by Jean Plaidy
He must have realized that he could not fight his way across the bridge and therefore must leave Southwark. It was with relief that we saw his army on the march, although we knew that would not be the end; he would attempt to cross at another point.
We heard that he was at Kingston. He was in a quandary, for the rain was teeming down, the river was swollen and the bridge had broken down. Nothing daunted, Wyatt set his men to repair the bridge, which, in the heavy rain, took hours; but at length, after much toil and skill, it was sufficiently repaired to allow the men with their ammunition to cross the river.
All these delays and difficulties had had their effect on the men. It is a tribute to Wyatt's leadership that he kept them together. But at least he must congratulate himself. He had arrived with his army—albeit not in the condition it had been in when it left Southwark. But he was now on the Middlesex side of the river; he had successfully crossed, and London lay before him.
I was awakened once more in the night to hear that he had reached Brentford. Several of the guards were in the streets beating drums—the signal for citizens to be out of their beds and to prepare.
Then he reached Knightsbridge.
The Council told me I should go to the Tower, but I refused. I would stay at Whitehall. I knew the people must see me. If I went to the Tower, it would seem as though I were afraid and should have to protect myself. I did not want that. I must show the people that I was prepared to face danger, as they must.
Instinct told me that Wyatt was a desperate man. He must have believed that there were enough Protestants among the population of London to come to his aid, and that someone would open the gates when he had been at Southwark. I believed it was my action in staying with the people of London, and showing them my confidence, which had made them rally to me.
It seemed to me that I had acted on inspiration from Heaven, and I thanked God for those men who were loyal to me on that day. I had come near to a disaster which would have changed the face of history. Wyatt was a strong man with deep convictions; he was a leader, but the odds were against him. Perhaps he had ill luck. Perhaps it was that God intended me to live and fulfill my mission. I believed that, at the time, and I have gone on believing it.
Pembroke was magnificent. He was a skilled general. As Wyatt made his way toward St. James's, Pembroke kept his forces in hiding; and when Wyatt's forces had passed along unmolested, Pembroke and his men sprang out and attacked them in the rear. Winchester, another of my good commanders, was waiting ahead for him, so that he was between Wyatt and Ludgate.
The fighting was fierce. I was in the gatehouse, waiting, watching, desperately anxious for news.
A messenger came hurrying in. “All is lost!” he cried. “Pembroke has gone over to Wyatt.”
“I don't believe it!” I cried. “Pembroke is no traitor.”
“Wyatt is close. Your Majesty must take a barge at once. You could get to Windsor.”
“I will not go,” I said. “I shall stay here. Let us pray, and the Lord will save the day for us. I know in my heart that this will be so. I put my trust in God.”
I felt then that He was the only one in whom I could put my trust.
That was my darkest hour.
It was not long before the news reached me. The rumor was false. Pembroke was no traitor, as I had known he could not be. Wyatt's men, dispirited, cold, dirty and hungry after their experiences at Kingston, were no match for my men. They knew it, and when such knowledge comes to a soldier, he is a defeated man.
I wondered what Wyatt's thoughts were as he battled there at Ludgate; he must have realized with every passing second that his cause was a lost one.
Sir Maurice Berkeley called to him to surrender.
“If you do not,” he said, “all these men whom you have brought with you will doubtless be killed— yourself, too. Give in now. It may be that the Queen will show you mercy.”
Wyatt hesitated, but only for a moment. He knew that he had lost and he gave up gracefully.
Sir Maurice took Wyatt on the back of his horse and rode to the keep where I was watching, so that I might see that the leader of the rebellion was his prisoner.
My first thought was, “We must give thanks to God.” And, taking my women with me, I went to the chapel, where, on our knees, we gave thanks for this victory.
I was exultant. To me it meant confirmation of my dreams. God's purpose was clear to me. I prayed that I should be worthy to complete my mission.
NOW WAS THE TIME for retribution.
Wyatt was in the Tower. Although there was no question of his guilt, he was not executed immediately, because it was hoped that he would incriminate others—mainly my sister Elizabeth and Edward Courtenay.
At the Old Bailey, as many as eighty-two persons were judged and condemned in one day. In every street in London hung the bodies of traitors— a grim warning. This continued for ten days, and there were so many executions that men had to be cut down from the gibbets to make way for others. As Wyatt came from Kent, it was thought necessary to let the Kentish people see for themselves what happened to traitors. Men were taken there, and in the towns and villages their bodies were set up on gibbets or in chains.
Renard had told me frequently that the leniency I was inclined to show was dangerous. There would always be such insurrections while Lady Jane lived—and I could see that that was true. I knew I must agree that she be brought to the block.
I was wretched. I should have rejoiced. Our victory over Wyatt was complete, and yet, because it must result in so many deaths, I was unhappy. God had shown me how to act, and I had followed His instructions but I wished there need not be this carnage.
I told myself that these men were traitors, and they all knew the risk they ran when they took up arms against the anointed sovereign. It was the thought of Jane which haunted me, but I knew my advisers were right. While she lived, this sort of thing could happen again. It was better for her to die than that thousands should lose their lives because of her.
So at last they prevailed on me to sign the death warrant.
Guilford Dudley was taken out to the block the day before her. It was unnecessary cruelty to make her watch his execution from a window in the Tower. I did not know of this until after it had happened. There were many of my courtiers who regarded me as a soft and sentimental woman who let her heart rule her head. I should not have forced that cruelty on Jane, for, in my view, it served no purpose. Die she must, but I wanted it to be done with the least possible discomfort to her.
There were many to tell me how she went to her death, how she came out to Tower Green, wondrously calm, her prayer book in her hand, looking very young and beautiful. And as she was about to mount the scaffold, she asked permission to speak. When this was given, she spoke of the wrong done to the Queen's Majesty and that she was innocent of it.
“This I swear before God and you good people,” she added.
Her women tied a handkerchief about her eyes, and pathetically she stretched out her hands, as she could not see the block.
“Where is it?” she said. “I cannot see it.”
They said it was the most piteous sight, to observe her thus, a young and beautiful girl, so innocent of blame. I was glad I did not witness it.
They helped her to the block and, before she laid her head on it, she asked the executioner to dispatch her quickly, and he promised he would.
Then she said in a firm, clear voice, “Lord, into Thy hands I commend my spirit.”
I was deeply moved when they told me, and how fervently I wished that it had not had to be.
Others followed her, including her father, the Duke of Suffolk. I did not feel the same pity for him.
On the day Jane died, Courtenay was taken to the Tower. De Noailles was under suspicion. He had certainly played a part in the rebellion, and papers had been found to prove this. But it is not easy to deal with an ambassador. One cannot clap him into prison. We might have insisted on his recall, but Renard was against
this.
I do believe that de Noailles was a very uneasy man at that time.
Elizabeth was the one Renard was most interested in. He had always regarded her as the greatest menace. In a way he respected her. He thought her clever, but that only added to his desire to put her away.
“She must be questioned,” he said to me. “She has had a hand in this. She is at the very heart of the plot. She must have known that Wyatt would have set her up as Queen.”
“He insists that it was merely to stop my marriage that he rebelled.”
“He would have stopped that by seeing that you were not here to marry. Depend upon it, his plan was to set Elizabeth on the throne. I tell you this: the Prince of Spain might refuse to come here unless she is put away…and Courtenay with her.”
“Courtenay is already in the Tower.”
“And Elizabeth should be there, too. You must send for her to come to London. There will be no peace in this realm while she is free.”
Gardiner added his voice to Renard's. I knew they were right. I did not trust my sister; but I did not believe she would be party to my murder. She knew that I was not strong; I had no heirs; she could come to the throne constitutionally. She was young. Would a woman of her astuteness, her farseeing nature, not be prepared to wait until she could achieve her desires peacefully and with the people behind her?
However, Gardiner and Renard thought differently. They were sure that Elizabeth would be safe only in the Tower.
I summoned her to Court. The reply was just what I expected. She was too ill to travel. I did not believe this, although she must have suffered great anxiety when she knew that Wyatt had been captured and that he—with Courtenay, who had been paying her some attention—was in the Tower.
I sent two of my doctors to discover whether she was well enough to travel, and they were fully aware that, if they agreed she was too ill, they would be under suspicion.
Elizabeth came to London.
As was expected, she made sure of a dramatic entrance. She was dressed in white and rode in a litter, insisting, truthfully, that she was too ill to come on horseback. She had ordered that her litter should not be covered. Naturally, she wanted the people to see her so that she might win their sympathy.
The people came out to watch her retinue as it passed along the roads. Many were weeping, knowing for what purpose she was going to London, to her death, they thought.
It was only eleven days since the beautiful Jane Grey had walked to the block. Was Elizabeth's fate to be the same? That was what they must have been asking themselves.
Perhaps some recalled her mother, who had lost her head on Tower Green.
I was relieved, though, that they did not shout for her, even though they gave themselves up to tears. The times were too dangerous to show partisanship; there could hardly have been any of them who had not seen the corpses rotting in chains.
They took her to Westminster, from whence she sent a plea to me, reminding me of my promise never to condemn her unheard.
I did not answer that plea. I wanted others to question her—not I.
I could not get her out of my thoughts. I reproached myself for refusing to see her. I could not forget that she was my sister.
It was proved that Wyatt had written to her on two occasions: once to advise her to move farther from London and secondly to tell her of his arrival at Southwark; but she was too wise to have replied to either of these communications.
De Noailles had mentioned her in his dispatches to France, and these had been intercepted by Renard, so, to a certain extent, she was implicated, if not of her own free will.
Of course, she vowed her innocence. I believed her because I did not think she would be foolish enough to embroil herself in a revolt which could easily fail, when all she had to do was wait. If I had a healthy child, then she might have reasons, but as it was, I could see none. And Elizabeth was one who would always have her reasons.
I wanted others to decide what was done with her. Renard wanted her out of the way; Gardiner wavered. He was not really in favor of the Spanish marriage, and in this he was alone in the Council. He was of the opinion that, if I married, Philip would dominate affairs. He regarded me with that mild contempt which men often bestow on women. He was loyal but he could not believe that women were capable of government.
He it was who declared that there was no actual proof of Elizabeth's participation in Wyatt's plot. There was no correspondence between them except the letters which Wyatt had written and which had apparently been unanswered. I wondered how big a part his objections to the Spanish match played in his judgements. When the Council decided that the best place for Elizabeth was in the Tower while her case was investigated, Gardiner was inclined to stand out against this; yet when he saw he was outnumbered, he gave way.
Her passage to the Tower was as dramatic as she knew how to make it. Even the elements seemed to work in her favor, for I wished her to be taken by night so that the people might not see her and express their sympathy. I was furious with Sussex, who was to conduct her to the Tower, for allowing her to delay so that she missed the tide and had to go the next morning. It was Palm Sunday, which seemed to make it all the more dramatic. I decided she must go while most people were at church.
Many have since heard of Elizabeth's journey to the Tower, how the stern of the boat struck the side of the bridge and almost overturned, how she was at length taken to the Traitor's Gate to step into the water, her words ringing out to all those about her that they might sympathize with her.
“Here lands as true a subject being prisoner as ever landed at these stairs.”
And the response from the lookers-on: “May God preserve Your Grace.” Many of them wept, and she turned to them and told them not to weep for her; and there she was, comforting them who should have been comforting her. “For you know the truth,” she said. “I am innocent of the charges brought against me, so that none of you have cause to weep for me.”
Then they took her to her prison in the Tower.
But the thought of her haunted me. I believed that, as long as we lived, she would be there to disconcert me.
SO WYATT, ELIZABETH and Courtenay were all in the Tower—Wyatt certain of death, Courtenay and Elizabeth uncertain, but living in fear of it. Life must have been very uncomfortable for de Noailles. He knew that he was watched and suspected. I had no doubt that he would have preferred to be recalled, although that could have offered him little joy, for to be recalled in such circumstances would be an indication of failure.
At about the same time as Elizabeth was being lodged in the Tower, Wyatt was brought to trial, condemned and sentenced to death. Even so, the deed was not to be performed immediately, and the 11th of April was fixed for his execution.
I was told that early that day he asked to be allowed to see Courtenay, who was lodged near him. The request was granted, and at the meeting Wyatt fell to his knees and begged Courtenay to admit that he had been the instigator of the rebellion.
This upset me a great deal, for I remembered how at one time I had thought Courtenay cared for me. How foolish I had been to think a young and handsome man would have tender feelings for an old woman. He certainly had coveted my crown. I felt hurt, but my anger was more for myself for having been so easily deluded than for this vain and arrogant young man. He had touched my feelings rather deeply, for I made excuses for him. He was but a boy, younger than his years, so many of which had been spent in unnatural captivity. It was not surprising that, when he found himself released and saw the possibility of a crown, he became reckless and behaved in such a way as to show a complete lack of judgement.
On the scaffold, when he was face to face with death, Wyatt made a statement in which he took the entire blame for the rebellion and declared that Elizabeth and Courtenay were innocent.
He was a brave man, but brave men are often rash and foolish.
His head was hung high on a gallows near Hyde Park, and his quartered limbs were placed for d
isplay about the town.
This was a grim warning to all traitors.
THAT WAS A TRYING TIME. MY THOUGHTS WERE OF marriage. At last that blissful state, of which I had so often dreamed in the past, was about to come to pass. When I had been a little girl and betrothed to the Emperor Charles, my maids had told me with such conviction that I was in love that I had believed them. Now I told myself that I was in love with Philip, and I was in that state, with the image I made for myself, much as my women had made for me with the Emperor.
I lived in a dream: love, marriage, children. I had wanted them desperately all my life. Now I believed they were within my grasp. I did not remind myself then: I am eleven years older than he is; his father is my cousin. Did that make me his aunt? If there was a shadow in my thoughts, I dismissed it quickly. No, no. Royal brides and grooms were often related to each other.
It was a period of uneasiness. There were murmurs of discontent all over the country. Wyatt's head was stolen, presumably so that it should be snatched from the eyes of the curious and given decent burial. I should have been glad of that—those ghoulish exhibits always nauseated me—but it was a sign of sympathy with the rebels. It meant that Wyatt's followers were still to be reckoned with and were bold enough to commit an act which could result in their deaths.
This was not only a matter of religion. The main grievance was the Spanish marriage—though I supposed one was wrapped up in the other.
A hatred for Spaniards was making itself known throughout the country. Children played games in which Spaniards figured as the villains. No child wanted to be a Spaniard in the games, and it was usually the youngest who were forced to take those parts, knowing that before long they were going to be trounced by the gallant English.
There was the unpleasant affair of Elizabeth Croft. She caused quite a stir until she was caught. She was a servant in the household of some zealous Protestants who lived in Aldersgate Street. From a wall in the house a high-pitched whistle was heard. Crowds collected to hear the whistle in the wall, and then a voice came forth denouncing the Spanish marriage as well as the Roman Catholic religion. This continued for months, and there was a great deal of talk about “the bird in the wall.”
