Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 36.djvu/353

Mary I How manie good people were longe in dispaire That this letel England should lacke a righte heire,

and stated that all who showed hostility to the marriage were now reconciled by the joyful tidings (cf. Parker MSS. Coll. Christ Cambr. No. cvi. 630; Gent. Mag. 1841, ii. 597-8;, ii. 465, 464). Christmas was accordingly celebrated with unusual splendour, and Elizabeth was among the queen's guests. Mary, whose expenses had recently been very large, and whose monetary resources were running low, showed some desire for retrenchment, and Sir Thomas Cawarden, the master of the revels, complained of her economy. But little falling off in the outward splendour of the court was apparent, and by borrowing freely of Flemish merchants, through her agent, Sir Thomas Gresham [q. v.], she was able to postpone disaster (cf. For. Cal. 18 Aug. 1555). On 9 Jan. 1555 she received with much magnificence the Princes of Savoy and Orange.

Meanwhile parliament passed acts confinning the restoration of the papal power. One most important statute repealed 'all statutes [nineteen in number], articles, and provisions against the see apostolic of Rome since the twentieth year of King Henry VIII.' Although property that had formerly belonged to the church was not to be restored, papal bulls, dispensations, and privileges not containing matter prejudicial to the royal authority or to the laws of the realm were to be universally recognised (1 & 2 Phil. & Mar. c. 8). Julius and his successor Paul IV, (elected 23 May 1555), actively enforced their newly won power, and forwarded numerous bulls, many of which dealt with the secular affairs of the country. By one Ireland was created a kingdom (Dixon).

At the same time the council successfully recommended to parliament the full revival of the old penal laws against heresy. The responsibility of first making the suggestion has not been clearly allotted. Gardiner and Bonner have both been credited with it on insufficient evidence. Nor can Philip be positively stated to have encouraged the scheme, much less to have initiated it. Cabrera, his official biographer, assumes that he urged it upon Mary, largely on the ground of the support he subsequently accorded to the Spanish inquisition. But Renard, whose counsel he was following at the time, distinctly declared against extreme measures in the treatment of English heretics. Mary had hitherto held similar views. By nature she disliked persecution; in suppressing the conspiracies against her she had never exerted all her legal powers of vengeance; she had received the Duchess of Suffolk, the mother of Lady Jane Grey, into her household. Heretics, she said in answer to an appeal from the council, should be punished without rashness; the learned who deceived the people undoubtedly deserved harsh treatment; but serious results might follow if the people believed that their leaders were condemned without just occasion (, Eccl. Hist. ii. 371). On the other hand, she was aware that it was hopeless to expect the voluntary conversion of the protestant leaders. And she was easily persuaded that the removal by death of those whom she regarded as irreclaimable heretics was after all the only possible means of completing her great task. Consequently she consented to the re-enactment of the statute against lollardy which punished heresy at the stake, and to the restoration of the bishops' courts. Some necessary corollaries were accepted. 'Prophane and schismatical conventicles' abounded, and their directors were reported to pray for her death. Parliament now at her request made such action equivalent to treason, while to speak or preach openly against the title of king or queen and their issue was made punishable for the first offence by forfeiture of goods and imprisonment for life, and for the second as in a case of treason.

The great persecution which has given Mary her evil reputation was thus set on foot. Henceforth protestants only knew her (in the phrase of John Knox) as 'that wicked Jezebel of England.' On 16 Jan. she dissolved her third parliament, which had authorised the disastrous work. Two days later she proclaimed a political amnesty and released those who were imprisoned on account of their complicity with Wyatt. But the first martyr, Rogers, was burned at Smithfield on 4 Feb. 1555. At the same time Saunders, rector of All Hallows, suffered at Coventry, and a few days later Dr. Rowland Taylor at Hadleigh, and Bishop Hooper at Gloucester. All were offered their lives if they abjured protestantism. At the end of the week Alphonso de Castro, a Franciscan friar and Philip's confessor, denounced the burnings in a sermon at court. The queen was impressed by the declaration, and the council issued an order suspending further executions, but at the end of five weeks they were allowed to recommence. In April the justices of the peace were directed to search diligently for heretics, in May they were bidden to act more rigorously, and before the end of the year ninety persons had suffered. Of these only six were burnt at Smithfield.

On 4 April Mary removed to Hampton Court, where arrangements were made for