Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 2.djvu/349

A.D. 1552.] the Lieutenant of the Tower, but to all on the scaffold, giving to each his hand. He gave to the headsman certain money, took off his gown, and, kneeling on the straw, untied his shirt-strings; but, finding his double tin the way, he rose, and took it off also; his eyes being then bound, he laid his neck on the block, and it was severed at a single stroke.

That there was, mixed up with a certain amount of truth, much false accusation against the duke, became apparent from Palmer and Crane, the chief witnesses, being soon discharged, and still more from Palmer continuing in close intimacy with Warwick. It became a general belief that Palmer had been corrupted to betray Somerset; and that he had oven been employed by Warwick to excite the duke's fears, and so to induce him to get a number of men about him, and then contriving to be taken with him, had made confession as out of terror. Of the other parties connected with Somerset, Partridge, Vane, Stanhope, and Arundel, were condemned to capital punishment. Partridge and Vane were hanged. Vane in indignant language declaring Northumberland a murderer, and that whenever he laid his head on his pillow, he would find it wet with their blood. Stanhope and Sir Thomas Arundel fell by the axe. Lord Paget and the Earl of Arundel, who were arrested soon after the others, escaped. Though it was said that it was at Paget's house that the proposed assassination was to take place, and though he had always been the firm friend and confidential advisor of Somerset, he was never brought to trial; but he confessed to peculation in the offices which he had held under the Crown, resigned the chancellorship of Lancaster, and was degraded from the order of the Garter and fined. The Earl of Arundel was detained in prison for a year, and only liberated on acknowledging himself guilty of concealing the treason of Somerset and his party; he was, moreover, compelled to resign the wardenship of several Royal parks, and to pay annually for six years 1,000 marks. Lord Gray and the rest of the prisoners were liberated one after another; and it is remarkable that all these persons recovered the favour of Government, and obtained a remission of a part or the whole of their fines.

Parliament met the day after the execution of Somerset; and as it had been originally summoned by him, it appeared to act as inspired with a spirit which resented his treatment and his death; and this spirit tended greatly during this session to revive that ancient independence which Henry VIII. had so completely quelled during his life. Most deserving of notice was the enactment which ordered the churchwardens in every parish to collect contributions for the support of the poor. This, though it appeared at first sight a voluntary contribution under the sanction of Government, was in reality a compulsive one, for the bishop of the diocese had authority to proceed against such as refused to subscribe; and from this germ grew our poor-law, with all its machinery and consequences.

The Crown attempted to re-enact some of the most arbitrary and oppressive laws of Henry VIII., though they had been repealed in the first Parliament of this reign. A bill was sent to the Lords, making it treason to call the king, or any of his heirs, a heretic, schismatic, tyrant, or usurper. The Lords passed it without hesitation, for it most probably proceeded from Warwick, and the Lords were strongly devoted to him; but the Commons drew the same line which had been drawn regarding the deniers of the supremacy. They would admit the offence to be treason only when it was done by "writing, printing, carving, or graving," which indicated deliberate purpose; but what was spoken, as it might result from indiscretion or sudden passion, they decreed to be only a minor offence, punishable by fine or forfeiture, and only rendered treasonable by a third repetition.

The Commons also added a most invaluable clause, the necessity of which had been constantly pressing on the public attention, and had just been strikingly demonstrated by the trial of Somerset. It was now enacted that no person should be arraigned, indicted, convicted, or attainted of any manner of treason unless on the oath of two lawful accusers, who should be brought before him at the time of his arraignment, and there should openly maintain their charges against him. Thus was the power of victimising the subject at pleasure wrested from the monarch, and the spirit of Magna Charta more distinctly defined. Had such a practice been maintained through the reign of Henry VIII., how much must even his lawless power have been restrained. Before the same session of Parliament was at an end, there was occasion for its exercise. Tunstall, Bishop of Durham, had been charged before the Council with being privy to an attempt to raise an insurrection in the North. The informer failed to make good his charge from the absence of a document, of which he supposed himself in possession. This document turned up in searching Somerset's house, and Northumberland immediately lodged Tunstall in the Tower, and passed a bill through the Lords to deprive him of his bishopric for divers offences. But here again the Commons applied their new rule, and demanded that Tunstall should be confronted with his accuser before the House; and this put a stop to the affair for that session.

But in prosecuting the reforms of the Church, the Parliament proceeded with a far more arbitrary spirit. The Common Prayer Book underwent much revision, and an Act was passed by which the bishops were empowered to compel attendance on the amended form of service by spiritual censuses, and the magistrates to punish corporally all who used any other. Any one daring to attend any other form of worship was liable to six months' imprisonment for the first offence, twelve months for the second, and a third, confinement for life. So little did our Church reformers of that day understand of the rights of conscience.

In the same spirit Cranmer proceeded to frame a collection of the articles of religion, and a code of ecclesiastical constitutions. We shall have occasion to notice these under the centenary review of the progress of religion, but we may here state that the articles amounted to forty-two, which have since been reduced to thirty-nine. Cranmer, during Henry VIII.'s reign, had subscribed every dogma which that strange reformer had at any time brought forward; now he sought to bind all men to his own.

We turn with more satisfaction to the proceedings of the Commons on secular affairs. A bill was sent down