Execution
Queen Mary's plan to marry Philip II of Spain was greeted with widespread opposition, not just among the populace but also among Members of Parliament and privy councillors. Thomas Wyatt's Rebellion in early 1554, in which the Duke of Suffolk took part, was a result of this dislike. It was not the intention of the conspirators to bring Jane Grey on the throne again. Nevertheless the government, at the height of the military crisis around 7 February, decided to execute Jane and her husband, possibly out of panic. It was also an opportunity for removing possible inspirations for future unrest and unwelcome reminders of the past. It troubled Mary to let her cousin die, but she accepted the Privy Council's advice. Bishop Gardiner pressed for the young couple's execution in a court sermon, and the Imperial ambassador Simon Renard was happy to report that "Jane of Suffolk and her husband are to lose their heads."
The day before their executions Guildford asked Jane for a last meeting, which she refused, explaining it "would only ... increase their misery and pain, it was better to put it off ... as they would meet shortly elsewhere, and live bound by indissoluble ties." Around ten o'clock in the morning of 12 February Guildford was led towards Tower Hill, where "many ... gentlemen" waited to shake hands with him. Guildford made a short speech to the assembled crowd, as was customary. "Having no ghostly father with him", he knelt, prayed, and asked the people to pray for him, "holding up his eyes and hands to God many times". He was killed with one stroke of the axe, after which his body was conveyed on a cart to the Tower chapel of St Peter ad Vincula. Watching the scene from her window, Jane exclaimed: "Oh, Guildford, Guildford!" He was buried in the chapel with Jane who was dead within an hour after him.
The executions did not contribute to the government's popularity. Five months after the couple's death, John Knox, the future Scottish reformer, wrote of them as "innocents ... such as by just laws and faithful witnesses can never be proved to have offended by themselves". Of Guildford, the chronicler Grafton wrote ten years later: "even those that never before the time of his execution saw him, did with lamentable tears bewail his death".
Read more about this topic: Lord Guildford Dudley
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