king served as a pretext for her
committal to the Tower. The fierce Tudor temper broke through
Elizabeth's self-control as she landed at Traitor's Gate. "Are all
these harnessed men there for me?" she cried as she saw the guard; "it
needed not for me, being but a weak woman!" and passionately calling on
the soldiers to "bear witness that I come as no traitor!" she flung
herself down on a stone in the rain and refused to enter her prison.
"Better sitting here than in a worse place," she cried; "I know not
whither you will bring me." But Elizabeth's danger was less than it
seemed. Wyatt denied to the last her complicity in the revolt, and in
spite of Gardiner's will to "go roundly to work" with her the Lords of
the Council forced Mary to set her free. The Queen's terrors however
revived with her hopes of a child in the summer of 1555. To Mary her
sister seemed the one danger which threatened the succession of her
coming babe and the vast issues which hung on it, and Elizabeth was
summoned to her sister's side and kept a close prisoner at Hampton
Court. Philip joined in this precaution, for "holding her in his power
he could depart safely and without peril" in the event of the Queen's
death in childbirth; and other plans were perhaps already stirring his
breast. Should Mary die, a fresh match might renew his hold on England;
"he might hope," writes the Venetian ambassador, "with the help of many
of the nobility, won over by his presents and favours, to marry her
(Elizabeth) again, and thus succeed anew to the crown."

[Sidenote: Elizabeth and Philip.]

But whatever may have been Philip's designs, the time had not as yet
come for their realization; the final disappointment of the Queen's
hopes of childbirth set Elizabeth free, and in July she returned to her
house at Ashridge. From this moment her position was utterly changed.
With the disappearance of all chance of offspring from the Queen and the
certainty of Mary's coming death her sister's danger passed away.
Elizabeth alone stood between England and the succession of Mary Stuart;
and, whatever might be the wishes of the Queen, the policy of the House
of Austria forced it to support even the daughter of Anne Boleyn against
a claimant who would bind England to the French monarchy. From this
moment therefore Philip watched jealously over Elizabeth's safety. On
his departure for the Continent he gave written instructions to the
Queen to show favour to her sister, and the