[238] Machyn’s Diary, p. 36.
[239] We have already seen (vide the letter of the Council to the Commissioners in Brussels of the 11th July) that the Council had intended from the very first that Northumberland should proceed into Norfolk, the object even then being to remove his all-powerful and domineering presence from London and into Mary’s hands, since all the members doubtless foresaw they would have to renounce Jane very shortly, and were not anxious to incur his wrath for so doing. Probably Suffolk was merely suggested so as to avoid rousing Northumberland’s suspicions that the Council was anxious to be rid of him.
[240] Holinshed, vol. iii. pp. 1068, 1069.
[241] Machyn says (p. 36): “And ij days after (the xij day of July) the duke, and dyvers lordes and knyghts whent with him, and mony gentylmen and gonnars, and mony men of the gard and men of armes toward my lade Mare grace, to destroye here grace, and so to bury, and alle was agayns ym-seylff, for ys men forsok him.”
[242] In this document, as in the indictment, Mary gives neither Jane nor her husband their legitimate titles. She calls the former “Jane Dudley,” and describes her as “the wife of Guildford Dudley, Esquire,” stating that Sharington’s successor has received his appointment “by the traitorous abuse and usurpation of Jane Dudley ... and other accomplices.”
[243] Only two days after Northumberland started (that is, on the 16th) Mary had left Kenninghall and ridden without pause to Framlingham, where, according to Holinshed (vol. iii. p. 1067) she gathered round her an army of thirty thousand men.
[244] William Cecil, afterwards Lord Burghley, was born at Stamford St. Martin, Northamptonshire, in 1520. In his youth he was a royal page, and was present at the Field of the Cloth of Gold. Later, he went to Cambridge, and was a great friend of Roger Ascham and John Cheke. Against his father’s will, he married Mary Cheke, the latter’s sister. She died in 1544; and he married again, this time to Mildred, daughter of Sir Anthony Cooke of Gidea Hall, Essex. This was in 1545. Cecil fought in Scotland under Somerset two years later, being present at the battle of Pinkie Cleugh. He was appointed a Secretary of State on 5th September 1550. In October of the next year he was knighted, together with Cheke. His action in the matter of Edward VI’s “Devise” for the limitation of the succession has been already related; also his duplicity with regard to Northumberland. Immediately all hopes of Jane’s retaining the crown were gone, he made his well-known “Submission” to Mary. All the same, he spent the first year of her reign in retirement, and only appears again as holding a public office in 1554. His successful career under Elizabeth is foreign to the subject of this book, and is well known. Cecil died in 1598 at his house in the Strand, and is buried in Westminster Abbey. See The Great Lord Burghley, by Martin Hume.
[245] This is mainly derived from Stowe’s account; Burke (p. 417) and others say that in the first instance Northumberland was arrested by Sir John Gates, one of his own followers, apparently whilst in the midst of his toilet, “with his boots half on and half off,” and therefore utterly helpless.
[246] With Northumberland were brought prisoners into the Tower on 25th July, John, Earl of Warwick, and the Lords Ambrose and Henry Dudley, his three sons, his brother, Sir Andrew Dudley, the Earl of Huntingdon, Lord Hastings, Sir Thomas Palmer, Sir Henry and Sir John Gates, and Dr. Sandys. They are said to have been escorted by four thousand men; others say eight hundred. On the 26th these noblemen were also joined by other prisoners—namely, the Marquis of Northampton, another of Northumberland’s sons Lord Robert Dudley, the Bishop of London (Ridley), Sir Richard Corbet, and Cholmondeley and Montagu, Chief Justices: the latter’s distress must have been softened by the feeling that his gloomy forebodings as to the evil results of the continuance of Edward VI’s scheme for the succession had been amply realised. Next day, Sir John Cheke, Sir Anthony Cooke, and Sir John York were committed to the Tower. See Strype, vol. iv., and Stowe.
[247] After the proclamation of Mary, Ridley went to Framlingham to pay her homage; but the Queen being suspicious of his sincerity, he was arrested at Ipswich, “despoiled of his dignities, and sent back on a lame, halting horse to the Tower.”