On the morning of 12 February 1554, Jane Grey, then known as 'Jane Dudley', was spending her last hours within the Tower of London, where she had been held prisoner the previous seven months. Just before 10 o'clock, fellow prisoner and her husband of less than a year, Guildford Dudley, was led from the Tower to nearby Tower Hill, where he was beheaded. A short time later, Jane herself was taken to a scaffold that had been erected on Tower Green, where he was also beheaded.

In medieval London, there were multiple public places of execution, places where death sentences which had been given to prisoners convicted of serious crimes against the monarch or the state, including treason and heresy, were carried out. These locations included Tyburn (the location of the city's primary public gallows), Smithfield marketplace and the churchyard of St-Giles-in-the-Field. In 1464, another site was established on a raised plot of land, overlooking the Tower

On 13 November 1553, the trial of five prisoners accused of high treason was held at the City of London's Guildhall; Jane Grey, brothers Ambrose, Guildford and Henry ('Harry') Dudley, and Thomas Cranmer, former Archbishop of Canterbury. Their charges related to the failed coup earlier that summer, when, following the death of Edward VI in July 1553, active attempts were made to place the teenage Jane on the English throne.

On 08 February 1587, Mary, Queen of Scots was executed at Fotheringhay Castle, after being found guilty of high treason.

On This Day (22 January) in 1554, Robert Dudley, the 21-year-old son of John Dudley, 1st Duke of Northumberland, was found guilty of treason

On This Day (01 Dec) in 1541, Thomas Culpeper and Francis Dereham were tried for high treason, for their alleged adultery...

On This Day (13 Nov) in 1553, a trial was held at in the Great Hall, in the City of London Guildhall; the trial of Lady Jane Grey...

On This Day (21 Oct) in 1554, John Dudley, 2nd Earl of Warwick, son of John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, died at Penshurst Place, Kent.

On This Day (14 Oct) in 1586, the trial of Mary, Queen of Scots began at Fotheringhay Castle, Northamptonshire.

Anne Askew was a 25yo writer, poet and preacher, originally from Lincolnshire, whose resolute Reformist religious views...