With such an agony, he sweat extremely,
And some thing spoke in choler, ill, and hasty:
But he fell to himself again, and sweetly
In all the rest show’d a most noble patience—”
Henry VIII., Act i. scene 4.
[9] There is a large number of records now in the State Paper Office, which are known as the “Baga de Secretis,” and are the official papers connected with many of the most important State trials; these records are kept in ninety-one small bags or pouches, whence the name of the collection. They have been calendared in the third, fourth, and fifth Reports of the Deputy-Keeper of the Public Records. These interesting documents begin with the trial of Edmund Plantagenet, Earl of Warwick, in 1499, and end in the year 1813. In Pouch Nine there are the reports of the trials of Anne Boleyn and her brother Lord Rochford.
[10] On her father’s side Lady Jane Grey’s descent was as follows:—Thomas Grey was Queen Elizabeth Woodville’s (the Queen of Edward IV.) eldest son by her first marriage to Sir John Grey, eighth Lord Ferrers of Groby in Leicestershire. Sir John was killed at the second battle of St Albans, fighting on the side of King Henry. His son Thomas Grey was created Earl of Huntingdon in 1471 and Marquis of Dorset in 1475. In the latter year he married Cicely, the daughter and heiress of William, Lord Bonville and Harrington. By this marriage he had a family of seven sons and eight daughters, and his grandson was the father of Lady Jane Grey.
[11] I know of only one satisfactory portrait of Lady Jane Grey, and that belongs to Lord Beauchamp and is kept at Madresfield Court. By Lord Beauchamp’s kindness I am allowed to reproduce that portrait, together with its companion picture of Lord Guildford Dudley.
[12] The minutes of this trial are in the Baga de Secretis, Pouch xxiv. in the Public Record Office.
[13] This book, a manual of prayers in square vellum, is now in the Harleian MSS. in the British Museum. It is thought that Lady Jane had borrowed it from Sir John Brydges, carrying it with her to the scaffold, and there returning it to its owner by the hands of his brother, although, as the Lieutenant was present, it is difficult to understand why she did not give it to him personally.