18. Wyatt's Rebellion. 1554.– The result was an insurrection, the aim of which was to place Mary's half-sister, Elizabeth, on the throne. Lady Jane's father, the Duke of Suffolk, was to raise the Midlands and Sir Thomas Wyatt to raise Kent. Suffolk failed, but Wyatt, with a large following, crossed the Thames at Kingston, and pushed on towards the City. His men, however, were for the most part cut off in an engagement near Hyde Park corner, and it was with only three hundred followers that he reached Ludgate – to find the gate closed against him. 'I have kept touch,' he said, and suffered himself to be led away a prisoner. Mary was no longer merciful. Not only Suffolk and Wyatt, but the innocent Lady Jane and her young husband, Guilford Dudley, were sent to the block. Elizabeth herself was committed to the Tower. She fully believed that she was to die, and sat herself down on a wet stone, refusing for some time to enter. In many ways she had shown that she bore no goodwill to her sister or her sister's plans, but she had been far too prudent to commit to writing any words expressing sympathy with Wyatt. Being far too popular to be safely put to death on any testimony which was not convincing, Elizabeth was before long removed from the Tower and placed at Woodstock, under the charge of Sir Henry Bedingfield, but was after a few months allowed to retire to Hatfield.
19. The Queen's Marriage.– A Parliament which met in April 1554 gave its consent to Mary's marriage, but it would not pass Bills to restore the old statutes for the persecution of heretics. Though it was now settled that the queen was to marry Philip, yet never was a wooer so laggard. For some weeks he would not even write to his betrothed. The fact was that she was twelve years older than himself, and was neither healthy nor good-looking. Philip, however, loved the English crown better than he loved its wearer, and in July he crossed the sea and was married at Winchester to the queen of England. Philip received the title of king, and the names of Philip and Mary appeared together in all official documents and their heads on the coins.
20. The Submission to Rome. 1554.– After the marriage a new Parliament was called, more subservient than the last. In most things it complied with Mary's wishes. It re-enacted the statutes for the burning of heretics and agreed to the reconciliation of the Church of England to the see of Rome, but it would not surrender the abbey lands. Only after their possession had been confirmed did it give its consent to the acknowledgment of the Pope's authority. Then Cardinal Pole (see p. 399), who had been sent to England as the Pope's legate, was allowed to receive the submission of England. The queen, the king, and both Houses knelt before him, confessed their sin of breaking away from the Roman see, and received absolution from his mouth. To Mary the moment was one of inexpressible joy. She had grieved over the separation from Rome as a sin burdening her own conscience, and she believed with all her heart that the one path to happiness, temporal and eternal, for herself and her realm, was to root out heresy, in the only way in which it seemed possible, by rooting out the heretics.
21. The Beginning of the Persecution. 1555.– It was not only Mary who thought it meet that heretics should be burnt. John Rogers, who was the first to suffer, had in the days of Edward pleaded for the death of Joan Bocher (see p. 419). He was followed to the stake by Bishop Hooper, who was carried to Gloucester, that he might die at the one of his two sees which he had stripped of its property to enrich the Crown (see p. 418). He and many another died bravely for their faith, as More and Forest had died for theirs (see pp. 394, 398). Rowland Taylor, for instance (a Suffolk clergyman), was condemned in London to be burnt, and sent to his own county to die. As he left his prison in the dark of the early morning he found his wife and children waiting for him in the street. He was allowed to stop for a moment, and knelt down on the stones, repeating the Lord's Prayer with his family. "Farewell, my dear wife," he said, as soon as he had risen from his knees; "be of good comfort, for I am quiet in my conscience. God shall stir up a father for my children." "Thanked be God," he exclaimed when he at last reached the village where his voice had once been heard in the pulpit, and where now the stake rose up amidst the faggots which were to consume him, "I am even at home!" After he had been tied to the stake a wretch threw a faggot at his face. "O friend," he said gently, "I have harm enough: what needed that?" The flames blazed up around his suffering body, and Rowland Taylor entered into his rest. Ridley and Latimer were burnt at Oxford, in the town ditch, in front of Balliol College. "Be of good comfort, Master Ridley, and play the man," cried Latimer, when the fire was lighted at his feet. "We shall this day light such a candle, by God's grace, in England, as I trust shall never be put out."
22. Death of Cranmer. 1556.– Cranmer would have accompanied Ridley and Latimer to the stake, but as he alone of the three had been consecrated a bishop in the days when the Pope's authority was accepted in England, it was thought right to await the Pope's authority for the execution of his sentence. In 1556 that authority arrived. Cranmer's heart was as weak as his head was strong, and he six times recanted, hoping to save his life. Mary specially detested him, as having sat in judgment on her mother (see p. 389), and she was resolved that he should die. Finding his recantation useless, he recovered his better mind, and renounced his recantation. "I have written," he said, "many things untrue; and forasmuch as my hand offended in writing contrary to my heart, my hand therefore shall be the first burnt." He was hurried to the stake, and when the flames leapt up around him held his right hand steadily in the midst of them, that it might be 'the first burnt.'
23. Continuance of the Persecution. 1556-1558.– Immediately after Cranmer's death Pole became Archbishop of Canterbury. The persecution lasted for two years more. The number of those who suffered has been reckoned at 277. Almost all of these were burnt in the eastern and south-eastern parts of England. It was there that the Protestants were the thickest. New opinions always flourish more in towns than in the country, and on this side of England were those trading towns, from which communication with the Protestants of the Continent was most easy. Sympathy with the sufferers made these parts of the kingdom more strongly Protestant than they had been before.
24. The Queen's Disappointment. 1555-1556.– Mary was a sorrowful woman. Not only did Protestantism flourish all the more for the means which she took to suppress it, but her own domestic life was clouded. She had longed for an heir to carry on the work which she believed to be the work of God, and she had even imagined herself to be with child. It was long before she abandoned hope, and she then learnt also that her husband – to whom she was passionately attached – did not love her, and had never loved anything in England but her crown. In 1555 Philip left her. He had indeed cause to go abroad. His father, Charles V., was broken in health, and, his schemes for making himself master of Germany having ended in failure, he had resolved to abdicate. Charles was obliged to leave his Austrian possessions to his brother Ferdinand; and the German electors,