Silver bells and cockle shells
by Mike Oettle
“MARY, Mary,
quite contrary,” goes the familiar nursery rhyme, “how does your garden grow?”
The image that comes to mind is a little girl in a suburban yard, her imagination conjuring up pretty pictures.
But this rhyme is a political satire of Queen Mary I of England – Bloody Mary of bitter memory. Her contrariness lay in her refusal to tolerate the Protestant innovations in the Church of England during the reign of her half-brother, the boy-king Edward VI, and her determination to return England to the “one true faith” of Rome. Hence her silver bells – the altar bells, not heard since the time of her father, Henry VIII – and cockle shells. These were actually scallop shells,[1] symbols of pilgrimage to Compostela, the shrine of St James (Santiago) in Galicia, in the far north-west of Spain. The pretty maids all in a row were the priests, no longer officiating in severe Protestant clothing but once more wearing lace surplices.
What Mary failed to realise was that her Catholic fervour was not English but Spanish, and that her accession to the throne was popular because she was the legitimate heir, not because of a Catholic revival. Mary’s upbringing was strongly influenced by her mother, Catherine of Aragon, and her governess, a Spanish grandee of ducal rank. England would have been happy to have her a Catholic monarch on its own terms, but she sought a marriage alliance with her Continental cousins, eventually wedding Philip of Spain.[2] This not only meant England’s being embroiled in political trouble (an
alliance with Spain against France resulted in disaster when England lost
Calais, its last Continental possession) but the probable introduction of a
State Inquisition in the Spanish fashion, rather than the tamer institution of
the Roman Church.
So, blind to the consequences, Mary proceeded to de-Protestantise the Church of
England with a heavy hand – ironically, by using Parliament, the same
instrument Henry, and after him Edward’s guardians, had used to take it away
from the authority of the man they called the Bishop of Rome. And with her
fervour for purity of (Catholic) doctrine, it was inevitable that the axe
would fall on the men who had risen to prominence under Edward.
Notable among these were Hugh Latimer (1485-1555) and Nicholas Ridley (1503-1555), both of whom had started out orthodox Catholic priests but had been influenced by Protestant ideas, Latimer particularly by Martin Luther.
Latimer attracted attention when, during the controversy over King Henry’s first divorce, he spoke out in favour of the king’s position. He acquired influential friends in Thomas Cromwell, later Chancellor, and Thomas Cranmer,[3] who would become Archbishop of Canterbury. He was nonetheless called in January 1532 to subscribe to certain articles of faith, including the existence of purgatory and the veneration of saints, and on refusing was imprisoned until he submitted (in April that year).
Thanks to Cromwell pulling strings, Latimer became Bishop of Worcester in 1535, but was forced to resign in ’39. Before Henry’s death (in 1547) he spent some time in the Tower of London, but after Edward’s accession was freed. Not resuming his bishopric, he now undertook a preaching ministry, popularising the Reformation.
Ridley is “generally considered to have had one of the finest academic minds in the first generation of leaders of the English Reformation”.[4] Made chaplain to Thomas Cranmer (now archbishop) in 1537, Ridley was elected master of Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, in 1540, and “took a leading part in transforming [Cambridge] university into a Reformist seminary”.4 In 1541 he became a canon of Canterbury, and in ’45 a canon of Westminster. Under Edward, he was made Bishop of London in 1550 and immediately caused a stir by campaigning for the use of a plain table instead of an altar for communion. A supporter of Lady Jane Grey, Queen for a brief nine days (9 to18 July 1553) after Edward’s death, he was marked for destruction when Mary came to the throne.
In that same month Ridley was arrested, and in September Latimer also. Tried in Oxford two years later, both men were condemned to death by burning at the stake. As the fire was lit, on 16 October 1555, Latimer turned to Ridley and said: “. . . we shall this day light such a candle, by God’s grace, in England as I trust shall never be put out.”[5]
It burns still today, not only in England but around the world.
