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appears to have treated her so disgracefully that she 

 separated from him ; before doing so, however, she 

 purposely set fire to the room in which the Earl was 

 sleeping, in the hope that he might be suffocated in his 

 sleep. But the desperate act had consequences which she 

 did not foresee the whole mansion was soon in flames, 

 and she had considerable difficulty in escaping with her 

 infant daughter Diana. Her husband was rescued from 

 the funeral pyre she had lighted for him, but the fine 

 old house of Bradgate was burned to the ground, and 

 remains a roofless ruin to this day. It was an historic 

 pile, for there the ill-fated Lady Jane Grey, the nine- 

 days' Queen who is one of the most pathetic figures in 

 English history, passed her youth. It was here that her 

 gentle tutor Aylmer opened to her the treasures of the 

 ancient world, and unlocked for her the literature of 

 Greece and Rome, in which she proved so apt a student 

 that no woman of her time was a more perfect mistress 

 of the classic tongues. It was here that Roger Ascham 

 found her reading Plato's " Phaedo " while the rest of the 

 family were hunting in the park. And, laying down 

 her book, she confided to the gifted and sympathetic 

 scholar, who was the beloved preceptor of Queen Bess's 

 youth, how cruel and spiteful her parents and sisters 

 were for ever punishing the slightest defects in deport- 

 ment or mistakes in embroidery " with pinches, nips, 

 and bobs." Master Ascham never forgot the impression 

 which her beauty, her learning, and her sweet temper 

 left upon him. 



It was under far different circumstances that he next 

 saw her when she walked into the Guildhall on that 



