Lady Jane Grey

"Jane Grey" redirects here. For other uses, see Jane Grey (disambiguation).

Lady Jane Grey
The Streatham portrait, discovered at the beginning of the 21st century, is believed to be based on a contemporary woodcut.
Queen of England and Ireland
Reign	10 July 1553 – 19 July 1553
Predecessor	Edward VI
Successor	Mary I
Born	1536 or 1537 Possibly London or Bradgate Park, Leicestershire, England
Died	12 February 1554 (aged 16 or 17) Tower of London, London, England
Burial	Church of St Peter ad Vincula, Tower of London
Spouse	Lord Guildford Dudley ​ ​ (m. 1553; died 1554)​
House	Grey
Father	Henry Grey, 1st Duke of Suffolk
Mother	Lady Frances Brandon
Religion	Protestantism
Signature

Lady Jane Grey (1536/7 – 12 February 1554), also known as Lady Jane Dudley after her marriage and as the "Nine Days' Queen", was an English noblewoman who claimed the throne of England and Ireland from 10 to 19 July 1553.

Jane was the great-granddaughter of Henry VII, through his youngest daughter Mary, and a grand-niece of Henry VIII, and cousin to Edward VI, Mary I and Elizabeth I. Under the will of Henry VIII, Jane was in line to the throne after her cousins. She had a humanist education and a reputation as one of the most learned young women of her day. In May 1553, she was married to Lord Guildford Dudley, a younger son of Edward VI's chief minister John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland. In June 1553, the dying Edward VI wrote his will, nominating Jane and her male heirs as successors to the Crown, in part because his half-sister Mary was Catholic, while Jane was a committed Protestant and would support the reformed Church of England, whose foundation Edward laid. The will removed his half-sisters, Mary and Elizabeth, from the line of succession on account of their illegitimacy, subverting their lawful claims under the Third Succession Act. Through Northumberland, Edward's letters patent in favour of Jane were signed by the entire privy council, bishops, and other notables.

After Edward's death, Jane was proclaimed queen on 10 July 1553, and awaited coronation in the Tower of London. Support for Mary grew rapidly and most of Jane's supporters abandoned her. The Privy Council of England suddenly changed sides, and proclaimed Mary as queen on 19 July 1553, deposing Jane. Her primary supporter, her father-in-law, the Duke of Northumberland, was accused of treason, and executed less than a month later. Jane was held prisoner in the Tower, and in November 1553 was also convicted of treason, which carried a sentence of death.

Mary initially spared her life, but Jane soon became viewed as a threat to the Crown when her father, Henry Grey, 1st Duke of Suffolk, became involved with Wyatt's rebellion against Queen Mary's intention to marry Philip of Spain. Jane and her husband were executed on 12 February 1554. At the time of her execution, Jane was either 16 or 17 years old.

Early life and education

Lady Frances Brandon and Henry Grey, Duke of Suffolk, Jane's parents

Lady Margaret Wotton, Lady Mary Tudor and Charles Brandon, 1st Duke of Suffolk, Jane's paternal and maternal grandparents

Lady Jane Grey was the eldest daughter of Henry Grey, 1st Duke of Suffolk, and his wife, Frances Brandon. The traditional view is that she was born at Bradgate Park in Leicestershire in October 1537, while more recent research indicates that she was born somewhat earlier, possibly in London, sometime before May 1537 or between May 1536 and February 1537. This would coincide with the fact that she was noted as being in her seventeenth year at the time of her execution. Frances was the eldest daughter of Henry VIII's younger sister, Mary. Jane had two younger sisters: Lady Katherine and Lady Mary. Through their mother, the three sisters were great-granddaughters of Henry VII; great-nieces of Henry VIII; and first cousins once removed of the future Edward VI, Mary I and Elizabeth I.

Jane received a humanist education from John Aylmer, speaking Latin and Greek from an early age, also studying Hebrew with Aylmer, and Italian with Michelangelo Florio. She was particularly fond, throughout her life, of writing letters in Latin and Greek. Through the influence of her father and her tutors, she became a committed Protestant and also corresponded with the Zürich reformer Heinrich Bullinger.

She preferred academic studies rather than activities such as hunting parties and allegedly regarded her strict upbringing, which was typical of the time, as harsh. To the visiting scholar Roger Ascham, who found her reading Plato, she is said to have complained:

For when I am in the presence either of father or mother, whether I speak, keep silence, sit, stand or go, eat, drink, be merry or sad, be sewing, playing, dancing, or doing anything else, I must do it as it were in such weight, measure and number, even so perfectly as God made the world; or else I am so sharply taunted, so cruelly threatened, yea presently sometimes with pinches, nips and bobs and other ways (which I will not name for the honour I bear them) ... that I think myself in hell.

Around February 1547, Jane was sent to live in the household of Edward VI's uncle, Thomas Seymour, 1st Baron Seymour of Sudeley, who soon married Henry VIII's widow, Katherine Parr. After moving there, Jane was able to receive educational opportunities available in court circles. Jane lived with the couple at Sudeley Castle in Gloucestershire as an attendant to Katherine, until Katherine died in childbirth in September 1548. About eleven years old at the time, Jane was chief mourner at Katherine's funeral. After Thomas Seymour's arrest for treason, Jane returned to Bradgate and continued her studies.

Contracts for marriage

17th century portrait of a lady in the collection of Audley End House, labelled as Jane Grey, copy of the original at Syon House. Based on a portrait type identified as Lady Katherine Grey or Elizabeth I, it is believed that the Syon Portrait was created by William Seymour, 2nd Duke of Somerset, with the help of his grandfather, Lady Katherine Grey's widower, who had also known Lady Jane Grey, tweaking the portrait type into a genuine resemblance of her.

John Dudley, 1st Duke of Northumberland, Jane's father-in-law and strongman who led much of his daughter-in-law's brief reign

Lady Jane acted as chief mourner at Katherine Parr's funeral; Thomas Seymour showed continued interest to keep her in his household, and she returned there for about two months before he was arrested at the end of 1548. Seymour's brother, the Lord Protector, Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset, felt threatened by Thomas' popularity with the young King Edward. Among other things, Thomas Seymour was charged with proposing Jane as a bride for the king.

In the course of Thomas Seymour's following attainder and execution, Jane's father was lucky to stay largely out of trouble. After his fourth interrogation by the King's Council, he proposed his daughter Jane as a bride for the Protector's eldest son, Lord Hertford. Nothing came of this, however, and Jane was not engaged until 25 May 1553, her bridegroom being Lord Guildford Dudley, a younger son of John Dudley, 1st Duke of Northumberland. The Duke, Lord President of the King's Council from late 1549, was then the most powerful man in the country. On 25 May 1553, the couple were married at Durham House in a triple wedding, in which Jane's sister Katherine was matched with the heir of the Earl of Pembroke, Lord Herbert, and another Katherine, Lord Guildford's sister, with Henry Hastings, the Earl of Huntingdon's heir.

Claim to the throne and accession

See also: Third Succession Act and 1553 succession crisis

Illness and death of Edward VI, and accession of Jane to the throne

"My devise for the Succession" by Edward VI. The draft will was the basis for the letters patent, which declared Lady Jane Grey successor to the Crown. Edward's autograph shows his alteration of his text, from "L Janes heires masles" to "L Jane and her heires masles". Inner Temple Library, London.

Henry VIII had three children: Mary, who was raised Roman Catholic, and Elizabeth and Edward, the latter from the King's third marriage to Jane Seymour (who died in 1537 after complications arising from the pregnancy and birth of Edward), who were raised as Protestant. After his divorce from Catherine of Aragon in 1533 and the execution of Anne Boleyn in 1536, Henry rewrote the Act of Succession twice, declaring his eldest daughters Mary and Elizabeth illegitimate. Although Jane Seymour managed to briefly reconcile Henry with his daughters, the monarch's formal reconciliation with them would only come in 1543, at the urging of his sixth and last wife, Catherine Parr. The princesses were reinstated in the line of succession in the Final Act of 1544, although they were still regarded as illegitimate. Furthermore, this Act authorised Henry VIII to alter the succession by his will. Henry's will reinforced the succession of his three children, and then declared that, should none of them leave descendants, the throne would pass to heirs of his younger sister, Mary, which included Jane. For reasons still unknown, Henry excluded his niece and Jane's mother, Lady Frances Brandon from the succession, and also bypassed the claims of the descendants of his elder sister, Margaret, who had married into the Scottish royal house and nobility.

In February 1553 Edward VI fell ill (many historians believe it was tuberculosis). Although he briefly recovered, in May he suffered a relapse again, and by early June his health had seriously deteriorated to the point that royal doctors informed Regent Dudley and other noblemen close to the young monarch that he had only a few weeks to live. At the time, Edward's heir presumptive was his Catholic half-sister, Mary. Edward, in a draft will ("My devise for the Succession") composed earlier in 1553, had first restricted the succession to (non-existent) male descendants of Jane's mother and her daughters, before he named his Protestant cousin "Lady Jane and her heirs male" as his successors, probably in June 1553. Aware of his impending death and still with a clear conscience, Edward, guided primarily by Dudley, planned the exclusion of his older half-sister from the line of succession. The king’s intentions aligned closely with Dudley’s fears: Dudley, who had become a symbol of the hated Reformation for Mary, reasonably believed that Mary might seek to eliminate both him and his family once she came to power. Both the King and Protector Dudley knew of Mary's intense devotion to the Catholic faith; The Princess had half accepted some of her father's reforms, but bitterly disapproved of all those made by Edward, and the fear of both Edward and Dudley is that if she came to the throne, she would reestablish Catholicism, reversing all the reforms made. Mary regarded the Pope's cause as her own, and Mary's Catholic convictions were so strong that when Edward's parliament passed an Act of Uniformity that required all church services to be in English, she continued to have the traditional Latin mass celebrated in her private chapel. When Edward and his advisors pressured Mary to conform to the Law of Uniformity, the Princess went so far as to appeal her situation to her first cousin, the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, the most powerful monarch in Catholic Europe, who threatened to intervene militarily in England if the Government continued to interfere with Mary's religion. Edward's advisors warned the monarch that he could not disinherit just one of his two older half-sisters: he would also have to disinherit Elizabeth, although she, like her half-brother, was also a Protestant. Instigated by Northumberland, Edward decided to disinherit both Mary and Elizabeth, thus contravening the Succession Act of 1544, and appointed Jane Grey as his heir.

The essence of Edward's will was to give priority to the throne to the unborn sons of Lady Frances Brandon, followed by the unborn sons of her daughter Jane Grey. The choice of the descendants of Henry VII's youngest daughter was easy: Edward had no choice. He could not follow Salic law because of the paucity of men in the Tudor line: the only such man, the Scotsman Henry Stewart, Lord Darnley, barely 6 or 7 years old and son of the King's first cousin, Lady Margaret Douglas, was Catholic and therefore unacceptable to the monarch. The Plantagenet men were also unacceptable: Edward Courtenay descendant of Catherine of York, great-aunt of Edward VI, not only was he Catholic, but he had also spent many years imprisoned in the Tower. Reginald Pole and his relatives were also Catholics and political emigrants. Having excluded from consideration the descendants of the Plantagenets, the descendants of his aunt Margaret (the Scottish Stewarts) and his own older half-sisters Mary and Elizabeth, Edward was forced to choose from the descendants of his aunt Mary, Widow Queen of France and Duchess of Suffolk. There were no male descendants in this branch of the Tudors, and the oldest woman of childbearing age was Mary's thirty-five-year-old daughter Frances Grey. If Frances could not bear a child, Frances's eldest daughter, Jane, could. She was young, healthy, and brought up in the Protestant faith, and her other qualities were of no importance.

Edward VI personally supervised the copying of his will which was finally issued as letters patent on 21 June and signed by 102 notables, among them the whole Privy Council, peers, bishops, judges, and London aldermen. Edward also announced to have his "declaration" passed in parliament in September, and the necessary writs were prepared. The King died on 6 July 1553, but his death was not announced until four days later. On July 9, Jane was informed that she was now Queen. She was initially reluctant to accept the crown, although she later relented after pressure from an assembly of nobles, including her parents and her parents in-laws, while Guildford chimed in with a lovelier approach, with "prayers and caresses". On July 10 she was officially proclaimed Queen of England, France and Ireland and that same day, she and her husband Guildford made their ceremonial entry into the Tower of London, where English monarchs customarily resided from the time of accession until coronation. After the young couple's arrival at the Tower, Guildford began demanding to be made King Consort. Jane had a long discussion about this with Guildford, who "assented that if he were to be made king, he would be so by me, by Act of Parliament". However, Jane would agree only to make him Duke of Clarence; Guildford replied that he did not want to be a duke, but the king. When the Duchess of Northumberland heard of the argument, she became furious and forbade Guildford to sleep any longer with his wife. She also commanded him to leave the Tower and go home, but Jane insisted that he remain at court at her side.

Mary's claim and Jane's final downfall

Princess Mary was last seen by Edward in mid-February, and both her advisors and the imperial ambassador were keeping her informed about the state of her brother's health. At the end of June, Mary was invited to visit her dying brother, however her advisors warned her that it was a plan devised by Northumberland to capture her and thus facilitate Jane's accession to the throne. Therefore, a few days before Edward's death, the Princess left Hunsdon House, near London, and sped to her extensive estates around Kenninghall in Norfolk, where she could count on the support of her tenants. Northumberland sent part of the Royal Navy to the Norfolk coasts to prevent their escape or the arrival of reinforcements from the Continent.

Mary Tudor, who became Queen, with a coup d'état within the Privy Council, after the brief nine-day reign of Jane

To claim her right to the throne, Mary began assembling her supporters in East Anglia. Northumberland soon realised that he had made a grave mistake in failing to capture and neutralise the Princess before she fled to her estates in Norfolk. Although many of those who rallied to Mary were Catholics hoping to reestablish the traditional faith and defeat Protestantism, among her supporters there were also Protestants who were dissatisfied with the governance of both Edward and Dudley, and many for whom the Princess's legitimate claim to the throne overrode religious considerations. On 9 July, from Kenninghall, she sent a letter saying that she was now Queen and demanded the obedience of the Council. The letter arrived on 10 July, the same day as Jane's proclamation in London. Jane's proclamation in London was greeted by the public with murmurs of discontent. The council replied to Mary's letter that Jane was queen by Edward's authority and that Mary, by contrast, was illegitimate and supported only by "a few lewd, base people". Dudley interpreted the letter as a threat, although at that time he had not prepared for resolute action on Mary's part since he needed at least a week to try to build up a larger force. He was in a dilemma over who should lead the troops. He was the most experienced general in the Kingdom, but he did not want to leave the government in the hands of his colleagues, in some of whom he had little confidence. Jane decided the issue by demanding that her father should remain with her and the Council.

On the night of July 10, during dinner, the Duchess of Suffolk, Jane's mother, and the Duchess of Northumberland broke into tears, due to the arrival of Mary's letter, as the duchesses knew that they could be left in a vulnerable position if Mary triumphed and acceded to the throne.

On 12 July, Mary and her supporters gathered an army of nearly twenty thousand at Framlingham Castle, Suffolk, Duke of Norfolk's property, to eventually confront the forces led by Dudley.

On 14 July Northumberland was obliged to relinquish control of a nervous Council in London to pursue Mary into East Anglia. That same day, Northumberland, accompanied by his sons John, Earl of Warwick, the Duke's heir apparent, and Lord Ambrose, left London and headed to Cambridge with 1,500 troops and some artillery, having reminded his colleagues of the gravity of the cause, "what chance of variance soever might grow amongst you in my absence".

After marching to East Anglia, the Northumberland army spent a week practically without action, until on 20 July, the Duke learned that the previous day the Council had declared for Mary. Supported by the gentry and nobility of East Anglia and the Thames Valley, Mary's support grew daily and, through luck, came into possession of powerful artillery from the Royal navy. Given the circumstances and the fact that the Council had changed sides, the Duke felt that launching a final attack against Mary meant fighting a hopeless campaign. The army proceeded from Cambridge to Bury St Edmunds and retreated again to Cambridge. Stranded in Cambridge, Northumberland surrendered and proclaimed Mary in the Marketplace, as he had been ordered in a letter from the Council. After proclaiming Mary, the Duke raised his cap and "laughed to try to hide the tears that fell down his pain-filled cheeks." Two members of the Council, the Catholics William Paget and Henry FitzAlan, 12th Earl of Arundel, rode to Framlingham to beg Mary's pardon, on behalf of the majority of the councillors, for having signed the document removing her from the succession and placing Jane Grey on the throne. A large group of townsmen and university scholars surrounded King's College to arrest the Duke, who was with his sons, lodged on the premises. In contrast to his father and his brother, Warwick resisted arrest. A letter from the Council arrived that everyman could go his way, so the Duke asked to be set free, "and so continued they all night [at liberty]".

At dawn on 21 July, the Duke and his sons "was booted ready to have ridden in the morning", and escape. However, it was too late, as that same morning Arundel arrived to once again arrest the Duke, his sons, and his entourage. The prisoners returned riding side by side through London to the Tower on 25 July, the guards having difficulties protecting them against the hostile populace. A pamphlet appearing shortly after Northumberland's arrest illustrated the general hatred of him: "the great devil Dudley ruleth, Duke I should have said". He was now commonly thought to have poisoned King Edward while Mary "would have been as glad of her brother's life, as the ragged bear is glad of his death". Dumbfounded by the turn of events, the French ambassador Antoine de Noailles wrote: "I have witnessed the most sudden change believable in men, and I believe that God alone worked it." The Council switched their allegiance and proclaimed Mary queen in London, on 19 July. A majority of the councillors moved out of the Tower before switching their allegiance. Becoming aware of his colleagues' change of mind, Jane's father abandoned his command of the fortress and proclaimed Mary I on nearby Tower Hill. The historical consensus assumes that this was in recognition of overwhelming support of the population for Mary. However, there is no clear evidence for that outside Norfolk and Suffolk, where Northumberland had put down Kett's Rebellion, and many adherents to the Catholic faith and opponents of Northumberland, lived there. Rather, it seems the Earl of Arundel, together with William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke orchestrated a coup d'état in the Privy Council in Northumberland's absence. Arundel, one of the leaders of the Conservative faction within the Council and a staunch opponent of the reformist religious policies of both the King and Northumberland, had been imprisoned twice by Dudley for having sided with the previous Protector, Somerset; but it is not clear why Pembroke participated in the coup, especially since his son and heir Henry had married Jane's sister, Katherine, the same day as Jane and Guildford Dudley's wedding. Once the coup was consummated, the rest of the councillors, including those who were still loyal to Jane, accepted it. On 19 July, the Council met at Baynard's Castle, Pembroke's property, to end the claim of Lady Jane Grey to the throne and proclaim Mary as Queen of England. That same day, a few hours before Queen Mary's proclamation in London, the baptism of one of the Gentlemen Pensioners' children took place. Jane had agreed to be the godmother and wished the child's name to be Guildford. The Bishop of Winchester, Stephen Gardiner, who had been imprisoned in the Tower for five years, took great offence at this fact as he heard of it.

Mary I entering London triumphantly, 15 days after the Council deposed Jane Grey and proclaimed Mary the new Queen. Portrait made by Byam Shaw in 1910.

Mary rode triumphantly into London on 3 August, on a wave of popular support. She was accompanied by her half-sister Elizabeth and a procession of over 800 nobles and gentlemen.

Jane is often called the Nine-Day Queen, although if her reign is dated from the moment of Edward's death on 6 July 1553, it could be reckoned to have lasted for almost two weeks (13 days). On 19 July 1553, Jane was imprisoned in the Tower's Gentleman Gaoler's apartments, and Guildford was imprisoned in the Bell Tower. There he was soon joined by his brother, Robert. His remaining brothers were imprisoned in other towers, as was Northumberland, who was for the moment the only prominent person to go to the scaffold. Despite the Duchess of Northumberland's desperate pleas to the Queen not to execute him, nothing changed the final sentence and Dudley was beheaded on 22 August 1553. Also executed that same day was Sir John Gates, Northumberland's friend and intimate, and one of the instigators of the plan for Edward VI to modify his will to facilitate Jane's succession. The day before their executions, Northumberland and Gates were escorted to the Chapel of St. Peter ad Vincula, in the Tower grounds, where they both attended a Catholic Mass, took the communion and returned to that faith, abjuring Protestantism. Northumberland's religious retraction outraged Jane, who was a fervent Protestant. In September, the first Parliament of Mary's reign revoked the provisions of Edward's will that favoured Jane Grey's succession, declaring Mary her brother's rightful heir, and denounced and revoked Jane's proclamation as a usurper.

For centuries, the attempt to alter the succession was mostly seen as a one-man plot by Northumberland. Since the 1970s, however, many historians have attributed the inception of the "devise" and the insistence on its implementation to the king's initiative. Diarmaid MacCulloch has made out Edward's "teenage dreams of founding an evangelical realm of Christ", while David Starkey has stated that "Edward had a couple of co-operators, but the driving will was his". Among other members of the Privy Chamber, Northumberland's intimate Sir John Gates has been suspected of suggesting to Edward to change his devise so that Lady Jane Grey herself—not just any sons of hers—could inherit the Crown. Whatever the degree of his contribution, Edward was convinced that his word was law and fully endorsed disinheriting his half-sisters: "barring Mary from the succession was a cause in which the young King believed".

Trial and execution

The Execution of Lady Jane Grey, by the French painter Paul Delaroche, 1833. National Gallery

Referred to by the court as Jane Dudley, wife of Guildford, Jane was charged with high treason, as were her husband, two of his brothers, and the former archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer. Their trial, by a special commission, took place on 13 November 1553, at Guildhall in the City of London. The commission was chaired by Sir Thomas White, Lord Mayor of London, and Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk. Other members included Edward Stanley, 3rd Earl of Derby, and John Bourchier, 2nd Earl of Bath. As was to be expected, all defendants were found guilty and sentenced to death. The Duke of Suffolk was also accused of high treason and sentenced to death, but thanks to his wife's close friendship with Mary, he was temporarily saved from being executed, although he remained under house arrest. Jane's guilt, of having treacherously assumed the title and the power of the monarch, was evidenced by a number of documents she had signed as "Jane the Quene [sic]". Her sentence was to "be burned alive on Tower Hill or beheaded as the Queen pleases" (burning was the traditional English punishment for treason committed by women). The imperial ambassador reported to Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, that her life was to be spared.

Jane submitted a letter of explanation to the Queen, "asking forgiveness ... for the sin she was accused of, informing her majesty about the truth of events." In this account, she spoke of herself as "a wife who loves her husband".

In December, Jane was allowed to walk freely in the Queen's Garden. Lord Robert and Lord Guildford had to be content with taking the air on the leads of the Bell Tower. Jane and Guildford may have had some contact with each other, and at some point Guildford wrote a message to his father-in-law in Jane's prayer book:

Your loving and obedient son wishes unto your grace long life in this world with as much joy and comfort as ever I wish to myself, and in the world to come joy everlasting. Your humble son to his death, G. Dudley

Official letter of Lady Jane Grey signing herself as "Jane the Quene [sic]". Inner Temple Library, London

Mary initially decided to spare the lives of Jane and her husband, assuming that they had been mere pawns in the midst of a much larger political plan designed and orchestrated by Northumberland, and the Duke was executed on 22 August 1553, a month after Mary's accession to the throne. However, the Wyatt's Rebellion in January 1554 against Queen Mary's marriage plans with Philip of Spain ultimately sealed Jane's fate. The Queen's marriage plan was greeted with widespread opposition, not just among the populace but also among Members of Parliament and some of the privy councillors, and the Rebellion, which was joined by the Duke of Suffolk and Guildford's brothers, Robert and Henry Dudley, resulted from this dislike. It was not the intention of the conspirators to bring Jane to the throne again. Nevertheless, at the height of the crisis, the Government decided to continue with the sentence against Jane and her husband. The former Queen was becoming a serious threat to Mary, so the executions of Grey and Guildford Dudley were also an opportunity to remove possible inspirations for future unrest and unwelcome reminders of the past. It troubled Queen to let her cousin die, but she accepted the Privy Council's advice. Mary signed the order on 19 January. Bishop and Lord Chancellor Gardiner pressed for the young couple's execution in a court sermon, and the Imperial ambassador Simon Renard was happy to report that "Jane of Suffolk and her husband are to lose their heads." Their execution was initially scheduled for 9 February 1554, but was postponed for three days to give Jane the opportunity to convert to Catholicism. Jane asked for a visit from Protestant divine, but the Queen denied her request, and instead Mary sent her chaplain, Father John Feckenham to see Jane, who was initially not pleased about this. Though she would not give in to his efforts "to save her soul", she became friends with him and allowed him to accompany her to the scaffold.

The day before their executions, Lord Guildford asked Jane to have one last meeting, which she refused, explaining it "would only ... increase their misery and pain, it was better to put it off ... as they would meet shortly elsewhere, and live bound by indissoluble ties."

Around ten o'clock in the morning of 12 February, Guildford was led towards Tower Hill, where "many ... gentlemen" waited to shake hands with him. Guildford made a short speech to the assembled crowd, as was customary. "Having no ghostly father with him", he knelt, prayed, and asked the people to pray for him, "holding up his eyes and hands to God many times". He was killed with one stroke of the axe, after which his body was conveyed on a cart to the Chapel of St Peter ad Vincula for burial. Watching the scene from her window, Jane exclaimed: "Oh, Guildford, Guildford!" She was then taken out to Tower Green, inside the Tower, to be beheaded. According to the account of her execution given in the anonymous Chronicle of Queen Jane and of Two Years of Queen Mary, which formed the basis for Raphael Holinshed's depiction, Jane gave a speech upon ascending the scaffold:

Good people, I am come hither to die, and by a law I am condemned to the same. The fact, indeed, against the Queen's highness was unlawful, and the consenting thereunto by me: but touching the procurement and desire thereof by me or on my behalf, I do wash my hands thereof in innocency, before God, and the face of you, good Christian people, this day.

While admitting to action considered unlawful, she declared that "I do wash my hands thereof in innocence". Jane then recited Psalm 51 (Have mercy upon me, O God) in English, and handed her gloves and handkerchief to her maid. The executioner asked her for forgiveness, which she granted him, pleading: "I pray you dispatch me quickly." Referring to her head, she asked, "Will you take it off before I lay me down?", and the axeman answered, "No, madam." She then blindfolded herself. Jane then failed to find the block with her hands, and cried, "What shall I do? Where is it?" Probably Sir Thomas Brydges, the Deputy Lieutenant of the Tower, helped her find her way. With her head on the block, Jane spoke the last words of Jesus as recounted in the Gospel of Luke: "Lord, into thy hands I commend my spirit!"

Memorial tablet for Lady Jane Grey, in St Peter ad Vincula

Jane and Guildford are buried in the Chapel of St Peter ad Vincula on the north side of Tower Green. No memorial stone was erected at their grave. Jane's father, the Duke of Suffolk, was executed 11 days after Jane, on 23 February 1554.

The executions did not contribute to Mary's or the government's popularity. Five months after the couple's death, John Knox, the famous Scottish reformer, wrote of them as "innocents ... such as by just laws and faithful witnesses can never be proved to have offended by themselves." Of Guildford Dudley, the chronicler Grafton wrote ten years later: "even those that never before the time of his execution saw him, did with lamentable tears bewail his death."

With only her two surviving teenage daughters and her husband executed for treason, Jane's mother, the Duchess of Suffolk faced ruin. As a wife, she had no possessions in her own right. All of her husband's possessions were forfeited by the Crown as was customary in the case of noblemen convicted of treason. She managed to plead with the queen to show mercy, which meant at least she and her daughters had the chance of rehabilitation. Mary forgave Frances; apparently the Queen did not want to send her first cousin, goddaughter and childhood playmate to the scaffold. The queen's forgiveness meant some of Suffolk's property would remain with his family, or at least could be granted back at some later time. Frances maintained good relations with Mary, who allowed her to reside in Richmond, although at the time she was still viewed with some suspicion by the Queen, and employed the Duchess's two surviving daughters as maids of honour. In 1555 there was talk of a possible marriage between Frances and her relative Edward Courtenay, 1st Earl of Devon, but Courtenay was reluctant, and soon went into exile to the Republic of Venice, where he subsequently died. Frances, to avoid having problems with Mary again, married her Master of the Horse and chamberlain, Adrian Stokes. She died in 1559.

Legacy

Main article: Cultural depictions of Lady Jane Grey

In 1836, American poet Lydia Sigourney published a poem, "Lady Jane Grey", in her volume Zinzendorff and Other Poems. In 1911, the British historian Albert Pollard called Jane "the traitor-heroine of the Reformation". During the Marian persecutions and its aftermath, Jane became viewed as a Protestant martyr, featuring prominently in the several editions of Foxe's Book of Martyrs (Actes and Monuments of these Latter and Perillous Dayes) by John Foxe. The story of Jane's life grew to legendary proportions in popular culture, producing romantic biographies, novels, plays, operas, paintings, and films, such as Lady Jane in 1986, and Amazon Prime’s My Lady Jane series that débuted in June 2024.

Family tree

Jane's relationship to the House of Tudor and other claimants to the English throne

Italics indicate people who predeceased Edward VI; Arabic numerals (1–5) indicate Edward VI's line of succession at his death according to Henry VIII's will; and Roman numerals (I–III) indicate Edward VI's line of succession at his death according to Edward's will. Henry VII Elizabeth of York Henry VIII Margaret Tudor Mary Tudor Charles Brandon Edward VI Mary I (1) Elizabeth I (2) James V of Scotland Frances Brandon Henry Grey Mary, Queen of Scots Jane Grey (3, I) Katherine Grey (4, II) Mary Grey (5, III)

Bibliography

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External links

• Media related to Lady Jane Grey at Wikimedia Commons
• Lee, Sidney (1888). "Dudley, Jane" . Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 16. pp. 105–107.
• "Grey, Lady Jane" . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 12 (11th ed.). 1911. pp. 590–591.
• Lady Jane Grey at the official website of the British monarchy
• Edwards, J. Stephan (3 July 2024). "Somegreymatter.com".
• Works by Lady Jane Grey at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
• Portraits of Lady Jane Grey at the National Portrait Gallery, London