On 11 July 1553, Sir Robert Dudley arrived in King’s Lynn with a demand. The town must recognise Lady Jane Grey as Queen of England. Jane had been proclaimed in London only the previous day, and Dudley represented a government that expected to be obeyed. Yet the mayor and corporation of Lynn did not do as they were told. For the next seven days they waited.
Their hesitation was dangerous. Another woman claimed the throne, and she was close by. Mary Tudor, daughter of Henry VIII, was gathering supporters in East Anglia. Nobody in Lynn knew which woman would prevail, but the consequences of choosing wrongly could be severe. The men governing the town were being asked to decide which queen they would obey when either answer might soon be called treason.
Two women claim the Crown
Edward VI had died on 6 July, aged fifteen. Henry VIII had placed his daughters Mary and Elizabeth in the succession, but during Edward’s final illness both were excluded in favour of the Protestant Lady Jane Grey. Jane had also recently married Guildford Dudley, son of John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, the dominant figure in Edward’s government.
Jane was proclaimed in London on 10 July. Mary refused to accept the decision and declared herself the rightful queen. She had a formidable argument: she was Henry VIII’s eldest surviving child and had previously been restored to the succession by Parliament. She also had extensive connections in East Anglia, where supporters began gathering around her.
Lynn suddenly found itself dangerously close to the centre of events. Its port, its position on the Wash, and its river connections into the Midlands made it strategically valuable. Jane’s government could not afford to leave such a place uncertain while Mary’s strength was increasing nearby.
Robert Dudley demands an answer
Robert Dudley was about twenty-one years old and had been sent into Norfolk with several hundred men to secure Mary before her rising gathered strength. He failed to catch her, but he already knew the country around Lynn. In 1550 he had married Amy Robsart, daughter of a Norfolk gentleman, and he and his father-in-law subsequently received offices at nearby Castle Rising.
On 11 July Dudley came to Lynn and demanded its allegiance to Jane. His request carried real authority. Jane occupied the Tower of London as queen, the Privy Council had recognised her, and Dudley’s father controlled the government. Refusing the son of Northumberland was no minor act of municipal independence.
Yet Lynn refused to commit itself. Alan Bryson, drawing upon Robert Tittler and Susan Battley’s research and contemporary King’s Bench material, describes the town as having “procrastinated for a week”. The word conceals what must have been an uncomfortable seven days for Mayor George Rewley and the corporation.
They could not know what we know. To them Jane was not yet the Nine Days Queen but the woman recognised by the government in London. Mary, however, had not been captured, and reports of her growing support must have made an immediate declaration for Jane increasingly dangerous. If Mary won, Lynn would have backed a usurper. If Jane survived, refusing her commands might itself be treated as rebellion.
So the corporation waited.
Seven days of rumours
Lynn was a particularly difficult place in which to shut out the news. Merchants, sailors and travellers moved through its port, while roads and river traffic connected it with a wide area. Reports of what was happening elsewhere would have arrived continually, although deciding which reports were true was another matter.
During that week the most important fact became increasingly clear: Mary was still free and her support was growing. Norfolk and Suffolk gentlemen joined her, while Jane’s government failed to suppress her challenge. Lynn was not alone in hesitating. Other communities also delayed while they tried to work out which claimant would actually become queen.
The behaviour of Lynn’s corporation does not prove that George Rewley and his colleagues secretly supported Mary. Their motives may have been much more practical. They governed an important trading town whose privileges, property, and prosperity could be endangered by choosing the losing side. Waiting kept their options open.
Eventually Dudley stopped them waiting.
Dudley returns with more men
On Tuesday 18 July, Lynn’s market day, Robert Dudley returned with a larger company. Bryson says that he “took the town by force”. There is no evidence of fighting in the streets or an assault upon the town gates, but the meaning is clear enough. Dudley now had sufficient armed strength to overcome the corporation’s reluctance.
Lady Jane Grey was proclaimed Queen of England in Lynn. An ancient roll of the town’s mayors recorded simply that “the lord Roberte Dudley came to Linn, and proclaymed the lady Jeanne queene”. We do not know exactly where the proclamation took place. Tuesday Market Place is an obvious possibility, particularly on market day, but no contemporary evidence yet found identifies the location.
The important point is not where Dudley stood but what had happened beforehand. Lynn had been asked to recognise Jane on 11 July and had avoided doing so for a week. Only after Dudley returned with greater force was the proclamation made. Saying that Lynn enthusiastically “supported Lady Jane Grey” therefore gives quite the wrong impression.
The corporation had finally made its choice, although by then events elsewhere had rendered it almost meaningless.
One day too soon
On 19 July, the day after Jane was proclaimed in Lynn, the Privy Council abandoned her and Mary was proclaimed queen in London. Jane’s government collapsed with extraordinary speed, while the political meaning of everything that had happened in Lynn was instantly reversed.
The old mayoral roll captured the transformation in a few words. Having recorded that Dudley came to Lynn and proclaimed Jane, it added that he was afterwards carried to Framlingham before Queen Mary. The young man who had entered Lynn with enough armed followers to impose his queen upon the town had become the prisoner of the woman he had originally been sent to capture.
For Lynn, the previous seven days now looked remarkably fortunate. The town had proclaimed Jane, but it had done so only after delaying Dudley’s demand and apparently yielding to armed pressure. That was very different from rushing enthusiastically to Jane’s cause.
What would you have done?
It is easy, knowing the outcome, to regard Mary as the obvious queen. George Rewley and the corporation did not have that advantage. On 11 July Jane possessed the government in London, while Mary possessed a powerful hereditary claim and an expanding body of supporters in East Anglia. Each side demanded loyalty, and either might punish those who had supported the other.
The men governing Lynn therefore did something thoroughly understandable. They delayed while they watched the balance of power shift. One day passed, then another. Mary remained free, more supporters joined her, and still Lynn did not proclaim Jane. Only when Robert Dudley returned with greater armed strength did their room for manoeuvre disappear.
On 18 July, Lynn finally proclaimed Lady Jane Grey Queen of England. Twenty-four hours later her government collapsed.
For seven dangerous days, the corporation had been unable to answer one of the simplest questions in Tudor England: who was the lawful monarch? Their solution was not heroic, but it was shrewd. They waited until they could wait no longer.
© James Rye 2026
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References
Bryson, Alan. The Speciall Men in Every Shere: The Edwardian Regime, 1547–1553. PhD thesis, University of St Andrews. https://research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk/bitstream/handle/10023/2645/AlanBrysonPhDThesis.pdf
Nichols, John Gough, ed. The Chronicle of Queen Jane, and of Two Years of Queen Mary. London: Camden Society, 1850.
The National Archives. King’s Bench, KB 8, Baga de Secretis, including KB 8/25.
Tittler, Robert, and Susan L. Battley. “The Local Community and the Crown in 1553: The Accession of Mary Tudor Revisited.” Historical Research 57, no. 136 (1984): 131–139.
Victoria History of the County of Norfolk. Vol. 2. London: Archibald Constable, 1906.