The execution of LADY JANE GREY | the nine day Queen | Art vs history | Paul Delaroche painting

the Despicable execution of Lady Jane gray known to history as the nine-day queen and just 16 years old at the time of her death in the Tower of London is one of the greatest stains on the reputation of her cousin Queen Mary the first in this video from history calling I'll be taking an art vs history approach to this tutor Tragedy by comparing what the historical record tells us about her death to what we see in this famous painting of her final movements by French artist Paul De La Roche I'll be sharing and even showing you some of Jane's heartbreaking final messages to her husband Lord Guilford Dudley sister Lily Catherine gray and father the Duke of Suffolk I'll also reveal how she reacted to gilford's death which directly preceded her own and to seeing his body as well as what she wore on the scaffold and the famous moment depicted in the painting in which the Blindfolded teenager struggled to find the block to lay her head on by the end of the video you'll know what really happened that February day nearly half a millennium ago right down to the horrendous way in which this girl's corpse was supposedly treated after her death and high likely this treatment is to have really happened hankies are the ready people I'm afraid there's no happy ending to this story [Music] thank you [Music] lady Jim Gray's exact date of birth is unknown but it was in 1537 with some claiming it was in the spring and others that it was as late as October her maternal grandmother was Henry VIII's youngest sister Princess Mary Tudor Dowager queen of France and Duchess of Suffolk and this gave Jean a claim on the English throne Henry died in 1547 leaving the throne to his three surviving children Edward VI and his half-sisters Mary and Elizabeth and having stipulated that if they should all die without children it was to go to the descendants of his niece Jin's Mother Frances Brandon gray Duchess of Suffolk and daughter of his aforementioned Sister Mary Francis herself interestingly enough was omitted from the succession for reasons which are unknown perhaps Henry disliked her husband and assumed she would be ruled by him perhaps the Old King hoped she would produce a boy and eliminate the need for a further Queen regnant altogether when the Protestant Edward Lay Dying in 1553 however he bulked at the thought of the crime going to his Catholic Sister Mary and instead tried to change the succession he skipped out Elizabeth too though she was Protestant he considered her to be illegitimate and having realized that he wouldn't even live long enough for Jane to produce a son he grudgingly left the crown to her like him she was only in her mid-teens and staunchly Protestant she was also recently married to Lord Gilford Dudley son of the Duke of Northumberland she had been told by The Duchess of Northumberland shortly before the King's death that Edward would make her the heir but later claimed she did not believe it and was highly taken aback not to mention reluctant when she was suddenly informed that she was now a queen Lily Dudley as her marriage had made her though you'll also see her call Jean of Suffolk in some sources eventually agreed but hurry in if you even recognize it as such and many don't was the shortest in English history after less than a fortnight Mary the first had secured her own claim on the throne and Gian her husband and their fathers were locked up in the Tower of London with the Duke of Northumberland being executed on the 22nd of August nymeri did not initially intend to have Jin killed Jin and her husband went through a trial for treason on the 14th of November and were sentenced to death but it was accepted that this sentence was not actually going to be carried out and the queen had already stated that she believed the girl was blameless and would not see her executed Jan was returned to confinement in the Tower of London and gradually some privileges such as walking in the gardens there were restored to her it was only when her father the Duke of Suffolk who had been quickly released the previous summer after his wife's intervention was found guilty of involvement in Wyatt's Rebellion against the queen in early 1554 that Mary decided to kill Jean and Guilford the sentences against the teenagers were now activated and scheduled to be carried out on the 12th of February 1554. in the days leading up to her death Gian was visited by John ferkner Queen Mary's chaplain who tried to convert her to Catholicism however she refused to countenance at such a change and when she reached the day of her death she therefore remained as Protestant as ever this is one of the reasons she has gone down in history as a Protestant martyr an Italian Source published in 1607 and written by a man named Michelangelo Florio state that she wrote to her mother in her final days or hours however if that was true then no such letter has survived we do however have the letters she wrote to her father and one of her sisters the 13 year old lady Catherine gray so it seems perfectly plausible that she wrote to Duchess Francis as well the letter to Liddy Catherine is very long and there is none to her other sister Lily Mary who was only around eight or nine years old and presumably too young to be corresponded with Jean's biographer Eric Ives whose book is linked in the description box for you suggested that the girl was not allowed any paper to write on and that this might explain why she wrote out her message in her Greek New Testament that book has not survived however the letter was published the same year she died alongside some of her other writings including an account of her discussions with feknem there is more than one publication containing the texts and there are subtle differences between them but nothing which Alters the fundamental meaning of the message I'm using the version called an Epistle of the lidigian which reads I have here sent you good sister Catherine a book which although it be not outwardly trimmed with Gould yet inwardly it is more worth than precious stones it is the book dear sister of the law of the Lord it is his Testament and last will which he bequeathed onto us wretches which shall lead you to the path of Eternal Joy and if you with a good mind read it and with an Earnest desire follow it it shall bring you to an immortal and everlasting life it will teach you to live and learn you to die it shall win you more than you should have gained by the possession of your willful father's lands for as if God had prospered him you should have inherited his lands so if you apply diligently this book seeking to direct your life after it you shall be an inheritor of such riches as neither the Covetous shall withdraw from you nor the thief shall steal neither yet the moths corrupt Desire with David Good Sister to understand the law of the Lord your God live still to die that you by death May purchase eternal life and Trust not that the tenderness of your age shall lengthen your life for as soon if God call goeth the young as the old and labor always to learn to die deny the world defy the devil and despise the Flesh and delight yourself only in the Lord be penitent for your sins and yet despair not be strong in faith and yet presume not and Desire with Saint Paul to be dissolved and to be with Christ with whom even in death there is life be like the good servant and even at midnight be waking lest When Death cometh and steal upon you like a thief in the night you be with the devil's servant find sleeping and lest for lack of oil you be fined like the five foolish women and like him that had not on the wedding garment and then you be cast out from the marriage rejoice in Christ as I trust you do and seeing you have the name of a Christian as near as you can follow the steps of your master Christ and take up your cross lay your sins on his back and always Embrace him and as touching my death rejoice as I do good sister that I shall be delivered of this corruption and put on uncorruption for I am assured that I shall for losing of a mortal life win an immortal life the witch I pray God grant you send you of his grace to live in his fear and die in the true Christian faith for the witch in God's name I exhort you that you never swerve neither for Hope of life nor fear of death for if you will deny his truth to lengthen your life God will deny you and yet shorten your days and if you will cleave to him he will prolong your days to your comfort and His glory to the which glory god bring me nigh and you Hereafter when it shall please God to call you farewell good sister put your only trust in God who only must help you amen your loving sister Jane Dudley we have new information regarding the relationship between these two girls though the contents of this letter suggest a genuine warmth on Jane's part nor do we know how the letter was transported to Catherine assuming it did make it into her hands before its publication or how she responded to it Jane would never know either for before Catherine could possibly have read this her older sister was dead before we hear what Jan wrote to her father and if you're enjoying this content please remember to give the video a thumbs up and subscribe to the Channel with notifications switched on so that you never miss one of my uploads for more from history calling you can also find me over on Instagram and or join my patreon page where I provide perks including Early Access to ad-free videos many podcasts and blog posts both are linked below for you thank you to those of you who already support me there as well as those of you who make one-off donations to the channel using the thanks button underneath videos your generosity helps me to make this a full-time job and is always much appreciated the letter to the Juke the man whose actions had brought about her and her husband's deaths was written in the prayer book that Jian would carry with her to the scaffold again suggesting that sheet paper was not available Suffolk by the by was executed 11 days after his daughter and son-in-law at the age of 37. remarkably this prayer book still survives and is now held by the British Library allowing me to show you Jean's actual composition here It Was Written across several pages in the space at the bottom of the main text and although the ink has now faded it still shows her clearly formed handwriting just one of the products of having had the best education that money could buy far from reproaching Suffolk for the disaster he had brought down on her head the letter sought to comfort and reassure him Jian wrote the Lord Comfort your grace and that in his word wherein All Creatures only are to be comforted and though it has pleased God to take away two of your children she means herself in Guilford yet think not I must humbly beseech your grace that you have lost them but trust that we by leaving this Mortal life have won an immortal life and I for my part as I have honored your grace in this life will pray for you in another life your Grace's humble daughter Gian Dudley Sir John Bridges also had her write a note to him in the same prayer book in this case Jan wrote for as much as you have desired so simple a woman to write in so worthy a book good Master Lieutenant therefore I shall as a friend desire you and as a Christian require you to call upon God to Incline your heart to his laws to Quicken you in his way and not to take the word of Truth utterly out of your mouth live still to die that by death you may purchase eternal life and remember how the end of Methuselah who as we read in the scriptures was the longest liver that was of a man died at the last for as the preacher says there is a time to be born and a time to die and the day of death is better than the day of our birth yours as the Lord knows as a friend Jean Dudley Guilford was to die first and though he had requested a final meeting with his wife she refused telling him by a messenger that if their meeting could have been a means of consolation to their souls she would have been very glad to see him but as their meeting would only turn to increase their misery and peeing it was better to put it off for the time being as they would meet shortly elsewhere and live Bound by indissoluble ties the last she saw of him alive was at 10 am as he left his prison in the tower to be taken out onto the nearby Tower Hill for his execution there he was killed with a single ax blue he was just 18 or 19 years old his remains were put on a cart and brought back into the complex where Jian saw them out her window as they were being unlooted for burial in the chapel of Saint Peter at vincula it was her turn next they anonymously written Chronicle of Queen Jian which purports to have been authored by quote a resident in the Tower of London describes the events which followed and is the basis for many litter accounts of jian's death including in the famous Fox's book of Martyrs its author tells us that quote by this time was there a scaffold made upon the green over against the White Tower for the said Lady Jane to die upon this was the same place where Amber Lynn Catherine Howard and Jean Berlin had all died years earlier and it is now where tourists queue up to get in to see the crown jewels the lieutenant of the tar LED Jian on the short walk from her prison which was actually more like house arrest she wasn't in a sale across the front of the Chapel to the appointed spot with Jin remaining remarkably calm and praying from a book she held in her hands the whole time she wore the same black dress in which she had been tried in November and had with her two female attendants a mistress Elizabeth tillme and a woman known only as mistress and Leon both of whom were sobbing in contrast to jian's extraordinarily calm demeanor she was also accompanied and this might surprise you by John fakenham despite their wildly different religious outlooks possibly she had asked him to come with her for he had been kind to her in their conversations despite their theological differences and his inability to convert her when she reached the scaffold she climbed up then made her final speech to the assembled crowd she said good people I am come hither to die and by a law I am condemned to the seam the fact indeed against the Queen's highness was unlawful and the consenting thereon to by me but touching the procurement and desire thereof by me or on my half I do wash my hands thereof in innocency before a God and the face of you good Christian people at this day at this stage she literally rung her hands to make her point before continuing I pray you all good Christian people to Bear me witness that I die a true Christian woman and that I look to be saved by none other men but only by the mercy of God in the merits of the blood of his only son Jesus Christ and I confess when I did know the word of God I neglected the CM loved myself and the world and therefore this plieg or punishment is happily and worthily happened on to me for my sins and yet I thank God of his goodness that he hath thus given me a time and respite to repent and no good people while I am alive I pray you to assist me with your prayers this is the speech as recorded by the chronicle of Queen Jian though the Epistle of the lady Jean which I used to quote her letter to Catherine to you has a slightly different version I'm not going to read that out here too but I will be sharing it with my time traveler and historical figure patrons this week so if you're in one of those tiers you can find it there Jan's speech followed convention in many ways and you might see similarities between it and parts of Anne boleyn's speech if you've ever seen my video on her death in particular the acknowledgment that they had been judged worthy of death by the law was common to both jeans much more explicitly Protestant Declarations of Faith set her apart however as the Protestant Reformation was nigh at a more advanced stage than it had been in 1536 when Henry VII's second wife had died Anne had asked people to pray for her but Gian asked them to pray for her right away while she was still alive she didn't believe in the ability to affect the fate of a person's soul after death Her speech done she now dine and her remarkable composure began to crack just a little showing her as this 16 year old girl she was facing death and unsure what to do despite their differences she turned to the adult male companion she had with her John ficknum and asked for some guidance should she read a particular Psalm yes he answered and so she did reading out misery Meadows which means have mercy on me o God in English she then stood up thanked fegnam for staying with her and even joked with him that in her final few days she had been more bored by him than scared of her impending death embracing him she then said go and may God satisfy every wish of yours she and I had only moments left she gave Elizabeth tilney her gloves and handkerchief and passed the prayer book containing her last message to her father off to Bridges though sources differ here as to whether she handed it to the lieutenant of the tar Sir John Bridges or to his brother Thomas who was his deputy and also present she then untied her black gown refusing the assistance of the Executioner and having her two ladies help her remove it instead she also divested herself of her neckerchief and of something called her frew's past or pierced by the anonymous chronicler which has confused historians for a long time to the point that I don't even know how to pronounce it but it has been gassed by little writers that this might have meant her hairdress one of her ladies not the gentleman you see here gave her a handkerchief to tie around her eyes but before she did so the Executioner knelt at her feet and asked for and received her forgiveness which was standard fare at these events he then requested that she stand on the straw in front of the block which she apparently was only seeing now for the first time I'm not sure how that worked because she was on a scaffold and you would think that you couldn't miss the block but the sources say that she didn't notice it until this point her fear now I started to show in Earnest though she was still remarkably composed I pray you dispatched me quickly she said to him then knelt down and asked will you take it off before I lay me down meaning would he kill her while she was still kneeling upright as Amber limb had died no Madam he said she then quote tossed her hair forward according to Eric Ives tied the handkerchief around her eyes and reached for the block now in the dark however she couldn't find it and said to those present what shall I do where is it one of the bystanders the chronicler doesn't specify which one guided her hands to the lump of wood she laid her head down upon it stretched out her body said Lord into thy hands I command my spirit and was killed it was surely one of the most pointless tragic and undeserved deaths of the whole tutor era to hear the disturbing details of what may have happened to her body in the hours after her death make sure you stay till the end of the video but for now we're going to compare the historical facts of her execution to the famous painting by Paul De La Roche painting is oil on canvas and was completed in 1833 then first exhibited in Paris in 1834. it is physically huge as you can see and measures 246 centimeters by 297. in it we see Lady Jane in the center wearing a white Paddy coat and blindfold her outer clothing already removed and sitting in the lap of a sobbing lady and wedding to the left of the painting another woman stands behind her unable to watch and also apparently crying the block is in the foreground and a man meant to be Sir John Bridges is guiding gin towards it with an almost paternal Heir while the Executioner watches from our right wearing blood red hose and holding his ax it is a real moment from history showing the seconds in between G and tying her handkerchief around her eyes and her death when she struggled to find the Block in the darkness but how well does this painting tell that story there are elements of both truth and fiction here the execution appears to be placed indoors when in fact we know that it was an outdoor affair the presence of Sir John the Executioner and the two sobbing ladies and wedding is accurate and their clothing looks period appropriate for the most part too although the women's Gable hoods were getting a bit old-fashioned by this point and are more reminiscent of the 1530s think of the famous Holbein portrait of Queen James Seymour for instance which was completed back in 1537 and which showed her wearing something extremely similar I wonder in fact if De La Roche used her outfit in that picture as inspiration for the lady to the left as her burgundy gown is similar to Jean's too this woman as we can see is also slumped on the floor her veal Askew but there is no mansion in the primary sources of one of the ladies in wedding behaving in such a manner nor of the other crying in a corner unable to watch we also do not know if it was Sir John who helped Jane find the block only that it was a bystander it could have been someone already on the scaffold with her and I think this is the most likely option but it could theoretically have been one of the onlookers the other participants we knew were there Thomas Bridges and John fagnum are not shown De la Rosa's Gian has long blonde hair and is kneeling upon a green cushion which is itself on straw in reality the only painting we have which is likely to be the real gin and I have a video All About That artwork which I'll link below for you shows that she had Auburn or brown hair and there is no mention of a cushion in the original sources only the straw which had been laid down to soak up the blood according to Stephen van who wrote a book on de la Roche's art details below the painter may have used a real woman the French actress Mademoiselle annais as his model for this image and she was blonde thus explaining the hair color in the picture in the painting Jan also wears a wedding ring the only piece of jewelry left to her as we can see her necklace in the lap of her lydian wedding new jewelry is mentioned at all in the primary sources but the presence of a wedding ring is not much of a stretch the fact that her other dress has been removed is accurate but it looks to be golden brown in color rather than the black we knew she actually wore as for the Petticoat which is falling off one shoulder and the messy state of her hair partially plotted but with much of it loose these emphasize her Youth and her loss of control over her body her appearance and her ultimate fate and thereby increase the horror of the whole situation but there isn't enough information in the sources to know how true to life such details are a white Petticoat is entirely possible and even likely but would it have had the high neck at the back that we see here and Berlin specifically wore a low-cut coin so as not to impede the blue that killed her and had a koi phone to hold her hair up and out of the way but then again she died upright By The Sword and didn't remove her outer dress either so perhaps we shouldn't try to draw too many comparisons to Jian the two events were not meant to be mirror images of each other Ives stated that Gian tossed her hair out of the way of the ax which would fit with what we see here with her long hair down but this would be an odd decision to make for someone who wanted to make sure that they got a quick death with one blue as it risked obscuring The Executioner's view of his mark very unusually Ives didn't give a direct footnote for this information so I wasn't able to check the hair detail however he's one of the few historians who I'm prepared to give the benefit of the doubt to and say that I think he almost certainly did have a reputable source for his information incidentally if you're wondering why Jane would have disrooped like this when the likes of Anne did not it was probably in part to give the Executioner a clearer view of her neck and also to protect her no doubt expensive dress from destruction the Executioner himself was entitled to the clothing of his victims one of the perks of the job and he too wouldn't have wanted to damage it the national galleries website gives a good description of what De La Roche sought to achieve with his use of color and composition saying De La Roche uses a dark monochrome background of Romanesque architecture as a foil for the illuminated life-size figures in particular the group in the sender right and the rich Reds bronze and blacks of their clothing is the visual focus of the painting as the bright Sheen of her satin Petticoat its radiant whiteness symbolizing her innocence pale skin and gleam of her wedding ring stand out from the oppressive Gloom no one in the picture looks at us and nothing except for the brightly lit straw laid down to soak up the blood comes between us and what is about to happen this smooth finish of the paint and its lack of visible brush work further enhance the illusion De La Roche creates a highly theatrical stage-like space at which we have a front row seat forced to acknowledge what is about to happen we must make a choice between looking or looking away this choice is already taking place in the painting itself as the three women either turn away or are unable to see leaving only the two men as Witnesses hands play an important role in the picture as De La Roche uses expressive gestures to give insight into the psychological state of each character in a highly finished watercolor sketch of 1832 a stockier version of The Executioner who holds a large broadsword stands to the side as if merely wedding to complete his task however in the painting The Sword has been replaced by an ax and the figure of brute State Authority had evolved into one whose pose and facial expression suggests some degree of compassion the painting therefore only provides a semi-accurate depiction of gian's execution but where it excels in my view is in communicating the emotional horror of the situation making us feel phrygian and wish that we could reach into the image and pull her out to safety before it's too late sadly no one can help her now just as no one helped her then the painting would go on to have an interesting career after the initial excitement over its release long thought to have been lost in a flood caused by the River Thames in 1928 it was rediscovered by accident in the basement of the tier Gallery in 1973 and put up in the National Gallery in 1975. if my experience of seeing it there is anything to go by it is one of that institution's most popular exhibits as I had to battle my way through a crowd to see it and that was despite the fact that it was lit in the afternoon and the gallery was presumably winding down for the day but what happened to its subject's remains after she was killed well if you believe some stories for several hours nothing according to an early 20th century writer Richard Davy Jin's semi-unrest corpse lay in the scaffold in a pool of blood before it was eventually placed in an unmarked grave in the nearby Chapel of Saint Peter adventular the problem though is that DAV provides no legitimate traceable source for this information nor does it appear in other contemporary accounts furthermore his book is full of other errors and fabrications and he has been slammed as a fraudster by more recent historians including Leander DeLisle we must also question why such a thing would be done anyway it was not normal practice to leave execution victims where they fail inside the Tower of London even Guilford who had died out on the hill had been brought back inside the complex for burial are we really meant to believe that no preparations were made for June's remains Sir John Bridges may have been Mary's servant but he'd become fond of the girl who had left him her prayer book and it seems unconscionable that even if her women couldn't carry her to her grave he wouldn't have had any of the men under his command within the tower remove her as soon as she was dead it seems far more likely that she was quickly buried near her husband we aren't completely sure where exactly that was within the chapel but it has been surmised that given her status and the presumed placement of those execution victims already buried there including her recently executed father-in-law Northumberland she lies several feet in front of the altar where there is now a plaque laid into the floor to commemorate her she was not among those identified during the renovations of 1876-77 which caused the presumed remains of Anne Berlin and the Duke of Northumberland among others to be disinterred so all we can do is assume that she was and still is there that said if you saw my recent video on The Disappearance of Catherine Howard's bones you'll know that the floor under which Jian Guilford and so many others are buried was Disturbed more times prior to the 1870s than were officially recorded so short of Excavating the whole site we can't really be certain of anything regarding her bones as well as her floor plaque she is also listed on another on the inside wall of the chapel and on the 21st Century Glass pillow Memorial which is positioned outside the chapel before I go I'd like to leave you with a little Epitaph Jian herself wrote the day before her death in which she said if my faults deserve punishment my youth at least and my imprudence were worthy of excuse God and posterity will show me favor I believe she got her wish and that history certainly does look kindly on her let me know in the comments what you think of de la Roche's painting of her death and if you'd like to know more about this tragic would-be Queen of England watch this video next till next week everyone keep learning

Channel: History Calling

Views: 41,119

Keywords: Lady Jane Grey, Lady Jane Dudley, the execution of Lady Jane Grey, the death of Lady Jane Grey, Lord Guildford Dudley, the nine day Queen, the 9 day Queen, History Calling, art versus history, Paul Delaroche, paintings of famous historical events, Tudor history, Tudor documentary

Id: JirVfl8gsj8

Length: 31min 53sec (1913 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 20 2023