One by one all Northumberland’s friends left him and joined the Lady Mary, who was the rightful queen; and after Lady Jane Grey had been called queen for ten days, she went to her private home at Sion House, a great deal happier than the day when they took her away to make her a queen.
It would have been well if Queen Mary had left her cousin there. But she was of a cruel and revengeful temper, and not content with sending Northumberland to prison in the Tower of London, for setting up her cousin as queen, she sent Lady Jane and her husband, Lord Guildford Dudley, also to the Tower.
But I must tell you a great deal more about Lady Jane Grey, and I will begin her story at the time when she was very young indeed.
As she was only a few months older than her cousin Edward the Sixth, she had the same teachers in everything, and she was like him in gentleness, goodness, and kindness. Her masters found that she was still cleverer than the little king, and that she learned Latin and Greek too more readily than he did. She knew French, and Spanish, and Italian perfectly, and loved music and painting. She used to thank God that she had strict parents and a kind and gentle schoolmaster.
She was married when very young to Lord Guildford Dudley, only a few weeks before King Edward died; and she was very sorry when she found out that her husband wanted to be king.
When King Edward died, Lady Jane’s father, the Duke of Suffolk, and her husband’s father, the Duke of Northumberland, went to Lady Jane, and fell upon their knees before her, and offered her the crown of England, at the same time telling her that her cousin the king, whom she loved very much, was dead. On hearing this she fainted, and then refused the crown, saying, that while the ladies Mary and Elizabeth were alive, nobody else could have a right to it.
Lady Jane Grey refusing the Crown.
At last, however, though the two dukes could not prevail upon her to allow herself to be called Queen of England, her husband and her mother begged her so hard to be queen, that she consented.
I have already told you that she was only called queen for ten days, and that Queen Mary sent her and her husband to the Tower.