nobility by agitating the question of the resumption of the Church lands, declaring that they had been taken from the proper owners in the time of schism. She offered to resign those held by the Crown on the same principle; but Parliament would listen to neither of these propositions for some time, and finally only permitted the Government to restore the first-fruits, tenths, and impropriations, fearing that it might only be a prelude to a demand of the Church lands held by themselves. On the 12th of November, 1558, before the closing of the Parliament, Gardiner died, and Heath, the Archbishop of York, a man of much inferior talent, was made chancellor.
During Philip's absence in 1556, he sent continual demands for money. It was impossible to supply this, and it was contrary to the marriage treaty. Mary, in resigning the tenths and first-fruits, gave up an income of £60,000 a year; and when she applied to Parliament, the Commons asked whether it was reasonable that the subjects should be taxed to relieve the necessities of the sovereign when she refused to avail herself of the resources lawfully in her own hands. There were public complaints that Philip was draining the country for his own Continental purposes. Disappointed in Parliament, she next endeavoured to raise a loan. She named 1,000 persons, and demanded a contribution of £60 from each, to make up a sum of £60,000. Next 60,000 marks were levied on 7,000 yeomen, who had not contributed to the loan, and from the merchants £36,000. These sums not sufficing, still more extraordinary means were resorted to. Embargoes and prohibitions of exportation of goods were laid on to benefit merchants who had already goods in foreign markets, and who paid largely for this monopoly. Being refused a loan by the English Company in Antwerp, three ships laden with goods for the Antwerp fair were seized in the English ports, and detained till they agreed to the loan of £60,000 and to a charge of twenty shillings on each piece of goods.
Whilst Mary at home was thus incurring great odium by these arbitrary measures, her heartless husband, for whom the money was extorted, was living a dissolute life, and even ridiculing the person and manners of his wife amongst his courtiers. But though he could be jocose on this subject, so disgraceful in a husband, his influence on the country of his wife was disastrous and oppressive. All who were inclined to maintain their fidelity to the reformed opinions, were safe only in the deepest retirement. The Earls of Oxford, Westmorland, and Bedford, and the Lord Willoughby got into trouble on account of their religion, and Bedford was imprisoned for a short time. Even Sir Ralph Sadler, who had shown so little conscience in his Scotch diplomacy, retired to his rural mansion at Hackney, and avoided exciting attention till the accession of Elizabeth. Sir William Cecil, the soul of caution itself, having in vain tried to get into the service of Queen Mary, studied to avoid the observation of her ministers, and is said to have laid down a plan for the conduct of the Princess Elizabeth during this hazardous period, which she afterwards repaid by high honours and deep confidence. But the treatment of one illustrious man at this period excited great indignation amongst the liberal party. Sir John Cheke, one of the finest scholars of the age, whose name Milton apostrophises in his sonnets, as he
"Who first taught Cambridge and King Edward Greek,"
had taken part in the attempt to place Lady Jane Grey on the throne. He was thrown into the Tower, but was, after a while, liberated, and allowed to retire to the Continent. There he stayed some time, at Basle, in Switzerland, enjoying the Protestant worship. Thence he visited Rome, and returned safe to Flanders on his way homewards. Philip, hearing of his visit to his old friends, Lord Paget and Sir John Mason, Mary's ambassadors to the Netherlands, and now converts to Romanism, had him seized on the road betwixt Antwerp and Brussels, bound hand and foot, thrown into a cart, and carried off to a vessel bound for England. He was conveyed, gagged and muffled, to the Tower, where he was, through fear of death, compelled to sign his recantation, and have it published in the most humiliating manner. He is even said to have been compelled to sit on the bench by Bonner, and take part in persecuting those of his own faith. These shameful oppressions so affected him as to terminate his life at the age of forty-seven.
The hateful Star Chamber was now in full operation. It was, in fact, an English inquisition. Commissioners were empowered to inquire into heresies, and sale or possession of heretical books, to seize all persons offending in such particulars, and bring them to trial. They were authorised to break open houses, to search premises, compel attendance of witnesses, and to apply torture where they met with any stubbornness. Informers and secret spies abounded; they were to give secret information to the justices, and these were to examine the prisoners secretly and without permitting them to see their accusers. Nothing but the name of the Inquisition was wanting, for there were in active operation all its main elements—spies, secret seizure and imprisonment, tortures and the stake. Crimes grew and multiplied with the reign of terror; fifty-two malefactors were executed at Oxford at one assizes; yet this did not clear the highways of thieves, and some of these were of aristocratic rank. A son of Lord Sandys was hanged in London for a robbery on Whit Sunday of property valued at £4,000. A son of Sir Edmund Peckham and one John Daniel were hanged soon afterwards and beheaded, on Tower Hill, for an attempt to rob the Treasury. There were deep discontents and plots, and in Norfolk, one Clever, who had been a schoolmaster, and three brothers of the name of Lincoln, were hanged, drawn, and quartered for an attempt at insurrection. To complete the dismal catalogue of the miseries of this gloomy time, fires and fatal maladies raged in the cities.
The Emperor Charles V., at the age of only fifty-five, had now resigned his immense empire to his son; and Spain, the Netherlands, Naples, Sicily, Milan, and the new and beautiful lands of South America, owned Philip as their lord. On the 25th of October, 1555, Charles, in an assembly of the States of the Netherlands, formally resigned the government of these countries to Philip, and in a few months later he also put him in possession of all his other governments. He then retired to the monastery of St. Just, near Placentia, on the borders of Spain and
