Lady Jane Grey Going to Her Execution
by MAY, Edward Harrison, Oil on canvas, 150 x 203 cm
The painting depicts the last moments on 12 February 1554 in the life of the seventeen-year old Jane Grey, a great granddaughter of Henry VII who was proclaimed Queen of England upon the death of young King Edward VI, a Protestant like herself. She reigned for nine days in 1553, but, through the machinations of the partisans of Henry VIII’s Catholic daughter, Mary Tudor, she was convicted of high treason and sentenced to death in the Tower of London.