The Tower Of London by W. Harrison Ainsworth

“I like not your proposal, sir,” replied the queen, “I have no thirst for Courtenay’s blood. Nay, the love I once bore him would prevent my taking his life; and it should only be at the last extremity that I would deal severely with Elizabeth. Neither do I think your counsel politic. Such a course might answer in Spain, but not in England. It would only inflame still more the minds of the seditious, and excite them to a state of ungovernable fury.”

“You judge wisely, madam,” replied Gardiner. “Besides, I have made myself answerable for the safety of the Earl of Devonshire. The blow that falls upon his head must strike mine also. Since your majesty, with a resolution worthy of the daughter of your great sire, decides on maintaining your ground against these rebels, I nothing fear for the result. Let the worst come to the worst, we can but die; and we will die fighting in your cause.”

“My lord,” rejoined the queen, after a moment’s reflection, “bid Sir Henry Bedingfeld, and the whole of the officers and men not required on duty on the ramparts, attend high mass within Saint John’s Chapel an hour hence. You yourself will officiate with all the prelates and priesthood in the fortress. The service over, I shall repair to the council-chamber, where it is my purpose to address them.”

Gardiner bowed and retired to execute her commands, and the queen enjoining Renard’s attendance at the chapel, retired to her closet with her dames of honour.

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CHAPTER XXVIII

OF THE QUEEN’S SPEECH IN THE COUNCIL-CHAMBER; AND OF HER INTERVIEW WITH SIR THOMAS WYAT

AT the appointed time, Saint John’s Chapel was thronged with armed men; and as the royal train passed along the upper gallery, and glanced down upon them, Mary was inexpressibly struck by the scene. Banners waved from the arched openings of the gallery, and the aisles and nave gleamed with polished steel. For fear of a sudden surprise, the soldiers were ordered to carry their weapons, and this circumstance added materially to the effect of the picture. Around the columns of the southern aisle were grouped the arquebusiers with their guns upon their shoulders; around those of the north stood the pikemen, in their steel caps and corslets; while the whole body of the nave was filled with archers, with their bows at their backs. Immediately in front of the altar stood the Duke of Norfolk, the Earls of Arundel and Pembroke, the Lords Paget and Rochester; Sir Henry Bedingfeld; Sir Henry Jerningham, master of the horse; Sir Edward Bray, master of the ordnance, all in full armour. On the queen’s appearance all these personages bent the knee before her; and Bedingfeld, in virtue of his office, advancing a step before the others, drew his sword, and vowed he would never yield up the fortress but with life. He then turned to the troops, and repeated his determination to them. And the walls of the sacred structure rang with the shouts of the soldiers.

“You have yet loyal followers enow who will shed their last drop of blood in your defence,” he added to Mary.

“I nothing doubt it, dear Sir Henry,” she replied, in a voice of deep emotion. “I will share your danger, and, I trust, your triumph.”

Solemn mass was then performed by Gardiner, who was attended by Bonner, Tunstal, Feckenham, and other prelates and priests in their full robes. On its conclusion, the queen gave her hand to Sir Henry Bedingfeld, and followed by the whole assemblage, proceeded to the council-chamber, and took her seat beneath the state canopy.

As soon as the whole party was assembled, silence was commanded, and Mary spoke as follows: “I need not acquaint you that a number of Kentish rebels have seditiously and traitorously gathered together against us and you. Their pretence, as they at first asserted, was to resist a marriage between us and the Prince of Spain. To this pretended grievance, and to the rest of their evil-contrived complaints, you have been made privy. Since then, we have caused certain of our privy council to confer with the rebels, and to demand the cause of their continuance in their seditious enterprise; and by their own avowal it appears that our marriage is the least part of their quarrel. For they now, swerving from their first statement, have betrayed the inward treason of their hearts, arrogantly demanding the possession of our person, the keeping of our Tower of London, and not only the placing and displacing of our council, but also the head of one who is an ambassador at our court, and protected by his office from injury.”