A.D. 1550.]

Council, and both, for some cause or other, in disgrace. Southampton had revenged himself on Somerset without acquiring the confidence of Warwick; it is even said that he had begun an attempt to undermine him, and he soon after died-according to some, of sheer chagrin, according to others, from poison, self-administered. Arundel and Sir Richard Southwell, belonging to Warwick's party, were also fined-Arundel £12,000, and Southwell £500. Warwick had humbled Somerset, but he could not prevent the country being humbled with him; and his party had blamed the Protector for proposing to surrender Boulogne, but they were now compelled, by the exhausted and disordered state of the nation, to accept from France even more disgraceful terms. During the winter the French had cut off all communication betwixt Boulogne and Calais, and the Earl of Huntingdon found himself unable to re-open it; though he led against the enemy all his bands of mercenaries and 3,000 English veterans. His treasury and his storehouses were exhausted, and the French calculated confidently on taking the place at spring. Unable to send the necessary succours, a fresh proposal was made to the emperor to occupy it, and this tempting him, it was proposed by the Council to cede o him in full sovereignty, on condition that it should er be surrendered to France. Charles declined, and a last resource a Florentine merchant, Antonio Guiti, was employed to make the French aware that gland was not averse to a peace. The French embraced offer, but under such circumstances they were not ly to be very modest in their terms of accommodation. The conferences betwixt the ambassadors was opened the 21st of January, and the English proposed that, as equivalent for the surrender of Boulogne, Mary of otland should be contracted to Edward. To this the ench replied, bluntly, that that was impossible, as nry had already agreed to marry her to the dauphin. The next proposition was that the arrears of money due from the Crown of France should be paid up, and the payment of the fixed pension continued. To this the ambassadors of Henry replied, in a very different tone to that which English monarchs had been accustomed to hear from those of France, that their king would never condescend to pay tribute to any foreign Crown; that Henry VIII. had been enabled by the necessities of France to extort a pension from Francis; and that they would now avail themselves of the present difficulties of England to compel Edward to renounce it. The English envoys appeared, on this bold declaration, highly indignant, and as if they would break off the conference; but every day they receded more and more from their pretensions, and they ended by subscribing, on the 24th of March, to all the demands of their opponents.

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burgh to the ground; Scotland was to be comprehended in the treaty if the queen desired it, and Edward bound himself not to make war on Scotland unless some fresh provocation were given.

So disgraceful was this treaty-such a surrender of the nation's dignity, that the people regarded it as an eternal opprobrium to the country; and from that hour the boastful claims of England on the French Crown were no more heard of, except in the ridiculous retention of the title of King of France by our sovereigns.

Freed from the embarrassments of foreign politics, the Council now proceeded with the work of Church reform; and during this and part of the next year was busily engaged checking on the one hand the opposition of the Romanist clergy, and on the other the latitudinarian tendencies of the Protestants. Bonner and Gardiner were the most considerable of the uncomplying prelates, and they were first brought under notice. Bonner had been called before the Council in August of 1549, for not complying with the requisitions of the Court in matters of religion; and in April of this year he was deprived of his see of London, and remanded to the Marshalsea, where he remained till the king's death. Ridley was appointed to the bishopric of London. The bishopric of Westminster was dissolved by Royal authority, and Ridley accepted its lands and revenues instead of those of the see of London, which were immediately divided betwixt three of the courtiers, Rich, lord chancellor; Wentworth, lord chamberlain; and Sir Thomas Darcey, vice-chamberlain. Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, equally immovable in his resistance to the new ritual and opinions, was also deprived of his see, and was sent back to the Tower, where he was confined in a meaner cell, every person, except one of the warders, being refused access to him, and was prohibited the use of pen, ink, and paper. The chief reason for this severity was alleged to be that he had in his defence before the Council called his judges heretics and sacramentaries. Poynet, Bishop of Rochester, succeeded him in his see of Winchester, with the same clipping process as that which had taken place in the revenues of the see of London. The new prelate was required to surrender into the hands of the Council all the lands and revenues of that opulent bishopric, and received instead, rectories and lands to the value of 2,000 marks annually. A great portion of this property was divided again amongst the courtiers, the friends of Warwick. Sir Thomas Wroth received a pension of £100 a year; and Gates, Hobey, Seymour, Dudley, Nevil, and Fitzwilliam, valuable grants of lands and manors. These changes, however, were not completed till March of 1551.

Heath, Bishop of Worcester, and Day, Bishop of Chichester, were also committed to the Tower for refusing compliance with the new regulations. They had both refused to exchange the ancient altar for a communiontable, a substitution now introduced, and which afforded the Crown and courtiers a fresh harvest of spoil in jewels, plate, and decorations. It was in vain that the Council attempted to move them by argument; they were, therefore, committed to prison; and, in October of 1551, were deprived of their sees, and retained in the Tower till the next reign.

From the bishops, the reforming Council proceeded to The Princess Mary, the king's eldest

A.D. 1551.]

by these gentlemen. She herself wrote to the Council, assuring them that they could do what they pleased with her body, but that death would be more welcome than life with a troubled conscience. The Council then ordered Inglefield, Rochester, and Walgrave to return and carry out their Royal commands. But they positively refused, declaring that they might send them to prison if they pleased, but that as to facing their mistress on any such errand, they would not. Rochester, therefore, was committed to the Fleet prison, and afterwards to the Tower, and a deputation of the Council were themselves dispatched to enforce this object. These deputies were Lord Chancellor Rich, Sir Anthony Wingfield, and Mr. Petre. They also carried with them a gentleman to officiate as comptroller in the place of the contumacious Rochester. The commissioners did not succeed with Mary better than her own servants. She read the letter of the king which they brought, ordering implicit obedience, and said, "Ah! good Mr. Cecil took much pains here;" and she added, seriously, "Rather than use any other service than was used at the death of the late king my father, I will lay my head on a block and suffer death. When the King's majesty shall come to such years that he may be able to judge these things himself, his majesty shall find me ready to obey his orders in religion; but now, ugh he, good sweet king, have more knowledge than other of his years, yet it is not possible that he can Age of these things. If my chaplains do say no an hear none. They may do therein as they none of your new service shall be used in my I will not tarry in it."

nmissioners, at their wits' end, complained of ct of her own officers, who had been ordered to the performance of her mass; on which she arcastically, that it was none of the wisest of all that sent her own servants to control her in house, for she was not very likely to obey those been always used to obey her. They then comen on the emperor's interference, on which she minded them that the emperor had their promise that they should not do the very thing they were now doing; and added that they owed her more respect for her father's sake, who, she said, had made most of them out of nothing. On this she left them; but as they were passing through the court-yard she opened a little window, and, with more spirit and stinging wit than dignity, spoke to them. Disliking this very public address, they desired to return into the house; but she insisted on telling them there what she had to say, bidding them desire the Lords of the Council to return her the comptroller, Rochester. "For," she continued, "since his departing I take the accounts myself, and lo! I have learned how many loaves of bread be made out of a bushel of wheat. I wis my father and mother never brought me up to brewing and baking, and to be plain with you, I am a-weary of mine office. If my lords will send mine officer home again, they shall do me a pleasure; otherwise, if they send him to prison, beshrew me if ho go not to it merrily, and with a good will. And I pray God send you well in your souls, and in your bodies too, for some of you have but weak ones."

Mary remained a conscious victor over her tormentors; she stood on vantage ground which none of them dared

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assail by any violence: but their proceedings were more deadly with less-favoured persons, and their zeal was directed not so much against the Romanists, who maintained some caution, as against Protestants who proceeded to what the new Church deemed heresy. First amongst these were Champnies, a priest, who denied the divinity of Christ, that grace was inadmissible, and that the regenerate, though they might fall in the outward, could never sin in the innerward man. Besides him, Puttow, a tanner, Thumb, a butcher, and Ashton, a priest, who had embraced Unitarianism, were terrified into submission, and bore their fagots during the sermon at St. Paul's Cross.

But not so pliable was Joan Bocher, a lady of Kent, who had adopted the reformed opinions, and became a zealous promulgator of them. During the last reign, and in tho time of Catherine Parr, she had frequently resorted to the Court, and secretly introduced there Protestant books and writings. She was a friend and fellowlabourer with the noble martyr, Anne Askew. Being now called before Cranmer, Smith, Cook, Latimer, and Lyall, and charged with certain heretical notions regarding the incarnation, she stood steadfast to her opinions, and when they threatened to send her to the stake, she daringly replied, "It is a goodly matter to consider your ignorance. It was not long ago that you burnt Anne Askew for a piece of bread, and yet came yourselves soon afterwards to believe and profess the same doctrine for which you burned her. And now, forsooth, you will needs burn me for a piece of flesh, and in the end will come to believe this also, when you have read the Scriptures and understand them."

Edward was excessively averse to signing her death warrant. From this reluctance in the young king, she remained in prison for a whole year. He contended that it was an awful thing to put a person to death in her sin, as that would consign the soul to eternal punishment. The mild Cranmer combated this argument with the example of Moses, who caused sinners to be stoned to death; and at length the unhappy boy, drowned in tears, put his hand to the warrant. He told Cranmer that if he were doing wrong, he must answer it to God, for that he did it in submission to his authority. Cranmer seems to have been rendered rather uneasy by this observation, and both he and Ridley laboured with her, to induce her to recant, and escape the flames as others had done. It was all in vain; she stood firm as a rock, and was sent to the stake. Dr. Scory, undertook to refute her, but she treated him with the utmost scorn, exclaiming that "he lied like a rogue, and had better go home and study the Scriptures."

There a preacher,

Another victim was a Dutchman of the name of Van Paris, who practised as a surgeon in London. He had imbibed Unitarian tenets, and on that account was excommunicated by the Dutch Church in that city. He was arraigned before Cranmer, Ridley, May, Coverdale, and others. He refused to abjure his creed, and was, therefore, condemned by Cranmer, and burnt on the 24th of April, enduring his sentence with stoical fortitude. These persecutions covered Cranmer and the reformed prelates and clergy with odium, and diminished greatly the public commiseration when their own turn came to suffer the same death.