90There is a fine portrait of her by Kettel at Woburn Abbey, and a copy at Carton.

91Princess 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.

92Hentzner 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.

93In 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.

94Edward 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.

95Dr. Wendy became physician to Elizabeth. He died in 1560 at Haslingford Court, a manor given to him by Henry VIII.

96Dr. 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.

97Father 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.

98The 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.”

100During 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.

101King 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.

102These 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.

103Her 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.

104The 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.

105This 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!

106King 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.

107See the Losely MSS, edited by A.J. Kempe. John Murray, 1835.

108His position as Protector was not officially ratified until 22nd March.

109As 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.

110After 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.

111State Papers, 1537, under Seymour.

112It 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.

113Lord 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.”

114When 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.

115Hayward (Life of Edward VI) describes Sudeley as “fierce in courage, courtly in fashion, in personage stately, in voice magnificent, but somewhat empty in matter”(!).

116The 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.

117This 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.

118From 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.”

119Strype’s Memoirs, vol. ii. part i. p. 59.

120See the State Papers.

121This 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.)

122Mrs. 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.)

123Edward’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.)

124Sir 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.

125Wriothesley 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.

126There 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.

127Of 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.

128Original 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.”

129Anne 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.

131Deposition of Mrs. Ashley in the Hatfield State Papers.

132There 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.”

133Among 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.

134Inventory of furniture and other goods at Sudeley Castle. Dated 1547–8.

135See Latimer’s Sermons in Strype’s Memorials.

136Haynes’ State Papers, p. 104.

137Robert 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.

138This 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.”

139Froude 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.

140Hatfield MSS.

141Hatfield MSS.

142Hatfield MSS.

143Sir 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.

144Vide Dorset’s deposition in the Hatfield MSS.

145Nothing 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.

146Sudeley’s nefarious assistant, Sharington, Sir Thomas Parry, John Fowler, and Mrs. Ashley were all imprisoned in the Tower at the same time as Sudeley.

147Sudeley’s connection and connivance at the frauds perpetrated by Sir William Sharington was also made a count of his indictment.

148Queen 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.”

149As 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.

150The 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.

151Zurich Letters (Parker Society), vol. i. p. 6.

152The above-quoted Latin letter to Henry Bullinger was written when she was only fourteen.

153See note at end of this Chapter.

155The 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.

156Zurich Letters, vol. ii. pp. 447–8.

157Ulmer 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.”

158Mr. 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.

159It 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.

160On 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.”

161For 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.”

162See documents dealing with the state of the prisons under Edward VI in the Record Office.

163See Haylin; Hayward; and Hume, vol. iii. (folio edition) p. 328.

164John 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.

165Robert 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.

166William 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.

167Printed in Tytler’s England under Edward VI and Mary, vol. i. p. 205.

168Mr. 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.

169In 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.

170In 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).

171This 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.

1729th May 1550.

173This 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.

174At 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.

175The 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.

176Wriothesley’s Chronicle, ii. 63.

177Nevertheless, 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.

178There 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.

179We 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.

180Zurich Letters, No. cccxlvii.

181One 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!

182The 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.

183The 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.

184Syon 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.

185The History of Queen Jane says of Suffolk that “For as he had few commendable Qualities, he was guilty of no vices.”

186The 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.

187This story will be found in a MS. among the Harleian Collection (No. 353).

188As 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.

189On 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.

190Baoardo, 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.

191Ascham 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.

192The 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.

193Nevertheless, 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.”

194The 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.

195The 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!

196Lord 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.

198The 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.

199Contemporary account of an English wedding in the sixteenth century quoted by Howard in his Life of Jane Grey.

200The 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.

201There 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.

202Pollino 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.

203Several of these letters are included in the second volume of Tytler’s England under Edward VI and Mary.

204Table showing the heirs female in remainder to the Crown, named in the will of Henry VIII and the “Devise” of Edward VI:—

205Antoine 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.

206John 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.”

207Cranmer’s Works (Parker Society), vol. ii. p. 442.

208That 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.

209The reader will find the text of the “Devise” at the end of the next chapter.

210Northumberland, 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].”

211The original of this letter is among the State Papers.

212The 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.

213Dr. 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.

214But 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.

215Zurich Letters, p. 684.

216The 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.

217Sir Robert Throckmorton, Sir Nicholas’s elder brother, whom she much preferred to the latter.

218Some 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:—

See The Chronicle of Queen Jane and Queen Mary, p. 2; also Bishop Goodman’s Memoirs, p. 161.

219Wriothesley 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.

221A 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?

222Machyn’s Diary, p. 35.

223An 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.

224Cecil 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.

225One copy of this interesting letter is in the Lansdowne MSS, 1236, f. 24, and a facsimile in Ser. iii. No. 4.

226There 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.

227Pollino (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.”

228There 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?

229Harleian 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.

230The 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.

231In 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.

233Two Queens and Philip, by Major Martin Hume.

234It 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.

235That was during the few days she spent at Chelsea Manor after leaving Durham House, as already recorded; cf. cap. xiv. p. 237.

236This inventory will be found among the Harleian MSS, No. 611.

237Jane 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.

238Machyn’s Diary, p. 36.

239We 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.

240Holinshed, vol. iii. pp. 1068, 1069.

241Machyn 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.”

242In 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.”

243Only 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.

244William 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.

245This 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.

246With 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.

247After 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.”

248From 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.

249It 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!

250It 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.

251Rossi, I Successi d’Inghilterra dopo la morte de Edoardo Sesto, pp. 15, 16. This book was printed at Ferrara in 1560.

252Baynard’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.

253It 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.

254Roger 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.

255See either Harleian MSS, 358, 44; or Chronicles of Queen Jane and Queen Mary, p. 11.

256The Grey Friars Chronicle says that the bells continued to ring “all night till the next day to None.”

257So 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].

258It 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.

259See Machyn, p. 38.

260Dr. 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.

261The 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!

262This lady was a close connection of the Howards, and probably a grand-niece of Agnes, Duchess of Norfolk, by birth a Tylney.

263A 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.

264This 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!

265British Museum, Harleian Collection, No. 523, 46.

266For 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.

267This 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.

268Although 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.

269It 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.)

270Machyn, p. 41. This horrible sentence was afterwards commuted to decapitation, and the same in the case of next day’s condemned.

271Harleian MSS, No. 2194.

272Sir Andrew Dudley was released on 18th January 1554. He died, without issue, in 1559.

273For a further account of this recantation ceremony, see Harleian MSS, 284, fol. 128d. Also Stowe, Annals, p. 614.

274Harleian MSS, No. 2194.

275Bishop 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.

276This 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.

277Machyn’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.

278A 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.”

279The beauty and quantity of the roses in the Tower gardens is made particular mention of in contemporary documents.

280Wriothesley says the cannonading and gun-firing on this occasion was positively deafening.

281A 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.

282Poinet, 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.

283Sir 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.

284This 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.

286See Rossi, I Successi d’Inghilterra, p. 44, et seq.

287The Chronicle of Queen Jane and Queen Mary, p. 37.

288A 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.”

289Machyn 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.”

290Mary 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.

291Griffet 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.

292Renard, 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 foemina, 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.”

293The Chronicle of Queen Jane and Queen Mary, p. 50.

294Machyn 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.

295Fuller 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.”

296The Chronicle of Queen Jane and Queen Mary, p. 54.

297This 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.

298This is an allusion to the parable of the foolish virgins.

299British Museum, Harleian Collection, No. 2342.

300This 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.

301This 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.

302It 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:—

This has been thus translated:—

These lines are also paraphrased as follows:—

The following is also said to have been written by Jane in like manner:—

Which has been translated in two ways:—

Or:—

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.

303The Protestant chaplains appointed under Edward VI had at this time been replaced by Benedictine monks.

304The 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.

306It 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.”

307The 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.”

309He is said to have been of almost gigantic height, and very powerful.

310This 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.

311As 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.

312An 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.

313The 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.”

314Historians 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.

315Noailles 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.

316Peter 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.”

317See Zurich Letters (Parker Society), pp. 154, 515, 686.

318Francis, 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.

319Foxe’s Acts and Monuments, vol. ii. p. 1467.

320It 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!

321Did 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.

322See Machyn, pp. 56, 64.

323What 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.

324The 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.”

325Vide Notes and Queries for 1855, vol. xii. p. 451.

326The 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.

327Cheke 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.

328The 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.