Although Lady Jane has featured in historical documentaries such as ‘She – Wolves: England’s Early Queens’ and ‘Bloody Tales of the Tower’, ‘England’s Forgotten Queen: The Life and Death of Lady Jane Grey’ is the first that focuses on Jane.
Presented by Helen Castor, it also features ‘Jane’ historians, Leanda de Lisle and J Stephan Edwards.
The assistant producer (Lucie Crawford) got in touch to say she had been using my website and I met with her to discuss Jane. I also answered questions and suggested sources throughout the summer.
What was wonderful about the programme was the chance to hear about all the new developments about Jane over the last 10 years and to view documents that relate to Jane and her nine days as Queen.
Episode 2 – The next 5 days of Jane’s reign. The dramatic events that will decide England’s Queen and its religion
12th July
Anna Whitelock – No one rate’s Mary’s chances whatsoever. It seems as though Jane and her supporters have won.
Call to arms by Mary beginning to work. Mary relocates to Framlingham Castle in Suffolk.
Helen Castor – 12th July is a critical point in Jane’s 9 day reign. Henry Machyn records weaponry being taken into the Tower.
Leanda de Lisle – Northumberland does not take Mary as a threat.
Stephan Edwards – Northumberland was clearly an exceptionally skilled politician. He was not hereditary nobility, through his own sheer ability he had worked his way up. He had enormous ability as a politician, military leader, and bureaucrat. We need to admire him to a certain extent for that.
Leanda de Lisle – They all underestimated Mary. Northumberland’s biggest mistake.
Helen Castor – Jane struggles to build an army but people are flocking to Mary by choice.
Anna Whitelock – Mary’s life can be characterised by fortune and adversity. By Henry VIII’s will and Act of Parliament, Mary and Elizabeth back in the succession, even though still illegitimate.
John Guy – Edward thought he had the right to make his own succession settlement.
Helen Castor – Public thought Mary had the blood claim to the throne. Another reason just as powerful.
John Guy – Religion came very much into it. Edward had brought in a Protestant settlement.
Joanne Paul – Difficult to overstate how dramatic this change would have been. Religion was so fundamental a part of people’s lives. Change would undermine their sense of faith and normalcy.
Helen Castor – In July 1553, the choice the country faced was not just Jane or Mary, it was Protestant or Catholic.
Helen Castor – It is an extraordinary thing to read the king’s own record of his daily life in his own handwriting and to touch the paper that Edward touched is spine tingling.
Helen Castor – The diary makes clear Mary’s strength of character in resisting Edward’s Protestant reforms.
Stephan Edwards – Mary had survived the break with Rome, she had survived her brother’s reformation.
Anna Whitelock – She saw this as her divine duty. God was preserving her through these years in order to bring out the Catholic restoration.
Helen Castor – Most people saw Mary as the rightful heir and Jane as an usurper to the Tudor line.
Jane decides that Northumberland will lead the fight against Mary instead of her father.
John Guy – Jane is queen but only in a titular sense.
Helen Castor – Jane’s decision to let Northumberland leave London is a fatal error.
David Saul – Northumberland thinks he holds all the power. To move to the west of Mary, link up with his son, not allowing Mary to move westerly. She can’t move east, 6 warships will block the coast, to prevent her from escaping or imperial forces aiding her.
Helen Castor – At 8pm Mary arrives at Framlingham Castle and is greeted by an overwhelming display of support.
Anna Whitelock – Base where she was going to engage the enemy.
Helen Castor – It is remarkable that in a matter of days, Mary has been able to rally such substantial forces.
13th July
Helen Castor – Northumberland leaves Durham House to ride out to Framlingham. Northumberland’s speech betrays the fracture lines in Jane’s council.
Anna Whitelock – Mary looks out into the local deer park and she sees local commons and gentry gathering. The people she believes will secure the throne for her.
Unprecedented times, a woman fighting for the throne, with people looking to her as their commander.
Helen Castor – Momentum is moving to Mary all the time.
Stephan Edwards – The gentry are moving to her.
Cornwallis, a supporter of Jane in Mary’s heartland. Corwallis realises he has dangerously underestimated the popularity of Mary with the people. Tenants will not support Jane, so Lords are forced to change sides.
Helen Castor – We are seeing something extraordinary. We are seeing that the feeling that Jane is the wrong woman on the throne has started with the people but is so powerful that it has begun to force the political elite into action.
Mary, the old King’s daughter is a powerful figurehead for whom people are prepared to lay down their lives. Jane is the exact opposite, so young and almost completely unknown and at this most critical point hidden away in the Tower. She is a distant figure to the people who’s Queen she claims to be.
14th July
Helen Castor – Geography of Jane’s world. 5 key places along the river Thames – Syon House, Chelsea, Durham House, Tower, Greenwich Palace.
Helen Castor – Unlike Mary, Jane’ life up to this point had not been a public one, her time had been spent in study and prayer, and as a result she had become a role model for other protestant noble women.
Leanda de Lisle – She is educated to be an example to others. At 14 she is getting letters from adult women saying they admire her for learning and holiness.
Helen Castor – Jane’s powerbase is starting to look dangerously narrow, pitied against Mary’s popularity with the people.
Jane alone in the tower, there are only limited ways she can play the part of queen. She calls for a list to be drawn up of jewels and royal valuables. Inventory made on 14th July. Lists almost 600 items of jewellery. Speculation why drawn up, Jane wanting to look the part as queen.
For Jane, the symbols of power, like power itself would never really be hers. She would not reign long enough for a coronation to take place.
15 July
Helen Castor – Northumberland heading for Cambridge.
Saul David – strategic position. Wait for reinforcements.
Helen Castor – Mary does not have Northumberland’s fire power. Here, Northumberland has a massive stroke of bad luck.
Saul David – A heavy north easterly wind that drove the royal ships to take refuge in an estuary.
Helen Castor – One of Mary’s household learns of this. Succeeds in persuading the captain and crew to change sides in favour of Mary.
Anna Whitelock – This was a massive coup. Ships representing the government, declaring in support of Mary. Gives her more men, ammunition, cannon.
Saul David – 5 of the 6 ships offload cannon and drag to Framlingham. This will outgun Northumberland.
Saul David – Mary gets cannon, ammunition and trained gunners.
Anna Whitelock – Mutiny is one of the key moments that shows that suddenly Mary is not only gaining support rapidly but actually becoming more than simply a contender and is actually seriously challenging the claim of Lady Jane and in a decisive way.
Helen Castor – Mary now has both support and artillery. Jane’s hold on the throne is looking increasingly vulnerable.
16th July
Helen Castor – Devastating news of the mutiny sends shockwaves through the Privy Council. Militia raised against Jane in Buckinghamshire.
Saul David – Overall lesson to be learned from this was that Northumberland and the members of the Privy Council underestimated the level of latent support, which later became overt support for Mary in the country as a whole.
Helen Castor – Five days ago the City and the Tower had been Jane’s powerbase but now the tables are turned and she is preparing it against attack.
Nobles beginning to think they had backed the wrong Queen.
Jane had been the ward of Thomas Seymour and his new wife, Katherine Parr, the widowed Queen of Henry VIII.
Jane wrote to Thomas Seymour in the autumn of 1548. The brutal reality of politics at the highest level was a lesson that Jane had to learn very young.
But even though she knows the risks, there is no going back for Jane. She has worn the crown, she has taken a stand, now she must see it through. Her last hope lies in keeping the loyalty of the Privy Council but without Northumberland’s reassuring presence, they being to falter.
If Jane could not rely on the loyalty of her council, she would imprison them with her, within her fortress. Get the sense that the Tower is shifting around Jane, from palace to prison.
Stephan Edwards – Jane did become a prisoner without knowing it. These members of the Council who were beginning to revolt, had moved out of the Tower.
Helen Castor – Jane continues to assert her power, sending out letters to key officials to demand their support. That and her decision to hold the keys to the Tower herself, might look like an assertion of power, but in fact it is a response to an increasingly precarious position. Outside the Towers walls there is a growing sense that she is standing in the way of the rightful successor, Mary.
Anna Whitelock – No one wants to be on the losing side. It is only when Mary begins to look like she really stands a chance, that people throw their lot in with her, which becomes absolutely crucial.
Saul David – Not only is Northumberland outnumbered but he is outgunned.
Helen Castor – Over the course of five days, Jane’s fortunes have changed dramatically. On the 12th she had the machinery of the Tudor state behind her, by the 16th her palace is becoming a prison. Mary now has a powerful army. She has the support of the people and the political elite are beginning to join her.
Everything now depends on Jane’s ability to hold her camp together but with their allegiances shifting by the day, she is starting to look dangerously isolated and if she loses this battle for the crown, she will pay with her life.
