Lady Jane Grey is remembered in history as the 9 day queen.
She was named the successor of Edward VI, the son of Henry VIII as she was his cousin.
Edward wished for the next Tudor monarch to be a protestant, and wished for it to also
be a male however he could not find a man to take the throne.
He turned his attention to Jane, and it’s clear that she did not wish to become to monarch
and ruler of England.
When she was summoned and named the Queen, she was visibly distressed and she did not
wish for any of this.
It’s believed she knew the troubles that she would encounter as being the successor
and also as being a Tudor ruler.
However within a year of being named Queen of England, Jane was brought out to Tower
Green and was met by an executioner armed with an Axe.
The execution of Lady Jane Grey was a shocking moment in English history, as the young girl
of around 16 was decapitated on the orders of Bloody Mary I.
However in one country park in Leicestershire, with very strong links to the 9 day Queen,
they took remarkable action to commemorate and remember the beheaded Queen.
So join us today as we look at ‘The Remarkable Execution Of Trees,’ remember to support
our channel please make sure to subscribe.
Bradgate Park in Leicestershire is known locally as the former house and birthplace of Lady
Jane Grey and the Grey family.
It’s celebrated in the area as a beautiful park where deer run free, however remarkably
when Lady Jane Grey had her head struck off inside the Tower of London, the groundskeepers
and gardeners took huge steps to show their remembrance of Jane the young teenage girl,
and also air their discontent against the former girl who was born inside the house
there.
Sir John Grey of Groby married Elizabeth Woodville in 1452, but following his death Elizabeth
married Edward IV the King of England who during the Wars of the Roses deposed Henry
VI.
John and Elizabeth’s son Thomas was tasked with building Bradgate house, and it was completed
around the year 1520.
Surrounding the house was the remarkable deer park that had been enclosed, and inside were
many different oak trees.
Bradgate House today is a ruined building that looks amazing, however when it was built
during the reign of King Henry VIII, it was one of the most beautiful and spectacular
houses in the country.
It looks like a Tudor palace, and once it was built it was a remarkable home to the
Greys, who were considered a prominent family within society.
The greys also had very close links to the royalty.
Sir Thomas Grey died in 1530, and was succeeded by his son Henry the 3rd Marquess of Dorst
and he married Frances the daughter of the Duke of Suffolk and also Mary Tudor, the younger
sister of King Henry VIII.
It’s alleged that Lady Jane Grey was born inside of Bradgate House, with her father
being Henry Grey the 1st Duke of Suffolk and her mother being Lady Frances Brandon.
It’s believed that inside of Bradgate House in October 1537 she was born inside one of
the buildings that stood there.
The links to Lady Jane continued following her birth, as its believed that Bradgate was
her childhood home and that she was educated inside the ruins for a while.
Jane is considered to have been one of the most learned and talented young women of her
time, and she was given a very excellent humanist education.
It was believed that this prepared her for the office of one day going to court, to marry
possibly a wealthy and promising courtier as was hoped for any young women of the nobility
by their father’s and families.
She was given an education where she learned to speak Latin and Greek and also studying
Italian and Hebrew.
It’s believed also that she through the influence of her father and her tutors became
a devout Protestant, and also that she even wrote with Heinrich Bullinger.
When scholars visited Bradgate house and the Greys, they found Jane with her head in a
book reading Plato, and it was said of the family, ‘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.
With this, it’s considered that The Grey’s and the house that Jane grew up in a house
of perfectionists, and there was great emphasis on doing things correctly, and Jane it’s
believed was part of this.
She was later sent to live in the household of Edward VI’s great uncle Thomas Seymour
who married Catherine Parr.
Edward VI named Jane his successor, and with this disinherited his half sisters Mary and
Elizabeth.
Jane had royal blood, being a great grandchild of Henry VII, and when she became Queen she
was celebrated by Protestants and it was believed she would continue the work with the reformation.
However shortly after being crowned, Mary rose up and decided to challenge Jane but
quickly the privy council changed their support from Jane to Mary to save their skin and to
escape treason charges.
Mary was crowned Queen with Jane then being sentenced to death, but she was briefly pardoned.
But as rebellions rose up against Mary I, then Jane was deemed too dangerous to be imprisoned
at the Tower, and therefore Mary signed her death warrant.
Jane was taken out on the morning of the 12th February 1554 onto Tower Green.
She had previously witnessed the decapitated corpse of her husband Guildford who had been
executed on Tower Hill, and within an hour or so of doing that she was brought to her
own execution.
It’s believed that Jane the girl of around 16 or 17, met her death with calm up until
the final moments where she panicked trying to find the execution block.
When everything was prepared, an axeman took her head clean off with one swipe of the axe.
But following the execution, those gardeners and groundskeepers who worked at her former
childhood home of Bradgate House and Bradgate Park, once they heard the news made a remarkable
tribute to the young girl, which today almost 500 years later is still visible.
The groundskeepers found out that their former master’s daughter Jane had been beheaded
inside of the Tower of London at the behest of Mary.
To come up with a fitting tribute to commemorate the young girl, they took to the painstaking
job of pollarding each of the oak trees found inside the 850 acre Bradgate Park and deer
park.
They took their axes to cutting off the tops of the oak trees, in a similar manner to how
Lady Jane Grey was beheaded by the axe, and this took a long time to do.
Cutting the head or top of the trees was meant to symbolise the loss of Lady Jane Grey’s
head inside of the Tower of London on that February day in 1554.
Today almost 500 years on, there are many oak trees found inside of Bradgate Park, that
display signs of pollarding which took place following the 9 day queen’s execution.
These centuries old trees have seen many kings, queens, prime ministers, governments and changes
to the English landscape and history, however they remain a constant reminder of the execution
of Lady Jane Grey.
The symbolic beheading of the trees inside of Bradgate Park today are still seen by hundreds
of visitors who go for a walk inside of the beautiful parkland today.
However the story of the trees is a forgotten element of this history.
Interestingly, the oak trees that can still be seen today with their different shapes
brought on by the symbolic beheading were possibly seen by the young Lady Jane when
she lived in the Bradgate House.
It’s possible that she may have sat under these oak trees, reading her book or learning
from scholars.
It’s also believed that she may have played with her sisters near the oak trees, the same
oak trees that today represent the brutal beheading and death of the young girl who
once sat beneath them.
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