CHAPTER X

Queen of England

I and Mistress Ellen stood in the background of the great hall as Lady Jane advanced with quiet dignity to meet her guests. Her fair young face was troubled, but she smiled pleasantly as she looked up at her father-in-law and his companions.

'To what,' she inquired, 'to what do I owe the honour of this visit?'

'We are a deputation,' said the Duke of Northumberland, whom I saw for the first time--he was a handsome man, with fine strongly marked features and a gallant, soldierly bearing, and he was richly apparelled in black velvet.

'A deputation to whom?' queried my mistress as he paused.

'To you, madam,' was the instant response. 'You see here,' waving his hand towards those that accompanied him, 'the Marquis of Northampton and the Earls of Arundel, Huntingdon and Pembroke. We have come to announce to you the sorrowful tidings of the death of the king, your cousin.'

'Dead! Is he dead?' exclaimed Lady Jane sadly.

'Yes, madam, he is dead.'

'Ah! poor Edward! Kings as well as paupers have to die.' The tears came into her eyes.

'Yes, madam,' said the Marquis of Northampton. 'Death comes to all alike. High and low, rich and poor, good and bad, all have to die.'

'Death is the last enemy,' observed the Earl of Arundel sententiously.

'I like better to think of him as a friend,' said Lady Jane, 'who comes when all others fail us, like a nurse saying, "My child, lie down and sleep. You are tired now, therefore all goes wrong. You will awake by and bye to a new life where everything is well."'

Her voice became lower and lower as she spoke, and a beautiful look shone in her face, as of one whose faith is great. One or two of the gentlemen seemed impressed, but the Duke of Northumberland frowned impatiently.

'We have no time to stand sentimentalizing here,' he said. Then, addressing Lady Jane more particularly, he continued, 'Madam, we have much to say to you, and there are great matters to consider. The king is dead, but there is the kingdom.'

'True. Our dear England.'

'For which the late king did so much,' said the Earl of Pembroke. (Mistress Ellen whispered their names or I should never have known one from the other.) 'Strengthening the Protestant cause and abolishing Roman Catholicism from the land.'

'Yes, indeed,' assented Lady Jane.

'Before he died,' said the Duke of Northumberland, 'the king was in great concern that the Church should continue in the form and spirit in which it now is.' He paused, looking meaningly at my mistress.

If I had only prepared her mind, as I had been told to do, she would have understood, but, as it was, she looked startled and bewildered.

'Surely,' she said at length, seeing that they waited for her to speak, 'surely nothing can disturb our Church, which in its present form is so deeply rooted in the affections of all Protestant people?'

'Of all Protestants, yes,' said the Duke of Northumberland. 'But what of the Papists? You know, madam, there are many Papists in England who are waiting, longing, and watching for an opportunity to restore their creed and ritual to the whole land.'

'But they can never do that,' said Lady Jane. 'England would not tolerate it now.'

'Our late king,' continued the Duke of Northumberland solemnly, 'was well aware that if his sister, Princess Mary, who is a bigoted Papist, were to succeed to the throne, all his efforts for the established Church would be annulled and overthrown. Feeling this deeply, and knowing well what misery and woe would come upon his people if this happened, he took steps, whilst yet he was alive, to put aside his sisters, who had indeed been declared illegitimate by Act of Parliament, and secure the succession to one whose Protestantism is beyond dispute.' He paused.

Lady Jane started and looked at him with widely opened eyes. No word, however, escaped from her pale lips.

'Madam,' said the duke, 'actuated by that reason and also by the wish to preserve the kingdom from the disputes the illegitimacy of his sisters might occasion, our late monarch made his will, passing them over and bequeathing the crown to his true legitimate heir who, he was well aware, held the true faith. He, therefore, in his will ordered the Council to proclaim you queen.'

Every vestige of colour left my dear lady's face, and she looked round affrightedly as if for some way of escape, making a gesture of dissent, though no word fell from her lips.

She was only sixteen years of age, and anything more opposed to her disposition and love of retirement and study could not well have been proposed.

'And in the case of your having no children your sisters Catherine and Mary are to succeed you,' went on the Duke of Northumberland.

Still Lady Jane said not a word, but the look in her eyes made me press forward nearer to her, saying in my heart, 'If I had only prepared you for this!'

The attendant nobles fell upon their knees, declaring that Lady Jane Grey was queen, and vowing that they would defend her rights to the death, if necessary.

It was such a sight as you have never seen, all those high-born lords upon their knees before a slim young girl, who only a year before was a child, and she staring at them with wide eyes out of a fear-stricken, pallid countenance.

The tension only lasted a few moments and then, with a piercing cry, my dear Lady Jane fell to the floor.

I was on my knees by her side before any one else, and was trying to raise her head when there was another commotion in the hall caused by the entrance of her mother, the Duchess of Suffolk, who had come over from Sheen House, on the other side of the river, accompanied by the Duchess of Northumberland and the Marchioness of Northampton. These great ladies swept down upon us, and would have ordered me away, there and then, if looks could have done it, but I would not leave my mistress to their tender mercies, and continued to support her head on my lap, so that I could not be removed without disturbing her.

In a little while she came round out of her swoon, and then, seeing her mother and mother-in-law, began to entreat them and the Duke of Northumberland very pitifully not to lay the burden of royalty upon her, declaring herself to be a most unfit person to reign in Edward's place, and saying over and over again that, in spite of all that had been said, the Princess Mary and, after her, the Princess Elizabeth were the rightful heirs to the throne.

It was in vain that the duke and duchess urged considerations of the harm which would befall Protestantism if Princess Mary reigned, and of the dissensions which might rend the land if the legitimacy of the queen were doubtful; the Lady Jane only said--

'Other wrongs do not make a wrong right. I am sure Princess Mary is the rightful queen, and I should be a usurper if I were to take her place.'

Again and again she said the same thing, praying and beseeching them not to force her to become queen.

'Think you,' she said, 'that the great God who made heaven and earth cannot take care of Protestantism and this beloved England of ours without the help of a young girl like me? Do you think that by doing what my conscience tells me is wrong I can advance the cause of the High and Holy One?'

But it was all in vain. They would not listen to her. Their minds were set upon making her queen, more for their own advancement than for the good of their country, and in their eyes she was a child who was to be made to do the thing that they pleased.

When she became ill with terror and distress and crying we took her to her bedroom, and when she implored that they would leave her there alone with me the Duchess of Suffolk said, 'No, I shall stay with you myself.'

'And so shall I,' said the Duchess of Northumberland.

Then they turned me out of the room, together with Mistress Ellen, that they might the better take poor Lady Jane in hand, and we heard a pitiful cry from her as the bolt of the door was slid, leaving us on the outside and her within alone with them.