On November 13 a procession went forth from the Tower Gate to the Guildhall. First the Gentleman Chief Warder, carrying the axe, next Archbishop Cranmer, followed by Lord Guildford Dudley and Lady Jane, the last-named accompanied by two of her ladies. They were arraigned for high treason, the Lord Mayor presiding, with the Duke of Norfolk as High Sheriff. They pleaded guilty, received sentence, and were taken back to the Tower.
It is possible that Mary may have had it in her mind to spare Lady Jane’s life, but there came a new event, namely, Wyatt’s ill-starred rising against the projected marriage of Queen Mary with Philip of Spain. The opinion of the nation was strongly against it, and Wyatt was certainly moved with an honest purpose. I would not venture to say as much for his fellow-conspirator, the Duke of Suffolk, Lady Jane’s father, who probably renewed his hopes of setting his daughter on the throne. He undertook to head a rising in Leicestershire, as Sir Peter Carew did in Devon. With the details of this unhappy expedition we have little to do here. Wyatt started from Maidstone, after publishing a declaration against the Queen’s marriage, and advanced with a numerous force to Rochester, where he defeated the Duke of Norfolk and Sir Henry Jerningham, who had been sent against him. Then he moved on to Gravesend, where he was met by some members of the Privy Council, who exhorted him to make known his grievances in a less disorderly manner. He assented, provided “the custody of the Tower and the Queen within it” were entrusted to him. This condition being declined, he went on towards London. Mary was exhorted to take refuge in the Tower, but cowardice was not one of her faults; she refused, and offered a reward of a hundred pounds a year to any man who would bring her Wyatt’s head; she also gave out to the citizens of London that she would not marry Philip if the match should be disagreeable to the nation. Wyatt, too, unappalled by his perilous situation, appeared at Southwark, opposite the Tower, fired upon it and was fired upon by the garrison, on both sides without effect, but the fact is to be noted as the last time in its history that the Tower was ever attacked. How he went on, crossed the river at Kingston, found himself more and more deserted, but still came forward with the courage of despair until he was captured between Temple Bar and Ludgate Hill, we all know. Now let Holinshed take up the narrative: “As for the principals of this faction, Thomas Wyat, William Knevet, Thomas Cobham, two brethren named Mantells, and Alexander Bret, were brought by Sir Henry Jerningham by water to the Tower, prisoners, where Sir Philip R. Denny received them at the bulworke, and as Wyat passed he said: ‘Go, traitor, there never was such a traitor in England’; to whom Sir Thomas Wyat turned and said, ‘I am no traitor, I would thou shouldst well know that thou art more traitor than I, it is not the point of an honest man to call me so,’ and so went forth. When he came to the Tower gate, Sir Thomas Bridges, the Lieutenant, took him through the wicket, first Mantell, and said, ‘Ah thou traitor, what hast thou and thy companie wrought.’ But he, holding downe his head, said nothing. Then came Thomas Knevet, whom Master Chambeleine, gentleman porter of the Tower, tooke in. Then came Alexander Bret, whome Sir Thomas Pope tooke by the bosome, saying, ‘Oh traitor, how couldest thou find in thy heart to worke such a villanie, as to take wages, and being trusted ouer a band of men, to fall to hir enemies, returning against hir in battell.’ Bret answered, ‘Yea I have offended in that case.’ Then came Thomas Cobham, whome Sir Thomas Poines tooke in, and said, ‘Alas, Maister Cobham, what wind headed you to worke such treason’; and he answered, ‘Oh sir, I was seduced.’ Then came in Sir Thomas Wyat, whom Sir John Bridges tooke by the collar and said, ‘Oh thou villen and unhappie traitor, how couldest thou find in thy hart to worke such detestable treason to the queenes maiestie, who gaue thee thy life and liuing once alreadie, although thou diddest before this time beare armes in the field against hir and now to yeeld hir battell. If it were not (saith he) but that the lawe must passe upon thee, I would sticke thee through with my dagger.’ To the which, Wyat holding his arms under his side, and looking grieuously with a grim looke upon the Lieutenant, said, ‘It is no maisterie now’; and so passed on. Thomas Wyat had on a shirt of maile, with sleeues verie faire, thereon a veluet cassocke, and a yellow lace, with the windlace of his dag hanging thereon, and a paire of boots on his legs, and on his head a faire hat of veluet, with a broad bone worke lace about it. William Kneuet, Thomas Cobham, and Bret, were the like apparelled.”
Wyatt was confined in the first floor of the great keep, his adherents in the crypt beneath. It is hardly to be wondered at that this fixed the fate of poor Lady Jane. Her father was imprisoned on February 10. Two days before Feckenham, the Queen’s confessor, afterwards Abbot of Westminster, was sent to bid her and her husband prepare for death, and to exhort them to embrace the Roman faith; but on this point they were both firm in their refusal, and the 12th was fixed for the fatal day. It was originally intended that they should both die on Tower Hill, but the fear that Jane’s beauty, simplicity, and sweetness would excite popular sympathy, induced the authorities to change the place of her suffering to the Tower Green. When Lord Guildford was told this he requested a final interview with her, but she declined it, lest it should change their constancy. On the day appointed he was led forth, and as he passed the window of “Master Partridge’s House,” where she was confined, she waved her farewell to him. At the Bulwark Gate, the sheriffs met him and conducted him to the scaffold, where he met his fate with firmness. The body was conveyed on a litter to the Tower Chapel, and Jane saw it on its way thither. “O Guildford, Guildford!” said she, “the antepast is not so bitter that thou hast tasted, and which I shall soon taste, as to make my flesh tremble: it is nothing compared to the feast of which I shall partake this day in Heaven.” When the Lieutenant of the Tower came to conduct her to her death, and asked her for some small present which he might keep in memory of her, she gave him her tablets on which she had just written three sentences, Latin, Greek, and English. At the scaffold she addressed the bystanders, protesting that she had erred through bad advice, in the belief that she was serving the interests of the country, and that she submitted to the consequences of her error without murmuring. She prayed fervently, and then—but let us hear Holinshed once more—“stood vp and gaue hir maid (called Mistress Ellin) her gloues and handkercher, and hir booke she also gaue to Maister Bridges, (brother of) the Lieutenant of the Tower, and so untied hir gowne: and the executioner pressed to helpe hir off with it, but she desired him to let hir alone, and turned hir toward hir two gentlewomen, who helped hir off therewith, and with hir other attires, and they gaue hir a fair handkercher to put about hir eies. Then the executioner kneeled downe and asked hir forgiuenesse, whom she forgaue most willinglie. Then he willed hir to stand vpon the straw, which doone, she saw the blocke, and then she said, ‘I pray you dispatch me quicklie.’ Then she kneeled downe, saiing, ‘Will you take it off before I laie me downe?’ Whereunto the executioner answered, ‘No, Madame.’ Then tied she the handkercher about hir eies, and, feeling for the blocke, she said, ‘Where is it? where is it?’ One of the standers-by guided hir thereunto, and she laid downe hir head vpon the blocke, and then stretched forth hir bodie, and said, ‘Lord, into thy hands I commend my spirit,’ and so finished hir life.”
Eleven days later her father, the Duke of Suffolk, was beheaded, and many other participators in the ill-concerted rebellion were also put to death; three were hanged at Maidstone, three at Sevenoaks, more than fifty died in the City on the block or the gallows, the gates and London Bridge were disfigured with clusters of rotting heads, in several of the principal streets gibbets bore their ghastly burdens in chains, and the air was tainted far and wide. In the midst of this time Mary was married to Philip at Winchester.
Wyatt, who was put to death on April 11, had used some expressions which were held to implicate, among others, the Princess Elizabeth. The latter was lying sick, in semi-custody, at Ashridge in Herts, and a strong guard was sent to escort her to London, which performed its duty so zealously as to force admission into her bedchamber. She was brought, in spite of her remonstrances, by easy stages to London, and remained for a fortnight in close confinement at Whitehall, and was then conveyed to the Tower. Her angry protestations made a scene as she was landed at Traitors’ Gate on Palm Sunday, that day being fixed upon because the citizens were strictly ordered to Church, and it was feared that popular disaffection would be exhibited if the Princess was conducted through the city. Whilst in the Tower, her confinement was of the most rigid character; the Mass, though offensive to her, was constantly said in her apartment; at first she was not allowed to pass the threshold of her room, and when afterwards she obtained the privilege, through the intercession of Lord Chandos, she was constantly attended by the Lieutenant and Constable of the Tower, with a guard. “Queen Elizabeth’s Walk” is still the name of the path she daily promenaded. She was frequently examined by the Council, but nothing against her could be found, and Wyatt with his dying breath declared her innocence. On May 19 she was liberated from the Tower, and conveyed, under the charge of Sir Henry Bedingfield, to Woodstock. In the old London Tavern in Leadenhall Street is preserved a heavy pewter meat dish and cover, which it is said was used at the meal which she took after leaving the Tower. And there is another tradition that the bells of some of the city churches were joyously rung on her release, and that to these churches on her accession she gave silken bell-ropes.
There still remained many prisoners in the Tower who had been concerned in the Lady Jane attempt and Wyatt’s subsequent rebellion. A large number of these were now released. The Earl of Warwick and his three brothers, Ambrose, Robert and Dudley, were in the Beauchamp Tower, but the Earl died in October, 1554, and his brothers were liberated next year. There was a strong desire to win popular favour and make the Spanish marriage less unpopular. The Archbishop of York, who had been imprisoned for refusing to attend Queen Mary’s coronation, and some twenty other knights and gentlemen were set free.
With the religious persecutions which followed for three years and a half we have no concern here. There was one more rising against the increasing authority of the Spaniards; Thomas, the second son of Lord Stafford, landed at Scarborough and took the castle, but was defeated by the Earl of Westmoreland, and a large number of prisoners were brought to the Tower. Stafford was beheaded on Tower Hill, and the others were hanged at Tyburn. Queen Mary died on November 17, 1558, and the accession of Elizabeth was certainly hailed with joy by the English nation.
Elizabeth was at Hatfield when her sister died. On November 28 she came to London, and entered, amidst general acclamations, the fortress where she had been so rigorously imprisoned. It is no wonder if it found no charms for her; on December 5 she retired first to Somerset House, then to Whitehall, where she remained until the eve of her coronation, when she came back to the Tower again. The procession from hence to the Abbey was more splendid than any that had been recorded. Seated in an open chariot all glittering with gold, herself blazing with jewels, she was carried through streets strewn with flowers, with banners and tapestry on the houses, the conduits running wine, and the city companies manning the streets in their gorgeous liveries. A young woman called Deborah stood under a palm-tree in Fleet Street, and prophesied great prosperity to the nation.
Though the horrors of the stake were at an end, religious persecution was not; and the Tower seldom appears in the reign of Elizabeth save as a State prison. The Reformers were only too ready to retaliate on the Roman party, and so the Bishop of Winchester (Gardiner), who had rendered himself obnoxious under Mary, was soon in durance here, and was followed by the Archbishop of York, the Bishops of Ely, Lincoln, Worcester, Exeter, and Bath, and by Feckenham, Abbot of Westminster, and other Church dignitaries, for denying the Queen’s supremacy.
And there were fresh prisoners of State. Lady Catherine Grey, one of Elizabeth’s ladies-in-waiting, Lady Jane’s sister, married in 1560 Lord Hertford, eldest son of the Duke of Somerset, but secretly, as it was known that the Queen would not approve of the match. He was twenty-two, and she twenty. The young people walked from Whitehall to Lord Hertford’s house in Fleet Street, and here the marriage took place, though they could not remember the name of the minister who thus clandestinely united them. When in due time the union could no longer be concealed they were in a terrible fright, Lady Catherine being of near kin to the Queen. Lord Hertford could not face her majesty’s anger, and fled across sea, leaving his poor wife to do the best she could for herself. This was not much, for when she threw herself at her royal mistress’s feet and begged for pardon, Elizabeth in a fury sent her off to the Tower, where, soon after, her child was born.[3] Lord Hertford, returning to England, was sent also, and remained there many a long year, in the deeper disgrace because he could produce no proof of his marriage. He was separated from her, but bribed the keepers and gained access to her chamber, the result of which was the birth of another child. Elizabeth, we need hardly say, was more furious than ever; she declared, and probably thought, that there had been no marriage, dismissed summarily the Lieutenant, Warner, and had Hertford brought before the Star Chamber, where he was fined £15,000 and sent back to his prison, where he lay for nine years longer. During that time Lady Catherine died (1567). After his liberation he married again, but proved the validity of his first marriage in 1606 by discovering the minister who had performed it (Collins’s Peerage).