former marriage, should die and his line be extinct, the queen's issue, whether male or female, should inherit Spain, Sicily, Milan, and all the other dominions of Philip. Such was the treaty of marriage signed by Count Egmont, and three other ambassadors sent over to England by the emperor.

These articles, when published, gave no satisfaction to the nation: It was universally said that the emperor, in order to get possession of England, would verbally agree to any terms; and the greater advantage there appeared in the conditions which he granted, the more certainly might it be concluded that he had no serious intention of observing them: That the usual fraud and ambition of that monarch might assure the nation of such a conduct; and his son Philip while he inherited these vices from his father, added to them tyranny, sullenness, pride, and barbarity, more dangerous vices of his own: That England would become a province, and a province to a kingdom, which usually exercised the most violent authority over all her dependent dominions: That the Netherlands, Milan, Sicily, Naples, groaned under the burthen of Spanish tyranny, and throughout all the new conquests in America there had been displayed scenes of unrelenting cruelty, hitherto unknown in the history of mankind: That the inquisition was a tribunal invented by that tyrannical nation; and would infallibly, with all their other laws and institutions, be introduced into England: And that the divided sentiments of the people with regard to religion would subject multitudes to this iniquitous tribunal, and would reduce the whole nation to the most abject servitude.

These complaints being diffused every where, prepared the people for a rebellion; and had any foreign power given them encouragement, or any great man appeared to head them, the consequences might have proved fatal to the queen's authority. But the king of France, though engaged in hostilities with the emperor, refused to concur in any proposal for an insurrection, lest he should afford Mary a pretence for declaring war against him. And the more prudent part of the nobility thought that as the evils of the Spanish alliance were only dreaded at a distance, matters were not yet fully prepared for a general revolt. Some persons, however, more turbulent than the rest, believed that it would be safer to prevent than to redress grievances; and they formed a conspiracy to rise in arms, and declare against the queen's marriage with Philip. Sir Thomas Wyat proposed to raise Kent, Sir Peter Carew, Devonshire; and they engaged the Duke of Suffolk, by the hopes of recovering the crown for the Lady Jane, to attempt raising the midland counties. Carew's impatience or apprehensions engaged him to break the concert, and to rise in arms before the day appointed: He was soon suppressed by the Earl of Bedford, and constrained to fly into France. On this intelligence Suffolk, dreading an arrest, suddenly left the town, with his brothers Lord Thomas and Lord Leonard Gray; and endeavoured to raise the people in the counties of Warwick and Leicester, where his interest lay; but he was so closely pursued by the Earl of Huntingdon, at the head of 300 horse, that he was obliged to disperse his followers, and being discovered in his concealment, he was carried prisoner to London. Wyat was at first more successful in his attempt; and having published a declaration at Maidstone in Kent, against the queen's evil counsellors, and against the Spanish match, without any mention of religion, the people began to flock to his standard. The Duke of Norfolk, with Sir Henry Jernegan, was sent against him, at the head of the guards and some other troops, reinforced with 500 Londoners commanded by Bret: And he came within sight of the rebels at Rochester, where they had fixed their headquarters. Sir George Harper here pretended to desert from them; but having secretly gained Bret, these two malcontents so wrought on the Londoners, that the whole body deserted to Wyat, and declared that they would not contribute to

enslave their native country. Norfolk, dreading the contagion of the example, immediately retreated with his troops, and took shelter in the city.

After this proof of the dispositions of the people, especially of the Londoners, who were mostly protestants, Wyat was encouraged to proceed: he led his forces to Southwark, where he required of the queen that she should put the Tower into his hands, should deliver four counsellors as hostages, and, in order to ensure the liberty of the nation, should immediately marry an Englishman. Finding that the bridge was secured against him, and that the city was overawed, he marched up to Kingston, where he passed the river with 4000 men; and returning towards London, hoped to encourage his partisans, who had engaged to declare for him. He had imprudently wasted so much time at Southwark, and in his march from Kingston, that the critical season, on which all popular commotions depend, was entirely lost. Though he entered Westminster without resistance, his followers, finding that no person of note joined him, insensibly fell off, and he was at last seized near Temple bar by sir Maurice Berkeley. Four hundred persons are said to have suffered for this rebellion. Four hundred more were conducted before the queen with ropes about their necks: and falling on their knees received a pardon and were dismissed. Wyat was condemned and executed. As it had been reported that, on his examination, he had accused the lady Elizabeth and the earl of Devonshire as accomplices, he took care on the scaffold, before the whole people, fully to acquit them of having any share in his rebellion.

The Lady Elizabeth had been, during some time, treated with great harshness by her sister; and many studied instances of discouragement and disrespect had been practised against her. She was ordered to take place at court after the countess of Lenox and the duchess of Suffolk, as if she were not legitimate. Her friends were discountenanced on every occasion; and while her virtues, which were now become eminent, drew to her the attendance of all the young nobility, and rendered her the favourite of the nation, the malevolence of the queen still discovered itself every day by fresh symptoms, and obliged the princess to retire into the country. Mary seized the opportunity of this rebellion; and hoping to involve her sister in some appearance of guilt, sent for her under a strong guard, committed her to the Tower. and ordered her to be strictly examined by the council. But the public declaration made by Wyat rendered it impracticable to employ against her any false evidence which might have offered; and the princess made so good a defence, that the queen found herself under a necessity of releasing her. In order to send her out of the kingdom, a marriage was offered her with the duke of Savoy; and when she declined the proposal, she was committed to custody under a strong guard at Wodestoke. The ear! of Devonshire, though equally innocent, was confined in Fotheringay castle.

But this rebellion proved still more fatal to the lady Jane Grey, as well as to her husband. The duke of Suffolk's guilt was imputed to her; and though the rebels and malcontents seemed chiefly to rest their hopes on the lady Elizabeth and the earl of Devonshire, the queen, incapable of generosity or clemency, determined to remove every person from whom the least danger could be apprehended. Warning was given the lady Jane to prepare for death; a doom which she had long expected. and which the innocence of her life, as well as the misfortunes to which she had been exposed, rendered nowise unwelcome to her. The queen's zeal, under colour of tender mercy to the prisoner's soul, induced her to send divines, who harassed her with perpetual disputation; and even a reprieve for three days was granted her, in hopes that she would be persuaded during that time to pay, by a timely conversion, some regard to her eternal welfare. The lady Jane had presence of mind, in

those melancholy circumstances, not only to defend her religion by all the topics then in use, but also to write a letter to her sister in the Greek language; in which, besides sending her a copy of the Scriptures in that tongue, she exhorted her to maintain, in every fortune, a like steady perseverance. On the day of her execution, her husband, lord Guilford desired permission to see her; but she refused her consent, and informed him by a message, that the tenderness of their parting would overcome the fortitude of both, and would too much unbend their minds from that constancy which their approaching end required of them. Their separation, she said, would be only for a moment; and they would soon rejoin each other in a scene where their affections would be for ever united, and where death, disappointment, and misfortunes, could no longer have access to them, or disturb their eternal felicity.

It had been intended to execute the lady Jane and lord Guilford together on the same scaffold at Tower-hill; but the council, dreading the compassion of the people for their youth, beauty, innocence, and noble birth, changed their orders, and gave directions that she should be beheaded within the verge of the Tower. She saw her husband led to execution; and having given him from the window some token of her remembrance, she waited with tranquillity till her own appointed hour should bring her to a like fate. She even saw his headless body carried back in a cart; and found herself more confirmed by the reports which she heard of the constancy of his end, than shaken by so tender and melancholy a spectacle. Sir John Gage, constable of the Tower, when he led her to execution, desired her to bestow on him some small present, which he might keep as a perpetual memorial of her. She gave him her table-book, on which she had just written three sentences on seeing her husband's dead body; one in Greek, another in Latin, a third in English. The purport of them was, that human justice was against his body, but divine mercy would be favourable to his soul; that if her fault deserved punishment, her youth at least, and her imprudence were worthy of excuse; and that God and posterity, she trusted, would shew her favour. On the scaffold she made a speech to the bye-standers, in which the mildness of her disposition led her to take the blame wholly on herself, without uttering one complaint against the severity with which she had been treated. She said that her offence was not the having laid her hand upon the crown, but the not rejecting it with sufficient constancy. That she had less erred through ambition than through reverence to her parents, whom she had been taught to respect and obey. That she willingly received death as the only satisfaction which she could now make to the injured state; and though her infringement of the laws had been constrained, she would show, by her voluntary submission to their sentence, that she was desirous to atone for that disobedience into which too much filial piety had betrayed her. That she had justly deserved this punishment for being made the iustrument, though the unwilling instrument, of the ambition of others; and that the story of her life, she hoped, might at least be useful, by proving that innocence excuses not great misdeeds, if they tend anywise to the destruction of the commonwealth. After uttering these words, she caused herself to be disrobed by her women; and with a steady serene countenance, submitted herself to the executioner.

170.--THE PROTESTANT MARTYRS.

GOLDSMITH.

The enemies of the state being thus suppressed, the theatre was now opened for the pretended enemies of religion. The queen, being freed from apprehensious of an insurrection, began by assembling a parliament, which upon this, as upon

most occasions, seemed only met to give countenance to her various severities. The nobles, whose only religion was that of the prince who governed, were easily gained over; and the house of commons had long been passive under all the variations of regal caprice. But a new enemy had started up against the reformers, in the person of the king, who, though he took all possible care to conceal his aversion, yet secretly influenced the queen, and influenced all her proceedings. Philip had for some time been in England, and had used every endeavour to increase that share of power which had been allowed to him by parliament, but without effect. The queen, indeed, who loved him with a foolish fondness, that sat but ill on a person of her years and disagreeable person, endeavoured to please him by every concession she could make or procure; and finding herself incapable or satisfying his ambition, she was not remiss in concurring with his zeal; so that heretics began to be persecuted with inquisitorial severity. The old sanguinary laws were now revived; orders were given that the bishops and priests who had married should be ejected; that the mass should be restored; that the pope's authority should be established; and that the church and its privileges, all but their goods and estates, should be put upon the same foundation on which they were before the commencement of the reformation. As the gentry and nobles had already divided the church lands among them, it was thought inconvenient, and indeed impossible, to make a restoration of these.

At the head of those who drove such measures forward, but not in an equal degree, were Gardiner bishop of Winchester, and Cardinal Pole, who had lately arrived in England from the continent. Pole, who was nearly allied by birth to the royal family, had always conscientiously adhered to the Catholic religion, and had incurred Henry's displeasure, not only by refusing his assent to his measures, but by writing against him. It was for this adherence that he was cherished by the pope, and now sent over to England as legate from the holy see. Gardiner was a man of a very different character: his chief aim was to please the reigning prince, and he had already shewn many instances of his prudent conformity. He now perceived that the king and queen were for rigorous measures; and he knew that it would be the best means of paying his court to them, even to outgo them in severity. Pole, who had never varied in his principles, declared in favour of toleration; Gardiner, who had often changed, was for punishing those changes in others with the utmost rigour. However, he was too prudent to appear at the head of a persecution in person; he therefore consigned that odious office to Bonner, bishop of London, a cruel, brutal, and ignorant man.

It

This bloody scene began in 1555 by the martyrdom of Hooper, bishop of Gloucester, and Rogers, prebendary of St. Paul's. They were examined by commissioners appointed by the queen, with the chancellor at the head of them. was expected that by their recantation they would bring those opinions into disrepute which they had so long inculcated: but the persecutors were deceived, they both continued stedfast in their belief; and they were accordingly condemned to be burned, Rogers in Smithfield, and Hooper in his own diocese at Gloucester. Rogers, beside the care of his own preservation, lay under very powerful temptations to deny his principles, and save his life; for he had a wife whom he tenderly loved, and ten children; but nothing could move his resolution. Such was his serenity after condemnation, that the jailors, we are told, waked him from a sound sleep on the approach of the hour appointed for his execution. He desired to see his wife before he died; but Gardiner told him, that being a priest he could have no wife. When the faggots were placed around him, he seemed no way daunted at the preparation, but cried out, "I resign my life with joy, in testimony of the doctrine of Jesus!" When Hooper was tied to the stake, a stool was set before

him with the queen's pardon upon it, in case he should recant; but he ordered it to be removed, and prepared cheerfully to suffer his sentence, which was executed in its full severity. The fire, either from malice or neglect, had not been sufficiently kindled; so that his legs and thighs were first burned, and one of his hands dropped off, while with the other he continued to beat his breast. He was three quarters of an hour in torture, which he bore with inflexible constancy.

Sanders and Taylor, two other clergymen, whose zeal had been distinguished in carrying on the reformation, were the next that suffered. Taylor was put into a pitch barrel; and before the fire was kindled, a faggot from an unknown hand was thrown at his head, which made it stream with blood. Still, however, he continued undaunted, singing the thirty-first psalm in English; which one of the spectators cbserving, struck him a blow on the side of the head, and commanded him to pray in Latin. Taylor continued a few minutes silent, and with his eyes steadfastly fixed upwards, when one of the guards, either through impatience or compassion, struck him down with his halberd, and thus happily put an end to his torments.

The death of these only served to increase the savage appetite of the popish bishops and monks for fresh slaughter. Bonner, bloated at once with rage and luxury, let loose his vengeance without restraint, and seemed to take a pleasure in the pains of the unhappy sufferers; while the queen, by her letters, exhorted him to pursue the pious work without pity or interruption. Soon after, in obedience to her commands, Ridley, bishop of London, and the venerable Latimer, bishop of Worcester, were condemned together. Ridley had been one of the ablest champions for the reformation; his piety, learning, and solidity of judgment, were admired by his friends, and dreaded by his enemies. The night before his execution, he invited the mayor of Oxford and his wife to see him; and when he beheld them melted into tears, he himself appeared quite unmoved, inwardly supported and comforted in that hour of agony. When he was brought to the stake to be burnt, he found his old friend Latimer there before him. Of all the prelates of that age, Latimer was the most remarkable for his unaffected piety, and the simplicity of his manners. He had never learned to flatter in courts; and his open rebuke was dreaded by all the great, who at that time too much deserved it. His sermons, which remain to this day, show that he was possessed both of learning and wit, and there is an air of sincerity running through them not to be found elsewhere. When Ridley began to comfort his ancient friend, Latimer, on his part, was as ready to return the kind office. "Be of good cheer, brother," cried he, "we shall this day kindle such a torch in England, as, I trust in God, shall never be extinguished." A furious bigot ascended to preach to them and the people; Ridley gave a most serious attention to his discourse. distracted by the preparations about him, he heard him to the last, and then told him that he was ready to answer all that he had preached upon, if a short indulgence should be permitted: but this was refused him. At length fire was set to the pile: Latimer was soon out of pain; but Ridley continued to suffer much longer, his legs being consumed before the fire reached his vitals.

No way

One Thomas Hankes, when conducted to the stake, had agreed with his friends, that if he found the torture supportable he would make them a signal for that purpose in the midst of the flames. His zcal for the cause in which he suffered was so strong, that when the spectators thought him near expiring, by stretching out his arms he gave his friends the signal that the pain was not too great to be borne. This example, with many others of the like constancy, encouraged multitudes not only to suffer, but even to aspire after martyrdom.

A woman

But women seemed persecuted with as much severity even as men. in Guernsey, condemned for heresy, was delivered of a child in the midst of the