CHAPTER XX

THE SUPREME HOUR!

To Dr. Feckenham Mary assigned the melancholy task of announcing her hopeless position to Jane Grey. This duty he performed on 8th February, the day before that originally fixed for the execution, at the same time exhorting her to prepare for death. The little victim of great iniquity is said to have learnt her doom with Christian resignation and princely dignity. She did not fall into a consternation as when her accession to the throne was announced to her at Sion, but listened, dry-eyed, to the worthy prelate’s awful words. The call to another world was more welcome, doubtless, to her weary spirit than had been that other summons to an earthly throne. Her life, she told Feckenham, had long been a living death, and the sooner it ended the better--“I am ready to receive death patiently,” she said, “and in whatever manner it may please the Queen to appoint. True, my flesh shudders, as is natural to frail humanity, at what I have to go through, but I fervently hope the spirit will spring rejoicingly into the presence of the Eternal God, Who will receive it.” She pleaded for her husband; “he was innocent,” she said, “and had only obeyed his father in all things.” Finally, she expressed her desire to see a minister of her own religion, and prayed that during her last hours she might not be troubled by the presence of any Roman Catholic priest or prelate, since “she had no time for that.” Mary, however, was resolved that no minister of the Reformed religion should visit her cousin, but she had made a judicious choice in sending Dr. Feckenham, a liberal-minded man of the gentlest manners,[295] to minister spiritual consolation to her. Though the numerous pictures representing the tragic scene of Jane’s death generally depict Feckenham as a dignified old man with a long white beard, he was in reality a short, stout, “comfortable-looking” elderly gentleman, with a close-shaven red face, and twinkling eyes. A devout Catholic, he desired, no doubt, to convert his illustrious prisoner to his own faith, and even Pollino, who must have been well acquainted with all that the Catholic party had to say on the subject, says that Lady Jane and Feckenham held long conversations on the subject of the Eucharist, one on which Lady Jane held distinctly Protestant views: but there is no evidence that, as some historians allege, she ever engaged in a discussion on matters of faith and doctrines with Feckenham in a hall of the Tower set apart for that purpose, and in the presence of an assembly of learned Catholic prelates and theologians. We may be sure that any controversy between Lady Jane Grey and Dr. Feckenham, either in the last week of her life or at any other time, took place in the privacy of her own apartment. Florio, the Protestant Italian historian, who has written a life of Lady Jane Grey--concocted out of Foxe’s _Book of Martyrs_ and other similar works,--prints at the end of his book a dialogue between Lady Jane and Feckenham on the subject of Transubstantiation, and this conversation is also given in Harris Nicholas’s _Literary Remains of Lady Jane Grey_. This is most likely a report dictated by some one to whom Jane communicated the substance of what passed between herself and the Benedictine. Dr. Feckenham has left his own account of what took place, and admits that in the course of several lengthy conversations with Jane on matters of dogma, by means of which he had hoped to convert her to Catholicism, he had been deeply impressed by her gentleness, her dignity, and her evident sincerity.

Feckenham obtained the respite of three days, generally given in such cases, and the execution was postponed until Monday, 12th February. On his informing Jane of what he had done, she is said to have replied, “Alas, sir! I did not intend what I said to be reported to the Queen, nor would I have you think me covetous for a moment’s longer life; for I am only solicitous for a better life in Eternity, and will gladly suffer death, since it is her Majesty’s pleasure.” Feckenham, it appears, had misunderstood the phrase, “she had no time for that,” as meaning that Jane might be disposed to listen to his religious teaching if allowed more time for its consideration; and had therefore requested the respite granted by the Council. But she proved no more amenable to the worthy priest’s arguments on the last day than on the first.

Lord Guildford Dudley, unlike his stoical wife, received his sentence with a flood of tears. Of all the victims of this terrible tragedy, he was, in truth, the most inoffensive. The poor lad had done no harm, except to obey the instructions of his father and mother--especially in respect to his foolish attempt at Brussels, which was probably the real cause of his condemnation--and there was nothing, now that his father was removed, to be gained by putting him to death. Except by his marriage, he was not connected with the royal family; he was therefore not in the line of succession, and his liberation would not have involved the slightest danger to Queen Mary or her throne. His execution may be described as a useless murder, even a darker stain on Mary Tudor and her advisers--the Emperor Charles V, his agent Simon Renard, and the Council--than that of Lady Jane Grey, who certainly might have been used again, in the near future, as the tool of some unscrupulous statesman. Mary, as we have said, was herself perfectly willing, almost to the last, to spare both Guildford and his wife, but their chance of pardon was ruined by the Duke of Suffolk’s abortive rebellion. Had he obeyed Mary’s orders, put himself at the head of her troops, remained loyal, and defeated the rising in the Midlands, as Huntingdon eventually did, his children’s lives would doubtless have been spared by the grateful sovereign.

The original order, as we have seen, was that Jane and Guildford should perish together on Tower Hill. Harris Nicholas seems to think the plan was abandoned because the Council dreaded the effect of the prisoners’ youth and innocence on the populace. This view has been adopted by other writers, but the real motive of the change was a matter of political etiquette. Lady Jane was of the Blood Royal, and therefore entitled to be executed within the precincts of the Tower, on the Green where the two Queens of Henry VIII and the old Plantagenet Princess, Margaret of Salisbury, had been beheaded. Guildford, on the other hand, on the paternal side of even plebeian origin, could only be decapitated without the Tower.

On the evening of the day originally fixed for the execution (Friday, 9th February), Jane wrote the following letter to her father, in which she herself holds him responsible, through his rashness, for her death:--

“FATHER,--Although it hath pleased God to hasten my death by you, by whom my life should rather have been lengthened, yet can I patiently take it, that I yield God more hearty thanks for shortening my woeful days, than if all the world had been given into my possession, with life lengthened at my own will. And albeit I am well assured of your impatient dolours, redoubled many ways, both in bewailing your own woe, and especially, as I am informed, my woeful estate; yet, my dear father, if I may without offence rejoice in my own mishap, herein I may account myself blessed, that washing my hands with the innocence of my fact, my guiltless blood may cry before the Lord, ‘Mercy to the innocent.’ And yet, though I must needs acknowledge that being constrained, and, as you know well enough, continually assayed; yet, in taking [the Crown] upon me, I seemed to consent, and therein grievously offended the Queen and her laws, yet do I assuredly trust, that this my offence towards God is so much the less, in that being in so royal estate as I was, my enforced honour never mixed with mine innocent heart. And thus, good father, I have opened unto you the state in which I presently stand, my death at hand, although to you it may seem woeful, yet to me there is nothing that can be more welcome than from this vale of misery to aspire to that heavenly throne of all joy and pleasure, with Christ our Saviour: in whose steadfast faith (if it be lawful for the daughter so to write to the father), the Lord that hitherto hath strengthened you, so continue to keep you, that at last we may meet in heaven with the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen.--I am, Your obedient Daughter till death,

JANE DUDLEY”

Jane probably spent Sunday (10th February) in prayer and meditation; or perhaps as an unwilling listener to Feckenham’s exhortations. The next day Gardiner, preaching before the Queen, then at Whitehall, blamed her for what he considered her leniency. He “axed a boon of the Queen’s Highness, that like as she had before extended her mercy particularly and privately, so through her lenity and gentleness much conspiracy and open rebellion was grown, according to the proverb _nimia familiaritas parit contemptum_; which he brought then in, for the purpose that she would now be merciful to the body of the commonwealth, and conservation thereof, which could not be, unless the rotten and hurtful members thereof were cut off and consumed.”[296]

Some communication seems to have reached Jane from her ruined home on this Sunday, for in consequence of the transports of grief into which her sister, Lady Katherine, was plunged, she wrote that evening the following beautiful letter, on the blank pages at the end of her Greek Testament:--

“I have sent you, good sister Katherine, a book, which, although it be not outwardly rimmed with gold, yet inwardly it is more worth than precious stones. It is the book, dear sister, of the laws of the Lord; it is His Testament and last Will, which He bequeathed unto us wretches, which shall lead you to the path of eternal joy, and if you, with a good mind, read it, and with an earnest desire follow it, shall bring you to an immortal and everlasting life. It will teach you to live, and learn you to die; it shall win you more than you should have gained by the possession of your woeful father’s lands,[297] for as if God had prospered him, ye should have inherited his lands, so if you apply diligently [to] your book [_i.e._ the Bible], trying to direct your life after it, you shall be an inheritor of such riches as neither the covetous shall withdraw from you, neither the thief shall steal, neither yet the moth corrupt. Desire, sister, to understand the law of the Lord your God. Live still to die, that you by death may purchase eternal life; or after your death enjoy the life purchased [for] you by Christ’s death; and trust not the tenderness of your age shall lengthen your life, for as soon, if God will, goeth the young as the old; and labour alway to learn to die. Deny the world, defy the devil, and despise the flesh. Delight yourself only in the Lord. Be patient for your sins, and yet despair not. Be steady in faith, yet presume not, and desire with St. Paul to be dissolved and to be with Christ, with whom even in death there is life. Be like the good servant, and even at midnight be waking; lest when death cometh and stealeth upon you, like a thief in the night, you be with the evil servant found sleeping, and lest for lack of oil ye be found like the first foolish wench,[298] and like him that had not on the wedding garment, and then be cast out from the marriage. Resist [sin] in ye [yourself] as I trust ye do, and seeing ye have the name of a Christian, as near as ye can, follow the steps of your master Christ, and take up your cross; lay your sins on His back, and always embrace Him; and as touching my death, rejoice as I do, and assist [perhaps, ‘consider’] that I shall be delivered of this corruption, and put on incorruption, for I am assured that I shall for losing of a mortal life find an immortal felicity. Pray God grant you [and] send you of His grace to live in His fear, and to die in the love [here is an illegible passage, perhaps made so by fast falling tears], neither for love of life, nor fears of death. For if ye deny His truth to lengthen your life, God will deny you, and shorten your days; and if ye will cleave to Him, He will prolong your days, to your comfort and His glory, to the which glory God bring mine and you hereafter, when it shall please God to call you.

“Farewell, good sister, put your only trust in God, who only must uphold you.--Your loving sister,

“JANE DUDLEY”

The precious volume containing this letter is fortunately the property of the nation, deposited in the MS. department of the British Museum.

In the British Museum[299] there is also a small and beautiful MS. vellum prayer book, imperfect in one or two pages. Four inches in length, and nearly two inches thick, bound in red morocco, and richly ornamented, it contains thirty-five distinctly Protestant prayers. The catalogue of the Harleian Collection states that it “was perhaps written by the direction of Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset and Protector of England, upon his first commitment to the Tower of London; and that the last five prayers were added after his second commitment, which ended in his execution.” On the margin of several pages, not more than three lines occupying the same leaf, are a series of interesting autographs. The first of these is in the hand of Lord Guildford Dudley, and runs as follows:--

“Your loving and obedient son wisheth unto your grace long life in this world, with as much joy and comfort as ever I wish to myself; and in the world to come, joy everlasting.--Your most humble son till his death,

“G. DUDLEY”

It has been conjectured from this inscription that Guildford presented the book to his father-in-law, on the occasion of his wedding with Lady Jane; unless the inscription was addressed to his father, Northumberland. It is also supposed that the Duke of Suffolk, having received it from Guildford, left it behind him after his release from his three days’ imprisonment in the Tower. Others say that Sir John Gage, Constable of the Tower, gave it himself to his prisoners, so that they might write something in it for him to keep in remembrance of them. It was certainly in Jane’s possession for some time, for she carried it with her to the scaffold; and it contains in her hand, a solemn farewell to, and prayer for, her father, in the following terms:--

“The Lord comfort your grace, and that in his word, wherein all creatures only are to be comforted. And though it hath pleased God to take ij of your children, yet think not, I most humbly beseech your grace, that you have lost them; but trust that we, by leaving this mortal life, have won an immortal life. And I, for my part, as I have honoured your grace in this life, will pray for you in another life.[300]--Your grace’s humble daughter,

“JANE DUDLEY”

Shortly before proceeding to her execution, Jane’s kindly jailor, Sir Thomas Brydges, begged her to give him something to keep in memory of her; whereupon she offered him this very prayer book, and at his request wrote in a third sentence:

“Forasmuch as you have desired so simple a woman to write in so worthy a book, good master Lieutenant, therefore I shall as a friend desire you, and as a Christian require you, to call upon God, to incline your heart to His laws, quicken you in His ways, and not to take the word of truth utterly out of your mouth. Live still to die, that by death you may purchase eternal life; and remember how the end of Methuselah, who as we read in the Scriptures was the longest liver that was of a manner, died at the last. For, as the preacher saith, there is a time to be born and a time to die; and the day of death is better than the day of our birth.--Yours as the Lord knoweth as a friend,

“JANE DUDLEY”

Finally, at some time or other during her imprisonment, Jane wrote three further inscriptions on the last page of this book in Latin, Greek, and English, which run as follows:--

The Latin--“If justice is done with my body, my soul will find mercy with God.”

The Greek--“Death will give pain to my body for its sins, but the soul will be justified before God.”

The English--“If my faults deserve punishment, my youth at least and my imprudence were worthy of excuse. God and posterity will show me favour.”[301]

It was on this, the last Sunday evening of her unhappy life, that Jane wrote the well-known prayer, which, although quoted in full by Foxe and Howard, is not now extant in Lady Jane’s own hand, and may therefore, like several letters, etc., attributed to her, be apocryphal.[302]

The few details we possess as to the acts of other State prisoners, implicated in Northumberland’s plot, on the day of their execution, are lacking in the case of Lady Jane; no record has come to us of how she slept on her last night of life; of those who were present at her last mournful meal. However, enough has been reported by contemporary writers to enable us to reconstruct the events of the later portion of the day, when the hour of the execution drew near. It is clearly stated that Lord Guildford Dudley made an attempt to see his wife before his death, and even informed his guards of his desire to do so. Hearing of this, Mary sent word, on the very morning of the fatal day, that “if it would be any consolation to them, they should be allowed to see each other before their execution.” When this concession was communicated to Lady Jane she declined it, saying “it would only disturb the holy tranquillity with which they had prepared themselves for death”; and unnerve them for the supreme moment. At the same time she sent a message to Guildford to the effect that such a meeting “would rather weaken than strengthen him”; that he ought to be sufficiently strong in himself to need no such consolation; that “if his soul were not firm and settled, she could not settle it by her eyes, nor confirm it by her words; that he would do well to remit this interview till they met in a better world, where friendships were happy and unions indissoluble, and theirs, she hoped, would be eternal.” But Jane took her stand at the window of her room to watch her husband pass, a little before ten o’clock, to his doom on Tower Hill. Sir Thomas Brydges stood by her, as she waved her hand to Guildford. Burke (_Tudor Portraits_) says, but without naming his authority, that “like his father and brothers,” Guildford Dudley, “recanted his supposed Protestantism whilst in the Tower”; and that “he was attended to the scaffold by two Benedictine Fathers.” Other and earlier writers do, indeed, declare that Guildford received Communion according to the rites of the Roman Catholic Church before his death; but _The Chronicle of Queen Jane and Queen Mary_ makes no mention of this recantation, and clearly says no minister of any religion attended at Guildford Dudley’s execution.[303] At the Bulwark Gate of the Tower (its outside entrance), Guildford was met by Sir Anthony Browne and Sir John Throckmorton, and several other gentlemen who had assembled to bid him farewell, and with whom he shook hands “pleasantly.” Here, too, Sir Thomas Offley, the Sheriff of Middlesex, in accordance with precedent,[304] took charge of the prisoner. The mob that in those days invariably assembled to witness such sinister functions, was on Tower Hill in its hundreds, nay thousands, to see the poor boy beheaded. He looked very handsome, in his suit of black velvet slashed with dark coloured cloth: his tall and youthful figure impressed the people most favourably, and a murmur of sympathy ran through the motley throng. Guildford did not attempt to make a speech. He knelt down and said his prayers--simple prayers he had learnt as a child--and, it was said, he shed some tears at the thought of dying so young. But despite the youth’s natural emotion, he faced death bravely. He begged the “good people” to pray for him; took off his doublet himself, unfastened his collar with his own hands, knelt on the straw, stretched out his graceful limbs, laid his head on the block; and in an instant, with one stroke of the axe, his spirit passed into Eternity.[305] His blood-stained corpse, covered with a sheet, was thrown into a tumbril or handcart filled with straw, and his head, wrapped in a cloth, was cast at its feet.

And now a horrible incident occurred. Whether by accident or design,[306] Jane caught a glimpse of her husband’s mutilated remains as they were carried into the Tower for interment. We have several versions of this story: some say she saw the body taken out of the cart[307] and carried into St. Peter’s Chapel, whilst a passage in Grafton[308] lends colour to the belief (adopted by many historians, including Turner and Nicolas) that she met the corpse as she was herself proceeding to the scaffold. What most likely happened is, that she was waiting to be summoned by the Lieutenant of the Tower and the Sheriffs, when she heard the rumbling of cart wheels, and before her attendants could prevent her, rushed to the window, and beheld the hideous sight, without, however, it seems, expressing any great emotion. “Oh Guildford, Guildford!” we are told she exclaimed, “the antepast that you have tasted, and I shall soon taste, is not so bitter as to make my flesh tremble; for all this is nothing to the feast that you and I shall partake this day in Paradise.”

The direful procession which was to conduct a young and innocent Princess of the Blood Royal, of barely seventeen summers, to the foot of an ignominious scaffold, was formed according to established precedent. But for some unexplained reason, it was nearly an hour late in starting from Partridge’s house to the place of execution, opposite the Church of St. Peter-ad-Vincula, where, since that day, countless pilgrims from the Old and New Worlds have paused to ponder a moment over the fate of Lady Jane Grey, and have learnt to hate Mary Tudor with an almost personal detestation. The delay may have resulted from the state of nervous prostration into which the unfortunate Princess had been thrown by the sight of her husband’s mangled remains. It would have been impossible, even in those hard times, to convey the victim to execution if she had swooned. It was nearly eleven o’clock, then, before the drums began to beat, and the procession fell into order.

The morning had dawned grey and misty, heavy clouds veiling the sun that now and then shone feebly athwart them, but it was fairly fine for London at that early season, and no rain fell throughout the day. The bells of St. Peter-ad-Vincula, and of All Hallows’, Barking, tolled at regular intervals, whilst the grand outline of the White Tower stood out luminous against the threatening sky, as the dread procession wended slowly onwards. First, came a company of two hundred Yeomen of the Guard; then, the executioner, in a tight-fitting scarlet worsted and cloth garment, displaying the swelling muscles of his chest, arms, and legs;[309] his face was masked, and his head hooded in scarlet. Beside him marched his assistant, a rough-looking man, who carried the axe over his shoulder; then Sir John Brydges, Lieutenant of the Tower, with Sir Thomas Brydges, Deputy-Lieutenant, and between them Sir John Gage, Constable of the Tower, with two Sheriffs, in their robes of office. Lastly, the young prisoner herself, dressed as on the occasion of her trial at the Guildhall in the same black cloth dress, edged with black velvet, a Marie Stuart cap of black velvet on her head, with a veil of black cloth hanging to the waist, and a white wimple concealing her throat; her sleeves edged with lawn, neatly plaited round the wrists. Not wearing _chopines_ to increase her height, as on the occasion of her State entry into the Tower, the people who had not seen her since were greatly surprised at her diminutive stature. On her right walked Abbot Feckenham, in his black robe, without a surplice, and carrying a crucifix in his hand. Behind him came the Chaplains attached to the Chapel Royal of the Tower. Lady Jane’s ladies, Mrs. Tylney and Mrs. Ellen, and Mrs. Sarah; two other women and a man-servant, all in deep mourning, and weeping bitterly, closed the doleful procession. The route was a short one, and the crowd of spectators--about five hundred--allowed to be present at the execution, was silent and respectful. From Partridge’s house to the scaffold, the Lady Jane continued to read the open Prayer-Book in her hand--it was that containing the various inscriptions already mentioned--and paid little or no heed to Feckenham’s pious exhortations, if, indeed, he made any.

At the foot of the scaffold stood a jury of forty matrons, who had been previously called upon to testify that the Princess was not with child; a rumour that she was in this condition was so widespread as to be mentioned by Radcliffe--who says, “Lady Dudley was very brave, considering the condition she was in”--and by Fuller, Pomeroy, Challoner, and Fox. The presence of these matrons is also mentioned by Bishop Godwin. There is no record of the presence of the Duke of Norfolk in his usual seat as Earl Marshal, but no doubt he was there with Lord Mayor White and several Aldermen, Sheriffs, and noblemen. Before ascending the three or four steps that led to the scaffold, the Lady Jane took leave of her ladies, who sobbed bitterly; Mrs. Ellen and Mrs. Tylney followed her on to the platform, ominously littered with fresh straw. Here Feckenham, the executioner, and his assistant also took their stations, with Sir Thomas Brydges. “When she appeared on the scaffold,” writes a contemporary, “the people cried, and murmured at beholding one so young and beautiful about to die such a death.” Nevertheless, though the writer of _The Chronicle of Queen Jane and Queen Mary_ says “her countenance [was] nothing abashed, neither her eyes misted with tears,” there can be little doubt but that the long spell of anxiety had left some trace on Jane’s sweet face. She advanced to the edge of the scaffold, and in the dead silence spoke in a distinct voice: “Good people, I am come here to die, and by a law I am condemned to the same. My offence against the Queen’s Highness was only in consenting to the device of others, which is now deemed treason; but it was never of my seeking, but by the counsel of those who should seem to have further understanding of such things than I, who knew little of the law and less of the title to the Crown. The part, indeed, against the Queen’s Highness was unlawful, and so the consenting thereunto by me; but touching the procurement and desire thereof by me, or on my behalf, I do wash my hands thereof in innocency before God and in the face of you, good Christian people, this day,” and therewith she wrung her hands in which she had her book. Then she continued, “I pray you, all good Christian people, to bear me witness that I die a true Christian woman, and that I look to be saved by none other means, but only by the mercy of God, in the merit of the blood of His only Son Jesus Christ; and I confess that when I did know the Word of God, I neglected the same, loved myself and the world, and therefore this plague of punishment has worthily happened into me for my sins; and yet I thank God of His goodness that He hath thus given me a time and respite to repent. And now, good people, while I am living, I pray you to assist me with your prayers.”

Lady Jane’s relative, Lady Philippa de Clifford, in her little known report,[310] adds that, “After a pause, and wiping her eyes, she (Jane) said in a firmer voice, ‘Now, good people, Jane Dudley bids you all a long farewell. And may the Almighty preserve you from ever meeting the terrible death which awaits her in a few minutes. Farewell, farewell, for ever more.’ Jane, when she had finished speaking, was much affected, and hid her face upon the neck of the old nurse who attended her on the scaffold.” This nurse must have been Mrs. Ellen, into whose arms she threw herself when she first perceived the towering figure of the masked executioner, garbed from head to foot in scarlet. Clinging to the aged woman, the poor girl sobbed convulsively. Growing calmer, after a while, she knelt down, and asked Feckenham what prayer she should recite--“Shall I say this Psalm?”--probably pointing to her prayer-book as she did so. “Yes,” answered he; and then, as she and many of the people knelt, he said the fifty-first Psalm, the _Miserere_, in Latin, Jane repeating it after him in English. This done, she rose, and said very courteously to Dr. Feckenham, “God will abundantly requite you, good sir, for all your humanity to me, though your discourses gave me more uneasiness than all the terrors of approaching death.” Bishop Godwin says, “Just before she knelt down, Lady Jane embraced the venerable prelate and thanked him for his kindness to her.” She then gave her handkerchief and gloves to Mrs. Tylney; and turning to Sir Thomas Brydges, said gently, “You asked me for a parting memory of me,” and handed him the prayer-book which she had been using and in which she had written her farewells.

The supreme moment had arrived. Without the assistance of her two female attendants, who were too completely overcome to assist her, she untied the collar of her gown. The executioner offered to help her, but she curtly desired him to desist, and turning to her ladies, spoke a few words to them. Mastering their emotion, they took off her outer dress, leaving her in her kirtle, or under gown with close-fitting sleeves. They also removed her headdress (described by the old chroniclers as a “frose paste”) and kerchief, giving her at the same time a handkerchief to tie over her eyes. Then the executioner knelt and besought her pardon; she replied simply, “Most willingly.” Now came what was perhaps the most painful episode of the horrible ceremony--the pause of five minutes “for the Queen’s mercy.” The poor girl had to stand, with the ghastly preparations for her approaching death about her, for a space of time which, brief as it really was, must have seemed an eternity to her, waiting for a clemency she no longer expected nor desired. But no white wand was waved--there was no mercy for Jane Grey! The five minutes ended, the executioner motioned the unfortunate Princess to take her place upon the straw, and she, noticing the block for the first time, began to tremble a little, and said, as she knelt down, “I pray you dispatch me quickly,” adding, “Will you take it off before I lay me down?”[311] “No, madam,” replied the executioner. With her own hands she bound the handkerchief about her eyes, and being now in that darkness from which death would soon release her, lost consciousness of where she was, and groping about for the block, asked eagerly, “Where is it? What shall I do? Where is it?” Someone guided her to the fatal spot, and the “Nine Days’ Queen,” laying herself down with her fair head upon the block, stretched out her body, and cried aloud that all might hear her, “Lord, into Thy hands I commend my spirit!”[312] A flash, a thud, a crimson deluge on the straw-strewn scaffold--and, as the cannon boomed, an innocent soul was borne towards a Throne more high, and a Justice more sure than those of Queen or Emperor![313]

There are several conflicting accounts of what subsequently happened. The more generally received version is that the body was handed over to Lady Jane’s women, who reverently placed it in a common deal coffin, and conveyed it to St. Peter-ad-Vincula, precisely as the women of Anne Boleyn and Katherine Howard had conveyed the mangled remains of those slaughtered Queens. But on the other hand, Antoine de Noailles,[314] the French Ambassador, who had arrived in London early in the morning, passing that way about three o’clock in the same afternoon (he was living at Marillac’s old house on the Tower Green), saw Lady Jane’s half-naked body lying abandoned on the scaffold, and was amazed at the immense quantity of blood that had poured out of so small a corpse.[315] Peter Derenzie tells us her remains “were left for hours half naked on the scaffold streaming with blood, and were placed in a deal coffin.” It would seem indeed that, in death as in life, Lady Jane Grey, the moment fortune turned against her, was abandoned by all those, even by her own mother, who by reason of natural ties should have rallied round her in the hour of need. Thus after death her bleeding remains were treated with corresponding neglect; the puppet which was to have made Northumberland’s fortune was thrown aside, with none to care for it, when once its purpose failed. This unusual treatment of the body may not, however, have proceeded entirely from heartlessness; but from the difficulty and uncertainty as to the nature of the religious service to be said over the remains of one who, though born a Catholic, had died a “heretic”; St. Peter’s Chapel having been lately restored to the Catholics, Jane could not be buried there without ecclesiastical licence, and to obtain this, Feckenham probably had to see Queen Mary, or get some sort of “permit” from Archbishop Heath. But, granting all this, the corpse might, at least, have been decently covered. The delay as to the burial of Jane Grey’s corpse may have given rise to the popular report that it was transported to Bradgate, and interred there. There is no question, however, that the body was eventually conveyed into the Church of St. Peter-ad-Vincula and buried in the vault which already contained the mangled remains of so many of her contemporaries.[316] Many years ago, a very small and broken coffin was discovered in this vault, containing the remains of a female of diminutive stature, with the head severed from the body. The skeleton, which crumbled to ashes immediately it was exposed to the effect of the atmosphere, was surmised to be that of Lady Jane Grey, and the dust was enclosed in an urn and placed immediately under the oval inscription in the chancel above, which records her death. Yet in Leicestershire, the tradition still persists that the body was brought to Bradgate late at night, and secretly interred in the parish church. And with this tradition, of course, is connected the legend of the coach with the headless occupant, said to appear before the gates of Bradgate on the anniversary of Lady Jane’s death.

Thus, in blood and in neglect, ends the tragic story of Lady Jane Grey, one of the most popular heroines in our history, the helpless victim of circumstance, and of the soaring ambition of a singularly masterful and unscrupulous man.