Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 2.djvu/359

A.D. 1553.] was overwhelmed with grief and terror, and declared herself a most unfit person for a sovereign. She was but a girl of sixteen, and was especially fond of retirement and study.

That afternoon she was conveyed by water to the Tower, according to the usual custom on the accession of a new sovereign, and preparatory to the coronation. She arrived there in state about three o'clock. On her entrance, her mother, the Duchess of Suffolk, bore her train. The Lord Treasurer presented to her the Crown, and her assembled relatives saluted her on their knees. The unhappy victim of this fatal enterprise had opposed the prosecution of the plan with all her energy in private, and amid many tears and fears. She was far from thinking it either just or likely to succeed, but all her efforts were fruitless against her aspiring connections. Her old schoolmaster, Roger Ascham, describes her as a most amiable and excellent young woman, pleasing in her person, if not regularly beautiful, fond of domestic life and literature, and accustomed to read Plato in Greek.

At six o'clock that evening, proclamation was made in London of the death of King Edward, and the succession of Queen Jane by his will; and a long announcement of the reasons which had led to this, signed by the new queen, was made public. Those reasons were of the most flimsy and superficial kind. They admitted that the succession was settled by the 35th of Henry VIII. in favour of Mary and Elizabeth, but pleaded that that was rendered void by a previous statute, which declared their illegitimacy, being unrepealed. It asserted that even had they been born in lawful wedlock, they could not inherit from the late king, being only his sisters in half-blood, as though they did not already inherit from their father, Henry, or as though Edward, their brother, supposing them legitimate, could not bequeath the Crown just as fully to them as to the Lady Jane. Various other reasons, all as frivolous, were added, the only valid one being the danger of the realm, in case of the succession of Mary, being brought again under the Papal dominion. To this proclamation there was no cordial response, the people listening in ominous silence.

On the following morning, whilst Lady Jane's party were feeling the chill of this inauspicious beginning, the messenger of Mary arrived, commanding the Council to see that she was duly proclaimed, and warning them to desist from their treasonable purposes. Scarcely had they returned their uncourteous refusal, when news came pouring in that Mary had taken possession of the castle of Framlingham, and that the nobility, gentry, and people of Suffolk were flocking to her standard.

Northumberland saw that no time was to be lost. It was necessary that forces should be instantly dispatched to check the growth of Mary's army, and to disperse it altogether. But who should command it? There was no one so proper as himself; but he suspected the fidelity of the Council, and was unwilling to remove himself to a distance from them; he therefore recommended the Duke of Suffolk, the father of Lady Jane, to the command of the expedition. The Council, who were anxious to get rid of Northumberland in order that they might themselves escape to Mary's camp, represented privately that Suffolk was a general of no reputation, that everything depended on decisive proceedings in the outset, and that he alone was the man for the purpose. They moreover so excited the fears of Lady Jane that she entreated in tears that her father might remain with her. "Whereupon," says Stow, "the Council persuaded the Duke of Northumberland to take that voyage upon himself, saying that no man was so fit therefor, because he had achieved the victory in Norfolk once already, and was so feared there that none durst lift up their weapons against him; besides, that he was the best man of war in the realm, as well for the ordering of his camp and soldiers, both in battle and in their tents, as also by experience, knowledge, and wisdom, he could animate his army with witty persuasions, and also pacify and allay his enemies' pride with his stout courage, or else dissuade them, if need were, from their enterprise. Finally, they said, this is the short and long, the queen will in no wise grant that her father should take it upon him."

Northumberland consented, though with many misgivings. He equally distrusted the Council and the citizens. On the 13th of July he set out, urging on the Council at his departure fidelity to the trust reposed in them, and received from them the most earnest protestations of zeal and attachment. If these assurances did not inspire him with confidence, far less did the aspect of the people as he marched out of the city with his little army, so that he could not help remarking to Sir John Gates, "The people come to look at us, but not one exclaims, 'God speed you!'" The people, in fact, now regarded him as a desperate adventurer. They said, they now saw through him and all his actions; that he had incited Somerset to put to death his own brother, and then he had got Somerset executed, so that the young king might be stripped of his nearest relatives, his natural protectors, and left in his own hands; and that now he had poisoned him to make way for his daughter-in-law, Lady Jane, and thus too for his son.

To remove these impressions as much as possible, he now sent for the most eminent preachers, and especially Ridley, and exhorted them to disabuse the people in their sermons whilst he was away. Accordingly, Ridley preached on the following Sunday at St. Paul's Cross, before the lord mayor, aldermen, and a great concourse of the people. In his sermon he drew a striking contrast betwixt the daughters of Henry VIII., and especially Mary, and the Lady Jane. He represented that not only the illegitimacy of the two princesses had induced their brother Edward to omit them from the succession, but the certain prospect of destruction to the reformed religion if Mary succeeded, and the equally certain prospect of its maintenance if the amiable, able, and pious Lady Jane was queen. On the one hand, there were the bigoted Spanish connections of Mary, the supporters of the Inquisition, and most probably a prince of that despotic house as her husband; on the other hand, there would be a noble Protestant queen surrounded by the prelates and councillors who had so stoutly combated for the pure faith. To satisfy them of the determined Popery of Mary, he related a personal interview which he had with her before the late king's death. He had ridden over in September from his house at Hadlam to her residence at Hunsdon, to pay his respects to her. She had invited him to stay and dine, and after dinner he informed her that he intended on Sunday to come as her diocesan