The Reformation

by Will Durant

  Religious persecution, so long of heretics by Catholics, was now in England, as in Switzerland and Lutheran Germany, of heretics and Catholics by Protestants. Cranmer drew up a list of heresies which, if not abjured, were to be punished with death; they included affirmation of the Real Presence in the Eucharist, or the ecclesiastical supremacy of the pope, and denial of the inspiration of the Old Testament, or the two natures in Christ, or justification by faith.16 Joan Bocher of Kent went to the stake for questioning the Incarnation (1550). To Ridley, Protestant Bishop of London, who begged her to recant, she said: “Not long ago you burnt Anne Askew for a piece of bread [for denying transubstantiation], yet came yourselves to believe the doctrine for which you burnt her; and now you will burn me for a piece of flesh [referring to the phrase in the Fourth Gospel—“The Word was made flesh”], and in the end you will believe this also.” 17 Only two heretics were burned in Edward’s reign; however, many Catholics were imprisoned for hearing Mass, or openly criticizing the currently orthodox creed.18 Obstinately Catholic priests were deposed from their posts, and some were sent to the Tower.19 Gardiner, still there, was offered freedom if he would consent to preach the Reformed faith; refusing, he was removed “to a meaner lodging” in the Tower, and was deprived of paper, pen, and books. In 1552 Cranmer issued his Second Book of Common Prayer, which denied the Real Presence, rejected the sacrament of extreme unction, and otherwise revised the First Book in a Protestant direction. Parliament now passed a Second Act of Uniformity, which required all persons to attend regularly, and only, religious services conducted according to this Book of Common Prayer; three violations of this Act were to be punished with death. In 1553 the Royal Council promulgated forty-two “Articles of Religion” drawn up by Cranmer, and made them obligatory on all Englishmen.

  While virtue and orthodoxy became law, the Warwick protectorate was distinguishing itself, in a corrupt age, by its corruption. This did not prevent the malleable young Edward from making Warwick Duke of Northumberland (October 4, 1551). A few days later the Duke atoned for an act of political decency—the release of Somerset—by charging his predecessor with an attempt to re-establish himself in power. Somerset was arrested, tried, and convicted, chiefly on evidence given by Sir Thomas Palmer; an order of the King was forged to call for Somerset’s execution; and on January 22, 1552, he met his death with courage and dignity. Northumberland, when he in turn faced execution, confessed that through his means Somerset had been falsely accused; and Palmer, before his death, confessed that the evidence he had sworn to had been invented by Northumberland.20

  Rarely in English history had an administration been so unpopular. Protestant clergymen, who had praised the new Protector in gratitude for his support, turned against him as his crimes increased. King Edward was sinking toward death; Mary Tudor, by an act of Parliament, had been named heiress to the throne if Edward remained childless; and Mary, made queen, would soon revenge herself on those who had led England from the old faith. Northumberland felt that his life was in jeopardy. His one comfort was that his agents had formed Edward to his obedience. He induced the dying King to settle the crown upon Lady Jane Grey, daughter of the Duke of Suffolk and granddaughter of Henry VIII’s sister; moreover, Jane had recently married Northumberland’s son. Edward had not, like his father, received Parliamentary authority to name his successor; nearly all England took Princess Mary’s accession as inevitable and just; and Jane protested that she did not want to be queen. She was a woman of unusual education: she wrote Greek, studied Hebrew, and corresponded with Bullinger in Latin as good as his own. She was no saint; she could be sharply critical of Catholics, and laughed at transubstantiation; but she was far more sinned against than sinning. At first she took her father-in-law’s scheme as a jest. When her mother-in-law insisted, Jane resisted. Finally her husband commanded her to accept the throne, and she—“not choosing,” she said, “to be disobedient to her husband”—obeyed. Northumberland now prepared to arrest Mary’s leading supporters, and to lodge the Princess herself in the Tower, where she might be taught resignation.

  Early in July the King neared his end. He coughed and spat blood, his legs swelled painfully, eruptions broke out over his body, his hair fell out, then his nails. No one could say what this strange disease was; many suspected that Northumberland had poisoned him. At last, after long suffering, Edward died (July 6, 1553), still but fifteen, too young to share the guilt of his reign.

  The next morning Northumberland rode out toward Hunsdon to seize the Princess. But Mary, warned, escaped to Catholic friends in Suffolk, and Northumberland returned to London without his prey. By promises, threats, or bribes, he persuaded the Privy Council to join him in proclaiming Jane Grey queen. She fainted. Recovering, she still protested that she was unfit for the perilous honor forced upon her. Her relatives pleaded with her, arguing that their lives depended upon her acceptance. On July 9 she reluctantly acknowledged herself to be Queen of England.

  But on July 10 news reached London that Mary had proclaimed herself queen, that the northern nobles were flocking to her support, and that their forces were marching upon the capital. Northumberland hurriedly gathered what troops he could, and led them out to the issue of battle. At Bury his soldiers told him that they would not take another step against their lawful sovereign. Crowning his crimes, Northumberland sent his brother, with gold and jewels and the promise of Calais and Guiñes, to bribe Henry II of France to invade England. The Privy Council got wind of the mission, intercepted it, and announced allegiance to Mary. The Duke of Suffolk went to Jane’s room, and informed her that her ten-day reign was over. She welcomed the news, and asked innocently might she now go home; but the Council, which had sworn to serve her, ordered her confined in the Tower. There, soon, Northumberland too was a prisoner, praying for pardon but expecting death. The Council sent out heralds to proclaim Mary Tudor queen. England received the tidings with wild rejoicing. All through that summer night bells caroled and bonfires blazed. The people brought out tables and food, and picnicked and danced in the streets.

  The nation seemed to regret the Reformation, and to look with longing upon a past that could now be idealized since it could not return. And truly the Reformation had as yet shown only its bitterest side to England: not a liberation from dogma, inquisition and tyranny, but their intensification; not a spread of enlightenment but a spoliation of universities and the closing of hundreds of schools; no enlargement of kindness but almost an end to charity and carte blanche to greed; no mitigation of poverty but such merciless grinding of the poor as England had not known for centuries—perhaps had never known.21 Almost any change would be welcome that would eliminate Northumberland and his crew. And poor Princess Mary, who had won the secret love of England by her patience in twenty-two years of humiliation—surely this chastened woman would make a gentle queen.

  III. THE GENTLE QUEEN: 1553–54

  To understand her we should have had to live with her the tragic youth during which she had hardly ever tasted happiness. She was scarcely two (1518) when her father took to mistresses and neglected her grieving mother; eight when he asked for an annulment of his marriage; fifteen when her parents parted, and mother and daughter went into a separate exile. Even when the mother was dying the daughter was forbidden to go to her.22 After the birth of Elizabeth (1533) Mary was declared a bastard, and was shorn of her title of princess. The Imperial ambassador feared that Anne Boleyn would seek the death of her daughter’s rival for the throne. When Elizabeth was moved to Hatfield Mary was compelled to go and serve her there, and to live in “the worst room of the house.”23 Her servants were taken from her, and were replaced by others subject to Miss Shelton of Hatfield, who, reminding her that she was a bastard, said, “If I were in the King’s place I would kick you out of the King’s house for your disobedience,” and told her that Henry had expressed his intention to have her beheaded.24 All that first winter at Hatfield (1534) Mary was ill, her nerves shattered with contumely and fear, her body and
soul not unwillingly near death. Then the King relented and spared her some casual affection, and for the remainder of the reign her position eased. But as the price of this hard graciousness she was required to sign an acknowledgment of Henry’s ecclesiastical supremacy, her mother’s “incestuous marriage,” and her own illegitimate birth.25

  Her nervous system was permanently affected by these experiences; “she was subject to a heart complaint,” 26 and she remained in frail health till the end of her life. Her courage returned when, under the Somerset protectorate, Parliament declared her heiress-apparent to the throne. Since her Catholic faith, bred into her childhood with Spanish fervor, and strengthened by her mother’s living and dying exhortations, had been a precious support in her griefs, she refused to abandon it when she hovered on the edge of power; and when the King’s Council bade her cease hearing Mass in her rooms (1549) she would not obey. Somerset connived at her resistance; but Somerset fell, her brother the King approved the order, and three of her servants, for ignoring it, were sent to the Tower (1551). The chaplain who had said Mass for her was taken from her, and she finally agreed to forgo the beloved ritual. Her spirit broken, she begged the Imperial ambassador to arrange her escape to the Continent. The cautious Emperor refused to sanction the plan, and it fell through.

  Her moment of triumph came at last when Northumberland could find no man to fight against her, and those who came in arms to uphold her cause asked no pay, but brought their own supplies and offered their personal fortunes to finance the campaign. When she entered London as queen (August 3, 1553) even that half-Protestant city rose almost unanimously to welcome her. Princess Elizabeth came diffidently to meet her at the city gates, wondering whether Mary would hold against her the indignities suffered in Elizabeth’s name; but Mary greeted her with a warm embrace, and kissed all the ladies in her half-sister’s train. England was as happy as when Henry VIII, young and handsome and generous, had mounted the throne.

  Mary was now thirty-seven, and heartless time had already crossed her face with omens of decay. She had seldom known an adult year without a serious illness. She was troubled with dropsy, indigestion, and racking headaches; she was treated with repeated bloodlettings, which left her nervous and pale. Her recurrent amenorrhea plunged her at times into hysterical grief with fear that she would never bear a child.27 Now her body was thin and frail, her forehead was wrinkled, her reddish hair was streaked with gray, her eyes were so weak that she could read only with the page held close to her face. Her features were plain, almost masculine; her voice was as deep as a man’s; life had given her all the frailties, none of the charms, of womanhood. She had some womanly accomplishments—she knitted patiently, embroidered skillfully, and played the lute; to which she added a knowledge of Spanish, Latin, Italian, and French. She would have made a good woman had she not been cursed with theological certainty and royal power. She was honest to the point of simplicity, incapable of diplomacy, and pitifully anxious to love and be loved. She had bursts of temper and shrewish speech. She was obstinate, but not proud; she recognized her mental limitations, and listened humbly to advice. She was inflexible only where her faith was concerned; otherwise she was clement and compassionate, liberal to the unfortunate, and eager to redress the wrongs of the law. Frequently she visited incognito the homes of the poor, sat and talked with the housewives, made note of needs and grievances, and gave whatever help she could.28 She restored to the universities the endowments filched from them by her predecessors.

  The best side of her character showed in the relative tolerance of her early reign. She not only released Gardiner, Bonner, and others who had been imprisoned for refusing to accept Protestantism, but she pardoned almost all those who had tried to keep her from the throne. Some of these, however, like the Duke of Suffolk, she compelled to pay heavy fines into the treasury; then, the revenue being so aided, she reduced taxes substantially. Peter Martyr and other alien Protestants were allowed safe-conducts to leave the country. The Queen’s Council gave a hasty trial to Northumberland and six others who had conspired to arrest Mary and crown Jane Grey; all seven were condemned to die. Mary wished to pardon even Northumberland, but Simon Renard, now Imperial ambassador, dissuaded her. All the unforgiven three made a last-minute profession of the Roman Catholic faith. Jane Grey called the sentence just, and the confessions cowardly.29 Mary proposed to release her, but yielded so far to her councilors as to order her to be kept in loose confinement within the Tower grounds.30

  On August 13 the Queen issued an official declaration that she would not “compel or constrain consciences” in the matter of religious belief;31 this was one of the first proclamations of religious tolerance by a modern government. Innocently hopeful of converting Protestants by argument, she arranged a public debate between opposed theologians, but it evaporated in bitter and inconclusive dispute. Shortly thereafter Bishop Bonner’s chaplain had a dagger thrown at him from a crowd that resented his Catholic preaching; he was rescued from death by two Protestant divines.32 Frightened out of her tolerance, Mary ordered (August 18, 1553) that until Parliament could meet and consider the problems raised by the conflict of faiths, no doctrinal sermons should be preached except in the universities. Cranmer, still Archbishop, was bidden keep to his Lambeth palace; he retorted with a blast against the Mass as an “abominable blasphemy”; he and Latimer were committed to the Tower (September 1553). Bishop Ridley of London, who had branded both Mary and Elizabeth as bastards, had gone to the Tower two months before. All in all, Mary’s conduct in these early months of her reign excelled, in lenience and tolerance, that of the other major rulers of her time.

  The problems she faced might have overwhelmed one far superior to her in intelligence and tact. She was shocked by the confusion and corruption prevalent in the administration. She ordered the corruption to stop; it hid its head and continued. She gave a good example by reducing the expenses of the royal household, pledging a stable currency, and leaving parliamentary elections free from royal influence; the new elections were “the fairest which had taken place for many years.” 33 But her reduction of taxes left government income lower than outgo; to make up the difference she levied an export duty on cloth and an import duty on French wines; these measures, which were expected to help the poor, caused a commercial recession. She tried to arrest the growth of capitalism by limiting to one or two the looms that any individual might own. She denounced “rich clothiers” for paying low wages, and forbade the payment of wages in kind.34 But she could not find in her entourage men of the force and integrity required to implement her good will; and economic laws overrode her aims.

  Even in religion she met with severe economic obstacles. There was hardly an influential family in England that did not hold property taken from the Church;35 such families, of course, opposed any return to the Roman faith. The Protestants, numerically a minority, financially powerful, might at any moment provide the sinews for a revolt that would place Protestant Elizabeth on the throne. Mary was anxious to restore the right of Catholics to worship according to their own ritual; yet the Emperor, who had been fighting Protestantism for thirty-two years, cautioned her to move slowly, and to be content with having Mass said privately for herself and her immediate circle. But she felt her religion too deeply to be politic with it. The skeptical generation that had grown up in London marveled at the frequency and fervor of her prayers, and the Spanish ambassador probably thought it a nuisance when she asked him to kneel beside her to ask divine guidance. She felt that she had a sacred mission to restore the faith that had become so dear to her because she had suffered for it. She sent a messenger to the Pope begging him to remove the interdict on religious services in England; but when Cardinal Pole wished to come to England as papal legate, she agreed with Charles that the time was not ripe for so bold a move.

  The Parliament that met on October 5,1553, was by no means subservient. It agreed to repeal all the legislation of Edward’s reign concerning religion; it reduced to their earlier p
roportions the severe penalties prescribed in the laws of Henry VIII and Edward VI; and it graciously informed the Queen that “the illegitimation of your most noble person” was now annulled, and she had ceased to be a bastard. But it refused even to consider the restoration of ecclesiastical property, it resisted any hint that papal sovereignty should be acknowledged, and it left Mary the unwilling head of the English Church. By this authority she replaced Protestant bishops with the Catholic prelates that had been expelled; Bonner was again Bishop of London; Gardiner was again Bishop of Winchester, and a close adviser of the Crown. Married priests were dismissed from their parishes. The Mass was again allowed, then encouraged; and (says a Protestant historian) “the eagerness with which the country generally availed itself of the permission to restore the Catholic ritual proved beyond a doubt that except in London and a few large towns, the popular feeling was with the Queen.” 36 By an edict of March 4, 1554, the Catholic worship was completely reinstated, Protestantism and other “heresies” were made illegal, and all Protestant preaching or publication was prohibited.

  The nation was much less disturbed by this return of the theological pendulum than by Mary’s marriage plans. She was constitutionally fearful of marriage, but she faced the trial in the hope of having an heir who would prevent the accession of Protestant Elizabeth. Mary claimed to be a virgin, and probably was; perhaps if she had sinned a bit she would have been less somber, tense, and certain. Her Council recommended to her Edward Courtenay, great-grandson of Edward IV, but his debauched ways were not to Mary’s taste. Rejected, he schemed to marry Elizabeth, depose Mary, enthrone Elizabeth, and rule England through her—never dreaming how little chance he had of dominating that virile lady. Charles V offered Mary his son Philip, to whom he was about to bequeath all but the Imperial title; and he pledged the Netherlands as a gift to any male issue of the marriage. Mary thrilled at the thought of having as her husband the ruler of Spain, Flanders, Holland, Naples, and the Americas; and her half-Spanish blood warmed at the prospect of a political and religious union of England with Spain. She modestly suggested that her greater age—ten years above Philip’s—was a barrier; she feared that her faded charms would not suffice his youthful vigor or imagination; she was not even sure that she would know how to make love.37 For his part Philip was reluctant; his English agents reported that Mary was “a perfect saint,” who “dressed badly”;38 could not something more alluring be found among the royal families of Europe? Charles persuaded him by pointing out that the marriage would give Spain a strong ally against France, and precious support in the Netherlands, which were bound to England commercially; perhaps Protestantism in Germany could be suppressed by the united action of Spain, France, and England as Catholic states; and the union of the Hapsburgs and the Tudors would constitute a power capable of giving Western Europe a generation of compulsory peace.