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While Henry was exerting this violence against the Protestants, he spared not the Catholics who denied his supremacy; and a foreigner, at that time in England, had reason to say, that those who were against the pope were burned, and those who were for him were hanged.[**] The king even displayed in an ostentatious manner this tyrannical impartiality, which reduced both parties to subjection, and infused terror into every breast. Barnes, Gerrard, and Jerome had been carried to the place of execution on three hurdles; and along with them there was placed on each hurdle a Catholic, who was also executed for his religion. These Catholics were Abel, Fetherstone, and Powel, who declared, that the most grievous part of their punishment was the being coupled to such heretical miscreants as suffered with them.[***]

* Burnet, vol. i. p. 298. Fox.

** Fox, vol. ii, p. 529.

*** Saunders, de Schism. Angl.

Though the spirit of the English seemed to be totally sunk under the despotic power of Henry, there appeared some symptoms of discontent. An inconsiderable rebellion broke out in Yorkshire, headed by Sir John Nevil; but it was soon suppressed, and Nevil, with other ringleaders, was executed.

The rebels were supposed to have been instigated by the intrigues of Cardinal Pole; and the king was instantly determined to make the countess of Salisbury, who already lay under sentence of death, suffer for her son’s offences. He ordered her to be carried to execution; and this venerable matron maintained still, in these distressful circumstances, the spirit of that long race of monarchs from whom she was descended.[*] She refused to lay her head on the block, or submit to a sentence where she had received no trial. She told the executioner, that if he would have her head, he must win it the best way he could: and thus, shaking her venerable gray locks, she ran about the scaffold: and the executioner followed with his axe, aiming many fruitless blows at her neck, before he was able to give the fatal stroke. Thus perished the last of the line of Plantagenet, which, with great glory, but still greater crimes and misfortunes, had governed England for the space of three hundred years. Lord Leonard Grey, a man who had formerly rendered service to the crown, was also beheaded for treason, soon after the countess of Salisbury. We know little concerning the grounds of his prosecution.

* Hertert, p. 468.

1541.

The insurrection in the north engaged Henry to make a progress thither, in order to quiet the minds of his people, to reconcile them to his government, and to abolish the ancient superstitions, to which those parts were much addicted. He had also another motive for this journey: he purposed to have a conference at York with his nephew the king of Scotland, and, if possible, to cement a close and indissoluble union with that kingdom.

The same spirit of religious innovation which had seized other parts of Europe had made its way into Scotland, and had begun, before this period, to excite the same jealousies fears, and persecutions. About the year 1527, Patrick Hamilton, a young man of a noble family, having been created abbot of Fene, was sent abroad for his education, but had fallen into company with some reformers; and he returned into his own country very ill disposed towards that church, on which his birth and his merit entitled him to attain the highest dignities, The fervor of youth and his zeal for novelty made it impossible for him to conceal his sentiments and Campbell, prior of the Dominicans, who, under color of friendship, and a sympathy in opinion, had insinuated himself into his confidence, accused him before Beaton, archbishop of St. Andrews. Hamilton was invited to St. Andrews, in order to maintain with some of the clergy a dispute concerning the controverted points; and after much reasoning with regard to justification, free will, original sin, and other topics of that nature, the conference ended with their condemning Hamilton to be burned for his errors. The young man, who had been deaf to the insinuations of ambition, was less likely to be shaken with the fears of death; while he proposed to himself, both the glory of bearing testimony to the truth, and the immediate reward attending his martyrdom. The people, who compassionated his youth, his virtue, and his noble birth, were much moved at the constancy of his end; and an incident which soon followed still more confirmed them in their favorable sentiments towards him. He had cited Campbell, who still insulted him at the stake, to answer before the judgment seat of Christ; and as that persecutor, either astonished with these events, or overcome with remorse, or perhaps seized casually with a distemper, soon after lost his senses, and fell into a fever, of which he died; the people regarded Hamilton as a prophet as well as a martyr.[*]

Among the disciples converted by Hamilton, was one friar Forrest, who became a zealous preacher; and who, though he did not openly discover his sentiments, was suspected to lean towards the new opinions. His diocesan, the bishop of Dunkel, enjoined him, when he met with a good epistle or good gospel, which favored the liberties of holy church, to preach on it, and let the rest alone. Forrest replied, that he had read both Old and New Testament, and had not found an ill epistle or ill gospel in any part of them. The extreme attachment to the Scriptures was regarded, in those days, as a sure characteristic of heresy; and Forrest was soon after brought to trial, and condemned to the flames. While the priests were deliberating on the place of his execution, a bystander advised them to burn him in a cellar; for that the smoke of Mr. Patrick Hamilton had infected all those on whom it blew.[**]

* Spotswood’s Hist. of the Church of Scotland, p. 62.

** Spotswood’s Hist. of the Church of Scotland, p. 65.

The clergy were at that time reduced to great difficulties, not only in Scotland, but all over Europe. As the reformers aimed at a total subversion of ancient establishments, which they represented as idolatrous, impious, detestable; the priests, who found both their honors and properties at stake, thought that they had a right to resist, by every expedient, these dangerous invaders, and that the same simple principles of equity which justified a man in killing a pirate or a robber, would acquit them for the execution of such heretics. A toleration, though it is never acceptable to ecclesiastics, might, they said, be admitted in other cases; but seemed an absurdity where fundamentals were shaken, and where the possessions and even the existence of the established clergy were brought in danger. But though the church was thus carried by policy, as well as inclination, to kindle the fires of persecution, they found the success of this remedy very precarious; and observed, that the enthusiastic zeal of the reformers, inflamed by punishment, was apt to prove contagious on the compassionate minds of the spectators. The new doctrine, amidst all the dangers to which it was exposed, secretly spread itself every where; and the minds of men were gradually disposed to a revolution in religion.

But the most dangerous symptom for the clergy in Scotland was, that the nobility, from the example of England, had cast a wishful eye on the church revenues, and hoped, if a reformation took place, to enrich themselves by the plunder of the ecclesiastics. James himself, who was very poor, and was somewhat inclined to magnificence, particularly in building, had been swayed by like motives; and began to threaten the clergy with the same fate that had attended them in the neighboring country. Henry also never ceased exhorting his nephew to imitate his example; and being moved, both by the pride of making proselytes, and the prospect of security, should Scotland embrace a close union with him, he solicited the king of Scots to meet him at York; and he obtained a promise to that purpose.