The executions of Guildford and Jane were noted in the Chronicle of the Grey Friars,
‘Item the xij. of Februarij was beheddyd wythin the tower lady Jane that wolde a bene qwene; and hare husband whose name was Gylford Dudley at the Tower-hyll.’ (1)
Guildford was executed first on Tower Hill. According to the author of ‘The Chronicle of Queen Jane’, Jane had watched him leave the confines of the Tower and also saw his body returned for burial, ‘a sight to hir no lesse then death. (2)
Before leaving her rooms, Jane had written one last message in her prayerbook, this time to the Lieutenant of the Tower, Sir John Brydges. As she made the short walk to the scaffold, which was ‘made upon the grene over against the White tower,’ (3) Jane read from this book. On the scaffold, Jane addressed the small crowd who had gathered to see her die.
Less than a month later, Peter Martyr wrote to Henry Bullinger, ‘Jane, who was formerly queen, conducted herself at her execution with the greatest fortitude and godliness, as did also her father and her husband.’ (4)
Sources
1.The Chronicle of the Grey Friars: Mary’, in Chronicle of the Grey Friars of London Camden Society Old Series: Volume 53, ed. J G Nichols (London, 1852), pp. 80-98. British History Online URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/camden-record-soc/vol53/pp80-98 Date accessed: 26 January 2022
2.Nichols, J. G (ed) (1850) The Chronicle of Queen Jane and of Two Years of Queen Mary and Especially of the Rebellion of Sir Thomas Wyatt, Written by a Resident in the Tower of London, Llanerch Publishers, p.54-59
3.Ibid.
4.Original Letters Relative to the English Reformation, Written during the Reigns of King Henry VIII, King Edward VI and Queen Mary (Volume One), Translated and edited for the Parker Society by Rev Hastings Robinson, 1846, University Press.
