Lady Jane Grey Lady Jane Grey ), also known as Lady Jane
Dudley or The Nine Days' Queen, was an English noblewoman and de facto monarch of England
from 10 July until 19 July 1553.
The great-granddaughter of Henry VII through his younger daughter Mary, Jane was a first
cousin once removed of Edward VI.
In May 1553, she was married to Lord Guildford Dudley, a younger son of Edward's chief minister,
John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland.
When the 15-year-old King lay dying in June 1553, he nominated Jane as successor to the
Crown in his will, thus subverting the claims of his half-sisters Mary and Elizabeth under
the Third Succession Act.
Jane was imprisoned in the Tower of London when the Privy Council decided to change sides
and proclaim Mary as queen on 19 July 1553.
Jane was convicted of high treason in November 1553, which carried a sentence of death, although
her life was initially spared.
Wyatt's rebellion of January and February 1554 against Queen Mary I's plans to marry
Philip of Spain led to the execution of both Jane and her husband.
Lady Jane Grey had an excellent humanist education and a reputation as one of the most learned
young women of her day.
A committed Protestant, she was posthumously regarded as not only a political victim but
also a martyr.
Early life and education Lady Jane Grey was the eldest daughter of
Henry Grey, 1st Duke of Suffolk, and his wife, Lady 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, in late 1536 or in the spring of 1537.
Lady Frances was the daughter of Mary Tudor, Queen of France, the younger sister of Henry
VIII.
Jane had two younger sisters, Lady Catherine Grey and Lady Mary Grey; through their mother,
the three sisters were great-granddaughters of Henry VII, grandnieces of Henry VIII, and
first cousins once removed of Edward VI.
Jane received a first-rate humanist education, studying Latin, Greek and Hebrew with John
Aylmer, and Italian with Michelangelo Florio.
Through the influence of her father and her tutors, she became a committed Protestant
and also corresponded with the Zürich reformer, Heinrich Bullinger.
Jane preferred book studies to hunting parties and regarded her strict upbringing, which
was well-meant and typical of the time, as harsh.
To the visiting scholar Roger Ascham, who found her reading Plato, she is said to have
complained: In early February 1547, Jane was sent to live
in the household of Thomas Seymour, who soon married Henry VIII's widow, Catherine Parr.
Jane lived with the couple until the death of Queen Catherine in childbirth in September
1548.
Contracts for marriage Jane acted as chief mourner at Catherine Parr's
funeral, and Thomas Seymour showed continued interest in her, and she was again in his
household for about two months when 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 royal bride.
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 Council, he proposed his daughter Jane as a bride for
the Protector's eldest son, Lord Hertford.
Nothing came of this, however, and Jane's next engagement, in the spring of 1553, was
to Lord Guildford Dudley, a younger son of John Dudley, 1st Duke of Northumberland.
Her prospective father-in-law 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 Catherine 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 The Third Succession Act of 1544 restored
Henry VIII's daughters Mary and Elizabeth to the line of succession, although the law
regarded them 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 heirs, the throne would pass to heirs of his younger sister,
Mary Tudor, which included Jane (for unknown reasons, Henry excluded Jane's mother, Frances
Grey, from the succession.).
Henry's will excluded the descendants of his elder sister Margaret Tudor, owing in part
to Henry's desire to keep the English throne out of the hands of the Scots monarchs, and
in part to a previous Act of Parliament of 1431 that barred foreign-born persons, including
royalty, from inheriting property in England.
When the 15-year-old Edward VI lay dying in the early summer of 1553, his Catholic half-sister
Mary was still the heiress presumptive to the throne.
However, Edward, in a draft will composed earlier in 1553, had first restricted the
succession to (non-existent) male descendants of Frances Brandon and her daughters, before
he named his Protestant cousin Jane Grey as his successor on his deathbed, perhaps under
the persuasion of Northumberland.
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.
On 9 July Jane was informed that she was now queen, and according to her own later claims,
accepted the crown only with reluctance.
The next day, she was officially proclaimed Queen of England after she had taken up secure
residence in the Tower of London, where English monarchs customarily resided from the time
of accession until coronation.
Jane refused to name her husband Dudley as king by letters patent and deferred to Parliament.
She offered to make him Duke of Clarence instead.
Northumberland faced a number of key tasks to consolidate his power after Edward's death.
Most importantly, he had to isolate and, ideally, capture Lady Mary to prevent her from gathering
support.
As soon as Mary was sure of King Edward's demise, she left her residence at Hunsdon
and set out to East Anglia, where she began to rally her supporters.
Northumberland set out from London with troops on 14 July; in his absence the Privy Council
switched their allegiance from Jane to Mary, and proclaimed her queen in London on 19 July
among great jubilation of the populace.
Jane was imprisoned in the Tower's Gentleman Gaoler's apartments, her husband in the Beauchamp
Tower.
The new queen entered London in a triumphal procession on 3 August, and the Duke of Northumberland
was executed on 22 August 1553.
In September, Parliament declared Mary the rightful queen and denounced and revoked Jane's
proclamation as that of a usurper.
Trial and execution Jane and Lord Guildford Dudley were both charged
with high treason, together with two of Dudley's brothers and the former Archbishop of Canterbury,
Thomas Cranmer.
Their trial, by a special commission, took place on 13 November 1553, at the 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.
Jane was found guilty of having signed a number of documents as "Jane the Queen"; her sentence
was to "be burned alive on Tower Hill or beheaded as the Queen pleases" (the traditional English
punishment for treason committed by women).
However, the imperial ambassador reported to Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, that her
life was to be spared.
The Protestant rebellion of Thomas Wyatt the Younger in January 1554 sealed Jane's fate,
although she had nothing to do with it.
Wyatt's rebellion was a revolt precipitated by Queen Mary's planned marriage to the future
Philip II of Spain.
Jane's father, the Duke of Suffolk, and his two brothers joined the rebellion, which caused
the government to go through with the verdict against Jane and Guildford.
Their execution was first scheduled for 9 February 1554, but was then postponed for
three days so that Jane should get a chance to be converted to the Catholic faith.
Mary sent her chaplain John Feckenham to 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.
On the morning of 12 February 1554, the authorities took Guildford from his rooms at the Tower
of London to the public execution place at Tower Hill, where he was beheaded.
A horse and cart brought his remains back to the Tower, past the rooms where Jane was
staying.
Seeing her husband's corpse return, Jane is reported to have 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: She 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 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 by Luke:
"Lord, into thy hands I commend my spirit!"
Jane and Guildford are buried in the Chapel of St Peter ad Vincula on the north side of
Tower Green.
Jane's father, Duke of Suffolk, was executed 11 days after Jane, on 23 February 1554.
Her mother, the Duchess of Suffolk, married her Master of the Horse and chamberlain, Adrian
Stokes in March 1555 (not, as often said, three weeks after the execution of the Duke
of Suffolk).
She was fully pardoned by Mary and allowed to live at Court with her two surviving daughters.
She died in 1559.
Legacy "The traitor-heroine of the Reformation",
as historian Albert Pollard called her, was only 16 or 17 years old at the time of her
execution.
During and in the aftermath of the Marian persecutions, Jane became viewed as a Protestant
martyr for centuries, featuring prominently in the several editions of the Book of Martyrs
by John Foxe.
The tale of Lady Jane grew to legendary proportions in popular culture, producing a flood of romantic
biographies, novels, plays, paintings, and films, one of which was the 1986 production
Lady Jane, starring Helena Bonham Carter.
Ancestry