There is nothing in Reformation correspondence so interesting or so curious as the Zurich Letters—no writings so rich in details and revelations. The tone of these old letters, of Melanchthon, Calvin, Cranmer, Hooper, Conrad Pellican, Œcolampadius, Hilles, Hales, Gualter, Fagius, Stumphius, Ab Ulmis, Bullinger, Bucer, etc. etc., is strangely modern. It is easy to imagine oneself to be reading the documentary evidence of some great modern revolutionary scheme for “the betterment of humanity.” All these worthies held themselves in a “godly” light uncommon to the rest of mankind. They, and they only, brandished the torch of truth, albeit they did not by any means hold identical views on even the most vital points of Christian faith—but they were as one when face to face with their common enemy, the Pope, and the religion he represented, and any blow dealt at Lutheranism was an equal joy to them. Cranmer would have burnt half of them to cinders for their “heresies” had they been Englishmen—he sent Anne Askew and Joan Bocher to the stake for holding “errors” which coincided with those of some of his foreign friends, Stumphius, Fagius, and Calvin, for instance! He would have hanged a Briton for stating in plain English his belief in predestination—but none the less invited over to a synod the great teacher of that desperate doctrine. These men were, no doubt, in earnest, and have left some strange details of their doings which throw floods of light on the history and mentality of the times in which they lived. They believed themselves to be so many God-appointed apostles, and addressed each other as “father in Christ,” even substituting for their common Teutonic names rich-sounding classical ones—Œcolampadius, Stumphius, Massarius, Utenhovius, Terentianus, Vadianus, Osiander, Dryander, Ochianus, etc. They would willingly have suffered death heroically and patiently for what they believed to be the truth. On the other hand, they could hate like very devils; Mary to them was Jezebel or Ataliah, Philip, Satan, Pole, a hell-hound, and the Pope, the Scarlet Whore and worse than the Devil. They could not speak decently of their adversaries; and it is precisely here that we see their influence on the youthful Jane—the reason why, if she really wrote the letter to Harding after his reversion to Catholicism, she employed a viragoish language unworthy of so gentle a Christian.
We have no positive proof of how the two families, of Northumberland and Suffolk, passed their time in the more genial months of the years 1552–3, when the Thames is pleasantest, especially in the neighbourhood where they had elected to pitch their respective camps. The two Dukes and their Duchesses cannot always have been engaged in political intrigues; they must have given themselves some occasional recreation, and we may imagine that archery, tennis, and other sports, dancing, music, and such amusements, were frequently indulged in at Sheen and Sion, the two state barges incessantly crossing and recrossing the river, from one mansion to the other. We can picture the scene on the lawn in front of Sion, down which the handsome Duchess of Northumberland often went to welcome the Lady Frances and her daughters as they landed from their barge, leading them, with the stately ceremony of those days, from the water-gate to the terrace in front of the former convent, and so into the cloisters along which the sisterhood of St. Bridget had so often and so recently passed in solemn procession to their now ruined chapel. And then came the gay romp in the hall and the merry games of the young folk, in which even the austere little Lady Jane would condescend to mingle, to the righteous consternation, doubtless, of her friends from Zurich and Geneva. Here, too, must have come the handsome Ambrose Dudley, lately married to the Lady Anne Seymour;[189]—but did that lady visit the house of the man who had compassed the ruin and death of her father? And here Robert Dudley, afterwards the famous Earl of Leicester, may have brought his affianced wife, the fair Amy Robsart of Kenilworth fame. And the Lady Mary Sidney, Northumberland’s elder daughter, and wife of Sir Henry Sidney, soon to become the mother of one of the most illustrious men of the Elizabethan age, no doubt joined the circle with her clever young husband. In these hours of relaxation, when the dark undertakings to which the politics of those bloody days forced them were forgotten, these youths overflowed with animal spirits, and it is more than likely that Jane and her sister Katherine, and even the little Lady Mary, romped merrily with their guests. It was a romping age, the good old healthy country dances were in high favour, and the best performer was he who could lift his lady highest off the ground, or could cross his legs twice in a pirouette before he touched the floor again! Northumberland himself was famous as a dancer of extraordinary elegance and skill. That the Calvinism in which they had dabbled had not as yet stirred up Henry of Suffolk and his Tudor consort to a proper pitch of “godliness” is evident, for a company of players who had enacted comedies, tragedies, and tragi-comedies at Tylsey in the previous year, repeated their performances at Sheen in the winter of 1552–3, and brought a smile, perchance, to the pale lips of the studious Lady Jane, and evoked a hearty laugh from her materialistic mother, who, for aught we know to the contrary,—let us hope it was not so!—may already have begun to allow a certain ginger-headed Master Adrian Stokes, His Lordship’s Groom of the Chambers, to pay her compliments which a great Princess and an honest woman ought to have nipped in the bud. Tradition has it that Northumberland and his colleague of Suffolk often played a game of chess together, and that Suffolk would wax irritable if Northumberland won more often than himself.
No doubt, as soon as the Cumberland affair was broken off, and Northumberland had decided to marry his son to Lady Jane, Guildford was thrown as much into the young girl’s society as was possible in those days of rigid etiquette, when maidens of rank were not often allowed out of the sight of their parents and governesses. But there is no record of any love-making between the young folk: on the contrary, there is plenty of evidence that the girl disliked her suitor. About a week before the wedding her parents ordered her to marry the young gentleman, and, according to Baoardo,[190] she at first stoutly refused, “her heart,” she said, “being plighted elsewhere.” The Duke harshly reiterated his command and, according to the Italian chronicler, even struck his daughter several hard blows, whilst the broad red face of the Lady Frances purpled threateningly. The Duke told Jane her marriage had been ordained by no less a person than King Edward himself, and sharply inquired “whether she intended to disobey her King as well as her father?” Poor Jane, aching from his blows, could scarcely stammer her reply, “that she could not marry with Guildford since she was already contracted to another” and that with her father’s consent,—she doubtless alluded to the young Earl of Hertford, the late Duke of Somerset’s son. But what could a forlorn little girl of less than sixteen do, surrounded, as Jane was, by people whom she believed to be all-powerful? She had been so “nipped and pinched and bobbed” in her youth for an ill-constructed Latin verse or a faulty translation of a Greek sentence,[191] that her spirit was already more or less broken; she gave a reluctant consent at last; and straightway the two Duchesses began their wedding preparations. Milliners and haberdashers, glove-makers, embroiderers and Italian silk merchants flocked to Sion and Sheen to display their gewgaws and rich stuffs. Let us hope the little bride-elect derived some childish pleasure from all this finery, the ostentatious display of which must have thrown her Calvinistic friends into hysterics of righteous indignation. And thus, long before she went to the Tower and thence to her unmerited doom, Jane’s life was made a burden to her. Like the forlorn bride of Lammermoor, she was the victim of cruel parents, and one only wonders her young mind did not totter under the weight of so much woe!
Lord Guildford Dudley was born about 1533, and was consequently not yet of age, as Queen Mary afterwards remarked to the Imperial Ambassador. He was in his nineteenth year at the time of his ill-omened marriage. The Duchess of Northumberland, his mother, was granddaughter of that Lady Guildford who had been governess to Mary Tudor, sister of Henry VIII, and to whom occasional allusion is made in early Tudor documents as “Moder Guildford.” This lady had contrived to offend Louis XII of France, who packed her off to England the day after he married the English Princess. Thus the great-grandson of the governess and the granddaughter of the royal pupil eventually became man and wife. Lord Guildford Dudley’s case is believed to be the first instance, in this country, of the bestowal of a family instead of a Christian name at baptism; in stricter Catholic times it had been illegal to baptize a child by any name but that of a saint. Guildford was a tall, well-built youth, of very fair complexion.[192] In contrast with his splendid colouring and light-brown hair, he had the soft brown eyes which lend so peculiar a charm to the authentic portraits of his father, whose darling he was.[193] The Northumberland family was proverbially beautiful;—Robert, the famous Earl of Leicester and lover of Queen Elizabeth, was considered the handsomest man of his time. Guildford Dudley had a second name, James or Diego, received at his christening from a Spanish[194] nobleman, the famous Diego Hurtado de Mendoza, a trivial circumstance, apparently, but fatal in its consequences, for, as we shall see, it was largely a foolishly worded letter from this godfather that brought Guildford to the block.
It is uncertain whether Jane’s wedding was celebrated towards the end of May or in the beginning of June[195] (1553), but the former is the date generally received. Three marriages occurred on the same day: the first that of Lady Jane Grey and Guildford Dudley; the second between Lord Herbert,[196] eldest son of the Earl of Pembroke, and the Lady Katherine Grey, younger sister of Guildford’s bride; whilst the third was between Henry, Lord Hastings, eldest son of the Earl of Huntingdon, and Lady Katherine, the young sister of Lord Guildford Dudley. On the same day, little Lady Mary Grey, barely eight years of age, was solemnly betrothed to her equally youthful kinsman, Arthur, Lord Grey of Wilton.
Lady Jane Grey’s wedding seems to have been exceptionally magnificent. Strype tells us that to increase its splendour and solemnity, the Master of the Wardrobe, Sir Andrew Dudley, had orders to deliver to the various parties much rich apparel and jewels out of the royal wardrobe.[197] As the King’s “table diamond” was delivered to the Princess Mary about this time, it seems probable that she also attended the wedding. These articles were not new, but consisted of velvets, brocades, pieces of cloth of gold, of silver, etc., the property of the late Duke of Somerset and of his Duchess, who was still a prisoner in the Tower; which had been forfeited to the King, on their attainder. Thus was poor Jane’s bridal party bedecked with the finery of her father’s victim, who preceded her by a few months only on the road to the bloodstained scaffold. The French Ambassador also mentions the exceptional pomp displayed at this wedding, but gives no details.
No contemporary account of this particular ceremony is in existence,[198] but the general custom was for the bride, attired in a dress highly ornamented with gold and embroidery, her hair hanging down, curiously waved and plaited, to be led to the church “between two sweet boys, with bride laces, and rosemary tied about their silken sleeves.” Before the bride was carried “a fair bride cup, of silver gilt,” “therein was a goodly branch of rosemary, gilded very fair, and hung about with silken ribbands of all colours; next there was a noise of musicians, that played all the way before her.”[199] Then followed a train of virgins in white, crowned with fresh flowers, with their hair hanging loose, some bearing bride cakes, and others garlands, adorned with gold. Last came the bridegroom, splendidly apparelled, with young men following close behind. There were scarves and gloves, an “epithalamium” and masques and dances; and “all the company was decked out with the bride’s colours, in every form and fantasy.”
When Jane’s marriage took place, the populace, though far from pleased with the exorbitant pretensions of the Duke of Northumberland, could not forbear admiring the bridegroom’s extreme beauty of person. The bride was considered pretty, but small and freckled. She must have come, in all her bridal bravery, from Suffolk House in the Strand to Durham House, for it was the custom then, as it is still, for the bride to start from her paternal roof, and meet the bridegroom at the church door or even at the altar. The Church of St. Mary-le-Strand having been destroyed by Somerset, the service was undoubtedly held in the private chapel of the ex-palace of the Bishops of Durham, then the town residence of Northumberland.
Edward VI was too ill to attend the wedding, and there is no direct evidence that either of the Princesses, his sisters, were present; though, as we have already said, Princess Mary may have been. Their absence, however, points to their fear of Northumberland’s sinister intentions. The young King made his cousin, Jane, and Lady Katherine Grey some wedding gifts of jewels and plate.
Burke says in his Tudor Portraits, though on what authority he does not tell us, that on the morning of her fatal marriage, “Lady Jane’s headdress[200] was of green velvet, set round with precious stones. She wore a gown of cloth of gold, and a mantle of silver tissue. Her hair hung down her back, combed and plaited in a curious fashion ‘then unknown to ladies of qualitie.’ This arrangement was said to have been devised by Mrs. Elizabeth Tylney, her friend and attendant, who was with her to the end. The bride was led to the altar by two handsome pages, with bride lace and rosemary tied to their sleeves. Sixteen virgins, dressed in ‘pure white,’ preceded the bride to the altar. Northumberland and his family were remarkable on this occasion for the splendour of their costumes. We have seen that they were jays in borrowed plumes. A profusion of flowers was scattered along the bridal route, the church bells gave a greeting, and the poor received beef, bread and ale for three days.”