The Lady Eleanor Brandon, Henry VIII’s niece and Lady Jane Grey’s only maternal aunt, married, as we have said, Henry, Lord Clifford, to whom she was united in 1537 at the Duke of Suffolk’s palace in Southwark. The Lady Eleanor gave birth to two sons and a daughter. At the time of the Pilgrimage of Grace (in 1536) she was staying at Bolton Abbey, which Henry VIII, after confiscating it from the Church, had presented to Lord Clifford; and had it not been for the chivalry and bravery of Christopher Aske, the rebel leader’s brother, she would have suffered at the hands of the infuriated “pilgrims.” By dint of a bold night ride, Aske aided Lady Eleanor to fly from Bolton Abbey and reach a place of safety. In 1542 her husband succeeded to the Earldom of Cumberland on the death of his father, and five years later (November 1547) Lady Eleanor passed away at Brougham Castle and was laid to rest in Skipton Church.
HENRY GREY, DUKE OF SUFFOLK
FROM THE PAINTING BY JOANNES CORVUS IN THE NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY
It will be seen by this rapid sketch of her forbears on both sides that Lady Jane Grey might, without exciting surprise, have developed a character strongly sensual and unscrupulous. That she did not do so, apart from the fact that her early death perhaps prevented the full development of her character at all, was probably owing to the rigid and severe nature of the education to which she was subjected. The influence of Erasmus and the fashion of the newly revived classical learning had in the childhood of Jane Grey firmly seized upon the higher classes of England; and the ladies of royal and noble birth, schooled in the stern pietism of The Instruction of a Christian Woman of Luis Vives, which they all studied in Latin or in English, and, steeped in the classic moralities, they became prim and self-suppressed in expression and behaviour. It is likely enough, indeed, that in most cases this prudishness of attitude was but skin deep; but in the case of the hapless Jane, who was little more than a child when she was sacrificed, no other impression of her personality than this was left upon the world. We may picture the tiny demure maiden pacing the green alleys and smooth sward of Bradgate, with her Latin books and her exalted religious meditations, a fervent mystic, with no knowledge of the great world of greed, ambition, and lust, of which she, poor child, was doomed to be the innocent victim.
CHAPTER II
BIRTH AND EDUCATION
Lady Jane Grey was born at Bradgate Old Manor[10] in October 1537, most probably in the first days of the month, for Prince Edward, her cousin, came into the world on the 12th,[11] St. Edward’s Eve, and three days later Henry, Marquess of Dorset, attended the royal christening, which he would scarcely have done if his own wife, a member of the royal family, had not been safely delivered. His presence in London can be traced in the State Papers from the date of Prince Edward’s birth until the first week in November. Lady Jane’s christening took place, as was then the custom, within forty-eight hours of her birth, in the parish church, with all the ancient rites. Some writers state that the babe was carried to the font by her grandmother, the Dowager Marchioness; but this good lady, as we have already seen, was unable at the time to leave her sick household at Croydon. She sent her new granddaughter a rich bowl with a chiselled cover. It was the custom at that time, when a baptism took place, for the whole family, godfathers and godmothers and guests, to walk in procession from the mansion to the church. As is still the case in Catholic countries, the number of sponsors in pre-Reformation times was unlimited. All these worthy people brought gifts of more or less value, according to the nearness of their kinship and the length of their purses. The Marquess, if he was present, would certainly have worn his robes of state and “carried the salt.” At the church door the christening company was met by the clergy, and after a short prayer the child was named.[12] The officiating priest on this occasion was either Mr. Harding, then chaplain at Bradgate, or else Mr. Cook, Rector of the parish. After being named, the child was carried to the font, which stood in the middle of the church under an extinguisher-like canopy, richly carved and painted, which pulled up and down, so as to keep the holy water clean. In those days the back of the head and the heels of the infant were immersed in the water,[13] the present ceremony of sprinkling having only been introduced into this country from Geneva by the Reformers during Elizabeth’s reign. The infant was also anointed with chrism on the back and breast, a very ancient ceremony, the abolition of which caused considerable controversy and some persecution in the reign of Henry VIII. This anointing, or unction, which was performed within the sacred edifice, was followed by the presentation of the gifts of the various sponsors.[14] Abundant hospitality in the shape of sweet wafers, comfits, spiced wine, or hippocras was dispensed in the porch, not only to the invited company, but to the promiscuous village crowd that elected to attend the function; and at last the procession, with the infant wrapped in a sort of shawl of rich brocade, returned to the mansion, where a dinner was served to the guests and to the members of the household.
The life of an English child in olden times, especially in the upper classes, was by no means the ideal existence it has now become. A careful study of contemporary records proves that the barbarous and filthy system of swathing or “swaddling” an infant was almost universally practised. We may take it for granted that the baby Jane Grey was swathed or “swaddled” according to the prevailing English fashion, from her armpits to her knees, and was thus able at all events to move her tiny hands and feet, a privilege denied her infant contemporaries on the Continent. So late as 1684, Madame de Maintenon, writing to Madame de Présné, who had just been delivered of a son, beseeches her to “adopt the English method of allowing her infant’s limbs free play,” and stigmatises the French custom of “tight swaddling” as “abominably dirty and unhealthy.”