LADY JANE GREY
FROM THE PAINTING BY LUCAS DE HEERE AT ALTHORP
A :
{
THE
NINE DAYS' QUEEN
LADY JANE GREY ^,
AND HER TIMES ^
EDITED, AND WITH INTRODUCTION,
MARTIN HUME, M.A.
j
i
?*!!! >"
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WITH TWELVE ILLUSTRATIONS
NEW YORK: G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
LONDON: METHUEN & CO.
1909
BY If '=
RICHARD DAVEY
TO
MY DEAR WIFE
ELEANORA DAVEY
CONTENTS
PAGE
INTRODUCTION ...... xiii
CHAP.
I. BRADGATE HALL AND THE GREYS OF GROBY . . i
II. BIRTH AND EDUCATION . . . . -14
III. THE LADY LATIMER . . . . .28
IV. THE KING'S HOUSEHOLD . . . ' . .42
V. MRS. ANNE ASKEW . . . . -58
VI. THE HOWARDS AND THE SEYMOURS . . -73
VII. HENRY vm ....... 100
VIII. CONCERNING THE LADY JANE AND THE QUEEN-DOWAGER 115
IX. THE QUEEN AND THE LORD HIGH-ADMIRAL . .136
X. THE LADY JANE GOES TO SEYMOUR PLACE . . 147
XL THE EDUCATION OF LADY JANE
XII. JOHN DUDLEY, EARL OF WARWICK
XIII. THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF SOMERSET
XIV. THE LADY JANE MARRIES THE LORD GUILDFORD
XV. ON THE WAY TO THE TOWER ....
XVI. THE LADY JANE is PROCLAIMED QUEEN
XVII. THE NINE DAYS' REIGN .....
XVIII. THE LAST DAYS OF NORTHUMBERLAND .
XIX. THE TRIAL OF QUEEN JANE ....
XX. THE SUPREME HOUR 1 . . . . '328
XXL THE FATE OF THE SURVIVORS ....
APPENDIX ......
INDEX ....... 365
IX
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
LADY JANE GREY ...... Frontispiece
From the Painting by LUCAS DE HEERE at Althorp. (Photograph by
HANFSTAENGL)
FACING PAGE
HENRY GREY, DUKE OF SUFFOLK . . . .12
From the Painting by JOANNES CORVUS, in the National Portrait Gallery
)UEEN KATHERINE PARR . . . . -3
After the Painting formerly in the possession of Horace Walpole
[ENRY vm IN 1547 . . . . . ' . 48
From an old Engraving
ROGER ASCHAM'S VISIT TO LADY JANE GREY AT BRADGATE . 172
After the Painting by J. C. HORSLEY, R.A.
JOHN DUDLEY, DUKE OF NORTHUMBERLAND . .192
From an Engraving by G. VERTUE
EDWARD SEYMOUR, DUKE OF SOMERSET . . . 208
From an Engraving after the Painting by HOLBEIN
SUPPOSED PORTRAIT OF LADY JANE GREY . . . 224
Formerly in the Collection of Col. Elliott of Nottingham, and now at
Oxford University. From an Engraving after the Painting by
HOLBEIN
LDWARD VI ....... 246
From an Engraving by G. VERTUE
,ADY JANE GREY BY WYNGAERDE .... 270
, The earliest engraved Portrait of her, from a Picture said to be by
HOLBEIN, now lost
QUEEN MARY AT THE PERIOD OF HER MARRIAGE . .322
From the Painting by ANTONIO MOR, in the Prado Museum. (Photo-
graph by R. ANDERSON)
PORTRAIT OF THE LADY FRANCES BRANDON, DUCHESS OF SUFFOLK,
AND HER SECOND HUSBAND, ADRIAN STOKES, ESQ. . 352
Probably by CORVINUS, property of Col. Wynn Finch
xi
AUTHOR'S NOTE
MY object in writing this book has been to interest
the reader in the tragic story of Lady Jane
Grey rather from the personal than the political
point of view. I have therefore employed, more perhaps
than is usual, what the French historians term le document
humain in my account of the extraordinary men and
women who surrounded Lady Jane, and who used her as
a tool for their ambitious ends. The reader may possibly
wonder why in several of the earlier chapters Lady Jane
Grey plays so shadowy a part, but I deemed it impossible
for any one who is not very familiar with our History at
this period to understand, without having a complete idea of
the chain of conspiracies that preceded and rendered possible
her proclamation, how a young Princess, not in the immediate
sion to the Crown, came to be placed, if only for nine
in the towering position of Queen of England. These
racies were four in number. The first was that of the
ards and the Catholic party against Queen Katherine
The second, the conspiracy of the Seymours against
owards, which ended in the downfall of the great House
<Arfolk, whereby Edward Seymour was enabled to proclaim
himsejlf Lord Protector of the Realm. The third plot was that
"hmas Seymour to cast down his brother Edward from his
tation, and, if possible, to usurp the same for himself a
e story of folly and intrigue and overvaulting ambition
ended in one of the most terrible fratricidal tragedies
found in the history of the nations. Fourthly, the
high s
strang
which
to be
i~
^V'll of the brothers Seymour from the scene enabled John
Dudley t Duke of Northumberland, to work his own will and
to prepare the way, during the last days of Edward vi, for his
laughtG r _ m _i aW) much against her will, to usurp the throne.
I ha ve consulted every available document, as well in our
i
a
Vll
viii THE NINE DAYS' QUEEN
national archives and private libraries as in those of foreign,
countries, concerning Lady Jane and her friends and foes, the i
better to paint as vivid a picture as possible of the times in i
which they lived.
I need scarcely add how greatly I appreciate the honour
Major Martin Hume has conferred upon my work by his
scholarly Introduction, which gives so succinct and deeply inter-
esting an account of our foreign politics at a most momentous
period of English history. To him, to Dr. Gairdner, to Earl
Spencer, to Earl Stamford and Warrington, and to many other
gentlemen and friends, including the officials at the State Paper
Office and the British Museum, I beg to tender my sincere
thanks for their courtesy and for the valuable information with
which they have helped me to complete my picture of one of
the most interesting periods in our national history.
I cannot, moreover, allow this opportunity to pass without
recording, with sincere gratitude and affection, the aid which
I received, when I first thought of writing this life of Lady Jane
Grey, from the kindness of my old valued and lamented
friend, Dr. Richard Garnett.
RICHARD DAVEY
200 ASHLEY GARDENS, LONDON, S.W.
jth September 1909.
INTRODUCTION xv
defiance of Luther and the spread of the reformed doctrines,
the political parties in the English Court were divided more
distinctly than ever by the new element introduced ; and,
despotic as the Tudor sovereigns were, the apparently personal
and fickle character of their policy, which proves so puzzling
to students, really arose in nearly every case from the tem-
porary predominance in their counsels of one or the other
school of thought represented in their Court. It is only by
recognising this fact that the strange and sudden changes
which took place in the reigns of Henry vm and Edward vi
can be made comprehensible, and by it also the rise and fall
of Lady Jane Grey can be seen in its true light.
During the last twenty years of the reign of Henry vm
his bewildering mutations of policy and of wives were the
result of efforts on the part of rival sets of politicians to utilise
his brutal sensuality and inflated pride to their respective
ends. With him, as with the most of them, religion was a
mere stalking horse for other interests. The traditional
and more Conservative party, which usually leant towards
the imperial alliance, naturally took the Catholic side, the
established nobility such as the Howards backed by the
Catholic bishops being contrasted with the more recently
ennobled men, aided by bureaucrats like Cromwell and by
the reforming churchmen. Thus it came to be understood
before the end of Henry's reign that the men in the English
Court most favourable to emancipation from the Papacy were
generally speaking the advocates of a French alliance, whilst
those who clung to the orthodox view of religion favoured
the traditional adherence to the house of Burgundy. It is
true that the men on both sides were equally eager to partici-
pate in the plunder of the Church and in filching the commons
from the people of England ; and that both parties included
men who were ready to profess themselves faithful Catholics
or ardent reformers as their interests demanded at the time.
But the political aims of the respective parties were quite
distinctly divided, notwithstanding religious affinities, for
the Emperor was just as desirous of having Protestant friends
in England as the King of France was willing to accept Catholic
support there. The object of the English sovereigns, it
must be recollected, was usually somewhat different from
*
xvi THE NINE DAYS' QUEEN
that of their bribed councillors who had their own interests
to serve. The aim of Henry vn and Henry vm, and especi-
ally of Elizabeth, who alone was successful in attaining it,
was so to distribute the weight of England's influence as to
avert any coalition of the two great Continental powers
against her, rather than to become the permanent tool of
either ; the efforts of Charles v, and his French rival being
respectively directed towards preventing England from
throwing in her lot with their enemies.
Until religious bitterness infinitely complicated the
question, and finally led to the long state of war with Spain,
the side which commanded most sympathy amongst the
English people at large was unquestionably that which favoured
a cordial understanding with the sovereign of Flanders and
Spain. The country had been in close antagonism with
France on and off for centuries, the proximity of the coasts
and the aspirations of the French to dominate the Channel
represented a constant danger and source of anxiety, and it
was instinctively felt in England that the time-honoured policy
which bound her to the monarch who was able when he
pleased to divert the aggression of the French by threatening
any of their land frontiers, was the safest friend of this country.
The English merchants who found their richest markets in
Flanders and Spain, and who were in chronic irritation at
the French piratical attacks upon their commerce, were
equally anxious for a friendship which they looked upon as
the best assurance against a war which they dreaded ; so
that the chief English advocates of the French connection
were usually those whose adherence to the reformed religious
doctrines overbore their political interests, and the newer
nobility and politicians who found themselves at enmity
on social and other grounds with the traditional conservatives.
It must not be forgotten that both France and the
Emperor strove ceaselessly to gain friends amongst the
English councillors. Immense bribes found their way into
the pockets of ministers and secretaries of State, in many
cases regular yearly pensions being settled upon influential
political supporters, and by means of flattery, social attentions,
and promises, the ambassadors in England of the rival powers
became centres of intrigue to influence English policy in
INTRODUCTION xvii
favour of one or the other. The goal to which both the
rivals directed their eyes was one in which, curiously enough,
England had no interest whatever, namely, the hegemony
over Italy ; but England which by activity on the northern
coasts of France or on the Scottish border could weaken
the French power for harm in other directions, could
enable the Emperor at any time to check his enemy's Italian
ambitions ; whilst with England as her friend France could
brave the imperialists, certain that she would not be taken
in the rear, especially when, as she usually managed to do,
she had enlisted on her side the Turks on the Hungarian
frontier and the Lutheran princes and towns of Germany.
The marriage of Henry vm with Jane Seymour was looked
upon by the Imperialist Conservative party in England as a
victory for their cause. Her brother, Sir Edward Seymour,
had been in the Emperor's service, and Jane had supplanted
the hated Anne Boleyn, whose sympathies were, of course,
entirely French. It is true that later Seymour, a parvenu
noble, be it recollected, was driven into the anti-papal camp
mainly by the antagonism of Norfolk and the older nobles
who led the Conservative party, but, notwithstanding his
Protestantism, he never wavered in his attachment to the
imperial alliance and his opposition to French interests.
When the death of Henry vm made Seymour, as Duke
of Somerset and Protector, virtually ruler of England with
Paget as his principal minister, both of them were almost
servile in their professions of devotion to the cause of the
Emperor ; and made no secret of their distrust of France
with which a hollow and temporary peace had only been
recently patched up. Somerset harried the Church and
changed religious forms ruthlessly ; his greed was insatiable
and the devotional endowments were looted without com-
punction, the Catholic bishops were treated with stern severity,
and even the schismatic Catholicism of Henry vm was cast
aside in favour of an entirely new creed and ritual. Norfolk
was kept in the Tower, Wriothesley was disgraced and the
Catholic Conservative nobles were warned not to stand in
the Protector's way. But through it all Somerset and Paget
were politically the sworn servants and friends of the
Emperor, pledged to discountenance any attempts of the
xviii THE NINE DAYS' QUEEN
French to injure him : whilst Charles v on his side, much as
he deprecated the religious changes, could no more afford
to quarrel with Somerset than he could with Henry vm,
twenty years before when he contumeliously repudiated his
blameless Spanish wife and scornfully threw off the papal
supremacy which was the keystone of the imperial system.
Submissive as were the words of Somerset and Paget to
their imperial master l not by words alone but by acts also
they sought to serve him as against France. The strong
policy adopted by Somerset towards Scotland, and his defiant
attitude at Boulogne, then temporarily held by the English
against the payment of a great ransom, served the Emperor's
turn excellently at a period when he was at grips with his
Lutheran subjects, at issue with the Pope and faced by a
series of dangerous French intrigues in Italy. That the
French themselves understood this perfectly well is seen
by the desperate efforts they made to conciliate Somerset
and win him to their side. Early in July 1547, only five
months after his accession to power, Somerset told the imperial
ambassador in strict confidence, when the latter was com-
plaining of his religious innovations, that the special French
envoy, Paulin " immediately after the death of King
Henry had striven to win him, the Protector, to the side of
France by means of a large annual pension, which, as was
only right, he had always declined. Notwithstanding this,
however, Paulin, the last time he came hither, was instructed
to offer him the assignment of the pension, which he had
brought with him already signed and sealed. But with all
these offers and grand promises of the French to divert the
English Government from their alliance with your Majesty
(the Emperor), he said he would^always remain constant and
loyal to you, knowing well that the strict preservation of
the ancient alliance was so important for both parties.' 1
Even a month previous to this Somerset had informed
the ambassador that the French had greatly scandalised
him by offering him as an inducement to join France, in an
offensive and defensive alliance, the cession of the Emperor's
Flemish province to England when it had been conquered
1 This will be seen conspicuously in my new volume of Spanish State Papers
of Edward vi, now in the press to be issued next year by the Record Office, i
INTRODUCTION xix
by the allies, Boulogne at the same time to be restored to
France.
What wonder that the Emperor's reply to this was to
send flattering autograph letters to Somerset, assuring him
of his unalterable regard, but saying not a word about his
Protestant proceedings. " Of course," continues the Emperor,
writing to his ambassador, ' the Protector would naturally
refuse to accept the pension from the French, if only in the
interests of duty and decency. The goodwill he displays
towards us must be encouraged to the utmost by you on
all occasions, and you must lose no opportunity of confirm-
ing the Protector in these favourable sentiments/ 1 Somerset
and Paget were therefore from first to last " Emperor's men '
and opponents of French interests, that is to say advocates
of the same policy as that identified with the older nobles
and Catholics, most of whom were now under a cloud in
consequence of their religion or in consequence of their per-
sonal enmity to Somerset whom they regarded as a greedy,
unscrupulous interloper.
From the first days after the death of Henry vm, it had
been seen by close observers that personal and not political
rivalry alone was likely in the future to bring about a split
in Somerset's Government. The imperial ambassador, writing
less than a fortnight after Henry's death, says that whilst
Hertford (Somerset) and Warwick (Northumberland) would
apparently be supreme in authority, "it is likely that some
jealousy or rivalry may arise between them because, although
they both belong to the same sect, they are nevertheless widely >^
different in character : the Lord - Admiral being of high
courage will not willingly submit to his colleague. He is in
higher favour with the people and with the nobles than is
the Earl of Hertford, owing to his liberality and splendour.
The Protector, on the other hand, is not so conspicuous in
this respect, and is looked down upon by everybody as a
dry, sour, opinionated man " : the sequel to this being that
both these nobles with Paget and Wriothesley should, in
:he opinion of the ambassador, be " entertained ' by the
Emperor " in the usual way."
Before many months had passed, as we have seen, it was
recognised by the Imperialist party that Somerset and Paget
xx THE NINE DAYS' QUEEN
were their fast friends and that the rising personal opposition
of Dudley had adopted, not unnaturally, as its policy that
of a rapprochement with France. It would, of course, be
untrue to say that Dudley's attack upon Somerset had for
its sole object the substitution of one international policy for
another. Dudley, like his rival, was in the first place am-
bitious and self-seeking ; but it was necessary for both of them,
in order to serve their ends, that they should obtain the co-
operation and support of one or other of the two main currents
of public opinion, the adhesion of both rivals to the advanced
Protestant practices in religion being dictated in the first
place by their need for the money and patronage that the
religious confiscations provided, and, secondly, by the great
predominance of the reformed doctrines in and about London.
But Somerset having embraced the Conservative or Imperial-
istic policy, and infused, under the influence of Catholic
Paget, some consideration for the professors of the old faith
into his reforming zeal, it was incumbent upon Dudley, who
wished to overthrow him, to adopt in both respects an entirely
opposite policy.
It is the fate of most Governments to be judged by results,
and it was a comparatively easy matter for Dudley to pick
holes in Somerset's management of affairs. The debasement
of the coinage and the consequent dislocation of business
and the terrible distress it caused, the enclosures of the
commons and the process of turning customary copyholds
into tenancies at will, had reduced the people of England to a
condition of misery such as they had never seen before. The
cruel confiscation of the monastic properties had deprived
the sick and the poor of their principal source of relief, the
drastic changes in religion had produced indignation in the
breasts of many citizens, whilst slackening the hold of
authority generaUy and promoting lawlessness. When to
all this is added the grasping selfishness of Somerset per-
sonally, and above all the success of the French arms before
Boulogne, attributed to the parsimony of the Protector, it
will be seen that Northumberland had a large area of dis-
content upon which to work for support against his unpopular
rival. But even so, it is improbable that he would have
ventured to take so bold an action against the Protector as
INTRODUCTION xxi
he did, but for the consciousness that he had behind him the
support, moral and financial if not military, of France and the
Lutheran enemies of the Emperor.
When the loss of the English forts protecting Boulogne
made negotiations for peace necessary, a French Embassy
was sent to London, and a keen observer present at the time 1
thus records what was evidently the public impression of
events- ' It was suspected that the principal object of this
embassy was to bribe them (i.e. the English Government)
to make war on the Emperor. Whilst these ambassadors
were there they were greatly feasted by the Earl of Warwick
(Northumberland) and the Grand Master (Paulet, Marquis
of Winchester) much more than any other of the lords ; for
it appears that the French ambassadors could not gain the
ear of the others The King of France found out from his
ambassadors which of the English lords showed more leaning
towards France and against the Emperor. These were the
Earl of Warwick and the Grand Master (of the Household), and
it is believed that the King (of France) wrote to them warning
them against the Protector and the Earl of Arundel who were
plotting their destruction." If this contemporary belief was
well founded, as it probably was, the overthrow of Somerset
is proved to a great extent to have been an international
intrigue promoted and probably well paid for by France.
As the observer already quoted remarks, the sequel of
the Embassy which thus ensured Northumberland's neutrality
in favour of France was the almost immediate declaration
of war by the French King against the Emperor, and the
wholesale plundering of the imperial subjects at sea. Seen
in this light, therefore, Northumberland's complete change
of England's policy, his truckling to France, his merciless
measures against Catholics, although, as events proved he
was a Catholic at heart himself, his imprisonment of Paget
the Emperor's humble servant, and his ostentatious disregard
for the imperial friendship, his whole attitude indeed, as-
sumes a new aspect. His ambition was boundless for himself
and his house ; but it must have been evident to him that
it could only be successfully carried into effect if he had behind
1 Antonio de Guaras, a Spanish merchant. This was just before Somer-
set's final downfall. See Spanish Chronicle of Henry vni.
xxii THE NINE DAYS' QUEEN
him a strong body of public opinion in England itself, and
the countenance of one of the great continental powers. Both
these desiderata he had in the earlier months of his domination;
and if Edward vi had died or had been despatched late in
1551, or in the earlier weeks of 1552, it is quite possible that
Northumberland might have carried through his great con-
spiracy successfully.
But the eighteen months that elapsed between the execu-
tion of Somerset and the death of Edward were fully sufficient
to prove to the people of England that they had cast off the
yoke of a King Log to assume that of a King Stork North-
umberland's overbearing arrogance and roughness had offended
everyone with whom he came into contact : his colleagues
dreaded and hated him, especially after the marriage of his
young son Guildford to a lady of the Royal house in the direct
line of succession had to some extent opened the eyes of men
to the magnitude of his aspirations. The condition of the
country, moreover, instead of improving under his rule was
considerably worse even than it had been under Somerset.
The coinage had now reached its lowest point of debasement,
the shilling containing only one quarter of silver to three
quarters of copper, and even was ordered by decree to be
only valued at half its face value. The gold had all left the
country and foreign trade was killed by the lack of a decent
currency. Labour, driven from the land by the wholesale
conversion of the estates from tillage to pasture, crowded the
towns clamouring for food, and the disgraceful treatment of
the Princess Mary by the ruling minister had aroused a strong
feeling against his injustice and tyranny.
The Emperor was at war with France and the Lutherans,
and was obliged to speak softly to Northumberland. Again
and again he tried to win him over to his side, and the ruler
of England knew full well that, whatever he might do he was
safe from any overt interference from the imperial power.
But for this fact it is certain that Northumberland would
not have attempted the bold stroke of disinheriting Mary
and placing Jane Grey and his own son upon the throne of
England. When Edward vi was known by him to be sick
beyond recovery Northumberland, with an eye to the near
future, endeavoured to conciliate the Emperor somewhat and
INTRODUCTION xxiii
to bring about peace upon the Continent. His object in doing
so was twofold first to persuade Charles that he was still a
potential friend ; and, secondly, to set his French friends free
from their war with the Emperor, and so enable them at the
critical moment he foresaw to come to his aid in England if
necessary. The English trading classes were by this time in a
fever of indignation against the French for their piratical
interference with English shipping, and Northumberland must
have known that with this and the fear aroused by the French
successes in the Emperor's Flemish dominions always the
key of English policy even he could not for very long with-
stand the demand of the English people to help the Emperor
against his enemies. It was Northumberland's misfortune
that he was obliged to deliver his blow against the legitimate
English succession in this state of public affairs. The Em-
peror and his ministers were keenly alive to the situation,
and although they were of course not yet aware of the details
of Northumberland's intended coup d'dtai, they feared that
the Princess Mary might by his influence be excluded from
the throne. This of course would have been a serious blow
to the imperial cause ; for it would in all probability mean
the permanent adhesion of England to the French alliance.
But Charles had swallowed so much humiliation to keep
England friendly in the past that he was not disposed now
to be too squeamish. He did not know how far his enemies
the French had gone in their promises of support to North-
umberland when Edward should die, but if by blandishments
and conciliatory acquiescence he could win the friendship
of England he was willing to smile upon any occupant of
the throne or any power behind it who would keep to the
old alliance and turn a cold shoulder to the French.
As soon as it was known in the imperial court that Edward
was approaching his end the Emperor's ambassadors hurried
over to England with instructions to conciliate Northumberland
at all costs, and to assure him that the Emperor's affection for
England and its young King was much greater than that of the
King of France. ' But," continues the Emperor's instructions,
' if you arrive too late and the King is dead, you must take
counsel together and act for the best for the safety of our
cousin the Princess Mary, and secure, if possible, her acces-
xxiv THE NINE DAYS' QUEEN
sion to the Crown, whilst doing what you judge necessary
to exclude the French and their intrigues. You must en-
deavour also to maintain the confidence and good neighbour-
ship which it is so important that our States should enjoy
with England . . . and especially to prevent the French
from getting a footing in the country, or of gaining the ear
of the men who rule England, the more so if it be for the pur-
pose of embarrassing us.' 1
News had already reached Flanders of Northumberland's
intention to exclude Mary from the throne on her brother's
death, and although the Emperor saw that in such case the
life of his cousin would be in grave peril, especially if French
aid, as was feared, were given to Northumberland, the
principal efforts of the imperial envoys were to be directed
to assuring the English government in any case that the
Emperor was their friend and not France ; Northumber-
land was to be persuaded that the Emperor had no thought
of proposing a foreign husband for Mary ; and that any
match chosen for her by the ruling powers in England would
be willingly accepted by her imperial kinsman. In short,
the envoys were to promise anything and everything to secure
the throne for Mary, even to endorsing the religious changes
effected under Edward. But failing success in this it is
made quite clear that the Emperor was willing to accept
Jane Grey or any other sovereign who would consent to
regard him as a friend and exclude French influence from
the country.
The French were just as much on the alert to serve their
own interests, and Northumberland, knowing how unpopular
the French were at this juncture, and how much his supposed
dependence upon them was resented, was extremely careful
not to show ostensibly any leaning towards them. But as
soon as he heard, late in June, that the imperial envoys were
coming to London he came specially from Greenwich to the
French ambassador's lodging at the Charterhouse to inform
him that the Emperor was sending an embassy. " I doubt
not," writes the French agent to his King, " that they will do
their best to interrupt the friendship that exists between your
Majesty and the King of England. I will keep my eye upon
them and will leave no effort untried to subvert them."
INTRODUCTION xxv
Edward died on the very day that the imperial ambassadors
arrived in London, though the death was kept secret for
some days afterwards, and it soon became evident, both
to the French and the Imperialists, that Northumberland
had prepared everything for the elevation of Jane Grey
to the throne. At this juncture, which called, if ever
one did, for prompt and bold action, only one of the several
interests took a strong course, the Princess Mary herself.
It is quite evident that everyone else had deceived himself
and was paralysed in fear of action by another. Again and
again the French ambassador expressed a belief that the
coming of the imperial envoys portended an active inter-
ference on the part of the Emperor in favour of Princess
Mary ; and Northumberland and his council, notwithstanding
all the protestations of the imperial envoys, were of the same
opinion ; whereas we now see that the Emperor was quite
willing to throw over Mary, and even the Catholics, if only
he could persuade Jane Grey and her government to join
him against France.
When Mary's bold defiance of the usurper was announced,
the Emperor's envoys, whom many believed to be fore-
runners of a strong foreign armed force to aid her, had
nothing but shocked condemnation for her action. They
considered her attitude " strange, difficult and danger-
ous " ; and predicted her prompt suppression and punish-
ment. In reference to the suggestion of her Catholic friends,
that imperial aid should be sent to her, the envoys, who were
supposed to be in England for the purpose of forcing her
upon the throne, could only say to their master, " Consider-
ing your war with the French, it seems unadvisable for your
Majesty to arouse English feeling against you, and the idea
that the Lady will gain Englishmen on the ground of religion
is vain." Serious remonstrances were sent to Mary herself
by the imperial envoys, pointing out the danger and the
hopelessness of her position in the face of Northumberland's
supposed strength, and they laboured hard to dissuade the
Duke from his idea that they had been sent to England
to sustain Mary's cause.
Nor was the Emperor himself bolder than his envoys.
He instructed the latter to recommend Mary, " with all soft-
xxvi THE NINE DAYS' QUEEN
ness and kindness," to the mercy of Jane's government, but
they were to make it quite clear that he would strike no blow
in her favour, and would receive with open arms any sovereign
of England who would not serve French interests. Mr. Davey
has indicated in the present book the eagerness with which
the great imperial minister, Don Diego Hurt ado de Mendoza,
greeted Guildford Dudley as King of England. That Mendoza,
one of the most trusted and ablest of the Emperor's coun-
cillors, could take such a step without knowing that it would
not, at least, be against his master's policy is inconceivable :
and all through it is clear that, if Mary had waited for effective
help from her imperial cousin, Jane Grey might have reigned
for a long lifetime.
Just as the Emperor was paralysed in his action by
the fear that he might alienate England from his side, so
France allowed discretion to wait upon valour for fear of
driving the English government irretrievably into the arms
^of the Emperor. When the news of Mary's rising came to
London the French ambassador bitterly deplored North-
umberland's want of foresight in not having seized the person
of the Princess in time to prevent it. He confessed that
Northumberland was excessively unpopular, but believed
that his possession of the national forces would enable him to
crush Mary and her malcontents. But he took care not
to pledge himself too deeply to Jane, and whilst full of sym-
pathy and good wishes for Northumberland's success always
kept in touch with some of Mary's friends. Neither the
French ambassador nor the English council really under-
stood the Emperor's attitude. When the council communi-
cated to the imperial ambassadors Jane's succession, they
haughtily told them that it was known they were here to
force Mary upon the throne, and that a new sovereign now
having been successfully proclaimed, the sooner they left
England the better. The French ambassador, writing to
his king at the same time, remarked that the imperial ambas-
sadors had informed the English council, that rather than
submit to Jane's wearing the crown to Mary's deprivation his
master would make friends with the French on any terms and
would deal with Jane in a way which she would not like.
It is almost amusing, now that we have the correspondence
INTRODUCTION xxvii
of all parties before us, to see how they all deceived them-
selves. The Emperor, as has been said, would not lift a
ringer to help Mary, even when she was in the field with a
strong armed force, for fear of alienating hopelessly the sover-
eign of England whoever he might be ; the King of France,
whilst giving the same sort of hesitating implied support to
Northumberland and Jane as Charles held out to the Princess
Mary, would give no effective help for the same reason that
tied the Emperor's hands. Both sides, indeed, were waiting
to greet success without pledging themselves to a cause which
might fail.
But the person who miscalculated most fatally of all was
Northumberland himself. He had been during the whole
time of his rule the humble servant of France. He had
violated the treaty of 1543, by which England was bound
to side with the Emperor in case his territory was invaded
by France, and he stood between the throne and Princess
Mary who it was known would serve the cause of the Emperor
and her mother's country to the utmost. He was obliged,
as has been shown, to cast his hazard when the public opinion
was strongly against him, the commercial classes of England
well nigh ruined, the labourers in a worse condition than
had ever Keen known before, and the nobility jealous and
apprehensive. Knowing this, as he did, it is difficult to
believe that he would have dared to take up the position he
assumed unless he had persuaded himself that, as a last
resource, French armed aid would support him. That
such a thing was not remotely probable is now evident from
the correspondence of the French ambassadors. They were
only full of sorrow for ' r this poor Queen Jane ' and feared
for the fate of their unfortunate friend the Duke of Northum-
berland. And yet London itself was in a panic, born of the
conviction that 6000 French troops were on their way to
keep Jane upon the throne ; Northumberland, in fact, pre-
sumably believing that his past services to France had de-
served such aid, had actually sent and demanded it of the
King. If it had been afforded in effective time the whole
history of England might have been changed.
We know now, although none knew it then, that the
Emperor would have greeted with smooth assurances the
xxviii THE NINE DAYS' QUEEN
victorious Jane and Northumberland, and would have
deserted his cousin Mary until a turn of the wheel gave her
hopes of success again. There was, indeed, nothing to pre-
vent Henry of France, but groundless fear of his rival, from
sending to England the small force necessary to keep Jane
upon the throne and defeat Mary. But time-serving coward-
ice ruled over all. The edifice of Northumberland's ambition
crumbled like a house of cards under the weight of his un-
popularity alone, and when Mary the victorious entered into
the enjoyment of her birthright, the Frenchman who had
plotted and intrigued against her in secret, vied with the
imperial ambassadors who had stood by, unsympathetic in
the hour of her trial, in their professions of devotion to her
and her cause. The people of London, overwhelmingly
Protestant as they were, greeted the Queen with effusion
and had few words of pity for poor Jane, not because they
loved the old observance but because they dreaded the French,
and hated Northumberland the tyrannous and unjust servant
of France. In the country districts, too, where Catholicism
was strong, the enthusiasm for Mary was not so much religious,
for all the people wanted was quiet and some measure of
prosperity, as expressive of joy at the hope of a return to the
, national policy of cordial relations with the sovereign of
Flanders, which in past times had ensured English commerce
from French depredations and the English coast from French
menaces, with freedom from the arrogant minister who had
harassed every English interest and had reduced to ruin all
classes in the country.
The unhappy Jane, a straw upon the rushing torrent,
was not raised to her sad eminence that the Protestant faith
might prevail, though that might have been one of the results
of her rule, nor was she cast down because Catholicism was
triumphant, but because the policy which her dictator,
Northumberland, represented was unpopular at the time of
Edward's death, and the English sense of justice rebelled
at the usurpation and its contriver. Mary, in addition to
her inherent right to the succession, which was her strong
point, had only her own boldness and tenacity to thank for
the success which she achieved. The Emperor, notwith-
standing all his sympathy and the enormous importance
INTRODUCTION xxix
--
to him of her success, did nothing for her until she was inde-
pendent of him, and only promised her armed aid then in
case the French should attempt to overthrow her by force.
Northumberland fell, not because the country at large
and London above all, was yearning for the re-submission
of England to the Pope, but because the eighteen months of
his unchecked dictatorship had made him detested, and
because he overrated the boldness and magnanimity of the
King of France. The English public, by instinct perhaps
more than by reason, believed in the ideal policy of Henry
vn : that of dexterously balancing English friendship between
the rival continental powers, making the best market possible
for her moral support, keeping at peace herself and adhering
mostly to the more prosperous side without fighting for either.
Such a policy required statesmanship of the highest order,
and Elizabeth alone was entirely successful in carrying it
out. Somerset and Northumberland both failed because
they were unequal to it. Each of them took the minister's
view rather than that of a monarch. They were party
leaders, both of them, and incapable of adopting the view
above party considerations which marks the successful sover-
eign. They pledged themselves too deeply to the respective
foreign alliances traditional with their parties ; and in both
cases, as a penetrating statesman would have foreseen, their
allies failed them at the critical moment.
Mary's tragical fate was the result of a similar short-
sighted policy. When she determined against the wishes
of her people and the advice of her wisest councillors, Catholics
to a man, to hand herself and her country, body and soul,
over to Spanish interests, she ceased to be a true national
sovereign ; the nice balance upon which England's prosperity
depended was lost, the love and devotion of the people turned
to cold distrust, and failure and a broken heart were the result.
Not until Elizabeth came with her keen wit and her "con-
summate mastery of the resources of chicanery was England
placed and kept firmly again upon the road to greatness
which had been traced for her by the first Tudor sovereign.
MARTIN HUME
THE NINE DAYS' QUEEN
CHAPTER I
BRADGATE HALL AND THE GREYS OF GROBY
T
is no more picturesque spot in England than
Bradgate Old Manor, the birthplace of Lady Jane
Grey. It stands in a sequestered corner, about three
miles from the town of Leicester, amid arid slate hillocks, which
slope down to the fertile valleys at their feet. In Leland's
Perambulations through England, a survey of the kingdom
undertaken by command of Henry vm, Bradgate is described
as possessing " a fair parke and a lodge lately built there by
the Lorde Thomas Grey, Marquise of Dorsete, father of Henry,
that is now Marquise. There is a faire and plentiful spring
of water brought by Master Brok as a man would judge agyne
the hills through the lodge and thereby it driveth a mylle."
He also informs us that " there remain few tokens of the old
castelle," which leads us to believe that at the time of Lady
Jane Grey's birth Bradgate was a comparatively new house.
The ruins show that the mansion was built of red brick and in
that severe but elegant form of architecture known as the
Tudor style." Worthy old Leland goes on to say that Jane's
paternal grandfather added " two lofty towers at the front
of the house, one' on either side of the principal doorway.' 1
These are still remaining.
In Tudor times the park was very extensive and " marched
with the forest of Chartley, which was full twenty-five miles
in circumference, watered by the river Sore and teeming with
game." Another ancient writer tells us, in the quaint language
of his day, that ' here a wren and squirrel might hop from
tree to tree for six miles, and in summer time a traveller could
2 THE NINE DAYS' QUEEN
journey from Beaumanoir to Burden, a good twelve miles,
without seeing the sun." The wealth of luxuriant vegetation in
the old park, the clear and running brooks, that babble through
the sequestered woods, and the beautifully sloping open spaces,
dotted with venerable and curiously pollarded oaks, make
up a scene of sylvan charm peculiarly English. Here culti-
vation has not, as so often on the Continent, disfigured Nature,
but the park retains the wild beauty of its luxuriant elms
and beeches that rise in native grandeur from amidst a
wilderness of bracken, fern, and flags, to cast their shadows
over heather-grown hillocks. On the summit of one of the
loftiest of these still stands the ruined palace that was the
birthplace of Lady Jane Grey. The approaches to Bradgate
are beautiful indeed, especially the pathway winding round by
the old church along the banks of a trout-stream, which rises
in the neighbourhood of the Priory of Ulverscroft, famous for
the beauty of its lofty tower. When Jane Grey was born, this
Priory had been very recently suppressed, and the people
were lamenting the departure of the monks, who, during the
hard winter of 1528, had fed six hundred starving peasants.
Bradgate Manor House was standing as late as 1608, but
after that date it fell into gradual decay. Not much is now
left of the original structure, but its outlines can still be traced;
and the walls of the great hall and the chapel are nearly intact.
A late Lord Stamford and Warrington roofed and restored
the old chapel, which contains a fine monument to that
Henry Grey whose signature may be seen on the warrant for
the execution of Charles I.
A careful observation of the irregularities of the soil reveals
traces of a tilt-yard and of garden terraces ; but all is now
overgrown by Spanish chestnut trees, wild flowers, nettles,
and brambles. The gardens were once considered amongst
the finest in England, Lord Dorset taking great pride in the
cultivation of all the fruits, herbs, and flowers then grown in
Northern Europe. The parterres and terraces were formal, and
there was a large fish-pond full of golden carp and water lilies.
Lady Jane Grey must often have played in these stately
avenues, and there is a legend that once, as a little girl, she
toppled into the tank and was nearly drowned a less hideous
fate than that which was to befall her in her seventeenth year.
THE GREYS OF GROBY 3
"This was thy home, then, gentle Jane!
This thy green solitude ; and here
At evening, from, thy gleaming pane,
Thine eyes oft watched the dappled deer
(Whilst the soft sun was in its wane)
Browsing beside the brooklet clear.
The brook yet runs, the sun sets now,
The deer still browseth where art thou?' :
These sentimental lines were written in the eighteenth
century, when deer still browsed in Bradgate Park, whence
they have long since departed. Many curious traditions con-
cerning Lady Jane are even now current among the local
peasantry. Some believe that on St. Sylvester's night
(3ist December) a coach drawn by four black horses halts at
the door of the old mansion. It contains the headless form
of the murdered Lady Jane. After a brief halt it drives away
again into the mist. Then again, certain strange 1 stunted
oaks are shown, trees which the woodmen pollarded when they
heard that the fair girl had been beheaded. The pathetic
memories of the great tragedy, reaching down four slow
centuries, prove how keenly its awful reality was felt by the
poorer folk at Bradgate, who, no doubt, had good cause to
love the " gentle Jane."
The Manor of Bradgate was settled upon the Lady Frances
Brandon, Henry vm's niece, when she espoused Henry Grey.
It had been inherited by the Greys of Groby, Lady Jane's
paternal ancestors, from Rollo, or Fulbert, said to have been
chamberlain to Robert, Duke of Normandy, who gave him the
Castle of Croy in Picardy, the ruins of which are still to be seen
not far from Montre,uil-sur-Mer. It was hence he derived the
surname of de Croy, afterwards anglicised to de Grey. This
Rollo accompanied William the Conqueror into England, and
was settled, soon after the Conquest, at Rotherfield, in Oxford-
shire. The first of the family to be noticed by Dugdale is
Henry de Grey, to whom Richard i granted the Manor of
; The oak trees there [Bradgate] were pollarded after her [Jane's]
execution. Some old members of the family remember a watch with a
case made of a hollowed ruby or carbuncle, which is said to have belonged
to Lady Jane. But this, with other relics of Lady Jane, seems to have
disappeared mysteriously some fifty or so years ago." Extract from a letter
from Earl Stamford and Warrington, dated 2Oth November 1907.
4 THE NINE DAYS' QUEEN
Grey's Thurrock, in Essex, which grant was confirmed by
King John in the first year of his reign. The descendant of
this nobleman, Edward de Grey, was summoned to Parliament
in 1488 in right of his wife's barony of Ferrers of Groby, and
his son John, afterwards Earl Rivers, who was slain in the
battle of St. Albans, married the beautiful daughter of Sir John
Woodville, subsequently the Queen of Edward iv. Bradgate
is thus associated with two of the most unfortunate of England's
Queens : Elizabeth Woodville, who passed much of her life
in its leafy glades ; and Lady Jane Grey, who first saw the light
in the stately red brick Manor House of which the crumbling
ruins are now so beautiful in their decay.
Jane Grey's grandfather, Thomas, the eldest son of
Elizabeth Woodville, was summoned to Parliament on the
I7th October 1509 as Lord Ferrers of Groby, his mother's
barony, and to the second Parliament in 1511 as Marquess
of Dorset. He was a man of great note. In the third year
of Henry vm's reign he had charge of the army of 10,000
men sent into Spain to assist the forces invading Guyenne
under the Emperor Ferdinand. This force returned to
England without doing service. We next hear of the Marquess
figuring at the jousts with Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk,
Lady Jane's maternal grandfather, on the occasion of the
latter 's adventurous journey to France to bring back Mary
Tudor, widow of Louis xn of France, whom he subsequently
married. The Marquess was also sent to Calais to attend
Charles v to England ; indeed, he was very conspicuous
throughout the early years of Henry's reign. King Hal paid
him the compliment of calling him ' that honest and good
man " a title which he thought he richly deserved, since he
signed the celebrated letter to Pope Clement vn touching
the King's divorce. He died in 1530, and was succeeded by
his eldest son, Henry, Lady Jane's father. The inheritance
of this nobleman included the Marquisate of Dorset and the
baronies of Ferrers, 1 Grey, Astley, Boneville, and Harrington,
besides vast estates in Leicestershire and other parts of Eng-
land. Henry Grey, though his portraits show him to have
1 The barony of Ferrers was merged in the Townshend peerage by the
marriage, in 1751, of George, Viscount Townshend, with Charlotte, last
Baroness Ferrers.
THE GREYS OF GROBY 5
been a very good-looking man, did not enjoy a good con-
temporary reputation for ability or strength of character.
During the brief reign of Edward vi he became the patron
of the Swiss Reformers and was adulated by Bullinger and
Hill. His name will be found attached to many of Henry
vm's anti - papal decrees, and so long as that monarch
lived, he was a staunch " Henryite " or schismatic, professing
belief in all the doctrines of Rome save and except papal
supremacy. In 1531, when the clergy were threatened with
prcemunire and mulcted in a fine, as a punishment for their
too close attention to pontifical interests, young Henry of
Dorset, who had just come to his own, displayed great energy
in carrying out the King's wishes and supporting his attempt to
get himself acknowledged supreme head of the English Church.
He also evinced considerable courage in connection with
Henry vm's resistance to the excommunication of the Pope,
launched against him after his marriage with Anne Boleyn.
Such zeal in his sovereign's service undoubtedly led to his
advancement and paved the way to his marriage with the
King's niece, the Lady Frances Brandon. He may have
owed much to the counsels and influence of Cromwell, to
whom he carried a letter of introduction 'from his mother, 1
when he first went to London as a lad of seventeen, im-
mediately after his father's decease. The Dowager recom-
mended her son very earnestly to " Master Cromwell," pleaded
his youth, and besought that worthy, then all-powerful, not to
take heed of certain ill-natured reports concerning alleged
wilful damage to the priory buildings of Tylsey, where she
was then residing. 1
The good lady couches her letter in very humble terms,
but does not enlighten us fully about the nature of the
' damage ' to which she refers, or by whom it was done.
>he seems, at any rate, to be in a terrible fright lest the tale
should injure her son's prospects with the all-powerful
Chancellor. Some little' time afterwards the Marchioness
vrote another letter to Cromwell complaining of her son's
undutiful behaviour to her. It is dated from the " House
Our Lady's Passyon " 2 (the Priory of Tylsey), and begins
1 State Papers, Domestic Series, Henry vm.
1 The Priory of Tylsey was dedicated to Our Lady of Sorrows.
6 THE NINE DAYS' QUEEN
" MY LORDE, I beseeche you to be my good lorde, con-
syderyng me a poor wydo, so unkyndly and extreymly escheated
by my son."
This curious epistle, now in the British Museum, is much
defaced and in parts illegible. The name of the person to
whom it is addressed is undecipherable, but, taken in
conjunction with two other letters previously addressed
to Cromwell by the same correspondent, there can be little
doubt as to its destination. Her son had evidently with-
held some property intended for her under her husband's
will. Whether he mended his manners and paid her the
money, we know not ; but as the Dowager is occasionally
mentioned as attending Court functions in company with
her daughter-in-law, it seems probable that the ultimate issue
of the difficulty, whatever it was, was satisfactory to her.
Margaret, Dowager Lady Dorset, became one of the
greatest ladies of the Court in the latter years of the reign
of Henry vn and during a part of that of Henry vm. She
was in much request, it seems, at royal christenings, for not
only was she specially invited to that of Mary Tudor, after-
wards Queen Mary I, but she enjoyed the signal honour of
carrying the infant Elizabeth to the font. She was invited
to perform a like office at the baptism of Edward vi, but
this time she was unable to be present, and wrote to make
her loyal excuses, pleading that some of her houseshold at
Croydon had been attacked by the " sweating sickness." It
is probable that she had no desire to attend, for she had been
the intimate friend of Anne Boleyn, and could hardly have
felt kindly towards Jane Seymour. 1 Her place was filled by
the Marchioness of Exeter, who eventually, after the execu-
tion of her luckless husband, was sent to the Tower on a
flimsy charge of treason, and kept there until Mary I's time. 2
A singular point in the history of Jane Grey's forbears is
that her father, in his hot haste to marry into the royal
1 State Papers, Domestic Series, Henry vin.
2 Miss Strickland and other writers on the Grey family state that Mar-
garet, Marchioness of Dorset, outlived the ruin of her family. This is an
error. She died in September 1541, apparently of the plague. See State
Papers, 1156 and 1489, Domestic Series, Henry vm.
THE GREYS OF GROBY 7
family, set aside, without the slightest scruple, his legitimate
wife, Lady Katherine Fitzalan, daughter of the Earl of
Arundel. Some writers say he was simply ' contracted,"
not married, to this lady, who never demanded her marriage
rights, but retired into a dignified obscurity. None the less
her family resented the affront offered their kinswoman, and
it was Thomas, Earl of Arundel, this discarded lady's brother,
who acted as Dorset's Nemesis, and at last betrayed him into
the hands of his enemies.
Lady Jane Grey's maternal grandfather was, as he wrote
himself in the famous quatrain referring to his marriage with
the King's sister, descended from " cloth of frie'ze." He was
the grandson of a London mercer who had married a lady
allied to the great houses of Nevill, Fitzalan and Howard, and
his father had fought and fallen at Bosworth Field in the
cause of Henry vu. In recognition of his services, Henry
attached young Charles Brandon to the person of his younger
son, Prince Henry, who was of similar age to himself. Thus
began a friendship which was only severed by death. In
appearance the Prince and his comrade were singularly alike :
both were tall and stalwart, both with red hair and fair com-
plexions, and they were equally skilful and agile in sport
and manly pastimes. Charles was more intellectually gifted
than Henry, but there was little to choose between them as
regards their execrable views of moral responsibilities and
their laxity in respect of their marriage vows.
As this last characteristic of Charles Brandon, Duke of
Suffolk, touches somewhat upon the legitimacy of Lady Jane
Grey's descent, a short summary of his matrimonial vagaries
may be pardoned here. He was contracted in marriage early
in life to Anne Browne, a daughter of Sir Anthony Browne,
Governor of Calais, by his wife Lady Lucy Nevill, daughter of
George Nevill, Dukeof Bedford, brother of Richard, Earl of War-
wick, " the King maker." In 1513 he was bold enough to flirt
most outrageously with, and seek in marriage, one of the greatest
ladies in Europe, Margaret of Austria, the widowed Duchess
of Savoy, aunt of the Emperor Charles v. But though Margaret
fell in love with him, such a match was soon seen to be impossible,
even by the lady herself, and Brandon came out of the affair
most ungallantly. For this or some other reason never clearly
8 THE NINE DAYS' QUEEN
explained, Brandon set aside his contract with Anne Browne,
notwithstanding that by the laws of the period it was con-
sidered as binding as the completed marriage ceremony. We
next learn that a probable reason for his unchivalrous conduct
was a chance that suddenly offered itself to him of marrying
the Lady Margaret, the rich widow of Sir John Mortimer of
Essex. Charles and his mature consort there was a difference
of nearly thirty years between them did not abide long
together, for he presently endeavoured to annul this marriage
on a plea of consanguinity, the Lady Margaret being sister to
the mother of his neglected bride, Anne Browne, and conse-
quently her aunt, a complication which surely ought to have
been discovered at an earlier stage of the proceedings. Having
settled this matter for the time being to his own, but certainly
not to the lady's, satisfaction, he remarried his discarded
wife, Anne Browne, in the presence of a great concourse of
relations and friends. By this lady he had two daughters :
Mary, who became the wife of Lord Mount eagle ; and Anne,
who married a connection of the Greys, Viscount Powis.
Their mother died in 1515, and Brandon soon afterwards
contracted himself in matrimony with the Lady Elizabeth
Grey, daughter and heiress of Viscount de Lisle. Whether
through the interference of Lady Mortimer or not it is impos-
sible to say, but it is certain that Lady de Lisle refused to carry
out her side of the contract, and the match was broken off.
Brandon, with the consent of Henry vm, filched from the
poor lady her title of Lisle, which he forthwith assumed. In
due time the lady gave her hand to Edmund Dudley, father
of the fateful Duke of Northumberland. It was probably
when in France, and in attendance upon King Henry, at the
time of the negotiations for the marriage of the King's youngest
and most beautiful sister, Mary, to the prematurely aged
Louis xii, King of France, a hideous victim to elephantiasis,
that Charles made so strong an impression upon that ardent
Tudor princess that she swore by all the saints that she would
not wed the French King unless it was thoroughly understood
she was to marry whom she chose after his death, which took
place within eighteen months of the marriage. The romantic
story of how Brandon, now created Duke of Suffolk, wooed
and married the royal widow within a fortnight of the King's
THE GREYS OF GROBY 9
death, and whilst she still wore the white widow's weeds of a
French King's Consort, is too well known to need recapitula-
tion here, nor need we enter into the details of the gorgeous
ceremonies of remarriage that took place at Greenwich, in
the presence of King Henry, Queen Katherine of Aragon, and
their Court, soon after Mary and Suffolk had landed in England.
The Duke of Suffolk took his bride to spend their honeymoon
in his magnificent mansion in Southwark, known as Suffolk
Place, which he had recently inherited by the death of his
uncle, Sir Thomas Brandon. It must have been about this time
that the friends of the Lady Mortimer, and probably that lady
herself, began to spread rumours abroad that made both
Charles and his consort anxious as to the validity of their
marriage and the legitimacy of their offspring. Indeed, even
at the time of his clandestine wedding in the Chapel of the
Hotel de Cluny (now incorporated in the Museum of that
name), he had felt very uneasy about the matter, and, fore-
seeing his peril, wrote to Wolsey, beseeching his assistance
and advice 1 on a matter of such vital importance, which, how-
ever, was not decided so easily as Charles expected. It was not
until 1528 that Wolsey dispatched a somewhat garbled account
of the matter to Pope Clement vn, then in exile at Orvieto,
where he received Cardinal Campeggio and the English envoys
who came to him with the first negotiations for the divorce of
Henry vin from Katherine of Aragon. Trusting in the evidence
which Wolsey sent him, the Pope, by a special Bull (dated
I2th May 1528), annulled the marriage of Brandon with the
Lady Mortimer, on the plea of consanguinity, and at the same
time declared valid that of her niece, Anne Browne, and legiti-
mized her two children. The Bull further stated that Lady
Mortimer and her friends were " liable to ecclesiastical
censure if they made any attempt to invalidate the decree '
making valid Brandon's marriage to Anne Browne and Mary
Tudor. The importance of this decree, which was first read
out to the people in Norwich Cathedral in 1529 by Bishop
tfyx, can readily be imagined when we remember that it was
not delivered until after the Queen-Duchess had given birth
to two children. Her only son, the Earl of Lincoln, died
in infancy, and the Lady Frances became in due time the
Marchioness of Dorset and mother of Lady Jane Grey. On
io THE NINE DAYS' QUEEN
the other hand, the legitimacy of the Lady Eleanor Brandon,
the younger daughter, who was born after the publication of
the papal decree, was never disputed, and moreover, before
she entered upon her sorrowful career, the Lady Mortimer was
dead. That considerable doubt was entertained as to the
validity of Brandon's marriage with the Queen-Dowager is
proved by a variety of facts too numerous to be detailed,
but one of which is very significant. Late in the first half
of Queen Elizabeth's reign, the validity of the claims of the
Lady Mounteagle and her sister, the children of Brandon and
Anne Browne, to be considered legitimate, was ventilated in
the Court of Arches, and after much deliberation confirmed.
Although the legitimacy of these ladies, both of whom were
long since deceased at the time of this trial, had nothing to do
with the legal position of Mary Tudor as the wife of the Duke
of Suffolk, it was none the less an indirect test of the right
to the throne of her granddaughters, the Ladies Katherine
and Mary Grey.
From these briefly resumed facts it is not difficult to under-
stand that although King Henry vm highly approved of his
bosom friend's conduct, his subjects held Charles to be an arrant
rascal. His treatment of his beautiful royal wife was on a par
with his low conception of his moral obligations. He neglected
her, spent her money, and lived openly with a notorious
woman known as Mrs. Eleanor Brandon, by whom he had
an illegitimate son, Charles, who is said to have been the
well-known jeweller to Queen Elizabeth, and whose son, or
grandson, Gregory Brandon, was, according to tradition, the
headsman who executed Charles I.
Lady Jane's grandmother, Mary Tudor, was a most amiable
and long-suffering princess, who after a somewhat secluded life
in South wark withdrew to Westhorpe Hall. Here she died on
24th June 1533. Her two daughters the Lady Frances, who
had recently married the Marquess of Dorset ; and the Lady
Eleanor, soon to be the bride of Henry, Lord Clifford, eldest
son of the Earl of Cumberland were with her at the time of
her death, but the Duke was absent in London, and so too
was the Marquess of Dorset, her son-in-law, attending at the
coronation of Anne Boleyn. The Queen-Duchess was interred
in Bury St. Edmunds, Henry vm and Suffolk paying the
THE GREYS OF GROBY n
expenses of a gorgeous alabaster monument to her memory,
' full of little saints and angels," which was destroyed soon
after, during the wreck of the glorious Abbey Church at the
time of the suppression of the monasteries. The remains of
the Queen were then removed to the parish church, where they
still rest, a marble tablet put up in the early nineteenth
century being the only memorial of Mary Tudor, Dowager
Queen of France and Duchess of Suffolk.
Within three months of the Queen's death (September 1533)
Suffolk married a fifth wife, the Lady Katherine Willoughby
d'Eresby, who, it seems, was his ward and only fifteen years
old. She was a great heiress, and what made her marriage
all the more singular was the fact that she was a daughter of
that Dona Maria de Sarmiento who, as Lady Willoughby, was
the friend and attendant of Queen Katherine of Aragon. It
must also be remembered that Queen Katherine had no
more bitter enemy than Suffolk. This Duchess developed
into a very pretty woman, of great wit and character, and a
staunch supporter of the doctrines of the Reformation.
The Lady Frances Brandon was born at Hatfield, then
a palace of the Bishop of Salisbury, who had afforded her
mother hospitality ; for it seems that the Queen-Duchess was
obliged to halt here, for reasons easily understood, on her way
to Walsingham Priory, whither she was bound on a pilgrimage.
There is still extant a very curious account of the baptism
of the Lady Frances in the parish church of Hatfield, which
was hung with garlands for the occasion. The Lady Anne l
Boleyn, aunt of the ill-fated Queen Anne of that ilk, stood
proxy for Queen Katherine of Aragon as sponsor.
In 1533-4 the Lady Frances was married, notwithstand-
ing his afore-mentioned " contract ' to the Lady Fitzalan,
to Henry Grey, Marquess of Dorset. The wedding took
place at Suffolk Place, Southwark, and the religious ceremony
in the Church of St. Saviour, now the cathedral of the new
diocese. No very great pains seem to have been taken with
1 This lady is occasionally confounded with Queen Anne Boleyn, who was
never Lady Anne Boleyn. The lady in question, who has proved somewhat
of a stumbling-block to historians, who have frequently confused her with
the Queen, was Anne, daughter of the Earl of Pembroke and wife of Sir
William Boleyn.
12 THE NINE DAYS' QUEEN
the lady's education, except in the matter of what we should
call " sports," in which, it seems, she was very proficient.
The Lady Frances was a handsome woman, however, but
somewhat spiteful and wholly unscrupulous. In a well-
known portrait, dated after her second marriage, she is re-
presented as a buxom, fair-haired, well-featured matron, with
a very sinister expression in her light grey eyes. Her eldest
child was a son who died of the plague when a baby, and
the three children who survived were all girls the Ladies
Jane, Katherine, and Mary Grey. Lady Jane Grey, as we
shall see, had little cause to feel deep affection for either of
her parents, but least of all for her mother. The Lady Frances
seems to have been cast, so far as her heart went, in a mould
of iron. Even the bloody deaths of her husband and her
eldest daughter, and the wretchedly precarious existence of
her two remaining children, did not affect her buoyant spirits,
since she enjoyed her life to the end. It would be difficult
to define her religious opinions. She was a schismatic under
Henry vm, and under Edward vi she appeared a zealous
Protestant and so intimate with the famous Reformer Bucer
that when he died she petitioned Cranmer to obtain a pension
for his widow. She became a pious Papist in Queen Mary's
time, and died a prominent member of the Church of England
as by law established, under Elizabeth.
The Lady Eleanor Brandon, Henry vm's niece and Lady
Jane Grey's only maternal aunt, married, as we have said,
Henry, Lord Clifford, to whom she was united in 1537 at the
Duke of Suffolk's palace in Southwark. The Lady Eleanor
gave birth to two sons and a daughter. At the time of the
Pilgrimage of Grace (in 1536) she was staying at Bolton Abbey,
which Henry vm, after confiscating it from the Church, had
presented to Lord Clifford; and had it not been for the
chivalry and bravery of Christopher Aske, the rebel leader's
brother, she would have suffered at the hands of the infuriated
' pilgrims." By dint of a bold night ride, Aske aided Lady
Eleanor to fly from Bolton Abbey and reach a place of safety.
In 1542 her husband succeeded to the Earldom of Cumberland
on the death of his father, and five years later (November
1547) Lady Eleanor passed away at Brougham Castle and
was laid to rest in Skipton Church.
HENRY GREY, DUKE OF SUFFOLK
FROM THE PAINTING BY JOANNES CORVUS IN THE NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY
I/
THE GREYS OF GROBY 13
It will be seen by this rapid sketch of her forbears on both
sides that Lady Jane Grey might, without exciting surprise,
have developed a character strongly sensual and unscrupulous.
That she did not do so, apart from the fact that her early
death perhaps prevented the full development of her character
at all, was probably owing to the rigid and severe nature of
the education to which she was subjected. The influence of
Erasmus and the fashion of the newly revived classical learning
had in the childhood of Jane Grey firmly seized upon the
higher classes of England ; and the ladies of royal and noble
birth, schooled in the stern pietism of The Instruction of a
Christian Woman of Luis Vives, which they all studied in
Latin or in English, and, steeped in the classic moralities, they
became prim and self-suppressed in expression and behaviour.
It is likely enough, indeed, that in most cases this prudish-
ness of attitude was but skin deep ; but in the case of the
hapless Jane, who was little more than a child when she was
sacrificed, no other impression of her personality than this
was left upon the world. We may picture the tiny demure
maiden pacing the green alleys and smooth sward of Bradgate,
with her Latin books and her exalted religious meditations,
a fervent mystic, with no knowledge of the great world of
greed, ambition, and lust, of which she, poor child, was
doomed to be the innocent victim.
>*"
A .-,'V .-
9 &
L
CHAPTER II
BIRTH AND EDUCATION
ADY JANE GREY was born at Bradgate Old Manor l
most probably in the first days of
the month, for Prince Edward, her cousin, came into
the world on the I2th, 2 St. Edward's Eve, and three days later
Henry, Marquess of Dorset, attended the royal christening,
which he would scarcely have done if his own wife, a member
of the royal family, had not been safely delivered. His
1 Lady Jane was certainly christened at Bradgate and not at Groby,
which confirms the statement that she was born at Bradgate ; for if she had
been born at Groby, her baptism would have taken place in the parish church
of that village.
2 There has been some controversy over the date of Queen Jane Sey-
mour's death. Bishop Burnet (p. 33, vol. ii.) says it was the day after Prince
Edward's birth, i.e. i4th October ; which date is adopted by Hall (p. 825),
Stow (p. 575), Speed (p. 1039), Herbert (p. 492), and Holinshed (p. 944).
On the other hand, Henninges (Theatrum Genealogicum, tome 4, p. 105) says
it was the i$th; a letter of the doctors (in Cottonian MSS, Nero C. x. fol. 2),
the iyth; Fabian, 23rd October; King Edward's own Journal, " Within a
few days after the birth of her son, died . . . ; ' and George Lilly (Chronicle),
twelve days after Duodecimo post die moritur. However, Cecil's Journal,
a document in the Herald's Office, and a letter among the State Papers
dated Wednesday, 24th October, give the 24th October as the date of the
Queen's death. This is in agreement with the statement in the London
Chronicle during the Reigne of Henry VII and Henry VIII (Camden Soc.,
from Cottonian MSS, Vespasian A. xxv. fol. 38-46), which clearly says that
" On Saynt Edwardes eve Fryday in the mornyng (i2th October), was prince
Edward boorn, the trew son of K.H. the viii. and quene Jane his mothur in
Hamton Corte. His godffathurs was the deuke of Norfock, and the deuke of
Suffocke, and the (Arch) Bisschop of Caunterbery ; and his godmother was
his owne sister, which was dooughter of quene Kataryn a fore sayd. On
Saynte Crispyns eve Wensday (24th October), dyid quene Jane in childbed,
and is beryid in the castelle of Wynsor." She was not, however, buried
until 1 2th November. Dorset followed the procession from Hampton Court
to Windsor, riding close to the Princess Mary, who was her stepmother's
chief mourner.
14
BIRTH AND EDUCATION 15
presence in London can be traced in the State Papers from the
date of Prince Edward's birth until the first week in November.
Lady Jane's christening took place, as was then the custom,
within forty-eight hours of her birth, in the parish church,
with all the ancient rites. Some writers state that the babe
was carried to the font by her grandmother, the Dowager
Marchioness ; but this good lady, as we have already seen,
was unable at the time to leave her sick household at Croydon.
She sent her new granddaughter a rich bowl with a chiselled
cover. It was the custom at that time, when a baptism took
place, for the whole family, godfathers and godmothers and
guests, to walk in procession from the mansion to the church.
As is still the case in Catholic countries, the number of sponsors
in pre-Reformation times was unlimited. All these worthy
people brought gifts of more or less value, according to the
nearness of their kinship and the length of their purses. The
Marquess, if he was present, would certainly have worn his
robes of state and ' carried the salt. )J At the church door 1
the christening company was met by the clergy, and after a
short prayer the child was named. 1 The officiating priest on
this occasion was either Mr. Harding, then chaplain at Brad-
gate, or else Mr. Cook, Rector of the parish. After being
named, the child was carried to the font, which stood in the
middle of the church under an extinguisher-like canopy,
richly carved and painted, which pulled up and down, so as
to keep the holy water clean. In those days the back of
the head and the heels of the infant were immersed in the
water, 2 the present ceremony of sprinkling having only been
introduced into this country from Geneva by the Reformers
during Elizabeth's reign. The infant was also anointed with
chrism on the back and breast, a very ancient ceremony, the
abolition of which caused considerable controversy and some
persecution in the reign of Henry vin. This anointing, or
unction, which was performed within the sacred edifice, was
1 Jane Grey was evidently given the name of Jane in compliment to
Queen Jane Seymour, who must have been still living at the time of the
child's birth. The name Jane, a variant of Johanna and Joan, is exceed-
ingly rare in pre-Reformation times. The lady who very likely acted as god-
mother was her paternal aunt, Lady Cicely Grey.
2 This method of baptizing infants is still practised in the Archdiocese of
Milan,
16 THE NINE DAYS' QUEEN
followed by the presentation of the gifts of the various
sponsors. 1 Abundant hospitality in the shape of sweet
wafers, comfits, spiced wine, or hippocras was dispensed in
the porch, not only to the invited company, but to the
promiscuous village crowd that elected to attend the func-
tion ; and at last the procession, with the infant wrapped
in a sort of shawl of rich brocade, returned to the mansion,
where a dinner was served to the guests and to the members
of the household.
The life of an English child in olden times, especially in
the upper classes, was by no means the ideal existence it has
now become. A careful study of contemporary records proves
that the barbarous and filthy system of swathing or " swadd-
ling " an infant was almost universally practised. We may
take it for granted that the baby Jane Grey was swathed or
" swaddled ' according to the prevailing English fashion,
from her armpits to her knees, and was thus able at all events
to move her tiny hands and feet, a privilege denied her infant
contemporaries on the Continent. So late as 1684, Madame
de Maintenon, writing to Madame de Presne, who had just
been delivered of a son, beseeches her to ' ' adopt the English
method of allowing her infant's limbs free play," and stig-
matises the French custom of " tight swaddling ' as " abomin-
ably dirty and unhealthy."
The Lady Frances certainly did not nurse her own baby ;
it would have been considered most indecent for a woman of
her rank to suckle her offspring. A foster-mother was engaged,
and it is likely enough that the good woman who supplied
little Jane Grey with the sustenance nature had intended
her to derive from her parent, was that Mrs. Ellen who,
seventeen years later, attended her beloved foster-child on the
scaffold.
In her eighteenth month the child was weaned, and this
was attended by some considerable ceremony. In the morning
Mass was said in the presence of the whole family, including
the foster-mother and the child, who was blessed with holy
water. This finished, the company returned in procession to
the hall and forthwith sat down to a copious banquet.
1 These ceremonies, which are extremely ancient and essentially Roman
Catholic, are even now carried out in Italy, Spain, and Portugal.
BIRTH AND EDUCATION 17
The archives of Sudeley Castle contain an interesting
description of an aristocratic nursery in the first half of the
sixteenth century. Queen Katherine Parr, having married
Admiral Lord Thomas Seymour, lived at Sudeley, where she
died in September 1548, after giving birth to a child, for
whom was provided an apartment very elaborately furnished
with tapestry, and containing everything a modern infant of
the highest rank could possibly want, all in silver or pewter,
and, moreover, a " chair of state " hung with cloth of gold.
The Lady Frances's nursery was, no doubt, fitted up quite as
luxuriously as that prepared for the infant of Queen Katherine
Parr ; but no inventory of its contents has been handed
down to us. Nearly all the toys commonly used in England
at this period were made either in France or Holland, and
closely resembled those grotesque playthings which were our
grandparents' delight : wooden dolls with roughly painted
heads and jointed limbs, hobby horses, hoops, and even
toy soldiers mounted on movable slides. Jane must have
had an abundance of these nursery treasures, besides
an oaken cradle with rockers and also a sort of little per-
ambulator, wherein she might be carried to take the air
in the park and gardens. She had a complete house-
hold, consisting of Mrs. Ellen, two under-nurses, a gover-
ness, two waiting women, and two footmen. Sometimes, but
very rarely, the voice of nature may have prompted her
mother and father to play with her and enjoy those exquisite
moments of purest love common alike to prince and peasant.
Her babyhood may have been fairly happy, but when that
ended, the stern training which prevailed in every aristocratic
family of the period began in all its severity : long prayers,
tedious lessons, and that terrible " cramming ' system which
as often as not engendered premature physical decline and
even imbecility. The tiny princess, from her third year
upwards, was dressed like a little old lady, in miniature repro-l
duction of her mother, coif and all complete, an exceedingly
irksome garb for so very small a child. Even when full-
grown, Jane, like her sister Katherine, was of very diminu-
tive stature ; and their youngest sister, Mary, was an
actual dwarf, " not bigger, when over thirty, than a child
of ten."
18 THE NINE DAYS' QUEEN
The greater part of the Lady Jane's 1 infancy was spent at
Bradgate with her little sisters Katherine, two years her
junior ; and Mary, six years younger than herself. A Mrs.
Ashly, sister or sister-in-law to the Mrs. Ashly, or Astley, who
acted in the same capacity to Princ'ess Elizabeth, was appointed
to attend as governess upon Jane and her sisters ; but of this
lady little is known, whereas Elizabeth's governess is, of course,
frequently mentioned as a woman of great importance. It
was evidently not until the Lady Jane had been named in
Henry vm's will as a possible successor to his throne that any
particular attention was paid to her instruction, and then
only for purely political purposes. Her two sisters received
but an ordinary education, and Jane herself must have been
between nine and ten years of age when she was handed over
to Queen Katherine Parr to begin her more important studies.
No doubt the Dorsets secretly intended their eldest daughter
to become Edward vi's consort and to rule the kingdom
through her, and her education therefore became a matter
of great importance to them, as they wished her to be
thoroughly equipped to hold the high station they desired her
to occupy. In religion she was to be exceedingly Protestant,
but in social matters her training was most varied, including
music and classical and modern languages, even Hebrew and,
if we may credit some of her enthusiastic eulogists, Chaldee ! !
The royal birth of the Marchioness of Dorset and the great
wealth of her lord placed their family in a very exceptional
position in the county. Here, as also in London, they main-
tained semi-regal state. No one could compete with them,
and although they received much company, especially at
Christmas time, they rarely mixed with their neighbours, and
when they did so condescend, they were invariably received
with all the ceremony due to royalty. When, for instance,
the Marquess of Dorset and his lady visited Leicester, they
were entertained with great ceremony. In the archives of
that city for 1540 there is a charge of ' two shillings and
sixpence for strawberries and wine for my Lady Marchioness's
1 The prefix the before the title Lady was considered in the sixteen th
century equivalent to " Princess" ; "the Lady Elizabeth," "the Lady Mary,"
and so forth. "Royal Highness" was not in use, and royal ladies were
addressed as " Your Grace."
BIRTH AND EDUCATION 19
Grace, for Mistress Mayoress and her sisters." Also, on the
occasion of another visit, ' Four shillings ' were paid " to
the pothicary for making a gallon of Ippocras, 1 that was given
to my Lady's Grace, Mistress Mayoress and her sisters, and
to the wives of the Aldermen of Leicester, who gave the said
ladies, moreover, wafers, apples, pears, and walnuts at the
same time." From another record, of the city of Lincoln,
we learn that the Dorset family when on its way to London
frequently put up at the White Hall Inn for the night, their
expenses being paid by the town. There is also an entry
specifying the expenses for entertaining the Lady Jane Grey
when on her way to London and on her return journeys through
Leicester to Bradgate in 1548 and 1551.
There was much in the stately mode of life led by our
great aristocracy in the sixteenth century which has not
even now passed altogether out of fashion. At certain seasons
of the year, it appears, the family resided in the main build-
ing of the mansion and kept up a state almost equal in mag-
nificence to that of a royal Court. A great number of servants
as many as eighty or a hundred were maintained, and
these, being very ignorant, often formed a rather disorderly
crew. They received very small wages ; but as they wore
brilliant liveries, and served as an escort to their masters
when they went abroad, they made a highly picturesque ap-
pearance. Few people, even in the upper circles of society,
could read or write with ease ; and as there were no newspapers
and scarcely any books, no correspondence, and but few visits
to fill up leisure time, the men's sports were mainly those of
the field, so that large hunting and hawking parties were the
general order of the day. The ladies were frequently invited
to share these pursuits ; and the Lady Frances was well
known in Leicestershire in her day as a great huntress and a
skilful archeress.
1 An old cookery book of the sixteenth century in the possession of the
author contains the following " crafte to make Ypocras" : " Take a quarter
of red wyne, an unce of synamon, and half an unce of gynger : a quarter of
an unce of greynes and of longe pepper, wythe half a pound of sugar : broie
all these not too smalle, and then putte them in a bagg of wullen clothe (made
therefore) with the wyne, and lette it hange over a vessel tylle the wyne be
runne thorow. It is presumed that the wyne should be poured in boiling
hot, else it would gain little of the spicy flavour."
20 THE NINE DAYS' QUEEN
Hospitality, if barbaric, was none the less sumptuous.
Tablecloths and napkins were already in use, and " damask '
was pretty generally to be seen in the houses of the wealthy ;
while the plate belonging to the great nobility was not only
very costly, but exceedingly artistic in design. Then as now,
it was the custom to pass the winter months in the country
and the summer in London. During the hunting season
Bradgate was thrown open to a throng of guests, and since
the mistress of the house was niece to the reigning sovereign,
many of these were of princely rank, including Princess Mary,
who was on very friendly terms with her cousin Frances and
her children. It is not at all unlikely that when the family
gathered in the great hall of an evening, dances, masques, and
other pastimes of a more boisterous kind, described as " romps
and jigs," were indulged in. On occasion, players were sum-
moned from London, and displayed their skill in representing
those rough and unformed plays which delighted our ancestors
until the more shapely Elizabethan drama came into being. 3
People rose and retired to rest earlier in Tudor days than
we do now, especially in summer, when breakfast was served
as early as six o'clock, dinner at ten, and supper at five. Tea
and coffee were as yet undiscovered, and light home-brewed
ale was the usual breakfast beverage. Such very young
ladies as Lady Jane Grey would be served at this meal with
a cup of hot milk and sometimes with a sort of mead, or
barley water, heated and spiced. During Lent breakfast
consisted of bread, with salt fish, ling, turbot and eels, fresh
whitings, sprats, beer and wine. At other seasons there
were chines of beef, roast breast of mutton or boiled mutton,
butter, cooked eggs, custard, pies, jellies, etc., as well as
chickens, ducks, swan, geese, and game. 2 Dinner came at
noon, and it was customary in large country houses to close
the gates while the whole establishment sat down, according
to rank, in the great hall. Sometimes a slight alteration
was made, two tables being set in the dining-room, at the first
1 Dorset, when he became Duke of Suffolk, incurred the censure of the
Reformers under Edward vi for his sinful encouragement of players and
other like " vagabonds."
2 In Lent and Advent, and during Passion and Rogation weeks, meat was
only served once a week.
BIRTH AND EDUCATION 21
of which sat the lord and his family, with such titled guests
as they might be entertaining, while the second was occupied
by ' knights and honourable gentlemen/ 1 In such a case
the tables in the great hall were generally three, the first for
the steward, comptroller, secretary, master of the house,
master of the fish-ponds, the tutor if one was attached to the
family and such gentlemen as happened to be under the degree
of a knight. In a very large household it frequently happened
that as many as a hundred and fifty or two hundred people
would sit down to eat at one and the same time, but in
most castles, halls, and manors the ladies of the family,
excepting on state occasions, ate apart from the men, a
separate table being laid for them, and for the chaplain, in
the ladies' chamber, while two others were laid in the house-
keeper's room for the ladies' women. The Lady Frances
usually partook of her dinner in solitary state, waited upon
by young gentlewomen and, when they were old enough to
do so, by her two elder daughters, who stood on either side
of her until she had finished, when they in their turn sat down
and were served by gentlewomen. In their infancy, the
children, attended by their nurses and gentlemen and women,
dined with the housekeeper in her chamber.
All meals were somewhat disorderly, for, forks not being
in general use, it was the custom for the gentlemen to pick
the daintiest scraps out of the common dish with the tips of
their fingers, and place them gallantly upon the platters of
the ladies seated nearest them. It was considered ill-bred
to lick one's fingers after this act of courtesy. Proper be-
haviour was to wipe them daintily upon a sort of napkin or
serviette, sometimes, as in Japan, made of tissue paper.
Grace was said both before and after meals, and as most
large houses had several chaplains and a choir for the service
of the chapel, it was usual for one of the priests, accompanied
by three or four of the choristers wearing their surplices, to
enter the hall and solemnly chant the Benedicite or Grace,
which until Edward vi's time invariably concluded with a
petition for the release of the souls in Purgatory. It was
considered impolite to talk during a repast unless addressed
by the master or mistress of the feast. The chaplain was
employed to read aloud either the Gospel of the day or a
22 THE NINE DAYS' QUEEN
chapter from that enlivening work The Martyr ology. Occa-
sionally a minstrel was invited to sing an interesting ballad
or tell a story ; otherwise the clinking of the knives was the
only sound heard during meals, which, however copious, were
invariably dispatched with the utmost speed. In proportion
to the amount of meat very little bread was consumed. The
English bolt their food in dead silence," remarked the Venetian
Ambassador Giustiniani, " and, bread being dear, eat very
sparingly of it. They throw their chicken bones under the
table when they have sucked them clean."
When supper, a meal which corresponds with our late
dinner, was over, evening prayers were said, and soon after-
wards, on ordinary occasions, everybody retired to rest. It
should be remembered that artificial light was exceedingly
costly and inadequate, as indeed it remained until the beginning
of the later half of the nineteenth century. Many who are
still in the prime of life can remember the rush tallow dips
made and used in old-fashioned country houses and farms in
their childhood. In the sixteenth century these were the
only lights to be had, except oil lamps and wax candles im-
ported at immense expense from France and Italy, and only
kindled on high days and holidays. 1 Resin torches were
burnt in the great hall ; but many complained of the stench
and smoke, so that an early departure to bed was not only
wise but necessary.
It may perhaps be concluded that we who live at the
beginning of the twentieth century would have found life in
an English manor in Tudor days insufferably dull and mono-
tonous. Yet there were compensations. Outdoor exercises
were many and various. There was the tennis-court, bowls
and quoits were much in vogue, and our forefathers practised
many other excellent sports, some of which we might well
revive. There was hawking, then in the zenith of its popularity ;
1 Sir Thomas Garden's account for sums disbursed for the household
expenses of Anne of Cleves in 1552 gives us a curious insight into the manner
and expense of lighting a gentlewoman's house in the middle of the sixteenth
century. Anne was residing at a manor at Dartford, and Sir Thomas sup-
plied her with "35 Ib. of wax lights, sixes and fours to the Ib. at is. per Ib. ;
100 prickets [or candles to be stuck on an iron spike] at 6d. per Ib. ; staff
torches is. 4d. per doz., and of white lights, 18 doz. at 95. per doz." Losely
MSS, editedjDy A. J. Kempe.
BIRTH AND EDUCATION 23
hunting, archery, slinging, mase or " prisoner's bars,"
wrestling, tennis, of which game Henry vm was exceedingly
fond ; fivestool ball, football, and golf. Cricket does not seem
to have been known, at all events under its present name ;
but there were a score or so of other popular games and
sports, some of which, such as duck-hunting, dog-fighting, and
cock-fighting, were exceedingly barbarous. The cruel sport of
trying on horseback to pull off the greased head of a living
duck or goose suspended by the legs from a cross beam was
exceedingly popular at this time. 1 Edward vi, in his Journal,
mentions it in an entry dated 4th June 1550 : "Sir Robert
Dudley, third surviving son of the Earl of Warwick, was
married this day to Sir John Robsart's daughter, after which
marriage there were certain gentlemen on horseback that
did strive who should first carry away a goose's head that
was hanged alive on two cross-posts. " Can we imagine the
whole Court of England, King included, assisting at this
childish and cruel spectacle ?
The Marquess of Dorset and his family did not spend the
whole year at Bradgate,; political and social duties brought
them a great deal to London, especially in the early spring and
summer months. In London they inhabited a mansion at West-
minster, not far from Whitehall Palace. The town residence of
the Marquess of Dorset was not, as usually stated, situated in
Grey's Inn. At no time did his branch of the family of Grey
possess property in or near the Inn which bears their name ;
it belonged from a remote 1 period to the house of Grey de
Wilton, who sold it, in Edward iv's time, to the Carthusians
of Sheen, from whom it was confiscated at the Dissolution
and subsequently granted by the Crown for the purpose which
it still serves. Thus Grey's Inn did not fall to Lady Frances,
although she was presented by her uncle the King with
nearly all the other property owned by the Carthusians in and
around London. It has also been said that the, Marquess of
Dorset had a house in Salisbury Place, Fleet Street, but this
is another popular error. This property passed to the Earls
of Dorset in 1611 and is connected, not with Lady Jane and
1 This detestable game is still a favourite in parts of Cuba, but generally
with a goose substituted for the duck. The writer saw it " played " there in
1879.
24 THE NINE DAYS' QUEEN
her family, but with many worthies of the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries. Henry, Marquess of Dorset, had his
town residence on the Thames above Whitehall, 1 precisely
where stood, until quite recently, Dorset Place the name by
which the house was known in Lady Jane's time. After the
execution of Suffolk it was seized by the Crown and eventually,
in the last days of the sixteenth century, cut up into three
separate houses, one' of which was inhabited by John Locke the
philosopher, who died in it. By a curious coincidence, Locke
had previously lived at Salisbury Square. Dorset Place
must have been a very large house ; we know from contem-
porary evidence that it had a fine garden and a broad terrace
overlooking the Thames. Here Lady Jane Grey certainly
lived for a good many months of her life, and here she formed
the acquaintance of the Reformers Bullinger and Ulmer,
or ab Ulmis. She may also have lived for a time in yet an-
other house owned by the Marquess, near the Temple, of which
no trace now exists.
The Dorsets were in the habit, especially in the winter
season, of paying country visits to their numerous relatives
to Princess Mary at Newhall ; to the Lady Frances' stepmother,
Katherine, Duchess of Suffolk, at Wollaton ; to Dorset's sister,
the Lady Audley, at Walden ; to his orphan wards and cousins
the Willoughbys, at Tylsey ; and to Lady Jane's paternal
grandmother, the Dowager Marchioness of Dorset, either at
her house at Croydon or at Tylsey, where at one time she
presided over the household of the young Willoughbys.
The entertainment of such important personages must
often have been a doubtful pleasure to hosts of limited means,
for they never stirred abroad without a numerous escort of
male and female servants and a guard of thirty or forty retainers
mounted on horseback and armed to the teeth. Carriages
were but little used as yet, and people of quality had to journey
from place to place on horseback, the elderly ladies being
provided with the quaintest but most inconvenient and
perilous of side saddles, while the young girls and children
1 The fact that this house was the Dorsets' usual town residence is proved
by the Marquess's distinctly stating that Seymour, when he fetched away
Jane Grey, came to him " immediately " after Henry vm's death " at my
house in Westminster."
BIRTH AND EDUCATION 25
rode pillion either in front of or behind their nearest male
relatives or some trusty yeoman. In cold or damp weather
the ladies and children and their female attendants travelled
in a huge and very heavy covered vehicle x not unlike a Turkish
araba or a modern omnibus in shape. This was furnished
with leathern curtains and lined with mattresses and cushions,
and could often contain as many as twelve persons, six on
either seat facing each other. To protect themselves from
the cold the ladies wore cloaks and vizors, or " safeguards." 2
The first genuine statute for repairing roads dates only from
1668. Before that the roads were, like those of modernTurkey,
universally execrable, and over them this ponderous vehicle,
with its enormous wheels, moved at a snail's pace : it is not
surprising that most people preferred the hackney, even in
winter time. Yet in spite of all its inconveniences, this old-
world fashion of travel was not without charm, especially
in genial weather, when the passage of a lordly cavalcade
added much to the life of our highways and verdant lanes and
lent to the ever lovely English landscape a picturesqueness
and a gaiety which modern civilisation can never hope to
restore. On the other hand, delicate folk must have
dreaded these excursions, and it is not surprising to learn
that on one occasion, in 1550, after a ten hours' ride in very
bad weather to Newhall, on a visit to Princess Mary, the
Lady Jane was taken very ill, and kept her room for many
days.
The Dissolution of the, monasteries and the general troubles
of the Church had no doubt greatly attenuated the quaint ness
of English life on the high roads by the time Jane had attained
girlhood. No longer did the Lord Abbot or Prior, with his
princely train of ecclesiastics on their gaily caparisoned horses
and mules, pass through the leafy lanes on their way to pay
visits of duty or ceremony. Lady Jane can never have seen
the Abbot of Leicester, for instance, he who attended the
death-bed of Wolsey, go forth with all his monks to pay his
respects to the Prior of the rich house of Ulverston, for both
abbeys were suppressed before she was a year old. She was
1 Coaches, properly so called, were introduced into England in 1601.
a " The gentlewomen in cloak and safeguards." Stage directions to the
Merry Devil of Edmonton.
26 THE NINE DAYS' QUEEN
not familiar with the begging friars, with their sacks and their
jokes ; and the pardoner, the palmer, and the pilgrim had also
faded into the near past long before she began to toddle on the
green slopes of Bradgate. Still she must have often witnessed
procession on Corpus Christi, when her own native village
was enlivened by garlands of flowers and on every house front
hung a linen sheet decked with bunches of bright flowers.
She may even have walked with the rest of the children of high
and low degree in the annual procession of Our Lady on
Assumption Day, for throughout the reign of Henry vm this
festival was observed.
The roads were still full of colour in the summer months,
with packmen and peddlers, troops of armed men not un-
frequently dragging along between them some poor wretch,
tied by the wrists, to his fiery doom at Leicester or London-
with travelling caravans, with itinerant mountebanks and
jugglers, and occasionally with a troop of showmen hastening
to exhibit dancing bears or learned dogs and pigs at some
neighbouring village fair.
The suppression of the monasteries had a disastrous effect
on travelling in Henry vm's time, comparable only to what
would happen nowadays if all the first-class hotels in the
country were suddenly closed. The Marquess and Marchioness
of Dorset, as they journeyed with their children from Bradgate
to London, must have heartily regretted the hospitality they
had enjoyed in their own young days at many a lordly abbey
and wealthy priory now laid in ruins. The inns were pic-
turesque enough, but none too luxurious ; still the beds
were generally comfortable, and the cooking, according to
the taste of the day, was excellent. Conti, an Italian traveller
who visited England some few years after Henry vm's death,
was much struck by the cleanliness of the parlours and the
softness of the feather beds he met with in our country hostel-
ries. The fare, too, he found abundant, and the wines, " sack,"
and beers often of superlative quality facts to which Shake-
speare has not failed to allude. The innkeepers were great
gainers by the Dissolution, for such rich travellers as did not
care to trouble their peers looked to them for board and lodg-
ing now that they were no longer able to put up at a religious
house. We may be sure that the Dorsets and their people
BIRTH AND EDUCATION 27
were familiar and welcome guests at all the chief inns along
the roads they travelled.
Aylmer, who became Bishop of London in Elizabeth's
time, is. usually described as Lady Jane's earliest tutor. This
is a patent error, for Aylmer, who was born in 1521, would
have been far too young, in Jane's infancy, to be appointed
tutor to the children of the Marquess of Dorset. It is more
likely that Dr. Harding, who was chaplain at Bradgate when
Jane was born, had the honour of teaching his patron's -
daughters their alphabet. He was reputed a learned man, and
posed at one time as a staunch Protestant ; but he resembled
his employers in having a chameleon-like facility for changing )
the colour of his opinions according to the state of the religious
barometer in regal quarters. Under Henry vm he was a
schismatic and a firm believer in transubstantiation and in
the wisdom of invoking saints ; when Edward came to the
throne he turned quasi-Calvmist. Very early in Mary's reign
he became, much to the unspeakable horror of Lady Jane,"*a
penitent Papist. Aylmer, a far more estimable man and a
greater scholar, appeared on the scene at Bradgate as tutor
after the accession of King Edward, when Jane was in her
twelfth year and ripe to receive his learned instruction in
theology and classic lore.
CHAPTER III
THE LADY LATIMER
NO task is more congenial to the earnest student of
history than that of tracing the origin of some
important event, and following its gradual
development from a trivial incident to its culmination in a
great matter destined to alter the fortunes, and even change
the faith, of an entire nation. If we would reach a thorough
comprehension of the chain of events which led up to the pro-
clamation of Jane Grey as Queen of England, we must now
leave her to pursue her Greek and Latin studies and broider her
samplers at Bradgate, while we trace the earlier fortunes of
those who so ruled her destiny as to compel a simple-hearted
and naturally retiring girl to accept a station which, by the time
she was constrained to relinquish it, brought her to the lowest
depths of misfortune and transformed the regal diadem which
she herself had never coveted into a crown of martyrdom.
The Lady Latimer, better known in history as Queen
Katherine Parr, influenced the fortunes of Lady Jane Grey
more than is usually imagined, for it was to her care that the
ten -year-old child was committed (after it had been proposed
by the Seymour faction that she should become Queen-Consort
of Edward vi and head of the Protestant party in England),
in order that her education might be directed and her mind
bent towards " the new learning ' of which Katherine was
secretly a supporter.
Born in 1513 at that lordly Kendal Castle whose ruins
still command one of the loveliest prospects in Westmoreland,
Katherine Parr, though a simple gentlewoman, could boast
royal blood that of our Anglo-Saxon kings, inherited from
her paternal ancestor Ivo de Talbois, who married Lucy, the
sister of the renowned Earls Morcar and Edwin. She was also
I
THE LADY LATIMER
29
of Plantagenet descent through her great-great-grandmother
Alice Nevill, sister to Cicely Nevill, Duchess of York, a lineage
that made her cousin four times removed to King Henry vin
himself. We will not enter in detail into the many alliances
of the Parr family with the Nevills, Stricklands, Throckmortons,
and Boroughs, but we are safe in describing it as a wealthy and
honourable county stock, much looked up to in those days.
Katherine 's father, Sir Thomas Parr, married, when his
bride was but little over thirteen, Maud Green, daughter of
the rich Sir Thomas Green of Boughton and Greens-Norton in
Northamptonshire. Lady Parr had a sister, Mary, who, whett
a mere child, married Lord Vaux of Harrowden, and, dying
without issue, left her splendid fortune to her sister Maud.
Lady Parr's eldest son, born before his mother was fifteen,
was the celebrated Sir William Parr, ultimately Earl of Essex
and Marquess of Northampton. Her next child mated with
Mr. William Herbert, who was raised to the peerage in 1551
by Edward vi as Earl of Pembroke six weeks before the death
of his wife. Katherine, the third and youngest child of Sir
Thomas and Lady Parr, was destined to occupy the perilous
position of sixth Queen-Consort to King Henry vin. When
she was a mere child, the proverbial gipsy-woman predicted
that ' she should one day wear a crown, and not a cap ; and
wield a sceptre, not a distaff." l Sir Thomas Parr died in
London in 1517, leaving very scant provision for his two
daughters, the bulk of his fortune having been settled upon
is wife and son ; but both young ladies married wealthy men,
d thus were not seriously affected by their lack of means.
nne married at fifteen ; and Katherine, long before she was
fourteen, was led to the hymeneal altar by Lord Borough of
Cantley Hall, Gainsborough, Yorkshire. The bridegroom had
already been twice married, and so great was the disparity of
age between the couple that Lady Borough was wont to call
her eldest stepdaughter " little mother." Two years after
her marriage Katherine became a widow with a very handsome
dower. Much of her time of mourning was spent at Sizergh
Castle in Westmoreland, the seat of her kinsfolk the Strick-
lands, where she left several fine specimens of her skill as a
needlewoman notably a gorgeous white satin quilt em-
1 Strype's Memorials.
30 THE NINE DAYS' QUEEN
broidered with gold which are still preserved in an apartment
known as Queen Katherine's Room.
.We are fortunate in possessing a good many portraits
of this lady, and at least one wonderful miniature,
formerly in the Strawberry Hill Collection, and which now
belongs to Mr. Brocklehurst-Dent; of Sudeley Castle. This
contains a likeness of Henry vm painted in a space not bigger
than a pin's head, on a tiny medallion suspended round the
Queen's neck. A strong magnifying glass is required to do
justice to the beauty of this microscopic miniature within a
miniature, probably the smallest ever executed. Judged
by all these portraits and by contemporary descriptions,
Katherine Parr must have been a pretty little woman with
delicate features, an intellectual brow too amply developed
for beauty fox-coloured eyes, and a rather cunning expres-
sion about the thin yet flexible mouth. When her body was
disinterred in 1786 * it was found not to be decomposed, and
measured exactly five feet and three inches. The' hair, very
long and curling naturally, was of a fine golden auburn.
History does not record the names of the tutors who assisted
1 Queen Katherine Parr was buried in the chapel at Sudeley Castle,
which fell into ruins late in the seventeenth century. The monument having
become much dilapidated, the then Vicar of Sudeley (1786) had the curiosity
to open it and examine the condition of the body, which was found to be in a
perfect state of preservation. The corpse measured 5 ft. 3 in. ; the coffin,
5 ft. 10 in., the width being I ft. 4 in. in the broadest part, and the depth
i ft. 5 in. The Queen must therefore have had a very slight figure. The
body was fully dressed in a Court costume of the period of cloth of gold and
velvet ; there were untanned leather shoes upon the feet. The profusion of
light golden hair was quite remarkable. Of course several locks of it were
snipped off and preserved as relics, one of them being still exhibited at Sudeley.
Another lock of Katherine Parr's hair was in the possession of Lord Bennet,
who showed it to the author. It was very bright in colour and exceedingly
curly. In 1805 the remains of Katherine Parr were again disturbed, and it
was then discovered that an ivy berry had fallen into a fissure of the skull,
taken root, and twined round the head a verdant coronet. For the last time
the remains were touched in 1842, when they were removed with reverential
care by Messrs. William and John Dent, who had become possessors of Sudeley
Castle, and placed in a handsome monument, having above it a noble figure
of the Queen, which is still one of the chief ornaments of the exquisitely
restored chapel of the ancient castle a veritable treasure-house of Tudor
relics now so pleasantly associated with the Dent family. For these notes
on the remains of Katherine Parr the writer is personally indebted to the
late Miss Elizabeth Strickland, who so long survived her sister Agnes, and
to an interesting pamphlet on Sudeley Castle by Dr. Richard Garnett.
QUEEN KATHERINE PARR
AFTER THE PAINTING FORMERLY IN THE POSSESSION OF HORACE WALPOLE
THE LADY LATIMER 31
Katherine Parr to acquire her remarkable education and
numerous accomplishments. We may suppose that some priest
or monk chaplain at Kendal or Sizergh instructed her in Latin
and Greek, in both of which languages she was proficient.
She may have learnt French from Mr. Bellemain, French
tutor to Prince Edward, a pronounced Huguenot, who, notwith-
standing his unorthodoxy, was in high favour at Henry's Court,
received a pension from Edward after he ascended the throne,
and walked in the young King's funeral procession. She
mastered the language sufficiently to be able to write it and
speak it correctly, and even to record her sentimental impres-
sions in tolerable verse. Amongst the MSS at Hat field there
is a curious French poem, partly written by Katherine and
partly by another, probably her teacher. It opens with the
following verse in the Queen's handwriting :
" Considerant ma vie miserable
Mon coeur marboin, obstine, intraitable,
Outrecuide tant, que non seullement,
Dieu n'estimoit ny son commandement."
The concluding verse runs :
"Qui prepare vous est devinement
Ainsi que le monde eust son commencement
Au Pere au Filz au Saint Esprit soit gloire
Loz et honneur d'eternelle memoire. FINIS." 1
Katherine's handwriting, though clear and legible, is not to
be compared with that of Elizabeth, King Edward, and Jane
Grey, who very probably took lessons in the then much esteemed
art of caligraphy from Dr. Cheke, chief tutor to the Prince, or
from Ascham, both famous for the beauty of their penmanship.
Although very worldly, Katherine Parr was much pre-
occupied with theological disputations, and a distinctly
evangelical tone pervades her literary remains ; it is
nevertheless certain that during the lifetime of her second
x The MS. of this poem is contained in a little volume bound in black
morocco. Though evidently contemporary, some doubts have been ex-
pressed as to its authenticity, but a marked allusion to the writer's position
as a Consort of Henry vm is supposed to be a sufficient guarantee as to the
identity of the royal poetess, not to speak of the evidence of her hand-
writing.
32 THE NINE DAYS' QUEEN
husband, Lord Latimer, she was, or pretended to be, a Catholic,
and that during the few years of her married life with Henry
viu she was a schismatic or " Henryite." Tact and prudence
were her leading characteristics, and she was both amiable
and conciliatory, though she could, when angered, be extremely
vindictive. Thomas Cromwell's downfall, usually attributed
to the machinations of Katherine Howard, was in reality mainly
due to those of Katherine Parr, for she it was, as we shall
presently see, who opened Henry vm's eyes to the prodigious
rapacity and unpopularity of his favourite chancellor.
Lord Latimer, the lady's second spouse, like Lord Borough,
had been twice married, and when he took her to wife was
already the father of several children. The date of this
marriage has not been handed down to us, but as Latimer
lost his second wife in 1526, it could not have taken place
earlier than 1527. He was a staunch Catholic of the belligerent
sort, and a prominent leader of the Pilgrimage of Grace, an
insurrection that broke out in the North of England in 1536
in consequence of the popular displeasure at the suppression
of the monasteries and sequestration of church property.
The peasants, suddenly deprived of the monks' accustomed
charity and driven to desperation, began a local crusade,
which soon assumed large proportions, their ranks being
joined by a great number of noblemen and gentlemen belonging
to the old faith, amongst them the Archbishop of York,
Lord Nevill, Lord Darcy, Lord Latimer, Sir Stephen Hamerton,
Sir Robert Constable, a certain mysterious individual who
called himself the " Earl of Poverty," and Robert Aske, who
though of mean extraction was nevertheless considered by
the rest of his party as their nominal general. These motley
pilgrims increased in numbers as they swept southwards
in picturesque confusion ; but despite the enthusiasm of their
members, they seem to have been ill-disciplined and badly
organised, and were presently dispersed at Dunstable, thanks to
the conciliatory attitude of the Duke of Norfolk, whom the King
had empowered to treat with these rebels and disband them.
Latimer, who had been elected their spokesman, withdrew
almost immediately and returned to London, where he soon
afterwards resumed his post as Comptroller of the King's
Household. After this excursion into open revolt against
THE LADY LATIMER 33
his sovereign, Lord Latimer evidently deemed it prudent
to keep himself very much in the background : he did not
join the second Pilgrimage of Grace, which broke out in the
following February (1537) and terminated in the execution
by sword and fire of some seventy of its more prominent
members, among them old Lord Derby, who was over
eighty- three years of age.
When in London, Lord Latimer inhabited a house situated
in the churchyard of the Charterhouse. The Chartreuse, as it
was then called, was rather a fashionable place of residence,
being not far distant from Clerkenwell, which in King Henry's
time was a sort of Court suburb, such as Kensington became
in the eighteenth century. From a letter still extant, it
would appear that Lord Latimer, like many a modern noble-
man and gentleman, was in the habit of letting his mansion
furnished when he himself was absent at Snape Hall, his
country seat in Yorkshire. Sir John Russell, Lord Privy
Seal, who looked meek enough x but was popularly known as
" Swearing Russell ' on account of his profane language,
wrote in January 1537 requesting Latimer to allow a friend
of his to have the loan of his house in the " Chartreuse '
during his absence. Latimer dared not refuse, but his
answer betrays his reluctant compliance with the request
and some temper at the favour having been asked :-
" RIGHT HONOURABLE AND MY ESPECIAL GOOD LORD,
After my most hearty recommendations had to your good
Lordship. Whereas your Lordship doth desire . . . [effaced]
of your friends my house within Chartreuse churchyard, beside
so ... [effaced] I assure your Lordship the getting of a lease
of it costs me 100 marcs, besides other pleasures [i.e. " im-
provements "] that I did to the house ; for it was much my
desire to have it, because it stands in good air, out of press of
the city. And I do alway lie there when I come to London,
and I have no other house to lie at. And, also, I have granted
it to farm [i.e. " have let it "] to Mr.iNudygate, 2 son and heir
1 He is the gentleman with the beautiful saint-like head and angelic
expression in the splendid series of drawings by Holbein at Windsor.
2 This Mr. " Nudygate " or Newdigate's son became in due time secretary
to Anne Stanhope, Duchess of Somerset, and her second husband.
3
34 THE NINE DAYS' QUEEN
to serjeant Nudygate, to lie in the said house in my absence ;
and he to void whensoever I come up to London. Nevertheless
I am contented if it can do your Lordship any pleasure for your
friend, that he lie there forthwith. I seek my lodgings at
this Michaelmas term myself. And as touching my lease, I
assure your Lordship it is not here ; but I shall bring it right to
your Lordship at my coming up at this said term, and then
and alway I shall be at your Lordship's commandment, as
knows our Lord, Who preserve your Lordship in much honour
to His pleasure. From Wyke, in Worcestershire, the last
day of September. Your Lordship's assuredly to command,
" JOHN LATIMER '
" To the right honourable and very especial good lord, my
Lord Privy Seal." 1
Lord Latimer died in February 1543, a twelvemonth after
the execution of Queen Katherine Howard, leaving his widow
the manors of Nunmonkton and Hamerton for life, and his
mansion in the Charterhouse for as long as she should remain a
widow. As soon as her husband was safely buried in St.
Paul's Churchyard, Katherine began to indulge her leaning
towards what was then known as the ' ' new learning ' ' ; and
her house became the resort of the leaders of a movement
which was eventually to complete the Reformation in England.
These gentlemen were wont, it is said, to assemble at regular
intervals and hold conferences on religious subjects in the
presence, not only of Katherine and her household, but of a
select circle of great ladies, among them Katherine's sister,
Anne Herbert, and the charming Katherine, Duchess of
Suffolk, the fourth wife of Lady Jane's singular grandfather,
who were only too willing, notwithstanding the risk they ran,
to sit at the feet of a Coverdale, a Latimer, or a Parkhurst.
Religion, however, sat lightly on this clever Duchess, who so
brilliant, witty, and amusing are her letters might well claim
to be the precursor in the epistolary art of Madame de Sevigne.
To these pious gatherings of the widow Latimer came like-
wise the haughty and turbulent Anne Stanhope, Countess of
Hertford, who in due time, as wife of the Protector, was to be
1 British Museum, Vespasian, F. xiii. 183, f. 131.
THE LADY LATIMER 35
Duchess of Somerset and Katherine Parr's arch-enemy ;
Lady Denny, 1 wife of Sir Andrew Denny, Privy Councillor
to Henry vin ; the Lady Fitzwilliam, 2 wife of Sir William
Fitzwilliam, and acknowledged to be one of the ablest women
of her time ; and the Lady Tyrwhitt, 3 who came very near
martyrdom for her heretical opinions, in the last year of
Henry's life. The Countess of Sussex, 4 second wife of Henry
Ratcliffe, Earl of Sussex, was likewise one of Lady Latimer's
intimes. This lady's alleged familiarity with the black art
eventually led to her being charged with witchcraft, in 1552,
and imprisoned in the Tower, from which durance she was
delivered six months later by order of the Duke of Northumber-
land. The Marchioness of Dorset may also have assisted at
Lady Latimer's religious exercises, which, although noticed
by her contemporaries as matters of general knowledge, seem
to have temporarily escaped the unpleasant attention of King
Henry's chief heretic-hunters. The Lady Frances was cer-
tainly on the most friendly terms with Lady Latimer, and so
too was Princess Mary.
Another guest there was at the Charterhouse who probably
came when the house was quiet, the voices of the preachers
1 Lady Denny was the daughter of Sir Philip Champernoun of Modbury,
Devonshire, and wife of Sir Andrew Denny, Privy Councillor and Groom of
the Stole to Henry vin. Her husband predeceased her on loth September
,1549, and she herself died on i5th May 1553.
2 Lady Fitzwilliam was the daughter of Sir W. Sidney and wife of Sir
William Fitzwilliam of Milton, Northamptonshire, Master of the King's
Bench. Sir H. Gough Nichols, however, thinks she was more probably the
widow of that Sir William's grandfather, Sir William Fitzwilliam of Milton
and Alderman of London, who died in 1534. In this case she would have
been the daughter of Sir John Ormonde and granddaughter of Anne Cooke,
the learned daughter of Sir A. Cooke by his first wife, Anne Fitzwilliam.
3 Lady Tyrritt or Tyrwhitt was not, as Miss Strickland says, the daughter
of Katherine Parr's first husband, but through her husband, Lord Robert
Tyrwhitt of Leighton House, the cousin seven times removed of that gentle-
man. She was the daughter of Sir Gerald Oxenburgh of Sussex.
4 This Countess of Sussex was Anne, daughter of Sir Philip Calthorpe and
second wife of Henry, Earl of Sussex. She was sent to the Tower in April
1552 on a charge of witchcraft, and for having said that a son of Edward iv
was yet living. Lodged in the Lieutenant's apartments, she was liberated
by order of the Duke of Northumberland in the following September, after
six months' imprisonment. In all probability the offence of which this
lady was accused was merely that of having predicted the young King
Edward vi's early death.
36 THE NINE DAYS' QUEEN
hushed, and the great ladies returned to their respective
domiciles. This was Sir Thomas Seymour, the late Queen
Jane's second brother, who was considered the Adonis of
the Court. Lady Latimer seems to have been deeply en-
amoured of his good looks and stalwart figure ; but it is not
unlikely that it was her rich dower, rather than herself, that
tempted Sir Thomas. Be this as it may, the intimacy which
began about this period, paved the way to the tragic close
of the handsome courtier's chequered career. Seymour
appears to have proposed to the widow three months after
Lord Latimer's death, and she seems to have rejected him
" pleasantly," saying " some one higher than he had asked
her to be his wife." For all that, Sir Thomas had certainly
made a deep impression on her heart, a fact all the more
remarkable since he was in every way the opposite to herself :
she was learned and sedate he was gay and profligate ; the
lady loved rich but sober attire the gentleman blazed with
brilliant satins and silks and cloth of gold and silver, setting
his brother courtiers the fashion as to the wearing of their
jewels and the number of feathers they should sport in their
caps. Still, the advantage of the alliance was obvious, for
though not a rich man, he was a great favourite with the King,
his potent brother-in-law, and further, he was the second
member of the rising house of Seymour, which many pre-
dicted in the event of any accident happening to His Majesty,
whose health was fast declining would at once assume a
preponderating position at his successor's Court.
But although Lady Latimer must have been acquainted
with every detail of the conspiracy organised by the Seymours
against the house of Howard, of which the first fruit was the
revelation of the unfortunate Queen Katherine Howard's
misconduct, she does not seem to have hesitated for a moment
in her determination to become Queen of England, even at
the sacrifice of her passion for Thomas Seymour, which, all-
absorbing as it was, never diverted her from the two great
objects of her ambition : her own political influence, and the
ultimate advancement of the Reformation. She cannot be
described as a Protestant, for in her time that word was not
yet coined. During her second husband's lifetime she must
have concealed her " advanced views," and when she became
THE LADY LATIMER 37
Queen she was outwardly at least a schismatic, who at-
tended as many as three and four Masses daily. Henry vui
rarely heard less than three, and sometimes as many as
five Masses every day, and what is more, obliged every official
of his Court and household, high and low, to do the same.
How she first attracted his attention has never transpired ;
but as a great Court lady she must have been in frequent
and immediate relations with the sovereign. The first men-
tion of her personal dealings with King Henry is connected
with trouble in the Throckmorton family. Owing to some
dispute over their respective country seats, Coughton Court
and Oursley, which were contiguous to one another, her
maternal aunt's husband, Sir George Throckmorton, had
incurred Cromwell's ill-will. Cromwell, with a view to ruining
his opponent, went so far as to accuse him of conspiring against
the King's supremacy in ecclesiastical matters. According
to an MS. ballad still preserved in the Throckmorton archives,
Lady Latimer interceded with His Majesty for her uncle, and
obtained full justice for him. At the same time she contrived
the overthrow of Cromwell, whose title of Essex was eventually
conferred upon her brother, Sir William Parr, who married
Anne Bourchier, only daughter of the last Earl of Essex of
the original branch.
The divorce based on the futile plea that the King did
not find Anne of Cleves physically attractive 1 which
followed six months after Henry vm's pompous marriage with
that lady was accepted by the philosophical Dutchwoman
in a spirit that proved her practical sense to be stronger than
her sentiment. A noble mansion in the country, a dower of
4000 a year, and precedence over all the great ladies of the
Court, the Princesses Mary and Elizabeth except ed, struck her
as more desirable than an anxious and uncertain struggle to
1 There were some very curious rumours circulating in London concerning
the divorce of Anne of Cleves. Cranmer granted the divorce on the plea
that the Queen was still virgo intacta ; but " two honest citizens " (letter
from Chapuys to Charles v) " were arrested on pth December 1541 on a plea
that they published particulars of Queen Katherine Howard's inchastity,
and said ' the whole thing was a judgment of God/ and that the lady of
Cleves was the King's real wife ; and that she was in the family way by the
King, notwithstanding rumours to the contrary. That it was not true the
King had not behaved to her like a husband ; and that she was gone away
from London and had had a son in the country last summer."
38 THE NINE DAYS' QUEEN
retain the crown matrimonial which, under somewhat similar
circumstances, had proved so sorry a possession to Queen
Katherine of Aragon. None the less, the Reformers took
Anne's humiliation she was a Lutheran princess in much
the same spirit as that which possessed the Catholics at the
time of the momentous divorce of Queen Katherine. The
accommodating " daughter of Cleves," as she now styled
herself, continued to receive friendly visits from the King
even in the halcyon days of his brief matrimonial alliance
with Katherine Howard, and shortly after that wretched
woman's execution an influential party appears to have been
bent, in Reformation interests, on reconciling King Henry
with his repudiated spouse. Anne herself seems to have
been not at all averse to the scheme ; and Marillac, the French
Ambassador, who favoured it, found her on one occasion
quite hopeful " in the best of spirits," and ' thinking only
of amusing herself and of her fine clothes.' 3 But when the
matter of a reunion between the King and his discarded wife
was formally proposed to Cranmer by the Duke of Cleves'
Ambassador, it met with a flat refusal. The Archbishop
knew the good-natured lady's character too well to doubt
that she was never likely to influence the King or be of
the least use in furthering the Reformers' interests. In the
meantime, Parliament had urged Henry, for his " comfort's
sake," to take unto himself another wife ; and at the
same time, as if to keep him out of the way, Sir Thomas
Seymour was sent on an embassy to the Queen of Hungary,
and did not return to London until some days after Katherine
Parr's wedding.
The earliest intimation in the State Papers of the King's
connection with Katherine is in a letter from Lord Lisle,
afterwards Duke of Northumberland, to Sir William Parr,
dated Greenwich, 2oth June 1543 :
" My lady Latymer, your sister, and Mrs. Herbert be
both here in the Court with my Lady Mary's grace and my
Lady Elizabeth." Quite a friendly party !
On 22nd June 1543 the gorgeous State barges streamed
up the Thames from Greenwich to Hampton Court. On
loth July Cranmer issued a licence for the King to marry
Katherine, Lady Latimer, " in any church or chapel without
THE LADY LATIMER 39
issue of banns/ 1 and two days later Henry vin led Lord
Latimer's widow to the altar of an upper oratory called " the
Quynes Prevey closet ' at Hampton Court Palace,. After
Low Mass, said by Bishop Gardiner, the consent of both parties
was pronounced in English. The King, taking the fair bride's
right hand, repeated after the Bishop the words : " I, Henry,
take thee, Katherine, to my wedded wife, to have and to hold
from this day forward, for better for worse (sic), for richer for
poorer, in sickness and in health, till death us do part, and
thereto I plight thee my troth." Then, unclasping and
once more clasping hands, Katherine likewise said, " I,
Katherine, take thee, Henry, to my wedded husband, to have
and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for
richer for poorer, in sickness and in health to be bonayr and
buxome in bed and at board, till death us do part, and thereto
I plight unto thee my troth." The putting on of the wedding
ring and offering of gold and silver followed, and after a
prayer the Bishop pronounced the nuptial benediction.
At the wedding were present, amongst others, Lord Hert-
ford and his Countess ; Sir Anthony Browne ; Joan, Lady
Dudley ; Katherine, Duchess of Suffolk ; Lord John Russell ;
the King's niece, the Lady Margaret Douglas ; Mrs. Herbert,
the Queen's sister ; and last but not least, the Princesses Mary
and Elizabeth, to whom their stepmother made handsome
presents of money. There is no mention of the Dorsets attend-
ing the wedding, though both were in London at the time.
Everybody seemed delighted, even Wriothesley, who went so
far as to write to Suffolk, then with the army in the north, that
' on Thursday last the King had married the Lady Latimer,
a lady in his judgment for virtue and winsomeness and gentle-
ness most mete for His Highness, who never had such a wife
more agreeable to his harte than she is." Katherine herself
informed her brother, Sir William Parr, that " it had pleased
God to incline the King's heart to take her as his wife, which
was to her the greatest joy and comfort that could happen."
Wriothesley enclosed this letter in one of his own in which he
entreated Parr to make himself worthy of such a sister as the
new Queen. Chapuys wrote to the Emperor on 27th July :
My lady of Cleves has taken great grief and despair at the
King's espousal of this last wife, who is not, she says, nearly
40 THE NINE DAYS' QUEEN
so beautiful as she, and besides that there is no hope of
issue, seeing that she has been twice married before and no
children born to her." Richard Hills, " Heretic Hills/' as
they called him, in a letter to Bullinger, the Swiss Reformer,
who subsequently became the friend of Lady Jane Grey,
and dated from Strasburg on 26th September, makes the
following very characteristic comments on the King's sixth
marriage :
" No news but that our King has, within these two months
as I have already written to John Bucer, burnt three godly
men in one day. In July he married the widow of a nobleman
named Latimer, and, as you know, he is always wont to cele-
brate his nuptials by some wickedness of this kind."
The victims alluded to are known as the Windsor
martyrs." They were men in humble circumstances named
Parsons, Test wood, and Filmer. 1 A fourth, John Marbeck,
who was organist at St. George's Chapel Royal, was, it is said,
reprieved at the instance of Dr. Casson, Bishop of Salisbury,
and of the Queen, who is also credited with having saved
the life of Dr. Haines, Dean of Exeter, of Sir Philip Hoby
and his wife, and of Sir Thomas Garden, who had been de-
nounced by Dr. London as spreading heresy even within the
precincts of the palace. The result of the Queen's action
was that London and Simmonds, his coadjutor, were con-
demned for perjury, and sentenced to ride round Windsor
with their faces to the horses' tails a humiliating punish-
ment which is said to have caused Dr. London's death no
great loss to humanity.
To save human life and to alleviate suffering is a meri-
1 Robert Testwood was a chorister belonging, with Marbeck, to the
Chapel Royal, Windsor. Parsons was a priest, and Henry Filmer was a
tailor. Marbeck, who is said to have had a very fine voice, was a fairly well-
educated man, who at the time of his arrest had made some progress with a
translation of Calvin's works. Testwood was a well-known ribald jester who
had frequently turned the anthem into ridicule, and on more than one
occasion had been caught singing lewd words while the rest of the congrega-
tion were chanting the right ones. He was arrested for smashing the nose of
a statue of the Virgin ; Parsons was condemned for blasphemy ; and Filmer
for speaking ill of the Host. He had said that if Transubstantiation were
true, he had eaten " twenty Gods " in his time.
THE LADY LATIMER
torious act that brings its own reward ; but in spite of this, and
although the newly made Queen was thus enabled to realise
her own influence, she must have found her honeymoon a
season full of dread, revealing as it did the terrible insecurity
of lives dependent on the fiat of so capricious a tyrant as her
royal mate.
CHAPTER IV
THE KING'S HOUSEHOLD
NOT Solomon in all his glory nor Sultan Suleyman
the Magnificent of Istambul was lodged more
sumptuously than Tudor King Henry vm of
England. When Katherine Parr espoused the much-married
monarch, she found herself mistress of a score of royal
palaces, each furnished in a manner not unworthy of the
splendour of Aladdin after that fortunate youth had gained
possession of his magic Lamp, and served by the most
numerous retinue ever brought together in this ancient
kingdom of ours. The Venetian envoys, accustomed
to the luxury and artistic elegance of the Queen of the
Adriatic, were fairly dazzled by the sight of the treasures
Henry gathered about him. Although within the space of a
few brief years he suffered vandal hands to rob his country
of more noble abbeys, churches, libraries, and works of art
than had been destroyed by time and foreign and civil war
combined since William's Conquest, the King's own artistic
sense was highly developed, and he revelled, with a glee that
sometimes verged upon the childish, in pomp and luxury and
all things rare and beautiful. 1 To the confiscated collections
of Wolsey he added the spoils of a hundred monasteries, and
the Inventory of his effects, taken a few days after his death, 2
1 The Royal Household was considerably reduced by Somerset in the
first year of Edward vi, but in Elizabeth's day it was again augmented in
every department, and was the most terrible and disastrous legacy the great
Queen bequeathed to her Stuart successor. The only other example of such
an extraordinary plethora of Court officials and retainers is to be found at
the Court of France under Louis xiv and Louis xv's unhappy successor, and
they were a great factor in bringing about the Revolution.
2 Harl. 1419. The above account of Henry's palaces and their contents
is taken from this important MSS : the Household Expenses, State Papers,
42
THE KING'S HOUSEHOLD 43
fills two enormous folio volumes preserved among the Harleian
Papers in the British Museum. It is written in a round,
legible hand, on the finest paper of the period, and a glimpse of
its contents cannot fail to excite the longing of the virtuoso
and to stir the imagination as effectually as any brilliant page
of description in the Arabian Nights. A perusal of these
bulky tomes facilitates some partial conception of the extra-
ordinary magnificence of the Court at which Lady Jane Grey
figured as a child, and whence, no doubt, she derived that
taste for " costlie attire, music and other vanities," which was
to evoke the unfavourable criticism of her Puritan friends at
Zurich and Strasburg, who exhorted her, if she really desired
to save her soul, to forswear all such trash, and imitate ' ' the
simplicity in dress and modesty in demeanour ' practised
by her cousin the Princess Elizabeth. We find hundreds
of entries touching bedsteads, tables, card or playing
tables, chairs, couches and footstools of carved ebony,
cedar- wood, walnut, or oak, inlaid with mother-of-pearl,
ivory, or rich metal wirework, and upholstered in silk,
satin, velvet, or Florence brocade, fringed with gold, and
even with strings of seed-pearls. Persian and Turkish
carpets, silks and woollen, covered every available space in
corridor, gallery, hall, and bedchamber, and there is men-
tion of one especially wonderful carpet " of silk," probably
Persian, ' nine yards long by two and a half wide." One
chamber was decorated with " 101 yards of white satin
embroidered and fringed with gold," while the walls of
another were panelled with purple cloth of gold, i.e. purple
silk shot with gold.
There must have been some hundreds of complete sets of
the costliest tapestries and arras in the various royal palaces.
Wolsey, whose passion for tapestry as a mural decoration
became quite unreasonable, collected scores of the finest
specimens the looms of Italy and Flanders could produce and
lavish outlay secure. After his fall these remained as he had
left them at Hampton Court, where we still admire the splendid
series representing the " Story of Abraham," designed by
Royal Society's Papers, temp. Henry vm, and from the very curious Trevelyan
Papers, Camden Society ; also from that admirable work, The History of
Hampton Court Palace, by Ernest Law, M.A.
44 THE NINE DAYS' QUEEN
Raphael's pupil, Bernard van Orly, and another of yet earlier
date illustrating the " Triumphs," of which three, those of
' Death," ' Renown," and Time," occupy their original
positions in Henry vm's Great Watching or Guard Chamber.
As we gaze on their faded beauty, we should remind
ourselves that the immense quantity of gold thread
wrought with infinite care and taste into their composi-
tion, and now tarnished, glistened in King Henry's time in
all the glory of its freshness. In the Audience Chamber at
Whitehall many a great Ambassador may have envied the
arras hangings, representing the ' Acts of the Apostles," *
from designs by Raphael presented to the King by Pope
Leo x when he gave him the proud title of ' ' Defender of the
Faith."
The walls of three State rooms at Hampton Court were
hung " with cloth of gold, blue cloth of gold, crimson velvet
upon velvet, tawny velvet upon velvet, green velvet figury,
and cloth of bawdekin," a regal material woven partly of silk
and partly of gold. Some of the chief tapestries at Whitehall
represented the " History of Our Lady," the ' Story of
Ahasuerus and Esther," the " Crucifixion," the ' Story of
Apollo and Daphne," " St. George and the Dragon," r Hawk-
ing and Hunting Scenes," the " Siege of Jerusalem," and
many other like episodes in sacred and profane history and
in mythology. The King w r ould order a score of sets of
tapestry at once, and would spend a sum equal to 10,000 or
15,000 of our money upon them. The overflow of tapestries,
' picture-hangings," Oriental silks, Genoa velvets, Florence
1 These tapestries were duplicates of those still preserved in the Vatican,
the cartoons for which are at the South Kensington Museum. They re-
mained in Whitehall till the death of Charles i, when they were sold to Don
Alfonso de Cardenas, and passed at his decease to the house of Alva, which
in turn sold them to Mr. Peter Tupper, who brought them to England in
1823 ; in his house they remained until they were resold to Mr. William
Trail. In 1863 they were exhibited at the Crystal Palace, and came very
near destruction in the fire which devastated the Tropical Department.
Their subsequent fate is unknown, but as recently as 1889 the writer saw
two of the series in a shop in Wardour Street. In 1890 a series of finely
painted cartoons, evidently by Raphael and his pupils, representing scenes
from the Acts of the Apostles, identical with these, came from Russia, and
were exhibited by the late Mr. Martin Colnaghi and afterwards sold to an
American financier.
THE KING'S HOUSEHOLD
45
and Venice brocades, curtains of French lace, Chinese silks,
and costly furniture, went to the State rooms of the stern
old Tower ; to Windsor where a few remnants of Henry
vm's belongings still remain ; to Woodstock, to Richmond,
to Greenwich, to Oatlands in Surrey where Prince Edward
often lived ; to Newhall to Havering atte Bower the chief
country seat of Princess Mary ; to Hatfield and Enfield
Chase where Princess Elizabeth spent her girlhood ; to the
Queen's dower-houses at Han worth and Chelsea ; and above all,
to that marvel of the age, the new Palace of Nonesuch, which
Henry had built him at Cheam, Surrey. 1 At Whitehall there
were scores of cupboards crammed with gold and silver plate,
and there were ivory and ebony cabinets with crystal doors,
in which glittered strange Italian jewels, and curiosities from
all parts of the then known world. In none of Henry's palaces
does there seem to have been a gallery exclusively devoted to
pictures, such as would be found in most contemporary Italian
and French royal and princely residences ; but there were
plenty of pictures or ' painted tables," as the Inventory
quaintly calls them, in nearly every chamber. In 1540
Holbein's great fresco in the King's Privy Council Room at
Whitehall, representing King Henry vu and Queen Elizabeth of
York in the background, with Henry viu and Jane Seymour
standing in front, was a comparatively recent work. The
illustrious artist, who died in London of the plague in 1543,
1 The Palace of Nonesuch stood near the site of the old manor house'and
the village church of Chuddington, near Cheam, in Surrey. Henry viu ob-
tained possession of the manor as a hunting-seat in 1526 by exchange, and
erected a magnificent structure of freestone, having a central gate-house and
being flanked by lofty towers crowned with cupolas in the form of inverted
balloons, which gave the building a decided Oriental appearance. The
writers of the sixteenth century are profuse in their laudations of this royal
residence, and speak in the most glowing terms of its beautifully furnished
apartments, which contained works of art worthy of ancient Greece or of
Rome, and of its lovely gardens, its orchards stocked with the choicest of
fruit trees, and its extensive park laid out in avenues ornamented by artificial
fountains. Its luxuriousness and beauty soon acquired for the new palace
the proud appellation of " Nonesuch." Henry viu never quite completed
it, but in Mary's reign it passed to the Earl of Arundel, who carried out the
original intentions of its founders. Queen Elizabeth frequently resided at
Nonesuch, but whether as guest or tenant is uncertain. Charles n presented
it to the Duchess of Cleveland, who completely demolished the palace and
disparked the lands.
46 THE NINE DAYS' QUEEN
had also designed the ceiling of the " Matted Gallery,"
and covered the walls of the Chapel Royal with frescoes
and arabesques.
The King's appearance, as he developed from boyhood to
manhood and middle age, might have been studied in scores
of presentments of him, to be met with at every turn : here,
a plump little boy, by Mabuse ; there, a singularly handsome
fair-haired young man by Paris Bordone ; and yonder, a
full-length portrait by Hans Holbein, in which it was evident
that His Majesty was beginning to ' put on flesh." In the
Audience Chamber was a ' table ' of the monarch painted
by Bartolomeo Penni, wherein the ' peepy eyes ' and the
bloated cheeks of his latter years were only too faithfully
portrayed. Though there were portraits of nearly all the
King's contemporaries, including one of Charles vm of France
and another of Charles v, besides a round dozen of Francis I,
the likenesses of the five queens who preceded Katherine
Parr had all been carefully removed, or, as in the case, of Anne
Boleyn and Katherine Howard, destroyed. A cabinet full of
relics of Queen Jane stood, however, in the anteroom of the
King's bedchamber at the Tower ; and at Westminster, in a
picture-book, there was a portrait of this Queen with another
of the King facing it on the opposite page. Among the great
"tables" at WhitehaU were the "Virgin and Child," by
Leonardo da Vinci, 1 given to the King by Francis I in exchange
for a picture by Holbein ; 'St. George and the Dragon," 2
by Raphael ; " Christina of Denmark," 3 by Holbein, full
length ; a portrait, ' Like unto Life," of " Thomas, Duke
of Norfolk," 4 and ' one table of the King's Highness
trampling upon the papal tiara, whence issues a serpent
with seven heads snorting fire. In the King's hand is the
Bible, and a sword whereon is written Verbum Dei." 5
If the art of painting was well represented in the King's
many palaces, that of music was even more cherished. Page
1 Possibly the " Virgin of the Rocks," now in the National Gallery.
2 At the Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg.
3 Lately in the possession of the Duke of Norfolk, and now belonging to
the nation.
4 Windsor Castle.
6 There were several of these allegorical " tables," one or two of which
survive to this day in ancient contemporary engravings.
THE KING'S HOUSEHOLD 47
after page in the Royal Inventory is devoted to " double "
and ' ' single ' virginals, with cases inlaid and encrusted with
ivory and mother-of-pearl or adorned with arabesques of gold,
studded with gems ; while of lutes and flutes, rebecks and
viols, there seems to have been a perfect arsenal. Then there
was a library of over a thousand precious volumes, a sort of
perambulating feast of reason, for in the Household Expenses
we find various sums of money disbursed from time to time
for the removal of boat -loads of books from one palace to
another. The number of gold, silver, bronze, crystal, and
glass chandeliers, sconces, and candlesticks distributed among
the royal residences baffles belief. Each of the two hundred
and eighty-four guest-chambers at Hampton Court boasted a
bedstead hung with the richest silk and satin, with a gorgeously
embroidered and wadded counterpane to match, an Oriental
carpet, and a toilet set, ewer, basin, and candlesticks
complete, of massive silver ; while one closet at Whitehall
was stored with an immense collection of the choicest
German and Venetian glass. Such, in fact, was the King's
mania for collecting things rich and rare that, in spite of
the hopeless and suffering condition of his health, he was
still ( buying, 55 down to the, ultimate week of his life, and
some of his last purchases seem never to have been paid for
by his successors.
These contemporary accounts of the Household of Henry
vin strike the student by their marked resemblance to similar
descriptions, by such writers as Sagrado and Knowles, of the
quaint and numerous population of the Seraglio in the palmy
days of the Ottoman Khaliphats. The Tudor King, like the
Grand Turk, had four battalions of pages pages of the Outer
and of the Inner Court, of the King's Antechamber, and of
the King's Presence Chamber ; and yet a fifth contingent
was attached to the service of the Queen. These lads, some
hundreds in number, had their captains and even their school-
masters ; they were mostly of good family, and were ap-
parelled, according to their rank, in wondrous State garments
either of satin, green and white, the colours of the house of
Tudor, or else of royal scarlet and gold. There was a legion
of Grooms of the Wardrobe, Keepers of the King's Horse,
Sports and Pastimes, of his Harriers and Beagles, Sergeants-
48 THE NINE DAYS' QUEEN
at-Arms, Sergeants of the Woodyard, Sergeants of the Bake-
house, Sergeants of the Pantry, Sergeants of the Pastry,
Sergeants of the Trumpeters, Yeomen of the Wardrobe, Yeomen
of the Armoury, Yeomen of the Buttery, Yeomen of the
Chamber, Yeomen of the Chariots, of the Cooks, of the Hench-
men, Stables, and Tents. The Royal Chapel was served by a
full complement of chaplains, sub-chaplains, organists, and
choir-boys. There were apothecaries, physicians, astrono-
mers, 1 astrologers, secretaries, ushers, cup-bearers, carvers,
servers, singing-boys, virginal players, Italian singers and
English madrigalists, and a perfect orchestra of players on the
lute, the flute, the rebeck, the sackbut, the harp, the psalter,
and all manner of instruments.
Full fifty cooks and twice as many scullions worked in
the spacious kitchens, and in 1544 we near f a French pastry-
cook of good repute who rejoiced in the very pleasing and
appropriate name of M. Doux. A regiment of gardeners and
under-gardeners trimmed the pleasaunces and kept the King's
orchards in order.
The dresses and costumes of this army of picturesque,
though often quite useless, folk, numbering some thousands
or so, were sufficiently costly to account in part for the straits
of the Royal Exchequer. Their wages and silks and satins cost
the nation, in the last yearof Henry vm's reign, 56,700 against
17,280 in the last year of that of his father ; a prodigious
increase when we take into consideration the relative value
of money and sufficient to explain the depletion of the coin.
Scarlet, or rather deep red, was the predominant colour
of the garments of King Henry's retainers, but dark blue and
orange, with the white and light apple green of the house of
Tudor, were not lacking, and added to the kaleidoscopic aspect
of the courtyards and staircases, galleries and audience
chamber, in the stately residences of " bluff King Hal." One
Venetian Ambassador, commenting on the order kept at the
English Court, declared that ' everything is regulated as by
clock-work, and no one ever seems to be out of his place/ 1
1 Among the astronomers was the learned Nicholas Crager. William
Parr was also a student of astronomy. The State Papers contain some
mention of astronomical instruments purchased for him. Needless to say,
this " astronomy " was really only astrology under another name.
HENRY VIII IN 1548
FROM AN OLD ENGRAVING
THE KING'S HOUSEHOLD 49
When the King condescended to walk abroad, he was attended
by a host of superbly attired courtiers, by his grand equerries
and chamberlains, the Grand Master of his Horse, his almoners,
ushers, and physicians ; his fool Will Somers l ; his pages, and
even by a favourite musician or so. In the last years of his
life, owing to his increasing infirmity, Henry was sometimes
carried upon the shoulders of six sturdy noblemen, in a kind of
sedia gestatoria like the Pope's. At His Majesty's approach
every knee was bent, and many who particularly desired
to conciliate his favour ' grovelled ' face downward as
Orientals before some Eastern despot . The officials and serving-
men who prepared the table for His Majesty's meals made an
obeisance each time they passed the vacant chair wherein the
monarch was presently to seat himself. The Queen-Consort,
and the Princesses, his daughters, knelt whenever they ad-
dressed him. In brief, King Henry, having filched from Peter
some of Peter's pontifical prerogatives, exacted the same sort
of homage as that paid to the Roman Pontiff, and turned
himself from mortal into a sort of demigod or idol. But
foreigners and Catholics noted that though people knelt as he
rode past, His Majesty bestowed no blessing upon them.
This slavish etiquette continued throughout the reign of
Edward vi. 2 but was modified when Mary renounced the
titular position of Head of the Church. Elizabeth, however,
demanded, and, what is more, received, quasi-divine honours
from her subjects.
Yet another point of resemblance between the Courts of
England and the Ottoman at this period : Whitehall, like the
1 Will Somer, or Somers, Court Jester to Henry vm, and apparently con-
tinued in that office by Edward vi, was originally in the service of Richard
Farmer, Esq., of Easton Newton, Northampton. This gentleman was, in
consequence of his having sent two groats and some articles of clothing
to a priest convicted of denying the King's supremacy, found guilty of a
pramunire and deprived of his estates. The distress to which his former
master was thereby reduced attracted the attention of Will Somers, who
during the King's last illness availed himself of his privileged position to let
fall certain remarks concerning him, which so worked upon the King's mind
that Henry was induced to restore to Mr. Farmer what remained of his estates.
Will Somers was an excellent musician and had a very fine voice.
2 This sort of slavish homage excited the sarcasm of the Ambassadors .
Soranzo, the Venetian Envoy, tells us he once saw Princess Elizabeth kneel five
times before venturing to address her brother Edward.
4
50 THE NINE DAYS' QUEEN
Seraglio, was gay and brilliant on the surface, but in each
case there was an undercurrent of terror and suspicion. The
Tudor Court swarmed with spies and informers, and often
a thoughtless jest, a careless remark, spitefully retailed at
headquarters, would send men or women to the Tower,
or even to the stake. Polks went in fear and trembling
lest what they had said overnight in their cups might be
brought home to them with appalling consequences in the
morning. This state of abject and habitual fear engendered
habits of whispering and talking apart and an atmosphere
of mystery, in spite of which the gossip and rumours of
the King's own chamber passed to the pages, grooms, and
serving-men in the courtyards below, and thence to the
general public, as rapidly as news flies nowadays by telephone
and telegraph.
There can be no doubt that Jane Grey, the daughter of one
so closely connected with the throne as was the Marchioness of
Dorset, must often have mingled in the gaudy crowd that
thronged her grand-uncle's palace. Henry was as ' fond of
children as he was of pastry," although, for obvious reasons,
he did not display any overweening affection for his own
offspring. This engaging little niece, now about six years of
age, is likely to have found favour in the monarch's sight, and
Jane Grey, for all we know, may even have throned it on her
dread relative's august knee. Cranmer's hand, too, must have
rested in benediction upon her head, and she may, perchance,
have won the smile of Gardiner and of Bonner. She must
often have heard the sick King, who had lost his own fine
voice, accompany his favourite fool, Will Somers, on the lute,
in some song or hymn of his own composition. She must have
been familiar with the two Seymour brothers ; with the dreamy
face and austere manner of the Earl of Hertford, and the bluff
good-nature of Sir Thomas. She may even have been tossed
in the strong arms of John Dudley, at this time Lord High
Admiral of England and Viscount de Lisle, reputed a ' ' mag-
nificent gentleman," but otherwise of secondary importance.
Wriothesley, Rich, and foredoomed Surrey and his father, old
Norfolk, must often have watched her run along, clinging to her
portly mother's trailing brocades as she passed on her way to
and from the King's cabinet, and may even have whispered
THE KING'S HOUSEHOLD 51
one to the other that the little damsel would surely be as good
a match for young Prince Edward as the Scottish Queen's
daughter, Mary Stuart. In the apartment of her grand-aunt
the Queen, where that busy little lady nestled like a sultana
among her innumerable soft pillows and cushions, 1 encased
in cloth of gold and silver, the child Jane must have heard
much evangelical counsel from the erstwhile widow
Latimer, who found some consolation in the gorgeousness of
her thraldom for the loss of her handsome lover, Sir Thomas
Seymour.
The Queen's lodgings were parted from the King's by a short
corridor, and nearly all her windows overlooked the Thames.
Here Katherine Parr played the housewife, and in the midst
of her tapestries and brocades and her " stretches " of silver
and gold cloth, made poultices for Henry's ulcered legs, wrote
her pious treaties on probity and prayers, and probably
counted the hours till the Lord in His mercy should deliver her
royal spouse from his sore sufferings. In these rooms, per-
haps, Jane Grey sat for her miniature to Lavinia Tyrling ;
Bartolomeo Penni may here have limned her diminutive but
very pretty features ; and we fancy we can see Mr. Crane or
Mr. John Hey wood, His Majesty's chief virginal players,
teaching her the notes upon the King's " favourite virginal,"
the one " enlaid with gold and mother-of-pearl/ 1 In the last
months of Henry's life, when Lady Jane is known to have
been much with Katherine Parr, the little girl may have
listened with delight to the wonderful warbling of the King's
Italian singers, Alberto of Venice, Marc Antonio Galiadello of
Brescia, or Giorgio da Cremona, as they vainly endeavoured
to soothe the sufferings of the dying monarch by their elaborate
cadenze.
Queen Katherine soon made her influence felt at Court.
She could not control the violent passions of her wayward
lord, but she did in a measure modify them, and steered her
own course amid the shoals of regal existence with consummate
1 The household inventories of the Queen's rooms contain mention of
innumerable pillows and cushions richly covered with silk and satin, and also
of costly counterpanes. This Oriental custom of using soft pillows may have
been introduced into England by Katherine of Aragon. In England as in
Spain the Sovereign only was allowed a chair.
52 THE NINE DAYS' QUEEN
skill. No breath of scandal ever sullied her fair name, though
Thomas Seymour, back from his convenient mission to Hungary,
was appointed her Chamberlain, and must have been a good
deal in her company. Even her worst enemies never ventured
on that track. When at a later date they planned a blow,
which they hoped would prove fatal to the Queen, they selected
her religious leanings, not her love affairs, as their fell weapon.
Katherine Parr, to her credit, lost no time in reconciling the
King with his hitherto neglected daughters. Princess Mary
was near her own age, and had been intimate with her when
she was Lady Latimer. The Emperor's Ambassadors praise
' the new Queen for her kindness to the daughter of Katherine
of Aragon, 1 who now takes her proper place at Court." Eliza-
beth, too, was summoned from her suburban retreat, but had
not been many weeks under her father's roof ere he became
so exasperated by her pert obstinacy that he summarily
ordered her back to Enfield. In a few weeks, however,
Katherine patched up the quarrel, and on 24th July 1544
Elizabeth wrote Her Majesty, in Italian, a most graceful letter
of thanks for her good offices. 2 Edward was too delicate to
be much in London, but none the less his stepmother looked
after his health with so much ' gentleness ' that she soon
won his sincere affection and lasting goodwill. He wrote
her letters in Latin, French, and Italian, addressed to his
charisima Mater, and full of praise for her beautiful penman-
ship, which, on comparison, proves greatly inferior both to
his own and to that of either Elizabeth or Jane Grey.
Katherine induced her stepdaughter Mary to assist in the
translation of Erasmus's Paraphrase of the Four Gospels. The
Princess selected that of St. John, and when the work was
finished, an amusing correspondence ensued as to the pro-
priety of the future Queen of England placing her name, as
translator, on the frontispiece. f I see not why you should
reject the praise deservedly yours," argued the Queen ; and
1 Political influence of this period no doubt seconded the good offices of
Queen Katherine in favour of Princess Mary. Her cousin the Emperor was
no longer an enemy, but an ally.
2 This is the beautiful letter beginning La nemica fortuna, which, although
written by an English princess, is, in its way, a very masterpiece of Italian
epistolary literature. It may have been written under the auspices of the
famous Baltazar Castiglione, who taught Elizabeth the Italian language.
THE KING'S HOUSEHOLD 53
the Princess at last allowed the editor of the work, the learned
Dr. UdaJl, to allude to the fact that " the most noble, the
most virtuous and the most studious Lady Mary " had a
hand in its success. 1
To occupy her own leisure, Queen Katherine devoted
herself to the composition of a quaint book entitled The
Lamentations of a Penitent Sinner, a pious work which gives
us, at least in one passage, a lucid idea of the methods employed
by Her Majesty to keep her hold over her extraordinary
husband, among which gross flattery was by no means the
least. A copy of this work was once in the possession of
John Thelwall, and was sold at the death of his second wife.
It contained a curious autograph, indicating that it had been
given by the Queen to her " dear cosyn, Jane Grey," who no
doubt read it with veneration and delight. In this tiny
volume Henry had the satisfaction of being likened unto Moses
leading the Children of Israel out of bondage. " I mean by
Moses, King Henry vui, my most sovereign favourable lord
and husband, one (if Moses had figured any more than Christ)
through the excellent grace of God, meet to be another ex-
pressed verity of Moses' conquest over Pharaoh (and I mean
by this Pharaoh the Bishop of Rome), the greatest persecutor
of all true Christians than ever was Pharaoh of the Children
of Israel.' 1
As may well be imagined, Queen Katherine Parr did not
fail to use her influence to obtain prominent positions about
the Court for her own kith and kin. Her uncle and Chamber-
lain, Sir Thomas Parr, was created Lord Parr of Horton ; her
brother was raised from the rank of Baron Parr of Kendal to
be Earl of Essex, in lieu of the lately decapitated Thomas
Cromwell ; and her brother-in-law, William Herbert, was
knighted. These gentlemen received their new dignities in
the Chapel Royal, but were not entertained in one of the
apartments spread with Persian carpets. Their dinner was
served in the choir-boys' mess-room, in which a fresh litter
of rushes was strewn for the occasion a curious fact, which
leads one to conclude that the acting master of ceremonies
expected the party to indulge in libations which might result
in some injury to Oriental rugs but were not likely to do much
1 After her accession Queen Mary ordered this work to be recalled.
54 THE NINE DAYS' QUEEN
damage to fresh rushes costing 35. 6d. the litter. Parr nad to
pay 4os. for his new paraphernalia, and the choir-boys got los.
for singing after the dinner. 1
On I4th July 1544 King Henry sailed from Dover for
France to superintend in person the approaching siege of
Boulogne. He left our shores in a vessel with sails made of
cloth of gold, the glitter of which does not appear to have
added to the ship's speed, for the King did not get to Calais
for nearly twenty-four hours, although the weather was fine,
and the sea calm probably too calm. The last time he had
crossed the Channel, on his way to the Field of the Cloth of
Gold, Henry had acted the part of pilot, garbed in nether
garments of cloth of gold, and had blown the pilot's whistle
as loud as any trumpeter. This time he was too anxious
and enfeebled to play at all. His Majesty was attended by his
brother-in-law, the Duke of Suffolk, also a very sick man ; by
Sir William Herbert, who acted as his spear-bearer, by the
Duke of Norfolk, the Earl of Surrey, the Spanish Duke
of Alberqurque, John Dudley, the Lord High-Admiral,
afterwards Duke of Northumberland, and half the English
nobility. Before his departure he appointed the Queen
Regent of England and Ireland, with power to sign all official
and State documents, this being almost the first occasion
on which a Queen-Consort of England held so responsible
a position. The Earl of Hertford was to be Her Majesty's
constant attendant, but should he chance to be temporarily
absent, Cranmer was to remain with her, and with these two,
Sir William Petre and Lord Parr of Horton, her Grace's
uncle, Wriothesley, and Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, were
to sit in council.
During this regency Katherine kept aloof from politics
and occupied herself principally with assisting the University
of Cambridge and with the royal children, who were left in
her charge. Princess Mary, who was an almost constant
guest during the King's absence, and Princess Elizabeth, were
both invited to join the circle at Oatlands, where Prince
Edward was residing, and whither, owing to an outbreak
of the plague, the Queen herself soon retired. From the
1 State Papers, Domestic Series, Henry vm, 1544-5. Lord Parr of Horton
died in 1545.
THE KING'S HOUSEHOLD 55
various suburban palaces in which she was residing, Katherine
addressed letters almost daily to the King, giving him accounts
of the health and the doings of his children ; and the monarch
vouchsafed in return to write most approvingly of all she
did. Towards the middle of August the Lady Dorset and
her daughter, the Lady Jane Grey, came to Oatlands for a
few days' visit. This was perhaps the first and probably
the only time spent by Lady Jane and Prince Edward
under the same roof. The royal kinsfolk may have lived a
very quiet life, spending their days in the gardens and park,
and their evenings either listening to the singing of Princess
Mary, who is reputed to have had a magnificent contralto
voice, or to Princess Elizabeth's playing upon the virginals,
an art in which she already excelled. The Queen may per-
chance have favoured the company with a chapter or so
from some one or other of her remarkably dull theological
compositions. There is no evidence that she was a musician,
and she does not seem to have been infected with the pre-
vailing Court vice gambling in which even the pious
Princess Mary indulged, frequently losing much more than
she could pay as demonstrated by the Household Books
of Henry vm.
Boulogne capitulated to Suffolk on i6th September, after a
lengthy siege, and on the i8th, the King, accompanied by the
Duke of Alberqurque, representing his ally the Emperor,
received the keys of the city from his brother-in-law's hands,
and made what he was pleased to consider his triumphal
entry into the town. But he rode through a city untenanted
and in ruins ; even the magnificent Cathedral had not been
spared, and the townsfolk, who had fled for security, as
they hoped, to Hardelot and Etaples, were massacred, man,
woman, and child, by the allied Spanish, German, and English
troops. English historians have been reticent in dealing
with the siege of Boulogne, 1 and the majority have passed
1 Some very interesting particulars unknown to English historians of the
siege of Boulogne and of the sojourn of Henry vm, Suffolk, Surrey, and
their merry men in Picardy, will be found in Les Archives de la Ville de
Boulogne ; Histoire de la Ville de Montr euil-sur-Mer, by F. Leplon ; Memoires
de Martin de Bellamy (Michaud, Paris, 1838) ; Inventaire de I'Histoire de
France, by Le Comte Jean de Serre ; in a very curious little volume
entitled Le Chateau d' Hardelot ; also in Notre Dame de Boulogne, by 1'Abbe
56 THE NINE DAYS' QUEEN
very lightly over the disagreement which soon broke out
between our King and his ally the Emperor. 1 Charles now
urged Henry to join him and march on Paris. Henry,
who knew his troops to be enfeebled by hardship and
suffering, and moreover felt himself far too ill to supervise
fresh military operations, would go no farther, more
especially because he feared to infuriate the French King,
who might at any moment ally himself with his former enemy
the Emperor Charles, and thus form a Catholic coalition
absolutely inimical to the policy of the English King.
Henry's hesitation undoubtedly saved the city of Paris.
Seeing the Emperor's troops approach the capital, Francis
roused himself for a moment from the lethargy in which he
had been plunged, and once more became the hero of Marig-
nano. The King's attitude and the bravery of the Dauphin,
who was covering the capital with 8000 men, stimulated
the drooping spirits of the Parisians, and, with their usual
heroism, they prepared to offer a stout resistance to their foes.
They even made merry at the expense of their two arch-
enemies, ridiculing the gouty Emperor and caricaturing the
corpulent English King a proof, if one were lacking, that
the fatal diseases destined eventually to carry Henry off had
already made sufficient progress to excite general attention.
Queen Eleanor, the neglected wife of Francis I, foreseeing the
horrors to which the capital and its inhabitants were exposed,
determined, without consulting her husband, to plead person-
ally with the Emperor. Accompanied by a Spanish monk
named Guzman, she proceeded to the Imperial tent, and casting
herself upon her knees before Charles, then writhing in agonies
of gout, obtained terms from him, thus averting a siege which
must have cost rivers of blood. The peace then concluded
was none too satisfactory, so far as England was concerned,
since it stipulated that Boulogne was to be restored in the
space of six years, during which time the place lost us in money
and men far more than it was worth. Never, indeed, was
Haignere, published by Hamain, Boulogne-sur-Mer, 1898 ; and in the Spanish
Chronicle of the Reign of Henry VIII, translated by Major Martin Hume.
1 Full particulars of the reasons for and the progress of this disagreement
will be found in vol. viii. of the Spanish State Papers of Henry VIII, vols. vii.
and viii., edited by Major Martin Hume.
THE KING'S HOUSEHOLD 57
there a more futile expedition than this, nor a greater waste
of money. The much-talked-of sails of cloth of gold wafted
the King home on ist October 1544. In London he was re-
ceived with little enthusiasm, or none at all. The nation was
disappointed by the terms of the peace, the army was dis-
organised, Norfolk already out of favour, and Surrey, accused
of insubordination, was openly disgraced. Boulogne was
left in the hands of Jane Grey's future father-in-law, Lord
High-Admiral John Dudley.
The health of Lady Jane's maternal grandfather, Charles
Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, failed him completely soon after
his return to England. He seems to have suffered from a
complication of disorders not unlike those which were afflicting
his brother-in-law, the King. After the siege of Boulogne,
he appears to have been of very little use, and eighteen months
later he retired with his Duchess to Guildford Castle " in much
suffering and pain." There is a portrait extant of Charles
Brandon, taken at this time, which represents him seated in a
large armchair, his head bound up in a sort of nightcap, and
his swollen and gouty feet, one of which rests on a stool,
enveloped in bandages. The bloated face bears a weird
resemblance to Henry vm. Brandon died at Guildford in
1546 after a long illness, during which he was nursed by his
Duchess and his two daughters, the Ladies Frances and
Eleanor, the former of whom brought her eldest daughters,
Jane and Katherine, with her. By his will Charles Brandon
left, after deducting a rather meagre dower for his wife, the
bulk of his vast fortune to his two sons, with remainder to his
daughters in unequal shares, the Lady Frances, in the case of
the death of her two brothers, inheriting considerably more
than two-thirds of her father's lands and money. He desired
to be buried in Lincolnshire, but Henry, overlooking this
request, caused his body to be conveyed to Windsor, where it
was interred with great pomp in St. George's Chapel, in the
presence of his family and of a multitude of courtiers.
CHAPTER V
MRS. ANNE ASKEW
IT was in the latter years of Henry vm's reign that Stephen
Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, conceived his scheme
for the reconciliation of England and England's monarch
with the Roman Pontiff. Although a less astute intriguer than
his powerful opponent Cranmer, Gardiner, who was apt to
lose his temper and blurt out things best kept to himself, was
a man of marked ability, one of whom his crafty master made
frequent use, playing him off against the Archbishop, and so
retaining the balance of power in his own jealous hands.
Cranmer was at this period using his influence with Henry to
abolish the use of Latin in the Mass, preparatory to the eventual
introduction of the Book of Common Prayer and the early
and total abrogation of the Eucharistic Service in the Roman
sense. Yet the wily Churchman knew right well that so long
as the King lived there was but faint hope of this change.
For His Majesty clung to the doctrine of Transubstantiation
closer than to any other tenet ; not so much on account of his
faith did he believe anything ? as because, in the days of
his youth, he had indited a work in defence of the Catholic
doctrine of the Sacraments, which, so his clergy had averred,
proved him wiser than Solomon himself, and which Pope
Leo x had favourably compared with the writings of
St. Augustine and Gregory the Great, rewarding the royal
author with that title of " Defender of the Faith ' which
is still a cherished appanage of British royalty. Henry
had even made belief in the Sacrament of the Altar a
principal Article amongst the famous Six, any denial of which
was punishable with death. Yet, if the King had searched
Cranmer's study at Lambeth at the very moment when that
wily prelate was professing to accept his beliefs from his King,
58
MRS. ANNE ASKEW 59
as submissively as though the monarch had possessed the in-
fallible powers of his own Maker, he might have laid his hand
on a bulky correspondence between the Primate and every
Lutheran and Calvinistic leader in Germany and Switzerland
-with Calvin, Bullinger, (Ecolampadius, Osiander, Dryander,
Bucer, and the rest. Gardiner, on his side, was in communica-
tion with Cardinal Pole, Charles v, the Pope, and the entire
papal party at home and abroad. This duel between the
papal leader and the Reformers, then, was the true basis of all
political undertakings at this momentous crisis. The rival
parties were really preparing themselves for the departure of
the dying King, and aimed at controlling the inevitable Pro-
tectorate, necessitated by the minority of his successor, a lad
of nine summers. Had Gardiner, the Howards, and the
Catholic party won the day, history would have had little,
perhaps nothing, to record concerning Lady Jane Grey. Her
name, like that of her accomplished friend Lady Jane Seymour,
daughter of Lord Hertford, would have been lost, buried in
the spent sands of the past.
The decline of the King's health began in the summer of
1541-2, when he was attacked by a dangerous tertian fever,
from which, thanks to his powerful constitution, he partially
recovered.
At the time of his marriage with Anne of Cleves he was
again in poor health, and during the proceedings for the King's
divorce from his Dutch consort, Cranmer laid great stress on
the fact that although she had shared his chamber for six
months, the bride was still to all intents and purposes unwed.
At the siege of Boulogne, as we have seen, Henry was terribly
altered, and the French ballad-writers jested about le cercle
de fer, which, they averred, kept his ungainly carcass to-
gether. Queen Katherine was probably espoused rather as a
skilful nurse than as a wife, in the ordinary acceptance of the
term, and a most assiduous attendant she proved, kneeling for
hours at a time rubbing his swelled legs and dressing his many
ulcers. It would be unjust to the Queen's memory to attribute
this wifely devotion to none but selfish motives. But her
contemporaries shrewdly guessed that, while fulfilling her
wifely duty, she did not fail to work in her own interest, and
that of her friends, with her own peculiar skill and tact. She
60 THE NINE DAYS' QUEEN
certainly wished to be appointed Regent during Edward's
minority, and would gladly have excluded the Howards,
Wriothesley, Gardiner, Rich, and the whole Catholic element
from the King's sick-room, while doing all she could to
strengthen the hand of the Seymours, maternal uncles of the
future King, who were intent on ruling his kingdom for him
on strictly anti-papal lines. In the spring of the year 1546
the King had a bad relapse, and day by day the grey shadows
of approaching death deepened on that broad and bloated
countenance. He would not have the grim word mentioned
in his presence, and any courtier who appeared before him
dressed in mourning l even for the nearest kin was driven
in fury from his sight. None the less, he realised that he had
not many months to live. It was imperative, therefore, if
any reconciliation with Rome was to be effected before the
new reign began, that no time should be lost, and that some
sharp and decisive blow should overthrow the influence of
the Queen, now the chief intermediary between her sick spouse,
Cranmer, and the Seymours. But Katherine, in spite of the
notoriety of her intimate friendship with Sir Thomas Seymour,
was far too clever to give her enemies any chance of blasting,
or even smirching, her reputation. With respect to her
religious opinions, which were distinctly heterodox, she was
less guarded, however, and her enemies had good reason to
believe that if they could convince the King, beyond any
doubt, that she was in correspondence with those whom he
was pleased to term " heretics," she would never be able to
weather the storm her treachery must inevitably raise in
the King's resentful breast.
Henry, whose brain remained astonishingly active, not-
withstanding his infirmities, had never been so irritable and
ferocious as during the last few months of his life. He was
like a half-dead rattlesnake, which may recover life and
spring afresh upon its prey at any moment. Never were the
fires at Smithfield so active as in 1546. Early in this, year
six poor wretches were sent to the stake three Catholics ;
the other three, Reformers. To demonstrate the impartiality
1 See for evidence of this fact a curious document included in the Notes
to the Journal of Edward vi, who himself informs us that his father drove
away anybody who appeared before him in mourning.
MRS. ANNE ASKEW 61
of their merciless judge they were all chained together. People
scarcely knew what they must believe or what disbelieve, to
escape execution. The King's informers were always at
work, spying upon the sayings and doings of people in every
rank of life ; and the wonder is that the Queen and her ladies
were not caught in some imprudent admission or other, and
convicted. At last, however, in the early spring of 1546, an
incident occurred which brought Katherine's foes their longed-
for chance of effecting her downfall.
Anne Askew, second daughter of Sir William Askew, or
Ayscough, of South Kelsy, Lincolnshire, was born at Stalling-
brough, near Grimsby, in 1521. When about fifteen years of
age, she was married, without her consent, to Mr. Thomas
Kyme, a Lincolnshire squire and neighbour, who had been
previously ' contracted ' to her elder sister. During her
early wedded life Mrs. Kyme appears to have been happy
enough, and became the mother of two children. She presently
occupied herself in studying the newly translated Scriptures,
and shortly after imagined she had a divine mission to preach
the gospel and correct what she deemed the theological errors
of her neighbours, especially on the subject of the Lord's
Supper, concerning which she held Genevan views.
After a few years of discomfort, Mr. Kyme, who, according
to the latest researches, entertained contrary religious opinions
to those of his wife, began to complain of the scanty enjoyment
he derived from her society. She was perpetually ' ' gadding
up and down the country, a-gospelling and a-gossiping,
instead of looking after her children.' 5 Anne is described as a
handsome and daring young woman with a good deal of native
wit and ability, and was evidently the prototype of not a few
ladies of our own time, who prefer public life and controversy
to domestic duty and retirement. She even took upon herself
to read and comment on the New Testament in the nave of
Lincoln Cathedral, where she was often to be found surrounded
by an interested or amused group of priests and people. This
state of things no Dean or Chapter could be expected to endure,
and one fine day Mrs. Kyme found herself forcibly ejected
from the sacred edifice. After this incident, she must have
had some unusual disagreement with her husband, for her
relations persuaded her to leave the town, and she travelled
62 THE NINE DAYS' QUEEN
to London, where she soon made herself conspicuous as a
preacher of the new learning, and secured several distinguished
converts. She lodged in a house near the Temple, and one of
her neighbours, Mr. Wadloe, a hot Catholic, who began by
deriding her behaviour, ended by admiring her " godliness " ;
to use his own expression " At mydnyght when I and others
applye ourselves to sleape, or do worse, Mrs. Askew ' (she had
resumed her maiden name), " begins to pray, and ceaseth not
in many howers after," doubtless to the edification of such of
her neighbours as suffered from insomnia.
By dint of perseverance, and also, it may be, through her
connections, Anne Askew formed the acquaintance of several
great ladies of the Court, and is said to have obtained, through
the offices of the Duchess of Suffolk, an interview with the
Queen, to whom, in the presence of her ladies, notably Lady
Tyrwhitt, Lady Lane, Lady Denny, and the little Lady Jane
Grey, 1 she offered some copies of Tyndale's version of the New
Testament, and certain tracts arguing against Transubstantia-
tion, which were subsequently found in the Queen's own
closet and in the possession of the King's " Suffolk nieces."
It was in March 1545 that Mrs. Askew was first arrested
on a charge of heresy and taken to Sadler's Hall, where she
was denounced to the civil authorities and taken before the
Lord Mayor, who in the course of his examination questioned
her as to the probable changes in a consecrated wafer after a
" mowse " had swallowed it, whereupon she " made no answer
but smiled," and was committed to the Counter. That much-
abused man, Bishop Bonner, appears to have taken an interest
in her case, and endeavoured to save her from an awful fate.
He granted her a private interview and drew up a form of
recantation which she signed in the following ambiguous terms :
"I, Anne Askew, do believe all manner of things contained
in the Catholic Church and not otherwise." On this, Bonner,
whose patience had been severely tried, for Anne was very
sharp-tongued and uncompromising, waxed wroth, and taking
her by the shoulders, pushed her out of the chamber. Her
next friend was Dr. Weston, afterwards Bishop of West-
minster, who got her liberated on her own security ; and for
some months we hear no more about her, except that she
1 Speed.
MRS. ANNE ASKEW 63
was busy preaching and distributing her tracts secretly. On
loth May 1546 both Mr. and Mrs. Kyme received a summons
to present themselves within a specified time before the Privy
Council, then sitting at Greenwich, and they accordingly
appeared on the igth of the following June before the Chancellor
of the Augmentations, Sir Richard Rich, the Bishops of Durham
and Winchester and a number of other noblemen and gentle-
men, and were put through a severe cross-examination. 1 Anne,
we learn, received this summons in London, but her husband
came to town on purpose to attend. Kyme got off with a
caution, on his promise to return forthwith to Lincoln, and
remain there. His wife, in open court, declared she would
never again recognise him as her husband. He went back to
Lincoln, and we lose sight of him. All we know is that he died,
where he is buried, at Friskne in 1591.
Anne Askew was eventually arraigned before the King's
Justices at Guildhall for speaking against the Sacrament of
the Altar, contrary to the Statute of the Six Articles. This
time she appeared with two other " heretics," one of them that
singular personage Dr. Nicholas Shaxton, ex-Bishop of Salis-
bury, whose pupil she is said to have been. Shaxton, a Norfolk
man by birth, was one of the Commission appointed by Gardiner
in connection with the divorce of Katherine of Aragon, and
during the proceedings he so favoured the King's view that he
eventually became almoner to Anne Boleyn and Bishop of
Salisbury. At a later date he preached Zwinglian doctrines
concerning the Eucharist, got himself into serious difficulties
with Archbishop Cranmer, and was forced to relinquish his see.
After a time he became a notorious " gospeller," and was finally
arrested with Anne Askew and a man named Christopher
White. The lady and White were both sent to Newgate ; but
the former recanted, and so escaped a fiery ordeal. Shaxton
did the same, obtained his pardon, and was actually ordered
to visit Anne in prison, and persuade her to follow his example.
But, weak woman though she was, Anne was made of sterner
stuff than the ex-prelate. " It were better for you you had
not been born than do that which you have done," cried she ;
and, crestfallen, her former friend and tutor left her presence.
Her condemnation followed immediately afterwards. It was
1 See Privy Council Papers, 1546.
64 THE NINE DAYS' QUEEN
presently noticed that Anne enjoyed more creature comforts
in prison than the customs of Newgate allowed. She explained
the matter by saying that ( her maid went abroad into the
streets and made moan to the prentices and they did send her
money ! ' But her persecutors refused to believe this story,
and so one afternoon, not long before her martyrdom, she was
conveyed to the Tower, taken to the torture chamber, and
there racked in the presence of Lord Chancellor Wriothesley,
Sir Richard Rich, Sir John Barker, and Sir Anthony Knyvett,
Constable of the Tower. Hitherto no one had been tortured
in England for conscience' sake, this terrible resource being
solely employed to extract information from persons suspected
of treasonable practices. Wriothesley, exasperated at his
failure to elicit direct information or satisfactory answers from
his victim, turned the screws himself, after Knyvett had
refused to order her to be further tormented by the official
executioner. Sir Richard Rich lent his hand to the Chancellor
in this merciless task, and so, to use poor Anne's own words,
she " was nigh dead." x
Dr. Lingard and other historians have cast doubt upon the
veracity of this horrible story, but the scene is described by
Anne herself in her " Narrative," dictated a few days before
her death, and published at Marburg, in the Duchy of Hesse,
in 1547, with a long running commentary by John Bale,
afterwards Bishop of Ossory. In his Three Conversions of
England, the Jesuit, Father Parsons, who had access to much
information and evidence long since destroyed or lost, not only
confirms the truth of the torture episode, but adds that it was
ordered by the King himself, who, hearing of the intercourse
between his Queen and Anne, " caused her to be apprehended '
and put to the rack, to know the truth thereof. And by her con-
fession he learned so much of Queen Katherine, as he had
purposed to burn her also, if he had lived." Parsons goes on to
say that " the King's sickness and death, shortly ensuing, was the
chief cause of her escape." Mrs. Askew bravely endured the
most horrible torments rather than betray her friends' trust, and
1 Anne Askew's " Narrative." It is but fair to the reputation of both Rich
and Wriothesley to state that Anne herself admits that she sat talking with
both for two hours immediately after the torture, which she could not possibly
have done if it had been very severe.
MRS. ANNE ASKEW 65
only yielded so far as to admit that whilst in prison she had
received ten shillings, delivered by a man in a blue livery. She
thought the money had beenjsent her by the Countess of Hertford,
but was not sure. She had a further sum of eight shillings at
the hand of a footman in a purple livery, and believed it was a
gift from Lady Denny. Questioned if she knew Lady Fitz-
william, the Duchess of Suffolk, Lady Sussex, or any other
great ladies of the Court, she evasively answered that she
" knew nothing about them that could be proved." She does
not seem to have been questioned point-blank as to whether
she had ever had any direct dealings with the Queen. Wrio-
thesley may have thought he had already obtained sufficient
information for his purpose. However that may have been,
the stout-hearted lady was sent back to Newgate, there to
spend her last three days of life, which she occupied in writing
and dictating the " Narrative " to be found among Dr. Bale's
writings. 1
On the eve of her execution Anne Askew and three men
who had been condemned for heresy at the same time
as herself were visited in the little parlour at Newgate by
George Throckmorton and his brother, who were kinsmen of
the Queen a rather suspicious circumstance. They were
cautioned in time, and thus escaped being arrested on a charge
of heresy, which might have proved fatal to themselves and
their royal cousin. John Louthe, the Reformer, who has
left us an account of the meeting, also came, at great risk to
himself, to encourage the unfortunate Anne. Mrs. Askew,
with an " Angel's countenance and a smiling face," talked
' merrily " with her unhappy companions, John Laselles, who
had been a gentleman in attendance upon the King, and is
supposed to have been the individual who betrayed the secrets
of Katherine Howard ; Nicholas Bolenian, a priest from
Shropshire ; and John Adams, a tailor. They talked on religious
subjects until it was time to separate. The next day, i6th
July, Mrs. Askew and her three fellow-prisoners were taken
from Newgate to Smithfield. So dislocated were the poor
lady's limbs that she had to be carried to her doom in a chair.
Cranmer, seeking to throw the full odium of the horrible
1 The text of the full confession of Mrs. Askew will be found among the
State Papers for 1545, Nos. 390, 391.
5
66 THE NINE DAYS' QUEEN
business on Gardiner, kept much in the background in the
whole matter of Anne Askew. He did not attend the ecclesi-
astical, commission which condemned her to the stake ; but
for all that his signature is affixed to her death-warrant. Six
years later, another martyr, Joan Bocher, one of the last of his
many victims, reminded the Archbishop that he had martyred
her friend Anne Askew for teaching more or less the same
doctrines he now preached himself.
In the 1563 edition of Foxe's Martyrs there is a most curious
engraving, probably after an original drawing, representing
the burning of Anne Askew and her companions. The spec-
tators are kept back by a ring fence within which we see the
stake, and a quaint pulpit, from which Dr. Nicholas Shaxton,
duly restored to grace, preached a sermon, supporting the
very dogma for denying which he had been prosecuted but a
few days previously. Anne is shown dressed in white ; one
side of the pyre is entirely devoted to her, while the three men,
apparently naked to the waist, are bound together, on the
side opposite the pulpit. The concourse of people appears
enormous ; the mob seems to seethe round the scaffold, loll
out of the surrounding windows, and even swarm on the
opposite roofs. On a raised bench, under a canopy,
sit Wriothesley, Rich, the Dukes of Norfolk, Surrey,
" Swearing Russell," and the Lord Mayor. These worthies,
it appears, were sorely perturbed by a rumour that there was an
unusual amount of gunpowder on the spot, and were very
much afraid of a dangerous explosion. Their terrors were
swiftly allayed when Bedford informed the company that the
explosive in question was merely a number of small bags of
gunpowder concealed about the persons of the victims with
the object of shortening their sufferings.
At the very last moment Mrs. Askew was offered a pardon
on condition that she recanted and gave up the names of her
high-born friends. She refused : the Lord Mayor shouted
Fiat justitia, and the faggots were lighted. Presently the fire
crackled. A quick succession of explosions followed, the
smoke concealing the wretched victims from sight. When the
flames and smoke died down only the charred and blackened
remains of four human beings could be descried. Clouds had
been gathering ; a peal of thunder rolled, and heavy drops of
MRS. ANNE ASKEW 67
rain soon dispersed the throng. The show was over, and the
home-returning spectators chatted as they went, blaming or
praising the deed, according to their individual view. The
horror of it does not seem to have affected them much, although
among the Reformers and the better classes of all creeds
expressions of hearty indignation were not lacking. But the
masses were accustomed to such sights of horror, and so,
indeed, were our own immediate forbears, until public exe-
cutions ceased and the death sentence was carried out in the
courtyards of the prisons. We have indeed progressed in
these matters since 1546 and even since 1868.
A few days after the burning of the unfortunate Lincoln-
shire lady, Foxe tells us, Wriothesley, Gardiner, and Rich
waited on the King, and so persuaded him that Anne had made
damaging revelations concerning the Queen's intercourse with
heretics that Henry ' proposed to burn her also/ 3 His
Majesty, in his rage, actually signed a warrant for the arrest
of his offending Consort and handed it to Wriothesley. That
worthy let the paper drop in a corridor or gallery close to
the Queen's apartment. One of her servants picked it up
and carried it to Her Majesty, who was so terrified by its con-
tents that she fell into violent hysterics. Her apartments
were close to the King's, and Henry, overhearing the outcry,
and probably disturbed by the noise, sent to inquire what was
amiss. The Queen's physician, Wendy, informed the messenger
that Her Majesty was dangerously ill, and her sickness, to his
reckoning, caused by sudden and extreme distress of mind.
Whereupon the King sent word that she was not to trouble
herself further, as no ill was intended to her. Greatly com-
forted by this reassuring message, Katherine presently felt
herself sufficiently recovered to receive a visit from her hus-
band, who, at great personal inconvenience, caused himself to
be conveyed into her apartment in his chair. Nothing could
have been better calculated to revive the drooping spirits of
the scared Consort than the sight of her august spouse in a
good humour. The following evening she was well enough
to return the King's visit. She was accompanied by the Lady
Tyrwhitt, her sister the Lady Herbert, by the King's niece
the Lady Jane Grey, and by the Lady Lane, who bore the
candles before Her Majesty. The King welcomed the Queen
68 THE NINE DAYS' QUEEN
and her company very courteously, and, bidding her
be seated, in a cheerful tone entered into a controversial
conversation with her. He possibly wished to ' draw '
his Consort upon certain theological questions ; but she
shrewdly observed that " since God had appointed him Supreme
Head of the Church it was not for her to teach him theology,
but to learn it from him/ 5 ' Not so, by St. Mary," said the
King, tf you are become a doctor, Kate, to instruct us, and not
to be instructed of us, as oftentimes we have seen." " Indeed,
indeed, Sire," quoth the Queen, " if your Majesty so conceive,
my meaning has been mistaken, for I have always held it pre-
posterous for a woman to instruct her lord." ' If," she con-
tinued, " I have occasionally ventured to differ with your
Highness on religious matters, it was partly to obtain informa-
tion, and also to pass away the pain and weariness of your
present infirmity with arguments that interested you." " And
is it so, sweetheart ? ' replied His Majesty, " then we are
perfect friends," and thereupon he kissed her and gave her
leave to depart.
The day appointed by her foes for the Queen's arrest
chanced to be fine and the sun shone brightly. The King
sent for her to take the early air with him on the garden
terrace overlooking the Thames. Katherine came, attended
as before by her sister, the Lady Herbert, the Lady Lane, the
Lady Tyrwhitt, and the little Lady Jane Grey. They had not
been long walking up and down in the sunshine before the Lord
Chancellor, with forty of the guard, entered the garden, ex-
pecting to carry off the Queen to the Tower for no intimation
of the change in the King's intentions had reached him. Henry
received his minister with a burst of furious invective. Bidding
the Queen and her ladies stand apart, he called up Wriothesley
and cast every evil name he could think of at him, command-
ing him, finally, to ' avaunt from his presence and never
show his face again till he was summoned." Wriothesley,
crestfallen and humbled, was about to withdraw, when the
Queen advanced and interceded for him : ' Poor soul, poor
soul ! " quoth the King ; ' thou little knowest, Kate, how ill he
deserveth this grace at thy hands. On my hand, sweetheart,
he hath been to thee a very knave ! ' So the disappointed
minister departed, and Henry walked up and down the terrace
MRS. ANNE ASKEW 69
again, leaning on his Queen and followed by her escort of ladies.
Although Wriothesley 's part in this tragi-comedy seems to
have been overlooked, the King is said never to have forgiven
Gardiner his share in the matter. A little later, notwithstand-
ing the royal prohibition, both conspirators presented them-
selves with their colleagues. The King forthwith reminded
Wriothesley in his most forcible manner that he had ordered
him never to show his face again, and above all never, on any
pretext whatever, to bring " that beast Gardiner " along with
him. " My Lord of Winchester," replied the cunning Wrio-
thesley, " has come to wait upon your Highness with an offer
of benevolence from his clergy." The King being as usual in
great need of money, began to listen more benignly, allowed
Gardiner to present the address, and finally accepted the bribe. 1
But he took no further notice of the Bishop, and is said to have
struck his name off the list of his executors within the next few
days. He also cancelled that of Thirlby, Bishop of Westminster,
because, said he, " he is too much under the influence of
Gardiner." 2 Queen Katherine may have had a hand in this
affair, and after the revelation of the treachery which would
fain have destroyed her she very likely took the opportunity
of letting the King know more concerning the machinations
of Gardiner and Wriothesley than was good for their credit or
likely to serve their influence.
The details of this formidable but abortive plot against
Katherine Parr rest mainly on the authority of Foxe. But
it must be remembered, by those inclined to doubt the " Martyr-
ologist, ' ' that at this time he had attained his thirtieth year,
he was in touch with most of the personages named, and was
consequently in a position to obtain the information which
he wove into his famous narrative not, we admit, without
considerable embellishment and exaggeration, introduced to
suit the taste of his readers from living witnesses. Foxe
also made liberal use of Paget's statement during the proceed-
This scene must have taken place, not at Windsor, as stated by Foxe,
for Henry never was there after the early spring of 1546, but at Hampton
Court. The allusion to his striking Gardiner's name out of his will must
refer to some of the many wills he made before his last (in December of the
same year). In this Gardiner's name was not struck out, but simply omitted.
2 Dr. Thirlby's name was not omitted in the last will, but he was absent
abroad at the time of the King's death.
70 THE NINE DAYS' QUEEN
ings for Gardiner's deprivation, which took place early in
Edward's reign. All the Elizabethan and Jacobean historians
of Henry vm Herbert, Parsons, Holinshed, Strype, Speed,
Oldmixon, and others reproduce the story with slight emenda-
tions and additions from Foxe. No direct confirmation of
it is to be found indeed in the State Papers, but this is not
surprising, for such matters were not usually set down in writ-
ing. Nevertheless, it is hinted at. 1 Nor do the Ambassadors
seem to have known anything about it. Father Parsons, who,
like Foxe, obtained much of his information at first hand,
introduces the incident in his Three Conversions of England,
a book written to refute some of Foxe's errors, and adds that
although Foxe lays " all the cause of the Queen's trouble upon
Bishop Gardiner and others, and though the King did kindly
and lovingly pardon her, the truth is that the King's sickness
and death were the chief causes of her escape, for had the King
found her guilty he would have commanded her also to be
burned."
Speed, possibly mistaking Lady Lane for Lady Jane, intro-
duces the King's little niece on this occasion, not only as a
witness of the reconciliation of the royal couple, but in the
character of a candle-bearer before the Queen. Jane Grey,
being a Princess of the Blood, could never have been in attend-
ance upon the Queen, and she was too small a child to be laden
with a pair of heavy branch candlesticks. Lady Lane, on the
other hand, was certainly in the Queen's Household at this
particular juncture. She was Her Majesty's cousin-german,
being the daughter of her uncle, Lord Parr of Horton, and wife
of Sir Ralph Lane of Orlingby, Nottinghamshire. Still, since
the fact of her being present is mentioned by so many almost
contemporary writers, we may conclude that Lady Jane was
a witness of the dramatic scenes that took place between
King Henry and his terrified Consort, and may herself, in after
life, have narrated the incident to some friend of Foxe or im-
mediate forbear of Parson's informant. Gardiner's disgrace
does not seem to have been quite as complete as Foxe has been
pleased to represent it, and he was in close enough contact
with those in power to be selected as chief celebrant at the
King's Requiem.
1 See Note at the end of this Chapter.
MRS. ANNE ASKEW 71
That the King was completely reconciled to his wife is
proved by the conspicuous part he assigned her in the splendid
series of festivities in honour of the French Envoy, who arrived
in August, when the Court had removed to Hampton Court.
Not only was her apartment refurnished with sumptuous
tapestries, but her wardrobe was renewed, and the King pre-
sented her with a quantity of magnificent jewellery, which,
after his death, gave rise to considerable misunderstanding
and trouble.
These festivities in honour of Monsieur d'Annebault, Francis
I's special Envoy, were the last flicker of the pageantry of
Henry vm's reign, and revived for a week something of the
brilliance of the Court of England in the great days of Wolsey.
For the first and only time, Prince Edward, as heir-apparent,
played a conspicuous part. On Monday, 23rd August, the
boy-prince rode out towards London to meet the Ambassador,
attended by the Archbishop of York and the Earls of Hertford
and Huntingdon, and by a retinue of " five hundred and forty
persons in velvet coats, and the Prince's liveries wore sleeves
of cloth of gold, and half the coats embroidered also with
gold, and there were the number of eight hundred, royally
apparelled.' 3 D'Annebault, who came to ratify the peace
recently concluded between the sovereigns of France and
England, was accompanied by a suite of two hundred gentle-
men, who were all lodged at the King's expense and enter-
tained in the most hospitable manner. His Majesty was not
well enough to receive the Ambassador on his arrival, but he
received him in audience on the following day, after which
monarch and Ambassador proceeded to the Chapel Royal,
where, during Mass, they solemnly received the Host to-
gether. 1 Then followed six days of banqueting, hunting, and
merry-making, masques, and mummeries, " with divers and
sundry changes, inasmuch that the torch-bearers were clothed
with gold cloth, and such like honourable entertainments, it
were much to utter and hard to believe." On these occasions
the Marchioness of Dorset and her daughter, the Lady Jane
This curious fact, that the unorthodox if not heretical King actually
communicated at the same time as the orthodox Ambassador, is one of the
most significant incidents in the story of this singular period of religious
disquiet.
72 THE NINE DAYS' QUEEN
Grey, were present, and Prince Edward danced with his little
cousin, who also tripped it with young Lord Edward Seymour,
the Lord Hertford's eldest boy. When the Ambassador took
his leave, Henry made him a present of silver plate to the
value of 1200. After his departure the dying King seems to
have led a very quiet life at Hampton Court and Whitehall.
The end was visibly approaching. His feet and hands were
abnormally swollen ; dropsy had set in, and he was probably
also suffering from an internal tumour. Even his most fervent
admirers were obliged to confess that in appearance, at least,
he had assumed somewhat of the aspect of a monster ; but
music still charmed the suffering monarch, and the last House-
hold Books of his reign contain various items of payments to
musicians and madrigal singers.
NOTE. Dr. Gairdner makes the following comments on this subject in his
Preface to vol. 21, part i. of the Calendar of State Papers for 1 546 (published in
1908) : " But one word may be permitted here about that dreadful incident, the
racking in the Tower. It took place after her (Anne's) condemnation, the
obj ect being to elicit from her information about persons at the Court who it
was suspected had been her allies in promoting heresy. Besides others whose
names are given, against whom she positively refused to utter a word, she was
probably expected to accuse Queen Katherine Parr herself ; for Parsons
(Three Conversions of England, ii. 493) is no doubt perfectly correct in saying
that the well-known incident related by Foxe, about this Queen, when she
stood in real danger from a charge of heresy, was connected with the affair
of Anne Askew. But Parsons is certainly wrong in saying that the King
would have burned Katherine Parr also if he had lived. For though her
heretical propensities were no secret, she survived the King, and he himself for
fully six months survived Anne Askew. More probably the Queen was saved
by Anne's refusal to commit anyone except herself."
T
CHAPTER VI
THE HOWARDS AND THE SEYMOURS
"* HE collapse of the conspiracy against Katherine Parr
led to an immediate counter-plot on the part of the
Seymours and their allies to compromise the Duke of
Norfolk and his son, Surrey, and thereby frustrate the aspira-
tions of the Catholics, of whose party Norfolk was the acknow-
ledged chief. A previous attempt to inflict irretrievable
damage on the credit of the Howards had partially failed,
though the unsavoury revelations connected with the arrest
and execution of Queen Katherine Howard had covered the
illustrious name with obloquy, and almost every conspicuous
Howard in England had been sent to the Tower, 1 on the charge
of having concealed the Queen's previous immorality from
the King's knowledge when he proposed to marry her. At
that moment Norfolk and his son only escaped by taking
Henry's side against their miserable kinswoman. But the
Duke never regained his full influence over his master, and,
despite his great services, both as statesman and warrior, lived
on, to use the expression of one of his contemporaries, " like
the bird that is wounded i' the wing." Yet he was a great
power in the politics of those days, for though the Catholic
party was of but small account at Court, a good two-thirds of
the people remained firmly attached to the ancestral faith ;
this was the case more especially in the rural districts, where
the vast majority clung to the dogmas and ceremonies of the
ancient Church, and only awaited an opportunity to assert their
1 Among the members of the house of Howard who were prisoners in the
Tower at this time were Agnes, Dowager Duchess of Norfolk, the Lord
William Howard and his wife and sister, the Countess of Bridgewater, and
Lord Thomas Howard, Surrey's younger brother, who was imprisoned for
marrying Henry's niece, the Lady Margaret Douglas, without the royal
consent.
73
74 THE NINE DAYS' QUEEN
preference. For the matter of that, it was shown very
early in Queen Mary's reign that the Protestant fervour of
the official world, being a matter of policy rather than of
conviction, was not to be relied on. The majority of that
aristocracy which had so eagerly accepted the extreme reforms
assented to by Edward vi was to be seen, a few weeks after his
death, parading the streets of London, taper in hand, in the
wake of the revived processions of Corpus Christi and Our Lady. 1
Thomas Howard, third Duke of Norfolk, was one of the
most conspicuous figures in Henry's reign. He may not,
perhaps, have been as astute a statesman as has been
asserted, but he showed remarkable qualities as a capable
peacemaker on the occasion of the Pilgrimage of Grace ; while
as a warrior he had no rival, and proved himself a hero on
Flodden Field. If anything, he was excessive in his loyalty
to the King, and he would even seem to have sunk all sense
of his own dignity and importance, humbling himself utterly
before the monarch whose assumption of quasi-divine attri-
butes he had aided and abetted. Thus, when his niece Anne
Boleyn was tried and executed for misdemeanours she was
certainly not proved to have committed, 2 he, at her royal
assassin's command, pronounced the death sentence, and with
his son, the young Earl of Surrey, who sat at his feet, holding
the Earl Marshal's baton in his hand, was actually present
at her execution. When, some few years later, Norfolk's
other niece, Katherine Howard, was proved guilty of many
serious offences, both before and after marriage, Norfolk sat
in judgment upon her and would have witnessed her death
too but for an attack of gout which kept him a prisoner.
Two days after the execution he penned an abject letter to
the King apologising for " the naughtiness of his said niece,
the late Queen/' 3 In person, Norfolk was a dark, handsome
1 For an 'account of these processions see Machyn's Diary (The Diary
of Henry Machyn, edited by John Gough Nicholas, F.S.A., Camden Society,
pp. 63, 107, etc. Also note, p. 399).
2 The Lord Mayor, who was at the arraignment of Queen Anne Boleyn,
afterwards said that he " could not observe anything in the proceedings
against her, but that they were resolved to make an occasion to get rid of her '
thus corroborating the opinions of Sir Thomas Wyatt and other witnesses.
3 When quite a lad, the Duke married the Princess Anne Plantagenet,
youngest daughter of Edward iv and sister to Queen Elizabeth of York.
THE HOWARDS AND THE SEYMOURS 75
man, of moderate stature, with piercing eyes and an exceed-
ingly intelligent countenance. Holbein has left us several
magnificent oil portraits of him, and at least one noble draw-
ing, now in the Windsor Collection. He was fairly educated,
a good Latin scholar, and a patron of art. His first wife,
Princess Anne Plantagenet, the King's aunt, died young
in 1512. The day on which he espoused his second, 1 the hand-
some Lady Elizabeth Stafford, was an evil one for him. The
alliance was one of convenience on his side and of compulsion
on hers. His duchy had been greatly impoverished by the
attainder of his father, the second Duke, after Bosworth, and
the luckless Buckingham's daughter was possessed of a hand-
some fortune in money and wide lands. She had been previ-
ously contracted to Ralph Nevill, afterwards Earl of West-
moreland, to whom she was greatly attached and with whom
she kept up a correspondence till the end of her life. Although
she bore her husband five children, the Duchess of Norfolk
suffered some neglect at his hands, her rival being a certain
Bess Holland, 2 a gentlewoman in her service. The mortifica-
tion caused by this outrage drove the poor Duchess to the
verge of distraction. She seems to have been a naturally
conscientious, if narrow-minded, woman, of an exceedingly
high-strung and excitable temperament. We should describe
her nowadays as an " impossible ' person, whose lack of tact
and outbursts of uncontrollable rage not only alienated her
husband's affections, but deprived her of her children's love
as well as of her servants' respect.
Of all the men of his time, Surrey, this ill-used lady's son,
was the most accomplished. He was an excellent Latin,
French, and Italian scholar, and well versed in ancient and
modern literature. No one could excel him in tourney or
joust not even John Dudley, afterwards Duke of North-
By this royal alliance he became uncle-by-marriage to Henry vin. Anne,
Duchess of Norfolk, died of consumption in 1512, and shortly afterwards her
widower married again.
: This lady was the second daughter of the unfortunate Duke of Bucking-
ham, who was executed on a public charge of combined sorcery and treason, in
the first years of Henry vm's reign.
2 Elizabeth Holland was the daughter of John Holland of Redenhall,
Norfolk, chief steward and afterwards secretary to the Duke of Norfolk. Her
mother was a Hussey, niece of Lord Hussey of Sleaford, beheaded for the part
he took in the Pilgrimage of Grace.
76 THE NINE DAYS' QUEEN
umberland, who had exceeding skill with the sword and spear,
and than whom scarce one could pull a bow with surer aim.
Surrey danced more lightly than Thomas Seymour, who
prided himself on the ' altitude of his pirouettes," and the
King himself in his singing youth did not warble a sweeter
note. No Englishman since Chaucer had so enriched our
literature with verse all redolent of those sweet-scented fields
and lanes, meadows and gardens amid which the poet's muse
loved best to linger. An Elizabethan critic well described
him as " a poet new crept out of the school of Dante, Petrarch,
and Ariosto," and " coming nearer to Ariosto " than to either
the prophet of Florence or the inspired singer of Vaucluse.
Though of but medium height, Surrey was so graceful and
well-proportioned as to seem taller than he really was. There
is a portrait of him at Hampton Court, most probably by
Guilliam Streete, which gives us a fair idea of this prince for
a fairy-tale. The face is full of youthful charm : the eyes
hazel, frank, and winning ; the cheeks rounded and flushed with
rosy health ; the hair a darkish chestnut ; the slight mous-
tache of the colour of ripe corn. His costume is superb. The
young Earl stands before us garbed from head to foot in red
velvet, softened by bands of brocade and sarsenet, the only
white spot visible being the silk shirt open at the neck, and
even that enriched with a dainty arabesque wrought in gold
stitchery. On his well-shaped head rests a jaunty cap of
crimson velvet with a feathered plume of the same tint.
There was much that was purely personal in the violent
animosity displayed by the Seymours against the Howards
in general and against Surrey in particular. The Seymours,
although of far more ancient and well-ascertained lineage than
either the Brandons or the Boleyns, were not of the great
aristocracy, but, in a sense, what the modern French would
call arrivistes. Had it not been for the accident which raised
their sister Jane to the towering position of Queen-Consort, the
Seymours would probably have remained what they originally
were, mere country squires of excellent lineage, reputed
to be remotely connected with royalty. Their father, 1 Sir
1 Sir John Seymour, father of Queen Jane, was a man of note in his day.
He was born in 1474, and was a doughty soldier, fighting well at the sieges
of Terouenne and Tournay, and at the Battle of the Spurs. On his return to
THE HOWARDS AND THE SEYMOURS 77
William St. Maur, or Seymour, of Wolf's Hall, Wiltshire, had
on one occasion entertained King Henry vm ; and their
mother, Lady Seymour, by birth a Went worth, and a lineal
descendant of Edward in, was highly connected ; but other-
wise there was nothing in their antecedents to distinguish
them from scores of other equally respectable and wealthy
country gentlemen. The sudden * elevation of their sister
Jane brought them a rapid promotion, which first dazzled
them and then turned their heads. Honours and posi-
tions were heaped upon them. Edward, the eldest son, was
first created Viscount Beauchamp, and, after the birth of
Prince Edward, Earl of Hertford ; the second, Thomas, was
knighted. The youngest, Henry, seems to have preferred
obscurity and security to rank and risk, and lived the life
of a country gentleman, married young, and merely accepted
knighthood on Edward vi's accession.
The ranks of the old aristocracy had been thinned by the
prolonged civil wars and the plague, and towards the middle of
the century the Court was so full of new men that at the time of
Henry's last illness there were only two dukes in the peerage
Norfolk, then seventy-two ; and Suffolk, a lad of seventeen.
The new peers, whose fortunes were mainly derived from
confiscated church property, were eager to obtain recogni-
tion from the few of the old aristocracy who yet remained,
and more especially from the Howards, a sturdy race, full
of sap and vigour, and conspicuous in Court and State. The
Duke of Norfolk was too experienced a man, both socially
and politically, to permit his inborn pride of birth to display
itself out of season. With Surrey it was otherwise. In his
case, pride of ancestry was something more than a mere matter
of vulgar boast. He regarded it with a poet's eye and imagina-
tion, and took delight in remembering that through his veins
England he was appointed Sheriff of Wells, Dorset, and Somersetshire. In
1515 he obtained the Constableship of Bristol Castle. His wife, Margery
Wentworth, was the daughter of Sir Henry Wentworth of Nettlestead,
Suffolk, whose grandfather married a granddaughter of Hotspur (Henry
Percy), and was thus descended from Edward in. Sir John Seymour died in
1517-
1 Realising the suddenness of their rise to power, Hayward says of the
Seymour brothers (Life of Edward VI, p. 82) that " their new lustre did dim the
light of men honoured with ancient nobility."
78 THE NINE DAYS' QUEEN
flowed the blood of emperors and kings who had founded
realms and dynasties, and built up the glory of a great nation.
In the beginning of the fifteenth century a marriage between
Robert Howard and the Lady Margaret Mowbray had brought
the illustrious house into alliance with royalty. His father's
first wife had been the reigning King's aunt, and his mother,
Elizabeth Stafford, had a right to quarter Royal Arms on
her escutcheon. With such a pedigree, and in an age when
rank was paramount, Surrey conceived himself sufficiently
powerful to hold his own against the encroachments of a new
peerage only too eager to claim a fellowship which offended his
sense of propriety.
When the Seymours first came to Court, in the heyday
of their youth and good looks, they sought young Surrey's
society, just as in our day new people seek that of a leader of
the " smartest set." So long as they kept their place, Surrey
consorted with them willingly enough ; but their rapacity and
arrogance jarred on him at last, and he resented their many
attempts at over-familiarity. He himself, on occasion, was
apt to transgress the bounds of good behaviour, and once upon
a time, being in lodgings in St. Lawrence Lane, Old Jewry,
and leading what he himself is pleased to call a ' racketty
life," went brawling about the streets at midnight with young
William Pickering x and young Wyatt, the poet's son, casting
stones into peaceful citizens' windows, and frightening them
out of their wits. One night the party rowed over in a boat to
Southwark, where dwelt in those days that gay and facile
sisterhood whose representatives, in this year of Grace, 1909,
patrol more central parts of our great city. In this fast com-
pany, our young gentlemen, evidently in their cups, behaved
disgracefully. On Surrey's part such conduct was all the more
unseemly since he was already married to the plain-faced, but
wealthy, Lady Frances Vere, 2 Lord Oxford's daughter, to whom
he declared himself devotedly attached. These escapades
ended by attracting public attention, and their heroes were
arrested for disorderly conduct. Thanks to their rank, they
1 Little is known of William Pickering except that he was a boon com-
panion ; of Lord Surrey. See Courtships of Queen Elizabeth by Martin
Hume.
2 Holbein's fine sketch of Lady Surrey shows her to have been distinctly
" homely " but extremely intelligent-looking.
THE HOWARDS AND THE SEYMOURS 79
were brought before the Privy Council, 1 instead of being
haled before an ordinary justice, though, as ill-luck would
have it, Edward, Lord Hertford, was presiding at the Council
board. The opportunity of paying off a few old scores was too
much for him, and he swiftly resolved to give Surrey good
cause to remember him in future. A very comical and char-
acteristic scene ensued. 2 Surrey, mimicking Hertford, who
was nothing if not puritanical in his mode of expressing himself,
" having ever God on his lips," assured the Council that if he
had done what he had, it had been for the good of the souls
of the wicked citizens of London, who were behaving more
abominably than the men of papal Rome. Had he not seen
them sitting round tables and playing at cards in the late hours
of the night ? and was it not a godly thing to whizz a stone
or so at their windows, which stone, passing silently through
the air, fell with all the greater suddenness among them,
thereby recalling them to a proper sense of their duties to their
God, their King, and their country ? 3 Mrs. Arundel, a woman
of good family but greatly impoverished, who kept a sort of
boarding-house for bachelors of rank in St. Lawrence Lane,
Old Jewry, was the Earl's landlady, and imparted a very
different colour to the episode. " Her young gentleman/'
she said, had frankly admitted to her that he considered these
1 An examination of the Privy Papers shows that Surrey was originally
brought before the Council on a charge of eating flesh on days of abstinence
a grave offence, and one against the law, but at that period of frequent
occurrence, since no less than nine joiners had been a few days previously
arrested and severely reprimanded, and even heavily fined, for the offence
of eating meat in public on Friday. Surrey pleaded guilty, but in extenuation
declared he had received an ecclesiastical dispensation. With regard to the
second charge, of riotous conduct, he declared himself deserving of punish-
ment, but threw himself on the mercy of the Court, alleging, in extenuation of
his misdemeanour, his youth and hot-blooded disposition. He is said to have
written an abject apology ; but, though the letter is extant, it is not in his
handwriting, and may therefore be a forgery. The occurrence took place
on the night of 2ist January 1544.
2 M. Edmond Bapst, Vie de Deux Gentilhommes Poetes du Temps de
Henri VIII.
3 Surrey, in his metrical " Satire," makes use of the same whimsical excuse
for shooting with a bow through citizens' windows. Says he
" This made me with a reckless brest,
To wake thy sluggards with my bow ;
A figure of the Lord's behest,
Whose scourge for synne the Scriptures shew."
80 THE NINE DAYS' QUEEN
pranks good jokes : but she herself disapproved of them,
especially the shooting at the windows of women of light
character, or " bawds/' in Southwark, which the Earl, it seems,
was addicted to, going by boat close to their quarters and
firing off petards at the <( trolls " ! There was nothing for it,
therefore, but to pronounce sentence. Surrey was committed
to the Fleet, the most abominable of all the many vile prisons
of those days, while Wyatt and Pickering, though of much
inferior rank, were sent to the stately Tower, whence they
were delivered in a day or two on payment of a heavy fine and
promising good behaviour. How long Surrey remained in
durance it is difficult to say long enough certainly for him to
compose his " Satire on the Citizens of London " and several
other poems. He never forgave Seymour his share in the
business, and never failed to annoy his enemy openly or covertly
whenever opportunity occurred. It was quite in keeping
with his character to address amatory verses with this intent
to Hertford's handsome and very proud wife, who took his
lines in very bad part, as so many insults to her honour. The
Countess once made a scandal by deliberately turning her back
upon the poet-Earl when, in August 1542, at a ball in his own
father's house, 1 he ventured to ask her permission to lead her
out to dance.
1 This ball was, it appears, given for the purpose of conciliating the Sey-
mours and at Surrey's express request. It must have been a picturesque
function, with its rich costumes, its splendid but rather roughly expressed
profusion and hearty welcome. Just such a ball as this old Capulet gave on
that ever-memorable night when Juliet first met her Romeo. Was it to dance
the Volta or the Salta with him that Surrey invited the angry Countess ?
These, the two most fashionable dances of the period, had been but recently
introduced from France and Italy. The latter resembled, and very closely
too, our modern waltz, only in the Salta the gentleman lifts the lady from
time to time an inch or so from the ground, as in the German hop waltz.
" Yet there is one, the most delightful kind,
A lofty jumping, or a leaping round,
When arm in arm, two dancers are en twin' d,
And which themselves, in strict embracements bound
And still their feet, an anapest do sound ;
An anapest is all their music's song
Whose first two feet are short, the rest are long."
Sir John Davids' Orchestra.
See also for an account of the Volta, the Orlando Furioso of Boiardo,
THE HOWARDS AND THE SEYMOURS 81
Late in the summer of 1542 a very serious quarrel broke out
between Seymour and Surrey, over an incident which took
place in Hampton Court Park. Seymour, it was alleged, had
reported against Surrey that he had openly approved of the
Pilgrimage of Grace. Surrey, coming face to face with his
antagonist in a glen in the park, instantly challenged him.
Coats were off in a moment, and the two were in the midst of a
hearty boxing-match when the guard arrived and took both
into custody for violating the royal privilege and fighting
within the precincts of the King's palace. The punishment
for this offence, as readers of The Fortunes of Nigel will
recollect, was loss of the right hand. All the diplomacy and
influence of the Duke of Norfolk had to be exerted to avert the
infliction of this terrible penalty ; but, thanks to his efforts,
both the hot-headed young gentlemen escaped with a sharp
reprimand. Scores of similar curious instances might be
quoted from the chronicles and letters of the time, to prove
the depth and bitterness of the social animosity between the
Howards and the Seymours. The Duke himself resented the
cruel manner in which Hertford had behaved in the matter
-*,
of His Grace's niece, the unhappy Katherine Howard. There
can be no doubt that at one time both Cranmer and the King
wished to spare her life, and would have spared it had not
Hertford, in his hot haste to ruin the Howards' credit, pre-
maturely dispatched letters to the King's Ambassadors abroad
containing full details of the Queen's disgrace, with orders
to hand them to the sovereigns to whose Courts they were
accredited. This publicity rendered the royal clemency im-
possible. 1
Early in the summer of 1546 the Duke of Norfolk made up
his mind, in what he held to be the interests of himself and his
family, to bring about a reconciliation, if that were possible,
between his house and Seymour's. He fully realised that,
ageing as he was, he could no longer be a match for two
unscrupulous and very able men, then reaching the prime of
book xv. stanza 43. These two dances, the Volta and the Salta, were in-
troduced into Scotland by Madeleine de Valois, the first wife of James v,
and gave terrible offence to the " unco' guid " folk of " Auld Reekie."
See State Papers, Domestic Series, Henry vin, 1542-3 ; also Miss
Strickland's excellent biography of Katherine Howard in the Lives of the
Queens of England, and the Wives of Henry VIII, by Martin Hume.
6
82 THE NINE DAYS' QUEEN
life, and already holding the King's complete confidence.
Further, he felt Surrey to be hopeless in all business calling for
tact and diplomacy, and was convinced the persistent ani-
mosity between his son and Hertford would lead before long
to some awful catastrophe. Surrey's bravery as a fighting
soldier was undisputed, but as a commander his lack of reti-
cent and his rashness had led the King's troops in France
into more than one disaster ; he himself had paid the penalty
of his rashness before the walls of Montreuil, where he was
seriously wounded and only saved from certain death by the
gallantry of Sir Thomas Clere. He had then been recalled,
and Hertford had been sent to take his place, a bitter humilia-
tion to the proud Howards and one which more than anything
else rankled in Surrey's soul. Yet the old Duke recognised
that Hertford's bravery and tact as warrior and diplomatist
had soon ended the war and obtained peace with honour for
the English forces, thus raising his popularity to the highest
pitch ; for there was nothing the nation then desired so much
as peace, at home and abroad. Hertford's brother, Sir Thomas,
was, if anything, still more popular, for he had so successfully
scoured the seas in quest of French galleons laden with pro-
visions that suppressed monasteries had been converted
into storehouses. The magnificent ex-church of the Grey
Friars had become a wine-vault, crammed to the roof with
barrels of Burgundy and other wines of the best French
vintages. In Austin Friars such a stock of cheeses was stored
that there was no moving in that erstwhile beautiful priory
church, and the huge and splendid church of the Black Friars
was literally packed with salt herring and dried cod. Where-
fore the people had good reason to be well pleased with brother
Thomas.
The Duke, then, without consulting his son, and here hi<
disastrous mistake, obtained an interview with Hertford,
and, skilfully playing on his well-known vanity and social
ambition, suggested at length that a betrothal should be forth-
with arranged between Hertford's eldest daughter and Surrey's
eldest son, and a similar contract entered into between Lore
Thomas Howard 1 and Seymour's youngest daughter, the Lady
Jane Seymour. His Grace, apparently in a match-making
1 The Duke's second son.
THE HOWARDS AND THE SEYMOURS 83
mood, gave his paternal sanction to the wooing and wedding
of his beautiful daughter, the widowed Duchess of Richmond,
by Sir Thomas Seymour. With all these suggestions the
Seymours gladly closed, making but one condition, that Surrey
should accept a slightly subordinate position under Hertford's
command, virtually tantamount to a tacit apology for his
repeated slights, covert and open, in the past. On Tuesday
in Whitsun week 1546, then, the Duke, well pleased with his
own diplomacy, presented himself at Whitehall and laid his
rather complicated scheme of alliances before His Majesty.
Henry was graciously pleased to approve it, and willingly
agreed that his daughter-in-law of Richmond should become
the bride of the handsome Thomas Seymour, with whom,
according to Court gossip, she was already much in love. But
in all these schemes the Duke had reckoned without his host,
for when he put the matter before Surrey, that impetuous
poet flew into a towering rage. He would ' sooner see his
children dead in their coffins than married to Seymour's brats,"
he said. Then, turning furiously on his sister, the Duchess of
Richmond, who had accompanied her father, he cried, at
least, according to that dangerous Court gossip, Sir Gawen
Carew,- ' Go, carry out your farce of a marriage. My Lord of
Hertford is in full favour, I grant ; but why not do yet better
for yourself and follow Madame d'Estampes' example with
King Francis. Get you into the same sort of favour with
King Henry, and rule through him." This sinister advice was
evidently dictated by that vein of bitter sarcasm usual with
Surrey when the uncontrollable temper which he inherited
from his mother mastered his common sense. It could not
have been seriously meant, for nobody knew better than
Surrey that the King was already more than half dead, utterly
unable to trouble himself about new mistresses, and in any
case not likely to select his own daughter-in-law to replace
his excellent Queen-Consort and nurse, Katherine Parr. The
Duchess of Richmond, however, took the jibe seriously, replied
that she ' ' would sooner cut her throat ' than do ' ' any such
vile thing," and left her irate brother to his own reflections,
which, when he cooled down, cannot have been particularly
agreeable. He knew his sister well ; she was an exceedingly
beautiful woman, to whom Holbein, in his exquisite drawing,
84 THE NINE DAYS' QUEEN
has given the expression of one of Ghirlandajo's sweetest
Madonnas. But at heart she was a little fiend, capable, when
her passions were roused, of working dire mischief. She said
little at the time, but she nursed her grievance and exaggerated
its importance. She may also have felt not a little embittered
against Sir Thomas Seymour, who had ungallantly refused
her hand because it was not accompanied by her brother's
submission. Be this as it may, ' the Duchess of Richmond
from that day forth hated her brother as much as she had
previously loved him," 1 and when the hour for revenge came
at last, forgetful of her obligations as sister and woman, she
scandalised even that unsentimental age by appearing at her
brother's trial as one of the principal witnesses for the prose-
cution.
Meanwhile the Duke of Norfolk was at his wits' end to
know how to make Hertford aware of the unfortunate results
of his negotiations with his son. He was possessed of a perfect
mania for putting pen to paper on any and every pretext,
although, as every one who has waded through his correspond-
ence knows, there has never been a statesman, before or since,
who could indite more indiscreet and exasperating epistles.
If then, as is likely, he conveyed the unpleasant news by letter,
he was not the man to improve matters by a tactful manner.
The breach between the Howards and the Seymours was now
complete. Hertford, hurt in pride and vanity, would accept
no apologies from the Duke, and the feud between himself
and Surrey soon grew more bitter than ever. To make matters
worse, the Duchess of Richmond made a confidant of her
friend, Sir Gawen Carew, who detested her brother, and was tlie
most inveterate gossip of the Court, as is well known to th< >
who have read the State Papers connected with the tragedy
of Katherine Howard ; it was, indeed, the gossip of Sir Gaw< n
that did most to ruin that Queen. Presently young scions
of the nobility, courtiers who hated the Howards for their airs
and graces and forgot the old Duke's well-known kindness (o
the youthful, buzzed about the King, and did their best to
set him against the luckless Earl. Hertford and his brother
afforded them ample assistance, supplying all necessary
instructions and information ; and, for all we know to the
1 Herbert's Henry VIII.
THE HOWARDS AND THE SEYMOURS 85
contrary, the Queen may have lent a helping hand. In fact,
the whole Protestant party was now roused against the
Howards, the representatives of the Catholics, and deter-
mined to bring about their ruin or perish in the attempt.
It had hoped the folly of Katherine Howard would have
sufficed for this purpose, but the great house of Norfolk was
firm enough to resist even that storm. Another pretext
had to be found, and the impolitic behaviour of the poet-Earl
supplied it.
Poor Surrey was no match for the low and cunning intrigues
amongst which ' Fate and metaphysical aid ' had thrown
him. Somewhere in June 1546 he was summoned before the
Privy Council, severely reprimanded for what he could not
possibly help, and imprisoned in Windsor Castle, where he
consoled himself by writing one of his most exquisite poems.
This was his ' Swan Song " ! By August, however, he was
certainly out of durance, and apparently once more in favour
with the King, for he figured as Earl Marshal at the enter-
tainments given in honour of the French Envoy, Claude
d'Annebault, taking precedence of everyone excepting members
of the royal family.
Early in September he left London, and returned to his
wife and children at Kenninghall, accompanied by Churchyard
the poet, who was his secretary, and an extremely numerous
and miscellaneous retinue, which included several Italian
painters, musicians, and jesters. One of the artists, To to,
was soon engaged upon a portrait of him, which was later used
to his great disadvantage ; in the left-hand corner of it ap-
peared his escutcheon, bearing among its numerous quarter-
ings the arms of England, but so arranged that a slide could
be drawn, when necessary, over the coat-of-arms. The Duke
of Norfolk and my Lady of Richmond came to Kenninghall
Palace about this time ; but the mansion, of which not a
vestige now remains, was so enormous that every member of
the ducal family had a separate dwelling. The Duchess of
Richmond had a whole wing to herself, which she shared with
her friend Mrs. Holland. The society of those days was not so
dead to all sense of propriety as not to be scandalised by this
singular intimacy between the Duke's daughter and his mistress
Most people agreed with the Duchess of Norfolk " that her
86 THE NINE DAYS' QUEEN
dater's abiding ever with that drab Holland " was a " scandayul
and most unnatterall." Owing to the huge size of the mansion,
not much inferior to that of Hampton Court, the Duchess and
Mrs. Holland may never once have come into contact with
Surrey and his family ; otherwise, it is difficult to account for
the fact that we have no record of any fiery scene between
brother and sister. The Duke seems to have spent his time
very quietly, reading the books he most affected, such as
Plutarch's Lives of Illustrious Men, Josephus's History, and
The Confessions of St. Augustin. 1
Whilst the Howard family was thus peacefully rusticating
in Norfolk, gossip and slander were making headway in the
metropolis and preparing poor Surrey's ruin. Sir George
Blagg, the " my Blagg " of one of his finest poems, had picked
a quarrel with him in the summer, and was busy as a bee
spreading evil reports against him. Sir Gawen Carew had
confided to everv one what the Duchess of Richmond had
w
related to him anent her brother's advice to hasten and become
the King's mistress. His enemies had even pressed the Court
astrologer into their service, and this functionary had actually
warned the King that unless he was careful, his successor's
monogram would, like his own, be " H.R." The Duke himself
was not spared : he had been seen to enter the French Am-
bassador's house late at night and to leave it again in the
small hours of the morning. A letter of his to Gardiner, then
on a mission to Brussels, was intercepted and vague though
its terms were, it was held to be proof positive of Norfolk's
adherence to Gardiner's scheme, as planned with Cardinal
Granville, to restore the papal supremacy in England. At
last, truth and lies together rolled themselves up into an
ominous storm-cloud, which burst when Surrey was called
to appear before the Council in London on a charge of high
treason.
Some writers have attempted to extenuate Henry vm's
share in the denouement of this tragedy. They plead that he
was too ill at this time to know exactly what he was doing,
and that, in consequence of the swollen state of his hands, he
was compelled to use a stamp to sign his letters. With regard
1 These are the volumes he desired to have delivered to him whilst im-
prisoned in the Tower.
THE HOWARDS AND THE SEYMOURS 87
to this, we know that as far back as ist August 1546 he had
commissioned Sir Anthony Denny, Sir John Gates, and William
Clere to sign documents for him with a dry stamp, the signature
thus made being filled in with ink. And even this is not the
first time Henry had recourse to a mechanical contrivance for
signing letters and State papers. Lord Hard wick has a letter
of the King's signed with a stamp and dated as early as the
seventh year of his reign. Moreover, the official documents,
which were drawn up by Wriothesley, are carefully annotated
and corrected in pencil by Henry himself, with very full
marginal notes and numerous interlineations. The hand-
writing is very shaky, but it is the King's none the less,
and proves that if the monarch's body was infirm, his brain
was as clear and his feelings as vindictive as ever. The death-
warrant of the Earl of Surrey is also scribbled over on the
margin with certain pencil notes in the King's own writing,
proving that Henry must have retained the use of his
hands to the end.
Sufficient evidence having been gathered, and Surrey
being summoned to London, he left Kenninghall 1 in the
last days of September, and appeared before the Privy Council
in Wriothesley's house in Holborn, not far from Chancery
Lane, on 2nd October. His first accuser was Sir Richard
Southwell, at one time in his mother's household at Kenning-
hall, who hated him heartily. He averred that Surrey had
placed the Royal Arms of England in the first quartering
of his escutcheon, thereby claiming the crown. When con-
fronted with Southwell, Surrey, with his foolish impetuosity,
and to the consternation of the Council, proposed a sort
of trial by battle after the mediaeval fashion. Southwell
and he were there and then to divest themselves of their
upper garments, descend on to the floor of the court, and
indulge the Lord Chancellor and the Council with the
spectacle of a boxing-match, the winner of which was to
be declared innocent. The Council, needless to say, did not
1 He must have left Norfolk in a great hurry, for he had to borrow a sum
of money from Sir William Stonor, Lieutenant of the Tower, to buy a dark suit
of clothes in which to appear before the Council. The documents connected
with this transaction are still preserved in the British Museum, Additional MSS
24459, fol. 1497.
THE NINE DAYS' QUEEN
see fit to accept the fiery Earl's suggestion, and both Surrey
and Southwell were temporarily detained the Earl being not
yet formally charged.
The examination of the other witnesses took place privately
a few days later, before the Council but not in the presence
of the prisoner. Sir Edmund Knyvyt, a son of the Lady
Muriel Howard, the sister of the Duke of Norfolk, and
therefore a cousin of Surrey, out of sheer spite, and also
perhaps to give himself importance, accused the Earl of
harbouring Italian spies in his house at Kenninghall, of
affecting foreign airs, of wearing foreign costumes, and,
gravest of all, of entertaining persons suspected of corre-
spondence with Cardinal Pole and other " traitors ' abroad.
Then came Sir Gawen Carew with an exaggerated version
of the Duchess of Richmond's story that her brother advised
her to become the King's mistress, and had spoken lightly
of the King's illness, and speculated as to what might occur
in the event of his death ; and before the week was out a
score or so of other venal witnesses had concocted sufficient
evidence to send fifty men to the block.
The Duke, meanwhile, tarried at Kenninghall, wondering
what had happened to his son, and never imagining how
bitter and relentless was the suddenly, and indeed inexplicably,
developed hatred of the King, which we, however, know
was stimulated by the Seymours and Cranmer for their own
ends. Instead of coming up to London to help the Earl
out of his difficulties, he set himself, as usual, to write
confidential letters to those members of the Council upon
whom he thought he could rely. These effusions were
promptly shown to Hertford, with the result that His Grace
himself was ordered to London with the utmost dispatch.
On I2th December the Duke of Norfolk appeared before
Lord Chancellor Wriothesley at his house in Holborn, near
the present Southampton Buildings, and, to his unutterable
amazement, found himself formally charged with high treason.
He was immediately committed to the Tower, but on account
of his rank and age, and to spare him the humiliation of being
paraded as a prisoner through the city streets, he was
conveyed down the hill, put on board a barge in the Fleet,
and so to the Thames, through the arches of London Bridge,
THE HOWARDS AND THE SEYMOURS 89
and onward to his ominous destination in the ancient fortress.
Later in the same day Surrey too was conducted to the
Tower, but he had to go on foot and through a dense
multitude. To the consternation of his enemies, he was
cheered all along the road, and grave fears were entertained
of a rescue. 1 Three commissioners were now dispatched to
Kenninghall to bring the Duchess of Richmond and her
friend Mrs. Holland up to town. Another embassy rode
to Redbourne, to fetch the Duchess of Norfolk, who was
only too delighted to come to London and blurt out all
she could to the detriment of her hated spouse. By this
time London could talk of nothing but the Surrey trial.
In the palaces of the rich, in the hovels of the poor, in all
the little taverns and drinking-houses down by the Thames,
in the parlours of the great inns in Southwark and the Cheape,
the conversation turned upon no other subject, and even the
all-absorbing topic of the King's illness was forgotten for the
time being. A touch of horror was added to the general
excitement when it became known that Norfolk's wife and
his daughter and mistress were to be the chief witnesses
against him and his son. The Duchess did not spare her
husband. Snatching at the welcome chance of avenging
her wrongs, the half-witted lady grew garrulous, and confirmed
everything suggested by those who desired to damn her lord's
cause. She had but little to say, however, concerning her
son, for the simple reason that she had not seen him for
many months and knew nothing about his affairs. He was
very ' ' unnatturell ' towards her, she declared, and so was her
daughter, but nevertheless she " loved her children dearly."
Her husband, she said, had leanings to wards Popery, and caused
his children to be brought up to deny the King's supremacy.
Mrs. Holland behaved with great discretion, considering
her position and antecedents. It was true, she said, that
the Duke of Norfolk had on one occasion told her that " if
he had been young enough he would like to go to Rome to
venerate the Veronica, an image of our Lord miraculously
impressed upon a handkerchief which He had given to certain
women on His way to Calvary.' 1 The Duke had bidden her
1 Spanish Chronicle of Henry VIII, translated by Major Martin Hume,
and the Calendar of Spanish State Papers, vol. viii., by the same Editor.
QO THE NINE DAYS' QUEEN
lay aside some needlework upon which she was engaged,
to oblige the Earl of Surrey, and in a corner of which were
his arms, one quartering of which was to be left blank,
( probably for the introduction of the Royal Arms and
monogram." She had obeyed the Duke's behest and never
set needle into the work again. Before concluding her
evidence, she, perhaps not unnaturally, seized the opportunity
to try and clear her own reputation, and informed the Court
that ' the Earl detested her because she was so friendly
with his sister."
The appearance of Mary, Duchess of Richmond, must have
created a sensation. Her angelic beauty contrasted strangely
with her spiteful and bitter nature. Like her mother, when
she was onde started there was no stopping her, and in her
excitement she materially damaged her brother's cause,
exaggerating every point against him suggested by the
prosecution. With telling and dramatic effect she related
the scene when he advised her to become the King's mistress.
Her brother, she said, had been reading the book about
Lancelot of the Lake, and had introduced that hero's arms,
together with those of Anjou, into his own. He had recently
had his portrait taken by an Italian artist, as already related,
and had caused the arms of England to be painted into the
left corner, with the monogram " H.R." surmounted by a
crown, which she thought was a closed crown, like the King's.
He had also appropriated the Confessor's arms, which belonged
by right to the King, and the King only ; he had spoken
irreverently of His Majesty, and had speculated upon what
might happen after his death ; and, she added, " my lord
of Hertford is particularly hateful to him because he super-
seded him at Boulogne, and indeed he detested the new
nobility in general." The Council, to its credit, discarded
the Duchess's evidence concerning Surrey's alleged infamous
advice to her. They held it too abominable to be even
probable, and it was not included in the indictment ; but
the rest of her evidence was considered very compromising.
On I3th January 1548 Surrey was brought on foot from
the Tower to the Guildhall, which was packed to suffocation,
and the charges of treacherously conspiring, together with
his father, either to usurp the throne or seize the protectorate,
THE HOWARDS AND THE SEYMOURS 91
were read over to him. He made an eloquent defence, and,
while denying every other item of the charge, said he had a
right, in accordance with a grant made by Richard in to
his grandfather, the first Duke of Norfolk, to use the arms
of the Confessor ; which was perfectly true " Herald-at-
Arms knew this, and was content he used them/ 1 As to his
ever " having dreamed of usurping the throne," that was
" mere chatter/ 1 He owned he bore Hertford no goodwill,
but the fault rested with that gentleman, and was " not of
my making." He was innocent on all points, he said, and
called God to witness his loyalty to his King and country.
In spite of all, sentence was passed upon him, and he was
condemned to die on the following morning. The breathless
silence with which the verdict had been awaited gave way
to tumultuous protests from all sides of the Court, and it
was only with great difficulty, even danger, that the hall
was cleared. As the condemned Earl passed from the
Guildhall to the Tower every cap was lifted, and the utmost
sorrow and sympathy were displayed when the result of
the trial was revealed by the sight of the executioner walking
in the procession, the sharp edge of his axe turned towards
the prisoner's person.
The next morning, I4th January, rose bright and frosty.
A huge multitude had assembled on Tower Hill to witness
the closing scene. Surrey, dressed in black velvet, looked
very handsome, as with brave and elastic step he mounted
the scaffold. He delivered the usual speech a part of the
grim pageant which no prisoner, male or female, ever missed
-in a clear voice. He eloquently declared his innocence,
forgave his enemies, and avowed his loyalty to his sovereign.
He begged the prayers of all the company, and himself
prayed aloud while the final preparations were being made.
These done, in the midst of an awed silence, Surrey knelt to
receive the fatal stroke, and with the sacred name of " Jesus '
on his lips, his brave soul passed into eternity. Thus was
the Court of England robbed of a gallant and magnificent
gentleman, and the country of a man of genius, who, had
he lived into the calmer and fostering atmosphere of Eliza-
beth's reign, might have left a name in literature equal, if
not superior, to that of Spenser.
92 THE NINE DAYS' QUEEN
The Duke of Norfolk escaped trial, but not attainder.
His dignities and estates were confiscated and distributed
among his enemies. On the 27th of January his death-
warrant was brought to the King ; but Henry was too far
gone, by this time, to be able to affix his autograph, and Sir
Richard Gates stamped the document with the Royal Seal
only. The deed, however, never reached its destination.
Possibly it was detained by the Seymours, who may have
thought that age and infirmity would soon spare them the
blood-shedding of an old man. If so, they were mistaken,
for Norfolk survived them both. A few hours later the
King's death saved the aged Duke's. He remained, however,
a close prisoner throughout the reign of Edward vi, but at
the accession of Queen Mary he was liberated and all his
dignities restored.
The most pitiable part of this strange episode in the
history of an epoch which was one long series of domestic
and political tragedies is that the Duke, in the hope of
saving his life, was induced to address a shameful confession
to the King. This confession His Majesty never read. It
is still in existence, and must be described, even by the most
merciful critics, as a very foolish and impolitic effusion. Yet
that the Duke of Norfolk and his son were both conspiring
not, indeed, to usurp the throne, but to obtain the
protectorate is beyond dispute. The Seymours, on their
side, though with much greater skill and diplomacy, were
doing precisely the same thing.
Among our national archives and those of Norfolk House
are full inventories of the estates, goods, and chattels of the
Duke of Norfolk and his son, and also of the Duchesses of
Norfolk and Richmond and of Mrs. Holland. Norfolk's list
is valuable as affording a fair idea of the contents of a great
English nobleman's house and wardrobe in the first half of
the sixteenth century. In his desire to save them, the
Duke had presented his vast landed estates to the Prince
of Wales, who, needless to say, never got an acre of them ;
they were made over to the Duke of Somerset, a title assumed
by Hertford on becoming Lord Protector, to Paget, and to
other members of the new Government. His wearing apparel,
which consisted of many garments, mostly of black or russet
THE HOWARDS AND THE SEYMOURS 93
velvet or satin richly furred, and ' much worn/ 1 or even
' very much worn," was also seized. The Countess of Surrey
was allowed one of her father-in-law's " coats ' of black
satin much worn, and furred with coney and lamb, which
was delivered to her ' to put about her in her chariot."
This is probably the first mention of a carriage rug in the
domestic history of this realm. All the rest of the Duke's
effects, including f three broad yards of marble cloth and
two pairs of old black slippers," were given to the Duke of
Somerset for his use. The Protector also obtained possession
of the magnificent jewelled collars belonging to the various
Orders of which the Duke was a member. Paget had a
' George, set with diamonds and one ruby," and Lord St.
John had poor Surrey's " Order of St. Michael with its chain,
studded with pearls and diamonds." The Duke left many
pictures, all of a sacred character, and an enormous quantity
of gold and silver plate, which was divided into equal parcels,
and delivered to Somerset, Princess Mary, the Duchess of
Norfolk, the Duchess of Richmond, and Surrey's widow.
Somerset seized a collection of thirty-two splendid rings,
but Mrs. Holland claimed the finest table diamond as her
private property. His Grace had also some fifty sets of
rosary beads, some of coral with paternosters in gold,
others of pearl, agate, gold studded with little jewels,
black enamel, and even of glass. A great quantity of
these were presented to Princess Mary, to whom also
went much of the altar furniture of the Duke's private
chapel.
Surrey's wardrobe was as magnificent as that of any
prince. There was 'a Parliament robe, of rich purple
velvet lined with ermine, and with a garter set with jewels
upon the shoulder," and a gown " of black velvet curiously
figured in gold pasmentary " ; "a coat and cassock of
crimson velvet, wrought with satin in the same colour, with
a cloak, hat and hose to match," was most probably the
identical costume in which he was represented by Streete
in the picture still at Hampton Court. We read of dozens of
gorgeous suits, one more splendid than the other. Somerset
chose the finest for himself, and handed over the rest to his
brother Henry, who had come up to town to be knighted,
94 THE NINE DAYS' QUEEN
and who doubtless ultimately paraded his Wiltshire market
town, decked in poor Surrey's finery, looking very much
like the fabled jay in peacock's feathers. The furniture of
Surrey's country house, St. Leonard's, near Norwich, which
he had built after designs of John of Padua, was given to
his widow, but some of the altar furniture went to Princess
Mary at Newhall.
Seals had been placed on the goods and chattels of the
Duchesses of Norfolk and Richmond and of Mrs. Holland,
but they were lifted immediately, and the ladies received all
their several properties intact.
The name of Sir Thomas Seymour does not figure in any
connection, even remote, with this tragedy, and he did not
receive a single coat or " night-gown," * whether of velvet,
satin, or common cloth, belonging to either the Duke or to
his son. It may be that by the time the distribution of the
confiscated property took place the feud between the am-
bitious brothers had already begun. It was destined amply
to avenge Surrey's untimely fate.
Readers may fairly ask what the story of the poet-Earl's
end has to do with Lady Jane Grey ? It may be replied
that his death and his father's imprisonment affected her
very nearly. They cleared the way for the temporary triumph
of the Protestant party, and enabled Seymour to proclaim
himself Protector unopposed. The close intimacy between
the families of Howard and Dorset is easily traced through
at least three generations in the household books of Thomas,
Earl of Surrey, afterwards Duke of Norfolk.
When the Earl entertained company, the ladies and
gentlemen, it seems, all dined together in the " great
chamber," and there were often as many as twenty to fifty
guests staying in the house. Their names include nearly
all the leading aristocracy of the time, among them being
Lady Jane Grey's father and mother, the Lord Marquis of
Dorset and the Lady Frances ; Brandon, Duke of Suffolk ;
the Lady Wyndham, the Lady Parker, the Lady Essex ;
Mrs. Brian, afterwards governess to the Princesses Mary
and Elizabeth ; the Lady Vere, the " old ' Lady of
1 These " night-gowns " were most probably what we should now call
" evening dresses " or " dress suits."
THE HOWARDS AND THE SEYMOURS 95
Oxford, 1 etc. The ladies attending on the visitors 2 dined
at my Lady's mess, the gentlemen in the hall. When Mr.
Thomas Reddynge, a gentleman of the Duke's household,
brought his bride to Tenderinge Hall for her honeymoon,
" all the company dined and supped in the bride's bedroom."
The little Lord Thomas Howard, afterwards Earl of Surrey,
dined in the nursery.
Hospitality was exchanged between the Howards and the
Dorse ts almost to the end of the Duke's life. The Marquis
and Marchioness of Dorset (the Lady Frances Brandon),
Lady Jane Grey and her sisters, were certainly at Hunsdon 3
on more than one occasion, and when the two families were
in town there was, doubtless, constant visiting between
them. It must be remembered that the Duke of Norfolk,
being uncle-by-marriage to the King, was also uncle to the
Lady Frances's mother, Mary Tudor, the royal Queen-
Duchess of Suffolk. Little Lady Jane must often have sat
perched on Surrey's knee and listened with delight as he
whispered in her ear those tales of fairy enchantment he
himself loved so well. Owing to her tender age, Jane may
never have been told the details of the closing scenes of her
gallant kinsman's life, but she must surely have noticed
that on a certain day in January 1547-8 the curtains of
her father's house were drawn, as for a family in mourning ;
1 This lady was a rather interesting personage, being the first British
peeress who was ever reduced to earning her living by her needle. She was
the widow of that Earl of Oxford who was killed during the Wars of the
Roses and whose estates were so carefully confiscated that his widow was
left penniless.
2 A list of the names of persons in the Earl's retinue is extremely curious.
In the first place, we find that one John Holland was private secretary. He was
the father of George Holland, who in his turn was the father of the husband of
that Mrs. Holland who figured in the Surrey trial. Then we have Mr. William
Sappeworth, Mr. Widdow, Mr. Hairbottle, and Mrs. Ingliss. We learn that
the company was often regaled with boiled neck of mutton ; and a very
favourite dish appears to have been boiled capon with sauce and a roast
breast of veal basted. Occasionally they indulged in rabbit pie, and there was
a bountiful supply of tarts, custards, and sweetmeats.
3 Hunsdon, in Worcestershire, was one of the numerous seats of the Duke
of Norfolk, which he lent on rental to Princess Mary, who first came there in
1536, having in her company Mistress Elizabeth Fitzgerald or Garret. The
house, according to William Worcester, was built in Henry vi's reign by Sir
William Oldhall at an expense of 7000 marks. It had four towers and was
mainly built of brick.
96 THE NINE DAYS' QUEEN
that her parents moved about with pale and saddened faces ;
and that the servants stirred noiselessly and spoke under
their breath. The shadow lay everywhere, and the various
chronicles of the period afford abundant proof that there
was a genuine sorrow felt in the city on the day of Surrey's
death.
And there is yet another link between Lady Jane Grey
and the unhappy Surrey. The name of her kins woman ;
Elizabeth Fitzgerald, the ' fair Geraldine," must ever be
associated with that of the poet-Earl, for she is as indissolubly
connected with him as is Laura with Petrarch, or Leonora
with Tasso. A daughter of Oge, Earl of Kildare, 1 by his
wife, the Lady Elizabeth Grey, daughter of the first Marquis
of Dorset, the fair Fitzgerald was a not distant cousin to
Lady Jane Grey, and there were but a few years between
them. She was born in Ireland, probably at Maynooth
Castle, somewhere in 1528, and was brought to England
whilst yet an infant. In 1533 her father died in the Tower,
broken-hearted at the news that his son, whom the Irish
cherished as a patriot and the English hated as a rebel, had
been captured and brought to London. A few days after
his father's decease, the young man was hanged at Tyburn
with some seventeen other Irishmen. Henry vm appears to
have pitied the widowed Lady Kildare, who was reduced to
the verge of starvation after her husband's death. A small
pension was granted her, and her children were dispersed
among the leading families of the aristocracy, to receive an
education worthy of their rank. Elizabeth, " the fair
Geraldine," an extremely beautiful child, was placed under
the guidance of the Princess Mary. 2 It was probably in
the year 1542, whilst attending Her Highness on a visit at
Hunsdon, that she first fell under the notice of Surrey, who,
1 Lady Kildare's frequent petitions to King Henry for money generally
contain some mention of her being his kinswoman and " of his most Royal
blood." See Cottonian MSS, Titus B. xi. 342. It will be remembered that
Lady Elizabeth Grey attended the christening of the Lady Frances at Hat-
field Church as a sponsor.
2 It has frequently been stated that the Lady Elizabeth Fitzgerald or
Garret, as she was generally called was educated with Princess Mary, but
this is obviously incorrect, since she was born when her future royal mistress
was fully fourteen years of age. But she was certainly in Mary's service, and
not in that of her sister Elizabeth, as stated by Bapst.
THE HOWARDS AND THE SEYMOURS 97
though already married, became desperately enamoured of
her. The young lady cannot have been more than fourteen
or fifteen at this time, but in those days this was quite a
marriageable age. We have Surrey's own word for it that
it was at Hunsdon he first beheld the " fair Geraldine "
"Hunsdon did first present her to mine eyen:
Bright is her hue, and Geraldine she night.
Hampton me taught to wish her first for mine;
And Windsor, alas! doth chase her from my sight.
Her beauty of kind ; her virtues from above.
Happy is he that can obtain her love!"
They appear to have met again at Hampton Court, and
we seem to have evidence that the ' ' fair Geraldine ' yielded
to some extent to her suitor's prayers. They danced together,
no doubt, in the Great Hall, which still delights us with its
lofty beauty and rich arras. They sat side by side in the
oriel windows, or romped among the flower-beds of the
palace garden. But the lovely Irish girl, true to her race,
was chaste as snow, and when Surrey's ardour grew too
hot for modest endurance, he was firmly repulsed. One
thing is quite certain, that " Geraldine ' ' was very beautiful,
with Irish sea-green eyes x and glorious fair hair. She
seems otherwise to have been a very matter-of-fact young
lady, who presently bestowed her hand on the rich old Sir
Anthony Browne. 2 After his death, in 1548, she re-entered
the household of her royal mistress, and as the Lady
Frances and her daughter paid several visits to their cousin,
Princess Mary, in 1551, Jane Grey must often have seen the
bella ma fredda innammorata of poet Surrey. After Queen
Mary's death the " fair Geraldine ' consoled herself with
a second husband, in the person of Clinton, Earl of Lincoln.
There is a fine portrait of her by Kettel at Woburn Abbey, and a copy
at Carton.
2 Princess Mary's present to Mistress Elizabeth Garret on her marriage
was " A gold broach with one bolace of the history of Susanne." Another
gift is mentioned in her list of jewels in the following entry : " A broach of
gold enamelled black, with an agate of the story of Abraham with iii small
rock rubies Given to Sir Anthony Brown, drawing her Grace as his valentine."
These gifts were presented to the bride and bridegroom on loth December,
in the thirty-third year of Henry's reign. The youthful bride could not have
been more than fifteen years of age, and Sir Anthony was not much under
sixty.
7
9 8 THE NINE DAYS' QUEEN
An account of her funeral still exists, according to which
sixty-one old women walked in the procession, each wearing
a new suit of clothes and carrying a loaf of bread, their
number recording the fact that the lady they mourned had
reached sixty-one years at the time of her decease.
The Duchess of Richmond seems ultimately to have
repented to some extent of her wickedness. At any rate,
her father left her 500 in his will a considerable sum of
money in those days in acknowledgment of the expense
and trouble she had borne to obtain his liberation, and of
her care of her brother's children. She died of the plague
in 1556.
It is curious that Surrey's children should have been
placed under his sister's charge, since their mother, an emi-
nently respectable woman, was living, and they were with
her at the time of their father's death. She was, however, a
Catholic, whereas the Duchess had for some years past rather
ostentatiously proclaimed herself a Protestant. Somerset's
religious opinions may have had something to do with
this transaction, concerning which there is a strange legend.
Three days after the Earl of Surrey's execution, Foxe, the
martyr ologist, was sitting in St. Paul's Cathedral, pale, hag-
gard, and almost dying of misery and starvation. Presently
a gentleman approached him and placed a considerable sum
of money in his hand, bidding him be of good cheer, for that
" luck was coming to him at last/ 1 A few days later
Somerset appointed him tutor to the children of the late
Earl of Surrey, then under the charge of their aunt, the Lady
of Richmond. Notwithstanding his ardent Protestantism,
Foxe was never able to completely detach the future Duke
of Norfolk from the older faith ; but he gave his pupil a
sound and virtuous education, and won his enduring affection.
This Duke shared his father's fate ; he was beheaded, in the
reign of Elizabeth, for espousing the cause of Mary Stuart.
From him the present Duke of Norfolk is descended in a direct
line.
The Countess of Surrey resided for many years at Ken-
ninghall, but, as usual in those days, she presently took
a second husband, in the person of Mr. Thomas Steyning,
of Woodford, Suffolk, most likely her steward or secretary.
THE HOWARDS AND THE SEYMOURS
99
She lived to an advanced age, and is buried in Framlingham
Parish Church, under the elaborate monument she erected
to the memory of her husband, whose remains, however,
are by some believed to be still lying in the interesting
church of All Hallows, Barking, near the Tower, where they
were certainly interred immediately after his decapitation.
CHAPTER VII
HENRY VIII
ON the night of Wednesday, 27th January 1547, Henry
Tudor lay dying on that huge fourpost bedstead
which Andrea Conti, an Italian traveller who visited
Whitehall a few years after the King's death, described as
" looking like a High Altar," so costly were its hangings
of crimson velvet and cloth of gold, so dazzling its rich
embroideries. 1 The vast apartment was hung with rare
Flemish tapestry glistening with gold thread ; the furniture,
of carved oak and inlaid ebony, was upholstered in glorious
Florentine brocade. Curtains of " red velvet on velvet '
draped the numerous windows overlooking the Thames,
and the Eastern carpets that covered the floor muffled
the sound of footsteps cautiously moving about the mighty
couch.
The once puissant and magnificent Henry vin, King of
England, France, and Ireland, and Defender of the Faith,
was now a mass of deformed flesh, eaten up and disfigured
by a complication of awful disorders gout, cancer of the
stomach, rheumatism, ulcers, and dropsy. So swollen were
the miserable man's hands, arms, and legs that he could only
move with great pain, and then only with the aid of a
mechanical contrivance. But his immense head tossed
restlessly from side to side and he groaned piteously, often
praying those about him to cool his parched lips with a drop
of water. Though little over fifty-six years of age, the
dying monarch's hair had turned quite white, and his beard,
1 Hentzner also saw the bedchamber in which Henry vin died, but this
was late in Elizabeth's reign, when it was shown as one of the " lions " of the
palace, a fact which tends to prove that the apartment was never again used
by any other sovereign, but kept as a sort of show-place.
100
HENRY VIII 101
formerly so well trimmed, had grown scant and straggling.
His steel-grey eyes looked as small in proportion to the broad,
bloated face as those set in the elephant's enormous mask,
but they still retained their ophidian glitter. 1
The dying King had been unusually irritable throughout
the weary day. At times indeed he was delirious, but on
the whole his mind remained fairly clear. At about six
o'clock in the afternoon he awakened out of a deep sleep
or lethargy and asked for a cup of white wine, which was
given him. Presently he wandered again, the result,
perhaps, of the draught of wine, and shouted, ' Monks,
monks ! ' imagining, so it would seem, that he saw cowled
forms hovering about his bed. Three times, too, and very
distinctly, he cried out the name ' Nan Boleyn." After
that he kept his eyes fixed on a certain spot near his bedside,
where, it may be, his fancy showed him the menacing wraith
of his murdered wife. This outburst of feverish excitement
was followed by a lull, and presently the King grew calmer
and fell into a profound slumber.
The principal persons about the death-bed were the Earl
of Hertford and his brother, Sir Thomas Seymour ; Henry's
Chief Secretary, Sir William Paget ; and his Master of the
Horse, Sir Anthony Browne, the only non-schismatic present.
The physicians in attendance upon the King were Dr. Wendy
and Dr. Owen, who had brought the Prince of Wales 2 into
the world, and who subsequently assisted at the death-beds
of Edward vi 3 and Mary. With them was Dr. John Gale, 4
the King's surgeon-in-ordinary, who had waited upon Henry
and his army when in France. Notwithstanding the number
1 In his youth Henry's eyes had been considered fine. In the picture by
Paris Bordone, belonging to the Merchant Taylors' Company, they are a light
grey and decidedly good in colour and shape.
2 Edward vi was never officially proclaimed Prince of Wales the docu-
ment doing so was prepared, but was delayed by the death of his father.
None the less, he is frequently so styled in the last years of Henry's
reign.
3 Dr. Wendy became physician to Elizabeth. He died in 1560 at Hasling-
ford Court, a manor given to him by Henry vm.
1 Dr. Gale was living as late as 1586. He wrote a curious work entitled
The Office of a Chirurgeon, which gives a dreadful picture of warfare in the
sixteenth century. See for an account of this rare work, once possessed by
the author, The Medical Biography, p. 65.
102 THE NINE DAYS' QUEEN
of priests attached to the Chapel Royal, there were no
clergymen in the room. The Catholic party afterwards
declared they had been purposely kept out of the way lest
the King, whose hatred of the Papacy was purely political,
might recant and make a death-bed submission to Rome.
The elimination of the clerical element from the death-
chamber is significant, and we have no certainty as to
whether the King, who clung so tenaciously to the theory of
the Church as to her Last Sacraments, ever personally
received them.
Another very remarkable fact is that neither in the State
Papers nor in any other contemporary accounts of the death
of Henry vm is there any mention of the Queen's presence
at this time. Her Majesty had certainly been her husband's
assiduous nurse until early in January, but after that we
hear no more of her, and except for one or two hints to
the contrary in documents connected with the household
effects of the King, we might almost conjecture she had left
the palace before the King passed away. The Spanish
Chronicle, introduced to English readers by Martin Hume,
which contains a great deal of what would now be called
back-stair gossip, informs us, however, that Katherine Parr
was summoned to the King's bedside the day before he died,
and that ' he thanked her for her great kindness to him/'
adding that he had " well provided for her.' 3 The good
Queen, falling on her knees, burst into such loud sobbing
that she had to be removed and conveyed back to her
apartments. From the same source we learn that Princess
Mary saw her father three or four days before the end, and
received his blessing. Of these statements there is no con-
firmation in the English State Papers ; they are confirmed,
however, by documents in the Simancas archives and in a
pamphlet published at Valladolid some three years after
Queen Mary's death entitled La Muertc de la Serenissima
Reyna Maria d'Inglaterra (Valladolid, 1562). J
The last we hear of Katherine Parr as Queen-Consort
is in a letter addressed to her from Hertford on loth January
1 Father Thiveter, a Franciscan, who obtained some curious facts con-
cerning the death of Henry vui, presumably from Princess Mary, wrote an
account of that event which has been occasionally reprinted.
HENRY VIII 103
by her stepson, Prince Edward, in which he thanks her for
a New Year's gift. 1
If we trust the Acts and Monuments, there is direct
evidence that Henry vm deliberately omitted Gardiner's
name from his testament. In the afternoon of the day
before his death, Sir Anthony Browne asked him directly
if ' My Lord of Winchester was left out of His Majesty's
will by negligence or otherwise ? ' He was kneeling at the
moment by the King's bed and endeavouring to recall to
him the Bishop's long services. The broad face of the dying
King turned towards him, and he said angrily, ' Hold your
peace. I remember him well enough, and of good purpose
have I left him out ; for surely if he were in my
testament and one of you, he would cumber you all
and you should never rule him, he is of so troublesome a
nature." If this be a truthful account of the scene, there
can be do doubt that Henry realised the omission
of Winchester's name from the will, which would imply
a truckling to the Seymour faction ; for there was now
no one left to oppose their influence or expose their
intrigues.
Between seven and eight in the evening of 27th January,
Sir Anthony Denny, who had been watching his master
very closely, thought he perceived signs that the end was
approaching. Stooping over him, he whispered into the
dying ear a message especially dreadful to one who, like Henry,
held the mere mention of death in horror, warning him that
his hour was very near, and that " it was meet for him to
review his past life and seek God's mercy through Jesus
Christ." The King, although in great agony, evidently
understood what Denny had said, and is reported to have
answered that he would suffer no ecclesiastic near him but
Cranmer, who was immediately sent for. The Archbishop
was at Croydon, but, being an excellent horseman, he galloped
up to London, and reached Whitehall about one o'clock in
The Queen had sent him a picture of the King, his father, and of herself,
in one frame. Edward was so delighted with the present that he said he
preferred it to gold-embroidered robes and other things most priceless :
" Quamobrem mafores tibi gratias ego ob hanc strenam, quam si misisses ad me
preciosas vestes, aut aurum celatum, aut quidvis aliud eximium."
104 THE NINE DAYS' QUEEN
the morning of Thursday, 28th January. 1 He found the
King almost speechless but in full possession of his faculties,
and exhorted him, in a few words, to repent him of his sins
and ' to place his trust in Christ only." Henry pressed
the Churchman's hand, and muttering the significant words,
' All is lost ! " immediately expired.
So passed into eternity Lady Jane Grey's great-uncle
and the most extraordinary of all our kings. Even at this
date it is impossible to define his true character, for whereas,
on the one hand, his cousin Pole, who knew him well, likened
him unto Nero and Tiberius, that painstaking historian
Froude has endeavoured to prove him a well-intentioned
man, whose political and whose domestic troubles especially
were not of his own making, but the result of circumstance
and of Court intrigues beyond his control. Between these
two appreciations the truth doubtless lies. Henry vm
was beyond question a wonderful being in whom were
reflected, nay, absorbed, all the good and evil qualities of
the subjects whose very Church he contrived to dominate.
With all his treachery, his lust, and his cruelty, he may well
have been a necessary evil, a tool in the guiding Hand that has
shaped the destinies of the British Empire. He tore down
the last vestiges of the Middle Ages ; and if the light so
suddenly admitted was too dazzling for the eyes that first
beheld it, in due time it mellowed into the slowly developed
liberty and progress that have placed our country at the fore-
front of civilisation. Our eighth Henry was the tyrant who
inadvertently forced open the gate whereby Freedom was to
enter.
Much as we loathe his sensuality and his cruelty, his
personal extravagance that emptied the overflowing treasury
left by his father and led him to debase the coin of the realm
in order to replenish it, much as we may deplore his iconoclasm
that destroyed a thousand abbeys, priories, and noble churches
and dispersed the art treasures of ages, as Englishmen we still
entertain a surreptitious liking for Bluff King Hal. His
1 " Thursday," writes Aubrey, " was a fatal day to Henry vm, and so
also to his posterity. He died on Thursday, January 28 ; King Edward
vi on Thursday, July 6; Queen Mary on Thursday, November 17; and
Queen Elizabeth on Thursday, March 24."
HENRY VIII 105
magnificent appearance and the Oriental side of his nature,
his six wives, his fantastic and gorgeous pageants, his out-
bursts of bad language, his masterfulness, his love of art
and music, all appeal to the imagination and help us to
convert a monarch, a very weak and poor specimen of
humanity, who really had much of the vile criminal about
him, into a hero of romance, and cast over his strange career
something of the legendary glamour that so fascinates all
students of the reign of the illustrious daughter who inherited
so many of his good and evil qualities and carried on much
of his chosen policy. To King Henry we owe the formation
of our Army and the creation of our Navy. He abused
his Parliament, but he was its first and greatest organiser.
He shaped it to his own will ; and it eventually shaped itself
to the will of the nation.
Earlier in the evening of that momentous 27th of January
Hertford and Paget had spent slow hours pacing up and
down the long corridor outside the King's chamber, and
consulting as to what it would be best to do as soon as the
monarch was dead. Parliament, then in session, had been
busy with the alleged treasonable transactions of the Duke
of Norfolk, now lying in the Tower under sentence of death.
His Grace, therefore, was one of the only three members of
the Privy Council absent from the death-chamber : the other
two were Dr. Thirlby, Bishop of Westminster, then resident
Ambassador at the Court of Charles v; and Dr. Nicholas
Wotton, Dean of Canterbury, recently dispatched on a
diplomatic mission to France. Gardiner, whose name had
been erased from the Council list, had lately returned from
Brussels, and must have been communicated with at once,
for to him were eventually entrusted all the arrangements
for the late King's obsequies. An improvised Council was
held immediately after Henry's death, and decided that the
event should be kept a profound secret until the Prince of
Wales was brought to London. This was cleverly managed
by putting all the immediate attendants in the King's private
apartments under oath ; and the multitudinous household
in the outer rooms performed its usual vocations as though
Henry, who had long been absent from his general courtiers'
sight, were still alive. The sentinels were changed, and
io6 THE NINE DAYS' QUEEN
everything at Whitehall went on with clockwork regularity,
as if nothing unusual had happened. At about four o'clock
in the morning of 28th January Hertford and his brother,
Thomas Seymour, stole out of the palace, took horse, and
galloped towards Hertford, where the young heir was then
residing. By an oversight or was it done purposely ?-
Hertford put in his pocket the key of the coffer in which
the King's will was kept, and Paget had to ride out into the
dark after him to obtain possession of it. At about dawn
the Seymours were joined by Sir Anthony Browne, an
accession which greatly elated them, for he was one of the
most important leaders of the Catholic party. They reached
Hertford l a little after daybreak, and the boy Edward was
instantly roused from his slumbers. They did not at once
inform him of his father's decease, but rode with him to
Enfield Chase, where his sister, the Princess Elizabeth, was
residing with her governess, Mrs. Ashley. Here they broke
the news to both of the dead King's children, who burst into
tears, the Princess Elizabeth holding her young brother's
hand the while. The company stayed all Sunday at Enfield,
their suite being in the meantime reinforced by a numerous
bodyguard, attended by which they started on the following
morning for London, the boy-King riding on a milk-white
palfrey between Lord Hertford and Sir Anthony Browne.
As the procession passed through the villages on its way to
London, the inhabitants were informed of King Henry's
death. We have proof, however, that it was not known
in the metropolis on the Sunday. On that day the Grey
Friar's Church, which had been closed for some years and
1 During the last year of Henry's reign Edward had resided at Hatfield
with his sister Elizabeth. Very early in December it was deemed advisable,
owing to the precarious state of the King's health, to remove the young
Prince from Hatfield, first to Tittenhanger House, in Hertfordshire, and then
to Hertford itself. His various removals can be traced from the dates of his
letters to his father, to the Queen, and to the Princesses his sisters. On
5th December, for instance, he wrote a letter to Elizabeth from Tittenhanger
lamenting his enforced absence from her. And later, on the i8th, he wrote
another in the same strain ; but on loth January he addressed his sister
Mary a Latin letter from Hertford, and on the same day the epistle already
mentioned to Queen Katherine. Elizabeth, in the meantime, was relegated
to Enfield Chase, where she remained until she joined Queen Katherine at
Chelsea, after Henry's death.
HENRY VIII 107
converted into a wine-vault, was restored to public worship
by order of the late King, and his ' munificence and
generosity ' were fulsomely eulogised by the preacher, who,
however, never alluded to the sovereign's demise. Towards
evening, the fact that the King was dead began to circulate
among the upper classes, and next morning it was pretty
generally known all over London.
At three o'clock on the Monday afternoon King Edward vi
entered the capital through Aldgate, where he was met by
the Lord Mayor and a great assembly of the nobility and
gentry. Cranmer greeted him at the Bridge and read him
an address, after which he was conducted in state to the
Tower, being only fairly well received by the populace.
Meanwhile, his father's body, still at Whitehall, after being
' spunged," cleaned, disembowelled, and embalmed with
spices, was exhibited, covered with a silken garment, to the
great nobility. This done, it was sealed up in a leaden
coffin and brought down into the Privy Chamber, where it
lay, ' with all manner of lights thereto requisite, having
divine service about him with Masses, obsequies, and prayers/ 1
until 3rd February , when it was conveyed into the Chapel Royal,
where Mass was said between nine and ten in the morning.
The Chapelle Ardente was hung with black cloth and with
banners of St. George and England. Eighty huge silver
candlesticks with tall wax tapers in them were ranged on
either side of the catafalque. On the Tuesday, and for five
following mornings, Norreys stationed himself at the entrance
to the chancel and cried out at intervals to the congregation,
' Of your charity pray for the soul of the most high and
mighty Prince Henry vm, our late Sovereign Lord and King/'
Watch was kept day and night by the chaplains and gentlemen
of the Privy Chamber. Then began the saying of Masses
for the benefit of the King's soul, and these were " as numerous
as they were on the occasion of the funeral of his father, Henry
vii." They were continued until the I3th February. Tens
of thousands of Masses were said throughout the country,
both in the capital and the provinces, in the cathedrals as
well as in the parish churches. 1 The ritual was everywhere
1 King Francis i, notwithstanding Henry's unorthodox opinions and his
notorious revolt from Rome, ordered a Requiem to be said in the Cathedral
io8 THE NINE DAYS' QUEEN
absolutely Latin. In London Gardiner was the celebrant at
High Mass each day, assisted by the Bishops of Durham,
London, Ely, St. David's, Gloucester, Bangor, and Bath.
Archbishop Cranmer was present but did not officiate. Low
Masses were said in the chapel at Whitehall, at an altar erected
at the foot of the catafalque, from four o'clock in the morning
until ten, when High Mass was chanted, the Marquis of Dorset
acting as chief mourner. In the evening there were Vespers
for the Dead and Dirge and " a great attendance of noblemen
and gentlemen mourners." The Queen and the King's nieces,
the Marchioness of Dorset and her daughters, the Ladies Jane
and Katherine Grey, the Lady Eleanor Brandon, Countess of
Cumberland, the Lady Margaret Lennox, the Duchess of
Richmond, the Duchess of Suffolk, and all the great ladies *
of the Court, were present, not only at High Mass, but at
countless other Masses in the Chapel Royal. They were, how-
ever, not in the body of the Chapel, but in an upper gallery
overlooking it mourning cloaks being provided for them out
of the Wardrobe.
Queen Katherine may have left the palace somewhat
hurriedly, 2 for in the inventory taken immediately after the
King's death there is an account of the seals being on one
chamber described as full of female attire of the most
sumptuous description, presumably belonging to the Queen,
who certainly left behind her the jewels given her by the
King to wear at the reception of M. d'Annebault, the French
Envoy an oversight that gave rise to terrible subsequent
of Notre Dame de Paris for the repose of the soul of his well-beloved brother,
Henry vm, King of England, at which service he assisted ; he also left in
his will a sum of money to be devoted to Masses to be said in perpetuity for
the same pious purpose. A Mass is still offered every year in the Metropolitan
Church of Paris for the repose of the soul of our " Bluff King Hal," the custom
having survived even the Reign of Terror.
1 These noble ladies were not present in any official capacity, but simply
" to pray for the soul of the departed King." It was not the custom for
women to attend the funeral of a male, except as an act of devotion. They
wore on these occasions black cloth gowns and black cloaks and hoods or silk
scarfs. This costume was general at funerals, and especially in the country,
until the end of the first half of the last century.
2 Her separate establishment was formed early in March, and she then
took up her residence at Chelsea ; but she may well have hovered between
Whitehall and the Manor House for some weeks after the King's death,
whilst her future residence was being put in readiness for her.
HENRY VIII
109
dissensions between Sir Thomas Seymour and his eldest
brother.
Lord Chancellor Wriothesley dissolved Parliament early
on Monday, ist February, in a neatly turned speech declaring
that " their most puissant master was dead." The eventful
news was received with every demonstration of sorrow, some
members even bursting into tears, or pretending to do so.
Then followed the reading of that portion of the King's will
which concerned the Royal Succession.
By this famous testament * Henry provided that in case
Edward died childless, and Henry himself had no other children
by his ' ' beloved wife Katherine or any other wives 2 he might
have hereafter," King Edward was to be succeeded by his
eldest sister Mary ; and if she in her turn proved without off-
spring, she was to be succeeded by her sister Elizabeth. Failing
heirs to that princess, the crown was to pass on the same
conditions to the Lady Jane Grey and her sisters Katherine
and Mary Grey, daughters of the King's eldest niece, the Lady
Frances Brandon, Marchioness of Dorset. In the eventuality
of the three sisters Grey dying without issue, the throne was to
be occupied successively by the children of the Lady Frances'
younger sister, the Lady Eleanor, Countess of Cumberland.
The Scotch succession was set aside, from no personal ill-will,
however, to Henry's eldest sister, the Dowager Queen of
Scotland, Margaret Tudor, for he left her daughter a hand-
some legacy. Henry most probably omitted the name of the
young Queen of Scots as heiress to the throne, and gave his
preference to the daughters of his two nieces, because, although
at war with the Regent of Scotland, he still hoped that the
betrothal of his grand-niece, Mary Stuart, then only six years
cf age, to his son Edward might be arranged, and thus
The King's will was dated 26th December 1546, and revoked all other
previous wills that he might have made. The original was not in Henry's
own hand, but written in a book of stout paper, and was, it is said, signed by
His Majesty's stamp as well as his autograph. It should be remembered that
because the act of attainder against the Duke of Norfolk had merely a stamp
affixed to it by Paget, the said attainder was in 1553 treated as null and void,
and the Duke, after his liberation, at once resumed bis seat in the House of
Lords.
1 This significant allusion to " any other wives he might have " inclines
one to think that had His Majesty lived to seventy or eighty, he may have
contemplated having twelve instead of six wives !
no THE NINE DAYS' QUEEN
eventually bring about the desired union of the two crowns in
a natural manner. Moreover, there was the religious question
to be considered. The Regent, Mary of Guise, was an ardent
Papist, using all her influence, both in England and in Scot-
land, to thwart the English King's anti-papal policy.
Henry vm mentioned Queen Katherine in the following
eulogistic manner : ' And for the great love, obedience,
chastity of life, and wisdom being in our forenamed wife and
Queen, we bequeath unto her for her proper life, and as it shall
please her to order it, three thousand pounds in plate, jewels,
and stuff of household goods, and such apparel as it shall please
her to take of such as we have already. And further, we give
unto her one thousand pounds in money, and the amount of
her dower and jointure according to our grant in Parliament."
Henry appointed the Earl of Hertford Protector of the Realm
during the minority of his son, and mentioned as his colleagues
all those persons who were interested in keeping him in power
in order to share it with him. Gardiner's name was omitted,
as already stated. The provisions of the will opposed a
serious obstacle to the Earl of Hertford's ambition, for they
made him fifth in order of precedence, thus placing him on a
footing of equality with other executors ; recognising no
claim arising out of his kinship to the young Prince. Sir
Thomas Clere declared that the original will was stamped, a
fact which inclined so careful a writer as Mr. Pollard to con-
clude that the idea that a stamped will was illegal must have
flashed across somebody's mind, and suggested the hasty
drawing up of another, for the King to sign in autograph.
The form now in the Record Office is doubtless this second one.
It displays no trace of a stamp, and the two signatures at the
beginning and end are not sufficiently uniform to have been
impressed mechanically. In the last the up-strokes are very
unsteady, and on comparing them with other signatures of
Henry vui one is justified in thinking that both were forged.
It must not be forgotten, however, that the King was very ill,
and failing ; his hand may well have trembled. 1
1 King Henry's will is said to have been inspired not only by the Earl of
Hertford and his party, but by the Queen, Katherine Parr. This, however,
is scarcely probable, since if she had had a hand in the matter she would
assuredly have caused a paragraph to have been inserted appointing her
HENRY VIII in
In those days the funeral of a sovereign and the coronation
of his successor took place almost simultaneously, occasionally
with strange results, considerable confusion arising as to
the arrangements for the two ceremonies : the sombre
preparations for the obsequies of King Henry, for instance,
clashed weirdly with the festivities organised for the accession
of his son. Matters became so confused at last that Bishop
Gardiner found himself obliged to appeal to " My Lord of
Oxford's Players," who were already at Southwark pre-
paring to act a pageant and a comedy. It would be more
decent, His Lordship pointed out, to sing a solemn Dirge
for their master than to perform a merry play, and he
besought them to desist until after the King's funeral.
In the end the Bishop had his way, and the grandeur
of Henry's obsequies suffered nothing from the counter-
attractions of the ' green men," ' morris dancers/' and
' mountain for the gods," which were among the items
promised by the players, who produced their performance
in the hall of the ex-monastery of Blackfriars immediately
after Edward's coronation doubtless to their own satisfac-
tion and that of the public, albeit they seem to have had
hard work to get the necessary cash for their " properties "
out of Sir William Carwarden or Garden, the official in charge
of such matters, to whom they had to frequently apply for
payment. 1
On Monday, 3ist January, the young King entered
London, and passed direct to the Tower, where, in accordance
with traditional etiquette, he was to remain in semi-seclusion
until after his coronation. The next day, Tuesday, ist
February, the late King's executors assembled in the
great hall of the Tower, and having heard the will read from
beginning to end, took the oath for the King, and Hertford 2
was proclaimed Protector during the coming minority. On
4th February the Protector proceeded in state to Westminster
Hall, where he assumed the offices of Lord Treasurer and
Regent during the minority of her stepson. Marillac, the French Ambassa-
dor, informs us in his " Notes " that when Katherine discovered that she
was not so nominated she gave way to a great outburst of indignation and
temper.
See the Losely MSS, edited by A. J. Kempe. John Murray, 1835.
1 His position as Protector was not officially ratified until 22nd March.
H2 THE NINE DAYS' QUEEN
Earl Marshal, rendered vacant by the attainder of the Duke
of Norfolk. He subsequently relinquished his post as Lord
Great Chamberlain to John Dudley, Viscount de Lisle, who
in his turn surrendered his place as Lord High-Admiral to
Sir Thomas Seymour.
On Sunday, I3th February, High Mass was again sung in
the Chapel Royal by Gardiner, assisted by the Bishops of
London and Bristol, and the royal coffin was removed " from
the Chapell to the Chariot ; over the coffin was cast a pall
of rich cloath of gold, and upon it a goodly ymage like to the
Kyng's person in all poynts, wonderfully richly aparrelled
with velvet gold and precious stones of all sorts, holding in
ye right hand a Sceptre of gold, in the left hand the ball of
the world with a crosse ; upon the head a crown imperial of
inestimable value, a collar of the Garter about the neck and
a garter of gold about the leg, with this being honourably
conducted as aforesaid, was tied upon the said coffin by the
Gentlemen of his Privy Chamber upon rich cushions of cloath
of gold and fast bound with silk ribands to the pillars of the
said Chariot for removing." It seems, however, that this
image was not quite complete, for it had presently to be
removed and " touched up."
The gorgeous funeral procession, which is said to have
been four miles long, left the Chapel Royal, Whitehall, at
about eleven o'clock on I4th February for Sion en route for
Windsor. The weather was very fine, and immense crowds
lining the streets, people of every class, holding lighted
candles. Over a thousand ' lights," or torches, were held
by the mourners who preceded or followed the hearse
containing the King's body and upon which was placed
the waxen image already described. This hearse was
drawn by eight black horses emblazoned with the Arms of
England and of the house of Tudor, and surrounded by
noblemen and knights in mourning robes, some on horseback
and others on foot, holding lights and banners, images of
saints, and other glistening devices and symbols. The
procession passed through the streets of London by Charing
Cross, Knightsbridge, Hammersmith, Chiswick, and Brentford,
and, owing to its enormous length, did not reach Sion until
twilight. It is gratifying to note that the vast assemblage
HENRY VIII 113
of nobles and gentry was plentifully supplied with refresh-
ments, wine, and beer throughout the whole of these very
elaborate and costly obsequies, to the tune of about 10,000
of our money.
At Sion the coffin stood all night within the ruined walls of
that erstwhile monastic house which had been the prison of
Katherine Howard, the second of Henry's murdered consorts.
The ravages of ruin to be seen there were now hidden by
hangings of fine black cloth and by two great altars blazing
with lights and jewels. By a curious coincidence, the body
arrived at Sion on the day after the fifth anniversary of
the Queen's execution, a fact which lends additional horror
to the following story, related in a contemporary docu-
ment now in the Soane Collection : : The King's body
rested in the ruined Chapel of Sion, and there, the leaden
coffin l being cleft by the shaking of the carriage, the
pavement of the church was wetted with Henry's blood.
In the morning came plumbers to solder the coffin, under
whose feet, I tremble while I write it," says the author,
' was suddenly seen a dog creeping and licking up the King's
blood. If you ask me how I know this, I answer, William
Greville, who could scarce drive away the dog, told me so,
and so did the plumber also."
The coffin had most likely been abandoned by the
mourners, who had retired to rest for the night, and probably
some gaseous explosion led to this uncanny incident, the
report of which greatly increased the superstitious terror
in which the late King's name was held. Thus was fulfilled,
so the people said, Friar Peyto's denunciation from the
pulpit of Greenwich Church in 1553, when that daring friar
compared Henry to Ahab, and told him to his *face " that
the dogs would in like manner lick his blood."
1 As a matter of fact, the royal corpse was, owing to its weight, not en-
closed in a lead shell until it reached Windsor, so that the chronicler has made
a mistake ; but the fact that it was in a mere wooden case lends support to
the above horrible story. Strype, it is true, declares in his Memorials, which
include a very minute account of Henry vm's funeral, that the body was
enclosed in lead before it was placed in the coffin, thus unintentionally
supporting the story of the leakage of blood ; but the plumbers' bill for the
soldering of the leaden coffin of King Henry vm at Windsor is still extant
among the Royal Household receipts and expenses.
8
n 4 THE NINE DAYS' QUEEN
This horrible occurrence, if it really took place, does not
seem to have made any very deep impression on Bishop
Gardiner, for no more fulsome sermon was ever preached
than that delivered by him at Windsor on i6th February.
He took for his text, " Blessed are the dead who die in the
Lord," and, enlarging on the virtues of the late monarch,
lamented the " loss both to high and low by the death of
this most good and gracious King " ; for whom, Sir Anthony
Browne declared, " there was no need to pray, for he was
surely in Heaven." Queen Katherine Parr, the King's nieces,
the Lady Frances, Marchioness of Dorset, and the Lady
Eleanor of Cumberland and their daughters and other noble-
women attended the obsequies at Windsor from a closet
or chamber looking into the chapel, much such a one as
Queen Victoria used in the Chapel Royal, Windsor, on similar
occasions.
Some weird stories of supernatural apparitions were
circulated all over London, especially among the Catholics.
The " old King " had appeared, wreathed in flames, to an
ex-Carthusian friar. Folks at Windsor had beheld him
fleeing along the battlements and corridors of the castle,
blazing like a meteoric ball ; and he had even, so it was
rumoured, paid a warning visit to his widow in the still
hours of darkness.
CHAPTER VIII
CONCERNING THE LADY JANE AND THE QUEEN-DOWAGER
THE will of Henry vm conferred upon the houses of
Seymour and Grey a towering position in the State
which naturally brought forward into extraordinary
relief the hitherto ignored name of Lady Jane. A few weeks
earlier she was but the eldest daughter of the rather weak-minded
Marquis of Dorset, a man whom no one seems to have held
in any great consideration, notwithstanding his royal alliance
and rather showy past career as a soldier under Henry vm ;
to-day she was almost as prominent in the matter of the
succession as the King's two daughters, Mary and Elizabeth,
both of whom could easily be set aside by an ambitious faction :
the elder on account of her religion, the younger on that
of her somewhat doubtful legitimacy. It is not surprising,
therefore, that the intrigues which were to culminate in the
ruin of the unfortunate Lady Jane began almost immediately
after the accession of her cousin, Edward vi ; for it was at this
time that the newly made Lord Sudeley, desiring to possess
' two strings to his bow/' embarked in a most imprudent
intrigue to obtain possession of the person of the Marquis
of Dorset's daughter, who, as the reversionary heiress of
England, was justly regarded by both parties as a most valuable
asset. The intermediary employed in this transaction was one
William Sharington, a gentleman in Seymour's confidence,
who was his equal in the conducting of tricksome intrigues :
it will become apparent as we proceed that whenever Sudeley
had any particularly difficult and dangerous matter to deal
with, he invariably got some subordinate to share the danger
with him. One morning, very soon after King Henry's death,
>harington appeared at Dorset Place, Westminster, to open
negotiations with the Marquis about the transfer of his eldest
n6 THE NINE DAYS 1 QUEEN
daughter into Sudeley's charge. He began by informing
Dorset, apparently one of the most credulous of mortals,
that the Admiral, as uncle to the King, ' was like to come
to great authority, and was most desirous of forming a bond
of friendship with him." On the following day Sharington
returned, and after assuring the Marquis that " the Lord High-
Admiral was very much his friend," insinuated that ' ' it were
a goodly thing to happen if my Lady Jane his daughter were
in the keeping of the said Lord Admiral." He said he had
often heard his master say ' that the Lady Jane was the
handsomest lady in England and that the Admiral would see
her placed in marriage much to his (the Marquis's) comfort."
" And with whom will he match her ? " inquired Dorset.
" Marry," replied Sharington, ' I doubt not but you
shall see he will marry her to the King, and fear you not,
he will bring it to pass, and then you shall be able to help all
the friends you have."
After this visit the Marquis held a consultation with the
Lady Frances, which resulted in his accepting a personal
interview with Lord Sudeley.
Thomas Seymour does not appear to have had any fixed
London abode in his bachelor days, but probably lived, on
occasion, as Surrey did, in what we should now call chambers,
somewhere in the Strand. But when he became Baron Sudeley
and Lord High-Admiral, he conceived it incumbent upon him
to live in a style commensurate with his increased rank, and
solicited a suitable mansion from his brother, the Protector.
Somerset forthwith filched Bath House, Strand, from Bishop
Barlow, and presented it to his brother. This house, which
must not be mistaken for Bath House, Holborn, was built
in the fourteenth century and considerably enlarged and
embellished in the beginning of the sixteenth ; it was one of
the finest mansions in London, and, with its gardens, occupied
the whole space now covered by Arundel, Norfolk, and Suffolk
Streets, Strand. The mansion stood on the approximate
site of the present Howard Hotel. It commanded an extensive
view of the Thames, and there was an orchard extending to the
Strand. 1
1 After the execution of Thomas Seymour, this fine mansion was purchased
for 41, 6s. 8d. by Henry Fitzalan, Earl of Arundel, whose only son, Lord
THE LADY JANE AND THE QUEEN-DOWAGER 117
To Seymour Place, Strand, therefore, rode my lord of
Dorset, to find Sudeley walking in his garden. The two
gentlemen held a most confidential conversation, in the course
of which Sudeley persuaded Dorset not only to hand the ward-
ship of the Lady Jane over to him, but to send for her then and
there, and allow the young girl to take up her abode under
the roof of one of the most notorious profligates of an exceed-
ingly degenerate Court.
The Lady Jane did not arrive at Seymour Place in formd
pauperis. She was attended by her governess, Mrs. Ashley, by
four waiting women and a number of male servants of various
degrees. Sudeley 's household was at this time ruled over by
his mother, the Dowager Lady Seymour. Since the death of
her husband, Sir John Seymour, in December 1536, this lady
had kept house for her younger son, who brought her for that
purpose either from Hertford or from a suburban house on a
site now crossed by Upper and Lower Seymour Street, Portman
Square.
There is some unexplained mystery connected with Lady
Seymour which the present writer does not pretend to have
fathomed. No explanation is discoverable of the strange
fact that the mother of a Queen and the grandmother of a
King of England seems to have been almost ignored by her
son-in-law Henry vm, by her young grandson Edward vi,
by her own son the Protector, and indeed by all the great
people with whom her high position must have brought her
into contact. Her name is not once mentioned in connection
with that of her daughter, Jane Seymour, after she became
Maltravers, was a paragon of learning and accomplishments. He pre-
deceased his father by nearly twenty years. On the death of the Earl of
Arundel the property passed to his daughter, Mary, Duchess of Norfolk, and
through her the ground-rents are still payable to the premier Duchy of
England. The unfortunate Philip Howard, Earl of Arundel, who was
attainted for his religious opinions in the reign of Elizabeth, and who died in
exile, lived here for some time. In the eighteenth century the famous
Arundel marbles, now at Cambridge, were to be seen at Arundel House,
which was finally pulled down and a number of rather mean streets built on
its site. Quite recently the property has been immensely improved, and in
fairly artistic taste. One or two very fine hotels the Howard and the Arundel,
for instance have been erected on the site of the old palace. The Colonial
and American guests at these excellent establishments will perhaps be
interested to know that that favourite heroine of history, Lady Jane Grey,
dwelt hereabouts.
n8 THE NINE DAYS' QUEEN
Queen. She did not figure at the christening of the baby
Edward, and did not present the customary gifts offered by
near relations on such occasions. She has left no corre-
spondence, and there is only one allusion to her in the House-
hold Books of Henry vm, and none at all in those of Edward
vi, which contain some reference to almost every lady of im-
portance of the period, as receiving or presenting gifts from
or to the sovereign, either personally or through attendants.
We only know that her banner of arms figured, close to that of
her daughter, Queen Jane, at the obsequies of Henry vm
and Edward vi ; and that Henry, in 1537, during the year of
his marriage with Jane Seymour, when he raised his brother-
in-law Edward Seymour to the rank of Baron Beauchamp,
granted him a pension of 1100 per annum, out of which he
was to pay his mother an annuity of 6o l but beyond the
papers connected with this pension there is only one other
existing document in which her name figures, and this deals
with an incident that arose after her death, in 1551, when her
grandson the King was induced by the Privy Council, and
by her own son, the Duke of Somerset, to countermand the
wearing of official mourning for her. Beyond the fact that
Lady Seymour was by birth a Wentworth, and .therefore
highly connected, and that in one of his letters to Lady Jane's
mother Seymour represents his own as a fitting person to take
the young girl under her maternal care, Lady Seymour may be
said to have lived and died as much ignored as though she had
been a woman of no birth and no importance. 2
Of the sort of life lived by the Lady Jane during the weeks
she spent at Seymour Place we know nothing, but from th<
alacrity with which she consented to return there at a latei
period we may feel justified in believing she was very happy
under the charge of the mysterious Lady Seymour and her
erratic and wilful son. Miss Strickland says, but without
naming her authority, that Lady Seymour was one of the
earliest Englishwomen of rank to adopt the tenets of the
1 State Papers, 1537, under Seymour.
2 It is possible that Henry vm intended, when he married Jane Seymour,
not to allow his mother-in-law to interfere in his concerns. Some such thing
happened with regard to Lady Wiltshire, Anne Boleyn's mother, who is very
little heard of after her daughter's marriage.
THE LADY JANE AND THE QUEEN-DOWAGER 119
Reformation. If this was the case, Lady Jane Grey probably
met at her house some one or other of the numerous foreign
Reformers who began to invade England shortly after the
death of Henry viu. It is, however, likely that Sudeley
undertook the charge of this young lady at the instigation
of Katherine Parr, and that whilst at Seymour Place her
education was continued under the direction of the scholarly
Miles Coverdale, afterwards Bishop of Exeter, who had
been appointed chaplain to the Queen-Dowager. There is
some little resemblance between the handwriting of this
divine and that of Lady Jane, which leads one to think
he had a considerable share in directing her studies at this
period.
If the Dorsets imagined they were doing themselves and
their daughter a service by placing her under the guardianship
of Thomas Seymour, they made a terrible mistake, for this
incident was certainly at the root of that fatal animosity be-
tween the two brothers which led up to one of the most appalling
tragedies in our history. In the first place, it revealed to
Somerset that Sudeley was fighting for his own hand, and
further, entirely upset the Lord Protector's domestic schemes
and arrangements. Both Somerset and his wife had been
very intimate with the Marquis and the Marchioness, his royal
consort, and the young Earl of Hertford, 1 their eldest son,
was a constant visitor at Westminster and at Bradgate. He
was an exceedingly handsome youth, described by Norton,
his tutor, as 'singularly like his father," who, judged by his
portraits, was one of the finest-looking men of his day. So
fond was the Lady Frances of the young Earl that she would
call him ( her son," and undoubtedly looked on him as a
welcome suitor for her eldest daughter ; and if there was any
love romance in Lady Jane's brief life, it was certainly in
connection with this youth, and not with Guildford, whom she
eventually married, but whom she slighted rather than loved.
The Somersets, moreover, had made up their minds that if
the proposed marriage between Mary Stuart and Edward vi
came to nothing, Edward should be contracted as soon as
1 Lord Hertford clandestinely married Lady Jane Grey's second sister,
Lady Katherine, and was imprisoned for many years in the Tower by Eliza-
beth's order " for venturing to marry an heiress to the throne."
120 THE NINE DAYS' QUEEN
possible to their youngest daughter, the very pretty and
highly accomplished Lady Jane Seymour. 1 Under these
circumstances it may well be imagined that the Duke and
Duchess were not only furious when they learned that Lady
Jane Grey was already comfortably installed under their
brother's roof, without their knowledge and consent, but
firmly resolved that the young lady should see as little of her
cousin the King as possible.
Brother Thomas had yet a greater surprise and vexation
in store for Somerset and his Duchess, and even for King
Edward vi himself, than the matter of the wardship of Lady
Jane Grey. He was, if the truth is to be honestly told, about
the most extraordinary scamp of his time. Physically he
eclipsed his elder brother, the Protector, himself considered
a very handsome man. In addition to a fine figure, Thomas
possessed beautiful features, just escaping the long thin nose
which characterised his brother's face and ruined Queen
Jane's pretensions to beauty. He was dark, with a full
beard, a ruddy complexion, and full brown eyes. In a word,
a very fine fellow indeed, and exceedingly attractive to the
fair sex, who found it hard to resist his blandishments, a
cruel fact of which he was apt to boast. He danced to
perfection, was first in all sports, could turn pretty verses
when it suited him and even godly ones, on occasion. His
love of dress was proverbial, and in that brilliant Court of
Henry vm Sir Thomas Seymour never failed to hold his
own for extravagance and magnificence. Like his brother
Somerset, he could be kindly when it suited his purpose, and
liberal enough to his inferiors when he desired to create a
good impression. He seems to have even been a dutiful
son, for, as we have said, his mother lived with him to
the end of his life, and he spoke well of her.
These comparative virtues were outweighted by his evil
qualities, for not even in that age of rascality and of wicked-
ness in high places did there exist a greater ruffian than this
1 When this proposal was eventually made to the boy- King, he was highly
indignant, and remarks in his Journal that it " was his intention to choose for
his Queen a foreign princess well stuffed and jewelled " meaning that his
bride should be endowed with a suitable dower and a regal wardrobe.
Lady Jane Seymour died early in the reign of Elizabeth, one of whose
maids-of-honour she was, and is buried in Westminster Abbey.
THE LADY JANE AND THE QUEEN-DOWAGER 121
seemingly polished gentleman. Thomas was one of those
men who are born without a conscience. 1 Henry vui had not
long been dead and the elder Seymour scarcely proclaimed
Protector of the Realm when Sudeley began to realise that
his own part at the Court of his nephew, Edward vi, must be
quite secondary unless he could forthwith contract some
royal alliance and thereby make his position equal to his
brother's. So it fell out that, before the late King's body
was cold, Thomas Seymour had made up his mind to marry
one of the royal princesses ; and ere it was buried he had
offered his hand to the elder of the King's widows, Anne of
Cleves. That cautious Princess promptly refused the dubious
proposal, preferring her independence and present comfort
to the probable sacrifice of a handsome income paid by the
State for the poor pleasure of espousing a cadet of the house
of Seymour. Nothing daunted by this refusal, the undismayed
suitor aimed higher yet, and offered his hand and heart to
Princess Mary, who thanked him, in a courteous letter, for
the honour he paid her, and assured him that she had not
the slightest intention of changing her state, especially so
soon after her father's death. Baffled again, my Lord of
Sudeley now addressed himself to the youthful Princess
Elizabeth, who, according to Leti, answered him in a most
becoming manner, reminding him that her father was just
dead, and that it would ill become her to think of marriage
at such a moment or for at least two years after so sad an
event. She had not, she said, had time to enjoy her maiden-
hood, and wished to do so for that period at least, before
embarking on the stormy seas of matrimony. Elizabeth's
letter, if she really wrote it, one can never quite trust Leti,
though he lived near enough to the time to have access to
papers and documents long since destroyed, was a model of
finesse and good taste.
The rejected, but undejected, Seymour now turned his
attention to his old love, Katherine Parr, whom, as we
know, he first courted when she became the widow of
Lord Latimer. He must have been a good deal in her
1 Hayward (Life of Edward VI) describes Sudeley as " fierce in courage,
courtly in fashion, in personage stately, in voice magnificent, but somewhat
empty in matter " (1).
122 THE NINE DAYS' QUEEN
company in the last months of King Henry's life, and
on her own admission she had not lost any of her old
love for him ; for in a letter, written presumably within
a fortnight of the late King's death, she says, ' I would
not have you think that this, mine honest good will
towards you to proceed from any sudden motion of passion ;
for, as truly as God is God, my mind was fully bent the
other time I was at liberty [that is, after the death of Lord
Latimer], to marry you before any man I know. How-
beit God withstood my will therein most vehemently for
a time, and through His grace and goodness made that
possible which seemed to me most impossible ; that was,
made me renounce utterly mine own will and follow His most
willingly. It were long to write all the processes of this
matter. If I live, I shall declare it to you myself. I can
say nothing, but as my Lady of Suffolk l saith, ' God is a
wonderful man.' In March, after Henry's death, the Queen
removed to Chelsea Manor, a mansion which Henry had built
as a nursery for his children and settled on her as a dower-
house. Princess Elizabeth had joined her within a few days
for the purpose of finishing her education under the auspices
of the learned Queen. At the very time, therefore, that
Seymour was intriguing to secure possession of Lady Jane
Grey, he was clandestinely spending his evenings with
Katherine Parr either at Whitehall or, later, when she
finally removed with her household to Chelsea, at the Manor
House, coming there by a lane that led from the Bishop
of London's house up a path which, until a few years ago,
was still in existence and associated by tradition with the
names of Katherine Parr and Thomas Seymour. Some
authorities assert that the two were secretly married about
three weeks after the King's death, and that the Lord Admiral
prolonged his visits, not leaving his wife till dawn, when she
would let him out by the garden wicket, and then steal back
to her room unobserved (at least, so she hoped). 2 According
1 The Queen alludes here not, as generally supposed, to the Lady Frances
Brandon, but to her stepmother, the witty Duchess Katherine, who uses this
curious expression in one of her letters.
2 This belief received confirmation in a letter of " Kateryn the Quene "
to the Lord Admiral in which she says, " When it shall be your pleasure to
repair hither, ye must take some pains to come early in the morning, that
THE LADY JANE AND THE QUEEN-DOWAGER
to Edward vi's Journal, however, the marriage was not
officially celebrated until May, and it was certainly not made
public before the end of June 1547. The intrigues of Lord
Thomas to induce the young King, his nephew, to sanction
his marriage with his stepmother began by his poisoning
the King's mind against his brother Somerset, and, taking
advantage of the Protector's absence in Scotland, he did
all in his power to make himself agreeable to Edward vi by
lending him considerable sums of money. Somerset kept
the royal lad very short of petty cash, so that at times he
had none to distribute to such folk as strolling musicians,
servants who brought him presents from his relatives, and
other persons who had obliged him. Seymour, who had
isolated the King, employed a man named Fowler as inter-
mediary between himself and Edward. 1 Flattered and
cajoled by his uncle Thomas and well disposed by his
natural affection to his stepmother, the poor little King
was at length induced to write a letter advising the Lord
Admiral to marry the Queen-Dowager. This extraordinary
missive, which is still extant, was penned a few days after
Edward had received a very curious epistle from his step-
mother, then on a visit to him at St. James's Palace, in which
she had dilated upon her extraordinary affection for the
memory of his late father. The letter was written in
Latin, and the young King's answer was in the same dead
language. The King's letter is full of advice, which comes
ye may be gone again by seven o'clock ; and so I suppose ye may come
hither without suspect. I pray you let me have knowledge over-night at what
hour ye will come, that your portress [i.e. herself] may wait at the gate of the
fields for you." This letter is signed, " By her that is and shall be, your
humble, true, and loving wife during her life." This was written from
Chelsea Manor House after Henry vm's death.
1 From one of Fowler's letters to Sudeley we learn that " His Highness
the King is not half a quarter of an hour by himself," and that " in his secret
leisure His Grace hath written his commendations to the Queen's Grace and
to your lordship [Sudeley]." Moreover, he says that the King intends to
write letters " whenever he can do so, that is, when there is no supervision
kept over his actions." Enclosed in this letter from Fowler were two notes
written in Edward's childish hand on torn scraps of paper. The first is a
request for money : " My Lord, send me per Latimer [another go-between]
as much as ye think good, and deliver it to Fowler. EDWARD." On the
second is written : " My Lord, I thank you and pray you have me commended
to the Queen."
24 THE NINE DAYS' QUEEN
oddly from a lad not yet ten to a woman verging upon forty.
He hopes to do what is acceptable in her sight because of,
firstly, ' ' the great love you bear my father the King, of most
noble memory ; then your good-will towards me ; and lastly,
your godliness, and knowledge and learning in the Scriptures.
Proceed, therefore, in your good course ; continue to love
my father, and to show the same great kindness to me which
I have ever perceived in you. Cease not to love and read
the Scriptures, but persevere in always reading them ; for
in the first you show the duty of a good wife and a good
subject, and in the second, the warmth of your friendship,
and in the third, your piety to God." l Very soon after
writing this letter he wrote another to Her Majesty, this
time in English, in which he assured her that, far from being
vexed with her for marrying his uncle, he promised to aid
her in the hour of need, should the alliance prove offensive
to those who were in power.
In June the marriage was made public. The indignation
of the Duke and Duchess of Somerset knew no bounds. They
had been greatly angered over the matter of Lady Jane Grey,
but no words could express their exasperation at what they
were pleased to consider their brother's fresh exhibition of
' indecency and wickedness." The first practical expression
of their wrath was the sequestration of the jewels the Queen
had left behind at Whitehall after King Henry's death. She
had applied for them several times, and now wrote in a
more determined strain ; only, however, to receive a haughty
refusal and the startling information that the jewels belonged
to the Crown, whereas they really were a personal gift to her
from the King at the time of the visit of the French Envoy
M. d'Annebault. These jewels were never returned to
Katherine Parr a matter which roused the Lord Admiral's
wrath to a culminating pitch. " My brother/' he said, " is
wondrous hot in helping every man to his right save me. He
maketh a great matter to let me have the Queen's jewels, which
you see by the whole opinion of the lawyers ought to belong
to me, and all under pretence that he would not the King
should lose so much, as if it were a loss to the King to let me
have mine own ! '
1 Strype's Memoirs, vol. ii. part i. p. 59. z See the State Papers.
THE LADY JANE AND THE QUEEN-DOWAGER 125
Then came another unpleasant incident, in the course of
which the Queen-Dowager was subjected to unfair treatment
on account of her marriage. Somerset determined to force
her to lease her favourite manor of Fausterne to a friend of
his named Long. Katherine refused point-blank to receive
this gentleman as a tenant, especially at a ridiculously low
rent, and in a letter to her husband expressed her scornful
indignation at the ' large ' offer for Fausterne which his
brother had made her. Yet in the end she was obliged to
accept Somerset's terms. Fausterne passed from her hands
into those of Long, and was never restored to her.
It is not surprising that she felt a little " warm/' as she
expresses it, at the manner in which the Somersets handled
her. Her position had been recognised by the King and
Parliament, and yet her brother-in-law and his wife refused
to acknowledge her right to precedence : the Duchess of
Somerset declared that she was herself as good as Queen, since
she was the consort of the King's Protector, " who was
virtually the head of the Realm/ 1 Whenever Katherine
went to Court, if the Duchess of Somerset chanced to be
present, there was sure to be trouble. According to Lloyd,
the Duchess not only refused to bear up the Queen's train, but
actually jostled her so as to pass first. " So that what be-
tween the train of the Queen, and the long gown of the Duchess,
they raised so much dust at Court, as at last put out the eyes
of both their husbands, and caused their executions." Heylin
says the Duchess was accustomed to inveigh against her
royal sister-in-law in her coarsest manner. " Did not King
Henry vm marry Katherine Parr in his doting days, when he
had brought himself so low by his lust and cruelty that no
lady that stood on her honour would venture on him ? And
shall I now give place to her who in her former estate was
but Latimer's widow, and is now fain to cast herself for sup-
port on a younger brother ? If master admiral teach his
wife no better manners, I am she that will."
Historians who, for political and religious purposes, have
exaggerated the virtue and accomplishments of Edward vi,
and endowed Lady Jane Grey with charms and gifts which
that modest young lady never possessed, have woven a legend
around her and Edward vi which would lead the uninitiated
126 THE NINE DAYS' QUEEN
to believe that she was the constant sharer of his juvenile
tasks and pastimes, whereas in reality it was only in the last
few months of his life that she became in the least prominent
at his Court. Immediately after his birth and the death of
his mother Prince Edward was handed over to the care of
Lady Brian, 1 formerly governess to his two sisters, by whom
she was greatly beloved and respected, and also to that of his
dry nurse, Mrs. Sybilla Penn. 2 His infancy was spent at
Chelsea Manor House and at the country seats of Ampthill
and Oatlands. In these places he was frequently visited by
his sisters Mary and Elizabeth, and presumably also by his
little cousins of the house of Grey ; but when he attained his
sixth year, in accordance with the peculiar views of his father
on the subject of education, all female influence was with-
1 This lady was a daughter of Humphrey Bouchier, Lord Berners, and
wife of Sir Thomas Bryan or Brian. She was the " my lady maistress " of
Princess Mary, whose Privy Purse Expenses contain several items to her
credit as in January 1537 : " Item paid for a broach and a frontlet and
the same given to my lady maistress, xxxviij." Lady Bryan or Brian was
for a time governess to Princess Elizabeth as well as to Prince Edward. She
was created a Baroness in her own right, but does not appear from her corre-
spondence and petitions to have had sufficient income to support the
dignity of a peeress. This able lady died on 2Oth August 1551 at Leyton, in
Essex. (See Strype's Appendix to Stowe's Survey of London for 1720, vol. ii.
p. 114.)
2 Mrs. Sybel or Sybilla Penn, dry nurse to Edward vi, was not, as erroneously
stated by Gough Nichols in his Literary Remains of Edward VI, the daughter
of Sir Hugh Pagenham or the wife of John Penne, barber-surgeon to Henry
viii, but the daughter of William Hampton of Dodyngton, Buckinghamshire,
and owed her appointment as dry nurse and foster-mother to the future
King to the good offices of Sir William Sydney. She married Mr. David
Penn, and continued at Court after the death of Edward, being very kindly
treated by both Mary and Elizabeth. She had an apartment in Hampton
Court Palace, and died there in 1562 of the smallpox, at the same time that
Elizabeth herself was attacked by that dreadful malady. She is buried in
Hampton Church, and is said to haunt the palace because her bones were
disturbed when the position of her. monument was altered many years ago
(1820). Mrs. Penn's spirit was greatly displeased at this removal, and forth-
with took to haunting the palace she had inhabited for so many years. Her
ghost has been seen ascending the stairs as recently as 1896, when she nearly
scared the attendant out of his wits. The well-known sketch by Holbein
signed " Mother Jack " is supposed to be a portrait of this lady, but Sir
Richard Holmes, the late learned Librarian at Windsor Castle, disputes
this opinion, and attributes another portrait to her. (See Ernest Law's
History of Hampton Court Palace. George Bell & Sons. Tudor Period, p. 197
et seq.)
THE LADY JANE AND THE QUEEN-DOWAGER 127
drawn from him, although Lady Brian continued to preside
over his household. A number of very young noblemen
were selected to be his constant companions and playfellows.
Among them were his cousins, the two sons of Brandon, Duke
of Suffolk ; the Lord Edward Seymour, afterwards Earl of
Hertford ; and his great friend, the one being he seems to
have really loved, young Barnaby Fitzpatrick, sometimes
mentioned by the Swiss Reformers as Earl of Ireland. 1 His
principal tutors were the extremely Protestant Dr. Richard
Cox, who became Dean of Westminster in 1549 an d subse-
quently, in Elizabeth's reign, Bishop of Ely ; the learned Sir
John Cheke, 2 Provost of King's College, Cambridge, and his
first schoolmaster ; Sir Anthony Cooke ; M. Jean Bellemain,
his French master ; and Roger Ascham, who taught him
caligraphy. He also received lessons in the art of writing in
the Italian or Roman type, which most nearly resembles the
modern, from Dr. Croke, who had taught this art at an earlier
period to the young Duke of Richmond and Queen Katherine
Parr. Dr. Christopher Tye was his music master ; and Philip
1 Edward's friend and companion, Barnaby Fitzpatrick, was the eldest
son of the Irish chieftain, Barnaby Gill Patrick, Lord of Upper Ossory, who
made his submission to the King in 1537, and was created a Baron by his old
title in 1 541 . Barnaby's mother was the widow of Thomas Fitzgerald, a grand-
son of the Earl of Desmond. Barnaby, who was brought up with Edward,
was sent for a year's education to the French Court : whilst there he received
many letters from his royal friend. On his return to England Barnaby
Fitzpatrick continued to enjoy the King's favour. After Edward's death he
entered the service of Mary and went to fight in Scotland. Under Elizabeth,
Barnaby, who had by this time become Baron of Upper Ossory, fought for
the Queen in Ireland, and actually slew Oge O Moarda, or Rory O'More, one
of the great rebels of the day. Barnaby Fitzpatrick died in 1581 without
issue, and was succeeded by his brother, Florence, whose descendants enjoyed
the title of Upper Ossory until the extinction of the peerage in 1818. (See
for further particulars of his career John Gough Nichols' Literary Remains of
Edward VI, p. 64. Printed for the Roxburgh Club.)
2 Sir John Cheke was an early forerunner of President Roosevelt, for not
only did he reform the pronunciation of Greek, but he actually instituted a
reform of English orthography. His suggestions for the simplification of
our writing were very curious and worth detailing. Firstly, there was to be
no e at the end of words, so he wrote excus, giv, hav, and so on. Secondly,
when a is sounded long, he would have had it doubled, as maad, straat
(made, straight), etc. Thirdly, he replaced y by i, as mi, sai, awai, for my, say,
away ! The rest of the language was phoneticised, as britil (brittle), frute
(fruit), and so on. He translated part of the Bible into his new English, a
copy of which is now at Cambridge.
128 THE NINE DAYS' QUEEN
Van Wylder taught him to play upon his father's favourite
instrument, the lute. Lady Jane was certainly not among
his circle of intimate associates, which did not even include
his two sisters, although the Lady Mary was at one time
officially appointed his guardian, and Elizabeth passed the
greater part of the year 1546 with him at Hatfield. So little
intercourse had he with his sisters after his accession to the
throne that he actually only met Princess Mary three times,
and Elizabeth five. As to Lady Jane, he scarcely ever saw
her, unless indeed she spent a few days with him at Whitehall
some weeks before his death. As soon as the Somersets were
thoroughly acquainted with the true motive that had induced
the Dorsets to part with their daughter, they took every
precaution to prevent its accomplishment ; and so little was
the Lady Jane seen at the Court of King Edward that she is
only once casually mentioned by that monarch in his Journal
as being present at the great functions arranged in 1550 in
honour of the Dowager of Scotland when she passed through
London on her way to her northern dominions ; and this was
at the time that Northumberland was in favour and Somerset
in disgrace.
On Thursday, i8th February 1547, the temporal Lords
assembled at the Tower in their robes of estate to witness a
solemn and significant ceremony. The young King having
ascended his throne, and the officials of his Court taken their
allotted positions about him, the doors were thrown open,
and Edward Seymour, Lord Protector and Earl of Hertford,
was led from the Council Chamber and conducted before
His Majesty. Garter bore his letters-patent, the Earl of
Derby his mantle, the Earl of Shrewsbury his rod of gold ;
my Lord Oxford carried his cap of estate and coronet. The
Lord of Arundel bore the sword, and walked immediately
before the Protector, who was supported by the young Duke
of Suffolk and the Marquis of Dorset. After the usual
ceremonies, Hertford knelt and was invested by his royal
nephew, who put on the mantle, girded on the sword, placed
the coronet upon his uncle's head, and delivered him his
rod of gold. Then the trumpets sounded, and the Herald
proclaimed Edward Seymour to be no longer Earl of Hertford,
but now and hereafter Duke of Somerset.
THE LADY JANE AND THE QUEEN-DOWAGER 129
After the Protector came the Lord William Parr, Earl
of Essex, brother to the Queen-Dowager, who was created
Marquis of Northampton and of Essex. Then appeared
John Dudley, Lord de Lisle, who had not assumed full im-
portance at that time, but who was presently to become
the protagonist of the ominous tragedy already in preparation.
The future father-in-law of Lady Jane Grey, and the Nemesis
of Somerset, was a man of splendid presence, exceedingly
tall, with regular and majestic features, rendered even more
striking by his long beard and sweeping moustache. He
entered led by the Earls of Derby and Oxford, and was
presently created Earl of Warwick. Dudley was followed
by Wriothesley, who was raised to the peerage as Earl of
Southampton. 1 Immediately after him came the majestic
Sir Thomas Seymour, whom the King created Baron Seymour
of Sudeley, at the same time delivering to him his patent
as Lord High-Admiral of England. Sir Richard Rich, Sir
John Sheffield, and Sir William Willoughby followed in suc-
cession and were created barons by the same names they
had borne as knights. When the elaborate ceremony was
over, a grand banquet, at which the King was not present,
was offered to the new peers in the Tower. His Majesty,
who was far from strong, had fainted from fatigue, and no
wonder ! the function had lasted from seven in the morning
till nearly midday !
In the evening of the same day (i8th February) three
of the handsomest men of the English Court Somerset,
Sudeley, and Warwick rode with a small escort from
Whitehall through the Strand to Baynard's Castle, the
residence of Sir William Herbert, Queen Katherine's brother-
in-law, one of the wealthiest men in England, served by not
1 Wriothesley having now become Earl of Southampton, evidently hoped
to represent for some time in the Privy Council the old faith i.e. schis-
matic as it had been under Henry vin, probably with the view of eventu-
ally modifying it into the ancient Roman Catholicism which had been the
religion of his youth. But as he showed the extent of his ambition by putting
the Great Seal into commission without the authority of his colleagues, he
offended Somerset and gave him the opportunity of getting a dangerous com-
petitor out of the way by arresting Wriothesley on a vague charge of treason
and ordering him to confine himself to his own house in the Strand. With
the same intention of " clearing the board," the Protector had Winchester
also arrested and thrown into the Tower.
130 THE NINE DAYS' QUEEN
less than a thousand men, who wore his liveries. Here these
three gentlemen were hospitably entertained at supper.
There was much to talk over, and the party, elated by the
honours so recently showered upon its members and heated
by Herbert's good wine, became ' right merry " little
dreaming that within two years' time Somerset would
condemn his own brother Thomas to death, and that a few
months later Warwick, as Duke of Northumberland, would
sign the death-warrant of Somerset, only to be beheaded
in his turn for high treason a year or so later by Queen
Mary's command. The Marquis of Dorset may have been
of the company, and his presence would add an addi-
tional note of tragic significance for Warwick was to become
the direct cause of the deaths both of Lady Jane and of her
father !
King Edward, in the meantime, remained at the Tower
until his official progress thence to Westminster for his
coronation. Although Somerset and his brother were in
office, and the Marquis of Dorset in great favour with
them, it is not probable that his cousin, the Lady Frances,
or her daughters were brought to see him. His boyish
Majesty was left, according to custom, in complete isola-
tion, seen and influenced alone by his uncles, the Seymours,
and by his numerous tutors (for even after his accession his
lessons were continued with curious punctuality), so that,
what with State functions and his education, the unfor-
tunate lad had very little or no time for physical exercise
or recreation.
On iQth February His Majesty rode from the Tower in
the usual procession to Westminster before the coronation
which formed a part of our regal ceremonial until the reign
of James i, when it was omitted on account of the plague.
Edward, garbed in silver, with a white velvet waistcoat
and a cloak slashed with Venetian silver brocade, embroidered
with pearls, cantered on a milk-white pony under a white
silk canopy edged with silver. On either side of him rode
his two uncles, the Lord Protector and the Lord High-Admiral,
whilst Cranmer, dumbly riding with the Emperor's Envoy,
went between him and the Venetian Ambassador. They
passed through streets gay with tapestry and cloth of gold ;
THE LADY JANE AND THE QUEEN-DOWAGER 131
whilst at the Conduit in Cornhill white and red wine ran free
for the people to drink at their will, and children dressed as
angels sang a quaint greeting :
"Hayle, Noble Edward, our Kynge and soveraigne,
Hayle, the cheffe comfort of your communaltye:
Hayle, redolent rose, whose sweetness to reteyne,
Ys unto us all such great comodity,
That earthly joy no more to us can be."
At the Standard in the Chepe an erection, " like unto a
tower," and hung with cloth of gold, was surmounted by
trumpeters, who, after a flourish, recited the following poetic (!)
effusion :
"Ye children that are towardes, sing up and downe,
And never play the cowardes to him that weareth the
crowne,
But always doo your care his pleasure to fulfyll,
Then shall you keep right sure the honour of England still.
Sing up heart, sing up heart,
Sing no more downe,
But joy hi King Edward that wereth the crowne."
Outside the Metropolitan Cathedral there was an
acrobatic display : " An argosine [Ragusan] came from
the batilment of Saint Poule's Church, upon a cable, beyng
made faste to an anker at the deane's doore, Hying uppon
his breaste, aidyng himself neither with hande nor foote,
and after ascended to the middes [middle] of the same cable,
and tumbled and plaied many pretie toies [tricks], wherat
the Kyng and other of the peres and nobles of the realme
laughed hartely." In Fleet Street the King was met by
Faith, Justice, and Truth, the first holding a Bible con-
spicuously in her hands : each of these damsels recited a
long poem in His Majesty's honour. Temple Bar having been
' new painted in dyvers colours," was garnished with cloth
of arras and standards and flags, and seven French trumpeters
' blew sweetly ' to the singing of an anthem by a group of
children. The customary banquet was served in the Great
Hall, Westminster, and was attended by Archbishop Cranmer,
most of the bishops, the ambassadors, and envoys, the
nobility, the Lord Mayor, aldermen, and sheriffs.
132 THE NINE DAYS' QUEEN
King Edward stayed at Westminster Palace until the
coronation, which took place on the following Sunday in
Westminster Abbey. On account of the King's poor health,
the service was slightly abridged, otherwise the old Catholic
form was throughout adhered to ; for though Qranmer preached
a sermon in refutation of Petrine claims and urged the young
monarch to abolish " idolatry," he celebrated High Mass, and
the incongruous function concluded with the King's " offering/ 1
as had always been done in Catholic times, at St. Edward's
shrine ! After the coronation there were public jousts and
tournaments ; and the King and Court attended at Black-
friars those very performances by the " players ' which had
roused the ire of Bishop Gardiner and had been postponed
at his request. 1 We may be certain that the Marchioness
of Dorset witnessed the procession and coronation, together
with her two elder daughters, Jane and Katherine, from some
place of vantage set apart for the ladies of the royal
family, who, however, took no active part in either the pro-
cession or the actual ceremony, it not being customary for
ladies to be officially present at the coronation of a bachelor
King.
Notwithstanding that Edward vi is always connected in
1 There is a very minute account of Edward vi's coronation (from an MS.
at the College of Arms) in Nichols' Literary Remains of Edward VI. The
Spanish Chronicle also gives a curious description of it, where the writer says
(p. 153 et seq.) that at the cross in Cheapside there was a triumphal arch
" made to look like the sky," whence descended a boy " like an angel," who
gave the King a purse containing ^1000, which His Majesty handed over to
the captain of the guard, much to the astonishment of the people ; the
chronicler significantly adds that the boy-King " had not the strength " to
carry this weighty gift. The way from the Abbey to Westminster Hall was
spread with " fine cloth " " at least twenty lengths " and " the moment
the King passed these cloths disappeared, for whoever could cut a piece off
took it for himself." The Spaniard makes the curious mistake of saying
that Henry vin's death was not made known to the public until after Edward's
coronation. (The coronation to which the Chronicler referred was that called
the first coronation, which took place in the Tower on the 3ist January.
The King's death was not generally known until then. M. H.)
A large contemporary picture of Edward vi's coronation procession was
destroyed in a fire at Cowdray House (the home of the Montagu family) in
J 793 ' Du t in the engraving of it made previously by the Society of
Antiquaries we perceive a man bearing a cross leading the troop of knights,
etc., preceding the King another proof of the persistence of the old religious
THE LADY JANE AND THE QUEEN-DOWAGER 133
the popular mind with Protestantism, and notwithstanding
Cranmer's attack on " Popery " at the coronation, for quite
eighteen months, if not two years, after Henry vm's death
the Church in England remained exactly as he left it. True it
is, that the first Book of Common Prayer was issued in 1548,
but, on the other hand, Mass was said daily in the Royal Chapel
(Low Mass every day and High Mass on festivals) for the
first two or three years of Edward's reign ; an MS. account
book of ' the Treasurer of the Chamber ' in the Trevelyan
Papers reveals the fact that the boy-King himself heard Mass
almost daily until 1549. There is every reason to believe that
Mass continued to be said or sung in the parish churches also
until the same year ; certainly the old feasts were still observed
for the first two years of King Edward's reign, especially in
London. These feasts were much more numerous than those
retained by the Established Church ; there were the first three
days in Easter Week, Corpus Christi, when there was the
usual procession with the Host through the streets, the
" Days " of St. John, SS. Peter and Paul, St. Mary Magdalen,
St. James the Apostle, the Annunciation, the Nativity, the
Conception, and the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary,
All Hallows' Day, All Souls' Day, St. Edward Confessor,
Christmas Day, and the three following holy-days. High
Mass of the Holy Ghost was said in St. Stephen's Chapel
when Parliament met for the first time after Henry's death,
the King and both Houses attending in State. All the same,
things ecclesiastical were not as they used to be ; there was in
different churches much diversity in the matter of details
one priest would use incense, another not, and so on. In 1548,
however, Compline was sung in English and the Litany of the
Saints also in the vernacular.
So soon as the news that King Henry was dead was
authenticated abroad, an army of foreign Reformers Swiss,
German, French, and Italian poured into England, as a
secure refuge from the persecution they endured in their
respective countries. These worthies held the most varied
opinions, some even casting doubt on the Divinity of Christ,
and the Lutherans hating the Calvinists as cordially as they
both detested the Papists. The Londoners in general, who,
when not Catholics, were mostly schismatics and ever jealous
134 THE NINE DAYS' QUEEN
of foreigners, did not relish this sudden invasion ; but the
leaders of politics and religion in England welcomed the
Reformers with open arms, even overlooking their doctrinal
shortcomings for the sake of their hatred of ' the Scarlet
Lady." Some of them for instance, Bucer, Peter Martyr,
and perhaps Paul Fagius were awarded chairs at the Uni-
versities ; whilst others, such as John ab Ulmis, Conrad
Pellican, Oswald Geisshaiisler (better known as Myconius),
Bullinger, Martin Micronius, Bartholomew Traheron, John
Stumphius, Christopher Froschover, Bernardine Ochinus, Peter
Bizarro of Perugia, 1 etc., were received into the houses of
some of the aristocracy to teach their children ' the new
learning." The Marquis of Dorset, as already noted, wel-
comed these foreign Reformers with enthusiasm, and we
shall presently learn more concerning his relations with them.
He did not confine his intercourse to a mere empty display of
hospitality, but kept up a regular correspondence with many
of them after their return to their homes. Letter-writing
seems, indeed, to have been a passion with the Reformers,
and their voluminous correspondence, arranged, translated, and
published by the Parker Society, 2 throws much valuable light
on their private characters, their politics, and their singular
theological opinions. It is mostly addressed to their brethren
in Basle, Zurich, Geneva, and Strasburg, or to their English
patrons. According to some authorities, there were from ten
to twenty thousand foreign adherents of the " new learning '
or as we might still better say, new learnings, so many and
diverse were their opinions in England during Edward vi's
reign, but the former figure is the more likely to be correct.
Very many of these learned men scattered themselves abroad
again when the Catholic reaction set in under Mary ; but
doubtless a few remained, whose descendants to this day
1 Of this man Strype -says : " He was entertained here [England] divers
years with the Earl of Bedford ; and expecting preferment here, failing of it,
he departed and lived abroad." This certainly does not put Master Peter's
reason for coming to this country in quite such a good light as his description
of himself as "an exile from Italy ... by reason of his confession of the
doctrine of the Gospel." See Strype's Annals, iii. i. 660.
2 Original Letters relative to the English Reformation, written during the
Reigns of King Henry VIII, etc. Edited for the Parker Society by the Rev.
Hastings Robinson, D.D., F.S.A. Cambridge, 1847. They are generally
called "The Zurich Letters."
THE LADY JANE AND THE QUEEN-DOWAGER 135
worship in the figlise Reform6e Francaise, 1'figlise Protestante
Suisse, the Dutch Church, and in the other foreign Protestant
churches which are sprinkled over the metropolis, but whose
congregations were materially increased after the Revocation
of the Edict of Nantes.
CHAPTER IX
THE QUEEN AND THE LORD HIGH-ADMIRAL
AT the time of the much-discussed clandestine
marriage between Thomas Seymour and Katherine
Parr, the Princess Elizabeth was a precocious girl
of fifteen, not beautiful, but tall for her age, well developed,
and of elegant figure. The aquiline features, which age was
to harshen, were softened at this early period by the roundness
of youth ; and the brilliant complexion stood in no need
of the artificial assistance to which the Queen so freely
resorted in her later life. The splendid auburn hair its
colour may have owed something to a touch of henna
considerably heightened charms not the least striking of which
were a pair of small but black and penetrating eyes, inherited
from her mother, Anne Boleyn. 1 Unmindful of the fact that
a girl of fifteen is not precisely a baby, the Queen had en-
couraged the Admiral to romp with " our Eliza ' in the
garden and even in her bedroom. Seymour was notoriously
devoid of any sense of delicacy or chivalry, and there can
be very little doubt that the object of his play with his
illustrious stepdaughter was to kindle a passion which might
serve his purpose in case the Queen, already advancing in
pregnancy, should die in childbirth a not improbable
contingency, considering her age and the fact that she had
never borne a child before. At a much later date Mrs. Ashley,
the Princess's governess, deposed as follows before the Privy
1 Anne Boleyn was very dark. Froude mentions her " blonde tresses "
but they were really raven black ; her eyes were black and velvety. Eliza-
beth's hair may have been black, but the habit of dyeing the hair golden and
Venice red was universal, even for children, at this period. The magnificent
portrait by Lucas de Heere at Hampton Court represents the young Queen
with dark hair and eyes.
136
THE QUEEN AND THE LORD HIGH-ADMIRAL 137
Council : ' At Chelsea Manor, 1 after my Lord Thomas
Seymour was married to the Queen, he would come many
mornings into the said Lady Elizabeth's chamber before she
was ready, and sometimes before she did rise, and strike
her familiarly on the back, and so go forth to his chamber,
and sometimes go through to her maidens and play with them.
And if the Princess were in bed, he would put open the
curtains and bid her good morrow, and she would go further
in the bed. And one morning he tried to kiss the Princess
in the bed and I was there, and bade him go away for shame.
At Hanworth, for two mornings, the Queen was with him, and
they both tickled my Lady Elizabeth in her bed. Another
time, at Hanworth, he romped with her in the garden, and
cut her gown, being of black silk, into a hundred pieces ;
and when I chid Lady Elizabeth, she answered, ' She could
not strive with all, for the Queen held her while the Lord
Admiral cut the dress.' Another time, Lady Elizabeth
1 " Considerable confusion exists as to the identity of some of these
historical houses. Messrs. Wheatley and Cunningham, in their most useful
London Past and Present, seem to think that Sir Thomas More resided in
Chelsea Manor before Katherine Parr came to live there. After the execution
of More his estate at Chelsea was confiscated by Henry vm and given to the
Marquess of Winchester. Chelsea New Manor, which was inhabited by
Katherine Parr and others, and, under the Commonwealth, by Bulstrode
Whitelock, came into the hands of the Duke of Buckingham, who sold it
to the Duke of Beaufort (hence Beaufort Street). It was purchased in 1738
by Sir Hans Sloane, who pulled it down in 1740. There is, moreover, local tra-
dition, and even historical evidence, that there were two distinct manors at
Chelsea in the first half of the sixteenth century Chelsea New Manor, and
Chelsea Old Manor. Dr. King, in his MS. account of Chelsea, says that the
' old manor-house stood near the church.' This is the house associated with
the deaths of Anne of Cleves and of the old Duchess of Northumberland. He
mentions another house, Chelsea New Manor, standing on that part of Cheyne
Walk which adjoins Winchester House, and extends as far as ' Don Saltero's
coffee house.' ' This house was built by Henry vm as a nursery for his children,
and here Katherine Parr lived.' A picture of it in Faulkner's Chelsea shows it
not unlike St. James's Palace. Small turrets communicate with the chimneys ;
the windows are long and high, and one of them has a Tudor arch on top. On
the site of the present Durham House, Durham Terrace, the town residence
of Sir Bruce and Lady Seton, there stood, not so many years ago, an ancient
wainscoted house with a fine staircase, rather mysteriously connected by
report with Jane Grey, who, according to a local tradition, lived here before
she was made queen. In the beginning of the century this house was made
a fashionable school for young ladies, but was pulled down in 1860 to make
room for the present mansion." Mr. Richard Davey's Pageant of London,
vol. i. p. 379.
138 THE NINE DAYS' QUEEN
heard the master-key unlock, and knowing my Lord Admiral
would come in, ran out of her bed to her maidens, and then
went behind the curtains of her bed and my Lord Admiral
tarried a long while, in hopes she would come out." Upon
Mrs. Ashley's begging the Admiral to be more circumspect,
because his tomfooleries were giving the Princess a bad
reputation, he answered, with an oath, ' ' I will tell my Lord
Protector how I am slandered ; and I will not leave off, for I
mean no evil." " At Seymour Place," continues Mrs. Ashley,
' when the Queen slept there, he did use awhile to come up
every morning in his night-gown and slippers. When he
found Lady Elizabeth up and at her book, then he would look
in at the gallery-door, and bid her good morrow and so go on
his way ; and I did tell my Lord it was an unseemly sight
to see a man so little dressed in a maiden's chamber, with
which he was angry, but left it. At Han worth, the Queen
did tell me ' that my Lord Admiral looked in at the gallery-
window, and saw my Lady Elizabeth with her arms about
a man's neck.' I did question my Lady Elizabeth about it,
which she denied, weeping, and bade us ' ax all her women if
there were any man who came to her, excepting Grindal.'
[This gentleman was her tutor.] Howbeit, methought the
Queen, being jealous, did feign this story, to the intent that
I might take more heed to the proceedings of Lady Elizabeth
and the Lord Admiral." J Mr. Ashley, husband of the above
deponent, and also in Princess Elizabeth's service, concurred
in his wife's opinion that the Admiral was going too far, and
that the Princess was " inclined ' towards him, for whenever
the Admiral was mentioned ' ' she was wont to blush to her
hair-roots." That Elizabeth herself was alarmed is proved
by the fact that she told Parry, her cofferer, " that she feared
the Admiral loved her but too well, and that the Queen was
jealous of them both ; and that Her Majesty, suspecting
the frequent access of the Admiral to her, came upon them
suddenly when they were alone, he having her in his arms.
The Queen was greatly offended, and reproved Mrs. Ashlei
very sharply for her neglect of duty in permitting the
Princess to fall into such reprehensible freedom of behaviour."
The scandalous conduct of her husband at last roused no1
1 Deposition of Mrs. Ashley in the Hatfield State Papers.
THE QUEEN AND THE LORD HIGH-ADMIRAL 139
only the jealousy but the apprehensions of Queen Katherine.
She feared some misfortune might befall the Princess at her
tender age, and felt that in such a case the blame very
naturally, and not unjustly, would be cast on her ; and
she would be generally regarded as the author of her step-
daughter's ruin. Very quietly, therefore, Her Majesty sug-
gested the departure of the Princess, who was forthwith sent
back to Hat field, attended by her governess and servants.
Elizabeth seems to have borne her late hostess no ill-will on
account of this banishment, and a few months later we see
her affectionately concerned about Her Grace's health, and
greatly rejoiced at the news that she had been safely
delivered. Evidently a letter from the Admiral, received some
days before the event, had assured her the expected child
would be a boy, and it must have been on receiving this
expression of opinion that the Princess indited the following
quaint epistle to her stepmother :
' Although Your Highness's letters be most joyful to me in
absence, yet, considering what pain it is for you to write, Your
Grace being so sickly, your commendations were enough in my
Lord's letter. I much rejoice at your health, with the well liking
of the country, with my humble thanks that Your Grace wished
me with you till I were weary of that country. Your Highness
were like to be cumbered, if I should not depart till I were
weary of being with you ; although it were the worst soil in the
world, your presence would make it pleasant. I cannot reprove
my Lord for not doing your commendations in his letter, for
he did it ; and although he had not, yet I will not complain
of him, for he shall be diligent to give me knowledge from
time to time how his busy child doth ; and if I were at his
birth, no doubt I would see him beaten, for the trouble he
hath put you to. Master Denny and my lady, with humble
thanks, prayeth most entirely for Your Grace, praying the
Almighty to send you a most lucky deliverance ; and my
mistress [Mrs. Ashley] wisheth no less, giving Your Highness
most humble thanks for her commendations. Written, with
very little leisure, this last day of July.- -Your humble
daughter, ELIZABETH "
The phrase, " If I were at his birth, no doubt I would
140 THE NINE DAYS' QUEEN
see him beaten, for the trouble he hath put you to," is as
quaint as any metaphor in Shakespeare. This letter was
dispatched some six weeks before the Queen's confinement.
About the same time Katherine received a friendly missive
from the Princess Mary, congratulating her on the rumour
she hears concerning her good condition, and assuring her
she will pray Almighty God to help her in her hour of hope and
danger.
The unpleasant rumours as to the behaviour of ' my
Lord Admiral ' ' and Elizabeth were soon well known all over
London, and caused much spiteful gossip. It was currently
reported that when the Princess left the Queen's house she had
betaken herself to some out-of-the-way dwelling at Hackney,
where a mysterious infant had been born. 1 This story was so
generally believed that it had an echo even during the great
Queen's reign. In the twenty-first year of Elizabeth (1579), a
youth who appeared at Madrid asserted himself to be the
Queen's son by the Lord Admiral, and was accepted as
such by the Spanish King and Court. The Lord Admiral
certainly made a great impression on the young girl's heart,
for long after her accession, Elizabeth, very reticent, as a rule,
concerning events connected with her childhood and youth,
would, in the privacy of her closet, confide to the ladies she
admitted to her intimacy that " the Lord Admiral had been
the only man she had ever loved ; and the handsomest she
had ever seen."
Perhaps the departure of Princess Elizabeth left the Queen
more leisure to look after her other charge, the Lady Jane
Grey, who had been removed from Seymour Place to the
Manor House, Chelsea. Katherine, on account, it may be,
1 There are several versions of this story. For instance, Henry Clifford,
a retainer of Jane Dormer, Duchess of Feria, says, in his MS. Life of that lady
(London, Burns & Gates, 1887) that " In King Edward's time what passed
between the Lord Admiral, Sir Thomas Seymour, and her [Elizabeth] Dr.
Latimer preached in a sermon, and was a chief cause that the Parliament
condemned the Admiral. There was a bruit of a child born and miserably
destroyed, but could not be discovered whose it was ; only the report of the
midwife, who was brought from her house blindfold thither, and so returned,
saw nothing in the house while she was there, but candle light ; only she said,
it was the child of a very fair young lady. There was a muttering of the
Admiral and this lady, who was then between fifteen and sixteen years of
age."
THE QUEEN AND THE LORD HIGH-ADMIRAL 141
of the restlessness sometimes observed in ladies in her condi-
tion, moved about a great deal during this period. Some-
times she addresses her letters from Hanworth, sometimes
from Oatlands. Then, as political events rendered her hus-
band's position less and less secure, she determined to retire
to Sudeley Castle, Seymour's lately acquired seat in Gloucester-
shire, and to lie-in there. The journey from Hanworth must
have been a troublesome one for a woman in her state of
health. She travelled with her husband, Lady Jane Grey, 1
Lady Tyrwhitt, six other ladies, and two chaplains. She
herself was in a waggon, comfortably lined and cushioned,
no doubt, and with every possible precaution to ensure her
comfort, but the roads were atrocious, and the journey lasted
six days. Yet the weary traveller's patience must have been
amply rewarded, for Sudeley Castle in those days was one
of the most splendid houses in England a gem of Gothic
architecture, furnished in the most sumptuous style. The
Queen's apartments had been fitted up with as much magnifi-
cence as she would have enjoyed if she had still been Queen-
Consort of England and about to present the realm with
an expected heir. Her bedchamber was hung with costly
tapestry, specified, in an inventory still preserved at Sudeley,
as consisting of " six fair pieces of hangings illustrating the
history of the Nymph Daphne/ 1 The bed had a tester and
curtains of crimson taffeta, with a counterpoint of silk serge
There was another bed for the nurse, hung with " counter-
points of imagery to please the babe " probably some stuff
such as was common in those days embroidered with animals,
1 Among the guests at Sudeley at this period, with whom Lady Jane must
have come into contact, was the Marchioness of Northampton, wife of
William Parr, the Queen's only brother. This unfortunate lady, who was
closely allied with the Crown, had been so indiscreet that when her marriage
came to be dissolved her children were declared illegitimate. She was living
apart from her husband at the time of this visit to Sudeley. The Tudor
great ladies were distinctly " mixed " in their love affairs, and Lady Nor-
thampton has been saddled with perhaps the worst reputation of any woman
of her time ; yet the Spanish Chronicle, which, as already remarked, contains
much personal " back-stair " gossip, reveals some curious facts about this
lady's behaviour, and shows that a great part of the blame rests on the Marquis
her husband, who, on altogether insufficient evidence, accepted a story of her
having misconducted herself with a man-servant. See the Chronicle of King
Henry VIII of England, etc. (the Spanish Chronicle), chap. Ixii. p. 137 et seq.,
translated by Major Martin Hume,
142 THE NINE DAYS 1 QUEEN
birds, and little men. The outer chamber had been arranged
as a day nursery, and was hung with " a fair tapestry re-
presenting the twelve months of the year. In it was set a
" chair of state " covered with cloth of gold all the other seats
were stools and a bedstead with tester curtains and rich
counterpoints, or counterpanes, as they are now called. There
is still a lovely oriel window of Tudor architecture at Sudeley
popularly called " the nursery window," but this cannot be
the window of the nursery that was prepared for Katherine
Parr's babe, for the inventory distinctly says ' carpets for
four windows in the nursery." This other " nursery window '
looks out upon one of the most lovely scenes in England-
trie chapel where Katherine Parr sleeps in peace after her
chequered life, the garden in front of it, while beyond, the
lovely green of the famous woods of St. Kenelm soften into
the haze of the distant horizon.
Lady Jane's room, beyond Queen Katherine's, was also
splendidly furnished, and adorned with tapestries representing
the history of St. Catherine. The bed was hung with blue
silk, and a large piece of Turkey carpet l covered the floor.
Queen Katherine's life at Sudeley must have been very
quiet and peaceful. Local tradition tells us that she was
wont, with her young charge and her ladies, to visit the poor
and take an interest in her gardens. Divine service according
to the rites of the Church of England was said regularly twice
a day in the beautiful chapel by one of her chaplains, Coverdale
or Parkhurst, and sermons were preached at least three times
a day. The Lord Admiral's ostentatious absence from these
pious exercises was a matter of great vexation to the Queen,
and gave rise to a report that his Lordship was an atheist. 2
The return of the Lord Protector from his campaign in
Scotland boded no good for the Lord Admiral ; the brothers
had a bitter quarrel, and on this occasion it was that Seymour
departed with the Queen for Sudeley. Edward had been
writing to Somerset, calling him ' his dearest uncle ' and
saying that he was well pleased with his many victories, and
on the warrior's return the Admiral found himself quite driven
1 Inventory of furniture and other goods at Sudeley Castle. Dated
1547-8.
2 See Latimer's Sermons in Strype's Memorials.
THE QUEEN AND THE LORD HIGH-ADMIRAL 143
into the shade. However, about a month before the Queen's
confinement, he made a hurried journey to London, hoping
to induce the young King to write a letter complaining of the
treatment his younger uncle and the Queen were receiving from
the Protector. Edward was easily persuaded to write the
letter, but before the plot was thoroughly matured it was
betrayed to the elder Seymour, and Thomas, arrested by the
Lord Protector's order, was taken before the Council to answer
for his behaviour. Threatened with imprisonment in the
Tower, he made a sort of submission to Somerset, and a hollow
reconciliation took place, the Protector adding a sum of 800
per annum to Sudeley's appointments in the hope of concili-
ating his unruly brother, who hurried back to Sudeley, where he
felt himself comparatively safe ; for so long as the Queen lived
he could defy his foes, his wife's great rank and the well-known
affection entertained for her by the boy-King sufficing to
screen him even from the vengeance of the infuriated head of
the house of Seymour.
On 30th August 1548 Queen Katherine bore the infant for
whom such great preparations had been made. The parents had
fondly hoped it would be a boy, but, alack ! it was a puny girl,
destined to be a child of misfortune. She cost her mother her life,
and grew up to suffer the bitter pangs of poverty and neglect.
My Lord Sudeley, who had been consulting fortune-
tellers and palmists about the expected child, was bitterly
disappointed, for they had predicted the birth of a son. This
lid not prevent him from writing a very flattering account of
lis infant daughter to his brother the Protector. The Duke had
[uite recently sent his brother a very severe letter complaining
f his intrigues ; but the birth of the child seems to have had a
oftening effect, and the following letter was far more friendly,
ontaining a courteous message to the Queen, and continuing:
We are right glad to understand by your letters that
ie Queen, your bedfellow, hath a happy hour ; and, escaping
11 danger, hath made you the father of so pretty a
mghter. And although (if it had pleased God) it would
ive been both to us, and (we suppose) also to you, a more
>y and comfort if it had, this the first-born, been a son, yet
ie escape of the danger, and the prophecy and good hansell
144 THE NINE DAYS' QUEEN
of this to a great sort of proper sons, which (as I write) we trust
no less than to be true, it is no small joy and comfort to us,
as we are sure it is to you and to her Grace also ; to whom
you shall make again our hearty commendations, with no less
gratulation of such good success.
" Thus we bid you heartily farewell. From Sion, the ist
of Sept. 1548. Your loving brother,
"E. SOMERSET '
It is a curious fact that the child was born on soth August,
and that Somerset's letter is dated the ist of September, prov-
ing that communication was much more expeditious in those
days than we are apt to imagine.
Lady Tyrwhitt, who attended on the Queen, has left a
very touching account of her last hours. 1 Everything seems
to have gone well until about six days after the child's birth,
when the Queen suddenly became delirious, and conceived a
great dread and a burning jealousy of her husband. Lady
Tyrwhitt says that " two days before the death of the Queen,
at my coming to her in the morning, she asked me ' Where I
had been so long ? ' and said unto me ' that she did fear such
things in herself, that she was sure she could not live.' I
answered as I thought, ' that I saw no likelihood of death
in her.' She then, having my Lord Admiral by the hand,
and divers others standing by, spake these words, partly, as I
took, idly [that is, " in delirium "] : ' My Lady Tyrwhitt, I
be not well handled ; for those that be about me care not for
me, but stand laughing at my grief, and the more good I will
to them, the less good they will to me/ Whereunto my Lord
Admiral answered, ' Why, sweetheart, I would you no hurt
And she said to him again, aloud, ' No, my lord, I think so '
and immediately she said to him in his ear, ' But, my lord, yoi
have given me many shrewd taunts.' These words I perceivec
she spoke with good memory, and very sharply and earnestly
for her mind was sore disquieted. My Lord Admiral, per
ceiving that I heard it, called me aside, and asked me ' Wha
she said ? ' and I declared it plainly to him. Then he con
suited with me ' that he would lie down on the bed by her
to look if he could pacify her unquietness with gentle com
iHaynes' State Papers, p. 104,
THE QUEEN AND THE LORD HIGH-ADMIRAL 145
munication/ whereunto I agreed ; and by the time that he had
spoken three or four words to her, she answered him roundly
and sharply, saying, ' My Lord, I would have given a thou-
sand marks to have had my full talk with Hewyke [Dr. Huick
or Huycke *] the first day I was delivered, but I durst not for
displeasing you.' And I, hearing that, perceived her trouble
to be so great, that my heart would serve me to hear no more.
Such like communications she had with him the space of an
hour, which they did hear that sat by her bedside.' 1
Little Lady Jane Grey was no doubt near the afflicted
Queen throughout these trying scenes ; but she would almost
certainly have been excluded from the bedchamber when
the Queen's condition became alarming. Just before the end
Katherine seems to have rallied, for on 5th September she
was able to make her will, leaving everything to her husband,
and ' wishing it had been a thousand times more, so great
was her love for him." The witnesses to this will were Dr.
Huycke, already mentioned, and Dr. Parkhurst, afterwards
Bishop of Norwich, both men of unimpeachable integrity,
who would not have signed the document if there had been
anything illegal about it. Katherine Parr died on 7th Sep-
tember, the second day after the date of her will and the
eighth after the birth of her child. She was in her thirty-
sixth year, and had survived Henry vm just one year, six
months, and eight days. Her funeral took place at Sudeley
Castle, according to the rites of the Church of England, on
Friday, 8th September, and was the first royal funeral so
celebrated in England. Dr. Coverdale was the officiant at
the Queen's burial. A procession was formed of ' con-
ductors ' (i.e. leaders) in black, gentlemen, Somerset Herald,
torch-bearers, Lady Jane Grey, acting as chief mourner, her
train borne by a young gentlewoman, then more ladies and
gentlemen ; finally, " all other following." The Lord
Admiral, according to custom, did not attend his wife's
funeral. The ritual was somewhat curious, and is described
1 Robert Huycke, or Huicke, was an M.A. of Oxford. He was divorced
from his wife in 1546, and later married again. In 1550 Edward vi made
him his physician extraordinary at the munificent salary of ^50 per annum.
Huycke was greatly in favour with Elizabeth, and she gave him a house near
Enfield. He died near Charing Cross in (it is believed) 1581.
10
146 THE NINE DAYS' QUEEN
in the following terms in an MS. entitled " A Booke of Bury alls
of Trew Noble Persons/' now in the London College of Arms : l
When the corpse was set within the rails, and the mourners
placed, the whole choir began and sung certain psalms in
English, and read three lessons ; arid after the third lesson,
the mourners, according to their degrees and that which is
accustomed, offered into the alms-box. . . . Doctor Coverdale,
the Queen's almoner, began his sermon ... in one place
thereof he took occasion to declare unto the people ' how the
offering which was there done, was (not) done anything to
benefit the corpse, but for the poor only ; and also the lights,
which were carried and stood about the corpse, were for
the honour of the person, and for none other intent nor
purpose ' ; and so went through with his sermon, and made
a godly prayer, and the whole church answered and prayed
with him. . . . The sermon done, the corpse was buried,
during which time the choir sung the Te Deum in English.
And this done, the mourners dined, and the rest returned
homewards again. All which aforesaid was done in a
morning/ 3
1 This interesting account shows how many Catholic customs still survived
the offering here mentioned is evidently a relic of the Offertory at the
Requiem Mass, otherwise explained ; and the candles also are distinctly a
part of Roman Catholic ritual, though Coverdale's account of their significa-
tion is not altogether that given by Catholics. The Te Deum is no longer
sung or said at either Catholic or Anglican funerals. The fact that the writer
of this account mentions that the whole service was done in one morning,
shows that the brevity of the new form of worship was somewhat of a novelty
to people accustomed to the long series of Dirges and Masses accompanying
burials in Catholic times. Sir Walter Besant says, on p. 154 of his London
in the Time of the Tudor s, " Before the coming of the Puritans the funerals
continued with much of the old (Catholic) ritual."
CHAPTER X
THE LADY JANE GOES TO SEYMOUR PLACE
ALL Thomas Seymour's schemes and conspiracies
and political and domestic intrigues were brought
to nought by his wife's death, and he swiftly
realised that the danger of his position was immeasurably
increased by her decease. She had been an effective
barrier between himself and his foes, for nothing could
persuade the King to consider her otherwise than with great
affection, as one of the only two persons he really loved
(his young companion Barnaby Fitzpatrick being the other).
Sudeley was now, metaphorically speaking, at sea in a storm,
and seeking safety in any port he could discover. For
a few days his troubles seem to have dazed him. He may,
indeed, have loved his wife and have sincerely mourned her.
There is not the slightest reason to believe that there was any
solid foundation for the accusations brought against him of
having ill-treated and even poisoned the Queen. A few
weeks before her death, on the contrary, he swore, with one
of his horrible oaths, that if any man " speak ill of his Queen
in his presence, he would take his fist to his ear, be he of the
lowest or of the highest." After his wife's death, Sudeley
was at first inclined to break up his household and throw
himself once more into public life. He even went so far as
to dismiss some of his servants, and returned to Han worth,
the late Queen's dower-house in Middlesex, taking Lady Jane
and her attendants with him. Hence he wrote to Dorset
to say that, broken-hearted as he was at the departure of
the Queen, his wife, he could not keep the Lady Jane any
longer, 1 and begged him to send for her. By i7th September,
1 Froude says, " The Lady Frances, now that the Queen was dead, no
longer thought the Admiral's house a becoming residence for her daughter
147
148 THE NINE DAYS* QUEEN
however, he seems to have cheered up considerably, for
he dispatched another letter to Bradgate, which runs as
follows :
" My last letters, written at a time when, partly with the
Queen's Highness's death I was so amazed that I had small
regard either to myself or my doings, and partly then thinking
that my great loss must presently have constrained me -to
have broken up and dissolved my whole house, I offered unto
your Lordship to send my Lady Jane unto you whensoever
you would send for her, as to him that I thought would be
most tender on her. Forasmuch, since being both better
avised of myself, and having more deeply digested whereunto
my power [i.e. property] would extend ; I find, indeed,
that with God's help, I shall right well be able to continue
my house together, without diminishing any great part
thereof ; and, therefore, putting my whole affiance and
trust in God, have begun anew to stablish my household,
where shall remain not only the gentlewomen of the Queen's
Highness's privy chamber, but also the maids that waited
at large, and other women being about Her Grace in her
lifetime, with a hundred and twenty gentlemen and yeomen,
continually abiding in the house together. Saving that now,
presently, certain of the maids and gentlewomen have
desired to have license for a month or such thing, to see their
friends, and then immediately to return hither again. And,
therefore, doubting lest your Lordship might think any
unkindness that I should by my said letters take occasion
to rid me of your daughter, the Lady Jane, so soon after
the Queen's death, for the proof both of my hearty affection
towards you, and my good-will to her, I am now minded to
keep her until I next speak with your Lordship, which should
have been within these three or four days if it had not been
that I must repair to the Court, as well to help certain of
the Queen's poor servants with some of the things now fallen
by her death, as also for mine own affairs, unless I shall be
advertised from your Lordship to the contrary. My lady
my mother shall and will, I doubt not, be as dear unto her
and sent for her." The Lady Frances did nothing of the sort ; Sudeley
himself first suggested the Lady Jane's removal to her parents' custody.
THE LADY JANE GOES TO SEYMOUR PLACE 149
[i.e. Lady Jane] as though she were her own daughter ; and
for my part I shall continue her half-father, and more, and
all that are in my house shall be as diligent about her as
yourself would wish accordingly." l
To this letter Dorset replied as follows, in a particularly
fine specimen of the strange orthography of those days :
' My most hearty commendations unto your good lord-
ship not forgotten. When it hath pleased you by your
most gentle letters to offer me the abode of my daughter at
your lordship's house, I do as well acknowledge your most
friendly affection towards me and her therein, as also render
unto you most deserved thanks for the same. Neverthe-
less, considering the state of my daughter and her tender
years, wherein she shall hardly rule herself as yet without
a guide, lest she should, for lack of a bridle, take too much
the head, and conceive such opinion of herself, that all
such good behaviour as she heretofore hath learned, by
the Queen's and your most wholesome instructions, should
either altogether be quenched in her, or at the least much
diminished, I shall, in most hearty wise, require your lord-
ship to commit her to the governance of her mother, by
whom for the fear and duty she oweth her, she shall most
easily be ruled and framed towards virtue, which I wish
above all things to be most plentiful in her ; and although
your lordship's good mind, concerning her honest and godly
education be so great, that mine can be no more ; yet
weighing that you be destitute of such one as should
correct her as a mistress, and admonish her as a mother, I
persuade myself that you will think the eye and oversight of
my wife shall be in this respect most necessary."
Then follows a mention of the proposed scheme for
uniting the Lady Jane to the King ; and the letter concludes
thus :
< i
My meaning herein is not to withdraw any part of my
promise to you for her bestowing ; for I assure your Lord-
1 Hatfield MSS.
150 THE NINE DAYS' QUEEN
ship, I intend, God willing, to use your discreet advice and
consent in that behalf and no less than mine own ; only
I seek in these her tender years, wherein she now standeth,
either to make or mar (as the common saying is), the address-
ing [the forming] of her mind to humility, soberness, and
obedience. Wherefore, looking upon that fatherly affection
which you bear her, my trust is that your lordship, weigh-
ing the premises, will be content to charge her mother with
her, whose waking eye in respecting her demeanour, shall
be, I hope, no less than you as a friend and I as a father
would wish. And thus wishing your lordship a perfect
riddance of all unquietness and grief of mind, I leave
any further to trouble your lordship. From my house at
Bradgate, the iQth of September. Your lordship's to the
best of my power, HENRY DORSET ' ' x
(Endorsed)
" To my very good Lord Admiral : give this."
With this precious epistle was enclosed another, from the
Lady Frances :
" And whereas/' says she, " of a friendly and brotherly
good will you wish to have Jane my daughter, continuing
still in your house, I give you most hearty thanks for your
gentle offer, trusting, nevertheless, that, for the good opinion
you have in your sister (Lady Frances herself), you will be
content to charge her with her (i.e. charge Lady Frances
with Lady Jane), who promiseth you, not only to be ready
at all times to account for the ordering of your dear niece
[Lady Jane], but also to use your counsel and advice on
the bestowing of her, whensoever it shall happen. Where-
fore, my good brother, my request shall be, that I may
have the oversight of her with your good will and thereby
shall have good occasion to think that you do trust me in
such wise, as is convenient that a sister be trusted of so
loving a brother. And thus my most hearty commenda-
tions not omitted, I wish the whole [or holy] deliverance of
1 Hatfield MSS.
THE LADY JANE GOES TO SEYMOUR PLACE 151
your grief and continuance of your lordship's health. From
Bradgate, igth of this September. Your loving sister and
assured friend, FRANCES DORSET " *
(Endorsed)
" To the right Honourable and my very
good Lord, my Lord Admiral."
It will be noted that the Lady Frances evinces a quite
sisterly affection for the Lord Admiral, adopting him as her
brother ; and her daughter, therefore, was to be considered
as his niece.
After this correspondence, the Lady Jane was returned to
Bradgate, whither she proceeded with a semi-regal escort
consisting of not less than forty persons, including Mr. Rous
or Rowse, controller of the Lord Admiral's household, and
Mr. John Harrington, afterwards prominent at Queen Eliza-
beth's Court. On taking their leave of the young Princess,
these gentlemen assured her that all the maids at Hanworth
were expecting her back again. The wily Dorsets themselves
had, indeed, made up their minds she should return, though
in their heart of hearts they had something besides Lady
Jane herself in view. It was somewhere about 20th September
that Lady Jane arrived at Bradgate. On or about the 23rd
of that month the Marquis and his spouse journeyed to
London, where they met Sir William Sharington, 2 Seymour's
1 Hatfield MSS.
* Sir William Sharington or Sherington was one of the most benighted
frauds of this age, albeit a very successful one. He was born about 1495,
and was of good Norfolk family. In 1546 he became vice-treasurer of the
Bristol Mint, being created a Knight of the Bath at Edward vi's coronation.
Once installed in this office, he made a sort of " corner " in West-Country
Church plate, which he bought cheap from the Somerset villagers, and coined
into " testons >; or shillings of two-thirds alloy. By this means, and by
shearing and clipping coins, falsifying the account books of the Mint, the
originals of which he destroyed, and by other cheating, he managed to
amass ^4000 (an enormous sum in those days) in three years. Probably fear-
ing that Sudeley, whose friend he was, might reveal these affairs to his
brother the Protector, Sir William lent the Lord Admiral money, placed
the Bristol Mint at his disposal, and, as we shall see, helped him in
his nefarious schemes. He bought manors in Wiltshire from the King
for 2808 ; but he was arrested on iQth January 1548-9. He was
questioned in the Tower, but denied the charge of conniving at
152 THE NINE DAYS' QUEEN
dme damnee, and the Lord High-Admiral himself. These
gentlemen had a very secret business to discuss, the nature
of which must now be described. The Dorsets, not then
wealthy people, were deep in debt. Now Seymour was
known to be rich, for, in addition to his own fortune, he
had just inherited that of the Queen, and, so far, his brother
had given no signs of any intention of confiscating it. The
Dorsets, therefore, intimated to Sharington that he would do
well to make Sudeley understand that if he desired to renew
his guardianship of the Lady Jane, he must agree to give her
parents 2000, 500 to be paid down at once, on account. It
should be here remarked that Sudeley, by voluntarily re-
linquishing the care of the Lady Jane Grey, had given up his
guardianship, which, by the custom of those times, gave him
more than parental rights over her. It was his desire to renew
his official charge that enabled the Dorsets to make this extra-
ordinary proposal to sell him their child for what in those
days was considered a large sum of money. When the game
was up and Sudeley in prison, the Dorsets threw the blame
of this transaction on everybody but themselves. The Lord
Admiral, asserted Lady Jane's father in his deposition before
the Privy Council, " was so earnestly in hand with me and
my wife, the Lady Frances, that in the end, because he would
have no nay, we were content that Jane should return to his
house." Indeed, Sudeley, not content to treat so important
a matter only through the medium of Sharington, himself
appeared at Dorset's town house and interviewed the Marquis,
who admitted in the above-mentioned deposition that, " At
this very time and place he renewed his promise unto me for
the marrying of my daughter to the King's Majesty, and he
Sudeley's intrigues. In February, however, he turned traitor to the Lord
Admiral and admitted all, throwing himself on the King's mercy. He was
pardoned in acts of 3Oth December 1549 and of i3th January 1550. He
now somewhat settled down, buying back with a part of the purchase-money
given by the French for Boulogne, which money had got into his hands, his
confiscated manors and lands, some of which he presented to the King-
likely enough the reason why Latimer, in a sermon preached before His
Majesty in 1551, described this admitted cheat as "an honest gen tilman
and one that God loveth " (!!). Sharington got himself appointed Sheriff of
Wiltshire, and died in 1551. There is a portrait of him by Holbein in the
Royal Library at Windsor. He was married three times, but left no
children.
THE LADY JANE GOES TO SEYMOUR PLACE 153
added, ' If I may get the King at liberty, I dare warrant you
His Majesty will marry no other than Jane/
Whilst Sudeley was thus pretending, if nothing more,
that he was able to marry Jane to the King, could he but get
possession of her, the Marquis of Dorset was inditing a letter
to the Lord Protector which contained a passage referring to
some negotiations he was conducting with His Highness for
the marriage of Lady Jane to the Earl of Hertford, Somerset's
eldest son ! " Item, for the maryage of your graces sune to
be had with my doghter Jane, I thynk hyt not met [meet]
to be wrytyn, but I shall at all tymes avouche my sayng."
Dorset's cunning must have nearly matched Sudeley 's !
Young Hertford was the lad mentioned in the papers of the
time of Queen Mary as " contracted ' to Lady Jane Grey :
in later years he married her sister Katherine. Jane probably
made his acquaintance in her childish days, when the Seymours
lived at Whitehall and she was in residence at the ' Bluff
King's ' ' Court under the wing of Katherine Parr. Hertford
was also one of the band of young noblemen selected as com-
panions for Prince Edward under the tutelage of the learned
Dr. Cheke ; and probably had many a romp with Jane, then a
merry little girl. Later on he paid one or two visits to Brad-
gate, the Lady Frances conceiving such a strong affection for
him that she was wont to call him her son. Here again the
young people must have been much together, and their
childish friendship may have inspired the Marquis of Dorset
with the idea of uniting them in marriage. However that
may be, he certainly got as far as corresponding with Somerset
-though in the profoundest secrecy about the matter.
Was his caution due to a fear of displeasing Sudeley ?
What is more than probable is that the Lord Admiral got
wind of the scheme, and that his desire to get Jane away
from her father and his own brother and nephew was at the
bottom of his readiness to pay so heavy a price to resume her
guardianship, for which object he used the likelihood of her
marriage with the King as a bait to catch the Marquis who
was eventually " jockeyed ' by both the Seymours, for no
marriage with either the King or Hertford ever took place.
Whilst Seymour was personally negotiating with the
Marquis, the task of persuading the Marchioness fell to
154 THE NINE DAYS' QUEEN
Sharington. " Sir William [Sharington] travailed as earnestly
with my wife," says Dorset, r to gain her good-will for the
return of our daughter to Lord Thomas Seymour as he [prob-
ably Seymour is meant in this case] did with me ; so as in
the end, after long debating and ' much sticking of our sides/
we did agree that my daughter Jane should return to him." J
Their bargain with the Admiral struck, the Dorsets hurried
back to Bradgate, whence they incited the dispatch of the
following ingenuous letter :<
" To the Right Honourable and my singular
good lord, the Lord Admiral.
" My duty to your lordship, in most humble wise remem-
bered, with no less thanks for the gentle letters which I received
from you. Thinking myself so much bound to your lordship
for your great goodness towards me from time to time, that I
cannot by any means be able to recompense the least part
thereof, I purpose to write a few rude lines to your lordship,
rather as a token to show how much worthier I think your
lordship's goodness, than to give worthy thanks for the same,
and these my letters will be to testify unto you that, like as
you have been unto me a loving and kind father, so I shall be
always most ready to obey your godly monitions and good
instructions, as becometh one upon whom you have heaped so
many benefits. And thus fearing I should trouble your lord-
ship too much, I most humbly take leave of your lordship.
Your most humble servant during my life,
" JANE GRAVE "
(Endorsed)
" My Lady Jane, the ist of Oct. 1548."
With this letter the Lady Frances sent Sudeley another, in
which she again calls him her " very good lord and brother " :
Jane considers him as " a loving and kind father," and her
mother signs herself, ' Your assured and loving sister, Frances
Dorset " most friendly !
It was near Michaelmas when the Lord Admiral, with a
numerous retinue, including several ladies, arrived at Bradgate
1 Vide Dorset's deposition in the Hatfield MSS,
THE LADY JANE GOES TO SEYMOUR PLACE 155
to carry the girl back with him to Han worth. Traces of his
return journey may be found in papers preserved in the Public
Library at Leicester, which, inform us that ' ( beer, cold meat,
and ale was provided by the Mayor for my Lady Jane and
her escort, proceeding from Bradgate with the Lord Thomas
Seymour, to London/' Sudeley brought the 500 with him
and gave it to the father who, for the sake of filthy lucre, had
not scrupled to hand over his young daughter to a notorious
profligate. Thomas treated the matter jovially, saying
' merrily " he would take no receipt for the money, for " the
Lady Jane herself was in pledge of that " ; the Marquis, on
the other hand, sought to endue the affair with a more re-
spectable appearance by declaring the cash was "as it wer
for an ernst peny of the favour that he [Sudeley] wold shewe
unto him [Dorset]/' To our eyes, there is, and can be, but
one redeeming feature in the whole of this sordid transaction
the fact, proved by sufficient evidence, that Lady Jane Grey
whilst under the Lord Admiral's roof was treated not only
with respect, but with much kindness, and that, even allowing
for the fact that letters such as that already quoted were
inspired by her parents, she seems to have been genuinely
attached to both Sudeley and his mother.
Had Thomas Seymour contented himself with achieving
eminence in any one legitimate direction the Navy, for in-
stance he might have succeeded in winning both fame and
honour. But he lacked the clearness of judgment and power
of reticence necessary to carry any one of his more nefarious
schemes to completion, and so ended in pitiable failure. Whilst
his brother was away fighting in Scotland, he had striven,
and with some success, to ingratiate himself with the young
King. To this end, as we have seen, he lent him various sums
of money. He seized every opportunity of belittling and
even calumniating his brother, the Protector, openly accusing
him of conspiring against Edward's liberty, all of which the
poor little King was only too eager to believe ; for Somerset,
with his puritanic views, had not made the boy's existence
very pleasant to him, persistently treating him as a little old
man, and suppressing all those amusements and sports which
lads, even sickly lads, love so dearly. It is said that, on one
occasion, when he came upon the King and Barney Fitz-
156 THE NINE DAYS* QUEEN
patrick playing cards, he seized them in a fury and threw
them into the fire. He had striven, in a word, to make Edward
look at life as he saw it himself, through smoked Calvinistic
glasses that robbed it of all brightness.
The Duchess of Feria relates that Queen Mary once told
her Edward vi had confessed to her that he was very tired of
sermons not to be wondered at, since the poor child had to
hear one at least daily on some dogmatic controversy or other,
and these dull homilies often lasted a good two hours. In
fact, the royal lad was bored and ' ' prayed ' to death. For
more than a year after his accession to the throne he was
compelled to hear a daily Mass, celebrated according to the
old rites but with the Epistle and Gospel said in English.
Interpolated into this Latin service was the inevitable lengthy
sermon preached by men well known for their Reforming
zeal, such as Canon William Barlow of St. Osyth's, in Essex,
who became Bishop of Chichester in Elizabeth's reign ; Dr.
John Taylor ; Dr. Redman, a violent opponent of the doctrine
of Transubstantiation ; Dr. Thomas Becken ; Dr. Giles Ayre,
a bitter enemy of Gardiner ; and the extremely Protestant
Dr. Latimer. John Knox, who came to London in 1551, also
preached before the King ; but by that time the Mass had been
replaced by the services of the first Book of Common Prayer.
Knox was in a very bad temper with the Protector at the time
of his visit, and accused him of paying more attention to the
building of his new house in the Strand than to his (Knox's)
sermons. As time went on, poor Edward had to listen to con-
troversies in which Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury,
Ridley, Bishop of Rochester, and " that most zealous Papist,"
Heath, Bishop of Worcester (afterwards, under Mary, Arch-
bishop of York), " debated and disputed ' on such grave
subjects as Transubstantiation, the Intercession of Saints,
Worship of the Virgin, Prayers for the Dead, Purgatory,
etc., and attend sermons preached in the courtyard of White-
hall Palace, where Gardiner delivered his last discourse on
papal supremacy, which sent him to the Tower. Contem-
porary evidence shows exactly how the audience was grouped
round the improvised rostrum built close to the walls of the
palace, so that the King might hear the preacher from an
open window, where he generally sat, notebook in hand, in the
THE LADY JANE GOES TO SEYMOUR PLACE 157
company of the Lord Protector, and of Dr. John Cheke, his
tutor. Aged people of both sexes were ranged on benches
close to the palace, whilst the general congregation, standing,
filled up the courtyard. The learned Nicholas Udall often sat
at a desk under the pulpit,taking shorthand notes of the sermon,
and by his means many of the more notable of these orations
have been preserved to this day. John Knox preached his
last sermon before Edward vi from the pulpit at Whitehall
Palace. At many, if not at most, of these pious exercises
Lady Jane Grey, her mother and sister must have assisted,
for it was expected that all the great ladies of the Court
should attend ; and consequently, in one or two old engrav-
ings of these interesting functions, we behold them, wearing
their ' ' froze pastes * ' or coifs, seated in rows, looking exceed-
ingly sanctimonious, not to say bored. There are numbers
of young children among them, one or two of whom have
evidently fallen into a deep sleep.
Edward, extremely delicate from his birth, slightly de-
formed, with one shoulder-blade higher than the other, weak
eyes, and occasional attacks of deafness, suffered terribly, we
are told, from headaches, a fact which causes little surprise,
considering the number of sermons he was forced to attend.
The Lord Admiral, during the brief time he held the King's
favour, altered all this. The sermons were reduced, the
sports and pastimes multiplied. No wonder, then, that of
his two uncles Edward vi preferred Thomas to Edward !
Hardly was Lady Jane installed at Seymour Place, whither
she was removed from Hanworth as soon as the weather grew
cold, than her guardian set himself to weave not one but half
a dozen fresh intrigues. Once more he planned to marry the
Princess Elizabeth, or, failing her, a little later on, his young
ward, Lady Jane. He even endeavoured to open a fresh
correspondence with the Princess, and met with some success ;
but the astute damsel made him a very politic response. How-
ever impressed she may have been by the Admiral's good
looks, she was well aware that he had compromised her once,
and was resolved there should be no second edition of the
Chelsea business. Yet she had the imprudence to send his
Lordship letters through her servants, and, thus encouraged,
the Admiral began to make minute inquiries as to her fortune
158 THE NINE DAYS' QUEEN
and the management of her affairs. He also endeavoured
to find out the amount of the fortunes owned by Lady Jane
Grey and Princess Mary, and, in short, of all the marriageable
ladies of the royal family, not excluding Anne of Cleves. A
report of these inquiries coming to the knowledge of John
Russell, the Lord Privy Seal, that functionary thought it his
duty to look into the matter, and seized an opportunity when
riding with the Admiral through the streets of London to
ask him his object point-blank. As they rode past West-
minster Hall, Russell turned to Seymour, saying, ' My Lord
Admiral, there are certain rumours bruited of you which I
am very sorry to hear."
" What rumours ? " demanded Seymour.
" I have been informed," replied Russell, " that you mean
to marry either the Lady Mary or the Lady Elizabeth, or
else the Lady Jane."
Sudeley remained silent, and his interlocutor proceeded :
" My Lord, if ye go about any such thing, ye seek the means
to undo yourself, and all those that shall come of you.'
Sudeley, shaking his head, denied ever having had any
such intention ; he " had no thought of such an enterprise."
And so, for the time being, the conversation dropped. But a
few days later, when the Lord Admiral was again riding with
his Lordship, he said to Russell, " Father Russell, you are
very suspicious of me ; I pray you tell me who showed you
of the marriage that I should attempt, whereof ye brake
with me the other day."
Russell answered, " I will not tell you the authors of the
tale, but they be your very good friends " ; and he advised
Seymour " to make no suit of marriage that way " meaning
with Elizabeth or Mary, or eventually with Lady Jane.
Nothing daunted, Seymour replied, "It is convenient for
them to marry, and better it were that they were married
within the realm than in any foreign place without the
realm ; and why might not I, or another man raised by
the King their father, marry one of them ? " in allusion
to the fact that Henry vni had passed a law legalising the
marriage of a Princess of the Blood with a subject.
Russell warned him honestly, " My Lord, if either you, or
any other within this realm, shall match himself in marriage
THE LADY JANE GOES TO SEYMOUR PLACE 159
either with my Lady Mary or my Lady Elizabeth, he shall
undoubtedly, whatsoever he be, procure unto himself the
occasion of his undoing, and you especially, above all others,
being of so near alliance to the King's Majesty." Then,
bearing in mind the Lord Admiral's love of money, Lord
Russell straightway asked, ' And I pray you, what shall
you have with either of them ? '
Here Seymour was on his own ground : ' He who marries
one of them shall," he said, ' have three thousand pounds
a year."
" My Lord," responded Russell, "it is not so, for ye may
be well assured that he shall have no more than ten thousand
pounds in money, plate, and goods, and no lands ; and what
is that to maintain his charges and estates who matches
himself there ? J
They must have three thousand pounds a year also,"
said the Lord of Sudeley.
Thereupon Russell lost his temper, and with some strong
expressions retorted " they should not."
Seymour, likewise with an oath, asserted " that they
should, and that none should dare to say nay to it."
Russell answered that he, at least, dared " say nay ' to
the Lord Admiral's greed, " for it was clean against the King's
will." And so they parted.
These inquiries about the royal ladies' fortunes became
known to the Protector, possibly through Russell, and thus
the whole intrigue was brought to light.
Lady Jane at Seymour Place and in the possession of the
Lord Admiral was already a stumbling-block in the way of
Somerset's own matrimonial schemes for his own son, and
the discovery of the underhand manner in which Thomas
had endeavoured to supplant him in the King's affections
goaded the elder man to fury. But Sudeley had grown
reckless, and he openly defied his all-powerful brother, and
vaunted his determination to oust him at any cost from his
high seat. 1 He boldly set about ingratiating himself with
1 Nothing could be more forcible as a proof of the manner in which Sudeley,
in the style of the Duke of Northumberland at a later period, threatened
and bullied any who dared to oppose him, than the following story. About
the time that he was endeavouring to supplant his brother in Edward's
160 THE NINE DAYS' QUEEN
the yeoman class, which was embittered against Somerset on
account of his exactions ; and Dorset, now his willing tool,
also strove to secure a following among the farmers and
gentlemen, on bad terms with the existing Government. The
ladies of the Court, who hated the arrogant Duchess of Somerset,
were flattered into a friendly feeling for the Lord Admiral
and what he was pleased to consider his just cause. To keep
up his influence, he had secretly bought over a hundred manors
and stewardships, and he had arranged with his scoundrelly
friend, Sharington who, to save his skin, turned traitor to
secure sufficient ammunition and arms to store Holt Castle, to
which fortress he intended to convey the King. Thanks to
this man's frauds on the Bristol Mint, my Lord of Sudeley
got together money enough to raise an army of 10,000 men.
In addition to all this, he was in league with no less than four
distinct gangs of pirates or privateers, and had established
a sort of depot for stolen property in the Scilly Isles, whither
the cargoes of sea-plundered vessels were taken to await
removal to London. Here, then, was an array of crimes and
treasons enough to hang any man, even if he was the Lord
Protector's brother ! One fatal day Thomas made the
egregious mistake of approaching Wriothesley on the subject
of obtaining the Protectorship. He told him Dorset and
Pembroke were on his side. " Beware what you are doing,"
replied Wriothesley gravely ; ' it were better for you if you
had never been born, nay that you were burnt quick alive,
than that you should attempt it." Sudeley, somewhat
dashed by this rebuff, next sought the Earl of Rutland, and
spoke to him in much the same impudent and imprudent
fashion. Rutland, when his visitor departed, went straight
to Wriothesley and told him what he had learnt. Both
agreed to reveal all they knew of the conspiracy to the Council.
Several meetings were held to inquire into the matter ; and
affections, he tried to induce the boy- King to write a letter for him to the
Parliament, which was to meet in the November of that year. It was sug-
gested that Parliament might not grant his demands ; whereupon, said " my
Lord of Sudeley," " I will make [it, if that be so] the blackest Parliament
that has ever been seen in England " " blackest " perhaps meaning " the
most humbled and depressed " Parliament ever seen, which shows that
Sudeley was sufficiently self-confident to believe that he could coerce whole
bodies of administrators at his will.
THE LADY JANE GOES TO SEYMOUR PLACE 161
at length Somerset summoned his brother to appear before
him. Sudeley sent a flat refusal. Early in the forenoon of
I7th January 1549 Sir Thomas Smith and Sir John Baker
proceeded to Seymour Place, and there arrested the Lord
Admiral, who was conveyed by water to the Tower, after a
passionate leave-taking with his aged mother. 1
To Lady Jane the trial and subsequent execution of her
guardian must have been a matter of intense and painful
interest. She was still his guest at Seymour Place when he
was arrested, and she must have witnessed the tragic parting
of the unhappy mother from the son so remorselessly torn
from her aged arms to meet his doom. Whatever his crimes
and faults, the Lord of Sudeley had been a good son, and the
old Lady Seymour mourned him deeply till she died of her
sorrows, on i8th October in the following year. She was
buried with scant pomp. The King, her grandson, and his
Court did not even put on the customary mourning, on the
plea that black gowns did not really signify respect to the
dead, who were best remembered in the hearts and prayers
of those who survived them certainly not a popular or
contemporary belief, for on the day following Lady Seymour's
death two State funerals were celebrated with all those honours
which were denied to the remains of the grandmother of the
reigning sovereign. There was probably a political motive
at the back of this want of respect, which may perhaps be
ascribed to the evil influence of Warwick, who, in his desire
to humiliate the Somersets, refused the honours due to the
corpse of the Protector's mother.
Meanwhile, the destruction of Thomas Seymour was being
prepared with skill and secrecy. Whilst the foredoomed
Admiral had been boasting all over London of his immense
influence, his foes, now that he was in their power, subtly
compassed his ruin by buying witnesses against him and
securing the goodwill of his numerous and venomous enemies.
They had long been spreading a rumour that he had poisoned
the late Queen Katherine in order to make an even higher
alliance with one or other of the heiresses to the throne. His
Sudeley's nefarious assistant, Sharington, Sir Thomas Parry, John
Fowler, and Mrs. Ashley were all imprisoned in the Tower at the same time as
Sudeley.
II
I62 THE NINE DAYS' QUEEN
scandalous proceedings with regard to the Princess Elizabeth
at Chelsea and Hanworth, and the unbecoming manner
which he had regained possession of Lady Jane, were
up against him. Lady Tyrwhitt, one of the bedchamber
ladies of the late Queen his wife, was called to give certain
damaging evidence, pointing to a strong suspicion that
Seymour had not only been most unkind to the deceased
lady, but had actually poisoned her food during the last
days of her life, and set up the fever which carried her off
within a week of her child's birth. Lord Latimer stated
Seymour, when Queen Katherine had prayers said in his
house morning and afternoon according to the order of
Reformed Church, would get out of the way, and swear on
his oath that " The Book of Common Prayer was not
work at all " There was a merciless raking up of misdi
true or false, of the man's earliest youth as, for instance
" that in 1540 a woman who was executed for robbery an
child-murder had declared that the beginning of her evil life
was due to her having been seduced and desolated 3 y Lo
Thomas Seymour." The Dorsets were summoned
eate to give evidence in the matter of the wardship of
daughter, and other witnesses were fetched from different
parts of the kingdom to give damaging testimony. 1
During, though not at, Seymour's trial, Elizabeth was
subjected to a private inquiry at Hatfield, and personally
asked whether Mrs. Ashley had encouraged her to marry
Admiral This she declared she had never done, adding
she did not believe Mrs. Ashley had said the things attributed
to her The Princess also wrote the Lord Protector a let
dated 'from her house at Hatfield, saying she had learned
that vile rumours regarding her chastity were in circulat
and that people had even gone so far as to spread abroad
she was confined in the Tower, being with child by the
Admiral The story, she protested, was an outrageous slan
and she demanded that she might be allowed to proceed
Court to disprove these evil reports. On this moment
occasion, Elizabeth, considering her youth, displayed n.
small amount of sagacity and also of that leonine spirit fo
i Sudeley's connection and connivance at the frauds perpetrated by Sir
William Sharington was also made a count of his indictment.
THE LADY JANE GOES TO SEYMOUR PLACE 163
which she was afterwards celebrated. When confronted,
however, with Mrs. Ashley's written evidence, she blushed to
the roots of her hair, and, abashed and breathless, return-
ed the letter with trembling hands to her inquisitors.
Curiously enough, Elizabeth does not seem to have resented
Mrs. Ashley's outspoken condemnation of her conduct with
the Lord Admiral. On the contrary, hearing of her arrest,
she set to work to save her from the clutches of the law,
declaring the lady had been in her service many years, and
had exerted herself diligently to bring her up in learning
and honesty.
Elizabeth told Sir Robert Tyrwhitt, who was sent by the
Council to examine her on the subject of her intimacy with
the Lord High-Admiral, " that voices, she knew, went about
London that my Lord High-Admiral ' ' should marry her, but
added, with a smile, "It is but London news " evidently
London was as much a centre of gossip in those days as now.
A little later she asserted that " she did not wish to marry
him, for she who had had him [meaning Katherine Parr] was
so unfortunate."
It would appear that Lady Browne (Surrey's " fair Gerald-
ine ") was also a friend of Seymour's, and that he went to
her and asked her to break up her household and come to
stay with the Princess Elizabeth, so that she might keep him
posted as to what was going on in that Princess's circle. This
the lady had agreed to do, but she was prevented by the
sudden illness and death of her old husband, the famous
Master of the Horse, Sir Anthony Browne. Parry, Elizabeth's
comptroller, seems also to have favoured the Lord Admiral,
although it was mainly owing to him that the revelations
concerning his mistress's conduct with Seymour were made
public. On one occasion, when Parry was advising the
Admiral to leave off his attempt to court the Princess, he
replied that " it mattered little, for, see you, there has been a
talk of late that I should marry the Lady Jane," adding, " I
tell you this merrily I tell you this merrily."
As for the said Admiral, all the world now turned against
him, excepting the late Queen's brother, the Marquis of North-
ampton, his other brother-in-law, Lord Herbert, and his
deceased wife's two cousins, the Throckmortons, one of whom
164 THE NINE DAYS' QUEEN
wrote the following homely lines on the wretched man's
piteous plight :
"Thus guiltless he through malice went to pot,
Not answering for himself, not knowing cause."
No better proof can possibly be quoted in his favour, so
far as the accusation of his having murdered Katherine Parr
is concerned, than the fact that his wife's closest connections
remained his only friends in his trouble.
Still Thomas Seymour stood out boldly for his innocence.
He did not deny his flirtation with Elizabeth ; it was a mere
romp between a man and a child, with no harm in it beyond
such as his enemies chose to impute. But the poor man's
foes proved too much for him, and on 23rd February he was
brought face to face with his accusers, and condemned by the
Council without hearing or defence. The King, his nephew,
seems to have made some effort to save him, but the Council
forced the boy to sign the fatal warrant, which he delivered
with a trembling hand, the tears standing in his eyes, and
this despite the fact that the reference to Seymour's death in
the King's Journal contains not a word of regret. Seymour
had done him, personally, no great ill, and appears to have
shown him kindness on more than one occasion. Cranmer,
who ever ran with the hare and hunted with the hounds,
hastened to affix his signature to the document ordering the
Admiral's execution, and this, as Hume observes, " in contra-
vention of the Canon Law, and in sheer spite.' 1 The Bishop of
Ely informed Seymour that his earthly life was shortly to be
ended, and a Catholic priest was sent to confess him ; but he is
said to have refused these ministrations, as well as those of a
Protestant clergyman. He contrived, according to Latimer,
to write letters to the Princesses Mary and Elizabeth denying
the accusations against him, which letters he hid between the
leather of one of his servants' shoe-soles. Suspected of serving
his master too well, the poor faithful creature was arrested,
the letters discovered, and the unfortunate man hanged without
trial.
Without entering into any controversy as to the magnitude
of Thomas Seymour's guilt, it may be admitted, in fairness to
his brother of Somerset, that, if the misdemeanours of a personal
THE LADY JANE GOES TO SEYMOUR PLACE 165
character attributed to Sudeley rest on the gossiping evidence
of women, the graver charges of collecting stores of arms,
raising an army to strike a blow against his brother, and
unscrupulously attempting to obtain funds even through
pirates and notorious swindlers, do in a measure justify the
severity of his punishment and excuse the infliction of an
apparently unnatural and fratricidal sentence of death.
Somerset, with all his faults, had a high sense of justice and
of the responsibility of his exalted office. His brother had
offended not only as an ordinary subject of the realm, but as
a trusted servant of the nation, and his treason and un-
scrupulous abuse of his position were beyond all pardon.
The voice of nature was stifled in the heart of the statesman,
and thus the Duke, with a tolerably clear conscience, signed a
death-warrant which must at the time have cost him a pang
of horror and which has since branded him as a merciless
fratricide. 1
The Lord of Sudeley 's rage against the Council, his
brother, and his enemies in general, when he heard himself
condemned, knew no bounds and admitted of no Christian
forgiveness or resignation. He cursed them one and all with
every terrible oath his tongue could utter. He was beheaded
on Tower Hill on 2oth March 1549, s ^ x months and some days
after the death of Queen Katherine Parr. His demeanour on
the scaffold caused great scandal : he refused to listen to the
pastor deputed to minister to him, and the attendants had
much difficulty in forcing him to kneel to receive the fatal
stroke. He wrestled hard with the executioner, who, being a
strong man, hurled him down on the scaffold and struck off his
head at last, after a cruel hacking, due to his desperate struggles.
For nearly a week after the death of the Admiral, Lady
1 Queen Elizabeth stated at a later date that " the Admiral's life would
have been saved had not the Council dissuaded the Protector from granting
him an interview." In face of these statements, there would seem to be little
doubt that the Protector, if left to himself, might have visited a less severe
sentence on his brother.
The Protector's wife evidently bore in her time a very bad reputation for
intriguing and interference, for Hayward (Life of Edward VI, p. 82) says the
troubles between Sudeley and his brother were mainly due to the quarrel
(already mentioned) between Katherine Parr and her Ladyship " to the
unquiet vanity of a mannish, or rather a devilish woman [Lady Somerset] . . .
for many imperfections intolerable, but for pride monstrous."
166 THE NINE DAYS' QUEEN
Jane remained alone with her attendants in the desolate house
in the Strand. Then her father, Lord Dorset, came to London
to take her back with him to Bradgate.
On the Sunday after the execution, Hugh Latimer preached
a sermon at Paul's Cross which for bitterness and uncharit-
ableness has never been surpassed. : This I say," he remarked,
" if they ask me what I think of the Lord Admiral's death,
that he died very dangerously, irksomely, and horribly."
" He shall be to me," he furiously exclaimed, " Lot's wife as
long as I live. He was a covetous man a horrible covetous
man. I would there were no mo' in England. He was an
ambitious man. I would there were no mo' in England.
He was a seditious man a contemner of the Common
Prayer. I would there were no mo' in England. He is gone.
I would he had left none behind him."
The worst charge that posterity can bring against Somer-
set is not that he signed his brother's death-warrant, but
that he seized the dead man's estates and even his wearing
apparel, and despoiled his orphaned child, the infant daughter
of Katherine Parr. 1
1 As to the unfortunate Seymour's infant child, we learn that after his
death it was carried to Somerset's house at Sion, whence, after a short time,
it was conveyed to the Dowager Duchess of Suffolk, at Grimsthorpe, in
Lincolnshire. She had been at one time the dearest friend of Katherine
Parr. Here the child had a governess, Mrs. Aglyonby, and was also attended
by a nurse, two maids, and many other servants, in accordance with her
high rank. The Duke of Somerset had promised that a certain pension
should be settled on his niece, and that her nursery plate and furniture,
which had been brought up from Sudeley to Sion House, should be sent after
her to Grimsthorpe. He pledged his word on this point to the Duchess of
Somerset's gentleman, Mr. Bertie, who subsequently married his mistress,
the Dowager Duchess of Suffolk ; but the promise was never redeemed.
The Duchess herself did not show much maternal tenderness to the child of
her quondam friend. In the second year of Edward vi she wrote a curious
letter to Cecil, begging him to relieve her of the guardianship of the child of
the late Queen. She says: "The late Queen's child hath lain, and yet doth
lay in my house with her company about her, wholly in my charge." Then
she accuses Somerset of not sending money for the child's maintenance, and
adds : " And that ye may better understand that I cry not before I am
pricked, I send you Mistress Glensborough's [the governess's] letter unto
me, who, with her maids, nourice, and others daily call upon me for their
wages, whose voices mine ears may hardly bear, but my coffers much worse."
She declares she is ill, and hopes that the child will be removed at an early
date. There is a very long list in the Lansdowne MSS of plate, hangings,
and even musical instruments, belonging to this child, which the Lord Protector
THE LADY JANE GOES TO SEYMOUR PLACE 167
Princess Elizabeth learnt the death of the courtier she
' loved most ' with a composure singular for so young a
lady, simply remarking that he was over clever " a man of
the greatest wit and the least judgment."
took and never restored. Cecil paid little attention to the Duchess's appli-
cation. In all probability he never answered her letter at all. At a later
date she wrote to the Marquis of Northampton, the infant's uncle, and
begged him to receive her. He behaved even more heartlessly than the
Duchess, declaring he would neither receive the child nor her attendants at
his house. Thus Katherine Parr's own brother and the Duchess of Somerset,
her old friend, whose life she had actually saved on one occasion from the fury
of Henry vin, besides spending considerable sums out of her private means
to publish the ungrateful woman's devotional writings, actually refused food
and shelter to her orphaned child. It is impossible now to fully trace the
child's eventful history. Strype asserts that she died young, but there is
much reason to believe that she lived and married Sir Edward Bushel, a
gentleman of family, who was in attendance upon Queen Anne of Denmark,
the Consort of James I. His only daughter married Silas Johnson, and their
daughter married into the Lawson family, an old Suffolk house, which until
quite recently possessed a number of Tudor relics, which, their proprietors
alleged and amply proved, originally belonged to their ancestress, the
daughter of Katherine Parr and the Admiral Seymour, a baby doubtless
often caressed by the gentle Jane Grey. At the close of the seventeenth
century some hundreds of papers belonging to the Lawson family were un-
fortunately destroyed by a thoughtless widow. However, an existing copy
of the family pedigree proves almost beyond doubt that the Lawson version
of the fate of Seymour's daughter was accurate in every detail. One thing
is evident, that the infant suffered a good deal of neglect in her childhood,
and that she was passed on from one unwilling relative to another, until at
last some kindly soul took compassion on her desolate state, and brought
about a match between her and Sir Edward Bushel.
CHAPTER XI
THE EDUCATION OF LADY JANE
THE extraordinary revival of letters in Italy, France,
and Germany at the close of the fifteenth century
did not fail to influence English education, and
especially that of high-born women. In this department
the exclusively classical culture then in vogue, which barred
many subjects now held of far greater importance, would
undoubtedly be deemed unpractical and excessive for women
nowadays. Modern literature, however, was then in its
infancy, and apart from the classics there was little to read
but crude if noble poetry, and some historical, theological,
and legendary works of a very primitive sort. These soon
palled, whereas, to the cultured mind, the classic authors
presented, then as now, an ever-varying and delightful fund
of information and amusement. Science, in the modern
acceptation of the word, was in its infancy, and, in the opinion
of the most learned persons of the day, the secrets of theology
and Nature, and those of art as well, were embodied in the
works of the ancients, and above all in the Holy Scriptures.
A knowledge of Greek and Latin was thus supposed to give
the key to all science. It was the fashion, too, for princesses
and women of noble birth to be, or to pose as being, learned ;
and notwithstanding the political and religious convulsions
of the reign of Henry vm, a number of English ladies of the
highest rank, following the example of their French and
Italian sisters, devoted their leisure to studies usually left
nowadays to that class of pedantic females whom we some-
what scornfully dub ' blue-stockings." This practice was
not confined to women who had embraced the Reformed
tenets. Many Catholics, the daughter of Sir Thomas More
and her learned friend, Margaret Clement, for instance, deeply
168
THE EDUCATION OF LADY JANE 169
versed in studies of this description, enjoyed the dialogues
of Plato, and may have laughed over the scorching epigrams
of Martial and the stinging satires of Juvenal in the original,
and even recognised their applicability to the society of their
own times. Most of the women who surrounded Lady Jane
Grey were pedants, and even her shallow-hearted mother
had presumably acquired a fair knowledge of classical
literature.
But it was not till the young girl returned to Bradgate,
after the death of Thomas Seymour, that the system of
' cramming/' which was to give her, at the age of seventeen,
a reputation as a marvel of erudition, began in grim
earnest.
Dorset, who had been summoned to London to attend
the trial of his quondam friend, the Admiral, as a witness
against him, retired to Bradgate in some despondency after
its fatal termination. He and his wife felt they had been
wasting their time over Thomas Seymour ; they were con-
scious, too, that they were living under a cloud, for the re-
velation of their pecuniary interest in the transfer of their
daughter to so notorious a scamp had produced a most
damaging impression on the public mind. But the failure
of their plans had not quenched their ambition. They took
their luckless child back with them, and straightway set about
preparing her to occupy the towering position they felt assured
she would sooner or later be called to fill.
Her education was forthwith entrusted to the celebrated
Aylmer, a native of Leicestershire, whom Elizabeth made
Bishop of London, to reward him for his scathing answer to
John Knox's pamphlet, The First Blast of the Trumpet against
the Monstrous Regiment [i.e. regimen = regime or government]
of Women. Aylmer, at this time a good-looking man in his
early thirties, was, so Bacon tells us, engaged as tutor to the
daughters of the Marquis of Dorset at Bradgate. The new
preceptor was in close correspondence with the Genevan
Reformers, and it must have been through him that Jane
became acquainted with the celebrated Bullinger and with
John ab Ulmis, better known as Ulmer, a learned but destitute
>wiss Calvinist, who visited Bradgate as early as the summer
of 1550. He mastered the English language, and having been
170 . THE NINE DAYS' QUEEN
sent to pursue his studies at Oxford at the Marquis of Dorset's
expense, he spent his summer vacation at Bradgate, giving
lessons in Greek and Latin to Lady Jane and her younger
but less talented sister, Lady Katherine, and together with
John Aylmer and Dr. Harding the Rector of Bradgate,
superintended her classical and theological education. A
somewhat crafty young man was Ulmer, skilled in the art of
flattery, and much addicted to repaying solid benefits by
empty compliments. He it was who urged Bullinger, his
master, to dedicate his book, The Holy Marriage of Christians,
to the Lord Marquis of Dorset, a rather venturesome act,
seeing this nobleman was publicly credited with bigamy ! x
Bullinger also presented the Marquis and the Lady Jane
with a copy of his book, dedicated to Henry II of France, on
Christian Perfection, for which the latter wrote to thank him
in her father's name on I2th July 1551. Her epistle is written
in Latin, and may have been suggested and even edited
by Aylmer : it also contains a Biblical quotation in Hebrew.
The following extract from it gives a fair idea of how this
child of fourteen addressed one of the most learned men of
his time :
' From that little volume of pure and unsophisticated
1 The letter in which Ab Ulmis does this will be found in the Parker
Society's edition of the Reformers' letters, vol. ii. p. 406, and is dated
3Oth April 1550. It simply overflows with flattery of the Marquis, who is
described as " the thunderbolt and terror of the Papists, that is, a fierce and
terrible adversary. . . . He is much looked-up to by the King. He is learned
and speaks Latin with elegance. He is the protector of all students, and the
refuge of foreigners. He maintains at his own house the most learned men ;
he has a daughter, about fourteen years of age, who is pious and accom-
plished beyond what can be expressed ; to whom I hope shortly to present
your book on the holy marriage of Christians, which I have almost entirely
translated into Latin. You may adopt this form of dedication to the book :
' To Henry Grey, Marquis of Dorset, Baron Ferrers of Groby, Harrington,
Bonville and Astley, one of His Majesty's Privy Council, and my most
honoured lord, &c. &c.' " So far as can be discovered, neither Jane Grey
nor the Marquis her father wrote to thank Bullinger for this work, no letter
to this effect being extant.
In the December of the following year (1551) the Marquis of Dorset wrote
to Bullinger from London (Zurich Letters, Parker Society, vol. i. p. 3) to
thank him for " the book which you have published under the auspices of my
name," but this volume was one of Bullinger's Decades, dedicated to his
Lordship in the preceding March.
THE EDUCATION OF LADY JANE 171
religion, which you lately sent to my father and myself, I
gather daily, as out of a most beautiful garden, the sweetest
flowers. My father also, as far as his weighty engagements
permit, is diligently occupied in the perusal of it : but what-
ever advantage either of us may derive from thence, we are
bound to render thanks to you for it, and to God on your
account ; for we cannot think it right to receive with ungrateful
minds such and so many truly divine benefits, conferred by
Almighty God through the instrumentality of yourself and
those like you, not a few of whom Germany is now in this
respect so happy as to possess. If it be customary with
mankind, as indeed it ought to be, to return favour for favour,
and to show ourselves mindful of benefits bestowed ; how
much rather should we endeavour to embrace with joy fulness
the benefits conferred by divine goodness, and at least to
acknowledge them with gratitude, though we may be unable
to make an adequate return !
1 I come now to that part of your letter/' continues Lady
Jane, " which contains a commendation of myself, which as
I cannot claim, so also I ought not to allow ; but whatever
the Divine Goodness may have bestowed on me, I ascribe
only to Himself, as the chief and sole author of anything in
me that bears any semblance to what is good ; and to Whom
I entreat you, most accomplished sir, to offer your constant
prayers in my behalf, that He may so direct me and all my
actions, that I may not be found unworthy of His so great
goodness. My most noble father would have written to you,
to thank you both for the important labours in which you
are engaged, and also for the singular courtesy you have
manifested by inscribing with his name and publishing under
his auspices your Fifth Decade, had he not been summoned
by most weighty business in His Majesty's service to the
remotest parts of Britain ; but as soon as public affairs afford
him leisure he is determined, he says, to write to you with all
diligence."
Here follows an urgent request for a scheme for the study
of the Hebrew language. She concludes :
' Farewell, brightest ornament and support of the whole
172 THE NINE DAYS' QUEEN
Church of Christ ; and may Almighty God long preserve you
to us and to His Church ! Your most devoted
" JANA GRATA" 1
Besides these visitors, the Lady Frances appears to have
been the friend and patroness of a learned Protestant, Nicholas
Udall, the famous stenographer. She was even guardian to
his daughter, for a letter from her to Cecil still preserved at
Hatfield begs she may be relieved of this responsibility, as
the young lady is about to be married.
Late in the autumn of 1549, within six months of Seymour's
execution, the celebrated Roger Ascham came on a visit to
Bradgate. He too has been described as tutor to Lady Jane,
but this is a mistake ; he was preceptor to the Princess Eliza-
beth. As one of the leading lights of his time, he was already
well known to the Marquis of Dorset, and passing through
the neighbourhood on his way to attend Rutland and Morysone
on an embassy to Charles v, conceived it his duty to pay his
respects to the great man's family.
Walking through the beautiful park at Bradgate, on his
way to the Hall, the visitor came upon the Marquis and his
lady, with all their household, out hunting. When the caval-
cade halted to greet him, Ascham inquired for the Lady Jane,
and was told she was at home in her own chamber. He begged
leave to wait upon her, a favour readily granted, and found
her in her closet " reading the Phcedon of Plato in Greek,
with as much delight as gentlemen read the merry tales of
Boccacio." Much surprised, he asked the young student
" why she relinquished such pastime as was then going on in
the park for the sake of study ? '
With a smile, Jane replied, " I think all their sport in the
park is but a shadow to that pleasure I find in Plato. Alas !
good folk, they never felt what true pleasure means."
" And how attained you, madam," inquired Ascham, " to
this true knowledge of pleasure ? And what did chiefly allure
you to it, seeing that few women and not many men have
arrived at it ? '
" I will tell you," replied Lady Jane, " and tell you a truth
which perchance you may marvel at. One of the greatest
1 Zurich Letters (Parker Society), vol. i. p. 6.
ROGER ASCHAM'S VISIT TO LADY JANE GREY AT BRADGATE
AFTER THE PAINTING BY J. C. HORSLEY, R.A.
THE EDUCATION OF LADY JANE 173
benefits that God ever gave me, is that He sent me, with sharp,
severe parents, so gentle a schoolmaster [Aylmer]. When I
am in presence of either father or mother, whether I speak,
keep silent, 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 as per-
fectly as God made the earth, or else I am so sharply taunted,
so cruelly threatened, yea, presented sometimes with pinches,
nips and bobs and other things, (which I will not name for the
honour I bear them), so without measure misordered, that I
think myself in Hell, till the time comes when I must go with
Mr. Aylmer, who teacheth me so gently, so pleasantly, and
with such pure allurements to learn, that I think all the time of
nothing whilst I am with him [that is to say, " the time passes
pleasantly when I am with him "]. And when I am called
from him, I fall to weeping, because whatever I do else but
learning is full of great trouble, fear, and wholesome misliking
unto me. And this my book, hath been so much my pleasure,
and bringing 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/'
Poor solitary little girl ! We of this matter-of-fact age
can but feel more of pity than admiration, as down the
long vista of four and a half centuries we picture her sitting
alone, poring over the Phcedon dull reading, one would
imagine, for a child, even to one so harried by the ill-temper
of her weak father and her sharp-tongued mother, " whether
she stood still or moved about, was merry or sad, sewed or
played," that she felt herself " in Hell " until Mr. Aylmer
called her to her studies !
Ascham's story throws a very unpleasing sidelight on the
conduct of Lady Jane Grey's parents and their harsh treatment
of the child, and proves, moreover, the sort of forcing system
to which she was being subjected. Ascham tells us that he
mentions this interesting interview, which he introduces into
his Schoolmaster, because it was the last time he ever saw
' that sweet and illustrious lady," and also as a protest against
the exceeding severity of the teaching of those times. It is
curious to note, as her historian, Howard, observes, that whilst
her parents were handling her like a froward child, this extra-
174 THE NINE DAYS' QUEEN
ordinary young lady was in active correspondence with such
famous men as Ascham, Conrad Pellican, Bullinger, and
Sturmius, who all treated her with the respect due to a grown-
up woman of uncommon sagacity and experience. The only
explanation of this fact is the supposition that these worthies,
foreseeing Lady Jane might possibly occupy the throne,
and anxious to promote the cause of the Reformation in every
possible way, may have placed her on a higher pedestal than
her immature talents deserved. They certainly flattered her
father, of whom they spoke and wrote as being well-nigh
apostolic in zeal and sanctity, and a marvel of light and learn-
ing to boot.
At the age of fourteen, then, Lady Jane was fairly conversant
with Latin and Greek, 1 and with or without the aid of a dic-
tionary managed to derive some entertainment from Plato.
But when we are told that she had mastered Hebrew, and at
the age of seventeen was forming the acquaintance of ( the
tongue of Chaldea ' and " the language of Arabia," we are
inclined, with Sir Harris Nicolas, to be sceptical. Her Greek
and Latin may have been, and very likely were, thoroughly
mastered. Several letters in these languages are attributed
to her and are possibly of her own unaided composition, but
even in these we note that her style and phraseology in many
cases closely resembles that of Demosthenes or Cicero, whom
she evidently imitated. In one of her letters, written on I2th
July 1551, to Henry Bullinger, she says, " I am beginning to
learn the Hebrew tongue/' and asks him to give her a method
whereby she may pursue her course of study in that language
to the greatest advantage. Bullinger sent the plan, and in
another letter she thanks him and says she will enter upon the
study of the Hebrew language in the method which he so
clearly directs. As this letter is dated July 1552, and her
brief career ended in the following year, her proficiency in the
language of the prophets was probably not very considerable.
That poor Jane Grey was " crammed ' there can be no
question, and the wonder is her weak health did not collapse
altogether under the strain. The figurehead of a party she
was to be, however, and it was necessary that extravagant
1 The above-quoted Latin letter to Henry Bullinger was written when she
was only fourteen.
THE EDUCATION OF LADY JANE 175
reports of her learning should be spread throughout her own
country and among the Protestants in foreign lands.
Lady Jane Grey at this period, surrounded by learned men
and women so much older than herself, appears strained, even
artificial, but later, in her culminating misery, she displays a
dignity, a sweetness of nature, and a pious sincerity which
render her worthy of her fame. Her few compositions
which have come down to us, most of them written during
the last days of her life, her prayer, for instance, the
letter to her sisters, and the lines which, according to
tradition, she scratched on the walls of her cell, are full of
feeling, and lead us to regret that so fine a nature should not
have been spared to adorn mature womanhood as perfectly
as its unaffected simplicity graced her short maidenhood.
Yet there was a strain of obstinacy and even of coarseness in
Jane's character which leads one to think that after all she
might, had she remained Queen, have displayed in later life
many of the less pleasing peculiarities of her Tudor ancestors.
A very curious letter, written to Lady Jane Grey by Ascham
early in 1552, while he was still at the Court of Charles v,
throws considerable light on the subject of her studies ; it
has also led some authorities to imagine the learned man
had actually fallen in love with his fair pupil. " In this my
long peregrination, most illustrious lady," says he, " I have
travelled far, have visited the greatest cities, and have made
the most diligent observations in my power on the manners of
the nations, their institutions, laws, and regulations. Never-
theless, there is nothing that has raised in me greater admira-
tion than what I found in regard to yourself during the last
summer, to see one so young and lovely, even in the absence
of her learned preceptor, in the noble hall of her family, in the
very moment when her friends and relatives were enjoying
the field sports, to find, I repeat oh, all ye gods ! so divine
a maid, diligently perusing the Phcedon of Plato, in this more
happy, it may be believed, than in her royal and noble
lineage.
' Go on thus, O best adorned virgin, to the honour of thy
country, the delight of thy parents, the comfort of thy relatives,
and the admiration of all. Oh, happy Aylmer ! to have such a
scholar, and to be her tutor. I congratulate both you who
176 THE NINE DAYS' QUEEN
teach and she who learns. These were the words to myself,
as to my reward for teaching the most illustrious Elizabeth.
But to you too I can repeat them with more truth, to you I
concede this felicity, even though I should have to lament
want of success where I had expected to reap the sweetest fruits
of my labours.
" But let me constrain the sharpness of my grief which
prudence makes it necessary I should conceal even to myself.
This much I say, that I have no fault to find with the Lady
Elizabeth, whom I have always found the best of ladies, nor
indeed with the Lady Mary, but if ever I shall have the happi-
ness to meet my friend Aylmer, then I shall repose in his bosom
my sorrows abundantly.
" Two things I repeat to thee, my friend Aylmer [Aylmer
was evidently at Bradgate at this period], for I know thou wilt
see this letter, that by your persuasion and entreaty the Lady
Jane Grey, as early as she can conveniently, may write to me
in Greek, which she had already promised to do. I have even
written lately to John Sturmius, mentioning this promise.
Pray let your letters and hers fly together to us. The distance
is great, but John Hales will take care that it shall reach me.
If she even were to write to Sturmius himself in Greek, neither
you nor she would have cause to repent your labour. [The
" neither you nor she " points clearly to collaboration.]
" The other request is, my good Aylmer, that you would
exert yourself so that we might conjointly preserve this mode
of life among us. How freely, how sweetly, and philosophi-
cally then should we live ! Why should we, my good Aylmer,
less enjoy all these things, which Cicero, at the conclusion of
the third book, De Finibus, describes as the only rational mode
of life ? Nothing in any tongue, nothing in any times, in
human memory, either past or present, from which something
may not be drawn to sweeten life !
"As to the news here, most illustrious lady, I know not
what to write. That which is written of stupid things, must
itself be stupid, and, as Cicero complains of his times, there is
little to amuse or that can be embellished. Besides, at present,
all places and persons are occupied with rumours of wars and
commotions, which, for the most part, are either mere fabrica-
tions or founded on no authority, so that anything respecting
THE EDUCATION OF LADY JANE 177
Continental politics would neither be interesting nor useful
to you.
" The general Council of Trent is to sit on the first of May,"
continues Jane's correspondent, " Cardinal Pole, it is asserted,
is to be the president. Besides there are the tumults this
year in Africa, their preparation for a war against the Turks,
and then the great expectation of the march of the Emperor
into Austria, of which I shall, God willing, be a companion.
Why need I write to you of the siege of Magdeburg, and how
the Duke of Mecklenburg has been taken, or of that commotion
which so universally, at this moment, afflicts the miserable
Saxony ? To write of all these things, I have neither leisure,
nor would it be safe ; on my return, which I hope is not far
distant, it shall be a great happiness to relate all these things
to you in person.
Thy kindness to me, oh ! most noble Jane Grey, was
always most grateful to me when present with you, but it is
ten times more so during this long absence. To your noble
parents, I wish length of happiness, to you a daily victory in
letters and in virtue, and to thy sister Katherine, that she may
resemble thee, and to Aylmer, I wish every good that he may
wish to Ascham.
; Further, dearest lady, if I were not afraid to load thee
with the weight of my light salutations, I would ask thee in my
name to salute Elizabeth Astley, who, as well as her brother
John, I believe to be of my best friends, and whom I believe
to be like that brother in all integrity and sweetness of manners.
Salute, I pray thee, my cousin, Mary Laten, and my wife Alice,
of whom I think oftener than I can here express. Salute,
also, that worthy young man Garret and John Haddon.
Farewell, most noble lady in Christ. R. A."
" August ae "
f(
i8th January, 1551
When we consider that this letter was addressed to a girl ?
who was not yet fifteen years of age, making due allowance for
the high-flown style of the times, we can only conclude that
there was some politic motive for a mode of address so in-
judicious in its flattery, so fulsome and so extravagant even
for that age of courtly adulation.
12
178 THE NINE DAYS' QUEEN
Lady Jane Grey spent the better part of the years 1550-1551
and 1552 at Bradgate, improving her mind by hard study, and
patiently submitting to the ' ' nips ' ' and petty tyranny of her
mother. At one time she seems to have commenced the
study of such music as was then in vogue. This, Ascham
promptly assured her was a frivolous occupation, unworthy of
a godly maiden. In a very curious letter, dated 23rd December
1551, Aylmer writes from London to Bullinger concerning
the Lady Jane, begging him to write to her direct and seek to
influence her to give up practising music so zealously.
" It now remains for me/' writes the worthy Reformer, " to
request that, with the kindness we have so long experienced,
you will instruct my pupil in your next letter as to what
embellishment and adornment of person is becoming in young
women professing godliness. In treating upon this subject, you
may bring forward the example of our King's sister, the Princess
Elizabeth, who goes clad in every respect as becomes a young
maiden ; and yet no one is induced by the example of so
illustrious a lady, and in so much Gospel light, to lay aside,
much less look down upon, gold, jewels, and braidings of the
hair. They hear preachers declaim against these things, but
yet no one amends her life. Moreover, I would wish you to
prescribe to her (the Lady Jane) the length of time she may
properly devote to the study of music. For in this respect
also, people err beyond measure in this country, while
their whole labour is undertaken, and exertions made, for
the sake of ostentation."
We can see by this letter, presumably written with, a view
to the great object all these men kept in their hearts, that of
influencing Jane in the event of her becoming Queen, that
they were endeavouring to make a narrow-minded bigot of
her, and it is equally certain that the Princess Elizabeth was
just then playing the part of the discreet and modest maiden.
It is very amusing to find this wily Princess, whose reputation
was already the reverse of good, held up as an example to
innocent Jane Grey. The unhappy child was not even to
practise on her virginals in peace, or dress as she chose, but to
follow the example of Elizabeth, forsooth ! Could Ulmer and
Pellican have seen in a vision the three thousand dresses and
THE EDUCATION OF LADY JANE 179
the sixteen hundred wigs which were to adorn the wardrobe of
the lady they were setting up as a model to their simple music-
pupil ! Even in matters of religion, Elizabeth at this early
stage of her career showed a remarkable discretion, neither
siding with nor offending either party. She was a pious
Catholic in the company of her sister Mary, and an equally
edifying Protestant at the Court of her brother, Edward vi.
In June 1551, after a lengthy absence, the Dorsets returned
to their town mansion. They came to London for the purpose
of examining the vast estate which the Lady Frances had
inherited from the two sons of her father, Charles Brandon,
Duke of Suffolk, by his fourth wife, Katherine Willoughby.
These two brothers died at Bugden Hall, Cams., of the
sweating sickness, within four hours of each other, and the
bulk of their wealth, excepting the Duchess's dower, fell
to the Lady Frances, whose husband, in September of the
following year (1552), was raised to the rank of Duke of
Suffolk. The Dorsets now lived very sumptuously in London,
and with a view, perhaps, of pleasing the King and pushing
forward the interests of the Lady Jane, whom they still fondly
hoped would become Queen-Consort, they invited a number of
English and foreign Reformers, at this time living in exile
in London, to their house.
The Marquis, who was an enthusiastic admirer of Conrad
Bullinger, had on more than one occasion exhorted him to
correspond with his daughter, Lady Jane. In a letter ad-
dressed to that eminent Reformer in December 1551, he says :
( I acknowledge myself also to be much indebted to you on
my daughter's account, for having always exhorted her in
your godly letters to a true faith in Christ, the study of the
Scriptures, purity of manners, and innocence of life, and I
earnestly request you to continue these exhortations as
frequently as possible."
A letter of another Reformer namely Ab Ulmis gives us
some interesting glimpses of the Reformation movement in
England. He says : You will easily perceive the venera-
tion and esteem which the Marquis's daughter entertains
towards you, from the very learned letter she has written to
you. For my own part, I do not think there ever lived any
one more deserving of respect than this young lady, if you
i8o THE NINE DAYS' QUEEN
regard her family ; more learned, if you consider her age, or
more happy if you consider both. A report had 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. . . . Haddon, a minister of the Word, and
Aylmer, the tutor of the young lady, respect and reverence
you with much duty and affection. It will be a mark of
courtesy to write to them all as soon as possible. Skinner
is at Court with the King. Wallack is preaching with much
labour in Scotland/' and so on. Ascham, in a letter to
Sturmius, describes Jane as excelling in learning Lady Mildred,
Cecil's accomplished wife. She is, says he, the most learned
woman in England. f I hear you have translated the Orations
of ^Eschines and Demosthenes into Latin. I pray you dedicate
the work to this peerless lady."
These and other letters still extant prove, if proof were
needed, that Aylmer, Ulmer, and Ascham, assisted by Pellican,
Sturmius, and Bullinger, were at this time hard at work,
preparing their future Queen and patroness for the position
they fondly hoped she would one day occupy. Hales, too,
was assisting them, " Club-footed Hales," as he was called-
an English lawyer who had visited Switzerland and adopted
the tenets of the Geneva sect ; he is described as " fanatical,
learned, and ill-tempered." He was a frequent visitor at Suffolk
House and Bradgate, and in after times was much involved
in the troubles of poor Lady Katherine Grey, Jane's youngest
sister. Further quotation from these letters is unnecessary ;
they are all written in the same style of pedantic flattery,
and throw more light on passing events than most people
would imagine, although the epistolary literature of this
period is verbose, and as a rule uninforming. We can
imagine, however, that the meetings at Suffolk House were
exceedingly picturesque, and many will marvel that only one
painter of note, M. M. P. Comte, has ever given us a picture
of the youthful Lady Jane Grey seated among the doctors of
the Reformed faith, in the noble Gothic hall of a mansion
second to none in the old city for its architectural magnificence. 1
1 See note at end of this Chapter.
THE EDUCATION OF LADY JANE 181
The monotony of Jane's life of close study was frequently
interrupted by long journeys on horseback, or in cumbersome
waggons, to pay various country visits. Late in 1551, the
Greys established, for some reason or other, a close intimacy
with the Princess Mary, and this notwithstanding their
religious differences. With increase of wealth and station,
Jane's parents became more worldly than ever. Perceiving
that Edward vi, who began to show signs of consumption,
might not live long, and that the Crown might after all pass
to her Catholic Grace, they wisely considered it prudent to
be on the right side of a lady who was probably destined to
become their sovereign. Accordingly they paid the Princess
as many as four visits in a single year.
In the summer of 1551, Jane came very near losing her
mother, Duchess Frances, who fell ill of a violent fever. The
sick lady, who was at Richmond, sent for her daughter Jane
from Bradgate, " to help nurse her." Suffolk describes her
illness in the following quaint terms in a letter explaining
her absence from Court addressed to the Duke of Northumber-
land's secretary, Cecil, whom he styles his " cousin Cycell " :
This shall be to advertise you, that my sudden departure
from Court was for that I have received a letter of the state
my wife was in, and I assure you she is mo' like to die than
not. I never saw sicker creature in my life. She hath three
sicknesses, the first is a hot burning nague [ague] that doth
hold her four and twenty hours, the other is the stopping
of the spleen, the third is hypochondriac passion. These three
eing enclosed in one body, it is to be feared that death must
needs follow/ 5 But it did not " follow " ; by the beginning
of October, the Lady Frances was better, and in November
she was sufficiently convalescent to attend the entry into
London of the Scottish Queen Regent, Mary of Guise, and
be present at the festivities consequent on that rather
unexpected royal visit.
Early in November 1551, Jane appeared at King Edward's
Court for the first time, and took a prominent part in these
merry-makings. The Scottish Queen-Regent, Mary of Guise,
had recently arrived at Portsmouth from France, on her way
to the dominions of her unfortunate daughter, Mary, Queen
of Scots, and wrote begging the English King's licence to pass
182 THE NINE DAYS' QUEEN
through his dominions. This was readily granted ; and a
pressing invitation to visit the Metropolis was sent to the
Regent, and willingly accepted. On 2nd November, she pro-
ceeded by water to Paul's Wharf, and thence rode in great
state through the City. She lodged in the Bishop of London's
house, where she was entertained with regal hospitality, and,
according to Stowe's Annals, was supplied with " beefs,
muttons, veales, swans, and other kinds of poultry meates,
with fuell, bread, wine, beare, and wax."
The first interview of King Edward vi with the Scottish
Queen took place on 4th November, at Westminster Palace.
She rode in her chariot from the City to Whitehall, attended
by the Lady Margaret Douglas, cousin to the King, and
Countess of Lennox, the Duchesses of Richmond and Suffolk,
the Lady Jane Grey, and many other noble ladies, including
the Duchess of Northumberland.
The Queen and the King dined alone together ; but the
Duchess of Suffolk, the Duchess of Northumberland, and the
Lady Margaret Lennox, together with the Ladies Jane and
Katherine Grey, dined, we are told, in the Queen's hall, and
were sumptuously entertained. Neither the Princess Elizabeth
nor the Princess Mary attended these festivities. They were
not in favour at this time and had not been invited.
The banquet must have taken place at the hour we usually
devote to luncheon, for at four the Queen, having visited the
galleries and state apartments of the Palace, then considered
" show places," left Westminster, and, accompanied by her
escort of nobles and ladies, rode once more through the City
to her lodgings in the Episcopal Palace.
On the following day (5th November), she made a solemn
progress through the City, riding from St. Paul's, through
Cheapside and Bishopsgate, to Shoreditch, whence she took
the high road for her own dominions. She was accompanied
by a great train of nobility, among them the Duchess of
Suffolk and her daughter, the Lady Jane Grey, and that
fateful Duke of Northumberland who was destined to bring
ruin on the unfortunate Jane and her father. Northumberland
had in his train one hundred horsemen, of whom thirty were
gentlemen clad in black velvet, guarded with white, and
wearing white hats with black feathers.
THE EDUCATION OF LADY JANE 183
As soon as this state visit, mentioned with considerable
delight by King Edward in his Journal, was over, the Lady
Frances and her daughters returned to Bradgate.
In the middle of November the Ducal party set out again
for Tylsey, the seat of Suffolk's young cousin and ward, the
heir of Willoughby of Woollaton. From here they went on a
visit to Princess Mary. A very curious MS. account book,
still in the possession of the Willoughby d'Eresby family,
shows that, on 2oth November 1551, ' ten gentlemen came
from London to escort my Lady Frances's grace to my Lady
Mary's grace, and they all left Tylsey after breakfast, the
Lady Frances, accompanied by her daughters, the Lady Jane,
the Lady Katherine and the Lady Mary, and repaired to my
Lady Mary's grace." Whilst on this visit to Princess Mary,
who was then at her town house, the former Priory of St.
John of Jerusalem, in Clerkenwell, the Dorset family received
handsome gifts, as appears from the Princess's expense book :
' Given to my cousin Frances beads (i.e. ( rosary ') of black
and white, mounted in gold"; "To my cousin, Jane
Grey, a necklace of gold, set with pearls and small rubies."
In return, the Lady Jane presented Mary with a pair of
gloves.
In the first days of December, the two younger
daughters returned to Tylsey, but the Duchess and
Lady Jane stayed on in London, for the Lady Jane, we
are told, remained with the Princess at her house in
Clerkenwell.
On 1 6th December, the Duke came to Clerkenwell to escort
Jane and her mother back to Tylsey. There they seem to
have spent a merry Christmas in the company of the Lords
Thomas and John Grey. The Duke of Suffolk, in honour of
his young wards the Willoughbys, and in their name, threw
open the gates of Tylsey to all such of the county gentry as
chose to seek hospitality within them. A company of players
was ordered from London, together with a wonderful boy,
who " sang like a nightingale," besides a tumbler and a juggler.
These were presently supplemented by another band of
players, belonging to the Earl of Oxford, who acted several
pieces. Open house was kept until 2oth January 1552, when
the whole family proceeded to Walden, to spend some days
184 THE NINE DAYS' QUEEN
with the Duke's sister, Lady Audley, 1 whose husband, Lord
Audley, or Audrey, was created Lord Chancellor by Henry vm
and presented with the house and property of the London
Charterhouse, as an acknowledgment of his infamous treat-
ment of Anne Boleyn. The record of the doings at Tylsey
is in an account book kept by " old Mr. Medeley," husband
of the heiress of Willoughby's grandmother and a trustee.
This book was lent to Miss Agnes Strickland, who says in
her Tudor and Stuart Princesses Lady Jane Grey that
Medeley " kept a very thrifty notation of all that was spent
in ' man's meat ' and ( horse's meat ' on these journeys ;
likewise the payments of the players who were to assist in
spending the Christmas with the ' godliness and innocence '
dwelt upon with such unction ' by Suffolk and by the Re-
formers. 2 After the visit to Walden, the Lady Frances and
her brood went back to Tylsey for about a week, at the end
of January 1552.
These cross-country journeys, even if sometimes broken by
two or three days' stay in one place, must have been extremely
fatiguing to so young and delicate a girl as Lady Jane. The
Duke of Suffolk and the Lady Frances being of the blood royal,
travelled with a great escort, as many as a hundred to a hundred
and fifty horsemen, scouts, etc., preceding and following their
horses and waggons, otherwise called ' chariots." If the
weather was fine, equestrian travel was exceedingly pleasant :
the canter through the leafy lanes, the midday picnic under
the greenwood tree, and the evening meal in some picturesque
inn, full of Shakespearean character, the bustling, bowing and
curtseying host and hostess, the rustic waiters and grooms,
the flicker of lamp and candle light, the glowing wood fire,
the sanded floor, the shining pewter, and the savoury baked
and roasted meats, all combined to make up a scene of primitive
1 A very fine portrait of this lady was formerly in the possession of the late
Martin Colnaghi, Esq. It represents a handsome matron of fifty, dressed in
the costume of the period. She has regular features, light eyes, and auburn
hair. The picture is dated 1552, the year of the Suffolk family's last visit
to Walden. Lady Audley 's only child married that Duke of Norfolk who
was executed under Elizabeth for his attempt to assist Mary Stuart to escape
from Tutbury Castle.
2 The gay festivities at Tylsey were a matter of some annoyance to Aylmer,
and to the chaplain at Bradgate, Haddon, who feared their distracting effect
on the minds of their pupils, Jane and Katherine Grey.
THE EDUCATION OF LADY JANE 185
comfort, entirely absent from the great and sumptuous hostel-
ries of our own time, in which luxury often predominates over
more solid qualities of entertainment. But when pouring rain
turned the ill-kept roads into quagmires, when the nipping
airs of autumn and winter whistled through the skeleton
branches of the trees, or the snow lay feet thick on the ground,
and the keen wintry winds whistled over the frozen rivers and
streams, then must the welcome glow cast by the crackling
fires within the inn parlours have made them, however humble,
appear so many havens of celestial refuge to the Lady Frances,
her husband, her daughters, and her merry men and women.
Since there were no other means of locomotion in those days, a
specially swift and steady steed, or a particularly well-cushioned
waggon, must have been considered with much the same
sense of satisfaction as we bestow now on a new type of motor-
car or a specially well-appointed railway train. Our immediate
forbears were by no means dissatisfied with the old stage-
coaches that transported them from one end of the kingdom
to another in a week or ten days ; sailing in luxurious air-
ships which will have so reduced the bulk of the globe that from
being " a vastie sphere " it will have become a mere overgrown
orange " from London to Rome in less than an hour ; London
to New York in three ! " our descendants will try to imagine
how it was ever possible for us to travel by train and motor
so slow and uncomfortable ! And thus we and our civilisation
may presently come to be looked upon with the same sort of
good-natured disdain we now bestow upon the social con-
ditions and travelling arrangements of the days of " My Lord
a Suffhoke."
It may well be that all this hard riding in bad weather and
the unwonted dissipations of Christmas at Tylsey proved too
much for Lady Jane, for in February 1552, Ab Ulmis writes
to his friend Bullinger : " The Duke's daughter has recovered
from a severe and dangerous illness. She is now engaged
in some extraordinary production, which will very soon be
brought to light, accompanied with the commendation of your-
There has lately been discovered a great treasure of
valuable books : Basil on Isaiah and the Psalms in Greek,
. . Chrysostom on the Gospels, in Greek ; the whole of
Proclus ; the Platonists, etc. ... I have myself seen all
186 THE NINE DAYS' QUEEN
these books this very day. The Duke of Suffolk, his
daughter, (the Lady Jane), Haddon, Aylmer, and Skinner,
have all written to you." l
These literary treasures were probably found in several
parcels of old books purchased about this time by the Marquis
from an Italian merchant.
In March 1552, Lady Jane, then at Bradgate, sent Bullinger's
wife a present of gloves, and a ring. A month later, Ulmer
returned from Switzerland, whither he had been sent on a
mission, and brought with him a letter from Conrad Pellican,
which Jane immediately answered. In Pellican's Journal, still
preserved at Zurich, we find the following marginal note :
" June iQth, 1552-3, I received a Latin letter, written with
admirable elegance and learning, from the most noble virgin,
Lady Jane Grey, of the illustrious house of Suffolk." This
letter is lost.
Early in July 1552, Lady Jane went with her parents to
Oxford, 2 and, almost immediately afterwards, repeated her
visit to Princess Mary, now at Newhall a visit fraught with
much evil, if we may believe the accounts which have come
down to us, from, it must be admitted, rather suspicious
sources ; that is to say, from Aylmer and Ascham, both eager
to represent Jane as even more Protestant than she really was.
Newhall Place, Princess Mary's chief country seat, had
formed part, in days gone by, of the possessions of Waltham
Abbey, and had been exchanged with Sir John de Shadlowe
by the monks in the reign of Edward in for three other pro-
perties. Its most illustrious occupant in pre-Reformation
times had been the unfortunate Margaret of Anjou. After her
capture by the Yorkists it was confiscated by the Crown, and
was eventually granted by Henry vn to Bottler or Butler, Earl
of Ormond, who fortified the mansion and enlarged it. It
1 Zurich Letters, vol. ii. pp. 447-8.
2 Ulmer wrote to Conrad Pellican in the summer of 1552 (Zurich Letters,
p. 451) that " Our Duke (Suffolk) has been staying for the last few days at
an estate here in the neighbourhood of Oxford, which has come to him by
inheritance from the late Duke of Suffolk." The " late Duke of Suffolk "
refers to the Lady Frances's half-brother, who has been already frequently
mentioned. Ulmer continues : " I waited upon him and paid my respects,
according to the custom of the University." Edward vi being at that time
in the neighbourhood, Jane was presented to him, and "received with great
favour."
THE EDUCATION OF LADY JANE 187
passed, as a dower, to Sir Thomas Boleyn, grandfather of
Queen Anne Boleyn, and he exchanged it with Henry vm,
who took a great fancy to the place, and changed its name to
Beaulieu. The monarch stayed here on one occasion, at
least, with Anne Boleyn, so that Mary Tudor may have found
a few of the personal belongings of her mother's chief foe,
when she took possession of the house which Henry bestowed
on her towards the end of his reign. She made it her favourite
abode, principally on account of its gardens, which are often
mentioned in the Household Books of the period, as supplying
the royal palaces of London with fruit and vegetables
the cherries and grapes being considered particularly fine.
Elizabeth, who did not care for Beaulieu, its association with
her mother and sister must have been painful to her, presented
it to Radcliffe, Earl of Suffolk. He sold it to " Steenie," Duke
of Buckingham, who let the place fall into such ruin that its
value so decreased that Cromwell was able to buy it for " five
shillings and no more ! '
In Mary's day it was still a fine old Gothic mansion of the
ecclesiastical type, with three lofty towers and a magnificent
hall, containing a huge chimneypiece and a broad staircase
leading to the upper apartments. In the chapel was that famous
window made at Dort in Flanders by order of Henry vn,
and now the chief ornament of St. Margaret's, Westminster.
The furniture at Newhall, the inventory of which is still extant,
was extremely magnificent, and included many sets of costly
tapestries, hangings of velvet and Florentine brocades, Turkey
carpets and inlaid bedsteads and chairs. The chief artistic
treasure of the house, however, was a superb portrait of Mary
herself by Holbein, and another of the King her father by the
same great painter. These two portraits remained at Newhall
until the beginning of the seventeenth century, when we lose
trace of them, but the portrait of Mary is not improbably
the one now in the possession of the Duke of Norfolk, and
that of King Henry, that which is in the possession of Lord
Leconfield at Petworth House.
A state visit to Newhall must have been conducted on
similar lines to such a function at Sandringham or Windsor
in our times, being a singular mixture of extreme simplicity
and extreme stateliness. The Princess herself, who, had her
i88 THE NINE DAYS' QUEEN
life been cast in a less exalted sphere, would have been a
kindly woman, had a deep hearty voice and a cheery welcome,
which endeared her to all who approached her ; yet an observa-
tion made by Lady Jane Grey to Lady Wharton proves that
every time anyone passed before her Grace, they made obeisance
by falling on one knee, as if she had been the Host on the altar.
Meals were served somewhat after the French fashion : a
very light breakfast at what we should consider an unearthly
hour six in summer, seven in winter a heavy dinner at
eleven, and supper at eight. All sorts of sports and pastimes-
hawking, tennis, horse-riding, hunting served to pass the
intermediate time, and in the evenings there was card-playing,
boisterous games, and dancing. Before retiring for the night,
prayers were said, and a loving cup full of spiced wine was
passed round, the Princess putting her lips to it before passing
it, with a blessing, to her guests. We may take it for granted
that during the visit of the Marquis and Marchioness, notorious
Protestants, religious controversy did not enter into the
conversation at Newhall. To do her justice, Mary at this
time at least was very free from bigotry ; two of her favourite
ladies, Lady Bacon and Lady Brown, were Protestants, and
her friendship for the imprisoned Duchess of Somerset and
her daughters never failed so long as she lived and yet the
Duchess was an ardent " Gospeller." That the Princess
enjoyed a little " flutter ' at cards is proved by her house-
hold books, and as the Marquis was an excellent card-player,
no doubt " Ombre " a game introduced into England by
the Spaniards whilst Katherine of Aragon was Queen served
to pass the evening, together with " Gresco," " Mountsaint,"
" Newcut," and " Lansquenet." Lady Jane and her little
sisters may have joined in the romping game of " Trump,"
a noisy round game like our ' Old Maid," in which, on the
appearance of a certain card, everybody slapped their right
hand on the table and cried out ' Trump ! ' those who failed
to do so paying a trifling fine. ' Gleke," a primitive sort of
whist, was also greatly in fashion ; and at this game, we may
be sure, the Lady Frances was prudent enough to lose fairly
large sums to her august cousin, whose hot Spanish temper
was apt to be ruffled when the tide of fortune turned
against her.
THE EDUCATION OF LADY JANE 189
It was during this visit that the Princess Mary presented
the Lady Jane with a rich dress, and Jane, willing to practise
some of the precepts which she had received from Zurich,
asked the lady by whom her cousin sent the gown, what
she was to do with it ? ' Marry," replied the lady, " wear
it, to be sure ! ' ' Nay," replied the Lady Jane, " that were
a shame, to follow the Lady Mary, who leaveth God's Word,
and leave my Lady Elizabeth, who followeth God's Word/ 1
This anecdote was recorded by her tutor, Aylmer, long years
after this world had closed on Jane at a moment, in fact,
when Elizabeth did not thank him at all for reminding her
subjects of the Puritan style she had affected in her youth.
Another incident, which may be more certainly placed during
this Newhall visit, shows the cousins at issue on those points
of belief then so hotly debated. Lady Wharton, a fervent
Catholic, crossing the chapel with Lady Jane Grey when
service was not proceeding, made her obeisance to the Host
as they passed the altar. Lady Jane asked " if the Princess
were present in the chapel ? ' Lady Wharton answered that
she was not.
Then why do you curtsey ? " demanded Jane.
1 I curtsey to Him that made me," replied Lady Wharton.
' Nay," retorted the Lady Jane, " but did not the baker
make him ? '
Lady Wharton repeated this remark to the Princess,
' who never after loved the Lady Jane as she did before."
NOTE. The London residence of the parents of Lady Jane Grey was, in
her early days, the house in Whitehall overlooking the Thames and known
as Dorset Place ; but, after the death of the two sons of the Duke of Suffolk,
the Lady Frances inherited Norwich House, Strand, which Henry vm had
confiscated from the Bishops of Norwich, and exchanged with his brother-in.
law for Suffolk Place, Southwark, which he converted into a mint. Norwich
House now became generally known as Suffolk House. Here the Greys lived
in great state, possibly abandoning their other residence in Whitehall for the
larger and more sumptuous residence. The Lady Frances, after the execution
of her husband, sold Suffolk House to the Percys and it presently became
known as Northumberland House, and, altered from a Tudor to a Jacobean
mansion, it remained a prominent feature of London street architecture until
early in the second half of the last century, when it was pulled down for the
improvements at Charing Cross.
CHAPTER XII
JOHN DUDLEY, EARL OF WARWICK
IMMEDIATELY after the execution of Thomas Seymour,
John Dudley steps forward on the lurid stage of this
history. If Seymour was a rascal, Dudley, son of a
rascal, was even worse. Divested of his magnificent habili-
ments and picturesque surroundings, this man was a far
meaner and more sordid ruffian than was ever my Lord
of Sudeley more devilish in his cunning and, if anything,
more unscrupulous.
John Dudley was the son of that notorious Edmund
Dudley who, under Henry vu, had remorselessly plundered
the public coffers, and so earned the execution which fell to
his lot in the first years of Henry vm's reign on 28th August
1510, to be precise. In common justice, it is fair to say that
this Dudley of evil repute was highly esteemed by his most
illustrious contemporary, Sir Thomas More ; and we may
believe him to have been much calumniated, like many other
men of his time. Dugdale says Edmund Dudley was the son
of a carpenter, 1 and the assertion is somewhat supported by
r 1 Mr. H. Sydney Grazebrook, in his interesting outline on the subject of
Northumberland's origin, in the Herald and Genealogical Review, vol. v., 1870,
thinks John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, was really descended from the
Dudleys of Sedgley and Tipton, a member of which ancient house married
the widow of John Sutton, Lord of Dudley, in Henry vi's time. On the
other hand, Dugdale says his grandfather was a carpenter and " very base-
born."
Sir Philip Sydney in his curious tract in defence of Robert, Earl of
Leicester, written in answer to " Leycester's Commonwealth," a scurrilous
attack on Queen Elizabeth's famous favourite, entirely denies the aspersions
cast upon the honour of a family with which he was closely allied, his father
having married the Duke of Northumberland's daughter, Mary. He contends
that to his certain knowledge the Duke was a man of legitimate descent
from the ancient house of Sutton of Dudley, and moreover connected with the
greatest nobility in England. " How can a man descended from such great
190
JOHN DUDLEY, EARL OF WARWICK 191
the fact that although he was born twenty years before the
death of the Lord Dudley whom he asserted to be his grand-
father, that gentleman would never acknowledge him. His
real patronym was Sutton, but he assumed that of Dudley after
his acquisition of the ancient castle of that name, and the
expulsion of its rightful owner, who fled abroad. On the
gates of the Castle, Edmund affixed his own arms, together
with those of the ancient houses of Someries and Malpas,
from which he claimed descent. He was at one time Sergeant-
at-Law and at another Speaker of the House of Commons,
and married Lady Elizabeth, daughter and heiress of Edward
Grey, Viscount Lisle, a collateral of the great house of Grey,
and the same young lady to whom Charles Brandon was con-
tracted and who, as we have seen, refused to carry out her
side of the engagement.
The John Dudley of these pages was born about 1502,
the eldest of three brothers,who, after their father's ignominious
death, were placed under the guardianship of Sir Edward
Guildford. The latter fought valiantly to obtain some part
of the father's ill-gotten property for his wards, and their
possessions were further increased at the death of their mother,
a considerable heiress. Being a handsome, dashing young
fellow, the father's bad reputation was soon forgotten, and
his gay son John, as Viscount Lisle, was a prominent figure at
Court in the last half of Henry vm's reign. In his early years
Houses as Nevill, Talbot, Beauchamp and Lisley, be deemed otherwise than
honourable and noble ? " He continues : "A railing writer has said of
Octavius Augustus, his father was a silversmith ; another Italian declares
(oh 1 the falsehood) that Hugh Capet was descended of a butcher who was
his father. Of divers English names of the best, foolish dreamers have
said one was the descendant of a miller, another of a shoemaker, another of a
furrier, and forsooth yet another of a fiddler ! foolish lies ! and by any
who have ever tasted of antiquities, known so to be, yet those however had
luck to treat with honest railers for they were not left fatherless clean ;
but we as if we were of Ducalion's brood, were made out of stones they have
left us no ancestors from whence we came. Edmund Dudley was the father
of this younger brother of the same Lord Dudley, and would have been Lord
Dudley, if the Lord Dudley had died without heirs. His father was married
to the daughter and heir of Bramshot in Sussex. This Dudley's father is
buried with his wife at Arundel Castle and left land to Edmund Dudley and
so to the Duke my grandfather, in Sussex." Philip Sydney ought certainly
to have known the true descent of his family, especially since they were
to acquire the title of Leicester from the Dudleys.
192 THE NINE DAYS' QUEEN
he was a good deal in France with Charles Brandon, Duke of
Suffolk, the Lady Frances's father, who knighted him at
Vian, in Normandy. John Dudley's wife, Jane Guildford,
whom he married when he was a mere lad, contrived to
absorb his affections so completely that his domestic life was
remarkably respectable. She was a very beautiful woman,
and part heiress of his former guardian, Edward Guildford,
Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports. She bore him a numerous
and handsome family, and her behaviour in clinging to her
husband during his hour of danger, and making desperate
efforts to save him, was rare at this strange period. With
all her good qualities, however, she was cordially disliked by
Lady Jane Grey, whom she treated with consistent harshness.
As Viscount Lisle, 1 John Dudley worked his way up
legitimately enough until he was nominated Lord High-Ad-
miral and Master of the Horse (1542) to Henry vm. Although
at heart a Catholic, he sided with the Seymours against the
Howards, and thus for ambition's sake came to be numbered
among the chiefs of the Protestant party at Edward vi's
coronation, and was then created Earl of Warwick. His
ambition was now well fired he must become aut Ccesar, aut
nullus, and this he could only achieve by ousting the two
Seymours and taking their place. Like most of his contem-
poraries, he was essentially an opportunist un arriviste,
as the French would say. For some years he worked like a
rat in the dark, waiting his opportunity : first he nibbled at
Thomas Seymour's good fame what there was of it ! and
then cunningly set brother against brother. Patiently,
subtly, he gnawed on till he saw Thomas ascend the scaffold ;
then he promptly undermined Edward Seymour's credit
with King and people. His aim was to become Lord Pro-
tector himself, to reach at supreme power by fair means or
foul.
Soon after the death of his brother, Thomas, Somerset began
to totter. The Admiral's execution had produced a bad
effect. Hardened as men were in those ferocious times, there
were yet certain ties of consanguinity which might not be
1 It will be remembered that the Duke of Suffolk filched the title of Lisle
from the Lady Elizabeth Grey, but on his relinquishing it, it was given to her
eldest son, John Dudley.
JOHN DUDLEY, DUKE OF NORTHUMBERLAND
FROM AN ENGRAVING BY G. VERTUE
JOHN DUDLEY, EARL OF WARWICK 193
violated with impunity ; and so, although Elizabeth did write to
her sister Mary, that " had the brothers met, the Lord Admiral
would have been saved," it was none the less the hand of
Cain that signed his death-warrant. The people said so openly.
They had not forgotten the dreadful carnage that had marked
Edward Seymour's return, through Scotland into England,
on the occasion of his first Scotch expedition. 1
If the horrors perpetrated by Somerset himself during that
expedition were execrable, those committed with his know-
ledge and connivance in the same forlorn country under
Edward vi were even more atrocious. That " varmint '
Lennox, the husband of the Lady Margaret, niece of Henry
vni, was his chief agent. Reeking corpses of men, women,
and little children marked the passage of the English troops
to and from the Border lands. Thus the Lord Protector's
reputation in the North was of the worst " his very name
stank of blood." 2
1 On this expedition Somers et carried out to the letter the instructions given
him by Henry vin, which will be found in a document in the State Papers.
Nero might have written them. They run as follows : " Put all to fire and
sword, burn Edinburgh Town, and raze and deface it, when you have sacked
it, and gotten what you can out of it. ... Beat down and overthrow the
castles, sack Holyrood House, and as many towns and villages about Edin-
burgh as you conveniently can. Sack Leith, and burn and subvert it and all
the rest, putting man, woman and child to fire and sword, without exception,
when any resistance shall be made against you ; and this done, pass over to
Fife-land and extend all extremities and destruction in all towns and villages
whereunto you may reach . . . ; not forgetting ... so to spoil and turn
upside down the Cardinal's [Beaton] town of St. Andrew's, as the upper
stone may be the nether, and not one stick stand upon another, sparing no
creature alive within the same, specially such as, either in friendship or blood,
be allied to the Cardinal."
2 For a further account of this campaign, see the dispatches of the Sey-
mours in the State Papers for the reign of Henry viu ; and for the second
expedition, those for the reign of Edward vi.
The most heinous crime of all perpetrated on the second expedition a
crime which damaged Somerset's reputation to the greatest extent was the
slaughter of twelve young lads under fifteen years of age, the children of
Scottish horsemen recruited by Lennox, who were held as hostages for the
good behaviour of their parents. Lennox and Lord Wharton had the poor
boys hanged for their fathers' disaffection ; only one escaped, to become
eventually known in the story of Mary Stuart as Lord Maxwell of Herries.
A common soldier to whom he was handed over by Lennox, and who was
sick of the carnage, saved the lad at the risk of his own life. Somerset re-
warded Lennox for his services in this campaign, and wrote to him "right
merrily."
i 9 4 THE NINE DAYS' QUEEN
Dudley had not, therefore, so much difficulty as might be
thought in undermining his formidable rival's position, tower-
ing though it was. In many ways, Somerset had proved
himself a failure, and he had already lost much of his popu-
larity, even among Protestants, who were none too sure of his
loyalty was he not the friend of Mary and the avowed enemy
of Elizabeth ? By the large Catholic party he was, of course,
entirely and heartily detested.
He was not a Calvinist, although he maintained an
active correspondence with Calvin, but a Church of England
man of the " Low Church ' description, a hater of ecclesi-
astical ritual and formality, and, incidentally , a born iconoclast.
The statement that no man or woman was persecuted or
burnt for religious opinions under his rule, is hardly exact.
There are more ways than one of killing a dog or of perse-
cuting an opposing faith. True, the fires of Smithfield were
quenched for the time being, but Catholics and Anabaptists
were made to feel they were outside the law, and the prisons
were crowded with men and women of those persuasions,
and of every social grade. 1 The cathedrals and parish churches
were cleared of their sacred images, their plate, their rood-
lofts, and their art treasures ; even their frescoed walls were
whitewashed. Stained glass was smashed, because it bore
" idolatrous pictures," and replaced by plain glass or horn.
Even dead men's tombs were overthrown, and the bodies cast
" into filthy ditches and fields beyond the city." 2 In a word,
the artistic treasures of centuries were within a few months
dispersed, destroyed, or sold to a throng of Jews, who
flocked to England to seize so splendid an opportunity.
Somerset pulled down three or four episcopal palaces, the
beautiful North Cloister of St. Paul's Cathedral, and the
Churches of St. Mary-le-Strand and St. John's, Clerkenwell,
for the sake of their building materials, which he used for his
own new and almost royal residence in the Strand. He gave
orders for the demolition of St. Margaret's, Westminster,
and but for the angry protests of the indignant parishioners,
his command would have been obeyed. There was another
1 See documents dealing with the state o f the prisons under Edward VI
in the Record Office.
2 See Haylin ; Hayward ; and Hume, vol. hi. (folio edition) p, 328.
JOHN DUDLEY, EARL OF WARWICK 195
cause of discontent, which has been much neglected by
historians, namely, the doctrinal changes, which necessarily
greatly altered outward observances, much to the disgust
of the older generation, who saw the destruction of the cherished
traditions of a thousand years, and the desecration of their
most sacred social usages. Their pageants, pilgrimages,
and processions were now paralysed ; and it was an offence
deemed worthy of imprisonment, ay, even of burning, to
pray for the dead, or to retain the rosary the dying mother
had given, with her last blessing, on her death-bed.
The average Englishman is apt to think of the Sixth
Edward's reign as an era of peace and plenty, during which, to
the applause of the entire nation, the Book of Common Prayer
was formulated by Cranmer, and the churches emptied of
'hated and idolatrous images and symbols/' In reality,
it was one of the most disastrous epochs in the whole of our
history. Froude, in a passage of uncommon brilliance, sums
up the appalling effect, after a lapse of fifteen years, of Henry
vin's dissolution of the monasteries and hospitals. With
singular vividness he depicts the extreme misery to which the
lower orders were reduced ; the high roads and country lanes
rendered dangerous by hordes of starving and half-naked
men and women, who a few years previously had been
in fairly comfortable circumstances, earning a living wage
from the now banished masters of abbeys and priories.
Now the poor wretches roved in fear and trembling,
begging food and shelter ; or, driven desperate by want,
committing deeds of violence. Dr. Latimer, in his Royal
Sermons, puts his unfailing finger on the right spot when
he remarks that ' the misery the people were enduring was
entirely due to the new order of things. My father," he
continues, "was a yeoman who lived comfortably, educated
his children, served the King, and gave to the poor, on a farm
the rent of which has been increased fourfold since, so that
his successor in the farm has become a pauper in consequence."
Then, turning upon the Seymours, the Pagets, and others of
their kind, who had enriched themselves out of the ecclesiastical
spoils, he thundered : " I fully certify you as extortioners,
violent oppressors, engrossers of tenements and lands, through
whose covetousness villages decay and fall down ; and the
ig6 THE NINE DAYS' QUEEN
King's liege people, for lack of sustenance, are famished and
decayed. . . . You landlords, you rent-raisers, I may say,
you step-lords, you unnatural lords, you have for your posses-
sions yearly too much ! The farm that was some years back
from 20 to 40 by the year, is now charged to tenants at from
50 to 100. . . . Poor men cannot have a living, all kinds of
victuals are so dear. I think, verily, that if it thus continue,
we shall at length be obliged to pay twenty shillings for a pig.
If ye bring it to a pass the yeomen be not able to put their
sons to school, ye pluck salvation from the people, and utterly
destroy the realm." ... f In those days/' he says in another
sermon, " they [the monks] helped the scholars. They main-
tained and gave them living. It is a pitiful thing to see schools
so neglected ; every true Christian ought to lament the same.
To consider what has been plucked from abbeys, colleges,
chantries, it is a marvel that no more is bestowed upon this
holy office of salvation. . . . Scholars have no exhibition.
Very few there be who help poor scholars, or set children to
school to learn the Word of God, and make provision for the
age to come. It would pity a man's heart to hear what I
have of the state of Cambridge. ... I think there be at this
day [1550] one thousand students less than were within twenty
years, and fewer preachers.' 3
The enclosure, too, by their new owners, of the vast tracts
of lands, which had formerly belonged to the abbeys and
priories, for the purpose of cattle rearing, instead of corn
growing as hitherto (wool being at a premium) had thrown
thousands of agricultural labourers out of employment ;
and soon the large cities, London, Bristol, and York, wen
crowded with poor creatures seeking work, only to meet
with flat refusal from the citizens, who were angered and
alarmed by so considerable an addition to that pauper
population whose hapless descendants still form the bulk oi
the very appropriately styled ' Submerged Tenth ' of our
times. This rapid increase of an undesirable class soon
resulted in a marked debasement of the lowest orders, and so
bad did the state of morals in the capital become, that Ridley,
Bishop of London, preached more than one sermon on the
subject, and, in a book entitled The Lamentation of England,
gives a hideous picture of the rising tide of " immorality,
JOHN DUDLEY, EARL OF WARWICK 197
crime, drunkenness, hatred and scorn of religion and its
ministers amongst the people." Domestic chastity was held
at a discount and reviled, and adultery was so common, even
in the highest ranks, that the Privy Council spoke of bring-
ing the question of prohibitive measures before Parliament.
The Protector himself had set aside his first wife, Catherine
Ffoliot, although she had borne him a son, on no valid pretext,
legal or otherwise, in order to marry the higher born Anne
Stanhope the temper of this Stanhope lady was so peppery
that he went in fear and trembling, and this led his contem-
poraries to say ' he had got rid of a dove to saddle himself
with a scorpion." Henry, son of William, Earl of Pembroke,
divorced Katherine, daughter of Henry, Duke of Suffolk
(Lady Jane's younger sister), to marry Mary, daughter of
Sir Henry Sydney. The Earl of Northampton, Katherine
Parr's brother, divorced Anne, daughter of the Earl of
Essex, when he married Lord Cobham's daughter Elizabeth.
Even Lady Jane Grey's own legitimacy was disputed ; and
the matrimonial adventures of her grandfather Brandon,
Duke of Suffolk, have already been mentioned.
The wickedness of the upper classes l spread downwards,
and, coupled with intense poverty, made " London worse than
Babylon of old."
Well might honest old Latimer cry out to the King, in one
of his most interesting sermons (preached in 1550 at Paul's
Cross), 'For the love of God take an order for marriage
here in England." Cecil also protests against the prevailing
looseness of morals : ' ' Sacrilegious avarice ravenously invaded
"hurch livings, colleges, chantries, hospitals, and places dedi-
cated to the poor, as things superfluous. Ambition and emula-
tion among the nobility, presumption and disobedience among
1 John Strype says : " About this time [reign of Edward vi] the nation
grew infamous for the crime of adultery. It began among the nobility and
etter classes, and so spread at length among the inferior sort of people.
Noblemen would frequently put away their wives and marry others, if they
.ked another woman better, or were like[ly] to obtain wealth by her. And
' would sometimes pretend their former wives to be false to them, and
be divorced, and marry again those whom they might fancy. These
adulteries and divorces increased very much ; yea, and marrying again
thout any divorce at all, it became a great scandal to the Realm and to
the religion professed in it." Strype's Memorials of Archbishop Cranmer,
vol. i. pp. 293, 294.
ig8 THE NINE DAYS' QUEEN
the common people, grew so extravagant, that England
seemed to be in a downright frenzy." Hear Bishop Burnet
also on the same subject : This gross and insatiable scramble
after the goods and wealth that had been dedicated to good
designs, without applying any part of it to promote the good
of the Gospel, and the instruction of the poor, made all people
conclude that it was for robbery and not for reformation that
their zeal made them so active. The irregular and immoral
lives of many of the professors of the Gospel gave their enemies
great advantage to say that they ran away from confession,
penance, fasting, and prayer, only to be under no restraint,
and to indulge themselves in a licentious and dissolute course
of life. By these things, that were but too visible in some of
the most eminent among them, the people were much alienated
from them ; and as much as they were formerly against
Popery, they grew to have kinder thoughts of it, and to look
on all the changes that had been made, as designs to enrich
some vicious characters, and to let in an inundation of vice
and wickedness upon the nation/ 5 To stem this rising tide
would have been a task for a great statesman ; Somerset was
not a great statesman, for, though many of his intentions
were good, his methods were primitively violent. He thought
himself capable of repressing the inevitable result of the evil
wrought by Henry vm and his followers by force of arms,
and by laws which, even in those days, chilled men with horror.
To put down the vagabondage in the country districts, a
consequence of the disbanding of the great crowd of abbey
retainers, he signed a decree whereby "Any man or woman
found suspiciously near any house, or wandering by the high-
ways, or in the streets of any city, town, or village, for three
days together, without offering to work, or running away from
their labour, may be brought by the master, or any other person,
before two justices of the peace [these] having the power of
the statute law to exercise the said power by burning into his
or her breast with a hot iron the letter V, and to adjudge him
or her to be the slave of the informer, to have and to hold the
said slave to him, his executors or assigns, for the space of two
years, only giving the said slave bread and water."
" slave " was to be made to work by blows or chains. In tht
event of his disappearing for the space of fourteen days with-
JOHN DUDLEY, EARL OF WARWICK 199
out leave, he could be punished by chaining up and beating,
' and if he [the owner of the slave] chose to prove the fault
by two witnesses before the justices, they shall cause such
slave to be marked on the forehead, or the ball of the cheek
with a hot iron, with the sign of an S, that he may be known
for a loiterer, and [the justices] shall adjudge the runaway
to be the said master's slave for ever/' The penalty of a second
escape from slavery was death by hanging " from the nearest
tree, if violent/' Any one was permitted to take children
between five and fourteen years of age from any wanderer,
whether they were willing or not, and if the child ran away
from his master the latter had the power " to keep and punish
the said child in chains, or otherwise, and use him or her as
his slave in all points," up to the age of twenty at least. The
master of a grown-up slave had the right, under section 4 of
this law, ' ' To let, set forth, sell, bequeath, or give the service
of such slaves to any person or persons, whatsoever/' The
law further empowered an owner of slaves " to put a ring
of iron about his neck, arm, or leg, for a better knowledge and
surety of keeping him . ' ' Aiding a slave to escape was punished
by the forfeiture of ten pounds by the person so doing.
These and other evils too numerous to detail helped to fan the
flame of popular discontent.
Presently the counties began to rise, the people of Devon-
shire and Cornwall flew to arms to vindicate the rights of
conscience. They would have back the religion which their
forefathers had held for a thousand years. They demanded
that the " Six Articles " should be put in force. The men of
Cornwall refused the Book of Common Prayer, because, they
alleged, they could not speak English, and could not under-
stand it, while they were accustomed to the Latin Mass, which
they had been trained from infancy to comprehend. Down
into the West went Lord Russell (" Swearing Russell "),
dispatched by the Lord Protector. He behaved " more like
a wild beast than a human being " as abominably as Lennox
in Scotland. Hooper, who went with him to preach to the
rebels, describes his massacres as " the most horrible butcheries
: brave men that ever did happen in this world." Russell's
dispatches do not in any way minimise the horrors he perpe-
trated, and ' our men/' he says, " are daily supplied with
200 THE NINE DAYS' QUEEN
large numbers of sheep and fowl from the places where the
farmers and squires forfeited such property by their obstinate
adherence to the Popish Mass, and other superstitions."
Some three thousand men and several hundreds of women are
said to have suffered death in the fight for freedom of conscience
in Devonshire. The central counties rose too, and there were
terrible riots in Gloucestershire, Wiltshire, Derbyshire, and
Huntingdonshire .
But it was in Norfolk that the grandest demonstration
against the tyranny of the central Government occurred. It
commenced at Aldborough, and at first seemed a matter of
little consequence ; but the rumours of what had happened
in Kent, where new enclosures had been broken down, greatly
inflamed the people from one end to the other of the eastern
counties. There was little of the religious element in the
revolt, although two-thirds of the people, at least, still adhered
to the old faith, but now religious differences were set aside,
and Catholics and Protestants stood shoulder to shoulder in
the fight for what we should call liberty. At first the mass
of the people were without a leader, but they soon found one
in the person of an honest tanner, named Robert Ket. 1 It fell
out on the 6th July 1549, at Wymondham, near Norwich,
1 Robert Ket was a comparatively rich man, and to some extent a land-
owner, by reason of which he came into connection with the nobleman who
afterwards had him killed Northumberland. Ket bought Wymondham
Abbey at the Dissolution, and also possessed a large part of Wymondham
Town, and certain rich lands between that place and the royal manor-
house of Stanfield Hall. These lands had been bestowed on the brotherhood
of St. Lazarus of Jerusalem an offshoot of the Order of Hospitallers of
St. John, who devoted their time to the relief of the sick poor by Queen
Adelicia, second wife of Henry I. Later on, Ket sold these ex-monastic
lands to John Dudley, afterwards Duke of Northumberland the suppressor
of the Ket rebellion ! Blomefield (Norfolk, article on " Wyndham or
Wymondham ") indeed attributes the cause of that outbreak to a disagree-
ment between the Ket brothers and Northumberland over these lands.
" John Dudley," says he, " bought some of these charity lands of Ket the
tanner. As for payment, it was done in his own particular mode. . . .
The two brothers (Ket), finding Dudley meant to pull down the magnificent 
