THE LAST DAYS OF NORTHUMBERLAND
All through the night of Queen Mary’s proclamation, Jane Grey was
abandoned in the great fortress to the care of her personal attendants;
and bitter must have been her distress, as she realised the cruel
plight to which the mad ambitions of others had brought her. Everything
helped to heighten her terror--the changed attitude of the guards,
and other Tower officials, who a few brief hours before had treated
her with obsequious deference, and who now marked their loyalty to
Mary by an ostentatious display of scorn for the fallen majesty of the
“Nine Days’ Queen”; the tears of her women, their whispered talk, the
brooding and ominous silence of the palace, broken only by the distant
shouts of revellers, who acclaimed the triumph of her successful
rival, all combined to increase the nervous and hysterical agitation
into which the poor girl’s recent illness had already thrown her. Her
mother, the Duchess, compelled by circumstances beyond her control,
most probably, had left the Tower, and hurried back to Sheen, after
having obtained Queen Mary’s pardon for her husband. The Duchess of
Northumberland, white with horror, and trembling with anxiety for
her wretched husband and children, had likewise departed with her
attendants up the river to Sion: so that of all Jane’s Court none
remained to help and comfort, except her faithful women and servants.
Suffolk’s movements at this time are not quite clearly recorded. That
he retired to Sheen immediately after Mary’s proclamation, appears
certain; and also that, on the 27th July, he was arrested and committed
to the Tower, to be released at the intercession of the Duchess his
wife, on his own bail, on the 31st of the same month.[259] Yet a
contemporary letter, dated August 11th, says: “The Duke of Suffolk is
(as his owne men report) in prison, and at this present in suche case
as no man judgeth he can live.” An explanation of these conflicting
statements may be, that the Duke, when officially released, was for
some days too ill to leave the Tower.
There is reason to believe that Lady Jane remained in the State
apartments till late in the evening of the 19th July, when she was
transferred to the rooms above the Deputy-Lieutenant’s, recently
vacated by the Duchess of Somerset. The Deputy-Lieutenant of this
period was Thomas Brydges or Bridges, brother of Sir John Brydges,
Lieutenant of the Tower. This last gentleman attended Jane on the
scaffold, in discharge of his duty; but Thomas Brydges figures a good
deal in the narrative of the last months of Jane’s life. There has
been much dispute as to the exact situation of the rooms in the Tower
in which the innocent prisoner was confined, and the absolute identity
of her keeper. But it is now pretty clearly established that the first
period of her detention was not spent, as so often stated, in the Brick
Tower, but in the modernised house of the Deputy-Lieutenant, which
stands next door to the Lieutenant’s or the King’s House. Later--we do
not know the precise date of her removal--she was lodged in a house,
also on the Green, adjacent to the Lieutenant’s dwelling, and which
then belonged to the Gentleman Gaoler, Mr. Nathaniel Partridge.[260]
Earlier historians have denied the existence of Partridge, and even
Harris Nicholas thought he was Queen Mary’s goldsmith; but his
identity is now conclusively proved, and he is admitted to have been
a well-known figure in and about the Tower at this period. He died in
February 1587, and is buried in St. Peter-ad-Vincula in the same vault
as his illustrious guest. During her incarceration, Jane was allowed
to walk in the Queen’s Garden, and “on the hill within the Tower
precincts.”[261]
Several persons attended on Lady Jane in the Tower, among them
Elizabeth Tylney,[262] “a beautiful young woman of good birth,” Lady
Throckmorton, wife of Sir Nicholas Throckmorton, and “Mrs. Ellen.” Some
light has been thrown upon the identity of the last-named lady by Lady
Philippa de Clifford, Lady Jane’s cousin, whose curious account of her
unhappy kinswoman’s last hours was published in Brussels in 1660; from
this we learn that “Mrs. Ellen, an elderly woman,” was Lady Jane’s
nurse. There were also two waiting-maids, and a lad, in the suite of
the Princess, as we glean from _The Chronicles of Queen Jane and Queen
Mary_. Thus she was no “solitary prisoner,” but served by gentlewomen,
and in comparative comfort. We must, therefore, dismiss the old idea
that Lady Jane Grey was ever relegated to a “dungeon deep,” to pine in
darkness and in loneliness. That she was not fed on bread and water
is proved by the Privy Council records, from which we learn that
ninety-five shillings a week was allowed for her maintenance whilst
in captivity, and twenty shillings for each of her attendants, six in
number--a very handsome allowance in those days, and equivalent, in
modern coinage, to about fifteen times the amount.
It must be clearly understood that Lady Jane was never even formally
arrested, as were Henry VIII’s Queens. No armed guard took her captive,
after the reading of a solemn warrant. She was simply detained in the
Tower,[263] partly as a hostage for the good behaviour of her father,
and partly to prevent her being once more the tool of those who might
attempt to place her on the throne, and make her the figure-head of a
politico-religious party. Northumberland and his followers had claimed
honours for her which rightly belonged to Mary, and when Mary gained
the upper hand, “Jane the usurper” had, _ipso facto_, to be kept in
retirement.
There is no trace of any independent movement on Guildford’s part,
during the nine days of his wife’s reign, except to assist his mother
in pushing his “claim” to the throne. Either he sulked, because Jane
had refused to make him King Consort on the day following her entry
into the Tower; or else Northumberland advised him to keep out of the
way as much as possible, so as to escape the blame of having taken
an active part in the usurped administration. Be this as it may, we
have no news of his doings, from the first day or two of the nine
days’ reign, until after its termination, when he was parted from his
wife, and sent to the Beauchamp Tower, whither, on the 25th July, his
brothers, Lord Warwick and Lord Ambrose Dudley, followed him, to be
joined the next day by Lord Robert Dudley.
Jane’s peaceful seclusion was of very short duration. On the day
following her deposition (20th July), the Marquis of Winchester,
Lord High Treasurer,[264] came to ask for the return of the Crown
Jewels and other articles delivered to her on the second day of her
Queenship. A parcel or so was missing, it would seem, and Winchester,
when he commanded Jane to restore the Crown Jewels, desired she
should also make good the alleged deficiency. Astonished at this
demand, she declared she knew nothing of the missing articles, but
agreed to give up all the money she had in her possession, and on
25th July she consigned to the Treasury an extraordinary assortment
of coins--angels of the reign of Edward VI, gold coronation medals of
Henry VIII and Edward VI, some shillings and half shillings, as well
as some deteriorated coinage of Edward VI, of no value. The whole of
her available assets did not amount to more than £541, 13s. 2d. The
missing valuables, it would appear, had not been returned two months
later, or else Queen Mary had not been informed of their receipt, for
on 20th September she writes to Winchester requesting him immediately
to order Lady Jane to give up the jewels and “stuffs,” which had been
delivered to her “on July 12th,” and which were still missing. The
inventory of these mislaid “stuffs” includes a most curious assortment
of odds and ends, which one would think it hardly worth Queen Mary’s
while to reclaim. First we have a large leather box, marked with Henry
VIII’s broad arrow, containing “two old shaving cloths, and thirteen
pairs of old leather gloves, some of them worn.” Another “square
coffer” missing, and described as being covered with “Naples fustian,”
contained a collection of old Catholic prayer books, rosaries, and
other odds and ends, which had probably remained among the Tower
stores since Katherine of Aragon had last kept court there, and which
were, needless to say, of no use to Lady Jane Grey! The first article
in this collection is the half of a broken ring of gold, perchance
some forgotten love-token. Then comes “a book of prayers, covered
with purple velvet, and garnished with gold. A _primer_ [or Catholic
prayer book] in English. Three old halfpence in silver, seven little
halfpence and farthings. Item, sixteenpence, two farthings and two
halfpence. A purse of leather with eighteen strange coins of silver. A
ring of gold with a death’s head. Three French crowns, one broken in
two. Item, a girdle of gold thread. A pair of twitchers [tweezers] of
silver. A pair of knives in a case of black silk. Two books covered
with leather. Item, a little square box of gold and silver with a pair
of shears [scissors] and divers shreds of satin. A piece of white paper
containing a pattern of gold damask.” The third coffer was “Queen’s
jewels,” and contained chains of gold studded with rosettes of pearl
and other valuables. The fate of this curious collection of gewgaws
is unknown. About the same time, Winchester made an exploration of
the contents of Guildford’s pockets, which resulted in the discovery
that he possessed exactly £32, 8s., in the debased coinage of Edward’s
reign. Miss Strickland, in mentioning this incident, says: “Thus
the prisoners were left entirely without the means of bribing their
gaolers.” This is not the case, for Lady Jane appears to have made a
will (which may still be in existence, though for the time being it has
disappeared) in which she left certain jewels, clocks, and valuables
to her sisters, her women, and her servants, and, strange to relate, a
gold cup or chalice to Queen Mary. Wherefore we may conclude she was
allowed to retain the articles brought her from Westminster Palace,
some of which served, no doubt, to decorate her apartment in the Tower.
We possess no record, unfortunately, of the sort of food provided
for the prisoner and her husband; we can only guess at its nature by
consulting the bills of fare, still extant, provided for the Duchess
of Somerset during her imprisonment in the Tower: from the fact of the
prices of the various dishes being appended, we may conclude that the
wealthier political prisoners were allowed to pay for their meals. Her
Grace’s bill for “dynner” was as follows:--
“Mutton stewed with potage viijd.
Beef boiled viijd.
Veale, rost xd.”
“Suppr” consisted of:--
“Slyced beef vjd.
Mutton rost viijd.
Bred xd.
Bere viijd.
Wyne viijd.”
“Wood, coills (coals) and candull by the weke,” cost “xxd.”
In the meantime, the Council had retired to Westminster, whence, as
is generally believed, it sent Northumberland orders to disband his
army and await Mary’s pleasure before returning to London; the herald
who bore this order being commissioned to proclaim, in certain places
_en route_, that if the Duke refused to submit he should be arrested
as a traitor. Before this, as we have said (on the 19th instant),
the Earl of Arundel and Lord Paget had been dispatched to offer the
Council’s homage to Mary, bearing with them the following letter--a
good specimen of the barefaced hypocrisy practised on Lady Jane. “Our
bounden duties most humbly remembered to your most excellent majesty,
it may like the same to understand, that we your most humble, faithful,
and obedient subjects, having always (God we take to witness) remained
your Highness’s true and humble subjects in our hearts, ever since the
death of our late sovereign Lord and Master, your Highness’s brother,
whom God pardon; and seeing hitherto no possibility to utter our
determination herein, without great destructions and bloodshed, both of
ourselves and others till this time, have this day proclaimed in your
city of London, your majesty to be our true natural sovereign, liege
Lady and Queen, most humbly beseeching your Majesty to pardon and remit
our former infirmities, and most graciously to accept our meaning which
have been ever to serve your Highness truly, and it shall remain with
all our powers and forces to the effusion of our blood. These bearers,
our very good lords, the Earl of Arundel and Lord Paget, can and be
ready now particularly to declare, to whom it may please your excellent
Majesty, to give firm credence; and thus we do and shall daily pray to
Almighty God for the preservation of your most royal person long to
reign ... from your Majesty’s city of London this ... (19th) day of
July, the first year of your most prosperous reign.” This letter needs
no comment; Paget’s treachery towards his late patron is particularly
diabolical. He seems to have behaved throughout with Mephistophelian
cunning and falseness. There is something absolutely Satanic in the
hypocritical manner in which this letter asserts that the Council
had hitherto had no opportunity to express its “determination” in
the matter of Mary’s right to the Crown--this in the hope of leading
Mary to think it had been acting under compulsion! If Jane’s friends
_had_ succeeded in establishing her on the throne, and Mary had been
killed or driven out of the country, these Councillors, the latter’s
“most humble, faithful, and obedient subjects,” would, no doubt, have
rallied about her rival--provided always it paid them so to do; Mary
being victorious, they saved their necks and kept their positions by
embracing her cause. Like the Vicar of Bray, no matter who was King,
or what were the social and religious conditions of the country, these
gentlemen were resolved to cling to their offices, and accommodate
their opinions and actions to those of the party in power.
It was about this time that Mary received another abject document of
the same sort--the already quoted “Submission” or _apologia_ of Cecil,
whose conduct throughout had been as tortuous as that of any of Eugene
Sue’s Jesuits.
A previous chapter has touched upon the singular intrigues of the
Commissioners in Brussels, who conveyed Diego Mendoza’s acclamation
of Guildford, as King of England, to the Council. We must now relate
the sequel. On the 20th July, these gentlemen followed up their letter
of the 15th, by another, stating that they had vainly endeavoured to
obtain an interview with the Emperor, who was exasperated by what had
happened in England, and had even refused to receive Mr. Shelley,
the bearer of the Council’s letter of the 12th July. His Imperial
Majesty held that Jane’s assumption of the Crown would lead to trouble
with France; Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, at this time consort of
the Dauphin of France, having a claim to the English throne prior
to that of Lady Jane. He does not seem to have approved--or else he
feigned disapproval--of Mary Tudor’s succession, but desired the
matter should be settled by Parliament in accordance with the will of
the English nation. Within a few days, probably, the Commissioners,
hearing of Jane’s downfall, and realising their own danger, promptly
submitted--like the Council at home--to Mary, and enclosed the letter
brought by Shelley in one of their own dated 29th July to the Council
at Westminster, “for that it hath pleased God to call my Lady Mary her
grace to the State and possession of the realm, according to the King’s
majesty her father’s last will and the laws of the realm.” Not quite
sure, however, as to what has taken place, they ask the Council to let
them have all news to date, and desire to know “her maj^{tys} pleasure
what we should do, wherunto we shall conform ourselves most willingly
according to our most bounden duty.... Sir Philip Hoby, etc., to the
Council.”[265] In spite of their forethought, Hoby and Morysone were
recalled by an order of 5th August, their place at Brussels being taken
by Dr. Wootton, Bishop of Norwich; and the fact that in the said order
they are described as “_Mr._” Hoby and “_Mr._” Morysone suggests that
they were in dire disgrace. Most likely their letter about Guildford
rankled in Mary’s mind! Their attempt to shelter themselves behind
a show of loyalty, at all events, was not as successful as that of
the Council at home, but they richly deserved any punishment their
duplicity received; for, like the rest of the Janeite conspirators,
they supported her cause as long as it seemed likely to profit them,
and abandoned it, as if it were plague-stricken, directly the tables
were turned.
None the less, the Emperor Charles V (who dropped the cause of
Northumberland the moment he perceived that Mary had won the day),
wishing “to show his great love for that Queen his most dear cousin,”
requested the Governess of the Netherlands, Mary, Queen of Hungary, to
entertain the above-named gentlemen, as well as the newly dispatched
Ambassador, Bishop Wootton of Norwich, “to such a banquet as they had
never partaken of before, for such carvings, and sumptuous dishes, and
frequent changing of wines.” The Emperor’s Embassy, which included the
Sieur de Courrières, already mentioned, Simon Renard, and several other
noblemen, was amongst the first of the numerous Envoys sent from all
parts of Europe to congratulate the Queen on her victory, and, as if
to emphasise his affectionate interest in the Royal cousin whose cause
he had so lately abandoned in favour of that of her chief enemy, the
negotiations for the marriage of the Queen of England with the young
widowed Prince, afterwards King Philip of Spain, were pushed forward
with the utmost alacrity.
The mere idea of a union with her very Catholic cousin inflamed the
imagination of the old maid sovereign with so ardent a passion as to
absorb her whole being, and to bring about the sad catastrophe of her
tragic life. She now “could think and speak of Philip, and of Philip
only.” The most affectionate solicitude was displayed on the part of
Queen Mary for the welfare and comfort of her future Consort, so that
even a special clause was included, allowing him to land at the most
convenient port he should choose, for he was “apt to be very sick on
the sea, and most eager to be on land again.”[266]
In some way or other Lady Jane must have been kept informed of the
current events and gossip of the day. Some one probably gave her an
account of Elizabeth’s ride through London on 31st July, from Somerset
House to Wanstead, where she joined her sister. The astute Princess
had at first hesitated as to what course she should pursue, but at
last, seeing Jane’s position was hopeless, she made up her mind to side
with her sister, and pass through the City and Aldgate with a numerous
escort. The royal prisoner must have heard of the gay decorations
of the streets, brilliant with flags, and streamers, and splendid
tapestries, and how wild was the popular enthusiasm for Queen Mary.
The foredoomed prisoners must have received a rude shock on 1st
August, when the monotony of their existence was suddenly broken by
the appearance of the Constable of the Tower, Sir John Gage, and
his officials, who repaired to them severally, and read out to them
the solemn indictments made against them in the Queen’s name. These
indictments--the originals of which will be found in the Baga de
Secretis, pouch xxiii., at the Public Record Office--were dated 1st
August, and had been previously read out and endorsed at Guildhall,
with all due ceremonial, earlier in the day, in the presence of Thomas
White, Lord Mayor of London; Thomas, Duke of Norfolk, Earl Marshal;
the Earls of Derby and Bath; Richard Morgan, Chief Justice of Common
Pleas; and other noblemen and gentlemen, not all of whom were, however,
actually present, but represented by deputies. The first document,
divested of its legal verbosity, declares Lady Jane Grey, Guildford
Dudley her husband, Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, and the Lords
Ambrose and Henry Dudley, guilty of treason, for having seized the
Tower of London,[267] on 11th July; having sought to depose their
rightful sovereign, Queen Mary; and having “acknowledged and proclaimed
Jane Dudley, wife of Guildford Dudley, Esq., of the parish of St.
Martin’s by Charing Cross, Queen of England.” The address is curious,
as it indicates that the town residence of the unfortunate couple was
still Durham House, the Duke of Northumberland’s palace in the Strand.
The second indictment concerns John, Duke of Northumberland, William,
Marquis of Northampton, Francis, Earl of Huntingdon, and others, for
having, “between the 10th and the 17th July, first of Mary, levied men
at Cambridge to march against the Queen.”
Yet a third indictment is of even greater historical interest,
and charges Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, as “a false
traitor to the Queen,” with providing arms for twenty men, under
Barnaby Boylot, Walter Morford, and Robert Durant of Westminster, and
dispatching them to Cambridge, in aid of John, Duke of Northumberland.
This proves that the original indictment against Cranmer did not charge
him with heresy, but merely as a political offender. Undoubtedly, as
Macaulay points out, by making himself the accomplice of Northumberland
in endeavouring to overcome the scruples of so amiable a young woman as
Lady Jane Grey, and seducing her into treason, Cranmer committed an act
of most unjustifiable wickedness.
A little later, in the early twilight of 3rd August, the flickering of
hurrying lights, and the boom of cannon--“the loudest that ever was
heard”--could not fail to apprise the State prisoners in the Tower
that some unusual event was happening, and that the Queen and Princess
Elizabeth had entered its precincts, to prepare for the obsequies of
Edward VI. From her windows Lady Jane noted the flaring torches,
moving hither and thither, in unwonted chambers and courtyards, and
heard the tramp of feet, the heavy tread of the guards, the changing of
sentinels, and the coming and going of the Ambassadors and courtiers
hurrying to pay their homage to the new Sovereign--amongst them,
doubtless, most of those very men who had solemnly sworn allegiance to
herself!
The Protestant funeral service of Edward VI took place on 8th August,
the King’s body having been removed, on the preceding evening, from
Greenwich to Whitehall. A great number of children in surplices were
gathered together to attend his obsequies in the Abbey, and this
gave a touch of poetry to a ceremony described by Noailles as “a
very shabby one, badly attended, without any lights burning, and no
official invitations sent to the Ambassadors.” Archbishop Cranmer, who
had organised the function, read the plain English service, from the
Book of Common Prayer. Round about the coffin were a great number of
standard-bearers with their standards, conspicuous among them being
those of his mother, Queen Jane Seymour, and of his grandmother, Lady
Seymour, as well as one with a white dragon on a red background, and
yet another with a very large white greyhound, the emblem of the house
of Tudor. All the banners were bowed as the little coffin was lowered
into the vault in Henry VII’s Chapel, and the wands were broken and
cast in upon the lid. Cranmer gave a heavy sigh as he watched it pass
into the gloom, knowing full well that with that little corpse passed
away all his hopes and power--that the vengeance of the Queen whose
mother he had outraged was near at hand. He never officiated again
at any State function; his day was over! Lady Jane heard of this
particular service with considerable pleasure, for it was celebrated
in accordance with her own religious views; but the details of another
ceremony in suffrage of King Edward’s soul, according to the ritual
and doctrine of the Church of Rome, celebrated in the Queen’s presence
in the Royal Chapel of the White Tower, must have pained her not
a little.[268] Mary, in residence in the Tower at this time, had
organised this special Requiem Mass with all permissible pomp and
ceremony, and we may take it for granted that Jane saw from her windows
a good deal of the coming and going of royal personages, officials, and
servants, consequent upon so elaborate a function. Pained indeed must
have been the Reforming Princess to learn that Dr. George Day, the very
Catholic Bishop of Chichester, had been selected to preach before Her
Majesty the panegyric of her very Protestant brother!
We must now turn our attention to the Duke of Northumberland. Soon
after entering the Beauchamp Tower on 25th July, he collapsed, and
had to take to his bed. The fates were not, indeed, propitious to
Northumberland in this respect, for his health broke down when he most
needed all his physical as well as moral strength to help him through
his tremendous task. Even as far back as 1550, John ab Ulmis, in a
letter to Bullinger, mentioned “the Earl of Warwick’s very dangerous
illness.” He would seem to have never quite recovered from this
attack, for in the following August he was very ill, and again, late
in September 1552, he wrote Cecil that he was “fevrish and unable
to sleep.” In January 1553, Warwick told Petre or Cecil that he was
much alarmed about himself, and feared he was “going to be very ill.”
Throughout the year 1553 he was observed to look pale, and to walk with
difficulty, but his indomitable will held him up, and he was able to do
the work of a dozen men, for his energy was as admirable as its object
was detestable. Northumberland is scarcely a commendable character, but
there is none the less a pathos in the fact that his health was giving
way under the terrible strain that crushed him. He does not deserve
much sympathy, but it is impossible not to pity him in his extremity,
abandoned by every one, a doomed prisoner, his last card played and
lost. To his insane ambition he had sacrificed his youngest and
best-loved son, and the young creature the lad had so recently married,
and now an unnatural death faced him in stark horror. What nights he
must have spent, hopeless and helpless, alone in that prison on every
gate of which the great Italian might have written, _Lasciate ogni
speranza voi ch’entrate_. He knew the Queen hated him with the intense
and unforgiving hatred of a Spaniard. Had he not sided against her
mother, and framed the pitiless and insulting documents he had forced
his helpless daughter-in-law to sign, stigmatising Mary and Elizabeth
as “bastards”? Reflecting on these, and a hundred other offences, he
realised his case was hopeless. So bitterly did the Queen loathe him,
as a matter of fact, that she actually requested Comendone, the Papal
Envoy, to put off his departure for a few days, so as to witness the
execution of her chief foe, and give a personal account of it to the
Pope!
The trial for treason of John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, took
place on August 18th in Westminster Hall. The Marquis of Northampton,
and the Earl of Warwick, Dudley’s son, were arraigned at the same
time. Thomas, Duke of Norfolk, sat as High Steward of England; this
was, indeed, one of his last official appearances. He died in the
following year (on 24th August) at Kenninghall. Several of those
men who sat in Jane’s Council, and had only saved their necks by
addressing their hasty submission to Mary, figured at this trial.
Northumberland was very obsequious to his judges, and “protesting
his faith and obedience to the Queen’s Majesty, whom he confessed
grievously to have offended, said that he meant not to speak anything
in defence of himself.” He then demanded of the court, first “whether
a man doing an act by the authority of the Prince and Council, and by
warrant of the Great Seal,[269] and doing nothing without the same,
may be charged with treason for anything which he might do by warrant
thereof?” and secondly, “whether any such persons as were equally
culpable in that crime, and those by whose letters and commandments
he was directed in all his doings, might be his judges, or pass upon
him his death?” The answer returned was that the Great Seal to which
he appealed was not that of the lawful Queen of the realm, but was the
seal of a “usurper,” and as such had no authority; also, that though
some of his judges might be equally guilty with himself, they had no
attainder against them, and therefore were as fit to try him as any
one else, provided the sovereign gave permission. Finding they were
bent on his destruction, the unhappy man pleaded guilty, and besought
the Duke of Norfolk to obtain the Queen’s pardon for him. Following
suit, the Marquis of Northampton and the Earl of Warwick also pleaded
guilty; the former urged, that “after the beginning of these tumults
he had forborne the execution of any public office, and that all the
while he, intent to hunting and other sports, did not partake in the
conspiracy,” whilst Warwick begged the Queen would have his debts paid
out of his confiscated goods. They were both sentenced to death, “to
be had to the place that they came from, and from thence to be drawn
through London unto Tyburn, and there to be hanged, and then to be cut
down, and their bowels to be burnt, and their heads to be set on London
Bridge and other places.”[270] When he heard this horrible sentence of
death, Northumberland asked that, as a nobleman, he might be beheaded,
and “begged that his children might be kindly treated.” He had the
grace also to confess that Jane, so far from desiring regal honours,
was only induced to accept the Crown “by enticement and force”--which
confirms what we have said of her parent’s ill-treatment of her. The
Duke also requested that a “learned divine” might be sent to him; and
that he might have an interview with four members of the Council, “for
the discovery (_i.e._ revelation) of some things which might concern
the State.”[271] What these mysterious “things” may have been, is
now unknown. Lingard says Gardiner and another member of the Council
visited Northumberland in prison, and that the former interceded for
him with the Queen; but there is no documentary evidence as to the
purport of the State secrets the Duke had promised to divulge.
On the following day, 19th August, four of the chief of those who
had ridden out of London with Northumberland against Mary--Sir
Andrew Dudley,[272] Sir John Gates, Sir Harry Gates, and Sir Thomas
Palmer--were sentenced to death in Westminster Hall.
Next day Northumberland made a public renunciation of the Protestant
religion, either in the Church of St. Peter-ad-Vincula, or else in the
chapel in the White Tower; the former place is more generally accepted.
Some forty of the principal citizens of London were present; and the
Marquis of Northampton, Sir Andrew Dudley, Sir Henry Gates, and Sir
Thomas Palmer, were also reconciled to the Latin Church at the same
time. The ex-conspirators knelt during Mass, saying the _Confiteor_
after the celebrant, who was probably Gardiner. When the Mass was
concluded, they one after another asked each other forgiveness,
kneeling as they did so. After this they all went in front of the
altar, where, on bended knees, they confessed to Gardiner, that “they
were the same men in the faith, according as they had confessed to him
before, and that they all would die in the Catholic faith.” Having
received the Eucharist, the Duke turned to the congregation and said,
“Truly, good people, I profess here before you all that I have received
the sacrament, according to the true Catholic faith; and the plague
that is upon this realm, and upon us now, is, that we have erred from
the faith these sixteen years, and this I protest unto you all, from
the bottom of my heart.” Northampton, Andrew Dudley, Gates, and Palmer
made the same statement, and they were all conducted back to their
respective prisons.[273] There can be no doubt, that, if this ceremony
took place in St. Peter’s, Lady Jane must have seen, from the windows
of the Deputy-Lieutenant’s house, the procession of her father-in-law
and his followers on their way to hear Mass, and her grief on learning
that they had abandoned Protestantism was, as we learn from her own
lips, intense.
The evening of the 21st August, Northumberland was informed by the
Lieutenant of the Tower that he was to die next day, whereupon he wrote
the following abject letter to his brother-in-law and captor, the Earl
of Arundel:--
“Hon^{ble} lord, and in this my distress my especial refuge, most
woeful was the news I received this evening by Mr. Lieutenant,
that I must prepare myself against to-morrow to receive my deadly
stroke. Alas, my good lord, is my crime so heinous as no redemption
but my blood can wash away the spots thereof? An old proverb there
is, and that most true, that a living dog is better than a dead
lion. Oh! that it would please her good grace to give me life,
yea, the life of a dog, if I might but live and kiss her feet, and
spend both life and all in her honourable services, as I have the
best part already, under her worthy brother, and most glorious
father. Oh! that her mercy were such, as she would consider how
little profit my dead and dismembered body can bring her; but how
great and glorious an honor it will be in all posterity when the
report shall be that so gracious and mighty a queen, had granted
life to so miserable and penitent an object. Your hon^{ble} usage
and promise to me since these my troubles, have made me bold to
challenge this kindness at your hands. Pardon me if I have done
amiss therein, and spare not, I pray, your bended knees for me
in this distress. The God of Heaven, it may be, will requite it
one day, on you or yours; and, if my life be lengthened by your
mediation, and my good lord chancellor’s (to whom I have also sent
my blurred letters), I will ever owe it to you, to be spent at your
hon^{ble} feet. Oh! my good lord, remember how sweet life is, and
how bitter the contrary. Spare not your speech and pains; for God,
I hope, hath not shut out all hopes of comfort from me in that
gracious, princely and womanly heart; but that, as the doleful news
of death hath wounded to death, both my soule and body, so the
comfortable news of life, shall be a new resurrection to my woeful
heart. But if no remedy can be found, either by imprisonment,
confiscation, banishment, and the like, I can say no more, but, God
grant me patience to endure, and a heart to forgive the whole world.
“Once your fellow, and loving companion, but now worthy of no name
but wretchedness and misery.
J. D.”[274]
It must have cost the haughty Northumberland dear, to write so humble
a supplication; but he was a man of strong domestic affections, and
realised that if he were spared, his children and brothers might also
be saved. But Mary’s hate, thoroughly Spanish in its intensity, was
implacable; and if, as some historians seem to think, the prisoner
hoped to obtain his freedom by returning to the religion of his
ancestors,[275] he made a terrible mistake. The Queen may have rejoiced
that the chances of his eternal salvation were enhanced, according
to her views, by his conversion, but none the less did the outraged
sovereign and woman claim the head of her arch-enemy, and worst
detractor.
Machyn tells us of a strange incident, in connection with the Duke’s
execution, which tends to prove it was to have taken place on the
21st August, and to have been accomplished by the common hangman.
Says the chronicler in question: “The xxj of August was, by viij of
the clock in the morning, on the Tower hill about XM (_i.e._ “about
ten thousand”) men and women for to have seen the execution of the
Duke of Northumberland, for the scaffold was made ready and sand and
straw was brought, and all the men that belong to the Tower,[276] as
Hoxton, Shoreditch, Bow, Ratclyff, Limehouse, Saint Katherines, and
the waiters [attendants] of the Tower, and the guard, and sheriff’s
officers, and every man stand in order with their halbards, and lanes
made (_i.e._ barriers placed so as to admit of the free passages of
the troops and officials) and the hangman was there, and suddenly they
were commanded to depart.”[277] The fact that the hangman was present
seems to denote that the order, changing the sentence from hanging and
disembowelling, to decapitation, had not yet been made. Northumberland
had given way at his trial to an unusual display of emotional terror,
as the barbarous details of the sort of death to which he was condemned
were read out to him, and probably efforts were therefore made, and
not in vain, to spare him so atrocious an ordeal and substitute the
more merciful and dignified death by the axe. Maybe it was this which
occasioned the postponement of the grim ceremony.
According to a MS, now in the Brussels Archives, entitled, _Les
événements en Angleterre_, 1553-4, the Duke of Northumberland was
allowed to take a pathetic leave of his youngest son, “whom he pressed
again and again to his breast, sighing and weeping a deluge of tears,
as he kissed him for the last time.”
The executions of Northumberland, Sir John Gates, and Sir Thomas
Palmer, took place on 22nd August, on Tower Hill. The prisoners were
first delivered over to the Sheriffs of London by the Lieutenant of
the Tower. As soon as the Duke was confronted with Sir John Gates, he
exclaimed, “Sir John, God have mercy on us, for this day shall end
both our lives, and I pray you forgive me whatsoever I have offended,
and I forgive you with all my heart. Although you and your counsel was
a great occasion thereof (_i.e._ “of my troubles”). “Well,” returned
Gates, “I forgive you all, as I would be forgiven, and yet you and
your authority was the original cause of it, altogether, but the Lord
pardon you, and I pray you forgive me.” They then bowed to each other,
and the Duke, who was garbed in “swan-coloured (_i.e._ grey) damask,”
went forward to the scaffold, looking dejected. Bishop Heath, crucifix
in hand, walked with him. On the way, when they were outside the Tower
gates, a woman rushed forward, and waving in his face a handkerchief,
which had been dipped in the blood of Somerset, cried out, “Behold, the
blood which thou did cause to be unjustly shed, does now apparently
begin to revenge itself on thee!” The guards dragged her away, and the
condemned proceeded on their way to Tower Hill. On the scaffold, the
Duke took off his outer cloak, and leaning over the rail, on the east
side, made his farewell speech to the people, of which several versions
exist. He admitted that he had been “an evil liver”; begged the Queen’s
forgiveness, kneeling; alluded to his accomplices, and would not name
them; regretted his religious errors; professed his attachment to
the Catholic Church, asking the Bishop of Worcester, Heath, to bear
witness to his sincerity, to which the prelate answered “Yea”; and
finally, asking all to pray for him, he knelt down, and recited the _De
Profundis_, after which he made the sign of the cross, in the sawdust
of the scaffold, and stooped and kissed it. Then, rising, he bared
his neck, tied the handkerchief over his eyes, and, turning to the
executioner, said he was ready. The fellow, who was lame in one leg,
took good aim--and in a flash, John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, was
no more. Sir John Gates would not have his eyes bandaged, and died a
fearful death, after three blows from the axe. Palmer was beheaded at
one stroke. Both made lengthy speeches, in which they styled themselves
staunch Catholics. It is said that when the horrible scene was over,
children came and dipped cloths in Northumberland’s blood, to be
preserved as a memorial of him, and this despite his unpopularity.[278]
A pathetic incident occurred in connection with the burial of the
Duke’s remains. One of his servants, John Cock, sufficiently attached
to his memory to have a care for the whereabouts of his last resting
place, waited upon Queen Mary and prayed her to command that his
master’s head should be given to him. “In God’s name,” answered Her
Majesty, somewhat irate, “take the whole body as well, and give
your lord proper burial.” Acting on this permission, Cock took
Northumberland’s corpse and laid it to rest in the Church of St.
Peter-ad-Vincula, beside the coffin of the Duke of Somerset!