The Murder of Queen Jane I and Her Consort Guilford Dudley

Deposed  queen, Jane Grey Dudley, and her husband Guilford Dudley were executed on 11 February 1554.

PAUL_DELAROCHE_-_Ejecución_de_Lady_Jane_Grey_(National_Gallery_de_Londres,_1834)

As I have mentioned before, Eric Ives wrote an excellent  book, Lady Jane Grey: A Tudor Mystery, which provides ample evidence of Mary’s perfidy and Jane’s lawfulness, which I recommend that you read if you want all the gritty details of Jane’s overthrow. However, I will try to sum up the main point.

First and foremost, Edward VI was old enough to name his successor. He was the king and no longer a child. During Edward’s lifetime the Church considered childhood to end at six and you could assume adult responsibilities as young as 12 years old. While the ‘official’ age of majority to write a will in the sixteenth century was 21, the concept of legal adulthood was a bit different for kings. Henry VIII was only 17 when he became king and there was no attempt to assign him a regent; he was old enough to make adult decisions. Likewise, it was Edward’s decision as to who should rule after him. It did not matter that Mary had been reinstated in Henry VIII’s will because Henry VIII’s will did not matter a hill of beans after Edward was a de facto adult with the ability to rationally chose an heir.

Streatham portrait of lady jane grey

(Edward VI’s appointed heir, Lady Jane Grey)

There is also no evidence that Jane Grey’s father-in-law, the 1st Duke of Northumberland, talked or bullied Edward into choosing Jane. Edward himself wrote out his “deuise for the succession” as a rough draft in late April or early May when it became clear how ill he was.

Edward_VI's_'devise_for_the_succession'

(Edward VI’s ‘deuise’ for succession in his own handwriting)

This is also around the time of Jane’s betrothal and marriage, so Edward clearly supported Guilford Dudley as her husband and thus the Duke of Northumberland as the future queen’s closest advisor. Those who balked at Edward’s decision because they didn’t want Northumberland to have that kind of power in the next monarchy were called into the presence of the king, where he “with sharp words and angry countenance” forced them to accept his decree. Furthermore, the king told the Archbishop of Canterbury personally that “the judges and his learned council said, that the act of entailing the crown, made by his father, could not be prejudicial to him, but that he, being in possession of the crown, might make his will thereof.”

Edward signed the final version of his “deuise”, which was drawn up by England’s top lawyers and explicitly named Jane Grey as his successor, on June 21, 1553. The document was signed by witnesses (102 of them eventually) and the Great Seal was applied to it. It was as official as official can be and done a good two weeks before his death.

QED, Jane was the lawful queen.

Jane_Grey_letter_as_Queen

(A letter she signed as “Jane the Queen”)

Propaganda masquerading as historical certainty is why Jane Grey is know to this day as an innocent traitor when in reality to she was a uncrowned and murdered queen.The brutal truth of it is that Queen Mary I had her cousin beheaded in order to appease Spanish fears for the stability of her crown and to entice Philip II to England to marry her.

Jane, as rightful queen, was certainly a threat to Mary’s throne vis-à-vis a Protestant rallying point, but why did Guilford Dudley have to die? Guilford Dudley was the fifth surviving son of a deposed duke; what threat could he possibly be? There was exactly zero chance he would be made ruler in Mary’s place should she be overthrown. Jane Grey had a sister, Catherine Grey, who would have been crowned if Mary was defeated. There was no reason to do anything other than hold Dudley in the Tower for perpetuity, except a possible desire on Mary’s part to punish the Dudley family and all Protestants for the recent rebellions in her kingdom. Perhaps Mary feared Dudley would escape and attempt to rouse the populace in another rebellion as retaliation for Jane’s judicial murder? There is the persistent rumor, although no solid proof, that Dudley had indeed come to love his young bride and thus would have never been swayed from either Protestantism or the thought of revenge upon the queen who killed his wife.

Maybe Guilford Dudley's Carving_of_Jane_Grey's_name_in_Tower

(A carving of the name Jane thought to have been made by Guilford Dudley while he was imprisoned in the Tower.)

Queen Jane and her consort Guilford Dudley were buried beneath the floor of the Tower of London’s Chapel Royal of St. Peter ad Vincula, where Anne Boleyn’s body had also been interred in 1536.

If you want to read entertaining yet historically accurate fiction about the circumstances surround the rise and fall of Jane Grey then I strongly recommend Her Highness the Traitor by Susan Higginbotham.

12 thoughts on “The Murder of Queen Jane I and Her Consort Guilford Dudley


  1. Thanks for this post! Highly educational and grisly entertaining…who needs modern reality tv?!


  2. My only pause regarding Edward VI’s free will is that Northumberland refused to allow Cranmer to meet with Edward privately. I am nearly sure Edward VI chose of his free will, but without Cranmer being allowed to verify Edward’s feelings on the matter, which was his declared intent in doing so, there is not independent verification. Keep in mind that Cranmer’s reporting that Edward VI verified his free will was given at his heresy trial — and also reported to have happened before the several parties. Just my thoughts…


    1. Actually, that was an account made up after the fact. The official documents (and Cranmer’s own sworn statement before Mary) show that not only did the archbishop meet with Edward, but when he expressed concern over the legality of the will Edward and Northumberland both encouraged him to meet with the royal lawyers, which he did. The lawyers told him it was legal, and when he was still a little worried about fall out, Edward (probably for the first time) got kinda sharp with his godfather about it. Edward was determined to prevent Mary’s reign. He tried his best. Considering the awful fate that met Cranmer after Mary got the throne, I am wholly sympathetic to Edward on this.


      1. My point is that Cranmer was never allowed to meet with Edward privately as he requested. That is known fact. Cranmer’s intent was to speak to his Godson alone to ensure the decision was of his free will and not pressured by others. He was only allowed to meet with Edward with others present, including Northumberland. Obviously, Cranmer ultimately supported Jane Dudley as Queen and his signature is most prominent on Edward’s commands on the matter, so I have to assume that he came to the opinion Edward’s commands were of his free will OR/AND it was an action of self-preservation, but we can never be 100% sure as he was not allowed private access to his Godson. Why was Cranmer not allowed to meet with Edward alone? We will never know. I will add that unlike Northumberland, Cranmer never claimed for Mary Tudor and in the end was the only Privy Counsellor supportive of Jane Dudley. Also, keep in mind that at this time Cranmer and Northumberland were at complete odds with one another. They did not get along, and Cranmer did not trust him, thus his original request. I presonally think Northumberland is open maligned unfairly. This said, in Edward’s final days, he denied the man closest to the King from seeing the teenager. I am curious as to his motives. They certainly were not in the King’s best interest, who would have at the very least benefitted from the emotional comfort and religious counsel Cranmer could have provided him. Just my thoughts…


          1. Northumberland was not present when Edward met Cranmer, Northampton was (and he was very powerful at the court, too). Cranmer said later that he had never spoken with Northumberland about the whole succession/device thing. He didn’t say it was Northumberland who didn’t let him speak with Edward in private. I’ve actually never seen the source for this claim.


  3. First, even if Edward VI could leave the throne to Lady Jane by will, there is still the fact that Henry’s plans were established, not merely by will but also by act of Parliament. Edward’s will was not. Do you know of any thing that establishes that the act of the council in supporting Edward’s will could actually overrule a formally enacted piece of Parliamentary legislation?

    Second, Ives said that the council backing Lady Jane Grey would have believed that the act giving Mary the right was invalid in light of her illegitimacy. However, a Parliamentary decree of bastardy that is not popularly accepted appears to be worthless — as is proven by Richard III, who also had a council — and a later act of Parliament — both stating that the children of Edward IV were illegitimate.


    1. Hmmm … it looks as though you are arguing that nothing trumps parliament, except when parliament doesn’t count because it was unpopular. I don’t think that’s what you mean. However, either the king could choose his heir (and get parliament to rubber stamp it later) or he couldn’t. What Edward did wasn’t novel; he was just young when he did it. If Henry had died in his jousting accident in 1536, then Elizabeth was the only ‘legitimate’ heir. If Mary had deposed and murdered the toddler, people would still defend her choice (needed, rights, hated Bolyens, yadda yadda) but the truth would be Mary had usurped the legal queen’s throne. Just because Edward was young, didn’t make him less of a king than his father, or his heir less legitimate in the eyes of the law.


      1. My points are as follows: (1) the English people will not let a legitimate heir be deprived of their rights simply because Parliament has passed a decree of bastardy that is widely believed to be inaccurate. Most important, however, is (2) — whether a monarch has an absolute right to leave the throne by will in the absence of explicit Parliamentary approval (whether before or after the will). Seems to me that Henry’s dual appeals to Parliament (he got a law allowing him to leave the crown by his will in 1536, as well as the post-will Parliamentary approval ten years later) means that a king could not automatically do so.


        1. Since Henry’s law from 1536 was on the books, it strengthens the argument that his son could also legally chose an heir.


  4. We know so little, and what we do know, we fail to question. Certainly, the reasons you give for Guilford’s execution make more sense, then the reason that he was a political threat to Mary I, he was not, nor was he, unlike his wife a religious threat to Mary.

    I would congratulate you on picking Susan Higginbotham’s Her Highness the Traitor. Her book is probably as near to the truth about him as we can find. She even gives him a short speech ere his execution, which he did give, but, which no one thought to record.

    Among the other fictional works dealing with his life, I have found these to be useful.

    Margaret Mullally’s A Crown in Darkness
    A. C. H. Smith’s Lady Jane
    (novelization of the film’s screenplay)
    The Three Janes’ My Lady Jane
    (which may become a film)

    Among non-fiction, again . . .
    Eric Ives’ Lady Jane Grey : a Tudor Mystery
    (is a good choice. I would also recommend . . .)
    Leandra de Lisle’s The Sisters Who Would Be Queen
    or her Tudor : Passion, Manipulation, Murder

    One final note, while in th past, it was typically thought he was older than his wife. Now, there is some thought that he was not older than his wife, but atypically younger than her. If so, it would give him the dubious distinction of being one of the youngest prisoners ever held in the Tower of London, to be executed in the vincinity of the Tower.

    Again, I enjoyed reading your thoughts on the subject.,

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