necessity of sending her to the Tower; and, on the
29th of January, as the princess did not avail
herself of the queen's proposal, Renard describes
himself to the emperor as pressing her immediate
arrest.--_Rolls House MSS._]

The King of France had sent a message to the confederates that he had
eighty vessels in readiness, with eighteen companies of infantry, and
that he waited to learn on what part of the coast they should effect a
landing.[221] The dangerous communication had been made known to the
court. The French ambassador had been narrowly watched, and one of his
couriers who left London on the 26th with despatches for Paris was
followed to Rochester, where he saw, or attempted to see, Wyatt. The
courier, after leaving the town, was waylaid by a party of Lord
Cobham's servants in the disguise of insurgents; his despatches were
taken from him and sent to the chancellor, who found in the packet a
letter of Noailles to the king in cypher, and a copy of Elizabeth's
answer to the queen. Although in the latter there was no treason, yet
it indicated a suspicious correspondence. The cypher, could it be
read, might be expected to contain decisive evidence against her.[222]

[Footnote 221: Renard to Charles V., January 29:
_Rolls House MSS._]

[Footnote 222: A letter from Gardiner to Sir
William Petre is in the State Paper Office, part of
which he wrote with the cypher open under his eyes
in the first heat of the discovery. The breadth and
depth of the pen-strokes express the very pulsation
of his passion:--

"As I was in hand with other matters," the
paragraph runs, "was delivered such letters as in
times past I durst not have opened; but now,
somewhat heated with these treasons, I waxed
bolder, wherein I trust I shall be borne with;
wherein hap helpeth me, for they be worth the
breaking up an I could wholly decypher them,
wherein I will spend somewhat of my leisure, if I
can have any. But this appeareth, that the letter
written from my Lady Elizabeth to the Queen's
Highness, no