Mary Vows To Marry Philip II.
Courtenay was the soul of all the intrigues, encouraged and nourished by the French ambassador, M. de Noailles; but this opposition only aroused the obstinacy of Mary; she was a worthy daughter of Henry VIII., and on the very day on which the Houses had manifested their aversion to a foreign prince, she caused the Spanish ambassador to come to her private chapel; there throwing herself on her knees before the altar, she took God to witness that she plighted her troth to Philip, Prince of Spain, to belong to him and no other as long as she should live. The marriage treaty was communicated to Parliament on the 14th of January, 1554; the Emperor was very accommodating in the conditions, counting, no doubt, upon the influence which Philip might acquire over his wife. The queen was to remain sole mistress of the government in England, without any foreigner being able to participate in the offices or dignities; Burgundy and the Low Countries were secured to her children, and in the advent of Don Carlos, the son of the first marriage of Philip, happening to die, all the possessions of the crown of Spain were to devolve on the posterity of Mary. Gardiner himself unfolded before the two Houses and the burgesses of the City all the advantages of this alliance which he had so ardently opposed.
The arguments of the chancellor did not convince the country. Conspirators were encouraged by the promises of France; projects were various: some wished to place Elizabeth upon the throne while giving her Courtenay for a husband; others counted upon releasing Lady Jane Grey and proclaiming her again. They appeared to have determined on this project, when, on the 20th of January, the queen learnt that Sir Peter Carew had taken arms in Devonshire, resolved to oppose the disembarcation of Phillip; he had already taken possession of the city and citadel of Exeter. Almost at the same time it was discovered that Sir Thomas Wyatt was inciting the population of Kent to rebellion. He was a Catholic, and had distinguished himself at the siege of Boulogne, but he had conceived the most violent horror of Spain, and he appears to have been disposed to support the claims of the Princess Elizabeth, for he had refused, from the first, to enter into the plot in favour of Lady Jane Grey. In London the terror was extreme; the guards at the gates were doubled; the Duke of Suffolk, whom Mary had pardoned, took refuge in Warwickshire, and loudly protesting against the marriage of the queen, he called the population to arms without much effect. The boldest as well as the most popular of the conspirators was Wyatt, who held the city of Rochester, against which place the old Duke of Norfolk was advancing with Lord Arundel. As the Duke was ordering the assault, five hundred men of the London train-bands, whom he had brought with him, suddenly stopped at the entrance of the bridge, and the captain addressing them said, "My masters, we are going to fight against our fellow-citizens and friends in an unjust quarrel: they have assembled here to resist the evils which would fall upon us if we were subject to the proud Spaniard, and I know not who is the Englishman who could say nay to them." The train-bands immediately began to cry, "Wyatt! Wyatt!" at the same time turning their field-pieces against the royalist troops. The Duke of Norfolk was compelled to retire in haste, and his return spread terror in London. The queen alone remained firm, repairing with her ladies to the City protesting to the Lord Mayor, the aldermen, and burgesses, that she only wished to be married in a manner honourable and advantageous for her kingdom; that nothing compelled her to marry since she had delayed so long, and that she counted upon her good subjects to help her subjugate the rebels. On this same day she learnt that the Duke of Suffolk and Sir Peter Carew had been defeated in the inland shires and in the West. A full amnesty was promised to all the insurgents of Kent, the noblemen excepted; a price was set upon the head of Sir Thomas Wyatt. He had delayed in his march, but on the 3rd of February he entered the suburb of Southwark with considerable forces without doing any damage, except in the residence of Bishop Gardiner, which was pillaged. Wyatt had counted upon the good will of the inhabitants of London, but the gates of the City remained closed, and the population of Southwark, who had received him well, soon begged him to retire. When the cannon of the Tower began to roar, and the cannon-balls to rain upon the bridge and the two churches fortified by Wyatt, the insurgents directed their efforts to another point, and contrived to cross the river at Kingston; but Lord Pembroke awaited them at the head of the royal troops, and when Wyatt, with a handful of brave men, had opened up a passage for himself, the ranks closed behind him; he found himself seized in the streets. The citizens did not rise in his favour, as he had hoped; he defended himself bravely, but, overwhelmed by numbers, was captured and sent to the Tower; a great many of his followers were taken and hanged. The insurrection had miscarried.
The courage of Queen Mary had not belied itself for one moment; while her terrified courtiers were hastening to bring the grievous news she shamed them for their terrors, asserting that she would herself enter into a campaign to support the justice of her quarrel, and die with those who served her rather than yield an inch to a traitor like Wyatt; but she had already caused her anger to be felt by those whom she suspected of having taken part in the plot. Three of her councillors had by her orders arrived at Ashridge, where they found Elizabeth in bed. It was late, and the emissaries insisted upon entering the residence of the Princess. "Is the haste such that it might not have pleased you to come to-morrow in the morning?" she asked haughtily. "We are right sorry to see your grace in such a case," said the councillors. "And I," replied Elizabeth, "am not glad to see you here at this time of night." It was necessary, however, to give way and get into the litter which the queen had sent; Mary wished to see her sister, "dead or alive," she said. The house was surrounded by soldiers, they set out; the journey was slow; Elizabeth dreaded the arrival in London; some few noblemen who came to meet her reassured her; she learnt, however, that Courtenay had been sent to the Tower. She had not yet seen the queen when she was informed of the sad fate of Lady Jane Grey.
The insurrection had scarcely been stamped out and Wyatt made a prisoner, when Mary signed the order to execute Lady Jane and her husband, both of whom had been condemned to death several months before. The royal clemency had allowed a last interview between husband and wife, but Lady Jane refused the favour. "I shall see him again shortly," she said. She saw him, in effect, before the eternal reunion, but dead and mutilated; the corpse passed under her windows, on the return from Tower Hill. A few hours later, on the 12th of February, 1554, Jane in her turn mounted the scaffold, within the precincts of the Tower, after having firmly repelled the Dean of St. Paul's who pursued her with his arguments in favour of the Roman Catholic religion. She died in the faith which she had embraced in her infancy, serene and grave, without a complaint or a tear, simply avowing to the few spectators of her ordeal, that she deserved death for having consented, although with regret, to serve as an instrument to the ambition of others. She implored the mercy of God and delivered herself up into the hands of the executioner, moving all hearts by her constancy and and meekness. Her father was beheaded on Tower Hill, several days later, without arousing the compassion of any one. Passing from one treacherous act to another, he had at length found himself on the scaffold. Executions succeeded each other without intermission. To the last moment Sir Thomas Wyatt maintained that the Princess Elizabeth had been ignorant of all his projects. The jury had the courage to acquit Sir Nicholas Throgmorton, a devoted friend of the princess, compromised in the conspiracy; the verdict saved his life, but this unusual independence was to be dearly paid for by the jurymen: they were all sent to prison, and only regained their liberty after a long captivity, and upon the payment of a fine. Meanwhile, appearances were unfavourable to Elizabeth; she had in vain solicited an audience of her sister, and finally wrote to her, absolutely disclaiming all complicity in the insurrection and denying the correspondence which she was accused of having carried on with the King of France. The order was nevertheless given to conduct her to the Tower, and on Palm Sunday, while the population of London thronged the churches, the princess conducted by Lord Sidney, was brought by the Thames to the Traitor's Gate. She refused at first to alight; then, as one of the guards offered her his hand, she repelled him abruptly, and placing her foot upon the gloomy stairs, she exclaimed, "Here landeth as true a subject, being a prisoner, as ever landed at these stairs; and before Thee, O God, I speak it, having none other friend but Thee above." She sat down for a moment upon the stone; the lieutenant of the Tower begged her to take shelter from the cold and rain: "Better sitting here than in a worse place," she said, "for God knoweth whither you bring me." She entered, however, and found herself within the walls of a prison, fearing in the recesses of her soul the fate of her mother; and soon afterwards she was still more terrified, when a new governor, Sir Henry Beddingfield, was nominated to the Tower. He had the reputation of being harsh and cruel, and, several times Elizabeth asked the guards whether the scaffold of Lady Jane had been removed, expecting to ascend it in her turn. On the 19th of May, however, Elizabeth was taken to Richmond, and thence to Woodstock, where she remained, closely watched by Sir Henry Beddingfield, while Courtenay was removed to Fotheringay. The arrival of Prince Philip was now expected, and the preparation for the marriage occupied all minds whether satisfied or discontented. The population of London daily manifested its aversion to the Spanish alliance and its attachment to the doctrines of the Reformation; the queen's preachers began to look upon the pulpit erected at Paul's Cross as a dangerous spot. One of them, Doctor Pendleton, received a shot there, from which he narrowly escaped death. The use of arms was thereafter prohibited.
The manœuvres of the Emperor had succeeded; his confidential ambassador, Renard, had prevailed over the intrigues of Noailles; Philip arrived in England with the title of King of Naples, Charles V. was unwilling, he said, that so great a queen should unite herself to a simple prince: the marriage was celebrated with great pomp, on the 25th of July, 1554; but the royal bridegroom had taken care to surround himself with troops at the moment of his landing, one of his emissaries, Count Egmont, having been assailed shortly before by the people, who mistook him for his master. The first care of the Houses of Parliament when they assembled on the 1st of November, was to increase the precautions against the Spanish influence in the councils of the queen: all the liberality of Philip, who had brought a quantity of money from Spain, could not lull a distrust, which on the other hand was nourished by the haughtiness of his manners and the rigid etiquette with which he surrounded himself.