'that she really believed he was a very honest man." It is worthy of notice, that Mrs. Bacon, who was a learned Protestant lady, belonged to the queen's bed-chamber, then and afterwards, and had access to her in private conversation. The queen, however, still required further expla nation of some of Cecil's double dealings in the late usurpation. She moved next day to her favourite seat of Newhall, where Cecil presented her with a list of excuses, lately given entire to the world,' which will remain an example of the shamelessness of a climbing statesman to all futurity. The queen next proceeded to the seat of sir William Petre, at Ingatestone, where the council, who had lately defied and denied her, were presented to her, for the purpose of kissing her hand. Cecil kissed the royal hand" before any other of the council-men;" so far had his apology satisfied the queen, through the intercession of Mrs. Bacon: but his favour went no further; and, notwithstanding his sedulous compliances with Catholicism, Mary never would listen to his ardent aspirations for office.

The queen arrived at her seat of Wanstead, on the 3d of August, where she disbanded her army, excepting a body of horse-a bold measure, considering all that had recently been transacted in the metropolis; nevertheless, it was only a proper observance of the ancient laws and privileges of London.

Lord Arundel had previously arrived at the Tower, on the 27th of July, with Northumberland and the other prisoners brought from Cambridge; he received orders to arrest the duke of Suffolk and his unhappy daughter, lady Jane Gray, and lodge them in prison-rooms in the Tower. Frances, duchess of Suffolk, directly her husband was taken from her, hastened to meet the queen, and, throwing herself at her feet, she lifted up her voice in piteous lamentation; she told the queen "that Suffolk was very ill, and would die if shut up in the Tower." Mary was softened by her plaints, and granted the liberation of her husband-“ a wonderful instance of mercy," bishop Godwin observes. Thus, unharmed in body or estate, Suffolk paid the penalty of but three days' imprisonment for his conspiracy with Northumberland. No pleadings mother of the celebrated lord Bacon, and daughter to sir Antony Cook, the Protestant tutor of Edward VI.: she was lady Cecil's sister. He had previously married a daughter of sir John Cheke.

'This account of Mary's progress on her accession is gleaned from this most curious paper, edited by Mr. Tytler, in his late invaluable work on the state papers of Edward VI. and Mary. It was written in the year 1573, at the request of Cecil, when he was prime minister to queen Elizabeth, and seems to be meant as the recollections of his secretary, Roger Alford, of those times, in which they were both agents; and if the memorial of Cecil's conduct appears so disgusting to the lovers of truth, thus compounded under his own eye, how would it appear if written by any one else? We have no concern with Cecil at present, excepting as he has interwoven himself with the progress of Mary, of which there is no other record; but those who wish to form a true estimate of him must carefully peruse Mr. Tytler's second volume, first edition, pp. 169-447.

'Godwin. Martin's Chronicle.

9

Holingshed. Godwin, p. 333. The plea of illness is mentioned in the parrative of Baoardo, published at Venice, 1558.

are recorded of the duchess Frances for her hapless daughte lady Jane Gray, who might have been liberated, on her parole, with far less danger than her wrong-headed father. It was notorious that the duchess Frances was a very active agent in the evanescent regality of her daughter Jane; she had urged her unfortunate marriage, and had carried her train as queen. She must, nevertheless, have fabricated some tale of coercion, since she was always treated with great distinction by her cousin, queen Mary, in the worst of times.'

The ladies who had accompanied the princess Elizabeth from London were introduced formally to queen Mary, at Wanstead, who kissed every one of them. Such is the tradition in a family whose ancestress attended that antique royal drawing-room.

The queen was, on the 3d of August, escorted from Wanstead by great numbers of nobles and ladies, who came to grace her entrance into her capital. A foreigner, who was an eye-witness, thus describes her appearance on this triumphant occasion: "Then came the ladies, married and single, in the midst of whom rode madame Mary, queen of England, mounted on a small white ambling nag, the housings of which were fringed with gold. The queen was dressed in violet velvet; she seemed about forty years of age, and was rather fresh-coloured."

The old city portal of Aldgate, at which the queen made her entrance into the metropolis, was hung with gay streamers from top to bottom; over the gateway was a stage with seats, on which were placed the charity-children of the Spital, singing sweet chorusses of welcome to the victorious queen; the street of Leadenhall, and all down to the Tower, through the Minories, was clean swept, and spread with gravel, and was lined with all the crafts in London, in their proper dresses, holding banners and streamers. The lord-mayor, with the mace, was ready to welcome her; and the earl of Arundel, with the sword of state. A thousand gentlemen, in velvet coats and richly embroidered cloaks, preceded queen Mary.

Next the queen rode her sister Elizabeth; then the duchess of Norfolk and the marchioness of Exeter followed, and other noble dames, according to their connexion with the crown, and precedence. The aldermen brought up the rear, and the city guard, with bows and javelins. The guard which accompanied Mary-being 3000 horsemen, in uniforms of green and white, red and white, and blue and white,—were dismissed by the queen with thanks, and all departed before she passed the city-gate. Mary acted according to the intrepidity of her character, in trusting her person wholly to the care of the civic guard; thus implicitly relying on the fidelity of a city, where a rival had reigned but a few hours before.

3

She bent her way direct to the Tower, then Thomas Cheyney, warden of the Cinque Ports.

under the care of sir Here she meant to so

journ, according to the ancient custom of her predecessors, till the funeral of the late sovereign.

1 Fox complains that she took precedence of the princess Elizabeth at court. 'Perlin. Antiquarian Repertory, vol. i. p. 228. Mary was but thirty-seven, Strype, vol. iii. p. 27.

When Mary entered the precincts of the Tower, a touching sight presented itself to her. Kneeling on the green, before St. Peter's Church, were the state-prisoners,-male and female, Catholic and Protestant,— who had been detained lawlessly in the fortress during the reigns of Henry VIII. and Edward VI.

There was Edward Courtenay, the heir to the earl of Devonshire, now in the pride of manly beauty, who had grown up a prisoner from his tenth year without education; there was another early friend of the queen, the wretched duchess of Somerset; there was the aged duke of Norfolk, still under sentence of death; there were the deprived bishops of Durham and Winchester, the mild Cuthbert Tunstal, and the haughty Stephen Gardiner, which last addressed a congratulation and supplication to the queen, in the name of all. Mary burst into tears as she recognised them, and, extending her hands to them, she exclaimed, "Ye are my prisoners!"

She raised them one by one, kissed them, and gave them all their liberty. The bishops were instantly restored to their sees; Gardiner was sworn into the queen's privy council (according to the evidence of its journal) so early as the 5th of August. The duke of Norfolk and earl of Devonshire were immediately restored to their rank and estates. As the duke had never been attainted, he took his place with so little delay, that he sat as high steward at the trial of the duke of Northumberland. Gertude, marchioness of Exeter, mother of Courtenay, was made lady of the bed-chamber, with so high a degree of favour that she shared the bed of her royal kinswoman. The duchess of Somerset was liberated, and comforted by the preferment of her family-her son, an infant minor, being restored to his rights,' and her daughters, lady Jane, lady Margaret, and lady Mary Seymour (which last was one of the queen's numerous god-children), were appointed maids of honour. They were considered the most learned and accomplished ladies in Europe, excepting the queen herself, and her hapless rival in sovereignty, lady Jane Gray. The heirs of the three unfortunate gentlemen, who had suffered with the protector Somerset, were reinstated in their property; and, as Somerset's adherents were zealous Protestants, these actions of Mary, which indubitably sprang from her own free will, being at this juncture uncontrolled by council or husband, ought to be appreciated by those who are willing to test her character by facts.

The queen remained in privacy, sojourning at the royal apartments of the Tower, till after the funeral of her brother, which was performed with great magnificence. Many historical controversies exist, regarding the religious rites of that funeral; but it appears that Cranmer, arch

Not to the dukedom of Somerset. This was a royal title to which the Protector had ambitiously helped himself. He had caused his fairest daughter, lady Jane Seymour, to be elaborately educated, in hopes of matching her with Ed. ward VI. (which intention the young king greatly resented). She died unmarried; so did her sisters, lady Katharine and lady Margaret. Lady Mary, the queen's god-child, married sir Henry Peyton. After the fall of their father, these ladies had been cantoned on their relations, being allowed, from the wreck of Somerset's fortune, miserable annuities.-Strype, vol. ii. p. 8.

bishop of Canterbury, performed the ceremony for the lamented Edward, at Westminster Abbey, according to the ritual of the church of England. At the same time the queen and her ladies assisted at a solemn dirge and requiem for the repose of his soul, in her private chapel in the Tower. This arrangement, in which each party showed their respect for the memory of the deceased, according to their different modes of belief, was far too rational a method to suit the furious spirits of that dreadful era, and the religious war recommenced in the Tower Chapel. A chaplain of the court, one Walker, approached with the censer to cense the queen, when Dr. Weston thrust him on one side, exclaiming,

"Shamest thou not to do this office, being a priest having a wife? I tell thee the queen will not be censed by such as thou?"

2

The queen, directly she arrived in London, published a pacific manifesto, exhorting each party to refrain from reviling by the epithets of idolater and heretic. Two proclamations of the kind had been published within a short time. The first promised liberty of conscience unconditionally; in the last a clause was introduced, which declared religion was to be settled by "common consent," meaning by act of parliament. Mr. Dobbs presented a petition from the Reformers of Ipswich, claiming protection for their religion, on the faith of the queen's first proclamation; but Mr. Dobbs was set in the pillory for his pains a strange way of answering a petitioner. That, and several other deeds of the kind, emanated from the violent zeal of the privy council, which governed, in London, in the queen's name. The most nefarious of these actions was the imprisonment of judge Hales, which brought great obloquy on Mary, though all she had to do with it was righting the wrong, when it became known to her. Judge Hales had positively refused to have any concern in the disinheriting of Mary. He had boldly declared to Northumberland and his faction that it was against English law. With equal conscientiousness he had, at the assizes held at the usual time, in the last days of July, given a charge from the bench, to the people of Kent, advising them to observe the laws made in king Edward's time, which were certainly in force while unrepealed. For thus doing his duty he was committed to the Fleet Prison by the officious privy council. Hales, despairing that justice would ever again visit his country, attempted his own life, but ineffectually. The queen's attention was drawn to Hales' unmerited sufferings, and she sent for him to the palace, "spoke many words of comfort to him," and ordered him to be set at liberty honourably. He seemed composed and happy, but his mind had received an irremediable wound, for he destroyed himself soon after.

Toone, the professed English chronologist, dates these outrages before the 3d of August. They were transacted by the council in London, at a time when Mary had not received the homage of all the privy councillors. They seem the fruits of that officious zeal, often assumed by persons desirous of wiping out the stains of recent misconduct. Neither the name of Hales nor Dobbs occurs in the journal of the council acting under the immediate directions of Mary; as may be ascertained by reference to its transactions, printed in Haynes's Burleigh Papers. 'Martin's Chronicle, and Holingshed (black letter, 1st edit.), though indefinite

The violent party spirit that distinguished this council of interregnum, which governed the metropolis from Mary's proclamation to her arrival at the Tower, is extremely well portrayed by Mr. Edward Underhill, an accomplished Worcestershire gentleman, who, for his zeal in the Calvinistic religion, was called the Hot Gospeller.' He belonged to the band of gentlemen pensioners. He had penned a satirical ballad against "papists," and for this squib was summoned before the council in authority, whilst the queen was in Suffolk. After much brow-beating, Edward Underhill was committed to Newgate. He was an elegant lutanist, and was advised by his friends to play much on the lute, while in prison, and eschew polemics. He probably took this advice, and, being withal a man of family, had no difficulty in obtaining access to the ear of the queen, since he was released from Newgate a few days after her arrival in London; and, finally, she restored him not only to his place, in the band of gentlemen pensioners, but, as he notices with great satisfaction, to his salary, without deduction of the time of his arrest. Mary showed some judgment in acting thus; for this brave man, though he scorned to disavow his principles, was ever in time of danger an intrepid defender of her person.

Several instances are to be found of the queen's interference, to save persons from the cruelty of her privy council. Those who were of rank or consequence, sufficient to find access to her, were tolerably sure of her protection. This peculiarity gave a tone to her reign which renders its character singular in English history; for examples of political vengeance were made chiefly on persons whose station seemed too lowly for objects of state punishment, because, being poor and obscure, they were not able to carry their complaints to the foot of the throne. Thus the council sent orders to the town of Bedford," for the punishment of a woman (after due examination of her qualities) by the cucking-stool, she having been arrested for railing and speaking unseemly words of the queen's majesty." These awards of personal punishment, without regular trial, emanated from a certain junta of the privy council, whose business it was to sit in the Star Chamber in Westminster Palace, and apportion the inflictions which seemed good in their eyes, as vengeance on personal affronts offered to the reigning monarch. Much of the extortions of the reign of Henry VII., and the bloodshed of that of Henry VIII., may be attributed to the operations of this illegal and inquisitorial tribunal. But when it condescended to doom an old scold of a distant pro

in dates, both expressly relate the queen's personal conduct, in rectifying the intolerable wrong done to judge Hales.

1

Lady Jane Gray was preparing to stand godmother to his child (born in the Tower during her short sway), when her authority ceased. Strype has published rich fragments of Underhill's MS., the whole of which would be a most precious document, if recoverable. Underhill, in the reign of Elizabeth, offered the loan of it to Fox, for his Martyrology, but it was returned to him without any use being made of it. The Hot Gospeller, though ardently attached to his religion, a nits the pour et contre, with a naïve simplicity and individualising detail, delightful to the inquirer into facts, but by no means pleasant to a partisan historian.

"Yet its functions may be traced to an earlier day. It was certainly in activity