And I had got good help of my hurt:

And only to me some sign

She made; and save the priests that were there

No face would she see but mine.

And the month of March wore on apace;

And now fresh couriers fared

Still from the country of the Wild Scots
With news of the traitors snared.

And still, as I told her day by day,
Her pallor changed to sight,
And the frost grew to a furnace-flame
That burnt her visage white.

And evermore as I brought her word,
She bent to her dead King James,
And in the cold ear with fire-drawn breath
She spoke the traitors' names.

But when the name of Sir Robert Græme
Was the one she had to give,

I ran to hold her up from the floor;
For the froth was on her lips, and sore

I feared that she could not live.

And the month of March wore nigh to its end,
And still was the death-pall spread;
For she would not bury her slaughtered lord
Till his slayers all were dead.

And now of their dooms dread tidings came,
And of torments fierce and dire:

And naught she spake - she had ceased to speak

But her eyes were a soul on fire.

But when I told her the bitter end

Of the stern and just award,

She leaned o'er the bier, and thrice three times

She kissed the lips of her lord.

And then she said, "My King, they are dead!"
And she knelt on the chapel floor,

And whispered low with a strange proud smile,
"James, James, they suffered more!"

Last she stood up to her queenly height,
But she shook like an autumn leaf,
As though the fire wherein she burned
Then left her body, and all were turned

To winter of life-long grief.

And "O James!" she said, "My James!" she said, "Alas for the woeful thing,

That a poet true and a friend of man,
In desperate days of bale and ban,
Should needs be born a King!"

"Seventeen

VII

LADY JANE GREY

and knew eight languages — in music
Peerless her needle perfect, and her learning
Beyond the Churchmen; yet so meek, so modest,
So wife-like humble to the trivial boy
Mismatched with her for policy! I have heard
She would not take a last farewell of him;
She feared it might unman him for his end.
She could not be unmanned

Seventeen a rose of grace!

no, nor outwoman'd.

Girl never breathed to rival such a rose;
Rose never blew that equalled such a bud.”

WHEN

- TENNYSON.

THEN the hapless daughter of Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, offered up her fair young life upon the scaffold at Tower Hill she was still in her "teens" — with the simplicity and freshness of girlhood upon her. There is a tender and pathetic beauty about the tragic tale which no repetition can wholly dim or wear off.

The reader needs not to be told that she was the eldest daughter of Henry Grey, third Marquis of Dorset. She was allied with royal blood, her mother being Frances the eldest daughter of Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, and Mary Tudor, second daughter of Henry VII. She came also of royal stock on the father's side. It is a curious fact that the date of the birth of this lady is not exactly known; but, according to Fuller, it

took place in 1536, at her father's stately mansion, of Bradgate, near Leicester. She was the eldest of three daughters, Jane, Katherine and Mary. At a very early age her budding gifts gave abundant promise of a fair womanhood; so serene her temper and so remarkable her love of knowledge. She was fortunate in living at a time when the education of women was as con.prehensive and exact as that of men; and her father provided her with two learned tutors in his two chaplains, Thomas Harding and John Aylmer. To the latter she seems to have been more particularly given in charge; and the teacher being as zealous as the pupil was diligent, Lady Jane soon gained a thorough acquaintance with Latin and Greek, and also some degree of proficiency in Hebrew, Arabic, Chaldaic, French and Italian.

These grave and serious studies were relieved by a cultivation of the graces. Her voice was melodious, and she sang with much skill and expression; she also played on various musical instruments. Her needlework and embroidery excited the admiration of her contemporaries; she acquired a knowledge of the medical properties of herbs; dainty dishes, preserves, and "sweet waters" she concocted with dexterous hand; her caligraphy was a marvel of ease and elegance; in this last-named art she was instructed by the erudite Roger Ascham, who was one of its most famous professors.

Thus it happened that even in her early girlhood she surpassed in general scholarship her equals in age. But her tutors did not forget the spiritual side of her education, and she was well grounded in the dogmas of the Church as well as in the truths and lessons embodied in the life and teaching of her Lord.

After the death of Henry VIII. Lady Jane went

to reside with the widowed Queen, Katherine Parr, at Chelsea; and when that lady married Lord Seymour of Dudley, she accompanied them to Hanworth, in Middlesex, a palace which Henry VIII. had bestowed upon Queen Katherine in dower. The Queen did not long survive her second nuptials, but died at Dudley Castle, September 5, 1548, in the thirty-sixth year of her age. Lady Jane acted as chief mourner at the funeral.

It was soon after this event that Lady Jane addressed the following letter to the Lord High Admiral. As the composition of a girl of twelve it shows no ordinary promise:

October 1, 1548.

My duty to your lordship, in most humble wise remembered, with no less thanks for the gentle letters which I received from you. Thinking myself so much bound to your lordship for your great goodness towards me from time to time, that I cannot by any means be able to recompense the least part thereof, I purposed to write a few rude lines unto your lordship, rather as a token to show how much worthier I think your lordship's goodness than to give worthy thanks for the same; and these my letters shall be to testify unto you that, like as you have become towards me a loving and kind father, so I shall be always most ready to obey your godly monitions and good instructions, as becometh one upon whom you have heaped so many benefits. And thus, fearing lest I should trouble your lordship too much, I must humbly take my leave of your good lordship.

Your humble servant during my life,

JANE GREY.

It is not impossible that at Bradgate Lady Jane may have regretted the indulgent ease and splendid hospitality of Dudley Castle. Her parents acted upon the maxim that to spare the rod is to spoil the child; and notwithstanding her amiability and honourable diligence, subjected her to a very severe discipline. She