never be ashamed to present. For though from the face of the picture the
colours may fade by time, may fade by weather, may be spotted by chance;
yet the other (her mind) nor Time with her swift wings shall overtake,
nor the misty clouds with their lowerings may darken, nor Chance with
her slippery foot may overthrow.
'Of this, although the proof could not be great, because the occasions
have been but small, notwithstanding as a dog hath a day, so may I
perchance, have time to declare it in deeds, where now I do write them
but in words.'
---------------------
Elizabeth must have been very pleased with herself when she read over
her letter before sealing it and binding it round with silk. Not one of
her tutors could have expressed his feelings with greater elegance, and
Edward no doubt agreed with her, though most likely a brother of these
days, even if he happened to be a king or prince, would have burst out
laughing before he was half through, and have thrown the letter in the
fire.
---------------------
All that summer, part of which was spent among the woods and commons of
Ashridge near Berkhamstead, Elizabeth hoped in vain to be sent for to
Court, but for some reason the summons was delayed till March 1551. A
messenger in the king's livery arrived one day at the house, and the
princess was almost beside herself with joy as she read the contents of
the letter he brought. Then she sprang up and gave orders that a new
riding dress should be got ready, and her favourite horse groomed and
rubbed down till you could see your face in his skin, and her steward
himself was bidden to look to the trappings lest the gold and silver
should have got tarnished since last the housings were used. And when
March 17 came, she set forth early along the country roads, and at the
entrance to London was met by a gallant company of knights and ladies,
waiting to receive her. Oh! what pleasure it was to ride through those
narrow streets again and to look at the gabled houses, every window and
gallery of which was thronged with people! Many times in after years did
Elizabeth make royal progresses through the city, but never once was her
heart as glad as now. She had escaped from the solitude which she hated
so much, and come back to a life of colour and movement.
And so she reached St. James's Palace, and was led to her room.
Here she rested all the next day, while Mary in her turn made an entry,
surrounded by an escort very different to look upon from Elizabeth's.
The princess and her ladies were all alike dressed in black, while
rosaries hung from their girdles and crosses from their necks. There was
no mistaking the meaning of these signs, and though they did honour to
Mary's courage, it was hardly a civil way of answering her brother's
invitation, and it irritated the council against her, which there was no
need to do.
---------------------
It was on the day after Mary's entrance that Elizabeth again mounted her
horse, and in the midst of the company of nobles and ladies rode across
St. James's Park to the palace of Westminster, where the king received
her with open arms.
'My sweet sister Temperance,' he called her, with a laugh, when he noted
the extreme plainness of her dress and the total absence of jewels; in
these respects a great contrast to the ladies in her company. But it is
probable that in choosing such simple clothes the princess had acted
from an instinct which told her that by so doing she would gain for
herself the goodwill of the all-powerful council, with whom she had
been, as we know, for two years in disgrace. And if this was her motive,
she had reasoned rightly, for according to her cousin, lady Jane Grey's
tutor, 'her maidenly apparel made the noblemen's wives and daughters
ashamed to be dressed like peacocks, being more moved with her most
virtuous example than with all that ever Paul or Peter wrote touching
that matter.'
Perhaps the good Dr. Aylmer did not know much about the hearts of women,
or the influence of a fashion that is set by a princess. In any case,
the change in the dresses—and feelings—of the noble ladies did not
last long, for in a few months we find them all, Elizabeth excepted,
'with their hair frounsed, curled and double curled,' to greet Mary of
Guise, the queen-dowager of Scotland, who passed through England on her
way from France. Edward, now fourteen, gave her a royal reception, and
we may be sure that he would not allow his 'dearest sister' to remain in
the background. When the fêtes were over, the princess returned to
Hatfield, triumphant in knowing that she had gained her end, and
established her place in the affections of the people.
---------------------
The household formed for Elizabeth was suitable to her rank, and she had
a large income on which to support it. From an account book that she has
left behind her it is easy to see that even at this time of her life she
was beginning to suffer from the stinginess which, curiously enough, was
always at war with her love of splendour. She hardly spent anything on
herself, and only gave away a few pounds a year—not a great deal for a
princess with no one but herself to think of!
Meanwhile grave events were taking place in Edward's Court. The earl of
Warwick, soon to be duke of Northumberland, had long hated Somerset, and
now contrived to get him committed for the second time to the Tower.
Somerset is said to have implored Elizabeth, whom a short time before he
had treated so harshly, to beseech Edward to grant him pardon; but the
princess replied that owing to her youth her words would be held of
little value, and that, besides, those about the king 'took good care to
prevent her from approaching the Court.' This was quite true, and
whether she wished to save Somerset or not, certain it is that she had
no power to do so.
So, in January 1552, the protector's head fell on Tower Hill, and
Northumberland, who succeeded to his place, began secretly to prepare a
marriage between his youngest son, lord Guildford Dudley, with the
king's beautiful and learned young cousin, lady Jane Grey, whose
grandmother, the duchess of Suffolk, was Henry VIII.'s youngest sister.
Edward's own health was failing rapidly, and often after being present
at the council, or at some state banquet, he was too tired to care about
anything, so that it was easy, as Elizabeth had said, to keep his two
sisters from him. Northumberland even managed to persuade the boy that
it was his duty to pass over Mary, the natural heir to the crown, on
account of her religion, and in this design he was greatly helped by the
princess's foolish behaviour. As for Elizabeth, the case was more
difficult. At first he thought of arranging a marriage for her with a
Danish prince, and when this failed he fell back on some Acts of
Parliament excluding her from the throne which had never been revoked,
although, of course, if Elizabeth had no right to succeed to the crown
on account of her father's previous marriage (as some now said), the
same thing applied to Edward.
The object of all these plots and plans concocted by Northumberland was
plain to be seen: it was to have his daughter-in-law, lady Jane Grey,
declared heir to the throne; and he so worked on the king, who was too
weak to oppose him, that Edward was induced, shortly before he died (on
July 6, 1553), to appoint his cousin his successor.
---------------------
As frequently happened in those times, the fact of the king's death was
kept a secret for some days, and during this period Northumberland tried
to get both the princesses into his power by sending letters to say that
Edward greatly wished to see them once more. If they had come—and Mary
nearly fell a victim to his treachery—the Tower would have speedily
been their lodging, and probably the scaffold their portion, but they
happily escaped the snare. Next, he tried to buy the consent of
Elizabeth, promising both money and lands if she would give up her
rights. In this, however, he was foiled by the princess, who answered,
with tact, that while Mary was alive she had no rights to resign.
---------------------
While this was going on the sixteen-year-old Jane was forced by her
father-in-law into a position she was quite unfitted for, and which she
very much disliked. She loved her young husband dearly, and was
perfectly happy with him and her books, taking no part or interest in
politics. Suddenly, she was visited at Sion House near Brentford, to
which she had gone at her father-in-law's request, by a number of
powerful nobles of Northumberland's party, who informed her that the
king was dead, and had left his kingdom to her, so that the Protestant
religion might be well guarded. Then all the gentlemen present fell on
their knees before the bewildered girl and swore to die in her defence.
Jane was overwhelmed. She grasped hastily at a chair that was near her,
and then sank fainting to the ground. The duchess of Northumberland, who
was present with some other ladies, dashed water in her face and
loosened her stiff, tight dress, and soon she grew better, and was able
to sit up. Rising slowly to her feet she looked at the little group
before her, and said: 'My lords, sure never was queen so little fit as
I. Yet, if so it must be, and the right to reign is indeed mine, God
will give me the grace and power to govern to His glory and the good of
the realm!'
Little heed did those who heard her so submissively take of her words.
She had done what they wished, and that was all that mattered: the rest
was their affair. So, leaving Jane to her own thoughts, they departed
and went their own ways. A day or two later, on a blazing July
afternoon, their victim was taken in a barge from Chelsea to the Tower,
and there, mounting the stairs, her train carried by her grandmother the
duchess of Suffolk, once queen of France, the crown was held out to her
by the royal treasurer. Then, and then only, the death of Edward was
publicly announced, and a letter, which, it was pretended, had been
written by Jane, was distributed among the citizens of London, stating
the grounds for setting aside the princesses and putting the
granddaughter of Henry's younger sister in their place.
---------------------
It did not take long for Northumberland to find out that he had laid his
plans without reckoning with the will of the people or the courage of
the princesses. The country had seen through him, and even gave him
credit for more evil than he had actually done, for a rumour went abroad
that he had poisoned Edward to serve his own ends. This adventurer, high
as he had risen, should never dictate to Englishmen. Why, most likely
even lady Jane herself, or 'queen' as he would have the world call her,
would come to a bad end when it suited him! No! No! No Northumberland
for _them_! and Mary's religion and cold, shy manners were forgotten,
and gentlemen called together their friends and followers and marched
towards London.
Northumberland was no match for them, and knew it; and what was more, he
knew that he had no ally in Jane herself. His energy was not of the kind
that increases with difficulties, and when he heard that Jane's
grandfather, the duke of Suffolk, had signed with his own hand the order
for the proclamation of queen Mary, he rightly judged that all was lost,
and tried to escape. But it was too late, and next day he was charged
with high treason and lodged in the Tower.
Nobody cares what became of Northumberland, as he only got what he
deserved; but every one must mourn for the Nine Days Queen, who never
could have been a danger either to Mary or Elizabeth.
---------------------
July was not yet over when Elizabeth, now nearly twenty, was bidden to
leave Hatfield and ride by her sister's side in her state entry into the
city. So far the two sisters had always got on fairly well together;
still, Elizabeth misdoubted the temper of the Catholic party, and rode
through the lanes and over the commons with an escort of two thousand
armed men. That night she lay at Somerset House (now her own property),
on the banks of the Thames, and the next morning went out to Wanstead,
on the North Road down which Mary would come. It had not taken the
princess long to discover that at present she herself ran no risks, so
she dismissed half her guard, and with five hundred gentlemen dressed in
white and green, and a large number of ladies, she passed smiling
through the crowded streets, which rang with shouts of welcome. No one
seemed to remember the king, who still lay unburied; but so much had
happened since he died, that everybody, even including his 'sweet sister
Temperance,' had forgotten him for the moment.
---------------------
The first breach between Mary and her subjects, and also her sister, was
not long in coming. The ways and services of the old religion were
speedily restored, and Elizabeth was given to understand that she was
expected to attend mass. This she refused to do, and thereby increased
her popularity tenfold; but she seems to have allowed Mary secretly to
think that it was possible she might some day change her mind, and, in
order to keep her sister in a good humour, requested to be given
Catholic books to read and priests to teach her.
In this way matters went on till September, when Mary's coronation took
place. Elizabeth drove the day before, in the state procession to
Westminster, in a coach drawn by six white horses decorated with white
and silver to match her dress, Anne of Cleves being seated by her side.
All through the ceremonies she was given her proper place as the heiress
to the throne, and even publicly prayed for.
Unluckily, this happy state of things did not last long, and the
different views of religion held by the two sisters were embittered by
many whose interest it was that there should be constant quarrels
between them. A plot was set on foot to marry Elizabeth to her cousin,
Courtenay earl of Devon—who had already been refused as a husband by
Mary herself. This was encouraged by Noailles, the French ambassador,
for his own purposes; but Elizabeth, who feared her friends more than
her foes, sought to escape from it all, and to retire at once to
Ashridge in Hertfordshire.
Here she received a letter from Mary begging her to come at once to St.
James's Palace; but, knowing as she did that sir Thomas Wyatt was doing
his best to stir up a revolt against the queen, Elizabeth thought it
more prudent to make the most of an illness under which she was
suffering, and remain where she was. She likewise put Ashridge in a
state to stand a siege, should it be necessary, filling the castle with
provisions and armed men.
---------------------
It was Wyatt's rebellion that sealed the fate of lady Jane Grey and her
husband, and made Elizabeth tremble for her own head. The Nine Days
Queen had hitherto been warmly defended by Mary herself, in spite of the
assurances, which had been so frequently whispered in her ears, that her
throne would never be safe during the life of such a claimant. Now, with
the successes of Wyatt among the men of Kent, these whispers became
louder, and this time Mary listened to them. Not that she believed her
young cousin to have any share in Wyatt's treasonable schemes; she knew
her too well for that. But as long as she lived she would be used as a
handle for all plotters, so, with deep and real regret, Mary signed the
warrant that was placed before her, and within a few days Jane was
beheaded in the square of the Tower, the only woman who was not executed
on Tower Hill. She and her husband had never met since they had been
arrested; but now Mary sent a messenger to lady Jane, granting
permission for a farewell interview. But lady Jane refused. 'What,' she
asked, 'would be gained by their bidding each other farewell on earth,
when they would so shortly meet in heaven?' It may be that she feared
for _his_ courage more than her own, for she stood unseen at her window
while he was led forth to the scaffold on Tower Hill, and remained there
till his body was brought back. Then her own turn came, and cheerfully
she left her cell and walked the few steps that lay between her prison
and the green. Here she paused in front of the block, and turning, spoke
to those who were gathered round:
'The plot of the duke of Northumberland was none of my seeking,' she
said, 'but by the counsel of those who appeared to have better
understanding of the matter than I. As to the desire of such dignity by
me, I wash my hands thereof before God and all you Christian people this
day.'
After that, she begged those present to help her with their prayers, and
repeated a psalm, and then, kneeling, laid her head on the block.
---------------------
If lady Jane was the most important victim of all these conspiracies,
she was by no means the only one, for Wyatt and other leaders were
shortly to pay the same penalty, not, however, without declaring that
all they had done was with the knowledge and consent of the princess
Elizabeth, and of Courtenay earl of Devon. Mary had no difficulty in
believing this; Elizabeth's own conduct had for the last few months
given rise to suspicions, so a company of gentlemen, headed by the
princess's kinsman lord William Howard, and including a certain Dr.
Wendy, who had formerly attended Henry VIII., were sent down to Ashridge
to see how far the princess's illness was real, and to bring her to
London if possible. It was ten o'clock at night when they arrived, and
Elizabeth refused to admit them; but they politely insisted, and she was
obliged to open her door.
No trace of guilt or fear, or indeed of anything but impatience, could
be read in her face, as the queen's messengers entered her apartment.
'Is the haste such,' she said, 'that it might not have pleased you to
come in the morning?'
The ambassadors held it wiser not to state how great 'the haste' was,
but they only answered that they were sorry to see her grace in such a
case, referring, of course, to her supposed illness.
'_I_ am not glad at all to see _you_ at this time of night,' she
replied; and went on to say that 'she feared her weakness to be so great
that she should not be able to travel and to endure the journey without
peril of life, and therefore desired some longer respite until she had
recovered her strength.
In this matter neither Howard her great-uncle, nor her old friend Wendy
the doctor, agreed with her. It is true that anxiety for herself, if not
sorrow for the fate of lady Jane Grey, about whom she seems to have
cared nothing, had thrown her into some sort of fever, but it was quite
plain that there was nothing to prevent her undertaking the short
journey. In order, however, that no risks might be run the thirty-three
miles that lay between Ashridge and Westminster were divided into five
stages, and every night she was to sleep in some gentleman's house. A
week later she started in a litter, and when, several days after, she
entered Aldgate, the curtains were thrown back at her bidding, so that
the people, who had always loved her, might be touched by the sight of
her thin pale face. But well or ill, when the moment came in which
courage was needed, Elizabeth was always herself, and her bows and
smiles betrayed no fear as, dressed in white, she was carried through
the city, with an escort of scarlet-coated gentlemen riding in front.
Rooms were given her in Whitehall, and here she hoped to see the queen,
and be able to convince her of the innocence she so loudly proclaimed to
everyone. But to her great disappointment and secret terror, Mary
refused her an interview, and ordered her to be taken at once to the
palace of Westminster and placed in an apartment which had no entrance
except through the guard-room. A certain number of personal attendants
were allowed her, and through them she heard with dismay that Courtenay
had been lodged in the Tower, and every day was examined for some time
as to his share in Wyatt's conspiracy.
For three weeks Elizabeth waited, not knowing exactly how much the
council knew, but remembering, with dread, two notes which she had
written with her own hand to Wyatt. She guessed truly that all the
weight of Spain would be thrown in the balance against her, for the
emperor Charles V. had neither forgotten nor forgiven the divorce of his
aunt, and, besides, his son Philip was already betrothed to the queen.
At last, one Saturday, ten members of the council visited her, and told
her that a barge was in waiting at the stairs, which would take her to
the Tower. Elizabeth received the news without flinching, though she
felt as if the nails were being knocked into her coffin, but begged
permission to finish a letter to the queen which she had just begun.
This the council could not well refuse; but the princess made her letter
so _very_ long that the tide ran out too far for her to embark, and as
Sunday was a day when no work was done, her gaolers were obliged to wait
until Monday.
On Monday, however, even Elizabeth could invent no more pretexts for
delay, and entered her barge with as good a grace as might be. But when
the rowers shipped their oars at the Traitors' Gate, she objected that
it was no entrance for _her_, who was innocent.
'You have no choice,' said one of the lords who was with her, and
stooped to lay his cloak as a carpet on the muddy steps. With an angry
gesture Elizabeth dashed it aside, and sat down on a wet stone, as if
she intended to sit there for ever. The lieutenant of the Tower, who was
awaiting his prisoner at the top, prayed her to come in out of the rain
and cold, which at last she consented to do, and was conducted by him to
her prison, a room that led only into the lieutenant's own house on one
side, and a narrow outside gallery on the other, used by the prisoners
for air and exercise. Here Elizabeth's suitor, sir Thomas Seymour, had
been lodged before his execution, and here Arabella Stuart would be
confined, in years that were yet to come.
For two months Elizabeth's imprisonment lasted, though the extreme
strictness with which she was kept was afterwards relaxed, and she was
suffered to walk in a little garden under a strong escort, and to
receive flowers from the children belonging to the servants about the
Tower, with whom she had made friends. At first she had, like Courtenay,
constantly to undergo examinations as to her guilt, but she somehow
managed to gain over the earl of Arundel, hitherto one of her most
bitter enemies, and henceforth she had no warmer partisan. She seems to
have answered the questions put to her with her usual cleverness, as the
Spanish ambassador writes that though 'they had enough matter against
Courtenay to make his punishment certain, they had not yet been able to
obtain matter sufficient for Elizabeth's conviction,' partly owing to
the fact that several witnesses were in hiding.
It was in May that the queen sent an unexpected summons to Elizabeth
that she was to join her at Richmond, where she was passing the Whitsun
holidays; and how beautiful the flowers and trees must have looked in
the eyes of the prisoner, accustomed for so many weeks to nothing but
the walls of the Tower, with the bitter memories they contained! She did
not stay there long, however, for the queen, irritated at Elizabeth's
firm refusal to marry the prince of Savoy, sent her in a few days to the
castle of Woodstock, with sir Henry Bedingfield as her gaoler.
On the road, according to the old chroniclers, she more than once tried
her favourite trick of gaining time by delaying her arrival. At one
place where she was to spend the night she was anxious to have a match
at chess with her host, and another day she declared that her clothes
and hair had suffered so much from a storm that she must positively
enter a house they were passing in order to set them straight. But
Bedingfield was not easy to dupe, and politely insisted on continuing
their way.
'Whenever I have a prisoner who requires to be safely and straitly kept,
I shall send him to you,' she said, laughing, when four years after he
attended her first Court as queen.
---------------------
At Woodstock Elizabeth remained till 1555, writing sad poems about her
captivity and doing large pieces of needlework; but towards Christmas a
welcome change was in store for her, as Mary, who had been married in
July to Philip of Spain, now sent for her to Hampton Court.