crowded with citizens: some brought there by hatred, some by respect, many by pity, but more by curiosity. When the Queen entered she stood forward on the steps, above the throng, and, in her deep man's voice, she spoke to them.[1]
Her subjects had risen in rebellion against her, she said; she had been told that the cause was her intended marriage with the Prince of Spain; and, believing that it was the real cause, she had offered to hear and to respect their objections. Their leader had betrayed in his answer his true motives; he had demanded possession of the Tower of London and of her own person. She stood there, she said, as lawful Queen of England, and she appealed to the loyalty of her great city to save her from a presumptuous rebel, who, under specious pretences, intended to ' subdue the laws to his will, and to give scope to rascals and forlorn persons to make general havoc and spoil.' As to her marriage, she had supposed that so magnificent an alliance could not have failed to be agreeable to her people. To herself, and, she was not afraid to say, to her council, it seemed to promise high advantage to the commonwealth. Marriage, in itself, was indifferent to her; she had been invited to think of it by the desire of the country that she should have an heir; but she could continue happy in the virgin state in which she had hitherto passed her life. She would call a Parliament and the subject should be considered in all its bearings: if, on mature
- ↑ La voce grossa et quasi di huomo.—Giovanni Michele: Ellis, vol. ii. series ii.
