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Poor Wyatt was soon afterwards condemned to death, and executed, as well as about four hundred of his followers, but several were brought with ropes round their necks before the queen, who permitted them to find in the halter a loop-hole for escape, by an humble prayer for pardon.
Mary, exceedingly angry at the attempt to shake her throne, vented her animosity on her little sister Elizabeth, who was brought on a litter to London, though she was so ill that the journey might have killed her, had not youth, a good constitution, and some stout porters carried her through the dangerous ordeal. She was accused of having been a party to Wyatt's rebellion, and was taken to the Tower, though not without giving a good deal of trouble to the proper officer, for she insisted on sitting down every now and then upon a stone step in the yard, though the rain was falling heavily.
Mary, whose reign may be considered as the original "reign of terror"—though the brutality that distinguished it was confined to a few, while in the French edition the whole nation thirsted for blood—who exercised en détail the cruelties that France subsequently practised en gros, sentenced to death, in rapid rotation, all who did not quite agree with her. The unfortunate Lady Jane Grey and her husband, Lord Guildford Dudley, were both executed on the same day, and, indeed, the victims were so numerous that we should be inclined to say, "for further particulars see small bills," if we thought that any of the true bills found against the parties were still extant.
A curious commentary on the value of trial by jury was furnished about this time by the extraordinary case of Sir Nicholas Throgmorton—the father of Throgmorton Street, and friend of Sir Thomas Wyatt—who, after making his defence, obtained, to the surprise of everybody, a verdict of acquittal. Sir Thomas Bromley, the chief justice, began to cough and "hem!" and "ha!" as if there must be some mistake, and as though he would have said, "Gentlemen of the jury, do you know what you are doing?" The twelve honest men replied that it was "all right," they "knew what they were about," and persisted in their decision, until the chief justice, who thought every jury box ought to be a packing-case, hinted that the matter was one in which the Crown was interested, and that the Crown would stand no nonsense. The jurymen being still firm, they were hurried off to prison, and were only released upon paying enormous fines—which proved, at least, that the Government set a tremendous price upon their honesty.
On the 19th of July, 1554, Philip landed at Southampton on his way to fulfil his marriage contract with Mary; but he had taken the precaution to send on before him the Count of Egmont, who was intended to be mistaken for his master, and thus serve as a sort of pilot engine, in case of any collision with the populace. The expedient was very necessary, for the pilot engine—we mean Egmont—got some very hard knocks from several old buffers with whom he came in contact, and Philip, seeing the kind of reception he might expect, came, accompanied by a very long train, by way of escort, to his new station. On the 25th of the same month he was married to the queen, at Winchester, and the pair, whom we must call, by courtesy, "the happy couple," came to London, where a series of festivities, including the rapid descent of Il Diavolo. Somebody along a rope from the top of St. Paul's, * had been prepared in honour of the Royal marriage.
* A fact. See Stowe.
