Rooms were given her in Whitehall, and here she hoped to see the queen, and be able to convince her of the innocence she so loudly proclaimed to everyone. But to her great disappointment and secret terror, Mary refused her an interview, and ordered her to be taken at once to the palace of Westminster and placed in an apartment which had no entrance except through the guard-room. A certain number of personal attendants were allowed her, and through them she heard with dismay that Courtenay had been lodged in the Tower, and every day was examined for some time as to his share in Wyatt's conspiracy. For three weeks Elizabeth waited, not knowing exactly how much the council knew, but remembering, with dread, two notes which she had written with her own hand to Wyatt. She guessed truly that all the weight of Spain would be thrown in the balance against her, for the emperor Charles V. had neither forgotten nor forgiven the divorce of his aunt, and, besides, his son Philip was already betrothed to the queen. At last, one Saturday, ten members of the council visited her, and told her that a barge was in waiting at the stairs, which would take her to the Tower. Elizabeth received the news without flinching, though she felt as if the nails were being knocked into her coffin, but begged permission to finish a letter to the queen which she had just begun. This the council could not well refuse; but the princess made her letter so _very_ long that the tide ran out too far for her to embark, and as Sunday was a day when no work was done, her gaolers were obliged to wait until Monday. On Monday, however, even Elizabeth could invent no more pretexts for delay, and entered her barge with as good a grace as might be. But when the rowers shipped their oars at the Traitors' Gate, she objected that it was no entrance for _her_, who was innocent. 'You have no choice,' said one of the lords who was with her, and stooped to lay his cloak as a carpet on the muddy steps. With an angry gesture Elizabeth dashed it aside, and sat down on a wet stone, as if she intended to sit there for ever. The lieutenant of the Tower, who was awaiting his prisoner at the top, prayed her to come in out of the rain and cold, which at last she consented to do, and was conducted by him to her prison, a room that led only into the lieutenant's own house on one side, and a narrow outside gallery on the other, used by the prisoners for air and exercise. Here Elizabeth's suitor, sir Thomas Seymour, had been lodged before his execution, and here Arabella Stuart would be confined, in years that were yet to come.