had placed the widow of Henry in the tomb, his own beheaded body was, by the execution of legal vengeance, deposited at her side; a just retribution, if the suspicion of society had any foundation, that to achieve the larger machinations of his inflated vanity, 115 he had hastened, as she herself seemed to 115 and twelve others of the state council, is dated 17th March 1549, appointing the following Wednesday for the fatal day. Burn. p. 226. He was beheaded on the 20th. He died, denying that he had committed treason; and whenever we read of bills of attainder, we may infer, that whatever the person has done, he has not committed any legal treason that could be legally proved. They imply the want of that legal evidence or legal crime which would ensure a condemnation. Stowe, 596. Bishop Godwin remarks, that she died not without suspicion of poison.' p. 227. Lady Tyrwhyt thus describes one of her last scenes, which we cannot read without some misgivings, altho they may be too uncharitable: 'Two days before the death of the queen, at my coming to her in the morning, she asked me where I had been so long; she did fear such things in herself that she was sure she could not live. Whereunto I answered, as I thought, that I saw no likelihood of death in her. She then, having my lord admiral by the hand, and divers others standing by, spoke these words, partly as I took it, idly:- My lady Tyrwhyt! I am not well handled; for those that be about me careth not for me, but standeth laughing at my grief; and the more good I will to them, the less good they will to me.' By what follows, it is obvious that her husband applied this to himself. Whereunto my lord admiral answered, Why sweetheart! I would do you no hurt.' And she said to him again aloud, 'No, my lord! I think so.' And immediately she said to him in his ear, But, my lord! you have given me many shrewd taunts.' These words, Í perceived, she spake with good memory, and very sharply and earnestly, for her mind was sore unquieted. My lord admiral perceiving that I heard it, called me aside, and asked me what she said, and I declared it plainly to him. Then he consulted with me, that he would lie down on the bed by her, to look if he could pacify her unquietness with gentle communication. Whereunto I agreed. And by the time he had spoken three or four words to her, she answered him very roundly and sharply, saying, 'My lord! I would have given a thousand marks to have had my full talk with Hewke, the first day I was delivered; but I durst not for displeasing of you.' And I, hearing that, perceived her trouble to be so great that my heart would serve me to hear no more.' She adds, that the queen had such communication as this with him for the space of an hour. Hayn. 103, 4. That the dying lady's impression was, that his conduct had, in some unexpected respect or other, contributed to her then condition, and that lady Tyrwhyt felt that she thought so, and could not avoid sympathizing with her, seem the natural inferences from this unaffected recital. СНАР. VII. II. 117 BOOK hint, the departure of this highly educated, learned, and accomplished woman,116 who deserved a husband more sensible of her value, and more congenial with her intellectual taste. That his degradation was necessary to make his factious restlessness powerless to do mischief, and that the public welfare required such punishment to be added as would deter others from imitation, are facts as clear as the circumstance is also lamentable, that Edward, now in his twelfth year, should have consented to put his name to a warrant for the decapitation of the brother of his regretted mother. It was enough that his other uncle, 116 She not only received Latin letters from Edward, 2 Ellis, 132, 141; and from Ascham, Ep. 302; but she herself wrote them. One of her letters to Mary, in Latin, remains, occupying a full printed page in Strype Eccl. v. 2. p. 330. She corresponded, when queen reigning, with the University of Cambridge, in the name of which Ascham thanks her for her benefactions to it, and for the suavitate of her letters: Write to us oftener, Eruditissima Regina! and do not despise the term erudition, most prudent lady! it is the praise of your industry, and a greater one to your talents than all the ornaments of your fortune. We admire vehemently your happiness, most happy princess! because you are learning more amid the occupations of your dignity, than many with us do, amid all our leisure and quiet.' Asch. Ep. 303. She procured the king's consent to Cambridge retaining its possessions, and in her letter to doctor Smith, urges the college among its other learning, not to forget our Christianity,' but to apply their 'sundry gifts and studies to such end, that Cambridge may be accounted rather an university of divine philosophy, than of natural or moral, as Athens was.' Lett. Cath. in Strype Ecc. p. 338. 17 There is something in the secret ejaculations she penned, which amid their piety, imply an occasional sadness, that, in connection with the preceding circumstances, leads us to think that the husband she had so hastily honored by her second choice, had not made her quite happy: 'Most benign Lord Jesus! Grant me Thy grace, that I may ever desire and will that which is most acceptable unto Thee. Thy will be my will; and my will, to follow always Thine. Thou knowest what is most profitable and expedient for me; give me therefore what Thou wilt, and do with me as it shall please Thee. Thy creature I am, and in Thy hands; I desire not to live to myself, but to Thee; grant me that I may rest in Thee, and fully quiet and pacify my heart in Thee. For Thou art the very true peace of heart, and the perfect rest of the soul, and without Thee, all things be grievous and unquiet. If Thou withdraw Thy comfort, keep me from desperation, O Lord! Thy judgment be righteous, and Thy pro VII. the triumphant protector, should have displayed that CHAP. unnecessary Roman heartlessness, which in these cases we miscal patriotic fortitude, as to have concurred in ordering the blow of the fatal axe upon a brother, whom he might have confined or exiled, instead of destroying: but that the king, to whom the only fault of the condemned nobleman had been that he wished to make himself the guardian of his crown. and person in the room of the other, should not have withheld that signature, whose suspension would have saved an uncle's life without lessening his downfall, is an imputation on his moral sensibilities, which lettered attainments rather aggravate than atone for. A cultivated child starts instinctively from shedding blood; and yet Edward signed the writ which poured that of one of the most revered relations of our social nature on the public scaffold.118 But even the good men of those days were strange beings. Not only Cranmer signed the warrant for his death, but Latimer preached before the king, in his episcopal robes, in its vindication, 119 as if to reconcile or harden his vidence is much better for me, than all that I can imagine or devise. Give me grace, gladly to suffer whatsoever Thou wilt shalt fall upon me, and patiently to take at Thy hand good and bad, bitter and sweet, joy and sorrow. For tho this life be tedious, and as a heavy burthen to my soul, O make that possible by grace, which is to me impossible by nature. Thou knowest well that I am soon cast down, and overthrown with a little adversity; wherefore, strengthen me with Thy spirit, that I may willingly, for Thy sake, suffer all manner of troubles and afflictions. Strype, 398-400. For the first lady in the kingdom, in the prime of life, and full of wealth and honors, to breathe these plaintive effusions to heaven, indicates private causes of sorrow which the world were unacquainted with. 118 The council's order for the execution is made conditional, on the king's legal sanction being obtained: The king's writ being first directed and sent forth for that purpose.' Burnett, v. 4. p. 226. 119 Godw. Ann. 228. Latimer's sermon was delivered nine days after his execution, as if public murmurs had made some public vindication BOOK II. young heart to severities, 120 which if this prelate could not have prevented, he at least ought, in due recollection of his own divine Teacher, never to have encouraged.121 The catastrophe of one brother perishing under the administration and by the written order of another, could not take place without much social censure. The policy of statesmen is often at variance with of it necessary. In this the preacher declared, that during his imprisonment in the Tower he had written to Mary and Elizabeth, that they should make some stir against the Lord Protector, and revenge his death.' Stowe, 596. 120 The king's notice of this catastrophe, in his journal, is very short and cold: The lord Sudley, admiral of England, was condemned to death, and died in March ensuing.' p. 8. 121 In two passages of his printed Sermons, Latimer mentions this unfortunate gentleman; and as they shew us the sentiments of a well meaning man at that time on his character, they deserve a quotation: I have heard say, that when that good queen (his wife) had ordained in her house daily prayer, both before noon and afternoon, the admiral gets him out of the way. He was a covetous man; I would there were no more in England. An ambitious man; a seditious man; a contemner of common prayer. I would there were no more in England. Well! he is gone. I wish he had left none behind him.' p. 91. This implies, that the good bishop thought that others were at least as blameable. He confessed one fact: He would have had the government of the king's majesty. And wot you why? He said, he would not have him brought up in his minority like a ward. I am sure he hath been brought up so godly, with such schoolmasters, as never king was in England; and he has so prospered under them, as never none did. I wot not what he meant by his bringing up like a ward; unless he would have him not go to his book, and learn as he doth. Now, wo worthe him. Yet I will not say so, neither: but I pray God amend him; or else send him short life, that would have my sovereign not to be brought up in learning, and would pluck him from his book.' p. 64. 122 Godwin mentions, that some censured the protector for suffering his brother to be executed without ordinary course of trial, and for faults which might better have been pardoned. ib. 227,8. Heylin thus describes and contrasts the two brothers: The admiral was fierce in courage; courtly in fashion; in personage stately; in voice magnificent-the duke, mild, affable, free and open; more easy to be wrought on, but no way malicious, and honored by the common people, as the admiral was more generally esteemed among the nobles. The protector was more to be desired for a friend, and the other more to be feared as an enemy. The defects of each being taken away, their virtues united would have made one excellent man.' Hist. Ref. 72. public feeling and rarely so, without being tainted with some moral injustice or imperfection. Our sensibilities are sometimes better guides than an argumentative and iron-nerved reasoning: and that action can hardly be right, in which the logic and the feeling are in total opposition. The character of the nation could only be degraded abroad by such revolting bloodshed. It made us seem, to milder tho inferior minds, and not with entire untruth, a semi-barbarous people.123 123 As the infliction of death for human crime is every day becoming more questionable, as to its necessity or utility, in the present state of society; and whenever it is not necessary, is of itself a crime: it is with the greater pain we read that a nephew and a brother, who had both the power of withholding the execution of the sentence, should have deliberately consigned their relation to it. If fear decided them to give their signature or their sanction, it was an act of cowardice by which, on a pettier subject, they would have been irretrievably disgraced. If personal jealousy, competing ambition, female resentments, or the solicitations of rivals, produced their acquiescence, it was still more degrading, as it was more selfish, and less principled. The guilt or turbulence of the admiral might have justified his humiliation, banishment or imprisonment; but his death was an act of wilful homicide in his brother, which within three years afterwards became an example of the application and fulfilment on himself of the divine declaration: Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed.' VII. |