Grafton adds that the Duke, “nothing changing voyce nor countenance, but in a manner with the same gesture that he partely used at home, kneeling down upon both his knees, and lifting up his handes, erected himself unto God. And after that he had ended a few shorte prayers, standing up agayne, and turning himself unto the East syde of the skaffolde, he uttered to the people these words.” Then follows a long speech in which the Duke rather praised himself for having upheld religion when he was in power. In the midst of his speech a great tumult arose, and Sir Anthony Browne of Cowdray was seen riding up the Hill, at the sight of whom loud cries of “Pardon! Pardon!” and “God save the King!” were raised by the people. Grafton continues his account thus: “The truth of this hurly-burly grewe hereof, as it was afterwards well knowen. The manner and custome is that when such executions are done out of the Tower, the inhabitants of certayne hamlets round about London, as Hogsden, Newynton, Shordiche, and others, are commanded to give their attendance with weapons upon the Lieutenant. And at this tyme, the Duke being upon the scaffolde, the people of one of the hamlets came late, and coming through the postern gate and espying the Duke upon the scaffolde, made haste and beganne to roune, and cried to their felowes that were behind, ‘Come away, come away.’ The people sodainely beholding them to come rounning with weapons, and knewe not the cause, cried, ‘Away, away,’ by reason whereof the people roun every way, not knowing whither or wherefore.” So great was the panic that many persons fell into the Tower moat. The Duke appears to have waited calmly until the disturbance ceased, and then resumed his speech. He gave a scroll to Dr Coxe, the Dean of Westminster, who attended him upon the scaffold, which probably contained a confession of faith. Coxe was afterwards made Bishop of Ely by Queen Elizabeth, after having been imprisoned in the Tower by Queen Mary, who deprived him of his Deanery, and it was to him that Elizabeth wrote her famous letter, “Proud Prelate, you know what you were before I made you what you are; if you do not immediately comply with my request, by God I will unfrock you.”
After bidding farewell to his friends about him, Somerset gave himself over to the executioner, “and kneling downe agayne in the straw untyed his shirtstrings, and the executioner coming to him, turned downe his collar rounde about his necke, and all other things which did let or hinder him. Then he, covering his face with his own handkerchiefe, lifting up his eyes unto heaven, where his only hope remained, laid himself downe alone, and there suffered the heavie stroke of the axe, which dispersed the head from his bodye, to the lamentable sight and griefe of thousands that heartily prayed God for him and entirely loved him.” Burnet declares that the people were generally “much affected by the execution,” which was somewhat strange, seeing how deeply unpopular the Protector had been, “and many threw handkerchiefs into the Duke’s blood, to preserve it in remembrance of him. One lady that met the Duke of Northumberland when he was led through the city in Queen Mary’s reign, shaking one of these bloody handkerchiefs, said, ‘Behold the blood of that worthy man, that good uncle of that excellent King, which was shed by thy malicious practice, it doth now begin apparently to revenge itself upon thee.’” In Edward’s diary is this laconic entry on 22nd January (1551–52): “The Duke of Somerset had his head cut off upon Towre hill between eight and nine a cloke in the morning.” The boy-king was certainly not much “concerned,” as Bishop Burnet remarked, for the fate of his uncle.
The Protector, like his brother the Admiral, was a singularly handsome man even in that age of handsome men, and according to Sir John Hayward, one of his contemporaries, was “courteous and affable.” A French writer of the period is not so complimentary in his appreciation of the Duke of Somerset, writing that he was a “homme de quelque entendement, couvert et simulé en ses actions, de la nature commune des Anglois, douce apparence, gracieuses paroles, et maligne volonté.”
One of the invariable results of the fall of a party chief in these so-called “good old days,” was that his most trusted friends and adherents fell after him; this occurred in the case of the Protector. The Earl of Arundel, Lords Grey and Paget, with others of his supporters, were sent to the Tower at the same time as the Duke, and of these, Sir Ralph Vane, Sir Michael Stanhope, Sir Thomas Arundel, and Sir Miles Partridge, were executed. Sir Ralph Vane had distinguished himself at the siege of Boulogne in 1544, where he had gained his knighthood, a distinction given in those times only for distinguished services on the field. James I. was the first monarch to prostitute this honour by making it a thing of sale. Vane had also fought in the Scottish campaign. “A man of fierce spirit,” Hayward characterises him, “both sodaine and bold, of no evill disposition, saving that he thought scantnesse of estate too great an evill.” Sir Ralph had in some manner offended the all-powerful Duke of Northumberland, and on some now unknown charge, he was lodged in the Tower in the March of 1551. He was released, but again imprisoned on a charge of conspiring with Somerset. He fled, hiding himself in a stable in Lambeth, but was re-arrested, and again placed in durance in the Tower. When examined by the Privy Council he showed a bold, even a defiant, front, “The time hath been,” he exclaimed, “when I was of some esteeme; but now we are at peace, which repenteth the coward and the courageous alike,” “and so with an obstinate resolution he made choice rather not to regard death than by any submission to intreat for life” (Hayward’s Edward VI.). When found guilty and sentenced to death he said that his blood would make Northumberland’s “pillow uneasy to him,” and Edward hearing of Sir Ralph’s replies to the Court, wrote in his diary under the date 27th January 1551–52, “Sir Ralph Vane was condemned of felony in treason, answering like a ruffian.” Sir Michael Stanhope was a cousin of Somerset’s, a fact sufficient in itself to condemn him. Sir Thomas Arundel, another of the condemned knights, was of Lamberne in Cornwall, and had been one of Wolsey’s attendants, being made a Knight of the Bath at Anne Boleyn’s coronation. In 1549 he was appointed Receiver-General of the Duchy of Cornwall. He had been accused of forming a conspiracy in Cornwall, for participation in which his relative, Humphrey Arundel, Governor of St Michael’s Mount, had been hanged at Tyburn in 1549, but Sir Thomas had been released from his imprisonment, the charge against him not having been proved. Shortly afterwards, however, he was again thrown into prison, charged with complicity in the Somerset conspiracy, the nature of this fresh charge being indicated by King Edward’s brief entry in his diary of 11th October 1551, “Sir Thomas Arrundel had ashuired my Lord that the Tower was sauf.” On the 16th October he was sent to the Tower, and Edward writes, “Arrondel was taken.” Arundel was tried the day after Sir Ralph Vane, and also sentenced to die. These and the two others were all executed on the same day, 26th February 1552. Sir Ralph Vane—or, as it should be spelt Fane, for he belonged to the same stock as the Fanes, Earls of Westmoreland, but in those days of euphonious spelling, it is found as Vane, Fane, Perne, and even Phane—and Sir Miles Partridge were hanged, whilst Sir Thomas Arundel and Sir Michael Stanley were beheaded. “Ther body wher putt into dyvers new coffens to be bered, and heds, into the Towre in cases, and ther bered” (Machyn’s Diary); the Earl of Arundel, Lords Grey and Paget were acquitted.
Edward’s short reign of six years ended on the 6th of July 1553, and considering the brief time he occupied the throne, there was a sufficiency of blood shed upon the scaffold, through the machinations of those around him, to have pleased the insatiable Henry the Eighth himself.
CHAPTER X
MARY TUDOR
Northumberland had persuaded the dying King to pass over his sisters, Mary and Elizabeth, in favour of Lady Jane Grey, the grand-daughter of Henry VII. by the marriage of Mary, daughter of that King, with Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, as well as cousin to the late King Edward VI., and his own daughter-in-law; and the Privy Council, immediately after Edward’s death, had confirmed this measure. Northumberland’s plan, in which he had induced Edward to acquiesce, annulled both the Statute of Succession and the will of Henry VIII., for not only did it set aside both the late King’s sisters, but also the direct successors, to whom the crown would hereditarily fall, failing Henry’s daughters. These were the descendants of Henry’s eldest sister Queen Margaret, wife of James IV. of Scotland, who was represented by the girl Queen Mary Stuart, and, after her, by the descendants of Queen Margaret’s second marriage with the Earl of Angus, who were represented by Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, Queen Margaret thus being grandmother to both Queen Mary Stuart and Lord Darnley. Henry VIII. himself, however, had passed over Queen Margaret’s claims in his will, and had placed the children of his younger sister, Mary, Duchess of Suffolk, next to his daughter Elizabeth in the succession. The Duchess of Suffolk’s daughter—Lady Frances Brandon—had married Henry Grey, Marquis of Dorset, by whom she had had three daughters, of whom Lady Jane Grey was the eldest.[10] Dorset, who became Duke of Suffolk during the Protectorate, having been given his father-in-law’s dukedom, was a fervent follower of the Reformed faith, his children sharing his religious beliefs.
The Duchess of Suffolk, Jane’s mother, who was still alive at this time (1553) was passed over in Northumberland’s scheme, since he had succeeded in wedding the daughter to his fourth son, Guildford Dudley, his firm expectation being that as the future Queen’s father-in-law he would have the government of the realm in his own hands. But Northumberland’s ambitious dream was a short one, and the awakening was terrible.
At the time of Edward’s death Lady Jane Grey (Lady Jane Guildford as she should be called, but as was the case with Anne Askew, the paternal name has always been retained) was living at Sion House, a house belonging to her father-in-law, and here a deputation of the Council, headed by Northumberland, Suffolk, Pembroke, and others, went to pay their homage to the new Queen; on the 9th of July 1553, Lady Jane, or as she was now styled, Queen Jane, entered the Tower in state.