Thereupon Jane sent for the Earls of Arundel and Pembroke, and asked their advice. They apparently approved of the line she had taken, and going to young Guildford, informed him he must on no account leave the Tower, nor agree to the Duchess’s proposal that he should separate from his wife, and return with her (i.e. his mother) to Sion House. It is quite probable that if he had done so, his life would have been spared.
Lady Jane’s account of this stormy interview is as follows: “The Lord High Treasurer, Winchester,” says she, “brought me the regalia and the Crown, the which were neither demanded by me nor by any one in my name[228]; he desired to place it on my head to see how it fitted. This I declined with many protestations; but he said, ‘I might take it boldly, for that he would have another made to crown my husband with.’ Which thing I certainly heard with infinite grief, and displeasure of heart. As soon as I was left alone with my husband I reasoned with him, and after we had had a great dispute he consented to wait till he was made King by me and Act of Parliament.” Jane then relates what we have already said—how she sent for the Earls of Arundel and Pembroke, and the scene with the Duchess and her threat of carrying Guildford off to Sion; also how the two Earls were charged to keep Guildford from going there. “And thus,” concludes the narrative, “I was compelled to act as a woman who is obliged to live on good terms with her husband; nevertheless I was not only deluded by the Duke and the Council, but maltreated by my husband and his mother.”
Disregarding Jane’s prudent advice, her ambitious young husband nevertheless did his best to get himself recognised King of England. In the minutes of a dispatch which must have been written during the nine days’ reign of his wife, and is addressed to the Duchess-Regent of the Netherlands by Guildford’s directions, he recalls Sir Thomas Chamberlayne (English Minister in that country) and desires that “in all his (Guildford’s) affairs” full credit be given to Sir Philip Hoby.[229] One of the first acts, therefore, of Jane’s Council was to nominate Sir Philip, then at Brussels, as successor to Chamberlayne; this nomination is signed “Jane the Quene.” Jane herself, true to what she said to her mother-in-law and to Guildford, does not appear to have recognised her husband as King, for no mention of him appears in such of her official documents as have come down to us. All the same, Guildford contrived to get his claims accepted by some Continental notabilities. On learning of the death of Edward VI, Sir Philip Hoby and Sir Richard Morysone,[230] the English Commissioners in Flanders,—who had doubtless been primed beforehand by Northumberland,—wrote from Brussels to the Privy Council (under date of July 15th) that “The xiiih of this presente, Don Diego found me Sir Phillipe Hobby (Hoby), and me Sir Richard Morysone, walkyne in our hostes gardene.” This Don Diego Mendoza[231] was a member of the Spanish administration in the Low Countries, an old personal friend of the Dudley family, and, as already stated, godfather to young Guildford, who had, of course, been baptized a Catholic. On the occasion of this meeting with the Englishmen, the Spaniard, after the usual condolences on the death of Edward VI, passed to praises of that monarch’s wisdom in providing England with so good a King, meaning not “Jane the Quene,” the rightful heiress of the Realm, but Guildford Dudley.[232] The truth may be that Diego said nothing of the kind, and that the English diplomats simply put these words into his mouth, to confirm the Council in its allegiance to Jane, and make it look on Guildford as the King, by creating an impression that his right to the throne was admitted by leading men on the Continent. Don Diego Mendoza told the Commissioners (they said) that his condolences on the occasion of the death of King Edward and his offers of service “to the kyng’s majestie” (Guildford) had been retarded, by the advice of the Bishop of Arras, a member of the Ministry at Brussels. “Therefore says he (i.e. Don Diego, quoted by the Commissioners) do I (feel) sorry that you lose so good a King, so much do I rejoice that ye have so noble and toward a Prince to succeed him, and I promise you, by the word of a gentleman, I would at all times serve His Highness myself if the Emperor (Charles V) did call me to serve him (i.e. “allow me to do so”).” The English Envoys inform the Council that they told Don Diego “they had received the sorrowful news (of the death of Edward VI) but the glad tidings (of the “accession” of Guildford) were not as yet come unto us by letters”—which was probably true, so far as official intimations of them went. Upon this Don Diego replied: “I can tell you this much. The King’s Majesty (Edward VI), for discharge of his conscience, wrote a good piece of his testament with his own hand, barring both his sisters of the Crown, and leaving it to the Lady Jane, near to the French Queen (that is to say, “related to Mary Tudor, Queen of Louis XII of France”). Whether the two daughters be bastards or not or why it is done, we that be strangers have nothing to do. You are bound to obey and serve His Majesty (Guildford Dudley), and therefore it is reasonable (that) we take him for (i.e. “to be”) your King, whom the consent of the nobles of your country have declared for (“to be”) your King, and,” he continued, “for my part of all others, I am bound to be glad that His Majesty is set in this office. I was his godfather, and would as willingly spend my blood in his service as any subject that he hath, as long as I shall see the Emperor willing to embrace (His) Majesty’s amity.” “Don Francisson (Francesco) de Este, general of all the footmen Itallyanes (Italian Infantry),” the Commissioners add, “is gone to his charge in mylland (”Milan“), who, at his departure, made the like offer, as long his master and ours should be friends, which he trusted should be ever, praying us at our return to utter it to the King’s Majesty (Guildford), and will (we) humbly take our leave of your honours.”
It is obvious that, if Diego de Mendoza ever really used the words attributed to him in this letter, and did not merely lend his name to the English Commissioners, he must have been well “coached” by the Dudleys in what he was to say, though his close connection with Guildford as his godfather would naturally incline him to credit anything in his favour. Still, knowing Northumberland and Suffolk’s deep scheming, one cannot suppose that Mendoza’s enthusiasm for Guildford’s illegal claim to royal honours and his haste to admit it was entirely uninspired by outside influences. It is, indeed, a significant fact that Ascham, a great friend of the Duke of Suffolk, and very intimate with the inner workings of English politics, who had been sent abroad as Secretary to Morysone in 1550, was still in Brussels with that knight in the summer of 1553. It is more than probable, therefore, that Ascham, being in correspondence with Suffolk, knew beforehand of the forthcoming elevation of Jane to the throne, and, on behalf of the Duke, advised Hoby and Morysone as to what they should say and do when that event took place, and also had an interview with Don Diego to the same end. We may be certain, however, that Ascham did not countenance the Catholic side of the question.
This letter from the Commissioners was not written until 15th July, and by the time it reached England the political scene had changed. It damaged Guildford’s position seriously by its revelation of the schemes of the Dudleys and their party, who, not content with placing Northumberland’s daughter-in-law on the throne, were also seeking to crown that nobleman’s youngest son. From certain documents in the Belgian and Viennese Archives it would appear that Diego de Mendoza went so far as to address the Emperor directly on the subject of Guildford’s right to the throne, even assuring him that his godson would become a Catholic.
A strong searchlight has been thrown on this hitherto rather obscure passage in the history of this period by the learned Editor of this work, in his interesting volume, Two Queens and Philip.[233] The author, it is true, had suspected that Northumberland must have had some strong foreign support in his audacious attempt to usurp the throne, ostensibly for Lady Jane, though in reality for his own son, Guildford, but Major Martin Hume’s researches in the Spanish Archives have proved beyond a doubt that Charles V was backing him throughout in his perilous undertaking, and this against the interests of his own cousin, Mary Tudor.
The Swiss Reformers, and especially Bocher, doubted the sincerity of Northumberland’s Protestantism, and it is not at all improbable that he had promised the Emperor that, should he succeed in placing Guildford Dudley on the throne and Jane as Queen-Consort, he would veer round to the Catholic party and re-establish papal supremacy in England.
The Emperor had sent the Sieurs de Courrières and Renard as Ambassadors to our Court in the last year of Edward VI. Whether they were deceived by Northumberland or were genuinely of the opinion that the chances of Mary’s succession were very remote and that Jane’s party was infinitely the strongest, we know not, but the Emperor, acting on their advice, backed Northumberland for all he was worth up to the very day that he was captured at Cambridge and conveyed a prisoner to London. Bearing these facts in mind, the almost incredible story which we have just related concerning Guildford’s attempt to secure the throne for himself becomes intelligible.
On the other hand, Northumberland had apparently done nothing to obtain favour for poor Jane’s own Envoys, sent to announce her accession to the Courts of Paris and Vienna, for no sooner had those gentlemen reached the cities in question than they were refused recognition and turned back. The elder Dudley, selfishness incarnate, cared little for the dignity of his daughter-in-law, if only his son might be proclaimed King.
In the Museum at Hastings there is the impression of a hexagonal seal which was to have figured on the State documents of “Queen Jane and King Guildford Dudley.” Under an arched crown, between the initials “G. D.” (Guildford Dudley)—a striking proof of the extent to which his claims to the Crown were carried—are two escutcheons, one to the left bearing the royal arms of England, lions and fleurs-de-lys, and the other to the right, two animals, probably bears, grappling a ragged staff, the arms of the Dudleys. Properly speaking, according to heraldic rule, the royal arms should be on the right and the family arms on the left. Doubtless the mistake was due to the haste with which this seal was prepared. Under the escutcheons are the words “Ioanna Reg,” and on either side the date 1553. The matrix of this seal seems to have been lost; at least, its present whereabouts are unknown.