Everybody knows the eager hopes and expectation with which Mary looked forward to the birth of a child. The tales of the common people about the Queen’s supposed pregnancy are illustrated by a story in Holinshed.
“There came to see me, whome I did both heare and see, one Isabel Malt, a woman dwelling in Aldersgate Street in Horne allie, not farre from the house where this present book was printed, who before witnesse made this declaration unto us, that she being delivered of a man-child upon Whitsuntide in the morning, which was the eleventh daie of June Anno 1555, there came to hir the Lord North, and another lord to her unknowne, dwelling then about old Fish Street, demanding of hir if she would part with hir child, and would swear that she never knew nor had no such child. Which if she would, hir sonne (they said) should be well provided for, she should take no care for it, with manie faire offers if she would part with the child. After that came other women also, of whome one (she said) should have been the rocker: but she in no wise would let go hir sonne, who at the writing hereof, being alive and called Timothie Malt, was of the age of thirteene yeares and upward. Thus much (I saie) I heard of the woman hirself. What credit is to be given to hir relation, I deale not withall, but leave it to the libertie of the reader to believe it they that list: to them that list not, I have no further warrant to assure them.” (Vol. iv. p. 83.)
W.A. Mansell & Co.
EXECUTION OF LADY JANE GREY
From the painting by Paul Delaroche in the Tate Gallery, London.
The same Chronicler gives us a glimpse of the divided state of the popular mind on the occasion of the removal of Dr. Sands, Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge, to London, to be tried for heresy. As he left Cambridge the Papists came out to jeer at him, and his friends to mourn for him. When he got to London, one like a milk-wife hurled a stone at him, which struck him in the breast. When he came to Tower Hill a woman cried out, “Fie on thee, thou knave, thou traitor, thou heretic!” For which she was upbraided by another woman who called out, “Good gentleman: God be thy comfort and give thee strength to stand in God’s cause even to the end!” When, after some weeks, they brought him from the Tower to the Marshalsea the people had gone round already, and “poperie was unsaverie.” Everywhere they prayed to God to comfort him and to strengthen him in the truth. In the Marshalsea, Sands fell into the hands of a Protestant keeper, who gave him all the indulgence he could. And in the end he escaped into Holland, and there stayed till the death of Mary.
The examples of Henry the Seventh’s reign were not likely to be lost so soon. A lad of eighteen named William Fetherstone, a miller’s son, was reported to be at Eltham in Kent giving himself out for King Edward, who, he declared, was not dead at all. Was the boy mad? It is not known. He himself declared that he had been made to say this: it is quite possible that certain hot-headed Protestants thought to set up King Edward again, and so to get back the new religion. Such a thing can never be attempted without encouragement—perhaps the lad was soft and easily moulded. Being brought before the Council he rambled in his talk; wherefore he was committed to the Marshalsea as a lunatic. That conclusion did not prevent them from whipping the boy all round the Palace at Westminster and all the way from Westminster to Smithfield. They then packed him off to his birthplace in the North, where he might have rested in peace; but the unlucky wretch began to talk again about Edward VI., who, he said, was still alive. Therefore they brought him up to London and hanged him at Tyburn.
Certaine Bishops talking with Master Bradford in prison.
