Whitehall
When she came to Whitehall, she was still a prisoner. It was as though she carried her dungeon with her. Whitehall was less kind even than the white high road, where at least she had found solace in the pity of the humble folk, who wept as she passed, and offered prayers for her safety. Fourteen days she spent in unfriended seclusion, with “no comfort but her innocence, no companion but her book.” Not for her the freedom of the open air, the chatter of tongues, the laughter of friends. Her oft-repeated request to see her sister fell upon the deaf ears of her jailers. A princess of less courage would have quailed before the ill-omened silence which enwrapped her. And how could she hope to regain the Queen’s affection, so long as the cunning servants of the Emperor and the King of France, Renard and Noailles, were there to distil the poison of hate and dread in Queen Mary’s ear?
Knowing well that her foes were the Queen’s friends, her friends the Queen’s foes, she was still of a stout heart. When Gardiner, the Bishop of Winchester, resolute to entrap her, urged her to confess and to submit herself to the Queen’s Majesty, “submission,” said she proudly, “confessed a crime, and pardon belonged to a delinquent.” For her part she had no crime to confess, and she asked no pardon. So for her temerity she was told that two hundred Northern Whitecoats should guard her lodging that night, and that in the morn she should be secretly conveyed to the Tower, without her household, there to be kept a close prisoner.
The Tower
It was a Palm Sunday when she set forth, under a guard, to that place of ill-omen, the Tower of London. Hers was no triumphal progress; neither palm nor willow was carried in her honour. And well might she dread the journey, which she was forced to make. Within the dark walls of the Tower her mother had laid her fair head down upon the block; and what cause had she to hope for a happier destiny? As she left Whitehall, to her a place of durance, she looked up to the window of the Queen’s bedchamber, hoping there to see some mark of favour, some signal of affection. The hope was vain, and in cold despair she came to the Stairs, where the barges awaited her. When she reached the Tower, she was bidden to enter at the Traitor’s Gate, which at first she refused, and then stepping short so that her foot fell into the water, she spake these words to her obdurate jailer:
“Here landeth as true a subject, being prisoner, as ever landed at these stairs, since Julius Cæsar laid the first foundations of the Tower.”
The Constable, a wry-faced ruffian, lurched forth savagely to receive her, and in a harsh voice told her that he would show her her lodging. Then she, being faint, “sat down,” we are told, “upon a fair stone, at which time there fell a great shower of rain: the heavens themselves did seem to weep at such inhuman usage.”
SCENES IN THE LIFE OF A PRINCESS
“They answered that their commission was to bring her to London, alive or dead.”
Drawn for “The Flying Carpet”