Then almost immediately followed a total change in the administration, which affected both the political and religious state of the country. Those who had languished in confinement, on account of their religion, obtained their liberty, and were elevated to power. Gardiner, Bonner, and other Catholic bishops, were restored to their sees, while Cranmer, Ridley, Latimer, Hooper Coverdale, and other eminent Protestants, were imprisoned. All the statutes of Edward VI. pertaining to religion were repealed, and the queen sent assurances to the pope of her allegiance to his see. Cardinal Pole, descended from the royal family of England, and a man of great probity, moderation, and worth, was sent as legate of the pope. Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, was made lord chancellor, and became the prime minister. He and his associates recommended violent councils; and a reign, unparalleled in England for religious persecution, commenced.
Soon after the queen's accession, Marriage of the Queen. she married Philip, son of the Emperor Charles, and heir of the Spanish monarchy. This marriage, brought about by the intrigues of the emperor, and favored by the Catholic party, was quite acceptable to Mary, whose issue would inherit the thrones of Spain and England. But ambitious matches are seldom happy, especially when the wife is much older than the husband, as was the fact in this instance. Mary, however, was attached to Philip, although he treated her with great indifference.
This Spanish match, the most brilliant of that age, failed, however, to satisfy the English, who had no notion of becoming the subjects of the King of Spain. In consequence of this disaffection, a rebellion broke out, in which Sir Thomas Wyatt was the most conspicuous, and in which the Duke of Suffolk, and even the Lady Jane and her husband, were implicated, though unjustly. The rebellion was easily suppressed, and the leaders sent to the Tower. Then followed one of the most melancholy executions of this reign—that of the Lady Jane Grey, who had been reprieved three months before. The queen urged the plea of self-defence, and the safety of the realm—the same that Queen Elizabeth, in after times, made in reference to the Queen of the Scots. Her unfortunate fate excited great popular compassion, and she suffered with a martyr's constancy, and also her husband—two illustrious victims, sacrificed in consequence of the ambition of their relatives, and the jealousy of the queen. The Duke of Suffolk, the father of Lady Jane, was also executed, and deserved his fate, according to the ideas of his age. The Princess Elizabeth expected also to be sacrificed, both because she was a Protestant and the next heiress to the throne. But she carefully avoided giving any offence, and managed with such consummate prudence, that she was preserved for the future glory and welfare of the realm.
The year 1555 opened gloomily for the Protestants. The prisons were all crowded with the victims of Religious Persecution. religious persecution, and bigoted inquisitors had only to prepare their fagots and stakes. Over a thousand ministers were ejected from their livings, and such as escaped further persecution fled to the continent. No fewer than two hundred and eighty-eight persons, among whom were five bishops, twenty-one clergymen, fifty-five women, and four children, were burned for religious opinions, besides many thousands who suffered various other forms of persecution. The constancy of Ridley, Latimer, and Hooper has immortalized their names on the list of illustrious martyrs: but the greatest of all the victims was Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury. The most artful and insinuating promises were held out to him, to induce him to retract. Life and dignities were promised him, if he would consent to betray his cause. In an evil hour, he yielded to the temptation, and consented to sell his soul. Timid, heartbroken, and old, the love of life and the fear of death were stronger than the voice of conscience and his duty to his God. But, when he found he was mocked, he came to himself, and suffered patiently and heroically. His death was glorious, as his life was useful; and the sincerity of his repentance redeemed his memory from shame. Cranmer may be considered as the great author of the English Reformation, and one of the most worthy and enlightened men of his age; but he was timid, politic, and time-serving. The Reformation produced no perfect characters in any country. Some great defect blemished the lives of all the illustrious men who have justly earned imperishable glory. But the character of such men as Cranmer, and Ridley, and Latimer, present an interesting contrast to those of Gardiner and Bonner. The former did show, however, some lenity in the latter years of this reign of Mary; but the latter, the Bishop of London, gloated to the last in the blood which he caused to be shed. He even whipped the Protestant prisoners with his own hands, and once pulled out the beard of an heretical weaver, and held his finger in the flame of a candle, till the veins shrunk and burnt, that he might realize what the pain of burning was. So blind and cruel is religious intolerance.
But Providence ordered that the religious persecution, which is attributed to Mary, but which, in strict justice, should be ascribed to her counsellors and ministers, should prepare the way for a popular and a spiritual movement in the subsequent reign. The fires of Smithfield, and the cruelties of the pillory and the prison, opened the eyes of the nation to the spirit of the old religion, and also caused the flight of many distinguished men to Frankfort and Geneva, where they learned the principles of both religious and civil liberty. "The blood of martyrs proved the seed of the church"—a sublime truth, revealed to Cranmer and Ridley amid the fires which consumed their venerable bodies; and not to them merely, but to all who witnessed their serenity, and heard their shouts of triumph when this mortal passed to immortality. Heretics increased with the progress of persecution, and firm conviction took the place of a blind confession of dogmas. "It was not," says Milman, "until Christ was lain in his rock-hewn sepulchre, that the history of Christianity commenced." We might add, it was not until the fires of Smithfield were lighted, that great spiritual ideas took hold of the popular mind, and the intense religious earnestness appeared which has so often characterized the English nation. The progress which man makes is generally seen through disaster, suffering, and sorrow. This is one of the fundamental truths which history teaches.
The last years of the reign of Mary were miserable to herself, and disastrous to the nation. Her royal husband did not return her warm affections, and left England forever. She embarked in a ruinous war with France, and gained nothing but disgrace. Her health failed, and her disposition became gloomy. She continued, to the last, most intolerant in her religious opinions, and thought more of restoring Romanism, than of promoting the interests of her kingdom. Her heart was bruised and broken, and her life was a succession of sorrows. Character of Mary. It is fashionable to call this unfortunate queen the "bloody Mary," and not allow her a single virtue; but she was affectionate, sincere, high-minded, and shrunk from the dissimulation and intrigue which characterized "the virgin queen"—the name given to her masculine but energetic successor. Mary was capable of the warmest friendship; was attentive and considerate to her servants, charitable to the poor, and sympathetic with the unfortunate, when not blinded by her religious prejudices. She had many accomplishments, and a very severe taste, and was not addicted to oaths, as was Queen Elizabeth and her royal father. She was, however, a bigoted Catholic; and how could partisan historians see or acknowledge her merits?
But her reign was disastrous, and the nation hailed with enthusiasm the Accession of Elizabeth. accession of Elizabeth, on the 17th of November, 1558. With her reign commences a new epoch, even in the history of Europe. Who does not talk of the Elizabethan era, when Protestantism was established in England, when illustrious poets and philosophers adorned the literature of the country, when commerce and arts received a great impulse, when the colonies in North America were settled, and when a constellation of great statesmen raised England to a pitch of glory not before attained?
References.—See Hume's, and Lingard's, and other standard Histories of England; Miss Strickland's Lives of the Queens of England; Burnet's History of the Reformation; Life of Cranmer; Fox's Book of Martyrs. These works contain all the easily-accessible information respecting the reigns of Edward and Mary, which is important.[(Back to Contents)]