Since his accession to great wealth the Duke of Suffolk had gradually abandoned Bradgate for London and fixed his family’s abode at Sheen,[182] in the abbot’s buildings of the once opulent Carthusian monastery, which he had adapted as a private residence.[183] Here the Suffolks resided towards the end of the year 1552 and during the early part of the momentous year 1553. The house, a large and noble structure, with a long Gothic gallery running from end to end, stood close to the venerable palace built by Edward the Confessor. It was supposed to be haunted—the place was often disturbed after dark by the sound of footsteps, the rustle of ghostly garments, and the mutter of unearthly voices; but the most ghastly incident of all was one which struck sudden terror into the hearts of the Duke and Duchess as they paced the gallery in the gloaming. All at once a skeleton hand and arm thrust itself from the wall, and brandished in their faces a sword, or, as some said, an axe, dripping with blood. It should be remembered that the Lady Frances was now in possession of nearly all the Carthusian property in and about London, which had been granted by Henry VIII to her father, Charles Brandon, and which she had lately inherited from her stepbrothers; and this spectre may have been contrived by some friend of the exiled Brotherhood to impress on the Duchess and her brood the sacrilegious origin of this wealth, which certainly did not bring them good luck.
Nearly opposite to this uncanny residence stood Syon or Sion House, an ancient Bridgetine convent which had been presented at the Dissolution to the late Duke of Somerset, and which his rival, the Duke of Northumberland, had filched from his widow. As the scene of the most dramatic event in Lady Jane Grey’s short life, it still retains considerable historical interest; but although much of the old convent is standing, the cloisters and other portions have been hidden under the plaster and stucco of an exceedingly ugly structure of the debased Victorian villa type.[184]
Northumberland, although he had not yet evolved the scheme of marrying his only bachelor and youngest son to Jane Grey, none the less considered the amity of the Suffolks too valuable an asset to be neglected. At this time Northumberland’s power and certainly his secrets were largely shared by his ally, the Duke of Suffolk, who never took any initiative or made a step in any direction without the consent of his all-powerful friend, who knew him to be a “weakling.”[185]
SUPPOSED PORTRAIT OF LADY JANE GREY, FORMERLY IN THE COLLECTION OF COL. ELLIOTT, AND NOW AT OXFORD UNIVERSITY
FROM AN ENGRAVING AFTER THE PAINTING BY HOLBEIN
Northumberland, it would seem, did not at first intend Guildford for Lady Jane Grey, but for the Lady Margaret Clifford, whose right to the throne was at this time considered less disputable, she being Henry VIII’s own grand-niece, eldest daughter of the Lady Eleanor Brandon, the younger sister of the Duchess of Suffolk. Born after the nullification of Charles Brandon’s marriage with Lady Mortimer, her legitimacy was indisputable, whereas the enemies of the Suffolks were busily engaged about this time (1552) in spreading a report that Jane was illegitimate, her mother, the Lady Frances, having come into the world during the lifetime of the said Lady Mortimer. This insinuation was probably made by Lady Powis, Brandon’s eldest daughter by his second wife, Anne Browne. At one moment this matter of Lady Jane’s illegitimacy came very near saving her life, but Queen Mary, to whom the matter was represented, refused, it is said, to take such a possibility into consideration, out of respect for the memory of her aunt, the Queen-Duchess of Suffolk, whose marriage would have been invalidated if this assumption had been proved. Among Catholics, however, Lady Jane’s legitimacy was much disputed, and the Lady Eleanor prudently refused to encourage any great intimacy between her daughter and Northumberland’s son; she and her family, indeed, kept themselves in the background as much as they possibly could. At last, even though the boy-King had been induced to take an interest in the projected marriage, and had written both to Northumberland and to the Earl of Cumberland on the subject, the Duke altered his mind, and in 1553, with the casual fashion of those days, having decided to marry Guildford to the Lady Jane, he “offered” the Lady Margaret Clifford to his own younger brother, Sir Andrew Dudley.[186]
Perhaps that which finally decided Northumberland to abandon his first project was the unguarded and compromising language used by a certain Mrs. Huggones, a former servant of the widowed Duchess of Somerset. This good woman’s tongue having been loosened on one occasion by too liberal potations—the conversation is said to have taken place during supper—openly lamented the Duke of Somerset’s misfortunes (the incident occurred about August 1552), called the young King an unnatural nephew, and vivaciously remarked she wished she “had the jerking of him.” She added that Lord Guildford Dudley was to marry the daughter of the Earl of Cumberland, the match having been planned by the King, and finally, “with a stoute gesture,” she cried, “have at the Crown, with your leave.” Further, she used “unseemly saiyenges, neither meet to be spoken, nor conseyled of any hearer.” Sir William Stafford, in whose house at Rochford, in Essex, the affair apparently occurred, wrote to the Privy Council an account of these injudicious remarks. On 8th September, Mrs. Huggones was arraigned before Sir Robert Bowes, Master of the Robes, and Sir Arthur Darcy, Lieutenant of the Tower, acting for the Privy Council. She denied what had been said of her, and expressed great admiration for Northumberland. “And, moreover, she being examined of the last article concerning the marriage of the Lord Guildford Dudley with the Earl of Cumberland’s daughter, she deposeth that she heard it spoken in London (but by whom she now remembereth not) that the King’s maty had made such a marriage, and so she told the first night that she came to Rochford to supper, showing herself to be glad thereof, and so she thought that all the hearers were also glad at that marriage.”[187] Maybe the fact that her daughter was becoming the subject of popular gossip was another incentive to the proud Lady Eleanor to place obstacles in the way of Northumberland’s proposal.[188]
There is no evidence that any of the Reformers visited the Suffolks at Sheen, but it is probable they did so, for the success of the Northumberlands’ scheme depended on the zeal of Lady Jane for Protestantism being kept at fever heat; and we may therefore conclude her Reforming friends were frequent guests at the ex-monastery.
The foreign Reformers were at this time very active all over England. Cranmer was particularly engaged with them, sending the smartest among them to lecture at Oxford and Cambridge, and inviting the great Melanchthon, and even Calvin himself, to visit England and preach, although the religious opinions of both were very different from his own. He even proposed to Calvin the formation of a sort of Protestant œcumenical council in London in opposition to the Council of Trent. In March 1552, he wrote to Calvin: “Our adversaries are now holding their Council at Trent for the establishment of their errors. Shall we neglect to call together here in London a godly synod for restoring and propagating the truth?”