ON THE WAY TO THE TOWER
The Duke of Northumberland is accused, even by almost contemporary
authorities, of having forged the will of King Edward VI; but, as we
shall presently see, that King never made a will, but left a sort of
tentative document called a “Devise” for the succession, written in
his own hand; though maybe it was suggested or even dictated by the
Duke. By an Act--the XXVIII of Henry VIII, cap. 7--it was enacted that,
failing issue of Queen Jane Seymour, “Your Highness (Henry) shall
have full and plenary power and authority to give, dispose, appoint,
assign, declare, and limit by your letters-patent under your great
seal, or else by your last will made in writing, and signed with your
most gracious hand, at your only pleasure, from time to time hereafter,
the Imperial Crown of this Realm.” Other Acts had recapitulated this;
and King Henry, acting on the same principle, made a will in his
thirty-fifth year, under the terms of which the Crown was to pass,
firstly to his son Edward and his heirs; secondly, to his own heirs
by the then Queen, Katherine Parr, “or any other wife I may have”;
thirdly, to his daughter Mary; fourthly, to his daughter Elizabeth;
fifthly, to the heirs of the body of his niece, the Lady Frances;
sixthly, to those of her sister, Eleanor; seventhly, to the next
rightful heirs, meaning the heirs of his sister, the Queen of Scots. It
was also stipulated that if either of his daughters married without the
consent of the Privy Council, they were to be passed over “as if dead.”
Both Edward VI and his father seem to have wished for a male successor,
for in the latter’s enactments limiting the succession, all the female
heirs are set aside in favour of their as yet unborn male issue.
King Edward’s “Devise” for the limitation of the succession makes
no allusion to his two sisters, the Princesses Mary and Elizabeth.
On the other hand, in the letters-patent for this limitation of the
succession, which were based on the “Devise,” the Princesses’ claim
is ruled out for three reasons: that they were illegitimate; that
they were of half-blood to the King; that there was a chance of their
marrying foreigners. Besides, as we have said, the King, like his
father, was anxious for a male successor; in fact, this desire is
on the very surface of the “Devise,” wherein much stress is laid on
the “issue masle,” since for the one living male descendant of Henry
VII--that is, Edward himself--there were as many as seven ladies (even
excluding the Scotch line) potential to the English Crown.[204]
The first limitation decided upon by the young King was to the Lady
Frances’s issue male, born before the King’s death, and, failing them,
the Lady Jane’s issue male. This scheme suited Northumberland, for if
Jane had a son by Guildford the Duke would become the grandfather of
the King of England and proportionately powerful. But as time went
on it became evident that the King was doomed to an early death, and
therefore a swifter and more practical solution of the succession
problem had to be arrived at. The next best arrangement would have been
the nomination of the Lady Frances;[205] Northumberland, however,
could not approve of such a scheme, since it would have placed the
weight of power in the hands of the Duke of Suffolk, her husband. At
last, all plans failing, Edward decided to nominate the Lady Jane Grey
as his successor to the throne--and thereby the Duke gained his point.
The words in the “Devise,” “to the L’Janes heires masles,” were now
changed to “_to the L’Jane and_ her heires masles”: in the copy of
the document bearing the King’s signature which is still extant, it
can be seen that a pen has been drawn through the “s” at the end of
Jane’s name, and the words “and her” have been written above. Thus was
manufactured[206] the ladder by which Northumberland, by becoming the
father-in-law of a Queen, hoped to reach the summit of his ambition.
Northumberland had a great deal of trouble to get his scheme legalised.
Edward was not unpliable, and indeed attributed Northumberland’s
intense desire to see the “Devise” carried into effect entirely to his
zeal for the Reformed religion; but Archbishop Cranmer, Sir Edward
Montagu, Lord Chief Justice, Sir James Hale, Secretary Cecil and
others, either because they saw through Northumberland or else because
they really had qualms of conscience as to its legality, opposed the
plan, taking their stand on the fact that the nomination of Jane
Grey, being contrary to the older “Statute of Succession,” would be
illegal. Cranmer, as the result of an interview with the King, was
finally converted to his views. Lord Darcy, the Lord Chamberlain,
and the Marquis of Northampton were present at this meeting, much to
the Archbishop’s disgust. “I desired to talk with the King’s Majesty
alone,” says Cranmer, “but I could not be suffered: and so I failed
of my purpose. For if I might have communed with the King alone, and
at my good leisure, my trust was, that I should have altered him from
his purpose; but they (the above-mentioned noblemen) being present,
my labour was in vain. And so at length I was required by the King’s
Majesty himself to set my hand to his will (that is, the scheme for
the succession) saying that he trusted that I alone would not be more
repugnant to his will than the rest of the Council were. Which words
surely grieved my heart very sore. And so I granted him to subscribe
his will, and to follow the same. Which when I had set my hand unto I
did it unfainedly and without dissimulation.”[207]
Directly Northumberland was satisfied that the young King would
not depart from the decision to which he had forced him, he
summoned Lord Chief Justice Montagu to attend at the Royal Court
at Greenwich, on 11th June 1553, with Sir John Baker, Mr. Justice
Bromley, Attorney-General Gosnold and Solicitor-General Griffin. This
command was the first step towards officially depriving Mary of her
inheritance, and the letter was signed by Secretary Petre, Sir John
Cheke, and strange to relate, by Cecil, which is surprising when taken
in conjunction with his subsequent conduct in the matter. The Lord
Chief Justice, coming into the royal presence, found the King very ill,
lying on a couch, surrounded by Lord Winchester, Lord Treasurer, the
Marquis of Northampton, Sir John Gates, Sir John Palmer, and others.
Raising himself, Edward declared, in the verbose language of the time,
that he had summoned his Council to hear from his own lips that he
had appointed the Lady Jane Grey his heiress, as the Lady Mary might
change her faith, and “his Highness’s proceedings in religion might
be altered.[208] Wherefore his pleasure was that the state of the
Crown should go in such form, and to such persons, as his Highness
had appointed in a bill of articles [_i.e._, the “Devise”[209]] now
signed with the King’s hand, which were read, and commanded them to
make a book thereof accordingly with speed.” Montagu refused to do
this, saying the nomination of Lady Jane would be illegal and against
the already mentioned “Statute of Succession,” which had passed
Parliament. Edward, or rather Northumberland, became so irritable,
that the Lord Chief Justice finally acquiesced so far as to ask for
time to deliberate and consult the laws; whereupon the King gave him
the “Devise” to study, and dismissed all present, Northumberland alone
remaining. On the following day (12th June), Secretary Petre sent for
the Lord Chief Justice to Durham House, Northumberland’s palace in the
Strand, and told him the matter must be executed off-hand. Montagu
immediately went to Ely Place, Holborn, where he found the Council
sitting, but Northumberland absent; which emboldened him to warn the
Council of the exceeding danger of the matter they were about to
approve. “In God’s name, my Lords,” cried he, “think twice what you
do--it will be treason to us all who have a hand in it.” Hardly had he
spoken ere Northumberland, who was, of course, aware of his opposition,
burst, as white as a sheet, into the room like a whirlwind, “before all
the Council there,” says a contemporary account, “being in a great rage
and fury, trembling for anger; and, amongst his ragious talk, called
Sir Edward Montagu traitor, and further said that he would fight in
his shirt [sleeves] with any man in that quarrel.” No one took up the
challenge, and Montagu withdrew in some dismay--thankful, no doubt,
that there had been no actual blows given or received.
Nothing was signed or done that day, but on the next, Montagu received
a fresh order to repair immediately to Court with the same companions
as before. On arrival at Greenwich, the party was ushered into a
room filled with the notables of the Court, who “looked upon them
with earnest countenance, as though they had not known them, so that
they might perceive there was some steadfast determination against
them”; which treatment, combined with uncertainty as to whether
the all-powerful Northumberland might not persuade the King into
punishing them for not preparing the “book” of the King’s scheme
as he had wished, made the poor gentlemen feel very uncomfortable.
Edward also (on 15th June), received the Lord Chief Justice and his
colleagues haughtily; His Majesty was apparently better, and seated
in his chair. Montagu’s party endeavoured to excuse themselves by
using the same arguments against the scheme of succession as they had
previously put before the Council. They said that, by reason of the
“Statute of Succession,” the plan would be null and void after Edward’s
death; and that the only power which could remove the said Statute
was Parliament, which had made it, and which was not then sitting.
Thereupon the King said he would summon a Parliament, but, all the
same, the drawing up of his scheme must be proceeded with. He further
commanded Montagu to obey his order, and “make dispatch.” At last
Montagu, “in great fear as ever he was in his life before, seeing the
King so earnest and sharp, and the Duke so angry the day before--who
ruled the whole Council as it pleased him, and they were all afraid
of him (the more is the pity)[210] so that such cowardliness and fear
was there never seen amongst honourable men--being an old man and
without comfort, he began to consider with himself what was best to be
done for the safeguard of his life.” Accordingly he agreed to comply
with his sovereign’s command, provided Edward granted him (as a sort
of protection) his commission under the Great Seal, enjoining him to
draw up the instrument of succession, and that a general “pardon” for
having signed it should be made out at the same time. The King acceded
to these terms; and so the letters patent nominating Jane Grey as King
Edward’s successor received the Great Seal on 21st June, and over a
hundred signatures, including those of the Lord Mayor, the Sheriffs of
Middlesex, Surrey, and Kent, the officers of the Royal Household, and
of Thomas Grey, the Duke of Suffolk’s younger brother, were affixed to
the document. It took so long to collect all the signatures that the
work was not finished until the 8th of July, that is, after Edward’s
death. Stowe records the attendance of the “chief citizen” of the
metropolis on that day in the following terms: “The 8. of July the lord
mayor of London was sent for to the court then at Greenwich, to bring
with him six aldermen, as many merchants of the staple, and as many
merchant adventurers, unto whom by the council was secretly declared
the death of King Edward, and also how he did ordain for the succession
of the crown by his letters patent, to the which they were sworn,
and charged to keep it secret.” Sir James Hale, however, refused his
signature with great dignity; Cecil slipped out of the difficulty on
a pretext of sudden illness. Foreseeing, even before 11th June, the
rocks ahead, he wisely retired from Court after a well-acted scene
of simulated faintness, so realistic as to mislead the shrewd Lord
Audley, who, being a great believer in his own prescriptions, sent the
disordered Secretary the following delightful receipt:--
“Take a sow-pig of nine days old, and flea him and quarter him,
and put him in a stillatory with a handful of spearmint, a handful
of red fennel, a handful of liverwort, half a handful of red nepe
[turnip], a handful of celery, nine dates clean picked and pared,
a handful of great raisins, and pick out the stones, and a quarter
of an ounce of mace, and two sticks of good cinnamon bruised in a
mortar; and distill it together, with a fair fire; and put it in a
glass and set in the sun nine days; and drink nine spoonfuls of it
at once when you list.
“A COMPOST
“_Item._--Take a porcupin, otherwise called an English hedgehog,
and quarter him in pieces, and put the said beast in a still with
these ingredients and boil together; item, a quart of red wine, a
pint of rose-water, a quart of sugar, cinnamon and great raisins,
one date, twelve nepe. Pass the whole through a sieve and drink at
night, a full cup thereof warm.”[211]
Possibly his Lordship intended this epistle as a fine piece of sarcasm,
for if Cecil was only to partake of the “sow-pig” and raisin remedy
nine days after it was concocted, there was every chance of his dying
or getting well in the interval.
The fact that so many persons were found to sign the fateful document
is another proof--even if we make allowance for the majority of the
Council being time-servers--that Edward’s “Devise” for the succession,
though evidently suggested and forwarded by Northumberland, was not a
forgery.
On 6th July[212] (1553), whilst the newly-made bride was peacefully
resting at Chelsea, King Edward VI passed away at Whitehall Palace.
He had been taken out of the hands of his physicians, Drs. Owen[213]
and Wendy, old and trusted Court doctors, and put into those of a
female quack, who soon extinguished the feeble ray of life that still
flickered in his wasted body. An hour before Edward passed away, Dr.
Owen, who had been recalled in a hurry, bent over him, saying, “We
heard you speak to yourself, but what you said we know not?” The weary
lad answered, smiling faintly, “I was praying to God.” A little later
he was heard to murmur, “Lord have mercy upon me, and take my spirit.”
He never spoke again--he was very tired, and needed rest!
The people had shown their anxiety for Edward’s health by assembling
daily in front of Greenwich Palace to ascertain how he was, and to
convince the mob that he was still alive it had become necessary to
make the royal lad show his sickly person, robed in velvet and ermine,
and his poor wasted face--crowned with the delightful little velvet
cap with the white feathers, so familiar to us in his portraits--at
the window. The received version among all classes was that the King
was being slowly poisoned by the Duke of Northumberland, whom they
also accused of having forged Edward’s “Devise” for the succession
in favour of Lady Jane. The Swiss Reformers, in their letters to
Strasburg and Zurich, did not hesitate to give currency to the report
that Northumberland, whom a few weeks earlier they had called the
“illustrious” and the “noble,” had murdered his nephew. “That monster
of a man,” says John Burcher to Henry Bullinger (letter dated from
Strasburg, 16th August 1553), “the Duke of Northumberland, has been
committing a horrible and portentous crime. A writer worthy of credit
informs me, that our excellent King has been most shamefully taken
off by poison. His nails and hair fell off before his death, so
that, handsome as he was, he entirely lost all his good looks. The
perpetrators of the murder were ashamed of allowing the body of the
deceased King to lie in state, and be seen by the public, as is usual:
wherefore they buried him privately in the paddock adjoining the
palace, and substituted in his place a youth not unlike him.... One
of the sons of the Duke of Northumberland acknowledged this fact. The
Duke has been apprehended[214] with his five sons, and nearly twenty
persons; among whom is master [Sir John] Cheke, doctor Cox, and the
Bishop of London, with others unknown to you....”[215] Burcher does
not tell us which son of the Duke made this confession; nor is there
evidence that any of Northumberland’s boys ever accused their father of
regicide. Besides, Burcher was somewhat addicted to putting his faith
in the reports of untrustworthy people. A few years earlier (in 1549)
he had written Bullinger a letter in which he repeated the sensational
story of an attempt to murder King Edward made by his uncle, Thomas
Seymour, a crime frustrated by the vigilance of the King’s lap-dog,
which seeing the murderer suddenly appear, flew at him and made such
a yelping that the bodyguard was in time to save their sovereign. This
story may or may not be true; but is as unauthenticated as the other.
There is just one point, however, that supports the poison theory;
which is that the young King’s old and competent nurse, Mrs. Sybil
Penn, was suddenly relieved of her duties, and replaced by a woman
who was an acknowledged quack, and declared she could cure the lad by
a sort of faith-healing not unknown in our own times. On the other
hand, Edward was suffering from such a complication of diseases that
there was no reason why Northumberland should have troubled to burden
his soul by hastening an end that would in any case have come before
long.[216] Born of a debauched father and a sickly mother, the “second
Josiah” never throve, and never could have thriven, for he bore in his
puny frame the seeds of early death from his birth.
[Illustration: EDWARD VI
FROM AN ENGRAVING BY G. VERTUE]
King Edward VI lived exactly fifteen years, eight months, and six days.
We can easily believe Strype’s assurance that his wonderful and almost
preternatural sagacity was merely the result of skilful prompting.
He informs us that whenever the young King was about to attend the
Council, Northumberland carefully rehearsed with him both how he
should behave and what he was to say. Yet the boy does not appear
to have been devoid of exceptional intelligence. It may be doubted
whether his affections were very deep; he certainly did not hesitate
to bastardise his two sisters at the bidding of their common enemy. It
has been stated that Lady Jane Grey was devotedly attached to her young
cousin; that there had even been love passages between them. The King’s
youth should mark this report as the veriest gossip. Not a tinge of
affection or regret for her cousin is expressed in any of Lady Jane’s
letters, and we have no proof whatever that she was specially affected
by his early death. There is but little evidence, indeed, of her having
been much in his company, nor any proof that he, on his side, held her
in exceptional esteem.
Nature added a warning note to the horror of the approaching tragedy.
“Several women were delivered of monsters on the day of the King’s
death, one of an infant with two heads and four feet, and another
of a child whose head was planted in the centre of his body.” The
ghost of Henry VIII was reported to have been seen stalking along the
battlements of Windsor and at Hampton Court and Whitehall--so that
even the supernatural stimulated popular imagination. The hour of the
young King’s death, too, was ushered in by a tempest of such appalling
violence, that heaven and earth seemed to menace the city. A terrible
hailstorm swept over London and its outskirts, and the ruined gardens
and devastated orchards for miles round were heaped with hailstones “as
red as blood.” Cataracts of water deluged the lower parts of the city:
trees were torn up, and the steeple of the church in which the first
Protestant service was held was shattered by forked lightning. The
people, terrified at the universal havoc, believed, when they learnt of
the King’s death, that this storm was the forerunner of fresh disasters
and terrible crimes, and so indeed it proved to be--for the death of
Edward VI was the signal for the outbreak of the long contemplated
revolution so skilfully prepared by Northumberland.