CHAPTER XI 1549-1551 Lady Jane Grey at home--Visit from Roger Ascham--The German divines--Position of Lady Jane in the theological world.

Whilst these events had been taking place Jane Grey had been once more relegated to the care of her parents, to whose house she had been removed upon the imprisonment of her guardian, the Admiral, in January, 1549. To the helpless and passive plaything of worldly and political exigencies, the change from Seymour Place and Hanworth, where she had lived under Seymour’s roof, to the quiet of her father’s Leicestershire home, must have been great.

Nor was the difference in the moral atmosphere less marked. Handsome, unprincipled, gay, magnificent, one imagines that the Admiral, in spite of the faults to which she was probably not blind, must have been an imposing personage in the eyes of his little charge; and self-interest—the interest of a man who did not guess that the future held nothing for him but a grave—as well as natural kindliness towards a child dependent upon him, will have led him to play the part of her “half-father” in a manner to win her affection. Was she not destined, should his schemes prosper, to fill the place of Queen Consort? or, failing that, might it not be well to turn into earnest the “merry” possibility he had mentioned to Parry, and, if Elizabeth was denied him, to make her cousin his wife? In any case, so long as she lived in his house, Jane was a guest of importance, of royal blood, to be treated with consideration, cared for, and flattered.

But now the ill-assorted house-mates had parted. Seymour had taken his way to the Tower, as a stage towards the scaffold; and Jane had returned—gladly or sorrowfully, who can tell?—to the shelter of the parental roof, and to the care of a father and mother determined upon neutralising by their conduct any ill-effects produced by her two years of emancipation from their control. Once more she was an insignificant member of her father’s family, the eldest of his three children, subjected to the strictest discipline and, whatever the future might bring forth, of little consequence in the present.

It is possible that Lord Dorset’s fears, expressed at the time when he was attempting to regain possession of his daughter, had been in part realised; and that Jane, “for lack of a bridle,” had “taken too much the head,” and conceived an unduly high opinion of herself—it would indeed have been a natural outcome of the position she held both in her guardian’s house and, as will be seen, in the estimation of divines. If this was the case, her mother and he were to do their best to “address her mind to humility, soberness, and obedience.” The means taken to carry out their intentions were harsh.

Of the year following upon Jane’s return to Bradgate little is known; but in the summer of 1550, a picturesque and vivid sketch is afforded by Roger Ascham of the child of thirteen105 upon whom so many hopes centred and so many expectations were built. In the description given in his Schoolmaster106 of the visit paid by the great scholar to Bradgate, light is thrown alike upon the system of training pursued by Lord Dorset, upon the character of his daughter, and upon the spirit she displayed in conforming to the manner of life enforced upon her.

Ascham, in his capacity of tutor to her cousin Elizabeth, had known Jane intimately at Court—so he states in a letter to Sturm, another of the academic brotherhood—and had already received learned letters from her. Before starting on a diplomatic mission to Germany in the summer of 1550, he had visited some friends in Yorkshire, and on his way south turned aside to renew his acquaintance with Lady Jane, and to pay his respects to her father, who stood high in the estimation of the religious party to which Ascham belonged. To this visit we owe one of the most distinct glimpses of the girl that we possess.

By a fortunate chance he found “that most noble Lady Jane Grey, to whom I was exceeding much beholden,” alone. Lord and Lady Dorset, with all their household, were hunting in the park, and Jane, in the seclusion of her chamber, was engaged in studying the Phaedo of Plato, “with as much delight as some gentlemen would read a merry tale in Boccaccio,” when Ascham presented himself to her.

The conversation between the scholar and the student places Lady Jane’s small staid figure in clear relief. Notwithstanding Plato’s Phaedo, notwithstanding, too, the sun outside, the sounds of horns, the baying of hounds, and all the other allurements she had proved able to resist, there is something very human and unsaintly in her fashion of unburthening herself to a congenial spirit concerning the wrongs sustained at the parental hands. To Ascham, with whom she had been so well acquainted under different circumstances, she opened her mind freely when, “after salutation and duty done,” he inquired how it befell that she had left the pastimes going forward in the Park.

“I wis,” she answered smiling—the smile, surely, of conscious and complacent superiority—“all their sport in the Park is but a shadow to the pleasure that I find in Plato. Alas, good folk, they never felt what true pleasure meant.” “And how came you, Madame,” asked Ascham, “to this deep knowledge of pleasure, and what did chiefly allure you to it, seeing not many women, but very few men, have attained thereto?”

Jane, nothing loath to satisfy her guest’s curiosity, did so at length.

“I will tell you,” she answered, “and tell you a truth, which perchance you will marvel at. One of the greatest benefits that ever God gave me is that He sent me so sharp and severe parents and so gentle a schoolmaster. For when I am in presence either of father or mother, whether I speak, keep silence, sit, stand, or go, eat, drink, be merry or sad, be sewing, playing, dancing, or doing anything else, I must do it, as it were, in such weight, measure, and number, even so perfectly as God made the world, or else I am so sharply taunted, so cruelly threatened, yea presently sometimes with pinches, nips, and bobs, and other ways, which I will not name for the honour I bear them, so without measure disordered, that I think myself in hell, till time come that I must go to Mr. Elmer, who teacheth me so gently, so pleasantly, with such fair allurements to learning, that I think all the time nothing whiles I am with him. And when I am called away from him I fall on weeping, because, whatever I do else but learning is full of grief, trouble, fear, and whole misliking unto me. 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 troubles to me.”107

Jane’s recital of her wrongs, if correctly reported—and Ascham says he remembers the conversation gladly, both because it was so worthy of memory, and because it was the last time he ever saw that noble and worthy lady—proves that her command of the vernacular was equal to her proficiency in the dead languages, and that she cherished a very natural resentment for the treatment to which she was subjected. There is something irresistibly provocative of laughter in the thought of the two scholars, old and young, and of the lofty compassion displayed by the chidden child towards the frivolous tastes and amusements of the parents to whom she doubtless outwardly accorded the exaggerated respect and reverence demanded by custom. Few would grudge the satisfaction derived from a sympathetic listener to the girl whose pleasures were to be so few and days for enjoying them so short.

When Ascham took leave he had received a promise from Jane to write to him in Greek, provided that he would challenge her by a letter from Germany. And so they parted, to meet no more.

It may be that Lady Jane’s sense of the harshness and severity of her treatment at home was accentuated by the tone adopted with regard to her by many of the leading Protestant divines. To these men—men to whom Mary was Jezebel, Gardiner that lying and subtle Cerberus,108 and by whom persons holding theological views at variance with their own were freely and unreservedly handed over to the devil—Jane was not only wise, learned, and saintly beyond her years, but to her they turned their eyes, hoping for a future when, at the King’s side, she might prove the efficient protectress and patroness of the reformed Church. Her name was a household word amongst them, and whilst it can have been scarcely possible that she was indifferent to the incense offered by those to whom she had been instructed to look up, it may have rendered the system of repression adopted by her parents more unendurable than might otherwise have been the case.

Bradgate was a centre of strong and militant Protestantism. In conjunction with Warwick, the Marquis of Dorset was regarded by the German school of theologians as one of the “two most shining lights of the Church;”109 and the many letters sent from England to Henry Bullinger at Zurich—some of them dated from Bradgate itself—abound in allusions to the family, and throw a useful light upon this part of Lady Jane’s life. In these epistles her father’s name recurs again and again, always in terms of extravagant eulogy, and as that of a munificent patron of needy divines. Thus he had bestowed a pension at first sight upon Ulmis, a young disciple of Bullinger’s, doubling it some months later; and his grateful protÉgÉ, striving to make what return is possible, impresses upon the foreign master the advisability of dedicating one of his works to the generous Marquis, anxiously sending him, when his request has been granted, the full title to be used in so doing. “He told me, indeed,” he adds, “that he had the title of Prince, but that he would not wish to be so styled by you, so you must judge for yourself whether to keep it back or not.”110 Bullinger is likewise urged to present a copy of one of his books to the Marquis’s daughter, “and, take my word for it, you will never repent having done so.” A most learned and courteous letter would thereby be elicited from her. She had already translated into Greek a good part of Bullinger’s treatise on marriage, put by Ulmis himself into Latin, and had given it to her father as a New Year’s gift.111 In May, 1551, another letter records that two days had been very agreeably passed at Bradgate with Jane, my Lord’s daughter, and those excellent and holy persons Aylmer, her tutor, and Haddon, chaplain to the Marquis. “For my own part, I do not think there ever lived any one more deserving of respect than this young lady, if you regard her family; more learned, if you consider her age; or more happy, if you consider both. A report has prevailed, and has begun to be talked of by persons of consequence, that this most noble virgin is to be betrothed and given in marriage to the King’s majesty. Oh, if that event should take place, how happy would be the union, and how beneficial to the church!”112

A letter despatched by Ulmis on the same day to another of his brethren in the faith, Conrad Pellican, craves his advice on behalf of Lady Jane with regard to the best means of acquiring Hebrew, a language she was anxious to study. She had written to consult Bullinger on the subject, but Bullinger was a busy man, and all the world knew how perfect was Pellican’s acquaintance with the subject. Pellican may argue that he might seem lacking in modesty should he address a young lady, the daughter of a nobleman, unknown to him personally. But he is besought by Ulmis to entertain no fears of the kind, and his correspondent will bear all the blame if he ever repents of the deed, or if Lady Jane does not most willingly acknowledge his courtesy. “In truth,” he adds, “I do not think that amongst the English nobility for many ages past there has arisen a single individual who, to the highest excellences of talent and judgment, has united so much diligence and assiduity in the cultivation of every liberal pursuit.... It is incredible how far she has advanced already, and to what perfection she will advance in a few years; for I well know that she will complete what she has begun, unless perhaps she be diverted from her pursuits by some calamity of the times.... If you write a letter to her, take care, I pray you, that it be first delivered to me.”113

The letter is dated from the house of the daughter of the Marquis. Her mother, it is true, seems to have been at home, though Dorset was in Scotland; but it is a curious fact that the grand-daughter of Henry VII., through whom Jane’s royal blood was transmitted to her, appears to have been by common consent tacitly passed over, as a person of no consequence in comparison with her daughter.114

Quite a budget of letters were entrusted to the courier who left Bradgate on May 29, and was the bearer of the missives addressed by Ulmis to his master and his friend. Both John Aylmer, tutor to Lord Dorset’s children and afterwards Bishop of London, and Haddon, the Marquis’s chaplain, had taken the opportunity of writing to Bullinger, doubtless stimulated to the effort by his young disciple.

The preceptor who compared so favourably in Lady Jane’s eyes with her parents, was a young Norfolk man, of about twenty-nine, and singularly well learned in the Latin and Greek tongues.115 On James Haddon, Bishop Hooper, writing from prison when, three years later, the friends of the Reformation had fallen on evil days, pronounced a eulogy in a letter to Bullinger. Master James Haddon, he said, was not only a friend and very dear brother in Christ, but one he had always esteemed on account of his singular erudition and virtue. “I do not think,” he added, “that I have ever been acquainted with any one in England who is endued either with more sincere piety towards God or more removed from all desire of those perishing objects desired by foolish mortals.”116 From Bishop Hooper the panegyric is evidence that Haddon belonged to the extreme party in theological matters, in which Aylmer was probably in full accord with him. On this particular day in May both these devoted and conscientious men were sending letters to the great director of souls in Zurich, that of Haddon being written to a man to whom he was personally unknown, and with the sole object of opening a correspondence and offering a tribute of respect.

Aylmer’s case was a different one. Though also a stranger, he wrote at some length, chiefly in the character of the preceptor entrusted with Lady Jane’s education, making due acknowledgments for the letters and advice which had been of so much use in keeping his patron and his patron’s family in the right path, and begging Bullinger to continue these good offices towards the pupil, just fourteen, concerning whom it is strange to find the young man entertaining certain fears and misgivings.

“At that age,” he observes, “as the comic poet tells us, all people are inclined to follow their own ways, and, by the attractiveness of the objects and the corruptions of nature, are more easily carried headlong in pleasure ... than induced to follow those studies that are attended with the praise of virtue.” The time teemed with many disorders; discreet physicians must therefore be sought, and to tender minds there should not be wanting the counsel of the aged nor the authority of grave and influential men. Aylmer accordingly entreats that Bullinger will minister, by letter and advice, to the improvement of his charge.

An epistle from Jane, dated July 1551, shows that the German theologian responded at once to the appeal, since in it she acknowledges the receipt of a most eloquent and weighty letter, and mentioning the loss she had sustained in the death of Bucer, who appears to have taken his part in her theological training, congratulates herself upon the possession of a friend so learned as Bullinger, so pious a divine, and so intrepid a champion of true religion. Bereaved of the “pious Bucer ... who unweariedly did not cease, day and night, and to the utmost of his ability, to supply me with all necessary instructions and directions for my conduct in life, and who by his excellent advice promoted and encouraged my progress and advancement in all virtue, godliness, and learning,” she proceeds to beg Bullinger to fill the vacant place, and to spur her on if she should loiter and be disposed to delay. By this means she will enjoy the same advantages granted to those women to whom St. Jerome imparted instruction, or to the elect lady to whom the epistle of St. John was addressed, or to the mother of Severus, taught by Origen. As Bullinger could be deemed inferior to none of these teachers, she entreats him to manifest a like kindness.117 It is plain that Lady Jane, in addressing this “brightest ornament and support of the whole Church,” is determined not to be outdone in the art of pious flattery; and in her correspondence with men who both as scholars and divines held a foremost place in the estimation of those by whom she was surrounded, she indemnified herself for the mortifications inflicted upon her at home.

The reformers, for their part, were keeping an anxious watch upon the course of events in England; and to strengthen and maintain their influence over one who might have a prominent part to play in future years was of the first importance. A letter from Ascham, who was still abroad, dated some months later, supplies yet another example of the incense offered to the child of fourteen, and of fulsome adulation by which an older head might have been turned. Nothing, he told her, in his travels, had raised in him greater admiration than had been caused when, on his visit to Bradgate, he had found one so young and lovely—so divine a maid—engaged in the study of Plato whilst friends and relations were enjoying field sports. Let her proceed thus, to the honour of her country, the delight of her parents, her own glory, the praise of her preceptor, the comfort of her relations and acquaintances, and the admiration of all. O happy Aylmer, to have a like scholar!

It would be easy to multiply quotations which indicate the place accorded to Lord Dorset’s daughter in the estimation of the leaders of the extreme party of Protestantism, in whose eyes Cranmer was regarded as a possible trimmer. Allowing to him “right views,” Hooper, in writing to Bullinger, adds: “we desire nothing more for him than a firm and manly spirit.”118 “Contrary to general expectation,” Traheron writes, the Archbishop had most openly, firmly, and learnedly maintained the opinion of the German divine upon the Eucharist; and Ulmis, alluding to him in terms of praise, repeats that he had unexpectedly given a correct judgment on this point. Even the youngest of the German theologians felt himself competent to weigh in the balances the head of Protestant England.

Protestant England was itself keeping a wary eye upon its Primate. “The Archbishop of Canterbury,” wrote Hooper to Bullinger, “to tell the truth, neither took much note of your letter nor of your learned present. But now, as I hope, Master Bullinger and Canterbury entertain the same opinion.” “The people ... that many-headed monster,” he wrote again, “is still wincing, partly through ignorance, and partly persuaded by the inveiglements of the Bishops and the malice and impiety of the mass-priests.”119

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