spere des
affaires de la dicte dame."--Renard to the Emperor,
February 8: _MS._]

The account of his confederates' failure saluted Wyatt on his arrival
in Southwark, on the 3rd of February. The intelligence was being
published, at the moment, in the streets of London; Wyatt himself, at
the same time, was proclaimed traitor, and a reward of a hundred
pounds was offered for his capture, dead or alive. The peril, however,
was far from over; Wyatt replied to the proclamation by wearing his
name, in large letters, upon his cap; the success of the queen's
speech in the city irritated the council, who did not choose to sit
still under the imputation of having approved of the Spanish marriage.
They declared everywhere, loudly and angrily, that they had not
approved of it, and did not approve; in the city itself public feeling
again wavered, and fresh parties of the train-bands crossed the water
and deserted. The behaviour of Wyatt's followers gave the lie to the
queen's charges against them: the prisons in Southwark were not
opened; property was respected scrupulously; the only attempt at
injury was at Winchester House, and there it {p.103} was instantly
repressed; the inhabitants of the Borough entertained them with warm
hospitality; and the queen, notwithstanding her efforts, found herself
as it were besieged, in her principal city, by a handful of commoners,
whom no one ventured, or no one could be trusted, to attack. So
matters continued through Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday. The
lawyers at Westminster Hall pleaded in harness, the judges wore
harness under their robes; Doctor Weston sang mass in harness before
the queen; tradesmen attended in harness behind their counters. The
metropolis, on both sides of the water, was in an attitude of armed
expectation, yet there was no movement, no demonstration on either
side of popular feeling. The ominous strangeness of the situation
appalled even Mary herself.[237]

[Footnote 237: Noailles.]

By this time (February 5) the intercepted letter of Noailles had been
decyphered. It proved, if more proof was wanted, the correspondence
between the ambassador and the conspirators; it explained the object
of the rising--the queen was to be dethroned in favour of her sister;
and it was found, also, though names were not mentioned, that the plot
had spread far upwards among the noblemen by whom Mary was surrounded.
Evidence of