Lady Jane Grey

Bookish, bartered, and betrayed: few girls, even in the British Royal Family, were as hounded as Lady Jane Grey. Almost three hundred years after her execution, Charles Dickens, who made a specialty of exploited children, wrote that the English axe “never struck so cruel and so vile a blow.”

Lady Jane Grey, born in 1536 to Henry and Frances Grey, later Duke and Duchess of Suffolk, Lady Jane was the granddaughter of Henry VIII’s sister Mary. Under the terms of King Henry VIII’s will, the Suffolk family stood fourth in the line of succession to the throne. Consequently, Lady Jane received a princess’s education. She was precociously intelligent, reading Greek, Latin and Hebrew by the time she was 9 years old, and was a staunch advocate of the newly established Protestant faith. With the accession of the nine-year-old Edward VI in 1547, the English court became embroiled in a sequence of complex power struggles in which Lady Jane, Edward’s cousin, became a pawn.

As Edward’s health deteriorated, the powerful nobleman John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, persuaded the young king to exclude his half-sisters Mary and Elizabeth and decree that the crown should instead pass to his cousin Jane. She was then hastily married to the Duke of Northumberland’s son, Lord Guildford. Northumberland’s hold on power seemed secure when Jane was proclaimed queen on Edward’s death in July 1553. However, Mary’s Catholic supporters staged a rising, Northumberland’s army melted away and just nine days later the reign of Queen Jane was over. Although her innocence was never doubted, Jane’s existence as a possible figurehead of Protestant revolt made her an unacceptable danger to the new regime. She was executed on 12 February 1554, aged 17.

The factual details of Lady Jane’s life were swiftly consumed by myth and it is improbable that a more rounded historical personality will ever emerge. Any study of Lady Jane Grey is hampered by the dual obstacles of a scarcity of original documentary evidence and an abundance of dubious anecdotes and partisan secondary sources. I am always looking for new ways that I can use to illuminate what original documentary evidence there is, and try to expose and eradicate all those dubious anecdotes and partisan secondary sources in order to present an historic Lady Jane Grey. Lady Jane Grey, born in 1536 to Henry and Frances Grey, later Duke and Duchess of Suffolk, Lady Jane was the granddaughter of Henry VIII’s sister Mary. Under the terms of the king’s will, the Suffolk family stood fourth in the line of succession to the throne. Consequently, Lady Jane received a princess’s education. She was precociously intelligent, reading Greek, Latin and Hebrew by the time she was 9 years old, and was a staunch advocate of the newly established Protestant faith.

With the accession of the nine-year-old Edward VI in 1547, the English court became embroiled in a sequence of complex power struggles in which Lady Jane, Edward’s cousin, became a pawn. As Edward’s health deteriorated, the powerful nobleman John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, persuaded the young king to exclude his half-sisters Mary and Elizabeth and decree that the crown should instead pass to his cousin Jane. She was then hastily married to the Duke of Northumberland’s son, Lord Guildford.

Northumberland’s hold on power seemed secure when Jane was proclaimed queen on Edward’s death in July 1553. However, Mary’s Catholic supporters staged a rising, Northumberland’s army melted away and just nine days later the reign of Queen Jane was over. Although her innocence was never doubted, Jane’s existence as a possible figurehead of Protestant revolt made her an unacceptable danger to the new regime. She was executed on 12 February 1554, aged 17.

Childhood Home – Bradgate Park – https://www.bradgatepark.org/

House of Worship – Old Chelsea Church – http://www.chelseaoldchurch.org.uk/

Place of Execution – Tower of London –

https://www.hrp.org.uk/tower-of-london/#gs.KHrVzaQ