SION 
his final overthrow. Having married his fourth son, Lord Guildford 
Dudley, to the Lady Jane Grey, upon whom the youthful King 
Edward—weakened by ill-health and influenced by Northumber- 
land—passing over his sisters Mary and Elizabeth—had settled the 
succession—he succeeded in persuading her, against her inclination 
and her better judgment, to accept the crown. She dnd her 
youthful bridegroom were living at Sion—which had then newly 
passed into her father-in-law’s hands—when the demise of the young 
King occurred. Thence she went in semi-state, by water, to the 
Tower, the usual residence of the monarchs of England on their 
accession, there to be proclaimed Queen in due form. Sion, in all 
its long history, has never witnessed a more sorrowful scene, for 
whether the sun shone, or the rain beat, on the banks of the Thames 
that day, it saw the first act in a tragedy, the catastrophe of which 
was not far distant, when, controlled by the will of her formidable 
father-in-law, urged even by her boy-consort—himself but a puppet 
in Northumberland’s hands—the pathetic figure of the unwilling 
Queen stepped into the gaily-painted barge that was to carry her 
to her doom. 
As in the case of the last owner, Somerset, Dudley did not long 
enjoy possession. He paid the penalty of his ambition on the 
scaffold, and two of his chief supporters also suffered. The Lady 
Jane and her husband were condemned to die, and, after a delay 
that had almost seemed to promise a pardon, they were executed. 
Queen Mary retained the estate—which by the attainder of the 
Duke of Northumberland now reverted to the crown—in her own 
hands, until 1557, when she recalled the ‘“‘ Daughters of Sion.” 
She did her best to reinstate them in their old home, re-endowing 
them with the manor and demesne of Isleworth and other 
property ; but Queen Elizabeth again suppressed them, and kept 
possession of the house and lands until her death, in 1603, when 
they were bestowed, with the Manor of Isleworth, on Henry 
Percy, ninth Earl of Northumberland, in the possession of whose 
family they have ever since remained. He expended large sums 
on the improvement of the mansion, but soon fell on evil days ; for 
he was accused and convicted by the Star Chamber, it is thought 
unjustly, of complicity in the Gunpowder Plot, deprived of all his 
offices, condemned to imprisonment for life in the Tower of London, 
and to pay a fine of £30,000. His offer to restore Sion to the King 
105 
