1548
Lady Jane’s temporary return to her father--He surrenders her again
to the Admiral--The terms of the bargain.
One of the secondary but immediate effects of the Queen’s death was to
send Lady Jane Grey back to her parents. It was indeed to Seymour, and
not to his wife, that the care of the child had been entrusted; but in
his first confusion of mind after what he termed his great loss, the
Admiral appears to have recognised the difficulty of providing a home
for a girl in her twelfth year in a house without a mistress, and to
have offered to relinquish her to her natural guardians.
Having acted in haste, he was not slow to perceive that he had
committed a blunder, and quickly reawakened to the importance of
retaining the possession and disposal of the child. On September 17,
not ten days after Katherine’s death, he was writing to Lord Dorset to
cancel, so far as it was possible, his hasty suggestion that she should
return to her father’s house, and begging that she might be permitted
to remain in his hands. In his former letter, he explained, he had
been partly so amazed at the death of the Queen as to have small regard
either to himself or his doings, partly had believed that he would be
compelled, in consequence of it, to break up his household. Under these
circumstances he had suggested sending Lady Jane to her father, as to
him who would be most tender of her. Having had time to reconsider
the question, he found that he would be in a position to maintain his
establishment much on its old footing. “Therefore, putting my whole
affiance and trust in God,” he had begun to arrange his household as
before, retaining the services not only of the gentlewomen of the late
Queen’s privy chamber, but also her inferior attendants. “And doubting
lest your lordship should think any unkindness that I should by my
said letter take occasion to rid me of your daughter so soon after
the Queen’s death, for the proof both of my hearty affection towards
you and good will towards her, I mind now to keep her until I shall
next speak to your lordship ... unless I shall be advertised from your
lordship of your express mind to the contrary.” His mother will, he has
no doubt, be as dear to Lady Jane as though she were her daughter, and
for his part he will continue her half-father and more.[81]
It was clear that the Admiral would only yield the point upon
compulsion. Dorset, however, was not disposed to accede to his wishes.
Developing a sudden parental anxiety concerning the child he had been
content to leave to the care of others for more than eighteen months,
he replied, firmly though courteously negativing the Admiral’s request.
“Considering,” he said, “the state of my daughter and her tender years
wherein she shall hardly rule herself as yet without a guide, lest she
should, for lack of a bridle, take too much the head and conceive such
opinion of herself that all such good behaviour as she heretofore have
learned by the Queen’s and your most wholesome instruction, should
either altogether be quenched in her, or at the least much diminished,
I shall in most hearty wise require your lordship to commit her to
the governance of her mother, by whom, for the fear and duty she owes
her, she shall be most easily ruled and framed towards virtue, which I
wish above all things to be most plentiful in her.” Seymour no doubt
would do his best; but, being destitute of any one who should correct
the child as a mistress and monish her as a mother, Dorset was sure
that the Admiral would think, with him, that the eye and oversight of
his wife was necessary. He reiterated his former promise to dispose of
her only according to Seymour’s advice, intending to use his consent
in that matter no less than his own. “Only I seek in these her young
years, wherein she now standeth either to make or mar (as the common
saying is) the addressing of her mind to humility, soberness, and
obedience.”[82]
It was the letter of a model parent, anxious concerning the welfare,
spiritual and mental, of a beloved child, and Dorset, as he sealed and
despatched it, will have felt that policy and conscience were for once
in full accord. Lady Dorset likewise wrote, endorsing her husband’s
views.
“Whereas of a friendly and brotherly good will you wish to have Jane,
my daughter, continuing still in your house, I give you most hearty
thanks for your gentle offer, trusting, nevertheless, that for the good
opinion you have in your sister [by courtesy, meaning herself] you will
be content to charge her with her, who promiseth you not only to be
ready at all times to account for the ordering of your dear niece, but
also to use your counsel and advice on the bestowing of her, whensoever
it shall happen. Wherefore, my good brother, my request shall be, that
I may have the oversight of her with your good will, and thereby I
shall have good occasion to think that you do trust me in such wise as
is convenient that a sister be trusted of so loving a brother.”
The singular humility of the language used by a king’s grand-daughter
in demanding restitution of her child is proof of the position held
by the Admiral in the eyes of those as well fitted to judge of it
as Dorset and his wife, only six months before he was sent to the
scaffold. It was none the less plain that they were determined to
regain possession of their daughter, and, though not abandoning
the hope of moving her parents from their purpose, Seymour yielded
provisionally to their will and sent Lady Jane home. A letter from
the small bone of contention, dated October 1, thanking him for his
great goodness and stating that he had ever been to her a loving and
kind father, proves that her removal had taken place by that time. The
same courier probably conveyed a letter from her mother, making her
acknowledgments for Seymour’s kindness to the child, and his desire to
retain her, and adding an ambiguous hope that at their next meeting
both would be satisfied.[83]
The Admiral, at all events, intended to obtain satisfaction. Where
his interest was concerned he was an obstinate man. Notwithstanding
his apparent acquiescence, he meant to retain the custody of Lord
Dorset’s daughter, and he did so. Even his household understood that
the concession made in sending her home was but temporary; and, in
a conversation with another dependant, Harrington--the same who had
served his master as go-between before--observed that he thought the
maids were continuing with the Admiral in the hope of Lady Jane’s
return.
A visit paid by Seymour to Dorset decided the question. “In the
end”--it is the latter who speaks--“after long debating and much
sticking of our sides, we did agree that my daughter should return.”
The Admiral had come to his house, and had been so earnest in his
persuasions that he could not resist him. The old bait had been once
again held out--Lady Jane, if Seymour could compass it, was to marry
the King. Her mother was wrought upon till her consent was gained to
a second parting; and when this was the case, observed the marquis,
throwing, according to precedent, the responsibility upon his wife,
it was impossible for him to refuse his own. He added a pledge that,
“except the King,” he would spend life and blood for Seymour. Thus
the alliance between the two was renewed and cemented. A further item
in the transaction throws an additional and unpleasant light upon the
means taken to ensure the Lord Marquis’s surrender.
The Admiral was a practical man, and knew with whom he had to deal.
He had not confined himself to vague pledges, which Dorset knew as
well as he did that he might never be in a position to fulfil. He had
accompanied his promises by a gift of hard cash. “Whether, as it were,
for an earnest penny of the favour that he would show unto him when
the said Lord Marquis had sent his daughter to the said Lord Admiral,
he sent the said Lord Marquis immediately £500, parcell of £2,000
which he promised to lend unto him and would have asked no bond of
him at all for it, but only to leave the Lord Marquis’s daughter for a
gage.”[84]
Five hundred golden arguments, and more to follow, were found
irresistible by the needy Dorset. The pressing necessity that Jane
should be under her mother’s eye disappeared; the bargain was struck,
and the guardianship of the child bought and sold.
The Admiral was triumphant. It was not only the point of vantage
implied by the possession of the little ward which he had feared to
forfeit, but that his loss might be the gain of his brother and rival.
There would be much ado for my Lady Jane, he told his brother-in-law,
Northampton, and my Lord Protector and my Lady Somerset would do what
they could to obtain her yet for my Lord of Hertford, their son. They
should not, however, prevail therein, for my Lord Marquis had given
her wholly to him, upon certain covenants between them two. “And then
I asked him,” said Northampton, describing the conversation, “what
he would do if my Lord Protector, handling my Lord Marquis of Dorset
gently, should obtain his good will and so the matter to lie wholly in
his own neck? He answered he would never consent thereto.”[85]
Thus Lady Jane was, for the first time, made an instrument of obtaining
that of which her father stood in need. On this occasion it was money;
on the next her life was to be staked upon a more desperate hazard. In
future she appears and disappears, now in sight, now passing behind
the scenes, against the dark background of intrigue and hatred and
bloodshed belonging to her times.