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Historic Girlhoods Volume 1

<h2> V Lady Jane Grey The Girl of Tudor England: 1537-1554 </h2> A little lady sat reading a small, vellum-bound book in the window-seat of one of the rooms of his Majesty's palace of Westminster. She was short and slender, and for a girl of fourteen very graceful. Her face was fair and now warm-flushed by the sun, her hair was a soft red-brown and her eyes that light shade of hazel, almost red, which so often goes with hair of reddish color. Her dress was of green velvet, with great gold-embroidered sleeves. At her waist was a girdle of gold. Her gown was cut to a point at the neck and about her throat was a little chain and a small heart-shaped locket. On her head was a coif of fine white lace bound with tiny bands of green and gold. The window behind her was open, and now and then the breeze blew wisps of hair about her forehead and sometimes threatened to turn the leaves of her book. Presently a boy, a few years older than the girl, dressed in dark red doublet and hose, with a flat cap of the same color on his head, pushed aside the arras at the door and came into the room. He was very pale, and his big eyes, under high black arching eyebrows, looked very tired and moody. He had crossed to the window-seat before the girl knew he was in the room. She rose quickly and made a low courtesy. The boy rested one knee upon the window-seat. "I'm glad you've come to court, Lady Jane. I wish you might stay some time." "Your Majesty is very good to say so." The boy bit his lip. "All day and half the night people are saying to me, 'Your Majesty is very good' to do this or that, usually something they've made me do. Can't we forget, cousin, for just a little time, that I'm Edward the Sixth, King of England and Ireland and so on, and just pretend I'm simple Edward Tudor and you Jane Grey?" "An your Majesty wishes it," she said, smiling at the dark-eyed boy. "I do." The boy sat down on the window-seat. "Oh, Jane, it's a stupid life I lead. Always my masters with lessons, my bearded counselors with scrolls and ink-horns. When I'm tired one man gives me physic, when I'm well again another sets me tasks. My head splits with sermons, and acts of state, and such like matters. I think they grudge me the hours I have to sleep. And among them all I've only one true friend, Barnaby Fitzpatrick, and him they let me see but now and then." "I know," said the Lady Jane. "It seems there are so many things we must learn. At home my master, Messer Aylmer, is forever setting me this or that to study." <div class="figcenter"><ANTIMG width-obs="405" height-obs="500" src="images/002.jpg" alt="Lady Jane Grey and Roger Ascham"> <div class="image"> Lady Jane Grey and Roger Ascham </div> </div> The boy leaned forward and whispered, "I wish I were a boy of the streets, with a penny in my pocket and naught to do but plan the spending of it." "Oh, my lord—Edward, I mean," said the girl, much amazed. The arras was pulled back again, and two youths entered. One was tall and fair, the other of much shorter stature, with merry black eyes. Both were dressed in the height of the court fashion, with plumed hats, short swords, and jeweled collars. "Here's Barnaby," said the king, "and Lord Guildford Dudley. Oh, Barnaby, I'm free for an hour or so. What shall I do with it?" The shorter of the two boys, drawing his heels together, made a low bow to the girl who had resumed her place on the window-seat. "My Lady Jane Grey," said he. "Welcome to our palace of Westminster. Is it not a cheerful place? But for the four of us here gathered I doubt if there be a soul within its walls under five and fifty years of age." "My Lady Jane," said tall Guildford Dudley, making his bow in turn, "is kind to come here to relieve our dulness." Now Edward clapped his hands impatiently. "Think, Barnaby, think. What shall we do?" Barnaby looked out through the mullioned window. "Down there in the garden are bows and arrows. Suppose we be Robin Hood and his men and shoot at wands?" "Good!" cried Edward. "They told me not to go out-of-doors while the sun was hot, nor walk in the garden without one of my gentlemen-at-arms. Now will I do both. Come, Jane, you shall judge among us for our skill. There's a little staircase just beyond the arras that leads into the garden." He sprang up, his pale face flushed with the spirit of adventure, and throwing his arm over Barnaby's shoulder ran with him to the stairs. Guildford Dudley smiled. "What say you, Lady Jane? Will you leave your book? 'Tis the royal order, you know." "Very gladly, my lord. I was desiring something better to do." They followed the others to the staircase, and a moment later found themselves in the sunny garden. From a flower bed Barnaby produced a rounded stick, some three feet long, and stuck it in the ground at thirty paces from a seat under a plane-tree. "Jane shall sit here and be our judge," said he, "while we three shoot at yonder wand." The three boys chose their bows, which were quite as long as they were tall, and carefully fitted arrows to the cords. Then, standing under the tree, Edward took aim and loosed his bowstring. The arrow went very wild, clipping leaves from a yew some distance to the right. Barnaby shot next and came nearer the wand. "My eye needs training," said he. "'Tis not near true yet." Lord Guildford aimed carefully, and sent his shaft just over the wand's top. "Best of the three!" cried Barnaby, and the Lady Jane clapped her hands and smiled at the tall, fair-haired boy. The second round was not very different. Edward, his arm shaking as he tried to hold the taut bow straight, shot his arrow into the ground. Barnaby missed the wand by an inch or two to the right, and Guildford grazed it, shooting very close. Edward's third try was little better than his other two. His shaft went high and wide. He dropped his bow and threw himself on the ground at Jane's feet. "I can't do it," he complained. "'Tis idle trying. They never let me train my hand at sports." But the other boys were adepts. Barnaby sent his third arrow right to the base of the wand so that the stick bent back, and then Guildford, taking the greatest care, let fly a shaft that hit the stick fairly and split it in two. "Well shot!" cried Barnaby. Guildford turned about, a smile on his pleasant face. "How was that, Lady Jane?" "Splendid!" answered the girl. "If I had a prize I'd give it to you," and she made room for him to sit beside her on the bench. Edward, his chin resting in his hand, was looking towards a gate at the rear of the garden. "I wish," he said slowly, "that we could go out into that lane and see what is happening there, just as other children do." "Why not?" exclaimed Barnaby. "Who's to say no? Let's have a peep outside. Nobody'll be the wiser." Edward got to his feet doubtfully, but when he saw the other three quite in earnest he laughed, and ran ahead of them to the gate. He swung it wide open and the four trooped out into the lane. The walls of the palace grounds ran for some distance, but as soon as the children had turned a corner they came into a street of shops and small dwelling-houses where there were many people. They walked slowly, pointing things out to one another and looking curiously at the new sights about them. Finally Lady Jane spied a pedler standing in the road, with a basket at his waist hung by a rope about his neck. He was calling out in a loud voice to attract attention to his wares. "Let's see what he has," she exclaimed, running over towards him. A number of people, attracted by the pedler's words, had already gathered near him, but the girl and the three boys stopped directly in front of him. He was a jolly-looking fellow, with a very red face, and a broad-brimmed hat, wound with an orange scarf, stuck far back on his head. "Come buy, come buy!" he called in a singsong voice. "Here are little mirrors for the ladies, fresh from the court of Paris, wherein each may see how beautiful she is and how well her kerchief suits her. And here be ribbands will set the lads' hearts aflutter, and pieces of lace made after the fashion of Mechlin. Come buy, come buy! Come, my good dame, your man will be glad to see you look so fine when he comes home." But the woman he looked at laughed and shook her head. "He keeps his eyes for the food that's awaiting him," said she. "What ho!" cried the pedler, thrusting his hand into the pile of small articles that lay heaped in his basket. "Talking of food, here be knives, each in a leather jacket of finest Spanish make, will carve you a venison haunch or a foeman's gizzard, just as your fancy sits. Here, my fine gentlemen," said he, extending a couple of the knives towards Edward, Barnaby, and Guildford, "you should have such to cut your way into court." "I've a knife here," said Barnaby, touching the scabbard of his short sword, "worth twenty of those bodkins." "Hark to him!" cried the pedler. "Bodkins indeed! Why, 'twas only yestereve his Majesty ordered a dozen of them to arm his Yeomen of the Guard!" He looked at Lady Jane, noting the richness of her dress. "What will my lady have? She has taste, I warrant. A sweet dye for the hair, a ring, a love philtre, a girdle set with gems?" As he spoke he held up one thing after another, tempting the four to draw near him. Lady Jane looked into the basket and spied in a corner a bracelet hung with curiously cut bangles. "I like that," said she, pointing it out to the others. "Ah!" cried the pedler. "The lady has good taste! 'Tis a sweet bracelet, captured from the Moors when the great city of Granada fell. Each of these bangles has a prayer writ upon it, and 'tis said that worn upon the left arm, just above the wrist, 'twill bring good luck beyond all wishing for." "Take it as my gift, Lady Jane," said Edward, stretching out his hand for it. "And the price," continued the pedler, "is most monstrous low, too low in fact by half, and yet 'tis the price. A mere matter of five florins." Edward put his hand to his belt. He had no purse with him. "'Tis a fair price," said he. "I'll have the money sent you," and again he held out his hand. "Sent me? Oh, no, fine sir. This hour I may be here, the next in Cheapside. Who buys of me pays in hand." He looked at the other two boys smilingly. "Such a small sum, only five florins." But as it chanced they also had no purses with them. "Never mind, Edward," said Barnaby. "Lady Jane can have a finer one another day." "No," said Edward, frowning, "she shall have it now." He looked at the pedler. "Give me the bracelet and in twenty minutes a man shall fetch you the money. Be at the palace gate. I'll send it to you." The pedler shook his head. "An old bird must be wary, young sir. I might wait and wait and winter come and go, but no five florins. That is my rule to all, be ye whoever ye may." Edward, however, had the Tudor hate of all opposition. "Give me the bracelet!" he exclaimed, stamping his foot on the paving. "And trust my word for pay, or I'll see you soundly thrashed and driven out of London!" "Oh ho!" cried the pedler. "Sits the wind so? 'Twill need a bigger man than you to do one or t'other." "Bigger than I!" cried the boy, his face like a sudden thunder-storm. "Why, you rascal you, I'm——" But before he could speak the word Barnaby had twitched his sleeve, and whispered, "Ssh—look about you." Edward turned around. A few paces behind him a tall man, clad all in black, with long black moustaches and eyes that blazed with anger, had come to a stand. Now he turned to a man with a halberd who stood at his heel. "Drive that rogue away, and scatter the crowd!" he ordered. In a trice pedler and bystanders were on the wing. The man in black stepped up to the four children. "So your Majesty would roam the streets at will?" said he. "And did your Majesty deign to consider what would happen to this country had one of these scamps taken you at your word and fallen foul of you?" "I wanted a little holiday, good my lord," pleaded the boy. "'Twas only for an hour." "And one such hour might have changed the history of England," said the other, who was John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, the most powerful man in the land and guardian of the King. He looked at the others. "And what a shame to draw the Lady Jane Grey into the streets! I should have thought you at least had known better, Guildford." The fair-haired youth flinched before his father's frown. "'Twas only for a glimpse outside the gardens, your Grace," said he. "Enough!" commanded the Duke sternly. "We will return to Westminster now. I would ask your Majesty to be so good as to walk with me." Whereupon he offered his arm to the boy king, and led the little procession back to the gate of the garden by as short a way as he could. But even so word had got about that the boy who was bargaining with the pedler was none other than King Edward, and that the long-bearded man was the Duke of Northumberland. Therefore every one stared from the safe vantage of windows and doors, but was careful to keep out of the way, for the Duke was known to be a man of sudden and bitter wrath. The garden-gate closed behind the five of them, and the hour of freedom was ended. Edward, looking more like a prisoner than a monarch, was led off to the small room called his cabinet to sign papers and listen to long reports. One of her mother's maids came in search of the Lady Jane, and carried her away to the apartments of the Duchess of Suffolk, where the girl was lectured by her mother the Duchess, and then set to studying a book of sermons. It was not a happy time for royal children. The boy king, Edward VI, was kept penned in his palace of Westminster and ruled with a rod of iron by the stern Duke; his two half-sisters, the Princess Mary and the Princess Elizabeth, were both kept well guarded in the country and rarely allowed to see their friends; and his cousin, the Lady Jane Grey, who was next in line of succession to the throne, was hardly freer than these other royal children. They were all really only pawns in a great game of chess that was being played by the great noblemen of England, and no one seemed to care in the least whether they were happy or not. The Lady Jane did not stay long at Westminster Palace. A few days after her outing with the three boys her father and mother took her back with them to their country home. Such a trip was made slowly and with much ceremony. The Duchess, her daughter, and their ladies-in-waiting rode in great lumbering coaches, or chariots, while the Duke and his gentlemen, who often numbered as many as a hundred, rode as a guard of honor. If the weather was fine the journey was pleasant, the cavalcade stopping at noon to picnic under the trees by the road, and arriving at night at some quaint inn, to be welcomed by a cheery host and hostess, leaping wood-fires, glistening pewter, and the fragrance of a great variety of roasted meats. But when the weather was bad and the wheels of the chariots sunk so deep in the mire that the horses could hardly pull them out again, and the snow fell or the wind whistled about the mounted cavaliers, then travel through "merry England" was not so happy an affair, and men and women were glad enough to reach their homes. The Lady Jane had been trained to absolute obedience by a mother who seemed made of iron. She was forced to study in her own room on days when the rest of the household were out-of-doors hunting or hawking, and was set tasks translating from the Latin or Greek instead of playing in the garden. Once the famous scholar Roger Ascham came to the Duke of Suffolk's home at Bradgate Hall. He met the Duke and his wife with all their friends riding through the park on the way to the hunt. He asked where he would find the Lady Jane, and was told she was in her closet reading. He went into the house and found her seated at a window studying one of the works of the Greek writer Plato. Much surprised Ascham asked her why she gave up the sport of hunting for the sake of study. The Lady Jane smiled, and answered quite seriously, "I think all their sport in the park is but a shadow to that pleasure I find in Plato. Alas! good folk, they never felt what true pleasure means." Just two years after Lady Jane had watched the three boys shooting arrows at Westminster she was married to one of them, the tall Guildford Dudley. He was the son of the great Duke of Northumberland, who was already planning to put his son and his son's wife on the English throne after the death of the delicate Edward VI. The wedding was very magnificent, and every one predicted that the little lady and her nineteen-year old husband would be very happy. Edward, the boy king, died barely six weeks later, when he had not quite reached his sixteenth birthday. Then great events happened to Lady Jane. The Duke of Northumberland and many other lords and ladies went to the house where she was staying and told her that the King had disinherited both his sister the Princess Mary and his sister the Princess Elizabeth, and had ordered that Jane Grey should succeed to the crown. Then her own father and mother and, after them, all the lords and ladies knelt before her and kissed her hand and called her Queen Jane. She was too surprised at first to make any reply, but a little later she told them all she did not wish to be Queen. They answered that it was not a matter of her choice, but was her destiny. Reserved and obedient as ever, the girl bent her head and allowed her parents to proclaim her Queen. On July 10, 1553, Lady Jane went from Richmond to the Palace of Westminster in London, where she was dressed in the great robes of state. Then she proceeded by barge down the river Thames to the Tower of London, which was then both a palace and a prison. As she landed and entered the Tower grounds the people hailed her as Queen. Her gown was of green and gold and covered with jewels, and her young husband walked beside her under a canopy, dazzlingly arrayed in a court suit of white and gold. This quiet little Princess only reigned as Queen of England for nine days. Most of the country rose in arms on behalf of Mary Tudor, Edward VI's oldest sister, and the Duke of Northumberland's army was soon defeated and he was taken prisoner. Jane had no wish to be Queen; she, like the others, thought that Mary was the one entitled to rule. When her father came to her on July nineteenth and told her that her friends had been beaten and that she was no longer the Queen she was really glad. She had been sitting alone in her chair of state in the council chamber when he came to her. He looked at her, deserted by all her court, and his eyes filled with tears. "Come down from that, my child," said he. "That is no place for you." Jane rose and he took her in his arms. As they stood there together they heard borne to them on the summer air loud rejoicing voices crying, "Long live good Queen Mary!" Lady Jane looked up at her father. "Can I go home?" she asked. He bent his head, but did not answer. He did not know what was in store for them. In spite of its glitter and magnificence that was a cruel age in England. The Church was split into two parts and each hated the other and did its best to destroy it when it had the power. It was the same with the great nobles. One followed another in ruling the state and each had little mercy for a fallen leader. The great Duke of Northumberland had lost, and now his enemies sent him to the scaffold as he had earlier sent his own rivals. The new Queen Mary, though she was later to be known as Bloody Mary, did not wish harm to befall Jane Grey. Jane and her husband were kept in the Tower as prisoners and in time might have been freed had not some new rebels in the country taken arms against Queen Mary and threatened to drive her from the throne. Then the statesmen decided that such a rival as Jane Grey was too dangerous, and she was ordered to be tried for treason. She was found guilty, as were her father and her husband Guildford Dudley, and they were all ordered to be beheaded on Tower Hill. There on February 12, 1554, when she was only seventeen, Lady Jane was beheaded for having tried to make herself Queen. As a matter of fact she had never wanted to be Queen, nor acted except as her parents ordered. Of the four children who had run out of the Westminster garden three years before only one was still living, the merry Barnaby Fitzpatrick. He became a great soldier, and was known as the Baron of Upper Ossory in Ireland when the Princess Elizabeth succeeded her sister Mary and became "Good Queen Bess." The world had not been very kind to young Edward Tudor nor to Guildford Dudley nor to Jane Grey. It was their misfortune to have been born so near the throne. All their lives they were really prisoners. There are few girls in history whose fate was as tragic as that of Jane, the little "Nine Days' Queen of England." <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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