“On the next day, the bishop of Winchester came again unto her grace, and kneeling down, declared that the queen marvelled that she would so stoutly use herself, not confessing that she had offended: so that it should seem that the queen’s majesty had wrongfully imprisoned her grace. ‘Nay,’ quoth the lady Elizabeth, ‘it may please her to punish me as she thinketh good.’ ‘Well,’ quoth Gardiner, ‘her majesty willeth me to tell you, that you must tell another tale, or that you be set at liberty.’ Her grace answered, that she had as lieve be in prison with honesty and truth, as to be abroad suspected of her majesty: ‘and this that I have said, I will,’ said she, ‘stand unto: for I will never belie myself’. Winchester again kneeled down, and said, ‘Then your grace hath the vantage of me, and other the lords, for your wrong and long imprisonment’. ‘What vantage I have,’ quoth she, ‘you know: taking God to record I seek no vantage at your hands, for your so dealing with me; but God forgive you and me also!’ With that the rest kneeled, desiring her grace that all might be forgotten, and so departed, she being fast locked up again.”[499]
Nevertheless, in spite of these bold words, so little was Elizabeth resigned to a life of captivity that she never ceased besieging her friends with letters, petitions that they would obtain her release, and assurances of her innocence.[500]
“A sevennight after,” continues Foxe, “the queen sent for her grace at ten of the clock in the night, to speak with her: for she had not seen her in two years before. Yet for all that, she was amazed at the so sudden sending for, thinking it had been worse for her than afterwards it proved, and desired her gentlemen and gentlewomen to pray for her, for that she could not tell whether ever she should see them again or no. At which time, coming in, Sir Henry Benifield [Bedingfeld] with mistress Clarencius,[501] her grace was brought into the garden unto a stair’s foot that went to the queen’s lodging, her grace’s gentlewomen waiting upon her, her gentleman-usher, and her grooms going before with torches; where her gentleman and gentlewomen being commanded to stay all, saving one woman, Mistress Clarencius conducted her to the queen’s bedchamber, where her majesty was. At the sight of whom, her grace kneeled down, and desired God to preserve her majesty, not mistrusting but that she should try herself as true a subject towards her majesty as ever did any; and desired her majesty even so to judge of her; and said that she should not find her to the contrary, whatsoever report otherwise had gone of her. To whom the queen answered, ‘You will not confess your offence, but stand stoutly in your truth. I pray God it may so fall out.’ ‘If it doth not,’ quoth the lady Elizabeth, ‘I request neither favour nor pardon at your majesty’s hands.’ ‘Well,’ said the queen, ‘you stiffly still persevere in your truth. Belike you will not confess but that you have been wrongfully punished.’ ‘I must not say so, if it please your Majesty, to you.’ ‘Why then,’ said the queen, ‘belike you will to others.’ ‘No, if it please your majesty,’ quoth she. ‘I have borne the burden, and must bear it. I humbly beseech your majesty to have a good opinion of me, and to think me to be your true subject, not only from the beginning hitherto, but for ever, as long as life lasteth.’ And so they departed, with very few comfortable words of the queen in English: but what she said in Spanish, God knoweth. It is thought that King Philip was there, behind a cloth, and not seen, and that he showed himself a very friend in that matter.”[502]
A week later, Sir Henry Bedingfeld’s task was done, and Elizabeth was free.
Courtenay had been already released from his captivity at Fotheringhay Castle, and had received advice from the King and Queen, equivalent to a command, to travel for the improvement of his mind. He went first to Brussels, from which place the English ambassador wrote to Sir William Petre:—
“Last Sunday, the Earl of Devon was conducted to the Emperor by the Duke of Alva. Masone was not present but by report of the Duke and Chamberlain, whom the Earl has requested to be his interpreter if necessary, he demeaned himself very well, declaring, among other things, how much he was indebted to King Philip for helping him, through the Queen’s favour out of custody, and also for procuring him leave to see the world, whereby he might attain to such knowledge, as displeasant fortune had caused him hitherto to lack: for which reason, he had come to offer his services to the Emperor, the renown of whose court was so great. His Majesty embraced his offer most willingly, minding from time to time, to show him such signs of his favour, as the Earl should have no cause to forthink his journey hither. To this he said he was moved, not merely by the King’s and Queen’s recommendation, but for the sake of the Earl’s father, whose noble virtues were not unknown to him.”[503]
Courtenay afterwards went to Italy, where he died in 1556.
Meanwhile, elaborate preparations had been made for the advent of Mary’s passionately longed for child. Public prayers were offered for the Queen’s safety, and Parliament had petitioned Philip that “if it should happen to the queen otherwise than well, in the time of her travail, he would take upon himself the government of the realm during the minority of her majesty’s issue, with the rule, order, education and government of the said issue”.[504] In the Royal Library in Paris is a letter addressed to the Queen of Navarre, and describing an interview with Philip and Mary, at which the latter informed the writer, that the first desire of her heart was to have a son. Letters were written as the expected time approached, to announce the joyful intelligence of the birth of a child, blank spaces being left for the date and the sex to be filled in afterwards. But the time wore on and passed, and it was at last clear that what had been mistaken for the promise of motherhood, was but the beginning of a fatal disease. Mary clung to the hope long after her physicians had assured her that she would never give birth to a child, and most of those around her flattered the hope, while they pitied the delusion. One of her women was however more sincere and a contemporary document relates, “How Mrs. Clarentius and divers others, as parasites about her, assured her to be with child, insomuch as the Queen was fully so persuaded herself, being right desirous thereof, if God had been so pleased, that it might have been a comfort to all Catholic posterity, as she declared by her oration in the Guild Hall at London, at the rising of Wyatt, which was so worthy a speech made by her there, touching the cause of her marriage and why, that it made them that were there, though of contrary religion, to relent into tears, and hardly could she suffer any that would not say as she said, touching her being with child. Mrs. Frideswide Strelley, a good honourable woman of hers would not yield to her desire, and never told her an untruth....”[505]
The writer then describes that “when the rockers and cradle, and all such things were provided for the Queen’s delivery, that her time should be nigh, as it was supposed, and those parasites had had all the spoil of such things amongst them, and no such matter in the end ... then when the uttermost time was come, and the Queen thus deluded, she sent for Sterly (sic) her woman again, to whom she said, ‘Ah, Strelly, Strelly, I see they be all flatterers, and none true to me but thou,’ and then was she more in favour than ever she was before”.
As the hope of an heir was gradually abandoned, all other reasons for congratulation appeared also to fade away. De Noailles’ intrigues had prepared a fresh harvest of discontent, and with Elizabeth’s release, the turbulence of the Londoners assumed a more insolent character than ever. Hideous lampoons were circulated, bearing upon the Queen’s supposed condition, and to increase her agony of mind, Philip showed signs of a sickening conviction of the uselessness of his sacrifice.