Lady Jane Becomes Queen for Nine Days (Part One)

Lady Jane Becomes Queen for Nine Days (Part One)

On this day July 10 1553

Khen Lim

Lady Jane Grey en route to Tower of London by Matt Abraxas (Image source: Redbubble)

Stepping into the Tower of London, the sixteen-year-old Lady Jane Grey felt uncomfortable. Reportedly thin and freckled with sandy-coloured hair, her ‘new role’ was, frankly, a fair few shoe sizes too big for her. 

Her granduncle was the audacious Henry VIII, who died six years ago but that really wasn’t the problem. Hers was when Henry’s only son, her same-age uncle, the sitting King Edward VI died four days earlier that had now set into motion her fatal destiny.

And on July 10 four-hundred and sixty-four years ago, Lady Jane sealed her fate with a proclamation accompanied by great lords and nobles of England, and with that, she took the Thames to the Tower of London. Dressed in Tudor green and white, her domineering and manipulative mother bore the train of her dress. 

No one in her right mind, not least Lady Jane herself, would have even remotely understand that by doing so, she had just confirmed her death nine days away.

Lady Jane Grey's Reluctance to Accept the Crown by W. H. S. Aubrey (Image source: Luminarium: Anthology of English Literature)

The fateful day

“Do I even have a right to the throne?” she asked.

Jane knew that her granduncle had meant the crown of England for his only son, Edward (1537-1553) but her teenaged uncle was unfortunately now dead. Being well read, she also knew about the Third Succession Act of 1544 where her older aunts – Mary (1516-1558) and then Elizabeth (1533-1603) – largely still considered illegitimate – were in the line of succession after Edward. 

But then in the Act, Henry VIII (1491-1547) had also noted that should his children bear no descendants of their own, the throne would be available to the heirs of his younger sister Mary Tudor (1496-1533) whose daughter was Frances Grey (1517-1559), Jane’s mother. 

Yet Frances was left out of the succession line. As far as leaving his elder sister, Margaret Tudor (1489-1541), from any rightful claim, that was understandable, considering that by marriage, she was now part of Scottish nobility.

Born in the same year and month as Edward VI, Jane’s life was pretty much mapped up for her by her ambitious parents. Both had original wanted her betrothed to Edward so that they could reap the benefits – and pleasure – of being part of royalty. To do that, they laced her with the best education that wealth could attain. To curry Henry’s favour, of course, that must revolve around a strict Protestant upbringing.

Lady Jane Grey (Image source: Tudor and Stuart Britain)

In hindsight, this was the very beginning of the unmaking of Jane. Her bookishness and intellectuality could not prepare her for the harshness that life would eventually dish out. She was also merely a hapless pawn on a lethal chessboard, destined for an unforgiving fate, a game played by her parents and future in-laws to deadly effect.

But here she was, after her uncle’s death, faced with pages of signatures that endorsed the dead king’s new arrangement to usurp his own father’s. To Edward, Jane, his niece, would be his successor, meaning that she now found herself ahead of both Mary and Elizabeth in line to the throne of England. 

Whether or not she understood Edward’s decision of not wanting to plunge the country back into Catholicism. She only knew that in veering to avoid Mary – and Elizabeth – the fledgling Protestant faith might stand a better chance of survival but at a cost she felt uncomfortable with.

Upon advice, Edward, being an ardent Protestant, felt such a move necessary. While his advisors were in support of this new arrangement involving Jane, not all actually agreed wholeheartedly – Archbishop Cranmer (1489-1556), though of the same faith, was hesitant though he was probably pushed into going along. 

But Jane was not aware of any of this at all. Quite likely, she was either too naïve to understand or too helpless to stop her parents’ manipulation of her life to advance their own selfish purposes and dovetail under Edward’s complicated rule as regnant. But first, let’s consider the background build-up behind Jane’s fate:

Northumberland’s strategy

Lady Jane Grey was eldest daughter, born in the autumn of 1537, to Henry Grey (1517-1554), First Duke of Suffolk and his wife, Lady Frances nee Brandon (1517-1559). Frances was, of course, daughter to Mary, Henry VIII’s younger sister. Hence, the royal connections. Jane also had two younger siblings, Lady Catherine (1540-1568) and Lady Mary (1545-1578), making all three sisters grandnieces of Henry VIII. That also made Edward VI, Mary I and Elizabeth I their uncle and aunts.

Lady Jane Grey by Frederick Richard Pickersgill (Image source: Pinterest)

When Jane was 10 years old, she was brought into the household of Henry’s sixth and last queen, Catherine Parr (1512-1548) who was a strong and devout Protestant and who provided a conducive environment in which she was as academically vigorous as she was piously embracing. 

When her father was appointed to the Suffolk duchy in October 1551, Jane began to make her appearance in Henry’s court where John Dudley (1504-1553), the fiery Protestant Duke of Northumberland was often larger than life. 

Northumberland later became regent – and chief minister – to Henry’s son Edward VI. In May 1553, largely under Northumberland’s and Jane’s own crafty mother, she was married to his son, Lord Guildford Dudley (1535-1554) to begin what the two families had hoped would be a powerful political presence.

John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland (Image source: Tales of Curiosity)

Once Edward became sickly and edging towards death, Northumberland assumed a more dictatorial rule and began planning a different succession plan in order to avoid miring England with Roman Catholicism. He was certain that should the Third Succession Act of 1543 come into play, a return to papal autocracy would surely be the case with Edward’s two half-sisters. But it wasn’t just that.

Northumberland also realised that with either of Henry’s daughters in charge, he too would be forced out of his insatiable quest for power. Not wanting any of this to happen was one thing; beyond Mary and Elizabeth, he saw no other choice that would ensure his place in English politics. 

Sensing no other option, he connived to put sixteen-year-old Jane on the throne instead, which was how she was forced to marry his fourth son. As Edward became more deathly, Northumberland, leaving nothing to chance, tersely ordered his son and Jane to consummate their marriage, making it legally binding.

Edward VI (Image source: On the Tudor Trail)

Having put that plan into place, Northumberland next went to work on the dying king, convincing him that it would be disastrous for England to fall back into Catholicism once Mary – or Elizabeth – took the reins after his death. He persuaded Edward to view Mary as nothing more than illegitimate child that she was. 

After all, that was how her own father viewed her after he annulled his marriage to Mary’s mother, Catherine of Aragon (1485-1536). The same abject derogation was also applied to the other half-sister, Elizabeth, born of his father’s marriage with his second wife, Anne Boleyn (1501-1536). Through this devious plan, the entire line of succession as ordered by Henry would have to be completely jettisoned and only the bedridden and dying Edward could do that.

Until Edward did otherwise, his avowedly Catholic half-sister Mary was on course to be his heir presumptive. So in his first move sometime around early 1553, the young king restricted his succession to the male heirs of his cousin, Frances Brandon but that was not practical, since she had nothing but three daughters of whom Jane was the eldest. 

Edward VI's 'Device for the Succession' (Image source: Wikimedia)

Under Northumberland’s persuasion, Edward finally signed over the succession to his niece, Lady Jane Grey, and then personally supervised the copying of his will, which was eventually issued as letters patent on June 21. It was then duly signed by 102 notables who among them were the members of the Privy Council, peers, bishops, judges and aldermen. To further seal the new changes, the king ordered his ‘declaration’ to be passed through Parliament later in September.

However, it wasn’t as easy as that (though Northumberland probably thought so). In the process of his actions, the Privy Council remained relatively unconvinced, harbouring grave misgivings about his ultimate motive and fearing the worst about his intentions. Apparently, Jane was told of this but most unfortunately, she probably was not aware of the seriousness of the implication.

Meanwhile, the king’s half-sisters were summoned to his deathbed at Greenwich in south-east London. Northumberland though to make this move to have them neutralised thus rendering them incapable of derailing his daring subterfuge. 

Yet he failed to take into account that neither sisters would so naïvely play into his hands. As it turned out, the moment Edward died on July 6, Mary was duly warned and rode pell-mell for Norfolk if not to save her own life then to regroup and think. Elizabeth was equally as shrewd and well beyond her young age. She decided to stay in bed, feigning illness.

Lady Jane Grey Prevailed on to Accept the Crown (1827) by Charles Robert Leslie (Image source: Tudors & Other Histories)

Jane becomes queen

For the four days following his death in Greenwich, everything was kept under the lid. By then, Mary had beaten a hasty retreat from her residence at Hunsdon in Hertfordshire to Norfolk in East Anglia where she began in earnest to raise an army and rally for support. Meanwhile Elizabeth stayed firmly in bed, hoping that her excuse would stick all the way through.

On July 9, Jane was taken to Syon House, Northumberland’s mansion in Isleworth on the outskirts of London. There, her husband and family, alongside members of the Privy Council, were awaiting her arrival with great anticipation. As she set foot in the mansion, she was taken aback by the deference of those in the Council but when Northumberland informed her that she would be queen, she fainted.

“No,” she cried as she fell down and wept inconsolably at the very thought that her own family coerced her into a corner. Feeling inevitably doomed to a lack of choice, Jane reluctantly accepted the decision, saying, “If what has been given to me is lawfully mine.”

Jane probably realised that this was the outcome of Northumberland’s illegal – possibly treasonous – manipulation of a now-dead king. Though demure and unassuming by nature, she was not unaware that being England’s next queen, Northumberland and his family could pressure her and mastermind her every move from behind the curtain. She was likely aware that her own mother, among others, would also benefit from this radical change of plans.

What Jane had no knowledge of was ultimately her undoing and that was, the presence of those who disapproved of this perversion of Henry’s decree. In her cossetted life away from the harshness of English politics, she had no real estimation of how deeply hated her father-in-law was by others who were in power, let alone the people at large. All of these eventually conspired to bring her down just as quickly as she was raised to the throne.

Marriage of Lady Jane Grey to Lord Guildford Dudley (Image source: Leicester)

On this day in 1553, a day after her acquiescence, Lady Jane Grey was proclaimed Queen of England, France and Ireland amidst great flourishes of trumpets throughout London but she was masked from the disapproval of the public who saw this as nothing more than a perverted procession and succession to power. 

To them, Lady Mary was the rightful heir and by undermining her, it was the innocent Jane who was ultimately seen as unrighteous. It is said that one man was callous enough to remark that it was Mary’s right to be queen and with that, he’d both his ears severed.

Following her proclamation, Jane proceeded by barge along the Thames to take up secure customary residence at the Tower of London until the day of her coronation at Westminster Abbey in which Cranmer himself would oversee. On arrival, she was asked to try out the royal crown to which she, again, felt like fainting. 

Despite the ceremonious pomposity, Jane had a tumultuous disagreement with both her mother and spouse when it came to her husband being made king. Considering what she already knew of her in-laws, she was having none of that. Instead she offered to make him the Duke of Clarence before sealing her intentions through letters patent and deferred the matter to Parliament.

During the banquet in the evening in celebration of her ascending to the throne, a letter came from Mary for the Privy Council, stating very clearly her right to the throne as defined by her father, Henry. In the letter, she also demanded their unstinting loyalty and support. 

Souring the dinner was one thing but it was now becoming crystal clear that Northumberland wasn’t the great strategist he thought he was. His gross miscalculations were looking like blowing up in his face but worse, he might have set into motion the fate of his entire family including, of course, himself. With the letter, he faced the unquestioned possibility that his nemesis, Lady Mary, might be more popular than he’d imagined. And worse, he was nowhere near as well liked as his ego led him to believe.

While Jane continued readying herself for a role she didn’t want, there was the beginning of panic brewing beneath her. Just as her aunt was putting together a formidable army to return with, her father-in-law’s support was evidently waning but she knew neither. 

Four days after Jane’s proclamation, on July 14, Northumberland amassed troops and set out from London but in his absence, the Privy Council swiftly deserted him, switching sides from Jane to Mary.

By July 18, Northumberland could count his supporters by the fingers on one hand – only three including Jane’s own father remained loyal after everyone else had abandoned him. In beating a hasty retreat from the Tower, the deserters cited an excuse of needing to convene with the French ambassador. 

The next day, to the jubilation of the people, the Council, through the Lord Mayor of London, declared Mary, sister to Edward the late king, as the rightful queen.

 

Queen Jane turns in her crown and other regalia to Mary before taken into custody at the Gentleman's Gaoler (Image source: History and Herstory)

Mary has Jane arrested

By now, everything had taken a gloomy turn. All wasn’t looking good. In fact, Suffolk sense deep worrisome trouble ahead. With all of that in mind, he told his daughter, Jane, much to her relief, that she could no longer remain queen. Despite the outwardly impression of a kindly fatherly advice and concern, he probably did this more to save his own hide and ride on the bandwagon with Mary instead.

Not long thereafter, she was arraigned in the House of Nathaniel Partridge – better known as Gentleman Gaoler’s quarters – within the Tower of London complex. Her husband, Dudley, was kept in the Beauchamp Tower not too far from her along the curtain wall that formed the inner line of defence. At this time, Mary had begun her return to London vested in the knowledge that the country had capitulated to her demands and shifted away from Northumberland’s shallow plot.

Mary I arrives in London in 1553 with Elizabeth behind (Image source: Tudor Chronicles)

On August 3 1553, Mary reached Aldgate, London’s eastern-most gateway, triumphantly to take up her rightful position as Queen of England. Her half-sister Elizabeth got off her bed, shrugged off her ‘illness’ and went hastily to London almost a week earlier in readiness to greet her in victory. 

As the people saw for themselves that their new rightful queen had returned to rule, the cheers were deafening. Cannons boomed. Bells clanged and tolled. Trumpets blared. The fanfare was both flamboyant and complete. The queen had come home to roost.

As for Northumberland, Jane’s father-in-law, he was executed almost three weeks later, on August 22. By the beginning of the following month, Parliament made a brand new declaration that officiated Mary as the queen. In the process, Jane’s earlier proclamation was repealed and her role was recognised as nothing but a usurper.

After Northumberland’s execution, Jane together with her husband, Lord Guildford Dudley as well as his other three brothers – Robert (1532-1588), Ambrose (1530-1590) and John (1527-1554) – and Thomas Cranmer the Archbishop under Edward’s rule were all charged with high treason. 

By special commission, their trial occurred on November 13 at Guildhall in the City of London. As suspected, it was largely a formality and as expected, all charged were found guilty and received their death sentences.

Letter from Lady Jane Grey to William Parr in July 1553, signed as Jane the Queen (Image source: Pinterest)

For her part, Jane’s guilt was in signing documents calling herself, “Jane the Queen.” She was sentenced to death, “to be burned alive on Tower Hill or beheaded as the Queen pleases.” Burning was the usual punishment at that time in England for those caught with treason. 

Yet miraculously, her life was spared. In fact she could have just walked away, never to be seen again and lived till old but as fate would have it, that didn’t happen.

Part Two will be published on July 16 2017