A.D. 1553.]

not reach England, gave the queen the soundest advice by letter, namely, not to marry at all; and his advice was earnestly seconded by his friend, Friar Peyto, the same plain speaker who had so startled Henry from his pulpit at Greenwich by denouncing his seizure of the monastic church, and whom Cromwell had therefore threatened to sew up in a sack and fling into the Thames. Peyto had retired to the Continent and resided in the cardinal's house. He now wrote to Mary with as much honest plainness as he had spoken to her father. "Do not marry," he said, "or you will be the slave of a young husband. Besides, at your age the chance of bringing heirs to the throne is doubtful, and, moreover, must be dangerous to your life."

Nothing, however, could move Mary from her project of matrimony. Giving up Courtenay, who was the slave of low vices, she now consulted her great relative, the emperor, her invariable counsellor in all serious matters. The advice from such a quarter could only be of one character. Mary, as a child, had been betrothed to Charles himself, but she then appeared so distant from the throne that he had cavalierly given her up. He now wrote in a strain of the most delicate flattery, which, without saying that he repented of his conduct, expressed it. He fully approved, he said, of the reasons which induced her to relinquish all idea of Courtenay, and only regretted that Pole, so worthy of her, declined all worldly distinctions for the sacred duties of the Church. Were he of fitting age, he would himself aspire to the honour of her hand, but that not being suitable, whom could he offer her more dear to him than his own son? The advantages of such an alliance, he said, were too prominent to need pointing out, but he would not say a word to bias her judgment; on the contrary, he entreated her to reflect seriously, but without any restraint, on the proposition, and then inform him of the result.

But though Charles put on such a paternal and disinterested air, his ambassador, Renard, was at the queen's elbow to give all the colouring of his rhetoric to the scheme, to expatiate on the beauty and accomplishments of Philip, and on the splendour of the position which such a union of crowns would confer on them above all the world. Mary listened to the proposal with unconcealed pleasure, a pleasure far from reciprocated on the part of Philip, who was only twenty-six years of age, and earnestly entreated his father not to marry him to a woman eleven years older than himself. The union was privately and quickly agreed upon. The wary emperor, however, advised Mary to keep the contract secret for the present, as some of her ministers were desirous that the queen should wed the archduke, his nephew, and all were opposed to the Spanish alliance.

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greatly disliked by his own people, and it was not likely that he would be tolerated by the English; that alliance with Spain meant perpetual war with France, which would never suffer the Netherlands to be annexed to the Crown of England. The rest of Mary's Council took up the same strain, with the exception of the old Duke of Norfolk and the Lords Arundel and Paget. The Protestant party out of doors were furious against the match, declaring that it was meant to bring the Inquisition into the country, to rivet Popery upon it, and to make England the slave of taxation to the Spaniards. The Parliament took up the subject with equal hostility, and the Commons sent their Speaker to her, attended by a deputation of twenty members, praying Her Majesty not to marry a foreigner.

Noailles, the French ambassador, was delighted with this movement, and took much credit to himself for inciting influential parties to it; but Mary believed it to originate with Gardiner, and the lion spirit of her father coming over her, she vowed that she would prove a match for the cunning of the Chancellor. That very night she sent for the Spanish ambassador, and bidding him follow her into her private oratory, she there knelt down before the altar, and after chanting the hymn, "Veni Creator Spiritus," she made a vow to God that she would marry Philip of Spain, and whilst she lived, no other man but him. Thus she put it out of her power, if she kept her vow, to marry any other person should she outlive Philip, showing the force of the paroxysm of determination which was upon her. The effort would seem to have been very violent, for immediately after she was taken ill, and continued so for some days.

It was on the last day of October that this curious circumstance took place, and on the 17th of November she sent for the House of Commons, when the Speaker read the address giving her their advice regarding her marriage; and, instead of the Chancellor returning the answer, as was the custom, Mary answered herself, thanking them for their care that she should have a succession in her own children, but rebuking them for presuming to dictate to her the choice of a husband. She declared that the marriages of her predecessors had always been free, a privilege which, she assured them, she was resolved to maintain. At the same time, she added, she should be careful to make such a selection as should contribute both to her own happiness and to that of her people.

The plain declaration of the queen to her Parliament was not necessary to inform those about her who were interested in the question; they had speedy information of her having favoured the Spanish suit, and Noailles was certainly mixed up in conspiracies to defeat it. It was proposed to place Courtenay at the head of the reformed party, and if Mary would not consent to marry him, to

Spanish match; to marry Elizabeth to Courtenay, and raise the standard of rebellion in Devonshire. It appears from the despatches of Noailles that the Duke of Suffolk, the father of Lady Jane Grey, was in this conspiracy. But the folly and the unstable character of their hero, Courtenay, was fatal to their design, and of that Noailles very soon became sensible. It was proposed by some of the parties that Courtenay should steal away from Court,

get across to France, and thence join the conspirators in Devonshire; but Noailles opposed this plan, declaring that the moment Courtenay quitted the coast of England his chance was utterly lost; and he wrote to his own Government, saying that the scheme would fall to nothing; for although Courtenay and Elizabeth were fitting persons to cause a rising, that such was the want of decision of Courtenay, that he would let himself be taken before he would act-the thing which actually came to pass.

On the 6th of December the queen dissolved Parliament, and took an affectionate leave of Elizabeth, who went to her seat at Ashridge. There had not been wanting whisperers to sow dissension betwixt the sisters, by representing Elizabeth as cognisant of the conspiracies with Courtenay, and of having received nocturnal visits from Noailles. The queen questioned the princess on

chamber, where Gardiner, who had found it necessary to relinquish his opposition, stated to them the proposed conditions of the treaty. The greatest care was evidently taken to disarm the fears of the English, and nothing could appear more moderate than the terms of this alliance. Philip and Mary were to confer on each other the titles of their respective kingdoms, but each kingdom was still to be governed by its own laws and constitution. None but English subjects were to hold office in this country, not even in the king's private service. If the queen had an heir, it was to be her successor in her own dominions, and also in all Philip's dominions of Burgundy, Holland, and Flanders, which were for ever to become part and parcel of England. This certainly, on the face of it, was a most advantageous condition for England, but which, had it taken effect, would undoubtedly have proved a most disastrous one, involving

these heads, professed herself quite satisfied of Elizabeth not having received any such visits from the French ambassador, and closing her ears against all attempts to make her sister suspected by her, she presented her on her departure with two sets of large pearls, and several rosaries splendidly studded with jewels.

us perpetually in the wars and struggles of the Continent, and draining these islands to defend those foreign territories. Providence protected this nation from the alluring mischief. Another condition of the treaty was that Mary was not to be carried out of the kingdom except at ber own request, nor any of her children, except by the can

Marve the queue

Autograph of Queen Mary.

by the Emperor, headed by the Counts Egmont and Lalain, the Lord of Courrieres, and the Sieur de Nigry, landed in Kent, to arrange the marriage betwixt Mary and Philip. The unpopularity of this measure was immediately manifested, for the men of Kent, taking Egmont for Philip, rose in fury, and would have torn him to pieces if they could have got hold of him. Having, however, reached Westminster in safety, on the 14th of January, a numerous assembly of nobles, prelates, and courtiers was summoned to the queen's presence

in the matter. Philip was not to entangle England in the Continental wars of his father, nor to appropriate azy of the naval or military resources of this country, or the property or jewels of the Crown, to any foreign purposes. If there was no issue of the marriage, all the conditices of the treaty at once became void, and Philip ceased to be king even in name. If he died first, which was not very probable, Mary was to enjoy a dower of 60,000 ducats per annum, secured on lands in Spain and Flanders. No mention was made of any payment to Philip if he were the survivor. But there was one little clause, which stipulated that Philip should aid Mary in governing her kingdom-an ominous word, which might be made of vast significance.

By this treaty the interests of Don Carlos, the son of Philip by a former marriage, were strargely overlooked,

A.D. 1554.]

and to his intense indignation. In case of children by this new marriage, Burgundy and Flanders were to pass away from him, and if he had himself no issue, Spain, Sicily, Milan, and the rest of the Spanish territories were to fall to Mary's offspring.

Notwithstanding all these promises of aggrandisement to England, the match acquired no favour in the eyes of the people. The next day, the Lord Mayor, aldermen, and forty of the most eminent citizens of London were summoned to Court, and Gardiner there made known to them what had taken place, and detailed all the conditions, amplifying and making them as imposing as possible, and bidding these City authorities rejoice in so auspicious an event. But the affair by this means becoming known to the public, there was such a ferment that the Spanish embassy was glad to get away in safety. Many years after, Elizabeth, reminded of it by the opposition to a proposed marriage of her own just as unpopular, wrote to Stafford, her ambassador in France, her reminiscences of it:-"It happened," she said, "in Queen Mary's days, that, when a solemn embassade of five or six at least were sent from the Emperor and King of Spain, even after her marriage articles were signed and sealed, and the matter divulged, the danger was so near the queen's chamber-door, that it was high time for those messengers to depart without leave taking, and bequeath themselves to the speed of the river stream, and by water pass by with all possible haste to Gravesend."

Within five days came the startling news that three insurrections had broken out in different quarters of the kingdom. One was a-foot in the midland counties, where the Duke of Suffolk and the Grey family had property and influence. There the cry was for the Lady Jane. Mary had been so completely deceived by the Duke of Suffolk, whom she had pardoned and liberated from the Tower, and in return for which he affected so hearty an approval of her marriage, that she instantly thought of him as the man to put down the other rebellions, and sending for him, found that he and his brothers, Lord Thomas and Lord John Grey, had ridden off with a strong body of horse to Leicestershire, proclaiming Lady Jane in every town through which they passed. They found no response to th ir cry, a fact which any but the most rash speculators might have been certain of. The Earl of Huntingdon, a relative of the queen's, took the field against the Greys, who by their folly brought certain death to Lady Jane, and defeated them near Coventry, upon which they fled for their lives.

The second insurrection was in the west, under Sir Peter Carew, whose project was to place Elizabeth and Courtenay, Earl of Devon, on the throne, and restore the Protestant religion. These parties, as well as the third under Sir Thomas Wyatt, had consented to act together, and thus paralyse the efforts of Mary, by the simultaneous outbreak in so many quarters. But the miserable folly of their plans became evident at once. They did not even unite in the choice of the same person as their future monarch, and had they put down Mary, must then have come to blows amongst themselves. Carew found Devonshire as indifferent to his call as the Greys had found Leicestershire. Courtenay was to have put himself at their head, but never went;

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and Carew, Gibbs, and Champernham called on the people of Exeter to sign an address to the queen, stating that they would have no Spanish despot. Tho people of Devon gave no support to the movement. The Earl of Bedford appeared at the head of the queen's troops. A number of the conspirators were seized, and Carew with others fled to France.

But the most formidable section of this tripartite rebellion was that under Sir Thomas Wyatt. Wyatt was the son of Sir Thomas Wyatt the poet, the friend of Surrey and of Anne Boleyn. He had accompanied his father on an embassy to Spain, where the latter fell into danger of the Inquisition, and he had conceived such a dreadful idea of the bigotry and cruelty of the Spaniards, that, though he was a Papist, and had been one of the foremost to support Mary, and to oppose Northumberland, a relative of his own, he now determined to risk his very life to prevent the establishment of a Spanish prince and Spanish notions in England. He had, therefore, readily entered into the conspiracy with Suffolk and Carew, and undertook to attempt the seizure of the Tower, where Lady Jane and her husband lay, and the possession of London, whilst the other insurgent chiefs raised the country. He unfurled the standard of revolt in Kent, and 1,500 men immediately ranged themselves round it, and 5,000 more declared themselves ready at the first call to march out and join him. He fixed his head-quarters at Rochester, having a fleet of five sail, under his associate Winter, which brought him ordnance and ammunition. Wyatt was only a youth of twenty-three, but he was fall of both courage and enthusiasm, and endeavoured to rouse the people of Canterbury to follow him. There, however, he was not successful, and this cast a damp upon his adherents. Sir Robert Southwell defeated a party of the insurgents under Knevet, and the Lord Abergavenny another party under Isley, and the spirits of his troops began to sink rapidly. Many of his supporters sent to the Council, offering to surrender on promise of full pardon, and a little delay would probably have witnessed the total dispersion of his force.

But on the 29th of January, the Duke of Norfolk marched from London with a detachment of the guards under Sir Henry Jerningham. On reaching Rochester they found Wyatt encamped in the ruins of the old castle, and the bridge bristling with cannon, and with well-armed Kentishmen. Norfolk endeavoured to dissolve the hostile force by sending a herald to proclaim a pardon to all that would lay down their arms, but Wyatt would not permit him to read the paper. Nortolk then ordered his troops to force the bridge; but this duty falling to a detachment of 500 of the train-bands of the city under Captain Brett, the moment they reached the bridge Brett turned round, and addressed his followers thus:-"Masters, we go about to fight against our native countrymen of England, and our friends, in a quarrel unrightful and wicked; for they, considering the great miseries that are like to fall upon us, if we shall be under the rule of the proud Spaniards, or strangers, are here assembled to make resistance to their coming, for the avoiding the great mischiefs likely to alight not only upon themselves, but upon every of us and the whole realm; wherefore I think no English