“As the devil, Christ’s ancient adversary is a liar and the father of lies, even so hath he stirred up his servants and members to persecute Christ, and his true word and religion, which he ceaseth not to do most earnestly at this present. For whereas the most noble Prince of famous memory, King Henry VIII., seeing the great abuses of the Latin masses, reformed something herein, in his time; and also our late sovereign Lord, King Edward VI. took the same whole away, for the manifold errors and abuses thereof, and restored in the place thereof, Christ’s holy Supper, according to Christ’s own institution, and as the apostles in the primitive church used the same in the beginning, the devil goeth about by lying, to overthrow the Lord’s holy Supper, and to restore the Latin satisfactory masses, a thing of his own invention and device. And to bring the same more easily to pass, some have abused the name of me Thomas, Archbishop of Canterbury, bruiting abroad that I have set up the mass at Canterbury, and that I offered to say mass before the Queen’s Highness, and at Paul’s church, and I wot not where. I have been well exercised these twenty years to suffer and bear evil reports and lies; and have not been mych grieved thereat, and have borne all things quietly. Yet when untrue reports and lies turn to the hindrance of God’s truth, they be in no wise to be tolerated and suffered. Wherefore, these be to signify to the world, that it was not I that did set up the mass at Canterbury; but it was a false, flattering, lying and dissembling monk which caused the mass to be set up there, without my advice or counsel. [Here Foxe has the words omitted by Strype, ‘Reddet illi Dominus in die illo’.] And as for offering myself, to say mass before the Queen’s Highness, or in any other place, I never did, as her Grace knoweth well. But if her Grace will give me leave, I shall be ready to prove against all that will say the contrary, that the Communion Book, set forth by the most innocent and godly Prince, King Edward VI. in his high court of Parliament is conformable to the order which our Saviour Christ did both observe and command to be observed, and which his Apostles and primitive church used many years. Whereas the mass in many things not only hath no foundation of Christ, his Apostles, nor the primitive church, but also is manifest contrary to the same, and contains many horrible blasphemies in it. And although many either unlearned or maliciously do report that Mr. Peter Martyr[329] is unlearned, yet if the Queen’s Highness will graunt thereunto, I with the said Mr. Peter Martyr, and other four or five which I shall choose, will by God’s grace, take upon us to defend that not only our Common Prayers of the churches, ministration of sacraments, and other rites and ceremonies, but also that all the doctrine and religion by our said sovereign lord King Edward VI. is more pure and according to God’s word than any that hath been used in England these thousand years; so that God’s word may be the judge, and that the reason and proofs may be set out in writing, to the intent as well that all the world may examine and judge them, as that no man shall start back from their writing; and what faith hath been in the church these fifteen hundred years, we will join them in this point, that the same doctrine and usage is to be followed which was in the church fifteen hundred years past. And we shall prove that the order of the church set out at this present, in this church of England by Act of Parliament, is the same that was used in the church fifteen hundred years past—and so shall they never be able to prove theirs.”[330]
This document was copied in all the scriveners’ shops in London, circulated widely and posted up in Cheapside. Foxe, with his wonted inaccuracy, says that the Archbishop was, in consequence, summoned before the Commissioners of St. Paul’s, and interrogated by Bishop Heath, and by Scory, Bishop of Rochester. Now Scory was not at that time Bishop of Rochester, neither was Heath on the Commission, but at the Council Board, which he joined on the 4th September. Moreover, when on other occasions Cranmer was summoned before the Commissioners, he did not appear personally but by proxy. For “Commissioners” we must therefore read “Council”.
“My Lord,” said Bishop Heath gently, “there is a bill put forth in your name, wherein you seem to be aggrieved at setting up Mass again. We doubt not but you are sorry that it is gone abroad.”
“As I do not deny myself to be the very author of that bill or letter,” replied Cranmer, “so must I confess here unto you, that I am sorry that the said bill went from me in such sort as it did. For when I had written it, Master Scory got the copy of me, and it is now come abroad, and as I understand, the city is full of it. For which I am sorry that it is so passed my hands, for I had intended otherwise to have made it in a more large and ample manner, and minded to have set it on Paul’s church door, and on the doors of all the churches in London, with mine own seal joined thereto.”
He was then ordered to appear the following day in the Star Chamber, and, after a long and serious debate, was committed to the Tower, “as well for the treason committed by him against the Queen’s Highness, as for the aggravating the same his offence by spreading abroad seditious bills, moving tumults, to the disquietness of the present State”.[331]
The Archbishop had had ample opportunity for flight had he been so inclined, but he persistently refused to take advantage of it, though he advised others in like danger to escape to the continent.[332] Great numbers did so, and went to Strassburg, Antwerp, Worms, Frankfort or Geneva, in all of which cities the new doctrines obtained. Among the fugitives were the Bishops of Winchester, Wells, Chichester, Exeter and Ossory; the Dean of Christ Church, Oxford, and those of Westminster, Exeter, Durham, Wells and Chichester; and the Archbishop’s brother Edmund, Archdeacon of Canterbury.[333] Peter Martyr also applied for passports which were granted without reluctance, and five days after Cranmer’s committal, he left England “with great safety and unnecessary precaution”.[334] The government apparently connived also at Latimer’s escape, for the Bishop received warning of the coming of a pursuivant from the Council. The pursuivant did no more than deliver a letter and depart, after which plenty of time was left, in the hope that he would take flight. But he did not budge, and accordingly, on the 13th September, the Council Register states that “This day Hugh Latimer, clerk, appeared before the lords, and for his seditious demeanour was committed to the Tower, there to remain a close prisoner, having attending upon him one Austin, his servant”.[335]
Mary was Queen, but not entirely mistress of her kingdom. De Noailles was careful to keep the coals stirred continually, and was responsible for at least half the discontent that prevailed in London. Elizabeth, whose vanity prompted her to pose as the centre of attraction everywhere, coquetted with the French ambassador, with the populace, with the leaders of the Protestant party, without committing herself to any overt act of rebellion. She was already mistress in the arts of innuendo, dissimulation and intrigue. The treachery of de Noailles made her the stalking-horse of the Reformers, although the ambassador expressed to his master a fear, that her obstinacy in refusing to go to Mass would shortly land her in the Tower.[336] But he was not even sincere in his treachery, for lightly as he imperilled Elizabeth’s life by encouraging the Princess to associate herself with the factious, it was scarcely his aim in the event of a successful insurrection to place her on the throne. Mary Queen of Scots was Mary Tudor’s next legitimate heir, and as the wife of the Dauphin would, if she mounted the throne of England, bring to a glorious end the humiliation under which the French had smarted for centuries, in seeing the English monarchs, their rivals, quartering the arms, and coolly assuming the style of Kings of France. But of these ulterior views the ambassador’s friends in England were totally ignorant, and perhaps even Elizabeth, with all her cleverness, was at least once in her life completely outwitted. It was constantly represented to the Queen, that her sister’s attitude was a serious danger to the government, and the imperial ambassadors urged that the Princess should be banished from London, where she was surrounded by partisans, and if she would not conform to the Catholic faith, it would be better for her to be in prison than out of it. Mary, loth to coerce, tried to persuade her by the force of example, and would hear five or six Masses daily, surrounded by the members of her Privy Council, all of whom had been, till recently, ardent Protestants.[337] Elizabeth and Anne of Cleves were the only persons at court who still held out. At last, alarmed at the sinister reports that reached her, Mary told her sister, that if she wished to remain near her person, she must break with the new doctrines, and with those who professed them.
Considering then, that she had done enough to exculpate herself in the eyes of those who had been carefully taught to look on her as their Joshua, Elizabeth threw herself at the Queen’s feet, and with streaming eyes expressed her sorrow at having seemingly lost her Majesty’s affection. She could account for it, she declared, in no other way than her profession of the reformed religion, for which, however, she ought to be excused, as having been brought up in it, and never taught any other. Perhaps, she pleaded, if she were provided with books, and aided by the instructions of divines, she might see her errors, and embrace the religion of her fathers. Her conversion was the work of a week. She went to Mass with the Queen, on the 8th September, and soon after, opened a chapel in her own house, and sent to Flanders for a chalice, cross and vestments.[338] De Noailles, without laying claim to great sagacity, might well express his opinion that all this proceeded more from policy than from any deep religious conviction. Up to the last moment before going to Mass, Elizabeth did all she could to persuade her Protestant friends that she was merely acting under compulsion. Even on her way to the chapel, she sighed and groaned, and gave out that she was ill. Renard too, doubted the sincerity of her conversion, especially as she did not appear at Mass on the Sundays following, and he besought the Queen to secure her person, as a frequenter and abettor of rebels. Mary assured him that she had also had grave misgivings, had already sent for her sister and implored her to say frankly whether she was a Catholic and shared the Catholic belief in the Eucharist, or whether, as it had been affirmed, her conversion were a feint or the result of fear. Elizabeth, the Queen said, had professed herself ready to declare in public that she had acted in accordance with the dictates of her conscience, without feint, fear or dissimulation; but in saying these words she had trembled from head to foot.[339] Renard and his colleagues continued to regard her as the champion of the disaffected, and were careful to bring to the Queen’s notice the persistent rumours concerning her. But Mary, on her guard perhaps, lest she should lend a too willing ear, as persistently refused to act upon them, continued to call Elizabeth her “good sister,” held her by the hand at all the great court ceremonies, and showered kindnesses and gifts upon her. Among other jewels, she gave her a brooch about this time, representing the story of Pyramus and Thisbe, with a magnificent table diamond, and four rubies; two volumes bound in massive gold, the one set with rubies, with a diamond clasp, the other containing the portraits of Mary’s father and mother; a white coral rosary mounted in gold, etc.[340] Either from fear of displeasing the Puritans by ornamenting herself with gems, or for some other reason, Elizabeth avoided either wearing or using her sister’s presents.[341]
One of the distinguishing features of the new reign was the style of dress adopted by the court. By restoring something of the splendour that had distinguished it in the early days of Henry VIII., by bringing dancing and music again into vogue, and by abolishing the sombre Puritanical fashion of Edward’s reign, Mary had given a much-needed impetus to trade, and while she offended some by her sumptuous attire, the change found favour with the many, weary of the dull, colourless garments, which for six years had been supposed to indicate a state of salvation. De Noailles told his master that the Queen had abolished the former “superstition” regarding ladies’ dress, which had forbidden them hitherto to wear gold ornaments or coloured clothes, and that her Majesty herself, and the ladies of the court were adorned with jewels and dressed à la française, with wide sleeves to their gowns.[342]