Page:The Queens of England.djvu/400

358 THE QUEENS OF ENGLAND. terview ; but Lady Jane, dreading the effect of a scene that was likely to overwhelm them both with sorrow, declined it, reminding him that their separation would only be for a moment ; and that they were, in reality ,about to meet where their affections would be united forever. Lord Guildford was first led to his fate, and, when passing under the window of his wife, obtained a last token of her love and remembrance. As Lady Jane herself was proceeding from her prison to the scaf- fold, she had to endure the task of meeting the headless corpse of her husband Conveyed from the place of execution. This appalling sight overwhelmed her with grief, but did not shake the fortitude of her demeanor. She was conducted to the scaffold by Sir John Brydges, the lieutenant of the Tower, and was entirely occupied in the perusal of a book of prayers, though Fox asserts that her devotions were continually inter- rupted by Feckenham. She mounted the scaffold without hesitation, and addressed the assembled crowd in a short speech, in which she admitted her crime against the queen, but protested that she was innocent of either wishing or procuring the royal dignity. She called on those who heard her to bear witness that she died a true Christian woman, expecting salva- tion only through the mercy of God in the merits of the blood of his Son Jesus Christ. She thanked God for his goodness in allowing her time to repent of whatever sins she might have committed, and concluded by requesting them to assist her by their prayers. The axe fell, and in the words of Sir Harris Nicolas, "the world closed forever on one of the most inter- esting women that ever adorned it." The father of Lady Jane Grey, the ultimate cause of her untimely end, was executed on Tower-hill on the 23d of Feb- ruary, 1554, eleven days after his daughter and son-in-law had thus fallen victims to his ambition. The biographers of Lady Jane have almost universally as- serted that she wrote three epigrams — one in Greek, one in Latin, and the third in English — on seeing her husband's dead body, but it appears at least doubtful that this was the case. At all events there remains not a shadow of evidence to sup- port the assertion ; and it appears as little consonant with her state of feeling at that moment, as possible from the brief and passing instant allowed for it. What is more extraordinary is, that no one of her numerous biographers have told us how and where she- was buried ; and it is equally extraordinary that no monument of so celebrated a character, or of her husband,