Nevertheless Wyatt pushed on boldly, in spite of his daily decreasing numbers, and the disorganised state of his band, weary with trudging day after day along the miry high-roads, exposed to the inclemency of the prolonged winter. He reached Southwark, which he ravaged during four terrible days, seeking how he might cross the river and capture London. But the bridge had been hewn down, and he was obliged, after his men had pillaged Gardiner’s house, and destroyed his library, “so that a man might have gone up to the knees in the leaves of books cut out and thrown under feet,”[405] to move out of the reach of the batteries placed on the Tower walls. He marched up to Kingston, where he effected a crossing. Here also the bridge had been partially destroyed, but he swam over the Thames, and procured a boat, in which he, with a few others, worked so successfully at its restoration that by eleven o’clock at night his 7,000 men were able to pass over it. The audacity of the feat filled London once more with consternation. Gardiner threw himself on his knees, and entreated Mary to retire into the Tower for safety. She replied, that if the Earl of Pembroke and Lord Clinton, who had charge of the defence, would do their duty, she would assuredly remain at her post. But she was the only calm person in the whole panic-stricken palace. “The Queen’s ladies,” said Underhill,[406] “made the greatest lamentations that night; they wept and wrung their hands, and from their exclamations may be judged the state of the interior of Whitehall. Alack! alack! they said, some great mischief is toward. We shall all be destroyed this night. What a sight is this, to see the queen’s bedchamber full of armed men! The like was never seen or heard before!”
The struggle began at four o’clock in the morning (7th February), and all through the day, Mary’s presence animated the courage of the soldiers, and restored the confidence of the citizens; for “it was more than marvel to see that day the invincible heart and constancy of the queen”.[407] The way in which these were displayed adds to the force of the picture. Mary might well have ridden up and down the ranks, speaking gracious words, or have herself led her soldiers to battle. She chose a more womanly way. “The Queen,” says Bishop Christopherson, “while the field was fighting, was fervently occupied in praying. And when as tidings was brought her that by treason all was lost, she like a valiant champion of Christ, nothing abashed therewith, said that she doubted not at all, but her Captain (meaning thereby our Saviour Jesus Christ) would have the victory at length. And falling to her prayer again, anon after, had she word brought her that her men had won the field, and that Wyatt, her enemy’s captain was taken.”[408]
The story of that memorable day has been often told. Wyatt arrived near the spot now covered by St. George’s Hospital, at Hyde Park Corner, at about nine o’clock in the morning, and set up his standard in a field. The numbers of his Kentish yeomanry, and burghers of Maidstone, Canterbury and Rochester, had still further diminished during the past night, many being glad to avail themselves of the pardon extended to them in the Queen’s proclamation. Those who still remained lost heart, when they saw the preparations that had been made to receive them. Ten thousand infantry, fifteen hundred mounted troops, and a formidable battery of cannon, lay between the insurgents and the gates of the city. Wyatt, valiant to the last, resolved to fight his way through, in the hope of being succoured by his friends within the walls. The ranks of the Queen’s soldiers opened to let him pass, with about four hundred of his men, then closed again, and having separated the leader from the main body of his army, fell upon the wavering lines, and cut them to pieces. Nearly five hundred of them were made prisoners, many were wounded, and about a hundred were slain. Wyatt with his four hundred men was allowed to proceed unchallenged. Halting at St. James’s, to insult the gates of the palace, he then passed on towards Charing Cross, where he encountered Sir John Gage, with a detachment of the Queen’s Guards, and a number of gentlemen. Among them was Courtenay. Either from fear, or with treacherous intent, at sight of Wyatt, he fled in the direction of Whitehall, crying “All is lost!” Lord Worcester and the Guards followed helter skelter, taking up the cry, and causing a fresh panic, which was increased when they met a company of Wyatt’s soldiers in search of their leader. These let fly a shower of arrows into the palace windows, so that those within thought that an attack was being made. But the Queen, indifferent to danger, came out on to a balcony and cried that she was ready to descend into the arena, and to die with those who remained faithful to her.
Wyatt had by this time, reached Ludgate, ignorant that his greatest opportunity lay behind him. Had he retraced his steps, pursued Courtenay and the Guards, he would have rejoined his men, and could easily have captured the Queen. But in the meanwhile, he had suffered under the fire of another detachment of Guards, which the Earl of Pembroke was sending to Mary’s assistance, and his followers, fagged and spiritless, numbered barely three hundred, when he knocked at Ludgate for admittance.
His demand to be let in, on the lying ground that “the Queen had granted all his petitions,” was met by the defiant answer of Lord William Howard, “Avaunt traitor, thou shalt not come in here!” “And then,” continues the Chronicle, “Wyat awhile stayed, and as some say, rested him upon a seat [at] the Bellsavage gate; at last seeing he could not come in, and belike being deceived of the aid which he hoped out of the city, returned back again in array towards Charing Cross, and was never stopped till he came to Temple Bar, where certain horsemen which came from the field met them in the face; and then began the fight again to wax hot, till an herald said to master Wyat, ‘Sir, ye were best, by my counsel, to yield. You see this day is gone against you, and in resisting ye can get no good, but be the death of all these your soldiers, to your great peril of soul. Perchance ye may find the Queen merciful, and the rather if ye stint so great a bloodshed as is like here to be.’ Wyat herewith being somewhat astonished (although he saw his men bent to fight it out to the death) said ‘Well, if I shall needs yield, I will yield me to a gentleman’. To whom Sir Morice Barkeley came straight up, and bade him leap up behind him; and another took Thomas Cobham, and William Knevet, and so carried them behind them upon their horses to the court. Then was taking of men on all sides. It is said that in this conflict, one pikeman setting his back to the wall at Saint James, kept seventeen horsemen off him a great time, and at last was slain. At this battle, was slain in the field, by estimation on both sides, not past forty persons, as far as could be learned by certain that viewed the same; but there was many sore hurt, and some think there was many slain in houses. The noise of women and children, when the conflict was at Charing Cross, was so great and shrill, that it was heard to the top of the White tower; and also the great shot was well discerned there out of Saint James’ field. There stood upon the leads there the lord Marquess [of Northampton], Sir Nicholas Poyns, Sir Thomas Pope, Master John Seamer and others. From the battle, when one came and brought word that the Queen was like to have the victory, and that the horsemen had discomfited the tale of his enemies, the lord Marquess for joy gave the messenger ten shillings in gold, and fell in great rejoicing. Note that when Wyat was perceived to be comen to Ludgate, and the mayor and his brethren heard thereof, thinking all had not gone well with the Queen’s side, they were much amazed, and stood as men half out of their lives, and many hollow hearts rejoiced in London at the same.”[409]
According to another account, on “the 8th February, being Ash Wednesday, early in the morning, the Earl of Pembroke, Lieutenant of the Queen’s army, with the horsemen and footmen of the noblemen, gathered their armies together with the Queen’s ordinance, and pitched their field by St. James beyond Charing Cross, to abide the said traitor Wyatt and his rebels. The Lord Mayor and the Lord Admiral set the citizens in good array at Ludgate, Newgate, and from Cripplegate to Bishopsgate, lest the rebels would draw to Finsbury field, they to defend that side. Then Wyatt with his rebels came to the park pale by St. James about 2 of the clock in the afternoon, and Knevett one of his captains, with his rebels went by Tothill through Westminster, and shot at the Court gates. But Wyatt, perceiving the great army of the Queen’s camp, and ordinance bent against him, suddenly returned by the wall of the park at St. James, toward Charing Cross, with the lightest of his soldiers, when the Earl of Pembroke’s men cut off his train, and slew divers of the rebels. But Wyatt himself, with divers other came in at Temple Bar, and so through Fleetstreet to the Bell Savage, crying ‘A Wyatt! a Wyatt! God save Queen Marie.’ But when he saw that Ludgate was shut against him and the ordinance bent, he fled back again, saying ‘I have kept touch;’ and by Temple Bar was taken, with the Lord Cobham’s son, and other of his captains and rebels, and brought to the court gate, and from thence sent by water to the Tower of London.”[410]
The next day, a solemn Te Deum in thanksgiving for the Queen’s victory was sung at St. Paul’s, and in every parish church the bells were rung for joy.[411]
Mary, by her courage and great heart, had a second time triumphed over the revolution. On the first occasion, she had magnanimously thought to disarm, and win over the factious by an almost universal pardon. Three victims only suffered the just punishment of their crimes; two were held over as hostages for the peaceable behaviour of the others; the rest obtained a full and free forgiveness. Such clemency was a complete innovation. If Mary cannot be said to have been in advance, or even abreast of her time, in many ways, she often rose above it, with the inevitable result that she was misunderstood by some, and repaid by others with the grossest ingratitude. The world has never been ripe for a clemency such as she had extended to the insurgents after the first rebellion. The elementary laws of rewards and punishments were alone grasped by the people, accustomed to the frequent spectacle of revolt followed by swift vengeance. The butchery with which Henry VIII. had replied to the northern rising, though an everlasting blot on his name, made him feared, and his authority respected. Elizabeth’s ruthless punishment of the Catholics of the north, after their abortive efforts to bring back the Mass, resulted in peace for the remainder of the reign.
Mary’s wholesale forgiveness of the insurgents had been interpreted as weakness, by a people who had not yet learned that mercy “becomes the thronèd monarch better than his crown”. Charles V. had insisted that it should be seasoned with a larger measure of justice, but in this one point Mary had disregarded his advice. Now her eyes were opened. Had the rebels been treated with proper severity, there would have been no second outbreak. Had Suffolk fallen with Northumberland, as the consequence of his share in Jane’s usurpation, his daughter would not have constituted a danger to the State six months later. Even those who had been implicated in the first plot were loud in maintaining that there would now be no safety for the realm while Jane lived.[412]