day, supposed to flow from those hands by the mysterious efficiency of Apostolical succession; so much so that without the consecrated garments a priest could not be sure that the neces sary virtue flowed from his acts to make them valid. Accordingly, when Bishop Latimer was clad in the garments in order to be ceremoniously divested and degraded previously to his being burned;-as soon as the consecrated robes were torn off from him, he cried out in derision, "Now I can make no more holy water."

John Rogers, the proto-martyr in Queen Mary's reign, peremptorily refused to wear the garments, unless the popish priests were enjoined to wear upon their sleeves, by way of distinction, a chalice with a host. When Dr. Taylor was clad in the same preparatory to being burned, he walked about saying, "How say you, my lord, am I not a goodly fool? If I were in Cheapside, would not the boys laugh at these foolish toys and apish trumpery?" And when the surplice was pulled off, "Now," says he, "I am rid of a fool's coat." When they were pulling the same off from Archbishop Cranmer, he meekly replied, "All this needed not: I myself had done with this gear long ago."[Neale.]

Clad in these robes, the priest at the mass was considered (to use the words of Challonar's Catholic Christian Instructed) as Christ's Vicegerent, and officiating in his person." The same author informs us that the Amice, the Alb, the girdle, the maniple, the stole, the chasuble, represent the cloth with which Christ's face was muffled, the white garment in which he was arrayed, the bands with which he was fastened, and the purple garment which was put on him. The great cross on the back represents the cross which he bore; and the tonsure, the crown of thorns. Such were the superstitions and corruptions with which the priestly garments stood connected. Hooper thought he could not use them without abetting the superstitions of Popery. Bucer at Cambridge, and Peter Martyr at Oxford, to whom he applied for advice, declared against the garments as the inventions of antichrist. Most of the Reforming clergy agreed with Hooper in opinion. Hooper was thrown into prison because he declined being made a bishop, on condition of being obliged to wear the garments. Afterwards a compromise was effected; Hooper consented to wear the robes at his consecration, and when he preached before the king in his Cathedral, and was allowed a dispensation at other times.

King Edward was now rapidly descending to the grave. The Reformers could do no more. Six years only had been allowed them to begin the work of Reformation, when the Bloody Mary ascended the throne and committed them to the flames.

V.

REIGN OF QUEEN MARY.

Her duplicity. Restoration of Popery. Re-ordination of Clergymen ordained by King Edward's Book. Kingdom reconciled to the Pope. Burning of the Reformers. A Puritan Church discovered: its officers burned. Exiles at Frankfort

It is now 290 years* since the popish Mary came to the crown of England, and interrupted the fair work of the Reformers. Never did the blasting breath of the Sirocco, or the pestilence, mark its course with more ample tokens of its destructive power, than that brief five years' reign of the Bloody Mary. Six years only had elapsed since the death of Henry VIII.; six years only were allowed to the Reformers to effect and consolidate the Reformation; five years more brought the nation back into the chains of Popery, and gave the long list of Reformers to the flames. We can hardly bring our minds to admit the reality that these things transpired in England within the last 300 years.

The character of Mary is no less accurately than briefly drawn in the words of the historian Hume: "Mary possessed all the qualities fitted to compose a bigot; and her extreme ignorance rendered her utterly incapable of doubt in her own belief, or indulgence to the opinions of others. She possessed few qualities either estimable or amiable; and her person was as little engaging as her behavior and address. Obstinacy, bigotry, violence, cruelty, revenge, tyranny, every circumstance of her character took a tincture from her bad temper and narrow understanding." To this we may add that she most conscientiously thought, that in committing the Reformers to the flames, she was doing the most acceptable service to God.

Her reign was answerable to these principles and this description. The long and sickening details of the horrid cruelties practised, we cannot now pursue to any extent. They should however be read and pondered; and works containing the his

* 1843.

tory in extended form are now accessible among the cheap publications of the day.*

Mary had promised that she would make no alteration in religion, and to this promise she was in no small measure indebted for her bloodless succession to the throne in opposition to the claims of Lady Jane Grey. Upon this promise the men of Suffolk joined her standard, and at once decided the question. A few days after her entrance into London, she declared in Council, that though her conscience was settled in matters of religion, she had resolved not to compel others but by the preaching of the Word. Within one week from that day, she prohibited all preaching throughout the realm, without special license. "It was easy to foresee," says Hume, "that none but Catholics would be favored with this privilege." The men of Suffolk took the alarm; and presuming upon their services, sent a deputation to represent their grievances; but the queen rebuked their insolence; and one of them venturing to speak of her promise, he was "put in the pillory for three days together and deprived of his ears." In three days more, the popish bishops, Bonner, Gardiner, Tonstal and others, were reinstated in their sees. Hooper, Coverdale, Taylor, and Rogers, were taken into custody. Within a fortnight more, Cranmer and Latimer were sent to the Tower. The storm gathered thick and fast: many hundreds of the clergy and principal men fled beyond sea: among whom were Sampson, Sandys, Reynolds, Knox the reformer of Scotland, Fox the martyrologist, and Grindal and Jewell, afterwards archbishops.

The popish priests began to celebrate mass in the churches where they had control. The Protestant ministers and churches began to be openly insulted and hindered in their worship. A Judge Hales, who ventured to govern his conduct by the unrepealed laws of the realm, rather than according to what he might have conjectured to be the pleasure of the queen, was fined a ruinous sum, and by rough treatment driven to distraction and suicide.

Two months had not quite elapsed when the queen was crowned by Gardiner, attended by ten bishops, all in their mitres, copes and crosiers, though contrary to law. Ten days after, the parliament was opened by a Mass of the Holy Ghost in the Latin tongue, celebrated by both houses, with all the ancient ceremonies, though forbidden by law.

All his

The service book of King Edward was abolished. laws for the reforming of public worship were repealed. In little more than four months from the queen's accession, the old

*"Fox's Book of Martyrs" is among these cheap publications, in which authentic accounts are found in full detail. "The Days of Queen Mary," prepared by the London Tract Society, has recently been re-published in cheap form in this country.

Romish service in Latin was by law resumed throughout the realm. Severe laws were made against all who should treat the Mass with irreverence; and it was made felony for more than twelve persons to assemble together with an intent to alter the religion established by law. The Convocation met with Bonner in the chair; and all who had a right to sit, save six, subscribed the doctrine of transubstantiation.

The queen now issued her orders, directing all the ceremonies, holidays, and feasts of King Henry's time to be revoked. Those clergymen who had been ordained by the late service book, were to be re-ordained; and all people compelled to come to church. "The Mass," says Neale, "was set up in all places; and the old popish ceremonies revived. The carvers and makers of statues had a quick trade for roods and other images that were to be set up in the churches. The most eminent preachers were already under confinement, and about three thousand more were in this visitation deprived."

Cardinal Pole was by this time come from Rome as Legate of the Pope, with power to receive the kingdom once more into the bosom of the Catholic Church. The parliament drew up a supplication to Mary and her husband, Philip of Spain, to intercede with the legate of his holiness that England might be graciously pardoned the damnable offence of departing from Rome. This intercession the legate kindly admitted; and sitting covered, with the lords and commons kneeling before him, he mercifully granted a full absolution; only enjoining as a penance that they should repeal all laws passed against Romanism. This being done, all proceeded to the chancel, and with great joy sung praise to God for such singular mercy. One man in parliament, and only one, refused to kneel before this deputy of a foreign priest; and that man was Sir Ralph Bagnel; a name, for this alone, worthy of lasting honor.

The kingdom being now restored to the Papacy, the next thing to be done was to take care of the Reformers. It has been the uniform custom of Rome, wherever she has had the power,whenever a Reformation has broken out within her pale, to overwhelm the rising movement in blood. "Drunken with the blood of the saints," has been her true description from age to age. The Inquisitions of Spain;-those dungeons of secresy and torture, the sighing and tears and blood of whose victims will never be fully revealed till the Day of Judgment;-the Crusades against the Christians of Piedmont; the dragooning of the Huguenots and the massacre of the Protestants on St. Bartholomew's day in France ;-these things have marked her character in all countries and all ages. It is her boast to be infallible-never to err and never to change. One of

her modern catechisms (I quote from the "Days of Queen Mary," by the London Tract Society) uses the following language: "It is not to be denied that heretics and schismatics, because they have revolted from the Church (for they no more belong to it than deserters do to the army which they have abandoned), it is not however to be denied that they are in the power of the Church as persons who may be PUNISHED, and doomed by ANATHEMA TO DAMNATION." Pope Pius VII., in A. D. 1805, writing his nuncio in Vienna, says: "We have fallen on times so calamitous and humiliating to the spouse of Jesus Christ, that it is not possible for her to practise, nor expedient for her to recall so holy maxims; and she is FORCED to interrupt the course of her JUST SEVERITIES against the enemies of the faith."

Rome now had the power once more in her own hands; and England was at her mercy. The old sanguinary laws against dissenters from her faith and worship were restored in all their severity. Henry VIII., though a bloody monster, who never hesitated to burn such as he judged to be heretics,—had yet made a merciful alteration in the laws. No person was any longer to be seized and imprisoned, or doomed to death, at the mere pleasure of an ecclesiastic. The civil power was required to concur. The accused was to be condemned only by a course of law, and upon the verdict of a jury. The ecclesiastical authorities were now once more empowered to seize any person, and confine him, without trial, at their pleasure, in prisons wholly under their own control. Such prisons the Bishops had, and they used them without mercy. When the prisoner was brought forth, it was not to stand before the tribunals of law, but before mere arbitrary prelates, whose law was their caprice. He was not allowed the privileges granted to the most atrocious criminal. "There was no jury to decide; no judge humanely examining the evidence brought forward by the accuser; no counsel to advise, or to make such inquiries as the case suggested; no friends whose presence might show the poor prisoner that there were some to sympathize in his fate. There was no open examination of witnesses; nor was the prisoner allowed to call for persons whose testimony might disprove the accusation against him." I have taken these last sentences from "the Days of Queen Mary," by the London Tract Society; and a better general description of these scenes cannot be given, than that given by the same tract in the following words: "After enduring an arbitrary imprisonment, generally in a loathsome dungeon, loaded with fetters, debarred from the necessaries of life,-view the prisoner, enfeebled with long confinement, brought before the cruel and iniquitous Bonner, or some one of like spirit,-whenever his