The siege continued for six interminable hours. Three more of Father’s retainers were killed and others wounded. The defenses of the outer court fell, bringing the bombardment to the gates and drawbridge guarding the inner ward. But it was only when our ammunition was gone that Father finally surrendered.
Under a flag of truce, he went out to meet with Cousin Tom. He did not return. On Tom’s orders, Father was captured and his hands bound. He was put on a horse and the rebel army moved off, taking him with them.
A few minutes later, a single rider returned. My brother George entered the courtyard. He shot one horrified glance at the inner drawbridge, so battered it looked as if it would collapse at any moment. Then he addressed Mother, who was weeping silently, surrounded by her waiting gentlewomen.
“Father will be taken to Wyatt’s camp at Gravesend.”
“Will Wyatt attack London now?” John asked. I could tell he was itching to go with the troops.
“How can you support him when he’s just destroyed our home?” Mother wailed.
I wrapped my arms around her and glared at John over her head. “The queen won’t see the destruction here. She’ll only know that Father is with Wyatt now. All his sacrifice will be for nothing.”
John had the grace to look ashamed of himself. George couldn’t meet my eyes, but he wouldn’t stay, either. He rode off after Wyatt without saying another word.
As I watched him go, the glimmer of an idea came to me, a way to help both myself and my family. It was a march of some forty miles by land from Cowling Castle to Southwark. A boat could reach there much more quickly.
“Would you like to go to London, John? If we can get there ahead of the army and find someone who will listen, I may be able to convince the authorities that Father is with the rebels against his will.”
If not, then at least I would be in London. If I could find Will, I was certain I could persuade him to stay out of the coming conflict. With luck, we might even slip out of the city again. I was not sure where we would go, but at least we would be together and free.
His admiration of Wyatt shaken by the damage to Cowling Castle, John agreed to my plan. It promised more adventure than staying home with Mother and the younger boys. He and I and Griggs set out at dawn. I left Birdie behind in Mother’s keeping.
At first there were no boats to be had. We continued on horseback, hiding more than once to avoid small bands of rough-looking men who might have been part of Wyatt’s army or could just as easily have been brigands. I thought it best to avoid being challenged by either. We had reached Deptford before I was able to hire a tilt boat for the rest of the journey. Then there was a further delay while Griggs found a trustworthy lad to take the horses back to Cowling Castle.
Wyatt’s army had already reached Southwark by the time I caught my first glimpse of London Bridge. At first I couldn’t believe my eyes. The gates had been shut and the drawbridge had been cut down. An entire span had been demolished to prevent the rebels from crossing into London proper. Guns mounted on the broken ends were aimed across the open space toward my cousin’s men.
“Looks as if someone’s already warned the queen,” Griggs observed.
“I wonder if we’ll be allowed to land,” John said.
But the tilt boat docked without incident on the downriver side of the bridge, and we disembarked.
“What now?” John asked. My tall, strapping brother seemed at a loss.
I did not answer, dumbstruck by yet another unexpected sight—two men marching a third, in restraints, toward the Lion Gate of the Tower. The prisoner was my father.
“He must have escaped from the rebel camp and hired a wherry to cross the river,” I murmured.
“But if he reached London and warned the queen, why is he under arrest?” John asked.
“Because Queen Mary’s men will arrest anyone the least bit suspicious until this is over.” Saying the words aloud gave them added meaning. “Will,” I whispered.
I started to run, heading for Carter Lane. They’d arrest Will. I had to warn him, if I wasn’t already too late.
John and Griggs followed. We had just passed the Hay Wharf and I was about to turn north along Bush Lane when Griggs swore.
A glance behind us showed me what he had seen. I stopped dead in the middle of Thames Street to stare. The rebels had set fire to one of the buildings on the Southwark side of the river. It was the property of the much-hated Bishop Gardiner now. That was reason enough for them to destroy it. But it gave my heart a painful wrench because it was my former home, Winchester House, that was ablaze.
Turning my back on the dreadful sight, I hurried up Bush Lane, then left into Carter Lane toward the Chequer Inn, the great house known as The Esher, and the much smaller one Sir Edward Warner owned. My steps faltered when it came in sight. I knew even before I reached the door that Will was no longer there.
Aunt Elizabeth did not keep me in suspense. Her voice hoarse with her own despair, she blurted out the news I had been dreading.
“They were arrested a week ago. Will and Edward both. The moment word of Tom’s plans reached the queen, she ordered them both confined in the Tower.”
46
The city rallied behind Queen Mary. We heard that she gave a stirring speech at the Guildhall, then retreated to the Palace of St. James—the house King Henry had built in the middle of the open fields west of Whitehall. Tom Wyatt and his army dithered on the Southwark side of London Bridge, then marched upriver in search of another way across the Thames.
“Every other bridge will have been broken down as well,” I said when Griggs brought the latest news to the house in Carter Lane. My aunt and I huddled there, afraid to venture out. Although she was Lady Warner now, some of her neighbors knew of her connection to the rebel leader. Others had seen her current husband taken away by the queen’s men.
Aunt Elizabeth was bitter. “My son’s father raised a fool,” she lamented.
Wild rumors proliferated until no one knew what to believe. Then the weather conspired to make everyone’s life a misery. Shrove Tuesday dawned dark and wet and the downpour soon turned the streets into great water-filled pits. I could only imagine what quagmires the roads outside the city had become.
The next day dawned bright and numbingly cold.
“The Earl of Pembroke and Lord Clinton took Wyatt straight to the Tower after he surrendered,” Griggs reported, “and Thomas Brooke with him.”
“What of William and George?” I asked.
“Captured but not yet in the Tower.”
“Is there any news of Will or my father?”
“Nothing, my lady.” Griggs scratched his large, slightly flattened nose and frowned. “But that’s good news, isn’t it? It would be all over London if they’d been hanged.”
I took what comfort I could from that.
Two days later, the bodies began to appear—executed rebels hanging on every city gate, in Paul’s Churchyard, and at every crossroads. The remains were left in view for a full day as a warning and then were replaced by more victims of Queen Mary’s vengeance.
Lady Jane Grey and Lord Guildford Dudley were executed on the twelfth of February. On the nineteenth, my brother Thomas was sentenced to be hanged, drawn, and quartered at Maidstone. I did not understand why he had been singled out, but I was sick at heart that all his youth, his promise, would be snuffed out even before he attained his majority.
On the twenty-third of February, Lady Jane Grey’s father, the Duke of Suffolk, was executed.
Aunt Elizabeth and I supported each other, moving through those terrible days with little to sustain us but prayer. No one came near the house in Carter Lane. Only Griggs went out to dispatch letters and bring back news and supplies. It was early March before any of the frantic messages I sent to Will’s wife, Viscountess Bourchier, finally produced a reply.