| By Author | [ A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z | Other Symbols ] |
| By Title | [ A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z | Other Symbols ] |
| By Language |
|
Download this book: [ ASCII | HTML | PDF ] Look for this book on Amazon Tweet |
Title: The Nine Days' Queen, Lady Jane Grey, and Her Times
Author: Davey, Richard
Language: English
As this book started as an ASCII text book there are no pictures available.
*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Nine Days' Queen, Lady Jane Grey, and Her Times" ***
produced from images generously made available by The
Internet Archive)
Transcriber’s Note
Superscripts are indicated by “^” as in “w^thout”. Multiple-letter
superscripts are enclosed in braces, as in “maj^{tys}”. Italics text is
indicated by _underscores_, and small-caps text has been converted to
upper-case. Additional notes will be found at the end of this eBook.
ROMANTIC HISTORY
GENERAL EDITOR: MARTIN HUME, M.A.
THE NINE DAYS’ QUEEN
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
THE PAGEANT OF LONDON
THE SULTAN AND HIS SUBJECTS
[Illustration: LADY JANE GREY
FROM THE PAINTING BY LUCAS DE HEERE AT ALTHORP]
THE
NINE DAYS’ QUEEN
LADY JANE GREY
AND HER TIMES
BY
RICHARD DAVEY
EDITED, AND WITH INTRODUCTION, BY
MARTIN HUME, M.A.
WITH TWELVE ILLUSTRATIONS
METHUEN & CO.
36 ESSEX STREET W.C.
LONDON
_First Published in 1909_
TO
MY DEAR WIFE
ELEANORA DAVEY
AUTHOR’S NOTE
My object in writing this book has been to interest the reader in
the tragic story of Lady Jane Grey rather from the personal than the
political point of view. I have therefore employed, more perhaps than
is usual, what the French historians term _le document humain_ in my
account of the extraordinary men and women who surrounded Lady Jane,
and who used her as a tool for their ambitious ends. The reader may
possibly wonder why in several of the earlier chapters Lady Jane Grey
plays so shadowy a part, but I deemed it impossible for any one who
is not very familiar with our History at this period to understand,
without having a complete idea of the chain of conspiracies that
preceded and rendered possible her proclamation, how a young Princess,
not in the immediate succession to the Crown, came to be placed, if
only for nine days, in the towering position of Queen of England. These
conspiracies were four in number. The first was that of the Howards
and the Catholic party against Queen Katherine Parr. The second, the
conspiracy of the Seymours against the Howards, which ended in the
downfall of the great House of Norfolk, whereby Edward Seymour was
enabled to proclaim himself Lord Protector of the Realm. The third
plot was that of Thomas Seymour to cast down his brother Edward from
his high station, and, if possible, to usurp the same for himself--a
strange story of folly and intrigue and overvaulting ambition which
ended in one of the most terrible fratricidal tragedies to be found
in the history of the nations. Fourthly, the removal of the brothers
Seymour from the scene enabled John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland,
to work his own will and to prepare the way, during the last days of
Edward VI, for his daughter-in-law, much against her will, to usurp the
throne.
I have consulted every available document, as well in our national
archives and private libraries as in those of foreign countries,
concerning Lady Jane and her friends and foes, the better to paint as
vivid a picture as possible of the times in which they lived.
I need scarcely add how greatly I appreciate the honour Major Martin
Hume has conferred upon my work by his scholarly Introduction, which
gives so succinct and deeply interesting an account of our foreign
politics at a most momentous period of English history. To him, to Dr.
Gairdner, to Earl Spencer, to Earl Stamford and Warrington, and to many
other gentlemen and friends, including the officials at the State Paper
Office and the British Museum, I beg to tender my sincere thanks for
their courtesy and for the valuable information with which they have
helped me to complete my picture of one of the most interesting periods
in our national history.
I cannot, moreover, allow this opportunity to pass without recording,
with sincere gratitude and affection, the aid which I received, when I
first thought of writing this life of Lady Jane Grey, from the kindness
of my old valued and lamented friend, Dr. Richard Garnett.
RICHARD DAVEY
200 ASHLEY GARDENS, LONDON, S.W.
_5th September 1909_.
CONTENTS
PAGE
INTRODUCTION xiii
CHAP.
I. BRADGATE HALL AND THE GREYS OF GROBY 1
II. BIRTH AND EDUCATION 14
III. THE LADY LATIMER 28
IV. THE KING’S HOUSEHOLD 42
V. MRS. ANNE ASKEW 58
VI. THE HOWARDS AND THE SEYMOURS 73
VII. HENRY VIII 100
VIII. CONCERNING THE LADY JANE AND THE QUEEN-DOWAGER 115
IX. THE QUEEN AND THE LORD HIGH-ADMIRAL 136
X. THE LADY JANE GOES TO SEYMOUR PLACE 147
XI. THE EDUCATION OF LADY JANE 168
XII. JOHN DUDLEY, EARL OF WARWICK 190
XIII. THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF SOMERSET 208
XIV. THE LADY JANE MARRIES THE LORD GUILDFORD 221
XV. ON THE WAY TO THE TOWER 238
XVI. THE LADY JANE IS PROCLAIMED QUEEN 249
XVII. THE NINE DAYS’ REIGN 256
XVIII. THE LAST DAYS OF NORTHUMBERLAND 289
XIX. THE TRIAL OF QUEEN JANE 310
XX. THE SUPREME HOUR! 328
XXI. THE FATE OF THE SURVIVORS 348
APPENDIX 359
INDEX 365
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
LADY JANE GREY _Frontispiece_
From the Painting by LUCAS DE HEERE at Althorp.
(Photograph by HANFSTAENGL)
FACING PAGE
HENRY GREY, DUKE OF SUFFOLK 12
From the Painting by JOANNES CORVUS, in the National
Portrait Gallery
QUEEN KATHERINE PARR 30
After the Painting formerly in the possession of
Horace Walpole
HENRY VIII IN 1547 48
From an old Engraving
ROGER ASCHAM’S VISIT TO LADY JANE GREY AT BRADGATE 172
After the Painting by J. C. HORSLEY, R.A.
JOHN DUDLEY, DUKE OF NORTHUMBERLAND 192
From an Engraving by G. VERTUE
EDWARD SEYMOUR, DUKE OF SOMERSET 208
From an Engraving after the Painting by HOLBEIN
SUPPOSED PORTRAIT OF LADY JANE GREY 224
Formerly in the Collection of Col. Elliott of Nottingham,
and now at Oxford University. From an Engraving after
the Painting by HOLBEIN
EDWARD VI 246
From an Engraving by G. VERTUE
LADY JANE GREY BY WYNGAERDE 270
The earliest engraved Portrait of her, from a Picture
said to be by HOLBEIN, now lost
QUEEN MARY AT THE PERIOD OF HER MARRIAGE 322
From the Painting by ANTONIO MOR, in the Prado Museum.
(Photograph by R. ANDERSON)
PORTRAIT OF THE LADY FRANCES BRANDON, DUCHESS OF SUFFOLK,
AND HER SECOND HUSBAND, ADRIAN STOKES, ESQ. 352
Probably by CORVINUS, property of Col. Wynn Finch
INTRODUCTION
The tragedy of Lady Jane Grey is unquestionably one of the most
poignant episodes in English history, but its very dramatic
completeness and compactness have almost invariably caused its wider
significance to be obscured by the element of personal pathos with
which it abounds. The sympathetic figure of the studious, saintly
maiden, single-hearted in her attachment to the austere creed of
Geneva, stands forth alone in a score of books refulgent against
the gloomy background of the greed and ambition to which she was
sacrificed. The whole drama of her usurpation and its swift catastrophe
is usually treated as an isolated phenomenon, the result of one man’s
unscrupulous self-seeking; and with the fall of the fair head of the
Nine Days’ Queen upon the blood-stained scaffold within the Tower the
curtain is rung down and the incident looked upon as fittingly closed
by the martyrdom of the gentlest champion of the Protestant Reformation
in England.
Such a treatment of the subject, however attractive and humanly
interesting it may be, is nevertheless unscientific as history and
untrue in fact. An adequate appreciation of the tendencies behind
the unsuccessful attempt to deprive Mary of her birthright can only
be gained by a consideration of the circumstances preceding and
surrounding the main incident. The reasons why Northumberland, a weak
man as events proved, was able to ride rough-shod over the nobles
and people of England, the explanation of his sudden and ignominious
collapse and of the apparent levity with which the nation at large
changed its religious beliefs and observance at the bidding of assumed
authority are none of them on the surface of events; and the story
of Jane Grey as it is usually told, whilst abounding in pathetic
interest gives no key to the vast political issues of which the fatal
intrigue of Northumberland was but a by-product. To represent the
tragedy as a purely religious one, as is not infrequently done, is
doubly misleading. That one side happened to be Catholic and the other
Protestant was merely a matter of party politics, and probably not a
single active participator in the events, except Jane herself, and to
some extent Mary, was really moved by religious considerations at all,
loud as the professions of some of the leaders were.
Mr. Davey has given in the vivid pages of this book a striking picture
of the Society in which the drama was represented and of the persons
who surrounded Lady Jane Grey in the critical period of her unhappy
fate; and this of itself enables a wider view than is usual to be taken
of the subject. But, withal, I venture to think that an even more
extended prospect of it may be attained and the whole episode fitted
into its proper place in the history of England, if supplementary
consideration be given to international politics of the time, and
especially to the part which England aspired to take in the tremendous
struggle for supremacy which was then approaching the end of its first
phase on the Continent of Europe; a struggle in which not only the two
most powerful nations in Christendom were engaged and the two greatest
monarchs in the world were the leaders, but one in which the eternally
antagonistic principles of expansion and repression were the issues.
It is too often assumed that the system of political parties in
English Government dates only from the rise of Parliament as the
predominant power in the State in the seventeenth century, since, by
the open opposition and the public discussion of rival policies in
the Legislature, the existence of different groups of statesmen then
became evident to the world. But at least it may be asserted that,
from the time when the two first Tudor kings sought the aggrandisement
of England by placing their power in the balance between the great
Continental rivals, two schools of English politicians surrounded
their sovereign, each intent upon forwarding the alliance which
seemed to them wisest in the interests of the country and their own.
When, however, the political rivalry of France and the Emperor was
accentuated by the introduction of religious schism in the contest, by
the bold defiance of Luther and the spread of the reformed doctrines,
the political parties in the English Court were divided more distinctly
than ever by the new element introduced; and, despotic as the Tudor
sovereigns were, the apparently personal and fickle character of
their policy, which proves so puzzling to students, really arose in
nearly every case from the temporary predominance in their counsels
of one or the other school of thought represented in their Court. It
is only by recognising this fact that the strange and sudden changes
which took place in the reigns of Henry VIII and Edward VI can be made
comprehensible, and by it also the rise and fall of Lady Jane Grey can
be seen in its true light.
During the last twenty years of the reign of Henry VIII his bewildering
mutations of policy and of wives were the result of efforts on the
part of rival sets of politicians to utilise his brutal sensuality
and inflated pride to their respective ends. With him, as with the
most of them, religion was a mere stalking horse for other interests.
The traditional and more Conservative party, which usually leant
towards the imperial alliance, naturally took the Catholic side,
the established nobility such as the Howards backed by the Catholic
bishops being contrasted with the more recently ennobled men, aided
by bureaucrats like Cromwell and by the reforming churchmen. Thus it
came to be understood before the end of Henry’s reign that the men in
the English Court most favourable to emancipation from the Papacy were
generally speaking the advocates of a French alliance, whilst those
who clung to the orthodox view of religion favoured the traditional
adherence to the house of Burgundy. It is true that the men on both
sides were equally eager to participate in the plunder of the Church
and in filching the commons from the people of England; and that both
parties included men who were ready to profess themselves faithful
Catholics or ardent reformers as their interests demanded at the time.
But the political aims of the respective parties were quite distinctly
divided, notwithstanding religious affinities, for the Emperor was
just as desirous of having Protestant friends in England as the King
of France was willing to accept Catholic support there. The object of
the English sovereigns, it must be recollected, was usually somewhat
different from that of their bribed councillors who had their own
interests to serve. The aim of Henry VII and Henry VIII, and especially
of Elizabeth, who alone was successful in attaining it, was so to
distribute the weight of England’s influence as to avert any coalition
of the two great Continental powers against her, rather than to become
the permanent tool of either; the efforts of Charles V, and his French
rival being respectively directed towards preventing England from
throwing in her lot with their enemies.
Until religious bitterness infinitely complicated the question, and
finally led to the long state of war with Spain, the side which
commanded most sympathy amongst the English people at large was
unquestionably that which favoured a cordial understanding with
the sovereign of Flanders and Spain. The country had been in close
antagonism with France on and off for centuries, the proximity of
the coasts and the aspirations of the French to dominate the Channel
represented a constant danger and source of anxiety, and it was
instinctively felt in England that the time-honoured policy which
bound her to the monarch who was able when he pleased to divert the
aggression of the French by threatening any of their land frontiers,
was the safest friend of this country. The English merchants who found
their richest markets in Flanders and Spain, and who were in chronic
irritation at the French piratical attacks upon their commerce, were
equally anxious for a friendship which they looked upon as the best
assurance against a war which they dreaded; so that the chief English
advocates of the French connection were usually those whose adherence
to the reformed religious doctrines overbore their political interests,
and the newer nobility and politicians who found themselves at enmity
on social and other grounds with the traditional conservatives.
It must not be forgotten that both France and the Emperor strove
ceaselessly to gain friends amongst the English councillors. Immense
bribes found their way into the pockets of ministers and secretaries
of State, in many cases regular yearly pensions being settled upon
influential political supporters, and by means of flattery, social
attentions, and promises, the ambassadors in England of the rival
powers became centres of intrigue to influence English policy in
favour of one or the other. The goal to which both the rivals directed
their eyes was one in which, curiously enough, England had no interest
whatever, namely, the hegemony over Italy; but England which by
activity on the northern coasts of France or on the Scottish border
could weaken the French power for harm in other directions, could
enable the Emperor at any time to check his enemy’s Italian ambitions;
whilst with England as her friend France could brave the imperialists,
certain that she would not be taken in the rear, especially when, as
she usually managed to do, she had enlisted on her side the Turks on
the Hungarian frontier and the Lutheran princes and towns of Germany.
The marriage of Henry VIII with Jane Seymour was looked upon by the
Imperialist Conservative party in England as a victory for their cause.
Her brother, Sir Edward Seymour, had been in the Emperor’s service,
and Jane had supplanted the hated Anne Boleyn, whose sympathies were,
of course, entirely French. It is true that later Seymour, a parvenu
noble, be it recollected, was driven into the anti-papal camp mainly by
the antagonism of Norfolk and the older nobles who led the Conservative
party, but, notwithstanding his Protestantism, he never wavered in
his attachment to the imperial alliance and his opposition to French
interests.
When the death of Henry VIII made Seymour, as Duke of Somerset and
Protector, virtually ruler of England with Paget as his principal
minister, both of them were almost servile in their professions of
devotion to the cause of the Emperor; and made no secret of their
distrust of France with which a hollow and temporary peace had only
been recently patched up. Somerset harried the Church and changed
religious forms ruthlessly; his greed was insatiable and the devotional
endowments were looted without compunction, the Catholic bishops were
treated with stern severity, and even the schismatic Catholicism of
Henry VIII was cast aside in favour of an entirely new creed and
ritual. Norfolk was kept in the Tower, Wriothesley was disgraced
and the Catholic Conservative nobles were warned not to stand in
the Protector’s way. But through it all Somerset and Paget were
politically the sworn servants and friends of the Emperor, pledged
to discountenance any attempts of the French to injure him: whilst
Charles V on his side, much as he deprecated the religious changes,
could no more afford to quarrel with Somerset than he could with
Henry VIII, twenty years before when he contumeliously repudiated his
blameless Spanish wife and scornfully threw off the papal supremacy
which was the keystone of the imperial system.
Submissive as were the words of Somerset and Paget to their imperial
master[1] not by words alone but by acts also they sought to serve
him as against France. The strong policy adopted by Somerset towards
Scotland, and his defiant attitude at Boulogne, then temporarily
held by the English against the payment of a great ransom, served
the Emperor’s turn excellently at a period when he was at grips with
his Lutheran subjects, at issue with the Pope and faced by a series
of dangerous French intrigues in Italy. That the French themselves
understood this perfectly well is seen by the desperate efforts they
made to conciliate Somerset and win him to their side. Early in July
1547, only five months after his accession to power, Somerset told
the imperial ambassador in strict confidence, when the latter was
complaining of his religious innovations, that the special French
envoy, Paulin--“immediately after the death of King Henry had striven
to win him, the Protector, to the side of France by means of a large
annual pension, which, as was only right, he had always declined.
Notwithstanding this, however, Paulin, the last time he came hither,
was instructed to offer him the assignment of the pension, which
he had brought with him already signed and sealed. But with all
these offers and grand promises of the French to divert the English
Government from their alliance with your Majesty (the Emperor), he
said he would always remain constant and loyal to you, knowing well
that the strict preservation of the ancient alliance was so important
for both parties.” Even a month previous to this Somerset had informed
the ambassador that the French had greatly scandalised him by offering
him as an inducement to join France, in an offensive and defensive
alliance, the cession of the Emperor’s Flemish province to England when
it had been conquered by the allies, Boulogne at the same time to be
restored to France.
What wonder that the Emperor’s reply to this was to send flattering
autograph letters to Somerset, assuring him of his unalterable regard,
but saying not a word about his Protestant proceedings. “Of course,”
continues the Emperor, writing to his ambassador, “the Protector would
naturally refuse to accept the pension from the French, if only in the
interests of duty and decency. The goodwill he displays towards us
must be encouraged to the utmost by you on all occasions, and you must
lose no opportunity of confirming the Protector in these favourable
sentiments.” Somerset and Paget were therefore from first to last
“Emperor’s men” and opponents of French interests, that is to say
advocates of the same policy as that identified with the older nobles
and Catholics, most of whom were now under a cloud in consequence of
their religion or in consequence of their personal enmity to Somerset
whom they regarded as a greedy, unscrupulous interloper.
From the first days after the death of Henry VIII, it had been
seen by close observers that personal and not political rivalry
alone was likely in the future to bring about a split in Somerset’s
Government. The imperial ambassador, writing less than a fortnight
after Henry’s death, says that whilst Hertford (Somerset) and Warwick
(Northumberland) would apparently be supreme in authority, “it is
likely that some jealousy or rivalry may arise between them because,
although they both belong to the same sect, they are nevertheless
widely different in character: the Lord-Admiral being of high courage
will not willingly submit to his colleague. He is in higher favour with
the people and with the nobles than is the Earl of Hertford, owing to
his liberality and splendour. The Protector, on the other hand, is not
so conspicuous in this respect, and is looked down upon by everybody
as a dry, sour, opinionated man”: the sequel to this being that both
these nobles with Paget and Wriothesley should, in the opinion of the
ambassador, be “entertained” by the Emperor “in the usual way.”
Before many months had passed, as we have seen, it was recognised by
the Imperialist party that Somerset and Paget were their fast friends
and that the rising personal opposition of Dudley had adopted, not
unnaturally, as its policy that of a _rapprochement_ with France. It
would, of course, be untrue to say that Dudley’s attack upon Somerset
had for its sole object the substitution of one international policy
for another. Dudley, like his rival, was in the first place ambitious
and self-seeking; but it was necessary for both of them, in order
to serve their ends, that they should obtain the cooperation and
support of one or other of the two main currents of public opinion,
the adhesion of both rivals to the advanced Protestant practices in
religion being dictated in the first place by their need for the money
and patronage that the religious confiscations provided, and, secondly,
by the great predominance of the reformed doctrines in and about
London. But Somerset having embraced the Conservative or Imperialistic
policy, and infused, under the influence of Catholic Paget, some
consideration for the professors of the old faith into his reforming
zeal, it was incumbent upon Dudley, who wished to overthrow him, to
adopt in both respects an entirely opposite policy.
It is the fate of most Governments to be judged by results, and it was
a comparatively easy matter for Dudley to pick holes in Somerset’s
management of affairs. The debasement of the coinage and the consequent
dislocation of business and the terrible distress it caused, the
enclosures of the commons and the process of turning customary
copyholds into tenancies at will, had reduced the people of England to
a condition of misery such as they had never seen before. The cruel
confiscation of the monastic properties had deprived the sick and
the poor of their principal source of relief, the drastic changes in
religion had produced indignation in the breasts of many citizens,
whilst slackening the hold of authority generally and promoting
lawlessness. When to all this is added the grasping selfishness of
Somerset personally, and above all the success of the French arms
before Boulogne, attributed to the parsimony of the Protector, it
will be seen that Northumberland had a large area of discontent upon
which to work for support against his unpopular rival. But even so, it
is improbable that he would have ventured to take so bold an action
against the Protector as he did, but for the consciousness that he had
behind him the support, moral and financial if not military, of France
and the Lutheran enemies of the Emperor.
When the loss of the English forts protecting Boulogne made
negotiations for peace necessary, a French Embassy was sent to London,
and a keen observer present at the time[2] thus records what was
evidently the public impression of events--“It was suspected that the
principal object of this embassy was to bribe them (_i.e._ the English
Government) to make war on the Emperor. Whilst these ambassadors were
there they were greatly feasted by the Earl of Warwick (Northumberland)
and the Grand Master (Paulet, Marquis of Winchester) much more than any
other of the lords; for it appears that the French ambassadors could
not gain the ear of the others--The King of France found out from his
ambassadors which of the English lords showed more leaning towards
France and against the Emperor. These were the Earl of Warwick and the
Grand Master (of the Household), and it is believed that the King (of
France) wrote to them warning them against the Protector and the Earl
of Arundel who were plotting their destruction.” If this contemporary
belief was well founded, as it probably was, the overthrow of Somerset
is proved to a great extent to have been an international intrigue
promoted and probably well paid for by France.
As the observer already quoted remarks, the sequel of the Embassy
which thus ensured Northumberland’s neutrality in favour of France was
the almost immediate declaration of war by the French King against
the Emperor, and the wholesale plundering of the imperial subjects at
sea. Seen in this light, therefore, Northumberland’s complete change
of England’s policy, his truckling to France, his merciless measures
against Catholics, although, as events proved he was a Catholic at
heart himself, his imprisonment of Paget the Emperor’s humble servant,
and his ostentatious disregard for the imperial friendship, his whole
attitude indeed, assumes a new aspect. His ambition was boundless for
himself and his house; but it must have been evident to him that it
could only be successfully carried into effect if he had behind him a
strong body of public opinion in England itself, and the countenance of
one of the great continental powers. Both these desiderata he had in
the earlier months of his domination; and if Edward VI had died or had
been despatched late in 1551, or in the earlier weeks of 1552, it is
quite possible that Northumberland might have carried through his great
conspiracy successfully.
But the eighteen months that elapsed between the execution of Somerset
and the death of Edward were fully sufficient to prove to the people
of England that they had cast off the yoke of a King Log to assume
that of a King Stork--Northumberland’s overbearing arrogance and
roughness had offended everyone with whom he came into contact: his
colleagues dreaded and hated him, especially after the marriage of his
young son Guildford to a lady of the Royal house in the direct line of
succession had to some extent opened the eyes of men to the magnitude
of his aspirations. The condition of the country, moreover, instead
of improving under his rule was considerably worse even than it had
been under Somerset. The coinage had now reached its lowest point of
debasement, the shilling containing only one quarter of silver to three
quarters of copper, and even was ordered by decree to be only valued
at half its face value. The gold had all left the country and foreign
trade was killed by the lack of a decent currency. Labour, driven from
the land by the wholesale conversion of the estates from tillage to
pasture, crowded the towns clamouring for food, and the disgraceful
treatment of the Princess Mary by the ruling minister had aroused a
strong feeling against his injustice and tyranny.
The Emperor was at war with France and the Lutherans, and was obliged
to speak softly to Northumberland. Again and again he tried to win
him over to his side, and the ruler of England knew full well that,
whatever he might do he was safe from any overt interference from the
imperial power. But for this fact it is certain that Northumberland
would not have attempted the bold stroke of disinheriting Mary and
placing Jane Grey and his own son upon the throne of England. When
Edward VI was known by him to be sick beyond recovery Northumberland,
with an eye to the near future, endeavoured to conciliate the Emperor
somewhat and to bring about peace upon the Continent. His object in
doing so was twofold--first to persuade Charles that he was still a
potential friend; and, secondly, to set his French friends free from
their war with the Emperor, and so enable them at the critical moment
he foresaw to come to his aid in England if necessary. The English
trading classes were by this time in a fever of indignation against
the French for their piratical interference with English shipping, and
Northumberland must have known that with this and the fear aroused by
the French successes in the Emperor’s Flemish dominions--always the
key of English policy--even he could not for very long withstand the
demand of the English people to help the Emperor against his enemies.
It was Northumberland’s misfortune that he was obliged to deliver
his blow against the legitimate English succession in this state of
public affairs. The Emperor and his ministers were keenly alive to
the situation, and although they were of course not yet aware of the
details of Northumberland’s intended _coup d’état_, they feared that
the Princess Mary might by his influence be excluded from the throne.
This of course would have been a serious blow to the imperial cause;
for it would in all probability mean the permanent adhesion of England
to the French alliance. But Charles had swallowed so much humiliation
to keep England friendly in the past that he was not disposed now to be
too squeamish. He did not know how far his enemies the French had gone
in their promises of support to Northumberland when Edward should die,
but if by blandishments and conciliatory acquiescence he could win the
friendship of England he was willing to smile upon any occupant of the
throne or any power behind it who would keep to the old alliance and
turn a cold shoulder to the French.
As soon as it was known in the imperial court that Edward was
approaching his end the Emperor’s ambassadors hurried over to England
with instructions to conciliate Northumberland at all costs, and to
assure him that the Emperor’s affection for England and its young King
was much greater than that of the King of France. “But,” continues the
Emperor’s instructions, “if you arrive too late and the King is dead,
you must take counsel together and act for the best for the safety of
our cousin the Princess Mary, and secure, if possible, her accession
to the Crown, whilst doing what you judge necessary to exclude the
French and their intrigues. You must endeavour also to maintain the
confidence and good neighbourship which it is so important that our
States should enjoy with England ... and especially to prevent the
French from getting a footing in the country, or of gaining the ear
of the men who rule England, the more so if it be for the purpose of
embarrassing us.”
News had already reached Flanders of Northumberland’s intention to
exclude Mary from the throne on her brother’s death, and although
the Emperor saw that in such case the life of his cousin would be in
grave peril, especially if French aid, as was feared, were given to
Northumberland, the principal efforts of the imperial envoys were
to be directed to assuring the English government in any case that
the Emperor was their friend and not France; Northumberland was to
be persuaded that the Emperor had no thought of proposing a foreign
husband for Mary; and that any match chosen for her by the ruling
powers in England would be willingly accepted by her imperial kinsman.
In short, the envoys were to promise anything and everything to secure
the throne for Mary, even to endorsing the religious changes effected
under Edward. But failing success in this it is made quite clear that
the Emperor was willing to accept Jane Grey or any other sovereign who
would consent to regard him as a friend and exclude French influence
from the country.
The French were just as much on the alert to serve their own interests,
and Northumberland, knowing how unpopular the French were at this
juncture, and how much his supposed dependence upon them was resented,
was extremely careful not to show ostensibly any leaning towards
them. But as soon as he heard, late in June, that the imperial envoys
were coming to London he came specially from Greenwich to the French
ambassador’s lodging at the Charterhouse to inform him that the Emperor
was sending an embassy. “I doubt not,” writes the French agent to his
King, “that they will do their best to interrupt the friendship that
exists between your Majesty and the King of England. I will keep my eye
upon them and will leave no effort untried to subvert them.”
Edward died on the very day that the imperial ambassadors arrived in
London, though the death was kept secret for some days afterwards, and
it soon became evident, both to the French and the Imperialists, that
Northumberland had prepared everything for the elevation of Jane Grey
to the throne. At this juncture, which called, if ever one did, for
prompt and bold action, only one of the several interests took a strong
course, the Princess Mary herself. It is quite evident that everyone
else had deceived himself and was paralysed in fear of action by
another. Again and again the French ambassador expressed a belief that
the coming of the imperial envoys portended an active interference on
the part of the Emperor in favour of Princess Mary; and Northumberland
and his council, notwithstanding all the protestations of the imperial
envoys, were of the same opinion; whereas we now see that the Emperor
was quite willing to throw over Mary, and even the Catholics, if only
he could persuade Jane Grey and her government to join him against
France.
When Mary’s bold defiance of the usurper was announced, the Emperor’s
envoys, whom many believed to be forerunners of a strong foreign armed
force to aid her, had nothing but shocked condemnation for her action.
They considered her attitude “strange, difficult and dangerous”;
and predicted her prompt suppression and punishment. In reference
to the suggestion of her Catholic friends, that imperial aid should
be sent to her, the envoys, who were supposed to be in England for
the purpose of forcing her upon the throne, could only say to their
master, “Considering your war with the French, it seems unadvisable
for your Majesty to arouse English feeling against you, and the idea
that the Lady will gain Englishmen on the ground of religion is vain.”
Serious remonstrances were sent to Mary herself by the imperial envoys,
pointing out the danger and the hopelessness of her position in the
face of Northumberland’s supposed strength, and they laboured hard to
dissuade the Duke from his idea that they had been sent to England to
sustain Mary’s cause.
Nor was the Emperor himself bolder than his envoys. He instructed the
latter to recommend Mary, “with all softness and kindness,” to the
mercy of Jane’s government, but they were to make it quite clear that
he would strike no blow in her favour, and would receive with open
arms any sovereign of England who would not serve French interests.
Mr. Davey has indicated in the present book the eagerness with which
the great imperial minister, Don Diego Hurtado de Mendoza, greeted
Guildford Dudley as King of England. That Mendoza, one of the most
trusted and ablest of the Emperor’s councillors, could take such a step
without knowing that it would not, at least, be against his master’s
policy is inconceivable: and all through it is clear that, if Mary had
waited for effective help from her imperial cousin, Jane Grey might
have reigned for a long lifetime.
Just as the Emperor was paralysed in his action by the fear that he
might alienate England from his side, so France allowed discretion
to wait upon valour for fear of driving the English government
irretrievably into the arms of the Emperor. When the news of Mary’s
rising came to London the French ambassador bitterly deplored
Northumberland’s want of foresight in not having seized the person of
the Princess in time to prevent it. He confessed that Northumberland
was excessively unpopular, but believed that his possession of the
national forces would enable him to crush Mary and her malcontents. But
he took care not to pledge himself too deeply to Jane, and whilst full
of sympathy and good wishes for Northumberland’s success always kept in
touch with some of Mary’s friends. Neither the French ambassador nor
the English council really understood the Emperor’s attitude. When the
council communicated to the imperial ambassadors Jane’s succession,
they haughtily told them that it was known they were here to force Mary
upon the throne, and that a new sovereign now having been successfully
proclaimed, the sooner they left England the better. The French
ambassador, writing to his king at the same time, remarked that the
imperial ambassadors had informed the English council, that rather than
submit to Jane’s wearing the crown to Mary’s deprivation his master
would make friends with the French on any terms and would deal with
Jane in a way which she would not like.
It is almost amusing, now that we have the correspondence of all
parties before us, to see how they all deceived themselves. The
Emperor, as has been said, would not lift a finger to help Mary, even
when she was in the field with a strong armed force, for fear of
alienating hopelessly the sovereign of England whoever he might be;
the King of France, whilst giving the same sort of hesitating implied
support to Northumberland and Jane as Charles held out to the Princess
Mary, would give no effective help for the same reason that tied the
Emperor’s hands. Both sides, indeed, were waiting to greet success
without pledging themselves to a cause which might fail.
But the person who miscalculated most fatally of all was Northumberland
himself. He had been during the whole time of his rule the humble
servant of France. He had violated the treaty of 1543, by which England
was bound to side with the Emperor in case his territory was invaded by
France, and he stood between the throne and Princess Mary who it was
known would serve the cause of the Emperor and her mother’s country to
the utmost. He was obliged, as has been shown, to cast his hazard when
the public opinion was strongly against him, the commercial classes
of England well nigh ruined, the labourers in a worse condition than
had ever been known before, and the nobility jealous and apprehensive.
Knowing this, as he did, it is difficult to believe that he would
have dared to take up the position he assumed unless he had persuaded
himself that, as a last resource, French armed aid would support him.
That such a thing was not remotely probable is now evident from the
correspondence of the French ambassadors. They were only full of sorrow
for “this poor Queen Jane” and feared for the fate of their unfortunate
friend the Duke of Northumberland. And yet London itself was in a
panic, born of the conviction that 6000 French troops were on their
way to keep Jane upon the throne; Northumberland, in fact, presumably
believing that his past services to France had deserved such aid, had
actually sent and demanded it of the King. If it had been afforded in
effective time the whole history of England might have been changed.
We know now, although none knew it then, that the Emperor would have
greeted with smooth assurances the victorious Jane and Northumberland,
and would have deserted his cousin Mary until a turn of the wheel gave
her hopes of success again. There was, indeed, nothing to prevent
Henry of France, but groundless fear of his rival, from sending to
England the small force necessary to keep Jane upon the throne and
defeat Mary. But time-serving cowardice ruled over all. The edifice
of Northumberland’s ambition crumbled like a house of cards under
the weight of his unpopularity alone, and when Mary the victorious
entered into the enjoyment of her birthright, the Frenchman who had
plotted and intrigued against her in secret, vied with the imperial
ambassadors who had stood by, unsympathetic in the hour of her trial,
in their professions of devotion to her and her cause. The people of
London, overwhelmingly Protestant as they were, greeted the Queen with
effusion and had few words of pity for poor Jane, not because they
loved the old observance but because they dreaded the French, and hated
Northumberland the tyrannous and unjust servant of France. In the
country districts, too, where Catholicism was strong, the enthusiasm
for Mary was not so much religious, for all the people wanted was quiet
and some measure of prosperity, as expressive of joy at the hope of a
return to the national policy of cordial relations with the sovereign
of Flanders, which in past times had ensured English commerce from
French depredations and the English coast from French menaces, with
freedom from the arrogant minister who had harassed every English
interest and had reduced to ruin all classes in the country.
The unhappy Jane, a straw upon the rushing torrent, was not raised
to her sad eminence that the Protestant faith might prevail, though
that might have been one of the results of her rule, nor was she
cast down because Catholicism was triumphant, but because the policy
which her dictator, Northumberland, represented was unpopular at the
time of Edward’s death, and the English sense of justice rebelled at
the usurpation and its contriver. Mary, in addition to her inherent
right to the succession, which was her strong point, had only her own
boldness and tenacity to thank for the success which she achieved. The
Emperor, notwithstanding all his sympathy and the enormous importance
to him of her success, did nothing for her until she was independent
of him, and only promised her armed aid then in case the French should
attempt to overthrow her by force.
Northumberland fell, not because the country at large and London above
all, was yearning for the re-submission of England to the Pope, but
because the eighteen months of his unchecked dictatorship had made him
detested, and because he overrated the boldness and magnanimity of the
King of France. The English public, by instinct perhaps more than by
reason, believed in the ideal policy of Henry VII: that of dexterously
balancing English friendship between the rival continental powers,
making the best market possible for her moral support, keeping at
peace herself and adhering mostly to the more prosperous side without
fighting for either. Such a policy required statesmanship of the
highest order, and Elizabeth alone was entirely successful in carrying
it out. Somerset and Northumberland both failed because they were
unequal to it. Each of them took the minister’s view rather than that
of a monarch. They were party leaders, both of them, and incapable of
adopting the view above party considerations which marks the successful
sovereign. They pledged themselves too deeply to the respective foreign
alliances traditional with their parties; and in both cases, as a
penetrating statesman would have foreseen, their allies failed them at
the critical moment.
Mary’s tragical fate was the result of a similar short-sighted policy.
When she determined against the wishes of her people and the advice
of her wisest councillors, Catholics to a man, to hand herself and
her country, body and soul, over to Spanish interests, she ceased to
be a true national sovereign; the nice balance upon which England’s
prosperity depended was lost, the love and devotion of the people
turned to cold distrust, and failure and a broken heart were the
result. Not until Elizabeth came with her keen wit and her consummate
mastery of the resources of chicanery was England placed and kept
firmly again upon the road to greatness which had been traced for her
by the first Tudor sovereign.
MARTIN HUME
THE NINE DAYS’ QUEEN
CHAPTER I
BRADGATE HALL AND THE GREYS OF GROBY
There is no more picturesque spot in England than Bradgate Old Manor,
the birthplace of Lady Jane Grey. It stands in a sequestered corner,
about three miles from the town of Leicester, amid arid slate hillocks,
which slope down to the fertile valleys at their feet. In Leland’s
_Perambulations through England_, a survey of the kingdom undertaken
by command of Henry VIII, Bradgate is described as possessing “a fair
parke and a lodge lately built there by the Lorde Thomas Grey, Marquise
of Dorsete, father of Henry, that is now Marquise. There is a faire and
plentiful spring of water brought by Master Brok as a man would judge
agyne the hills through the lodge and thereby it driveth a mylle.” He
also informs us that “there remain few tokens of the old castelle,”
which leads us to believe that at the time of Lady Jane Grey’s birth
Bradgate was a comparatively new house. The ruins show that the
mansion was built of red brick and in that severe but elegant form of
architecture known as the “Tudor style.” Worthy old Leland goes on to
say that Jane’s paternal grandfather added “two lofty towers at the
front of the house, one on either side of the principal doorway.” These
are still remaining.
In Tudor times the park was very extensive and “marched with the forest
of Chartley, which was full twenty-five miles in circumference, watered
by the river Sore and teeming with game.” Another ancient writer
tells us, in the quaint language of his day, that “here a wren and
squirrel might hop from tree to tree for six miles, and in summer time
a traveller could journey from Beaumanoir to Burden, a good twelve
miles, without seeing the sun.” The wealth of luxuriant vegetation in
the old park, the clear and running brooks, that babble through the
sequestered woods, and the beautifully sloping open spaces, dotted
with venerable and curiously pollarded oaks, make up a scene of sylvan
charm peculiarly English. Here cultivation has not, as so often on the
Continent, disfigured Nature, but the park retains the wild beauty
of its luxuriant elms and beeches that rise in native grandeur from
amidst a wilderness of bracken, fern, and flags, to cast their shadows
over heather-grown hillocks. On the summit of one of the loftiest
of these still stands the ruined palace that was the birthplace of
Lady Jane Grey. The approaches to Bradgate are beautiful indeed,
especially the pathway winding round by the old church along the banks
of a trout-stream, which rises in the neighbourhood of the Priory of
Ulverscroft, famous for the beauty of its lofty tower. When Jane Grey
was born, this Priory had been very recently suppressed, and the people
were lamenting the departure of the monks, who, during the hard winter
of 1528, had fed six hundred starving peasants.
Bradgate Manor House was standing as late as 1608, but after that
date it fell into gradual decay. Not much is now left of the original
structure, but its outlines can still be traced; and the walls of the
great hall and the chapel are nearly intact. A late Lord Stamford and
Warrington roofed and restored the old chapel, which contains a fine
monument to that Henry Grey whose signature may be seen on the warrant
for the execution of Charles I.
A careful observation of the irregularities of the soil reveals traces
of a tilt-yard and of garden terraces; but all is now overgrown by
Spanish chestnut trees, wild flowers, nettles, and brambles. The
gardens were once considered amongst the finest in England, Lord Dorset
taking great pride in the cultivation of all the fruits, herbs, and
flowers then grown in Northern Europe. The parterres and terraces were
formal, and there was a large fish-pond full of golden carp and water
lilies. Lady Jane Grey must often have played in these stately avenues,
and there is a legend that once, as a little girl, she toppled into the
tank and was nearly drowned--a less hideous fate than that which was to
befall her in her seventeenth year.
“This was thy home, then, gentle Jane!
This thy green solitude; and here
At evening, from thy gleaming pane,
Thine eyes oft watched the dappled deer
(Whilst the soft sun was in its wane)
Browsing beside the brooklet clear.
The brook yet runs, the sun sets now,
The deer still browseth--where art thou?”
These sentimental lines were written in the eighteenth century, when
deer still browsed in Bradgate Park, whence they have long since
departed. Many curious traditions concerning Lady Jane are even now
current among the local peasantry. Some believe that on St. Sylvester’s
night (31st December) a coach drawn by four black horses halts at the
door of the old mansion. It contains the headless form of the murdered
Lady Jane. After a brief halt it drives away again into the mist. Then
again, certain strange[3] stunted oaks are shown, trees which the
woodmen pollarded when they heard that the fair girl had been beheaded.
The pathetic memories of the great tragedy, reaching down four slow
centuries, prove how keenly its awful reality was felt by the poorer
folk at Bradgate, who, no doubt, had good cause to love the “gentle
Jane.”
The Manor of Bradgate was settled upon the Lady Frances Brandon, Henry
VIII’s niece, when she espoused Henry Grey. It had been inherited by
the Greys of Groby, Lady Jane’s paternal ancestors, from Rollo, or
Fulbert, said to have been chamberlain to Robert, Duke of Normandy, who
gave him the Castle of Croy in Picardy, the ruins of which are still
to be seen not far from Montreuil-sur-Mer. It was hence he derived
the surname of de Croy, afterwards anglicised to de Grey. This Rollo
accompanied William the Conqueror into England, and was settled, soon
after the Conquest, at Rotherfield, in Oxfordshire. The first of the
family to be noticed by Dugdale is Henry de Grey, to whom Richard
I granted the Manor of Grey’s Thurrock, in Essex, which grant was
confirmed by King John in the first year of his reign. The descendant
of this nobleman, Edward de Grey, was summoned to Parliament in 1488
in right of his wife’s barony of Ferrers of Groby, and his son John,
afterwards Earl Rivers, who was slain in the battle of St. Albans,
married the beautiful daughter of Sir John Woodville, subsequently the
Queen of Edward IV. Bradgate is thus associated with two of the most
unfortunate of England’s Queens: Elizabeth Woodville, who passed much
of her life in its leafy glades; and Lady Jane Grey, who first saw the
light in the stately red brick Manor House of which the crumbling ruins
are now so beautiful in their decay.
Jane Grey’s grandfather, Thomas, the eldest son of Elizabeth Woodville,
was summoned to Parliament on the 17th October 1509 as Lord Ferrers
of Groby, his mother’s barony, and to the second Parliament in 1511
as Marquess of Dorset. He was a man of great note. In the third year
of Henry VIII’s reign he had charge of the army of 10,000 men sent
into Spain to assist the forces invading Guyenne under the Emperor
Ferdinand. This force returned to England without doing service. We
next hear of the Marquess figuring at the jousts with Charles Brandon,
Duke of Suffolk, Lady Jane’s maternal grandfather, on the occasion
of the latter’s adventurous journey to France to bring back Mary
Tudor, widow of Louis XII of France, whom he subsequently married.
The Marquess was also sent to Calais to attend Charles V to England;
indeed, he was very conspicuous throughout the early years of Henry’s
reign. King Hal paid him the compliment of calling him “that honest
and good man”--a title which he thought he richly deserved, since he
signed the celebrated letter to Pope Clement VII touching the King’s
divorce. He died in 1530, and was succeeded by his eldest son, Henry,
Lady Jane’s father. The inheritance of this nobleman included the
Marquisate of Dorset and the baronies of Ferrers,[4] Grey, Astley,
Boneville, and Harrington, besides vast estates in Leicestershire and
other parts of England. Henry Grey, though his portraits show him to
have been a very good-looking man, did not enjoy a good contemporary
reputation for ability or strength of character. During the brief
reign of Edward VI he became the patron of the Swiss Reformers and was
adulated by Bullinger and Hill. His name will be found attached to many
of Henry VIII’s anti-papal decrees, and so long as that monarch lived,
he was a staunch “Henryite” or schismatic, professing belief in all
the doctrines of Rome save and except papal supremacy. In 1531, when
the clergy were threatened with _præmunire_ and mulcted in a fine, as
a punishment for their too close attention to pontifical interests,
young Henry of Dorset, who had just come to his own, displayed great
energy in carrying out the King’s wishes and supporting his attempt to
get himself acknowledged supreme head of the English Church. He also
evinced considerable courage in connection with Henry VIII’s resistance
to the excommunication of the Pope, launched against him after his
marriage with Anne Boleyn. Such zeal in his sovereign’s service
undoubtedly led to his advancement and paved the way to his marriage
with the King’s niece, the Lady Frances Brandon. He may have owed much
to the counsels and influence of Cromwell, to whom he carried a letter
of introduction from his mother,[5] when he first went to London as a
lad of seventeen, immediately after his father’s decease. The Dowager
recommended her son very earnestly to “Master Cromwell,” pleaded his
youth, and besought that worthy, then all-powerful, not to take heed
of certain ill-natured reports concerning alleged wilful damage to the
priory buildings of Tylsey, where she was then residing.[5]
The good lady couches her letter in very humble terms, but does not
enlighten us fully about the nature of the “damage” to which she
refers, or by whom it was done. She seems, at any rate, to be in
a terrible fright lest the tale should injure her son’s prospects
with the all-powerful Chancellor. Some little time afterwards the
Marchioness wrote another letter to Cromwell complaining of her son’s
undutiful behaviour to her. It is dated from the “House of Our Lady’s
Passyon”[6] (the Priory of Tylsey), and begins:--
“MY LORDE,--I beseeche you to be my good lorde, consyderyng me a
poor wydo, so unkyndly and extreymly escheated by my son.”
This curious epistle, now in the British Museum, is much defaced and
in parts illegible. The name of the person to whom it is addressed
is undecipherable, but, taken in conjunction with two other letters
previously addressed to Cromwell by the same correspondent, there can
be little doubt as to its destination. Her son had evidently withheld
some property intended for her under her husband’s will. Whether he
mended his manners and paid her the money, we know not; but as the
Dowager is occasionally mentioned as attending Court functions in
company with her daughter-in-law, it seems probable that the ultimate
issue of the difficulty, whatever it was, was satisfactory to her.
Margaret, Dowager Lady Dorset, became one of the greatest ladies of
the Court in the latter years of the reign of Henry VII and during a
part of that of Henry VIII. She was in much request, it seems, at royal
christenings, for not only was she specially invited to that of Mary
Tudor, afterwards Queen Mary I, but she enjoyed the signal honour of
carrying the infant Elizabeth to the font. She was invited to perform a
like office at the baptism of Edward VI, but this time she was unable
to be present, and wrote to make her loyal excuses, pleading that
some of her household at Croydon had been attacked by the “sweating
sickness.” It is probable that she had no desire to attend, for she had
been the intimate friend of Anne Boleyn, and could hardly have felt
kindly towards Jane Seymour.[7] Her place was filled by the Marchioness
of Exeter, who eventually, after the execution of her luckless husband,
was sent to the Tower on a flimsy charge of treason, and kept there
until Mary I’s time.[8]
A singular point in the history of Jane Grey’s forbears is that her
father, in his hot haste to marry into the royal family, set aside,
without the slightest scruple, his legitimate wife, Lady Katherine
Fitzalan, daughter of the Earl of Arundel. Some writers say he was
simply “contracted,” not married, to this lady, who never demanded
her marriage rights, but retired into a dignified obscurity. None the
less her family resented the affront offered their kinswoman, and it
was Thomas, Earl of Arundel, this discarded lady’s brother, who acted
as Dorset’s Nemesis, and at last betrayed him into the hands of his
enemies.
Lady Jane Grey’s maternal grandfather was, as he wrote himself in the
famous quatrain referring to his marriage with the King’s sister,
descended from “cloth of frieze.” He was the grandson of a London
mercer who had married a lady allied to the great houses of Nevill,
Fitzalan and Howard, and his father had fought and fallen at Bosworth
Field in the cause of Henry VII. In recognition of his services, Henry
attached young Charles Brandon to the person of his younger son, Prince
Henry, who was of similar age to himself. Thus began a friendship which
was only severed by death. In appearance the Prince and his comrade
were singularly alike: both were tall and stalwart, both with red hair
and fair complexions, and they were equally skilful and agile in sport
and manly pastimes. Charles was more intellectually gifted than Henry,
but there was little to choose between them as regards their execrable
views of moral responsibilities and their laxity in respect of their
marriage vows.
As this last characteristic of Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk,
touches somewhat upon the legitimacy of Lady Jane Grey’s descent, a
short summary of his matrimonial vagaries may be pardoned here. He was
contracted in marriage early in life to Anne Browne, a daughter of
Sir Anthony Browne, Governor of Calais, by his wife Lady Lucy Nevill,
daughter of George Nevill, Duke of Bedford, brother of Richard, Earl
of Warwick, “the King maker.” In 1513 he was bold enough to flirt most
outrageously with, and seek in marriage, one of the greatest ladies
in Europe, Margaret of Austria, the widowed Duchess of Savoy, aunt
of the Emperor Charles V. But though Margaret fell in love with him,
such a match was soon seen to be impossible, even by the lady herself,
and Brandon came out of the affair most ungallantly. For this or some
other reason never clearly explained, Brandon set aside his contract
with Anne Browne, notwithstanding that by the laws of the period it
was considered as binding as the completed marriage ceremony. We
next learn that a probable reason for his unchivalrous conduct was
a chance that suddenly offered itself to him of marrying the Lady
Margaret, the rich widow of Sir John Mortimer of Essex. Charles and
his mature consort--there was a difference of nearly thirty years
between them--did not abide long together, for he presently endeavoured
to annul this marriage on a plea of consanguinity, the Lady Margaret
being sister to the mother of his neglected bride, Anne Browne, and
consequently her aunt, a complication which surely ought to have been
discovered at an earlier stage of the proceedings. Having settled this
matter for the time being to his own, but certainly not to the lady’s,
satisfaction, he remarried his discarded wife, Anne Browne, in the
presence of a great concourse of relations and friends. By this lady
he had two daughters: Mary, who became the wife of Lord Mounteagle;
and Anne, who married a connection of the Greys, Viscount Powis. Their
mother died in 1515, and Brandon soon afterwards contracted himself
in matrimony with the Lady Elizabeth Grey, daughter and heiress of
Viscount de Lisle. Whether through the interference of Lady Mortimer
or not it is impossible to say, but it is certain that Lady de Lisle
refused to carry out her side of the contract, and the match was broken
off. Brandon, with the consent of Henry VIII, filched from the poor
lady her title of Lisle, which he forthwith assumed. In due time the
lady gave her hand to Edmund Dudley, father of the fateful Duke of
Northumberland. It was probably when in France, and in attendance upon
King Henry, at the time of the negotiations for the marriage of the
King’s youngest and most beautiful sister, Mary, to the prematurely
aged Louis XII, King of France, a hideous victim to elephantiasis,
that Charles made so strong an impression upon that ardent Tudor
princess that she swore by all the saints that she would not wed the
French King unless it was thoroughly understood she was to marry whom
she chose after his death, which took place within eighteen months
of the marriage. The romantic story of how Brandon, now created Duke
of Suffolk, wooed and married the royal widow within a fortnight of
the King’s death, and whilst she still wore the white widow’s weeds
of a French King’s Consort, is too well known to need recapitulation
here, nor need we enter into the details of the gorgeous ceremonies
of remarriage that took place at Greenwich, in the presence of King
Henry, Queen Katherine of Aragon, and their Court, soon after Mary
and Suffolk had landed in England. The Duke of Suffolk took his bride
to spend their honeymoon in his magnificent mansion in Southwark,
known as Suffolk Place, which he had recently inherited by the death
of his uncle, Sir Thomas Brandon. It must have been about this time
that the friends of the Lady Mortimer, and probably that lady herself,
began to spread rumours abroad that made both Charles and his consort
anxious as to the validity of their marriage and the legitimacy of
their offspring. Indeed, even at the time of his clandestine wedding
in the Chapel of the Hôtel de Cluny (now incorporated in the Museum of
that name), he had felt very uneasy about the matter, and, foreseeing
his peril, wrote to Wolsey, beseeching his assistance and advice on
a matter of such vital importance, which, however, was not decided
so easily as Charles expected. It was not until 1528 that Wolsey
dispatched a somewhat garbled account of the matter to Pope Clement
VII, then in exile at Orvieto, where he received Cardinal Campeggio
and the English envoys who came to him with the first negotiations for
the divorce of Henry VIII from Katherine of Aragon. Trusting in the
evidence which Wolsey sent him, the Pope, by a special Bull (dated 12th
May 1528), annulled the marriage of Brandon with the Lady Mortimer,
on the plea of consanguinity, and at the same time declared valid
that of her niece, Anne Browne, and legitimized her two children. The
Bull further stated that Lady Mortimer and her friends were “liable
to ecclesiastical censure if they made any attempt to invalidate
the decree” making valid Brandon’s marriage to Anne Browne and Mary
Tudor. The importance of this decree, which was first read out to the
people in Norwich Cathedral in 1529 by Bishop Nyx, can readily be
imagined when we remember that it was not delivered until after the
Queen-Duchess had given birth to two children. Her only son, the Earl
of Lincoln, died in infancy, and the Lady Frances became in due time
the Marchioness of Dorset and mother of Lady Jane Grey. On the other
hand, the legitimacy of the Lady Eleanor Brandon, the younger daughter,
who was born after the publication of the papal decree, was never
disputed, and moreover, before she entered upon her sorrowful career,
the Lady Mortimer was dead. That considerable doubt was entertained as
to the validity of Brandon’s marriage with the Queen-Dowager is proved
by a variety of facts too numerous to be detailed, but one of which is
very significant. Late in the first half of Queen Elizabeth’s reign,
the validity of the claims of the Lady Mounteagle and her sister, the
children of Brandon and Anne Browne, to be considered legitimate,
was ventilated in the Court of Arches, and after much deliberation
confirmed. Although the legitimacy of these ladies, both of whom were
long since deceased at the time of this trial, had nothing to do with
the legal position of Mary Tudor as the wife of the Duke of Suffolk, it
was none the less an indirect test of the right to the throne of her
granddaughters, the Ladies Katherine and Mary Grey.
From these briefly resumed facts it is not difficult to understand that
although King Henry VIII highly approved of his bosom friend’s conduct,
his subjects held Charles to be an arrant rascal. His treatment of
his beautiful royal wife was on a par with his low conception of his
moral obligations. He neglected her, spent her money, and lived openly
with a notorious woman known as Mrs. Eleanor Brandon, by whom he had
an illegitimate son, Charles, who is said to have been the well-known
jeweller to Queen Elizabeth, and whose son, or grandson, Gregory
Brandon, was, according to tradition, the headsman who executed Charles
I.
Lady Jane’s grandmother, Mary Tudor, was a most amiable and
long-suffering princess, who after a somewhat secluded life in
Southwark withdrew to Westhorpe Hall. Here she died on 24th June
1533. Her two daughters--the Lady Frances, who had recently married
the Marquess of Dorset; and the Lady Eleanor, soon to be the bride of
Henry, Lord Clifford, eldest son of the Earl of Cumberland--were with
her at the time of her death, but the Duke was absent in London, and
so too was the Marquess of Dorset, her son-in-law, attending at the
coronation of Anne Boleyn. The Queen-Duchess was interred in Bury St.
Edmunds, Henry VIII and Suffolk paying the expenses of a gorgeous
alabaster monument to her memory, “full of little saints and angels,”
which was destroyed soon after, during the wreck of the glorious Abbey
Church at the time of the suppression of the monasteries. The remains
of the Queen were then removed to the parish church, where they still
rest, a marble tablet put up in the early nineteenth century being the
only memorial of Mary Tudor, Dowager Queen of France and Duchess of
Suffolk.
Within three months of the Queen’s death (September 1533) Suffolk
married a fifth wife, the Lady Katherine Willoughby d’Eresby, who,
it seems, was his ward and only fifteen years old. She was a great
heiress, and what made her marriage all the more singular was the fact
that she was a daughter of that Doña Maria de Sarmiento who, as Lady
Willoughby, was the friend and attendant of Queen Katherine of Aragon.
It must also be remembered that Queen Katherine had no more bitter
enemy than Suffolk. This Duchess developed into a very pretty woman, of
great wit and character, and a staunch supporter of the doctrines of
the Reformation.
The Lady Frances Brandon was born at Hatfield, then a palace of the
Bishop of Salisbury, who had afforded her mother hospitality; for it
seems that the Queen-Duchess was obliged to halt here, for reasons
easily understood, on her way to Walsingham Priory, whither she was
bound on a pilgrimage. There is still extant a very curious account
of the baptism of the Lady Frances in the parish church of Hatfield,
which was hung with garlands for the occasion. The Lady Anne[9] Boleyn,
aunt of the ill-fated Queen Anne of that ilk, stood proxy for Queen
Katherine of Aragon as sponsor.
In 1533-4 the Lady Frances was married, notwithstanding his
afore-mentioned “contract” to the Lady Fitzalan, to Henry Grey,
Marquess of Dorset. The wedding took place at Suffolk Place, Southwark,
and the religious ceremony in the Church of St. Saviour, now the
cathedral of the new diocese. No very great pains seem to have been
taken with the lady’s education, except in the matter of what we
should call “sports,” in which, it seems, she was very proficient.
The Lady Frances was a handsome woman, however, but somewhat spiteful
and wholly unscrupulous. In a well-known portrait, dated after
her second marriage, she is represented as a buxom, fair-haired,
well-featured matron, with a very sinister expression in her light
grey eyes. Her eldest child was a son who died of the plague when a
baby, and the three children who survived were all girls--the Ladies
Jane, Katherine, and Mary Grey. Lady Jane Grey, as we shall see, had
little cause to feel deep affection for either of her parents, but
least of all for her mother. The Lady Frances seems to have been
cast, so far as her heart went, in a mould of iron. Even the bloody
deaths of her husband and her eldest daughter, and the wretchedly
precarious existence of her two remaining children, did not affect
her buoyant spirits, since she enjoyed her life to the end. It would
be difficult to define her religious opinions. She was a schismatic
under Henry VIII, and under Edward VI she appeared a zealous Protestant
and so intimate with the famous Reformer Bucer that when he died she
petitioned Cranmer to obtain a pension for his widow. She became a
pious Papist in Queen Mary’s time, and died a prominent member of the
Church of England as by law established, under Elizabeth.
The Lady Eleanor Brandon, Henry VIII’s niece and Lady Jane Grey’s only
maternal aunt, married, as we have said, Henry, Lord Clifford, to whom
she was united in 1537 at the Duke of Suffolk’s palace in Southwark.
The Lady Eleanor gave birth to two sons and a daughter. At the time
of the Pilgrimage of Grace (in 1536) she was staying at Bolton Abbey,
which Henry VIII, after confiscating it from the Church, had presented
to Lord Clifford; and had it not been for the chivalry and bravery of
Christopher Aske, the rebel leader’s brother, she would have suffered
at the hands of the infuriated “pilgrims.” By dint of a bold night
ride, Aske aided Lady Eleanor to fly from Bolton Abbey and reach a
place of safety. In 1542 her husband succeeded to the Earldom of
Cumberland on the death of his father, and five years later (November
1547) Lady Eleanor passed away at Brougham Castle and was laid to rest
in Skipton Church.
[Illustration: HENRY GREY, DUKE OF SUFFOLK
FROM THE PAINTING BY JOANNES CORVUS IN THE NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY]
It will be seen by this rapid sketch of her forbears on both sides
that Lady Jane Grey might, without exciting surprise, have developed a
character strongly sensual and unscrupulous. That she did not do so,
apart from the fact that her early death perhaps prevented the full
development of her character at all, was probably owing to the rigid
and severe nature of the education to which she was subjected. The
influence of Erasmus and the fashion of the newly revived classical
learning had in the childhood of Jane Grey firmly seized upon the
higher classes of England; and the ladies of royal and noble birth,
schooled in the stern pietism of _The Instruction of a Christian Woman_
of Luis Vives, which they all studied in Latin or in English, and,
steeped in the classic moralities, they became prim and self-suppressed
in expression and behaviour. It is likely enough, indeed, that in
most cases this prudishness of attitude was but skin deep; but in the
case of the hapless Jane, who was little more than a child when she
was sacrificed, no other impression of her personality than this was
left upon the world. We may picture the tiny demure maiden pacing the
green alleys and smooth sward of Bradgate, with her Latin books and her
exalted religious meditations, a fervent mystic, with no knowledge of
the great world of greed, ambition, and lust, of which she, poor child,
was doomed to be the innocent victim.
CHAPTER II
BIRTH AND EDUCATION
Lady Jane Grey was born at Bradgate Old Manor[10] in October 1537, most
probably in the first days of the month, for Prince Edward, her cousin,
came into the world on the 12th,[11] St. Edward’s Eve, and three days
later Henry, Marquess of Dorset, attended the royal christening, which
he would scarcely have done if his own wife, a member of the royal
family, had not been safely delivered. His presence in London can be
traced in the State Papers from the date of Prince Edward’s birth until
the first week in November. Lady Jane’s christening took place, as was
then the custom, within forty-eight hours of her birth, in the parish
church, with all the ancient rites. Some writers state that the babe
was carried to the font by her grandmother, the Dowager Marchioness;
but this good lady, as we have already seen, was unable at the time to
leave her sick household at Croydon. She sent her new granddaughter a
rich bowl with a chiselled cover. It was the custom at that time, when
a baptism took place, for the whole family, godfathers and godmothers
and guests, to walk in procession from the mansion to the church. As
is still the case in Catholic countries, the number of sponsors in
pre-Reformation times was unlimited. All these worthy people brought
gifts of more or less value, according to the nearness of their kinship
and the length of their purses. The Marquess, if he was present, would
certainly have worn his robes of state and “carried the salt.” At
the church door the christening company was met by the clergy, and
after a short prayer the child was named.[12] The officiating priest
on this occasion was either Mr. Harding, then chaplain at Bradgate,
or else Mr. Cook, Rector of the parish. After being named, the child
was carried to the font, which stood in the middle of the church
under an extinguisher-like canopy, richly carved and painted, which
pulled up and down, so as to keep the holy water clean. In those days
the back of the head and the heels of the infant were immersed in
the water,[13] the present ceremony of sprinkling having only been
introduced into this country from Geneva by the Reformers during
Elizabeth’s reign. The infant was also anointed with chrism on the
back and breast, a very ancient ceremony, the abolition of which
caused considerable controversy and some persecution in the reign of
Henry VIII. This anointing, or unction, which was performed within
the sacred edifice, was followed by the presentation of the gifts of
the various sponsors.[14] Abundant hospitality in the shape of sweet
wafers, comfits, spiced wine, or hippocras was dispensed in the porch,
not only to the invited company, but to the promiscuous village crowd
that elected to attend the function; and at last the procession, with
the infant wrapped in a sort of shawl of rich brocade, returned to the
mansion, where a dinner was served to the guests and to the members of
the household.
The life of an English child in olden times, especially in the upper
classes, was by no means the ideal existence it has now become. A
careful study of contemporary records proves that the barbarous
and filthy system of swathing or “swaddling” an infant was almost
universally practised. We may take it for granted that the baby
Jane Grey was swathed or “swaddled” according to the prevailing
English fashion, from her armpits to her knees, and was thus able at
all events to move her tiny hands and feet, a privilege denied her
infant contemporaries on the Continent. So late as 1684, Madame de
Maintenon, writing to Madame de Présné, who had just been delivered
of a son, beseeches her to “adopt the English method of allowing her
infant’s limbs free play,” and stigmatises the French custom of “tight
swaddling” as “abominably dirty and unhealthy.”
The Lady Frances certainly did not nurse her own baby; it would have
been considered most indecent for a woman of her rank to suckle her
offspring. A foster-mother was engaged, and it is likely enough that
the good woman who supplied little Jane Grey with the sustenance
nature had intended her to derive from her parent, was that Mrs. Ellen
who, seventeen years later, attended her beloved foster-child on the
scaffold.
In her eighteenth month the child was weaned, and this was attended
by some considerable ceremony. In the morning Mass was said in the
presence of the whole family, including the foster-mother and the
child, who was blessed with holy water. This finished, the company
returned in procession to the hall and forthwith sat down to a copious
banquet.
The archives of Sudeley Castle contain an interesting description of
an aristocratic nursery in the first half of the sixteenth century.
Queen Katherine Parr, having married Admiral Lord Thomas Seymour, lived
at Sudeley, where she died in September 1548, after giving birth to a
child, for whom was provided an apartment very elaborately furnished
with tapestry, and containing everything a modern infant of the highest
rank could possibly want, all in silver or pewter, and, moreover, a
“chair of state” hung with cloth of gold.
The Lady Frances’s nursery was, no doubt, fitted up quite as
luxuriously as that prepared for the infant of Queen Katherine Parr;
but no inventory of its contents has been handed down to us. Nearly
all the toys commonly used in England at this period were made either
in France or Holland, and closely resembled those grotesque playthings
which were our grandparents’ delight: wooden dolls with roughly painted
heads and jointed limbs, hobby horses, hoops, and even toy soldiers
mounted on movable slides. Jane must have had an abundance of these
nursery treasures, besides an oaken cradle with rockers and also a
sort of little perambulator, wherein she might be carried to take the
air in the park and gardens. She had a complete household, consisting
of Mrs. Ellen, two under-nurses, a governess, two waiting women, and
two footmen. Sometimes, but very rarely, the voice of nature may
have prompted her mother and father to play with her and enjoy those
exquisite moments of purest love common alike to prince and peasant.
Her babyhood may have been fairly happy, but when that ended, the stern
training which prevailed in every aristocratic family of the period
began in all its severity: long prayers, tedious lessons, and that
terrible “cramming” system which as often as not engendered premature
physical decline and even imbecility. The tiny princess, from her
third year upwards, was dressed like a little old lady, in miniature
reproduction of her mother, coif and all complete, an exceedingly
irksome garb for so very small a child. Even when full-grown, Jane,
like her sister Katherine, was of very diminutive stature; and their
youngest sister, Mary, was an actual dwarf, “not bigger, when over
thirty, than a child of ten.”
The greater part of the Lady Jane’s[15] infancy was spent at Bradgate
with her little sisters--Katherine, two years her junior; and Mary,
six years younger than herself. A Mrs. Ashly, sister or sister-in-law
to the Mrs. Ashly, or Astley, who acted in the same capacity to
Princess Elizabeth, was appointed to attend as governess upon Jane and
her sisters; but of this lady little is known, whereas Elizabeth’s
governess is, of course, frequently mentioned as a woman of great
importance. It was evidently not until the Lady Jane had been named
in Henry VIII’s will as a possible successor to his throne that any
particular attention was paid to her instruction, and then only for
purely political purposes. Her two sisters received but an ordinary
education, and Jane herself must have been between nine and ten years
of age when she was handed over to Queen Katherine Parr to begin her
more important studies. No doubt the Dorsets secretly intended their
eldest daughter to become Edward VI’s consort and to rule the kingdom
through her, and her education therefore became a matter of great
importance to them, as they wished her to be thoroughly equipped to
hold the high station they desired her to occupy. In religion she
was to be exceedingly Protestant, but in social matters her training
was most varied, including music and classical and modern languages,
even Hebrew and, if we may credit some of her enthusiastic eulogists,
Chaldee!!
The royal birth of the Marchioness of Dorset and the great wealth of
her lord placed their family in a very exceptional position in the
county. Here, as also in London, they maintained semi-regal state. No
one could compete with them, and although they received much company,
especially at Christmas time, they rarely mixed with their neighbours,
and when they did so condescend, they were invariably received with
all the ceremony due to royalty. When, for instance, the Marquess of
Dorset and his lady visited Leicester, they were entertained with great
ceremony. In the archives of that city for 1540 there is a charge of
“two shillings and sixpence for strawberries and wine for my Lady
Marchioness’s Grace, for Mistress Mayoress and her sisters.” Also,
on the occasion of another visit, “Four shillings” were paid “to the
pothicary for making a gallon of Ippocras,[16] that was given to my
Lady’s Grace, Mistress Mayoress and her sisters, and to the wives of
the Aldermen of Leicester, who gave the said ladies, moreover, wafers,
apples, pears, and walnuts at the same time.” From another record, of
the city of Lincoln, we learn that the Dorset family when on its way
to London frequently put up at the White Hall Inn for the night, their
expenses being paid by the town. There is also an entry specifying the
expenses for entertaining the Lady Jane Grey when on her way to London
and on her return journeys through Leicester to Bradgate in 1548 and
1551.
There was much in the stately mode of life led by our great aristocracy
in the sixteenth century which has not even now passed altogether out
of fashion. At certain seasons of the year, it appears, the family
resided in the main building of the mansion and kept up a state almost
equal in magnificence to that of a royal Court. A great number of
servants--as many as eighty or a hundred--were maintained, and these,
being very ignorant, often formed a rather disorderly crew. They
received very small wages; but as they wore brilliant liveries, and
served as an escort to their masters when they went abroad, they made a
highly picturesque appearance. Few people, even in the upper circles of
society, could read or write with ease; and as there were no newspapers
and scarcely any books, no correspondence, and but few visits to fill
up leisure time, the men’s sports were mainly those of the field, so
that large hunting and hawking parties were the general order of the
day. The ladies were frequently invited to share these pursuits; and
the Lady Frances was well known in Leicestershire in her day as a great
huntress and a skilful archeress.
Hospitality, if barbaric, was none the less sumptuous. Tablecloths
and napkins were already in use, and “damask” was pretty generally to
be seen in the houses of the wealthy; while the plate belonging to
the great nobility was not only very costly, but exceedingly artistic
in design. Then as now, it was the custom to pass the winter months
in the country and the summer in London. During the hunting season
Bradgate was thrown open to a throng of guests, and since the mistress
of the house was niece to the reigning sovereign, many of these were of
princely rank, including Princess Mary, who was on very friendly terms
with her cousin Frances and her children. It is not at all unlikely
that when the family gathered in the great hall of an evening, dances,
masques, and other pastimes of a more boisterous kind, described as
“romps and jigs,” were indulged in. On occasion, players were summoned
from London, and displayed their skill in representing those rough and
unformed plays which delighted our ancestors until the more shapely
Elizabethan drama came into being.[17]
People rose and retired to rest earlier in Tudor days than we do
now, especially in summer, when breakfast was served as early as six
o’clock, dinner at ten, and supper at five. Tea and coffee were as
yet undiscovered, and light home-brewed ale was the usual breakfast
beverage. Such very young ladies as Lady Jane Grey would be served at
this meal with a cup of hot milk and sometimes with a sort of mead, or
barley water, heated and spiced. During Lent breakfast consisted of
bread, with salt fish, ling, turbot and eels, fresh whitings, sprats,
beer and wine. At other seasons there were chines of beef, roast
breast of mutton or boiled mutton, butter, cooked eggs, custard, pies,
jellies, etc., as well as chickens, ducks, swan, geese, and game.[18]
Dinner came at noon, and it was customary in large country houses to
close the gates while the whole establishment sat down, according
to rank, in the great hall. Sometimes a slight alteration was made,
two tables being set in the dining-room, at the first of which sat
the lord and his family, with such titled guests as they might be
entertaining, while the second was occupied by “knights and honourable
gentlemen.” In such a case the tables in the great hall were generally
three, the first for the steward, comptroller, secretary, master of
the house, master of the fish-ponds, the tutor--if one was attached
to the family--and such gentlemen as happened to be under the degree
of a knight. In a very large household it frequently happened that as
many as a hundred and fifty or two hundred people would sit down to eat
at one and the same time, but in most castles, halls, and manors the
ladies of the family, excepting on state occasions, ate apart from the
men, a separate table being laid for them, and for the chaplain, in
the ladies’ chamber, while two others were laid in the housekeeper’s
room for the ladies’ women. The Lady Frances usually partook of her
dinner in solitary state, waited upon by young gentlewomen and, when
they were old enough to do so, by her two elder daughters, who stood on
either side of her until she had finished, when they in their turn sat
down and were served by gentlewomen. In their infancy, the children,
attended by their nurses and gentlemen and women, dined with the
housekeeper in her chamber.
All meals were somewhat disorderly, for, forks not being in general
use, it was the custom for the gentlemen to pick the daintiest scraps
out of the common dish with the tips of their fingers, and place them
gallantly upon the platters of the ladies seated nearest them. It was
considered ill-bred to lick one’s fingers after this act of courtesy.
Proper behaviour was to wipe them daintily upon a sort of napkin or
serviette, sometimes, as in Japan, made of tissue paper.
Grace was said both before and after meals, and as most large houses
had several chaplains and a choir for the service of the chapel,
it was usual for one of the priests, accompanied by three or four
of the choristers wearing their surplices, to enter the hall and
solemnly chant the _Benedicite_ or Grace, which until Edward VI’s time
invariably concluded with a petition for the release of the souls in
Purgatory. It was considered impolite to talk during a repast unless
addressed by the master or mistress of the feast. The chaplain was
employed to read aloud either the Gospel of the day or a chapter from
that enlivening work _The Martyrology_. Occasionally a minstrel was
invited to sing an interesting ballad or tell a story; otherwise the
clinking of the knives was the only sound heard during meals, which,
however copious, were invariably dispatched with the utmost speed.
In proportion to the amount of meat very little bread was consumed.
“The English bolt their food in dead silence,” remarked the Venetian
Ambassador Giustiniani, “and, bread being dear, eat very sparingly
of it. They throw their chicken bones under the table when they have
sucked them clean.”
When supper, a meal which corresponds with our late dinner, was over,
evening prayers were said, and soon afterwards, on ordinary occasions,
everybody retired to rest. It should be remembered that artificial
light was exceedingly costly and inadequate, as indeed it remained
until the beginning of the later half of the nineteenth century. Many
who are still in the prime of life can remember the rush tallow dips
made and used in old-fashioned country houses and farms in their
childhood. In the sixteenth century these were the only lights to be
had, except oil lamps and wax candles imported at immense expense from
France and Italy, and only kindled on high days and holidays.[19] Resin
torches were burnt in the great hall; but many complained of the stench
and smoke, so that an early departure to bed was not only wise but
necessary.
It may perhaps be concluded that we who live at the beginning of the
twentieth century would have found life in an English manor in Tudor
days insufferably dull and monotonous. Yet there were compensations.
Outdoor exercises were many and various. There was the tennis-court,
bowls and quoits were much in vogue, and our forefathers practised
many other excellent sports, some of which we might well revive. There
was hawking, then in the zenith of its popularity; hunting, archery,
slinging, mase or “prisoner’s bars,” wrestling, tennis, of which game
Henry VIII was exceedingly fond; fivestool ball, football, and golf.
Cricket does not seem to have been known, at all events under its
present name; but there were a score or so of other popular games
and sports, some of which, such as duck-hunting, dog-fighting, and
cock-fighting, were exceedingly barbarous. The cruel sport of trying
on horseback to pull off the greased head of a living duck or goose
suspended by the legs from a cross beam was exceedingly popular at
this time.[20] Edward VI, in his _Journal_, mentions it in an entry
dated 4th June 1550: “Sir Robert Dudley, third surviving son of the
Earl of Warwick, was married this day to Sir John Robsart’s daughter,
after which marriage there were certain gentlemen on horseback that did
strive who should first carry away a goose’s head that was hanged alive
on two cross-posts.” Can we imagine the whole Court of England, King
included, assisting at this childish and cruel spectacle?
The Marquess of Dorset and his family did not spend the whole year at
Bradgate; political and social duties brought them a great deal to
London, especially in the early spring and summer months. In London
they inhabited a mansion at Westminster, not far from Whitehall Palace.
The town residence of the Marquess of Dorset was not, as usually
stated, situated in Grey’s Inn. At no time did his branch of the family
of Grey possess property in or near the Inn which bears their name;
it belonged from a remote period to the house of Grey de Wilton, who
sold it, in Edward IV’s time, to the Carthusians of Sheen, from whom
it was confiscated at the Dissolution and subsequently granted by the
Crown for the purpose which it still serves. Thus Grey’s Inn did not
fall to Lady Frances, although she was presented by her uncle the King
with nearly all the other property owned by the Carthusians in and
around London. It has also been said that the Marquess of Dorset had
a house in Salisbury Place, Fleet Street, but this is another popular
error. This property passed to the _Earls_ of Dorset in 1611 and is
connected, not with Lady Jane and her family, but with many worthies
of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Henry, Marquess of Dorset,
had his town residence on the Thames above Whitehall,[21] precisely
where stood, until quite recently, Dorset Place--the name by which the
house was known in Lady Jane’s time. After the execution of Suffolk
it was seized by the Crown and eventually, in the last days of the
sixteenth century, cut up into three separate houses, one of which was
inhabited by John Locke the philosopher, who died in it. By a curious
coincidence, Locke had previously lived at Salisbury Square. Dorset
Place must have been a very large house; we know from contemporary
evidence that it had a fine garden and a broad terrace overlooking the
Thames. Here Lady Jane Grey certainly lived for a good many months
of her life, and here she formed the acquaintance of the Reformers
Bullinger and Ulmer, or ab Ulmis. She may also have lived for a time in
yet another house owned by the Marquess, near the Temple, of which no
trace now exists.
The Dorsets were in the habit, especially in the winter season, of
paying country visits to their numerous relatives--to Princess Mary
at Newhall; to the Lady Frances’ stepmother, Katherine, Duchess of
Suffolk, at Wollaton; to Dorset’s sister, the Lady Audley, at Walden;
to his orphan wards and cousins the Willoughbys, at Tylsey; and to Lady
Jane’s paternal grandmother, the Dowager Marchioness of Dorset, either
at her house at Croydon or at Tylsey, where at one time she presided
over the household of the young Willoughbys.
The entertainment of such important personages must often have been a
doubtful pleasure to hosts of limited means, for they never stirred
abroad without a numerous escort of male and female servants and a
guard of thirty or forty retainers mounted on horseback and armed
to the teeth. Carriages were but little used as yet, and people of
quality had to journey from place to place on horseback, the elderly
ladies being provided with the quaintest but most inconvenient and
perilous of side saddles, while the young girls and children rode
pillion either in front of or behind their nearest male relatives or
some trusty yeoman. In cold or damp weather the ladies and children
and their female attendants travelled in a huge and very heavy covered
vehicle[22] not unlike a Turkish _araba_ or a modern omnibus in shape.
This was furnished with leathern curtains and lined with mattresses and
cushions, and could often contain as many as twelve persons, six on
either seat facing each other. To protect themselves from the cold the
ladies wore cloaks and vizors, or “safeguards.”[23] The first genuine
statute for repairing roads dates only from 1668. Before that the roads
were, like those of modern Turkey, universally execrable, and over them
this ponderous vehicle, with its enormous wheels, moved at a snail’s
pace: it is not surprising that most people preferred the hackney,
even in winter time. Yet in spite of all its inconveniences, this
old-world fashion of travel was not without charm, especially in genial
weather, when the passage of a lordly cavalcade added much to the life
of our highways and verdant lanes and lent to the ever lovely English
landscape a picturesqueness and a gaiety which modern civilisation
can never hope to restore. On the other hand, delicate folk must have
dreaded these excursions, and it is not surprising to learn that on
one occasion, in 1550, after a ten hours’ ride in very bad weather to
Newhall, on a visit to Princess Mary, the Lady Jane was taken very ill,
and kept her room for many days.
The Dissolution of the monasteries and the general troubles of the
Church had no doubt greatly attenuated the quaintness of English life
on the high roads by the time Jane had attained girlhood. No longer did
the Lord Abbot or Prior, with his princely train of ecclesiastics on
their gaily caparisoned horses and mules, pass through the leafy lanes
on their way to pay visits of duty or ceremony. Lady Jane can never
have seen the Abbot of Leicester, for instance, he who attended the
death-bed of Wolsey, go forth with all his monks to pay his respects
to the Prior of the rich house of Ulverston, for both abbeys were
suppressed before she was a year old. She was not familiar with the
begging friars, with their sacks and their jokes; and the pardoner, the
palmer, and the pilgrim had also faded into the near past long before
she began to toddle on the green slopes of Bradgate. Still she must
have often witnessed the procession on Corpus Christi, when her own
native village was enlivened by garlands of flowers and on every house
front hung a linen sheet decked with bunches of bright flowers. She may
even have walked with the rest of the children of high and low degree
in the annual procession of Our Lady on Assumption Day, for throughout
the reign of Henry VIII this festival was observed.
The roads were still full of colour in the summer months, with packmen
and peddlers, troops of armed men--not unfrequently dragging along
between them some poor wretch, tied by the wrists, to his fiery doom
at Leicester or London--with travelling caravans, with itinerant
mountebanks and jugglers, and occasionally with a troop of showmen
hastening to exhibit dancing bears or learned dogs and pigs at some
neighbouring village fair.
The suppression of the monasteries had a disastrous effect on
travelling in Henry VIII’s time, comparable only to what would happen
nowadays if all the first-class hotels in the country were suddenly
closed. The Marquess and Marchioness of Dorset, as they journeyed
with their children from Bradgate to London, must have heartily
regretted the hospitality they had enjoyed in their own young days at
many a lordly abbey and wealthy priory now laid in ruins. The inns
were picturesque enough, but none too luxurious; still the beds were
generally comfortable, and the cooking, according to the taste of the
day, was excellent. Conti, an Italian traveller who visited England
some few years after Henry VIII’s death, was much struck by the
cleanliness of the parlours and the softness of the feather beds he met
with in our country hostelries. The fare, too, he found abundant, and
the wines, “sack,” and beers often of superlative quality--facts to
which Shakespeare has not failed to allude. The innkeepers were great
gainers by the Dissolution, for such rich travellers as did not care to
trouble their peers looked to them for board and lodging now that they
were no longer able to put up at a religious house. We may be sure that
the Dorsets and their people were familiar and welcome guests at all
the chief inns along the roads they travelled.
Aylmer, who became Bishop of London in Elizabeth’s time, is usually
described as Lady Jane’s earliest tutor. This is a patent error,
for Aylmer, who was born in 1521, would have been far too young, in
Jane’s infancy, to be appointed tutor to the children of the Marquess
of Dorset. It is more likely that Dr. Harding, who was chaplain at
Bradgate when Jane was born, had the honour of teaching his patron’s
daughters their alphabet. He was reputed a learned man, and posed
at one time as a staunch Protestant; but he resembled his employers
in having a chameleon-like facility for changing the colour of his
opinions according to the state of the religious barometer in regal
quarters. Under Henry VIII he was a schismatic and a firm believer
in transubstantiation and in the wisdom of invoking saints; when
Edward came to the throne he turned _quasi_-Calvinist. Very early in
Mary’s reign he became, much to the unspeakable horror of Lady Jane,
a penitent Papist. Aylmer, a far more estimable man and a greater
scholar, appeared on the scene at Bradgate as tutor after the accession
of King Edward, when Jane was in her twelfth year and ripe to receive
his learned instruction in theology and classic lore.
CHAPTER III
THE LADY LATIMER
No task is more congenial to the earnest student of history than that
of tracing the origin of some important event, and following its
gradual development from a trivial incident to its culmination in
a great matter destined to alter the fortunes, and even change the
faith, of an entire nation. If we would reach a thorough comprehension
of the chain of events which led up to the proclamation of Jane Grey
as Queen of England, we must now leave her to pursue her Greek and
Latin studies and broider her samplers at Bradgate, while we trace
the earlier fortunes of those who so ruled her destiny as to compel a
simple-hearted and naturally retiring girl to accept a station which,
by the time she was constrained to relinquish it, brought her to the
lowest depths of misfortune and transformed the regal diadem which she
herself had never coveted into a crown of martyrdom.
The Lady Latimer, better known in history as Queen Katherine Parr,
influenced the fortunes of Lady Jane Grey more than is usually
imagined, for it was to her care that the ten-year-old child was
committed (after it had been proposed by the Seymour faction that she
should become Queen-Consort of Edward VI and head of the Protestant
party in England), in order that her education might be directed
and her mind bent towards “the new learning” of which Katherine was
secretly a supporter.
Born in 1513 at that lordly Kendal Castle whose ruins still command one
of the loveliest prospects in Westmoreland, Katherine Parr, though a
simple gentlewoman, could boast royal blood--that of our Anglo-Saxon
kings, inherited from her paternal ancestor Ivo de Talbois, who married
Lucy, the sister of the renowned Earls Morcar and Edwin. She was also
of Plantagenet descent through her great-great-grandmother Alice
Nevill, sister to Cicely Nevill, Duchess of York, a lineage that made
her cousin four times removed to King Henry VIII himself. We will not
enter in detail into the many alliances of the Parr family with the
Nevills, Stricklands, Throckmortons, and Boroughs, but we are safe in
describing it as a wealthy and honourable county stock, much looked up
to in those days.
Katherine’s father, Sir Thomas Parr, married, when his bride was but
little over thirteen, Maud Green, daughter of the rich Sir Thomas Green
of Boughton and Greens-Norton in Northamptonshire. Lady Parr had a
sister, Mary, who, when a mere child, married Lord Vaux of Harrowden,
and, dying without issue, left her splendid fortune to her sister Maud.
Lady Parr’s eldest son, born before his mother was fifteen, was the
celebrated Sir William Parr, ultimately Earl of Essex and Marquess of
Northampton. Her next child mated with Mr. William Herbert, who was
raised to the peerage in 1551 by Edward VI as Earl of Pembroke six
weeks before the death of his wife. Katherine, the third and youngest
child of Sir Thomas and Lady Parr, was destined to occupy the perilous
position of sixth Queen-Consort to King Henry VIII. When she was a mere
child, the proverbial gipsy-woman predicted that “she should one day
wear a crown, and not a cap; and wield a sceptre, not a distaff.”[24]
Sir Thomas Parr died in London in 1517, leaving very scant provision
for his two daughters, the bulk of his fortune having been settled
upon his wife and son; but both young ladies married wealthy men, and
thus were not seriously affected by their lack of means. Anne married
at fifteen; and Katherine, long before she was fourteen, was led to
the hymeneal altar by Lord Borough of Cantley Hall, Gainsborough,
Yorkshire. The bridegroom had already been twice married, and so great
was the disparity of age between the couple that Lady Borough was wont
to call her eldest stepdaughter “little mother.” Two years after her
marriage Katherine became a widow with a very handsome dower. Much
of her time of mourning was spent at Sizergh Castle in Westmoreland,
the seat of her kinsfolk the Stricklands, where she left several fine
specimens of her skill as a needlewoman--notably a gorgeous white satin
quilt embroidered with gold--which are still preserved in an apartment
known as Queen Katherine’s Room.
We are fortunate in possessing a good many portraits of this lady,
and at least one wonderful miniature, formerly in the Strawberry
Hill Collection, and which now belongs to Mr. Brocklehurst-Dent of
Sudeley Castle. This contains a likeness of Henry VIII painted in a
space not bigger than a pin’s head, on a tiny medallion suspended
round the Queen’s neck. A strong magnifying glass is required to do
justice to the beauty of this microscopic miniature within a miniature,
probably the smallest ever executed. Judged by all these portraits
and by contemporary descriptions, Katherine Parr must have been a
pretty little woman with delicate features, an intellectual brow--too
amply developed for beauty--fox-coloured eyes, and a rather cunning
expression about the thin yet flexible mouth. When her body was
disinterred in 1786[25] it was found not to be decomposed, and measured
exactly five feet and three inches. The hair, very long and curling
naturally, was of a fine golden auburn.
[Illustration: QUEEN KATHERINE PARR
AFTER THE PAINTING FORMERLY IN THE POSSESSION OF HORACE WALPOLE]
History does not record the names of the tutors who assisted
Katherine Parr to acquire her remarkable education and numerous
accomplishments. We may suppose that some priest or monk chaplain at
Kendal or Sizergh instructed her in Latin and Greek, in both of which
languages she was proficient. She may have learnt French from Mr.
Bellemain, French tutor to Prince Edward, a pronounced Huguenot, who,
notwithstanding his unorthodoxy, was in high favour at Henry’s Court,
received a pension from Edward after he ascended the throne, and walked
in the young King’s funeral procession. She mastered the language
sufficiently to be able to write it and speak it correctly, and even
to record her sentimental impressions in tolerable verse. Amongst the
MSS at Hatfield there is a curious French poem, partly written by
Katherine and partly by another, probably her teacher. It opens with
the following verse in the Queen’s handwriting:--
“Considerant ma vie miserable
Mon cœur marboin, obstine, intraitable,
Outrecuide tant, que non seullement,
Dieu n’estimoit ny son commandement.”
The concluding verse runs:--
“Qui prepare vous est devinement
Ainsi que le monde eust son commencement
Au Pere au Filz au Saint Esprit soit gloire
Loz et honneur d’eternelle memoire. FINIS.”[26]
Katherine’s handwriting, though clear and legible, is not to be
compared with that of Elizabeth, King Edward, and Jane Grey, who very
probably took lessons in the then much esteemed art of caligraphy from
Dr. Cheke, chief tutor to the Prince, or from Ascham, both famous for
the beauty of their penmanship.
Although very worldly, Katherine Parr was much preoccupied with
theological disputations, and a distinctly evangelical tone pervades
her literary remains; it is nevertheless certain that during the
lifetime of her second husband, Lord Latimer, she was, or pretended
to be, a Catholic, and that during the few years of her married life
with Henry VIII she was a schismatic or “Henryite.” Tact and prudence
were her leading characteristics, and she was both amiable and
conciliatory, though she could, when angered, be extremely vindictive.
Thomas Cromwell’s downfall, usually attributed to the machinations of
Katherine Howard, was in reality mainly due to those of Katherine Parr,
for she it was, as we shall presently see, who opened Henry VIII’s eyes
to the prodigious rapacity and unpopularity of his favourite chancellor.
Lord Latimer, the lady’s second spouse, like Lord Borough, had been
twice married, and when he took her to wife was already the father
of several children. The date of this marriage has not been handed
down to us, but as Latimer lost his second wife in 1526, it could
not have taken place earlier than 1527. He was a staunch Catholic
of the belligerent sort, and a prominent leader of the Pilgrimage
of Grace, an insurrection that broke out in the North of England in
1536 in consequence of the popular displeasure at the suppression of
the monasteries and sequestration of church property. The peasants,
suddenly deprived of the monks’ accustomed charity and driven
to desperation, began a local crusade, which soon assumed large
proportions, their ranks being joined by a great number of noblemen
and gentlemen belonging to the old faith, amongst them the Archbishop
of York, Lord Nevill, Lord Darcy, Lord Latimer, Sir Stephen Hamerton,
Sir Robert Constable, a certain mysterious individual who called
himself the “Earl of Poverty,” and Robert Aske, who though of mean
extraction was nevertheless considered by the rest of his party as
their nominal general. These motley pilgrims increased in numbers
as they swept southwards in picturesque confusion; but despite the
enthusiasm of their members, they seem to have been ill-disciplined
and badly organised, and were presently dispersed at Dunstable, thanks
to the conciliatory attitude of the Duke of Norfolk, whom the King had
empowered to treat with these rebels and disband them. Latimer, who had
been elected their spokesman, withdrew almost immediately and returned
to London, where he soon afterwards resumed his post as Comptroller of
the King’s Household. After this excursion into open revolt against
his sovereign, Lord Latimer evidently deemed it prudent to keep himself
very much in the background: he did not join the second Pilgrimage of
Grace, which broke out in the following February (1537) and terminated
in the execution by sword and fire of some seventy of its more
prominent members, among them old Lord Derby, who was over eighty-three
years of age.
When in London, Lord Latimer inhabited a house situated in the
churchyard of the Charterhouse. The Chartreuse, as it was then called,
was rather a fashionable place of residence, being not far distant
from Clerkenwell, which in King Henry’s time was a sort of Court
suburb, such as Kensington became in the eighteenth century. From a
letter still extant, it would appear that Lord Latimer, like many a
modern nobleman and gentleman, was in the habit of letting his mansion
furnished when he himself was absent at Snape Hall, his country seat
in Yorkshire. Sir John Russell, Lord Privy Seal, who looked meek
enough[27] but was popularly known as “Swearing Russell” on account
of his profane language, wrote in January 1537 requesting Latimer to
allow a friend of his to have the loan of his house in the “Chartreuse”
during his absence. Latimer dared not refuse, but his answer betrays
his reluctant compliance with the request and some temper at the favour
having been asked:--
“RIGHT HONOURABLE AND MY ESPECIAL GOOD LORD,--After my most
hearty recommendations had to your good Lordship. Whereas your
Lordship doth desire ... [effaced] of your friends my house within
Chartreuse churchyard, beside so ... [effaced] I assure your
Lordship the getting of a lease of it costs me 100 marcs, besides
other pleasures [_i.e._ “improvements”] that I did to the house;
for it was much my desire to have it, because it stands in good
air, out of press of the city. And I do alway lie there when I come
to London, and I have no other house to lie at. And, also, I have
granted it to farm [_i.e._ “have let it”] to Mr. Nudygate,[28]
son and heir to serjeant Nudygate, to lie in the said house
in my absence; and he to void whensoever I come up to London.
Nevertheless I am contented if it can do your Lordship any pleasure
for your friend, that he lie there forthwith. I seek my lodgings
at this Michaelmas term myself. And as touching my lease, I assure
your Lordship it is not here; but I shall bring it right to your
Lordship at my coming up at this said term, and then and alway I
shall be at your Lordship’s commandment, as knows our Lord, Who
preserve your Lordship in much honour to His pleasure. From Wyke,
in Worcestershire, the last day of September.--Your Lordship’s
assuredly to command,
“JOHN LATIMER”
“To the right honourable and very especial good lord, my Lord Privy
Seal.”[29]
Lord Latimer died in February 1543, a twelvemonth after the execution
of Queen Katherine Howard, leaving his widow the manors of Nunmonkton
and Hamerton for life, and his mansion in the Charterhouse for as
long as she should remain a widow. As soon as her husband was safely
buried in St. Paul’s Churchyard, Katherine began to indulge her leaning
towards what was then known as the “new learning”; and her house
became the resort of the leaders of a movement which was eventually
to complete the Reformation in England. These gentlemen were wont,
it is said, to assemble at regular intervals and hold conferences
on religious subjects in the presence, not only of Katherine and
her household, but of a select circle of great ladies, among them
Katherine’s sister, Anne Herbert, and the charming Katherine, Duchess
of Suffolk, the fourth wife of Lady Jane’s singular grandfather, who
were only too willing, notwithstanding the risk they ran, to sit at
the feet of a Coverdale, a Latimer, or a Parkhurst. Religion, however,
sat lightly on this clever Duchess, who--so brilliant, witty, and
amusing are her letters--might well claim to be the precursor in the
epistolary art of Madame de Sévigné. To these pious gatherings of the
widow Latimer came likewise the haughty and turbulent Anne Stanhope,
Countess of Hertford, who in due time, as wife of the Protector,
was to be Duchess of Somerset and Katherine Parr’s arch-enemy;
Lady Denny,[30] wife of Sir Andrew Denny, Privy Councillor to Henry
VIII; the Lady Fitzwilliam,[31] wife of Sir William Fitzwilliam, and
acknowledged to be one of the ablest women of her time; and the Lady
Tyrwhitt,[32] who came very near martyrdom for her heretical opinions,
in the last year of Henry’s life. The Countess of Sussex,[33] second
wife of Henry Ratcliffe, Earl of Sussex, was likewise one of Lady
Latimer’s _intimes_. This lady’s alleged familiarity with the black
art eventually led to her being charged with witchcraft, in 1552, and
imprisoned in the Tower, from which durance she was delivered six
months later by order of the Duke of Northumberland. The Marchioness of
Dorset may also have assisted at Lady Latimer’s religious exercises,
which, although noticed by her contemporaries as matters of general
knowledge, seem to have temporarily escaped the unpleasant attention of
King Henry’s chief heretic-hunters. The Lady Frances was certainly on
the most friendly terms with Lady Latimer, and so too was Princess Mary.
Another guest there was at the Charterhouse who probably came when the
house was quiet, the voices of the preachers hushed, and the great
ladies returned to their respective domiciles. This was Sir Thomas
Seymour, the late Queen Jane’s second brother, who was considered the
Adonis of the Court. Lady Latimer seems to have been deeply enamoured
of his good looks and stalwart figure; but it is not unlikely that it
was her rich dower, rather than herself, that tempted Sir Thomas. Be
this as it may, the intimacy which began about this period, paved the
way to the tragic close of the handsome courtier’s chequered career.
Seymour appears to have proposed to the widow three months after Lord
Latimer’s death, and she seems to have rejected him “pleasantly,”
saying “some one higher than he had asked her to be his wife.” For all
that, Sir Thomas had certainly made a deep impression on her heart, a
fact all the more remarkable since he was in every way the opposite to
herself: she was learned and sedate--he was gay and profligate; the
lady loved rich but sober attire--the gentleman blazed with brilliant
satins and silks and cloth of gold and silver, setting his brother
courtiers the fashion as to the wearing of their jewels and the number
of feathers they should sport in their caps. Still, the advantage of
the alliance was obvious, for though not a rich man, he was a great
favourite with the King, his potent brother-in-law, and further, he
was the second member of the rising house of Seymour, which many
predicted--in the event of any accident happening to His Majesty,
whose health was fast declining--would at once assume a preponderating
position at his successor’s Court.
But although Lady Latimer must have been acquainted with every
detail of the conspiracy organised by the Seymours against the
house of Howard, of which the first fruit was the revelation of the
unfortunate Queen Katherine Howard’s misconduct, she does not seem
to have hesitated for a moment in her determination to become Queen
of England, even at the sacrifice of her passion for Thomas Seymour,
which, all-absorbing as it was, never diverted her from the two
great objects of her ambition: her own political influence, and the
ultimate advancement of the Reformation. She cannot be described as a
Protestant, for in her time that word was not yet coined. During her
second husband’s lifetime she must have concealed her “advanced views,”
and when she became Queen she was--outwardly at least--a schismatic,
who attended as many as three and four Masses daily. Henry VIII rarely
heard less than three, and sometimes as many as five Masses every day,
and what is more, obliged every official of his Court and household,
high and low, to do the same. How she first attracted his attention
has never transpired; but as a great Court lady she must have been in
frequent and immediate relations with the sovereign. The first mention
of her personal dealings with King Henry is connected with trouble in
the Throckmorton family. Owing to some dispute over their respective
country seats, Coughton Court and Oursley, which were contiguous to
one another, her maternal aunt’s husband, Sir George Throckmorton,
had incurred Cromwell’s ill-will. Cromwell, with a view to ruining
his opponent, went so far as to accuse him of conspiring against the
King’s supremacy in ecclesiastical matters. According to an MS. ballad
still preserved in the Throckmorton archives, Lady Latimer interceded
with His Majesty for her uncle, and obtained full justice for him. At
the same time she contrived the overthrow of Cromwell, whose title of
Essex was eventually conferred upon her brother, Sir William Parr, who
married Anne Bourchier, only daughter of the last Earl of Essex of the
original branch.
The divorce--based on the futile plea that the King did not find Anne
of Cleves physically attractive[34]--which followed six months after
Henry VIII’s pompous marriage with that lady was accepted by the
philosophical Dutchwoman in a spirit that proved her practical sense
to be stronger than her sentiment. A noble mansion in the country, a
dower of £4000 a year, and precedence over all the great ladies of the
Court, the Princesses Mary and Elizabeth excepted, struck her as more
desirable than an anxious and uncertain struggle to retain the crown
matrimonial which, under somewhat similar circumstances, had proved so
sorry a possession to Queen Katherine of Aragon. None the less, the
Reformers took Anne’s humiliation--she was a Lutheran princess--in much
the same spirit as that which possessed the Catholics at the time of
the momentous divorce of Queen Katherine. The accommodating “daughter
of Cleves,” as she now styled herself, continued to receive friendly
visits from the King even in the halcyon days of his brief matrimonial
alliance with Katherine Howard, and shortly after that wretched
woman’s execution an influential party appears to have been bent, in
Reformation interests, on reconciling King Henry with his repudiated
spouse. Anne herself seems to have been not at all averse to the
scheme; and Marillac, the French Ambassador, who favoured it, found her
on one occasion quite hopeful--“in the best of spirits,” and “thinking
only of amusing herself and of her fine clothes.” But when the matter
of a reunion between the King and his discarded wife was formally
proposed to Cranmer by the Duke of Cleves’ Ambassador, it met with a
flat refusal. The Archbishop knew the good-natured lady’s character
too well to doubt that she was never likely to influence the King or
be of the least use in furthering the Reformers’ interests. In the
meantime, Parliament had urged Henry, for his “comfort’s sake,” to take
unto himself another wife; and at the same time, as if to keep him out
of the way, Sir Thomas Seymour was sent on an embassy to the Queen of
Hungary, and did not return to London until some days after Katherine
Parr’s wedding.
The earliest intimation in the State Papers of the King’s connection
with Katherine is in a letter from Lord Lisle, afterwards Duke of
Northumberland, to Sir William Parr, dated Greenwich, 20th June 1543:--
“My lady Latymer, your sister, and Mrs. Herbert be both here in the
Court with my Lady Mary’s grace and my Lady Elizabeth.” Quite a
friendly party!
On 22nd June 1543 the gorgeous State barges streamed up the Thames from
Greenwich to Hampton Court. On 10th July Cranmer issued a licence for
the King to marry Katherine, Lady Latimer, “in any church or chapel
without issue of banns,” and two days later Henry VIII led Lord
Latimer’s widow to the altar of an upper oratory called “the Quynes
Prevey closet” at Hampton Court Palace. After Low Mass, said by Bishop
Gardiner, the consent of both parties was pronounced in English. The
King, taking the fair bride’s right hand, repeated after the Bishop
the words: “I, Henry, take thee, Katherine, to my wedded wife, to have
and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse (_sic_), for
richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, till death us do part,
and thereto I plight thee my troth.” Then, unclasping and once more
clasping hands, Katherine likewise said, “I, Katherine, take thee,
Henry, to my wedded husband, to have and to hold from this day forward,
for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health
to be bonayr and buxome in bed and at board, till death us do part, and
thereto I plight unto thee my troth.” The putting on of the wedding
ring and offering of gold and silver followed, and after a prayer the
Bishop pronounced the nuptial benediction.
At the wedding were present, amongst others, Lord Hertford and his
Countess; Sir Anthony Browne; Joan, Lady Dudley; Katherine, Duchess
of Suffolk; Lord John Russell; the King’s niece, the Lady Margaret
Douglas; Mrs. Herbert, the Queen’s sister; and last but not least, the
Princesses Mary and Elizabeth, to whom their stepmother made handsome
presents of money. There is no mention of the Dorsets attending the
wedding, though both were in London at the time. Everybody seemed
delighted, even Wriothesley, who went so far as to write to Suffolk,
then with the army in the north, that “on Thursday last the King
had married the Lady Latimer, a lady in his judgment for virtue and
winsomeness and gentleness most mete for His Highness, who never had
such a wife more agreeable to his harte than she is.” Katherine herself
informed her brother, Sir William Parr, that “it had pleased God to
incline the King’s heart to take her as his wife, which was to her the
greatest joy and comfort that could happen.” Wriothesley enclosed this
letter in one of his own in which he entreated Parr to make himself
worthy of such a sister as the new Queen. Chapuys wrote to the Emperor
on 27th July: “My lady of Cleves has taken great grief and despair at
the King’s espousal of this last wife, who is not, she says, nearly so
beautiful as she, and besides that there is no hope of issue, seeing
that she has been twice married before and no children born to her.”
Richard Hills, “Heretic Hills,” as they called him, in a letter to
Bullinger, the Swiss Reformer, who subsequently became the friend of
Lady Jane Grey, and dated from Strasburg on 26th September, makes the
following very characteristic comments on the King’s sixth marriage:--
“No news but that our King has, within these two months as I have
already written to John Bucer, burnt three godly men in one day.
In July he married the widow of a nobleman named Latimer, and,
as you know, he is always wont to celebrate his nuptials by some
wickedness of this kind.”
The victims alluded to are known as the “Windsor martyrs.” They were
men in humble circumstances named Parsons, Testwood, and Filmer.[35] A
fourth, John Marbeck, who was organist at St. George’s Chapel Royal,
was, it is said, reprieved at the instance of Dr. Casson, Bishop of
Salisbury, and of the Queen, who is also credited with having saved
the life of Dr. Haines, Dean of Exeter, of Sir Philip Hoby and his
wife, and of Sir Thomas Carden, who had been denounced by Dr. London as
spreading heresy even within the precincts of the palace. The result of
the Queen’s action was that London and Simmonds, his coadjutor, were
condemned for perjury, and sentenced to ride round Windsor with their
faces to the horses’ tails--a humiliating punishment which is said to
have caused Dr. London’s death--no great loss to humanity.
To save human life and to alleviate suffering is a meritorious act
that brings its own reward; but in spite of this, and although the
newly made Queen was thus enabled to realise her own influence, she
must have found her honeymoon a season full of dread, revealing as
it did the terrible insecurity of lives dependent on the fiat of so
capricious a tyrant as her royal mate.
CHAPTER IV
THE KING’S HOUSEHOLD
Not Solomon in all his glory--nor Sultan Suleyman the Magnificent of
Istambul--was lodged more sumptuously than Tudor King Henry VIII of
England. When Katherine Parr espoused the much-married monarch, she
found herself mistress of a score of royal palaces, each furnished in
a manner not unworthy of the splendour of Aladdin after that fortunate
youth had gained possession of his magic Lamp, and served by the most
numerous retinue ever brought together in this ancient kingdom of ours.
The Venetian envoys, accustomed to the luxury and artistic elegance
of the Queen of the Adriatic, were fairly dazzled by the sight of the
treasures Henry gathered about him. Although within the space of a
few brief years he suffered vandal hands to rob his country of more
noble abbeys, churches, libraries, and works of art than had been
destroyed by time and foreign and civil war combined since William’s
Conquest, the King’s own artistic sense was highly developed, and he
revelled, with a glee that sometimes verged upon the childish, in pomp
and luxury and all things rare and beautiful.[36] To the confiscated
collections of Wolsey he added the spoils of a hundred monasteries, and
the Inventory of his effects, taken a few days after his death,[37]
fills two enormous folio volumes preserved among the Harleian Papers
in the British Museum. It is written in a round, legible hand, on the
finest paper of the period, and a glimpse of its contents cannot fail
to excite the longing of the _virtuoso_ and to stir the imagination
as effectually as any brilliant page of description in the _Arabian
Nights_. A perusal of these bulky tomes facilitates some partial
conception of the extraordinary magnificence of the Court at which Lady
Jane Grey figured as a child, and whence, no doubt, she derived that
taste for “costlie attire, music and other vanities,” which was to
evoke the unfavourable criticism of her Puritan friends at Zurich and
Strasburg, who exhorted her, if she really desired to save her soul,
to forswear all such trash, and imitate “the simplicity in dress and
modesty in demeanour” practised by her cousin the Princess Elizabeth.
We find hundreds of entries touching bedsteads, tables, card or playing
tables, chairs, couches and footstools of carved ebony, cedar-wood,
walnut, or oak, inlaid with mother-of-pearl, ivory, or rich metal
wirework, and upholstered in silk, satin, velvet, or Florence brocade,
fringed with gold, and even with strings of seed-pearls. Persian and
Turkish carpets, silks and woollen, covered every available space in
corridor, gallery, hall, and bedchamber, and there is mention of one
especially wonderful carpet “of silk,” probably Persian, “nine yards
long by two and a half wide.” One chamber was decorated with “101 yards
of white satin embroidered and fringed with gold,” while the walls of
another were panelled with purple cloth of gold, _i.e._ purple silk
shot with gold.
There must have been some hundreds of complete sets of the costliest
tapestries and arras in the various royal palaces. Wolsey, whose
passion for tapestry as a mural decoration became quite unreasonable,
collected scores of the finest specimens the looms of Italy and
Flanders could produce and lavish outlay secure. After his fall these
remained as he had left them at Hampton Court, where we still admire
the splendid series representing the “Story of Abraham,” designed
by Raphael’s pupil, Bernard van Orly, and another of yet earlier
date illustrating the “Triumphs,” of which three, those of “Death,”
“Renown,” and “Time,” occupy their original positions in Henry VIII’s
Great Watching or Guard Chamber. As we gaze on their faded beauty,
we should remind ourselves that the immense quantity of gold thread
wrought with infinite care and taste into their composition, and now
tarnished, glistened in King Henry’s time in all the glory of its
freshness. In the Audience Chamber at Whitehall many a great Ambassador
may have envied the arras hangings, representing the “Acts of the
Apostles,”[38] from designs by Raphael presented to the King by Pope
Leo X when he gave him the proud title of “Defender of the Faith.”
The walls of three State rooms at Hampton Court were hung “with cloth
of gold, blue cloth of gold, crimson velvet upon velvet, tawny velvet
upon velvet, green velvet figury, and cloth of bawdekin,” a regal
material woven partly of silk and partly of gold. Some of the chief
tapestries at Whitehall represented the “History of Our Lady,” the
“Story of Ahasuerus and Esther,” the “Crucifixion,” the “Story of
Apollo and Daphne,” “St. George and the Dragon,” “Hawking and Hunting
Scenes,” the “Siege of Jerusalem,” and many other like episodes in
sacred and profane history and in mythology. The King would order a
score of sets of tapestry at once, and would spend a sum equal to
£10,000 or £15,000 of our money upon them. The overflow of tapestries,
“picture-hangings,” Oriental silks, Genoa velvets, Florence and Venice
brocades, curtains of French lace, Chinese silks, and costly furniture,
went to the State rooms of the stern old Tower; to Windsor--where a
few remnants of Henry VIII’s belongings still remain; to Woodstock,
to Richmond, to Greenwich, to Oatlands in Surrey--where Prince Edward
often lived; to Newhall to Havering atte Bower--the chief country
seat of Princess Mary; to Hatfield and Enfield Chase--where Princess
Elizabeth spent her girlhood; to the Queen’s dower-houses at Hanworth
and Chelsea; and above all, to that marvel of the age, the new Palace
of Nonesuch, which Henry had built him at Cheam, Surrey.[39] At
Whitehall there were scores of cupboards crammed with gold and silver
plate, and there were ivory and ebony cabinets with crystal doors, in
which glittered strange Italian jewels, and curiosities from all parts
of the then known world. In none of Henry’s palaces does there seem
to have been a gallery exclusively devoted to pictures, such as would
be found in most contemporary Italian and French royal and princely
residences; but there were plenty of pictures or “painted tables,” as
the Inventory quaintly calls them, in nearly every chamber. In 1540
Holbein’s great fresco in the King’s Privy Council Room at Whitehall,
representing King Henry VII and Queen Elizabeth of York in the
background, with Henry VIII and Jane Seymour standing in front, was a
comparatively recent work. The illustrious artist, who died in London
of the plague in 1543, had also designed the ceiling of the “Matted
Gallery,” and covered the walls of the Chapel Royal with frescoes and
arabesques.
The King’s appearance, as he developed from boyhood to manhood and
middle age, might have been studied in scores of presentments of him,
to be met with at every turn: here, a plump little boy, by Mabuse;
there, a singularly handsome fair-haired young man by Paris Bordone;
and yonder, a full-length portrait by Hans Holbein, in which it was
evident that His Majesty was beginning to “put on flesh.” In the
Audience Chamber was a “table” of the monarch painted by Bartolomeo
Penni, wherein the “peepy eyes” and the bloated cheeks of his latter
years were only too faithfully portrayed. Though there were portraits
of nearly all the King’s contemporaries, including one of Charles VIII
of France and another of Charles V, besides a round dozen of Francis
I, the likenesses of the five queens who preceded Katherine Parr
had all been carefully removed, or, as in the case, of Anne Boleyn
and Katherine Howard, destroyed. A cabinet full of relics of Queen
Jane stood, however, in the anteroom of the King’s bedchamber at the
Tower; and at Westminster, in a picture-book, there was a portrait of
this Queen with another of the King facing it on the opposite page.
Among the great “tables” at Whitehall were the “Virgin and Child,” by
Leonardo da Vinci,[40] given to the King by Francis I in exchange for
a picture by Holbein; “St. George and the Dragon,”[41] by Raphael;
“Christina of Denmark,”[42] by Holbein, full length; a portrait, “Like
unto Life,” of “Thomas, Duke of Norfolk,”[43] and “one table of the
King’s Highness trampling upon the papal tiara, whence issues a serpent
with seven heads snorting fire. In the King’s hand is the Bible, and a
sword whereon is written _Verbum Dei_.”[44]
If the art of painting was well represented in the King’s many palaces,
that of music was even more cherished. Page after page in the Royal
Inventory is devoted to “double” and “single” virginals, with cases
inlaid and encrusted with ivory and mother-of-pearl or adorned with
arabesques of gold, studded with gems; while of lutes and flutes,
rebecks and viols, there seems to have been a perfect arsenal. Then
there was a library of over a thousand precious volumes, a sort of
perambulating feast of reason, for in the Household Expenses we find
various sums of money disbursed from time to time for the removal
of boat-loads of books from one palace to another. The number of
gold, silver, bronze, crystal, and glass chandeliers, sconces, and
candlesticks distributed among the royal residences baffles belief.
Each of the two hundred and eighty-four guest-chambers at Hampton
Court boasted a bedstead hung with the richest silk and satin, with a
gorgeously embroidered and wadded counterpane to match, an Oriental
carpet, and a toilet set, ewer, basin, and candlesticks complete,
of massive silver; while one closet at Whitehall was stored with an
immense collection of the choicest German and Venetian glass. Such, in
fact, was the King’s mania for collecting things rich and rare that,
in spite of the hopeless and suffering condition of his health, he was
still “buying,” down to the ultimate week of his life, and some of his
last purchases seem never to have been paid for by his successors.
These contemporary accounts of the Household of Henry VIII strike the
student by their marked resemblance to similar descriptions, by such
writers as Sagrado and Knowles, of the quaint and numerous population
of the Seraglio in the palmy days of the Ottoman Khaliphats. The Tudor
King, like the Grand Turk, had four battalions of pages--pages of the
Outer and of the Inner Court, of the King’s Antechamber, and of the
King’s Presence Chamber; and yet a fifth contingent was attached to
the service of the Queen. These lads, some hundreds in number, had
their captains and even their school-masters; they were mostly of good
family, and were apparelled, according to their rank, in wondrous
State garments either of satin, green and white, the colours of the
house of Tudor, or else of royal scarlet and gold. There was a legion
of Grooms of the Wardrobe, Keepers of the King’s Horse, Sports and
Pastimes, of his Harriers and Beagles, Sergeants-at-Arms, Sergeants
of the Woodyard, Sergeants of the Bakehouse, Sergeants of the Pantry,
Sergeants of the Pastry, Sergeants of the Trumpeters, Yeomen of the
Wardrobe, Yeomen of the Armoury, Yeomen of the Buttery, Yeomen of
the Chamber, Yeomen of the Chariots, of the Cooks, of the Henchmen,
Stables, and Tents. The Royal Chapel was served by a full complement
of chaplains, sub-chaplains, organists, and choir-boys. There were
apothecaries, physicians, astronomers,[45] astrologers, secretaries,
ushers, cup-bearers, carvers, servers, singing-boys, virginal players,
Italian singers and English madrigalists, and a perfect orchestra of
players on the lute, the flute, the rebeck, the sackbut, the harp, the
psalter, and all manner of instruments.
Full fifty cooks and twice as many scullions worked in the spacious
kitchens, and in 1544 we hear of a French pastry-cook of good repute
who rejoiced in the very pleasing and appropriate name of M. Doux. A
regiment of gardeners and under-gardeners trimmed the pleasaunces and
kept the King’s orchards in order.
The dresses and costumes of this army of picturesque, though often
quite useless, folk, numbering some thousands or so, were sufficiently
costly to account in part for the straits of the Royal Exchequer. Their
wages and silks and satins cost the nation, in the last year of Henry
VIII’s reign, £56,700--against £17,280 in the last year of that of his
father; a prodigious increase--when we take into consideration the
relative value of money--and sufficient to explain the depletion of the
coin.
[Illustration: HENRY VIII IN 1548
FROM AN OLD ENGRAVING]
Scarlet, or rather deep red, was the predominant colour of the garments
of King Henry’s retainers, but dark blue and orange, with the white
and light apple green of the house of Tudor, were not lacking, and
added to the kaleidoscopic aspect of the courtyards and staircases,
galleries and audience chamber, in the stately residences of “bluff
King Hal.” One Venetian Ambassador, commenting on the order kept
at the English Court, declared that “everything is regulated as by
clock-work, and no one ever seems to be out of his place.” When the
King condescended to walk abroad, he was attended by a host of superbly
attired courtiers, by his grand equerries and chamberlains, the
Grand Master of his Horse, his almoners, ushers, and physicians; his
fool--Will Somers[46]; his pages, and even by a favourite musician or
so. In the last years of his life, owing to his increasing infirmity,
Henry was sometimes carried upon the shoulders of six sturdy noblemen,
in a kind of _sedia gestatoria_ like the Pope’s. At His Majesty’s
approach every knee was bent, and many who particularly desired to
conciliate his favour “grovelled” face downward as Orientals before
some Eastern despot. The officials and serving-men who prepared the
table for His Majesty’s meals made an obeisance each time they passed
the vacant chair wherein the monarch was presently to seat himself. The
Queen-Consort, and the Princesses, his daughters, knelt whenever they
addressed him. In brief, King Henry, having filched from Peter some of
Peter’s pontifical prerogatives, exacted the same sort of homage as
that paid to the Roman Pontiff, and turned himself from mortal into a
sort of demigod or idol. But foreigners and Catholics noted that though
people knelt as he rode past, His Majesty bestowed no blessing upon
them. This slavish etiquette continued throughout the reign of Edward
VI,[47] but was modified when Mary renounced the titular position of
Head of the Church. Elizabeth, however, demanded, and, what is more,
received, _quasi_-divine honours from her subjects.
Yet another point of resemblance between the Courts of England and the
Ottoman at this period: Whitehall, like the Seraglio, was gay and
brilliant on the surface, but in each case there was an undercurrent of
terror and suspicion. The Tudor Court swarmed with spies and informers,
and often a thoughtless jest, a careless remark, spitefully retailed
at headquarters, would send men or women to the Tower, or even to
the stake. Folks went in fear and trembling lest what they had said
overnight in their cups might be brought home to them with appalling
consequences in the morning. This state of abject and habitual fear
engendered habits of whispering and talking apart and an atmosphere of
mystery, in spite of which the gossip and rumours of the King’s own
chamber passed to the pages, grooms, and serving-men in the courtyards
below, and thence to the general public, as rapidly as news flies
nowadays by telephone and telegraph.
There can be no doubt that Jane Grey, the daughter of one so closely
connected with the throne as was the Marchioness of Dorset, must often
have mingled in the gaudy crowd that thronged her grand-uncle’s palace.
Henry was as “fond of children as he was of pastry,” although, for
obvious reasons, he did not display any overweening affection for his
own offspring. This engaging little niece, now about six years of age,
is likely to have found favour in the monarch’s sight, and Jane Grey,
for all we know, may even have throned it on her dread relative’s
august knee. Cranmer’s hand, too, must have rested in benediction
upon her head, and she may, perchance, have won the smile of Gardiner
and of Bonner. She must often have heard the sick King, who had lost
his own fine voice, accompany his favourite fool, Will Somers, on
the lute, in some song or hymn of his own composition. She must have
been familiar with the two Seymour brothers; with the dreamy face and
austere manner of the Earl of Hertford, and the bluff good-nature of
Sir Thomas. She may even have been tossed in the strong arms of John
Dudley, at this time Lord High-Admiral of England and Viscount de
Lisle, reputed a “magnificent gentleman,” but otherwise of secondary
importance. Wriothesley, Rich, and foredoomed Surrey and his father,
old Norfolk, must often have watched her run along, clinging to her
portly mother’s trailing brocades as she passed on her way to and from
the King’s cabinet, and may even have whispered one to the other that
the little damsel would surely be as good a match for young Prince
Edward as the Scottish Queen’s daughter, Mary Stuart. In the apartment
of her grand-aunt the Queen, where that busy little lady nestled like
a sultana among her innumerable soft pillows and cushions,[48] encased
in cloth of gold and silver, the child Jane must have heard much
evangelical counsel from the erstwhile widow Latimer, who found some
consolation in the gorgeousness of her thraldom for the loss of her
handsome lover, Sir Thomas Seymour.
The Queen’s lodgings were parted from the King’s by a short corridor,
and nearly all her windows overlooked the Thames. Here Katherine Parr
played the housewife, and in the midst of her tapestries and brocades
and her “stretches” of silver and gold cloth, made poultices for
Henry’s ulcered legs, wrote her pious treaties on probity and prayers,
and probably counted the hours till the Lord in His mercy should
deliver her royal spouse from his sore sufferings. In these rooms,
perhaps, Jane Grey sat for her miniature to Lavinia Tyrling; Bartolomeo
Penni may here have limned her diminutive but very pretty features; and
we fancy we can see Mr. Crane or Mr. John Heywood, His Majesty’s chief
virginal players, teaching her the notes upon the King’s “favourite
virginal,” the one “enlaid with gold and mother-of-pearl.” In the last
months of Henry’s life, when Lady Jane is known to have been much with
Katherine Parr, the little girl may have listened with delight to the
wonderful warbling of the King’s Italian singers, Alberto of Venice,
Marc Antonio Galiadello of Brescia, or Giorgio da Cremona, as they
vainly endeavoured to soothe the sufferings of the dying monarch by
their elaborate _cadenze_.
Queen Katherine soon made her influence felt at Court. She could not
control the violent passions of her wayward lord, but she did in a
measure modify them, and steered her own course amid the shoals of
regal existence with consummate skill. No breath of scandal ever
sullied her fair name, though Thomas Seymour, back from his convenient
mission to Hungary, was appointed her Chamberlain, and must have been a
good deal in her company. Even her worst enemies never ventured on that
track. When at a later date they planned a blow, which they hoped would
prove fatal to the Queen, they selected her religious leanings, not her
love affairs, as their fell weapon. Katherine Parr, to her credit, lost
no time in reconciling the King with his hitherto neglected daughters.
Princess Mary was near her own age, and had been intimate with her when
she was Lady Latimer. The Emperor’s Ambassadors praise “the new Queen
for her kindness to the daughter of Katherine of Aragon,[49] who now
takes her proper place at Court.” Elizabeth, too, was summoned from her
suburban retreat, but had not been many weeks under her father’s roof
ere he became so exasperated by her pert obstinacy that he summarily
ordered her back to Enfield. In a few weeks, however, Katherine patched
up the quarrel, and on 24th July 1544 Elizabeth wrote Her Majesty, in
Italian, a most graceful letter of thanks for her good offices.[50]
Edward was too delicate to be much in London, but none the less his
stepmother looked after his health with so much “gentleness” that she
soon won his sincere affection and lasting goodwill. He wrote her
letters in Latin, French, and Italian, addressed to his _charisima
Mater_, and full of praise for her beautiful penmanship, which, on
comparison, proves greatly inferior both to his own and to that of
either Elizabeth or Jane Grey. Katherine induced her stepdaughter Mary
to assist in the translation of Erasmus’s _Paraphrase of the Four
Gospels_. The Princess selected that of St. John, and when the work
was finished, an amusing correspondence ensued as to the propriety of
the future Queen of England placing her name, as translator, on the
frontispiece. “I see not why you should reject the praise deservedly
yours,” argued the Queen; and the Princess at last allowed the editor
of the work, the learned Dr. Udall, to allude to the fact that “the
most noble, the most virtuous and the most studious Lady Mary” had a
hand in its success.[51]
To occupy her own leisure, Queen Katherine devoted herself to the
composition of a quaint book entitled _The Lamentations of a Penitent
Sinner_, a pious work which gives us, at least in one passage, a lucid
idea of the methods employed by Her Majesty to keep her hold over her
extraordinary husband, among which gross flattery was by no means the
least. A copy of this work was once in the possession of John Thelwall,
and was sold at the death of his second wife. It contained a curious
autograph, indicating that it had been given by the Queen to her “dear
cosyn, Jane Grey,” who no doubt read it with veneration and delight.
In this tiny volume Henry had the satisfaction of being likened unto
Moses leading the Children of Israel out of bondage. “I mean by Moses,
King Henry VIII, my most sovereign favourable lord and husband, one (if
Moses had figured any more than Christ) through the excellent grace
of God, meet to be another expressed verity of Moses’ conquest over
Pharaoh (and I mean by this Pharaoh the Bishop of Rome), the greatest
persecutor of all true Christians than ever was Pharaoh of the Children
of Israel.”
As may well be imagined, Queen Katherine Parr did not fail to use her
influence to obtain prominent positions about the Court for her own
kith and kin. Her uncle and Chamberlain, Sir Thomas Parr, was created
Lord Parr of Horton; her brother was raised from the rank of Baron
Parr of Kendal to be Earl of Essex, in lieu of the lately decapitated
Thomas Cromwell; and her brother-in-law, William Herbert, was knighted.
These gentlemen received their new dignities in the Chapel Royal, but
were not entertained in one of the apartments spread with Persian
carpets. Their dinner was served in the choir-boys’ mess-room, in
which a fresh litter of rushes was strewn for the occasion--a curious
fact, which leads one to conclude that the acting master of ceremonies
expected the party to indulge in libations which might result in some
injury to Oriental rugs but were not likely to do much damage to
fresh rushes costing 3s. 6d. the litter. Parr had to pay 40s. for his
new paraphernalia, and the choir-boys got 10s. for singing after the
dinner.[52]
On 14th July 1544 King Henry sailed from Dover for France to
superintend in person the approaching siege of Boulogne. He left our
shores in a vessel with sails made of cloth of gold, the glitter of
which does not appear to have added to the ship’s speed, for the King
did not get to Calais for nearly twenty-four hours, although the
weather was fine, and the sea calm--probably too calm. The last time he
had crossed the Channel, on his way to the Field of the Cloth of Gold,
Henry had acted the part of pilot, garbed in nether garments of cloth
of gold, and had blown the pilot’s whistle as loud as any trumpeter.
This time he was too anxious and enfeebled to play at all. His Majesty
was attended by his brother-in-law, the Duke of Suffolk, also a very
sick man; by Sir William Herbert, who acted as his spear-bearer, by the
Duke of Norfolk, the Earl of Surrey, the Spanish Duke of Alberqurque,
John Dudley, the Lord High-Admiral, afterwards Duke of Northumberland,
and half the English nobility. Before his departure he appointed the
Queen Regent of England and Ireland, with power to sign all official
and State documents, this being almost the first occasion on which a
Queen-Consort of England held so responsible a position. The Earl of
Hertford was to be Her Majesty’s constant attendant, but should he
chance to be temporarily absent, Cranmer was to remain with her, and
with these two, Sir William Petre and Lord Parr of Horton, her Grace’s
uncle, Wriothesley, and Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, were to sit in
council.
During this regency Katherine kept aloof from politics and occupied
herself principally with assisting the University of Cambridge and with
the royal children, who were left in her charge. Princess Mary, who
was an almost constant guest during the King’s absence, and Princess
Elizabeth, were both invited to join the circle at Oatlands, where
Prince Edward was residing, and whither, owing to an outbreak of the
plague, the Queen herself soon retired. From the various suburban
palaces in which she was residing, Katherine addressed letters almost
daily to the King, giving him accounts of the health and the doings
of his children; and the monarch vouchsafed in return to write most
approvingly of all she did. Towards the middle of August the Lady
Dorset and her daughter, the Lady Jane Grey, came to Oatlands for a
few days’ visit. This was perhaps the first and probably the only
time spent by Lady Jane and Prince Edward under the same roof. The
royal kinsfolk may have lived a very quiet life, spending their days
in the gardens and park, and their evenings either listening to the
singing of Princess Mary, who is reputed to have had a magnificent
contralto voice, or to Princess Elizabeth’s playing upon the virginals,
an art in which she already excelled. The Queen may perchance have
favoured the company with a chapter or so from some one or other of her
remarkably dull theological compositions. There is no evidence that
she was a musician, and she does not seem to have been infected with
the prevailing Court vice--gambling--in which even the pious Princess
Mary indulged, frequently losing much more than she could pay--as
demonstrated by the Household Books of Henry VIII.
Boulogne capitulated to Suffolk on 16th September, after a lengthy
siege, and on the 18th, the King, accompanied by the Duke of
Alberqurque, representing his ally the Emperor, received the keys of
the city from his brother-in-law’s hands, and made what he was pleased
to consider his triumphal entry into the town. But he rode through a
city untenanted and in ruins; even the magnificent Cathedral had not
been spared, and the townsfolk, who had fled for security, as they
hoped, to Hardelot and Etaples, were massacred, man, woman, and child,
by the allied Spanish, German, and English troops. English historians
have been reticent in dealing with the siege of Boulogne,[53] and
the majority have passed very lightly over the disagreement which
soon broke out between our King and his ally the Emperor.[54] Charles
now urged Henry to join him and march on Paris. Henry, who knew his
troops to be enfeebled by hardship and suffering, and moreover felt
himself far too ill to supervise fresh military operations, would go
no farther, more especially because he feared to infuriate the French
King, who might at any moment ally himself with his former enemy
the Emperor Charles, and thus form a Catholic coalition absolutely
inimical to the policy of the English King. Henry’s hesitation
undoubtedly saved the city of Paris. Seeing the Emperor’s troops
approach the capital, Francis roused himself for a moment from the
lethargy in which he had been plunged, and once more became the hero
of Marignano. The King’s attitude and the bravery of the Dauphin,
who was covering the capital with 8000 men, stimulated the drooping
spirits of the Parisians, and, with their usual heroism, they prepared
to offer a stout resistance to their foes. They even made merry at
the expense of their two arch-enemies, ridiculing the gouty Emperor
and caricaturing the corpulent English King--a proof, if one were
lacking, that the fatal diseases destined eventually to carry Henry
off had already made sufficient progress to excite general attention.
Queen Eleanor, the neglected wife of Francis I, foreseeing the horrors
to which the capital and its inhabitants were exposed, determined,
without consulting her husband, to plead personally with the Emperor.
Accompanied by a Spanish monk named Guzman, she proceeded to the
Imperial tent, and casting herself upon her knees before Charles, then
writhing in agonies of gout, obtained terms from him, thus averting a
siege which must have cost rivers of blood. The peace then concluded
was none too satisfactory, so far as England was concerned, since
it stipulated that Boulogne was to be restored in the space of six
years, during which time the place lost us in money and men far more
than it was worth. Never, indeed, was there a more futile expedition
than this, nor a greater waste of money. The much-talked-of sails of
cloth of gold wafted the King home on 1st October 1544. In London he
was received with little enthusiasm, or none at all. The nation was
disappointed by the terms of the peace, the army was disorganised,
Norfolk already out of favour, and Surrey, accused of insubordination,
was openly disgraced. Boulogne was left in the hands of Jane Grey’s
future father-in-law, Lord High-Admiral John Dudley.
The health of Lady Jane’s maternal grandfather, Charles Brandon, Duke
of Suffolk, failed him completely soon after his return to England.
He seems to have suffered from a complication of disorders not unlike
those which were afflicting his brother-in-law, the King. After the
siege of Boulogne, he appears to have been of very little use, and
eighteen months later he retired with his Duchess to Guildford Castle
“in much suffering and pain.” There is a portrait extant of Charles
Brandon, taken at this time, which represents him seated in a large
armchair, his head bound up in a sort of nightcap, and his swollen and
gouty feet, one of which rests on a stool, enveloped in bandages. The
bloated face bears a weird resemblance to Henry VIII. Brandon died at
Guildford in 1546 after a long illness, during which he was nursed by
his Duchess and his two daughters, the Ladies Frances and Eleanor, the
former of whom brought her eldest daughters, Jane and Katherine, with
her. By his will Charles Brandon left, after deducting a rather meagre
dower for his wife, the bulk of his vast fortune to his two sons,
with remainder to his daughters in unequal shares, the Lady Frances,
in the case of the death of her two brothers, inheriting considerably
more than two-thirds of her father’s lands and money. He desired to be
buried in Lincolnshire, but Henry, overlooking this request, caused
his body to be conveyed to Windsor, where it was interred with great
pomp in St. George’s Chapel, in the presence of his family and of a
multitude of courtiers.
CHAPTER V
MRS. ANNE ASKEW
It was in the latter years of Henry VIII’s reign that Stephen Gardiner,
Bishop of Winchester, conceived his scheme for the reconciliation of
England and England’s monarch with the Roman Pontiff. Although a less
astute intriguer than his powerful opponent Cranmer, Gardiner, who was
apt to lose his temper and blurt out things best kept to himself, was
a man of marked ability, one of whom his crafty master made frequent
use, playing him off against the Archbishop, and so retaining the
balance of power in his own jealous hands. Cranmer was at this period
using his influence with Henry to abolish the use of Latin in the
Mass, preparatory to the eventual introduction of the Book of Common
Prayer and the early and total abrogation of the Eucharistic Service
in the Roman sense. Yet the wily Churchman knew right well that so
long as the King lived there was but faint hope of this change. For
His Majesty clung to the doctrine of Transubstantiation closer than to
any other tenet; not so much on account of his faith--did he believe
anything?--as because, in the days of his youth, he had indited a work
in defence of the Catholic doctrine of the Sacraments, which, so his
clergy had averred, proved him wiser than Solomon himself, and which
Pope Leo X had favourably compared with the writings of St. Augustine
and Gregory the Great, rewarding the royal author with that title of
“Defender of the Faith” which is still a cherished appanage of British
royalty. Henry had even made belief in the Sacrament of the Altar a
principal Article amongst the famous Six, any denial of which was
punishable with death. Yet, if the King had searched Cranmer’s study
at Lambeth at the very moment when that wily prelate was professing
to accept his beliefs from his King, as submissively as though the
monarch had possessed the infallible powers of his own Maker, he might
have laid his hand on a bulky correspondence between the Primate and
every Lutheran and Calvinistic leader in Germany and Switzerland--with
Calvin, Bullinger, Œcolampadius, Osiander, Dryander, Bucer, and the
rest. Gardiner, on his side, was in communication with Cardinal Pole,
Charles V, the Pope, and the entire papal party at home and abroad.
This duel between the papal leader and the Reformers, then, was the
true basis of all political undertakings at this momentous crisis. The
rival parties were really preparing themselves for the departure of
the dying King, and aimed at controlling the inevitable Protectorate,
necessitated by the minority of his successor, a lad of nine summers.
Had Gardiner, the Howards, and the Catholic party won the day, history
would have had little, perhaps nothing, to record concerning Lady Jane
Grey. Her name, like that of her accomplished friend Lady Jane Seymour,
daughter of Lord Hertford, would have been lost, buried in the spent
sands of the past.
The decline of the King’s health began in the summer of 1541-2, when he
was attacked by a dangerous tertian fever, from which, thanks to his
powerful constitution, he partially recovered.
At the time of his marriage with Anne of Cleves he was again in poor
health, and during the proceedings for the King’s divorce from his
Dutch consort, Cranmer laid great stress on the fact that although
she had shared his chamber for six months, the bride was still to all
intents and purposes unwed. At the siege of Boulogne, as we have seen,
Henry was terribly altered, and the French ballad-writers jested about
_le cercle de fer_, which, they averred, kept his ungainly carcass
together. Queen Katherine was probably espoused rather as a skilful
nurse than as a wife, in the ordinary acceptance of the term, and a
most assiduous attendant she proved, kneeling for hours at a time
rubbing his swelled legs and dressing his many ulcers. It would be
unjust to the Queen’s memory to attribute this wifely devotion to none
but selfish motives. But her contemporaries shrewdly guessed that,
while fulfilling her wifely duty, she did not fail to work in her own
interest, and that of her friends, with her own peculiar skill and
tact. She certainly wished to be appointed Regent during Edward’s
minority, and would gladly have excluded the Howards, Wriothesley,
Gardiner, Rich, and the whole Catholic element from the King’s
sick-room, while doing all she could to strengthen the hand of the
Seymours, maternal uncles of the future King, who were intent on ruling
his kingdom for him on strictly anti-papal lines. In the spring of the
year 1546 the King had a bad relapse, and day by day the grey shadows
of approaching death deepened on that broad and bloated countenance.
He would not have the grim word mentioned in his presence, and any
courtier who appeared before him dressed in mourning[55]--even for
the nearest kin--was driven in fury from his sight. None the less,
he realised that he had not many months to live. It was imperative,
therefore, if any reconciliation with Rome was to be effected before
the new reign began, that no time should be lost, and that some sharp
and decisive blow should overthrow the influence of the Queen, now the
chief intermediary between her sick spouse, Cranmer, and the Seymours.
But Katherine, in spite of the notoriety of her intimate friendship
with Sir Thomas Seymour, was far too clever to give her enemies any
chance of blasting, or even smirching, her reputation. With respect
to her religious opinions, which were distinctly heterodox, she was
less guarded, however, and her enemies had good reason to believe that
if they could convince the King, beyond any doubt, that she was in
correspondence with those whom he was pleased to term “heretics,” she
would never be able to weather the storm her treachery must inevitably
raise in the King’s resentful breast.
Henry, whose brain remained astonishingly active, notwithstanding his
infirmities, had never been so irritable and ferocious as during the
last few months of his life. He was like a half-dead rattlesnake, which
may recover life and spring afresh upon its prey at any moment. Never
were the fires at Smithfield so active as in 1546. Early in this year
six poor wretches were sent to the stake--three Catholics; the other
three, Reformers. To demonstrate the impartiality of their merciless
judge they were all chained together. People scarcely knew what they
must believe or what disbelieve, to escape execution. The King’s
informers were always at work, spying upon the sayings and doings of
people in every rank of life; and the wonder is that the Queen and
her ladies were not caught in some imprudent admission or other, and
convicted. At last, however, in the early spring of 1546, an incident
occurred which brought Katherine’s foes their longed-for chance of
effecting her downfall.
Anne Askew, second daughter of Sir William Askew, or Ayscough, of
South Kelsy, Lincolnshire, was born at Stallingbrough, near Grimsby,
in 1521. When about fifteen years of age, she was married, without her
consent, to Mr. Thomas Kyme, a Lincolnshire squire and neighbour, who
had been previously “contracted” to her elder sister. During her early
wedded life Mrs. Kyme appears to have been happy enough, and became
the mother of two children. She presently occupied herself in studying
the newly translated Scriptures, and shortly after imagined she had a
divine mission to preach the gospel and correct what she deemed the
theological errors of her neighbours, especially on the subject of the
Lord’s Supper, concerning which she held Genevan views.
After a few years of discomfort, Mr. Kyme, who, according to the
latest researches, entertained contrary religious opinions to those of
his wife, began to complain of the scanty enjoyment he derived from
her society. She was perpetually “gadding up and down the country,
a-gospelling and a-gossiping, instead of looking after her children.”
Anne is described as a handsome and daring young woman with a good
deal of native wit and ability, and was evidently the prototype of not
a few ladies of our own time, who prefer public life and controversy
to domestic duty and retirement. She even took upon herself to read
and comment on the New Testament in the nave of Lincoln Cathedral,
where she was often to be found surrounded by an interested or amused
group of priests and people. This state of things no Dean or Chapter
could be expected to endure, and one fine day Mrs. Kyme found herself
forcibly ejected from the sacred edifice. After this incident, she must
have had some unusual disagreement with her husband, for her relations
persuaded her to leave the town, and she travelled to London, where
she soon made herself conspicuous as a preacher of the new learning,
and secured several distinguished converts. She lodged in a house near
the Temple, and one of her neighbours, Mr. Wadloe, a hot Catholic, who
began by deriding her behaviour, ended by admiring her “godliness”; to
use his own expression--“At mydnyght when I and others applye ourselves
to sleape, or do worse, Mrs. Askew” (she had resumed her maiden name),
“begins to pray, and ceaseth not in many howers after,” doubtless to
the edification of such of her neighbours as suffered from insomnia.
By dint of perseverance, and also, it may be, through her connections,
Anne Askew formed the acquaintance of several great ladies of the
Court, and is said to have obtained, through the offices of the Duchess
of Suffolk, an interview with the Queen, to whom, in the presence
of her ladies, notably Lady Tyrwhitt, Lady Lane, Lady Denny, and
the little Lady Jane Grey,[56] she offered some copies of Tyndale’s
version of the New Testament, and certain tracts arguing against
Transubstantiation, which were subsequently found in the Queen’s own
closet and in the possession of the King’s “Suffolk nieces.”
It was in March 1545 that Mrs. Askew was first arrested on a charge
of heresy and taken to Sadler’s Hall, where she was denounced to the
civil authorities and taken before the Lord Mayor, who in the course
of his examination questioned her as to the probable changes in a
consecrated wafer after a “mowse” had swallowed it, whereupon she
“made no answer but smiled,” and was committed to the Counter. That
much-abused man, Bishop Bonner, appears to have taken an interest
in her case, and endeavoured to save her from an awful fate. He
granted her a private interview and drew up a form of recantation
which she signed in the following ambiguous terms: “I, Anne Askew,
do believe all manner of things contained in the Catholic Church and
not otherwise.” On this, Bonner, whose patience had been severely
tried,--for Anne was very sharp-tongued and uncompromising,--waxed
wroth, and taking her by the shoulders, pushed her out of the chamber.
Her next friend was Dr. Weston, afterwards Bishop of Westminster, who
got her liberated on her own security; and for some months we hear no
more about her, except that she was busy preaching and distributing
her tracts secretly. On 10th May 1546 both Mr. and Mrs. Kyme received
a summons to present themselves within a specified time before the
Privy Council, then sitting at Greenwich, and they accordingly appeared
on the 19th of the following June before the Chancellor of the
Augmentations, Sir Richard Rich, the Bishops of Durham and Winchester
and a number of other noblemen and gentlemen, and were put through a
severe cross-examination.[57] Anne, we learn, received this summons in
London, but her husband came to town on purpose to attend. Kyme got
off with a caution, on his promise to return forthwith to Lincoln,
and remain there. His wife, in open court, declared she would never
again recognise him as her husband. He went back to Lincoln, and we
lose sight of him. All we know is that he died, where he is buried, at
Friskne in 1591.
Anne Askew was eventually arraigned before the King’s Justices at
Guildhall for speaking against the Sacrament of the Altar, contrary to
the Statute of the Six Articles. This time she appeared with two other
“heretics,” one of them that singular personage Dr. Nicholas Shaxton,
ex-Bishop of Salisbury, whose pupil she is said to have been. Shaxton,
a Norfolk man by birth, was one of the Commission appointed by Gardiner
in connection with the divorce of Katherine of Aragon, and during the
proceedings he so favoured the King’s view that he eventually became
almoner to Anne Boleyn and Bishop of Salisbury. At a later date he
preached Zwinglian doctrines concerning the Eucharist, got himself
into serious difficulties with Archbishop Cranmer, and was forced to
relinquish his see. After a time he became a notorious “gospeller,”
and was finally arrested with Anne Askew and a man named Christopher
White. The lady and White were both sent to Newgate; but the former
recanted, and so escaped a fiery ordeal. Shaxton did the same, obtained
his pardon, and was actually ordered to visit Anne in prison, and
persuade her to follow his example. But, weak woman though she was,
Anne was made of sterner stuff than the ex-prelate. “It were better for
you you had not been born than do that which you have done,” cried she;
and, crestfallen, her former friend and tutor left her presence. Her
condemnation followed immediately afterwards. It was presently noticed
that Anne enjoyed more creature comforts in prison than the customs
of Newgate allowed. She explained the matter by saying that “her maid
went abroad into the streets and made moan to the prentices and they
did send her money!” But her persecutors refused to believe this story,
and so one afternoon, not long before her martyrdom, she was conveyed
to the Tower, taken to the torture chamber, and there racked in the
presence of Lord Chancellor Wriothesley, Sir Richard Rich, Sir John
Barker, and Sir Anthony Knyvett, Constable of the Tower. Hitherto no
one had been tortured in England for conscience’ sake, this terrible
resource being solely employed to extract information from persons
suspected of treasonable practices. Wriothesley, exasperated at his
failure to elicit direct information or satisfactory answers from his
victim, turned the screws himself, after Knyvett had refused to order
her to be further tormented by the official executioner. Sir Richard
Rich lent his hand to the Chancellor in this merciless task, and so, to
use poor Anne’s own words, she “was nigh dead.”[58]
Dr. Lingard and other historians have cast doubt upon the veracity of
this horrible story, but the scene is described by Anne herself in
her “Narrative,” dictated a few days before her death, and published
at Marburg, in the Duchy of Hesse, in 1547, with a long running
commentary by John Bale, afterwards Bishop of Ossory. In his _Three
Conversions of England_, the Jesuit, Father Parsons, who had access
to much information and evidence long since destroyed or lost, not
only confirms the truth of the torture episode, but adds that it was
ordered by the King himself, who, hearing of the intercourse between
his Queen and Anne, “caused her to be apprehended and put to the rack,
to know the truth thereof. And by her confession he learned so much of
Queen Katherine, as he had purposed to burn her also, if he had lived.”
Parsons goes on to say that “the King’s sickness and death, shortly
ensuing, was the chief cause of her escape.” Mrs. Askew bravely endured
the most horrible torments rather than betray her friends’ trust, and
only yielded so far as to admit that whilst in prison she had received
ten shillings, delivered by a man in a blue livery. She thought the
money had been sent her by the Countess of Hertford, but was not sure.
She had a further sum of eight shillings at the hand of a footman in a
purple livery, and believed it was a gift from Lady Denny. Questioned
if she knew Lady Fitzwilliam, the Duchess of Suffolk, Lady Sussex, or
any other great ladies of the Court, she evasively answered that she
“knew nothing about them that could be proved.” She does not seem to
have been questioned point-blank as to whether she had ever had any
direct dealings with the Queen. Wriothesley may have thought he had
already obtained sufficient information for his purpose. However that
may have been, the stout-hearted lady was sent back to Newgate, there
to spend her last three days of life, which she occupied in writing and
dictating the “Narrative” to be found among Dr. Bale’s writings.[59]
On the eve of her execution Anne Askew and three men who had been
condemned for heresy at the same time as herself were visited in the
little parlour at Newgate by George Throckmorton and his brother, who
were kinsmen of the Queen--a rather suspicious circumstance. They
were cautioned in time, and thus escaped being arrested on a charge
of heresy, which might have proved fatal to themselves and their
royal cousin. John Louthe, the Reformer, who has left us an account
of the meeting, also came, at great risk to himself, to encourage
the unfortunate Anne. Mrs. Askew, with an “Angel’s countenance and
a smiling face,” talked “merrily” with her unhappy companions, John
Laselles, who had been a gentleman in attendance upon the King, and
is supposed to have been the individual who betrayed the secrets of
Katherine Howard; Nicholas Bolenian, a priest from Shropshire; and
John Adams, a tailor. They talked on religious subjects until it was
time to separate. The next day, 16th July, Mrs. Askew and her three
fellow-prisoners were taken from Newgate to Smithfield. So dislocated
were the poor lady’s limbs that she had to be carried to her doom in
a chair. Cranmer, seeking to throw the full odium of the horrible
business on Gardiner, kept much in the background in the whole matter
of Anne Askew. He did not attend the ecclesiastical commission which
condemned her to the stake; but for all that his signature is affixed
to her death-warrant. Six years later, another martyr, Joan Bocher,
one of the last of his many victims, reminded the Archbishop that he
had martyred her friend Anne Askew for teaching more or less the same
doctrines he now preached himself.
In the 1563 edition of Foxe’s _Martyrs_ there is a most curious
engraving, probably after an original drawing, representing the burning
of Anne Askew and her companions. The spectators are kept back by a
ring fence within which we see the stake, and a quaint pulpit, from
which Dr. Nicholas Shaxton, duly restored to grace, preached a sermon,
supporting the very dogma for denying which he had been prosecuted but
a few days previously. Anne is shown dressed in white; one side of the
pyre is entirely devoted to her, while the three men, apparently naked
to the waist, are bound together, on the side opposite the pulpit.
The concourse of people appears enormous; the mob seems to seethe
round the scaffold, loll out of the surrounding windows, and even
swarm on the opposite roofs. On a raised bench, under a canopy, sit
Wriothesley, Rich, the Dukes of Norfolk, Surrey, “Swearing Russell,”
and the Lord Mayor. These worthies, it appears, were sorely perturbed
by a rumour that there was an unusual amount of gunpowder on the spot,
and were very much afraid of a dangerous explosion. Their terrors were
swiftly allayed when Bedford informed the company that the explosive
in question was merely a number of small bags of gunpowder concealed
about the persons of the victims with the object of shortening their
sufferings.
At the very last moment Mrs. Askew was offered a pardon on condition
that she recanted and gave up the names of her high-born friends. She
refused: the Lord Mayor shouted _Fiat justitia_, and the faggots were
lighted. Presently the fire crackled. A quick succession of explosions
followed, the smoke concealing the wretched victims from sight. When
the flames and smoke died down only the charred and blackened remains
of four human beings could be descried. Clouds had been gathering; a
peal of thunder rolled, and heavy drops of rain soon dispersed the
throng. The show was over, and the home-returning spectators chatted as
they went, blaming or praising the deed, according to their individual
view. The horror of it does not seem to have affected them much,
although among the Reformers and the better classes of all creeds
expressions of hearty indignation were not lacking. But the masses
were accustomed to such sights of horror, and so, indeed, were our
own immediate forbears, until public executions ceased and the death
sentence was carried out in the courtyards of the prisons. We have
indeed progressed in these matters since 1546 and even since 1868.
A few days after the burning of the unfortunate Lincolnshire lady,
Foxe tells us, Wriothesley, Gardiner, and Rich waited on the King, and
so persuaded him that Anne had made damaging revelations concerning
the Queen’s intercourse with heretics that Henry “proposed to burn
her also.” His Majesty, in his rage, actually signed a warrant for
the arrest of his offending Consort and handed it to Wriothesley.
That worthy let the paper drop in a corridor or gallery close to the
Queen’s apartment. One of her servants picked it up and carried it to
Her Majesty, who was so terrified by its contents that she fell into
violent hysterics. Her apartments were close to the King’s, and Henry,
overhearing the outcry, and probably disturbed by the noise, sent to
inquire what was amiss. The Queen’s physician, Wendy, informed the
messenger that Her Majesty was dangerously ill, and her sickness, to
his reckoning, caused by sudden and extreme distress of mind. Whereupon
the King sent word that she was not to trouble herself further, as no
ill was intended to her. Greatly comforted by this reassuring message,
Katherine presently felt herself sufficiently recovered to receive a
visit from her husband, who, at great personal inconvenience, caused
himself to be conveyed into her apartment in his chair. Nothing could
have been better calculated to revive the drooping spirits of the
scared Consort than the sight of her august spouse in a good humour.
The following evening she was well enough to return the King’s visit.
She was accompanied by the Lady Tyrwhitt, her sister the Lady Herbert,
by the King’s niece the Lady Jane Grey, and by the Lady Lane, who bore
the candles before Her Majesty. The King welcomed the Queen and her
company very courteously, and, bidding her be seated, in a cheerful
tone entered into a controversial conversation with her. He possibly
wished to “draw” his Consort upon certain theological questions; but
she shrewdly observed that “since God had appointed him Supreme Head
of the Church it was not for her to teach him theology, but to learn
it from him.” “Not so, by St. Mary,” said the King, “you are become
a doctor, Kate, to instruct us, and not to be instructed of us, as
oftentimes we have seen.” “Indeed, indeed, Sire,” quoth the Queen,
“if your Majesty so conceive, my meaning has been mistaken, for I
have always held it preposterous for a woman to instruct her lord.”
“If,” she continued, “I have occasionally ventured to differ with your
Highness on religious matters, it was partly to obtain information, and
also to pass away the pain and weariness of your present infirmity with
arguments that interested you.” “And is it so, sweetheart?” replied His
Majesty, “then we are perfect friends,” and thereupon he kissed her and
gave her leave to depart.
The day appointed by her foes for the Queen’s arrest chanced to be fine
and the sun shone brightly. The King sent for her to take the early air
with him on the garden terrace overlooking the Thames. Katherine came,
attended as before by her sister, the Lady Herbert, the Lady Lane,
the Lady Tyrwhitt, and the little Lady Jane Grey. They had not been
long walking up and down in the sunshine before the Lord Chancellor,
with forty of the guard, entered the garden, expecting to carry off
the Queen to the Tower--for no intimation of the change in the King’s
intentions had reached him. Henry received his minister with a burst
of furious invective. Bidding the Queen and her ladies stand apart, he
called up Wriothesley and cast every evil name he could think of at
him, commanding him, finally, to “avaunt from his presence and never
show his face again till he was summoned.” Wriothesley, crestfallen and
humbled, was about to withdraw, when the Queen advanced and interceded
for him: “Poor soul, poor soul!” quoth the King; “thou little knowest,
Kate, how ill he deserveth this grace at thy hands. On my hand,
sweetheart, he hath been to thee a very knave!” So the disappointed
minister departed, and Henry walked up and down the terrace again,
leaning on his Queen and followed by her escort of ladies. Although
Wriothesley’s part in this tragi-comedy seems to have been overlooked,
the King is said never to have forgiven Gardiner his share in the
matter. A little later, notwithstanding the royal prohibition, both
conspirators presented themselves with their colleagues. The King
forthwith reminded Wriothesley in his most forcible manner that he had
ordered him never to show his face again, and above all never, on any
pretext whatever, to bring “that beast Gardiner” along with him. “My
Lord of Winchester,” replied the cunning Wriothesley, “has come to
wait upon your Highness with an offer of benevolence from his clergy.”
The King being as usual in great need of money, began to listen
more benignly, allowed Gardiner to present the address, and finally
accepted the bribe.[60] But he took no further notice of the Bishop,
and is said to have struck his name off the list of his executors
within the next few days. He also cancelled that of Thirlby, Bishop of
Westminster, because, said he, “he is too much under the influence of
Gardiner.”[61] Queen Katherine may have had a hand in this affair, and
after the revelation of the treachery which would fain have destroyed
her she very likely took the opportunity of letting the King know more
concerning the machinations of Gardiner and Wriothesley than was good
for their credit or likely to serve their influence.
The details of this formidable but abortive plot against Katherine
Parr rest mainly on the authority of Foxe. But it must be remembered,
by those inclined to doubt the “Martyrologist,” that at this time he
had attained his thirtieth year, he was in touch with most of the
personages named, and was consequently in a position to obtain the
information which he wove into his famous narrative--not, we admit,
without considerable embellishment and exaggeration, introduced to
suit the taste of his readers--from living witnesses. Foxe also made
liberal use of Paget’s statement during the proceedings for Gardiner’s
deprivation, which took place early in Edward’s reign. All the
Elizabethan and Jacobean historians of Henry VIII--Herbert, Parsons,
Holinshed, Strype, Speed, Oldmixon, and others--reproduce the story
with slight emendations and additions from Foxe. No direct confirmation
of it is to be found indeed in the State Papers, but this is not
surprising, for such matters were not usually set down in writing.
Nevertheless, it is hinted at.[62] Nor do the Ambassadors seem to have
known anything about it. Father Parsons, who, like Foxe, obtained
much of his information at first hand, introduces the incident in his
_Three Conversions of England_, a book written to refute some of Foxe’s
errors, and adds that although Foxe lays “all the cause of the Queen’s
trouble upon Bishop Gardiner and others, and though the King did kindly
and lovingly pardon her, the truth is that the King’s sickness and
death were the chief causes of her escape, for had the King found her
guilty he would have commanded her also to be burned.”
Speed, possibly mistaking Lady _Lane_ for Lady Jane, introduces
the King’s little niece on this occasion, not only as a witness of
the reconciliation of the royal couple, but in the character of a
candle-bearer before the Queen. Jane Grey, being a Princess of the
Blood, could never have been in _attendance_ upon the Queen, and
she was too small a child to be laden with a pair of heavy branch
candlesticks. Lady Lane, on the other hand, was certainly in the
Queen’s Household at this particular juncture. She was Her Majesty’s
cousin-german, being the daughter of her uncle, Lord Parr of Horton,
and wife of Sir Ralph Lane of Orlingby, Nottinghamshire. Still,
since the fact of her being present is mentioned by so many almost
contemporary writers, we may conclude that Lady Jane was a witness
of the dramatic scenes that took place between King Henry and his
terrified Consort, and may herself, in after life, have narrated the
incident to some friend of Foxe or immediate forbear of Parson’s
informant. Gardiner’s disgrace does not seem to have been quite as
complete as Foxe has been pleased to represent it, and he was in close
enough contact with those in power to be selected as chief celebrant at
the King’s Requiem.
That the King was completely reconciled to his wife is proved by the
conspicuous part he assigned her in the splendid series of festivities
in honour of the French Envoy, who arrived in August, when the Court
had removed to Hampton Court. Not only was her apartment refurnished
with sumptuous tapestries, but her wardrobe was renewed, and the King
presented her with a quantity of magnificent jewellery, which, after
his death, gave rise to considerable misunderstanding and trouble.
These festivities in honour of Monsieur d’Annebault, Francis I’s
special Envoy, were the last flicker of the pageantry of Henry VIII’s
reign, and revived for a week something of the brilliance of the
Court of England in the great days of Wolsey. For the first and only
time, Prince Edward, as heir-apparent, played a conspicuous part. On
Monday, 23rd August, the boy-prince rode out towards London to meet
the Ambassador, attended by the Archbishop of York and the Earls of
Hertford and Huntingdon, and by a retinue of “five hundred and forty
persons in velvet coats, and the Prince’s liveries wore sleeves of
cloth of gold, and half the coats embroidered also with gold, and there
were the number of eight hundred, royally apparelled.” D’Annebault,
who came to ratify the peace recently concluded between the sovereigns
of France and England, was accompanied by a suite of two hundred
gentlemen, who were all lodged at the King’s expense and entertained
in the most hospitable manner. His Majesty was not well enough to
receive the Ambassador on his arrival, but he received him in audience
on the following day, after which monarch and Ambassador proceeded
to the Chapel Royal, where, during Mass, they solemnly received the
Host together.[63] Then followed six days of banqueting, hunting, and
merry-making, masques, and mummeries, “with divers and sundry changes,
inasmuch that the torch-bearers were clothed with gold cloth, and
such like honourable entertainments, it were much to utter and hard
to believe.” On these occasions the Marchioness of Dorset and her
daughter, the Lady Jane Grey, were present, and Prince Edward danced
with his little cousin, who also tripped it with young Lord Edward
Seymour, the Lord Hertford’s eldest boy. When the Ambassador took his
leave, Henry made him a present of silver plate to the value of £1200.
After his departure the dying King seems to have led a very quiet life
at Hampton Court and Whitehall. The end was visibly approaching. His
feet and hands were abnormally swollen; dropsy had set in, and he was
probably also suffering from an internal tumour. Even his most fervent
admirers were obliged to confess that in appearance, at least, he had
assumed somewhat of the aspect of a monster; but music still charmed
the suffering monarch, and the last Household Books of his reign
contain various items of payments to musicians and madrigal singers.
NOTE.--Dr. Gairdner makes the following comments on this subject in
his Preface to vol. 21, part i. of the Calendar of State Papers for
1546 (published in 1908): “But one word may be permitted here about
that dreadful incident, the racking in the Tower. It took place
_after_ her (Anne’s) condemnation, the object being to elicit from
her information about persons at the Court who it was suspected had
been her allies in promoting heresy. Besides others whose names
are given, against whom she positively refused to utter a word,
she was probably expected to accuse Queen Katherine Parr herself;
for Parsons (_Three Conversions of England_, ii. 493) is no doubt
perfectly correct in saying that the well-known incident related by
Foxe, about this Queen, when she stood in real danger from a charge
of heresy, was connected with the affair of Anne Askew. But Parsons
is certainly wrong in saying that the King would have burned
Katherine Parr also if he had lived. For though her heretical
propensities were no secret, she survived the King, and he himself
for fully six months survived Anne Askew. More probably the Queen
was saved by Anne’s refusal to commit anyone except herself.”
CHAPTER VI
THE HOWARDS AND THE SEYMOURS
The collapse of the conspiracy against Katherine Parr led to an
immediate counter-plot on the part of the Seymours and their allies
to compromise the Duke of Norfolk and his son, Surrey, and thereby
frustrate the aspirations of the Catholics, of whose party Norfolk was
the acknowledged chief. A previous attempt to inflict irretrievable
damage on the credit of the Howards had partially failed, though the
unsavoury revelations connected with the arrest and execution of
Queen Katherine Howard had covered the illustrious name with obloquy,
and almost every conspicuous Howard in England had been sent to the
Tower,[64] on the charge of having concealed the Queen’s previous
immorality from the King’s knowledge when he proposed to marry her. At
that moment Norfolk and his son only escaped by taking Henry’s side
against their miserable kinswoman. But the Duke never regained his full
influence over his master, and, despite his great services, both as
statesman and warrior, lived on, to use the expression of one of his
contemporaries, “like the bird that is wounded i’ the wing.” Yet he was
a great power in the politics of those days, for though the Catholic
party was of but small account at Court, a good two-thirds of the
people remained firmly attached to the ancestral faith; this was the
case more especially in the rural districts, where the vast majority
clung to the dogmas and ceremonies of the ancient Church, and only
awaited an opportunity to assert their preference. For the matter of
that, it was shown very early in Queen Mary’s reign that the Protestant
fervour of the official world, being a matter of policy rather than of
conviction, was not to be relied on. The majority of that aristocracy
which had so eagerly accepted the extreme reforms assented to by Edward
VI was to be seen, a few weeks after his death, parading the streets of
London, taper in hand, in the wake of the revived processions of Corpus
Christi and Our Lady.[65]
Thomas Howard, third Duke of Norfolk, was one of the most conspicuous
figures in Henry’s reign. He may not, perhaps, have been as astute a
statesman as has been asserted, but he showed remarkable qualities
as a capable peacemaker on the occasion of the Pilgrimage of Grace;
while as a warrior he had no rival, and proved himself a hero on
Flodden Field. If anything, he was excessive in his loyalty to the
King, and he would even seem to have sunk all sense of his own
dignity and importance, humbling himself utterly before the monarch
whose assumption of _quasi_-divine attributes he had aided and
abetted. Thus, when his niece Anne Boleyn was tried and executed for
misdemeanours she was certainly not proved to have committed,[66]
he, at her royal assassin’s command, pronounced the death sentence,
and with his son, the young Earl of Surrey, who sat at his feet,
holding the Earl Marshal’s baton in his hand, was actually present
at her execution. When, some few years later, Norfolk’s other niece,
Katherine Howard, was proved guilty of many serious offences, both
before and after marriage, Norfolk sat in judgment upon her and would
have witnessed her death too but for an attack of gout which kept him
a prisoner. Two days after the execution he penned an abject letter
to the King apologising for “the naughtiness of his said niece, the
late Queen.”[67] In person, Norfolk was a dark, handsome man, of
moderate stature, with piercing eyes and an exceedingly intelligent
countenance. Holbein has left us several magnificent oil portraits of
him, and at least one noble drawing, now in the Windsor Collection. He
was fairly educated, a good Latin scholar, and a patron of art. His
first wife, Princess Anne Plantagenet, the King’s aunt, died young in
1512. The day on which he espoused his second,[68] the handsome Lady
Elizabeth Stafford, was an evil one for him. The alliance was one of
convenience on his side and of compulsion on hers. His duchy had been
greatly impoverished by the attainder of his father, the second Duke,
after Bosworth, and the luckless Buckingham’s daughter was possessed
of a handsome fortune in money and wide lands. She had been previously
contracted to Ralph Nevill, afterwards Earl of Westmoreland, to whom
she was greatly attached and with whom she kept up a correspondence
till the end of her life. Although she bore her husband five children,
the Duchess of Norfolk suffered some neglect at his hands, her rival
being a certain Bess Holland,[69] a gentlewoman in her service. The
mortification caused by this outrage drove the poor Duchess to the
verge of distraction. She seems to have been a naturally conscientious,
if narrow-minded, woman, of an exceedingly high-strung and excitable
temperament. We should describe her nowadays as an “impossible” person,
whose lack of tact and outbursts of uncontrollable rage not only
alienated her husband’s affections, but deprived her of her children’s
love as well as of her servants’ respect.
Of all the men of his time, Surrey, this ill-used lady’s son, was the
most accomplished. He was an excellent Latin, French, and Italian
scholar, and well versed in ancient and modern literature. No one could
excel him in tourney or joust--not even John Dudley, afterwards Duke
of Northumberland, who had exceeding skill with the sword and spear,
and than whom scarce one could pull a bow with surer aim. Surrey danced
more lightly than Thomas Seymour, who prided himself on the “altitude
of his pirouettes,” and the King himself in his singing youth did not
warble a sweeter note. No Englishman since Chaucer had so enriched our
literature with verse all redolent of those sweet-scented fields and
lanes, meadows and gardens amid which the poet’s muse loved best to
linger. An Elizabethan critic well described him as “a poet new crept
out of the school of Dante, Petrarch, and Ariosto,” and “coming nearer
to Ariosto” than to either the prophet of Florence or the inspired
singer of Vaucluse. Though of but medium height, Surrey was so graceful
and well-proportioned as to seem taller than he really was. There is a
portrait of him at Hampton Court, most probably by Guilliam Streete,
which gives us a fair idea of this prince for a fairy-tale. The face is
full of youthful charm: the eyes hazel, frank, and winning; the cheeks
rounded and flushed with rosy health; the hair a darkish chestnut; the
slight moustache of the colour of ripe corn. His costume is superb. The
young Earl stands before us garbed from head to foot in red velvet,
softened by bands of brocade and sarsenet, the only white spot visible
being the silk shirt open at the neck, and even that enriched with a
dainty arabesque wrought in gold stitchery. On his well-shaped head
rests a jaunty cap of crimson velvet with a feathered plume of the same
tint.
There was much that was purely personal in the violent animosity
displayed by the Seymours against the Howards in general and against
Surrey in particular. The Seymours, although of far more ancient and
well-ascertained lineage than either the Brandons or the Boleyns,
were not of the great aristocracy, but, in a sense, what the modern
French would call _arrivistes_. Had it not been for the accident which
raised their sister Jane to the towering position of Queen-Consort,
the Seymours would probably have remained what they originally were,
mere country squires of excellent lineage, reputed to be remotely
connected with royalty. Their father,[70] Sir William St. Maur, or
Seymour, of Wolf’s Hall, Wiltshire, had on one occasion entertained
King Henry VIII; and their mother, Lady Seymour, by birth a Wentworth,
and a lineal descendant of Edward III, was highly connected; but
otherwise there was nothing in their antecedents to distinguish them
from scores of other equally respectable and wealthy country gentlemen.
The sudden[71] elevation of their sister Jane brought them a rapid
promotion, which first dazzled them and then turned their heads.
Honours and positions were heaped upon them. Edward, the eldest son,
was first created Viscount Beauchamp, and, after the birth of Prince
Edward, Earl of Hertford; the second, Thomas, was knighted. The
youngest, Henry, seems to have preferred obscurity and security to rank
and risk, and lived the life of a country gentleman, married young, and
merely accepted knighthood on Edward VI’s accession.
The ranks of the old aristocracy had been thinned by the prolonged
civil wars and the plague, and towards the middle of the century the
Court was so full of new men that at the time of Henry’s last illness
there were only two dukes in the peerage--Norfolk, then seventy-two;
and Suffolk, a lad of seventeen. The new peers, whose fortunes were
mainly derived from confiscated church property, were eager to obtain
recognition from the few of the old aristocracy who yet remained,
and more especially from the Howards, a sturdy race, full of sap and
vigour, and conspicuous in Court and State. The Duke of Norfolk was
too experienced a man, both socially and politically, to permit his
inborn pride of birth to display itself out of season. With Surrey it
was otherwise. In his case, pride of ancestry was something more than
a mere matter of vulgar boast. He regarded it with a poet’s eye and
imagination, and took delight in remembering that through his veins
flowed the blood of emperors and kings who had founded realms and
dynasties, and built up the glory of a great nation. In the beginning
of the fifteenth century a marriage between Robert Howard and the Lady
Margaret Mowbray had brought the illustrious house into alliance with
royalty. His father’s first wife had been the reigning King’s aunt,
and his mother, Elizabeth Stafford, had a right to quarter Royal Arms
on her escutcheon. With such a pedigree, and in an age when rank was
paramount, Surrey conceived himself sufficiently powerful to hold his
own against the encroachments of a new peerage only too eager to claim
a fellowship which offended his sense of propriety.
When the Seymours first came to Court, in the heyday of their youth and
good looks, they sought young Surrey’s society, just as in our day new
people seek that of a leader of the “smartest set.” So long as they
kept their place, Surrey consorted with them willingly enough; but
their rapacity and arrogance jarred on him at last, and he resented
their many attempts at over-familiarity. He himself, on occasion, was
apt to transgress the bounds of good behaviour, and once upon a time,
being in lodgings in St. Lawrence Lane, Old Jewry, and leading what he
himself is pleased to call a “racketty life,” went brawling about the
streets at midnight with young William Pickering[72] and young Wyatt,
the poet’s son, casting stones into peaceful citizens’ windows, and
frightening them out of their wits. One night the party rowed over in
a boat to Southwark, where dwelt in those days that gay and facile
sisterhood whose representatives, in this year of Grace, 1909, patrol
more central parts of our great city. In this fast company, our young
gentlemen, evidently in their cups, behaved disgracefully. On Surrey’s
part such conduct was all the more unseemly since he was already
married to the plain-faced, but wealthy, Lady Frances Vere,[73] Lord
Oxford’s daughter, to whom he declared himself devotedly attached.
These escapades ended by attracting public attention, and their heroes
were arrested for disorderly conduct. Thanks to their rank, they were
brought before the Privy Council,[74] instead of being haled before
an ordinary justice, though, as ill-luck would have it, Edward, Lord
Hertford, was presiding at the Council board. The opportunity of paying
off a few old scores was too much for him, and he swiftly resolved to
give Surrey good cause to remember him in future. A very comical and
characteristic scene ensued.[75] Surrey, mimicking Hertford, who was
nothing if not puritanical in his mode of expressing himself, “having
ever God on his lips,” assured the Council that if he had done what he
had, it had been for the good of the souls of the wicked citizens of
London, who were behaving more abominably than the men of papal Rome.
Had he not seen them sitting round tables and playing at cards in the
late hours of the night?--and was it not a godly thing to whizz a stone
or so at their windows, which stone, passing silently through the air,
fell with all the greater suddenness among them, thereby recalling
them to a proper sense of their duties to their God, their King, and
their country?[76] Mrs. Arundel, a woman of good family but greatly
impoverished, who kept a sort of boarding-house for bachelors of rank
in St. Lawrence Lane, Old Jewry, was the Earl’s landlady, and imparted
a very different colour to the episode. “Her young gentleman,” she
said, had frankly admitted to her that he considered these pranks good
jokes: but she herself disapproved of them, especially the shooting
at the windows of women of light character, or “bawds,” in Southwark,
which the Earl, it seems, was addicted to, going by boat close to their
quarters and firing off petards at the “trolls”! There was nothing for
it, therefore, but to pronounce sentence. Surrey was committed to the
Fleet, the most abominable of all the many vile prisons of those days,
while Wyatt and Pickering, though of much inferior rank, were sent
to the stately Tower, whence they were delivered in a day or two on
payment of a heavy fine and promising good behaviour. How long Surrey
remained in durance it is difficult to say--long enough certainly for
him to compose his “Satire on the Citizens of London” and several other
poems. He never forgave Seymour his share in the business, and never
failed to annoy his enemy openly or covertly whenever opportunity
occurred. It was quite in keeping with his character to address amatory
verses with this intent to Hertford’s handsome and very proud wife,
who took his lines in very bad part, as so many insults to her honour.
The Countess once made a scandal by deliberately turning her back upon
the poet-Earl when, in August 1542, at a ball in his own father’s
house,[77] he ventured to ask her permission to lead her out to dance.
Late in the summer of 1542 a very serious quarrel broke out between
Seymour and Surrey, over an incident which took place in Hampton Court
Park. Seymour, it was alleged, had reported against Surrey that he had
openly approved of the Pilgrimage of Grace. Surrey, coming face to
face with his antagonist in a glen in the park, instantly challenged
him. Coats were off in a moment, and the two were in the midst of a
hearty boxing-match when the guard arrived and took both into custody
for violating the royal privilege and fighting within the precincts
of the King’s palace. The punishment for this offence, as readers of
_The Fortunes of Nigel_ will recollect, was loss of the right hand. All
the diplomacy and influence of the Duke of Norfolk had to be exerted
to avert the infliction of this terrible penalty; but, thanks to his
efforts, both the hot-headed young gentlemen escaped with a sharp
reprimand. Scores of similar curious instances might be quoted from the
chronicles and letters of the time, to prove the depth and bitterness
of the social animosity between the Howards and the Seymours. The Duke
himself resented the cruel manner in which Hertford had behaved in the
matter of His Grace’s niece, the unhappy Katherine Howard. There can be
no doubt that at one time both Cranmer and the King wished to spare her
life, and would have spared it had not Hertford, in his hot haste to
ruin the Howards’ credit, prematurely dispatched letters to the King’s
Ambassadors abroad containing full details of the Queen’s disgrace,
with orders to hand them to the sovereigns to whose Courts they were
accredited. This publicity rendered the royal clemency impossible.[78]
Early in the summer of 1546 the Duke of Norfolk made up his mind, in
what he held to be the interests of himself and his family, to bring
about a reconciliation, if that were possible, between his house and
Seymour’s. He fully realised that, ageing as he was, he could no longer
be a match for two unscrupulous and very able men, then reaching the
prime of life, and already holding the King’s complete confidence.
Further, he felt Surrey to be hopeless in all business calling for
tact and diplomacy, and was convinced the persistent animosity between
his son and Hertford would lead before long to some awful catastrophe.
Surrey’s bravery as a fighting soldier was undisputed, but as a
commander his lack of reticence and his rashness had led the King’s
troops in France into more than one disaster; he himself had paid the
penalty of his rashness before the walls of Montreuil, where he was
seriously wounded and only saved from certain death by the gallantry
of Sir Thomas Clere. He had then been recalled, and Hertford had been
sent to take his place, a bitter humiliation to the proud Howards and
one which more than anything else rankled in Surrey’s soul. Yet the
old Duke recognised that Hertford’s bravery and tact as warrior and
diplomatist had soon ended the war and obtained peace with honour for
the English forces, thus raising his popularity to the highest pitch;
for there was nothing the nation then desired so much as peace, at home
and abroad. Hertford’s brother, Sir Thomas, was, if anything, still
more popular, for he had so successfully scoured the seas in quest of
French galleons laden with provisions that suppressed monasteries had
been converted into storehouses. The magnificent ex-church of the Grey
Friars had become a wine-vault, crammed to the roof with barrels of
Burgundy and other wines of the best French vintages. In Austin Friars
such a stock of cheeses was stored that there was no moving in that
erstwhile beautiful priory church, and the huge and splendid church of
the Black Friars was literally packed with salt herring and dried cod.
Wherefore the people had good reason to be well pleased with brother
Thomas.
The Duke, then, without consulting his son,--and here his disastrous
mistake,--obtained an interview with Hertford, and, skilfully playing
on his well-known vanity and social ambition, suggested at length that
a betrothal should be forthwith arranged between Hertford’s eldest
daughter and Surrey’s eldest son, and a similar contract entered into
between Lord Thomas Howard[79] and Seymour’s youngest daughter, the
Lady Jane Seymour. His Grace, apparently in a match-making mood,
gave his paternal sanction to the wooing and wedding of his beautiful
daughter, the widowed Duchess of Richmond, by Sir Thomas Seymour.
With all these suggestions the Seymours gladly closed, making but one
condition, that Surrey should accept a slightly subordinate position
under Hertford’s command, virtually tantamount to a tacit apology for
his repeated slights, covert and open, in the past. On Tuesday in
Whitsun week 1546, then, the Duke, well pleased with his own diplomacy,
presented himself at Whitehall and laid his rather complicated scheme
of alliances before His Majesty. Henry was graciously pleased to
approve it, and willingly agreed that his daughter-in-law of Richmond
should become the bride of the handsome Thomas Seymour, with whom,
according to Court gossip, she was already much in love. But in all
these schemes the Duke had reckoned without his host, for when he put
the matter before Surrey, that impetuous poet flew into a towering
rage. He would “sooner see his children dead in their coffins than
married to Seymour’s brats,” he said. Then, turning furiously on his
sister, the Duchess of Richmond, who had accompanied her father, he
cried,--at least, according to that dangerous Court gossip, Sir Gawen
Carew,--“Go, carry out your farce of a marriage. My Lord of Hertford
is in full favour, I grant; but why not do yet better for yourself
and follow Madame d’Estampes’ example with King Francis. Get you
into the same sort of favour with King Henry, and rule through him.”
This sinister advice was evidently dictated by that vein of bitter
sarcasm usual with Surrey when the uncontrollable temper which he
inherited from his mother mastered his common sense. It could not
have been seriously meant, for nobody knew better than Surrey that
the King was already more than half dead, utterly unable to trouble
himself about new mistresses, and in any case not likely to select
his own daughter-in-law to replace his excellent Queen-Consort and
nurse, Katherine Parr. The Duchess of Richmond, however, took the jibe
seriously, replied that she “would sooner cut her throat” than do “any
such vile thing,” and left her irate brother to his own reflections,
which, when he cooled down, cannot have been particularly agreeable. He
knew his sister well; she was an exceedingly beautiful woman, to whom
Holbein, in his exquisite drawing, has given the expression of one of
Ghirlandajo’s sweetest Madonnas. But at heart she was a little fiend,
capable, when her passions were roused, of working dire mischief. She
said little at the time, but she nursed her grievance and exaggerated
its importance. She may also have felt not a little embittered against
Sir Thomas Seymour, who had ungallantly refused her hand because it
was not accompanied by her brother’s submission. Be this as it may,
“the Duchess of Richmond from that day forth hated her brother as much
as she had previously loved him,”[80] and when the hour for revenge
came at last, forgetful of her obligations as sister and woman, she
scandalised even that unsentimental age by appearing at her brother’s
trial as one of the principal witnesses for the prosecution.
Meanwhile the Duke of Norfolk was at his wits’ end to know how to make
Hertford aware of the unfortunate results of his negotiations with his
son. He was possessed of a perfect mania for putting pen to paper on
any and every pretext, although, as every one who has waded through
his correspondence knows, there has never been a statesman, before or
since, who could indite more indiscreet and exasperating epistles.
If then, as is likely, he conveyed the unpleasant news by letter, he
was not the man to improve matters by a tactful manner. The breach
between the Howards and the Seymours was now complete. Hertford, hurt
in pride and vanity, would accept no apologies from the Duke, and the
feud between himself and Surrey soon grew more bitter than ever. To
make matters worse, the Duchess of Richmond made a confidant of her
friend, Sir Gawen Carew, who detested her brother, and was the most
inveterate gossip of the Court, as is well known to those who have read
the State Papers connected with the tragedy of Katherine Howard; it
was, indeed, the gossip of Sir Gawen that did most to ruin that Queen.
Presently young scions of the nobility, courtiers who hated the Howards
for their airs and graces and forgot the old Duke’s well-known kindness
to the youthful, buzzed about the King, and did their best to set him
against the luckless Earl. Hertford and his brother afforded them ample
assistance, supplying all necessary instructions and information; and,
for all we know to the contrary, the Queen may have lent a helping
hand. In fact, the whole Protestant party was now roused against the
Howards, the representatives of the Catholics, and determined to bring
about their ruin or perish in the attempt. It had hoped the folly of
Katherine Howard would have sufficed for this purpose, but the great
house of Norfolk was firm enough to resist even that storm. Another
pretext had to be found, and the impolitic behaviour of the poet-Earl
supplied it.
Poor Surrey was no match for the low and cunning intrigues amongst
which “Fate and metaphysical aid” had thrown him. Somewhere in June
1546 he was summoned before the Privy Council, severely reprimanded
for what he could not possibly help, and imprisoned in Windsor Castle,
where he consoled himself by writing one of his most exquisite poems.
This was his “Swan Song”! By August, however, he was certainly out
of durance, and apparently once more in favour with the King, for
he figured as Earl Marshal at the entertainments given in honour of
the French Envoy, Claude d’Annebault, taking precedence of everyone
excepting members of the royal family.
Early in September he left London, and returned to his wife and
children at Kenninghall, accompanied by Churchyard the poet, who was
his secretary, and an extremely numerous and miscellaneous retinue,
which included several Italian painters, musicians, and jesters. One
of the artists, Toto, was soon engaged upon a portrait of him, which
was later used to his great disadvantage; in the left-hand corner of
it appeared his escutcheon, bearing among its numerous quarterings the
arms of England, but so arranged that a slide could be drawn, when
necessary, over the coat-of-arms. The Duke of Norfolk and my Lady of
Richmond came to Kenninghall Palace about this time; but the mansion,
of which not a vestige now remains, was so enormous that every member
of the ducal family had a separate dwelling. The Duchess of Richmond
had a whole wing to herself, which she shared with her friend Mrs.
Holland. The society of those days was not so dead to all sense of
propriety as not to be scandalised by this singular intimacy between
the Duke’s daughter and his mistress. Most people agreed with the
Duchess of Norfolk “that her dater’s abiding ever with that drab
Holland” was a “scandayul and most unnatterall.” Owing to the huge size
of the mansion, not much inferior to that of Hampton Court, the Duchess
and Mrs. Holland may never once have come into contact with Surrey and
his family; otherwise, it is difficult to account for the fact that we
have no record of any fiery scene between brother and sister. The Duke
seems to have spent his time very quietly, reading the books he most
affected, such as Plutarch’s _Lives of Illustrious Men_, Josephus’s
_History_, and _The Confessions of St. Augustin_.[81]
Whilst the Howard family was thus peacefully rusticating in Norfolk,
gossip and slander were making headway in the metropolis and preparing
poor Surrey’s ruin. Sir George Blagg, the “my Blagg” of one of his
finest poems, had picked a quarrel with him in the summer, and was
busy as a bee spreading evil reports against him. Sir Gawen Carew had
confided to every one what the Duchess of Richmond had related to him
anent her brother’s advice to hasten and become the King’s mistress.
His enemies had even pressed the Court astrologer into their service,
and this functionary had actually warned the King that unless he was
careful, his successor’s monogram would, like his own, be “H.R.” The
Duke himself was not spared: he had been seen to enter the French
Ambassador’s house late at night and to leave it again in the small
hours of the morning. A letter of his to Gardiner, then on a mission
to Brussels, was intercepted--and vague though its terms were, it was
held to be proof positive of Norfolk’s adherence to Gardiner’s scheme,
as planned with Cardinal Granville, to restore the papal supremacy in
England. At last, truth and lies together rolled themselves up into
an ominous storm-cloud, which burst when Surrey was called to appear
before the Council in London on a charge of high treason.
Some writers have attempted to extenuate Henry VIII’s share in the
_dénouement_ of this tragedy. They plead that he was too ill at this
time to know exactly what he was doing, and that, in consequence of the
swollen state of his hands, he was compelled to use a stamp to sign his
letters. With regard to this, we know that as far back as 1st August
1546 he had commissioned Sir Anthony Denny, Sir John Gates, and William
Clere to sign documents for him with a dry stamp, the signature thus
made being filled in with ink. And even this is not the first time
Henry had recourse to a mechanical contrivance for signing letters
and State Papers. Lord Hardwick has a letter of the King’s signed
with a stamp and dated as early as the seventh year of his reign.
Moreover, the official documents, which were drawn up by Wriothesley,
are carefully annotated and corrected in pencil by Henry himself, with
very full marginal notes and numerous interlineations. The handwriting
is very shaky, but it is the King’s none the less, and proves that if
the monarch’s body was infirm, his brain was as clear and his feelings
as vindictive as ever. The death-warrant of the Earl of Surrey is also
scribbled over on the margin with certain pencil notes in the King’s
own writing, proving that Henry must have retained the use of his hands
to the end.
Sufficient evidence having been gathered, and Surrey being summoned
to London, he left Kenninghall[82] in the last days of September, and
appeared before the Privy Council in Wriothesley’s house in Holborn,
not far from Chancery Lane, on 2nd October. His first accuser was
Sir Richard Southwell, at one time in his mother’s household at
Kenninghall, who hated him heartily. He averred that Surrey had placed
the Royal Arms of England in the first quartering of his escutcheon,
thereby claiming the crown. When confronted with Southwell, Surrey,
with his foolish impetuosity, and to the consternation of the Council,
proposed a sort of trial by battle after the mediæval fashion.
Southwell and he were there and then to divest themselves of their
upper garments, descend on to the floor of the court, and indulge the
Lord Chancellor and the Council with the spectacle of a boxing-match,
the winner of which was to be declared innocent. The Council, needless
to say, did not see fit to accept the fiery Earl’s suggestion, and
both Surrey and Southwell were temporarily detained--the Earl being not
yet formally charged.
The examination of the other witnesses took place privately a few days
later, before the Council but not in the presence of the prisoner.
Sir Edmund Knyvyt, a son of the Lady Muriel Howard, the sister of
the Duke of Norfolk, and therefore a cousin of Surrey, out of sheer
spite, and also perhaps to give himself importance, accused the Earl
of harbouring Italian spies in his house at Kenninghall, of affecting
foreign airs, of wearing foreign costumes, and, gravest of all, of
entertaining persons suspected of correspondence with Cardinal Pole and
other “traitors” abroad. Then came Sir Gawen Carew with an exaggerated
version of the Duchess of Richmond’s story that her brother advised
her to become the King’s mistress, and had spoken lightly of the
King’s illness, and speculated as to what might occur in the event of
his death; and before the week was out a score or so of other venal
witnesses had concocted sufficient evidence to send fifty men to the
block.
The Duke, meanwhile, tarried at Kenninghall, wondering what had
happened to his son, and never imagining how bitter and relentless was
the suddenly, and indeed inexplicably, developed hatred of the King,
which we, however, know was stimulated by the Seymours and Cranmer for
their own ends. Instead of coming up to London to help the Earl out
of his difficulties, he set himself, as usual, to write confidential
letters to those members of the Council upon whom he thought he could
rely. These effusions were promptly shown to Hertford, with the result
that His Grace himself was ordered to London with the utmost dispatch.
On 12th December the Duke of Norfolk appeared before Lord Chancellor
Wriothesley at his house in Holborn, near the present Southampton
Buildings, and, to his unutterable amazement, found himself formally
charged with high treason. He was immediately committed to the Tower,
but on account of his rank and age, and to spare him the humiliation
of being paraded as a prisoner through the city streets, he was
conveyed down the hill, put on board a barge in the Fleet, and so to
the Thames, through the arches of London Bridge, and onward to his
ominous destination in the ancient fortress. Later in the same day
Surrey too was conducted to the Tower, but he had to go on foot and
through a dense multitude. To the consternation of his enemies, he
was cheered all along the road, and grave fears were entertained of a
rescue.[83] Three commissioners were now dispatched to Kenninghall to
bring the Duchess of Richmond and her friend Mrs. Holland up to town.
Another embassy rode to Redbourne, to fetch the Duchess of Norfolk, who
was only too delighted to come to London and blurt out all she could
to the detriment of her hated spouse. By this time London could talk
of nothing but the Surrey trial. In the palaces of the rich, in the
hovels of the poor, in all the little taverns and drinking-houses down
by the Thames, in the parlours of the great inns in Southwark and the
Cheape, the conversation turned upon no other subject, and even the
all-absorbing topic of the King’s illness was forgotten for the time
being. A touch of horror was added to the general excitement when it
became known that Norfolk’s wife and his daughter and mistress were to
be the chief witnesses against him and his son. The Duchess did not
spare her husband. Snatching at the welcome chance of avenging her
wrongs, the half-witted lady grew garrulous, and confirmed everything
_suggested_ by those who desired to damn her lord’s cause. She had
but little to say, however, concerning her son, for the simple reason
that she had not seen him for many months and knew nothing about his
affairs. He was very “unnatturell” towards her, she declared, and so
was her daughter, but nevertheless she “loved her children dearly.” Her
husband, she said, had leanings towards Popery, and caused his children
to be brought up to deny the King’s supremacy.
Mrs. Holland behaved with great discretion, considering her position
and antecedents. It was true, she said, that the Duke of Norfolk had
on one occasion told her that “if he had been young enough he would
like to go to Rome to venerate the Veronica, an image of our Lord
miraculously impressed upon a handkerchief which He had given to
certain women on His way to Calvary.” The Duke had bidden her lay
aside some needlework upon which she was engaged, to oblige the Earl of
Surrey, and in a corner of which were his arms, one quartering of which
was to be left blank, “probably for the introduction of the Royal Arms
and monogram.” She had obeyed the Duke’s behest and never set needle
into the work again. Before concluding her evidence, she, perhaps
not unnaturally, seized the opportunity to try and clear her own
reputation, and informed the Court that “the Earl detested her because
she was so friendly with his sister.”
The appearance of Mary, Duchess of Richmond, must have created a
sensation. Her angelic beauty contrasted strangely with her spiteful
and bitter nature. Like her mother, when she was once started there
was no stopping her, and in her excitement she materially damaged
her brother’s cause, exaggerating every point against him suggested
by the prosecution. With telling and dramatic effect she related the
scene when he advised her to become the King’s mistress. Her brother,
she said, had been reading the book about Lancelot of the Lake, and
had introduced that hero’s arms, together with those of Anjou, into
his own. He had recently had his portrait taken by an Italian artist,
as already related, and had caused the arms of England to be painted
into the left corner, with the monogram “H.R.” surmounted by a crown,
which she thought was a closed crown, like the King’s. He had also
appropriated the Confessor’s arms, which belonged by right to the King,
and the King only; he had spoken irreverently of His Majesty, and had
speculated upon what might happen after his death; and, she added, “my
lord of Hertford is particularly hateful to him because he superseded
him at Boulogne, and indeed he detested the new nobility in general.”
The Council, to its credit, discarded the Duchess’s evidence concerning
Surrey’s alleged infamous advice to her. They held it too abominable to
be even probable, and it was not included in the indictment; but the
rest of her evidence was considered very compromising.
On 13th January 1548 Surrey was brought on foot from the Tower to
the Guildhall, which was packed to suffocation, and the charges of
treacherously conspiring, together with his father, either to usurp the
throne or seize the protectorate, were read over to him. He made an
eloquent defence, and, while denying every other item of the charge,
said he had a right, in accordance with a grant made by Richard III
to his grandfather, the first Duke of Norfolk, to use the arms of the
Confessor; which was perfectly true--“Herald-at-Arms knew this, and
was content he used them.” As to his ever “having dreamed of usurping
the throne,” that was “mere chatter.” He owned he bore Hertford no
goodwill, but the fault rested with that gentleman, and was “not of
my making.” He was innocent on all points, he said, and called God to
witness his loyalty to his King and country. In spite of all, sentence
was passed upon him, and he was condemned to die on the following
morning. The breathless silence with which the verdict had been awaited
gave way to tumultuous protests from all sides of the Court, and it was
only with great difficulty, even danger, that the hall was cleared. As
the condemned Earl passed from the Guildhall to the Tower every cap
was lifted, and the utmost sorrow and sympathy were displayed when
the result of the trial was revealed by the sight of the executioner
walking in the procession, the sharp edge of his axe turned towards the
prisoner’s person.
The next morning, 14th January, rose bright and frosty. A huge
multitude had assembled on Tower Hill to witness the closing scene.
Surrey, dressed in black velvet, looked very handsome, as with brave
and elastic step he mounted the scaffold. He delivered the usual
speech--a part of the grim pageant which no prisoner, male or female,
ever missed--in a clear voice. He eloquently declared his innocence,
forgave his enemies, and avowed his loyalty to his sovereign. He begged
the prayers of all the company, and himself prayed aloud while the
final preparations were being made. These done, in the midst of an awed
silence, Surrey knelt to receive the fatal stroke, and with the sacred
name of “Jesus” on his lips, his brave soul passed into eternity. Thus
was the Court of England robbed of a gallant and magnificent gentleman,
and the country of a man of genius, who, had he lived into the calmer
and fostering atmosphere of Elizabeth’s reign, might have left a name
in literature equal, if not superior, to that of Spenser.
The Duke of Norfolk escaped trial, but not attainder. His dignities and
estates were confiscated and distributed among his enemies. On the 27th
of January his death-warrant was brought to the King; but Henry was
too far gone, by this time, to be able to affix his autograph, and Sir
Richard Gates stamped the document with the Royal Seal only. The deed,
however, never reached its destination. Possibly it was detained by the
Seymours, who may have thought that age and infirmity would soon spare
them the blood-shedding of an old man. If so, they were mistaken, for
Norfolk survived them both. A few hours later the King’s death saved
the aged Duke’s. He remained, however, a close prisoner throughout the
reign of Edward VI, but at the accession of Queen Mary he was liberated
and all his dignities restored.
The most pitiable part of this strange episode in the history of an
epoch which was one long series of domestic and political tragedies is
that the Duke, in the hope of saving his life, was induced to address
a shameful confession to the King. This confession His Majesty never
read. It is still in existence, and must be described, even by the most
merciful critics, as a very foolish and impolitic effusion. Yet that
the Duke of Norfolk and his son were both conspiring--not, indeed, to
usurp the throne, but to obtain the protectorate--is beyond dispute.
The Seymours, on their side, though with much greater skill and
diplomacy, were doing precisely the same thing.
Among our national archives and those of Norfolk House are full
inventories of the estates, goods, and chattels of the Duke of Norfolk
and his son, and also of the Duchesses of Norfolk and Richmond and of
Mrs. Holland. Norfolk’s list is valuable as affording a fair idea of
the contents of a great English nobleman’s house and wardrobe in the
first half of the sixteenth century. In his desire to save them, the
Duke had presented his vast landed estates to the Prince of Wales,
who, needless to say, never got an acre of them; they were made over
to the Duke of Somerset, a title assumed by Hertford on becoming Lord
Protector, to Paget, and to other members of the new Government. His
wearing apparel, which consisted of many garments, mostly of black or
russet velvet or satin richly furred, and “much worn,” or even “very
much worn,” was also seized. The Countess of Surrey was allowed one of
her father-in-law’s “coats” of black satin much worn, and furred with
coney and lamb, which was delivered to her “to put about her in her
chariot.” This is probably the first mention of a carriage rug in the
domestic history of this realm. All the rest of the Duke’s effects,
including “three broad yards of marble cloth and two pairs of old
black slippers,” were given to the Duke of Somerset for his use. The
Protector also obtained possession of the magnificent jewelled collars
belonging to the various Orders of which the Duke was a member. Paget
had a “George, set with diamonds and one ruby,” and Lord St. John
had poor Surrey’s “Order of St. Michael with its chain, studded with
pearls and diamonds.” The Duke left many pictures, all of a sacred
character, and an enormous quantity of gold and silver plate, which
was divided into equal parcels, and delivered to Somerset, Princess
Mary, the Duchess of Norfolk, the Duchess of Richmond, and Surrey’s
widow. Somerset seized a collection of thirty-two splendid rings, but
Mrs. Holland claimed the finest table diamond as her private property.
His Grace had also some fifty sets of rosary beads, some of coral with
paternosters in gold, others of pearl, agate, gold studded with little
jewels, black enamel, and even of glass. A great quantity of these
were presented to Princess Mary, to whom also went much of the altar
furniture of the Duke’s private chapel.
Surrey’s wardrobe was as magnificent as that of any prince. There was
“a Parliament robe, of rich purple velvet lined with ermine, and with a
garter set with jewels upon the shoulder,” and a gown “of black velvet
curiously figured in gold pasmentary”; “a coat and cassock of crimson
velvet, wrought with satin in the same colour, with a cloak, hat and
hose to match,” was most probably the identical costume in which he was
represented by Streete in the picture still at Hampton Court. We read
of dozens of gorgeous suits, one more splendid than the other. Somerset
chose the finest for himself, and handed over the rest to his brother
Henry, who had come up to town to be knighted, and who doubtless
ultimately paraded his Wiltshire market town, decked in poor Surrey’s
finery, looking very much like the fabled jay in peacock’s feathers.
The furniture of Surrey’s country house, St. Leonard’s, near Norwich,
which he had built after designs of John of Padua, was given to his
widow, but some of the altar furniture went to Princess Mary at Newhall.
Seals had been placed on the goods and chattels of the Duchesses
of Norfolk and Richmond and of Mrs. Holland, but they were lifted
immediately, and the ladies received all their several properties
intact.
The name of Sir Thomas Seymour does not figure in any connection, even
remote, with this tragedy, and he did not receive a single coat or
“night-gown,”[84] whether of velvet, satin, or common cloth, belonging
to either the Duke or to his son. It may be that by the time the
distribution of the confiscated property took place the feud between
the ambitious brothers had already begun. It was destined amply to
avenge Surrey’s untimely fate.
Readers may fairly ask what the story of the poet-Earl’s end has to
do with Lady Jane Grey? It may be replied that his death and his
father’s imprisonment affected her very nearly. They cleared the way
for the temporary triumph of the Protestant party, and enabled Seymour
to proclaim himself Protector unopposed. The close intimacy between
the families of Howard and Dorset is easily traced through at least
three generations in the household books of Thomas, Earl of Surrey,
afterwards Duke of Norfolk.
When the Earl entertained company, the ladies and gentlemen, it seems,
all dined together in the “great chamber,” and there were often as many
as twenty to fifty guests staying in the house. Their names include
nearly all the leading aristocracy of the time, among them being Lady
Jane Grey’s father and mother, the Lord Marquis of Dorset and the Lady
Frances; Brandon, Duke of Suffolk; the Lady Wyndham, the Lady Parker,
the Lady Essex; Mrs. Brian, afterwards governess to the Princesses
Mary and Elizabeth; the Lady Vere, the “old” Lady of Oxford,[85] etc.
The ladies attending on the visitors[86] dined at my Lady’s mess,
the gentlemen in the hall. When Mr. Thomas Reddynge, a gentleman of
the Duke’s household, brought his bride to Tenderinge Hall for her
honeymoon, “all the company dined and supped in the bride’s bedroom.”
The little Lord Thomas Howard, afterwards Earl of Surrey, dined in the
nursery.
Hospitality was exchanged between the Howards and the Dorsets almost to
the end of the Duke’s life. The Marquis and Marchioness of Dorset (the
Lady Frances Brandon), Lady Jane Grey and her sisters, were certainly
at Hunsdon[87] on more than one occasion, and when the two families
were in town there was, doubtless, constant visiting between them. It
must be remembered that the Duke of Norfolk, being uncle-by-marriage
to the King, was also uncle to the Lady Frances’s mother, Mary Tudor,
the royal Queen-Duchess of Suffolk. Little Lady Jane must often have
sat perched on Surrey’s knee and listened with delight as he whispered
in her ear those tales of fairy enchantment he himself loved so well.
Owing to her tender age, Jane may never have been told the details of
the closing scenes of her gallant kinsman’s life, but she must surely
have noticed that on a certain day in January 1547-8 the curtains of
her father’s house were drawn, as for a family in mourning; that her
parents moved about with pale and saddened faces; and that the servants
stirred noiselessly and spoke under their breath. The shadow lay
everywhere, and the various chronicles of the period afford abundant
proof that there was a genuine sorrow felt in the city on the day of
Surrey’s death.
And there is yet another link between Lady Jane Grey and the unhappy
Surrey. The name of her kinswoman, Elizabeth Fitzgerald, the “fair
Geraldine,” must ever be associated with that of the poet-Earl, for
she is as indissolubly connected with him as is Laura with Petrarch,
or Leonora with Tasso. A daughter of Oge, Earl of Kildare,[88] by his
wife, the Lady Elizabeth Grey, daughter of the first Marquis of Dorset,
the fair Fitzgerald was a not distant cousin to Lady Jane Grey, and
there were but a few years between them. She was born in Ireland,
probably at Maynooth Castle, somewhere in 1528, and was brought to
England whilst yet an infant. In 1533 her father died in the Tower,
broken-hearted at the news that his son, whom the Irish cherished as a
patriot and the English hated as a rebel, had been captured and brought
to London. A few days after his father’s decease, the young man was
hanged at Tyburn with some seventeen other Irishmen. Henry VIII appears
to have pitied the widowed Lady Kildare, who was reduced to the verge
of starvation after her husband’s death. A small pension was granted
her, and her children were dispersed among the leading families of the
aristocracy, to receive an education worthy of their rank. Elizabeth,
“the fair Geraldine,” an extremely beautiful child, was placed under
the guidance of the Princess Mary.[89] It was probably in the year
1542, whilst attending Her Highness on a visit at Hunsdon, that she
first fell under the notice of Surrey, who, though already married,
became desperately enamoured of her. The young lady cannot have been
more than fourteen or fifteen at this time, but in those days this was
quite a marriageable age. We have Surrey’s own word for it that it was
at Hunsdon he first beheld the “fair Geraldine”--
“Hunsdon did first present her to mine eyen:
Bright is her hue, and Geraldine she hight.
Hampton me taught to wish her first for mine;
And Windsor, alas! doth chase her from my sight.
Her beauty of kind; her virtues from above.
Happy is he that can obtain her love!”
They appear to have met again at Hampton Court, and we seem to have
evidence that the “fair Geraldine” yielded to some extent to her
suitor’s prayers. They danced together, no doubt, in the Great Hall,
which still delights us with its lofty beauty and rich arras. They sat
side by side in the oriel windows, or romped among the flower-beds
of the palace garden. But the lovely Irish girl, true to her race,
was chaste as snow, and when Surrey’s ardour grew too hot for modest
endurance, he was firmly repulsed. One thing is quite certain,
that “Geraldine” was very beautiful, with Irish sea-green eyes[90]
and glorious fair hair. She seems otherwise to have been a very
matter-of-fact young lady, who presently bestowed her hand on the rich
old Sir Anthony Browne.[91] After his death, in 1548, she re-entered
the household of her royal mistress, and as the Lady Frances and her
daughter paid several visits to their cousin, Princess Mary, in 1551,
Jane Grey must often have seen the _bella ma fredda innammorata_ of
poet Surrey. After Queen Mary’s death the “fair Geraldine” consoled
herself with a second husband, in the person of Clinton, Earl of
Lincoln. An account of her funeral still exists, according to which
sixty-one old women walked in the procession, each wearing a new suit
of clothes and carrying a loaf of bread, their number recording the
fact that the lady they mourned had reached sixty-one years at the time
of her decease.
The Duchess of Richmond seems ultimately to have repented to some
extent of her wickedness. At any rate, her father left her £500 in his
will--a considerable sum of money in those days--in acknowledgment of
the expense and trouble she had borne to obtain his liberation, and of
her care of her brother’s children. She died of the plague in 1556.
It is curious that Surrey’s children should have been placed under his
sister’s charge, since their mother, an eminently respectable woman,
was living, and they were with her at the time of their father’s
death. She was, however, a Catholic, whereas the Duchess had for some
years past rather ostentatiously proclaimed herself a Protestant.
Somerset’s religious opinions may have had something to do with this
transaction, concerning which there is a strange legend. Three days
after the Earl of Surrey’s execution, Foxe, the martyrologist, was
sitting in St. Paul’s Cathedral, pale, haggard, and almost dying of
misery and starvation. Presently a gentleman approached him and placed
a considerable sum of money in his hand, bidding him be of good cheer,
for that “luck was coming to him at last.” A few days later Somerset
appointed him tutor to the children of the late Earl of Surrey, then
under the charge of their aunt, the Lady of Richmond. Notwithstanding
his ardent Protestantism, Foxe was never able to completely detach the
future Duke of Norfolk from the older faith; but he gave his pupil a
sound and virtuous education, and won his enduring affection. This Duke
shared his father’s fate; he was beheaded, in the reign of Elizabeth,
for espousing the cause of Mary Stuart. From him the present Duke of
Norfolk is descended in a direct line.
The Countess of Surrey resided for many years at Kenninghall, but,
as usual in those days, she presently took a second husband, in the
person of Mr. Thomas Steyning, of Woodford, Suffolk, most likely her
steward or secretary. She lived to an advanced age, and is buried in
Framlingham Parish Church, under the elaborate monument she erected to
the memory of her husband, whose remains, however, are by some believed
to be still lying in the interesting church of All Hallows’, Barking,
near the Tower, where they were certainly interred immediately after
his decapitation.
CHAPTER VII
HENRY VIII
On the night of Wednesday, 27th January 1547, Henry Tudor lay dying on
that huge fourpost bedstead which Andrea Conti, an Italian traveller
who visited Whitehall a few years after the King’s death, described as
“looking like a High Altar,” so costly were its hangings of crimson
velvet and cloth of gold, so dazzling its rich embroideries.[92]
The vast apartment was hung with rare Flemish tapestry glistening
with gold thread; the furniture, of carved oak and inlaid ebony, was
upholstered in glorious Florentine brocade. Curtains of “red velvet on
velvet” draped the numerous windows overlooking the Thames, and the
Eastern carpets that covered the floor muffled the sound of footsteps
cautiously moving about the mighty couch.
The once puissant and magnificent Henry VIII, King of England,
France, and Ireland, and Defender of the Faith, was now a mass of
deformed flesh, eaten up and disfigured by a complication of awful
disorders--gout, cancer of the stomach, rheumatism, ulcers, and dropsy.
So swollen were the miserable man’s hands, arms, and legs that he could
only move with great pain, and then only with the aid of a mechanical
contrivance. But his immense head tossed restlessly from side to side
and he groaned piteously, often praying those about him to cool his
parched lips with a drop of water. Though little over fifty-six years
of age, the dying monarch’s hair had turned quite white, and his
beard, formerly so well trimmed, had grown scant and straggling. His
steel-grey eyes looked as small in proportion to the broad, bloated
face as those set in the elephant’s enormous mask, but they still
retained their ophidian glitter.[93]
The dying King had been unusually irritable throughout the weary day.
At times indeed he was delirious, but on the whole his mind remained
fairly clear. At about six o’clock in the afternoon he awakened out of
a deep sleep or lethargy and asked for a cup of white wine, which was
given him. Presently he wandered again,--the result, perhaps, of the
draught of wine,--and shouted, “Monks, monks!” imagining, so it would
seem, that he saw cowled forms hovering about his bed. Three times,
too, and very distinctly, he cried out the name “Nan Boleyn.” After
that he kept his eyes fixed on a certain spot near his bedside, where,
it may be, his fancy showed him the menacing wraith of his murdered
wife. This outburst of feverish excitement was followed by a lull, and
presently the King grew calmer and fell into a profound slumber.
The principal persons about the death-bed were the Earl of Hertford
and his brother, Sir Thomas Seymour; Henry’s Chief Secretary, Sir
William Paget; and his Master of the Horse, Sir Anthony Browne, the
only non-schismatic present. The physicians in attendance upon the King
were Dr. Wendy and Dr. Owen, who had brought the Prince of Wales[94]
into the world, and who subsequently assisted at the death-beds of
Edward VI[95] and Mary. With them was Dr. John Gale,[96] the King’s
surgeon-in-ordinary, who had waited upon Henry and his army when
in France. Notwithstanding the number of priests attached to the
Chapel Royal, there were no clergymen in the room. The Catholic party
afterwards declared they had been purposely kept out of the way lest
the King, whose hatred of the Papacy was purely political, might
recant and make a death-bed submission to Rome. The elimination of
the clerical element from the death-chamber is significant, and we
have no certainty as to whether the King, who clung so tenaciously to
the theory of the Church as to her Last Sacraments, ever personally
received them.
Another very remarkable fact is that neither in the State Papers nor
in any other contemporary accounts of the death of Henry VIII is there
any mention of the Queen’s presence at this time. Her Majesty had
certainly been her husband’s assiduous nurse until early in January,
but after that we hear no more of her, and except for one or two hints
to the contrary in documents connected with the household effects of
the King, we might almost conjecture she had left the palace before
the King passed away. The _Spanish Chronicle_, introduced to English
readers by Martin Hume, which contains a great deal of what would now
be called back-stair gossip, informs us, however, that Katherine Parr
was summoned to the King’s bedside the day before he died, and that “he
thanked her for her great kindness to him,” adding that he had “well
provided for her.” The good Queen, falling on her knees, burst into
such loud sobbing that she had to be removed and conveyed back to her
apartments. From the same source we learn that Princess Mary saw her
father three or four days before the end, and received his blessing. Of
these statements there is no confirmation in the English State Papers;
they are confirmed, however, by documents in the Simancas archives
and in a pamphlet published at Valladolid some three years after
Queen Mary’s death entitled _La Muerte de la Serenissima Reyna Maria
d’Inglaterra_ (Valladolid, 1562).[97]
The last we hear of Katherine Parr as Queen-Consort is in a letter
addressed to her from Hertford on 10th January by her stepson, Prince
Edward, in which he thanks her for a New Year’s gift.[98]
If we trust the _Acts and Monuments_, there is direct evidence that
Henry VIII deliberately omitted Gardiner’s name from his testament. In
the afternoon of the day before his death, Sir Anthony Browne asked
him directly if “My Lord of Winchester was left out of His Majesty’s
will by negligence or otherwise?” He was kneeling at the moment by
the King’s bed and endeavouring to recall to him the Bishop’s long
services. The broad face of the dying King turned towards him, and he
said angrily, “Hold your peace. I remember him well enough, and of good
purpose have I left him out; for surely if he were in my testament
and one of you, he would cumber you all and you should never rule
him, he is of so troublesome a nature.” If this be a truthful account
of the scene, there can be no doubt that Henry realised the omission
of Winchester’s name from the will, which would imply a truckling to
the Seymour faction; for there was now no one left to oppose their
influence or expose their intrigues.
Between seven and eight in the evening of 27th January, Sir Anthony
Denny, who had been watching his master very closely, thought he
perceived signs that the end was approaching. Stooping over him, he
whispered into the dying ear a message especially dreadful to one who,
like Henry, held the mere mention of death in horror, warning him
that his hour was very near, and that “it was meet for him to review
his past life and seek God’s mercy through Jesus Christ.” The King,
although in great agony, evidently understood what Denny had said,
and is reported to have answered that he would suffer no ecclesiastic
near him but Cranmer, who was immediately sent for. The Archbishop
was at Croydon, but, being an excellent horseman, he galloped up to
London, and reached Whitehall about one o’clock in the morning of
Thursday, 28th January.[99] He found the King almost speechless but in
full possession of his faculties, and exhorted him, in a few words, to
repent him of his sins and “to place his trust in Christ only.” Henry
pressed the Churchman’s hand, and muttering the significant words, “All
is lost!” immediately expired.
So passed into eternity Lady Jane Grey’s great-uncle and the most
extraordinary of all our kings. Even at this date it is impossible
to define his true character, for whereas, on the one hand, his
cousin Pole, who knew him well, likened him unto Nero and Tiberius,
that painstaking historian Froude has endeavoured to prove him a
well-intentioned man, whose political and whose domestic troubles
especially were not of his own making, but the result of circumstance
and of Court intrigues beyond his control. Between these two
appreciations the truth doubtless lies. Henry VIII was beyond question
a wonderful being--in whom were reflected, nay, absorbed, all the good
and evil qualities of the subjects whose very Church he contrived to
dominate. With all his treachery, his lust, and his cruelty, he may
well have been a necessary evil, a tool in the guiding Hand that has
shaped the destinies of the British Empire. He tore down the last
vestiges of the Middle Ages; and if the light so suddenly admitted was
too dazzling for the eyes that first beheld it, in due time it mellowed
into the slowly developed liberty and progress that have placed our
country at the forefront of civilisation. Our eighth Henry was the
tyrant who inadvertently forced open the gate whereby Freedom was to
enter.
Much as we loathe his sensuality and his cruelty, his personal
extravagance that emptied the overflowing treasury left by his father
and led him to debase the coin of the realm in order to replenish it,
much as we may deplore his iconoclasm that destroyed a thousand abbeys,
priories, and noble churches and dispersed the art treasures of ages,
as Englishmen we still entertain a surreptitious liking for Bluff King
Hal. His magnificent appearance and the Oriental side of his nature,
his six wives, his fantastic and gorgeous pageants, his outbursts of
bad language, his masterfulness, his love of art and music, all appeal
to the imagination and help us to convert a monarch, a very weak and
poor specimen of humanity, who really had much of the vile criminal
about him, into a hero of romance, and cast over his strange career
something of the legendary glamour that so fascinates all students of
the reign of the illustrious daughter who inherited so many of his good
and evil qualities and carried on much of his chosen policy. To King
Henry we owe the formation of our Army and the creation of our Navy. He
abused his Parliament, but he was its first and greatest organiser. He
shaped it to his own will; and it eventually shaped itself to the will
of the nation.
Earlier in the evening of that momentous 27th of January Hertford and
Paget had spent slow hours pacing up and down the long corridor outside
the King’s chamber, and consulting as to what it would be best to do
as soon as the monarch was dead. Parliament, then in session, had been
busy with the alleged treasonable transactions of the Duke of Norfolk,
now lying in the Tower under sentence of death. His Grace, therefore,
was one of the only three members of the Privy Council absent from the
death-chamber: the other two were Dr. Thirlby, Bishop of Westminster,
then resident Ambassador at the Court of Charles V; and Dr. Nicholas
Wotton, Dean of Canterbury, recently dispatched on a diplomatic mission
to France. Gardiner, whose name had been erased from the Council list,
had lately returned from Brussels, and must have been communicated with
at once, for to him were eventually entrusted all the arrangements for
the late King’s obsequies. An improvised Council was held immediately
after Henry’s death, and decided that the event should be kept a
profound secret until the Prince of Wales was brought to London. This
was cleverly managed by putting all the immediate attendants in the
King’s private apartments under oath; and the multitudinous household
in the outer rooms performed its usual vocations as though Henry, who
had long been absent from his general courtiers’ sight, were still
alive. The sentinels were changed, and everything at Whitehall went
on with clockwork regularity, as if nothing unusual had happened. At
about four o’clock in the morning of 28th January Hertford and his
brother, Thomas Seymour, stole out of the palace, took horse, and
galloped towards Hertford, where the young heir was then residing. By
an oversight--or was it done purposely?--Hertford put in his pocket the
key of the coffer in which the King’s will was kept, and Paget had to
ride out into the dark after him to obtain possession of it. At about
dawn the Seymours were joined by Sir Anthony Browne, an accession which
greatly elated them, for he was one of the most important leaders of
the Catholic party. They reached Hertford[100] a little after daybreak,
and the boy Edward was instantly roused from his slumbers. They did
not at once inform him of his father’s decease, but rode with him to
Enfield Chase, where his sister, the Princess Elizabeth, was residing
with her governess, Mrs. Ashley. Here they broke the news to both of
the dead King’s children, who burst into tears, the Princess Elizabeth
holding her young brother’s hand the while. The company stayed all
Sunday at Enfield, their suite being in the meantime reinforced by a
numerous bodyguard, attended by which they started on the following
morning for London, the boy-King riding on a milk-white palfrey between
Lord Hertford and Sir Anthony Browne. As the procession passed through
the villages on its way to London, the inhabitants were informed of
King Henry’s death. We have proof, however, that it was not known in
the metropolis on the Sunday. On that day the Grey Friar’s Church,
which had been closed for some years and converted into a wine-vault,
was restored to public worship by order of the late King, and his
“munificence and generosity” were fulsomely eulogised by the preacher,
who, however, never alluded to the sovereign’s demise. Towards evening,
the fact that the King was dead began to circulate among the upper
classes, and next morning it was pretty generally known all over London.
At three o’clock on the Monday afternoon King Edward VI entered the
capital through Aldgate, where he was met by the Lord Mayor and a great
assembly of the nobility and gentry. Cranmer greeted him at the Bridge
and read him an address, after which he was conducted in state to the
Tower, being only fairly well received by the populace. Meanwhile, his
father’s body, still at Whitehall, after being “spunged,” cleaned,
disembowelled, and embalmed with spices, was exhibited, covered with a
silken garment, to the great nobility. This done, it was sealed up in
a leaden coffin and brought down into the Privy Chamber, where it lay,
“with all manner of lights thereto requisite, having divine service
about him with Masses, obsequies, and prayers,” until 3rd February,
when it was conveyed into the Chapel Royal, where Mass was said between
nine and ten in the morning.
The _Chapelle Ardente_ was hung with black cloth and with banners of
St. George and England. Eighty huge silver candlesticks with tall wax
tapers in them were ranged on either side of the catafalque. On the
Tuesday, and for five following mornings, Norreys stationed himself
at the entrance to the chancel and cried out at intervals to the
congregation, “Of your charity pray for the soul of the most high and
mighty Prince Henry VIII, our late Sovereign Lord and King.” Watch was
kept day and night by the chaplains and gentlemen of the Privy Chamber.
Then began the saying of Masses for the benefit of the King’s soul, and
these were “as numerous as they were on the occasion of the funeral of
his father, Henry VII.” They were continued until the 13th February.
Tens of thousands of Masses were said throughout the country, both in
the capital and the provinces, in the cathedrals as well as in the
parish churches.[101] The ritual was everywhere absolutely Latin. In
London Gardiner was the celebrant at High Mass each day, assisted by
the Bishops of Durham, London, Ely, St. David’s, Gloucester, Bangor,
and Bath. Archbishop Cranmer was present but did not officiate. Low
Masses were said in the chapel at Whitehall, at an altar erected at
the foot of the catafalque, from four o’clock in the morning until
ten, when High Mass was chanted, the Marquis of Dorset acting as chief
mourner. In the evening there were Vespers for the Dead and Dirge and
“a great attendance of noblemen and gentlemen mourners.” The Queen and
the King’s nieces, the Marchioness of Dorset and her daughters, the
Ladies Jane and Katherine Grey, the Lady Eleanor Brandon, Countess of
Cumberland, the Lady Margaret Lennox, the Duchess of Richmond, the
Duchess of Suffolk, and all the great ladies[102] of the Court, were
present, not only at High Mass, but at countless other Masses in the
Chapel Royal. They were, however, not in the body of the Chapel, but
in an upper gallery overlooking it--mourning cloaks being provided for
them out of the Wardrobe.
Queen Katherine may have left the palace somewhat hurriedly,[103] for
in the inventory taken immediately after the King’s death there is an
account of the seals being on one chamber described as full of female
attire of the most sumptuous description, presumably belonging to
the Queen, who certainly left behind her the jewels given her by the
King to wear at the reception of M. d’Annebault, the French Envoy--an
oversight that gave rise to terrible subsequent dissensions between
Sir Thomas Seymour and his eldest brother.
Lord Chancellor Wriothesley dissolved Parliament early on Monday,
1st February, in a neatly turned speech declaring that “their most
puissant master was dead.” The eventful news was received with every
demonstration of sorrow, some members even bursting into tears, or
pretending to do so. Then followed the reading of that portion of the
King’s will which concerned the Royal Succession.
By this famous testament[104] Henry provided that in case Edward died
childless, and Henry himself had no other children by his “beloved
wife Katherine or any other wives[105] he might have hereafter,” King
Edward was to be succeeded by his eldest sister Mary; and if she in
her turn proved without offspring, she was to be succeeded by her
sister Elizabeth. Failing heirs to that princess, the crown was to
pass on the same conditions to the Lady Jane Grey and her sisters
Katherine and Mary Grey, daughters of the King’s eldest niece, the
Lady Frances Brandon, Marchioness of Dorset. In the eventuality of the
three sisters Grey dying without issue, the throne was to be occupied
successively by the children of the Lady Frances’ younger sister, the
Lady Eleanor, Countess of Cumberland. The Scotch succession was set
aside, from no personal ill-will, however, to Henry’s eldest sister,
the Dowager Queen of Scotland, Margaret Tudor, for he left her daughter
a handsome legacy. Henry most probably omitted the name of the young
Queen of Scots as heiress to the throne, and gave his preference to the
daughters of his two nieces, because, although at war with the Regent
of Scotland, he still hoped that the betrothal of his grand-niece,
Mary Stuart, then only six years of age, to his son Edward might be
arranged, and thus eventually bring about the desired union of the two
crowns in a natural manner. Moreover, there was the religious question
to be considered. The Regent, Mary of Guise, was an ardent Papist,
using all her influence, both in England and in Scotland, to thwart the
English King’s anti-papal policy.
Henry VIII mentioned Queen Katherine in the following eulogistic
manner: “And for the great love, obedience, chastity of life, and
wisdom being in our forenamed wife and Queen, we bequeath unto her
for her proper life, and as it shall please her to order it, three
thousand pounds in plate, jewels, and stuff of household goods, and
such apparel as it shall please her to take of such as we have already.
And further, we give unto her one thousand pounds in money, and the
amount of her dower and jointure according to our grant in Parliament.”
Henry appointed the Earl of Hertford Protector of the Realm during the
minority of his son, and mentioned as his colleagues all those persons
who were interested in keeping him in power in order to share it with
him. Gardiner’s name was omitted, as already stated. The provisions of
the will opposed a serious obstacle to the Earl of Hertford’s ambition,
for they made him fifth in order of precedence, thus placing him on a
footing of equality with other executors; recognising no claim arising
out of his kinship to the young Prince. Sir Thomas Clere declared
that the original will was stamped, a fact which inclined so careful
a writer as Mr. Pollard to conclude that the idea that a stamped will
was illegal must have flashed across somebody’s mind, and suggested the
hasty drawing up of another, for the King to sign in autograph. The
form now in the Record Office is doubtless this second one. It displays
no trace of a stamp, and the two signatures at the beginning and end
are not sufficiently uniform to have been impressed mechanically. In
the last the up-strokes are very unsteady, and on comparing them with
other signatures of Henry VIII one is justified in thinking that both
were forged. It must not be forgotten, however, that the King was very
ill, and failing; his hand may well have trembled.[106]
In those days the funeral of a sovereign and the coronation of his
successor took place almost simultaneously, occasionally with strange
results, considerable confusion arising as to the arrangements for
the two ceremonies: the sombre preparations for the obsequies of King
Henry, for instance, clashed weirdly with the festivities organised
for the accession of his son. Matters became so confused at last that
Bishop Gardiner found himself obliged to appeal to “My Lord of Oxford’s
Players,” who were already at Southwark preparing to act a pageant and
a comedy. It would be more decent, His Lordship pointed out, to sing
a solemn Dirge for their master than to perform a merry play, and he
besought them to desist until after the King’s funeral.
In the end the Bishop had his way, and the grandeur of Henry’s
obsequies suffered nothing from the counter-attractions of the “green
men,” “morris dancers,” and “mountain for the gods,” which were among
the items promised by the players, who produced their performance in
the hall of the ex-monastery of Blackfriars immediately after Edward’s
coronation--doubtless to their own satisfaction and that of the public,
albeit they seem to have had hard work to get the necessary cash for
their “properties” out of Sir William Carwarden or Carden, the official
in charge of such matters, to whom they had to frequently apply for
payment.[107]
On Monday, 31st January, the young King entered London, and passed
direct to the Tower, where, in accordance with traditional etiquette,
he was to remain in semi-seclusion until after his coronation. The next
day, Tuesday, 1st February, the late King’s executors assembled in the
great hall of the Tower, and having heard the will read from beginning
to end, took the oath for the King, and Hertford[108] was proclaimed
Protector during the coming minority. On 4th February the Protector
proceeded in state to Westminster Hall, where he assumed the offices
of Lord Treasurer and Earl Marshal, rendered vacant by the attainder
of the Duke of Norfolk. He subsequently relinquished his post as Lord
Great Chamberlain to John Dudley, Viscount de Lisle, who in his turn
surrendered his place as Lord High-Admiral to Sir Thomas Seymour.
On Sunday, 13th February, High Mass was again sung in the Chapel Royal
by Gardiner, assisted by the Bishops of London and Bristol, and the
royal coffin was removed “from the Chapell to the Chariot; over the
coffin was cast a pall of rich cloath of gold, and upon it a goodly
ymage like to the Kyng’s person in all poynts, wonderfully richly
aparrelled with velvet gold and precious stones of all sorts, holding
in ye right hand a Sceptre of gold, in the left hand the ball of the
world with a crosse; upon the head a crown imperial of inestimable
value, a collar of the Garter about the neck and a garter of gold about
the leg, with this being honourably conducted as aforesaid, was tied
upon the said coffin by the Gentlemen of his Privy Chamber upon rich
cushions of cloath of gold and fast bound with silk ribands to the
pillars of the said Chariot for removing.” It seems, however, that this
image was not quite complete, for it had presently to be removed and
“touched up.”
The gorgeous funeral procession, which is said to have been four miles
long, left the Chapel Royal, Whitehall, at about eleven o’clock on 14th
February for Sion _en route_ for Windsor. The weather was very fine,
and immense crowds lining the streets, people of every class, holding
lighted candles. Over a thousand “lights,” or torches, were held by
the mourners who preceded or followed the hearse containing the King’s
body and upon which was placed the waxen image already described.
This hearse was drawn by eight black horses emblazoned with the Arms
of England and of the house of Tudor, and surrounded by noblemen and
knights in mourning robes, some on horseback and others on foot,
holding lights and banners, images of saints, and other glistening
devices and symbols. The procession passed through the streets of
London by Charing Cross, Knightsbridge, Hammersmith, Chiswick, and
Brentford, and, owing to its enormous length, did not reach Sion until
twilight. It is gratifying to note that the vast assemblage of nobles
and gentry was plentifully supplied with refreshments, wine, and beer
throughout the whole of these very elaborate and costly obsequies, to
the tune of about £10,000 of our money.
At Sion the coffin stood all night within the ruined walls of that
erstwhile monastic house which had been the prison of Katherine Howard,
the second of Henry’s murdered consorts. The ravages of ruin to be
seen there were now hidden by hangings of fine black cloth and by two
great altars blazing with lights and jewels. By a curious coincidence,
the body arrived at Sion on the day after the fifth anniversary of
the Queen’s execution, a fact which lends additional horror to the
following story, related in a contemporary document now in the Soane
Collection: “The King’s body rested in the ruined Chapel of Sion,
and there, the leaden coffin[109] being cleft by the shaking of the
carriage, the pavement of the church was wetted with Henry’s blood. In
the morning came plumbers to solder the coffin, under whose feet, I
tremble while I write it,” says the author, “was suddenly seen a dog
creeping and licking up the King’s blood. If you ask me how I know
this, I answer, William Greville, who could scarce drive away the dog,
told me so, and so did the plumber also.”
The coffin had most likely been abandoned by the mourners, who had
retired to rest for the night, and probably some gaseous explosion led
to this uncanny incident, the report of which greatly increased the
superstitious terror in which the late King’s name was held. Thus was
fulfilled, so the people said, Friar Peyto’s denunciation from the
pulpit of Greenwich Church in 1553, when that daring friar compared
Henry to Ahab, and told him to his face “that the dogs would in like
manner lick his blood.”
This horrible occurrence, if it really took place, does not seem to
have made any very deep impression on Bishop Gardiner, for no more
fulsome sermon was ever preached than that delivered by him at Windsor
on 16th February. He took for his text, “Blessed are the dead who
die in the Lord,” and, enlarging on the virtues of the late monarch,
lamented the “loss both to high and low by the death of this most good
and gracious King”; for whom, Sir Anthony Browne declared, “there was
no need to pray, for he was surely in Heaven.” Queen Katherine Parr,
the King’s nieces, the Lady Frances, Marchioness of Dorset, and the
Lady Eleanor of Cumberland and their daughters and other noblewomen
attended the obsequies at Windsor from a closet or chamber looking into
the chapel, much such a one as Queen Victoria used in the Chapel Royal,
Windsor, on similar occasions.
Some weird stories of supernatural apparitions were circulated all over
London, especially among the Catholics. The “old King” had appeared,
wreathed in flames, to an ex-Carthusian friar. Folks at Windsor had
beheld him fleeing along the battlements and corridors of the castle,
blazing like a meteoric ball; and he had even, so it was rumoured, paid
a warning visit to his widow in the still hours of darkness.
CHAPTER VIII
CONCERNING THE LADY JANE AND THE QUEEN-DOWAGER
The will of Henry VIII conferred upon the houses of Seymour and Grey
a towering position in the State which naturally brought forward
into extraordinary relief the hitherto ignored name of Lady Jane.
A few weeks earlier she was but the eldest daughter of the rather
weak-minded Marquis of Dorset, a man whom no one seems to have held
in any great consideration, notwithstanding his royal alliance and
rather showy past career as a soldier under Henry VIII; to-day she
was almost as prominent in the matter of the succession as the King’s
two daughters, Mary and Elizabeth, both of whom could easily be set
aside by an ambitious faction: the elder on account of her religion,
the younger on that of her somewhat doubtful legitimacy. It is not
surprising, therefore, that the intrigues which were to culminate in
the ruin of the unfortunate Lady Jane began almost immediately after
the accession of her cousin, Edward VI; for it was at this time that
the newly made Lord Sudeley, desiring to possess “two strings to his
bow,” embarked in a most imprudent intrigue to obtain possession of the
person of the Marquis of Dorset’s daughter, who, as the reversionary
heiress of England, was justly regarded by both parties as a most
valuable asset. The intermediary employed in this transaction was
one William Sharington, a gentleman in Seymour’s confidence, who was
his equal in the conducting of tricksome intrigues: it will become
apparent as we proceed that whenever Sudeley had any particularly
difficult and dangerous matter to deal with, he invariably got some
subordinate to share the danger with him. One morning, very soon after
King Henry’s death, Sharington appeared at Dorset Place, Westminster,
to open negotiations with the Marquis about the transfer of his
eldest daughter into Sudeley’s charge. He began by informing Dorset,
apparently one of the most credulous of mortals, that the Admiral, as
uncle to the King, “was like to come to great authority, and was most
desirous of forming a bond of friendship with him.” On the following
day Sharington returned, and after assuring the Marquis that “the Lord
High-Admiral was very much his friend,” insinuated that “it were a
goodly thing to happen if my Lady Jane his daughter were in the keeping
of the said Lord Admiral.” He said he had often heard his master say
“that the Lady Jane was the handsomest lady in England and that the
Admiral would see her placed in marriage much to his (the Marquis’s)
comfort.”
“And with whom will he match her?” inquired Dorset.
“Marry,” replied Sharington, “I doubt not but you shall see he will
marry her to the King, and fear you not, he will bring it to pass, and
then you shall be able to help all the friends you have.”
After this visit the Marquis held a consultation with the Lady Frances,
which resulted in his accepting a personal interview with Lord Sudeley.
Thomas Seymour does not appear to have had any fixed London abode in
his bachelor days, but probably lived, on occasion, as Surrey did, in
what we should now call chambers, somewhere in the Strand. But when he
became Baron Sudeley and Lord High-Admiral, he conceived it incumbent
upon him to live in a style commensurate with his increased rank, and
solicited a suitable mansion from his brother, the Protector. Somerset
forthwith filched Bath House, Strand, from Bishop Barlow, and presented
it to his brother. This house, which must not be mistaken for Bath
House, Holborn, was built in the fourteenth century and considerably
enlarged and embellished in the beginning of the sixteenth; it was
one of the finest mansions in London, and, with its gardens, occupied
the whole space now covered by Arundel, Norfolk, and Suffolk Streets,
Strand. The mansion stood on the approximate site of the present Howard
Hotel. It commanded an extensive view of the Thames, and there was an
orchard extending to the Strand.[110]
To Seymour Place, Strand, therefore, rode my lord of Dorset, to
find Sudeley walking in his garden. The two gentlemen held a most
confidential conversation, in the course of which Sudeley persuaded
Dorset not only to hand the wardship of the Lady Jane over to him, but
to send for her then and there, and allow the young girl to take up her
abode under the roof of one of the most notorious profligates of an
exceedingly degenerate Court.
The Lady Jane did not arrive at Seymour Place _in formâ pauperis_. She
was attended by her governess, Mrs. Ashley, by four waiting women and a
number of male servants of various degrees. Sudeley’s household was at
this time ruled over by his mother, the Dowager Lady Seymour. Since the
death of her husband, Sir John Seymour, in December 1536, this lady had
kept house for her younger son, who brought her for that purpose either
from Hertford or from a suburban house on a site now crossed by Upper
and Lower Seymour Street, Portman Square.
There is some unexplained mystery connected with Lady Seymour which
the present writer does not pretend to have fathomed. No explanation
is discoverable of the strange fact that the mother of a Queen and the
grandmother of a King of England seems to have been almost ignored by
her son-in-law Henry VIII, by her young grandson Edward VI, by her
own son the Protector, and indeed by all the great people with whom
her high position must have brought her into contact. Her name is not
once mentioned in connection with that of her daughter, Jane Seymour,
after she became Queen. She did not figure at the christening of the
baby Edward, and did not present the customary gifts offered by near
relations on such occasions. She has left no correspondence, and there
is only one allusion to her in the Household Books of Henry VIII,
and none at all in those of Edward VI, which contain some reference
to almost every lady of importance of the period, as receiving or
presenting gifts from or to the sovereign, either personally or through
attendants. We only know that her banner of arms figured, close to that
of her daughter, Queen Jane, at the obsequies of Henry VIII and Edward
VI; and that Henry, in 1537, during the year of his marriage with Jane
Seymour, when he raised his brother-in-law Edward Seymour to the rank
of Baron Beauchamp, granted him a pension of £1100 per annum, out of
which he was to pay his mother an annuity of £60[111]--but beyond the
papers connected with this pension there is only one other existing
document in which her name figures, and this deals with an incident
that arose after her death, in 1551, when her grandson the King was
induced by the Privy Council, and by her own son, the Duke of Somerset,
to countermand the wearing of official mourning for her. Beyond the
fact that Lady Seymour was by birth a Wentworth, and therefore highly
connected, and that in one of his letters to Lady Jane’s mother Seymour
represents his own as a fitting person to take the young girl under
her maternal care, Lady Seymour may be said to have lived and died
as much ignored as though she had been a woman of no birth and no
importance.[112]
Of the sort of life lived by the Lady Jane during the weeks she spent
at Seymour Place we know nothing, but from the alacrity with which she
consented to return there at a later period we may feel justified in
believing she was very happy under the charge of the mysterious Lady
Seymour and her erratic and wilful son. Miss Strickland says, but
without naming her authority, that Lady Seymour was one of the earliest
Englishwomen of rank to adopt the tenets of the Reformation. If this
was the case, Lady Jane Grey probably met at her house some one or
other of the numerous foreign Reformers who began to invade England
shortly after the death of Henry VIII. It is, however, likely that
Sudeley undertook the charge of this young lady at the instigation
of Katherine Parr, and that whilst at Seymour Place her education
was continued under the direction of the scholarly Miles Coverdale,
afterwards Bishop of Exeter, who had been appointed chaplain to the
Queen-Dowager. There is some little resemblance between the handwriting
of this divine and that of Lady Jane, which leads one to think he had a
considerable share in directing her studies at this period.
If the Dorsets imagined they were doing themselves and their daughter a
service by placing her under the guardianship of Thomas Seymour, they
made a terrible mistake, for this incident was certainly at the root
of that fatal animosity between the two brothers which led up to one
of the most appalling tragedies in our history. In the first place,
it revealed to Somerset that Sudeley was fighting for his own hand,
and further, entirely upset the Lord Protector’s domestic schemes and
arrangements. Both Somerset and his wife had been very intimate with
the Marquis and the Marchioness, his royal consort, and the young
Earl of Hertford,[113] their eldest son, was a constant visitor at
Westminster and at Bradgate. He was an exceedingly handsome youth,
described by Norton, his tutor, as “singularly like his father,” who,
judged by his portraits, was one of the finest-looking men of his day.
So fond was the Lady Frances of the young Earl that she would call
him “her son,” and undoubtedly looked on him as a welcome suitor for
her eldest daughter; and if there was any love romance in Lady Jane’s
brief life, it was certainly in connection with this youth, and not
with Guildford, whom she eventually married, but whom she slighted
rather than loved. The Somersets, moreover, had made up their minds
that if the proposed marriage between Mary Stuart and Edward VI came
to nothing, Edward should be contracted as soon as possible to their
youngest daughter, the very pretty and highly accomplished Lady Jane
Seymour.[114] Under these circumstances it may well be imagined that
the Duke and Duchess were not only furious when they learned that Lady
Jane Grey was already comfortably installed under their brother’s roof,
without their knowledge and consent, but firmly resolved that the young
lady should see as little of her cousin the King as possible.
Brother Thomas had yet a greater surprise and vexation in store for
Somerset and his Duchess, and even for King Edward VI himself, than
the matter of the wardship of Lady Jane Grey. He was, if the truth is
to be honestly told, about the most extraordinary scamp of his time.
Physically he eclipsed his elder brother, the Protector, himself
considered a very handsome man. In addition to a fine figure, Thomas
possessed beautiful features, just escaping the long thin nose which
characterised his brother’s face and ruined Queen Jane’s pretensions
to beauty. He was dark, with a full beard, a ruddy complexion,
and full brown eyes. In a word, a very fine fellow indeed, and
exceedingly attractive to the fair sex, who found it hard to resist his
blandishments, a cruel fact of which he was apt to boast. He danced
to perfection, was first in all sports, could turn pretty verses when
it suited him--and even godly ones, on occasion. His love of dress
was proverbial, and in that brilliant Court of Henry VIII Sir Thomas
Seymour never failed to hold his own for extravagance and magnificence.
Like his brother Somerset, he could be kindly when it suited his
purpose, and liberal enough to his inferiors when he desired to create
a good impression. He seems to have even been a dutiful son, for, as
we have said, his mother lived with him to the end of his life, and he
spoke well of her.
These comparative virtues were outweighted by his evil qualities, for
not even in that age of rascality and of wickedness in high places did
there exist a greater ruffian than this seemingly polished gentleman.
Thomas was one of those men who are born without a conscience.[115]
Henry VIII had not long been dead and the elder Seymour scarcely
proclaimed Protector of the Realm when Sudeley began to realise that
his own part at the Court of his nephew, Edward VI, must be quite
secondary unless he could forthwith contract some royal alliance and
thereby make his position equal to his brother’s. So it fell out that,
before the late King’s body was cold, Thomas Seymour had made up his
mind to marry one of the royal princesses; and ere it was buried
he had offered his hand to the elder of the King’s widows, Anne of
Cleves. That cautious Princess promptly refused the dubious proposal,
preferring her independence and present comfort to the probable
sacrifice of a handsome income paid by the State for the poor pleasure
of espousing a cadet of the house of Seymour. Nothing daunted by this
refusal, the undismayed suitor aimed higher yet, and offered his hand
and heart to Princess Mary, who thanked him, in a courteous letter, for
the honour he paid her, and assured him that she had not the slightest
intention of changing her state, especially so soon after her father’s
death. Baffled again, my Lord of Sudeley now addressed himself to the
youthful Princess Elizabeth, who, according to Leti, answered him in a
most becoming manner, reminding him that her father was just dead, and
that it would ill become her to think of marriage at such a moment or
for at least two years after so sad an event. She had not, she said,
had time to enjoy her maidenhood, and wished to do so for that period
at least, before embarking on the stormy seas of matrimony. Elizabeth’s
letter, if she really wrote it,--one can never quite trust Leti, though
he lived near enough to the time to have access to papers and documents
long since destroyed,--was a model of _finesse_ and good taste.
The rejected, but undejected, Seymour now turned his attention to his
old love, Katherine Parr, whom, as we know, he first courted when
she became the widow of Lord Latimer. He must have been a good deal
in her company in the last months of King Henry’s life, and on her
own admission she had not lost any of her old love for him; for in a
letter, written presumably within a fortnight of the late King’s death,
she says, “I would not have you think that this, mine honest good will
towards you to proceed from any sudden motion of passion; for, as truly
as God is God, my mind was fully bent the other time I was at liberty
[that is, after the death of Lord Latimer], to marry you before any
man I know. Howbeit God withstood my will therein most vehemently for
a time, and through His grace and goodness made that possible which
seemed to me most impossible; that was, made me renounce utterly mine
own will and follow His most willingly. It were long to write all the
processes of this matter. If I live, I shall declare it to you myself.
I can say nothing, but as my Lady of Suffolk[116] saith, ‘God is a
wonderful man.’” In March, after Henry’s death, the Queen removed to
Chelsea Manor, a mansion which Henry had built as a nursery for his
children and settled on her as a dower-house. Princess Elizabeth had
joined her within a few days for the purpose of finishing her education
under the auspices of the learned Queen. At the very time, therefore,
that Seymour was intriguing to secure possession of Lady Jane Grey,
he was clandestinely spending his evenings with Katherine Parr either
at Whitehall or, later, when she finally removed with her household
to Chelsea, at the Manor House, coming there by a lane that led from
the Bishop of London’s house up a path which, until a few years ago,
was still in existence and associated by tradition with the names of
Katherine Parr and Thomas Seymour. Some authorities assert that the two
were secretly married about three weeks after the King’s death, and
that the Lord Admiral prolonged his visits, not leaving his wife till
dawn, when she would let him out by the garden wicket, and then steal
back to her room unobserved (at least, so she hoped).[117] According
to Edward VI’s _Journal_, however, the marriage was not officially
celebrated until May, and it was certainly not made public before the
end of June 1547. The intrigues of Lord Thomas to induce the young
King, his nephew, to sanction his marriage with his stepmother began
by his poisoning the King’s mind against his brother Somerset, and,
taking advantage of the Protector’s absence in Scotland, he did all
in his power to make himself agreeable to Edward VI by lending him
considerable sums of money. Somerset kept the royal lad very short of
petty cash, so that at times he had none to distribute to such folk
as strolling musicians, servants who brought him presents from his
relatives, and other persons who had obliged him. Seymour, who had
isolated the King, employed a man named Fowler as intermediary between
himself and Edward.[118] Flattered and cajoled by his uncle Thomas and
well disposed by his natural affection to his stepmother, the poor
little King was at length induced to write a letter advising the Lord
Admiral to marry the Queen-Dowager. This extraordinary missive, which
is still extant, was penned a few days after Edward had received a
very curious epistle from his stepmother, then on a visit to him at
St. James’s Palace, in which she had dilated upon her extraordinary
affection for the memory of his late father. The letter was written in
Latin, and the young King’s answer was in the same dead language. The
King’s letter is full of advice, which comes oddly from a lad not yet
ten to a woman verging upon forty. He hopes to do what is acceptable in
her sight because of, firstly, “the great love you bear my father the
King, of most noble memory; then your good-will towards me; and lastly,
your godliness, and knowledge and learning in the Scriptures. Proceed,
therefore, in your good course; continue to love my father, and to show
the same great kindness to me which I have ever perceived in you. Cease
not to love and read the Scriptures, but persevere in always reading
them; for in the first you show the duty of a good wife and a good
subject, and in the second, the warmth of your friendship, and in the
third, your piety to God.”[119] Very soon after writing this letter
he wrote another to Her Majesty, this time in English, in which he
assured her that, far from being vexed with her for marrying his uncle,
he promised to aid her in the hour of need, should the alliance prove
offensive to those who were in power.
In June the marriage was made public. The indignation of the Duke and
Duchess of Somerset knew no bounds. They had been greatly angered
over the matter of Lady Jane Grey, but no words could express their
exasperation at what they were pleased to consider their brother’s
fresh exhibition of “indecency and wickedness.” The first practical
expression of their wrath was the sequestration of the jewels the
Queen had left behind at Whitehall after King Henry’s death. She had
applied for them several times, and now wrote in a more determined
strain; only, however, to receive a haughty refusal and the startling
information that the jewels belonged to the Crown, whereas they really
were a personal gift to her from the King at the time of the visit of
the French Envoy M. d’Annebault. These jewels were never returned to
Katherine Parr--a matter which roused the Lord Admiral’s wrath to a
culminating pitch. “My brother,” he said, “is wondrous hot in helping
every man to his right save me. He maketh a great matter to let me have
the Queen’s jewels, which you see by the whole opinion of the lawyers
ought to belong to me, and all under pretence that he would not the
King should lose so much, as if it were a loss to the King to let me
have mine own!”[120]
Then came another unpleasant incident, in the course of which the
Queen-Dowager was subjected to unfair treatment on account of her
marriage. Somerset determined to force her to lease her favourite
manor of Fausterne to a friend of his named Long. Katherine refused
point-blank to receive this gentleman as a tenant, especially at
a ridiculously low rent, and in a letter to her husband expressed
her scornful indignation at the “large” offer for Fausterne which
his brother had made her. Yet in the end she was obliged to accept
Somerset’s terms. Fausterne passed from her hands into those of Long,
and was never restored to her.
It is not surprising that she felt a little “warm,” as she expresses
it, at the manner in which the Somersets handled her. Her position had
been recognised by the King and Parliament, and yet her brother-in-law
and his wife refused to acknowledge her right to precedence: the
Duchess of Somerset declared that she was herself as good as Queen,
since she was the consort of the King’s Protector, “who was virtually
the head of the Realm.” Whenever Katherine went to Court, if the
Duchess of Somerset chanced to be present, there was sure to be
trouble. According to Lloyd, the Duchess not only refused to bear up
the Queen’s train, but actually jostled her so as to pass first. “So
that what between the train of the Queen, and the long gown of the
Duchess, they raised so much dust at Court, as at last put out the
eyes of both their husbands, and caused their executions.” Heylin says
the Duchess was accustomed to inveigh against her royal sister-in-law
in her coarsest manner. “Did not King Henry VIII marry Katherine Parr
in his doting days, when he had brought himself so low by his lust
and cruelty that no lady that stood on her honour would venture on
him? And shall I now give place to her who in her former estate was
but Latimer’s widow, and is now fain to cast herself for support on a
younger brother? If master admiral teach his wife no better manners, I
am she that will.”
Historians who, for political and religious purposes, have exaggerated
the virtue and accomplishments of Edward VI, and endowed Lady Jane Grey
with charms and gifts which that modest young lady never possessed,
have woven a legend around her and Edward VI which would lead the
uninitiated to believe that she was the constant sharer of his
juvenile tasks and pastimes, whereas in reality it was only in the
last few months of his life that she became in the least prominent at
his Court. Immediately after his birth and the death of his mother
Prince Edward was handed over to the care of Lady Brian,[121] formerly
governess to his two sisters, by whom she was greatly beloved and
respected, and also to that of his dry nurse, Mrs. Sybilla Penn.[122]
His infancy was spent at Chelsea Manor House and at the country seats
of Ampthill and Oatlands. In these places he was frequently visited
by his sisters Mary and Elizabeth, and presumably also by his little
cousins of the house of Grey; but when he attained his sixth year, in
accordance with the peculiar views of his father on the subject of
education, all female influence was withdrawn from him, although Lady
Brian continued to preside over his household. A number of very young
noblemen were selected to be his constant companions and playfellows.
Among them were his cousins, the two sons of Brandon, Duke of Suffolk;
the Lord Edward Seymour, afterwards Earl of Hertford; and his great
friend, the one being he seems to have really loved, young Barnaby
Fitzpatrick, sometimes mentioned by the Swiss Reformers as Earl of
Ireland.[123] His principal tutors were the extremely Protestant Dr.
Richard Cox, who became Dean of Westminster in 1549 and subsequently,
in Elizabeth’s reign, Bishop of Ely; the learned Sir John Cheke,[124]
Provost of King’s College, Cambridge, and his first schoolmaster;
Sir Anthony Cooke; M. Jean Bellemain, his French master; and Roger
Ascham, who taught him caligraphy. He also received lessons in the art
of writing in the Italian or Roman type, which most nearly resembles
the modern, from Dr. Croke, who had taught this art at an earlier
period to the young Duke of Richmond and Queen Katherine Parr. Dr.
Christopher Tye was his music master; and Philip Van Wylder taught him
to play upon his father’s favourite instrument, the lute. Lady Jane was
certainly not among his circle of intimate associates, which did not
even include his two sisters, although the Lady Mary was at one time
officially appointed his guardian, and Elizabeth passed the greater
part of the year 1546 with him at Hatfield. So little intercourse had
he with his sisters after his accession to the throne that he actually
only met Princess Mary three times, and Elizabeth five. As to Lady
Jane, he scarcely ever saw her, unless indeed she spent a few days with
him at Whitehall some weeks before his death. As soon as the Somersets
were thoroughly acquainted with the true motive that had induced the
Dorsets to part with their daughter, they took every precaution to
prevent its accomplishment; and so little was the Lady Jane seen at
the Court of King Edward that she is only once casually mentioned by
that monarch in his _Journal_ as being present at the great functions
arranged in 1550 in honour of the Dowager of Scotland when she passed
through London on her way to her northern dominions; and this was at
the time that Northumberland was in favour and Somerset in disgrace.
On Thursday, 18th February 1547, the temporal Lords assembled at the
Tower in their robes of estate to witness a solemn and significant
ceremony. The young King having ascended his throne, and the officials
of his Court taken their allotted positions about him, the doors were
thrown open, and Edward Seymour, Lord Protector and Earl of Hertford,
was led from the Council Chamber and conducted before His Majesty.
Garter bore his letters-patent, the Earl of Derby his mantle, the Earl
of Shrewsbury his rod of gold; my Lord Oxford carried his cap of estate
and coronet. The Lord of Arundel bore the sword, and walked immediately
before the Protector, who was supported by the young Duke of Suffolk
and the Marquis of Dorset. After the usual ceremonies, Hertford knelt
and was invested by his royal nephew, who put on the mantle, girded on
the sword, placed the coronet upon his uncle’s head, and delivered him
his rod of gold. Then the trumpets sounded, and the Herald proclaimed
Edward Seymour to be no longer Earl of Hertford, but now and hereafter
Duke of Somerset.
After the Protector came the Lord William Parr, Earl of Essex, brother
to the Queen-Dowager, who was created Marquis of Northampton and of
Essex. Then appeared John Dudley, Lord de Lisle, who had not assumed
full importance at that time, but who was presently to become the
protagonist of the ominous tragedy already in preparation. The future
father-in-law of Lady Jane Grey, and the Nemesis of Somerset, was a
man of splendid presence, exceedingly tall, with regular and majestic
features, rendered even more striking by his long beard and sweeping
moustache. He entered led by the Earls of Derby and Oxford, and was
presently created Earl of Warwick. Dudley was followed by Wriothesley,
who was raised to the peerage as Earl of Southampton.[125] Immediately
after him came the majestic Sir Thomas Seymour, whom the King created
Baron Seymour of Sudeley, at the same time delivering to him his patent
as Lord High-Admiral of England. Sir Richard Rich, Sir John Sheffield,
and Sir William Willoughby followed in succession and were created
barons by the same names they had borne as knights. When the elaborate
ceremony was over, a grand banquet, at which the King was not present,
was offered to the new peers in the Tower. His Majesty, who was far
from strong, had fainted from fatigue, and no wonder!--the function had
lasted from seven in the morning till nearly midday!
In the evening of the same day (18th February) three of the handsomest
men of the English Court--Somerset, Sudeley, and Warwick--rode with a
small escort from Whitehall through the Strand to Baynard’s Castle, the
residence of Sir William Herbert, Queen Katherine’s brother-in-law, one
of the wealthiest men in England, served by not less than a thousand
men, who wore his liveries. Here these three gentlemen were hospitably
entertained at supper. There was much to talk over, and the party,
elated by the honours so recently showered upon its members and heated
by Herbert’s good wine, became “right merry”--little dreaming that
within two years’ time Somerset would condemn his own brother Thomas to
death, and that a few months later Warwick, as Duke of Northumberland,
would sign the death-warrant of Somerset, only to be beheaded in his
turn for high treason a year or so later by Queen Mary’s command.
The Marquis of Dorset may have been of the company, and his presence
would add an additional note of tragic significance--for Warwick was
to become the direct cause of the deaths both of Lady Jane and of her
father!
King Edward, in the meantime, remained at the Tower until his official
progress thence to Westminster for his coronation. Although Somerset
and his brother were in office, and the Marquis of Dorset in great
favour with them, it is not probable that his cousin, the Lady Frances,
or her daughters were brought to see him. His boyish Majesty was left,
according to custom, in complete isolation, seen and influenced alone
by his uncles, the Seymours, and by his numerous tutors (for even after
his accession his lessons were continued with curious punctuality), so
that, what with State functions and his education, the unfortunate lad
had very little or no time for physical exercise or recreation.
On 19th February His Majesty rode from the Tower in the usual
procession to Westminster before the coronation which formed a part of
our regal ceremonial until the reign of James I, when it was omitted on
account of the plague. Edward, garbed in silver, with a white velvet
waistcoat and a cloak slashed with Venetian silver brocade, embroidered
with pearls, cantered on a milk-white pony under a white silk canopy
edged with silver. On either side of him rode his two uncles, the Lord
Protector and the Lord High-Admiral, whilst Cranmer, dumbly riding with
the Emperor’s Envoy, went between him and the Venetian Ambassador. They
passed through streets gay with tapestry and cloth of gold; whilst
at the Conduit in Cornhill white and red wine ran free for the people
to drink at their will, and children dressed as angels sang a quaint
greeting:--
“Hayle, Noble Edward, our Kynge and soveraigne,
Hayle, the cheffe comfort of your communaltye:
Hayle, redolent rose, whose sweetness to reteyne,
Ys unto us all such great comodity,
That earthly joy no more to us can be.”
At the Standard in the Chepe an erection, “like unto a tower,” and
hung with cloth of gold, was surmounted by trumpeters, who, after a
flourish, recited the following poetic (!) effusion:--
“Ye children that are towardes, sing up and downe,
And never play the cowardes to him that weareth the crowne,
But always doo your care his pleasure to fulfyll,
Then shall you keep right sure the honour of England still.
Sing up heart, sing up heart,
Sing no more downe,
But joy in King Edward that wereth the crowne.”
Outside the Metropolitan Cathedral there was an acrobatic display: “An
argosine [Ragusan] came from the batilment of Saint Poule’s Church,
upon a cable, beyng made faste to an anker at the deane’s doore, liying
uppon his breaste, aidyng himself neither with hande nor foote, and
after ascended to the middes [middle] of the same cable, and tumbled
and plaied many pretie toies [tricks], wherat the Kyng and other of the
peres and nobles of the realme laughed hartely.” In Fleet Street the
King was met by Faith, Justice, and Truth, the first holding a Bible
conspicuously in her hands: each of these damsels recited a long poem
in His Majesty’s honour. Temple Bar having been “new painted in dyvers
colours,” was garnished with cloth of arras and standards and flags,
and seven French trumpeters “blew sweetly” to the singing of an anthem
by a group of children. The customary banquet was served in the Great
Hall, Westminster, and was attended by Archbishop Cranmer, most of the
bishops, the ambassadors, and envoys, the nobility, the Lord Mayor,
aldermen, and sheriffs.
King Edward stayed at Westminster Palace until the coronation, which
took place on the following Sunday in Westminster Abbey. On account of
the King’s poor health, the service was slightly abridged, otherwise
the old Catholic form was throughout adhered to; for though Cranmer
preached a sermon in refutation of Petrine claims and urged the young
monarch to abolish “idolatry,” he celebrated High Mass, and the
incongruous function concluded with the King’s “offering,” as had
always been done in Catholic times, at St. Edward’s shrine! After the
coronation there were public jousts and tournaments; and the King and
Court attended at Blackfriars those very performances by the “players”
which had roused the ire of Bishop Gardiner and had been postponed at
his request.[126] We may be certain that the Marchioness of Dorset
witnessed the procession and coronation, together with her two elder
daughters, Jane and Katherine, from some place of vantage set apart for
the ladies of the royal family, who, however, took no active part in
either the procession or the actual ceremony, it not being customary
for ladies to be officially present at the coronation of a bachelor
King.
Notwithstanding that Edward VI is always connected in the popular mind
with Protestantism, and notwithstanding Cranmer’s attack on “Popery”
at the coronation, for quite eighteen months, if not two years, after
Henry VIII’s death the Church in England remained exactly as he left
it. True it is, that the first Book of Common Prayer was issued in
1548, but, on the other hand, Mass was said daily in the Royal Chapel
(Low Mass every day and High Mass on festivals) for the first two or
three years of Edward’s reign; an MS. account book of “the Treasurer
of the Chamber” in the Trevelyan Papers reveals the fact that the
boy-King himself heard Mass almost daily until 1549. There is every
reason to believe that Mass continued to be said or sung in the parish
churches also until the same year; certainly the old feasts were still
observed for the first two years of King Edward’s reign, especially in
London. These feasts were much more numerous than those retained by the
Established Church; there were the first three days in Easter Week,
Corpus Christi,--when there was the usual procession with the Host
through the streets,--the “Days” of St. John, SS. Peter and Paul, St.
Mary Magdalen, St. James the Apostle, the Annunciation, the Nativity,
the Conception, and the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, All
Hallows’ Day, All Souls’ Day, St. Edward Confessor, Christmas Day, and
the three following holy-days. High Mass of the Holy Ghost was said
in St. Stephen’s Chapel when Parliament met for the first time after
Henry’s death, the King and both Houses attending in State. All the
same, things ecclesiastical were not as they used to be; there was in
different churches much diversity in the matter of details--one priest
would use incense, another not, and so on. In 1548, however, Compline
was sung in English and the Litany of the Saints also in the vernacular.
So soon as the news that King Henry was dead was authenticated
abroad, an army of foreign Reformers--Swiss, German, French, and
Italian--poured into England, as a secure refuge from the persecution
they endured in their respective countries. These worthies held
the most varied opinions, some even casting doubt on the Divinity
of Christ, and the Lutherans hating the Calvinists as cordially
as they both detested the Papists. The Londoners in general, who,
when not Catholics, were mostly schismatics and ever jealous of
foreigners, did not relish this sudden invasion; but the leaders of
politics and religion in England welcomed the Reformers with open
arms, even overlooking their doctrinal shortcomings for the sake
of their hatred of “the Scarlet Lady.” Some of them--for instance,
Bucer, Peter Martyr, and perhaps Paul Fagius--were awarded chairs
at the Universities; whilst others, such as John ab Ulmis, Conrad
Pellican, Oswald Geisshaüsler (better known as Myconius), Bullinger,
Martin Micronius, Bartholomew Traheron, John Stumphius, Christopher
Froschover, Bernardine Ochinus, Peter Bizarro of Perugia,[127] etc.,
were received into the houses of some of the aristocracy to teach
their children “the new learning.” The Marquis of Dorset, as already
noted, welcomed these foreign Reformers with enthusiasm, and we shall
presently learn more concerning his relations with them. He did not
confine his intercourse to a mere empty display of hospitality, but
kept up a regular correspondence with many of them after their return
to their homes. Letter-writing seems, indeed, to have been a passion
with the Reformers, and their voluminous correspondence, arranged,
translated, and published by the Parker Society,[128] throws much
valuable light on their private characters, their politics, and their
singular theological opinions. It is mostly addressed to their brethren
in Basle, Zurich, Geneva, and Strasburg, or to their English patrons.
According to some authorities, there were from ten to twenty thousand
foreign adherents of the “new learning”--or as we might still better
say, new learnings, so many and diverse were their opinions--in England
during Edward VI’s reign, but the former figure is the more likely to
be correct. Very many of these learned men scattered themselves abroad
again when the Catholic reaction set in under Mary; but doubtless a
few remained, whose descendants to this day worship in the Église
Reformée Française, l’Église Protestante Suisse, the Dutch Church, and
in the other foreign Protestant churches which are sprinkled over the
metropolis, but whose congregations were materially increased after the
Revocation of the Edict of Nantes.
CHAPTER IX
THE QUEEN AND THE LORD HIGH-ADMIRAL
At the time of the much-discussed clandestine marriage between Thomas
Seymour and Katherine Parr, the Princess Elizabeth was a precocious
girl of fifteen, not beautiful, but tall for her age, well developed,
and of elegant figure. The aquiline features, which age was to harshen,
were softened at this early period by the roundness of youth; and the
brilliant complexion stood in no need of the artificial assistance to
which the Queen so freely resorted in her later life. The splendid
auburn hair--its colour may have owed something to a touch of
henna--considerably heightened charms not the least striking of which
were a pair of small but black and penetrating eyes, inherited from
her mother, Anne Boleyn.[129] Unmindful of the fact that a girl of
fifteen is not precisely a baby, the Queen had encouraged the Admiral
to romp with “our Eliza” in the garden and even in her bedroom. Seymour
was notoriously devoid of any sense of delicacy or chivalry, and
there can be very little doubt that the object of his play with his
illustrious stepdaughter was to kindle a passion which might serve his
purpose in case the Queen, already advancing in pregnancy, should die
in childbirth--a not improbable contingency, considering her age and
the fact that she had never borne a child before. At a much later date
Mrs. Ashley, the Princess’s governess, deposed as follows before the
Privy Council: “At Chelsea Manor,[130] after my Lord Thomas Seymour
was married to the Queen, he would come many mornings into the said
Lady Elizabeth’s chamber before she was ready, and sometimes before she
did rise, and strike her familiarly on the back, and so go forth to his
chamber, and sometimes go through to her maidens and play with them.
And if the Princess were in bed, he would put open the curtains and bid
her good morrow, and she would go further in the bed. And one morning
he tried to kiss the Princess _in_ the bed and I was there, and bade
him go away for shame. At Hanworth, for two mornings, the Queen was
with him, and they both tickled my Lady Elizabeth in her bed. Another
time, at Hanworth, he romped with her in the garden, and cut her gown,
being of black silk, into a hundred pieces; and when I chid Lady
Elizabeth, she answered, ‘She could not strive with all, for the Queen
held her while the Lord Admiral cut the dress.’ Another time, Lady
Elizabeth heard the master-key unlock, and knowing my Lord Admiral
would come in, ran out of her bed to her maidens, and then went behind
the curtains of her bed and my Lord Admiral tarried a long while, in
hopes she would come out.” Upon Mrs. Ashley’s begging the Admiral to
be more circumspect, because his tomfooleries were giving the Princess
a bad reputation, he answered, with an oath, “I will tell my Lord
Protector how I am slandered; and I will not leave off, for I mean no
evil.” “At Seymour Place,” continues Mrs. Ashley, “when the Queen slept
there, he did use awhile to come up every morning in his night-gown
and slippers. When he found Lady Elizabeth up and at her book, then he
would look in at the gallery-door, and bid her good morrow and so go
on his way; and I did tell my Lord it was an unseemly sight to see a
man so little dressed in a maiden’s chamber, with which he was angry,
but left it. At Hanworth, the Queen did tell me ‘that my Lord Admiral
looked in at the gallery-window, and saw my Lady Elizabeth with her
arms about a man’s neck.’ I did question my Lady Elizabeth about it,
which she denied, weeping, and bade us ‘ax all her women if there were
any man who came to her, excepting Grindal.’ [This gentleman was her
tutor.] Howbeit, methought the Queen, being jealous, did feign this
story, to the intent that I might take more heed to the proceedings of
Lady Elizabeth and the Lord Admiral.”[131] Mr. Ashley, husband of the
above deponent, and also in Princess Elizabeth’s service, concurred
in his wife’s opinion that the Admiral was going too far, and that
the Princess was “inclined” towards him, for whenever the Admiral was
mentioned “she was wont to blush to her hair-roots.” That Elizabeth
herself was alarmed is proved by the fact that she told Parry, her
cofferer, “that she feared the Admiral loved her but too well, and that
the Queen was jealous of them both; and that Her Majesty, suspecting
the frequent access of the Admiral to her, came upon them suddenly
when they were alone, he having her in his arms. The Queen was greatly
offended, and reproved Mrs. Ashley very sharply for her neglect of duty
in permitting the Princess to fall into such reprehensible freedom of
behaviour.” The scandalous conduct of her husband at last roused not
only the jealousy but the apprehensions of Queen Katherine. She feared
some misfortune might befall the Princess at her tender age, and felt
that in such a case the blame very naturally, and not unjustly, would
be cast on her; and she would be generally regarded as the author of
her stepdaughter’s ruin. Very quietly, therefore, Her Majesty suggested
the departure of the Princess, who was forthwith sent back to Hatfield,
attended by her governess and servants. Elizabeth seems to have borne
her late hostess no ill-will on account of this banishment, and a few
months later we see her affectionately concerned about Her Grace’s
health, and greatly rejoiced at the news that she had been safely
delivered. Evidently a letter from the Admiral, received some days
before the event, had assured her the expected child would be a boy,
and it must have been on receiving this expression of opinion that the
Princess indited the following quaint epistle to her stepmother:--
“Although Your Highness’s letters be most joyful to me in absence,
yet, considering what pain it is for you to write, Your Grace
being so sickly, your commendations were enough in my Lord’s
letter. I much rejoice at your health, with the well liking of the
country, with my humble thanks that Your Grace wished me with you
till I were weary of that country. Your Highness were like to be
cumbered, if I should not depart till I were weary of being with
you; although it were the worst soil in the world, your presence
would make it pleasant. I cannot reprove my Lord for not doing your
commendations in his letter, for he did it; and although he had
not, yet I will not complain of him, for he shall be diligent to
give me knowledge from time to time how his busy child doth; and
if I were at his birth, no doubt I would see him beaten, for the
trouble he hath put you to. Master Denny and my lady, with humble
thanks, prayeth most entirely for Your Grace, praying the Almighty
to send you a most lucky deliverance; and my mistress [Mrs. Ashley]
wisheth no less, giving Your Highness most humble thanks for her
commendations. Written, with very little leisure, this last day of
July.--Your humble daughter,
ELIZABETH”
The phrase, “If I were at his birth, no doubt I would see him beaten,
for the trouble he hath put you to,” is as quaint as any metaphor in
Shakespeare. This letter was dispatched some six weeks before the
Queen’s confinement. About the same time Katherine received a friendly
missive from the Princess Mary, congratulating her on the rumour she
hears concerning her good condition, and assuring her she will pray
Almighty God to help her in her hour of hope and danger.
The unpleasant rumours as to the behaviour of “my Lord Admiral” and
Elizabeth were soon well known all over London, and caused much
spiteful gossip. It was currently reported that when the Princess
left the Queen’s house she had betaken herself to some out-of-the-way
dwelling at Hackney, where a mysterious infant had been born.[132]
This story was so generally believed that it had an echo even during
the great Queen’s reign. In the twenty-first year of Elizabeth (1579),
a youth who appeared at Madrid asserted himself to be the Queen’s son
by the Lord Admiral, and was accepted as such by the Spanish King and
Court. The Lord Admiral certainly made a great impression on the young
girl’s heart, for long after her accession, Elizabeth, very reticent,
as a rule, concerning events connected with her childhood and youth,
would, in the privacy of her closet, confide to the ladies she admitted
to her intimacy that “the Lord Admiral had been the only man she had
ever loved; and the handsomest she had ever seen.”
Perhaps the departure of Princess Elizabeth left the Queen more leisure
to look after her other charge, the Lady Jane Grey, who had been
removed from Seymour Place to the Manor House, Chelsea. Katherine,
on account, it may be, of the restlessness sometimes observed in
ladies in her condition, moved about a great deal during this period.
Sometimes she addresses her letters from Hanworth, sometimes from
Oatlands. Then, as political events rendered her husband’s position
less and less secure, she determined to retire to Sudeley Castle,
Seymour’s lately acquired seat in Gloucestershire, and to lie-in there.
The journey from Hanworth must have been a troublesome one for a woman
in her state of health. She travelled with her husband, Lady Jane
Grey,[133] Lady Tyrwhitt, six other ladies, and two chaplains. She
herself was in a waggon, comfortably lined and cushioned, no doubt,
and with every possible precaution to ensure her comfort, but the
roads were atrocious, and the journey lasted six days. Yet the weary
traveller’s patience must have been amply rewarded, for Sudeley Castle
in those days was one of the most splendid houses in England--a gem
of Gothic architecture, furnished in the most sumptuous style. The
Queen’s apartments had been fitted up with as much magnificence as
she would have enjoyed if she had still been Queen-Consort of England
and about to present the realm with an expected heir. Her bedchamber
was hung with costly tapestry, specified, in an inventory still
preserved at Sudeley, as consisting of “six fair pieces of hangings
illustrating the history of the Nymph Daphne.” The bed had a tester
and curtains of crimson taffeta, with a counterpoint of silk serge.
There was another bed for the nurse, hung with “counterpoints of
imagery to please the babe”--probably some stuff such as was common in
those days embroidered with animals, birds, and little men. The outer
chamber had been arranged as a day nursery, and was hung with “a fair
tapestry” representing the twelve months of the year. In it was set a
“chair of state” covered with cloth of gold--all the other seats were
stools--and a bedstead with tester curtains and rich counterpoints, or
counterpanes, as they are now called. There is still a lovely oriel
window of Tudor architecture at Sudeley popularly called “the nursery
window,” but this cannot be the window of the nursery that was prepared
for Katherine Parr’s babe, for the inventory distinctly says “carpets
for _four_ windows in the nursery.” This other “nursery window” looks
out upon one of the most lovely scenes in England--the chapel where
Katherine Parr sleeps in peace after her chequered life, the garden in
front of it, while beyond, the lovely green of the famous woods of St.
Kenelm soften into the haze of the distant horizon.
Lady Jane’s room, beyond Queen Katherine’s, was also splendidly
furnished, and adorned with tapestries representing the history of St.
Catherine. The bed was hung with blue silk, and a large piece of Turkey
carpet[134] covered the floor.
Queen Katherine’s life at Sudeley must have been very quiet and
peaceful. Local tradition tells us that she was wont, with her young
charge and her ladies, to visit the poor and take an interest in her
gardens. Divine service according to the rites of the Church of England
was said regularly twice a day in the beautiful chapel by one of her
chaplains, Coverdale or Parkhurst, and sermons were preached at least
three times a day. The Lord Admiral’s ostentatious absence from these
pious exercises was a matter of great vexation to the Queen, and gave
rise to a report that his Lordship was an atheist.[135]
The return of the Lord Protector from his campaign in Scotland boded no
good for the Lord Admiral; the brothers had a bitter quarrel, and on
this occasion it was that Seymour departed with the Queen for Sudeley.
Edward had been writing to Somerset, calling him “his dearest uncle”
and saying that he was well pleased with his many victories, and on
the warrior’s return the Admiral found himself quite driven into the
shade. However, about a month before the Queen’s confinement, he made
a hurried journey to London, hoping to induce the young King to write
a letter complaining of the treatment his younger uncle and the Queen
were receiving from the Protector. Edward was easily persuaded to write
the letter, but before the plot was thoroughly matured it was betrayed
to the elder Seymour, and Thomas, arrested by the Lord Protector’s
order, was taken before the Council to answer for his behaviour.
Threatened with imprisonment in the Tower, he made a sort of submission
to Somerset, and a hollow reconciliation took place, the Protector
adding a sum of £800 per annum to Sudeley’s appointments in the hope
of conciliating his unruly brother, who hurried back to Sudeley, where
he felt himself comparatively safe; for so long as the Queen lived he
could defy his foes, his wife’s great rank and the well-known affection
entertained for her by the boy-King sufficing to screen him even from
the vengeance of the infuriated head of the house of Seymour.
On 30th August 1548 Queen Katherine bore the infant for whom such great
preparations had been made. The parents had fondly hoped it would
be a boy, but, alack! it was a puny girl, destined to be a child of
misfortune. She cost her mother her life, and grew up to suffer the
bitter pangs of poverty and neglect.
My Lord Sudeley, who had been consulting fortune-tellers and palmists
about the expected child, was bitterly disappointed, for they had
predicted the birth of a son. This did not prevent him from writing
a very flattering account of his infant daughter to his brother the
Protector. The Duke had quite recently sent his brother a very severe
letter complaining of his intrigues; but the birth of the child seems
to have had a softening effect, and the following letter was far more
friendly, containing a courteous message to the Queen, and continuing:--
“We are right glad to understand by your letters that the Queen,
your bedfellow, hath a happy hour; and, escaping all danger, hath
made you the father of so pretty a daughter. And although (if it
had pleased God) it would have been both to us, and (we suppose)
also to you, a more joy and comfort if it had, this the first-born,
been a son, yet the escape of the danger, and the prophecy and good
hansell of this to a great sort of proper sons, which (as I write)
we trust no less than to be true, it is no small joy and comfort to
us, as we are sure it is to you and to her Grace also; to whom you
shall make again our hearty commendations, with no less gratulation
of such good success.
“Thus we bid you heartily farewell. From Sion, the 1st of Sept.
1548.--Your loving brother,
“E. SOMERSET”
It is a curious fact that the child was born on 30th August, and
that Somerset’s letter is dated the 1st of September, proving that
communication was much more expeditious in those days than we are apt
to imagine.
Lady Tyrwhitt, who attended on the Queen, has left a very touching
account of her last hours.[136] Everything seems to have gone well
until about six days after the child’s birth, when the Queen suddenly
became delirious, and conceived a great dread and a burning jealousy
of her husband. Lady Tyrwhitt says that “two days before the death of
the Queen, at my coming to her in the morning, she asked me ‘Where I
had been so long?’ and said unto me ‘that she did fear such things
in herself, that she was sure she could not live.’ I answered as I
thought, ‘that I saw no likelihood of death in her.’ She then, having
my Lord Admiral by the hand, and divers others standing by, spake
these words, partly, as I took, idly [that is, “in delirium”]: ‘My
Lady Tyrwhitt, I be not well handled; for those that be about me care
not for me, but stand laughing at my grief, and the more good I will
to them, the less good they will to me.’ Whereunto my Lord Admiral
answered, ‘Why, sweetheart, I would you no hurt.’ And she said to
him again, aloud, ‘No, my lord, I think so’; and immediately she
said to him in his ear, ‘But, my lord, you have given me many shrewd
taunts.’ These words I perceived she spoke with good memory, and very
sharply and earnestly, for her mind was sore disquieted. My Lord
Admiral, perceiving that I heard it, called me aside, and asked me
‘What she said?’ and I declared it plainly to him. Then he consulted
with me ‘that he would lie down on the bed by her, to look if he
could pacify her unquietness with gentle communication,’ whereunto
I agreed; and by the time that he had spoken three or four words to
her, she answered him roundly and sharply, saying, ‘My Lord, I would
have given a thousand marks to have had my full talk with Hewyke [Dr.
Huick or Huycke[137]] the first day I was delivered, but I durst not
for displeasing you.’ And I, hearing that, perceived her trouble to
be so great, that my heart would serve me to hear no more. Such like
communications she had with him the space of an hour, which they did
hear that sat by her bedside.”
Little Lady Jane Grey was no doubt near the afflicted Queen throughout
these trying scenes; but she would almost certainly have been excluded
from the bedchamber when the Queen’s condition became alarming. Just
before the end Katherine seems to have rallied, for on 5th September
she was able to make her will, leaving everything to her husband,
and “wishing it had been a thousand times more, so great was her
love for him.” The witnesses to this will were Dr. Huycke, already
mentioned, and Dr. Parkhurst, afterwards Bishop of Norwich, both men
of unimpeachable integrity, who would not have signed the document if
there had been anything illegal about it. Katherine Parr died on 7th
September, the second day after the date of her will and the eighth
after the birth of her child. She was in her thirty-sixth year, and
had survived Henry VIII just one year, six months, and eight days. Her
funeral took place at Sudeley Castle, according to the rites of the
Church of England, on Friday, 8th September, and was the first royal
funeral so celebrated in England. Dr. Coverdale was the officiant at
the Queen’s burial. A procession was formed of “conductors” (_i.e._
leaders) in black, gentlemen, Somerset Herald, torch-bearers, Lady Jane
Grey, acting as chief mourner, her train borne by a young gentlewoman,
then more ladies and gentlemen; finally, “all other following.” The
Lord Admiral, according to custom, did not attend his wife’s funeral.
The ritual was somewhat curious, and is described in the following
terms in an MS. entitled “A Booke of Buryalls of Trew Noble Persons,”
now in the London College of Arms:[138] “When the corpse was set within
the rails, and the mourners placed, the whole choir began and sung
certain psalms in English, and read three lessons; and after the third
lesson, the mourners, according to their degrees and that which is
accustomed, offered into the alms-box.... Doctor Coverdale, the Queen’s
almoner, began his sermon ... in one place thereof he took occasion to
declare unto the people ‘how the offering which was there done, was
(not) done anything to benefit the corpse, but for the poor only; and
also the lights, which were carried and stood about the corpse, were
for the honour of the person, and for none other intent nor purpose’;
and so went through with his sermon, and made a godly prayer, and the
whole church answered and prayed with him.... The sermon done, the
corpse was buried, during which time the choir sung the _Te Deum_ in
English. And this done, the mourners dined, and the rest returned
homewards again. All which aforesaid was done in a morning.”
CHAPTER X
THE LADY JANE GOES TO SEYMOUR PLACE
All Thomas Seymour’s schemes and conspiracies and political and
domestic intrigues were brought to nought by his wife’s death, and
he swiftly realised that the danger of his position was immeasurably
increased by her decease. She had been an effective barrier between
himself and his foes, for nothing could persuade the King to consider
her otherwise than with great affection, as one of the only two persons
he really loved (his young companion Barnaby Fitzpatrick being the
other). Sudeley was now, metaphorically speaking, at sea in a storm,
and seeking safety in any port he could discover. For a few days his
troubles seem to have dazed him. He may, indeed, have loved his wife
and have sincerely mourned her. There is not the slightest reason
to believe that there was any solid foundation for the accusations
brought against him of having ill-treated and even poisoned the Queen.
A few weeks before her death, on the contrary, he swore, with one of
his horrible oaths, that if any man “speak ill of his Queen in his
presence, he would take his fist to his ear, be he of the lowest or of
the highest.” After his wife’s death, Sudeley was at first inclined to
break up his household and throw himself once more into public life.
He even went so far as to dismiss some of his servants, and returned
to Hanworth, the late Queen’s dower-house in Middlesex, taking Lady
Jane and her attendants with him. Hence he wrote to Dorset to say that,
broken-hearted as he was at the departure of the Queen, his wife, he
could not keep the Lady Jane any longer,[139] and begged him to send
for her. By 17th September, however, he seems to have cheered up
considerably, for he dispatched another letter to Bradgate, which runs
as follows:--
“My last letters, written at a time when, partly with the Queen’s
Highness’s death I was so amazed that I had small regard either
to myself or my doings, and partly then thinking that my great
loss must presently have constrained me to have broken up and
dissolved my whole house, I offered unto your Lordship to send my
Lady Jane unto you whensoever you would send for her, as to him
that I thought would be most tender on her. Forasmuch, since being
both better avised of myself, and having more deeply digested
whereunto my power [_i.e._ property] would extend; I find, indeed,
that with God’s help, I shall right well be able to continue my
house together, without diminishing any great part thereof; and,
therefore, putting my whole affiance and trust in God, have begun
anew to stablish my household, where shall remain not only the
gentlewomen of the Queen’s Highness’s privy chamber, but also
the maids that waited at large, and other women being about Her
Grace in her lifetime, with a hundred and twenty gentlemen and
yeomen, continually abiding in the house together. Saving that now,
presently, certain of the maids and gentlewomen have desired to
have license for a month or such thing, to see their friends, and
then immediately to return hither again. And, therefore, doubting
lest your Lordship might think any unkindness that I should by my
said letters take occasion to rid me of your daughter, the Lady
Jane, so soon after the Queen’s death, for the proof both of my
hearty affection towards you, and my good-will to her, I am now
minded to keep her until I next speak with your Lordship, which
should have been within these three or four days if it had not been
that I must repair to the Court, as well to help certain of the
Queen’s poor servants with some of the things now fallen by her
death, as also for mine own affairs, unless I shall be advertised
from your Lordship to the contrary. My lady my mother shall and
will, I doubt not, be as dear unto her [_i.e._ Lady Jane] as
though she were her own daughter; and for my part I shall continue
her half-father, and more, and all that are in my house shall be as
diligent about her as yourself would wish accordingly.”[140]
To this letter Dorset replied as follows, in a particularly fine
specimen of the strange orthography of those days:--
“My most hearty commendations unto your good lordship not
forgotten. When it hath pleased you by your most gentle letters to
offer me the abode of my daughter at your lordship’s house, I do
as well acknowledge your most friendly affection towards me and
her therein, as also render unto you most deserved thanks for the
same. Nevertheless, considering the state of my daughter and her
tender years, wherein she shall hardly rule herself as yet without
a guide, lest she should, for lack of a bridle, take too much the
head, and conceive such opinion of herself, that all such good
behaviour as she heretofore hath learned, by the Queen’s and your
most wholesome instructions, should either altogether be quenched
in her, or at the least much diminished, I shall, in most hearty
wise, require your lordship to commit her to the governance of her
mother, by whom for the fear and duty she oweth her, she shall most
easily be ruled and framed towards virtue, which I wish above all
things to be most plentiful in her; and although your lordship’s
good mind, concerning her honest and godly education be so great,
that mine can be no more; yet weighing that you be destitute of
such one as should correct her as a mistress, and admonish her as a
mother, I persuade myself that you will think the eye and oversight
of my wife shall be in this respect most necessary.”
Then follows a mention of the proposed scheme for uniting the Lady Jane
to the King; and the letter concludes thus:--
“My meaning herein is not to withdraw any part of my promise to
you for her bestowing; for I assure your Lordship, I intend, God
willing, to use your discreet advice and consent in that behalf
and no less than mine own; only I seek in these her tender years,
wherein she now standeth, either to make or mar (as the common
saying is), the addressing [the forming] of her mind to humility,
soberness, and obedience. Wherefore, looking upon that fatherly
affection which you bear her, my trust is that your lordship,
weighing the premises, will be content to charge her mother with
her, whose waking eye in respecting her demeanour, shall be,
I hope, no less than you as a friend and I as a father would
wish. And thus wishing your lordship a perfect riddance of all
unquietness and grief of mind, I leave any further to trouble your
lordship. From my house at Bradgate, the 19th of September.--Your
lordship’s to the best of my power,
HENRY DORSET”[141]
(Endorsed)
“To my very good Lord Admiral: give this.”
With this precious epistle was enclosed another, from the Lady
Frances:--
“And whereas,” says she, “of a friendly and brotherly good will
you wish to have Jane my daughter, continuing still in your house,
I give you most hearty thanks for your gentle offer, trusting,
nevertheless, that, for the good opinion you have in your sister
(Lady Frances herself), you will be content to charge her with her
(_i.e._ charge Lady Frances with Lady Jane), who promiseth you, not
only to be ready at all times to account for the ordering of your
dear niece [Lady Jane], but also to use your counsel and advice on
the bestowing of her, whensoever it shall happen. Wherefore, my
good brother, my request shall be, that I may have the oversight
of her with your good will and thereby shall have good occasion to
think that you do trust me in such wise, as is convenient that a
sister be trusted of so loving a brother. And thus my most hearty
commendations not omitted, I wish the whole [or holy] deliverance
of your grief and continuance of your lordship’s health. From
Bradgate, 19th of this September.--Your loving sister and assured
friend,
FRANCES DORSET”[142]
(Endorsed)
“To the right Honourable and my very
good Lord, my Lord Admiral.”
It will be noted that the Lady Frances evinces a quite sisterly
affection for the Lord Admiral, adopting him as her brother; and her
daughter, therefore, was to be considered as his niece.
After this correspondence, the Lady Jane was returned to Bradgate,
whither she proceeded with a semi-regal escort consisting of not less
than forty persons, including Mr. Rous or Rowse, controller of the Lord
Admiral’s household, and Mr. John Harrington, afterwards prominent at
Queen Elizabeth’s Court. On taking their leave of the young Princess,
these gentlemen assured her that all the maids at Hanworth were
expecting her back again. The wily Dorsets themselves had, indeed, made
up their minds she should return, though in their heart of hearts they
had something besides Lady Jane herself in view. It was somewhere about
20th September that Lady Jane arrived at Bradgate. On or about the 23rd
of that month the Marquis and his spouse journeyed to London, where
they met Sir William Sharington,[143] Seymour’s _âme damnée_, and the
Lord High-Admiral himself. These gentlemen had a very secret business
to discuss, the nature of which must now be described. The Dorsets,
not then wealthy people, were deep in debt. Now Seymour was known to
be rich, for, in addition to his own fortune, he had just inherited
that of the Queen, and, so far, his brother had given no signs of any
intention of confiscating it. The Dorsets, therefore, intimated to
Sharington that he would do well to make Sudeley understand that if
he desired to renew his guardianship of the Lady Jane, he must agree
to give her parents £2000, £500 to be paid down at once, on account.
It should be here remarked that Sudeley, by voluntarily relinquishing
the care of the Lady Jane Grey, had given up his guardianship, which,
by the custom of those times, gave him more than parental rights over
her. It was his desire to renew his official charge that enabled the
Dorsets to make this extraordinary proposal to sell him their child
for what in those days was considered a large sum of money. When the
game was up and Sudeley in prison, the Dorsets threw the blame of this
transaction on everybody but themselves. The Lord Admiral, asserted
Lady Jane’s father in his deposition before the Privy Council, “was
so earnestly in hand with me and my wife, the Lady Frances, that in
the end, because he would have no nay, we were content that Jane
should return to his house.” Indeed, Sudeley, not content to treat
so important a matter only through the medium of Sharington, himself
appeared at Dorset’s town house and interviewed the Marquis, who
admitted in the above-mentioned deposition that, “At this very time and
place he renewed his promise unto me for the marrying of my daughter to
the King’s Majesty, and he added, ‘If I may get the King at liberty, I
dare warrant you His Majesty will marry no other than Jane.’”
Whilst Sudeley was thus pretending, if nothing more, that he was
able to marry Jane to the King, could he but get possession of her,
the Marquis of Dorset was inditing a letter to the Lord Protector
which contained a passage referring to some negotiations he was
conducting with His Highness for the marriage of Lady Jane to the Earl
of Hertford, Somerset’s eldest son! “Item, for the maryage of your
graces sune to be had with my doghter Jane, I thynk hyt not met [meet]
to be wrytyn, but I shall at all tymes avouche my sayng.” Dorset’s
cunning must have nearly matched Sudeley’s! Young Hertford was the
lad mentioned in the papers of the time of Queen Mary as “contracted”
to Lady Jane Grey: in later years he married her sister Katherine.
Jane probably made his acquaintance in her childish days, when the
Seymours lived at Whitehall and she was in residence at the “Bluff
King’s” Court under the wing of Katherine Parr. Hertford was also one
of the band of young noblemen selected as companions for Prince Edward
under the tutelage of the learned Dr. Cheke; and probably had many a
romp with Jane, then a merry little girl. Later on he paid one or two
visits to Bradgate, the Lady Frances conceiving such a strong affection
for him that she was wont to call him her son. Here again the young
people must have been much together, and their childish friendship may
have inspired the Marquis of Dorset with the idea of uniting them in
marriage. However that may be, he certainly got as far as corresponding
with Somerset--though in the profoundest secrecy--about the matter.
Was his caution due to a fear of displeasing Sudeley? What is more
than probable is that the Lord Admiral got wind of the scheme, and
that his desire to get Jane away from her father and his own brother
and nephew was at the bottom of his readiness to pay so heavy a price
to resume her guardianship, for which object he used the likelihood
of her marriage with the King as a bait to catch the Marquis--who was
eventually “jockeyed” by both the Seymours, for no marriage with either
the King or Hertford ever took place.
Whilst Seymour was personally negotiating with the Marquis, the task
of persuading the Marchioness fell to Sharington. “Sir William
[Sharington] travailed as earnestly with my wife,” says Dorset, “to
gain her good-will for the return of our daughter to Lord Thomas
Seymour as he [probably Seymour is meant in this case] did with me; so
as in the end, after long debating and ‘much sticking of our sides,’ we
did agree that my daughter Jane should return to him.”[144]
Their bargain with the Admiral struck, the Dorsets hurried back to
Bradgate, whence they incited the dispatch of the following ingenuous
letter:--
“To the Right Honourable and my singular good lord, the Lord
Admiral.
“My duty to your lordship, in most humble wise remembered, with
no less thanks for the gentle letters which I received from you.
Thinking myself so much bound to your lordship for your great
goodness towards me from time to time, that I cannot by any means
be able to recompense the least part thereof, I purpose to write
a few rude lines to your lordship, rather as a token to show how
much worthier I think your lordship’s goodness, than to give worthy
thanks for the same, and these my letters will be to testify unto
you that, like as you have been unto me a loving and kind father,
so I shall be always most ready to obey your godly monitions and
good instructions, as becometh one upon whom you have heaped so
many benefits. And thus fearing I should trouble your lordship too
much, I most humbly take leave of your lordship.--Your most humble
servant during my life,
“JANE GRAYE”
(Endorsed)
“My Lady Jane, the 1st of Oct. 1548.”
With this letter the Lady Frances sent Sudeley another, in which she
again calls him her “very good lord and brother”: Jane considers him as
“a loving and kind father,” and her mother signs herself, “Your assured
and loving sister, Frances Dorset”--most friendly!
It was near Michaelmas when the Lord Admiral, with a numerous retinue,
including several ladies, arrived at Bradgate to carry the girl back
with him to Hanworth. Traces of his return journey may be found in
papers preserved in the Public Library at Leicester, which inform us
that “beer, cold meat, and ale was provided by the Mayor for my Lady
Jane and her escort, proceeding from Bradgate with the Lord Thomas
Seymour, to London.” Sudeley brought the £500 with him and gave it to
the father who, for the sake of filthy lucre, had not scrupled to hand
over his young daughter to a notorious profligate. Thomas treated the
matter jovially, saying “merrily” he would take no receipt for the
money, for “the Lady Jane herself was in pledge of that”; the Marquis,
on the other hand, sought to endue the affair with a more respectable
appearance by declaring the cash was “as it wer for an ernst peny of
the favour that he [Sudeley] wold shewe unto him [Dorset].” To our
eyes, there is, and can be, but one redeeming feature in the whole of
this sordid transaction--the fact, proved by sufficient evidence, that
Lady Jane Grey whilst under the Lord Admiral’s roof was treated not
only with respect, but with much kindness, and that, even allowing for
the fact that letters such as that already quoted were inspired by her
parents, she seems to have been genuinely attached to both Sudeley and
his mother.
Had Thomas Seymour contented himself with achieving eminence in any
one legitimate direction--the Navy, for instance--he might have
succeeded in winning both fame and honour. But he lacked the clearness
of judgment and power of reticence necessary to carry any one of his
more nefarious schemes to completion, and so ended in pitiable failure.
Whilst his brother was away fighting in Scotland, he had striven, and
with some success, to ingratiate himself with the young King. To this
end, as we have seen, he lent him various sums of money. He seized
every opportunity of belittling and even calumniating his brother, the
Protector, openly accusing him of conspiring against Edward’s liberty,
all of which the poor little King was only too eager to believe; for
Somerset, with his puritanic views, had not made the boy’s existence
very pleasant to him, persistently treating him as a little old man,
and suppressing all those amusements and sports which lads, even sickly
lads, love so dearly. It is said that, on one occasion, when he came
upon the King and Barney Fitzpatrick playing cards, he seized them in
a fury and threw them into the fire. He had striven, in a word, to make
Edward look at life as he saw it himself, through smoked Calvinistic
glasses that robbed it of all brightness.
The Duchess of Feria relates that Queen Mary once told her Edward VI
had confessed to her that he was very tired of sermons--not to be
wondered at, since the poor child had to hear one at least daily on
some dogmatic controversy or other, and these dull homilies often
lasted a good two hours. In fact, the royal lad was bored and “prayed”
to death. For more than a year after his accession to the throne he was
compelled to hear a daily Mass, celebrated according to the old rites
but with the Epistle and Gospel said in English. Interpolated into
this Latin service was the inevitable lengthy sermon preached by men
well known for their Reforming zeal, such as Canon William Barlow of
St. Osyth’s, in Essex, who became Bishop of Chichester in Elizabeth’s
reign; Dr. John Taylor; Dr. Redman, a violent opponent of the doctrine
of Transubstantiation; Dr. Thomas Becken; Dr. Giles Ayre, a bitter
enemy of Gardiner; and the extremely Protestant Dr. Latimer. John Knox,
who came to London in 1551, also preached before the King; but by that
time the Mass had been replaced by the services of the first Book of
Common Prayer. Knox was in a very bad temper with the Protector at the
time of his visit, and accused him of paying more attention to the
building of his new house in the Strand than to his (Knox’s) sermons.
As time went on, poor Edward had to listen to controversies in which
Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, Ridley, Bishop of Rochester, and
“that most zealous Papist,” Heath, Bishop of Worcester (afterwards,
under Mary, Archbishop of York), “debated and disputed” on such grave
subjects as Transubstantiation, the Intercession of Saints, Worship of
the Virgin, Prayers for the Dead, Purgatory, etc., and attend sermons
preached in the courtyard of Whitehall Palace, where Gardiner delivered
his last discourse on papal supremacy, which sent him to the Tower.
Contemporary evidence shows exactly how the audience was grouped round
the improvised rostrum built close to the walls of the palace, so
that the King might hear the preacher from an open window, where he
generally sat, notebook in hand, in the company of the Lord Protector,
and of Dr. John Cheke, his tutor. Aged people of both sexes were ranged
on benches close to the palace, whilst the general congregation,
standing, filled up the courtyard. The learned Nicholas Udall often
sat at a desk under the pulpit, taking shorthand notes of the sermon,
and by his means many of the more notable of these orations have been
preserved to this day. John Knox preached his last sermon before Edward
VI from the pulpit at Whitehall Palace. At many, if not at most, of
these pious exercises Lady Jane Grey, her mother and sister must have
assisted, for it was expected that all the great ladies of the Court
should attend; and consequently, in one or two old engravings of these
interesting functions, we behold them, wearing their “froze pastes” or
coifs, seated in rows, looking exceedingly sanctimonious, not to say
bored. There are numbers of young children among them, one or two of
whom have evidently fallen into a deep sleep.
Edward, extremely delicate from his birth, slightly deformed, with one
shoulder-blade higher than the other, weak eyes, and occasional attacks
of deafness, suffered terribly, we are told, from headaches, a fact
which causes little surprise, considering the number of sermons he was
forced to attend. The Lord Admiral, during the brief time he held the
King’s favour, altered all this. The sermons were reduced, the sports
and pastimes multiplied. No wonder, then, that of his two uncles Edward
VI preferred Thomas to Edward!
Hardly was Lady Jane installed at Seymour Place, whither she was
removed from Hanworth as soon as the weather grew cold, than her
guardian set himself to weave not one but half a dozen fresh intrigues.
Once more he planned to marry the Princess Elizabeth, or, failing her,
a little later on, his young ward, Lady Jane. He even endeavoured
to open a fresh correspondence with the Princess, and met with some
success; but the astute damsel made him a very politic response.
However impressed she may have been by the Admiral’s good looks, she
was well aware that he had compromised her once, and was resolved
there should be no second edition of the Chelsea business. Yet she
had the imprudence to send his Lordship letters through her servants,
and, thus encouraged, the Admiral began to make minute inquiries as to
her fortune and the management of her affairs. He also endeavoured
to find out the amount of the fortunes owned by Lady Jane Grey and
Princess Mary, and, in short, of all the marriageable ladies of the
royal family, not excluding Anne of Cleves. A report of these inquiries
coming to the knowledge of John Russell, the Lord Privy Seal, that
functionary thought it his duty to look into the matter, and seized an
opportunity when riding with the Admiral through the streets of London
to ask him his object point-blank. As they rode past Westminster Hall,
Russell turned to Seymour, saying, “My Lord Admiral, there are certain
rumours bruited of you which I am very sorry to hear.”
“What rumours?” demanded Seymour.
“I have been informed,” replied Russell, “that you mean to marry either
the Lady Mary or the Lady Elizabeth, or else the Lady Jane.”
Sudeley remained silent, and his interlocutor proceeded: “My Lord, if
ye go about any such thing, ye seek the means to undo yourself, and all
those that shall come of you.”
Sudeley, shaking his head, denied ever having had any such intention;
he “had no thought of such an enterprise.” And so, for the time being,
the conversation dropped. But a few days later, when the Lord Admiral
was again riding with his Lordship, he said to Russell, “Father
Russell, you are very suspicious of me; I pray you tell me who showed
you of the marriage that I should attempt, whereof ye brake with me the
other day.”
Russell answered, “I will not tell you the authors of the tale, but
they be your very good friends”; and he advised Seymour “to make
no suit of marriage that way”--meaning with Elizabeth or Mary, or
eventually with Lady Jane.
Nothing daunted, Seymour replied, “It is convenient for them to marry,
and better it were that they were married within the realm than in any
foreign place without the realm; and why might not I, or another man
raised by the King their father, marry one of them?”--in allusion to
the fact that Henry VIII had passed a law legalising the marriage of a
Princess of the Blood with a subject.
Russell warned him honestly, “My Lord, if either you, or any other
within this realm, shall match himself in marriage either with my Lady
Mary or my Lady Elizabeth, he shall undoubtedly, whatsoever he be,
procure unto himself the occasion of his undoing, and you especially,
above all others, being of so near alliance to the King’s Majesty.”
Then, bearing in mind the Lord Admiral’s love of money, Lord Russell
straightway asked, “And I pray you, what shall you have with either of
them?”
Here Seymour was on his own ground: “He who marries one of them shall,”
he said, “have three thousand pounds a year.”
“My Lord,” responded Russell, “it is not so, for ye may be well assured
that he shall have no more than ten thousand pounds in money, plate,
and goods, and no lands; and what is that to maintain his charges and
estates who matches himself there?”
“They must have three thousand pounds a year also,” said the Lord of
Sudeley.
Thereupon Russell lost his temper, and with some strong expressions
retorted “they should _not_.”
Seymour, likewise with an oath, asserted “that they _should_, and that
none should dare to say nay to it.”
Russell answered that he, at least, dared “say nay” to the Lord
Admiral’s greed, “for it was clean against the King’s will.” And so
they parted.
These inquiries about the royal ladies’ fortunes became known to the
Protector, possibly through Russell, and thus the whole intrigue was
brought to light.
Lady Jane at Seymour Place and in the possession of the Lord Admiral
was already a stumbling-block in the way of Somerset’s own matrimonial
schemes for his own son, and the discovery of the underhand manner in
which Thomas had endeavoured to supplant him in the King’s affections
goaded the elder man to fury. But Sudeley had grown reckless, and he
openly defied his all-powerful brother, and vaunted his determination
to oust him at any cost from his high seat.[145] He boldly set about
ingratiating himself with the yeoman class, which was embittered
against Somerset on account of his exactions; and Dorset, now his
willing tool, also strove to secure a following among the farmers and
gentlemen, on bad terms with the existing Government. The ladies of
the Court, who hated the arrogant Duchess of Somerset, were flattered
into a friendly feeling for the Lord Admiral and what he was pleased
to consider his just cause. To keep up his influence, he had secretly
bought over a hundred manors and stewardships, and he had arranged
with his scoundrelly friend, Sharington--who, to save his skin, turned
traitor--to secure sufficient ammunition and arms to store Holt
Castle, to which fortress he intended to convey the King. Thanks to
this man’s frauds on the Bristol Mint, my Lord of Sudeley got together
money enough to raise an army of 10,000 men. In addition to all this,
he was in league with no less than four distinct gangs of pirates or
privateers, and had established a sort of dépôt for stolen property
in the Scilly Isles, whither the cargoes of sea-plundered vessels
were taken to await removal to London. Here, then, was an array of
crimes and treasons enough to hang any man, even if he was the Lord
Protector’s brother! One fatal day Thomas made the egregious mistake of
approaching Wriothesley on the subject of obtaining the Protectorship.
He told him Dorset and Pembroke were on his side. “Beware what you are
doing,” replied Wriothesley gravely; “it were better for you if you
had never been born, nay that you were burnt quick alive, than that
you should attempt it.” Sudeley, somewhat dashed by this rebuff, next
sought the Earl of Rutland, and spoke to him in much the same impudent
and imprudent fashion. Rutland, when his visitor departed, went
straight to Wriothesley and told him what he had learnt. Both agreed to
reveal all they knew of the conspiracy to the Council. Several meetings
were held to inquire into the matter; and at length Somerset summoned
his brother to appear before him. Sudeley sent a flat refusal. Early in
the forenoon of 17th January 1549 Sir Thomas Smith and Sir John Baker
proceeded to Seymour Place, and there arrested the Lord Admiral, who
was conveyed by water to the Tower, after a passionate leave-taking
with his aged mother.[146]
To Lady Jane the trial and subsequent execution of her guardian must
have been a matter of intense and painful interest. She was still
his guest at Seymour Place when he was arrested, and she must have
witnessed the tragic parting of the unhappy mother from the son so
remorselessly torn from her aged arms to meet his doom. Whatever his
crimes and faults, the Lord of Sudeley had been a good son, and the
old Lady Seymour mourned him deeply till she died of her sorrows, on
18th October in the following year. She was buried with scant pomp. The
King, her grandson, and his Court did not even put on the customary
mourning, on the plea that black gowns did not really signify respect
to the dead, who were best remembered in the hearts and prayers of
those who survived them--certainly not a popular or contemporary
belief, for on the day following Lady Seymour’s death two State
funerals were celebrated with all those honours which were denied to
the remains of the grandmother of the reigning sovereign. There was
probably a political motive at the back of this want of respect, which
may perhaps be ascribed to the evil influence of Warwick, who, in his
desire to humiliate the Somersets, refused the honours due to the
corpse of the Protector’s mother.
Meanwhile, the destruction of Thomas Seymour was being prepared with
skill and secrecy. Whilst the foredoomed Admiral had been boasting all
over London of his immense influence, his foes, now that he was in
their power, subtly compassed his ruin by buying witnesses against him
and securing the goodwill of his numerous and venomous enemies. They
had long been spreading a rumour that he had poisoned the late Queen
Katherine in order to make an even higher alliance with one or other of
the heiresses to the throne. His scandalous proceedings with regard
to the Princess Elizabeth at Chelsea and Hanworth, and the unbecoming
manner in which he had regained possession of Lady Jane, were brought
up against him. Lady Tyrwhitt, one of the bedchamber ladies of the late
Queen his wife, was called to give certain damaging evidence, pointing
to a strong suspicion that Seymour had not only been most unkind to the
deceased lady, but had actually poisoned her food during the last few
days of her life, and set up the fever which carried her off within a
week of her child’s birth. Lord Latimer stated that Seymour, when Queen
Katherine had prayers said in his house morning and afternoon according
to the order of the Reformed Church, would get out of the way, and
swear on his oath that “The Book of Common Prayer was not God’s work
at all.” There was a merciless raking up of misdeeds, true or false,
of the man’s earliest youth--as, for instance, “that, in 1540, a woman
who was executed for robbery and child-murder had declared that the
beginning of her evil life was due to her having been seduced and
desolated by Lord Thomas Seymour.” The Dorsets were summoned from
Bradgate to give evidence in the matter of the wardship of their
daughter, and other witnesses were fetched from different parts of the
kingdom to give damaging testimony.[147]
During, though not at, Seymour’s trial, Elizabeth was subjected to a
private inquiry at Hatfield, and personally asked whether Mrs. Ashley
had encouraged her to marry the Admiral. This she declared she had
never done, adding that she did not believe Mrs. Ashley had said the
things attributed to her. The Princess also wrote the Lord Protector
a letter, dated from her house at Hatfield, saying she had learned
that vile rumours regarding her chastity were in circulation, and that
people had even gone so far as to spread abroad that she was confined
in the Tower, being with child by the Lord Admiral. The story, she
protested, was an outrageous slander, and she demanded that she might
be allowed to proceed to Court to disprove these evil reports. On this
momentous occasion, Elizabeth, considering her youth, displayed no
small amount of sagacity and also of that leonine spirit for which
she was afterwards celebrated. When confronted, however, with Mrs.
Ashley’s written evidence, she blushed to the roots of her hair, and,
abashed and breathless, returned the letter with trembling hands to her
inquisitors. Curiously enough, Elizabeth does not seem to have resented
Mrs. Ashley’s outspoken condemnation of her conduct with the Lord
Admiral. On the contrary, hearing of her arrest, she set to work to
save her from the clutches of the law, declaring the lady had been in
her service many years, and had exerted herself diligently to bring her
up in learning and honesty.
Elizabeth told Sir Robert Tyrwhitt, who was sent by the Council to
examine her on the subject of her intimacy with the Lord High-Admiral,
“that voices, she knew, went about London that my Lord High-Admiral”
should marry her, but added, with a smile, “It is but London
news”--evidently London was as much a centre of gossip in those days as
now. A little later she asserted that “she did not wish to marry him,
for she who had had him [meaning Katherine Parr] was so unfortunate.”
It would appear that Lady Browne (Surrey’s “fair Geraldine”) was also
a friend of Seymour’s, and that he went to her and asked her to break
up her household and come to stay with the Princess Elizabeth, so that
she might keep him posted as to what was going on in that Princess’s
circle. This the lady had agreed to do, but she was prevented by the
sudden illness and death of her old husband, the famous Master of the
Horse, Sir Anthony Browne. Parry, Elizabeth’s comptroller, seems also
to have favoured the Lord Admiral, although it was mainly owing to him
that the revelations concerning his mistress’s conduct with Seymour
were made public. On one occasion, when Parry was advising the Admiral
to leave off his attempt to court the Princess, he replied that “it
mattered little, for, see you, there has been a talk of late that I
should marry the Lady Jane,” adding, “I tell you this merrily--I tell
you this merrily.”
As for the said Admiral, all the world now turned against him,
excepting the late Queen’s brother, the Marquis of Northampton, his
other brother-in-law, Lord Herbert, and his deceased wife’s two
cousins, the Throckmortons, one of whom wrote the following homely
lines on the wretched man’s piteous plight:--
“Thus guiltless he through malice went to pot,
Not answering for himself, not knowing cause.”
No better proof can possibly be quoted in his favour, so far as the
accusation of his having murdered Katherine Parr is concerned, than the
fact that his wife’s closest connections remained his only friends in
his trouble.
Still Thomas Seymour stood out boldly for his innocence. He did not
deny his flirtation with Elizabeth; it was a mere romp between a man
and a child, with no harm in it beyond such as his enemies chose to
impute. But the poor man’s foes proved too much for him, and on 23rd
February he was brought face to face with his accusers, and condemned
by the Council without hearing or defence. The King, his nephew, seems
to have made some effort to save him, but the Council forced the boy
to sign the fatal warrant, which he delivered with a trembling hand,
the tears standing in his eyes, and this despite the fact that the
reference to Seymour’s death in the King’s _Journal_ contains not a
word of regret. Seymour had done him, personally, no great ill, and
appears to have shown him kindness on more than one occasion. Cranmer,
who ever ran with the hare and hunted with the hounds, hastened to
affix his signature to the document ordering the Admiral’s execution,
and this, as Hume observes, “in contravention of the Canon Law, and in
sheer spite.” The Bishop of Ely informed Seymour that his earthly life
was shortly to be ended, and a Catholic priest was sent to confess him;
but he is said to have refused these ministrations, as well as those of
a Protestant clergyman. He contrived, according to Latimer, to write
letters to the Princesses Mary and Elizabeth denying the accusations
against him, which letters he hid between the leather of one of his
servants’ shoe-soles. Suspected of serving his master too well, the
poor faithful creature was arrested, the letters discovered, and the
unfortunate man hanged without trial.
Without entering into any controversy as to the magnitude of Thomas
Seymour’s guilt, it may be admitted, in fairness to his brother
of Somerset, that, if the misdemeanours of a personal character
attributed to Sudeley rest on the gossiping evidence of women, the
graver charges of collecting stores of arms, raising an army to strike
a blow against his brother, and unscrupulously attempting to obtain
funds even through pirates and notorious swindlers, do in a measure
justify the severity of his punishment and excuse the infliction of an
apparently unnatural and fratricidal sentence of death. Somerset, with
all his faults, had a high sense of justice and of the responsibility
of his exalted office. His brother had offended not only as an ordinary
subject of the realm, but as a trusted servant of the nation, and his
treason and unscrupulous abuse of his position were beyond all pardon.
The voice of nature was stifled in the heart of the statesman, and thus
the Duke, with a tolerably clear conscience, signed a death-warrant
which must at the time have cost him a pang of horror and which has
since branded him as a merciless fratricide.[148]
The Lord of Sudeley’s rage against the Council, his brother, and his
enemies in general, when he heard himself condemned, knew no bounds and
admitted of no Christian forgiveness or resignation. He cursed them
one and all with every terrible oath his tongue could utter. He was
beheaded on Tower Hill on 20th March 1549, six months and some days
after the death of Queen Katherine Parr. His demeanour on the scaffold
caused great scandal: he refused to listen to the pastor deputed to
minister to him, and the attendants had much difficulty in forcing
him to kneel to receive the fatal stroke. He wrestled hard with the
executioner, who, being a strong man, hurled him down on the scaffold
and struck off his head at last, after a cruel hacking, due to his
desperate struggles.
For nearly a week after the death of the Admiral, Lady Jane remained
alone with her attendants in the desolate house in the Strand. Then
her father, Lord Dorset, came to London to take her back with him to
Bradgate.
On the Sunday after the execution, Hugh Latimer preached a sermon at
Paul’s Cross which for bitterness and uncharitableness has never been
surpassed. “This I say,” he remarked, “if they ask me what I think of
the Lord Admiral’s death, that he died very dangerously, irksomely, and
horribly.” “He shall be to me,” he furiously exclaimed, “Lot’s wife
as long as I live. He was a covetous man--a horrible covetous man. I
would there were no mo’ in England. He was an ambitious man. I would
there were no mo’ in England. He was a seditious man--a contemner of
the Common Prayer. I would there were no mo’ in England. He is gone. I
would he had left none behind him.”
The worst charge that posterity can bring against Somerset is not that
he signed his brother’s death-warrant, but that he seized the dead
man’s estates and even his wearing apparel, and despoiled his orphaned
child, the infant daughter of Katherine Parr.[149]
Princess Elizabeth learnt the death of the courtier she “loved most”
with a composure singular for so young a lady, simply remarking that he
was over clever--“a man of the greatest wit and the least judgment.”
CHAPTER XI
THE EDUCATION OF LADY JANE
The extraordinary revival of letters in Italy, France, and Germany at
the close of the fifteenth century did not fail to influence English
education, and especially that of high-born women. In this department
the exclusively classical culture then in vogue, which barred many
subjects now held of far greater importance, would undoubtedly be
deemed unpractical and excessive for women nowadays. Modern literature,
however, was then in its infancy, and apart from the classics there
was little to read but crude if noble poetry, and some historical,
theological, and legendary works of a very primitive sort. These soon
palled, whereas, to the cultured mind, the classic authors presented,
then as now, an ever-varying and delightful fund of information and
amusement. Science, in the modern acceptation of the word, was in
its infancy, and, in the opinion of the most learned persons of the
day, the secrets of theology and Nature, and those of art as well,
were embodied in the works of the ancients, and above all in the
Holy Scriptures. A knowledge of Greek and Latin was thus supposed to
give the key to all science. It was the fashion, too, for princesses
and women of noble birth to be, or to pose as being, learned; and
notwithstanding the political and religious convulsions of the reign of
Henry VIII, a number of English ladies of the highest rank, following
the example of their French and Italian sisters, devoted their leisure
to studies usually left nowadays to that class of pedantic females
whom we somewhat scornfully dub “blue-stockings.” This practice was
not confined to women who had embraced the Reformed tenets. Many
Catholics,--the daughter of Sir Thomas More and her learned friend,
Margaret Clement, for instance,--deeply versed in studies of this
description, enjoyed the dialogues of Plato, and may have laughed
over the scorching epigrams of Martial and the stinging satires of
Juvenal in the original, and even recognised their applicability to the
society of their own times. Most of the women who surrounded Lady Jane
Grey were pedants, and even her shallow-hearted mother had presumably
acquired a fair knowledge of classical literature.
But it was not till the young girl returned to Bradgate, after the
death of Thomas Seymour, that the system of “cramming,” which was
to give her, at the age of seventeen, a reputation as a marvel of
erudition, began in grim earnest.
Dorset, who had been summoned to London to attend the trial of his
quondam friend, the Admiral, as a witness against him, retired to
Bradgate in some despondency after its fatal termination. He and
his wife felt they had been wasting their time over Thomas Seymour;
they were conscious, too, that they were living under a cloud,
for the revelation of their pecuniary interest in the transfer of
their daughter to so notorious a scamp had produced a most damaging
impression on the public mind. But the failure of their plans had not
quenched their ambition. They took their luckless child back with them,
and straightway set about preparing her to occupy the towering position
they felt assured she would sooner or later be called to fill.
Her education was forthwith entrusted to the celebrated Aylmer, a
native of Leicestershire, whom Elizabeth made Bishop of London, to
reward him for his scathing answer to John Knox’s pamphlet, _The First
Blast of the Trumpet against the Monstrous Regiment_ [_i.e._ regimen =
régime or government] _of Women_. Aylmer, at this time a good-looking
man in his early thirties, was, so Bacon tells us, engaged as tutor to
the daughters of the Marquis of Dorset at Bradgate. The new preceptor
was in close correspondence with the Genevan Reformers, and it must
have been through him that Jane became acquainted with the celebrated
Bullinger and with John ab Ulmis, better known as Ulmer, a learned but
destitute Swiss Calvinist, who visited Bradgate as early as the summer
of 1550. He mastered the English language, and having been sent to
pursue his studies at Oxford at the Marquis of Dorset’s expense, he
spent his summer vacation at Bradgate, giving lessons in Greek and
Latin to Lady Jane and her younger but less talented sister, Lady
Katherine, and together with John Aylmer and Dr. Harding the Rector
of Bradgate, superintended her classical and theological education. A
somewhat crafty young man was Ulmer, skilled in the art of flattery,
and much addicted to repaying solid benefits by empty compliments. He
it was who urged Bullinger, his master, to dedicate his book, _The
Holy Marriage of Christians_, to the Lord Marquis of Dorset, a rather
venturesome act, seeing this nobleman was publicly credited with
bigamy![150] Bullinger also presented the Marquis and the Lady Jane
with a copy of his book, dedicated to Henry II of France, on Christian
Perfection, for which the latter wrote to thank him in her father’s
name on 12th July 1551. Her epistle is written in Latin, and may have
been suggested and even edited by Aylmer: it also contains a Biblical
quotation in Hebrew. The following extract from it gives a fair idea of
how this child of fourteen addressed one of the most learned men of his
time:--
“From that little volume of pure and unsophisticated religion,
which you lately sent to my father and myself, I gather daily, as
out of a most beautiful garden, the sweetest flowers. My father
also, as far as his weighty engagements permit, is diligently
occupied in the perusal of it: but whatever advantage either of
us may derive from thence, we are bound to render thanks to you
for it, and to God on your account; for we cannot think it right
to receive with ungrateful minds such and so many truly divine
benefits, conferred by Almighty God through the instrumentality
of yourself and those like you, not a few of whom Germany is now
in this respect so happy as to possess. If it be customary with
mankind, as indeed it ought to be, to return favour for favour,
and to show ourselves mindful of benefits bestowed; how much
rather should we endeavour to embrace with joyfulness the benefits
conferred by divine goodness, and at least to acknowledge them with
gratitude, though we may be unable to make an adequate return!
“I come now to that part of your letter,” continues Lady Jane,
“which contains a commendation of myself, which as I cannot claim,
so also I ought not to allow; but whatever the Divine Goodness may
have bestowed on me, I ascribe only to Himself, as the chief and
sole author of anything in me that bears any semblance to what is
good; and to Whom I entreat you, most accomplished sir, to offer
your constant prayers in my behalf, that He may so direct me and
all my actions, that I may not be found unworthy of His so great
goodness. My most noble father would have written to you, to thank
you both for the important labours in which you are engaged, and
also for the singular courtesy you have manifested by inscribing
with his name and publishing under his auspices your Fifth Decade,
had he not been summoned by most weighty business in His Majesty’s
service to the remotest parts of Britain; but as soon as public
affairs afford him leisure he is determined, he says, to write to
you with all diligence.”
Here follows an urgent request for a scheme for the study of the Hebrew
language. She concludes:--
“Farewell, brightest ornament and support of the whole Church of
Christ; and may Almighty God long preserve you to us and to His
Church!--Your most devoted
“JANA GRAIA”[151]
Besides these visitors, the Lady Frances appears to have been the
friend and patroness of a learned Protestant, Nicholas Udall, the
famous stenographer. She was even guardian to his daughter, for a
letter from her to Cecil still preserved at Hatfield begs she may be
relieved of this responsibility, as the young lady is about to be
married.
Late in the autumn of 1549, within six months of Seymour’s execution,
the celebrated Roger Ascham came on a visit to Bradgate. He too has
been described as tutor to Lady Jane, but this is a mistake; he was
preceptor to the Princess Elizabeth. As one of the leading lights of
his time, he was already well known to the Marquis of Dorset, and
passing through the neighbourhood on his way to attend Rutland and
Morysone on an embassy to Charles V, conceived it his duty to pay his
respects to the great man’s family.
Walking through the beautiful park at Bradgate, on his way to the
Hall, the visitor came upon the Marquis and his lady, with all their
household, out hunting. When the cavalcade halted to greet him, Ascham
inquired for the Lady Jane, and was told she was at home in her own
chamber. He begged leave to wait upon her, a favour readily granted,
and found her in her closet “reading the _Phædon_ of Plato in Greek,
with as much delight as gentlemen read the merry tales of Boccacio.”
Much surprised, he asked the young student “why she relinquished such
pastime as was then going on in the park for the sake of study?”
With a smile, Jane replied, “I think all their sport in the park is but
a shadow to that pleasure I find in Plato. Alas! good folk, they never
felt what true pleasure means.”
“And how attained you, madam,” inquired Ascham, “to this true knowledge
of pleasure? And what did chiefly allure you to it, seeing that few
women and not many men have arrived at it?”
[Illustration: ROGER ASCHAM’S VISIT TO LADY JANE GREY AT BRADGATE
AFTER THE PAINTING BY J. C. HORSLEY, R.A.]
“I will tell you,” replied Lady Jane, “and tell you a truth which
perchance you may marvel at. One of the greatest benefits that God
ever gave me, is that He sent me, with sharp, severe parents, so gentle
a schoolmaster [Aylmer]. When I am in presence of either father or
mother, whether I speak, keep silent, sit, stand or go, eat, drink,
be merry or sad, be sewing, playing, dancing, or doing anything else,
I must do it, as it were in such weight, measure and number, even as
perfectly as God made the earth, or else I am so sharply taunted, so
cruelly threatened, yea, presented sometimes with pinches, nips and
bobs and other things, (which I will not name for the honour I bear
them), so without measure misordered, that I think myself in Hell,
till the time comes when I must go with Mr. Aylmer, who teacheth me so
gently, so pleasantly, and with such pure allurements to learn, that
I think all the time of nothing whilst I am with him [that is to say,
“the time passes pleasantly when I am with him”]. And when I am called
from him, I fall to weeping, because whatever I do else but learning is
full of great trouble, fear, and wholesome misliking unto me. And this
my book, hath been so much my pleasure, and bringing daily to me more
pleasure and more, that in respect of it, all other pleasures in very
deed be but trifles and troubles to me.”
Poor solitary little girl! We of this matter-of-fact age can but feel
more of pity than admiration, as down the long vista of four and a half
centuries we picture her sitting alone, poring over the _Phædon_--dull
reading, one would imagine, for a child, even to one so harried by the
ill-temper of her weak father and her sharp-tongued mother, “whether
she stood still or moved about, was merry or sad, sewed or played,”
that she felt herself “in Hell” until Mr. Aylmer called her to her
studies!
Ascham’s story throws a very unpleasing sidelight on the conduct of
Lady Jane Grey’s parents and their harsh treatment of the child, and
proves, moreover, the sort of forcing system to which she was being
subjected. Ascham tells us that he mentions this interesting interview,
which he introduces into his _Schoolmaster_, because it was the last
time he ever saw “that sweet and illustrious lady,” and also as a
protest against the exceeding severity of the teaching of those times.
It is curious to note, as her historian, Howard, observes, that whilst
her parents were handling her like a froward child, this extraordinary
young lady was in active correspondence with such famous men as Ascham,
Conrad Pellican, Bullinger, and Sturmius, who all treated her with the
respect due to a grown-up woman of uncommon sagacity and experience.
The only explanation of this fact is the supposition that these
worthies, foreseeing Lady Jane might possibly occupy the throne, and
anxious to promote the cause of the Reformation in every possible way,
may have placed her on a higher pedestal than her immature talents
deserved. They certainly flattered her father, of whom they spoke and
wrote as being well-nigh apostolic in zeal and sanctity, and a marvel
of light and learning to boot.
At the age of fourteen, then, Lady Jane was fairly conversant with
Latin and Greek,[152] and with or without the aid of a dictionary
managed to derive some entertainment from Plato. But when we are told
that she had mastered Hebrew, and at the age of seventeen was forming
the acquaintance of “the tongue of Chaldea” and “the language of
Arabia,” we are inclined, with Sir Harris Nicolas, to be sceptical.
Her Greek and Latin may have been, and very likely were, thoroughly
mastered. Several letters in these languages are attributed to her and
are possibly of her own unaided composition, but even in these we note
that her style and phraseology in many cases closely resembles that
of Demosthenes or Cicero, whom she evidently imitated. In one of her
letters, written on 12th July 1551, to Henry Bullinger, she says, “I
am beginning to learn the Hebrew tongue,” and asks him to give her a
method whereby she may pursue her course of study in that language to
the greatest advantage. Bullinger sent the plan, and in another letter
she thanks him and says she will enter upon the study of the Hebrew
language in the method which he so clearly directs. As this letter is
dated July 1552, and her brief career ended in the following year,
her proficiency in the language of the prophets was probably not very
considerable.
That poor Jane Grey was “crammed” there can be no question, and the
wonder is her weak health did not collapse altogether under the strain.
The figurehead of a party she was to be, however, and it was necessary
that extravagant reports of her learning should be spread throughout
her own country and among the Protestants in foreign lands.
Lady Jane Grey at this period, surrounded by learned men and women
so much older than herself, appears strained, even artificial, but
later, in her culminating misery, she displays a dignity, a sweetness
of nature, and a pious sincerity which render her worthy of her fame.
Her few compositions which have come down to us, most of them written
during the last days of her life,--her prayer, for instance, the letter
to her sisters, and the lines which, according to tradition, she
scratched on the walls of her cell,--are full of feeling, and lead us
to regret that so fine a nature should not have been spared to adorn
mature womanhood as perfectly as its unaffected simplicity graced her
short maidenhood. Yet there was a strain of obstinacy and even of
coarseness in Jane’s character which leads one to think that after all
she might, had she remained Queen, have displayed in later life many of
the less pleasing peculiarities of her Tudor ancestors.
A very curious letter, written to Lady Jane Grey by Ascham early in
1552, while he was still at the Court of Charles V, throws considerable
light on the subject of her studies; it has also led some authorities
to imagine the learned man had actually fallen in love with his fair
pupil. “In this my long peregrination, most illustrious lady,” says
he, “I have travelled far, have visited the greatest cities, and have
made the most diligent observations in my power on the manners of the
nations, their institutions, laws, and regulations. Nevertheless, there
is nothing that has raised in me greater admiration than what I found
in regard to yourself during the last summer, to see one so young and
lovely, even in the absence of her learned preceptor, in the noble hall
of her family, in the very moment when her friends and relatives were
enjoying the field sports, to find, I repeat--oh, all ye gods!--so
divine a maid, diligently perusing the _Phædon_ of Plato, in this more
happy, it may be believed, than in her royal and noble lineage.
“Go on thus, O best adorned virgin, to the honour of thy country,
the delight of thy parents, the comfort of thy relatives, and the
admiration of all. Oh, happy Aylmer! to have such a scholar, and to
be her tutor. I congratulate both you who teach and she who learns.
These were the words to myself, as to my reward for teaching the most
illustrious Elizabeth. But to you too I can repeat them with more
truth, to you I concede this felicity, even though I should have to
lament want of success where I had expected to reap the sweetest fruits
of my labours.
“But let me constrain the sharpness of my grief which prudence makes
it necessary I should conceal even to myself. This much I say, that I
have no fault to find with the Lady Elizabeth, whom I have always found
the best of ladies, nor indeed with the Lady Mary, but if ever I shall
have the happiness to meet my friend Aylmer, then I shall repose in his
bosom my sorrows abundantly.
“Two things I repeat to thee, my friend Aylmer [Aylmer was evidently
at Bradgate at this period], for I know thou wilt see this letter,
that by your persuasion and entreaty the Lady Jane Grey, as early as
she can conveniently, may write to me in Greek, which she had already
promised to do. I have even written lately to John Sturmius, mentioning
this promise. Pray let your letters and hers fly together to us. The
distance is great, but John Hales will take care that it shall reach
me. If she even were to write to Sturmius himself in Greek, neither you
nor she would have cause to repent your labour. [The “neither you nor
she” points clearly to collaboration.]
“The other request is, my good Aylmer, that you would exert yourself
so that we might conjointly preserve this mode of life among us. How
freely, how sweetly, and philosophically then should we live! Why
should we, my good Aylmer, less enjoy all these things, which Cicero,
at the conclusion of the third book, _De Finibus_, describes as the
only rational mode of life? Nothing in any tongue, nothing in any
times, in human memory, either past or present, from which something
may not be drawn to sweeten life!
“As to the news here, most illustrious lady, I know not what to write.
That which is written of stupid things, must itself be stupid, and, as
Cicero complains of his times, there is little to amuse or that can be
embellished. Besides, at present, all places and persons are occupied
with rumours of wars and commotions, which, for the most part, are
either mere fabrications or founded on no authority, so that anything
respecting Continental politics would neither be interesting nor
useful to you.
“The general Council of Trent is to sit on the first of May,” continues
Jane’s correspondent, “Cardinal Pole, it is asserted, is to be the
president. Besides there are the tumults this year in Africa, their
preparation for a war against the Turks, and then the great expectation
of the march of the Emperor into Austria, of which I shall, God
willing, be a companion. Why need I write to you of the siege of
Magdeburg, and how the Duke of Mecklenburg has been taken, or of that
commotion which so universally, at this moment, afflicts the miserable
Saxony? To write of all these things, I have neither leisure, nor would
it be safe; on my return, which I hope is not far distant, it shall be
a great happiness to relate all these things to you in person.
“Thy kindness to me, oh! most noble Jane Grey, was always most grateful
to me when present with you, but it is ten times more so during this
long absence. To your noble parents, I wish length of happiness, to you
a daily victory in letters and in virtue, and to thy sister Katherine,
that she may resemble thee, and to Aylmer, I wish every good that he
may wish to Ascham.
“Further, dearest lady, if I were not afraid to load thee with the
weight of my light salutations, I would ask thee in my name to salute
Elizabeth Astley, who, as well as her brother John, I believe to be
of my best friends, and whom I believe to be like that brother in all
integrity and sweetness of manners. Salute, I pray thee, my cousin,
Mary Laten, and my wife Alice, of whom I think oftener than I can here
express. Salute, also, that worthy young man Garret and John Haddon.
“Farewell, most noble lady in Christ.
R. A.”
“Augustæ”
“18th January, 1551”
When we consider that this letter was addressed to a girl who was not
yet fifteen years of age, making due allowance for the high-flown style
of the times, we can only conclude that there was some politic motive
for a mode of address so injudicious in its flattery, so fulsome and so
extravagant even for that age of courtly adulation.
Lady Jane Grey spent the better part of the years 1550-1551 and 1552 at
Bradgate, improving her mind by hard study, and patiently submitting
to the “nips” and petty tyranny of her mother. At one time she seems
to have commenced the study of such music as was then in vogue. This,
Ascham promptly assured her was a frivolous occupation, unworthy of
a godly maiden. In a very curious letter, dated 23rd December 1551,
Aylmer writes from London to Bullinger concerning the Lady Jane,
begging him to write to her direct and seek to influence her to give up
practising music so zealously.
“It now remains for me,” writes the worthy Reformer, “to request
that, with the kindness we have so long experienced, you will
instruct my pupil in your next letter as to what embellishment
and adornment of person is becoming in young women professing
godliness. In treating upon this subject, you may bring forward
the example of our King’s sister, the Princess Elizabeth, who goes
clad in every respect as becomes a young maiden; and yet no one is
induced by the example of so illustrious a lady, and in so much
Gospel light, to lay aside, much less look down upon, gold, jewels,
and braidings of the hair. They hear preachers declaim against
these things, but yet no one amends her life. Moreover, I would
wish you to prescribe to her (the Lady Jane) the length of time
she may properly devote to the study of music. For in this respect
also, people err beyond measure in this country, while their
whole labour is undertaken, and exertions made, for the sake of
ostentation.”
We can see by this letter, presumably written with a view to the great
object all these men kept in their hearts,--that of influencing Jane in
the event of her becoming Queen,--that they were endeavouring to make a
narrow-minded bigot of her, and it is equally certain that the Princess
Elizabeth was just then playing the part of the discreet and modest
maiden. It is very amusing to find this wily Princess, whose reputation
was already the reverse of good, held up as an example to innocent Jane
Grey. The unhappy child was not even to practise on her virginals in
peace, or dress as she chose, but to follow the example of Elizabeth,
forsooth! Could Ulmer and Pellican have seen in a vision the three
thousand dresses and the sixteen hundred wigs which were to adorn the
wardrobe of the lady they were setting up as a model to their simple
music-pupil! Even in matters of religion, Elizabeth at this early stage
of her career showed a remarkable discretion, neither siding with nor
offending either party. She was a pious Catholic in the company of her
sister Mary, and an equally edifying Protestant at the Court of her
brother, Edward VI.
In June 1551, after a lengthy absence, the Dorsets returned to their
town mansion. They came to London for the purpose of examining the
vast estate which the Lady Frances had inherited from the two sons
of her father, Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, by his fourth wife,
Katherine Willoughby. These two brothers died at Bugden Hall, Cams., of
the sweating sickness, within four hours of each other, and the bulk of
their wealth, excepting the Duchess’s dower, fell to the Lady Frances,
whose husband, in September of the following year (1552), was raised
to the rank of Duke of Suffolk. The Dorsets now lived very sumptuously
in London, and with a view, perhaps, of pleasing the King and pushing
forward the interests of the Lady Jane, whom they still fondly hoped
would become Queen-Consort, they invited a number of English and
foreign Reformers, at this time living in exile in London, to their
house.
The Marquis, who was an enthusiastic admirer of Conrad Bullinger, had
on more than one occasion exhorted him to correspond with his daughter,
Lady Jane. In a letter addressed to that eminent Reformer in December
1551, he says: “I acknowledge myself also to be much indebted to you
on my daughter’s account, for having always exhorted her in your godly
letters to a true faith in Christ, the study of the Scriptures, purity
of manners, and innocence of life, and I earnestly request you to
continue these exhortations as frequently as possible.”
A letter of another Reformer--namely Ab Ulmis--gives us some
interesting glimpses of the Reformation movement in England. He says:
“You will easily perceive the veneration and esteem which the Marquis’s
daughter entertains towards you, from the very learned letter she has
written to you. For my own part, I do not think there ever lived any
one more deserving of respect than this young lady, if you regard her
family; more learned, if you consider her age, or more happy if you
consider both. A report had prevailed, and has begun to be talked of by
persons of consequence, that this most noble virgin is to be betrothed
and given in marriage to the King’s Majesty. Oh! if that event should
take place, how happy would be the union and how beneficial to the
Church.... Haddon, a minister of the Word, and Aylmer, the tutor
of the young lady, respect and reverence you with much duty and
affection. It will be a mark of courtesy to write to them all as soon
as possible. Skinner is at Court with the King. Wallack is preaching
with much labour in Scotland,” and so on. Ascham, in a letter to
Sturmius, describes Jane as excelling in learning Lady Mildred, Cecil’s
accomplished wife. She is, says he, the most learned woman in England.
“I hear you have translated the Orations of Æschines and Demosthenes
into Latin. I pray you dedicate the work to this peerless lady.”
These and other letters still extant prove, if proof were needed,
that Aylmer, Ulmer, and Ascham, assisted by Pellican, Sturmius, and
Bullinger, were at this time hard at work, preparing their future Queen
and patroness for the position they fondly hoped she would one day
occupy. Hales, too, was assisting them,--“Club-footed Hales,” as he
was called--an English lawyer who had visited Switzerland and adopted
the tenets of the Geneva sect; he is described as “fanatical, learned,
and ill-tempered.” He was a frequent visitor at Suffolk House and
Bradgate, and in after times was much involved in the troubles of poor
Lady Katherine Grey, Jane’s youngest sister. Further quotation from
these letters is unnecessary; they are all written in the same style
of pedantic flattery, and throw more light on passing events than most
people would imagine, although the epistolary literature of this period
is verbose, and as a rule uninforming. We can imagine, however, that
the meetings at Suffolk House were exceedingly picturesque, and many
will marvel that only one painter of note, M. M. P. Comte, has ever
given us a picture of the youthful Lady Jane Grey seated among the
doctors of the Reformed faith, in the noble Gothic hall of a mansion
second to none in the old city for its architectural magnificence.[153]
The monotony of Jane’s life of close study was frequently interrupted
by long journeys on horseback, or in cumbersome waggons, to pay
various country visits. Late in 1551, the Greys established, for some
reason or other, a close intimacy with the Princess Mary, and this
notwithstanding their religious differences. With increase of wealth
and station, Jane’s parents became more worldly than ever. Perceiving
that Edward VI, who began to show signs of consumption, might not live
long, and that the Crown might after all pass to her Catholic Grace,
they wisely considered it prudent to be on the right side of a lady who
was probably destined to become their sovereign. Accordingly they paid
the Princess as many as four visits in a single year.
In the summer of 1551, Jane came very near losing her mother, Duchess
Frances, who fell ill of a violent fever. The sick lady, who was at
Richmond, sent for her daughter Jane from Bradgate, “to help nurse
her.” Suffolk describes her illness in the following quaint terms
in a letter explaining her absence from Court addressed to the Duke
of Northumberland’s secretary, Cecil, whom he styles his “cousin
Cycell”: “This shall be to advertise you, that my sudden departure
from Court was for that I have received a letter of the state my wife
was in, and I assure you she is mo’ like to die than not. I never saw
sicker creature in my life. She hath three sicknesses, the first is
a hot burning nague [ague] that doth hold her four and twenty hours,
the other is the stopping of the spleen, the third is hypochondriac
passion. These three being enclosed in one body, it is to be feared
that death must needs follow.” But it did not “follow”; by the
beginning of October, the Lady Frances was better, and in November she
was sufficiently convalescent to attend the entry into London of the
Scottish Queen Regent, Mary of Guise, and be present at the festivities
consequent on that rather unexpected royal visit.
Early in November 1551, Jane appeared at King Edward’s Court for
the first time, and took a prominent part in these merry-makings.
The Scottish Queen-Regent, Mary of Guise, had recently arrived at
Portsmouth from France, on her way to the dominions of her unfortunate
daughter, Mary, Queen of Scots, and wrote begging the English King’s
licence to pass through his dominions. This was readily granted; and a
pressing invitation to visit the Metropolis was sent to the Regent, and
willingly accepted. On 2nd November, she proceeded by water to Paul’s
Wharf, and thence rode in great state through the City. She lodged in
the Bishop of London’s house, where she was entertained with regal
hospitality, and, according to Stowe’s _Annals_, was supplied with
“beefs, muttons, veales, swans, and other kinds of poultry meates, with
fuell, bread, wine, beare, and wax.”
The first interview of King Edward VI with the Scottish Queen took
place on 4th November, at Westminster Palace. She rode in her chariot
from the City to Whitehall, attended by the Lady Margaret Douglas,
cousin to the King, and Countess of Lennox, the Duchesses of Richmond
and Suffolk, the Lady Jane Grey, and many other noble ladies, including
the Duchess of Northumberland.
The Queen and the King dined alone together; but the Duchess of
Suffolk, the Duchess of Northumberland, and the Lady Margaret Lennox,
together with the Ladies Jane and Katherine Grey, dined, we are told,
in the Queen’s hall, and were sumptuously entertained. Neither the
Princess Elizabeth nor the Princess Mary attended these festivities.
They were not in favour at this time and had not been invited.
The banquet must have taken place at the hour we usually devote to
luncheon, for at four the Queen, having visited the galleries and
state apartments of the Palace, then considered “show places,” left
Westminster, and, accompanied by her escort of nobles and ladies, rode
once more through the City to her lodgings in the Episcopal Palace.
On the following day (5th November), she made a solemn progress through
the City, riding from St. Paul’s, through Cheapside and Bishopsgate, to
Shoreditch, whence she took the high road for her own dominions. She
was accompanied by a great train of nobility, among them the Duchess of
Suffolk and her daughter, the Lady Jane Grey, and that fateful Duke of
Northumberland who was destined to bring ruin on the unfortunate Jane
and her father. Northumberland had in his train one hundred horsemen,
of whom thirty were gentlemen clad in black velvet, guarded with white,
and wearing white hats with black feathers.
As soon as this state visit, mentioned with considerable delight by
King Edward in his _Journal_, was over, the Lady Frances and her
daughters returned to Bradgate.
In the middle of November the Ducal party set out again for Tylsey,
the seat of Suffolk’s young cousin and ward, the heir of Willoughby
of Woollaton. From here they went on a visit to Princess Mary. A very
curious MS. account book, still in the possession of the Willoughby
d’Eresby family, shows that, on 20th November 1551, “ten gentlemen came
from London to escort my Lady Frances’s grace to my Lady Mary’s grace,
and they all left Tylsey after breakfast, the Lady Frances, accompanied
by her daughters, the Lady Jane, the Lady Katherine and the Lady Mary,
and repaired to my Lady Mary’s grace.” Whilst on this visit to Princess
Mary, who was then at her town house, the former Priory of St. John
of Jerusalem, in Clerkenwell, the Dorset family received handsome
gifts, as appears from the Princess’s expense book: “Given to my cousin
Frances beads (_i.e._ ‘rosary’) of black and white, mounted in gold”;
“To my cousin, Jane Grey, a necklace of gold, set with pearls and small
rubies.” In return, the Lady Jane presented Mary with a pair of gloves.
In the first days of December, the two younger daughters returned to
Tylsey, but the Duchess and Lady Jane stayed on in London, for the
Lady Jane, we are told, remained with the Princess at her house in
Clerkenwell.
On 16th December, the Duke came to Clerkenwell to escort Jane and her
mother back to Tylsey. There they seem to have spent a merry Christmas
in the company of the Lords Thomas and John Grey. The Duke of Suffolk,
in honour of his young wards the Willoughbys, and in their name, threw
open the gates of Tylsey to all such of the county gentry as chose to
seek hospitality within them. A company of players was ordered from
London, together with a wonderful boy, who “sang like a nightingale,”
besides a tumbler and a juggler. These were presently supplemented by
another band of players, belonging to the Earl of Oxford, who acted
several pieces. Open house was kept until 20th January 1552, when the
whole family proceeded to Walden, to spend some days with the Duke’s
sister, Lady Audley,[154] whose husband, Lord Audley, or Audrey, was
created Lord Chancellor by Henry VIII and presented with the house
and property of the London Charterhouse, as an acknowledgment of his
infamous treatment of Anne Boleyn. The record of the doings at Tylsey
is in an account book kept by “old Mr. Medeley,” husband of the heiress
of Willoughby’s grandmother and a trustee. This book was lent to Miss
Agnes Strickland, who says--in her _Tudor and Stuart Princesses--Lady
Jane Grey_--that Medeley “kept a very thrifty notation of all that
was spent in ‘man’s meat’ and ‘horse’s meat’ on these journeys;
likewise the payments of the players who were to assist in spending
the Christmas with the ‘godliness and innocence’ dwelt upon with such
unction” by Suffolk and by the Reformers.[155] After the visit to
Walden, the Lady Frances and her brood went back to Tylsey for about a
week, at the end of January 1552.
These cross-country journeys, even if sometimes broken by two or three
days’ stay in one place, must have been extremely fatiguing to so
young and delicate a girl as Lady Jane. The Duke of Suffolk and the
Lady Frances being of the blood royal, travelled with a great escort,
as many as a hundred to a hundred and fifty horsemen, scouts, etc.,
preceding and following their horses and waggons, otherwise called
“chariots.” If the weather was fine, equestrian travel was exceedingly
pleasant: the canter through the leafy lanes, the midday picnic under
the greenwood tree, and the evening meal in some picturesque inn,
full of Shakespearean character, the bustling, bowing and curtseying
host and hostess, the rustic waiters and grooms, the flicker of
lamp and candle light, the glowing wood fire, the sanded floor, the
shining pewter, and the savoury baked and roasted meats, all combined
to make up a scene of primitive comfort, entirely absent from the
great and sumptuous hostelries of our own time, in which luxury often
predominates over more solid qualities of entertainment. But when
pouring rain turned the ill-kept roads into quagmires, when the nipping
airs of autumn and winter whistled through the skeleton branches of
the trees, or the snow lay feet thick on the ground, and the keen
wintry winds whistled over the frozen rivers and streams, then must
the welcome glow cast by the crackling fires within the inn parlours
have made them, however humble, appear so many havens of celestial
refuge to the Lady Frances, her husband, her daughters, and her
merry men and women. Since there were no other means of locomotion
in those days, a specially swift and steady steed, or a particularly
well-cushioned waggon, must have been considered with much the same
sense of satisfaction as we bestow now on a new type of motor-car or
a specially well-appointed railway train. Our immediate forbears were
by no means dissatisfied with the old stagecoaches that transported
them from one end of the kingdom to another in a week or ten days;
sailing in luxurious airships which will have so reduced the bulk of
the globe that from being “a vastie sphere” it will have become a mere
overgrown orange--“from London to Rome in less than an hour; London
to New York in three!”--our descendants will try to imagine how it
was ever possible for us to travel by train and motor--so slow and
uncomfortable! And thus we and our civilisation may presently come to
be looked upon with the same sort of good-natured disdain we now bestow
upon the social conditions and travelling arrangements of the days of
“My Lord à Suffhoke.”
It may well be that all this hard riding in bad weather and the
unwonted dissipations of Christmas at Tylsey proved too much for Lady
Jane, for in February 1552, Ab Ulmis writes to his friend Bullinger:
“The Duke’s daughter has recovered from a severe and dangerous illness.
She is now engaged in some extraordinary production, which will
very soon be brought to light, accompanied with the commendation of
yourself. There has lately been discovered a great treasure of valuable
books: Basil on Isaiah and the Psalms in Greek, ... Chrysostom on the
Gospels, in Greek; the whole of Proclus; the Platonists, etc.... I
have myself seen all these books this very day. The Duke of Suffolk,
his daughter, (the Lady Jane), Haddon, Aylmer, and Skinner, have all
written to you.”[156]
These literary treasures were probably found in several parcels of old
books purchased about this time by the Marquis from an Italian merchant.
In March 1552, Lady Jane, then at Bradgate, sent Bullinger’s wife a
present of gloves, and a ring. A month later, Ulmer returned from
Switzerland, whither he had been sent on a mission, and brought with
him a letter from Conrad Pellican, which Jane immediately answered. In
Pellican’s _Journal_, still preserved at Zurich, we find the following
marginal note: “June 19th, 1552-3, I received a Latin letter, written
with admirable elegance and learning, from the most noble virgin, Lady
Jane Grey, of the illustrious house of Suffolk.” This letter is lost.
Early in July 1552, Lady Jane went with her parents to Oxford,[157]
and, almost immediately afterwards, repeated her visit to Princess
Mary, now at Newhall--a visit fraught with much evil, if we may believe
the accounts which have come down to us, from, it must be admitted,
rather suspicious sources; that is to say, from Aylmer and Ascham, both
eager to represent Jane as even more Protestant than she really was.
Newhall Place, Princess Mary’s chief country seat, had formed part,
in days gone by, of the possessions of Waltham Abbey, and had been
exchanged with Sir John de Shadlowe by the monks in the reign of Edward
III for three other properties. Its most illustrious occupant in
pre-Reformation times had been the unfortunate Margaret of Anjou. After
her capture by the Yorkists it was confiscated by the Crown, and was
eventually granted by Henry VII to Bottler or Butler, Earl of Ormond,
who fortified the mansion and enlarged it. It passed, as a dower, to
Sir Thomas Boleyn, grandfather of Queen Anne Boleyn, and he exchanged
it with Henry VIII, who took a great fancy to the place, and changed
its name to Beaulieu. The monarch stayed here on one occasion, at
least, with Anne Boleyn, so that Mary Tudor may have found a few of the
personal belongings of her mother’s chief foe, when she took possession
of the house which Henry bestowed on her towards the end of his reign.
She made it her favourite abode, principally on account of its gardens,
which are often mentioned in the Household Books of the period, as
supplying the royal palaces of London with fruit and vegetables--the
cherries and grapes being considered particularly fine. Elizabeth, who
did not care for Beaulieu,--its association with her mother and sister
must have been painful to her,--presented it to Radcliffe, Earl of
Suffolk. He sold it to “Steenie,” Duke of Buckingham, who let the place
fall into such ruin that its value so decreased that Cromwell was able
to buy it for “five shillings and no more!”
In Mary’s day it was still a fine old Gothic mansion of the
ecclesiastical type, with three lofty towers and a magnificent hall,
containing a huge chimneypiece and a broad staircase leading to the
upper apartments. In the chapel was that famous window made at Dort
in Flanders by order of Henry VII, and now the chief ornament of St.
Margaret’s, Westminster. The furniture at Newhall, the inventory of
which is still extant, was extremely magnificent, and included many
sets of costly tapestries, hangings of velvet and Florentine brocades,
Turkey carpets and inlaid bedsteads and chairs. The chief artistic
treasure of the house, however, was a superb portrait of Mary herself
by Holbein, and another of the King her father by the same great
painter. These two portraits remained at Newhall until the beginning of
the seventeenth century, when we lose trace of them, but the portrait
of Mary is not improbably the one now in the possession of the Duke of
Norfolk, and that of King Henry, that which is in the possession of
Lord Leconfield at Petworth House.
A state visit to Newhall must have been conducted on similar lines
to such a function at Sandringham or Windsor in our times, being a
singular mixture of extreme simplicity and extreme stateliness. The
Princess herself, who, had her life been cast in a less exalted
sphere, would have been a kindly woman, had a deep hearty voice and a
cheery welcome, which endeared her to all who approached her; yet an
observation made by Lady Jane Grey to Lady Wharton proves that every
time anyone passed before her Grace, they made obeisance by falling on
one knee, as if she had been the Host on the altar. Meals were served
somewhat after the French fashion: a very light breakfast at what we
should consider an unearthly hour--six in summer, seven in winter--a
heavy dinner at eleven, and supper at eight. All sorts of sports and
pastimes--hawking, tennis, horse-riding, hunting--served to pass
the intermediate time, and in the evenings there was card-playing,
boisterous games, and dancing. Before retiring for the night, prayers
were said, and a loving cup full of spiced wine was passed round, the
Princess putting her lips to it before passing it, with a blessing, to
her guests. We may take it for granted that during the visit of the
Marquis and Marchioness, notorious Protestants, religious controversy
did not enter into the conversation at Newhall. To do her justice, Mary
at this time at least was very free from bigotry; two of her favourite
ladies, Lady Bacon and Lady Brown, were Protestants, and her friendship
for the imprisoned Duchess of Somerset and her daughters never failed
so long as she lived--and yet the Duchess was an ardent “Gospeller.”
That the Princess enjoyed a little “flutter” at cards is proved by her
household books, and as the Marquis was an excellent card-player, no
doubt “Ombre”--a game introduced into England by the Spaniards whilst
Katherine of Aragon was Queen--served to pass the evening, together
with “Gresco,” “Mountsaint,” “Newcut,” and “Lansquenet.” Lady Jane and
her little sisters may have joined in the romping game of “Trump,” a
noisy round game like our “Old Maid,” in which, on the appearance of
a certain card, everybody slapped their right hand on the table and
cried out “Trump!” those who failed to do so paying a trifling fine.
“Gleke,” a primitive sort of whist, was also greatly in fashion; and at
this game, we may be sure, the Lady Frances was prudent enough to lose
fairly large sums to her august cousin, whose hot Spanish temper was
apt to be ruffled when the tide of fortune turned against her.
It was during this visit that the Princess Mary presented the Lady
Jane with a rich dress, and Jane, willing to practise some of the
precepts which she had received from Zurich, asked the lady by whom
her cousin sent the gown, what she was to do with it? “Marry,” replied
the lady, “wear it, to be sure!” “Nay,” replied the Lady Jane, “that
were a shame, to follow the Lady Mary, who leaveth God’s Word, and
leave my Lady Elizabeth, who followeth God’s Word.” This anecdote was
recorded by her tutor, Aylmer, long years after this world had closed
on Jane--at a moment, in fact, when Elizabeth did not thank him at all
for reminding her subjects of the Puritan style she had affected in her
youth. Another incident, which may be more certainly placed during this
Newhall visit, shows the cousins at issue on those points of belief
then so hotly debated. Lady Wharton, a fervent Catholic, crossing the
chapel with Lady Jane Grey when service was not proceeding, made her
obeisance to the Host as they passed the altar. Lady Jane asked “if the
Princess were present in the chapel?” Lady Wharton answered that she
was not.
“Then why do you curtsey?” demanded Jane.
“I curtsey to Him that made me,” replied Lady Wharton.
“Nay,” retorted the Lady Jane, “but did not the baker make him?”
Lady Wharton repeated this remark to the Princess, “who never after
loved the Lady Jane as she did before.”
NOTE.--The London residence of the parents of Lady Jane Grey was,
in her early days, the house in Whitehall overlooking the Thames
and known as Dorset Place; but, after the death of the two sons
of the Duke of Suffolk, the Lady Frances inherited Norwich House,
Strand, which Henry VIII had confiscated from the Bishops of
Norwich, and exchanged with his brother-in-law for Suffolk Place,
Southwark, which he converted into a mint. Norwich House now became
generally known as Suffolk House. Here the Greys lived in great
state, possibly abandoning their other residence in Whitehall for
the larger and more sumptuous residence. The Lady Frances, after
the execution of her husband, sold Suffolk House to the Percys and
it presently became known as Northumberland House, and, altered
from a Tudor to a Jacobean mansion, it remained a prominent feature
of London street architecture until early in the second half of
the last century, when it was pulled down for the improvements at
Charing Cross.
CHAPTER XII
JOHN DUDLEY, EARL OF WARWICK
Immediately after the execution of Thomas Seymour, John Dudley steps
forward on the lurid stage of this history. If Seymour was a rascal,
Dudley, son of a rascal, was even worse. Divested of his magnificent
habiliments and picturesque surroundings, this man was a far meaner and
more sordid ruffian than was ever my Lord of Sudeley--more devilish in
his cunning and, if anything, more unscrupulous.
John Dudley was the son of that notorious Edmund Dudley who, under
Henry VII, had remorselessly plundered the public coffers, and so
earned the execution which fell to his lot in the first years of Henry
VIII’s reign--on 28th August 1510, to be precise. In common justice,
it is fair to say that this Dudley of evil repute was highly esteemed
by his most illustrious contemporary, Sir Thomas More; and we may
believe him to have been much calumniated, like many other men of his
time. Dugdale says Edmund Dudley was the son of a carpenter,[158] and
the assertion is somewhat supported by the fact that although he was
born twenty years before the death of the Lord Dudley whom he asserted
to be his grandfather, that gentleman would never acknowledge him.
His real patronym was Sutton, but he assumed that of Dudley after his
acquisition of the ancient castle of that name, and the expulsion of
its rightful owner, who fled abroad. On the gates of the Castle, Edmund
affixed his own arms, together with those of the ancient houses of
Someries and Malpas, from which he claimed descent. He was at one time
Sergeant-at-Law and at another Speaker of the House of Commons, and
married Lady Elizabeth, daughter and heiress of Edward Grey, Viscount
Lisle, a collateral of the great house of Grey, and the same young
lady to whom Charles Brandon was contracted and who, as we have seen,
refused to carry out her side of the engagement.
The John Dudley of these pages was born about 1502, the eldest of three
brothers, who, after their father’s ignominious death, were placed
under the guardianship of Sir Edward Guildford. The latter fought
valiantly to obtain some part of the father’s ill-gotten property for
his wards, and their possessions were further increased at the death of
their mother, a considerable heiress. Being a handsome, dashing young
fellow, the father’s bad reputation was soon forgotten, and his gay
son John, as Viscount Lisle, was a prominent figure at Court in the
last half of Henry VIII’s reign. In his early years he was a good deal
in France with Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, the Lady Frances’s
father, who knighted him at Vian, in Normandy. John Dudley’s wife, Jane
Guildford, whom he married when he was a mere lad, contrived to absorb
his affections so completely that his domestic life was remarkably
respectable. She was a very beautiful woman, and part heiress of his
former guardian, Edward Guildford, Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports.
She bore him a numerous and handsome family, and her behaviour in
clinging to her husband during his hour of danger, and making desperate
efforts to save him, was rare at this strange period. With all her good
qualities, however, she was cordially disliked by Lady Jane Grey, whom
she treated with consistent harshness.
As Viscount Lisle,[159] John Dudley worked his way up legitimately
enough until he was nominated Lord High-Admiral and Master of the Horse
(1542) to Henry VIII. Although at heart a Catholic, he sided with the
Seymours against the Howards, and thus--for ambition’s sake--came to
be numbered among the chiefs of the Protestant party at Edward VI’s
coronation, and was then created Earl of Warwick. His ambition was now
well fired--he must become _aut Cæsar, aut nullus_, and this he could
only achieve by ousting the two Seymours and taking their place. Like
most of his contemporaries, he was essentially an opportunist--_un
arriviste_, as the French would say. For some years he worked like a
rat in the dark, waiting his opportunity: first he nibbled at Thomas
Seymour’s good fame--what there was of it!--and then cunningly set
brother against brother. Patiently, subtly, he gnawed on till he
saw Thomas ascend the scaffold; then he promptly undermined Edward
Seymour’s credit with King and people. His aim was to become Lord
Protector himself, to reach at supreme power by fair means or foul.
[Illustration: JOHN DUDLEY, DUKE OF NORTHUMBERLAND
FROM AN ENGRAVING BY G. VERTUE]
Soon after the death of his brother, Thomas, Somerset began to totter.
The Admiral’s execution had produced a bad effect. Hardened as men were
in those ferocious times, there were yet certain ties of consanguinity
which might not be violated with impunity; and so, although
Elizabeth did write to her sister Mary, that “had the brothers met,
the Lord Admiral would have been saved,” it was none the less the hand
of Cain that signed his death-warrant. The people said so openly. They
had not forgotten the dreadful carnage that had marked Edward Seymour’s
return, through Scotland into England, on the occasion of his first
Scotch expedition.[160]
If the horrors perpetrated by Somerset himself during that expedition
were execrable, those committed with his knowledge and connivance in
the same forlorn country under Edward VI were even more atrocious. That
“varmint” Lennox, the husband of the Lady Margaret, niece of Henry
VIII, was his chief agent. Reeking corpses of men, women, and little
children marked the passage of the English troops to and from the
Border lands. Thus the Lord Protector’s reputation in the North was of
the worst--“his very name stank of blood.”[161]
Dudley had not, therefore, so much difficulty as might be thought in
undermining his formidable rival’s position, towering though it was. In
many ways, Somerset had proved himself a failure, and he had already
lost much of his popularity, even among Protestants, who were none too
sure of his loyalty--was he not the friend of Mary and the avowed enemy
of Elizabeth? By the large Catholic party he was, of course, entirely
and heartily detested.
He was not a Calvinist, although he maintained an active correspondence
with Calvin, but a Church of England man of the “Low Church”
description, a hater of ecclesiastical ritual and formality, and,
incidentally, a born iconoclast. The statement that no man or woman was
persecuted or burnt for religious opinions under his rule, is hardly
exact. There are more ways than one of killing a dog--or of persecuting
an opposing faith. True, the fires of Smithfield were quenched for
the time being, but Catholics and Anabaptists were made to feel they
were outside the law, and the prisons were crowded with men and women
of those persuasions, and of every social grade.[162] The cathedrals
and parish churches were cleared of their sacred images, their plate,
their rood-lofts, and their art treasures; even their frescoed
walls were whitewashed. Stained glass was smashed, because it bore
“idolatrous pictures,” and replaced by plain glass or horn. Even dead
men’s tombs were overthrown, and the bodies cast “into filthy ditches
and fields beyond the city.”[163] In a word, the artistic treasures
of centuries were within a few months dispersed, destroyed, or sold
to a throng of Jews, who flocked to England to seize so splendid an
opportunity. Somerset pulled down three or four episcopal palaces, the
beautiful North Cloister of St. Paul’s Cathedral, and the Churches
of St. Mary-le-Strand and St. John’s, Clerkenwell, for the sake of
their building materials, which he used for his own new and almost
royal residence in the Strand. He gave orders for the demolition of
St. Margaret’s, Westminster, and but for the angry protests of the
indignant parishioners, his command would have been obeyed. There
was another cause of discontent, which has been much neglected
by historians, namely, the doctrinal changes, which necessarily
greatly altered outward observances, much to the disgust of the older
generation, who saw the destruction of the cherished traditions of a
thousand years, and the desecration of their most sacred social usages.
Their pageants, pilgrimages, and processions were now paralysed; and it
was an offence deemed worthy of imprisonment, ay, even of burning, to
pray for the dead, or to retain the rosary the dying mother had given,
with her last blessing, on her death-bed.
The average Englishman is apt to think of the Sixth Edward’s reign
as an era of peace and plenty, during which, to the applause of the
entire nation, the Book of Common Prayer was formulated by Cranmer,
and the churches emptied of “hated and idolatrous images and symbols.”
In reality, it was one of the most disastrous epochs in the whole
of our history. Froude, in a passage of uncommon brilliance, sums
up the appalling effect, after a lapse of fifteen years, of Henry
VIII’s dissolution of the monasteries and hospitals. With singular
vividness he depicts the extreme misery to which the lower orders
were reduced; the high roads and country lanes rendered dangerous
by hordes of starving and half-naked men and women, who a few years
previously had been in fairly comfortable circumstances, earning a
living wage from the now banished masters of abbeys and priories.
Now the poor wretches roved in fear and trembling, begging food and
shelter; or, driven desperate by want, committing deeds of violence.
Dr. Latimer, in his _Royal Sermons_, puts his unfailing finger on the
right spot when he remarks that “the misery the people were enduring
was entirely due to the new order of things. My father,” he continues,
“was a yeoman who lived comfortably, educated his children, served
the King, and gave to the poor, on a farm the rent of which has been
increased fourfold since, so that his successor in the farm has
become a pauper in consequence.” Then, turning upon the Seymours,
the Pagets, and others of their kind, who had enriched themselves
out of the ecclesiastical spoils, he thundered: “I fully certify you
as extortioners, violent oppressors, engrossers of tenements and
lands, through whose covetousness villages decay and fall down; and
the King’s liege people, for lack of sustenance, are famished and
decayed.... You landlords, you rent-raisers, I may say, you step-lords,
you unnatural lords, you have for your possessions yearly too much!
The farm that was some years back from £20 to £40 by the year, is now
charged to tenants at from £50 to £100.... Poor men cannot have a
living, all kinds of victuals are so dear. I think, verily, that if it
thus continue, we shall at length be obliged to pay twenty shillings
for a pig. If ye bring it to a pass the yeomen be not able to put their
sons to school, ye pluck salvation from the people, and utterly destroy
the realm.”... “In those days,” he says in another sermon, “they [the
monks] helped the scholars. They maintained and gave them living. It is
a pitiful thing to see schools so neglected; every true Christian ought
to lament the same. To consider what has been plucked from abbeys,
colleges, chantries, it is a marvel that no more is bestowed upon this
holy office of salvation.... Scholars have no exhibition. Very few
there be who help poor scholars, or set children to school to learn the
Word of God, and make provision for the age to come. It would pity a
man’s heart to hear what I have of the state of Cambridge.... I think
there be at this day [1550] one thousand students less than were within
twenty years, and fewer preachers.”
The enclosure, too, by their new owners, of the vast tracts of lands,
which had formerly belonged to the abbeys and priories, for the
purpose of cattle rearing, instead of corn growing--as hitherto--(wool
being at a premium) had thrown thousands of agricultural labourers
out of employment; and soon the large cities, London, Bristol, and
York, were crowded with poor creatures seeking work, only to meet
with flat refusal from the citizens, who were angered and alarmed by
so considerable an addition to that pauper population whose hapless
descendants still form the bulk of the very appropriately styled
“Submerged Tenth” of our times. This rapid increase of an undesirable
class soon resulted in a marked debasement of the lowest orders, and so
bad did the state of morals in the capital become, that Ridley, Bishop
of London, preached more than one sermon on the subject, and, in a
book entitled _The Lamentation of England_, gives a hideous picture of
the rising tide of “immorality, crime, drunkenness, hatred and scorn
of religion and its ministers amongst the people.” Domestic chastity
was held at a discount and reviled, and adultery was so common, even
in the highest ranks, that the Privy Council spoke of bringing the
question of prohibitive measures before Parliament. The Protector
himself had set aside his first wife, Catherine Ffoliot, although she
had borne him a son, on no valid pretext, legal or otherwise, in order
to marry the higher born Anne Stanhope--the temper of this Stanhope
lady was so peppery that he went in fear and trembling, and this led
his contemporaries to say “he had got rid of a dove to saddle himself
with a scorpion.” Henry, son of William, Earl of Pembroke, divorced
Katherine, daughter of Henry, Duke of Suffolk (Lady Jane’s younger
sister), to marry Mary, daughter of Sir Henry Sydney. The Earl of
Northampton, Katherine Parr’s brother, divorced Anne, daughter of the
Earl of Essex, when he married Lord Cobham’s daughter Elizabeth. Even
Lady Jane Grey’s own legitimacy was disputed; and the matrimonial
adventures of her grandfather Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, have already
been mentioned.
The wickedness of the upper classes[164] spread downwards, and, coupled
with intense poverty, made “London worse than Babylon of old.”
Well might honest old Latimer cry out to the King, in one of his most
interesting sermons (preached in 1550 at Paul’s Cross), “For the love
of God take an order for marriage here in England.” Cecil also protests
against the prevailing looseness of morals: “Sacrilegious avarice
ravenously invaded Church livings, colleges, chantries, hospitals,
and places dedicated to the poor, as things superfluous. Ambition and
emulation among the nobility, presumption and disobedience among the
common people, grew so extravagant, that England seemed to be in a
downright frenzy.” Hear Bishop Burnet also on the same subject: “This
gross and insatiable scramble after the goods and wealth that had been
dedicated to good designs, without applying any part of it to promote
the good of the Gospel, and the instruction of the poor, made all
people conclude that it was for robbery and not for reformation that
their zeal made them so active. The irregular and immoral lives of many
of the professors of the Gospel gave their enemies great advantage
to say that they ran away from confession, penance, fasting, and
prayer, only to be under no restraint, and to indulge themselves in a
licentious and dissolute course of life. By these things, that were but
too visible in some of the most eminent among them, the people were
much alienated from them; and as much as they were formerly against
Popery, they grew to have kinder thoughts of it, and to look on all
the changes that had been made, as designs to enrich some vicious
characters, and to let in an inundation of vice and wickedness upon
the nation.” To stem this rising tide would have been a task for a
great statesman; Somerset was not a great statesman, for, though many
of his intentions were good, his methods were primitively violent. He
thought himself capable of repressing the inevitable result of the evil
wrought by Henry VIII and his followers by force of arms, and by laws
which, even in those days, chilled men with horror. To put down the
vagabondage in the country districts,--a consequence of the disbanding
of the great crowd of abbey retainers,--he signed a decree whereby “Any
man or woman found suspiciously near any house, or wandering by the
highways, or in the streets of any city, town, or village, for three
days together, without offering to work, or running away from their
labour, may be brought by the master, or any other person, before two
justices of the peace [these] having the power of the statute law to
exercise the said power by burning into his or her breast with a hot
iron the letter V, and to adjudge him or her to be the slave of the
informer, to have and to hold the said slave to him, his executors or
assigns, for the space of two years, only giving the said slave bread
and water.” The “slave” was to be made to work by blows or chains. In
the event of his disappearing for the space of fourteen days without
leave, he could be punished by chaining up and beating, “and if he [the
owner of the slave] chose to prove the fault by two witnesses before
the justices, they shall cause such slave to be marked on the forehead,
or the ball of the cheek with a hot iron, with the sign of an S, that
he may be known for a loiterer, and [the justices] shall adjudge the
runaway to be the said master’s slave for ever.” The penalty of a
second escape from slavery was death by hanging “from the nearest tree,
if violent.” Any one was permitted to take children between five and
fourteen years of age from any wanderer, whether they were willing or
not, and if the child ran away from his master the latter had the power
“to keep and punish the said child in chains, or otherwise, and use him
or her as his slave in all points,” up to the age of twenty at least.
The master of a grown-up slave had the right, under section 4 of this
law, “To let, set forth, sell, bequeath, or give the service of such
slaves to any person or persons, whatsoever.” The law further empowered
an owner of slaves “to put a ring of iron about his neck, arm, or leg,
for a better knowledge and surety of keeping him.” Aiding a slave to
escape was punished by the forfeiture of ten pounds by the person so
doing. These and other evils too numerous to detail helped to fan the
flame of popular discontent.
Presently the counties began to rise, the people of Devonshire and
Cornwall flew to arms to vindicate the rights of conscience. They
would have back the religion which their forefathers had held for a
thousand years. They demanded that the “Six Articles” should be put in
force. The men of Cornwall refused the Book of Common Prayer, because,
they alleged, they could not speak English, and could not understand
it, while they were accustomed to the Latin Mass, which they had been
trained from infancy to comprehend. Down into the West went Lord
Russell (“Swearing Russell”), dispatched by the Lord Protector. He
behaved “more like a wild beast than a human being”--as abominably as
Lennox in Scotland. Hooper, who went with him to preach to the rebels,
describes his massacres as “the most horrible butcheries of brave men
that ever did happen in this world.” Russell’s dispatches do not in
any way minimise the horrors he perpetrated, and “our men,” he says,
“are daily supplied with large numbers of sheep and fowl from the
places where the farmers and squires forfeited such property by their
obstinate adherence to the Popish Mass, and other superstitions.” Some
three thousand men and several hundreds of women are said to have
suffered death in the fight for freedom of conscience in Devonshire.
The central counties rose too, and there were terrible riots in
Gloucestershire, Wiltshire, Derbyshire, and Huntingdonshire.
But it was in Norfolk that the grandest demonstration against the
tyranny of the central Government occurred. It commenced at Aldborough,
and at first seemed a matter of little consequence; but the rumours
of what had happened in Kent, where new enclosures had been broken
down, greatly inflamed the people from one end to the other of the
eastern counties. There was little of the religious element in the
revolt, although two-thirds of the people, at least, still adhered
to the old faith, but now religious differences were set aside, and
Catholics and Protestants stood shoulder to shoulder in the fight for
what we should call liberty. At first the mass of the people were
without a leader, but they soon found one in the person of an honest
tanner, named Robert Ket.[165] It fell out on the 6th July 1549, at
Wymondham, near Norwich, where many folk were watching, on a small
stage erected in the market-place, a sort of “mystery,” that the
actors touched sarcastically upon the leading events and scandals of
the day. Ket, who was present, leapt on to a barrel, and delivered a
rough and ready oration on burning topics, every word of which told,
and roused the enthusiasm of his audience to a very delirium. In a
surging, motley crowd, his hearers followed him from Wymondham to
Mousehold Heath, near Norwich, a desolate sweep of country commanding
glorious views, immortalised in later times by a Crome or a Vincent.
Hereabouts, on an elevation, grew a stalwart oak, beneath which Ket and
his men encamped, and where he held Courts of Justice, of Common Pleas,
Chancery and King’s Bench, “even as in Westminster Hall.” With a high
and generous sense of freedom, he allowed the orators, not only of his
own, but of the opposition party, to harangue the multitude from this
tree of liberty, which was now called “the Oak of Reformation.” The
venerable tree had become a rostrum, and all who had anything to say
scrambled into it. Aldrich, Mayor of Norwich, preached thence against
the iniquities of Somerset’s rule. Clergymen and priests, parsons
and ex-monks, made a rough pulpit of it. Matthew Parker, afterwards
Archbishop of Canterbury, climbed into its branches one day, and
harangued the mob “on the unwisdom of their attempt,” and the ruin they
were sure to bring on themselves and their families. He would have done
better to hold his peace; no one listened to him. So great was the
crowd on Mousehold Heath, it looked on occasions like a surging sea of
heads, and sometimes, as in Hyde Park in our times, separate groups of
lecturers and hearers formed at a distance from the tree.
Suddenly, on July 31st, a glittering figure bearing the Royal Arms of
England, rode into the midst of Ket’s camp--his white horse sheathed
like himself in steel, a plume of white feathers nodding on its head.
In a loud voice the man in the “coat-of-arms” proclaimed a free
pardon to all present in that multitude, if they “would depart to
their homes.” Some, weary of the business and only seeking an excuse,
turned their backs on the oak, and trudged citywards; but Ket and the
larger mass held their ground, saying they wanted no pardon, having
committed no offence--they only craved justice, and that was the
right of every Englishman. They were true subjects of the King, they
said, and had done him no harm--all they needed was justice, justice!
Turning his back on the tanner and the ancient oak, the glittering
herald scattered the people right and left, as he galloped away across
heath and common, dissolved into the mist like a meteor. When he had
vanished, Ket, fearing a treacherous surprise, called his merry men
together, and marched into Norwich, where they once more encountered
the royal messenger, who again offered them his master’s pardon. Ket
replied as disdainfully as ever, and the gorgeous official departed,
whilst the rebels, having seized all the arms and ammunition they
could find, returned to their camp on Mousehold Heath. To Court sped
the herald, and the Protector, alarmed at the turn of events, sent a
force of fifteen hundred horsemen, under the Marquis of Northampton,
and some Italians led by a _condottiére_ named Malatesta, against the
malcontents. These troops entered Norwich, but Ket and his men were
able to drive both Northampton and the Italian out of the city, in a
fight in which “fell Lord Sheffield and several gentlemen; so that now,
blood being up on both sides, the town was set fire to and plundered.”
Hearing this news, the Protector ordered another army of eight
thousand men, two thousand of whom were Germans, who were on their
way to Scotland under the Earl of Warwick, to turn southward, march
on Norwich, and disperse the rebels. After some resistance, Warwick
entered the city, only to be so fiercely assailed on every side that it
was as much as he could do to hold his ground. Ket galloped off towards
Dossingdale; but Warwick’s troopers came after him, and 3500 of his
men were cut to pieces. Yet another massacre followed, in which many
of the royal forces were killed. Ket was captured at last, and hanged
without ado, on the walls of Norwich Castle, his brother William (who
had been a black monk of the Hospitallers of St. John)[166] was swung
from the steeple of Wymondham Church, and nine of the ringleaders of
the rebellion were hanged on the “Tree of Reformation.” In the course
of this expedition, Warwick saw enough to convince him that every town
and village, farmstead and cottage, from the borders of Cambridge to
the sea, was a hotbed of rebellion, and that the names of Somerset and
Warwick had become loathed bywords.
Such a state of internal strife, combined with foreign defeat, made up
an aggregate of confusion which only a statesman of the highest genius
could attempt to quell. Somerset, a man of indifferent education, even
if of the best intentions, was quite unequal to the task. His natural
defects of character--his love of power and money, his contempt for the
ancient traditions of the country, his hatred of the religion of his
ancestors, his prejudices and his inveterate habit of scheming, now
began to occupy the malicious attention of his enemies, who felt the
time for striking the decisive blow, which should crush his power for
ever, was drawing nigh.
Their plans were served by Warwick’s reception in London as a
conquering hero, recognised by the metropolis as a successful and able
leader. His ambitious views were well seconded by old ex-Chancellor
Wriothesley, who had a personal grudge against Somerset, and who now
took up his would-be rival as a promising instrument for his revenge.
Durham House presently became the rendezvous of a great number of the
older nobility, who were discontented with the new régime; and here
they plotted and schemed, with one great object in their hearts--the
overthrow of Somerset and the exaltation of Warwick. The Londoners,
too, were against the Protector. Boulogne had been lost mainly through
his blundering policy, and the French war had been notoriously
unsuccessful. Moreover, when Warwick demanded extra pay for some two
hundred soldiers who had assisted in quelling the Ket rebellion, and
other risings, Somerset, unconsciously playing into his enemy’s hands,
refused the request, and the mercenaries, naturally incensed against
the Protector, held themselves ready to aid Warwick without compunction.
Realising in some measure--especially after the defection of Pembroke
and Winchester to Warwick’s party--that, unless he made some effort,
his position would soon become altogether untenable, Somerset
metaphorically entrenched himself and his family behind the person
of the King at Hampton Court, and thence began to defy Warwick and
his followers, so that, about September 1549, the Court of England
was divided into two distinct camps--Warwick and the Council at Ely
Place, Holborn; the Protector and the principal members of his party,
Cranmer, Sir John Thynne, his secretary, Sir Thomas Smith, Cecil,
Paget, and Petre, at Hampton Court, where King Edward was held in a
state bordering on captivity. Then Somerset set to work to limit the
power of his sovereign as much as possible, so as to have him on his
own side in the struggle with Warwick, which was now beginning in
earnest. On the ground that Warwick was bribing the Court lackeys to
spy on the King, the royal attendants at Hampton Court were removed and
replaced by Somerset’s own men. No one could approach His Majesty’s
person save through the Protector. A stop was put to all those games
and sports in which the little King delighted, on the score of his
health, and the lad was made to feel himself so completely a prisoner,
that he alludes sadly to the matter in his “Diary.” Meanwhile the Duke
himself assumed almost regal rank, styling himself “By the Grace of
God Lord Protector of the Realm, Highness”; using a prayer in which he
is described as being “called by Providence to rule”; addressing the
French King as “brother,” a title hitherto exclusively employed by the
anointed monarch; and, as a climax, offending the nobility by taking
a seat in the House of Lords above his peers. In October, he issued a
proclamation, commanding all the King’s loyal subjects “to repair with
all haste to His Highness at His Majesty’s Manor of Hampton Court,
in most defensible array, with harness and weapons, to defend his
most royal person, and his entirely beloved uncle the Lord Protector,
against whom certain have attempted a most dangerous conspiracy. And
this do in all possible haste. Given at Hampton Court the 5th day of
October in the 3rd year of his most noble reign.”[167] Hundreds of
copies of this document were distributed all over London; and Lord
Edward Seymour, the Protector’s son, was dispatched with letters in the
King’s name to Lord Russell and Sir William Herbert, who were still
in the West, stamping out the rebellion, commanding them to hasten
to the aid of the King and himself, with all the troops they could
muster. These worthies, who would seem to have had personal grievances
against Somerset,[168] promptly threw in their lot with Warwick’s
party, promising assistance, and sending to Bristol for cannon for
that purpose. Somerset now set the printing-presses to work to
distribute thousands of handbills, calling on townsfolk and villagers
to rise and “protect the King and the Lord Protector,” “because he
[the Lord Protector] is the friend of the poor and the enemy of their
oppressors.” The Lord Mayor and Corporation were also commanded to
dispatch a thousand men to Hampton Court, and the Lieutenant of the
Tower received orders to close the gates of that fortress and refuse
admission to members of the Council. On 5th October, Petre was sent
to London to interview Warwick and the Council. He found them at Ely
Place; but as Petre, thinking all lost, did not return to Hampton
Court, the Protector never got any answer to his message. At the same
time, the Council sent letters to the chief nobles throughout the
country, demanding their aid and dilating on Somerset’s misdeeds.
Within a few days, the Lord Mayor, the Aldermen, and the Lieutenant
of the Tower had all turned traitors to the Protector, and promised
Warwick their support.
Hampton Court, put into a state of defence,[169] assumed the aspect
of a fortress; the moat was filled up, the gates were fortified,
and every battlement and tower was made ready in case of danger.
Five hundred suits of armour were brought out of the armoury for the
palace servants, much to the delight of King Edward, who watched the
preparations. A vast crowd assembled round the palace, and in the
neighbourhood; and the Protector, hoping that a sight of the King might
rouse it to loyalty, led him into the Base Court, where the soldiers
were drawn up to receive him. The stricken youth[170] appeared, leaning
heavily on his uncle’s arm, with Archbishop Cranmer, Paget, and Cecil
behind him; the heralds sounded their trumpets, and as the flare of the
torches--for it was an autumn evening--flashed on their armour, the
troops greeted his sickly Majesty with three times three cheers. From
the Base Court the King and his escort passed over the stone bridge
across the moat in front of the great gate, where a motley throng was
gathered. Presently silence was obtained, and gradually the mumble of
many voices was hushed, as the young King’s feeble tones struck on the
still evening air, asking humbly, “I pray you be good to us and to
our uncle.” Then Somerset made a speech, pleading in such stupid and
selfish fashion for himself and the King that the rude crowd listened
with impatience, and gave no cheers when he had finished. Mortified and
disappointed, the Protector and the King turned their backs on the mob,
and silently re-entered the palace. The people round Hampton Court were
more bitter against Somerset than he imagined. Their grievance was not
abstract and national, but local; they could not forget that it was
Somerset who, in the first year of King Edward’s reign, had dechased
Hampton Court Chase.
Seeing himself unable to inspire the people with anything like
enthusiasm for their sovereign (or for himself), Somerset determined
on more vigorous action, and on 7th October, the King, despite his
“rewme,” was hurried to Windsor, at nine or ten o’clock at night.
Thence the Protector wrote to the Council, asking what had become of
Petre, and why no answer had been vouchsafed to his message, adding,
“that if any violence was intended to the King’s person, he would
resist till death.” Negotiations by letter continued for some days,
and there was even an interview on 12th October at Windsor, between
Warwick’s group and the Protector. On the following day, a number of
charges were promulgated against Somerset, and the once all-powerful
“Lord Protector of these Realms” was arrested and confined for the
night in Windsor Castle. Next day he was conducted to the Tower,
whither most of his adherents and associates in the Hampton Court
adventure had preceded him; and he had the mixed pleasure of being
received _en route_ by his quondam friend the Lord Mayor, who had
lately turned traitor to his cause. Meanwhile Edward, very glad, no
doubt, to be rid of so austere and troublesome an uncle, returned from
Windsor to Hampton Court, and appointed Warwick Lord Great Master and
Lord High-Admiral. So far, John Dudley’s plot had prospered.
CHAPTER XIII
THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF SOMERSET
In the earlier stages of his struggle for power, when he felt himself
insecure with the Protestant party, Warwick had endeavoured to secure
Catholic support by promising the old religion a satisfactory amount
of freedom; but no sooner was he safe in his saddle, during Somerset’s
imprisonment (1549-50), than he became its inveterate enemy. The
Protector had made an effort to liberate Gardiner, but Warwick kept
him more closely confined than ever. During the new ruler’s term of
office, the internal disorders of the country continued as acute, in
every detail, as under Somerset’s régime; all military works fell
into decay, no new ships of war were built, fortifications came to a
standstill, and many troops were disbanded. The coinage was debased,
though the Protector had worked hard to improve it; the tribunals were
as corrupt as at any period. To ensure the passing of his vigorous
religious measures, and carry on his administration, Warwick “packed”
both Parliament and Council with his own staunchest followers. It was
almost a piece of good fortune for him when Somerset was released
from the Tower, for so great was the general dissatisfaction with his
administration that he would probably have been overthrown in his turn.
[Illustration: EDWARD SEYMOUR, DUKE OF SOMERSET
FROM AN ENGRAVING AFTER THE PAINTING BY HOLBEIN]
During the winter of 1549-50, Somerset, confined in the gloomy old
fortress, was striving to retrieve his tottering fortunes. His
first move was to sign (in December) a confession of “his guilt,
presumption, and incapacity.” Early in January 1550, a bill, brought
before Parliament and passed in both Houses, promised him his life,
on condition that he forfeited his estates to the King, gave up his
positions, and paid a fine of £2000 a year in land. He attempted to
appeal against the extent of the forfeiture, but the Council grew so
menacing that the fallen Protector, with visions, it may be, of
Tower Hill and the block before his eyes, thought it best to pocket
his grievance. So on 2nd February he wrote to the Council expressing
his gratitude to the King for sparing his life and treating him so
leniently. According to a letter from Ab Ulmis to Bullinger, dated from
Oxford, 4th December 1551, Warwick generously made an effort to save
the Duke by imploring him in court to throw himself upon the mercy of
the King, which he did. On the 4th of that same month he was released,
after giving a bond of £10,000 as a guarantee of good behaviour, and
on the peculiar conditions that he should not go more than four miles
away from the Council, nor yet come to the meetings unless summoned;
further, if the King went near the palace at Sheen or Somerset’s own
house at Sion (in one or other of which two places he was to abide),
the former Protector was to depart instantly. The Duke’s full pardon
was given on 16th February. At the same time, all those who had been
imprisoned with him were released, after being mulcted in heavy fines.
Immediately after his liberation Somerset joined the Court at
Greenwich, and was shortly afterwards made a Privy Councillor! Indeed,
before many months were over he had regained his former position and
influence over the King so completely that Warwick considered it safer
to become, at least publicly, reconciled to him. For this purpose
he arranged a marriage between John, Viscount Lisle,[171] his own
eldest son, and the Lady Ann Seymour, Somerset’s eldest daughter.
This marriage took place on 3rd June (1550) at the royal palace at
Sheen, and in the King’s presence. On the following day occurred yet
another aristocratic wedding, also attended by His Majesty, that of
Warwick’s third son, Sir Robert Dudley, afterwards famous as the Earl
of Leicester of Elizabeth’s reign, with that renowned heroine of
romance, Amy Robsart. Sir Walter Scott, in his _Kenilworth_, falls
into the error--unless, indeed, he wilfully disregarded facts for the
sake of artistic effect--of placing the scene of this marriage in
Devonshire, and of describing it as clandestine. On the contrary, it
was quite an open affair, mentioned by King Edward in his _Diary_ in
the already quoted entry for 4th June 1550, relating to the cruel sport
of duck-pulling. The King seems to have attended this wedding, but he
was too ill to be present at the far more important marriages of his
two cousins three years later. About this time, the summer of 1550, the
ex-Protector’s forfeited lands were restored to him, and he was allowed
to reconstitute his household as in the past.
In February 1550 a proposal was brought before Parliament for the
restoration of Somerset to the office and title of Lord Protector, and
was only quashed by the prorogation of that body. He seemed in a fair
way of regaining his old position of power, and the Dorsets, thinking
no doubt that it would be well to be on friendly terms with him,
began to bethink themselves once more of the old project of marriage
between their eldest daughter, Lady Jane Grey, and young Hertford, who
had once been on such intimate terms in their family circle that, as
we have seen, the Lady Frances had on more than one occasion called
him her “son.” She now wrote to Cecil[172] referring to some service
Somerset had rendered her--this may have been her reason for reviving
the matrimonial project--and stated incidentally that she much desired
a match between his (Somerset’s) son and her daughter, but “that she
wished to let the parties have their free choice.” Somerset does not,
however, appear to have approved of the plan, for there is no evidence
that he did anything now to further it, and when it was originally
proposed he had allowed the matter to fall into abeyance. It is not at
all improbable that the lady’s letter, if communicated to him, put him
on his guard against traps such as the wily Dorsets might set for him
and his son. The incident is not devoid of interest, as demonstrating
how the Dorsets never ceased their intrigues and matrimonial schemes,
and also how even Warwick’s best friends were none too sure of his
eventual success, now his rival was again at large. The Dorsets were
evidently anxious to have a foot in each camp; but this time they
failed, and ended by falling back on Northumberland’s youngest son as a
husband for the much-enduring Jane.
Meanwhile, Warwick was contemplating, by no means complacently, the
honours and favour heaped upon the rival for whose ruin he was only
awaiting some favourable opportunity. His first chance of proving
his unvarying hatred of the Protector came on 15th October of the
year 1550, on the occasion of the death of the aged Lady Seymour.
This event placed her son, as we have already seen, in a quandary--a
State funeral, such as was due to the King’s grandmother, would have
enabled Warwick to accuse him of a fresh assumption of regal dignity;
a private funeral, on the other hand, might be maliciously construed
into disrespect shown to the sovereign. Wherefore Somerset consulted
the Council as to what should be done. The reply, as already mentioned,
was that a State funeral was not at all necessary, nor even any formal
Court mourning, since such observances served “rather to pomp than to
any edifying,” an opinion peculiar to the Council, for in the preceding
August a State funeral (that of Lord Southampton) had been organised
with all possible “pomp.” This denial of the honour due to Lady
Seymour’s remains did not, of course, proceed from any idea of economy
or Puritanism, but merely from the Council’s desire to insult Somerset
and his family. It was an opportunity neglected, for if Seymour had
insisted upon a State funeral, the events of the following year might
have been anticipated, and the accusation of usurping regal honours
brought against him at once. Another curious fact in connection with
this funeral is that Somerset--a shining light amongst Reformers--wrote
to ask Gardiner to “offer up Mass for the health of his mother’s soul
after her death” (!)[173]
Another method adopted by Warwick was that already employed by Sudeley
in his struggle with his elder brother, of spreading calumnies against
his rival through the agency of a third person, and ensuring their
reaching the King’s ears. After a time these tales began to make their
impression on his juvenile Majesty, though Somerset, for his part, was
working hard to recover the King’s favour entirely, and consolidate
his own position. Rich, the Lord Chancellor, an infamous traitor,
gave him his aid and acted as his spy, keeping him informed of every
movement made by Warwick and his party. One of Rich’s letters on this
subject, addressed merely “To the Duke,” was handed by mistake to the
Duke of Norfolk, next to Warwick, Somerset’s bitterest enemy; thus
each opponent had some idea of his adversary’s plans. Still, so subtle
was Warwick’s work that there was no movement against Somerset visible
enough to justify him in taking open measures; there was nothing for it
but to bide his time, and do his best, meanwhile, to ingratiate himself
with the King. In public, the rivals appeared the best of friends, and,
to maintain this pleasant fiction, Somerset, on 11th October 1551,
attended what must have been a painful ceremony to him--the investiture
of Warwick with the title of Duke of Northumberland in the Great Hall
of Hampton Court.[174] The mortification caused by this evidence of his
rival’s growing power, a power he could not openly attack, must have
been bitter indeed.
Side by side with Northumberland’s intrigues, the national discontent,
of which we have already given instances, and which had been
intensified by Northumberland’s brief term of office, was a potent
factor in the eventual ruin of the Protector: for we may be sure
Somerset’s enemies took good care to father Northumberland’s misrule
on his rival. It would be useless for our purpose, though easy indeed,
to cite further and numerous instances of the universal disorder into
which the realm had fallen. Suffice to say that the England of this
period strongly resembled France under the Directory. Everything was
upside down. The faith of the people had received a staggering blow,
from which it would take nearly a hundred years to recover, and then
only in a measure, for to this day the masses of the lowest class of
the people of England remain in terrible darkness, alike indifferent to
influences religious and moral. In the reign of Henry VII, and in the
first years of Henry VIII, no hale man or woman dreamt of missing Mass
on a Sunday: under Edward VI, Latimer complained that the churches were
deserted, and Gardiner describes the lower classes as gradually falling
into a state of paganism. This relaxation of religious observance
influenced the popular morals, and in every class the domestic habits
of the country were most disreputable. So bad was the condition of
things, in fact, that Northumberland and his party came to realise that
Somerset’s worst enemy was himself; in other words, that the general
discontent and misery arising from his maladministration--or, to be
just, in some cases from causes over which he had no control--furnished
a more powerful argument against him than the spiteful inventions
of his opponents. They must have felt confident that any blow they
struck at him would meet with little or no opposition, but rather with
encouragement from the people, who had turned the cold shoulder on his
appeal at Hampton Court some two years previously.
Accordingly, on 16th October 1551, the Duke of Somerset was suddenly
re-arrested in the Council Chamber[175] at Hampton Court, and taken
to the Tower to await his trial on charges made against him to
Northumberland by Sir Thomas Palmer, “a brilliant but unprincipled
soldier.” Palmer asserted that Somerset and his friends had plotted
to raise the North of England against Northumberland; that he had
intended to secure the Tower, to incite the populace of London to
revolt, to seize the Great Seal, with the aid of the City apprentices,
and, finally, to murder the Duke and his principal supporters at a
supper in Lord Paget’s house. There would seem to have been but little
truth in these charges; Northumberland at a later date, at any rate,
confessed that they were fabrications, and Palmer, before his death,
described them as the products of Northumberland’s fertile imagination.
This second trial of the Lord Protector took place on 1st December in
Westminster Hall. The judges were seven and twenty peers, amongst
them all the prisoner’s enemies--Northumberland, Northampton, and
Pembroke, with the Marquis of Winchester as President. The business
was conducted with the unfairness which distinguished nearly all the
political trials of this period; no witnesses for the prosecution were
produced in person, but their depositions were read. The indictments
accused Somerset of plotting to lay hands on Northumberland and others,
to seize the Great Seal and the Tower, and to deprive the sovereign of
his kingly power; he was also charged with having incited the citizens
of London to rebel against the King. The official indictment made no
mention of his supposed intention of assassinating Northumberland;
neither was Paget, in whose house it was alleged the murder was to have
taken place, ever tried for his share in the plot. This melodramatic
accusation would, in fact, seem to have been entirely dropped at the
last moment. Somerset, who denied the charges, was acquitted of treason
on the first count, but found guilty on that of felony for inciting
the citizens to revolt. There is ample evidence that he never did
anything of the kind. Winchester, a few months back his enthusiastic
ally, pronounced the death sentence on the unhappy man. Its effect upon
him was sudden and staggering. He became pale, and fell upon his knees
before Northumberland, Northampton, and Pembroke, who turned their
backs whilst he besought the people to pray for him and his family. And
so he was ordered back to the Tower to prepare for death. The count
of treason not having been proved, the axe did not face the prisoner
on the way back to his cell, and “the people, supposing he had been
clerely quitt, when they see the axe of the Tower put downe, made such
a shryke [shriek] and castinge up of caps, that it was heard into the
Long Acre beyonde Charing crosse.”[176] This must have cheered him
greatly. He may have thought and hoped that the people loved him still.
King Edward is said to have expressed considerable anxiety on his
uncle’s account, but his distress did not prevent him from indulging,
according to his own statement, notwithstanding his delicate health, in
exceptionally riotous Christmas festivities.[177] The popular joy over
his acquittal on the charge of treason proved fatal to Somerset, for it
convinced Northumberland more than ever of the necessity of destroying
his rival. Holinshed sarcastically informs us that “Christmas being
thus passed and spent with much mirth and pastime, it was thought now
good to proceed to the execution of the judgment against the Duke of
Somerset.” Notwithstanding the frequency of such events, the execution
of so great a nobleman produced a considerable impression throughout
London. Though every precaution was taken to prevent the assembling of
an unusual crowd, Tower Hill was black with people long before dawn on
22nd January 1552, the day of doom. The vast assembly had gathered in
the expectation of the Duke’s reprieve rather than of his death. There
was an extraordinary muster of halberdiers, men-at-arms, sheriffs and
their officers. At eight o’clock Somerset was brought forth. He faced
the axe manfully, knelt down and said his prayers, and then, rising
to his feet, made a speech. Unlike most of his peers, he did not deny
with his last breath the religion he had helped to promulgate; there
was nothing he regretted less, said he, when on the brink of his bloody
fate, than his endeavours “to reduce religion to its present state,
and he exhorted the people to continue steadfast in the Reformation
principles, and thereby escape the wrath of God.” Just as he was
about, according to custom, to take formal leave of the crowd, great
confusion was caused by the arrival of a body of soldiers with bills
and halberds, who had received orders to attend the execution. Arriving
late, these men dashed towards the scaffold, and their onrush, combined
with some noise as of thunder,--“a great sound which appeared unto many
above in the element as it had been the sound of gunpowder set on fire
in a close house bursting out,”--terrified the mob, and an awful panic
ensued: spectators standing on the edge of the Tower moat lost their
balance and fell into the water, and not a few were trampled underfoot
and others broke their necks. Presently, in the midst of the hubbub,
during which Somerset was left so unguarded that, it is said, he might
easily have escaped, Sir Anthony Browne was seen riding towards the
spot. The mob, somewhat recovered from its consternation, imagined he
was bringing a reprieve, and shouted, “A pardon, a pardon!” casting
their caps and cloaks into the air. But Sir Anthony brought no message
of mercy with him. The doomed Duke had been standing quietly on the
edge of the scaffold, watching the turmoil. He too, when he heard the
shouts of “Pardon!” imagined his nephew had remembered him; but he soon
realised his error. The hectic colour which for a moment had flushed
his cheeks with the gleam of hope faded as, in a ringing voice, he
concluded his interrupted speech; and that done, he bestowed his rings
on the headsman, said a few words to the Dean of Christchurch, bared
his neck, knelt on the straw, and laid his head on the block. Another
instant and the axe had fallen. Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset and
first Lord Protector of England, was buried in the Church of St.
Peter-ad-Vincula within the Tower on the north side of the choir,
between the coffins of the Queens Anne Boleyn and Katherine Howard; the
funeral rites were those of the Church of England, as then constituted,
“but hurried and simple as for a pauper.”[178]
The character of Edward Seymour has been the subject of much
discussion; but it would seem fair to seek a _via media_ between
the over-severe condemnation of some historians and the exaggerated
praise of others. If we cannot exalt him to the high pedestal upon
which he has been set by Mr. Pollard, we need not fall into the error
of degrading him to the low level assigned him by eighteenth-century
historians. Somerset must not be judged by modern standards. If the
balance of good and evil in his character is considered, and we
contemplate him by the light of the middle sixteenth century, we
may even come to share the opinion of a large section of the London
populace of his day--mostly those of the Protestant party, be it
said--who looked on him as an admirable and God-fearing man,[179]
who did his best to free the people from much of the superstition,
oppression, and injustice from which it suffered. His faults, his
ambition and lust of power, were very human; and the evils of his
administration were largely due to the condition to which Henry VIII’s
misrule had reduced the country. The age in which he lived was very
unpropitious to statesmen and leaders of men, for, no matter how
intelligent they might be, some rival lurking in the shade was sure to
be ready to trip them up and take their place at the first opportunity.
On the whole, Somerset seems to have worked for what he believed to be
the interests of his King and the good of the Protestant religion, to
which he was consistently faithful. His domestic life was clean, and in
an age of place-hunters and libertines Edward Seymour was one of the
most respectable men. Neither entirely mediocre nor altogether great,
the Duke of Somerset may be described as _un grand homme manqué_--one
who just missed greatness.
* * * * *
NOTE.--A long letter from a Reformer named Francis Burgoyne, written
from London to John Calvin on 22nd January 1552, gives a most detailed
account of the Duke of Somerset’s execution, and an analysis of his
character which is of great interest. He says: “Hence arise our tears,
hence arises the all but universal distress, that on this very day,
about 9 o’clock, the Duke of Somerset of pious memory, when hardly
any person looked for or suspected such an event, was led out publicly
to execution. I myself was not present at the sight ... but many of
my friends related to me what they had seen and heard.” Then follows
a long account, given to Burgoyne by Utenhovius, of Somerset’s last
speech, continuing that “he spake all this ... with a look and gesture
becoming the firmness of a hero, and the modesty of a Christian; (they
say) that he was splendidly attired, as he used to be when about to
attend upon the King, or to appear in public on some special occasion;
that he gave the executioner some gold rings which he drew from his
fingers, together with all his clothes; only to a certain gentleman,
the Lieutenant of the Tower of London ... he gave his sword and upper
garment. What weeping, and wailing, and lamentation, followed upon the
death of this nobleman, it is as difficult to describe as to believe.
It is stated by some persons who belong to the household of some of the
Councillors ... that by the Royal indulgence the capital punishment had
been remitted, with a free pardon, while the Duke was yet in prison,
and that whole Council sent to inform him of it more than once; but
when he rejected with contempt the grace that was offered to him, (I
know not whether in reliance on his own innocence, or on the favour of
the King and some other parties, or on his own influence, and wealth,
and rank, or on some other delusive persuasion), the whole Council
were at length so irritated by this conduct, that they determined that
they would no longer endure that excessive arrogance of the man....
It is quite evident, in my opinion, that the deceased nobleman, like
other men, was not without his faults, and those perhaps more grievous
than could be passed over by God without punishment in this life....
This man was endowed and enriched with most excellent gifts of God
both in body and mind, but is not that the best gift, that God has
chosen the light of the Gospel to shine forth by his instrumentality
throughout this Kingdom.... I do not now mention how God had so exalted
him, from being born in a private station, that as the late King’s
brother-in-law, the brother of a Queen, the uncle of the present King,
he had no one here superior to him in any degree of honour, and then
especially, when appointed Lord Protector of the Realm, he was all
but King, or rather esteemed by everyone as the King of the King.”
Burgoyne then passes to the subject of Somerset’s religion: “During
almost the whole time when we were both of us here, he had become so
lukewarm in the service of Christ as scarcely to have anything less
at heart than the state of Religion in this country. Nor indeed did
he retain in this respect anything worthy of commendation, excepting
that, as far as words go, he always professed himself a Gospeller when
occasion required such acknowledgement.” “It is notorious to every
one in this Kingdom,” he continues, “that he was the occasion of his
brother’s death, who, having been convicted on a charge of treason
which no one could prove against him by legal evidence, and of which
when brought to execution he perseveringly denied the truth, was
beheaded owing to his information, instigated by I know not what hatred
and rivalry against his brother.... In fine, that very act, for which
he was last of all thrown into prison, was both unworthy of a Christian
such as he professed himself to be, and also sufficiently shews that
the most part of the crimes which I have laid to his charge, have
their foundation in truth. For he was himself the head and author of a
certain conspiracy against the Duke of Northumberland, lately called
the Earl of Warwick, whom he pursued with the most unrelenting hatred,
as having been foremost in depriving him of the rank of Protector,
and being himself regarded from that time by the King’s Councillors
as occupying that office; the Duke of Somerset, I say, gained over
some accomplices in this conspiracy even from among the Council itself
(who are now in prison awaiting the King’s pleasure respecting them),
by which it was agreed among them, that on the Duke of Northumberland
being dispatched (together with any of his friends who should oppose
their views) either by violence, or in secret, or in any other way,
they should place the entire administration of the Kingdom in their own
hands, but that the Duke of Somerset should be invested with the chief
authority, or even be restored to the order of Protector.” The writer,
after saying that “at his death he manifested some favourable marks of
Christian penitence,” concludes: “Two reasons are present to my mind
which increase my regret; one of them is, that we have lost so great a
man, and one who was not so entirely corrupted but that there remained
some hope both of his reformation, and also that the interest of the
Gospel would in any case be advanced by his authority and protection,
since there is certainly the greatest scarcity and want of such
characters in this country.”[180]
CHAPTER XIV
THE LADY JANE MARRIES THE LORD GUILDFORD
The execution of the Duke of Somerset left the stage clear for
Northumberland, who was now all-powerful.[181] More cunning than his
predecessor, he avoided offending the nation by assuming the title of
“Protector,” and rousing his colleagues’ jealousy by styling himself
“Highness.” Little cared he whether he sat on the King’s right hand or
on his left, so long as his young sovereign obeyed him implicitly--on
this point he was resolved. His ambition was sordid enough: he had no
care for the people, but a great deal for his own advancement to wealth
and power; and his wife and children were as greedy and ambitious as
himself. He had flattered the Catholics, and if Princess Mary had been
younger, and willing to marry one of his sons, the religious history
of England might have been different. Somerset had always entertained
a friendly feeling for Mary, who was kind to his wife, while he
hated Elizabeth; Northumberland loathed both Henry VIII’s daughters
equally. Almost his first act on entering office, nominally as Great
Master of the Household or Lord High Steward, but virtually as Lord
Protector of the Realm, was to annoy Mary by opening up the question
of her chaplains, and her right to have Mass said in her private
chapel--a blunder which nearly resulted in a war with the Emperor, her
cousin, to whom the Princess appealed. Then he lent Cranmer a hand in
persecuting the Anabaptists. The fires of Smithfield flared up once
more. Joan Bocher, and Peter of Paris a Dutchman, were put to death,
though Cranmer found it hard to get Edward VI to set his hand to the
warrant for Joan’s execution. With great alacrity, then, Northumberland
pushed on Somerset’s iconoclastic vandalism, till he made our glorious
cathedrals and churches as bare as meeting-houses. Shiploads of holy
images, chalices, pictures, and painted windows were carted out of the
churches, defaced, destroyed, or sold, and carried abroad, even as far
as Constantinople, where a cargo of “imaugys” from England fetched a
high figure among the Catholics of Pera and Galata. So wanton was the
destruction of Church linen at this time that the citizens, disgusted
at seeing it burnt at the street corners, petitioned Northumberland to
hand it over to the hospitals.
The Catholics, perceiving they had gained nothing in return for the
help they had given Northumberland, retired into obscurity, to wait
for better days; whilst the Reformers acclaimed the zeal of a man who
fought so fiercely against the faith in which he eventually elected
to die. It presently occurred to the Lord High Steward that the young
King was failing fast. The servants about the Court saw death in the
boy’s pale face and shrunken form, and heard its stealthy advance
in his feeble voice and hacking cough. To curry favour for himself,
Northumberland allowed the dying monarch greater freedom than he had
hitherto enjoyed. Sports and pastimes were arranged for his amusement,
and if we may believe his _Journal_, he enjoyed them after his own
fashion. Nobody had been so kind to him since his uncle Thomas’s death!
But sports and pastimes could not galvanise the attenuated lad into
fresh vigour, and he grew worse every day, watched with anxious eyes by
Northumberland and Suffolk, and above all by Cranmer, whose hopes were
concentrated in him.
Since his accession to great wealth the Duke of Suffolk had gradually
abandoned Bradgate for London and fixed his family’s abode at
Sheen,[182] in the abbot’s buildings of the once opulent Carthusian
monastery, which he had adapted as a private residence.[183] Here
the Suffolks resided towards the end of the year 1552 and during the
early part of the momentous year 1553. The house, a large and noble
structure, with a long Gothic gallery running from end to end, stood
close to the venerable palace built by Edward the Confessor. It was
supposed to be haunted--the place was often disturbed after dark by
the sound of footsteps, the rustle of ghostly garments, and the mutter
of unearthly voices; but the most ghastly incident of all was one
which struck sudden terror into the hearts of the Duke and Duchess as
they paced the gallery in the gloaming. All at once a skeleton hand
and arm thrust itself from the wall, and brandished in their faces a
sword, or, as some said, an axe, dripping with blood. It should be
remembered that the Lady Frances was now in possession of nearly all
the Carthusian property in and about London, which had been granted by
Henry VIII to her father, Charles Brandon, and which she had lately
inherited from her stepbrothers; and this spectre may have been
contrived by some friend of the exiled Brotherhood to impress on the
Duchess and her brood the sacrilegious origin of this wealth, which
certainly did not bring them good luck.
Nearly opposite to this uncanny residence stood Syon or Sion House,
an ancient Bridgetine convent which had been presented at the
Dissolution to the late Duke of Somerset, and which his rival, the Duke
of Northumberland, had filched from his widow. As the scene of the
most dramatic event in Lady Jane Grey’s short life, it still retains
considerable historical interest; but although much of the old convent
is standing, the cloisters and other portions have been hidden under
the plaster and stucco of an exceedingly ugly structure of the debased
Victorian villa type.[184]
Northumberland, although he had not yet evolved the scheme of
marrying his only bachelor and youngest son to Jane Grey, none the
less considered the amity of the Suffolks too valuable an asset to
be neglected. At this time Northumberland’s power and certainly his
secrets were largely shared by his ally, the Duke of Suffolk, who never
took any initiative or made a step in any direction without the consent
of his all-powerful friend, who knew him to be a “weakling.”[185]
[Illustration: SUPPOSED PORTRAIT OF LADY JANE GREY, FORMERLY IN THE
COLLECTION OF COL. ELLIOTT, AND NOW AT OXFORD UNIVERSITY
FROM AN ENGRAVING AFTER THE PAINTING BY HOLBEIN]
Northumberland, it would seem, did not at first intend Guildford for
Lady Jane Grey, but for the Lady Margaret Clifford, whose right to
the throne was at this time considered less disputable, she being
Henry VIII’s own grand-niece, eldest daughter of the Lady Eleanor
Brandon, the younger sister of the Duchess of Suffolk. Born after
the nullification of Charles Brandon’s marriage with Lady Mortimer,
her legitimacy was indisputable, whereas the enemies of the Suffolks
were busily engaged about this time (1552) in spreading a report that
Jane was illegitimate, her mother, the Lady Frances, having come
into the world during the lifetime of the said Lady Mortimer. This
insinuation was probably made by Lady Powis, Brandon’s eldest daughter
by his second wife, Anne Browne. At one moment this matter of Lady
Jane’s illegitimacy came very near saving her life, but Queen Mary,
to whom the matter was represented, refused, it is said, to take such
a possibility into consideration, out of respect for the memory of
her aunt, the Queen-Duchess of Suffolk, whose marriage would have
been invalidated if this assumption had been proved. Among Catholics,
however, Lady Jane’s legitimacy was much disputed, and the Lady Eleanor
prudently refused to encourage any great intimacy between her daughter
and Northumberland’s son; she and her family, indeed, kept themselves
in the background as much as they possibly could. At last, even though
the boy-King had been induced to take an interest in the projected
marriage, and had written both to Northumberland and to the Earl of
Cumberland on the subject, the Duke altered his mind, and in 1553, with
the casual fashion of those days, having decided to marry Guildford
to the Lady Jane, he “offered” the Lady Margaret Clifford to his own
younger brother, Sir Andrew Dudley.[186]
Perhaps that which finally decided Northumberland to abandon his first
project was the unguarded and compromising language used by a certain
Mrs. Huggones, a former servant of the widowed Duchess of Somerset.
This good woman’s tongue having been loosened on one occasion by
too liberal potations--the conversation is said to have taken place
during supper--openly lamented the Duke of Somerset’s misfortunes
(the incident occurred about August 1552), called the young King an
unnatural nephew, and vivaciously remarked she wished she “had the
jerking of him.” She added that Lord Guildford Dudley was to marry the
daughter of the Earl of Cumberland, the match having been planned by
the King, and finally, “with a stoute gesture,” she cried, “have at the
Crown, with your leave.” Further, she used “unseemly saiyenges, neither
meet to be spoken, nor conseyled of any hearer.” Sir William Stafford,
in whose house at Rochford, in Essex, the affair apparently occurred,
wrote to the Privy Council an account of these injudicious remarks. On
8th September, Mrs. Huggones was arraigned before Sir Robert Bowes,
Master of the Robes, and Sir Arthur Darcy, Lieutenant of the Tower,
acting for the Privy Council. She denied what had been said of her,
and expressed great admiration for Northumberland. “And, moreover, she
being examined of the last article concerning the marriage of the Lord
Guildford Dudley with the Earl of Cumberland’s daughter, she deposeth
that she heard it spoken in London (but by whom she now remembereth
not) that the King’s ma^{ty} had made such a marriage, and so she told
the first night that she came to Rochford to supper, showing herself to
be glad thereof, and so she thought that all the hearers were also glad
at that marriage.”[187] Maybe the fact that her daughter was becoming
the subject of popular gossip was another incentive to the proud Lady
Eleanor to place obstacles in the way of Northumberland’s proposal.[188]
There is no evidence that any of the Reformers visited the Suffolks
at Sheen, but it is probable they did so, for the success of the
Northumberlands’ scheme depended on the zeal of Lady Jane for
Protestantism being kept at fever heat; and we may therefore conclude
her Reforming friends were frequent guests at the ex-monastery.
The foreign Reformers were at this time very active all over England.
Cranmer was particularly engaged with them, sending the smartest
among them to lecture at Oxford and Cambridge, and inviting the great
Melanchthon, and even Calvin himself, to visit England and preach,
although the religious opinions of both were very different from his
own. He even proposed to Calvin the formation of a sort of Protestant
œcumenical council in London in opposition to the Council of Trent.
In March 1552, he wrote to Calvin: “Our adversaries are now holding
their Council at Trent for the establishment of their errors. Shall we
neglect to call together here in London a godly synod for restoring and
propagating the truth?”
There is nothing in Reformation correspondence so interesting or so
curious as the _Zurich Letters_--no writings so rich in details and
revelations. The tone of these old letters, of Melanchthon, Calvin,
Cranmer, Hooper, Conrad Pellican, Œcolampadius, Hilles, Hales, Gualter,
Fagius, Stumphius, Ab Ulmis, Bullinger, Bucer, etc. etc., is strangely
modern. It is easy to imagine oneself to be reading the documentary
evidence of some great modern revolutionary scheme for “the betterment
of humanity.” All these worthies held themselves in a “godly” light
uncommon to the rest of mankind. They, and they only, brandished the
torch of truth, albeit they did not by any means hold identical views
on even the most vital points of Christian faith--but they were as one
when face to face with their common enemy, the Pope, and the religion
he represented, and any blow dealt at Lutheranism was an equal joy
to them. Cranmer would have burnt half of them to cinders for their
“heresies” had they been Englishmen--he sent Anne Askew and Joan Bocher
to the stake for holding “errors” which coincided with those of some
of his foreign friends, Stumphius, Fagius, and Calvin, for instance!
He would have hanged a Briton for stating in plain English his belief
in predestination--but none the less invited over to a synod the
great teacher of that desperate doctrine. These men were, no doubt,
in earnest, and have left some strange details of their doings which
throw floods of light on the history and mentality of the times in
which they lived. They believed themselves to be so many God-appointed
apostles, and addressed each other as “father in Christ,” even
substituting for their common Teutonic names rich-sounding classical
ones--Œcolampadius, Stumphius, Massarius, Utenhovius, Terentianus,
Vadianus, Osiander, Dryander, Ochianus, etc. They would willingly have
suffered death heroically and patiently for what they believed to be
the truth. On the other hand, they could hate like very devils; Mary
to them was Jezebel or Ataliah, Philip, Satan, Pole, a hell-hound, and
the Pope, the Scarlet Whore and worse than the Devil. They could not
speak decently of their adversaries; and it is precisely here that we
see their influence on the youthful Jane--the reason why, if she really
wrote the letter to Harding after his reversion to Catholicism, she
employed a viragoish language unworthy of so gentle a Christian.
We have no positive proof of how the two families, of Northumberland
and Suffolk, passed their time in the more genial months of the
years 1552-3, when the Thames is pleasantest, especially in the
neighbourhood where they had elected to pitch their respective camps.
The two Dukes and their Duchesses cannot always have been engaged in
political intrigues; they must have given themselves some occasional
recreation, and we may imagine that archery, tennis, and other sports,
dancing, music, and such amusements, were frequently indulged in
at Sheen and Sion, the two state barges incessantly crossing and
recrossing the river, from one mansion to the other. We can picture
the scene on the lawn in front of Sion, down which the handsome
Duchess of Northumberland often went to welcome the Lady Frances and
her daughters as they landed from their barge, leading them, with the
stately ceremony of those days, from the water-gate to the terrace in
front of the former convent, and so into the cloisters along which the
sisterhood of St. Bridget had so often and so recently passed in solemn
procession to their now ruined chapel. And then came the gay romp in
the hall and the merry games of the young folk, in which even the
austere little Lady Jane would condescend to mingle, to the righteous
consternation, doubtless, of her friends from Zurich and Geneva. Here,
too, must have come the handsome Ambrose Dudley, lately married to the
Lady Anne Seymour;[189]--but did that lady visit the house of the man
who had compassed the ruin and death of her father? And here Robert
Dudley, afterwards the famous Earl of Leicester, may have brought his
affianced wife, the fair Amy Robsart of _Kenilworth_ fame. And the Lady
Mary Sidney, Northumberland’s elder daughter, and wife of Sir Henry
Sidney, soon to become the mother of one of the most illustrious men of
the Elizabethan age, no doubt joined the circle with her clever young
husband. In these hours of relaxation, when the dark undertakings to
which the politics of those bloody days forced them were forgotten,
these youths overflowed with animal spirits, and it is more than likely
that Jane and her sister Katherine, and even the little Lady Mary,
romped merrily with their guests. It was a romping age, the good old
healthy country dances were in high favour, and the best performer
was he who could lift his lady highest off the ground, or could cross
his legs twice in a pirouette before he touched the floor again!
Northumberland himself was famous as a dancer of extraordinary elegance
and skill. That the Calvinism in which they had dabbled had not as yet
stirred up Henry of Suffolk and his Tudor consort to a proper pitch
of “godliness” is evident, for a company of players who had enacted
comedies, tragedies, and tragi-comedies at Tylsey in the previous
year, repeated their performances at Sheen in the winter of 1552-3,
and brought a smile, perchance, to the pale lips of the studious Lady
Jane, and evoked a hearty laugh from her materialistic mother, who, for
aught we know to the contrary,--let us hope it was not so!--may already
have begun to allow a certain ginger-headed Master Adrian Stokes, His
Lordship’s Groom of the Chambers, to pay her compliments which a great
Princess and an honest woman ought to have nipped in the bud. Tradition
has it that Northumberland and his colleague of Suffolk often played
a game of chess together, and that Suffolk would wax irritable if
Northumberland won more often than himself.
No doubt, as soon as the Cumberland affair was broken off, and
Northumberland had decided to marry his son to Lady Jane, Guildford
was thrown as much into the young girl’s society as was possible
in those days of rigid etiquette, when maidens of rank were not
often allowed out of the sight of their parents and governesses. But
there is no record of any love-making between the young folk: on the
contrary, there is plenty of evidence that the girl disliked her
suitor. About a week before the wedding her parents ordered her to
marry the young gentleman, and, according to Baoardo,[190] she at first
stoutly refused, “her heart,” she said, “being plighted elsewhere.”
The Duke harshly reiterated his command and, according to the Italian
chronicler, even struck his daughter several hard blows, whilst the
broad red face of the Lady Frances purpled threateningly. The Duke
told Jane her marriage had been ordained by no less a person than
King Edward himself, and sharply inquired “whether she intended to
disobey her King as well as her father?” Poor Jane, aching from his
blows, could scarcely stammer her reply, “that she could not marry
with Guildford since she was already contracted to another” and that
with her father’s consent,--she doubtless alluded to the young Earl of
Hertford, the late Duke of Somerset’s son. But what could a forlorn
little girl of less than sixteen do, surrounded, as Jane was, by people
whom she believed to be all-powerful? She had been so “nipped and
pinched and bobbed” in her youth for an ill-constructed Latin verse
or a faulty translation of a Greek sentence,[191] that her spirit was
already more or less broken; she gave a reluctant consent at last;
and straightway the two Duchesses began their wedding preparations.
Milliners and haberdashers, glove-makers, embroiderers and Italian
silk merchants flocked to Sion and Sheen to display their gewgaws and
rich stuffs. Let us hope the little bride-elect derived some childish
pleasure from all this finery, the ostentatious display of which
must have thrown her Calvinistic friends into hysterics of righteous
indignation. And thus, long before she went to the Tower and thence
to her unmerited doom, Jane’s life was made a burden to her. Like the
forlorn bride of Lammermoor, she was the victim of cruel parents, and
one only wonders her young mind did not totter under the weight of so
much woe!
Lord Guildford Dudley was born about 1533, and was consequently not yet
of age, as Queen Mary afterwards remarked to the Imperial Ambassador.
He was in his nineteenth year at the time of his ill-omened marriage.
The Duchess of Northumberland, his mother, was granddaughter of that
Lady Guildford who had been governess to Mary Tudor, sister of Henry
VIII, and to whom occasional allusion is made in early Tudor documents
as “Moder Guildford.” This lady had contrived to offend Louis XII of
France, who packed her off to England the day after he married the
English Princess. Thus the great-grandson of the governess and the
granddaughter of the royal pupil eventually became man and wife. Lord
Guildford Dudley’s case is believed to be the first instance, in this
country, of the bestowal of a family instead of a Christian name at
baptism; in stricter Catholic times it had been illegal to baptize a
child by any name but that of a saint. Guildford was a tall, well-built
youth, of very fair complexion.[192] In contrast with his splendid
colouring and light-brown hair, he had the soft brown eyes which
lend so peculiar a charm to the authentic portraits of his father,
whose darling he was.[193] The Northumberland family was proverbially
beautiful;--Robert, the famous Earl of Leicester and lover of Queen
Elizabeth, was considered the handsomest man of his time. Guildford
Dudley had a second name, James or Diego, received at his christening
from a Spanish[194] nobleman, the famous Diego Hurtado de Mendoza, a
trivial circumstance, apparently, but fatal in its consequences, for,
as we shall see, it was largely a foolishly worded letter from this
godfather that brought Guildford to the block.
It is uncertain whether Jane’s wedding was celebrated towards the end
of May or in the beginning of June[195] (1553), but the former is the
date generally received. Three marriages occurred on the same day:
the first that of Lady Jane Grey and Guildford Dudley; the second
between Lord Herbert,[196] eldest son of the Earl of Pembroke, and the
Lady Katherine Grey, younger sister of Guildford’s bride; whilst the
third was between Henry, Lord Hastings, eldest son of the Earl of
Huntingdon, and Lady Katherine, the young sister of Lord Guildford
Dudley. On the same day, little Lady Mary Grey, barely eight years of
age, was solemnly betrothed to her equally youthful kinsman, Arthur,
Lord Grey of Wilton.
Lady Jane Grey’s wedding seems to have been exceptionally magnificent.
Strype tells us that to increase its splendour and solemnity, the
Master of the Wardrobe, Sir Andrew Dudley, had orders to deliver to
the various parties much rich apparel and jewels out of the royal
wardrobe.[197] As the King’s “table diamond” was delivered to the
Princess Mary about this time, it seems probable that she also attended
the wedding. These articles were not new, but consisted of velvets,
brocades, pieces of cloth of gold, of silver, etc., the property of the
late Duke of Somerset and of his Duchess, who was still a prisoner in
the Tower; which had been forfeited to the King, on their attainder.
Thus was poor Jane’s bridal party bedecked with the finery of her
father’s victim, who preceded her by a few months only on the road to
the bloodstained scaffold. The French Ambassador also mentions the
exceptional pomp displayed at this wedding, but gives no details.
No contemporary account of this particular ceremony is in
existence,[198] but the general custom was for the bride, attired in
a dress highly ornamented with gold and embroidery, her hair hanging
down, curiously waved and plaited, to be led to the church “between
two sweet boys, with bride laces, and rosemary tied about their silken
sleeves.” Before the bride was carried “a fair bride cup, of silver
gilt,” “therein was a goodly branch of rosemary, gilded very fair, and
hung about with silken ribbands of all colours; next there was a noise
of musicians, that played all the way before her.”[199] Then followed a
train of virgins in white, crowned with fresh flowers, with their hair
hanging loose, some bearing bride cakes, and others garlands, adorned
with gold. Last came the bridegroom, splendidly apparelled, with
young men following close behind. There were scarves and gloves, an
“epithalamium” and masques and dances; and “all the company was decked
out with the bride’s colours, in every form and fantasy.”
When Jane’s marriage took place, the populace, though far from pleased
with the exorbitant pretensions of the Duke of Northumberland, could
not forbear admiring the bridegroom’s extreme beauty of person. The
bride was considered pretty, but small and freckled. She must have
come, in all her bridal bravery, from Suffolk House in the Strand to
Durham House, for it was the custom then, as it is still, for the bride
to start from her paternal roof, and meet the bridegroom at the church
door or even at the altar. The Church of St. Mary-le-Strand having
been destroyed by Somerset, the service was undoubtedly held in the
private chapel of the ex-palace of the Bishops of Durham, then the town
residence of Northumberland.
Edward VI was too ill to attend the wedding, and there is no direct
evidence that either of the Princesses, his sisters, were present;
though, as we have already said, Princess Mary may have been. Their
absence, however, points to their fear of Northumberland’s sinister
intentions. The young King made his cousin, Jane, and Lady Katherine
Grey some wedding gifts of jewels and plate.
Burke says in his _Tudor Portraits_, though on what authority he does
not tell us, that on the morning of her fatal marriage, “Lady Jane’s
headdress[200] was of green velvet, set round with precious stones.
She wore a gown of cloth of gold, and a mantle of silver tissue. Her
hair hung down her back, combed and plaited in a curious fashion ‘then
unknown to ladies of qualitie.’ This arrangement was said to have been
devised by Mrs. Elizabeth Tylney, her friend and attendant, who was
with her to the end. The bride was led to the altar by two handsome
pages, with bride lace and rosemary tied to their sleeves. Sixteen
virgins, dressed in ‘pure white,’ preceded the bride to the altar.
Northumberland and his family were remarkable on this occasion for
the splendour of their costumes. We have seen that they were jays in
borrowed plumes. A profusion of flowers was scattered along the bridal
route, the church bells gave a greeting, and the poor received beef,
bread and ale for three days.”
Ascham reports that the wedding was “conducted much in the old Popish
fashion,” and adds, curiously enough, as a rider to this observation,
that “Northumberland, notwithstanding his pretended zeal for the
Reformation, was a Papist at heart.” He was quite right, as events
proved, though it should be remembered that at this time of transition
the order of the marriage ceremony, unlike that for funerals, had not
yet been formulated according to the Reformed rite.
Every item in this tragic story would seem predestined to increase
its fateful horror. Part of Jane’s wedding dower was the estate of
Stanfield in Norfolk,[201] which has more than once been associated
with scenes of horror, not the least dreadful being the Rush murder, in
the second half of the last century. This property belonged at one time
to the Robsart family, and was believed by many to be the birthplace of
the fair Amy, Countess of Leicester, who was really, however, born at
Syderstone, an adjacent manor.
In the letter to Queen Mary, dated August 1553, quoted by Pollino,[202]
and written, according to him, from the Tower, Jane Grey relates the
manner of her existence between her marriage and Edward’s death. “The
Duchess of Northumberland,” she says, “promised me at my nuptials with
her son, that she would be contented if I remained living at home with
my mother. Soon afterwards, my husband being present, she declared
that it was publicly said that there was no hope of the King’s life
(and this was the first time I heard of the matter), and further she
observed to her husband, the Duke of Northumberland, ‘that I ought not
to leave her house,’ adding ‘that when it pleased God to call King
Edward to His mercy I ought to hold myself in readiness, as I might
be required to go to the Tower, since His Majesty had made me heir to
his dominions.’ These words told me off-hand and without preparation,
agitated my soul within me, and for a time seemed to amaze me. Yet
afterwards they seemed to me exaggerated, and to mean little but
boasting, and by no means of consequence sufficient to hinder me from
going to my mother.” Evidently Jane expressed these sentiments very
frankly, for she proceeds: “The Duchess of Northumberland was enraged
against my mother and me. She answered ‘that she was resolved to detain
me,’ insisting, ‘that it was my duty at all events to remain near my
husband, from whom I should not go.’ Not venturing to disobey her, I
remained at her house four or five days.” These days were most likely
spent at Durham House. “At last,” continues Lady Jane, “I obtained
leave to go to Chelsea for recreation” (meaning perhaps change of air),
“where I very soon fell ill.” Her illness was a struggle for life or
death, the suffering so acute as to lead her to imagine she had been
poisoned. The mention of this attack of what we should now call nervous
breakdown, lends an indisputable air of authority to Jane’s letter as
given by Pollino. There was really no earthly reason why anybody should
attempt her life--it was certainly too precious to the Dudleys for
the Duchess, an eminently respectable if an autocratic woman, to wish
to see it prematurely ended. It is well known that this fear of being
poisoned frequently seizes on people in time of distress.
Chelsea Manor House, which had lately been in the possession of the
Duke of Somerset, had fallen, with other property, into the hands of
Northumberland, and thence he dates certain letters to Cecil and his
other colleagues.[203] Lady Jane apparently preferred going to Chelsea
to stopping at Durham House; and so departed without her husband,
although so recently married. Guildford was not present at the scene at
Sion (on 9th July) when the Crown was offered to his wife, which points
to his having been left in bachelor solitude at Durham House. Possibly
the absence of her mother-in-law from the Chelsea establishment
accounts for the bride’s preference for that suburban residence; and
having married Guildford without entertaining the least affection for
him, she probably did not desire his presence either.
The pomp and splendour of these nuptials were the last gleam of gaiety
in the reign of Edward VI. A very short time afterwards, the poor young
King grew so pitifully weak that Northumberland thought it was time to
carry his great projects into execution. Otherwise, as he clearly saw,
he and his friends must not expect to continue long in power, or even
in security: all his efforts, his overthrow of Somerset, and the rest,
would be rendered useless if his royally born daughter-in-law was not
named by the King himself as the lawful successor to the throne.
CHAPTER XV
ON THE WAY TO THE TOWER
The Duke of Northumberland is accused, even by almost contemporary
authorities, of having forged the will of King Edward VI; but, as we
shall presently see, that King never made a will, but left a sort of
tentative document called a “Devise” for the succession, written in
his own hand; though maybe it was suggested or even dictated by the
Duke. By an Act--the XXVIII of Henry VIII, cap. 7--it was enacted that,
failing issue of Queen Jane Seymour, “Your Highness (Henry) shall
have full and plenary power and authority to give, dispose, appoint,
assign, declare, and limit by your letters-patent under your great
seal, or else by your last will made in writing, and signed with your
most gracious hand, at your only pleasure, from time to time hereafter,
the Imperial Crown of this Realm.” Other Acts had recapitulated this;
and King Henry, acting on the same principle, made a will in his
thirty-fifth year, under the terms of which the Crown was to pass,
firstly to his son Edward and his heirs; secondly, to his own heirs
by the then Queen, Katherine Parr, “or any other wife I may have”;
thirdly, to his daughter Mary; fourthly, to his daughter Elizabeth;
fifthly, to the heirs of the body of his niece, the Lady Frances;
sixthly, to those of her sister, Eleanor; seventhly, to the next
rightful heirs, meaning the heirs of his sister, the Queen of Scots. It
was also stipulated that if either of his daughters married without the
consent of the Privy Council, they were to be passed over “as if dead.”
Both Edward VI and his father seem to have wished for a male successor,
for in the latter’s enactments limiting the succession, all the female
heirs are set aside in favour of their as yet unborn male issue.
King Edward’s “Devise” for the limitation of the succession makes
no allusion to his two sisters, the Princesses Mary and Elizabeth.
On the other hand, in the letters-patent for this limitation of the
succession, which were based on the “Devise,” the Princesses’ claim
is ruled out for three reasons: that they were illegitimate; that
they were of half-blood to the King; that there was a chance of their
marrying foreigners. Besides, as we have said, the King, like his
father, was anxious for a male successor; in fact, this desire is
on the very surface of the “Devise,” wherein much stress is laid on
the “issue masle,” since for the one living male descendant of Henry
VII--that is, Edward himself--there were as many as seven ladies (even
excluding the Scotch line) potential to the English Crown.[204]
The first limitation decided upon by the young King was to the Lady
Frances’s issue male, born before the King’s death, and, failing them,
the Lady Jane’s issue male. This scheme suited Northumberland, for if
Jane had a son by Guildford the Duke would become the grandfather of
the King of England and proportionately powerful. But as time went
on it became evident that the King was doomed to an early death, and
therefore a swifter and more practical solution of the succession
problem had to be arrived at. The next best arrangement would have been
the nomination of the Lady Frances;[205] Northumberland, however,
could not approve of such a scheme, since it would have placed the
weight of power in the hands of the Duke of Suffolk, her husband. At
last, all plans failing, Edward decided to nominate the Lady Jane Grey
as his successor to the throne--and thereby the Duke gained his point.
The words in the “Devise,” “to the L’Janes heires masles,” were now
changed to “_to the L’Jane and_ her heires masles”: in the copy of
the document bearing the King’s signature which is still extant, it
can be seen that a pen has been drawn through the “s” at the end of
Jane’s name, and the words “and her” have been written above. Thus was
manufactured[206] the ladder by which Northumberland, by becoming the
father-in-law of a Queen, hoped to reach the summit of his ambition.
Northumberland had a great deal of trouble to get his scheme legalised.
Edward was not unpliable, and indeed attributed Northumberland’s
intense desire to see the “Devise” carried into effect entirely to his
zeal for the Reformed religion; but Archbishop Cranmer, Sir Edward
Montagu, Lord Chief Justice, Sir James Hale, Secretary Cecil and
others, either because they saw through Northumberland or else because
they really had qualms of conscience as to its legality, opposed the
plan, taking their stand on the fact that the nomination of Jane
Grey, being contrary to the older “Statute of Succession,” would be
illegal. Cranmer, as the result of an interview with the King, was
finally converted to his views. Lord Darcy, the Lord Chamberlain,
and the Marquis of Northampton were present at this meeting, much to
the Archbishop’s disgust. “I desired to talk with the King’s Majesty
alone,” says Cranmer, “but I could not be suffered: and so I failed
of my purpose. For if I might have communed with the King alone, and
at my good leisure, my trust was, that I should have altered him from
his purpose; but they (the above-mentioned noblemen) being present,
my labour was in vain. And so at length I was required by the King’s
Majesty himself to set my hand to his will (that is, the scheme for
the succession) saying that he trusted that I alone would not be more
repugnant to his will than the rest of the Council were. Which words
surely grieved my heart very sore. And so I granted him to subscribe
his will, and to follow the same. Which when I had set my hand unto I
did it unfainedly and without dissimulation.”[207]
Directly Northumberland was satisfied that the young King would
not depart from the decision to which he had forced him, he
summoned Lord Chief Justice Montagu to attend at the Royal Court
at Greenwich, on 11th June 1553, with Sir John Baker, Mr. Justice
Bromley, Attorney-General Gosnold and Solicitor-General Griffin. This
command was the first step towards officially depriving Mary of her
inheritance, and the letter was signed by Secretary Petre, Sir John
Cheke, and strange to relate, by Cecil, which is surprising when taken
in conjunction with his subsequent conduct in the matter. The Lord
Chief Justice, coming into the royal presence, found the King very ill,
lying on a couch, surrounded by Lord Winchester, Lord Treasurer, the
Marquis of Northampton, Sir John Gates, Sir John Palmer, and others.
Raising himself, Edward declared, in the verbose language of the time,
that he had summoned his Council to hear from his own lips that he
had appointed the Lady Jane Grey his heiress, as the Lady Mary might
change her faith, and “his Highness’s proceedings in religion might
be altered.[208] Wherefore his pleasure was that the state of the
Crown should go in such form, and to such persons, as his Highness
had appointed in a bill of articles [_i.e._, the “Devise”[209]] now
signed with the King’s hand, which were read, and commanded them to
make a book thereof accordingly with speed.” Montagu refused to do
this, saying the nomination of Lady Jane would be illegal and against
the already mentioned “Statute of Succession,” which had passed
Parliament. Edward, or rather Northumberland, became so irritable,
that the Lord Chief Justice finally acquiesced so far as to ask for
time to deliberate and consult the laws; whereupon the King gave him
the “Devise” to study, and dismissed all present, Northumberland alone
remaining. On the following day (12th June), Secretary Petre sent for
the Lord Chief Justice to Durham House, Northumberland’s palace in the
Strand, and told him the matter must be executed off-hand. Montagu
immediately went to Ely Place, Holborn, where he found the Council
sitting, but Northumberland absent; which emboldened him to warn the
Council of the exceeding danger of the matter they were about to
approve. “In God’s name, my Lords,” cried he, “think twice what you
do--it will be treason to us all who have a hand in it.” Hardly had he
spoken ere Northumberland, who was, of course, aware of his opposition,
burst, as white as a sheet, into the room like a whirlwind, “before all
the Council there,” says a contemporary account, “being in a great rage
and fury, trembling for anger; and, amongst his ragious talk, called
Sir Edward Montagu traitor, and further said that he would fight in
his shirt [sleeves] with any man in that quarrel.” No one took up the
challenge, and Montagu withdrew in some dismay--thankful, no doubt,
that there had been no actual blows given or received.
Nothing was signed or done that day, but on the next, Montagu received
a fresh order to repair immediately to Court with the same companions
as before. On arrival at Greenwich, the party was ushered into a
room filled with the notables of the Court, who “looked upon them
with earnest countenance, as though they had not known them, so that
they might perceive there was some steadfast determination against
them”; which treatment, combined with uncertainty as to whether
the all-powerful Northumberland might not persuade the King into
punishing them for not preparing the “book” of the King’s scheme
as he had wished, made the poor gentlemen feel very uncomfortable.
Edward also (on 15th June), received the Lord Chief Justice and his
colleagues haughtily; His Majesty was apparently better, and seated
in his chair. Montagu’s party endeavoured to excuse themselves by
using the same arguments against the scheme of succession as they had
previously put before the Council. They said that, by reason of the
“Statute of Succession,” the plan would be null and void after Edward’s
death; and that the only power which could remove the said Statute
was Parliament, which had made it, and which was not then sitting.
Thereupon the King said he would summon a Parliament, but, all the
same, the drawing up of his scheme must be proceeded with. He further
commanded Montagu to obey his order, and “make dispatch.” At last
Montagu, “in great fear as ever he was in his life before, seeing the
King so earnest and sharp, and the Duke so angry the day before--who
ruled the whole Council as it pleased him, and they were all afraid
of him (the more is the pity)[210] so that such cowardliness and fear
was there never seen amongst honourable men--being an old man and
without comfort, he began to consider with himself what was best to be
done for the safeguard of his life.” Accordingly he agreed to comply
with his sovereign’s command, provided Edward granted him (as a sort
of protection) his commission under the Great Seal, enjoining him to
draw up the instrument of succession, and that a general “pardon” for
having signed it should be made out at the same time. The King acceded
to these terms; and so the letters patent nominating Jane Grey as King
Edward’s successor received the Great Seal on 21st June, and over a
hundred signatures, including those of the Lord Mayor, the Sheriffs of
Middlesex, Surrey, and Kent, the officers of the Royal Household, and
of Thomas Grey, the Duke of Suffolk’s younger brother, were affixed to
the document. It took so long to collect all the signatures that the
work was not finished until the 8th of July, that is, after Edward’s
death. Stowe records the attendance of the “chief citizen” of the
metropolis on that day in the following terms: “The 8. of July the lord
mayor of London was sent for to the court then at Greenwich, to bring
with him six aldermen, as many merchants of the staple, and as many
merchant adventurers, unto whom by the council was secretly declared
the death of King Edward, and also how he did ordain for the succession
of the crown by his letters patent, to the which they were sworn,
and charged to keep it secret.” Sir James Hale, however, refused his
signature with great dignity; Cecil slipped out of the difficulty on
a pretext of sudden illness. Foreseeing, even before 11th June, the
rocks ahead, he wisely retired from Court after a well-acted scene
of simulated faintness, so realistic as to mislead the shrewd Lord
Audley, who, being a great believer in his own prescriptions, sent the
disordered Secretary the following delightful receipt:--
“Take a sow-pig of nine days old, and flea him and quarter him,
and put him in a stillatory with a handful of spearmint, a handful
of red fennel, a handful of liverwort, half a handful of red nepe
[turnip], a handful of celery, nine dates clean picked and pared,
a handful of great raisins, and pick out the stones, and a quarter
of an ounce of mace, and two sticks of good cinnamon bruised in a
mortar; and distill it together, with a fair fire; and put it in a
glass and set in the sun nine days; and drink nine spoonfuls of it
at once when you list.
“A COMPOST
“_Item._--Take a porcupin, otherwise called an English hedgehog,
and quarter him in pieces, and put the said beast in a still with
these ingredients and boil together; item, a quart of red wine, a
pint of rose-water, a quart of sugar, cinnamon and great raisins,
one date, twelve nepe. Pass the whole through a sieve and drink at
night, a full cup thereof warm.”[211]
Possibly his Lordship intended this epistle as a fine piece of sarcasm,
for if Cecil was only to partake of the “sow-pig” and raisin remedy
nine days after it was concocted, there was every chance of his dying
or getting well in the interval.
The fact that so many persons were found to sign the fateful document
is another proof--even if we make allowance for the majority of the
Council being time-servers--that Edward’s “Devise” for the succession,
though evidently suggested and forwarded by Northumberland, was not a
forgery.
On 6th July[212] (1553), whilst the newly-made bride was peacefully
resting at Chelsea, King Edward VI passed away at Whitehall Palace.
He had been taken out of the hands of his physicians, Drs. Owen[213]
and Wendy, old and trusted Court doctors, and put into those of a
female quack, who soon extinguished the feeble ray of life that still
flickered in his wasted body. An hour before Edward passed away, Dr.
Owen, who had been recalled in a hurry, bent over him, saying, “We
heard you speak to yourself, but what you said we know not?” The weary
lad answered, smiling faintly, “I was praying to God.” A little later
he was heard to murmur, “Lord have mercy upon me, and take my spirit.”
He never spoke again--he was very tired, and needed rest!
The people had shown their anxiety for Edward’s health by assembling
daily in front of Greenwich Palace to ascertain how he was, and to
convince the mob that he was still alive it had become necessary to
make the royal lad show his sickly person, robed in velvet and ermine,
and his poor wasted face--crowned with the delightful little velvet
cap with the white feathers, so familiar to us in his portraits--at
the window. The received version among all classes was that the King
was being slowly poisoned by the Duke of Northumberland, whom they
also accused of having forged Edward’s “Devise” for the succession
in favour of Lady Jane. The Swiss Reformers, in their letters to
Strasburg and Zurich, did not hesitate to give currency to the report
that Northumberland, whom a few weeks earlier they had called the
“illustrious” and the “noble,” had murdered his nephew. “That monster
of a man,” says John Burcher to Henry Bullinger (letter dated from
Strasburg, 16th August 1553), “the Duke of Northumberland, has been
committing a horrible and portentous crime. A writer worthy of credit
informs me, that our excellent King has been most shamefully taken
off by poison. His nails and hair fell off before his death, so
that, handsome as he was, he entirely lost all his good looks. The
perpetrators of the murder were ashamed of allowing the body of the
deceased King to lie in state, and be seen by the public, as is usual:
wherefore they buried him privately in the paddock adjoining the
palace, and substituted in his place a youth not unlike him.... One
of the sons of the Duke of Northumberland acknowledged this fact. The
Duke has been apprehended[214] with his five sons, and nearly twenty
persons; among whom is master [Sir John] Cheke, doctor Cox, and the
Bishop of London, with others unknown to you....”[215] Burcher does
not tell us which son of the Duke made this confession; nor is there
evidence that any of Northumberland’s boys ever accused their father of
regicide. Besides, Burcher was somewhat addicted to putting his faith
in the reports of untrustworthy people. A few years earlier (in 1549)
he had written Bullinger a letter in which he repeated the sensational
story of an attempt to murder King Edward made by his uncle, Thomas
Seymour, a crime frustrated by the vigilance of the King’s lap-dog,
which seeing the murderer suddenly appear, flew at him and made such
a yelping that the bodyguard was in time to save their sovereign. This
story may or may not be true; but is as unauthenticated as the other.
There is just one point, however, that supports the poison theory;
which is that the young King’s old and competent nurse, Mrs. Sybil
Penn, was suddenly relieved of her duties, and replaced by a woman
who was an acknowledged quack, and declared she could cure the lad by
a sort of faith-healing not unknown in our own times. On the other
hand, Edward was suffering from such a complication of diseases that
there was no reason why Northumberland should have troubled to burden
his soul by hastening an end that would in any case have come before
long.[216] Born of a debauched father and a sickly mother, the “second
Josiah” never throve, and never could have thriven, for he bore in his
puny frame the seeds of early death from his birth.
[Illustration: EDWARD VI
FROM AN ENGRAVING BY G. VERTUE]
King Edward VI lived exactly fifteen years, eight months, and six days.
We can easily believe Strype’s assurance that his wonderful and almost
preternatural sagacity was merely the result of skilful prompting.
He informs us that whenever the young King was about to attend the
Council, Northumberland carefully rehearsed with him both how he
should behave and what he was to say. Yet the boy does not appear
to have been devoid of exceptional intelligence. It may be doubted
whether his affections were very deep; he certainly did not hesitate
to bastardise his two sisters at the bidding of their common enemy. It
has been stated that Lady Jane Grey was devotedly attached to her young
cousin; that there had even been love passages between them. The King’s
youth should mark this report as the veriest gossip. Not a tinge of
affection or regret for her cousin is expressed in any of Lady Jane’s
letters, and we have no proof whatever that she was specially affected
by his early death. There is but little evidence, indeed, of her having
been much in his company, nor any proof that he, on his side, held her
in exceptional esteem.
Nature added a warning note to the horror of the approaching tragedy.
“Several women were delivered of monsters on the day of the King’s
death, one of an infant with two heads and four feet, and another
of a child whose head was planted in the centre of his body.” The
ghost of Henry VIII was reported to have been seen stalking along the
battlements of Windsor and at Hampton Court and Whitehall--so that
even the supernatural stimulated popular imagination. The hour of the
young King’s death, too, was ushered in by a tempest of such appalling
violence, that heaven and earth seemed to menace the city. A terrible
hailstorm swept over London and its outskirts, and the ruined gardens
and devastated orchards for miles round were heaped with hailstones “as
red as blood.” Cataracts of water deluged the lower parts of the city:
trees were torn up, and the steeple of the church in which the first
Protestant service was held was shattered by forked lightning. The
people, terrified at the universal havoc, believed, when they learnt of
the King’s death, that this storm was the forerunner of fresh disasters
and terrible crimes, and so indeed it proved to be--for the death of
Edward VI was the signal for the outbreak of the long contemplated
revolution so skilfully prepared by Northumberland.
CHAPTER XVI
THE LADY JANE IS PROCLAIMED QUEEN
No sooner had King Edward VI given up the ghost, than Northumberland
devised a cunning attempt to obtain possession of the person of
Princess Mary, then at Hunsdon. The Duke persuaded the Council to
address a treacherous letter to her, after Edward was actually dead,
but before his decease was divulged to the public, in which they gave
no hint that her brother was dead, and informed her he was only very
ill, and “prayed her to come to him, as he earnestly desired the
comfort of her presence.” Touched by this exhibition of brotherly
affection, Mary fell into the trap, and, returning a loving answer,
started immediately for London; but a timely warning prevented the
whole course of our history being changed. The plot was to seize her
on the high road near the metropolis, and convey her a prisoner to the
Tower.
A young brother of Sir Nicholas Throckmorton, however, who was in
Northumberland’s service, and in attendance upon him at Greenwich
Palace, was surprised to see Sir John Gates come, on the morning
after the King’s death, to the Duke’s chamber before he was dressed.
They discussed the movements of the Princess, and young Throckmorton
overheard Gates exclaim angrily, “What sir! will you let the Lady
Mary escape, and not secure her person?” Acting upon this hint, he
forthwith galloped to Throckmorton House, where he found his father
and his brothers, together with Sir Nicholas, who had just come to
inform them of the King’s death, of which he had been a witness, and
also of Northumberland’s schemes concerning the proclamation of Lady
Jane. On this the youth related what he had overheard that morning in
Northumberland’s bedroom; and Sir Nicholas, who, although a Reformer,
was none the less loyal to Mary, instantly dispatched her goldsmith,
a trusty servant, who met her at Hoddesden, and informed her both of
her brother’s death and of the danger in which she stood. Even yet she
doubted the genuineness of the warning, and remarked to the goldsmith
that “If Robert[217] had been at Greenwich, she would have hazarded all
things, and gaged her life on the leap.” Sir Robert Throckmorton,[218]
however, arriving on 7th July, confirmed the goldsmith’s message,
and Mary and her retinue, in consequence, left the London road and
struck off into Suffolk, reaching her manor of Kenninghall after a two
days’ hard gallop. Almost as soon as she arrived there, she addressed
the Council a comparatively mild remonstrance, and at the same time
confirmed her claim to the throne. Mary prized the fidelity of the
Throckmortons so highly as to bestow upon the chief of that ancient
house the position of chief-justice of Chester, which act of kindness
he repaid in after times, when Mary was long dead, by praying for her
soul whenever he said his mealtime grace.
Lady Jane Grey meanwhile remained at Chelsea until she was sent for:
“There came unto me,” she continues in her letter to Queen Mary, “the
Lady Sidney, the daughter of the Duke of Northumberland, who told me
she was sent by the Council to call me before them, and she informed me
that I must be that night at Sion House, where they were assembled, to
receive that which was ordained for me by the King.”
The two young ladies went that afternoon (9th July 1553) by river from
Chelsea to Sion House, which they reached towards nightfall:--
“On arriving at Sion,” writes Lady Jane, “I found no one there. But
presently came the Marquis of Northampton, the Earls of Arundel,
Huntingdon, and Pembroke, who began to make me complimentary
speeches, bending the knee before me, their example being followed
by several noble ladies, all of which ceremony made me blush. My
distress was still further increased when my mother (the Lady
Frances), and my mother-in-law (the Duchess of Northumberland),
entered and paid me the same homage. Then came the Duke of
Northumberland himself, who, as President of the Council, declared
to me the death of the King, and informed me that every one had
good reason to rejoice in the virtuous life he had led, and the
good death he had. He drew great comfort from the fact that, at
the end of his life, he took great care of his kingdom, praying
to our Lord God to defend it from all doctrine contrary to His,
and to free it from the evil of his sisters. He signified to the
Duke of Northumberland ‘that he (the said Majesty of Edward VI),
had well considered the Act of Parliament, in which it had been
already ordained that, whoever shall recognise Mary, or Elizabeth
her sister, as heir to the Crown, were to be considered traitors,
seeing that Mary had disobeyed the King, her father, and her
brother (Edward VI) and was, moreover, a chief enemy to the Word of
God, and that both were illegitimate. Therefore he would not that
she and her sister be his heirs, but rather thought he ought in
every way to disinherit them.’ And before his death, he ‘commanded
his Council, and adjured them by the honour they owed him, by the
love they bore their country, and by the duty they owe to God,
that they should obey his will and carry it into effect.’ The Duke
of Northumberland then added that I was the heir nominated by His
Majesty, and that my sisters, the Lady Katherine and the Lady
Mary Grey, were to succeed me, in case I had no issue legitimately
born, at which words all the lords of the Council knelt before
me, exclaiming, ‘that they rendered me that homage because it
pertained to me, being of the right line,’ and they added, that in
all particulars they would observe what they promised which was, by
their souls they swore, to shed their blood and lose their lives
to maintain the same. On hearing all this, I remained stunned and
out of myself, I call on those present to bear witness, who saw
me fall to the ground weeping piteously, and dolefully lamenting,
not only mine insufficiency, but the death of the King. I swooned
indeed, and lay as dead, but when brought to myself I raised myself
on my knees, and prayed to God ‘that if to succeed to the Throne
was indeed my duty and my right, that He would aid me to govern the
Realm to His glory.’ The following day, as every one knows, I was
conducted to the Tower.”
Lady Jane’s own version as given above differs materially from the
one of this famous scene of the recognition of Jane as Queen edited
by Foxe; the two are, however, identical in the main facts, but the
bombastic speech put into the mouth of his heroine by the author of
the _Book of Martyrs_ is much less natural than Pollino’s version.
_The Grey Friars’ Chronicle_ corroborates in every particular both
narratives, and adds that, “on 10th July, the Lady Jane came from
Richmond to Westminster by water,[219] whither she came to robe herself
before proceeding to the Tower.” On her way from Westminster, she
stopped at Durham House, her father-in-law’s palace on the Thames,
where she dined. Lady Jane afterwards proceeded by the State barge to
the Tower, where she landed about three o’clock in the afternoon, the
weather being exceedingly fine.
In the Genoese Archives there is a letter from a member of the Spinola
family,[220] who was then in London, giving details of that day’s
doings:--
“To-day [the date is not given, but possibly it figured on
the cover, now lost: it was, of course, 10th July 1553] I saw
Donna Jana Groia [an Italianisation of Grey] walking in a grand
procession to the Tower. She is now called Queen, but is not
popular, for the hearts of the people are with Mary, the Spanish
Queen’s daughter. This Jane is very short and thin, but prettily
shaped and graceful. She has small features and a well-made nose
(_ben fatta ha il naso_), the mouth flexible and the lips red. The
eyebrows are arched and darker than her hair, which is nearly red.
Her eyes are sparkling and red (_rossi_--a sort of light hazel
often noticed with red hair). I stood so long near Her Grace, that
I noticed her colour was good, but freckled. When she smiled she
showed her teeth, which are white and sharp. In all, a _graziosa
persona_ and _animata_ [animated]. She wore a dress of green
velvet stamped with gold, with large sleeves. Her headdress was a
white coif with many jewels. She walked under a canopy, her mother
carrying her long train, and her husband Guilfo [Guildford] walking
by her, dressed all in white and gold, a very tall strong boy with
light hair, who paid her much attention. The new Queen was mounted
on very high _chopines_ [clogs] to make her look much taller, which
were concealed by her robes, as she is very small and short. Many
ladies followed, with noblemen, but this lady is very _heretica_
and has never heard Mass, and some great people did not come into
the procession for that reason.”
Queen Jane was received by Sir John Brydges, Lieutenant of the Tower,
and his brother, Mr. Thomas Brydges, Deputy-Lieutenant, and walked
in procession from the landing-place to the Great Hall, a crowd of
spectators lining the way, all kneeling as the new Queen passed. The
Lady Frances, Duchess of Suffolk, to the surprise of every one, carried
her daughter’s train. Pollino informs us that universal indignation was
expressed by the onlookers when they beheld the Duchess-mother, who was
rightful heiress, playing the part of train-bearer to her daughter,
and describes as theatrical in the extreme the obsequious manner in
which the Duke of Suffolk and his consort treated their own child,
kneeling to her and walking backwards before her, “the which was a most
despicable and humiliating sight.”
* * * * *
NOTE.--The following is the full text of the celebrated “Devise,” drawn
up by Northumberland and approved by Edward VI.
_Deuise for the succession._
1. For lakke of issu (masle _inserted above the line, but
afterwards erased_) of my body (to the issu (masle _above
the line_) cumming of thissu femal, as i haue after declared
(_inserted, but erased_). To the L. Fraūceses heires masles (For
lakke of _erased_) (if she have any _inserted_) such issu (befor
my death _inserted_) to the L’Janes (and her _inserted_) heires
masles, To the L. Katerins heires masles, To the L Maries heires
masles, To the heires masles of the daughters wich she shal haue
hereafter. Then to the L Margets heires masles. For lakke of such
issu, To th’eires masles of the L Janes daughters. To th’eires
masles of the L Katerins daughters, and so forth til yow come to
the L Margets (daughters _inserted_) heires masles.
2. If after my death theire masle be entred into 18 yere old, then
he to have the hole rule and gouernaūce therof.
3. But if he be under 18, then his mother to be gouuernres til he
entre 18 yere old, But to doe nothing w^tout th’auise (and agremēt
_inserted_) of 6 parcel of a counsel to be pointed by my last will
to the nombre of 20.
4. If the mother die befor th’eire entre into 18 the realme to be
gouuerned by the coūsel Prouided that after he be 14 yere al great
matters of importaunce be opened to him.
5. If i died w^tout issu, and there were none heire masle, then the
L Fraunces to be (regēt _altered to_) gouuernres. For lakke of her,
the her eldest daughters, and for lakke of them the L Marget to be
gouuernres after as is aforsaid, til sume heire masle be borne, and
then the mother of that child to be gouuernres.
6. And if during the rule of the gouuernres ther die 4 of us doo
assent to take, use, and repute hym for a breaker of the common
concord, peax, and unite of this realme, and to doo our uttermost
to see hym or them so varying or swarving punisshed with most
sharpe punisshmentes according to their desertes.
T. CANT T. ELY, CANC WINCHESTER NORTHUBRLAND
J. REDFORD H. SUFFOLK
W. NORTHT
F. SHREWESBURY F. HUNTYNGDON
(PEMBROKE.
E. CLYNTON T. DARCY G. COBHAM
R. RYCHE T. CHEYNE
JOH’N GATE WILL’M PETRE
(JOAN.’ CHEEK
W. CECILL EDWARD MOUNTAGU.
JOHN BAKERE
EDWARD GRYFFYN JOHN LUCAS
JOHN GOSNOLD
CHAPTER XVII
THE NINE DAYS’ REIGN
As soon as Jane Grey and her escort had entered the royal apartments
of the Tower, the heralds trumpeted, and a few minutes later (it was
close on six o’clock), four of them read the new Queen’s proclamation,
one of the most tedious State documents in existence, and the first in
which a woman claims the title of “Supreme Head of the Church.”[221]
The ceremony of solemn proclamation within the precincts of the Tower
once over, other heralds proceeded for the same purpose to Cheapside
and the Fleet. In Cheapside, a potboy who was heard to disapprove of
the wordy document, and of the expression “bastard” applied to the Lady
Mary, was arrested, and treated after a fashion quaintly described
by Machyn,[222] who says, “there was a young man taken that time for
speaking of certain words of Queen Mary, that she had the right title.
The xj day of July, at viij of the clock in the morning, the young man
for speaking was set on the pillory, and both his ears cut off; for
there was a herald, and a trumpeter blowing; and incontinent he was
taken down, and carried to the Counter; and the same day was the young
man’s master dwelling at Saint John’s head, his name was Sandor Onyone,
and another, master Owen, a gun-maker at London Bridge was drowned,
dwelling at Ludgate.”[223]
It is curious that the original of this unique proclamation should have
passed into the hands of Cecil, who endorsed it with the significant
words--“_Jana non Regina_.”
From every point of view, Queen Jane’s proclamation was ill-advised.
It was prodigiously long-winded, even for that period, and the manner
in which it dealt with the claims of Mary and Elizabeth, brutal in
frankness, was well calculated to offend the Catholic Powers, and
cruelly wound the personal feelings of the late King’s sisters. Queen
Mary’s resentment is proved by the stern simplicity of the language
of the death-warrant of Northumberland, Lady Jane, and Guildford,
which allows none of them the vestige of a title. Elizabeth, in later
life, never alluded to her cousin Jane without bitterness. Jane
was, of course, perfectly innocent of the offensive wording of this
document,[224] but it nevertheless bore her signature. The sentence
which infuriated the Princesses ran as follows: “And, forasmuch as the
said limitation of the Imperial Crowne of this Realme, being limited
as is aforesaid to the said Lady Mary and the said Lady Elizabeth,
being illegitimate the marriage between the said King Henry VIII our
progenitor and great uncle, and the Lady Katherine, mother to the said
Lady Mary, and also the marriage between the said late King Henry
VIII and the Lady Anne, mother to the said Lady Elizabeth, being very
clearly undone by sentence of divine, according to the word of God,
and the ecclesiastical laws. The Ladies Mary and Elizabeth are to all
intents and purposes divested to claim or challenge the said Imperial
Crown or any other honours, etc., appertaining thereunto, etc.”
This proclamation, as well as most of the other official documents
of Jane’s reign, which are generally attributed to Northumberland,
was, we may take it for granted, edited by the celebrated Sir John
Cheke, who entered the Tower at the same time as Lady Jane and was
her Secretary throughout the whole of her nine days’ reign. We have
already mentioned in more than one place this distinguished Greek
scholar, who had been for a time tutor to Edward VI, over whom he had a
great influence, and by whom he was knighted at the same time that the
Marquis of Dorset was elevated to the Dukedom of Suffolk in 1551. At
the period of Jane’s misfortunes he was between thirty-nine and forty
years of age, greatly in favour with his royal pupil, and holding the
office of Clerk to the Council; so that when there was a talk of Cecil
resigning his secretaryship, Cheke was, on 2nd June 1553, appointed
a principal Secretary of State, Cecil however continuing in office;
and on 11th June, Cheke sat in the Council for the first time as
Secretary. It is probable that Northumberland suggested his nomination
to the King, for the express purpose of interesting a diplomat of such
ability in the forthcoming conspiracy to place Jane on the throne. He
was far too high-minded a man to be influenced by pecuniary motives,
but undoubtedly his zeal for the Reformation was such that he desired
the advent of Jane, which meant a continuance of the Reformation,
rather than the coming of Mary, which he fully realised would be
disastrous to it. Cheke’s appointment to the office of Secretary of
State gave great joy to the Reformers, and Ascham, then in Brussels
with our Ambassador, Morysone, wrote him a laudatory letter, in which
he congratulates England, the State, Cambridge, and St. John’s College
on having produced so learned and worthy a man! Great must have been
Cheke’s delight when he beheld Queen Jane, the hope of Protestantism,
actually enthroned in the Tower; and it must have been a consolation
to Lady Jane to have about her so capable and at the same time so
upright a man--one devoted, not only to her personally, but especially
to the cause she represented. Cheke tried to induce the cunning Cecil
to take an active part in the Government; Strype says, “He checked his
brother Cecil who would not be induced to meddle in this matter, but
endeavoured to be absent.”
Before this, the first day of her reign, came to a close, Jane signed
a letter to William Parr, Marquis of Northampton, Lord Lieutenant of
Surrey, informing him of her entry into the Tower “this day.” After the
usual preamble concerning the death of Edward, the document proceeds:
“we are entered into our rightful possession of this kingdom, as by
the last will of our said dearest cousin our late ancestor ... now
therefore do you understand we do this day make our entry into our
Tower of London as rightful queen of this realm, and have accordingly
set forth our proclamation to all our loving subjects, giving them
thereby to understand ... their duty of allegiance which they now of
right owe unto us ... nothing doubting, right trusty and well beloved
counsellor, but that you will endeavour yourself in all things to the
uttermost of your power, not only to defend our just title, but also
assist us ... to disturb, repel, and resist, the feigned and untrue
claim of the Lady Mary, bastard daughter to our great uncle Henry th’
Eight, of famous memory.”
This missive was later on shown to Mary, and increased her resentment
against Jane, whose signature it bore, and also against Northumberland,
who drew up the original draft, though the copy Jane signed was made
by some clerk, perhaps by Sir John Cheke. Cecil was, therefore, wise
to number the composition of this compromising epistle among the
many dangerous offices out of which he contrived to shuffle; for
it is certainly to this letter to Northampton that he refers in his
“Submission,” by the words, “I eschewed the writing of the Queen’s
Highness, _bastard_, and therefore the Duke (of Northumberland) wrote
the letter himself which was sent abroad in the Realm.” The Duke so
fully appreciated the dangerous nature of the document, that later
on he endorsed the clerk’s copy of it with the words, “_Jana non
Regina_”--just as Cecil did with the proclamation.[225]
All her State duties over, the young Queen supped in state at a
small table on a dais, the Duke of Suffolk on her right, the Duke of
Northumberland on her left, and the two Duchesses opposite to her. She
was indisposed, and retired early, the whole company rising as she left
her seat.
The following morning (11th July) there was a violent scene[226]
between Jane, her husband, and his mother. So far as can be
ascertained, the marriage had not hitherto gone beyond the stage of
ceremony, and Guildford Dudley and his bride had never lived as man and
wife. The Duchess of Northumberland insisted that this state of affairs
should cease, resolving that “her son should share the new Queen’s bed
and throne, and forthwith assume the title of King Consort.” With this
object, the ambitious parent and her docile son made a sudden incursion
into Jane’s chamber, whilst she was still seated at her toilet. The
Duchess vituperated her daughter-in-law, using coarse and violent
language; the would-be King was noisy and impertinent! But Jane stoutly
refused to grant the latter part of the Duchess’s request. “The Crown,”
she said, “was not a plaything for boys and girls. She could make her
husband a Duke, but only Parliament could make him a King.”[227] On
these words the Duchess burst into a fury, and paced angrily up and
down the floor, swearing her strongest oaths, that her son should be
King, whether Jane would or not. Guildford, who was boyish, began
to cry, and left the room. Jane had to endure another scene of the
most unpleasant description with the Duchess, in the midst of which
Guildford, still sulking, returned. His mother presently caught his
hand and drew him out of the room, saying “she would not leave him with
an ungrateful wife.”
Thereupon Jane sent for the Earls of Arundel and Pembroke, and asked
their advice. They apparently approved of the line she had taken, and
going to young Guildford, informed him he must on no account leave the
Tower, nor agree to the Duchess’s proposal that he should separate from
his wife, and return with her (_i.e._ his mother) to Sion House. It is
quite probable that if he had done so, his life would have been spared.
Lady Jane’s account of this stormy interview is as follows: “The Lord
High Treasurer, Winchester,” says she, “brought me the regalia and the
Crown, the which were neither demanded by _me_ nor by any one in _my
name_[228]; he desired to place it on my head to see how it fitted.
This I declined with many protestations; but he said, ‘I might take it
boldly, for that he would have another made to crown my husband with.’
Which thing I certainly heard with infinite grief, and displeasure of
heart. As soon as I was left alone with my husband I reasoned with him,
and after we had had a great dispute he consented to wait till he was
made King by me and Act of Parliament.” Jane then relates what we have
already said--how she sent for the Earls of Arundel and Pembroke, and
the scene with the Duchess and her threat of carrying Guildford off to
Sion; also how the two Earls were charged to keep Guildford from going
there. “And thus,” concludes the narrative, “I was compelled to act
as a woman who is _obliged_ to live on good terms with her husband;
nevertheless I was not only deluded by the Duke and the Council, but
maltreated by my husband and his mother.”
Disregarding Jane’s prudent advice, her ambitious young husband
nevertheless did his best to get himself recognised King of England.
In the minutes of a dispatch which must have been written during the
nine days’ reign of his wife, and is addressed to the Duchess-Regent
of the Netherlands by Guildford’s directions, he recalls Sir Thomas
Chamberlayne (English Minister in that country) and desires that “in
all _his_ (Guildford’s) affairs” full credit be given to Sir Philip
Hoby.[229] One of the first acts, therefore, of Jane’s Council was to
nominate Sir Philip, then at Brussels, as successor to Chamberlayne;
this nomination is signed “Jane the Quene.” Jane herself, true
to what she said to her mother-in-law and to Guildford, does not
appear to have recognised her husband as King, for no mention of
him appears in such of her official documents as have come down to
us. All the same, Guildford contrived to get his claims accepted by
some Continental notabilities. On learning of the death of Edward
VI, Sir Philip Hoby and Sir Richard Morysone,[230] the English
Commissioners in Flanders,--who had doubtless been primed beforehand
by Northumberland,--wrote from Brussels to the Privy Council (under
date of July 15th) that “The xiii^h of this presente, Don Diego found
me Sir Phillipe Hobby (Hoby), and me Sir Richard Morysone, walkyne
in our hostes gardene.” This Don Diego Mendoza[231] was a member of
the Spanish administration in the Low Countries, an old personal
friend of the Dudley family, and, as already stated, godfather to
young Guildford, who had, of course, been baptized a Catholic. On the
occasion of this meeting with the Englishmen, the Spaniard, after the
usual condolences on the death of Edward VI, passed to praises of that
monarch’s wisdom in providing England with so good a King, meaning not
“Jane the Quene,” the rightful heiress of the Realm, but Guildford
Dudley.[232] The truth may be that Diego said nothing of the kind,
and that the English diplomats simply put these words into his mouth,
to confirm the Council in its allegiance to Jane, and make it look on
Guildford as the King, by creating an impression that his right to the
throne was admitted by leading men on the Continent. Don Diego Mendoza
told the Commissioners (they said) that his condolences on the occasion
of the death of King Edward and his offers of service “to the kyng’s
majestie” (Guildford) had been retarded, by the advice of the Bishop of
Arras, a member of the Ministry at Brussels. “Therefore says he (_i.e._
Don Diego, quoted by the Commissioners) do I (feel) sorry that you lose
so good a King, so much do I rejoice that ye have so noble and toward a
_Prince_ to succeed him, and I promise you, by the word of a gentleman,
I would at all times serve His Highness myself if the Emperor (Charles
V) did call me to serve him (_i.e._ “allow me to do so”).” The English
Envoys inform the Council that they told Don Diego “they had received
the sorrowful news (of the death of Edward VI) but the glad tidings
(of the “accession” of Guildford) were not as yet come unto us by
letters”--which was probably true, so far as official intimations of
them went. Upon this Don Diego replied: “I can tell you this much. The
King’s Majesty (Edward VI), for discharge of his conscience, wrote
a good piece of his testament with his own hand, barring both his
sisters of the Crown, and leaving it to the Lady Jane, near to the
French Queen (that is to say, “related to Mary Tudor, Queen of Louis
XII of France”). Whether the two daughters be bastards or not or why
it is done, we that be strangers have nothing to do. You are bound to
obey and serve His Majesty (Guildford Dudley), and therefore it is
reasonable (that) we take him for (_i.e._ “to be”) your King, whom the
consent of the nobles of your country have declared for (“to be”) your
King, and,” he continued, “for my part of all others, I am bound to be
glad that His Majesty is set in this office. I was his godfather, and
would as willingly spend my blood in his service as any subject that
he hath, as long as I shall see the Emperor willing to embrace (His)
Majesty’s amity.” “Don Francisson (Francesco) de Este, general of all
the footmen Itallyanes (Italian Infantry),” the Commissioners add, “is
gone to his charge in mylland (”Milan“), who, at his departure, made
the like offer, as long his master and ours should be friends, which
he trusted should be ever, praying us at our return to utter it to the
King’s Majesty (Guildford), and will (we) humbly take our leave of your
honours.”
It is obvious that, if Diego de Mendoza ever really used the words
attributed to him in this letter, and did not merely lend his name
to the English Commissioners, he must have been well “coached” by
the Dudleys in what he was to say, though his close connection with
Guildford as his godfather would naturally incline him to credit
anything in his favour. Still, knowing Northumberland and Suffolk’s
deep scheming, one cannot suppose that Mendoza’s enthusiasm for
Guildford’s illegal claim to royal honours and his haste to admit
it was entirely uninspired by outside influences. It is, indeed, a
significant fact that Ascham, a great friend of the Duke of Suffolk,
and very intimate with the inner workings of English politics, who
had been sent abroad as Secretary to Morysone in 1550, was still in
Brussels with that knight in the summer of 1553. It is more than
probable, therefore, that Ascham, being in correspondence with Suffolk,
knew beforehand of the forthcoming elevation of Jane to the throne,
and, on behalf of the Duke, advised Hoby and Morysone as to what they
should say and do when that event took place, and also had an interview
with Don Diego to the same end. We may be certain, however, that
Ascham did not countenance the Catholic side of the question.
This letter from the Commissioners was not written until 15th July,
and by the time it reached England the political scene had changed.
It damaged Guildford’s position seriously by its revelation of the
schemes of the Dudleys and their party, who, not content with placing
Northumberland’s daughter-in-law on the throne, were also seeking to
crown that nobleman’s youngest son. From certain documents in the
Belgian and Viennese Archives it would appear that Diego de Mendoza
went so far as to address the Emperor directly on the subject of
Guildford’s right to the throne, even assuring him that his godson
would become a Catholic.
A strong searchlight has been thrown on this hitherto rather obscure
passage in the history of this period by the learned Editor of this
work, in his interesting volume, _Two Queens and Philip_.[233] The
author, it is true, had suspected that Northumberland must have had
some strong foreign support in his audacious attempt to usurp the
throne, ostensibly for Lady Jane, though in reality for his own son,
Guildford, but Major Martin Hume’s researches in the Spanish Archives
have proved beyond a doubt that Charles V was backing him throughout
in his perilous undertaking, and this against the interests of his own
cousin, Mary Tudor.
The Swiss Reformers, and especially Bocher, doubted the sincerity of
Northumberland’s Protestantism, and it is not at all improbable that he
had promised the Emperor that, should he succeed in placing Guildford
Dudley on the throne and Jane as Queen-Consort, he would veer round to
the Catholic party and re-establish papal supremacy in England.
The Emperor had sent the Sieurs de Courrières and Renard as Ambassadors
to our Court in the last year of Edward VI. Whether they were deceived
by Northumberland or were genuinely of the opinion that the chances of
Mary’s succession were very remote and that Jane’s party was infinitely
the strongest, we know not, but the Emperor, acting on their advice,
backed Northumberland for all he was worth up to the very day that he
was captured at Cambridge and conveyed a prisoner to London. Bearing
these facts in mind, the almost incredible story which we have just
related concerning Guildford’s attempt to secure the throne for himself
becomes intelligible.
On the other hand, Northumberland had apparently done nothing to obtain
favour for poor Jane’s own Envoys, sent to announce her accession to
the Courts of Paris and Vienna, for no sooner had those gentlemen
reached the cities in question than they were refused recognition and
turned back. The elder Dudley, selfishness incarnate, cared little for
the dignity of his daughter-in-law, if only his son might be proclaimed
King.
In the Museum at Hastings there is the impression of a hexagonal seal
which was to have figured on the State documents of “Queen Jane and
King Guildford Dudley.” Under an arched crown, between the initials
“G. D.” (Guildford Dudley)--a striking proof of the extent to which
his claims to the Crown were carried--are two escutcheons, one to
the left bearing the royal arms of England, lions and fleurs-de-lys,
and the other to the right, two animals, probably bears, grappling a
ragged staff, the arms of the Dudleys. Properly speaking, according to
heraldic rule, the royal arms should be on the right and the family
arms on the left. Doubtless the mistake was due to the haste with which
this seal was prepared. Under the escutcheons are the words “Ioanna
Reg,” and on either side the date 1553. The matrix of this seal seems
to have been lost; at least, its present whereabouts are unknown.
On the 11th of July the Council wrote afresh to the Commissioners (Hoby
and Morysone) telling them of the “signification of our sovereign
lord’s death,” and remarking that, “although the Lady Mary hath been
written unto from us (_i.e._ in answer to her letter of the 9th), yet
nevertheless we see her not so weigh the matter that if she might
she would disturb the state of this realm, having thereunto as yet
no manner apparent of help or comfort but only the connivance of a
few lords and base people: all others the nobility and gentlemen
remaining in their duties to our sovereign lady Queen Jane. And yet,
nevertheless, because the conditions of the baser sort of people is
understood to be unruly if they be not governed and kept in order,
therefore for the meeting with all events, the Duke of Northumberland’s
grace, accompanied with the Lord Marquis of Northampton, proceedeth
with a convenient power into the parts of Norfolk, to keep those
countries in stay and obedience, and because the Emperor’s ambassadors
here remaining shall on this matter of the policy not intermeddle, as
it is very likely they will and do dispose themselves, the Lord Cobham
and Sir John Mason repaireth to the same ambassadors, to give them
notice of the Lady Mary’s proceeding against the state of this realm,
and to put them in remembrance of the nature of their office, which
is not to meddle in these causes of policy,[234] neither directly nor
indirectly, and so to charge them to use themselves as they give no
occasion of unkindness to be ministered unto them, whereas we would be
most sorry, for the friendship, which on our part, we mean to conserve
and maintain. And for that grace the ambassadors here shall advertise
the others what is said to them.... The xi^{th} of July, 1553.”
This document was followed, next day, by an official letter to the
Commissioners, signed by Jane, and outlining what they were to say to
the Emperor as to the foreign policy to be pursued hereafter:--
“TRUSTY AND WELL-BELOVED,--We greet you well. It hath pleased
God of his providence, by the calling of our most dear cousin of
famous memory, King Edward the VI^{th}, out of this life, to our
very natural sorrow, that we both by our said cousin’s lawful
determination in his lifetime, with the assent of the nobility and
state of this our realm, and also as his lawful heir and successor
in the whole blood royal, are possessed of this our realm of
England and Ireland.”
Then comes a recommendation of the bearer of the letter, a Mr. Shelley;
the confirmation of Hoby’s appointment--“the whole number of our
ambassadors shall there remain to continue to dwell in the former
commission which ye had from our ancestor the King,” and an order
that Hoby shall make this clear to the Emperor, and assure him that
the friendship between England and the Emperor shall be continued as
hitherto.
Worry, anxiety, and annoyance soon brought on a relapse of the illness
from which Jane had lately suffered. Her pains at last grew so acute
that she again fancied the Duchess of Northumberland had poisoned her.
Possibly this illness accounts for our hearing so little of her doings
during the second, third, and fourth days of her short reign (11th,
12th, 13th of July). “Twice,” she writes, “was I poisoned, once in
the house of my mother-in-law,[235] and afterwards in the Tower; the
venom was so potent that all the skin came off my back.” This idea was
evidently only the result of the fever, which caused the skin to peel.
Trouble had so reduced the poor girl, no doubt, that she fell an easy
prey to the fevers so prevalent in and about the Tower, as long as the
moat remained uncovered.
On the 11th the Council received a letter from Mary, dated from
Kenninghall 9th July, stating she had heard of her brother the King’s
death, and was surprised that she had not known it sooner, and adding
her intention to cause her right and title to be published, and
proclaimed accordingly. The letter declared the Princess aware of the
Council’s desire to undo her claims, but added that she was willing
to grant pardon, and closed with an order to the Council to have her
proclaimed in the City of London and other places. The Council’s reply
was a masterpiece of “bluff.” It ran as follows:--
“MADAM,--We have received your letters (of) the 9th of this
instant, declaring your supposed title ... to the Imperial Crown
of this Realm, and all the dominions thereunto belonging. For
answer whereof, this is to advertise you, that for as much as our
Sovereign Lady, Queen Jane is after the death of our Sovereign
Lord Edward the 6th, ... invested and possessed with the just and
right title in the Imperial Crown of this Realm, not only by
good order of ancient laws of this Realm, but also by our late
Sovereign Lord’s letters-patent, signed with his own hand, and
sealed with the Great Seal of England, in presence of the most part
of the nobles, councillors, judges, with divers other grave and
sage personages, assenting and subscribing to the same. We must,
therefore, of most bound duty and allegiance assent unto her said
Grace, and to none other, except we should, which faithful subjects
cannot, fall into grievous and unspeakable enormities. Wherefore
we can no less do, but for the quiet both of the Realm and you
also, to advertise you, that forasmuch as the divorce made between
the King of famous memory, Henry VIII and the Lady Katherine,
your mother, was necessary to be had, both by the everlasting
laws of God, and also by the ecclesiastical laws, and by the
most part of the noble and learned universities of Christendom,
and confirmed also by the sundry acts of Parliament, remaining
yet in their force, and thereby you justly made illegitimate and
unheritable to the Crown Imperial of this Realm ... you will,
upon just consideration hereof, and of divers other causes lawful
to be alleged for the same, and for the just inheritance of the
right line and godly order, taken by the late King our Sovereign
Lord King Edward the VI, and agreed upon by the nobles and great
personages aforesaid, surcease by any pretence, to vex and molest
any of our Sovereign Lady Queen Jane her subjects, from their true
faith and allegiance unto Her Grace; assuring you, that if you will
... show yourself quiet and obedient, as you ought, you shall find
us all and several ready to do you any service that we with duty
may.... And thus we bid you most heartily well to fare.
“Your ladyship’s friends, showing yourself an obedient subject.”
This document was signed by the following members of the Council:
“Thomas Canterbury, the Marquis of Winchester, John Bedford, Will.
Northampton, Thomas Ely, Chancellor; Northumberland, Henry Suffolk,
Henry Arundel, Shrewsbury, Pembroke, Cobham, R. Rich, Huntingdon,
Darcy, Cheney, R. Cotton, John Gates, W. Peter, W. Cecill, John Cheeke,
John Mason, Edward North, R. Bowes.” Of all the signatories of this
letter, not more than four, if so many, remained true to Jane to the
last!
[Illustration: LADY JANE GREY, BY WYNGARDE
THE EARLIEST ENGRAVED PORTRAIT OF HER, FROM A PICTURE SAID TO BE BY
HOLBEIN, NOW LOST]
On 12th July, the second day after Jane’s entry into the Tower,
the Marquis of Winchester brought her unwilling Majesty a curious
collection of miscellaneous articles of jewellery, the contents of
sundry boxes and caskets, deposited at the Jewel House in the Tower,
and which had belonged to Henry’s six queens. Jane, despite her poor
health, was constrained to examine these things. The caskets contained,
amongst other articles, “A fish of gold, being a toothpick. One
dewberry of gold. A like pendant, having one great and three little
pearls. A newt of white silver” (that is to say, a silver ornament
wrought in the form of a lizard or eft). “A tablet of gold with a white
sapphire and a blue one, a balas ruby, and a pendant pearl. A tablet of
gold hung by a chain with St. John’s head, and flat pearls. A tablet
with our Lady of Pity, engraved on a blue stone. A pair of beads of
white porcelain, with eight gauds of gold, and a tassel of Venice
gold. Beads of gold with crymesy (crimson) work. Buttons of gold with
crimson work. Six purse hangers of siver and gilt” (these were to hang
purses or trinkets to the girdle, like the modern chatelaine). “Five
small agates with stars graven on them. Pearls in rounnels of gold
between pivots of pearls. Pipes of gold. A pair of bracelets of flaggon
chain (pattern), connecting jacinths of orange coloured amethysts.
Many buttons of gold worked with crimson, and in each button set six
pearls. Thirty turquoises of little worth. Thirteen table diamonds set
in collets of gold. An abiliment set with twelve table diamonds” (these
were the borderings of the caps like those of Anne Boleyn, or even of
the round hood which was the fashion that succeeded them). “Forty-three
damasked gold buttons, and a clock or watch set in damasked gold,
tablet fashion,” close the list,[236] but Winchester affirms that he
delivered to Jane, on 12th July, not only these, but the regalia[237]
and other jewels, together with a supply of cash, books, and even
clothes.
About this date, too, Lord Guildford Dudley was sent a quantity of
the Crown jewels, possibly as an earnest of his future dignity. They
certainly cost him dear!
A curious inventory exists at Hatfield, of stuffs delivered to “the
Lady Jane Grey, usurper, at the Tower by commandment over and above
sundry things already delivered to her by two several warrants.”
These goods were her own personal property, evidently left by her at
Westminster Palace on the occasion of some visit, of which no record
now exists. The stay in question must have occurred very shortly
before Edward’s death, and the things may have been forgotten in the
confusion attendant upon his last illness. The inventory is endorsed
by Sir Andrew Dudley and Sir Arthur Sturton, deceased, Keeper of the
Palace at Westminster, and was made, according to custom, on the day of
the King’s death, when seals were put on the doors of every apartment
in the royal palaces, not to be lifted till the King’s burial, after
which such articles as belonged to persons in waiting or servants were
delivered, after verification, to their various owners. The list of
goods and chattels belonging to Lady Jane is a very lengthy one, and we
will only make a few quotations, to give a glimpse of the contents of
her wardrobe and her minor possessions:--
“Item, a muffler of purple velvet, embroidered with pearls of
damask gold garnished with small stones of sundry sorts and tied
with white satin.
“Item, a muffler of sable skin with a head of gold with 4 clasps
set with five emeralds, four turquoises, six rubies, two diamonds
and five pearls, the four feet of the sable being of gold set with
turquoises and the head having a tongue made of a ruby.
“Item, a hat of purple velvet embroidered with many pearls.
“Item, a hat of black velvet laced with aglets (tags), enamelled,
with a brooch of gold.
“Item, a cap of black velvet, having a fine brooch with a square
table ruby with divers pictures enamelled in red, black and green.
“Item, eighteen buttons with rubies.
“Item, eighteen gold buttons.
“Item, a helmet of gold with a face, and a helmet upon its head and
an ostrich feather.
“Item, three pairs of garters having buckles and pendants of gold.
“Item, one shirt with collar and ruffles of gold.
“Item, three shirts--one of velvet, the other of black silk
embroidered with gold, the third of gold stitched with silver and
red silk.
“Item, a piece of sable skin.
“Item, two little images of wood, one of Edward VI, and the other
of Henry VIII.
“Item, a dog collar wrought with red work with gold bells.
“Item, a picture of Lady of Suffolk in a gold box.
“Item, a picture of Queen Katherine Parr that is lately deceased.”
This list also contained some articles which must have belonged to
Guildford, for it is not probable that Lady Jane ever possessed “a
sword grille of red silk and gold” or “a Turkey bow and a quiver of
Turkish arrows,” or “a white doublet and hose of silk and velvet.” The
number of clocks contained in this list is very remarkable:--
“One fair striking clock standing upon a mine of silver; the clock
being garnished with silver and gilt, having in the top a crystal,
and also garnished with divers counterfeit stones and pearls, the
garnishment of the same being broken, and lacking in sundry places.
“One alarum of silver enamelled, standing upon four balls.
“One round striking dial, set in crystal, garnished with metal gilt.
“One round hanging dial, with an alarum closed in crystal.
“One pillar, with a man having a device of astronomy in his hand,
and a sphere in the top, all being of metal gilt.
“One alarum of copper garnished with silver, enamelled with divers
colours having in the top a box of silver, standing upon a green
molehill a flower of silver, the same altar standing upon three
pomegranates of silver.
“One little striking clock, within a case of letten, book fashion,
engraven with a rose crowned, and _Dieu et Mon Droit_.”
The articles enumerated were brought to Lady Jane at the Tower,
during her imprisonment, after her brief reign was over, and having
ascertained their agreement with the Inventory, she signed that
document, which was returned, and came into the possession of Cecil,
and now lies, as we have said, among the State Papers at Hatfield. The
fact that the list contains a reference to articles evidently belonging
to Guildford Dudley points to his having accompanied Lady Jane to
Court, and shared his wife’s apartment. Probably the object of the
visit had been to bring Jane under the King’s immediate notice, and
influence him to name her in his will, as his chosen successor.
It had evidently been decided that the young Queen was not to tarry
long in the gloomy palace prison, for some of the documents drawn up
during the “nine days” have spaces left blank for the insertion of some
other royal residence. Besides, when Jane appointed her brother-in-law,
Lord Ambrose Dudley, to be her palace-keeper at Westminster, in lieu
of his uncle, Sir Andrew Dudley, one of his first wardrobe orders was
for twenty yards of purple velvet, twenty-five of Holland cloth, and
thirty-three of coarser lining to make her robes, “against her removal
from the Tower.”
On the night of 12th July, according to Machyn, “was carried to the
Tower iij carts full of all manner of ordnance, as great guns and
small, bows, bills, spears, mores-pikes, arnes [harness or armour],
arrows, gunpowder, and wetelle [victuals], money, tents, and all
manner of ordnance, gun-stones a great number, and a great number of
men of arms; and it had been for a great army toward Cambridge;”[238]
in other words, all these things were provided for the use of a great
army, to proceed to Cambridge. These warlike preparations were made
none too soon, for on the following morning, 13th July, news reached
the Tower that the rival Queen was at Kenninghall, on the borders of
Suffolk and Norfolk, and that the men of Norfolk, knights and squires
alike, were scurrying in their hundreds along the dusty lanes, to offer
Mary their lives and service. In brief, the guilty inmates of the
Tower, the would-be rulers of the realm, learnt to their consternation
that throughout the length and breadth of the kingdom the people
were against Queen Jane, and for Queen Mary. The Council was hastily
assembled, and it was at once decided that the Lords Robert Dudley
and Warwick were too young and inexperienced “for such difficulties
as these.” The first proposal was, that the Duke of Suffolk should
leave the Tower, and take command of the troops; but Queen Jane,
alarmed for her own safety, insisted she needed her father, and could
not do without him. His age and bad health were also factors in the
final decision that Northumberland would, after all, be the best man
to send.[239] The Duke left Her Majesty in charge of the Council, and
swore one of his big oaths that when he came back “Mary should no
longer be in England, for he would take care to drive her into France,
or----” He took a passionate leave of his son Guildford, holding him in
a long and tender embrace, pressing his head in his hands, and kissing
him again and again. Did it flash across the father’s mind that he
might never see his darling son again?
Northumberland ordered the troops he was to command, which were to be
raised by the various noblemen adhering to Jane’s party, to meet him
at Newmarket. He gave a sort of farewell dinner to the Council in the
Tower on the 13th, opening the banquet with a threatening speech to
his guests. “If you do not keep your oath, or if you turn traitor to
Jane,” said he, “God shall [will] not acquit you of the sacred and
holy oath of allegiance, made freely by you to this virtuous lady, the
Queen’s Highness, who by your and our enticement is rather of force
placed therein [_i.e._ “in the position of Queen”], than by her own
seeking and request. But if ye mean deceit, though not herewith but
hereafter, God will revenge the same. I can say no more.” This was
perhaps fortunate, for some of the assembled gentlemen certainly did
“mean deceit.” The Duke concluded by asking the Council to “wish him
no worse speed in his journey than they would have themselves.” One
of the members of that august body replied in the following terms: “My
Lord, if ye mistrust any of us in this matter [the forcing Jane to
become Queen], Your Grace is far deceived; for which of us can wipe
his hands clean thereof? And if we should shrink from you, as one
that is culpable [of having forced Jane to assume the crown], which
of us can excuse himself as guiltless? Therefore herein your doubt
is too far cast.” Northumberland was not offended by these ambiguous
remarks, and merely added, “I pray God it be so. Let us go to dinner.”
When this--as we should imagine--rather gloomy banquet was over,
Northumberland sent a messenger to Jane at the Tower, and received
by his hand his commission as “Lieutenant of the Army.” As he passed
through the Council Chamber on his way to Durham House for the night,
he encountered the Earl of Arundel, “who prayed God to be with His
Grace, saying he was sorry it was not his chance to go with him and
bear him company, in whose presence he could find in his heart to spend
his blood even at his feet; and, taking Thomas Lovel, the Duke’s boy,
by the hand, he added, ‘Farewell, gentle Thomas, with all my heart.’
Then the Duke, with the Lord Marquis of Northampton, the Lord Grey, and
divers others, took barge and went to Durham Place and to Whitehall,
where they mustered their men.”[240] Next morning, Friday, 14th July,
the Duke and his followers rode proudly forth,[241] with a train of
guns and a body of six hundred men, led by some of the greatest in
the land; such as Lord Edward Clinton, the Marquis of Northampton,
the Earls of Warwick, Huntingdon, and Westmoreland, the Lords Grey
de Wilton, Ambrose and Robert Dudley, Sir John Gates, and a score of
others, equally influential, the majority already tried in war. As
the glittering troop, armed with the motley collection of weapons
brought to the Tower two days before, passed through the city and along
Shoreditch, Northumberland noticed that, great as the crowd was, it
was sullen, no one greeting the troops and their leaders with anything
like enthusiasm. “The people,” he remarked surlily to Sir John Gates,
“press to see us, but no one bids us God speed.”
On the day her father-in-law left the Tower, only to return as a
condemned prisoner, the Lady Jane--whose occupations from the time
of her stormy interview with her mother-in-law up to this point are
nowhere recorded, except for her inspection of the Crown jewels--signed
a number of letters and documents of considerable importance. She wrote
to the Duke of Norfolk, for instance, demanding his allegiance and
commanding him to come to her Court as Earl Marshal, and confirming
his titles and honours if he proved loyal to her. The original of this
letter is in the possession of Mr. Wilson of Yorkshire. The body of
the document is in Northumberland’s hand, and must have been drafted
some days previously, but the signature is Jane’s. She next signed a
warrant for the appointment of Edward Baynard as Sheriff of Wiltshire
in lieu of our old friend, Sir William Sharington, “lately deceased.”
This curious and little-known document is in the possession of Mrs.
Alfred Morrison, and is exceedingly curious. The body of the text is
in the hand of a Secretary, but the name is in Lady Jane’s handwriting
and the signature is an autograph. Curiously enough, on 6th July Queen
Mary had made the same appointment: later, she issued a proclamation to
the effect that “no document, appointment, payment, or gift of land or
money made by Jane Dudley,[242] usurper,” should be considered valid;
but Baynard’s nomination, however, held good, as we find from the Pipe
Rolls of the County of Wiltshire for 1553. It is strange that Baynard
should have been appointed by both the rival Queens, though this may be
accounted for by the fact that he is said to have been a Wiltshire man
and popular in his neighbourhood.
Bad news reached London that evening, and before Queen Jane retired to
rest she knew her fortunes were in jeopardy and she herself rapidly
ceasing to be Queen, even in name. Presently a messenger informed the
Council that the men of Bucks, under Lord Windsor and Sir Edward
Hastings, were rising for Queen Mary. Still worse news flew Londonwards
on Saturday, the sixth day of Jane’s disastrous reign. Queen Mary had
been proclaimed at Framlingham and Norwich. Northumberland, perceiving
his weakness, had sent to London for fresh troops, and was himself
speeding as fast as horse could gallop towards Cambridge, which he
reached at midnight.
So complete and rapid was the collapse of Jane’s cause that even the
most carefully planned precautions taken in her interest ended by
serving her foes. Her partisans, for instance, fearing Mary might
escape by sea, had ordered six men-of-war to cruise off the east coast,
intercept her flight, and bring her back a prisoner. The weather
suddenly became so stormy that the vessels were driven into Yarmouth
Roads just as a body of men was being levied in that town for Mary’s
support. The sailors of the squadron, who had landed, bribed with money
and strong ale to abandon their ships and join the levy, handed over
their vessels to Sir Henry Jerningham, one of the staunchest supporters
of the Tudor Princess, who, being thus supplied by her enemies with
money, ammunition, and a train of artillery,[243] marched forthwith
against Northumberland, who was soon fain to fall back towards
Cambridge, where he fancied himself safe in Trinity College, with his
friends Drs. Sandys, and Parker, and Dr. Bill. As a matter of fact,
his enemies, declared and secret, were as numerous and formidable in
Cambridge as elsewhere; but during the momentary lull which ensued he
flattered himself with false hopes, and plied the Council with demands
for money and men, many of his followers having deserted him at Bury to
join the enemy. Yet all the time Cecil[244] was betraying him at every
point. Nothing can exceed the cunning and treachery he displayed--so
deep and cruel that one cannot but feel some pity for Northumberland,
notwithstanding his many crimes and faults. When Cecil was forced to
order his horsemen to take the field against Mary, he contrived to have
them ambushed and attacked, and thus rendered quite useless to the Duke
and harmless to his opponents. The Council informed Northumberland of
the miscarriage of Cecil’s men; but the letter fell into the hands
of Mary, who inquired of Roger Alford, Cecil’s confidential servant
in attendance on her, why her master, whom she evidently knew to be
playing traitor to Jane, had sent troops against her. Alford, so he
says, “being privy to the matter before (hand), laughed, and told her
[Mary] the matter,”--that Cecil had never intended his men should do
any harm to her cause, but had simply sent them as a “blind” to make
Northumberland think the Council was doing all in its power to send
him reinforcements, and thus spur him forward to his ruin. Under such
circumstances, the Duke’s position soon became desperate. “He would sit
moodily in his chair lost in thought, then starting up, would pace the
room, muttering to himself.”
Dr. Sandys and several of his friends in Cambridge asked him to sup
with them on the Saturday night, and spoke in a very friendly manner
about Lady Jane. He shook his head, rose from the table, and seated
himself in a vacant chair; remained there a long time in silence, and
in deep depression; and, when his entertainers bade him good-night,
took their hands in his, and begged them severally to pray for him,
“for he was in great distress.”
Sandys had been appointed to preach before the Duke on the following
morning (Sunday, 16th July). Before retiring to rest, the learned
Doctor, intending to choose a text, took up a Bible, which fell open
at the first chapter of Joshua, the verse that met his eye being,
“All that Thou commandest we will do, and wheresoever Thou sendest,
so will we go.” “Upon which text he preached the next day with such
discretion that he [Northumberland] got not such full advantage of him
as he had hoped.” On the Monday the Duke went with his men to Bury.
Their “feet marched forward, but their minds moved backwards”; in other
words, they were but a half-hearted set, and one by one they deserted
all through the day, hiding behind hedges and in ditches, till when
evening came, the Duke, heart-sore and heavy, rode back to Cambridge
almost alone, “with more sad thoughts than valiant soldiers about hym.”
Realising that all was lost, he bethought him of a dramatic, or rather
theatrical, trick to save himself. He conceived the idea that if he
went to London and fell at the Queen’s feet, she would welcome and
forgive him. Had she not pardoned many rebels? and was he worse than
any of these?
Presently, considerably cheered by his own but erroneous reflections,
he betook himself, accompanied by the Mayor and Dr. Sandys, to the
market cross, where the crowd greeted him in silence, “more believing
the grief in his eyes, when they let down tears, than the joy professed
by his hands, when he threw up his cap,” full of gold coins, into
their midst. This show of tardy loyalty--produced by the arrival of
the news of Mary’s growing power--having failed in its effect, Slegg,
the Sergeant-at-Arms, accused him of treason, and brought him back a
prisoner to King’s College.[245]
On the morning of the 21st of July, according to Machyn, the Earl of
Arundel, as treacherous a man as any in that nest of vipers, who, a
week before, had knelt before Northumberland and sworn to shed his
blood for him and for Queen Jane, came rapping at his door before he
was up. The Duke, huddling on a cloak, went out to him, and seeing him
look so threatening, fell on his knees, praying him to be good to him
and merciful. “For the love of God, my lord,” said he, “consider that I
have done nothing but by consent of the Council.” “My Lord Duke,” quoth
the Earl of Arundel, “I am hither sent by the Queen’s Majesty, and in
her name I arrest you.” Whereupon the Duke, rising, said, “I obey; but
I beseech you, my Lord Arundel, have mercy towards me, knowing the case
as it is.” “My good lord,” quoth the Earl, “you should have sought for
mercy sooner. I must do according to the commands that have been given
to me,” and upon this he took the Duke’s sword and committed him in
charge of the guard and other gentlemen that stood by. The miserable
Duke went to breakfast with not much appetite, looking as white as a
ghost and feeling most wretchedly ill. Towards evening, under an escort
of eight hundred men, he left Cambridge with Sir John Gates and Dr.
Sandys--both prisoners--still wearing his red cloak wrapped about him
and suffering agonies from gout in the feet. As night fell, it began
to rain; and down long country roads, under the lowering clouds, went
the weird procession of rough troopers on horseback, footmen with their
pikes, and in their midst the tall, gaunt, grim figure of the Duke, his
soaked and tattered red cloak clinging about his bent shoulders. He is
said to have spent the night in a barn, to be moved on to London the
next day, entering the city early in the morning, 25th July, just as
the shopkeepers were taking down their shutters. His plight must have
been pitiable, for in the streets men, recognising him, jeered at him
as a “Traitor,” threw mud on his red cloak and scowled at him, calling
him Somerset’s murderer, and so scaring him that he was almost thankful
to reach the Tower and its comparative safety. He had gone forth in
proud security, certain of success, sure he was about to punish his
enemies and reward his friends. He came back, cold and miserable,
knowing he had sacrificed his youngest son to his ambition; that the
fate of his other children and of the unhappy Jane hung in the balance;
and that the only friend left him in the world was his faithful wife,
who was at that moment on her knees to Queen Mary, pleading for mercy
and receiving none, her husband’s offence being deemed too great for
pardon. That night surely, in the solitude of his prison in the
Beauchamp Tower,[246] the Duke flung himself on his knees, and prayed
the long-neglected prayers of his childhood, the _Pater Noster_ that
was now said in English, and the _Ave Maria_ that had gone out of
fashion altogether!
Meanwhile, on Sunday the 16th (the seventh day of Queen Jane’s reign)
there was no rest throughout the whole length and breadth of England;
everywhere the people were rising for Queen Mary. In the streets of
the metropolis there was great cheering and rioting, even bloodshed.
Bonfires were lighted in the streets, and crowds of rough men and
loose women whirled round the lurid flames shouting, “Queen Mary!
Queen Mary!” In the churches, the claims of the rival Queens and rival
Creeds occupied the preachers. At Paul’s Cross, Bishop Ridley preached
against Queen Mary[247] and the Scarlet Woman, and in favour of Jane
and the Reformation. At St. Bartholomew’s, a Catholic priest told his
congregation to kneel down and thank God that the victory was with
Queen Mary; while at Amersham, in Buckinghamshire, John Knox thundered
forth in favour of Queen Jane--but all his eloquence, and that of her
other defenders, was in vain: the people would have Queen Mary, and
Queen Mary only. Late this Sunday night a curious incident occurred.
The Tower had been shut up for the night, when suddenly Jane, dreading
perhaps some unexpected rising, ordered the outer gates to be locked
and the keys carried up[248] to her chamber. Then the guards were
informed that one of the Royal Seals was missing; and Jane had the
lately closed gates unbarred, to send a body of Archers of the Guard
after the Marquis of Winchester, who had left the precincts about seven
o’clock for his house in Broad Street. They found him in bed, forced
him to rise and dress himself, and brought him back about midnight
to the Tower, where, it is said, he had to explain matters to Lady
Jane, who connected him with the loss of the Seal. The whole incident
is somewhat mysterious. Did the poor little Queen fancy Winchester
was contemplating some move like that of Somerset when he practically
assumed the Kingship at Hampton Court? Winchester undoubtedly bore
Jane no particular good-will, and the interview, if it occurred, was
probably somewhat stormy.
The eighth day of the reign, Monday the 17th, opened with a violent
scene in the early morning between the Duchesses of Northumberland
and Suffolk, who wrangled over Guildford and his Kingship. Poor Jane
was most miserable: her eyes were red with weeping, and she looked
more dead than alive as she endeavoured to calm her belligerent Grace
of Northumberland and reason with her own headstrong and domineering
parent. By this time everything and everybody in the Tower were at
sixes and sevens. No one seemed to know what to do or say. In the
midst of it all came bad news from the country, where the peasants,
notwithstanding the threats of their lords and masters, were refusing
to take arms against Mary. Trouble was drawing unpleasantly near.[249]
On the previous day (Sunday, 16th) some ten thousand of Mary’s
adherents, many of them county notables, had assembled at Lord Paget’s
house at Drayton, and marched to Westminster Palace, which they sacked
of its arms and ammunition, “for the better furnishing of themselves
in the defence of the Queen’s Majesty’s person and her title.” Paget,
whose house was this army’s headquarters, was at this time, be it
observed, amongst the party in the Tower and ostensibly loyal to Jane!
Meanwhile, the people, at one with that section of the nobles who would
have none of poor Jane, were shouting, in London and all over the land,
“God save Queen Mary!”--whilst poor Jane’s name was never heard except
to be scoffed at. The “nine days’ Queen” was now nothing but “a mock.”
On Tuesday (the 18th) it was patent that the drama--or rather,
tragi-comedy--was drawing to a close. Of all Queen Jane’s Council
only two men, Cranmer and her own father, remained true to her; and
the former left that afternoon for Lambeth and Croydon. Winchester,
Arundel, Pembroke, Paget, and Shrewsbury, to save their necks, had
by this time definitely decided to betray the cause of the girl whom
they had helped to put on the throne--and of these men, two, Arundel
and Pembroke, only nine days before, had knelt before her at Sion
House, protesting their loyalty and belief in her right to the crown!
This day, however, Jane signed an order to Sir John Brydges and Sir
Nicholas Poyntz that those officers should raise forces, “with the
same to repaire with all possible spead towardes Buckinghamshire, for
the repression and subdewing of certain tumultes and rebellions moved
there, against us and our Crowne by certain seditious men.” This order
is now to be seen in the British Museum, Harleian MSS, No. 416, f. 30.
On Wednesday, 19th July, the short reign ended--“Jane the Quene” became
“_Jana non Regina_.” Yet still there was a flicker of Queendom, for
that morning, information being received from the Lord Lieutenant of
Essex, Lord Rich, that the Earl of Oxford, who was then in Essex, had
thrown in his forces with Mary, Sir John Cheke, Queen Jane’s Secretary
of State, wrote a letter, to which the treacherous Lords of the Council
affixed their signatures, requiring Oxford “like a noble man to remain
in that promise and stedfastness to our sovereign Lady Queen Jane,
as ye shall find us ready and firm with all our force to maintain
the same: which neither with honour, nor with safety, nor yet with
duty, we may now forsake.” This morning, too, commenced the betrayal,
when Winchester, the Lord Treasurer, the Lord Privy Seal, Arundel,
Shrewsbury, Pembroke, Sir Thomas Cheney, Sir John Mason, and Sir John
Cheke waited on Suffolk, as the principal leader in Northumberland’s
absence, and desired leave to depart from the Tower so as to confer
with the French Ambassador about the foreign mercenaries[250] who were
to come over and aid Northumberland[251]--at that moment awaiting
arrest at Cambridge! Their zeal evidently touched Suffolk, who granted
them leave to depart. No sooner had they left the grim fortress behind
them than they proceeded straight to Baynard’s Castle,[252] where,
having sent for the Lord Mayor, they were presently joined by that
dignitary, with the Recorder and some of the Aldermen. The proceedings
of this improvised Council opened with an attack on Northumberland’s
ambition and scheming, delivered by Arundel,[253] and then Pembroke
drew his sword, and cried out, “If the arguments of my Lord Arundel do
not persuade you, this sword shall make Mary queen, or I will die in
her quarrel.” This speech was much applauded, and Mary’s proclamation
was signed by all present. The conspirators then had Mary publicly
proclaimed Queen at the Cross in Cheapside by four trumpeters and
two heralds in their gorgeous coats. This took place about five or
six in the evening--the very hour at which Jane’s accession had been
published nine days earlier! The proclamation in the Chepe concluded,
the Councillors proceeded to St. Paul’s for evensong and the singing
of the _Te Deum_, whilst Cecil,[254] Arundel, and Paget were sent to
pay the Council’s homage to Mary. Now that the people had absolutely
nothing to fear from the broken power of Jane, they gave wild vent to
their feelings. The bells of the city churches, swung with a right
good will, sounded a welcome to the coming reign; bonfires blazed in
every street. One of those attacks of spontaneous feverish enthusiasm
which seize nations from time to time, even in these prosaic days, took
hold of London. Tables were dragged into the thoroughfares, that all
might sit down and drink to the health of her Catholic Majesty. Money
was dispensed freely by the rich; and “the number of cappes that weare
throwne up at the proclamacion wear not to be tould.” Most enthusiastic
and excited of all was my Lord Pembroke, who filled and refilled his
cap with small coin to be scrambled for by the mob. He could afford to
be liberal: he knew Mary would reward him well for his share in her
proclamation. London was a very pandemonium that night. “For my tyme,”
says a contemporary news-letter,[255] “I never saw the lyke and by the
reporte of otheres the lyke was never seen.... I saw myself money was
thrown out at windows for joy. The bonefires were without number; and
what with shouting and crying of the people, and ringing of bells,[256]
there could no one man hear what another said; besides banketyng
[banqueting] and skipping the street for joy.”[257]
Archbishop Cranmer is said to have been the last of Jane’s Council,
then resident in the Tower, to leave it, which he did in the course
of 19th July, after a sad leave-taking with Lady Jane. His position
in the Janeite conspiracy has been severely criticised by more than
one historian, and by none more than by Lord Macaulay. He had been
instrumental in aiding Northumberland to overthrow Somerset, probably
because he disliked the latter’s Calvinistic tendencies, and regarded
him as a stumbling-block in the way of his proceedings for the
establishment of a more moderate and orthodox Church of England. After
the death of Somerset, the Archbishop became one of Northumberland’s
chief supporters, and, as Macaulay points out, covered himself with
lasting obloquy by his attempt to seduce an innocent girl into a
treasonable career which was to lead to her ruin. In her eyes he was
something more than a political Councillor--an Apostle of the Lord--and
his advice no doubt told with her above that of any one else. The next
time they met, Cranmer was a prisoner on his way to Guildhall,[258]
whither she too was tramping on foot to hear her doom, approved of by
most of the men who had been her chief Councillors, read out before the
multitude of Queen Mary’s friends and supporters.
There was little joy and much grief within the Tower. Presently a
messenger to Suffolk from Baynard’s Castle came to tell him that the
nobles there assembled required him to deliver up the Tower, and
proceed to the Castle to sign Mary’s proclamation. They also ordered
Lady Jane to resign the title of Queen. Instantly Suffolk abandoned
the unequal struggle; leaving the Lieutenant in charge of the Tower,
he went out, telling his men to leave their weapons behind them. He
himself announced Mary’s accession on Tower Hill, and then, going to
Baynard’s Castle, he signed her proclamation. This done, the wretched
man returned to the Tower to tell his daughter that her Queenship
was a thing of the past. Jane, meanwhile, having promised Edward
Underhill, the famous “Hot Gospeller,” then on duty in the Tower, that
she would act as godmother that day to his infant son, who was to be
christened Guildford, and being herself too ill to attend the baptism,
commissioned Lady Throckmorton to go in her stead. Lady Throckmorton
left the royal apartments and proceeded to St. John’s Chapel (some
say All Hallows’, Barking), leaving Jane surrounded by the insignia
of royalty--the cloth of estate, the throne, and all that marked her
position as Queen. When her ladyship returned, these had all been
removed; for _the_ Queen of England had not yet arrived in London,
and her subject, “Jane, the usurper,” no longer sat on the throne.
During the absence of Lady Throckmorton Suffolk had rushed back to his
daughter. He found her alone in the Council Chamber, seated, forlorn,
under her canopy of State. “Come down from that, my child,” said he;
“that is no place for you.” Then he gently told her all; and gladly
did poor Jane rise and quit her hateful office. For a moment father
and daughter stood weeping, locked in each other’s arms, in the centre
of the deserted hall, through the open windows of which, borne on the
summer air, came the exulting shouts of “Long live Queen Mary!”
Then, after a pause, Jane Grey spoke four simple words, sublime in
their pathos. “Can I go home?” she asked ingenuously. God help her!
what a world of innocence was in that little sentence, “Can I go home?”
Alack! alas! poor little victim of so much ambition and such damnable
intrigue, there is no more earthly home for thee!
CHAPTER XVIII
THE LAST DAYS OF NORTHUMBERLAND
All through the night of Queen Mary’s proclamation, Jane Grey was
abandoned in the great fortress to the care of her personal attendants;
and bitter must have been her distress, as she realised the cruel
plight to which the mad ambitions of others had brought her. Everything
helped to heighten her terror--the changed attitude of the guards,
and other Tower officials, who a few brief hours before had treated
her with obsequious deference, and who now marked their loyalty to
Mary by an ostentatious display of scorn for the fallen majesty of the
“Nine Days’ Queen”; the tears of her women, their whispered talk, the
brooding and ominous silence of the palace, broken only by the distant
shouts of revellers, who acclaimed the triumph of her successful
rival, all combined to increase the nervous and hysterical agitation
into which the poor girl’s recent illness had already thrown her. Her
mother, the Duchess, compelled by circumstances beyond her control,
most probably, had left the Tower, and hurried back to Sheen, after
having obtained Queen Mary’s pardon for her husband. The Duchess of
Northumberland, white with horror, and trembling with anxiety for
her wretched husband and children, had likewise departed with her
attendants up the river to Sion: so that of all Jane’s Court none
remained to help and comfort, except her faithful women and servants.
Suffolk’s movements at this time are not quite clearly recorded. That
he retired to Sheen immediately after Mary’s proclamation, appears
certain; and also that, on the 27th July, he was arrested and committed
to the Tower, to be released at the intercession of the Duchess his
wife, on his own bail, on the 31st of the same month.[259] Yet a
contemporary letter, dated August 11th, says: “The Duke of Suffolk is
(as his owne men report) in prison, and at this present in suche case
as no man judgeth he can live.” An explanation of these conflicting
statements may be, that the Duke, when officially released, was for
some days too ill to leave the Tower.
There is reason to believe that Lady Jane remained in the State
apartments till late in the evening of the 19th July, when she was
transferred to the rooms above the Deputy-Lieutenant’s, recently
vacated by the Duchess of Somerset. The Deputy-Lieutenant of this
period was Thomas Brydges or Bridges, brother of Sir John Brydges,
Lieutenant of the Tower. This last gentleman attended Jane on the
scaffold, in discharge of his duty; but Thomas Brydges figures a good
deal in the narrative of the last months of Jane’s life. There has
been much dispute as to the exact situation of the rooms in the Tower
in which the innocent prisoner was confined, and the absolute identity
of her keeper. But it is now pretty clearly established that the first
period of her detention was not spent, as so often stated, in the Brick
Tower, but in the modernised house of the Deputy-Lieutenant, which
stands next door to the Lieutenant’s or the King’s House. Later--we do
not know the precise date of her removal--she was lodged in a house,
also on the Green, adjacent to the Lieutenant’s dwelling, and which
then belonged to the Gentleman Gaoler, Mr. Nathaniel Partridge.[260]
Earlier historians have denied the existence of Partridge, and even
Harris Nicholas thought he was Queen Mary’s goldsmith; but his
identity is now conclusively proved, and he is admitted to have been
a well-known figure in and about the Tower at this period. He died in
February 1587, and is buried in St. Peter-ad-Vincula in the same vault
as his illustrious guest. During her incarceration, Jane was allowed
to walk in the Queen’s Garden, and “on the hill within the Tower
precincts.”[261]
Several persons attended on Lady Jane in the Tower, among them
Elizabeth Tylney,[262] “a beautiful young woman of good birth,” Lady
Throckmorton, wife of Sir Nicholas Throckmorton, and “Mrs. Ellen.” Some
light has been thrown upon the identity of the last-named lady by Lady
Philippa de Clifford, Lady Jane’s cousin, whose curious account of her
unhappy kinswoman’s last hours was published in Brussels in 1660; from
this we learn that “Mrs. Ellen, an elderly woman,” was Lady Jane’s
nurse. There were also two waiting-maids, and a lad, in the suite of
the Princess, as we glean from _The Chronicles of Queen Jane and Queen
Mary_. Thus she was no “solitary prisoner,” but served by gentlewomen,
and in comparative comfort. We must, therefore, dismiss the old idea
that Lady Jane Grey was ever relegated to a “dungeon deep,” to pine in
darkness and in loneliness. That she was not fed on bread and water
is proved by the Privy Council records, from which we learn that
ninety-five shillings a week was allowed for her maintenance whilst
in captivity, and twenty shillings for each of her attendants, six in
number--a very handsome allowance in those days, and equivalent, in
modern coinage, to about fifteen times the amount.
It must be clearly understood that Lady Jane was never even formally
arrested, as were Henry VIII’s Queens. No armed guard took her captive,
after the reading of a solemn warrant. She was simply detained in the
Tower,[263] partly as a hostage for the good behaviour of her father,
and partly to prevent her being once more the tool of those who might
attempt to place her on the throne, and make her the figure-head of a
politico-religious party. Northumberland and his followers had claimed
honours for her which rightly belonged to Mary, and when Mary gained
the upper hand, “Jane the usurper” had, _ipso facto_, to be kept in
retirement.
There is no trace of any independent movement on Guildford’s part,
during the nine days of his wife’s reign, except to assist his mother
in pushing his “claim” to the throne. Either he sulked, because Jane
had refused to make him King Consort on the day following her entry
into the Tower; or else Northumberland advised him to keep out of the
way as much as possible, so as to escape the blame of having taken
an active part in the usurped administration. Be this as it may, we
have no news of his doings, from the first day or two of the nine
days’ reign, until after its termination, when he was parted from his
wife, and sent to the Beauchamp Tower, whither, on the 25th July, his
brothers, Lord Warwick and Lord Ambrose Dudley, followed him, to be
joined the next day by Lord Robert Dudley.
Jane’s peaceful seclusion was of very short duration. On the day
following her deposition (20th July), the Marquis of Winchester,
Lord High Treasurer,[264] came to ask for the return of the Crown
Jewels and other articles delivered to her on the second day of her
Queenship. A parcel or so was missing, it would seem, and Winchester,
when he commanded Jane to restore the Crown Jewels, desired she
should also make good the alleged deficiency. Astonished at this
demand, she declared she knew nothing of the missing articles, but
agreed to give up all the money she had in her possession, and on
25th July she consigned to the Treasury an extraordinary assortment
of coins--angels of the reign of Edward VI, gold coronation medals of
Henry VIII and Edward VI, some shillings and half shillings, as well
as some deteriorated coinage of Edward VI, of no value. The whole of
her available assets did not amount to more than £541, 13s. 2d. The
missing valuables, it would appear, had not been returned two months
later, or else Queen Mary had not been informed of their receipt, for
on 20th September she writes to Winchester requesting him immediately
to order Lady Jane to give up the jewels and “stuffs,” which had been
delivered to her “on July 12th,” and which were still missing. The
inventory of these mislaid “stuffs” includes a most curious assortment
of odds and ends, which one would think it hardly worth Queen Mary’s
while to reclaim. First we have a large leather box, marked with Henry
VIII’s broad arrow, containing “two old shaving cloths, and thirteen
pairs of old leather gloves, some of them worn.” Another “square
coffer” missing, and described as being covered with “Naples fustian,”
contained a collection of old Catholic prayer books, rosaries, and
other odds and ends, which had probably remained among the Tower
stores since Katherine of Aragon had last kept court there, and which
were, needless to say, of no use to Lady Jane Grey! The first article
in this collection is the half of a broken ring of gold, perchance
some forgotten love-token. Then comes “a book of prayers, covered
with purple velvet, and garnished with gold. A _primer_ [or Catholic
prayer book] in English. Three old halfpence in silver, seven little
halfpence and farthings. Item, sixteenpence, two farthings and two
halfpence. A purse of leather with eighteen strange coins of silver. A
ring of gold with a death’s head. Three French crowns, one broken in
two. Item, a girdle of gold thread. A pair of twitchers [tweezers] of
silver. A pair of knives in a case of black silk. Two books covered
with leather. Item, a little square box of gold and silver with a pair
of shears [scissors] and divers shreds of satin. A piece of white paper
containing a pattern of gold damask.” The third coffer was “Queen’s
jewels,” and contained chains of gold studded with rosettes of pearl
and other valuables. The fate of this curious collection of gewgaws
is unknown. About the same time, Winchester made an exploration of
the contents of Guildford’s pockets, which resulted in the discovery
that he possessed exactly £32, 8s., in the debased coinage of Edward’s
reign. Miss Strickland, in mentioning this incident, says: “Thus
the prisoners were left entirely without the means of bribing their
gaolers.” This is not the case, for Lady Jane appears to have made a
will (which may still be in existence, though for the time being it has
disappeared) in which she left certain jewels, clocks, and valuables
to her sisters, her women, and her servants, and, strange to relate, a
gold cup or chalice to Queen Mary. Wherefore we may conclude she was
allowed to retain the articles brought her from Westminster Palace,
some of which served, no doubt, to decorate her apartment in the Tower.
We possess no record, unfortunately, of the sort of food provided
for the prisoner and her husband; we can only guess at its nature by
consulting the bills of fare, still extant, provided for the Duchess
of Somerset during her imprisonment in the Tower: from the fact of the
prices of the various dishes being appended, we may conclude that the
wealthier political prisoners were allowed to pay for their meals. Her
Grace’s bill for “dynner” was as follows:--
“Mutton stewed with potage viijd.
Beef boiled viijd.
Veale, rost xd.”
“Suppr” consisted of:--
“Slyced beef vjd.
Mutton rost viijd.
Bred xd.
Bere viijd.
Wyne viijd.”
“Wood, coills (coals) and candull by the weke,” cost “xxd.”
In the meantime, the Council had retired to Westminster, whence, as
is generally believed, it sent Northumberland orders to disband his
army and await Mary’s pleasure before returning to London; the herald
who bore this order being commissioned to proclaim, in certain places
_en route_, that if the Duke refused to submit he should be arrested
as a traitor. Before this, as we have said (on the 19th instant),
the Earl of Arundel and Lord Paget had been dispatched to offer the
Council’s homage to Mary, bearing with them the following letter--a
good specimen of the barefaced hypocrisy practised on Lady Jane. “Our
bounden duties most humbly remembered to your most excellent majesty,
it may like the same to understand, that we your most humble, faithful,
and obedient subjects, having always (God we take to witness) remained
your Highness’s true and humble subjects in our hearts, ever since the
death of our late sovereign Lord and Master, your Highness’s brother,
whom God pardon; and seeing hitherto no possibility to utter our
determination herein, without great destructions and bloodshed, both of
ourselves and others till this time, have this day proclaimed in your
city of London, your majesty to be our true natural sovereign, liege
Lady and Queen, most humbly beseeching your Majesty to pardon and remit
our former infirmities, and most graciously to accept our meaning which
have been ever to serve your Highness truly, and it shall remain with
all our powers and forces to the effusion of our blood. These bearers,
our very good lords, the Earl of Arundel and Lord Paget, can and be
ready now particularly to declare, to whom it may please your excellent
Majesty, to give firm credence; and thus we do and shall daily pray to
Almighty God for the preservation of your most royal person long to
reign ... from your Majesty’s city of London this ... (19th) day of
July, the first year of your most prosperous reign.” This letter needs
no comment; Paget’s treachery towards his late patron is particularly
diabolical. He seems to have behaved throughout with Mephistophelian
cunning and falseness. There is something absolutely Satanic in the
hypocritical manner in which this letter asserts that the Council
had hitherto had no opportunity to express its “determination” in
the matter of Mary’s right to the Crown--this in the hope of leading
Mary to think it had been acting under compulsion! If Jane’s friends
_had_ succeeded in establishing her on the throne, and Mary had been
killed or driven out of the country, these Councillors, the latter’s
“most humble, faithful, and obedient subjects,” would, no doubt, have
rallied about her rival--provided always it paid them so to do; Mary
being victorious, they saved their necks and kept their positions by
embracing her cause. Like the Vicar of Bray, no matter who was King,
or what were the social and religious conditions of the country, these
gentlemen were resolved to cling to their offices, and accommodate
their opinions and actions to those of the party in power.
It was about this time that Mary received another abject document of
the same sort--the already quoted “Submission” or _apologia_ of Cecil,
whose conduct throughout had been as tortuous as that of any of Eugene
Sue’s Jesuits.
A previous chapter has touched upon the singular intrigues of the
Commissioners in Brussels, who conveyed Diego Mendoza’s acclamation
of Guildford, as King of England, to the Council. We must now relate
the sequel. On the 20th July, these gentlemen followed up their letter
of the 15th, by another, stating that they had vainly endeavoured to
obtain an interview with the Emperor, who was exasperated by what had
happened in England, and had even refused to receive Mr. Shelley,
the bearer of the Council’s letter of the 12th July. His Imperial
Majesty held that Jane’s assumption of the Crown would lead to trouble
with France; Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, at this time consort of
the Dauphin of France, having a claim to the English throne prior
to that of Lady Jane. He does not seem to have approved--or else he
feigned disapproval--of Mary Tudor’s succession, but desired the
matter should be settled by Parliament in accordance with the will of
the English nation. Within a few days, probably, the Commissioners,
hearing of Jane’s downfall, and realising their own danger, promptly
submitted--like the Council at home--to Mary, and enclosed the letter
brought by Shelley in one of their own dated 29th July to the Council
at Westminster, “for that it hath pleased God to call my Lady Mary her
grace to the State and possession of the realm, according to the King’s
majesty her father’s last will and the laws of the realm.” Not quite
sure, however, as to what has taken place, they ask the Council to let
them have all news to date, and desire to know “her maj^{tys} pleasure
what we should do, wherunto we shall conform ourselves most willingly
according to our most bounden duty.... Sir Philip Hoby, etc., to the
Council.”[265] In spite of their forethought, Hoby and Morysone were
recalled by an order of 5th August, their place at Brussels being taken
by Dr. Wootton, Bishop of Norwich; and the fact that in the said order
they are described as “_Mr._” Hoby and “_Mr._” Morysone suggests that
they were in dire disgrace. Most likely their letter about Guildford
rankled in Mary’s mind! Their attempt to shelter themselves behind
a show of loyalty, at all events, was not as successful as that of
the Council at home, but they richly deserved any punishment their
duplicity received; for, like the rest of the Janeite conspirators,
they supported her cause as long as it seemed likely to profit them,
and abandoned it, as if it were plague-stricken, directly the tables
were turned.
None the less, the Emperor Charles V (who dropped the cause of
Northumberland the moment he perceived that Mary had won the day),
wishing “to show his great love for that Queen his most dear cousin,”
requested the Governess of the Netherlands, Mary, Queen of Hungary, to
entertain the above-named gentlemen, as well as the newly dispatched
Ambassador, Bishop Wootton of Norwich, “to such a banquet as they had
never partaken of before, for such carvings, and sumptuous dishes, and
frequent changing of wines.” The Emperor’s Embassy, which included the
Sieur de Courrières, already mentioned, Simon Renard, and several other
noblemen, was amongst the first of the numerous Envoys sent from all
parts of Europe to congratulate the Queen on her victory, and, as if
to emphasise his affectionate interest in the Royal cousin whose cause
he had so lately abandoned in favour of that of her chief enemy, the
negotiations for the marriage of the Queen of England with the young
widowed Prince, afterwards King Philip of Spain, were pushed forward
with the utmost alacrity.
The mere idea of a union with her very Catholic cousin inflamed the
imagination of the old maid sovereign with so ardent a passion as to
absorb her whole being, and to bring about the sad catastrophe of her
tragic life. She now “could think and speak of Philip, and of Philip
only.” The most affectionate solicitude was displayed on the part of
Queen Mary for the welfare and comfort of her future Consort, so that
even a special clause was included, allowing him to land at the most
convenient port he should choose, for he was “apt to be very sick on
the sea, and most eager to be on land again.”[266]
In some way or other Lady Jane must have been kept informed of the
current events and gossip of the day. Some one probably gave her an
account of Elizabeth’s ride through London on 31st July, from Somerset
House to Wanstead, where she joined her sister. The astute Princess
had at first hesitated as to what course she should pursue, but at
last, seeing Jane’s position was hopeless, she made up her mind to side
with her sister, and pass through the City and Aldgate with a numerous
escort. The royal prisoner must have heard of the gay decorations
of the streets, brilliant with flags, and streamers, and splendid
tapestries, and how wild was the popular enthusiasm for Queen Mary.
The foredoomed prisoners must have received a rude shock on 1st
August, when the monotony of their existence was suddenly broken by
the appearance of the Constable of the Tower, Sir John Gage, and
his officials, who repaired to them severally, and read out to them
the solemn indictments made against them in the Queen’s name. These
indictments--the originals of which will be found in the Baga de
Secretis, pouch xxiii., at the Public Record Office--were dated 1st
August, and had been previously read out and endorsed at Guildhall,
with all due ceremonial, earlier in the day, in the presence of Thomas
White, Lord Mayor of London; Thomas, Duke of Norfolk, Earl Marshal;
the Earls of Derby and Bath; Richard Morgan, Chief Justice of Common
Pleas; and other noblemen and gentlemen, not all of whom were, however,
actually present, but represented by deputies. The first document,
divested of its legal verbosity, declares Lady Jane Grey, Guildford
Dudley her husband, Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, and the Lords
Ambrose and Henry Dudley, guilty of treason, for having seized the
Tower of London,[267] on 11th July; having sought to depose their
rightful sovereign, Queen Mary; and having “acknowledged and proclaimed
Jane Dudley, wife of Guildford Dudley, Esq., of the parish of St.
Martin’s by Charing Cross, Queen of England.” The address is curious,
as it indicates that the town residence of the unfortunate couple was
still Durham House, the Duke of Northumberland’s palace in the Strand.
The second indictment concerns John, Duke of Northumberland, William,
Marquis of Northampton, Francis, Earl of Huntingdon, and others, for
having, “between the 10th and the 17th July, first of Mary, levied men
at Cambridge to march against the Queen.”
Yet a third indictment is of even greater historical interest,
and charges Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, as “a false
traitor to the Queen,” with providing arms for twenty men, under
Barnaby Boylot, Walter Morford, and Robert Durant of Westminster, and
dispatching them to Cambridge, in aid of John, Duke of Northumberland.
This proves that the original indictment against Cranmer did not charge
him with heresy, but merely as a political offender. Undoubtedly, as
Macaulay points out, by making himself the accomplice of Northumberland
in endeavouring to overcome the scruples of so amiable a young woman as
Lady Jane Grey, and seducing her into treason, Cranmer committed an act
of most unjustifiable wickedness.
A little later, in the early twilight of 3rd August, the flickering of
hurrying lights, and the boom of cannon--“the loudest that ever was
heard”--could not fail to apprise the State prisoners in the Tower
that some unusual event was happening, and that the Queen and Princess
Elizabeth had entered its precincts, to prepare for the obsequies of
Edward VI. From her windows Lady Jane noted the flaring torches,
moving hither and thither, in unwonted chambers and courtyards, and
heard the tramp of feet, the heavy tread of the guards, the changing of
sentinels, and the coming and going of the Ambassadors and courtiers
hurrying to pay their homage to the new Sovereign--amongst them,
doubtless, most of those very men who had solemnly sworn allegiance to
herself!
The Protestant funeral service of Edward VI took place on 8th August,
the King’s body having been removed, on the preceding evening, from
Greenwich to Whitehall. A great number of children in surplices were
gathered together to attend his obsequies in the Abbey, and this
gave a touch of poetry to a ceremony described by Noailles as “a
very shabby one, badly attended, without any lights burning, and no
official invitations sent to the Ambassadors.” Archbishop Cranmer, who
had organised the function, read the plain English service, from the
Book of Common Prayer. Round about the coffin were a great number of
standard-bearers with their standards, conspicuous among them being
those of his mother, Queen Jane Seymour, and of his grandmother, Lady
Seymour, as well as one with a white dragon on a red background, and
yet another with a very large white greyhound, the emblem of the house
of Tudor. All the banners were bowed as the little coffin was lowered
into the vault in Henry VII’s Chapel, and the wands were broken and
cast in upon the lid. Cranmer gave a heavy sigh as he watched it pass
into the gloom, knowing full well that with that little corpse passed
away all his hopes and power--that the vengeance of the Queen whose
mother he had outraged was near at hand. He never officiated again
at any State function; his day was over! Lady Jane heard of this
particular service with considerable pleasure, for it was celebrated
in accordance with her own religious views; but the details of another
ceremony in suffrage of King Edward’s soul, according to the ritual
and doctrine of the Church of Rome, celebrated in the Queen’s presence
in the Royal Chapel of the White Tower, must have pained her not
a little.[268] Mary, in residence in the Tower at this time, had
organised this special Requiem Mass with all permissible pomp and
ceremony, and we may take it for granted that Jane saw from her windows
a good deal of the coming and going of royal personages, officials, and
servants, consequent upon so elaborate a function. Pained indeed must
have been the Reforming Princess to learn that Dr. George Day, the very
Catholic Bishop of Chichester, had been selected to preach before Her
Majesty the panegyric of her very Protestant brother!
We must now turn our attention to the Duke of Northumberland. Soon
after entering the Beauchamp Tower on 25th July, he collapsed, and
had to take to his bed. The fates were not, indeed, propitious to
Northumberland in this respect, for his health broke down when he most
needed all his physical as well as moral strength to help him through
his tremendous task. Even as far back as 1550, John ab Ulmis, in a
letter to Bullinger, mentioned “the Earl of Warwick’s very dangerous
illness.” He would seem to have never quite recovered from this
attack, for in the following August he was very ill, and again, late
in September 1552, he wrote Cecil that he was “fevrish and unable
to sleep.” In January 1553, Warwick told Petre or Cecil that he was
much alarmed about himself, and feared he was “going to be very ill.”
Throughout the year 1553 he was observed to look pale, and to walk with
difficulty, but his indomitable will held him up, and he was able to do
the work of a dozen men, for his energy was as admirable as its object
was detestable. Northumberland is scarcely a commendable character, but
there is none the less a pathos in the fact that his health was giving
way under the terrible strain that crushed him. He does not deserve
much sympathy, but it is impossible not to pity him in his extremity,
abandoned by every one, a doomed prisoner, his last card played and
lost. To his insane ambition he had sacrificed his youngest and
best-loved son, and the young creature the lad had so recently married,
and now an unnatural death faced him in stark horror. What nights he
must have spent, hopeless and helpless, alone in that prison on every
gate of which the great Italian might have written, _Lasciate ogni
speranza voi ch’entrate_. He knew the Queen hated him with the intense
and unforgiving hatred of a Spaniard. Had he not sided against her
mother, and framed the pitiless and insulting documents he had forced
his helpless daughter-in-law to sign, stigmatising Mary and Elizabeth
as “bastards”? Reflecting on these, and a hundred other offences, he
realised his case was hopeless. So bitterly did the Queen loathe him,
as a matter of fact, that she actually requested Comendone, the Papal
Envoy, to put off his departure for a few days, so as to witness the
execution of her chief foe, and give a personal account of it to the
Pope!
The trial for treason of John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, took
place on August 18th in Westminster Hall. The Marquis of Northampton,
and the Earl of Warwick, Dudley’s son, were arraigned at the same
time. Thomas, Duke of Norfolk, sat as High Steward of England; this
was, indeed, one of his last official appearances. He died in the
following year (on 24th August) at Kenninghall. Several of those
men who sat in Jane’s Council, and had only saved their necks by
addressing their hasty submission to Mary, figured at this trial.
Northumberland was very obsequious to his judges, and “protesting
his faith and obedience to the Queen’s Majesty, whom he confessed
grievously to have offended, said that he meant not to speak anything
in defence of himself.” He then demanded of the court, first “whether
a man doing an act by the authority of the Prince and Council, and by
warrant of the Great Seal,[269] and doing nothing without the same,
may be charged with treason for anything which he might do by warrant
thereof?” and secondly, “whether any such persons as were equally
culpable in that crime, and those by whose letters and commandments
he was directed in all his doings, might be his judges, or pass upon
him his death?” The answer returned was that the Great Seal to which
he appealed was not that of the lawful Queen of the realm, but was the
seal of a “usurper,” and as such had no authority; also, that though
some of his judges might be equally guilty with himself, they had no
attainder against them, and therefore were as fit to try him as any
one else, provided the sovereign gave permission. Finding they were
bent on his destruction, the unhappy man pleaded guilty, and besought
the Duke of Norfolk to obtain the Queen’s pardon for him. Following
suit, the Marquis of Northampton and the Earl of Warwick also pleaded
guilty; the former urged, that “after the beginning of these tumults
he had forborne the execution of any public office, and that all the
while he, intent to hunting and other sports, did not partake in the
conspiracy,” whilst Warwick begged the Queen would have his debts paid
out of his confiscated goods. They were both sentenced to death, “to
be had to the place that they came from, and from thence to be drawn
through London unto Tyburn, and there to be hanged, and then to be cut
down, and their bowels to be burnt, and their heads to be set on London
Bridge and other places.”[270] When he heard this horrible sentence of
death, Northumberland asked that, as a nobleman, he might be beheaded,
and “begged that his children might be kindly treated.” He had the
grace also to confess that Jane, so far from desiring regal honours,
was only induced to accept the Crown “by enticement and force”--which
confirms what we have said of her parent’s ill-treatment of her. The
Duke also requested that a “learned divine” might be sent to him; and
that he might have an interview with four members of the Council, “for
the discovery (_i.e._ revelation) of some things which might concern
the State.”[271] What these mysterious “things” may have been, is
now unknown. Lingard says Gardiner and another member of the Council
visited Northumberland in prison, and that the former interceded for
him with the Queen; but there is no documentary evidence as to the
purport of the State secrets the Duke had promised to divulge.
On the following day, 19th August, four of the chief of those who
had ridden out of London with Northumberland against Mary--Sir
Andrew Dudley,[272] Sir John Gates, Sir Harry Gates, and Sir Thomas
Palmer--were sentenced to death in Westminster Hall.
Next day Northumberland made a public renunciation of the Protestant
religion, either in the Church of St. Peter-ad-Vincula, or else in the
chapel in the White Tower; the former place is more generally accepted.
Some forty of the principal citizens of London were present; and the
Marquis of Northampton, Sir Andrew Dudley, Sir Henry Gates, and Sir
Thomas Palmer, were also reconciled to the Latin Church at the same
time. The ex-conspirators knelt during Mass, saying the _Confiteor_
after the celebrant, who was probably Gardiner. When the Mass was
concluded, they one after another asked each other forgiveness,
kneeling as they did so. After this they all went in front of the
altar, where, on bended knees, they confessed to Gardiner, that “they
were the same men in the faith, according as they had confessed to him
before, and that they all would die in the Catholic faith.” Having
received the Eucharist, the Duke turned to the congregation and said,
“Truly, good people, I profess here before you all that I have received
the sacrament, according to the true Catholic faith; and the plague
that is upon this realm, and upon us now, is, that we have erred from
the faith these sixteen years, and this I protest unto you all, from
the bottom of my heart.” Northampton, Andrew Dudley, Gates, and Palmer
made the same statement, and they were all conducted back to their
respective prisons.[273] There can be no doubt, that, if this ceremony
took place in St. Peter’s, Lady Jane must have seen, from the windows
of the Deputy-Lieutenant’s house, the procession of her father-in-law
and his followers on their way to hear Mass, and her grief on learning
that they had abandoned Protestantism was, as we learn from her own
lips, intense.
The evening of the 21st August, Northumberland was informed by the
Lieutenant of the Tower that he was to die next day, whereupon he wrote
the following abject letter to his brother-in-law and captor, the Earl
of Arundel:--
“Hon^{ble} lord, and in this my distress my especial refuge, most
woeful was the news I received this evening by Mr. Lieutenant,
that I must prepare myself against to-morrow to receive my deadly
stroke. Alas, my good lord, is my crime so heinous as no redemption
but my blood can wash away the spots thereof? An old proverb there
is, and that most true, that a living dog is better than a dead
lion. Oh! that it would please her good grace to give me life,
yea, the life of a dog, if I might but live and kiss her feet, and
spend both life and all in her honourable services, as I have the
best part already, under her worthy brother, and most glorious
father. Oh! that her mercy were such, as she would consider how
little profit my dead and dismembered body can bring her; but how
great and glorious an honor it will be in all posterity when the
report shall be that so gracious and mighty a queen, had granted
life to so miserable and penitent an object. Your hon^{ble} usage
and promise to me since these my troubles, have made me bold to
challenge this kindness at your hands. Pardon me if I have done
amiss therein, and spare not, I pray, your bended knees for me
in this distress. The God of Heaven, it may be, will requite it
one day, on you or yours; and, if my life be lengthened by your
mediation, and my good lord chancellor’s (to whom I have also sent
my blurred letters), I will ever owe it to you, to be spent at your
hon^{ble} feet. Oh! my good lord, remember how sweet life is, and
how bitter the contrary. Spare not your speech and pains; for God,
I hope, hath not shut out all hopes of comfort from me in that
gracious, princely and womanly heart; but that, as the doleful news
of death hath wounded to death, both my soule and body, so the
comfortable news of life, shall be a new resurrection to my woeful
heart. But if no remedy can be found, either by imprisonment,
confiscation, banishment, and the like, I can say no more, but, God
grant me patience to endure, and a heart to forgive the whole world.
“Once your fellow, and loving companion, but now worthy of no name
but wretchedness and misery.
J. D.”[274]
It must have cost the haughty Northumberland dear, to write so humble
a supplication; but he was a man of strong domestic affections, and
realised that if he were spared, his children and brothers might also
be saved. But Mary’s hate, thoroughly Spanish in its intensity, was
implacable; and if, as some historians seem to think, the prisoner
hoped to obtain his freedom by returning to the religion of his
ancestors,[275] he made a terrible mistake. The Queen may have rejoiced
that the chances of his eternal salvation were enhanced, according
to her views, by his conversion, but none the less did the outraged
sovereign and woman claim the head of her arch-enemy, and worst
detractor.
Machyn tells us of a strange incident, in connection with the Duke’s
execution, which tends to prove it was to have taken place on the
21st August, and to have been accomplished by the common hangman.
Says the chronicler in question: “The xxj of August was, by viij of
the clock in the morning, on the Tower hill about XM (_i.e._ “about
ten thousand”) men and women for to have seen the execution of the
Duke of Northumberland, for the scaffold was made ready and sand and
straw was brought, and all the men that belong to the Tower,[276] as
Hoxton, Shoreditch, Bow, Ratclyff, Limehouse, Saint Katherines, and
the waiters [attendants] of the Tower, and the guard, and sheriff’s
officers, and every man stand in order with their halbards, and lanes
made (_i.e._ barriers placed so as to admit of the free passages of
the troops and officials) and the hangman was there, and suddenly they
were commanded to depart.”[277] The fact that the hangman was present
seems to denote that the order, changing the sentence from hanging and
disembowelling, to decapitation, had not yet been made. Northumberland
had given way at his trial to an unusual display of emotional terror,
as the barbarous details of the sort of death to which he was condemned
were read out to him, and probably efforts were therefore made, and
not in vain, to spare him so atrocious an ordeal and substitute the
more merciful and dignified death by the axe. Maybe it was this which
occasioned the postponement of the grim ceremony.
According to a MS, now in the Brussels Archives, entitled, _Les
événements en Angleterre_, 1553-4, the Duke of Northumberland was
allowed to take a pathetic leave of his youngest son, “whom he pressed
again and again to his breast, sighing and weeping a deluge of tears,
as he kissed him for the last time.”
The executions of Northumberland, Sir John Gates, and Sir Thomas
Palmer, took place on 22nd August, on Tower Hill. The prisoners were
first delivered over to the Sheriffs of London by the Lieutenant of
the Tower. As soon as the Duke was confronted with Sir John Gates, he
exclaimed, “Sir John, God have mercy on us, for this day shall end
both our lives, and I pray you forgive me whatsoever I have offended,
and I forgive you with all my heart. Although you and your counsel was
a great occasion thereof (_i.e._ “of my troubles”). “Well,” returned
Gates, “I forgive you all, as I would be forgiven, and yet you and
your authority was the original cause of it, altogether, but the Lord
pardon you, and I pray you forgive me.” They then bowed to each other,
and the Duke, who was garbed in “swan-coloured (_i.e._ grey) damask,”
went forward to the scaffold, looking dejected. Bishop Heath, crucifix
in hand, walked with him. On the way, when they were outside the Tower
gates, a woman rushed forward, and waving in his face a handkerchief,
which had been dipped in the blood of Somerset, cried out, “Behold, the
blood which thou did cause to be unjustly shed, does now apparently
begin to revenge itself on thee!” The guards dragged her away, and the
condemned proceeded on their way to Tower Hill. On the scaffold, the
Duke took off his outer cloak, and leaning over the rail, on the east
side, made his farewell speech to the people, of which several versions
exist. He admitted that he had been “an evil liver”; begged the Queen’s
forgiveness, kneeling; alluded to his accomplices, and would not name
them; regretted his religious errors; professed his attachment to
the Catholic Church, asking the Bishop of Worcester, Heath, to bear
witness to his sincerity, to which the prelate answered “Yea”; and
finally, asking all to pray for him, he knelt down, and recited the _De
Profundis_, after which he made the sign of the cross, in the sawdust
of the scaffold, and stooped and kissed it. Then, rising, he bared
his neck, tied the handkerchief over his eyes, and, turning to the
executioner, said he was ready. The fellow, who was lame in one leg,
took good aim--and in a flash, John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, was
no more. Sir John Gates would not have his eyes bandaged, and died a
fearful death, after three blows from the axe. Palmer was beheaded at
one stroke. Both made lengthy speeches, in which they styled themselves
staunch Catholics. It is said that when the horrible scene was over,
children came and dipped cloths in Northumberland’s blood, to be
preserved as a memorial of him, and this despite his unpopularity.[278]
A pathetic incident occurred in connection with the burial of the
Duke’s remains. One of his servants, John Cock, sufficiently attached
to his memory to have a care for the whereabouts of his last resting
place, waited upon Queen Mary and prayed her to command that his
master’s head should be given to him. “In God’s name,” answered Her
Majesty, somewhat irate, “take the whole body as well, and give
your lord proper burial.” Acting on this permission, Cock took
Northumberland’s corpse and laid it to rest in the Church of St.
Peter-ad-Vincula, beside the coffin of the Duke of Somerset!
CHAPTER XIX
THE TRIAL OF QUEEN JANE
The writer of the _Chronicle of Queen Jane and Queen Mary_ relates that
he dined with Queen Jane in “Partridge’s House,” on 27th August, and
incidentally mentions her evident resentment at her father-in-law’s
apostacy. This chronicler appears to have been a resident in the Tower,
and a friend of Partridge. He writes: “I dined at Partridge’s house
with my Lady Jane being there present, she sitting at the board’s
end, Brydges, his wife, Sarah, my lady’s gentlewoman and her man, she
commanding Brydges and me to put on our caps [_sic_]. Amongst our
communications at this dinner, this was to be noted. After she had once
or twice drunk to me and bade me heartily welcome, saith she: ‘The
Queen’s Majesty is a merciful Princess; I beseech God she may long
continue, and send His bountiful grace upon her.’
“After that we fell to discussing matters of religion, and she asked,
‘What he was that preached at Paul’s on Sunday before----’ [a blank],
and so it was told her. ‘I pray you,’ quoth she, ‘have they Mass in
London?’
“‘Yea, forsooth,’ quoth I, ‘in some places.’
“‘It may be so,’ quoth she. ‘It is not so strange as the sudden
conversion of the late Duke, for who would have thought he would have
so done?’
“It was answered her, ‘Perchance he thereby hoped to have had his
pardon.’
“‘Pardon,’ quoth she, ‘Woe worth him. He hath brought me and our stock
in most miserable calamity, and misery by this exceeding ambition. But
for the answering that he hoped for life by turning, though others be
of the same opinion, I utterly am not, for what man is there living, I
pray you, although he had been innocent, that would hope of life in
that case--being in the field against the Queen, in person as general,
and after his taking, so hated and evil spoken of by the Commons, and
at his coming into prison, so wondered at, as the like was never heard
by any man’s time? Who was judge that he should hope for pardon, whose
life was odious to all men? But what will ye more? Like as his life
was wicked and full of dissimulation, so was his end thereafter. I
pray God I, nor no friend of mine, die so. Should I, who am young and
in the flower of my years, forsake my faith for love of life? Nay, God
forbid. Much more he should not, whose fatal course, though he had
lived his just number of years, could not have long continued. But
life was sweet, it appeared, so he might have lived, you will say, he
did not care how. Indeed, the reason is good, for he that would have
lived in chains to have had his life, belike would leave no other means
attempted. But God be merciful to us, for He sayeth, ‘Whoso denieth Him
before man, He will not know him in His Father’s Kingdom.’
“With this and much other talk, the dinner passed away, which ended,
I thanked her Ladyship that she would vouchsafe to accept me in her
company, and she thanked me likewise, and said I was welcome. She
thanked Brydges also for bringing me to dinner. ‘Madam,’ said he, ‘we
are all somewhat bold, not knowing that your Ladyship dined before,
until we found your Ladyship there.’”
A little later, that is, at the end of September and in October, Lady
Jane’s hopes of release may have risen, for Mary had returned from St.
James’s Palace to the Tower, for the Coronation. There is no evidence
that she ever came into personal contact with Lady Jane Grey after the
friendly visit to Newhall in the summer of 1552. If so interesting an
event had taken place, there would surely be some trace of it; some
account, however brief, of the broken words poor Jane’s trembling lips
uttered, when she, the Queen-usurping, and Mary, the Queen-Regnant,
stood face to face. But since there is no contemporary mention of such
a meeting, we must conclude it never occurred, even at this time, when
Jane was awaiting an uncertain fate in one corner of the Tower, while
Mary was receiving the homage of the hypocrite Councillors in its State
chambers.
A wave of unusual heat swept over England during the summer of 1553,
accompanied by storms of extreme violence. Jane must have felt the
sultriness in her prison, and have gladly accepted the refreshing
walks in the Queen’s garden, which not only brought her amid the last
roses of summer,[279] but into contact with the busy life of the
Palace-fortress, so that she must have seen many of the preparations
for the forthcoming Coronation. It may well have occurred to her that,
had fate been less cruel, all this coming and going might have been in
her honour, and she, instead of the triumphant Mary, might have gone
forth to Westminster, the first Protestant Queen of England. And the
Coronation ceremony itself--surely some gossip told her all about that?
How stately was the procession of 30th September, in which nearly all
the erstwhile ardently Protestant Privy Council of King Edward, now
staunch Papists every one, surrounded the most Catholic Mary, garbed
in their official bravery, and proclaiming themselves more orthodox
than her Papistical Majesty herself; Lord Russell with his big beaded
rosary at his waist--that rosary, which on a famous occasion, hearing
Mary might very likely order his share of the Church lands to be handed
back to the monks, he cast, with a fierce oath, upon the fire! They
must have told the Lady Jane how fair and gracious Elizabeth looked in
her golden chariot lined with crimson, her robes of pale blue velvet
threaded with silver; how Anne of Cleves scintillated with jewels, and
how sixty grand dames, in ruby velvet and ermine, with coronets on
their heads, rode in the gorgeous procession to Westminster. They must
have told her, too, how the charity children, who had sung Calvinistic
hymns a week or so ago, now tunefully invoked the blessings of the
Saints upon their Catholic Sovereign; how the French Ambassador,
Noailles, rode near to the famous Renard, the sly fox who represented
the Emperor, and contributed to bring about Jane’s death; how my Lady
of Sussex carried the Queen’s crown and the Lord Mayor her sceptre; how
the people thought the old Duke of Norfolk looked much changed since he
had last appeared in his official robes; how my Lord Edward Hastings
had been made Master of the Horse, and led the Queen’s milk-white
palfrey; how the Protestant Mrs. Bacon had obtained Cecil’s pardon,
and how Mrs. Barnett, Sir Thomas More’s granddaughter, helped to robe
the Queen; how Gog and Magog had condescended to leave Guildhall and
go to the Tower gates, where they saluted the Queen, and how Gog’s
head had nearly wobbled off his gigantic shoulders; how three thousand
yeomen, in the apple green and white of the House of Tudor, and three
hundred Beefeaters from the Tower, in scarlet and black, had added a
brilliant touch to the sumptuous procession; how there were so many
giants in the wayside pageantry, along the route from the City to
Westminster, that people talked about it as a weird contrast, since
the Queen was of such low stature as to be almost a dwarf; how among
these giants was a colossal angel ten feet high, all clothed in gold
foil, sent by the Florentine merchants to grace a triumphal arch in
Fenchurch Street; and how, in conclusion, Noailles, true Frenchman as
he was, had waxed excited over the splendours of the Queen’s jewels,
and annoyed because Elizabeth walked next to her! And the scene in the
Abbey next day, surely Lady Jane heard all about that?--how Gardiner,
fresh from the Tower, crowned the Queen--which was deemed an ugly
omen, for both Canterbury and York were in prison, and no King of this
land had ever yet been crowned by a mere Bishop! They must have told
the young prisoner how brilliantly the banquet went off; how Dymoke,
hereditary champion of England, rode into the Hall, armed _cap-à-pie_,
and championed the Queen’s right; how, no one taking up the challenge,
the Queen drank to him; how the old Duke of Norfolk, in true mediæval
fashion, rode into the Hall, too, and ushered in the first course
of the elaborate meal; how Anne of Cleves, weighed down with heavy
pearls, rubies and emeralds, sat next Elizabeth, who had precedence of
everybody after the Queen; and how Heywood, the dramatist, had returned
from exile to superintend the revels and masques. All that holiday,
poor Jane’s ears must have ached with the boom of cannon,[280] and the
pealing of bells, and the shouts of the guards and servants, as they
sang and banqueted and drank, and lighted a big bonfire on Tower Hill.
Probably the gossips told her too of the scandals, the tales of petty
intrigues, quarrels, and heart-burnings, the little shames and mortal
sicknesses, which the Muse of History has disdained to record, but
which were of greater interest, one fancies, to the fair prisoner, than
the broader effects of the gorgeous pageant which boded so little good
for her.
Jane’s parents and friends, were buoyed up with the hope that soon
after her Coronation, Mary would liberate her young cousin, and her
husband; and the Queen, her detractors to the contrary, did make a
strong effort to save Lady Jane Grey and Guildford. When, either
late in July or in August 1553--very soon after Jane’s fall--Renard,
the Imperial Ambassador, had an audience with the Queen (probably
at Newhall or Wanstead), and opened the question as to what was to
become of the little usurper, the Queen answered, “she never could be
induced to have her executed, because three days before she left Sion
House, she had deemed herself to be the victim of intrigues.” Neither,
said she, was Jane the daughter-in-law of Northumberland, because
she had been validly contracted to another person; and had taken no
part in the Duke’s enterprise, and was “innocent.” The wily Renard,
who had formerly backed Jane’s party, but now wished to destroy her,
answered that very probably the contract of marriage had been invented
as an excuse, and that she must at least be kept a prisoner, as her
liberation would give rise to a great deal of trouble and endanger the
Realm, and the Catholic religion. The Queen’s answer was, that Lady
Jane would not be liberated, without every necessary precaution having
been taken to avoid all difficulties. Upon this speech being reported
to the Emperor, he reiterated his advice--given in a letter of 20th
July--that _all_ who were implicated in Northumberland’s plot should be
put to death.[281]
Noailles, also, spoke to Her Majesty about Lady Jane’s position, and
she repeated that she “intended to spare her.” “After all,” said
she, “the marriage with Guildford is invalid, since she was already
contracted to a youth in the employ of the Bishop of Winchester”--_ung
serviteur de l’Evêque de Wincestre_. Was Hertford ever in Dr.
Gardiner’s employ? Even after she had received the Emperor’s despatch,
crying for vengeance on all the participants in the late usurpation,
Mary wrote, on 29th August, to Dr. Wotton, our Ambassador to France,
“that she would see Jane was kept safe, and that before giving her
liberty, she would see that she was innocuous”; but on 19th September,
the Imperial Ambassadors wrote rather jubilantly that at last the
Queen is determined to execute “the five sons of Dudley and Jane of
Suffolk.” There was still hope, however, for on 5th November, Renard
writes that being at supper with the Venetian Ambassador, he heard it
said that “the four sons of Northumberland, were to be executed, but
that Robert might be pardoned, and that he thought Jane, too, would not
be executed.” This was as it should be, for Robert Dudley was of all
Northumberland’s sons, the least guilty, his share in the conspiracy
being a very light one. We may add that in a letter preserved in the
Corsini Library at Rome, Cardinal Pole says he has lately heard that
Queen Mary was desirous of saving “Lady Jane Suffolk,” as he calls
her. There is not a tittle of evidence that Mary at any time gave it
to be understood, either to Lady Jane or to others, that she would be
pardoned if she embraced the Roman Catholic religion. Religion had
little or nothing to do with the matter; the charge against Jane was,
that she had usurped the throne--treason--and treason to the Queen was
a purely secular offence. The Emperor’s desire for Jane’s death, was
actuated by a fear that if she were set at liberty, she might once more
be used as an instrument against Mary’s legitimate pretensions, since
the late King had named her his successor in his “Devise.” The reason
why the Council shared the Emperor’s opinion, and had urged Mary to
sign Lady Jane’s death-warrant was, that it was anxious to show its
whole-hearted zeal for Mary, and entirely dissociate itself from Jane’s
claims. Let it not be forgotten by those who would blame our severe
judgment of the Council’s behaviour, that the very men who now urged
the Queen to destroy Jane[282] and her husband, and who attended Masses
with the utmost unction, had not only been staunch Protestants a few
months previously, under Edward VI, but Janeites of the hottest during
the first two or three days of Jane’s brief reign. Beset on all sides,
Mary Tudor yielded at last, and, when the sentence had been passed,
reluctantly signed the death-warrant.
Before that, however, a Writ of _Habeas Corpus_ was issued on the
evening of 11th November, commanding John Gage, Constable of the Tower,
“to bring up [_i.e._ to Guildhall, two days later, for their trial] the
bodies of the accused, to wit, Thomas, Archbishop of Canterbury, Jane
Dudley, Guildford Dudley, Ambrose and Henry Dudley.” The document bore
the signatures of Thomas White, Mayor, and Thomas, Duke of Norfolk.
On 13th November 1553, Jane Grey, Guildford Dudley, Thomas Cranmer,
Archbishop of Canterbury, and the Lords Ambrose and Henry Dudley,
were arraigned at Guildhall for the offences cited in the official
indictment already mentioned. The accused left the Tower on foot
early in the day, in the company of Sir Thomas Brydges. Lady Jane was
attended by her women, and together with her companions in misfortune,
was escorted through the thronged streets by four hundred halberdiers.
She was dressed in a black cloth gown, the cape lined and edged with
velvet. Her coif was of black velvet made like a hood, after the French
fashion; a book bound in black velvet--probably it was a Bible or
prayer book, hung by a chain from her girdle. She held another open in
her hand, on the pages of which she constantly kept her eyes fixed.
Her two women, also dressed in black, walked behind her. Cranmer led
the procession, walking between two gentlemen, and immediately behind,
the Gentleman-Chief Warder, who bore the axe; Guildford, in a black
velvet suit slashed with white satin, followed his wife, and with him
were the two Lords Ambrose and Henry Dudley, though separated from
him by officials and guards. Florio, an Italian writer, who witnessed
Jane’s trial, declares her behaviour to have been most dignified. Even
the ordeal of passing on foot through the densely-crowded streets did
not affect her composure. Within Guildhall there was a great array of
lords, prominent among them the old Duke of Norfolk, who after his
long and enforced absence from official life, once more enjoyed the
privilege of sitting on the Bench as High Steward and Earl Marshal.
His aged eyes had mirrored, not only the State trials of two previous
Queens of England, Anne Boleyn and Katherine Howard, but also the
bloody death of the first-named, whilst his ears had heard the fire
crackling round Anne Askew.
On entering Guildhall, the prisoners and their attendants and guards
were conducted by an usher with the usual ceremony, to the upper part
of the fine old hall, where Lady Jane, owing to her royal rank, was
granted the privilege of a chair draped with scarlet cloth, and a
footstool; her women stood beside her. Cranmer was placed, according
to regulation, in a railed-off pew or box by himself, which separated
him by a light barrier from the Lords Guildford, Ambrose and Henry
Dudley. The “innocent usurper,” although naturally awed by the stately
dignity of the scene, may have sought among the many faces present
those of not a few she had known all her brief life, and who had even
caressed her in her childhood, or been obsequious to her in her ominous
Queendom. There sat the aged head of the house of Howard; then came
the Earls of Derby, Bath, and Hastings; Sir Richard Morgan, Chief
Justice of the Common Pleas,[283] who sat with the other Judges and
men of law in their furred robes of office; Nicholas Hare, Master of
the Rolls; a little further on, the Lord Mayor and Sheriffs, in their
crimson satins and velvets, and their costly sables and glistening
chains; then, a crowd of noblemen and gentlemen and officials, filling
up nearly the whole of the space at the top of the hall, the body
of which was reserved for privileged persons, whilst the lower part
nearest the entrance was given over to the mob, with difficulty kept in
order by the halberdiers and other guards. The sacred emblems of the
ancient Faith, which had been cast out under Edward VI, were restored
by this time; and before a small altar, on which stood a crucifix, and
six golden candlesticks, the Lord Mayor’s Chaplain opened proceedings,
whilst all knelt, with the “_Veni, Sancte Spiritus_,” and other
prayers in Latin. The reading of the indictments followed, and after
a pause between each, the prisoners were arraigned to plead guilty
or otherwise; but Cranmer, crying out in a loud voice, “Not Guilty!”
the other prisoners also pleaded “Not Guilty!” As the counts of the
indictment were matters of general knowledge, no witnesses were brought
forward on either side, nor were the prisoners cross-examined, nor was
any defence made. A jury, consisting of citizens of Middlesex, was
empanelled and sworn. After an absence of about twenty minutes they
returned, giving as their verdict that the “sufficient and probable
evidence” was in favour of the Queen’s Grace, and that they therefore
returned a verdict of guilty. On this, Archbishop Cranmer, standing up,
reversed his previous plea, and admitted his offence--an example which
was speedily followed by the other prisoners, who one and all pleaded
“Guilty!” Then sentence was pronounced by Chief Justice Morgan, whose
voice is said to have trembled considerably, especially as he came to
that fearful portion of it, in which Lady Jane was condemned to be
burnt alive, or beheaded, “as the Queen shall please.” The luckless
victim heard her doom with sublime meekness and dignity. Cranmer
and Guildford were condemned to be hanged at Tyburn, but a pardon
was extended to the Lords Ambrose and Henry Dudley. Then, after the
recitation of the _De Profundis_, the Court rose,[284] the prisoners
were ceremoniously re-conducted to the door of the hall, and escorted
back to the Tower, in much the same order as that in which they had
come thence--but the axe was reversed; a sign of condemnation which
deeply moved the populace, especially with pity for young Dudley
and his consort. How weary must have been that tramp back to the
fortress, especially to one so young, and in such frail health, as the
unfortunate Lady Jane! To Guildford Dudley, too, the journey must have
been exceeding painful, for he was in the full vigour of early youth;
and the terrible words of the sentence presented to his imagination
that awful final scene with which, like most men of his time, he was
but too familiar. Cranmer must long since have realised that his days
were numbered; but he was as yet mercifully spared the knowledge of the
gruesome nature of the end in store for him.
There is, however, no indication that Jane and her husband were treated
with any greater severity than hitherto, and Mary, even after the
condemnation, was certainly still unwilling to put her cousin to death.
She might, in fact, have been saved even then from capital punishment,
at all events, if not from imprisonment, if the Wyatt rebellion and
the Duke of Suffolk’s indiscreet behaviour had not given colour to the
opinion entertained by the Emperor and the Council, that Jane’s freedom
and very existence were a menace to Mary’s safety, and compelled the
unwilling sovereign to inflict the utmost penalty of the law.
In December, Guildford and his brother Robert were “allowed the
liberty of the leads” of the Bell Tower: which most likely means
that they were permitted to walk on the terrace-like space on the
ballium wall between the Bell and the Beauchamp Tower. Cranmer and
Ridley--because they had been “evill of their bodies for want of
ayre”--shared the right of walking in the Queen’s Garden with Lady
Jane, and Ridley even dined with the Lieutenant; but it is unlikely
that either he or Cranmer were allowed converse with Jane Grey, whose
spiritual adviser, we know, was Dr. Feckenham--not Abbot of Westminster
at this time, as generally stated, but Dean of St. Paul’s,[285]--whom
the Queen had expressly delegated to attend on her unfortunate cousin,
in the hope of converting her to the Catholic faith.
Towards the end of the year 1553, Lady Jane is said to have written
that coarsely violent epistle to Dr. Harding, once her tutor and her
father’s chaplain, which will be found in Foxe’s _Acts and Monuments_,
vol. iii., p. 27. Harding was a most unblushing turncoat; a Protestant
and leading Reformer under Edward VI, under Mary--when his old
patron’s power was broken--his Popish opinions were as extreme as his
Protestantism had been fierce. According to some historians, this
letter is wrongly attributed to Lady Jane, and certainly its wording,
of a vulgar polemic type, has nothing in common with the Christian
forbearance and piety of her undisputed compositions. It is difficult
to believe Jane Grey can have used such expressions as “thou deformed
imp of the Devil,” “sink of sin,” “white-livered milksop,” and even
worse, hurled at Harding by the writer of this virulent epistle, more
likely to have been the production of Hales, that stalwart hater of
“Rome,” than of the gentlest of princesses.
Christmas must have been a dismal season for the poor prisoners, whose
hopes of pardon were failing, and who realised that the New Year about
to open would be their last on earth. Jane’s thoughts flew back, in
the long dull evenings, to the merry scenes of her Yuletide at Tylsey,
two years previous, and to the cheery games and sports at her father’s
mansion at Sheen, only twelve short months ago! And beautiful Bradgate
with its lovely park, the scenes of her childhood, her happy lessons
with Aylmer, all must have come back to the lonely captive. Before the
New Year was a week old, stirring events were happening in the great
world beyond the Tower walls. The Queen’s early popularity was already
on the wane. Her obstinate determination to marry Philip of Spain
had sore offended her people, who, in the Midland counties, began to
rise openly against the “Spanish match.” The Duke of Suffolk, thanks
to his wife’s intercession, and his own zeal in proclaiming Mary,
had been set free after three days’ imprisonment, and was residing
at Sheen. Bethinking herself that he would make a good leader of her
troops against the rebels, Mary sent for him to take command.[286] The
Queen’s messenger reached Sheen on 25th January 1554, and summoned
the Duke to Court. His answer was, “Marry, I was coming to her Grace.
Ye may see, I am booted and spurred, ready to ride, and I will but
break my fast and go.” He then gave the messenger a present and some
refreshment, and himself departed, accompanied by his brothers, the
Lords John and Leonard Grey,[287]--but instead of going to the Queen
in London, he galloped with some fifty followers into Leicestershire
and Warwickshire, and made an attempt to rouse the population into
open revolt against the Queen’s marriage. That he “proclaimed Jane
in every town he passed through” is not true. He swore he had never
swerved from his loyalty to Mary, and it seems certain that he told
the Mayor of Leicester the Queen was “the mercifullest prince that
ever reigned.” He rebelled against the Spanish marriage and against
that only. The people of the Midlands, however, notwithstanding his
bribes, did not rally to him to any extent--his own men deserted him.
The Earl of Huntingdon took the field against him, and after a defeat
near Coventry, he had to fly for his life. He reached his own estate of
Ashley, and threw himself on the mercy of Underwood, his park-keeper,
who saved him, for a few days, by hiding him in a hollow tree in the
park, where, according to Pollino, he was nearly starved to death. One
of his brothers, who had managed to escape with him, was hidden under a
pile of grass or hay. At last, thanks to Underwood’s treachery and to
the noise made by a dog which persisted in barking at the foot of
the tree where the unhappy Duke was concealed, the two brothers were
delivered up to Warner, Mayor of Coventry, who handed them over to
the Earl of Huntingdon.[288] They were brought to London, and reached
the Tower on 6th February,[289] towards the conclusion of the Wyatt
rebellion. As he passed through London the Duke looked, we are told,
more dead than alive, “pale as a ghost and shivering.”
[Illustration: QUEEN MARY AT THE PERIOD OF HER MARRIAGE
FROM THE PAINTING BY ANTONIO MOR IN THE PRADO MUSEUM]
Some mystery surrounds the motives of Suffolk’s misguided action. He
does not seem to have intended, as has been frequently but wrongly
represented, to reconstruct a party in favour of his daughter, Lady
Jane.[290] Perhaps, after all, he was sincerely incensed at the Spanish
match, fearing it would undo all the work of the Reformation, to which
he was honestly attached. It is presumable, too, that a conspiracy
existed to place Princess Elizabeth on the throne,[291] which, Suffolk
may have hoped, would lead to the release of his daughter and
son-in-law. The result, however, was entirely opposite. The knowledge
of this movement, combined with Wyatt’s rebellion, enabled the Spanish
party to force Mary’s hand and oblige her to put Lady Jane and her
young husband to death.[292] Mary affixed her signature to the “Nine
Days’ Queen’s” death-warrant on the very day which saw Suffolk led a
prisoner into the Tower.
The terror and anxiety with which Jane received the news of her
father’s arrest and imprisonment may be better imagined than described.
Did she ever see him again? There is no trace of such an interview,
but we possess the MS. of a letter she wrote him on the fly-leaf of
a prayer book. She was certainly very much attached to her father,
but it is significant that she never attempted to see her mother,
nor wrote, nor even alluded to her. And whereas the petitions of the
wives of the Dudleys--including, by the way, that of Amy Robsart, wife
of Lord Robert Dudley--to see their husbands in the Tower, are still
extant, and were readily granted--no document exists to prove that the
Duchess of Suffolk ever made any attempt to visit either her daughter
or her son-in-law in their prison. Perhaps she was otherwise and more
agreeably engaged!
There was a great commotion and consternation in the Tower during the
Wyatt rebellion, when London presented a spectacle not unlike that of
Paris during certain of the greatest outbursts of the Reign of Terror.
Lady Jane and the other State prisoners, most of whom had attendants,
who, after due ransacking of their persons, were allowed to pass in
and out of the Tower and its wards, were well acquainted with the
details of that extraordinary attempt on the part of a youth of only
twenty-three summers, not to overthrow the legitimate sovereign indeed,
but to prevent her marriage with Philip of Spain, soon to be called
King of Naples. The Queen’s courage in risking her person in defence of
her rights had won the hearts of the people, opposed though they were
to the Spanish alliance, and the Wyatt crusade was, in every sense, a
useless and a foolish one. Never, however, since the tumultuous days
of Jack Cade had London been so disturbed as during the early months
of the year 1554. On 7th February Wyatt and his men were as near the
Tower as Southwark, where they sacked the shops and destroyed Bishop
Gardiner’s library, so that they stood “knee deep among the tattered
leaves of his precious volumes.” Later in the day, when the rioting had
got as far as Charing Cross, so great and shrill was the noise of the
shouts of men and of the cries of frightened women and children, “that
it was heard to the top of the White Tower; and also the great shot
was well discerned there out of St. James’s field.”[293] “There stood
upon the leads there [_i.e._ of the White Tower],” continues the same
Chronicler, “the Lord Marquess [of Northampton], Sir Nicholas Poyns,
Sir Thomas Pope, Master John Seamer and others. From the battle, when
one came and brought word that the Queen was like to have the victory,
and that the horseman had discomfited the tale of his enemies, the Lord
Marquess for joy gave the messenger ten shillings in gold, and fell in
great rejoicing.”
We may imagine the anxiety of the condemned prisoners in the Tower.
If Wyatt were victorious, they might yet be saved by a change of
administration, that would send Mary flying abroad for her life, and
bring Princess Elizabeth to the throne. Wyatt’s object was to seize the
Tower, but alas! poor man, when he had approached it as near as the
Belle Sauvage Yard, on Ludgate Hill, he collapsed on the bench of a
fishmonger’s shop, was swiftly seized and cast into durance, in that
very fortress whence he hoped to proclaim his victory over “Spanish
tyranny.” The prisoners in the Tower must have heard a hundred tales of
the appalling retaliation practised on the promoters of the rebellion;
of the scores of men hanged in bunches at the street corners[294];
of the bloody heads stuck on London Bridge, and even in front of the
Queen’s palace at St. James’s. They may even have seen Wyatt and
his fellows enter the Tower. Guildford, too, since he had the same
privileges as Northampton, may have heard the cries of the frightened
populace in those days of hot rebellion, from the leads of the White
Tower, where he was allowed to take the air, and whence he could see
beyond the precincts over on to Tower Hill without.
Jane may likewise have learnt with considerable distress that the Earl
of Huntingdon and many other Catholic courtiers--all the Spaniards,
for instance--were permitted to attend Mass in the Tower chapel; and
that this, to her, idolatrous ceremony had replaced the plain Communion
service of Edward VI in most of the churches of London, and indeed,
throughout the length and breadth of the kingdom. She must also have
heard with disgust that half London was going in procession nearly
every day, with banners, copes, “imauges,” and lights, praying for fine
weather.
Unfortunately little is known about the death-warrant of Lady Jane Grey
and her husband. The date of its signature would seem to have been 6th
February--the very day, as we have said, that Suffolk was brought back
a prisoner into the Tower--a confirmation of the statement that it was
his indiscreet action which eventually decided Queen Mary to put Lady
Jane to death. The warrant itself and the text have disappeared. All
we know is that the document unceremoniously described the unfortunate
young couple as “Guildford Dudley and his wife”; and named Friday, 9th
February 1554, as the day of execution. The Queen signed the document
at Temple Bar, whither it was brought by the Lord Mayor and Sheriffs.
How Mary came to be at Temple Bar on this occasion is not clear, but
as Her Majesty is not likely to have performed her dread duty in the
middle of the street, it is probable that the warrant received her
signature in the office of the Duchy of Lancaster, just beyond Temple
Bar. If this is the case, the actual chamber in which the dramatic
event occurred still exists, in the upper storey of the quaint old
house now used as a barber’s shop and recently restored (externally)
to its original condition by the removal of a lath and plaster façade,
dating from the early eighteenth century, which masked the fine Tudor
front that now lends so picturesque a note of mediævalism to modern
Fleet Street. For a long time this chamber was believed to have been
of the reign of James I, but a close examination of the scheme of
decoration revealed the monogram of Prince Arthur, younger brother of
Henry VIII, and from this we may conclude the building to have been
the office of the Duchy of Lancaster, of which this young Prince was
treasurer, and which is known to have stood hereabouts. This is the
origin of the tradition so popular in London a generation ago, that the
house in question was “the palace of Henry VIII and Cardinal Wolsey”;
who may indeed have forgathered there for business purposes, but who
certainly never inhabited the building.
CHAPTER XX
THE SUPREME HOUR!
To Dr. Feckenham Mary assigned the melancholy task of announcing her
hopeless position to Jane Grey. This duty he performed on 8th February,
the day before that originally fixed for the execution, at the same
time exhorting her to prepare for death. The little victim of great
iniquity is said to have learnt her doom with Christian resignation
and princely dignity. She did not fall into a consternation as
when her accession to the throne was announced to her at Sion, but
listened, dry-eyed, to the worthy prelate’s awful words. The call to
another world was more welcome, doubtless, to her weary spirit than
had been that other summons to an earthly throne. Her life, she told
Feckenham, had long been a living death, and the sooner it ended the
better--“I am ready to receive death patiently,” she said, “and in
whatever manner it may please the Queen to appoint. True, my flesh
shudders, as is natural to frail humanity, at what I have to go
through, but I fervently hope the spirit will spring rejoicingly into
the presence of the Eternal God, Who will receive it.” She pleaded
for her husband; “he was innocent,” she said, “and had only obeyed
his father in all things.” Finally, she expressed her desire to see a
minister of her own religion, and prayed that during her last hours
she might not be troubled by the presence of any Roman Catholic priest
or prelate, since “she had no time for that.” Mary, however, was
resolved that no minister of the Reformed religion should visit her
cousin, but she had made a judicious choice in sending Dr. Feckenham, a
liberal-minded man of the gentlest manners,[295] to minister spiritual
consolation to her. Though the numerous pictures representing the
tragic scene of Jane’s death generally depict Feckenham as a dignified
old man with a long white beard, he was in reality a short, stout,
“comfortable-looking” elderly gentleman, with a close-shaven red
face, and twinkling eyes. A devout Catholic, he desired, no doubt, to
convert his illustrious prisoner to his own faith, and even Pollino,
who must have been well acquainted with all that the Catholic party
had to say on the subject, says that Lady Jane and Feckenham held long
conversations on the subject of the Eucharist, one on which Lady Jane
held distinctly Protestant views: but there is no evidence that, as
some historians allege, she ever engaged in a discussion on matters
of faith and doctrines with Feckenham in a hall of the Tower set
apart for that purpose, and in the presence of an assembly of learned
Catholic prelates and theologians. We may be sure that any controversy
between Lady Jane Grey and Dr. Feckenham, either in the last week of
her life or at any other time, took place in the privacy of her own
apartment. Florio, the Protestant Italian historian, who has written
a life of Lady Jane Grey--concocted out of Foxe’s _Book of Martyrs_
and other similar works,--prints at the end of his book a dialogue
between Lady Jane and Feckenham on the subject of Transubstantiation,
and this conversation is also given in Harris Nicholas’s _Literary
Remains of Lady Jane Grey_. This is most likely a report dictated by
some one to whom Jane communicated the substance of what passed between
herself and the Benedictine. Dr. Feckenham has left his own account
of what took place, and admits that in the course of several lengthy
conversations with Jane on matters of dogma, by means of which he had
hoped to convert her to Catholicism, he had been deeply impressed by
her gentleness, her dignity, and her evident sincerity.
Feckenham obtained the respite of three days, generally given in such
cases, and the execution was postponed until Monday, 12th February. On
his informing Jane of what he had done, she is said to have replied,
“Alas, sir! I did not intend what I said to be reported to the Queen,
nor would I have you think me covetous for a moment’s longer life;
for I am only solicitous for a better life in Eternity, and will
gladly suffer death, since it is her Majesty’s pleasure.” Feckenham, it
appears, had misunderstood the phrase, “she had no time for that,” as
meaning that Jane might be disposed to listen to his religious teaching
if allowed more time for its consideration; and had therefore requested
the respite granted by the Council. But she proved no more amenable to
the worthy priest’s arguments on the last day than on the first.
Lord Guildford Dudley, unlike his stoical wife, received his sentence
with a flood of tears. Of all the victims of this terrible tragedy, he
was, in truth, the most inoffensive. The poor lad had done no harm,
except to obey the instructions of his father and mother--especially
in respect to his foolish attempt at Brussels, which was probably
the real cause of his condemnation--and there was nothing, now that
his father was removed, to be gained by putting him to death. Except
by his marriage, he was not connected with the royal family; he was
therefore not in the line of succession, and his liberation would not
have involved the slightest danger to Queen Mary or her throne. His
execution may be described as a useless murder, even a darker stain on
Mary Tudor and her advisers--the Emperor Charles V, his agent Simon
Renard, and the Council--than that of Lady Jane Grey, who certainly
might have been used again, in the near future, as the tool of some
unscrupulous statesman. Mary, as we have said, was herself perfectly
willing, almost to the last, to spare both Guildford and his wife, but
their chance of pardon was ruined by the Duke of Suffolk’s abortive
rebellion. Had he obeyed Mary’s orders, put himself at the head of her
troops, remained loyal, and defeated the rising in the Midlands, as
Huntingdon eventually did, his children’s lives would doubtless have
been spared by the grateful sovereign.
The original order, as we have seen, was that Jane and Guildford should
perish together on Tower Hill. Harris Nicholas seems to think the plan
was abandoned because the Council dreaded the effect of the prisoners’
youth and innocence on the populace. This view has been adopted by
other writers, but the real motive of the change was a matter of
political etiquette. Lady Jane was of the Blood Royal, and therefore
entitled to be executed within the precincts of the Tower, on the Green
where the two Queens of Henry VIII and the old Plantagenet Princess,
Margaret of Salisbury, had been beheaded. Guildford, on the other hand,
on the paternal side of even plebeian origin, could only be decapitated
without the Tower.
On the evening of the day originally fixed for the execution (Friday,
9th February), Jane wrote the following letter to her father, in which
she herself holds him responsible, through his rashness, for her
death:--
“FATHER,--Although it hath pleased God to hasten my death by
you, by whom my life should rather have been lengthened, yet can
I patiently take it, that I yield God more hearty thanks for
shortening my woeful days, than if all the world had been given
into my possession, with life lengthened at my own will. And albeit
I am well assured of your impatient dolours, redoubled many ways,
both in bewailing your own woe, and especially, as I am informed,
my woeful estate; yet, my dear father, if I may without offence
rejoice in my own mishap, herein I may account myself blessed,
that washing my hands with the innocence of my fact, my guiltless
blood may cry before the Lord, ‘Mercy to the innocent.’ And yet,
though I must needs acknowledge that being constrained, and, as you
know well enough, continually assayed; yet, in taking [the Crown]
upon me, I seemed to consent, and therein grievously offended the
Queen and her laws, yet do I assuredly trust, that this my offence
towards God is so much the less, in that being in so royal estate
as I was, my enforced honour never mixed with mine innocent heart.
And thus, good father, I have opened unto you the state in which
I presently stand, my death at hand, although to you it may seem
woeful, yet to me there is nothing that can be more welcome than
from this vale of misery to aspire to that heavenly throne of all
joy and pleasure, with Christ our Saviour: in whose steadfast faith
(if it be lawful for the daughter so to write to the father), the
Lord that hitherto hath strengthened you, so continue to keep you,
that at last we may meet in heaven with the Father, Son, and Holy
Ghost. Amen.--I am, Your obedient Daughter till death,
JANE DUDLEY”
Jane probably spent Sunday (10th February) in prayer and meditation; or
perhaps as an unwilling listener to Feckenham’s exhortations. The next
day Gardiner, preaching before the Queen, then at Whitehall, blamed her
for what he considered her leniency. He “axed a boon of the Queen’s
Highness, that like as she had before extended her mercy particularly
and privately, so through her lenity and gentleness much conspiracy and
open rebellion was grown, according to the proverb _nimia familiaritas
parit contemptum_; which he brought then in, for the purpose that she
would now be merciful to the body of the commonwealth, and conservation
thereof, which could not be, unless the rotten and hurtful members
thereof were cut off and consumed.”[296]
Some communication seems to have reached Jane from her ruined home on
this Sunday, for in consequence of the transports of grief into which
her sister, Lady Katherine, was plunged, she wrote that evening the
following beautiful letter, on the blank pages at the end of her Greek
Testament:--
“I have sent you, good sister Katherine, a book, which, although it
be not outwardly rimmed with gold, yet inwardly it is more worth
than precious stones. It is the book, dear sister, of the laws of
the Lord; it is His Testament and last Will, which He bequeathed
unto us wretches, which shall lead you to the path of eternal joy,
and if you, with a good mind, read it, and with an earnest desire
follow it, shall bring you to an immortal and everlasting life.
It will teach you to live, and learn you to die; it shall win you
more than you should have gained by the possession of your woeful
father’s lands,[297] for as if God had prospered him, ye should
have inherited his lands, so if you apply diligently [to] your
book [_i.e._ the Bible], trying to direct your life after it, you
shall be an inheritor of such riches as neither the covetous shall
withdraw from you, neither the thief shall steal, neither yet the
moth corrupt. Desire, sister, to understand the law of the Lord
your God. Live still to die, that you by death may purchase eternal
life; or after your death enjoy the life purchased [for] you by
Christ’s death; and trust not the tenderness of your age shall
lengthen your life, for as soon, if God will, goeth the young as
the old; and labour alway to learn to die. Deny the world, defy the
devil, and despise the flesh. Delight yourself only in the Lord.
Be patient for your sins, and yet despair not. Be steady in faith,
yet presume not, and desire with St. Paul to be dissolved and to
be with Christ, with whom even in death there is life. Be like
the good servant, and even at midnight be waking; lest when death
cometh and stealeth upon you, like a thief in the night, you be
with the evil servant found sleeping, and lest for lack of oil ye
be found like the first foolish wench,[298] and like him that had
not on the wedding garment, and then be cast out from the marriage.
Resist [sin] in ye [yourself] as I trust ye do, and seeing ye have
the name of a Christian, as near as ye can, follow the steps of
your master Christ, and take up your cross; lay your sins on His
back, and always embrace Him; and as touching my death, rejoice as
I do, and assist [perhaps, ‘consider’] that I shall be delivered of
this corruption, and put on incorruption, for I am assured that I
shall for losing of a mortal life find an immortal felicity. Pray
God grant you [and] send you of His grace to live in His fear, and
to die in the love [here is an illegible passage, perhaps made so
by fast falling tears], neither for love of life, nor fears of
death. For if ye deny His truth to lengthen your life, God will
deny you, and shorten your days; and if ye will cleave to Him, He
will prolong your days, to your comfort and His glory, to the which
glory God bring mine and you hereafter, when it shall please God to
call you.
“Farewell, good sister, put your only trust in God, who only must
uphold you.--Your loving sister,
“JANE DUDLEY”
The precious volume containing this letter is fortunately the property
of the nation, deposited in the MS. department of the British Museum.
In the British Museum[299] there is also a small and beautiful MS.
vellum prayer book, imperfect in one or two pages. Four inches in
length, and nearly two inches thick, bound in red morocco, and richly
ornamented, it contains thirty-five distinctly Protestant prayers.
The catalogue of the Harleian Collection states that it “was perhaps
written by the direction of Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset and
Protector of England, upon his first commitment to the Tower of London;
and that the last five prayers were added after his second commitment,
which ended in his execution.” On the margin of several pages, not more
than three lines occupying the same leaf, are a series of interesting
autographs. The first of these is in the hand of Lord Guildford Dudley,
and runs as follows:--
“Your loving and obedient son wisheth unto your grace long life in
this world, with as much joy and comfort as ever I wish to myself;
and in the world to come, joy everlasting.--Your most humble son
till his death,
“G. DUDLEY”
It has been conjectured from this inscription that Guildford presented
the book to his father-in-law, on the occasion of his wedding with
Lady Jane; unless the inscription was addressed to his father,
Northumberland. It is also supposed that the Duke of Suffolk, having
received it from Guildford, left it behind him after his release from
his three days’ imprisonment in the Tower. Others say that Sir John
Gage, Constable of the Tower, gave it himself to his prisoners, so
that they might write something in it for him to keep in remembrance
of them. It was certainly in Jane’s possession for some time, for she
carried it with her to the scaffold; and it contains in her hand,
a solemn farewell to, and prayer for, her father, in the following
terms:--
“The Lord comfort your grace, and that in his word, wherein all
creatures only are to be comforted. And though it hath pleased God
to take ij of your children, yet think not, I most humbly beseech
your grace, that you have lost them; but trust that we, by leaving
this mortal life, have won an immortal life. And I, for my part,
as I have honoured your grace in this life, will pray for you in
another life.[300]--Your grace’s humble daughter,
“JANE DUDLEY”
Shortly before proceeding to her execution, Jane’s kindly jailor, Sir
Thomas Brydges, begged her to give him something to keep in memory
of her; whereupon she offered him this very prayer book, and at his
request wrote in a third sentence:
“Forasmuch as you have desired so simple a woman to write in so
worthy a book, good master Lieutenant, therefore I shall as a
friend desire you, and as a Christian require you, to call upon
God, to incline your heart to His laws, quicken you in His ways,
and not to take the word of truth utterly out of your mouth.
Live still to die, that by death you may purchase eternal life;
and remember how the end of Methuselah, who as we read in the
Scriptures was the longest liver that was of a manner, died at the
last. For, as the preacher saith, there is a time to be born and
a time to die; and the day of death is better than the day of our
birth.--Yours as the Lord knoweth as a friend,
“JANE DUDLEY”
Finally, at some time or other during her imprisonment, Jane wrote
three further inscriptions on the last page of this book in Latin,
Greek, and English, which run as follows:--
The Latin--“If justice is done with my body, my soul will find mercy
with God.”
The Greek--“Death will give pain to my body for its sins, but the soul
will be justified before God.”
The English--“If my faults deserve punishment, my youth at least and
my imprudence were worthy of excuse. God and posterity will show me
favour.”[301]
It was on this, the last Sunday evening of her unhappy life, that Jane
wrote the well-known prayer, which, although quoted in full by Foxe and
Howard, is not now extant in Lady Jane’s own hand, and may therefore,
like several letters, etc., attributed to her, be apocryphal.[302]
The few details we possess as to the acts of other State prisoners,
implicated in Northumberland’s plot, on the day of their execution,
are lacking in the case of Lady Jane; no record has come to us of how
she slept on her last night of life; of those who were present at her
last mournful meal. However, enough has been reported by contemporary
writers to enable us to reconstruct the events of the later portion of
the day, when the hour of the execution drew near. It is clearly stated
that Lord Guildford Dudley made an attempt to see his wife before his
death, and even informed his guards of his desire to do so. Hearing of
this, Mary sent word, on the very morning of the fatal day, that “if it
would be any consolation to them, they should be allowed to see each
other before their execution.” When this concession was communicated
to Lady Jane she declined it, saying “it would only disturb the holy
tranquillity with which they had prepared themselves for death”; and
unnerve them for the supreme moment. At the same time she sent a
message to Guildford to the effect that such a meeting “would rather
weaken than strengthen him”; that he ought to be sufficiently strong in
himself to need no such consolation; that “if his soul were not firm
and settled, she could not settle it by her eyes, nor confirm it by her
words; that he would do well to remit this interview till they met in
a better world, where friendships were happy and unions indissoluble,
and theirs, she hoped, would be eternal.” But Jane took her stand at
the window of her room to watch her husband pass, a little before ten
o’clock, to his doom on Tower Hill. Sir Thomas Brydges stood by her,
as she waved her hand to Guildford. Burke (_Tudor Portraits_) says,
but without naming his authority, that “like his father and brothers,”
Guildford Dudley, “recanted his supposed Protestantism whilst in the
Tower”; and that “he was attended to the scaffold by two Benedictine
Fathers.” Other and earlier writers do, indeed, declare that Guildford
received Communion according to the rites of the Roman Catholic Church
before his death; but _The Chronicle of Queen Jane and Queen Mary_
makes no mention of this recantation, and clearly says no minister of
any religion attended at Guildford Dudley’s execution.[303] At the
Bulwark Gate of the Tower (its outside entrance), Guildford was met
by Sir Anthony Browne and Sir John Throckmorton, and several other
gentlemen who had assembled to bid him farewell, and with whom he
shook hands “pleasantly.” Here, too, Sir Thomas Offley, the Sheriff
of Middlesex, in accordance with precedent,[304] took charge of the
prisoner. The mob that in those days invariably assembled to witness
such sinister functions, was on Tower Hill in its hundreds, nay
thousands, to see the poor boy beheaded. He looked very handsome, in
his suit of black velvet slashed with dark coloured cloth: his tall
and youthful figure impressed the people most favourably, and a murmur
of sympathy ran through the motley throng. Guildford did not attempt
to make a speech. He knelt down and said his prayers--simple prayers
he had learnt as a child--and, it was said, he shed some tears at the
thought of dying so young. But despite the youth’s natural emotion,
he faced death bravely. He begged the “good people” to pray for him;
took off his doublet himself, unfastened his collar with his own hands,
knelt on the straw, stretched out his graceful limbs, laid his head on
the block; and in an instant, with one stroke of the axe, his spirit
passed into Eternity.[305] His blood-stained corpse, covered with a
sheet, was thrown into a tumbril or handcart filled with straw, and his
head, wrapped in a cloth, was cast at its feet.
And now a horrible incident occurred. Whether by accident or
design,[306] Jane caught a glimpse of her husband’s mutilated remains
as they were carried into the Tower for interment. We have several
versions of this story: some say she saw the body taken out of the
cart[307] and carried into St. Peter’s Chapel, whilst a passage in
Grafton[308] lends colour to the belief (adopted by many historians,
including Turner and Nicolas) that she met the corpse as she was
herself proceeding to the scaffold. What most likely happened is, that
she was waiting to be summoned by the Lieutenant of the Tower and
the Sheriffs, when she heard the rumbling of cart wheels, and before
her attendants could prevent her, rushed to the window, and beheld
the hideous sight, without, however, it seems, expressing any great
emotion. “Oh Guildford, Guildford!” we are told she exclaimed, “the
antepast that you have tasted, and I shall soon taste, is not so bitter
as to make my flesh tremble; for all this is nothing to the feast that
you and I shall partake this day in Paradise.”
The direful procession which was to conduct a young and innocent
Princess of the Blood Royal, of barely seventeen summers, to the
foot of an ignominious scaffold, was formed according to established
precedent. But for some unexplained reason, it was nearly an hour late
in starting from Partridge’s house to the place of execution, opposite
the Church of St. Peter-ad-Vincula, where, since that day, countless
pilgrims from the Old and New Worlds have paused to ponder a moment
over the fate of Lady Jane Grey, and have learnt to hate Mary Tudor
with an almost personal detestation. The delay may have resulted from
the state of nervous prostration into which the unfortunate Princess
had been thrown by the sight of her husband’s mangled remains. It would
have been impossible, even in those hard times, to convey the victim
to execution if she had swooned. It was nearly eleven o’clock, then,
before the drums began to beat, and the procession fell into order.
The morning had dawned grey and misty, heavy clouds veiling the sun
that now and then shone feebly athwart them, but it was fairly fine for
London at that early season, and no rain fell throughout the day. The
bells of St. Peter-ad-Vincula, and of All Hallows’, Barking, tolled at
regular intervals, whilst the grand outline of the White Tower stood
out luminous against the threatening sky, as the dread procession
wended slowly onwards. First, came a company of two hundred Yeomen of
the Guard; then, the executioner, in a tight-fitting scarlet worsted
and cloth garment, displaying the swelling muscles of his chest, arms,
and legs;[309] his face was masked, and his head hooded in scarlet.
Beside him marched his assistant, a rough-looking man, who carried the
axe over his shoulder; then Sir John Brydges, Lieutenant of the Tower,
with Sir Thomas Brydges, Deputy-Lieutenant, and between them Sir John
Gage, Constable of the Tower, with two Sheriffs, in their robes of
office. Lastly, the young prisoner herself, dressed as on the occasion
of her trial at the Guildhall in the same black cloth dress, edged
with black velvet, a Marie Stuart cap of black velvet on her head,
with a veil of black cloth hanging to the waist, and a white wimple
concealing her throat; her sleeves edged with lawn, neatly plaited
round the wrists. Not wearing _chopines_ to increase her height, as
on the occasion of her State entry into the Tower, the people who had
not seen her since were greatly surprised at her diminutive stature.
On her right walked Abbot Feckenham, in his black robe, without a
surplice, and carrying a crucifix in his hand. Behind him came the
Chaplains attached to the Chapel Royal of the Tower. Lady Jane’s
ladies, Mrs. Tylney and Mrs. Ellen, and Mrs. Sarah; two other women
and a man-servant, all in deep mourning, and weeping bitterly, closed
the doleful procession. The route was a short one, and the crowd of
spectators--about five hundred--allowed to be present at the execution,
was silent and respectful. From Partridge’s house to the scaffold, the
Lady Jane continued to read the open Prayer-Book in her hand--it was
that containing the various inscriptions already mentioned--and paid
little or no heed to Feckenham’s pious exhortations, if, indeed, he
made any.
At the foot of the scaffold stood a jury of forty matrons, who had
been previously called upon to testify that the Princess was not with
child; a rumour that she was in this condition was so widespread
as to be mentioned by Radcliffe--who says, “Lady Dudley was very
brave, considering the condition she was in”--and by Fuller, Pomeroy,
Challoner, and Fox. The presence of these matrons is also mentioned
by Bishop Godwin. There is no record of the presence of the Duke of
Norfolk in his usual seat as Earl Marshal, but no doubt he was there
with Lord Mayor White and several Aldermen, Sheriffs, and noblemen.
Before ascending the three or four steps that led to the scaffold, the
Lady Jane took leave of her ladies, who sobbed bitterly; Mrs. Ellen and
Mrs. Tylney followed her on to the platform, ominously littered with
fresh straw. Here Feckenham, the executioner, and his assistant also
took their stations, with Sir Thomas Brydges. “When she appeared on
the scaffold,” writes a contemporary, “the people cried, and murmured
at beholding one so young and beautiful about to die such a death.”
Nevertheless, though the writer of _The Chronicle of Queen Jane and
Queen Mary_ says “her countenance [was] nothing abashed, neither her
eyes misted with tears,” there can be little doubt but that the long
spell of anxiety had left some trace on Jane’s sweet face. She advanced
to the edge of the scaffold, and in the dead silence spoke in a
distinct voice: “Good people, I am come here to die, and by a law I am
condemned to the same. My offence against the Queen’s Highness was only
in consenting to the device of others, which is now deemed treason; but
it was never of my seeking, but by the counsel of those who should seem
to have further understanding of such things than I, who knew little of
the law and less of the title to the Crown. The part, indeed, against
the Queen’s Highness was unlawful, and so the consenting thereunto
by me; but touching the procurement and desire thereof by me, or on
my behalf, I do wash my hands thereof in innocency before God and in
the face of you, good Christian people, this day,” and therewith she
wrung her hands in which she had her book. Then she continued, “I pray
you, all good Christian people, to bear me witness that I die a true
Christian woman, and that I look to be saved by none other means, but
only by the mercy of God, in the merit of the blood of His only Son
Jesus Christ; and I confess that when I did know the Word of God, I
neglected the same, loved myself and the world, and therefore this
plague of punishment has worthily happened into me for my sins; and
yet I thank God of His goodness that He hath thus given me a time and
respite to repent. And now, good people, while I am living, I pray you
to assist me with your prayers.”
Lady Jane’s relative, Lady Philippa de Clifford, in her little known
report,[310] adds that, “After a pause, and wiping her eyes, she
(Jane) said in a firmer voice, ‘Now, good people, Jane Dudley bids
you all a long farewell. And may the Almighty preserve you from ever
meeting the terrible death which awaits her in a few minutes. Farewell,
farewell, for ever more.’ Jane, when she had finished speaking, was
much affected, and hid her face upon the neck of the old nurse who
attended her on the scaffold.” This nurse must have been Mrs. Ellen,
into whose arms she threw herself when she first perceived the towering
figure of the masked executioner, garbed from head to foot in scarlet.
Clinging to the aged woman, the poor girl sobbed convulsively. Growing
calmer, after a while, she knelt down, and asked Feckenham what prayer
she should recite--“Shall I say this Psalm?”--probably pointing to
her prayer-book as she did so. “Yes,” answered he; and then, as she
and many of the people knelt, he said the fifty-first Psalm, the
_Miserere_, in Latin, Jane repeating it after him in English. This
done, she rose, and said very courteously to Dr. Feckenham, “God
will abundantly requite you, good sir, for all your humanity to me,
though your discourses gave me more uneasiness than all the terrors
of approaching death.” Bishop Godwin says, “Just before she knelt
down, Lady Jane embraced the venerable prelate and thanked him for his
kindness to her.” She then gave her handkerchief and gloves to Mrs.
Tylney; and turning to Sir Thomas Brydges, said gently, “You asked me
for a parting memory of me,” and handed him the prayer-book which she
had been using and in which she had written her farewells.
The supreme moment had arrived. Without the assistance of her two
female attendants, who were too completely overcome to assist her,
she untied the collar of her gown. The executioner offered to help
her, but she curtly desired him to desist, and turning to her ladies,
spoke a few words to them. Mastering their emotion, they took off
her outer dress, leaving her in her kirtle, or under gown with
close-fitting sleeves. They also removed her headdress (described by
the old chroniclers as a “frose paste”) and kerchief, giving her at the
same time a handkerchief to tie over her eyes. Then the executioner
knelt and besought her pardon; she replied simply, “Most willingly.”
Now came what was perhaps the most painful episode of the horrible
ceremony--the pause of five minutes “for the Queen’s mercy.” The poor
girl had to stand, with the ghastly preparations for her approaching
death about her, for a space of time which, brief as it really was,
must have seemed an eternity to her, waiting for a clemency she no
longer expected nor desired. But no white wand was waved--there was no
mercy for Jane Grey! The five minutes ended, the executioner motioned
the unfortunate Princess to take her place upon the straw, and she,
noticing the block for the first time, began to tremble a little, and
said, as she knelt down, “I pray you dispatch me quickly,” adding,
“Will you take it off before I lay me down?”[311] “No, madam,” replied
the executioner. With her own hands she bound the handkerchief about
her eyes, and being now in that darkness from which death would soon
release her, lost consciousness of where she was, and groping about
for the block, asked eagerly, “Where is it? What shall I do? Where is
it?” Someone guided her to the fatal spot, and the “Nine Days’ Queen,”
laying herself down with her fair head upon the block, stretched out
her body, and cried aloud that all might hear her, “Lord, into Thy
hands I commend my spirit!”[312] A flash, a thud, a crimson deluge on
the straw-strewn scaffold--and, as the cannon boomed, an innocent soul
was borne towards a Throne more high, and a Justice more sure than
those of Queen or Emperor![313]
There are several conflicting accounts of what subsequently happened.
The more generally received version is that the body was handed over
to Lady Jane’s women, who reverently placed it in a common deal
coffin, and conveyed it to St. Peter-ad-Vincula, precisely as the
women of Anne Boleyn and Katherine Howard had conveyed the mangled
remains of those slaughtered Queens. But on the other hand, Antoine
de Noailles,[314] the French Ambassador, who had arrived in London
early in the morning, passing that way about three o’clock in the same
afternoon (he was living at Marillac’s old house on the Tower Green),
saw Lady Jane’s half-naked body lying abandoned on the scaffold, and
was amazed at the immense quantity of blood that had poured out of so
small a corpse.[315] Peter Derenzie tells us her remains “were left for
hours half naked on the scaffold streaming with blood, and were placed
in a deal coffin.” It would seem indeed that, in death as in life,
Lady Jane Grey, the moment fortune turned against her, was abandoned
by all those, even by her own mother, who by reason of natural ties
should have rallied round her in the hour of need. Thus after death
her bleeding remains were treated with corresponding neglect; the
puppet which was to have made Northumberland’s fortune was thrown
aside, with none to care for it, when once its purpose failed. This
unusual treatment of the body may not, however, have proceeded entirely
from heartlessness; but from the difficulty and uncertainty as to the
nature of the religious service to be said over the remains of one who,
though born a Catholic, had died a “heretic”; St. Peter’s Chapel having
been lately restored to the Catholics, Jane could not be buried there
without ecclesiastical licence, and to obtain this, Feckenham probably
had to see Queen Mary, or get some sort of “permit” from Archbishop
Heath. But, granting all this, the corpse might, at least, have been
decently covered. The delay as to the burial of Jane Grey’s corpse
may have given rise to the popular report that it was transported to
Bradgate, and interred there. There is no question, however, that the
body was eventually conveyed into the Church of St. Peter-ad-Vincula
and buried in the vault which already contained the mangled remains of
so many of her contemporaries.[316] Many years ago, a very small and
broken coffin was discovered in this vault, containing the remains of
a female of diminutive stature, with the head severed from the body.
The skeleton, which crumbled to ashes immediately it was exposed to the
effect of the atmosphere, was surmised to be that of Lady Jane Grey,
and the dust was enclosed in an urn and placed immediately under the
oval inscription in the chancel above, which records her death. Yet in
Leicestershire, the tradition still persists that the body was brought
to Bradgate late at night, and secretly interred in the parish church.
And with this tradition, of course, is connected the legend of the
coach with the headless occupant, said to appear before the gates of
Bradgate on the anniversary of Lady Jane’s death.
Thus, in blood and in neglect, ends the tragic story of Lady Jane Grey,
one of the most popular heroines in our history, the helpless victim of
circumstance, and of the soaring ambition of a singularly masterful and
unscrupulous man.
CHAPTER XXI
THE FATE OF THE SURVIVORS
The Reforming Leaders, who had so flattered Lady Jane Grey when they
saw a chance of her becoming Queen, do not seem to have felt much
concern at her death. In a letter of 3rd April 1554, addressed to
Bullinger, Peter Martyr says, “Jane, who was formerly Queen, conducted
herself at her execution with the greatest fortitude and godliness”;
Burcher, writing on 3rd March 1554 to Bullinger, casually remarks, “I
have heard, too, that the Queen has beheaded his [Suffolk’s] daughter
Jane, together with her husband; that Jane, I mean, who was proclaimed
Queen”; lastly, a less well-known Reformer named Thomas Lever wrote to
Bullinger in the April of 1554, that Jane had been beheaded.[317] As to
the Imperial Ambassadors, Montmorency Marnix, Jehan Schefer, and Simon
Renard, they were one and all jubilant over the death of Lady Jane, her
father, and Northumberland. There was not much sympathy ever expressed
for Lady Jane among the people. No doubt her execution was the main
topic of chatter in all the taverns of London, as well in the little
darksome dens, down by the wharves, where seafaring men congregated,
as in the luxurious hostelries in Cheapside, the Strand, Holborn, and
Westminster, where rich gossips forgathered; but of demonstrative
sympathy there was none. Yet the erection on that fateful Monday of
some fifty gibbets intended for the hanging of the Wyatt rebels did
impress the hardened populace with a sense of horror and anxiety.
It marked the beginning of the reaction against Mary, which set in
violently a few months later on with the burnings in Smithfield, to
blast her name for ever by the fearful epithet of--“Bloody.”
Let us give a parting glance to the remaining actors in this tragedy.
Jane’s father, Henry Grey, Duke of Suffolk, was brought to trial for
high treason in Westminster Hall on 17th February. The indictment was
for levying war against the Queen, adhering to Sir Thomas Wyatt, in
order to depose the Queen and set the Crown on his daughter Jane; and
having opposed the Earl of Huntingdon when the latter was in command
of the Queen’s forces.[318] The Duke’s defence was, that he had not
attempted to proclaim Jane during his expedition of January 1554, and
had only gone out to rouse the people against the Spaniards, which,
as a peer of the Realm, he claimed he was entitled to do. As to the
accusation of opposing Huntingdon, he answered that he did not know
that nobleman was acting under the Queen’s orders: he also took refuge
behind his brother Thomas, who, he said, had advised him to go into
the country, where he would be safe among his tenants, whereas if he
remained in London he would be sent to the Tower again. This feeble
defence was not accepted; and Henry Fitzallan, Lord Maltravers (Lord
Arundel), the Queen’s Lord Steward, who had brought the record into
court, pronounced sentence of death, as a traitor, on that Henry Grey
who had so greatly injured his sister, Lady Katherine Fitzallan, his
first and neglected wife, from whom he was never legally divorced. He
had his hour of revenge at last! The Duke was “much confounded at his
condemnation”; contemporaries inform us that when he left the Tower he
went “stoutly and cheerfully enough,” but when he re-entered Traitor’s
Gate “his countenance was heavy and pensive.” He had not to wait long
for his _coup de grâce_. On the following Friday (23rd February) he
was brought out of the Tower, between nine and ten in the morning,
to be executed on Tower Hill. He had some trouble with Dr. Weston,
the Roman Catholic priest Mary had appointed to accompany him to the
scaffold. When they arrived at its foot, the Duke refused to listen
to him, and even went so far as to prevent his ascending the steps.
Dr. Weston, however, insisted in the Queen’s name; whereupon, with an
expressive gesture of resignation, Suffolk submitted to his presence,
but the attempt to change his religious convictions failed utterly. Dr.
Weston told him in a loud voice that the Queen forgave him, to which
the Duke replied, “God save her Grace!” and the people murmured, and
some said they hoped he (Weston) would have a like pardon. The Duke
at last made a brief speech, saying simply, “Masters, I have offended
the Queen, and her laws, and thereby I am justly condemned to die, and
am willing to die, desiring all men to be obedient; and I pray God
that this my death may be an example to all men, beseeching you all
to bear me witness that I die in the faith of Christ, trusting to be
saved by His blood only, and by no other (_sic_) trumpery: the which
died for me, and for all men that truly repent and steadfastly trust
in Him. And I do repent, desiring you all to pray to God for me, that
when ye see my breath depart from me, you will pray to God that He
may receive my soul.”[319] After this, kneeling and raising his hands
in supplication to Heaven, he repeated the _Miserere_--the very Psalm
his daughter had said under like circumstances a week or so before.
Then, rising, he continued--also as she had done--saying, “Into Thy
hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit.” Just as he was about to make his
final preparations for death a very human incident occurred. A man
to whom he was deeply in debt stood up and asked him, “Who will now
pay me my money?” “Well,” quoth the Duke, “ask not me now, but go and
see my officers, who will, I doubt not, satisfy you.” On this the man
departed, saying, “God save your soul, Sir!” Suffolk now removed his
cap and neck-cloth, and to the headsman’s usual appeal for forgiveness,
replied, “God forgive thee, and I do; and when thou dost thine office,
I pray thee, do it quickly, and God have mercy on thee.”[320] Lastly,
having tied a handkerchief over his eyes, he knelt down and recited
the Lord’s Prayer aloud, and appealing for mercy to the Throne of
Grace, Henry Grey laid his head on the block, and on the stroke of the
headsman’s axe expired. Suffolk’s body was laid to rest in St. Peter’s
Chapel; but his head, for some reason which has never been explained,
was sent to the Church of the Holy Trinity in the Minories.[321] Here
it was embalmed after a fashion, by being placed in a small vault by
the altar, in the dust of oakwood, which, as it contains a quantity of
tannin, is a strong preservative; and when unearthed about fifty years
ago, it was sufficiently perfect for the mark of a blow made by the axe
above the actual place of severance (rather low on the neck), to be
still visible. Sir George Scharf was greatly struck by the resemblance
between this head and the portrait of Suffolk now at Hatfield and the
copy of it in the National Portrait Gallery. The author has himself
inspected the relic closely, and recognised the resemblance to the
portrait: the exceedingly arched eyebrows and the rather weak chin are
identical: three of the teeth are perfect, the eyes are closed, the
mouth open, the head beardless and bald.
Lady Jane’s uncle, Lord Thomas Grey, shared the fate of his brother of
Suffolk and of Lord Leonard Grey. At the time of the Duke’s rising, he
attempted to escape to the Continent by way of Wales; but he got no
farther than the borders of the Principality, where he was captured,
according to a contemporary, “through his great mishap and folly of his
man who had forgot his cap case with money behind him in his chamber
one morning at his inn, and, coming for it again, upon examination what
he should be, it was mistrusted that his master should be some such
man as he was indeed, and so he was stopped, taken, and brought up to
London.” Lord Thomas, however, took no very prominent part either in
the rebellion in Warwickshire, or in the previous attempt to establish
Lady Jane on the throne; and it is difficult to understand why he
should have been sacrificed, especially when Lord John Grey, who had
been caught as it were red-handed in hiding with the Duke of Suffolk
at Ashley, was released after two trials.[322] However, the mention of
the Lord Thomas by Suffolk at his trial was distinctly damaging to him;
perhaps also Mary had some personal grudge against him, or his unloving
sister-in-law, the Duchess of Suffolk, who, despite her husband’s
action, was much in favour with Mary, may have prejudiced the Queen
against him. According to Noailles, Thomas Grey frankly avowed his
determination to see Courtney, Earl of Devonshire, King, or to be King
himself. He did not explain how this was to be achieved; but added,
“If I am not King, I’ll be hanged.” He was beheaded instead! This
reference to Courtney gives support to Suffolk’s admission, that the
Wyatt rebellion and his own expedition had for their immediate object
the proclamation of Elizabeth as Queen. Curiously enough, Lord Thomas
Grey, unlike his relatives, always remained a Catholic, and is said to
have asked for a confessor before he died. After being brought to trial
at Westminster on 9th March 1554, as Machyn says: “The xxviij day of
April was beheaded on Tower hill, between ix and x of the clock before
noon, my lord Thomas Gray, the Duke of ‘Suffoke-Dassett[’s]’ brother,
and buried at Allalow’s [All Hallows’], Barkyne, and the head ...” (the
sentence is unfinished).[323]
[Illustration: THE LADY FRANCIS BRANDON, DUCHESS OF SUFFOLK, AND HER
SECOND HUSBAND, ADRIAN STOKES, ESQ.
PROBABLY BY CORVINUS. PROPERTY OF COL. WYNN FINCH]
The Duchess of Suffolk, Lady Jane’s strange and untender mother, did
not, as might have been expected, even in those unfeeling times, go
into retirement after the bloody deaths of her daughter, son-in-law,
husband, and brother-in-law, but within a fortnight, and on the very
day that Lord Thomas Grey was arraigned (9th March 1554, not, as some
writers say, the day he was executed), she married her late husband’s
Groom of the Chambers, a red-haired lad of middle-class origin, fifteen
years her junior, one Mr. Adrian Stokes. She received a reminder of
“the dear departed” on this her wedding-day, in the shape of a demand
to deliver, “unto the Lord-Admiral the Parliamentary robes, lately
belonging to the Duke her husband; or, if she had them not, to let
the Lord-Admiral understand where they remain, to the end he may send
for the same.” This widow of Ephesus was not in the least disturbed
by the message, and after returning the paraphernalia in question,
gaily proceeded with her nuptial preparations! To account for so
extraordinary and apparently heartless a proceeding, we must remember
the position in which the Lady Frances now found herself. She realised
that unless she was married, and that speedily, to some one much
beneath her station, she might be proposed by the Protestant party as
one of its candidates for the succession, and her life and tranquillity
be thus endangered. Her marriage with one who was little better than a
menial[324] rendered this impossible; and besides (she was a Tudor),
she may have been really in love with her red-haired Mr. Stokes. That
Queen Mary did not resent the match is evident, for throughout her
reign the Lady Frances occupied a towering position at Court, with
precedence of all other peeresses, sometimes even of Princess Elizabeth
herself. Her daughters, the Ladies Katherine and Mary Grey, were
appointed Maids-of-Honour to the Queen who had so lately signed the
death-warrants of their father, sister, brother-in-law, and uncles,
and seem to have been very much attached to their mistress. They
probably convinced themselves that the recent tragedies had been purely
political, and not the least domestic or personal. The lives of these
two young ladies were not a jot happier than that of their sister; but
this was due to Queen Elizabeth, who played with them both much as a
cat plays with a mouse, and literally worried them into early graves.
Lady Frances and her youthful husband had their portraits taken the
very year of their marriage, both in one panel; the picture was lately
in the possession of Colonel Wynn Finch. The Duchess appears as a
buxom, puffy-looking dame of thirty-six,--the age given on the margin
of the picture,--whilst her sheepish-looking, ginger-headed husband
is put down as twenty-one. He is represented in a superb costume of
black velvet, edged with ermine and sparkling with jewels. The lady
wears black satin cut somewhat after the fashion of the year 1830.
Her garment is edged with ermine, and she wears two wedding-rings on
the fourth finger of her fat hand, and several handsome chains and
carcanets about her short neck. A close examination of this picture
reveals the extraordinary breadth of the Duchess’s face. Divested of
her feminine head-dress, and with a very little “make up,” she might
easily be the very image of her uncle, King Henry VIII. Lady Jane’s
mother lived happily enough with Mr. Stokes, to whom she bore a
daughter so soon after her marriage--a little under nine months--that
if she had visited her husband in the Tower (which she did not) the
question of her paternity might have been raised. This child, baptized
Elizabeth, died the day it was born. The Lady Frances herself died in
October 1559, leaving most of her fortune--by this time considerably
reduced--to her husband, and very little to her two surviving
daughters. She was buried in Westminster Abbey in great pomp on 5th
December 1559. Elizabeth, out “of the great affection she bore the
Duchess and because of her kinship,” ordered that the Royal Arms should
be borne at her funeral, which was attended by Garter-King-at-Arms and
by Clarencieux. Her monument, still in existence, occupies the exact
site of the shrine of St. Edmund in the chapel of that saint, and
is a fine specimen of the early and best period of Elizabethan art.
The inscription is in old English, and, modernised, runs as follows:
“Here lieth the Lady Frances, Duchess of Suffolk, daughter to Charles
Brandon, Duke of Suffolk and Mary the French Queen; first wife to
Henry, Duke of Suffolk, and after to Adrian Stokes, Esq.” This is
followed by a few lines of high-flown panegyric in Latin. After the
death of his Duchess, Mr. Stokes obtained a new lease of twenty-one
years of “her Highness’s manor of Beaumanor,” in Leicestershire. About
1571 he was returned as M.P. for Leicestershire, and took as his second
wife Anne, relict of Sir Nicholas Throckmorton. Mr. Adrian Stokes died
on 30th November 1586, leaving his brother William as his heir.[325]
The widow of the once all-powerful Duke of Northumberland spent some
months with her daughter, Lady Mary Sidney, endeavouring to restore her
shattered health and to recover some shreds of the property taken from
her at the time of her husband’s condemnation. It was mainly through
the instrumentality of Don Diego de Mendoza, or “Damondesay,” as she
styles him, whose imprudent conduct had brought such misfortune on
her luckless son, that Philip II was led to solicit the restoration
of a considerable part of the Duchess’s fortune. She also obtained
permission to inhabit the empty Manor House at Chelsea, where she
endeavoured to collect some of the magnificent furniture which had once
adorned the royal mansion, Durham House, in the Strand, recovering,
amongst other things, a set of green curtains shot with gold thread
and certain carved chairs and tables. But peace and shelter, even
combined with a measure of comfort and independence, availed not to
restore her broken health, and on 22nd January 1555 the famous Duke
of Northumberland’s widow died broken-hearted at Chelsea Manor in her
forty-sixth year. Her will is one of the most curious extant. After
declaring it written entirely in her own hand, without the advice of
one learned in the law, she bequeaths to “the Lord Diegoe Damondesay,
that is beyond the sea, the littell book clock that hath the moon in
it, etc.,” and her dial, “the one leaf of it the almanac and the other
side, the Golden Number in the middle.” What would we not give for a
glimpse of this curious little clock or dial? To Sir Henry Sidney she
leaves the gold and green hangings in the gallery at Chelsea; to her
daughter, Mary Sidney, her gown of black barred velvet, furred with
sable; to her daughter, Katherine Hastings, a gown of purple velvet,
and a summer gown; to the Duchess of Alva, her green parrot, “having
nothing else worthy of her”; to Elizabeth, wife of Lord Cobham, a gown
of black barred velvet, furred with lizards. The document ends with the
following quaint directions: “My will is earnestly and effectually,
that little solemnities be made for me, for I had ever have a thousand
folds my debts to be paid, and the poor given unto, than any pomp to
be showed upon my wretched carcase; therefore to the worms will I go,
as I have afore written in all points, as you will answer it afore God;
and you break any one jot of it, your will hereafter may chance be to
as well broken.... After I am departed from this world, let me be wound
up in a sheet, and put into a coffin of wood, and so laid in the ground
with such funerals as pertaineth to the burial of a corpse. I will
at my year’s mind (_i.e._ anniversary of her death) have such divine
service as my executors shall think meet, with the whole arms of father
and mother upon the stone graven; nor in any wise to let me be opened
after I am dead. I have not loved to be very bold afore women, much
more would I be loth to come into the hands of any living man, be he
physician or surgeon.” She was buried in Chelsea Parish Church on 1st
February 1555, two heralds attending the funeral, at which there was a
brilliant display of escutcheons and banners, etc. Her tomb is against
the south wall of the church, and is under a Gothic canopy, supported
by pillars of mosaic. It bears a long inscription, together with
effigies of the Duchess and her five daughters, kneeling: a similar
plate with her eight sons on it has been torn off.[326]
The Duchess of Somerset, the Protector’s widow, followed the example
of my Lady of Suffolk, and ensured her personal tranquillity by
contracting a _mésalliance_ with Mr. Newdigate, son of that Mr.
Newdigate to whom, as recorded in an early chapter of this work,
Lord Latimer, Katherine Parr’s second husband, used to let his house
furnished. The Duchess had been released from the Tower with other
notable prisoners when Mary first entered its precincts. She was much
beloved by that Queen, who used to address her as “my good Nan,” and
this despite the fact that the Duchess was an ardent Protestant. She
died in her ninetieth year, and was laid to rest under a monument which
is reckoned as one of the finest in Westminster Abbey.
Katherine, Dowager Duchess of Suffolk, Charles Brandon’s fourth and
last wife and Lady Frances’ stepmother, had followed the prevailing
custom and married her secretary, Mr. Bertie or Bartie, “a gentleman
of fair family and little means.” Her Grace was one of the first
Englishwomen of noble birth to embrace the principles of the
Reformation, and greatly incensed Queen Mary by doing so. This lady’s
mother, Lady Willoughby d’Eresby, was Queen Katherine’s closest friend,
and a staunch Catholic, a fact that probably increased the Queen’s
resentment against the Duchess and her second spouse; and a hint that
he might be arrested on a charge of heresy sent Mr. Bertie flying to
Flanders. He had not the kindness to inform his wife of his intended
flight, and she, feeling herself forsaken and in danger in London,
escaped one foggy morning from her house in the Barbican and followed
in the wake of the truant, whom she found at Wesel, where their famous
son, Peregrine, the brave Lord Willoughby, was born. After Elizabeth’s
accession, the Duchess returned to London with her children by Mr.
Bertie and that gentleman himself. She was favourably received by the
Queen, who saddled her, however, with many unwelcome obligations among
them the custody of her step-granddaughters, the Ladies Katherine and
Mary Grey. The Duchess, who was on friendly terms with Cecil, kept
up a constant correspondence with him; and even after the lapse of
nearly five hundred years, her humorous descriptions of people and
things raise not a smile only, but a hearty laugh--she was, in fact,
considered the wittiest woman of her day. Katherine, Dowager Duchess of
Suffolk, died late in the reign of Elizabeth.
Queen Jane’s Secretary, Sir John Cheke, was arrested on 27th or 28th
July 1553 (Strype says, “together with the Duke of Suffolk”) and
committed to the Tower. There he remained a close prisoner. On 12th or
13th August an indictment as a traitor was made out against him, which
brought forth a private letter to him from Cranmer, with whom he was
on intimate terms. In this epistle Cheke is described as “one who had
been none of the great doers in this matter [_i.e._ of the accession
of Jane] against her [Queen Mary].” In 1554 Sir John Cheke was, after
his estates had been confiscated, released from the Tower and given a
licence by the Queen to travel abroad,[327] whereupon he made no delay
in getting to Switzerland and thence to Italy.[328]
APPENDIX
ICONOGRAPHY OF LADY JANE GREY AND HER FAMILY, ETC.
The painted portraits of Lady Jane Grey are exceedingly scarce, and
probably not a single one of them is authentic; on the other hand, very
early and almost contemporary engraved portraits are fairly numerous.
The oldest of these latter is one by E. V. Wyngaerde. It bears a
certain resemblance to the portrait of her grandfather, the Duke of
Suffolk, by Jacobus Corvinus, in the possession of Sir Frederick Cook
at Richmond. Although Wyngaerde engraved it in the middle part of the
reign of Elizabeth, when many persons were still living, the Queen
herself included, who had seen Jane Grey, and who could have set him
right, he attributes the original to Hans Holbein, who died in London
of the plague, according to recent discovery, in 1543, that is to say,
when Jane was but six years old, a fact which renders it impossible for
him to have painted any of the numerous portraits attributed to him of
Edward VI as a lad in his teens, Edward being born in the same year
and month as Lady Jane. The portrait of Jane Grey from which Wyngaerde
engraved is evidently by some other artist who painted in the style
of Holbein, presumably one of his pupils. It must be remembered that
in our own time people are constantly attributing to Gainsborough and
Reynolds portraits they could not have painted, so in the seventeenth
century it was the fashion to attribute every portrait of the early
part of the preceding century to Holbein, whose great name was
remembered, whilst those of his lesser contemporaries were forgotten.
(2) In the Earl of Stamford and Warrington’s collection there is a very
ancient portrait of Lady Jane Grey, engraved by Lodge. It is not well
painted, but is none the less extremely interesting. The features are
small and delicate. The costume is rich but simple, and the pretty
neckerchief is fastened at the bosom by a bunch of flowers.
(3) Another frequently engraved portrait of Jane Grey, also attributed
to Holbein, and engraved in George Howard’s _Life of Lady Jane Grey_,
was for many years in the possession of the late Mr. Wenman Martin, of
Upper Seymour Street. The costume is exceedingly rich.
(4) Probably on account of its excessive prettiness, the celebrated
picture called “Jane Grey,” in the possession of Lord Spencer, at
Althorpe, is likely to remain the most popular likeness of Lady Jane.
It represents a sweet-looking young woman of about sixteen, seated
by a window, reading an illuminated missal. By her side, on a table,
stands a richly chiselled goblet or chalice. The dress is of ruby
velvet, made very plain, and with hanging sleeves of a darker material.
It was engraved in the last century by Dibden, as the frontispiece of
the _Decameron_, a work which certainly has no association whatever
with the poor little “Nine Days’ Queen.” By its general neatness and
vivid colouring, this picture may very reasonably be attributed to
Luca Penni, an Italian and pupil of Raphael, who painted a good deal
in England under Henry VIII, Edward VI, and Mary. There is a very
singular fact connected with this Althorpe picture. The noble Milanese
family of Trevulzio has possessed for many generations an almost
identical picture which has always been known as a portrait of Lady
Jane Grey. A photograph of this picture is in my hands, and certainly
the resemblance between it and the Althorpe picture is remarkable. Lord
Spencer has most kindly afforded me some interesting details connected
with his own picture. “It has been,” he said, “for many generations in
our family, and can be traced as a portrait of Lady Jane Grey as far
back as the seventeenth century.” Some years ago, Lord Spencer took
it down from its place in his gallery, and found on the back of it an
inscription in the handwriting of his grandmother, Lavinia, Countess
Spencer, to the effect that the picture was a portrait of the Lady
Jane Grey, and that what she had written was copied from a much older
inscription, which had been nearly obliterated by time. Lord Spencer
many years ago saw at Milan the picture above-mentioned, and was struck
by its likeness to his own, of which it might have been a copy. Sir
George Scharf, although an authority on portraiture, was apt at times
to have prejudices and to cast doubt on those historical portraits
which have been handed down as authentic for many generations; and
his singular ignorance or rather disregard of the value of costume in
determining the period of a picture often led him into ludicrous errors
of judgment. His reason for discarding the Althorpe portrait of Lady
Jane Grey appears rather unreasonable. He objected to it because a tall
standing goblet or chalice figures conspicuously on the table beside
the lady, such a chalice being, according to him, an attribute of St.
Mary Magdalen, and so, too, is the skull, which is not present in this
picture. However, an extraordinary number of Tudor portraits represent
great ladies with a similar goblet standing beside them. These gold and
silver chalices or cups were a common gift from royal god-fathers and
mothers in Tudor times, and were frequently stolen from the churches.
Lady Jane, we know from the inventories of her effects, had several in
her possession.
(5) An exceedingly beautiful portrait, said to represent Lady Jane
Grey, is at Madresfield, Lord Beauchamp’s seat in Worcestershire. The
face bears a resemblance to that in the engraving by Wyngaerde, and
the costume is undoubtedly one that Lady Jane might have worn, and
consists of a rich velvet gown, cut square at the neck and filled in
with soft lawn and lace. Her head-dress is very elaborate and graceful.
Her expression is sweet and noble. This picture is wrongly ascribed to
Lucas Van Heere, and is more likely to have been painted by Streete.
Independently of its historical interest, it is a beautiful picture.
On the other hand, its companion, supposed to represent Lord Guildford
Dudley, is absolutely wrong. It represents a tall young gentleman with
strongly-marked features and a vapid expression. It is the costume
that gives the lie to the tradition that it is the portrait of Lady
Jane’s husband, for the dress, with its voluminous ruff, is of the
mid-Elizabethan period, and at least twenty-five years later than the
death of the unfortunate young gentleman it is said to represent; but,
on the other hand, the little velvet cap, with its two plumes, is
certainly of the time of Edward VI. The ruff may have been added at a
later date by an ignorant restorer.
(6) There is a curious portrait, probably of Lady Jane Grey, in the
possession of J. Knight, Esq., of Chawton House, Alton.
(7) A very remarkable portrait, called “Jane Grey,” was formerly in the
possession of Colonel Elliot; said to be now in one of the Colleges
at Oxford. It was, however, engraved in 1830, and has lately been
reproduced in colour by Messrs. Graves of Pall Mall. The face is that
of an older person than Lady Jane, but the features are small and
pretty, the expression being rather defiant and world-wise. She wears
a turban-shaped hat of velvet, studded with immense pearls, which was
certainly not in fashion in the days of Edward VI, or even in the
last years of Henry VIII. Here again is an instance of costume giving
the lie to tradition. Lady Jane could no more have worn such a hat and
costume than a lady in 1909 could be painted as wearing the crinoline
and spoon-shaped bonnet of mid-Victorian days.
(8) The small semi-miniature in the National Portrait Gallery is
wrongly attributed to Lucas Van Heere, who was born in the year of
Jane’s execution, and could therefore neither have painted the portrait
in question nor any one of the numerous likenesses of Queen Mary
ascribed to him, since he was only five years of age when that Queen
died.
(9) A small portrait called “Jane Grey” is in the possession of Lord
Hastings at Melton Constable, Norfolk.
(10) “A splendid portrait of Jane Grey” was exhibited at the Derby
Art Exhibition in 1841--mentioned by Howard. It belonged to a Mr.
Harrington, who inherited it from two ancient ladies, the Misses Gray
of Derby, in the possession of whose family this picture had been for
many generations.
(11) There is a sweetly pretty contemporary Tudor portrait, reputed to
be that of Lady Jane Grey, in the possession of Colonel Horace Walpole,
at Heckfield Place, Hants.
The Wyngaerde engraving has been frequently reproduced. In the Print
Room at the British Museum there are no less than six variations of it.
There are also engravings, more or less apocryphal, of Lady Jane by
G. W. Krauss and G. C. Schmidt, 1782.
Engraved and fanciful portraits:--
Jane Grey, by G. Smerton, 1824.
Lady Jane Grey, by G. Buckland, 1776.
Lady Jane Grey, by Sherwin.
Lady Jane Grey presenting her prayer-book to Sir Thomas Brydges.
Engraved by Wells. 1786.
Lady Jane Grey as Queen. By J. P. Simons.
Lady Jane Grey “From a contemporary miniature at Strawberry Hill,” by
Vertue. (The original is now in the National Portrait Gallery.)
Lady Jane Grey. From a portrait in the possession of the Marquis of
Buckingham. No name of engraver. She wears a velvet gown open at the
throat to display a double chain with pendant cross. On table, large
gold chalice.
Paul Delaroche has painted two famous historical pictures, representing
events in the last days of Lady Jane Grey’s life--her farewell to
Guildford and her execution. They have been frequently engraved.
PORTRAITS OF LADY JANE’S MOTHER, FATHER, AND GRANDFATHER
“Frances Brandon, Duchess of Suffolk, and her second husband, Adrian
Stokes” (dated 1554). Small half-lengths of the Duchess of Suffolk
on the left, and Adrian Stokes on the right. She wears a black dress
with tags and jewels, gold-edged ruffs at neck and wrists, black
jewelled hoods, two necklaces of pearls, one with pendants, right hand
resting on cushion and holding glove, left holding ring. He wears a
light-coloured embroidered doublet, black fur-lined surcoat slashed and
with tags, ruffs at neck and wrists edged with pink, chain round neck,
right hand on hip, left holding gloves, sword at his side. Above her
head, _Ætatis_ xxxvi: above his, _Ætatis_ xxi. Dated MDLIV. Panel, 19½
× 27 in. Probably by Corvinus. This picture was engraved by Vertue.
Colonel Wynn Finch.
Frances, Marchioness of Dorset. A superb Holbein drawing. H.M. the
King, at Windsor.
Frances Brandon, Duchess of Suffolk. Miniature. Was lent to the Tudor
Exhibition by Lord Willoughby d’Eresby.
There are fine portraits of Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, in the
National Portrait Gallery, and in the possession of Sir Frederick Cook.
There is also a fine portrait by Corvinus of Henry Grey, Marquis of
Dorset, in the National Portrait Gallery, and another in the possession
of G. P. Boyce, Esq.
A portrait of Katherine, Baroness Willoughby d’Eresby, and Duchess
of Suffolk, is in the possession of her descendant, Lord Willoughby
d’Eresby.
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF LADY JANE GREY
In literature, Lady Jane Grey has been a popular heroine. She figures
in: _The Tower of London_, by Harrison Ainsworth. _Jane Grey_ (French
novel), by Alphonse Brot. _Lady Jane Grey_, by Philip Sidney. The life
story of Lady Jane is told in _Jeanne Grey_, by Mdme. de Genlis. _The
Chronicle of Queen Jane and Queen Mary_. _Lives_ of Lady Jane Grey, by
Howard, Agnes Strickland (in _Tudor and Stuart Princesses_), and Dr.
Harris Nicholas.
There is a fine elegy of Lady Jane Grey by Sir Thomas Chaloner, one of
the best Latin writers of the reign of Elizabeth, the original of which
is preserved in the Bodleian Library. It is contained in the collection
called the Illustrium, Jan. II. 68. p. 33.
“Jana luit patriam profuso sanguine culpam,
Vivere Phœnicis digna puella dies.
Illa suit Phœnix, merito dicenda manebat;
Ore placens Venerio, Palladis arte placens.
Culta fuit, formosa fuit: divina movebat
Sœpé viros facies, sœpé loquela viros.
Vidisset faciem? porterat procus improbus un:
Audisset cultæ verba? modestus era,” etc.
Lady Jane Grey’s tragic fate has been several times dramatised:--_John
Dudley, Duke of Northumberland_, a tragedy, by Scriptor Ignotus.
London, 1686. _Lady Jane Grey_, by J. W. Ross, 1882.
Independently of Rowe’s tragedy, _Lady Jane Grey_, there is the German
tragedy of Von Sommer, entitled _Johanna Grey_; and _Jane Grey_, an
opera-epilogue, acted 25th February, 1723, for the benefit of Mrs.
Sterling at Dublin.
The literary works attributed to Lady Jane Grey are:--
1. Four Latin epistles--three to Bullinger, and one to Lady Katherine
Grey. The originals of the first three are preserved at Zurich, the
other is in the King’s Library, British Museum.
2. Her conference with Feckenham (probably apocryphal), although quoted
by such early writers as Foxe and Florio.
3. A letter to Harding (doubtful).
4. A prayer for her own use in prison.
5. Four Latin verses scratched on her prison walls with a pin. These
will be found on p. 336.
6. Her speech on the scaffold.
7. _The Complaint of a Sinner._
8. _The Duty of a Christian._
9. The annotations in the famous prayer-book.
10. A fragment of a letter has been recently found, and is printed in
volume vii of the State Papers; Edward VI. Domestic Series. Addenda.
Hollingshead and Sir Richard Baker state “that she hath wrotten other
things,” but they do not tell us where they are to be found. Several of
her letters, notably the one to Sudeley and the famous letter to Queen
Mary, are not extant in her own handwriting.
Lady Jane’s fine autograph signature figures on a number of
contemporary documents. It is nothing like so elaborate as that of
Elizabeth, but it is easy to see that the two Princesses received
lessons in Italian caligraphy from the same teacher, probably
Castiglione.
INDEX
Ab Ulmis or Ullmer, John, Reformer, 24, 169;
letters of, 179-80, 185, 186 f.n.
Anne Askew, birth and marriage, 61;
her preaching, 61;
arrest and recantation, 62;
second trial and condemnation, 63;
racked, 64 and f.n.;
is burnt alive, 66; 72 note
Anne of Cleves, Queen, 37 and f.n., 38, 39, 59, 312, 313
Arundel, Earl of, 7, 128, 251, 261, 275;
arrests Northumberland, 279-80, 283; 284;
proclaims Mary, 285 and f.n.; 295, 305, 349
Ascham, Roger, 127, 172;
his story of Lady Jane, 172-3;
his letter to Lady Jane, 175-7; 259; 264-5;
death, 358 f.n.
Ashley, Mrs., Princess Elizabeth’s attendant, 106;
on Elizabeth’s behaviour with Sudeley, 136 et seq.; 161 f.n.;
162, 163
Aske, Robert, 32
Audley, Lady, 184 and f.n.
Aylmer, John, 67, 169, 170;
letter to Bullinger, 178;
death, 358 f.n.
Baynard’s Castle, 284 and f.n.
Bradgate, Old Manor of, and Park, (Lady Jane’s birthplace), 1-4;
life at, in the olden times, 19-23; 223
Brandon, Charles, Duke of Suffolk (Lady Jane’s grandfather), 4;
origin of, 7;
matrimonial peculiarities, marries Lady Mortimer, 7-11;
marries Mary Tudor, Queen of France, 8-9;
goes to France with Henry VIII, 54, 192;
death, etc., 57; 94;
portraits of, 363
Brandon, Lady Eleanor, 10, 12, 108, 109, 114
Brandon, Lady Frances. (_See_ Frances Brandon, Lady)
Browne, Sir Anthony, 39, 97 and f.n., 101, 106, 163, 216, 338
Brydges, Sir John, Lieutenant of the Tower, 253, 283, 290,
310, 311, 340
Brydges, Sir Thomas, 253, 290, 316, 335, 337;
at Lady Jane’s execution, 340, 341, 343
Carew, Sir Gawen, 84, 86, 88
Cecil, William, Lord Burghley, 166-7 f.n., 204, 206, 210;
knighted, 212 f.n.; 237, 240, 241, 244, 257 and f.n., 259-60;
his treachery, 277 and f.n., 278; 285 and f.n.; 296
Charles V, Emperor, 56, 263;
supports Northumberland, 265, 267 and f.n.; 268;
abandons Northumberland, 296, 297, 298 f.n.;
urges Lady Jane’s execution, 314, 315 f.n.; 316; 330
Cheke, Dr., afterwards Sir John, 127 and f.n.;
knighted, 212 f.n.; 241;
acts as Queen Jane’s Secretary of State, 257 f.n., 258-9;
imprisoned, 281 f.n.;
writes to Lord Oxford and leaves the Tower, 284;
imprisonment, recantation, and death, 358 and f.n.
Chelsea, Manor House, 137 f.n., 237, 355
Council, the Privy, letters of, to the Commissioners in Brussels,
262 f.n., 266-7;
to Princess Mary, 268-9, 295;
obtains leave to depart from the Tower, 284;
proclaims Mary Queen, 285;
attends St. Paul’s, 285;
retires to Westminster, 294;
its submission to Mary, 295-6; 312;
its treachery to Queen Jane considered, 316 and f.n., 320
Coverdale, Dr. Miles, as Jane’s tutor, 119;
at Katherine Parr’s funeral, 145, 146
Cranmer, Thomas, Archbishop of Canterbury, 54, 65-6, 103-4, 107,
108, 131, 156, 204, 206;
connection with the Reformers, 227;
his interview with Edward VI about the succession, 240-1;
his conduct towards Lady Jane, 286-7;
the original charge against, 287 f.n.;
indictment against, 299;
at Edward VI’s funeral, 300;
trial of, 316, 317, 319, 320; 321
“Devise” for the succession drawn up, 238-9;
Jane named in, 240;
Council object to, 240-3;
signed, 243;
text of, 254-5
Diego de Mendoza, Don, 232, 262 and f.n., 263;
accepts Guildford Dudley as King, 263-4;
probably influenced by Northumberland and the Suffolks, 264; 265;
355
Dissolution of the Monasteries, disastrous effect of, 25-6, 195
Dorset, Henry Grey, Marquess of, afterwards Duke of Suffolk (Lady
Jane’s father), 4-5;
marriage of, 11; 14; 94;
negotiations with Sharington and Sudeley about parting with Lady
Jane, 115, 116; 128; 130;
welcomes Reformers, 134;
correspondence with Sudeley about Jane, 149-50;
has fresh negotiations with Sudeley and Sharington for the
purchase of Lady Jane, nature of the affair, 152;
also negotiations with Somerset, 153;
conclusion of negotiations with Sudeley, the money paid, 154-5;
supports Sudeley, 160; 169;
goes to live in London, 179;
letter to Bullinger, 179;
created Duke of Suffolk, 179, 212 f.n.;
goes to Sheen, 223; 224 and f.n.;
social intercourse with the Dudleys, 228-9;
coerces Jane into marrying Guildford Dudley, 230;
gives the Council leave to depart from the Tower, 284;
is ordered to give up the Tower, signs Mary’s proclamation, 287;
announces her downfall to Queen Jane, 288;
his subsequent movements, 289-90;
raises revolt against Mary, his defeat and betrayal, 322-3, 323
f.n.;
the injury done to Queen Jane’s cause by this revolt, 323-4, 323
f.n., 324 f.n., 326, 330; 334;
trial and defence, 349;
execution, 349-50;
burial, 350-1;
his head, 351 and f.n., 352 f.n.;
portrait of, 363
Dorset, Margaret, Dowager Lady, 5-6 and f.n.
Dorsets, residences of the, in London, 23-4;
friendship of the Howards for, 94, 95
Dudley, Lord Ambrose, 228, 273, 275;
imprisoned, 281 f.n., 292; 298; 316;
trial of, 317, 319; 356 f.n.
Dudley, Sir Andrew, 225 and f.n., 233, 271, 273, 281 f.n.;
condemnation and recantation, 304 and f.n.
Dudley, Edmund, 8, 190-1
Dudley, Guildford. (_See_ Guildford Dudley)
Dudley, Henry, 281 f.n., 284 f.n., 298, 316;
trial of, 317; 319; 356 f.n.
Dudley, John. (_See_ Northumberland, Duke of)
Dudley, Lord Robert, 23, 209, 229, 275, 292, 315, 320, 324, 356 f.n.
Durham House, 234, 236, 299, 252
Edward VI, King, birth, 14 and f.n., 52;
never Prince of Wales, 101 f.n.; 103 and f.n.;
learns of his father’s death, 106;
his movements at that time, 106 f.n.;
enters London, 107, 111;
writes to Katherine Parr on her marriage, 123-4;
infancy, 126;
education, 126-8;
little intercourse with his sisters, 128;
Coronation procession, 130-1;
Coronation, 132 and f.n.;
has to hear innumerable sermons, 156-7;
state of his health, is deformed and deaf, 157;
prefers Sudeley to Somerset, 157;
at Hampton Court, 204-6, 206 f.n.; 214;
becomes weaker, 222;
does not attend Jane’s wedding, but makes gifts, 234-5;
his scheme for the succession, 238 et seq.;
names Jane Grey as his successor, 240;
declares his will to the Council, 241, 242-3;
his death, 245 and f.n.;
rumours of his having been poisoned by Northumberland, 246-7, 247
f.n.;
supernatural visitations, 248;
funeral of, 300;
Masses for, 300 and f.n., 301;
his Great Seal, 302-3 f.n.
Elizabeth, Princess, 39, 52, 94, 106, 121;
joins Sudeley, 122;
her appearance at fifteen, 136;
her behaviour with Sudeley, 137 et seq., 162-3;
is sent away from Sudeley, 139;
letter to Katherine Parr, 139;
her feelings towards Sudeley, 140; 157; 167; 178;
omitted from the succession, 239;
declared illegitimate, 257-8;
dislikes Lady Jane, 257;
enters London, 298; 312
“Ellen,” Mrs., Lady Jane’s nurse, 17, 291, 340, 341, 343
England, state of, under Somerset’s protectorate, 195-6 et seq.,
212;
immorality in, 196-7;
slavery in, 198-9
Feckenham, Dr., afterwards Abbot, 321 and f.n.;
announces hour of her death to Lady Jane, 328 and f.n.;
appearance of, 329; 340; 341; 343; 358 f.n.
Fitzpatrick, Barnaby, 127 and f.n.
Frances Brandon, Lady, Marchioness of Dorset, afterwards Duchess of
Suffolk (Lady Jane’s mother), 4, 9;
birth and baptism, 11;
marries Henry Grey, Marquis of Dorset, 11;
her appearance, children, etc., 12; 35; 94; 108; 114; 132;
letter to Sudeley, 150-1; 154;
falls ill, 181; 183;
proposes a marriage between Lord Hertford and Jane, 210;
pays homage to Lady Jane as Queen, 251;
enters the Tower with Queen Jane, 253-4; 282; 289;
marries Adrian Stokes, 352;
portrait of, 353, 363;
appearance, gives birth to a child, dies, her monument, 354
Gage, Sir John, Constable of the Tower, 298, 299 f.n., 316, 334, 340
Gardiner, Bishop, 39, 54, 58;
endeavours to overthrow Katherine Parr, 67;
Henry’s anger against, 69 and f.n.;
omitted from Henry VIII’s will, 69, 103, 110; 70; 105; 108; 109;
111; 112; 114; 156; 211; 304; 325;
urges Jane’s execution, 332
Gates, Sir Harry, condemnation and recantation, 304
Gates, Sir John, 87, 241, 249, 275, 279 f.n., 280, 281 f.n.;
condemnation, 304;
execution, 307-8
“Geraldine, Fair,” birth and antecedents, 96 and f.n.;
her beauty, connection with the Earl of Surrey, marriages, etc.,
97;
funeral, 98; 163
Greys of Groby, family of, 3-4
Grey, Thomas, Marquis of Dorset, 1, 4
Grey, Lord Thomas, Lady Jane’s uncle, 183;
signs the “Devise,” 243;
captured and executed, 351-2
Grey, Lady Jane, “the Nine Days’ Queen,” birth, 14;
christening, 15 and f.n.;
babyhood and childhood, 16-18 et seq.; 24; 50; 51;
Lady Jane and Prince Edward, 55, 72, 120, 125-6, 128, 247-8; 62;
67; 68; 70; 94; 97; 108; 109;
effect of Henry VIII’s will on her political position, 115;
goes to Seymour Place, 117;
her life there, 118-9;
proposal of marrying her to the Earl of Hertford, 119, 132, 153,
210, 230;
life at Chelsea, 140;
at Sudeley Castle, 141 et seq.;
as chief mourner at Katherine Parr’s funeral, 145;
goes back to Bradgate, 151;
letter to Lord Sudeley, 154;
returns to Sudeley’s charge at Hanworth, 155;
goes again to Seymour Place, 157;
returns to Bradgate, 166;
her education, 169 et seq.;
letter to Bullinger, 170-2;
Ascham’s story of, 172-3;
ill-treated by her parents, 173, 230 and f.n., 303;
her knowledge of languages, 174;
appears at Court, 181, 182;
her travels in 1551-2, 183-4;
illness, 185;
makes presents to Bullinger’s wife, 186;
movements in 1552-4, 186, 223 f.n.;
story of, 189;
doubtful legitimacy, 197, 224-5;
coerced into marrying Guildford Dudley, 230;
preparations for the wedding, 230;
date of wedding, 232 and f.n.;
special attire for, 233 and f.n.;
details of the wedding, 233-4, 235;
her dress at her wedding, 235 and f.n.;
her own account of her interview with the Duchess of
Northumberland, 236;
goes to Chelsea and falls ill, 237;
nominated successor to Edward VI, 240;
goes to Sion House, 250-1;
is informed of Edward VI’s will, 251;
homage done her as Queen, 252;
her distress thereat, 252;
proceeds to the Tower, 252;
her entry into the Tower as Queen, her appearance, 253;
proclaimed Queen, 256;
signs documents, 259, 267, 276, 283;
dines in State, 260;
scene with the Duchess of Northumberland, refuses to make
Guildford Dudley King, 260;
receives the Regalia, 261, 270;
her Royal Seal, 266;
falls ill, 268;
list of her property sent to the Tower, 271-3;
makes appointments, 276;
collapse of her cause, 281, 283;
strange incident, sends for Lord Winchester, 282;
Suffolk announces her downfall to her, abandons the Throne, 288;
deserted in the Tower, 289;
her imprisonment, 291, etc.;
relinquishes the Regalia and her money, 292-3;
her will, 294;
indictment against, 298-9;
writ against, 316;
proceeds to Guildhall for her trial, 316-7;
trial and condemnation, 318-9, 319 f.n.;
letter to Harding, 321;
her death-warrant, 326-7;
her death announced to her, 328-9;
postponement of execution, 329-30;
reasons why she was not executed with Guildford, 330-1;
letter to her father, 331;
last letter to her sister Katherine, 332-4;
last writings, 335-6;
inscriptions in her cell, 336 f.n.;
last hours, 337 et seq.;
refuses to see Guildford but watches him go to execution, 337;
sees his bleeding remains, 339 and f.n.;
the execution delayed, 339;
the procession to the scaffold, 340;
Jane said to be _enceinte_, 341;
her last speech, 341-3;
behaviour on the scaffold, prepares for death, 343-4;
last moments and decapitation, 344;
contemporary account of execution, 344-5 f.n.;
treatment of her body after death, 345-6;
burial, 346 and f.n.;
legend about, 347;
portraits of, 359-62;
writings on Jane Grey, 342 f.n., 363-4;
her literary works, 364
Grey, Lady Katherine, 10, 17, 18, 108, 109, 119 f.n., 132, 183, 232
and f.n., 235, 252;
Lady Jane’s last letter to, 332-4; 353
Grey, Lady Mary, 10; a dwarf, 17; 18; 109; 183; 233; 252; 353; 358
Guildford Dudley, Lord, proposal to marry him to Lady Margaret
Clifford, 224, 226; 229;
birth and antecedents, 231;
appearance, 231;
his portrait, 231 f.n.;
date of his marriage with Jane Grey, 232 and f.n.;
details of the marriage, 234-5;
remains at Durham House, 237;
enters the Tower with Queen Jane, 253;
his endeavours to become King of England, 260, 261-6;
imprisoned, 292;
his money taken from him, 294;
indictment against, 298-9;
writ against, goes to trial, 316-7;
trial and condemnation, 319; 320; 326;
receives his death sentence, 330;
his autograph, 334;
desires to see Lady Jane, 337;
supposed recantation, 337;
goes out to execution, 337-8;
his execution, 338 and f.n.
Hampton Court, 43, 44, 47;
Edward VI at, 204-6
Harding, Dr., Jane’s tutor and rector of Bradgate, 15, 27, 170, 321
Henry VIII, his religiosity, 37;
divorces Anne of Cleves, 37-8;
marries Katherine Parr, 39;
his appearance, 46;
in expedition to France, 54, 55-7;
declines in health, 59;
defeats the plot against Katherine Parr, 67-9;
his will, 69 f.n.;
text of, 109 and f.n., 110, 238, 111; 72;
his last illness, 100-1;
does not receive the last Sacraments, 102;
death, 104;
his body embalmed, 107;
funeral arrangements, 107-8, 111;
funeral procession and sermon, 112-4;
weird occurrence at Sion, 113;
supernatural apparitions of Henry, 114;
effect of his will, 115
Hertford, Earl of, son of the Duke of Somerset, proposal to marry
him to Jane, 119, 153, 210, 230; 119 f.n.; 127; 232 f.n.; 315
Hoby, Sir Philip, English Ambassador to Brussels, 40, 262 and f.n.,
266, 267-8;
submits to Mary, 296;
recalled, 297; 328 f.n.
Holland, Mrs. Elizabeth or Bess, 75 and f.n., 85-6;
gives evidence at Surrey’s trial, 89-90; 92; 93; 94; 95 f.n.
Household, Henry VIII’s, 42 et seq.;
etiquette in, 49
Howard, the house of, 73 and f.n.;
feud between the Howards and the Seymours, 73, 76, 81 et seq.;
their relations with the Dorsets, 95-6
Huggones, Mrs., 225;
called before the Privy Council, 226
Hunsdon, 95 f.n.
Huyck, Dr., 145 and f.n.
Inventory of the Howards’ effects, 92 et seq.;
of the Crown Jewels, etc., delivered to Queen Jane, 270, 293;
of Queen Jane’s own effects, 271-2
Jane Grey, Lady. (_See_ Grey, Lady Jane)
Ket, Robert, 200 and f.n.;
his rebellion, 201-2;
captured and hanged, 202; 235 f.n.
Knox, John, 156, 157, 281
Kyme, Thomas, husband of Anne Askew, 61, 63
Latimer, Lord, 32-3;
correspondence with Sir John Russell, 33-4;
dies, 34; 162
Latimer, Lady. (_See_ Parr, Katherine)
Margaret Clifford, Lady, proposal to marry her to Guildford Dudley,
224, 226; 225 and f.n.
Mary of Guise, Queen-Regent of Scotland, 110;
enters London, 181-2
Mary, Princess, afterwards Queen of England, 39, 52-3, 94, 102, 121;
the Dorsets and Mary, 181;
visited by the Dorsets, 183;
her feelings towards Lady Jane Grey, 189; 233;
omitted from the scheme for the succession, 239, 241 f.n.;
Northumberland’s intrigues against her and her escape, 249, 250;
declared illegitimate, 258, 259;
her letter to the Council, 268;
risings in favour of, 273-4, 277, 281, 283;
proclaimed Queen, 285;
popular enthusiasm for, 285-6;
affection for Philip of Spain, 297;
enters London, 298;
enters the Tower as Queen, 299;
her hatred of Northumberland, 302, 306;
Coronation, 312-3;
wishes to spare Lady Jane’s life, 314 and f.n., 315-6, 320;
decline of enthusiasm for, 322;
signs Jane’s death-warrant, 327; 337
Mary Stuart, Queen of Scotland, 109, 238
Mary Tudor, Queen of France, 8;
marries Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, 9;
her children, 9;
dies, 10;
her monument, 11
Montagu, Lord Chief Justice, 240, 241, 242, 243, 281 f.n.
Morgan, Judge, 298;
presides at Queen Jane’s trial, 318;
his career and death, 318 f.n.;
condemns Jane to death, 319
Mortimer, Lady. (_See_ under Brandon, Charles)
Morysone, Sir Richard, English Ambassador, 262, 266;
recalled, 297
Newhall Place, description of, 186-7;
life at, 188
Noailles, the de, French Ambassadors, 312, 315, 345, 345-6 f.n.
Nonesuch, Palace of, 45 and f.n.
Norfolk, Thomas Howard, third Duke of, 32, 54, 66, 73, 74;
appearance, 74-5;
marriage, 75;
his attempt to reconcile his son and the Seymours, 81 et seq.;
charged with treason and taken to the Tower, 88;
his death-warrant prepared, 92;
release, 92;
dispersal of his lands and wardrobe, 92-3; 105; 298;
death, 302; 312, 313; 316;
attends Lady Jane’s trial, 317; 341
Norfolk, Duchess of, is neglected by her husband, 75;
her grievances, 85-6;
gives evidence against her husband, 89; 94
Northampton, William Parr, Earl of Essex and Marquis of, 29, 53, 54;
created Marquis, 129; 163; 197; 202; 214; 240; 241; 251;
letter to, 259; 275; 281 f.n.;
indictment against, 299;
trial, 302-3; 304; 325
Northampton, Marchioness of, 141 f.n.
Northumberland, John Dudley, Duke of (previously Viscount Lisle and
Earl of Warwick), 38, 50, 54, 57;
becomes Lord Chamberlain, 112;
created Earl of Warwick, 129; 130;
his antecedents, 190 and f.n., 191;
birth, 191;
goes to France, 192;
his wife, 192;
his intrigues, 192;
successful expedition into Norfolk, 202;
popularity, 203;
becomes Lord Great Master and High-Admiral, 207;
governs badly, 208;
endeavours to overthrow Somerset, 211;
is created Duke of Northumberland, 212;
makes false accusations against Somerset, 213;
attends Somerset’s trial, 214;
position improved by Somerset’s death, 221 and f.n.;
interferes with Princess Mary’s religion, 221 f.n., 222;
social intercourse with the Suffolks, 224, 228-9;
induces Edward VI to nominate Jane Grey as his successor, 239-40,
240 f.n.;
coerces the Council, 242;
tyrannises over every one, 243 f.n.;
rumours that he had poisoned Edward VI, 246-7, 247 f.n., 315 f.n.;
intrigues to destroy Princess Mary, 249;
informs Jane that she is Queen, 251;
his schemes for changing the State religion, 265; 267;
his farewell dinner, 274-5;
takes command of Queen Jane’s forces against Mary, and leaves
London with them, 275;
sends for reinforcements and retires to Cambridge, 277;
made prisoner, 279;
brought to the Tower, 280;
indictment against, 299;
his bad health, 301;
Mary’s hatred for him, 302, 306;
his trial and condemnation, 302 and f.n., 303;
his recantation, 304 and f.n.;
pathetic letter to Arundel, 305-6;
his sincerity in changing his faith, 306 f.ns.;
his execution postponed and the probable reason, 306-7, 307 f.n.;
leave-taking of Guildford, 307;
his execution, 307-8;
curious account of, 308 f.n.;
burial, 309;
Lady Jane’s opinion of him, 310-11;
his family, 356-7 f.n.
Northumberland, Duchess of, disliked by Lady Jane, 192;
antecedents, 231;
quarrels with Lady Jane, 236;
does homage to Jane as Queen, 251;
has a violent scene with Queen Jane in the Tower, 260-1;
her bequests to Don Mendoza, 262 f.n.;
pleads for her husband to Mary, 280;
quarrels with the Duchess of Suffolk, 282; 289;
her existence after the Duke’s execution, 355;
death, 355;
her will, 355;
strange last directions, 355-6;
funeral, 356
Owen, Dr. George, 101, 245 and f.n.
Paget, Sir William, 101, 105, 106, 213, 283, 285, 295, 358 f.n.
Palmer, Sir Thomas, 213, 281 f.n.;
condemnation, 304;
execution, 307-8
Parr, Katherine, Queen (previously Lady Latimer), birth, 28;
first marriage, 29;
her appearance, 30 and f.n.;
her education, writings, etc., 31;
first dealings, with Henry VIII, 37, 38;
her marriage with Henry VIII, 39;
public opinion on, 39-40; 51-2;
her writings, 53; 54; 59;
her connection and encouragement of Anne Askew, 62, 64, 72 note;
is nearly arrested for heresy, 67-9;
the plot against, 69 et seq.;
at Henry VIII’s death-bed, 102; 108 and f.n.;
mentioned in Henry’s will, 110, 110-11 f.n., 238;
at Henry VIII’s funeral, 114; 119;
her _liaison_ with Thomas Seymour, 121-2;
marriage to Seymour, 123;
indignation of the Somersets at the marriage, 124;
her life at Sudeley Castle, 142;
gives birth to a child, 143;
her last days, 144 et seq.;
makes her will, 145;
death and funeral, 145-6
Parr, the family of, 28-9
Parr, Sir Thomas, 29, 53
Partridge, Nathaniel, Lady Jane’s warder, 290 and f.n.; 310
Pembroke, William Herbert, Earl of, 29, 53, 54, 130, 160, 163, 214,
251, 261, 283, 284, 285, 286
Penn, Mrs. Sybel, Prince Edward’s nurse, 126 and f.n., 247
Proclamation of Queen Jane, 256 and f.n., 257 and f.n.
Reformers, the Swiss and other, 59, 133-5;
their letters, 134, 180, 227;
Lady Jane Grey and the Reformers, 180, 226;
their ways and opinions, 227-8;
their comments on Lady Jane’s execution, 348
Religion, in England, return of Catholicism, 74 and f.n., 326;
state of, in the first year of Edward VI’s reign, 133;
under Edward VI, 213;
Northumberland’s schemes anent a change in, 265
Renard, Simon, the Imperial Ambassador, 265, 297, 312, 314, 315,
330, 348
Richmond, Mary, Duchess of, Earl of Surrey’s sister, 83-4, 85;
gives evidence against Surrey, 90;
repentance and death, 98; 108
Ridley, Bishop, 156, 281 and f.ns., 321
Russell, Lord John, Privy Seal, 33 and f.n., 39, 66, 199;
connection with Sudeley, 158-9; 204; 205 f.n.; 284; 312
Sandys, Dr., 277, 278;
preaches before Northumberland, 278-9; 279; 280; 281 f.n.
Seymour, Dowager Lady, 117-8;
death, 161; 211 and f.n.
Seymour, Edward, Earl of Hertford, Duke of Somerset, Lord Protector,
39, 54, 77;
quarrels with the Earl of Surrey, 81;
attempted reconciliation, 82-3;
failure of same, 84;
attends Henry VIII’s death-bed, 101, 105;
after Henry’s death leaves Palace, 106;
appointed Protector, 110;
proclaimed Protector, 111 and f.n.;
assumes the office of treasurer, etc., 111-2;
his intrigues, 119;
indignation at Thomas Seymour (Sudeley’s) marriage, quarrels with
him, 120, 124;
is created Duke of Somerset, 128;
dines with Sudeley and Warwick, 129-30;
quarrels with Sudeley, letter to, 143-4;
unpopular in Scotland, his massacres there, 192-3, 192 f.n.;
unpopular in England, 194-5;
his loose morals, 197;
risings against his maladministration, 199;
takes refuge at Hampton Court, 204;
assumes higher rank, 204;
flies to Windsor, 206;
arrested and sent to the Tower, 206-7;
confesses his guilt, is fined and released, 208-9;
regains his lost position, 209-10; 212;
return of unpopularity, 212-3;
second arrest, 213; trial, 213-4;
sentenced to death, 214;
scene at his execution, 215;
decapitation and burial, 216;
his character considered, 216-7;
contemporary letter about him, 217-20;
his prayer-book, 334
Seymour, the family of, 76-7;
feud between the Seymours and the Howards, 81 et seq.
Sharington, Sir William, 115, 116, 151 and f.n., 152, 154, 160, 161
f.n., 276
Sheen, ex-Priory of, 223 and f.n.
Sidney, Lady Mary, Northumberland’s daughter, 229;
sent to Jane by the Council, 251; 355; 356-7 f.n.
Sion House, 224 and f.n.;
life at, 228-9;
homage paid to Lady Jane at, 251
Somers, Will, Court jester, 49 and f.n., 50
Somerset, Edward Seymour, Duke of. (_See_ Seymour, Edward)
Somerset, Anne Stanhope, Duchess of, 34, 39, 80;
quarrels with Katherine Parr, 125, 165 f.n.;
imprisoned, 213 f.n.;
her prison fare, 294;
second marriage, friendship for Mary, death, 357
Stanfield Hall (Lady Jane’s dower), 235 f.n.
Stokes, Adrian (Lady Frances Brandon’s second husband), 229, 352,
353 and f.n., 354;
death, 355
Sudeley Castle, in olden times, 141-2;
Jane Grey’s room at, 142
Sudeley, Thomas Seymour, Lord, 36, 77, 82;
at Henry VIII’s death, 101, 106;
becomes Lord High-Admiral, 112;
his intrigues to obtain possession of Lady Jane Grey, 115;
his London residence, 116 and f.n.;
obtains wardship of Lady Jane, 117;
his appearance, morals, and early intrigues, 120-1;
endeavours to marry a Princess, 121;
his courtship of Katherine Parr, 121-2;
marriage with her, 123;
gets Edward VI to countenance this marriage, 123;
the marriage made public, 123-4;
indignation of the Somersets thereat, 124;
created Baron Sudeley, 129; 130;
his improper behaviour with Princess Elizabeth, 136 et seq.;
rumours about the same, 140 and f.n.;
intrigues against the Protector, 143, 155;
is arrested but released, 143;
conduct during Katherine Parr’s illness, 144-5;
effect of her death, 147;
writes to Dorset relinquishing Jane, 147-9;
intrigues to again obtain possession of Lady Jane, on payment of
money, and interviews Dorset, 152;
negotiations concluded, 154;
pays for Jane and takes her back to Hanworth with him, 155;
again plots to marry a Princess, 157-9;
tries to obtain the Protectorship, 160;
arrested, 161;
evidence against him, 162;
condemned to death, 164;
beheaded, 165;
sermon on, 166;
fate of his child, 166-7 f.n.
Suffolk, Katherine, Duchess of, 11, 34, 39, 108, 357-8;
portrait of, 363
Suffolk, Duke of. (_See_ Dorset, Marquess of)
Suffolk, Duchess of. (_See_ Frances Brandon, Marchioness of)
Surrey, Earl of Surrey (the “Poet-Earl”), 54, 66, 74;
his many talents, 75-6;
appearance, 76;
riotous life, 78;
brought before the Privy Council, 79 and f.n.;
committed to prison, 80;
quarrels with Edward Seymour (then Lord Hertford), 81;
makes impolitic remarks, 83;
again summoned before Privy Council, 85, 86, 87;
his trial, 90-1;
execution, 91;
dispersal of his effects, 93-4;
his children, 98;
his place of burial, 99
Surrey, Countess of, 78 and f.n., 93;
second marriage and death, 98-9
Table of the heirs female to the Crown, named in the “Devise,”
239 f.n.
Throckmorton brothers, the, 37, 163;
save Mary’s life, 249-50, 250 f.n.
Throckmorton, Lady, 287-8, 291
Tower of London, the, Queen Jane’s entry into, 253;
Queen Jane proclaimed in, 256;
ammunition brought into, 273;
part of it in which Queen Jane was lodged, 281-2 f.n.;
place of her imprisonment in, 290;
seizure of, made a count against Queen Jane, 298, 298-9 f.n.;
Mary’s entry into as Queen, 299;
the Bulwark Gate, 337, 338 f.n.
Tylney, Mrs. Elizabeth, Lady Jane’s attendant, 291 and f.n.; 235;
340; 341; 343
Tyrwhitt, Lady, 35 and f.n., 62, 67;
her account of Katherine Parr’s last illness, 144-5, 162
Udall, Nicholas, 157, 172
Underhill, Edward, his child, 287
Warwick, John Dudley, Earl of. (_See_ Northumberland, Duke of)
Warwick, John, Earl of, (the Duke of Northumberland’s son), 209 and
f.n., 275, 281 f.n., 292;
trial, 302-3; 356 f.n.
Wendy, Dr., 67, 101 and f.n., 245
White, Thomas, Lord Mayor of London, 298, 316, 341
Winchester, William Paulet, Marquess of, 203;
created, 212 f.n.; 214; 241;
brings Jane the Regalia, 261, 270 and f.n.; 282; 283; 284; 292 and
f.n.; 293; 294
“Windsor Martyrs,” the, 40 and f.n.
Wriothesley, Lord Chancellor, 39, 54, 64, 65, 66;
tries to ruin Katherine Parr, 67;
Henry’s anger against him, 68-9; 87; 88; 109;
created Earl of Southampton, 129 and f.n.; 160; 203; 313 f.n.
Wyatt rebellion, the, 325;
capture of Wyatt, 326
_Printed by_ MORRISON & GIBB LIMITED, _Edinburgh_
FOOTNOTES
[1] This will be seen conspicuously in my new volume of Spanish State
Papers of Edward VI, now in the press to be issued next year by the
Record Office.
[2] Antonio de Guaras, a Spanish merchant. This was just before
Somerset’s final downfall. See Spanish Chronicle of Henry VIII.
[3] “The oak trees there [Bradgate] were pollarded after her [Jane’s]
execution. Some old members of the family remember a watch with a case
made of a hollowed ruby or carbuncle, which is said to have belonged
to Lady Jane. But this, with other relics of Lady Jane, seems to have
disappeared mysteriously some fifty or so years ago.”--Extract from a
letter from Earl Stamford and Warrington, dated 20th November 1907.
[4] The barony of Ferrers was merged in the Townshend peerage by the
marriage, in 1751, of George, Viscount Townshend, with Charlotte, last
Baroness Ferrers.
[5] State Papers, Domestic Series, Henry VIII.
[6] The Priory of Tylsey was dedicated to Our Lady of Sorrows.
[7] State Papers, Domestic Series, Henry VIII.
[8] Miss Strickland and other writers on the Grey family state that
Margaret, Marchioness of Dorset, outlived the ruin of her family. This
is an error. She died in September 1541, apparently of the plague. See
State Papers, 1156 and 1489, Domestic Series, Henry VIII.
[9] This lady is occasionally confounded with Queen Anne Boleyn, who
was never _Lady_ Anne Boleyn. The lady in question, who has proved
somewhat of a stumbling-block to historians, who have frequently
confused her with the Queen, was Anne, daughter of the Earl of Pembroke
and wife of Sir William Boleyn.
[10] Lady Jane was certainly christened at Bradgate and not at Groby,
which confirms the statement that she was born at Bradgate; for if
she had been born at Groby, her baptism would have taken place in the
parish church of that village.
[11] There has been some controversy over the date of Queen Jane
Seymour’s death. Bishop Burnet (p. 33, vol. ii.) says it was the
day after Prince Edward’s birth, _i.e._ 14th October; which date is
adopted by Hall (p. 825), Stow (p. 575), Speed (p. 1039), Herbert (p.
492), and Holinshed (p. 944). On the other hand, Henninges (_Theatrum
Genealogicum_, tome 4, p. 105) says it was the 15th; a letter of the
doctors (in Cottonian MSS, Nero C. x. fol. 2), the 17th; Fabian, 23rd
October; King Edward’s own _Journal_, “Within a few days after the
birth of her son, died ...;” and George Lilly (_Chronicle_), twelve
days after--_Duodecimo post die moritur_. However, Cecil’s _Journal_,
a document in the Herald’s Office, and a letter among the State Papers
dated Wednesday, 24th October, give the 24th October as the date of the
Queen’s death. This is in agreement with the statement in the _London
Chronicle during the Reigne of Henry VII and Henry VIII_ (Camden Soc.,
from Cottonian MSS, Vespasian A. xxv. fol. 38-46), which clearly says
that “On Saynt Edwardes eve Fryday in the mornyng (12th October), was
prince Edward boorn, the trew son of K.H. the viii. and quene Jane
his mothur in Hamton Corte. His godffathurs was the deuke of Norfock,
and the deuke of Suffocke, and the (Arch) Bisschop of Caunterbery;
and his godmother was his owne sister, which was dooughter of quene
Kataryn a fore sayd. On Saynte Crispyns eve Wensday (24th October),
dyid quene Jane in childbed, and is beryid in the castelle of Wynsor.”
She was not, however, buried until 12th November. Dorset followed the
procession from Hampton Court to Windsor, riding close to the Princess
Mary, who was her stepmother’s chief mourner.
[12] Jane Grey was evidently given the name of Jane in compliment to
Queen Jane Seymour, who must have been still living at the time of
the child’s birth. The name Jane, a variant of Johanna and Joan, is
exceedingly rare in pre-Reformation times. The lady who very likely
acted as godmother was her paternal aunt, Lady Cicely Grey.
[13] This method of baptizing infants is still practised in the
Archdiocese of Milan.
[14] These ceremonies, which are extremely ancient and essentially
Roman Catholic, are even now carried out in Italy, Spain, and Portugal.
[15] The prefix _the_ before the title Lady was considered in the
sixteenth century equivalent to “Princess”; “the Lady Elizabeth,” “the
Lady Mary,” and so forth. “Royal Highness” was not in use, and royal
ladies were addressed as “Your Grace.”
[16] An old cookery book of the sixteenth century in the possession of
the author contains the following “crafte to make Ypocras”: “Take a
quarter of red wyne, an unce of synamon, and half an unce of gynger: a
quarter of an unce of greynes and of longe pepper, wythe half a pound
of sugar: broie all these not too smalle, and then putte them in a bagg
of wullen clothe (made therefore) with the wyne, and lette it hange
over a vessel tylle the wyne be runne thorow. It is presumed that the
wyne should be poured in boiling hot, else it would gain little of the
spicy flavour.”
[17] Dorset, when he became Duke of Suffolk, incurred the censure of
the Reformers under Edward VI for his sinful encouragement of players
and other like “vagabonds.”
[18] In Lent and Advent, and during Passion and Rogation weeks, meat
was only served once a week.
[19] Sir Thomas Carden’s account for sums disbursed for the household
expenses of Anne of Cleves in 1552 gives us a curious insight into the
manner and expense of lighting a gentlewoman’s house in the middle of
the sixteenth century. Anne was residing at a manor at Dartford, and
Sir Thomas supplied her with “35 lb. of wax lights, sixes and fours to
the lb. at 1s. per lb.; 100 prickets [or candles to be stuck on an iron
spike] at 6d. per lb.; staff torches 1s. 4d. per doz., and of white
lights, 18 doz. at 9s. per doz.”--Losely MSS, edited by A. J. Kempe.
[20] This detestable game is still a favourite in parts of Cuba, but
generally with a goose substituted for the duck. The writer saw it
“played” there in 1879.
[21] The fact that this house was the Dorsets’ usual town residence
is proved by the Marquess’s distinctly stating that Seymour, when he
fetched away Jane Grey, came to him “immediately” after Henry VIII’s
death “at my house in Westminster.”
[22] Coaches, properly so called, were introduced into England in 1601.
[23] “The gentlewomen in cloak and _safeguards_.”--Stage directions to
the _Merry Devil of Edmonton_.
[24] Strype’s _Memorials_.
[25] Queen Katherine Parr was buried in the chapel at Sudeley Castle,
which fell into ruins late in the seventeenth century. The monument
having become much dilapidated, the then Vicar of Sudeley (1786) had
the curiosity to open it and examine the condition of the body, which
was found to be in a perfect state of preservation. The corpse measured
5 ft. 3 in.; the coffin, 5 ft. 10 in., the width being 1 ft. 4 in. in
the broadest part, and the depth 1 ft. 5½ in. The Queen must therefore
have had a very slight figure. The body was fully dressed in a Court
costume of the period of cloth of gold and velvet; there were untanned
leather shoes upon the feet. The profusion of light golden hair was
quite remarkable. Of course several locks of it were snipped off and
preserved as relics, one of them being still exhibited at Sudeley.
Another lock of Katherine Parr’s hair was in the possession of Lord
Bennet, who showed it to the author. It was very bright in colour and
exceedingly curly. In 1805 the remains of Katherine Parr were again
disturbed, and it was then discovered that an ivy berry had fallen
into a fissure of the skull, taken root, and twined round the head a
verdant coronet. For the last time the remains were touched in 1842,
when they were removed with reverential care by Messrs. William and
John Dent, who had become possessors of Sudeley Castle, and placed in a
handsome monument, having above it a noble figure of the Queen, which
is still one of the chief ornaments of the exquisitely restored chapel
of the ancient castle--a veritable treasure-house of Tudor relics--now
so pleasantly associated with the Dent family. For these notes on the
remains of Katherine Parr the writer is personally indebted to the late
Miss Elizabeth Strickland, who so long survived her sister Agnes, and
to an interesting pamphlet on Sudeley Castle by Dr. Richard Garnett.
[26] The MS. of this poem is contained in a little volume bound in
black morocco. Though evidently contemporary, some doubts have been
expressed as to its authenticity, but a marked allusion to the writer’s
position as a Consort of Henry VIII is supposed to be a sufficient
guarantee as to the identity of the royal poetess, not to speak of the
evidence of her handwriting.
[27] He is the gentleman with the beautiful saint-like head and angelic
expression in the splendid series of drawings by Holbein at Windsor.
[28] This Mr. “Nudygate” or Newdigate’s son became in due time
secretary to Anne Stanhope, Duchess of Somerset, and her second husband.
[29] British Museum, Vespasian, F. xiii. 183, f. 131.
[30] Lady Denny was the daughter of Sir Philip Champernoun of Modbury,
Devonshire, and wife of Sir Andrew Denny, Privy Councillor and Groom of
the Stole to Henry VIII. Her husband predeceased her on 10th September
1549, and she herself died on 15th May 1553.
[31] Lady Fitzwilliam was the daughter of Sir W. Sidney and wife of Sir
William Fitzwilliam of Milton, Northamptonshire, Master of the King’s
Bench. Sir H. Gough Nichols, however, thinks she was more probably the
widow of that Sir William’s grandfather, Sir William Fitzwilliam of
Milton and Alderman of London, who died in 1534. In this case she would
have been the daughter of Sir John Ormonde and granddaughter of Anne
Cooke, the learned daughter of Sir A. Cooke by his first wife, Anne
Fitzwilliam.
[32] Lady Tyrritt or Tyrwhitt was not, as Miss Strickland says, the
daughter of Katherine Parr’s first husband, but through her husband,
Lord Robert Tyrwhitt of Leighton House, the cousin seven times removed
of that gentleman. She was the daughter of Sir Gerald Oxenburgh of
Sussex.
[33] This Countess of Sussex was Anne, daughter of Sir Philip Calthorpe
and second wife of Henry, Earl of Sussex. She was sent to the Tower in
April 1552 on a charge of witchcraft, and for having said that a son of
Edward IV was yet living. Lodged in the Lieutenant’s apartments, she
was liberated by order of the Duke of Northumberland in the following
September, after six months’ imprisonment. In all probability the
offence of which this lady was accused was merely that of having
predicted the young King Edward VI’s early death.
[34] There were some very curious rumours circulating in London
concerning the divorce of Anne of Cleves. Cranmer granted the divorce
on the plea that the Queen was still _virgo intacta_; but “two honest
citizens” (letter from Chapuys to Charles V) “were arrested on 9th
December 1541 on a plea that they published particulars of Queen
Katherine Howard’s inchastity, and said ‘the whole thing was a judgment
of God,’ and that the lady of Cleves was the King’s real wife; and that
she was in the family way by the King, notwithstanding rumours to the
contrary. That it was not true the King had not behaved to her like a
husband; and that she was gone away from London and had had a son in
the country last summer.”
[35] Robert Testwood was a chorister belonging, with Marbeck, to the
Chapel Royal, Windsor. Parsons was a priest, and Henry Filmer was
a tailor. Marbeck, who is said to have had a very fine voice, was
a fairly well-educated man, who at the time of his arrest had made
some progress with a translation of Calvin’s works. Testwood was a
well-known ribald jester who had frequently turned the anthem into
ridicule, and on more than one occasion had been caught singing lewd
words while the rest of the congregation were chanting the right ones.
He was arrested for smashing the nose of a statue of the Virgin;
Parsons was condemned for blasphemy; and Filmer for speaking ill of the
Host. He had said that if Transubstantiation were true, he had eaten
“twenty Gods” in his time.
[36] The Royal Household was considerably reduced by Somerset in the
first year of Edward VI, but in Elizabeth’s day it was again augmented
in every department, and was the most terrible and disastrous legacy
the great Queen bequeathed to her Stuart successor. The only other
example of such an extraordinary plethora of Court officials and
retainers is to be found at the Court of France under Louis XIV and
Louis XV’s unhappy successor, and they were a great factor in bringing
about the Revolution.
[37] Harl. 1419. The above account of Henry’s palaces and their
contents is taken from this important MSS: the Household Expenses,
State Papers, Royal Society’s Papers, _temp._ Henry VIII, and from the
very curious Trevelyan Papers, Camden Society; also from that admirable
work, _The History of Hampton Court Palace_, by Ernest Law, M.A.
[38] These tapestries were duplicates of those still preserved in the
Vatican, the cartoons for which are at the South Kensington Museum.
They remained in Whitehall till the death of Charles I, when they were
sold to Don Alfonso de Cardenas, and passed at his decease to the house
of Alva, which in turn sold them to Mr. Peter Tupper, who brought
them to England in 1823; in his house they remained until they were
resold to Mr. William Trall. In 1863 they were exhibited at the Crystal
Palace, and came very near destruction in the fire which devastated the
Tropical Department. Their subsequent fate is unknown, but as recently
as 1889 the writer saw two of the series in a shop in Wardour Street.
In 1890 a series of finely painted cartoons, evidently by Raphael
and his pupils, representing scenes from the Acts of the Apostles,
identical with these, came from Russia, and were exhibited by the late
Mr. Martin Colnaghi and afterwards sold to an American financier.
[39] The Palace of Nonesuch stood near the site of the old manor house
and the village church of Chuddington, near Cheam, in Surrey. Henry
VIII obtained possession of the manor as a hunting-seat in 1526 by
exchange, and erected a magnificent structure of freestone, having
a central gate-house and being flanked by lofty towers crowned with
cupolas in the form of inverted balloons, which gave the building a
decided Oriental appearance. The writers of the sixteenth century are
profuse in their laudations of this royal residence, and speak in the
most glowing terms of its beautifully furnished apartments, which
contained works of art worthy of ancient Greece or of Rome, and of its
lovely gardens, its orchards stocked with the choicest of fruit trees,
and its extensive park laid out in avenues ornamented by artificial
fountains. Its luxuriousness and beauty soon acquired for the new
palace the proud appellation of “Nonesuch.” Henry VIII never quite
completed it, but in Mary’s reign it passed to the Earl of Arundel, who
carried out the original intentions of its founders. Queen Elizabeth
frequently resided at Nonesuch, but whether as guest or tenant is
uncertain. Charles II presented it to the Duchess of Cleveland, who
completely demolished the palace and disparked the lands.
[40] Possibly the “Virgin of the Rocks,” now in the National Gallery.
[41] At the Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg.
[42] Lately in the possession of the Duke of Norfolk, and now belonging
to the nation.
[43] Windsor Castle.
[44] There were several of these allegorical “tables,” one or two of
which survive to this day in ancient contemporary engravings.
[45] Among the astronomers was the learned Nicholas Crager. William
Parr was also a student of astronomy. The State Papers contain some
mention of astronomical instruments purchased for him. Needless to say,
this “astronomy” was really only astrology under another name.
[46] Will Somer, or Somers, Court Jester to Henry VIII, and apparently
continued in that office by Edward VI, was originally in the service
of Richard Farmer, Esq., of Easton Newton, Northampton. This gentleman
was, in consequence of his having sent two groats and some articles of
clothing to a priest convicted of denying the King’s supremacy, found
guilty of a _præmunire_ and deprived of his estates. The distress to
which his former master was thereby reduced attracted the attention of
Will Somers, who during the King’s last illness availed himself of his
privileged position to let fall certain remarks concerning him, which
so worked upon the King’s mind that Henry was induced to restore to
Mr. Farmer what remained of his estates. Will Somers was an excellent
musician and had a very fine voice.
[47] This sort of slavish homage excited the sarcasm of the
Ambassadors. Soranzo, the Venetian Envoy, tells us he once saw Princess
Elizabeth kneel five times before venturing to address her brother
Edward.
[48] The household inventories of the Queen’s rooms contain mention of
innumerable pillows and cushions richly covered with silk and satin,
and also of costly counterpanes. This Oriental custom of using soft
pillows may have been introduced into England by Katherine of Aragon.
In England as in Spain the Sovereign only was allowed a chair.
[49] Political influence of this period no doubt seconded the good
offices of Queen Katherine in favour of Princess Mary. Her cousin the
Emperor was no longer an enemy, but an ally.
[50] This is the beautiful letter beginning _La nemica fortuna_,
which, although written by an English princess, is, in its way, a very
masterpiece of Italian epistolary literature. It may have been written
under the auspices of the famous Baltazar Castiglione, who taught
Elizabeth the Italian language.
[51] After her accession Queen Mary ordered this work to be recalled.
[52] State Papers, Domestic Series, Henry VIII, 1544-5. Lord Parr of
Horton died in 1545.
[53] Some very interesting particulars unknown to English historians
of the siege of Boulogne and of the sojourn of Henry VIII, Suffolk,
Surrey, and their merry men in Picardy, will be found in _Les Archives
de la Ville de Boulogne_; _Histoire de la Ville de Montreuil-sur-Mer_,
by F. Leplon; _Memoires de Martin de Bellamy_ (Michaud, Paris, 1838);
_Inventaire de l’Histoire de France_, by Le Comte Jean de Serre; in
a very curious little volume entitled _Le Château d’Hardelot_; also
in _Notre Dame de Boulogne_, by l’Abbé Haignere, published by Hamain,
Boulogne-sur-Mer, 1898; and in the _Spanish Chronicle of the Reign of
Henry VIII_, translated by Major Martin Hume.
[54] Full particulars of the reasons for and the progress of this
disagreement will be found in vol. viii. of the _Spanish State Papers
of Henry VIII_, vols. vii. and viii., edited by Major Martin Hume.
[55] See for evidence of this fact a curious document included in the
Notes to the _Journal_ of Edward VI, who himself informs us that his
father drove away anybody who appeared before him in mourning.
[56] Speed.
[57] See Privy Council Papers, 1546.
[58] Anne Askew’s “Narrative.” It is but fair to the reputation of both
Rich and Wriothesley to state that Anne herself admits that she sat
talking with both for two hours immediately after the torture, which
she could not possibly have done if it had been very severe.
[59] The text of the full confession of Mrs. Askew will be found among
the State Papers for 1545, Nos. 390, 391.
[60] This scene must have taken place, not at Windsor, as stated by
Foxe, for Henry never was there after the early spring of 1546, but at
Hampton Court. The allusion to his striking Gardiner’s name out of his
will must refer to some of the many wills he made before his last (in
December of the same year). In this Gardiner’s name was not struck out,
but simply omitted.
[61] Dr. Thirlby’s name was not omitted in the last will, but he was
absent abroad at the time of the King’s death.
[62] See Note at the end of this Chapter.
[63] This curious fact, that the unorthodox if not heretical King
actually communicated at the same time as the orthodox Ambassador, is
one of the most significant incidents in the story of this singular
period of religious disquiet.
[64] Among the members of the house of Howard who were prisoners in the
Tower at this time were Agnes, Dowager Duchess of Norfolk, the Lord
William Howard and his wife and sister, the Countess of Bridgewater,
and Lord Thomas Howard, Surrey’s younger brother, who was imprisoned
for marrying Henry’s niece, the Lady Margaret Douglas, without the
royal consent.
[65] For an account of these processions see Machyn’s Diary (_The
Diary of Henry Machyn_, edited by John Gough Nicholas, F.S.A., Camden
Society, pp. 63, 107, etc. Also note, p. 399).
[66] The Lord Mayor, who was at the arraignment of Queen Anne Boleyn,
afterwards said that he “could not observe anything in the proceedings
against her, but that they were resolved to make an occasion to get rid
of her”--thus corroborating the opinions of Sir Thomas Wyatt and other
witnesses.
[67] When quite a lad, the Duke married the Princess Anne Plantagenet,
youngest daughter of Edward IV and sister to Queen Elizabeth of York.
By this royal alliance he became uncle-by-marriage to Henry VIII. Anne,
Duchess of Norfolk, died of consumption in 1512, and shortly afterwards
her widower married again.
[68] This lady was the second daughter of the unfortunate Duke of
Buckingham, who was executed on a public charge of combined sorcery and
treason, in the first years of Henry VIII’s reign.
[69] Elizabeth Holland was the daughter of John Holland of Redenhall,
Norfolk, chief steward and afterwards secretary to the Duke of Norfolk.
Her mother was a Hussey, niece of Lord Hussey of Sleaford, beheaded for
the part he took in the Pilgrimage of Grace.
[70] Sir John Seymour, father of Queen Jane, was a man of note in his
day. He was born in 1474, and was a doughty soldier, fighting well at
the sieges of Terouenne and Tournay, and at the Battle of the Spurs. On
his return to England he was appointed Sheriff of Wells, Dorset, and
Somersetshire. In 1515 he obtained the Constableship of Bristol Castle.
His wife, Margery Wentworth, was the daughter of Sir Henry Wentworth
of Nettlestead, Suffolk, whose grandfather married a granddaughter of
Hotspur (Henry Percy), and was thus descended from Edward III. Sir John
Seymour died in 1517.
[71] Realising the suddenness of their rise to power, Hayward says of
the Seymour brothers (_Life of Edward VI_, p. 82) that “their _new_
lustre did dim the light of men honoured with ancient nobility.”
[72] Little is known of William Pickering except that he was a boon
companion of Lord Surrey. See _Courtships of Queen Elizabeth_ by Martin
Hume.
[73] Holbein’s fine sketch of Lady Surrey shows her to have been
distinctly “homely” but extremely intelligent-looking.
[74] An examination of the Privy Papers shows that Surrey was
originally brought before the Council on a charge of eating flesh on
days of abstinence--a grave offence, and one against the law, but at
that period of frequent occurrence, since no less than nine joiners
had been a few days previously arrested and severely reprimanded, and
even heavily fined, for the offence of eating meat in public on Friday.
Surrey pleaded guilty, but in extenuation declared he had received
an ecclesiastical dispensation. With regard to the second charge, of
riotous conduct, he declared himself deserving of punishment, but threw
himself on the mercy of the Court, alleging, in extenuation of his
misdemeanour, his youth and hot-blooded disposition. He is said to have
written an abject apology; but, though the letter is extant, it is not
in his handwriting, and may therefore be a forgery. The occurrence took
place on the night of 21st January 1544.
[75] M. Edmond Bapst, _Vie de Deux Gentilhommes Poètes du Temps de
Henri VIII_.
[76] Surrey, in his metrical “Satire,” makes use of the same whimsical
excuse for shooting with a bow through citizens’ windows. Says he:--
“This made me with a reckless brest,
To wake thy sluggards with my bow;
A figure of the Lord’s behest,
Whose scourge for synne the Scriptures shew.”
[77] This ball was, it appears, given for the purpose of conciliating
the Seymours and at Surrey’s express request. It must have been a
picturesque function, with its rich costumes, its splendid but rather
roughly expressed profusion and hearty welcome. Just such a ball as
this old Capulet gave on that ever-memorable night when Juliet first
met her Romeo. Was it to dance the _Volta_ or the _Salta_ with him that
Surrey invited the angry Countess? These, the two most fashionable
dances of the period, had been but recently introduced from France and
Italy. The latter resembled, and very closely too, our modern waltz,
only in the _Salta_ the gentleman lifts the lady from time to time an
inch or so from the ground, as in the German hop waltz.
“Yet there is one, the most delightful kind,
A lofty jumping, or a leaping round,
When arm in arm, two dancers are entwin’d,
And which themselves, in strict embracements bound
And still their feet, an anapest do sound;
An anapest is all their music’s song
Whose first two feet are short, the rest are long.”
_Sir John Davies’ Orchestra._
See also for an account of the _Volta_, the _Orlando Furioso_ of
Boiardo, book xv. stanza 43. These two dances, the _Volta_ and the
_Salta_, were introduced into Scotland by Madeleine de Valois, the
first wife of James V, and gave terrible offence to the “unco’ guid”
folk of “Auld Reekie.”
[78] See State Papers, Domestic Series, Henry VIII, 1542-3; also Miss
Strickland’s excellent biography of Katherine Howard in the _Lives of
the Queens of England_, and the _Wives of Henry VIII_, by Martin Hume.
[79] The Duke’s second son.
[80] Herbert’s _Henry VIII_.
[81] These are the volumes he desired to have delivered to him whilst
imprisoned in the Tower.
[82] He must have left Norfolk in a great hurry, for he had to borrow
a sum of money from Sir William Stonor, Lieutenant of the Tower, to
buy a dark suit of clothes in which to appear before the Council. The
documents connected with this transaction are still preserved in the
British Museum, Additional MSS 24459, fol. 1497.
[83] _Spanish Chronicle of Henry VIII_, translated by Major Martin
Hume, and the _Calendar of Spanish State Papers_, vol. viii., by the
same Editor.
[84] These “night-gowns” were most probably what we should now call
“evening dresses” or “dress suits.”
[85] This lady was a rather interesting personage, being the first
British peeress who was ever reduced to earning her living by her
needle. She was the widow of that Earl of Oxford who was killed during
the Wars of the Roses and whose estates were so carefully confiscated
that his widow was left penniless.
[86] A list of the names of persons in the Earl’s retinue is extremely
curious. In the first place, we find that one John Holland was private
secretary. He was the father of George Holland, who in his turn was the
father of the husband of that Mrs. Holland who figured in the Surrey
trial. Then we have Mr. William Sappeworth, Mr. Widdow, Mr. Hairbottle,
and Mrs. Ingliss. We learn that the company was often regaled with
boiled neck of mutton; and a very favourite dish appears to have been
boiled capon with sauce and a roast breast of veal basted. Occasionally
they indulged in rabbit pie, and there was a bountiful supply of tarts,
custards, and sweetmeats.
[87] Hunsdon, in Worcestershire, was one of the numerous seats of the
Duke of Norfolk, which he lent on rental to Princess Mary, who first
came there in 1536, having in her company Mistress Elizabeth Fitzgerald
or Garret. The house, according to William Worcester, was built in
Henry VI’s reign by Sir William Oldhall at an expense of 7000 marks. It
had four towers and was mainly built of brick.
[88] Lady Kildare’s frequent petitions to King Henry for money
generally contain some mention of her being his kinswoman and “of his
most Royal blood.” See Cottonian MSS, Titus B. xi. 342. It will be
remembered that Lady Elizabeth Grey attended the christening of the
Lady Frances at Hatfield Church as a sponsor.
[89] It has frequently been stated that the Lady Elizabeth
Fitzgerald--or Garret, as she was generally called--was educated with
Princess Mary, but this is obviously incorrect, since she was born when
her future royal mistress was fully fourteen years of age. But she was
certainly in Mary’s service, and not in that of her sister Elizabeth,
as stated by Bapst.
[90] There is a fine portrait of her by Kettel at Woburn Abbey, and a
copy at Carton.
[91] Princess Mary’s present to Mistress Elizabeth Garret on her
marriage was “A gold broach with one bolace of the history of Susanne.”
Another gift is mentioned in her list of jewels in the following
entry: “A broach of gold enamelled black, with an agate of the story
of Abraham--with iii small rock rubies--Given to Sir Anthony Brown,
drawing her Grace as his valentine.”
These gifts were presented to the bride and bridegroom on 10th
December, in the thirty-third year of Henry’s reign. The youthful bride
could not have been more than fifteen years of age, and Sir Anthony was
not much under sixty.
[92] Hentzner also saw the bedchamber in which Henry VIII died, but
this was late in Elizabeth’s reign, when it was shown as one of the
“lions” of the palace, a fact which tends to prove that the apartment
was never again used by any other sovereign, but kept as a sort of
show-place.
[93] In his youth Henry’s eyes had been considered fine. In the picture
by Paris Bordone, belonging to the Merchant Taylors’ Company, they are
a light grey and decidedly good in colour and shape.
[94] Edward VI was never officially proclaimed Prince of Wales--the
document doing so was prepared, but was delayed by the death of his
father. None the less, he is frequently so styled in the last years of
Henry’s reign.
[95] Dr. Wendy became physician to Elizabeth. He died in 1560 at
Haslingford Court, a manor given to him by Henry VIII.
[96] Dr. Gale was living as late as 1586. He wrote a curious work
entitled _The Office of a Chirurgeon_, which gives a dreadful picture
of warfare in the sixteenth century. See for an account of this rare
work, once possessed by the author, _The Medical Biography_, p. 65.
[97] Father Thiveter, a Franciscan, who obtained some curious facts
concerning the death of Henry VIII, presumably from Princess Mary,
wrote an account of that event which has been occasionally reprinted.
[98] The Queen had sent him a picture of the King, his father, and of
herself, in one frame. Edward was so delighted with the present that he
said he preferred it to gold-embroidered robes and other things most
priceless: “_Quamobrem majores tibi gratias ego ob hanc strenam, quam
si misisses ad me preciosas vestes, aut aurum celatum, aut quidvis
aliud eximium._”
[99] “Thursday,” writes Aubrey, “was a fatal day to Henry VIII, and so
also to his posterity. He died on Thursday, January 28; King Edward VI
on Thursday, July 6; Queen Mary on Thursday, November 17; and Queen
Elizabeth on Thursday, March 24.”
[100] During the last year of Henry’s reign Edward had resided at
Hatfield with his sister Elizabeth. Very early in December it was
deemed advisable, owing to the precarious state of the King’s health,
to remove the young Prince from Hatfield, first to Tittenhanger House,
in Hertfordshire, and then to Hertford itself. His various removals can
be traced from the dates of his letters to his father, to the Queen,
and to the Princesses his sisters. On 5th December, for instance, he
wrote a letter to Elizabeth from Tittenhanger lamenting his enforced
absence from her. And later, on the 18th, he wrote another in the same
strain; but on 10th January he addressed his sister Mary a Latin letter
from Hertford, and on the same day the epistle already mentioned to
Queen Katherine. Elizabeth, in the meantime, was relegated to Enfield
Chase, where she remained until she joined Queen Katherine at Chelsea,
after Henry’s death.
[101] King Francis I, notwithstanding Henry’s unorthodox opinions and
his notorious revolt from Rome, ordered a Requiem to be said in the
Cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris for the repose of the soul of his
well-beloved brother, Henry VIII, King of England, at which service
he assisted; he also left in his will a sum of money to be devoted to
Masses to be said in perpetuity for the same pious purpose. A Mass is
still offered every year in the Metropolitan Church of Paris for the
repose of the soul of our “Bluff King Hal,” the custom having survived
even the Reign of Terror.
[102] These noble ladies were not present in any official capacity,
but simply “to pray for the soul of the departed King.” It was not the
custom for women to attend the funeral of a male, except as an act of
devotion. They wore on these occasions black cloth gowns and black
cloaks and hoods or silk scarfs. This costume was general at funerals,
and especially in the country, until the end of the first half of the
last century.
[103] Her separate establishment was formed early in March, and she
then took up her residence at Chelsea; but she may well have hovered
between Whitehall and the Manor House for some weeks after the King’s
death, whilst her future residence was being put in readiness for her.
[104] The King’s will was dated 26th December 1546, and revoked all
other previous wills that he might have made. The original was not in
Henry’s own hand, but written in a book of stout paper, and was, it
is said, signed by His Majesty’s stamp as well as his autograph. It
should be remembered that because the act of attainder against the
Duke of Norfolk had merely a stamp affixed to it by Paget, the said
attainder was in 1553 treated as null and void, and the Duke, after his
liberation, at once resumed his seat in the House of Lords.
[105] This significant allusion to “any other wives he might have”
inclines one to think that had His Majesty lived to seventy or eighty,
he may have contemplated having twelve instead of six wives!
[106] King Henry’s will is said to have been inspired not only by the
Earl of Hertford and his party, but by the Queen, Katherine Parr.
This, however, is scarcely probable, since if she had had a hand in
the matter she would assuredly have caused a paragraph to have been
inserted appointing her Regent during the minority of her stepson.
Marillac, the French Ambassador, informs us in his “Notes” that when
Katherine discovered that she was not so nominated she gave way to a
great outburst of indignation and temper.
[107] See the Losely MSS, edited by A. J. Kempe. John Murray, 1835.
[108] His position as Protector was not officially ratified until 22nd
March.
[109] As a matter of fact, the royal corpse was, owing to its weight,
not enclosed in a lead shell until it reached Windsor, so that the
chronicler has made a mistake; but the fact that it was in a mere
wooden case lends support to the above horrible story. Strype, it is
true, declares in his _Memorials_, which include a very minute account
of Henry VIII’s funeral, that the _body_ was enclosed in lead before it
was placed in the coffin, thus unintentionally supporting the story of
the leakage of blood; but the plumbers’ bill for the soldering of the
leaden coffin of King Henry VIII at Windsor is still extant among the
Royal Household receipts and expenses.
[110] After the execution of Thomas Seymour, this fine mansion was
purchased for £41, 6s. 8d. by Henry Fitzalan, Earl of Arundel,
whose only son, Lord Maltravers, was a paragon of learning and
accomplishments. He predeceased his father by nearly twenty years. On
the death of the Earl of Arundel the property passed to his daughter,
Mary, Duchess of Norfolk, and through her the ground-rents are still
payable to the premier Duchy of England. The unfortunate Philip Howard,
Earl of Arundel, who was attainted for his religious opinions in the
reign of Elizabeth, and who died in exile, lived here for some time. In
the eighteenth century the famous Arundel marbles, now at Cambridge,
were to be seen at Arundel House, which was finally pulled down and a
number of rather mean streets built on its site. Quite recently the
property has been immensely improved, and in fairly artistic taste. One
or two very fine hotels--the Howard and the Arundel, for instance--have
been erected on the site of the old palace. The Colonial and American
guests at these excellent establishments will perhaps be interested
to know that that favourite heroine of history, Lady Jane Grey, dwelt
hereabouts.
[111] State Papers, 1537, under Seymour.
[112] It is possible that Henry VIII intended, when he married Jane
Seymour, not to allow his mother-in-law to interfere in his concerns.
Some such thing happened with regard to Lady Wiltshire, Anne Boleyn’s
mother, who is very little heard of after her daughter’s marriage.
[113] Lord Hertford clandestinely married Lady Jane Grey’s second
sister, Lady Katherine, and was imprisoned for many years in the Tower
by Elizabeth’s order “for venturing to marry an heiress to the throne.”
[114] When this proposal was eventually made to the boy-King, he
was highly indignant, and remarks in his _Journal_ that it “was his
intention to choose for his Queen a foreign princess well stuffed and
jewelled”--meaning that his bride should be endowed with a suitable
dower and a regal wardrobe.
Lady Jane Seymour died early in the reign of Elizabeth, one of whose
maids-of-honour she was, and is buried in Westminster Abbey.
[115] Hayward (_Life of Edward VI_) describes Sudeley as “fierce
in courage, courtly in fashion, in personage stately, in voice
magnificent, but somewhat empty in matter”(!).
[116] The Queen alludes here not, as generally supposed, to the Lady
Frances Brandon, but to her stepmother, the witty Duchess Katherine,
who uses this curious expression in one of her letters.
[117] This belief received confirmation in a letter of “Kateryn the
Quene” to the Lord Admiral in which she says, “When it shall be your
pleasure to repair hither, ye must take some pains to come early in the
morning, that ye may be gone again by seven o’clock; and so I suppose
ye may come hither without suspect. I pray you let me have knowledge
over-night at what hour ye will come, that your portress [_i.e._
herself] may wait at the gate of the fields for you.” This letter is
signed, “By her that is and shall be, your humble, true, and loving
_wife_ during her life.” This was written from Chelsea Manor House
after Henry VIII’s death.
[118] From one of Fowler’s letters to Sudeley we learn that “His
Highness the King is not half a quarter of an hour by himself,” and
that “in his secret leisure His Grace hath written his commendations to
the Queen’s Grace and to your lordship [Sudeley].” Moreover, he says
that the King intends to write letters “whenever he can do so, that is,
when there is no supervision kept over his actions.” Enclosed in this
letter from Fowler were two notes written in Edward’s childish hand on
torn scraps of paper. The first is a request for money: “My Lord, send
me _per_ Latimer [another go-between] as much as ye think good, and
deliver it to Fowler.--EDWARD.” On the second is written: “My Lord, I
thank you and pray you have me commended to the Queen.”
[119] Strype’s _Memoirs_, vol. ii. part i. p. 59.
[120] See the State Papers.
[121] This lady was a daughter of Humphrey Bouchier, Lord Berners, and
wife of Sir Thomas Bryan or Brian. She was the “my lady maistress” of
Princess Mary, whose Privy Purse Expenses contain several items to her
credit--as in January 1537: “Item paid for a broach and a frontlet and
the same given to my lady maistress, xxxviij.” Lady Bryan or Brian was
for a time governess to Princess Elizabeth as well as to Prince Edward.
She was created a Baroness in her own right, but does not appear from
her correspondence and petitions to have had sufficient income to
support the dignity of a peeress. This able lady died on 20th August
1551 at Leyton, in Essex. (See Strype’s Appendix to Stowe’s _Survey of
London_ for 1720, vol. ii. p. 114.)
[122] Mrs. Sybel or Sybilla Penn, dry nurse to Edward VI, was not, as
erroneously stated by Gough Nichols in his _Literary Remains of Edward
VI_, the daughter of Sir Hugh Pagenham or the wife of John Penne,
barber-surgeon to Henry VIII, but the daughter of William Hampton of
Dodyngton, Buckinghamshire, and owed her appointment as dry nurse and
foster-mother to the future King to the good offices of Sir William
Sydney. She married Mr. David Penn, and continued at Court after the
death of Edward, being very kindly treated by both Mary and Elizabeth.
She had an apartment in Hampton Court Palace, and died there in 1562
of the smallpox, at the same time that Elizabeth herself was attacked
by that dreadful malady. She is buried in Hampton Church, and is said
to haunt the palace because her bones were disturbed when the position
of her monument was altered many years ago (1820). Mrs. Penn’s spirit
was greatly displeased at this removal, and forthwith took to haunting
the palace she had inhabited for so many years. Her ghost has been
seen ascending the stairs as recently as 1896, when she nearly scared
the attendant out of his wits. The well-known sketch by Holbein signed
“Mother Jack” is supposed to be a portrait of this lady, but Sir
Richard Holmes, the late learned Librarian at Windsor Castle, disputes
this opinion, and attributes another portrait to her. (See Ernest Law’s
_History of Hampton Court Palace_. George Bell & Sons. Tudor Period, p.
197 _et seq._)
[123] Edward’s friend and companion, Barnaby Fitzpatrick, was the
eldest son of the Irish chieftain, Barnaby Gill Patrick, Lord of Upper
Ossory, who made his submission to the King in 1537, and was created
a Baron by his old title in 1541. Barnaby’s mother was the widow of
Thomas Fitzgerald, a grandson of the Earl of Desmond. Barnaby, who was
brought up with Edward, was sent for a year’s education to the French
Court: whilst there he received many letters from his royal friend.
On his return to England Barnaby Fitzpatrick continued to enjoy the
King’s favour. After Edward’s death he entered the service of Mary and
went to fight in Scotland. Under Elizabeth, Barnaby, who had by this
time become Baron of Upper Ossory, fought for the Queen in Ireland, and
actually slew Oge O Moarda, or Rory O’More, one of the great rebels
of the day. Barnaby Fitzpatrick died in 1581 without issue, and was
succeeded by his brother, Florence, whose descendants enjoyed the title
of Upper Ossory until the extinction of the peerage in 1818. (See for
further particulars of his career John Gough Nichols’ _Literary Remains
of Edward VI_, p. 64. Printed for the Roxburgh Club.)
[124] Sir John Cheke was an early forerunner of President Roosevelt,
for not only did he reform the pronunciation of Greek, but he actually
instituted a reform of English orthography. His suggestions for the
simplification of our writing were very curious and worth detailing.
Firstly, there was to be no _e_ at the end of words, so he wrote excus,
giv, hay, and so on. Secondly, when _a_ is sounded long, he would have
had it doubled, as maad, straat (made, straight), etc. Thirdly, he
replaced _y_ by _i_, as mi, sai, awai, for my, say, away! The rest of
the language was phoneticised, as britil (brittle), frute (fruit), and
so on. He translated part of the Bible into his new English, a copy of
which is now at Cambridge.
[125] Wriothesley having now become Earl of Southampton, evidently
hoped to represent for some time in the Privy Council the old
faith--_i.e._ schismatic--as it had been under Henry VIII, probably
with the view of eventually modifying it into the ancient Roman
Catholicism which had been the religion of his youth. But as he showed
the extent of his ambition by putting the Great Seal into commission
without the authority of his colleagues, he offended Somerset and gave
him the opportunity of getting a dangerous competitor out of the way by
arresting Wriothesley on a vague charge of treason and ordering him to
confine himself to his own house in the Strand. With the same intention
of “clearing the board,” the Protector had Winchester also arrested and
thrown into the Tower.
[126] There is a very minute account of Edward VI’s coronation (from
an MS. at the College of Arms) in Nichols’ _Literary Remains of Edward
VI_. The _Spanish Chronicle_ also gives a curious description of it,
where the writer says (p. 153 _et seq._) that at the cross in Cheapside
there was a triumphal arch “made to look like the sky,” whence
descended a boy “like an angel,” who gave the King a purse containing
£1000, which His Majesty handed over to the captain of the guard,
much to the astonishment of the people; the chronicler significantly
adds that the boy-King “had not the strength” to carry this weighty
gift. The way from the Abbey to Westminster Hall was spread with “fine
cloth”--“at least twenty lengths”--and “the moment the King passed
these cloths disappeared, for whoever could cut a piece off took it for
himself.” The Spaniard makes the curious mistake of saying that Henry
VIII’s death was not made known to the public until _after_ Edward’s
coronation. (The coronation to which the Chronicler referred was that
called the first coronation, which took place in the Tower on the 31st
January. The King’s death was not generally known until then.--M. H.)
A large contemporary picture of Edward VI’s coronation procession was
destroyed in a fire at Cowdray House (the home of the Montagu family)
in 1793; but in the engraving of it made previously by the Society of
Antiquaries we perceive a man bearing a cross leading the troop of
knights, etc., preceding the King--another proof of the persistence of
the old religious customs.
[127] Of this man Strype says: “He was entertained here [England]
divers years with the Earl of Bedford; and _expecting preferment here,
failing of it, he departed_ and lived abroad.” This certainly does not
put Master Peter’s reason for coming to this country in quite such a
good light as his description of himself as “an exile from Italy ... by
reason of his confession of the doctrine of the Gospel.” See Strype’s
_Annals_, iii. i. 660.
[128] _Original Letters relative to the English Reformation, written
during the Reigns of King Henry VIII, etc._ Edited for the Parker
Society by the Rev. Hastings Robinson, D.D., F.S.A. Cambridge, 1847.
They are generally called “The Zurich Letters.”
[129] Anne Boleyn was very dark. Froude mentions her “blonde
tresses”--but they were really raven black; her eyes were black and
velvety. Elizabeth’s hair may have been black, but the habit of dyeing
the hair golden and Venice red was universal, even for children, at
this period. The magnificent portrait by Lucas de Heere at Hampton
Court represents the young Queen with dark hair and eyes.
[130] “Considerable confusion exists as to the identity of some of
these historical houses. Messrs. Wheatley and Cunningham, in their most
useful _London Past and Present_, seem to think that Sir Thomas More
resided in Chelsea Manor before Katherine Parr came to live there.
After the execution of More his estate at Chelsea was confiscated by
Henry VIII and given to the Marquess of Winchester. Chelsea New Manor,
which was inhabited by Katherine Parr and others,--and, under the
Commonwealth, by Bulstrode Whitelock,--came into the hands of the Duke
of Buckingham, who sold it to the Duke of Beaufort (hence Beaufort
Street). It was purchased in 1738 by Sir Hans Sloane, who pulled it
down in 1740. There is, moreover, local tradition, and even historical
evidence, that there were two distinct manors at Chelsea in the first
half of the sixteenth century--Chelsea New Manor, and Chelsea Old
Manor. Dr. King, in his MS. account of Chelsea, says that the ‘old
manor-house stood near the church.’ This is the house associated with
the deaths of Anne of Cleves and of the old Duchess of Northumberland.
He mentions another house, Chelsea New Manor, standing on that part
of Cheyne Walk which adjoins Winchester House, and extends as far as
‘Don Saltero’s coffee house.’ ‘This house was built by Henry VIII as
a nursery for his children, and here Katherine Parr lived.’ A picture
of it in Faulkner’s _Chelsea_ shows it not unlike St. James’s Palace.
Small turrets communicate with the chimneys; the windows are long
and high, and one of them has a Tudor arch on top. On the site of
the present Durham House, Durham Terrace, the town residence of Sir
Bruce and Lady Seton, there stood, not so many years ago, an ancient
wainscoted house with a fine staircase, rather mysteriously connected
by report with Jane Grey, who, according to a local tradition, lived
here before she was made queen. In the beginning of the century this
house was made a fashionable school for young ladies, but was pulled
down in 1860 to make room for the present mansion.”--Mr. Richard
Davey’s _Pageant of London_, vol. i. p. 379.
[131] Deposition of Mrs. Ashley in the Hatfield State Papers.
[132] There are several versions of this story. For instance, Henry
Clifford, a retainer of Jane Dormer, Duchess of Feria, says, in his MS.
Life of that lady (London, Burns & Oates, 1887) that “In King Edward’s
time what passed between the Lord Admiral, Sir Thomas Seymour, and her
[Elizabeth] Dr. Latimer preached in a sermon, and was a chief cause
that the Parliament condemned the Admiral. There was a bruit of a child
born and miserably destroyed, but could not be discovered whose it
was; only the report of the midwife, who was brought from her house
blindfold thither, and so returned, saw nothing in the house while she
was there, but candle light; only she said, it was the child of a very
fair young lady. There was a muttering of the Admiral and this lady,
who was then between fifteen and sixteen years of age.”
[133] Among the guests at Sudeley at this period, with whom Lady Jane
must have come into contact, was the Marchioness of Northampton, wife
of William Parr, the Queen’s only brother. This unfortunate lady, who
was closely allied with the Crown, had been so indiscreet that when her
marriage came to be dissolved her children were declared illegitimate.
She was living apart from her husband at the time of this visit to
Sudeley. The Tudor great ladies were distinctly “mixed” in their love
affairs, and Lady Northampton has been saddled with perhaps the worst
reputation of any woman of her time; yet the _Spanish Chronicle_,
which, as already remarked, contains much personal “back-stair” gossip,
reveals some curious facts about this lady’s behaviour, and shows
that a great part of the blame rests on the Marquis her husband, who,
on altogether insufficient evidence, accepted a story of her having
misconducted herself with a man-servant. See the _Chronicle of King
Henry VIII of England, etc._ (the _Spanish Chronicle_), chap. lxii. p.
137 _et seq._, translated by Major Martin Hume.
[134] Inventory of furniture and other goods at Sudeley Castle. Dated
1547-8.
[135] See Latimer’s Sermons in Strype’s _Memorials_.
[136] Haynes’ State Papers, p. 104.
[137] Robert Huycke, or Huicke, was an M.A. of Oxford. He was divorced
from his wife in 1546, and later married again. In 1550 Edward VI made
him his physician extraordinary at the munificent salary of £50 per
annum. Huycke was greatly in favour with Elizabeth, and she gave him a
house near Enfield. He died near Charing Cross in (it is believed) 1581.
[138] This interesting account shows how many Catholic customs
still survived--the offering here mentioned is evidently a relic
of the Offertory at the Requiem Mass, otherwise explained; and the
candles also are distinctly a part of Roman Catholic ritual, though
Coverdale’s account of their signification is not altogether that
given by Catholics. The _Te Deum_ is no longer sung or said at either
Catholic or Anglican funerals. The fact that the writer of this account
mentions that the whole service was done in one morning, shows that the
brevity of the new form of worship was somewhat of a novelty to people
accustomed to the long series of Dirges and Masses accompanying burials
in Catholic times. Sir Walter Besant says, on p. 154 of his _London
in the Time of the Tudors_, “Before the coming of the Puritans the
funerals continued with much of the old (Catholic) ritual.”
[139] Froude says, “The Lady Frances, now that the Queen was dead,
no longer thought the Admiral’s house a becoming residence for her
daughter and sent for her.” The Lady Frances did nothing of the sort;
Sudeley himself first suggested the Lady Jane’s removal to her parents’
custody.
[140] Hatfield MSS.
[141] Hatfield MSS.
[142] Hatfield MSS.
[143] Sir William Sharington or Sherington was one of the most
benighted frauds of this age, albeit a very successful one. He was
born about 1495, and was of good Norfolk family. In 1546 he became
vice-treasurer of the Bristol Mint, being created a Knight of the Bath
at Edward VI’s coronation. Once installed in this office, he made a
sort of “corner” in West-Country Church plate, which he bought cheap
from the Somerset villagers, and coined into “testons” or shillings
of two-thirds alloy. By this means, and by shearing and clipping
coins, falsifying the account books of the Mint, the originals of
which he destroyed, and by other cheating, he managed to amass £4000
(an enormous sum in those days) in three years. Probably fearing that
Sudeley, whose friend he was, might reveal these affairs to his brother
the Protector, Sir William lent the Lord Admiral money, placed the
Bristol Mint at his disposal, and, as we shall see, helped him in his
nefarious schemes. He bought manors in Wiltshire from the King for
£2808; but he was arrested on 19th January 1548-9. He was questioned in
the Tower, but denied the charge of conniving at Sudeley’s intrigues.
In February, however, he turned traitor to the Lord Admiral and
admitted all, throwing himself on the King’s mercy. He was pardoned in
acts of 30th December 1549 and of 13th January 1550. He now somewhat
settled down, buying back with a part of the purchase-money given
by the French for Boulogne, which money had got into his hands, his
confiscated manors and lands, some of which he presented to the
King--likely enough the reason why Latimer, in a sermon preached
before His Majesty in 1551, described this admitted cheat as “an
honest gentilman and one that God loveth”(!!). Sharington got himself
appointed Sheriff of Wiltshire, and died in 1551. There is a portrait
of him by Holbein in the Royal Library at Windsor. He was married three
times, but left no children.
[144] _Vide_ Dorset’s deposition in the Hatfield MSS.
[145] Nothing could be more forcible as a proof of the manner in
which Sudeley, in the style of the Duke of Northumberland at a later
period, threatened and bullied any who dared to oppose him, than the
following story. About the time that he was endeavouring to supplant
his brother in Edward’s affections, he tried to induce the boy-King
to write a letter for him to the Parliament, which was to meet in the
November of that year. It was suggested that Parliament might not
grant his demands; whereupon, said “my Lord of Sudeley,” “I will make
[it, if that be so] the blackest Parliament that has ever been seen in
England”--“blackest” perhaps meaning “the most humbled and depressed”
Parliament ever seen, which shows that Sudeley was sufficiently
self-confident to believe that he could coerce whole bodies of
administrators at his will.
[146] Sudeley’s nefarious assistant, Sharington, Sir Thomas Parry, John
Fowler, and Mrs. Ashley were all imprisoned in the Tower at the same
time as Sudeley.
[147] Sudeley’s connection and connivance at the frauds perpetrated by
Sir William Sharington was also made a count of his indictment.
[148] Queen Elizabeth stated at a later date that “the Admiral’s life
would have been saved had not the Council dissuaded the Protector from
granting him an interview.” In face of these statements, there would
seem to be little doubt that the Protector, if left to himself, might
have visited a less severe sentence on his brother.
The Protector’s wife evidently bore in her time a very bad reputation
for intriguing and interference, for Hayward (_Life of Edward VI_,
p. 82) says the troubles between Sudeley and his brother were mainly
due to the quarrel (already mentioned) between Katherine Parr and her
Ladyship--“to the unquiet vanity of a mannish, or rather a devilish
woman [Lady Somerset] ... for many imperfections intolerable, but for
pride monstrous.”
[149] As to the unfortunate Seymour’s infant child, we learn that after
his death it was carried to Somerset’s house at Sion, whence, after
a short time, it was conveyed to the Dowager Duchess of Suffolk, at
Grimsthorpe, in Lincolnshire. She had been at one time the dearest
friend of Katherine Parr. Here the child had a governess, Mrs.
Aglyonby, and was also attended by a nurse, two maids, and many other
servants, in accordance with her high rank. The Duke of Somerset had
promised that a certain pension should be settled on his niece, and
that her nursery plate and furniture, which had been brought up from
Sudeley to Sion House, should be sent after her to Grimsthorpe. He
pledged his word on this point to the Duchess of Somerset’s gentleman,
Mr. Bertie, who subsequently married his mistress, the Dowager Duchess
of Suffolk; but the promise was never redeemed. The Duchess herself did
not show much maternal tenderness to the child of her quondam friend.
In the second year of Edward VI she wrote a curious letter to Cecil,
begging him to relieve her of the guardianship of the child of the late
Queen. She says: “The late Queen’s child hath lain, and yet doth lay
in my house with her company about her, wholly in my charge.” Then she
accuses Somerset of not sending money for the child’s maintenance, and
adds: “And that ye may better understand that I cry not before I am
pricked, I send you Mistress Glensborough’s [the governess’s] letter
unto me, who, with her maids, nourice, and others daily call upon me
for their wages, whose voices mine ears may hardly bear, but my coffers
much worse.” She declares she is ill, and hopes that the child will be
removed at an early date. There is a very long list in the Lansdowne
MSS of plate, hangings, and even musical instruments, belonging to
this child, which the Lord Protector took and never restored. Cecil
paid little attention to the Duchess’s application. In all probability
he never answered her letter at all. At a later date she wrote to the
Marquis of Northampton, the infant’s uncle, and begged him to receive
her. He behaved even more heartlessly than the Duchess, declaring he
would neither receive the child nor her attendants at his house. Thus
Katherine Parr’s own brother and the Duchess of Somerset, her old
friend, whose life she had actually saved on one occasion from the fury
of Henry VIII, besides spending considerable sums out of her private
means to publish the ungrateful woman’s devotional writings, actually
refused food and shelter to her orphaned child. It is impossible now
to fully trace the child’s eventful history. Strype asserts that she
died young, but there is much reason to believe that she lived and
married Sir Edward Bushel, a gentleman of family, who was in attendance
upon Queen Anne of Denmark, the Consort of James I. His only daughter
married Silas Johnson, and their daughter married into the Lawson
family, an old Suffolk house, which until quite recently possessed a
number of Tudor relics, which, their proprietors alleged and amply
proved, originally belonged to their ancestress, the daughter of
Katherine Parr and the Admiral Seymour, a baby doubtless often caressed
by the gentle Jane Grey. At the close of the seventeenth century some
hundreds of papers belonging to the Lawson family were unfortunately
destroyed by a thoughtless widow. However, an existing copy of the
family pedigree proves almost beyond doubt that the Lawson version of
the fate of Seymour’s daughter was accurate in every detail. One thing
is evident, that the infant suffered a good deal of neglect in her
childhood, and that she was passed on from one unwilling relative to
another, until at last some kindly soul took compassion on her desolate
state, and brought about a match between her and Sir Edward Bushel.
[150] The letter in which Ab Ulmis does this will be found in the
Parker Society’s edition of the Reformers’ letters, vol. ii. p. 406,
and is dated 30th April 1550. It simply overflows with flattery of
the Marquis, who is described as “the thunderbolt and terror of the
Papists, that is, a fierce and terrible adversary.... He is much
looked-up to by the King. He is learned and speaks Latin with elegance.
He is the protector of all students, and the refuge of foreigners. He
maintains at his own house the most learned men; he has a daughter,
about fourteen years of age, who is pious and accomplished beyond what
can be expressed; to whom I hope shortly to present your book on the
holy marriage of Christians, which I have almost entirely translated
into Latin. You may adopt this form of dedication to the book: ‘To
Henry Grey, Marquis of Dorset, Baron Ferrers of Groby, Harrington,
Bonville and Astley, one of His Majesty’s Privy Council, and my most
honoured lord, &c. &c.’” So far as can be discovered, neither Jane Grey
nor the Marquis her father wrote to thank Bullinger for this work, no
letter to this effect being extant.
In the December of the following year (1551) the Marquis of Dorset
wrote to Bullinger from London (_Zurich Letters_, Parker Society, vol.
i. p. 3) to thank him for “the book which you have published under the
auspices of my name,” but this volume was one of Bullinger’s _Decades_,
dedicated to his Lordship in the preceding March.
[151] _Zurich Letters_ (Parker Society), vol. i. p. 6.
[152] The above-quoted Latin letter to Henry Bullinger was written when
she was only fourteen.
[153] See note at end of this Chapter.
[154] A very fine portrait of this lady was formerly in the possession
of the late Martin Colnaghi, Esq. It represents a handsome matron of
fifty, dressed in the costume of the period. She has regular features,
light eyes, and auburn hair. The picture is dated 1552, the year of the
Suffolk family’s last visit to Walden. Lady Audley’s only child married
that Duke of Norfolk who was executed under Elizabeth for his attempt
to assist Mary Stuart to escape from Tutbury Castle.
[155] The gay festivities at Tylsey were a matter of some annoyance
to Aylmer, and to the chaplain at Bradgate, Haddon, who feared their
distracting effect on the minds of their pupils, Jane and Katherine
Grey.
[156] _Zurich Letters_, vol. ii. pp. 447-8.
[157] Ulmer wrote to Conrad Pellican in the summer of 1552 (_Zurich
Letters_, p. 451) that “Our Duke (Suffolk) has been staying for the
last few days at an estate here in the neighbourhood of Oxford, which
has come to him by inheritance from the late Duke of Suffolk.” The
“late Duke of Suffolk” refers to the Lady Frances’s half-brother, who
has been already frequently mentioned. Ulmer continues: “I waited upon
him and paid my respects, according to the custom of the University.”
Edward VI being at that time in the neighbourhood, Jane was presented
to him, and “received with great favour.”
[158] Mr. H. Sydney Grazebrook, in his interesting outline on the
subject of Northumberland’s origin, in the _Herald and Genealogical
Review_, vol. v., 1870, thinks John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, was
really descended from the Dudleys of Sedgley and Tipton, a member of
which ancient house married the widow of John Sutton, Lord of Dudley,
in Henry VI’s time. On the other hand, Dugdale says his grandfather was
a carpenter and “very base-born.”
Sir Philip Sydney in his curious tract in defence of Robert, Earl
of Leicester, written in answer to “Leycester’s Commonwealth,”--a
scurrilous attack on Queen Elizabeth’s famous favourite,--entirely
denies the aspersions cast upon the honour of a family with which
he was closely allied, his father having married the Duke of
Northumberland’s daughter, Mary. He contends that to his certain
knowledge the Duke was a man of legitimate descent from the ancient
house of Sutton of Dudley, and moreover connected with the greatest
nobility in England. “How can a man descended from such great Houses
as Nevill, Talbot, Beauchamp and Lisley, be deemed otherwise than
honourable and noble?” He continues: “A railing writer has said of
Octavius Augustus, his father was a silversmith; another Italian
declares (oh! the falsehood) that Hugh Capet was descended of a
butcher who was his father. Of divers English names of the best,
foolish dreamers have said one was the descendant of a miller, another
of a shoemaker, another of a furrier, and forsooth yet another of a
fiddler!--foolish lies! and by any who have ever tasted of antiquities,
known so to be, yet those however had luck to treat with honest
railers--for they were not left fatherless clean; but we as if we were
of Ducalion’s brood, were made out of stones--they have left us no
ancestors from whence we came. Edmund Dudley was the father of this
younger brother of the same Lord Dudley, and would have been Lord
Dudley, if the Lord Dudley had died without heirs. His father was
married to the daughter and heir of Bramshot in Sussex. This Dudley’s
father is buried with his wife at Arundel Castle and left land to
Edmund Dudley and so to the Duke my grandfather, in Sussex.” Philip
Sydney ought certainly to have known the true descent of his family,
especially since they were to acquire the title of Leicester from the
Dudleys.
[159] It will be remembered that the Duke of Suffolk filched the title
of Lisle from the Lady Elizabeth Grey, but on his relinquishing it, it
was given to her eldest son, John Dudley.
[160] On this expedition Somerset carried out to the letter the
instructions given him by Henry VIII, which will be found in a document
in the State Papers. Nero might have written them. They run as follows:
“Put all to fire and sword, burn Edinburgh Town, and raze and deface
it, when you have sacked it, and gotten what you can out of it.... Beat
down and overthrow the castles, sack Holyrood House, and as many towns
and villages about Edinburgh as you conveniently can. Sack Leith, and
burn and subvert it and all the rest, putting man, woman and child to
fire and sword, without exception, when any resistance shall be made
against you; and this done, pass over to Fife-land and extend all
extremities and destruction in all towns and villages whereunto you
may reach ...; not forgetting ... so to spoil and turn upside down the
Cardinal’s [Beaton] town of St. Andrew’s, as the upper stone may be the
nether, and not one stick stand upon another, sparing no creature alive
within the same, specially such as, either in friendship or blood, be
allied to the Cardinal.”
[161] For a further account of this campaign, see the dispatches of the
Seymours in the State Papers for the reign of Henry VIII; and for the
second expedition, those for the reign of Edward VI.
The most heinous crime of all perpetrated on the second expedition--a
crime which damaged Somerset’s reputation to the greatest extent--was
the slaughter of twelve young lads under fifteen years of age, the
children of Scottish horsemen recruited by Lennox, who were held as
hostages for the good behaviour of their parents. Lennox and Lord
Wharton had the poor boys hanged for their fathers’ disaffection; only
one escaped, to become eventually known in the story of Mary Stuart as
Lord Maxwell of Herries. A common soldier to whom he was handed over
by Lennox, and who was sick of the carnage, saved the lad at the risk
of his own life. Somerset rewarded Lennox for his services in this
campaign, and wrote to him “right merrily.”
[162] See documents dealing with the state of the prisons under Edward
VI in the Record Office.
[163] See Haylin; Hayward; and Hume, vol. iii. (folio edition) p. 328.
[164] John Strype says: “About this time [reign of Edward VI] the
nation grew infamous for the crime of adultery. It began among the
nobility and better classes, and so spread at length among the inferior
sort of people. Noblemen would frequently put away their wives and
marry others, if they liked another woman better, or were like[ly]
to obtain wealth by her. And they would sometimes pretend their
former wives to be false to them, and so be divorced, and marry again
those whom they might fancy. These adulteries and divorces increased
very much; yea, and marrying again without any divorce at all, it
became a great scandal to the Realm and to the religion professed in
it.”--Strype’s _Memorials of Archbishop Cranmer_, vol. i. pp. 293, 294.
[165] Robert Ket was a comparatively rich man, and to some extent
a landowner, by reason of which he came into connection with the
nobleman who afterwards had him killed--Northumberland. Ket bought
Wymondham Abbey at the Dissolution, and also possessed a large part
of Wymondham Town, and certain rich lands between that place and the
royal manorhouse of Stanfield Hall. These lands had been bestowed on
the brotherhood of St. Lazarus of Jerusalem--an offshoot of the Order
of Hospitallers of St. John, who devoted their time to the relief
of the sick poor--by Queen Adelicia, second wife of Henry I. Later
on, Ket sold these ex-monastic lands to John Dudley, afterwards Duke
of Northumberland--the suppressor of the Ket rebellion! Blomefield
(_Norfolk_, article on “Wyndham or Wymondham”) indeed attributes the
cause of that outbreak to a disagreement between the Ket brothers and
Northumberland over these lands. “John Dudley,” says he, “bought some
of these charity lands of Ket the tanner. As for payment, it was done
in his own particular mode.... The two brothers (Ket), finding Dudley
meant to pull down the magnificent tower, the preservation of which was
most dear to their affections, raised the Norfolk poor, whom extreme
misery had driven to discontent, and Wymondham became the nucleus of
the great Norfolk rebellion.” It is much more likely that indignation
at the general state of things, social and religious, under Somerset’s
Protectorship, was at the bottom of this popular rising, and not mere
platonic affection for an ancient tower.
[166] William Ket’s remains were given “a dip in boiling pitch,” and
then hanged, in their monastic dress, in chains. They continued, like a
ghastly scarecrow, to ornament Wymondham Church until 1603, when they
began to fall, bone by bone, the last piece coming away on the very day
of Queen Elizabeth’s death, 25th March 1603.
[167] Printed in Tytler’s _England under Edward VI and Mary_, vol. i.
p. 205.
[168] Mr. Pollard says that Herbert’s private park had been ploughed
up, whilst Russell “had been reprimanded for exceeding his instructions
in his severity towards the rebels.” It is interesting to learn, by the
way, that Somerset did make some effort to check the butcheries in the
West.
[169] In making all these warlike preparations Somerset was acting on
the mere premise--since Petre had never returned to Hampton Court,
and he had no news from the metropolis--that Warwick contemplated
some sort of _coup d’état_; for no _open_ act of violence had been
perpetrated. The revolution of 1549, which practically placed Warwick
in the Protectorship and Somerset (temporarily) in the Tower, proved
successful, as we shall presently see, but it was an entirely bloodless
victory.
[170] In addition to his incipient consumption, the poor little King
would seem to have caught a cold on his original journey to Hampton
Court. The _Literary Remains_ say, “The Kinge’s Majesty is much
troubled with a great rewme; taken partly while riding hither in the
night” (vol. i. p. cxxxi).
[171] This nobleman was created Earl of Warwick on his father’s
assumption of the title of Duke of Northumberland, and under that title
was imprisoned in the Tower, which has been the cause of some confusion
to students.
[172] 9th May 1550.
[173] This letter is still extant, and seems to point to a possibility
that Lady Seymour’s mysterious retirement may have been due to her
perseverance in the old faith.
[174] At the same time the Marquis of Dorset was made Duke of Suffolk;
Paulet, Earl of Wiltshire, was raised to the Marquisate of Winchester;
Sir William Herbert, Master of the Horse, was made Earl of Pembroke;
and Mr. William Cecil, Mr. John Cheke, the King’s tutor, Henry Sidney,
and Henry Nevil, were knighted.
[175] The day following the Duke’s arrest, that hot virago, Anne
Stanhope, his Duchess, together with Mr. and Mrs. Crane, Sir Miles
Partridge, Sir Thomas Arundel, Sir Thomas Holcroft, Sir Michael
Stanhope, and others, were also arrested and conveyed to the Tower,
where the Duchess remained a prisoner until the accession of Queen Mary.
[176] Wriothesley’s _Chronicle_, ii. 63.
[177] Nevertheless, the death of Somerset seems to have rankled in the
boy-King’s mind. On one occasion long afterwards, it is said, when
Edward was enjoyed a match of archery with Northumberland and the
King made a remarkably fine shot, the Duke exclaimed, “Well aimed, my
liege.” “But,” replied the young King sarcastically, “you aimed better
when you shot off the head of my uncle Somerset!” Which proves that His
Majesty fully realised Northumberland’s share in that matter.
[178] There was, of course, the usual crop of infant prodigies and
monsters which followed as portents after every notable decapitation. A
dolphin was caught in the Thames; “a child with two heads was born at
Middleton in Oxfordshire; but although it had four arms it had only a
leg, it caughte cold and died,” which was certainly fortunate for the
nerves of the Middletonians.
[179] We find instances of this in the enthusiastic joy of the
people at his suspected acquittal, in their excitement on thinking
he was reprieved, and the fact that after the execution many dipped
handkerchiefs and cloths in his blood, “so that they might have
some token to preserve of the memory of a man who had always been
their friend.” It is said that when, some nineteen months later,
Northumberland was going to execution in his turn, a woman shook one
of these handkerchiefs stained with the blood of Somerset in his
face, crying, “Behold the blood of that worthy man, that good uncle
of that excellent King, which, shed by thy malicious practices, does
now apparently revenge itself on thee.” This is also a proof that the
commonalty clearly understood how great had been Northumberland’s share
in bringing about Somerset’s destruction.
[180] _Zurich Letters_, No. cccxlvii.
[181] One gets a very fair idea of the improvement in Northumberland’s
position after the death of the Duke of Somerset from the letters of
the Swiss and other Reformers. Ab Ulmis, for instance, tells Bullinger
that “He [Northumberland] almost alone, with the Duke of Suffolk,
governs the State, and supports and upholds it on his own shoulders.
He is manifestly the thunderbolt and terror of the Papists.” He
goes on to say that when Somerset licensed Mary to have Mass in her
apartments, Northumberland said angrily, “The Mass is either of God or
of the Devil; if of God, it is but right that all our people should
be allowed to go to it; but if it is not of God, as we are all taught
out of the Scriptures, why then should not the voice of this fury be
equally proscribed to all?”... “Therefore,” says Ab Ulmis, “as soon
as he had succeeded into his office, Northumberland immediately took
care that the mass-priests of Mary should be thrown into prison,
whilst to herself he entirely interdicted the use of the Mass and of
Popish books.”--_Zurich Letters_, ii. 439. No wonder Mary did not love
Northumberland!
[182] The movements of Lady Jane from January 1552 onwards appear
to have been as follows. In January 1552 she was alternately at
Tylsey and at Audley; later in the spring of the same year she was at
Bradgate; in July she went to Oxford, and afterwards to Princess Mary
at Newhall. After this she went with her family, on some unknown date
in 1552, probably in the autumn, to this ex-monastery at Sheen, where
she continued to reside until she came up to London, to (most likely)
Suffolk House, Westminster, for her marriage with Guildford Dudley, in
the spring of 1553. She perhaps spent five days after this at Durham
House, Strand, and then went to Chelsea Manor, now a residence of
the Duke of Northumberland. Thence she went to Sion with Lady Sidney
(as we shall presently relate in detail) on 9th July (1553); on the
following day, from Sion to Westminster Palace, then (the same day)
to Durham House to dine, and lastly to the Tower, which she reached
in the afternoon, and did not leave again, being executed in February
1554 within its precincts. Some writers have fallen into the error of
thinking Lady Jane left the Tower at the close of her nine days’ reign,
at the same time as her father, the Duke of Suffolk. It is not so. From
the day Jane entered the fortress (10th July 1553) to the day of her
death (12th February 1554) she never left it, except for the few hours
of her trial at Guildhall.
[183] The Priory of Sheen was finally suppressed by Henry VIII in 1539,
or rather, it surrendered its estates to the Crown about the time of
the passing of the Act for the Dissolution of the Monasteries. Most of
the ex-monks of this house died in prison in great misery. In 1540 the
abandoned monastery was granted to Edward, Earl of Hertford, brother of
Jane Seymour, who afterwards became the famous Duke of Somerset. After
his attainder in 1551 it was granted to Henry Grey, Duke of Suffolk,
Jane’s father. The ruins of this building were visible as late as the
middle of the eighteenth century. For further details about this house
see Chancellor’s _History of Richmond_, p. 71.
[184] Syon has interest for yet another reason, for the nuns to whom
it had formerly belonged, emigrated to Flanders in Henry VIII’s time,
to return to England early in the last century, and thus form the only
unbroken community of pre-Reformation _religieuses_ in England.
[185] The _History of Queen Jane_ says of Suffolk that “For as he had
few commendable Qualities, he was guilty of no vices.”
[186] The negotiations for this marriage got so far that Sir Andrew,
who was at this time Master of the Wardrobe, actually ordered certain
splendid garments to be taken out of it for himself and the Lady
Margaret to wear at the wedding; and this, needless to say, with
the consent of Edward VI. Cumberland, however, who approved of this
proposal no more than he did the other, removed himself and the rest
of his family as far from London as he could, and thereby frustrated
Northumberland’s matrimonial scheme, leaving poor Sir Andrew to cut a
by no means dignified figure. Lady Margaret eventually married the Earl
of Derby.
[187] This story will be found in a MS. among the Harleian Collection
(No. 353).
[188] As for “having at the Crown,” as a matter of fact if the
Cumberland marriage had taken place it would have put six persons
between Guildford and any chance of his sharing regal honours; or else
the Duke would have had to find some plea for setting aside not only
the Princesses Mary and Elizabeth, but also the Duchess of Suffolk and
her three daughters; this could only have been achieved by urging the
irregularity of the Brandon and Dorset marriages, both of which, as
we have seen, were strictly speaking illegal, for in both cases the
husbands married again before their first marriages had been formally
dissolved, either by the ecclesiastical or the secular courts.
[189] On the death of Somerset, Lady Cromwell, widow of Thomas
Cromwell, offered to take charge of his four daughters (which would
have included the Lady Anne Seymour), the Duchess being, as we have
said, imprisoned. Whether these ladies were in fact placed in Lady
Cromwell’s charge has never been ascertained.
[190] Baoardo, a Venetian who was in England in 1553-6, wrote a
historical pamphlet on the events he beheld. Edited by the celebrated
Luca Cortile, it was printed and published by the Accademia di Venezia,
in 1558, and has been frequently reprinted.
[191] Ascham has told us how bitterly Lady Jane complained of her
parents’ brutal treatment of her even when there was little cause that
they should ill-use their daughter so, and we may easily imagine their
behaviour when they had a more serious complaint against her.
[192] The only portrait of Guildford Dudley which the writer has ever
seen is that at Madresfield attributed to Lucas van Heere, who could
not, however, have painted it, as at the time of Guildford’s execution
he was only seven years of age. There is another objection to this
picture; it is dated 1566, and Guildford was decapitated in 1553.
Still the inscription may have been painted in at a later date, and
the tradition that it is a portrait of Lady Jane’s unfortunate consort
may be correct. But the costume is more like that of the time of James
I, so large a ruff not being worn in Guildford’s day. There is also at
Madresfield a portrait of Lady Jane Grey attributed to Lucas van Heere.
This is far more beautifully painted than its companion, and is in all
probability by Luca Penni, who painted the alleged portrait of Lady
Jane now in the possession of Lord Spencer at Althorpe, to which it
bears a certain resemblance, both in costume and features.
[193] Nevertheless, Heylyn says (in his _Reformation_) that “of all
Dudley’s brood he (Guildford) had nothing of his father in him.”
Fuller (_Worthies_) calls him “a goodly and (for aught I know to the
contrary) a godly gentleman, whose worst fault was that he was son to
an ambitious father.”
[194] The Northumberlands seem to have been in close touch with several
Spaniards. It was due to the intercession of a Spanish noble that the
Duchess obtained her liberty; and it was to the Duchess of Alva that
she bequeathed her pet green parrot.
[195] The exact date of Jane’s marriage is doubtful. Historians assign
various dates ranging from the beginning of May to the beginning of
June. Stowe contents himself with saying “three notable marriages took
place at Durham Place in May 1553.” Giulio Raviglio Rosso of Ferrara,
who obtained his information from Giovanni Michele, Venetian Ambassador
to England, 1554-7, and from Federigo Badoardo, Venetian Ambassador to
Charles V, speaks of “_Nelle feste dello spirito santo, le nozze molto
splendide e reali, e con molto concorso di populo et de’ principali
del regno_.” That is, “On the feasts of the Holy Ghost (_i.e._ Whit
Sunday), the very grand and regal espousals (took place), and with a
great attendance of the people and of the leaders of the kingdom.”
Hutchinson (_History of Durham_, vol. i. 430) says positively 21st
May; and this agrees with the “_feste_” (_i.e._ “feasts” or within the
octave) of Whit Sunday. Pollino also says it occurred on that day.
Strype (_Ecclesiastical Memorials_, book ii. p. 111) gives more details
than most writers. He says: “And a little before this time were great
preparations making for the match (_which was celebrated in May_) of
the Lady Jane with Guildford, Northumberland’s son, and some other
marriages that were to accompany that; as the Earl of Pembroke’s eldest
son with the Lady Katherine ... etc.”
The 21st of May was only six weeks and four days before the declining
Edward VI breathed his last (on 6th July).
Noailles, who is often very vague about his dates, fixes this triple
wedding as taking place in July!
[196] Lord Herbert’s marriage was not consummated on account of the
youth of the parties. He relinquished the hand of the Lady Katherine
Grey, and in 1561 she bestowed it on the Earl of Hertford.
[197] “And for the more solemnity and splendour of this day, the
master of the wardrobe had divers warrants, to deliver out of the
King’s wardrobe much rich apparel and jewels: as, to deliver to the
Lady Frances, Duchess of Suffolk, to the Duchess of Northumberland,
to the Lady Marchioness of Northampton, to the Lady Jane, daughter to
the Duke of Suffolk, and to the Lord Guildford Dudley, for wedding
apparel; (which were certain parcels of tissues, and cloth of gold
and silver, which had been the late Duke’s and Duchess’s of Somerset,
forfeited to the King;) and to the Lady Katherine, daughter to the
said Duke of Suffolk, and the Lord Herbert, for wedding apparel, and
to the Lord Hastings, and Lady Katherine, daughter to the Duke of
Northumberland, for wedding apparel, certain parcels of stuff and
jewels. Dated from Greenwich, the 24th of April. A warrant also there
came to the wardrobe, to deliver to the King’s use, for the finishing
certain chairs for his Majesty, six yards of green velvet, and six
yards of green satin; another, to deliver to the Lady Mary’s Grace, his
Majesty’s sister, a table diamond, with pearl pendant at the same; and
to the Duchess of Northumberland, one square tablet of gold, enamelled
black, with a clock, late parcels of the Duchess of Somerset’s jewels.
And lastly, another warrant to Sir Andrew Dudley, to take for the Lady
Margaret Clifford, daughter of the Earl of Cumberland, and to himself,
for their wedding apparel, sundry silks and jewels: this last warrant
bearing date June 8.”--Strype’s _Memorials_, pp. 111-2, book ii.
[198] The only description of the three weddings is that from the pen
of Giulio Raviglio Rosso, who lived at a later date. See the English
translation of the Venetian State Papers.
[199] Contemporary account of an English wedding in the sixteenth
century quoted by Howard in his _Life of Jane Grey_.
[200] The description of this head-dress corresponds with the very
beautiful and picturesque one she wears in the picture, reputed to be
her portrait, now in the possession of Earl Beauchamp at Madresfield.
[201] There would seem to be some reason to think that Stanfield Hall,
which was often visited by the Plantagenet kings, was part of the
monastic lands purchased by Robert Ket, leader of the famous rebellion.
His brother’s remains, hanging on Wymondham Church, were visible from
its windows. After Lady Jane’s death, Stanfield Hall went to the
Crown. There is no express mention, however, in any existing documents
connected with the Hall, of Jane Grey’s possession of this manor, and
Blomefield was unable to trace it. The tradition that it was part of
Jane’s dower rests on a statement by Strype. Perhaps it was amongst
the lands bought from Ket by the Duke of Northumberland, as already
related; or else it was taken from him by force after the rebellion.
[202] Pollino relates some personal circumstances omitted by Baoardo.
The former, however, mentions the violence used to Jane by the Duke
of Suffolk, when she refused to marry Guildford, on the grounds of a
previous “contraction.” This is an additional proof of the genuineness
of the letter as rendered by Pollino; for Jane, from filial respect,
does not refer to her father’s cruelty.
[203] Several of these letters are included in the second volume of
Tytler’s _England under Edward VI and Mary_.
[204] Table showing the heirs female in remainder to the Crown, named
in the will of Henry VIII and the “Devise” of Edward VI:--
King Henry the Seventh and Queen Elizabeth of York,
had issue
|
+-------------------------+-----------------------+
| | |
King Henry VIII, Margaret, Queen of Scots, Mary, Queen of
father of, grandmother of France, mother of,
by Katherine by Anne Mary Stuart, and by Charles Brandon,
of Aragon, Boleyn, great-grandmother of Duke of Suffolk,
| | King James the First. |
| | |
| +------+ +------------+-+
| | | |
| | The Lady Frances, The Lady
The Lady Mary, The Lady Elizabeth, Duchess of Eleanor,
æt. 38 in 1553. æt. 20 in 1553. Suffolk, Countess of
æt. 36 in 1553. Cumberland,
| d. 1547.
+-----------------+-----------------+--+ |
| | | |
The Lady Jane, The Lady Katherine, The Lady Mary, The Lady
æt. 17 in to the Earl of to Thomas Margaret,
1553, m. to Hertford, issue. Skye, or Countess of
Guildford Keyes, Clifford,
Dudley, no issue. issue.
no issue.
[205] Antoine de Noailles informs us in his Notes that the Lady Frances
was very sore over the way in which her succession to the Crown was set
aside by King Edward in favour of her daughter Jane; and the Duke of
Suffolk had some difficulty in inducing her to accept the situation.
[206] John Terentianus, writing to John ab Ulmis under date of 29th
November 1553, says (_Zurich Letters_, p. 365): “A few days before his
death the King made a will _at the instigation of Northumberland_, by
which he disinherited both his sisters.”
[207] _Cranmer’s Works_ (Parker Society), vol. ii. p. 442.
[208] That is to say, Princess Mary, at that time only a Schismatic,
or “Henryite,” might suddenly become a Roman Catholic, and abolish the
Reformed religion. It should be remembered that Mary was not openly in
communion with Rome until about three months after her accession to the
throne.
[209] The reader will find the text of the “Devise” at the end of the
next chapter.
[210] Northumberland, in fact, tyrannised over everybody: Noailles
(_Ambassades Françaises_, ii. 80), says that “_toutes ces choses_
[Jane’s failure to keep the throne] _sont advenues plus pour la grande
hayne que l’on porte à icelluy duc_ [Northumberland], _qui a voulu
tenir un chacun en craincte, que pour l’amitié que l’on a à ladicte
royne_ [Mary].”
[211] The original of this letter is among the State Papers.
[212] The author’s researches lead him to think that this must be
the correct date of Edward’s death; though different dates are given
by some writers. Machyn, Aubrey, and Wriothesley incline to the 6th
of July; but, on the other hand, Burke (_Tudor Portraits_, vol. ii.
p. 398) says it was the 7th of that month, and the writer of the
article on Edward VI in the _Encyclopædia Britannica_ (vol. vii. p.
686) declares that the King died on 4th July! Aubrey says the 6th
was a Thursday; and Burke, that the King died at nine p.m. These
discrepancies are most likely due to the fact that the King’s death was
kept a secret for some days.
[213] Dr. George Owen was probably the most distinguished physician of
his day. He received honours at Merton College. He attended at Edward
VI’s birth, when he is said untruly to have performed the Cæsarian
operation; he afterwards attended that Prince throughout his life, and
was well treated by him. Amongst the grants made to Owen were Bewley
Abbey, Cumnor Place, Gadstow Abbey, and the chapel of St. Giles,
Oxford. He died on 18th October 1558, and was buried at St. Stephen’s
Walbrook, his funeral being thus recorded by Machyn (_Diary_, p. 177):
“The xxiiij day of October was bered at sant Stevyn in walbroke master
doctur Owyn, phesyssyon, with a ij haroldes of armes and a cote armur
and penon of armes, and iij dosen of armes, and ij whyt branchys, and
xx torchys; and xx pore men had gownes, and ther dener; and iiij gret
tapurs; and the morow masse, and master Harpfheld dyd pryche; and after
a gret dener.” It is strange that Edward’s favourite physician should
have been a “Papist.” Dr. Owen must also have been on good terms with
“Bluff King Hal,” for he received £100 by that monarch’s will. The
second son and the daughter-in-law of Dr. Owen were living at Cumnor
Place in 1560, when the mysterious death of Amy Robsart took place
there.
[214] But of course their arrest was for having placed Jane on the
throne, not for murdering the King. This is a manifest error on the
part of Burcher.
[215] _Zurich Letters_, p. 684.
[216] The belief that the King had been poisoned was, however, very
widespread. Another Reformer, Terentianus, says that it was not only
rumoured, but there were not wanting “many and strong suspicions”; he
attributes it to “the Papists.” Machyn, the diarist, fell into the same
error as Burcher of thinking Northumberland’s arrest due to his share
in Edward VI’s “murder.” He says: “The vj day of July, as they say,
dessessyd [deceased] the nobull kyng Edward the vj. and the vij yere of
ys rayne, and sune and here to the nobull kyng Henry the viij; and he
was poyssoned, as evere body says, wher now, thanks be unto God, ther
be mony of the false trayturs browt to ther end, and j trust in God
that mor shall folow as thay may be spyd owt” (p. 35). Osorius, Bishop
of Sylva (Portugal), wrote to Elizabeth when she was on the throne,
that her brother had died of poison.
[217] Sir Robert Throckmorton, Sir Nicholas’s elder brother, whom she
much preferred to the latter.
[218] Some historians have represented the warning as coming to Mary
by way of the Earl of Arundel; but the statement that it came from the
Throckmortons is confirmed by Jardine’s _State Trials_ and Cole’s MS.
vol. xl., British Museum. There is a very curious account of the whole
proceeding in rough verse by Sir Nicholas Throckmorton himself, of
which we give two verses:--
“Mourning, from Greenwich did I straight depart,
To London, to a house which bore our name.
My brethren guessèd by my heavie hearte,
The King was dead, and I confess’d the same:
The hushing of his death I didd unfolde,
Their meaning to proclaim Queene Jane I tolde.
* * * * *
Wherefore from four of us the newes was sent.
How that her brother hee was dead and gone;
In post her goldsmith then from London went,
By whom the message was dispatcht anon.
Shee asked, ‘If wee knewe it certainlie?’
Who said, ‘Sir Nicholas knew it verilie.’”
See _The Chronicle of Queen Jane and Queen Mary_, p. 2; also Bishop
Goodman’s _Memoirs_, p. 161.
[219] Wriothesley says: “Jane came to the Tower from Greenwich,” which
is evidently a mistake. She certainly did not proceed from Westminster
to Greenwich to return thence to the Tower.
[220] This letter is from Sir Baptist Spinola, a very rich Genoese
merchant, who flourished in London under Edward VI,--by whom he was
knighted,--Mary, and Elizabeth. Frequent mention of him will be found
in the State Papers of this period. On one occasion Elizabeth paid him
an enormous sum--probably for supplies of Genoa velvet and brocade.
The “grand procession to the Tower” refers to the procession from the
landing-place there to the Great Hall.
[221] A fair number of copies of the Proclamation of Lady Jane Grey
have come down to us, but the original printed Proclamation is in the
Collection of the Royal Society of Antiquaries. Herein the Lady Mary
and the Lady Elizabeth are, as said above, stigmatised as bastards,
whilst it calls upon persons of all degrees to be loyal to “their
lawful Sovereign”--_i.e._ Jane Dudley. The Proclamation was printed by
Richard Grafton, and is a very fine specimen of his workmanship. In
the imprint he styles himself “The Queen’s Printer.” One would like to
discover what became of Mr. Grafton after Mary’s accession?
[222] Machyn’s _Diary_, p. 35.
[223] An unknown, who cautiously dubbed himself “Poor Pratte,”
addressed an open letter to Mr. “Onyone” during his imprisonment. The
writer, who was apparently a staunch supporter of Mary, informed his
readers that “if England prove disloyal, evils will come on it ... the
Gospel will be plucked away and the Lady Mary replaced by so cruel a
Pharaoh as the ragged bear (_i.e._ Northumberland).” “Pratte” points
out that Mary is less overjoyed at becoming Queen than sorry for her
brother’s death, whilst Northumberland was pleased thereat; “she would
be as glad of his life as the ragged bear of his death.” The writer
prays God “to raise up Queen Mary and pluck down that Jane--I cannot
nominate her Queen, for that I know no other Queen but the good Lady
Mary, her Grace, whom God prosper.” In conclusion, the writer wishes
Jane’s supporters “the pains of Satan in hell,” and to Mary’s, “long
life and prosperity.” See the Appendix, pp. 116-21 of _The Chronicle of
Queen Jane and Queen Mary_.
[224] Cecil was originally selected to draw up the draft of the
proclamation, but with his usual desire--manifested in a like manner on
other occasions when an unpleasant and dangerous task was assigned to
him--to save his own skin at the expense of no matter whom, he passed
on the duty to Sir Nicholas Throckmorton. Cecil himself relates this
plainly in his unblushing “Submission” to Mary, of which more anon.
There he says: “I refused to make a proclamation, and turned the labour
to Mr. Throckmorton, whose conscience I saw was troubled therewith,
misliking the matter.” It would be difficult to imagine a meaner trick.
It is more than probable that Northumberland very largely guided
Throckmorton in arranging the terms of this document: one can scarcely
imagine that he would have left it entirely to Sir Nicholas’ judgment.
Probably it was composed at Sion House. The editing of it was given to
Sir John Cheke.
[225] One copy of this interesting letter is in the Lansdowne MSS,
1236, f. 24, and a facsimile in Ser. iii. No. 4.
[226] There are two versions of this interview, differing in some
particulars; the second is by Jane herself, printed in Pollino’s
_Ecclesiastical History_. We have deemed it best to give both.
[227] Pollino (_Istoria Ecclesiastica_, p. 357) puts Jane’s answer
slightly differently--_Dissi loro_, he makes her say, _che se la corona
s’appetava a me, io sarei contenta di fare il mio marito Duca ma non
consentirei di farlo Rè_. That is, “I said to them that if the Crown
was my concern, I should be pleased to make my husband Duke, but I
would not consent to make him King.”
[228] There would seem to be an error here. Quite true, the Crown
was, metaphorically, thrust upon Jane; but surely the request for the
release of the regalia must have been made at least to _appear_ as if
it came from her?
[229] Harleian MSS, No. 523, p. 13. Sir Philip Hoby or Hobby was a
Herefordshire man, who had been previously sent to Paris as English
Ambassador to treat for the marriage of Elizabeth of Valois to
Edward VI. He afterwards passed to Antwerp and then to Brussels and
other parts of the Low Countries, during which period occurred the
above-mentioned incident with Don Diego Mendoza. He married Elizabeth,
daughter of Sir W. Stonor, who died without issue. Sir Philip’s brother
and heir, Sir Thomas Hoby, married Cecil’s learned sister-in-law,
Elizabeth Cooke. Many memorials of the Hoby family still exist at
Bisham Abbey.
[230] The dispatch of the Council to Hoby and Morysone announcing the
death of the King is dated 8th July, and will be found in the British
Museum, Cottonian Collection (Galba B. xii. 249). It makes no mention
of either Guildford or Jane.
[231] In her will the Duchess of Northumberland calls this gentleman,
to whom she left “the littell book clock, that hath the sun, the moon
on it, &c., and her dial, the one leaf of it the almanack, and on
the other side the golden number in the midst,” “the Lord Don Diagoe
Damondesay,” which was the good lady’s rendering of de Mendoça! She
added that she bequeathed these articles “with commendation for the
great friendship he hath shewed hir in making hir have so many friends
about the King’s Majesty as she hath found.” The King’s Majesty here
referred to is Philip II, who had used his influence with Mary, at
the instigation of Don Diego, to recover part of her property for the
Duchess.
[232] “He (Mendoza) could not but at one (and the same) time both
sorrowe with us for the losse of our good old mastere (Edward VI)
a prince of such vertue and towardnesse, and also rejoyse with us
that our master which is departed, did, ere he wente, provid us of a
kynge (Guildford Dudley), in regard wee had so much cause to rejoyse
in.” It is a significant fact that throughout this dispatch of the
Commissioners, whenever Guildford is mentioned, it is by some title
such as “kynge,” “kynges majestie,” etc., and not once by his proper
name, though obviously no one else but he is referred to. This was done
purposely to avoid getting Guildford into trouble in the event of the
letter falling into the hands of Mary’s supporters.
[233] _Two Queens and Philip_, by Major Martin Hume.
[234] It must always be remembered that the Emperor was Mary’s cousin,
and had already defended her religious freedom against Northumberland;
the Council feared, though without reason, as we know, his Ambassadors’
interference for the purpose of vindicating her rights to the throne.
[235] That was during the few days she spent at Chelsea Manor after
leaving Durham House, as already recorded; cf. cap. xiv. p. 237.
[236] This inventory will be found among the Harleian MSS, No. 611.
[237] Jane herself, as we have already seen, says the regalia was
brought to her on the 11th of July; perhaps Winchester made a slip of
the pen in writing the 12th.
[238] Machyn’s _Diary_, p. 36.
[239] We have already seen (_vide_ the letter of the Council to the
Commissioners in Brussels of the 11th July) that the Council had
intended from the very first that Northumberland should proceed into
Norfolk, the object even then being to remove his all-powerful and
domineering presence from London and into Mary’s hands, since all
the members doubtless foresaw they would have to renounce Jane very
shortly, and were not anxious to incur his wrath for so doing. Probably
Suffolk was merely suggested so as to avoid rousing Northumberland’s
suspicions that the Council was anxious to be rid of him.
[240] Holinshed, vol. iii. pp. 1068, 1069.
[241] Machyn says (p. 36): “And ij days after (the xij day of July) the
duke, and dyvers lordes and knyghts whent with him, and mony gentylmen
and gonnars, and mony men of the gard and men of armes toward my lade
Mare grace, to destroye here grace, and so to bury, and alle was agayns
ym-seylff, for ys men forsok him.”
[242] In this document, as in the indictment, Mary gives neither Jane
nor her husband their legitimate titles. She calls the former “Jane
Dudley,” and describes her as “the wife of Guildford Dudley, Esquire,”
stating that Sharington’s successor has received his appointment “by
the traitorous abuse and usurpation of Jane Dudley ... and other
accomplices.”
[243] Only two days after Northumberland started (that is, on the 16th)
Mary had left Kenninghall and ridden without pause to Framlingham,
where, according to Holinshed (vol. iii. p. 1067) she gathered round
her an army of thirty thousand men.
[244] William Cecil, afterwards Lord Burghley, was born at Stamford
St. Martin, Northamptonshire, in 1520. In his youth he was a royal
page, and was present at the Field of the Cloth of Gold. Later, he
went to Cambridge, and was a great friend of Roger Ascham and John
Cheke. Against his father’s will, he married Mary Cheke, the latter’s
sister. She died in 1544; and he married again, this time to Mildred,
daughter of Sir Anthony Cooke of Gidea Hall, Essex. This was in 1545.
Cecil fought in Scotland under Somerset two years later, being present
at the battle of Pinkie Cleugh. He was appointed a Secretary of State
on 5th September 1550. In October of the next year he was knighted,
together with Cheke. His action in the matter of Edward VI’s “Devise”
for the limitation of the succession has been already related; also
his duplicity with regard to Northumberland. Immediately all hopes
of Jane’s retaining the crown were gone, he made his well-known
“Submission” to Mary. All the same, he spent the first year of her
reign in retirement, and only appears again as holding a public office
in 1554. His successful career under Elizabeth is foreign to the
subject of this book, and is well known. Cecil died in 1598 at his
house in the Strand, and is buried in Westminster Abbey. See _The Great
Lord Burghley_, by Martin Hume.
[245] This is mainly derived from Stowe’s account; Burke (p. 417) and
others say that in the first instance Northumberland was arrested
by Sir John Gates, one of his own followers, apparently whilst in
the midst of his toilet, “with his boots half on and half off,” and
therefore utterly helpless.
[246] With Northumberland were brought prisoners into the Tower on 25th
July, John, Earl of Warwick, and the Lords Ambrose and Henry Dudley,
his three sons, his brother, Sir Andrew Dudley, the Earl of Huntingdon,
Lord Hastings, Sir Thomas Palmer, Sir Henry and Sir John Gates, and
Dr. Sandys. They are said to have been escorted by four thousand
men; others say eight hundred. On the 26th these noblemen were also
joined by other prisoners--namely, the Marquis of Northampton, another
of Northumberland’s sons Lord Robert Dudley, the Bishop of London
(Ridley), Sir Richard Corbet, and Cholmondeley and Montagu, Chief
Justices: the latter’s distress must have been softened by the feeling
that his gloomy forebodings as to the evil results of the continuance
of Edward VI’s scheme for the succession had been amply realised.
Next day, Sir John Cheke, Sir Anthony Cooke, and Sir John York were
committed to the Tower. See Strype, vol. iv., and Stowe.
[247] After the proclamation of Mary, Ridley went to Framlingham to pay
her homage; but the Queen being suspicious of his sincerity, he was
arrested at Ipswich, “despoiled of his dignities, and sent back on a
lame, halting horse to the Tower.”
[248] From the use of the expression (adopted in _The Chronicle of
Queen Jane and Queen Mary_), “the keys were carried up,” it has been
suggested that Lady Jane was lodged in the White Tower itself, which
was not the case. Queen Jane proceeded immediately after her arrival
at the Tower to the palatial apartments usually inhabited by royalty
when in residence there. These chambers--in which Elizabeth of York
breathed her last; where Anne Boleyn spent the night before her
coronation and later, by an irony of fate, that before her execution;
where, afterwards, Katherine Howard also awaited her doom; where, in
a word, most of our Kings and Queens had “ruffled it wi’ the best” or
trembled at their coming fate--were removed in the seventeenth century.
They were contiguous to the White Tower--indeed, the door communicating
between the two blocks of buildings is still visible--and it is more
than probable that Queen Jane used the chapel and the Council Chamber
in the said White Tower; but she certainly never inhabited the tower
during her brief Queenship. Later, as we shall presently see, she
was removed to the quadrangle opposite St. Peter’s Church, to the
apartments which had been vacated by the Duchess of Somerset, in
Partridge’s House.
[249] It was on the 17th or the next day that a significant placard was
found attached to the pump at Queenhithe, stating “that the Princess
Mary had been proclaimed Queen in every town and city in England,
London alone excepted.” The exception was to cease within two days!
[250] It was generally said that Northumberland’s son, Lord Henry
Dudley, had been to France to raise a force, and that six thousand
French soldiers were about to embark from Dieppe and Boulogne.
Strype says (_Ecclesiastical Memorials_, vol. iii. part I, p. 23):
“Henry Dudley, a relation and creature of the Duke [of Northumberland],
and in with him, had, with four servants and certain letters, escaped,
and got hither to Guisnes. Him these officers detained, seizing his
men and letters; which they sent by a special messenger to the Queen,
keeping him in sure custody till her pleasure were further known. All
this they declared to her in their letter, protesting their steadfast
loyalty and obedience. Dudley was soon after conveyed to Calais and so
to England.”
It was also rumoured that Northumberland had offered to hand over
Calais to the French in return for the aid which was to be afforded
him. Needless to say, it never came.
[251] Rossi, _I Successi d’Inghilterra dopo la morte de Edoardo Sesto_,
pp. 15, 16. This book was printed at Ferrara in 1560.
[252] Baynard’s Castle, which was standing in Edward II’s time, and was
later the residence of Richard III, stood somewhere about the site now
occupied by St. Paul’s Station, and was a large square building, with
high pitched turrets at each corner, and having its river front washed
by the Thames. Several royalties visited it in the course of time. In
Henry VIII’s time it belonged to that Earl of Pembroke who married
Katherine Parr’s sister, and was in the possession of that family in
1553. “Bluff King Hal” was sometimes entertained there. The greater
part of the building was burnt down in the Great Fire, but the towers
were standing as late as 1809.
[253] It is distinctly curious that Arundel should be generally
stated to have been present at the proclamation of Mary in London
on 19th July, and yet be said by several writers to have arrested
Northumberland at Cambridge on the 21st! This hardly seems probable;
doubtless the arrest took place later in that week. But the dates of
Northumberland’s movements on his expedition are altogether obscure.
[254] Roger Alford, Cecil’s servant, gives the following account of
this stage of the intrigue in a letter to Cecil of 1573: “After this,
the Lords not long after agreed to go to Baynard’s Castle to the Lord
of Pembroke [Baynard’s Castle was, as we have said, his residence]
upon pretence before in Council, to give audience to the French King
and Emperor’s Ambassadors, that had long been delayed audience; and
that the Tower was not fit to him to enter into at that season. At
which time, my Lord of Arundel, upon some overture of frank speech to
be had in Council in respect of that present state, said secretly to
his friend, as I take it yourself [_i.e._ Cecil] or Sir William Petre,
that he liked not the air. And thereupon it was deferred to Baynard’s
Castle; from which place the Lords went and proclaimed Queen Mary. And
yourself was despatched after my Lord Arundel and my Lord Paget to her
Grace, being at Ipswich; where, being sent by you a little before, my
Lady Bacon told me that the Queen thought very well of her brother
Cecil, and said you were a very honest man.”--Strype’s _Annals_, vol.
iv. p. 349.
[255] See either Harleian MSS, 358, 44; or _Chronicles of Queen Jane
and Queen Mary_, p. 11.
[256] _The Grey Friars Chronicle_ says that the bells continued to ring
“all night till the next day to None.”
[257] So complete was the popular desertion of Jane’s cause--if so,
indeed, it may be called, seeing that there had never been any great
enthusiasm for her--that Foxe was able to remark that “God so turned
the hearts of the people to her [Mary], and against the Council
[who represented Jane], that she overcame them without bloodshed,
notwithstanding there was made great expedition against her both by sea
and land” (Foxe, _Acts and Monuments_, vol. vi. p. 388). Jane herself
was not disliked, but there would seem to have been little popular
goodwill towards the Councillors and especially Northumberland; we
have already recorded that the French Ambassador said that _toutes ces
choses_ [Mary’s success] _sont advenues, plus pour la grande hayne
qu’on porte à icelluy duc, que pour l’amitié qu’on a à ladicte royne_
[Mary].
[258] It is a curious fact that Cranmer was not arrested immediately
on the fall of Jane. On 8th August he officiated at a Communion
Service at the funeral of Edward VI at Westminster. He seems to have
been eventually arrested on quite another charge than the one in the
indictment. A certain Dr. Thornden, Bishop of Dover, having said
Mass in Canterbury Cathedral, Cranmer published a manifesto against
him, and incidentally stated that the rumour that he was willing to
celebrate Mass before the Queen was untrue. This document being read
in Cheapside, the Archbishop was brought before the Council on 8th
September 1553 for “disseminating seditious bills,” and committed
to the Tower. Having being tried at the same time as Jane Grey, he
remained a prisoner in the Tower until 8th March 1554, when he went to
Oxford for the celebrated theological disputation which ended in his
fiery doom.
[259] See Machyn, p. 38.
[260] Dr. Nicholas suggested that this Partridge was Queen Mary’s
goldsmith, who bore the same name, and seems to have been living in the
Tower about this time.
[261] The site of the Royal Garden in the Tower is now covered by
modern buildings, military stores, etc., of no particular interest. The
“hill within the Tower” may be another term for the Green, for Stowe,
in speaking of the prisoners who knelt on the Green to invoke Queen
Mary’s pardon at her first entry into the Tower, terms that ominous
spot “the hill.” It is strange indeed if Lady Jane took her exercise on
the place where she afterwards died!
[262] This lady was a close connection of the Howards, and probably a
grand-niece of Agnes, Duchess of Norfolk, by birth a Tylney.
[263] A recent writer on the life of Lady Jane Grey states, but gives
no authority, that she was released from the Tower immediately after
her deposition, and retired to Sion House: but there is no contemporary
evidence whatever in substantiation of this statement.
[264] This William Paulet, Lord St. John, Marquis of Winchester, was in
many ways an extraordinary creature. After the attainder and execution
of Sir Thomas More, he was granted the beautiful mansion of Chelsea,
and Edward VI, when Paulet was created Marquis of Winchester in 1551,
gave him in fee both that property and all other possessions in Chelsea
and Kensington forfeited by More. Next we hear of him as Great-Master
of the Household to Edward VI, Mary, and Elizabeth. In the fourth year
of Edward VI’s reign he was made Lord Treasurer of England, in which
capacity he appealed to Lady Jane for the jewels left in her charge at
her accession. His religious changes were remarkable; in Edward’s time
he was a bitter anti-Papist; in Mary’s, an enthusiastic Catholic; and
under Elizabeth we find him a staunch supporter of the Church by law
established. Asked how it was he managed to avoid a downfall amidst so
many changes, he is said to have answered: “By being a willow and not
an oak!” He died in 1572 in his ninety-seventh year, having lived to
see over a hundred persons descend from him; and is buried in Chelsea
parish church, where he had attended Mass in Henry VIII’s time; an
“evangelical” service under Edward VI; Mass again in Mary’s day; and
the English Morning Prayer in Elizabeth’s!
[265] British Museum, Harleian Collection, No. 523, 46.
[266] For a full and very instructive account of the _volta face_ of
the Emperor and his subsequent conduct towards Queen Mary, see the
State Papers, Foreign Series, from 23rd August 1553, the date of the
banquet to Hoby at Brussels, to May 1554, and also _Two English Queens
and Philip_, by Martin Hume.
[267] This count would in itself have been punishable, it may be
supposed, since the Tower was one of the royal palaces, as well as
defences: the “seizure” here referred to consisted in the fact that
Jane’s Council and attendants had been lodged there; that ammunition
had been, as we have seen, brought in there during Jane’s reign;
and that the Constable of the Tower had been changed by Suffolk’s
manipulation. Sir John Gage, who had been appointed to that post in
the year 1540, and had continued therein throughout Edward VI’s reign,
was replaced by Lord Clinton, a Janeite, about the time the “Nine
Days’ Queen” entered the fortress--only to be superseded on Mary’s
accession by the very man he had displaced, Sir John Gage! Gage was
followed by Sir Edward Braye, probably losing his appointment over a
whimsical quarrel with the servants of the Princess Elizabeth during
her imprisonment.
[268] Although no official report of it remains, a Requiem for the
repose of King Edward must have been sung at St. Paul’s, the bill of
costs for choir-boys, lights, etc., for such a ceremony being still in
existence. Edward VI was the first King of England buried according to
the rites of the Church of England; at the same time, he was the last
King of England for whom a Requiem Mass was sung in this country. James
II died a Catholic, but abroad, in France. It has been remarked by
Protestant historians that Mary had no right to have a Mass of Requiem
said for her brother; they forget that he was baptized a Catholic.
[269] It is quite obvious--Hume and Lingard to the contrary--that the
Great Seal here referred to was that of Edward VI, affixed to that
monarch’s letters patent for the limitation of the succession. The
judges, however, purposely misunderstood Northumberland, and pretended
to think he was referring to Jane’s seal, which would not, of course,
have been recognised as legal. The Great Seal of King Edward continued
to be used upon documents for many months after Mary’s accession; it
will, for instance, be found attached to the Special Commission of Oyer
and Terminer addressed to Thomas White, Mayor of London, and others
for the trials of the indictments against Guildford Dudley “and Jane
his wife,” and Ambrose and Henry Dudley, which took place in November
1553. This seal is circular, and rather indistinct; on the one side His
Majesty is represented seated, with the sceptre in his right hand and
the orb in his left. He is under a canopy with curious side pillars:
on either side of the throne are round coats of arms, surmounted by
crowns. On the other side is a figure, wielding a mace and with a
shield, on a horse in armour--this is either St. George or the Lord
Protector. At the horse’s feet is a Tudor greyhound: there is an
illegible inscription at the top margin. (See Baga de Secretis, pouch
xxiii., Record Office.)
[270] Machyn, p. 41. This horrible sentence was afterwards commuted to
decapitation, and the same in the case of next day’s condemned.
[271] Harleian MSS, No. 2194.
[272] Sir Andrew Dudley was released on 18th January 1554. He died,
without issue, in 1559.
[273] For a further account of this recantation ceremony, see Harleian
MSS, 284, fol. 128_d._ Also Stowe, _Annals_, p. 614.
[274] Harleian MSS, No. 2194.
[275] Bishop Burnet considered that Northumberland was only insincere
in professing Protestantism--“he had always been a Catholic at heart”;
John Knox said the same; and Jane Grey herself said, about a week after
his death, “but for the answering that he [Northumberland] hoped for
life by turning (Catholic), _though others be of the same opinion, I
utterly am not_.” Burnet’s remark is supported by a statement the Duke
of Northumberland made on one occasion, it is said, to Sir Anthony
Browne, that “he certainly thought best of the old religion; but seeing
a new one begun, run dog, run devil, he would go forward.” In other
words, his Protestantism was a mere matter of policy.
[276] This refers to the trained bands of the Tower Hamlets mentioned,
whose headquarters were in the Tower, and took their titles from the
districts in which they were raised.
[277] Machyn’s _Diary_, p. 42. The paragraph ends with a reference to
their attendance at Mass: “And at the same tym after was send for my
lord mer and the aldermen and the cheyffest of the craftes in London,
and dyvers of the counsell, and ther was sed mas [Mass] a-for [before]
the Duke and the rest of the prisoners.” Was it the sudden arrival of
the news that Northumberland was about to return to Catholicism that
occasioned the postponement of the execution, in the hope that the
Queen, touched by his conversion, might spare him? Most historians,
however, assign the 20th as the date of the recantation, which would
mean of course that it took place before the postponement of the
execution, described by Machyn as having occurred on the 21st.
[278] A very quaint account of the Duke of Northumberland’s execution,
published in Paris in 1558 by a French priest named Stephen Perlin,
contains, though full of inaccuracies, some details not to be found in
other contemporary reports. “The afore-mentioned prisoners,” says he,
“were taken to the Tower. The mob called the milor Notumbellant [_sic_]
vile traitor, and he eyed them furiously with looks of resentment.
Two days afterwards [an error; he entered the Tower on 25th July,
and was tried on 18th August] he was taken by water in a little bark
to Ousemestre [Westminster], a Royal palace, principally to indict
and try him; his trial was not long, for it did not last more than
fourteen days at most [there is no reason to suppose it lasted so
long]; and he, the Duke of Suphor [Suffolk], and the milor Arondelle
were condemned by an arrest of the Council to be beheaded in an open
space before the castle of the Tower; and they had all three [they were
really executed at widely different periods; see the text] the pain of
seeing one under the hands of a hangman, before whom a whole kingdom
had trembled, which, reader, was a lamentable spectacle. This hangman
was lame of a leg, for I was present at the execution, and he wore a
white apron like a butcher. This great lord made great lamentations
and complaints at his death, and said this prayer in English, throwing
himself on his knees, looking up to Heaven, and exclaiming tenderly,
‘Lorde God mi fatre prie fort ous poore siners nond vand in the hoore
of our teath,’ [so in the original: it seems to be a ludicrous mixture
of the Lord’s Prayer and the Hail Mary] which is to say, in French,
‘Lord God my Father, pray for us men and poor sinners, and principally
in the hour of our death.’ After the execution you might see little
children gathering up the blood which had fallen through the slits in
the scaffold on which he had been beheaded. In this country the head is
put upon a pole, and all their goods confiscated to the Queen.”
[279] The beauty and quantity of the roses in the Tower gardens is made
particular mention of in contemporary documents.
[280] Wriothesley says the cannonading and gun-firing on this occasion
was positively deafening.
[281] A rare French book entitled _Nouveaux Eclaircissements sur
l’Histoire de Marie Reine d’Angleterre_, says of this interview:
“Elle [Mary] lui [Renard] dit, qu’elle ne pouvait se résoudre à faire
mourir Jeanne de Suffolck [Lady Jane Grey], qu’on lui avait assuré,
qu’avant d’épouser le fils du duc de Nortumberland, elle avait été
promise en mariage à un autre par un Contrat obligatoire, qui rendait
son second mariage nul; d’où Marie concluait, que Jeanne n’était pas
véritablement belle-fille du duc de Nortumberland. Elle ajouta qu’elle
n’avait eu aucune part à l’entreprise de ce duc, & qu’elle se ferait
conscience de la faire mourir, puisqu’elle était innocente. Simon
Renard lui répliqua qu’il était à craindre, qu’on n’eût imaginé cette
promesse obligatoire pour lui sauver la vie, & qu’il fallait au moins
la retenir prisonnière, parce qu’il y aurait beaucoup d’inconvénients
à lui rendre la liberté.... La Reine répondit ... qu’à l’égard de
Jeanne de Suffolck, on ne la mettrait pas en liberté, sans avoir pris
toutes les précautions nécessaires, pour qu’il n’en pût résulter
aucun inconvénient. Le Lieutenant d’Amont [_i.e._ Renard] ayant
rendu compte à l’Empereur de cette conversation, ce Prince insista
de nouveau dans sa réponse ... de punir sans miséricordes tous ceux
qui avaient entrepris de lui enlever la Couronne, & ceux qui avaient
contribué à la mort du Roi.” [The latter phrase evidently refers to the
widespread but unauthenticated idea that Edward VI had been poisoned by
Northumberland.] The author or compiler of the book from which this is
taken was one Père Griffet, who flourished in the eighteenth century,
and having discovered a number of Simon Renard’s dispatches in the
Royal Library at Besançon, wrote this work in answer to David Hume’s
attack on Queen Mary: it was published at Amsterdam in 1766. There is
no copy of it in the British Museum.
[282] Poinet, the Protestant Bishop of Winchester, says in truth that
“those lords of the Council who had been the most instrumental at the
death of Edward VI, in thrusting royalty upon poor Lady Jane, and
proclaiming Mary illegitimate, were now the sorest forcers of men, yea,
became earnest councillors for that innocent lady’s death.” See Strype,
vol. iii. part I, p. 141.
[283] Sir Richard Morgan, Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, Lady
Jane’s judge, was a Catholic. The date of his birth is not known.
He was admitted to Lincoln’s Inn on 31st July 1523, and called to
the Bar in 1529. From 1545 to 1547 and again in 1553 he represented
Gloucester in the House of Commons. He was arrested and confined in
the Fleet Prison on 24th March 1551, for the offence of attending Mass
in Princess Mary’s chapel, but was soon released with a caution. In
1553 he joined Mary’s party at Kenninghall, and when the Queen came to
her own he was knighted [2nd October 1553]. Later in the same year he
was placed on the commission to inquire into Bishop Tunstal’s appeal;
and in November he tried and passed sentence of death on Lady Jane
Grey and others. Sir Richard Morgan retired from the Bench in October
1555. In the following year (according to Foxe, _Book of Martyrs_,
iii. p. 37) “Judge Morgan, that gave the sentence against hir [Jane],
shortly after fell mad, and in hys raving cryed continuallye to have
the ladie Jane taken away from him, and so ended his life.” His death
is mentioned in Holinshed, 1577 edition, p. 1733. Machyn (_Diary_,
p. 106) records Morgan’s funeral in the following terms: “The ij day
of June was bered at sant Magnus at London bryge ser Richerd Morgayn
knyght, a juge and on [one] of the preve consell unto the nobull Quen
Mare, with a harold [herald] of armes bayryng ys cott armur, and with
a standard and a penon of armes and elmett, sword, and targatt; and
iiij dosen of skochyons, and ij whytt branchys and xij torchys and iiij
gret tapurs, and xxiiij pore men in mantyll ffrysse gownes, and mony
in blake; and master chansseler of London [a certain Dr. Darbishire]
dyd pryche.” Morgan also appears in Machyn as being present at a sermon
on 5th November 1553, “The v day of November dyd pryche master Feknam
[Feckenham] at sant Mare overays afor non [at St. Mary Overies before
noon], and ther where at ys sermon the yerle of Devonshyre, ser Antony
Browne, and juge Morgayn and dyvers odur nobull men” [p. 48]. The same
writer makes mention of a Francis Morgan, Judge of the Queen’s Bench,
who died in 1558, and may have been a relation of the Chief Justice.
[284] This description of the trial is mainly derived from the original
documents in the Baga de Secretis, Pouch xxiii., in the Public Record
Office, Chancery Lane, London; from various contemporary descriptions
of previous and subsequent State trials; and from ancient and
contemporary engravings of similar scenes. There is, unfortunately, an
utter lack of documentary evidence of a personal character connected
with this trial, for, unlike these of the Queens Anne Boleyn and
Katherine Howard, it was not of a domestic character, and there was
neither cross-examination of witnesses or prisoners nor defence: the
facts were of public knowledge and as such handed to the jury, who,
after considering them, gave the only verdict possible under the
circumstances, guilty. Thus, this celebrated trial is divested of those
many touches of dramatic interest and human pathos which characterise
the records of the trials of Anne Boleyn and Katherine Howard. Machyn’s
account of Jane’s trial is very brief, and is in part destroyed. He
says (p. 48): “[The 13th of November were arraigned at Guildhall Doctor
Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lord] Gylfford Dudlay, the sune
of the Duke of Northumberland, and my lade Jane ys wyff, the doythur
of the Duke of Suffoke-Dassett, and the Lord Hambrosse Dudlay, and the
Lord Hare Dudlay, the wyche lade Jane was proclamyd Queen; they all v
wher cast for to dee [die].”
There is a contemporary account of the procession to the Guildhall,
which runs as follows: “The xiijth daie of November were ledd out of
the Tower on foot, to be arrayned, to yeldhall, with the axe before
theym, from theyr warde [prison], Thomas Cranmer, archbushoppe of
Canterbury, between ... [blank].
“Next followed the lorde Gilforde Dudley between ... [blank].
“Next followed the lady Jane, between ... [blank] and hir ij
gentyll-women following hir.
“Next followed the lorde Ambrose Dudley and the lorde Harry Dudley.
“The lady Jane was in a black gowne of cloth, tourned downe, the cape
lyned with fese velvett, and edget about with the same, in a French
hoode, all black, with a black byllyment, a black velvet boke hanging
before hir, and another boke in hir hande open, holding hir ...” [the
entry breaks off here].
See also Bishop Burnet’s _History of the Reformation_.
[285] Dr. Feckenham was not installed as Abbot of Westminster until
November 1556.
[286] See Rossi, _I Successi d’Inghilterra_, p. 44, _et seq._
[287] _The Chronicle of Queen Jane and Queen Mary_, p. 37.
[288] A dispatch of Renard’s of 8th February (given by Griffet),
confirms this account, saying: “_Le duc de Suffolck avait assemblé un
corps de troupes & quelques Gentilshommes de son parti, pour soutenir
la rébellion: il fut attaqué par le comte Addincton_ [a mistake for
Huntingdon], _qui s’était déclaré pour la Reine; & il perdit, dans ce
combat, tous ses soldats sans exception, son argent & son équipage.
Ce Duc s’enfuit avec ses deux frères, & se voyant poursuivi, il se
cacha dans le creux d’un arbre, où il fut découvert par un chien qui
ne cessait d’aboyer autour de cet arbre. Un de ses frères fut pris
pareillement sous un tas de foin, & tous deux furent mis dans la Tour
de Londres, avec un grand nombre d’Officiers & de Seigneurs._”
[289] Machyn says (p. 54): “The same day [Shrove Tuesday, 6th February]
cam rydyng to the Towre the Duke of Suffoke and ys brodur by the yerle
of Huntyngton [_i.e._ in the Earl of Huntington’s charge] with iii. C.
[three hundred] horse.”
He also tells us that on the same day “was ij hanged upon a jebett
in Powles churche yerd; the on [one] a spy of Wyatt, the thodur [the
other] was under-shreyff of Leseter, for carryng letturs of the duke of
Suffoke and odur thinges.”
[290] Mary was, however, so firmly convinced that this was his object
that in the orders to Lieutenants of Counties to proclaim as traitors
Henry, Duke of Suffolk, the Carew brothers, Wyatt and others (dated
26th January 1554), they are described as having “threatened her
destruction and to advance the Lady Jane Grey _and her husband_.” These
last words are significant, in view of Guildford’s pretensions to
regality.
[291] Griffet says: “_Le duc de Suffolck fut le premier à découvrir
lui-même tous les secrets de la conspiration. Il écrivit sa confession,
& la fit remettre à la Reine, en implorant sa clêmence; & il déclara,
que les conjurés ne se proposaient rien moins que de mettre Elisabeth
sur le trône._” There can be no mistaking the meaning of this statement.
[292] Renard, in a dispatch of the 8th February, as given by Griffet,
says indeed that “_Jeanne de Suffolck, dont elle_ [Mary] _avait épargné
les jours, contre l’avis de l’Empereur Charles-Quint, fut sacrifiée à
la nécessité d’ôter aux rebelles, & aux ennemis du Gouvernement, une
idole qu’ils étaient fâchée de n’avoir pas maintenue sur le trône. Son
mari fut exécuté le même jour._”
Besides, Gardiner says that Suffolk himself bewailed “with impatient
dolours not only his own woe, _but the calamity his folly had brought
on his daughter_.” Godwin, however (_Rerum Anglicarum Henrico VIII,
Edwardo VI et Maria, Annals_, p. 217), throws the blame of Jane’s
troubles more on her mother than on her father: “_Hunc exitum habuit
Iana, majorum titulis illustris fœmina, sed virtute et ingenii
nobilitate longe illustrior, quæ dum Virtici et imperiosæ matris
ambitioni obsequitur ... funestum sibi reginæ sumpsit._”
The consensus of historians, nevertheless, lays the blame on Suffolk’s
ill-advised attempt at rebellion. Bishop Burnet, writing in 1680
(_History of the Reformation_, vol. ii. 437) says: “Indeed the blame of
her death was generally cast on her father rather than on the Queen,
since the rivalry of a crown is a point of such niceness, that even
those who bemoaned her death most could not but excuse the Queen, who
seemed to be driven to it, rather from considerations of State, than
any resentment of her own.... He [Suffolk] would have died more pitied
for his weakness, _if his practices had not brought his daughter to her
end_.”
[293] _The Chronicle of Queen Jane and Queen Mary_, p. 50.
[294] Machyn tells us (p. 55) that “The xij day of February was made
at every gate in Lundun a new payre of galaus [gallows] and set up ...
the xiiijth day of February were hangyd at evere gatt and plasse: in
Chepe-syd vj; Algatt j, quartered; at Leydyhall iij; at Bysshope-gatt
one, and quartered; Morgatt one; Crepullgatt one; Aldersgate one,
quartered ...” and so forth, giving a total of about forty-eight, three
being hanged at Hyde Park Corner, but none at Tyburn.
[295] Fuller says he was “earnest yet modest.” Feckenham had been
imprisoned by Henry VIII for his adherence to papal supremacy, until
Sir Philip Hoby, whom we have seen advocating a Protestant monarch,
“borrowed him out of the Tower.”
[296] _The Chronicle of Queen Jane and Queen Mary_, p. 54.
[297] This allusion to a possible inheritance by Lady Katherine of
her father’s possessions, does not, as Miss Strickland thinks, “prove
that the insurrection of Suffolk was intended to replace Jane on the
throne.” “If,” says that writer, “it had been in favour of any other
heiress or heir, it is not likely that the Lady Jane would have rested
under the attainder and surrendered the means of her subsistence to
increase her younger sister’s portion. Moreover, if Jane had been the
sovereign of England, she would scarcely have claimed a third portion
of her father’s inheritance.” As a matter of fact, what Jane wrote
proves nothing; Lady Katherine, had Suffolk kept out of political
strife, would, after Jane, have inherited his fortune, which was
confiscated at his arrest. Jane simply penned this sentence to make the
contrast stronger between the mutability of the things of this world,
and the unchangeability of that better land to which she knew she was
hurrying.
[298] This is an allusion to the parable of the foolish virgins.
[299] British Museum, Harleian Collection, No. 2342.
[300] This declaration of her intention of praying for her father in
the next world suggests a survival of some Roman Catholic ideas in
Jane’s theology; and one cannot imagine that it would have been exactly
approved by the more extremely Protestant of the Reformers.
[301] This book was either mentioned to Florio, or seen by him, for
he has translated these three touching sentences into Italian in his
_Historia di Giana Graia_.
[302] It is said that Jane scratched some verses on the walls of her
apartment with a pin, but, although numerous devices inscribed by the
unfortunate persons who have at different times been the inhabitants
of the Tower were discovered in divers parts of it some years ago,
during alterations, not the slightest trace of these verses were found.
This does not, however, prove that they never existed, and as they are
constantly attributed to Lady Jane, we have thought it best to reprint
them here:--
“_Non aliena putes homini quæ obtingere possunt;
Sors hodierna mihi, cras erit ilia tibi._”
This has been thus translated:--
“To mortals’ common fate thy mind resign,
My lot to-day, to-morrow may be thine----”
These lines are also paraphrased as follows:--
“Think not, O mortal! vainly gay,
That thou from human woes art free;
The bitter cup I drink to-day,
To-morrow may be drunk by thee.”
The following is also said to have been written by Jane in like
manner:--
“_Deo juvante, nil nocet, livor malus;
Et non juvante, nil juvat labor gravis,
Post tenebras, spero lucem_”:
Which has been translated in two ways:--
“Whilst God assists us, envy bites in vain,
If God forsake us, fruitless all our pain--
I hope for light after the darkness.”
Or:--
“Harmless all malice if our God be nigh,
Fruitless all pains if He His help deny,
Patient I pass these gloomy hours away,
And wait the morning of eternal day.”
In the Beauchamp Tower, in that room which was occupied by
Northumberland, the name “Jane” appears twice, cut into the wall. It
has been said that this was the work of Lord Guildford Dudley, but it
is more probable that it was carved by Northumberland, his faithful
wife’s name being Jane.
[303] The Protestant chaplains appointed under Edward VI had at this
time been replaced by Benedictine monks.
[304] The Bulwark Gate marked the boundaries of the County of Middlesex
and the Tower precincts.
[305] “The monday, being the xij of Februarie, about ten of the clock,
ther went out of the Tower to the scaffolde on Tower Hill, the lord
Guildforde Dudley, sone to the late Duke of Northumberland, husbande to
the lady Jane Gray, daughter to the Duke of Suffoke, who at his going
out tooke by the hande sir Anthony Browne, maister John Throgmorton,
and many other gentyllmen, praying them to praie for him, and without
the bullwarke Offeley the sheryve receyved him and brought him to the
scaffolde, where, after a small declaration, having no gostlye father
with him, he kneeled downe and said his praiers, then holding upp his
eyes and handes to God many tymes, and at last, after he had desyred
the people to pray for him, he laide himselfe along, and his hedd upon
the block, which was at one stroke of the axe taken from him.”--_The
Chronicle of Queen Jane and Queen Mary._
[306] It has been stated that this additional horror was commanded by
Queen Mary herself, but the charge is absolutely without foundation.
Sharon Turner, amongst others, was of opinion that “the meeting with
the bleeding body was purely accidental.”
[307] _The Chronicle of Queen Jane and Queen Mary_ says: “Guildford’s
carcass was thrown into a carre, and his hed in a cloth, he was brought
into the chappell within the Tower, wher the Lady Jane, whose lodging
was in Partridge’s house, _dyd see his ded carcass taken out of the
cart_, as well as she dyd see; him before a lyve going to his death, a
sight to hir no lesse than death.”
[308] “The Lord Guildford Dudley’s dead carkas lyin in a carre in
strawe was againe brought into the Tower _at the same instant that
my Ladi Jane_ his wyfe _went to her death_ within the Tower, which
myserable sight was to her a duble sorrowe and griefe.”
[309] He is said to have been of almost gigantic height, and very
powerful.
[310] This little volume, which purports to give an account of the last
days of Lady Jane Grey, is quoted by Burke in his _Tudor Portraits_,
the Lady Philippa de Clifford being there described as the author and
as a cousin of Lady Jane Grey, who certainly had no first cousin of
this name; but among the English Benedictine nuns who took refuge at
Mechlin in the early part of the seventeenth century there is a mention
of a Philippa de Clifford, but of which branch of the Clifford family
it is difficult at this period to ascertain. That the little volume
exists there can be no doubt, as a copy of it was seen by the author
at Brussels a few years ago. It was written in French and apparently
from notes in the possession of its author, who, although a Catholic,
says nothing disparaging of Lady Jane’s faith. Its authenticity, like
that of another little volume on the same subject quoted elsewhere,
also published in Belgium, must be taken with considerable caution. In
the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries a sort of fashion was started
in England, France, Belgium, Germany, and Italy for the writing of
apocryphal memoirs of popular heroes and heroines: and as Lady Jane
Grey was a great favourite with the Protestants, both at home and
abroad, she has been the heroine of several of these volumes, most
of which are founded upon the famous letter to Queen Mary, quoted by
Pollino. They must not, however, be disparaged as entirely worthless,
for some of them undoubtedly contain details that have been handed down
during many generations. In the British Museum will be found a curious
little volume called _The Diary of Lady Mary Grey_, which also contains
a number of very amusing details concerning that unlucky lady which
have all the appearance of being absolutely true. Similar monographs
exist on the lives of Anne Boleyn, and especially of Mary Stuart;
all of these purport to be written by attendants or persons who have
derived their information from original sources now lost. I am assured
that in the Dutch libraries there are several contemporary pamphlets
on Lady Jane Grey written in the Dutch language; and there are also
one or two in the Swiss Libraries--in the main they all bear a strong
resemblance one to the other, but differ in matters of detail. Lady
Philippa tells us, for instance, that the headsman of Lady Jane was
a man of exceptional stature; and this is confirmed by other writers
whose work could not have been known to the author of the pamphlet in
question. For lists of the Benedictine nuns at Mechlin, etc., amongst
whom was Lady Philippa, see in the Brussels Archives: No. 11205,
Prevost; _Les Refugiés Anglais et Irlandais en Belgique à la suite
de la Reforme Anglaise établie sous Elizabeth et Jacques I_. Gand:
_Messager des Scénes Historiques_, 1865. Also: Gachet, _Catholiques
Anglais et Ecossais Pensionnaires du Duc d’Alve_. Bruxelles, 1850.
[311] As Lady Jane’s “neckerchief” had been taken off before, one can
but suppose that she meant to ask the headsman if he would cut her
head off as she knelt with her body upright, as was sometimes done,
and not with her head on the block. “_Before_ I lay me down” may be a
mistake for, “_Without that_ I lay me down.” We may add that there is
no mention in any contemporary record of Jane’s hands having been tied:
probably she held them clasped in the attitude of prayer.
[312] An old book, entitled, _The Ende of the Ladie Jane Dudlie on
the Scaffulde_, which was printed at Antwerp in 1560, says her last
words were, “I die in peace with all people; God save the Queen.” It
is more probable, however, that the pious Lady Jane used the religious
ejaculation printed above.
[313] _The Chronicle of Queen Jane and Queen Mary_ thus describes Lady
Jane’s last moments: “By this tyme was ther a scaffolde made upon the
grene over agaynst the White Tower for the saide Lady Jane to die
upon.... The saide Lady being nothing at all abashed, neither with
feare of her own deathe, which then approached, neither with the ded
carcase of her husbande, when he was brought into the chapell, came
forthe the Lieutenant leading hir, in the same gown wherein she was
arrayned, hir countenance nothing abashed, neither her eyes mysted
with teares, although her two gentlewomen, Mistress Elizabeth Tylney
and Mistress Eleyn wonderfully wept, with a boke in hir hand, whereon
she praied all the way till she came to the saide scaffolde, whereon
when she was mounted, this noble young ladie, as she was indued with
singular gifts both of learning and knowledge, so was she as patient
and mild as any lamb at her execution.” Here the chronicler describes
her gift of the book to Brydges, etc., and continues, “Forthwith she
untied her gowne. The hangman went to her to have helped her therwith,
then she desyred him to let her alone, turning towards her two
gentlewomen, who helped her off therwith, and also her frose paste and
neckercher, geving to her a fayre handkercher to knytte about her eyes.
Then the hangman kneled downe, and asked her forgiveness, whom she
forgave most willingly. Then he willed her to stand upon the strawe,
which doing she sawe the block. Then she sayd ‘I pray you despatche me
quickly.’ Then she kneled downe saying, ‘Will you take it off before I
lay me downe?’ And the hangman answered her, ‘No, madame.’ She tied the
kercher about her eyes. Then feeling for the block, saide, ‘What shal
I do, where is it?’ One of the standers by guyding her thereunto, she
layde her head downe upon the block, and stretched forth her body, and
said, ‘Lord, into Thy handes I commende my spirite,’ and so she ended.”
[314] Historians are very apt to speak of the famous French Ambassador
de Noailles, as one person, whereas in reality there were two
Ambassadors of this name, the first of whom was Antoine de Noailles,
the son of Louis and Catherine de Pierre-Bussiere, who entered
diplomacy when he was quite a young man and continued in the service
until his death, which took place in his fifty-ninth year. His tomb can
still be seen at Noailles, where his ancestors are buried. His wife,
Jeanne de Gontault de Biron, is not, however, buried with him, although
her heart was placed in his coffin.
The second Ambassador to our Court of this illustrious family was
François de Noailles, brother of the last named, who was born on 2nd
July 1519. He was a very zealous Catholic and extremely pious. He
entered the Church when he was only twelve years of age, to eventually
become Bishop of Acqs in 1556. His extraordinary ability for diplomatic
intrigue led the King, Henry II, to send him to various countries on
sundry diplomatic missions, even at the same time as his brother, and
he first appeared in England on the occasion of Mary’s victory over the
rebels in 1553. He remained in England altogether about two years, and
his dispatches are frequently confounded with those of his brother.
François de Noailles died in 1560.
Both brothers were greatly opposed to the policy of Queen Mary, and
thought her unnecessarily harsh and cruel. On more than one occasion
they were very outspoken to her, especially in the matter of the
extraordinary number of executions which took place immediately after
the quelling of the Wyatt insurrection; and they both appear to have
thought that she made her own unpopularity by her bigotry, and her
abject subservience to the wishes of her husband.
[315] Noailles was certainly not present at the execution in the Tower.
He gives, however, a very concise account of it, including her speech.
His version of the tragedy follows that of Foxe very closely.
[316] Peter Derenzie states that “the corpse was interred in the Chapel
of St. Peter-ad-Vincula within the Tower, close by that of her husband,
Lord Guildford Dudley, and between the decapitated bodies of Anne
Boleyn and Katherine Howard, without any religious ceremony.”
[317] See _Zurich Letters_ (Parker Society), pp. 154, 515, 686.
[318] Francis, Earl of Huntingdon, having ridden out of London against
Mary in company of Northumberland, was arrested at Cambridge on 19th
July and conveyed to the Tower of London a day or two later. He was
indicted with Lady Jane and the others, but was released before the
following January, by which time he had so completely re-established
himself in the Queen’s favour that he was given the command of Her
Majesty’s troops sent into Leicestershire against Suffolk, whom he
brought back to the Tower a prisoner.
[319] Foxe’s _Acts and Monuments_, vol. ii. p. 1467.
[320] It is strange and significant that both in his prayer and in his
request for haste, Suffolk should have acted exactly as his daughter
had done!
[321] Did the Duchess of Suffolk cause her husband’s head to be
removed to his own house, which stood on the site now occupied by the
buildings adjacent to this Church? The mansion in question had been
the convent of the Order of Religious known as the Poor Clares, or in
Latin, _Sorores Minores_ (from which “Minories” has been formed) and
was given to Suffolk by Edward VI. The Church known as Holy Trinity was
the convent chapel. It is not altogether improbable that the Duchess
had the head brought there; on the other hand, Suffolk’s will may have
contained a request that it should be placed in the chapel.
[322] See Machyn, pp. 56, 64.
[323] What was to have been the ending of this sentence? Was the
chronicler going to add that the head was removed from the Tower after
decapitation? Perhaps, after all, the head in the Church of the Holy
Trinity, Minories, is that of Thomas Grey, and _not_ of the Duke of
Suffolk; its resemblance to the latter’s portrait arising from a mere
family likeness, common to all the brothers.
[324] The writer is of opinion that Adrian Stokes was a son or near
relation of John Stokes, the Queen’s brewer, who supplied the Suffolks
with beer and wine, as appears in the household accounts of the Duke of
Suffolk. This John Stokes was a notability in his way, and his funeral,
which must have been a costly function for those days, is recorded by
Machyn (p. 177) in the following terms: “The vj day of November [1558]
was bered at sent Benettes at Powlles Warff master John Stokes the
queen’s servand and bruar [brewer], with ij whytt branchys and x gret
stayffes-torchys and iij gret tapurs; and x pore men had rosett gownes
of iiijs. the yerd [four shillings the yard], and xvj gownes, and
cottes of xijs. [coats of eleven shillings] the yerd.”
[325] Vide _Notes and Queries_ for 1855, vol. xii. p. 451.
[326] The entire family of the Duke of Northumberland and his Duchess
was as follows:--
Henry, killed at the Siege of Boulogne in the thirty-fifth year of
Henry VIII, aged nineteen.
Thomas, who died when two years old.
John, who bore the title of Lord Lisle and Earl of Warwick during his
father’s life. He adopted a martial life, acting as Lieutenant-General
during Somerset’s expedition into Scotland. He married, in June 1550,
Anne Seymour. He was sentenced to death at the same time as his father,
was pardoned, and died at Penshurst, in Kent, ten days after his
release from the Tower, in 1554.
Ambrose was born about 1528. He was tried, together with Lady Jane Grey
and her husband, in 1553, was pardoned and released in October 1554,
and died in 1590, being created Earl of Warwick in the fourth year of
Elizabeth.
Robert, who was born about 1532, having proclaimed Jane Queen at King’s
Lynn, was sent to the Tower. He was condemned to death on 22nd June
1554, but was released and pardoned in October 1554. He was created
Earl of Leicester by Elizabeth, and became famous in her reign.
Guildford Dudley, husband of Lady Jane Grey.
Henry, who was tried at Guildhall with his brothers Ambrose and
Guildford in 1553, but liberated. He was killed at the battle of St.
Quentin, in 1555.
Charles, who died aged four years.
The daughters of Northumberland were--
Mary, who married Sir Henry Sidney, Lord Deputy of Ireland, etc., and
was the mother of Sir Philip Sidney. Catherine, the second daughter,
who married the Earl of Huntingdon, died in 1620, aged seventy-two.
Margaret, the fourth daughter, died at the age of ten.
Frances, fourth daughter, died as an infant.
Temperance, the fifth daughter, died at seven years old.
Of all these daughters, the only one who came into intimate contact
with Lady Jane was Lady Mary, who, it will be remembered, fetched the
Lady Jane to Sion from Chelsea, on the memorable occasion when she
received the homage of the Council.
[327] Cheke continued to travel on the Continent until 1556, when,
being invited by Lord Paget and Sir John Mason to go and see them in
Brussels in a friendly way, he was suddenly taken prisoner _en route_
by the Provost Marshal, on the road between Antwerp and Brussels,
blindfolded, tied, flung into a waggon, taken to the nearest port,
and conveyed by sea to the Tower of London, “being taken as it were
by a whirlwind,” as he says himself. The excuse given for his arrest
was that he had overstayed the leave of absence granted by the royal
licence, having endeavoured to establish himself abroad. In the Tower
he submitted to the Roman Catholic Church. He was later released and
granted extensive lands; but he died in September 1557, after, so it is
said, a partial return to Protestantism. He is buried in St. Alban’s
Church, Wood Street, under a monument bearing some verses by Dr. Haddon.
[328] The remainder of the actors in the drama are soon disposed of.
The end of Judge Morgan we have already mentioned. Feckenham was
imprisoned for twenty-three years under Elizabeth, and died in Wisbeach
Jail. Aylmer, once Jane’s tutor, was, on the other hand, extremely
fortunate. He fled at the coming of Mary, taking refuge in Switzerland,
whence he wrote a reply--entitled _An Harborowe for Faythfull and True
Subjects_--to Knox’s _Blast_. He returned to England at Elizabeth’s
accession; became Archdeacon of Lincoln in 1562, Bishop of London in
1576, and died in 1594. Ascham remained in England during Mary’s reign,
protected, despite his ardent Protestantism, by Gardiner. He died in
December 1568. The treacherous Lord Paget was restored to office under
Mary, and appointed Lord Privy Seal.
Transcriber’s Notes
Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a
predominant preference was found in this book; otherwise they were not
changed. Spelling of non-English and old-English words not changed.
Simple typographical errors were corrected; occasional unbalanced
quotation marks retained.
Ambiguous hyphens at the ends of lines were retained.
Text sometimes spells “Althorp” as “Althorpe”; both have been retained
here.
Index not checked for proper alphabetization or correct page references,
except for reference to page 385, which has been corrected to 358.
Page 254: Letters with overbars (such as ū) indicate contractions.
Page 254: “(to the issu” has no matching closing parenthesis.
Page 270: “Six purse hangers of siver and gilt” was printed that way.
Page 327: “Prince Arthur, younger brother of Henry VIII” is incorrect:
Arthur was the older brother.
Page 341: “Fox” may be a misprint for “Foxe”.
Page 364 refers to “Ross” and then “Rowe”; may be the same person.
Footnote 310, originally on page 342: The correct title of “Messager
des Scénes Historiques” is “Messager des Sciences Historiques”.
Page 364: The elegy, written in Latin, apparently contains several
typographical errors. They have not been changed here, but readers
may wish to consult other versions of that elegy, such as the one at
https://books.google.de/books?id=upwNAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA190.
Page 372: Left parenthesis added in the “Warwick, John, Earl of,” entry,
just before “the Duke of Northumberland’s son”.
Footnote 98, originally on page 103: “gratias ego” may be a misspelling
for “gratias ago”.
*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Nine Days' Queen, Lady Jane Grey, and Her Times" ***
Copyright 2023 LibraryBlog. All rights reserved.