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suspicions, which seemed to be confirmed when he failed to obey a summons to attend the Privy Council.4 On January 18, Renard informed Mary that a French fleet was assembling off the Normandy coast and pressed her to take immediate steps to protect herself.5 Mary ordered that troops be raised and an oath of loyalty be administered to each member of the royal household “in order to ascertain the real feelings of each one.” As the oath requesting “obedience and fidelity to his Highness” was read out, “all raised their hand.” The same was done with the mayor, magistrates, aldermen, and men of law of the city, who “did not openly show any opposition.”6 Circulars were sent out across the country with copies of the treaty’s provisions and orders to proclaim them, “lest rebels be inspired under the pretence of misliking this marriage, to rebel against the Catholic religion and divine service within this our realm, and to take from us that liberty which is not denied to the meanest woman in the choice of husband.”7

On the twenty-first, Courtenay confessed his role in the affair to Gardiner. As Renard reported in a letter to the emperor, Courtenay had been approached by certain individuals who had sought to influence him “where religion and the marriage were concerned.” However, “he had never paid any attention to them.” Three days later, the details were revealed and the plot began to unravel.8 The rebels were forced into action two months earlier than expected. Three of the anticipated risings failed. Carew fled to France, and the duke of Suffolk, who was to have led the rising in Leicestershire just weeks after he was pardoned for his support of Northumberland’s coup, was arrested and taken to the Tower. Sir Thomas Wyatt, meanwhile, succeeded in raising a substantial force in Kent.

ON THURSDAY, JANUARY 25, Wyatt raised his standard at Maidstone with 3,000 men and issued a proclamation declaring the realm to be in imminent danger. He appealed to the townsmen to “join with us,” maintaining that he meant the queen no harm “but better counsel and councillors” to preserve liberty against the Spaniards.9 He declared he had taken up arms solely for the love of his country, fearing that the Spanish match would reduce the realm to slavery, and called upon “every good Englishman” to help him. The Spaniards had “already arrived at Dover,” he said, and were “passing upward in London, in companies of ten, four and six, with harness and arqubusers, and marions, with matchlight.”10 By Thursday the twenty-fifth, Wyatt had taken Rochester for the rebels.

The queen was at Whitehall when she heard of Wyatt’s proclamation, and a band of citizens was quickly drawn together under the command of the eighty-year-old Thomas, duke of Norfolk.11 On Sunday, the twenty-eighth, Norfolk set out for Rochester with a detachment of the Guard and five hundred city whitecoats, accompanied by one of the queen’s heralds.

Upon reaching Wyatt’s forces, the herald pronounced that all rebels who would desist from their purpose would be pardoned. With great shouts the rebels declared “they had done nothing whereof they should need any pardon.” A commander with the city whitecoats, Captain Alexander Brett, addressed his men, telling them, “Masters, we go about to fight against our native countrymen of England and our friends in a quarrel unrightful and partly wicked”; the rebels were assembled to prevent Englishmen from becoming “slaves and villeins,” to protect against Spanish designs “to spoil us of our goods and lands, ravish our wives before our faces, and deflower our daughters in our presence.” Many of the whitecoats deserted, proclaiming “We are all Englishmen!” and expressing fear at the prospect of rule by the Spaniards.12

Norfolk and the remnant of his forces retreated to London. One chronicler wrote, “You should have seen some of the guard come home, their coats torn, all ruined, without arrows or string in their bow, or sword, in very strange ways.”13

The desertion of the city whitecoats threw into question the loyalty of the whole of the capital. Wyatt