Queen Elizabeth

The emperor furnishes money.

Queen Mary's principal minister of state at this time was a crafty politician, whose name was Gardiner. Gardiner sent word to the emperor that there was great opposition to his son's marriage in England, and that he feared that he should not be able to accomplish it, unless the terms of the contract of marriage were made very favorable to the queen and to England, and unless the emperor could furnish him with a large sum of money to use as a means of bringing influential persons of the realm to favor it. Charles decided to send the money. He borrowed it of some of the rich cities of Germany, making his son Philip give his bond to repay it as soon as he should get possession of his bride, and of the rich and powerful country over which she reigned. The amount thus remitted to England is said by the historians of those days to have been a sum equal to two millions of dollars. The bribery was certainly on a very respectable scale.

The emperor's embassy.

The emperor also sent a very magnificent embassy to London, with a distinguished nobleman at its head, to arrange the terms and contracts of the marriage. This embassy came in great state, and, during their residence in London, were the objects of great attention and parade. The eclat of their reception, and the influence of the bribes, seemed to silence opposition to the scheme. Open opposition ceased to be expressed, though a strong and inveterate determination against the measure was secretly extending itself throughout the realm. This, however, did not prevent the negotiations from going on. The terms were probably all fully understood and agreed upon before the embassy came, so that nothing remained but the formalities of writing and signing the articles.

Stipulations of the treaty of marriage.

Some of the principal stipulations of these articles were, that Philip was to have the title of King of England jointly with Mary's title of queen. Mary was also to share with him, in the same way, his titles in Spain. It was agreed that Mary should have the exclusive power of the appointment of officers of government in England, and that no Spaniards should be eligible at all. Particular provisions were made in respect to the children which might result from the marriage, as to how they should inherit rights of government in the two countries. Philip had one son already, by his former wife. This son was to succeed his father in the kingdom of Spain, but the other dominions of Philip on the Continent were to descend to the offspring of this new marriage, in modes minutely specified to fit all possible cases which might occur. The making of all these specifications, however, turned out to be labor lost, as Mary never had children.

It was also specially agreed that Philip should not bring Spanish or foreign domestics into the realm, to give uneasiness to the English people; that he would never take the queen out of England, nor carry any of the children away, without the consent of the English nobility; and that, if the queen were to die before him, all his rights and claims of every sort, in respect to England, should forever cease. He also agreed that he would never carry away any of the jewels or other property of the crown, nor suffer any other person to do so.

These stipulations, guarding so carefully the rights of Mary and of England, were intended to satisfy the English people, and remove their objections to the match. They produced some effect, but the hostility was too deeply seated to be so easily allayed. It grew, on the contrary, more and more threatening, until at length a conspiracy was formed by a number of influential and powerful men, and a plan of open rebellion organized.

Wyatt's rebellion.

Duke of Suffolk.

Wyatt advances toward London.

The leader in this plan was Sir Thomas Wyatt, and the outbreak which followed is known in history as Wyatt's rebellion. Another of the leaders was the Duke of Suffolk, who, it will be recollected, was the father of Lady Jane Grey. This led people to suppose that the plan of the conspirators was not merely to prevent the consummation of the Spanish match, but to depose Queen Mary entirely, and to raise the Lady Jane to the throne. However this may be, an extensive and formidable conspiracy was formed. There were to have been several risings in different parts of the kingdom. They all failed except the one which Wyatt himself was to head, which was in Kent, in the southeastern part of the country. This succeeded so far, at least, that a considerable force was collected, and began to advance toward London from the southern side.

The queen retreats into the city.

Queen Mary was very much alarmed. She had no armed force in readiness to encounter this danger. She sent messengers across the Thames and down the river to meet Wyatt, who was advancing at the head of four thousand men, to ask what it was that he demanded. He replied that the queen must be delivered up as his prisoner, and also the Tower of London be surrendered to him. This showed that his plan was to depose the queen. Mary rejected these proposals at once, and, having no forces to meet this new enemy, she had to retreat from Westminster into the city of London, and here she took refuge in the city hall, called the Guildhall, and put herself under the protection of the city authorities. Some of her friends urged her to take shelter in the Tower; but she had more confidence, she said, in the faithfulness and loyalty of her subjects than in castle walls.

Wyatt surrenders.

Wyatt continued to advance. He was still upon the south side of the river. There was but one bridge across the Thames, at London, in those days, though there are half a dozen now, and this one was so strongly barricaded and guarded that Wyatt did not dare to attempt to cross it. He went up the river, therefore, to cross at a higher point; and this circuit, and several accidental circumstances which occurred, detained him so long that a considerable force had been got together to receive him when he was ready to enter the city. He pushed boldly on into the narrow streets, which received him like a trap or a snare. The city troops hemmed up his way after he had entered. They barricaded the streets, they shut the gates, and armed men poured in to take possession of all the avenues. Wyatt depended upon finding the people of London on his side. They turned, instead, against him. All hope of success in his enterprise, and all possibility of escape from his own awful danger, disappeared together. A herald came from the queen's officer calling upon him to surrender himself quietly, and save the effusion of blood. He surrendered in an agony of terror and despair.

The Duke of Suffolk sent to the Tower.

The Duke of Suffolk learned these facts in another county, where he was endeavoring to raise a force to aid Wyatt. He immediately fled, and hid himself in the house of one of his domestics. He was betrayed, however, seized, and sent to the Tower. Many other prominent actors in the insurrection were arrested, and the others fled in all directions, wherever they could find concealment or safety.

Beheading of Lady Jane Grey.

Her heroic fortitude.

Lady Jane's life had been spared thus far, although she had been, in fact, guilty of treason against Mary by the former attempt to take the crown. She now, however, two days after the capture of Wyatt, received word that she must prepare to die. She was, of course, surprised and shocked at the suddenness of this announcement; but she soon regained her composure, and passed through the awful scenes preceding her death with a fortitude amounting to heroism, which was very astonishing in one so young. Her husband was to die too. He was beheaded first, and she saw the headless body, as it was brought back from the place of execution, before her turn came. She acknowledged her guilt in having attempted to seize her cousin's crown. As the attempt to seize this crown failed, mankind consider her technically guilty. If it had succeeded, Mary, instead of Jane, would have been the traitor who would have died for attempting criminally to usurp a throne.

Death of Suffolk.

In the mean time Wyatt and Suffolk remained prisoners in the Tower. Suffolk was overwhelmed with remorse and sorrow at having been the means, by his selfish ambition, of the cruel death of so innocent and lovely a child. He did not suffer this anguish long, however, for five days after his son and Lady Jane were executed, his head fell too from the block. Wyatt was reserved a little longer.

Imprisonment of Elizabeth.

Execution of Wyatt.

He was more formally tried, and in his examination he asserted that the Princess Elizabeth was involved in the conspiracy. Officers were immediately sent to arrest Elizabeth. She was taken to a royal palace at Westminster, just above London, called Whitehall, and shut up there in close confinement, and no one was allowed to visit her or speak to her. The particulars of this imprisonment will be described more fully in the next chapter. Fifty or sixty common conspirators, not worthy of being beheaded with an ax, were hanged, and a company of six hundred more were brought, their hands tied, and halters about their necks, a miserable gang, into Mary's presence, before her palace, to be pardoned. Wyatt was then executed. When he came to die, however, he retracted what he had alleged of Elizabeth. He declared that she was entirely innocent of any participation in the scheme of rebellion. Elizabeth's friends believe that he accused her because he supposed that such a charge would be agreeable to Mary, and that he should himself be more leniently treated in consequence of it, but that when at last he found that sacrificing her would not save him, his guilty conscience scourged him into doing her justice in his last hours.

The wedding plan proceeds.

Hostility of the sailors.

Mary's fears and complainings.

All obstacles to the wedding were now apparently removed; for, after the failure of Wyatt's rebellion, nobody dared to make any open opposition to the plans of the queen, though there was still abundance of secret dissatisfaction. Mary was now very impatient to have the marriage carried into effect. A new Parliament was called, and its concurrence in the plan obtained. Mary ordered a squadron of ships to be fitted out and sent to Spain, to convey the bridegroom to England. The admiral who had command of this fleet wrote to her that the sailors were so hostile to Philip that he did not think it was safe for her to intrust him to their hands. Mary then commanded this force to be dismissed, in order to arrange some other way to bring Philip over. She was then full of anxiety and apprehension lest some accident might befall him. His ship might be wrecked, or he might fall into the hands of the French, who were not at all well disposed toward the match. Her thoughts and her conversation were running upon this topic all the time. She was restless by day and sleepless by night, until her health was at last seriously impaired, and her friends began really to fear that she might lose her reason. She was very anxious, too, lest Philip should find her beauty so impaired by her years, and by the state of her health, that she should fail, when he arrived, of becoming the object of his love.

In fact, she complained already that Philip neglected her. He did not write to her, or express in any way the interest and affection which she thought ought to be awakened in his mind by a bride who, as she expressed it, was going to bring a kingdom for a dowry. This sort of cold and haughty demeanor was, however, in keeping with the self-importance and the pride which then often marked the Spanish character, and which, in Philip particularly, always seemed to be extreme.

Philip lands at Southampton.

Philip's proud and haughty demeanor.

At length the time arrived for his embarkation. He sailed across the Bay of Biscay, and up the English Channel until he reached Southampton, a famous port on the southern coast of England. There he landed with great pomp and parade. He assumed a very proud and stately bearing, which made a very unfavorable impression upon the English people who had been sent by Queen Mary to receive him. He drew his sword when he landed, and walked about with it, for a time, in a very pompous manner, holding the sword unsheathed in his hand, the crowd of by-standers that had collected to witness the spectacle of the landing looking on all the time, and wondering what such an action could be intended to intimate. It was probably intended simply to make them wonder. The authorities of Southampton had arranged it to come in procession to meet Philip, and present him with the keys of the gates, an emblem of an honorable reception into the city. Philip received the keys, but did not deign a word of reply. The distance and reserve which it had been customary to maintain between the English sovereigns and their people was always pretty strongly marked, but Philip's loftiness and grandeur seemed to surpass all bounds.

The marriage ceremony.

Mary went two thirds of the way from London to the coast to meet the bridegroom. Here the marriage ceremony was performed, and the whole party came, with great parade and rejoicings, back to London, and Mary, satisfied and happy, took up her abode with her new lord in Windsor Castle.

Philip abandons Mary.

Her repinings.

Her death.

The poor queen was, however, in the end, sadly disappointed in her husband. He felt no love for her; he was probably, in fact, incapable of love. He remained in England a year, and then, growing weary of his wife and of his adopted country, he went back to Spain again, greatly to Queen Mary's vexation and chagrin. They were both extremely disappointed in not having children. Philip's motive for marrying Mary was ambition wholly, and not love; and when he found that an heir to inherit the two kingdoms was not to be expected, he treated his unhappy wife with great neglect and cruelty and finally went away from her altogether. He came back again, it is true, a year afterward, but it was only to compel Mary to join with him in a war against France. He told her that if she would not do this, he would go away from England and never see her again. Mary yielded; but at length, harassed and worn down with useless regrets and repinings, her mental sufferings are supposed to have shortened her days. She died miserably a few years after her marriage, and thus the Spanish match turned out to be a very unfortunate match indeed.

Chapter V.

Elizabeth in the Tower

1554-1555

Elizabeth's position.

Legitimacy of Mary and Elizabeth's birth.

The imprisonment of Queen Elizabeth in the Tower, which was briefly alluded to in the last chapter, deserves a more full narration than was possible to give to it there. She had retired from court some time before the difficulties about the Spanish match arose. It is true that she took sides with Mary in the contest with Northumberland and the friends of Jane Grey, and she shared her royal sister's triumph in the pomp and parade of the coronation; but, after all, she and Mary could not possibly be very good friends. The marriages of their respective mothers could not both have been valid. Henry the Eighth was so impatient that he could not wait for a divorce from Catharine before he married Anne Boleyn. The only way to make the latter marriage legal, therefore, was to consider the former one null and void from the beginning, and if the former one was not thus null and void, the latter must be so. If Henry had waited for a divorce, then both marriages might have been valid, each for the time of its own continuance, and both the princesses might have been lawful heirs; but as it was, neither of them could maintain her own claims to be considered a lawful daughter, without denying, by implication at least, those of the other. They were therefore, as it were, natural enemies. Though they might be outwardly civil to each other, it was not possible that there could be any true harmony or friendship between them.

Mary and Elizabeth's differences.

Courteney's long imprisonment.

Mary's attentions to Courteney.

Courteney's attentions to Elizabeth.

A circumstance occurred, too, soon after Mary's accession to the throne, which resulted in openly alienating the feelings of the two ladies from each other. There was a certain prisoner in the Tower of London, a gentleman of high rank and great consideration, named Courteney, now about twenty-six years of age, who had been imprisoned in the Tower by King Henry the Eighth when he was only twelve years old, on account of some political offenses of his father! He had thus been a close prisoner for fourteen years at Mary's accession; but Mary released him. It was found, when he returned to society again, that he had employed his solitary hours in cultivating his mind, acquiring knowledge, and availing himself of all the opportunities for improvement which his situation afforded, and that he came forth an intelligent, accomplished, and very agreeable man. The interest which his appearance and manners excited was increased by the sympathy naturally felt for the sufferings that he had endured. In a word, he became a general favorite. The rank of his family was high enough for Mary to think of him for her husband, for this was before the Spanish match was thought of. Mary granted him a title, and large estates, and showed him many other favors, and, as every body supposed, tried very hard to make an impression on his heart. Her efforts were, however, vain. Courteney gave an obvious preference to Elizabeth, who was young then, at least, if not beautiful. This successful rivalry on the part of her sister filled the queen's heart with resentment and envy, and she exhibited her chagrin by so many little marks of neglect and incivility, that Elizabeth's resentment was roused in its turn, and she asked permission to retire from court to her residence in the country. Mary readily gave the permission, and thus it happened that when Wyatt's rebellion first broke out, as described in the last chapter, Elizabeth was living in retirement and seclusion at Ashridge, an estate of hers at some distance west of London. As to Courteney, Mary found some pretext or other for sending him back again to his prison in the Tower.

Mary's plan to get Elizabeth in her power.

Mary was immediately afraid that the malcontents would join with Elizabeth and attempt to put forward her name and her claims to the crown, which, if they were to do, it would make their movement very formidable. She was impressed immediately with the idea that it was of great importance to get Elizabeth back again into her power. The most probable way of succeeding in doing this, she thought, was to write her a kind and friendly letter, inviting her to return. She accordingly wrote such a letter. She said in it that certain evil-disposed persons were plotting some disturbances in the kingdom, and that she thought that Elizabeth was not safe where she was. She urged her, therefore, to return, saying that she should be truly welcome, and should be protected against all danger if she would come.

Elizabeth's wariness.

An invitation from a queen is a command, and Elizabeth would have felt bound to obey this summons, but she was sick when it came. At least she was not well, and she was not much disposed to underrate her sickness for the sake of being able to travel on this occasion. The officers of her household made out a formal certificate to the effect that Elizabeth was not able to undertake such a journey.

Wyatt accuses Elizabeth.

In the mean time Wyatt's rebellion broke out; he marched to London, was entrapped there and taken prisoner, as is related at length in the last chapter. In his confessions he implicated the Princess Elizabeth, and also Courteney, and Mary's government then determined that they must secure Elizabeth's person at all events, sick or well. They sent, therefore, three gentlemen as commissioners, with a troop of horse to attend them, to bring her to London. They carried the queen's litter with them, to bring the princess upon it in case she should be found unable to travel in any other way.

Her seizure.

Elizabeth borne in a litter.

This party arrived at Ashridge at ten o'clock at night. They insisted on being admitted at once into the chamber of Elizabeth, and there they made known their errand. Elizabeth was terrified; she begged not to be moved, as she was really too sick to go. They called in some physicians, who certified that she could be moved without danger to her life. The next morning they put her upon the litter, a sort of covered bed, formed like a palanquin, and borne, like a palanquin, by men. It was twenty-nine miles to London, and it took the party four days to reach the city, they moved so slowly. This circumstance is mentioned sometimes as showing how sick Elizabeth must have been. But the fact is, there was no reason whatever for any haste. Elizabeth was now completely in Mary's power, and it could make no possible difference how long she was upon the road.

She is examined and released.

The litter passed along the roads in great state. It was a princess that they were bearing. As they approached London, a hundred men in handsome uniforms went before, and an equal number followed. A great many people came out from the city to meet the princess, as a token of respect. This displeased Mary, but it could not well be prevented or punished. On their arrival they took Elizabeth to one of the palaces at Westminster, called Whitehall. She was examined by Mary's privy council. Nothing was proved against her, and, as the rebellion seemed now wholly at an end, she was at length released, and thus ended her first durance as a political prisoner.

Elizabeth again arrested.

It happened, however, that other persons implicated in Wyatt's plot, when examined, made charges against Elizabeth in respect to it, and Queen Mary sent another force and arrested her again. She was taken now to a famous royal palace, called Hampton Court, which is situated on the Thames, a few miles above the city. She brought many of the officers of her household and of her personal attendants with her; but one of the queen's ministers, accompanied by two other officers, came soon after, and dismissed all her own attendants, and placed persons in the service of the queen in their place. They also set a guard around the palace, and then left the princess, for the night, a close prisoner, and yet without any visible signs of coercion, for all these guards might be guards of honor.

Her letter to Mary.

The next day some officers came again, and told her that it had been decided to send her to the Tower, and that a barge was ready at the river to convey her. She was very much agitated and alarmed, and begged to be allowed to send a letter to her sister before they took her away. One of the officers insisted that she should have the privilege, and the other that she should not. The former conquered in the contest, and Elizabeth wrote the letter and sent it. It contained an earnest and solemn disavowal of all participation in the plots which she had been charged with encouraging, and begged Mary to believe that she was innocent, and allow her to be released.

Situation of the Tower.

The Traitors' Gate.

The letter did no good. Elizabeth was taken into the barge and conveyed in a very private manner down the river. Hampton Court is above London, several miles, and the Tower is just below the city. There are several entrances to this vast castle, some of them by stairs from the river. Among these is one by which prisoners accused of great political crimes were usually taken in, and which is called the Traitors' Gate. There was another entrance, also, from the river, by which a more honorable admission to the fortress might be attained. The Tower was not solely a prison. It was often a place of retreat for kings and queens from any sudden danger, and was frequently occupied by them as a somewhat permanent residence. There were a great number of structures within the walls, in some of which royal apartments were fitted up with great splendor. Elizabeth had often been in the Tower as a resident or a visitor, and thus far there was nothing in the circumstances of the case to forbid the supposition that they might be taking her there as a guest or resident now. She was anxious and uneasy, it is true, but she was not certain that she was regarded as a prisoner.