most painful forebodings. She reached Redburn, in a very feeble condition, the first night; on the second, she rested at Sir Ralph Rowlet's house, at St. Alban's; on the third, at Mr. Dod's, at Mimmes; on the fourth, at Highgate, where she stayed at Mr. Cholmeley's house for a night and a day, till her drooping spirits had revived, and her health somewhat recovered. first to be permitted to write to the Queen, and the Earl of Sussex assenting, in spite of the opposition of another lord, and undertaking himself to be the bearer of her letter, she took the opportunity of repeating her protestations of innocence and loyalty, adding with much vehemence of manner:-"As for that traitor, Wyatt, he might peradventure write me a letter; but, on my faith, I never received any from him. And as for the copy of my letter to the French King, which is laid to my charge, I pray to God confound me eternally, if ever I sent him word, message, token, or letter, by any means.' At Highgate, a number of gentlemen rode out to meet her, in testimony of their sympathy and attachment; and as she proceeded, the general feeling was further displayed, by crowds of people lining the pathways, who flocked anxiously around her litter, weeping and bewailing her unhappy fate. Her passage Her letter failed to procure an interthrough Smithfield and Fleet Street, in view with the Queen; and the next day, a litter open at both sides, was followed being Palm Sunday, strict orders were by a hundred men, attired in coats of issued for all the people to attend the velvet, and a hundred others succeeded, churches, and carry their palms, whilst, in coats of fine red, trimmed with velvet; in the meantime, Elizabeth was privately with this imposing train did Elizabeth removed to the Tower, attended by the pass through the Queen's garden to the Earl of Sussex, the Lord Treasurer, three court of the palace. This open support of her own ladies, three of the Queen's of the Princess by a formidable party in attendants, and some of her officers. On the capital, greatly disconcerted the plans reaching the place of her destination, of her enemies. They contented them- she for a long time refused to land at selves, for the present, with detaining Traitor's Gate; and when one of the her in a kind of honourable custody at lords declared "that she should not Whitehall. She demanded an inter- choose," and, at the same time, offered view with the Queen, but Mary refused her his cloak to protect her from the to see her; and when the privy council rain, she retained enough of her high examined her, she protested her inno- spirit to throw it from her with a good cence, and ignorance of the treasonable dash; and as she set her foot on the illdesigns of Wyatt and his confederates. omened stairs, she exclaimed: "Here Lords Arundel and Paget, and the Em-landeth as true a subject, being a priperor's ambassador, Renaud, urged that she should be immediately brought to the block as a traitress; but Mary abhorred the idea of shedding her blood; and at last, when all the lords of the council had individually refused to take charge of her, the Queen, for the security of her own person, resolved to send her to the Tower. This determination was announced to her by the Earl of Sussex, on the sixteenth of March. Bishop Gardiner and two others came soon afterwards, and, dismissing her attendants, supplied their place with some of the Queen's servants, and set a guard round the palace for that night. In the morning, a barge_was in readiness to convey her to the Tower: she entreated soner, as ever landed at these stairs; and before thee, O God! I speak it, having no other friend but thee alone." On seeing a number of warders and other attendants drawn out in order, she asked, "What meaneth this?" Some one answered, that it was customary on receiving a state prisoner. "If it be," said Elizabeth, "I beesech you that, for my cause, they may be dis missed." Immediately the poor men kneeled down and prayed God to preserve her; for which action they all were severely reprimanded the next day. Going a little further, she sat down on a stone to rest herself; the lieutenant urged her to rise and come in out of the cold and wet, but she answered, "Better sitting here than in a worse place; for God knoweth whither you bring me." rowly; but I am well assured you will not do more to me than God hath appointed; and so God forgive you all." Wyatt was at length, on the eleventh of April, condemned to death; when he confounded all the hopes and expectations of the enemies of Elizabeth, by strenuously and publicly declaring her entire innocence of any participation in the treasonable designs. One only resource now remained to the Court, in their endeavours to ruin Elizabeth. They thought, that a longcontinued absence, whilst it might gradually weaken the affections of the people, would afford them many opportunities for injuring or supplanting her, and it was therefore resolved to provide for her a kind of honourable banishment. Her confinement had been rendered as uncomfortable as it could well be. After a month's close imprisonment in the Tower, by which the health of the Princess had severely suffered, she ob but that I may go to mine own houses at all times?" Then the Earl of Arundel, kneeling down, said, "Your Grace On hearing these words, her gentle- sayeth true, and certainly we are very man-usher wept, for which she reproved sorry that we have troubled you about him, saying, "You ought rather to be so vain a matter. Elizabeth replied, my comforter, especially since I know" My Lords, you do sift me very narmy own truth to be such, that no man shall have cause to weep for me." Then rising, she entered the prison, and its gloomy doors were locked and bolted on her. Shocked and dismayed, she collected her servants around her, called for her prayer-book, and devoutly prayed that she might "build her house upon the rock." Her conductors then retired; and her firm friend, the Earl of Sussex, took the opportunity of reminding all whom it might concern, that the Princess was to be treated in no other manner than they might be able to justify, whatever should happen hereafter; and that they were to take heed to do nothing but what their commission would bear out. To this the attendants cordially assented; and, having performed their office, the two lords took their departure. A few days after her committal, Gardiner, and other privy councillors, came to examine her, respecting the conversation she had held with Sir James Croft on her removal to Don-tained, with great difficulty, permission nington Castle. Elizabeth said, after some recollection, that she had in truth such a place, but that she had never occupied it in her life, and she did not remember that any one had moved her so to do. Then, to enforce the matter, they brought forth Sir James Croft; and Gardiner demanded what she had to say to that man. She answered, that she had little to say to him, or to the rest that were in the Tower. "But, my Lords," said the Princess, "you do examine every mean prisoner respecting me, wherein you do me great injury. If they have done evil and offended the Queen's Majesty, let them answer for it accordingly. I beseech you, my Lords, join not me in this sort with any of these offenders; and, concerning my going to Donnington Castle, I do remember that Master Hobby, and my officers, and you, *Courtney, Earl of Devonshire, was then Sir James Croft, had such talk. But hended on the twelfth of the preceding Fea prisoner in the Tower; he had been apprewhat is that to the purpose, my Lords,bruary, at the house of the Earl of Sussex. to walk in the state apartments, under the close superintendence of the constable of the Tower and the Lord Chamberlain, with the attendance of three of the Queen's servants; the windows being shut, and the Princess not allowed to look out. Afterwards she had the liberty of walking in a small garden, the gates and doors being carefully closed; and the prisoners, whose rooms looked into the garden, being at such times closely watched, to prevent the interchange of any word or sign. Even a little child of five years of age, who was wont to cheer her by his daily visits, and to bring her flowers, was suspected of being employed as a messenger between the Princess and the Earl of Devonshire,* and in spite of the innocent simplicity of his answers, | benefit from this approaching change, he was ordered to visit her no more! as she still remained a closely guarded The next day, the poor child peeped in prisoner. through a hole in the door, as she walked in the garden, and cried out" Madam, I can bring you no more flowers!"-for which innocent remark, his father, one of the inferior officers of the Tower, was severely lectured, and ordered to keep his boy entirely away from the Princess. From the commencement of her incarceration in the Tower, orders had been given by the Queen and her Court that mass should be regularly performed before the Princess and her attendants, in her apartment. Elizabeth did not feel any great repugnance to this rite and thus deprived the council of all pretext for persecuting her on the score of religion; but some of her attendants were not so submissive, and she had the pain of seeing Mrs. Sands, one of her ladies, forcibly carried away, under a charge of heresy, and her place supplied by another, whose religious sentiments were more in unison with the court. All these severities, however, failed in their intended purpose; neither sufferings nor menaces could induce the Princess to acknowledge herself guilty of any offence against her sister. Queen Mary, about this time, was attacked with a severe indisposition, and Gardiner taking advantage, it is supposed, of the circumstance, sent a privy council warrant to Bridges, the Lieutenant of the Tower, for the instant decapitation of Elizabeth. Bridges, perceiving that the Queen's signature was not attached to the warrant, made a personal application on the subject to Mary, who, on hearing of the murderous plot, and providential escape of the Princess, again called her sister; and to preserve her from the future machinations of her enemies, ordered Sir Henry Bedingfield, a Norfolk knight, on whose courage and honour she could rely, to convey her to Woodstock, and there strictly guard her from the base designs of her foes, and from joining in the intrigues of her disaffected friends. Elizabeth, however, derived but little momentary Sir Henry Bedingfield entered the Tower, at the head of a hundred of his men; and Elizabeth, struck with dismay at the unexpected sight, demanded whether the scaffold which had served for the execution of Lady Jane Grey, had been removed? On being informed that it was, she was somewhat comforted; but soon a frightful rumour reached her, that she was about to be carried away by Sir Henry and his soldiers, no one knew where. She immediately sent for Lord Chandos, constable of the Tower, whose humanity and courtesy had induced him to soften, as much as possible, the hardships of her lot, and closely questioning him, he at length plainly told her, that there was no help for it; orders had been given, and she must be consigned to the care of Bedingfield, to be conveyed to Woodstock. Anxious and alarmed at this intelligence, she inquired of her attendants, what kind of man this Bedingfield was; and whether, in the event of her murder being determined on, his conscience would allow him to see it perpetrated? None of her attendents could satisfy her on this point; all they could do was, to implore her to put her trust in God, as her only refuge in the hour of danger. After suffering a close imprisonment of three months, in the Tower, she was at length, on the nineteenth of May, escorted out of that gloomy fortress; and, under the charge of Bedingfield and his troop of a hundred horsemen, conducted to Richmond palace, where the court was then held. She was still treated as a captive. The manners of Bedingfield she deemed severe; and such terror did she conceive from the appearances around her, that, sending for her gentleman usher, she desired him, and the rest of her officers, to pray for her: "For this night," added the unhappy Princess, "I think to die!" The gentleman, greatly affected, encouraged her as well as he was able; then going to Lord Williams, who was walking with Bedingfield, he called him aside, and implored him to tell him, sincerely, whether any michief were designed against his mistress that night or no; adding, "That I and my men might take such part as God shall please to appoint. For, certainly, we will rather die than she should secretly and innocently suffer." To which Lord Williams replied, "God forbid that any such wicked purpose should be wrought; and rather than it should be so, I also am ready to die at the feet of the Prin cess. Amidst these gloomy apprehensions, Elizabeth was surprised by a message from the Queen, offering her immediate liberty, on condition of her accepting the hand of the reigning Duke of Savoy in marriage. Fut the firm mind of Elizabeth was not thus to be shaken, nor her penetration deceived. She believed that it was banishment which was intended in the guise of marriage; that she was required to exchange the succession to an independent English crown, for the matrimonial alliance of a foreign prince; and she had the magnanimity to firmly negative the offer, which was no sooner declared, than orders were issued for her immediate removal to Woodstock, in Oxfordshire. While crossing the river, at Richmond, on this melancholy journey, Elizabeth perceived, on the opposite side, "certain of her poor servants," who had been prevented giving their attendance during her imprisonment in the Tower, and who were now anxiously waiting to see her again. "Go to them," said she to one of her men, "and say these words from me: I am driven like a sheep to the slaughter."-Travelling leisurely on horseback, the journey occupied four days; and the slowness of her progress afforded an opportunity for some striking marks of popular feeling. Various little gifts were presented by the people on the way-side; for which Bedingfield was enraged, calling them traitors and rebels. As she passed through the villages, the bells of the churches were rung in token of joy for her supposed liberation; but the populace were soon undeceived, and informed she was still a prisoner and in disgrace; and Bedingfield ordered the unhappy ringers to be put in the stocks, as a reward for their labours! On the third evening, the Princess arrived at Ricot, the seat of Lord Williams, where its owner intro. duced her to a large circle of nobility and gentry, whom he had invited to welcome her. The suspicious mind of Bedingfield was aroused at the sight of such an assembly: the soldiers were ordered to keep strict watch; he insisted that none of the guests should be permitted to pass the night in the house, and demanded of Lord Williams, if he were aware of the consequences of thus entertaining the Queen's prisoner? To which the noble host replied, "I know well enough what I am about, and am resolved that her Grace may, and shall, be merry in my house this night." In the morning she departed for Woodstock, where, under the severe inspection of Bedingfield, she found herself once more a prisoner. No visitor was allowed to approach her dwelling: the doors were closed upon her; and a military guard kept watch, day and night, around the walls of her prison. Indeed, her residence at Woodstock, though less painful than her imprisonment in the Tower, was yet a state of rigorous confinement, in which she was haunted with cares and anxieties, which deprived her youth of all its bloom and vivacity, and seriously affected her constitution. On the eighth of June her health was so much impaired, that two physicians were sent from the Court to attend upon her. On returning to the Queen, they made a favourable report of her behaviour, and of the dutiful humility she evinced towards her Majesty. She was soon after advised to make all due submission to the Queen, but, with her wonted constancy, she declined; though this was the only condition in which she could hope for deliverance. Her situation, therefore, was painful in the extreme. Hearing, one day, out of her garden at Woodstock, the voice of a milk-maid, singing joyously, she exclaimed, with emotion: "O that I too were a milk-maid! for her situation is happier and far merrier than mine!" Sir Henry Bedingfield continued his severe vigilance over the Princess: his task was a difficult and ungracious one. On one occasion, observing him lock the gate of the garden while she was walking in it, Elizabeth reproached him, and called him her gaoler; when he, on his knees, entreated her Grace not to give him that ugly name in future, for he was appointed to be one of her officers and protectors. Her correspondence was watchfully restricted. When, after urgent application to the council, she was at length permitted to write to the Queen, Bedingfield looked over her shoulder as she wrote, took the paper into his own keeping when she laid it down to rest herself, and again brought it back to her, when she resumed her pen. With his utmost precaution, however, he was unable entirely to cut off all communications with her friends. Through the agency of a visitor to one of her ladies, Elizabeth received the satisfactory assurance, that none of the prisoners in the rebellion of Wyatt had been induced to utter any thing against her. In allusion to this intelligence, she wrote with a diamond, on a window in her apartment, this homely, but expressive distich : : "Much suspected, of me Quoth Elizabeth prisoner." "The plots," says Sir John Harrington, "laid to entrap the Lady Elizabeth by Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, and his terrible hard usage of all her followers, I cannot scarce think of with charity, nor write of with patience. My father, for only carrying a letter to the Lady Elizabeth, and professing to wish her well, he sent to the Tower for twelve months, and caused him to expend a thousand pounds, ere he could be free of that trouble. My mother, who then served the Lady Elizabeth, he caused to be removed from her, as a heretic, insomuch that her own father durst not take her into his house. So I may in some sort say, this Bishop persecuted me before I was born." The marriage of Mary to Philip of Spain, the arrival of Cardinal Pole, and the re-establishment of Popedom, so in creased Elizabeth's fears, that her prudence prompted her to frequently hear mass and attend the confessional. It was at this trying period that, when asked by Gardiner what it was she conceived she received in the blessed sacrament, she made the celebrated response— "Christ was the word that spake it; He blessed the bread and brake it. About the close of this year, Sir Nicholas Throgmorton, Dudley, and all the other prisoners, who participated in the usurpation of Lady Jane Grey, or the rebellion of Wyatt, were liberated from the Tower, at the intercession, it is said, of King Philip, who soon afterwards, and, according to the assertions of some historians, with a view to exclude Mary, Queen of Scots, from the throne of England, in the event of the Queen dying without issue, employed his good offices in the cause of the Princess and the Earl of Devonshire - two personages still more interesting to the feelings of the people. It is well known, however, that Elizabeth's enemies were still powerful. Lord Paget, notwithstanding his having waited on the Princess at table, was heard to declare, "that the Queen would never have peace in the country till her head was smitten off;" and the Bishop of Winchester never ceased regarding her with an evil eye. Lord Williams begged that he might be permitted to take her from Woodstock to his own house, offering large bail for her safe keeping, but this indulgence was refused. Philip was now more than ever bent on her deliverance. The moment was favourable for his purpose. Mary, happy in her hope of giving an heir to the crown, no longer opposed the wishes of her husband; and the privy council, believing the Queen pregnant, viewed the Princess with less bitterness. Accordingly, in December, 1554, Elizabeth took her final departure from Woodstock, and proceeded, under the escort of Bedingfield and his men, to Hampton Court. She was met at Colnebrook by her own * See Memoir of Mary. |