Now, we all know my area of expertise is eighteenth and nineteenth century, folklore and local history, but like so much of the population, I do also have an interest in the Tudor court and it's current cultural representation in TV programs, movies and books. Due to this, one thing I always like to see is a famous name attached to some local history!
Lady Jane Grey's story is an unfortunate one! Lady Jane, if you don't know who she was, was a young woman who had the misfortune to be placed on the throne of England where she reigned for only 9 days before her arrest. She was the Great-granddaughter of Henry VII (The first Tudor King). Her mother was Frances Brandon, who was in turn the daughter of Mary Tudor (the sister of Henry VIII). Due to these royal connections, When Henry's only son, Edward VI was newly king, Jane was a good candidate to have become his wife, and would have been if her uncle (who was orchestrating the union) had not been arrested and later executed for treason, leading Jane to marry a youth called Lord Dudley instead. Jane's other link to the Tudor court was her childhood spent as the ward of Henry VIII's surviving wife, Katherine Parr.
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| A later imagining of LJG from 1793 courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery (Academic Licence) |
When Edward VI died his untimely death, Lady Jane's husband and father moved swiftly to put her on the throne due to the fact that Edward himself had named her heir due to the issues surrounding his sister's legitimacy (left over grief from Henry's various ways of ending his marriages!). This did not go down well, however, with the soon to be queen Mary I. The Greys did not have the public's support either, and so any powerful supporters they had to the claim soon melted away. Lady Jane, her husband and father were all arrested for high treason and on November 14th, 1553, found themselves in the Tower of London facing high treason charges. Initially, Lady Jane's father was pardoned but both her and her husband were sentenced to death. Lady Jane's sentence was initially suspended. In 1554, however, a new rebellion was started in her name. This new rebellion failed and both Lady Jane and her husband (as well as her previously pardoned father who was tied up in the new rebellion) were executed. Lady Jane Grey is said in popular legend to have fainted when the plot to make her Queen as announced, and was just 17 years old when she died. She has long since been remembered as an innocent victim of her family's greed.
So what were Lady Jane's ties to Devon?
I first saw Lady Jane's name tied to Devon whilst reading up on a manor house in Ilfracombe after being told a ghost story for my book. The suite of haunted rooms is named the Lady Jane Rooms. Intrigued, I pushed on and discovered that in fact the house there had previously belonged to Lady Jane's mother. From what I can gather in my research, there is no evidence to say whether a young Lady Jane ever spent any time in the house but it is unlikely that she lived there, however it is more than possible she visited! The main bedroom there holds a Tudor era tapestry which has a coat of arms on it which is that of a relation of the Grey family. Chambercombe Manor (the house in question) also has a history of hauntings associated with these rooms but they pertain not to Lady Jane herself, but to another lady who stayed in those rooms. (If you like ghost stories, check out some of my other posts HERE).
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| A famous (much later) painting of Lady Jane's Execution from 1833 (Paul Delaroche) |
Whilst Lady Jane did not necessarily spend much time in Devon herself, there are actually several other close family links! Her grandparents owned a house over near the Wiltshire border named Knightstone, and her father also had a house built near Exeter - Peamore House - which reverted to the crown and was sold after his execution. Even Boringdon Hall - that gorgeous old Tudor house near Plymouth (where, incidentally, I married my first husband!) was owned by Henry Grey for a short time, before being sold on.