(_For the Mirror._)
Why did ye me dysseyve,
With faynyng fantzye agenst all equitie and right,
The regall powers onjustly to receyve,
To serve your tornes, I do right well perceyve;
For I was your instrument to worke your purpose by;
All was but falshed to bleere withall myn eye.
_Cavendish's Metrical Visions._
The short but eventful period between the death of the last Henry, and
the succession of his bigoted and intolerant daughter Mary, presents a
wide and fertile field for the inquiring mind both of the historian and
philosopher. The interest attached to the memory of the beauteous but
unfortunate Lady Jane Grey, renders the slightest event of her life
acceptable to every lover of English history; while her youth and
intellectual acquirements, her brief reign of nine days, and finally her
expiation for her _innocent_ crime on the scaffold, combine to rouse the
feelings and excite the sympathy of every sensitive heart.
The marriage of lady Jane Grey, which may be regarded as the principal
cause of her sufferings, was brought about by the ambitious Earl of
Northumberland, a nobleman, the most powerful and wealthy at that
period, in the kingdom. By the marriage of Lord Guilford Dudley with the
Lady Jane, he formed the daring project of placing the crown of England
on the head of his son, in order to consolidate that preeminence, which,
during the reign of the youthful Edward, he had so craftily attained to,
and which he foresaw, would, on the accession of Mary, from whom he had
little to expect, either on the side of friendship or protection, be
wrested from him. By the will of Henry VIII., as well also as by an Act
of Parliament, the ladies Mary and Elizabeth had been pronounced as
heirs to the crown; this claim, however, he hoped to overrule, as the
statutes passed by Henry, in the twenty-eighth year of his reign,
declaring their illegitimacy, had never been repealed. By the will of
Henry, the lady Jane had also been placed next in succession after the
Princess Elizabeth, in total exclusion of the Scottish line, the
offspring of his sister Margaret, who had married James IV. of Scotland.
The day on which this important event took place is not exactly known;
but it is generally supposed to have been towards the close of the month
of May, in the year 1553, before the lady Jane had attained her
seventeenth year. The nuptials were solemnized with great magnificence
at Durham House, the then princely residence of the Earl of
Northumberland, who appears to have been particularly earnest in their
conclusion, as they were celebrated but two months previous to the death
of Edward VI., who at that time "lay dangerously sicke,"[2] and being
unable to attend, sent costly presents as marks of his approval. Three
other marriages, also, appear to have taken place at the same time, as
recorded by the chronicler Stow.[3]
[Footnote 2: Stow's _Summarie of the Chronicles of England_, p. 245.]
[Footnote 3: Lord Gilford, the Duke of Northumberland's fourth son,
married Lady Jane, the Duke of Suffolk's daughter, whose mother being
then alive, was daughter to Mary, King Henrie's sister, which was then
married to the French king, and after to Charles, Duke of Suffolke. Also
the Earle of Pembroke's eldest son married Lady Katharine, the said
duke's second daughter. And Martin Keie's gentleman porter married Mary,
the third daughter of the Duke of Suffolke. And the Earle of
Huntington's son, called Lord Hastings, married Katharine, youngest
daughter to the Duke of Northumberland.--Stow's _Chronicle_, p. 1029,
edit. 1600.]
Durham House, which formerly occupied that extensive space of ground on
the southern side of the Strand, now covered by the stately pile of
buildings called the Adelphi, was erected, according to Stow,[4] in the
reign of Edward III., by Thomas de Hatfield, created Bishop of Durham in
1345. Pennant,[5] however, but upon what authority does not appear,
traces its foundation to a period prior to the abovementioned, that
of Edward I., when he says it was erected by Anthony de Beck, patriarch
of Jerusalem and Bishop of Durham, but was afterwards rebuilt by Bishop
Hatfield. In 1534, Tonstal, the then bishop, exchanged Durham House with
Henry VIII. for a mansion in Thames Street, called "Cold Harborough,"
when it was converted by that monarch into a royal palace. During
the same reign, in the year 1540, a grand tournament, commencing on
"Maie daie," and continuing on the five following days, was held at
Westminster; after which, says Stow, "the challengers rode to Durham
Place, where they kept open household, and feasted the king and queene
(Anne of Cleves) with her ladies, and all the court."[6] In the reign
of Edward VI., a mint was established at Durham House by the ambitious
Thomas Seymour, Lord Admiral, under the direction of Sir William
Sharington.
[Footnote 4: Strype's _Stow_, vol. ii. p. 576.]
[Footnote 5: Pennant's _London_, p. 120, 4to. edit.]
[Footnote 6: Stow's _Chronicle_, p. 975.]
This mansion was bestowed on the princess Elizabeth, during the term of
her life, by her brother Edward VI., when it became the residence of the
Earl of Northumberland, and the scene of those important transactions we
have just endeavoured to relate. On the death of Elizabeth, Sir Walter
Raleigh, to whom the mansion had been given by that queen, was obliged
to surrender it to Toby Matthew, the then Bishop of Durham, in
consequence of the reversion having been granted to that see by queen
Mary, whose bigoted and narrow mind regarded the previous exchange as a
sacrilege.
In 1608, the stables of Durham House, which fronted the Strand, and
which, says Strype,[7] "were old, ruinous, and ready to fall, and very
unsightly in so public a passage to the Court of Westminster," were
pulled down and a building called the New Exchange erected on their
site, by the Earl of Salisbury. It was built partly on the plan of the
Royal Exchange; the shops or stalls being principally occupied by
miliners and sempstresses. It was opened with great state by James I.,
and his queen, who named it the "Bursse of Britain."[8]
[Footnote 7: Strype's _Stow_, vol. ii. p. 576.]
[Footnote 8: Howel's _Londinopolis_, p. 349.]
In 1640, the estate of Durham House was purchased of the see, by Philip,
Earl of Pembroke and Montgomery, for the annual sum of 200_l_., when the
mansion was pulled down, and numerous houses erected on its site; and
in 1737, the New Exchange was also demolished to make room for further
improvements.
Towards the close of the last century the whole estate was purchased of
the Earl of Pembroke, by four brothers of the name of Adam, who erected
the present buildings, named by them the _Adelphi_, from the Greek word
[Greek: adelphoi], brothers.