CHAPTER XVI 1553 After King Edward's death--Results to Lady Jane Grey--Northumberland's schemes--Mary's escape--Scene at Sion House--Lady Jane brought to the Tower--Quarrel with her husband--Her proclamation as Queen.

A boy was dead. A frail little life, long failing, had gone out. That was all. Nevertheless upon it had hung the destinies of England.

Speculations and forecasts as to the consequences had Edward lived are unprofitable. Yet one wonders what, grown to manhood, he would have become—whether the gentle lad, pious, studious, religious, the modern Josiah, as he was often called, would have developed, as he grew to maturity, the dangerous characteristics of his Tudor race, the fierceness and violence of his father, the melancholy and relentless fanaticism of Mary, the absence of principle and sensuality of Elizabeth. Or would he have fulfilled the many hopes which had found their centre in him and have justified the love of his subjects, given him upon credit?

It is impossible to say. What was certain was that his part was played out, and that others were to take his place. Amongst these his little cousin Jane was at once the most innocent and the most unfortunate.

Hitherto she had looked on as a spectator at life. Her skiff moored in a creek of the great river, she had watched from a place of comparative calm the stream as it rushed by. Here and there a wave might make itself felt even in that quiet place; a wreck might be carried past, or she might catch the drowning cry of a swimmer as he sank. But to the young such things are accidents from participation in which they tacitly consider themselves exempted, regarding them with the fearlessness due to inexperience. Suddenly all was to be changed. Torn from her anchorage, she was to be violently borne along by the torrent towards the inevitable catastrophe.

As yet she was ignorant of the destiny prepared for her. Under her father’s roof, she had pursued her customary occupations, and by some authorities her third extant letter to Bullinger—another tribute of admiration and flattery, and containing no allusion to current events—is believed to belong to the interval occurring between her marriage and the King’s death. The allusion to herself as an “untaught virgin,” and the signature “Jane Grey,” seem to give it a date earlier in the year. The time was fast approaching when leisure for literary exercises of the kind would be lacking.

It would have been difficult to trace her movements precisely at this juncture were it not that she has left a record of them in a document—either directly addressed to Mary from her prison or intended for her eyes—in which she demonstrated her innocence.155 Notwithstanding the promise made by the Duchess of Northumberland at her marriage that she should be permitted to remain at home, she appears to have been by this time living with her husband’s parents, and, upon Edward’s death becoming imminent, she was informed of the fact by her father-in-law, who forbade her to leave his house; adding the startling announcement that, when it should please God to call the King to His mercy, she would at once repair to the Tower, her cousin having nominated her heir to the throne.

The news found her totally unprepared; and, shocked and partly incredulous, she refused obedience to the Duke’s commands, continuing to visit her mother daily, in spite of the indignation of the Duchess of Northumberland, who “grew wroth with me and with her, saying that she was determined to keep me in her house; that she would likewise keep my husband there, to whom I should go later in any case, and that she would be under small obligation to me. Therefore it did not seem to me lawful to disobey her, and for three or four days I stayed in her house, until I obtained permission to resort to the Duke of Northumberland’s palace at Chelsea.” At this place—the reason of her preference for it is not given—she continued, sick and anxious, until a summons reached her to go to Sion House, there to receive a message from the King. It was Lady Sydney, a married daughter of the Duke’s, who brought the order, saying, “with more gravity than usual,” that it was necessary that her sister-in-law should obey it; and Lady Jane did not refuse to do so.

Sion House, where the opening scene of the drama took place, was another of the possessions of the Duke of Somerset, passed into the hands of his rival. A monastery, founded by Henry V. at Isleworth, it had been seized, with other Church property, in 1539, and had served two years later as prison to the unhappy child, Katherine Howard. The place had been acquired by Somerset in the days of his power, when the building of the great house, which was to replace the convent, was begun. The gardens were enclosed by high walls, a triangular terrace in one of their angles alone allowing the inmates to obtain a view of the country beyond.156 In 1552 it had, with most of the late Protector’s goods and chattels, been confiscated, and during the following year, the year of the King’s death, had been granted to Northumberland. It was to this place that Lady Jane was taken to receive the message said to be awaiting her from the King.

Her destination reached, Sion House was found empty; but it was not long before those who were pulling the strings arrived. The message from the King had been a fiction. Edward’s gentle spirit was at rest, and he himself forgotten in the rush of events. There was little time for thought of the dead. The interests of religion and of the State, as some would call it, the ambition of unscrupulous and unprincipled men, as it would be named by others, demanded the whole attention of the steersmen who stood, for the moment, at the helm.

It had been decided to keep the fact of the King’s death secret until measures should have been taken to ensure the success of the desperate game they were playing. To secure possession of the person of his natural successor was of the first importance; and a letter had been despatched to Mary when her brother was manifestly at the point of death which it was hoped would avail to bring her to London and would enable her enemies to fulfil their purpose. Stating that the King was very ill, she was entreated to come to him, as he earnestly desired the comfort of her presence.

Mary must have been well aware of the risk she would run in responding to the appeal; and it says much for her courage and her affection that she did not hesitate to incur it. A fortunate chance, however, frustrated the designs against her. Starting from Hunsdon, where the tidings had found her, she had reached Hoddesden on her way to Greenwich, when she was met by intelligence that determined her to go no further. The King was dead; nor was it difficult to discern in the urgent summons, sent too late to accomplish its ostensible purpose, a transparent attempt to induce her to place herself in the power of her enemies.

Opinions have differed as to the means by which Northumberland’s scheme was frustrated. Some say that the news was conveyed to the Princess by the Earl of Arundel. Sir Nicholas Throckmorton also claims credit for the warning. According to this account of the matter, a young brother of his, in attendance upon Northumberland, had become cognisant of the intended treachery, and had come post-haste to report what was a-foot at his father’s house. A few words spoken by Sir John Gates, visiting the Duke before he had risen, were all that had reached the young man’s ears, but those words had been of startling significance, the state of affairs being what it was.

“What, sir,” he had heard Gates say, “will you let the Lady Mary escape, and not secure her person?”

A consultation was hurriedly held at Throckmorton House, between the father and his three sons. Sir Nicholas, who had been present at the King’s death, was too well aware of the circumstances to minimise the importance of his brother’s story, and, summoning the Princess Mary’s goldsmith, it was decided to entrust him with the duty of conveying a caution to his mistress, and stopping her journey. Sir Nicholas’s metrical version of what followed may be given.157

The first stroke hazarded by the conspirators had resulted in failure. Mary, after some deliberation, turned her face northwards, and escaped the snare laid for her by her enemies.

The next object of Northumberland and his friends was to obtain the concurrence of the City to the substitution of his daughter-in-law for the rightful heir. Various as were the views of the best means of ensuring success, all the Council were agreed on one point, namely, “that London was the hand which must reach Jane the crown.”158 London was to be made to do it. On July 8 the Lord Mayor, with six aldermen, six “merchants of the staple, and as many merchant adventurers,” were summoned to Greenwich, were there secretly informed of the King’s death, and of his will by letters patent, “to which they were sworn and charged to keep it secret.”

All this had been done before Lady Jane was summoned to Sion House. It was time for the stage Queen to make her appearance, and at Sion the facts were made known to her.159

Of her reception of the great news accounts vary. A graphic picture, painted in the first place by Heylyn, has been copied by divers other historians. The learned John Nichols, unable to trace it in any contemporary documents or records, has decided that it must be classed amongst “those dramatic scenes in which historical writers formerly considered themselves justified in indulging.”160

He is probably right; yet an early and generally accepted tradition has a value of its own, and may be true to the spirit, if not to the letter, of what actually occurred. Mary herself afterwards told the envoy of Charles V. that she believed her cousin to have had no part in the Duke of Northumberland’s enterprise; and, supposing her to have been ignorant, or only dimly cognisant, of the plot, the revelation of it may easily have occasioned her a shock. It has been constantly asserted that, in this first interview with those who, calling themselves her subjects, were practically the masters of her fate, she began by declining to be a party to their scheme; and if her letter, written at a later date, from the Tower to Mary, does not wholly confirm the assertion, it points to an attitude of reluctant assent. Her mother-in-law had given her hints of what was intended, but, like the announcement made by the Duke at Durham House of her approaching greatness, they were too incredible to be taken seriously; and the fact that when she was joined at Sion by the Dukes of Northumberland and Suffolk they did not at once make the matter plain, but confined the conversation for a time to indifferent subjects, seems to indicate a doubt upon their part of her pliability. There was, nevertheless, a change in their demeanour and bearing giving rise in her mind to an uneasy consciousness of a mystery she had not fathomed; whilst Huntingdon and Pembroke, who were present, treated her with even more incomprehensible reverence, and went so far as to bow the knee.

On the arrival of her mother, together with the Duchess of Northumberland, the explanation of the riddle took place. The tidings of the King’s death and of her exaltation was broken to her, together with the reasons prompting Edward to set aside his sisters in her favour. The nobles fell upon their knees, took her formally for their Queen, and swore—it was shortly to be proved how little the oath was worth—to shed their blood in defence of her rights.

“Having heard which things,” pursues Lady Jane in her apology, “with infinite grief of spirit, I call to witness those lords who were present that I was so stunned and stupefied that, overcome by sudden and unexpected sorrow, they saw me fall to the ground, weeping very bitterly. And afterwards, declaring to them my insufficiency, I lamented much the death of so noble a prince; and at the same time turned to God, humbly praying and beseeching Him that, if what was given me was in truth and legitimately mine, He would grant me grace and power to govern to His glory and service, and for the good of this realm.”161

There is, as Dr. Lingard points out, nothing unnatural in this description of what had occurred; whereas the grandiloquent language attributed to her by some historians is most unlikely to have been used at a moment both of grief and excitement. According to these authorities, not only did she defend Mary’s right, and denounce those who had conspired against it, but delivered a lengthy oration upon the fickleness of fortune. “If she enrich any, it is but to make them the subject of her sport; if she raise others, it is but to pleasure herself with their ruins. What she adored yesterday, to-day is her pastime. And if I now permit her to adorn and crown me, I must to-morrow suffer her to crush and tear me to pieces”—proceeding to cite Katherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn as examples of those who had, to their own undoing, worn a crown. “If you love me sincerely and in good earnest,” she is made to say, “you will rather wish me a secure and quiet fortune, though mean, than an exalted condition exposed to the wind, and followed by some dismal fall.”

Poor little plaything of the fortune she is represented as anathematising, the designs of those who were striving to exalt her were due to nothing less than a sincere love. Any other puppet would have answered their purpose equally well, so that the excuse of royal blood was in her veins. But Jane, willing or unwilling, was to be made use of for their ends, and it was vain for her to protest.

On the following day, July 10, the Queen-designate was brought, following the ancient custom of Kings on their accession, to the Tower; reaching it at three o’clock, to be received at the gate by Northumberland, and formally presented with the keys in the presence of a great crowd who looked on at the proceedings in sinister silence and gave no sign of rejoicing or cordiality.

Shortly after, the Marquis of Winchester, in his capacity of Treasurer, brought the crown jewels, with the crown itself, “asking me,” wrote Jane, “to put it on my head, to try whether it fitted me or not. Who knows well that, with many excuses, I refused. He not the less insisted that I should boldly take it, and that another should be made that my husband might be crowned with me, which I certainly heard unwillingly, and with infinite grief and displeasure.”162

The idea that young Guilford Dudley, with no royal blood to make his claim colourable, was intended to share her dignity appears to have roused his wife, somewhat strangely, to hot indignation. She at least was a Tudor on her mother’s side; but what was Dudley, that he should aspire so high? Had she loved her boy-husband she might have taken a different view of his pretensions; but there is nothing to show that she regarded him with any special affection, and she was disposed to use her authority after a fashion neither he nor his father would tolerate.

At first Guilford, taken by surprise, appeared inclined to yield the point, and in a conversation between the two, when Winchester had withdrawn, he agreed that, were he to be made King, it should be only by Act of Parliament. Thereupon, losing no time in setting the matter on a right footing, Jane sent for the Earls of Arundel and Pembroke, and informed them that, if she were to be Queen, she would be willing to make her husband Duke; “but to make him King I would not consent.”

Though Arundel and Pembroke were probably quite at one with her on the question, that she should show signs of exercising an independent judgment was naturally exasperating to those to whom it was due that she was placed in her present position; and when the Duchess of Northumberland became aware of what was going forward she not only treated Lady Jane, according to her own account, very ill, but stirred up Guilford to do the like; the boy, primed by his mother, declaring that he would in no wise be Duke, but King, and, holding sulkily aloof from his wife that night, so that she was compelled, “as a woman, and loving my husband,” to send the Earls of Arundel and Pembroke to bring him to her, otherwise he would have left in the morning, at his mother’s bidding, for Sion. “Thus,” ends the poor child, “I was in truth deceived by the Duke and Council, and badly treated by my husband and his mother.”

The discussion was premature. Boy and girl were all too soon to learn that it was not to be a question of crowns for either so much as of heads to wear them. Whilst the wrangle had been carried on in the Tower, the first step had been taken towards bringing the disputants to the scaffold. The death of the King had been made public, together with the provisions of his will, and Jane had been proclaimed Queen in two or three parts of the City.

“The tenth day of the same month,” runs the entry in the Grey Friar’s Chronicle, “after seven o’clock at night, was made a proclamation in Cheap by three heralds and one trumpet ... for Jane, the Duke of Suffolk’s daughter, to be Queen of England. But few or none said ‘God save her.’”

There was a singular unanimity upon the subject amongst the citizens of London. It is said that upon the faces of the heralds forced to proclaim the new Queen their discontent was visible;163 and a curious French letter sent from London at the time states, after mentioning the absence of any acclamation upon the part of the people, that a moment afterwards they had broken out into lamentation, clamour, tears, sighs, sadness, and desolation impossible to describe.

Thus inauspiciously was Lady Jane’s nine days’ reign inaugurated. On a great catafalque in Westminster Abbey the dead boy-King was lying, guarded day and night by twelve watchers until he should be given sepulture. But there was little leisure to attend to his obsequies on the part of the men who had made him their tool, and had staked their lives and fortunes upon the success of their plot. For the present all had gone according to their hopes. “Through the pious intents of Edward, the religion of Mary, the ambition of Northumberland, the simplicity of Suffolk, the fearfulness of the judges, and the flattery of the courtiers”—thus Fuller sums up the causes to which the situation was due—“matters were made as sure as man’s policy can make that good which in itself is bad.” It was quickly to be seen to what that security amounted.

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