1. Nine Day Queen?
‘Thus Jane was queen for only nine days, and those most turbulent ones’ (1), wrote Julius Terentianus to John Ab Ulmis in November 1553. Remembered as the ‘Nine Day Queen’ because she was officially proclaimed on 10th July 1553, Jane was Queen for 13 days. Her reign started when Edward VI died on 6th July and ended when Mary I was proclaimed by the Privy Council on the 19th.
2. 6th July – A violent thunderstorm occurred in London.
King Edward VI died at Greenwich Palace during the evening of 6th of July, having been ill for a couple of months. Julius Terentianus describes the violent storm that hit London that day as, ‘to which I do not remember any equal: it was accompanied by the most extreme darkness, most violent wind, innumerable flashes of lightning, terrible claps of thunder, and an immense body of water…’ (2)
3. 9th July – Jane finds out she is Queen at Syon.
Jane had been staying at Chelsea Manor, recovering from illness, when her sister-in-law, Mary Sidney, arrived to escort her to Syon House by barge. It was here, that Jane’s father-in-law, John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, announced to Jane and the assembled nobles, that she was Queen. Tradition has it that Jane was told she was Queen in the Long Gallery. (3)
4. 10th July – The famous description of Queen Jane arriving at the Tower of London is a fake.
The fullest contemporary description of Lady Jane Grey was supposedly written by Baptisa Spinola, a Genoese merchant, who witnessed her procession to the Tower of London to be proclaimed Queen of England on July 10th 1553. Not only does he describe the procession, but he was close enough to Jane, to describe her appearance in detail. Since 2010, this letter has been thought to be a fake by historians, Leanda de Lisle and Stephan Edwards.
5. However, a new letter describing Jane’s arrival at the Tower was discovered in 2013.
In November 2013, Stephan Edwards announced his discovery of a letter (4) that mentions Queen Jane’s arrival at the Tower. Although the letter does not mention Jane in detail, it does reinforce three other accounts that state that the train of Jane’s gown was carried by her own mother and adds more details to the Duke and Duchess of Suffolk’s deferential behaviour towards their daughter. The letter also gives us new details about Guildford Dudley as he arrived at the Tower with his wife and adds an opinion to our knowledge of his physical appearance.
6. Jane refused to make Guildford King.
From the letter that Jane wrote to Mary I in August 1553, we learn that during her brief reign, Jane refused to make her husband King of England. In this ‘letter of explanation and confession’, which according to Eric Ives, ‘is the one written appeal from Jane that would have been allowed’ (5), she writes:
‘But afterwards I sent for the earls of Arundel and Pembroke, and said to them that if the crown belonged to me, I should be content to make my husband a duke, but would never consent to make him king.’ (6)
7. 12th July – Who should lead the army against Mary?
After receiving a letter from Princess Mary declaring herself Queen, it was decided that an army should be sent to capture her. Jane’s father, Henry Grey, the Duke of Suffolk was going to lead the army but according to the writer of ‘The Chronicle of Queen Jane and of Two Years of Queen Mary, and Especially of the Rebellion of Sir Thomas Wyat’, who was a resident of the Tower of London, Jane then asked that her father stay with her.
‘This was first determined; but by night of the same day the said voyage of the duke of Suffolke was cleane dissolved by the speciall meanes of the lady Jane his daughter, who, taking the matter heavily, with weeping teares made request to the whole councell that her father might tarry at home in her company: whereupon the councell persuaded with the duke of Northumberland to take that voyage upon him…’ (7)
8. 16th July – When the Tower was locked up for the night, the keys were taken to the Queen.
With Northumberland no longer at the Tower to oversee the Council, perhaps Jane began to doubt the loyalty of those remaining.
‘…and about vij. of the clocke the gates of the Tower upon a sudden were shut, and the keyes caryed upp to the queen Jane; but what the cause was I knowe not.’ (8)
9. 19th July – It was Jane’s father who told her she was no longer Queen.
The Spanish Ambassadors reported that they had been told that Henry Grey had been the one to break the news to Jane, that her reign was over.
‘We have been assured that when the Duke of Suffolk heard that the Council had decided to confirm Queen Mary in her right, he went to the Lady Jane, who was at supper, and tore down the canopy, saying no more than that it was not for her to use it, for her position permitted her not to do so.’ (9)
Sources
- Robinson, H (Translator & Editor) (1846) Original Letters Relative to the English Reformation, Written during the Reigns of King Henry VIII, King Edward VI and Queen Mary (Volume One), University Press, p.365-374.
- Ibid.
- Tallis, N. (2016) Crown of Blood: The Deadly Inheritance of Lady Jane Grey, Michael O’Mara Books Ltd, p.333 (Note 70).
- Edwards, S. Some Grey Matter – Two Letters Concerning Lady Jane Grey of England, written in London in July 0f 1553 Date accessed: 30/06/2021
- Ives, E. (2009) Lady Jane Grey: A Tudor Mystery, Wiley-Blackwell, p.19
- Stone, J.M. (1901) The History of Mary I Queen of England, Sands & Co.
- Nichols, J. G (ed) (1850) The Chronicle of Queen Jane and of Two Years of Queen Mary and Especially of the Rebellion of Sir Thomas Wyatt, Written by a Resident in the Tower of London, Llanerch Publishers, p.5.
- Ibid, p.9.
- Spain: July 1553, 21-31’, Calendar of State Papers, Spain, Volume 11: 1553 (1916), pp. 109-127. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=88486 Date accessed: 30/06/2021
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