If Wyatt had struck promptly, he would probably have won; but loath to shed blood and to use arms openly against the Crown, he lingered in Bermondsey, hoping for the declaration of the citizens of London in his favour, until it was too late. Then came the ignominious march through the mire to Kingston Bridge, and the footsore, famished, and rain-soaked crew tramping through the night into London, to be beaten almost without effort by those who, if they had shown a fine front, would have joined them. Vengeance promptly fell upon the offenders. The scaffolds at the street corners with their dangling corpses taught the common people that treason was a dangerous game to play; the block in the Tower was soaked with the blood of Greys and Dudleys and many of their noble friends, and Elizabeth was no longer bidden courteously to join her sister at Court, but was sternly, if ceremoniously, brought to London, dangerously ill though she seemed to be (22nd February). And, as the young Princess passed through the silent, sorrowful crowd that greeted her, making, as she did, an appeal to their sympathies by her proud, pale face and her snow-white garments, the Londoners in their hearts felt that Elizabeth was their champion against the Spaniard, whose coming they feared so much. On the same day (Ash Wednesday, 7th February) that poor Wyatt’s draggled host toiled up to Ludgate, there to meet final failure and the gallows, Renard urged the Queen to make an end of Elizabeth and Courtenay; and the Count of Egmont was already hurrying to England with advice from the Emperor to the same effect; but Mary, who allowed herself to be drawn into extreme severity against those who had openly conspired against her crown, asserted her own will in the matter of her sister, whose countenance of the French ambassador’s intrigues was amply proved by Wyatt’s avowals and the seizure of Noailles’s letters at Gravesend. Thus whilst Courtenay once more found himself in the Tower a prisoner, Elizabeth was at first only secluded in her sister’s palace at Whitehall.