Mary is a religious zealot, and many…
February 1554 CE
Mary is a religious zealot, and many of her Protestant subjects are shocked and dismayed to learn of her betrothal to Phillip, whose fervent Catholicism approaches that of her own.
One such is Sir Thomas Wyat (or Wyatt) the Younger, a friend of the poet Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, who Henry VIII had executed for treason in 1547.
The son of the renowned poet and diplomat Sir Thomas Wyat, the younger Wyat, now thirty-seven, has achieved recognition as a skillful and daring officer in service abroad, particularly in Boulogne in 1543-44, and has become sheriff in Kent.
Initially a supporter of Mary’s succession, he now turns against the Queen, considering her proposed marriage to be an affront to England's national honor.
Having formed his own military organization, he therefore joins several others, including the murdered Lady Jane Grey's father, the Duke of Suffolk, in a conspiracy that seeks to depose Mary and elevate her younger half-sister Elizabeth to the crown.
France aids the conspirators and promises troops for a planned March coup, but one of the conspirators, the Earl of Devon, discloses the plot to Mary's lord chancellor, Stephen Gardiner, and Mary swiftly imprisons most of the rest.
Wyat alone succeeds in raising an army, but receives no aid from France.
After initially offering to negotiate with Wyat, the government soon decides to suppress the insurgents.
Thomas Howard, the elderly duke of Norfolk, receives command of a force sent to quell the rebellion.
However, Norfolk’s troops largely defect to Wyat, who, on February 3, 1554, enters the outskirts of London with some three thousand men.
He rapidly penetrates to the center of the city, but his troops grow disheartened when the Londoners do not join their cause.
Confronted by the royal forces in a fierce but brief engagement, Wyat capitulates and is imprisoned in the Tower of London, along with other rebel leaders, pending trial for high treason.
Elizabeth, although conforming outwardly to official Catholic observance, is the obvious beneficiary of plots to overthrow the government and restore Protestantism, and is therefore also arrested and sent to the Tower, the place of her mother’s execution.
The briefly reigning English queen Jane Grey, deposed by Mary Tudor and condemned to death for treason, is beheaded, as is her husband, Guildford Dudley, on February 12, 1554.
Images
Hans Holbein the Younger: Sir Thomas Wyatt the Younger (circa 1540-42). Oil on circular panel; presumably commissioned by sitter’s father Sir Thomas Wyatt Senior (1503 - 1542)
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