Lady Jane Grey

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She has spent her short life trying to please her parents who seem impossible to satisfy, finding her only comfort in scholarship and prayer. And then one summer afternoon the most powerful men in the land are kneeling before her telling her that she is their queen. She didn't ask for it, she didn't want it, she protested and she wept but they insisted and so she accepted the throne of England, a throne in which she would sit for less than a fortnight and that would cost her her life before her 17th birthday. This is the heartbreaking fate of Lady Jane Grey, whose story I tell in a new two-part documentary series for History Hit, is the story of a girl caught in a hurricane of ambition, religious conflict and dynastic scheming. Today I thought I'd share with you a taste of some of the insights into Lady Jane's life from just three of the experts who joined me on location for that series and who are no strangers to not just the Tudors, Professor Anna Whitelock and Dr. Joanne Paul and art historian Verity Babs. There are also big contributions from Dr. Nicola Talis who came onto the podcast to talk to me about Lady Jane in October 2021. I'm Professor Suzanne Lipscomb, welcome to Not Just the Tudors from History Hit. To understand how Lady Jane Grey found herself on the throne of England, we first need to understand where she came from and it starts as so many Tudor stories do with Henry VIII. Jane was born in either 1536 or 1537, most likely at Bradgate House in Leicestershire, a grand estate set amid rolling parkland. Her father was Henry Grey, later the Duke of Suffolk. Her mother was Lady Frances Brandon and it's through her that the royal blood flowed. Lady Frances was the daughter of Henry VIII's younger sister Mary Tudor and Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk. That made Jane the great-granddaughter of Henry VII, the great niece of Henry VIII and the first cousin once removed of the king's children, Edward, Mary and Elizabeth. Despite her royal blood, Jane was a long way from the throne but she received one of the finest educations of any woman of her era and it was at Bradgate that the seeds of her passionate Protestantism were sown. And we know that Jane really relished her education. Dr Nicola Tallis, she took great pleasure in the pages of books. We know that she read Plato, a contemporary Sir Thomas Chalena who may have known Jane but certainly new members of her family, later remarked that she was supposed to have been able to speak eight languages which is exceptional and we know that she later began learning Hebrew at her own request which was again really extraordinary. So she was a young woman who was extremely precocious, extremely intelligent and who really took advantage of the academic opportunities that were presented to her and was certainly showing great promise in terms of her intellectual abilities. Jane was tutored by the brilliant John Almer, later Bishop of London and by the time she was 14 her reputation as a formidable scholar had spread across Europe. Even Roger Aschum who taught the future Elizabeth I acknowledged Jane's extraordinary intellect. I think she knew that she was intelligent and certainly what always strikes me as being quite extraordinary is the fact that in an age in which women aren't always predominant in the sources as we know people were taking the time to write about Jane and her extraordinary academic ability and I just think that this is extraordinary given that she wasn't on a Henry VIII daughters and so it wasn't as present in the same manner as Mary and Elizabeth. She was a young girl living in distant Leicestershire far away from the court and yet people were writing about how intelligent she was. But Lady Jane was deeply unhappy at home. When Roger Aschum visited Bradgate around 1550 he found the entire household out hunting in the park. Everyone except Jane. He discovered her alone reading Plato in the original Greek. When Aschum asked Jane why she wasn't outside enjoying the hunt she replied, I wished all their sport in the park is but a shadow to that pleasure that I find in Plato. Alas good folk they never felt what true pleasure meant. So this is a girl who took absolute delight in intellectual pleasure and pitied those who didn't get the same satisfaction from it. Jane revealed to Aschum that her parents were harsh and impossible to please. When I'm in the presence either of father or mother she said whether I speak keep silent sit stand or go eat drink be merry or sad be sowing playing dancing or doing anything else I must do it as it were in such weight measure and number even so perfectly as God made the world or else I'm so sharply taunted so cruelly threatened yet presently sometimes with pinches nips and bobs and other ways which I will not name for the honor I bear them that I think myself in hell. This is a story of abuse and Jane's only escape from this hell was learning. Her schoolmaster she said was as gentle as her parents were cruel. When I'm called from him she confessed I begin weeping because whatever else I do but learning is full of grief trouble fear and is wholly misliking unto me. Some have suggested that Jane may have been exaggerating as teenagers sometimes do and the strictness of her upbringing was not unusual for a aristocratic household but whether her suffering was unique or commonplace it shaped her it turned her into a young woman who found solace and books and prayer rather than in the glittering world of the court and it certainly did not prepare her for the trouble that was brewing in that Tudor court. By the terms of Henry VIII's will he was to be succeeded by his son Edward. If Edward was a dark childless and if Catherine Parr had not given him any other male heirs by the point he died the will said that Edward should be succeeded first by Henry VIII's eldest daughter Mary and if she were to have no children then by his younger daughter Elizabeth but crucially Henry had declared both of his daughters illegitimate and neither had been legitimated at the time of his death although they had been restored to their place in the succession. When Henry VIII died on the 28th of January 1547 his nine-year-old son Edward became King Edward VI. He was a devout Protestant who had not only inherited his father's throne but his ruthless certainty about England's religious direction but six years into the reign King Edward VI now age 15 fell dangerously ill. Who would succeed him? Dr. Nicola Talis again. If none of Henry VIII's children were to produce children of their own then Henry decreed that the line of his elder sister Margaret, Queen of Scots, was to be struck out and instead the next heirs should be the children of his younger sister Mary so if this was to happen then technically the next in line should have been Francis, Jane's mother but Henry overlooked her and there have been lots of debates as to why this may have been my own feeling is that Henry didn't have a particularly high opinion of Henry Gray that in any case Henry had then ordered that the next in line should be the heirs of Francis in which case Jane was the first of these so that's where her claim to the throne comes in it's been set up by her great-uncle Henry VIII but nobody really expects Jane to come to prominence in that way. Yet Edward's heir under the law specifically the third succession act of 1544 was his elder half-sister Mary and she was a deeply fiercely committed Catholic. She had defied Edward's Protestant reforms continuing to have the traditional Latin mass celebrated in her private chapels despite it being illegal. Professor Anna Whitelock. Mary was Henry VIII's daughter and by the 1544 act of succession she was next in line to the throne now it's absolutely right that she was still illegitimate Henry's act of settlement and well hadn't made her legitimate but by act of parliament and that was crucial she was Henry's heir and in the days that followed legitimacy was her trump card that's the card that she repeatedly played. For Edward the thought of Mary undoing everything he had built was unbearable and for the man who effectively ran the country John Dudley Duke of Northumberland it was existential. He knew that if Mary took the throne he and his family would almost certainly be destroyed. Dr Joanne Paul. He's known as the evil Duke of Northumberland he's seen as as a tyrant as an ambitious manipulator he is really the leading counselor at the death of Edward VI he has control of everything he's the one you're going to have to look at to determine what's going to happen when Edward dies and he's also Jane's father-in-law and so he has that role in her life as well as a father figure someone who is in control of the choices that she is going to make. And so a scheme was hatched Edward drafted a document called My Device for the Succession a plan that bypassed both Mary and Elizabeth. Dr Nicola Tallis. So it's a really really extraordinary document all drawn up in Edward's own hand there's been a lot of debate over how much of this was done under Edward's own auspices and how much he was influenced by Northumberland. My own feeling is that Edward had more of a hand in it than he has perhaps been given credit for if that's the right terminology but in this device Edward cuts out both of his half sisters Mary and Elizabeth basically because he had spent the entirety of his reign campaigning really to stamp Protestantism firmly into his reign and onto his subjects and he didn't want to give his Catholic half sister Mary the chance to undo what he saw as all of his good work in the cause of religion but he recognised that he couldn't exclude one half sister without also excluding the other. So both Mary and Elizabeth are excluded on the grounds of their previous illegitimacy and instead to begin with he orders that the throne should pass to the heirs male of his cousin Lady Jane Gray but it very soon becomes clear that actually Edward isn't going to live long enough for Jane to produce any heirs male or any heirs at all and so with the stroke of his pen he inserts two words so that his will with that the throne will pass to Lady Jane and her heirs male and this is how Jane goes from being third to first in line to the throne. One question has been how much this was Edward's own doing. Dr. John Paul. We know it's the will of the king Edward VI writes out what he wants the succession to be he has motivations for that I think he's hoping that Jane is carrying a male heir he's looking desperately down the family tree for a male heir and Jane might produce that very soon and John's oddly knows that this is what Edward wants Edward is someone who knows his own mind and I think John sees himself as executing that will to the point of strong harming those who oppose it. On the 21st of June 1553 Edward's letters patent was signed by 102 notables the entire Preview Council, Peers, Bishops, Judges and London Auderman but there was a crucial problem and it would prove fatal. Edward's device for the succession was never ratified by parliament. The third succession act which placed Mary next in line was the law of the land. One could argue that Edward's letters patent held no legal authority because under English constitutional law the succession was a matter for parliament not the crown alone and yet acts of succession had also dictated that the king the monarch Henry the eighth at the time the laws were created could determine the succession by letters patent. Edward had in fact planned to have parliament debate and approve his plans but parliament wasn't scheduled to meet until September and Edward did not live that long. Meanwhile and possibly before Edward drew up his device for the succession there was the matter of getting Jane married to the right person. On the 25th of May 1553 a few weeks before all of this Jane had been married to Lord Gilford Dudley the fourth surviving son of the Duke of Northumberland in a lavish ceremony at Durham House. Now by most accounts Jane was not particularly happy about the match. Dr Nicola Tallis. The marriage of Jane came about through the auspices of Edward's chief advisor the Duke of Northumberland who proposed that she should marry his fourth son Gilford Dudley and at that time the suggestion of the marriage was very much with what may come in the future in mind and it was an attempt to secure the bonds of allegiance for what lay ahead but there are many suggestions in the sources that not only Jane hated the idea of this marriage but also her mother Francis won chronicler reports that she was vigorously opposed to it and I think it's very easy to understand why because Jane did come from a family with close links to the royal family and the throne and she had been raised with possible expectations that she may be married to King Edward and thus become his consort but certainly that she could expect a very advantageous match and so I think the realization that she wasn't going to be able to marry Edward because he was in poor health must have come as a blow certainly to Jane's parents that the idea that she would be married to the son of a Duke I mean not even the eldest son of a Duke but the fourth son of a Duke I mean I think that must have been a really bitter pill for the Greys to swallow and you can understand I think why Francis Brandon may not have been too keen on that but the sources say that Henry Grey was convinced by Northumberland that this marriage was a good idea and so it duly took place on the 25th of May at Durham Place which was Northumberland's townhouse on the Strand and it was a very grand and a very lavish occasion so the wedding clothes had all been paid for by Edward VI who was unfortunately too poorly to attend by this point but he'd also sent gifts of jewels as well to the young couple we've got a warrant which shows that there were two masks that were performed the French ambassadors were invited it was a really really lavish occasion only marred I suppose in some ways by first of all Jane's reluctance she wasn't happy about this marriage at all but recognised that it was her duty to be obedient to her parents and also by the fact that several of the guests including Guilford Dudley managed to contract food poisoning as a result of apparently a poorly prepared salad for one of the chefs so I think for more reasons than one the observation of a contemporary that this marriage was judged to be the first act of a tragedy is very accurate within just two months of Jane's marriage to Guilford Dudley on the evening of the 6th of July 1553 King Edward VI died the conspirators sprang into action within three days Jane was summoned to Sinehouse the Duke of Northumberland's residence west of London and arrived to find an assembly of the most powerful people in England Dr Nicola Talis tradition says that she was taking to the Long Gallery and she was informed then that the king had died and that he had named her as his heir and all of the sources agree that she was utterly distraught at this news and she completely broke down and she was overcome by grief at the death of her cousin but also with the enormity of what had been inflicted on her I suppose or imposed on her I met Dr Durand Paul at Sinehouse we only have her account or what we think is her account of those events that take place here at Sinehouse in July of 1553 when she's led in before these men who are really controlling everything after the death of Edward VI according to her she comes in they bow very deeply to her in a way that makes her feel very embarrassed and then eventually she's told that her cousin is dead and she is the new queen and she says that she falls to the floor weeping desperately we have this account from her when she's in the tower she would at that point say that she didn't want it and that's indeed what she says that these men were bestowing gifts on her that weren't theirs by right at the time though it's hard to know how she really did feel about it she was a smart girl and we say girl she was 17 she was a young woman she may have been interested in the crown she may have not wanted it at all she may have been excited by this she may have seen it as a death sentence we only know from hindsight that it was the latter while Jane said that she was initially reluctant against her better judgment she accepted Dr. Nicola Talas but eventually she does manage to calm herself down and although she didn't want to be queen she accepted what had been thrust upon her and I think she was determined to make the best of the situation she recognized that the king had named her as his heir this had been done for a reason and from this moment she was going to continue with Edward's good work and she was queen of England. The next day the 10th of July 1553 Lady Jane Gray was formally proclaimed Queen of England France and Ireland and entered the Tower of London to prepare for her coronation but it was already too late Mary in the meantime had not been idle in the days around her half brother's death she had fled from her home at Hunsdon in Hertfordshire to Framingham Castle in Suffolk where she set about building support for her claim I met Professor Anna Whitelock at Framingham up until 1547 Framingham had been the stronghold of the Duke of Norfolk's premier English nobleman and hugely important East Anglian magnate and interestingly she'd only acquired Framingham in the few months before Edward's death at that point while she'd previously held Kenningham she'd also owned some manners in Essex and the government Northumberland and so on decided to swap some of those Essex manners for this place which feels a bit bonkers because this became so important for her ultimate victory and it's thought that in a way they underestimated Mary they thought that she would capitulate and accept Lady Jane's accession and also that she had no hope so give her Framingham as a stop we'll take the manners back near Essex that are closest to London that perhaps were more significant for the government so it was ultimately quite ironic that it was here that Mary was able to consolidate an East Anglian base that she had been growing since 1547 Kenningham various cottages manners and so on that were part of her remit as this East Anglian figure and then of course here so she was the preeminent East Anglian magnate so a really important figure and it was from that affinity group that she managed to mobilize core support in those early days so she had been building up support in East Anglia over a period of time and you're suggesting that actually it's her relationship to other lords and to tenants in this area that's crucial absolutely and that's what Northumberland had massively underestimated yes Mary was an East Anglian magnate and that power base had built up since 1547 but essentially she had a household of maybe a hundred followers they were people from the home counties in East Anglia they weren't people who had huge experience in government and they thought she was a bit of a country bumpkin but actually her household officers proved in the moment of crisis to be both really brave but also really strategic advising her when to play the card of religion when to play the card of legitimacy when to go and draw on some of those really important figures to kind of secure their defections and she had their loyalty they would absolutely have sort of lay down and died for her because over time she had been the sort of person that they wanted to pledge their loyalty to she had cultivated these relationships and Lady Jane didn't have a household following and didn't have a regional power base in the way that Mary did and that was ultimately crucial in those early days and so we have a situation where Mary was this complete outlier figure power was centered in London I mean here we are at Framlingham it fills miles away from London miles away from the tower miles away from the treasury miles away from the munitions but here just from her power base she's able to get to a point where the privy councillors are looking and thinking goodness me that power is really starting to mount and the tide is beginning to turn and that's really from a position of such weakness a really remarkable turnaround. Mary's genius was to play down her Catholicism and play up her legitimacy this was not about religion it was about blood she was Henry the Ape's daughter the people had loved her mother Catherine of Aragon they had watched Mary suffer through decades of mistreatment they'd never heard of Lady Jane Gray Queen Jane meanwhile was determined to assert her authority Nicola Talis and we see this in several instances so after Jane's arrival at the Tower of London on the 10th of July a letter arrives that evening from her cousin Mary who is determined not to submit neatly to Jane's queenship and is determined to fight for what she believes to be her birthright the contemporary reports say that Jane's mother and her mother-in-law break down in tears lamenting this fact but it's at this point that Jane really shows her authority and she begins issuing a number of proclamations which are sent out across the realm ordering her subjects to rally to her banner and to support her claim to be queen and I think also Northumberland had expected her to be very pliable and again there are reports which suggest that she refused to bow to Northumberland's demands that she make her husband Guilford King and instead said that she'd concede that she'd make him a duke but that she would only make him king if that was what was decided by parliament so I think that there are instances where she really does show that she's not prepared to be bullied and that she's going to have her own voice from her stronghold at Framlingham Mary was having none of it she sent messages out with a proclamation audaciously signed Mary the Queen Professor Anna Whitelock and they're prepared to risk their lives by disseminating that proclamation which of course was treason because they were declaring for her Mary was proclaiming herself as queen later Jane Gray was in the tower being proclaimed as queen so totally audacious within days Mary had assembled a formidable force at Framlingham Castle one that would swell to many thousands of men and then if we believe the account of Robert Wingfield she's here riding out looking at her forces mobilizing them I mean and we think about that when we think about a female military figure we think about Elizabeth we think about the Amada but this is Mary with a real force before her standing here and at that point ready to fight so I think totally courageous audacious brave and bold and we later see that in Mary's reign during the midst of Wyatt's rebellion where again she doesn't leave London when her advisors are asking her to and she instead rides to the Guild Hall and you know mobilizes London at that point so yeah Mary total has fun and with some of the plaudits that were associated with Elizabeth in a potentially fabricated way at the time of the Spanish Amada can absolutely be directed towards Mary here at Framlingham in support of Queen Jane her father-in-law the Duke of Northumberland marched out of London on the 14th of July a small force to confront Mary totally underestimating her and the level of her support I think they thought that she was simply a figure they could dismiss because she was away from London her power base was in East Anglia it wasn't immediately near London and of course they had all the levers of power the Armory the Treasury the Navy and so on and therefore what kind of hope that she had I also think you know she didn't have strong male figures around her I mean that's what's also quite remarkable that here Mary rallied her forces she was a woman rallying her forces women were not supposed to lead armies you know female women couldn't lead armies so she was taking on the role that really was not typical of the age and I think they absolutely underestimated her as a woman her as a regional power figure and also the fact that there was a sense of her as legitimate Tudor heir and the fact that she wasn't just going to be bleating on about Catholicism that she really played that really carefully and it was ultimately on the basis of legitimacy that she won out did Mary only have support in East Anglia at the time this was certainly a key power base for her but she did have support particularly in the home counties where she'd had residences and manners too and so two of her supporters Sir Edward Hastings and Edmund Peckham they mobilized a rising in Northamptonshire and Buckinghamshire and the idea there was to basically split the focus for Northumberland as he prepared to leave London so we had to think about a rising there as well as a rising here but I think what's remarkable when we think about it is this was a successful rebellion against central London from East Anglia but that hadn't happened I mean that wasn't the norm and that's what's really quite incredible and of course spearheaded by a woman. One of the questions that students get asked is about the success of Tudor rebellions were any success to her and this one was yeah I mean it's quite extraordinary you don't call it a rebellion if it succeeds but that's what this is yeah it's that age old A level question about Tudor rebellions that everybody kind of hates because they have to remember the western rising and the Kets rebellion and all of that but yes this was also a rebellion and when we think about it as an accession crisis which in itself is also quite interesting because it was also a huge unprecedented unheralded in many ways remarkable victory you know Mary winning the throne of course prepared to fight for it I mean the men came here prepared and ready to fight in the end they didn't have to and the ultimate question is well would they have won would they have triumphed if they had to fight and I'm probably the answer is at that point yes because London had defected or was defecting and so support then really did swing across the country for Mary but it was a successful rebellion that ultimately installed Mary as the rightful Tudor queen Northumberland's forces began melting away almost immediately soldiers deserted noblemen switched sides the privy council left behind in London sensed which way the wind was blowing on the 19th of July just nine days after Jane had been proclaimed queen the privy council met at Baynard's castle and did the unthinkable they switched sides they proclaimed Mary queen Jane's own father walked out onto Tower Hill and declared for Mary and her father-in-law John Dudley Duke of Northumberland was blamed as the man who had pulled all the strings Dr. Joanne Paul John Dudley becomes escape goats he is the one that the Marian regime decides is responsible for everything that happens now he's very important in all of this he's Lord President of the council he's Jane's father-in-law but he is working with the council we know that the council agrees to the succession 101 witnesses all agree to it Londoners come out and see Jane paraded through to the tower they might have even celebrated Jane's new reign so there were lots of people involved but it's John Dudley who is held up as the prime mover of it all he's also an easy mark he is the son of a traitor there's this assumption that of course he will also be a traitor and that's what they accuse him of John Dudley Duke of Northumberland surrendered at Cambridge he was executed on the 22nd of August 1553 Jane was no longer queen but a prisoner the tower of London which he had entered as a monarch now became her jail Jane and her husband Guilford were tried for high treason at the Guildhall on the 13th of November 1553 Dr. Nicola Tallis she was tried alongside her husband and several others including Thomas Cranmer and the transcript of the trial still survives in the National Archives it's in Latin but it's a really extraordinary document and again when I was studying that you do just get this real tangible sense of Jane and how she must have felt at that time I mean let's not forget she was a teenage girl standing trial for treason for her life and the contemporary reports talk about how she'd walked the mile from the tower to Guildhall her head down in her prayer book so again I think her faith was of the utmost importance to her at this point and she pleaded guilty asked her husband and so that meant that the sentence was inevitable Jane became the youngest royal woman to be condemned for treason and this meant that she was condemned to a traitor's death which in her case was to be burned or beheaded at the Queen's pleasure so I think even though in many respects she believed that the trial was a formality because Mary had made it clear that she intended to show mercy and show clemency to Jane and her husband I still think that the enormity of this must have really struck doom into Jane's heart and must have been difficult to comprehend. Mary hesitated she knew her young cousin had been a pawn she understood that Jane had not sought the crown that she had been pushed into it by ambitious men Mary initially decided to spare her life and Jane might have survived if it hadn't been for her father. In January 1554 a rebellion broke out against Mary's plan to marry Philip of Spain it was called Wyatt's Rebellion and Jane's father the Duke of Suffolk joined it. It wasn't intended to put Jane back on the throne but that didn't matter Jane had become a symbol a rallying point for Protestant discontent as long as she lived she was a threat. Mary signed Jane's death warrant on the 19th of January 1554. Dr Nicola Talis again. We don't know exactly when or how Jane found out that she was going to die but again I think that this must have come as a great shock to her because even though she had been condemned Mary had made it very clear that she intended to spare her life and perhaps even eventually liberate her so I think that this must have been quite difficult for her to come to terms with but it's at this point that she recognises that she is going to die and I think at this point that she decides that she's going to die a martyr to the Protestant faith in which she's always been so fervent and there is one final test left for her to endure because although Mary had realised that she couldn't save Jane's life she was determined that she could at least save her soul which unless Jane converted to Catholicism in Mary's eyes Jane was doomed to burn in the fires of hell. Mary postponed Jane's execution for three days to give her one last chance to convert to Catholicism. Mary sent her chaplain Dr John Feckernum to try to convince her and again it's really at this point that Jane shows her true strength of character because rather than agreeing to convert or meekly submitting to Feckernum's arguments she engages in this series of debates with him in which she really shows just how steadfast her faith is and Feckernum even though he fails in converting Jane he's really really impressed by her determined spirit and agrees actually to accompany her when she meets her fate just a couple of days later. The 12th of February 1554 around 10 o'clock Jane's husband Guilford Dudley was led out to Tower Hill he made a short speech he prayed he asked the crowd to pray for him he was executed with one stroke of the axe. Just minutes later she sees the cart that brings Guilford's butchered remains back into the tower for burial within the chapel and realizes that it's her turn next and I think it's just commendable really how she manages to retain her composure. Jane was led out next to Tower Green not the public scaffold on Tower Hill but the private execution ground inside the tower walls. She climbed the scaffold and calmly addressed the small crowd of witnesses. And again we know that as she walked towards the scaffold which had been erected in front of the white tower so within the confines of the tower she had her head in her prayer book she was reading from that driving words of comfort. She mounted the scaffold and she made a short speech to the crowds that had assembled to watch her die. She says good people I am come hither to die and by a law I am condemned to the same. She's very calm and composed up until the moment when she is blindfolded and it's then that she realized that the block wasn't within her reach and she cries out in panic and desperation where is it what shall I do and you can't help but feel just the utmost sympathy for this young girl who until this point has been so dignified but just momentarily descends into panic and we know then that her hands were guided onto the block she knelt her head down and moments later her head was severed with a single blow of the axe. Jane was buried alongside Guildford in the Chapel of St Peter at Vincula on the north side of Tower Green. No memorial stone was erected at their grave. Her father met the same fate 11 days later. The Testaments Most CRMs are clunky and slow down your team. It's time to switch to a new one. That's where Pipedrive comes in. A simple CRM for growing sales teams. See all your deals and customer info in one pipeline. It's powerful enough to grow with your business yet simple enough for your team to love using it. Switch to Pipedrive and join over 100,000 companies. Visit Pipedrive.com forward slash audio to get started with a 30-day free trial. Today perhaps the most enduring image of Lady Jane Gray is the one depicted in the 1833 painting by Paul Delarosh at the National Gallery in London. Blindfolded and dressed in a glowing white gown, Jane reaches across the dark scaffold fumbling helplessly for the executioner's block. Her pale face and fragile posture make her look almost childlike, while the men around her watch in silence, some grieving, some grimly resigned. The stark light falling on her dress makes her innocence painfully visible, turning the scene into something deeply tragic. It's an image that has coloured our perception of Lady Jane Gray ever since and one that may have even fixed a particular account of her execution in the popular imagination. I met art historian Verity Babs at the National Gallery. So this detail that Lady Jane Gray in a slight panic asks what shall I do, where is the block, was added in several years after execution in a Protestant book of martyrs, which is ideal to have a martyr who is frightened and she's so young and she's really frightened as this victim of the whole plot. It's popularised by J. G. Nichols in 1850, but he has seen this painting. So actually this painting is how we will remember Lady Jane Gray, based on the detail that may or may not have happened. I mean eyewitness accounts of her execution suggested actually she was remarkably put together in her Bible in her book of prayers. She also writes messages to her father asking him to not be afraid and she's, her faith has meant that she is completely convinced that she is now going into everlasting life. So she's actually much better put together than we give her credit for. I think that Lady Jane Gray ends up being framed as a bit of a wet flannel in history, but actually there are lots of parts of her rule that demonstrates a real strength, you know, denying Guildford the title of king. There's actually such strength in her that it's unfortunate she has been framed as this weak young martyr when actually I think she has a lot more hoots by the way, give her credit for. So here's the question that has haunted historians for nearly 500 years. Was Lady Jane Gray or Lady Jane Dovely the rightful Queen of England? For a start let's set aside the question of her lack of a coronation. We count Edward the Fifth and Edward the Eighth as kings even though neither of them were crowned. The answer depends on how you define rightful and it can be argued both ways. One has to remember that the concept of primogeniture was still in its infancy as the principle of royal succession. There are many instances throughout the medieval period in which that was not how the crown was transferred. In the Acts of Succession passed in Henry VIII's reign in 1536 and 1544 it had been stated that a monarch could designate his successor by a letter's patent or by his last will and testament and that is precisely what Henry VIII had done in his last will and testament. Those Acts then on the statute book presumably applied also to his son Edward the Sixth when by a letter's patent he attempted to designate Jane as his successor. The letter's patent were not ratified by Parliament that would have been the belt and braces approach and the reason it didn't happen was merely a matter of timing. It's because of the agricultural year. Over the summer Parliament didn't meet because that's the time everyone was needed in the fields. They only met again after the harvest i.e. September and of course by then it was far too late for Edward's intentions to have passed through. Jane was proclaimed queen. She was recognised by the previous council, the bishops, the judges, courts of law convened in her name. Government operated under her authority for nine days. The National Archives of the United Kingdom maintains a separate section labelled Queen Jane for official records from that period and the official website of the royal family includes Jane among the predecessors of the current king. If Jane's forces had beaten Mary's on the battlefield then the letter's patent from Edward the Sixth would have been sufficient indeed perhaps are sufficient to argue that Jane was the lawful Queen of England. But the counter argument is that Henry VIII's last will and testament and the line laid out in those acts of succession trumped that. The succession act of 1544 the law of the land placed Mary next in line after Edward and that was the case Mary made for her rightful queenship as Queen. That did mean that Mary had to ignore the fact that the very same act of succession did not not deem her to be legitimate. The 1536 act of succession had made her explicitly illegitimate which of course implicitly denied her a right to the throne. Legally then one can argue it either way and in the end the legality of the thing was moot because Mary whether she was queen by right or not became queen by might. In the end that is how decisions about who was the rightful king or queen were often actually practically made. We could say that Richard III was the rightful king or if that's too uncomfortable Edward V with Henry VII having a very tenuous claim to the throne but it didn't matter because Henry VII won at Bosworth and became the rightful king. When his granddaughter Mary gathered troops at Framlingham she did the very same thing. Without even taking to the field those armed men proved an almighty threat to Jane's meager resources under the unpopular Duke of Northumberland. Mary had overwhelming popular support and that support manifested itself in force of arms. So was Jane a queen? A young woman who sat on the throne of England however briefly and who exercised royal authority? Yes. From the 6th of July 1553 the day of Edward's death until Mary's proclamation as queen on the 19th of July for 13 extraordinary terrifying impossible days she was. Of course it hadn't been her choice. Dr. Nicola Talis. This has all been part of the myth really that Jane has been caught up in and I find it quite sad in many ways that she's remembered in this way because her real achievements lie elsewhere and I feel that she's worthy of being remembered and recognised for her ability and her academic achievements and unfortunately I think it's a real shame that she is remembered as being one of history's most tragic victims and for the fact that she lost her life at a young age and yes that is a huge tragedy but I think we shouldn't allow it to overshadow what was in effect although a short life one that accomplished a great deal and one that shows great intellectual spirit and ability really. Lady Jane Gray was a scholarly devout teenager used as a political tool by men who craved power and then discarded when the game was lost. In her short life she had mastered eight languages, debated theology with the finest minds of the age, sat on the throne of England and faced the executioner's acts with the courage that moved even her enemies to tears. But for me the other fascinating thing that has come out of making the documentary for history hit is although Jane never wished to be queen although this was a circumstance into which she was forced when the time came she rose to the challenge all that education paid off in wisdom and strategic planning she did everything she could to hold on to her throne once she had accepted it. But Mary was a mighty rival equally strategic and brilliant and her popularity and might of men meant that in the end Mary stole the show. Nearly five centuries later Jane remains one of the most compelling and heartbreaking figures in English history a reminder that in the brutal game of thrones it wasn't always the ambitious who fell. If you'd like to delve deeper into Lady Jane Gray's story and see all the places that shaped her life do please tune in to my new two-part documentary series on Jane available now on History Hit. I worked with a brilliant team on it it's beautifully shot and we go to some incredible sites. Subscribe to History Hit to view it and you'll also get to enjoy hundreds of other documentaries as well as this podcast ad free just go to historyhit.com forward slash subscribe. Thank you for listening to Not Just The Tudors and thank you also to my excellent producer Rob Weinberg. Remember to follow us wherever you get your podcast so that each new episode drops straight into your feed. I look forward to welcoming you back next time for another episode of Not Just The Tudors from History Hit. Nobody cares what we want there was time for us to change things.