The Latin—“If justice is done with my body, my soul will find mercy with God.”
The Greek—“Death will give pain to my body for its sins, but the soul will be justified before God.”
The English—“If my faults deserve punishment, my youth at least and my imprudence were worthy of excuse. God and posterity will show me favour.”[301]
It was on this, the last Sunday evening of her unhappy life, that Jane wrote the well-known prayer, which, although quoted in full by Foxe and Howard, is not now extant in Lady Jane’s own hand, and may therefore, like several letters, etc., attributed to her, be apocryphal.[302]
The few details we possess as to the acts of other State prisoners, implicated in Northumberland’s plot, on the day of their execution, are lacking in the case of Lady Jane; no record has come to us of how she slept on her last night of life; of those who were present at her last mournful meal. However, enough has been reported by contemporary writers to enable us to reconstruct the events of the later portion of the day, when the hour of the execution drew near. It is clearly stated that Lord Guildford Dudley made an attempt to see his wife before his death, and even informed his guards of his desire to do so. Hearing of this, Mary sent word, on the very morning of the fatal day, that “if it would be any consolation to them, they should be allowed to see each other before their execution.” When this concession was communicated to Lady Jane she declined it, saying “it would only disturb the holy tranquillity with which they had prepared themselves for death”; and unnerve them for the supreme moment. At the same time she sent a message to Guildford to the effect that such a meeting “would rather weaken than strengthen him”; that he ought to be sufficiently strong in himself to need no such consolation; that “if his soul were not firm and settled, she could not settle it by her eyes, nor confirm it by her words; that he would do well to remit this interview till they met in a better world, where friendships were happy and unions indissoluble, and theirs, she hoped, would be eternal.” But Jane took her stand at the window of her room to watch her husband pass, a little before ten o’clock, to his doom on Tower Hill. Sir Thomas Brydges stood by her, as she waved her hand to Guildford. Burke (Tudor Portraits) says, but without naming his authority, that “like his father and brothers,” Guildford Dudley, “recanted his supposed Protestantism whilst in the Tower”; and that “he was attended to the scaffold by two Benedictine Fathers.” Other and earlier writers do, indeed, declare that Guildford received Communion according to the rites of the Roman Catholic Church before his death; but The Chronicle of Queen Jane and Queen Mary makes no mention of this recantation, and clearly says no minister of any religion attended at Guildford Dudley’s execution.[303] At the Bulwark Gate of the Tower (its outside entrance), Guildford was met by Sir Anthony Browne and Sir John Throckmorton, and several other gentlemen who had assembled to bid him farewell, and with whom he shook hands “pleasantly.” Here, too, Sir Thomas Offley, the Sheriff of Middlesex, in accordance with precedent,[304] took charge of the prisoner. The mob that in those days invariably assembled to witness such sinister functions, was on Tower Hill in its hundreds, nay thousands, to see the poor boy beheaded. He looked very handsome, in his suit of black velvet slashed with dark coloured cloth: his tall and youthful figure impressed the people most favourably, and a murmur of sympathy ran through the motley throng. Guildford did not attempt to make a speech. He knelt down and said his prayers—simple prayers he had learnt as a child—and, it was said, he shed some tears at the thought of dying so young. But despite the youth’s natural emotion, he faced death bravely. He begged the “good people” to pray for him; took off his doublet himself, unfastened his collar with his own hands, knelt on the straw, stretched out his graceful limbs, laid his head on the block; and in an instant, with one stroke of the axe, his spirit passed into Eternity.[305] His blood-stained corpse, covered with a sheet, was thrown into a tumbril or handcart filled with straw, and his head, wrapped in a cloth, was cast at its feet.
And now a horrible incident occurred. Whether by accident or design,[306] Jane caught a glimpse of her husband’s mutilated remains as they were carried into the Tower for interment. We have several versions of this story: some say she saw the body taken out of the cart[307] and carried into St. Peter’s Chapel, whilst a passage in Grafton[308] lends colour to the belief (adopted by many historians, including Turner and Nicolas) that she met the corpse as she was herself proceeding to the scaffold. What most likely happened is, that she was waiting to be summoned by the Lieutenant of the Tower and the Sheriffs, when she heard the rumbling of cart wheels, and before her attendants could prevent her, rushed to the window, and beheld the hideous sight, without, however, it seems, expressing any great emotion. “Oh Guildford, Guildford!” we are told she exclaimed, “the antepast that you have tasted, and I shall soon taste, is not so bitter as to make my flesh tremble; for all this is nothing to the feast that you and I shall partake this day in Paradise.”
The direful procession which was to conduct a young and innocent Princess of the Blood Royal, of barely seventeen summers, to the foot of an ignominious scaffold, was formed according to established precedent. But for some unexplained reason, it was nearly an hour late in starting from Partridge’s house to the place of execution, opposite the Church of St. Peter-ad-Vincula, where, since that day, countless pilgrims from the Old and New Worlds have paused to ponder a moment over the fate of Lady Jane Grey, and have learnt to hate Mary Tudor with an almost personal detestation. The delay may have resulted from the state of nervous prostration into which the unfortunate Princess had been thrown by the sight of her husband’s mangled remains. It would have been impossible, even in those hard times, to convey the victim to execution if she had swooned. It was nearly eleven o’clock, then, before the drums began to beat, and the procession fell into order.
The morning had dawned grey and misty, heavy clouds veiling the sun that now and then shone feebly athwart them, but it was fairly fine for London at that early season, and no rain fell throughout the day. The bells of St. Peter-ad-Vincula, and of All Hallows’, Barking, tolled at regular intervals, whilst the grand outline of the White Tower stood out luminous against the threatening sky, as the dread procession wended slowly onwards. First, came a company of two hundred Yeomen of the Guard; then, the executioner, in a tight-fitting scarlet worsted and cloth garment, displaying the swelling muscles of his chest, arms, and legs;[309] his face was masked, and his head hooded in scarlet. Beside him marched his assistant, a rough-looking man, who carried the axe over his shoulder; then Sir John Brydges, Lieutenant of the Tower, with Sir Thomas Brydges, Deputy-Lieutenant, and between them Sir John Gage, Constable of the Tower, with two Sheriffs, in their robes of office. Lastly, the young prisoner herself, dressed as on the occasion of her trial at the Guildhall in the same black cloth dress, edged with black velvet, a Marie Stuart cap of black velvet on her head, with a veil of black cloth hanging to the waist, and a white wimple concealing her throat; her sleeves edged with lawn, neatly plaited round the wrists. Not wearing chopines to increase her height, as on the occasion of her State entry into the Tower, the people who had not seen her since were greatly surprised at her diminutive stature. On her right walked Abbot Feckenham, in his black robe, without a surplice, and carrying a crucifix in his hand. Behind him came the Chaplains attached to the Chapel Royal of the Tower. Lady Jane’s ladies, Mrs. Tylney and Mrs. Ellen, and Mrs. Sarah; two other women and a man-servant, all in deep mourning, and weeping bitterly, closed the doleful procession. The route was a short one, and the crowd of spectators—about five hundred—allowed to be present at the execution, was silent and respectful. From Partridge’s house to the scaffold, the Lady Jane continued to read the open Prayer-Book in her hand—it was that containing the various inscriptions already mentioned—and paid little or no heed to Feckenham’s pious exhortations, if, indeed, he made any.
At the foot of the scaffold stood a jury of forty matrons, who had been previously called upon to testify that the Princess was not with child; a rumour that she was in this condition was so widespread as to be mentioned by Radcliffe—who says, “Lady Dudley was very brave, considering the condition she was in”—and by Fuller, Pomeroy, Challoner, and Fox. The presence of these matrons is also mentioned by Bishop Godwin. There is no record of the presence of the Duke of Norfolk in his usual seat as Earl Marshal, but no doubt he was there with Lord Mayor White and several Aldermen, Sheriffs, and noblemen. Before ascending the three or four steps that led to the scaffold, the Lady Jane took leave of her ladies, who sobbed bitterly; Mrs. Ellen and Mrs. Tylney followed her on to the platform, ominously littered with fresh straw. Here Feckenham, the executioner, and his assistant also took their stations, with Sir Thomas Brydges. “When she appeared on the scaffold,” writes a contemporary, “the people cried, and murmured at beholding one so young and beautiful about to die such a death.” Nevertheless, though the writer of The Chronicle of Queen Jane and Queen Mary says “her countenance [was] nothing abashed, neither her eyes misted with tears,” there can be little doubt but that the long spell of anxiety had left some trace on Jane’s sweet face. She advanced to the edge of the scaffold, and in the dead silence spoke in a distinct voice: “Good people, I am come here to die, and by a law I am condemned to the same. My offence against the Queen’s Highness was only in consenting to the device of others, which is now deemed treason; but it was never of my seeking, but by the counsel of those who should seem to have further understanding of such things than I, who knew little of the law and less of the title to the Crown. The part, indeed, against the Queen’s Highness was unlawful, and so the consenting thereunto by me; but touching the procurement and desire thereof by me, or on my behalf, I do wash my hands thereof in innocency before God and in the face of you, good Christian people, this day,” and therewith she wrung her hands in which she had her book. Then she continued, “I pray you, all good Christian people, to bear me witness that I die a true Christian woman, and that I look to be saved by none other means, but only by the mercy of God, in the merit of the blood of His only Son Jesus Christ; and I confess that when I did know the Word of God, I neglected the same, loved myself and the world, and therefore this plague of punishment has worthily happened into me for my sins; and yet I thank God of His goodness that He hath thus given me a time and respite to repent. And now, good people, while I am living, I pray you to assist me with your prayers.”
Lady Jane’s relative, Lady Philippa de Clifford, in her little known report,[310] adds that, “After a pause, and wiping her eyes, she (Jane) said in a firmer voice, ‘Now, good people, Jane Dudley bids you all a long farewell. And may the Almighty preserve you from ever meeting the terrible death which awaits her in a few minutes. Farewell, farewell, for ever more.’ Jane, when she had finished speaking, was much affected, and hid her face upon the neck of the old nurse who attended her on the scaffold.” This nurse must have been Mrs. Ellen, into whose arms she threw herself when she first perceived the towering figure of the masked executioner, garbed from head to foot in scarlet. Clinging to the aged woman, the poor girl sobbed convulsively. Growing calmer, after a while, she knelt down, and asked Feckenham what prayer she should recite—“Shall I say this Psalm?”—probably pointing to her prayer-book as she did so. “Yes,” answered he; and then, as she and many of the people knelt, he said the fifty-first Psalm, the Miserere, in Latin, Jane repeating it after him in English. This done, she rose, and said very courteously to Dr. Feckenham, “God will abundantly requite you, good sir, for all your humanity to me, though your discourses gave me more uneasiness than all the terrors of approaching death.” Bishop Godwin says, “Just before she knelt down, Lady Jane embraced the venerable prelate and thanked him for his kindness to her.” She then gave her handkerchief and gloves to Mrs. Tylney; and turning to Sir Thomas Brydges, said gently, “You asked me for a parting memory of me,” and handed him the prayer-book which she had been using and in which she had written her farewells.