43 CHAPTER XXXIV. THE REFORMATION UNDER EDWARD VI. Had this King's reign been long as it was good, What might have his age been, when his blest youth So valiantly advanced God's sacred truth? TAYLOR, the Water Poet, Memorial The incomparable Prince Edward (the subject of our ensuing history) was born on the twelfth day of October, in the twenty-ninth year of the reign of his father, King Henry VIII., at Hampton Court, and christened on the Monday following, being the fifteenth of the month, at the chapel there.—STRYPE, Memorials Eccles. of King Edward VI. vol. ii. pt. 1, p. 1. The last winter the king fell sick of a cough, which brought him into a consumption of the lungs; and so he lingered, and grew worse and worse, till July 6, when he piously left an earthly crown for an heavenly.-Ibid. vol. ii. pt. 2, P. 117. Meanwhile the lords, with the mayor and the heralds, went to the Cross at Cheapside to proclaim Mary Queen. Pembroke himself stood out to read; and this time there was no reason to complain of a silent audience. He could utter but one sentence before his voice was lost in the shout of joy which thundered into the air. God save the Queen,' 'God save the Queen,' rung out from tens of thousands of throats. (July 19, 1553.)—FROUDE'S History of England, vol. vi. p. 32. After a while this Queene had worne the Crowne, TAYLOR, the Water Poet, Memorial 'We have now,' says good old Fox the martyrologist-good, notwithstanding all blunders and mistakes-with whom and with other writers of the day it was common to compare the young king with Josias, 'brought the course of this story, through the goodness and supportation of Christ our Lord, to the mild and halcyon days of King Edward the Sixth, as into a haven of fair and calmer weather. For like as the sea, so also the land hath ofttimes its rages and also tranquillity.' When Henry died Edward was in his tenth year. Contrary to his father's will, which named sixteen executors and twelve counsellors, these named Lord Hertford (now created Duke of Somerset) Protector-the great favourer, as is generally supposed, of the Reformation--and so possessed him with unlimited power, at all events with such power as scarcely any subject ever possessed before. 'The first of February,' are old Stow's words, the Earl of Hertford was nominated, elected, and chosen, by all the Executors, to be Protector and chief Governour of the King's person, until he came to his lawful age of eighteen years, and so he was proclaimed '—evidently, as already hinted, in opposition to the views of the late king, who, as Mr. Froude says, 'in the selection of his executors was guided by the desire to leave a government behind him in which the parties of reaction and of progress should alike be represented. No individual among them was given precedence over another, because no one could be trusted with extreme power. On both sides names were omitted which might naturally have been looked for. Gardiner was struck from the list as violent and dangerous; Lord Parr, the queen's brother, Lord Dorset, who had married Henry's niece, were passed over as sectarian or imprudent; and, whatever further changes the king himself might have contemplated, he may be presumed to have desired the existing order of things in "Church and State" should be maintained as he had left it till Edward's minority should expire.' But, whatever Henry's covert views were, 'then began King Edward his son to reign, scarce ten years old, full of as much worth as the mind of his age could hold. No pen,' continues Fuller, 'passeth him by without praising him, though none praising him to his full deserts.' It was because, in his opinion, Sir John Haywood did not write fairly, good, honest Strype wrote animadversions on his life and reign of King Henry VIII. Fuller, above quoted, followed him pretty closely, but not in his views of Edward, following Stow rather, who said, 'he was in this his youth a person of much toward liness in virtue, learning, and all godly gifts, as seldom hath been seen the like'-all of which Strype backs with the authority of William Thomas, one of the most learned men of those times, and afterwards one of the Clerks of the Council. Meanwhile, the state of the country may be judged of somewhat by the state of its rulers, allowing, as usual, for much ignorance, and many disturbances. The Duke of Somerset and the Earl of Warwick, or, as afterwards called, the Duke of Northumberland, were both friends to the Reformation-they were hardly, however, to be called men of stern principle, and their friendship had much in it of policy. Certainly, it was not every one who would have applied to them Lord Brooke's words Religion's fair name by insinuation Secretly seizeth all powers of the mind, Worship in will, which native sweet links bind Still, the bare fact of their joining with Cranmer and the real Reformers was a great boon, and their countenance most beneficial for the time. I say, for the time, because we are not to forget that the latter of these two ambitious men died a Romanist, and warned the people against the Protestants as 'sowers of sedition.' And, in some senses, as the country was in general, so was the county in which the Old Oak stood. With abundant ignorance there was still a great stir about improvement and the new learning of the Reformation; all of which was most satisfactory to the rectors of Hanwood and Fontesbury, who, as we have seen before, were converts pretty much to the opinions of Luther, notwithstanding their love for the old abbey at Shrewsbury and its abbot, and its many hospitalities, and its library. The truth is, they were both honest but, withal, cautious men. They never concealed their opinions, and they taught to the best of their power, and the remarkable thing is that they were never reprimanded. Probably they owed this to the seclusion of the valley of the Rea, which was much better known in the days of the Lords of Caux Castle than in the days of the Tudors. In the time, however, that we are now speaking of, whatever they might have had in Mary's days, they had nothing to conceal. They were rather in advance than otherwise of the clergy round about. At the same time they were what would now be called Conservatives, and did not wish to overturn without replacing, as was the case with the curate and churchwardens of St. Martin's in Ironmonger Lane, in London,' who, on February 10, took down the images and pictures of the saints, and the crucifix, out of this church, and painted many texts of Scripture on the walls-some of them according to a perverse translation, as the complaint has it; and in the place where the crucifix was, they set up the king's arms, with some texts of Scripture about it'; all of which was done in overmuch haste, and had to be redone, for the curates were committed to the Tower, and the churchwardens had to erect a new crucifix within two days, in its usual place. At the same time, when all was ready, they were ready too, and were well satisfied when pictures and images were put down in Shrewsbury, as they were before the end of 1547. The passage following from our able historian tells of this: 'The death of Henry was the signal in Shropshire for the commencement of the Reformation. "This yeare," says our MS. Chronicle, in Adam Mytton and Roger Pope's time, "the pycture of owre lady out of St. Mary's, and the picture of Mary Mawdalen and the pycture of St. Chadde's owt of St. Chadd's Church, were all three burnyd in the marketplace, commonly called the Corne-Market." This could not have taken place before the month of May, when the new government issued its injunctions for a general visitation over England. One of their orders for this measure was that curates should take down such images as they knew were abused by pilgrimages or offerings to them. The sacrifice of our Salopian paintings must have taken place before October, when Mytton and Pope went out of office. In all probability it was done by express order of the visitors, when, in course of their circuit, they came to this town.' There can be no doubt but that in many places the progress of the Reformation was hindered by the indiscreet haste of those who would have forwarded it the most. Besides this the rector of Hanwood was very well aware that there was another bar to the advancement of the people, which was this: the putting the pensioners of the different religious houses and monasteries into such preferments as were constantly falling vacant-a step taken both by the government and by the purchasers of ecclesiastical property. It was evident at once that those who had been the teachers of the old learning would not, in general, be encouragers of the new. Then, again, they were very slenderly provided for, and having to depend upon the offerings of the people (as is still the case in Roman Catholic countries), they were swayed by their wishes and predilections, which were often on the side of the opus operatum. It is not ignorant people only who willingly leave their religion to be wrought out by others. But (might I be bould to speake to them shoulde speake to me), It was a fitting remark of Harper's to Bullinger, Papam trucidavit non Papatum; for Henry VIII. when he died was as much POPE SELF as ever the most lordly of the Popes. Still, the Reformation advanced, and the hopes of the old rector of Hanwood rather overcame his fears. Certainly he might have said, in the words of the old historical poem above quoted :— The uncles of this Orpant King, so long as they agreed, Upheld religion, King, themselves, and Realme in happie state: Under any circumstances this very clear point was gained: the Church of England acknowledged no allegiance whatever to the Church of Rome. Many think that the Protector, with all his faults and ambitious views, greatly strengthened our position, and they called him the 'good Somerset.' Be it as it may, Calvin evidently was of this opinion when he |