David N. asks: I read recently that Jane Grey's birthday has changed. What is that              about?

Answer: The exact date of Lady Jane Grey's birth has never been known. Traditionally, she has been said              to have been born in the same week, even on the same day, as Henry VIII's son Prince Edward              (Jane's cousin). Documents of the period suggest that this is not possible, however. Oxford              University Press will be publishing an article in their journal Notes and Queries in September of              2007 in which it is argued that Jane must have been born before July 1537. The exact date remains              a mystery, however, because birth certificates did not yet exist and no baptismal record for Jane or              her sisters survives.

Anon. asks : I am curious about the austere background and strong cast shadow in              the Eworth portrait? That doesn't seem typical of Tudor portraits. Is the              shadow prophetic?

Answer: The background is indeed unusual among Tudor-era portraits. Sitters in the period were more              commonly depicted in an elaborately decorated setting. At least one art historian thinks the lack of              rich background in this portrait may indicate that the sitter is an unknown foreign lady. While this is              certainly possible, it is also conceivable that Eworth simply chose to emphasize the sitter rather than              allowing the setting to distract the eye of the viewer. See, for example, his portrait of Anne              Penruddocke, which has an equally austere backdrop. As to the second question, if the painting              was created during Jane Grey's lifetime, the shadow cannot be intentionally prophetic of her fate              since that outcome was not yet even guessed at. The shadow cannot be anything more than an              ironic coincidence.

Hariette asks: I'm a high school student in Australia basing my historical investigation              on Tudor Women. I particularly grew interested in Lady Jane Grey and I need a              historical debate to further my research on her, except I find it hard to develop              such a question. I came up with minor questions like: - What were the              constraints put upon Lady Jane? - How have historians written about Lady              Jane Grey, from that time in contrast to the present day? But my teacher wants              more. Can you please help me develop some historical questions concerning              Jane?

Answer: Since it your assignment to come up with the questions, I'm not going to give them to              you outright, but I can offer a few directions in which you might begin thinking. On your              first question, "what were the constraints put upon Lady Jane Grey," try refining that one              general question into several specific ones. In other words, think about the areas or aspects of her              life in which she might have been constrained (for example, religion, childhood, marriage, even being              queen), then ask what kinds of constraints she may have faced in that specific area. Think about              where those constraints came from, and why they existed at all. Why would anyone want to              constrain a queen? Aren't queens in charge? So what was it about Jane or her era that made              anyone think they needed to constrain her? Think about larger issues in society, issues that affected              entire groups rather than individuals. I think your second question is far more interesting and              certainly a major question, but perhaps more difficult for you to answer unless you have easy access              to a good university library. In particular, you might think about why historians in different periods              might have written differently about Jane Grey (and they certainly did!). Try looking at the              bibliography page of this website, and notice the different dates when some of the works were              published (Strickland, Davey, Chapman, Plowden, Taylor). Think about what might have been              going on at those times that might have affected how writers thought about Jane. Here's a clue:              Strickland wrote mostly about women, and she wrote at a time when society actually wanted              women to be "perfect angels," quiet, obedient to fathers and husbands, studious, religious,              saint-like. Was Strickland affected by this Victorian notion of ideal womanhood, and did it affect              how she presented Jane Grey, did it guide her choice of words? Hopefully this will help a bit. And              good luck with your assignment!

Natalie asks: I am a third year undergraduate student of history in a UK university and              am attempting to write a dissertation on Lady Jane Grey and the 1553              succession.  At the moment I'm struggling to find credible primary material and              was wondering if you could help. 

Answer: Primary source material for Jane Grey is scarce, when compared to the amount available for              some of her royal contemporaries,especially Elizabeth and Mary Tudor. And much of what there is              has not been published in printed form, but must instead be accessed using original handwritten              documents stored in various archives in the United Kingdom. The British Library (BL) has the              largest collection of these. Since you are at a UK university, have a look at my                           Primary Source Bibliography page, where I list all of the handwritten documents related to Jane              Grey that are accessible in the BL and other UK archives. Among printed sources, many are rare              books that are not readily available to most students and researchers. If your local university or              public library subscribes to the online database Early English Books Online (EEBO), however, you              can find there a large number of valuable sources. EEBO allows subscribers to read tens of              thousands of books printed before 1800 by means of digital scans. It is also fully searchable. It is an              outstanding resource for anyone studying early modern British history. If your local library does not              subscribe to EEBO, however, you will have to find a specialty research library that has a substantial              rare books collection in order to access those materials.

Ani asks: I am a high school student who wants to major in history at college, get a              PhD, and become a professor of Tudor history. Any advice?

Answer: First, I wish you the very best of luck with your studies and fulfilling your dreams! Teaching, at              any level, is an admirable profession.
             That said, I encourage you to be very realistic about your plan to accomplish your goal. There are              exceptionally few jobs out there, especially in the US, for college and university teachers of Tudor              history, or even general British history. I cannot emphasize enough how few they really are. And              that scarcity is unlikely to improve. Yet there are literally hundreds of unemployed PhDs already              qualified who want those few jobs. So to make yourself as competitive as possible in such a difficult              job market:
                        You need to have nearly perfect grades, certainly a 3.9 or higher.
                        You need to be very careful about which undergaduate program you attend. It needs to be                                   among the top 20 in the country. "US News and World Report" magazine publishes a                                   ranking of schools every year. "Google" it and read it.
                        Apply to the top schools. Go to a top-ranked school if at all possible.
                        While an undergrad, make sure your grades stay at 3.9 or higher.
                        Take any and all honors level courses that you can.
                        Try to get a small article or paper published in an academic journal while still an undergrad.                                   That is difficult to do, but it will greatly improve your chances of getting in to a top                                   grad school.
                        When you go to grad school, try to get into and attend on the the top ten schools: Columbia,                                   Univ of Wisconsin- Madison, UC-Berkeley, Yale, Princeton, Harvard, Univ of                                   Chicago, Stanford, UCLA, Univ of Michigan-Ann Arbor. PhDs from those schools                                   are more likley to get hired into the few available jobs that are those from less                                   prestigious schools. That is just an unfortuntate and unfair reality, and anyone who                                   says otherwise is misleading you.
                        Join the various professional organizations: The American Historical Association, The North                                   American Conference on British Studies, The Sixteenth Century Society, The                         Renaissance Society of America, and others. Each has a website. Attend their                                   national conventions. Try to get a paper accepted for presentation at the regional or                                   national conferences. "Network" with those attending the conferences so that they will                                   begin to be familiar with your name.
                        Certainly you should try to get at least one article or paper published while still in grad                                   school. Being a university professor involves not only teaching but also constant                                   publishing. The cliche is "Publish or Perish." The earlier in your career that you begin                                   publishing, the better that your employment and promotion chances are likely to be.
             If you have any specific questions or need any guidance over the coming months or years, please,              always feel free to contact me. And again, Best of luck!

Veronica asks: I am a high school student who has chosen Lady Jane Grey as a              model for a history project, and I have only one question. I have read              conflicting evidence on Lady Jane being poisoned. I know we may never be              able to tell for sure, but what is your opinion on the matter?

Answer: An excellent question! Jane did claim to have been poisoned by her mother-in-law, the Duchess              of Northumberland, with whom she seems to have had on-going conflict. In my opinion, however,              what Jane really suffered was a kind of psychosomatic disorder. That is, she was so anxious about              how her life was going that she literally "made herself sick" with worry, much like modern people              developing ulcers from stress. In the early modern period and well into the nineteenth century,              illnesses that could not be easily explained by the limited level of medical knowledge of the day was              often ascribed to poisoning. And while some people were occasionally poisoned (usually              accidentally rather than deliberately), it was only very rarely that someone could accurately claim to              have been intentionally poisoned.

Norma asks: In your opinion do you think that Jane consummated her marriage to              Guildford Dudley, and do you think she had any feelings whatsoever for him?              Depending on what book you read she either had feelings for him or he raped              her.

Answer: Jane's marriage was consummated, yes. There is ample primary source evidence to support this              conclusion. Later suggestions that it was not consummated are based on two things. First,              Ambassador Scheyfve erroneously stated that it was not, an error based on his failure to              understand English marriage customs and on his confusion between the three Grey daughters all              married or betrothed on May 21, 1553. Second, Protestant martyrologists like John Foxe and John              Bale downplayed her marriage and mentioned it only briefly and in passing. They did not directly              address the issue of consummation, partly because actively mentioning it served no purpose. But              failing to mention it, coupled with minimizing mention of the marriage itself, did serve a purpose. In              order to present Jane as an ideal female martyr, it was more "politic" to allow readers to assume              that she might have been a virgin. For females to be considered true martyrs, virginity was a huge              asset. Sexually mature females were considered less pure, and therefore more problematic as              martyrs. Issues of female purity also affected how Victorian era writers presented Jane, so that they              were more prone, I believe, to continue the myth that she died a virgin, or that the loss of her              virginity was involuntary.

Norma also asks: Didn't Mary I give Jane the chance to save her own life if Jane              would renounce her religion and hold to the Catholic faith? So many books              with varying stories once again, I'm afraid.

Answer: The story about Jane's life being spared if she would convert is actually a later misunderstanding              of the events during the last three days of Jane's life. Mary sent her own confessor, Abbot John de              Feckenham, to plead with Jane to accept the Catholic faith before her death. Mary did not do this              in an effort to save Jane's life, however. Jane's death was by  then irrevocable. Mary did it instead              to save Jane's soul. Mary was somewhat fanatic about her faith, and was convinced that her young              cousin would "burn in hell forever" unless she accepted the Roman faith. If circumstances required              Mary to cause Jane suffering on earth, Mary meant to alleviate any eternal suffering. But because              Jane had become a focus for Protestant rebels to Mary's Catholic regime, Jane's death was a              political necessity.

Mona asks: Some writers have said that Jane was examined just before her death by              some matrons to see if she was pregnant. The well known Chronicle of Queen              Jane and Queen Mary does not mention this. Do you think this was an              invention by later writers?

Answer: No, I do not think it was an "invention," but at the same time, there is no direct documentation of              any kind to suggest that Jane was examined. There is sketchy evidence that some condemned              women were occasionally examined by a team of two or three midwives prior to their being              executed in an effort to determine whether or not they were pregnant. This does not appear to have              been a routine or standard practice, however, at least not in the mid sixteenth century. From what I              have been able to discover, none of the other women executed in the mid-Tudor period              were examined in this way (e.g., Anne Boleyn, Katherine Howard, Anne Askew). And there is no              documentation of any kind that Jane was examined. I suspect it is a colorful addition to her              story and that the addition was based in the fact that some women, especially those in later              centuries, were occasionally examined.

Mona also asks: In her book Lady Jane Grey, Hester W. Chapman mentioned that              Jane’s body was left on the scaffold for a while after her execution and before              it was buried, and that the French ambassador saw it. Is this a verifiable fact,              and from where? (Prof. adds to this question a related one that also occurs              frequently: People often say they have heard stories that Jane was not, in fact,              buried in the chapel at the Tower, but was instead buried elsewhere.)

Answer: Again, there is little documentary evidence for this story other than that provided by the              ambassador. But in this case, there is circumstantial evidence to support the claim. By the time Jane              was executed in Feb 1554, Queen Mary had begun the process of returning the English Church to              the Roman communion. As part of that process, St Peters-ad-Vincula had, by Feb 1554, become              once again a Roman Catholic royal chapel. And according to Roman Catholic burial practices, no              person may be buried on sacred ground unless they are confessed and absolved Roman Catholics.              Since Jane, Guildford, and Henry Grey had all refused to accept Roman Catholicism in the days              and hours before their deaths, it is entirely plausible that they were denied burial in the Catholic              chapel of the Tower. Richard Davey and other modern writers do contend that their burial was              delayed while special permission was sought from Queen Mary (and perhaps the Archbishop) to              inter them within the chapel even though they were not Catholics. I have as yet found no record of              any such permission being sought. Nor have I discovered any solid documentation that they were              denied burial in the chapel.  But neither is there any solid documentary proof that they were buried              there. No contemporary source mentions the disposal of her body. Even the Chronicle of Queen              Jane, which offers great detail on her last moments, says nothing about what happened after the axe              fell.
             That said, there is today still a small plaque on the left-hand side of the altar with the chapel stating              that the bones of Jane Grey and several others lie underneath a side altar, having been moved there              from elsewhere in the chapel during a "restoration" of the chapel in the mid nineteenth century.              Whether this is factual or a Victorian invention, I cannot say. At least one nineteenth century source              describing the restoration of the chapel states that none of the bones discovered were identified as              being those of Jane Grey Dudley.
             For my own part, I suspect that Jane, Guildford, and Henry were buried in the chapel. Mary was              usually a bit forgiving when it came to relatives, even in matters of religion. She allowed the funeral              of her brother Edward VI to be conducted according to the Protestant English Book of Common              Prayer of 1552 and allowed him to be buried in Westminster Abbey, itself another royal chapel,              despite the fact that he was clearly not a confessed and absolved Catholic at the time of his death. I              see no reason why she would not have extended the same courtesies to Jane, Guildford and Henry,              especially so early in the reign when she was still eager to gain the support of Protestants opposed              to her marriage to Philip. And had they not been properly buried in the chapel, but instead been              carted off somewhere, I have to suspect that Protestant polemicists like John Foxe would have              made much of that fact. Since they do not mention it, I suspect the burials were within the Tower's              chapel.

Mona further asks: Jane had accused the Duke of Northumberland of poisoning her.              Somewhere in your website I think [above on this page], you mention that Jane              actually accused his wife instead. Can you clarify?