abide the fire." Many more victims were offered. The enemies of the
church were to submit or die. So said Gardiner, and so said the papal
legate and the queen, in the delirious belief that they were the chosen
instruments of Providence.

The people, whom the cruelty of the party was reconverting to the
reformation, while the fires of Smithfield blazed, with a rapidity like
that produced by the gift of tongues at Pentecost, regarded the martyrs
with admiration as soldiers dying for their country. On Mary, sorrow was
heaped on sorrow. Her expectation of a child was disappointed, and
Philip refused to stay in England. His unhappy wife was forced to know
that he preferred the society of the most abandoned women to hers. The
horrible crusade against heretics became the business of the rest of her
life. Archbishop Cranmer, Bishops Ridley and Latimer, and many other
persons of distinction were amongst the martyrs of the Marian
persecution. Latimer was eighty years of age.

Mary's miseries were intensified month by month. War broke out between
England and France. For ten years the French had cherished designs, and
on January 7, 1558, the famous stronghold fell into their hands. The
effect of this misfortune on the queen was to produce utter prostration.
She now well understood that both parliament and the nation were badly
disposed towards her. But her end was at hand. After much suffering from
dropsy and nervous debility, she prepared quietly for what she knew was
inevitable. On November 16, at midnight, taking leave of a world in
which she had played so evil a part, Mary received the last rites of the
church. Towards morning she was sinking, and at the elevation of the
Host, as mass was being said, her head sank, and she was gone. A few
hours later the pope's legate, Cardinal Pole, at Lambeth, followed her.
Thus the reign of the pope in England and the reign of terror closed
together.

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The World's Greatest Books, Vol XI.
by Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton

*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GREATEST BOOKS, VOL. XI. ***

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