The History of Mary I, Queen of England / as found in the public records, despatches of ambassadors, in original private letters, and other contemporary documents

by J. M. Stone

Few, conversant with the celebrities of the sixteenth century, will fail to see in Reginald Pole the most distinguished Englishman of his day. Of royal descent, a notable scholar and a man whose conscience ruled every action of his life, he voluntarily exiled himself, when, at the cost of a single principle, the highest preferments in Church or State lay open to him. Two passions marked his singularly blameless career: love of his country and devotion to the Holy See. He turned his back on the one, when the King renounced the other, and made it high treason to continue to acknowledge the Pope Head of the Church of England. We have seen that when Pole refused to return to England he was declared a traitor, a price was put upon his head, and his aged mother was brought to the block.

Paul III. made him a Cardinal, in order to avail himself of his knowledge and brilliant talents at the Council of Trent, and at the death of that Pontiff, he was the imperial candidate for the Papacy. Had he possessed a particle of ambition he might have controlled the Conclave.

On Mary’s accession, he wrote many urgent appeals to the Queen, beseeching her to lose no time in riveting the broken chain between England and Rome. He possessed undoubted influence with her, but less than the Emperor, who counselled delay, and took care that the interests of the empire should before all be secured. The eldest son of the Church, Charles ever made religion the handmaid of politics; and as for Philip, in spite of his boasted maxim, that it would be better not to reign at all, than to reign over a nation of heretics, he was content always to play a waiting game, and above all to follow his father’s lead. Pole, in common with Gardiner, had considered that Mary was fatally mistaken in allying herself with Spain, that the English would have been far more easily reconciled to Rome if every other foreign element had been excluded, and confidence in herself planted on a firm and solid basis, and that, at all events, the re-establishment of Papal jurisdiction should have been her first care in ascending the throne. If, when the kingdom was at her feet, she had freed herself from the Emperor’s influence, and had summoned Pole in his official capacity as Papal Legate, he believed that the movement towards reunion would have been a truly national one.

In many ways, Pole’s opinion was justified by facts. The enthusiasm with which Mary had been greeted, although perhaps mainly owing to the affection she inspired, was also in no small measure due to the recoil of the people from the innovations of Edward’s reign, innovations that had abounded in disillusion, and that had set the hearts of many burning within them with desire for the old religion. But de Noailles, Suffolk, Wyatt and others, had successfully availed themselves of the unpopularity of the Queen’s contemplated marriage to rouse the Puritan minority against her throne, and her religion; and the Emperor, knowing Pole’s opinions, and being well aware of the weight they would have in England, detained the Legate till all dread of his interference was at an end.

Great as was his disappointment at the enforced delay, Pole was not the man to resent or resist the obstacles put in his way. He did what he could, to fulfil his secondary mission, which was to promote peace between the King of France and the Emperor; and he conferred diligently with the royal and imperial ministers, on the possibility of a modus vivendi between the two powers. From Brussels he went to Paris and made a favourable impression on Henry II., but failing to bring about the desired object, returned to the Netherlands. Charles received him coolly, believing him to have been the author of an intercepted letter, which had been actually written by one of his suite, to the Queen of England, dissuading her from marrying Philip. But this gave Pole the opportunity of assuring the Emperor, that he was convinced the Queen’s decision had been taken with the highest motives for the sake of religion, and in order to secure the royal succession, and that such being the case, he cordially approved it.[480] Philip was now in England, and the Legate, like the Chancellor, made the best of what could no longer be avoided. Difficulties other than those concerning the empire kept him still an exile. They were of two kinds, one relating to himself personally, the other having reference to the religious state of England. The personal difficulty was the fact of his being still an outlaw, and as regarded the other, until there was some prospect of the accomplishment of his mission, it would be useless for him to cross the Channel.

The first, but least formidable barrier to the reunion of the kingdom with Rome, arose from the opposition of a small party unfavourable to Papal jurisdiction. This party was confined almost exclusively to London, and to parts of the southern and eastern counties, but wherever isolated bodies of Puritans were to be found scattered up and down the country, the same opposition naturally prevailed. The great masses of country gentlefolk had become, in consequence of the frequent changes of religion, indifferent to every form of faith; they would have been ready, at the call of the Sovereign, to embrace Judaism or Mohammedanism if their convenience or interest required it. The yeomanry, farmers and peasantry were nearly everywhere intensely Catholic, but especially in the north, where also a considerable number of landed gentry were ready to suffer all things in defence of the old religion. But another class had sprung up in the course of twenty-five years, consisting of almost every second wealthy family in the kingdom, enriched, in many cases entirely built up, from the spoils of the churches and monasteries. And these would never consent to any religious authority that might call their right to them in question. Cardinal Pole was known to be opposed to any recognition of the title of these lay proprietors; and without wasting efforts at this crisis, in an attempt to induce Parliament to reverse Pole’s attainder, the Chancellor appealed to the Pope for a bull, confirming them in their possessions.

In reply to the before-mentioned letter, in which Pole spoke of his having been kept knocking a whole year at the palace gates, Philip sent Renard to Brussels to negotiate. Having graphically described the state of the country, proving to the Legate that a general and immediate restitution was out of the question, Renard persuaded him to leave the matter for a time in abeyance. Meanwhile Julius III. signed a bull, empowering the Legate to give, alienate and transfer to the actual holders, all property which had been torn from the Church during the reigns of Henry VIII. and Edward VI. The Pope had considered, after consulting with canonists, that the continued alienation of Church property was justifiable, if it proved the means of restoring the realm to the faith.

This difficulty being settled, on Renard’s return to England, the Lords Paget and Hastings were sent to bring the Legate home. Sir William Cecil accompanied them, but in an unofficial capacity, probably because, having become a Catholic, he would be a persona grata to Pole, and also to the Emperor on account of his moderate views.[481]

Parliament met on the 12th November, and a bill was brought forward to reverse Pole’s attainder. It set forth that the sole cause of his disgrace was his refusal to consent to the unlawful divorce of the Queen’s father and mother, and in order that the repeal might be clearly understood as an act of justice, and not of grace, the cause was rejudged, the result being that both Houses repealed the attainder, and restored all his rights and privileges. The Great Seal put to this Act was, for more distinction, taken off in gold. Pole was then free to return to his native land, and was received at Dover on the 20th, with the honours due to a royal person. From Gravesend, he sailed up the Thames in the Queen’s barge, his silver cross at the prow, a crowd of smaller boats flying gala colours. At Westminster, the Chancellor welcomed him at the landing place, and conducted him to the palace. Their Majesties rose from dinner to greet him, receiving him at the top of the great staircase.

After delivering the briefs of his legation, he retired to the archiepiscopal palace at Lambeth, which had been prepared for his reception. Three days later, a royal message summoned the Lords and Commons to the court, where the Legate, in a long speech, acknowledged the act of justice done to him, invited the nation to a sincere repentance of its past errors, and exhorted the members of both Houses to receive with joy the reconciliation which he was charged by Christ’s Vicegerent here on earth to impart to them. As they, by repealing Acts made against him, had opened his country to him once more, so he was invested with full power to receive them back into the Church of God. He then retired, and the Chancellor addressed them, in a discourse beginning with the words, “The Lord shall raise up a prophet to thee from amongst thine own brethren,” making an allusion to himself as having been among the number of the delinquents. He urged them to rise from their fallen state, and to seek reconciliation with the common parent of all Christians.