A Journey Through Tudor England by Suzannah Lipscomb Read Free Book Online

charge of the troops but, taking the long way towards Mary’s base at Framlingham, via Cambridge, in the hope of picking up reinforcements, he didn’t reach Suffolk until 18 July. In the interim, Mary had amassed a force of close to 10,000 and had probably even acquired artillery.
    To both the council in London and Northumberland on the march, it became evident that might was on Mary’s side. In the afternoon of 19 July, sensing their hand had been forced, the council performed a volte-face and proclaimed Mary queen. On 20 July, Northumberland followed suit. Ten days after being told she was queen, Jane was told she was not.
    Keen to evade punishment, the council looked for a scapegoat and pointed the finger at the absent Northumberland. After Mary had taken full power, he was tried for treason on 18 August, even though most of the jury had been just as committed to Queen Jane as he.
    Jane remained in the Tower, now a prisoner, until her trial on 13 November 1553. Staging the trial at Guildhall, rather than in the privacy of Westminster or the Tower, was in itself an act of humiliation. Dressed in black and carrying a Bible, Jane maintained her composure, even when the sentence to be ‘burned alive on Tower Hill or beheaded as the Queen should please’ was pronounced in Guildhall’s cavernous Great Hall.
    Few, however, believed it would end that way. It was stillexpected that Jane, whom even Mary accepted had done little wrong herself, would, in time, be released.
    This all changed after Sir Thomas Wyatt the Younger’s rebellion in early February 1554 [see W INCHESTER C ATHEDRAL ]: an uprising about which Jane had no knowledge and with which she could not have been involved, imprisoned as she was in the Tower. Seeing her as a target for rebellion, and perhaps in revenge at Jane’s father’s involvement, Mary decided to execute Jane and Guildford. The sentence was carried out almost immediately: both were beheaded on 12 February 1554. Jane had not yet reached her seventeenth birthday.
    In the years after her death, Jane’s story was rewritten by the victors: their guilt obscuring her legal claim to the throne. At Guildhall, remember the young, bright Jane Dudley, whose fate was decided by forces greater than herself.

‘The Prince of Wales was kept under such strict supervision that he might have been a young girl.’
    E ltham Palace was the childhood home of Henry VIII. Perched on a hill with magnificent views over London, it was built as a moated mansion for Anthony Bek, the Bishop of Durham in 1295, and became a royal home ten years later. Among its many royal residents and builders were Edward III, Richard II, Henry IV — who spent most of his Christmases as King here — and Edward IV. At its zenith, it was a vast palace, far bigger than Hampton Court, with an outer court (you can see the Lord Chancellor’s lodgings, which made up part of this court, to the left over the moat bridge), substantial chapel, apartments for the King and Queen, a Great Hall, an array of kitchens and lodgings for courtiers. Edward IV and his wife, Elizabeth, entertained 2,000 people here during Christmas 1482. Now, it is a masterpiece of a different sort, having been turned into an art deco wonderland by the Courtauld family in the 1930s. Nevertheless, there is an important Tudor history to the palace to discover.
    Henry VIII was born on 28 June 1491 at Greenwich Palace (which sadly no longer stands). He was the third child and second son of Henry VII and Elizabeth of York. Like his elder brother,Arthur [see L UDLOW C ASTLE ], he had symbolic titles bestowed on him as an infant, becoming the nominal Constable of Dover Castle, Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports, Earl Marshal and Lieutenant of England, Duke of York, Warden of the Scottish Marches and Knight of the Garter. The most memorable of these investitures for him must have been when as a child of nearly three and a half (doting parents take note), he rode a great warhorse through