Note 145 — Chapter X · THE LADY JANE GOES TO SEYMOUR PLACE

Nothing could be more forcible as a proof of the manner in which Sudeley, in the style of the Duke of Northumberland at a later period, threatened and bullied any who dared to oppose him, than the following story. About the time that he was endeavouring to supplant his brother in Edward’s affections, he tried to induce the boy-King to write a letter for him to the Parliament, which was to meet in the November of that year. It was suggested that Parliament might not grant his demands; whereupon, said “my Lord of Sudeley,” “I will make [it, if that be so] the blackest Parliament that has ever been seen in England”—“blackest” perhaps meaning “the most humbled and depressed” Parliament ever seen, which shows that Sudeley was sufficiently self-confident to believe that he could coerce whole bodies of administrators at his will.