In the Shadow of the Crown - By Jean Plaidy Page 0,207

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