Let future times be warned that good intent
Excuseth not misdeeds: all instruments
Of evil must partake its punishment.”
In the meantime Mary softens somewhat after Dudley’s execution, and is inclined to spare Guilford, as well as Jane. Gardiner argues against the husband’s reprieve, on the ground of certain peril to throne, church, and commonweal; and here he carries his point easily. He is not successful in securing Jane’s doom, even though he tells the queen:
“She is proclaimed
From street to street. The very walls are ciphered
With traitorous scrolls that hail her ‘Jane the Queen.’
Shall such wrong go unchecked?
Mary. That is their folly;
Not hers. The culpable shall smart for this.”