who had been intruded into the chairs, took to flight, or remained immured in their chambers. The strongholds of the reformed learning were Christchurch, Corpus Christi, Magdalen, and New College: of which the last three were under the visitatorial jurisdiction of Gardiner. At Christchurch the prevalent theologian Peter Martyr was put to silence: and his former antagonist Tresham took the place of Cox the Vice-chancellor of the University. In Corpus Christi the sudden alteration affected injuriously the fame of one of the fellows, who was destined afterwards to shine with brightness. John Jewel, the future apologist of the Church of England, was chosen by the heads of colleges to write a congratulatory letter to the Queen in the name of the University. If it were designed to entangle him as well known for his reforming opinions, he avoided the snare with dexterity, and gained the approbation of the Vice-chancellor Tresham, to whom he brought his composition. As he was in the act of reading it, the great bell of Christchurch tolled: and the Vice-chancellor exclaimed in ecstasy, "O sweet Mary, how melodious doth she sound!" The bell, which had been by him repaired, and named anew, was tolling to mass for the first time: it tolled the knell of the peace of Jewel. The mass followed him to his own college, where it was also set up: and then he took refuge in Broadgate Hall. Thither his enemies pursued him with some articles for his sub of Jane they displayed nothing but grief. At the proclamation of Mary, even before she was proclaimed in London, and when the event was still doubtful, they gave such demonstrations of joy as to spare nothing. They first of all made so much noise all day with clapping their hands, that it seems still to tingle in my ears: they then, even the poorest of them, made voluntary subscriptions, and mutually exhorted each other to maintain the cause of Mary: lastly, at night they had a public festival : and threatened flames, hanging, the gallows, and drowning, to all the gospellers." Terentianus to John ab Ulmis, Strasb. Nov. 20.—Orig. Lett. P. 371. scription, containing their opinion of the Sacrament: and at the same time he heard that one of his pupils, for writing a copy of Latin verses against the mass, had been publicly and severely whipped in Corpus.* Jewel, assaulted of a sudden, took a pen in his hand, and saying with a smile, "Have you a mind to see how well I can write" set his name to the paper. When next we meet with Jewel, it will be indeed in the character of a notary. By a visitation of Magdalen College, which Gardiner ordered, the President Walter Haddon, Bentham the Dean, Bickley and Bull, two fellows who had been ringleaders in the riot in the chapel in the previous reign, when Bickley took the Host out of the pix and stamped on it, Bull snatched the censer from the officiant's hand, were expelled. With them went John Fox, the historian, who soon found his way over seas: Lawrence Humphrey a Latinist who afterwards wrote Jewel's life: and six other fellows. The uprooting of this nest, the fall of Jewel, the defection of Harding who was to be Jewel's future antagonist in controversy, the apostasy of the somewhat eminent Curthop, the flight of Terentianus and of Peter Martyr, thoroughly disheartened the reforming party in Oxford; whose champion Peter Martyr now intermingled his final adventures with the destiny of his great patron Archbishop Cranmer. He was confined to his house in Oxford for six weeks, from the first days of Mary. Then he made his way to * The poor lad is said to have had a lash for each of his verses, eighty in all. Perhaps it may be hoped that such verses as Summe Pater, qui cuncta vides, qui cuncta gubernas, were exempt from the punishment of Effice ne maneat longævos Missa per annos, Effice ne fallat decipiatve tuos.—Ap. Fuller. + Vol. III. 107 huj. op. Wood, Hist. and Ant. 270. Fuller. Fuller. London, in the beginning of September, and failed not to revisit his former refuge of Lambeth.* Cranmer, in the first part of August, on some day subsequent, it may be supposed, to the obsequies that he performed for King Edward, had visited the Court. There he beheld the dextrous impunity of Cecil: he encountered the shy looks of his late associates in Queen Jane's business; and the compassionate face of his great rival Gardiner. It was designed to have dealt gently with him to depose him, to dismiss him with a pension into private life. If this could have been carried out, the English Reformation, after all, might have been undone. But there was too much heat already engendered for this. The fact of his visit to the Court gave rise to a public rumour that he had pledged himself to say Mass before the Queen: † and the rumour reached his ears. From Lambeth, whither he withdrew, he wrote in a few days a somewhat petulant letter to Cecil. "I hear that Cheke is indicted: your brother-in-law, your fellow secretary. Wherefore? If for religion, he is blessed of God, however the world judge him. If any means can be made for him, it ought not to be neglected. I saw you * Terentianus, in the letter last cited, gives an account of the troubles of Peter, his confinement to his house: he narrates his own part, and that of Whittingham, soon to be renowned, in getting him out, and procuring his transmission to London. He also gives a relation of his subsequent fatal intercourse with Cranmer. + Strype says that he was summoned before the Council to answer for his share in Jane's interregnum, and received a severe reprimand, and was ordered to keep his house at Lambeth. He gives no authority but Cranmer's own letter to Cecil of August 14: which only contains that he went to the Court. See it in Remains, 441. There are no minutes of Council between August 11 and 13: and those that there are for other days contain nothing about Cranmer. Nor is there anything previous to Aug. 11. There could be nothing earlier than August 8, the day on which he buried Edward the Sixth. I think therefore that the story of his being called before the Council is merely a version of his visit to the Court: and that it was his visit to the Court that gave rise to the rumour that he had offered to say Mass before the Queen. at the Court, but dared not speak to you. If you can find time to come over to see me, I would gladly commune with you. "* About this time there was sitting, in St. Paul's, a commission, of which hereafter, for the restitution of Bonner. Cranmer was called before it towards the end of August, and appeared by his proctor. The part that he had taken in the proceedings against Bonner in the last reign was well remembered. But the submissive demeanour of his representative was not, it may be, unconsidered: leniency and mercy were meditated still. He was honoured with his full style of Primate and metropolitan of all England: and was merely required to furnish an inventory of his goods: so, it would seem, that the pension might be assigned, on which he should retire.+ About that time however another rumour that was raised came to the knowledge of the sensitive Archbishop : * Cranmer to Cecil from Lambeth, 14 Aug. Remains, 441. There is no proof that he had as yet been ordered to keep his house, though Strype says he had. I have put in a few words about Cheke being Cecil's brotherin-law and brother secretary, to bring out the secret sting that Cranmer meant to inflict, or must have inflicted, by his letter, in reminding Cecil of Cheke's woes and his own impunity. + Cranmer was cited to appear before the Commissioners at S. Paul's on August 27 on which day some others who had been concerned in the last reign against Bonner were also summoned. (Comp. Vol. III. 132 huj. oper.) Strype, oddly enough, cannot guess for what he was summoned, unless it were for heresy or marriage. Cranm. Bk. III. ch. i. But, as Wharton and Todd observe, it was too early to object to him either matter (Todd's Cranm. ii. 371): and Strype himself gives an account of the citation of the former persecutors of Bonner. Eccl. Mem. v. 35. Fox, again, has involved the whole thing in confusion by saying that what the Archbishop was cited for was his Declaration, or challenge to dispute about the Mass (of which directly): and gives his defiant answer (of which anon) as if made to the Commissioners. In this he is not followed by Strype, who had the same documents. Bonner himself wrote a letter a few days afterwards, on September 6, in which he speaks of Cranmer as humble and submissive. "This day it is looked that Mr. Canterbury must be placed where is meet for him he is become very humble and ready to submit himself in all things, but that will not serve." Burnet, Coll. 11. ii. No. vii. and broke to flame the smouldering indignation within him. The Mass had been set up again in his own cathedral church of Canterbury by the Vicedean Thornden, a former monk,* in the absence of Wotton the Dean: the people said it had been done by Cranmer. A fallen minister, a defeated conqueror, the discarded servant of the times, is not always silent: apologies and memoirs are a part of literature. The consciousness of innocency, for he had not set up the Mass, whatever he had done: the integrity, which he believed himself to have maintained throughout his changeful career, might have sustained Cranmer in dignified disdain of such an accusation. But public fame, which is the joy or torment of a public mind, strikes doubly in misfortunes, and the wide flight of a malicious falsehood drove the sinking primate to a fiery vindication. He designed no more than that, it may be conjectured, in the beginning: but he seems to have been instantly urged further by the zeal, friendship or flattery of another, or perhaps of more than one other: and the writing which he put forth at last was not only a purgation of himself but a defiance or challenge of his adversaries. Certainly few bolder things have ever been done: and, while Cranmer drew his fate on his own head, the Declaration which he now issued was the first rally of the stricken party of the Reformation. "I never made any promise of saying Mass in Westminster, or St. Paul's, or anywhere else," passionately exclaimed he, "I never set up the Mass again in * This Thornden, or Thornton, was not high in the estimation of either party. He was made bishop suffragan of Dover: and at the time of the reconciliation of the kingdom to the Holy See next year, it was he who received from the Legate Pole, through Goldwell, the severe reprimand for singing Mass in pontificalibus, and exercising episcopal functions before he had received his own absolution for his compliances in the reign of Edward to which I have already referred, p. 26, above. We have enough of him hereafter. |