William Gardiner

“ Your brother Andy is a good man; he is a friend of mine. He will be back soon, for that I am telling ye. William Fraser, the carpenter, he’s been telling ye what ‘they say.’ Tell yer wife, Donald, when ye go home, what I say, what Davy says, and what Angus’ wife says for him to say, and don’t you worry about the mortgage.” Then Bill went over to the shop door, and they thought he was going to confide something to Davy, but he hesitated, finally bit off an enormous quid of tobacco and sauntered slowly down the road homeward. ”

“ His unsuccessful suit to a young lady led him to publish in 1754 'The History of Pudica, a Lady of Norfolk, with an account of her five lovers, by William Honeycomb.' One of the lovers, named 'Dick Merryfellow,' was intended for himself. The satire is dull and acrimonious. Gardiner next took up the profession of arms, and in March 1757 he was promoted from being a lieutenant in the 12th regiment of foot to the command of a company of marines. ”

“ Nevertheless, so long as Henry lived, Gardiner supported and defended all or most of his ecclesiastical measures, and remained in the main subservient to his will. On Edward's accession, he first openly attempted to stem the tide of change, assuming—probably for the purpose of gaining time—the indefensible position, that he had been willing to yield to the supremacy of the late King, and would be equally willing to do so to the new one, but protesting against the exercise of that supremacy by the council of regency during the minority ”

“ Gardiner, but from time to time have reseived much kindness of him and from him, not onely by counsell and advise in our prosperitie, but in our great extremytie, when wee wee were almost swallowed upp of our enemies, then wee say he apeared to us not onely as a friend, but as a father, in giveinge us his monie and goods, wherby wee defended ourselves, and ransomd my daughter and friends, and wee say and know that by his meanes we had great comfort and reliefe from the most honarable of the English nation heare about us ”

“ Nothing but death can divide us.”
At this juncture an usher announced the Lord Chancellor, and the next moment Gardiner entered the room. Both the Cardinal and Priuli rose to receive him. After courteous but grave salutations had passed between them, Gardiner remarked, “Your Eminence desires to speak to me about those recusants who were yesterday excommunicated by the ecclesiastical tribunal, and delivered to the secular power. ”

“ At such times, when a man has once chosen his side or his party, his opinions, which have vacillated before, will often progress even to extremes in a very short time, and harden and stiffen in them. No better instance of this kind of development in the time with which we are now dealing can be found than that of Gardiner himself. When Gardiner exchanged the service of Wolsey for that of his master, and for some years after, he appeared to be as facile a tool in the hands of Henry VIII. as any other of his ministers or courtiers. ”

“ Neither side when in power showed much pity for its opponents. But whatever judgment may be formed of Gardiner’s acts towards the Protestant party, and his desire to extirpate heresy and schism by fire and blood, it must be conceded that he was one of the ablest statesmen of the day, and that Mary was singularly fortunate in choosing him for her chancellor and prime minister. ”

“ Cranmer, therefore, could not easily, on this ground, be more obnoxious to her than Gardiner was; and, on the other hand, Burnet tells us, though again without giving his authority, that at a time when her father was much incensed against her, Cranmer ventured upon the not altogether safe office of interceding for her, when Gardiner himself and the Duke of Norfolk stood aside and left her to her fate. ”

“ Advancing slowly towards him, the Duke fell upon his knees, and his example was imitated by the others. Gardiner then proceeded to interrogate them in a series of questions appointed by the Romish formula for the reconciliation of a heretic; and the profession of faith having been duly made, he arose, took off his mitre, and delivering it to the nearest priest, and extended his arms over the converts, and pronounced the absolution. With his right thumb he then drew the sign of the cross on the Duke’s forehead, saying, “Accipe signum crucis.” and being answered, “Acccpi.” ”

“ A book of Homilies was issued, and a royal visitation announced, and the bishops temporarily suspended from their functions. Bonner and Gardiner alone attempted resistance; but Bonner and Gardiner in consequence, went to the Fleet, where, in the coarse of a week, the former gave up his opposition, while Gardiner, persisting in his, presently exchanged the Fleet for the Tower.
On Somerset's return from Scotland, Parliament met, and the measures of this Parliament were not a little remarkable. In them we see the first sign of the failure of Cromwell's scheme of absolutism. ”

“ His servility said bluffly, "Now with any other man I should be on equal terms, but I frankly acknowledge that it is a different matter with you." So the men who had more sheep in the present, or who possessed greater credit as the beautiful result of sheep in the past, were inclined to think Gardiner a good sort, even if his grandfather had come out to New South Wales in a ship with soldiers. For that is the satiric colonial euphemism for a convict.
But, all the same, he was a beast, and as mean as mud to those who were down, who couldn't get up, or who were obviously of no use to him. ”

“ In the course of his progress through France he received orders from Henry to send back his secretary Gardiner, or, as he was called at court, Master Stevens, for fresh instructions; to which he was obliged to reply that he positively could not spare him as he was the only instrument he had in advancing the king’s “secret matter.” Next year Gardiner, still in the service of Wolsey, was sent by him to Italy along with Edward Fox, provost of King’s College, Cambridge, to promote the same business with the pope. ”

“ On 12 Nov. 1650 the council of state issued an order permitting him to come to London for nine days on taking the engagement (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1650) . He died at Cuddesdon, where he was buried 15 Oct. 1652.
Gardiner married Rebecca Child, by whom he had many children. Two of his sons were slain in the civil wars within a few weeks of each other. The elder, Thomas, a captain of horse in the royalist army, was knighted by the king at Oxford as he sat at dinner on his reporting Prince Rupert's success at Newark, March 1643, and lost his life near Oxford at the end of July 1645. ”

“ But Gardiner was unable to give the required promise, and was committed, like Bonner, to the Fleet. 'I have held my office sixteen years,' he wrote to Sir John Godsalve, who was one of the visitors; 'I have studied only how I may depart with it without offence to God's law; and I shall think the tragedy of my life well passed over, so I offend not God's law nor the King's; I will no more care to see my bishopric taken from me than myself taken from my bishopric; I am by nature already condemned to die, which sentence no man can pardon.' [60]
Gardiner had endeavoured to destroy Cranmer. ”

“ One so anxious, as Gardiner must have been at that time, to keep foreign domination out of England could never have advocated the marriage of his sovereign with “Spanish Philip,” nor, indeed, have been likely to call the latter’s father
“That wisest monarch, most devout of Christians,
Potent of captains, fortunate of men.” But, of course, the poet stands to his colors. Having selected Gardiner for the villain par excellence, he makes him welcome even foreign domination in the person of a bigoted prince, who, he knows, will imbrue his hands in the blood of heretics. ”

“ You DO live. You ARE what you long to be. That ideal you're always trying to grasp—don't you know why you can't grasp it, Pauline? Because it's your own self, your own image reflected as in a mirror."
He broke off abruptly, acutely conscious that he was leaning far over the barrier between them. There was a distant shout, from vigorous, boyish lungs. Gardiner, mad with the joy of healthy seven, came running and jumping across the field to land with a leap astride the hillock, scattering wisps of hay over his mother and Scarborough. ”

“ Gardiner had lived all his life too close to nature to escape the call of the spring. If his work had been out of doors, in the garden or the farm, he might have come through better; but he was in the printing room; always hot and stuffy with glue, and his exercise was limited to the five minutes' walk to and fro. He lost his sleep, and in the long vigils he was tormented by visions of Rochehaut. ”

“ All his life long his enemies accused him of dissimulation and hypocrisy for acts like these, but it was precisely this quality which raised him to eminence. Had he not been purchasable, he could hardly have survived as an Anglican bishop; an enthusiast like Fisher would have ended on Tower Hill.
Perhaps more fully than any other prelate of his time, Gardiner represented the faction of Henry and Norfolk; he was as orthodox as he could be and yet prosper. He hated Cromwell and all "gospellers," and he loved power and splendour and office. ”

“ Gardiner, his good mother, dated from Paris the 25th of January following, that is 1719-20, in answer to one in which she had warned him to expect such trials: "I have (says he) already met with them, and am obliged to fight, and to dispute every inch of ground. But all thanks and praise to the great Captain of my salvation. He fights for me, and then it is no wonder that I come off more than conqueror:" by which last expression I suppose he meant to insinuate that he was strengthened and established, rather than overborne, by this opposition. ”

“ Gardiner, the wife of a Major Gardiner, is the only daughter of Dr. Gosset; a wife, but not a mother. The second in the ranks is Mustapha. Every body quickly found out the original in Mr. Gardiner, a bookseller in Pall Mall ”

“ Angelita de mi corazón, I would have respected your little fads; you should have kept your fenced garden and your fountain sealed. I could have held your life in my hand and never closed my fingers on it—yes, I could; even that. I was your very true lover. I wonder, was it a bayonet—"
To this precipice Gardiner always came, sooner or later. We talk of unimaginable horrors; there were none he had not imagined. How do men live, with thoughts like these? God knows.
"B14, are ye waukin? Ye're to dress and come wi' me."
"Hullo! is that Mr. Mackenzie? What's up?" ”

“ His chief recreation was cycling, and in his holidays he familiarised himself with the battle-fields of the English civil war and followed the campaigns of Montrose in Scotland and of Cromwell in Ireland. During the greater part of the period in which the history was produced Gardiner was actively engaged in teaching. From 1872 to 1877 he was a lecturer at King's College, London, and in 1877 he succeeded John Sherren Brewer [q. v.] there as professor of modern history. Between 1877 and 1894 he lectured regularly for the Society for the Extension of University Teaching in London. ”

“ No labor should be despised which shall enable one to present things just as they are. Our endeavor should be to think straight and see clear. An incident should not be related on insufficient evidence because it is interesting, but an affair well attested should not be discarded because it happens to have a human interest. I feel quite sure that the cardinal aim of Gardiner was to be accurate and to proportion his story well. In this he has succeeded; but it is no drawback that he has made his volumes interesting. ”

“ Gardiner was unfortunate as a bookseller, and ultimately obtained employment in the publishing office of the Fife Herald. He died at Perth on the 4th July 1845. Some years before his death, he published a volume of original and selected compositions, under the title of "Gardiner's Miscellany." He was a person of amiable dispositions; and to other good qualities of a personal character, added considerable skill in music. ”

“ Gardiner succeeded in stating fairly and sympathetically the position and the aims of both parties. He did not confine himself to relating facts, but traced the growth of the religious and constitutional ideas which underlay the conflict. No side of the national life was neglected. He won the praise of experts by his accounts of military and naval operations, elucidated continually the economic and social history of the time, and was the first to show the interaction of English and continental politics. ”

“ Still, he could not go far; his father was getting an old man, and clung to him. A winter walking tour discovered his ideal on the Semois. He [Pg 23] settled his affairs at the Easedale with his usual luck and expedition, and was free to start his new life—if only—
Since the affair with Pilar, Gardiner had given women a wide berth. The burnt child dreads the fire, and besides he was mightily distrustful of his own temperament. He did not make the mistake of despising all women for the fault of one ”

“ Gardiner was a foreign member of the Accademia di Santa Cecilia and attended one of its meetings in Rome; he was also corresponding member of the Institut historique de France. His popularity among all classes was due to his exuberant high spirits, kindness, and brilliant conversational powers. At the age of eighty-three he was still in vigorous bodily health, with bright, unclouded intellect. He died after a week's illness at Leicester, 16 Nov. 1853, and was buried in the new cemetery. His portrait by Miss M. A. Hull was published by Messrs. Allen of Leicester. ”

“ The chief points in Gardiner's life must be taken from the Rev. Dr. Doddridge's "Some remarkable passages in the Life of the Hon. Colonel James Gardiner, who was slain at the battle of Prestonpans, September 21, 1745." He was the son of Captain Patrick Gardiner, of Torwood Head, Linlithgowshire, and was born 10 January, 1687. At the early age of 14 he bore an ensign's commission in a Scotch Regiment in the Dutch service until 1702, when he received an Ensign's commission from Queen Anne. At the age of 19, in the battle of Ramillies, he received a wound in his mouth by a musket ball. ”