Lady Jane Grey and Her Times

by Ida A. Taylor

Wyatt, strangely enough, was no less pitiful than the Queen. Although she had refused permission for the discharge of the guns, they had been directed by those responsible for them upon the spot where the rebel body was stationed; and, in terror of a cannonade, the inhabitants, men and women, approached the insurgent leader “in most lamentable wise,” setting forth the danger his presence was bringing upon them, and praying him for the love of God to have pity. The appeal was not made in vain.

“At which words he, being partly abashed, stayed awhile, and then said these, or much like words, ‘I pray you, my friends, content yourselves a little, and I will soon ease you of this mischief. For God forbid that you, or the least child here, should be hurt or killed on my behalf,’ and so in most speedy manner marched away.”

A meeting was to have taken place before sunrise with some of the disaffected in the City. By this means it had been hoped that a surprise might be contrived. But a portion of Kingston Bridge, where the river was to be crossed, had been destroyed; time was lost in repairing it, and the assignation at Ludgate was missed. The scheme had supplied Wyatt’s last chance and failure was staring him in the face. Rats were leaving the sinking vessel. The Protestant Bishop of Winchester, who had hitherto lent the countenance of his presence in the camp to the insurgents, fled beyond seas; Sir George Harper, having rejoined Wyatt’s forces, deserted for the second time, and made his way to St. James’s to give warning to the Court of the approach of the rebel leader.

Such being the condition of things, it is singular to find that at the palace something like a panic was prevailing. Mary was entreated by her ministers to seek safety at the Tower; and, though deciding in the end to remain at her post, she appears at first to have been inclined to act upon the suggestion. A plan of action was determined upon in a hurried consultation. Wyatt, it was agreed, was to be permitted to reach the City, with a certain number of his followers, and having been thus detached from the main body of his troops it was hoped that he would be trapped and seized.

In the meantime arrangements were made for the defence of the Queen and the palace. Edward Underhyll, the Hot-Gospeller for whose child Lady Jane had stood godmother six months earlier, and who was on duty as a gentleman-pensioner at St. James’s, has left a graphic account of the scene there that night, and of the terror of the Queen’s ladies when the pensioners, armed with pole-axes, were placed on guard in their mistress’s apartments. The breach of etiquette appears to have struck them as an earnest of the peril to which it was owing. Was such a sight ever seen, they cried, wringing their hands, that the Queen’s chamber should be full of armed men?

Underhyll, for his part, soon received his dismissal. As the usher charged with the duty looked at the list of the pensioners before calling them over, his eye was caught by the well-known name of the Hot-Gospeller.

“By God’s Body,” he said, “that heretic shall not watch here!” and Underhyll, taking his men with him, and professing satisfaction at his exemption from duty, went his way.

By the morning he had reconsidered the matter, and thought it well to ignore his rebuff and return to his post. For the present, he joined company with one of the Throckmortons, who had just left the palace after reporting there the welcome tidings of the capture of the Duke of Suffolk at Coventry, the two proceeding together to Ludgate, intending to pass the remainder of the night in the City. The gate, however, was found to be fast locked, and those on guard within explained, with much ill-timed laughter, to the tired wayfarers outside, that they were not entrusted with the keys, and could give admittance to none.

It was disconcerting intelligence to men in search of a lodging and repose; and Throckmorton, in especial, fresh from his hurried journey, felt that he was hardly treated.

“I am weary and faint,” he complained, “and I wax now cold.” No man would open his door in this dangerous time, and he would perish that night. Such was his piteous lament.