in the
land. As they passed through the city, they could not but notice the
sullenness and lack of enthusiasm in the great crowds everywhere
gathered to watch them pass, and grew more and more fearful of the
probable defeat of the Duke's project.

Meanwhile Queen Jane, in the Tower, passed the weary hours as best she
could, and executed several minor duties of her royal office, but grew
hourly more depressed with a nameless dread, and at evening came the
news of a great rising in favour of Queen Mary. Still worse tidings came
on Saturday, the sixth day of Jane's disastrous reign. Queen Mary had
already been proclaimed at Framlington and Norwich, and Northumberland
had sent to London for fresh troops, and was speeding as fast as horse
could gallop towards Cambridge, which he reached at midnight, but in
vain! Jane's cause collapsed so completely and so rapidly everywhere
that even such precautions as had been taken for the defence of her
party ended by serving her rivals, and the miserable Duke returned to
the Tower and its comparative safety, a prisoner, in a pathetic plight
brought about by his own wretched ambition.

On the seventh day of Queen Jane's reign, throughout the length and
breadth of England there were again risings for Queen Mary. In all the
streets there were cheering and rioting, and bonfires were lighted,
around which crowds of rough men and women circled, shouting, "Queen
Mary! Queen Mary!" while in the churches the rival queens and rival
creeds were the one subject of discourse.

On the eighth day of Jane's reign there was a violent scene in the early
morning between her mother and mother-in-law concerning the kingship of
Guilford, as Jane's husband. Poor Jane cried herself sick over the
distasteful affair, and tried to calm and reason with the two
disputants, looking more dead than alive as she did so. By this time as
a result of suspense and discouraging news all the occupants of the
Tower were at sixes and sevens, and the general feeling was that a worse
situation was still to come. Again bad news, the peasants,
notwithstanding the threats of their lords, had refused to take up arms
against Mary, and were drawing very near London; also all over the
country the nobility were arming, and marching in the defence of the
rightful queen's person and title, while poor Queen Jane's name was now
only spoken to be scoffed at.

On Tuesday, the eighteenth, it was evident to all that the tragi-comedy
was dr