retaliation for the doings of the other side in the late reign. As to the English service, however, nothing was said.

It was idle in Mary to forbid the terms heretic and papist to be used in common speech. Thirty years before they had been forbidden with more consistency by Henry the Eighth :* whose position was that to break with the papacy was not heresy; and, after the breach, that to favour the former system of worship was not to be a papist. But with Mary the rejection of the papacy constituted heresy; under her none was to be accounted Catholic who was not papist: the return of the papacy was to be looked for from her. The former of the two words which she forbad was presently to be read in every page of the countless processes about religion that deformed her reign. It was equally idle in her to assert her own liberty of conscience against the existing laws on the one hand, on the other to indicate a term after which she intended to force the consciences of others, and to expect the interval to be passed in peace. The strife between the two religions, which had been begun at Paul's Cross, was forthwith carried into every region; and many of the seeds of future misery were planted in the two or three months that elapsed between Mary's first Proclamation about religion and her first Parliament. The licensed preachers of the former reign, the champions of the Uniformity of Edward, found their certificates annulled: but some of them nevertheless continued to preach. They were arrested. Most of them, especially among the parish priests, ceased to preach, but went on reading the English service, against which, as it has been remarked, nothing had been said in the Proclamation. They could not be touched by authority for this, since the English service was the law of the land: nevertheless some of them were disturbed in church by

* Vol. II. p. 134 of this work.

their parishioners excited by the prospect of having the former rites restored: and against them that troubled them they could get no redress. Some of those who were arrested seem to have been drawn by the unhappy Dudleian incident into imprudent language in their sermons, or in other ways to have mixed sedition with religion. Even so early in the reign as this, the gaols began to fill. Fisher, a licensed preacher, the parson of Amersham in Essex, was ordered to be apprehended by the Sheriffs of Buckingham and Bedfordshire, and sent up to the Council, for a sermon that he had preached. The licensed preachers Vernon, Becon, and Prebendary Bradford of St. Paul's were committed to the charge of the Lieutenant of the Tower: Rogers the lecturer of St. Paul's was commanded to keep his house. John Melvin, a Scot, a licensed preacher, was sent to Newgate by the Council. The Mayor of Coventry was ordered to seize and send up Symonds, the vicar of St. Michael's in Coventry, a licensed preacher who had preached a sermon, which he seems to have recanted: and, so great was the fervour of the Council, by an enormous stretch a commission was issued to punish those who had been incited by Symonds into saying anything against the Queen's proceedings. Horn, the Dean of Durham, was summoned twice before the Council: with what result it is uncertain.* Some of these who were thus molested became among the most famous martyrs of England: and there were others of less renown but equal constancy, both clergy and laymen, as for instance Bland and Sheterden, whose troubles now began: who all alike declared with truth that they were imprisoned illegally, without trial, for words spoken, or on suspicion of having spoken in accordance with what was established

* Fox (iii. 15) and Heylin, from the Acts of the Council. I have reserved two cases that Fox mentions, Coverdale and Hooper, to a later place in this chapter.

by law, or against that which the laws forbad.

Some of

these persons were kept in prison a year or two, before their final execution. On the other hand it is certain that the disturbed times justified vigilance: that severity was roused by disaffection, and that in many cases it is impossible to determine whether it were religion or sedition that was visited with punishment.*

Among the rest who incurred suspicion was Latimer. From the time of his last sermons before the late King, that memorable person had employed his talent in Lincolnshire and Yorkshire under the patronage of the Duchess of Suffolk; and many of the sermons that he preached there are still extant. In what way he now drew attention upon himself seems unknown: but the desire of the government may perhaps have been rather that he should be induced to fly the realm than that he should be taken prisoner. He received warning of the coming of a pursuivant from the Council. The pursuivant came, but had no instructions to do more than deliver him a letter: which he did, and departed. But Latimer disdained to fly. Being summoned by my prince," said he, "I go willingly to render an account of my doctrine. doctrine. Before two excellent princes have I

66

*Collier makes some severe reflections on these proceedings by proclamation, and the silencing of preachers: that the clergy being empowered to preach in their parishes, the silencing of them was unwarrantable unless they had been convicted of some disabling offence, or suspended by their ordinary: that an offence could not be created by proclamation, which was not an offence before: that there was no breach of duty in preaching ere this proclamation, but an exercise of duty in his office, in which he was legally fixed for life; and so there could be no breach of duty in preaching after the proclamation (ii. 345). This is all very true but he writes as if it was Mary who began the practice of issuing royal proclamations: whereas it had been most scandalously abused all through the Reformation, as we have often seen: and the scope of proclamations was by no means so determined in that age as it was afterwards. As for the rights of the clergy, alas! Mary regarded them all as unreconciled heretics. Otherwise no sovereign would have so scrupulously respected them.

preached God's word: the third shall hear me witness of the same, either to her comfort or discomfort eternally." His behaviour before the Council appeared to them seditious: † and he was ordered into strict confinement in the Tower.

The restoration of the former system was attempted concurrently with the silencing of the Edwardian preachers. The pulpits were supplied at once with orators of the opposite note, who received the Queen's license; § and thus in granting in her own name to preachers

Fox, iii. 385 (edition 1684).

+ Mr. Nichols in his Queen Jane and Mary, says that Latimer was brought before the Council on August 24, "the same day that bishop Gardiner was made Lord Chancellor" (p. 26). This is a mistake. Latimer's business began September 9, when " a letter of appearance" was ordered by the Council to be sent to him. The next entry about him is September 13. "This day Hugh Latimer, clerk, appeared before the lords, and for his seditious demeanour was committed to the Tower, there to remain a close prisoner, having attending upon him one Austin his servant,"—Acts.

The fourteenth day of September Master Latimer was brought to the Tower prisoner, who at his coming in said to one Rutter a warder there, "What, my old friend, how do you? I am now come to be your neighbour again": and was lodged in the garden, in Sir Thomas Palmer's lodging. Chron. of Queen Jane and Mary, p. 26.

§ The Queen's letter, addressed to Gardiner as Chancellor, to grant licenses, was as follows:-" Mary, by the grace of God, &c., know ye that for the special trust and confidence we have conceived in your approved fidelity, circumspection and diligence, we have authorized you, like as by these presents we do authorize you to give license from time to time under our great Seal of England, being in your custody, to such grave, learned, and discreet persons, which, for their gravity, learning, and discretion, seem unto you meet and able men to preach God's word : and them and every of them, so by you to be licensed, to preach in any Cathedral Church, Parish Church or Chapel, within any shire, city, town, or village of this our realm of England accordingly, and as by your discretion shall be thought convenient: and this bill, signed with our hand, shall be your sufficient warrant and discharge in that behalf. And yet nevertheless our pleasure is that ye shall and may have the same under our great seal of England at your will and pleasure." 29 August. Rymer, xv. 337. A specimen of the licenses thus issued is given by Collier, Appendix lxviii. Therein the Queen uses the title of Supreme Head, and grants letters patent "ad prædicandum et exponendum

their authority to preach, Mary renewed in an important branch the precedent of her father and her brother, and the Tudor management of religion. Paul's Cross was occupied on the Sunday after the riot by Watson, Gardiner's chaplain, who was guarded by two hundred halberdiers and the presence of some of the Council: while the corporation and the crafts of London swelled the congregation.* But upon subsequent Sundays the absence of the apprentices and children, who had been ordered to keep to their parish churches, and withal the unwelcome quality, it may be, of the doctrines inculcated, made a solitude which it was found necessary to people, for the encouragement of the preachers, by the enforced attendance of the ancients of the Companies.† At the same time, in the face of the law, the Latin Mass and service was set up in several places. This had been attempted indeed in one of the London Churches even before the memorable tumult at Paul's Cross: but the priest who did it nearly lost his life. It was renewed under colour of "having respect to the Queen's proceedings," or interpreting her further intentions from her present acts. That she designed to restore the Mass throughout the realm, there was now no question: Bishop Gardiner was celebrating it before her daily in the chapel

Verbum Dei publico sermone Latino vel vulgari, clero vel populo in quibuscunque Ecclesiis ac aliis locis ad hoc congruis et honestis.".

* The 20 day of August did preach at Paul's Cross Master Watson, chaplain unto (Gardiner), and there were present all the crafts of London in their best livery, sitting on forms, every craft by themselves, and my lord mayor and the aldermen, and 200 of the guard, to see no disquiet done. Machyn, 41. And there was divers of the queen's council, and the captain of the guard with a 200 and more of the guard brought him to the pulpit, and stood there at the sermon time with their halberts. Grey Friars' Chron.

† Fox and Heylin.

Aug. 11. "This day an old priest said mass in St. Bartholemews, but after that mass was done, the people would have pulled him in pieces." Chron. of Queen Jane and Mary, p. 16.