n
different parts of the kingdom, the most formidable being that under
Sir Thomas Wyatt, who fixed his headquarters at Rochester. In city and
court alike panic prevailed. The lawyers in Westminster Hall pleaded
in suits of armour hidden under their robes, and Dr. Weston preached
before the Queen in Whitehall Chapel, on Candlemas Day, in armour
under his clerical vestments. Mary alone seemed calm and
self-possessed. She mounted her horse, and, attended by her ladies and
her Council, rode into the City, where, summoning Sir Thomas White,
Lord Mayor, and the Aldermen, who all came clad in armour under their
civic livery, she ascended a chair of State, and with her sceptre in
her hand addressed them, declaring she would never marry except with
the leave of her Parliament. Her courage gained the day. The rebellion
was speedily quelled and the ringleaders put to death; and the
following July the marriage took place. Mary's subsequent reign was a
"reign of terror, a time of fire and blood, such as has no parallel in
the history of England."[49]

CHRISTMAS DIVERSIONS OF QUEEN MARY.

During her "reign of terror" Queen Mary was diverted by Christmas
plays and pageants, and she showed some interest in the amusements of
the people. Strutt's "Sports and Pastimes," in an article on the
"Antiquity of Tumbling," says: "It would seem that these artists were
really famous mirth-makers; for one of them had the address to excite
the merriment of that solemn bigot Queen Mary. 'After her Majesty,'
observes Strype, 'had reviewed the royal pensioners in Greenwich Park,
there came a tumbler, and played many pretty feats, the Queen and
Cardinal Pole looking on; whereat she was observed to laugh
heartily.'" Strutt also mentions that "when Mary visited her sister,
the Princess Elizabeth, during her confinement at Hatfield House, the
next morning, after mass, a grand exhibition of bear-baiting was made
for their amusement, with which, it is said, 'their highnesses were
right well content.'" The idle pageantry of the Boy-bishop, which had
been formally abrogated by proclamation from the King, in the
thirty-third year of Henry VIII., was revived by his daughter Mary.
Strutt says that "in the second year of her reign an edict, dated
November 13, 1554, was issued from the Bishop of London to all the
clergy of his diocese, to have a Boy-bishop in procession. The year
following, 'the child Bishop, of Paules Church, with his company,'
were admitted i