Lady Jane Grey: Difference between revisions

Jane was the great-granddaughter of [[Henry VII of England|Henry VII]], through his youngest daughter [[Mary Tudor, Queen of France|Mary]], and a great-niece of [[Henry VIII]], and cousin to [[Edward VI]], [[Mary I of England|Mary I]] and [[Elizabeth I of England|Elizabeth I]]. Under the [[will of Henry VIII]], Jane was in line to the throne after her cousins. She had a [[Renaissance humanism|humanist]] education and a reputation as one of the most learned young women of her day.<ref name="ascham213">{{harvnb|Ascham|1863|p=213}}</ref> In May 1553, she was married to [[Lord Guildford Dudley]], a younger son of Edward VI's chief minister [[John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland]]. In June 1553, the dying Edward VI wrote his will, nominating Jane and her male heirs as successors to the Crown, in part because his half-sister [[Mary I of England|Mary]] was Catholic, while Jane was a committed Protestant and would support the reformed [[Church of England]], whose foundation Edward laid. The will removed his half-sisters, Mary and Elizabeth, from the line of succession on account of their illegitimacy, subverting their lawful claims under the [[Third Succession Act]]. Through Northumberland, Edward's [[letters patent]] in favour of Jane was signed by the entire privy council, bishops, and other notables.

Both Mary and Elizabeth had been named illegitimate by statute during the reign of Henry VIII after his marriages to [[Catherine of Aragon|Katherine of Aragon]] and [[Anne Boleyn]] had been declared void.<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Gah0RdbHKmYC&pg=PA38 |page=38|title=A Constitutional History of Secession|publisher=Pelican |isbn=9781455602889}}</ref> When the 15-year-old Edward VI lay dying in early summer 1553, his Roman Catholic half-sister Mary was still his heir presumptive. Edward, in a draft will ("My devise for the Succession") composed earlier in 1553, had first restricted the succession to (non-existent) male descendants of Jane's mother and her daughters, before he named his Protestant cousin "Lady Jane and her heirs male" as his successors, probably in June 1553. Edward planned to exclude her from the line of succession because he feared that if his elder half-sister, who was first in the line of succession according to the 1544 Act, came to the throne, she would re-establish Catholicism, undoing their father's and his own reforms.<ref>Porter, pp. 188–189.</ref><ref name="Alford 2002 171–172" /><ref>{{cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/reformation22lind |page=[https://archive.org/details/reformation22lind/page/149 149] |title=The Reformation |publisher=T. & T. Clark |last1=Lindsay |first1=Thomas Martin |year=1882 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=B5P-CwAAQBAJ&pg=PT121 |title=Crown of Blood: The Deadly Inheritance of Lady Jane Grey|first=Nicola|last=Tallis|date=2016|publisher=Pegasus Books|via=Google Books|isbn=9781681772875}}</ref> However, his advisors warned him that he could not disinherit only one of his older half-sisters: he would also have to disinherit Elizabeth, although she, like her half-brother, was also a Protestant. Possibly instigated by Northumberland, Edward decided to disinherit both Mary and Elizabeth, thus contravening the Succession Act of 1544, and appointed Jane Grey as his heir.<ref>{{harvnb|Loades|1996|p=240}}; {{harvnb|Alford|2014|pp=75–56}}; {{harvnb|Loach|2002|pp=163–164}}</ref><ref name="auto">Dale Hoak: [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/8522 "Edward VI (1537–1553)"], ''[[Oxford Dictionary of National Biography]]'', Oxford University Press, 2004, online edn. January 2008, Retrieved 4 April 2010 (subscription required)</ref>

The essence of Edward's will was to give priority to the throne to the unborn sons of Lady Frances Brandon, followed by the unborn sons of her daughter Jane Grey.<ref>{{Harvard citation text|Porter|2010|p=3484}}</ref> The choice of the descendants of [[Mary Tudor, Queen of France|Henry VII's youngest daughter]] was easy: Edward had no choice. He could not follow [[Salic law]] because of the paucity of men in the Tudor line:<ref name=":5" /> the only such man, the Scotsman [[Henry Stewart, Lord Darnley]], barely 6 or 7 years old and son of the King's first cousin, [[Margaret Douglas, Countess of Lennox|Lady Margaret Douglas]] was Catholic and therefore unacceptable to the monarch.<ref name=":6">{{Harvard citation text|Porter|2010|p=3490}}</ref><ref>{{Harvard citation text|Ives|2009|p=141}}</ref> The [[House of Plantagenet|Plantagenet]] men were also unacceptable: [[Edward Courtenay, 1st Earl of Devon|Edward Courtenay]] descendant of [[Catherine of York]], great-aunt of Edward VI, not only was he Catholic, but he had also spent many years imprisoned in the [[Tower of London|Tower]]. [[Reginald Pole]] and his relatives were also Catholics and political emigrants.<ref>{{Harvard citation text|Ives|2009|pp=139—141}}</ref> Having excluded from consideration the descendants of the Plantagenets, Henry VII's eldest daughter Margaret (the Scottish Stewarts) and his own older half-sisters Mary and Elizabeth, Edward was forced to choose from the descendants of his aunt Mary, Widow Queen of France and Duchess of Suffolk.<ref name=":6" /> There were no male descendants in this branch of the Tudors, and the oldest woman of childbearing age was Mary's thirty-five-year-old daughter Frances Grey.<ref>{{Harvard citation text|Porter|2010|p=3507}}</ref> If Frances could not bear a child, Frances's eldest daughter, Jane, could. She was young, healthy, and brought up in the Protestant faith, and her other qualities were of no importance.<ref name=":2" />

[[File:Anthonis Mor 001.jpg|thumb|Mary Tudor. After the brief 9-day reign of Jane, and with a conspiracy within the Privy Council, Mary became Queen.]]

Around ten o'clock in the morning of 12 February, Guildford was led towards Tower Hill, where "many ... gentlemen" waited to shake hands with him.<ref>Nichols 1850 p. 55; Ives 2009 p. 274–275</ref> Guildford made a short speech to the assembled crowd, as was customary.<ref>Chapman 1962 p. 204</ref> "Having no ghostly father with him",<ref name="Nichols p. 55">Nichols 1850 p. 55</ref>{{#tag:ref|Guildford had probably refused to be attended by a [[Catholic Church|Catholic]] priest and been denied a [[Protestant]] divine (Nichols p. 55).|group="note"}} he knelt, prayed, and asked the people to pray for him, "holding up his eyes and hands to God many times".<ref name="Ives p. 275"/> He was killed with one stroke of the axe, after which his body was conveyed on a cart to the Chapel of St Peter ad Vincula for burial. Watching the scene from her window, Jane exclaimed: "Oh, Guildford, Guildford!"<ref>{{harvnb|Ives|2009|pp=274–275}}</ref> She was then taken out to [[Tower Green]], inside the Tower, to be beheaded.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KZCMGgJzO2IC&pg=PA233 |title=Lady Jane Grey: A Tudor Mystery|first=Eric|last=Ives|date= 2011|publisher=John Wiley & Sons|via=Google Books|isbn=9781444354263}}</ref> According to the account of her execution given in the anonymous ''Chronicle of Queen Jane and of Two Years of Queen Mary'', which formed the basis for [[Raphael Holinshed]]'s depiction, Jane gave a speech upon ascending the scaffold:

[[File:Tomb of Lady Jane Gray.jpg|thumb|Grave of Lady Jane Grey, St Peter ad Vincula]]

The executions did not contribute to Mary's or the government's popularity.<ref name="Ives p. 276"/> Five months after the couple's death, [[John Knox]], the famous Scottish [[Protestant Reformation|reformer]], wrote of them as "innocents ... such as by just laws and faithful witnesses can never be proved to have offended by themselves."<ref name="Ives p. 268"/> Of Guildford Dudley, the chronicler Grafton wrote ten years later: "even those that never before the time of his execution saw him, did with lamentable tears bewail his death."<ref name="Ives p. 276"/>