Lady Jane Grey and Her Times

by Ida A. Taylor

It was risking much, but the Bishop knew to whom he spoke, and, working adroitly upon Henry’s fears and wrath, succeeded in obtaining permission to consult with his colleagues and to draw up articles by which the Queen’s life might be touched. “They thought it best to begin with such ladies as she most esteemed and were privy to all her doings—as the Lady Herbert, her sister, the Lady Lane, who was her first cousin, and the Lady Tyrwhitt, all of her privy chamber.” The plan was to accuse these ladies of the breach of the Six Articles, to search their coffers for documents or books compromising to the Queen, and, in case anything of that nature were found, to carry Katherine by night to the Tower. The King, acquainted with the design, appears to have given his consent, and all went on as before, Henry still encouraging, or at least not discouraging, his wife’s discourse on spiritual matters.

Time was passing; the bill of articles against the Queen had been prepared, and Henry had affixed his signature to it, whether with a deliberate intention of giving her over to her enemies, or, as some said, meaning to deter her from the study of prohibited literature—in which case, as Lord Herbert of Cherbury observes, it was “a terrible jest.”[33] That Katherine herself did not regard the affair, as soon as she came to be cognisant of it, in the light of a kindly warning, is plain; for when, by a singular accident, the document containing the charges against her was dropped by one of the council and brought for her perusal, the effect upon her was such that the King’s physicians were summoned to attend her, and Henry himself, ignorant of the cause of her illness, and possibly softened by it, paid her a visit, and, hearing that she entertained fears that she had incurred his displeasure, reassured her with sweet and comfortable words, remained with her an hour, and departed.

Though Katherine had played her part well, she must have been aware that she stood on the brink of a precipice, and the ghosts of Anne Boleyn and Katherine Howard warned her how little reliance could be placed upon the King’s fitful affection. Deciding upon a bold step, she sought his bed-chamber uninvited after supper on the following evening, attended only by her sister, Lady Herbert, and with Lady Lane,[34] her cousin, to carry the candle before her. Henry, found in conversation with his attendant gentlemen, gave his wife a courteous welcome, entering at once—contrary to his custom—upon the subject of religion, as if moved by a desire of gaining instruction from her replies. Read in the light of what Katherine already knew, this new departure may well have been viewed by her with misgiving; and she hastened to disclaim the position the King appeared anxious to assign her. The inferiority of women being what it was, she said, it was for man to supply from his wisdom what they lacked. She being a silly poor woman, and his Majesty so wise, how could her judgment be of use to him, in all things her only anchor, and, next to God, her supreme head and governor on earth?

The King demurred. The attitude of submission may have struck him as unfamiliar.

“Not so, by St. Mary,” he said. “You are become a doctor, Kate, to instruct us, as we take it, and not to be instructed or directed by us.”

The plain charge elicited, it was more easy to reply to it. The King had much mistaken her, Katherine humbly declared. It had ever been her opinion that it was unseemly for the woman to instruct and teach her lord and husband; her place was rather to learn of him. If she had been bold to maintain opinions differing from the King’s, it had been to “minister talk”—to make conversation, in modern language—to distract him from the thought of his infirmities, as also in the hope of profiting by his learned discourse—with more of the same nature.

Henry, perhaps not sorry to be convinced, yielded to the skilful flattery thus administered.

“Is it even so, sweetheart?” he said, “and tend your arguments to no worse end? Then perfect friends we are now again,” adding, as he took her in his arms and kissed her, that her words had done him more good than news of a hundred thousand pounds.

The next day had been fixed for the Queen’s arrest. As the appointed hour approached the King sought the garden, sending for Katherine to attend him there. Accompanied by the same ladies as on the night before, the Queen obeyed the summons, and there, under the July sun, the closing scene of the serio-comic drama was played. Amused, it may be, by the anticipation of his counsellors’ discomfiture, Henry was in good spirits and “as pleasant as ever he was in his life before,” when the Chancellor, with forty of the royal guard, appeared, ready to take possession of the culprit. What passed between Wriothesley and his master, at a little distance from the rest of the party, could only be matter of conjecture. The Chancellor’s words, as he knelt before the angry King, were not audible to the curious bystanders, but the King’s rejoinder, “vehemently whispered,” was heard. “Knave, arrant knave, beast and fool,” were the epithets applied to the crestfallen official. After which, he was promptly dismissed.

Katherine, whether or not she divined the truth, set herself to plead Wriothesley’s cause. Ignorance, not will, was in her opinion the probable origin of what had so manifestly moved Henry to wrath. The advocacy of the intended victim softened the King’s heart even more towards her.