1554 AND 1555.
Arrival of Wyat and his associates at the Tower.--Savage treatment of
them.--Further instances of Mary's severity.--Duke of Suffolk
beheaded.--Death of lady Jane Grey--of Wyat, who clears Elizabeth of all
share in his designs.--Trial of Throgmorton.--Bill for the exclusion of
Elizabeth thrown out.--Parliament protects her rights--is
dissolved.--Rigorous confinement of Elizabeth in the Tower.--She is
removed under guard of Beddingfield--carried to Richmond--offered
liberty with the hand of the duke of Savoy--refuses--is carried
to Ricot, thence prisoner to Woodstock.--Anecdotes of her
behaviour.--Cruelty of Gardiner towards her attendants.--Verses by
Harrington.--Marriage of the queen.--Alarms of the protestants.--Arrival
of cardinal Pole.--Popery restored.--Persecution begun.--King Philip
procures the liberation of state prisoners.--Earl of Devon travels into
Italy--dies.--Obligation of Elizabeth to Philip discussed.--She is
invited to court--keeps her Christmas there--returns to Woodstock--is
brought again to court by Philip's intercession.--Gardiner urges her to
make submissions, but in vain.--She is brought to the queen--permitted
to reside without guards at one of the royal seats--finally settled at
Hatfield.--Character of sir Thomas Pope.--Notice of the
Harringtons.--Philip quits England.--Death of Gardiner.
It is now proper to return to circumstances more closely connected with
the situation of Elizabeth at this eventful period of her life.
Two or three weeks before her arrival in the Tower, Wyat with some of
his principal adherents had been carried thither. Towards these unhappy
persons, none of those decencies of behaviour were observed which the
sex and rank of Elizabeth had commanded from the ministers of her
sister's severity; and Holinshed's circumstantial narrative of the
circumstances attending their committal, may be cited as an instructive
example of the fierce and brutal manners of the age.
"Sir Philip Denny received them at the bulwark, and as Wyat passed by,
he said, 'Go, traitor, there was never such a traitor in England.' To
whom sir Thomas Wyat turned and said, 'I am no traitor; I would thou
shouldest 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 lieutenant took in through the
wicket first Mantell, and said; 'Ah thou traitor! what hast thou and thy
company wrought?' But he, holding down his head, said nothing. Then came
Thomas Knevet, whom master Chamberlain, gentleman-porter of the Tower,
took in. Then came Alexander Bret, (captain of the white coats,) whom
sir Thomas Pope took by the bosom, saying, 'O traitor! how couldst thou
find in thy heart to work such a villainy as to take wages, and being
trusted over a band of men, to fall to her enemies, returning against
her in battle?' Bret answered, 'Yea, I have offended in that case.' Then
came Thomas Cobham, whom sir Thomas Poins took in, and said; 'Alas,
master Cobham, what wind headed you to work such treason?' And he
answered, 'O sir! I was seduced.' Then came sir Thomas Wyat, whom sir
Thomas Bridges took by the collar, and said; 'O thou villain! how
couldst thou find in thy heart to work such detestable treason to the
queen's majesty, who gave thee thy life and living once already,
although thou didst before this time bear arms in the field against
her?[22]... If it were not (saith he) but that the law must pass upon
thee, I would stick thee through with my dagger.' To the which Wyat,
holding his arms under his sides and looking grievously with a grim look
upon the lieutenant, said, 'It is no mastery now;' and so passed on."
[Note 22: It is plain that Wyat is here accused of having taken arms
for Jane Grey; but most wrongfully, if Carte's account of him is to be
credited, which there seems no reason to disbelieve.]
Other circumstances attending the suppression of this rebellion mark
with equal force the stern and vindictive spirit of Mary's government,
and the remaining barbarity of English customs. The inhabitants of
London being for the most part protestants and well affected, as the
defection of their trained bands had proved, to the cause of Wyat, it
was thought expedient to admonish them of the fruits of rebellion by the
gibbeting of about sixty of his followers in the most public parts of
the city. Neither were the bodies suffered to be removed till the public
entry of king Philip after the royal nuptials; on which festal occasion
the streets were cleared of these noisome objects which had disgraced
them for nearly half a year.
Some hundreds of the meaner rebels, to whom the queen was pleased to
extend her mercy, were ordered to appear before her bound two-and-two
together, with halters about their necks; and kneeling before her in
this guise, they received her _gracious_ pardon of all offences; but no
general amnesty was ever granted.
That the rash attempt of the duke of Suffolk should have been visited
upon himself by capital punishment, is neither to be wondered at nor
censured; but it was a foul act of cruelty to make this the pretext for
taking away the lives of a youthful pair entirely innocent of this last
design, and forgiven, as it was fondly hoped, for the almost involuntary
part which they had taken in a former and more criminal enterprise. But
religious bigotry and political jealousy, each perhaps sufficient for
the effect, combined in this instance to urge on the relentless temper
of Mary; and the lady Jane Grey and Guildford Dudley her husband were
ordered to prepare for the execution of the sentence which had remained
suspended over them.
Every thinking mind must have been shocked at the vengeance taken on
Guildford Dudley,--a youth too insignificant, it might be thought, to
call forth the animadversion of the most apprehensive government, and
guilty of nothing but having accepted, in obedience to his father's
pleasure, the hand of Jane Grey. But the fate of this distinguished lady
herself was calculated to awaken stronger feelings. The fortitude, the
piety, the genuine humility and contrition evinced by her in the last
scene of an unsullied life, furnished the best evidence of her
guiltlessness even of a wish to resume the sceptre which paternal
authority had once forced on her reluctant grasp; and few could witness
the piteous spectacle of her violent and untimely end, without a thrill
of indignant horror, and secret imprecations against the barbarity of
her unnatural kinswoman.
The earl of Devonshire was still detained in the Tower on Wyat's
information, as was pretended, and on other indications of guilt, all of
which were proved in the end equally fallacious: and at the time of
Elizabeth's removal hither this state-prison was thronged with captives
of minor importance implicated in the designs of Wyat. These were
assiduously plied on one hand with offers of liberty and reward, and
subjected on the other to the most rigorous treatment, the closest
interrogatories, and one of them even to the rack, in the hope of
eliciting from them some evidence which might reconcile to Mary's
conscience, or color to the nation, the death or perpetual imprisonment
of a sister whom she feared and hated.
To have brought her to criminate herself would have been better still;
and no pains were spared for this purpose. A few days after her
committal, Gardiner and other privy-councillors came to examine her
respecting the conversation which she had held with sir James Croft
touching her removal to Donnington Castle. She said, after some
recollection, that she had indeed such a place, but that she never
occupied it in her life, and she did not remember that any one had moved
her so to do. Then, "to enforce the matter," they brought forth sir
James Croft, and Gardiner demanded what she had to say to that man? She
answered that she had little to say to him or to the rest that were in
the Tower. "But, my lords," said she, "you do examine every mean
prisoner of me, wherein methinks you do me great injury. If they have
done evil and offended the queen's majesty, let them answer to it
accordingly. I beseech you, my lords, join not me in this sort with any
of these offenders. And concerning my going to Donnington Castle, I do
remember that master Hobby and mine officers and you sir James Croft had
such talk;--but what is that to the purpose, my lords, but that I may go
to mine own houses at all times?" The earl of Arundel kneeling down
said, "Your grace sayeth true, and certainly we are very sorry that we
have troubled you about so vain matter." She then said, "My lords, you
do sift me very narrowly; but I am well assured you shall not do more to
me than God hath appointed, and so God forgive you all."
Before their departure sir James Croft kneeled down before her,
declaring that he was sorry to see the day in which he should be brought
as a witness against her grace. But he added, that he had been
"marvellously tossed and examined touching her grace;" and ended by
protesting his innocence of the crime laid to his charge[23].
[Note 23: Fox's narrative in Holinshed.]
Wyat was at length, on April 11th, brought to his death; when he
confounded all the hopes and expectations of Elizabeth's enemies, by
strenuously and publicly asserting her entire innocence of any
participation in his designs.
Sir Nicholas Throgmorton was brought to the bar immediately afterwards.
His trial at length, as it has come down to us in Holinshed's Chronicle,
is one of the most interesting documents of that nature extant. He was
esteemed "a deep conspirator, whose post was thought to be at London as
a factor, to give intelligence as well to them in the West, as to Wyat
and the rest in Kent. It was believed that he gave notice to Wyat to
come forward with his power, and that the Londoners would be ready to
take his part. And that he sent a post to sir Peter Carew also, to
advance with as much speed as might be, and to bring his forces with
him.
"He was said moreover to be the man that excited the earl of Devon to go
down into the West, and that sir James Croft and he had many times
consulted about the whole matter[24]."
[Note 24: Strype's Ecclesiastical Memorials.]
To these political offences, sir Nicholas added religious principles
still more heinous in the eyes of Mary. He, with two other gentlemen of
his family, had been of the number of those who attended to the stake
that noble martyr Anne Askew, burned for heresy in the latter end of
Henry's reign; when they were bid to take care of their lives, for they
were all marked men. Since the accession of Mary also he had "bemoaned
to his friend sir Edward Warner, late lieutenant of the Tower, his own
estate and the tyranny of the times, extending upon divers honest
persons for religion, and wished it were lawful for all of each
religion to live safely according to their conscience. For the law
_ex-officio_ he said would be intolerable, and the clergy discipline now
might rather be resembled to the Turkish tyranny than the teaching of
the Christian religion. Which words he was not afraid at his trial
openly to acknowledge that he had said to the said Warner[25]."
[Note 25: Strype's Ecclesiastical Memorials.]
The prosecution was conducted with all the iniquity which the corrupt
practice of that age admitted. Not only was the prisoner debarred the
assistance of counsel on his trial, he was even refused the privilege of
calling a single witness in his favor. He defended himself however under
all these disadvantages, with surprising skill, boldness and presence of
mind; and he retorted with becoming spirit the brutal taunts of the
crown lawyers and judges, who disgraced themselves on the occasion by
all the excesses of an unprincipled servility. Fortunately for
Throgmorton, the additional clauses to the treason laws added under
Henry VIII. had been abolished under his successor and were not yet
re-enacted. Only the clear and equitable statute of Edward III. remained
therefore in force; and the lawyers were reduced to endeavour at such an
explanation of it as should comprehend a kind of constructive treason.
"If," said they, "it be proved that the prisoner was connected with
Wyat, and of his counsel, the overt acts of Wyat are to be taken as his,
and visited accordingly." But besides that no participation with Wyat
after he had taken up arms, was proved upon Throgmorton, the jury were
moved by his solemn protest against so unwarrantable a principle as that
the overt acts of one man might be charged as overt acts upon another.
They acquitted him therefore with little hesitation, to the
inexpressible disappointment and indignation of the queen and her
ministers, who then possessed the power of making their displeasure on
such an occasion deeply felt. The jury were immediately committed to
custody, and eight of them, who refused to confess themselves in fault,
were further imprisoned for several months and heavily fined.
The acquitted person himself, in defiance of all law and justice, was
remanded to the Tower, and did not regain his liberty till the
commencement of the following year, when the intercession of king Philip
obtained the liberation of almost all the prisoners there detained.
Throgmorton, like all the others called in question for the late
insurrections, was closely questioned respecting Elizabeth and the earl
of Devon; "and very fain," we are told, "the privy-councillors employed
in this work would have got out of him something against them. For when
at Throgmorton's trial, his writing containing his confession was read
in open court, he prayed the queen's serjeant that was reading it to
read further, 'that hereafter,' said he, 'whatsoever become of me, my
words may not be perverted and abused to the hurt of some others, and
especially against the great personages of whom I have been sundry
times, as appears by my answers, examined. For I perceive the net was
not cast only for little fishes but for great ones[26]."
[Note 26: Strype's Memorials.]
This generous concern for the safety of Elizabeth in the midst of his
own perils appears not to have been lost upon her; and under the ensuing
reign we shall have the satisfaction of seeing the abilities of sir
Nicholas displayed in other scenes and under happier auspices.
All manifestations of popular favor towards those whom the court had
proscribed and sought to ruin, were at this juncture visited with the
extreme of arbitrary severity. Two merchants of London, for words
injurious to the queen, but principally for having affirmed that Wyat at
his death had cleared the lady Elizabeth and the earl of Devonshire,
were set in the pillory, to which their ears were fastened with large
nails.
It was in fact an object of great importance to the catholic party to
keep up the opinion, so industriously inculcated, of the princess being
implicated in the late disturbances; since it was only on this false
pretext that she could be detained close prisoner in the Tower while a
fatal stroke was aimed against her rights and interests.
Gardiner, now chancellor and prime minister, the most inveterate of
Elizabeth's enemies and the most devoted partisan of the Spanish
interest, thinking that all was subdued to the wishes of the court,
brought before the new parliament a bill for declaring the princess
illegitimate and incapable of succeeding:--it was indignantly rejected,
however, by a great majority; but the failure only admonished him to
renew the attack in a more indirect and covert manner. Accordingly, the
articles of the marriage treaty between Mary and the prince of Spain,
artfully drawn with great seeming advantage to England, had no sooner
received the assent of the two houses, than he proposed a law for
conferring upon the queen the same power enjoyed by her father; that of
naming a successor. But neither could this be obtained from a house of
commons attached for the most part to the protestant cause and the
person of the rightful heir, and justly apprehensive of the extinction
of their few remaining privileges under the yoke of a detested foreign
tyrant. Nobody doubted that it was the purpose of the queen, in default
of immediate issue of her own, to bequeath the crown to her husband,
whose descent from a daughter of John of Gaunt had been already much
insisted on by his adherents. The bill was therefore thrown out; and the
alarm excited by its introduction had caused the house to pass several
spirited resolutions, one of which declared that her majesty should
reign as a sole queen without any participation of her authority, while
the rest guarded in various points against the anticipated encroachments
of Philip, when Mary thought good to put a stop to the further
discussion of the subject by a prorogation of parliament.
After these manifold disappointments, the court party was compelled to
give up, with whatever reluctance, its deep-laid plots against the
unoffending princess. Her own prudence had protected her life; and the
independent spirit of a house of commons conscious of speaking the sense
of the nation guarantied her succession. One only resource remained to
Gardiner and his faction:--they judged that a long-continued absence,
while it gradually loosened her hold upon the affections of the people,
would afford many facilities for injuring or supplanting her; and it was
determined soon to provide for her a kind of honorable banishment.
The confinement of the princess in the Tower had purposely been rendered
as irksome and comfortless as possible. It was not till after a month's
close imprisonment, by which her health had suffered severely, that she
obtained, after many difficulties, permission to walk in the royal
apartments; and this under the constant inspection of the constable of
the Tower and the lord-chamberlain, with the attendance of three of the
queen's women; the windows also being shut, and she not permitted to
look out at them. Afterwards she had liberty to walk in a small garden,
the gates and doors being carefully closed; and the prisoners whose
rooms looked into it being at such times closely watched by their
keepers, to prevent the interchange of any word or sign with the
princess. Even a child of five years old belonging to some inferior
officer in the Tower, who was wont to cheer her by his daily visits, and
to bring her flowers, was suspected of being employed as a messenger
between her and the earl of Devonshire; and notwithstanding the innocent
simplicity of his answers to the lord-chamberlain by whom he was
strictly examined, was ordered to visit her no more. The next day the
child peeped in through a hole of the door as she walked in the garden,
crying out, "Mistress, I can bring you no more flowers!" for which, it
seems, his father was severely chidden and ordered to keep his boy out
of the way.
From the beginning of her imprisonment orders had been given that the
princess should have mass regularly said in her apartment. It is
probable that Elizabeth did not feel any great repugnance to this
rite:--however this might be, she at least expressed none; and by this
compliance deprived her sister of all pretext for persecuting her on a
religious ground. But some of her household were found less submissive
on this head, and she had the mortification of seeing Mrs. Sands, one of
her ladies, carried forcibly away from her under an accusation of heresy
and her place supplied by another.
All these severities failed however of their intended effect: neither
sufferings nor menaces could bring the princess to acknowledge herself
guilty of offending even in thought against her sovereign and sister;
and as the dying asseverations of Wyat had fully acquitted her in the
eyes of the country, it became evident that her detention in the Tower
could not much longer be persisted in. Yet the habitual jealousy of
Mary's government, and the apparent danger of furnishing a head to the
protestants rendered desperate by her cruelties, forbade the entire
liberation of the princess; and it was resolved to adopt as a middle
course the expedient sanctioned by many examples in that age, of
committing her to the care of certain persons who should be answerable
for her safe keeping, either in their own houses, or at some one of the
royal seats. Lord Williams of Thame, and sir Henry Beddingfield captain
of the guard, were accordingly joined in commission for the execution of
this delicate and important trust.
The unfortunate prisoner conceived neither hope nor comfort from this
approaching change in her situation, nor probably was it designed that
she should; for intimidation seems still to have formed an essential
feature in the policy of her relentless enemies. Sir Henry Beddingfield
entered the Tower at the head of a hundred of his men; and Elizabeth,
struck with the unexpected sight, could not forbear inquiring with
dismay, whether the lady Jane's scaffold were removed? On being informed
that it was, she received some comfort, but this was not of long
duration; for soon a frightful rumor reached her, that she was to be
carried away by this captain and his soldiers no one knew whither. She
sent immediately for lord Chandos, constable of the Tower, whose
humanity and courtesy had led him to soften as much as possible the
hardships of her situation, though at the hazard of incurring the
indignation of the court; and closely questioning him, he at length
plainly told her that there was no help for it, orders were given, and
she must be consigned to Beddingfield's care to be carried, as he
believed, to Woodstock. Anxious and alarmed, she now asked of her
attendants what kind of man this Beddingfield was; and whether, if the
murdering of her were secretly committed to him, his conscience would
allow him to see it executed? None about her could give a satisfactory
answer, for he was a stranger to them all; but they bade her trust in
God that such wickedness should not be perpetrated against her.
At length, on May 19th, after a close imprisonment of three months, she
was brought out of the Tower under the conduct of Beddingfield and his
troop; and on the evening of the same day found herself at Richmond
Palace, where her sister then kept her court. She was still treated in
all respects like a captive: the manners of Beddingfield were harsh and
insolent; and such terror did she conceive from the appearances around
her, that sending for her gentleman-usher, she desired him and the rest
of her officers to pray for her; "For this night," said she, "I think to
die." The gentleman, much affected by her distress, encouraged her as
well as he was able: then going down to lord Williams, who was walking
with Beddingfield, he called him aside and implored him to tell him
sincerely, whether any mischief were designed against his mistress that
night or no; "that he and his men might take such part as God should
please to appoint." "For certainly," added this faithful servant, "we
will rather die than she should secretly and innocently miscarry."
"Marry, God forbid," answered Williams, "that any such wicked purpose
should be wrought; and rather than it should be so, I with my men are
ready to die at her feet also."
In the midst of her gloomy apprehensions, the princess was surprised by
an offer from the highest quarter, of immediate liberty on condition of
her accepting the hand of the duke of Savoy in marriage.
Oppressed, persecuted, and a prisoner, sequestered from every friend and
counsellor, guarded day and night by soldiers, and in hourly dread of
some attempt upon her life, it must have been confidently expected that
the young princess would embrace as a most joyful and fortunate
deliverance this unhoped-for proposal; and by few women, certainly,
under all the circumstances, would such expectations have been
frustrated. But the firm mind of Elizabeth was not thus to be shaken,
nor her penetration deceived. She saw that it was banishment which was
held out to her in the guise of marriage; she knew that it was her
reversion of an independent English crown which she was required to
barter for the matrimonial coronet of a foreign dukedom; and she felt
the proposal as what in truth it was;--an injury in disguise.
Fortunately for herself and her country, she had the magnanimity to
disdain the purchase of present ease and safety at a price so
disproportionate; and returning to the overture a modest but decided
negative, she prepared herself to endure with patience and resolution
the worst that her enraged and baffled enemies might dare against her.
No sooner was her refusal of the offered marriage made known, than
orders were given for her immediate removal into Oxfordshire. On
crossing the river at Richmond on this melancholy journey, she descried
on the other side "certain of her poor servants," who had been
restrained from giving their attendance during her imprisonment, and
were anxiously desirous of seeing her again. "Go to them," said she to
one of her men, "and say these words from me, _Tanquam ovis_" (Like a
sheep to the slaughter).
As she travelled on horseback the journey occupied four days, and the
slowness of her progress gave opportunity for some striking displays of
popular feeling. In one place, numbers of people were seen standing by
the way-side who presented to her various little gifts; for which
Beddingfield did not scruple, in his anger, to call them traitors and
rebels. The bells were every where rung as she passed through the
villages, in token of joy for her liberation; but the people were soon
admonished that she was still a prisoner and in disgrace, by the orders
of Beddingfield to set the ringers in the stocks.
On the third evening she arrived at Ricot, the house of lord Williams,
where its owner, gracefully sinking the character of a watchful
superintendant in that of a host who felt himself honored by her visit,
introduced her to a large circle of nobility and gentry whom he had
invited to bid her welcome. The severe or suspicious temper of
Beddingfield took violent umbrage at the sight of such an assemblage: he
caused his soldiers to keep strict watch; insisted that none of the
guests should be permitted to pass the night in the house; and asked
lord Williams if he were aware of the consequences of thus entertaining
the queen's prisoner? But he made answer, that he well knew what he did,
and that "her grace might and should in his house be merry."
Intelligence however had no sooner reached the court of the reception
afforded to the princess at Ricot, than directions arrived for her
immediate removal to Woodstock. Here, under the harsher inspection of
Beddingfield, she found herself once more a prisoner. No visitant was
permitted to approach; the doors were closed upon her as in the Tower;
and a military guard again kept watch around the walls both day and
night.
We possess many particulars relative to the captivity of Elizabeth at
Woodstock. In some of them we may recognise that spirit of exaggeration
which the anxious sympathy excited by her sufferings at the time, and
the unbounded adulation paid to her afterwards, were certain to produce;
others bear all the characters of truth and nature.
It is certain that her present residence, though less painful and
especially less opprobrious than imprisonment in the Tower, was yet a
state of rigorous constraint and jealous inspection, in which she was
haunted with cares and fears which robbed her youth of its bloom and
vivacity, and her constitution of its vigor. On June 8th such was the
state of her health that two physicians were sent from the court who
remained for several days in attendance on her. On their return, they
performed for their patient the friendly office of making a favorable
report of her behaviour and of the dutiful humility of her sentiments
towards her majesty, which was received, we are told, with more
complacency by Mary than by her bishops. Soon after, she was advised by
some friend to make her peace with the queen by submissions and
acknowledgements, which, with her usual constancy, she absolutely
refused, though apparently the only terms on which she could hope for
liberty.
Under such circumstances we may give easy belief to the touching
anecdote, that "she, hearing upon a time out of her garden at Woodstock,
a milkmaid singing pleasantly, wished herself a milkmaid too; saying
that her case was better, and her life merrier than hers."
The instances related of the severity and insolence of sir Henry
Beddingfield are to be received with more distrust. We are told, that
observing a chair of state prepared for the princess in an upper chamber
at lord Williams's house, he seized upon it for himself and insolently
ordered his boots to be pulled off in that apartment. Yet we learn from
the same authority that afterwards at Woodstock, when she seems to have
been in his sole custody, Elizabeth having called him her jailor, on
observing him lock the gate of the garden while she was walking in it,
he fell on his knees and entreated her grace not to give him that name,
for he was appointed to be one of her officers. It has also been
asserted, that on her accession to the throne she dismissed him from her
presence with the speech, that she prayed God to forgive him, as she
did, and that when she had a prisoner whom she would have straitly kept
and hardly used, she would send for him. But if she ever used to him
words like these, it must have been in jest; for it is known from the
best authority, that Beddingfield was frequently at the court of
Elizabeth, and that she once visited him on a progress. If there is any
truth in the stories told of persons of suspicious appearance lurking
about the walls of the palace, who sought to gain admittance for the
purpose of taking away her life, the exact vigilance of her keeper, by
which all access was barred, might more deserve her thanks than her
reproaches.
During the period that the princess was thus industriously secluded from
conversation with any but the few attendants who had been allowed to
remain about her person, her correspondence was not less watchfully
restricted. We are told, that when, after urgent application to the
council, she had at length been permitted to write to the queen,
Beddingfield looked over her as she wrote, took the paper into his own
keeping when she paused, and brought it back to her when she chose to
resume her task.
Yet could not his utmost precaution entirely cut off her communications
with the large and zealous party who rested upon her all their hopes of
better times for themselves or for the country. Through the medium of a
visitor to one of her ladies, she received the satisfactory assurance
that none of the prisoners for Wyat's business had been brought to utter
any thing by which she could be endangered. Perhaps it was with
immediate reference to this intelligence that she wrote with a diamond
on her window the homely but expressive distich,
"Much suspected by me
Nothing proved can be,
Quoth Elizabeth prisoner."
But these secret intelligencers were not always fortunate enough to
escape detection, of which the consequences were rendered very grievous
through the arbitrary severity of Mary's government, and the peculiar
malice exercised by Gardiner against the adherents of the princess.
Sir John Harrington, son to the gentleman of the same name formerly
mentioned as a follower of admiral Seymour, thus, in his _Brief View of
the Church_, sums up the character of this celebrated bishop of
Winchester, with reference to this part of his conduct.
"Lastly, the plots he laid to entrap the lady Elizabeth, and his
terrible hard usage of all her followers, I cannot yet scarce think of
with charity, nor write of with patience. My father, for only carrying a
letter to the lady Elizabeth, and professing to wish her well, he kept
in the Tower twelve months, and made him spend a thousand pounds ere he
could be free of that trouble. My mother, that then served the lady
Elizabeth, he caused to be sequestered from her as an heretic, insomuch
that her own father durst not take her into his house, but she was glad
to sojourn with one Mr. Topcliff; so as I may say in some sort, this
bishop persecuted me before I was born."
In the twelfth month of his imprisonment, this unfortunate Harrington,
having previously sent to the bishop many letters and petitions for
liberty without effect, had the courage to address to him a "Sonnet,"
which his son has cited as "no ill verse for those unrefined times;" a
modest commendation of lines so spirited, which the taste of the more
modern reader, however fastidious, need not hesitate to confirm.
TO BISHOP GARDINER.
1.
"At least withdraw your cruelty,
Or force the time to work your will;
It is too much extremity
To keep me pent in prison still,
Free from all fault, void of all cause,
Without all right, against all laws.
How can you do more cruel spite
Than proffer wrong and promise right?
Nor can accuse, nor will acquight.
2.
Eleven months past and longer space
I have abode your dev'lish drifts,
While you have sought both man and place,
And set your snares, with all your shifts,
The faultless foot to wrap in wile
With any guilt, by any guile:
And now you see that will not be,
How can you thus for shame agree
To keep him bound you should set free?
3.
Your chance was once as mine is now,
To keep this hold against your will,
And then you sware you well know how,
Though now you swerve, I know how ill.
But thus this world his course doth pass,
The priest forgets a clerk he was,
And you that have cried justice still,
And now have justice at your will,
Wrest justice wrong against all skill.
4.
But why do I thus coldly plain
As if it were my cause alone?
When cause doth each man so constrain
As England through hath cause to moan,
To see your bloody search of such
As all the earth can no way touch.
And better were that all your kind
Like hounds in hell with shame were shrined,
Than you add might unto your mind.
5.
But as the stone that strikes the wall
Sometimes bounds back on th' hurler's head,
So your foul fetch, to your foul fall
May turn, and 'noy the breast that bred.
And then, such measure as you gave
Of right and justice look to have,
If good or ill, if short or long;
If false or true, if right or wrong;
And thus, till then, I end my song."
Such were the trials and sufferings which exercised the fortitude of
Elizabeth and her faithful followers during her deplorable abode at
Woodstock. Mary, meanwhile, was rapt in fond anticipations of the
felicity of her married life with a prince for whom, on the sight of his
picture, she is said to have conceived the most violent passion. The
more strongly her people expressed their aversion and dread of the
Spanish match, the more vehemently did she show herself bent on its
conclusion; and having succeeded in suppressing by force the formidable
rebellion to which the first report of such an union had given birth,
she judged it unnecessary to employ any of those arts of popularity to
which her disposition was naturally adverse, for conciliating to herself
or her destined spouse the good will of her subjects. After many delays
which severely tried her temper, the arrival of the prince of Spain at
Southampton was announced to the expecting queen, who went as far as
Winchester to meet him, in which city Gardiner blessed their nuptials on
July the 27th, 1554.
The royal pair passed in state through London a few days after, and the
city exhibited by command the outward tokens of rejoicing customary in
that age. Bonfires were kindled in the open places, tables spread in the
streets at which all passers-by might freely regale themselves with
liquor: every parish sent forth its procession singing _Te Deum_; the
fine cross in Cheapside was beautified and newly gilt, and pageants were
set up in the principal streets. But there was little gladness of heart
among the people; and one of these festal devices gave occasion to a
manifestation of the dispositions of the court respecting religion,
which filled the citizens with grief and horror. A large picture had
been hung over the conduit in Gracechurch street representing the nine
Worthies, and among them king Henry VIII. made his appearance, according
to former draughts of him, holding in his hand a book on which was
inscribed "_Verbum Dei_." This accompaniment gave so much offence, that
Gardiner sent for the painter; and after chiding him severely, ordered
that a pair of gloves should be substituted for the bible.
Religion had already been restored to the state in which it remained at
the death of Henry; but this was by no means sufficient to satisfy the
conscience of the queen, which required the entire restoration in all
its parts, of the ancient church-establishment. It had been, in fact,
one of the first acts of her reign to forward to Rome a respectful
embassy which conveyed to the sovereign pontiff her recognition of the
supremacy of the holy see, and a petition that he would be pleased to
invest with the character of his legate for England Cardinal Pole,--that
earnest champion of her own legitimacy and the church's unity, who had
been for so many years the object of her father's bitterest animosity.
Mary's precipitate zeal had received some check in this instance from
the worldly policy of the emperor Charles V., who, either entertaining
some jealousy of the influence of Pole with the queen, or at least
judging it fit to secure the great point of his son's marriage before
the patience of the people of England should be proved by the arrival of
a papal legate, had impeded the journey of the cardinal by a detention
of several weeks in his court at Brussels. But no sooner was Philip in
secure possession of his bride, than Pole was suffered to proceed on his
mission. The parliament, which met early in November 1554, reversed the
attainder which had laid him under sentence of death, and on the 24th of
the same month he was received at court with great solemnity, and with
every demonstration of affection on the part of his royal cousin.
From this period the cause of popery proceeded triumphantly: a reign of
terror commenced; and the government gained fresh strength and courage
by every exertion of the tyrannic power which it had assumed. After the
married clergy had been reduced to give up either their wives or their
benefices, and the protestant bishops deprived, and many of them
imprisoned, without exciting any popular commotion in their behalf, the
court became emboldened to propose in parliament a solemn reconciliation
of the country to the papal see. A house of commons more obsequious than
the former acceded to the motion, and on November 29th the legate
formally absolved the nation from all ecclesiastical censures, and
readmitted it within the pale of the church.
The ancient statutes against heretics were next revived; and the violent
counsels of Gardiner proving more acceptable to the queen than the
milder ones of Pole, a furious persecution was immediately set on foot.
Bishops Hooper and Rogers were the first victims; Saunders and Taylor,
two eminent divines, succeeded; upon all of whom Gardiner pronounced
sentence in person; after which he resigned to Bonner, his more brutal
but not more merciless colleague, the inglorious task of dragging forth
to punishment the heretics of inferior note and humbler station. In the
midst however of his barbarous proceedings, of which London was the
principal theatre, the bench of bishops thought proper in solemn
assembly to declare that they had no part in such severities; and
Philip, who shrank from the odium of the very deeds most grateful to his
savage soul, caused a Spanish friar his confessor to preach before him
in praise of toleration, and to show that Christians could bring no
warrant from Scripture for shedding the blood of their brethren on
account of religious differences. But justly apprehensive that so
extraordinary a declaration of opinion from such a person might not of
itself suffice to establish in the minds of the English that character
of lenity and moderation which he found it his interest to acquire, he
determined to add some few deeds to words.
About the close of the year 1554, sir Nicholas Throgmorton, Robert
Dudley, and all the other prisoners on account of the usurpation of Jane
Grey or the insurrection of Wyat, were liberated, at the intercession,
as was publicly declared, of king Philip; and he soon after employed his
good offices in the cause of two personages still more interesting to
the feelings of the nation,--the princess Elizabeth and the earl of
Devonshire.
It is worth while to estimate the value of these boasted acts of
generosity. With regard to Courtney it may be sufficient to observe,
that a close investigation of facts had proved him to have been grateful
for the liberation extended to him by Mary on her accession, and averse
from all schemes for disturbing her government, and that the queen's
marriage had served to banish from her mind some former grounds of
displeasure against him. Nothing but an union with Elizabeth could at
this time have rendered him formidable; and it was easy to guard
effectually against the accomplishment of any such design, without the
odious measure of detaining the earl in perpetual imprisonment at
Fotheringay Castle, whither he had been already removed from the Tower.
After all, it was but the shadow of liberty which he was permitted to
enjoy; and he found himself so beset with spies and suspicion, that a
very few months after his release he requested and obtained the royal
license to travel. Proceeding into Italy, he shortly after ended at
Padua his blameless and unfortunate career. Popular fame attributed his
early death to poison administered by the Imperialists, but probably, as
in a multitude of similar cases, on no sufficient authority.
As to Elizabeth, certain writers have ascribed Philip's protection of
her at this juncture to the following deduction of consequences;--that
if she were taken off, and if the queen should die childless, England
would become the inheritance of the queen of Scots, now betrothed to the
dauphin, and thus go to augment the power of France, already the most
formidable rival of the Spanish monarchy. Admitting however that such a
calculation of remote contingencies might not be too refined to act upon
the politic brain of Philip, it is yet plainly absurd to suppose that
the life or death of Elizabeth was at this time at all the matter in
question. Secret assassination does not appear to have been so much as
dreamed of, and Mary and her council, even supposing them to have been
sufficiently wicked, were certainly not audacious enough to think of
bringing to the scaffold, without form of trial, without even a
plausible accusation, the immediate heiress of the crown, and the hope
and favorite of the nation. The only question must now have been, what
degree of liberty it would be advisable to allow her; and a due
consideration of the facts, that she had already been removed from the
Tower, and that after her second release, (that, namely, from
Woodstock), she was never, to the end of the reign, permitted to reside
in a house of her own without an inspector of her conduct, will reduce
within very moderate limits the vaunted claims of Philip to her lasting
gratitude.
The project of marrying the princess to the duke of Savoy had doubtless
originated with the Spanish court; and it was still persisted in by
Philip, from the double motive of providing for the head of the
protestant party in England a kind of honorable exile, and of attaching
to himself by the gift of her hand, a young prince whom he favored and
destined to high employments in his service. But as severity had already
been tried in vain to bring Elizabeth to compliance on this point, it
seems now to have been determined to make experiment of opposite
measures. The duke of Savoy, who had attended Philip to England, was
still in the country; and as he was in the prime of life and a man of
merit and talents, it appeared not unreasonable to hope that a personal
interview might incline the princess to lend a more propitious ear to
his suit. To this consideration then we are probably to ascribe the
invitation which admitted Elizabeth to share in the festivals of a
Christmas celebrated by Philip and Mary at Hampton Court with great
magnificence, and which must have been that of the year 1554, because
this is well known to have been the only one passed by the Spanish
prince in England.
A contemporary chronicle still preserved amongst the MSS of the British
Museum, furnishes several particulars of her entertainment. On Christmas
eve, the great hall of the palace being illuminated with a thousand
lamps artificially disposed, the king and queen supped in it; the
princess being seated at the same table, next to the cloth of estate.
After supper she was served with a perfumed napkin and a plate of
"comfects" by lord Paget, but retired to her ladies before the revels,
masking, and disguisings began. On St. Stephen's day she heard mattins
in the queen's closet adjoining to the chapel, where she was attired in
a robe of white satin, strung all over with large pearls; and on
December the 29th she sat with their majesties and the nobility at a
grand spectacle of justing, when two hundred spears were broken by
combatants of whom half were accoutered in the Almaine and half in the
Spanish fashion.
How soon the princess again exchanged the splendors of a court for the
melancholy monotony of Woodstock does not appear from this document, nor
from any other with which I am acquainted; but several circumstances
make it clear that we ought to place about this period an incident
recorded by Holinshed, and vaguely stated to have occurred soon after
"the stir of Wyat" and the troubles of Elizabeth for that cause. A
servant of the princess's had summoned a person before the magistrates
for having mentioned his lady by the contumelious appellation of a
_jill_, and having made use of other disparaging language respecting
her. Was it to be endured, asked the accuser, that a low fellow like
this should speak of her grace thus insolently, when the greatest
personages in the land treated her with every mark of respect? He added,
"I saw yesterday in the court that my lord cardinal Pole, meeting her in
the chamber of presence, kneeled down on his knee and kissed her hand;
and I saw also, that king Philip meeting her made her such obeisance
that his knee touched the ground."
If this story be correct, which is not indeed vouched by the chronicler,
but which seems to bear internal evidence of genuineness, it will go far
to prove that the situation of Elizabeth during her abode at Woodstock
was by no means that opprobrious captivity which it has usually been
represented. She visited the court, it appears, occasionally, perhaps
frequently; and was greeted in public by the king himself with every
demonstration of civility and respect;--demonstrations which, whether
accompanied or not by the corresponding sentiments, would surely suffice
to protect her from all harsh or insolent treatment on the part of those
to whom the immediate superintendance of her actions was committed.
Her enemies however were still numerous and powerful; and it is certain
that she found no advocate in the heart of her sister. That able, but
thoroughly profligate politician lord Paget, notwithstanding his serving
the princess with "comfects," is reported to have said, that the queen
would never have peace in the country till her head were smitten off;
and Gardiner never ceased to look upon her with an evil eye. Lord
Williams, it seems, had made suit that he might be permitted to take her
from Woodstock to his own home, giving large bail for her safe keeping;
and as he was a known catholic and much in favor, it was supposed at
first that his petition would be heard; but by some secret influence the
mind of Mary was indisposed to the granting of this indulgence and the
proposal was dropped. But the Spanish counsellors who attended their
prince never ceased, we are told, to persuade him "that the like honor
he should never obtain as he should in delivering the lady Elizabeth"
out of her confinement: and Philip, who was now labouring earnestly at
the design, which he had entertained ever since his marriage, of
procuring himself to be crowned king of England, was himself aware of
the necessity of previously softening the prejudices of the nation by
some act of conspicuous popularity: he renewed therefore his
solicitations on this point with a zeal which rendered them effectual.
The moment indeed was favorable;--Mary, who now believed herself far
advanced in pregnancy, was too happy in her hopes to remain inflexible
to the entreaties of her husband; and the privy-council, in their
sanguine expectations of an heir, viewed the princess as less than
formerly an object of political jealousy. And thus, by a contrariety of
cause and effect by no means rare in the complicated system of human
affairs, Elizabeth became indebted for present tranquillity and
comparative freedom to the concurrence of projects and expectations the
most fatal to all her hopes of future greatness.
About the end of April, 1555, the princess took at length her final
departure from Woodstock, and proceeded,--but still under the escort of
Beddingfield and his men,--to Hampton Court. At Colnbrook she was met by
her own gentlemen and yeomen to the number of sixty, "much," says John
Fox, "to all their comforts, which had not seen her of long season
before, notwithstanding they were immediately commanded in the queen's
name to depart the town, and she not suffered once to speak to them."
The next day she reached Hampton Court, and was ushered into the
prince's lodgings; but the doors were closed upon her and guarded as at
Woodstock, and it was a fortnight, according to the martyrologist,
before any one had recourse to her.
At the end of this time she was solaced by a visit from lord William
Howard, son of the old duke of Norfolk, and first-cousin to her mother,
who "very honorably used her," and through whom she requested to speak
to some of the privy-council. Several of its members waited upon her in
consequence, and Gardiner among the rest, who "humbled himself before
her with all humility," but nevertheless seized the opportunity to urge
her once more to make submission to the queen, as a necessary
preliminary to the obtaining of her favor. Elizabeth, with that firmness
and wisdom which had never, in her severest trials, forsaken her,
declared that rather than do so, she would lie in prison all the days of
her life; adding, that she craved no mercy at her majesty's hand, but
rather the law, if ever she did offend her in thought, word, or deed.
"And besides this," said she, "in yielding I should speak against
myself, and confess myself an offender, by occasion of which the king
and queen might ever after conceive of me an ill opinion; and it were
better for me to lie in prison for the truth, than to be abroad and
suspected of my prince." The councillors now departed, promising to
deliver her message to the queen. The next day Gardiner waited upon her
again and told her that her majesty "marvelled she would so stoutly
carry herself, denying to have offended; so that it should seem the
queen had wrongfully imprisoned her grace:" and that she must tell
another tale ere she had her liberty. The lady Elizabeth declared she
would stand to her former resolution, for she would never belie herself.
"Then," said the bishop, "your grace hath the 'vantage of me and the
other councillors for your long and wrong imprisonment." She took God to
witness that she sought no 'vantage against them for their so dealing
with her. Gardiner and the rest then kneeled, desiring that all might be
forgotten, and so departed; she being locked up again.
About a week after the failure of this last effort of her crafty enemy
to extort some concession which might afterwards be employed to
criminate her or justify himself, she received a sudden summons from the
queen, and was conducted by torch-light to the royal apartments.
Mary received her in her chamber, to which she had now confined herself
in expectation of that joyful event which was destined never to arrive.
The princess on entering kneeled down, and protested herself a true and
loyal subject, adding, that she did not doubt that her majesty would one
day find her to be such, whatever different report had gone of her. The
queen expressed at first some dissatisfaction at her still persisting so
strongly in her assertions of innocence, thinking that she might take
occasion to inveigh against her imprisonment as the act of injustice and
oppression which in truth it was; but on her sister's replying in a
submissive manner, that it was her business to bear what the queen was
pleased to inflict and that she should make no complaints, she appears
to have been appeased. Fox's account however is, that they parted with
few comfortable words of the queen in English, but what she said in
Spanish was not known: that it was thought that king Philip was there
behind a cloth, and not seen, and that he showed himself "a very friend"
in this business. From other accounts we learn, that Elizabeth scrupled
not the attempt to ingratiate herself with Mary at this interview by
requesting that her majesty would be pleased to send her some catholic
tractates for confirmation of her faith and to counteract the doctrines
which she had imbibed from the works of the reformers. Mary showed
herself somewhat distrustful of her professions on this point, but
dismissed her at length with tokens of kindness. She put upon her
finger, as a pledge of amity, a ring worth seven hundred
crowns;--mentioned that sir Thomas Pope was again appointed to reside
with her, and observing that he was already well known to her sister
commended him as a person whose prudence, humanity, and other estimable
qualities, were calculated to render her new situation perfectly
agreeable.
To what place the princess was first conveyed from this audience does
not appear, but it must have been to one of the royal seats in the
neighbourhood of London, to several of which she was successively
removed during some time; after which she was permitted to establish
herself permanently at the palace of Hatfield in Hertfordshire.
From this auspicious interview the termination of her prisoner-state may
be dated. Henceforth she was released from the formidable parade of
guards and keepers; no doors were closed, no locks were turned upon her;
and though her place of residence was still prescribed, and could not,
apparently, be changed by her at pleasure, she was treated in all
respects as at home and mistress of her actions.
Sir Thomas Pope was a man of worth and a gentleman; and such were the
tenderness and discretion with which he exercised the delicate trust
reposed in him, that the princess must soon have learned to regard him
in the light of a real friend. It is not a little remarkable at the same
time, that the person selected by Mary to receive so distinguished a
proof of her confidence, should have made his first appearance in public
life as the active assistant of Cromwel in the great work of the
destruction of monasteries; and that from grants of abbey lands, which
the queen esteemed it sacrilege to touch, he had derived the whole of
that wealth of which he was now employing a considerable portion in the
foundation of Trinity college Oxford.
But sir Thomas Pope, even in the execution of the arbitrary and
rapacious mandates of Henry, had been advantageously distinguished
amongst his colleagues by the qualities of mildness and integrity; and
the circumstance of his having obtained a seat at the council-board of
Mary from the very commencement of her reign, proves him to have
acquired some peculiar merits in her eyes. Certain it is, however, that
a furious zeal, whether real or pretended, for the Romish faith, was not
amongst his courtly arts; for though strictly enjoined to watch over the
due performance and attendance of mass in the family of the princess, he
connived at her retaining about her person many servants who were
earnest protestants.
This circumstance unfortunately reached the vigilant ears of Gardiner;
and it was to a last expiring effort of his indefatigable malice that
Elizabeth owed the mortification of seeing two gentlemen from the queen
arrive at Lamer, a house in Hertfordshire which she then occupied, who
carried away her favorite Mrs. Ashley and three of her maids of honor,
and lodged them in the Tower.
Isabella Markham, afterwards the wife of that sir John Harrington whose
sufferings in the princess's service have been already adverted to, was
doubtless one of these unfortunate ladies. Elizabeth, highly to her
honor, never dismissed from remembrance the claims of such as had been
faithful to her in her adversity; she distinguished this worthy pair by
many tokens of her royal favor; stood godfather to their son, and
admitted him from his tenderest youth to a degree of affectionate
intimacy little inferior to that in which she indulged the best beloved
of her own relations.
In the beginning of September 1555 king Philip, mortified by the refusal
of his coronation, in which the parliament with steady patriotism
persisted; disappointed in his hopes of an heir; and disgusted by the
fondness and the jealousy of a spouse devoid of every attraction
personal and mental, quitted England for the continent, and deigned not
to revisit it during a year and a half. Elizabeth might regret his
absence, as depriving her of the personal attentions of a powerful
protector; but late events had so firmly established her as next heir to
the crown, that she was now perfectly secure against the recurrence of
any attempt to degrade her from her proper station; and her
reconciliation with the queen, whether cordial or not, obtained for her
occasional admission to the courtly circle.
A few days after the king's departure we find it mentioned that "the
queen's grace, the lady Elizabeth, and all the court, did fast from
flesh to qualify them to take the Pope's jubilee and pardon granted to
all out of his abundant clemency[27];" a trait which makes it probable
that Mary was now in the habit of exacting her sister's attendance at
court, for the purpose of witnessing with her own eyes her punctual
observance of the rites of that church to which she still believed her a
reluctant conformist.
[Note 27: Strype's Ecclesiastical Memorials.]
A few weeks afterwards, the death of her capital enemy, Gardiner,
removed the worst of the ill instruments who had interposed to aggravate
the suspicions of the queen, and there is reason to believe that the
princess found in various ways the beneficial effects of this event.