I said, “Philip, you do think it is right to treat my sister as heirpresumptive, do you not?”
“We must until the child is born.”
“So thought I. Then she must be seated at my table. And she must receive honors. That is right, Philip?”
“I believe that to be right,” he said.
“I am glad that she will have an opportunity to become acquainted with Emmanuel Philibert.”
Philip nodded gravely.
When it was seen that I was treating Elizabeth with the respect due to the heir presumptive, there were many to flock round her. Philip's eyes were speculative as he watched her success. If I had not known him well, I should have thought he was interested in her as a woman.
As for Elizabeth, she was in her element. I had never seen anyone recover so quickly, whether it was from sickness or fear of death; as soon as it was over, she seemed able to dismiss it from her mind.
Emmanuel Philibert was paying court to her. She accepted his attentions and then wide-eyed declared that she could never marry. I was irritated with her. She must have known what was expected of her, yet she put on that pretense of innocence which I knew was entirely false.
I sent for her and told her she was foolish. The prince was a good man; she was fortunate that he should agree to marry her.
“My dear sister,” she said, “I have a repugnance for the state of marriage. I wish to remain a virgin.”
“What! All your life!”
“It would seem so…at this time.”
“You are a fool, sister.”
She piously raised her eyes to the ceiling, accepting my judgement. But I could see the stubborn look about her mouth.
Later I consulted Philip.
I was feeling very ill now, and I know I looked wan. Philip was most anxious about me, and I was gratified that he showed such care for me.
He said, “She should not be forced to marry.”
“It would be difficult to force her.”
He nodded. “Let her stay. She is watched. No harm can come that way.”
I thought how kind he was, how considerate of others.
I told Elizabeth that the King thought she should make her own decision about marriage.
Her eyes lighted with pleasure, and she smiled secretively.
THE ACTS SETTING OUT the return to Rome were now confirmed, and those nineteen statutes against the See of Rome brought in during my father's reign were repealed.
It was not to be expected that the country would easily change, and there must certainly be dissenters. When Gardiner came to me and told me that the Council were going to enforce the old laws against heresy, I was disturbed.
I questioned this. In my imagination I saw the pale, martyred face of Anne Askew, and I remembered those days when my stepmother Katharine Parr went in fear of her life. Anne Askew and Katharine Parr had been good women, though misguided. I could not bear to think of people being tortured and burned at the stake.
“I think persuasion would be the best way to proceed,” I said.
“Your Majesty, with all respect, when has persuasion ever persuaded? These people are as firm in their beliefs as…”
“As you or I?”
“They need guidance.”
“Then let us give them guidance.”
“The Council are of the opinion that the old laws should be enforced. Moreover, it is the Pope's wish.”
“All I wanted was to bring the country back to Rome, for the Mass to be celebrated openly and with due reverence. I must think of this.”
Gardiner looked at me with something like exasperation. Often he had deplored what he thought of as my woman's sentimentality. One did not govern a country on sentiment. If the law of the country was that people should worship in the way it was before my father broke with Rome, then that was how it should be.
I wanted to explain to him that it was different now. Since Martin Luther nailed his ninety-five theses on the church door at Wittenberg, Protestantism had grown apace, and there were many Protestants in England who had flourished under my brother. Would they lightly discard those new beliefs and cheerfully return to the old? They certainly would not, and then…
“Let it be gradual,” I said.
“Perhaps you will talk to the King,” replied Gardiner.
He knew that I would. He knew that I sought every opportunity of talking to Philip, and he knew that Philip would doubtless agree with the Council.
I told Philip how gratified I was that we were restoring the true religion. We had come out of the sleep, as someone said, and we were now getting back onto the right course. It was what God had ordained for me, and I was achieving it.
“It is a matter for rejoicing,” said Philip.
“Philip,” I said earnestly. “I do not wish the law to be harsh.”
He never betrayed his feelings, but I could see his thoughts were much the same as Gardiner's had been and that he believed my misguided sentiments stood in the way of good government.
He said, “If the people will not come to the truth voluntarily, they must be led to it.”
“How can they be led if they will not listen?”
“When they see what happens to heretics, they will be led.”
“There will always be martyrs.”
“There will always be heretics and they must be removed.”
“I remember Anne Askew. She was a good woman, but misguided in her views. They racked her. They burned her at the stake.”
“You must understand. A heretic denies God's truth. What is there for him…or her… when they are brought before their Maker? It will be hell fire for them… eternal fire. That which is felt at the stake will be nothing compared with what is to come.”
I covered my face with my hands.
“I wish it need not be,” I said.
“There must be examples.”
“Each person must be given a chance to recant.”
Philip nodded. “That should be. And for the death of one, think of the thousands who will be saved by his example. It is easy to talk of martyrdom, but when the flames are actually seen to consume the bodies of those who sin against God, men and women will question their beliefs. It is the way to turn people to the truth.”
He persuaded me, and in January, when Parliament was dissolved, the way ahead was clear.
I wanted every person to have a chance to save himor herself. All they had to do was turn from the new learning to the old, true religion. I wanted all to know that I would be a loving monarch if my people would obey the laws of the land. I wanted no trouble. I wanted them to regard me as their mother. I wanted them to know I loved them and that, if I agreed to punishment—and this applied particularly to heretics, it was for their own good.
I said that all those who had been imprisoned at the time of the Wyatt rebellion should be released. I thought often of Edward Courtenay, with whom I had at one time considered a marriage. How fortunate I had been to escape that! In spite of his Plantagenet blood, he would have been a most unsuitable husband. How different Philip was!
I said he should be released from Fotheringay, where he had lived virtually as a prisoner since his release from the Tower. But he must not stay in England, of course. That could be unsafe. He and Elizabeth might plot together. She had sworn she was loyal to me, and I tried to believe her, but I would never really know Elizabeth. She was shrewd. The perils through which she had passed would have made her so. I must remember her dangerous flirtation with Seymour, which might have had dire results.
So Courtenay could go free only if he left the country. He went, with the injunction that he must not return to England without permission.
It was in February of that second year of my reign that the first heretic was burned at the stake for his religious opinions. His name was Rogers, and people gathered at Smithfield to watch him burn. In Coventry the rector of All Hallows Church was burned and at Hadleigh Rowland Taylor, a wellknown adherent to the Protestant cause, met the same fate. He was the parish priest and much loved, a man of great virtue, apart from his stubbornness in religious matters. He had protested violently when a priest had been sent to perform Mass in his church. His arrest and sentence to the stake had followed. But the most prominent victim was John Hooper, the Bishop of Gloucester and Worcester.