t while
they bandaged her eyes. Being blinded, and unable to see the block on
which she was to lay her young head, she was seen to feel about for it
with her hands, and was heard to say, confused, 'O what shall I do! Where
is it?' Then they guided her to the right place, and the executioner
struck off her head. You know too well, now, what dreadful deeds the
executioner did in England, through many, many years, and how his axe
descended on the hateful block through the necks of some of the bravest,
wisest, and best in the land. But it never struck so cruel and so vile a
blow as this.

The father of Lady Jane soon followed, but was little pitied. Queen
Mary's next object was to lay hold of Elizabeth, and this was pursued
with great eagerness. Five hundred men were sent to her retired house at
Ashridge, by Berkhampstead, with orders to bring her up, alive or dead.
They got there at ten at night, when she was sick in bed. But, their
leaders followed her lady into her bedchamber, whence she was brought out
betimes next morning, and put into a litter to be conveyed to London. She
was so weak and ill, that she was five days on the road; still, she was
so resolved to be seen by the people that she had the curtains of the
litter opened; and so, very pale and sickly, passed through the streets.
She wrote to her sister, saying she was innocent of any crime, and asking
why she was made a prisoner; but she got no answer, and was ordered to
the Tower. They took her in by the Traitor's Gate, to which she
objected, but in vain. One of the lords who conveyed her offered to
cover her with his cloak, as it was raining, but she put it away from
her, proudly and scornfully, and passed into the Tower, and sat down in a
court-yard on a stone. They besought her to come in out of the wet; but
she answered that it was better sitting there, than in a worse place. At
length she went to her apartment, where she was kept a prisoner, though
not so close a prisoner as at Woodstock, whither she was afterwards
removed, and where she is said to have one day envied a milkmaid whom she
heard singing in the sunshine as she went through the green fields.
Gardiner, than whom there were not many worse men among the fierce and
sullen priests, cared little to keep secret his stern desire for her
death: being used to say that it was of little service to shake off the
leaves, and lop the branches of the tree of heresy, if its root, the hope
of hereti