Northumberland made no attempt at resistance. He obeyed, he answered humbly; “and I beseech you, my Lord of Arundel, use mercy towards me, knowing the case as it is.”
Again Arundel coldly ignored the appeal to the past.
“My lord,” he replied, “ye should have sought for mercy sooner. I must do according to my commandment,” and he handed over his prisoner forthwith to the guards who stood near.
For two hours, denied so much as the services of his attendants, the Duke paced the chamber wherein he was confined, till, looking out of the window, he caught sight of Arundel passing below, and entreated that his servants might be admitted to him.
“For the love of God,” he cried, “let me have Cox, one of my chamber, to wait on me!”
“You shall have Tom, your boy,” answered the Earl, naming the lad, Thomas Lovell, of whom, a few days earlier, he had taken so affectionate a leave. Northumberland protested.
“Alas, my lord,” he said, “what stead can a boy do me? I pray you let me have Cox.” And so both Lovell and Cox were permitted to attend their master. It was the single concession he could obtain.[182]
Thus Northumberland met his fate.
The Queen’s justice had overtaken more innocent victims. Lady Jane’s stay at Sion House had not been prolonged. By July 23, not more than three days after she had quitted the Tower, she returned to it, not as a Queen, but as a captive, accompanied by the Duchess of Northumberland and Guilford Dudley, her husband. More prisoners were quickly added to their number. Northumberland was brought, with others of his adherents, from Cambridge. Northampton, who had hurried to Framlingham, where Mary then was, to throw himself upon her mercy, arrived soon after; with Bishop Ridley, who, notwithstanding his recent declamations against the Queen, had resorted with the rest to Norfolk, had met with an unfriendly reception from Mary, and was sent back to London “on a halting horse.”[183]
It is singular that to the Duke of Suffolk, prominent amongst those who had been arrayed against her, the new Queen showed unusual indulgence. So far as actual deeds were concerned, he had been second in guilt only to Northumberland; though there can be little doubt that he was led and governed by the stronger will and more soaring ambition of his confederate. Lady Jane being, besides, his daughter, and not merely married to his son, it would have been natural to expect that he would have been called to a stricter account than Dudley. He was, as a matter of course, arrested and consigned to the Tower; but when a convenient attack of illness laid him low—a news-letter reporting that he was “in such case as no man judgeth he could live”[184]—and his wife represented his desperate condition to her cousin the Queen, adding that, if left in the Tower, death would ensue, Mary appears to have made no difficulty in granting her his freedom, merely ordering him to confine himself to his house, rather as restraint than as chastisement.[185]