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