England under the Tudors

by Arthur D. Innes

The peace with France still left opportunities for friction; but Warwick's reforming enthusiasm drove him into the course—manifestly irritating to the Emperor—of interfering with the private devotions of the Princess Mary, who was ordered to give up the Mass: to which she replied that she was bound by the law as left by her father, and would not recognise orders in contravention thereof, as long as her brother was a minor. Charles himself was at this very time reverting to an intolerant policy in the Low Countries, and Protestants were hastening to England from Flanders. The risk that the Emperor might adopt Mary's cause in arms was obvious, and it was known that the Guise party at the French court would miss no opportunity of reviving the war with England in the hope of capturing Calais. In the meantime, the extreme reformers of the Swiss school were steadily gaining weight, in comparison with that section which, like Cranmer, continued to favour less drastic changes. One of their chiefs, Hooper, being nominated to a bishopric, for a long time declined to accept it on account of the vestments ordered to be worn at consecration—an attitude however for which he was condemned by all the cooler heads, including some of the most advanced. Hooper ultimately gave way—a narrow-minded but sincere man, who at the last won the crown of martyrdom. An unsuccessful effort was made to obtain Gardiner's release—the failure being the more pointed because Somerset interested himself on the bishop's part. Gardiner, with thorough consistency, declared himself ready to accept the Prayer-book since it did not preclude his view of the Sacrament; but he would not profess opinions in contradiction of the doctrines formally affirmed in the last reign. In the end, he was not only kept in prison, but deprived of his see of Winchester.

[Sidenote 1: 1551 The Council and the Emperor]
[Sidenote 2: Charles's difficulties]

In the early months of 1551 the friction with the Emperor on the subject of the Princess Mary's Mass was becoming alarming; Charles was refusing to let the English Ambassador in his dominions use the English Communion Service; and the Council went so far as to propose making the Princess personally and alone exempt from Conformity: fortunately, however, for them, affairs in Italy took a turn which gave fresh impulse to the anti-Imperialists in France. The Protestant city of Magdeburg was still holding out against the Imperial troops which were under the command of Maurice of Saxony, and the French King was becoming inclined to give active support to the resistance. The Pope had devoted himself to Charles's interests, and assented to the return of the Council to Trent; and there were hints that Henry might call a Gallican synod, instead of allowing the French ecclesiastics to attend, unless the Lutherans were also represented. The Emperor could no longer imagine himself to be completely master of the situation. In April, the Council felt that he was so far hampered that they could venture to assume a bold front. They informed him that the Act of Uniformity was the Law; that it applied to all subjects, including the Princess; and that they claimed the same freedom for their own ambassador which they were willing to concede reciprocally to his. About the same time the German Diet foiled a pet scheme of Charles, who wished his son Philip (afterwards Philip II. of Spain) to be nominated as his successor to the Imperial crown in place of his brother Ferdinand [Footnote: Charles had ceded the Austrian dominions of the house of Habsburg to Ferdinand in 1522.] who was already King of the Romans. The Germans however preferred the Austrian to the Spanish succession, and rejected the proposal. In June he found that the English and French had come to terms, and had agreed to a French marriage for Edward, on exceedingly easy conditions for France. He still continued to threaten war unless England gave way on the disputed points; but the Council answered only by temporising, and he was soon in no position to threaten. The unrest of the German Protestants and later in the year the assembling of the Council at Trent demanded all his attention. In fact, though he did not suspect it, Maurice of Saxony was even now laying his plans for snapping the bonds which the Emperor was seeking to rivet upon his German subjects. The incompetent hand-to-mouth conduct of foreign affairs in England did not bring disaster on the country, mainly because Charles had not rightly taken the measure of his own strength and of the forces in the Empire adverse to his policy.

[Sidenote: Groups among the Reformers]

The domestic history of England during 1551 is not marked by events of magnitude, but the general trend of affairs is not without significance. No serious attempt was made to deal with any of the existing causes of disorder and uneasiness. Warwick, a man whose entire career presents no evidence of his having possessed any religious convictions whatever, had fixed upon the ultra-protestants as the party whose support would be most valuable to him. Honest enough themselves, these men, typified by Bishop Hooper, were ready to credit with a like honesty any one who talked their particular jargon with sufficient fervour, and to stigmatise as Laodiceans any one who did not go to every length along with them. Cranmer and more positively his right-hand man Ridley—recently made bishop of London in Bonner's room—were now leaning more towards them than when the Prayer-book of 1549 was promulgated; and a considerable personal animus cannot but have entered into their feeling towards Gardiner, whose present unimpeachable attitude of legality was discounted by his participation in the intrigues against Cranmer during the last reign.

[Sidenote: Attitude of Somerset]

It is less really surprising than it seems at first sight to find in Somerset the one man who really interested himself on the side of toleration towards individuals, in the cases both of Mary and of Gardiner. As a matter of fact, although when Protector he had been particularly zealous in the war against images, had carried desecration to abnormal lengths in his private appropriation of spoils, and had grossly transgressed his constitutional powers for the repression of the bishop of Winchester as the ablest of the opponents of his policy: yet he was not generally vindictive, was probably quite satisfied with the compromise of the first prayer-book which did not actually contravene the King's Book, and—except when he was commanding troops in Scotland—liked at least the posture of magnanimity. Entirely devoid of statesmanlike qualities, but afflicted with inordinate vanity, he had been an intolerably incompetent ruler: yet his intentions were usually quite commendable; while the government which succeeded the Protectorate had failed in every particular to establish a claim to respect, nor could he be, like the zealots, hoodwinked into a belief in its honesty. Apart therefore from personal considerations he did not favour its extreme policy, and personal considerations suggested that he might once more oust his rival from power. Lacking the capacity to organise an opposition, he still lent himself to intrigues. He was a possible danger to the Government for one reason and only one—that popularity with the commonalty which had been gained by his well-meant but ill-directed efforts to espouse their cause against the oppression of the wealthier classes.

[Sidenote 1: Fresh attack on Somerset]
[Sidenote 2: 1552 Execution of Somerset]

Warwick therefore, endowed with plentiful cunning and no scruples, decided to be rid of him once for all, and put in the mouth of an accomplice a story, with enough truth in it to be plausible, which sufficed for his purpose. In October Warwick, having procured his own elevation to the Dukedom of Northumberland, that of Dorset to the Dukedom of Suffolk, and that of Herbert to the Earldom of Pembroke, arrested Somerset at the Council. The Duke was accused of compassing the deaths of several Lords of the Council, and of preparations for an armed revolt and for appealing to the populace. On the greater part of the specific charges, the evidence was quite inadequate—but finding that Somerset might be held to have gone far enough to incur the death-sentence for felony under the law passed by the parliament of 1549-50, Northumberland (as Warwick must now be called) made a show of magnanimously withdrawing the accusations so far as he was personally affected. Somerset was duly condemned; but it was not till the end of January (1552) that he was actually executed, in spite of the somewhat pathetic demonstrations in his favour of the populace, who refused to the last to believe that the sentence would really be carried out, and lamented his doom with tears.

[Sidenote: Pacification of Passau]