A.D. 1555.]

preach this sermon, but it is far more probable that it was the spontaneous act of zeal in a man who was enlightened beyond his age and his country. It is not probable that it proceeded from Philip, for he could at once have commanded this change; it is besides contrary to his life-long policy. Had it been the will of the Sovereigns it would have produced a permanent effect. As it was, it took the Court and country by surprise. The impression on the Court was so powerful that all further burnings ceased for five weeks, by which time the good friar's sermon had lost its effect; and the religious butcheries went on as fiercely as ever, till more than two hundred persons had been slaughtered on account of their faith in this short reign. Miles Coverdale, the venerable translator of the Bible, was saved from this death by the King of Denmark writing to Mary and claiming him as his subject.

Mary had now, according to the custom of English queens, formally taken to her chamber in expectation of giving birth to an heir to the throne. She chose Hampton Court as the scene of this vainly hoped-for event, and went there on the 3rd of April, where she continued secluded from her subjects, only being seen on one occasion, till the 21st of July, after she had again returned to St. James's. This occasion was on the 23rd of May, St. George's Day, when she stood at a window of the palace to see the procession of the Knights of the Garter with Philip at their head, attended by Gardiner, the lord chancellor, and a crowd of priests with crosses, march round the courts and cloisters of Hampton Court. A few days afterwards there was a report that a prince was born, and there was much ringing of bells and singing "Te Deum" in the City and other places. But it soon became known that there was no hope of an heir, but that the queen was suffering under a mortal disease, and that such was her condition, "that she sat whole days together on the ground crouched together with her knees higher than her head." On the 21st of July she removed for her health from London to Eltham Palace.

Whilst Mary was thus suffering frightfully in personfrom a complication of complaints, from dropsy, excessive head-aches, her head often being enormously swelled, and from hysterics-and whilst her reputation was suffering still more from the cruelties practised on her Protestant subjects, her heartless husband was leading a dissolute life, and even attempting to corrupt the maids of honour. Mary probably never knew anything of this, "for sometimes," says Fox, "she laid for weeks without speaking, as one dead, and more than once the rumour went that she had died in childbed."

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to the flames with unrivalled facility, at the rate of half-a-dozen per day; and in this work he was stimulated to diligence by the Privy Council, who urged him continually forward. Burnet gives a letter written in the name of Philip and Mary exhorting him to increased activity; but from what we have seen of Mary's condition we may safely attribute the spur to Philip. Cardinal Pole did all in his power to put an end to the persecutions, but in vain.

It was now resolved to proceed to extremities with the three eminent prelates, Cranmer, Ridley, and Latimer. They had been long in prison, and had now been for the space of a year removed from the Tower to Oxford. They were all, in the eyes of the law, guilty of high treason, for they had all done their best to exclude the present queen from the throne. Cranmer had made the first breach in the Papal power in England by suggesting to Henry VIII. the mode of getting rid of Catherine, and of assuming the supremacy in the Church. Though obliged to conform to Henry's notions during his reign, he had under Edward given a great start to Protestantism, and had cordially concurred with Northumberland in setting aside Mary in the will of Edward. Ridley had openly espoused the cause of Lady Jane Grey, and Latimer had publicly preached, both in Edward's time and at the accession of Mary, against her succession to the throne on account of her Popery.

But the charge of high treason was dropped, undoubtedly because it was hoped that they might, by the prospect of the flames, be brought as heretics to recantation. On the 15th of April, 1554, they were led from their prisons to St. Mary's Church, where the doctors of the university sat in judgment upon them. They were promised a free and fair discussion of their tenets, and the still more vain assurance was given them that if they could convince their opponents, they should be set free. The so-called disputation continued three days, but it much more truly represented a bear-baiting, than the honest discussion of men in quest of the truth.

On the 16th of April, the day appointed, Cranmer appeared before this disorderly assembly in the divinity school. He was treated with peculiar indignity, for they had a deep hatred of him from the long and conspicuous part which he had enacted in the work of Reformation. It was in vain that he attempted to state his views, for he was interrupted at every moment by half-a-dozen persons at once; and whenever he advanced anything particularly difficult of answer, the doctors denounced him as ignorant and unlearned, and the students hissed and clapped their hands outrageously. The next day Ridley experienced the same treatment, but he was a man of a much more bold and determined character, of profound learning, and ready address, and spite of the most disreputable clamour and riot, he made himself heard above all the storm, and with telling effect. When his adversaries shouted at him five or six at a time, he calmly observed, "I have but one tongue, I cannot answer all at once."

The Pecantation of Archbishop Cranmer, in St. Mary's Church, Oxford. (See p. 381.)

returned to their prison. There they lay till the October of the following year, when Ridley and Latimer were ordered to prepare for the stake. On the 16th of that month, a stake was erected in the town ditch opposite to Baliol College. Soto, a Spanish priest, had been sent to them in person to try to convert them, but in vain; Latimer would not even listen to him; and now at the stake a Dr. Smith, who had renounced Popery in King Edward's time, and was again a pervert, preached a sermon on the text, "Though I give my body to be burned and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing." The two martyrs cheered each other, and exhorted one another to be courageous. Ridley, on approaching the pile, turned to Latimer who was following him, embraced and kissed him, saying, "Be of good heart, brother, for God will either assuage the fury of the flame, or strengthen us to bear it ;" and when Latimer was tied to the stake back to back with his fellow-sufferer, he returned the consolation, exclaiming, "Be of good comfort, Master Ridley, and play the man; we shall this day light such a candle, by God's grace, in England, as I trust shall never be put out."

A lighted fagot was placed at the feet of Ridley, and matches applied to the pile. Bags of gunpowder were hung round their necks to shorten their sufferings, and as the flames ascended, Latimer was very quickly dead, probably through suffocation in the smoke; but Ridley suffered long. His brother-in-law had piled the faggots high about him to hasten his death, but the flames did not readily find their way amongst them from their closeness, and a spectator hearing him cry out that he could not burn, opened the pile, and an explosion of gunpowder almost instantly terminated his existence. Cranmer was reserved for a future day. The punctilios of ecclesiastical form were strictly observed, and as he enjoyed the dignity of primate of England, it required higher authority to decide his fate than that which had pronounced judgment on his companions. Latimer and Ridley had been sentenced by the commissioners of the legate, Cranmer must only be doomed by the Pontiff himself. He was, therefore, waited on in his cell by Brooks, Bishop of Gloucester, as Papal sub-delegate, and two Royal commissioners, and there cited to appear before him at Rome within eighty days, and answer for his heresies. As this was impossible, the citation was a mockery and an insult. When the archbishop saw his two friends led forth to their horrible death, his resolution, which never was very great, began to fail, and he now presented a woful image of terror and irresolution, very different to the bravery of his departed friends. He expressed a possibility of conversion to Rome, and desired a conference with Cardinal Pole. But soon he became ashamed of his own weakness, and wrote to the queen defending his own doctrines, which she commissioned the cardinal to answer. When the eighty days had expired, and the Pope had pronounced his sentence, and had appointed Bonner, and Thirlby, Bishop of Ely, to degrade him, and see his sentence executed, he once more trembled with apprehension, and gave out that he was ready to submit to the judgment of the queen; that he believed in the creed of the Catholic Church, and deplored and condemned his past apostacy. He forwarded this submission to the Council, which they found too vague, and required

a more full and distinct confession, which he supplied. When the Bishops of London and Ely arrived to degrada him, he appealed from the judgment of the Pope to that of a general Council, but that not being listened to, he sent two other papers to the commissioners before they left Oxford, again fully and explicitly submitting to all the statutes of the realm regarding the supremacy, and professing his faith in all the doctrines and rites of the Romish Church.

It is asserted by the Protestant party that, in order to induce him to recant, he was promised his life on full conversion, but Lingard, on the authority of Strype, asserts that no such expectations were held out to him, that they were distinctly to Latimer and Ridley, bat when the question was put whether the same favour should be extended to Cranmer, the Council decided in the negative, on the ground that, independent of his political offences, he was the cause of the schism in the reign of Henry, and of the change of religion in the reign of Edward, and that such offences required that he should suffer for example's sake; that the writ was directed to the mayor or bailiffs of Oxford, the day of execution fixed, and that, still hoping for pardon, he made a fifth recantation, as full as his adversaries could possibly desire, abjuring all his Protestant principles as erroneous doctrines; that he sent this paper to Cardinal Pole, praying a respite of a few days that he might prepare a still more convincing proof of his repentance, and do away, before his death, the scandal given by hs past conduct. This prayer, it is said, the queen cheerfully granted; and if the persons in whose hands he was at Oxford held out a prospect of final pardon, this was probably a base and unwarranted deceit on their part, in order to induce the frail prelate to humiliate himself and his cause the more. But we are told that they now removed him from his prison to the house of the Dean of Christchurch, where they treated him luxuriously and di everything to make life sweet, and the prospect of the burning stake awful to him; that he was allowed t walk about at his pleasure, to play at bowls, and that he was assured that the queen loved him and only wished for his conversion; that the Council were rather his friends than his enemies, and would be glad to see hiz again amongst them in honour and dignity. Whoever authorised these false pretences, whether in high or low station, were guilty of the most infamous conduct. Uzd these delusions he now penned his sixth confession, acknowledging that he had been a greater persecutor of the Church than Paul, and trusted that, like Paul, he mig make ample reparation. What he had thrown down be could not restore; but, like the penitent thief upon the cross, he trusted to obtain mercy through his confessa He declared himself worthy of eternal punishment; that he had blasphemed against the sacrament, had sinned against heaven and his sovereign, and implored pard from the Pope, the king, and queen.

On the 21st of March, 1556, Cranmer was conducted ti St. Mary's Church, where Dr. Cole, provost of Exe College, preached a sermon, in which he stated that notwithstanding Cranmer's full repentance, he had done the Church so much mischief that he must die. Th morning Garcina, a Spanish friar, had waited on him before leaving his cell, and presented him with a paper

making a complete statement of his recantation and repentance, which he requested him to transcribe and sign. It seems that his enemies calculated that, having so fully committed himself, the fallen primate would not at the last hour depart from his confession; but they were mistaken. Cranmer now saw nothing but death before him, and he most bitterly repented of his weakness and the renunciation of what he felt to be the holy truth. He had, therefore, transcribed once more the paper which had been brought to him, but in place of the latter part of it he wrote in a very different conclusion. Accordingly, when he read his paper at the conclusion of the sermon there was a profound silence till he came to the fifth article of it, which went on to declare that through fear of death, and beguiled by hopes of pardon, he had been led to renounce his genuine faith, but that he now declared that all his recantations were false; that he recalled them every one, rejected the Papal authority, and confirmed the whole doctrine contained in his book. The amazement was intense, the audience became agitated by various passions, there were mingled murmurings and approbation. The Lord Williams of Thame called to him to "remember himself and play the Christian." That was touching a string which woke the response of the hero and the martyr in the primate. He replied that he did remember; that it was now too late to dissemble, and he must now speak the truth.

This was the time which was to atone for all the weakness of nature in Cranmer, for all his shrinkings, his compliances, his concealments, and almost for his persecutions of others. He saw death certain, and its terrors vanished. The mighty and sublime truth which he had always worshipped in his heart, but which he had not always had the strength to testify and maintain, though he had still been permitted to serve it essentially, now assumed its whole place in his soul, and nerved him for one final and glorious victory.

When the first astonishment at this unlooked-for declaration had passed, there was a rush to drag down Cranmer, and hurry him to the stake in the same spot where his friends Ridley and Latimer had suffered. There he was speedily stripped to the shirt and tied to the stake; through it all he was firm and calm. He no longer trembled at his fate; he declared that he had never changed his belief; hope of life only had wrung from him his recantation; and the moment that the flames burst out he thrust his right hand into them saying, "This hath offended." The writers of those times say, that he stood by the stake whilst the fire raged round him, as immovable as the stake itself, and lifting up his eyes to heaven, exclaimed, "Lord, receive my spirit," and very soon expired.

The burning of Latimer, Ridley, and Cranmer has justly been pronounced a gross political blunder. The noble firmness and dignity with which these eminent men died, made a profound and lasting impression on the public mind. Their faith was, as it were, burnt into the general heart with their death. The enemies of Cranmer had particularly calculated on dishonouring the Reformation in him; at the last moment he rose, and threw new lustre on it. Men might have despised a faith which its adherents were weak enough to renounce; but its opponents drove their triumph too far, and it became the

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triumph of their victims, whose end, ennobled by their religion, made men reflect on that, and gave new impulse, and widely different influence to it.

The day after the death of Cranmer, Cardinal Pole, who had now taken priest's orders, was consecrated Archbishop of Canterbury; and showed his anxiety to check this fierce and impolitic persecution, but, as we shall find, with no great result.

Whilst these terrible transactions had been taking place King Philip had quitted the kingdom. With all his endeavours to become popular with the English, Philip never could win their regard. He conformed to many national customs, and affected to enjoy the national amusements; threw off much of his hauteur, especially in his intercourse with the nobles, and conferred pensions on them on the plea that they had stood by the queen during the insurrection. But nothing could inspire the English with confidence in him. They had always an idea that the object of the Spaniards was to introduce the Spanish rule and dominance here. They had always the persuasion that it was no longer their own queen but the future King of Spain and the Netherlands who ruled. It was clearly seen that Philip never had any real affection for Mary; it was the public opinion that he had now less than ever, whilst the poor invalid Mary doated on him, and was ready to yield up everything but the actual Sovereignty to him. And now came a very sufficient cause for the departure of Philip from England. His father, Charles V., wearied of governing his vast empire, was anxious to abdicate in favour of his son. Philip embarked at Dover on the 4th of September, 1555. Mary accompanied him from Hampton to Greenwich, riding through London in a litter, in order, as the French ambassador states, "that her people might see that she was not dead." The queen was anxious to proceed as far as Dover, and see him embark, but her health did not permit this; and after parting with him with passionate grief, she endeavoured to console herself by having daily prayers offered for his safety and speedy return.

Before quitting the kingdom, Philip took care to leave with Cardinal Pole directions for the guidance of the Council, and these directions, which remain in the cardinal's handwriting, are as absolute, and as void of reference to any option of the queen's, as if there were no such person. This is plain proof that the English were quite right when they ascribed to Philip the real and sole government of the country, the queen having an idea that it was her duty as a wife to submit in all things to her husband. This important fact is fully substantiated by an oration of Sir Thomas Smith, in which he traced all the cruelty of Mary's reign to her marriage; by Fuller, the Church historian, who, whilst recording all the horrors of her reign, admits that "she had been a worthy princess if as little cruelty had been done under her as by her;" and by Fox, in his "Book of Martyrs," who declares that "she was a woman every way excellent while she followed her own inclination." Nor did the queen resume more power in his absence, for we are assured by Noailles, that he maintained a constant correspondence with his ministers, and no appointment or measure was carried into effect without his previous knowledge and consent.

Scarcely was Philip gone when Mary alarmed the