THE LADY JANE MARRIES THE LORD GUILDFORD
The execution of the Duke of Somerset left the stage clear for
Northumberland, who was now all-powerful.[181] More cunning than his
predecessor, he avoided offending the nation by assuming the title of
“Protector,” and rousing his colleagues’ jealousy by styling himself
“Highness.” Little cared he whether he sat on the King’s right hand or
on his left, so long as his young sovereign obeyed him implicitly--on
this point he was resolved. His ambition was sordid enough: he had no
care for the people, but a great deal for his own advancement to wealth
and power; and his wife and children were as greedy and ambitious as
himself. He had flattered the Catholics, and if Princess Mary had been
younger, and willing to marry one of his sons, the religious history
of England might have been different. Somerset had always entertained
a friendly feeling for Mary, who was kind to his wife, while he
hated Elizabeth; Northumberland loathed both Henry VIII’s daughters
equally. Almost his first act on entering office, nominally as Great
Master of the Household or Lord High Steward, but virtually as Lord
Protector of the Realm, was to annoy Mary by opening up the question
of her chaplains, and her right to have Mass said in her private
chapel--a blunder which nearly resulted in a war with the Emperor, her
cousin, to whom the Princess appealed. Then he lent Cranmer a hand in
persecuting the Anabaptists. The fires of Smithfield flared up once
more. Joan Bocher, and Peter of Paris a Dutchman, were put to death,
though Cranmer found it hard to get Edward VI to set his hand to the
warrant for Joan’s execution. With great alacrity, then, Northumberland
pushed on Somerset’s iconoclastic vandalism, till he made our glorious
cathedrals and churches as bare as meeting-houses. Shiploads of holy
images, chalices, pictures, and painted windows were carted out of the
churches, defaced, destroyed, or sold, and carried abroad, even as far
as Constantinople, where a cargo of “imaugys” from England fetched a
high figure among the Catholics of Pera and Galata. So wanton was the
destruction of Church linen at this time that the citizens, disgusted
at seeing it burnt at the street corners, petitioned Northumberland to
hand it over to the hospitals.
The Catholics, perceiving they had gained nothing in return for the
help they had given Northumberland, retired into obscurity, to wait
for better days; whilst the Reformers acclaimed the zeal of a man who
fought so fiercely against the faith in which he eventually elected
to die. It presently occurred to the Lord High Steward that the young
King was failing fast. The servants about the Court saw death in the
boy’s pale face and shrunken form, and heard its stealthy advance
in his feeble voice and hacking cough. To curry favour for himself,
Northumberland allowed the dying monarch greater freedom than he had
hitherto enjoyed. Sports and pastimes were arranged for his amusement,
and if we may believe his _Journal_, he enjoyed them after his own
fashion. Nobody had been so kind to him since his uncle Thomas’s death!
But sports and pastimes could not galvanise the attenuated lad into
fresh vigour, and he grew worse every day, watched with anxious eyes by
Northumberland and Suffolk, and above all by Cranmer, whose hopes were
concentrated in him.
Since his accession to great wealth the Duke of Suffolk had gradually
abandoned Bradgate for London and fixed his family’s abode at
Sheen,[182] in the abbot’s buildings of the once opulent Carthusian
monastery, which he had adapted as a private residence.[183] Here
the Suffolks resided towards the end of the year 1552 and during the
early part of the momentous year 1553. The house, a large and noble
structure, with a long Gothic gallery running from end to end, stood
close to the venerable palace built by Edward the Confessor. It was
supposed to be haunted--the place was often disturbed after dark by
the sound of footsteps, the rustle of ghostly garments, and the mutter
of unearthly voices; but the most ghastly incident of all was one
which struck sudden terror into the hearts of the Duke and Duchess as
they paced the gallery in the gloaming. All at once a skeleton hand
and arm thrust itself from the wall, and brandished in their faces a
sword, or, as some said, an axe, dripping with blood. It should be
remembered that the Lady Frances was now in possession of nearly all
the Carthusian property in and about London, which had been granted by
Henry VIII to her father, Charles Brandon, and which she had lately
inherited from her stepbrothers; and this spectre may have been
contrived by some friend of the exiled Brotherhood to impress on the
Duchess and her brood the sacrilegious origin of this wealth, which
certainly did not bring them good luck.
Nearly opposite to this uncanny residence stood Syon or Sion House,
an ancient Bridgetine convent which had been presented at the
Dissolution to the late Duke of Somerset, and which his rival, the Duke
of Northumberland, had filched from his widow. As the scene of the
most dramatic event in Lady Jane Grey’s short life, it still retains
considerable historical interest; but although much of the old convent
is standing, the cloisters and other portions have been hidden under
the plaster and stucco of an exceedingly ugly structure of the debased
Victorian villa type.[184]
Northumberland, although he had not yet evolved the scheme of
marrying his only bachelor and youngest son to Jane Grey, none the
less considered the amity of the Suffolks too valuable an asset to
be neglected. At this time Northumberland’s power and certainly his
secrets were largely shared by his ally, the Duke of Suffolk, who never
took any initiative or made a step in any direction without the consent
of his all-powerful friend, who knew him to be a “weakling.”[185]
[Illustration: SUPPOSED PORTRAIT OF LADY JANE GREY, FORMERLY IN THE
COLLECTION OF COL. ELLIOTT, AND NOW AT OXFORD UNIVERSITY
FROM AN ENGRAVING AFTER THE PAINTING BY HOLBEIN]
Northumberland, it would seem, did not at first intend Guildford for
Lady Jane Grey, but for the Lady Margaret Clifford, whose right to
the throne was at this time considered less disputable, she being
Henry VIII’s own grand-niece, eldest daughter of the Lady Eleanor
Brandon, the younger sister of the Duchess of Suffolk. Born after
the nullification of Charles Brandon’s marriage with Lady Mortimer,
her legitimacy was indisputable, whereas the enemies of the Suffolks
were busily engaged about this time (1552) in spreading a report that
Jane was illegitimate, her mother, the Lady Frances, having come
into the world during the lifetime of the said Lady Mortimer. This
insinuation was probably made by Lady Powis, Brandon’s eldest daughter
by his second wife, Anne Browne. At one moment this matter of Lady
Jane’s illegitimacy came very near saving her life, but Queen Mary,
to whom the matter was represented, refused, it is said, to take such
a possibility into consideration, out of respect for the memory of
her aunt, the Queen-Duchess of Suffolk, whose marriage would have
been invalidated if this assumption had been proved. Among Catholics,
however, Lady Jane’s legitimacy was much disputed, and the Lady Eleanor
prudently refused to encourage any great intimacy between her daughter
and Northumberland’s son; she and her family, indeed, kept themselves
in the background as much as they possibly could. At last, even though
the boy-King had been induced to take an interest in the projected
marriage, and had written both to Northumberland and to the Earl of
Cumberland on the subject, the Duke altered his mind, and in 1553, with
the casual fashion of those days, having decided to marry Guildford
to the Lady Jane, he “offered” the Lady Margaret Clifford to his own
younger brother, Sir Andrew Dudley.[186]
Perhaps that which finally decided Northumberland to abandon his first
project was the unguarded and compromising language used by a certain
Mrs. Huggones, a former servant of the widowed Duchess of Somerset.
This good woman’s tongue having been loosened on one occasion by
too liberal potations--the conversation is said to have taken place
during supper--openly lamented the Duke of Somerset’s misfortunes
(the incident occurred about August 1552), called the young King an
unnatural nephew, and vivaciously remarked she wished she “had the
jerking of him.” She added that Lord Guildford Dudley was to marry the
daughter of the Earl of Cumberland, the match having been planned by
the King, and finally, “with a stoute gesture,” she cried, “have at the
Crown, with your leave.” Further, she used “unseemly saiyenges, neither
meet to be spoken, nor conseyled of any hearer.” Sir William Stafford,
in whose house at Rochford, in Essex, the affair apparently occurred,
wrote to the Privy Council an account of these injudicious remarks. On
8th September, Mrs. Huggones was arraigned before Sir Robert Bowes,
Master of the Robes, and Sir Arthur Darcy, Lieutenant of the Tower,
acting for the Privy Council. She denied what had been said of her,
and expressed great admiration for Northumberland. “And, moreover, she
being examined of the last article concerning the marriage of the Lord
Guildford Dudley with the Earl of Cumberland’s daughter, she deposeth
that she heard it spoken in London (but by whom she now remembereth
not) that the King’s ma^{ty} had made such a marriage, and so she told
the first night that she came to Rochford to supper, showing herself to
be glad thereof, and so she thought that all the hearers were also glad
at that marriage.”[187] Maybe the fact that her daughter was becoming
the subject of popular gossip was another incentive to the proud Lady
Eleanor to place obstacles in the way of Northumberland’s proposal.[188]
There is no evidence that any of the Reformers visited the Suffolks
at Sheen, but it is probable they did so, for the success of the
Northumberlands’ scheme depended on the zeal of Lady Jane for
Protestantism being kept at fever heat; and we may therefore conclude
her Reforming friends were frequent guests at the ex-monastery.
The foreign Reformers were at this time very active all over England.
Cranmer was particularly engaged with them, sending the smartest
among them to lecture at Oxford and Cambridge, and inviting the great
Melanchthon, and even Calvin himself, to visit England and preach,
although the religious opinions of both were very different from his
own. He even proposed to Calvin the formation of a sort of Protestant
œcumenical council in London in opposition to the Council of Trent.
In March 1552, he wrote to Calvin: “Our adversaries are now holding
their Council at Trent for the establishment of their errors. Shall we
neglect to call together here in London a godly synod for restoring and
propagating the truth?”
There is nothing in Reformation correspondence so interesting or so
curious as the _Zurich Letters_--no writings so rich in details and
revelations. The tone of these old letters, of Melanchthon, Calvin,
Cranmer, Hooper, Conrad Pellican, Œcolampadius, Hilles, Hales, Gualter,
Fagius, Stumphius, Ab Ulmis, Bullinger, Bucer, etc. etc., is strangely
modern. It is easy to imagine oneself to be reading the documentary
evidence of some great modern revolutionary scheme for “the betterment
of humanity.” All these worthies held themselves in a “godly” light
uncommon to the rest of mankind. They, and they only, brandished the
torch of truth, albeit they did not by any means hold identical views
on even the most vital points of Christian faith--but they were as one
when face to face with their common enemy, the Pope, and the religion
he represented, and any blow dealt at Lutheranism was an equal joy
to them. Cranmer would have burnt half of them to cinders for their
“heresies” had they been Englishmen--he sent Anne Askew and Joan Bocher
to the stake for holding “errors” which coincided with those of some
of his foreign friends, Stumphius, Fagius, and Calvin, for instance!
He would have hanged a Briton for stating in plain English his belief
in predestination--but none the less invited over to a synod the
great teacher of that desperate doctrine. These men were, no doubt,
in earnest, and have left some strange details of their doings which
throw floods of light on the history and mentality of the times in
which they lived. They believed themselves to be so many God-appointed
apostles, and addressed each other as “father in Christ,” even
substituting for their common Teutonic names rich-sounding classical
ones--Œcolampadius, Stumphius, Massarius, Utenhovius, Terentianus,
Vadianus, Osiander, Dryander, Ochianus, etc. They would willingly have
suffered death heroically and patiently for what they believed to be
the truth. On the other hand, they could hate like very devils; Mary
to them was Jezebel or Ataliah, Philip, Satan, Pole, a hell-hound, and
the Pope, the Scarlet Whore and worse than the Devil. They could not
speak decently of their adversaries; and it is precisely here that we
see their influence on the youthful Jane--the reason why, if she really
wrote the letter to Harding after his reversion to Catholicism, she
employed a viragoish language unworthy of so gentle a Christian.
We have no positive proof of how the two families, of Northumberland
and Suffolk, passed their time in the more genial months of the
years 1552-3, when the Thames is pleasantest, especially in the
neighbourhood where they had elected to pitch their respective camps.
The two Dukes and their Duchesses cannot always have been engaged in
political intrigues; they must have given themselves some occasional
recreation, and we may imagine that archery, tennis, and other sports,
dancing, music, and such amusements, were frequently indulged in
at Sheen and Sion, the two state barges incessantly crossing and
recrossing the river, from one mansion to the other. We can picture
the scene on the lawn in front of Sion, down which the handsome
Duchess of Northumberland often went to welcome the Lady Frances and
her daughters as they landed from their barge, leading them, with the
stately ceremony of those days, from the water-gate to the terrace in
front of the former convent, and so into the cloisters along which the
sisterhood of St. Bridget had so often and so recently passed in solemn
procession to their now ruined chapel. And then came the gay romp in
the hall and the merry games of the young folk, in which even the
austere little Lady Jane would condescend to mingle, to the righteous
consternation, doubtless, of her friends from Zurich and Geneva. Here,
too, must have come the handsome Ambrose Dudley, lately married to the
Lady Anne Seymour;[189]--but did that lady visit the house of the man
who had compassed the ruin and death of her father? And here Robert
Dudley, afterwards the famous Earl of Leicester, may have brought his
affianced wife, the fair Amy Robsart of _Kenilworth_ fame. And the Lady
Mary Sidney, Northumberland’s elder daughter, and wife of Sir Henry
Sidney, soon to become the mother of one of the most illustrious men of
the Elizabethan age, no doubt joined the circle with her clever young
husband. In these hours of relaxation, when the dark undertakings to
which the politics of those bloody days forced them were forgotten,
these youths overflowed with animal spirits, and it is more than likely
that Jane and her sister Katherine, and even the little Lady Mary,
romped merrily with their guests. It was a romping age, the good old
healthy country dances were in high favour, and the best performer
was he who could lift his lady highest off the ground, or could cross
his legs twice in a pirouette before he touched the floor again!
Northumberland himself was famous as a dancer of extraordinary elegance
and skill. That the Calvinism in which they had dabbled had not as yet
stirred up Henry of Suffolk and his Tudor consort to a proper pitch
of “godliness” is evident, for a company of players who had enacted
comedies, tragedies, and tragi-comedies at Tylsey in the previous
year, repeated their performances at Sheen in the winter of 1552-3,
and brought a smile, perchance, to the pale lips of the studious Lady
Jane, and evoked a hearty laugh from her materialistic mother, who, for
aught we know to the contrary,--let us hope it was not so!--may already
have begun to allow a certain ginger-headed Master Adrian Stokes, His
Lordship’s Groom of the Chambers, to pay her compliments which a great
Princess and an honest woman ought to have nipped in the bud. Tradition
has it that Northumberland and his colleague of Suffolk often played
a game of chess together, and that Suffolk would wax irritable if
Northumberland won more often than himself.
No doubt, as soon as the Cumberland affair was broken off, and
Northumberland had decided to marry his son to Lady Jane, Guildford
was thrown as much into the young girl’s society as was possible
in those days of rigid etiquette, when maidens of rank were not
often allowed out of the sight of their parents and governesses. But
there is no record of any love-making between the young folk: on the
contrary, there is plenty of evidence that the girl disliked her
suitor. About a week before the wedding her parents ordered her to
marry the young gentleman, and, according to Baoardo,[190] she at first
stoutly refused, “her heart,” she said, “being plighted elsewhere.”
The Duke harshly reiterated his command and, according to the Italian
chronicler, even struck his daughter several hard blows, whilst the
broad red face of the Lady Frances purpled threateningly. The Duke
told Jane her marriage had been ordained by no less a person than
King Edward himself, and sharply inquired “whether she intended to
disobey her King as well as her father?” Poor Jane, aching from his
blows, could scarcely stammer her reply, “that she could not marry
with Guildford since she was already contracted to another” and that
with her father’s consent,--she doubtless alluded to the young Earl of
Hertford, the late Duke of Somerset’s son. But what could a forlorn
little girl of less than sixteen do, surrounded, as Jane was, by people
whom she believed to be all-powerful? She had been so “nipped and
pinched and bobbed” in her youth for an ill-constructed Latin verse
or a faulty translation of a Greek sentence,[191] that her spirit was
already more or less broken; she gave a reluctant consent at last;
and straightway the two Duchesses began their wedding preparations.
Milliners and haberdashers, glove-makers, embroiderers and Italian
silk merchants flocked to Sion and Sheen to display their gewgaws and
rich stuffs. Let us hope the little bride-elect derived some childish
pleasure from all this finery, the ostentatious display of which
must have thrown her Calvinistic friends into hysterics of righteous
indignation. And thus, long before she went to the Tower and thence
to her unmerited doom, Jane’s life was made a burden to her. Like the
forlorn bride of Lammermoor, she was the victim of cruel parents, and
one only wonders her young mind did not totter under the weight of so
much woe!
Lord Guildford Dudley was born about 1533, and was consequently not yet
of age, as Queen Mary afterwards remarked to the Imperial Ambassador.
He was in his nineteenth year at the time of his ill-omened marriage.
The Duchess of Northumberland, his mother, was granddaughter of that
Lady Guildford who had been governess to Mary Tudor, sister of Henry
VIII, and to whom occasional allusion is made in early Tudor documents
as “Moder Guildford.” This lady had contrived to offend Louis XII of
France, who packed her off to England the day after he married the
English Princess. Thus the great-grandson of the governess and the
granddaughter of the royal pupil eventually became man and wife. Lord
Guildford Dudley’s case is believed to be the first instance, in this
country, of the bestowal of a family instead of a Christian name at
baptism; in stricter Catholic times it had been illegal to baptize a
child by any name but that of a saint. Guildford was a tall, well-built
youth, of very fair complexion.[192] In contrast with his splendid
colouring and light-brown hair, he had the soft brown eyes which
lend so peculiar a charm to the authentic portraits of his father,
whose darling he was.[193] The Northumberland family was proverbially
beautiful;--Robert, the famous Earl of Leicester and lover of Queen
Elizabeth, was considered the handsomest man of his time. Guildford
Dudley had a second name, James or Diego, received at his christening
from a Spanish[194] nobleman, the famous Diego Hurtado de Mendoza, a
trivial circumstance, apparently, but fatal in its consequences, for,
as we shall see, it was largely a foolishly worded letter from this
godfather that brought Guildford to the block.
It is uncertain whether Jane’s wedding was celebrated towards the end
of May or in the beginning of June[195] (1553), but the former is the
date generally received. Three marriages occurred on the same day:
the first that of Lady Jane Grey and Guildford Dudley; the second
between Lord Herbert,[196] eldest son of the Earl of Pembroke, and the
Lady Katherine Grey, younger sister of Guildford’s bride; whilst the
third was between Henry, Lord Hastings, eldest son of the Earl of
Huntingdon, and Lady Katherine, the young sister of Lord Guildford
Dudley. On the same day, little Lady Mary Grey, barely eight years of
age, was solemnly betrothed to her equally youthful kinsman, Arthur,
Lord Grey of Wilton.
Lady Jane Grey’s wedding seems to have been exceptionally magnificent.
Strype tells us that to increase its splendour and solemnity, the
Master of the Wardrobe, Sir Andrew Dudley, had orders to deliver to
the various parties much rich apparel and jewels out of the royal
wardrobe.[197] As the King’s “table diamond” was delivered to the
Princess Mary about this time, it seems probable that she also attended
the wedding. These articles were not new, but consisted of velvets,
brocades, pieces of cloth of gold, of silver, etc., the property of the
late Duke of Somerset and of his Duchess, who was still a prisoner in
the Tower; which had been forfeited to the King, on their attainder.
Thus was poor Jane’s bridal party bedecked with the finery of her
father’s victim, who preceded her by a few months only on the road to
the bloodstained scaffold. The French Ambassador also mentions the
exceptional pomp displayed at this wedding, but gives no details.
No contemporary account of this particular ceremony is in
existence,[198] but the general custom was for the bride, attired in
a dress highly ornamented with gold and embroidery, her hair hanging
down, curiously waved and plaited, to be led to the church “between
two sweet boys, with bride laces, and rosemary tied about their silken
sleeves.” Before the bride was carried “a fair bride cup, of silver
gilt,” “therein was a goodly branch of rosemary, gilded very fair, and
hung about with silken ribbands of all colours; next there was a noise
of musicians, that played all the way before her.”[199] Then followed a
train of virgins in white, crowned with fresh flowers, with their hair
hanging loose, some bearing bride cakes, and others garlands, adorned
with gold. Last came the bridegroom, splendidly apparelled, with
young men following close behind. There were scarves and gloves, an
“epithalamium” and masques and dances; and “all the company was decked
out with the bride’s colours, in every form and fantasy.”
When Jane’s marriage took place, the populace, though far from pleased
with the exorbitant pretensions of the Duke of Northumberland, could
not forbear admiring the bridegroom’s extreme beauty of person. The
bride was considered pretty, but small and freckled. She must have
come, in all her bridal bravery, from Suffolk House in the Strand to
Durham House, for it was the custom then, as it is still, for the bride
to start from her paternal roof, and meet the bridegroom at the church
door or even at the altar. The Church of St. Mary-le-Strand having
been destroyed by Somerset, the service was undoubtedly held in the
private chapel of the ex-palace of the Bishops of Durham, then the town
residence of Northumberland.
Edward VI was too ill to attend the wedding, and there is no direct
evidence that either of the Princesses, his sisters, were present;
though, as we have already said, Princess Mary may have been. Their
absence, however, points to their fear of Northumberland’s sinister
intentions. The young King made his cousin, Jane, and Lady Katherine
Grey some wedding gifts of jewels and plate.
Burke says in his _Tudor Portraits_, though on what authority he does
not tell us, that on the morning of her fatal marriage, “Lady Jane’s
headdress[200] was of green velvet, set round with precious stones.
She wore a gown of cloth of gold, and a mantle of silver tissue. Her
hair hung down her back, combed and plaited in a curious fashion ‘then
unknown to ladies of qualitie.’ This arrangement was said to have been
devised by Mrs. Elizabeth Tylney, her friend and attendant, who was
with her to the end. The bride was led to the altar by two handsome
pages, with bride lace and rosemary tied to their sleeves. Sixteen
virgins, dressed in ‘pure white,’ preceded the bride to the altar.
Northumberland and his family were remarkable on this occasion for
the splendour of their costumes. We have seen that they were jays in
borrowed plumes. A profusion of flowers was scattered along the bridal
route, the church bells gave a greeting, and the poor received beef,
bread and ale for three days.”
Ascham reports that the wedding was “conducted much in the old Popish
fashion,” and adds, curiously enough, as a rider to this observation,
that “Northumberland, notwithstanding his pretended zeal for the
Reformation, was a Papist at heart.” He was quite right, as events
proved, though it should be remembered that at this time of transition
the order of the marriage ceremony, unlike that for funerals, had not
yet been formulated according to the Reformed rite.
Every item in this tragic story would seem predestined to increase
its fateful horror. Part of Jane’s wedding dower was the estate of
Stanfield in Norfolk,[201] which has more than once been associated
with scenes of horror, not the least dreadful being the Rush murder, in
the second half of the last century. This property belonged at one time
to the Robsart family, and was believed by many to be the birthplace of
the fair Amy, Countess of Leicester, who was really, however, born at
Syderstone, an adjacent manor.
In the letter to Queen Mary, dated August 1553, quoted by Pollino,[202]
and written, according to him, from the Tower, Jane Grey relates the
manner of her existence between her marriage and Edward’s death. “The
Duchess of Northumberland,” she says, “promised me at my nuptials with
her son, that she would be contented if I remained living at home with
my mother. Soon afterwards, my husband being present, she declared
that it was publicly said that there was no hope of the King’s life
(and this was the first time I heard of the matter), and further she
observed to her husband, the Duke of Northumberland, ‘that I ought not
to leave her house,’ adding ‘that when it pleased God to call King
Edward to His mercy I ought to hold myself in readiness, as I might
be required to go to the Tower, since His Majesty had made me heir to
his dominions.’ These words told me off-hand and without preparation,
agitated my soul within me, and for a time seemed to amaze me. Yet
afterwards they seemed to me exaggerated, and to mean little but
boasting, and by no means of consequence sufficient to hinder me from
going to my mother.” Evidently Jane expressed these sentiments very
frankly, for she proceeds: “The Duchess of Northumberland was enraged
against my mother and me. She answered ‘that she was resolved to detain
me,’ insisting, ‘that it was my duty at all events to remain near my
husband, from whom I should not go.’ Not venturing to disobey her, I
remained at her house four or five days.” These days were most likely
spent at Durham House. “At last,” continues Lady Jane, “I obtained
leave to go to Chelsea for recreation” (meaning perhaps change of air),
“where I very soon fell ill.” Her illness was a struggle for life or
death, the suffering so acute as to lead her to imagine she had been
poisoned. The mention of this attack of what we should now call nervous
breakdown, lends an indisputable air of authority to Jane’s letter as
given by Pollino. There was really no earthly reason why anybody should
attempt her life--it was certainly too precious to the Dudleys for
the Duchess, an eminently respectable if an autocratic woman, to wish
to see it prematurely ended. It is well known that this fear of being
poisoned frequently seizes on people in time of distress.
Chelsea Manor House, which had lately been in the possession of the
Duke of Somerset, had fallen, with other property, into the hands of
Northumberland, and thence he dates certain letters to Cecil and his
other colleagues.[203] Lady Jane apparently preferred going to Chelsea
to stopping at Durham House; and so departed without her husband,
although so recently married. Guildford was not present at the scene at
Sion (on 9th July) when the Crown was offered to his wife, which points
to his having been left in bachelor solitude at Durham House. Possibly
the absence of her mother-in-law from the Chelsea establishment
accounts for the bride’s preference for that suburban residence; and
having married Guildford without entertaining the least affection for
him, she probably did not desire his presence either.
The pomp and splendour of these nuptials were the last gleam of gaiety
in the reign of Edward VI. A very short time afterwards, the poor young
King grew so pitifully weak that Northumberland thought it was time to
carry his great projects into execution. Otherwise, as he clearly saw,
he and his friends must not expect to continue long in power, or even
in security: all his efforts, his overthrow of Somerset, and the rest,
would be rendered useless if his royally born daughter-in-law was not
named by the King himself as the lawful successor to the throne.