to Spanish ideas, for Spain was the country of the Inquisition, that hateful secret court which dealt with heresy. Everything about the Inquisition was detestable to English minds. It tried men in secret, whereas Englishmen had been used to open trials. The accused had no chance of hearing the accusation against him, or of meeting the witnesses face to face; he might be cruelly tortured, he might be imprisoned for years without trial, and at the end, if found guilty, he would be burned. A great burning of heretics was called by the Spaniards an auto-da-fè, an "act of faith". None could think of an Inquisition in England without shuddering. Everyone dreaded what the half-Spanish Mary, impelled by her Spanish husband, might do.

Mary's Persecution; Death of Cranmer.

Mary soon showed that there was good reason to fear her. In February, 1555, Hooper, Bishop of Gloucester, was burned at the stake as a heretic. From that time onward till the end of Mary's reign, about ten persons were burned every month: the total mounts up to nearly three hundred. Even the Archbishop Cranmer was not spared. Every effort was made to lead him to declare himself a Roman Catholic: he was kept long in prison; he was sentenced to death, and then told that his life would be spared if he recanted; he was taken to witness the last agonies of his brother-Protestants being burned alive. In a moment of weakness he gave in; he signed a declaration that he had returned to the Roman faith. But the weakness passed, and when in spite of it he was burned, he thrust into the flames the erring right hand with which he had signed the cowardly document, that it might first be consumed.

Three other bishops perished in the same way.

As a whole, however, the persecution fell upon the Effect of the poorer classes. Unknown men went peacePersecution. fully to the most horrible of deaths sooner than deny what they believed, or save themselves by a lie. The sight of this simple faith, which was not to be overcome even by the flames, did more to make men admire the Reformers, and seek to imitate them, than all Mary's cruelties could do towards terrifying them to be Catholics. They were obeying Martin Luther's stirring words:

"God's word, for all their craft and force,

One moment shall not linger,

But spite of hell, shall have its course,

'Tis written by His finger.

And if they take our life,

Goods, honour, children, wife,
Yet is their profit small,

These things shall vanish all;

The City of God remaineth."1

Bishop Latimer, when in the midst of the fire, showed the same spirit when he cried to his fellowsufferer, Bishop Ridley, "Be of good comfort, Master Ridley, play the man; we shall this day light such a candle, by God's grace, in England, as I trust shall never be put out".

Latimer was right. Englishmen had entered on Mary's reign still undecided, they came out of it convinced. They would have no more England becomes Protestant under of the pope, no more of Spanish burnElizabeth, 1558- ings. Elizabeth, the new queen, was of the same mind. She put an end to the fires in Smithfield, she refused obedience to the pope. The mass was abolished, and the service-book in English restored. She made no attempt to find

1603.

1 Martin Luther's hymn-translated by Thomas Carlyle.

out what men believed, or to punish them for it. All she desired was that they should worship peaceably, should go to church, and should acknowledge her as head of the National Church.

Thus after thirty years of struggle the Church of England finally won her freedom from the Roman see. But the end of religious troubles was not reached. There was a small party in England who thought it was wrong for Elizabeth to be head of the Church; they did not believe that the Growth of a Church required any head on earth. And Puritan Party. we shall see that this small party of Puritans by degrees grew powerful, and eventually threw the whole of Great Britain into confusion.

XVIII. THE UNLUCKY HOUSE OF
STUART.

Soon after Robert Bruce's death all that he nad won came near to being lost. His son David II. was but four years old when he became king. Edward Balliol revived his father, John's, claims. He was aided by a number of English barons, who were striving to regain the lands in Scotland which they had held for a time, and had lost on the fall of the English power. The Scottish regent, Mar, was surprised Dupplin, 1332; and routed at Dupplin, and the year after Halidon Hill, 1333. Edward III., who, seeing the chance of doing Scotland an injury, had taken up Balliol's cause, defeated the Scots at Halidon Hill, and overran the whole country. David had to be sent for safety to France.

Edward III. had done as much as his grandfather,

but he could do no more. He could defeat the Scots in battle; the English archers proved as fatal to Scottish men-at-arms as they were to the French; but he could not conquer the country. Besides, he soon had, as we have seen, a French war on his hands; and by degrees Scotland slipped from his grasp. The castles were recaptured, and David returned to his kingdom.

One curse of Scotland-foreign invasion-was for the time stayed. Unluckily another soon appearedThe Scottish quarrels at home. For the next two hunNobles. dred years it seems as if nothing but the presence of the hated English invader could unite Scotland, and keep king and nobles from flying at each other's throats. No two men had distinguished themselves more against the English than Douglas the Knight of Liddesdale, and Ramsay of Dalwolsy. They were comrades in arms, champions of the same cause. Yet no sooner was David II. restored to his throne than Douglas, jealous of an office given to Ramsay, treacherously seized his friend, and sent him The House to starve to death in the dungeon of Herof Douglas. mitage Castle. The name Douglas, so gloriously borne by the Good Lord James, was to have an evil sound thenceforward in Scottish history; formidable indeed to foes, but equally dangerous to the peace of Scotland.

David died childless, and so the to an end. A grandson of King mother's side was given the crown. Stuart, Robert II. [1371].

Bruce line came
Robert's on the
This was Robert

The House of Stuart may well be termed "The Unlucky House". Six kings, descended from Robert II., sat on the throne of Scotland. Of these only one, Robert III., had a peaceful end, and he, before his

death, saw one of his sons cruelly murdered, and the other a prisoner in England. Robert The Stuarts. III., too, was the only one to attain

old age; none of the others lived to be forty-five; three of them were cut off ere they had entered on the second half of life's natural span; James I. was murdered; James II. killed by the bursting of a cannon at the siege of Roxburgh; James III. assassinated; James IV. killed at Flodden; James V. died of a broken heart. It is a series of disasters, unparalleled in history. Yet, unlucky as the kings were, their country was even more so. Year after year and reign after reign, war follows rebellion and rebellion follows war, in dreary succession. Homes burnt, fields ravaged, invasions, defeats, raids from the Highlands, hangings, murders, come one after the other. National independence was a good thing, but no use could be made of it while there was neither order nor firm government. A king could do little for his people so long as his whole resources were being strained to crush the great families into obedience.

1390-1406.

Robert III. had been ruled by his brother Robert, Duke of Albany. It was Albany and the Earl of Douglas who were concerned in the mur- Robert III., der by starvation of the king's elder son. When the younger son, James I., was released from his captivity in England, his first step was to take vengeance on the Albanys. The old duke James I... was dead, but the king had his successor, 1406-1437. Duke Murdac, and his two sons, executed. Severity was necessary: it was well-deserved. Unhappily a stern king was certain to raise up against himself enemies who hated justice and order. Sir Robert Graham formed a plot against the king's life. Late