of the Crown and as she had twice broken her promise to them after they had raised her to the position she occupies. First, in changing the religion after she had promised them toleration; and, secondly, in taking a foreign husband although she had promised that she would not.”[31] In a few days the result of all this excitement was seen. Carew and his friends and kin in the west, depending upon poor feeble Courtenay’s open co-operation, rose in revolt. Rumours ran that French troops were on the way across to aid him. But Courtenay was a reed easily broken, and allowed Gardiner to frighten him into alarmed submission, whilst Elizabeth, closely watched at Ashridge, was too cunning to be drawn into open complicity by Noailles’s intrigues; though the Emperor and Renard were urging Mary to put her sister well out of harm’s way in prison. And then came the most perilous movement of all—that of the men of Kent under Wyatt. From the 26th January to the 3rd February Mary’s crown was not worth a day’s purchase; for, though the cry of the rebels was only against the Spanish marriage, the Queen knew full well that she must now stand or fall by that. And she stood manfully when many of her courtiers were distraught by fear and ready to desert her at a moment’s notice. Whilst Wyatt and his growing host swept triumphantly onward from Rochester Bridge to Blackheath, and so to Southwark, the Council were wrangling. Should the Queen retire to the Tower or should she fly to the country; should she believe what the friends of the French faction urged, that the only safe place for her was Calais, where she could claim the Emperor’s protection? Mary, almost alone, was undismayed. She sent word privately to Renard that for their own safety’s sake the other Imperial ambassadors should return home, but that she had no intention of backing out of the marriage or of leaving London, although she might temporise with Wyatt whilst she mustered her forces.[32] Riding to Guildhall, stern and sorrowful but unafraid, she made a stirring oration to the citizens; and although many were in favour of Wyatt, London Bridge was held firmly by the Queen’s friends, until the rebel force began to melt away discouraged at the delay.