The Sisters Who Would Be Queen Page 13

  At Greenwich, where Edward’s body was being embalmed, the French ambassador arrived to reiterate to the Council Henri II’s offer of support against any plots of the Emperor Charles V. The Councillors, however, not wanting to trigger a response from the Emperor, refused to confirm to the ambassador that Edward was dead. Their fears about the Emperor were, in fact, misplaced. Mary’s Hapsburg cousin was abandoning her cause. His ambassador, Renard, judged her position a hopeless one. Northumberland was master of the few armed forces of the realm and appeared to have the backing of the vast majority of the political elite. Renard believed they should offer their support to Queen Jane and make trouble for the French. That way they might, at least, save Mary’s life.

  The next day, 8 July, Jane was joined at Sion by Northumberland, Pembroke, Northampton, Huntingdon, and the Earl of Arundel—widower of her father’s sister Katherine Fitzalan. Arundel had been a conservative ally of Somerset in his plot to overthrow Northumberland in 1551 and had been lucky to escape with a term at the Tower and a large fine. It had been remitted only that month, in an effort to ensure that he did not join Mary’s cause. As the noblemen knelt to her, Jane, still only sixteen, appeared overwhelmed by the enormity of what was happening. Against all the rules of hierarchy, she had superseded her mother. Seeing her confusion, they agreed to call for Frances to join them. She arrived shortly afterward, with Northampton’s wife, Elizabeth Brooke, and the Duchess of Northumberland. Once the adults had succeeded in convincing the deeply troubled Jane that she was, indeed, Edward’s rightful heir and that her being Queen was his wish, she had the night to prepare for the events of the following day. On that Sunday morning, Northumberland, as President of the Council, gave Jane the official news that Edward was dead before the assembled Council, nobles, and their wives. Edward had shown great care for his country in his last hours, Northumberland said, and he outlined the contents of the document that confirmed that Jane had been named his heir, with her sisters after her if she had no children. When he had finished, the assembled company, her parents, and the Duke and Duchess of Northumberland all knelt before her and swore to defend her with their blood. Jane’s response was a dramatic one. She fell to the ground and wept.

  It would be naïve to suppose that this display was spontaneous. In the sixteenth century, before the advent of newspapers, billboards, or television, political figures projected their messages theatrically. Jane’s actions made the point very publicly that she had not sought the crown, that it had been imposed on her, and she had something else to add. Revisionist historians have argued forcibly that Edward, the maturing, evangelical monarch, was the driving force behind the decision that Jane be made his heir. At the same time it is blandly accepted, or even asserted, that Jane, who unlike Edward was not weakened by terminal illness, who was described by one of the King’s own tutors as the more intelligent of the two, and who reputedly had already launched personal attacks on Mary and her religion, was nothing more than an innocent puppet. Jane was very young but she had been raised to be a leader on one side of an ideological struggle, in which her coreligionists were now facing the greatest confrontation of her lifetime. Having been persuaded to accept the throne in her mother’s place, and assured by the Council that she was Edward’s legal rightful heir, she now intended to embrace the role.

  When Jane stopped weeping, she came to her feet and delivered a speech. In it she accepted her kingdom, with modest claims of inadequacy, but prayed that God would grant her “such grace as to enable me to govern … with his approbation and to his glory.” And with that, England’s first Queen regnant made clear she intended to rule and not be a mere cipher.

  At the celebratory banquet that followed, Jane sat on a raised platform under a rich cloth known as a canopy of state, a symbol of her authority. When it ended, the proclamation declaring Jane Queen and Mary and Elizabeth illegitimate was read. It highlighted too the danger that the Tudor sisters might reintroduce the “Roman” religion or marry foreigners. At Paul’s Cross that morning, the Bishop of London, Nicholas Ridley, had already preached the rightness of Jane’s cause, and declared Mary and Elizabeth “bastards.” There had been an ominous reaction, however, among his congregation, who were “sore annoyed with his words, so uncharitably spoken by him in so open an audience.” King Henry’s daughters, it seemed, still had the support of the people, if not of the evangelical elite.

  XI

  Jane the Queen

  MONDAY, 10 JULY, BEGAN EARLY FOR JANE. THE SUMMER SUN had only just begun to warm the cool air on the river as she arrived by barge at Westminster from Richmond. In her rooms royal robes had been laid out for her. Jane was poised to take formal possession of the Tower as all monarchs did before they were crowned. Having dressed, Jane returned to her covered boat and was rowed on to Northumberland’s palace at Durham House, where she dined at noon.

  The Privy Council met afterward. At the top of the agenda was the letter marked with the royal seal that had arrived from Mary in Norfolk. It informed the Council that she, and not Jane, was Edward’s rightful heir and demanded their allegiance to her. As the letter was read out a frisson of fear ran through the Council. Northumberland had been certain that Mary would not dare mount a challenge without the support of Charles V, and had hoped that the Emperor would not wish to fight both France and England. It now seemed, however, that they faced the possibility of civil war, and even foreign invasion.

  When Jane’s mother heard of the letter she and the Duchess of Northumberland burst into tears. Jane, however, put on a brave face. Like Joan of Arc, who defended France at the age of seventeen, she would protect her country and her faith against the threat she believed Mary posed. That afternoon, at two o’clock, the royal barges arrived at the Tower carrying Guildford and Jane, her father, Suffolk, the young couple’s mothers, and other ladies of the court, attended by a large following. Northumberland and the other Councillors greeted Jane at the steps before she was brought in procession to the Tower gates.

  A famous description of the scene, written, we are told, by a Genovese merchant called Sir Baptista Spinola, offers a colorful picture of Jane and Guildford. She was dressed in a green velvet gown printed with gold and a jeweled white headdress, her husband walking beside her under a canopy of state carried on poles. Guildford, in white and gold, was “a very tall, strong boy with light hair who paid her much attention.” Spinola, who was close enough to the couple to note the freckles on Jane’s face, commented, “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.” He thought her thin and very small, despite her shoes, which had cork platforms to add height, but she struck, nevertheless, “a gracious and lively figure.” Her eyes were “sparkling and reddish-brown in color,” and “when she smiled she showed her teeth, which are white and sharp.”

  But this famous description, quoted by academics pronouncing on supposed portraits of Jane, and in all modern biographies of her, is the invention of a New York–based journalist and historical novelist turned biographer, Richard Davey. It did not exist before he wrote it in 1909. Witnesses reported only that Guildford walked by Jane, with his cap in his hand, and that her mother was carrying her train, a striking visual reminder of how the correct order of things had been overthrown.

  Between four and five o’clock in the afternoon the procession reached the Tower. There was a great salute of guns and, after Northumberland, on his knees, gave Jane the keys, the Queen and her husband, Guildford, walked into the building’s shadows with their attendants. The huge gates closed firmly behind them, and a blast of trumpets called the crowd’s attention. Two heralds read to the restive crowd the proclamation declaring Jane Queen and the daughters of Henry VIII excluded from the throne as illegitimate. It was then taken to Cheapside and Fleet Street and read again. When the heralds had finished their task at each place, however, few cried “God save her,” and at Cheapside a boy called Gilbert Potter declared loudl
y that it was Mary who had the right to the throne. His master, a gunner at the Tower, promptly reported him and the boy was arrested and put in the pillory. At eight the following morning, to another blast of trumpets, he had his ears cut off, while a herald, dressed in royal livery, read out his offense. It was a savage beginning to Jane’s reign and the mutilated teenager was widely pitied.

  As notices were pinned up across London outlining King Edward’s will, a messenger arrived at the Tower with news of Mary’s continuing defiance. She had proclaimed herself Queen and in Norfolk and parts of Suffolk noblemen, knights, and gentlemen were coming to her support with “innumerable companies of the common people.” Mary’s household officers had been preparing for up to a year for her exclusion from the succession. Friends, neighbors, and kinsmen were now being mobilized, while the common people were motivated by loyalty to the Tudor name, and dislike of Northumberland together with the regime that had killed so many of them in the rebellions of 1549. Mary had been persuaded to say nothing of the divisive religious issue, but for Jane it was central, and her notices continued to reiterate the proclamation’s warnings of Mary introducing the Pope into English affairs. In East Anglia, the major towns followed London’s lead in proclaiming her Queen, but she needed to rally support across the provinces in the face of Mary’s attacks. Letters drafted by Northumberland in a hurried scrawl gave notice to the Lord Lieutenants of the counties of her “entry into our Tower of London as rightful Queen of this realm” and required them “not only to defend our just title, but also assist us … to disturb, repel, and resist the feigned and untrue claim of the Lady Mary, bastard daughter to our great uncle Henry VIII, of famous memory.” Each notice was marked boldly in her own hand “Jane the Quene.” Some military preparations had begun already. In Leicestershire, Jane’s uncle George Medley had arrived at Bradgate with armor and weaponry. In London, meanwhile, carts and horses were being seized. Jane intended that her father be sent with an army to capture Mary, and on the morning of the 12th, Londoners woke to the sound of drums. Recruits were being offered ten pence a day to fight in defense of the Godly Queen Jane. Behind the solid walls of the Tower, however, the hearts of Jane’s Councillors beat to a less assured rhythm.

  The people’s reaction to Jane’s accession was troubling, and while she was signing letters warning that Mary would hand the country over to strangers, others worried about it being handed to Northumberland. Ever since he had become Lord President there had been rumors that he had designs on the throne for himself and his family. The previous summer, when Northumberland had tried to ally his son Guildford with Jane’s royal cousin Margaret Clifford, one of the late Duke of Somerset’s former servants was imprisoned for claiming such ambitions lay behind it. With Guildford now married to Queen Jane all the rumors of the past looked troublingly prescient. Jane Grey’s parents half believed them, and even some of Northumberland’s most fervent friends suspected they were true. The French ambassador was dispatching home optimistically about “the new King” Guildford, while Guildford’s Spanish godfather, Don Diego Mendoza, penned letters referring to Guildford as “His Majesty.” Since Jane was loyal to her father, and believed that as Queen she had a personal responsibility to God for how she ruled, there was a chance of a clash ahead with her husband, and there is some evidence that one of Mary’s secret supporters on the Council sought to engineer its early arrival.

  The papal envoy, Giovanni Francesco Commendone, who arrived in England that summer, claimed that Jane later described how the Lord Treasurer, William Paulet, Marquess of Winchester, brought her the crown jewels, though she had not asked for them. That he did so, on 12 July, is confirmed in a later letter from Mary to the Marquess of Winchester. It was also the case that Jane had declared that she would not be crowned for a fortnight or more, so there was no immediate need for her to see the jewels. Jane described how the Lord Treasurer suggested she try on the crown “to see if it did become me,” and as she hesitated added “that another would also be made to crown my husband as King.”

  Jane’s nineteenth-century hagiographers and their modern imitators have painted Winchester’s actions as misplaced flattery. The Victorians produced innumerable prints depicting Jane modestly shrinking from the crown as he offers it to her. But as Jane was signing herself “Jane the Quene” on a daily basis, she wasn’t shrinking from the crown in any meaningful sense. The imperial ambassadors had, furthermore, already identified Winchester as being someone who was unhappy with Northumberland’s seizure of power and Jane’s rule. What is most significant in this account is Winchester’s comment that a crown would be made for Guildford. It confronted Jane with the expectation that she would be sharing her throne with her husband. The envoy’s account goes on to describe how this succeeded in triggering a furious row between Jane and her husband, which concluded with Jane agreeing with Guildford that he would be made King “by me and by Act of Parliament” in September. As soon as he left the room, however, Jane changed her mind and called for the Earl of Arundel and for her sister’s father-in-law, Pembroke. She then informed them that she was content to make her husband “a duke, but not a King.” Another later report claimed the title Jane had in mind for Guildford was “Duke of Clarence.” If the version of events recorded by Commendone is to be believed, Jane had asserted her role as Queen, independent of her duty of obedience to her husband, but hers was a house divided, and Mary had friends other than the Lord Treasurer ready to exploit this weakness. While Winchester was showing Jane the crown jewels, two of her most loyal subjects, Parr of Northampton’s father-in-law, Lord Cobham, and the Privy Councillor Sir John Mason, arrived at the residence of the imperial ambassadors, Scheyfve and Renard. They warned the ambassadors of dire consequences if they were to contact Mary and advised them to make arrangements to go home, adding that they considered their missions had terminated with the death of King Edward. Renard’s reply was conciliatory. He offered assurances of the Emperor’s goodwill toward Queen Jane, while expressing concern that the French King, Henri II, was stirring up trouble in England in order to place his ward Mary Queen of Scots on the throne. Rumors that Northumberland had made a private deal with the French had been growing for days and, after hearing the ambassador’s comments, Jane’s delegates sat speechless, “staring at one another.” Renard was in a position, furthermore, to add fuel to suspicions about the duke. A kinsman of Northumberland, Henry Dudley, was poised to go to France to see Henri II, and Renard had intelligence that Northumberland was prepared to buy French support with “Calais, Guisnes, and Hammes, the English possessions of the mainland, and Ireland.” Henry Dudley was in fact more closely related to Harry Suffolk than to Northumberland (he was Suffolk’s first cousin). He was likely sent to prevent the English garrison at Calais from defecting to Mary, but Northumberland may have worked also to ensure that the French would ally with Jane’s supporters against the Emperor if he took up arms in Mary’s cause, and the imperial ambassadors had done a fine job in raising further doubts about Northumberland’s motives. The horrifying vision that confronted Sir John and Lord Cobham was of an England that had become a battleground between the Empire and France, destined to be absorbed by one side or the other, with Northumberland perhaps to replace Jane with the eleven-year-old Mary Queen of Scots, if that proved to be the price of French support.

  Lord Cobham and Sir John went straight to Arundel and Pembroke with what they had heard. Their choice of confidants is significant. Arundel had only been brought on to the Council in July and his loyalty was already in doubt: an open letter, written by an anonymous supporter of Mary to Gilbert Potter, the boy whose ears had been cut off, was being prepared that day, praising Potter’s actions and naming Arundel as one of those unhappy with the new regime. Pembroke, who had the previous year lost his post as Master of the Horse to Northumberland’s eldest son, had no love for the duke. He may also have felt some residual resentment against Suffolk and Parr of Northampton for failing to protect his interests then. It was apparent
now that the exclusion of Mary Tudor was not going as smoothly as the regime had hoped. Northumberland was the focus of public hatred, and Pembroke could see a way out for himself if he jumped ship. But the timing had to be right.

  That night the munitions and men that were to be sent against Mary began to arrive at the Tower. Three cartloads of guns, small bows, arrows, spears, pikes, armor, gunpowder, tents, and victuals all rumbled into the fortress as Londoners looked on. Jane confirmed her father as her choice to lead the army and urged him to confront Mary, “saying with great boldness that she could have no safer defense for her Majesty than her own loving father.” Harry Suffolk had, however, begun to suffer fainting fits. Stress and anxiety may have contributed to this, but he would be ill with colic and “the stone” (probably kidney stones) for months to come. As soon as she realized her father was ailing, Jane asked the Council to let him stay and to choose someone else to lead her army. The man they picked was their fellow Privy Councillor, Northumberland, who was told that his victory over the Norfolk rebels in 1549 made him uniquely qualified for the post.

  The duke, whose political antennae were more acute than those of either his daughter-in-law or her father, was suspicious that the Council was so keen for him to leave the capital, but it was not a commission he could reject without inflaming suspicions that he was “ruling” Queen Jane. He therefore accepted the role, despite his misgivings, telling the Privy Councillors: “Well, since ye think it good, I and mine will go, not doubting of your fidelity to the Queen’s Majesty, which I leave in your custody.” Northumberland then went from the Council Chamber to see Jane, who “beseeched him to use his diligence” in the coming battle against Mary. He replied that he would do all he could.

  The following day, as the final military preparations were made, Northumberland ordered his chief officers to meet with him at Durham House. They included Lady Mary Grey’s betrothed, the pike-scarred Grey of Wilton; Parr of Northampton, who had fought alongside him against the Norfolk rebels in 1549; and Sir John Gates, men Northumberland would be able to trust in the coming confrontation. What he feared most, however, was not the enemy ahead but a stab in the back from those who remained behind.