It was a more than questionable policy thus to ally England with Spain—a power then actually at war with France. By the treaty, indeed, England was to remain neutral; but the force of events, in the end, compelled her to take part in the quarrel. Meanwhile the country was full of faction, and seditious pam phlets of Protestant origin inflamed the people with hatred against the Spaniards. Philip's Spanish followers met with ill-usage everywhere, and violent outbreaks occurred. A year after his marriage Philip went over to Brussels to receive from his father the government of the Low Countries and afterwards the kingdom of Spain. To Mary's distress, his absence was prolonged for a year and a half, and when he returned in March 1557 it was only to commit England to the war; after which he went back to Brussels in July, to return no more to England.
Hostilities with France were inevitable, because France had encouraged disaffection among Mary's subjects, even during the brief truce of Vaucelles. Conspiracies had been hatched by Eng lish refugees in Paris, and an attempt to seize Scarborough had been made with the aid of vessels from the Seine. But perhaps the strangest thing about the situation was that the pope took part with France against Spain. It was this war with France that occasioned the final calamity of the loss of Calais.
The persecution of the Protestants, which has cast so much infamy upon her reign, was not due, as commonly supposed, to inhumanity on her part. When the kingdom was reconciled to Rome and absolved by Cardinal Pole, it followed, almost as a matter of necessity, that the old heresy laws should be revived, as they were then by Act of Parliament. Serious doubts were felt as to the result even from the first; but the law having been once passed could not be relaxed.
No doubt there were milder men among the heretics, but as a class their stern fanaticism and to the old religion made them dangerous, even to the public peace. Rogers, the first of the martyrs, was burnt on Feb. 4, Hooper, bishop of Gloucester, had been condemned six days before, and suffered the same fate upon the 9th. From this time the persecution went on uninter rupted for three years and three quarters, numbering among its victims Ridley, Latimer and Cranmer. It came to an end at last on the death of Mary. Nearly three hundred victims are known to have perished at the stake ; and their fate created a revulsion against Rome that nothing else was likely to have effected.
Mary was of weak constitution and subject to frequent illnesses, both before and after her accession. One special infirmity caused her to believe a few months after her marriage that she was with child, and thanksgiving services were ordered throughout the dio cese of London in November 1554. The same delusion recurred in
March 1558, when though she did not make her expectation public, she drew up a will in anticipation of the dangers of childbirth, con stituting her husband regent during the minority of her prospec tive heir. To this she added a codicil on Oct. 28 following, when the illness that was to be her last had set in, showing that she had ceased to have much expectation of maternity, and earnestly en treating her "next heir and successor by the laws" (whom she did not name) to allow execution of the instrument. She died on Nov. 17, 1558.
Her name deserved better treatment than it has generally met with; for she was far from cruel. Her kindness to the poor is undoubted, and the severe execution of her laws seemed only a necessity. Even in this matter, moreover, she was alive to the injustice with which the law was usually strained in behalf of the prerogative; and in appointing Sir Richard Morgan chief justice of the Common Pleas she charged him "not to sit in judgment otherwise for her highness than for her subjects," and to avoid the old error of refusing to admit witnesses against the Crown (Holinshed III. 1112). Her conduct as queen was governed by the best possible intentions ; and it is evident that her very zeal for goodness caused most of the trouble she brought upon herself. Her subjects were entirely released, even by papal authority, from any obligation to restore the confiscated lands of the Church. But she herself made it an object, at her own expense, to restore several of the monasteries ; and courtiers who did not like to follow her example, encouraged the fanatics to spread an alarm that it would even yet be made compulsory. So the worldly minded joined hands with godly heretics in stirring up enmity against her.
See Sir F. Madden, Introduction to The Privy Purse Expenses of the Princess Mary (1831) ; A. Strickland, Lives of the Queens of England (184o-48) Tybler, History of Edward VI. and Queen Mary; R. W. Dixon, History of the Church of England (6 vols., 1877-1902) ; A. Zimmermann, Maria die Katholische (1890) ; Stone, History of Mary I., Queen of England (Igo') ; M. Hume, Two English Queens and Philip (1908) ; also J. Lingard, History of England to r688 (1819-30, new ed., 1915) ; J. A. Froude, History of England (12 vols., 1869) ; Calendar of Papers of the Reign of Henry VIII. (ed. Brewer and Gairdner 1862-72). (J. GAL)