“No more of this,” said Jane, authoritatively. “Come with me to the altar.”
“Your majesty is not going to remain here?” cried Lady Hastings. “I declare positively I dare not stop.”
“I will not detain you longer than will suffice to offer a single prayer to Heaven,” rejoined the queen. “Be not afraid. Nothing will injure, or affright you.”
“I am by no means sure of that,” replied Lady Hastings. “And now I really do think I see something.”
“Indeed!” exclaimed Jane, starting. “Where?”
“Behind the farthest pillar on the right,” replied Lady Hastings, pointing towards it. “It looks like a man muffled in a cloak. There!—it moves.”
“Go and see whether any one be lurking in the chapel,” said Jane to the nearest usher, and speaking in a voice so loud, that it almost seemed as if she desired to be overheard.
The attendant obeyed; and immediately returned with the intelligence that he could find no one.
“Your fears, you perceive, are groundless, Catherine,” observed Jane, forcing a smile.
“Not altogether, I am persuaded, from your manner, my dear sister, and gracious mistress,” rejoined Lady Hastings. “Oh! how I wish I was safe back again in the palace.”
“So do I,” added Lady Herbert.
“A moment’s patience and I am ready,” rejoined Jane.
With this, she approached the altar, and prostrated herself on the velvet cushion before it.
“Almighty Providence!” she murmured in a tone so low as to be inaudible to the others, “I humbly petition thee and supplicate thee, that if the kingdom that has been given me be rightly and lawfully mine, thou wilt grant me so much grace and spirit, that I may govern it to thy glory, service, and advantage. But if it be otherwise—if I am unlawfully possessed of it, and am an hindrance to one who might serve thee more effectually, remove, O Lord, the crown from my head, and set it on that of thy chosen servant! And if what I have this night beheld be a foreshadowing and a warning of the dreadful doom that awaits me, grant me, I beseech thee, strength to meet it with fortitude and resignation; so that my ending, like my life, may redound to thy honour, and the welfare of thy holy church.”
While Jane was thus devoutly occupied, her sisters, who stood behind her, could scarcely control their uneasiness, but glanced ever and anon timorously round, as if in expectation of some fearful interruption. Their fears were speedily communicated to the ushers; and though nothing occurred to occasion fresh alarm, the few minutes spent by the queen in prayer appeared an age to her companions. There was something in the hour—it was past midnight—and the place, calculated to awaken superstitious terrors. The lights borne by the attendants only illumined a portion of the chapel; rendering that which was left in shadow yet more sombre; while the columned aisles on either side, and the deeply-recessed arches of the gallery above, were shrouded in gloom. Even in broad day, St. John’s Chapel is a solemn and a striking spot; but at midnight, with its heavy, hoary pillars, reared around like phantoms, its effect upon the imagination will be readily conceived to be far greater.
Already described as one of the most perfect specimens of Norman ecclesiastical architecture, this venerable structure, once used as a place of private worship by the old monarchs of England, and now as a receptacle for Chancery proceedings, has, from its situation in the heart of the White Tower, preserved, in an almost unequalled state, its original freshness and beauty; and, except that its floors are encumbered with cases, and its walls of Caen stone disfigured by a thick coat of white plaster, it is now much in the same state that it was at the period under consideration. It consists of a nave with broad aisles, flanked (as has been mentioned) by twelve circular pillars, of the simplest and most solid construction, which support a stone gallery of equal width with the aisles, and having an arcade corresponding with that beneath. The floor is now boarded, but was formerly covered with a hard polished cement, resembling red granite. The roof is coved, and beautifully proportioned; and the fane is completed by a semicircular termination towards the east.