MARY TUDOR
Northumberland had persuaded the dying King to pass over his sisters,
Mary and Elizabeth, in favour of Lady Jane Grey, the grand-daughter of
Henry VII. by the marriage of Mary, daughter of that King, with Charles
Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, as well as cousin to the late King Edward
VI., and his own daughter-in-law; and the Privy Council, immediately
after Edward’s death, had confirmed this measure. Northumberland’s
plan, in which he had induced Edward to acquiesce, annulled both the
Statute of Succession and the will of Henry VIII., for not only did it
set aside both the late King’s sisters, but also the direct successors,
to whom the crown would hereditarily fall, failing Henry’s daughters.
These were the descendants of Henry’s eldest sister Queen Margaret,
wife of James IV. of Scotland, who was represented by the girl Queen
Mary Stuart, and, after her, by the descendants of Queen Margaret’s
second marriage with the Earl of Angus, who were represented by Henry
Stuart, Lord Darnley, Queen Margaret thus being grandmother to both
Queen Mary Stuart and Lord Darnley. Henry VIII. himself, however, had
passed over Queen Margaret’s claims in his will, and had placed the
children of his younger sister, Mary, Duchess of Suffolk, next to
his daughter Elizabeth in the succession. The Duchess of Suffolk’s
daughter—Lady Frances Brandon—had married Henry Grey, Marquis of
Dorset, by whom she had had three daughters, of whom Lady Jane Grey
was the eldest.[10] Dorset, who became Duke of Suffolk during the
Protectorate, having been given his father-in-law’s dukedom, was a
fervent follower of the Reformed faith, his children sharing his
religious beliefs.
The Duchess of Suffolk, Jane’s mother, who was still alive at this
time (1553) was passed over in Northumberland’s scheme, since he had
succeeded in wedding the daughter to his fourth son, Guildford Dudley,
his firm expectation being that as the future Queen’s father-in-law
he would have the government of the realm in his own hands. But
Northumberland’s ambitious dream was a short one, and the awakening was
terrible.
At the time of Edward’s death Lady Jane Grey (Lady Jane Guildford as
she should be called, but as was the case with Anne Askew, the paternal
name has always been retained) was living at Sion House, a house
belonging to her father-in-law, and here a deputation of the Council,
headed by Northumberland, Suffolk, Pembroke, and others, went to pay
their homage to the new Queen; on the 9th of July 1553, Lady Jane, or
as she was now styled, Queen Jane, entered the Tower in state.
Jane Grey was but a girl of sixteen when the ambition of her relatives
drew her from the retired and studious life that she loved, and forced
her to take up all the perils and troubles that surround a throne. A
more perfect creature, according to the unanimous testimony of her
contemporaries, never gladdened God’s earth. Her brow was lofty, her
features were delicate and refined, bearing a winning sweetness and
bright cheerfulness which made all those who were fortunate enough
to approach her, at once attached to her with a sentiment little
short of devotion. Young as she was, her knowledge, even for those
days when the daughters of great houses received an education which to
us would appear almost encyclopædic, was prodigious. According to her
tutors, Aylmer and Roger Ascham, Jane Grey knew Greek, Latin, French,
and Italian, being able to both write and speak these languages.
Besides, she knew something of Hebrew, Arabic, and even Chaldee. She
was proficient in music, and could play upon a variety of instruments,
singing to her own accompaniment. In addition to these accomplishments
she wrote a beautiful hand—a rare talent for the time—and was a past
mistress in the use of her needle.
[Illustration: _Queen Mary Tudor_
(_From a portrait at Latimer._)]
Ascham’s account of his visit to Lady Jane at Broadgate has often been
quoted, but it will bear quoting again:
“Before I went into Germany, I came to Broadgate in Leicestershire
to take my leave of that noble lady, Lady Jane Grey, to whom I was
exceedingly much beholden. Her parents the Duke and Duchess, and all
the household, gentlemen and gentlewomen, were hunting in the park. I
found her in her chamber reading the Phaedron of Plato in Greek, and
that with as much delight as some gentlewomen would read a merry Tale
of Boccaccio. After salutations and duty done, with some other talk,
I asked her why she should lose such pastimes in the park. Smiling,
she answered me, ‘All their sport in the park is but a shadow to the
pleasure I find in Plato.’ However illustrious she was by fortune, and
by royal extraction, these bore no proportion to the accomplishments
of her mind adorned with the doctrines of Plato and the eloquence of
Demosthenes.”[11]
With all her learning and her great accomplishments Lady Jane appears
to have been entirely lacking in that provoking superiority and
aloofness which, for want of a better word, we call “priggishness.” She
was indeed that rare creature, a perfect woman in mind, and character,
and person.
Most unwillingly did Lady Jane comply with Northumberland’s wishes. No
crown could add to her happiness, which was not dependent upon this
world’s state or station, nor one bestowed by the tinsel and glitter of
earthly power or riches, but a “peace above all earthly dignities, a
still and quiet conscience.” Jane Grey was not known to the Londoners,
and Northumberland was heartily disliked because of his arrogance and
overbearing manners, so it was not surprising that when they entered
the city on the 10th of July, as the Duke himself said afterwards in
deep chagrin, “not a single shout of welcome or God speed was raised as
they passed through the silent crowd on their way to the Tower,” “With
a grett company of lords and nobulls, and there was a shott of gunne
and chambers as has nott been seen oft, between four and five of the
clock” (Machyn). Jane Grey’s reign was not a long one.
On the 14th of July, Northumberland had left the Tower with his sons
to take command of the troops that had been despatched against Mary,
who, in the meantime, had been proclaimed Queen throughout London,
whilst the fleet at Yarmouth had also declared for her, a warrant
being issued for the arrest of Northumberland as a consequence. The
Duke was at Cambridge when he was taken prisoner; he showed great
cowardice, throwing his cap up in the air when he saw that his hopes
were useless, crying, “God save Queen Mary!” and furthermore, when the
Earl of Arundel, who had been sent by Mary, appeared on the scene, the
Duke literally grovelled on his knees before him. But his tardy loyalty
and his entreaties availed him little, for on the 25th of July he was
lodged a prisoner in the Tower, where only a month before his word had
been the supreme command. On the 18th of the following month he was
arraigned for high treason in Westminster Hall, the Duke of Norfolk,
who acted as Lord High Sheriff, breaking his wand upon giving sentence,
which was a signal for the court to break up. Northumberland was taken
back to the Tower and occupied a room in the Beauchamp Tower, where
several inscriptions cut by his sons and himself are to be seen to this
day.
[Illustration: _Lady Jane Grey_
(_From the original portrait at Madresfield Court by Lucas van
Heere_)]
The day after he entered the Tower the Duke received a visit from
Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, to whom he declared that he was a
Roman Catholic at heart, and that he had always been a member of that
faith. But although he “ratted” in his religion as well as in his
politics, his facility of opinion was in vain. Gardiner was only too
pleased to prove the Duke’s apostacy by a public ceremonial in which
the changeable nobleman was the principal actor. Mass was said in the
Chapel of the White Tower in which the Duke took part, and, that ended,
he made a public confession, and a formal recantation of his former
religion.
To return to Lady Jane Grey. When the news of Northumberland’s arrest
at Cambridge reached the Tower, Lady Throckmorton, one of Lady Jane’s
gentlewomen, on entering the Presence Chamber in the Palace, found
that the canopy of state, and all the other ensigns of royalty had
been removed. The nine days’ reign was at an end, and not unwillingly
did Jane cease playing a part that she must have felt did not by right
belong to her, and which must have been distasteful to her noble and
upright nature. But a prison awaited both herself and her boy-husband,
Guildford Dudley.
The tradition that Jane was imprisoned in the Brick Tower is incorrect,
for at first she occupied a room in the Lieutenant’s House, now the
King’s House, and later was removed to a house on the Green adjacent
to the Lieutenant’s lodging, then occupied by the Gentleman gaoler of
the Guard, Nathaniel Partridge by name. When Northumberland was led
from the Beauchamp Tower to abjure his religion in the White Tower,
Stowe writes that “Lady Jane looking through the windowe sawe the
Duke and the reste going to the Church.” Jane’s feelings on learning
Northumberland’s apostacy in the vain hope of saving his life, have
been recorded in an anonymous MS. of the time, now in the British
Museum (Harleian MSS. No. 194). The writer, who dined on the afternoon
of the same day (29th August) with Partridge at the Gentleman gaoler’s
house, met Lady Jane Grey there. After noting her graciousness to all
present, he says that Lady Jane inquired whether Mass was being said
in all the London churches, and on being answered that such was the
case, she said that she did not think that so strange as the sudden
conversion of the Duke, “for who would have thought,” she said, “that
he would have done so?” On someone remarking that probably he had
done so in order to obtain his pardon, “Pardon,” quoth she, “woe unto
him! He hath brought me and our stock in most miserable calamity by
his exceeding ambition. But for the answering that he hoped for his
life by his turning, though other men be of that opinion, I utterly am
not; for what man is there living, I pray you, although he had been
innocent, that would hope of life in that case; being in the field
against the Queen in person as general, and after his taking, so hated
and evil-spoken of in the Commons? And at his coming into prison so
wondered at, as the like was never heard at any man’s time. Should I,
who am young in years, forsake my faith for the love of life? But God
be merciful to us, for he sayeth who so denieth Him before man, he will
not know him in His Father’s kingdom.” Whether Lady Jane spoke thus
at Partridge’s dinner table is not possible of proof, “methinks the
lady doth protest too much” for these to be the _ipsissima verba_ of
Lady Jane. Of her sorrow for Northumberland’s cowardice and smallness
of spirit in allowing himself to be made an exhibition for the
glorification of Queen Mary’s priests and creatures, there can be no
doubt.
[Illustration: _Lord Guildford Dudley_
(_From the original portrait at Madresfield Court by Lucas van
Heere._)]
The day after his recantation in the chapel of St John’s,
Northumberland was beheaded. With him there went to the scaffold on
Tower Hill, Sir John Gates and Sir Thomas Palmer, both these knights
having been concerned in his conspiracy. Still clinging desperately
to the hope of being pardoned at the last moment, Northumberland
continued, as he was led to death, to profess his zeal for the
Roman Catholic faith, and in the speech he made to the crowd from
the scaffold declared that he was a fervent Papist. His example was
not followed by his fellow-sufferers, both of whom died with manly
fortitude, meeting their fate with a calm and unflinching demeanour.
Others who had been implicated in Northumberland’s schemes, amongst
whom were Lords Northampton, Warwick, and Ferrers, who had also been
placed in the Tower, were pardoned, but their prisons were soon
filled by fresh batches of captives. Of these new prisoners, the most
important were Latimer, Bishop of Worcester, Cranmer, Archbishop
of Canterbury, and Ridley, Bishop of London, and the fortress was
so full that these three prelates were obliged to share the same
prison-chamber. On the 8th of March in the following year, the Bishops
were taken from the Tower to their martyrdom at Oxford.
During the month of September in this year, Lady Jane was allowed
to walk in the garden of the Palace, her husband, according to a
chronicler of the time, also being given, with his brother, Lord Harry
Dudley, what was called “the liberty of the leads” in the Beauchamp
Tower. This meant that they were allowed to promenade on the outer
passage running along the top of the wall which connects the Beauchamp
with the Bell Tower.
Queen Mary had entered the Tower on the 3rd of August, practically in
triumph, and there she held her court until after the funeral of her
brother, the late king; Mary was again in the Palace of the fortress
prior to her coronation, which took place on the 1st of October. On
her first visit to the Tower in August she found, on reaching Tower
Green, a group of State prisoners who awaited her arrival on their
knees. Among these prisoners of the late reign was the old Duke of
Norfolk; near him knelt the young and handsome Edward Courtenay, Earl
of Devonshire, who had passed most of his short life in the Tower.
Here, too, was the Duchess of Somerset, imprisoned at the same time
as her husband, who had so lately been beheaded on Tower Hill. Here,
too, knelt the Bishops of Winchester and Durham, Gardiner and Tunstall.
To all of these Mary spoke with some emotion; she had come as their
deliverer, and for once she appeared a woman as well as a Queen. On
the eve of her coronation Mary was accompanied to the Tower by her
half-sister Elizabeth.
It is strange to picture three such strangely different women as Queen
Mary, Elizabeth Tudor, and Lady Jane Grey, together within the walls
of the fortress at this time. The first a Queen, who has left behind
her a more hateful memory than many far worse women among monarchs;
the second, then but a powerless and semi-captive princess, whose
future fame as a sovereign and ruler might well excite the envy of the
mightiest potentate, but who, as a woman, lacked all that is best and
most admirable in her sex; and the third, an uncrowned girl-queen of
but seventeen summers, whose fate has called forth the love and pity of
thousands, and whose brief life and death are the brightest and saddest
in all history.
Mary’s coronation was marked by all the wonted splendour and elaborate
ceremonial of such functions at such a period, and Holinshed has
recorded that her head was so weighed down by her jewelled crown that
“she was faine to bear up her head with her hand.” A month later the
State trials commenced.
On the 13th of November a remarkable procession passed through the
Tower Gate, and wended its way through the streets of the City to the
Guildhall. Preceded by the axe, borne by the Gentleman Chief Warder,
first came Thomas Cranmer, the Archbishop of Canterbury, followed
by Lord Guildford Dudley and Lady Jane Grey, attended by two of her
ladies. Lady Jane wore a dress of black from head to foot which is thus
described by the chronicler Machyn:—“A black gown of clothe, turned
downe, the cappe lyned with fese velvett, and edged about with the
same; in a French hoode, all black, with a black habilment; a black
velvet boke before her, and another boke in her hande open.” This
account does not give a very clear idea of Lady Jane’s costume, but the
curious reader, if he visits the National Portrait Gallery, will find
a little full-face portrait of Lady Jane Grey as she then appeared,
in which she is represented in this very dress, which she wore at her
execution as well as during the trial.
The trial was held before the Lord Mayor of London, Thomas White, by
special commission, the Duke of Norfolk presiding as High Steward.
All the prisoners who pleaded guilty were attached for high treason,
“for assumption of the Royal authority by Lady Jane, for levying war
against the Queen, and conspiring to set up another in her room,” and
Lady Jane was sentenced “to be burned alive on Tower Hill or beheaded
as the Queen pleases,” the verdict being afterwards confirmed by Act of
Parliament.[12] After sentence had been pronounced the prisoners were
taken back on foot to the Tower.
During the few days that remained to Jane on earth, she was allowed
to walk in the garden of the Palace, a three-cornered plot of ground
enclosed on the north by the Queen’s Gallery, on the east by the Salt
and Well Towers, and on the south and river side by the Ballium wall,
which ran from the Well to the Cradle Tower. Sad and solitary must
these gardens have been in those dark December days, and the heart of
Jane Grey must have been very heavy when she recalled the days of her
free and happy girlhood at Broadgate and Sion. Guildford Dudley was
also allowed his daily walk on the wall passage between the towers, but
he and his young wife were not to meet again on this side of eternity.
At the last hour, however, permission was given that Dudley might bid
farewell to Jane on his way to death on Tower Hill, but she, fearing
the effect of such a supreme leave-taking for both, declined to avail
herself of this sad opportunity.
If, after the trial, there had been any intention on Mary’s part to
pardon Lady Jane Grey, such intention was frustrated by the action of
Jane’s father, who, in an evil moment for himself and his children,
joined in Wyatt’s rebellion. Baker, in his chronicle, writing of these
events, says: “The innocent lady must suffer for her father’s fault,
for if her father, the Duke of Suffolk, had not this second time made
shipwreck of his loyalty, his daughter had perhaps never tasted the
salt waters of the Queen’s displeasure, but now on a rock of offence
she is the first that must be removed.”
A few days before the end, Jane wrote the following letters to her
father, probably just before his own arrest, which took place on the
10th of February 1554. These letters bear no dates; this feminine fault
of not dating her letters is the only one that can be found with gentle
Lady Jane Grey.
“Father, although it has pleased God to hasten my death by you,
by whome my life should rather have beene lengthened, yet I can
soe patiently take it, that I yield God more hearty thanks for
shortening my woful dayes, than if all the world had been given
into my possession, my life lengthened at mine owne will. And
albeit I am well assured of your impatient dolours, redoubled
many wayes, both in bewaling your own woe, and especially as I am
informed, my wofull estate, yet my deare father, if I may, without
offence, rejoyce in my own mishaps, herein I may account myselfe
blessed that washing my hands with the innocence of my fact, my
guiltless bloud may cry before the Lord, Mercy to the innocent! And
yet though I must needs acknowledge, that beyng constraynd, and as
you know well enough continually assayed, yet in taking upon me, I
seemed to consent, and therein greivusly offended the Queen and her
lawes, yet doe I assuredly trust that this my offence towards
God is so much the lesse, in that being in so royall estate as I
was, mine enforced honour never mingled with mine innocent heart.
And thus, good father, I have opened unto you the state wherein I
presently stand, my death at hand, although to you perhaps it may
seem wofull yet to me there is nothing that can bee more welcome
than from this vale of misery to aspire, and that having thrown off
all joy and pleasure, with Christ my Saviour, in whose steadfast
faith (if it may be lawfull for the daughter so to write to her
father) the Lord that hath hitherto strengthened you, soe continue
to keepe you, that at the last we may meete in heaven with the
Father, Sonn, and Holy Ghost.—I am, Your most obedient daughter
till death,
“JANE DUDLEY.”
(_Harleian MSS., and Nichols’ Memoirs of Lady Jane Grey._)
Here is another of her letters to her father:
“TO THE DUKE OF SUFFOLK.
“The Lord comforte your Grace, and that in his worde, whearin all
creatures onlye are to be comforted. And thoughe it hathe pleased
God to take away two of your children, yet thincke not, I most
humblye beseache your Grace, that you have loste them, but truste
that we, by leavinge this mortall life, have wonne an immortal
life. And I for my parte, as I have honoured your Grace in this
life, wyll praye for you in another life.—Your Grace’s humble
daughter,
“JANE DUDLEY.”
[Illustration: IANA GRAYA DECOLLATA.
_Regia stirps tristi cinxi diademate crines
Regna sed omnipotens hinc meliora dedit_
_H.Holbeen in._ _E. V. Wÿngaerde ex_]
On the 8th of February Queen Mary’s favourite priest, Feckenham, had
an interview with Jane in her prison, of which Foxe the martyrologist
has recounted the details at great length; but, needless to say, Lady
Jane remained unshaken in her firm faith, and in her attitude to the
Reformed religion. It had been ordered that Guildford Dudley should
die on Tower Hill, whilst Jane suffered within the walls the same day,
Monday the 12th of February being fixed for the double execution.
On the eve of this day Jane was sufficiently calm to write a long
“exhortation” for the use of her sister, Catherine Grey, writing it in
the blank pages of a manuscript on vellum, entitled “De Arte Moriundi.”
This exhortation is as full of devotion and perfect faith in the mercy
of her Saviour as were the beautiful lines she wrote to her father.
Although Guildford wished for a last interview with Jane on the morning
of their execution, she was firm in deciding that “the separation would
be but for a moment” as she is reported to have said, adding, that if
their meeting could benefit either of their souls she would be glad to
see her husband, but she felt it would only add a fresh pang to their
deaths, and they would soon be together in a world where there would
be no more death or separation. The last moments of this unfortunate
lady were inexpressibly tragic. About ten o’clock on the morning of
the 12th of February, Guildford Dudley was led forth from his prison
to the scaffold on Tower Hill, being met at the outer gate by Sir
Thomas Offley, and passing under his wife’s windows as he crossed the
Green. Bidding farewell to Sir Anthony Brown and Sir John Throgmorton,
Guildford met his fate with high courage. His body was brought back to
the Tower in a handcart, the head being placed in a cloth; and looking
forth from her prison, Lady Jane was suddenly confronted with the
remains of what a few minutes before had been her husband. But nothing
could shake her fortitude, as the following account, taken from the
Chronicles of Queen Jane and Queen Mary, shows:—
“By this tyme was ther a scaffolde made upon the grene over agaynst
the White Tower for the saide Lady Jane to die upon.... The saide Lady
being nothing at all abashed, neither with feare of her own deathe,
which then approached, neither with the ded carcase of her husbande,
when he was brought into the chappell, came forthe the Lieutenant (who
was Sir John Bridges, afterwards Lord Chandos of Sudeley) leading
hir, in the same gown wherein she was arrayned, hir countenance
nothing abashed, neither her eyes mysted with teares, although her two
gentlewomen Mistress Elizabeth Tylney and Mistress Eleyn wonderfully
wept, with a boke in hir hand, whereon she praied all the way till she
came to the saide scaffolde, whereon when she was mounted, this noble
young ladie, as she was indued with singular gifts both of learning
and knowledge, so was she as patient and mild as any lamb at hir
execution.”
After praying for her enemies and herself, Jane turned to the priest
Feckenham and inquired whether she could repeat a Psalm, and he
assenting she repeated the fifty-first. She then handed her gloves and
her handkerchief to one of her ladies, giving the book she had brought,
to Thomas Bridges for him to give to his brother, Sir John. On a blank
page of this book[13] she had written:
“For as mutche as you have desyred so simple a woman to wrighte in
so worthye a booke, good mayster Lieuftenante, therefore I shall
as a frende desyre you, and as a christian require you, to call
uppon God to encline your harte to his lawes, to quicken you in his
wayes, and not to take the worde of trewethe utterlye oute of youre
mouthe. Lyve styll to dye, that by deathe you may purchas eternall
life, and remember howe the ende of Mathusael, whoe as we reade in
the scriptures was the longeste liver that was a manne, died at the
laste; for as the precher sayethe, there is a tyme to be borne, and
a tyme to dye: and the daye of deathe is better than the daye of
oure birthe.—Youres, as the Lord knowethe, as a frende,
“JANE DUDDELEY.”
The chronicle of her death continues thus:
“Forthwith she untied her gowne. The hangman went to her to have helped
her off therwith, then she desyred him to let her alone, turning
towards her two gentlewomen, who helped her off therwith, and also her
frose paste” (this most singular term means a matronly head-dress)
“and neckercher, geving to her a fayre handkercher to knytte about her
eyes. Then the hangman kneled downe, and asked her forgiveness whom she
forgave most willingly. Then he willed her to stand upon the strawe,
which doing she sawe the blocke. Then she sayd I pray you despatche me
quickly. Then she kneled downe saying, ‘Will you take it off before I
lay me downe?’ And the hangman answered her, ‘No, madame.’ She tied
the kercher about her eyes. Then feeling for the block, saide ‘What
shal I do, where is it?’ One of the standers by guyding her therunto,
she layde her head downe upon the block, and stretched forth her body,
and said, ‘Lord, into thy handes I commende my spirite,’ and so she
ended” (Holinshed, and Chronicles of Queen Jane and Queen Mary).
No wonder that good old Foxe could not refrain from shedding tears
when he recounted this tragedy, but sad as is the story of Jane Grey’s
death, her life and its close are amongst England’s glories. Heroines
are rare in all times and in all countries, but in Jane Grey we can
boast of having had one of the truest and noblest of women, a perpetual
legacy to us for all time. The name of Jane Grey shines out like some
brilliant star amid the storm wrack that surrounds it on every side.
Amidst all the bloodshed, crime, and cruelty of this sanguinary age
of English history to read of that gentle spirit, that marvellously
gifted, and most noble, pure, and gifted being, is like coming suddenly
upon a beautiful white lily in the midst of a tangle of loathsome weeds.
Fuller, of “English Worthies” fame, has, in his quaint manner, summed
up Jane Grey’s life in these words: “She had the birth of a Princess,
the life of a saint, yet the death of a malefactor, for her parent’s
offences, and she was longer a captive than a Queen in the Tower.” Both
Jane and her husband were buried in the chapel of St Peter’s of the
Tower.
The news of the Queen’s approaching marriage with Philip of Spain
set half the country in a blaze. The men of Kent rose, headed by
Sir Thomas Wyatt, as did those of Devon, led by Sir Peter Carew. As
we have already seen, the Duke of Suffolk headed another rising in
Leicestershire, but he was soon defeated and captured, and together
with his brother Lord John Grey was taken to London and imprisoned in
the Tower, on the 10th of February, two days before his daughter, Jane
Grey’s, execution. It was only four months before, that Suffolk had
received his daughter at the fortress as Queen of England, and he must
have felt more than the bitterness of death at the thought that it was
owing to his conduct in again leading an armed force against Queen Mary
that Jane’s life, as well as his own, were sacrificed.
Five days after Jane had met her death on a scaffold which stood
close to her father’s prison, he himself was taken to his trial at
Westminster Hall. It was noted that when he left the fortress the Duke
went “stoutly and cheerfully enough,” but that on his return when he
landed at the water gate, “his countenance was heavy and pensive.” This
is scarcely to be wondered at for he had been sentenced to death, and
was beheaded on Tower Hill on the 23rd of the same month.
In the brief speech which he delivered to the people before his death
the unfortunate Duke admitted the justice of his sentence, saying,
“Masters, I have offended the Queen and her laws, and thereby I am
justly condemned to die, and am willing to die, desiring all men to
be obedient; and I pray God that this my death may be an example to
all men, beseeching you all to bear me witness that I die in the faith
of Christ trusting to be saved by his blood only, and by no other
trumpery, the which died for me, and for all men that truly repent and
steadfastly trust in him. And I do repent, desiring you all to pray to
God for me that when you see my head depart from me, you will pray to
God that he may receive my soul.”
Of Suffolk, Bishop Burnet writes; “That but for his weakness he would
have died more pitied, if his practices had not brought his daughter to
her end.”
Although it is probable that Suffolk’s body was buried in St Peter’s
Chapel, his head is believed to be in the Church of the Holy Trinity in
the Minories, a building which is within the ancient liberties of the
Tower. The Duke’s town house was the converted convent of the church
of the nuns of the order of Clares, so called after their foundress
Santa Clara of Assisi. They were known as the “Sorores Minores,”
whence the name of the district—the Minories. This building had been
made over to Suffolk by Edward VI., and the present church of the Holy
Trinity actually stands upon the site of the old convent chapel. This
interesting edifice is now (1899) threatened with destruction, and in a
few years it is extremely probable that the ground upon which it stands
will be covered with warehouses or buildings connected with the London
and North-Western Railway.
The head was found half-a-century ago in a small vault near the altar,
and as it had been placed in sawdust made of oakwood, it is quite
mummified, owing to the tannin in the oak. There is the mark of the
blow of a sharp instrument above the place where the head was severed
from the neck, and Sir George Scharf, than whom a better judge of
an historical head whether on canvas or in a mummified state, never
existed, wrote of it thus: “The arched form of the eyebrows and the
aquiline shape of the nose, correspond with the portrait engraved in
Lodge’s series from a picture at Hatfield; a duplicate of which is
in the National Portrait Gallery.” This grim _memento mori_ may some
day find its way to the Tower, where it would be an object of much
interest, although, if Suffolk’s ghost be consulted, it would perhaps
plead for this melancholy relic of frail mortality to be placed in
consecrated ground.
It was during Wyatt’s rebellion that the Tower was attacked for the
last time in its history. Wyatt had defeated a force commanded by the
old Duke of Norfolk and Sir Henry Jerningham, at Rochester, and from
thence marched on to Gravesend, where he was met by some members of the
Privy Council who had been sent to find out the exact nature of his
demands: “The custody of the Tower, and the Queen within it!” was his
modest request.
[Illustration: _Henry Grey, Duke of Suffolk_
(_From the portrait by Joannes Corvus in the National Portrait
Gallery._)]
Mary, cruel and bigoted as she was, had inherited the courage of the
Tudors, and as Wyatt approached the City, resolutely refused to take
shelter in the Tower as she was strongly urged to do, offering a
pension of one hundred pounds a year (about £1000 of our money value)
to any one who would bring her Wyatt’s head. On the 3rd of February
he arrived opposite to the Tower, cannonading the fortress from the
Southwark side of the river, but without causing any hurt either to
the buildings or to their defenders. In attempting to cross the river
at London Bridge he was driven back, practically being compelled to
retreat along the Southwark side as far as Kingston, where was the only
other bridge by which he could gain the City and the Tower. Crossing
this bridge, Wyatt now marched to the east upon a dark and stormy
night; his men were worn out with fatigue, their spirits dashed by
the recent repulse, and the consequence was that they melted away in
shoals. Very few remained with him when he encountered the Royal troops
drawn up at Hyde Park to bar his passage, and although he succeeded in
pushing his way through the soldiers with a handful of his friends, he
sank down utterly exhausted when he reached Temple Bar. The gate of
the Bar was closed and he and his companions were immediately taken
prisoners by Sir Maurice Berkeley.
There is a lengthy list of prisoners who were brought with Wyatt
into the Tower, or shortly after his arrest. Amongst these were, Sir
William Cobham and his brother George Cobham; Hugh Booth, Thomas Vane,
Robert Rudstone, Sir George Harper, Edward Wyatt, Edward Fog, George
Moore, Cuthbert Vaughan, Sir Henry Isley, two Culpeppers, and Thomas
Rampton, who had been Suffolk’s secretary. Wyatt was beheaded on the
11th of February, the day before Lady Jane Grey and her husband,
stoutly maintaining to the end, even under the torture of the rack,
that Elizabeth had had no cognisance of his insurrection and had played
no part in it as Queen Mary suspected. With all these prisoners the
headsman and the hangman of the Tower had a busy time, and blood flowed
freely on Tower Hill in the springtime of 1555. Some of these prisoners
were, however, executed out of London. Sir Henry Isley and his brother
suffered at Maidstone, the Knevets at Sevenoaks, and Bret, who had
cannonaded the Tower during Wyatt’s rebellion, was hanged in chains at
Rochester.
London in those days must have looked like some vast Golgotha. Gibbets
were placed in all the principal streets, each bearing its ghastly
load; and the decapitated heads and limbs of Queen Mary’s victims were
stuck over many gates of the town, standing up in horrid clusters,
especially on London Bridge, the air being tainted far and near with
these grisly fragments of mortality. London had indeed been turned into
a shamble; it had become a veritable city of blood, a precursor of an
African Benin.
Whilst these scenes were taking place in her capital, Mary wedded
Philip of Spain at Winchester, vainly attempting to make herself
attractive to that morose prince.
From some words let fall, it is said by Wyatt, Mary ordered three
members of the Privy Council to go to Ashbridge in Hertfordshire where
her half-sister, the Princess Elizabeth, was then living in a state
of semi-captivity. These three Privy Councillors were Sir Richard
Southwell, Sir Edward Hastings, and Sir Thomas Cornwallis; they were
accompanied by a guard of two hundred and fifty horsemen. On arriving
late at night at Ashbridge they were told that the Princess was ill and
was in bed, but they nevertheless forced their way into her bedroom.
“Is the haste such,” cried Elizabeth, “that you could not have waited
till the morning?” Their answer was that they had orders to bring
her hence, dead or alive, and early the next morning she was taken
in a litter by short stages to London, the journey, however, taking
six days to accomplish, the people showing the Princess the most
marked sympathy as she passed along the roads. On reaching Whitehall,
Elizabeth was closely confined, being examined there by the Council;
a fortnight later she was taken by water to the Tower and landed at
Traitor’s Gate. Her proud attitude and indignant words on leaving her
barge are well known, but, like most of her recorded sayings, are well
worth repeating:—“Here landeth,” she exclaimed on putting her foot on
the stone steps of that historic gate, “as true a subject, being a
prisoner, as ever landed at these stairs, and before thee, O God, I
speak it, having none other friends but thee.” She then seated herself,
in spite of the heavy rain then falling, on a stone—some accounts
have it on the steps themselves—saying with true Tudor determination,
“Better sit here than in a worse place.” And it was not until the
Gentleman Usher burst into tears that she could be induced to rise and
enter her prison.
[Illustration: _Middle Tower_]
Elizabeth once within the Tower, it became the more difficult for Mary
and her Council to know how to act. Judging from her general character,
Mary would have been only too ready to shed her sister’s blood, but the
Council were more humane than the Queen, and while the followers of
Wyatt, and Wyatt himself, were being tortured in order to extract some
admissions whereby Elizabeth might be incriminated, the Princess was
kept in close confinement. But nothing could be proved against her. In
vain the crafty Gardiner examined and cross-examined Elizabeth herself;
for a whole month she was not allowed to leave her prison room, mass
being said daily in her apartment;—this must have been intensely
irritating to the proud spirit of the Protestant Elizabeth. At length
her health broke down and she was permitted to walk in the Queen’s
Privy Garden, but always accompanied by the Constable of the Tower, the
Lieutenant, and a guard of men. There is a story, and probably a true
one, of a little boy, aged four, who was wont to bring the Princess
flowers to brighten her prison room. On one occasion he was watched
as he left, and strictly questioned, with the result that the little
fellow’s kind attentions had to cease, by order of Sir John Gage, the
Constable. Holinshed has narrated a quarrel that occurred between
Elizabeth’s attendants with her in the Tower, and the Constable. The
latter had given orders that when her servants brought the Princess’s
dinner to the gates of the fortress they were not to be admitted, but
were to hand over the provisions to the “common rascall souldiers.”
Elizabeth’s servants strongly objected to this arrangement, complaining
that the “rascalls” took most of the Princess’s dinner themselves
before it reached her, but the only satisfaction they obtained from
Sir John was that “if they presumed either to frown or shrug at him”
he would “sette them where they should see neither sonne nor moon.” An
application to the Privy Council forced the Constable to give way, but
Holinshed remarks that he was not over-pleased at having to do so, “for
he had good cheare and fared of the best, while her Grace paid for all.”
It being impossible to prove anything against Elizabeth she was at
length allowed to leave her prison. This she did on the 19th May 1554,
under the charge of Sir Henry Bedingfield, and was taken to Woodstock.
There is a tradition that when it was known in the City that the
Princess had been released from the Tower, some of its church bells
rang merry peals of joy, and that when she became Queen she gave those
churches silken bell-ropes.
The Earl of Warwick and his three brothers, Ambrose, Robert, and Henry
Dudley, were still confined in the Beauchamp Tower, but the Earl died
on the 21st of October 1554, and his brothers were released in the
following year. About the same time other notable personages were set
free, in order, it is thought, to curry favour with the populace and
make the Spanish match less unpopular. These included the Archbishop of
York, Sir Edward Warner, and some dozen other knights and gentlemen.
Then came the religious persecutions which were carried on by Mary
with zest, and it has been estimated that during her short reign, and
during the three and a half years that the persecution of the reformers
lasted, no less than three hundred victims perished at the stake.
These martyrs, however, did not suffer in vain, “You have lost the
hearts of twenty thousand that were rank Papists within these twelve
months,” wrote a Protestant to Bonner; and Latimer’s dying words to
his fellow-martyr, as he was being tied to the stake at Oxford, will
never be forgotten in England, “Play the man, Master Ridley, we shall
this day light such a candle by God’s grace in England as I trust shall
never be put out.”
At length, on the 17th of November, Mary died, and the people had
peace, the last political prisoners in the Tower in her reign being
Thomas, second son of Lord Stafford, and some of his followers, who had
raised a rebellion against Mary’s government in the north of England.
Stafford was beheaded on Tower Hill, and his followers were hanged at
Tyburn.