Born: 1537 (circa), United Kingdom
Died: 12 February 1554
Country most active: United Kingdom
Also known as: Lady Jane Dudley
From Famous Women: An Outline of Feminine Achievement Through the Ages With Life Stories of Five Hundred Noted Women. Written by Joseph Adelman, published 1926 by Ellis M Lonow Company:
Lady Jane Grey, an English martyr, celebrated for her talents, her virtues, and her misfortunes. She was the daughter of Henry Grey, Marquis of Dorset, and was related to the royal family. From her early years, she exhibited a quickness and comprehension of mind, that have rendered her one of the prodigies of her sex and age. Roger Ascham has recorded, that, on paying her a visit in her fourteenth year, he found her reading the Phaedo of Plato. She was able at this time to write Greek with facility, and is said also to have acquired not only the French and Italian languages, but the Hebrew, Chaldee, and Arabic. With all these endowments of the understanding, she possessed the modesty and gentleness proper to her sex.
But the alliance of her family, and their ambition, were too powerful to suffer her to live in seclusion. No sooner was the declining health of Edward VI perceived by his courtiers, than Dudley, Duke of Northhumberland, prevailed upon the unsuspecting monarch to settle the crown upon his relation, Lady Jane, and to pass over his sisters, Mary and Elizabeth. When this was effected, the artful favorite married his son, Guildford Dudley, to the future queen, and thus paved the way to the elevation of his own family to the throne. But while others rejoiced in these plans of approaching greatness, Jane alone seemed unconcerned, and when, at last, on Edward’s death, she was hailed as queen by her ambitious father-in-law, Northumberland, she refused the proffered dignity, till the authority of her father, and the entreaties of a husband she tenderly loved, conveyed to the tower, preparatory to her coronation, and was proclaimed queen in the city, and honored with all the marks of royalty.
But this elevation did not last long; at the end of nine days, during which Mary’s party had come into power, Jane’s father announced to her the necessity of returning to a private station. She expressed herself much better pleased with the act of relinquishing, than she had been with that of assuming the crown. Soon after, Northumberland suffered the just punishment of his treason, while Lady Jane and her husband were committed to custody, but hopes were entertained that justice would be satisfied without the sacrifice of a victim so involuntarily criminal. This might have taken place, had it not been for an ill-advised insurrection, which was joined by Jane’s father and his brothers. After its suppression, it was resolved in Mary’s council, that, for the future security of the crown, Lady Jane and her husband should be put to death. She received the notification of this purpose with her accustomed firmness and tranquility, and prepared herself for the final hour.
On the fatal morning, her husband, who was confined separately, having obtained permission from the officers, sent a tender request to take a last farewell of her. This, however, through the apprehension that their resolution might be shaken by such a meeting, she thought it best to decline; and she contented herself with giving him a parting token out of her window as he was led to execution. She saw his remains brought back, and her turn soon followed. With a composed countenance she proceeded to the scaffold, where she made an address to the bystanders, acknowledging her fault in not rejecting with sufficient steadiness the crown which was forced upon her, and expressing her willingness to expatiate her crime by death. She assisted her women in adjusting her dress, took leave of the attendants, and saying, “Lord, into thy hands I commend my spirit,” she laid her head upon the block, and received the fatal stroke, February 12, 1554, in the seventeenth year of her age.
From Woman: Her Position, Influence and Achievement Throughout the Civilized World. Designed and Arranged by William C. King. Published in 1900 by The King-Richardson Co. Copyright 1903 The King-Richardson Co.:
Lady Jane Grey, The “Nine Days Queen of England”, 1537 – 1554
Lady Jane Grey was born at Brodgate, Leicestershire, England, in October, 1537. She was the eldest daughter of Henry Grey, Marquis of Dorset, who in 1551 became Duke of Suffolk, and of Lady Francis Brandon.
Lady Jane was brought up rigorously by her parents, every petty fault punished with “pinches, nips and bobs”; but Aylmer, her tutor, afterwards bishop of London, endeared himself to her by his gentleness, and under him she made great progress, especially in languages – Latin, Greek, French, Italian, and Hebrew.
Roger Ascham tells how in December, 1550, he found her reading Plato’s Phado in the original, while the rest of the family were hunting. She also sang and played well, and was versed in other feminine accomplishments.
In 1553, after the fall of the Duke of Somerset, the Duke of Northumberland, foreseeing the speedy death of the boy-king Edward VI, determined to change the succession and secure it to his own family. Lady Jane, not sixteen years old, was therefore married, strongly against her wish, to Lord Dudley, Northumberland’s fourth son, on May 21, 1553; and on July 9, three days after Edward’s death, the council informed her that she was named his successor.
On the 19th, the brief usurpation over, she found herself a prisoner in the Tower and four months later, pleading guilty of high treason, she was sentenced to death. She spurned the idea of forsaking Protestantism for love of life, and bitterly condemned Northumberland’s recantation. This, together with her father’s participation in Wyatt’s rebellion, sealed her doom and she was beheaded on Tower Hill, February 12, 1554.
From the scaffold she made a speech in which she said: “The fact, indeed, against the queen’s highness was unlawful, and the consenting to by me; but touching the procurement and desire thereof by me or on my behalf, I do wash my hands thereof in innocency…I die a true Christian woman.”