would give him a token as he was to pass under the window of "Partridge's house," where she had probably been removed that morning from the Beauchamp Tower, to make her preparations for death. Lord Guildford Dudley was led out to Tower Hill, and suffered with all the firmness and resignation which might be expected from his blameless life and character. His body was placed in a cart, covered with a cloth, and brought into the Tower for burial in St. Peter's Chapel.

As the cart passed under Lady Jane's window, she discovered at once the form which the cloth thrown over it but partially shrouded, and exclaimed, "Oh! Guildford, Guildford, the ante-past is not so bitter that thou hast tasted, and which I shall soon taste, as to make my flesh tremble; it is nothing compared to the feast we shall partake this day in heaven."

When Sir T. Bridges, the Lieutenant of the Tower, appeared to conduct her to the block, she presented him her tablets to keep in acknowledgment of his kindness to her. Arrived on Tower Green, only a short distance from her prison door, she addressed a few modest and simple words to those present, to the effect that, although she had most reluctantly accepted the short-lived dignity forced upon her by the entreaties of her relations, she freely admitted she had no real right to the crown, and that the sentence therefore, under which she suffered, was not an unjust one. Hollingshed's account of her end is very touching. "She prayed fervently, and then stood up and gave to Mistress Ellen, her maid, her gloves and handkerchief, and her book to Master Bridges, the

The

Lieutenant's brother, and so untied her gown. executioner pressed to help her off with it; but she desired him to let her alone, and turned toward her two gentlewomen, who helped her off therewith, and with her other attire, and gave her a fair handkerchief to put about her eyes. Then the executioner kneeled down and asked her forgiveness, whom she forgave most willingly.. Then he willed her to stand upon the straw; which done, she saw the block; and then she said, 'I pray you despatch me quickly.' Then she kneeled down, saying, 'Will you take it off before I lay me down?' Whereunto the executioner answered, 'No, Madam.' Then tied she the handkerchief about her eyes, and, feeling for the block, she said, 'Where is it? where is it?' One of the standers-by guided her thereunto, and she laid down her head upon the block, and then stretched forth her body, and said, 'Lord, into thy hands I commend my spirit ;' and so finished her life, her head being struck off by a single blow."

Her body was interred with that of her husband under the altar in St. Peter's Chapel. It has been mentioned above that she was in "Partridge's house" when she gave the token just before his execution to Lord Guildford Dudley; and it may therefore be well to explain, that it was not uncommon to remove prisoners of high rank from the Beauchamp Tower, which was the usual state prison, to the Lieutenant's or to one of the Warders' quarters, in order to make their immediate preparation for death, and more conveniently to receive and bid farewell to such friends and relations as were at the last

moment permitted to see and attend them to the scaffold.

The word "Jane," inscribed on the north wall of the Beauchamp Prison Tower, has been always attributed to the hand of this unfortunate young lady, and there is no reason to question it, any more than the inscriptions of other prisoners upon those gloomy walls. Bailey and others, who have taken a strange satisfaction in throwing doubt upon traditions of the Tower, would have it believed, that these names on the walls of the Beauchamp Prison, were not really carved by the persons themselves; but a cursory inspection will show, by the confused and irregular way in which the names are scattered over the surface of the interior, that they were evidently the chance work of the prisoners, who sought by any means before them to occupy their thoughts in some manual employment, and perhaps at the same time to hand down their sorrows to times, when that pity and compassion might be felt for them, of which their relentless enemies or persecutors were incapable.

4

B

LADY CATHERINE GREY.

URING the last years of Queen Mary's reign, Lady Catherine Grey, the younger sister of the unfortunate Lady Jane, had been residing, under the care of the Duchess of Somerset, Lord Hertford's mother, at her seat of Hanworth. Lord Hertford, who frequently visited Hanworth, formed an attachment to Lady Catherine; but as concealment was necessary from his mother, to whose charge she was in fact confided, almost in the position of a prisoner, it was to his sister, Lady Jane Seymour, and to her only, that he made known the state of his affections. The Duchess, perceiving, as he afterwards expressed it, "familiarity and good will between them, did often admonish him to abstain from Lady Catherine's company." To these warnings he replied that "young folks, meaning well, might well accompany together, and that both in that house, and also in the court, he trusted he might use her company, being not forbidden by the Queen's Highness's express commandment." Beyond this remark, he never avowed to his mother, or to any of his or Lady Catherine's relations

(except his sister), the secret understanding that subsisted between them. This secrecy was the natural consequence of the fear inspired by the harshness with which both Mary and Elizabeth had treated the branch of the Royal Family to which Lady Catherine belonged.

Soon after the accession of Queen Elizabeth, Lady Catherine Grey and Lady Jane Seymour were both of them placed about the Queen's person, and in waiting upon Her Majesty at Hampton Court.

Lord Hertford, being at that time confined by indisposition to his house in Channon Row, Westminster, wrote to his sister to ask her assistance in forwarding his suit with her friend, and "to feel her disposition for marriage with him." Lady Jane executed this commission faithfully, but Lady Catherine declined to give any positive answer, till the Queen should come to Westminster. As soon as the removal of the Court took place, Lord Hertford obtained an interview with Lady Catherine, in his sister's private apartments; and there, in her presence, he made a direct proposal of marriage. Lady Catherine answered, "that, weighing his long suit and good will borne to her, she was content to marry him, the next time that the Queen's Highness should go abroad and leave her and Lady Jane behind her." They plighted their faith "by giving one to the other their hands," Lady Jane being present throughout the interview; and it was agreed that their marriage should take place secretly at Lord Hertford's house in Channon Row; but as the opportunity depended on the movements of the Queen, no day could be fixed. Lady Jane, however, undertook that a clergy