Yet it cannot be denied, that Mary had inherited, in full measure, some of the sterner qualities of her father, and that she was wanting in that sympathy for human suffering which is so graceful in a woman. After a rebellion, the reprisals were terrible. London was converted into a charnel-house; and the squares and principal streets were garnished with the unsightly trophies of the heads and limbs of numerous victims who had fallen by the hand of the executioner.[59] This was in accordance with the spirit of the age. But the execution of the unfortunate Lady Jane Grey--the young, the beautiful, and the good--leaves a blot on the fame of Mary, which finds no parallel but in the treatment of the ill-fated queen of Scots by Elizabeth. Mary's treatment of Elizabeth has formed another subject of reproach, though the grounds of it are not sufficiently made out; and, at all events, many circumstances may be alleged in extenuation of her conduct. She had seen her mother, the noble-minded Katharine, exposed to the most cruel indignities, and compelled to surrender her bed and her throne to an artful rival, the mother of Elizabeth. She had heard herself declared illegitimate, and her right to the succession set aside in favor of her younger sister. Even after her intrepid conduct had secured to her the crown, she was still haunted by the same gloomy apparition. Elizabeth's pretensions were constantly brought before the public; and Mary might well be alarmed by the disclosure of conspiracy after conspiracy, the object of which, it was rumored, was to seat her sister on the throne. As she advanced in years, Mary had the further mortification of seeing her rival gain on those affections of the people which had grown cool to her. Was it wonderful that she should regard her sister, under these circumstances, with feelings of distrust and aversion? That she did so regard her is asserted by the Venetian minister; and it is plain that, during the first years of Mary's reign, Elizabeth's life hung upon a thread. Yet Mary had strength of principle sufficient to resist the importunities of Charles the Fifth and his ambassador, to take the life of Elizabeth, as a thing indispensable to her own safety and that of Philip. Although her sister was shown to be privy, though not openly accessory, to the grand rebellion under Wyatt, Mary would not constrain the law from its course to do her violence. This was something, under the existing circumstances, in an age so unscrupulous. After this storm had passed over, Mary, whatever restraint she imposed on her real feelings, treated Elizabeth, for the most part, with a show of kindness, though her name still continued to be mingled, whether with or without cause, with more than one treasonable plot.[60] Mary's last act--perhaps the only one in which she openly resisted the will of her husband--was to refuse to compel her sister to accept the hand of Philibert of Savoy.