XXVII [Conclusion. Home Again]
PROLOGUE
It has been laid upon me as a very solemn duty by the late Lady Jane Dudley, or Grey as she is usually called, to whom I owe obedience and fealty born of love, which is all the more insistent because she is no longer here to claim it, that I should set forth, in the best language possible to one of my limited education, the stirring events that my eyes have witnessed and the true story, as it is known to me, of the short, sad tragedy of her life and death. And this being so, I will make no excuse for my boldness and presumption in attempting work which might well be left to learned and authoritative historians, especially as I remember that my dear lady said to me, Margery, others may write more learnedly on the matter, but loving eyes see further and more truly than those of the mere critic, and I would fain be represented to posterity as I am rather than as I am supposed to be. And, fear not, child, for though you are weak and humble in your own eyes, His grace and help are to be had for the asking, Who gives power to the faint, and to such as have no might increases strength.' For my lady knew that this is a righteous task which she was setting me—the representation of truth, as we know it, is always righteous—and to those who do the like His promises never fail.
MARGARET BROWN.
CHAPTER I
Leaving Home
It was in the month of May, in the year 1553, and I was a young girl, only seventeen, when my dear father—my mother being dead—astonished me beyond measure by disclosing the fact that I was to leave my home in Sussex and proceed to the city of London, there to become gentlewoman to a lady of high degree.
That was not the sort of life I should have chosen by any means, for my freedom was as dear to me as to any of God's creatures of earth, or sea, or sky. Having no mother, and with a most easy-going father and a brace of madcap young brothers, I had run wild all my life, and could ill brook the idea of being confined within four walls for the most part of my days, attired in the fine clothing of a grand lady. What compensations should I have for such joys as lying for hours on the soft turf of the Downs, looking up to the blue sky and making out pictures in the white clouds flitting across it, whilst I listened to the singing of the skylarks, or sitting beneath an overturned boat on the seashore, hearing the lapping of the waves and gazing across the Channel, with wondering speculations of the lands beyond those fair blue waters, or, on the other hand, rowing out upon the sea with my brothers, or riding with them at breakneck paces over hill and dale? What would they do without me, little Hal with his endless scrapes and foolhardy schemes, and Jack with his love of fighting and passionate essays to assert the manhood latent in him? Notwithstanding my wildness, I was a softening influence in their lives, for there was in me ever, even then, the consciousness which is not very far from any of us that there is a Higher Law than even the sweetest promptings of our own fond wills. I never talked about it—father used to say, 'Many words show weakness in a cause'—much less preached to the boys, but I knew it was so and they were aware I knew it, and that was quite enough. They were good lads, and, as the serving men and women said, I had them at a word.