The Tudors Dynasty Podcast.

Hello everyone and welcome to Tudor's Dynasty.

My name is James Taff, and I'm a historian researching the Tudor royal household and the careers of its servants.

I will be asking who served Lady Jane Grey, the Nine Days Queen.

Edward V.

Edward V. D.6 died on the 6th of July 1553. In his will, the boy king nominated

Lady Jane Grey as his successor. A few days later, on the 10th of July, Jane was conveyed by

water to the Tower of London, and there received as Queen. In the royal barge it was observed there were two

duchesses, Francis Gray, the Duchess of Suffolk, Jane's mother, and Jane Dudley, the Duchess

of Northumberland and Jane's mother-in-law, with other ladies attended by a great following.

The next day, Imperial ambassadors in England reported that Jane was at the tower

with her ladies and council. Were these ladies to attend upon the new queen in her household?

Certainly this echoes the procession of Jane Seymour, Henry the ape's third wife and the mother of

Edward VIII, who on the 4th of June 1536 was also accompanied by ladies when she

travelled with the king by bolt to Greenwich, where she was proclaimed queen. In his report,

the John Russell identified these women as her own servants, among them ladies of her privy chamber

who were sworn that same day. Lady Jane Grey's accession, however, was far from secure.

Although the Duke of Northumberland and the Privy Council had acknowledged her as their queen,

Jane, like her predecessors, had to construct her queenship, and for this her household was of

utmost importance, as Jane's arrival at the tower would have been the first instance

in which she would be openly shown and declared as queen to her subjects, it is likely that not only

was she instructed on how to behave as queen, and dressed for the occasion, but also that a suitable,

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