Lady Jane Grey is often overlooked in England’s “Royal Lineup.” She’s generally considered a tragic figure, the teen queen of England and Ireland for just nine days in 1553.
Until her foes, including Queen Mary I, manipulated events that led to her execution. Mary couldn’t tolerate a rival claimant to the crown remaining alive.
But Lady Jane was much more than a victim. She was strong-willed, highly educated, and almost abrasively pious.
Mary might have spared her had she been quieter about her Protestant beliefs. But Lady Jane was willing to die for her faith.
Let’s take a look at her short life and reign.
The Life of Lady Jane Grey
Lady Jane Grey was born around October 1537 at Bradgate Park in Leicestershire.
She was the eldest daughter of Henry Grey, Marquess of Dorset (later Duke of Suffolk), and Lady Frances Brandon, a niece of Henry VIII. That made Jane a great-granddaughter of Henry VII and a legitimate claimant to the English throne.
Her parents were ambitious and hoped to advance the family’s fortunes through Jane. Contemporary accounts suggest they were strict, perhaps even harsh. The famous scholar Roger Ascham visited Bradgate around 1550 and found Jane reading Plato in Greek while everyone else was hunting.
Jane reportedly told him she preferred studying because her parents’ discipline was so severe that she found books more pleasant than their company. Historians generally accept that Ascham recorded the conversation accurately, though some wonder whether Jane exaggerated her parents’ severity.
At age 10, she was sent to the house of Katherine Paar, Henry VIII’s sixth wife. When Henry VIII died, Katherine married her former beau, Thomas Seymour.
It was an unfortunate match. Seymour was an unsavory character, and shamelessly used his connections to the throne to his advantage.
He wasted no time in “purchasing” the wardship of Jane from her family. Papa Grey apparently believed that Seymour was going to marry her off to Edward VI.
Whatever the political machinations, they came to naught. Seymour was tried for treason and executed. Jane was returned to the loving arms of her family who had “sold” her just a few years prior.
After that brush with Seymour, Jane devoted herself to her studies. Her quest for education brought her under the influence of some of the finest Protestant minds of the time, including John Aylmer.
Jane received first rate humanist training. By her mid-teens, she could read and write Latin and Greek fluently and had also learned Hebrew, Italian, and French. She corresponded with scholars across Europe and translated religious works.
She was deeply influenced by the Protestant Reformation from an early age.
Her education emphasized scripture, and she became an intensely committed Protestant. Her faith wasn’t merely political or fashionable. It was central to her identity and would ultimately cost her life.
Henry VIII’s Succession Problems
Succession was a trying and complex issue in Tudor times. And Jane figured into it.
She was the cousin of Edward VI, Henry’s young heir, and of the princesses Mary and Elizabeth. Jane was Henry’s great niece, descended from his sister Mary’s second marriage to Charles Brandon, the Duke of Suffolk.
Henry VIII viewed the link as an important one. He even named Jane fourth in line to the throne in the event his three children died without children.
Certainly, she had a stronger claim than their Scots cousin, Mary Queen of Scots. English law prohibited a foreigner from inheriting the crown.
This formal sanction was a powerful chit. This, and her vaunted education, put her on “royal watch” at home and abroad.
Jane’s Marriage
Once Seymour was gone, his power was now being yielded by John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland. An ambitious protestant, he was bent on his own rise to power and determined to prevent a Catholic monarchy.
Northumberland hatched a plan with Jane’s father, now Duke of Suffolk. They decided to marry their children, Jane and Guildford, and press a Protestant claim to the throne if Edward’s died.
Jane was married, very much against her will, on Mary 21, 1553. It’s believed that the stress of the forced wedding took a serious emotional toll on Jane and may have kept her bedridden for much of her 16th year.
Edward VI’s Poor Health
Henry’s son Edward was born on October 12, 1537. A difficult labor killed his mother, Jane Seymour, just 12 days later. Despite his premature appearance, he survived infancy, which suggests he wasn’t exceptionally weak at birth.
As a child, he was generally healthy. He contracted measles and smallpox in 1552 but recovered. He was physically smaller and slimmer than his father, Henry VIII.
Unlike the athletic Henry, Edward never developed a particularly robust constitution. Even ambassadors remarked on his delicate appearance.
The biggest problem came in early 1553. Edward developed what was almost certainly tuberculosis, then known as “consumption.”
Jane Is Named Edward’s Heir
When Edward VI lay dying, his advisers feared that his Catholic half-sister, Mary Tudor, would undo the Protestant reforms of his and his father’s reigns.
Under full court pressure from his advisers, especially the Duke of Northumberland, Jane’s father-in-law, Edward instead named Lady Jane Grey his successor. He didn’t like Catholics much either.
Despite his illness, Edward continued conducting government business. He even drafted the Device for the Succession, laying out his plan to bypass Mary in favor of Jane.
The plan was formally signed on June 21, 1553. Edward died just over two weeks later on July 6. Jane was proclaimed queen on July 10.
Although Jane knew of the political scheming being done on her behalf, she was devastated by the news.
According to legend, she burst into tears and even fainted when told she was queen. But her family pressed her to accept the crown.
It wasn’t a role she sought. She also understood that by accepting it, she would be challenging Henry VIII’s eldest daughter and risking her own life.
Queen Jane
Yet dutifully wear the crown she did, if only for nine brief days.
Jane was never officially crowned. But she was proclaimed queen by the Privy Council, signed official documents, held audiences, and dined in state.
One of her first acts was to steadfastly refuse her husband Guildford’s request to be made king, insisting he should instead be created a duke. This fact, I think, says a lot about her character.
Meanwhile, Mary escaped to East Anglia, where support for her grew by the day. Nobles, soldiers, and ordinary Englishmen increasingly rallied to Henry VIII’s daughter rather than her teenage cousin.
In an ironic twist of fate, Jane ruled from the royal apartments in the Tower of London, where she would soon become a prisoner.
Jane’s Downfall & Execution
The plan unraveled almost immediately.
Backed by powerful nobles, Mary gathered her supporters and marched toward London. On July 19, 1553, the de facto coup collapsed.
The Privy Council abandoned Jane and proclaimed Mary the rightful Queen of England. As Mary rode triumphantly into London, she was greeted with widespread celebration.
Jane’s reign was over almost as quickly as it had begun. She obediently, perhaps even gratefully, relinquished the crown. She may even have believed she’d be allowed to return to a quiet scholarly life.
It was not to be.
Mary was initially reluctant to execute her young cousin. Jane was imprisoned in the Tower of London, and the queen appeared willing to show mercy.
While imprisoned, Jane remained unwavering in her Protestant faith. She spent much of her time reading the Bible and writing letters and religious meditations.
She also refused to convert to Catholicism, despite repeated attempts to persuade her. On the eve of her execution, she debated the Catholic theologian John Feckenham, respectfully but firmly defending Protestant doctrine. Even facing death, Jane would not abandon the beliefs that had shaped her life.
Her fate was ultimately sealed by events beyond her control.
In January 1554, Jane’s father joined Wyatt’s Rebellion, an uprising against Mary that was sparked by her planned marriage to Philip of Spain. Although Jane herself played no part in the rebellion, her very existence made her a dangerous symbol for Protestant opposition.
Mary reluctantly concluded that Jane could never safely be left alive.
Jane and her husband, Guildford Dudley, were tried for treason at London’s Guildhall. Both were convicted and sentenced to death.
On February 12, 1554, Guildford was executed as a commoner on Tower Hill. Shortly afterward, Jane was led to Tower Green, where she was beheaded. She was just 16 or 17 years old.
The couple were buried together in the Chapel Royal of St. Peter ad Vincula within the Tower of London.
Jane Grey was undoubtedly a pawn in the ambitions of powerful men. But she was far more than a helpless victim.
Brilliant, fiercely Protestant, and remarkably steadfast, she met her fate with a courage that even her enemies admired. Her reign lasted only nine days. Yet her dignity in life and in death ensured that she would be remembered long after the men who placed the crown upon her head.
I hope you’ve enjoyed my guide to the life of Lady Jane Grey. You may find these other English history guides useful:
- Royal Whodunits
- English myths
- History of Medieval and Tudor England
- Tudor queens of England
- Power Women of Medieval & Tudor England
- Meet the Plantagenets
- Historical Mistresses and Favorites
Pin it for later.
