Hugh Latimer, Bishop of Worcester, 1535-39, burnt 1555: from the National Portrait Gallery.
22. Death of Cranmer. 1556.—Cranmer would have accompanied Ridley and Latimer to the stake, but as he alone of the three had been consecrated a bishop in the days when the Pope's authority was accepted in England, it was thought right to await the Pope's authority for the execution of his sentence. In 1556 that authority arrived. Cranmer's heart was as weak as his head was strong, and he six times recanted, hoping to save his life. Mary specially detested him, as having sat in judgment on her mother (see p. [389]), and she was resolved that he should die. Finding his recantation useless, he recovered his better mind, and renounced his recantation. "I have written," he said, "many things untrue; and forasmuch as my hand offended in writing contrary to my heart, my hand therefore shall be the first burnt." He was hurried to the stake, and when the flames leapt up around him held his right hand steadily in the midst of them, that it might be 'the first burnt.'
23. Continuance of the Persecution. 1556-1558.—Immediately after Cranmer's death Pole became Archbishop of Canterbury. The persecution lasted for two years more. The number of those who suffered has been reckoned at 277. Almost all of these were burnt in the eastern and south-eastern parts of England. It was there that the Protestants were the thickest. New opinions always flourish more in towns than in the country, and on this side of England were those trading towns, from which communication with the Protestants of the Continent was most easy. Sympathy with the sufferers made these parts of the kingdom more strongly Protestant than they had been before.
24. The Queen's Disappointment. 1555-1556.—Mary was a sorrowful woman. Not only did Protestantism flourish all the more for the means which she took to suppress it, but her own domestic life was clouded. She had longed for an heir to carry on the work which she believed to be the work of God, and she had even imagined herself to be with child. It was long before she abandoned hope, and she then learnt also that her husband—to whom she was passionately attached—did not love her, and had never loved anything in England but her crown. In 1555 Philip left her. He had indeed cause to go abroad. His father, Charles V., was broken in health, and, his schemes for making himself master of Germany having ended in failure, he had resolved to abdicate. Charles was obliged to leave his Austrian possessions to his brother Ferdinand; and the German electors, who detested Philip and his Spanish ways, insisted on having Ferdinand as Emperor. Charles could, however, leave his western possessions to his son, and in 1556 he completed the surrender of them. Mary's husband then became Philip II. of Spain, ruling also over large territories in Italy, over Franche Comté, and the whole of the Netherlands, as well as over vast tracts in America, rich in mines of silver and gold, which had been appropriated by the hardihood, the cruelty, and the greed of Spanish adventurers. No prince in Europe had at his command so warlike an army, so powerful a fleet, and such an abounding revenue as Philip had at his disposal. Philip's increase of power produced a strong increase of the anti-Spanish feeling in England, and conspiracies were formed against Mary who was believed to be ready to welcome a Spanish invading army.
25. War with France and the Loss of Calais. 1557-1558.—In 1557 Philip was at war with France, and, to please a husband who loved her not, Mary declared war against Philip's enemy. She sent an English army to her husband's support, but though Philip gained a crushing victory over the French at St. Quentin, the English troops gained no credit, as they did not arrive in time to take part in the battle. In the winter, Francis, Duke of Guise, an able French warrior, threatened Calais. Mary, who, after wringing a forced loan from her subjects in the summer, had spent it all, had little power to help the governor, Lord Wentworth, and persuaded herself that the place was in no danger. Guise, however, laid siege to the town. The walls were in disrepair and the garrison too small for defence. On January 6, 1558, Guise stormed Calais, and when, a few days afterwards, he also stormed the outlying post of Guisnes, the last port held by the English in France fell back into the hands of the French. Calais was now again a French town, after having been in the hands of strangers for 211 years.