had been strangely blended together, and stamped into her heart by sad and solemn memories. Her mother had been compelled to give place to another queen, who had the reputation of favouring the Reformers. With her mother's persecutions her own commenced. When her mother was declared not to be the lawful wife of Henry, she was declared to be illegitimate. Anne Boleyn, that mother's successful rival, had been her harsh stepmother and bitter enemy, sowing hatred against her in her father's mind, which conduct she deeply repented in the hour of death. Her father and her father's ministers had banished her from Court, shut her up in country houses surrounded by spies, and pursued her with constant annoyance to compel her to renounce her mother's faith. She had been forced to sign humiliating deeds, acknowledging her birth illegitimate, and her religion a vile superstition. This treatment had been continued through the reign of her brother, and by his last act she was again branded as a heretic and a bastard; and both on the plea of her birth and her religion excluded from the throne. It would have been a wonder if she had not been stiffened into a bigot by a long course of outrage; and still more, if leaning with a kindly feeling on her mother's family, as those who alone had shown any regard for her, any disposition to defend her interests, she had not been encouraged by their counsels to rebuild the religious fabric which her enemies had thrown down.
Cranmer was tho most prominent figure in the ranks of the hostile religionists. He was, and had been, the grand leader of the movement. It was he who had first advised the abandonment of the Papal authority, and the procedure to her mother's divorce on the authority of universities and of learned jurists. It was he who declared Catherine's marriage null, and that of Anne Boleyn legal; he who had sanctioned the assumption of the supremacy of the Church by her father, Henry; and who had framed and established the reformed creed under her brother. In Mary's eyes Cranmer appeared an arch-heretic, and the main designer and executor of the mischief that had taken place. It was not to be expected that she would long leave him in the continuance of a career which she regarded as equally illegal and unholy. One of her first acts was to order him to confine himself to his palace at Lambeth, thus interdicting the exorcise of his archiepiscopal functions. Whilst thus confined to his house, word was brought him that the old service had been performed in his cathedral at Canterbury; and what mortified him still more, was to learn that it was commonly reported that this was by his own consent, if not direction. He had during the reign of Henry VIII. been so timid in the assertion of his real opinions—had, out of terror of death, so long sacrificed his conscience to his safety, swearing to the Six Articles of the tyrant, and even submitting to sit in judgment on Protestants, and to sentence them to death for the courageous avowal of opinions which he held himself, yet dared not disclose—that the public now were ready enough to believe that he would again conform to the commands of a Papist queen, rather than renounce his lofty station, and run the risk of the stake. But Cranmer now displayed a courage more worthy of himself. Assisted by his friend, Peter Martyr, he put forth a declaration of his opinions, boldly designating Romanism as the invention of the devil, and the doctrines and ritual established by Edward VI. as those held and practised by the primitive Church. He vindicated himself from the charge of apostacy, and declared that the mass had not been performed in his church at Canterbury by any order or permission of his, but was the act of a false, time-serving monk. He offered to show to the queen the many false doctrines and terrible blasphemies contained in the Papal missal. Copies of this manifesto having found their way into tho streets, the archbishop was arrested and brought before the Council on the 13th of September, and after a long hearing was committed to the Tower for treason against the queen, and for aggravating the same by spreading abroad seditious bills, and moving tumults amongst the people. A few days after, Latimer was also arrested on a similar charge, and sent to the Tower for "his seditious demeanour."
The Royal advisers, increasing in boldness, counselled the same rigorous treatment of the heretic Princess Elizabeth. They declared that the Reformers were looking to her as their hope for the restoration of their Church, and that Mary could only be safe by placing her in custody. Mary would not listen to these suggestions. She rather hoped to win over the mind of Elizabeth by persuasion than by attempts of coercion, which had succeeded so ill in her own case. Elizabeth, however, showed no signs of changing her religion, till it was suggested that her firmness resulted not from any conscientious views, but from the prospects of superseding her sister on account of her faith, which was held out to her by the Reformers. Elizabeth is said then to have expressed a willingness to inquire into the grounds of the old religion, to have finally professed herself a convert, and to have established a chapel in her own house. Such are the statements of the French and Spanish ambassadors, and Mary showed the utmost regard for Elizabeth, taking her by the hand on all great occasions, and never dining in public without her.
The accession of Mary was a joyful event to the Papal Court. Julius III. appointed Cardinal Pole his legate to the queen; but Pole was by no means in haste, without obtaining further information, to fill this office in a country where the people, whose sturdy character he well know, had to so great an extent imbibed the doctrines of the Reformation. Dandino, tho Papal legate at Brussels, therefore dispatched a gentleman of his suite to proceed to London and cautiously spy out the land. Before making himself known, this emissary, Gianfrancesco Commendone, went about London for some days gathering up all evidences of the public feeling on the question of the Church. He then procured a private interview with Mary, and was delighted to hear from her own lips that she was fully resolved on reconciling her kingdom to the Papal See, and meant to obtain the repeal of all laws restricting the doctrines or discipline of the Roman Church; but that it required caution, and that no trace of any correspondence with Rome must come to light.
Mary was, however, inclined to go faster and farther than some of her advisers, and Gardiner, though so staunch a Papist, was too much of an Englishman to wish to see the supremacy restored to the Pontiff. But others were not so patriotic. Throughout the kingdom
