IX. If the priesthood from gods as they sometimes called them- CHAP. selves, with the power of making God, of materialising him, even to the grossest form; if the priesthood, the infallible awarders of everlasting death and everlasting life, were to shrink into instructors of the people, examples to the people, and ministers of the two Holy Sacraments; if the trade in religion, which had flourished at its height in the Cathedral of S. Paul's, was to be cast forth, and the religion of Paul the Apostle to be restored in the Church of S. Paul, in all its power, majesty, wisdom, authority: great changes were inevitable. If in these changes the Reformers knew not where to arrest their zeal; if they were overborne by men whose motives and aims were not reformation, but spoliation-not the reinstatement of the true faith and pure morality of Christianity, but unblushing rapacity and immoral love of plunder-the Church was paying the penalty for ages of all-absorbing accumulation of dangerous, too tempting wealth. If the Reformers saw not how or where to draw the fine and floating and long obscured line between religion and superstition, who shall dare to arraign them? While the old system appealed almost entirely to the senses, and but remotely to the conscience, they would address the conscience alone, which must now in each individual assume the sole perilous responsibility for the soul. They unwisely no doubt disdained all lawful, innocent, rational, and subservient emotions of the senses. Yet if the Reformers were blind to the intimate union of the Beautiful with the Good and the True, surely this was pardonable in the first shock and convulsion of the old and new creeds. If Ridley inclined to Puritanism; if in the gradual but rapid expansion of his mind to the dawning truths, his zeal went beyond the calmest wisdom, let us remember his saintly life, his intrepid martyrdom. CHAP. 232 REIGN OF QUEEN MARY. CHAPTER X. S. PAUL'S UNDER QUEEN MARY. THREE years of Ridley's episcopate had not passed over, when came the terrible days of reaction. Mary was on the throne, Bonner was again Bishop of London. S. Paul's beheld the Mass reinstated, at least in some degree of splendour; the choir resounded with Latin chants-Latin became again the language of prayer. Paul's Cross rung with denunciations-with more than denunciations-with awful sentences of death against the Reformers. In evil hour, either from fanatic zeal for Protestantism, or a victim to the arts of the subtle Northumberlandpossibly from some ardent admiration for the yet undeveloped, yet to those familiar with her, the felt and acknowledged beauty and holiness of character, of the Lady Jane Grey, as nearly approaching to the perfect young Christian female as could well be imagined, and therefore a sore temptation to wild hopes-Ridley threw himself desperately into the Anti-Marian faction. He preached a sermon at Paul's Cross; he denounced both the sisters, Mary and Elizabeth, as bastards. The congregation heard him with undisguised disgust. It has been alleged in excuse for Ridley that he preached by order of the Council —an excuse which degrades him from a bold and conscientious zealot to the miserable slave and tool of a faction. His subsequent conduct did as little honour to his courage, or to the sense of his dignity of station and character. He stole away to Cambridge to throw himself at the feet of the now triumphant Mary. He was received with the contempt which he deserved, brought ignominiously back to London, and committed to the Tower. Had his course ended there, had he been executed for high treason, he would hardly have commanded pity. The cold misjudging cruelty-it was no mercy—of Mary and her Councillors gave Ridley the opportunity of redeeming at Oxford those days of lamentable weakness. Instead of the disregarded death of a traitor, they gave him the glory of a martyr: and nobly did Ridley accept the gift. By his self-command during his long and weary trial, the calm serenity of his death, he showed an ineffaceable, inextinguishable greatness, which equalled the homely contempt of death in honest old Latimer, and contrasted strongly with the timid tergiversation of Cranmer. More of this hereafter. S. Paul's repudiated her disloyal Bishop. At the proclamation of Queen Mary the bells rang out in peals, which almost drowned the clangors from the towers of the other churches in London. The Lords marched in solemn array to the Cathedral. Te Deum was sung; the organ, for some time condemned to silence, broke out with its full majestic mass of sound. On the Queen's procession. from the Tower to the coronation at Westminster, S. Paul's steeple had its pageant. To rival the feat at Edward's accession, a Dutchman stood on the cross, waving a long streamer, and shifting from one foot to another, amid a blaze of torches, which he brandished over his head. In London, nevertheless, the doctrines and the passions of the Reformation had sunk deeper than elsewhere into the minds and hearts of the people. At the first sermon at Paul's Cross, Dr. Bourne, the preacher, not only prayed for the dead, but denounced the incarceration of Bonner CHAP. X. CHAP. X. in that vile prison, the Marshalsey,' and inveighed strongly against Bishop Ridley. There was a cry, 'He 'preaches damnation; pull him down, pull him down." A dagger was thrown at the preacher, which struck one of the side posts of the pulpit.' Happily Bradford, well known as a devout Protestant, stepped forth before the preacher, and reminded the unruly mob, of S. Paul's command to be subject to the higher powers.' But the fray did not cease; it threatened more violence. The obnoxious preacher was at length rescued by Bradford, and Rogers, then a canon of S. Paul's. He was conveyed in safety to S. Paul's School. The presence of the Lord Mayor and of Lord Courtenay somewhat repressed the tumult.3 The Privy Council was sitting in the Tower. Order was taken with the Lord Mayor to keep the peace and punish the offenders. One Humphrey Pullen was committed to the Compter; Bradford, Veron, and Beacon were sent to the Tower as seditious preachers. Two days after, a priest and a barber were set in the with their ears nailed to it. 1 Aug. 13. Grafton; Stowe. According to Machyn (p. 41), Bourne was parson of High Ongar, in Essex. There was shouting at the sermon as 'it were like mad people;' and he adds 'that if the Lord Mayor and Lord Courtenay had not been there, there I would have been great mischief.' He says nothing of Rogers and Bradford. But Machyn was of the religion which had the finest processions' (p. 44). The Grey Friar is succeeded by another diarist, as keenly observant of and, though from different motives, as diligent in recording all the events in S. Paul's. Robert Machyn was what we call an undertaker. On pillory at S. Paul's Cross, The priest seems to have funerals and everything relating to funerals-hearses, catafalques, banners, scutcheons, armorial bearings, wax tapers, attendants-he luxuriates with true professional delight and copiousness; on other occurrences he is simple, brief, and seemingly trustworthy. Machyn's Diary was par tially published by Strype in his 'Annals,' the whole among the publi cations of the Camden Society. Note to Machyn with authorities. Machyn's text is imperfect, and it is not quite clear whether there were not two priests, nor what was the punishment of the parson of S. Ethelburga. SERMONS AT PAUL'S CROSS. 235 been the parson of St. Ethelburga; he was condemned for seditious words against the Queen's Majesty, and for the uproar at the Cross. 6 On August 26th, Watson, chaplain of Bishop Gardiner, preached. Among a great assembly-the Lord Mayor and Aldermen, all the crafts in London in their best livery 'sitting on forms '-were Courtenay and the Marchioness of Exeter, but it was thought necessary that a strong guard should attend; the pulpit was encircled by their halberds. A few days after in the Cathedral mass was said, matins and vespers chanted in Latin. The crucifix took its place, probably on a temporary rood-loft. In a short time came forth a proclamation inhibiting the English Service. On the Sunday before the Queen's Coronation, Dr. Feckenham (afterwards successively Dean of St. Paul's, and then of Westminster) preached undisturbed a 'goodly sermon' at Paul's Cross." But later, October 2nd, when Dr. Weston, Dean of Windsor, preached, strong barriers were erected at every entrance into the churchyard, to prevent the concourse of horses and of people. Dr. Bourne more than a month later, on S. Andrew's Day, preached in security in the Cathedral, with a great procession amid 'Ora pro nobis' in Latin. The day after, Nicolas Harpsfield preached with a great procession, and chants in Latin." Before this Machyn's heart had been gladdened by a 'goodly sermon, November 26, by M. White, warden of 'Paul's, that we should have processions. On the 24th was a very gorgeous procession while the new Lord Mayor 4 Machyn, p. 41. See on Watson's sermon, Notes to Machyn. There was a pageant in Powll's 'Churchyard on occasion of the Coro'nation.'-Machyn, p. 43. Machyn, p. 44. Later, when Feckenham preached at S. Stephen's, Walbrook, there was a disturbance. 8 CHAP. X. |