bodies[1] were dangling in St Paul's Churchyard, on London Bridge, in Fleet Street, and at Charing Cross, in Southwark and Westminster. At all crossways and in all thoroughfares, says Noailles, 'the eye was met with the hideous spectacle of hanging men;' while Brett and a fresh batch of unfortunates were sent to suffer at Rochester and Maidstone. Day after day, week after week, commissioners sat at Westminster or at the Guildhall trying prisoners, who passed with a short shrift to the gallows. The Duke of Suffolk was sentenced on the 17th; on the 23rd he followed his daughter, penitent for his rebellion, but constant, as she had implored him to be, in his faith. His two brothers and Lord Cobham's sons were condemned. William Thomas, to escape torture, stabbed himself, but recovered to die at Tyburn. Lord Cobham himself, who was arrested notwithstanding his defence of his house, Wyatt, Sir James Crofts, Sir William St Lowe, Sir Nicholas Arnold, Sir Nicholas Throgmorton, and, as the council expressed it, 'a world more,' were in various prisons waiting their trials. Those who were suspected of being in Elizabeth's confidence were kept with their fate impending over them—to be tempted either with hopes of pardon, or fear of the rack, to betray their secrets.[2]
- ↑ Renard says: 'A hundred were hanged in London and a hundred in Kent.' Stow says: 'Eighty in London and twenty-two in Kent.' The Chronicle of Queen Mary does not mention the number of executions in London, but agrees with Stow on the number sent to Kent. The smaller estimate, in these cases, is generally the right one.
- ↑ On Sunday the 11th of February, the day on which he exhorted
