Part 11 (1/2)
”I saw Donna Jana Groia walking in a grand procession to the Tower. She is now called Queen, but is not popular, for the hearts of the people are with Mary. This Jane is very short and thin, but prettily shaped and graceful. She has small features and a well-made nose, the mouth flexible and the lips red. The eyebrows are arched and darker than her hair which is nearly red. Her eyes are sparkling and a sort of light hazel often noticed with red hair. I stood so long near Her Grace that I noticed her colour was good, but freckled. When she smiled, she showed her teeth, which are large and sharp. In all a gracious and animated person. She wore a dress of green velvet stamped with gold and with large sleeves. Her headdress was a coif with many jewels. She walked under a canopy, her mother carrying her train and her husband walking by her, dressed all in white and gold, a very tall strong boy with light hair, who paid her much attention. The new Queen was mounted on very high heels to make her look much taller. Many ladies followed, with n.o.blemen, but this lady is very much of a heretic and has never heard ma.s.s, and some very great people did not come into the procession for that reason.”
At the Tower Queen Jane was properly received by its Lieutenant and Deputy Lieutenant, and walked in procession from the landing-place to the Great Hall, a crowd of spectators lining the way and kneeling as the new Queen pa.s.sed, and so began the great drama of which Jane was the central figure.
As soon as the new Queen entered the royal apartments at the Tower, the heralds trumpeted, and a few minutes later four of them read her proclamation, which was an unfortunate, dull, long-winded doc.u.ment, dealing with the claims of Elizabeth and Mary in such a brutal way as might well have offended them and the Catholic party as well, and although Lady Jane was innocent of the doc.u.ment, nevertheless it bore her signature, and so for that as for the many other deeds done in her name, the fair young victim was obliged to pay the bitter penalty.
While the young Queen was occupied with her first state duties in the Tower, Mary and her following were busy inciting the people to remain loyal to the rightful heir. In several counties the great ma.s.s of citizens detested the Duke of Northumberland and knew that Lady Jane would be a tool in his hands, so when Mary announced that as Queen she would make no change in the religion or laws of the land, they at once pledged themselves to support her cause.
On the twelfth of July, Jane's second day in the Tower, there were delivered to her unwilling Majesty, besides the Crown jewels, a curious collection of miscellaneous articles of jewellery, the contents of various boxes and baskets found at the Jewel House in the Tower, which had belonged to Henry's six queens. By this time Jane's loneliness and anxiety over a situation which she knew to be dangerous, had brought on an attack of sickness, and she must have been wretched in mind and body, yet being still little more than a child, she must have had some small degree of pleasure in examining her new treasures, which included among the many articles:
”A fish of gold, being a toothpick.
”One dewberry of gold. A like pendant having one great and three little pearls. A tablet of gold with one white sapphire and one blue one. A pair of beads of white porcelain with eight gauds of gold and a ta.s.sel of Venice gold. b.u.t.tons of gold with crimson work. A pair of bracelets of flagon pattern. Thirty turquoises of little worth. Thirteen small diamonds set in collets of gold, etc. etc.,” through a long list.
There is also an inventory of the personal belongings of Lady Jane at this time, which gives a good idea of the contents of her wardrobe. The following are only a few of its details:
”Item, a hat of purple velvet embroidered with many pearls.
”Item, a m.u.f.fler of purple velvet embroidered with pearls of damask gold garnished with small stones of sundry sorts and tied with white satin.
”Item, a m.u.f.fler of sable skin with a head of gold, with four clasps set with five pearls, four turquoises, six rubies, two diamonds and five pearls, the four feet of the sable being of gold set with turquoises and the head having a tongue made of a ruby.
”Item, Eighteen b.u.t.tons of rubies.
”Item, Three pairs of gold garters having buckles and pendants of gold.
”Item, Three s.h.i.+rts, one of velvet, the other of black silk embroidered with gold, the third of gold st.i.tched with silver and red silk,” etc., etc., etc.
From even these bits of the inventory it is evident that the Lady Jane was not lacking in goods and chattels, but they gave her little comfort, poor child, with her swift approaching destiny!
On that same night of the twelfth of July, there were taken to the Tower a large number of fire-arms and a quant.i.ty of ammunition as well as an army of soldiers who were ready to march against Mary's followers. And the preparations were made just in time, for on the very next day came news that the rival Queen was at Kenninghall and that her loyal subjects were hurrying from all parts of the kingdom to support her cause. In fact the inmates of the Tower at once discovered that throughout the kingdom the people were against Queen Jane and for Queen Mary, and a sad discovery it was!
At once the Council was called together, and a proposal was made that the Duke of Suffolk should take command of troops to quell the insurrection, but Jane was insistent that she could not be left in the Tower without her father for protection, and as his health was not good, it was finally decided that the Duke of Northumberland himself should go out to resist the rival forces. But before the Duke went, he gave Her Majesty into the charge of the Council, and swore with a big oath that when he returned ”Mary should no longer be in England, for he would take care to drive her into France.”
Then with a pa.s.sionate embrace of his son, Guilford, Northumberland went to finish his preparations for the resisting of Mary's claim, and on Friday, the fourteenth, he and his followers rode proudly forth with a train of guns, and six hundred men, some of them the greatest in the land. As they pa.s.sed through the city, they could not but notice the sullenness and lack of enthusiasm in the great crowds everywhere gathered to watch them pa.s.s, and grew more and more fearful of the probable defeat of the Duke's project.
Meanwhile Queen Jane, in the Tower, pa.s.sed the weary hours as best she could, and executed several minor duties of her royal office, but grew hourly more depressed with a nameless dread, and at evening came the news of a great rising in favour of Queen Mary. Still worse tidings came on Sat.u.r.day, the sixth day of Jane's disastrous reign. Queen Mary had already been proclaimed at Framlington and Norwich, and Northumberland had sent to London for fresh troops, and was speeding as fast as horse could gallop towards Cambridge, which he reached at midnight, but in vain! Jane's cause collapsed so completely and so rapidly everywhere that even such precautions as had been taken for the defence of her party ended by serving her rivals, and the miserable Duke returned to the Tower and its comparative safety, a prisoner, in a pathetic plight brought about by his own wretched ambition.
On the seventh day of Queen Jane's reign, throughout the length and breadth of England there were again risings for Queen Mary. In all the streets there were cheering and rioting, and bonfires were lighted, around which crowds of rough men and women circled, shouting, ”Queen Mary! Queen Mary!” while in the churches the rival queens and rival creeds were the one subject of discourse.
On the eighth day of Jane's reign there was a violent scene in the early morning between her mother and mother-in-law concerning the kings.h.i.+p of Guilford, as Jane's husband. Poor Jane cried herself sick over the distasteful affair, and tried to calm and reason with the two disputants, looking more dead than alive as she did so. By this time as a result of suspense and discouraging news all the occupants of the Tower were at sixes and sevens, and the general feeling was that a worse situation was still to come. Again bad news, the peasants, notwithstanding the threats of their lords, had refused to take up arms against Mary, and were drawing very near London; also all over the country the n.o.bility were arming, and marching in the defence of the rightful queen's person and t.i.tle, while poor Queen Jane's name was now only spoken to be scoffed at.
On Tuesday, the eighteenth, it was evident to all that the tragi-comedy was drawing to a close. Of all Queen Jane's Council only two men, Archbishop Cranmer and her own father, remained true to her--all the others having decided to save their own heads by betraying the cause of that girl to whom nine days before they had pledged undying loyalty. On Wednesday, the nineteenth, the short reign ended. ”Jane the Queen”
became ”_Jana non Regina_,” and although that morning there was a slight flicker of interest shown in her cause, yet the conspirators against her, that evening proclaimed Mary queen in Cheapside, at the very hour at which only nine days before Jane's accession had been proclaimed!
The people now realised that they had nothing to fear from Jane or her Council, whose power was broken, and at once gave public vent to their enthusiasm for Mary, indulging in one of those attacks of frenzied excitement which sometimes seizes a nation,--and everywhere there were merry-makings and rejoicings for her Catholic Majesty--except within the Tower, where the stillness of death reigned.
Northumberland's plan had failed, and of those councillors who had pledged their support to Jane's cause, but one remained loyal besides her own father!
Archbishop Cranmer was the last of Jane's Council then living in the Tower to leave it, and the leave-taking was a sad one on both sides, for it left Lady Jane alone to meet the sad events then coming thick and fast, with what courage she could summon.
Presently a messenger came to Suffolk, from Baynard's Castle, to tell him that the n.o.bles gathered together there required him to deliver up the Tower and go to the Castle to sign Mary's proclamation, and without a moment's hesitation the wretched man gave up the unequal struggle, and did as he was commanded. Then he returned to the Tower to tell Jane that her queens.h.i.+p was a thing of the past, although there was little need to report so evident a fact.