With Lady Jane
I did not find Lady Jane in bed, in the gloomy quarters where she was
confined. Separated from her husband, who was imprisoned in the
Beauchamp Tower, and left entirely alone, she was passing the time in
prayer, meditation, and studying the philosophic and holy writings,
from which she imbibed deep draughts of resignation and wisdom.
Like a child exhausted with play after having acted a difficult part,
and like one worn with the strain that has been put upon her in the
battle of life, she was simply waiting at the foot of the Cross, and
I found her on her knees, weeping gently as she prayed.
The warder, who conducted me to her apartment, retired, bolting the
door after him, and I stood by it a little while, unwilling to
interrupt my dear lady and noticing with dismay the iron-barred
windows of the room and the stone walls, partly concealed by
tapestry. I saw also that the furniture--a table and some
chairs--was of carved oak. and the deep window-seats were covered
with velvet, as was also the seat of the oak chair before which the
poor young prisoner knelt.
Perhaps she heard some one enter--certainly the warder made noise
enough as he closed the door--and therefore, ending her prayer, she
arose and looked round.
The next moment I was folded in her arms, and we were crying together.
'Oh, Margery! My poor Margery!' she said, at last, when we were a
little calmer. 'Where have you been? Why, dear,' looking at me more
closely, 'what have they done to you? You look so pale and thin!
How did you get into the Tower?'
'It took me a week to get in,' I said, beginning to answer her last
question first, and then, as we sat together on one of the window
seats, I proceeded to tell her all that had befallen me since I was
carried off from Isleworth.
Lady Jane was very sympathizing when she heard of all my danger,
distress and trouble in Crossley Hall, and was delighted that my
valiant knight, Sir Hubert Blair, had rescued me, with a strong hand.
But when I proceeded to tell her that he was now in London bent upon
fighting for her and deep in schemes with her father, to bring about
a change of monarchy, she was greatly concerned and not a little
distressed.
'Why did not you stop them, Margery?' she said. 'You know so well
that I do not think it right to be queen, when my cousins Mary and
Elizabeth are living. You are well aware how I disliked to be queen,
and how gladly I gave it up.'
'Yes, madam, I told Sir Hubert Blair all,' replied I, 'but he said
that they looked at the matter in this light. There were the people
of England to consider, the multitude of human beings who, in the one
case, would be plunged back into Roman Catholicism, in the other
would enjoy the Reformed faith, and freedom to worship God in their
own tongue and read His Divine Word for themselves. He said, madam,
that you must not think of your own wishes, but must sacrifice
yourself for the good of the people.'
I thought I had stated Sir Hubert's argument clearly and well, yet
Lady Jane shook her head.
'We must not do evil that good may come,' she said. 'And have I any
right to take another person's possession because it seems to me that
I can administer it better than the rightful owner?'
'But think of the suffering that may come upon our good Protestants
if Mary reigns?' I urged. 'They say that she will do everything that
her Roman Church enjoins, and the horrors--the horrors of the
Inquisition--may be brought to this land of ours,' and I poured out
all that Sir Hubert had related of that horrible institution.
'God grant that it may never come to England!' said my mistress, when
I ended. After which she added, thoughtfully, 'I think that Queen
Mary is not so bigoted as some people imagine, and she has behaved
very leniently in several ways since her elevation to the throne.
She forgave my father and set him free, and, although the Emperor
Charles, to whom she looks up so much, has advised her to have me
executed, she has refused----'
'I should think so!' I interrupted. 'Oh, dear madam, what a wicked
wretch that emperor must be!'
'People always look at things from their own point of view, or the
point of view of those dearest to them,' said my mistress. 'The
Emperor Charles, considering the welfare of Mary, sees that while I
live there will be always a danger of some enthusiasts, like your Sir
Hubert, starting up to try and put me on the throne again--and in
that case, besides the danger to the reigning monarch, there would be
many slain, much blood would be shed, and you must remember Sir
Hubert's argument about the duty of considering the welfare of the
many. If my death will put away this danger to so many, then I had
better die, dear Margery.'
'No! No! No!' I cried. 'It would be the foulest shame in the world
for one so innocent and good as you to be killed--and remember your
argument, they must not do evil that good may come.'
Lady Jane smiled.
'Well done, little Margery!' she said, adding, 'Now tell me how you
managed to get into the Tower.'
I told her, upon which she remarked--
'You see Mary has a good heart--you touched it with your singing, and
she allowed you to come to me,' adding, to my delight, 'To have you
with me is the one thing I wanted, next to my natural wish to be with
my husband. They have separated us, you know, Margery. He is
imprisoned in another tower.'
'It _is_ hard,' I said.
'And I have great anxiety about him,' went on my dear lady.
'Doubtless the priests are endeavouring to convert him to Romanism,
and since they succeeded with his father----'
'Madame, did the Duke of Northumberland give up his faith?'
'Yes,' she answered sadly. 'He was not brave, not heroic; he gave
way on all sides when death was imminent. But they have killed him.
He is dead, and we must say nothing, except good, of the dead.'
She quoted a Latin proverb to that effect,[1] but it was strange to
my ears, and I have so far forgotten it as not to be able to write it
down.
[1] _De mortuis nil nisi bonum_.--ED.
I could not help thinking that Northumberland's ambition was in
reality his religion, but could not say so after those words of Lady
Jane's.
'He was beheaded on Tower Hill,' she continued, 'and oh! God grant
that the same fate may not befall my dear lord!'
The days passed slowly and quietly for me and my dear lady in her
prison in the Tower. Queen Mary did not send for me to come and sing
to her any more. She went to stay for a while at Richmond Palace,
and, then again, we heard that she was at Whitehall, and sometimes
she was in her palace in the Tower, but that made no difference to
us. Certain privileges were accorded by her to Lady Jane, and of
course I shared them. For instance, we were allowed to walk across
the green to St. Peter's Church occasionally, where Lady Jane much
enjoyed the fine music, and liked to join in the services. On these
occasions she would look up at the Beauchamp Tower, as we passed it,
wondering how her husband was and what he was doing. My heart ached
for her many a time, when I saw her wistful face upturned to the
windows of the Tower, as she vainly tried to see the face she loved.
At least Mary might have permitted them to meet occasionally, if she
could not permit them to enjoy each other's constant society. But a
day was coming, though I knew it not then, when they would be allowed
to be together, at least for a short time. Lady Jane was also
permitted to walk in the queen's garden--this was a pleasure to her,
who so dearly loved fresh air and flowers. Sometimes she would talk
about the gardens at Sion House, and the Thames flowing by them, and
wonder if we should ever go there again. At other times she would
tell me about Bradgate, where she had been brought up and where her
tutor, Mr. Roger Ascham, used to marvel because she preferred to sit
reading Plato to joining her young companions in the sport of
hunting. It was well that she preferred books, as they were now her
solace when it would not have been possible for her to have had the
other pastime.
In the beginning of October Lady Jane was allowed to meet her husband
once more, but the occasion was most melancholy, for they were both
being conducted to the Guildhall, together with Archbishop Cranmer
and Lord Ambrose Dudley, Lord Guildford Dudley's brother, to be tried
on the charge of high treason. Lady Jane pleaded guilty, and they
were all convicted of high treason and condemned to death as
traitors. Lady Jane's sentence was that she was to be beheaded or
burnt to death, at the queen's pleasure, and Judge Morgan, who
pronounced it, was afterwards so deeply afflicted in his mind at the
remembrance that he died, raving.
Many people were exceedingly grieved for the poor young creature, who
had been made a tool of by her ambitious relatives, sorely against
her will, and the touching grace and meekness of her demeanour, as
well as her misfortunes, caused them to follow her weeping and
lamenting her hard fate, as she was being reconducted to the Tower.
The queen, however, appears to have had no intention at that time of
carrying out Lady Jane's sentence, nor indeed that of the others who
were condemned with her, but thought it better to please her
partisans by keeping them in prison under sentence of death. To Lady
Jane, indeed, Mary granted more indulgences, such as permitting her
to walk on Tower Hill, where I always accompanied her.
The autumn passed slowly into winter. I often thought of my beloved,
wondering what he was doing and dreading inexpressibly to hear of his
one day being brought into the Tower, through the Traitors' Gate. I
wrote to him two or three letters, sending them off as I found
opportunity, in which I told him guardedly, lest they should fall
into the wrong hands, that Lady Jane, above all things, desired that
no effort should be made to replace her in what she felt had been a
false position. But I received no sign that my dear knight ever got
my poor little epistles, and indeed it would not have been strange if
they had never reached his hands.
At length, however, I heard of him. One day there was a great
commotion in the Tower, armed men springing up everywhere, guns
bristling on all sides, the defences of the whole fortress being
looked to, and military commands being called out in all directions.
'What is it, warder? What is happening?' Lady Jane inquired, in her
gentle way.
Then the warder informed us that they were expecting that the Tower
would be assailed by a large force, which was coming to attack it,
under a leader who had begun to carry all before him.
'Who is he?' asked Lady Jane.
'Madam, he is a knight, who owns property and a castle in Kent, where
he began the rebellion. His name,' added the man, 'is Sir Thomas
Wyatt, and he is accompanied by several gentlemen, and amongst them
Sir Hubert Blair, who is notoriously active against the Government.'
'Margery,' said my dear lady, when the warder had retired, 'if we
could have prevented this! If we only could have prevented it!'
'I wrote to Sir Hubert Blair again and again after I knew your
wishes,' said I, 'but I think he cannot have received my missives, or
perchance his friend, Sir Thomas Wyatt, heeds not his advice.'
Even as I spoke I was hoping that these valiant knights, who were
carrying all before them, would indeed succeed in their great
enterprise.
'There will be a terrible amount of bloodshed!' sighed my mistress.
'God will be on the side of the right,' said I.
'Yes. On the side _of the right_,' she rejoined with emphasis. Then
she continued, with another sigh, 'If this fails, my life will be the
forfeit, and justly, too, for the words of those who said Queen Mary
would not be safe upon her throne whilst I live will have proved
true.'
Another time, as we were returning from St. Peter's Chapel, she
paused, and, looking at a certain spot on the green, where a scaffold
was wont to be erected for the more private execution of State
prisoners, the tears came into her eyes, and I knew that she was
apprehending a similar fate.
However, I had every confidence in my brave and valiant hero, and
often lay awake at night, thinking of all that would happen when he
and the Duke of Suffolk once more placed my Lady Jane upon the throne.
I thought, when all that was settled, and my dear lady, with her
husband by her side, no longer depended so entirely on her Margery
for companionship and love, and my beloved, with his work
accomplished, had leisure to be happy, he and I might have time to
get married, and then we would go together to see my home and my dear
old father, Hal and Jack, and, too, Master Montgomery in his
parsonage, and the villagers and our servants. After which Sir
Hubert would take me to his own beautiful place, Harpton Hall, where
we should live together in great happiness and prosperity. But I am
glad to think that I always said to myself, 'If the Lord will,' and
resolved that, even if things went contrary and we did not have quite
such a good time, I would be resigned and thankful for smaller
mercies.
But of what was really going to happen I had not the faintest
conception.