Who should take the place of the repudiated queen? This was the question discussed at court and in the town. The Anglican Catholics, delighted at the dismissal of the Protestant queen, were determined to do all they possibly could to place on the throne a woman of their own party. Such a one was already found. The bishop of Winchester, for some time past, had frequently been holding feasts and entertainments for the king. To these he invited a young lady, who though of small stature was of elegant carriage, and had handsome features and a graceful figure and manners.[371] She was a daughter of Lord Edmund Howard, and niece of the duke of Norfolk, the leader of the Catholic party. She had very soon attracted the attention of the king, who took increasing pleasure in her society. This occurred before the divorce of Anne. 'It is a certain fact,' says a contemporary, 'that about the same time many citizens of London saw the king very frequently in the daytime, and sometimes at midnight, pass over to her on the river Thames in a little boat.... The citizens regarded all this not as a sign of divorcing the queen, but of adultery.'[372] Whether this supposition was well founded or not we can not say. The king, when once he had decided on a separation from Anne of Cleves, had thought of her successor. He was quite determined, after his mischance, to be guided neither by his ministers, nor by his ambassadors, nor by political considerations, but solely by his own eyes, his own tastes, and the happiness he might hope for. Catherine pleased him very much; and his union with Anne was no sooner annulled than he proceeded to his fifth marriage. The nuptials were celebrated on the 8th of August, eleven days after the execution of Cromwell; and on the same day Catherine was presented at court as queen. The king was charmed with Catherine Howard, his pretty young wife; she was so amiable, her intercourse was so pleasant, that he believed he had, after so many more or less unfortunate attempts, found his ideal at last. Her virtuous sentiments, the good behavior which she resolved to maintain, filled him with delight; and he was ever expressing his happiness in 'having obtained such a jewel of womanhood.'[373] He had no foreboding of the terrible blow which was soon to shatter all this happiness.
THE NEW QUEEN.
The new queen was distinguished from the former chiefly by the difference in religion, with a corresponding difference in morality. The niece of the duke of Norfolk, Gardiner's friend, was of course an adherent of the Catholic faith; and the Catholic party hailed her as at once the symbol and the instrument of reaction. They had had plenty of Protestant queens, Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour, and Anne of Cleves. Now that they had a Catholic queen, Catholicism—many said popery—would recover its power. Henry was so much enamored of his new spouse that, in honor of her, he once more became a fervent Catholic. He celebrated all the Saints' days, frequently received the holy sacrament, and offered publicly thanksgiving to God for this happy union which he hoped to enjoy for a long time.[374] The conversion of Henry, for the change was nothing less, brought with it a change of policy. He now abandoned France and the German Protestants in order to ally himself with the empire; and we find him ere long busily engaged in a project for the marriage of his daughter Mary to the emperor Charles V. This project, however, came to nothing.[375] Gardiner, Norfolk, and the other leaders of the Catholic party, rejoicing in the breeze which bore their vessel onward, set all sails to the wind. Just after the divorce of Anne of Cleves, and by way of a first boon to the Romish party, the penalties for impure living imposed on priests and nuns were mitigated.[376] In contempt of the authority of Holy Scripture as well as of that of parliament itself, Henry got an Act passed by virtue of which every determination concerning faith, worship, and ceremonies, adopted with the sanction of the king by a commission of archbishops, bishops, and other ecclesiastics nominated by him, was to be received, believed, and observed by the whole nation, just as if parliament had approved every one of these articles, even if this decree were contrary to former usages and ordinances.[377] This was a proclamation of infallibility in England for the benefit of the pope-king, under cover of which he might found a religion to his own taste. Cranmer had established in all cathedral churches professors entrusted with the teaching of Hebrew and Greek, in order that students might become well acquainted with sacred literature, and that the church might never want ministers capable of edifying it. But the enemies of the Reformation, who now enjoyed royal favor, fettered or abolished this institution and other similar ones, to the great damage both of religion and the country.[378] The Catholic ceremonies, on the other hand, abrogated by Cranmer and Cromwell—the consecration of bread and of water, the embers with which the priest marked the foreheads of the faithful, the palm branches blessed on Palm Sunday, the tapers carried at Candlemas, and other like customs—were re-established; and penalties were imposed on those who should neglect them.[379] A new edition of the 'Institution of a Christian Man' explained to the people the king's doctrine. It treated of the seven sacraments, the mass, transubstantiation, the salutation of the Virgin, and other doctrines of the kind to which conformity was required.[380] At length, as if with a view to ensure the permanence of this system, Bonner was made bishop of London; and this man, who had been the most abject flatterer and servant of Cromwell during his life, turned about after his death and became the persecutor of those whom Cromwell had protected.
BONNER, BISHOP OF LONDON.
At the spectacle of this reaction, so marvellous in their eyes, the Anglican Catholics and even the papists broke out with joy, and awaited with impatience 'the crowning of the edifice.' England, in their view, was saved. The church was triumphant. But while there was rejoicing on the one side, there was mourning on the other. The establishment of superstitious practices, the prospect of the penalties contained in the bloody statute of the Six Articles, penalties which had not yet been enforced but were on the point of being so, spread distress and alarm among the evangelicals. Those who did not add to their faith manly energy shut up their convictions in their own breasts, carefully abstained from conversation on religious subjects, and looked with suspicion upon every stranger, fearing that he might be one of Gardiner's spies.
Bonner was active and eager, going forward in pursuit of his object and allowing nothing to check him. Cromwell and Cranmer, to whom he used to make fair professions, believed that he was capable of being of service to the Reformation, and therefore gave him promotion in ecclesiastical offices. But no sooner had Cromwell been put in prison than his signal deceitfulness showed itself. Grafton, who printed the Bible under the patronage of the vicegerent, having met Bonner, to whom Cromwell had introduced him, exclaimed, 'How grieved I am to hear that Lord Cromwell has been sent to the Tower!' 'It would have been much better,' replied Bonner, 'if he had been sent there long ago.' Shortly after, Grafton was cited before the council, and was accused of having printed, by Cromwell's order, certain suspected verses; and Bonner, for the purpose of aggravating his criminality, did not fail to report what the accused had said to him about the man who had been his own personal benefactor. The chancellor, however, a friend of Grafton, succeeded in saving the printer of the Bible. Bonner indemnified himself for this disappointment by persecuting a great many citizens of London. He vented his rage especially on a poor youth of fifteen, ignorant and uncultivated, named Mekins, whom he accused of having spoken against the Eucharist and in favor of Barnes; but the grand jury found him 'not guilty.' Hereupon Bonner became furious. 'You are perjured,' he said to the jury. 'The witnesses do not agree,' they replied. The one deposed that Mekins had said the sacrament was nothing but a 'ceremony'; and the other that it was nothing but a 'signification.' 'But did he not say,' exclaimed the bishop, 'that Barnes died holy?' 'But we can not find these words,' said the jury, 'to be against the statute.' 'Upon which Bonner cursed and was in a great rage.'[381] 'Retire again,' he said, 'consult together, and bring in the bill.' Mekins was condemned to die. In vain was it shown that he was a poor ignorant creature and that he had done nothing worse than repeat what he had heard, and this without even understanding it. In vain, too, did his father and mother, who were in great distress, attempt to mitigate the harsh treatment to which he was subjected in prison. The poor lad was ready to say or do any thing to escape being burnt. They made him speak well of Bonner and of his 'great charity towards him'; they made him declare that he hated all heretics, and then they burnt him.[382] This was only the beginning and Bonner hoped by such proceedings to prepare the way for greater triumphs.
PERSECUTION IN LONDON.
The persecution became more general. Two hundred and two persons were prosecuted in thirty-nine London parishes. Their offences were such as the following—having read the Holy Scriptures aloud in the churches; having refused to carry palm branches on Palm Sunday; having had one or other of their kinsfolk buried without the masses for the dead; having received Latimer, Barnes, Garret, or other evangelicals; having held religious meetings in their houses of an evening; having said that the holy sacrament was a good thing, but was not, as some asserted, God himself; having spoken much about the Holy Scriptures; having declared that they liked better to hear a sermon than a mass; and other the like offences. Among the delinquents were some of the priests. One of these was accused of having caused suspected persons to be invited to his sermons by his beadle, without having the bells rung; another of having preached without the orders of his superior; others, of not making use of holy water, of not going in procession, &c.[383]
The Inquisition which was made at this time was so rigorous that all the prisons of London would not hold the accused. They had to place some of them in the halls of various buildings. The case was embarrassing. The Catholics of the court were not alone in instigating the king to persecution. Francis I. sent word to him by Wallop, 'that it had well liked him to hear that his majesty was reforming the Lutheran sect, for that he was ever of opinion that no good could come of them but much evil.'[384] But there were other influences at court besides that of Francis I., Norfolk, and Gardiner. Lord Audley obtained the king's sanction for the release of the prisoners, who, however, had to give their promise to appear at the Star Chamber on All Souls' Day. Ultimately they were let alone.
But this does not mean that all the evangelicals were spared. Two ministers were at this time distinguished both for their high connections and for their faith and eloquence. One of these was the Scotchman, Seaton, chaplain to the duke of Suffolk. Preaching powerfully at St. Antholin's church, in London, he said,—'"Of ourselves we can do nothing," says St. Paul; "I pray thee, then, where is thy will? Art thou better than Paul, James, Peter, and all the apostles?" Hast thou any more grace than they? Tell me now if they will be any thing or nothing?... Paul said he could do nothing.... If you ask me when we will leave preaching only Christ, even when they do leave to preach that works do merit, and suffer Christ to be a whole satisfier and only mean to our justification.' Seaton was condemned to bear a faggot at Paul's Cross.[385] Another minister, Dr. Crome, was a learned man and a favorite of the archbishop. This did not prevent the king from commanding him to preach that the sacrifice of the mass is useful both for the living and the dead. Crome preached the Gospel in its simplicity at St. Paul's on the appointed day, and contented himself with reading the king's order after the sermon. He was immediately forbidden to preach.[386]