Perhaps both these considerations weighed with the Council, and the fall of Somerset further turned the scale in her favour by ridding Mary of her bitterest enemy. He was again arrested in December 1551, lodged in the Tower, and tried for high treason. Acquitted of this charge, he was condemned for felony, and executed within six weeks. The fact is notified in Edward’s Journal in the words: “The Duke of Somerset had his head cut off upon Tower hill, between eight and nine o’clock in the morning” (22nd January 1552).
None of Edward’s ministers had been so violently opposed to the old religion, so active in the advancement of the Reformation as Somerset. Calvin wrote to him from Geneva, a letter in which he praised the spiritual work done by the Protector in England, and gave him sundry advice as to the disposal of matters in the Church, thanking him for having presented his works to the young King, and for having taken into his service a boy whom he had recommended.[283] It was not likely that a man whose doings were singled out for approval by Calvin would ever tolerate Mary’s attitude towards Popery, and therefore his fall may be considered a factor in the liberty granted to her. Henceforth, to the end of the reign, she was on good terms with her brother’s ministers, and her name only occurs in the minutes of the Privy Council Registers in reference to warrants for payments to her comptroller, Mr. Rochester, for the maintenance of her household, or for the repairing of her lands “damaged by the rage of the water this last year”. One entry mentions the committal of a man “for stealing the Lady Mary’s hawks”.
An account of a visit paid to her at Hunsdon, in September 1552 by Bishop Ridley shows the complete religious freedom which she then enjoyed. She received him courteously, and talked with him very pleasantly for a quarter of an hour, reminding him that she knew him at court, when he was chaplain to her father; and she mentioned a sermon which he had preached at a certain wedding. Then she dismissed him to dine with her household. After dinner, he offered to preach to her in the church, on which she replied, that he might preach, but that neither she nor any of hers would listen.
“Madam,” he expostulated, “I trust you will not refuse God’s Word.”
“I cannot tell what ye call God’s Word,” answered Mary. “That is not God’s Word now which was God’s Word in my father’s days.”
“God’s Word is all one in all times, but is better understood and practised in some ages than in others,” replied Ridley.
THE PRINCESS MARY.
From the original portrait in the possession of the Marquis of Exeter.