The confident tone of the above letter concealed the real sentiments of the conspirators. The Duke of Suffolk had been commissioned by Northumberland to march into Norfolk, seize Mary’s person, and bring her a prisoner to London. But Jane besought her father with tears not to leave her, and Northumberland reluctantly took the command of the rebel troops himself. As they marched through Shoreditch, he observed to Sir John Gates, “The people crowd to look upon us, but not one exclaims God speed ye!”[296]
He had no illusions about the attitude of the citizens, and trusted more to an eloquent and fiery appeal to their Protestantism, than to the hope of overawing them with the shadow of a sovereignty, for which they evinced undisguised contempt. Before leaving London, therefore, he charged the ministers of religion to expatiate in their sermons on the benefits to be derived from the reign of a Protestant queen, and thus work on their religious feelings. Ridley, Bishop of London, was the preacher at Paul’s Cross on the 16th July. He declaimed violently against Mary, and sought to persuade his hearers that she would bring in foreign power, and subvert all Christian religion already established. He stigmatised her religion as a “popish creed,” and herself as “the idolatrous rival” of Queen Jane. He related the story of his visit to her at Hunsdon, and remarked on the significance of her refusal to listen to his preaching, adding that “notwithstanding in all other points of civility, she showed herself gentle and tractable, yet in matters that concerned truth, faith and doctrine—so stiff and obstinate that there was no other hope of her to be conceived, but to disturb and overturn all that which with so great labours had been confirmed and planted by her brother afore”.[297]
The people listened in unwonted and unsympathetic silence. They had not yet learned to associate the claims of inheritance with those of religious convictions. It would have seemed to them preposterous, that Mary should forfeit her right to reign, because she professed the religion practised by every one of her predecessors, with the single exception of Edward, who had died before escaping from tutelage. Ridley’s language was reported seditious, and when, after Mary’s proclamation, the Bishop of London hastened to Framlingham to stultify all that he had said, by laying his homage at the Queen’s feet, he was arrested at Ipswich, deprived of his dignities, and sent to the Tower.[298]
The Duke of Northumberland, meanwhile, reached Bury with an army of 8,000 infantry and 2,000 cavalry, only to find that he had been declared a rebel, and that a price had been put upon his head. He would have pushed on towards Framlingham, but disheartened by the hourly desertion of his followers to Mary’s standard, he ordered a retreat to Cambridge. Six ships, fully armed and manned, had been sent to lie in wait off Yarmouth, in order to intercept Mary should she attempt to fly the realm. Sir Henry Jerningham, who was raising troops in her behalf, boarded them each in turn, and would have taken their captains prisoners, the whole of the crews declaring for Mary, and expressing themselves willing to deliver them up:—
“Then the mariners axed master Gernyngham what he would have, and whether he would have their captains or no, and he said ‘yea marry’. Said they ‘ye shall have them, or else we shall throw them to the bottom of the sea’. The captains, seeing this perplexity, said forthwith they would serve Queen Mary gladly, and so came forth with their men, and conveyed certain great ordinance, of the which coming in of the ships, the lady Mary and her company were wonderful joyous, and then afterward doubted greatly the Duke’s puissance.”[299]
Scarcely had Northumberland left the Tower, when the news was brought that Mary had been proclaimed at Norwich, that Sir Edward Peckham and Sir Edward Hastings, Lord Windsor and others were out proclaiming her in Buckinghamshire, and worst news of all, that the ships had surrendered instantly to Jerningham. “Each man then,” says the Chronicle of Queen Jane, “began to pluck in his horns,” and when a messenger arrived from Oxfordshire, with tidings that Sir John Williams was holding the county for Mary, the Earl of Pembroke and Sir Thomas Cheney tried to get out of the Tower to feel the pulse of London. But Suffolk kept all the members of the Council in a sort of honourable captivity,[300] and the matter required some nice handling. The Council Registers, which contain no entries relating to the Lady Jane’s brief reign, certify that on the 16th July, Queen Mary’s friends in four counties, numbering in all 10,000, assembled at Paget’s house at Drayton, and marched to Westminster, where they took possession of the arms and ammunition stored in the palace, “for the better furnishing of themselves in the defence of the Queen’s Majesty’s person and her title”. Money was so scarce that no regular pay could be given to the soldiers, the captain of each band being charged to relieve at his own discretion those who were plainly necessitous, “but in such sort that it appear not otherwise but to be of his own liberality”.[301]
Paget, it appears from the above, though shut up in the Tower, was in friendly communication with the loyalists; and it is evident from Cecil’s own account of his submission, that the moment Northumberland had left, the various members of the Council began to plot against him. On the 19th July, the Lords Treasurer, Privy Seal, Arundel, Shrewsbury and Pembroke, with Sir Thomas Cheney and Sir John Masone succeeded, under pretext of receiving the French ambassador, in getting out of the Tower, and having communicated with the Lord Mayor, were at once joined by that dignitary, the Recorder, and a deputation of aldermen. They assembled at Baynard’s Castle, and the Earl of Arundel opened the proceedings by censuring Northumberland’s ambition. As he finished speaking, Pembroke, drawing his sword, exclaimed: “If the arguments of my lord Arundel do not persuade you, this sword shall make Mary queen, or I will die in her quarrel”. Shouts of applause answered him, and the Duke of Suffolk, who had been sent for, signed the proclamation. The summons had convinced him that all was lost, and he ordered his men to leave their weapons behind them. He proclaimed Mary on Tower Hill, before joining the other members of the Council. They then all rode through the City, and proclaimed her at Paul’s Cross, after which Arundel and Paget were despatched to lay the submission of the Council at her feet.[302]
According to the Grey Friars’ Chronicle, “The choir sang Te Deum with the organs going and the bells ringing, as most parts all. And the same night had the [most] part of London to dinner, with bonfires in every street of London, with good cheer at every bonfire; and the bells ringing in every parish-church, for the most part all night till the next day to None.”
A newsletter in Ralph Starkey’s collection says, “Great was the triumph here at London; for my time I never saw the like, and by the report of others, the like was never seen. The number of caps that were thrown up at the proclamation were not to be told. The Earl of Pembroke threw away his cap full of angellettes. I saw myself, money was thrown out at windows for joy. The bonfires were without number, and what with shouting and crying of the people, and ringing of the bells, there could no one hear almost what another said, besides banquettings and singing in the street for joy.”[303]