Meantime, think, if you can, of the deadly hatred which these priests must have felt towards those who had done these mischiefs; think of the silent satisfaction with which even the best of them would witness the execution of one who had been a leader—a Hooper or a Latimer—in bringing about this destruction. But the destruction was stayed. Holy Church was back again, and of course for ever. The Great Rebellion, they thought, was ended. As for the beneficed clergy in possession, many conformed for fear and for safety; very few indeed gave up their wives; happy were the contumacious if their contumacy brought no worse consequence than to beg their bread on the road; happy if it did not lead to a speedy trial, conviction, and the certainty of becoming a fiery example. They might have made up their minds at the outset that Mercy was not a quality for which Mary would be conspicuous. Before the Fires of Smithfield began there were the executions for the Rebellion of Wyatt. It was an excellent opportunity for winning the hearts of the people; Lady Jane Grey’s party never had the smallest chance: she herself might have been allowed to be at liberty with no danger to the Queen, while to execute her boy-husband was as barbarous and useless as to execute herself. Fifty persons, however, officers, knights, and gentlemen, were put to death in consequence of the Rebellion. Four hundred common men were hanged about London. Fifty were hanged on gibbets, and there left to hang a great part of the summer. [Illustration: ST. PETER AD VINCULA, OVERLOOKING TOWER GREEN E. Gardner’s Collection.] Meantime, the people of London—partly exasperated by the sight of these gibbets; partly hating the Spanish marriage; partly hating the break-up of the Reformation—showed their minds in every possible way. They shot at preachers of Papistry; they dressed up a cat like a Roman Priest, and hanged it on a gallows in Cheapside; they found a girl who pretended to receive messages from a spirit. It was called the Spirit in the Wall. When the Eucharist was carried through Smithfield a man tried to knock the holy elements out of the priest’s hands. And on Easter Day a priest saying mass in St. Margaret’s, Westminster, was attacked by a man with a knife.