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 OPENING K A IL A S A N AT H A

Kaimal final pages.indd 1 21-01-05 21:57

Kaimal final pages.indd 2 21-01-05 21:57
 OP E NING

Kailasanatha
The Temple in Kanchipuram Revealed in Time and Space

Pa dm a K a i m a l

U n i v e r s i t y of Wa s h i ng t on P r e s s
Seattle

Kaimal final pages.indd 3 21-01-05 21:57

 Publication of Opening Kailasanatha has been aided by a grant from the
Millard Meiss Publication Fund of the College Art Association.

This book was made possible in part by a grant from

the McLellan Endowment, established through the generosity of
Martha McCleary McLellan and Mary McLellan Williams.

Additional support was provided by grants from the Colgate University Research Council,
Office of the Provost and Dean of the Faculty, and Michael J. Batza Chair in Art & Art History.

Copyright © 2020 by the University of Washington Press

Design by M. Wright
Composed in Adobe Text, typeface designed by Robert Slimbach

25 24 23 22 21  5 4 3 2 1

Printed and bound in the United States of America

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form
or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information
storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

University of Washington Press

uwapress.uw.edu

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Library of Congress Control Number: 2020932709

ISBN 978-0-295-74777-4 (hardcover)

ISBN 978-0-295-74778-1 (ebook)

Interior photographs are by the author unless otherwise noted.

The paper used in this publication is acid free and meets the minimum requirements of
American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper
for Printed Library Materials, ansi z39.48–1984.∞
 To Andy, Sophie, and Phoebe, my darlings, my heroes

Kaimal final pages.indd 5 21-01-05 21:57

Kaimal final pages.indd 6 21-01-05 21:57
 CONTENTS

Preface & Acknowledgments | ix

Introduction | 3

ORDER AND IMPROVISATION

The Elements of the Pallavas’
Kailasanatha Temple Complex
19

5 2

WORD - IMAGE TANGO LOOKING NORTH AND SOUTH

Telling Stories with Celibacy and Intimacy,
Words and Sculptures Struggle and Grace
154 38

4 3

CIRCUMAMBULATING LOOKING EAST AND WEST,

THIS WAY AND THAT WITH AND WITHOUT SONS
Complementarity Set in Motion Deities, Royalty, Family, and Lineage
126 93

C onc lusi o ns | 174

Kaimal final pages.indd 7 21-01-05 21:57

 Appendix 1
Inscriptions on Rajasimha’s Prakara | 181

Appendix 2
The Foundation Inscription of the Rajasimheshvara,
Rajasimha’s Vimana | 185

Appendix 3
The Foundation Inscription of the Mahendravarmeshvara,
Mahendravarman III’s Vimana | 187

Appendix 4
The Foundation Inscriptions around Vimanas C, E, and G,
Marking Donations by Pallava Queens | 189

Glossary of Sanskrit Terms | 191

Notes | 197

Bibliography | 225

Index | 241

Plates follow page 160

Kaimal final pages.indd 8 21-01-05 21:57

 PREFACE & ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This book could happen because many people gave me their time,
insights, expertise, encouragement, and funding. Listing all of those people here is a
challenge I am likely to fail, and for this I am very sorry. But I am deeply grateful to
everyone who interacted with me over the past twenty-five years about the Kailasanatha
temple complex in Kanchipuram. All of you have helped me to think out these ideas and
to have the luxury of time to write them down.
Long before conceiving this project, I received a Junior Fellowship from the Amer-
ican Institute of Indian Studies (AIIS) thanks to Joanna G. Williams. That gave me my
first chances to visit the Kailasanatha in 1984–85. P. Venugopala Rao, head of the AIIS
Madras office, and his assistant Perumal made my research year a success by gracefully
navigating many bureaucratic waters for me. The invaluable support of the Hindu Reli-
gious and Charitable Endowments Board as well as the Archaeological Survey of India
enabled me to photograph and study this and many other sites.
Overwhelmed on my first visit by the visual wealth of the Kailasanatha, I wandered
through it for hours and wore out the patience of my bicycle rickshaw driver. I had come
to look at a few potential portraits, but I left convinced that the temple complex deserved
someone’s sustained attention. I could not yet imagine it would be mine.
My dear friend Dennis Hudson gave me the courage ten years later to think that
that someone might be me after all. His own study of the Vaikuntha Perumal temple in
the same city made a convincing case for that temple having been designed as a kind
of “response text” to the Kailasanatha, though exactly what this earlier building meant
still remained puzzling to us both. He helped me get started. As we talked about cave
temples, he taught me that directionality is the most likely principle organizing the
placement of sculptures on temples in the Tamil region. And he collaborated with me

ix

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 P r e fac e a n d Ac k n ow l e d g m e n t s

to produce a pair of papers on the Kailasanatha for the 1996 symposium of the American
Council for Southern Asian Art. We focused on the tall-towered vimana at the center
of the compound. I speculated that its sculptures of Shiva embodied ideals of kingship.
Dennis engaged the inscription’s astonishing revelation that a king had taken initiation
into a Tantric sect. David T. Sanford and Michael Rabe were among the most energetic
colleagues to respond to our papers. David cracked open for me the identity of Jalandhara
as the defeated figure at the center of the north wall.
Dennis would live just long enough to complete his study of the Vaikuntha Perumal.
I then pursued the Kailasanatha project without him. Generous fellowships from the
American Association of University Women and the National Endowment for the
Humanities gave me three semesters of leave from teaching in 2001–2 that let me
immerse myself in literature on goddess worship in South Asia. I began to see that
goddess imagery played a larger role at the Kailasanatha than most scholarship on that
monument had led me to expect.
Major grants from the Colgate University Research Council permitted me to return to
the site in 1999 and 2010. South Asia scholar Kimberly Masteller; her husband, Donovan
Dodrill; and my parents, Lorraine and Chandran Kaimal, joined me at the site in 1999
for delightful conversation, study, and photography. Kim brought her expertise on god-
dess temples. Donovan’s sharp eyes caught the small sculptures of Shiva as a meditating
ascetic on the tiny towers over cells 15–29 of Rajasimha’s prakara.
That tour got me thinking about that prakara as a kind of goddess temple in its
own right, a hypothesis I shared at the 2001 conference of the American Academy of
Religion and then in its journal. Leslie C. Orr organized both projects, bringing me
together with Corinne Dempsey, Whitney Kelting, and Richard Cohen in challeng-
ing the alleged marginality of goddesses in South Asian practice. I was able to con-
tinue workshopping that thesis and other thoughts about the monument with scholars
and wider audiences thanks to speaking invitations from Rebecca Brown at St. Mary’s
College of Maryland, 1999; Rob Linrothe at Skidmore College; Vivien Fryd at Van-
derbilt University; Michael Cothren at Swarthmore College; Margaret Supplee Smith
at Wake Forest University; Susan Mann, Deborah Harkness, and Karen Halttunen at
the University of California, Davis; Adam Hardy at De Montfort University, Leicester,
England; Rick Asher at the University of Minnesota; Donald Wood at the Birmingham
Museum of Art, Alabama; Indira Peterson for a symposium at the Museum of Fine
Arts, Houston; Janice Leoshko at the University of Texas, Austin; Charlotte Schmid at
the École française d’Extrême-Orient (EFEO) and Emmanuel Francis at the Centre
d’étude de l’Inde et de l’Asie du Sud; Nicolas Dejenne at the Université Sorbonne Nou-
velle–Paris 3; and Elizabeth Cecil at Brown University. At each place, lively questions
from colleagues and audiences flushed out my weaker assumptions and pressed me to
interrogate the monument more closely.
By 2009, I had a clear vision of the published record and the many parts of the mon-
ument, but I did not yet have a compelling story to tell. I had pieces, but they did not

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 P r e fac e a n d Ac k n ow l e d g m e n t s

add new insights about the whole. That changed when I had the great fortune to spend
2010–11 at the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) at Princeton University as the Lou-
ise and John Steffens Founders’ Circle and the Starr Foundation East Asian Studies
Endowment Fund Member. The time to think, read, and write was wonderful, but
more precious were the guidance, the hard questions, and the fascinating conversations
I had with the faculty and other members. I must extend particular thanks to Yve-Alain
Bois, Caroline Walker Bynum, Nicola Di Cosmo, and Irving and Marilyn Lavin on the
faculty; Marian Zelazny on the IAS staff; and fellow IAS members Norman Kutcher,
Daniela Caglioti, Katrin Kogman-Appel, Menachem Kojman, Mehmet-Ali Ataç, Toni
Bierl, Eleonore Le Jalle, Richard Taws, and Himanshu Prabha Ray. Mehmet-Ali trans-
formed my understanding of how art can represent time and convinced me that reducing
the past to the political does an injustice. Toni encouraged me to pursue evidence of
complementarities in place of binaries by sharing his own parallel discoveries in ancient
Greek materials. Himanshu urged me to consider the building’s marginal sculptures as
spaces in which individual artisans had room to improvise on underlying themes. At the
Lavins’ suggestion, their friend Frank Gehry stopped by my office to look at my photos
and observe that the Kailasanatha, like his creations, was a building that could produce
the illusion of movement.
Other scholars in the area who visited the institute fed my work as well. Isabelle
Clark-Decès of Princeton University shared with me her profound and nuanced under-
standings of Tamil culture. Her untimely death has been a great loss to our field as well
as to me. Erik Thuno of Rutgers University helped me understand reception theory and
its principle that meaning emerges through people’s interactions with objects rather
than being fixed or inherent in objects. Deborah Hutton of the College of New Jersey
sharpened my perceptions of the leonine forms that fill the monument, reminding me
that their regular geometries and fantastic horns signal some symbolic purpose that nat-
uralistic lions might not. Julie Romain, visiting from the Los Angeles County Museum
of Art, helped me track down the inscription left at the Kailasanatha by the Chalukya
king Vikramaditya II. Julie’s early passing, too, leaves a sad void.
The year at the institute also gave me the time to explore the important scholarship
of the French team of Charlotte Schmid, Emmanuel (Manu) Francis, and Valérie Gillet,
which Leslie C. Orr of Concordia University, my precious friend and mentor for most
of my academic life in all aspects of Tamil Nadu’s history, had been urging on me for
some time. She was right as usual. Their careful and imaginative work enabled the break-
through I had been hoping for. That work studies the Pallavas and their monuments with
unprecedented depth and scientific rigor. With a skilled support team from the EFEO
in Pondicherry, headed in the field by the brilliant research assistant N. Ramaswamy
(Babu to his friends), these scholars had revisited the sites, combed the surrounding
landscapes, recopied inscriptions from their original surfaces, photographed everything
methodically, attended closely to the materiality of all their evidence, and assembled an
extensive corpus that informs their multiple publications.

xi

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 P r e fac e a n d Ac k n ow l e d g m e n t s

Inspired to encounter work that spoke to my own explorations so forcefully and with
such fresh insights, I began an enthusiastic correspondence with Charlotte that led to
close collaboration and friendship with her, Manu, and Valérie. They included me in
their “Archaeology of Bhakti” workshops and fieldwork tours of Tamil Nadu in 2011, 2013,
and 2015. Together we crisscrossed the Kailasanatha compound, puzzling out figures and
patterns. Manu worked all the way around Rajasimha’s vimana with me, mapping the
exact letters at which the inscription turned each corner of this many-faceted building.
Valérie traced for me the awkward joins between Mahendra’s prakara and Rajasimha’s
prakara on one side and on the other side to the shrines along the eastern façade of the
temple complex. Charlotte walked me through the closure of the west entry to the pra-
kara and her new readings of Skanda’s iconographic signs. What they taught me enabled
me to write this book. Their publications and insights pepper the endnotes of the book.
Their generosity continued through the last phases of writing. Manu freely shared many
of the book’s photos. Charlotte thought through the cover photo and shared her shots
for it. They and Valérie are truly collaborators, coauthors even. I thank them with all my
heart and apologize if I have not sufficiently credited them for every insight they shared
with me. It has become impossible to keep track.
By bringing me to their workshops, they included me in a community of scholars with
whom it has been a joy to make new discoveries in the field. These include Dominic
Goodall and Eva Wilden of the EFEO, Yuko Yokochi, Vasudha Narayanan, Richard H.
Davis, Tracy Coleman, Richard Mann, Akira Shimada, Ute Hüsken, Caleb Simmons,
Nicolas Cane, Tiziana Leucci, John Guy, Nicolas Dejenne, Emma Stein, Maishy Charan,
Shubha Shanthamurthy, Uthaya Veluppillai, Elizabeth Cecil, Divya Kumar, Suganya
Anandakichenin, and, yet again, my dear Leslie C. Orr. Prerana Patel, the EFEO assistant
director who can manage anything without even looking anxious, handled my travel to
and from all three of the workshops without one hitch. Emma Stein and Richard Mann
came with me to walk through, observe, and discuss the Kailasanatha yet again in 2015.
In Paris, Anne-Julie Etter, a student of Manu’s at the Centre d’études de l’Inde et de l’Asie
du Sud, shared with me her archival research on early modern Kanchi.
In the United States and England, too, colleagues have made this project better with
their insights and suggestions. I give my profound thanks to Janice Leoshko and Rich-
ard H. Davis for being intellectual guiding lights throughout my career and also for
their brilliant and close readings of this manuscript for the University of Washington
Press. Both did me the honor of pressing me on weak points and suggesting substan-
tial revisions, all of which made this a much better contribution to our field. Adam
Hardy demonstrated extraordinary patience in explaining to me repeatedly his under-
standing of what temples and technical manuals about temple building do and do not
have to do with each other. Architect Philip Harding shared with me the photos he
took of the Kailasanatha as it was being renovated in 2001–2. Sanskritist Christopher
Wallis volunteered references to confirm that Rajasimha had indeed taken Tantric ini-
tiation. Gudrun Bühnemann of the University of Wisconsin–Madison directed me to

xii

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 P r e fac e a n d Ac k n ow l e d g m e n t s

writing on the concept of a female lingam. Cristelle Baskins of Tufts University got me
thinking in new ways about the narrative implications in figural postures in art, sharing
with me David Summers’s work on Italian Renaissance painting. Catherine Becker, Pia
Brancaccio, Crispin Branfoot, and Shaman Hatley, superb scholars and kind friends
all, kept me inspired by their findings and in line when my models got wonky. Crispin
has been a constant and helpful nudge, goading me to send this book out into the
world. Dr. Malini Roy, head of visual arts in the Asia and Africa collections, made my
archival work at the British Library a breeze.
The new story I could tell about the Kailasanatha as a coordinated system of meaning
then began to fall into place. Regan Huff, a senior acquisitions editor at the University of
Washington Press, did me the enormous favor of looking over many pieces I had drafted
and helping to “wrestle the alligator” (in her words) into a linear sequence. Much of that
unfolded at Colgate University, where stimulating colleagues and brilliant staff have nur-
tured my scholarship for many years. The Colgate University Research Council provided
multiple grants for me to travel, Interim Dean/Provost Constance Harsh gave me the
Batza Family Chair in Art and Art History with its attendant research funds, and Dean/
Provost Tracey Hucks and Associate Dean Kenneth Belanger granted me a subvention
to help with the costs of publishing this book. My posse of South Asianist colleagues
(Navine Murshid, Nimanthi Rajasingham, Nagesh Rao, Ani Maitra, Aftab Jassal, and
Joel Bordeaux) read drafts and spent hours helping me clarify my ideas. Aftab in partic-
ular pressed me on the categories I was assigning to spatial patterns in the monument,
reminding me of the relevance of Tamil notions of akam (interiority, love) and puram
(exteriority, war). Georgia Frank, Elizabeth Marlowe, Eliza Kent, and Anthony Aveni
provided supportive and wonderfully challenging feedback at several points.
Students and staff, too, have been indispensable to this project. The Arts and Human-
ities Division of Colgate University underwrote summer apprenticeships for four stu-
dents to work with me on this book. Hannah Bjornson spent the summer of 2013 in
the library and online, digging up conservation records, mining the British Library’s
online archives, finding sources on the chemistry of architectural preservation, pursuing
newspaper notices, and generally tearing up the world archive to learn what changes
the Kailasanatha had undergone in the centuries after its initial construction. Her work
filled in key gaps in my knowledge and opened up problems I had not known to con-
sider. The following summer, Shan Wu bravely tackled with elegance and success the
challenge of translating my visual data and spatial patterns into diagrams that integrated
the sculptures and words on Rajasimha’s vimana. Daniel Berry in 2015 expanded on her
work in ingenious ways, capturing on single pages the patterns that wove among dozens
of sculptures spread across multiple sections of the monument. In 2016, Angel Trazo
continued Daniel’s work and also found brilliant strategies for diagraming patterns that
implied movement or collapsed together architectural and sculptural metaphors. Jenny
Steele performed quick and careful detective work for me back on campus as I edited
the manuscript during a leave in England.

xiii

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 P r e fac e a n d Ac k n ow l e d g m e n t s

Mark R. Williams, an accomplished graphic artist as well as the Art and Art His-
tory Department’s art studio technician, took all of their work, asked more questions,
worked closely with the University of Washington Press, and transformed my students’
courageous innovations into the professional and gorgeous diagrams that now grace this
volume. The visual resources curator for the university, Lesley Chapman, has guided
me with patience and hilarious wit through every twist in the terrifying maze of image
collection and management. Assisting me with particularly gnarly scanning tasks has
been the wise and wildly overqualified Michelle VanAuken, who now serves as the
administrative assistant for Colgate’s University Museums. At Colgate’s Case-Geyer
Library, interlibrary loan detectives extraordinaire Ann Ackerson and Lisa King dug
up resources for me that any research library would have struggled to find. Erika Muel-
ler, Bonnie Kupris, and Rob Capuano have made that library a productive and tranquil
retreat where I could sink deep into my work, welcoming me day after day into those
spaces they protect with quiet vigilance. Aleta Mayne, Mark Walden, and Daniel DeVries
in communications took an early interest in this project and translated my ideas into
accessible and exciting prose for the readership of the Colgate Magazine.
Working with the University of Washington Press has been a sheer joy, from my
first conversation with Regan Huff; through months of brainstorming with Caitlin
Tyler-Richards and Hanni Jalil—Mellon fellows, assistant editors, and patient saints—
how to translate diagrams that captured my intimate familiarity with the monument
into diagrams that could express that thinking clearly to others; to these final phases
of production. The press’s executive editor, Lorri Hagman, who has shepherded my
manuscript since 2016, has been the kindest and most supportive editor anyone could
hope to have, as well as a wonderfully sharp reader. Beth Fuget, in grants and digital
projects, did her magic and secured a Millard Meiss publication grant for the project,
for which I am also deeply grateful to the College Art Association. The brilliant Jane
Lichty copyedited the manuscript with the kindest razor, building sensible bridges for
readers to follow my thinking, unearthing crucial errors that few specialists in the field
might recognize, and in so many ways rescuing it and me from many embarrassments.
Any errors that remain in this book are surely my own. All translations in the book are
also mine, unless credited otherwise.
For sharing with me photographs that are fundamental data for the arguments of this
book, I am deeply beholden to Manu Francis. Nearly half of the photos in this book,
and nearly all of the ones that attain professional standards, are his. With a free hand
and unquestioning trust, he shared them with me by the hundreds as soon as I began
working with his team. To Vandana Sinha and Sushil Sharma at the Center for Art and
Archaeology, AIIS, I am also grateful for so quickly and generously sharing with me an
archival image that broke open my understanding of a damaged relief. I thank Chris Raw-
lings, the licensing assistant, and especially Jonathon Vines, image and brand licensing
manager at the British Library for his exceptional patience in finding a channel through
which to share with me the archival photo that is figure 4.1 in this book.

xiv

Kaimal final pages.indd 14 21-01-05 21:57

Other documents randomly have
different content
cumbrous, especially in regard to her coif, or bonnet, which concealed a
large portion of her face and head. She was very kind to me, and when I
cried that first night, being so weary and thinking of my father and the boys
so far away, and Sir Hubert gone, too, for a while, she comforted me with
loving words, saying I was to take courage, for the future might have great
things in store for me, and the past was past and I should never again have
that first bitterness of homesickness to live through, as every day of my new
life would make it easier for me.

And when I fell asleep that first night at Sion House, I dreamt about Sir
Hubert coming for me in a boat, which I saw gliding, gliding through the
water, ever nearer, ever nearer, yet, alas! never coming quite up to the bank
on which I stood, waiting with outstretched arms. They say it is unlucky to
dream about water, and I felt rather low spirited when I awoke, but not so
much because of that as because, with my first waking thoughts, my
homesickness and loneliness returned, and I turned my face to the wall and
cried a little, wishing I was a child again at home with Hal and Jack and my
father and good old Master Montgomery at the parsonage near by, to say
nothing of the serving men and women.

But I never felt like that again in her home after I had once seen Lady
Jane Grey, as she was still often called, although her married name was
Dudley.

I remember so well the first time I saw her. She was sitting in her
favourite corner of the great drawing-room, with a book in her hand,
waiting for her husband, Lord Dudley, to go out with her, and was richly
dressed in black velvet and white satin. Her skirt, which was very full, was
bordered down the sides with ermine, as was also her bodice, which was
pointed at the waist and square in the neck, with a chemisette of satin
quilted with pearls. She wore a close honeycomb ruff at the throat and a
velvet coif, pointed and bordered with pearls, and long hanging velvet
sleeves over tighter ones of white satin, with ruffles of cloth of gold, whilst
the richest jewels added lustre to her handsome clothing. But she was not
thinking of her dress, for her sweet and lovely countenance was poring over
her book so closely that she did not hear me approach or heed the murmur
of Mistress Ellen's voice saying to me aside, 'She is reading Plato. 'Tis a
work for which she has an immense liking.'

I dared not speak, but looked wistfully at the beautiful girl whose
thoughts were so riveted on the book she read that she had none to spare for
a poor young stranger, and then I sighed deeply, and that aroused her, who
had always a tender ear for the suffering of others.

She raised her eyes slowly from the open page, and, as they rested on my
face, gave a little cry of glad surprise.

'My new gentlewoman!' she exclaimed. 'And one so young and pretty!
Oh, this is a pleasure!' and she held out both her hands and kissed me,
saying, 'We shall be great friends, you and I.'

I thought so too, for my heart went out to her then as it never did before
or since to one of my own sex, and I felt that she was worthy of my love,
and that all I could do for her would be too little to express the loving
service I should like to offer.

Mistress Ellen went away and left us together—in that showing her usual
discretion—and my dear lady asked me many questions relating to my
home and kindred, the long journey I had come upon and the dangers of the
way. I answered readily, experiencing a rare pleasure in finding her
responsive nature understand, appreciate and sympathize with everything I
said.

'Oh,' said she, when at length I had told her all that I could think of just
then—except indeed what I had heard at Woodleigh Castle relating to her
future, which I dared not mention—not omitting the valiant deeds that Sir
Hubert Blair had done for my assistance, 'how I have enjoyed hearing you
talk! What you have told me is so different from anything that has ever
happened to me. It is all so interesting and so like a poem, only more real
and life-like than any poetry, and it is true, that is the best of all.'

'Yes; it is true,' I said. 'And I could not talk like that to any one else.
There is something in you, madam, which draws out my innermost
thoughts.'
 Lady Jane smiled, and told me that in that case I should have to be very
careful always to have good thoughts, adding that I ought to read much in
the Bible and in such books as the one she was perusing, and also that I
ought to pray for the Holy Spirit to guide me unto all truth.

I was going to inquire about the book she was reading when we were
interrupted by the entrance of a gentleman richly dressed in crimson velvet
embroidered with gold, and silk stockings.

'Dudley, this is my new gentlewoman,' said Lady Jane, turning to him,

and then formally introducing her husband to me.

The young man, who was handsome, manly, and withal most courteous
in manner and bearing, spoke a kindly word or two to me, and then
requested Lady Jane to allow him to take her to her litter which was waiting
at the door.

'I shall see more of you to-morrow, Margery—I may call you Margery,
may I not?' she said prettily, and, upon my assenting with pleasure, gave so
sweet a smile that it seemed to linger after she had gone, filling me with a
strange new happiness. I was fascinated with my dear lady, and stood in the
empty room looking at the place where she had been and the chair where
she sat, as if I were in a dream.

My eyes fell upon the book which she had left upon the table and I
picked it up. But, alas! the words contained in it were written in a strange
language and I could not read a line. But I raised the little volume to my lips
and kissed the place where her dear eyes had rested.

CHAPTER IX

Plato
 I was wonderfully fascinated by the whole personality of Lady Jane, her
youth, beauty, sweetness of disposition, charming manner, and last but not
least, her richly cultured mind and the true religion revealed not so much by
what she said as by her every act and deed. Indeed this new love of mine
bid fair to outrival even my recently sprung-up affection for Sir Hubert
Blair, and I did not go down to the river bank to look out for him for several
weeks owing to the great content with which the presence of my mistress
filled me and the enjoyment I felt in her society. It was not so much that I
was with her every minute, for her husband and other relations often
engaged hours of her time, but it was my duty and my pleasure to linger
near, that if by any chance she wished for me, or the others left her alone, I
might be close as hand and ready to bear her company.[1]

[1] We have all of us seen, occasionally, the fascination with which an

older, or more gifted young woman has over a girl of similar inclinations
but less ability, and so can understand this new and ardent attachment of
Margaret Brown's.—ED.

I remember so well and vividly what she said to me one day about her
beloved Plato. We were in the garden, seated in an arbour shaded by pink
and white hawthorn trees in full flower, the scent of which came to us
pleasantly as we talked, whilst our eyes rested on the well-kept lawns and
the trees in the park with the mighty river beyond flowing silently on its
way.

'Is your book so very interesting?' I asked, for her eyes fell often upon it
while we conversed as if it were enticing her back to its pages.

'Yes, dear,' she answered, 'it is most interesting, for it deals with the great
truths of life. You will have to learn to read it for yourself, Margery, and
you will like it, too.'

'But it is written in Greek,' said I with a sigh, 'and that would take such a
lot of learning.'
 'I would help you,' said Lady Jane kindly, 'and you would soon learn.'

But I shook my head.

'Why should I be at so much trouble,' said I, 'when you can tell me all
about it—what it says, you know?'

'What we acquire without trouble does not do us much good,' was the
gentle answer. 'However, you must know Plato was the founder of a great
school of Greek philosophy. He was a disciple of Socrates. You have heard
of him?'

'A little,' said I. 'Master Montgomery, our good curate, told me he was a
man who taught truths which the people were not educated enough to
receive; therefore they killed him.'

'Yes; they killed him, much as others killed Christ our Lord, because
they could not receive His teaching. Killing the body is the extreme penalty
of the law,' and Lady Jane shuddered. ''Tis a cruel thing,' she said, 'for men
to crush out and destroy the life they cannot give, and 'tis a savage idea to
murder the body for what they imagine is a crime of the mind.'

I thought of her words long afterwards, when her own fate gave to them
a mournful significance. At the time I could not bear to see sadness in her
face, and therefore, to change the subject, asked—

'When did Plato live?'

'In the fifth century before Christ. He was a great teacher——' she
paused. How could she explain it all to one so ignorant as me?

'Tell me,' I said earnestly, 'tell me one thing that he said?'

A wistful expression came into the sweet face on which I looked, and,
turning over the leaves of her book, she seemed to seek for something
suitable for me. It was not, however, until she reached the last page of her
volume that she opened her dear lips to translate, in quaint sweet accents,
these words of Plato's—
 '"If the company will be persuaded by me, accounting the soul immortal
—we shall always hold to the road that leads above, and justice with
prudence we shall by all means pursue, in order that we may be friends
both to ourselves and to the gods, both whilst we remain here and when we
receive its rewards, so we shall, like victors, both here and there enjoy a
happy life." It is like our dear Lord's teaching,' she said, 'though it was
uttered more than four centuries before He came to live as a man on earth.'

'They are good words,' said I, 'and I wish that I could remember them
always.'

'I will write them out for you,' said Lady Jane. 'And you must learn them
by heart, and never, never forget them.'

And she was as good as her word, and wrote them out for me in her
beautiful handwriting, and I learned them every one, so that sometimes
when we were sitting together in the gloaming, before the candles were
lighted, I could say them to her without a book; and she would talk about
them, telling me, too, what her dear old tutors, Master Ascham, and Master
Aylmer, afterwards Bishop of London, used to teach about prudence, justice
and kindred virtues.

One day the latter gentleman came to see her, to her intense delight, and
I was much struck with his fine scholarly appearance and gentle manners.
Lady Jane hung upon his lips, and treasured up everything he said, to
discuss it with me afterwards and think over it many and many a time.

These tutors had indeed a great claim upon my dear lady's devotion, for
they had instructed her so well that she spoke and wrote with correctness
Greek, Latin, Italian and French, and also understood not a little of Hebrew,
Chaldee and Arabic; moreover, she was, with all that learning, so modest
and humble that you might have thought her a very simple ignorant maid at
first sight, though, speaking for myself, I have ever noticed that large-
minded people who are cultured and educated finely are more chary in
expressing their feelings and meeker in their bearing than the empty-headed
braggarts who think by much speaking and loud boasting they will carry all
before them. ''Tis an empty whistle that makes most sound,' my father used
to say, and he knew much of life, though he had buried himself latterly in
the country.

It was very quiet at Sion House for a month or six weeks after I went
there, and the life that we led would have seemed, though stately, tame and
monotonous after the wild freedom of my home and the lively
companionship of my young brothers if it had not been for the great beauty
and fascination with which Lady Jane endowed it. Following her about,
listening to her footsteps when she was absent, looking at her when she was
present, wondering what I could do to please her, studying to comfort her
when she was cast down—for she had troubles, even then, owing to the
severity of her parents who, though she was married and apart from them
(they lived at Sheen House at the other side of the Thames), by no means
showed her kindness and consideration—so filled my time and thoughts
that every moment of the days was full of interest and sped by with
lightning speed.

Then, on the ninth of July, all at once, as a storm breaks out after a calm,
or a tumult after a time of torpor and almost unnatural quiescence, the
peaceful quietude of Sion House was broken up by the arrival of an
illustrious company with their followers.

Mistress Ellen brought the news to Lady Jane, with whom I was sitting
in the drawing-room, that the Duke of Northumberland, the Marquis of
Northampton and the Earls of Arundel, Huntingdon, and Pembroke had
arrived and were desirous of seeing her.

'What does this portend?' exclaimed my dear lady in the utmost dismay,
and methought she had some idea of the truth, for she turned as pale as a
corpse and wrung her hands. The Duchess of Northumberland, her mother-
in-law, had dropped some hints in her letters of wonderful good fortune in
store for her, and Lady Jane had spoken of it to me. But I had never
ventured to acquaint her with my knowledge of the schemes of those who
meant to place her on the throne when anything happened to our king. I felt
instinctively that anything of that sort would distress her infinitely, and
there was, besides, a dignity about her and a gracious reserve which caused
me always to allow her to take the lead in our conversations. My heart
smote me now, however, that I had not striven in some sort to prepare her
mind for what was manifestly in store for her, and I wished that I had kept
my promise to Lady Caroline Wood and had spoken of all that I had seen
and heard at Woodleigh Castle in relation to Protestantism and Papacy, the
kingdom and herself. It was too late now to say anything; I could only
whisper to her to take courage and hope for the best.

'But, Margery,' she said, 'I fear this visit of noble dukes and lords
betokens no good. I would that I were a simple country maid,' she added
wistfully, 'that I might be left alone with my books and studies. However,'
she pulled herself together, 'whatever happens, "I must hold to the road that
leads above, and justice with prudence always pursue,"' and, with those
words of her beloved Plato on her lips, she went forward to meet her fate
and the visitors who were its harbingers.

CHAPTER X

Queen of England

I and Mistress Ellen stood in the background of the great hall as Lady
Jane advanced with quiet dignity to meet her guests. Her fair young face
was troubled, but she smiled pleasantly as she looked up at her father-in-
law and his companions.

'To what,' she inquired, 'to what do I owe the honour of this visit?'

'We are a deputation,' said the Duke of Northumberland, whom I saw for
the first time—he was a handsome man, with fine strongly marked features
and a gallant, soldierly bearing, and he was richly apparelled in black
velvet.

'A deputation to whom?' queried my mistress as he paused.

 'To you, madam,' was the instant response. 'You see here,' waving his
hand towards those that accompanied him, 'the Marquis of Northampton
and the Earls of Arundel, Huntingdon and Pembroke. We have come to
announce to you the sorrowful tidings of the death of the king, your cousin.'

'Dead! Is he dead?' exclaimed Lady Jane sadly.

'Yes, madam, he is dead.'

'Ah! poor Edward! Kings as well as paupers have to die.' The tears came
into her eyes.

'Yes, madam,' said the Marquis of Northampton. 'Death comes to all

alike. High and low, rich and poor, good and bad, all have to die.'

'Death is the last enemy,' observed the Earl of Arundel sententiously.

'I like better to think of him as a friend,' said Lady Jane, 'who comes
when all others fail us, like a nurse saying, "My child, lie down and sleep.
You are tired now, therefore all goes wrong. You will awake by and bye to a
new life where everything is well."'

Her voice became lower and lower as she spoke, and a beautiful look
shone in her face, as of one whose faith is great. One or two of the
gentlemen seemed impressed, but the Duke of Northumberland frowned
impatiently.

'We have no time to stand sentimentalizing here,' he said. Then,

addressing Lady Jane more particularly, he continued, 'Madam, we have
much to say to you, and there are great matters to consider. The king is
dead, but there is the kingdom.'

'True. Our dear England.'

'For which the late king did so much,' said the Earl of Pembroke.
(Mistress Ellen whispered their names or I should never have known one
from the other.) 'Strengthening the Protestant cause and abolishing Roman
Catholicism from the land.'
 'Yes, indeed,' assented Lady Jane.

'Before he died,' said the Duke of Northumberland, 'the king was in great
concern that the Church should continue in the form and spirit in which it
now is.' He paused, looking meaningly at my mistress.

If I had only prepared her mind, as I had been told to do, she would have
understood, but, as it was, she looked startled and bewildered.

'Surely,' she said at length, seeing that they waited for her to speak,
'surely nothing can disturb our Church, which in its present form is so
deeply rooted in the affections of all Protestant people?'

'Of all Protestants, yes,' said the Duke of Northumberland. 'But what of
the Papists? You know, madam, there are many Papists in England who are
waiting, longing, and watching for an opportunity to restore their creed and
ritual to the whole land.'

'But they can never do that,' said Lady Jane. 'England would not tolerate
it now.'

'Our late king,' continued the Duke of Northumberland solemnly, 'was

well aware that if his sister, Princess Mary, who is a bigoted Papist, were to
succeed to the throne, all his efforts for the established Church would be
annulled and overthrown. Feeling this deeply, and knowing well what
misery and woe would come upon his people if this happened, he took
steps, whilst yet he was alive, to put aside his sisters, who had indeed been
declared illegitimate by Act of Parliament, and secure the succession to one
whose Protestantism is beyond dispute.' He paused.

Lady Jane started and looked at him with widely opened eyes. No word,
however, escaped from her pale lips.

'Madam,' said the duke, 'actuated by that reason and also by the wish to
preserve the kingdom from the disputes the illegitimacy of his sisters might
occasion, our late monarch made his will, passing them over and
bequeathing the crown to his true legitimate heir who, he was well aware,
held the true faith. He, therefore, in his will ordered the Council to proclaim
you queen.'

Every vestige of colour left my dear lady's face, and she looked round
affrightedly as if for some way of escape, making a gesture of dissent,
though no word fell from her lips.

She was only sixteen years of age, and anything more opposed to her
disposition and love of retirement and study could not well have been
proposed.

'And in the case of your having no children your sisters Catherine and
Mary are to succeed you,' went on the Duke of Northumberland.

Still Lady Jane said not a word, but the look in her eyes made me press
forward nearer to her, saying in my heart, 'If I had only prepared you for
this!'

The attendant nobles fell upon their knees, declaring that Lady Jane
Grey was queen, and vowing that they would defend her rights to the death,
if necessary.

It was such a sight as you have never seen, all those high-born lords
upon their knees before a slim young girl, who only a year before was a
child, and she staring at them with wide eyes out of a fear-stricken, pallid
countenance.

The tension only lasted a few moments and then, with a piercing cry, my
dear Lady Jane fell to the floor.

I was on my knees by her side before any one else, and was trying to
raise her head when there was another commotion in the hall caused by the
entrance of her mother, the Duchess of Suffolk, who had come over from
Sheen House, on the other side of the river, accompanied by the Duchess of
Northumberland and the Marchioness of Northampton. These great ladies
swept down upon us, and would have ordered me away, there and then, if
looks could have done it, but I would not leave my mistress to their tender
mercies, and continued to support her head on my lap, so that I could not be
removed without disturbing her.

In a little while she came round out of her swoon, and then, seeing her
mother and mother-in-law, began to entreat them and the Duke of
Northumberland very pitifully not to lay the burden of royalty upon her,
declaring herself to be a most unfit person to reign in Edward's place, and
saying over and over again that, in spite of all that had been said, the
Princess Mary and, after her, the Princess Elizabeth were the rightful heirs
to the throne.

It was in vain that the duke and duchess urged considerations of the
harm which would befall Protestantism if Princess Mary reigned, and of the
dissensions which might rend the land if the legitimacy of the queen were
doubtful; the Lady Jane only said—

'Other wrongs do not make a wrong right. I am sure Princess Mary is the
rightful queen, and I should be a usurper if I were to take her place.'

Again and again she said the same thing, praying and beseeching them
not to force her to become queen.

'Think you,' she said, 'that the great God who made heaven and earth
cannot take care of Protestantism and this beloved England of ours without
the help of a young girl like me? Do you think that by doing what my
conscience tells me is wrong I can advance the cause of the High and Holy
One?'

But it was all in vain. They would not listen to her. Their minds were set
upon making her queen, more for their own advancement than for the good
of their country, and in their eyes she was a child who was to be made to do
the thing that they pleased.

When she became ill with terror and distress and crying we took her to
her bedroom, and when she implored that they would leave her there alone
with me the Duchess of Suffolk said, 'No, I shall stay with you myself.'

'And so shall I,' said the Duchess of Northumberland.

 Then they turned me out of the room, together with Mistress Ellen, that
they might the better take poor Lady Jane in hand, and we heard a pitiful
cry from her as the bolt of the door was slid, leaving us on the outside and
her within alone with them.

CHAPTER XI

By the River

My heart was wrung with seeing my dear lady's affliction, and when the
Duchess of Northumberland and the Duchess of Suffolk, her mother,
peremptorily turned me out of the bedroom, scarcely knowing what I did I
ran downstairs and out of the big house by a side door.

A great longing to escape from those wealthy hard-hearted magnates,

who for ambition were willing and even wishful to sacrifice the happiness
of the sweetest being on earth, made me flee from their presence and, what
was almost worse, the presence of their proud and haughty retainers. In the
garden I thought I should have solitude, but, alas, it was already thronged
with lords and ladies, talking together in groups, and meaner folk gossiping
as they went hither and thither at their masters' bidding. Seeing that I must
go further away if I would be alone, I hurried across the park to presently
find myself amongst the willows by the river side.

There was a slight breeze, and it stirred the leaves and even branches,
making a soft sound which seemed to whisper to me some message which
yet I could not catch.

Leaning back against a tree, I gazed wearily across the water gleaming
so brightly in the sunshine, feeling worn by the strong emotions I had been
through and scarcely knowing what I was looking for; I knew, however,
when it came, for even as I stood there, silently up the river glided a boat in
which a young man was seated.

Sir Hubert Blair it was, and he gave a start of glad surprise upon seeing
me there, and then waved his hat in the air, and called out a hearty greeting
and an earnest entreaty that I would stay where I was until he landed. For
my first instinct was to flee like a startled fawn, and that although I had the
strongest wish to be with him once more and tell him all my trouble.

With the utmost possible speed my lover sculled across to the little
landing-stage and made fast the painter of his boat. Then he climbed the
bank until he stood by my side and was holding my hands and looking
down into my face with the tenderest love.

'What is it, sweetheart?' he asked, reading trouble in my eyes, and then,

as I could not immediately answer him, he went on to tell me that he had
been past Sion House several times in his boat, but without seeing me. 'I
looked for you, dear. But you were not here,' he said. 'However, all is well
that ends well, and now that I have you at last I shall not spoil the time by
regretting what is past.'

He paused.

And still I could not talk, having enough to do to keep from breaking
down and weeping. He therefore continued, 'I have been to your home in
Sussex, and have asked your father's permission to become betrothed to
you, and, after he had heard all I had to say, he willingly gave it and said
that he would write to you. Has he written?'

'No,' said I, shaking my head. 'But he is ever slow to write about

anything. He promises, and then he puts off doing it, for writing is ever
irksome to him.'

'Ah, well, it does not matter, does it, sweet one? We understand each
other, and he has consented to our betrothal, and that is quite enough,' and
he pressed my hand.
 'Enough truly,' said I. 'But oh!——' and I stopped short, sighing heavily,
for indeed it did seem most heartless of us to be settling up our own
happiness, as it were, when my poor mistress was in such dire distress.

And again Sir Hubert, reading my trouble in my face, besought me to tell

him all that was distressing me.

I told him everything, not omitting my own negligence in failing to

prepare my mistress for what was in store for her upon the king's death.

He knew of the latter sad event, and of course regarded the matter of
Lady Jane's unhappiness quite differently from what I did.

'They are right,' he said, 'who want to make Lady Jane queen instead of
the Papist Mary. Think of the horrors that would befall this land if Roman
Catholicism prevailed. Have you forgotten all I told you about the awful
Inquisition? Consider what it would be if established here in England. No
one would be safe. You might be talking to me one half hour and the next
that which is worse than the grave might have swallowed me up for ever, or
perchance you. No one is secure where secret deaths and tortures pervade
the land. Oh, the misery, the weeping of loving relations for their friends
who have vanished from them in that way! You have no idea what it is like.
And even,' he continued earnestly, 'even if Lady Jane does not want to be
queen, it is expedient that one should suffer a little rather than many a great
deal. And she ought to be glad,' he concluded zealously, 'she ought to be
glad that she is chosen to do a great work for England. As a true-hearted
woman, she will be ready and willing to sacrifice herself for others.'

'Yes,' said I, 'she will, I know, if she can be brought to look at it in that
way. No discomfort to herself will in her mind militate against doing the
thing that is right.'

'Therefore she will do it.'

'But the question is, would it be right for her to accept the crown?' said I.
'She has a great love of justice, and she thinks the Princess Mary ought to
be queen.'
 Sir Hubert, upon that, gave utterance to the usual arguments about the
alleged illegitimacy of the royal princesses, and said, moreover, that to his
mind the last will and testament of King Edward, making Lady Jane Grey
heir to the crown, settled the matter. Yet I was not convinced that my
mistress would accept such reasoning, and, although I hesitated to say so,
my lover read that also in my face, and looked disappointed.

'They say a woman never can be convinced against her will,' he said at
length, adding, 'Would that I could talk to her on the subject!'

'That would be best,' said I, 'for you have such a wise way of putting it,
Sir Hubert.'

'Oh, you must not call me Sir Hubert,' said he, and then a little fond,
affectionate lovers' talk ensued, which I am not so foolish as to write down
here. For, though it is the loveliest language to those concerned, it spelleth
out ridiculously to the critical ears of others, who wholly lack the key to
unravel its correct meaning.

And then, all too soon, we had to part, Sir Hubert to mingle with some
lords and knights on the great lawn, there to await the Duke of
Northumberland's commands—for to the latter all men's eyes were directed
of those who hoped for a Protestant succession—whilst I had to hasten back
to the neighbourhood of my mistress' bedroom, that I might take advantage
of the first chance of entering it.

CHAPTER XII

In the Tower

The Duchesses of Northumberland and Suffolk did their best to make

my mistress give in to their will and consent to be made queen, but her
pure, brave heart could not be forced by severity and harsh treatment; those
ambitious, callous-hearted women might kill her body—it was a frail one—
but they could not conquer her mind or bend her spirit; it required another
force, the holier one of love, with its softening, penetrating influence to do
that; and love, her love for her husband, Lord Dudley, and obedience to his
commands it was which finally succeeded where all else had failed.

'I could not resist my dear lord, Margery,' she confessed to me, when
early the next morning I at last obtained access to her bedroom. 'God
forgive me if I am doing wrong,' she said. 'But Paul the Apostle taught us
that the head of the woman is the man, and that a wife's duty is to obey
——' She paused, looking at me piteously, and I saw that in her own mind,
in spite of her words, she was not yet convinced.

'And it is for the good of the nation, madam,' said I.

'It is for no good I fear, Margery,' said my mistress, sighing deeply. 'And
it is neither prudent nor just.'

I knew that she was thinking of Plato's words, 'Justice with prudence we
shall by all means pursue,' and my heart ached for her.

'How can I wear the crown which lawfully belongs to another?' she
moaned. 'But it will not be for long. Princess Mary is away from London
just now, having fled for her life, until she can rally her party. But she will
return, I know, and the justness of the nation will place her at its head—for
it is idle talk about the slur on her birth. Her mother was lawfully married to
King Henry, and it was only for his own vicious ends that he put her away.
However, Margery, we must leave all this, for it is no use dwelling upon it
now that I have promised Lord Dudley to obey his wishes.'

She sobbed again and again, as we dressed her regally for the grand
doings of that day, and every sob went to my heart and made me echo it,
until she ceased weeping to wipe my tears away, and Mistress Ellen said I
was nothing but a hindrance, and began to rate me sorely.

When Lady Jane was dressed for the ceremony—I had almost said
sacrifice—she looked wondrously young and lovely. Her figure was tall,
slight and well proportioned, giving promise of great beauty. Her dress—
which the duchesses had brought with them for the occasion—was a gown
of cloth of gold trimmed with pearls, a stomacher blazing with diamonds
and other precious stones, and a surcoat of purple velvet bordered with
ermine. Her train was of purple velvet and was also edged with ermine and
richly embroidered in gold. Her slender and swan-like throat was encircled
with a carcanet of gold set with rubies and pearls, from which hung one
almost priceless pearl. Her headdress was a coif of velvet adorned with
rows of pearls and bound together by a circlet of gold.

I had never seen such grand attire in my life and was feeling quite
overwhelmed by it, when Mistress Ellen said in my ear, 'I like not so many
pearls. It is said they mean tears, and truly our mistress was tearful enough
in the putting of them on. God grant that she may not also take them off in
tears!'

Lady Jane lingered a little in her room when we had dressed her, as if
reluctant to quit it.

'I have been often very happy here,' she said wistfully, 'and I know not
what the future may have in store for me.'

I wished then, and I wished often afterwards, that I could have spoken
out and told her all that Sir Hubert would have said to her if he had had the
chance, but could only think of some of his words and of those Lady
Caroline Wood had made me promise to say, and therefore faltered—

'Dear madam, do not think of yourself now, but only of the people of
England. You know it is for their good that you are going to sacrifice your
own wishes.'

'For their good!' she exclaimed. 'Oh, Margery, if I could think it was for
their real good I could go cheerfully to death if needs be!'

'Who is talking of going to death on this joyful occasion?' exclaimed

Lord Guildford Dudley, entering the room after a hasty knock at the door.
'For shame, Jane, to croak in that way at the very moment of your elevation
to the first place in the land.'
 Lady Jane flushed a little at the reproof, but instantly smiled with her
usual sweetness, then a look of admiration came into her eyes as they fell
upon her husband.

He was magnificently attired in white cloth of gold, and wore a collar of

diamonds, and his handsome face and manly figure, with the indefinable air
of chivalry which characterized both him and his father, made him appear to
us to look truly regal.

His eyes swept appraisingly over his young wife's beauty and her
gorgeous dress, then, with a little bow and a whispered compliment, he
offered his arm and took her downstairs into the great hall thronged with
highborn gentlemen and ladies.

Mistress Ellen and I were perforce separated from Lady Jane, as our
place was taken by great Court ladies, but when the cavalcade, of which
Lord Guildford Dudley and Lady Jane were the centre started for London,
we formed part of the vast following of servants and dependants.

So they took my precious mistress in great state, first of all to

Northumberland House in the Strand, the residence of her father-in-law,
where she received the homage of many of her chief subjects, and
afterwards, with her husband and the Duke and Duchess of
Northumberland, the Duke and Duchess of Suffolk, and other magnates,
partook of a great State banquet, the grandeur of which seemed to me truly
amazing and like unto a fairy tale.

In the midst of it all, having been overlooked and being bewildered and
afraid, Mistress Ellen and I would perchance actually have suffered hunger
if Sir Hubert Blair and Sir William Wood, who were among the Duke of
Northumberland's following, had not found us out and got a place for us
among some fine Court ladies, with whom, to my joy, was Lady Caroline
Wood.

'This is a great day,' she said, 'Mistress Margaret, for England and for
her,' and she looked across the table to Lady Jane's pale though beautiful
face.
 'Yes, indeed,' I rejoined, beginning my repast with all haste, for many of
those present were finishing, and the claims of hunger made themselves
felt.

'It was one to which we were looking forward when you visited our
castle,' she went on, 'and one for which that visit prepared you.'

I coloured a little as I ate my soup, fearing lest she should inquire if I had
done my best to prepare Lady Jane's mind for the part she was to play, but a
true lady is careful not to embarrass another, so my companion went on
chatting pleasantly while I ate and drank, and it was only when I ended that
she inquired if my father's consent had been obtained to my betrothal to Sir
Hubert Blair. I answered in the affirmative, and thereupon she fell to
praising Sir Hubert with such zest that I loved her dearly and thought, after
my dear mistress, she was the nicest kindest woman I had ever seen.

And then, the banquet being over, and the Duke of Northumberland
having collected his retinue, the whole cavalcade, of which Queen Jane, as
they now called her, and her consort were the centre, proceeded in a grand
procession to the Tower of London, where it is customary for the monarchs
of England to begin their reign.

I cannot describe all the details of what made the most gorgeous state-
procession that I ever saw, as I only caught glimpses of part of it from
where I had my place beside Lady Caroline Wood and Mistress Ellen. But I
know a troop of halberdiers, wearing velvet caps and fine doublets
embroidered with the royal blazon woven in gold, and bearing staves
covered with crimson velvet and adorned with golden tassels, in two long
files lined the way from Northumberland House to the Thames, where the
royal barge awaited us, for we were to go to the Tower by water. Cloth was
laid down between these files of halberdiers for the procession to walk over,
trumpets blew a great flourish, the sound of which met and mingled with
the music of musicians on the water. The City Guard, the Garter King-at-
Arms, the Knights of the Bath, in their accoutrements, the Judges in their
scarlet and coifs, the Bishop of Ely who, being Lord Chancellor, wore a
robe of scarlet, the Lord Mayor in crimson velvet, with many more
illustrious, gaily-dressed persons, were followed by two venerable
ecclesiastics, Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, and Ridley, Bishop of
London, in their surplices and snowy lawn sleeves, and then the Dukes of
Northumberland and Suffolk, richly dressed, and the royal party.

It was a brilliant scene, although the sun was overclouded and the day
gloomy with the signs of an approaching storm, and the air was full of
music and trumpeting and the sounds of movement and revelry. One thing,
however, smote us to the heart, and that was that although the streets were
packed with onlookers no joyful cries of greeting to Queen Jane, no caps
thrown in the air, no waving of hands and handkerchiefs betokened the joy
of a people catching sight of its sovereign for the first time. True, murmurs
of sympathy and admiration were to be heard when the youth and beauty of
the royal lady were perceived. But it was only too evident that she was not
the queen the nation desired.

'The silence of the people is ominous,' whispered Lady Caroline to me, 'I
trust our queen does not observe it.'

'She cannot fail to notice it,' I returned. 'Oh, why could they not let her
remain a private lady as she was before? Why need they drag her into this
prominent position? She did not want to be a queen. She swooned when
first the idea was made known to her——'

'But you had prepared her mind,' began Lady Caroline.

I did not heed the interpretation, but went on to describe how, on coming
out of her swoon, my mistress begged and implored that she might not be
made queen. I only spoke in a whisper, but my companions, fearful of my
being overheard, made haste to stop me, and I could see that they did not
wish to hear what I was telling them, their hearts being set upon Queen
Jane's accession to the throne.

As our barge, following the royal barge, slowly passed along the river, I
was greatly struck by the beauty and grandeur of the mighty city through
which we were passing. I had never seen London before, and its gardens
and stately palaces, spires and towers of churches, gateways, towers,
drawbridges, houses, mills and chapels, and, last but not least, the noble old
cathedral of St. Paul's,[1] presented to me a panorama of picturesque and
beautiful scenes.[2]
 [1] The old cathedral which was burnt to the ground.—ED.

[2] London in the old days must have been strikingly beautiful and
picturesque, the gardens of the fine old mansions and palaces extending
down to the riverside, and the air being clear and clean, undimmed and
unpolluted by smoke.—ED.

It was about three o'clock in the afternoon when Queen Jane arrived at
the Tower, her advent to that fortress being heralded by a deafening roar of
ordnance, coming from the batteries, which was answered by the guns of
several ships at anchor in the river.

Trumpets blew and bells rang, also, as Queen Jane landed, but there was
still the same ominous silence of onlookers, who, in small and large boats,
hovered around.

As the young queen walked into the Tower the Duchess of Suffolk, her
mother, bore her train, the Lord Treasurer presented to her the crown, and
her relations saluted her on their knees.

The thunder crashed, and the storm without spent itself upon the
lingering sightseers, but Queen Jane was in the Tower, and when I caught
sight of her face for a moment I saw that all traces of fear and sorrow had
passed from it, leaving only the calm and lofty expression of one who,
possessing her own soul in patience, 'holds to the road that leads above' in
spite of every earthly distraction.

CHAPTER XIII

At St. Paul's Cross

 'Oh, Margery! Margery! I am in sore trouble!'

It was the next morning, and Queen Jane turning away from all her
grand Court ladies, seized the first opportunity of being alone with me to
sob out her griefs in my arms, which held her tightly and with great
affection.

I gathered, with a little difficulty, for she would not say one word against
her husband, Lord Guildford Dudley, that he, at whose bidding she was
making so great a sacrifice, not satisfied with that, was becoming even
more exacting. At first all his ambition seemed to be centred in the desire
that his wife should be Queen of Great Britain and Ireland, and that in spite
of her firm conviction that she would be usurping the throne which rightly
belonged to Princess Mary. But now, not content with seeing her made
queen, he desired to be crowned also, that he might be king with equal
rights to hers. This, however, my dear mistress could not agree to, for if she
had a slender claim to the crown, being only the granddaughter of Henry
VII's youngest daughter, Mary, he had even less, being no relation at all. It
seemed that his father, the Duke of Northumberland, had persuaded the
Council, who being in the Tower were practically in his power, to say that
they would make Guildford Dudley king; but Lady Jane reminded the latter
that she only had the power to confer the title upon him, adding that it
would be impossible for her to do it, as it would not be right; moreover, the
people, who were unwilling to see her queen, would be actually incensed if
a son of the Duke of Northumberland—who was by no means popular—
likewise mounted the throne.

Lord Guildford Dudley, however, would not perceive the justice of these
asseverations. He took it ill that Jane, whom he had assisted to the throne,
should dislike the idea of sharing it with him, and, after quarrelling with her
bitterly, departed alone for Sion House, leaving her to get on as well as she
could without him. Then his mother was very angry with her, upbraiding
and reproaching her, as did also her own mother, the Duchess of Suffolk.

Poor Queen of England! Every step of the way was a bitter one for her.
Was ever a young creature, standing where childhood and womanhood
meet, so sorely tried? The evening before, at six o'clock, she had been
proclaimed queen in London, the announcement meeting with sullen silence
on the part of the people, one of whom, a vintner's lad, even daring to
vindicate the rights of the Princess Mary—for which he was afterwards
severely punished.

'It was mainly at the desire of my husband that I consented to be queen,'

sobbed my mistress, 'yet he has left me in anger, and his father and mother
are mightily incensed with me. It is all so miserable, and my own
conscience afflicts me, for all that they have said to me has not quietened its
doubts about the equity of my position. I cannot help suspecting—
especially after what has just happened—that my father-in-law's ambition
has been the pivot on which we have all turned. And in the fierce light
which all that has been occurring has thrown over everything concerning
me, I cannot fail to see that the Duke of Northumberland in causing his son
Guildford to marry me was but preparing for this. I believe my dear lord
loves me,' she added wistfully, 'but perhaps his father's ambition hurried on
our marriage.'

I thought that was likely enough, having heard much during the last day
or two about Northumberland's ambition, but hastened to assure my
mistress in all sincerity that her charms of person, disposition and mind
were such that no young man could possibly be intimate with her without
being susceptible to the tender passion, whereupon she smiled through her
tears, exclaiming—

'You little flatterer! But if that be so you must by all means keep your
own chosen lover away from my presence.'

I blushed very much at that, which caused Queen Jane to insist upon my
telling her all about my own love story and the name of the man who had
won my heart; and, when she heard that it was the same brave knight who
escorted me to Sion House when I came to live with her, she was very
pleased, and said that it was a pretty romance in real life and she trusted that
God would bless us and give us a very happy future together in His own
good time.

We were interrupted by the entrance of the Duchess of Suffolk, who

bade her daughter sternly, though in stilted Court language, to prepare to
transact business with her father and the Duke of Northumberland and the
Council. Indeed, there were many matters for the young queen to deal with
and papers of importance for her to sign, and she addressed herself bravely
to the task of taking up the burden of royalty at the call of duty. For, having
consented to be made queen, she knew that she must fulfil the obligations
attached to the high office, to the best of her ability.

'I am happier when I am busily employed,' she said to me later in the

day. 'It is when I have time to think, Margery, that my doubts and fears
return. Dear one,' she continued, 'I am told that on Sunday next Dr. Ridley,
the Bishop of London, is going to preach at St. Paul's Cross, and I want you
to do me this favour. You must go and hear him, that you may tell me
everything he says. I would fain know, Margery,' she went on very
wistfully, 'for it may throw light on what I am at present unable to see.'

I knew she meant the entire justice of her accession to the throne, and
readily promised that, if I could leave the Tower and go to hear the bishop, I
would tell her every word he said. I doubted not that one of my friends, Sir
William Wood or Sir Hubert Blair, would escort me through the crowds
which would congregate to hear the eloquent divine.

In my own mind I was full of uneasiness now about the position of my

dear lady, for a messenger had arrived at the Tower from Princess Mary, the
late king's elder sister, to say that she commanded the Council to see that
she was duly proclaimed, and warning them to desist from their treasonable
purposes. The Council, with small courtesy, refused to do this, and scarcely
had the messenger gone when news came pouring in that Princess Mary had
taken up her position at Framlingham Castle in Suffolk, where the nobility,
gentry and people were flocking to her standard. It was therefore necessary
that forces should be sent out to overcome and disperse Mary's army, and
the Council and the Duke of Northumberland were much exercised as to
who should lead them. It was rumoured amongst us that the Duke of
Northumberland wanted the Duke of Suffolk to go, whilst the Council
wished Northumberland himself to head the expedition. If he went it was a
question whether the Council, left to themselves, would remain true to
Queen Jane, for they had been coerced and over-persuaded by him, though
secretly, like most of the people, in favour of Mary. There were intrigues on
all sides, and several of the Council so worked upon my mistress's
apprehensions that she begged that her father might stay with her. It was
therefore settled that Northumberland should lead an army of 2,000
horsemen and 6,000 foot soldiers against Mary's forces.

Accordingly, on the thirteenth, after exhorting the Council to remain true

to Queen Jane, he left the Tower for Durham House, where he stayed a
night, and then, on the fourteenth, he and his men marched out of the city.
We were told by Sir William Wood, who had gone with many others to see
them depart, that the Duke of Northumberland was heard observing to some
one that though numbers watched them go, there was not one to say, 'God
speed you!'

Our hearts were full of apprehension upon hearing this; and also Sir
William's tidings that the silence of the multitude watching the troops go
was something marvellous and most terrifying in its significance.

And yet again my dear lady said to me—

'Margery, you must go to hear what Dr. Ridley has to say about my
claims, for I should fear nothing if only I were absolutely certain that they
are just and equitable.'

Upon the Sunday, therefore—July 16 it was—I left the Tower with Lady
Caroline and Sir William Wood and went to St. Paul's Cross, where a very
great congregation was assembled to hear the bishop's preaching.

Sir William found us a place, with some difficulty, where we could stand
without being pushed and hustled by the crowd, but we could hear nothing
at first except the talking and moving about of the multitude, the cries of
those who were hurt or pushed, and the endeavours of those in authority to
induce order and quiet.

When, at length, I was able to hear what the venerable bishop was
saying, I found that his eloquence was being exerted on a theme so much to
my mind that I could have listened all day. He was speaking of the virtues
and abilities of my dear mistress, and praising her exceedingly for her
goodness and her learning, dwelling much upon the beneficent effect her
Protestant rule would be certain to have upon the people of England, and
maintaining her right and her title to the throne by the best arguments he
could devise—I noticed among these none that were new, however, which I
could carry home to Queen Jane. The fact was, he said nothing but what had
been already employed, only being an orator, he said it more emphatically
and more beautifully, and being a bishop, his words had to my thinking
more weight, and he spoke them as one having great spiritual authority.

I was listening eagerly, with my eyes fixed on the preacher and ears
intent only upon his words, when a man wrapped in a long foreign-looking
cloak pressed so closely against me that I was pushed a little way from my
companions. Glancing at the man with indignation, I perceived that his face
was concealed partly by the collar of his coat and partly by a large felt hat
pulled low over his brow. It was impossible, therefore, to distinguish his
features, and yet I knew I had seen him before.

'Allow me,' I said, 'to step nearer to my friends.'

The fellow pretended not to hear. He stuck his hands in his pockets and
straightened his broad back between me and my companions. I thought he
was a boor, but no worse, and, giving up the attempt to move him, became
speedily absorbed again in the preaching, if preaching it could be called,
which was now a speech inveighing against the claims of the late King
Henry's daughters, and especially of the Princess Mary, and representing,
moreover, that if the latter succeeded to the throne it would mean certain
destruction to the reformed religion, which, on the other hand, the amiable
and pious Queen Jane would maintain in its entirety. He spoke, too, of the
likelihood of Mary's contracting a marriage with a prince of the house of
Spain, where the Inquisition, with all its ghastly horrors, was maintained.
Then he went on to tell of an interview he had had with Mary before the
late king's death. He had ridden over to visit her at Hundson, and she
invited him to stay to dinner.

After the meal was over he told her that on the Sunday he intended
coming to preach before her, upon which she replied that the Church would
be open to him, but he must not expect to see her and her household there.
He answered by expressing the hope that she would not refuse God's Word,
to which she replied that she did not know what they called God's Word
now, as it certainly was not the same as in her father's time.
 'God's Word, said I,' cried the preacher, 'was the same at all times,
though better understood and practised in some ages than others.'

On his retiring, the princess thanked him for coming to see her, but not at
all for his proposal to preach before her.

The bishop paused, after relating the anecdote, as if sure that on hearing
of Mary's bigotry his audience would wish to repudiate the idea of their
wanting her to be their queen.

But, once again, silence and unresponsiveness chilled the hearts of those
who loved Queen Jane.

'You see they are convinced that, in spite of everything, Mary should be
queen,' said a woman standing near me.

'The boy who scarcely said more than that the other day was cruelly
maltreated for it,' muttered the man in the long cloak,' and I shall inform of
you, madam, unless you,' he ended by whispering something into the
woman's ear.

Immediately, with a look of terror, she put her arm in mine and began to
draw me away from my friends, the man taking hold of my other arm, and
almost pushing me along.

I called to Sir William Wood, who had his back towards me and did not
hear. I entreated Lady Caroline for help, but she was whispering with some
ladies, and I could not attract her attention. Then I appealed to the
bystanders, but the man, looking threateningly at them, declared that he
would knock down the first who interfered. As he said the words I
recognized his voice. He was Sir Claudius Crossley.

And I was in his power, for now we were surrounded by men whom I
also recognized, as they were some of those who had drowned the poor old
women they called witches.

'No harm will be done to you if you come with us quietly,' said Sir
Claudius in my ear.
 But I did not believe him, and in desperation struggled to free myself,
and cried aloud for help.

The next moment Sir Hubert Blair rode up, and, dashing towards me into
the crowd, scattered it on all sides, then, springing from his horse, he seized
my adversary in his powerful arms and, hurling him to the ground,
administered not a few blows with the butt-end of his riding-whip.

This done, he turned to me, but I had already fled towards my friends
and, seeing I was safe, he only smiled and waved his hand, and rode off in
another direction, having evidently business of importance in hand.

I saw no more of Sir Claudius Crossley that day, but the incident had
shown that he was still my active enemy, bent upon fulfilling his vow,
which Betsy had reported to me, that he would win me for his own and
vanquish my proud and haughty spirit.

CHAPTER XIV

The Crown Resigned

Lady Caroline and Sir William Wood were much concerned when, on
my return to them, I related the misadventure which had befallen me, and
blamed themselves for being so much occupied with others that they had
not heard my cries for succour. However, they were glad that Sir Hubert
Blair effected my rescue, and were very kind to me and sympathizing,
making me walk and drive between them all the remainder of the time until
we were safely back in the Tower.

A great commotion was going on there, armed men and servants

hurrying about, and lords and ladies making hasty preparations for
departure.
 'What is it? What has happened?' cried Sir William, but for some time no
one could or would answer him.

A little later we learned the truth. The Lord Treasurer had left the Tower,
contrary to the positive order of the Duke of Northumberland who, before
departing, had strictly impressed upon the Duke of Suffolk the necessity of
keeping the whole Council within its walls, and it was an open secret that
this step was the beginning of the end of what some one irreverently termed
'the miserable farce of Queen Jane's reign.'

It seemed to me that every one except the queen knew this, and she,
misled by the representations of her father, who was himself duped by the
Council, was wholly ignorant that the downfall which she had at the first
apprehended was really beginning to take place.

I found her in tears, it is true, when I went to her bedroom where she was
lying ill, but that was, as I speedily discovered, because her mother-in-law
had been upbraiding her severely and telling her that Lord Guildford justly
refused to come near after her conduct towards him.

'And Margery, Margery, put your dear little head quite near to me, I want
to whisper something,' said the young queen pitifully. 'Nearer still,
Margery,' she went on, 'for the very walls have ears.' And when my ear was
close to her sweet lips, she said low into it, 'I am so ill, I have such
indescribable sensations, like none that I have ever had in illness before. Do
you think it is possible that they are poisoning me?'

I told her No. I scouted the idea as unworthy of her noble mind. I
vehemently declared that she was giving way to imagination. I besought her
not to be so childish. I implored her to think of Plato's lofty reasonings. I
entreated that she would stay her mind on God's promises to His dear
children. I began to quote whole passages of the Bible—the words flew
from my lips as fast as I could think them, whilst my dear lady listened
spell-bound, and then, suddenly I spoilt it all by bursting out into passionate
tears and sobs, in the midst of which I cried, 'They will kill you! They will
kill you! They have made you their puppet for a day and set you upon a
throne and crowned you, and then—being unable to keep you there, and
maddened by failure—they will kill you!' And with that I wept
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