OF THE PARTING BETWEEN DERRICK CARVER AND CONSTANCE.

The attempt made by the conspirators to cause a general rising proved completely abortive. Stafford and his party received some accessions to their numbers as they marched along, but before they reached Charing Cross they were attacked and dispersed by a troop of mounted arquebusiers, who issued from Whitehall. Several persons were arrested, among whom were the two officers of the Princess Elizabeth’s household, Peckham and Werne, but the ringleaders managed to escape. Next day, Stafford, Dudley, Kingston, Udal, Osbert Clinton, and the rest of the party, were publicly proclaimed as outlaws, rebels, traitors, and disturbers of the peace, and a large reward offered for their capture.

Nothing, however, was said about the French ambassador. Only to Gardiner did Philip avow that he had been secretly present with Father de Castro at the meeting in the crypt, and the Chancellor counselled him not to allow this circumstance to transpire publicly, as they had proof enough against the conspirators without it; above all, Gardiner was 330opposed to any proceedings being taken against De Noailles. Thus the wily ambassador escaped with impunity as on previous occasions. A strict watch, however, was kept upon his movements.

It was confidently anticipated, both by the King and Gardiner, that before many days all the chief conspirators would be arrested, but in this expectation they were disappointed. No traces of any of them could be discovered. Some doubts were entertained as to the fate of Osbert Clinton. Two persons were shot in the boat in which he escaped from Lambeth, and their bodies thrown into the Thames, and it was thought he was one of them; but this was by no means clear.

While the search for the leaders of the outbreak was thus being actively, though unsuccessfully, prosecuted, Peckham and Werne were taken to the Tower and put to the torture, in order to compel them to accuse the Princess Elizabeth of complicity in the affair, but nothing could be wrung from them, and, with twenty other luckless personages who had been captured at the same time, they were hanged, drawn, and quartered, and their heads set upon the north gateway of London Bridge.

Meanwhile, the religious persecution continued with unabated rigour. Bishop Hooper, with two others, had undergone martyrdom at different places, and six more prisoners, excommunicated by Bonner, and delivered over to the civil power, were about to perish in the same manner.

Conscious of the odium attaching to these sanguinary measures, Gardiner prudently resigned his post at the ecclesiastical tribunal to Bonner, who thenceforward acted as supreme judge, and was undeterred by scruples of any sort.

A momentary check was, however, given to his severity from an unexpected quarter. From the various manifestations made towards him by the Protestant party, and from other circumstances, Philip could not fail to perceive that if he took any further part in these barbarous proceedings, he should raise up a host of determined enemies, so he caused Father Alfonso to preach publicly, before him and the court, a sermon strongly condemnatory of religious persecution. The plan completely answered the King’s expectations, it being felt that such a sermon could not have been preached 331without his sanction, and it was argued, therefore, that he must disapprove of the course pursued by Bonner.

The effect of this remarkable discourse—remarkable, indeed, as emanating from one who had been designated “The Scourge of Heresy”—was to stay the bitter persecution for a while, but, though momentarily checked, it revived with a greater fury than before. The six unfortunate persons excommunicated by Bonner were consigned to the flames, and urged to greater activity by the Marquis of Winchester, and other members of the council, the zealous prelate looked out for fresh victims.

Bonner had long burned to wreak his vengeance upon Derrick Carver, and was at last able to gratify his desire. Having procured a warrant from the Queen for the deliverance up to him of the prisoner, who was still confined in the Lollards’ Tower, he immediately acted upon it. Before he was taken away, Carver, by permission of the Cardinal, was allowed to bid farewell to Constance Tyrrell. The interview took place in the Post Room in the Lollards’ Tower, and in order that there might be no check upon their freedom of discourse, they were left alone together.

“Daughter,” said Carver, who appeared more subdued than usual, “I am about to win the crown of martyrdom for ............