There once lived a girl who was called Queen of England for twenty days, but who was never crowned; who lived a good and innocent life, yet was beheaded when she was only sixteen. This was Lady Jane Grey. She was a cousin of young King Edward VI., who succeeded his father Henry VIII. when he was a little boy of nine. At that time England had lately established the Protestant religion, the Church of England as we have it now, and all Roman Catholics had been forced to become Protestants or to leave the churches to those who were. Edward was a delicate little boy, and he had only reigned five years when he caught measles. He never seemed to recover from them; he had a cold afterwards, which settled on his chest, and it soon began to be whispered that the boy-king must die. At this there was much talking among the great nobles who were Protestants, for they knew that the next heir to the throne was Edward's elder sister Mary, a woman of thirty-eight, a strong Roman Catholic; and they feared that if Queen Mary sat on the throne all the Roman Catholics would be restored to their places, and the Protestants would be persecuted and perhaps murdered, all of which afterwards really did happen. Mary had a younger sister Elizabeth, who was only twenty, and she was a Protestant; and if the nobles could have put her on the throne instead of Mary, all would have been well with England. But that they could not do, for to set aside an older sister for a younger one would have been impossible. So they looked around for someone else, and fixed on little Lady Jane Grey.

Lady Jane was one of the three daughters of a nobleman called the Duke of Suffolk; she was the eldest, and through her mother she was a cousin of King Edward's, and of his sisters Mary and Elizabeth, too. If Edward had had no sisters, Lady Jane would have been Queen after him. The nobles had wanted her to marry Edward, who was just her own age; but the boy had been too ill to think of marrying, and now he was going to die, and it was too late to make any arrangement of that sort. His guardian, the Duke of Northumberland, was a powerful and ambitious man, and he planned a scheme by which he would be still more powerful. He persuaded Edward that Lady Jane must reign after him, for if she did not England would suffer; and Edward, who loved the Protestant religion, consented. He made a will saying that Lady Jane was to be Queen instead of his sisters Mary and Elizabeth. Of course, he had no right to do this, for a king cannot say who is to reign after him; the throne must go to the next heir. But Northumberland thought if he and all the nobles declared Lady Jane Queen, they could force the people of England to acknowledge her. Then the clever Northumberland went further; he got Edward to consent to the marriage of Lady Jane to Northumberland's only son, young Lord Guildford Dudley. Dudley was then a boy of seventeen, and Lady Jane only fifteen, but that was quite old enough for marriage in those days.

Lady Jane had lived very quietly up to this time; she was a gentle little girl who loved her books, and never thought of thrones and kings and queens. When she was quite young she could speak French and Italian, wrote Latin, and understood Greek, Hebrew, Chaldee, and Arabic. This was the more wonderful because in those days ladies were not supposed to know very much; if they could do beautiful tapestry work and ride and sing a little, it was considered quite enough. There is a story told of Lady Jane that one day when a very clever man named Roger Ascham came to stay with her father, he found her sitting in a window-seat reading a book. Outside stretched the beautiful park, with its green grass and great shady trees, and the voices of the visitors and the other little girls who were amusing themselves came in at the window; but Lady Jane sat curled up, as many little girls do nowadays, reading diligently, and never taking any notice of the bright world outside. And the book she was reading was the work of an ancient Greek philosopher called Plato, who wrote very interesting books, but ones that are hard even for grown-up people to understand. It must have made a pretty picture, that little pale girl bending over her book; and if anyone had said that in one short year she would be married, have been called Queen of England, and have been beheaded, it would not have been believed.

Roger Ascham stopped and asked her why she read instead of playing, and she told him she loved books, and they gave her much more pleasure than the things in which people usually tried to find pleasure. Then he wanted to know how she had managed to learn so much, and she answered:

'Sir, God hath blessed me with sharp and severe parents and a gentle schoolmaster; for when I am in the presence of either father or mother, whether I speak, keep silence, sit, stand, or go, eat, drink, be merry or sad, be sewing, dancing, or doing anything else, I must do it, as it were, in such weight, measure, and number, even as perfectly as the world was made, or else I am so sharply taunted and cruelly threatened—yea, presently sometimes with pinches, nips, and bobs, and so cruelly disordered, that I think myself in hell until the time come that I go to Mr. Aylmer, who teacheth me so gently, so pleasantly, with such fair allurements to learning, that I think all the time as nothing that I am with him; and thus my book hath been so much my pleasure, and bringeth daily to me more pleasure and more, that in respect of it all other pleasures in very deed be but trifles and very troubles to me.'

That is not quite the way a little girl would speak now, I think.

When Jane had been younger she had seen a good deal of her cousin Elizabeth, who was about five years older, and they had been in the same house together; and, of course, if she had ever thought about it at all, she knew that first Mary, and after her Elizabeth, had the right to be Queen when Edward died. Before Edward died, however, Jane was told suddenly that she must marry young Guildford Dudley. He was a handsome boy and very gentle, and Jane seems to have loved him very dearly; so she made no objection, and the marriage took place in a great hurry. And at the same time her younger sister Katharine was also married to Lord Herbert, the son of the Earl of Pembroke, so the quiet life in the beautiful home in Leicestershire came to an end.

Lady Jane knew, of course, that her cousin Edward was ill, and it must have grieved her very much; for she was fond of him, and being just the same age, they had learnt the same lessons together. But when Edward died she was not told of it until she received a message from her father-in-law, the Duke of Northumberland, to go to his great house, called Sion House, on the Thames, not far from London. She went, never thinking what was going to happen or why she was wanted; and when she was there Northumberland himself and her own father, the Duke of Suffolk, and some other lords came into the room, and, kneeling before her, told her that her young cousin Edward was dead, and that she must succeed him as Queen of England. Poor Lady Jane was so shocked and startled that she fainted away. When she came round again they told her she must be obedient and do as they told her. She pleaded with them, and said Mary must be Queen, and that for herself she was so young—only sixteen; and she did not care to be Queen, but only wanted to live a quiet life with her husband, Lord Dudley. But they argued with her, and told her she was a coward; that it was for the good of England, and that if she refused she would be wicked; and at last she consented. Then all her life was changed.

As I have said before, people used the river then a great deal more than they do now, and all persons of importance had state barges with rowers to row them up and down the water. Some of these barges were very magnificent, with scarlet cloth and gold fringe, and looked like gorgeous birds floating on the water. A beautiful barge was waiting for Lady Jane in front of Sion House, and she stepped into it, and was rowed down the river through London to the Tower.

Now up to this time this story has not had much to do with London, but after this all the rest of it happened in London. When Lady Jane entered the Tower the man who was then Lord Treasurer of England came to her, and, kneeling down, offered her the crown of England. And afterwards Northumberland and his party lost no time, but sent men all round London to cry out that Lady Jane Grey was now Queen of England.

Meantime, Mary had been in the country. She had only just heard of her brother's death, when she heard, too, of what Northumberland had done. Now, she did not resemble her poor little cousin; she was not only very much older, but of a very stern disposition—not at all likely to sit down quietly and let another take her crown. So she made people go over all the countryside where she was and say that she was Queen, and that men might come and fight for her. Now many people felt that even if Mary were hard and cruel, still, it was fair that she should be Queen; so many nobles and gentlemen came to her, and she presently had a large army. When the story of the two Queens was heard, nearly everyone in England felt that Mary was right, and Northumberland began to think he had a harder fight before him than he had expected.

Even the people in London began to riot and say that Mary was Queen, and when one of the nobles on her side went to St. Paul's Cathedral, and there, standing beside a cross called St. Paul's Cross, where proclamations were made, cried out Mary was Queen, all the people shouted for joy. Bonfires were lit in the streets, and everywhere was feasting and rejoicing, and no one seemed to care about Lady Jane in the Tower.

So Northumberland saw how foolish he had been, and he hastened to send Jane back to Sion House; but he stayed in London himself, and cried out like the rest that Mary was Queen. For only three weeks Jane had been Queen, and all that time she had stayed in the gloomy Tower wishing she were back in her country home.

Then Mary rode in state into London, and went straight to the Tower. Her first care was to have Edward's funeral celebrated—for he had not yet been buried—and then she began to think about her enemies. Northumberland, of course, was her prisoner, together with some other nobles, and Northumberland and two others were condemned to death. So a very short time after he had brought his son's wife to the Tower as a queen the Duke of Northumberland had his head cut off at the same Tower. Lady Jane and her husband were brought to the Tower as prisoners also, but were allowed to walk in the gardens, and were well treated; for at this time Mary seemed to think that they were not to blame, having been a mere boy and girl made to do wrong by their fathers, which was true. Perhaps they would have stayed in captivity for many years but for the foolish friends, who, by trying to help them, made their fate much worse. For after Mary had been Queen a short time she was hated. Her stern manners and her hard face made people fear her, and shortly after she was crowned people began to rise in different parts of England and say that Lady Jane ought to be Queen instead. And for some time Mary had to send troops to fight against the rebels, as those who rose in favour of Jane were called. At last one day an alarm was given that a man named Sir Thomas Wyatt had collected a large army, and was actually advancing on London. Mary was at that time staying at Whitehall Palace, and news came that Wyatt and all his men were going to attack the palace and carry her off. They really did come, too, and the army spread all over St. James's Park and all round the old palace—everywhere were soldiers. At that time there was a great gateway, called the Holbein Gate, that stood across Whitehall, and in this Queen Mary stayed and watched the fighting. With all her faults she was very brave, and when she saw her own guards driven in and dispersed, she showed no sign of fear. Then a gentleman rushed up to her, and, falling on his knees, said, 'All is lost,' and begged her to get into a barge on the river and fly to the Tower, where she would be safer; but Mary refused to go, and said all was not lost, and by her bravery and her words she so inspirited the men that they fought again, and succeeded in beating off Wyatt's men. So Wyatt went on toward the city, and all the way he had to fight, and at last he was taken prisoner on Ludgate Hill, which is not far from St. Paul's Cathedral.

Then Mary knew that she was safe again; but she must have passed a sleepless night and thought a great deal, for she at last made up her mind she would order Lady Jane Grey and her husband to be beheaded, for so long as they lived other men would rise, as Wyatt had done, and try to make Jane Queen.

It was a dreadful thing to do, but we must remember that in those days executions were not thought so much of as they would be now. In these days anyone would be horrified to hear that a man's or woman's head was to be cut off, and even the very worst murderers are only hanged; but in Mary's day a great many people were beheaded every year. So in the morning, when Mary rode down to the city to thank her nobles and knights for fighting so bravely and defending her, she knew that before the day was ended she would have signed the death-warrant of Lady Jane. When she came to Temple Bar she stopped. Now, Temple Bar was a great gateway that stood in the Strand, just where the City of London begins, and on it there were ugly iron spikes; and sometimes the heads of those who had been executed were stuck on these spikes, and stayed there until they rotted away. All the people passing along the street could look up and see the heads, and sometimes, when the wind was high, a ghastly head came tumbling down into the street. We cannot think of such things without horror; but in those days people were accustomed to them, and did not mind them very much. When Mary came to Temple Bar she asked for ink and paper, and wrote there the order for young Lady Jane and her husband to be beheaded.

Lady Jane was in the Tower when the news was brought to her. She had now been a prisoner six months, and perhaps sometimes she had thought she might die as her father-in-law had died; so when the priest Queen Mary sent came to tell her the news, she received it quite calmly and without a shudder. But when he tried to make her turn Roman Catholic, she told him she should never do that. The priest hurried back to Queen Mary, and said if the execution could be put off three days he might make Lady Jane a Roman Catholic, so Queen Mary consented to delay a little. But when Jane was told that she was to live a little longer, she was sorry, for it was worse to wait than to be killed at once. During those three days she must sometimes have shuddered to think that not only must she die, but her young husband, so full of life and strength, must die too; yet she never gave way before people or seemed afraid. She was asked if she would see Guildford to say good-bye; but she said it was better not, for the parting might be too heartrending, and make them both break down. He was to die first, and when the morning came, very early the guards led him past Lady Jane's window on his way to death. Then indeed she must have felt that the bitterness of death was past. She had written a long letter to Queen Mary explaining how everything had happened, and that it was never her wish to be a queen; and she had written another to her father, knowing that he must be very sad, feeling it was all his fault that she had been led into this sad position; and another to her younger sister Katharine to say good-bye. And now all was done, and soon her husband would be dead, and what had she left to live for?

The execution of Guildford did not take long. Presently a low rumble of cart-wheels over the stones told Lady Jane that they were bringing back his dead body, and then she knew her turn must come.

One can imagine the horror with which she heard the door open and saw Sir John Brydges, the man who was to lead her out, standing and waiting. But she was very brave; she neither fainted nor screamed, but rose up, and, taking his hand, walked with him to the scaffold. When she arrived at the place of execution she made a little speech, saying that she ought never to have allowed anyone to persuade her to be queen; but that she was young—she had not known what was right. And then, without any show of fear, she laid her head on the block, and it was cut off at one blow.

So died the poor girl at only sixteen—a girl who loved her books, and would have lived a quiet life if it had not been for the ambitious plans of her own father and her father-in-law.