“I have sent you, good sister Katherine, a book, which, although it be not outwardly rimmed with gold, yet inwardly it is more worth than precious stones. It is the book, dear sister, of the laws of the Lord; it is His Testament and last Will, which He bequeathed unto us wretches, which shall lead you to the path of eternal joy, and if you, with a good mind, read it, and with an earnest desire follow it, shall bring you to an immortal and everlasting life. It will teach you to live, and learn you to die; it shall win you more than you should have gained by the possession of your woeful father’s lands,[297] for as if God had prospered him, ye should have inherited his lands, so if you apply diligently [to] your book [i.e. the Bible], trying to direct your life after it, you shall be an inheritor of such riches as neither the covetous shall withdraw from you, neither the thief shall steal, neither yet the moth corrupt. Desire, sister, to understand the law of the Lord your God. Live still to die, that you by death may purchase eternal life; or after your death enjoy the life purchased [for] you by Christ’s death; and trust not the tenderness of your age shall lengthen your life, for as soon, if God will, goeth the young as the old; and labour alway to learn to die. Deny the world, defy the devil, and despise the flesh. Delight yourself only in the Lord. Be patient for your sins, and yet despair not. Be steady in faith, yet presume not, and desire with St. Paul to be dissolved and to be with Christ, with whom even in death there is life. Be like the good servant, and even at midnight be waking; lest when death cometh and stealeth upon you, like a thief in the night, you be with the evil servant found sleeping, and lest for lack of oil ye be found like the first foolish wench,[298] and like him that had not on the wedding garment, and then be cast out from the marriage. Resist [sin] in ye [yourself] as I trust ye do, and seeing ye have the name of a Christian, as near as ye can, follow the steps of your master Christ, and take up your cross; lay your sins on His back, and always embrace Him; and as touching my death, rejoice as I do, and assist [perhaps, ‘consider’] that I shall be delivered of this corruption, and put on incorruption, for I am assured that I shall for losing of a mortal life find an immortal felicity. Pray God grant you [and] send you of His grace to live in His fear, and to die in the love [here is an illegible passage, perhaps made so by fast falling tears], neither for love of life, nor fears of death. For if ye deny His truth to lengthen your life, God will deny you, and shorten your days; and if ye will cleave to Him, He will prolong your days, to your comfort and His glory, to the which glory God bring mine and you hereafter, when it shall please God to call you.
“Farewell, good sister, put your only trust in God, who only must uphold you.—Your loving sister,
“Jane Dudley”
The precious volume containing this letter is fortunately the property of the nation, deposited in the MS. department of the British Museum.
In the British Museum[299] there is also a small and beautiful MS. vellum prayer book, imperfect in one or two pages. Four inches in length, and nearly two inches thick, bound in red morocco, and richly ornamented, it contains thirty-five distinctly Protestant prayers. The catalogue of the Harleian Collection states that it “was perhaps written by the direction of Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset and Protector of England, upon his first commitment to the Tower of London; and that the last five prayers were added after his second commitment, which ended in his execution.” On the margin of several pages, not more than three lines occupying the same leaf, are a series of interesting autographs. The first of these is in the hand of Lord Guildford Dudley, and runs as follows:—
“Your loving and obedient son wisheth unto your grace long life in this world, with as much joy and comfort as ever I wish to myself; and in the world to come, joy everlasting.—Your most humble son till his death,
“G. Dudley”
It has been conjectured from this inscription that Guildford presented the book to his father-in-law, on the occasion of his wedding with Lady Jane; unless the inscription was addressed to his father, Northumberland. It is also supposed that the Duke of Suffolk, having received it from Guildford, left it behind him after his release from his three days’ imprisonment in the Tower. Others say that Sir John Gage, Constable of the Tower, gave it himself to his prisoners, so that they might write something in it for him to keep in remembrance of them. It was certainly in Jane’s possession for some time, for she carried it with her to the scaffold; and it contains in her hand, a solemn farewell to, and prayer for, her father, in the following terms:—
“The Lord comfort your grace, and that in his word, wherein all creatures only are to be comforted. And though it hath pleased God to take ij of your children, yet think not, I most humbly beseech your grace, that you have lost them; but trust that we, by leaving this mortal life, have won an immortal life. And I, for my part, as I have honoured your grace in this life, will pray for you in another life.[300]—Your grace’s humble daughter,
“Jane Dudley”
Shortly before proceeding to her execution, Jane’s kindly jailor, Sir Thomas Brydges, begged her to give him something to keep in memory of her; whereupon she offered him this very prayer book, and at his request wrote in a third sentence:
“Forasmuch as you have desired so simple a woman to write in so worthy a book, good master Lieutenant, therefore I shall as a friend desire you, and as a Christian require you, to call upon God, to incline your heart to His laws, quicken you in His ways, and not to take the word of truth utterly out of your mouth. Live still to die, that by death you may purchase eternal life; and remember how the end of Methuselah, who as we read in the Scriptures was the longest liver that was of a manner, died at the last. For, as the preacher saith, there is a time to be born and a time to die; and the day of death is better than the day of our birth.—Yours as the Lord knoweth as a friend,
“Jane Dudley”
Finally, at some time or other during her imprisonment, Jane wrote three further inscriptions on the last page of this book in Latin, Greek, and English, which run as follows:—