and devout young prince, Edward VI. He died, apparently of consumption, on the 6th of July, 1553; in the sixteenth year of his age, and the seventh of his reign.

Before the decease of the young monarch, an attempt was made to fix the succession upon the amiable and accomplished lady Jane Grey. An attempt which proved as unfortunate to that beautiful lady, as it was unauthorized and illegal. It brought her fair head to the block. The inscrutable providence of God had decreed that England should be ruled for a season, by the counsellors of that incarnation of all that was odious-Mary. After a brief review of her reign, we shall be prepared to enter upon the more important and interesting periods of English history, - when the scattered elements of Congregational belief were gathered together, embodied and professed by distinct churches, which maintained their scriptural rights at the sacrifice of every earthly comfort-yea, of life itself.

Accession of Mary, 1553.

Mary was the eldest daughter of Henry VIII. and his first queen, Catharine of Arragon. Mary and her sister Elizabeth had both, in turn, been declared illegitimate, and their title to the throne set aside by their capricious father; and these acts had been confirmed by his obedient parlia

ments.

Henry, nevertheless, in perfect consistency with his unparallelled inconsistency, finally settled the succession upon them in case of Edward's decease, and failure of issue.

It was the apprehended consequences of Mary's reign, who had shown herself a determined papist, which induced the young king to set her aside, and fix upon the lady Jane, who stood next to Henry's own daughters in the line of succession. This act was, however, so manifestly illegal,

that some of the most zealous of the Reformers refused to countenance it, though they foresaw the disastrous consequences of Mary's accession. Under these circumstances, we need not wonder that she found little difficulty in vindicating her claim, and making her way to the English throne. But this she did not accomplish before she had solemnly promised" that no innovation should be made of religion."* On these conditions, "The Suffolk men," who, as Fox tells us, "being always foward in promoting the proceedings of the Gospel, promised her their aid and help."

One of her first acts on getting possession of the Tower was to modify this promise to "the Suffolk men," by saying, she meant not "to compel or strain other people's consciences." A few days afterwards, feeling herself more secure on the throne, she still further explained herself by saying "the subjects were not to be compelled until public order should be taken for it.”+

The Reformers soon began to experience the workings of their own principles of action, wielded by a Popish government. The right of the prince to make and establish a religion for the nation, though in words denied by Mary, began immediately to be exercised. Before any of the laws, of the late reign establishing the order of faith and worship in the nation had been repealed, the queen issued her proclamations forbidding all preaching without her special license; or, in plain terms-silencing all the Protestants of the kingdom.

To

* Fox's Acts and Monuments, Vol. III. p. 12, Fol. Ed. 1684. t Burnet, Vol. V. Book V. p. 322; Neal, Vol. I. p. 127. avoid the inconvenience of particular references, 1 may here say that the account of Mary's reign is drawn up by a comparison of the authors above quoted, and Clarke's Martyrology, Chaps. 5064, and Hume's Mary.

The Suffolk men presuming to remonstrate with the queen, were sharply rebuked for their insolence; and one of their leaders was put in the pillory for three days, and lost his ears, for alluding to the queen's promise, not to alter religion.

The reforming bishops were speedily removed, and most of them imprisoned; and violent papists were put into their places. Between the 5th and 31st of August,—the first month of Mary's reign,*-Fox records eleven arrests; among which, were the proto-martyr Rogers, and bishops. Hooper and Coverdale; old bishop Latimer, and archbishop Cranmer were arrested by the middle of the next month, together with others of less note. About the same date (Sept. 16th), the French Protestants were ordered to leave the kingdom. The learned and godly John a Lasco, superintendent of the foreign churches, was first silenced, and then compelled to depart for his native land, as was Peter Martyr, professor of divinity at Oxford. In a few months, about 800 persons, foreseeing the rising storm, fled their country; among whom were five bishops, five deans, and above fifty doctors of divinity, and other distinguished divines and preachers, "besides noblemen, merchants, tradesmen, artificers and plebians." The queen, however, had no intention of suffering her prey thus easily to escape; and soon forbade her subjects to leave the kingdom without passports.

On the 1st of October, 1553, Mary was crowned, with all the pomp and ceremony which Gardiner and half a score of popish bishops, with their mitres, copes, and crosiers could display.

* She was proclaimed on the 19th of July,but can hardly be said to have commenced her reign until August 3d, when she entered London.

The parliament, which met on the 10th of the same month, were directed to repeal the laws of Edward VI. respecting religion. This they did, after a debate of six days; and enacted, under suitable pains and penalties—" That after the 20th of December next, there should be no other form of divine service but what had been used in the last year of Henry VIII."

Here was a further modification of the queen's promise not to alter religion.

In April of the same year, parliament was again assembled. The chief business of this session appears to have been, to authorize the marriage of Mary with Philip, son of the emperor Charles V. of Spain. It seems that Mary, immediately after her accession to the throne had set her heart on being married. Her kind disposition towards Courtney, the accomplished earl of Devonshire, had been hinted to that nobleman, but even gratitude to the queen for his release from the Tower, where he had been long confined, could not induce him to marry so odious a woman as Mary, even though she had a crown upon her head. She next proposed the cardinal Pole; but was dissuaded from this, on the ground of his advanced age, and growing infirmities. She then turned her heart upon Philip of Spain; with whom she became so enamoured, without having so much as seen him, as to write the first love letter which passed between them. Philip, though about eleven years younger than Mary, he being in his twenty-seventh year and she in her thirty-eighth,-and knowing the queen to be destitute of all personal attractions, weak in intellect, and odious in heart,*-yet consented to the marriage, and distributed

Hume, in summing up the characteristics of Mary, says: "She possessed few qualities, either estimable or amiable; and her person was as little engaging as her behavior and address.

Spanish gold abundantly to bring the parliament into the ar

Obstinacy, bigotry, violence, cruelty, malignity, revenge, tyranny; every circumstance of her character took a tincture from her bad temper, and narrow understanding. And amidst that complication of vices, which entered into her composition, we shall scarcely find any virtue but sincerity, a quality which she seems to have maintained through her whole life; except in the beginning of her reign," etc. **

Not to insist on the exception to Mary's sincerity, which Hume admits-though this exception is sufficiently broad; there is another on record, which the historian must have overlooked; I refer to her submission, from "the bottom of her heart and stomach," to her father, made in 1536. In this document she puts soul and body, for time and eternity, into the hands of her most princely father. She says, among other things of the same import: "Asl have, and shall, knowing your excellent learning, virtue, wisdom, and knowledge, put my soul into your direction; and by the same have, and will in all things from henceforth direct my conscience, so my body I do wholly commit to your mercy, and fatherly piety, desiring no state, no condition, nor no meaner degree of living, but such as your grace shall appoint me; acknowledging and confessing, that my state cannot be so vile, as either the extremity of justice would appoint unto me, or as mine offences have required or deserved." And in a letter to Cromwell, the kings vicegerent, upon the same topic, Mary says: "For mine opinion touching pilgrimages, purgatory, reliques, and such like, I assure you I have none at all, but such as I shall receive from him who hath mine whole heart in keeping, that is, the king's most gracious highness, my most benign father, who shall imprint in the same touching these matters and all other, what his inestimable virtue, high wis dom, and excellent learning, shall think convénient, and limit unto me.' "See Burnet, Vol. IV. B. II. Coll. Nos. 3, 4, 5 and 6. pp. 334-339.

How much of sincerity or truth there was in all this turning up of her heart, etc., I leave others to decide. Mary, it is true, was sufficiently resolute in the maintenance of her popish principles during Edward's reign; but there were personal and selfish reasons enough for this; and she well knew that she had little to fear