Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 5.djvu/227

1553.] under which she was sitting, and tore it down; she was no longer Queen, he said, and such distinctions were not for one of her station. He then told her briefly of the revolt of the council. She replied that his present words were more welcome to her than those in which he had advised her to accept the crown; her reign being at an end, she asked innocently if she might leave the Tower and go home. But the Tower was a place not easy to leave, save by one route too often travelled.

Meanwhile the Lords, with the mayor and the heralds, went to the Cross at Cheapside to proclaim Mary Queen. Pembroke himself stood out to read; and this time there was no reason to complain of a silent audience. He could utter but one sentence before his voice was lost in the shout of joy which thundered into the air. 'God save the Queen,' 'God save the Queen,' rung out from tens of thousands of throats. 'God save the Queen,' cried Pembroke himself, when he had done, and flung up his jewelled cap and tossed his purse among the crowd. The glad news spread like lightning through London, and the pent-up hearts of the citizens poured themselves out in a torrent of exultation. Above the human cries, the long- silent church-bells clashed again into life; first began St Paul's, where happy chance had saved them from destruction; then, one by one, every peal which had been spared caught up the sound; and through the summer evening and the summer night, and all the next day, the metal