Women's History Month, Day Two

 Jane Grey

(The Streatham portrait believed to be a copy of a contemporary portrait of Lady Jane Grey, 1590)

Lady Jane Grey is one of my personal favorite Tudor women; she was highly intelligent for her age and a major bookworm. She was strong and independent making it is such a great tragedy that her life was cut so short. She was caught up in a game of thrones against Mary I, ironically, a woman who was just a steadfast and true to her own religion as Jane was. Funny how they had such similar qualities but they fell on opposites sides of the war when it came to religion. Not much is known about her life and later historians and influential people would paint her to fit into a certain mold but I believe Jane broke molds. Regardless, she was fierce in the face of adversity and proudly stood up for what she believed in which earned her the title of a protestant martyr. Many would claim Jane was an innocent victim but I believe she was a strong young woman in her own right. The control she takes when she takes the throne proves that she would have been a formidable Queen had she been given the opportunity.

Biography:

Lady Jane Grey was the grandniece of King Henry VIII; her grandmother had been Mary Tudor, Dowager Queen of France, the King’s younger sister who married Charles Brandon, the King closest friend. Her mother was their daughter Frances Brandon and her Father was Lord Henry Grey. She was the oldest out of three daughters and born probably in 1537. A highly intelligent child, she was raised at Bradgate where she was given a humanist and protestant education. Jane would study and be able to read in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew through the teachings of her tutor John Aylmer. She would later learn Italian from her tutor Michelangelo Florio. Impressively, Jane even had correspondence in the form of letters with Heinrich Bullinger, a Zürich reformer and scholar who was much older than Jane. Jane’s longing for learning and acceptance among the elite are shown in these letters.

Jane spent sometime in the household of Kathrine Parr, Dowager Queen of England and her husband Thomas Seymour. Thomas Seymour had likely earned her wardship from her parents with the promise of a marriage to her cousin, King Edward VI. Jane would have flourished under the care and teachings of Kathrine Parr who was a Protestant and highly intelligent woman in her own right, being the first Queen and woman in England to publish a book in her own name. After the untimely death of Katherine Parr from childbed fever after the birth of her daughter, Mary, her parents didn’t want to leave their daughter in the sole care of Thomas Seymour who had still not arranged a marriage to Edward. She returned home briefly but was then sent again to Seymour. But not too long after the death of his wife, Thomas Seymour was arrested and executed for high treason. Jane was immediately returned home to her parents.

(Roger Ascham and Lady Jane Grey, William Say, 1825)

Jane was what we in the modern day would call a bookworm. She loved learning and would often prefer to spend her days reading from scripture or classical works instead of spending her time hunting with the rest of her family. On one such day in 1550 when the scholar Roger Ascham was visiting, he recalls finding Jane alone at home reading Plato:

“Before I went into Germany, I came to Brodegate in Leicestershire, to take my Leave of that noble Lady Jane Grey, to whom I was exceeding much beholding. Her parents, the Duke and Duchess, with all the Household, Gentlemen and Gentlewomen, were hunting in the Park. I found her in her Chamber, reading Phaedo Platonis in Greek, and that with as much Delight, as some Gentlemen would read a merry Tale in Boccace. After Salutation, and Duty done, with some other Talk, I asked her, why she would lose such Passtime in the Park? Smiling, she answered me:

‘I wist, all their Sport in the Park is but a Shadow to that Pleasure that I find in Plato, Alas! Good Folk, they never felt what true Pleasure meant.’”

She seems to also have been a spirited child or at least one who might not have always gotten along with her parents because in the same conversation she had with Ascham she described her living conditions and how she preferred time with her tutors because:

“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 (Hanson).”

This was written in his book The Schoolmaster which contradicts his letter he wrote to her after the visit, where he mentioned how proud her parents were of her scholarly achievements. At one point John Aylmer, her tutor had even written to Bullinger asking for help saying that the young girl “was at that age [when]...all people are inclined to follow their own ways (Debunking the myth of Lady Jane Grey).” Jane is even recorded to have snubbed her royal cousin, Mary (daughter of Henry VIII) over a gift because of Mary’s Catholic beliefs which Jane and her Protestant family didn’t agree with. The problem was her parents were better about accepting gifts and saving face. Her mother Frances was actually in good graces with Mary, which would greatly help Frances in the future.

            By 1553 it became clear that the young King Edward was dying and he would never marry and father children to take the throne after him. Edward was extremely Protestant and had worked to further the cause he believed in in England throughout his short reign. The problem was that now according to his father, Henry VIII’s last will and testament the crown would fall to his sisters: Mary by the Catholic Katherine of Aragon and Elizabeth by Anne Boleyn. His father had made them illegitimate when he got rid of their mothers and although he had included them in his will he had not given them back their royal titles. Edward would use this to disqualify them from taking the throne when he died. Edward and his council were terrified at the prospect of Mary, the older of the two sisters, taking the throne and restoring England back to the Catholic faith. They ended up having good reason to fear this because when she took the throne that is exactly what she tried to do. So they hatched a plan to completely pass over Henry’s two daughters and the heirs from his eldest sister’s line, something Henry did in his will as well. Instead they followed the family line of Jane’s grandmother, Mary Dowager Queen of France.

 Edward first wanted to keep the throne with the male heirs of either Frances, Jane, or one of her sisters he eventually had to give up on that notion because the King realized at the age of just fifteen he was not going to live long enough to see that happen and he changed his will to read “Lady Jane and her heirs male.” Jane had even been married off early in the summer, something some sources claim she was vocally against, to Guilford Dudley the son of John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland and the head of Edward’s council. As the King lay dying every attempt was made to try to capture Mary ahead of time to keep her from making a claim to the throne but by the time Edward died on July 6, 1553 they had not done that. To try to make the transition of power as smooth as possible, they hid Edward’s death for a few days and informed Jane that she was Queen on the 9^th of July.

At the time that she was informed that she was Queen; Jane was still staying away from the Dudley’s as best she could, despite that fact that she was married to Guilford. She had stayed for a short time with her husband but claimed illness and that John Dudley had tried to poison her. She was transported to Syon House where she met her parents and was told she was Queen; according to her own reports after her fall Jane would claim she had accepted the role reluctantly. She is reported by some to have even broken down in tears and claimed that she was not meant for the role. She was taken to the Tower of London to claim the city and prepare for her coronation. It was in her short time at the Tower where Jane would spread her wings.

Although Jane had claimed that she never wanted to be Queen, she certainly had no problem exerting her power once she became Queen. When she was asked to try on the crown and then told that they would make one for her husband, Jane stood her ground and refused to try it on. She also flat out refused to make Guildford King; she said he could be a duke at best. This had been the plan all along, for the Dudley’s to rule through their son who would be King through Jane but Jane was smarter than that, she didn’t care that in this time no one believed a woman could rule. She intended to be a Queen without a King. Guildford who heard the whole exchange predictably ran to his mother and rallied her to help him fight against Jane. Throughout her short reign, Jane did exercise her right as Queen and signed many documents as such to try to quiet the unrest that had taken over the country. When the council had failed to capture Mary they had made a fatal mistake, she had raised an army for her cause and as the days passed by more people began to flock to her and as the days got dark those people would include the members of Jane’s own council. She would only be Queen for nine days; thirteen if you count the four during which Edward’s death had been a secret.

When Mary finally made her entry into London she was supported by the whole country and Jane’s palace in the Tower turned into her prison. Her mother Frances rushed to Mary to beg for the lives of her family, she blamed the Dudley’s for the turn of events and she successfully got her husband released from the Tower but Jane would have to wait. By all accounts Mary did want to forgive and eventually release Jane, she focused all of her anger and blame on John Dudley who not to long after was found guilty and executed for high treason. Much to Jane’s disgust Dudley had turned back to the Catholic faith in the last days of his life probably in attempts to appease Mary and prolong his life, but Mary had already decided his fate. Jane did not mind throwing her father in law under the bus; she would say of him that he “brought me and our stock in most miserable calamity and misery by his exceeding ambition (“Debunking the myth of Lady Jane Grey.”).”

Jane had even written a letter to Mary claiming that she had never sought the crown but only accepted on the advice of the council, mainly John Dudley, which she admitted was a mistake. Nevertheless in November, Jane and Guildford were tried, found guilty and sentenced to death but many just believed this was just for show and that Mary would release the two after enough time had passed but it was not to be. When Mary planned to marry Phillip of Spain the country went into an uproar and Thomas Wyatt the Younger led a rebellion against Queen Mary in January. Although he was doing it in the hopes of putting Elizabeth on the throne, the rebellion proved that Jane could still be a threat and what is worse; her father Henry Grey was helping Wyatt. Mary decided to follow through on the verdict against Guilford and Jane.

(The Execution of Lady Jane Grey, by Paul Delaroche, 1833)

Before her execution Mary tried desperately to get Jane to convert to Catholicism, John Feckenham was sent to Jane to try to convert her.  Though the two differed on matters of religion they became friends in a sense, he interviewed her on several occasions in which Jane easily held her own against the older man quoting scripture and matching him in intelligence. Their recorded interviews are still prized today. They became close enough that Jane agreed to let him escort her to the scaffold on the day of her execution. She so enjoyed her last intellectual debate and admired Feckenham enough to pray that “God in the bowels of his mercy to send you his Holy Spirit; for he hath given you his great gift of utterance, if it pleased him also to open the eyes of your heart (Hanson).”

The executions took place on February 12^th, 1554. Guildford was beheaded first on Tower Hill; Jane unfortunately is recorded to have seen her husband’s remains returned to the Tower which caused her to cry out his name.  Jane was to be beheaded on the Tower Green next, she was taken to the Green and gave a speech in which she said:

“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.”

Jane claimed that yes she had committed treason by accepting the crown but she was innocent of ever actively seeking it. Jane then recited a psalm in English and she notably asked the crowd to pray for her while she was still alive not in death, something Protestants believed in against the Catholic’s who believed you could pray for the soul of a person who was already dead. Some sources would later claim, probably in reaction to a painting done by Paul Delaroche much later, that when Jane went to lay her head on the block blindfolded that she couldn’t find it and had to have someone help her lay on the block. She was then beheaded with a single swing. Jane and Guildford’s remains were then buried in the Chapel of St Peter ad Vincula.  Jane was only 16 or 17 years old.

Bad-ass Quotes (My favorite):

-In a last letter to her father in one of her prayer books:

“Although it hath pleased God to hasten my death by you, by whom my life should rather have been lengthened, yet can I patiently take it, that I yield God more hearty thanks for shortening my woeful days.”

-In a last letter to her younger sister Katherine Grey:

“Deny the world, defy the devil, despise the flesh, and delight yourself only in the Lord. Repent of your sins, and yet don’t despair. Be strong in faith, and yet don’t presume. With St. Paul, desire to die and to be with Christ, with whom, even in death, there is life.”

-Prayer said the night before her execution:

“Arm me I beseech thee, with thy armour, that I may stand fast, above all things taking to me the  shield of faith, wherewith I may be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked; and taking the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is thy most holy word.”

Books to Read:

Lady Jane Grey by Eric Ives

Crown of Blood by Nicola Tallis

The Sisters Who Would be Queen: Mary, Katherine & Lady Jane Grey by Leanda de Lisle

Innocent Traitor by Alison Weir (Fiction but I love it)

These books are about her grandparents but touch on Jane in the last chapters:

The Tudor-Brandons by Sarah-Beth Watkins

Mary Rose by David Loades

Documentaries to Watch:

England’s Forgotten Queen: The Life and Death of Lady Jane Grey by Helen Castor

Works Cited:

 “Debunking the myth of Lady Jane Grey.” Leanda de Lisle. 1843, 27 Oct. 2015, www.1843magazine.com/content/leanda-de-lisle/lady-jane-grey.

Ives, E. W. Lady Jane Grey: a Tudor mystery. Wiley-Blackwell, 2011.

Hanson, Marilee. "Lady Jane Grey – Facts, Biography, Information & Portraits" <a href="https://englishhistory.net/tudor/relative/lady-jane-grey/">https://englishhistory.net/tudor/relative/lady-jane-grey/</a>, February 1, 2015

Tallis, Nicola. CROWN OF BLOOD: the deadly inheritance of lady jane grey. MICHAEL OMARA BOOKS LTD, 2017.

England’s Forgotten Queen: The Life and Death of Lady Jane Grey by Helen Castor