# A Biographical Dictionary of the Celebrated Women of Every Age and Country/Grey, (Lady Jane)

Edward VI. was deemed almost a prodigy of learning for his early years; yet, in this respect, his pious cousin, Lady Jane, was allowed to be his superior, ​though there was but about two years difference in age. She spoke and wrote her own language with peculiar accuracy; and, it is said, that the French, Italian, Latin, and Greek languages, were as familiar to her as the English; for she not only understood them perfectly, but wrote them with the utmost freedom, not only in the opinion of superficial judges, but of Mr. Ascham and Dr. Aylmer, men who, in point of veracity, were as much above suspicion, as in point of abilities they were incapable of being deceived. Lady Jane became also versed in Hebrew, Chaldee, and Arabic, played well on instrumental music, wrote a fine hand, and was excellent at her needle, and of mild, humble, and modest spirit. She had early imbibed the principles of the Protestant religion, which she embraced, as Dr. Heylin, in his History of the Reformation, observes, not out of any outward compliance with the times, but because her own judgment was fully satisfied of its truth and purity, which appeared from her constant adherence to it, when neither the hope of grandeur nor the fear of death could reconcile her to the Romish church.
Her very strong affection for learning is shewn by this remarkable testimony of Mr. Ascham. "Before I went into Germany, I came to Broadgate, in Leicestershire, to take my leave of that noble lady Jane Grey, to whom I was exceeding much beholding. Her parents, the duke and the duchess, with all the household, gentlemen and gentlewomen, were hunting in the park. I found her in her chamber, reading Phœdon Platonis, Greek, and that with as much delight as some gentlemen would read a merry tale in Boccace. After salutation, and duty done, with some other talk, I asked her, why she should lose so much pastime in the park? ​Smiling, she answered me, "I wist all their sport in the park is but a shadow to that pleasure that I find in Plato. Alas! good folk, they never felt what true pleasure meant,"—"And how came you, Madam," quoth I, "to this deep knowledge of pleasure, and what did chiefly allure you unto it, seeing not many women, and but very few men have attained thereunto?"—"I will tell you," said she, "and tell you a truth, which perchance you will marvel at. One of the greatest benefits that God ever gave me, is, that he sent me so sharp and severe parents, and so gentle a schoolmaster; for when I am in presence of either father or mother, whether I speak, keep silence, sit, stand, or go, eat, drink, be merry or sad, be sewing, dancing, or doing any thing else, I must do it as it were, in such weight, measure, and number, even so perfectly as God made the world, or else I am so sharply taunted, so cruelly threatened, yea presently sometimes, with pinches, nips, and bobs, and other ways (which I will not name for the honour I bear them) without measure misordered, till the time come that I must go to Mr. Elmer, who teacheth me so gently, so pleasantly, with such fair allurements to learning, that I think all the time nothing whiles I am with him. And when I am called from him, I fall on weeping, because whatsoever I do else, but learning, is full of grief, trouble, fear, and whole misliking unto me. And thus my book hath been so much my pleasure, and bringeth to me daily more pleasure, and more that in respect of it, all other pleasures in very deed, are but trifles and very troubles unto me." I remember this talk very gladly, (says Mr. Ascham), both because it is so worthy of memory, and because also it was the last talk that ever I had, and the last time that ever I saw that noble and worthy lady."
​Her great attainments and amiable qualities endeared her so much to the young king, Edward VI. that he was the more easily seduced by the artifices of the duke of Northumberland to seclude his two sisters, Mary and Elizabeth, from the succession, and convey it by will to the Lady Jane. The duke, in order to get the crown into the possession of his own family, contrived a match between the Lord Guildford Dudley, his fourth son, and the Lady Jane, which was solemnized at Durham-place, in May, 1553. Soon after her marriage, the king’s health declined apace, and he died the 6th of July following, 1553, not without suspicion of poison.
These previous steps being taken, and the Tower and city of London secured, on Monday, July 10, the two dukes repaired to Durham-house, where the lady Jane resided with her husband. There the duke of Suffolk, with much solemnity, explained to his daughter the disposition the late king had made of his crown; the clear sense the privy-council had of her right; the consent of the magistrates and citizens, and with Northumberland, paid her homage as queen of England. Greatly astonished at their discourse, but not at all persuaded by their reasons, or elevated by such unexpected honours, she returned them an answer to this effect: "That the laws of the kingdom, and the natural right standing for the king's sisters, she would beware of burdening her weak conscience with a joke that did belong to them; that she understood the infamy of those who had permitted the violation of right to gain a sceptre; that it were to mock God, and deride justice, to scruple at the stealing of a shilling, and not at the usurpation of a crown. Besides," said she, "I am not so young, nor so little read in the smiles of fortune, to suffer myself to be taken by them. If she enrich any, it ​is but to make them the subject of her spoil; if she raise others, it is but to pleasure herself with their ruins; what she adored but yesterday, to-day is her pastime; and if I now permit her to adorn and crown me, I must to-morrow suffer her to crush and tear m.e to pieces. My liberty is better than the chain you proffer me, with what precious stones soever it be adorned, or of what gold soever framed. I will not exchange m.y place for honourable and precious jealousies, for magnificent and glorious fetters; and if you love me sincerely, and in good earnest, you v/ill rather wish me a secure and quiet fortune, though mean, than an exalted condition, exposed to the wind, and followed by some dismal fall."
However, she was at length prevailed upon by her father, mother, and Northumberland, but above all, by the earnest desires of her husband, whom she tenderly loved, to yield to their request; with a heavy heart suffering herself to be conveyed to the Tower, where she entered with all the state of a queen, attended by the principal nobility, and her train supported by the duchess of Suffolk, her mother, in whom, if in any of this line, the right of succession remained. About six o'clock in the afternoon, she was proclaimed with all due solemnities in the city: the same day she also assumed the regal title, and proceeded afterwards to exercise acts of sovereignty. But the preparations made by Mary to recover her right, with the general coldness and neglect observed in the Lady Jane's cause, induced the two dukes, after a few days of mock grandeur, to drop their ambitious views, and feign submission to Mary. Upon this sudden turn, the duke, her father, came, and in the gentlest terms required her to lay aside the state of a queen, and content herself with the condition of a sub​ject. She, not at all discomposed, told him, that she TV as much better pleased with this news than when she ascended the throne purely in obedience to himself and her mother.
Mary being seated on the throne. Lady Jane, with her husband, were committed to the Tower, and on the 13th of November both arraigned at Guildhall, and brought in guilty of treason, but not executed till the duke of Suffolk engaged in Wyat's rebellion, which proved fatal to his excellent daughter, as the ministry now advised the queen to proceed to extremities, since, they said, she could not be safe so long as Lady Jane was living.
This being resolved on, many of the Roman Catholics of learning and abilities were sent to her, to dissuade her from the religion she had always professed, each striving to convert her to the Romish church; but all their efforts were fruitless, for she had art and wisdom to withstand their flatteries, and constancy above their menaces. At last Mr. Feckingham, chaplain to the queen, was sent to give her notice of her death; and offered to reconcile her to the church of Rome. She received the first part of his message with great temper and unconcern, but said, she had no leisure to enter upon controversy, and should spend the little time she had in preparing for eternity. Mr. Feckingham, on this, procured a respite for three days; but when he acquainted her with it, he desired she would hear him upon the subject of religion. She told him, he mistook her meaning, that she was by no means fond of living any longer, and had not the least intention he should solicit the queen on that account; but Mr. Feckingham being very pressing to converse with her on religious topics, at last they engaged in a dispute concerning justification by ​faith, the number of sacraments, transubstantiation, communion in one kind, and the authority of the church. This conference gained her much esteem, and is greatly admired and commended by bishop Burnet, Mr. Collier, and other ecclesiastical historians.
Holinshed and Sir Richard Baker inform us, that she wrote divers excellent treatises; but what they were, or where to be found, is not mentioned. Many of her letters remain, remarkably elegant and pious.
On the morning of execution. Lord Guildford earnestly desired to take his last farewell of her; but she declined it, saying, they should soon meet again, and it would only add to their present affliction. All she could do, was to give him a farewell from a window; but when she went to the scaffold, she met his dead body, which moved her to tears. Having ascended it, she declared herself innocent of any wilful transgression of the laws of the kingdom; saying, that her crime was the being too easily persuaded, but she did not murmur at her sentence, and submitted to the scaffold with admirable meekness and composure, at the age of seventeen.
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