The greatest sufferer on the Queen's side through Wyat's rebellion was the Lord Chancellor. Wyat, when he lay at Southwark, trained a gun, one of the five large pieces of ordnance that he had, upon Winchester Place, the residence of Gardiner: at the same time some of his followers, and they not common men, proceeded thither and completely sacked the house. The bishop's victual they consumed, and plenteous store it was: they carried away everything, even to the locks of the doors: of his library they made such havoc, tearing in pieces or cutting

Star Chamber, declaring that Wyat certainly saw Courteney, but only to advise him to follow his example and confess his guilt. The reader may choose between the two endings of the story. It seems established by modern research that Courteney participated in treasons which he lacked nerve to carry out, and that Elizabeth was not ignorant of them. Fox, in another passage, ascribes whatever Elizabeth underwent to Gardiner. "He thought to have brought it to pass in the murdering also our noble Queen that now is. For whatsoever it was of danger of death that she was in, it did no doubt proceed from the bloody bishop, who was the cause thereof. And if it be certain, which we have heard, that her Highness being in the Tower, a writ came down from certain of the Council for her execution, it is out of controversy that wily Winchester was the only Daedalus and framer of that engine." Strype writes in the like strain, V. p. 128, seq. It appears however from the letters of Renard, the Spanish ambassador, that Gardiner 'protected both Elizabeth and Courteney by preventing them from being brought to trial: and this seemed to Renard very suspicious. He is continually exclaiming about the delay and negligence of the Chancellor : how he managed to put things off, hoping for an opportunity of saving them, and that he even went so far as to hide or destroy a packet of evidence against them, to the annoyance of the Queen. "The letter discovered the practices of Wyat; it would have been of much consequence to recover the original, as a proof against Courteney and Elizabeth; and the Queen is at a loss what to think of its having got lost, unless the Chancellor wished thus to save Courteney." Ap. Tytler, ii. 384. It is fair to add however that Gardiner at one time seemed to give Elizabeth up, through pressure; and said that as long as she was alive there would be no hope of tranquillity (Ib. 365). But on the whole we may conclude with Mr. Tytler, who has printed these letters, that "It appears on the best evidence that, so far as we have yet seen, Elizabeth owed her safety, and the caution and delay with which the case of her accession to Wyat's plot was concerned, to Bishop Gardiner, a prelate who has commonly been represented as her greatest enemy." p. 339.

to pieces every volume in it, that they went up to the knees in the fragments.* When Wyat had moved out of Southwark and was making toward London from Kingston, it is well known that the breaking of a gun retarded and eventually ruined his enterprise. The time wasted in repairing the gun exasperated his best advisers, who vainly urged him forward, and at last abandoning him consulted their own safety. Of those who then deserted an irresolute leader one of the most conspicuous was Ponet, Gardiner's deprived successor at Winchester, who thus appeared in arms. Leaving the enterprise with the promise of praying for those who persisted in it, the adventurous Ponet sought the coast, passed the seas, and from the retreat of Strasburg issued a work, his Treatise on Politic Power: which was one of the earliest statements of the doctrine of tyrannicide, a doctrine destined to be widely disseminated and variously applied in this and the following reigns.†

There was a murderous element in these widespread plots, and the most desperate adherent of them was William Thomas. A man of some note, he had been an apologist of the Divorce in the reign of Henry the Eighth. In the late reign he had been one of the clerks of the Council, and a kind of political tutor to the young

* Divers of his company being gentlemen (as they said) went to Winchester Place, made havoc of the Bishop's goods (he being Lord Chancellor), not only of his victuals, whereof there was plenty, but whatsoever else, not leaving so much as one lock of a door but the same was taken off and carried away, nor a book in his gallery or library uncut or rent into pieces, so that men might have gone up to the knees in leaves of books cut out and thrown under foot. Stow, Annals, 619.

+ Comp. Maitland's Essays, p. 97, 124: and Collier, ii. 363. The authority for Ponet's presence in Wyat's army is Stow, Ann. 620. Burnet says it is "certainly false" that he was there and that if he had been, Gardiner would have had him attainted at the next Parliament. Poor Gardiner! Burnet seems not to have noticed that Ponet escaped beyond seas, according to Stow.

king Edward, to whom some of his exercitations are extant.* To Ridley he had appeared "an ungodly man":† and the bishop had strenuously resisted an overbearing attempt that he made to gain possession of a vacant prebend in St. Paul's. By Wyat, at his own trial, Thomas was accused of having designed the assassination of the Queen. "I am guiltless of conspiring the Queen's death," said Wyat, "my stir was against the coming in of strangers and Spaniards. I never consented to the Queen's death: the first deviser thereof was William Thomas." He went on to say that Thomas had communicated this design to three or four others: one of whom, another Wyat by name, was so enraged as to have sought to cudgel Thomas to death. The nefarious plotters were all seized and in their examinations went near to criminate the lady Elizabeth. Thomas stabbed himself in prison, but not fatally. His punishment was condign. He was drawn from the Tower to Tyburn: hanged, headed, and quartered: his head set on London Bridge, and his three quarters over Cripplegate. The fineness of his person was remarked at his execution.

His apology on the Divorce was entitled The English Pilgrim. Strype, v. 192. His theses on politics, which seem of Machiavellian inspiration, are in Strype, Reposit. of Originals R, in vol. iii.

+ See Ridley's strong letter to Cheke, of the year 1551, in Strype, vi. 264 (Catal. of Originals, No. XXV.).

He was "a proper man." Machyn, 63. The case of Thomas and the dangerous colour of his especial contribution to the designs of the discontented, have not been much observed by later writers. Lingard implies that he confessed, or made a deposition which was among the materials against Elizabeth. "William Thomas added that it was resolved to put the Queen immediately to death." As to this design itself, Fox uses a characteristically ambiguous expression: "His accusation was, for conspiring the Queen's death: which how true it was I have not to say." He goes on, "This is certain, that he made a right godly end and wrote many fruitful Exhortations, Letters, and Sonnets in the prison before his death." Mr. Froude says that his attempt to kill himself was to escape torture"; but gives no reference. In the same place however he quotes a letter of Gardiner to Petre recommending him on his next visit to the

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Meantime, amid the commotions which we have lightly touched, the restoration of the old services in the churches proceeded steadily according to the Act of Parliament. On January 3, the day after the arrival of the Spanish ambassadors, Gardiner summoned before him the churchwardens and other substantial men of thirty of the London parishes, and demanded of them. why they had not the Mass and Service in Latin: who answered that they had done what lay in them in that behalf.* The former rites and ceremonies were carefully brought back, as occasion served. Thus, processions were renewed on Sundays, as they had been already upon other holy days: and in St. Paul's, January 14, this rehabilitation was graced by the Mayor and aldermen in their cloaks, the preacher taking his benediction from the bishop, according to the old custom, in the midst of the church.† At the same time the texts of Scripture, written on the walls for the edification of the people, were washed out by order of Gardiner and Bonner. On St. Paul's Day ensuing, January 25, no

Tower to press one little Wyat" to say the truth, and that "it were no great account whether ye pressed him by sharp punishment or promise of life." (Vol. vi. 189.) The letter is of February 11: and there is one from Bourne, lieutenant of the Tower, to Gardiner and Petre, of February 25, which may be in consequence of it, describing an examination of Sir T. Wyat. See Cal. of Dom. Papers, Mary, p. 61. Gardiner appears to sanction the use of torture in the case of these particular conspirators: but it seems not to have been applied. Mr. Froude is unable to say who the one little Wyat" of Gardiner could be. He was however the "master Wyat" to whom Sir Thomas Wyat referred as one of the five or six to whom William Thomas imparted his design of killing the Queen, and who liked it so little, that he went about for some days with a cudgel under his coat to beat Thomas to death. See Chron. of Q. Jane and Mary, p. 69. He is said by Gardiner, in the letter, to have been a bastard of small substance. * Chron. of Queen Jane and Mary, p. 34.

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+ Grey Friars' Chron. p. 86.

"God required, Thou shalt write them upon the posts of thine house, &c. Now comes Parson Peacock stail, Wily Winchester, and Dr. Figafter puffing like a bladder and panting like a porklet, com

less than fifty copes of cloth of gold mustered in the procession in the great church: * a gorgeous spectacle which doubtless displayed the rescued relics of the great spoliation of churches, which took place in the latter days of Edward the Sixth: for the Queen had been careful already to order that all such ornaments as could be owned and known should be restored to every parish to which they had belonged, appointing the keeper of Whitehall her receiver in that behalf. Two more at least of the abolished ceremonies were revived in Lent, order being given that in all churches in London palms should be carried and that sepulcre should be had again on Maundy Thursday: shrift also, or confession, was enjoined on every man. The Apostles' Mass, so named from the altar of the Apostles in St. Paul's, and continued under Edward under the name of the Apostles' Communion, now resumed its more ancient designation and the former regularity of a daily celebration. Rogation

manding them to be wiped out of the churches, as things not pertaining to the same." Bale's Declaration, ap. Strype, v. 88. Many of these texts were chosen with controversial design. See next chapter, about Bonner's Visitation.

* Machyn, 51.

This may be gathered from Machyn, who in noticing the death of Arthur Sturton, keeper of Whitehall, which fell in Mary's last year, remarks, "He was the receiver of all copes of cloth of gold that was taken out of all churches, and he did deliver them unto certain parishes again unto them that could know them, the which were taken away by king Edward the vi time by the device of the duke of Northumberland and certain of bishops of new doctrine that was then and now, when that good queen Mary came to the crown, she let every parish for to have them again by her coming to the crown, if they were not given to other places in England: but Trinity parish had not their cope of cloth of gold again," p. 165. Comp. Vol. III. 448 of this work.

"This year was commandment given that in all churches in London the sepulcre should be had up again, and that every man should bear palms, and go to shrift." Nicholl's Narratives (from a Foxii MS.), p. 287. See also Vol. III. p. 37 huj. oper.

§ April 2. See Nicholl's Narratives, 288: Grey Friars' Chron. 88: and comp. Vol. III. p. 129 huj, oper.