surrendered himself, and three or four hundred of his men were
taken, besides a hundred killed. Wyat, in a moment of weakness
(and perhaps of torture) was afterwards made to accuse the Princess
Elizabeth as his accomplice to some very small extent. But his
manhood soon returned to him, and he refused to save his life by
making any more false confessions. He was quartered and
distributed in the usual brutal way, and from fifty to a hundred of
Page 170
Dickens, Charles – A Child’s History of England
his followers were hanged. The rest were led out, with halters
round their necks, to be pardoned, and to make a parade of crying
out, ‘God save Queen Mary!’
In the danger of this rebellion, the Queen showed herself to be a
woman of courage and spirit. She disdained to retreat to any place
of safety, and went down to the Guildhall, sceptre in hand, and
made a gallant speech to the Lord Mayor and citizens. But on the
day after Wyat’s defeat, she did the most cruel act, even of her
cruel reign, in signing the warrant for the execution of Lady Jane
Grey.
They tried to persuade Lady Jane to accept the unreformed religion;
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
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