On the 7th of June, which was Whit Monday, there was a Passion Play at Court. Isoult, coming in from a call upon her neighbour, Mrs Brent, observed in a rather disgusted tone—
“Gillian Brent must needs go to see this mystery. For me, I might as easily or as willingly go to see a martyrdom. She saith ’tis right sweet and devotional, and maketh her to feel so good she cannot tell how much. ’Tis a sort of goodness I covet not. It were like murdering the Son of God over again, to see His blessed name taken upon himself of a sinful man, and His bitter passion set forth to divert men. Gillian saith none will see the thing as I do; but that cannot I help. Perchance He may, when He looketh down upon it.”
At her house at Chelsea, on the 16th of July, died Anna of Cleve, one of the two widows of Henry the Eighth. She came to England a Lutheran, and died a Papist. King Philip went to Flanders on the 5th of July; on the 14th of August came news of the great victory of Saint Quentin, which the King had won there; and the next day there were great thanksgivings and rejoicings over all the City. And on the 20th of October died Mary Countess of Arundel, at Arundel House; she was cousin of Philippa Basset, and when she was Countess of Sussex, Isoult had lived for some time in her house with Anne Basset.
A fortnight previous, London was requested to rejoice again, for peace was concluded with the Pope.
“Verily,” said Dr Thorpe, “this is a marvellous thing, to bid us rejoice, and to give us cause for mourning.”
“Marry,” responded Mr Ferris, “for me, when the war brake forth, I sang the Te Deum under my breath; now will I clothe me in sackcloth under my raiment, and so shall I have both sorrowed and rejoiced, and none can grudge against me.”
The year 1557 closed heavily. The burnings went on, but they were chiefly of poor men and women: sometimes, but not often, of children or girls. On the 12th of December a Gospellers’ meeting was dispersed, and many taken by the Sheriff; but no friends of the Averys. All this time Mr Holland, with his wife and child, were at his father’s house in Lancashire, and Mr Underhill with his household at Coventry. Isoult’s last entry in her diary for this year ran as follows:—
“Austin came yesterday, to tell us my Lady of Suffolk and Mr Bertie did quit Germany, where they had refuged, in April last, and be now safe in Poland, at a town called Crossen, and the King’s Grace of Poland hath set Mr Bertie over a province of his. I am glad to hear this. They had, nathless, many and great troubles in their journey, but sith ’tis all over, it is not worth grieving for.
“Ah, faithless heart and foolish! and will not all troubles be so, when the last mile of the journey cometh? Yea, may we not find we had most cause to thank God for the roughest parts of the way? So saith my sense and judgment: yet for all this will mine heart keep crying out, and will not be silent. O Robin, Robin! an other year!”
The Gospellers never entered on any year with heavier hearts than on the year 1558. The year of all the century! the year that was to close so gloriously—to go out with trumpets, and bells, and bonfires, and Te Deums, and all England in a wild ferment of delight and thanksgiving! And how often do we enter on a year of mourning with our hearts singing anthems?