Note (Back to Main Text) — Chapter II · THE SPANISH MARRIAGE.

The cottage was considered insecure. Two bowshots south of Astley Church there stood in the park an old decaying tree, in the hollow of which the father of Lady Jane Grey concealed himself; and there, for two winter days and a night, he was left without food. A proclamation had been put out by Huntingdon for Suffolk's apprehension (January 30), and the keeper, either tempted by the reward, or frightened by the menace against all who should give him shelter, broke his trust—a rare example of disloyalty—and going to Warwick Castle, undertook to betray his master's hiding-place. A party of troopers were despatched, with the keeper for a guide; and, on arriving at Astley, they found that the duke, unable to endure the cold and hunger longer, had crawled out of the tree, and was warming himself by the cottage fire. Lord John was discovered buried under some bundles of hay.[235] They were carried off at once to the Tower, whither Lord Thomas Grey and Sir James Crofts, who had failed as signally in Wales, soon after followed them.[236]