But she steadily refused.On the morning when she was to die,she saw from her window the bleeding and headless body of her husband brought back in a cart from the scaffold on Tower Hill where he had laid down his life.But,as she had declined to see him before his execution,lest she should be overpowered and not make a good end,so,she even now showed a constancy and calmness that will never be forgotten.She came up to the scaffold with a firm step and a quiet face,and addressed the bystanders in a steady voice.They were not numerous;for she was too young,too innocent and fair,to be murdered before the people on Tower Hill,as her husband had just been;so,the place of her execution was within the Tower itself.She said that she had done an unlawful act in taking what was Queen Mary's right;but that she had done so with no bad intent,and that she died a humble Christian.She begged the executioner to despatch her quickly,and she asked him,'Will you take my head off before I lay me down?'He answered,'No,Madam,'and then she was very quiet while they bandaged her eyes.Being blinded,and unable to see the block on which she was to lay her young head,she was seen to feel about for it with her hands,and was heard to say,confused,'O what shall I do!Where is it?'
Then they guided her to the right place,and the executioner struck off her head.You know too well,now,what dreadful deeds the executioner did in England,through many,many years,and how his axe descended on the hateful block through the necks of some of the bravest,wisest,and best in the land.But it never struck so cruel and so vile a blow as this.
The father of Lady Jane soon followed,but was little pitied.
Queen Mary's next object was to lay hold of Elizabeth,and this was pursued with great eagerness.Five hundred men were sent to her retired house at Ashridge,by Berkhampstead,with orders to bring her up,alive or dead.They got there at ten at night,when she was sick in bed.But,their leaders followed her lady into her bedchamber,whence she was brought out betimes next morning,and put into a litter to be conveyed to London.She was so weak and ill,that she was five days on the road;still,she was so resolved to be seen by the people that she had the curtains of the litter opened;and so,very pale and sickly,passed through the streets.
She wrote to her sister,saying she was innocent of any crime,and asking why she was made a prisoner;but she got no answer,and was ordered to the Tower.They took her in by the Traitor's Gate,to which she objected,but in vain.One of the lords who conveyed her offered to cover her with his cloak,as it was raining,but she put it away from her,proudly and scornfully,and passed into the Tower,and sat down in a court-yard on a stone.They besought her to come in out of the wet;but she answered that it was better sitting there,than in a worse place.At length she went to her apartment,where she was kept a prisoner,though not so close a prisoner as at Woodstock,whither she was afterwards removed,and where she is said to have one day envied a milkmaid whom she heard singing in the sunshine as she went through the green fields.
Gardiner,than whom there were not many worse men among the fierce and sullen priests,cared little to keep secret his stern desire for her death:being used to say that it was of little service to shake off the leaves,and lop the branches of the tree of heresy,if its root,the hope of heretics,were left.He failed,however,in his benevolent design.Elizabeth was,at length,released;and Hatfield House was assigned to her as a residence,under the care of one SIR THOMAS POPE.
It would seem that Philip,the Prince of Spain,was a main cause of this change in Elizabeth's fortunes.He was not an amiable man,being,on the contrary,proud,overbearing,and gloomy;but he and the Spanish lords who came over with him,assuredly did discountenance the idea of doing any violence to the Princess.It may have been mere prudence,but we will hope it was manhood and honour.The Queen had been expecting her husband with great impatience,and at length he came,to her great joy,though he never cared much for her.They were married by Gardiner,at Winchester,and there was more holiday-making among the people;but they had their old distrust of this Spanish marriage,in which even the Parliament shared.Though the members of that Parliament were far from honest,and were strongly suspected to have been bought with Spanish money,they would pass no bill to enable the Queen to set aside the Princess Elizabeth and appoint her own successor.
Although Gardiner failed in this object,as well as in the darker one of bringing the Princess to the scaffold,he went on at a great pace in the revival of the unreformed religion.A new Parliament was packed,in which there were no Protestants.Preparations were made to receive Cardinal Pole in England as the Pope's messenger,bringing his holy declaration that all the nobility who had acquired Church property,should keep it-which was done to enlist their selfish interest on the Pope's side.Then a great scene was enacted,which was the triumph of the Queen's plans.Cardinal Pole arrived in great splendour and dignity,and was received with great pomp.The Parliament joined in a petition expressive of their sorrow at the change in the national religion,and praying him to receive the country again into the Popish Church.With the Queen sitting on her throne,and the King on one side of her,and the Cardinal on the other,and the Parliament present,Gardiner read the petition aloud.The Cardinal then made a great speech,and was so obliging as to say that all was forgotten and forgiven,and that the kingdom was solemnly made Roman Catholic again.
Everything was now ready for the lighting of the terrible bonfires.