CHAPTER XIV 1552 Lady Jane's correspondence with Bullinger--Illness of the Duchess of Suffolk--Haddon's difficulties--Ridley's visit to Princess Mary--the English Reformers--Edward fatally ill--Lady Jane's character and position.

The removal of the two Seymour brothers, whilst it had left Northumberland predominant, had also increased the importance of the Duke of Suffolk. Both by reason of the position he personally filled, and owing to his connection, through his wife, with the King, he was second to none in the State save the man to whom Somerset’s fall was due and who had succeeded to his power. He shared Northumberland’s prominence, as he was afterwards to share his ruin; and, as one of the chief props of Protestantism, he and his family continued to be objects of special interest to the divines of that persuasion, foreign and English.

Lady Jane, as before, was in communication with the learned Bullinger, and in the same month—July 1552—that her visit had been paid to the Princess Mary she was sending him another letter, dated from Bradgate, expressing her gratitude for the “great friendship he desired to establish between them, and acknowledging his many favours.” After a second perusal of his latest letter—since a single one had not contented her—the benefit derived from it had surpassed that to be obtained from the best authors, and in studying Hebrew she meant to pursue the method he recommended.

In August more pressing interests must have taken the place of study, for at Richmond in Surrey her mother was attacked by a sickness threatening at one time to prove fatal.

“This shall be to advertise you,” wrote the Duchess’s husband, hastily summoned from London, to Cecil, “that my sudden departing from the Court was for that I had received letters of the state my wife was in, who I assure you is more liker to die than to live. I never saw a sicker creature in my life than she is. She hath three diseases.... These three being enclosed in one body, it is to be feared that death must needs follow. By your most assured and loving cousin, who, I assure you, is not a little troubled.”

His anxiety was soon relieved. The Duchess was not only to outlive, but, in her haste to replace him, was to show little respect for his memory. She must quickly have got the better of her present threefold disorder, for in the course of the same month a letter was sent from Richmond by James Haddon, the domestic chaplain, to Bullinger, making no mention of any cause of uneasiness as to the physical condition of his master’s wife. He was preoccupied by other matters, disquieted by scruples of conscience, and glad to unburthen himself to the universal referee with regard to certain difficulties attending his position in the Duke’s household.

It was true that he might have hesitated to communicate the fears and misgivings by which he was beset to a guide at so great a distance, had not John ab Ulmis—who, as portrayed by these letters, was somewhat of a busybody, eager to bring all his friends into personal relations, and above all to magnify the authority and importance of his master in spiritual things—just come in and encouraged him to write, stating that it would give Bullinger great satisfaction to be informed of the condition of religion in England, and likewise—a more mundane curiosity—of that of the Suffolk household. Entering into a description of both, therefore, in a missive containing some three thousand words, Haddon fully detailed the sorrows and perplexities attending the exercise of the office of chaplain, even in the most orthodox and pious of houses.

After dealing with the first and important subject of religion at large, he proceeded to treat of the more complicated question—the condition of the ducal household, and especially the duties attaching to his own post.

Of the general regulation of the house, Ulmis, he said, was more capable than he of giving an account. It was rather to be desired that Bullinger should point out the method he would recommend. But upon one point Haddon was anxious to obtain the advice of so eminent a counsellor, and he went on to explain at length the case of conscience by which he had been troubled. This was upon the question of the lawfulness or unlawfulness of conniving, by silence, at the practice of gambling.

The situation was this. The Duke and Duchess had strictly forbidden the members of their household to play at cards or dice for money. So far they had the entire approval of their chaplain. But—and here came in Haddon’s cause of perplexity—the Duke himself and his most honourable lady, with their friends—perhaps, too, their daughter, though there is no mention of her—not only claimed a right to play in their private apartments, but also to play for money. The divergence between precept and practice—common in all ages—was grievous to the chaplain, weighted with the responsibility for the spiritual and moral welfare of the whole establishment, from his “patron” the Duke, down to the lowest of the menials. At wearisome and painstaking length he recapitulated the arguments he was wont to employ in his remonstrances against the gambling propensities he deplored, retailing, as well, the arguments with which the offenders met them. “In this manner and to this effect,” he says, “the dispute is often carried on.”

During the past months matters had reached a climax. As late as up to the previous Christmas he had confined himself to administering private rebukes; but, perceiving that his words had taken no effect, he had forewarned the culprits that a public reprimand would follow a continued disregard of his monitions. Upon this he had been relieved to perceive that there had been for a time a cessation of the reprehensible form of amusement, and had cherished a hope that all would be well. It had been a vain one. Christmas had come round—the season marked by mummeries and wickedness of every kind, when persons especially served the devil in imitation, as it seemed, of the ancient Saturnalia; and though this was happily not the case in the Suffolk family, Duke and Duchess had joined in the general backsliding to the extent of returning to their old evil habit. Such being the case, Haddon had felt that he had no choice but to carry out his threat.

In his Christmas sermon he had taken occasion to administer a reproof as to the general fashion of keeping the feast, including in his rebuke, “though in common and general terms,” those who played cards for money. No one in the household was at a loss to fix upon the offenders at whom the shaft was directed. The Duke’s servants, if they followed his example, took care never to be detected in so doing; and, accepting the reprimand as addressed to themselves, the Duke and Duchess took it in bad part, arguing that Haddon would have performed all that duty required of him by a private remonstrance. From that time, offence having been given by his plain speech, the chaplain had returned to his old custom of administering only private rebukes; thus conniving, in a measure, at the practice he condemned, lest loss of influence in matters of greater moment should follow. “I bear with it,” he sighed, “as a man who holds a wolf by the ears.” Conscience was, however, uneasy, and he begged Bullinger to advise in the matter and to determine how far such concessions might be lawfully made.

Looking impartially at the question, it says much for the Duke’s good temper and toleration that the worthy Haddon continued to fill his post, and that when, a few months later, he was promoted to be Dean of Exeter, he wrote that the affection between himself and his master was so strong that the connection would even then not be altogether severed.132 His attitude is a curious and interesting example of the position and status of a chaplain in his day, being wholly that of a dependant, and yet carrying with it duties and rights strongly asserted on the one side and not disallowed upon the other.

The Duchess, having recovered from her illness, had taken her three daughters to visit their cousin Mary, and when the younger children were sent home Jane remained behind at St. John’s, Clerkenwell, the London dwelling of the Princess, until her father came to fetch wife and daughter away. That the whole family had been thus entertained indicates that they were at this time on a friendly footing with the Princess. But though the Duke of Suffolk was doubtless alive to the necessity of maintaining amicable relations, so far as it was possible, with his wife’s cousin and the next heir to the crown, it must have been no easy matter, at a time when party spirit ran so high, for one of the chief recognised supporters of Protestantism to continue on terms of cordiality with the head and hope of the Catholic section of the nation. Mary was not becoming more conciliatory in her bearing as time went on, and an account of a visit paid her by Ridley, now Bishop of London in place of Bonner, deprived and in prison, is illustrative of her present attitude.

It was to Hunsdon that, in the month of September, Ridley came to pay his respects to the King’s sister, cherishing, it may be, a secret hope that where King and Council had failed, he might succeed; and his courteous reception by the officers of her household was calculated to encourage his sanguine anticipations. Mary too, when, at eleven o’clock, he was admitted to her presence, conversed with her guest right pleasantly for a quarter of an hour, telling him that she remembered the time when he had acted as chaplain to her father, and inviting him to stay to dinner. It was not until after the meal was ended that the Bishop unfolded the true object of his visit. It was not one of simple courtesy; he had come, he said, to do his duty by her as her diocesan, and to preach before her on the following Sunday.

If Mary prepared for battle, she answered at first with quiet dignity. It was observed that she flushed; her response, however, was merely to bid him “make the answer to that himself.” When, refusing to take the hint, the Bishop continued to urge his point, she spoke more plainly.

“I pray you, make the answer (as I have said) to this matter yourself,” she repeated, “for you know the answer well enough. But if there be no remedy but I must make you answer, this shall be your answer: the door of the parish church adjoining shall be open for you if you come, and you may preach if you list; but neither I nor any of mine shall hear you.”

To preach to an empty church, or to a handful of country yokels, would not have answered the episcopal purpose; and Ridley was plainly losing his temper.

He hoped, he said, she would not refuse to hear God’s word. The Princess answered with a scoff. She did not know what they now called God’s word; she was sure it was not the same as in her father’s time—to whom, it will be remembered, the Bishop had been chaplain.

The dispute was becoming heated. God’s word, Ridley retorted, was the same at all times, but had been better understood and practised in some ages than in others. To this Mary replied by a personal thrust. He durst not, she told him, for his ears, have avowed his present faith in King Henry’s time; then—asking a question to which she must have known the answer—was he of the Council? she demanded. The inquiry was probably intended as a reminder that his rights did not extend to interference with the King’s sister, as well as to elicit, as it did, the confession that he held no such post.

“You might well enough, as the Council goeth nowadays,” observed Mary carelessly; proceeding, at parting, to thank the Bishop for his gentleness in coming to see her, “but for your offering to preach before me I thank you never a whit.”

In the presence of his hostess the discomfited guest appears to have kept his temper under control, but, having duly drunk of the stirrup cup presented to him by her steward, Sir Thomas Wharton, he gave free expression to his sentiments.

“Surely I have done amiss,” he said, looking “very sadly,” and explaining, in answer to Wharton’s interrogation, that he had erred in having drunk under a roof where God’s word was rejected. He should rather have shaken the dust off his feet for a testimony against the house and departed instantly, he told the listeners assembled to speed him on his way—whose hair, says Heylyn, in relating this story, stood on end with his denunciations.133 If scenes of this kind were not adapted to promote good feeling between belligerents in high places, neither was the spirit of the dominant party in the country one to conciliate opposition. It is not easy, as the figures of the English pioneers of Protestantism pass from time to time across the stage, in these years of their first triumph, to do them full justice. To judge a man by one period of his life, whether it is youth or manhood or old age, is scarcely fairer than to pronounce upon the colour and pattern of an eastern carpet, only one square yard of it being visible. The adherents of the new faith are here necessarily represented in a single phase, that of prosperity. At the top of the wave, they are seen at their worst, assertive, triumphant, intolerant and self-satisfied, the bull-dogs of the Reformation, only withheld by the leash from worrying their fallen antagonist. Thus, for the most part, they appear in Edward’s reign. And yet these men, a year or two later, were many of them capable of an undaunted courage, an impassioned belief in the common Lord of Protestant and Catholic, and a power of endurance, which have graven their names upon the national roll-call of heroes.

Meantime, more and more, the King’s precarious health was suggestive of disturbing contingencies. It may be that, as some assert, his uncle’s death, once become irrevocable, had preyed upon his spirits—that he “mourned, and soon missed the life of his Protector, thus unexpectedly taken away, who, now deprived of both uncles, howsoever the time were passed with pastimes, plays and shows, to drive away dumps, yet ever the remembrance of them sat so near his heart that lastly he fell sick....”134 But though it is possible that, as his strength declined, matters he had taken lightly weighed upon his spirits, it is not necessary to seek other than natural and constitutional causes for a failure of health. That failure must have filled many hearts with forebodings.

There had been no attempt hitherto to ignore or deny the position occupied by Mary as next heir to the throne. When, at the New Year, she visited her brother, the honours rendered to her were a recognition of her rights, and the Northumberlands and Suffolks occupied a foremost place amongst the “vast throng” who rode with her through the city or met her at the palace gate and brought her to the presence-chamber of the King. Before the next New Year’s Day came round Edward was to be in his grave; Mary would fill his place; and the little cousin Jane, now spending a gay Christmas with her father’s nephews and wards, the young Willoughbys, at Tylsey, would be awaiting her doom in the Tower.

The shadow was already darkening over the King. It is said that the seeds of his malady had been sown by over-heating in his sports, during the progress of which he had sent so joyous an account to Fitzpatrick.135 Soon after his sister’s visit he caught a bad cold, and unfavourable symptoms appeared. He had, however, youth in his favour, and few at first anticipated how speedy would be the end. Vague disquiet nevertheless quickly passed into definite alarm. In February the patient’s condition was such that Northumberland, who of all men had most at stake, summoned no less than six physicians, desiring them to institute an examination and to declare upon their oath, first, whether they considered the King’s disease mortal, and, if so, how long he was likely to live. The reply made by the doctors was that the malady was incurable, and that the patient might live until the following September.136 Northumberland had obtained his answer; it was for him to take measures accordingly.

In March Edward’s last Parliament met and ended. “The King being a little diseased by cold-taking,” recorded a contemporary chronicle,137 “it was not meet for his Grace to ride to Westminster in the air,”138 and on the 31st—it was Good Friday—the Upper House waited upon him at Whitehall, Edward in his royal robes receiving the Lords Spiritual and Temporal. At seven that evening Parliament was dissolved.

Many hearts, loyal and true and pitiful, will have grieved at the signs of their King’s decay. But to Northumberland, watching them with the keenness lent by personal interest, personal ambition, and possibly by a consciousness of personal peril, they must have afforded absorbing matter of preoccupation. The exact time at which the designs by which the Duke trusted to turn the boy’s death to his advantage rather than to his ruin took definite shape and form must remain to some extent undetermined—his plans were probably decided by the verdict given by the doctors in February; it is certain that in the course of the spring they were elaborated, and that in them Lady Jane Grey, ignorant and unsuspicious, was a factor of primary importance. She was to be the figure-head of the Duke’s adventurous vessel.

The precise date of her birth is not known, but she was now in her sixteenth or seventeenth year—a sorrowful one for her and for all she loved. Childhood was a thing she had left behind; she was touching upon her brief space of womanhood; a few months later and that too would be over; she would have paid the penalty for the schemes and ambitions of others.

The eulogies of her panegyrists have, as a natural effect of extravagant praise, done in some sort an injury to this little white saint of the English Reformation. We do not readily believe in miracles; nor do infant prodigies either in the sphere of morals or attainments attract us. Yet, setting aside the tragedy of her end, there is something that appeals for pity in the very precocity upon which her contemporaries are fond of dwelling, testifying as it does to a wasted childhood, to a life robbed of its natural early heritage of carelessness and grace. To have had so short a time to spend on the green earth, and to have squandered so large a portion of it amongst dusty folios, and in the acquirement of learning; to have pored over parchments while sun and air, flowers and birds and beasts—all that should make the delight of a child’s life, the pageant of a child’s spring, was passed by as of no account; further, to have grown up versed in the technicalities of barren theological debate, the simple facts of Christ’s religion overlaid and obscured by the bitterness of professional controversialists,—almost every condition of her brief existence is an appeal for compassion, and Jane, from her blood-stained grave, cries out that she had not only been robbed of life by her enemies, but of a childhood by her friends.

To a figure defaced by flattery and adulation, whose very virtues and gifts were made to minister to party ends, it is difficult to restore the original brightness and beauty which nevertheless belonged to it. But here and there in the pages of the Italian evangelist, Michel Angelo Florio, who was personally acquainted with her, pictures are to be found which, drawn with tender touches, set the girl more vividly before us than is done by the stilted commendations of English devotees or German doctors of theology. Many times, he says—times when it may be hoped she had forgotten that there were opponents to be argued with or heretics to be convinced or doctrinal subtleties to be set forth—she would speak of the Word of God and almost preach it to those who served her;139 and Florio himself, recounting the indignities and insults he had suffered by reason of his opinions, had seen her weep with pity, so that he well knew how much she had true religion at heart.140

Her attendants, too—in days when her melancholy end had caused each trifling incident to be treasured like a relic by those to whom she had been dear—related that she did not esteem rank or wealth or kingdom worth a straw in comparison with the knowledge God had granted to her of His only Son.141 It must be remembered that in no long time she was to give proof, by her fashion of meeting death, that these phrases were no repetition of a lesson learned by rote, no empty and conventional form of words, but the true and sincere confession of a living faith.

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