Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 2.djvu/379

A.D. 1554.] witness the last struggle. Pembroke routed the enemy, and the band of gentlemen-at-arms, all of them men of family and many of them of high rank, being then admitted to the queen's presence, she thanked them most cordially for their gallant defence of her palace and person. It is difficult to say whether they or their queen had shown the more undaunted spirit.



Mary had displayed the most extraordinary clemency on the termination of the former conspiracy, for which not only the emperor but her own ministers had blamed her. Her Council now urged her to make a more salutary example of these offenders, to prevent a repetition of rebellion. On the previous occasion she had permitted only three of the ringleaders to be put to death. On this occasion five of the chief conspirators were condemned, and four of them were executed. Croft being pardoned. Suffolk foil without any commiseration. It was difficult to decide whether his folly or his ingratitude had been the greater. He had twice been a traitor to the queen, the second time after being most mercifully pardoned. He had twice put his amiable and excellent daughter's life in jeopardy; the second time after seeing how hopeless was the attempt to place her on the throne, and therefore, to a certainty, by the second revolt, involving her death; and to add to his infamy, he endeavoured to win escape for himself by betraying others. He was beheaded on the 23rd of February. Wyatt was kept in the Tower till the 11th of April, when he was executed. Unlike Suffolk, he tried to exculpate others, declaring in his last moments that neither the Princess Elizabeth nor Courtenay, who were suspected of being privy to his designs, knew anything of them. Wyatt seems to have been a brave and honest man, who believed himself acting the part of a patriot in endeavouring to preserve the country from the Spanish yoke, and who, in the sincerity of his own heart, had too confidently trusted to the assurances of faithless men. Had he succeeded, and placed the Protestant Princess Elizabeth on the throne, his name, instead of remaining that of traitor, would have stood side by side with that of Hampden. His body was quartered and exposed in different places. His head was stuck on a pole at Hay Hill, near Hyde Park, whence it was stolen by some of his friends.

On the 17th of the same month Lord Thomas Grey, the brother of Suffolk, was executed on Tower Hill, and William Thomas, who was clerk of the Council in the last reign, and who wrote a very apologetic account of the deeds of Henry VIII., was hanged on the 18th of May at Tyburn, after having attempted suicide in prison.

Sir Nicholas Throckmorton was the sixth, who was tried at Guildhall on the 17th of April, the very day of Lord Grey's execution. His condemnation and death were regarded as certain; but on being brought to the bar he adroitly pleaded that the recent statute abolishing all treasons since the reign of Edward III., covered anything which he could possibly have done, and that his offence, being only words, were by the same statute declared to be no overt act at all. He stated this with so much skill and eloquence, at the same time contending that there was not a particle of evidence of his having been an active accomplice of the rebels, that the jury acquitted him. The judges were confounded at such a result. "How!" cried Sir Thomas Bromley, the lord chief justice, "remember yourselves better. This business concerns the queen's highness. Take heed what ye do."



The jury, one and all respectable London merchants, stood to their verdict, and no brow-beating on the part of the attorney-general, or menaces on the part of the judges, could intimidate them to surrender it. Sir Nicholas claimed to be liberated on the plain verdict of the jury, and the lord chief justice having no other alternative, admitted that he must discharge him on the payment of fees, but, added he, with a lawyer's ready sophistry, "Take him back. Master Lieutenant, to the Tower, nevertheless, for there are other things to be laid to his charge." Sir Nicholas was remanded and kept prisoner still for some time, but finally escaped with less punishment than his independent jury. It was so strange a novelty for a jury to exercise its most undoubted right, that the attorney-general suggested that they should each be bound in a recognisance of £500, to answer to such charges as the queen might present against them for their conduct; they were, therefore, notwithstanding their remonstrances, committed to prison. Four of them in a while made their submission, implored pardon, and were discharged: the other and nobler eight were detained in prison for more than six months, when they were brought into the abominable and illegal court of Star Chamber, where they as boldly declared that they had given their verdict according to their consciences, and demanded to be set at liberty. The judges, astonished and most indignant at such daring, decreed that the foreman and the other members of the jury who had spoken so undauntedly