XII. celebrated sovereign afflicted by a succession of ail- CHAP. ments, which remind us of the universal equality of every class of life in nature, and in the estimation and course of the all-ruling Providence. The English ambassador watched his decline, and reported it minutely to his court.79 Obtaining a temporary re-establishment of his strength, he directed his most prudential attentions to the accomplishment of the marriage with Mary, avoiding, with great tact of the human temper, all contradiction to her immediate inclinations. He took the chance of her vacillations, and awaited calmly their result, and seemed only anxious to keep himself on this delicate point her confidential counsellor.80 She was gratified by his conduct; and when her fondness for Courtney had abated, she 79 Thus Moryson, who followed him to Brussels, wrote on 24th March 1553. The emperor is somewhat amended, as his poticary saith. Two days since I said to his physician Vesalius, The emperor can by all your recipes come by no health that is able to tarry with him two months together.' His answer was, He may teach all men to honor physic, which hath so oft plucked him from his grave.' He told me, his majesty taketh guiacum, and is far better now than he was twelve days since.' 1 Lodge Illust. p. 165. Eleven days after this, his report to the privy council on 4th April, was, The emperor keepeth his bed, as unfit to hear of the mischiefs that grow round about him, as unable to devise how to remedy them if they were still told him. His stomach was this last week very much swollen, and he in great feebleness. Physicians doubteth much his recovery; but he hath a body able to live with small strength.' ib. 169. But in a week more, sir Thomas Chamberland wrote on 11th April; The emperor is well recovered of his health, since he proved extremities in taking a strong medicine more fit for a horse than a man. He doth now begin to attend to his affairs more than he hath done at any time since his arrival here.' ib. 174. Greffet, p. 68. On 29th July, she assured the Spanish envoys, that if she had not become queen, she would never have married; but that now she thought it was expedient, and she would govern her choice by the emperor's decision, who, fearing to alarm her or the nation, had, before Edward died, advised her to chuse an English lord. ib. p. 50. After her accession, he caused it to be stated to her, that her choice ought to be free, and would give her his opinion on it if she should wish him to do so. ib. 51. BOOK II. avowed to him, and then, perhaps to lead him to 81 On 20 September 1553, he directed his ambassadors to state to her, that as Courtney did not please her, for which he thought her very judicious, and as Cardinal Pole had expressly declared that he would never quit the ecclesiastical state to marry any one, he concurred with her in thinking that un prince etranger et puissant' would best suit her; that if his age and health had permitted, he should have had high gratification in being himself her husband, but as he was elderly and infirm, and she knew for some time past that he had determined to remain as he was, he could not propose to her any one dearer to him than his own son, from whom she might have a large family; but he would not presume to tease her on such a delicate subject, and therefore begged her frank and confidential sentiment on this new proposition. Greffet gives this dispatch to Nouv. Ecl. p. 62-4. 82 Renaud describes what he did on this subject, in his letters of 5, 22d, and 28th October. Greff. Nouv. Ecl. 69-79. The chancellor op posed it immediately. The queen in a private audience told Renaud, that he had done so, and had assured her that the emperor's own subjects spoke very ill of Philip, and considered him to be a prince 'fier et peu raissonnable; but she declared that she did not believe a word of it, and she knew that the French ambassador fasoit l'impossible' to prevent the marriage. ib. 72. 83 So Noailles wrote on 21st November, p. 253. From Renaud's dispatches we learn that on 30th October Mary sent for him secretly at night and in her private apartment, where she had the Eucharist exposed, she knelt down, and repeated the Veni Creator on her knees, and then made an oath to him, before the sacrament, that she would marry the prince of Spain. Greffet, Nouv. Ec. p. 83, 84. 84 86 85 proceeded to send a stately embassy, to give the negotiation more weight and splendor. At first, from her perception of the public dislike to the prince, as a Spaniard and a Catholic, she concealed her preference, and quietly endeavored to gain her chief nobility to befriend it, for which the imperial treasury supplied her with those golden means which so often make virtue and reason but names and evanescent vapour. Four ambassadors were appointed by Charles, for performing the public drama of asking for the splendid prize which he had privately secured, to the great uneasiness and mortification of the jealous French monarch; for this Sovereign had inherited all his father's personal animosity against that more celebrated and unconquered Charles the vth, who, until disease debilitated his capacity, never lost his fame, or his ascendancy in Europe. 87 88 The tenacity of the queen, to her purpose of selecting Philip, notwithstanding Gardiner's resisting counsels, compelled her prime minister to assemble the lords of Parliament after their session, and to declare her nuptial choice. Ambassadors were appointed to negotiate in Spain the articles of the treaty." The imperial commissioners landed on the 90 89 * The successive letters of Noailles disclose her cautious policy and secret proceedings. p. 241; 255; 258; 270. 65 Noail. lett. 30th November, p. 273. 86 The emperor sent her 120,000 crowns for this purpose, which passed thro the hands of Gardiner and Paget. Vertot's note to Noailles, p. 273. 87 Noaill. lett. 6th December, p. 299. 89 This king, in his letter of 14th December to his ambassador, calls the emperor the greatest enemy I have in the world,' and intimates, if she married Philip, she may adapt herself to the purpose of her husband,' and therefore orders him to ascertain what feelings she intended to maintain towards France. Noailles, p. 312-316. 89 Noaill. lett. 15 Dec. p. 317. 90 These were, the earl of Bedford, privy seal; Bonner, the bishop of London; and another. Noail. lett. 18 Dec. p. 321. СНАР. XII. II. 91 BOOK Tower Wharf on the morrow of the new year's day, and were received with public banquets and other honors by the government and city authorities: and altho Gardiner had exerted his influence to retard or prevent the match, which we may impute to his perception that it was not for the interest of the pope or his hierarchy to increase the power of Charles or of his family, yet the lay lords of his council favoring it, the conditions were so rapidly settled, that on the 15th January, the prime minister was compelled by his station to announce to the chiefs of the metropolis, the queen's intention to wed the prince of Spain; with the assurance that he would not intermeddle with the business of the state, and that no foreigner should be in the privy council, nor have the command of any of the national fortifications." It was a melancholy appendage to such a joyous incident, that, in a week after, one of the sons of the dead Northumberland was arraigned, and condemned to be drawn and quartered.93 91 Strype's Eccl. v. 3, p. 91. 92 Stowe, p. 607, 608; Strype, 91. stance of the articles, 283, 285. Bishop Godwin states the sub 93 Lord Robert Dudley. Stowe, 618. On 22d Jan. Strype, 91; but the sentence was never executed, and he became the celebrated earl of Leicester. He and his brother Ambrose were released from the Tower on 18th Oct. 1554; and by an Act in 4 & 5 Philip and Mary, reciting, that both of them, then knights, remain out of all name and reputation, to their great discomfort, inward grief and daily sorrow: but that as they have been, and always intend hereafter to be true and faithful subjects, it was therefore enacted, That these attainted gentlemen, and their two sisters, Mary, married to the distinguished sir Henry Sidney, father of the celebrated sir Philip; and Catherine, should be restored in blood, and enabled to inherit any future property. Sir Robert was in the same year appointed master of the ordnance at the siege of St. Quentins. CHA P. XIII. MARY'S HESITATION IN HER RELIGIOUS PROJECTS THE XIII. THE HE path of honor, of comfort, and of national CHAP. peace and prosperity, was never more straight and perceptible; never more easy and certain, to any sovereign, than that which opened before Mary, when she took the throne from her young and brief competitor, and which invited her safe and pleasant progress. She had only to believe and worship as she pleased herself; to let the nation continue in the changes or improvements which had been established within it; and to ensure to every one a mild and impartial toleration in the religious forms and tenets which each should prefer; and she would have been popular and beloved, and her subjects would have been happy. Her spirit was so eminently patriotic, her affection for her people was so real, and her good qualities so numerous, that nothing was wanting to make her reign distinguishing to herself and beneficial to her country, but to avoid all sacerdotal bigotry and violence; to continue the national independence on a foreign pontiff; and to interfere with no one's religious faith and practice. It was the simplest of all rules which she had to follow-to let the nation be as it was; and to take a pleasure herself in being the gentle and common mother to all her grateful |