eity of London; that the Duke of Suffolk should the same day on which she made this visit her He again lost two whole days, and on the morning 2 Several of Carew's party played him false. He escaped to France. mained standing there a great part of the summer following, to the great grief of good citizens, and for example to the commotioners."" In the course of a few weeks, about fifty officers, knights, and gentlemen were put to death. Twenty-two common soldiers were sent down to Kent with Brett, the captain of the Train-hands, who had deserted at Rochester bridge, and they were there executed as traitors, and gibbeted. About sixty were led in procession, with halters about their necks, to the Tilt-yard, where the queen granted them a pardon. About 400 common men, in all, suffered death between the 7th of February and the 12th of March, and many were executed afterwards.' receive him there. Many of Wyatt's followers | the number of fifty persons, which gallowses rehad deserted before he crossed the river at Kingston; others had lingered behind during the night-march; and, now, many more abandoned him on seeing that formidable preparations were made against him. With great bravery, however, he resolved to fight his way through the royal army, still entertaining a confident hope that the citizens would rise in his favour. After a short "thundering with the great guns,” he charged the queen's cavalry, who, opening their ranks, suffered him to pass with about 400 of his followers, and then instantly closing in the rear of this weak van-guard, they cut him off from the main body of the insurgents, who thereupon stood still, wavered, and then took a contrary course. In the meanwhile Wyatt rushed rapidly along Charing Cross and the Strand to Ludgate, which, to his mortification, he found closed against him. In vain he shouted "Queen Mary! God save Queen Mary, who has granted our petition, and will have no Spanish husband!" A part of Pembroke's army had followed Wyatt in his rapid advance, and, when he turned to go back by the same road, he found that he must cut his way through dense masses of horse and foot. He charged furiously, and actually fought his way as far as the Temple. But there he found that his band was diminished to some forty or fifty men, and that further resistance was utterly hopeless. Clarencieux rode up to him, persuading him to yield, and not, "beyond all his former madness, surcharge himself with the blood of these brave fellows." At last Wyatt threw away his broken sword, and quietly surrendered to Sir Maurice Berkley, who, mounting him behind him, carried him off in--of both of which attempts she protested she stantly to the court. "The coming of Wyatt to the court being so little looked for, was great cause of rejoicing to such as of late before stood in great fear of him." He was immediately committed to the Tower; and a proclamation was made that none, upon pain of death, should conceal in their houses any of his faction, but should bring them forth immediately before the lord - mayor and other the queen's justices. "By reason of this proclamation, a great multitude of these said poor caitiff's were brought forth, being so many in number, that all the prisons in London sufficed not to receive them; so that for lack of place they were fain to bestow them in divers churches of the said city. And shortly after there were set up in London, for a terror to the common sort (because the Whitecoats being sent out of the city, as before ye have heard, revolted from the queen's part to the aid of Wyatt), twenty pair gallows, on the which were hanged in several places to The day after the breaking out of Wyatt's rebellion was known at court, the queen resolved to arrest her half-sister Elizabeth and her former favourite, the handsome Courtenay, Earl of Devon, who were both suspected (and it is by no means clear that they were falsely suspected) of being partakers in the plot. She sent three of her council-Sir Richard Southwell, Sir Edward Hastings, and Sir Thomas Cornwallis--with a strong guard, to Ashridge, in Buckinghamshire, where Elizabeth was suffering a real or feigned sickness. The worthy councillors did not arrive at the manor-house till ten o'clock at night; the princess had gone to rest, and refused to see them; but, in spite of the remonstrances of her ladies. they rudely burst into her chamber, and carried her in a litter to the capital. The deep interest she excited among the Londoners alarmed her enemies; and, after undergoing a rigid examination by the privy council respecting Wyatt's insurrection and the rising of Carew in the west was entirely innocent-she was dismissed from court in about a fortnight, and allowed to return to Ashridge. The handsome Courtenay was committed to the Tower, in spite of his protestations of innocence. But Elizabeth had scarcely been liberated when Sir William Sentlow, one of her officers, was arrested as an adherent of Wyatt's; it was asserted that Wyatt had accused the princess, and stated that he had conveyed to her in a bracelet the whole scheme of his plot; and on the 15th of March she was again taken into custody and brought to Hampton Court. On the Friday before Palm Sunday, Bishop Gardiner, chancellor, and nineteen members of the council, went down to her from the queen, and charged her directly with being concerned, not only in Wyatt's conspiracy, but also in the rebellion of Sir Peter Carew, and declared unto her that it was the queen's pleasure she should go to the Tower. "Upon Saturday following," says Holinshed (or rather Fox, whose words the old chronicler here transcribes), "that is, the next day, two lords of the council (the one was the Earl of Sus sex, the other shall be nameless) came and certified her grace, that forthwith she must go unto the Tower, the barge being prepared for her, and the tide now ready. In heavy mood her grace requested the lords that she might tarry another tide. But one of the lords replied, that neither tide nor time was to be delayed. And when her grace requested him that she might be suffered to write to the queen's majesty, he answered that he durst not permit that. But the other lord, more courteous and favourable (who was the Earl of Sussex), kneeling down, said she should have liberty to write, and, as a true man, he would deliver it to the queen's highness, and bring an answer of the same, whatsoever came thereof." Whereupon she wrote a letter, which has been preserved. She began by referring to some former promises made to her by her sister Mary. She proceeded humbly to beseech her majesty to grant her an audience, that she might answer before herself, and not before the members of the privy council, who might falsely represent her, and that she might be heard by the queen before going to the Tower, if possible; if not, at least before she should be further condemned. After many protestations of innocence and expressions of her hope in the queen's natural kindness, she told Mary that there was something which she thought and believed her majesty would never know properly unless she heard her with her own ears. She then continued: "I have heard in my time of many cast away, for want of coming to the presence of their prince; and in late days I heard my Lord of Somerset say, that if his brother had been suffered to speak with him, he had never suffered; but the persuasions were made to him so great, that he was brought in to believe that he could not live safely if the admiral lived; and that made him give his consent to his death. Though these persons are not to be compared to your majesty, yet I pray God, as (that) evil persuasions persuade not one sister against the other; and all for that they have heard false report, and not hearkened to the truth known. Therefore, once again, kneeling with humbleness of my heart, because I am not suffered to bow the knees of my body, I humbly crave to speak with your highness. And as for the traitor Wyatt, he might peradventure write me a letter, but, on my faith, I never received any from him. And as for the copy of my letter sent to the French king, I pray God confound me eternally, if ever I sent him word, message, token, or letter by any means; and to this, my truth, I will stand in to my death."1 1 Sir Henry Ellis' Collection of Original Letters. Hearne has printed the same letter in his preface to the Latin edition of This letter, which was much more spirited than might have been expected, particularly if we reflect that Elizabeth, in all probability, was not ignorant of the plan of the rebellion, availed her nothing. She never received the "only one word of answer" for which she humbly craved in a postscript; and upon the morrow, which was Palm Sunday, strict orders were issued throughout London that every one should keep the church and carry his palm; and while the Londoners, men, women, and children, were thus engaged, Elizabeth was secretly carried down to the Tower by water, attended by the Earl of Surrey and the other nameless lord. The barge stopped under Traitors' Gate. Then, coming out with one foot TRAITORS' GATE, TOWER OF LONDON.-From a view by Storer. upon the stair, she said, "Here landeth as true a subject, being prisoner, as ever landed at these stairs; and before thee, O God, I speak it, having none other friend but thee alone!" Going a little further, she sat down on a stone to rest herself; and when the lieutenant of the Tower begged her to rise and come in out of the wet and cold, she said, "Better sitting here than in a worse place, for God knoweth whither you bring me." She evidently apprehended an immediate Camden's Annals. The original is in the State Paper Office; a transcript among the Harleian manuscripts in the British Mu seum. 2 The Traitors' Gate was entered from the Thames by means of a boat, and was only used for the admission of important personages as state prisoners. The above view is taken from the moat; the opening of the gate towards the river is on the right. execution; but the lords carried her to an inner apartment, and left her there in great dismay, after seeing the door well locked, bolted, and barred.' though unwillingly, of the ambition of others, and that she hoped her fate might serve as a memorable example in after times. She then implored God's mercy, caused herself to be disrobed by her gentlewomen, veiled her own eyes with her handkerchief, and laid her head on the block, exhorting the lingering executioner to the performance of his office. At last the axe fell, and her lovely head rolled away from the body, drawing tears from the eyes of the spectators, yea, even of those who, from the very beginning, were best affected to Queen Mary's cause." But before Elizabeth entered the Tower gates other interesting victims had issued from them to the grave. The Lady Jane Grey, who had been condemned to death three months before, was indulging in the hope of a free pardon when the ill-managed insurrection broke out. It appears very evident that Mary had no intention of executing the sentence upon her, but now she was easily made to believe that the life of the The father of Lady Jane, the Duke of Suffolk, Lady Jane was incompatible with her own safe- who had been beaten and taken, like a blunderty; and, in less than a week after Sir Thomas ing schoolboy, and who was not worthy of the Wyatt's discomfiture, she signed the death-war- child whom his ambition and imbecility sacrirant both for Jane and her husband. On the ficed, was tried on the 17th of February. He morning of the 12th of February the Lord Guild- went to Westminster Hall with a cheerful and a ford Dudley was delivered to the sheriffs and very stout countenance, but at his return he was conducted to the scaffold on Tower-hill, where, very pensive and heavy, desiring all men to pray after saying his prayers and shedding a few for him. There was need, for he was condemned tears, he laid his head on the block and died to die the death of a traitor, and there was no quietly. The fate of this young man excited hope of another pardon for this man, whose great commiseration among the people, and as it "facility to by-practices" had occasioned all or was calculated that that of his wife would make most of these troubles. On the 23d of February, a still greater impression, it was resolved to exe- eleven days after the execution of his daughter cute her more privately within the walls of the and son-in-law, he was publicly beheaded on Tower. Mary showed what she and all Catholics Tower-hill. Other executions and numerous considered a laudable anxiety for the soul of this committals took place while Elizabeth lay in that youthful sacrifice, and Fecknam, a very Catholic state prison. Sir Thomas Wyatt met his fate dean of St. Paul's, tormented her in her last with great fortitude on the 11th of April, sohours with arguments and disputations; but it lemnly declaring in his last moments that neither appears that she was steadfast in the faith which the Princess Elizabeth nor Courtenay was privy she had embraced, and the doctrines of which to his plans. About a fortnight after this exeshe had studied under learned teachers with un- cution, Lord Thomas Grey, brother to the late usual care. On the dreadful morning she had Duke of Suffolk, was beheaded on Tower-hill; the strength of mind to decline a meeting with and a little later, the learned William Thomas, her husband, saying that it would rather foment late clerk of the council, who had attempted suitheir grief than be a comfort in death, and that cide in the Tower, was conveyed to Tyburn, and they should shortly meet in a better place and there hanged, headed, and quartered. more happy estate. She even saw him conducted Several times Elizabeth fancied that her last towards Tower-hill, and, with the same settled hour was come. Early in the month of May the spirit that was fixed upon immortality, she beheld constable of the Tower was discharged of his his headless trunk when it was returned to be office, and Sir Henry Bedingfield, a bigoted and buried in the chapel of the Tower. By this time cruel man, was appointed in his stead. This new her own scaffold, made upon the green within constable went suddenly to the fortress with 100 the verge of the Tower, was all ready; and almost soldiers: the princess, marvellously discomforted, as soon as her husband's body passed towards asked of the persons about her whether the Lady the chapel the lieutenant led her forth, she being Jane's scaffold were taken down or not, fearing "in countenance nothing cast down, neither her that her own turn was come. The circumstance eyes anything moistened with tears, although her of Bedingfield's appointment seemed very susgentlewomen, Elizabeth Tilney and Mistress He-picious: seventy years before Sir James Tyrrel len, wonderfully wept." She had a book in her hand, wherein she prayed until she came to the scaffold. From that platform she addressed a few modest words to the few by-standers, stating that she had justly deserved her punishment for suffering herself to be made the instrument, 1 Holinshed, from For had been suddenly substituted for Sir Robert Brackenbury, and in the night of mystery and horror that followed Tyrrell's arrival in the Tower, the two princes of the house of York had disappeared, and, as it was generally believed, had been savagely murdered in their bed. Bishop Godwin; De Thou. |