“Farewell, brightest ornament and support of the whole Church of Christ; and may Almighty God long preserve you to us and to His Church!—Your most devoted
“Jana Graia”[151]
Besides these visitors, the Lady Frances appears to have been the friend and patroness of a learned Protestant, Nicholas Udall, the famous stenographer. She was even guardian to his daughter, for a letter from her to Cecil still preserved at Hatfield begs she may be relieved of this responsibility, as the young lady is about to be married.
Late in the autumn of 1549, within six months of Seymour’s execution, the celebrated Roger Ascham came on a visit to Bradgate. He too has been described as tutor to Lady Jane, but this is a mistake; he was preceptor to the Princess Elizabeth. As one of the leading lights of his time, he was already well known to the Marquis of Dorset, and passing through the neighbourhood on his way to attend Rutland and Morysone on an embassy to Charles V, conceived it his duty to pay his respects to the great man’s family.
Walking through the beautiful park at Bradgate, on his way to the Hall, the visitor came upon the Marquis and his lady, with all their household, out hunting. When the cavalcade halted to greet him, Ascham inquired for the Lady Jane, and was told she was at home in her own chamber. He begged leave to wait upon her, a favour readily granted, and found her in her closet “reading the Phædon of Plato in Greek, with as much delight as gentlemen read the merry tales of Boccacio.” Much surprised, he asked the young student “why she relinquished such pastime as was then going on in the park for the sake of study?”
With a smile, Jane replied, “I think all their sport in the park is but a shadow to that pleasure I find in Plato. Alas! good folk, they never felt what true pleasure means.”
“And how attained you, madam,” inquired Ascham, “to this true knowledge of pleasure? And what did chiefly allure you to it, seeing that few women and not many men have arrived at it?”
ROGER ASCHAM’S VISIT TO LADY JANE GREY AT BRADGATE
AFTER THE PAINTING BY J. C. HORSLEY, R.A.
“I will tell you,” replied Lady Jane, “and tell you a truth which perchance you may marvel at. One of the greatest benefits that God ever gave me, is that He sent me, with sharp, severe parents, so gentle a schoolmaster [Aylmer]. When I am in presence of either father or mother, whether I speak, keep silent, sit, stand or go, eat, drink, be merry or sad, be sewing, playing, dancing, or doing anything else, I must do it, as it were in such weight, measure and number, even as perfectly as God made the earth, or else I am so sharply taunted, so cruelly threatened, yea, presented sometimes with pinches, nips and bobs and other things, (which I will not name for the honour I bear them), so without measure misordered, that I think myself in Hell, till the time comes when I must go with Mr. Aylmer, who teacheth me so gently, so pleasantly, and with such pure allurements to learn, that I think all the time of nothing whilst I am with him [that is to say, “the time passes pleasantly when I am with him”]. And when I am called from him, I fall to weeping, because whatever I do else but learning is full of great trouble, fear, and wholesome misliking unto me. And this my book, hath been so much my pleasure, and bringing daily to me more pleasure and more, that in respect of it, all other pleasures in very deed be but trifles and troubles to me.”