THE Duke of Northumberland was very anxious to keep the young King's death a secret,in order that he might get the two Princesses into his power.But,the Princess Mary,being informed of that event as she was on her way to London to see her sick brother,turned her horse's head,and rode away into Norfolk.The Earl of Arundel was her friend,and it was he who sent her warning of what had happened.
As the secret could not be kept,the Duke of Northumberland and the council sent for the Lord Mayor of London and some of the aldermen,and made a merit of telling it to them.Then,they made it known to the people,and set off to inform Lady Jane Grey that she was to be Queen.
She was a pretty girl of only sixteen,and was amiable,learned,and clever.When the lords who came to her,fell on their knees before her,and told her what tidings they brought,she was so astonished that she fainted.On recovering,she expressed her sorrow for the young King's death,and said that she knew she was unfit to govern the kingdom;but that if she must be Queen,she prayed God to direct her.She was then at Sion House,near Brentford;and the lords took her down the river in state to the Tower,that she might remain there (as the custom was)until she was crowned.But the people were not at all favourable to Lady Jane,considering that the right to be Queen was Mary's,and greatly disliking the Duke of Northumberland.They were not put into a better humour by the Duke's causing a vintner's servant,one Gabriel Pot,to be taken up for expressing his dissatisfaction among the crowd,and to have his ears nailed to the pillory,and cut off.Some powerful men among the nobility declared on Mary's side.They raised troops to support her cause,had her proclaimed Queen at Norwich,and gathered around her at the castle of Framlingham,which belonged to the Duke of Norfolk.For,she was not considered so safe as yet,but that it was best to keep her in a castle on the sea-coast,from whence she might be sent abroad,if necessary.
The Council would have despatched Lady Jane's father,the Duke of Suffolk,as the general of the army against this force;but,as Lady Jane implored that her father might remain with her,and as he was known to be but a weak man,they told the Duke of Northumberland that he must take the command himself.He was not very ready to do so,as he mistrusted the Council much;but there was no help for it,and he set forth with a heavy heart,observing to a lord who rode beside him through Shoreditch at the head of the troops,that,although the people pressed in great numbers to look at them,they were terribly silent.
And his fears for himself turned out to be well founded.While he was waiting at Cambridge for further help from the Council,the Council took it into their heads to turn their backs on Lady Jane's cause,and to take up the Princess Mary's.This was chiefly owing to the before-mentioned Earl of Arundel,who represented to the Lord Mayor and aldermen,in a second interview with those sagacious persons,that,as for himself,he did not perceive the Reformed religion to be in much danger-which Lord Pembroke backed by flourishing his sword as another kind of persuasion.The Lord Mayor and aldermen,thus enlightened,said there could be no doubt that the Princess Mary ought to be Queen.So,she was proclaimed at the Cross by St.Paul's,and barrels of wine were given to the people,and they got very drunk,and danced round blazing bonfires-little thinking,poor wretches,what other bonfires would soon be blazing in Queen Mary's name.
After a ten days'dream of royalty,Lady Jane Grey resigned the Crown with great willingness,saying that she had only accepted it in obedience to her father and mother;and went gladly back to her pleasant house by the river,and her books.Mary then came on towards London;and at Wanstead in Essex,was joined by her half-sister,the Princess Elizabeth.They passed through the streets of London to the Tower,and there the new Queen met some eminent prisoners then confined in it,kissed them,and gave them their liberty.Among these was that Gardiner,Bishop of Winchester,who had been imprisoned in the last reign for holding to the unreformed religion.Him she soon made chancellor.
The Duke of Northumberland had been taken prisoner,and,together with his son and five others,was quickly brought before the Council.He,not unnaturally,asked that Council,in his defence,whether it was treason to obey orders that had been issued under the great seal;and,if it were,whether they,who had obeyed them too,ought to be his judges?But they made light of these points;
And,being resolved to have him out of the way,soon sentenced him to death.He had risen into power upon the death of another man,and made but a poor show (as might be expected)when he himself lay low.He entreated Gardiner to let him live,if it were only in a mouse's hole;and,when he ascended the scaffold to be beheaded on Tower Hill,addressed the people in a miserable way,saying that he had been incited by others,and exhorting them to return to the unreformed religion,which he told them was his faith.There seems reason to suppose that he expected a pardon even then,in return for this confession;but it matters little whether he did or not.
His head was struck off.
Mary was now crowned Queen.She was thirty-seven years of age,short and thin,wrinkled in the face,and very unhealthy.But she had a great liking for show and for bright colours,and all the ladies of her Court were magnificently dressed.She had a great liking too for old customs,without much sense in them;and she was oiled in the oldest way,and blessed in the oldest way,and done all manner of things to in the oldest way,at her coronation.I hope they did her good.
She soon began to show her desire to put down the Reformed religion,and put up the unreformed one:though it was dangerous work as yet,the people being something wiser than they used to be.
