Part 18 (1/2)
[Sidenote: Plot to change the succession]
The Duke's scheme then was to supplant the Tudor princesses, on the score of their illegitimacy once officially affirmed, by Lady Jane Grey; having first secured a dominating influence over his unhappy puppet by marrying her to one of his sons, Guildford Dudley. It might plausibly be argued that, since the courts had definitely declared that neither Mary nor Elizabeth was born in lawful wedlock, no subsequent legitimation could give them precedence over an indubitably legitimate descendant of Henry VII. and Elizabeth of York: while political expediency excluded the sole claimant with a prior hereditary right.
There remained, however, the inconvenient fact that the whole country from the Council down had deliberately and unhesitatingly pledged itself to maintain the order of succession laid down in Henry's Will. Something more than an abstract argument from legitimacy was needed to cancel a decision arrived at and established after mature deliberation. Had Mary made herself feared or detested--had Lady Jane been a popular favourite with an organised following--there might have been some chance for a _coup d'etat_. But the treatment of Mary coupled with her dignified and courageous conduct had made her the object of popular sympathy; the only people who feared her were those who had been prominent in attacking the Old Learning, and their following in the country was by no means proportionate to their political and theological activity. Their support--all that Northumberland could hope for--would be quite insufficient for carrying his plan through; while the Duke himself, very unlike his late rival Somerset, was an object of such general aversion that any scheme calculated to maintain him in power would have excited keen popular antagonism.
[Sidenote 1: Northumberland gains over Edward and the Council]
[Sidenote 2: Death of Edward]
The marriage of Lady Jane was accomplished early in May (1553); Pembroke, as well as Suffolk, was apparently secured by the marriage [Footnote: After Northumberland's fiasco, this marriage was judiciously voided.] of his son to a sister, Katharine Grey. Besides these Northumberland could count on Northampton. Further, he could be sure that France would go as far as diplomacy permitted to prevent the accession of Mary, on account of her relations.h.i.+p with the Emperor, to whom she had all her life looked for counsel. As Edward's death drew nearer, the Duke prepared his final _coup_. If Henry by Will could lay down the course of succession, his son was equally free to change it. It was not difficult to persuade the dying boy of the woes that would follow when a reactionary monarch was on the throne--though there had hitherto been no sign that the reaction would go beyond a reversion to the position of Henry's last years. Under Northumberland's influence, he devised the crown to the issue of the d.u.c.h.ess of Suffolk who was herself pa.s.sed over in favour of her eldest daughter. In June this ”device” was submitted to the Council, with whom however it found little favour. But in view of the personal danger in which they stood, they gave a.s.sent subject to the approval of Parliament, arguing that it was unprecedented for a King, to say nothing of one who was still a minor, to set aside an Act of Parliament by his own authority. The Judges, summoned to the Royal presence, unanimously declared that it would be unconst.i.tutional--in effect treason--if they drew up letters patent in the sense desired without authority of parliament; and the more they examined the law, the more convinced they were of their position. But the King was insistent; and at last one by one, they reluctantly gave way, on condition of receiving positive instructions under the Great Seal and an antic.i.p.atory pardon in case their obedience should prove--as they believed it--to be a crime. The Letters were drawn, and at last signed by a number of peers and representative men, Cranmer finally yielding his adhesion after prolonged resistance, on the strength of the a.s.sertion that the judges had given their sanction. He was not informed how that sanction had been obtained. Cecil, the Burghley of a later reign, would only sign ”as a witness”. The signatures were appended on June 21st. The affair was still kept secret--though the existence of some conspiracy to supplant Mary was becoming generally suspected. The interval was spent in making preparations to support the _coup d'etat_ in arms. On July 4th the rumour that the King was already dead was only partially dispelled by letting his face be seen at a window. On the 6th he actually died. On the 8th the fact began to leak out, and on the 10th Lady Jane was proclaimed Queen in London.
[Sidenote: A memorable voyage]
One incident of note occurred during King Edward's last months--the departure of Chancellor and Willoughby's expedition in search of a North-East pa.s.sage, an entirely novel direction. Chancellor reached the White Sea, and from thence was conveyed to Moscow, with the result that relations were opened between England and Russia. In other respects there was some private activity in the voyages of this and the ensuing reign, but nothing else demanding special attention.
CHAPTER XIV
MARY (i), 1553-55--THE SPANISH MARRIAGE
[Sidenote: The Marian Tragedies]
From first to last, Tragedy is the note of the reign of England's first Queen regnant: the human interest is so intense that the political and religious issues seem, great as they were, to sink into the background of the picture, mere accessories of the stage on which are presented the immortal figures of Doom. First is the tragedy of the sweet-souled and most innocent child, Lady Jane Grey, sacrificed to the self-seeking ambition of shameless intriguers. Then the tragedy of the Martyrs--of Rowland Taylor, of Ridley and Latimer, of Ferrar and Hooper, of many another of less note, who died for the Glory of G.o.d, giving joyful testimony to the faith that was in them; the tragedy of Cranmer, the gentle soul of wavering courage, the man born to pa.s.s peaceful days in cloistered shades, torn from them to be the unwilling pilot of revolution, who at the tenth hour fell as Peter fell, yet at the last rose to the n.o.blest height. Last, and greatest, the tragedy of the royal-hearted woman whose pa.s.sionate human love was answered only with cold scorn; who won her throne by the loyalty of her people only to bring upon her name such hate as attaches to but two or three other English monarchs; who, for the wrongs done to her personally, showed almost unexampled clemency, yet, shrinking not to shed blood like water in what she deemed a sacred cause, is popularly branded for ever amongst the tyrants of the earth; who, sacrificing her own heart in that cause, died in the awakening knowledge that by her own deeds it was irreparably ruined. No monarch has ever more utterly subordinated personal interests, personal affections, all that makes life desirable, to a pa.s.sionate sense of duty; none ever failed more utterly to work anything but unmixed woe.
[Sidenote: 1553 (July) Proclamation of Queen Jane]
Northumberland's plans had been carefully laid. The military forces were at the service of the Government. The whole Council--with varying degrees of sincerity and reluctance--had endorsed his scheme; the persons of its members were apparently at his mercy; he meant also to have Mary safely bestowed in the Tower before any opposition could be organised. The foreign amba.s.sadors, and their masters, hardly dreamed that there was any alternative course to submission. Neither they nor Northumberland realised the intensity of the general feeling in Mary's favour, or its practical force; nor did they appreciate the capacity of Henry Tudor's daughters for rising to an emergency. On the day of Edward's death, Mary was on her way to London, when she was met with the secret warning that all was over. She turned and rode hard for safer country, just escaping the party who had been sent out to secure her. Jane Grey, the sixteen-year-old bride of a few days, was summoned to the throne by the Council; every person about her implored her to claim what they called her right and fulfil her duty in accepting the crown: what else could she do? Yet, child as she was, they found to their indignant astonishment that she would not move a hair's-breadth from the path her conscience approved. She knew enough to refuse point blank the notion that her young husband should be crowned King. The men of affairs, of religion, of law, having unanimously affirmed that the heritage of royalty was hers, she could not dispute it; but no one could pretend that the heritage was his. Her refusal was of ill omen for Northumberland's ascendancy, and the ill omens multiplied.
[Sidenote 1: The people support Mary]
[Sidenote 2: Collapse of the Plot]
The refusal was given on the evening following the proclamation of Lady Jane as Queen: even at the proclamation, a 'prentice was bold enough to remark aloud that the Lady Mary's t.i.tle was the better. That same night, a letter arrived from Mary herself, claiming the allegiance of the Council in true queenly style. They were not yet prepared to defy Northumberland, and a reply was penned the next day affirming Lady Jane's t.i.tle. Two of the Duke's sons were already in pursuit of Mary, and a general impression prevailed that they had captured her and were on their way to London. They had indeed reached her, but their whole force promptly acclaimed her as queen, and the Dudleys had to fly for their lives. The Eastern midlands and the home counties were gathering in arms to her support. It was necessary to take the field without delay, but of those members of the Council who were fit to command there was none on whom Northumberland could rely, when once out of his reach. The Duke must go himself. On the eighth day after Edward's death, the fourth after the proclamation of Lady Jane, he rode gloomily from London at the head of a force which he mistrusted, without a plaudit from the populace which, for all its Protestantism, listened with apathy two days later to the declamations of Ridley at St. Paul's Cross.
Northumberland was hardly on his way before news came that the crews of the fleet had compelled their captains to declare for Mary. He had not advanced far before his own followers in effect followed suit. In the meantime, the Council reinstated Paget; who had always been in ill odour with Dudley as being a friend of Somerset, and had been recently dismissed from office and relegated to the Tower. On the 19th came news of further reinforcements for Mary. On that day several members of the Council, who had hitherto been practically under guard in the Tower, escaped, and, headed by Pembroke, declared for Mary. One party returned in arms, to demand surrender; another marched to Paul's Cross and proclaimed Mary amid enthusiastic acclamations. That night they dispatched a message to Northumberland at Cambridge ordering him to lay down his arms. Before it reached him, he had thrown up the struggle. The messengers arrived to arrest a cringing traitor. The stream of his repentant supporters was already hastening to sue for pardon.
[Sidenote: The Queen's leniency]
Never did rebellion collapse more ignominiously; never were rebels treated so leniently. The conspicuous but calculated clemency of the seventh Henry pales in comparison with the magnanimity of his grand-child. Those who had been most active and prominent in word and deed were arrested; but after a brief interval the majority even of these were pardoned. Some, including the innocent figurehead of the rebellion, the nine days' queen, her husband, and Ridley, were detained, in ward; but even Suffolk was allowed to go free; and it was only in deference to the remonstrances of every adviser that the Queen ultimately consented to the execution of the Arch-traitor Northumberland with two of his companions.
[Sidenote: Meaning of the popular att.i.tude]
Mary's triumph, swift and bloodless, in defiance of all prudent presumptions, requires some explanation; which is not to be found in the theory of a sweeping Catholic reaction. London and the eastern counties were the strongholds of the new ideas, yet they went uncompromisingly in her favour. But it seems to prove that the country had definitely made up its mind some years before to accept a given solution of the problem of the succession, and to abide by it. Mary and Elizabeth might both be illegitimate technically, but each had been supposed legitimate at the time of her birth, and it seemed only fair that both should be reinstated in the line of succession. But the decision had been left to Henry, and had gone precisely in accord with popular sentiment. The English people had no mind to allow their settled conclusions to be set aside at the dictation of the best-hated politician in the country. They would have none of Northumberland, and the attempt to coerce them simply collapsed. The fact that all their sympathies--apart from judgment--were with the hitherto persecuted princess, and were not extended to her helpless rival, is in no way remarkable; for Lady Jane had been brought up in retirement, and her charms of mind and of character, though known to posterity, were quite unknown to the world in her own day. She had lent herself, however innocently, to an outrageous conspiracy; nor would any one have thought of remonstrance if the Queen had followed the advice of her counsellors instead of the dictates of her own magnanimity, and sent the girl with her husband and her father to the block along with Northumberland.
[Sidenote: The Queen's marriage and the Reformation]
A woman more politic and less conscientious than Mary--a woman such as her sister Elizabeth--might now have seized a great opportunity for making herself exceptionally popular. The Roman allegiance had been wiped out by Henry, with the entire approval even of Bonner and Gardiner; but of late years the extreme puritan party had gone much further in imposing their theories than the nation generally approved. They, at least, might now have been bridled without exciting serious opposition. Toleration within reasonable limits was what the bulk of the people wanted. Too many of them had really taken hold of the new ideas for a ready a.s.sent to be given to a strong reaction; too many still clung to the old ideas for the censors.h.i.+p of the Knoxes and Hoopers to be acceptable.
No one was more thoroughly alive to the impolicy of religious coercion than the Queen's life-long adviser, Charles V.--who had had his lesson in Germany--and his amba.s.sador at Mary's court, Simon Renard. A policy of judicious toleration was the first condition of domestic peace, and would have met with their entire approval. But there was another question of pressing importance on which counsels were likely to be divided--the question of the Queen's marriage. Popular sentiment was flatly opposed to her union with any one who, being a foreigner, might subordinate England's interests to those of his own country, and drag her into the vortex of continental broils. On these two points anxiety was concentrated when the Queen arrived in London.
[Sidenote: Mary's rivals]