VERITAS TEMPORIS FILIA.

We live in an age of criticism. Epithets will no longer serve in lieu of evidence, and we are called upon to revise the hasty judgments of past centuries, and to reconsider their verdicts. The verdict passed on Mary I. has hitherto been founded on the one-sided testimony of her enemies, and on their showing, the world has taken for granted that she was at the best a gloomy, narrow-minded bigot, whose life was utterly unproductive of good to England. Her very trials and sorrows have led the most indulgent to conclude, that she must in consequence have been of a melancholy disposition, and to find in her misfortunes an excuse for the moroseness which in their opinion, rendered her the most unattractive personality in our history. Moroseness is a fit accompaniment to cruelty and thirst for blood; and thus, by easy stages, it has been possible to imagine her gloating over the executions for religion’s sake, which disgraced her reign as they did those of her predecessors and successors, down to the time of Charles II.

Such, however, has not been the picture presented to us in the course of our study of the State papers, dealing with her life and reign, and “all history,” said the learned Dr. Samuel Johnson, “so far as it is not supported by contemporary evidence, is romance”.[708] We have seen her, as represented in the secret despatches of ambassadors, in her own private letters, in those of Cardinal Pole, in the narratives of her contemporaries, in the brief chronicles of her time, in the occasional admissions of her enemies; we have seen her as a girl, a woman, a queen, in a dozen different lights, and we have found an image, the very reverse of that which for three centuries has been held up to the world’s execration.

That Mary was not in advance of her contemporaries should scarcely be a reproach. What wonder even, if she looked to the past for inspiration, from amidst the chaos of new opinions, that seemed to her productive only of rebellion, licence and impiety! She could remember the time, when order reigned in Church and State, and when peace resulted from obedience to civil and ecclesiastical authority. With the change had begun all her miseries. Cromwell and Cranmer, the apostles of the new regime, had played her father’s game of tyranny and rapine, and their followers had made havoc of her own projects of peace and prosperity. Had the new religionists been mere harmless, loyal, quiet folk, the fires of Smithfield had never been lighted.[709] Hence, it was inevitable that all novelty should be regarded by her with suspicion, as synonymous with evil, and she died in the fruitless attempt to resist the inflowing tide. She was wanting neither in intelligence nor devotion to her people; what she lacked was the touch of genius to discern the actual trend of the new, restless ideas, that made her kingdom into a battle-field, and inspiration and tact, to guide them into peaceful channels. Absorbed in the inherited notions of an ideal good, she missed much of the practical good that lay within her grasp, and had she been less conscientious, she might have been a greater Queen.

It is not possible to exonerate her completely, in the matter of her formal condemnation of her mother’s marriage, although she was therein herself the victim, her only valid excuse being, that the Emperor had caught her in the toils of his diplomatic sophistry, and had blinded her judgment with the glamour of his arguments.

Her character, therefore, was not without some inconsistencies—and indeed of whom can the reverse be declared? Those who have extolled her more than virile courage, as it was exhibited in her early trials, during her persecution by Edward’s Council, in her manner of meeting Northumberland’s conspiracy, in her dealing with Wyatt’s rebellion, and on many smaller occasions, have generally overlooked the feminine weakness, with which she almost always yielded when her affections intervened. Thus, after having braved Henry’s anger, and stoutly maintained her mother’s rights and her own, fearless of the axe that hung by a thread over her, she gave in, when Katharine was beyond the reach of harm, from a, to us, almost incomprehensible longing for her father’s love, and in her childlike confidence that the Emperor could not lead her astray. She had taken up a logical attitude with reference to Elizabeth, which was the complement of the disgust, with which she regarded Elizabeth’s mother; but this attitude was at once abandoned when Anne Boleyn’s disgrace involved the child in the same ignominy and ruin. Mary had but just regained a certain amount of consideration for her own position, but she did not hesitate generously to risk all, by calling Henry’s attention to the neglected child, once her own triumphant rival. “My sister Elizabeth is in good health,” she ventured to write to the inhuman tyrant, “and such a child toward, as I doubt not your highness shall have cause to rejoice of in time coming.” The Privy Purse Expenses of the Princess Mary are eloquent of her generosity towards “the Lady Elizabeth’s grace,” and until Elizabeth forfeited her esteem by making common cause with her enemies, there was no diminution of cordiality on the part of the Queen towards her sister. She married Philip of Spain in spite of all opposition, in the first place for the sake of the realm, and in the hope of issue, and gave him a passionate devotion. In most of these things Mary was a true woman, no heroine, but tender and human to a fault. Of her learning and accomplishments, much has been said in the course of this history. Her contemporaries have been warm in praise of the high order of her intellect, of her knowledge of ancient and modern languages, of her musical talents, of her skill in dancing. Her translation of the Paraphrases of Erasmus proves that her reputation for scholarship proceeded from no mere courtier-like flattery. And the same may be said of the general terms of praise in which foreign envoys wrote of her to their governments. Their communications being altogether secret, and often written in cipher, could have been penned with no ulterior views of pleasing Mary or her friends. Until within a year of her death, there is no allusion in their despatches to any despondency on her part. She felt her husband’s absence acutely, and it may have been that his indifference to her hastened her death; but contrary to what David Hume and his followers would have us believe, it is clear that no spirit of settled bitterness brooded over any portion, even the saddest, of her life. Nothing is more evident in her story, as it is told in the State Papers, than that to the end, her disposition was to hope against hope, to believe that her prayers would be answered, to trust that good would come out of evil; and not one despairing word is recorded as ever having passed her lips.[710]

We have had various descriptions of Mary’s personal appearance, of her manner and character, from those who came in contact with her at different periods. There still remains to be chronicled the impression which the Queen produced on the mind of Giovanni Michiel, and which he describes in his account of England in 1557, at a time, therefore, when the charm of youth was past, and when she was approaching her end.

After describing her as of low, rather than middling stature and of a spare and delicate frame, quite unlike her father, who was tall and stout, or her mother who was portly, he says that her face, as can be seen by her portraits, is well proportioned in features and lineaments. He mentions the fact that when younger, she was considered not merely tolerably handsome, but of beauty exceeding mediocrity. At present, with the exception of some wrinkles, caused more by anxieties than by age, which make her appear some years older, “she is a seemly woman and never to be loathed for ugliness, even at her present age, without considering her degree of queen”. Her expression is very grave, her eyes are so piercing, that they inspire not only respect but fear, in those on whom she fixes them, although she is very short-sighted. “Her voice is rough and loud almost like a man’s, so that when she speaks, she is always heard a long way off.... But whatever may be the amount deducted from her physical endowments as much more may with truth and without flattery be added to those of her mind, as besides the facility and quickness of her understanding, which comprehends whatever is intelligible to others, even to those who are not of her own sex (a marvellous gift for a woman) she is skilled in five languages, not merely understanding but speaking four of them fluently, viz., English, Latin, French, Spanish and Italian, in which last however she does not venture to converse, although it is well known to her; but the replies she gives in Latin, and her very intelligent remarks made in that tongue, surprise everybody. Besides woman’s work, such as embroidery of every sort with the needle, she also practises music, playing especially on the clavicorde (a sort of spinet or small harpsichord) and on the lute, so excellently, that when intent on it (though now she plays rarely) she surprised the best performers, both by the rapidity of her hand and by her style of playing. Such are her virtues and external accomplishments. Internally, with the exception of certain trifles, in which to say the truth she is like other women, being sudden and passionate and close and miserly,[711] rather more so than would become a bountiful and generous queen.”

In other respects, he maintains that she has “no notable imperfections, whilst in certain things she is singular and without an equal; for not only is she brave and valiant, unlike other timid and spiritless women, but so courageous and resolute, that neither in adversity nor peril did she ever display or commit any act of cowardice or pusillanimity, maintaining always on the contrary, a wonderful grandeur and dignity, knowing what became the dignity of a sovereign as well as any of the most consummate statesmen in her service; so that from her way of proceeding, and from the method observed by her (and in which she still perseveres) it cannot be denied, that she shows herself to have been born of truly royal lineage. Of her humility, piety and religion it is unnecessary to speak, or bear witness to them, as they are not only universally acknowledged, but recently blazoned by proofs and facts, which fell little short of martyrdom, by reason of the persecutions she endured; so that it may be said of her, as Cardinal Pole says with truth, that in the darkness and obscurity of that kingdom, she remained precisely like a feeble light, buffeted by raging winds for its utter extinction, but always kept burning, and defended by her innocence and lively faith, that it might shine in the world, as it now does shine. It is certain that few women (I do not speak of princesses or queens but of private women) are known to be more assiduous at their prayers than she is, never choosing to suspend them for any impediment whatever, going at the canonical hours with her chaplains either to church in public, or to her private chapel, doing the like with regard to the communion and fast days, and finally to all other christian works, precisely like a nun and a religious.”

After commenting on Mary’s weak health, on her disappointed hopes of maternity, on her grief at the insurrections, conspiracies and plots formed against her daily, Michiel goes on to say, that although these have resulted auspiciously for the Queen, and inauspiciously for their authors, “yet nevertheless it being necessary on such occasions to proceed to capital punishment or confiscation, against one person or another, sometimes for crime, and sometimes on suspicion, she knows that by these means, the hatred and indignation she inspires are increased, the delinquents being not only excused almost by everybody, but the causes, such as the expulsion of foreigners (who are most odious to the English, on account of the Spaniards) or the religion, or both together assigned by the conspirators for their movements, being tacitly approved of. The consequence is, that as until now, the plots have been set on foot by the commonalty, and persons of mean extraction, so from the fickleness of that nation, were they excited by some personage or nobleman of importance, there is no doubt, they would create a great revolution throughout the realm, much to the personal danger of the Queen, and of her life, the kingdom being still full of humours and discontent, and the country showing a greater inclination and readiness for change than ever, provided it has a leader. Besides these and many other distresses, the Queen witnesses the daily increasing decline of the affection evinced towards her universally at the commencement of her reign, which in truth was such and so extraordinary, that never was greater shown in that kingdom towards any sovereign; and she is also harassed by the poverty in which she sees the Crown, owing not only to the past debts and disorders, but to the many expenses and the wants incurred in her own time, which prevent her from showing courtesy and liberality such as become a sovereign, either to her own subjects or to others. She is compelled on the contrary (there being no other remedy) daily to repeat her demands for loans and subsidies, which have now become such a grievance, and so much the more odious to the people, as notwithstanding all the subsidies, the creditors remain unpaid, the majority having arrears due to them for entire years, so that their clamours and complaints being redoubled, the hatred of all other malcontents increases proportionably. These and many others are the public causes of the Queen’s distress, and although they are held by her in great account, she nevertheless feels them less painfully than certain others, which affect her personally, as respecting those already mentioned by me, she comforts herself with the hope of their being remedied in the course of time, by the counsel and diligence of some of her ministers, especially Cardinal Pole, through the care taken by them to investigate and retrench superfluities and abuses, and thus with the aid of parsimony, getting out of debt as she expects to do shortly, so as then to be enabled to use liberality, confer favours and rewards, and relieve those who are in want.”[712]

Michiel, in continuing his report, ascribes the Queen’s principal distress to two causes. It proceeds, he says, from love and hatred—from excessive love of her husband, of his character and manners, believed by Michiel to be such as to captivate any one; and from hatred of Elizabeth. He considers that no one could have been a better husband than Philip, nor so good a one, and that to think of losing him, as he and the Queen can only meet by accident, would be irksome and grievous to any person who loved another heartily, and is assuredly so to a woman who is naturally tender. “If,” he continues, “to this violent love were to be added jealousy, which as yet she is not known to feel ... she would be truly miserable; and this separation is one of the anxieties that especially distresses her.”[713]

Without stopping to question the accuracy of Michiel’s assertion, that no one could have been a better husband than Philip, we pass on to what the Venetian considers the second principal cause of Mary’s distress, namely her “hatred of Elizabeth”. The expression is a strong one, and scarcely compatible with what he has already related of her piety, humility and prayerfulness. But “although dissembled,” the Queen, he tells us, “displays in many ways the scorn and ill-will she bears her ... whenever she sees her, fancying herself in the presence of the affronts and ignominious treatment to which she was subjected on account of her mother, from whom, in great part, the divorce from Queen Katharine originated. But what disquiets her most of all is, to see the eyes and hearts of the nation already fixed on this lady as successor to the Crown, from despair of descent from the Queen, to whom the demonstration and the thought are so much the more bitter and odious, as it would be grievous not only to her but to any one, to see the illegitimate child of a criminal, who was punished as a public ——, on the point of inheriting the throne, with better fortune than herself, whose descent is rightful, legitimate and regal. Besides this, the Queen’s hatred is increased, by knowing her to be averse to the present religion, she not only having been born in the other, but being versed and educated in it; for although externally she showed, and by living catholically shows, that she has recanted, she is nevertheless supposed to dissemble, and to hold it more than ever internally.”[714]

Strong feeling and strong language were natural in the days in which the above words were written, and a certain exaggeration of expression may be granted to an Italian, whose mother tongue flowed in superlatives. But Mary could not have been so ardent a lover, so devoted a friend, so kind a benefactress, if she had not also been quick to experience resentment, indignation, scorn and contempt. Elizabeth had been always the great antagonism of her life, and although Mary had repeatedly overcome her aversion, in very generous ways, her sister had done nothing to make her task an easier one. From the outset, their dispositions were as the poles asunder. Mary’s meaning was ever plain, expressed sometimes even bluntly; there was never anything the least ambiguous, either in her spoken or her clearly written words, in a hand admirably indicative of her firm, straightforward character. Elizabeth was at the best an enigma. It was impossible to judge whether any meaning lay behind her elaborate assurances which assured nothing; and her tortuous phrases served but to conceal whatever plan her cunning, secretive brain harboured. On the rare occasions when she was compelled to speak out, and declare herself, her utterances were for the most part falsified in the event.

It is not unlikely that Mary’s self-conquest in regard to Elizabeth, at the time of the latter’s abandonment and disgrace, would have resulted in a lasting affection, founded on pity, and that motherly instinct so strongly developed in the Queen, had not her sister persistently thrown herself into the arms of the rebels. At the time of Henry’s death, and until the beginning of Mary’s reign, their relations were as cordial as it was possible for Mary to make them. But in a very short time, Elizabeth became a source of constant annoyance and danger, and pursuing her underhand tactics to the end she thoroughly alienated and disgusted the Queen. If, for reasons of policy, Philip induced his wife to treat her as though she were innocent, the position was not thereby improved.

The purity of Mary’s court, at a period when licence was the order of the day, was the subject of much comment by her contemporaries. Her care for the honour and good repute of those about her, is illustrated by the following occurrence, which shows also the gentle manner in which she administered rebuke, when rebuke was necessary.

“Queen Mary being in the gallery, ready to go to the chapel, within the traverse, the Lord William Howard, Lord Chamberlain being with her, he taking his leave; without the traverse stood the maids of honour, expecting to wait on the queen to the chapel. Mrs. Frances Neville standing next to the traverse, the Lord Chamberlain passing by, a merry gentleman, took her by the chin saying: ‘My pretty —— (a word unfit for repetition) how dost thou?’ Which the queen saw and heard, the traverse being drawn. The queen gone forth, finding her farthingale at her foot loose, made sign to Mrs. Neville to pin it, which, kneeling down she did. The queen then took her by the chin as he had done saying: ‘God-a-mercy, my pretty ——’. She hearing the queen say thus, so blushed as she seemed to be astonished, replying: ‘Madam, what says your Majesty?’ still upon her knees, and seemed to be much troubled. The queen answered, ‘What is the matter? Have I said or done more than the Lord Chamberlain did? And may not I be as bold with thee as he?’ She replied: ‘My Lord Chamberlain is an idle gentleman, and we respect not what he saith or doth; but your Majesty from whom I think never any heard such a word, doth amaze me, either in jest or earnest to be called so by you. A —— is a wicked misliving woman.’ The queen took it, ‘Thou must forgive me; for I meant no harm’.”

The troubles arising from religious questions occupy so large a portion of Mary’s short reign, that a substantial reform of the criminal law, which at another period would have excited interest and admiration, has almost escaped the notice of historians. It was indeed in the reign of Edward VI. that a jury first began to be a fair and effective tribunal, but Mary’s noble exordium in appointing Morgan, Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, contained the first indication of the precept, that not only was equity to be maintained among the people, but that in cases in which the Crown was involved, the like justice was to be done. “I charge you, Sir,” said the Queen, “to minister the law and justice indifferently, without respect of persons; and notwithstanding the old error among you, which will not admit any witness to speak, or other matters to be heard, in favour of the adversary, the Crown being party, it is my pleasure that whatever cases be brought, in favour of the subject may be admitted and heard. You are to sit there not as advocates for me, but as indifferent judges between me and my people.”[715]

That this was no empty formula was proved in the following year, when a jury persisted in acquitting a prisoner of State, Sir Nicholas Throckmorton, against the direction of the court, and as was well known against the personal conviction of the Queen,[716] who believed in his guilt. Throughout Mary’s reign, the accused had absolute confidence in the uprightness, integrity and unhampered freedom of the jury, and never forgot, that a statute of the realm had expressly declared, that there should be two witnesses to prove a treason, and that they must be confronted face to face. Hitherto, and in the subsequent reigns, persons indicted on behalf of the Crown, whatever their rights, had no probability of a favourable decision, on account of the paramount advantages claimed and enjoyed by the counsel for the sovereign. Many instances of this arbitrary and tyrannical rule are to be found in the minutes of the State trials under Elizabeth and James I.

If, in some ways, Mary seemed to have inherited a large amount of Tudor obstinacy, her sincere and earnest intention to act according to the light of conscience, and to govern by strictly constitutional methods, made her singularly unlike her father before, or her sister after her. No flattery however insidious, on the part of those who sought to ingratiate themselves with her, by advocating a more unrestricted course, was able to lure her from this lofty resolve. A rebel who had been pardoned, and who thought by this means to secure her favour, drew up a plan by which she might render herself independent of Parliaments. It was presented to her by the Spanish ambassador, who ventured to recommend its adoption. As the Queen read it, she disliked it, “and judged it contrary to the oath she had made at her coronation”. She sent for Gardiner, and giving him the treatise to read, commanded him as he would answer for it at the judgment seat of God, to tell her his real opinion of the matter. “Madam,” replied the Chancellor, on returning the volume to her, “it is a pity that so noble and virtuous a lady should be endangered with the pernicious devices of such lewd and subtle sycophants. For the book is naught, and most horrible to be thought on.” The Queen thanked him, and threw the volume into the fire.[717]

There are important indications in the records of this reign showing that had Mary’s lines been cast in more peaceful places, and had her life been prolonged, much would have been done to develop international and commercial interests. Shortly before Edward’s death, a joint-stock company had been formed under the direction of Sebastian Cabot, son of the famous navigator. A small fleet commanded by Sir Hugh Willoughby was fitted out, and sailed for the north of Europe, with the object of discovering a north-east passage to China and India. Off the coast of Norway, their ships were scattered by a violent storm, and Challoner, the second officer in command, found his way into the White Sea, and reached Archangel in safety. The others were cast upon the shores of Nova Zembla, and Russian Lapland, where they all perished from cold and want. Challoner, obliged to abandon the original enterprise, travelled through Russia to Moscow, where he was kindly received by the Czar, Ivan Wassilegevich, who gave him a letter to the King of England. Edward being then dead, the letter was consequently delivered to Mary, and Challoner’s reports of the wonderful sights he had witnessed roused a keen spirit of adventure in the nation. A new company was formed, and directed by the same Sebastian Cabot, and was incorporated under the title of “Merchants adventurers of England, for the discovery of lands, territories, isles and signories unknown”. A charter was granted to the company, by which its members were empowered to make discoveries by navigating northwards, north-westwards or north-eastwards, and were entitled to raise the flag of England over “all manner of cities, towns, isles and main lands of infidelity,” after subduing them to the dominion of the King and Queen, and their heirs and successors for ever.[718] It was the beginning of the brilliant exploits by which England became subsequently so formidable, under the semi-piratical enterprises of Drake, Frobisher and Sir Walter Raleigh.

Challoner was sent back to Moscow, with a letter from Philip and Mary to the Czar, containing the initiative towards a commercial treaty between England and Russia.[719] The expedition was eminently successful, and he returned, accompanied by the Russian ambassador, as far as the Bay of Pitsligo, where the ship was wrecked, and Challoner was drowned. The ambassador escaped, but as he had suffered considerable loss at the hands of the Scotch, who plundered the wreck, Mary sent two messengers to Edinburgh, to redress his wrongs, and bring him with honour and distinction to London. After some difficulties, the commercial treaty with Russia was concluded, under very advantageous conditions for England, and the ambassador went back to his own country, loaded with costly presents for himself and his sovereign. By this treaty English trade received a great impetus, and henceforth the manufactures of the country were exchanged at a vast profit for the skins and other valuable products of Russia.

Mary also defended English commercial interests against the cupidity of a powerful company of foreign merchants, who had been settled in London for centuries, and were known as Easterlings, merchants of the Hanse towns, and merchants of the Steelyard. The privileges granted to them by generations of English kings, in return for the loans which their immense resources enabled them to advance in sudden emergencies, had accumulated until they had almost absolute control of the markets. One great subject of complaint was their exemption from paying more than 1 per cent. duty on their merchandise, which included almost every imaginable article of commerce, so that all competition was excluded, and they could raise or depress the prices as they pleased. It had been declared on investigation, that they had violated, and therefore forfeited their charter, but they were powerful enough to dispute its possession, until the bill of tonnage and poundage passed in Mary’s first Parliament aimed a decisive blow at their excessive privileges, by enacting that the Easterlings should pay the same duties as other merchants. The Queen was induced to suspend for a time the operation of the statute, but having ascertained what were, in this respect, the real interests of her people, she finally revoked the charter, and refused to listen to any further arguments in favour of the company.[720]

Among many interesting facts, hitherto ignored by Mary’s biographers, are the benefits which the Queen bestowed on her army. Two of these call for special remark, the first being an increase of pay from 6d. to 8d. a day, the sum for which the men had mutinied under Henry VIII.; the second being a touching instance of her care for them, expressed in her last will. In this document it will be seen, she left instructions for the foundation of a hospital in London, with an endowment of 400 marks, “for the relief and help of poor, impotent and aged soldiers,” who had suffered loss or wounds in the service of England. “For all her man’s voice and masculine will,” says a recent writer, “she had a woman’s heart, which warmed to the deserving old soldier, and whatever her demerits in the eyes of those who wear the gown, her memory may at least be cherished by those who wear the red coat.” She was the first English sovereign to lend a pitying ear to the necessities of those who had spent themselves in their country’s defence; while as for her immediate successor, Elizabeth has been declared by the same writer to have been “intolerably impatient of such miserable creatures”.[721]

But if the whole truth were known, it is certain that evidence would be forthcoming to prove that “those who wear the gown” have as little cause as soldiers to speak of Mary’s “demerits”. The history of our universities has yet to be adequately written, but when it is written, important instances will doubtless come to light, concerning her connection with both. Dr. John Christopherson, her chaplain and confessor, was installed master of Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1553, and through him, the Queen became a considerable benefactress to this college. She was especially anxious that it should possess a larger and more suitable chapel, and on her initiative, the present building was begun in the Tudor style in 1556.[722] Carrying her solicitude still further, she added to the endowments of Trinity, the Rectories of Heversham, Kendal and Kirkby Lonsdale in Westmorland, and those of Sedbergh and Aysgarth in Yorkshire, then producing a revenue of £338 per annum, for the maintenance of twenty scholars, ten choristers and their master, thirteen poor scholars, fourteen chaplains and two sizars.[723] In the Master’s Lodge, where Mary slept when she passed through Cambridge, on her way to London at the time of her accession, is a portrait of the Queen inscribed Maria Regina Huius Collegii Benefactrix. The picture is one of the replicas of the portrait painted by Sir Antonio More, before her marriage, with some variations as to minor details. Seeing how entirely Mary has passed from the minds and hearts of the English people, it is pleasant to learn that she is still commemorated at Trinity College, in a prayer said after grace on feast days.

The portrait which she presented to Christ Church, Oxford, and another in the University galleries, show her interest in that seat of learning also. During her short reign, two colleges were founded at Oxford; Trinity, by the munificence of Sir Thomas Pope, and St. John’s, on the site of Archbishop Chicheley’s foundation, the latter being the gift of Sir Thomas White, of the company of Merchant Tailors.

Sir Aubrey de Vere, in his little-known poem Mary Tudor, struck a right chord, in putting into the mouth of the unhappy Queen the words:—

But the real Mary was perhaps a truer prophet, when she foresaw the dawn of a better day, and chose for her motto the device—

Veritas temporis filia.