scattered hosts of Christendom would form an army which Atheism and Infidelity could not long withstand. Then, indeed, all could exclaim, ' How beautiful are thy tabernacles, O Jacob, and thy tents, Israel.' Let us pray that the day may be hastened when religious dissensions will cease ; when all Christians will advance with united front, under one common Leader, to plant the Cross in every region, and win new king- doms to Jesus Christ."— James, Cabdinal Gibbons. TABLE OF CONTENTS. PAGE Etched Pobtr.ut op Cabdinal Pole ii Title-page iii Dedication v Table op Contents vii Peologue ix Chaptek I. Eeginald Pole, his Personal History 1 Chapter II. Accession op Queen IMary and her Eeign 35 Chapter III. Pole's Policy por his Country duly Planned 79 Chapter IV. Pole's Policy poe his Country duly Eppected .... 121 Chapter V. Death op the Queen and the Cardinal-Aechbishop oue Nation's Loss 173 Practical Epilogue 263 General Index 305 h " Meek man — too meek — the brother of the king, With brow low-bent, and onward-sweeping hand, Great words, world-famed ' Remember thine account ! The Lord's Apostles are the salt of Earth ; Let salt not lose its savour ! Flail and fan Are given thee. Purge thou well thy threshing-floor ! Eepel the tyrant ; hurl the hireling forth ; That so from thy true priests true hearts may learn True Faith, true love, and nothing but the Truth.' " AUBEEY BE VeEE. PEOLOGUE. 1^ n " Although, in an age of doubt and selfishness, it is highly improbable that any man who stands forward to destroy a false tradition, and to repair the breaches of the Past in the things which concern our peace will obtain attention from many ; yet it cannot be denied that the policy of the English Corporate- Eeunionists is one in which Faith, Hope and Charity already play their proper part, and the foresight and wisdom of which policy will abundantly commend itself to grateful and generoiis generations yet unborn." — Caelo di Conti (in Phil Annals). PROLOGUE. •^^^^HE History of the Past is chiefly im- portant, and more specially interesting, as I have elsewhere remarked,^ because it enables us to learn its due lessons, and to regard its pregnant teaching, in reference to the Present. That " History repeats itself," has become a mere proverbial platitude. Scarcely any study, consequently, can be more practical or more valuable. Now, in no age of EngUsh history did an event ever take place of greater moment to our Nation than that here under consideration. The people of England, by God's favour and through Cardinal ^ " King Edward the Sixth : Supreme Head," an Historical Sketch. Introduction, p. 1. London: 1886. xn PROLOGUE. Pole's instrumentality, were once again restored to visible communion with the centre of Christian life, acknowledging the due and ancient authority of the Chief Pastor of Christendom ; and this with the full assent of the English Monarch and the Estates of the Realm, and amid the sincere rejoic- ings of every class of the people. In the text of this volume Cardinal Pole's work in question is duly described. Here, in this Pro-* logue, I take leave to refer to a few historical events subsequent to that great work, which have largely helped to bring about the present grave state of ecclesiastical isolation and political uncer- tainty in which we live- — the practical evils of which demand, both from churchmen and states- men, the only prompt and efficient remedy at hand. For statesmen who ignore the general power and influence of the Christian Religion, and the special blessings which the Catholic Church has conferred on our nation,* appear sadly wanting, even in worldly wisdom. '' As regards spiritual blessings and Magna Oharta, the late Dr. Baron wrote thus : " We owe to the Church of Kome of bygone days an unspeakable debt of gratitude, and much honour, for sending us that treasure of Christianity which, besides all spiritual blessing, has been the key-stone of English freedom and the foundation of English greatness."- — Anglo-Saxon Witness on Four Alleged Beqwisites for Holy Communion, Fasting, Wa,ter, Altar -Lights, and Incense, by Eev. John Baron, M.A. P. 19. London : Eivingtous, 1869. PROLOGUE. Xlll At the same time some notes are made of occur- rences and events taking place before our eyes, as still further indicating the need of that remedy, and to point the moral of the book. Mr. Anderdon, a literary layman of high character and good repute, wrote thus of the Great Rebellion and its blessings, — one direct, reasonable, and natural outcome of the Tudor changes : — " The proposed jus divinum of the Presbyterians was a most intolerant form of church government, which soon afterwards filled the land with violence, rapine, and despotism, from one end to the other, until all ranks groaned under the grievous burthen." ' And asfain : — o " The Rebellion, and the death of the King, had entailed upon all classes their own heaviest punishment in a series of national outrages, resulting from the iron bondage of a military despotism. A bold impiety had taken from the people all love of spiritual things ; the Church being overthrown, they were given up alternately to profaueness and hypocrisy, and forced to perjure themselves with successive oaths, engagements, and covenants, under pretext of exalting the Gospel and' promoting liberty." ^ Rebellion, as is thus manifest, however much some may deny or dislike the fact, is found to be the direct outcome of the policy of Protestants and negation-mongers. Rebellion may be either moral or physical, or both in one. Not all rebels, how- ever, are Protestants, nor are all Protestants active ^ " Life of Bishop Ken," by a Layman. Part I. pp. 11, 12. London : 1854. 2 Ibid, pp. 45, 46. XIV PROLOGUE. rebels. But the principles of Protestantism, both in religion and politics, directly incite to rebellion, as in the long run, and in morals, they unques- tionably tend towards, and lead up to, individualism and Atheism. Protestant jurists and politicians, with painful labour, have again and again appealed from Christian principles and constituted law to brute power and physical force. In England and Scotland, lawful Christian Authority being repu- diated, this was done by Thomas Cromwell, Henry VIII., Rich the lawyer, Knox the preacher, Cover- dale the traitor, and others, at the so-called " Re- formation." ^ The same principle, further developed, was applied in England, during the Great Rebellion, and at the Revolution of 1688. And so effectively have the facts of those three momentous eras been distorted — distorted with intention and success, while the vilest men, with lying lips, strong wills, 1 Men rejected the chief ecclesiastical Authority in the world, the bishop of bishops, pretending, at the same time, to honour in a special manner that Divine Master Who had sent forth apostles and bishops to guide the Church and teach the world. Now, however, men, in their blind independence, have come to reject the authority of Christ Himself, and of the Eternal Father. From such negation-mongers only disorganization, disruption, and disorder have followed. Male and female babblers are con- sequently found who, at last, deay the very existence of God, and declare that the " Sovereign People are Supreme," the source of all life, authority, and power, maintaining that man- kind is God. As a consequence some fools adopt man in his totality — a somewhat bulky _body, still imperfect — as the only proper object of worship. PROLOGUE. XV and powerful battalions, have been made popular heroes — that the falsest and most perverted notions of English history are commonly current and popular. All such examples of rebellion have tended to make Christian principles disregarded and Force worshipped. In modern times, in France, Italy, Greece, Egypt, Ireland, and other States, the same disastrous principle has been adopted and applied — to the weakening of Christian Law and Social Order, and to the danger of individual liberty. In England the Ancient Faith had been brought hither by St. Augustine, and held by Bede and Lanfranc, Anselm, Edmund of Abingdon, and Wayneflete. The universality of the New Birth, the pure offering everywhere made,^ were due and ' The Eucharistic Sacrifice, and the sacred duty of all the baptized to be present at its oflFering on all Sundays and holidays of obligation, are not likely to be restored until Authority steps in with its advice and monition on the restoration of Corporate Eeunion. The Christian Sacrifice, writes an author of great power, " is the great centre of Catholic worship. Every other devotion gathers up into it, as to their common focus. The materia] church, with its order, ornaments, and furniture, enshrines it. The sacred vestments of the priest, the altar, crucifix, candles, incense, flowers, music, are its sensible expressions. The laws and commandments of Holy Church maintain its para- mount dignity. It is the great reservoir of graces ; the great act in which heaven and earth unite, and in which the stupendous mystery of the Incarnation is, after a sort, perpetuated in this world of ours. It spans the visible universe by its power, unlocks the purgatorial prison, arrests the howling powers of XVI PROLOGUE. daily realities. The old order of things was only- cast out, under the Tudors, with art, villainy, and hypocrisy, by a series of base and execrable laws, in the face of the wish and will of all but a fraction of the clergy, and of all good Christian people. The true history of these laws, and what they elFected, is becoming somewhat more accurately and better known. The position of the adherents of the Old Religion at the close of the seventeenth century, is thus described by the late Lord Macaulay. I must, however, remind the reader that the sentiments of this readable writer are tinctured throughout with nauseous Whiggery, one of the most despicable forms of political misbelief and error : — " The celebration of the Roman Catholic worship had long been prohibited by Act of Parliament. During several genera- tions no Roman Catholic clergyman had dared to exhibit himself in any public place with the badge of his office. Against the regular clergy and against the restless and subtle Jesuits by name had been enacted a succession of rigorous statutes. Every Jesuit who set foot in this country was liable to be hanged, drawn, and quartered. A reward was offered for his detection. He was not allowed to take advantage of the general rule that men are not bound to criminate themselves. Whoever was suspected of being a Jesuit might be interrogated, and, if he refused to answer, might be sent to prison for life." ' evil in the midst of their unholy work, and adds fresh light to the aureola of the Saints. Without it there is no altar, no priest- hood, no church, no Christian worship." — Peace through the Truth, by Rev. T. Harper, S.J., vol. i. pp. 87, 88. London : 1866. 1 "History of England," by Thomas Babington Macaulay, vol. ii. p. 99. London : 1849. PEOLOGUE. XVlt I do not stay to chronicle that series of histori- cal events — labours, trials, and struggles — which culminated in Roman Catholic Emancipation and the restoration of the Catholic Hierarchy, for which all Christian upholders of Justice and Truth will be heartily thankful; but I quote the following^ only, I fear, too accurately describing the state of Canterbury Cathedral— where, as Primate and Legate, Cardinal Pole once ruled — after it had lain practically desolate under Cranmer and his. successors for more than two centuries and a half: — " With my thoughts and feelings thus occupied, I arrived at Canterbury [a.d. 1826], a town filled with venerable remains and awful recollections. I stopped, and, heedless of all things else,, almost rushed to view your Cathedral — the place in England wher^ Christ was first efTeotually announced, where His cross was first erected, where miracles and the virtues of His saints, still more miraculous than their works, first proclaimed that He was God, and that Kent and England were united to His empire. " But lo ! I beheld, in the place I so much longed to see, an empty cloister and a mouldering pile, having the appearance of what was once the 'house of prayer' and the temple of the Most High, but which now might bear upon its porch the inscription which Paul described at Athens, ' To the Unknown God.' It is- a wide and spacious waste, cold and untenanted. Its pillars were raised aloft, its arches were seated in strength, its spire sought the heavens — but these were works of former days ; it now had no altar, no sacrifice, no priesthood ; its aisles were silent as the monuments of the sainted prelates over whom they seemed to bend and weep ; and the only remaining symbol of Christianity not yet extinct which I discovered was a chapel in the cloister, where the verger, who accompanied me for hire, observed that ' service was at certain times performed.' " To detail the thoughts which crowded on my mind — to XVlll PROLOGUE. convey to paper the emotions which swelled my breast, would not be possible ; but I cried out involuntarily, ' My God ! and are these the fruits of the Eeformation ? Is this the ground which Augustine sanctified and Alfred honoured? Is this the metropolitan see of England — the Cathedral of Canterbury — the once renowned seminary of saints and martyrs — the glory of Kent ? Where is the Bishop who should here reside, and spread about him benedictions ? Where are the canons and the digni- taries, the priests and the altars, the vestments and the ministers, the incense, the lights, the glory which bespeak the Majesty and announce the Presence of Almighty God? But, above all, where is the loud song or the secret canticle of praise, the deep and awful murmur of the crowd, or the silent whisper of retirement and devotion ? Are all these fled from Thy temple, and is it no longer Thy delight, God, to be with the children of men p ' " But I stopped the current of these reflections, and proceeded to inquire as to the state of religion amongst you ; and I came to the conclusion that you, men of Kent, with all those qualities which ennoble you — with an unbounded zeal for the divine honour, a thirst for knowledge not to be assuaged, a disposition to piety too strong to yield to any obstacle — that with a magna- nimity proportioned to every sacrifice, and a candour worthy of your ancient fame, you had, like the rest of your countrymen, become the victims of those frauds and violences by which the religion first preached to you, and which saved your sainted forefathers, was taken away, and the desolation exemplified in your cathedral imposed upon you under the fictitious title of ' a reformed faith.' " Even upon that day, and in the midst of the once-hallowed walls of your cathedral, and upon the stone where the sainted Becket shed his blood, I offered up to God my most humble prayer that He would again look upon you with an eye of mercy, and send down His light and His truth, whereby to dispel the errors and darkness in which you have been so long involved ; that He would not remember the iniquities of your former guides and rulers, nor avenge upon you the sins of other men." ' ' " Life and Times of Dr. Doyle " (Lord Bishop of Kildare and Leighlin). By W. J. Fitzpatrick. In two vols. Vol. II., pp. 89-90. London : 1861. PROLOGUE. XIX There can be little doubt that the restoration of territorial jurisdiction for prelates of the Old Faith, but with an arrangement of perfectly new dioceses, in 1850, -was made in the hope that Corporate Re- union might subsequently follow. Such an obvious motive lies on the face of the act.^ Anyhow, the existence of thirteen or fourteen new cathedrals in certain modern cities of England Avas the source of great satisfaction to all true Christians ; while the services of those cathedrals, — their order, their open doors, the lapsed traditions concerning worship which they make living realities, and the unfailing blessings they impart, — have most efficiently taught members of the Established Church how adequately to use those old cathedrals they themselves still possess. The lesson — God be thanked ! — is being duly learnt. Witness, amongst others, St. Paul's, ' The ancient Dioceses of England, even from a Eoman Catholic standing-point, have never been formally suppressed. Theological students of certain Colleges of Rome were described as belonging to the old dioceses so late as 1660. It is true that these dioceses were not filled by the Pope when the English prelates, who dissented from the Tudor changes, Goldwell, White, Watson, and Peyto, or Peto, died. It is equally true that when the E. C. hierarchy was made territorial, the old English sees were not taken. It may be presumed, therefore, that they were certainly known to exist. In the future, when, by God's mercy, Corporate Reunion takes place, the archiepisoopal sees may fittingly be Canterbury, York, Westminster, and Caerleon or Menevia, with the existing Anglican and Roman suffragans territorially apportioned to each. — See "His tory of the Restoration of the Catholic Hierarchy in England." By Bishop UUathorne. Pp. 68-62. London : 1871. :XX PROLOGUE. Lincoln, Ely, Litchfield, Worcester, and Salisbury.' Of course, the more accurately and perfectly this necessary lesson is learnt, and the more faithfully the old traditions are everywhere restored, the better it will be for our beloved country, which in religion appears in such great danger of drifting from its old Christian moorings. Those who have eyes to see perceive all too -clearly, and perceive with sincere regret, that as a teaching body the Established Church — presumed ■at least to teach the Three Creeds — is slowly but surely renouncing its function. Just as a law which has been purposely made indefinite, carries with it, as to observance and obedience, but slender •obligations ; so a national communion which fails to teach the Nation (tolerating anything and every- thing in the way of opinion and sentiment at variance with the Faith), must in the long run forfeit the Nation's confidence and be looked upon first with decreasing interest, and finally with well- merited contempt. The " Church of the Reforma- tion," ^ as we all know, was created and set up ^ The future alternative of Corporate Reunioa for those sacred iDuildings will be the comprehensiveness of agnostics and heretics. Under the latter anti- Christian policy, our restored •Cathedrals and parish Churches may become lounging-plaoes, lecture-halls, or local-museums — whatsoever, in fact, the votes ■of their locality may determine. ^ " Laity and Clergy, learned and unlearned, all ages, sects, and ■degrees of men, women, and children of whole Christendom (a PROLOGUE. XXI because, as the Homilies averred, all Christendom had for no less than eight hundred years been sunk in hopeless idolatry.* This was at least a positive and incisive dogma, however fantastic in itself and disastrous in its nature and consequences, and was openly taught amongst others by Cranmer, Bale, and Hooper. Now, however, that no existing *' school of thought " — neither the Platitudinarian, the Latitudinarian, nor the Attitudinarian — is wild enough to accept this impressive dogma; and the wickednesses, falsehoods, and disasters of the Tudor era have been duly exposed to view, many persons are slowly coming to the rational and wise con- clusion that, as the Catholic Religion is certainly the most ancient and venerable, so also it is the most useful ; and is likely to be not only the most lasting, but also the only sure check upon, and terrible and most dreadfal thiug to think) have been at once ■drowned in abominable idolatry ; of all other vices most detested ■of God, and most damnable to man, and that by the space of eight hundred years and more." — Homilies Appointed to he Bead in Churches, p. 201. Oxford : 1816. '■ " Our Church is the Church of the Reformation, founded under Edward VI., by Cranmer, and other men of high scriptural attainments." — Eev. J. C. Eyle, now Protestant Bishop of Liver- pool. The late Bishop Short, of St. Asaph, however, perhaps more accurately placed its foundation about twenty years earlier : " The existence of the Church of England as a distinct body and lier final separation from Eome may be dated from the period of -the Divorce." — History of the Church of England, by T. V. Short, D.D., Bishop of St. Asaph. P. 44. XXll PROLOGUE. triumphant opponent to the gathering forces of heresy, schism, atheism, and chaos combined. In truth, the only important alternative to Cor- porate Reunion, the reunion of the nation as a body, such as Pole effected, is an agreement to allow doctrine^ to lapse — not to abolish one Creed, as Dean Stanley and Archbishop Tait proposed, but all. This policy is rapidly and actually be- coming popular, having been adopted by a few men who accurately know their own minds, and are apparently preparing to construct the late Archbishop Tait's too-nebulous institution, " The Church of the Future." ^ They have more followers ^ " Doctrine can be no foundation for church unity." — Prom a Sermon by Canon Wilberforce at St. James's Church, Toronto, reported in the " Dominion Churchman " ; while, at a meeting in England, Archdeacon Farrar " utterly repudiated the idea of heresy being made the ground of exclusion from the Church." — Congregational Board of London, " Guardian," Dec. 1st, 1886, p. 1790. The Archdeacon seems to have been indebted to Mr. Voysey, who thus wrote ; — " The God who loves only a chosen few, is, as far as other men are concerned, simply an enemy. The Qod who requires you to procure a ticket from some church he/ore you can enter Heaven, is an oiject of deserved distrust and disliJce. The God who can save all men from their unrighteous- ness, and yet hereafter will not do so, is one with whom to dwell would be everlasting torment. The God who would save all but cannot, is no Almighty God at all. And the God who would only rescue from ruin at the price of another's suffering, is the worst of all false gods, inasmuch as this is the lowest abasement below the common level of human goodness yet reached." — The Sling and the Stone, New Series, by Charles Voysey, B. A. Part X. p. 23. London : Triibner and Co. ^ Of this " Church of the Future " and its living poet. Arch- PROLOGUE. XXIU than some of us may be ready to allow. Their aims, apparent enough, need not be characterized. The hopeless impracticability of so-called " Home Reunion" — ^.e., an agreement between the Estab- lished Church and the sects to allow all contentious subjects to become open questions, to be accepted or rejected as men please — has been abundantly shown in the following: — " To begin with, we must not teach that our Saviour Jesus Christ is God and man, to be worshipped and prayed to, and trusted in, for tlie Unitarians do not believe it. Nor must we deacon Farrar tlius spoke in Gower Street at the opening Session of the Browning Society for 1886-87 : — " Moreover, a man could only receive as much as he could hold, and if we could not receive what Browning gave us, the obscurity might be in ourselves and not in the poet. Browning was in the most marked degree a deeply religious poet, and the ' Church of the Future' would not need to seek her poet. She would find him ready and waiting for her theology to grow up to his poetrj'. His religion, like his philosoph}', was a religion of charity, tolerance, and love, and to him the essence of all religion was to believe in God and to live our lives as in His presence." See also Canon Fremantle's recent Essay in the " Fortnightly Review," which has been simply ignored by Anglican Authority, and " The Kernel and the Husk," an anonymous book, said to be from the pen of a clergyman of the Established Church, recently issued by Macmillan and Co. Of such as these the following too true remarks have recently been made: — " It need hardly be observed that the Socinianism of men like Hoadley or Maltby is far outstripped by the funda- mental heterodoxy of many Anglican divines and dignitaries of our own day, whose names will readily occur to the reader, though it might be invidious to specify them." — Symposium on the Heunion of Christendom, by Eev. H. N. Oxenham, in " Homiletical Magazine," p. 72, for August, 1887. XXIV PKOLOGUE. say that His Death upon the Cross has made atonement for our sins, because they do not believe that either. These things must be left as open questions that do not matter much to anybody, whether true or not. Then we must leave out Baptism and the Holy Communion, because all Sacraments are rejected by the Quakers ; and for the same reason we must have no ministry of any kind. We cannot believe in a visible Church as the King- dom of God on earth, because while one party says it consists of all the baptized, another says it means only those true Christians whom God knows will be saved at the last. Even if we leave out the Quakers as too few to count for much, we still must give up Infant Baptism to please the Baptists — and Bishops, Priests, and Deacons to please Dissenters generally. "We must not tell our children that they belong to the family of God, because many think that this cannot be true till they have been converted. We must not call our Lord the Saviour of the world, because the Calvinists say He only died for a chosen few. Nor must we insist upon the necessity of repentance and amendment of life, because some tell us that all the sinner has to do is to believe that he is already saved. It will hardly do to speak much about duty and good works, because some think that faith does not need these things, and faith itself must not be spoken of, be- cause there are three or four different opinions as to what faith really is." ^ Obviously, the work of the Oxford Movement of 1835, fifty-two years after its initiation, remains very incomplete ; the joresent standard of Faith and worship, taken as a whole, being possibly con- siderably lower than that of thirty years ago.^ ' " The Dawn of Day," for July, 1886. P. 88. ^ Several indications of this exist ; one of the most notable being the great increase of that offensive innovation — Evening Communion. In the diocese of London, such profane orgies are perpetrated — at the fag-end of an idle day and on a full stomach — in no less than one-sixth of all the churches. At Cambridge, Evening Communion takes place in one-third of the churches of PEOLOGUE. XXV Where the bishops did not lead, others, without adequate authority — like Dr. Pusey and Mr. Keble, Archdeacon Denison and Dr. MiU — were forced, even against their wills, to become leaders. Thus private individuals, who were learned and estimable clergy of the second order — and not the Established Church in its corporate capacity, and by its actual episcopate — stood in the forefront and gave the word of command for action to a militant ministry of isolated stragglers. Hence so much is continuously seen to have always depended upon personal individual labour, and so little upon the united co-operation of Anglican Authority. For Anglican Authority was either with the Homilies or conveniently and discreetly dumb. Hence, further- more, when a particular and active individual died that town. Seven of the Anglican bishops have directly or in- directly approved of, or sanctioned the profanity — three in their public Charges. What kind of " custodians of the Eucharist " can they be who thus act ? While, as the late Bishop of Arras remarked to the late Bishop Wilberforoe, " What moral argument against the value of English Post-Reformation ordinations could be stronger or more direct? " On the other hand, the Bishop of Chester, a man very learned in English Church History — who knows accurately the source and extent of his own authority — a few years ago, to his honour and credit, put forth the following indirect Injunction to his clergy : — " He was not disposed to set forth Injunctions which would not be obeyed, or to make recom- mendations which would not be adopted, but he would state definitely that any clergyman of that diocese who hereafter introduced Evening Communion into his church would do it in direct opposition to the opinions and wishes of his bishop." — ■ The Guardian, p. 1591, Oct. 27, 1886. XXVI PROLOGUE. or dies, his work too often died or dies with him. Changes involved by such deaths — a setting-up anew of the Abomination of Desolation, for example — often try the faith of thousands. Disaster and Dismay, hand in hand, then stalk through the parish. Every diocese can supply numerous examples of this sad fact ; while, if any distinctively " Church work" (as it is termed) needs to be at any time undertaken, a separate Society, and not the national Communion itself, is planned and constituted in order to get it done. Thus, in all practical matters, the necessity for restoring Catholic Authority — independent of the Nation and universal in its action — runs parallel with tbe ever-pressing need of visible Corporate Reunion. With such actual blessings would like- wise come a restoration of Canon Law,^ as much ' As has been so acutely and ably observed by a competent writer, " The whole question as to the possibility of the existence of Canon Law as a distinct branch of Law turns upon the view taken of the nature of the Church. For if the Church be not a visible society, but only what philosophers would call a subjective association, or the sum total of those who think alike on certain religious matters (who can, therefore, never be known in this world), there can be no such thing as Canon Law, and what is so called is only a subordinate branch of Civil Law, and derives all its force from the Civil authority. The same result follows if the Church be considered as necessarily conterminous with the Nation, after the analogy of the Jewish Nation of old. For a long time it appears that one or the other of these views largely prevailed in England. Hence, in a great measure, the neglect of Canon Law." — Tlie Jllements of Canon Law, by the Rev. 0. J. Eeichel, B.C.L. P. 10. London : 1887. PROLOGUE. XXVU needed by Roman Catholics as by Anglicans. Its loss has led to a state of confusion amongst our- selves which no words can adequately describe. How a restoration of Authority, Visible Unity, and Canon Law have been neglected and passed over may be seen at a glance. For the snarls and snorts of mere Ritualistic Latitudinarianisra are far too frequently heard. But the due consideration of Authority and Reunion can neither be safely postponed nor intentionally ignored. Nought else is of such great importance. Three centuries and a half of division, isolation, and impotence in our beloved country and its Church have been more than the Enemy of Souls — inspiring the original traitors and negation-mono'ers — should have been permitted to have made use of. The dull and decorous " Guardian " appears to be sufficiently awake to Avrite of the present situation as follows : — "Indications are not wanting that what are commonly called ' Church Principles ' are either very loosely held, or are held in combination with opinions and principles that are really incon- sistent with them. Is there not a danger of estimating a man's Church principles by the frequency of his services or the flowers in his church ? Yet, in some cases, these things are to be seen along with practices directly opposed to Church order, and with doctrines which might be taken from the Salvation Army. In other words, much of the so-called ' Churchmanship ' of the day is superficial and unsound, and will compare very ill, we will not say with the severe Tractarianism of the last generation, but with the simple loyalty to the Church which marked such families as the Kebles and the Hooks of still earlier days Men XXVUl PKOLOGCE. who would be injured if the name of ' High Churchmen ' were denied to them, seem to be misled by an ignis fatuiis which deludes them into the belief that the cause of Christian Unity- can be advanced by ignoring the divinely-constituted limits of the Church. Such High Churchmanship as this is dearly pur- chased by surpliced choirs and improved music." ^ The same writer remarked to the same effect, in September, 1887, as follows: — " I agree with you in denouncing the ' school-of-thought gentry,' and in heartily renouncing them and all their works. Some of these men, who, under the influence of scientific specu- lators, having lost their Faith in Christianity, and living solely for the present, speak of our holy religion as recommending a short-sighted ' other-worldliness,' deserve the sincerest repre- hension. In order intentionally to degrade their office, they dress like laymen, to show their contempt not alone for the Catholic priesthood, but for any form of the Christian ministry. They would be severely reprimanded by the bishops did the latter but possess half-an-ounce of authority and any courage, which it is to be feared is not the case ; and would be repudiated by ' High Churchmen,' so-called, did these at heart own a mere modicum of those principles which, with many shortcomings, made Hook, of Leeds, respected in a Yorkshire town, and John Keble a power throughout the whole Church." The practical influence of such men — distinc- tively destructive — is, of course, made use of to weaken the Christian principle. Everywhere they work — mutually admiring each other — with this object in view; and nowhere with greater disaster than in the case of Education. In several cases in the Universities and the Public Schools those ^ " An Ecclesiastical Eetrospect," " Guardian," pp. 932, 933. June 23, 1887. PROLOGUE. XXIX who disbelieve in Christianity have long ago secured the most advantageous positions for indoc- trinating the young, both of the upper and middle classes, with their pestilent negations and anti- Christian " views." Thirty years ago, one of the Founders of the Association for the Promotion of the Unity of Christendom, who so accurately apprehended the then situation, wrote as follows : — " There is another evil that, more perhaps than any other, affects society at the present moment, the direct consequence of our religious differences, and which nothing but a reconciliation of Christians can heal ; I mean the impossibility, on any other principle, of establishing a sound system of National Education. The legislature, indeed, strives to meet the evil, by aiding all to educate in their respective systems of religious belief. The State is wise in doing so, it is the only way of meeting the circumstances of the case at the present moment ; but at the same time it must be acknowledged that such a policy amounts to a profession of practical indifference (on the part of the State) to the distinction between truth and error, and sooner or later the effects of such a policy will be felt iu the growth of scepticism in the minds of public men, and in the general weakening of the religious principle. But even this evil, gigantic as it is, would be annihilated by the restoration of religious Unity." ■"■ Since this was written the policy of the State has undergone a momentous change, while the Education Act of a political Quaker, framed for a once-Christian nation, has been passed and applied. ^ " On the Future Unity of Christendom," by Ambrose Lisle Phillipps, Esq. Pp. 61, 62. London : 1867. XXX PROLOGUE. And let it be noted that since that day, during the last thirty years, as in Eeligion, so in Educa- tion, our national descent has been rapid. Could Julian the Apostate have anticipated the policy of the School Board, short work, humanly speaking, might have been made of Christianity. ]ilvery- where around us now in this nineteenth century — in cities, towns, and villages — this disastrous system is M^orking untold and possibly irreparable mischief. Bishops and clergy ^ who have not the courage to oppose it, with .some adroitness have recently taken to beslaver it with praise. Resis- tance to its triumphant progress (after noble acts of self-denial) is found to be but labour in vain. The huge Board Schools, morally as well as mate- rially, now overtop and overshadow the old parish churches of London and its suburbs, efficiently nullifying their worship and teaching. Such schools are the powerful and efficient instruments for the jDractical propagation of Atheism. More- over, with the aggressively-atheistic publications, some of which are so foul and revolting, both in ' The working men, whom these so earnestly profess to regard and respect, are never told the truth, and seldom taught their duty. It is not by pandering to the vitiated taste of the populace, however, that the clergy will either gain respect or maintain the Established Church. The cynical maxim, Fopulus vuU clecipi, is not true : on the contrary, the working man — indifferent rather than unbelieving — is willing to be taught, if only those who are presumed to have authority will exercise it, and teach him. PHOLOGUE. XXXI text and illustration, that no further reference can be made them, but of which nearly 500,000 are said to be issued week by week in London alone; with the sustained attacks on Christian marriage- laws, and with the aid of the filthy Divorce Court, and its consequences, home teaching of religion is rendered more and more difficult or impossible. For the children of the poor forced into the Board Schools are often underfed at home, and always overworked at school. Therein the State, denying parental rights and obligations, has arbitrarily interfered between parent and child. The family idea is thus broken up, and its home-blessings shattered. Philanthropy — of the earth earthy — then fussily steps in, with its pompous cant and vitiating influence; and so education-with out-God (formally systematized and legalized because of pur unhappy divisions), with all its dire and deadly consequences, is undermining Christian influence, social order, and national religious life. Let the advice given to the Irish clergy by a high-principled and wise Member of Parliament be taken to heart by all : — " Let them train their flocks — the young and the old — to know God, and knowing Him they will obey His commandments. Let them instruct them in the dogmas of their religion, and, undei'standiug, they will fulfil them. Let them explain to them over and over again, the precepts of the Moral Law, and, satu- rated with their divine influences, they will spurn the seductions of the Socialist, the Communist, and the Infidel. Lot them XXXU PEOLOGUE. impress on the minds and hearts of their people that the Deca- logue underlies all ritual, and all church organizations, all civi- lizations, all politics, all governments, and all laws. It corre- sponds in theology with natural facts in physical science. Ignore those facts, and the material structure falls — ' a house built upon the sand.' Ignore the Moral Law, the Ten Commandments, and every religious system falls, the solidarity of the human race perishes, society dissolves, and humanity itself, losing its spiritual element, ceases to be human." ' A knowledge of the present position of the Established Church, its trials and difficulties, on the part of the present Holy Father, and the bearing of Christian Education on the well-being of the State, are apparent in the following impres- sive and benevolent " Encyclical on Education," addressed, in 1885, to the Roman Catholic Bishops of England : — "In your country of Great Britain we know that, besides yourselves, very many of your nation are not a little anxious about Religious Education. They do not in all things agree with us ; nevertheless they see how important, for the sake both of society and of men individually, is the preservation of that Christian wisdom which your forefathers received through St. Augustine, from our predecessor Gregory the Great, which wisdom the violent tempests that came afterwards have not entirely scattered. There are, as we know, at this day many of an excellent disposition of mind who are diligently striving to retain what they can of the Ancient Faith, and who bring forth many and great fruits of charity. As often as we think of this, so often are we deeply moved, for we love with a paternal charity that island which was not undeservedly called 'the Mother of ' " The Priest in Politics," by the late P. J. Smyth, M.P. P. 14. Dublin: 1885. PEOLOGUE. XXXm Saints,' and we see in the disposition of mind of ■which we have spoken the greatest hope, and, as it were, a pledge of the welfare and prosperity of the British people." Yet, if the Christian Religion is to be preserved in England, some more active action must speedily be taken to secure fair play for those who on principle uphold Christian Education. Amongst Roman Catholics, lapses and losses are numerous. This fact is fully admitted and heartily deplored. Surrounding indifference, fostered by the School Board system, and mixed-marriages are working moral ruin. So it is Avith members of the Church of England, though many refuse to face the fact. Recent statistics, however, carefully taken in certain representative parishes, tell a tale which is as de- plorable as it is saddening to read. Had the rulers of the Established Church, by which I mean the Bishops, in conjunction with the Catholic prelates,^ ' A Catholic friend of mine, a priest, now resting in G-od, com- plained most earnestly of the policy of one of his chief prelatial Anthorities, which he went so far as to designate Antichristiau. " I do not say ' Antichristian ' unadvisedly," he wrote, though no one would charge with having written directly in odium Gliristi His first act is to open the gate of the citadel, and to let the Enemy have free ingress. He concedes that the Civil State has the right to be the schoolmaster of its subjects. But to concede this right is the denial of the parental right under the first law of Creation, and the right of the Sacer- dotal Order to be freely chosen by the parents, as those in whom they have confidence, and of their joint autonomy. Here speaks the [writer] betraying the right of the Christian Society to its own autonomy. From this there is no escape : either it XXxiv PROLOGUE. firmly resisted the passing into law of Mr. Forster's Antichristian Education Act, and repudiated all responsibility for its irreligious proposals, it could never have become law. Weighty blame, conse- quently, should be awarded to both. Perhaps, however, in their isolated and independent position, they were at once unwilling and unable to co- operate for such a holy purpose. If so, this fact was a dark disaster for England, and stands out as one more powerful reason for promoting Corporate Reunion on the principles adopted by Cardinal Pole. And here I would set forth the following con- siderations, to disarm unfriendly criticism. The monarchical theory of the Church of God, viz. : that, as it is a Divine kingdom, so it has a Divine Head, is recognized by many. This Divine Head is represented on earth, in the parish by its ap- pointed minister, in the diocese by its Chief Pastor, in the Province by its Archbishop and Metro- politan, in the one earthly Kingdom of Christ by His Vicar,^ and this latter, as Bossuet taught, not is a betrayal of a divine right, or there is no divine right to betray." In the MS. document from vrhich this remarkable quotation is taken, it was suggested that the Order of Corporate Reunion should make a personal appeal to Catholic Authority tipon the grave subject of Christian Education. Such, I believe, was indirectly done in 1883. The remarkable Encyclical on the subject, already quoted, was published subsequently. ' In reply to Dr. Pusey's Eirenicon, and the proposals therein suggested or made, — proposals which were not over-definite, — Father Harper wrote thus : — " The conclusion which we deduce PROLOGUE. XXXV by human contrivance or assent, but by Divine decree. But another theory — that on which the Tudor and other Protestant changes were efFtcted, and upon which modern reforms and confiscations are based — is that Truth is only what man from time to time troweth ; moreover, that such truth is frequently changing and can alone be discovered by the lolty principle of counting votes, and then, only adequately defined and set forth by the catch-penny assent and united acclamations of the populace. Which of these theories is held by the Church of England nobody exactly knows nor can tell. With our bishops subject to their metro- politans, and with Canada, Capetown, and Austral- asia admitting appeals to Canterbury, the principle of the first-named theory appears to be upheld in. principle. With Parish Councils, however, uni- versal and useless chatter, and special lay-co- operation in tedious talk and everlasting change,, the last-named theory clearly seems to be at length steadily developing, and now equally current and accepted. One other point demands notice — touching the honour of Reunionists. It has been asserted more is this ; that all other schemes of Keunion must, from the nature of things, be abortive — cannot possibly succeed — save that of" corporate or individual submission of the Greek and Anglican communions to the Catholic and Roman Church." — Peace- through the Tnith, by Eev. T. Harper, S.J. Vol. I. p. Ixviii.. .London : 1866. XXXVl PROLOGUE. than once, — only, however, by jaundiced and one- sided persons, — that any proposal from an English clergyman for Corporate Reunion is at once dis- honest and disloyal. Now, if to believe the whole Catholic Faith without negation-mongering or re- servation, and to endeavour to restore people to its obedience be dishonesty, it would be interesting to learn how such would define "honesty." While, as to disloyalty, when a man talks about the duty of " being loyal to the Church of Eng- land," analyze his sentences, and it will be seen that he is really and truly not talking sense. Ordinarily speaking loyalty is a virtue rendered personally to a sovereign, not to a " sovereign- people " — a cluster of congregations — to a nation in its bulk or to a nobody. What such a speaker evidently means, though for modesty's sake he dare not exactly venture upon saying it, is that, from his own point of view, it is the distinct duty of his listeners to be " loyal" to him — the individual who is so earnestly orating. What he asks for under the term " loyalty " is active assent or hearty agreement with himself, his sentiments, and what he probably calls his " views." This must be the actual position, for loyalty to the Church of England, just as belief in the same is an impossibility, and is demanded of none. If one is personally "loyal" to Bishop Kyle or to Bishop King, to Canon Liddon or to Canon Fre- PROLOGUE. XXXVU mantle, to Dean Elliot or to Dean Butler, it does not at all follow that such miscalled " loyalty " is anything more than mere personal admiration for several agreeable and accomplished gentlemen — some of whom — respectively admired, because of their defences of portions of the Christian system, or for their attacks upon it, or for their amiable per- sonal characters, or for their great age — deserve such admiration. To be "loyal" to one or two of these might possibly involve " disloyalty " to some of the others ; while no person in authority, either in Church or State, seems authorized officially to declare either that all equally represent the Church of England, or that Canon Fremantle is distinctly "loyal," while Bishop King is expressly "dis- loyal." Here then — disentangling juggling words from joking exhortations — is another case of a Briton's hearty dislike to objective Truth, and a fresh example of the popular maxim of com- promise, " Six of one and half-a-dozen of the other." I must now prepare to lay down my pen. Xo person labouring for Corporate Reunion, let it be finally added, desires to see any union with error, superstition, or acknowledged imperfections. What is exclusively wanted is Union in the Truth, i.e., the one true, infallible, and unalterable Faith, divinely-given, divinely-preserved, and alone per- fect and incorruptible. A Faith which is not in- XXXVlll PROLOGUE. fallible is fallible, and no fallible bundle of re- ligious opinions or agreeable sentiments about religion can satisfy, or be a guide to fallible men. England had this infallible Faith once through ten long centuries. Why should A\'e not have it in all its completeness and perfection once again ? It may be a sentimental, but at the same time it is a real satisfaction to me to pen these con- cluding sentences on the thirtieth anniversary of the foundation of the A.P.U.C. That Society, founded thirty years ago on this day in my hired chambers in Westminster, was formed exclusively for daily prayer in common for a common object. It has done, and is doing its Avork. Other Societies and Orders of more recent date are actively co-operating Avith it, both by work and prayer. To such prayer for so holy a purpose none can surely object. For such labourers — Beati pacijici ! How efficacious their united inter- cessions may prove, when Patience has done its perfect work, let future events — in a near and bright future by God's blessing and the patronage of Our Lady and the Saints — effectively proclaim urbi et orbi, both to men and to angels. Amen. F. G. L. All Saints' Vioaeage, Toek Eoad, Lambeth, Nati-viti: B.V.M., 1887. CHAPTER I. REGINALD POLE, HIS PERSONAL HISTORY. CONTENTS OF CHAPTBK I. Eeginald Pole, his Personal History. — His Ancient Lineage and Education. — Studies under the Carmelites at Oxford. — Appointed Dean of Wimborne. — Nominated Fellow of C. C. Coll. Oxford. — Settles for study at Padua. — The City and " Studio " of Padua. - — Pole's Friends and Contemporaries. — He Returns to England. ^Henry VIII. and his proposed Divorce. — Cromwell, Pole, and Fisher. — The Monastery at Sheen. — Pole offered an Arch- bishopric. — He Retires to Italy. — King Henry's " Spiritual Supremacy." — His Suggestion to Pole. — Pole's Policy Misunder- stood. — Created a Cardinal Deacon, and subsequently Cardinal Priest. — A True and Religious Patriot. — Decay of the English Nobility. — Henry VIII.'s Revolution. — His Ecclesiastical Supremacy. — Authority and Liberty Weakened. — Henry's Treatment of St. Thomas. — Pole's Comments on the King.^ Policy of Thomas Cromwell. — Pole appointed Legate. — Declared to be a Traitor. — Treatment of the Cardinal's Kinsfolk. — Effect of the Executions. CHAPTER I. REGINALD POLE, HIS PERSONAL HISTORY. EGINALD POLE is believed to have been born during the month of March, in the year 1500. The place of his birth is said to have been Stour Castle, in Staflfbrdshire. The exact date — as the Registers of Religious Houses have been lost or destroyed, and Parish Registers did not then exist — remains uncertain. He was the fourth son of Sir Richard Pole, Knight of the Garter, by Margaret Plantagenet, Countess of Salisbury — whom Henry the Eighth so barbarously murdered — only daughter of George Duke of Clarence, sister and heiress to Edward Earl of Salisbury and Warwick. This George Duke of Clarence — whose lady was Isabella, eldest daughter and co-heiress of Richard 4 HIS ANCIENT LINEAGE AND EDUCATION. Nevill, Earl of Westmoreland — brother of King Edward the Fourth, was great-great-grandson of that renowned monarch Edward the Third, King of England and of France, and Lord of Ireland, who was also the Founder of the Noble Order of the Garter. In the female line Reginald Pole was descended from the Lady Isabella, youngest daughter of Peter, King of Castille and Leon; from the Lady Anne, daughter of Roger Mortimer, Earl of Marche; and from the Lady Cecilia, youngest daughter of Ralph Nevill, Earl of Westmoreland. A nobler lineage for an Englishman of that period could scarcely be discovered, while his faith was that of the Fishermen of Galilee, which had permeated the Roman Empire — a Faith which St. Austin had brought hither, which Bede with such divine grace and literary skiU had set forth to bless and benefit our ancestors ; and which for long cen- turies had made England to become, and to be looked upon throughout whole Christendom as verily an " Island of Saints." His early education was received at the Car- thusian Monastery at Sheen, near Richmond, in Surrey, in close proximity to his mother's resi- dence. At that time most of the religious houses of both sexes provided schools for the various classes and ranks who lived near, and such were generally patronized. STUDIES UNDER THE CARMELITES AT OXFORD. 5 When, in 1512, Pole was twelve years old, he was placed amongst the scholars of the White Friars in Oxford — a school situated within the parish of St. Mary Magdalene of that city — which at the period in question enjoyed a great and well- deserved reputation. The Carmelites had long been amongst the most successful instructors of youth in the University. Efficient teaching, strict discipline, and a careful and systematic practice of the duties of religion were this school's leading features. Here, therefore, no doubt Pole's natural virtues were steadily strengthened, and his en- larging mental powers fortified. For, in after years, he more than once made reference in his letters to literary friends to the benefits which had been conferred upon him by judicious and reason- able discipline both at school and college in Oxford. He is believed to have entered St. Mary Magda- lene College about the same year, having rooms in the President's lodgings. In the archives of that venerable society (at that time the Royal College) there are no early Registers of non-foundationers;' but thi'ce years afterwards, i.e., in 1515, he was still in residence there, having already supplicated ^ From information given to me by my kind and venerable friend, the Eev. Dr. Bloxam, of Magdalene College, whose pains- taking and interesting literary labours have done so much to provide valuable materials for a perfect history of that College. 6 APPOINTED DEAN OF -WIMBOKNE. for the degree of B.A. on the 3rd July, 1513, a grace not then granted. On the 1st May, 1514, however, he again sought for the degree in question, was accepted for the same, disputed on the 5th May, and was admitted thereto on the 26th of June of the same year. Special privileges were granted to him; as for example, free access to the Public Library, sine habitu, on the 29th November, with other privileges as a member of the Royal House. On the 12th of February, 1518, he was appointed Dean of the Minster Church of Wimborne, in Dorsetshire, a magnificent specimen of third- pointed architecture, grand in its conception, and fair in its elevation, a glory to the county in which it stands. On the 10th of February of the following year, 1519, he was made Prebendary of Gatcombe Seeunda in the cathedral church of Sarum. The unfortunate and irregular custom then too often current of presenting such benefices and dignities to laymen, who obtained clerics to fulfil the official duties, cannot be justified or reasonably defended. Such was an obvious and disastrous abuse. In the year 1523 Dr. John Claymond, President of Corpus Christi College, Oxford,^ admitted Pole ' Extract from the Register of Admissions at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, a.d. 1522-1523. In Dei nomine. Amen. Per hoc pubblicum instrumentum cuiictis appareat evidenter et sit notum qnod anno domini mille- simo quingentesimo vicesimo tertio Indictioni undecima pontifi- NOMINATED FELLOW OF C. C. COLL. OXEOED. 7 to a Fellowship in that society, a position to which he appears to have been recommended by Richard Cox, the Lord Bishop of Winchester, and founder of that college. It seems doubtful, however, whether he ever resided there. Soon afterwards the University of Oxford was deeply stirred by the subject of the Queen's divorce and the sacrament of matrimony. Wise, foreseeing men, who respected the old order of things, marked the storms brewing. In certain cases tokens of coming disorder were catus in Ohristo patris ac domini nostri domini Adrian! hujus nominis sexti anno primo mensis vero ffebruarii die quarto decimo. In aula CoUegii Corporis Christi in Universitate Oxonieusis. In mei notarii pubblici et testium inferius nominatorum pras- sentia per peregregium virum magistrum Joannem Olaymond dicti collegii praesidem ac etiam authoritate reverendi in Christo patris ac domini domini Bicardi £fos Wintoniensis episcopi illius collegii fnndatoris admitti erant in veros socios [dominus Eegi- naldus Folli. These words seem to have been erased, and then written in again. About three or four words succeeding have been erased, and not written in again. In the margin is, in another hand, Beginaldus Pooli ; also in a third hand, D° Eegi- naldus Polli, D' Joannes Fox Socii assumpti] Dominus etiam Joannes ffox Londinensis dioecesis [another erasure, f tro, or these words irrecoverable like the former one] non obstantibus statutis de probation! nee ullo alio acta sunt hsec omnia et singula prout super scribuntur et recitantur sub anno domini indictioni ponti- ficatus mense die et preedictis prsesentibus tunc ibidem discretis [or dissertis] viris Roberto Morwent et Galfrido Ley artium magistris Wigorn et Dunelmens testibus ad proemissa requisitis. The attestation is by Henricus Williams, " publicus authoritate [apostolica erased] notarius." The word " apostolica" is usually erased in the Eegister, but sometimes so partially as to be re- coverable, but not in this case. 8 SETTLES EOE STUDY AT PADUA. distinctly seen. In some particulars Society was sick at heart and sad. Intellectual languor pre- vailed. If learning was venerated at Oxford, Religion by a small minority was too often tabooed and morality scoffed at. The number of students gathered near the banks of the Isis was found to be less than heretofore. Many of these were dis- tinctly influenced by the Pagan renaissance. At that time the " Studio " of Padua, as it was termed, was the most renowned university of Europe. It had been the city of Livy, of Petrarch and Giotto. Aspiring students flocked to it from all parts of Christendom, and learned to love it for its teaching and memories. Most striking is this ancient place, rife with rich and venerable tradi- tions. Pole must have known well the Palazzo della Ragione, with its Gothic loggia and armorial shields, its vast Hall (from the design of Father Giovanni, an Austin Friar), and splendid paintings ; the solemn church of Padua's patron, St. Anthony, with its seven Oriental domes and three minarets, its awe-inspiring interior, adorned with an over- whelming mass of mystic enrichment and decora- tion, and its twin lamps of purest gold in the dim and distant sanctuary. Nor was the Chapel of Our Lady of the Annunciation then wanting in engrossing interest. The groups of the blessed, pictured by Giotto, expressively-wrought scenes from the life of the Blessed Virgin and of our THE CITY AND " STUDIO " OF PADUA. 9 Divine Lord; sacred allegorical mysteries dimly depicted, ancient tombs, and rich imagery were found in abundance on all sides — tokens that Christian faith had made a deep and lasting im- pression on Paduan art. As a city it had expe- rienced numerous changes and reverses of fortune since the fall of ancient Rome and the days of Attila; peace and war, sunshine and shadow having constantly alternated there. On no less than eight occasions its form of government had been altered. In one century the sovereigns of Lombardy had been its benevolent patrons: in subsequent years, after conquest by strangers had been effected and crowned, and further changes sealed, the triumphant Venetians, early in the fifteenth century, added Padua, with its rich and fertile plains, to their adjacent flourishing domi- nions on the Adriatic shores. In the sixteenth century its masters and teachers were the most thorough and successful instructors in the ancient learned languages. The rich and prolific traditions of antiquity had been handed down from time immemorial almost unbroken ; so that living teachers kept their lamps burning, in the Halls of Theology, polite Literature, Art, Philosophy, and Laws, with singular abihty and success and with deserved and world-wide appro- bation. The great treatises of Aristotle, the valued records of Livy, the deep philosophy and 10 pole's feiends and contemporaeies. theolog}' of St. Thomas Aquinas, tlie acute works of Duns Scotus were there attentively studied and held in high regard. Moreover, some of the most valuable tractates of Christian learning — philoso- phical, political, theological — were there likewise planned and completed. Gaspar Contarini, Lazarus Bonamico, Bembo, and Sadolet, amongst many- others, were names had in renown ; while the printed works of Pole's literary contemporaries, teachers, and learners, would of themselves even now form a most considerable and valuable library. To this city of general learning,^ gathered, youths of rank and nobility from every European country. Here Reginald Pole is found, with a suitable and sufficient income provided by his family and the king of England, surrounded by the cultured and refined ; having for his special friends and companions a young Englishman named Thomas Lupsett, Aloysius Priuli, a noble Venetian, and Christopher Longolius, a native of Flanders. With such as these, and their teachers and masters, aU that was good and righteous, noble and true amongst the writings of the ancients served but to strengthen the foundations of the Christian Faith. Originally it seems quite certain ' Its four faculties of theology, laws, humanity and medicine were all renowned. Each faculty has a Director, a Dean, and a Rector, who together form the Senate ; while the number of students still averages two thousand every year. HE RETUKNS TO ENGLAND. 11 that Monetheism was the religion of ancient Rome.^ There, in its chief city's earliest age, Order was upheld, Law respected, Justice main- tained and administered, and Virtue extolled. Of course all these beneficent gifts have their roots in man's original belief in One Supreme Being, — a bright recollection of Paradise. The like may surely have been the case with Padua in the days of its founder Antenor. Hence, upon the sure and solid foundation in question, by natural growth, rose a knowledge of the sacred Scriptures, the Greek and Latin fathers, the councils with their canons and decrees, together with the varied and beautiful traditions of every kind which had found their origin in Bethlehem and Calvary, the Upper Chamber and Patmos ; and subsequently in the Mamertine Prison and the Coelian Hill,— each tradition converging in the Son of Mary, the Saviour of mankind, the central Object of the World's disentangled History. In 1526 Pole returned to England to find the subject of the King's proposed divorce from his queen Katherine uppermost in the public mind, and everywhere the subject of discussion. It was the burning question of the day. From the outset— though on one occasion misunderstood — Pole had ' " Monotheism, the Primitive Eeligion of the City of Eome," by the Kev. Henry Formby, M.A., London, 1877: a closely- reasoned and masterly book by a powerful Christian writer. 12 HENEY VIII. AND HIS PROPOSED DIVORCE. studiously refrained from showing the slightest sympathy with the proposal. His words to the King had invariably been dutiful and respectful, but ever clear and firm. The Christian law of marriage was well understood; and he had no temptation to swerve from plainly setting it forth, if asked to do so. He had always maintained the Christian principle therein embodied, and deprecated the King's suggestion, or any of the proposals regard- ing it. At the same time, he had invariably and consistently maintained the authority and jurisdic- tion of the Holy See as final in the determination of every such question. A fruitless endeavour had been made to refer the subject in dispute to the consideration of four spiritual and four temporal peers, whose judgment, to avoid further discussion, it was proposed should be final. But Queen Katherine, on being waited upon by certain friends of her royal husband, distinctly declined even to entertain the proposal. Secure in her position of right, and trusting implicitly to the justice of the Head of the Visible Church, she stood firm; unwavering and full of confidence that justice would be done to her, and that in the end right would prevail. " God give the King a quiet conscience," she replied with dignity and feeling, " but this must be your answer. I am his wife, lawfully married to him by authority of Holy Church, and so will CROMWELL, POLE, AND FISHER. 1'6 I remain unless the Court of Rome, privy to all from the beginning, shall have made an end thereof." The King soon afterwards, by the same mes- senger, ordered her to leave the Palace of Windsor, to which, never swerving from her point and position, — she replied, " Go where I may, 1 shall still be his lawful wife." Soon afterwards, in sorrow, but in faith and hope, she left for Ampthill in Bedfordshire. There at least she was away from a spot where she could not but witness, or hear of, the unfeeling indecency of her rival, and the heartless cruelty of her husband. During the year 1528, Pole had retired to the Carthusian Monastery at Sheen. With this pleasantly-situated house he was well acquainted, for here he had received a part of his earliest education. Although some few public men had followed Thomas Cromwell in his unprecedented proposal to the King, yet, as regards Eeligion, the vast number of courtiers and statesmen evidently hesitated to put themselves in opposition to the great body of English divines and ecclesiastics — with Bishop Fisher at their head. Pole, no doubt, felt that neither his age and position nor his learn- ing would warrant him in presuming to forestall the character of the decree, which sooner or later Rome might be expected to promulgate ; and, though his opinion was even then distinct and 14 THE MONASTERY AT SHEEN. definite enougli, in favour of the validity of Queen Katherine's marriage, he obviously thought silence to be at once more prudent and more respectful to Authority. Within the precincts of the Sheen Monastery, John Colet, sometime Dean of St. Paul's, had hj arrangement built a house for himself — a kind of retreat for his old age, when weighted by years and unable to execute his official duties, he might properly retire to a quiet home, where, in the silence of the Library, with its tomes of manuscript, and choice volumes of black-letter from Venice, Flanders and Westminster, and in the society of sympathizing friends, he could solace himself with the companionship of those holy religious whom he respected and loved. After residing in this house at Sheen for about two years, Pole signified to the King his desire and intention of going to the University of Paris, with the aim of continuing his studies. Henry VIII. at once acceded to this suggestion ; and as BeUay, — Bishop of Bayonne, French Ambassador at the English Court, in a Letter dated the 4th Oct., 1529 — informed the High Steward of the French monarch, that Pole, " this young nobleman, was nearly related to the King, and was one of the most learned personages of the age : that his, intention was to see France, and continue his studies; that Henry, moreover, had commanded POLE OFFEEED AN ARCHBISHOPEIC. 15 him to pay his respects to the King ; and that his family, who were persons of great merit and of high rank, desired that he might be particularly recommended to him." Pole travelled as became his position, and lived in France in a due state of dignity. At this time the subject of the proposed divorce had been formally before the Holy See. There can be little doubt that, on its vacancy, the Archbishopric of York had been oflFered to Pole with conditions^ and that these were most probably of a nature which no honourable Christian man could have accepted. It is possible that those dexterous partizans who had desired to entangle him with the King by promises, and indirectly secure his aid for their Machiavellian policy, were both disappointed and vexed at his dignified and righteous attitude. It is not given to many to say, Nolo episcopari. But Pole had not studied Cromwell's character in vain. His royal Master he had already read through and through. The light of faith had enabled Pole to apprehend without shadow or fleck or mistake what was ap- proaching. To such a policy as that of the King — evidently inspired from beneath — he could in his conscience be neither a party nor a partizan. No wonder, therefore, that the vexation of the Erastian monarch- worshippers was at once bitter and keen, or that the paroxysms of anger in which 16 HE RETIRES TO ITALY. Henry was found should have appeared to by- standers little less than demoniacal. At this time Pole, glad to be far away from a scene of controversy and strife, returned to Italy, where he devoted himself entirely to religion and literature. Here, however, he received from Henry a royal mandate to consider at once two important details then under consideration in the case of the Queen's divorce, and to answer two distinct and definite questions in regard to certain opinions concerning the same. Pole was in no haste to reply. But, on learning that the death of Anne Boleyn had taken place, he wrote boldly and unambiguously, in a manner and by a method entirely worthy of him : first, that the divorce of Katherine was dis- tinctly unlawful ; and, secondly, that the recent assumption of supremacy in things spiritual was destructive of unity, and altogether contrary to the fundamental principles of the Christian faith. A trusty messenger bore this remarkable treatise to the King — the distinct consequence of a royal command. Whether it was acceptable or not, it was at all events given in answer to a plain request. And, let it be noted, neither of the replies was ambiguous.^ ^ In this case of the divorce of Henry VIII. from Katherine, Pole was no partizan, but a nobleman desirous of doing justice- to the Queen, and of never forgetting his personal responsibility KING henry's " SPIRITUAL SUPREMACY." 17 But Pole did not stop here. He felt bound to point out the King's enormities, publicly criticized throughout Christendom. That monarch had married, or pretended to marry, a second wife during the lifetime of the first, and had dared to disregard Christian authority in reference to this Sacrament. He had thus laid the foundation of dangerous and fatal schemes, by which all authority might in the long run be weakened. He had caused to be martyred Sir Thomas More, Bishop Fisher, and the Carthusian brothers, because of their bold and needful repudiation of his pretended supremacy in the Church of God; and, on the other hand, had taken an active part in the exami- nation and condemnation of heretics. Thus had he made himself and his name the bye-word and execration of Christendom. His so-called " spiritual siipremacy," no less its jest than its scandal, was notoriously set up by the secular power alone ; in spite of, and in direct opposition to the clergy, by divine appointment its spiritual overseers and acknowledged rulers. as a Christian. He was obviously bound to the King by several acts of kindness, yet because of these he never allowed himself to forget his duty to God. Pole's letters from Paris — when that University was considering the formal legal questions sub- mitted to it by Henry's agents — were always cautious and clear, courteous and considerate. But he never swerves from impar- tiality, and never violates truth. Least of all is he at all designing and double-faced, as a recent random writer endeavours to make out. 18 HIS SUGGESTION TO POLE. Thus the whole scheme of Church government, as set up by Christ Himself, was deliberately over- turned. The secular judge invaded the sanctuary. Persons like Thomas Cromwell, altogether unqua- lified by their state even for the lowest ecclesias- tical preferments, were raised to the most exalted dignities in the Church; so that those whose duty it was to submit themselves obediently to the appointed rulers of the same, were actually made the spiritual directors of their own ecclesiastical guides. In reply to Pole, the King — at Cromwell's dexterous suggestion — took the greatest care to evince not even the appearance of irritation at the rebuke referred to, but answered his critic in the mildest phraseology, and with the most honeyed words. Let them, he suggested, calmly discuss these complex rehgious questions either with the other, in private and in peace, to their own mutual satisfaction and common benefit. And to bring this about as soon as possible, let Reginald Pole return to England at once, and begin the desired consultation. But the net, though carefully spread, was spread in vain. It needed no second thoughts to point out Pole's danger to himself with directness and force. The bloody exhibitions of malignant in- justice; scaffolds red with the blood of holy and innocent men; the Tybourne timbers splattered pole's policy misunderstood. 19 with gore; the eyeless heads of innocent victims smeared with pitch, with a batch of mutilated limbs of martyrs on lances set up over the gates of the City of London, were in themselves an im- pressive exhibition and a powerful. warning. The charge against Pole that he was artfully stirring up strife and war, in order, as a member of the Royal House of York, to set aside Henry and craftily obtain the English crown for himself, when his own confidential and ofl&cial letters are studied, is seen to be entirely baseless. That he was in full sympathy with the ancient nobility, faithful clergy, and noble yeomen of the North in their dislike for the religious revolution ; and that he was ready to aid them both by moral and material means in their resistance, is not only per- fectly true and accurate^ — any other attitude in so truly noble and Christian a personage would have been utterly unworthy of him — but displays his commendable courage and righteous zeal in a light in which all Christian people can distinctly behold and admire the same. This being so, no surprise need exist, either that Cromwell should have expressed a resolution to " make him eat out his heart with vexation," ^ or ^ " I herde you say woqs that you wold make hym to ete hys owne hartt, which you have now, I trow, brought to passe ; for he must nedes now ette hys owne hartt, and becum as hartlesse as he is gracelesse." — Wright's Letters on the Suppression of the Monasteries .- Latimer to Thomas Cromwell, p. 160. 20 CREATED A CARDINAL-DEACON. that the King should have then and thenceforth regarded him with deadly dislike and an almost diabolical hatred. Early in 1537, Pole was created Cardinal Deacon of the Basilica of SS. Nereus and Achilleus ^ on the Appian Way — a church, founded a.d. 759, of singular interest and renown. There, behind the high altar, still stands the actual episcopal throne from which our English benefactor and saintly patron, St. Gregory the Great, had read his twenty- eighth Homily; and in this sacred Basilica had been held the actual Council presided over by that Pope in person. In it still remain the two very ancient ambones with an artfully-wrought marble Pascal taper-stand ; while, up above, mosaic work of hoar antiquity, but dulled with age, sets forth a representation of the Annunciation, Our Blessed Lady with Her Divine Child, and, on the face of the arch over the sanctuary, the Transfiguration of our adorable Lord. Beneath are preserved the relics of its Patron- Saints, and of St Domitilla; while the subsequent restorer of the Church, Car- dinal Baronius, has left a sculptured warning in marble against any destruction of its renowned 1 " 1537. Feb. 7. Creavit legatum de latere E°""" D. Eainal- dum Polum, Sanctorum Nerei at Achillei diaconum Cardinalem, Anglum, cum facultate prout in literis, et eum destinavit ad res Angliae componendas." — Ads of the Consistory (from the Origi- nal at BomeJ. AND SUBSEQUENTLY CARDINAL-PRIEST. 21 antiquities. Here Pole was solemnly enthroned — taking formal possession of his church — according to rule and custom ; while his oflBicial connection with this basilica, so dear to Englishmen, must have given rise to feelings of gratitude for the past and — though probably flecked with sadness — of earnest hope for the future. Subsequently, when he was created a Cardinal Priest, his title was changed to that of St. Mary in Cosmedin. This church, built by St. Dionysius in the third century, was restored by Pope Adrian the First, a.d. 782. It had been visited by Siricius, previously Bishop of Ramsbury (to which he was consecrated by St. Dunstan), and subsequently appointed Archbishop of Canterbury, who went to Rome to do homage to the Holy Father in the year 990, when his translation to the chief archi- episcopal See of England had been completed. Here again, then, Pole was reminded of the Christian life and ecclesiastical glories of his native land, and of its long-enjoyed spiritual connection with the Apostolic See. On March 8th, 1538, Cardinal Pole was created and confirmed Warden of the English Hospital at Rome, Thomas Goldwell, the exiled Bishop of St. Asaph, being Chamberlain of the same. Sub- sequently His Grace became in turn Protector thereof, with Goldwell as Warden. Afterwards William Peto, Bishop of Salisbury, received the 22 A TRUE AND RELIGIOUS PATRIOT. office of Warden. This bold and devout dignitary had long previously rebuked^ Henry VIIT. for his wickedness, and had been threatened with death. But he prudently escaped to the Continent and did a good work for Christianity abroad. At Rome, Pole ^vas ever watchful on behalf of his beloved country. He respected its glorious traditions, honoured its righteous laws, loved its true religion, and therefore daily remembered its growing necessities at the altar before God. He constantly asked the intercession of the saints on high, on behalf of his countrymen, who were being then so sorely tried and treated by those who had obtained, and grasped so tightly, the whip-handle of usurped power. Cardinal Wolsey — a true states- man, one who had accurately read the signs of the times — it is to be feared, however, had short- sightedly done something to open the flood-gates of change, and to create precedents for further inno- vations; but it was reserved for that cardinal's low- born servitor, Thomas Cromwell, to suggest to the King the disastrous and wicked breach of unity which was being so artfully and successfully accom- plished. Upstarts, like Rich and this Putney armourer's son — men of iron wills, and singular craft and skill — became leaders in a new policy, and destroyers ' See, for details of tbiw rebuke, my " Historical Sketches of the Eeformation," p. 291. London : 1879. DECAY OF THE ENGLISH NOBILITY. 23 of true religion, under both Henry and his son Edward. And this to the general detriment of the kingdom, and to the special loss of the poor. It is sad to note how, under these Tudors — Queen Mary excepted^ — the ancient nobility, as a body, had ceased to exercise their former beneficial influence, having in many cases become extinct. Several old English famihes having grown poorer by degrees — their manors alienated, their lands sold — in some instances became actually needy. Those members of the same which still existed had often squandered their remaining wealth in folly, ostentation, and frivolity. In other cases, having plucked up courage to oppose the monarch's arbi- trary will, and often unjust commands, bills of attainder and legalized murders of powerful noble- men who had dared to resist the King, had not failed to exercise a direct and deterrent influence upon those who remained ; more especially on the new and pushing adventurers, and crouching slaves, ready and willing by nature and low natural cun- ning for any despicable suggestion of the monarch, and who, born amongst the lowest plebeians, had recently secured for themselves much-coveted honours, dignities, and wealth.'^ ^ The advisers of this Queen, it will be noticed, were mainly persons of blood and rank. She evidently mistrusted the new men, so many of whom were bent on mere self-seeking in every form and phase. ^ Here is Cardinal Pole's testimony : — " Sic nobiles semper 24 HENRY VIII. 'S REVOLUTION. Alas ! I know the despicable and saddening story in its bare baldness all too well. Going to ancient records and legal instruments, to original private letters and ambassadors' confidential reports, new facts are discovered, and old partizan romances (which some style " History ") are found to be wholly misleading and in themselves so mischiev- ously false. Some persons, living in the light of faith, cannot even now nerve themselves to read a true record, and let its cruel and revolting details sink into their minds ; it being too distressing to contemplate, either in its first initiation or in all its miserable consequences. Here are its outlines: Henry the Eighth, for the unhappy peojjle under him, renounced the authority of United Christen- dom in order to overthrow the rights of women, to degrade matrimony and to practise concubinage; while, on the other hand, rather than alter by one iota that divine policy which had dignified matri- mony as a Sacrament, the Holy See was obliged to behold, with sorrow and suffering, one of its fairest provinces torn from Catholic Unity. The spiritual jurisdiction of the old English Church — exercised tractavisti, ut nuUius principatu minore in honore fuerint : in quos, si quid leviter deliquissent, aoerbissimus fuisti; nihil unquam ouiquam oondonasti ; omnes despicatui habuisti ; nul- lum apud te honoris aut gratis locum obtinere passus es : eum interea semper alienissimos homines ex infima plebe assumptos circum te habueris, quibus summa omnia deferres." — Epistola Foli, p. 83. HIS ECCLESIASTICAL SUPEEMACY. 25 in due subordination to that of corporate Christen- dom, represented by its visible head — was thus directly and effectually transferred to the King/ Convocation had openly promised to make no new enactments for the government of the Church, either in faith, morals, or any other particular, without the monarch's express sanction. Hitherto a pall, the ancient symbol of j urisdiction, had been graciously ' By virtue of ttis supremacy ecclesiastical the King's Majesty is made the ultim.ate judge of heresy aud the determinator of what is agreeable or repuguant to God's law. Aud all his sub- jects are obliged to receive, observe, aud submit unto the godly instructions and detei-minations set forth by his Majesty. And if a:iy spiritual person or persons shall preach or teach contrary to the determinations which are or shall be set forth by his Majesty, that then every such offender offending the third time shall be deemed and judged a heretic, and shall suffer pains of death by burning. — Act for the Advancement of True Religion, 37 Hen. VIII., cap. 17. On this point, here are the weighty words of B. Cardinal Fisher : — " I think, indeed, and always have thought, and doe now lastly affirms that His Grace cannot justly claime any such supremacie over the Churche of God, as he nowe takyth uppon him : neither hathe it ever been scene or hearde of that auie temporale prince before his daies hathe presumed to that dig- nitie. Wherefore if the King will now adventure himself in proceeding in this strange and unwonted case, no doubt but he shall deeply incur the grievous displeasure of Almighty God, to the great damage of his own sowle and manie others, and to the utter ruine of this royalme committed to his charge, whereof will ensue some sharps punishment at his hand. Wherfore I praye God His Grace may remember himself in time, and barken to good counsaile for the preservation of himself and his royalme, and the quiettance of all Christendom." — Speech of John Fisher, after condemnation, from an ancient Sixteenth Century MS. Notebooh. 26 AUTHORITY AND LIBERTY WEAKENED. sent from Rome and dutifully received. Rome-scot had been at once a reality and a sign of active union between mother and daughter. The succes- sors of St. Augustine of Canterbury had invariably appealed for protection and patronage to the suc- cessors of St. Gregory the Great, a long line of Fathers of the faithful (guardians of the Faith and protectors of the Church's liberties) ; hence- forth the oppressed in England had no appeal against change, oppression, tyranny, and wrong. A lay Vicar-General, who himself appointed lay- deputies in various dioceses, administered the usurped office of the monarch, binding the obsequious clergy with strong Erastian bands, and scourging them, as it were, with scorpions. Authority and Liberty fell prone at one stroke, and have ever since been both prostrate and sorely and seriously crippled. The property of the Church and the poor soon found its way into the King's treasure-house ; while, after endless contro- versies and vain contentions, " truth " eventually came to be looked upon as merely and only " what each man himself troweth." The pretended sweep- ing and garnishing of the House, as in the Gospel narrative, have served only to bring in seven other devils. But from generals to a particular. The sacrilegious iniquities perpetrated by order of Henry VIII. in destroying the Shrine, and in burning and scattering the ashes of the relics of henry's TEEATMENT of ST. THOMAS. 27 St. Thomas of Canterbury, duly reported and con- sidered at Rome,^ gave Pole an opportunity of setting forth a scathing indictment of the English Nero. For what was the true state of the case ? Here was that of a martyred Prelate, who had been held in veneration for three hundred years as a most zealous and favoured servant of God, who with inflexible determination had laid down his life in defence of the Catholic Faith and Church freedom, and was regarded by all Christendom as a most ]Dotent patron and intercessor for England before the Throne of God.^ His shrine in Canterbury Cathedral, gorgeous in itself and most rich in the costly oflferings around and about it, originally erected with every effort of art and magnificence, to be worthy of its treasure, was first violently ' 1538, Oct. 18. " S. D. N. significavit novam saevitiam et impietatem Eegis Augliae, qui coi-pus Beati ThortiEe Cautuarien. comburi jusserat, et oineres spargi et dari vento, expilata area et vasis aureis et lapidibus pretiosis, qaorum maguus numerus in ea area inerat. Quapropter S^' sua deputavit E™°'' D.D. Cardinales Campegium, Ghinuccium, Contarenum et S" Sixti, qui de his rebus inter se consultarent et S" suae referent." — Consistorial Ads (from the Original at Borne). '^ " If the cause in which this Prelate suffered and died has appeared equivocal to the low estimates of worldly prudence, it has pleased the wisdom of the Almighty to declare iu its favour by miracles which were so frequent and so well-attested, by the unaminous consent of authors of those days, that without questioning whatsoever History may have transmitted to us, these certainly cannot be contested." — History cf the Variations, etc., by J. B. Bossuet ; vol. i. book vii. sec. 114. 28 pole's comments on the king. rifled, by Henry's command, and then utterly destroyed. Worse than this, the impious Monarch in question, at Thomas Cromwell's suggestion, issued a Proclamation,^ in which he maintained that, having carefully weighed anew the merits of the original cause, he had discovered that Thomas a Becket had been killed in a riot when en- deavouring to obstruct the execution of his Monarch's lawful orders; and, therefore, instead of being a Martyr as all the World fondly believed, was only a Rebel.^ Pole, therefore, aptly and forcibly contrasted Henry's impious conduct with that of the Ma- hometan Turks. These triumphant conquerors, having successfully taken the Island of Rhodes, and being saturated with superstition, yet behaved with decency and humanity in their triumph. They scrupulously regarded the feelings of the conquered, and specially respected the monuments of Saints — even permitting the Christians to re- move their remains, so precious and venerated, to places of safety and security. Cromwell's policy, ' See Dr. Thomas Stapletou's iuteresting account of St. Thomas, in which the Latin Proclamation in question is set forth. It will be found in his book Tres Thoviae, seu Be S. ThomcB A^Mstoli rebus gestis, Be S. ThoincB Archiepisco Cantuar, et Martrjre, B. Thomae Mori Ancflicn quondam Cancellarii VitcB, Authore Thoma Stapletouo Anglo. — Duaci, Ex ofEcina loannis Bogardi : 1588. (Lambeth Library.) " Wilkius's " Concilia," vol. iii. pp. 835, 836, 841. POLICY OF THOMAS CKOMWELL. 29 of which all this was but a detail, thus adopted by the King, was ingenious and consistent through- out. Its iniquity and injustice were sufficiently marked, while its unity and completeness secured for it an eventual triumph. The insurrection in the North of England was a sure indication of the excessive dislike with which the religious changes, suggested by the King's Minister, were regarded. At this period of the " Reformation " this unscrupulous politician appears to have given scarcely a moment's con- sideration to the minor details of the contemplated change. On such he looked with mere pitiful contempt. He had no regard for doctrinal phrase- mongering, and such at that time with the noisy and notorious was exceedingly popular in the work of change and destruction. The points at issue were — Is the Church of God one and universal, or is it composed of diverse and con- flicting local nationalities ? Is it governed in its final determinations by monarchs or by pontiffs — by laymen or by ecclesiastics ? But Cromwell noted all this, and had taken in the exact situation at a glance. The King's supremacy in ecclesiastical and religious matters, instead of the Pope's, could,, being decreed by one single stroke, alone destroy the old order of things in its very foundation. Once get this change effected and the great work of demolition was done. Here, then, was the; 30 POLE APPOINTED LEGATE. crucial change. This was the key of the citadel. Such deliberately given up, there was little else to contend about or to struggle for. No one saw this amongst the ecclesiastics more distinctly than Bishop John Fisher and Reginald Pole. The subsequent conduct of each — their roads were slightly different, but their aims were identical — abundantly proves the point. At Rome, the Northern Rising in favour of the Ancient Faith, and in opposition to Cromwell's plans, would, it was believed and hoped, exercise a great influence on King Henry : and no stone was left unturned, consequently, to alter his policy. Pole, who had not yet openly broken with him, was appointed Legate beyond the Alps; and, with sufficient instructions, set out for France to serve the holy cause of Religion and Truth. No sooner had he set foot on the French soil, however, than the English Ambassador, in virtue of a secret treaty between the two Crowns, asked that he should be given up as King Henry's avowed enemy, and sent a prisoner to England. The French king, by a private messenger, discreetly urged Pole to continue his journey with no delay, to seek no interview with his Majesty, and so to avoid greater complications. On this Pole promptly progressed on his journey, and soon reached Cambray. The Court of Brussels, however, at Cromwell's instigation, had been at DECLARED TO BE A TKAITOE. 31 once threatened and terrified ; so much so, indeed, that the queen-regnant, to the astonishment of many of her subj ects, withheld permission for him to enter her territories. In England, Henry, at the same time (maddened by the plain home-truths which the Cardinal had told him, — a careful con- sideration of which at leisure had caused His Grace intense irritability), declared his kinsman to be a deeply-dyed traitor, offering fifty thousand crowns for his decapitated head ; while, in return for his body delivered up alive, the King volunteered a force of four thousand soldiers, duly armed and equipped, during the war with France. From Cambray, therefore, Pole, with due prudence, speedily went on to Li^ge, and then, later in the year, returned safely to Rome. In the meantime, momentous events were taking place in England. A dark moral shadow hung over the land. Men's hearts, as of old, were failing them for fear. Might roughly putting aside Right was beheld in all its potency. Justice was being banished of purpose. Tyranny was in the ascendant, and triumphed. The Cardinal, whether in France or elsewhere, had been received with every consideration ; for his judgment of Henry's policy and doings in England was in harmony with the opinion of the most influential authorities abroad. When this reception was from time to time reported at 32 TREATMENT OF THE CARDINAL'S KINSFOLK. Greenwich or Windsor, the King, dwelling upon it, became furious. But Pole, secure in his position abroad, might defy the malignity of the monarch, though his unfortunate mother, brother, and relations in England could not. Henry resolved, with no delay, therefore, to compass the destruction of Henry Courteney^ Marquis of Exeter, and arranged that certain court officials should be sent into the West of England to collect matter for accusation against that nobleman.' Soon afterwards. Sir Geoffrey Pole, one of the Cardinal's brothers, was arrested, brought before the Council and committed to prison. This was followed by similar treatment for the Lord Montagu, for their venerable mother, the Countess of Salisbury, for the Marquis and Marchioness of Exeter, and for Sir Edward Nevill, younger brother of Lord Abergavenny. All these be- longed to families which had been adherents of the White Rose; so that, during the Northern insurrection, had their loyalty not been very deep and firm, they might in judicious combination have efficiently aided the down-trodden in repu- diating by force of arms the authority, dominion,, and tyrannical rule of Henry the King. The Lords Courteney and Montagu were arraigned before their peers late in the month '- " Archseologia," vol. xxii. p. 24. EFFECT OF THE EXECUTIONS. 33 of December, 1538, while early in 1539 the accused commoners were called before common juries, on vague and ill-defined charges of having endeavoured to advance one Reginald Pole, some- time Dean of Exeter, to the crown, and to deprive the reigning monarch of his title, state and dignity. Sir Geoffrey Pole was practically acquitted, but all the other persons charged were found guilty of treason, and condemned to death by decapitation. Sir Nicholas Carew was also beheaded for no other offence than having acted as Counsel to Lord Courteney. The effect of these executions, both at home and abroad, was to create a deep-seated and uni- versal horror amongst all classes, and to intensify the dislike of many to the King. D CHAPTER II. ACCESSION OF QUEEN MART, AND HER REIGN. CONTENTS OF CHAPTER II. Accession of Queen Mary and her Eeign. — Desire for religious truth. — Thomas Cromwell's Policy condemned. — General increase of Poverty. — Loose Morality popular. — Disastrous influence of Calvinism. — Birth and Baptism of Queen Mary. — Work of the new Nobility. — Their unprincipled Policy. — Bishop Nicholas Ridley. — His treasonable Discourse. — The populace loyal to Mary, and send her military aid. — Enthusiasm of the London Citizens. — Certain Prisoners pardoned. — Protestant Plots de- feated. — The true position of Queen Mary. — All Classes tainted with Errors.— Force in Government. — Fanaticism and Cant dis- regarded. — Loyalty of the Citizens of London. — Coronation of Queen Mary. — Enthusiasm of the People. — Lenient treatment of Cranmer. — His heresy and profanity. — Latimer's seditious de- meanour.— Execution of influential Traitors. — The Emperor's advice to Queen Mary. — Lady Jane Grey. — Queen Mary's wishes and hopes. — She counsels prudence and caution. — Sir Thomas Wyat's rebellion. — Opposed by the Duke of Norfolk. — Plunder of "Winchester House. — Death of Jane Grey and her husband. — Further Execution of Rebels. — Lenity and kindness of the Queen.' — Deprivation of intruded Bishops.- — Foreign Innovators ordered Abroad.— Cranmer and others sent to Oxford, and condemned for heresy. — Cranmer appeals to Heaven. CHAPTER II. ACCESSION OF QUEEN MART, AND HER REIGN. HE fearful details of Henry's death — at which event he apparently believed chiefly in himself and his own works of reform/ rather than in his Creator — had left a deep impression upon the onlookers and those to whom the truth concerning that occurrence had been told in all its nakedness and simplicity. " All is lost ! " was an awful sentence of self-condemna- tion with which to depart this mortal life. The disregard of this King's wishes expressed in his last Will and Testament, had astonished those acquainted with the persons to whom he had en- ^ " The King continued yet his rigour to those that disputed either his authority or Articles ; insomuch that both the Re- formers and maintainers of the Pope's authority suffered so frequently that his enemies said, while he admitted neither side, he seemed to be of no religion. Howbeit, this was but calumny, for he stood firmly to his own Reformation." — Life and Baigne of Henry the Eighth. By Edward, Lord Herbert of Oherbury, p. 463. London, 1649. 38 DESIRE FOR RELIGIOUS TRUTH. trusted the fulfilment of his dying injunctions, and had still more astonished others unknown at the Court. The portent of dogs licking up his blood at the desolate monastery of Sion House in 1547, when a fissure had been found in his coffin on its way to Windsor — by which the well-remem- bered prediction of William Peto in his warning homily at Greenwich, on Easter Day, 1532, had been literally fulfilled — likewise left an impression upon the minds of the people, not easily effaced. In consequence of all this, and the presence and pressure of practical evils, many more Englishmen than heretofore openly expressed their desire for an immediate return in rehgious and ecclesiastical affairs to the old order of things. Their eyes and their hearts naturally turned to the Father of the faithful. They longed for Corporate Reunion. This was so at Edward the Sixth's accession : but, six years afterwards, upon his death — after further ruin had been sealed and greater disorder made still more rampant — the feeling and desire had not only steadily deepened, but found public ex- pression in very plain and pertinent language. However sharply some men were punished for their plain words, others were found to speak out bravely and boldly. There were many to follow in the right path, if only the leaders had led. The old regard for law and order, the ancient religious solemnities, the consolation which a True Faith THOMAS CEOMWELL's POLICY CONDEMNED. 39 and godly obedience had bestowed upon so many persons of every class and rank, were realized more and more with the advancing years. The consequences of change and disorder at the same time were everywhere apparent. For instance, the citation of St. Thomas of Canterbury, to appear and answer ridiculous charges made at the King's suggestion,^ had tended to bring the Courts of Law into contempt. Thomas Cromwell's policy, when adequately realized, was condemned and repudiated : first by the old nobility, who were the people's natural leaders, then by the common people themselves. Again, the monarch taking upon himself to sift divine truth from human error,'^ to judge and burn heretics, was not cal- 1 The empty absurdity and acted nonsense, set forth, in deed as well ..,: in word, by this histrionic travesty of common sense and ordinary decency, shocked Christendom when it was re- ported. Friends of Cardinal Pole in England took care that it was reported and known abroad. In Padua and in Paris it was sarcastically commented on, to the annoyance of some of the King's foreign agents. One " Eiohard Croke," a Buckingham- shire man, " much misliked it," as he told his relative, a person engaged in the reforming business at home. 2 The King " did sit openly in the Hall, and presided at the disputation, process and judgment of a miserable heretic sacra- mentary who was burned on the twentieth of November. It was a wonder to see how princely, with how excellent gravity, and inestimable majesty, His Highness exercised there the very oflBce of Supreme Head of the Church of England I wish the princes and potentates of Christendom to have had a meet place to have seen it." — Letter of Cromwell to Sir Thomas Wyat, dated 28 Nov.. 1538, preserved in the Harleian MSS., quoted in vol. iv. of Collier's " History," p. 428. London : 1845. 40 GENERAL INCREASE OF POVERTY. culated to impress favourably his Catholic subjects. In the general religious disputes and ecclesiastical disorganization, the whole nation directly suffered. The people were thus being taught by a bitter experience that God could not be insulted, robbed, and disregarded with impunity. Cardinal Pole's Letters show how completely he realized all this. Everywhere, therefore, poverty increased, " pau- perism," — as it was then first so expressively termed — became a Hving and lasting canker in the body-politic. It vexed both rulers and ruled. The enclosures of waste lands, which the upstart owners of the old monastic manors ^ and estates had proceeded to make, together with rack-renting, everywhere so cruelly enforced, had driven the yeomen and husbandmen from their old grange and cottage homes, — the meads and commons, the gentle slopes and sheltering woods around which had been so familiar to them all from generation to generation. Such men, ruined both in body and estate — for they had been treated with the greatest harshness — flocked to the chief towns and cities in the hope of keeping body and soul together; while those of the lowest and poorest class, who had so often been relieved at the gate of the adjacent monastery, went about in gangs, * Fifty-four larger monasteries had been dissolved in London alone under Edward VI. — a fact carefully verified by me from the State Papers and the works of Sir William Dugdale. LOOSE MORALITY POPULAR. 41 disappointed and vexed at heart, to ask an alms of barley bread and small beer from the gentles and yeomen of the various depopulated shires, who, themselves being correspondingly overburdened with taxes and charges, and having been more than once distinctly and directly robbed by the authoritative issue of base coins, ^ were unable to aid with any effect these miserable and starving wretches who implored their assistance. As for the morals of the people, these had no- toriously become looser and most depraved. Even the " reforming preachers," and the " superinten- dents " of Edward the Sixth's reign admitted this to be the case. Whatever detail be considered, the same law of retribution is found to be actively and incessantly at work. It was seen to be impos- sible for the nation to have swallowed moral poison and to remain unaffected by its conse- quences. Even the designing impostors from abroad — the Bible-quoting bankrupts from Geneva, the effeminate idlers from Flanders, the un- punished convicts from Berne, Antwerp, and ^ The depreciation in the value of the coinage under Edward VI. had been excessive. Such was nothing less than robbery by authority. See the printed Proclamations for effecting this in the Library of the Society of Antiquaries. Also Ending's " Annals of the Coinage," vol. ii. p. 107; and the " Wardmote Book of Faversham in Kent," from which it is clear that certain pro- perty then recently valued at £120, on account of such depre- ciation, only realized £60 — just one-half. See likewise Harl. MSS. Brit. Museum, No. 353, folio 107. 42 DISASTROUS INFLUENCE OF CALVINISM. Strasburg — whom Oranmer had imported to enable him to complete the revolution, were compelled, for the sake of appearances and in order to satisfy their hearers, to moan and mourn over the immoral atrocities everywhere so current and common. Thus lying became a controversial necessity : hypocrisy a very virtue in the new preachers. The rich consequently — when they listened to picturesque word-juggling and pious self- laudation — .became indifferent and callous to the wants' and suiferings of the poor. Frauds of the most artfully-designed kind were perpetrated by the aid of adventurous scriveners, apostate religious, and shark -Hke lawyers of the lowest type. Sanctimonious usurers, who had been smitten with admiration for John Calvin's new and blasphemous gospel, became active, designing, and most iniquitous in their all- too-successful policy. For whatever such persons may have done in direct contradiction to the moral law, they believed that their own eternal salvation in the life to come was both absolutely predestinated and amply secured. Juries, at the same time, were secretly bribed, and judges often efficiently corrupted. Too often the sacrament of marriage was despised and perverted : ^ prosti- ' " The sxiiij day of November dyd ryd in a cart Cheken par- sun of Sant Necolas Ooldabbay [round] about London, for he sold y^ wyiT to a bowoher." — Machyn's Diary, suh anno 1653. Brit. Museum, Cotton MSS. Vitellius F. v. (damaged by fire). BIRTH AND BAPTISM OF QUEEN MARY. 43 tution and viler crimes were winked at, adultery was condoned. The old restraints upon such notorious sins, having been deliberately removed, it was found that the ecclesiastical courts, from those of the Archbishops' down to the lowest local official, having lost their divine authority — having been cut off from the source of valid spiritual jurisdiction — first became enervated, then para- lyzed as regards the enunciation of truth, right, and justice, and eventually utterly corrupt. Sub- sequently, these courts were mainly maintained and farmed for the personal benefit of their hungry officials, who, upon the rich suitor, with his well- filled purse, and upon the influential seeker-after- Hcences in favour at Court, bestowed by vellum instruments, drawn up in Scriptural phraseology, full liberty for licentiousness ; thus removing the ancient and lawful restraints upon crime, and this in return for liberal benevolences and the payment of newly- extended fees. Mary was born at the Palace of Greenwich on Monday, February the 18th, 1515-16, and baptized on the 21st of the same month in the grand church of the Grey Friars adjacent to the Palace. The Princess Katherine Plantagenet and the Duchess of Norfolk were her sponsors, Thomas Cardinal Wolsey being her godfather. This Sacrament, administered in a silver font preserved at Canter- bury Cathedral, was celebrated with great spien- 44 WORK OF THE NEW NOBILITY. dour and dignity. The gifts bestowed upon the infant princess were of much value — the Duchess of Norfolk providing a richly-illuminated " Book of Hours," with highly-finished drawings of saints, and rich borders of archaic marygold-fiowers, strawberries, and marguerites. The early part of Mary's life — save as serving to illustrate her character as a monarch — is in- tentionally passed over, as beyond the immediate scope of this volume ; it being the great principle of Corporate Reunion, sanctioned by her as Queen, and eventually carried out by Cardinal Pole, which is herein under particular consideration. A few of the special events of the early period of the Queen's reign, however, need detailed no- tice. Those only, nevertheless, that bear directly upon the subject of this volume — a mere historical .sketch — need be dealt with at any length. But such, in certain cases, may be found to demand careful amplification, so that the full importance of the leading subject referred to may, in all its bearings, be adequately realized. And here let one of the darkest features of the period, mainly the work of the newly set-up nobi- lity and their creatures, often men of low birth, but of great capacity and cunning, be duly re- marked. The endeavour of the Duke of Northumberland to exclude Mary from the throne was certainly THEIR UNPRINCIPLED POLICY. 45' and at once artful, well-designed, and bold. The innovating party to a man, knowing their own rickety position, were in favour of it. Edward VI. had been induced in his last Will and Testament to leave each of his sisters £1,000; while the sup- posed claims of Lady Jane Grey were being every- where pressed forward, upon the death of Edward, which had taken place on the 6th of July, 1553. It was believed by some — and the rumour gained strength and coherence during its passage from lip- to lip and from place to place — that Northumber- land had hastened the death of the Duke of Somerset.' Anyhow the stakes for which the- former had played were heavy, and his method in playing for them was adroit and vigorous. This nobleman, both from accurately gauging public utterances and from private information, mistrusted the adherence of the citizens of London. Nevertheless (as he thought he was able to fore- cast) Bigotry, duly sustained by Falsehood and Cant, might exercise a certain practical influence; so he formally exhorted the "licensed preachers"', of the Boy-King to become more noisy and active on his behalf, and to continue the work they had always done of stirring up the perverted and detest- able sentiments of all the rabble-audiences which flocked together to be amused,flattered, and cajoled. Nicholas Ridley, vahdly but irregularly conse- 1 Harl. MSS. Brit. Museum, No. 363, folio 121. 46 BISHOP NICHOLAS RIDLEY. crated/ who in 1547 had been intruded into the diocese of London without election or confirmation, but merely by that most unprecedented method, the issue of Letters Patent, had shown himself an earnest and determined innovator. His innova- tions commenced with his rejection of the Ancient Faith in its completeness and integrity, these were continued in the mode of episcopal consecration he was ready to ^receive, wanting due and ancient spu'itual authority^ and were crowned in the un- worthy and dangerous" work he had been so willing, at Northumberland's suggestion, to undertake. On the following Sunday, therefore, this Nicholas Ridley appeared in tiae stone pulpit at St. Paul's Cross, to address tlie Lord Mayor, the sheriflFs, several of the aldermen, and a goodly concourse of citizens, j/ It was a fair day in July. The sunshine fell upon the stately cathedral in warmth and splendour. Its lofty spire and carved pinnacles, with the light and beautiful flying-buttresses, ' " The practice uniformly pursued by the Catholic Church," remarks a clear and lucid writer on the subject, " was to acknow- ledge the validity of the orders conferred during schism, pro- vided they were conferred acoording to the Catholic rite and preserved the form and intention of the Church, but to deny and ignore the jurisdiction of bishops who were consecrated without the licence, and in contempt of the authority, of the Pope [Ridley's case exactly], and to deny the validity of all the orders or consecrations which were performed according to the Protestant Ritual." — -The Episcopal Succession, vol. iii. p. 18. By W. Maziere Brady. Rome : 1877. HIS TREASONABLE DISCOURSE. 47 clustering round tower and transepts/ stood out against the deep blue sky. Below, the external galleries of its northern transept, facing the out- door pulpit, were filled by a gathering of notables; while the populace in general, citizens, apprentices, and artizans, stood in closely-packed groups around its canopied structure, anticipating a lively dialec- tical performance. They were not disappointed. The preacher maintained by a queer kind of logic that both the daughters of Henry VIII. were ille- gitimate. That Elizabeth Boleyne was in this state few then doubted. But as regards Mary, the Queen, his assertion was distinctly and directly false — so false indeed that no homiletical rhetoric, however artfully phrased, could make it even seem to be true. The preacher was remarkably free with his remarks on the " two competitors for the throne," as he termed them. The Lady Jane, in his judgment, was pious, orthodox, and gentle; Mary was haughty. Papistical, and bigoted. Such a judgment from such a person was at once untrue, impertinent, and unjust, while his previous asser- tions were distinctly treasonable. But Mary, who had been kept well informed of the course of events, was at Hunsdon when the fact of her brother's death was communicated to her. Thither had gone true and confidential ^ See an oil painting of this cathedral in the apartments of the Society of Antiquaries, Burlington House. 48 THE POPULACE LOYAL TO MARY, friends. She thus soon learnt of the proclamation of Lady Jane Grey, which Northumberland had enjoined to be made. In conjunction with her trustiest advisers and truest friends, therefore, Mary took every lawful and proper means to dis- abuse the people of misrepresentations actively circulated,^ and to defend her obvious rights. A few friends — tried and trusty — who acted together with determination, zeal and prompt vigour, were worth some hundreds of mere word-splitters and boasting brawlers, as events proved. Within a week no less than thirty thousand men, from all parts of the kingdom, devoted to her person and cause,'^ gathered together, refusing any pay for their services. ' The following is copied from an original printed impression of the Queen's Proclamation: — " Marie the Quene, — " Knowe ye all the good subjects of this Realme, that yo"" most noble Prince yo"' Souraigne Lord & King, Edward the VP^ is upon thursday last dep'ted this world to G-od's marcie. And that now the most excellent Princes, his sister Marie, by the grace of God y' Quene of B. & T. and verie owner of the Crowne, Government and tytle of E. & Y. and all things there- unto belonging, to God's glory, the honor of the royalme of England, and all yo"' comfortes. And her Highness is not fiedd thys royalme, ne intendeth to do, as y'most contraly surmysed." ^ The following sets forth the opinion then held in Lincoln- shire : — " And so tolde me that the Lady Jane was p'claymed at London, as a frend of his told hyme at Grantham, wiche was newe come from London, and hard hir p'claimed. And I said God forbyde y' shulde be so, for she hade no right to the Crowne ; and the Queues majestie was here-apparent to the Crowne of Englond, & that hir grace shuld have hir right, or else there wold be the bloddyest day for hir grace that ever was iu AND SEND HER MILITARY AID. 49 " In the East of England the Earl of Essex, Lord Thomas Howard, with the Pastons, Beding- fields, and Jerninghams of those parts had risen in behalf of their lawful sovereign. The Earls of Bath and Sussex had loyally done the same some days previously. From Oxfordshire and Bucking- hamshire Sir Edward Peckham, Sir John WiUiams, and Sir Robert Drury had levied, and co-operated in equipping, nearly ten thousand men, who were assembled at Lord Paget' s suggestion near West Drayton. From Thame nearly a hundred sturdy yeomen and others marched thither under the command of Captain William Lee, prepared to dare and do on behalf of their rightful Queen." ^ The enthusiasm was everywhere great. On the 19th of July, consequently, she was proclaimed Queen,^ and on the 3rd of August, as lawful Englond And I told hyme that Quene Mary shulde be p'claimed Queue of Bnglonde, and shuld Eaigne Quene over us as long as pleased God, or els I and an hundred thowsande such as I would p'rish for her greoe's sake." — From A 'Petition of SAchard Troughton to the Frivy Council, Harl. MSS., Nos. 6,215-6,232. ' " History of the Prebendal Church of Thame," folio, p. 7] . London: 1883. ' This was done [i.e., Mary proclaimed Queen] " at the Orosse in Ohepe, and from that plasse they whent unto PowUs and ther was Te Deum Laudamus, with song, and the organes playhyng, and all the belles ryngyng through London, and bone fyrres, & tabuls in evere strett, & wyne and here and all, and evere strett full of bonefyres, and ther was money cast away." — Diary of Machyn, Cotton MSS. Vitellius, F. v. sub anno 1553. E 50 ENTHUSIASM OF THE LONDON CITIZENS. monarch, made her triumphal entry into the City of London. Ten thousand of the flower of the upper classes accompanied her on horseback in costly and picturesque habiliments, the old nobility ever conspicuous ; while the sympathy and applause of the population in general, cheering the Queen to the echo, were at once hearty and general. The home-made heretics, like moles and bats, withdrew from the sunshine into shadow.' The foreign importations, whose new Gospel was not on that occasion in very great request or favour, raging at Fate, gnashed their teeth with disap- pointment and fury. It was a marvellous sight, thus described by a contemporary : — " Greate was the triumph hear at London ; for my tyme I never saw the lyke, & by the reporte of otheres the lyke was never seen. The nomber of cappes that were throwne uppe at y'' Proclema- tion wear not to be tould. The Earle of Pem- broche threwe awaye his cape full of aigelletes. I saw myselfe money was throwne out at win- dowes for joye. The bonfires weare withoute ^ In certain of the foreign cities to which they had hoped to resort, and from which their own reforming allies had been origi- nally imported by Cranmer, the municipal authorities refused them permission to settle, on the reasonable ground that the moral and political principles they advocated were calculated to disturb law and order, and to promote unrest, dissatisfaction, and sedition. CERTAIN PRISONERS PARDONED. 51 nomber, & what withe showting and cryinge of the people & rynginge of belles, theare could noe one man heare almost what an other sayde, besides bankettinge & supping in the strete for joye."^ At the Tower of London a touching incident occurred. On the approach of the Queen, near to the little churchyard of St. Peter, the State prisoners, who had been confined by the mere wills or de- crees of Henry VIII. and his son, were found humbly kneeling upon the green. Edward Cour- teney, a prisoner even from his youth, heir to the Earl of Devon, supported the aged Duke of Nor- folk, under sentence of death, as the latter bent his feeble knees. Side by side with these knelt the Duchess of Somerset, who first greeted Her Ma- jesty, while those irregularly-deprived bishops, Stephen Gardiner and Cuthbert Tonstall, ad- dressed her with congratulations and supplication. For a few moments, glancing at each, and soon recognizing all, and bursting into tears, she most kindly and charitably raised them up one by one, exclaiming, " Ye are my prisoners now, good friends and cozens." Then kissing them each on the forehead, and extending her right hand to be kissed in turn by all, she at once gave them then- liberty. The officers of the Tower soon made known what had taken place. From the throng at I See also Cotton MSS., Vitellius, F. v. folio 19, and Harl. MSS. No. 363, folio 139. 52 PROTESTANT PLOTS DEFEATED. the Tower-gates shouts of wildest acclamation were heard. All the details of this day, with its outburst of joy and satisfaction, were duly reported to Car- dinal Pole at Rome. Friends and relatives seem to have vied with each other in obtaining true reports, and in transmitting them to that Prince of the Church without change or exaggeration. Thus high and noble hopes were born at Rome — some of which were soon realized, and others in the end dashed to the ground and destroyed. Thus, the detestable plot of the chief advisers of the deceased Boy-King, and certain of the new aris- tocracy, to exclude the rightful heiress to the throne, was utterly brought to nought, as Justice determined ; and this by the almost unanimous voice of the people; who, though for half a century they had been both demoralized and degraded by the public policy of Henry VIII. and his son, were anxious that the old order of things, both in reli- gion and social order, in Church and State, should be at once restored. Mary, the Queen, therefore, by God's favour, came out from the deep shadow of persecution, neglect, and bitter suflfering,^ into ' The following forcible and noble sentence, from the pen of the late Sir Frederick Madden, P.S.A., deserves to be here repro- duced : " The deeply-rooted principles of the Princess, which had enabled her, when she had scarcely attained the age of woman- hood, to resist the menaces of a tyrant father and his myrmidons, ought to have convinced the counsellors of the new monarch THE TRUE POSITION OF QUEEN MARY. 53 the full sunshine of a people's favoui-, a nation's welcome, and the benediction of Providence. In time, however, the shadows gathered anew and became deeper and darker. To many the change at her accession seemed a distinct divine blessing : to a few it appeared like a very miracle.^ Her position as Queen, however — ^when the actual circumstances were truly faced — was full of the gravest practical difficulties. When she assumed the sceptre and first wore the crown, the people were found to have become both demoralized and degraded^ by the revolution in religion which had [Edward VI.] how vain woald be the attempt to force her con- science, or, by the whining of a boy and the mandates of an upstart nobleman, to subdue the spirit which had for so many years learned how to endure oppression." — Privy Purse Expenses of the Princess Mary, p. cv. London : 1831. ^ Thus far John Poxe wrote : " God so turned the hearts of the people to her, and against the Council, that she over- came them without bloodshed, notwithstanding there was made great expedition against her both by sea and land." See also Lansdowne MSS., Brit. Museum, No. 840, A, folio 155, in which Michele, the Venetian Ambassador, beautifully and earnestly records his similar convictions. Dr. Nicholas Sander — his words are translated — ^is identical in his historical record : " After a schism which had lasted twenty years God vouchsafed the victory in a wonderful manner to Mary, the Catholic princess, over almost all the nobles of the kingdom ; and this was effected without shedding one drop of blood. Here, then, was an obvious miracle in favour of the Catholic Faith, wrought before the whole world." — D. V. Nieholai Sanderi, Be Origine et Progressu Bchismatis Anglicani, Liber. Lib. iii. 1. Coloniae Agrippinae, a.d. 1585. ^ Queen Mary writes from St. James's, Jan. 22, 1553, to Sir Hugh Pollard and others of Devonshire. Evil-disposed persons 54 ALL CLASSES TAINTED WITH ERRORS. been so artfully effected. Such had touched and tainted every class. Such had besmeared politics ^ with its false principles ; and tinctured social order and family life with its practical and pernicious evils. Mary, however, clinging firmly to the faith of her forefathers — to that which St. Augustine had brought hither nine hundred years before, and in which St. Thomas, and More, and Fisher, and her own saintly mother in the flesh had so recently died — found herself in the hands of those advisers who, as they believed, for the safety of the State, thereabouts are reported to be endeavouring to hinder the Catholic religion being practised, and divine service as of old restored. A little later, that is, on Feb. 4, 1553, Sir John St. Leger writes to the Council that Devonshire is now well- affected to the Queen, and that divine service is every- where attended. Similar information is also intimated to Mr. Secretary Petre. — Staie Tapers, Public Eecord OflBce, sub anno 1553. In the same year an Order in Council, held at Hampton Court, was formally made to find out whether John Barnarde and John Walshe carried about with them the bones of one Pigott, executed, representing them to be relics, and enjoining the people to resist the reimposition of the ancient faith. — Harl. MSS., No. 643, folio 45 b. ^ " The political side of the movement (of Luther) was in some respects the most important, for it transferred from one class to another not far short of one-third of the whole landed interest of the Empire. It was indeed a bitter day to the very poor, for they lost many a kind friend, many a comfortable night's lodging, and many a hearty meal at old abbey gates ; but spendthrift nobles and rollicking citizens became rich again, and vied with each other in establishing petty princedoms and here- ditary honours which shone with the glamour of almost sacred traditions." — Centenary Studies, by Edwin de Lisle, p. 78. London: 1884. FORCE IN GOVERNMENT. 55 were ready to apply the same strong measures to their opponents as their opponents, when they had had the opportunity, had applied to them. Herein Reginald Pole, the exile, duly surveying the situa- tion, was somewhat at variance with those person- ally near the Queen, counselling caution, prudence, and care. There is, of course, much to be said for vigour of method in governing. If mild measures and mere nominal punishments avail not for the malignant and the incurably-malicious, stronger and more disagreeable methods often have to be adopted. Such methods are universal. Without Force there can be no actual government. The Enghsh laws against the disorderly — traitors, sub- verters of the constitution, obstinate heretics, schismatics, murderers, and blasphemers — were certainly strong, and perhaps not at all too strong. It was those iniquitious personal enactments of Henry VIII. and Edward VI., however, formulated by their own mere malignant motions, or at the suggestion of their favourite advisers, and put into operation because of the efficacy of Tudor privy- seal and sign-manual only, which so tended to elevate cruelty to an art, and brought direct dis- credit upon all the mere official instruments by whom such disagreeable enactments had to be actually and painfully enforced.^ ^ Persecution of all who ventured to hold opinions contrary to those favoured by authority was a general rule of policy with 56 FANATICISM AND CANT DISREGAEDED. Though N'orthumberland, for his own personal convenience, had kept the officers and servants of the Crown three years in arrears of their salaries, the Queen at once issued two Proclamations, which were everywhere received with unfeigned thank- fulness. Through the first Proclamation, the base money issued by her brother's advisers was called in, and a new coinage, of great and singular purity, and of fair artistic character, was issued. The loss involved was borne by the Treasury. Through the second Proclamation, she remitted to her sub- jects, as some acknowledgment of their devotion, certain hard and pressing taxes, the removal of which was everywhere greatly appreciated. The fanaticism of the men who preached the new religion had been such that robes and dresses suitable to the rank and dignity of the upper classes, as well as all innocent and rational amuse- ment, had been everywhere condemned.^ Gloomi- ness in garb and feature had gone hand in hand with Cant, while Hypocrisy stood by with up- turned eyes and deep sepulchral utterances. Such, every communion in the sixteenth century ; and this fact accounts for, though it cannot justify, the conduct of the Queen of England and the contemporary King of France, as well as that of Oranmer and Oalvin." — Annals of England, p. 325. London : 1876. ^ This subject is dealt with at length in a letter dated " from Richmond, near London," in August, 1552, sent from James Haddou (sometime Prebendary of Westminster) to Henry Bui- linger. LOYALTY OF THE CITIZENS OF LONDON. 57 however, was all altered at Court. England became "Merry England" again for a few years — a change cordially welcomed in every class ; though a few gloomy and melancholy fanatics like Aylmer were found to condemn it. So early as the 12th of September the citizens of London began to adorn their official and private houses for the coronation. The houses were hung with standards, Turkey carpets, rich tapestry, cloths of gold and silver, and heraldric devices. The Genoese merchants bore the charges of one of the most elaborate displays in the City, where music was heard without intermission, ballads recited — " the goodlyest playing with all maner of musyssoners " (as is on record) — continuing all day long. Pageants Were duly prepared with great elaboration in Fenchurch Street and Gracechurch Street, in Cornhill, Cheapside, St. Paul's Church- yard, Ludgate, and Fleet Street. These attracted crowds. Everywhere the old religious ideas were now found in the forefront. On the 30th of the same month the accustomed Royal Procession made its way fi'om the Tower to Westminster — the populace greeting the Queen with a cordiaUty and heartiness which deeply im- pressed the foreign ambassadors and greatly dis- comfited the new men. At the Queen's coronation in Westminster Abbey, on the 1st of October, all the ancient 58 CORONATION OF QUEEN MART. customs were restored, with the Catholic rite, care- fully rendered by Bishop Gardiner, of Winchester. " It was done royally," wrote Fabyan, " and such a multitude of people resorted out of all parties of the realm to see the same, that the like had not been seen tofore." Every important detail in the stately ceremony of anointing and coronation^ was performed with scrupulous care. Scarcely a single high officer of the State was absent. These and all witnessed a rite of remarkable splendour and rife with such an outpouring of divine grace. The Mass of the Holy Ghost was said with every due and proper act and ceremony. No respected precedent nor ancient custom was disregarded. The Gloria in excelsis and Credo^ with the special Offertorium., were chanted by two clustering bands of choi-isters and singing-men in rochets, over scarlet cassocks embroidered with gold; and this after the ancient mode. Round the lighted altar, under the very shadow of St. Edward's shrine, where seven newly-kindled lamps burned, were gathered, in cope and mitre, prelates true to the Faith and priests loyal to the Father of the faithful. When the thick incense-cloud was scattered by the ' In the sanctuary Elizabeth Boleyne, who appeared as a Catholic, carried the crown. She is said to have whispered to M. Noailles, " It is mightily heavy." He promptly replied, " Be patient, madam ; it will seem much lighter when you find it on your own head." ENTHUSIASM OF THE PEOPLE. 59 sunshine, the duly anointed Queen was seen pros- trate at her faldstool before receiving the Bread of Life at the hands of Gardiner, and pledged herself anew to respect the freedom and independence of the Church, and to restore the ancient Faith. Even an oppQnent paints the picture with perfect accuracy and considerable colour. Not in London alone, but elsewhere, in other cities, the joy was evidently sincere, and the longing for ecclesiastical peace and oneness hearty : — " The Papists, who had been always longing for this most-wished-for day, dig out, as it Avere, from their graves their vestments, chalices, portasses (z'.e., breviaries), and begin Mass with all speed. In these things our Oxford folk lead the van At the Proclamation of Mary — even before she was proclaimed at London, and when the event was still doubtful — they gave such demonstrations of joy as to spare nothing. They first of all made so much noise all the day long with clapping their hands that it seems still to linger in my ears. They then, even the poorest of them, made volun- tary subscriptions, and mutually exhorted each other to maintain the cause of Mary. Lastly, at night, they had a public festival, and threatened flames, hanging, the gallows, and drowning to all the Gospellers."' ^ Dated from Strasburg, 20tli Nov., 1553, and written by 60 LENIENT TREATMENT OF CRANMEE. After Elizabeth's apparent return to the Catholic Faith — a mere pretence, as subsequent events served to prove, — the various innovators had not unreasonably looked to Thomas Cranmer for his personal and practical aid in their gathering diffi- culties. As yet, Queen Mary's advisers had given no cause of complaint for very harsh treatment of the Archbishop at all. On the contrary, he had been more than leniently dealt with. Himself the artful and astute author of the late Queen Katherine's divorce, the actual decreer of Queen Mary's so-called " bastardy," the foremost clerical conspirator under Northumberland against his lawful Sovereign ; while, from the outset of his archiepiscopal career, he had craftily perjured himself in St. Stephen's Chajjel at Westminster, on the day of his irregular consecration, in several respects a dangerous and evil-principled man, — he certainly deserved a far heavier punishment than at first he received. For he was merely directed to confine himself within the precincts of Lambeth House — no great hardship, and no particular inconvenience. There, it is stated that he grew moody, as, upon due reflection, well he might, considering the almost inconceivable mischief he had wrought both to Church and State. There he began to Julius Tepentianus, who had just come from England, and pro- bably from Oxford, to John ab Ulmis. HIS HERESY AND PROFANITY. 61 learn and note that liis hopes for working further mischief were apparently dashed to the ground ; and that the Calvinistic and Zuinglian orgies which for several recent years had degraded and defiled the ancient Catholic cathedrals and churches of his country, were evidently to come to an end. Within a week of his confinement, news was privately brought to him by some of his foreign friends that the ancient Christian rites had with pomp and dignity been restored at Canterbury ; and, as certain dwellers in that city averred, at his own official instigation and desire. It was furthermore added that he himself had been re- ported as anxious to say Mass in the presence of his Sovereign, and to reverse at once and openly, by present action, his past innovations and heretical teaching. To this report — at hearing which he became furious — he gave a prompt, violent and bitter denial ; reiterating his profane and shocking asser- tion that Holy Mass " Avas a device and invention of the Devil, the father of lies," and declaring that he was most anxious to show the people, as well as the Queen, that it involved "horrid blas- phemies." ^ He also undertook to prove that the Calvinistic and Zuinglian orgies referred to, were almost ' "Archaeologia," vol. xviii. p. 175. 62 latimee's seditious demeanoue. absolutely identical with the rites and doctrines current everywhere during the first ages of Chris- tianity. The document itself, in which these random assertions were set forth, printed and circulated, was, from any point of view, a des- picable production. As a theological statement, however, it was plainly absurd and misleading ; while its publication, as a matter of State policy, was at once seditious, dangerous, and, for the sake of the misguided multitude — ever delighting in wordy contentions, popular disputations, and artful hair-splitting — thoroughly deserving of prompt condemnation. This, without delay, it received. For the Coun- cil, having requested the attendance of Cranmer, relaxed the benevolence already mistakenly shown, and committed him to the Tower. Hugh Latimer, another of the same destructive gang, equally heretical, bitterly persecuting^ and much more violent in his words and predictions, because of his " seditious demeanour," often so ostentatiously and abundantly made manifest, was very properly sent to the same place. ' The indelicacy and indecency of the pulpit under these persons was notable. Take for instance Hugh Latimer's per- secuting discourse before Edward VI. : — '' There lacketh a fourth to make up the mess, which so God help me, if I were judge, should be Hangii/m tumn, a Tybourne typpet, to take with him ; if it were the Judge of the King's Bench, the Lord Chief Justice of England ; yea, if it be my Lord Chancellor himself" EXECUTION OF INFLUENTIAL TRAITOES. 63 The Duke of Northumberland and his son, the Earl of Warwick, were tried for treason before, the Duke of Norfolk, Lord High Steward, and their peers. They pleaded guilty on the 18th of August, 1563, no other plea, when the facts are known and noted, being open to them. Sir John Gates, Sir Henry Gates, Sir Andrew Dudley, and Sir Thomas Palmer, — Northumber- land's most active allies— were, on the following day, tried upon a similar charge, and, the facts being patent and undisputed, these pleaded guilty likewise. Of the above, only the Duke of Northumberland, Sir Thomas Palmer, and Sir John Gates, were beheaded on the 22nd of the same month. Face to face with death, these unhappy men all openly professed the ancient Faith, warning the onlookers in terms evidently coming from their hearts, against sedition and irreligion.'- Such sentiments, at such an end, were good and edifying. ^ John Banks, one of the Duke's servants, gives a somewhat different account in regard to his master, as follows : — " Certain wicked wretches endeavoured to draw him away, while in prison, from the faith and confession of the true Christ. But they were in no wise able to move him, for he confessed the Lord Christ even to his latest breath. And at the same time he was led to execution, though the Papists brought forth one of the Council, a swine out of the herd, who defended the Catholic Church (!) the mass, the fathers, and customs established by length of time, yet he would not acknowledge any other atonement than that which was perfected by the death of Christ." — Letter from John Banhs to Hemy BulUnger, "from London," March 15, 1564. 64 THE emperor's advice to queen mart. On the following day, Stephen Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester — who, with other prisoners, had been released from the Tower on the 3rd of August, and reinstated in his See — was formally made Lord High Chancellor. He was likewise elected Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, and there did a good work.^ Nothing, it may here be remarked, could have been wiser nor kinder than the advice which the Emperor Charles V. tendered to Mary with regard to the Duke of Northumberland and his co- conspirators. The Emperor evidently took in at a glance the wide field of political and ecclesiastical controversy, and its baneful influence upon Christian states. Upon such a view he acted both with charity and wisdom. Of all those in England who were engaged in that nefarious plot of robbing the rightful heiress of her crown, and the people of a pious and benevolent monarch, only seven, as has been shown, were selected for prompt and im- mediate trial. All these had notoriously been in close alliance, in order to compass their base and unworthy object. Existing laws, perfectly righteous and just, they disregarded. They had ^ The Queen, from Eichmond Palace, August 20, 1553, writes to Bishop Gardiner, Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, and others, commanding that the ancient statutes, foundations and ordinances of the University be inviolably kept and observed. — State Papers, Record Office. LADY JANE GREY. 65 stuck at nothing in the details of their scheme. In its initiation, falsehood, chicanery, bribery, perjury, had one and all been enlisted to aid the conspirators in their dangerous undertaking. Their dupes were numerous and in earnest. They saw unerringly how much depended upon their personal success, and what would be ii-retrievably lost if they failed. Never, therefore, were such conspirators against the Monarch more deserving of prompt and righteous pimishment. The Emperor would have had Lady Jane Grey in- cluded in their number. For though her youth was attractive and her person fair and noble, yet her shallow and sentimental cant — though she may have acted according to her light — was distasteful to many, while her religious principles were false and dangerous. But Mary — though it was pointed out to her that if this advice were short-sightedly neglected, she could never reign in security — could not, as she asserted, find in her heart and conscience to send her unfortunate cousin to the block. For such must be the issue of her trial. Lady Jane, as the Queen so truly and charitably averred, had been rather a puppet than an accomplice. Dangers arising from her pretensions to the crown, as Mary- hoped and trusted, were but imaginary and fan- tastic. Such need not be seriously contemplated. Pope Julius III. appointed Cardinal Reginald Pole his Legate to Her Majesty, but His Eminence, 66 QUEEN MAEY's WISHES AND HOPES. being exceedingly anxious to find out exactly how public events and feeling stood/ suggested to Dandino, the accomplished Papal Legate at Brussels, to send over some trusted and con- fidential ally to England with this object in view, and to make inquiries on various points. Gianfrancisco Commendone, the person selected, — and an excellent selection it seems to have been — at once started from Gravelines for London, where, accidentally meeting one of the Royal Household, William Lee, obtained through him a private audience with the Queen. Her Majesty at once frankly stated her wishes, asserting that no desire lay nearer her heart or was more sincere, than that England should be corporately restored to visible communion with the Holy See. But no one knew the obstacles more accurately than herself, nor apprehended more exactly the diffi- culties, both proximate and remote, which stood in the way of success. The innovators had both bribed the upper and middle classes with Church plunder, and demoralized the lower classes by proclaiming vicious principles and immoral enact- ments. Prejudice was deep, and the Court of Rome by many mistrusted. ' All this, and more, may be gathered from a study of Cardinal Pole's Letters. How thoroughly he was informed of English affairs, and how accurately he judged of his nation's need, may be abundantly and distinctly gathered from the same. SHE COUNSELS PRUDENCE AND CAUTION. 67 Her Majesty, however, further assured Comjn en- done that she meant to set about procuring the repeal of all such laws as trenched on the True Christian Faith, or upon the ancient and desirable discipline of the Catholic Church, and this without any needless delay. At the same time she earnestly expressed a hope that no difficulties might be raised at Rome ; and that the Sacred Pontiff himself might do all in his power to smooth the path of progress for such necessary negotiations, and both by art and charity advance the sacred cause of Reunion. She furthermore added that if the project were to succeed, it would be essential for all concerned to act with the greatest prudence, the most equable temper, and the utmost caution ; to take into con- sideration recent changes and disturbing events, the attitude of conflicting parties and interests, the existing state of disorder in religion, and the ob- vious prejudices, both political and ecclesiastical, of many of her subjects. At the same time no trace of any private communications with the Holy See, or with Cardinal Pole, should, as she advised, be permitted to be discovered or made pubhc. Here were true wisdom and real charity. In the Parliament which had been dissolved at the close of 1553, a distinct and perhaps uncalled- for expression of dislike at the Queen's contem- plated marriage with PhiUp of Spain, son of the 68 SIR THOMAS WYAT's REBELLION. Emperor Charles V., was heard. To this ob- jection the Queen replied with perfect truth and admirable dignity: — "For their loyal wishes, and their desire that her issue might succeed her, she thanked them; but, inasmuch as they essayed to limit her in the choice of a husband, she thanked them not. For the marriages of her predecessors had been perfectly free, nor would she surrender a privilege that concerned her more than it did her Commons." Sir Thomas Wyat,^ of Allington Castle, in Kent, a youth of twenty-three, son of Sir Thomas, the poet, in conjunction with Sir James Croft, Sir Nicholas Throckmorton, Sir William Pickering, and Sir Nicholas Arnold, had already combined to hinder the same. To these were subsequently joined, in the Midland counties. The Duke of Suffolk, his brother Thomas, Lord Grey and his sons, who, towards the close, of January in the following year, had vainly endeavoured to raise troops at Leicester. Sir Peter Carew, a violent and bitter Calvinist, in Cornwall, with a like ' This Sir Thomas Wyat was nephew, by marriage, of Sir Anthony Lee, of Quarrendon, co. Bucks, Knt., the first lady of the last-named having been Margaret, daughter of Sir Henry Wyat, and sister of Sir Thomas, the Poet, of Allington Castle, CO. Kent ; and it is said by Browne Willis, of Whaddon Hall, that there remained some very interesting letters and papers at Quarrendon, Bucks, in regard to this Kebellion until about the year 1712, when the family of Lee moved to their Oxfordshire mansion. OPPOSED BY THE DUKE OF NORFOLK. 69 object, had equally failed, upon which he fled to France ; and the same was the case with Croft in Wales. Wyat himself was at first more successful. He had gathered no less than 2,000 men at Rochester, the Castle and bridge of which city were promptly and efficiently fortified. The old Duke of Norfolk, a great general, was sent against Wyat, and had a certain Captain Brett and five hundred of the City trainbands under his command. Brett, however, was secretly in harmony with Wyat, to whom he openly re- volted at Rochester. On seeing that so large a part of his force refused to fight against Wyat, the Duke was obliged to retire, and flee for his life. Sir Thomas Wyat, who thus by treachery was enabled to reach Deptford on the 1st of February, maintained, in answer to a herald from the Queen, that Her Majesty should change her advisers, give up the Tower of London to him, and take up her abode there under his custody. He was but the tool of the irreligious innovators, and was evidently in his random arrogance, actively inspired by them. At the same time, on the other hand, the promptest action was being taken in the cities of London and Westminster; and this with vigour and effect. The spirit of the true-hearted Queen, sustained and strengthened by her faith, never either flagged or fell. In direct response, loyalty was every- where apparent. At the same time, Mary was 70 PLUNDER or WINCHESTER HOUSE. constant at her devotions, committing her cause to God and the Saints. On the morning of Candle- mass, at daybreak, Dr. Weston said Mass in Whitehall Chapel with a coat-of-mail under his cassock and chasuble. Lord William Howard was made Lieutenant of the City of London, and the Earl of Pembroke General of the Queen's armies in the field. Later in the day the Queen went to the Guildhall, animating her supporters by her presence and bearing. In Kent Wyat's forces advanced up to South- wark, where they broke into and plundered the Palace of the Bishop of Winchester. The fanatical destruction here wrought was appalling. Pictures, works of religious art, Hterary treasures, were all destroyed. Most of Wyat's leading supporters were fanatical " new-men." " They left not a lock on a door," as Stowe the chronicler declared, " or a book in his gallery uncut or rent into pieces ; so that men might have gone up to the knees in leaves of books cut and thrown under foot." They were, however, unable to force the southern gates of London Bridge. On marking the guns of the Tower pointed against his forces, Wyat on the 6th of February prudently marched on to Kingston- upon-Thames, hoping by a round-about and unan- ticipated, but certainly bold, course to surprise the Queen in her palace at Whitehall. He ad- vanced from Kingston so far as the Knightsbridge DEATH OF JANE GREY AND HER HUSBAND. 71 fields, where it was found that the royal forces had been efficiently posted. These, with the main part of his followers, he seems to have avoided by a feint ; but received a direct and vigorous attack from Sir John Gage a little to the west of the village of Charing. At Ludgate, Lord William Howard was so successful in defending that point of the City, that Wyat, perceiving his efi"orts were fruitless, and his rebellion was then in vain, surrendered himself to Sir Maurice Berkeley, and was soon afterwards conveyed to the Tower. There can be little doubt that all these varied insurrections had been secretly planned in con- junction with the heads of the so-called " Reform- ing-party," and this with the direct intention of hindering the restoration of the old order of things and Corporate Reunion. The bitterness and malignancy of the innovators were deep, while the loose principles regarding authority adopted by them, was soon seen to be a direct and actual danger to the State. For without authority obedience dwindled and died out. As a consequence of this rebellion, Lady Jane Grey and her husband. Lord Guilford Dudley, suffered death. Much sympathy has been reasonably enough given to their sad memories and suffering, because of their youth and good looks, and because they had evidently been used as useful puppets by daring adventurers and able schemers for supreme 72 FURTHER EXECUTION OF REBELS. power — to whom their misfortunes and deaths were directly due. It was believed, and not altogether wrongly it is to be feared, that their friends and allies had secretly approved and fostered the ri,sing. Hitherto their confinement in the Tower had been anything but rigorous.^ By an Order in Council, dated so far back as December 17th, 1553, because " that divers be and have been ill at ease in their bodies for want of air," Lady Jane herself, the Dudleys, and Thomas Cranmer were permitted to have " the liberty of the walks within the gardens of the Tower." The Duke of Suffolk, Lady Jane's father, was tried by his peers and convicted on February the 17th; her uncle. Sir Thomas Grey, pleaded guilty on March the 9th, and was executed on April the 27th. Sir Thomas Wyat pleaded guilty on March the 15th, and suffered death upon April the 11th. Sir Nicholas Throckmorton and Sir James Croft were tried on April the 1 7th : the former was ac- quitted ; the latter, on a second trial, convicted and then pardoned. ^ The same had been the case on a previous occasion : — " At Richmonde the x day of Sept., a° 1553 — a letter to the Lieutenant of the Towere whereby he is willed to permitte these Ladyes fol- lowing to have acoesse unto their Husbandes, and there to tarry with them so long and at such tymes as by him shalbe thought convenyente. That is to say the Lord Ambrose's wife, the Lord Eobarte's wife. Sir Francis Jobsone's wife, Sir Henry Gattes his wife, and Sir Eichard Corbett's wife." — Harleian M8S., Brit. Museum, No 643, folio 8. LENITY AND KINDNESS OF THE QUEEN. 73 The Queen displayed remarkable lenity in deal- ing with the insurgents in general. Utterly unlike her father and brother, and contrary to advice tendered by certain persons, she showed great mercy and much kindness. Of the hundreds of prisoners, who were either taken in arms or war, or who subsequently surrendered themselves in the hope of pardon, not a tenth received any punishment at all. They were looked upon as the dupes — sometimes fanatical, occasionally passive — of their leaders, and were graciously forgiven. On February the 20th, no less than four hundred rebel soldiers had been taken in pairs before the Queen in the Tilt-yard at Westminster with halters round their necks ; and then, on promise of future good behaviour, were generously set at liberty.^ About the same time, in order that no delay should occur in the restoration of the Old Religion, formal Injunctions were issued to the bishops to restore the ancient laws as they had been in force under Henry the Eighth — the Oath of Supremacy in spiritualibus being abandoned; and Proclama- tions were sent to the different shires to restore without further delay religious oneness of worship and faith. ^ ^ Maohyn's Diary, $uh anno 1653. Cott. MSS., Brit. Museum, Vitellius, F. v. ' For evidence on this point, may be consulted the " Pro- clamation by the Queen for avoiding the inconvenience and 74 DEPRIVATION OF INTRUDED BISHOPS. The married clergy — some of whom were dis- reputable in their methods^ having allied them- selves to women of the lowest class ^ and loosest characters — were either expelled from their bene- fices, or separated from their wives. The scandals created by many of them were deep and dark. From early times, it had been held that a priest was already married to the Church; and, conse- quently, if he took a wife, he was as much looked upon as a bigamist as a layman would be now regarded who might secure to himself two wives at the same time. On Sunday, the 4th of November, 1554, three married priests, and two laymen, both of whom had actually married two wives each, did public penance at St. Paul's Cross." About this period, other desirable personal changes were made without delay. Robert Hol- gate, who occupied the See of York, Paul Bushe, of Bristol, John Bird of Chester, Robert Ferrar of Gloucester, John Harley of Hereford, and John Taylor of Lincoln, were one and all deprived of their Sees. Judged by the ancient laws of dangers which have arisen in times past through the diversity of opinions in questions of religion." Dated Aug. 18, 1553. — State Papers, Record Office ^ One " Ohecken parson of St. Nicholas Cole Abbey," sold his wife to a butcher, as Machyn, in his Diary puts on record ; ' giving elsewhere other cases of scandal caused by the clergy in connection with this relaxation of discipline. ^ Maohyn's Diary, sub anno 1554. FOREIGN INNOVATORS ORDERED ABROAD. 75 England, and those of the Church of God, these men were traitorous, heretical, irregular, and in- truders. William Barlow of Bath and Wells — the very curse of the various Sees he had held — wisely and at once resigned; while John Scory of Chichester, promptly abandoning his wife, and submitting to the needful penance, avoided resig- nation or expulsion : though he was soon afterwards promptly turned out, when his numerous moral delinquencies had been adequately established. On the 17th of February, 1554 — the work of true reform thus progressing — the congregations of foreign innovators were authoritatively oi'dered to quit the realm. While such were considering their action under this laudable and most necessary order, Coxe, Grindal, Home and other preachers and writers of the same opinions — who had either secretly or openly combined with them — discreetly retired to Germany. These fanatical and self- seeking foreigners, with words as smooth as oil, yet having war in their hearts, were one and all stirrers-up of strife and sedition, and preachers of heresy, and self-pleasing, of schism and immorality. Their firmly-held principles, like those of WickliflFe, Luther, and Calvin, were inherently dangerous to the State, and to all good order and peace. ^ ^ See Centenary Studies, by Edwin de Lisle, M.P. (dealing with Wickliffe's and Luther's heresies). London, 1884. 76 CRANMEE AND OTHERS SENT TO OXFORD, Wherever such persons settled in England, further dissatisfaction and confusion, as a matter of course, at once arose, and often broke out into disorder. They undermined the faith of the poor, caricatured their worship,' befouled their minds, perverted the good old principles of justice generally current amongst commercial men, — the armourers, wool- dealers, and yarn-spinners of the country, — and everywhere laboured to subvert and cripple the divine and beneficent influ.ence of the Church of