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.