When Latimer was stripped,it appeared that he had dressed himself under his other clothes,in a new shroud;and,as he stood in it before all the people,it was noted of him,and long remembered,that,whereas he had been stooping and feeble but a few minutes before,he now stood upright and handsome,in the knowledge that he was dying for a just and a great cause.Ridley's brother-in-law was there with bags of gunpowder;and when they were both chained up,he tied them round their bodies.Then,a light was thrown upon the pile to fire it.'Be of good comfort,Master Ridley,'said Latimer,at that awful moment,'and play the man!We shall this day light such a candle,by God's grace,in England,as I trust shall never be put out.'And then he was seen to make motions with his hands as if he were washing them in the flames,and to stroke his aged face with them,and was heard to cry,'Father of Heaven,receive my soul!'He died quickly,but the fire,after having burned the legs of Ridley,sunk.There he lingered,chained to the iron post,and crying,'O!I cannot burn!O!for Christ's sake let the fire come unto me!'And still,when his brother-in-law had heaped on more wood,he was heard through the blinding smoke,still dismally crying,'O!I cannot burn,I cannot burn!'At last,the gunpowder caught fire,and ended his miseries.
Five days after this fearful scene,Gardiner went to his tremendous account before God,for the cruelties he had so much assisted in committing.
Cranmer remained still alive and in prison.He was brought out again in February,for more examining and trying,by Bonner,Bishop of London:another man of blood,who had succeeded to Gardiner's work,even in his lifetime,when Gardiner was tired of it.Cranmer was now degraded as a priest,and left for death;but,if the Queen hated any one on earth,she hated him,and it was resolved that he should be ruined and disgraced to the utmost.There is no doubt that the Queen and her husband personally urged on these deeds,because they wrote to the Council,urging them to be active in the kindling of the fearful fires.As Cranmer was known not to be a firm man,a plan was laid for surrounding him with artful people,and inducing him to recant to the unreformed religion.Deans and friars visited him,played at bowls with him,showed him various attentions,talked persuasively with him,gave him money for his prison comforts,and induced him to sign,I fear,as many as six recantations.But when,after all,he was taken out to be burnt,he was nobly true to his better self,and made a glorious end.
After prayers and a sermon,Dr.Cole,the preacher of the day (who had been one of the artful priests about Cranmer in prison),required him to make a public confession of his faith before the people.This,Cole did,expecting that he would declare himself a Roman Catholic.'I will make a profession of my faith,'said Cranmer,'and with a good will too.'
Then,he arose before them all,and took from the sleeve of his robe a written prayer and read it aloud.That done,he kneeled and said the Lord's Prayer,all the people joining;and then he arose again and told them that he believed in the Bible,and that in what he had lately written,he had written what was not the truth,and that,because his right hand had signed those papers,he would burn his right hand first when he came to the fire.As for the Pope,he did refuse him and denounce him as the enemy of Heaven.Hereupon the pious Dr.Cole cried out to the guards to stop that heretic's mouth and take him away.
So they took him away,and chained him to the stake,where he hastily took off his own clothes to make ready for the flames.And he stood before the people with a bald head and a white and flowing beard.He was so firm now when the worst was come,that he again declared against his recantation,and was so impressive and so undismayed,that a certain lord,who was one of the directors of the execution,called out to the men to make haste!When the fire was lighted,Cranmer,true to his latest word,stretched out his right hand,and crying out,'This hand hath offended!'held it among the flames,until it blazed and burned away.His heart was found entire among his ashes,and he left at last a memorable name in English history.Cardinal Pole celebrated the day by saying his first mass,and next day he was made Archbishop of Canterbury in Cranmer's place.
The Queen's husband,who was now mostly abroad in his own dominions,and generally made a coarse jest of her to his more familiar courtiers,was at war with France,and came over to seek the assistance of England.England was very unwilling to engage in a French war for his sake;but it happened that the King of France,at this very time,aided a descent upon the English coast.Hence,war was declared,greatly to Philip's satisfaction;and the Queen raised a sum of money with which to carry it on,by every unjustifiable means in her power.It met with no profitable return,for the French Duke of Guise surprised Calais,and the English sustained a complete defeat.The losses they met with in France greatly mortified the national pride,and the Queen never recovered the blow.
There was a bad fever raging in England at this time,and I am glad to write that the Queen took it,and the hour of her death came.
'When I am dead and my body is opened,'she said to those around those around her,'ye shall find CALAIS written on my heart.'I should have thought,if anything were written on it,they would have found the words-JANE GREY,HOOPER,ROGERS,RIDLEY,LATIMER,CRANMER,AND THREE HUNDRED PEOPLE BURNT ALIVE WITHIN FOUR YEARS OF
MY WICKED REIGN,INCLUDING SIXTY WOMEN AND FORTY LITTLE CHILDREN.
But it is enough that their deaths were written in Heaven.
The Queen died on the seventeenth of November,fifteen hundred and fifty-eight,after reigning not quite five years and a half,and in the forty-fourth year of her age.Cardinal Pole died of the same fever next day.
As BLOODY QUEEN MARY,this woman has become famous,and as BLOODY QUEEN MARY,she will ever be justly remembered with horror and detestation in Great Britain.Her memory has been held in such abhorrence that some writers have arisen in later years to take her part,and to show that she was,upon the whole,quite an amiable and cheerful sovereign!'By their fruits ye shall know them,'said OUR SAVIOUR.The stake and the fire were the fruits of this reign,and you will judge this Queen by nothing else.