382 THE LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP CRANMER.

God be thanked, to our great joy and comfort, there did we together read over the New Testament with great deliberation, and painful study; and I assure you, as I will answer before the tribunal of God's Majesty, we could find, in the Testament, of Christ's body and blood none other presence but a spiritual presence, nor that the mass was any sacrifice for sin. But in that Heavenly Book it appeared, that the sacrifice, which Christ Jesus our Redeemer did upon the cross, was perfect, holy, and good; that God the Heavenly Father did require none other, nor that ever again to be done."

CHAPTER II.

1553 to 1554.

Mary's promise as to religion-Restoration of the Romish service-Gardiner chancellor of Cambridge-Mary's letter to him-Reformed clergy silenced-Hooper and Coverdale sent to prison-P. Martyr and other Reformers leave the kingdom—Mary's first parliament―The divorce of her mother set aside-The shamelessness of Gardiner in accusing Cranmer as to that divorce-A convocation-Disputes on the corporal presence-Cranmer, Ridley, and Latimer, sent to Oxford, there to dispute on the same subject-Cranmer's letter relating to the disputation.

THE service established in the reign of Edward, it has been already observed, did not immediately cease on the accession of Mary. In a speech to the lord mayor of London, in the early part of August, she said, that "she meaned graciously not to compel or strain other men's consciences, otherwise than God should, as she trusted, put in their hearts a persuasion of the truth through the opening of His Word unto them." But on the eighteenth of that month,

1 Council-Book. Archæol. xviii. 173.

“3

2

she published a proclamation, in which the artful repetition of this concession is followed by the words, "until such time as further order, by common consent, may be taken therein." That they should not be molested in the exercise of their religion, the Protestants of Suffolk at the opening of her reign, are said to have been also by her royal word assured. Foxe first related this account. Dr. Lingard has been pleased to deny his authority; and Mr. Butler follows him, with a compliment to his research, in "«3 having sufficiently shewn that no such promise was made," and in referring, by way of.corroboration, to her address to the men of Suffolk in July, which contains no such promise, but which, indeed, is nothing more than a brief notification that Edward was dead, that herself was queen, and that she had not fled the realm, as some had surmised. It is the statement of Foxe alone, which both these learned writers, therefore, have impugned. They might have turned to other authorities, which perhaps their ingenuity may fail to silence. He, who with Cranmer had been led to espouse the cause of the lady Jane, but now was meditating to be active in that of Mary, the earl of Arundel, thus addressed some of his fellow-councillors: "How doth it appear, that Mary intends

Wilkin's, Council. iv. 86.

Hist. Eng. 8vo. vii. 493.

3 Book of the Rom. Cath. Church, 1825, p. 210.

+ Godwin, Annals, ed. 1630, p. 270.

any

alteration in religion? Certainly, having been lately petitioned unto this point by the Suffolk men,

2

she gave them (and that was true) a very hopeful answer." The words and that was true are the assertion of bishop Godwin himself. Another writer, still nearer to the time than Godwin, bids Protestants "remember the policies of Charles used with Maurice and others, for assurance of religion, against the confederates of Smalcald. Let them remember the Fremlingham (the Suffolk) promises for not altering religion." Sir Simonds D'Ewes, one of our most learned and accurate antiquaries, in Charles the First's reign, would hardly have asserted, if he had not been convinced of its truth, what follows. "Mary entered her reign," he writes, " with the breach of her public faith. For whereas the crown was set on her head, by the gentry and commons of Suffolk, although they knew her to be a papist ;-yet she in one of her first acts of Council, took order for their restraint, long before the mass and Latin service were generally received in London itself, and caused that diocese to taste the sharpest inquisition and persecution that raged during her

Norton's Warning against the dangerous practices of Papists, &c. s. d. temp. Eliz. sign. N. iij.

2 See before, what Cranmer says of Maurice, in the present volume, p. 279.

The Primitive Practice for preserving Truth, or, an Historical Narration, &c. By Sir Simonds D'Ewes, 1645, p. 29.

reign, which was happily shortened by her husband's contemning her person, and her enemies conquering her dominions; neither of which she ever had power to revenge, or recover; so, as though the cause of her death proceeded from no outward violence, yet was her end as inglorious and miserable, as her reign had been turbulent and bloody."

66 1

But it was not till near the close of the year, that the restoration of the Romish service was declared by an Act of Parliament; by which was at once rased to the ground," so Dr. Lingard writes, "that fabric which the ingenuity and perseverance of archbishop Cranmer had erected in the last reign." The historian might have added, that soon was the goodly fabric re-edified, and from the days of Mary's successor has stood the admiration of other Protestant countries, the pride and support of its own; for "2 liberty constitutes the foundation of all the greatness of Britain, and the source of her liberty was the Reformation."

Gardiner had now succeeded the duke of Northumberland as chancellor of the University of Cambridge. Two days only had passed since this exaltation, when Mary directed him to revive,

1Hist. Eng. 8vo. vii. 192.

3

4

2 Mackray's Essay on the Effect of the Reformation on Civil Society in Europe, 1829. p. 67.

The duke was beheaded Aug. 18, 1553.

4

Aug. 20. Ellis, Orig. Lett. second ser. ii. 246.