was now to become the wife of King Philip of
Spain. Negotiations for this momentous marriage had been protracted, and
even after the contract had been signed, Philip seemed slow to arrive.
The coolness manifested by his tardiness did much to aggravate the
queen's despondency. On July 20, 1554, he landed at Southampton. The
atmospheric auspices were not cheering, for Philip, who had come from
the sunny plains of Castile, from his window at Southampton looked out
on a steady downfall of July rain. Through the cruel torrent he made his
way to church to mass, and afterwards Gardiner came to him from the
queen. On the next Sunday he journeyed to Winchester, again in pouring
rain. To the cathedral he went first, wet as he was. Whatever Philip of
Spain was entering on, whether it was a marriage or a massacre, a state
intrigue or a midnight murder, his first step was ever to seek a
blessing from the holy wafer. Mary was at the bishop's palace, a few
hundred yards' distance. Mary could not wait, and the same night the
interview took place. Let the curtain fall over the meeting, let it
close also over the wedding solemnities which followed with due
splendour two days after. There are scenes in life which we regard with
pity too deep for words.

The unhappy queen, unloved, unlovable, yet with her parched heart
thirsting for affection, was flinging herself upon a breast to which an
iceberg was warm; upon a man to whom love was an unmeaning word, except
as the most brutal of all passions. Mary set about to complete the
Catholic reaction. She had restored the Catholic orthodoxy in her own
person, and now was resolved to bring over her own subjects. But clouds
gathered over the court. The Spaniards were too much in evidence. With
the reaction came back the supremacy of the pope, and the ecclesiastical
courts were reinstated in authority to check unlicensed extravagance of
opinion.

Gardiner, Bonner, Tunstal, and three other prelates formed a court on
January 28, 1555, in St. Mary Overy's Church, Southwark, and Hooper,
Bishop of Gloucester, and Canon Rogers of St. Paul's, were brought up
before them. Both were condemned as Protestants, and both were burnt at
the stake, the bishop at Gloucester, the canon at Smithfield. They
suffered heroically. The Catholics had affected to sneer at the faith of
their rivals. There was a general conviction among them that Protestants
would all flinch at the last; that they had no "doctrine that would