and he was induced to transcribe and sign other recantations. Eventually, however, in the Church of St Mary, on the day appointed for his execution, when a full and complete declaration of his penitence which should edify the religious world was expected, he astonished his audience by a complete disavowal of all his previous recantations, which were no less than six in number; and, when he was led forth to die, his vacillation in the prison was forgotten in his heroism at the stake. Suffering, ostensibly, as a heretic, Cranmer really expiated by his death the share which he had taken in procuring Henry's first divorce.
To the reactionary feelings which were discernible in Mary's third Parliament the martyrdoms that had taken place between February and October, 1555, had lent no slight additional strength; while those of Ridley and Latimer, only a few days before the assembling of her fourth Parliament on October 21, must have been especially fresh in men's memories. The attention of the new House was first invited to the needs of the royal exchequer, and Gardiner, as Chancellor, exerted all his powers to induce the assembly to grant a substantial subsidy. His demands were acceded to, although not without some opposition; and the gift of a million pounds-the payment of which, in the case of the laity, was to be extended over two years, in that of the clergy, over four-gave promise of effective relief; the latter body, if we may credit Pole, accepting their share of the burden with exemplary cheerfulness. To Mary, however, this satisfactory result must have appeared dearly purchased, involving as it did the loss of her Chancellor. In urging upon Parliament the necessities of the realm, Gardiner's oratorical efforts, combined with the dropsy from which he was suffering, brought on complete exhaustion; and although he sufficiently recovered to admit not only of his removal from Whitehall to Winchester House, but even of his presence at the Cabinet Councils which the ministers came from Greenwich to attend, it soon became apparent that his days were numbered. On November 12 he died. The reports which gained credit among his enemies, of his penitence and self-reproach in his last hours, have been shown by circumstantial evidence to be fabrications. Michiel, one of the least prejudiced, as he was certainly one of the most competent, observers, recalls the late Chancellor's untiring energy, wide practical knowledge, keen insight into character, and consummate tact, and represents his loss as irreparable; an estimate which the undisguised joy of the French party at the event seems only to confirm. The great prelate was ultimately laid to rest in his own Cathedral, to which he had bequeathed a third of his private fortune, and where his chantry chapel, in the Renaissance style, still preserves his -ïiemory.
On the day preceding Gardiner's death a bill was read in the House of Lords whereby the Crown surrendered into the hands of the Roman pontiff the first-fruits and tenths of all ecclesiastical benefices—for "the discharge of our conscience," as Mary subsequently expressed it in a
