Transcriber’s Note
Cover created by Transcriber, using an illustration in this book,and placed in the Public Domain.
ROMANTIC HISTORY
General Editor: Martin Hume, M.A.
THE NINE DAYS’ QUEEN
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
The Pageant of London
The Sultan and his Subjects
LADY JANE GREY
FROM THE PAINTING BY LUCAS DE HEERE AT ALTHORP
THE
NINE DAYS’ QUEEN
LADY JANE GREY
AND HER TIMES
BY
RICHARD DAVEY
EDITED, AND WITH INTRODUCTION, BY
MARTIN HUME, M.A.
WITH TWELVE ILLUSTRATIONS
METHUEN & CO.
36 ESSEX STREET W.C.
LONDON
First Published in 1909
TO
MY DEAR WIFE
ELEANORA DAVEY
My object in writing this book has been to interestthe reader in the tragic story of Lady JaneGrey rather from the personal than the politicalpoint of view. I have therefore employed, more perhapsthan is usual, what the French historians term le documenthumain in my account of the extraordinary men andwomen who surrounded Lady Jane, and who used her asa tool for their ambitious ends. The reader may possiblywonder why in several of the earlier chapters Lady JaneGrey plays so shadowy a part, but I deemed it impossiblefor any one who is not very familiar with our History atthis period to understand, without having a complete idea ofthe chain of conspiracies that preceded and rendered possibleher proclamation, how a young Princess, not in the immediatesuccession to the Crown, came to be placed, if only for ninedays, in the towering position of Queen of England. Theseconspiracies were four in number. The first was that of theHowards and the Catholic party against Queen KatherineParr. The second, the conspiracy of the Seymours againstthe Howards, which ended in the downfall of the great Houseof Norfolk, whereby Edward Seymour was enabled to proclaimhimself Lord Protector of the Realm. The third plot was thatof Thomas Seymour to cast down his brother Edward from hishigh station, and, if possible, to usurp the same for himself—astrange story of folly and intrigue and overvaulting ambitionwhich ended in one of the most terrible fratricidal tragediesto be found in the history of the nations. Fourthly, theremoval of the brothers Seymour from the scene enabled JohnDudley, Duke of Northumberland, to work his own will andto prepare the way, during the last days of Edward VI, for hisdaughter-in-law, much against her will, to usurp the throne.
I have consu