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Gardiner, Bonner, Tonstal, Day, Heath, and Vesey, were reinstated in their sees, either by a direct act of power, or, what is nearly the same, by the sentence of commissioners appointed to review their trial and condemnation. Though the bishopric of Durham had been dissolved by authority of parliament, the queen erected it anew by letters patent, and replaced Tonstal in his regalities as well as in his revenue. On pretence of discouraging controversy, she silenced, by an act of prerogative, all the preachers throughout England, except such as should obtain a particular license; and it was easy to foresee, that none but Catholics would be favored with this privilege. Holgate, archbishop of York, Coverdale, bishop of Exeter, Ridley of London, and Hooper of Glocester, were thrown into prison; whither old Latimer also was sent soon after. The zealous bishops and priests were encouraged in their forwardness to revive the mass, though contrary to the present laws. Judge Hales, who had discovered such constancy in defending the queen’s title, lost all his merit by an opposition to those illegal practices; and being committed to custody, was treated with such severity, that he fell into frenzy, and killed himself. The men of Suffolk were browbeaten because they presumed to plead the promise which the queen, when they enlisted themselves in her service, had given them of maintaining the reformed religion: one in particular was set in the pillory, because he had been too peremptory in recalling to her memory the engagements which she had taken on that occasion. And though the queen still promised in a public declaration before the council, to tolerate those who differed from her; men foresaw that this engagement, like the former, would prove but a feeble security when set in opposition to religious prejudices.

The merits of Cranmer towards the queen during the reign of Henry had been considerable; and he had successfully employed his good offices in mitigating the severe prejudices which that monarch had entertained against her. But the active part which he had borne in promoting her mother’s divorce, as well as in conducting the reformation, had made him the object of her hatred; and though Gardiner had been equally forward in soliciting and defending the divorce, he had afterwards made sufficient atonement, by his sufferings in defence of the Catholic cause. The primate, therefore, had reason to expect little favor during the present reign; but it was by his own indiscreet zeal, that he brought on himself the first violence and persecution. A report being spread that Cranmer, in order to pay court to the queen, had promised to officiate in the Latin service, the archbishop, to wipe off this aspersion, published a manifesto in his own defence. Among other expressions, he there said, that as the devil was a liar from the beginning, and the father of lies, he had at this time stirred up his servants to persecute Christ and his true religion: that this infernal spirit now endeavored to restore the Latin satisfactory masses, a thing of his own invention and device; and in order to effect his purpose, had falsely made use of Cranmer’s name and authority: and that the mass is not only without foundation, either in the Scriptures or in the practice of the primitive church, but likewise discovers a plain contradiction to antiquity and the inspired writings, and is besides replete with many horrid blasphemies.[*]

* Fox, vol. iii. p. 94. Heylin, p. 25. Godwin, p. 336.
Burnet Vol. ii. Coll. No. 8. Cranm. Mem. p. 305. Thuanus,
lib xiii. c. 8.

On the publication of this inflammatory paper Cranmer was thrown into prison, and was tried for the part which he had acted in concurring with the lady Jane, and opposing the queen’s accession. Sentence of high treason was pronounced against him, and though his guilt was shared with the whole privy council and was even less than that of the greater part of them, this sentence, however severe, must be allowed entirely legal. The execution of it, however, did not follow; and Cranmer was reserved for a more cruel punishment.

Peter Martyr, seeing a persecution gathering against the reformers desired leave to withdraw;[*] and while some zealous Catholics moved for his commitment, Gardiner both pleaded that he had come over by an invitation from the government, and generously furnished him with supplies for his journey: but as bigoted zeal still increased, his wife’s body, which had been interred at Oxford, was afterwards dug up by public orders, and buried in a dunghill.[**] The bones of Bucer and Fagius, two foreign reformers, were about the same time committed to the flames at Cambridge.[***] John Alasco was first silenced, then ordered to depart the kingdom with his congregation. The greater part of the foreign Protestants followed him; and the nation thereby lost many useful hands for arts and manufactures. Several English Protestants also took shelter in foreign parts; and every thing bore a dismal aspect for the reformation.

During this revolution of the court, no protection was expected by Protestants from the Parliament which was summoned to assemble. A zealous reformer[****] pretends, that great violence and iniquity were used in the elections; but, besides that the authority of this writer is inconsiderable, that practice, as the necessities of government seldom required it, had not hitherto been often employed in England. There still remained such numbers devoted by opinion or affection to many principles of the ancient religion, that the authority of the crown was able to give such candidates the preference in most elections; and all those who hesitated to comply with the court religion, rather declined taking a seat, which, while it rendered them obnoxious to the queen, could afterwards afford them no protection against the violence of prerogative. It soon appeared, therefore, that a majority of the commons would be obsequious to Mary’s designs; and as the peers were mostly attached to the court from interest or expectations, little opposition was expected from that quarter.

* Heylin, p. 26. Godwin, p. 336. Cranm. Mem. p. 317.

** Heylin, p. 26.

*** Saunders de Schism. Anglie.

**** Beale. But Fox, who lived at the time, and is very
minute in his narratives, says nothing of the matter. See
vol. iii. p. 16.

In opening the parliament, the court showed a contempt of the laws, by celebrating, before the two houses, a mass of the Holy Ghost in the Latin tongue, attended with all the ancient rites and ceremonies, though abolished by act of parliament.[*] Taylor, bishop of Lincoln, having refused to kneel at this service, was severely handled, and was violently thrust out of the house.[**] The queen, however, still retained the title of supreme head of the church of England; and it was generally pretended, that the intention of the court was only to restore religion to the same condition in which it had been left by Henry; but that the other abuses of popery, which were the most grievous to the nation, would never be revived.

The first bill passed by the parliament was of a popular nature, and abolished every species of treason not contained in the statute of Edward III., and every species of felony that did not subsist before the first of Henry VIII.[***] The parliament next declared the queen to be legitimate, ratified the marriage of Henry with Catharine of Arragon, and annulled the divorce pronounced by Cranmer,[****] whom they greatly blamed on that account. No mention, however, is made of the pope’s authority, as any ground of the marriage. All the statutes of King Edward with regard to religion were repealed by one vote.[v] The attainder of the duke of Norfolk was reversed; and this act of justice was more reasonable than the declaring of that attainder invalid without further authority. Many clauses of the riot act, passed in the late reign, were revived: a step which eluded in a great measure the popular statute enacted at the first meeting of parliament.