By permission, from the Painting in the Victoria and Albert Museum, South Kensington.
CRANMER AT TRAITORS' GATE. 1553.
By F. GOODALL, R.A.
The persecution of the Reformed clergy who had stood firm became vehement. The married clergy were called upon to abandon their wives, and there was a rush of the expelled priests again to fill their pulpits. In the cities there was considerable opposition, for there the people had read and reflected, but generally throughout the agricultural districts the change took place with the ease and rapidity of the scene-shifting at a theatre. Many of the married priests, however, would not abandon their wives and children, and were turned adrift into the highways, or were thrust into prison. Many fled abroad, hoping for more Christian treatment from the Reformed churches there, but in vain, for their doctrines did not accord with those of the foreign Reformers, who deemed them heretical.
About half the English bishops conformed; the rest were ejected from their sees, and several of them were imprisoned. Soon after Cranmer, Latimer, and Ridley were sent to the Tower, Holgate, Archbishop of York, was sent thither also. Poynet, who was Bishop of Winchester during Gardiner's expulsion, was imprisoned for having married. Taylor of Lincoln and Harley of Hereford, for refusing to kneel on the elevation of the Host at the queen's coronation, and for other heresies, were committed to prison. On the 13th of October Cranmer was brought to trial in the Guildhall, on a charge of treason, with Lady Jane Grey, her husband Lord Guilford Dudley, and Lord Ambrose Dudley, his brother. They were all condemned to death as traitors, and a bill of attainder was passed through Parliament against them. Lady Jane's sentence was to be beheaded or burnt at the queen's pleasure, which was then the law of England in all cases where women committed high treason, or petty treason by the murder of their husbands. The fate of Lady Jane, who pleaded guilty, and exhibited the most mild and amiable demeanour on the occasion, excited deep sympathy, and crowds followed her as she was reconducted to the Tower, weeping and lamenting her hard fate. It was well understood, however, that the queen had no intention of carrying the sentence into effect against any of the prisoners; but she deemed it a means of keeping quiet her partisans to hold them in prison under sentence of death. She gave orders that they should receive every indulgence consistent with their security, and Lady Jane was permitted to walk in the queen's garden at the Tower, and even on Tower Hill.
The subject which created the greatest difficulty to this Parliament was that of the queen's marriage. The wily Renard suggested to Mary as a possible husband Philip the heir of Charles V., and she eagerly seized on the idea though she knew that it would be very unpopular. The first to remonstrate with Mary on the subject was Gardiner, her Chancellor, who boldly pointed out to her the repugnance of the nation to a Spanish marriage; that she would be the paramount authority if she married a subject, but that it would be difficult to maintain that rank with a Spanish king; that the arrogance of the Spanish had made them odious to all nations, and that this quality had shown itself conspicuously in Philip. He was greatly disliked by his own people, and it was not likely that he would be tolerated by the English; moreover, alliance with Spain meant perpetual war with France, which would never suffer the Netherlands to be annexed to the crown of England. The rest of Mary's Council took up the same strain, with the exception of the old Duke of Norfolk, and the Lords Arundel and Paget. The Protestant party out of doors were furious against the match, declaring that it would bring the Inquisition into the country, to rivet Popery upon it, and to make England the slave of taxation to the Spaniards. The Parliament took up the subject with equal hostility, and the Commons sent their Speaker to her, attended by a deputation of twenty members, praying her Majesty not to marry a foreigner.
Noailles, the French ambassador, was delighted with this movement, and took much credit to himself for inciting influential parties to it; but Mary believed it to originate with Gardiner, and the lion spirit of her father coming over her, she vowed that she would prove a match for the cunning of the Chancellor. That very night she sent for the Spanish ambassador, and bidding him follow her into her private oratory, she there knelt down before the altar, and after chanting the hymn, "Veni Creator Spiritus," she made a vow to God that she would marry Philip of Spain, and whilst she lived, no other man but him. Thus she put it out of her power, if she kept her vow, to marry any other person should she outlive Philip, showing the force of the paroxysm of determination which was upon her. The effort would seem to have been very violent, for immediately after she was taken ill, and continued so for some days.
It was on the last day of October that this curious circumstance took place, and on the 17th of November she sent for the House of Commons, when the Speaker read the address giving her their advice regarding her marriage. Instead of the Chancellor returning the answer, as was the custom, Mary replied herself, thanking them for their care that she should have a succession in her own children, but rebuking them for presuming to dictate to her the choice of a husband. She declared that the marriages of her predecessors had always been free, a privilege which, she assured them, she was resolved to maintain. At the same time, she added, she should be careful to make such a selection as should contribute both to her own happiness and to that of her people.
The plain declaration of the queen to her Parliament was not necessary to inform those about her who were interested in the question; they had speedy information of her having favoured the Spanish suit, and Noailles was certainly mixed up in conspiracies to defeat it. It was proposed to place Courtenay, the young Earl of Devon, who had long been a prisoner in the Tower, at the head of the Reformed party, and if Mary would not consent to marry him, to assassinate Arundel and Paget, the advocates of the Spanish match; to marry Elizabeth to Courtenay, and raise the standard of rebellion in Devonshire. It appears from the despatches of Noailles that the Duke of Suffolk, the father of Lady Jane Grey, was in this conspiracy. But the folly and the unstable character of their hero, Courtenay, was fatal to their design, and of that Noailles very soon became sensible. It was suggested by some of the parties that Courtenay should steal away from Court, get across to France, and thence join the conspirators in Devonshire; but Noailles opposed this plan, declaring that the moment Courtenay quitted the coast of England his chance was utterly lost; and he wrote to his own government, saying that the scheme would fall to nothing; for although Courtenay and Elizabeth were fitting persons to cause a rising, such was the want of decision of Courtenay, he would let himself be taken before he would act—the thing which actually came to pass.