Edward VI of England
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arrival of reinforcements from the continent. He delayed the announcement of the king's death while he gathered his forces, and Jane Grey was taken to the Tower on 10 July. Later that day, she was proclaimed queen in the streets of London, to murmurings of discontent. Northumberland now pressed Jane to make his son Guildford Dudley king, which, according to her own account, she refused to do. The Privy Council received a message from Mary asserting her "right and title" to the throne and commanding that the Council proclaim her queen, as she had already proclaimed herself. The Council replied that Jane was queen by Edward's authority and that Mary, by contrast, was illegitimate and supported only by "a few lewd, base people". Northumberland soon realised that he had miscalculated drastically, not least in failing to secure Mary's person before Edward's death. Although many of those who rallied to Mary were conservatives hoping for the defeat of Protestantism, her supporters also included many legitimists, for whom her lawful claim to the throne overrode religious considerations. Northumberland was obliged to relinquish control of a nervous Council in London and launch an unplanned pursuit of Mary into East Anglia, from where news was arriving of her growing support, which included a number of nobles and gentlemen and "innumerable companies of the common people". In this precarious situation, Northumberland sent a secret mission to France to secure a pledge of French support. Next, the duke marched out of London with three thousand men, reaching Cambridge on 14 July; meanwhile, Mary rallied her forces at Framlingham Castle in Suffolk, gathering an army of nearly twenty
thousand by 19 July. It now dawned on the Privy Council that it had made a terrible mistake. When news reached the councillors in the Tower that even the Norfolk fleet had declared for Mary, they abandoned Northumberland and offered a reward for his arrest. On 19 July, the Council completed its turnabout by publicly proclaiming Mary as queen; and Jane's nine-day reign came to an end. The proclamation triggered wild rejoicing throughout London. Stranded in Cambridge, Northumberland had no alternative, as a member of the Council, but to proclaim Mary himself. William Paget and the Earl of Arundel rode to Framlingham to beg Mary's pardon, and Arundel arrested Northumberland on 24 July. Northumberland was beheaded on 22 August, shortly after renouncing Protestantism. His recantation dismayed his daughter-in-law, Jane, who followed him to the scaffold on 12 February 1554, after her father's involvement in Wyatt's rebellion. Although Edward reigned for only six years and died at the age of fifteen, his reign made a lasting contribution to the English Reformation and the structure of the Church of England. The last decade of Henry VIII's reign had seen a partial stalling of the Reformation, a drifting back to more conservative values. By contrast, Edward's reign saw radical progress in the Reformation. In those six years, the Church transferred from an essentially Roman Catholic liturgy and structure to one that is usually identified as Protestant. In particular, the introduction of the Book of
Protestant legacy