But this was not the end of the matter. As it became clear that the King’s death was fast approaching, with the encouragement of Northumberland, ‘that consummate old fox’, Edward made an alteration to the Devise, probably on 10 June.46 First he removed ‘the Lady Frances’s heirs male’, for Frances was not pregnant and therefore would not produce a son in the immediate future. Then, instead of any sons Jane might have being next in line, the King inserted two words so that his successor by the terms of his Devise read ‘to the Lady Jane and her heirs male’, doing the same for Jane’s two sisters.47 His alterations meant that Lady Jane Grey and her sisters could inherit the throne in their own right, but only if there were no male alternatives. As neither Jane nor her sisters had children, it was obvious who would succeed.
By the terms of Henry VIII’s will, Jane was now already third in line to the throne, and after extolling her virtues – her well-known advocacy of the Protestant faith and hatred of Catholicism, as well as her vast intellectual abilities – Northumberland was easily able to persuade the King, ‘then almost in his grave’, that she should be his heir.48 The King could be confident that Jane would continue his good work in religion, under the guiding hand of Northumberland. Through the amendments to the Devise, Northumberland had got what he wanted, for Jane was now heir to the throne.
On 12 June, there had already been whispers of what might be about to happen, and the Imperial ambassador had heard that
their main object will be to make shift to exclude the Princess and the Lady Elizabeth, and declare the true heir to be the Duke of Suffolk’s eldest daughter, who was lately married to the Duke of Northumberland’s son, for according to the late King’s will the Duchess of Suffolk’s legitimate heirs are appointed to succeed if the present King and the two aforesaid ladies die without issue.49
The terms of the Devise were not made public, but many people were already aware of Northumberland’s plans and guessed that ‘perhaps Northumberland and Suffolk might rule as governors or joint-protectors’.50
In order for the Devise to stand any chance of success, the support of Edward’s Council was essential. However, among the members were those who were doubtful of its legitimacy. Henry VIII’s Act of Succession had been passed in Parliament, and Edward’s attempt to overturn it with a new will was technically illegal. The King was furious, and having declared that he would have his Devise put into Letters Patent to be passed in Parliament, on 15 June he demanded their obedience in the matter. Six days later, on 21 June the King ordered his Council to sign the new Devise, ratifying the changes in the succession. It was an agonizingly difficult situation, as many of them found that their loyalties were torn: while the King was alive they owed him their duty, but for many it was with a troubled conscience that they signed the Devise and they were full of foreboding for the future. Nevertheless, the King’s will had been done, and had ‘opened the way for Jane and Guildford to usurp the crown’.51 Willingly or not, the Council had accepted that Jane would be queen.
All that remained was for Jane, herself utterly unaware of the happenings at Edward’s court, to be informed of the King’s wishes. The precise date that Jane learned that she was now heir to the throne is unclear, but given Jane’s later version of events it seems likely to have been shortly after 21 June. Jane had, by this time, been married to Guildford Dudley for almost a month, and after a brief return home to the Charterhouse, had taken up residence with her husband’s family at Durham Place on the Strand. The young bride was extremely distressed, however, when her new father-in-law, the Duke of Northumberland, made her aware of her cousin the King’s mortal illness, and delivered some shocking news:
After having been openly stated that there was no hope of saving the life of the King, as the Duchess of Northumberland had promised me that I could remain with my mother, after she heard that news from her husband the Duke, who was also the first person to tell me about it, she did not allow me any more to leave my house saying that when God would be pleased to call the King to his mercy, not remaining any hope of saving his life, I had immediately to proceed to the Tower, as I had been made by his Majesty heir to the crown.52
Northumberland’s words had a tremendous impact on Jane, who was utterly horrified. She had always known that she had a place in the line of succession, her parents had made sure of that, but she was bewildered by the news that, at the stroke of a pen, she had gone from third in line by the terms of her great-uncle’s will, to first. The news ‘caught me quite unaware’, and ‘very deeply upset me’.53 Though her words do not even begin to convey the emotional turmoil she must have felt, they do at least clarify her keen desire for familiarity, and the wish to remain with her own family. But even this, as she had discovered through the auspices of her mother-in-law, was to be denied her:
I cared little for those words and refrained not from going to my mother. So that the Duchess got angry at her and at me also saying that if she wanted to keep me, she would also keep my husband by herself, thinking that anyway I would go to him.54
Despite her protests and the best efforts of her mother, Jane was forced to remain with her husband at Durham Place. Her confusion and heightened emotions were overwhelming; she had been married against her wishes, a union that had been consummated and from which she could not escape. In addition, she had been confronted with the report that not only was her cousin the King dying, but that she had unexpectedly been made his heir. The impact that this news and unpleasant encounter with her mother-in-law had on Jane became alarmingly clear when she fell ill soon after. Though described as ‘well made’, Jane had never been physically robust, and though the nature of her malady is unclear, it seems likely that it was exacerbated by stress.55 Deeply unhappy at Durham Place, Jane ‘craved permission to go to Chelsea’, a former royal manor which was now owned by Northumberland, and where, permission having been granted, she lay ill.56 Her desire to remove to Chelsea may have been inspired not only by her wish to distance herself from her husband and his unpleasant family, but also by happy memories she had of the old palace. Six years earlier, Chelsea had been the home of the widowed Queen Katherine Parr, who had removed there following the death of Henry VIII. Famous for its exquisite knot gardens and boasting an assortment of fruit trees, rural Chelsea provided a serene contrast to the bustle of Durham Place just a few miles away. Jane had enjoyed Katherine’s company at Chelsea on a number of occasions while she was a member of Thomas Seymour’s household, but those days were long gone, and as Jane lay sick in the manor she had such fond remembrances of, it must have occurred to her that her future was now shrouded in uncertainty.
Elsewhere, news of the King’s Devise was spreading, and on 4 July the Imperial ambassador reported that ‘I hear for a fact that the King of England has made a will, appointing as true heir to the Crown, after his death, Suffolk’s eldest daughter, who has married my Lord Guildford, son of the Duke of Northumberland. The Princess [Mary] has been expressly excluded on religious grounds.’57 He was not the only one who had been alerted to such rumours, and the mood in the capital was now extremely tense as whispers circulated. Northumberland was doing all he could to secure the loyalty of as many of the lords as he could, by whatever means possible. According to the report of one contemporary, ‘he gained over some by fear, and others by promises, and others by gifts’.58 Despite his connivance behind closed doors, outwardly ‘Northumberland is still behaving courteously towards the Princess [Mary], as if nothing were about to happen.’59
That same day, both Mary and Elizabeth were summoned to Greenwich, on the pretext that their presence would be a great comfort to the sick King. In reality, Northumberland had realized that in order for his strategy to succeed, he needed to secure the persons of both of the King’s half-sisters. Elizabeth, always suspicious, immediately sent word that she was sick and too unwell to travel, but Mary, though extremely wary, set out from her estate at Hunsdon in Hertfordshire for Greenwich.
The King’s condition was continually wo
rsening, and after demands from his worried subjects ‘he has shown himself at a window at Greenwich, where many saw him, but so thin and wasted that all men said he was doomed, and that he was only shown because the people were murmuring and saying he was already dead’.60 To make matters worse, it was reported that ‘the Duke is utterly loathed and suspected of having poisoned the King, and is only able to command obedience by terrorising the people’.61 Unbeknown to the Londoners, Northumberland had enlisted the services of a wise woman, who administered regular doses of antidotes to the King in an attempt to keep him alive for longer while Northumberland furthered his plans.62
The plans seemed to be coming to fruition, for ‘the Duke of Northumberland has 500 men wearing his livery, the Duke of Suffolk 300 and the other councillors numbers proportionate to their rank and importance’.63 This had made Northumberland even more unpopular, and ‘the result is that everyone is murmuring against Northumberland, saying he is a great tyrant, that he has poisoned the King, and wishes to plunge the kingdom into disturbances’.64
Though Northumberland had not yet been able to procure the custody of Mary and Elizabeth, in all other respects he was now ready for the King to die. And having endured much suffering, on the afternoon of 6 July, the young King’s agonizing struggle finally came to an end. After whispering, ‘I am faint; Lord have mercy upon me, and take my spirit,’ Edward died in the arms of his childhood companion, Sir Henry Sidney.65 The Imperial ambassador was quick to inform his master that ‘King Edward departed this life, not without suspicion of poison, according to popular report.’66 It was an excruciating and tragically early end for the boy who had shown such promise, and whose ‘manner was so gracious and his countenance so modest and pleasant that he charmed observers into an exceptional love and an extraordinary devotion towards their sovereign’.67 As the King’s corpse lay lifeless at Greenwich, his death was kept a secret while Northumberland implemented the final stages of his plan. The time had come: Jane, lying sick at Chelsea, was summoned.
In spite of her weakened condition, as the sun set that evening, Jane left Chelsea for the last time. She was ordered to Syon House on the outskirts of London, and, still enfeebled by her illness, she boarded the barge that conveyed her across the rippling waters of the Thames in the company of her sister-in-law, Lady Mary Sidney. She had no idea that she was about ‘to receive that which had been ordered by the King’.68
There are two similar versions of what happened next, recorded in the narratives of the papal envoy Giovanni Commendone, and Fra Girolamo Pollini, who may have gleaned at least some of his account from Commendone’s manuscript. As the journey came to an end and the barge docked on the banks of Syon, Jane was confronted by the sight of the imposing former ‘great monastery’, dissolved by her great-uncle Henry VIII and transformed into a sumptuous residence and ‘a beautiful palace on the Thames’ that was now owned by her hated father-in-law, Northumberland.69 It was here, too, that her great-uncle’s coffin had rested on its final journey to Windsor, and here that he had sent his adulterous fifth wife, Katherine Howard, to endure a strenuous house arrest before her final, fateful journey to the Tower. Jane would have been familiar with Katherine’s story, but as she alighted from her barge and made her way towards the house through the elaborate gardens filled with an array of exotic plants and sweet-smelling flowers, she could never have imagined that she too would leave Syon destined for the Tower, in circumstances that would transpire to be chillingly similar.
To her surprise, as Jane entered the unfamiliar house she discovered that there was nobody there to meet her. As she waited in the gloom of the panelled Long Gallery overlooking the river, her anxiety and feelings of uncertainty grew.70 Some time later, Northumberland and four leading members of King Edward’s Council at last joined her, but it was not until she had been ‘entertained a long time’ that, according to Commendone, in Jane’s own words, ‘they did tell me of the death of the King’.71 Stunned, Jane’s confusion was heightened by the lords around her who ‘were doing me such homage, not in keeping with my position, kneeling before me, that greatly embarrassed me’.72 Feeling uncomfortable and unsure what to do, Jane was clearly relieved by the sight of her mother, Frances, Duchess of Suffolk, who entered the Gallery at Northumberland’s signal alongside Jane’s mother-in-law, Jane, Duchess of Northumberland, and Elizabeth, Marchioness of Northampton, who had engineered the match between Jane and her husband.73
If Jane had hoped that her mother had come to rescue her from the situation in which she now found herself, she was to be sorely disappointed. The room was soon filled with the well-known faces of Jane’s father and her husband, and the vaguely familiar men who had served King Edward. With everyone gathered, Northumberland gravely reiterated the news of King Edward’s death. There was a deathly silence in the room as, according to Pollini’s account, he continued to inform them that on his deathbed the King had chosen to remove his ‘bad sisters’, the Ladies Mary and Elizabeth, from the line of succession, for ‘in no manner did he wish that they should be heirs of him, and of that crown, he being able in every way to disinherit them’ on the grounds of their former bastardy, and for fear that the Lady Mary would return the realm to the ‘Popish faith’.74 Giving her barely a moment to absorb his words, ‘The Duke then added that I was the heir named by his Majesty, to succeed to the crown.’75 Jane was stunned, ‘stupefied and troubled’.76 As she struggled with the enormity of Northumberland’s words, her emotions, and her body, still weak from illness, gave way and she fell to the floor, weeping bitter tears. Those around her looked on in silence, unable or unwilling to comfort Jane as she was tormented by an agony of grief and shock. Commendone recounts that Jane, under pressure to compose herself, ‘was unwilling to accept such a burden’, and cried, ‘The crown is not my right and pleases me not. The Lady Mary is the rightful heir.’77 This was not the reply that was expected, and a mortified Northumberland replied, ‘Your Grace does wrong to yourself and to your house.’78 Finally, after being ‘pressed with many arguments by the Council, the Duke and her Father, she submitted to their will’, and according to Commendone managed to utter a few words through her tears:
I greatly bewailed myself for the death of so noble a prince, and at the same time, turned myself to God, humbly praying and beseeching him, that if what was given to me was rightly and lawfully mine, his divine Majesty would grant me such grace and spirit that I might govern it to his glory and service, and to the advantage of this realm.79
Jane had no choice: through her tearful words she had accepted the crown, and she was now Queen of England. However, the late King’s half-sisters and Jane’s cousins, the Ladies Mary and Elizabeth, were still unaware of the King’s death, and though Northumberland and the Council had accepted Jane as queen, as she and all of those around her knew, her rule was by no means assured. Her path was still shadowed in uncertainty, and she was about to embark on the most dangerous experience of her life.
CHAPTER 13
Long Live the Queen!
WITHIN THE PRIVACY of Syon’s walls, Jane had several days to come to terms with her heightened status.1 The day following the shock news of her accession, Northumberland had hosted ‘a great banquet’, attended by Jane, her family and ‘all the other members of the Council’, and it was here that ‘The Council fixed upon their plan of action.’2 But for all this, still no announcement had yet been made of the death of the King: nobody was aware of the fact that they had a new queen, and her name was Jane. Nevertheless, Edward’s death was a badly kept secret, for rumours had been circulating and most people now believed that their King had expired; some even believed that the King’s death had come at the hands of Northumberland’s poisoners. Londoners were in a state of unrest and uncertainty about what would happen next, for it was obvious that something was afoot. Suspicions had been roused over Northumberland’s behaviour when his liveried men had arrived in the capital the previous month, and people were saying ‘that the Duke’s designs are obvious, and
that God wishes to chastise the kingdom’.3 It was not long before everything became clear as events began to unfold.
Northumberland had no doubt primed Jane as to how she must now act. It was essential that she compose herself and behave like a queen, for there was no more time to be lost; though officially Jane had been queen for the last four days, it was now time for her to be openly declared and presented to her subjects.
About three o’clock on the afternoon of 10 July, ‘Lady Jane was conveyed by water to the Tower of London, and there received as queen.’4 This was the observation of Rowland Lea, an official of the royal mint and the probable author of The Chronicle of Queen Jane. Lea’s valuable account explains that Jane was rowed from Syon across London in the company of her husband, parents, and ‘other ladies attended by a great following’ in the splendour of the royal barge that had been sent for her.5 If she was nervous she did not show it. She was, after all, a Tudor. However, it soon became startlingly clear that she was not the Tudor the people wanted.
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