Foxe relates this story at third hand, as was his wont, but it fitted in so admirably with his favourite theory in regard to the temporal judgments of God on miscreants—and Gardiner to his way of thinking was certainly a miscreant of the first rank—that he could not afford to be fastidious as to its veracity. For he must surely have known that "the old Duke of Norfolk could not have dined with Gardiner on or about the 19th October 1555, having been in his grave since August 1553; and as for "the sudden stroke of God's terrible hand," by which the Bishop of Winchester was "brought to a miserable end," the following extract from a letter of the Venetian ambassador, resident in England, to the Doge and Senate, written on the 16th September 1555, gives a totally different account of the illness from which Gardiner died on the 12th November:—
"After the chancellor's return from the conference at Calais," writes the Venetian chronicler of current events, "he fell into such a state of appilation [sic] that besides having become [as the physicians say] jaundiced, he by degrees got confirmed dropsy, and had it not been for his robust constitution, a variety of remedies prescribed for him by the English physicians having been of no use, he would by this time be in a bad way, his physiognomy being so changed as to astound all who see him. The Emperor had sent him the remedy he used when first troubled with dropsical symptoms, on his return from the war of Metz, which remedy cured him, and should God grant that it take the same effect on the Bishop of Winchester, it will be very advantageous for England, he being considered one of the most consummate chancellors who have filled the post for many years, and should he die, he would leave few or none so well suited to the charge as himself."*
* Giovanni Michiel to the Doge and Senate, Calendar of State Papers,
Venetian, vol. vi., part. i., 215; edited by Rawdon Brown.
On the 21st October, the queen opened Parliament in person, and Gardiner mortally ill, rose from the bed to which he had been for weeks confined, in order to introduce a Bill for the granting of much needed supplies to the Crown. Michiel, the Venetian envoy, continuing his letter says:—
"After the Mass of the Holy Ghost, sung by the Bishop of Ely, and the sermon preached by the Bishop of Lincoln, her Majesty proceeded into the great hall, where, in the presence of all those officially summoned, the Lord Chancellor, having rallied a little, choosing at anyrate to be there, in order not to fail performing his office on this occasion, made the usual proposal, stating the cause for assembling Parliament, which was in short solely for the purpose of obtaining pecuniary supply."
Mary had succeeded to a treasury rich only in debt, and her need of money to carry on the government was urgent. Gardiner made a long and effective speech, the result of which was, that Parliament at once voted a million of gold to be levied in two years from the laity, in four from the clergy. But exhausted by his effort, and so weak that he was unable to return to his own house, the dying chancellor was accommodated at Whitehall where he met his end peacefully three weeks later. He desired during his last days that the Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ might be read to him, and when the reader came to the contrition of St. Peter, Gardiner exclaimed, "Negavi cum Petro, exivi cum Petro, sed nondum flevi amare cum Petro!" alluding to his weakness and fall in Henry VIII's reign.*
* Wardword, 43; Lingard, History of Fn,-land, vol. v., p. 243, note, 6th ed.
The view which Foxe presents of Bonner, Bishop of London, in the administration of his office, is as distorted and malicious as his libellous picture of Gardiner. The pages of the Acts and Monuments, which describe Bonner's examination of those brought before him on charges of heresy, teem with such picturesque epithets as "this bloody wolf," the "Bishop was in a marvellous rage" or "in a great fury," but when we read what Bonner really said, we find nothing to justify these exaggerated expressions.
On one occasion, when Bonner was supposed by the martyrologist to be in such "a raging heat" that he appeared "as one clean void of humanity," we read on, expecting to find some brutal and heartless words whereby he crushed the meek spirit of the martyr before him. The scene was Cranmer's degradation at Oxford, with which solemn and painful act Bonner was charged; but the strongest words used by the bishop in answer to Cranmer's continued protests and recriminations were, according to Foxe himself, merely that " for his inordinate contumacy, he denied him to speak any more, saying that he had used himself very disobediently."*
* Acts and Monuments vol v., p 765; Cattley's ed.