Gardiner's sermon before the queen-Execution of Lady Jane Grey and her husband-The gallows in every London street-Suffolk beheaded-Acquittal of Throckmorton-Elizabeth summoned to the Court-Elizabeth sent to the Tower-Her letter to Mary-Her death urged upon the queen-Her release from the Tower-Unquiet condition of the country-Cranmer, Latimer, and Ridley at Oxford-Arrival of Philip-Marriage of Philip and Mary-Seditious books-Protestant exiles-Cardinal Pole and the Parliament-Pole's absolution of the kingdom-All the Statutes against heretics revived.

It was the 7th of February when the insurrection of Wyat thus completely failed. Prisoner after prisoner continued to arrive at the Tower; and on Saturday, the 10th, the duke of Suffolk and lord John Grey were brought thither from Coventry. On Sunday, the 11th, Gardiner preached before the queen; and "he asked a boon of the queen's highness," that, like as she had beforetime extended her mercy, particularly and privately, through which lenity and gentleness conspiracy and open rebellion had grown, " she would now be merciful to the body of the commonwealth, and conservation thereof, which could not be unless the rotten and hurtful members thereof were cut off and consumed." From this exhortation, adds the chronicler, "all the

VOL. III.

F

66

EXECUTION OF LADY JANE GREY AND HER HUSBAND.

[1554.

audience did gather there should follow sharp and cruel execution." * The audience were not deceived in their belief. On Monday, the 12th, lord Guilford Dudley, the young husband of lady Jane Grey, was led out of his prison walls to die on Tower-hill at ten o'clock. Out of the window of "Partridge's house" did Jane, whose own hour of final release was fast approaching, see him walk to the scaffold; and, long before the bell had again sounded the hour, she saw his body taken out of a cart, with his head in a cloth. On the green against the White Tower had a scaffold been erected, on which the lady Jane was to die. This tragedy was to have been completed on the Friday previous, but was then postponed for some unknown cause. When Gardiner begged his boon of the queen, some desire to spare two persons so young and so innocent-one, so fair, so accomplished,-might have lingered in her breast. The insurrection of Wyat no doubt made their fate almost certain; but probably the unshaken constancy of this heroic woman was too deep an offence for bigotry to forgive. She was not likely to be pardoned who could boldly say to the priest sent to examine her, four days before her death, "I ground my faith upon God's Word, and not upon the Church. For if the Church be a good Church, the faith of the Church must be tried by God's Word, and not God's Word by the Church." + And so she went forth to die, at eleven o'clock on that "black Monday," as Strype calls the day, “her countenance nothing abashed, neither her eyes anything moisted with tears."‡ And in her hand she held a book, whereon she prayed all the way till she came to the scaffold. That book she gave to Master Brydges, the lieutenant's brother. In the British Museum is a Manual of Prayers, in English, which contains three remarkable notes; one, addressed by Guilford Dudley to his father, the duke of Suffolk; the second, a note, signed "Jane Duddeley," also addressed to the duke; the third, a note from Jane to sir John Brydges, the lieutenant of the Tower, to whom it is supposed the book belonged. The note to the duke from Jane Dudley was probably written on the last morning of her life,—perhaps in the very hour when she saw her Guilford's head taken out of the cart. It is worth extracting :-"The Lord comfort your grace, and that in his Word, wherein all creatures only are to be comforted. And though it has pleased God to take away two of your children, yet think not, I most humbly beseech your grace, that you have lost them, but trust that we, by leasing this mortal life, have won an immortal life. And I, for my part, as I have honoured your grace in this life, will pray for you in another life." For three hundred years the simplest recital of the fate of this victim of ambition has stirred the sympathy of all true hearts; and we need not add a word to the sentences with which the ancient narrative of her execution terminates :-"She tied the kercher about her eyes; then, feeling for the block, said, 'What shall I do? Where is it?' One of the standers-by guiding her thereto, she laid her head down upon the block, and stretched forth her body, and said, 'Lord, into thy hands I commend my spirit.' And so she ended."§ On the wall of the Beauchamp Tower, in which the Dudleys were imprisoned, is carved the word JANE; and there

"Queen Jane and Queen Mary," p. 54.

+"Communication between the Lady Jane and Master Feckenham."-Harleian Miscellany, vol. i. p. 369, ed. 1808.

+

Queen Jane and Queen Mary," p. 56.

§ Ibid, p. 59.

1554.]

SUFFOLK BEHEADED-ACQUITTAL OF THROCKMORTON.

67

was formerly a second inscription of the same name. May this record be kept as a sacred memorial of the noble creature to whom one of the earnest puritan race has paid an eloquent tribute :-" How justly may the masculine constancy of this excellent lady, whose many virtues the pens of her very enemies have acknowledged, rise up in judgment against all such poor spirits who, for fear of death, or other outward motives, shall deny God and his truth."*

Queen Mary appearing unquestionably sincere in her opinions; having, during the lives of her father and her brother, borne many griefs with fortitude; not open to any charge of licentiousness; and possessing courage and intellect; it has become a fashion not only to extenuate her evil actions, but to hold her up as a model of female sovereigns. We shall not attempt to rebut the exaggerations of her panegyrists, male or female; or continue our narrative with any desire to uphold the sobriquet which tradition has handed down. Nevertheless, we believe that the six scarlet letters attached to the name of Mary will not be obliterated by any historic solvent. The punishments which followed Wyat's rebellion are considered by some moderns to have been mild. Mary's contemporaries thought them severe. On the day that Guilford and Jane Dudley were beheaded, the gallows was set up at every gate, and in every great thoroughfare of London. There is a brief catalogue of the use to which these machines were applied on the 13th, when, from Billingsgate to Hyde Park-corner, there were forty-eight men hanged at nineteen public places. On the 17th, certain captains, and twentytwo of the common rebels, were sent into Kent to suffer death.† Simon Renard, the ambassador from the emperor, writes to his master, on the 24th of February: "The queen has granted a general pardon to a multitude of people in Kent, after having caused about five score of the most guilty to be executed." Such executions were made under martial law; although Wyat and some other leaders were reserved for trial by a jury. According to Renard, Mary was bent on severity:-" Numerous are the petitions presented to her majesty to have the pains of death exchanged for perpetual imprisonment, but to this she will not listen." The duke of Suffolk was tried on the 17th, and beheaded on the 23rd. Wyat and others pleaded guilty. Sir Nicholas Throckmorton was tried on the 17th of April; which trial is one of the more remarkable in our criminal jurisprudence. It is chiefly remarkable for the boldness and ability with which Throckmorton defended himself for hours against the system then. pursued by judges and counsel, of heaping accusation upon accusation upon a prisoner; of perplexing him with questions and urgent exhortations to confess his guilt; of reading over garbled evidence, not taken in open court, and requiring him to answer each separate charge as produced. The talent and energy of Throckmorton produced a most surprising result. He was acquitted. Of this rare event the ambassador of the emperor writes that the jury were "all heretics;" and adds, "When they carried him back to the Tower after his acquittal, the people with great joy raised shouts, and threw their caps in the air; which has so displeased the queen that she has

*Sir Simonds D'Ewes; "Queen Jane and Queen Mary," p. 24.

+ The details are in Machyn's "Diary," p. 55.

Tytler, vol. ii. p. 309. The original has, ne veult condescendre ny prester l'oreille."

68

ELIZABETH SUMMONED TO THE COURT.

[1554.

been ill for three days." The Court, immediately after the trial, committed the jury to prison. Four made a submission and were released. Eight remained in confinement for many months; and when brought before the Council in the Star Chamber, were sentenced to the payment of enormous fines. It was more than a century before the infamous system was discontinued of punishing juries for verdicts in state prosecutions that were not agreeable to the crown.*

The execution of Wyat was delayed till the 11th of April. He was reserved, that, out of some direct confession or indirect admission, one far higher in rank might be implicated in the crime of treason. Another suspected person was Courtenay, earl of Devonshire, who had been released from the Tower on the accession of Mary, and was now brought back to the prison in which he had been confined from his earliest years, after his father, the marquis of Exeter, had been beheaded.† Before Mary declared for her marriage with the prince of Spain, it was considered that Courtenay was her favoured suitor. For our times, the historical interest of this period of suspicion and alarm centres upon the princess Elizabeth. The future great queen of England was within a hair's breadth of the block upon which Jane Grey had perished.

On the 26th of January, the day after Wyat made his armed demonstration at Maidstone, queen Mary wrote a letter from St. James's to the lady Elizabeth, who was at Ashridge, informing her of attempts to excite rebellion; and saying, "We, tendering the surety of your person, which might chance to be in some peril if any sudden tumult should arise, where you now be, or about Donnington, whither, as we understand, you are minded shortly to remove, do therefore think expedient you should put yourself in good readiness, with all convenient speed, to make your repair hither to us." Elizabeth was seriously ill, and begged for delay. On the 10th of February, lord William Howard, sir Edward Hastings, and sir Thomas Cornwallis, arrived at Ashridge, and “required to have access upon my lady Elizabeth's grace; which obtained, we delivered unto her your highness's letter,”—so the three commissioners write to the queen on the 11th. Howard adds, "I, the lord admiral, declared the effect of your highness's pleasure, according to the credence given to us, being before advertised of her estate by your highness's physicians; by whom we did perceive the estate of her body to be such that, without danger to her person, we might well proceed to require her in your majesty's name, all excuses set apart, to repair to your highness with all convenient speed and diligence."§ The generally received statement that the commissioners, after Elizabeth had gone to rest, entered her chamber rudely, and told her that their orders were to bring her "quick or dead,” does not agree with the tone of this official letter to the queen. It is clear that Elizabeth's journey from Ashridge to London was not a hurried one; although she might have been refused, when "she desired some longer respite until she had better recovered her strength." It was arranged that she should take five days to perform this journey of thirty-three miles, in a horse litter. She did not arrive at Westminster till the 22nd or 23rd of February, for the accounts vary. Machyn, the London funeral furnisher, thus records

*See Jardine's "Criminal Trials," vol. i. Strype, "Memorials," vol. iii. p. 126.

See ante, vol. ii. p. 423. State Papers; Tytler, p. 426.