The Reign of Mary Tudor Part 5

Mary, ignorant that she was in immediate danger, and only vaguely uneasy, looked to Philip's coming as the cure of her discomforts. "Let the prince come," she said to Renard, "and all will be well." She said she would raise eight thousand men and keep them in London as his guard and hers; she would send a fleet into the Channel and sweep the French into their harbours; only let him come before Lent, which was now but a fortnight distant: "give him my affectionate love," she added; "tell him that I will be all to him that a wife ought to be; and tell him, too [delightful message to an already hesitating bridegroom], tell him to bring his own cook with him" for fear he should be poisoned,[214] The ceremony, could it have been accomplished, would have been a support to her; but the forms from Rome were long in coming. On the 24th of January the emperor was at last able to send a brief, which, in the absence of the bulls, he trusted might be enough to satisfy the queen's scruples. Cuthbert Tunstal, who had been consecrated before the schism, might officiate, and the pope would remove all irregularities afterwards.[215] But when the letter and the brief arrived Mary was at no leisure to be married.

Wyatt, having arranged the day for the rising, sent notice to the Duke of Suffolk, who was still in London. On the morning of the 25th an officer of the court appeared at the duke's house, with an intimation that he was to repair to the queen's presence. Suffolk was in a riding dress-"Marry!" he said, "I was coming to her grace; ye may see I am booted and spurred; I will but break my fast and go."[216] The officer retired. The duke collected as much money as he could lay hands on-sent a servant to warn his brothers, and, though in bad health, mounted his horse and rode without stopping to Lutterworth, where, on the Sunday following, Lord John and Lord Thomas Grey joined him.

The same morning of the 25th an alarm was rung on the church bells in the towns and villages in all parts of Kent; and copies of a proclamation were scattered abroad, signifying that the Spaniards were coming to conquer the realm, and calling on loyal Englishmen to rise and resist them. Wyatt's standard was raised at Rochester, the point at which the insurgent forces were to unite; his friends had done their work well, and in all directions the yeomen and the peasants rose in arms. Cheyne threw himself into Dover Castle: Southwell and Abergavenny held to the queen as had been feared; Abergavenny raised two thousand men, and attacked and dispersed a party of insurgents under Sir Henry Isly on Wrotham Heath; but Abergavenny's followers deserted him immediately afterwards, and marched to Rochester to Wyatt; Southwell could do nothing; he believed that the rebellion would spread to London, and that Mary would be lost.[217]

On the 26th, Wyatt, being master of Rochester and the Medway, seized the queen's s.h.i.+ps that were in the river, took possession of their guns and ammunition, proclaimed Abergavenny, Southwell, and another gentleman traitors to the commonwealth,[218] and set himself to organise the force which continued to pour in upon him. Messengers, one after another, hurried to London with worse and worse news; Northampton was arrested and sent to the Tower, but Suffolk and his brothers were gone; and, after all which had been said of raising troops, when the need came for them there were none beyond the ordinary guard. The queen had to rely only on the musters of the city and the personal retainers of the council and the other peers; both of which resources she had but too much reason to distrust. In fact, the council, dreading the use to which the queen might apply a body of regular troops, had resisted all her endeavours to raise such a body; Paget had laboured loyally for a fortnight, and at the end he a.s.sured the queen on his knees that he had not been allowed to enlist a man.[219] Divided on all other points, the motley group of ministers agreed to keep Mary powerless; with the exception of Gardiner and Paget, they were all, perhaps, unwilling to check too soon a demonstration which, kept within bounds, might prove the justice of their own objections.

The queen, however, applied to the corporation of the city (January 27), and obtained a promise of five hundred men; she gave the command to the Duke of Norfolk, on whose integrity she knew that she could rely; and, sending a herald to Rochester with a pardon, if the rebels would disperse, she despatched Norfolk, Sir Henry Jerningham, and the young Lord Ormond, to Gravesend, without waiting for an answer. The city bands were to follow them immediately. Afraid that Elizabeth would fly before she could be secured, the queen wrote a letter to her studiously gracious, in which she told her that, in the disturbed state of the country, she was uneasy for her safety, and recommended her to take shelter with herself in the palace.[220] Had Elizabeth obeyed, she would have been instantly arrested; but she was ill, and wrote that she was unable to move. The next day evidence came into Gardiner's hands which he trusted would consign her at last to the scaffold.

The King of France had sent a message to the confederates that he had eighty vessels in readiness, with eighteen companies of infantry, and that he waited to learn on what part of the coast they should effect a landing.[221] The dangerous communication had been made known to the court. The French amba.s.sador had been narrowly watched, and one of his couriers who left London on the 26th with despatches for Paris was followed to Rochester, where he saw, or attempted to see, Wyatt. The courier, after leaving the town, was waylaid by a party of Lord Cobham's servants in the disguise of insurgents; his despatches were taken from him and sent to the chancellor, who found in the packet a letter of Noailles to the king in cypher, and a copy of Elizabeth's answer to the queen. Although in the latter there was no treason, yet it indicated a suspicious correspondence. The cypher, could it be read, might be expected to contain decisive evidence against her.[222]

Meantime the herald had not been admitted into Rochester. He had read the queen's message on the bridge (January 27), and, being answered by Wyatt's followers that they required no pardon, for they had done no wrong, he retired. Sir George Harper, who was joint commander with Wyatt, stole away the same evening to Gravesend, and presented himself to Norfolk. The rebels, he said, were discontented and irresolute; for himself he desired to accept the queen's pardon, which he was ready to earn by doing service against them; if the duke would advance without delay, he would find no resistance, and Wyatt would fall into his hands.

The London bands arrived the following afternoon (January 28), and Norfolk determined to take Harper's advice. The weather was "very terrible." On Monday morning it blew so hard that no boat could live; Wyatt, therefore, would be unable to escape by the river, and an immediate advance was resolved upon. Sir Thomas Cheyne was coming up from Dover; Lord William Howard was looked for hourly, and Abergavenny was again exerting himself: Lord Cobham had urged the duke to wait a few days, and had told him that he had certain knowledge from Wyatt himself that "the Londoners would not fight:"[223] but Norfolk was confident; the men had a.s.sured him of their loyalty; and at four o'clock on Monday afternoon he was on the sloping ground facing towards Rochester, within cannon-shot of the bridge. The duke was himself in front, with Ormond, Jerningham, and eight "field-pieces," which he had brought with him. A group of insurgents were in sight across the water, a gun was placed in position to bear upon them; and the gunner was blowing his match, when Sir Edward Bray galloped up, crying out that the "white coats," as the London men were called, were changing sides. The duke had fallen into a trap which Harper had laid for him. Turning round, he saw Brett, the London captain, with all his men, and with Harper at his side, advancing and shouting, "A Wyatt! a Wyatt! we are all Englishmen!" The first impulse was to turn the gun upon them; the second, and more prudent, was to spring on his horse, and gallop with half a dozen others for his life. His whole force had deserted, and guns, money, baggage, and five hundred of the best troops in London fell into the insurgents' hands, and swelled their ranks.

No sooner was the duke gone, than Wyatt in person came out over the bridge. "As many as will tarry with us," he cried, "shall be welcome; as many as will depart, let them go," Very few accepted the latter offer. Three parts, even of Norfolk's private attendants, took service with the rebel leader.

The prestige of success decided all who were wavering in the county. Abergavenny was wholly forsaken; Southwell escaped to the court; Cheyne wrote to the council that he was no longer sure of any one; "the abominable treason of those that came with the Duke of Norfolk had infected the whole population."[224] Cobham continued to hold off, but his sons came into Rochester the evening of the duke's flight; and Wyatt sent a message to the father expressing his sorrow that he had been hitherto backward; promising to forgive him, however, and requiring him to be in the camp the next day, when the army would march on London. Cobham still hesitating, two thousand men were at the gates of his house[225] by daybreak the next morning (January 30). He refused to lower the drawbridge, but the chains were cut with a cannon-shot, the gates were blown open, and the rebels were storming in when his servants forced him to surrender. The house was pillaged; an oath was thrust on Cobham that he would join, which he took with the intention of breaking it; and the rebels, perhaps seeing cause to distrust him, carried him off to Wyatt as a prisoner.[226] That night the insurgents rested at Gravesend. The next day (January 31) they reached Dartford. Their actual numbers were insignificant, but their strength was the disaffection of London, where the citizens were too likely to follow the example which had been set at Rochester.

Mary's situation was now really alarming: she was without money, notwithstanding the Jews; she had no troops; of all her ministers Paget alone was sincerely anxious to do her service; for Gardiner, on the subject of the marriage, was as unwilling as ever. It was rumoured that the King of Denmark intended to unite with the French in support of the revolutionists, and Renard began calmly to calculate that, should this report prove true, the queen could not be saved. Pembroke and Clinton offered to raise another force in the city and fight Wyatt; but, so far as Mary could tell, they would be as likely to turn against her as to fight in her defence; and she declined their services. Renard offered Gardiner a.s.sistance from the Low Countries-Gardiner replied with extreme coldness that he had no desire to see Flemish soldiers in England-and the council generally were "so strange" in their manner, and so languid in their action, that the amba.s.sador could not a.s.sure himself that they were not Wyatt's real instigators. Not a man had been raised to protect the queen, and part of her own guard had been among the deserters at Rochester. She appealed to the honour of the lords to take measure for her personal safety; but they did nothing, and, it seemed, would do nothing; if London rose, they said merely, she must retire to Windsor.

The aspect of affairs was so threatening, that Renard believed that the marriage at least would have to be relinquished. It seemed as if it could be accomplished only with the help of an invading army; and although Mary would agree to any measure which would secure Philip, the presence of foreign troops, as the emperor himself was aware, could only increase the exasperation.[227] The queen's resolution, however, grew with her difficulties. If she could not fight she would not yield; and, taking matters into her own hands, she sent Sir Thomas Cornwallis and Sir Edward Hastings to Dartford, with directions to speak with Wyatt, if possible, alone; to tell him that she "marvelled at his demeanour," "rising as a subject to impeach her marriage;" she was ready to believe, however, that he thought himself acting in the interests of the commonwealth; she would appoint persons to talk over the subject with him, and if it should appear that the marriage would not, as she supposed, be beneficial to the realm, she would sacrifice her wishes.[228]

The message was not strictly honest, for the queen had no real intention of sacrificing anything. She desired merely to gain time; and, should Wyatt refuse, as she expected, she wished to place herself in a better position to appeal to her subjects for help.[229] But the move under this aspect was skilful and successful; when Cornwallis and Hastings discharged their commission, Wyatt replied that he would rather be trusted than trust; he would argue the marriage with pleasure, but he required first the custody of the Tower, and of the queen's person, and four of the council must place themselves in his hands as hostages.[230]

Had Wyatt, said Noailles, been able to reach London simultaneously with this answer, he would have found the gates open and the whole population eager to give him welcome. To his misfortune he lingered on the way, and the queen had time to use his words against him. The two gentlemen returned indignant at his insolence. The next morning (February 1), Count Egmont waited on Mary to say that he and his companions were at her service, and would stand by her to their death. Perplexed as she was, Egmont said he found her "marvellously firm." The marriage, she felt, must, at all events, be postponed for the present; the prince could not come till the insurrection was at an end; and, while she was grateful for the offer, she not only thought it best to decline the amba.s.sadors' kindness, but she recommended them, if possible, to leave London and the country without delay. Their party was large enough to irritate the people, and too small to be of use. She bade Egmont, therefore, tell the emperor that from the first she had put her trust in G.o.d, and that she trusted in Him still; and for themselves, she told them to go at once, taking her best wishes with them. They obeyed. Six Antwerp merchant sloops were in the river below the bridge, waiting to sail. They stole on board, dropped down the tide, and were gone.

The afternoon of the same day the queen herself, with a studied air of dejection,[231] rode through the streets to the Guildhall, attended by Gardiner and the remnant of the guard. In St. Paul's Churchyard she met Pembroke, and slightly bowed as she pa.s.sed him. Gardiner was observed to stoop to his saddle. The hall was crowded with citizens: some brought there by hatred, some by respect, many by pity, but more by curiosity. When the queen entered she stood forward on the steps, above the throng, and, in her deep man's voice, she spoke to them.[232]

Her subjects had risen in rebellion against her, she said; she had been told that the cause was her intended marriage with the Prince of Spain; and, believing that it was the real cause, she had offered to hear and to respect their objections. Their leader had betrayed in his answer his true motives; he had demanded possession of the Tower of London and of her own person. She stood there, she said, as lawful Queen of England, and she appealed to the loyalty of her great city to save her from a presumptuous rebel, who, under specious pretences, intended to "subdue the laws to his will, and to give scope to rascals and forlorn persons to make general havoc and spoil." As to her marriage, she had supposed that so magnificent an alliance could not have failed to be agreeable to her people. To herself, and, she was not afraid to say, to her council, it seemed to promise high advantage to the commonwealth. Marriage, in itself, was indifferent to her; she had been invited to think of it by the desire of the country that she should have an heir; but she could continue happy in the virgin state in which she had hitherto pa.s.sed her life. She would call a parliament and the subject should be considered in all its bearings; if, on mature consideration, the Lords and Commons of England should refuse to approve of the Prince of Spain as a fitting husband for her, she promised, on the word of a queen, that she would think of him no more.

The spectacle of her distress won the sympathy of her audience; the boldness of her bearing commanded their respect; the promise of a parliament satisfied, or seemed to satisfy, all reasonable demands: and among the wealthy citizens there was no desire to see London in possession of an armed mob, in whom the Anabaptist leaven was deeply interfused. The speech, therefore, had remarkable success. The queen returned to Westminster, leaving the corporation converted to the prudence of supporting her. Twenty-five thousand men were enrolled the next day for the protection of the crown and the capital; Lord William Howard was a.s.sociated with the mayor in the command; and Wyatt, who had reached Greenwich on Thursday, and had wasted two days there, uncertain whether he should not cross the river in boats to Blackwall, arrived on Sat.u.r.day morning at Southwark, to find the gates closed on London Bridge, and the drawbridge flung down into the water.

Noailles, for the first time, believed now that the insurrection would fail. Success or failure, in fact, would turn on the reception which the midland counties had given to the Duke of Suffolk; and of Suffolk authentic news had been brought to London that morning.

On the flight of the duke being known at the court, it was supposed immediately that he intended to proclaim his daughter and Guilford Dudley. Rumour, indeed, turned the supposition into fact,[233] and declared that he had called on the country to rise in arms for Queen Jane. But Suffolk's plan was identical with Wyatt's; he had carried with him a duplicate of Wyatt's proclamation, and, accompanied by his brother, he presented himself in the market-place at Leicester on the morning of Monday the 29th. Lord Huntingdon had followed close upon his track from London; but he a.s.sured the Mayor of Leicester that the Earl of Huntingdon was coming, not to oppose, but to join with him. No harm was intended to the queen; he was ready to die in her defence; his object was only to save England from the dominion of foreigners.

In consequence of these protestations, he was allowed to read his proclamation; the people were indifferent; but he called about him a few scores of his tenants and retainers from his own estates in the country; and, on Tuesday morning, while the insurgents in Kent were attacking Cowling Castle, Suffolk rode out of Leicester, in full armour, at the head of his troops, intending first to move on Coventry, then to take Kenilworth and Warwick, and so to advance on London. The garrison at Warwick had been tampered with, and was reported to be ready to rise. The gates of Coventry he expected to find open. He had sent his proclamation thither the day before, by a servant, and he had friends within the walls who had undertaken to place the town at his disposal.

The state of Coventry was probably the state of most other towns in England. The inhabitants were divided. The mayor and aldermen, the fathers of families, and the men of property, were conservatives, loyal to the queen, to the ma.s.s, and to "the cause of order." The young and enthusiastic, supported by others who had good reasons for being in opposition to established authorities, were those who had placed themselves in correspondence with the Duke of Suffolk.

Suffolk's servant (his name was Thomas Rampton), on reaching the town, on Monday evening, made a mistake in the first person to whom he addressed himself, and received a cold answer. Two others of the townsmen, however, immediately welcomed him, and told him that "the whole place was at his lord's commandment, except certain of the town council, who feared that, if good fellows had the upper hand, their extremities heretofore should be remembered."[234] They took Rampton into a house, where, presently, another man entered of the same way of thinking, and, in his own eyes, a man of importance. "My lord's quarrel is right well known," this person said, "it is G.o.d's quarrel, let him come; let him come, and make no stay, for this town is his own. I say to you a.s.suredly this town is his own. I am it."

It was now night; no time was to be lost, the townsmen said. They urged Rampton to return at once to Suffolk, and hasten his movements. They would themselves read the proclamation at the market-cross forthwith, and raise the people. Rampton, who had ridden far, and was weary, wished to wait till the morning; if they were so confident of success, a few hours could make no difference: but it appeared shortly that the "good fellows" in Coventry were not exclusively under the influence of piety and patriotism. If a rising commenced in the darkness, it was admitted that "undoubted spoil and peradventure destruction of many rich men would ensue," and with transactions of this kind the duke's servant was unwilling to connect himself.

Thus the hours wore away, and no resolution was arrived at; and, in the meantime, the town council had received a warning to be on their guard. Before daybreak the constables were on the alert, the decent citizens took possession of the gates, and the conspirators had lost their opportunity. In the afternoon Suffolk arrived with a hundred horse under the walls, but there was no admission for him. Whilst he was hesitating what course to pursue, a messenger came in to say that the Earl of Huntingdon was at Warwick. The plot for the revolt of the garrison had been detected, and the whole country was on the alert. The people had no desire to see the Spaniards in England; but sober, quiet farmers and burgesses would not rise at the call of the friend of Northumberland, and a.s.sist in bringing back the evil days of anarchy.

The Greys had now only to provide for their personal safety.

Suffolk had an estate a few miles distant, called Astley Park, to which the party retreated from Coventry. There the duke shared such money as he had with him among his men, and bade them s.h.i.+ft for themselves. Lord Thomas Grey changed coats with a servant, and rode off to Wales to join Sir James Crofts. Suffolk himself, who was ill, took refuge with his brother, Lord John, in the cottage of one of his gamekeepers, where they hoped to remain hidden till the hue and cry should be over, and they could escape abroad.

The cottage was considered insecure. Two bowshots south of Astley Church there stood in the park an old decaying tree, in the hollow of which the father of Lady Jane Grey concealed himself; and there, for two winter days and a night, he was left without food. A proclamation had been put out by Huntingdon for Suffolk's apprehension (January 30), and the keeper, either tempted by the reward, or frightened by the menace against all who should give him shelter, broke his trust-a rare example of disloyalty-and going to Warwick Castle, undertook to betray his master's hiding-place. A party of troopers were despatched, with the keeper for a guide; and, on arriving at Astley, they found that the duke, unable to endure the cold and hunger longer, had crawled out of the tree, and was warming himself by the cottage fire. Lord John was discovered buried under some bundles of hay.[235] They were carried off at once to the Tower, whither Lord Thomas Grey and Sir James Crofts, who had failed as signally in Wales, soon after followed them.[236]

The account of his confederates' failure saluted Wyatt on his arrival in Southwark, on the 3rd of February. The intelligence was being published, at the moment, in the streets of London; Wyatt himself, at the same time, was proclaimed traitor, and a reward of a hundred pounds was offered for his capture, dead or alive. The peril, however, was far from over; Wyatt replied to the proclamation by wearing his name, in large letters, upon his cap; the success of the queen's speech in the city irritated the council, who did not choose to sit still under the imputation of having approved of the Spanish marriage. They declared everywhere, loudly and angrily, that they had not approved of it, and did not approve; in the city itself public feeling again wavered, and fresh parties of the train-bands crossed the water and deserted. The behaviour of Wyatt's followers gave the lie to the queen's charges against them: the prisons in Southwark were not opened; property was respected scrupulously; the only attempt at injury was at Winchester House, and there it was instantly repressed; the inhabitants of the Borough entertained them with warm hospitality; and the queen, notwithstanding her efforts, found herself as it were besieged, in her princ.i.p.al city, by a handful of commoners, whom no one ventured, or no one could be trusted, to attack. So matters continued through Sat.u.r.day, Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday. The lawyers at Westminster Hall pleaded in harness, the judges wore harness under their robes; Doctor Weston sang ma.s.s in harness before the queen; tradesmen attended in harness behind their counters. The metropolis, on both sides of the water, was in an att.i.tude of armed expectation, yet there was no movement, no demonstration on either side of popular feeling. The ominous strangeness of the situation appalled even Mary herself.[237]

By this time (February 5) the intercepted letter of Noailles had been decyphered. It proved, if more proof was wanted, the correspondence between the amba.s.sador and the conspirators; it explained the object of the rising-the queen was to be dethroned in favour of her sister; and it was found, also, though names were not mentioned, that the plot had spread far upwards among the n.o.blemen by whom Mary was surrounded. Evidence of Elizabeth's complicity it did not contain; while, to Gardiner's mortification, it showed that Courtenay, in his confessions to himself, had betrayed the guilt of others, but had concealed part of his own. In an anxiety to s.h.i.+eld him the chancellor p.r.o.nounced the cypher of Courtenay's name to be unintelligible. The queen placed the letter in the hands of Renard, by whom it was instantly read, and the chancellor's humour was not improved; Mary had the mortification of feeling that she was herself the last object of anxiety either to him or to any of her council; though Wyatt was at the gates of London, the council could only spend the time in pa.s.sionate recriminations; Paget blamed Gardiner for his religious intolerance; Gardiner blamed Paget for having advised the marriage; some exclaimed against Courtenay, some against Elizabeth; but, of acting, all alike seemed incapable. If the queen was in danger, the council said, she might fly to Windsor, or to Calais, or she might go to the Tower. "Whatever happens," she exclaimed to Renard, "I am the wife of the Prince of Spain; crown, rank, life, all shall go before I will take any other husband."[238]

The position, however, could not be of long continuance. Could Wyatt once enter London, he a.s.sured himself of success; but the gates on the bridge continued closed. Cheyne and Southwell had collected a body of men on whom they could rely, and were coming up behind from Rochester. Wyatt desired to return and fight them, and then cross the water at Greenwich, as had been before proposed; but his followers feared that he meant to escape; a backward movement would not be permitted, and his next effort was to ascertain whether the pa.s.sage over the bridge could be forced.

London Bridge was then a long, narrow street. The gate was at the Southwark extremity; the drawbridge was near the middle. On Sunday or Monday night Wyatt scaled the leads of the gatehouse, climbed into a window, and descended the stairs into the lodge. The porter and his wife were nodding over the fire. The rebel leader bade them, on their lives, be still, and stole along in the darkness to the chasm from which the drawbridge had been cut away. There, looking across the black gulf where the river was rolling below, he saw the dusky mouths of four gaping cannon, and beyond them, in the torch-light, Lord Howard himself, keeping watch with the guard: neither force nor skill could make a way into the city by London Bridge.

The course which he should follow was determined for him. The lieutenant of the Tower, Sir John Brydges, a soldier and a Catholic, had looked over the water with angry eyes at the insurgents collected within reach of his guns, and had asked the queen for permission to fire upon them. The queen, afraid of provoking the people, had hitherto refused; on the Monday, however, a Tower boat, pa.s.sing the Southwark side of the water, was hailed by Wyatt's sentries; the watermen refused to stop, the sentries fired, and one of the men in the boat was killed. The next morning (February 6) (whether permission had been given at last, or not, was never known), the guns on the White Tower, the Devil's Tower, and all the bastions, were loaded and aimed, and notice was sent over that the fire was about to open. The inhabitants addressed themselves, in agitation, to Wyatt; and Wyatt, with a sudden resolution, half felt to be desperate, resolved to march for Kingston Bridge, cross the Thames, and come back on London. His friends in the city promised to receive him, could he reach Ludgate by daybreak on Wednesday.

On Tuesday morning, therefore, Shrove Tuesday, which the queen had hoped to spend more happily than in facing an army of insurgents, Wyatt, accompanied by not more than fifteen hundred men, pushed out of Southwark. He had cannon with him, which delayed his march, but at four in the afternoon he reached Kingston. Thirty feet of the bridge were broken away, and a guard of three hundred men were on the other side; but the guard fled after a few rounds from the guns, and Wyatt, leaving his men to refresh themselves in the town, went to work to repair the pa.s.sage. A row of barges lay on the opposite bank; three sailors swam across, attached ropes to them, and towed them over; and, the barges being moored where the bridge was broken, beams and planks were laid across them, and a road was made of sufficient strength to bear the cannon and the waggons.

By eleven o'clock at night the river was crossed, and the march was resumed. The weather was still wild, the roads miry and heavy, and through the winter night the motley party plunged along. The Rochester men had, most of them, gone home, and those who remained were the London deserters, gentlemen who had compromised themselves too deeply to hope for pardon, or fanatics, who believed they were fighting the Lord's battle, and some of the Protestant clergy. Ponet, the late Bishop of Winchester, was with them; William Thomas, the late clerk of the council; Sir George Harper, Anthony Knyvet, Lord Cobham's sons, Pelham, who had been a spy of Northumberland's on the continent,[239] and others more or less conspicuous in the worst period of the late reign.

From the day that Wyatt came to Southwark the whole guard had been under arms at Whitehall, and a number of them, to the agitation of the court ladies, were stationed in the queen's ante-chamber. But the guard was composed of dangerous elements. Sir Humfrey Radcliff, the lieutenant, was a "favourer of the gospel;"[240] and the "Hot Gospeller" himself, on his recovery from his fever, had returned to his duties.[241] No additional precautions had been taken, nor does it seem that, on Wyatt's departure, his movements were watched. Kingston Bridge having been broken, his immediate approach was certainly unlooked for; nor was it till past midnight that information came to the palace that the pa.s.sage had been forced, and that the insurgents were coming directly back upon London. Between two and three in the morning the queen was called from her bed. Gardiner, who had been, with others of the council, arguing with her in favour of Courtenay the preceding day, was in waiting; he told her that her barge was at the stairs to carry her up the river, and she must take shelter instantly at Windsor.

Without disturbing herself, the queen sent for Renard. Shall I go or stay? she asked.

Unless your majesty desire to throw away your crown, Renard answered, you will remain here till the last extremity; your flight will be known, the city will rise, seize the Tower, and release the prisoners; the heretics will ma.s.sacre the priests, and Elizabeth will be proclaimed queen.

The lords were divided. Gardiner insisted again that she must and should go. The others were uncertain, or inclined to the opinion of Renard. At last Mary said that she would be guided by Pembroke and Clinton. If those two would undertake to stand by her, she would remain and see out the struggle.[242]

They were not present, and were sent for on the spot. Pembroke for weeks past had certainly wavered; Lord Thomas Grey believed at one time that he had gained him over, and to the last felt a.s.sured of his neutrality. Happily for Mary, happily, it must be said, for England-for the Reformation was not a cause to be won by such enterprises as that of Sir Thomas Wyatt-he decided on supporting the queen, and promised to defend her with his life. At four o'clock in the morning drums went round the city, calling the train-bands to an instant muster at Charing Cross. Pembroke's conduct determined the young lords and gentlemen about the court, who with their servants were swiftly mounted and under arms; and by eight, more than ten thousand men were stationed along the ground, then an open field, which slopes from Piccadilly to Pall Mall. The road or causeway on which Wyatt was expected to advance ran nearly on the site of Piccadilly itself. An old cross stood near the head of St. James's Street, where guns were placed; and that no awkward accident like that at Rochester might happen on the first collision, the gentlemen, who formed four squadrons of horse, were pushed forwards towards Hyde Park Corner.

Wyatt, who ought to have been at the gate of the city two hours before, had been delayed in the meantime by the breaking down of a gun in the heavy road at Brentford. Brett, the captain of the city deserters, Ponet, Harper, and others, urged Wyatt to leave the gun where it lay and keep his appointment. Wyatt, however, insisted on waiting till the carriage could be repaired, although in the eyes of every one but himself the delay was obvious ruin. Harper, seeing him obstinate, stole away a second time to gain favour for himself by carrying news to the court. Ponet, unambitious of martyrdom, told him he would pray G.o.d for his success, and, advising Brett to s.h.i.+ft for himself, made away with others towards the sea and Germany.[243] It was nine o'clock before Wyatt brought the draggled remnant of his force, wet, hungry, and faint with their night march, up the hill from Knightsbridge. Near Hyde Park Corner a lane turned off; and here Pembroke had placed a troop of cavalry. The insurgents straggled on without order. When half of them had pa.s.sed, the horse dashed out, and cut them in two, and all who were behind were dispersed or captured. Wyatt, caring now only to press forward, kept his immediate followers together, and went straight on. The queen's guns opened, and killed three of his men; but, lowering his head, he dashed at them and over them; then, turning to the right, to avoid the train-bands, he struck down towards St. James's, where his party again separated. Knyvet and the young Cobhams, leaving St. James's to their left, crossed the park to Westminster. Wyatt went right along the present Pall Mall, past the line of the citizens. They had but to move a few steps to intercept his pa.s.sage, close in, and take him; but not a man advanced, not a hand was lifted; where the way was narrow they drew aside to let him pa.s.s. At Charing Cross Sir John Gage was stationed, with part of the guard, some horse, and among them, Courtenay, who in the morning had been heard to say he would not obey orders; he was as good a man as Pembroke. As Wyatt came up Courtenay turned his horse towards Whitehall, and began to move off, followed by Lord Worcester. "Fie! my lord," Sir Thomas Cornwallis cried to him, "is this the action of a gentleman?"[244] But deaf, or heedless, or treacherous, he galloped off, calling Lost, lost! all is lost! and carried panic to the court. The guard had broken at his flight, and came hurrying behind him. Some cried that Pembroke had played false. Shouts of treason rung through the palace. The queen, who had been watching from the palace gallery, alone retained her presence of mind. If others durst not stand the trial against the traitors, she said, she herself would go out into the field and try the quarrel, and die with those that would serve her.[245]

At this moment Knyvet and the Cobhams, who had gone round by the old palace, came by the gates as the fugitive guard were struggling in. Infinite confusion followed. Gage was rolled in the dirt, and three of the judges with him. The guard shrunk away into the offices and kitchens to hide themselves. But Knyvet's men made no attempt to enter. They contented themselves with shooting a few arrows, and then hurried on to Charing Cross to rejoin Wyatt. At Charing Cross, however, their way was now closed by a company of archers, who had been sent back by Pembroke to protect the court. Sharp fighting followed, and the cries rose so loud as to be heard on the leads of the White Tower. At last the leaders forced their way up the Strand; the rest of the party were cut up, dispersed, or taken.[246]

Wyatt himself, meanwhile, followed by three hundred men, had hurried on through lines of men who still opened to give him pa.s.sage. He pa.s.sed Temple Bar, along Fleet Street, and reached Ludgate. The gate was open as he approached, when some one seeing a number of men coming up, exclaimed, "These be Wyatt's antients." Muttered curses were heard among the bystanders; but Lord Howard was on the spot; the gates, notwithstanding the murmurs, were instantly closed; and, when Wyatt knocked, Howard's voice answered, "Avaunt! traitor; thou shalt not come in here." "I have kept touch," Wyatt exclaimed; but his enterprise was hopeless now. He sat down upon a bench outside the Belle Sauvage Yard. His followers scattered from him among the by-lanes and streets; and, of the three hundred, twenty-four alone remained, among whom were now Knyvet and one of the young Cobhams. With these few he turned at last, in the forlorn hope that the train-bands would again open to let him pa.s.s. Some of Pembroke's horse were coming up. He fought his way through them to Temple Bar, where a herald cried, "Sir, ye were best to yield; the day is gone against you; perchance ye may find the queen merciful." Sir Maurice Berkeley was standing near him on horseback, to whom, feeling that further resistance was useless, he surrendered his sword; and Berkeley, to save him from being cut down in the tumult, took him up upon his horse. Others in the same way took up Knyvet and Cobham, Brett and two more. The six prisoners were carried through the Strand back to Westminster, the pa.s.sage through the city being thought dangerous; and from Whitehall Stairs, Mary herself looking on from a window of the palace, they were borne off in a barge to the Tower.

The queen had triumphed, triumphed through her own resolution, and would now enjoy the fruits of victory.

Had Wyatt succeeded, Mary would have lost her husband and her crown; and had the question been no more than a personal one, England could have well dispensed both with her and Philip. But Elizabeth would have ascended a throne under the shadow of treason. The Protestants would have come back to power in the thoughtless vindictiveness of exasperated and successful revolutionists; and the problem of the Reformation would have been more hard than ever of a reasonable solution. The fanatics had made their effort, and they had failed; they had shaken the throne, but they had not overthrown it; the queen's turn was come, and, as the danger had been great, so was the resentment. She had Renard at one ear protesting that, while these turbulent spirits were uncrushed, the precious person of the prince could not be trusted to her. She had Gardiner, who, always pitiless towards heretics, was savage at the frustration of his own schemes. Renard in the closet, Gardiner in the pulpit, alike told her that she must show no more mercy.[247] On Ash Wednesday evening, after Wyatt's surrender, a proclamation forbade all persons to shelter the fugitive insurgents under pain of death. The "poor caitiffs" were brought out of the houses where they had hidden themselves, and were given up by hundreds. Huntingdon came in on Sat.u.r.day with Suffolk and his brothers. Sir James Crofts, Sir Henry Isly, and Sir Gawen Carew followed. The common prisons overflowed into the churches, where crowds of wretches were huddled together till the gibbets were ready for their hanging; the Tower wards were so full that Cranmer, Ridley, and Latimer were packed into a single cell; and all the living representatives of the families of Grey and Dudley, except two young girls, were now within the Tower walls, sentenced, or soon to be sentenced, to death.

The queen's blood is up at last, Renard wrote exultingly to the emperor on the 8th of February;[248] "the Duke of Suffolk, Lord Thomas Grey, and Sir James Crofts have written to ask for mercy, but they will find none; their heads will fall, and so will Courtenay's and Elizabeth's. I have told the queen that she must be especially prompt with these two. We have nothing now to hope for except that France will break the peace, and then all will be well." On the 12th of February the amba.s.sador was still better satisfied. Elizabeth had been sent for, and was on her way to London. A rupture with France seemed inevitable, and as to clemency, there was no danger of it. "The queen," he said, "had told him that Anne of Cleves was implicated;" but for himself he was sure that the two centres of all past and all possible conspiracies were Elizabeth and Courtenay, and that when their heads, and the heads of the Greys, were once off their shoulders, she would have nothing more to fear. The prisoners were heretics to a man; she had a fair plea to despatch them, and she would then settle the country as she pleased;[249] "The house of Suffolk would soon be extinct."

The house of Suffolk would be extinct: that too, or almost that, had been decided on. Jane Grey was guiltless of this last commotion; her name had not been so much as mentioned among the insurgents; but she was guilty of having been once called queen, and Mary, who before had been generously deaf to the emperor's advice, and to Renard's arguments, yielded in her present humour. Philip was beckoning in the distance; and while Jane Grey lived, Philip, she was again and again a.s.sured, must remain for ever separated from her arms.

Jane Grey, therefore, was to die-her execution was resolved upon the day after the victory; and the first intention was to put her to death on the Friday immediately approaching. In killing her body, however, Mary desired to have mercy on her soul; and she sent the message of death (February 9) by the excellent f.e.c.kenham, afterwards Abbot of Westminster, who was to bring her, if possible, to obedience to the Catholic faith.

f.e.c.kenham, a man full of gentle and tender humanity, felt to the bottom of his soul the errand on which he was despatched. He felt as a Catholic priest-but he felt also as a man.

On admission to Lady Jane's room he told her that she was to die the next morning, and he told her, also, for what reason the queen had selected him to communicate the sentence.

She listened calmly. The time was short, she said; too short to be spent in theological discussion; which, if f.e.c.kenham would permit, she would decline.