Portraits of Lady Jane Grey Dudley, England's 'Nine Days Queen': Revised Edition - Paperback

by John Stephan Edwards (Author)

This revised edition provides important new additions to a previous title by the same author published in 2014. Since that earlier work, two 'lost' portraits said to depict Jane Grey Dudley have re-emerged and are considered here in much greater detail. Lady Jane Grey Dudley was proclaimed Queen of England on 10 July 1553 following the untimely death of Henry VIII's only son and successor, King Edward VI. But sixteen-year-old Jane lacked the support of a majority of her would-be subjects, who rallied instead to Henry VIII's eldest daughter, Mary Tudor. Jane was deposed after just nine days, earning for her the sobriquet 'The Nine Days Queen.' She was imprisoned in the Tower for six months before finally being executed on 12 February 1554. Queen Jane remains the only English monarch of the past five centuries for whom no genuine portrait is known to have survived. Dozens of images have been put forward over those five centuries, but none has yet been conclusively authenticated. This work remains the only comprehensive academic study of the iconography of Jane Grey Dudley ever published. Twenty-nine surviving portrait-images said to depict Jane have been carefully and systematically sought out, analyzed, and contextualized in an effort to determine whether any of them may be a reliable likeness. A handful of additional paintings all now lost are also discussed in detail. Finally, the single written account of Jane's physical appearance, an account upon which historians have relied over the past century, is analyzed for its own authenticity.