Death of Lady Jane Grey

​Lady Jane Grey's execution took place inside the Tower of London on the 12th February 1554, her place of execution ​was a privilege afforded only a select few, most executions took place outside on Tower Hill. In the years between 1483 and 1941 twenty-two people were executed inside the walls of the Tower of London five of them were women and three of the five were queens, Anne Boleyn, Catherine Howard and Jane herself. The other two were Margaret, Countess of Salisbury and Jane Boleyn, Lady Rochford. 

​The last day of Jane's life is shrouded in myth, a myth that has been circulating for nearly two hundred years.  In 1852 English antiquarian John Gough Nichols published his version the account of Jane's death in his Chronicle of Jane Grey and Queen Mary, the chronicle itself is based on an eyewitness account by an unknown person who was inside the Tower of London at the time.

​John Gough Nichols had a keen interest in rare books and had enjoyed coping from texts and epitaphs as a young boy, he also accompanied his father to Royal Society and Society of Antiquaries meetings. Obviously, words were important to him, you would think then that with such a passionate love of words and history he would know what embellishing and adding untruths to ancient text could lead to. In 1834 Nichols went to see the latest work of French artist Paul Delaroche in the National Gallery, this work went by the title The Execution of Lady Jane Grey. It was this one painting that changed history and how we understand Jane's story today. There is no doubt it's a fine painting that evokes a sense of sadness in us and it must have had the same effect on Nichols, he had fallen for an ideal. Delaroche in his story of Jane Grey's last moments uses pathos to get his idea of the suffering of the French nobility across - clever that! However, to the vast majority of the viewing public, all they saw was a romanticised view of the tragic death of a young girl. 

​​Paul Delaroche used other English historical victims as cloaked references to the French Revolution, his victims were Charles I and Thomas Wentworth. Another example of Deloroche getting his point across is his 1831 artwork The Children of Edward, which he took inspiration from Shakespeare The Life and Death of Richard the Third, a story he knew to have some truths. With this in mind, he was able to make a comparison of the deaths of the two English princes to draw attention to the mysterious deaths of Louis XVII of France. Delaroche always denied any reference to the revolution in his works, but why would a French artist produce work based on the deaths of English victims of tyranny, if it was not to represent his own. Twenty years later, when Nichols wrote his Chronicles of Jane Grey and Queen Mary the memory of Deloroche's painting must have still been as vivid as the day he saw it, why else would he feel impelled to embellish the story and put words into the mouth the dying Jane Grey that she did not utter. In his chronicle he writes:

​'First, when she mounted the scaffold, she said to the people standing thereabout " Good people, I come hither to die, and by law, I am condemned to do the same. The fact and the deed, against the queen highness, was unlawful and the consenting thereto by me, but touching the procurement and desire thereof by me or on my half, I do wash my hands thereof in innocence...Then the hangman kneels down and asked her forgiveness who she forgave most willingly. Then he willed her to stand upon the straw which doing she saw the block and said "I pray, dispatch me quickly" and kneeling down saying "will you take it off before I lay me down?" and the hangman answered "No, madam" She tied the handkerchief about her eyes and feeling for the block said "What shall I do? Where is it?" One of the standers-by guided her unto she lay her head down upon the block and stretched forth her body and said "Lord, into thy hands I commend my spirit" and so it ended.' 

​Compare this to the original written account of the aforementioned eyewitness present in the tower on the day of Jane's death.

​​'Jane, we are told, is nothing at all abashed neither with the fear of her own death, neither with the sight of the dead carcass of her husband. She came forth, the leftenant leading her in the same gown wherein she was araigned. Neither her eyes anything moistened with tears although the two gentlewomen, Mistress Tilney and Mistress Ellen wonderfully wept. Jane carried a book in her hand whereon she prayed all the way to the said scaffold" 

Another source writes

                                   'She conducted herself at her execution with the greatest fortitude and godliness.'

Jane was the daughter of Henry Grey, Duke of Suffolk and Francis Brandon, she was also the pawn of her father in law, John Dudley, the Duke of Northumberland whose actions cost her her life, and she is only really remembered in history for two things, firstly as the queen who reigned for just nine days and secondly, the aforementioned manner in which she died. ​

During the first few months of 1553, Edward VI under the influence of Dudley, had made an amendment to his Devise for the Succession in which he disinherited his half-sisters Mary and Elizabeth and named Jane his heir. By the May of that year and as part of his master plan Northumberland arranged the marriage of his son Guildford to Jane. Two months later, the boy king was dead and Jane was proclaimed queen and in a surprising act of defiance refused to allow Guildford to be named king, therefore scuppering Northumberland's plans to control both Jane, Guildford and England. Soon after events took a downturn with surprising speed. By July Jane was deposed, by November she had been tried and found guilty and by the beginning of February she was awaiting the day of her execution.

​It would seem that the masses were not aghast by the death of this queen, for they knew little of her, the traitorous acts of Northumberland and the failed Wyatt revolt saw to it that Jane's sad tale quickly faded into obscurity. 

What we should now remember about Jane is that she was an intelligent and feisty girl who left a lasting impression, notably on John Feckenham the Catholic priest Queen Mary sent to convert her and that she was one of many Tudor women whose wants and needs were overridden by the actions of the self-serving Tudor man. She was not the first to die because of the ambition of others, and she would not be the last. 

An interesting side note on Jane's death is the death of Richard Morgan the judge who condemned her, he, by all accounts, died tormented by guilt two years later - 

​"touching the condemnation of this lady Iane, here is to be noted, that the Iudge morgan who gaue the sentence of condemnation against her, shortly after hee had condemned her, fell mad, and in hys rauing cryed out continually to haue the Lady Iane taken away from him, and so ended hys lyfe.

​This account appears in John Foxes Actes and Monuments another appears in Holinshed's Chronicle. Jane's death made her a Protestant martyr, and there can be no better way to brand the Catholic religion as evil than to point out the horrible death those who do not follow the new true faith. 

Jane Grey was buried along with her husband in the Chapel of St Peter ad Vincula.

Their grave is not marked.