The Reign of Mary Tudor

by James Anthony Froude

"As the English laity had dishonoured the ministers of the church above all people," continued the legate, "so must they now honour them above all people, remembering Christ's words—'He that despiseth you despiseth Me.' They must obey the priests, therefore, implicitly; they must be careful to pay their tithes honestly; what they denied their priests they denied their God; and they must show their repentance especially where they had especially offended, touching the injuries they had done to the ministers of God, whom God had set over them, to be honoured as they would their natural father."

"And this," he said, coming to the heart of the matter, "this you cannot do if you favour heretics, who being the very enemies of God and man, yet specially their enmity extendeth against priests. Here is another point that you must show worthy of a repentant mind: that whereas you have sore offended God by giving favour to heretics, now temper your favour under such manner that if you can convert them by any ways unto the unity of the church, then do it, for it is a great work of mercy. But if ye cannot, and ye suffer or favour them, there cannot be a work of greater cruelty against the commonwealth than to nourish or favour any such. For be you assured, there is no kind of men so pernicious to the commonwealth as they be; there are no thieves, no murderers, no adulterers, nor no kind of treason, to be compared to theirs, who, as it were, undermining the chief foundation of all commonwealths, which is religion, maketh an entry to all kinds of vices in the most heinous manner." ... "You specially of the City of London, you being the first that received the fruit of grace in the new plantation, the seed of benediction being first cast upon you, to make you a ground to bring forth all fruit of sanctity and justice; ... shall I say, that after all this done, more briars and thorns hath grown here among you than in all the realm besides? I cannot say so, nor I will not; albeit it might so seem, for a greater multitude of these brambles and briars were cast in the fire here among you than in any place besides; but many of them being grown in other places, and brought in and burned among you, may give occasion that you have a worse name without your desert. The thing standeth not in the name—bethink you yourselves how it standeth.... Wherefore cometh this, that when any heretic shall go to execution, he shall lack no comforting of you, and encouraging to die in his perverse opinion? that when he shall be put in prison he shall have more cherishing?... As it is now, this may not be suffered.... For their boldness in their death, it is small argument of grace to be in them; Christ himself showing more heaviness and dolour at his dying hour than did the thieves that hung beside him, which did blaspheme Christ, setting nought by him, specially one of them, showing no further fear. So do the heretics at their deaths like the blasphemer."[592]

Cruel and savage as the persecution had become, it was still inadequate. The famine lasted, and therefore God was angry.

The new year opened with the appointment of a commission, consisting of Bonner, Thirlby, and twenty other peers, gentlemen, and canon lawyers, on whom the court could rely. "Wicked persons" had invented slanders against the queen's person, and had sown "pestilent heresies" in the realm. The queen, therefore, "minding to punish such enormities," and having especial trust in the wisdom of these persons, gave them power to institute inquiries at their pleasure into the conduct and opinions of every man and woman in all parts of the kingdom. The protection of the law was suspended. The commissioners might arrest any person at any place. Three of them were enough to form a court; and mayors, sheriffs, and magistrates were commanded to assist at their peril.

The object of the commission was "to search and find out" the sellers of heretical books, or those who in any way professed heresy or taught it; to ascertain who refused to attend mass, to walk in procession, to use holy water, or in any way betrayed disrespect for the established religion. Those who "persisted in their bad opinions" were to be given up to their ordinary, to be punished according to law. The commissioners were themselves empowered to punish with fine or imprisonment those who yielded, or those whose offences were in the second degree, taking care to collect the fines which they inflicted, and to certify the exchequer of their receipts. They were not embarrassed by a necessity of impanelling juries; they might call juries if they pleased; they might use "all other means and politic ways that they could devise." No Spanish inquisition possessed larger or less tolerable powers; no English sovereign ever more entirely set aside the restrictions of the law.[593] The appointment of the commission was followed up by Pole in a visitation of the diocese of Canterbury. Persons were nominated to examine into the doctrines of the clergy; to learn whether those who had been married held communication with their wives; whether the names of those who had not been reconciled had been registered as he had ordered; and from every clergyman to ascertain the habits, beliefs, and opinions of every resident, male or female, in his parish.[594]

Other commissioners again were sent to the universities, with powers extending, not over the living only, but the dead.

Scot, Bishop of Chester, Watson, Bishop of Lincoln, and Christopherson, Master of Trinity and Bishop of Chichester, went in January to Cambridge, accompanied by Ormaneto, the Venetian, a confidential friend of the legate. Bucer and Fagius slept in St. Mary's and St. Michael's. The 10th of January, the day after the bishops' arrival, the two churches were laid under an interdict, as defiled with the presence of unhallowed bodies. On the 15th a summons was fixed to St. Mary's door, citing Martin Bucer and Paul Fagius, or any other who would plead on their behalf, to make answer three days after, before the commission, on a charge of heresy. The court sate, and no one appeared. The session was adjourned for a week, while the colleges were searched, and Primers, Prayer-books, Bibles, or other interdicted volumes, were hunted out and brought together. On the 26th the bishops met again; the accused remained undefended, and the heresy was taken to be proved; sentence was passed therefore, that the bodies should be disinterred and burnt. On the 6th of February the coffins were taken out of the graves, and chained to a stake in the market-place; the Bibles and prayer-books were heaped round them with a pile of faggots, and books and bodies were reduced to ashes.

Having purged Cambridge, Ormaneto proceeded to Oxford, on business of the same description.

Peter Martyr, when he came into residence as divinity professor at Christ Church, had outraged the orthodox party in the university by bringing a wife within the college walls; and Catherine Cathie, so the wife was named, had, like the wife of Luther, been a professed nun. She had died before Mary's accession, and had been buried in the cathedral. A process has now instituted against her similar to that at Cambridge.

An unforeseen difficulty occurred in the conduct of the prosecution. Catherine Cathie had lived quietly and unobtrusively; she had taught nothing and had written no books; and no evidence could be found to justify her conviction on a charge of heresy.