Note 297 — Chapter XX · THE SUPREME HOUR!

This allusion to a possible inheritance by Lady Katherine of her father’s possessions, does not, as Miss Strickland thinks, “prove that the insurrection of Suffolk was intended to replace Jane on the throne.” “If,” says that writer, “it had been in favour of any other heiress or heir, it is not likely that the Lady Jane would have rested under the attainder and surrendered the means of her subsistence to increase her younger sister’s portion. Moreover, if Jane had been the sovereign of England, she would scarcely have claimed a third portion of her father’s inheritance.” As a matter of fact, what Jane wrote proves nothing; Lady Katherine, had Suffolk kept out of political strife, would, after Jane, have inherited his fortune, which was confiscated at his arrest. Jane simply penned this sentence to make the contrast stronger between the mutability of the things of this world, and the unchangeability of that better land to which she knew she was hurrying.