And that except from some special influences they would not have been thus misused, the local character of the persecution may be taken to prove. The storm was violent only in London, in Essex, which was in the diocese of London, and in Canterbury. It raged long after the death of Gardiner; and Gardiner, though he made the beginning, ceased after the first few months to take further part in it. The Bishop of Winchester would have had a persecution, and a keen one; but the fervour of others left his lagging zeal far behind. For the first and last time the true Ultramontane spirit was dominant in England; the genuine conviction that, as the orthodox prophets and sovereigns of Israel slew the worshippers of Baal, so were Catholics rulers called upon, as their first duty, to extirpate heretics as the enemies of God and man.
The language of the legate to the city of London shows the devout sincerity with which he held that opinion himself. Through him, and sustained by his authority, the queen held it; and by these two the ecclesiastical government of England was conducted.
Archbishop Parker, who succeeded Pole at Canterbury, and had therefore the best opportunity of knowing what his conduct had really been, called him Carnifex et flagellum Ecclesæ Anglicanæ, the hangman and the scourge of the Church of England. His character was irreproachable; in all the virtues of the Catholic Church he walked without spot or stain; and the system to which he had surrendered himself had left to him of the common selfishnesses of mankind his enormous vanity alone. But that system had extinguished also in him the human instincts, the genial emotions by which theological theories stand especially in need to be corrected. He belonged to a class of persons at all times numerous, in whom enthusiasm takes the place of understanding; who are men of an "idea;" and unable to accept human things as they are, are passionate loyalists, passionate churchmen, passionate revolutionists, as the accidents of their age may determine. Happily for the welfare of mankind, persons so constituted rarely arrive at power: should power come to them, they use it, as Pole used it, to defeat the ends which are nearest to their hearts.
The teachers who finally converted the English nation to Protestantism were not the declaimers from the pulpit, nor the voluminous controversialists with the pen. These, indeed, could produce arguments which, to those who were already convinced, seemed as if they ought to produce conviction; but conviction did not follow till the fruits of the doctrine bore witness to the spirit from which it came. The evangelical teachers, caring only to be allowed to develop their own opinions, and persecute their opponents, had walked hand in hand with men who had spared neither tomb nor altar, who had stripped the lead from the church roofs, and stolen the bells from the church towers; and between them they had so outraged such plain honest minds as remained in England, that had Mary been content with mild repression, had she left the pope to those who loved him, and married, instead of Philip, some English lord, the mass would have retained its place, the clergy in moderate form would have resumed their old authority, and the Reformation would have waited for a century. In an evil hour, the queen listened to the unwise advisers, who told her that moderation in religion was the sin of the Laodicæans; and while the fanatics who had brought scandal on the Reforming cause, either truckled, like Shaxton, or stole abroad to wrangle over surplices and forms of prayer, the true and the good atoned with their lives for the crimes of others, and vindicated a noble cause by nobly dying for it.
And while among the Reformers that which was most bright and excellent shone out with preternatural lustre, so were the Catholics permitted to exhibit also the preternatural features of the creed which was expiring.
Although Pole and Mary could have laid their hands on earl and baron, knight and gentleman, whose heresy was notorious, although in the queen's own guard there were many who never listened to a mass,[662] they dared not strike where there was danger that they would be struck in return. They went out into the highways and hedges; they gathered up the lame, the halt, and the blind; they took the weaver from his loom, the carpenter from his workshop, the husbandman from his plough; they laid hands on maidens and boys "who had never heard of any other religion than that which they were called on to abjure;"[663] old men tottering into the grave, and children whose lips could but just lisp the articles of their creed; and of these they made their burnt-offerings; with these they crowded their prisons, and when filth and famine killed them, they flung them out to rot. How long England would have endured the repetition of the horrid spectacles is hard to say. The persecution lasted three years, and in that time something less than 300 persons were burnt at the stake.[664] "By imprisonment," said Lord Burghley, "by torment, by famine, by fire, almost the number of 400 were," in their various ways, "lamentably destroyed."
Yet, as has been already said, interference was impossible except by armed force. The country knew from the first that by the course of nature the period of cruelty must be a brief one; it knew that a successful rebellion is at best a calamity; and the bravest and wisest men would not injure an illustrious cause by conduct less than worthy of it, so long as endurance was possible. They had saved Elizabeth's life and Elizabeth's rights, and Elizabeth, when her time came, would deliver her subjects. The Catholics, therefore, were permitted to continue their cruelties till the cup of iniquity was full; till they had taught the educated laity of England to regard them with horror; and till the Romanist superstition had died, amidst the execrations of the people, of its own excess.[(Back to Content)]
INDEX.
Abergavenny, Lord, [90], [92]-6, [177].
d'Aguilar, [139].
Alexander, Mr., [296].
Alva, Duke of, [139]-43, [165], [171], [210], [275], [276], [285], [292].
Annates, payment of, [239], [240].
Arnold, Sir Nicholas, [114], [260].
Arras, Bishop of, [38], [60], [61], [85], [119], [150], [155], [208].
Arundel, Lord, [13], [18], [21], [22], [28], [42], [43], [116], [171], [313], [314].
"Arundel's," [262].
Ashley, Mrs., [217].
Ashridge, Elizabeth at, [217].
Ashton, Christopher, [260]-2.
Askew, Anne, [201], [202].
Astley Park, [101].
Aucher, Mr., [296].
Augsburg, Cardinal of, [190].
Aylmer, [70].
Bagenall, Sir Ralph, [170].
Baker, [308].
Baoardo's History, [1], [10], [20], [28], [35], [40], [92], [100], [102], [111], [112], [141]-3.
Barlow, Bishop, [47].
Bath, Earl of, [11], [71].
Baynard's Castle, [18].
Bedford, Lord, [34], [83], [129], [136].
Bedingfield, Sir Henry, [11], [215].
Bedyll, [267], [268].
Bembridge, [310].
Bentham, Thos., [311].
Berkeley, Sir Maurice, [109].
Binifield, [268].
Bird, Bishop, [47].
Bishops Authority Bill, [133];
creation of new, [119];
requests to the, [176], [177];
Mary's letter to the, [212].
Blacklock, [263].
Bocher, Joan, [135].
Bonner, Edmond, [32], [47], [83], [155], [190], [197], [201], [202], [212], [223], [232], [235], [245], [246], [257], [278], [280], [311].
Bourne, Dr., [34], [37], [68], [116], [180].
Bradford, Bishop, [37], [191], [196].
Bradford, John, [220]-2.
Bray, Sir Ed., [95], [268].
Brett, Captain, [95], [107]-9, [114].
Bromley, Sir Thos., [46], [132].
Brookes, Bishop of Gloucester, [224].
Brown, Sir Anthony, [141].
Brydges, Sir John, [104], [112], [119], [126], [135], [178], [194], [252].
Bucer, Martin, [281].
Burghley, Lord, [320].
Burnet, referred to, [67], [118], [149], [150], [157], [189], [193], [211], [212], [281], [288], [309].
Bush, Paul, [47].
Bushing, [296].