On The Evening Of Sunday 11 February 1554 Jane Grey Sat Writing In The Gentleman-gaolers House In The

On the evening of Sunday 11 February 1554 Jane Grey sat writing in the gentleman-gaoler’s house in the Tower of London. She was sixteen. Slightly built, “prettily shaped and graceful” but short enough to require platform shoes, Jane had brown eyes, hair nearly red, and a fair complexion with freckles. She was also frighteningly precocious; her scholarly reputation was talked of as far away as Zurich. But that evening she was not composing one of her elegant Latin missives to a foreign scholar. Jane was saying farewell. In twelve hours she would be dead, beheaded on the scaffold she had watched being built on the the other side of Tower Green. (Eric Ives, “Jane Grey: A Tudor Mystery”)

Ella Hunt as Lady Jane Grey

hand of henry viii

itaglio facsimile of a letter written by king henry viii. plate between pages 60 & 61 of the 1945, houghton mifflin edition of The Life and Death of Cardinal Wolsey; book designed by bruce rogers & printed at the riverside press, cambridge, mass.

Anne, circa 1684, painted by Willem Wissing and Jan van der Vaardt (detail)

Thisbe, 1909, John William Waterhouse

https://www.wikiart.org/en/john-william-waterhouse/thisbe-1909

“Anne, aware that Elizabeth would soon be moved out of London, would not let her out of her sight. Placing her on the floor on a cushion, she spent hours watching her.”

— The Challenge of Anne Boleyn, Hester Chapman (via madamedepembroke)

TUDOR HEADDRESSES DONE PROPERLY 2/?