tion," "added she," will be but for a moment: we shall soon rejoin each other in a scene, where our affections "will be forever united, and where death, disappointment, "and misfortune, can no longer disturb our felicity 20." She saw lord Guildford led to execution, without discovering any sign of weakness; she even calmly met his headless body as she was going to execution herself, returning to be interred in the chapel of the Tower, and intrepidly desired to proceed to the fatal spot, emboldened by the reports which she had received of the magnanimity of his behaviour. On that occasion she wrote in her Table-book three sentences; one in Greek, one in Latin, and one in English. The meaning of them was, that although human justice was against her husband's body, divine mercy would be favourable to his soul; that if her fault deserved punishment, her youth and inexperience ought to plead her excuse; and that God and posterity, she trusted, would shew her favour. On the scaffold she behaved with great mildness and composure, and submitted herself to the stroke of the executioner with a steady and serene countenance11. The queen's authority was much strengthened by the suppression of this rebellion, commonly called Wyats, from the figure which he made in it; and the arrival of Philip in England gave still more stability to her government. For although that prince's behaviour was ill calculated to remove the prejudices which the English nation had enter. tained against him, being distant in his address, and so entrenched in form and ceremony, as to be in a manner inaccessible, his liberality, if money disbursed for the purposes of corruption can deserve that name, made him many friends among the nobility and gentry. Cardinal Pole also arrived in England about the same time with legatine powers from the pope ; and both houses of parliament voted an address to Philip and Mary, acknowledging that the nation had been guilty of a most horrible defection from the 20. Heylin, p. 167. Fox, vol. iii. 21. Id. Ibid. true true church; declaring their resolution to repeal all laws enacted in prejudice of the Romish religion; and praying their majesties, happily uninfected with that criminal schism! to intercede with the Holy Father for the absolution and forgiveness of their penitent subjects. The request was readily granted. The legate, in the name of his Holiness, gave the parliament and kingdom absolution, freed them from all ecclesiastical censures, and received them again into the bosom of the church22. In consequence of this reconciliation with the see of Rome, the punishment by fire, that frightful expedient of superstition for extending her empire, and preserving her dominion, was rigorously employed against the most eminent reformers. The mild counsels of cardinal Pole, who was inclined to toleration, were over-ruled by Gardiner and Bonner, and many persons of all conditions, ages, and sexes, were committed to the flames. The persecutors made their first attack upon Rogers, prebendary of St. Paul's; a man equally distinguished by his piety and learning, but whose domestic situation, it was hoped, would bring him to compliance. He had a wife whom he tenderly loved, and ten children: yet did he continue firm in his principles, and such was his serenity after condemnation, that the gaolers, it is said, waked him from a sound sleep, when the hour of his execution approached. He suffered in Smithfield. Hooper bishop of Gloucester, was condemned at the same time with Rogers, but sent to his own diocese to be punished, in order to strike the greater terror into his flock. The constancy of his death, however, had a very contrary effect. It was a scene of consolation to Hooper to die in their sight, bearing testimony to that doctrine which he had formerly taught among them. He continued to exhort them, till his tongue, swollen by the violence of his agony, denied him utterance; and his words were long remembered 23. A. D. 1555. 22. Burnet, vol. ii. Fox, vol. iii. 23. Id. Ibid. Ferrar, Ferrar, bishop of St. David's, also suffered this terrible punishment in his own diocese. And Ridley, bishop of London, and Latimer, formerly bishop of Worcester, two prelates venerable by their years, their learning, and their piety, perished together in the same fire at Oxford, supporting each other's constancy by their mutual exhortations. Latimer, when tied to the stake, called to his companion, "Be of good cheer, my brother! we shall this day kindle "such a flame in England, as, I trust in God, will never "be extinguished24." Sanders, a respectable clergyman, was committed to the flames at Coventry. A pardon was offered him if he would recant: but he rejected it with disdain, and embraced the stake, saying, "Welcome cross of Christ! welcome ever"lasting life!" Cranmer had less courage at first. Overawed by the prospect of those tortures which awaited him, or overcome by the fond love of life, and by the flattery of artful men, who pompously represented the dignities to which his character still entitled him, if he would merit them by a recantation, he agreed, in an unguarded hour, to subscribe to the doctrines of the papal supremacy and the real presence. But Mary and her council, no less perfidious than cruel, determined, that this recantation should avail him nothing; that he should acknowledge his errors in the church before the people, and afterward be led to execution. Whether Cranmer received secret intelligence of their design, or repented of his weakness, or both, is uncertain, but he surprised the audience by a declaration very different from that which was expected from him. After explaining his sense of what he owed to God and his sovereign, "There "is one miscarriage in my life," said he, " of which, above "all others, I severely repent-the insincere declaration "of faith to which I had the weakness, to sub"scribe; but I take this opportunity of atoning "for my error, by a sincere and open recantation, and am 24. Fox, vol. iii. Burnet, vol. ii. A. D. 1556. willing "willing to seal with my blood that doctrine which I firmly "believe to have been communicated from Heaven." As his hand, he added, had erred, by betraying his heart, it should first be punished by a severe but just doom. He accordingly stretched out his arm, as soon as he came to the stake, to which he was instantly led, and without discover. ing, either by his looks or motions, the least sign of compunction, or even of feeling, he held his right hand in the flames, till it was utterly consumed. His thoughts appeared to be totally occupied in reflecting on his former fault; and he called aloud several times, "This hand has offended!” When it dropped off, he discovered a serenity in his countenance, as if satisfied with sacrificing to divine justice the instrument of his crime; and when the fire attacked his body, his soul, wholly collected within itself, seemed fortified against every external accident, and altogether inaccessible to pain25, It would be endless, my dear Philip, to enumerate all the cruelties practised in England during this bigotted reign, near three hundred persons having been brought to the stake in the first rage of persecution. Besides, the savage barbarity on one hand, and the patient constancy on the other, are so similar in all those martyrdoms, that a narration, very little agreeable in itself would become altogether disgusting by its uniformity. It is sufficient to have mentioned the sufferings of our most eminent reformers, whose character and condition make such notice necessary. I shall therefore conclude this subject with observing, that human nature appears on no occasion so detestable, and at the same time so absurd, as in these religious horrors, which sink mankind below infernal spirits in wickedness, and beneath the brutes in folly. Bishop Bonner seemed to rejoice in the torments of the victims of persecution. He sometimes whipped the Protestant prisoners, with his own hands, till he was tired with the violence of the exercise: he tore out 25. Fox, vol. iii. Burnet, vol. ii. the the beard of a weaver, who refused to relinquish his religion; and, in order to give the obstinate heretic a more sensible idea of burning, he held his finger to the candle, till the sinews and veins shrunk and burst26. All these examples prove that no human depravity can equal revenge and cruelty, inflamed by theological hate. But the members of the English parliament, though so obsequious to the queen's will in reuniting the kingdom to the see of Rome, and in authorising the butchery of their fellow-subjects, who rejected the Catholic faith, had still some regard left both to their own and the national interest. They refused to restore the possessions of the church. And Mary failed, not only in an attempt to get her husband declared presumptive heir to the crown, and to obtain the consent of parliament for vesting the administration in his hands, but in all her political hopes. She could not so much as obtain a parliamentary consent to his coronation. The queen likewise met with much and long opposition from parliament in another favourite measure; namely, in an attempt to engage the nation in the war which was kindled between France and Spain. The motion was for a time laid aside; and Philip, disgusted with Mary's importunate love, which was equal to that of a girl of eighteen, and with her jealousy and spleen, which increased with her declining years, and her despair of having issue, had gone over to his father Charles V. in Flanders. The voluntary resignation of the emperor, soon after this visit, put Philip in possession of all the wealth of America, and of the richest and most extensive dominions in Europe. He did not, however, lay aside his attention to the affairs of England, of which he still hoped to have the direction; and A. D. 1557. he came over to London, in order to support his parliamentary friends in a new motion for a French war. This measure was zealously opposed by several of the queen's most able counsellors, and particularly by cardinal 26. Fox, vol. iii. Pole, |