Soon after this will was made poor Edward the Sixth died. He was not quite sixteen years old. He was so mild and gentle, that everybody loved him. He took such pains to learn, and do what was right, that the people were in hopes of having a really good and wise king. But it pleased God that he should die. His last prayer as he lay a dying was, “O Lord, save thy chosen people of England. Defend this realm from papistry, and maintain thy true religion.” CHAPTER XLII. THE STORY OF LADY JANE GREY. How Lady Jane Grey was called Queen for ten days, and was afterwards imprisoned; how she was fond of learning; how she was persuaded to become Queen against her will; and how she and her husband were put to death by Queen Mary. Two days after King Edward died, Northumberland had Lady Jane Grey proclaimed, or called queen in London. On the same day the Lady Mary’s friends had her proclaimed at Norwich. Some people would have liked Lady Jane best, first, because their dear young King Edward had wished her to be queen; and next, because she was beautiful, virtuous, and wise, and, above all, a Protestant. But then they feared and hated her father-in-law, Northumberland. They remembered that he had persuaded King Edward to order the Protector Somerset to be beheaded. They knew that he was cruel, and jealous, and revengeful; they thought that he only pretended to be a Protestant, and because he was such a bad man, they were afraid to let his son’s wife be queen. One by one all Northumberland’s friends left him and joined the Lady Mary, who was the rightful queen; and after Lady Jane Grey had been called queen for ten days, she went to her private home at Sion House, a great deal happier than the day when they took her away to make her a queen. It would have been well if Queen Mary had left her cousin there. But she was of a cruel and revengeful temper, and not content with sending Northumberland to prison in the Tower of London, for setting up her cousin as queen, she sent Lady Jane and her husband, Lord Guildford Dudley, also to the Tower. But I must tell you a great deal more about Lady Jane Grey, and I will begin her story at the time when she was very young indeed. As she was only a few months older than her cousin Edward the Sixth, she had the same teachers in everything, and she was like him in gentleness, goodness, and kindness. Her masters found that she was still cleverer than the little king, and that she learned Latin and Greek too more readily than he did. She knew French, and Spanish, and Italian perfectly, and loved music and painting. She used to thank God that she had strict parents and a kind and gentle schoolmaster. She was married when very young to Lord Guildford Dudley, only a few weeks before King Edward died; and she was very sorry when she found out that her husband wanted to be king.