Part 36 (1/2)

[390] Browne and Bale were friars; yet Protestants will not blame them for entering the holy estate of matrimony, any vows to the contrary notwithstanding. To modern England a married clergy seems quite natural, but the scandal was great during the transition period, and Queen Elizabeth felt the awkwardness herself. The following statement of Harpsfield may be true or false, but it shows what could be said by a contemporary. It should be remembered that Harpsfield was Archdeacon of Canterbury. 'Against these kind of marriages, and maintenance of the same, King Henry, in his latter days, made very sharp laws, whereupon many so married put over their women to their servants and other friends, who kept them at bed and board as their own wives. And after the death of King Henry they received them again (as love money) with usury; that is, the children in the mean season begotten by the said friends, whom they took, called and brought up as their own, as it was well known, as well in other as in Browne, Archbishop of Dublin. It would now pity a man at the heart to hear of the naughty and dissolute life of these yoked priests,' &c.

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE REIGN OF MARY.

[Sidenote: The succession to the crown.]

Lawyers and casuists might dispute about the succession. Logically, Mary and Elizabeth could not both be legitimate; but the people of England swept these cobwebs away. Catherine had for twenty-two years borne the t.i.tle of Queen, and in that great place she was not known to have done anything worthy of blame, but much deserving the highest praise. And then there was the will of Henry VIII. Its execution had perhaps been informal, but the people cared nothing for that; it was his will, and he had been authorised by Parliament to make it. The sick-room fancies of a boy of sixteen were not to be allowed to alter such a settlement.

[Sidenote: Mary proclaimed.]

The struggle for the crown was short, and was little felt at the distance at which Ireland then was, though the Dudley party took care that Queen Jane's accession should be officially known there. On the thirteenth day after her brother's death Mary was proclaimed by the Council in London, on the fourteenth the baffled Northumberland renewed the proclamation at Cambridge, on the fifteenth the grand conspirator himself was arrested.

On the very day of the Cambridge proclamation the Privy Council wrote to Aylmer, the acting Lord Justice cancelling the former communication, and directing that Mary should be proclaimed 'Queen of England, France, and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, and on earth supreme head of the churches of England and Ireland.'[391]

[Sidenote: St. Leger is Deputy, 1553.]

Besides twelve Privy Councillors, six individuals connected with Ireland, who happened to be in England, signed these letters--Cusack, the Chancellor; Lord Gormanston; Staples, Bishop of Meath; Thomas Luttrell, Chief Justice of the Common Pleas; James Bathe, Chief Baron; and the veteran John Alen. The object probably was to show the men in Dublin that this time at least there was no mistake as to which Queen they were to obey. Cusack, Aylmer, Luttrell, and Bathe were confirmed in their offices with increased emoluments, and no immediate change was made in the general management of Irish affairs. Some disturbances amongst the O'Connors were easily put down, and the citizens of Dublin repulsed a raid of the O'Neills near Dundalk. In the meantime Northumberland had expiated his crimes on the scaffold. Gardiner, Bonner, Tunstall, and others had been restored, and Cranmer, Latimer, and Hooper imprisoned; and there was time to think of the affairs of Ireland. In October, soon after the coronation, St. Leger was appointed Lord Deputy in fulfilment of the late King's intention. He landed at Dalkey on November 11, and on the 19th took the oath and received the sword in Christ Church.

[Sidenote: His instructions.]

St. Leger's instructions show the policy which Mary had adopted. As regards temporal affairs it did not greatly differ from that of her father. The Scots in Ulster were not to be molested unless they gave fresh trouble. The army was to be reduced to 500 regular soldiers, of which not more than ten per cent. were to be Irishmen. Extraordinary garrisons were to be discharged at the next general pay day, and if possible induced to go back to England without raising riots. The Lord Deputy might employ kerne and gallowgla.s.ses where necessary, and the usual private bands were to be continued; but coyne and livery were to be eschewed as much as possible. St. Leger found it impossible to carry out the reduction of the army lower than 1,100 men, besides kerne. The question as to the desirability of a Presidency for Munster was to be carefully considered in all its bearings. Leix and Offaly being in great measure waste, the Lord Deputy was to grant lands in fee simple at a small quit-rent either to Englishmen or Irishmen, binding them to erect and maintain farm buildings, and to till a certain portion of land. By this means it was hoped that these unfortunate districts would soon be made like the English Pale. Leases for twenty-one years were to be given to Crown tenants generally, including holders of monastic lands. Goodacre had just died, so that there was no difficulty about Armagh, to which, as well as to the Primacy of all Ireland, Dowdall was immediately restored, with the additional grant of the priory of Ards rent free for life. The Ma.s.s and the rest of the old religion was to be restored as nearly as possible.[392]

[Sidenote: Mary maintains the rights of the Crown.]

But Mary, though zealous for orthodoxy, had no intention of yielding the rights of the Crown to the Pope, and this was no doubt well understood.

One of St. Leger's earliest duties was to go to Drogheda and place the government of Eastern Ulster in the hands of Eugene Magennis, who specially covenanted not to admit any provisor from Rome. An Irish-born priest named Connor MacCarthy asked Mary for a letter of licence to go to Rome, there to obtain certain benefices from the Pope, fearing lest some should be in the Queen's gift, 'and also considering the statute of Premunire.' Nor was the fear an idle one, for when Tyrone afterwards obtained a Papal bull for the appointment of his chaplain to the restored priory of Down, the Queen sharply reminded him that she intended to maintain the prerogative in that behalf which she had received from her progenitors. MacCarthy was not the only Irish ecclesiastic of the reign who thought it necessary to pet.i.tion for relief from the consequences of the dreaded statute.[393]

[Sidenote: Catholicism restored. Bale refuses to give way.]

[Sidenote: Bale's religious dramas.]

In some places the old religion was restored without waiting for any formal order. As soon as Edward's death was known Justice Howth and Lord Mountgarret, the Earl of Ormonde's uncle, went to Kilkenny and desired to have the sacrament celebrated in honour of St. Anne. The priest said the Bishop had forbidden celebrations on week days; 'as indeed I had,' says Bale, 'for the abominable idolatry that I had seen therein.' The learned judge, who seems to have had no commission, then discharged the clergy from obedience to their Bishop, and commanded them to proceed in the old way. On August 20 Mary was proclaimed at Kilkenny with much solemnity.

Bale strongly objected to wear cope or mitre, or to have the crozier borne before him; not from any opposition to the Queen's t.i.tle, but from dislike to vain ceremonies. Taking a New Testament in his hand, he went to the market-cross followed by a great crowd, to whom he preached from the 13th chapter of Romans, on the reverence due to magistrates. But the clergy of the cathedral, who had no sympathy with the Bishop's doctrines, provided two disguised priests to carry mitre and crozier before him against his will. The people were amused, instructed, or scandalised, as the case might be, by the representation of a tragedy concerning G.o.d's promises in the old law, and by a comedy of St. John the Baptist. The baptism and temptation of Christ were brought upon the stage, and the young men of the town acted both at the morning and evening performance.

Both dramas were written by Bale himself, and in a literary point of view they are far from contemptible. They mark the transition between the mystery plays of the middle ages and the compositions of Shakespeare's immediate precursors. Personified abstractions as well as historical characters appear on the stage; nor did Bale shrink from a representation which seems impossible to us, for he boldly introduces the first person in the Trinity under the name of Pater Caelestis. Justification by faith is the great doctrine inculcated, and where the author speaks in person he loses no opportunity of attacking the Church of Rome. In an epilogue he exhorts the people to

'Hear neither Francis, Benedict, nor Bruno, Albert nor Dominic, for they new rules invent, Believe neither Pope nor Priest of his consent, Follow Christ's gospel,' &c.

In another play on the instructive story of King John, 'Ynglond vidua'

says:--

'Such lubbers as hath disguised heads in their hoods, Which in idleness do live by other men's goods, Monks, chanons, and nones.'

In his other works Bale throughout shows the same spirit. Thus he calls that very questionable hero, Sir John Oldcastle, 'a blessed martyr not canonised by the Pope, but in the precious blood of his Lord Jesus Christ.' St. Paul is the great object of Bale's admiration, and he seems to have thought that he was like him. The points of resemblance are similar to those which Captain Fluelen discovered between himself and Alexander the Great. Thus, Paul was tossed up and down between Candia and Melita, Bale between Milford and Waterford. There was a river in Monmouth and a river in Macedon, and there were salmon in both.[394]

[Sidenote: Opposition to Bale in his diocese.]

Sir Richard Howth, Treasurer of St. Canice's, and his friend Sir James Joys, were among Bale's most energetic opponents. To annoy him they suggested solemn exequies and prayers for the soul of Edward VI. The Bishop argued that it would be better to wait for orders from Dublin. The ceremony had already once been postponed to see the devil dance at Thomastown--a Sunday amus.e.m.e.nt which the mob perhaps preferred to the Bishop's plays. Bale found another enemy in one whom he calls Bishop of Galway, and who was probably John Moore, Bishop of Enaghdune, the ancient diocese in which Galway stands. This Moore was commissioned, along with other prelates not acknowledged in the Roman succession, to consecrate Patrick Walsh Bishop of Waterford. He was no credit to the Reformation, for Bale represents him as spending his nights in drinking and his days in confirming children at twopence a head. A gallowgla.s.s brought a dog in a sheet with twopence hanging round his neck to be confirmed with his neighbours' children; in this, says Bale, 'noting this beastly Bishop more fit to confirm dogs than Christian men's children.' The soldier may have regarded him as a schismatic, but it is not easy to understand how such a man can have attained episcopal orders.[395]

[Sidenote: He is forced to fly.]