Was Lady Jane Grey a legitimate Queen of England and Ireland?

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Catherine of Aragon, Felipe II of Spain, King Henry VIII of England, Lady Jane Grey, Queen Mary I of England, Roman Catholic Church, Third Succession Act, Treason Act, Usurper, Wyatt’s Rebellion

When reading the lists of the Kings and Queens of England, Scotland, Great Britain or the United Kingdom, there can be discrepancies regarding the reign of Lady Jane Grey; some will list her as a legitimate Queen of England and some will not.

The question I am examining is whether or not Lady Jane Grey can be considered a legitimate Queen of England and Ireland or should she be considered a usurper? The issue at hand is there is no authoritative body to judge either the legitimacy or illegitimacy of Jane’s 9 day reign. Therefore it is open to interpretation and historians have been debating this for many, many years.

I am just another voice in this chorus of historians debating this issue. I will state my case in this post to why I don’t believe that Jane Grey was the legal successor to King Edward VI.

Lady Jane Grey

My basic foundational premise is that England was and is a Kingdom ruled by laws and it is upon the interpretation of the laws and statutes in effect at the time of Edward VI’s death which forms my opinion on the legitimacy of Janes position as Queen.

When Edward VI died on July 6, 1553 at the age of 15 the Third Act of Succession was still the law of the land, and so was the 1547 Act of Treason. This means that both Mary and Elizabeth were still the legal heirs to their brother Edward.

The motive for Edward VI’s attempt at altering the succession was that the king’s death and the succession of his Catholic half-sister Mary would jeopardise the English Reformation, and Edward’s Council and officers had many reasons to fear it. Edward himself opposed Mary’s succession, not only on religious grounds but also on those of legitimacy and male inheritance, which also applied to his sister Elizabeth. Edward VI composed a draft document, headed “My devise for the succession”, in which he undertook to change the succession, most probably inspired by his father Henry VIII’s precedent. The provisions to alter the succession directly contravened Henry VIII’s Third Succession Act of 1543 and have been described as bizarre and illogical.

In early June of 1553 Edward VI personally supervised the drafting of a clean version of his devise (his Will altering the succession) by lawyers, to which he lent his signature “in six several places.” Then, on June 15, he summoned high ranking judges to his sickbed, commanding them on their allegiance “with sharp words and angry countenance” to prepare his devise as Letters Patent and announced that he would have these passed in Parliament.

However, before his Letters Patent could be passed by Parliament and receive the Royal assent, Edward died. Edward’s failure to have his Letters Patent passed by an Act of Parliament meant that The Treason Act, which made it high treason to change the line of succession to the throne, and the Third Act of Succession, we’re still the law of the land. Of course as king, Edward VI could have had both the Third Act of Succession and the Treason Act replaced with new laws, but since he died prior to accomplishing that requirement that means his sister Mary was the legal Queen per the terms of the Third Succession Act.

Let me restate what these two acts were. The Third Succession Act of King Henry VIII’s reign, passed by the Parliament of England in July 1543, returned his daughters Mary and Elizabeth to the line of the succession behind their half-brother Edward.

Edward VI, of England and Ireland

The Act was formally titled the Succession to the Crown Act 35 Hen. 8 c.1, and is also known as the Act of Succession 1543. The royal assent was given to this bill in the spring of 1544 at the conclusion of the 1543/1544 Parliament, but until 1793 acts were usually backdated to the beginning of the session of Parliament in which they were passed. (The Act is also often dated 1544.)

The Treason Act 1547 made it high treason to interrupt the line of succession to the throne established by the Act of Succession. Edward VI meant to bypass this Act in his “Devise for the Succession”, issued as Letters Patent on June 21, 1553, in which he named Lady Jane Grey as his successor. Prevailing over Lady Jane Grey, Mary ascended the throne under the terms of the Third Succession Act.

There is an interesting issue that the Third Act of Succession and the Treason Act 1547 did restore Mary and Elizabeth’s succession right but they did not restore their legitimacy.

The Third Succession Act superseded the First Succession Act (1533) and the Second Succession Act (1536), whose effects had been to declare bastards Henry’s daughters Mary and Elizabeth, and to remove them from succession to the throne. This new act returned both Mary and Elizabeth to the line of succession behind Edward, any potential children of Edward, and any potential children of Henry by his then wife, Catherine Parr, or any future wife Henry might have.

Mary I, Queen of England and Ireland

With the 1536 Act, Mary and Elizabeth, who had both been declared illegitimate and incapable to inherit, expressly remained illegitimate in the 1543/44 Act; they were only capacitated to succeed to the Crown (with several provisos, such as they could not marry without the Privy Council’s approval). This meant that the place in the succession of Mary and Elizabeth remained doubtful. Henry’s actual will (1547) simply confirmed their position as outlined in the 1543/44 statute.

Therefore Mary and Elizabeth’s right to accede to the throne is accepted by most as fact, but actually, this could be disputed. Under English law at this time, only legitimate children could inherit the throne. Mary had been declared illegitimate by her father Henry VIII after he proclaimed his marriage to Mary’s mother, Katherine of Aragon, invalid. Likewise, Elizabeth Tudor, half-sister to Edward and Mary, had also been declared illegitimate after Henry VIII declared that his marriage to her mother, Anne Boleyn, had also been invalid.

However, this all seems like a moot point in 1553. For after Mary entered London and Jane was arrested, Parliament declared Mary the rightful successor and denounced and revoked Jane’s proclamation as Queen of England and labeled her position as that of a usurper. In my view this Act of Parliament along with the fact that Edward never legalized his Letters Patent through an Act of Parliament is enough reason to view Jane as not the legitimate successor to Edward VI but as a usurper…albeit a puppet or pawn of those using her.

Also the question of Mary’s legitimacy is another moot point as evidenced by her Spanish marriage.

At age 37, Mary turned her attention to finding a husband and producing an heir, which would prevent the Protestant Elizabeth (still next-in-line under the terms of Henry VIII’s will and the Act of Succession of 1544) from succeeding to the throne. Edward Courtenay and Reginald Pole were both mentioned as prospective suitors, but her cousin, Holy Roman Emperor Charles V suggested she marry his only son, Prince Felipe of Spain.

Felipe II, King of Spain

Lord Chancellor Gardiner and the House of Commons unsuccessfully petitioned her to consider marrying an Englishman, fearing that England would be relegated to a dependency of the Habsburgs. The marriage was unpopular with the English; Gardiner and his allies opposed it on the basis of patriotism, while Protestants were motivated by a fear of Catholicism. When Mary insisted on marrying Felipe, insurrections broke out. Thomas Wyatt the younger led a force from Kent to depose Mary in favour of Elizabeth, as part of a wider conspiracy now known as Wyatt’s rebellion, which also involved the Duke of Suffolk, the father of Lady Jane. This rebellion sealed the fate of Lady Jane and her husband.

Mary declared publicly that she would summon Parliament to discuss the marriage, and if Parliament decided that the marriage was not to the advantage of the kingdom, she would refrain from pursuing it. After The Act for the Marriage of Queen Mary to Felipe of Spain or Queen Mary’s Marriage Act (1 Mar. Sess. 3 c. 2) was passed by the Parliament of England in April 1554, their wedding at Winchester Cathedral on July 25, 1554 took place just two days after their first meeting. Felipe could not speak English, and so they spoke in a mixture of Spanish, French, and Latin.

My point in stating the history of her marriage suggests that the Spanish Government, along with Emperor Charles V and Felipe of Spain, did not view her as illegitimate. Indeed, being a strongly Catholic country all involved would not have sanctioned such a union if Mary carried the taint of illegitimacy. Further, now enthroned as Queen this did place the Catholic Church back in power in England and according to the Church Mary was legitimate as the legal offspring of King Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon and never recognized their divorce and Mary being a bastard.

Jane Grey is seen as a tragic figure and she certainly was. “The traitor-heroine of the Reformation”, as historian Albert Pollard called her, was only 16 or 17 years old at the time of her execution. During and in the aftermath of the Marian persecutions, Jane became viewed as a Protestant martyr for centuries, featuring prominently in the several editions of the Book of Martyrs (Actes and Monuments of these Latter and Perillous Dayes) by John Foxe.

Incidentally, There is no proven contemporary portrait of Lady Jane Grey that survives.

This date in History. October 1, 1553: Coronation of Queen Mary I of England and Ireland.

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coronation, Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, Duke of Suffolk, Elizabeth I, Henry VIII, Kings and Queens of England, Lord Guilford Dudley, Mary I, Mary Tudor, Third Succession Act, Westminster Abbey

Mary I (February 18, 1516 – November 17, 1558), also known as Mary Tudor, was the Queen of England and Ireland from July 1553 until her death. She is best known for her aggressive attempt to reverse the English Reformation, which had begun during the reign of her father, Henry VIII and return England to Roman Catholicism. The executions that marked her pursuit of the restoration of Roman Catholicism in England and Ireland led to her denunciation as “Bloody Mary” by her Protestant opponents.

Accession

On July 6, 1553, at the age of 15, King Edward VI died from a lung infection, possibly tuberculosis. He did not want the crown to go to his sister Mary, because he feared she would restore Catholicism and undo his reforms as well as those of his father Henry VIII, and therefore he planned to exclude her from the line of succession. His advisers, however, told him that he could not disinherit only one of his half-sisters: he would have to disinherit Elizabeth as well, even though she was a Protestant. Guided by John Dudley, 1st Duke of Northumberland, and perhaps others, Edward excluded both from the line of succession in his will.

Contradicting the Third Succession Act, which was enacted by Henry VIII and passed by the Parliament of England in July 1543; the Act restored Mary and Elizabeth to the line of succession, Edward named Dudley’s daughter-in-law Lady Jane Grey, the granddaughter of Henry VIII’s younger sister, Mary, as his successor. Lady Jane’s mother was Frances Brandon, Mary’s cousin and goddaughter. Just before Edward VI’s death, Mary was summoned to London to visit her dying brother. She was warned, however, that the summons was a pretext on which to capture her and thereby facilitate Lady Jane’s accession to the throne. Therefore, instead of heading to London from her residence at Hunsdon, Mary fled into East Anglia, where she owned extensive estates and Dudley had ruthlessly put down Kett’s Rebellion. Many adherents to the Catholic faith, opponents of Dudley’s, lived there. On July 9, from Kenninghall, Norfolk, she wrote to the privy council with orders for her proclamation as Edward’s successor.

On July 10, 1553, Lady Jane was proclaimed queen by Dudley and his supporters, and on the same day Mary’s letter to the council arrived in London. Despite Edward’s desire to exclude Mary from the throne it was never approved by Parliament which mean that the Third Succession Act was still the extant law of the land which meant Mary was still her brother’s legal heir and successor.

By July 12, Mary and her supporters had assembled a military force at Framlingham Castle, Suffolk, Dudley’s support collapsed, and Jane’s attempt at usurpation was halted on July 19. Although truth be told Jane and her husband were mere pawns of Dudley’s schemes. Jane and Lord Guilford Dudley were imprisoned in the Tower of London. Mary rode triumphantly into London on August 3, 1553, on a wave of popular support. She was accompanied by her half-sister Elizabeth and a procession of over 800 nobles and gentlemen.

One of Mary’s first actions as queen was to order the release of the Roman Catholic Duke of Norfolk and Stephen Gardiner from imprisonment in the Tower of London, as well as her kinsman Edward Courtney. Mary understood that the young Lady Jane was essentially a pawn in Dudley’s scheme, and Dudley was the only conspirator of rank executed for high treason in the immediate aftermath of the coup. Lady Jane and her husband, Lord Guildford Dudley, though found guilty, were kept under guard in the Tower rather than immediately executed, while Lady Jane’s father, Henry Grey, 1st Duke of Suffolk, was released. Mary was left in a difficult position, as almost all the Privy Counsellors had been implicated in the plot to put Lady Jane on the throne. She appointed Gardiner to the council and made him both Bishop of Winchester and Lord Chancellor, offices he held until his death in November 1555. Susan Clarencieux became Mistress of the Robes. On October 1, 1553, Gardiner crowned Mary at Westminster Abbey.

Legal Succession: Mary & Jane Part II

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Duke of Northumberland, Henry VIII, James IV, John Dudley, King Edward VI, King of Scots, Roman Catholic Church, Third Succession Act

In the summer of 1553 the 15-year-old King Edward VI was dying. His Catholic half-sister Mary was still the heiress presumptive to the throne. However, Edward VI, under the pressure from the Duke of Northumberland, bypassed his cousin, Frances Brandon, and named her eldest daughter, the Protestant Lady Jane Grey, as his successor. All of this information was placed in his will, which he passed via letters patent on June 21. These changes to the succession were co-signed by 102 notables, among them the entire Privy Council, peers, bishops, judges, and London aldermen. Edward desired that these changes be passed in Parliament in September. However, prior to the final legal steps, Edward VI died on July 10, 1553.

The privy Council proclaimed Lady Jane Grey as the first Queen Regnant of England. Jane, who just happened to be married to Lord Gilford Dudley, the youngest son of the Duke of Northumberland, was transferred to the Tower of London to await her coronation, per tradition.

One of the grave mistakes Northumberland made at this point was that he forgot to take hold of Mary herself prior to the death of the King. With Mary still free, she was able to easily claim her throne from Jane. The defacto reign of Queen Jane lasted 9 days.

Edward’s failure to have his letters passed by an Act of Parliament still mean that not only was the Third Act of Succession still the law of the land, so was the 1547 Act of Treason. The Treason Act made it high treason to change the line of succession to the throne that had been established by Third Act of Succession. Of course as king, Edward VI could have had both the Third Act of Succession and the Treason Act replaced with new laws, but since he died prior to accomplishing that requirement that his sister Mary was the legal Queen per the terms of the Third Succession Act.

Queen Mary entered London in a triumphal procession on August 3rd, and the Duke of Northumberland was executed on August 22, 1553. In September, Parliament declared that Mary was the rightful queen and denounced and revoked Jane’s proclamation and labeled her a usurper. Jane and Lord Guildford Dudley were both charged with high treason, together with two of Dudley’s brothers and the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer. Their trial, by a special commission, took place on November 13, 1553.

All defendants charged were found guilty and sentenced to death. Jane was to “be burned alive on Tower Hill or beheaded as the Queen pleases.” However, Mary planned on pardoning her cousin and this was reported to the imperial ambassador to Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor and King of Spain. Mary was planning on marrying her cousin, Prince Felipe of Austria, future King of Spain, son of Charles V.

Sadly, Jane’s fate took a turn for the worst with the Protestant rebellion of Thomas Wyatt the younger in January of 1554. Jane had nothing to do with this rebellion which was triggered by the prospective marriage of Mary and Felipe. What sealed her fate was the fact that Jane’s father, the Duke of Suffolk, and his two brothers joined the rebellion, which caused the government to go through with the verdict against Jane and Guildford. Their execution was first scheduled for February 9, 1554 , but was then postponed for three days so that Jane should get a chance to be converted to the Catholic faith. This attempt at conversion failed and both Lady Jane and her husband, Lord Guilford, were beheaded on the morning of February 12, 1554.

The tale of Lady Jane is tragic. She was only 17 and many historians believe she was and unwilling pawn of those around her. Steadfast in her Protestant faith she became a martyr for the Protestant cause.

Legal Succession: Mary & Jane: Part I

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Duke of Northumberland, Henry VIII, James IV, John Dudley, King Edward VI, King of Scots, Roman Catholic Church, Third Succession Act

Although Henry VIII caused the upheaval of many lives in trying to secure a male heir, he ended up leaving a sickly male child on the throne. King Edward VI was only 9 years old when he mounted the throne. Because of his age he ruled under a Regency Council.  The Council was first led by his uncle Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset, (1547–1549), and then by John Dudley, 1st Earl of Warwick, from 1551 Duke of Northumberland.

Edward did not live long and died at the age of 15 from consumption (Tuberculosis). His death saw another struggle for the crown. A new element was introduced for the struggle for the crown that had not been an issue in other battles for the throne. The issue was religion. In trying to secure a male heir and a divorce from Catherine of Aragon, Henry VIII broke from the Roman Catholic Church and created the Protestant Church of England with himself as its head. This move would cause great strife and pain and have historical repercussion that would stretch into today.

During the reign of Henry VIII and his struggle for an heir, his children were on a roller coaster of being accepted and rejected. Edward’s sisters, Mary & Elizabeth, were at times removed from the succession and batserdized, only to be returned to the succession and legitimized later. Their final acceptance came in Henry VIII’s last Will which restored both Mary & Elizabeth to their rights to the throne and were once and for all declared legitimate.

In 1543 Henry enacted the Third Succession Act. This Act gave the children of Henry VIII the succession. The Act gave the descendents of Henry’s sister Mary rights to the throne and barred the right of succession to the Scottish descendants of his sister Margaret who married James IV, King of Scots. According to the Act if Edward VI had no issue the throne would go to his elder sister, Mary, a devout Catholic. John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, was regent at the time and a Protestant. He and others in power did not want the crown to go to the Catholic Mary.

Part II will examine, in-depth, who had the legal right to be England’s first Queen regnant, Jane or Mary?