CHAPTER XI
THE EDUCATION OF LADY JANE
The extraordinary revival of letters in Italy, France, and Germany at the close of the fifteenth century did not fail to influence English education, and especially that of high-born women. In this department the exclusively classical culture then in vogue, which barred many subjects now held of far greater importance, would undoubtedly be deemed unpractical and excessive for women nowadays. Modern literature, however, was then in its infancy, and apart from the classics there was little to read but crude if noble poetry, and some historical, theological, and legendary works of a very primitive sort. These soon palled, whereas, to the cultured mind, the classic authors presented, then as now, an ever-varying and delightful fund of information and amusement. Science, in the modern acceptation of the word, was in its infancy, and, in the opinion of the most learned persons of the day, the secrets of theology and Nature, and those of art as well, were embodied in the works of the ancients, and above all in the Holy Scriptures. A knowledge of Greek and Latin was thus supposed to give the key to all science. It was the fashion, too, for princesses and women of noble birth to be, or to pose as being, learned; and notwithstanding the political and religious convulsions of the reign of Henry VIII, a number of English ladies of the highest rank, following the example of their French and Italian sisters, devoted their leisure to studies usually left nowadays to that class of pedantic females whom we somewhat scornfully dub “blue-stockings.” This practice was not confined to women who had embraced the Reformed tenets. Many Catholics,—the daughter of Sir Thomas More and her learned friend, Margaret Clement, for instance,—deeply versed in studies of this description, enjoyed the dialogues of Plato, and may have laughed over the scorching epigrams of Martial and the stinging satires of Juvenal in the original, and even recognised their applicability to the society of their own times. Most of the women who surrounded Lady Jane Grey were pedants, and even her shallow-hearted mother had presumably acquired a fair knowledge of classical literature.
But it was not till the young girl returned to Bradgate, after the death of Thomas Seymour, that the system of “cramming,” which was to give her, at the age of seventeen, a reputation as a marvel of erudition, began in grim earnest.
Dorset, who had been summoned to London to attend the trial of his quondam friend, the Admiral, as a witness against him, retired to Bradgate in some despondency after its fatal termination. He and his wife felt they had been wasting their time over Thomas Seymour; they were conscious, too, that they were living under a cloud, for the revelation of their pecuniary interest in the transfer of their daughter to so notorious a scamp had produced a most damaging impression on the public mind. But the failure of their plans had not quenched their ambition. They took their luckless child back with them, and straightway set about preparing her to occupy the towering position they felt assured she would sooner or later be called to fill.
Her education was forthwith entrusted to the celebrated Aylmer, a native of Leicestershire, whom Elizabeth made Bishop of London, to reward him for his scathing answer to John Knox’s pamphlet, The First Blast of the Trumpet against the Monstrous Regiment [i.e. regimen = régime or government] of Women. Aylmer, at this time a good-looking man in his early thirties, was, so Bacon tells us, engaged as tutor to the daughters of the Marquis of Dorset at Bradgate. The new preceptor was in close correspondence with the Genevan Reformers, and it must have been through him that Jane became acquainted with the celebrated Bullinger and with John ab Ulmis, better known as Ulmer, a learned but destitute Swiss Calvinist, who visited Bradgate as early as the summer of 1550. He mastered the English language, and having been sent to pursue his studies at Oxford at the Marquis of Dorset’s expense, he spent his summer vacation at Bradgate, giving lessons in Greek and Latin to Lady Jane and her younger but less talented sister, Lady Katherine, and together with John Aylmer and Dr. Harding the Rector of Bradgate, superintended her classical and theological education. A somewhat crafty young man was Ulmer, skilled in the art of flattery, and much addicted to repaying solid benefits by empty compliments. He it was who urged Bullinger, his master, to dedicate his book, The Holy Marriage of Christians, to the Lord Marquis of Dorset, a rather venturesome act, seeing this nobleman was publicly credited with bigamy![150] Bullinger also presented the Marquis and the Lady Jane with a copy of his book, dedicated to Henry II of France, on Christian Perfection, for which the latter wrote to thank him in her father’s name on 12th July 1551. Her epistle is written in Latin, and may have been suggested and even edited by Aylmer: it also contains a Biblical quotation in Hebrew. The following extract from it gives a fair idea of how this child of fourteen addressed one of the most learned men of his time:—
“From that little volume of pure and unsophisticated religion, which you lately sent to my father and myself, I gather daily, as out of a most beautiful garden, the sweetest flowers. My father also, as far as his weighty engagements permit, is diligently occupied in the perusal of it: but whatever advantage either of us may derive from thence, we are bound to render thanks to you for it, and to God on your account; for we cannot think it right to receive with ungrateful minds such and so many truly divine benefits, conferred by Almighty God through the instrumentality of yourself and those like you, not a few of whom Germany is now in this respect so happy as to possess. If it be customary with mankind, as indeed it ought to be, to return favour for favour, and to show ourselves mindful of benefits bestowed; how much rather should we endeavour to embrace with joyfulness the benefits conferred by divine goodness, and at least to acknowledge them with gratitude, though we may be unable to make an adequate return!
“I come now to that part of your letter,” continues Lady Jane, “which contains a commendation of myself, which as I cannot claim, so also I ought not to allow; but whatever the Divine Goodness may have bestowed on me, I ascribe only to Himself, as the chief and sole author of anything in me that bears any semblance to what is good; and to Whom I entreat you, most accomplished sir, to offer your constant prayers in my behalf, that He may so direct me and all my actions, that I may not be found unworthy of His so great goodness. My most noble father would have written to you, to thank you both for the important labours in which you are engaged, and also for the singular courtesy you have manifested by inscribing with his name and publishing under his auspices your Fifth Decade, had he not been summoned by most weighty business in His Majesty’s service to the remotest parts of Britain; but as soon as public affairs afford him leisure he is determined, he says, to write to you with all diligence.”
Here follows an urgent request for a scheme for the study of the Hebrew language. She concludes:—