Historic Girlhoods, Part OneHolland, Rupert Sargent
History
Historic Girlhoods, Part One
Holland, Rupert Sargent
Women -- Biography -- Juvenile literature
The Lady Jane smiled, and answered quite seriously, "I think all their
sport in the park is but a shadow to that pleasure I find in Plato.
Alas! good folk, they never felt what true pleasure means."
Just two years after Lady Jane had watched the three boys shooting
arrows at Westminster she was married to one of them, the tall
Guildford Dudley. He was the son of the great Duke of Northumberland,
who was already planning to put his son and his son's wife on the
English throne after the death of the delicate Edward VI. The wedding
was very magnificent, and every one predicted that the little lady and
her nineteen-year old husband would be very happy.
Edward, the boy king, died barely six weeks later, when he had not
quite reached his sixteenth birthday. Then great events happened to
Lady Jane. The Duke of Northumberland and many other lords and ladies
went to the house where she was staying and told her that the King had
disinherited both his sister the Princess Mary and his sister the
Princess Elizabeth, and had ordered that Jane Grey should succeed to
the crown.
Then her own father and mother and, after them, all the lords and
ladies knelt before her and kissed her hand and called her Queen Jane.
She was too surprised at first to make any reply, but a little later
she told them all she did not wish to be Queen. They answered that it
was not a matter of her choice, but was her destiny. Reserved and
obedient as ever, the girl bent her head and allowed her parents to
proclaim her Queen.
On July 10, 1553, Lady Jane went from Richmond to the Palace of
Westminster in London, where she was dressed in the great robes of
state. Then she proceeded by barge down the river Thames to the Tower
of London, which was then both a palace and a prison. As she landed and
entered the Tower grounds the people hailed her as Queen. Her gown was
of green and gold and covered with jewels, and her young husband walked
beside her under a canopy, dazzlingly arrayed in a court suit of white
and gold.
This quiet little Princess only reigned as Queen of England for nine
days. Most of the country rose in arms on behalf of Mary Tudor, Edward
VI's oldest sister, and the Duke of Northumberland's army was soon
defeated and he was taken prisoner. Jane had no wish to be Queen; she,
like the others, thought that Mary was the one entitled to rule. When
her father came to her on July nineteenth and told her that her friends
had been beaten and that she was no longer the Queen she was really
glad. She had been sitting alone in her chair of state in the council
chamber when he came to her. He looked at her, deserted by all her
court, and his eyes filled with tears. "Come down from that, my child,"
said he. "That is no place for you." Jane rose and he took her in his
arms. As they stood there together they heard borne to them on the
summer air loud rejoicing voices crying, "Long live good Queen Mary!"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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