Which is re

she would not accept of him; though, perhaps, the queen might think this flowed rather from a maid's modesty than any settled determination in her. This I take from jected by her. a letter Pope wrote about it, which is in the Collection: yet her life at this time Collection, was neither so pleasant nor so well secured, but that, if her aversion to a married Number 37. state had not been very much rooted in her, it is not unlikely she would have been glad to be out of the hands of her unkind keepers, who grew the more apprehensive of her the more they observed her sister to decay; and as the bishops did apprehend she would overthrow all that they had been building and cementing with so much blood, so some of them did not spare to suggest the putting of her out of the way: and now that she is so near the throne in the course of this history, I shall look back through this reign to give account of what befel her in it.

When she was suspected to be accessary to Wiat's conspiracy, the day after his breaking She was hard- out, the lord Hastings, sir Tho. Cornwallis, and sir Richard Southwell, were sent ly used all this for her to come to court. She then lay sick at her house at Ashbridge; but that Reign. excuse not being accepted, she was forced to go; so being still ill she came by slow journeys to the queen. She was kept shut up in private at court from the 4th of March to the 16th, and then Gardiner, with nineteen of the council, came to examine her about Wiat's rebellion. She positively denied she knew anything of it, or of sir Peter Carew's designs in the west, which they also objected to her. In conclusion, they told her the queen had ordered her to be sent to the Tower till the matter should be further inquired into ; and though she made great protestations of her innocence, yet she was carried thither, and led in by the Traitor's-gate, all her own servants being put from her. Three men and as many women of the queen's servants were appointed to attend on her, and no person was suffered to have access to her. Sir John Gage, who was the lieutenant of the Tower, treated her very severely, kept her closely shut up, without leave to walk either in the galleries or on the leads, nor would he permit her servants to carry in her meat to her, but he did that by his own servants. The other prisoners were often examined about her, and some were put to the rack to try if they could be brought any way to accuse her but though Wiat had done it, when he hoped to have saved his own life by so base an action, yet he afterwards denied that she knew any of their designs; and lest those denials he made at his examinations might have been suppressed, and his former depositions be made use of against her, he declared it openly on the scaffold at his death. After some days' close imprisonment, upon great intercession made by the lord Chandos, then constable of the Tower, it was granted that she might sometimes walk in the queen's rooms, in the presence of the constable, the lieutenant, and three women, the windows being all shut. Then she got leave to walk in a little garden for some air; but all the windows that opened to it were to be kept shut when she took her walk and so jealous were they of her, that a boy of four years old was severely threatened, and his father sent for and chid, for his carrying flowers to her. The lord Chandos was observed to treat her with too much respect, so he was not any more trusted with the charge of her, which was committed to sir Henry Bedingfeld. About the middle of May she was sent, under the guard of the lord Williams and Bedingfeld, to Woodstock. She was so straitly kept, and Bedingfeld was so sullen to her, that she believed they intended to put her privately to death. The lord Williams treated her nobly at his house on the way, at which Bedingfeld was much disgusted. When she was at Woodstock she was still kept under guards, and but seldom allowed to walk in the gardens, none being suffered to come near her. After many months' imprisonment she obtained leave to write to the queen, Bodingfeld being to see all she wrote. It was believed that some were sent secretly to kill her; but the orders were given so strictly that none of them could come near her without a special warrant, and so she escaped at that time. But after king Philip understood the whole case, he broke all those designs, as was formerly shown, and prevailed to have her sent for to court. When she came to Hampton-court she was kept still a prisoner. Many of the council, Gardiner in particular, dealt often with her to confess her offences, and submit to the queen's mercy. She said she had never offended her, not so much as in her thoughts, and she would never betray her own innocency by such a confession. One night, when it was late, she was sent for by the queen, before whom she kneeled down and protested she was and ever had been a most faithful subject to her. The queen seemed still to suspect her,

and wished her to confess her guilt, otherwiso she must think she had been unjustly dealt with. She answered, that she was not to complain, but to bear her burden; only she begged her to conceive a good opinion of her. So they parted fairly, which king Philip had persuaded the queen to; and being afraid that the sourness of the queen's temper might lead her into passion, he was secretly in a corner of the room to prevent any further breach, in case she should have been transported into new heats; but there was no occasion given for it. Soon after that she was discharged of her guards, and suffered to retire into the country; but there were always many spies about her; and she, to avoid all suspicion, meddled in no sort of business, but gave herself wholly to study. And thus she passed these five years, under no small fears and apprehensions, which was perhaps a necessary preparation for that high degree to which she was soon after advanced, and which she held in the greatest and longest course of prosperity and glory that ever any of her sex attained to.

The bishops, when the parliament was sitting, did always intermit their cruelties: but The Progress as soon as it was over, they fell to them afresh. On the 28th of March, of the Perse- Cuthbert Simpson, that was in deacon's orders with two others, were burnt in cution. Smithfield. Simpson had been taken with Rough that suffered the year before this. He was put to much torture, he lay three hours on the rack; besides two other inventions of torture were made use of to make him discover all those in London who met with them in their private assemblies: but he would tell nothing, and showed such patience, that the bishops did publicly commend him for it. On the 9th of April a man was burnt at IIereford. On the 19th of May three men were burnt at Norwich; and on the 26th of May two men and one woman were burnt at Colchester. At this time, complaints being made to the queen, that books of heresy, treason, and sedition, were either brought in from foreign parts, or secretly printed in England, and dispersed among her subjects; she set out, on the 6th of June, a proclamation of a strange nature: "That whosoever had any of these, and did not presently burn them without reading, or showing them to any other person, they should be esteemed rebels, and, without any further delay, be executed according to the order of the martial law." On the 27th of that month, when seven were to be led out to be burnt in Smithfield, it was proclaimed in the queen's name, that no man should pray for them, or speak to them, or say, "God help them;" which was thought a strain of barbarity beyond all the examples of former times, to deprive dying men of the good wishes and prayers of their friends. But however this might restrain men from giving outward signs of their praying for them, it could not bind up their inward and secret devotions. Those seven had been taken at a meeting in Islington with many others; of whom some died in prison, and six others were burnt at Brainford the 14th of July. The rest of them were kept by Bonner, who now seemed to have been glutted with the blood of so many innocents, and therefore to have put a stop to the effusion of more: yet those that were kept prisoners by him, did not so entirely escape his fury, but that he disciplined them himself with rods, till he was weary; and so gave over that odd way of pastoral correction, rather to case himself, than in pity to them whom he whipped. On the 10th of July a minister was burnt at Norwich: on the 2nd or 3rd of August a gentleman was burut near Winchester in August four were burnt at Bury; and in November three more were burnt there. On the 4th of November a man and a woman were burnt at Ipswich: at that time a woman was burnt at Exeter: and, to close up all, on the 10th of November three men and two women were burnt at Canterbury, which made in all thirty-nine this year. There had been seventy-nine burnt the former year, ninety-four the year before that, and seventy-two the first year of the persecution; which in all come to two hundred and eighty-four. But he that writ the preface to bishop Ridley's book, De Coena Domini, who is supposed to be Grindal *, afterwards archbishop of Canterbury, says, that in the two first years of the queen's persecution there were above eight hundred put to most cruel kinds of death for religion: by which it seems Fox, on whom I depend in the numbers I have assigned, has come far short in his account t. Besides those that were burnt, many others

:

The author of the preface to Ridley's book was William Wittingham, according to Bale (pp. 684, 731), who knew the man very well, as well as his writings.ANON. CORRECT.

Lord Burleigh, in the "Execution of Justice," says, there died by imprisonments, torments, famine, and fire, ncur four hundred. On this we may depend.—STRYPE'S CORRECT.

died in bonds, of whom there are sixty reckoned. There were also great numbers of those who were vexed with long and grievous imprisonment: and though they redeemed their lives by the renouncing, or rather the dissembling of their consciences, yet this being but forced from them, they carried with them their old opinions; and the wound they gave their consciences to save their lives, as it begot in many of them great horror for what they had done, so it raised in them the most mortal hatred to those who had driven them to such straits: so that if that religion was hateful before to the nation, for the impostures and scandals that were discovered in the clergy, and some few instances of their cruelty, the repeated burnings, and other cruelties, of which now they saw no end, did increase their aversion to it beyond all expression.

The Method

At first the bishops dealt earnestly with those who were brought before them to recant, and were ready at any time to receive them: the queen's pardon was also sent of the Perse to them as they were ready to be tied to the stake, if they would then turn. cutions of this But now it was far otherwise. For in the council-books there is an entry mado Reign. of a letter, written on the 1st of August this year, to sir Richard Pexall, sheriff of Hampshire, signifying, "That the queen thought it very strange that he had delayed the execution of the sentence against one Bembridge, condemned of heresy, because he had recanted requiring him to execute it out of hand, and if he still continued in the catholic faith, which he outwardly pretended, he was then to suffer such divines as the bishop of Winchester should appoint, to have access to him for confirming him in the faith, and to attend on him at his death, that he might die God's servant: and as soon as the sheriff had thus burnt him, he was to come to the council, and answer for his presumption in delaying it so long." The matter of fact was thus: Bembridge being tied to the stake, and the fire taking hold on him, he, through the violence of it, yielded, and cried out, "I recant." Upon which, the sheriff made the fire be put out, and Bembridge signed such a recantation as doctor Seton, who was near him, writ for him: but for all that, upon this order of council, he was burnt, and the sheriff was put in the Fleet: so that now it appeared that it was not so much the conversion of those they called heretics, as their destruction, that tho bishops desired and so much were their instruments set on these severities, that though they saw the queen declining so fast, that there was no appearance of her living many days; yet the week before she died, they burnt, as hath been said, five together in one fire at Canterbury.

against

There was nothing done in the war with France this year, but the sending out a fleet of An unhappy one hundred and twenty ships, with seven thousand landmen in it, under the Expedition command of the lord Clinton, who landed at Port Conquet in the point of Brittany, where after a small resistance made by the French he burnt the France. town; but the country being gathered together, the English were forced to return to their ships, having lost above six hundred of their men. The design was to have scized on Brest and fortified it, which was proposed by king Philip, who had sent thirty of his ships to their assistance. This the French knowing by some of the prisoners whom they took, went and fortified Brest, and kept a great body of men together to resist in case the English should make a second impression. But the lord Clinton seeing he could do nothing, returned, having made a very expensive and unprosperous attempt. The English had lost their hearts; the government at home was so little acceptable to them, that they were not much concerned to support it; they began to think Heaven was against them. There were many strange accidents at home that struck terror in them. In July, Strange and thunder broke near Nottingham, with such violence, that it beat down two unusual Acci- little towns, with all the houses and churches in them: the bells were carried a good way from the steeples, and the lead that covered the churches was cast four hundred foot from them, strangely wreathed. The river of Trent, as it is apt upon deluges of rain to swell and overrun the country, so it broke out this year with extraordinary violence; many trees were plucked up by the roots, and with it there was such a wind, that carried several men and children a great way, and dashed them against trees or houses, so that they died. Hailstones fell that were fifteen inches about in other places: and, which was much more terrible, a contagious intermitting fever, not unlike the plague,

dents.

raged everywhere: so that three parts of four of the whole nation were infected with it. So many priests died of it, that in many places there were none to be had for the performing of the offices. Many bishops died also of it, so that there were many vacancies made by the hand of Heaven, against queen Elizabeth came to the crown: and it spreading most violently in August, there were not men enough, in many counties, to reap the harvest; so that much corn was lost. All these symptoms concurred to increase the aversion the people had to the government, which made the queen very willing to consent to a treaty of peace that was opened at Cambray in October, to which she sent the earl of Arundel, the bishop of Ely, and Dr. Wotton, as her plenipotentiaries.

The occasion of the peace was from a meeting that the bishop of Arras had with the cardinal of Lorraine at Peronne; in which he proposed to him how much Philip A Treaty of Peace bewas troubled at the continuance of the war; their forces being so much engaged tween Eug- in it that they could make no resistance to the Turk, and the meanwhile heresy land, France, increasing and spreading in their own dominions, while they were so taken up and Spain. that they could not look carefully to their affairs at home, but must connive at many things therefore he pressed the cardinal to persuade the king of France to an accommodation. The cardinal was easily induced to this, since besides his own zeal for religion, he saw that he might thereby bear down the constable's greatness; whose friends, chiefly his two nephews, the admiral and Dandelot, who went then among the best captains in France, were both suspect. of being protestants, upon which the latter was shortly after put in prison; so he used all his endeavours to draw the king to consent to it; in which he had the less opposition, since the court was now filled with his dependants and his four brothers, who had got all the great officers of France into their hands; and the constable and admiral being prisoners, there was none to oppose their councils. The king thinking that, by the recovery of Calais and the places about it, he had gained enough to balance the loss of St. Quintin, was very willing to hearken to a treaty; and he was in an ill state to continue the war, being much weakened both by the loss he suffered last year and the blow that he received in July last: the marshal de Thermes being inclosed by the The Battle of count of Egmont near Graveling, where the French army being set on by the Graveling. count, and galled with the English ordnance from their ships that lay near the land, was defeated, five thousand killed, the marshal and the other chief officers being taken prisoners. These losses made him sensible that his affairs were in so ill a condition, that ho could not gain much by the war.

The cardinal was the more carnest to bring on a peace, because the protestants did not The Number only increase in their numbers, but they came so openly to avow their religion, of the Pro- that in the public walks without the suburbs of St. Germain, they began to sing testants grow- David's Psalms in French verse. The newness of the thing amused many; the ing in France. devotion of it wrought on others; the music drew in the rest; so that the multitudes that used to divert themselves in those fields, instead of their ordinary sports, did now nothing for many nights but go about singing psalms: and that which made it more remarkable was, that the king and queen of Navarre came and joined with them. That king, besides the honour of a crowned head, with the small part of that kingdom that was yet left in their hands, was the first prince of the blood. He was a soft and weak man; but his queen, in whose right he had that title, was one of the most extraordinary women that any age hath produced, both for knowledge far above her sex, for a great judgment in affairs, an heroical greatness of mind, and all other virtues, joined to a high measure of devotion and true piety; all which, except the last, she derived to her son Henry the Great. When the king of France heard of this psalmody, he made an edict against it, and ordered the doers of it to be punished: but the numbers of them, and the respect to those crowned heads, made the business to go no further.

On the 24th of April was the dauphin married to the queen of Scotland. Four cardinals, The Dauphin Bourbon, Lorraine, Chastilion, and Bertrand, with many of the princes of the blood, and the other great men of France, and the commissioners sent from Scotland, were present. But scarce anything adorned it more than the Epithalamium written upon it by Buchanan, which was accounted one of the

marries the Queen of Scotland.

perfectest pieces of Latin poetry. After the marriage was over, the Scotch commissioners were desired to offer the dauphin the ensigns of the regality of Scotland, and to acknowledge him their king; but they excused themselves, since that was beyond their commission, which only empowered them to treat concerning the articles of the marriage, and to carry an account back to those that sent them. Then it was desired that they would promote the business at their return to their country; but some of them had expressed their aversion to those propositions so plainly, that it was believed they were poisoned by the brethren of the house of Guise. Four of them died in France, the bishop of Orkney, and the earls of Rothes and Cassils, and the lord Fleming. The prior of St. Andrew's was also very sick; and though he recovered at that time, yet he had never any perfect health after it. When the other four returned into Scotland, a convention of the estates was called, to consult about the propositions they brought.

:

This assembly consists of all those members that make up a parliament, who were then A Convention the bishops, and abbots, and priors, who made the first estate; the noblemen, of Estates in that were the second estate; and the doputics from the towns one from every Scotland. town, only Edinburgh sends two-were the third estate. Anciently, all that held lands of the crown were summoned to parliaments, as well the greater as the lesser barons. But in king James the First's time, the lesser barons finding it a great charge to attend on such assemblies, desired to be excused from it; and procured an act of parliament exempting them, and giving them power to send from every county, two, three, four, or morc, to represent them but they afterwards thought this rather a charge than a privilege, and did not use it; so that now the second estate consisted only of the nobility. But the gentry finding the prejudice they suffered by this, and that the nobility grew too absolute, procured, by king James the Sixth's favour, an act of parliament restoring them to that right of sending deputies, two from every county, except some small counties that send only one. But according to the ancient law, none has a vote in the elections but those who hold lands immediately of the crown of such a value. The difference between a parliament and a convention of estates is, that the former must be summoned forty days before it sits, and then it meets in state and makes laws, which are to be prepared by a committee of all the estates, called the lords of the articles: but a convention may be called within as few days as are necessary for giving notice to all parts of the nation to make their elections: they have no power of making laws, being only called for one particular emergent, which, during the division of the island, was chiefly upon the breaking out of war betwixt the two nations, and so their power was confined to the giving of money for the occasion which then brought them together.

In the convention now held, after much debate and opposition whether they should consent to the demand made by the ambassador sont from France, it was carried, that the dauphin should be acknowledged their king: great assurances being given, that this should be only a bare title, and that he should pretend to no power over them. So the carl of Argyle and the prior of St. Andrew's, who had been the main sticklers for the French interest, upon the promises that the queen-regent made them, that they should enjoy the free exercise of their religion, were appointed to carry the matrimonial crown into France. But as they were preparing for their journey, a great revolution of affairs fell out in England.

The parliament met on the 5th of November. On the 7th the queen sent for the speaker A Session of of the house of commons, and ordered him to open to them the ill condition the Parliament in nation was in: for though there was a treaty begun at Cambray, yet it was England. necessary to put the kingdom in a posture of defence, in case it should miscarry. But the commons were now so dissatisfied, that they could come to no resolution. So on the 14th day of November, the lord chancellor, the lord treasurer, the duke of Norfolk, the earls of Shrewsbury and Pembroke, the bishops of London, Winchester, Lincoln, and Carlisle, the viscount Mountacute, the lords Clinton and Howard, came down to the house of commons, and sate in that place of the house where the privy-councillors used to sit. The speaker left his chair, and he with the privy-councillors that were of the house, came and sato on low benches before them. The lord chancellor showed the necessity of granting