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camp on Mousehold Heath and Mount Surrey, there holding rude council under an oak, which they called "The Tree of Reformation." Their hopeless protest ended in disaster on the 27th of August. Upon the claim of the Devonshire men for restoration of the Mass, of the abbey lands, and of the law of the Six Articles, Nicholas Udall (§ 48) published in 1549 “An Answer to the Articles of the Commoners of Devonshire and Cornwall, declaring to the same howe they have been seduced by evell persons, and howe their consciences may be satysfyed and stayed concerning the sayd artycles, sette forth by a countryman of theirs, much tendering the wealth bothe of their bodyes and solles." Udall at this time preached actively. He translated in 1551 Peter Martyr's tract on the Eucharist, and in the same year was admitted to a Prebend of Windsor. He published Latin letters and poems; edited also a folio of T. Geminie's "Anatomy;" still preaching constantly: and in March 1553, was made rector of Calbourne, in the Isle of Wight.

Thomas Sternhold (§ 54), who died in 1549, published in 1548 Certayne Psalms, only nineteen in number. In 1549 there appeared, with a dedication to Edward VI., a new edition of All such Psalms of David as Thomas Sternhold, late grome of the Kinges Majestyes robes, did in his lyfe time drawe into Englysshe metre. This contained thirty-seven Psalms by Sternhold, and seven by John Hopkins, a Suffolk clergyman and schoolmaster, who joined in his labour. To an edition of 1551, Hopkins added seven more psalms of his own. Hopkins and others then worked on with the desire to produce a complete version of the Psalms of David into a form suited for congregational singing.

59. Hugh Latimer (§ 28, 29), when Edward VI. came to the throne, was released from the Tower, and preached at Paul's Cross his first sermon after an eight years' silence, on the first of January, 1548. A few days later the House of Commons proposed his restoration to the Bishopric of Worcester; but this he declined. In March of the same year Latimer began to preach before larger audiences, from a pulpit set up in the king's private garden at Westminster. His extant Sermon on the Ploughers-the teachers and preachers of religion-was delivered at St. Paul's, in January, 1549. In March and April of the same year--on the Fridays in Lent-he preached Seven Sermons before Edward VI., two on "The Duty of a King,” one on "The Unjust Judge," two on The Lawfulness of Kings," and one on "The Agony in the Garden." These were followed by his

66

TO A.D. 1553.]

HUGH LATIMER.

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farewell sermon before Edward. Latimer seems to have been in Lincolnshire during the rest of the reign of Edward VI., and there, in the autumn of 1552, at Grimsthorpe Castle, before the Duchess of Suffolk, he preached his Seven Sermons on the Lord's Prayer, which, with another series of twenty-one Sermons preached in Lincolnshire, have been preserved. Latimer's preaching was essentially English; homely, practical, and straight to its purpose. There was no speculative refinement, but a simple sense of duty to be done for love of God. He pointed distinctly to the wrongs he preached against. After three of his Lent sermons before the king, three hundred and seventy-three pounds retained dishonestly were restored to the State by certain of the king's officers. He enlivened his admonition with shrewd sayings, recollections of life, genial humour. In many respects Latimer personified the spiritual life of the work-a-day Englishman. In his fifth sermon on the Lord's Prayer, when he was arguing that the true religious houses had not been pulled down, he said, "I read once a story of a holy man, some say it was St. Anthony, which had been a long season in the wilderness, eating nor drinking nothing but bread and water; at the length, he thought himself so holy that there should be nobody like unto him. Therefore, he desired of God to know who should be his fellow in heaven. God made him answer, and commanded him to go to Alexandria, there he should find a cobbler which should be his fellow in heaven. So he went thither and sought him out, and fell acquainted with him, and tarried with him three or four days to see his conversation. In the morning his wife and he prayed together, then they went to their business, he in his shop, and she about her housewifery. At dinner-time they had bread and cheese, wherewith they were well content, and took it thankfully. Their children were well taught to fear God, and to say their Paternoster, and the Creed, and the Ten Commandments, and so he spent his time in doing his duty truly. I warrant you he did not so many false stitches as cobblers do nowadays. St. Anthony perceiving that, came to the knowledge of himself, and laid away all pride and presumption. By this example you may learn that honest conversation and godly living is much regarded before God, insomuch that this poor cobbler, doing his duty diligently, was made St. Anthony's fellow."

Edmund Spenser was born in 1552 or 1553.

60. In the reign of Queen Mary (1553-1558), soon after her

proclamation, Latimer was brought from Lincolnshire, and lodged on the 13th of September in the Tower. On the 14th Cranmer also was sent to the Tower. As Latimer passed through Smithfield he said that the place had long groaned for him. In the following March, 1554, Hugh Latimer, with Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, and Nicholas Ridley, Bishop of London, was tranferred to a prison at Oxford. There were to be public disputations between those in power and the accused prisoners. Latimer was baited on the 18th of April. Age and infirmity, a mind never practised in scholastic disputation, and the practical fact that the dispute was a form with its end predetermined, caused Latimer to content himself with a declaration that he held fast by his faith. After trial, under a commission issued by Cardinal Pole, Latimer and Ridley were burnt at Oxford, on the 16th of October, 1555. When the lighted fagot was placed at the feet of Ridley, Latimer exclaimed: "Be of good comfort, Master Ridley, and play the man. We shall this day light such a candle, by God's grace, in England as I trust shall never be put out."

Miles Coverdale (§ 26, 29, 58), made Bishop of Exeter under Edward VI., was deprived and imprisoned by Queen Mary before he went abroad; and after many wanderings, settled at Geneva, where he was still active in Bible translation.

John Fox, who in later years compiled a painful record of the persecutions for religion in his time, was born in 1517, at Boston, in Lincolnshire. He was educated at Brazenose College, Oxford, and became fellow of Magdalene. He wrote Latin plays on Scriptural subjects before he devoted himself wholly to the great religious controversies of his day. Then he studied Hebrew, read the Greek and Latin fathers, was accused in 1545 of heresy, and was expelled from college. He next lived with Sir Thomas Lucy, of Charlcote, near Stratford-onAvon, as tutor to his children; then he came to London, and after the execution of the Earl of Surrey, John Fox was employed as tutor to his children. At the beginning of Mary's reign Fox was protected by the Duke of Norfolk, but he presently escaped to Basle, where he lived as correcter of the press for the printer Oporinus, and resolved to write his Martyrology.

We need not dwell on the reaction against Church Reformers in the reign of Mary. The best thought of the country was not with it, and it gave nothing to English literature but the quicker

TO A.D. 1558.]

REIGN OF MARY.

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spirit of antagonism that embittered controversy in succeeding years. In January, 1554, Sir Thomas Carew failed in a demonstration against Queen Mary's union with Philip of Spain, son of the Emperor Charles V. Before the end of the month, Sir Thomas Wyatt the younger, son of the poet, headed insurrection against the proposed marriage, marched to London, and there yielded himself prisoner on the 7th of February. He was executed on the 11th of April. Mary was married to Philip of Spain on the 25th of June. In 1555 seventy-one heretics were executed; in 1556, eighty-three; in 1557, eighty-eight; in 1558, forty.

John Heywood (§ 49), who had not been banished from court in the reign of Edward VI., and who had shown real liking for Queen Mary when she was a princess, in her father's lifetime, remained at her court, and had her confidence. After her death he went abroad, and died at Mechlin in 1565.

Nicholas Udall (§ 48, 58) also retained Mary's good-will. He had spoken highly of her in a special Prologue to her part of the translation from Erasmus's New Testament Paraphrase, and he was employed, by her warrant, in directing a dramatic entertainment for the feast of her coronation; also in preparing dialogues and interludes to be performed before her. In 1554 or 1555, Udall was made head master of the school settled at Westminster by Henry VIII., in 1540. In November, 1556, Mary re-established the monastery, and there was an end of Udall's office, but a month later there was an end also of his life.

Sir Thomas Smith (§ 51, 56) under Mary was deprived of all his offices, but had for his learning a pension of £100.

Sir John Cheke (§ 51, 56), at the death of Edward VI., was one of those who sought to secure the succession of Lady Jane Grey. He was sent to the Tower, but for his learning his life was saved, and he was permitted to leave England. While abroad his estates were confiscated. He was seized by Philip at Brussels, and sent to England, where he escaped death by recantation. The queen then gave him means of life, but made life a torture by compelling him to sit on the bench at the judgment and condemnation of those heretics who did not faint in the trial of their faith. His age was but forty-three when he died, in September, 1557.

Two books were printed by Richard Tottel in 1557, namely, Tottel's Miscellany, and a Hundreth Good Pointes of Husband

rie, by Thomas Tusser. Tottel's Miscellany was a collection of verses, known in society, but never before published, by the Earl of Surrey, Sir Thomas Wyatt, and others. Thomas Tusser's poem was the first edition of a work afterwards much enlarged. These were new books at the accession of Elizabeth, and are related to the early literature of her reign.

CHAPTER VII.

THE REIGN OF ELIZABETH.

I. ON New Year's-day, 1540, when Francis I. and Charles V. rode into Paris together (ch. vi. § 43, 54), the Emperor was on his way through France to punish Ghent. The Netherlands passed in 1477 to Austria, by marriage of Mary of Burgundy with Archduke Maximilian. Charles V. was born of marriage between Archduke Philip, heir by right of his mother to the Netherlands, and Joanna, who being the second daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella, was, after the death of intervening persons, heir to the monarchies of Spain. Thus Charles acquired by inheritance both Spain, which was essentially Catholic, and the Netherlands, with a population kindred to our own.

The seventeen provinces of the Netherlands differed in character and constitution, but they all sent deputies to a StatesGeneral, which had no power of taxation, and acknowledged appeals to a Supreme Tribunal at Mechlin. Four of these provinces were duchies-Brabant, Limburg, Luxemburg, and Guelderland; seven were counties-Flanders, Holland, Zealand, Artois, Hainault, Namur, and Zutphen; five were seignioriesFriesland, Mechlin, Utrecht, Overyssel, and Groningen; and the seventeenth-Antwerp-was a margraviate. Charles was himself born and bred in Flanders; he talked Flemish and favoured Flemings. The Netherlanders, therefore, liked him, though their temper was republican, and his was a despotic rule. taxed them heavily because they were more prosperous than their neighbours. It was revolt in Ghent against an excessive tax that Charles went to put down in 1540. He did put it down with a strong hand, compelling the chief citizens to kneel before him in their shirts, with halters round their necks.

He

The spirit of the Reformation spread also among these people

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