Meantime Lady Jane’s marriage had made for the moment little change in her manner of life. She had answered the purpose for which she was required, and was permitted temporarily to retire behind the scenes. It is said--and there is nothing unlikely in the assertion--that, the ceremony over and obedience having been rendered to her parents’ behest, she entreated that she might continue with her mother for the present. She and her new husband were so young, she pleaded. Her request was granted. She was Guilford Dudley’s wife, could be the wife of no other man, and that was, for the moment, sufficient.
There was much to think of, much to do. Measures had to be taken to keep the King’s sisters at a distance, lest his old affection, for Elizabeth in particular, reawakening might frustrate the designs of those bent upon moulding events to their advantage. Above all, there was the pressing necessity of inducing the King to exclude them by will from their rightful heritage. On June 16 Noailles had again been conferring with the doctors, and had learnt that, in their opinion, Edward could not live till August. Ten days later Northumberland came from Greenwich to visit the envoy, and to prevent his going to Court. He then told the Frenchman that, nine days earlier, the King had executed his will in favour of the Duke’s daughter-in-law, Lady Jane[148]--“qui est vertueuse, sage, et belle,” reported the envoy to his master some three weeks later.[149]
Of the manner in which the will had been obtained full information is available. It was not out of love for Northumberland that Edward had yielded to his representations. The Throckmorton MS.[150] asserts that Edward abhorred the Duke on account of his uncle’s death. Sir Nicholas Throckmorton, in attendance on the King, should be a good authority; on the other hand, he was opposed to the Duke’s designs. Whether or not the latter was personally distasteful to the boy, it was no difficult matter to represent the situation in a fashion to lead him to believe the sole alternative was the course suggested to him. Conscientious, pious, scrupulous to a fault, and worn by disease, the future of religion could be made to hang upon his fiat, and the thought of Mary, a devout Catholic, or even Elizabeth, who might marry a foreign prince, seated upon the throne, filled him with apprehensions for the welfare of a people for whom he felt himself responsible. Yet he, with little to love, had loved both his sisters, and the thought of the sick lad, torn between duty and affection, a tool in the hands of unprincipled and ambitious men who could play on his sensitive conscience and over-strained nerves at will, and turn his piety to their advantage, is a painful one.