Lady Jane Grey (1553): The Nine Days' Queen of England

Lady Jane Grey was proclaimed Queen of England on 10 July 1553, after the dying Edward VI tried to keep his Catholic half-sister Mary off the throne. Within nine days Mary had raised the country in her support, and the council in London abandoned Jane. Imprisoned in the Tower, Jane was condemned for treason and beheaded on 12 February 1554, aged about 16 or 17, becoming one of the most poignant figures of the Tudor age.

Background: a Protestant succession

Jane was born around 1537, the eldest daughter of Henry Grey, Marquess of Dorset (later Duke of Suffolk), and Lady Frances Brandon. Through her mother she was a great-niece of Henry VIII, descended from his younger sister Mary.

She was exceptionally well educated, reading Latin and Greek and learning some Hebrew, and she corresponded with Protestant reformers such as Heinrich Bullinger in Zurich. The scholar Roger Ascham recalled finding her at home reading Plato in Greek while the rest of the household was out hunting.

As a girl Jane spent time in the household of Henry VIII’s widow, Catherine Parr, and her new husband Thomas Seymour, who bought Jane’s wardship and hoped to marry her to Edward VI. After Seymour’s execution for treason in 1549 she returned to her parents at Bradgate in Leicestershire. Jane had two younger sisters, Katherine and Mary, whose own royal blood later caused them trouble under Elizabeth I.

Under Henry VIII’s will and the Succession Act of 1544, the crown was to pass from Edward VI to his half-sisters Mary and then Elizabeth, despite their earlier being declared illegitimate. Edward, raised as a Protestant under the English Reformation his father began, feared that Mary would restore Catholicism.

Edward’s Devise

In 1553 the 15-year-old king fell seriously ill, probably with tuberculosis. He drafted a document, “My devise for the succession”, which excluded both half-sisters. As first drafted it left the crown to Jane’s future male heirs; when Edward’s illness worsened, it was altered to pass the throne to “the Lady Jane and her heirs males”.

The plan was supported, and probably encouraged, by John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, the leading figure in Edward’s government. On 25 May 1553 Jane was married to Northumberland’s son, Lord Guildford Dudley. The king’s lawyers and councillors were pressed to sign letters patent confirming the new succession.

Nine days in July

Edward VI died at Greenwich on 6 July 1553. His death was kept quiet for several days. On 9 July Jane was told at Syon House that she was queen; by her own later account she was shocked and reluctant. On 10 July she entered the Tower of London, the traditional residence of a new monarch before coronation, and was proclaimed queen.

Mary, however, had been warned and fled to East Anglia. From Kenninghall in Norfolk she wrote to the council claiming the crown, and then moved to the fortress of Framlingham in Suffolk, where gentry, townsmen and commoners flocked to her. Many people regarded her as the rightful heir regardless of religion. Mary also had loyal Catholic servants and landowners in East Anglia, and her decisive action contrasted with the hesitation of the council in London, where several members were already reconsidering their position.

Northumberland marched out of London on 14 July to confront her, but support for Jane collapsed behind him. Sailors of ships sent to the coast went over to Mary, and on 19 July the Privy Council in London proclaimed her queen. Jane’s father told her that her reign was over. Northumberland surrendered at Cambridge.

During her brief rule Jane showed some independence. According to her own letter to Mary, she refused to make her husband king, offering only to create him a duke, which caused a bitter quarrel with Guildford and his mother. Royal documents were issued in her name as “Jane the Quene”, and a few of these survive.

Imprisonment and trial

Jane remained in the Tower, now as a prisoner. Mary entered London on 3 August 1553. Northumberland was executed on 22 August after declaring himself a Catholic.

On 13 November 1553 Jane, Guildford and Archbishop Thomas Cranmer were tried at Guildhall and condemned for high treason. Mary appeared willing to spare Jane, whom she regarded as a pawn of others, and Jane was allowed some freedom within the Tower.

Jane wrote to Mary explaining that she had been deceived and pressed by the council and her relatives, and that she had accepted the crown unwillingly. She lodged in the house of a Tower official, was permitted to walk in the garden and, as a contemporary chronicle records, dined with the gentleman gaoler, where she spoke firmly against the restored Catholic Mass.

Execution

Everything changed with Wyatt’s Rebellion in January and February 1554, a rising against Mary’s planned marriage to Philip of Spain. Jane’s father, the Duke of Suffolk, joined it. Although Jane herself played no part, Mary’s government decided that she was too dangerous as a possible Protestant figurehead.

On the morning of 12 February 1554, Guildford Dudley was beheaded on Tower Hill. Jane watched his body brought back, and then was led to a scaffold on Tower Green inside the Tower of London. In her last days the queen’s chaplain, John Feckenham, tried without success to convert her to Catholicism, though the two parted on respectful terms. On the scaffold Jane recited a psalm, gave her gloves and handkerchief to her attendants and, blindfolded, could not at first find the block; she asked for help, and her last words were the prayer “Lord, into thy hands I commend my spirit”. In a short speech before this she admitted that she had wrongly accepted the crown but declared that she had not sought it, and she died a Protestant. Her father was executed eleven days later. Her mother, Frances, was never charged and later remarried, while both her younger sisters survived into Elizabeth’s reign.

Myths and facts

• “Nine days” is approximate. Her proclamation on 10 July and Mary’s on 19 July are nine days apart; some historians count from Edward’s death on 6 July, giving thirteen.
• Delaroche’s painting is not a record. The famous 1833 painting shows an indoor execution in a dark chamber; the real event took place outdoors.
• No secure portrait survives. Several paintings have been claimed as likenesses of Jane, but none is accepted by all scholars as a portrait made from life.

Timeline

• 1553, 25 May: Jane marries Guildford Dudley.
• 1553, 6 July: Edward VI dies at Greenwich.
• 1553, 10 July: Jane is proclaimed queen in London.
• 1553, 19 July: The Privy Council proclaims Mary I.
• 1553, 22 August: Northumberland is executed.
• 1553, 13 November: Jane is tried and condemned at Guildhall.
• 1554, 12 February: Jane and Guildford Dudley are executed.
• 1554, 23 February: Jane’s father, the Duke of Suffolk, is executed.

Why it matters

Jane’s brief reign was the only serious attempt to set aside the Tudor succession laid down by Parliament, and its failure showed how strongly the English accepted Henry VIII’s children as heirs. Mary’s triumph opened a short Catholic restoration that would end in the Marian persecutions. Jane herself became a Protestant martyr in popular memory and a lasting symbol of youth sacrificed to dynastic politics.