CHAPTER XIX
THE TRIAL OF QUEEN JANE
The writer of the Chronicle of Queen Jane and Queen Mary relates that he dined with Queen Jane in “Partridge’s House,” on 27th August, and incidentally mentions her evident resentment at her father-in-law’s apostacy. This chronicler appears to have been a resident in the Tower, and a friend of Partridge. He writes: “I dined at Partridge’s house with my Lady Jane being there present, she sitting at the board’s end, Brydges, his wife, Sarah, my lady’s gentlewoman and her man, she commanding Brydges and me to put on our caps [sic]. Amongst our communications at this dinner, this was to be noted. After she had once or twice drunk to me and bade me heartily welcome, saith she: ‘The Queen’s Majesty is a merciful Princess; I beseech God she may long continue, and send His bountiful grace upon her.’
“After that we fell to discussing matters of religion, and she asked, ‘What he was that preached at Paul’s on Sunday before——’ “‘Yea, forsooth,’ quoth I, ‘in some places.’ “‘It may be so,’ quoth she. ‘It is not so strange as the sudden conversion of the late Duke, for who would have thought he would have so done?’ “It was answered her, ‘Perchance he thereby hoped to have had his pardon.’ “‘Pardon,’ quoth she, ‘Woe worth him. He hath brought me and our stock in most miserable calamity, and misery by this exceeding ambition. But for the answering that he hoped for life by turning, though others be of the same opinion, I utterly am not, for what man is there living, I pray you, although he had been innocent, that would hope of life in that case—being in the field against the Queen, in person as general, and after his taking, so hated and evil spoken of by the Commons, and at his coming into prison, so wondered at, as the like was never heard by any man’s time? Who was judge that he should hope for pardon, whose life was odious to all men? But what will ye more? Like as his life was wicked and full of dissimulation, so was his end thereafter. I pray God I, nor no friend of mine, die so. Should I, who am young and in the flower of my years, forsake my faith for love of life? Nay, God forbid. Much more he should not, whose fatal course, though he had lived his just number of years, could not have long continued. But life was sweet, it appeared, so he might have lived, you will say, he did not care how. Indeed, the reason is good, for he that would have lived in chains to have had his life, belike would leave no other means attempted. But God be merciful to us, for He sayeth, ‘Whoso denieth Him before man, He will not know him in His Father’s Kingdom.’ “With this and much other talk, the dinner passed away, which ended, I thanked her Ladyship that she would vouchsafe to accept me in her company, and she thanked me likewise, and said I was welcome. She thanked Brydges also for bringing me to dinner. ‘Madam,’ said he, ‘we are all somewhat bold, not knowing that your Ladyship dined before, until we found your Ladyship there.’” A little later, that is, at the end of September and in October, Lady Jane’s hopes of release may have risen, for Mary had returned from St. James’s Palace to the Tower, for the Coronation. There is no evidence that she ever came into personal contact with Lady Jane Grey after the friendly visit to Newhall in the summer of 1552. If so interesting an event had taken place, there would surely be some trace of it; some account, however brief, of the broken words poor Jane’s trembling lips uttered, when she, the Queen-usurping, and Mary, the Queen-Regnant, stood face to face. But since there is no contemporary mention of such a meeting, we must conclude it never occurred, even at this time, when Jane was awaiting an uncertain fate in one corner of the Tower, while Mary was receiving the homage of the hypocrite Councillors in its State chambers.