Elsewhere in the Tower, Jane’s father languished in his room.20 He had been informed that his daughter would die; yet he was forbidden from meeting with her, and denied the opportunity of a final farewell. Nevertheless, he was most certainly in Jane’s thoughts, and she took the opportunity of leaving him one final message. In 1570 a letter appeared in the second edition of Foxe’s Acts and Monuments which pertained to be written by Jane, in which she berated her father. According to Foxe, Jane admonished Henry because ‘it hath pleased God to hasten my death by you, by whom my life should rather have been lengthened’, before steadfastly declaring that ‘I may account myself blessed, that washing my hands with the innocency of my fact, my guiltless blood may cry before the Lord, Mercy to the innocent!’21
There is good reason to believe, though, that this letter is a fake. In the aftermath of Jane’s death, John Banks informed Bullinger that ‘it may be seen how her truly admirable mind was illuminated by the light of God’s word, by two letters, one of which she herself wrote to the lady Katherine, her sister, a most noble virgin, to inspire her with a love of the sacred writings, and the other to a certain apostate [Harding]’.22 No mention was ever made of such a letter to Jane’s father, and as Banks confirms, Jane’s considerations at this time were primarily religious.
In fact, as Jane’s final hours drew to a close, her thoughts for her father were far from so admonishing. Opening the prayer book that was one of her greatest treasures, Jane began to write a few short words of comfort to her father, almost certainly to be shown to him following her death.23 Starting beneath the words ‘keep me waking least the slumber of death come upon me’, Jane wrote:
The lord comfort your grace and that in his word wherein all creatures only are to be comforted and though it hath pleased god to take away two of your children yet think not I most humbly beseech your grace that you have lost them but trust that we by losing this mortal life have won an immortal life and I for my part as I have honoured your grace in this life will pray for you in another life. Your graces humble daughter, Jane Dudley.24
Jane had almost certainly selected the pages on which she wrote with care, and she may have been struck by the poignancy of the words that stared out at her: ‘Oh Lord, be not far: O my strength, hasten thee to come and help me. Deliver my life from the death stroke.’25 How apt they were at this time – never before had they held so much meaning. Her words would, she hoped, be a comfort to her father, who was doubtless suffering in his mind at the affliction that he had brought upon his family. Jane, however, had forgiven him, and had shown herself to be his obedient daughter even as the hour of her death drew near.
Moreover, by some collusion with their jailer, Jane’s prayer book was passed to Guildford. Like Jane, he too took the opportunity to write to his father-in-law beneath words that were full of equal meaning: ‘Tarry not for I am even at the point of death’: ‘Your loving and obedient son wisheth unto your grace long life in this world with as much joy and comfort, as did I wished to myself, and in the world to come joy everlasting. Your most humble son to his death, G Dudley.’26 The courage demonstrated in the words of the two teenagers was staggering, and it was clear that they had both reconciled themselves with the inevitable. Jane, at least, was confident that she was about to leave one world for another that was infinitely more desirable.
Jane’s confidence was seemingly more than that of her husband, for though Guildford too had refused to convert to Catholicism, he did request a final meeting with his wife on the eve of their execution. According to the account of the papal envoy Giovanni Commendone, ‘before dying he wished to embrace and kiss her for the last time, wherefore he begged her to allow him to pay her a visit’.27 This suggests that he had developed some kind of feelings towards his wife, however small, or perhaps wished to beg for her forgiveness for the petulant behaviour he had once demonstrated towards her. But Jane, perhaps not wishing to distress either of them any further than necessary, refused to see him:
She let him answer that if their meeting could have been a means of consolation to their souls, she would have been very glad to see him, but as their meeting would only tend to increase their misery and pain, it was better to put it off for the time being, as they would meet shortly elsewhere and live bound by indissoluble ties.28
Whatever her personal feelings of distaste towards him may have been, Jane believed that she and Guildford would soon be reunited in an everlasting paradise; one in which there would be nobody who could use them as pawns for their ruthless ambitions; one in which they would be free to be themselves.
Jane had left her final words to those she loved. She now turned her attention to posterity, and began to compose a final statement ‘wishing to account to the World’ for her actions. She asserted that it was her ‘lack of prudence for which I deserve the greatest punishment’, and most of all, ‘although I accepted that of which I was not worth, I never sought it’.29
She had done all that she could to acquit herself in the eyes of future generations. Now her remaining thoughts were only for herself, and for her own salvation. She had composed a prayer, and on her last night of life on earth, prayer was all that she could think of:
O Lord, thou God and Father of my life, hear me, poor and desolate woman, which flieth unto thee only, in all troubles and miseries. O merciful Saviour, craving thy mercy and help, without the which so little hope of deliverance is left, that I may utterly despair of any liberty.
Jane further urged that God should be ‘unto me a strong tower of defence’, and give her the strength to face her ordeal with bravery:
I beseech thee, with thy armour, that I may stand fast, above all things taking to me the shield of faith, wherewith I may be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked; and taking the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is thy most holy word.30
It was a sad and desperate plea, and one that was shortly to be answered.
CHAPTER 23
I am Come Hither to Die
THE MORNING OF 12 February was a cold and crisp one, the last that Jane and Guildford would ever experience. As Jane carefully prepared herself that morning, there was one final spectacle to endure. It had been arranged that Guildford would die first, and as he was led from his prison at around ten o’clock in the morning, from her window Jane watched as he passed. She had never wanted to marry Guildford, and she had been unhappy with his behaviour, but now, as their end approached, the harsh reality of their entwined fates hit home. They were both youths, both betrayed by Guildford’s father, and both had been callously manipulated. They had stood side by side on trial for their lives, and received the chilling news of their condemnation and ultimate impending death sentences together. Moreover, they had resisted the attempted persuasions of Feckenham to convert, and they had both remained true to their faith.1 It was their faith that they believed would ultimately save them as they left this mortal life for the next.
As Guildford was led from the Tower, passing through its historic precincts one last time, for a moment he seems to have been gripped by fear. Noticing some noblemen with whom he was familiar, as he passed he ‘took by the hand Sir Anthony Browne, Master John Throckmorton, and many other gentlemen, praying them to pray for him’.2 They were helpless to do anything more for him, and Guildford was forced to continue his journey. Accompanied by the guards and Sir John Brydges, Guildford was delivered into the custody of the Sheriff of London, Thomas Offley, who was responsible for the smooth running of what followed. Guildford walked the short distance to Tower Hill. The scaffold lay ahead of him: it was the same spot on which his father and his grandfather before him had died. With his death, three generations of his family would have been executed as traitors; would his brothers, who still lay in the Tower, suffer too when he was gone? Guildford made no protest as he mounted the scaffold, where he was quite alone save for the executioner who would shortly end his life. He simply ‘kneeled down and said his prayers; then holding up his eyes and hands
to God many times; and at last, after he had desired the people to pray for him, he laid himself along, and his head upon the block’.3 The axe fell, and with one stroke Guildford’s head was severed from his body. Grafton related that it was a travesty that Guildford ‘as an innocent suffered execution, whom god had endowed with such virtues’, and that even those who had never seen him prior to his end ‘did with lamentable tears bewail his death’.4 Carelessly, ‘his carcass thrown into a cart, and his head in a cloth, he was brought into the chapel within the Tower’, where he was unceremoniously buried close to his father.5 Now it was Jane’s turn.
MINUTES HAD PASSED since Guildford was led from the Tower. With only moments left before she too would be conducted from her rooms, Jane was confronted with the gruesome reality of what awaited her. As Guildford’s bloodied and broken body was carried back into the Tower, Jane, ‘whose lodging was in Partridge’s house, did see his dead carcass taken out of the cart, as well as she did see him before alive going to his death’.6 The final living image she had of her husband had been shattered. For a moment her calm deserted her as she cried out, ‘Oh Guildford, Guildford!’ bewailing the bitterness of death.7 She quickly composed herself, however, and Rowland Lea observed that the young girl was ‘nothing at all abashed, neither with fear of her own death, which then approached, neither with the sight of the dead carcass of her husband when he was brought in to the chapel’.8
Shortly afterwards, Sir John Brydges arrived at Master Partridge’s house. He was greatly troubled by the duty he was obliged to perform that day: he had already witnessed the death of one youngster, and now another one must inevitably follow. Sir John had become fond of his courageous young charge, and in ‘his great affection towards her’ he had begged for a keepsake with which to remember Jane by.9 She had only one thing left to her that she could give. Her tiny prayer book in which she had inscribed her farewell message to her father would be his, she promised him, when she no longer had need of it. At his request, she had written a final message to him too:
Forasmuch as you have desired so simple a woman to write in so worthy a book, good master lieutenant, therefore I shall as a friend desire you and as a Christian require you to call upon god to incline your heart to his laws, to quicken you in his way, and not to take the word of truth utterly out of your mouth, how still to die that by death you may purchase eternal life and remembrance how the end of Mathusael [Methuselah] who as we read in the Scriptures was the longest lived that was of a man, died at the last, for as the Preacher sayeth there is a time to be born and a time to die and the day of death is better than the day of our birth. Yours as the lord knoweth as a friend, Jane Dudley.10
It was clear that Jane wanted to be remembered by the manner of her death, and her conduct in her final moments was, therefore, of critical importance.
‘By this time was there a scaffold made upon the green over against the White Tower, for the said lady Jane to die upon.’11 Now was the time, and escorted by the kindly Sir John and Mistresses Tilney and Ellen, Jane left her prison lodgings for the final time. Rowland Lea reported that,
[t]he lieutenant leading her, in the same gown wherein she was arraigned. Her countenance nothing abashed, neither her eyes anything moistened with tears, although her two gentlewomen, Mistress Elizabeth Tilney and Mistress Ellen wonderfully wept, with a book in her hand, whereon she prayed all the way til she came to the said scaffold.12
The scaffold was just steps away from her room, and there was barely time for Jane to glance at her prayer book, which she clasped to her, determined to take as much comfort from it as she could. Perhaps her father, from his Tower prison, saw his daughter as she made her final journey, for he would certainly have known of what was about to happen – the consequences of his reckless actions. With remarkable composure, Jane managed to put one foot in front of the other as she walked, but seconds later the journey was over: ‘After these things thus declared, it remaineth now, coming to the end of this virtuous lady, next to infer the manner of her execution, with the words and behaviour of her at the time of her death.’13
Jane reached the scaffold, where Dr Feckenham was waiting for her. He had asked to be there during her final moments, and had been true to his word. It was too late now, he realized, to open Jane’s eyes to conversion, and so he would not make any such attempt. He was not there to offer spiritual comfort, but instead, in a strange way, as a friend. Commendone noted that as Jane
[a]rrived near the scaffold, she turned towards those who stood by to see her die, and greeted them all asking them to take her death as witness of her innocence. Taking then by the hand the theologian who had accompanied her to the spot without ever abandoning her even if it had been of no avail, she embraced him and told him to go and that God may reward him; she also thanked him for having kept her company, letting him know that during those few days she was more bored by him than frightened by the shadow of death.14
In another time and another place Jane’s words to Feckenham may have been humorous, but there was nothing jovial about the occasion. Turning away from him, Jane mounted the few small steps and stood on the scaffold. In front of her Jane was faced with a chilling sight, for there stood the executioner: the man who had been paid to end her life. He was dressed in black, and his face was covered. But his identity was not important. It was here on this scaffold that her life would end, and here that Jane had her chance to make it count. There had been other times in her life when she had shed tears for things that she could not change, but now would not be one of them. At the moment of her death she would be remembered for her strength, and her bravery.
Jane stood on the recently erected scaffold, and looked out upon the faces of those who had gathered to watch.15 They had come to see her die. Their faces betrayed their sadness at the spectacle they were about to witness, but Jane was determined not to show fear. This was her moment, her chance to make her mark on posterity, and to be remembered. She turned to the people, clinging to her tiny prayer book, and prepared to speak. She had rehearsed the words in her head, her final statement to the cruel world into which she had been born, and was shortly to leave:
Good people, I am come hither to die, and by a law I am condemned to the same. The fact, indeed, against the Queen’s highness was unlawful, and the consenting thereunto by me: but touching the procurement and desire thereof by me or on my behalf, I do wash my hands thereof in innocency, before God, and the face of you, good Christian people, this day.16
She paused for a brief moment and wrung her hands, composing her thoughts before continuing:
I pray you all, good Christian people, to bear me witness that I die a true Christian woman, and that I look to be saved by none other mean, but only by the mercy of God in the merits of the blood of his only son Jesus Christ: and I confess, when I did know the word of God I neglected the same, loved myself and the world, and therefore this plague or punishment is happily and worthily happened unto me for my sins: and yet I thank God of his goodness that he hath thus given me a time and respect to repent. And now, good people, while I am alive, I pray you to assist me with your prayers.17
It was a confirmation of all that she had believed in, all that she held to be true. Jane had made her final declaration to the world; those were the words that she would be remembered for. There was no more that she could do.
Kneeling down Jane opened her prayer book. There were several other people on the scaffold, but Jane turned to Feckenham, who had remained true to his promise not to abandon her until the bitter end. ‘Shall I read this psalm?’ she asked him. ‘Yea,’ he replied simply.18 ‘Have mercy upon me, O God,’ she began, before reciting Psalm 51 in English, one of the psalms for the penitent, ‘asking people to join her in raising prayers to the Almighty.’19 Her air of dignity and calm never left her as she read the psalm ‘in most devout manner, to the end’.20 When she had uttered the final words, Jane stood up, handing her gloves and her handkerchief to Mistress Tilney, and her precious book with its
farewell messages to Thomas Brydges, the Lieutenant’s brother.
She had done all that she could to prepare her soul for death; now all that remained was to prepare her body. As she began to untie the laces of her black gown, the headsman went to help her. But Jane was determined that he ought not to touch her until it was necessary, and repulsed, she ‘desired him to let her alone’, instead turning towards the familiar faces of Mistress Tilney and Mistress Ellen, ‘who helped her off therewith’.21 As she ‘loosened her hair’ one final time, she was handed ‘a fair handkerchief to knit about her eyes’, but before she could do so, ‘the hangman kneeled down, and asked her forgiveness, whom she forgave most willingly’.22 He then ‘willed her to stand upon the straw: which doing, she saw the block’.23 In this moment the shocking brutality of what was about to happen seems finally to have dawned on Jane: it was on this block, here and now, that she would die. Whatever her inner turmoil may have been, it remained hidden, but glimpses of it were apparent in her words as she simply begged the executioner, ‘I pray you dispatch me quickly.’24 She wanted it to be over, and kneeling down, turned to the headsman once more. ‘Will you take it off before I lay me down?’25 Perhaps her thoughts had been drawn to Anne Boleyn, whose head had been removed with a swift stroke of a French headsman’s sword without the use of a block. ‘No, madam,’ he answered. With that, Jane’s final sights of the Tower, of those around her, and of the block, disappeared as she ‘tied the kerchief about her eyes’.26
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