Mary had no child, and Philip spent most of his time in the Netherlands, being apparently alienated from his queen. She became dejected, through a sense of his unkindness, and chagrined at the loss of Calais, so that her health declined; while she was the victim of superstition, and a prey to remorse for her dreadful cruelties, and she finished her wretched life, November 7, 1558. Of the martyrs for Christ in the reign of Mary, victims of the Inquisition, there were reckoned, _one_ archbishop, _four_ bishops, _twenty-one_ clergymen, _eight_ gentlemen, _eighty-four_ tradesmen, _a hundred_ husbandmen, labourers and servants, _fifty-five_ women, and _four_ children! Cooper estimates the number of those who suffered for the Gospel, from February, 1555, to September, 1558, at about 290! According to Bishop Burnet, there were 284. The most accurate account is, probably, that of Lord Burleigh, who, in his treatise called “The Execution of Justice in England,” reckons the number of those who died in the reign of Mary by imprisonment, torments, famine, and fire, to be nearly 400; of whom those who were burnt alive amounted to 290! Queen Elizabeth succeeded to the throne on the death of her sister Mary. She was a Protestant in profession, and she restored the reformation in England; but her prelates were persecutors, and they were allowed to retain the spirit and power of the Inquisition, but under another name, “The Court of High Commission.” This Court of High Commission was created in the name of the queen, for the express purpose of searching out and punishing the nonconformists. These commissioners were principally bishops, and they assumed the power of administering an _oath ex officio_, by which the prisoner was obliged to answer all questions put to him, and even to accuse himself or his dearest friend. Many refused to take the oath, choosing rather to suffer imprisonment, which was determined, not according to any law, but the will of the commissioners. A detail of the miseries endured by conscientious clergymen, under the High Commission Court, would require volumes; their _principles_, and many of their _practices_, being precisely those of the _execrable_ ROMISH INQUISITION. Archbishop Parker continued a cruel persecutor of the nonconformists: and others of the prelates employed the most dishonourable methods to hunt out and imprison them, hiring unprincipled characters as inquisitors and informers, and making new articles, contrary to the laws of England, for the more certain conviction of those brought before the ecclesiastical courts.