Lady Jane, a most illustrious and unfortunate lady, descended of the blood-royal of England by both parents, was the eldest daughter of Henry Grey marquis of Dorset, and Frances the daughter of Charles Brandon Lord Suffolk, by Mary the dowager of Louis XII. king of France, who was the youngest daughter of Henry VII. king of England. She was born in the year 1537, at Broadgate, her father's seat in Leicestershire. She discovered an early propensity to all kinds of good literature; and having a fine genius, improved under the tuition of Mr Elmer, she made a most surprising progress in the languages, arts, and sciences. She understood perfectly both kinds of philosophy, and could express herself very properly at least in the Latin and Greek tongues; and we are informed by Sir Thomas Chaloner (in Stripe's Memoirs, vol. iii. p. 93.), that she was well versed in Hebrew, Chaldee, Arabic, French, and Italian; "and (he adds) she played well on instrumental music, writ a curious hand, and was excellent at the needle." Chaloner also tells us, that she accompanied her musical instrument with a voice exquisitely sweet in itself, assisted by all the graces that art could bestow.
In the year 1553, the dukes of Suffolk and Northumberland, who were now, after the fall of Somerset, arrived at the height of power, began, on the decline of the king's health, to think how to prevent that reverse of fortune which, as things then stood, they foresaw must happen upon Edward's death. To obtain this end, no other remedy was judged sufficient but a change in the succession of the crown, and transferring it into their own families, by rendering Lady Jane queen. These most excellent and amiable qualities which had rendered her dear to all who had the happiness to know her, joined to her near affinity to the king, subjected her to become the chief tool of an ambition so notoriously not her own. Upon this very account she was married to Lord Guilford Dudley, fourth son of the duke of Northumberland, without discovering to her the real design of the match; which was celebrated with great pomp in the latter end of May, so much to the king's satisfaction, that he contributed bountifully to the expence of it from the royal wardrobe. The young king Edward VI. died in July following; and our fair scholar, with infinite reluctance, overpowered by the solicitations of her ambitious friends, allowed herself to be proclaimed queen of England, on the strength of a deed of settlement extorted from that prince by her father-in-law the duke of Northumberland, which set aside the succession of Queen Mary, Queen Elizabeth, and Mary queen of Scots. Her regal pageantry continued but a few days. Queen Mary's undoubted right prevailed; and the unfortunate Lady Jane Grey and her husband were committed to the Tower, and on the 13th of November arraigned and found guilty of high treason. On the 12th of February following they were both beheaded on Tower-hill. Her magnanimity in this dreadful catastrophe was astonishing. Immediately before her execution, she addressed herself to the weeping multitude with amazing composure and coherency; she acknowledged the justice of the law, and died in charity with that wretched world which she had so much reason to execrate. Thus did the pious Mary begin her reign with the murder of an innocent young creature of 18; who for simplicity of manners, purity of heart, and extensive learning, was hardly ever equalled in any age or country. But, alas! Jane was an obstinate heretic.—A few days before her execution, Fleckenham, the queen's chaplain, with a pious intention to relieve her poor soul from eternal misery, paid her frequent visits in the Tower, and used every argument in his power to convert her to the Popish religion; but he found her so much his superior in argument, that he gave up the contest: resigning her body to the block, and her soul to the devil.
Her writings are, 1. Four Latin Epistles; three to Bullenger, and one to her sister Lady Catherine. The last was written the night before her execution, in a blank leaf of a Greek Testament. Printed in a book entitled Epistolae Helvetiae Reformatoribus, vel ad eos scriptae, &c. Tiguri, 1742, 8vo. 2. Her Conference with Fleckenham. (Ballard.) 3. A letter to Dr Harding, her father's chaplain. Printed in the Phoenix, vol. ii. p. 28. 4. A prayer for her own use during her confinement. In Fox's acts and monuments. 5. Four Latin verses; written in prison with a pin. They are as follows:
Non aliena putes, homini quae obtingere possunt: Sors hodierna mihi, tune erit illa tibi.
Jane Dudley.
Deo juvante, nil nocet livor malus: Et non juvante, nil juvat labor gravis.
Poft tenebras fpero lucem.
6. Her Speech on the Scaffold. (Ballard.) It began thus: "My Lords, and you good Christian people who come to see me die; I am under a law, and by that law, as a never-erring judge, I am condemned to die: not for any thing I have offended the queen's majesty; for I will wash my hands guiltless thereof, and deliver to my God a soul as pure from such trespass as innocence from injustice; but only for that I consented to the thing I was enforced unto, constraint making the law believe I did that which I never understood," &c. —Holinshed, Sir Richard Baker, Bale, and Fox, tell us that the wrote several other things, but do not mention where they are to be found.