CHAPTER XVIII 1553 Turn of the tide--Reaction in Mary's favour in the Council--Suffolk yields--Mary proclaimed in London--Lady Jane's deposition--She returns to Sion House.
Northumberland was gone. The weight of his dominant influence was removed, and many of his colleagues must have breathed more freely. In the Tower Lady Jane, with those of the Council left in London, continued to watch and wait the course of events. It must have been recognised that the future was dark and uncertain; and whilst the lords and nobles looked about for a way of escape should affairs go ill with the new government, the boy and girl arbitrarily linked together may have been drawn closer by the growing sense of a common danger. Guilford Dudley did not share his father’s unpopularity. Young and handsome, he is said to have been endowed with virtues calling forth an unusual amount of pity for his premature end,169 and Heylyn declared that of all Dudley’s brood he had nothing of his father in him.170 “He was,” says Fuller, adding For quicker and quicker came tidings of fresh triumphs for Mary, each one striking at the hopes of her rival’s partisans. News was brought that Mary had been proclaimed Queen first in Buckinghamshire; next at Norwich. Her forces were gathering strength, her adherents gaining courage. Again, six vessels placed at Yarmouth to intercept her flight, should she attempt it, were won over to her side, their captains, with men and ordnance, making submission; whereat “the Lady Mary”—from whose mind nothing had been further than flight—“and her company were wonderful joyous.” This last blow hit the party acknowledging Jane as Queen hard; nor were its effects long in becoming visible. In the Tower “each man began to pluck in his horns,” and to cast about for a manner of dissevering his private fortunes from a cause manifestly doomed to disaster. Pembroke, who in May had associated himself with Northumberland by marrying his son to Katherine Grey, was one of the foremost in considering the possibility of quitting the Tower, so That Sunday morning—it was July 16—Ridley had preached at Paul’s Cross before the Mayor, Aldermen, and people, pleading Lady Jane’s cause with all the eloquence at his command. Let his hearers, he said, contrast her piety and gentleness with the haughtiness and papistry of her rival. And he told the story of his visit to Hunsdon, of his attempt to convince Mary of her errors, and of its failure, conjuring all who heard him to maintain the cause of Queen Jane and of the Gospel. But his exhortations fell on deaf ears. And still one messenger of ill tidings followed In the consultation, held on July 19, the deathblow was dealt to the hopes of those faithful to the nine-days’ Queen. Arundel was the first to declare himself unhesitatingly on Mary’s side, and to denounce Pembroke made answer, promising, with his hand on his sword, to make Mary Queen. There were indeed few dissentient voices, and, though some of the lords at first maintained that warning should be sent to Northumberland and a general pardon obtained from Mary, their proposals did not meet with favour, and they did not press them. A hundred men had been despatched on various pretexts, and by degrees, to the Tower, with orders to make themselves masters of the place, in case Suffolk would not leave it except upon compulsion; but the Duke was not a man to lead a forlorn hope. Had Northumberland been at hand a struggle might have taken place; as it was, not a voice was raised against the decision of the Council, and with almost incredible rapidity the face of affairs underwent a change, absolute and complete. Suffolk, so soon “For my time I never saw the like,” says a news-letter,175 “and by the report of others the like was never seen. The number of caps that were thrown up at the proclamation were not to be told.... I saw myself money was thrown out at windows for joy. The bonfires were without number, and, what with shouting and crying of the people and ringing of the bells, there could no one hear almost what another said, besides banquetings and singing in the street for joy.” Arundel was there, as well as Pembroke, with Shrewsbury and others, and the day was ended with evensong at St. Paul’s. That afternoon had been fixed for the christening of a child born to Underhyll—nicknamed, on account of his religious zeal, the Hot-Gospeller—on duty as a Gentleman Pensioner at the Tower. The baby was highly favoured, since the Duke of Suffolk and the Earl of Pembroke were to be his sponsors by proxy and Lady Jane had signified her intention of acting as godmother, calling the infant Guilford, after her husband. Lady Throckmorton, wife to Sir Nicholas, in attendance on Jane,176 had been chosen to represent her mistress at the ceremony; and, on quitting the Tower for that purpose, had waited on the Queen and received her usual orders, according to royal During the absence of the Lady-in-waiting, Suffolk, his part on Cheapside played, had returned to the Tower, to set matters there on their new footing. Informing his daughter, as one imagines with the roughness of a man smarting under defeat, that since her cousin had been elected Queen by the Council, and had been proclaimed, it was time she should do her honour, he removed the insignia of royalty. The rank she had possessed not being her own she must make a virtue of necessity, and bow to that fortune of which she had been the sport and victim. Rising to the occasion, Jane, as might be expected, made fitting reply. The words now spoken by her father were, she answered, more becoming and praiseworthy than those he had uttered on putting her in possession of the crown; proceeding to moralise the matter after a fashion that can only be attributed to the imaginative faculties of the narrator of the scene. This done she, more naturally, withdrew into her private apartments with her mother and other ladies and gave way, in spite “Therefore, O Lords of the Council,” she is made to say, “there is found in men of illustrious blood, and as much esteemed by the world as you, double dealing, deceit, fickleness, and ruin to the innocent. Which of you can boast with truth that I besought him to make me a Queen? Where are the gifts I promised or gave on this account? Did ye not of your own accord drag me from my literary studies, and, depriving me of liberty, place me in this rank? Alas! double-faced men, how well I see, though late, to what end ye set me in this royal dignity! How will ye escape the infamy following upon such deeds?” How were broken With this prophecy of retribution to follow she ended. “For a good space she was silent; and they departed, full of shame, leaving her well guarded.”179 Her attendants were not long in availing themselves of the permission accorded them to go where they pleased. The service of Lady Jane was, from an honour, become a perilous duty; and they went to their own homes, leaving their nine-days’ mistress “burdened with thought and woe.” The following morning she too quitted the Tower, returning to Sion House. It was no more than ten days since she had been brought from it in royal state. |