CHAPTER XVIII

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!