Lady Jane Grey and Her Times

by Ida A. Taylor

“I will see how meet the block is for my neck,” he said, “I pray thee, strike me not yet, for I have a few prayers to say. And that done, strike in God’s name. Good leave have thou.”

So the scene came to an end. The three rebels whose life Mary had taken—no large number—had paid the forfeit of their deed. That night the Lancaster Herald, a dependant of the Duke of Northumberland, more faithful to old ties and memories than those in higher place, sought the Queen, and begged of her his master’s head, that he might give it sepulture. In God’s name, Mary bade him take his lord’s whole body and bury him. By a curious caprice of destiny the Duke was laid to rest in the Tower at the side of Somerset.[198] There, in the reconciliation of a common defeat, the ancient rivals were united.

The three chief victims had thus paid the supreme penalty. The rest of the participators in Northumberland’s guilt, if not pardoned, were suffered to escape with life. Young Warwick had shared his father’s condemnation, and, finding that the excuse of youth was not to be allowed to avail in so grave a matter, had contented himself with begging that, out of his goods, forfeited to the Crown, his debts might be paid. Returning to the Tower, he had afterwards followed his father’s example in abjuring Protestantism, and had listened, with the older victims, to the words addressed by the priest to the men appointed to die. Whether or not he had been aware that he was to be spared, Mass concluded, he had been taken back to his lodging and had not shared the Duke’s fate.

Northampton’s defence had been a strange one. He had, he said, forborne the execution of any public office during the interregnum and, being intent on hunting and other sports, had not shared in the conspiracy. The plea was not allowed to stand, but though he, like Warwick, was condemned, he was likewise permitted to escape with life. As Warwick’s youth may have made its appeal to Mary, so she may have remembered that Northampton was the brother of her dead friend, Katherine Parr, and have allowed that memory to save him.

Lady Jane’s fate had hung in the balances. By some she was still considered a menace to the stability of her cousin’s throne. Charles V.’s ambassadors, representing to the Queen the need of proceeding with caution in matters of religion, urged the necessity of executing punishment upon the more guilty of those who had striven to deprive her of her crown, clemency being used towards the rest. In which class was Jane to be included? The determination of that question would decide her fate. At an interview between Mary and Simon Renard, one of the Emperor’s envoys, it was discussed, the Queen declaring that she could not make up her mind to send Lady Jane to the scaffold; that she had been told that, before her marriage with Guilford Dudley, she had been bestowed upon another man by a contrat obligatoire, rendering the subsequent tie null and void. Mary drew from this hypothetical fact the inference that her cousin was not the daughter-in-law of the Duke of Northumberland’s, adding that she had had no share in his undertaking, and that, as she was innocent, it would be against her own conscience to put her to death.

Renard demurred. He said, what was probably true, that it was to be feared that the alleged contract of marriage had been invented to save Lady Jane; and it would be necessary at the least to keep her a prisoner, since many inconveniences might be expected were she set at liberty. To this Mary agreed, promising that her cousin should not be liberated without all precautions necessary to ensure that no ill results would follow.[199]

This interview must have taken place shortly before Northumberland’s death; for on August 23 the Emperor, to whom it had been duly reported, was replying by a reiteration of his opinion that all those who had conspired against the Queen, as well as any concerned in Edward’s death, should be chastised without mercy. He advised that the executions should take place simultaneously, so that the pardon of the less guilty should follow without delay. If Mary was unable to resolve to put “Jeanne de Suffolck” to death, she ought at least to relegate her to some place of security, where she could be kept under supervision and rendered incapable of causing trouble in the realm.

That Mary had decided upon this course is clear, and there is no reason to believe that Lady Jane would have suffered death had it not been for her father’s subsequent conduct. In the meantime, she remained a prisoner in the Tower, and on August 29, eleven days after the executions on Tower Hill, she is shown to us in one of the rare pictures left of her during the time of her captivity. On that day—a Tuesday—the diarist in the Tower, admitted to dine at the same table as the royal prisoner, placed upon record an account of the conversation.

Besides Lady Jane, who sat at the end of the board, there was present the narrator himself, one Partridge,[200] and his wife—it was in “Partridge’s house,” or lodging within the Tower, that the guests met—with Lady Jane’s gentlewoman and her man. Her presence had been unexpected by the diarist, as he was careful to explain, excusing his boldness in having accepted Partridge’s invitation on the score that he had not been aware that she dined below.

Lady Jane did not appear anxious to stand on her dignity. Desiring guest and host to be covered, she drank to the new-comer and made him welcome. The conversation turned, naturally enough, upon the conduct of public affairs, of which Lady Jane was inclined to take a sanguine view.