[248] From the use of the expression (adopted in The Chronicle of Queen Jane and Queen Mary), “the keys were carried up,” it has been suggested that Lady Jane was lodged in the White Tower itself, which was not the case. Queen Jane proceeded immediately after her arrival at the Tower to the palatial apartments usually inhabited by royalty when in residence there. These chambers—in which Elizabeth of York breathed her last; where Anne Boleyn spent the night before her coronation and later, by an irony of fate, that before her execution; where, afterwards, Katherine Howard also awaited her doom; where, in a word, most of our Kings and Queens had “ruffled it wi’ the best” or trembled at their coming fate—were removed in the seventeenth century. They were contiguous to the White Tower—indeed, the door communicating between the two blocks of buildings is still visible—and it is more than probable that Queen Jane used the chapel and the Council Chamber in the said White Tower; but she certainly never inhabited the tower during her brief Queenship. Later, as we shall presently see, she was removed to the quadrangle opposite St. Peter’s Church, to the apartments which had been vacated by the Duchess of Somerset, in Partridge’s House.
[249] It was on the 17th or the next day that a significant placard was found attached to the pump at Queenhithe, stating “that the Princess Mary had been proclaimed Queen in every town and city in England, London alone excepted.” The exception was to cease within two days!
[250] It was generally said that Northumberland’s son, Lord Henry Dudley, had been to France to raise a force, and that six thousand French soldiers were about to embark from Dieppe and Boulogne.
Strype says (Ecclesiastical Memorials, vol. iii. part I, p. 23): “Henry Dudley, a relation and creature of the Duke [of Northumberland], and in with him, had, with four servants and certain letters, escaped, and got hither to Guisnes. Him these officers detained, seizing his men and letters; which they sent by a special messenger to the Queen, keeping him in sure custody till her pleasure were further known. All this they declared to her in their letter, protesting their steadfast loyalty and obedience. Dudley was soon after conveyed to Calais and so to England.”
It was also rumoured that Northumberland had offered to hand over Calais to the French in return for the aid which was to be afforded him. Needless to say, it never came.
[251] Rossi, I Successi d’Inghilterra dopo la morte de Edoardo Sesto, pp. 15, 16. This book was printed at Ferrara in 1560.
[252] Baynard’s Castle, which was standing in Edward II’s time, and was later the residence of Richard III, stood somewhere about the site now occupied by St. Paul’s Station, and was a large square building, with high pitched turrets at each corner, and having its river front washed by the Thames. Several royalties visited it in the course of time. In Henry VIII’s time it belonged to that Earl of Pembroke who married Katherine Parr’s sister, and was in the possession of that family in 1553. “Bluff King Hal” was sometimes entertained there. The greater part of the building was burnt down in the Great Fire, but the towers were standing as late as 1809.
[253] It is distinctly curious that Arundel should be generally stated to have been present at the proclamation of Mary in London on 19th July, and yet be said by several writers to have arrested Northumberland at Cambridge on the 21st! This hardly seems probable; doubtless the arrest took place later in that week. But the dates of Northumberland’s movements on his expedition are altogether obscure.
[254] Roger Alford, Cecil’s servant, gives the following account of this stage of the intrigue in a letter to Cecil of 1573: “After this, the Lords not long after agreed to go to Baynard’s Castle to the Lord of Pembroke [Baynard’s Castle was, as we have said, his residence] upon pretence before in Council, to give audience to the French King and Emperor’s Ambassadors, that had long been delayed audience; and that the Tower was not fit to him to enter into at that season. At which time, my Lord of Arundel, upon some overture of frank speech to be had in Council in respect of that present state, said secretly to his friend, as I take it yourself [i.e. Cecil] or Sir William Petre, that he liked not the air. And thereupon it was deferred to Baynard’s Castle; from which place the Lords went and proclaimed Queen Mary. And yourself was despatched after my Lord Arundel and my Lord Paget to her Grace, being at Ipswich; where, being sent by you a little before, my Lady Bacon told me that the Queen thought very well of her brother Cecil, and said you were a very honest man.”—Strype’s Annals, vol. iv. p. 349.
[255] See either Harleian MSS, 358, 44; or Chronicles of Queen Jane and Queen Mary, p. 11.