Lady Jane Grey (1536/1537 – 12 February 1554), also known as Lady Jane Dudley after her marriage, and nicknamed the "Nine Days Queen", was an English noblewoman who was proclaimed Queen of England and Ireland on 10 July 1553 and reigned until she was deposed by the Privy Council of England, which proclaimed her cousin, Mary I, as the new Queen on 19 July. Jane was later beheaded for high treason.
Jane was the great-granddaughter of Henry VII (through his youngest surviving daughter, Mary Tudor), the grandniece of Henry VIII, and the first cousin once removed of 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, 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, whereas Jane was a committed Protestant and would support the reformed Church of England, whose foundation Edward laid. The will removed both of his half-sisters, Mary and Elizabeth, from the line of succession because of their illegitimacy, subverting their lawful claims under the Third Succession Act. Through the Duke of 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 suddenly changed sides and proclaimed Mary as queen on 19 July, 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, she 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 Mary's intention to marry Philip of Spain. Jane and her husband were both executed by beheading on 12 February 1554 at the Tower of London. At the time of her execution, Jane was either 16 or 17 years old.
Contents
Early life and education
Lady Jane Grey was the eldest daughter of Henry Grey, Duke of Suffolk, and his wife, Frances Brandon. The traditional view is that she was born at Bradgate House, Bradgate Park, in Leicestershire in October 1537, but 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 elder 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. On her father's side, Jane and her sisters were granddaughters of Thomas Grey, 2nd Marquess of Dorset and his second wife Margaret Wotton. On her paternal grandfather's side, Jane and her sisters were also descended from Elizabeth Woodville, wife of King Edward IV, by her first marriage to Sir John Grey of Groby.
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. Jane had a reputation as one of the most learned young women of her day.
She preferred academic studies to 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, Catherine 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 Catherine until Catherine died in childbirth in September 1548. About eleven years old at the time, Jane was chief mourner at Catherine's funeral. After Thomas Seymour's arrest for treason, Jane returned to Bradgate and continued her studies.
Contracts for marriage
Lady Jane acted as chief mourner at Catherine Parr's funeral. Thomas Seymour showed continued interest in keeping 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 Privy 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 Privy 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 heir of the Earl of Huntingdon.
Claim to the throne and accession
Illness and death of Edward VI
Henry VIII had three children: Mary, who was raised Roman Catholic, and Elizabeth and Edward (the last from the King's third marriage to Jane Seymour, who died in 1537 after complications arising from the pregnancy and birth of Edward), both of whom were raised as Protestant. Following the annulment of his marriage to his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, Mary's mother, in 1533 and the beheading of his second wife, Anne Boleyn, Elizabeth's mother, in 1536, Henry rewrote the Act of Succession twice, declaring his daughters illegitimate. Although Jane Seymour managed to reconcile Henry briefly with his daughters, the monarch's formal reconciliation with them would come only 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. 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 Dudley and other noblemen close to Edward 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 for Mary a symbol of the hated Reformation, reasonably believed that Mary might seek to eliminate both him and his family should she come 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 both Edward and Dudley feared 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 her Catholic convictions were so strong that when the Edwardian Parliament passed an Act of Uniformity in 1549 that abolished the Roman Rite and prescribed that religious services be conducted in English, Mary defied it by continuing to have the traditional Latin mass celebrated in her private chapels. When Edward and his officials pressured Mary to conform to the Law of Uniformity, the Princess appealed her situation to her first cousin, 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 was warned by his advisors that he could not disinherit just one of his older half-sisters; he would have to also disinherit Elizabeth although she, like Edward, was 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. For more than a year, the Imperial ambassador Jehan de Scheyfye had been convinced of Northumberland being engaged in some "mighty plot" to settle the Crown on his own head, and informed Charles V of the situation.
Mary's claim and Jane's final downfall
Princess Mary was last seen by Edward in mid-February, although both her advisors and the Imperial Ambassador, Jehan de Scheyfve, were keeping her informed about the state of her brother's health. At the end of June, the Princess moved from her estate at Newhall to the nearby residence of Hunsdon House, 28 miles (45 km) north of London. Before the move, she had defiantly ordered that Hunsdon be prepared for a long stay. During those days, Mary was invited to visit her dying brother. However her advisers warned her that it was a plan devised by Northumberland to capture her and thus facilitate Jane's accession to the throne. On 4 July, two days before Edward's death, Mary left Hunsdon and headed first to Cambridge and then to her extensive estates around Kenninghall in Norfolk. Mary was the largest landowner in East Anglia: after her father's death in 1547 she received 32 estates in Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex. Along with the inheritance, Mary received for the first time in her life a large support group "on the land" — clients from the local nobility and common people.
The reasons for Mary's decision to flee on 4 July remain unknown. Modern historians reject stories that well-wishers warned Mary of the danger halfway to London: she regularly received news from London, and fully understood the risks of her position. The circumstances of Mary's flight are surrounded by legends and unreliable testimonies. The chronology of Mary's journey has been reconstructed by historians from scattered accounts, none of which gives a complete picture of the events. The most important source Vita Mariae Angliae reginae by Robert Wingfield (historian), a participant in Mary's campaign, does not give accurate dates.
The day after Edward's death, Northumberland sent his son Robert and a small army of 300 men to Hunsdon to watch over Mary, although at the time they were unaware that the Princess had already left the manor for her estates in Norfolk. Learning that Mary was heading to Norfolk, Northumberland sent part of the Royal Navy to the Norfolk coasts to prevent their escape or the arrival of reinforcements from the Continent.
On the evening of 7 July, while Mary was at the Manor of Euston Hall near Thetford, she was overtaken by messengers from London with the information that her brother had died the day before. She was first informed by a courier sent by Nicholas Throckmorton. The Princess, probably fearing Dudley's provocation, did not act immediately, but waited for confirmation from a reliable source — most likely her personal physician, Thomas Hughes, who had access to the palace. After confirming the authenticity of the news, on the morning of 8 July Mary urgently returned to Kenninghall, where she and her advisors began preparing to summon her supporters.
Trial and execution
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 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 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". 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
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 scheme designed and orchestrated by Northumberland. The Duke was executed on 22 August 1553, a month after Mary's accession to the throne. However, the outbreak of Wyatt's Rebellion in January 1554 against Queen Mary's marriage plans with Philip of Spain would ultimately seal 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 reactivate the sentence, which had remained suspended, against Jane and her husband. Jane 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 Mary to let her cousin die, but she accepted the Privy Council's recommendation. 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". Mary signed the order on 19 January, and the execution was initially scheduled for 9 February, although it was later postponed for three days to give Jane a chance to convert to Catholicism. Jane asked for a visit from Protestant divine, but Mary denied her request, and instead she sent her chaplain, Father John Feckenham to see Jane, who was initially not pleased about this. They debated theological matters and although Feckenham did not succeed in converting Jane to Catholicism, he was impressed by her intelligence, education, and strong character. They forged a close friendship, and she allowed him to accompany her to the scaffold.
Cultural depictions
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.
Fictional treatments of Lady Jane Grey's story include the historical novels, Innocent Traitor (Alison Weir's 2006 debut novel), Her Highness, the Traitor by Susan Higginbotham (2012), The Lady of Misrule by Suzannah Dunn (2015), and The Last Tudor, by Philippa Gregory (2017).
Three films have been produced telling the story of Lady Jane Grey and her nine-day rule: the 1923 silent film Lady Jane Grey; Or, The Court of Intrigue, the 1936 film Tudor Rose (U.S. title: Nine Days a Queen) with Nova Pilbeam as Lady Jane Grey, and the 1986 film Lady Jane directed by Trevor Nunn and starring Helena Bonham Carter in the title role.