AN.REG.3, lightning had been seen, or any clap of thunder had been heard 1561. that day. Which fiction, notwithstanding, got such credit amongst the vulgar, and amongst wiser persons too, that the burning of St Paul's steeple by lightning was reckoned amongst the ordinary epochs or accounts of time in our common almanacks; and so it stood till within these thirty years now last past, when an old plumber at his death confessed that woful accident to have happened through his negligence only, in leaving carelessly a pan of coals and other fuel in the steeple when he went to dinner; which, catching hold of the dry timber in the spire, before his return was grown so dangerous that it was not possible to be quenched, and therefore to no purpose (as he conceived) to make any words of it'. Since which discovery, that ridiculous epoch hath no more been heard of. 8. But the Queen quickly hearing what a great misfortune had befallen the city, regarded not the various reports of either party, but bent her thoughts upon the speedy reparation of those fearful ruins; and knowing right well (without the help of an informer) that the patrimony of that Church had been so wasted in these latter times, that neither the Bishop nor the 141 Dean and Chapter were able to contribute any thing propor- 318 tionable to so vast a charge, she directed her letters to the Lord Mayor and City of London to take care therein, as most concerned in the preservation of their mother-Church, and in the honour of their city 2. In obedience to whose royal pleasure, the citizens granted a benevolence and three fifteens, to be speedily paid, besides the extraordinary bounty of particular 1 Fuller, b. ix. 71, folio; comp. Heyl. Exam. Hist. pt. iii. 100; although Dugdale, in his History of St Paul's (p. 147, ed. 1818), refers to the present work as if the earliest authority for this statement as to the origin of the fire. His editor, Sir Henry Ellis, denies the truth of the story, on the ground that a black-letter tract, printed at the time, and republished in the Archæologia, vol. xi., relates that some persons who were in a boat on the Thames saw lightning strike the spire. I should be disposed to attach greater weight to a passage in Churton's Life of Nowell, to which Sir H. Ellis refers:-"The Vera Historia, minutely detailed in the episcopal register by an eyewitness...assures us, that neither plumbers nor other workmen had been employed about the church for six months before, and that the fire was occasioned by lightning." p. 59, ed. Oxf. 1809. Comp. Strype's Grindal, 53—5, where it is also stated that the spire of St Martin's, Ludgate, suffered at the same time from lightning. 2 Stow, 647. 1561. persons, or was to be issued from the chamber. And that AN. REG. 3, they might proceed therein with the greater zeal, the Queen sent in a thousand marks in ready money, and warrants for one thousand load of timber to be served out of her Majesty's woods. Encouraged by which brave example, the clergy of the province of Canterbury contributed towards the furtherance of the work the fortieth part of their benefices which stood charged with first-fruits, and the thirtieth part of those which had paid the same; the Clergy of the diocese of London bestowing the thirtieth part of such of their livings as were under the burthen of that payment, and the twentieth part of those which were not'; to which the Bishop added at several times the sum of 9007. 1s. 11d., the Dean and Chapter 1367. 138. 4d. By which and some other little helps (the benevolence, the three fifteens, and the contributions of the Bishop and Clergy, with the aid aforesaid, amounting to no more than 67027.13s. 4d.) the work was carried on so fast, that before the end of April, 1566, the timber work of the roof was not only fitted, but completely covered. The raising of a new spire was taken also into consideration, but conceived unnecessary; but whether because it was too chargeable 2, or that some feared it might prove a temptation, is not yet determined. The Queen declines communication 9. And now the season of the year invites the Pope's Nuncio into England,-advanced already in his way as far as with Rome. Flanders, and there expecting the Queen's pleasure touching his admittance; for the Pope, always constant to his resolutions, could not then be taken off from sending his Nuncio to the Queen, with whom he conceived himself to stand upon terms of amity. It had been much laboured by the Guisiards and Spanish faction to divert him from it, by telling him that it would be an undervaluing of his power and person, to send a Nuncio into England, or to any other princes of the same persuasions, who openly professed a separation from the See of Rome. To which he made this prudent and pious answer, 1 Stow, Chron. 647; Survey, 357. Wilkins, iv. 226. Comp. Strype's Parker, 92-3, 127; Grindal, b. i. cc. 6-7. 2 "This one thing resteth to be told, that, by the estimation of wise men, 10000 pounds more than is yet granted to it, will not perfect and finish the church and steeple in such sort as it was before the burning thereof." Holinsh. iv. 203. A A [HEYLYN, II.] 1561. AN. REG. 3, That he would humble himself even to heresy itself, in regard that whatsoever was done to gain souls to Christ, did beseem that See. And to this resolution he adhered the rather, because he had been told and assured by Karn, the old English agent, that his Nuncio would be received by one half of the kingdom, with the Queen's consent. But as it proved, they reckoned both without their host-and hostess too, who desired not to give entertainment unto such guests. For having designed the Abbot Martiningo to this employment, and the Abbot being advanced as far as Flanders, as before was said, he there received the Queen's command not to cross the seas. Upon advertisement whereof, as well the King of Spain himself as Ferdinand of Toledo, Duke of Alva, (the most powerful minister of that King,) did earnestly intreat that he might be heard,-commending the cause of his legation, as visibly conducing to the union of all the Christian Church in a general council. But the Queen persevered in her first intent, affirming she could not treat with the Bishop of Rome, whose authority was excluded out of England by consent of Parliament. Nor had the Pope's Nuncio in France any better fortune in treating with Throgmorton, the English agent in that Court, to advance the business; who, though he did solicit by his letters both the Queen and the Council to give some satisfaction in that point to the French and the Spaniards, (though not unto the Pope himself), could get no other answer from them but the same denial1. 10. For so it was, that on the first noise of the Nuncio's coming, the business had been taken into consideration at the council-table, and strongly pleaded on both sides, as men's 14 judgments varied. By some it was alleged in favour of the 31 Nuncio's coming, that Pope Pius was nothing of so rugged a nature as his predecessor; that he had made a fair address unto the Queen by his last year's letters; that his designs did most apparently tend to the peace of Christendom; that the admitting of the Nuncio was a matter which signified nothing, it being still left in her Majesty's power whether she would embrace or reject his overtures; but that the refusing to admit him to a public audience was the most ready way to disoblige all Catholic Princes with whom she stood at that time in terms 1 Sarpi, 441. Camden, 68-9. Fuller, iv. 312—3. 1561. of amity. On the other side it was alleged, that King Henry, AN. REG. 3, a most prudent Prince, had formerly protested against the calling of this Council by Pope Paul the Third, who did as much pretend to the peace of Christendom as the Pope now being; that to admit a minister of the Pope, in the quality or capacity of a Nuncio, inferred a tacit acknowledgement of that supremacy whereof he had been deprived by Act of Parliament; that the Popes of Rome have always raised great advantages by the smallest concessions; and therefore that it was most expedient for the good of the kingdom to keep him always at a distance; that Queen Mary, in favour only unto Pole, refused to give admittance to Cardinal Peitow, though coming from the Pope in quality of a Legate a latere1; that a great part of the people were in discontentment with the change of religion, and wanted nothing but such an opportunity to break out into action as the Nuncio's presence might afford them; and therefore that it concerned the Queen to be as zealous for religion and the weal of her people as her sister the late Queen Mary was in maintenance of Cardinal Pole and his private authority. And to say truth, the greatest obstacle in the way of the Nuncio's coming was partly laid in it by the indiscretion of some papists in England, and partly by the precipitancy of the Pope's ministers in Ireland. For so it was, that the only noise of the coming of a Nuncio from the Pope had wrought in sundry evil-disposed persons such a courage and boldness, that they did not only break the laws made against the Pope and his authority, with great audacity, but spread abroad false and slanderous reports, that the Queen was at the point to change her religion, and alter the government of the realm. Some also had adventured further, even to a practising with the devil by conjurations, charms, and casting of figures, to be informed in the length and continuance of her Majesty's reign2. And on the other side, the Pope's Legate, being at the same time in Ireland, not only joined himself to some desperate traitors, who busied themselves in stirring up rebellion there, but, for as much as in him was, had deprived her Majesty of all right and title to that kingdom. Upon which grounds it was carried clearly by the Board against the Nuncio. Nor would they vary from the vote upon the intercession of the AN. REG.3, French, the Spaniard, or-(whose displeasure was more dan1561. gerous) of the Duke of Alva. The Emperor exhorts her Church. 11. Nothing discouraged with the repulse which had been to return to given to the French and Spaniard, the Emperor Ferdinand must make trial of his fortune also,-not, as they did, in favour of the Nuncio's coming, but in persuading her to return to the old religion. To this end he exhorts her by his letters in a friendly way, not to relinquish the communion of so many Catholic Kings and Princes, and her own ancestors into the bargain; not to prefer her single judgment and the judgment of a few private persons, and those not the most learned neither, before the judgment and determination of the Church of Christ; that, if she were resolved to persist in her own opinion, she should deal favourably with so many reverend and religious Prelates as she kept in prison, and which she kept in prison for no other reason but for adhering unto that religion which himself professed; and, finally, he intreats most earnestly that she would set apart some churches to the use of the Catholics, in which they might with freedom exercise their own religion, according to the rites and doctrines of the Church of Rome1. To which desires she made a full and sufficient answer, by satisfying him touching her merciful dealing with those Bishops 14 whom, for their obstinacy and many other weighty reasons, she 31 had deprived of their preferments in the Church. And to the rest she answered,-That she had settled her religion on so sure a bottom, that she could not easily be changed; that she doubted not but that she had many learned men in her dominions which were able to defend the doctrine by them taught, against all opponents; and that, for granting any churches to the use of the papists, it was a point so contrary to the policy and good laws of the land that she desired to be excused for not yielding to it. In which last she seemed to have an eye upon the edict of the Emperor Constantine, touching the meetings of the Marcionites, Novatians, Valentinians, and other heretics of 1 Rishton, in Sanders, 307. Strype gives in his Annals, i. App. D, E, a letter from the Emperor, with Elizabeth's answer. The chief subject of these are, the treatment of the Romish bishops, and the Emperor's wish that places of worship should be allowed for the Romanists. The exhortation to return to the communion of Rome may have been contained in an earlier letter, to which reference is made. |