On the 13th of November, 1553, Cranmer, Lady Jane Grey, her husband Lord Guildford Dudley, and his brother Ambrose Dudley, were all condemned to die as traitors, by judges many of whom were the very people who had set on poor Jane to play the game, in which she had never taken the smallest interest. After sentence had been passed, execution was stayed. But Cranmer had no sooner been let out upon the charge of treason, than it was found on searching the office there was something else against him, whereupon he was taken and locked up once more upon an accusation of heresy. Lady Jane Grey had the freedom of the Tower presented to her in the shape of a permission to walk about the gardens, while Guildford Dudley and Ambrose were granted a few moderate indulgences—amounting, perhaps, to a set of skittles, a bat, trap and ball, or a couple of hockey-sticks.
This moderation was, however, accompanied by other acts of cruelty; and poor Judge Hales, who had really done nothing but refuse to change his religion, was, though he had stoutly defended the title of the queen, thrown into prison. The poor fellow went out of his mind, and though he was liberated, he had got so fearfully impressed with the idea of being burnt, that he thought to make himself fire-proof by running into the water; but it was so deep, and he stayed there so very long, that he unfortunately drowned himself.
Mary, who had been disappointed of several husbands—for nobody who saw her would think of having her—now resolved to make use of her position as Queen of England to draw some unhappy victim into a marriage. Comparatively old, exceedingly hard, and totally void of all the milk of human kindness, she was naturally very inflammable, and she had already fallen in love with young Ned Courtenay, a son of the Marquis of Exeter; but the predilection of that young gentleman for her half-sister Elizabeth had somewhat cooled the ardour of Mary, who found it was useless to set her cap at the young Earl of Devon, which was the title she had restored to the courteous Courtenay.
The project of a marriage continued to fill the head of the queen, but as it was evident there would be "nobody coming to marry her," and, indeed, "nobody coming to woo," unless she looked out pretty sharply for herself, she threw aside all scruples of delicacy, and began to advertise through the medium of her ambassadors. The Emperor Charles of Spain had been affianced to her thirty years ago, and though she might once have been accustomed to sing "Charlie's my darling," in her youthful days, that prince had, long ago, grown old enough to know better than to marry her. He nevertheless thought she might be a good match for his son Philip, or rather that the latter might be a match for the lady, inasmuch as the Spanish prince was crafty, cruel, and bigoted. Mary made a last effort to get a husband of her own choice by sending a proposal to Cardinal Pole, who would have nothing to do with her. Thus, even her indelicate eagerness to rush to the pole did not secure her election, and she was obliged to take Philip "for better, for worse," or rather for worse, for want of a better.
When the Commons heard of her intention they respectfully recommended her to wed an Englishman, but the idea that it was necessary for Mary to "first catch the Englishman" does not seem to have occurred to them. She announced her intention of marrying Philip partly out of old associations, but the oldness of the association was all on her own side, for the gentleman was young in comparison to the lady. It was not to be expected that Philip would make what he might justly have considered an "alarming sacrifice" without some equivalent, and it was agreed that he should have the honour and title of King of England, though he was not to interfere in the government. In case Mary survived him, he was to settle upon her £60,000 a year, but as he always flattered himself that he should, as he said, "see the old girl out," he looked upon this arrangement as merely nominal.
The English people had in those days, as they still have in these, an objection to Spanish marriages, and one Sir Thomas Wyatt, who had been in Spain, gave such a fearful picture of Philip, that the people of Kent, learning to regard him as something between "Old Bogie" and "Spring-heeled Jack," resolved to oppose his landing. Wyatt collected a considerable force at Rochester and marched upon London, when taking the first to the left, then the second to the right, they found themselves masters of Southwark. He had intended to give battle in Bermondsey, and put a cannon at the corner of the street, but it did not go off so well as he expected. In the meantime the queen's forces began pouring upon him some of the juice of the grape, from the Tower, and intimating to his followers that it might affect their heads, he withdrew as far as Kingston. His object was to march upon London by the other road, and he got about as far as Hammersmith when an accident happened to his largest buss, or blunderbuss—as he called his heaviest gun—and he wasted several hours in getting it, once more, upon its wheels again. By daylight he had got as far as Hyde Park, when he found that the royal forces were in the inclosure of St. James's, waiting to receive him, and having a large reserve in the hollow that now forms the reservoir.
The battle commenced with a noisy overture, consisting of the firing of cannons, loaded only with powder, and doing no harm to anybody. Wyatt's followers had dwindled very materially as he came into town; several of his soldiers having discovered, at Kew, it was not their "cue to fight," and others experiencing at Turaham Green, sufficient to turn 'em pale, and turn 'em back, at the very thought of meeting the enemy. Wyatt was nevertheless undaunted, and rushed upon the enemy, who, falling quietly back, let him regularly in among the troops, with the full intention of never letting him out again. Without looking behind, he charged, at full gallop, along Charing Cross, and continuing his furious career up the Strand, pulled up, at last, at Ludgate Hill, which he found closed against him. Finding no sympathy among the citizens he attempted to back out, and had got as far as the Temple, where, strange to say, his opponents gave him no law, and the unhappy old Pump, being at last caught in Pump Court, surrendered to Sir Maurice Berkeley.
