ieces of Sir Walter Scott in the
field of historical romance. Ainsworth died at Reigate on
January 3, 1882.

_I.--Prisoners in the Tower_

Edward VI. was dead, poisoned, it was rumoured, by the Duke of
Northumberland, Grandmaster of the Realm. For three days had an attempt
been made to keep his death secret, so that the proud and ambitious duke
might seize the persons of the Princess Mary and the Princess Elizabeth.
But the former, warned in time, had escaped the snare; and the Duke of
Northumberland, finding further dissimulation useless, boldly proclaimed
his daughter-in-law, Lady Jane Grey, queen.

On July 10, 1553, Queen Jane, the wisest and most beautiful woman in the
kingdom, though only sixteen years of age, was conducted in state to the
Tower, where it was the custom for the monarchs of England to spend the
first few days of their reign.

But the crowds who watched her departure from Durham House, in the
Strand, were silent and sullen. Her youthful beauty and grace might win
an involuntary cry of admiration, but the heart of the people was not
hers. They recognised that she was but the tool of her father-in-law,
whom, because of his overweening ambition, they hated.

All the pride and pomp of silken banners and cloth of gold could not
mask the gloomy presage of the young queen's reign. The very heavens
thundered; and owing to the press of boats that surrounded the
procession, many small craft were overturned and their occupants thrown
into the water. And if further signs of portending evil were wanted,
they could be discerned in the uneasy whisperings of those lords of the
Privy Council who were present, or in the sinister face of the Spaniard,
Simon Renard, ambassador to the Emperor Charles V.

"This farce will not last long," he said to De Noailles, the French
ambassador. "The Privy Council are the duke's secret enemies, and
through them I shall strike the scepter from Jane's grasp and place it
in the hand of Mary."

Elsewhere in the procession, Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, uttered
in a low voice to Ridley, Bishop of London, his fears for the future;
while certain lords of the Privy Council, who had planned the
assassination of the Duke of Northumberland, and were aware that their
plot had been discovered, approached the portals of the Tower in fear
and trembling.

But there was one man at least who did not share the general depression
and uneasiness. Cuthbert Cholmondeley, esquir