Every vestige of colour left my dear lady's face, and she looked round affrightedly as if for some way of escape, making a gesture of dissent, though no word fell from her lips. She was only sixteen years of age, and anything more opposed to her disposition and love of retirement and study could not well have been proposed. 'And in the case of your having no children your sisters Catherine and Mary are to succeed you,' went on the Duke of Northumberland. Still Lady Jane said not a word, but the look in her eyes made me press forward nearer to her, saying in my heart, 'If I had only prepared you for this!' The attendant nobles fell upon their knees, declaring that Lady Jane Grey was queen, and vowing that they would defend her rights to the death, if necessary. It was such a sight as you have never seen, all those high-born lords upon their knees before a slim young girl, who only a year before was a child, and she staring at them with wide eyes out of a fear-stricken, pallid countenance. The tension only lasted a few moments and then, with a piercing cry, my dear Lady Jane fell to the floor. I was on my knees by her side before any one else, and was trying to raise her head when there was another commotion in the hall caused by the entrance of her mother, the Duchess of Suffolk, who had come over from Sheen House, on the other side of the river, accompanied by the Duchess of Northumberland and the Marchioness of Northampton. These great ladies swept down upon us, and would have ordered me away, there and then, if looks could have done it, but I would not leave my mistress to their tender mercies, and continued to support her head on my lap, so that I could not be removed without disturbing her. In a little while she came round out of her swoon, and then, seeing her mother and mother-in-law, began to entreat them and the Duke of Northumberland very pitifully not to lay the burden of royalty upon her, declaring herself to be a most unfit person to reign in Edward's place, and saying over and over again that, in spite of all that had been said, the Princess Mary and, after her, the Princess Elizabeth were the rightful heirs to the throne. It was in vain that the duke and duchess urged considerations of the harm which would befall Protestantism if Princess Mary reigned, and of the dissensions which might rend the land if the legitimacy of the queen were doubtful; the Lady Jane only said-- 'Other wrongs do not make a wrong right. I am sure Princess Mary is the rightful queen, and I should be a usurper if I were to take her place.' Again and again she said the same thing, praying and beseeching them not to force her to become queen. 'Think you,' she said, 'that the great God who made heaven and earth cannot take care of Protestantism and this beloved England of ours without the help of a young girl like me? Do you think that by doing what my conscience tells me is wrong I can advance the cause of the High and Holy One?'