The Children's Book of London Part 7

Fancy the horror of his loving daughter Meg when she heard this! What could she do? She could not suffer it to stay there, so she bribed two men and took a boat, and, going down the river, stole her own father's head, and, wrapping it in a cloth, returned with her gruesome burden to Chelsea, where she is said to have buried it in the church. Can you picture anything more awful than the task of this brave woman?

Another of More's daughters was married, too, and she and Meg were both happy mothers with families of their own; but we may be quite sure that so long as they lived they never forgot their dear father.

CHAPTER XIV

LADY JANE GREY

There once lived a girl who was called Queen of England for twenty days, but who was never crowned; who lived a good and innocent life, yet was beheaded when she was only sixteen. This was Lady Jane Grey. She was a cousin of young King Edward VI., who succeeded his father Henry VIII.

when he was a little boy of nine. At that time England had lately established the Protestant religion, the Church of England as we have it now, and all Roman Catholics had been forced to become Protestants or to leave the churches to those who were. Edward was a delicate little boy, and he had only reigned five years when he caught measles. He never seemed to recover from them; he had a cold afterwards, which settled on his chest, and it soon began to be whispered that the boy-king must die.

At this there was much talking among the great n.o.bles who were Protestants, for they knew that the next heir to the throne was Edward's elder sister Mary, a woman of thirty-eight, a strong Roman Catholic; and they feared that if Queen Mary sat on the throne all the Roman Catholics would be restored to their places, and the Protestants would be persecuted and perhaps murdered, all of which afterwards really did happen. Mary had a younger sister Elizabeth, who was only twenty, and she was a Protestant; and if the n.o.bles could have put her on the throne instead of Mary, all would have been well with England. But that they could not do, for to set aside an older sister for a younger one would have been impossible. So they looked around for someone else, and fixed on little Lady Jane Grey.

Lady Jane was one of the three daughters of a n.o.bleman called the Duke of Suffolk; she was the eldest, and through her mother she was a cousin of King Edward's, and of his sisters Mary and Elizabeth, too. If Edward had had no sisters, Lady Jane would have been Queen after him. The n.o.bles had wanted her to marry Edward, who was just her own age; but the boy had been too ill to think of marrying, and now he was going to die, and it was too late to make any arrangement of that sort. His guardian, the Duke of Northumberland, was a powerful and ambitious man, and he planned a scheme by which he would be still more powerful. He persuaded Edward that Lady Jane must reign after him, for if she did not England would suffer; and Edward, who loved the Protestant religion, consented.

He made a will saying that Lady Jane was to be Queen instead of his sisters Mary and Elizabeth. Of course, he had no right to do this, for a king cannot say who is to reign after him; the throne must go to the next heir. But Northumberland thought if he and all the n.o.bles declared Lady Jane Queen, they could force the people of England to acknowledge her. Then the clever Northumberland went further; he got Edward to consent to the marriage of Lady Jane to Northumberland's only son, young Lord Guildford Dudley. Dudley was then a boy of seventeen, and Lady Jane only fifteen, but that was quite old enough for marriage in those days.

Lady Jane had lived very quietly up to this time; she was a gentle little girl who loved her books, and never thought of thrones and kings and queens. When she was quite young she could speak French and Italian, wrote Latin, and understood Greek, Hebrew, Chaldee, and Arabic. This was the more wonderful because in those days ladies were not supposed to know very much; if they could do beautiful tapestry work and ride and sing a little, it was considered quite enough. There is a story told of Lady Jane that one day when a very clever man named Roger Ascham came to stay with her father, he found her sitting in a window-seat reading a book. Outside stretched the beautiful park, with its green gra.s.s and great shady trees, and the voices of the visitors and the other little girls who were amusing themselves came in at the window; but Lady Jane sat curled up, as many little girls do nowadays, reading diligently, and never taking any notice of the bright world outside. And the book she was reading was the work of an ancient Greek philosopher called Plato, who wrote very interesting books, but ones that are hard even for grown-up people to understand. It must have made a pretty picture, that little pale girl bending over her book; and if anyone had said that in one short year she would be married, have been called Queen of England, and have been beheaded, it would not have been believed.

Roger Ascham stopped and asked her why she read instead of playing, and she told him she loved books, and they gave her much more pleasure than the things in which people usually tried to find pleasure. Then he wanted to know how she had managed to learn so much, and she answered:

'Sir, G.o.d hath blessed me with sharp and severe parents and a gentle schoolmaster; for when I am in the presence of either father or mother, whether I speak, keep silence, sit, stand, or go, eat, drink, be merry or sad, be sewing, dancing, or doing anything else, I must do it, as it were, in such weight, measure, and number, even as perfectly as the world was made, or else I am so sharply taunted and cruelly threatened--yea, presently sometimes with pinches, nips, and bobs, and so cruelly disordered, that I think myself in h.e.l.l until the time come that I go to Mr. Aylmer, who teacheth me so gently, so pleasantly, with such fair allurements to learning, that I think all the time as nothing that I am with him; and thus my book hath been so much my pleasure, and bringeth daily to me more pleasure and more, that in respect of it all other pleasures in very deed be but trifles and very troubles to me.'

That is not quite the way a little girl would speak now, I think.

When Jane had been younger she had seen a good deal of her cousin Elizabeth, who was about five years older, and they had been in the same house together; and, of course, if she had ever thought about it at all, she knew that first Mary, and after her Elizabeth, had the right to be Queen when Edward died. Before Edward died, however, Jane was told suddenly that she must marry young Guildford Dudley. He was a handsome boy and very gentle, and Jane seems to have loved him very dearly; so she made no objection, and the marriage took place in a great hurry. And at the same time her younger sister Katharine was also married to Lord Herbert, the son of the Earl of Pembroke, so the quiet life in the beautiful home in Leicestershire came to an end.

Lady Jane knew, of course, that her cousin Edward was ill, and it must have grieved her very much; for she was fond of him, and being just the same age, they had learnt the same lessons together. But when Edward died she was not told of it until she received a message from her father-in-law, the Duke of Northumberland, to go to his great house, called Sion House, on the Thames, not far from London. She went, never thinking what was going to happen or why she was wanted; and when she was there Northumberland himself and her own father, the Duke of Suffolk, and some other lords came into the room, and, kneeling before her, told her that her young cousin Edward was dead, and that she must succeed him as Queen of England. Poor Lady Jane was so shocked and startled that she fainted away. When she came round again they told her she must be obedient and do as they told her. She pleaded with them, and said Mary must be Queen, and that for herself she was so young--only sixteen; and she did not care to be Queen, but only wanted to live a quiet life with her husband, Lord Dudley. But they argued with her, and told her she was a coward; that it was for the good of England, and that if she refused she would be wicked; and at last she consented. Then all her life was changed.

As I have said before, people used the river then a great deal more than they do now, and all persons of importance had state barges with rowers to row them up and down the water. Some of these barges were very magnificent, with scarlet cloth and gold fringe, and looked like gorgeous birds floating on the water. A beautiful barge was waiting for Lady Jane in front of Sion House, and she stepped into it, and was rowed down the river through London to the Tower.

Now up to this time this story has not had much to do with London, but after this all the rest of it happened in London. When Lady Jane entered the Tower the man who was then Lord Treasurer of England came to her, and, kneeling down, offered her the crown of England. And afterwards Northumberland and his party lost no time, but sent men all round London to cry out that Lady Jane Grey was now Queen of England.

Meantime, Mary had been in the country. She had only just heard of her brother's death, when she heard, too, of what Northumberland had done.

Now, she did not resemble her poor little cousin; she was not only very much older, but of a very stern disposition--not at all likely to sit down quietly and let another take her crown. So she made people go over all the countryside where she was and say that she was Queen, and that men might come and fight for her. Now many people felt that even if Mary were hard and cruel, still, it was fair that she should be Queen; so many n.o.bles and gentlemen came to her, and she presently had a large army. When the story of the two Queens was heard, nearly everyone in England felt that Mary was right, and Northumberland began to think he had a harder fight before him than he had expected.

Even the people in London began to riot and say that Mary was Queen, and when one of the n.o.bles on her side went to St. Paul's Cathedral, and there, standing beside a cross called St. Paul's Cross, where proclamations were made, cried out Mary was Queen, all the people shouted for joy. Bonfires were lit in the streets, and everywhere was feasting and rejoicing, and no one seemed to care about Lady Jane in the Tower.

So Northumberland saw how foolish he had been, and he hastened to send Jane back to Sion House; but he stayed in London himself, and cried out like the rest that Mary was Queen. For only three weeks Jane had been Queen, and all that time she had stayed in the gloomy Tower wishing she were back in her country home.

Then Mary rode in state into London, and went straight to the Tower. Her first care was to have Edward's funeral celebrated--for he had not yet been buried--and then she began to think about her enemies.

Northumberland, of course, was her prisoner, together with some other n.o.bles, and Northumberland and two others were condemned to death. So a very short time after he had brought his son's wife to the Tower as a queen the Duke of Northumberland had his head cut off at the same Tower. Lady Jane and her husband were brought to the Tower as prisoners also, but were allowed to walk in the gardens, and were well treated; for at this time Mary seemed to think that they were not to blame, having been a mere boy and girl made to do wrong by their fathers, which was true. Perhaps they would have stayed in captivity for many years but for the foolish friends, who, by trying to help them, made their fate much worse. For after Mary had been Queen a short time she was hated.

Her stern manners and her hard face made people fear her, and shortly after she was crowned people began to rise in different parts of England and say that Lady Jane ought to be Queen instead. And for some time Mary had to send troops to fight against the rebels, as those who rose in favour of Jane were called. At last one day an alarm was given that a man named Sir Thomas Wyatt had collected a large army, and was actually advancing on London. Mary was at that time staying at Whitehall Palace, and news came that Wyatt and all his men were going to attack the palace and carry her off. They really did come, too, and the army spread all over St. James's Park and all round the old palace--everywhere were soldiers. At that time there was a great gateway, called the Holbein Gate, that stood across Whitehall, and in this Queen Mary stayed and watched the fighting. With all her faults she was very brave, and when she saw her own guards driven in and dispersed, she showed no sign of fear. Then a gentleman rushed up to her, and, falling on his knees, said, 'All is lost,' and begged her to get into a barge on the river and fly to the Tower, where she would be safer; but Mary refused to go, and said all was not lost, and by her bravery and her words she so inspirited the men that they fought again, and succeeded in beating off Wyatt's men. So Wyatt went on toward the city, and all the way he had to fight, and at last he was taken prisoner on Ludgate Hill, which is not far from St. Paul's Cathedral.

Then Mary knew that she was safe again; but she must have pa.s.sed a sleepless night and thought a great deal, for she at last made up her mind she would order Lady Jane Grey and her husband to be beheaded, for so long as they lived other men would rise, as Wyatt had done, and try to make Jane Queen.

It was a dreadful thing to do, but we must remember that in those days executions were not thought so much of as they would be now. In these days anyone would be horrified to hear that a man's or woman's head was to be cut off, and even the very worst murderers are only hanged; but in Mary's day a great many people were beheaded every year. So in the morning, when Mary rode down to the city to thank her n.o.bles and knights for fighting so bravely and defending her, she knew that before the day was ended she would have signed the death-warrant of Lady Jane. When she came to Temple Bar she stopped. Now, Temple Bar was a great gateway that stood in the Strand, just where the City of London begins, and on it there were ugly iron spikes; and sometimes the heads of those who had been executed were stuck on these spikes, and stayed there until they rotted away. All the people pa.s.sing along the street could look up and see the heads, and sometimes, when the wind was high, a ghastly head came tumbling down into the street. We cannot think of such things without horror; but in those days people were accustomed to them, and did not mind them very much. When Mary came to Temple Bar she asked for ink and paper, and wrote there the order for young Lady Jane and her husband to be beheaded.

Lady Jane was in the Tower when the news was brought to her. She had now been a prisoner six months, and perhaps sometimes she had thought she might die as her father-in-law had died; so when the priest Queen Mary sent came to tell her the news, she received it quite calmly and without a shudder. But when he tried to make her turn Roman Catholic, she told him she should never do that. The priest hurried back to Queen Mary, and said if the execution could be put off three days he might make Lady Jane a Roman Catholic, so Queen Mary consented to delay a little. But when Jane was told that she was to live a little longer, she was sorry, for it was worse to wait than to be killed at once. During those three days she must sometimes have shuddered to think that not only must she die, but her young husband, so full of life and strength, must die too; yet she never gave way before people or seemed afraid. She was asked if she would see Guildford to say good-bye; but she said it was better not, for the parting might be too heartrending, and make them both break down. He was to die first, and when the morning came, very early the guards led him past Lady Jane's window on his way to death. Then indeed she must have felt that the bitterness of death was past. She had written a long letter to Queen Mary explaining how everything had happened, and that it was never her wish to be a queen; and she had written another to her father, knowing that he must be very sad, feeling it was all his fault that she had been led into this sad position; and another to her younger sister Katharine to say good-bye. And now all was done, and soon her husband would be dead, and what had she left to live for?

The execution of Guildford did not take long. Presently a low rumble of cart-wheels over the stones told Lady Jane that they were bringing back his dead body, and then she knew her turn must come.

One can imagine the horror with which she heard the door open and saw Sir John Brydges, the man who was to lead her out, standing and waiting.

But she was very brave; she neither fainted nor screamed, but rose up, and, taking his hand, walked with him to the scaffold. When she arrived at the place of execution she made a little speech, saying that she ought never to have allowed anyone to persuade her to be queen; but that she was young--she had not known what was right. And then, without any show of fear, she laid her head on the block, and it was cut off at one blow.

So died the poor girl at only sixteen--a girl who loved her books, and would have lived a quiet life if it had not been for the ambitious plans of her own father and her father-in-law.

CHAPTER XV

GUNPOWDER PLOT

There is no need to tell anyone who lives in the country what happens on the fifth of November, for they are sure to know well. The beautiful fireworks, with their streams of coloured fire; the crackling of the squibs; the gorgeous catherine-wheels and the coloured Roman candles; the great rockets that shoot up into the air with a swish, leaving behind them a long tail of golden fire, and then burst into showers of stars--all these may be seen on the fifth of November; and if you are really lucky children, there will follow the great bonfire, with barrels of tar poured over it to make the flames roar upward. They lick the bare sticks put ready for them, and climb over the logs until they reach the figure of Guy Fawkes himself, a stuffed figure like a scarecrow, which stands at the highest point. The flames crackle gaily; the heat is in contrast with the fresh air of the November evening; all the people standing by look strange and unlike themselves with that weird glow on their faces. Then Guy's hands curl up, an arm wavers, and he topples headlong into the glowing flames, to be burnt up altogether. Guy is only made of straw, so we need not be sorry for him; but it is a curious custom, and we have to go to history to find out what it means. That there was a real man, a Guy Fawkes, who lived in James I.'s reign, you know perhaps. This Guy was at first a Protestant, and as a little boy used to go to church with his mother; but as he grew older he became a Roman Catholic. Now, at that time in England there were many very hard and unjust laws against the Roman Catholics, not allowing them to hold offices in the State, and preventing them from doing many things that Protestants might do. People are wiser now, and realize that a man may be a good man and a good servant of the country whatever his religion so long as he is in earnest, but in those days it was not so. Well, a certain number of lords and gentlemen who were Roman Catholics tried to get these laws altered; but they could not, and so they were very angry and bitter against the King and his Ministers, and joined together to make a plot to be revenged on them. Guy Fawkes was one of the men in this plot, and it may have been he who suggested the dreadful idea that was at last decided upon. However that may be, at first nothing was done, but the conspirators used to meet together in secret to talk things over. They dare not meet openly, for if so many Catholic gentlemen had been discovered together, the King and his Ministers would have suspected something wrong. In one great house in the country belonging to a young man called Sir Everard Digby, they met in a secret room, with a floor that moved, so that if ever the King's officers came suddenly to surprise them there, they could all escape by means of the floor, which slipped up and let them out, whence they could go from the house by means of a secret pa.s.sage. Digby was quite young, little more than a boy, and he had just married a young and beautiful girl, when he became entangled in the detestable Gunpowder Plot.

The plot, when it finally took form, was that the conspirators should hire a house near to the Houses of Parliament and dig an underground tunnel, which should reach right beneath the part of the House where the King would be when the Houses of Parliament were opened the next time; that they should then put gunpowder there, and blow up the whole building, killing the King and many of the great Ministers. While everyone was thrown into terror and confusion by this, the other conspirators were to seize one of the young princes, the King's sons, and carry him off; then, when everything was thus in the hands of the Catholics, they expected to be able to make their own terms, and get the laws against Catholics repealed by the nation.

All this sounded very grand, but it was very difficult to do. It is wonderful that the conspirators managed to do so much as they did. They actually took a room near the Houses of Parliament, and began to dig their underground pa.s.sage. But they found this a much more difficult job than they had antic.i.p.ated, for every bit of the soil they dug out had to be carried away in baskets secretly by night; for people would naturally have noticed it if they had seen it, and begun to ask what was being done. But just when they had discovered how hard the work was going to be, they heard that a cellar right under the Houses of Parliament was to be let. Here was a chance! They took it at once, and gave up digging out their tunnel. Guy Fawkes was appointed to see that the scheme was carried out, and his was the dangerous part. He had to buy barrels of gunpowder singly and at different times, and see that they were carried into his cellar without anyone seeing them. Then he bought a great deal of wood in f.a.ggots and stacked it over the barrels of gunpowder, so that if anyone did come into that cellar, he would never suspect it was anything but an ordinary cellar for storing wood. The meeting of Parliament was to take place in October, and by August all was ready; then the meeting of Parliament was delayed, and the conspirators heard it was not to be until the fifth of November. The time now drew very near. Then it occurred to some of the conspirators that perhaps some of their own friends who were members of Parliament would be blown up with the rest, and they grew uneasy. Each one wanted to warn his own friend not to go to Parliament that day, but no one knew how to do it for fear of betraying the plot. At last, however, one of the conspirators, who was a brother-in-law of Lord Mounteagle's, sent Lord Mounteagle a letter, saying that he had better not go to Parliament on the day of opening, for the Parliament was to receive 'a terrible blow, and yet shall not see who hurts them.' Lord Mounteagle was naturally distressed to receive such a letter, without any sign who had sent it, and he took it to the King. James was a clever man in some ways, and he saw at once that a terrible blow, yet not seen, must mean something to do with gunpowder; so he had the cellars under the Houses of Parliament searched, and discovered the barrels of gunpowder. Now Guy Fawkes knew nothing of this, but came the night before the fifth to be in time to do his dreadful deed. He was a brave man, though a wicked one, caring little what evil he was doing. He had arranged a train of gunpowder running along the floor to what is called a slow match--that is to say, a long match that burns for perhaps five or ten minutes, so that the person who lights it has time to get away before the explosion occurs--and then he waited until the time when all the members of Parliament and the King should be there before setting a light to it.

Cannot you picture Guy Fawkes alone in that gloomy cellar that night? He did not know that the plot was discovered; he thought that everything had been kept very secret, and that to-morrow he would set a light to that match and hurry away, and before he had got very far he would hear a sound that would seem to tear the very sky, and with a crash the Houses of Parliament would reel and fall, burying in their ruins hundreds of men and the King of England. These were not the same Houses of Parliament that stand now, but were burnt down many years after.

In the dark shadows Guy waited; perhaps a mouse ran across the floor, and made him start. And then there was a sound of footsteps at the door, a whispering and a creaking of boots, and before he had time to do anything he found himself surrounded by soldiers, and knew that all was over; that the least he could hope for was death, which he had richly deserved, for he had intended to murder hundreds of men who had never wronged him.

All the implements for his terrible scheme were found upon him--the slow match and the lights, and when the f.a.ggots were thrown aside there were the barrels of gunpowder. If the people could have got at Guy Fawkes, he would have been torn in pieces; but he was kept from them by the soldiers, and hurried off to the Tower. So all the people could do was to make a false Guy Fawkes stuffed with straw and burn him on a bonfire, and that is the origin of our fifth of November.

Guy Fawkes was not put to death at once, as you will hear in the account of the Tower; he was tortured on the rack to make him give up the names of those who had been in the conspiracy with him. Again and again he refused, but at last the awful suffering weakened him so that he hardly knew what he was doing; and when the torturers told him some of his comrades had been taken, which was not true, he believed them, and moaned out the names of two or three of his fellow-conspirators. Among them was poor young Sir Everard Digby, who, when he heard that all was lost, mounted his horse and tried to get away to the sea to go across to the Continent; but he was taken, and with many of the others, including Guy Fawkes himself, was hanged.

This, then, was the famous Gunpowder Plot which we celebrate on the fifth of November.

CHAPTER XVI

CHARLES I

The story of Charles I. is one of the most dreadful in English history.

It seems impossible to believe that so many of the English people could stand calmly round and watch their King executed like a common criminal without raising a finger to save him.

We have met Charles once before in this book, if you remember, when he walked across Spring Gardens on his way to be murdered. He was born in Scotland, and he had an elder brother, Prince Henry, so that it was thought at first that Charles would not be King. But Prince Henry died when Charles was only twelve, and so Charles became Prince of Wales and heir to the throne.

By this time the Kings of England lived, when in London, not in Westminster Palace, but in another palace called Whitehall. When Henry VIII. was King, the old palace of Westminster, of which you have heard so much in the story of Edward V., had fallen into ruins, so Henry looked about for another. Quite close to Westminster Palace there was a great house called York House, which belonged to the Archbishops of York, and which they used when they came to London. Henry arranged that he should have this for a new palace, so he moved there. It was not just one great building as we picture palaces in these days, but a number of smaller ones--courts and long ranges of houses--and in it lived all the people connected with the Court, as they had done at Westminster Palace.

It was a little town in itself. There were no trains then, and when the King went from one of his palaces to another everything had to be taken in carts. We are told that three hundred carts went from Whitehall to Greenwich Palace at one time laden with linen cloths for the tables, wine, and gold and silver plate, and dresses and kitchen things, pots and pans, and other things. In that time people had tapestry hanging on the walls instead of our paper and paint. They had rough trestle-tables, which were only boards, and were put up and taken down again when they were not wanted. The floors were strewn with green leaves and scented plants, which had to be put there freshly every day. It was all so different from our own time that we can hardly imagine it.

James I. was the father of Charles, and he gave many splendid entertainments at this palace, in which, no doubt, Prince Charles took part. There were dinners and dances, and other things not so harmless; for instance, it was supposed to be great sport to see two poor c.o.c.ks fight until they tore each other almost to pieces, and people used to bet on one c.o.c.k or the other. There were also fights between bears and greyhounds; and a wretched bull was tied to a stake and a number of savage dogs let loose on him, and the more the bull threw his head this way and that, and stuck his great horns into the dogs, and the more the dogs seized him at the back, where he could not defend himself, and tore his flesh with their teeth, the more the people laughed and applauded.

Even ladies watched these sports. Prince Charles was never a strong boy, and always rather quiet and thoughtful, and he cannot have liked such cruelty; but then it was the fashion--everyone did it, so he thought it must be all right. King James was very fond of hunting, and while he lived the Court was always gay. But the palace was getting more and more old and inconvenient, and at last James thought he would build a new one. So he sent for his architect, a wonderful man called Inigo Jones, and ordered him to draw plans for a new palace that should be far more splendid than the old one. Inigo Jones did so. We still have copies of his plans, and we can see what a wonderful palace he meant to have built. It was to face the river on one side and to have rows of windows and high round towers, and all along the roof there were to be figures as large or larger than life standing on the parapet. It would have cost thousands and thousands of pounds. But this beautiful palace was never completed. The King died and Inigo Jones died, and the only bit of this great new palace that was ever built is still standing, and you can see it any day in London if you go down Whitehall. It is larger than an ordinary-sized house, and has pillars running up the front and two rows of windows, and is called the Banqueting Hall.