Henry VIII. dying January 28, 1547, was succeeded by his son, Edward VI., who laboured to forward the reformation. Those who formed the regency, his protectors, were Protestants, and the persecuting laws were soon repealed, with other measures for the advancement of the religion of the Scriptures. But this pious young king died, July 6, 1553, and was succeeded on the throne by his sister Mary. She was a consistent Papist, directed entirely by the Romish prelates. They revived all the powers of the Inquisition, and soon imprisoned Cranmer, archbishop of Canterbury, and the other leaders in the reformation, accusing them of heresy.
Queen Mary accepted the proposal to marry Philip, son of the Emperor Charles V., though ten years her junior, and a widower. As a bigot Papist, “all who had espoused the cause of the reformation in England,” as Bishop Bonner states, “anticipated not only a change of religion, but the erection of a Spanish government and Inquisition. Those who valued the civil liberty of their country, without any concern for religion, concluded that England would become a province of Spain; and they beheld how the Spaniards ruled in the Netherlands, in Milan, Naples, and Sicily; but, above all, they heard of their unexampled inhumanities in the West Indies.”
Philip was a man of great talents; but, as it is said of him, “his religion was of the most corrupt kind; it served only to increase the natural depravity of his disposition, and prompted him to commit the most odious and shocking crimes. Of the triumph of honour and humanity over the dictates of superstition, there occurs not a single instance in the whole reign of Philip; who violated the most sacred obligations as often as religion afforded him a pretence, and exercised, for many years, the most unrelenting cruelty, without reluctance or remorse. Few princes have been more dreaded, more abhorred, or have caused more blood to flow, than Philip II. of Spain.”
Mary, on the 23rd of October, before the altar in her private chapel, solemnly plighted her troth to Philip; and Bishop Gardiner was despatched to arrange the marriage settlement with the Emperor Charles V., who borrowed one million two hundred thousand crowns,—a prodigious sum at that time,—to enable that prelate to secure an obsequious parliament.
Philip landed at Southampton, July 20, 1554, and, on the 25th, he was married to Mary, by Gardiner, in his cathedral at Winchester. On the 29th of November, the formal reconciliation to Rome was solemnised, with great pomp, in the hall of the palace at Whitehall. The Queen and the King sat in regal state, with the Pope’s legate, Cardinal Pole, a prince of the blood. A large number of both houses of the new parliament being introduced, they presented, on their knees, a humble supplication on behalf of the whole nation, beseeching their majesties to intercede with the lord cardinal for their admission within the sacred pale of the church, and for absolution from their offences of heresy and schism, on condition of repealing all laws against the Catholic religion, passed in the season of their delusion. Mary and Philip having made the intercession, the legate, after a long speech, declaring the paternal solicitude of his holiness for the welfare of England, in the name of the Pope granted a full absolution, which the members of parliament received on their knees; after which, the king, queen, and legate, together with the whole body of the senators of the nation, chanted Te Deum in the chapel of the palace, expressive of their joy! The Pope solemnly ratified the act of his legate, and the news of the whole transaction was quickly published throughout Europe!
Preparatory for this absolution, an act was passed for the revival of the statutes of Richard II., Henry II., and Henry V., against heretics. They were to come into force on the 20th of January, 1555; so that the year opened with a portentous gloom. Cardinal Pole, on the 23rd of January, received all the bishops at Lambeth Palace, to give them his blessing, and directions how to govern the church; and on the 25th, there was a solemn procession through London, consisting of eight bishops, and one hundred and sixty priests, all in their robes; with Bonner, the bishop, carrying the host, to return thanks to God for their reconciliation. After this solemnity, the first measure of the restored church was for the prelates, as inquisitors, to proceed against the reformers, many of whom were imprisoned, under the direction of Bishop Bonner and Bishop Gardiner, who was lord chancellor.
Bishop Burnet remarks, on this cruel policy of the prelates, “Pope Paul was in the right in one thing, to press the setting up of courts of inquisition everywhere, as the only sure method to extirpate heresy. And it is highly probable that the king, or his Spanish ministers, made the court of England apprehend, that torture and inquisition were the only sure courses to root out heresy.”
John Rogers, a prebendary of St. Paul’s, London, and a famous preacher, who had aided Tindal in the translation of the Bible, was the first victim. He was burnt to ashes in Smithfield, February 4, 1555, triumphing in Christ.
Laurence Saunders was burnt to death on the 8th of February, where he had been minister, and highly esteemed, at Coventry.
Dr. Hooper, bishop of Gloucester, was carried to suffer at the stake in that city, on the 9th of February.