Crown of Blood Read online

  Though the accounts vary in their approach, bias and detail, when combined with other sources – including pieces of material culture and sources where we can learn about Jane indirectly – they provide enough to allow us to piece together a reasonable picture of Jane’s life, her motivations, and how her contemporaries viewed her. There are inevitably gaps in the story, and it is therefore the role of the historian to try to ascertain what may have happened and suggest theories based on a balance of probabilities. I believe, however, that enough remains to allow us to get comparatively close to the real Jane, and to view her as an extraordinary young woman who inspired many of those who knew her.

  In the nineteenth century, Edward Baldwin observed that ‘the history of Lady Jane Grey is worthy to be written’, and in the pages which follow, her story will be carefully examined, using, to my knowledge, a certain collection of material – including an inventory of the jewels that were delivered to her during her brief queenship and documents relating to her trial, among others – that has never previously been incorporated into a published biography.6 Such evidence will be used to help pick apart the complex threads of Jane’s life, thereby unravelling the grim tapestry of her fall, and charting the deadly intrigues that led inexorably to its horrific and searing climax.

  Nicola Tallis, London, 2016

  PROLOGUE

  ON A BITTERLY cold February night, within the thick and gloomy walls of the Tower of London, a young girl, aged just seventeen, awaited her execution on the morrow. From her room she could see the scaffold on which she was to die – she had heard the dull echoes of metal on wood as it had been erected. Perhaps her thoughts turned to the two other queens, Anne Boleyn and Katherine Howard, who had lost their lives in a similarly violent manner on the precise same spot, less than twenty years previously. They too had experienced the terror of imprisonment in the Tower, waiting to hear whether they would receive a last-minute pardon or face the executioner’s block.

  But Jane was not the only prisoner that night. Little more than eleven miles away in Sheen stood Jane’s magnificent family home, the Charterhouse. Inside, her mother Frances, Duchess of Suffolk, awaited a double tragedy, for it was not only her daughter but also her husband, Jane’s father, who was imprisoned, awaiting trial and imminent death. Her immediate thoughts, however, were with Jane, the daughter in whom she had invested so many of her hopes and ambitions for future glory.

  Also within the Charterhouse that sombre evening were Jane’s two younger sisters, Katherine and Mary. Just thirteen and eight years old, the girls must have witnessed their mother’s distress, known of their father’s absence, and been utterly terrified. There is no way of knowing whether Jane’s letter to Katherine, a sober lesson in morality written in a copy of the Greek New Testament, brought her any comfort. Nevertheless, Jane’s words are striking: ‘As touching my death, rejoice as I do and consider that I shall be delivered of this corruption and put on incorruption.’

  At the royal Palace of Whitehall, Jane’s cousin Queen Mary, by whose authority Jane had been condemned, waited in anguish at the thought that this poor, tortured young soul, so steadfast in her religious belief – her heresy in the Queen’s view – was destined to endure the flames of Hell. The Queen had been merciful at first, doing all that she could to try to save Jane’s life, defying her Councillors’ most ardent advice. When that had failed, her thoughts had turned to saving Jane’s soul, and she had tried to make Jane see reason and embrace the Catholic faith. But Jane had not wavered. Queen Mary, the only person with the power to save her life, was reluctantly resolved: Jane would have to die.

  Queen Mary’s half-sister, the Lady Elizabeth, in what was almost certainly a pretence intended to keep her away from danger and save her own skin, claimed to be sick at Ashridge, but would have been painfully aware that her young cousin’s life was about to come to a sudden and violent end. There were those about the Queen who would be happy to see Elizabeth go the same way. They whispered in the Queen’s ear, warning her that Elizabeth was plotting against her, and soon Elizabeth too would find herself languishing within the same walls that had once held Jane prisoner.

  Shortly after ten o’clock on the morning of 12 February, Jane was informed that her time had come.

  ‘Lord, into thy hands I commend my spirit,’ she cried on the scaffold. And then the axe fell. To Jane, her death signalled immortality and martyrdom; for her mother and her sisters it was a tragic loss; and for Queen Mary it was the necessary removal of a figurehead of conspiracy. For the Lady Elizabeth, Jane’s death was utterly terrifying, demonstrating that for one who aspired to wear a crown, the possibility of a violent death was always looming.

  CHAPTER 1

  A Time to be Born and

  a Time to Die

  ‘THERE IS A time to be born and a time to die, and the day of our death is better than the day of our birth.’1 These poignant words were those of the seventeen-year-old Lady Jane Grey, immortalized for posterity in the pages of the exquisitely decorated prayer book that she treasured until her final moments. It is ironic that this courageous young woman of great intellect and character, whose end is so well documented, began her life in such an obscure manner that the precise circumstances of her birth are lost to us. The only certainty is that simply by right of her blood, Jane was born a potential heir to the English throne; she was a member of the royal family, and, more importantly, she was a Tudor. Her family connections would shape her life, and ultimately determine her fate.

  Jane’s date of birth has been the subject of debate from almost the moment of her death. Today the debate continues, and the answer has yet to be satisfactorily established. Born into an age in which it was not unusual for such details to go unrecorded, even among the royal family, it is hardly surprising that nobody considered noting the arrival of Jane, who was, after all, one of several girls born into the Tudor family within the past three decades. Jane herself never made any mention of her birthdate, though in several of her surviving letters she referred to ‘my youth’ and ‘my age’ and inexperience in order to stress a point.2 Such a detail may seem trivial, but it is in fact one of the greatest mysteries surrounding Jane’s life. Her youth is central to her story, and as such modern historians have hotly debated it.

  For many centuries it was believed that Jane was born in October 1537, just days prior to or after the arrival of Henry VIII’s longed-for male heir, Prince Edward, whose life would come to be so intricately linked with Jane’s own.3 This theory has long since been disproved beyond dispute, due to the fact that on 15 October her mother, Frances, Marchioness of Dorset, was expected to have attended Prince Edward’s christening at Hampton Court Palace, a duty she would have been spared had she either been expecting or recently given birth.4

  In fact the likeliest date for Jane’s birth is in the latter half of 1536.5 The most convincing evidence comes from a letter written on 29 May 1551 by Jane’s tutor John Aylmer, to the Swiss reformer Heinrich Bullinger, in which he noted Jane’s age: ‘And you are well able to determine, in your wisdom, how useful are the counsels of the aged to guide and direct young persons at her time of life, which is just fourteen.’6 Much has been made of Aylmer’s phrase ‘just fourteen’, which has been taken as an implication that Jane had only recently turned fourteen. If this was indeed the case then Jane’s birth must have taken place in the spring of 1537.7 However, when Aylmer’s remark is read in the proper context of his letter, then the implication of a recent birthday falls away. Aylmer continued to inform Bullinger:

  For at that age, as the comic poet tells us, all people are inclined to follow their own ways, and by the attractiveness of the objects, and the corruption of nature, are more easily carried headlong unto pleasure ... so to these tender minds there should neither be wanting the counsel of the aged, nor the authority of men of grave and influential character.8

  From this it seems clear that Aylmer was in fact using Jane’s age to highlight the difference between the young and the old,
stressing an aversion by the young to heed the advice of their elders. It should not therefore be taken as conclusive evidence of Jane’s recent birthday.

  If Aylmer was correct and Jane was fourteen on 29 May 1551, then a date in the latter half of 1536 seems probable. Certainly, Aylmer was in a good position to know the truth of the matter, as someone who knew Jane well and who could ‘look upon [her] with affection as a pupil’.9 This would also corroborate the claim from Jane’s Italian tutor Michelangelo Florio that she was seventeen at the time of her death in February 1554, but in her eighteenth year.10 The evidence from those who knew Jane all points towards a birthdate in 1536, and though the precise date will never be ascertained with any certainty, the year at least can be settled without further debate.

  Disputed with equal vigour is the precise location of Jane’s birth. According to tradition she was born within the tranquillity of Bradgate Park, the Leicestershire seat of her father’s family. Set in beautiful parkland in which Jane’s family once enjoyed excellent hunting, the romantic ruins of the house can still be seen today, a tangible reminder of its grand Tudor past.11 The ruined tower, still named ‘Lady Jane’s Tower’, once claimed to have hosted the arrival of its famous namesake, while local legend states that Jane was christened in the parish church at nearby Newtown Linford.12 It is true that Jane passed a great deal of her childhood within the red brick walls of Bradgate, and would have been familiar with its sumptuous and spacious rooms, decorated with expensive tapestries and costly furniture, and its ‘fine park’ as described by the Tudor scholar and antiquary John Leland, but it is unlikely to have been the setting for her birth.13 It was not until 1538, shortly before Jane’s second birthday, that her parents took up residence at Bradgate, and prior to this her paternal, rather headstrong grandmother Margaret Wotton was firmly installed there, which makes it an unlikely choice.

  It is more probable that Jane was born in London, possibly at her father’s grand town house, Dorset House, situated on the fashionable Strand in Westminster.14 Though at the time of Jane’s birth her parents had probably spent little time there as a married couple, the convenience of Dorset House for the royal court which they attended made it a desirable location. London was a popular choice for the births of royal children, and it may have allowed Jane’s grandmother, who was in control of Dorset House in the same manner as Bradgate Park, to be close at hand for her birth. Today, the splendid house has long since vanished, swallowed up by the buildings of modern-day Westminster.15 However, the few surviving descriptions allow us glimpses of the house that was once one of the most magnificent in the capital. Dorset House was situated only a short distance from the royal palaces of Westminster and Whitehall, and was built in the typical Tudor style around a courtyard, and with domed turrets and fashionable red brick. The house was surrounded by elaborate formal gardens that were full of sweet-smelling flowers and medicinal herbs, and the interior was equally grand. There were spacious apartments for the family, including a modern gallery where they could take exercise during bad weather, and a chapel. The glass in the windows was emblazoned with the family coat of arms, proudly proclaiming its ownership. It was a luxurious house that struck awe into passers-by.

  The protocol surrounding the births of royal and noble children was strict, and it seems likely that Jane’s mother followed the conventions of other high-born women and went into seclusion several weeks prior to the arrival of her child. Preparations for the births of high-born children were well organized and elaborate; the lying-in chamber was carefully prepared with a great four-poster bed hung with luxurious and expensive fabrics of the finest quality, and sometimes a birthing stool was provided, the use of which had become increasingly popular during this period.16 Often a roaring fire blazed in the grate, and fresh aromatic rushes were strewn on the floor to sweeten the air. In an attempt to ward off evil spirits the room was kept eerily dark, with the windows closed and covered over, and even the keyholes blocked. The walls were covered in costly tapestries, with the only light coming from flickering candles. In such stifling conditions, there was nowhere for fresh air to circulate. These extremes were all precautions that had been in place for centuries, and they had thus become an accepted part of the process of childbirth. The process was also exclusively female, managed by midwives who were often local women with very little training, and even less understanding of the importance of hygiene. Men were strictly forbidden from going anywhere near the birthing chamber, and Jane’s father would therefore not have been present at the birth of his daughter, having bidden farewell to her mother as she entered her confinement. Though he was banned from the birthing chamber, one can imagine him close by, pacing the rooms of Dorset House in eager anticipation of the arrival of his firstborn child.

  Jane was the eldest daughter of Henry Grey, 3rd Marquess of Dorset, ‘an illustrious and widely loved nobleman of ancient lineage, but lacking in circumspection’, and his wife, Lady Frances Brandon.17 The couple were among the leading nobility in the realm, and at the time of Jane’s birth they had been married for nearly three years. Sadly, no likenesses of Henry Grey survive, and the only authenticated image of Frances is that which adorns her tomb effigy in Westminster Abbey.18

  On her father’s side Frances had little to boast of in the way of lineage, for the success of the Brandon family stemmed purely from loyalty to the Tudor dynasty. Her father, Charles Brandon, came from a humble family of Suffolk origin, and had himself earned his wealth and title of Duke of Suffolk through nothing more than his own merits and his close relationship to the King.19 However, on her mother’s side Frances had the royal blood of the Tudors. Blood that she in turn passed on to her daughter Jane. Frances was the daughter of Henry VIII’s younger sister, Mary Tudor – ‘a young and beautiful damsel’, and the widowed queen of Louis XII of France – who had made a clandestine, scandalous second marriage in 1515, for love, to her brother’s jousting partner and lookalike, Charles Brandon.20 Brandon had also been married before, twice, making his marriage with Mary his third. Despite the fact that her second marriage made her Duchess of Suffolk, for the rest of her life Mary continued to be regally addressed as the French Queen. Her marriage was a happy one that produced four children: two sons and two daughters. Henry was born in 1516, followed by Frances, her parents ‘first begotten daughter’, and Eleanor.21 At some time prior to 1522, however, young Henry died, for it was almost certainly in that year that he was replaced in the Suffolk nursery with another son, who was also christened Henry.22

  Frances was born between two and three in the morning of Wednesday 16 July 1517, at the Palace of Bishop’s Hatfield, twenty miles north of London. According to her father’s own account, ‘she was named Frances, being born on St Francis’s day’.23 Her name may also have been intended as a compliment to the French King, Francis I, with whom the Duke and Duchess were both on friendly terms since Mary’s first marriage.24 Three days after her birth, Frances was christened in the nearby church of St Etheldreda, her godmothers being none other than Mary’s sister-in-law, Queen Katherine of Aragon, and her niece the Princess Mary.25 The Princess was herself only a baby of fifteen months, but she had been named in honour of her aunt, and in time would grow to be close to her cousin and goddaughter.

  Frances had passed much of her childhood in the picturesque Suffolk countryside, in the village of Westhorpe that lay just thirteen miles from Bury St Edmunds. The grand Westhorpe Hall, the favoured residence of her parents, dominated the village, and it was here that Frances was raised in the utmost splendour.26

  Charles Brandon had acquired Westhorpe Hall in 1514, and following his marriage to Mary Tudor, the couple spent vast sums of money on improvements – in fact, Charles later claimed that the costs totalled £12,000 (£3,865,000).27 Mary in particular seems to have enjoyed spending time there when she was not at court, surrounded by the lush green fields and forests of the Suffolk countryside, and it was here that she chose to establish a household for her children.

  A s
urvey taken in 1538 reveals that the house stood in a moat which could be crossed by an elaborate three-arched bridge. The house itself was built partly from stone, and partly from brick covered with black and white chequered plaster. Visitors to Westhorpe Hall were greeted by the sight of a large three-storey gatehouse, while the ‘fair stately hall’ boasted a life-sized statue of Hercules and the lion – almost certainly a tribute to the Duke of Suffolk’s military prowess.28

  As well as her siblings, Frances also had the company of her two elder half-sisters. Anne and Mary were her father’s daughters, born of his second marriage, and were aged ten and seven at the time of her birth.29 Frances may also have spent some time with her cousin and godmother, the Princess Mary, for in later life the two would become extremely close, and it seems likely that this bond was forged during their youth. Sadly, however, Frances’s idyllic childhood was shattered when her mother died shortly before Frances was married, though plans for the wedding had been established during her mother’s lifetime and with her approval.30 After all, Henry Grey, too, had royal connections, albeit of a less prestigious nature than his wife’s. Henry was proud of his lineage, and clearly considered himself to be royal, for the German scholar John of Ulm whom Henry had later patronized wrote that he ‘is descended from the royal family with which he is very nearly connected’.31 Ulm also related of Henry that, whether through his marriage or in his own right, ‘He told me he had the rank of Prince.’32