Lady Jane Grey (1536/7 - 1554)
and Other Thoughtful Things
Some Grey Matter
is about Lady Jane Grey,
England's 'nine-days queen' of 1553.
As the site develops and time allows, I will be posting here many of the bits and pieces of my research and writing on Jane Grey, as well as material on other topics.
One of my principal goals in creating this site is to make available to students of history some of the primary source materials related to Jane Grey that are not otherwise easily accessed. In particular, I hope to include English translations of the many Italian-language sources of the late sixteenth century, specifically those of Girolamo Pollini, Michaelangelo Florio, and Giovanni Raviglio Rosso.
On the Primary Source Bibliography page, readers will find a comprehensive listing of all of the manuscripts and early printed books I have found thus far that contain material relevant to Jane Grey. Many, if not most, of these items are not available to the general public, however, and can be accessed only by visiting the appropriate archive in which they are deposited, e.g., the British National Archives, the British Library, etc.
The Primary Source Transcriptions page will direct you to additional pages on which I have posted transcriptions of some of these relatively inaccessible materials. If you have interest in or need for a particular item listed in the Primary Source Bibliography but do not find it on the Transcriptions pages, let me know and I will prioritize it among forthcoming additions (assuming it is not a copyrighted item).
Other pages include a Secondary Source Bibliography that contains my assessment of many of the works already written about Jane Grey. There is also a page that explains the difference between a "primary source" and a "secondary source."
Tudor-era portraiture has developed into a major compenent of this site. The the majority of my work in that area has been directly related to portraiture of Jane Grey, some of it has also included other figures of the period, especially my recent re-identification of a portrait once thought to depict Elizabeth Tudor as a princess in 1553 but shown here to be instead a portrait of Lady Mary Rogers Harington, wife of the inventor of the "water closet."
There is also a section devoted to material I have published in academic journals, especially my two articles re-evaluating the tradition that assigns Jane Grey's date of birth to the same week in October 1537 as her kingly cousin, Edward VI.
Lastly, in addition to a page of links to some of my favorite sites related to Tudor history in general and Jane Grey in particular, I include pages dealing with some of the oddities associated with Jane Grey that sometimes appear for sale on Internet-based commercial websites.
I am always happy to answer questions about Jane Grey, or about Tudor history in general, and I am especially keen to assist high school and university students studying history. If you have a question not already addressed by the Question and Answer page, send me an e-mail and I will try to answer as quickly and as thoroughly as I can.
Site Features:
About Me - J. Stephan Edwards, Ph.D.
Ask the Professor - Your Questions Answered
General Bibliography - Annotated with my own assessment of each work
Primary vs Secondary Sources - What is the difference?
Proclamation of Accession - With an image of part of the original from 1553
Jewel Inventory - A list of jewels "borrowed" from the Wardrobe on Jane's behalf
Jewel Warrant - The signed warrant authorizing the "borrowing" of the jewels
Thomas Chaloner's Elegy on the Death of Lady Jane Grey - The Latin original
with two English translations
Portraits of Lady Jane Grey - With an Introduction page
The Fitzwilliam Portrait - A possible life-portrait of Lady Jane Grey
The Streatham Portrait - The posthumous portrait at the National Portrait Gallery
The Wrest Park Portrait - A portrait, probably posthumous, in a private collection
The Yale Miniature - A controversial recent "discovery"
On the Date of Birth of Lady Jane Grey Dudley
A Further Note on the Date of Birth of Lady Jane Grey
A "New" Letter From the Reign of Queen Jane? - Sold in 2008 on eBay
A Portrait of Lady Mary Rogers Harington - Formerly labeled "Princess Elizabeth, afterwards Queen," here re-identified
Other Thoughtful Things - Coming Soon, A Few Products Of My
'Grey Matter' From Beyond Tudor History
Links - To some of my favorite history-related websites
Contact:
Historian [at] somegreymatter [dot] com
(Not a "clickable" link. Type into your email program substituting "@" for "[at]" and "." for "[dot]", then delete all spaces.
Site created 2005, Page updated 26 June 2009
Copyright © 2005 - 2009, J. Stephan Edwards
No portion of this site may be reproduced in part or in whole without written permission of the author.