Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 36.djvu/354

Mary I her confinement. On the 30th news reached London that the queen had been delivered of a prince. Bells were rung and bonfires blazed, but next day it was announced that the news was false. In May ambassadors were nominated to carry the tidings to foreign countries as soon as the child was born, and letters in French headed ' Hampton Court, 1 555,' were written out and addressed to all the sovereigns of Europe, as well as to the doge of Venice, the queens-dowager of Bohe- mia and Hungary, announcing a child's birth; the word ' fil ' was so written that it could be by a stroke of the pen converted into ' filz ' or l fille ' (Tytler, ii. 468-9). But no child came, and gradually the rumour spread that the queen was mistaken as to her condition, i Foxe asserts, probably falsely, that when one Isabel Malt, a woman dwelling in Horn Alley in Aldersgate Street, was delivered of a boy on 11 June 1555, Lord North and another lord came from the court, and offered to take the child away with a view to representing it as Mary's offspring. On 3 Aug. she left Hampton Court with the king for Oatlands (Maciiyn, p. 92 ; Gent. Mag. 1841, pt. ii. pp. 595-9). The theory that Mary's long retire- ment was a deceit may be rejected. Owing to a disorder which had troubled her since she reached womanhood, Mary at times pre- sented some of the outward aspects of preg- nancy, and she thus deluded herself and others. Even before her marriage her appearance had fiven rise to unfounded suspicions. In May 554 Sussex examined persons resident near Diss, Norfolk, who had spread rumours that the queen was with child (Cott. MS. Jul. B. ii. fol. 182).

While Mary was in retirement Philip showed signs of dissatisfaction. He found the queen's temper as uncertain as her health, and his behaviour was (according to rumour) open to serious censure. He made ungentlemanly advances to Magdalen Dacre, one of the queen's attendants, and the affronted lady struck him a sharp blow with a stout etafr. H is political ambitions were, moreover, increasing ; he had lately made vain efforts to obtain the honour of a ceremony of coronation, and he saw the hollowness of the hope which his father cherished of his securing the succession in case of his wife's death. His awkward attempts to personally con- ciliate the English people had failed. In 1555 there was published a popular tract, ' 1 A Warninge for Englande, conteyning the ! horrible practises of the Kynge of Spayne : in the Kingdom of Naples. . . whereby all Englishmen may understand the Plague that may light upon them, iff the Kyng of Spayn obtain the Dominion of England.' When Mary's delusion became apparent, he resolved, despite Renard's objections, to leave England (Froude, v. 500). He desired, lie explained, to visit the other countries under his rule. H is father, the emperor, had already ceded Milan to him, in addition to Naples, and was contemplating abdication in all his dominions. Mary viewed his plan with dismay, and he remained with her through August. On the 23rd they arrived at Westminster, and on the 26th the q^ueen was carried in public procession in a litter through the streets to Tower Wharf, where she was joined by Elizabeth. The royal party thence proceeded by water to Greenwich. On the 29th Mary, in great distress, took leave of her husband ; her health did not enable her to accompany him to Dover on his journey to Brussels (cf. Fornbron, i. 67). Almost all the foreigners at court left for the continent at the same time.

Mary consoled herself in her loneliness by new efforts to complete the restoration of the catholic church. She resolved to make restitution of at least some of the property which her father had transferred from, the church to the crown. Philip had deprecated such a course. Her ministers objected that her debts were too heavy and the exchequer too empty to justify it. The dignity of the crown must be supported. But her mind was made up. She set more, she said, by the salvation of her soul than by ten such crowns. She had sent earlier in the year a special embassy (Thirleby, bishop of Ely, Lord Montague, and Sir Edward Came) to the Vatican, and Sir Edward Came remained there as her permanent representative. Through him Paul IV urged Mary to press on the measure. On 21 Oct. parliament was summoned to give it effect. Gardiner was ill, and on 12 Nov. he died; his duties were delegated to the Marquis of Winchester, but Mary summoned the lords and commons to Whitehall and personally announced her intentions. The chief bill proposed that the tenths and first-fruits, the rectories, glebe lands, and tithes annexed to the crown since 1528, producing a yearly revenue of about sixty thousand pounds, were to be resigned by the crown, and placed at the disposal of Pole for the augmentation of small livings, the support of preachers, and the furnishing of exhibitions to scholars in the universities ; but subject at the same time to all the pensions with which they had been previously encumbered. In the commons the bill encountered considerable opposition, but was carried by a majority of 193 to 126. In the lords it passed with only two dissentient voices. Mary's next step was to re-establish