She is closely imprisoned.
Elizabeth was kept closely imprisoned for a month; after that, some little relaxation in the strictness of her seclusion was allowed. Permission was very reluctantly granted to her to walk every day in the royal apartments, which were now unoccupied, so that there was no society to be found there, but it afforded her a sort of pleasure to range through them for recreation and exercise. But this privilege could not be accorded without very strict limitations and conditions. Two officers of the Tower and three women had to attend her; the windows, too, were shut, and she was not permitted to go and look out at them. This was rather melancholy recreation, it must be allowed, but it was better than being shut up all day in a single apartment, bolted and barred.
Elizabeth in the Tower.
Elizabeth in the garden.
The little child and the flowers.
There was a small garden within the castle not far from the prison, and after some time Elizabeth was permitted to walk there. The gates and doors, however, were kept carefully closed, and all the prisoners, whose rooms looked into it from the surrounding buildings, were closely watched by their respective keepers, while Elizabeth was in the garden, to prevent their having any communication with her by looks or signs. There were a great many persons confined at this time, who had been arrested on charges connected with Wyatt's rebellion, and the authorities seem to have been very specially vigilant to prevent the possibility of Elizabeth's having communication with any of them. There was a little child of five years of age who used to come and visit Elizabeth in her room, and bring her flowers. He was the son of one of the subordinate officers of the Tower. It was, however, at last suspected that he was acting as a messenger between Elizabeth and Courteney. Courteney, it will be recollected, had been sent by Mary back to the Tower again, so that he and Elizabeth were now suffering the same hard fate in neighboring cells. When the boy was suspected of bearing communications between these friends and companions in suffering, he was called before an officer and closely examined. His answers were all open and childlike, and gave no confirmation to the idea which had been entertained. The child, however, was forbidden to go to Elizabeth's apartment any more. He was very much grieved at this, and he watched for the next time that Elizabeth was to walk in the garden, and putting his mouth to a hole in the gate, he called out, "Lady, I can not bring you any more flowers."
Elizabeth greatly alarmed.
Her removal from the Tower.
After Elizabeth had been thus confined about three months, she was one day terribly alarmed by the sounds of martial parade within the Tower, produced by the entrance of an officer from Queen Mary, named Sir Thomas Beddingfield, at the head of three hundred men. Elizabeth supposed that they were come to execute sentence of death upon her. She asked immediately if the platform on which Lady Jane Grey was beheaded had been taken away. They told her that it had been removed. She was then somewhat relieved. They afterward told her that Sir Thomas had come to take her away from the Tower, but that it was not known where she was to go. This alarmed her again, and she sent for the constable of the Tower, whose name was Lord Chandos, and questioned him very closely to learn what they were going to do with her. He said that it had been decided to remove her from the Tower, and send her to a place called Woodstock, where she was to remain under Sir Thomas Beddingfield's custody, at a royal palace which was situated there. Woodstock is forty or fifty miles to the westward of London, and not far from the city of Oxford.
Elizabeth's fears.
Mary's designs.