"The Real Tudors" @ The National Portrait Gallery in London

The title of this exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery in London is intriguing:  The Real Tudors: Kings and Queens Rediscovered. In case you had been looking at portraits of the Fake Tudors. It runs from 12 September 2014  to 1 March 2015 and then travels across the Channel to the Musee du Luxembourg in Paris! Note the search for an authentic portrait of Lady Jane Dudley:

This special display, focusing on the portraiture of the Tudor monarchs, will allow visitors to rediscover these well-known kings and queens through the most complete presentation of their images staged to date.

Works from the Gallery’s Collection will be presented alongside exceptional loans and a prized possession of each monarch, as well as recent research undertaken as part of the Making Art in Tudor Britain project, to help visitors understand how and why such images were made.

The display includes the Gallery’s oldest portrait, that of Henry VII, which will be displayed with a Book of Hours inscribed by the king to his daughter; six portraits of Henry VIII, including a full-length portrait from Petworth House in Sussex, together with his rosary; portraits of Edward VI and a page from his diary in which he reports his father’s death; five portraits of Mary I combined with her Prayer Book loaned from Westminster Cathedral; and several portraits of Elizabeth I displayed alongside her locket ring. The search for a ‘real’ portrait of Lady Jane Grey in the sixteenth century will also be discussed through the display of a commemorative portrait of Jane that dates from the Elizabethan period.

A beautifully illustrated catalogue with over fifty reproduced portraits, and including the findings from recent technical analysis, is available from Gallery Shops and npg.org.uk/shop (not yet!)

August 22, 1553 and 1572

On August 22nd, 1553, John Dudley, the First Duke of Northumberland, was executed for his role in the attempted coup d'etat to place his daughter-in-law, Jane Dudley (nee Grey) on the throne, diverting the succession from Mary Tudor as Queen of England and Ireland.

On August 22nd, 1572, Thomas Percy, Seventh Earl of Northumberland, was executed for his role in the Northern Rebellion, which might have had the result of deposing Elizabeth I and placing Mary, the erstwhile Queen of Scots on the throne of England and Ireland (and Scotland).

What a fascinating circumstance, that two scions of the same household would die on the same date, with 19 years separating their executions! These two men have another thing in common: at the block both of them spoke strongly of their Catholic faith. John Dudley reverted to Catholicism while in the Tower of London--perhaps he hoped for mercy from Mary--and he publicly retracted and regretted the efforts of the Edwardine government to introduce Calvinist reforms, warning the people against listening to deceptive preachers teaching new things:

And one thing more good people I have to say unto you, which I am chiefly moved to do for discharge of my conscience; that is to warn you and exhort you to beware of these seditious preachers, and teachers of new doctrine, which pretend to preach God's word, but in very deed they preach their own fancies, who were never able to explicate themselves, they know not today what they would have tomorrow, there is no stay in their teaching; doctrine, they open the book, but they cannot shut it again. Take heed how you enter into strange opinions or new doctrine, which hath done no small hurt in this realm, and hath justly procured the ire and wrath of god upon us, as well may appear who so list to call to remembrance the manyfold plagues that this realm hath been touched with all since we dissevered ourselves from the catholic church of Christ, and from the doctrine which hath been received by the holy apostles, martyrs, and all saints, and used through all realms christened since Christ.

And I verily believe, that all the plagues that have chanced to this realm of late years since afore the death of king Henry the eight, hath justly fallen upon us, for that we have deuvded ourself from the rest of Christendom whereof we be but as a spark in comparison: Have we not had war, famine, pestilence, the death of our king, rebellion, sedition among ourselves, conspiracies? Have we not had sundry erroneous opinions sprung up among us in this realm, since we have forsaken the unity of the catholic Church? and what other plagues be there that we have not felt?

Thomas Percy was stubbornly recalcitrant, in the Elizabethan government's view, as a Catholic, not repenting of his betrayal of Elizabeth, but warning the English that they were schismatic. While he was in prison, and on the scaffold, he was urged to conform to the Church of England and thus save his life, but he declared himself a lifelong Catholic and would not budge. In defiance of the norms of executions, he did not repent of his sins against the queen or warn others against committing such sins after him--his only regret was for the common people who suffered for their zeal in defending the Catholic Church. He is one of the Ten Blessed Martyrs of Sussex and a stained glass window honors him in Sacred Heart Church, Petworth.

Lady Jane Grey, the Nine Days Queen

Four days after young King Edward VI died on July 6, 1553, Lady Jane Dudley began her reign as Queen of England. (I call her by her married name because her in-law relationship to the Duke of Northumberland, John Dudley, was essential to her succession to the throne in the eyes of Edward VI). The delay in the accession came about because her father-in-law Dudley waited to announce the king's death while preparing for a smooth transition. Because of her Protestantism, because she was executed by "Bloody" Mary, because John Foxe promoted her cause, she became known as a martyr and victim of Catholic oppression in England--part of the Black Legend of Catholic cruelty. She has also been thought a victim of family abuse and manipulation, an unwilling pawn of Northumberland.

 

Two studies recently have questioned this view: Eric Ives' Lady Jane Grey: A Tudor Mystery and Leanda de Lisle's The Sisters Who Would Be Queen: Mary, Katherine, and Lady Jane Grey: A Tudor Tragedy. Both books are all about the issue of the succession in the Tudor Dynasty, either from Edward VI to Jane or Mary, or from Elizabeth I to Mary, Queen of Scots, or the surviving Grey sisters, Mary and Catherine--so in neither book is Jane the main subject, really. I reviewed de Lisle's book, but have not read Ives' book, but as this reviewer notes, Ives' study is a "provocative and revisionist account" that takes nothing for granted:

Lady Jane Grey: A Tudor Mystery is not a biography. Rather, it is a book about a dynastic and political crisis. The ‘Tudor Mystery’ that Eric Ives has set out to solve is how the ‘legitimate’ Queen Jane, who commanded considerable political support, was overthrown in favour of the illegitimate Mary Tudor in ‘a wholly unexpected political coup’ (1). Viewing Jane’s rule from this angle produces a provocative and revisionist account of the summer of 1553. This alone would make Ives’ book an important piece of scholarship; that he wields an extensive array of archival evidence and provides the most detailed account to date of the succession crisis of 1553 makes this a book that no Tudor historian can ignore. . . .

Despite the title, Jane Grey is not the focus of Ives’s book, though Ives does discuss Jane’s education, family and religion at some length. His Jane is not the tragic figure who appealed to so many Victorians, but a ‘bluestocking’ and committed evangelical used as a political pawn by her indifferent parents. Jane married Guidlford Dudley reluctantly and was initially disinclined to take the throne: indeed, she was apparently surprised to discover that she was queen. Yet once on the throne she wielded power with a firmer hand than her earlier reluctance might suggest, adamantly blocking plans to invest her husband as king. Jane and her supporters had the advantage. They controlled the court, the state administration and the Tower, and Northumberland oversaw orders to the lord lieutenants in the counties to uphold Jane’s rule, whereas Mary possessed significantly inferior resources and was mistaken in her belief that her cousin, the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V would come to her aid. Immediately after Edward’s death, few would have bet on Mary. Yet within thirteen days she had amassed considerable support, had been proclaimed Queen in London with the backing of the Privy Council, and Northumberland, who had led an army out of London in order to suppress Mary’s uprising, had surrendered. All of these developments need to be examined anew if Jane, not Mary, was rightfully queen.


Sir John Cheke, Classical Scholar

Sir John Cheke died on September 13, 1557. He had been a great scholar at University of Cambridge, reformer of the mode of pronouncing Greek, and the tutor to Prince Edward, later Edward VI.

According to this site, he also took part in the change in succession from Princess Mary to Lady Jane Grey, and that clearly got him into some trouble when Mary I came to the throne:

His zeal for the protestant religion induced him to concur, on the death of Edward VI, in the settlement of the crown on the Lady Jane Grey, and he acted as secretary of state during her brief reign. Immediately after Queen Mary's accession he was committed to the Tower on an accusation of treason, 27 July 1553. He was discharged from custody on 13 Sept. 1554, and about the same time obtained a pardon and the royal license to travel abroad. After residing for some time at Basle he went to Italy, and at Padua he met some of his countrymen, to whom he read and interpreted some of the orations of Demosthenes. Subsequently he settled at Strasburg, where he read a Greek lecture for his subsistence.

At the beginning of 1556 he resolved to go to Brussels, where his wife was, chiefly in consequence of a treacherous invitation from Lord Paget and Sir John Mason. As, however, he was a firm believer in astrology, he first consulted the stars to ascertain whether he might safely undertake the journey, and fell into a fatal snare on his return between Brussels and Antwerp, for, by order of Philip II, he and Sir Peter Carew, with whom he was travelling, were suddenly seized by the provost-marshal on 15 May, unhorsed, blindfolded, bound, thrown into a wagon, conveyed to the nearest harbour, put on board a ship, under hatches, and brought to the Tower of London, where they were placed in close confinement. The alleged ground of his committal was, that having obtained license to travel, he had not returned to England by the time specified in his license.

In the Tower he was visited by two of the queen's chaplains, who tried in vain to induce him to alter his religious opinions. The desire of gaining over so eminent a man caused the queen to send to him Dr. Feckenham, dean of St. Paul's, a divine of moderate and obliging temper. Cheke had been acquainted with him in the late king's reign, and had tried to convert him to protestantism when he was a prisoner in the Tower. Cheke's courage began to fail at the prospect of the stake, and he was at his own request carried before Cardinal Pole, who gravely advised him to return to the unity of the church. Cheke dared hold out no longer, and Feckenham had the credit of effecting his conversion. He made in writing a profession of his belief in the real presence, and sent the paper by the dean of St. Paul's to the cardinal, with a letter dated from the Tower on 15 July, praying that he might be spared the shame of making an open recantation.

This request being refused, he addressed to the queen on the same day a letter in which he declared his readiness to obey all laws and orders concerning religion. After this, in order to declare his repentance for his rejection of the pope, he made a formal submission before the cardinal, as the pope's legate, and after being absolved he was received back into the Roman church. He was kept in prison for upwards of two months before he was allowed to make his public recantation. This was done on 4 Oct. in the most public manner before the queen, and for the sake of greater formality the reading of the palinode was preceded by an oration addressed to her majesty by Feckenham. Cheke was also obliged to read a longer form of recantation in presence of the whole court, and to promise to perform whatever penances might be enjoined upon him by the legate. After having submitted to all these humiliations he was released from the Tower, and regained his lands, which, however, he was forced to exchange with the queen for others.

Pining away with shame and regret for his abjuration of protestantism, he died on 13 Sept. 1557 in Wood Street, London, in the house of his friend Peter Osborne, remembrancer of the exchequer.

The Duke of Northumberland's Speech before Execution

For his leadership of the attempt to have his daughter-in-law, Jane Grey Dudley, reign as Queen of England and Ireland, John Dudley, the Duke of Northumberland was executed on August 22, 1553. He spoke before his beheading and expressed great remorse:

Good people, all you that be here present to see me die. Though my death be odious and horrible to the flesh, yet I pray you judge the best in god's works, for he doth all for the best. And as for me, I am a wretched sinner, & have deserved to die, and most justly am condemned to die by a law. And yet this act Wherefore I die, was not altogether of me (as it is thought) but I was procured and induced thereunto by others. I was I say induced thereunto by others, howbeit, God forbid that I should name any man unto you, I will name no man unto you, & therefore I beseech you look not for it.
 
I for my part forgive all men, and pray God also to forgive them. And if I have offended any of you here, I pray you and all the World to forgive me: and most chiefly I desire forgiveness of the Queen's highness, whom I have most grievously offended. Amen said the people. And I pray you all to witness with me, that I depart in perfect love and charity with all the world, &  that you will assist me with your prayers at the hour of death.  

And one thing more good people I have to say unto you, which I am chiefly moved to do for discharge of my conscience; that is to warn you and exhort you to beware of these seditious preachers, and teachers of new doctrine, which pretend to preach God's word, but in very deed they preach their own fancies, who were never able to explicate themselves, they know not today what they would have tomorrow, there is no stay in their teaching; doctrine, they open the book, but they cannot shut it again. Take heed how you enter into strange opinions or new doctrine, which hath done no small hurt in this realm, and hath justly procured the ire and wrath of god upon us, as well may appear who so list to call to remembrance the manyfold plagues that this realm hath been touched with all since we dissevered ourselves from the catholic church of Christ, and from the doctrine which hath been received by the holy apostles, martyrs, and all saints, and used through all realms christened since Christ.  

And I verily believe, that all the plagues that have chanced to this realm of late years since afore the death of king Henry the eight, hath justly fallen upon us, for that we have deuvded ourself from the rest of Christendom whereof we be but as a spark in comparison: Have we not had war, famine, pestilence, the death of our king, rebellion, sedition among ourselves, conspiracies? Have we not had sundry erroneous opinions sprung up among us in this realm, since we have forsaken the unity of the catholic Church? and what other plagues be there that we have not felt?

Mary I's government made good use of this speech as propaganda to support her efforts to restore Catholicism, according to Eamon Duffy in Fires of Faith, printing and reprinting pamphlets. John Dudley, the Duke of Northumberland was beheaded on August 22, 1553--and Thomas Percy, the Earl of Northumberland was executed on the same date in 1572, as I've pointed out before.

The Executions of Guilford and Jane Dudley

All three recent biographies of Mary I highlighted the singular mercy the first Queen Regnant showed to the young woman who had temporarily displaced her and to her family immediately after coming to the throne. Guilford Dudley and Lady Jane Grey could have been summarily executed, but Mary knew that John Dudley, Lord Northumberland bore the greater share of blame for the plot to change Henry VIII's will and divert the succession. They were tried in November of 1553 and found guilty (they actually pleaded guilty), but were held in some comfort at the Tower of London. Their brief rule had also been spent in the Tower, but Jane had refused kingship for Guilford; whatever reluctance she might have felt, once she became Queen, she intended to hold the power as Queen Regnant exclusively and she intended to reign for "God's Glory" which meant of course that she would continue Edward VI's Reformed reforms. Guilford certainly wanted to reign and he presided over the Council meetings held between Edward VI's death and Mary's overthrow of Northumberland's plot.

It was only after the Wyatt rebellion that Jane's continued existence as a focal point for overthrowing Mary became too great a liability, especially with Philip of Spain on the way. Jane had little to do with Wyatt's plans--in fact, Elizabeth was probably more guilty of collusion with Wyatt's plot than Jane had willingly been with her father-in-law (at first, at least). Unfortunately for her, however, her father had taken part in Wyatt's attempt to depose Mary to place Elizabeth and Courtenay, an erstwhile Catholic candidate as husband for Mary, on the throne and even though Mary regretted it, She ordered Jane's execution. Jane watched her husband be taken to Tower Hill for execution and his headless body brought back the morning of February 12, 1554 while she was scheduled for a private execution at Tower Green. He had asked to meet the night before but she refused, saying it would be too painful and certain they would meet again soon in heaven.

At her execution, she acknowledged her guilt in the one case and declared her innocence in the other: "Good people, I am come hither to die, and by a law I am condemned to the same. The fact, indeed, against the Queen's highness was unlawful, and the consenting thereunto by me: but touching the procurement and desire thereof by me or on my behalf, I do wash my hands thereof in innocency, before God, and the face of you, good Christian people, this day."

The Delaroche painting romantically depicts her moment of panic when she could not find the block after being blindfolded as her ladies swoon behind her. John Feckenham, the last Abbot of Westminster accompanied her on the scaffold, sent by Mary before to help Jane prepare for death. As I've noted before, although they strictly disagreed on religious matters, Jane and Father Feckenham at least respected each other.

I have not read Eric Ive's recent study of Lady Jane Grey's claim to the throne, but I agree with Leanda de Lisle in The Sisters Who Would be Queen: Mary, Catherine, and Lady Jane Grey: A Tudor Tragedy that "The sixteenth-century Jane was a much more interesting and ambivalent figure than the traditional stories allow." Since Guilford's brother Robert had become Elizabeth's great favorite, the story of their brief reign and their executions were soon part of Elizabethan propaganda. Her seeming innocence and evangelical fervor also made her a likely target of Foxe's myth-building.

Deposed and Found Guilty

Lady Jane Grey Dudley was accused of treason and tried at the Guildhall in London on November 13, 1553, along with her husband Guildford Dudley. They were found guilty for their roles in subverting the orderly succession as outlined by Henry VIII and Parliament when Edward VI died. Northumberland, who had developed the plot to place his daughter-in-law upon the throne had already been executed.

Mary did not, however, allow the sentences of death by carried out against the Nine Days Queen and the others. Jane and Guildford remained under arrest in the Tower of London, but it was clear to Mary that they had been pawns of Northumberland.

It was not until Jane's father Henry Grey, the Duke of Suffolk (pictured) was implicated in Wyatt's Rebellion in January and February of 1554 that it became clear to Mary that Jane's survival was dangerous to the throne. Jane was a focus of rebellion while she lived. Otherwise, Mary had hoped eventually to release her from the Tower!

August 3, 1553: London and Victory!

On August 3, 1553 Mary Tudor, now Queen of England and Ireland, entered London in triumph. She had defeated the attempt by her deceased half-brother Edward VI and the president of his council, John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland to place Lady Jane Dudley (nee Gray) on the throne in contravention of Henry VIII's will. Her half-sister Elizabeth accompanied Mary on this triumphant day--the restoration of Mary's claim to the throne as willed by Henry VIII also meant that Elizabeth's claim was more secure. The Elizabeth Files blog provides detail about Mary's entry into London:

On this day in history, 3rd August 1553, Mary, who had just been proclaimed Queen, rode with her half-sister, Elizabeth, from Wanstead to Aldgate to be greeted by the city as its new Queen. Wriothesley’s Chronicle describes Mary’s appearance that day:-

“her gowne of purple velvet French fashion, with sleues of the same, hir kirtle purple satten all thicke sett with gouldsmithes work and great pearle, with her foresleues of the same set with rich stones, with a rich bowdricke of goulde, pearle, and stones about her necke, and a riche billement of stones and great pearle on her hoode, her pallfray that she rode on richly trapped with gould embrodred to the horse feete.”

Mary's anointing and coronation as Queen in October meant that Elizabeth could be anointed and crowned, because Mary set the precedent for a Queen Regnant to receive the same regalia and ritual a King Regnant received.

The "Nine Days Queen" was held in the Tower of London as was her spouse, Guildford Dudley. Mary demonstrated remarkable clemency in not having Jane executed immediately for treason--although Jane's father-in-law, John Dudley would soon be on the block!

Mary Tudor: Renaissance Queen provides a detailed review of a new book, long-awaited in the UK and USA: Susan Doran and Thomas Freeman (eds.), Mary Tudor: Old and New Perspectives (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), 345pp, noting that it is "one of the most important studies on Mary in recent years."

The Fall of Queen Jane Dudley

On July 19, 1553, the "Nine Days Queen" lost her throne. Mary Tudor had thwarted Northumberland's attempt to change the succession and insure the continuation of Edward VI's Calvinist Reformation in England. Although usually called Lady Jane Grey, I believe that since the young, militant Protestant had married Northumberland's younger son she should be known as queen by her married name.

Leanda de Lisle published a splendid study of the three Grey sisters and their respective claims on the throne of England--and what those claims cost them. The title is a little bit of a misnomer, as two of the three Grey sisters had no desire to be Queen of England at all, but I learned a lot from The Sisters Who Would be Queen: Mary, Katherine, and Lady Jane Grey: A Tudor Tragedy and reviewed it favorably on amazon.com:

Along with her first book: "After Elizabeth" (and its very long subtitle), Leanda de Lisle has written this book, focused on the Grey sisters to explore the complex issues of succession in the Tudor Dynasty. After all, so many of Henry VIII's decisions and actions were all directed at ensuring orderly succession after his death. When the only surviving child of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon was a daughter, he feared rebellion and civil war if Mary succeeded him. Therefore, he turned heaven and earth upside down to marry Anne Boleyn, young and promising a son, separating England from the universal Catholic Church and the authority of the Pope, risking war with the Holy Roman Empire, and incurring excommunication. Once he had his son (having to get rid of another disappointing wife), he then violated the principle of primogeniture and settled the succession, with Parliament's consent on the heirs of, not his eldest sister, Margaret, but his favorite sister Mary: the Greys, who would follow his son and daughters if they died without issue.

Ironically, this left only women to succeed Edward VI if he died without issue: his sisters Mary and Elizabeth and their relatives Frances, Jane, Katherine and Mary.

Then both Edward VI and Elizabeth I contravened Henry's will: Edward by naming Jane Grey his heir and Elizabeth by naming Mary, Queen of Scots as hers. (Mary I regretted the inevitability of Elizabeth's succession but did not try to thwart it.) Edward made his decision based on religious principle, since Jane was an Evangelical like him. Elizabeth made her decision based on primogeniture and Mary's royal person, since Mary, Queen of Scots, after all, was a Catholic--and many in her court dreaded another queen and a Catholic on the throne.

Leanda de Lisle traces this sometimes confusing web of succession, with the plots of attempted coups and subterfuges of secret marriages as clearly as possible (with name changes and so many Mary's and Catherine's). She corrects many erroneous interpretations (of Lady Jane Grey as victim or of her mother Frances as an evil woman, etc) effectively, and demonstrates Elizabeth I's cruelty to Katherine and Mary, imprisoning and separating them from their well-beloved husbands and Katherine from one of her sons. The book is very well illustrated too, with excellent family trees for the Tudors and the Greys, et al. One irony of the family trees in my copy was that Jane's name was nearly always in the gutter of the spread!

Mary Tudor, Renaissance Queen, told the story of Lady Jane Dudley and Mary Tudor in daily installments last year. I've linked the post about Jane's fall and Mary's triumph.