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LADY JANE GREY (1537–1554)

After the portrait in the Collection of the Earl of Stamford and Warrington

Mary’s first Parliament met with the celebration of mass, which was ominous; but it was not too compliant: it was ready to restore the situation as it was in the last years of Henry VIII.; it was unwilling to submit to Rome; and it refused absolutely to restore the Church property. Further, it presented a petition against the proposed foreign marriage. Mary’s second Parliament, more obedient to the will of the Queen, gave its consent to the proposed marriage, but refused to re-enact the statute for the burning of heretics. Her third Parliament went a step farther: it re-enacted the statute for the burning of heretics; it agreed to reconciliation with Rome; but it refused, like its predecessors, to sanction the surrender of Church lands. They were ready to obey their sovereign in matters of faith: the soul may always be left to the care of the Church; but property—property—that, if you please, belongs to the Lay mind. Convocation, on the other hand, was very thorough: it denounced the Book of Common Prayer; it demanded the suppression of the Catechism; it recommended violent measures against the clergy who should deny the Real Presence and against those who should not put away their wives. This meant Revolution. Hosts of priests, and those who still survived from the monasteries, rejoiced to say mass once more, even in the ruined and desecrated churches that were left to them. It meant Restoration. Priests sprang up everywhere from the ground—how had they lived for ten years? Priests in the villages and the parish churches put on their old robes; dragged out the censing vessels; replaced the Host. Ex-monks who had been pensioned from the monasteries; ex-friars who had received no pensions but had been simply turned into the street; ecclesiastics from abroad;—all came, eager to revive the forbidden worship. They looked around them ruefully at the dishonoured shrines and the ruined chapels: it would take centuries to make everything as it had been; but still—one must try.