is way round to
Ludgate, one of the old gates of the City. He found the bridge broken
down, but mended it, came across, and bravely fought his way up Fleet
Street to Ludgate Hill. Finding the gate closed against him, he fought
his way back again, sword in hand, to Temple Bar. Here, being
overpowered, he 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 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 quie