10 July: Lady Jane Grey

On this date in 1553, Lady Jane Grey was proclaimed Queen of England, only to be deposed by Mary I ten days later. Here are 10 things you might not know about her.

1. Historians aren’t sure exactly when or where she was born. Her parents (Henry Grey, 1st Duke of Suffolk, and Frances, daughter of Henry VIII's sister Mary) lived at Bradgate Park in Leicestershire, so it is assumed by many that Jane was born there in October 1537. However, there is recent evidence that she may have been born as early as 1536, in London.
2. She had a good education. She was fluent in French, Italian, Latin, Greek and Hebrew. She enjoyed reading. According to one account, a visitor to her home, the scholar Roger Ascham, asked why she hadn’t gone hunting with the rest of her family. She is said to have replied, “their sport in the Parke is but a shadoe to the pleasure I find in Plato. Alas! Good folke, they never felt what trewe pleasurement.”
3. Some say her childhood was dogged by cruelty and abuse. The evidence that her parents were cruel comes mainly from an account in which Jane herself complained of “pinches, nips, bobs, and other ways” of punishment. So it’s not clear if they really were cruel or whether Jane was like many other kids, complaining about her parents.
4. When she was about ten, Jane was sent to the royal court and placed in the care of Catherine Parr and her new husband, Thomas Seymour, uncle to King Edward VI. It’s possible her family were hoping to marry her off to the young king. The future Queen Elizabeth I was also living there, so it seems likely she and Jane were friends, but eventually Elizabeth was sent away because Catherine’s husband Thomas was taking an inappropriate interest in her. There’s no record of whether the cousins had any further contact after that.
5. Jane is the only English monarch in the past 500 years that there is no definitive picture of, or even any reliable accounts of what she looked like. A letter from a merchant near the Tower of London stating that she was “very short and thin, but prettily shaped with nearly Red hair, sparkling and reddish-brown eyes, and freckled skin” was found in 2010 to be fake, and a portrait believed to be of Jane was found, in the 1990s, to actually be a picture of Catherine Parr.
6. Why did she become queen? It was down to Henry VIII’s 1544 Act of Succession in which he re-inherited his daughters, Mary and Elizabeth, but also stated that in the event all three of his children died childless his sister Mary’s children would be next in line. Hence Jane was 4^th in line to the throne. Later, as protestant King Edward VI’s health failed, he decided he didn’t want either of his sisters to inherit the throne. Mary because she was a Catholic and Elizabeth might have been the right religion but she was a woman. So Edward declared that Jane Grey’s male heirs should take the throne after him. When it became obvious there was no way Jane could produce an heir before Edward died, Edward changed his will again to say that Jane would inherit, followed by her male heirs.
7. Jane was married, hastily, to Lord Guildford Dudley, younger son of John Dudley, the 1st Duke of Northumberland. This was no doubt a ploy by Northumberland to become the power behind the throne and avoid being executed by Edward’s sisters. The wedding was arranged so quickly that Jane had to borrow a wedding dress. Jane’s younger sister, Catherine Grey, and Jane’s future sister-in-law, Katherine Dudley were married on the same day in a triple ceremony. Even the wedding feast must have been hastily prepared as several guests, including Guildford Dudley, contracted food poisoning due to “a mistake made by a cook, who plucked one leaf for another.”
8. On 9 July 1553, at approximately 16 years old, Jane was told she was to be queen. Jane refused to make her husband a king, giving him the title of Duke of Clarence instead. Guildford wasn’t happy about that and refused to sleep with her, threatening to go home to mother. She commanded him to stay, but he still refused to share her bed.
9. Jane’s cousin Mary was even less happy, having been deprived of the crown, and gathered her forces. She had Jane and Guildford arrested and imprisoned in the Tower of London. At first, Mary acknowledged that the two teenagers were little more than pawns in the game of thrones and didn’t execute them. However, when Mary decided she wanted to marry Philip of Spain, and this proved an unpopular choice, Jane’s father and uncles joined the rebellion against Mary. She was persuaded then that Jane and Guildford had to die.
10. Blindfolded for her execution, Jane stumbled a little as she tried to locate the block, saying “What shall I do? Where is it?” Someone had to guide her to her place. Jane’s last words were the same as the recorded last words of Jesus Christ in Luke: “Lord, into thy hands I commend my spirit!” Her ghost is said to haunt the Bloody Tower around the anniversary of her death.

MY LATEST BOOK!

Killing Me Softly

Sebastian Garrett is an assassin. It wasn’t his first choice of vocation, but nonetheless, he’s good at it, and can be relied upon to get the job done. He’s on top of his game.

Until he is contracted to kill Princess Helena of Galorvia. She is not just any princess. Sebastian doesn’t bargain on his intended victim being a super-heroine who gives as good as she gets. Only his own genetic variant power saves him from becoming the victim, instead of Helena. 

Fate has another surprise in store. Sebastian was not expecting to fall in love with her.

Available on Amazon:

Paperback

E-book