“Concerning my going to Donnington Castle,” she continued, “I do remember that Master Hoby and mine officers, and you, Sir James Croft, had such talk. But what is that to the purpose, my lords, but that I may go to my houses at all times?”[433]
Nothing further could be obtained from her; and the Emperor demanded in vain that she should be executed. Mary, although personally convinced of her guilt, as were so many others, would not have her condemned on the evidence of the intercepted letters, because they were written in cypher, which easily lent itself to forgery.[434] In her first Parliament, she had restored the ancient constitutional law of England, by which overt or spoken acts of treason must be proved, before any English person could be convicted as a traitor; and from this position the Queen would not move. She told Renard, that she herself, and her Council, were labouring to discover the truth, but that the law must be maintained.
Nevertheless, Elizabeth’s enemies neither slumbered nor slept, and if we may trust the author[435] of a book called England’s Elizabeth, published in 1631, a warrant was actually handed in at the Tower, for her execution, under the Queen’s seal, but without her signature. The Lieutenant, Sir John Bridges, in the absence of the Constable, suspecting foul play, hastened with it to the Queen, who denied all knowledge of the warrant, and expressed great indignation against the Chancellor, who was probably responsible. According to this author, the Queen summoned Gardiner, and several others to her presence, and “blamed them for their inhuman usage of her sister, and took measures for her greater security”. But as the story is unsupported by any corroboration, it seems likely that it was, in its circumstantial points, an invention. Gardiner was known to protect Elizabeth against the clamour of the imperial ambassador for her execution, and indeed he befriended her all through. Nevertheless, there was a very general impression, that her life would have been in danger but for Mary’s determination that the law should not be infringed. It was for Elizabeth’s greater safety that Mary appointed Sir Henry Bedingfeld to be her custodian in the Tower, giving her at the same time leave to walk in the Queen’s lodging, provided that she did not look out through any of the windows, there being so many prisoners in the Tower at that time. A little later, leave was given to her to take the air in the garden, the doors and gates being shut. Here, the child of one of the warders was allowed to come and talk to her sometimes, until it was suspected that Courtenay contrived to communicate with her, by means of a basket of flowers and figs, whereupon the indulgence was withdrawn.
Mary’s solemn betrothal to Philip had taken place on the return of Count Egmont from Brussels, with the Emperor’s ratification of the marriage treaty. The members of the Privy Council having waited on the Queen at Whitehall, Mary proceeded to her oratory, when Egmont was introduced by the Lord Admiral, and the Earl of Pembroke. She knelt down before the altar, and called God to witness the truth of the words she was about to speak. Then rising, and turning towards the assistants (most of whom were in favour of the marriage, and therefore not to be cajoled by her words into toleration of it), she declared that she had not resolved to marry through dislike of celibacy, nor had she chosen the Prince of Spain through any respect of kindred, her chief object being the furtherance of the honour and tranquillity of the realm. She had, she said, pledged her faith to her people on her coronation day, and it was her steadfast resolve to redeem that pledge. She would never permit affection for her husband to seduce her from the performance of this, the first and most sacred of her duties. As Mary ceased speaking, Egmont advanced, and placed on her finger a costly ring, sent by the Emperor on behalf of his son.[436]
Renard, in the meanwhile, took great credit to himself for the promptness with which the rebellion had been quelled. It was no doubt partly due to his advice to the Queen, to remain at her post, at a critical moment, when all other counsellors were entreating her to fly, that the rebels had been put to rout. With great self-complacency, he informed the Emperor, that all the members of the Queen’s Privy Council had become very intimate with him, and admitted that “the firmness of the said Lady had alone gained the victory, for in leaving London, she would have involved the kingdom in danger and ruin”. He remarked however, on the admirable conduct of the English nobility, at the battle of London, and dealt a passing blow at Courtenay, and the young Earl of Worcester, whose cowardice had prompted them to remain always in the rear, without once charging the enemy, but spreading the alarm that the rebels had the advantage, crying out that all was lost, the wish being father to the thought.[437]
But when he went on to express satisfaction at seeing peace re-established, Wyatt discredited by the people, a large number of the nobility well-disposed towards the marriage, and the popular prejudice against it less acute, his credulity clearly overstepped the boundary of facts. The people’s prejudice, thanks to the agitators, was certainly not less acute, the vexed question of the marriage being still inextricably involved in that of religion. To express their hatred of both, the London rabble hung a cat on the gallows in Cheapside “clothed like a priest, and that same day, held it up before the preacher at Paul’s Cross”.[438] During a procession in Smithfield, a man tore the consecrated Host out of the priest’s hand, and drew a dagger. He was seized and taken to Newgate.[439] A musket was discharged at a priest during a sermon, when he was surrounded by nearly four thousand people.
No wonder that Philip delayed his coming! If he escaped the arrow flying by day, how could he guard himself against the hidden enemy that might be lurking in the dish and the cup? Even Renard at last ceased to cry “peace” when all the time there was no security. “It is well-nigh impossible to foresee what the English may do,” he wrote to the Emperor, and advised him to send over a competent steward, “against the arrival of his Highness,” a man of good appearance, adroitness and experience, to superintend the preparing of his food, and to make acquaintance with the officials, and with the customs of the country; otherwise dire confusion and danger would ensue. The want of understanding between Renard and the Queen’s English advisers increased the difficulties at every step. Mary and her Council were for treating the peace disturbers as heretics. The enormities which they practised were all directed against religion, and it seemed just that the punishment should be adapted to the offence. But Renard knew full well that this mode of procedure would but increase the public irritation against Spain, which was at the bottom of the disturbances, and still further complicate the political situation. He never ceased admonishing the Queen to have these outrages dealt with as seditious, and on the 22nd March wrote:—
“Things are in such disorder, that we know not who is well-disposed or ill-disposed, constant or inconstant, loyal or traitorous. One thing is certain, that the Chancellor has been extremely remiss in proceeding against the criminals, and most ardent and hot-headed in the affairs of religion, being so hated in this kingdom, that I have doubts whether the detestation against him will not recoil on the Queen. Assuredly, Sire, I have never ceased to admonish her as to the necessity of a prompt punishment of the prisoners. I have given her Thucydides translated into French, so that she may understand what advice he gives, and what kind of punishment ought to be inflicted on rebels.”[440]
Renard’s natural dislike of Gardiner, and the divergence of their aims, probably spoke here more eloquently than the fact justified. Other evidence will show that Gardiner was not hated, even by the reformers, with the exception of Foxe.
But there was ample ground for Renard’s fear lest Mary’s popularity should decline, and not least among the reasons for such a decline was the fact, that she had abrogated the law framed by her father, by which libels on the sovereign were punishable by death. The country was inundated, at this time, with foul and scurrilous sermons and pamphlets, the perpetrators screening themselves behind the Queen’s strictly constitutional mode of government, knowing that the utmost penalty for language that would be an insult to the meanest woman in the land, and which they freely indulged in to vilify their Queen, would but cause them a brief and slight inconvenience. Thus we hear of two men in the pillory in Cheapside “for horrible lies and seditious words against the Queen’s Majesty and her Council,”[441] and this kind of punishment became now of frequent occurrence, although most of the slanders were anonymous, and could never be traced to their authors.