tion have indelibly fixed upon the sovereign the epithet of "bloody Queen Mary." A disappointment in a supposed pregnancy, her husband's coldness and unkindness, and the discontent of her subjects, aggravated her natural fretfulness. Although Pole disapproved of the severity of persecution, the arguments of Gardiner and others in its favour suited the queen's disposition so well, that in three or four years two hundred and seventy-seven persons were committed to the flames, including prelates, gentlemen, laymen, women, and even children. The sincerity of Mary's zeal could not be doubted, for she sacrificed the revenues of the crown in restitution of the goods of the church; and to remonstrances on this head, she replied "that she preferred the salvation of her soul to ten such kingdoms as England." She had, indeed, no scruple in indemnifying herself by arbitrary exactions on the property of her subjects; and her whole reign shewed a marked tendency to despotism.
Some have supposed that the queen was compassionate, and that most of these barbarities were committed by her bishops without her knowledge. But among numberless proofs of the falsity of this opinion, we need only mention her treatment of Archbishop Cranmer, who had saved her life, when her father, Henry the Eighth, irritated by her firm adherence to her mother, and her obstinacy in refusing to submit to him, had resolved to put her openly to death. Cranmer alone ventured to urge King Henry against such an act; and, by his argument, succeeded in saving her. In return for this, he was condemned and burnt by Mary for heresy. She died November 7th., 1558, at the age of forty-three, of an epidemic fever. The loss of Calais, just before her death, so affected her, that she remarked to her attendants that they would find Calais written on her heart.
Styrpe preserved three pieces of her writing; a prayer against the assaults of vice, a meditation touching adversity, and a prayer to be read at the hour of death. In "Fox's Acts and Monuments" are printed eight of her letters to King Edward and the lords of council; and in the "Syllogæ Epistolorum" are several more of her letters.
Miss Strickland, in her history of the "Queens of England," has collected many facts which serve to soften the dark picture of Mary's reign.
MARY II., QUEEN OF ENGLAND.
And wife of William the Third, with whom she reigned jointly, was born at St. James' Palace, Westminster, on the 30th. of April, 1662. She was the daughter of James the Second, by Anne Hyde, his first wife. She married, November 4th., 1677, at the age of fifteen, William, Prince of Orange, and sailed two weeks after for the Hague. Here she lived, fulfilling her duties as a wife and princess, to the admiration of all who knew her, till February 12th., 1689; when, accepting a solemn invitation from the states of England, she followed her husband, who had arrived the preceding November, to London.
The throne was declared vacant by the flight of James the Second, and William and Mary were crowned as next heirs, April 11th., 1689.
Though Mary was declared joint possessor of the English throne
