Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 8.djvu/359

Rh REIGNS OF EDWARD AND MARY.] ENGLAND 339 &amp;gt;pres lOf
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rcb ider le iiof &amp;gt;ard. 1 &amp;gt;v ern R :n of ^ first formity, there was little persecution in this reign. The Lady Mary, protected by the emperor, continued the private use of the old service. The heresy statutes were abo lished; yet Craumer found means, under cover of the common law, to send to the flames one Englishwoman and one stranger who ventured to go further in the way of novelty than himself. But, besides ecclesiastical reform, this reign was beyond all other times the time of ecclesiastical spoliation. It was even more distinctly so than the reign of Henry. The sup pression of the monasteries, the destruction of the shrines, were at least acts of policy. But in Edward s reign the possessions of the Church were simply thrown to be scrambled for by the courtiers. One of the first acts of the reign, the suppression of those colleges, chantries, and the like, which Henry had spared, was at least done in legal form. But, during the rest of Edward s time, Somerset, Northumberland, and the rest simply seized on whatever they thought good. The nearest approach to legal form in such cases was the show of an exchange by which a valuable estate was exchanged for a paltry rectory. And, as far as the courtiers were concerned, everything went to enrich private men. The one act in which the public good was at all thought of came from the king himself. Edward, of his own act, applied a part of the revenues of the suppressed colleges and chantries to the foundation of that great system of grammar schools which still bear his name. The legislation of this reign presents some good points. Many of the newly created treasons of the late reign were abolished, and two witnesses were made necessary on trials for that crime The act which gave the king s proclama tion the force of a statute was repealed. On the other hand, there was the severe Statute of Vagabonds, which went beyond even the old Statute of Labourers. This reign too was marked, like those of Richard II. and Henry VI, by popular revolts. One grievance was the throwing land out of tillage and taking it into pasture. This was laid specially to the charge of the grantees of the monastic lands, who were found to be in most respects harder landlords than the monks had been. Risings of the lower people took place, both in the eastern counties where the Reformed doctrines were popular, and in the West where the religious changes were disliked. The western insurrection broke out on the first use of the new Prayer-Book. The insurgents demanded the continuance of the old service and a partial restoration of the monasteries. This last demand perhaps points to the state of feeling into which the various currents for and against the monastic orders had at last settled down. The popular belief clearly was that, in the former state of tilings, there had been more monasteries than enough, but that the country had not gained by sweeping them away altogether. It was eminently characteristic of the time that this revolt of Englishmen was put down by the help of German and Italian mercenaries. The reign of Edward was followed by another reign, yet shorter than his own, but not less memorable. The nine days wonder of Jane s reign was followed by the five years of Mary. It is singular that, though the crown of Eng land had so often passed to claimants whose descent was wholly in the female line, yet England had never before seen a crowned queen. The empress Matilda was never crowned, and she bore no higher title than Lady. The novelty gave rise to some cavil, and it was found needful at a later stage of Mary s reign for Parliament to declare that a queen of England possessed all the rights and powers of a king. This first female reign was the time which finally settled the religious position of England. There can be little doubt that throughout Edward s reign the mass of the people were still attached to the system of Henry, that they
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did not wish for the religious changes of Edward s reign, Effect of but that they had not the slightest wish to bring back the Mary s spiritual dominion of Rome. They were for the mass, but reign- not for the pope. The reign of Mary taught them that the middle system would not work, that one side or the other must be taken, that the mass could not be had without the pope. Furthermore, men learned to connect both mass and pope with a political alliance which they hated, and with a persecution different both in kind and in degree from anything which England had before seen. As for Mary The herself, it is as impossible to deny her many personal middle virtues as it is to deny her share in a persecution which, whoever may have been its advisers, she at least did nothing to stop. But her personal position had much to do with the course of events, religious and political. She was the Personal only person in the realm who was bound, not only to the position ancient faith and ritual, but also to the supremacy of Mai 7- Rome. The supremacy of Rome was inseparably con nected with the validity of her mother s marriage and the legitimacy of her own birth. As it was, she was simply queen by act of parliament. She naturally wished to be queen as the legitimate daughter of her father. And, if she was bound to Rome, she was no less bound to Spain. The emperor had been her firm and her only friend, whose influence had secured her life and her freedom of worship, Another sovereign might have restored the ancient worship with the assent of the greater part of the nation ; but, with Mary as queen, the restoration of the ancient worship meant spiritual submission to Rome and political subserviency to Spain ; and in this the nation was not prepared to follow her. The ecclesiastical changes of Mary s reign began at the beginning. She caused the old services to be used on several occasions before their restoration by law, and, by virtue of the ecclesiastical supremacy which she inherited from Henry and Edward, she caused the bishops who had been deprived during the late reign to be restored to their sees. Foremost among these was Stephen Gardiner, bishop Stephen of Winchester, who became the queen s chancellor and chief Gardiuei. adviser. There seems reason to think that his share in the persecution has been greatly exaggerated. It is certain that his conduct in secular matters was that of a patriotic, and even a constitutional, statesman. A parliament shortly met, which declared the validity of the marriage of Henry and Katharine and the legitimacy of their daughter s birth. The ancient worship was restored, and some special enact- The old ments of the two late reigns were repealed ; but the worship ecclesiastical power of the crown was in no way touched, restored and nothing was said of the restoration of the papal authority. The middle system of Henry was thus restored, but only for a moment. The next great question was that of the queen s marriage. Gardiner and her English advisers favoured her marriage with Edward Courtenay, earl of The Devonshire, whose parents had been among the victims of queen s Henry, and who was descended from one of the daughters maiTia 8 e ^ of Edward IV. But Mary s fixed purpose from the begin ning was to marry her Spanish kinsman Philip. Sir Thomas Wyatt and the duke of Suffolk, father of the imprisoned Jane, took arms to hinder the marriage ; but their enterprise led only to their deaths and to those of Jane and her husband. More interesting in the history of our institutions is the fact, almost unparalleled in these times, that one of the accused persons, Sir Nicholas Throckmorton, was acquitted by the jury that tried him. His life was saved ; bat he remained for a while in prison, and the jurors, according to a custom wluch was not left off till more than a cen tury later, were fined. In the next year, 1554, the queen s marriage with Philip, already king of Naples, took place. This first husband of a reigning queen was made king of England and of Mary s other kingdoms for her life. In the