Lady Jane Grey and Her Times

by Ida A. Taylor

For quicker and quicker came tidings of fresh triumphs for Mary, each one striking at the hopes of her rival’s partisans. News was brought that Mary had been proclaimed Queen first in Buckinghamshire; next at Norwich. Her forces were gathering strength, her adherents gaining courage. Again, six vessels placed at Yarmouth to intercept her flight, should she attempt it, were won over to her side, their captains, with men and ordnance, making submission; whereat “the Lady Mary”—from whose mind nothing had been further than flight—“and her company were wonderful joyous.”

This last blow hit the party acknowledging Jane as Queen hard; nor were its effects long in becoming visible. In the Tower “each man began to pluck in his horns,” and to cast about for a manner of dissevering his private fortunes from a cause manifestly doomed to disaster. Pembroke, who in May had associated himself with Northumberland by marrying his son to Katherine Grey, was one of the foremost in considering the possibility of quitting the Tower, so that he might hold consultation with those without; but as yet he had not devised a means of accomplishing his purpose. Each day brought its developments within the walls of the fortress, and beyond them. On the Sunday night—not a week after the crown had been fitted on Jane’s head—when the Lord Treasurer, then officiously desirous of adding a second for her husband, was leaving the building in order to repair to his own house, the gates were suddenly shut and the keys carried up to the mistress of the Tower. What was the reason? No one knew, but it was whispered that a seal had been found missing. Others said that she had feared some packinge [sic] in the Treasurer. The days were coming when it would be in no one’s power to keep the Lords of the Council at their post under lock and key.

That Sunday morning—it was July 16—Ridley had preached at Paul’s Cross before the Mayor, Aldermen, and people, pleading Lady Jane’s cause with all the eloquence at his command. Let his hearers, he said, contrast her piety and gentleness with the haughtiness and papistry of her rival. And he told the story of his visit to Hunsdon, of his attempt to convince Mary of her errors, and of its failure, conjuring all who heard him to maintain the cause of Queen Jane and of the Gospel. But his exhortations fell on deaf ears.

And still one messenger of ill tidings followed hard upon the heels of another. Cecil, with his natural aptitude for intrigue, was engaging in secret deliberations with members of the Council inclined to be favourable to Mary, finding in especial the Lord Treasurer, Winchester, the Earl of Arundel, and Lord Darcy, willing listeners, “whereof I did immediately tell Mr. Petre”—the other Secretary—“for both our comfort.”[172] Presently a pretext was invented to cover the escape of the lords from the Tower. It was said that Northumberland had sent for auxiliaries, and that it was necessary to hold a consultation with the foreign ambassadors as to the employment of mercenaries.[173] The meeting was to take place at Baynard’s Castle, Arundel observing significantly that he liked not the air of the Tower. He and his friends may indeed have reflected that it had proved fatal to many less steeped in treason than they. To Baynard’s Castle some of the lords accordingly repaired, sending afterwards to summon the rest to join them, with the exception of Suffolk, who remained behind, in apparent ignorance of what was going forward.

In the consultation, held on July 19, the deathblow was dealt to the hopes of those faithful to the nine-days’ Queen. Arundel was the first to declare himself unhesitatingly on Mary’s side, and to denounce the Duke, from whom he had so lately parted on terms of devoted friendship. He boasted of his courage in now opposing Northumberland—a man of supreme authority, and—as one who had little or no conscience—fond of blood. It was by no desire of vengeance that Arundel’s conduct was prompted, he declared, but by conscience and anxiety for the public welfare; the Duke was actuated by a desire neither for the good of the kingdom nor by religious zeal, but purely by a desire for power, and he proceeded to hold him up to the reprobation of his colleagues.

Pembroke made answer, promising, with his hand on his sword, to make Mary Queen. There were indeed few dissentient voices, and, though some of the lords at first maintained that warning should be sent to Northumberland and a general pardon obtained from Mary, their proposals did not meet with favour, and they did not press them.

A hundred men had been despatched on various pretexts, and by degrees, to the Tower, with orders to make themselves masters of the place, in case Suffolk would not leave it except upon compulsion; but the Duke was not a man to lead a forlorn hope. Had Northumberland been at hand a struggle might have taken place; as it was, not a voice was raised against the decision of the Council, and with almost incredible rapidity the face of affairs underwent a change, absolute and complete. Suffolk, so soon as the determination of the lords was made known to him, lost no time in expressing his willingness to concur in it and to add his signature to the proclamation of Mary, already drawn up.[174] He was, he said, but one man; and proclaiming his daughter’s rival in person on Tower Hill, he finally struck his colours; going so far, as some affirm, as to share in the demonstration in the new Queen’s honour in Cheapside, where the proclamation was read by the Earl of Pembroke amidst a scene of wild enthusiasm contrasting vividly with the coldness and apathy shown by the populace when, nine days earlier, they had been asked to accept the Duke of Northumberland’s daughter-in-law as their Queen.

“For my time I never saw the like,” says a news-letter,[175] “and by the report of others the like was never seen. The number of caps that were thrown up at the proclamation were not to be told.... I saw myself money was thrown out at windows for joy. The bonfires were without number, and, what with shouting and crying of the people and ringing of the bells, there could no one hear almost what another said, besides banquetings and singing in the street for joy.”

Arundel was there, as well as Pembroke, with Shrewsbury and others, and the day was ended with evensong at St. Paul’s.

And whilst all this was going on outside, in the gloom of the Tower, where the air must have struck chill even on that July day, sat the little victim of state-craft—“Cette pauvre reine,” wrote Noailles to his master, “qui s’en peut dire de la féve”—a Twelfth Night’s Queen—in the fortress that had seen her brief exaltation, and was so soon to become to her a prison. As the joy-bells echoed through the City and the shouting of the people penetrated the thick walls she must have wondered what was the cause of rejoicing. Presently she learnt it.