So unpopular was the marriage coupled with the queen's religious policy, that it led to a rebellion under Sir Thomas Wyatt. Though suppressed, it was a dangerous symptom, especially as Mary failed to profit by the warning. Her attempts to implicate her sister Elizabeth in the charge of treason failed.
Had Mary's foreign policy only been strong it might have conciliated the patriotic pride of the ever present jingo. But under her leadership England seemed to decline almost to its nadir. The command of the sea was lost and, as a consequence of this and of the military genius of the Duke of Guise, Calais, held for over two centuries, was conquered by the French. [Sidenote: 1558] With the subsequent loss of Guines the last English outpost on the continent was reft from her.
[Sidenote: Religious policy]
Notwithstanding Mary's saying that "Calais" would be found in her heart when she died, by far her deepest interest was the restoration of Catholicism. To assist her in this task she had Cardinal Reginald Pole, in whose veins flowed the royal blood of England and whom the pope appointed as legate to the kingdom. Though Mary's own impulse was to act strongly, she sensibly adopted the emperor's advice to go slowly and, as far as possible, in legal forms. Within a month of her succession she issued a proclamation stating her intention to remain Catholic and her hope that her subjects would embrace the same religion, but at the same time disclaiming the intention of forcing them and forbidding strife and the use of {320} "those new-found devilish terms of papist or heretic or such like."
Elections to the first Parliament were free; it passed two noteworthy Acts of Repeal, [Sidenote: Repeal of Reforming acts] the first restoring the status quo at the death of Henry VIII, the second restoring the status quo of 1529 on the eve of the Reformation Parliament. This second act abolished eighteen statutes of Henry VIII and one of Edward VI, but it refused to restore the church lands. The fate of the confiscated ecclesiastical property was one of the greatest obstacles, if not the greatest, in the path of reconciliation with Rome. The pope at first insisted upon it, and Pole was deeply grieved at being obliged to absolve sinners who kept the fruits of their sins. But the English, as the Spanish ambassador Renard wrote, "would rather get themselves massacred than let go" the abbey lands. The very Statute of Repeal, therefore, that in other respects met Mary's demands, carefully guarded the titles to the secularized lands, making all suits relating to them triable only in crown courts.
The second point on which Parliament, truly representing a large section of public opinion, was obstinate, was in the refusal to recognize the papal supremacy. The people as a whole cared not what dogma they were supposed to believe, but they for the most part cordially hated the pope. They therefore agreed to pass the acts of repeal only on condition that nothing was said about the royal supremacy. To Mary's insistence they returned a blank refusal to act and she was compelled to wait "while Parliament debated articles that might well puzzle a general council," as a contemporary wrote.
Lords and Commons were quite willing to pass acts to strengthen the crown and then to leave the responsibility {321} for further action to it. Thus the divorce of Henry and Catharine of Aragon was repealed and the Revival of treason laws were revived. [Sidenote: Revival of treason laws] Going even beyond the limit of Henry VIII it was made treason to "pray or desire" that God would shorten the queen's days. Worse than that, Parliament revived the heresy laws. It is a strange comment on the nature of legislatures that they have so often, as in this case, protected property better than life, and made money more sacred than conscience. However, it was not Parliament but the executive that carried out to its full extent the policy of persecution and religious reaction.
The country soon showed its opposition. A temporary disarray that might have been mistaken for disintegration had been produced in the Protestant ranks by the recantation of Northumberland. The restoration of the mass was accomplished in orderly manner in most places. The English formulas had been patient of a Catholic interpretation, and doubtless many persons regarded the change from one liturgy to the other as a matter of slight importance. Moreover the majority made a principle of conformity to the government, believing that an act of the law relieved the conscience of the individual of responsibility. But even so, there was a large minority of recusants. Of 8800 beneficed clergy in England, 2000 were ejected for refusal to comply. A very large number fled to the Continent, forming colonies at Frankfort-on-the-Main and at Geneva and scattering in other places. The opinion of the imperial ambassador Renard that English Protestants depended entirely on support from abroad was tolerably true for this reign, for their books continued to be printed abroad, and a few further translations from foreign reformers were made. It is noteworthy that these mostly treat of the {322} question, then so much in debate, whether Protestants might innocently attend the mass.
Other expressions of the temper of the people were the riots in London. On the last day of the first Parliament a dog with a tonsured crown, a rope around its neck and a writing signifying that priests and bishops should be hung, was thrown through a window into the queen's presence chamber. At another time a cat was found tonsured, surpliced, and with a wafer in its mouth in derision of the mass. The perpetrators of these outrages could not be found.
[Sidenote: Passive resistance]