in the church before the people. The unfortunate pre late, either having a secret intimation of their design, or having recovered the native vigour of his mind, entered the church prepared to surprise the whole audience by a contrary declaration. When he had been placed in a conspicuous part of the church, a sermon was preached by Cole, provost of Eton, in which he magnified Cranmer's conversion as the immediate work of heaven itself. He assured the archbishop, that nothing could have been so pleasing to God, the queen, or the people; he comforted him, by intimating, that, if he should suffer, numberless dirges and masses should be said for his soul; and that his own confession of his faith would still more secure his soul from the pains of purgatory. During the whole rhapsody Cranmer ex pressed the utmost agony, anxiety, and internal agitation; he lifted up his eyes to heaven, he shed a torrent of tears, and groaned with unutterable anguish. He uttered a prayer; filled with the most pathetic expressions of horror and remorse. He then said he was well

apprised of his duty to his sovereign; but that a superior duty, the duty which he owed his Maker, obliged him to declare that he had signed a paper contrary to his conscience; that he took this opportunity of atoning for his error by a sincere and open recantation: he was willing, he said, to seal with his blood that doctrine, which he firmly believed to be communicated from heaven; and that, as his hand had erred by betraying his heart, it should undergo the first punishment. The assembly, consisting chiefly of papists, who hoped to triumph in the last words of such a convert, were equally confounded and incensed at this declaration. They called aloud to him to leave off dissembling; and led him forward, amidst the insults and reproaches of his audience, to the stake at which Latimer and Ridley

had suffered. He resolved to triumph over their insults by his constancy and fortitude; and, the fire beginning to be kindled round him, he stretched forth his right hand, and held it in the flames till it was consumed, while he frequently cried out in the midst of his sufferings," That unworthy hand!" at the same time exhibiting no appearance of pain or disorder. When the fire attacked his body, he seemed to be quite insensible of his tortures; his mind was occupied wholly upon the hopes of a future reward. After his body was destroyed, his heart was found entire: an emblem of the constancy with which he suffered.

A.D. These persecutions were now become odious 1556. to the whole nation; and, as it may be easily supposed, the perpetrators of them were all willing to throw the odium from themselves upon others. Philip, sensible of the hatred which he must incur upon this occasion, endeavoured to remove the reproach from himself by a very gross artifice. He ordered his confessor to deliver in his presence a sermon in favour of toleration; but Bonner, in his turn, would not take the whole of the blame, and retorted the severities upon the court. In fact, a bold step was taken to introduce. a court similar to that of the Spanish inquisition, that should be empowered to try heretics, and condemn them without any other form of law than its own authority. But even this was thought a method too dilatory in the present exigency of affairs. A proclamation, issued against books of heresy, treason, and sedition, declared, that all persons who had such books in their possession, and did not burn them without reading, should be deemed rebels, and suffer accordingly. This, as might be expected, was attended with bloody effects: whole crowds were executed, till even at last the very magistrates, who had been instrumental in

these cruelties, refused to lend their assistance. It was computed that during this persecution, two hundred and seventy-seven persons suffered by fire, besides those punished by imprisonment, fines, and confiscations. Those who suffered by fire were five bishops, twentyone clergymen, eight lay-gentlemen, eighty-four tradesmen, one hundred husbandmen, fifty-five women, and four children.

All this was terrible; and yet the temporal affairs of the kingdom did not seem to be more successful. From Philip's first arrival in England, the queen's pregnancy was talked of; and her own extreme desire that it should be true, induced her to favour the report. When Pole, the pope's legate, was first introduced to her, she fancied the child stirred in her womb; and this her flatterers compared to the leaping of John the Baptist in his mother's belly, at the salutation of the Virgin. The catholics were confident that she was pregnant; they assured themselves that this child would be a son; they were even confident that heaven would render him beautiful, vigorous, and witty. But it soon turned out that all their confidence was ill-founded; for the queen's supposed pregnancy was only the beginning of a dropsy, which the disordered state of her health had brought upon her.

This opinion of the queen's pregnancy was carefully kept up by Philip, as it was an artifice by which he hoped to extend his authority in the kingdom. But he was mistaken: the English parliament, however lax in their principles at that time, harboured a continued jealousy against him, and passed repeated acts by which they ascertained the limits of his power, and confirmed the authority of the queen. Ambition was his only ruling passion; and the extreme fondness of the queen for his

person was rather permitted by him than desired. He only wanted to make her inclination subservient to the purposes of his power; but finding her unable to satisfy him in that hope, he no longer treated her with any return of affection, but behaved to her with apparent indifference and neglect: at length, tired with her importunities and jealousies, and finding his authority extremely limited in England, he took the first opportunity of leaving her, and went over to the emperor his father in Flanders. In the mean time the queen's passion increased in proportion to the coolness with which it was returned. She passed most of her time in solitude; she gave vent to her sorrows, either by tears, or by writing fond epistles to Philip, who, except when he wanted money, seldom returned her any answer. To supply his demands upon these occasions, she took several very extorting methods, by loans which were forced from many whom she thought most affectionate to her person, or best able to spare it. She offered the English merchants at Antwerp fourteen per cent. for a loan of thirty thousand pounds, and yet was mortified by a refusal; but she at length prevailed, when the corporation of London became surety for her.

She was more successful in her attempts to engage the English in a war with France, at the instigation of her husband, although in the end it turned out to her utter confusion. A war had just been commenced between Spain and that kingdom; and Philip, who took this occasion to come over to England, declared, that if he were not seconded by England at this crisis, he would never see the country more. This declaration greatly heightened the queen's zeal for promoting his interests; and though she was warmly opposed in this measure by cardinal Pole and the rest of her council,

yet, by threatening to dismiss them all, she at last succeeded. War was declared against France, and A. D., preparations were every where made for attack- 1557. ing that kingdom with vigour. An army was levied, to the amount of ten thousand men, who, when their wants had been supplied by various methods of extortion, were sent over into Flanders.

A battle gained by the Spaniards at St. Quintin seemed to promise great success to the allied arms; but soon an action performed by the duke of Guise, in the midst of winter, turned the scale in favour of France and affected, if not the interests, at least the honour of England in the tenderest point. Calais had now for above two hundred years been in possession of the English; it had been made the chief market for wool, and other British commodities; it had been strongly fortified at different times, and was then deemed impregnable. But all the fortifications which were raised before gunpowder was found out, were very ill able to resist the attacks of a regular battery from cannon; and they only continued to enjoy an ancient reputation for strength which they were very ill able to maintain. Coligny, the French general, had remarked to the duke of Guise, that as the town of Calais was surrounded by marshes, which during winter were impassable, except over a dyke guarded by two castles, St. Agatha and Newnham-Bridge, the English were of late accustomed, to save expense, to dismiss a great part of the garrison at the approach of winter, and recall them in spring. The duke of Guise upon this made a sudden and unexpected march towards Calais, and assaulted the castle of St. Agatha with three thousand arquebusiers. The garrison were soon obliged to retreat to the other castle, and shortly after compelled to quit that post, and to take shelter in the city. Mean