Elizabeth's complicity it did not contain; while, to
Gardiner's mortification, it showed that Courtenay, in his confessions
to himself, had betrayed the guilt of others, but had concealed part
of his own. In an anxiety to shield him the chancellor pronounced the
cypher of Courtenay's name to be unintelligible. The queen placed the
letter in the hands of Renard, by whom it was instantly read, and the
chancellor's humour was not improved; Mary had the mortification of
feeling that she was herself the last object of anxiety either to him
or to any of her council; though Wyatt was at the gates of London, the
council could only spend the time in passionate recriminations; Paget
blamed Gardiner for his religious intolerance; Gardiner blamed Paget
for having advised the marriage; some exclaimed against Courtenay,
some against Elizabeth; but, of acting, all alike seemed incapable. If
the queen was in danger, the council said, she might fly to Windsor,
or to Calais, or she might go to the Tower. "Whatever happens," she
exclaimed to Renard, "I am the wife of the Prince of Spain; crown,
rank, life, all shall go before I will take any other husband."[238]

[Footnote 238: Renard to Charles V.: _Rolls House
MSS._ February 5.]

The position, however, could not be of long continuance. {p.104}
Could Wyatt once enter London, he assured himself of success; but the
gates on the bridge continued closed. Cheyne and Southwell had
collected a body of men on whom they could rely, and were coming up
behind from Rochester. Wyatt desired to return and fight them, and
then cross the water at Greenwich, as had been before proposed; but
his followers feared that he meant to escape; a backward movement
would not be permitted, and his next effort was to ascertain whether
the passage over the bridge could be forced.

London Bridge was then a long, narrow street. The gate was at the
Southwark extremity; the drawbridge was near the middle. On Sunday or
Monday night Wyatt scaled the leads of the gatehouse, climbed into a
window, and descended the stairs into the lodge. The porter and his
wife were nodding over the fire. The rebel leader bade them, on their
lives, be still, and stole along in the darkness to the chasm from
which the drawbridge had been cut away. There, looking across the
black gulf where the river was rolling below, he saw the dusky mouths
of four gaping cannon, and beyond them, in the torch-light, L