ARCHBISHOP CRANMER.
It would be easy to multiply quotations which indicate the place accorded to Lord Dorset’s daughter in the estimation of the leaders of the extreme party of Protestantism, in whose eyes Cranmer was regarded as a possible trimmer. Allowing to him “right views,” Hooper, in writing to Bullinger, adds: “we desire nothing more for him than a firm and manly spirit.”[118] “Contrary to general expectation,” Traheron writes, the Archbishop had most openly, firmly, and learnedly maintained the opinion of the German divine upon the Eucharist; and Ulmis, alluding to him in terms of praise, repeats that he had unexpectedly given a correct judgment on this point. Even the youngest of the German theologians felt himself competent to weigh in the balances the head of Protestant England.
Protestant England was itself keeping a wary eye upon its Primate. “The Archbishop of Canterbury,” wrote Hooper to Bullinger, “to tell the truth, neither took much note of your letter nor of your learned present. But now, as I hope, Master Bullinger and Canterbury entertain the same opinion.” “The people ... that many-headed monster,” he wrote again, “is still wincing, partly through ignorance, and partly persuaded by the inveiglements of the Bishops and the malice and impiety of the mass-priests.”[119]
CHAPTER XII
1551-1552 An anxious tutor—Somerset’s final fall—The charges against him—His guilt or innocence—His trial and condemnation—The King’s indifference—Christmas at Greenwich—The Duke’s execution.
Aylmer had been so far encouraged by the success of his appeal to Henry Bullinger on behalf of his pupil that he is found, some seven months later, calling the Swiss churchman again into council. He was possibly over-anxious, but the tone of his communication makes it clear that Lady Jane Grey had been once more causing her tutor disquiet. Responding, in the first place, to Bullinger’s congratulations upon his privilege in acting as teacher to so excellent a scholar, and in a family so well disposed to learning and religion, he proceeds to request that his correspondent will, in his next letter, instruct Lady Jane as to the proper degree of embellishment and adornment of the person becoming in young women professing godliness. The tutor is plainly uneasy on this subject, and it is to be feared that Jane had been developing an undue love of dress. Yet the example of the Princess Elizabeth might be fitly adduced, observes Aylmer, furnishing the monitor with arguments of which he might, if he pleased, make use. She at least went clad in every respect as became a young maiden, and yet no one was induced by the example of “a lady in so much gospel light to lay aside, much less look down upon, gold, jewels, and braidings of the hair.” Preachers might declaim, but no one amended her life. Moreover, and as a less important matter, Aylmer desires Bullinger to prescribe the amount of time to be devoted to music. If he would handle these points at some length there would probably be some accession to the ranks of virtue.
One would imagine that it argued ignorance of human nature on the part of Lady Jane’s instructor to believe that the admonitions of an old man at a distance would have more effect than those of a young man close at hand; nor does it appear whether or not Bullinger sent the advice for which Aylmer asked. But that his pupil’s incipient leaning towards worldly vanities was successfully checked would appear from her reply, reported by himself, when a costly dress had been presented to her by her cousin Mary. “It were a shame,” she is said to have answered, in rejecting the gift, “to follow my Lady Mary, who leaveth God’s Word, and leave my Lady Elizabeth, who followeth God’s Word.”
It might have been well for Jane had she practised greater courtesy towards a cousin at this time out of favour at Court; but no considerations of policy or of good breeding could be expected to influence a zealot of fifteen, and Mary, more than double her age, may well have listened with a smile.
When Aylmer’s letter was written, the Grey family had left Bradgate and were in London. The Marquis had, some two months earlier, been advanced to the rank of Duke of Suffolk, upon the title becoming extinct through the death of his wife’s two half-brothers, and the tutor may have had just cause for disquietude lest the world should make good its claims upon the little soul he was so carefully tending. In November 1551 Mary of Lorraine, Queen-Dowager of Scotland, had applied for leave to pass through England on her way north. It had not only been granted, but she had been accorded a magnificent reception, Lady Jane, with her mother, taking part in the ceremony when the royal guest visited the King at Whitehall. Two days later she was amongst the ladies assembled to do the Queen honour at her departure for Scotland. It may be that this participation in the pomp and splendour of court life had produced a tendency in John Aylmer’s charge to bestow overmuch attention upon worldly matters, nor can it be doubted that his heart was sore at the contrast she had presented to Elizabeth, “whose plainness of dress,” he says, still commending the Princess, “was especially noticed on the occasion of the visit of the Queen-Dowager of Scotland.”