Note 4. Underhill is a Warwickshire family, but Anne Wynter, the mother of Edward Underhill, was a Worcestershire woman.
Note 5. Notes on this poem. See Harl. Ms. 424, folio 9. Plags means plagues. “Wealthe” means “personal interest.” “Wreche” means “wretch.” “Lake” means “lack.” “Wrake” means “wrack.”
Chapter Nine.
Who paid the Penalty.
“And make me die the thrall of Margaret’s curse—
Nor mother, wife, nor England’s counted Queen.”
Shakespeare.
Few hours had been tolled on the great clock of Saint Paul’s, or had rung across the water from the Tower guns, ere England knew what was the vengeance to be taken. Once more royal blood was shed upon Tower Hill; once more England stooped to commit murder at the dictation of a foreign power. The white dove was sacrificed.
About ten o’clock on the morning of the 12th of February, Lord Guilford Dudley was beheaded on Tower Hill. It is plain that he died a Protestant, seeing that no priest was present at his death. And like the fiends they were, his executioners brought him, both going to the scaffold, and his dead body in returning, past the windows of Partridge’s house, where his poor young wife had her lodging. They let her—that tender bird of seventeen short summers—from her chamber lattice see all the horror she could see, and feel all the agony she could feel; and then they brought her forth, to die also.
Calmly and quietly, as though she had been going to her forfeited throne, she came forth to her death. And she was going to her throne. For she was one of Christ’s martyrs, and sat upon His throne with Him.