mmand in the fleet, had
joined the exiles in France; and for Lord Howard himself the queen
could feel no security, if he was provoked too far. She was haunted by
a misgiving that, while the prince was under his convoy, he might
declare against her, and carry him prisoner to France; or if Howard
could himself be trusted, his fleet could not. On the eve of sailing
for the coast of Spain, a mutiny broke out at Plymouth. The sailors
swore that if they were forced on a service which they detested, both
the admiral and the prince should rue it. Lord Howard, in reporting to
the queen the men's misconduct, said that his own life was at her
majesty's disposal, but he advised her to reconsider the prudence of
placing the prince in their power. Howard's own conduct, too, was far
from reassuring. A few small vessels had been sent from Antwerp to
join the English fleet, under the Flemish admiral Chappelle. Chappelle
complained that Howard treated him with indifference, and insulted his
ships by "calling them cockle-shells." If the crews of the two fleets
were on land anywhere together, the English lost no opportunity of
making a quarrel, "hustling and pushing" the Flemish sailors;[325]
and, as if finally to complete the queen's vexation, Lord Bedford
wrote that the prince declined the protection of her subjects on his
voyage, and that his departure was postponed for a few weeks longer.

[Footnote 325: Les ont provoque a debatz, les
cerrans et poulsans.--Renard to Charles V.: Tyler
vol. ii. p. 413.]

The fleet had to remain in the Channel; it could not be trusted
elsewhere; and the necessity of releasing Elizabeth from the Tower was
another annoyance to the queen. A confinement at Woodstock was the
furthest stretch of severity that the country would, for the present,
permit. On the 19th of May, {p.137} Elizabeth was taken up the
river. The princess believed herself that she was being carried off
_tanquam ovis_, as she said--as a sheep for the slaughter. But the
world thought that she was set at liberty, and as her barge passed
under the bridge Mary heard, with indignation, from the palace
windows, three salvoes of artillery fired from the Steelyard, as a
sign of the joy of the people.[326] A letter from Philip would have
been a consolation to her in the midst of the troubles which she had
encountered for his sake; but the languid lover had never written a
line to her; or, if