fessions was now more than lost. London rang with the story that Wyatt, in dying, had cleared Courtenay and Elizabeth.[1] 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;[2] 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.[3] 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.
The threatened escape of her sister, too, was but the beginning of the Queen's sorrows. On the 17th of April Sir Nicholas Throgmorton was tried at the Guildhall for having been a party to the conspiracy. The
- ↑ Courtenay, however, certainly was guilty; and had Wyatt acquitted Elizabeth without naming Courtenay, his words would have been far more effective than they were. This, however, it was hard for Wyatt to do, as it would have been equivalent to a repetition of his accusations.
- ↑ Les gens de loy ne treuvent matière pour la condamner.—Renard to Charles V., April 22: Tytler, vol. ii.
- ↑ Ibid. And see a passage in the MS., which Mr Tytler has omitted.
