The terrible name of the Tower was like a death-knell; the Princess entreated a short delay till she could write a few words to the Queen; the Queen could not know the truth, she said, or else she was played upon by Gardiner. Alas! she did not know the Queen: Winchester hesitated; Lord Sussex, more generous, accepted the risk, and promised, on his knees, to place her letter in the Queen's hands.
The very lines traced by Elizabeth in that bitter moment may still be read in the State Paper Office,[1] and her hand was more than usually firm.
'If ever any one,' she wrote, 'did try this old saying that a King's word was more than another man's oath, I most humbly beseech your Majesty to verify it in me, and to remember your last promise, and my last demand, that I be not condemned without answer and due proof, which it seems that I now am: for that without cause proved I am by your council from you commanded to go unto the Tower, a place more wonted for a false traitor than a true subject: which, though I know I deserve it not, yet in the face of all this realm appears that it is proved; which I pray God that I may die the shamefullest death that any died, afore I may mean any such thing: and to this present hour I protest, afore God who shall judge my truth, whatsoever malice shall devise, that I never practised, counselled, nor consented to anything that might be prejudicial to your person any way, or dangerous to the State by any means. And
- ↑ MS. Mary, Domestic, vol iv. Printed by Ellis, 2nd series, vol. ii p. 255.
