* Burnet, vol. ii. Coll. No. 37.
** The common net at that time, says Sir Richard Baker, for
catching of Protestants, was the real presence; and this net
was used to catch the lady Elizabeth; for being asked, one
time, what she thought of the words of Christ. “This is my
body,” whether she thought it the true body of Christ that
was in the sacrament, it is said that, after some pausing,
she thus answered:—
“Christ was the word that spake it;
He took the bread and brake it;
And what the word did make it,
That I believe, and take it.”
Which, though it may seem but a slight expression, yet hath
it more solidness than at first sight appears; at least, it
served her turn, at that time, to escape the net, which, by
a direct answer, she could not have done. Baker’s Chronicle,
p. 320.
The money granted by parliament enabled the queen to fit out a fleet of a hundred and forty sail, which, being joined by thirty Flemish ships, and carrying six thousand land forces on board, was sent to make an attempt on the coast of Brittany. The fleet was commanded by Lord Clinton; the land forces by the earls of Huntingdon and Rutland. But the equipment of the fleet and army was so dilatory that the French got intelligence of the design, and were prepared to receive them. The English found Brest so well guarded as to render an attempt on that place impracticable; but, landing at Conquet, they plundered and burnt the town, with some adjacent villages, and were proceeding to commit greater disorders, when Kersimon, a Breton gentleman, at the head of some militia, fell upon them, put them to rout, and drove them to their ships with considerable loss. But a small squadron of ten English ships had an opportunity of amply revenging this disgrace upon the French. The mareschal de Thermes, governor of Calais, had made an irruption into Flanders, with an army of fourteen thousand men, and, having forced a passage over the River Aa, had taken Dunkirk and Berg St. Winoc, and had advanced as far as Newport; but Count Egmont coming suddenly upon him with superior forces, he was obliged to retreat; and being overtaken by the Spaniards near Gravelines, and finding a battle inevitable, he chose very skilfully his ground for the engagement. He fortified his left wing with all the precautions possible, and posted his right along the River Aa, which, he reasonably thought, gave him full security from that quarter. But the English ships, which were accidently on the coast, being drawn by the noise of the firing, sailed up the river, and, flanking the French, did such execution by their artillery that they put them to flight, and the Spaniards gained a complete victory.[*]
* Holigshed, p. 1150.
Meanwhile the principal army of France under the duke of Guise, and that of Spain under the duke of Savoy, approached each other on the frontiers of Picardy; and as the two kings had come into their respective camps, attended by the flower of their nobility, men expected that some great and important event would follow from the emulation of these warlike nations. But Philip, though actuated by the ambition, possessed not the enterprising genius of a conqueror; and he was willing, notwithstanding the superiority of his numbers, and the two great victories which he had gained at St. Quintin and Gravelines, to put a period to the war by treaty. Negotiations were entered into for that purpose; and as the terms offered by the two monarchs were somewhat wide of each other, the armies were put into winter quarters till the princes could come to better agreement. Among other conditions, Henry demanded the restitution of Navarre to its lawful owner; Philip, that of Calais and its territory to England; but in the midst of these negotiations, news arrived of the death of Mary; and Philip, no longer connected with England, began to relax in his firmness on that capital article. This was the only circumstance that could have made the death of that princess be regretted by the nation.
Mary had long been in a declining state of health; and having mistaken her dropsy for a pregnancy, she had made use of an improper regimen, and her malady daily augmented. Every reflection now tormented her. The consciousness of being hated by her subjects, the prospect of Elizabeth’s succession, apprehensions of the danger to which the Catholic religion stood exposed, dejection for the loss of Calais, concern for the ill state of her affairs, and, above all, anxiety for the absence of her husband, who, she knew, intended soon to depart for Spain, and to settle there during the remainder of his life,—all these melancholy reflections preyed upon her mind, and threw her into a lingering fever, of which she died, after a short and unfortunate reign of five years four months and eleven days.
It is not necessary to employ many words in drawing the character of this princess. She possessed few qualities either estimable or amiable; and her person was as little engaging as her behavior and address. Obstinacy, bigotry, violence, cruelty, malignity, revenge, tyranny; every circumstance of her character took a tincture from her bad temper and narrow understanding. And amidst that complication of vices which entered into her composition, we shall scarcely find any virtue but sincerity; a quality which she seems to have maintained throughout her whole life; except in the beginning of her reign, when the necessity of her affairs obliged her to make some promises to the Protestants, which she certainly never intended to perform. But in these cases a weak, bigoted woman, under the government of priests, easily finds casuistry sufficient to justify to herself the violation of a promise. She appears, also, as well as her father, to have been susceptible of some attachments of friendship; and that without the caprice and inconstancy which were so remarkable in the conduct of that monarch. To which we may add, that in many circumstances of her life she gave indications of resolution and vigor of mind, a quality which seems to have been inherent in her family.
Cardinal Pole had long been sickly from an intermitting fever; and he died the same day with the queen, about sixteen hours after her. The benign character of this prelate, the modesty and humanity of his deportment, made him be universally beloved; insomuch that in a nation where the most furious persecution was carried on, and where the most violent religious factions prevailed, entire justice, even by most of the reformers, has been done to his merit. The haughty pontiff, Paul IV., had entertained some prejudices against him; and when England declared war against Henry, the ally of that pope, he seized the opportunity of revenge; and revoking Pole’s legatine commission, appointed in his room Cardinal Peyto, an Observantine friar, and confessor to the queen. But Mary would never permit the new legate to act upon the commission; and Paul was afterwards obliged to restore Cardinal Pole to his authority.
There occur few general remarks, besides what have already been made in the course of our narration, with regard to the general state of the kingdom during this reign. The naval power of England was then so inconsiderable, that fourteen thousand pounds being ordered to be applied to the fleet, both for repairing and victualling it, it was computed that ten thousand pounds a year would afterwards answer all necessary charges.[*]
* Burnet, vol. iii. p. 259.
The arbitrary proceedings of the queen above mentioned, joined to many monopolies granted by this princess, as well as by her father, checked the growth of commerce; and so much the more, as all other princes in Europe either were not permitted, or did not find it necessary, to proceed in so tyrannical a manner. Acts of parliament, both in the last reign and in the beginning of the present, had laid the same impositions on the merchants of the still-yard as on other aliens; yet the queen, immediately after her marriage, complied with the solicitations of the emperor, and by her prerogative suspended those laws.[*] Nobody in that age pretended to question this exercise of prerogative. The historians are entirely silent with regard to it; and it is only by the collection of public papers that it is handed down to us.