The rain continued during the whole of her passage, and the appearance of everything on the river was as dismal and depressing as her own thoughts. But Elizabeth was not of a nature to be easily subdued. Rousing all her latent energy, she bore up firmly against her distress. An accident had well-nigh occurred as they shot London Bridge. She had delayed her departure so long that the fall was considerable, and the prow of the boat struck upon the ground with such force as almost to upset it, and it was some time before it righted. Elizabeth was wholly unmoved by their perilous situation, and only remarked that “she would that the torrent had sunk them.” Terrible as the stern old fortress appeared to those who approached it under similar circumstances, to Elizabeth it assumed its most appalling aspect. Gloomy at all times, it looked gloomier than usual now, with the rain driving against it in heavy scuds, and the wind, whistling round its ramparts and fortifications, making the flagstaff and the vanes on the White Tower creak, and chilling the sentinels exposed to its fury to the bone. The storm agitated the river, and the waves more than once washed over the sides of the boat.
“You are not making for Traitor’s Gate?” cried Elizabeth, seeing that the skiff was steered in that direction; “it is not fit that the daughter of Henry the Eighth should land at those steps.”
“Such are the Queen’s commands,” replied Bedingfeld sorrowfully. “I dare not for my head disobey.”
“I will leap overboard sooner,” rejoined Elizabeth.
“I pray your Highness to have patience,” returned Bedingfeld, restraining her. “It would be unworthy of you — of your great father, to take so desperate a step.” Elizabeth compressed her lips and looked sternly at the old knight, who made a sign to the rowers to use their utmost despatch; and, in another moment, they shot beneath the gloomy gateway. The awful effect of passing under this dreadful arch has already been described, and Elizabeth, though she concealed her emotion, experienced its full horrors. The water-gate revolved on its massive hinges, and the boat struck against the foot of the steps. Sussex and Bedingfeld, and the rest of the guard and her attendants, then landed, while Sir Thomas Brydges, the new lieutenant, with several warders advanced to the top of the steps to receive her. But she would not move, but continued obstinately in the boat, saying, “I am no traitor, and do not choose to land here.”
“You shall not choose, madam,” replied Bedingfeld authoritatively. “The Queen’s orders must, and shall be obeyed. Disembark, I pray you, without more ado, or it will go hardly with you.”
“This from you, Bedingfeld,” rejoined Elizabeth reproachfully, “and at such a time, too?”
“I have no alternative,” replied the knight.
“Well then, I will not put you to further shame,” replied the Princess, rising.
“Will it please you to take my cloak as a protection against the rain?” said Bedingfeld, offering it to her. But she pushed it aside “with a good dash,” as old Foxe relates; and springing on the steps, cried in a loud voice, “Here lands as true a subject, being prisoner, as ever set foot on these stairs. And before Thee, O God, I speak it, having no other friend but Thee.”
“Your Highness is unjust,” replied Bedingfeld, who stood bareheaded beside her; “you have many friends, and amongst them none more zealous than myself. And if I counsel you to place some restraint upon your conduct, it is because I am afraid it may be disadvantageously reported to the Queen.”
“Say what you please of me, sir,” replied Elizabeth; “I will not be told how I am to act by you, or any one.”
“At least move forward, madam,” implored Bedingfeld; “you will be drenched to the skin if you tarry here longer and will fearfully increase your fever.”
“What matters it if I do?” replied Elizabeth, seating herself on the damp step, while the shower descended in torrents upon her. “I will move forward at my own pleasure — not at your bidding. And let us see whether you will dare to use force towards me.”
“Nay, madam, if you forget yourself, I will not forget what is due to your father’s daughter,” replied Bedingfeld, “you shall have ample time for reflection.”
The deeply-commiserating and almost paternal tone in which this reproof was delivered touched the Princess sensibly; and glancing round, she was further moved by the mournful looks of her attendants, many of whom were deeply affected, and wept audibly. As soon as her better feelings conquered, she immediately yielded to them; and, presenting her hand to the old knight, said —
“You are right, and I am wrong, Bedingfeld. Take me to my dungeon.”
CHAPTER XXXIII.
HOW NIGHTGALL WAS BRIBED BY DE NOAILLES TO ASSASSINATE SIMON RENARD; AND HOW JANE’S DEATH-WARRANT WAS SIGNED.
THE Tower was now thronged with illustrious prisoners. All the principal personages concerned in the late rebellion, with the exception of Sir Peter Carew, who had escaped to France, were confined within its walls; and the Queen and her Council were unremittingly employed in their examinations. The Duke of Suffolk had written and subscribed his confession, throwing himself upon the royal mercy; Lord Guilford Dudley, who was slowly recovering from his wound, refused to answer any interrogatories; while Sir Thomas Wyat, whose constancy was shaken by the severity of the torture to which he was exposed, admitted his treasonable correspondence with Elizabeth and Courtenay, and charged De Noailles with being the originator of the plot. The latter was likewise a prisoner. But as it was not the policy of England, at that period, to engage in a war with France, he was merely placed under personal restraint until an answer could be received from Henry the Second, to whom letters had been sent by Mary.
Well instructed as to the purport of these despatches, and confident of his sovereign’s protection, De Noailles felt little uneasiness as to his situation, and did not even despair of righting himself by some master-stroke. His grand object was to remove Renard; and as he could not now accomplish this by fair means, he determined to have recourse to foul; and to procure his assassination. Confined, with certain of his suite, within the Flint Tower, he was allowed, at stated times, to take exercise on the Green, and in other parts of the fortress, care being taken to prevent him from holding communication with the other prisoners, or, indeed, with any one except his attendants. De Noailles, however, had a ready and unsuspected instrument at hand. This was his jailer, Lawrence Nightgall, with whom he had frequent opportunities of conversing, and whom he had already sounded on the subject. Thus, while every dungeon in the fortress was filled with the victims of his disastrous intrigues; while its subterranean chambers echoed with the groans of the tortured; while some expired upon the rack, others were secretly executed, and the public scaffold was prepared for sufferers of the highest rank; while the axe and the block were destined to frequent and fearful employment, and the ensanguined ground thirsted for the best and purest blood in England; while such was the number of captives that all the prisons in London were insufficient to contain them, and they were bestowed within the churches; while twenty pairs of gallows were erected in the public places of the city, and the offenders with whom they were loaded left to rot upon them as a terrible example to the disaffected; while universal dread and lamentation prevailed — the known author of all this calamity remained, from prudential reasons, unpunished, and pursued his dark and dangerous machinations as before.
One night, when he was alone, Nightgall entered his chamber, and, closing the door, observed, with a mysterious look,— “Your Excellency has thrown out certain dark hints to me of late. You can speak safely now, and I pray you do so plainly. What do you desire me to do?”
De Noailles looked scrutinizingly at him, as if he feared some treachery. But at length, appearing satisfied, he said abruptly, “I desire Renard’s assassination. His destruction is of the utmost importance to my king.”
“It is a great crime,” observed Nightgall musingly.
“The reward will be proportionate,” rejoined De Noailles.
“What does your Excellency offer?” asked Nightgall. “
A thousand angels of gold,” replied the Ambassador, “and a post at the court of France, if you will fly thither when the deed is done.”
“By my troth, a tempting offer,” rejoined Nightgall. “But I am under great obligations to M. Simon Renard. He appointed me to my present place. It would appear ungrateful to kill him.”
“Pshaw!” exclaimed De Noailles contemptuously. “You are not the man to let such idle scruples stand in the way of your fortune. Renard only promoted you because you were useful to him. And he would sacrifice you as readily, if it suited his purpose. He will serve you better dead than living.”
“It is a bargain,” replied Nightgall. “I have the keys of the subterranean passages, and can easily get out of the Tower when I have despatched him. Your Excellency can fly with me if you think proper.”
“On no account,” rejoined De Noailles. “I must not appear in the matter. Come to me when the deed is done, and I will furnish you with means for your flight, and with a letter to the King of France, which shall insure you your reward when you reach Paris. But it must be done quickly.”
“It shall be done to-morrow night,” replied Nightgall. “Fortunately, M. Renard has chosen for his lodgings the chamber in the Bloody Tower in which the two princes were murdered.”
“A fitting spot for his own slaughter,” remarked De Noailles dryly.
“It is so, in more ways than one,” replied Nightgall; “for I can approach him unawares by a secret passage, through which, when all is over, escape will be easy.”
“Good!” exclaimed De Noailles, rubbing his hands gleefully. “I should like to be with you at the time. Mortdieu! how I hate that man. He has thwarted all my schemes. But I shall now have my revenge. Take this ring and this purse in earnest of what is to follow, and mind you strike home.”
“Fear nothing,” replied Nightgall, smiling grimly, and playing his dagger; “the blow shall not need to be repeated. Your Excellency’s plan chimes well with a project of my own. There is a maiden whom I have long sought, but vainly, to make my bride. I will carry her off with me to France.”
“She will impede your flight,” observed De Noailles hastily. “On all difficult occasions, women are sadly in the way.”
“I cannot leave her,” rejoined Nightgall.
“Take her, then, in the devil’s name,” rejoined De Noailles peevishly; “and if she brings you to the gallows, do not forget my warning.”
“My next visit shall be to tell you your enemy is no more,” returned Nightgall. “Before midnight to-morrow you may expect me.” And he quitted the chamber. While his destruction was planned in the manner above related, Simon Renard was employing all his art to crush by one fell stroke all the heads of the Protestant party. But he met with opposition from quarters where he did not anticipate it. Though the Queen was convinced of Elizabeth’s participation in the plot, as well from Wyat’s confession, who owned that he had written to her during his march to London, offering to proclaim her Queen, and had received favorable answers from her — as from the declaration of a son of Lord Russell, to the effect, that he had delivered the despatches into her own hand, and brought back her replies; — notwithstanding this, Mary refused to pass sentence upon her, and affected to believe her innocent. Neither would she deal harshly with Courtenay, though equally satisfied of his guilt; and Renard, unable to penetrate her motives, began to apprehend that she still nourished a secret attachment to him. The truth was, the Princess and her lover had a secret friend in Gardiner, who counteracted the sanguinary designs of the Ambassador. Baffled in this manner, Renard determined to lose no time with the others. Already, by his agency, the Duke of Suffolk, Lord Thomas Grey, and Wyat, were condemned — Dudley and Jane alone were wanting to the list.
Touched by a strong feeling of compassion for their youth, and yet more by the devotion Jane had exhibited to her husband, Mary hesitated to sign their death-warrant. She listened to all Renard’s arguments with attention, but they failed to move her. She could not bring herself to put a period to the existence of one whom she knew to be so pure, so lovely, so loveing, so blameless, as Jane. But Renard was determined to carry his point.
“I will destroy them all,” he said; “but I will begin with Dudley and Jane, and end with Courtenay and Elizabeth.”
During the examination of the conspirators, the Queen though she had moved her court to Whitehall, passed much of her time at the Tower, occupied in reading the depositions of the prisoners, or in framing interrogatories to put to them. She also wrote frequent despatches to the Emperor, whose counsel she asked in her present difficulties; and while thus occupied, she was often closeted for hours with Renard.
Whether by accident, or that the gloomy legend connected with it, harmonizing with his own sombre thoughts, gave it an interest in his eyes, Renard had selected for his present lodging in the Tower, as intimated by Nightgall, the chamber in which the two youthful princes were destroyed. It might be that its contiguity to the Hall Tower, where Mary now for the most part held her conferences with her Council, and with which it was connected by a secret passage, occasioned this selection — or he might have been influenced by other motives — suffice it to say he there took up his abode; and was frequently visited within it by Mary. Occupying the upper story of the Bloody Tower, this mysterious chamber looks on the north upon the ascent leading to the Green, and on the south upon St. Thomas’s Tower. It is now divided into two rooms by a screen — that to the south being occupied as a bedchamber; and tradition asserts that in this part of the room the “piece of ruthless butchery” which stamps it with such fearful interest was perpetrated. On the same side, between the outer wall and the chamber, runs a narrow passage, communicating on the west with the ballium wall, and thence with the lieutenant’s lodgings, by which the murderers are said to have approached; and in the inner partition is a window, through which they gazed upon their sleeping victims. On the east, the passage communicates with a circular staircase, descending to a small vaulted chamber at the right of the gateway, where the bodies were interred. In later times this mysterious room has been used as a prison lodging. It was occupied by Lord Ferrers during his confinement in the Tower, and more recently by the conspirators Watson and Thistlewood.
On the evening appointed by Nightgall for the assassination of Renard, the proposed victim and the Queen were alone within this chamber. The former had renewed all his arguments, and with greater force than ever, and seeing he had produced the desired impression, he placed before her the warrant for the execution of Jane and her husband.
“Your Majesty will never wear your crown easily till you sign that paper,” he said.
“I shall never wear it easily afterwards,” sighed Mary. “Do you not remember Jane’s words? She told me, I should be fortunate in my union, and my race should continue upon the throne, if I spared her husband. They seem to me prophetic. If I sign this warrant I may destroy my own happiness.”
“Your Highness will be not turned from your purpose by such idle fears,” rejoined Renard, in as sarcastic a tone as he dared assume. “Not only your throne may be endangered, if you suffer them to live, but the Catholic religion.”
“True,” replied Mary, “I will no longer hesitate.”
And she attached her signature to the warrant.
Renard watched her with a look of such fiendish exultation, that an unseen person who gazed at the moment into the room, seeing a tall dark figure, dilated by the gloom, for it was deepening twilight, and a countenance from which everything human was banished, thought he beheld a demon, and, fascinated by terror, could not withdraw his eyes. At the same moment, too, the Queen’s favorite dog, which was couched at her feet, and for a short time previously had been uttering a low growl, now broke into a fierce bark, and sprang towards the passage-window. Mary turned to ascertain the cause of the animal’s disquietude, and perceived that it had stiffened in every joint, while its barking changed to a dismal howl. Not without misgiving, she glanced towards the window — and there
, at the very place whence she had often heard that the murderers had gazed upon the slumbering innocents before the bloody deed was done — there, between those bars, she beheld a hideous black mask, through the holes of which glared a pair of flashing orbs.
Repressing a cry of alarm, she called Renard’s attention to the object, when she was equally startled by his appearance. He seemed transfixed with horror, with his right hand extended towards the mysterious object, and clenched, while the left grasped his sword. Suddenly, he gained his consciousness, and drawing his rapier, dashed to the door — but ere he could open it, the mask had disappeared. He hurried along the passage in the direction of the lieutenant’s lodgings, when he encountered some one who appeared to be advancing towards him. Seizing this person by the throat and presenting his sword to his breast, he found from the voice that it was Nightgall.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
HOW THE PRINCESS ELIZABETH WAS CONFRONTED WITH SIR THOMAS WYAT IN THE TORTURE-CHAMBER.
As Elizabeth passed beneath the portal of the Bloody Tower on her way to the lieutenant’s lodgings, whither she was conducted after quitting Traitor’s Gate by Bedingfeld and Sussex, she encountered the giants, who doffed their caps at her approach, and fell upon their knees. All three were greatly affected, especially Magog, whose soft and sensitive nature was completely overcome. Big tears rolled down his cheeks, and in attempting to utter a few words of consolation his voice failed him. Touched by his distress, Elizabeth halted for a moment, and laying her hand on his broad shoulder, said in a tone, and with a look calculated to enforce her words, “Bear up, good fellow, and like a man. If I shed no tears for myself, those who love me need shed none. It is the duty of my friends to comfort — not to dishearten me. My case is not so hopeless as you think. The Queen will never condemn the innocent and unheard. Get up, I say, and put a bold face on the matter, or you are not your father’s son.”
The Works of William Harrison Ainsworth Page 163
