Lady Jane Grey: A Tudor Dissenter and Her Work

I

In the years before the accession of Henry VIII, whose death touched off fierce rivalries (especially for the attention of his son, Edward VI) much ‘new learning’ had been accomplished, some at the instigation of scholars such as Erasmus and a school centred around his thought in Britain. The idea of the new scholarship was that recently available translations of the Bible in Greek, for example, would make it possible to obtain better translations into English, and so the word of God might be better understood. ³ Jane’s guardian at one point, Katherine Parr, had herself ventured into these areas, and was the author of a work that, though published posthumously, later attained renown, The Lamentation of a Sinner. ⁴ Not only was there the beginning – especially after Henry’s death – of a revolt against his version of the Church (essentially the same as the unaltered Catholic church directed from Rome), but there was also new interest in work coming from the Continent, with that derived from Luther being in the forefront. All of this made for heady discussions in and around court at that time.

The young Jane Grey was far from exempt from this atmosphere, as she was exposed to it at every turn – she shared a tutor with other aristocrats, and was also exposed to a level of training similar to that of Elizabeth.

We could claim that it is somewhat non-philosophical to engage in debate about, for example, whether the host undergoes transubstantiation during the mass, or whether a believer needs the intercession of a priest to communicate with God. But if examined carefully, these matters can be shown, at their core, to be matters of metaphysics and ontology, because the point of the debates has to do with the nature of reality. If there is a deity with whom we can communicate, we ought to be able to do so directly – at least, according to Christian doctrine, since this would have to do with the nature of the deity as possessing the three characteristics of omnipresence, omnipotence and omniscience. Then again, if the host – after all, a product of human labour and skill – does undergo a change in substance at the time of the priest’s speaking, then we can also claim that this matter has to do with God’s power, and is again a matter of ontology.

It was in this atmosphere that Jane Grey lived and worked; the Henrician church, as indicated earlier, had retained most of the customs and attributes of Catholicism – it was simply that Henry VIII had declared himself the head of the Church. But the Dissenters were on a path that had been set out by Martin Luther, and then expanded upon; their task was to try to bring believing Christians to a level of reflection about the faith that would allow for a more sincere and serious effort at Christianity, and that could be done by the individual in question. Just as Anne Boleyn had held some of these beliefs, and it was clear that Katherine Parr held many, so Jane Grey also came to be a Dissenting believer.

In addition to the controversy caused by changing beliefs in the nature of the host, and the possibility of transubstantiation, at least two other parts of doctrine had a great deal to do with philosophical and theological controversies of the time. As noted, the Dissenters believed that one could communicate with God directly, without the need for priestly intercession. In addition – and as a concomitant to these beliefs – they also held that one could be saved directly by a relationship with God, and that this was a matter of personal belief leading to salvation. How all of these controversies played out on a day-to-day basis is now a matter of record, and certainly had a great deal to do with the ill feeling that seemed to pervade the Court. DeLisle notes that there was debate even over the ways in which devotion should be shown while inside a church. As usual, Dissenters split off from the Henricians or actual Catholics. DeLisle writes,

[There was] concern [about] the increasing

radicalism [on] the Privy Council led by Harry

Suffolk, Parr of Northampton, and Northumberland.

Cranmer refused to abolish kneeling for Communion

in the new Prayer Book and was furious when

the Council allowed a final coda, inspired by

the radical John Knox, that explained that

kneeling was permitted only to add dignity

to the service. ⁵

Those who continued to strongly dissent knew that their viewpoints not only would not be heard, but that they were putting their very lives in danger. The situation would alter, as so frequently happened in Tudor times and the era immediately after it, when Edward became King upon Henry’s death – he strongly forwarded the new ideas. But so many were in such deep disagreement that at any given moment it was difficult to know what to believe.

The three issues already cited dominated much of the discussion of religious matters during the Tudor era, and, as we have noted, the discussion could be intense. As we know, Jane had often been in conversation with Katherine Parr, and it is worth repeating that Parr later became known for the work Lamentation of a Sinner. Indeed, this particular work is often regarded as the first published work by a woman in English. ⁶ In it, Parr expresses the belief that in her former, error-ridden ways, she had often been more concerned about the ‘number’ of the walkers, as she put it, than their beliefs. We might say that Jane came to the same sort of thought; of one thing we can be certain – Edward put Jane forward as an heir to the throne at least in part because of the tenacity of her beliefs.

One might wonder why any kind of statement by Jane Grey might be thought to be historically important, given that there were other authors of the time, and that many of them left extensive written records and strident opinions. But we have to remember an important fact about what Jane actually managed to do, even if much of it was not her idea. Briefly, Jane was Queen; we are often told that she was referred to as the ‘Queen of Nine Days’. Because of that particular episode, and the fact that other members of her family became important players in and spectators of Tudor politics at the time, the record left by Jane Grey has achieved a salience that it might not have otherwise had.

II

It is important to try to come to grips with what it was that Jane Grey actually believed. More work on each of the issues alluded to above helps to fill in the blanks on these matters, and also provides insights into Jane’s thinking. Most sources agree that transubstantiation was an issue on which she was particularly outspoken, and, as we have said, it was a concept that troubled almost all Christians during the Tudor period. In an intriguing essay on how Christianity was seen during the Renaissance era, Peter Harrison has written of the controversy and its ramifications for Aristotelian philosophy:

While the term ( ‘transubstantiation’) was

first used by the Fourth Lateran Council (1215),

the doctrine received its classic formulation in

the eucharistic teaching of St. Thomas, who

explained that during the sacrament the whole

substance of the bread and wine is transformed

into the body and blood of Christ while the

accidents (that is, the appearances) of the

bread and wine remain. ⁷

Not only was it the case that those who took various sides on this issue disagreed on how one might achieve salvation – they also felt that the position that one took was an indicator of how one felt about other issues, and thus, in a sense, an indicator of whether or not one was a worthy person. Thus a youngster like Jane Grey who disagreed with the Henrician church on such matters was in grave danger – at least for a while, until Edward took the same position. But Edward’s sudden and untimely death in his teens merely opened the doors to further controversy.

To reiterate, other beliefs that came into question during the period of much movement and debate on the part of the Dissenters had to do with matters that had been made explicit by Martin Luther and that, if disregarded, came to be seen as part of the ‘outrages’ that the standard Church was committing. All of these beliefs were linked – and part of the linkage stemmed from the fact that, at bottom the Dissenters were promoting work that was originally promulgated by the New Learning.

Jane forcefully maintained most of these beliefs, and in a sense they were of little assistance to her. She was, however, not alone – Parr’s circle of believing women often tenaciously adhered to statements that were contrary even to the Henrician reforms, and this is related to why it was, for example, that the Lamentation was not published until after Henry’s death. Parr herself, according to Susan James and others, attempted to theorise about the question of free will. James writes: ‘Luther never satisfactorily answered this question..’., but Parr (who had Jane as one of her pupils) maintained that salvation through faith was an unbreakable promise and that God would not have created humans if it was not intended that they have free will. ⁸

As mentioned earlier, we might be tempted to think that whatever Jane said and did could not have had important consequences, partly because of her age and partly because of what we might think of as weak ties to the Court. But Jane’s ties became stronger as Edward altered his will in her favour, and she was only slightly younger than the two Princesses, or indeed than Edward himself. At that time, the precocity of such children was much remarked upon, and although it might seem mere surmise, there is no question that because of their aristocratic status, what they said and did with respect to religious concerns was regarded as having import.

To provide an idea of the impression that Jane made on others, we can turn to the often-cited passages from the work of her tutor Ascham, who commented extensively on her learning and zeal for such authors as Plato. He quoted Jane as saying that she had the delight of having ‘so gentle a schoolmaster’, and at a later time, according to DeLisle, made the following observations:

That Ascham thought Jane remarkable is evident. . .

He told her that in all his travels he had not yet met

anyone he admired more: he only hoped that Katherine [Jane’s sister],

who at ten remained a beginner at Greek, would

one day follow in her footsteps. . .. Dorset had

invested in Jane all the hopes a nobleman normally

places in a son. ⁹

In other words, although one might think that Edward’s voice was heard due to his position (and despite his age), and that the same might be said for his sister Elizabeth, Jane Grey made an impression that, in some sense, out-shadowed those that they made, simply because of her learning, and despite the fact that she was outside of what would normally have been taken for the direct line of succession.

Erasmus’s work had, indeed, started a trend that resulted in John Colet and others making remarkable stands with respect to how the New Learning could affect the teaching of religion, and how those teachings might in turn alter beliefs. As Meyer himself noted in his work on the Tudors, the strength of these issues as salient matters for their time is almost impossible to overstate. Carole Levin has been one of the few writers on the Tudor period to attempt to underscore the importance of Jane’s thought. In her essay on the work of Jane Grey for the compendium Silent But for the Word, she wrote,

Most of Lady Jane Grey’s works were

written during the last six months of her life,

while she was a prisoner in the Tower of

London. The concerns she expressed in

her prayers, letters and dying speech

demonstrated what constituted a religious

life, how one could combat the temptations

of despair and appropriately prepare for

a tranquil death. These concerns link Jane

Grey with other political and religious dissidents

who sojourned in the Tower and also confronted

these issues in their writings. ¹⁰

Taken in toto then, the thought expressed by Jane, whether verbally or in the comparatively few written documents that we have from her continues to inform us today, and, as we have seen is standard part-and-parcel of commentary on the Tudors, and especially of the commentary on the comparatively brief but important reign of Edward VI. One of the facts about the situation that speaks to the continuing need for critique is that it appears – with comparatively few exceptions – that many of those who achieved learning during this period were driven towards the views of the Dissenters. Thus as the proponents of studying the New Testament as if it had not been translated before – that is, of studying it on one’s own, with one’s own learning firmly in place – had originally hoped, making new efforts in Greek during this time seemed to result in precisely the kind of beliefs espoused by Jane.

III

One of the ways in which can begin to conceptualise adequately the strengths shown by Jane Grey in her attempts at scholarship and commentary is to compare her with others of her own Tudor generation. We have already implicitly compared her to Edward; indeed, Ascham noted that he believed that she was ahead of him in her studies. ¹¹

Again, even if we were to compare her with Elizabeth – also noted for her proclivities towards learning from a very early age – we might find that Jane was ahead. Making that claim is a more of a statement than some might be inclined to believe, for Elizabeth was known for her translation of Marguerite de Navarre’s Miroir, which she accomplished at the age of approximately eleven as a gift for her stepmother Katherine Parr. But even Elizabeth apparently did not outdo Jane at the same age. As mentioned, Ascham encountered Jane reading Plato on her own, and her delight in the Greek literature is something of which Ascham made note. As DeLisle comments in reciting Ascham’s response to the young Jane absorbed in Greek:

Ascham . . . was delighted to find a young woman

with a love of philosophy and wondered what

might have drawn her to it, “seeing not many women

[and] very few men have attained thereto”. ¹²

In other words, even in a time of stellar learning on the part of many of the younger generation who were being exposed to the work of Colet, Erasmus and others, Jane stood out.

Why the new emphasis on learning for those – young, even though they be aristocratic – to whom it might formerly have been denied? Almost all commentators agree that the explosive growth of towns and villages in England at this time meant for social change, and some of that change was reflected in altered notions with respect to education. The historian G.J. Meyer notes in The Tudors that a small area of a few thousands of persons had a disproportionate influence on England:

England was hydrocephalic, its economic,

political and cultural life concentrated in London . . .

By the standards of England as a whole, . . . London

seemed not only to brim over with wealth but was

uniquely cosmopolitan . . . For reasons that are obvious

today but that baffled the physicians of the seventeenth

century, disease ravaged the city even more than

the rest of the country. But despite the appalling

mortality rate, London continued to grow as

people displaced from the countryside were

drawn to it by the magnetic power of money. ¹³

The growth of London meant for a burgeoning of new ideas, especially with respect to literacy. That movement – one that was to have powerful ramifications for the Church over a period of time – was one that seemed, in retrospect, inevitable, but whether it could or could not have been predicted, the upshot was that more young aristocratic girls, and a few who were not aristocrats became literate and became authors. Although Jane was but one of these, her thinking stands out because of its overall power, and because of her place as Queen for Nine Days.

To provide an idea of how important, on the overall, this growth in literacy was, Margaret Hannay has taken special note of the work of the Countess of Pembroke. Through marriages and alliances she was, in fact, distantly related to Jane. Because Pembroke provided a translation of Petrarch, Hannay has written:

Even though most English readers had never

read The Triumphs themselves, most educated people

were probably familiar with its general content through

a visual tradition. ¹⁴

This combination of general familiarity with a wide variety of religiously themed material (some of it from the Continent) and the general growth of literacy provided for a heady atmosphere. Jane was able to benefit from the alterations in the intellectual climate, and, as we have seen, her choice of tutors and her own love of learning and scholarship served her well.

In addition to Jane and those who were in her inner circle – either through marriage or other relationships – a number of women from a wide variety of backgrounds made some sort of breakthrough during this period. Although the number of women preaching or appearing in public venues did not become as large as it did in the seventeenth century, women were often the first to proclaim allegiance to the Dissenting doctrine, and women such as Anne Askew (not an aristocrat) managed to make a name for themselves. The Cooke sisters also achieved, through marriage and other relationships, a degree of familiarity with and prominence in the Court and Court circle life.

Askew, somewhat improbably, was a woman from the countryside whose promulgations of new versions of Protestant belief caused danger for her, and for many others. ¹⁵ One of the aspects of her tale that ties it to Jane is that many at Court wanted to link her to Katherine Parr – and, of course, Jane was already so linked. Whatever the motives of those who worked on the notion that Askew had strong commitments to the Court, even more danger came from her later execution. As Susan James writes,

What made Anne’s professed heretical

views of such importance to Bishop Gardiner was

her rumoured close connections with the highest

circles at court. ¹⁶

Thus, we can see that the notion that a number of women were involved in the new Dissenting religion was not at all mistaken – and Jane was simply one of those whose views became better known because of her aristocratic status and the ties of her family. In the end, Anne was put to death without having done much damage to anyone in the Queen’s inner circle or the Queen herself, but the fact that efforts were made to bring down Katherine Parr is an indication of the power of beliefs at this time.

If women were beginning to be heard to a greater extent, it is no surprise that Jane did manage to draw attention to her beliefs and work. As indicated earlier, the New Learning made an enormous difference in what was said and done during this period. Although we might be inclined to overlook the debates, for instance, between Luther and Erasmus, it is important to acknowledge that it is the substance of these very debates that allows for Jane to establish her opinions. In the Introduction to an edited volume of works by Erasmus and Luther, James Tracy writes,

In the history of the European Reformation,

few issues were as important as the one debated

by Erasmus and Luther. Are human beings

capable of contributing to their own salvation by

what they choose to do or not to do? Or is the

unmerited grace of God the sole and sufficient

reason why some sinners but not others are

reckoned as righteous by God? ¹⁷

Jane and those around her were influenced by these debates.

IV

I have been arguing that Lady Jane Grey is a somewhat overlooked commentator from the Tudor period. The tendency has been to comment on the work of others, partly because of the brevity of her life, and partly because of the lack of extensive written documentation of what it is that she believed. Nevertheless, to make the counterargument, stories about Jane and her positions on metaphysical and theological issues have long circulated, and it is important to try to articulate the fundamental underlying beliefs and their centrality to matters of that time.

As we have seen, it is easy to assert that there was an ontological issue with respect to the host, and that that issue, in and of itself, played a major role in demarcating Dissenters from those who still had beliefs consonant with the Henrician church. If one believed in the notion of transubstantiation and took it seriously, one could then hold a number of other beliefs, almost all of which were, in turn, related to the metaphysics of the time. If the Christian God had intended believers to work out their own salvation – as scripture seemed to indicate – then presumably one would not have to obtain the intercession of a priest in order to communicate with God. This in turn would tend to indicate that salvation could be obtained through faith alone, and that the sacramental rites of paying obsequious homage to the consecrated host need not be observed.

Jane’s interest in Plato’s Phaedo – as observed and attested to by Ascham – helps to underscore why she might find the philosophical issues involved in the Christian ceremonies so compelling. Phaedo teaches us that we need to think about dying as a serious matter, and one with which we should be concerned throughout our lives. The transience of the material world is a theme not only for the Greeks, but for the early Chsitians. ¹⁸ Because life affords us only the most fleeting pleasures, part of the argument revolves around the notion that we ought to be concerned with eternal good. The thought of Lady Jane Grey, especially during the last year of her life, was consistent with all of these intellectual goals.

In general, the Dissenters sought to use some of the new scholarship from the Continent, especially insofar as it had been articulated by British thinkers, to ameliorate conditions within the Church. The idea was that the Henrician church had retained many of the debatable – and, according to some, entirely miserable – ideas of the Catholic Church, and had only provided the merest sketch of alteration. The point, the Dissenters thought, was to articulate material that was much more forceful in its alterations of Church structure and belief. Katherine Parr, one of those with whom Jane Grey worked, and who also had charge over Edward and Elizabeth, published Lamentation of a Sinner after Henry’s death, and at that point it became clear that her beliefs had already changed into those of the Dissenting camp. Jane herself held similar beliefs, but over the course of time her thoughts and work have not been as commented upon or noticed as those of Parr, or Elizabeth or Edward. It is incumbent upon us to provide some recognition of the intellectual force of this young woman of the sixteenth century. A sense of fairness for the thought of women through the centuries demands that we do so.