Lady Jane Grey

by Sue Reid

  “I will,” she promised. “I will never open it, but I will keep it always.”

  We smiled at each other through our tears and then I asked quickly if she would leave me. She has gone now, but I can hear her and my nurse moving about in the next room as they prepare my chamber for the night. In my mind’s eye I see Nurse shake out my nightgown and – as it is a cold night – I know that she will slide a warming pan in between the sheets. I will lay down my pen now and go into my chamber, bid them goodnight and say my prayers.

  Outside now I can hear birds begin to sing. The darkness is beginning to lift. A new day is dawning.

  Historical note

  Lady Jane Grey was born into turbulent times. In 1517, twenty years before her birth, a man called Martin Luther, angered at what he saw as abuses by the Catholic church, nailed his “protest” (the “95 Theses”) to the door of a church in Wittenberg in Germany. After this, “Protestantism”, as it was to become known, began to spread across Europe. In England the movement was slow to take hold. England’s King, Henry VIII, did not approve of the attempts to reform the church, and had in fact been given the title “Defender of the Faith” by the Pope (the head of the Catholic church). But then he fell in love with Anne Boleyn. Henry was already married, to a Spanish princess, Katherine of Aragon. Katherine only had one surviving child, a daughter, Mary, and Henry was desperate for a son. (In those days people did not think that women were capable of ruling a country.) To marry Anne, Henry had to seek special permission from the Pope. But the Pope refused to grant Henry a divorce. So Henry made himself head of the church in England and married Anne anyway. This started a movement towards reform of the church in England that was to become known as the Reformation. Monasteries were dissolved and their lands and property became the property of the King. But Henry was still at heart a Catholic and it was not until after he died and his young son Edward became king that the Protestant religion really took hold in England. Out went the Mass and Confession, in came services and a prayer book in English that everyone could understand.

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  Jane Grey’s father, Henry Grey, Marquess of Dorset, was among the staunch Protestants who surrounded the young king. At the heart of the reforming circle was the Lord Protector, the King’s uncle, Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset. Though Henry had appointed a council of ministers to rule the kingdom until his son was old enough to rule for himself, Somerset was the real ruler of the country. A devout Protestant himself, he made sure that the young king was brought up as a Protestant too. But not everyone approved. Princess Mary, who under the terms of her father’s will would become the next monarch if Edward died without an heir, made no secret of her Catholicism and – even when ordered to do so – refused to give up hearing the Mass. There were many others who strongly opposed the reforms. In 1536 in Henry’s reign there had been a rebellion against the Reformation – the Pilgrimage of Grace. Now fresh rebellions and riots flared up across the country. (Though people had other grievances too. The enclosure of common lands by wealthy landowners had added to the plight of the poor in an era of high rents and rising prices.)

  Jane Grey, meanwhile, was growing up. A clever and studious girl she had a claim to the throne through her mother, Frances, the daughter of King Henry’s younger sister, Mary. It was to prove a cursed inheritance. When Edward, still a boy, fell gravely ill, the minds of the Protestants turned to his successor, Princess Mary. They feared that if Mary became queen, their reforms would be rolled back, and England would become a Catholic country again. Even worse, Mary, still unmarried, might marry a foreign prince. King Edward shared their fears. Tearing up his father’s will, he made a new one, which he called “My device for the succession”. At a stroke both Mary and her younger sister, Elizabeth, were disinherited. In their place, their cousin Jane Grey was to be queen. With Jane – a devout Protestant – on the throne, the Protestant religion would be safe. Even better, England would not fall into the hands of a foreign power as by now Jane was safely married to another English Protestant, Lord Guildford Dudley, the youngest son of the powerful Duke of Northumberland.

  When Edward died, reactions to Jane’s accession were mixed. Who was this girl? people asked. What right did she have to be queen? Many believed that the Duke of Northumberland had even poisoned the King and married his son to Jane to get his hands on the throne. Northumberland, a Protestant, was a clever and able man, but feared and distrusted by ordinary folk. He had brought about the fall of the Duke of Somerset through a trumped-up plot, and the execution of the man people had loved as “the good duke” angered them. When Mary declared that she was the rightful queen, many people agreed with her. Was she not King Harry’s daughter? Never mind that she was a Catholic and had yet to marry. They refused to join the army sent to capture her and flocked instead to her standard. As support for Jane dwindled, the members of her Council panicked and scurried away to declare Mary the rightful queen. A mere ten days since she had been proclaimed queen, Jane found herself a prisoner and Mary rode in triumph through the streets of London.

  Mary kept Jane and her young husband imprisoned in the Tower of London, but she spared the lives of many who had supported her, including Jane’s own father. But Northumberland, who had led Jane’s army against Mary and who many blamed for putting Jane on the throne, was captured and executed. Jane and Guildford also stood trial for treason and were condemned to death. But Mary was reluctant to carry out the sentences. Then came the news that Mary intended to marry a Catholic prince – Philip of Spain. It was the Protestants’ worst fear. They could stomach the Catholic queen, even one who was busily undoing all their reforms, but a Catholic prince ruling beside Mary in England? Never! Though they were assured that Philip would have no real power, it was not enough for some. A man called Sir Thomas Wyatt led a rebellion against Mary. It failed, and though he had declared his intention to put Mary’s younger sister Elizabeth, not Jane, on the throne, a few days later, Jane made the short walk to Tower Green, where she was executed. Guildford also lost his head, as did Jane’s father. Rashly he had joined the rebellion and not even he could have been surprised that he was tried and executed for treason. The Protestant cause must have seemed lost, but though Jane’s reign was so brief, a mere footnote between the reigns of Edward and Mary, Jane was not forgotten. The courage and dignity shown on the scaffold by a girl not yet seventeen, her keeping to her faith to the end, must have given heart to the English Protestants who faced an uncertain and frightening future during what for them would be the long dark years of Mary’s reign.

  True or false?

  With one stroke of the axe, Jane Grey was turned into a Protestant martyr. All sorts of stories grew up around her: the teenage martyr, the devout Protestant, the reluctant queen, the bullied girl. But how true are the stories? In recent times, historians have begun to question many firmly held beliefs about Jane Grey. Was Jane treated as harshly by her parents as has been claimed? Tudor children were certainly brought up very strictly, by our standards, and Jane may have been brought up more strictly than most. Her parents had high hopes for their clever daughter and Thomas Seymour had encouraged them to think that she might marry King Edward one day. Under Henry’s will, Jane already had a claim to the throne. Were they preparing her for that role? Did they dream that one day their daughter would be queen in her own right? Maybe…

  Hard evidence for the harsh way it is claimed Jane was treated seems to rest principally on a document the scholar Roger Ascham wrote called “The Schoolmaster”. It recalls a conversation he had with Jane, while visiting the Greys at Bradgate, in which Jane confessed how harshly she was treated by her parents and how it was only at her studies with her tutor Dr Aylmer that she found any happiness. It was written many years after Jane’s death, however, principally to illustrate the benefits to children of a kindly education. And it seems that Ascham also wrote Jane a letter soon after this visit in which he told her how her parents delighted in her progress.
Could the truth be that Jane was stubborn, even rebellious and liked her own way – like many other teenagers? Did she find it hard to be as dutiful and obedient as her parents wished? Or was she truly treated more harshly than other girls at the time?

  Was Jane bullied into marrying Guildford Dudley? Girls in Tudor times had little choice who they married, though parents did usually try to find a husband acceptable to them, and apparently Jane’s mother later claimed she had had misgivings about the match. Northumberland pressed for the match, but it was not initially suggested either by him or by Jane’s parents.

  What did Jane feel about Guildford? They were married for only a few months before they were separated by their imprisonment in the Tower and Jane spent much of her early married life at home, as was often the custom then. In the letter she wrote to Mary begging forgiveness for usurping the throne, Jane claimed that she loved Guildford, though it seems that she also despaired of the influence his mother had over him. Jane seems to have had no warm feelings for either of Guildford’s parents. In her letter to Mary, she wrote that she had been deceived by them and even by her husband and ill-treated by his mother. Later, in the Tower, when she learnt that on the eve of execution Northumberland had abandoned his Protestant faith for Catholicism, Jane’s dislike turned to anger and contempt. And it was Northumberland she blamed for bringing her and her family down, and for putting her on the throne in the first place.

  Northumberland has often been portrayed as a villain, the man who controlled the young King Edward, who forced him to change his will in favour of Jane Grey, who he had conveniently married to his son a few months earlier, who had concocted an assassination attempt in order to bring down the Duke of Somerset and who bullied and intimidated everyone who knew him.

  How true is this? It seems that Edward had great faith in the Duke, though contemporary records suggest that many people did fear and distrust him. Able and a great general, Northumberland was also capable of great ruthlessness, as was shown in his putting down of the rebellion in Norfolk.

  But did Northumberland persuade Edward to change his will, or were he and the other members of the Council merely carrying out the King’s wishes when they proclaimed Jane queen? He did not initiate the plan to marry his son to Jane Grey, however much he welcomed it. And when he left to defend Jane’s crown, he told her Council that they owed Jane loyalty. Jane, he reminded them, had never sought to be queen.

  Most of the people mentioned in the story did exist. While Jane was imprisoned in the Tower, she had three women and a manservant to look after her. One of them, Elizabeth Tilney, Jane may well have met while she was part of Katherine Parr’s household and it is certain that she was with Jane at the end of Jane’s life. Another, Mistress Jacob, was also a real person. Jane did have a manservant or a page but I know nothing about him. Mistress Ellen also existed – she was the other of the two women who escorted Jane to Tower Green. But was she also her nurse? Some accounts say that she was, others that this was someone else.

  Did Jane and Guildford meet in the Tower garden? When did Guildford write the touching and dutiful message to Jane’s father, which can still be read in Jane’s prayer book today. No one knows for sure. My account is imagined. It is just one of the many mysteries there still are about Jane Grey’s short life and that will probably never be answered.

  Young King Edward did keep a chronicle, though only occasionally can we sense in it what the boy king might have been like. There is no record that Jane ever kept a diary. Here and there in her writings one catches glimpses of the girl, though much of what survives has been translated, and the formal style makes it hard to guess the writer’s true feelings. All I can hope is that what I have written does some justice to the girl, whose extraordinary courage, determination and honesty cannot be denied.

  Timeline

  1516 Princess Mary, the elder daughter of Henry VIII and Katherine of Aragon, is born.

  1517 The Reformation begins in Europe, when Martin Luther nails his “protest” against the abuses of the Catholic church to the doors of a church in Wittenberg, Germany. His followers later become known as “Protestants”.

  1531 When the Pope refuses to annul (end) Henry’s marriage to Katherine of Aragon, Henry makes himself head of the church in England. The break with Rome is to lead to the Reformation in England.

  7 September 1533 Princess Elizabeth is born to Henry VIII and his second wife, Anne Boleyn.

  1536 The Act of Succession declares both Henry’s daughters, Mary and Elizabeth, illegitimate.

  1537 Jane Grey is born, probably in May.

  October 1537 Prince Edward is born. He is the son of Henry VIII and his third wife, Jane Seymour.

  1540 Jane’s sister Katherine Grey is born. Her youngest sister, Mary, is born in 1545.

  31 January 1547 King Henry VIII dies and his son Prince Edward is proclaimed king. Henry’s will names the Grey sisters possible successors to the throne should his own children die without heirs.

  20 February 1547 Edward is crowned King Edward VI.

  19 March 1549 The execution of the King’s uncle, Sir Thomas Seymour, Lord Sudeley.

  10 June 1549 Thomas Cranmer’s English prayer book is first read in churches across the country.

  1549 Riots break out in England in the summer.

  14 October 1549 Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset (the Lord Protector) is arrested and imprisoned in the Tower, accused of policies that led to riots, and dragging the country into wars with Scotland and France.

  11 October 1551 Jane’s father, Henry Grey, Marquess of Dorset, is created Duke of Suffolk. John Dudley, Earl of Warwick, and Lord President of the council of ministers that now rule England, becomes Duke of Northumberland.

  October 1551 Somerset is accused by Northumberland of plotting to murder him, and is again imprisoned in the Tower. Though the plot is believed by many to be a trumped-up excuse to be rid of him, Somerset is tried and condemned to death and executed on 22 January 1552.

  25 May 1553 Lady Jane Grey marries Lord Guildford Dudley, youngest son of the Duke of Northumberland. On the same day her sister Katherine marries Lord Herbert, the son of the Earl of Pembroke.

  6 July 1553 Edward VI dies. In his last will, he disinherits his sisters Mary and Elizabeth from the succession and names Lady Jane Grey as his successor.

  10 July 1553 Lady Jane Grey is declared queen. Attempts to capture Mary fail and within two weeks Mary is declared queen. Jane and her husband Guildford are kept in the Tower of London as prisoners.

  22 August 1553 The Duke of Northumberland is executed for treason after first converting to the Catholic faith.

  1 October 1553 Mary is crowned queen and sets about restoring Catholicism to England.

  13 November 1553 Jane and Guildford are tried for treason at the Guildhall and condemned to death.

  January 1554 Mary announces that she is to marry Philip of Spain.

  January 1554 Sir Thomas Wyatt leads a rebellion to depose Queen Mary and put her Protestant sister Elizabeth on the throne. The rebellion fails and Wyatt is imprisoned and later executed.

  10 February 1554 Jane’s father, the Duke of Suffolk, is imprisoned for taking part in Wyatt’s rebellion. Later, he too is tried and executed.

  12 February 1554 Jane and Guildford Dudley are executed.

  If you enjoyed this, why not readPompeii also by Sue Reid? See below for an exclusive extract.

  AUGUSTUS AD 78

  25 August

  The ground shook today. Father says I mustn’t fret – the ground often trembles in Pompeii. He always says that. But when we got home I saw that the crack in the atrium wall had got bigger. I slipped in the tip of my finger and wiggled it around to show him. “Yesterday, it did not go in at all,” I said.

  “It is just a crack, Claudia,” Father told me. “The house is not going to fall down!” I do not know how Father is so sure. I am not!
So I decided that I would begin a diary. In a diary you can write down everything you think and feel. And it will be my secret.

  And now, oh Isis, goddess of a thousand names, guide my hand. May my words always be the truth.

  We were in the Forum when it happened. We’d gone to the Forum so that Father could order grain for the bakery. Truly, I should have been home helping Mother, but she sent me out after I’d spoilt my work again. “Be off with you, Claudia,” she said. “One day I hope the gods will teach you how to spin, for I cannot. But it seems it is not their will that you learn today.”

  And my, wasn’t it busy! Everyone seemed to be in the Forum this morning. Traders peddling everything from Egyptian granite to robes from Babylon, toga-draped officials, snake charmers and beggars. The air hot and heavy with the smell of sweat and spices. And over and above all the clamour, the shouts, the cries, the steady bang-bang of the builders.

  “Take my hand, Claudia,” Father said. “And whatever you do keep tight hold of Pollux’s chain, or I fear we will lose him in such a crowd.” (Pollux is our dog. He is supposed to guard the bakery, though Mother says the painting in our neighbours’ house would be of more use.) Anyway, I tried to do as Father bid, though Pollux pulled me this way and that. He is always excited on market day. So many smells to sniff, titbits to tempt and dogs to fight.

  All went well until we saw Ancient. Ancient usually begs at the Vesuvius Gate, for that’s where the carts enter the city and the best pickings are to be had. Anyway, Ancient stretched out his hand and Pollux leaped forward – and I ran smack up against a man loaded down like a mule. “Ow!” I cried, putting up my hands to shield my head. Something – a pot – had knocked it and the contents all strewn on the ground. Didn’t the trader just shout at me, while he scrabbled around, piling olives back into it. All dusty and dirty too now. Ugh! And then I realized that I’d let go of Pollux’s chain. I looked round, but Pollux had gone – scampered away into the crowds. Father was not pleased. “That dog’s more trouble than he’s worth,” he muttered as we searched for him, high and low.