In the beginning of the year 1552, the celebrated company of the Anseatic merchants, called here the merchants of the Steelyard, were dissolved, they having engrossed almost the whole trade of the kingdom; for in the preceding year they exported 40,000 pieces of cloth, while all the English merchants together did not export 1100.
Upon the breaking out of the rebellion under Sir Thomas Wyat, occasioned by the report of Queen Mary’s intended marriage with Philip of Spain, the city was thrown into a violent commotion, and on his marching to Deptford, the Lord Mayor, Aldermen, Sheriffs, and citizens, had not only recourse to arms; but, it being term time, the Judges sat, and the Council pleaded in Westminster Hall in armour. In this general confusion the Queen came to Guildhall, where she was attended by the Lord Mayor, Aldermen, Sheriffs, and several of the city companies in their formalities, to whom she made a long and flattering speech, in which she professed, that she loved them as a mother loves her child, and that she would not engage in this marriage, if she thought it inconsistent with the happiness of her loving subjects: but that she desired to leave _some fruit of her body_ to be their governor.
This had such an effect, that they cut down the drawbridge, and shut the gates against Wyat, as he arrived in Southwark; he therefore marched up the river, crossed the Thames at Kingston, and proceeded through Westminster to Ludgate; but not being admitted by his friends in the city, as he expected, he generously surrendered himself, to prevent bloodshed, and was soon after beheaded on Tower hill.
The rest of this reign exhibited a dreadful scene of religious bigotry, by a most cruel persecution of the Protestants; for the principal instance she gave of her tender maternal love to the citizens, was, her causing many of them to be burnt in Smithfield, in order to put a stop to the reformation begun by her father, and continued by her brother: but Providence soon interposed; her reign was short; and the fires which were then kindled for the holy martyrs, who sealed their faith with their blood, were the last effort, under the sanction of law, made by religious tyranny in this kingdom to overthrow the reformation. Happy would it have been for the Protestants, if this cruel spirit had never prevailed amongst them; if, upon this change, universal benevolence had taken place, and every Briton would have allowed his neighbour the same liberty of enquiry, which he claimed for himself! but though both the national church and the dissenters from it, have disclaimed the pretended infallibility they so justly censured in the church of Rome, and have even constantly owned that they themselves are fallible, yet, contrary to the mild, the humane spirit of the Gospel, they have absurdly persecuted those who would not allow them to be infallible, and have presumed to differ from the unerring standard of their judgment!