The fifth Act we do not care to analyze minutely, so much of it is sickeningly untrue. Mary has become fanatical again. Pole tells her that “the poor, by thousands, perish in the flames.” This is utterly false. All the executions under Mary’s government did not amount to more than two hundred and seventy-seven, and “from this list of 'martyrs for the Gospel’ must be excluded,” says a learned writer, “the names of those who suffered for political offences or other crimes.” Dr. Maitland, the celebrated librarian of Lambeth, in his Essays on Subjects connected with the Reformation in England, speaks of “the bitter and provoking spirit of some of those who were very active and forward in promoting the progress of the Reformation; the political opinions which they held, and the language in which they disseminated them; the fierce personal attacks which they made on those whom they considered as enemies; and, to say the least, the little care which was taken by those who were really actuated by religious motives, and seeking a true reformation of the Church, to shake off a lewd, ungodly, profane rabble, who joined in the cause of Protestantism, thinking it, in their depraved imaginations, or hoping to make it by their wicked devices, the cause of liberty against law, of the poor against the rich, of the laity against the clergy, of the people against their rulers.” From this rabble, then, came the “poor” who “perished in the flames.”
As to Oxford’s pretended “martyrs,” Ridley and Latimer were inciters of sedition and brought upon themselves the vengeance of the law; while Thomas Cranmer was, without exception, the most unmitigated miscreant in the whole disgraceful business of what is called the Reformation. Who will question that he richly deserved the stake after bringing to it so many victims, in Henry’s reign, for denying doctrines which he himself was secretly denying at the time? There are living Anglican writers who rejoice in calling all these boasted reformers a set of “unredeemed villains.”
Of course, as we said in our review of the first play, we acquit the author of all conscious prejudice. The last words he puts into his heroine’s mouth—“Time unveils Truth”—are an appeal to “the avenger,” who will not fail to do her justice yet. It was a noble thought to make Underhill, the Hot-Gospeller, her panegyrist. Oxford vaticinates:
“Awful queen!
Hardly of thee Posterity shall judge:
For they shall measure thee—
Underhill. Let me speak, sir:
For I have known, and been protected by her,
When fierce men thirsted for my blood. I say not
That she was innocent of grave offence;