ronicle of Queen
Mary_, Holinshed, Stow, and the narratives among
the _Harleian MSS._ essentially agree. But the
chronicle followed by Stow makes Wyatt add, "As I
have declared no less to the Queen's council;"
whereas Foxe says that he admitted that he had
spoken otherwise to the council, but had spoken
untruly. Noailles tells all that was really
important in a letter to d'Oysel: "M. Wyatt eust la
teste coupee, dischargeant advant que de mourir
Madame Elizabeth et Courtenay qu'il avoit
aulparavant charge de s'estre entendus en son
entreprinse sur promesses que l'on luy avoit
faictes de luy saulver la vie."--Noailles, vol.
iii.]

The words, or the substance of them, were heard by every one. Weston,
who attended as confessor, shouted, "Believe him not, good people! he
confessed otherwise before the council." {p.131} "That which I said
then I said," answered Wyatt, "but that which I say now is true." The
executioner did his office, and Wyatt's work, for good or evil, was
ended.

All that the court had gained by his previous confessions was now more
than lost. London rang with the story that Wyatt, in dying, had
cleared Courtenay and Elizabeth.[308] Gardiner still thundered in the
Star Chamber on the certainty of their guilt, and pilloried two decent
citizens who had repeated Wyatt's words; but his efforts were vain,
and the hope of a legal conviction was at an end. The judges declared
that against Elizabeth there was now no evidence;[309] and, even if
there had been evidence, Renard wrote to his master, that the court
could not dare to proceed further against her, from fear of Lord
William Howard, who had the whole naval force of England at his
disposal, and, in indignation at Elizabeth's treatment, might join the
French and the exiles.[310] Perplexed to know how to dispose of her,
the ambassador and the chancellor thought of sending her off to
Pomfret Castle; doubtless, if once within Pomfret walls, to find the
fate of the second Richard there: but again the spectre of Lord Howard
terrified them.

[Footnote 308: Courtenay, however, certainly _was_
guilty; and had Wyatt acquitted Elizabeth without
nam