[507] De Noailles told the Cardinal of Lorraine that the Queen of England caused incessant prayers and processions to be made for obtaining peace; and he declared that he believed her to be sincere, though he attributed less good intentions to the Emperor (Ambassades, iv., p. 336). One of Cardinal Pole’s letters in St. Mark’s Library at Venice, dated 20th April 1555, says that “last evening the Queen sent for him [de Noailles] to show him the despatch she was writing to her ambassador in France, charging him to tell the French King how much she rejoiced at his being so well disposed towards the peace, and that she also had performed every good office in favour of it with the Emperor”. A peace conference was about to take place at Ardres, to which Mary had pledged herself to send six commissioners.
[508] Life of Jane Dormer, Duchess of Feria, p. 64 et seq.
[509] But it was not only to the poor that Mary showed kindness and a tender charity. All sorts and conditions of men experienced her help in the hour of need, one instance of which appeared in an article on Harrow School, in the Quarterly Review for January 1899. This instance was taken from a letter belonging to the Roper family, in which it is recorded, that after the death of one of the family, who had been keeper of Enfield Chase and Marylebone Forest, “Queen Mary came into our house within a little of my father’s death, and found my mother weeping, and took her by the hand, and lifted her up—for she neeled—and bade her be of good cheer, for her children should be well provided for. Afterward my brother Richard and I, being the two eldest, were sent to Harrow to school, and were there till we were almost men.”
[510] Venetian Calendar, vol. vi., pt. i., 80, partly in cipher; deciphered by Signor Luigi Pasini.
[511] Strype, Memorials of Cranmer, vol. i., p. 499. Ecclesiastical Memorials, vol. iii., pt. i., p. 417.
[512] Stow, p. 624.
[513] See Machyn’s Diary, p. 84. Wriothesley (vol. ii., p. 128) gives the sequel to the outrage. “The xx day of April in the forenoon, in the consistory of Paul’s was arraigned the said Wm. Branch alias Flower, who struck the priest on Easter Day in the parish church of St. Margaret in Westminster. And being condemned of heresy, he was delivered to the sheriffs of London and Middlesex. This Flower was once a monk in Ely Abbey, professed at his age of 17 years, and after made priest, and then married and had three or four children; and then ran about the country using the art of surgery. The 24 of April, the said Wm. Flower, for his said fact, had his right hand smitten off, and for opinions in matters of religion was burned in the sanctuary nigh to St. Margaret’s churchyard.” Flower is included by Foxe among the martyrs.
[514] Stow, p. 624.
[515] Acts of the Privy Council, vol. v., p. 30, new series.
[516] In a letter from Calvin to the Duke of Somerset in 1548, the Reformer says: “As I understand you have two kinds of mutineers against the King and the estates of the realm; the one are a fantastical people who under colour of the Gospels would set all to confusion; the others are stubborn people in the superstition of the Antichrist of Rome. These altogether do deserve to be well punished by a sword, seeing they do conspire against the King and against God who had set him in the royal seat. Of all things let there be no moderation. It is the bane of genuine improvement” (MSS. Edward VI., vol. v.).