ON THIS DAY - 23 February 1554

'The beheading of the Duke of Suffolk' G. Terry, c.1777 © Wellcome Collection

On This Day (23 February) in 1554, Henry Grey, 1st Duke of Suffolk, was executed on Tower Hill, having being convicted of charges of high treason five days previously.

Suffolk had initially encouraged and supported his daughter, Jane Grey's claim to the English throne in July 1554, However, once the privy council had shifted their allegiance and abandoned Jane, Suffolk was the one who informed his daughter of her deposition. He then headed to Tower Hill, where he subsequently proclaimed Mary I Queen of England, before proceeding to his Richmond home, the Charterhouse, leaving Jane and her husband Guildford Dudley, imprisoned within the Tower of London.

Whilst initially showing loyalty to the Catholic Mary, Suffolk objected to her proposed marriage to Philip II of Spain, "being a firm protestant, and...disciple of the most uncompromising of the reformed teachers" throughout his life. Along with his younger brothers, Thomas and John Grey, Suffolk participated in 'Wyatt's Rebellion' an unsuccessful uprising, in an attempt to raise support in the Midlands, in protest of the upcoming marriage, and the reintroduction of Catholic policies. Along with his brother John, Suffolk was arrested on 07 February in Warwickshire, arriving at the Tower of London on 10 February. The Duke's arrest led directly to Jane and Guildford's execution warrants being signed that day; prior to this, whilst being convicted of high treason and sentenced to death at their trial in November 1553, it had been assumed that the young couple would be spared death.

Detail from 'Panorama of London', Antonis van den Wyngaerde c.1544 © Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford

Suffolk's trial was held at Westminster Hall on 17 February, only 5 days after the execution of his daughter Jane; Henry Machyn, diarist and tailor documented the day prior to the trial that "a grett skaffold in Westmynster hall for the duke of Suffoke". The trial was overseen by Henry FitzAlan, 12th Earl of Arundel - Catholic privy councillor and Lord Steward of the Royal Household. Arundel was Suffolk's brother-in-law, having been married to his sister Katherine Grey, as well as the sister of Katherine Fitzalan, whom Suffolk had reportedly been betrothed to as a teenager, but refused to marry. Said to have fuelled by a desire "to avenge his sister", Arundel presided over the very public trial, at which he was convicted on charges of high treason, and subsequently sentenced to death. Machyn documented the outcome in his records: "The xvij day of Feybruary was the duke of Suffoke rayned at Westmynster halle, and cast for he tresun, and cast to suffer deth."

At around 9 o'clock in the morning of 23 February 1554, Suffolk was led from the Tower up to the scaffold on Tower Hill. where he "met his end with more courage and dignity than he had usually shown in life". Whilst his decapitated body was then taken back into the Tower, and buried in the chancel of the Chapel of St Peter ad Vincula, Suffolk's head was reportedly buried separately in Holy Trinity Church, Minories, to avoid being dipped in tar and displayed on a spike on London Bridge - a medieval and early-modern traditional last humiliation for condemned traitors, as a warning to others. The church of Holy Trinity Minories sat just north of Tower Hill, within the Liberties of the Tower of London, had been part of the complex of previously part of the Abbey of the Minoresses of St. Clare without Aldgate prior to the Dissolution of the Monasteries, and at the time of his execution, had been in Suffolk's possession.

Detail from George Scharf Notebook, dated 17 Mar 1877 © National Portrait Gallery

In 1851, a mummified head was unearthed in a vault of the church in 1851; it was later examined by Sir George Scharf, the director of the National Portrait Gallery in 1877, who documented his findings in his notebook, dated '17th March 1877'. Scharf notes that the head showed evidence of the head, "supposed to be of Henry Grey, Duke of Suffolk beheaded 1554" being "that of a person beyond the prime of life", as having been beheaded, drawing attention to two cuts on the hollow of the neck. The head was later interred in a vault in the crypt of the Church of St Botolph without Aldgate, and reportedly buried in the churchyard in 1990.

Suffolk was survived by his wife Frances Brandon, Duchess of Suffolk, and his two daughters: 13-year-old Katherine and 9-year-old Mary Grey. His brother John, with whom he had been arrested, was spared the executioner's axe, following intervention from his sister-in-law, the widowed Duchess of Suffolk, who was able to maintain favour with the Queen. His other brother Thomas Grey, having fled to Wales where he was apprehended, was brought to the Tower of London on 21 February 1554, and later executed of charges of treason in April 1554 following his own trial at Westminster on 09 March: "The ix day of Marche was reynyd at Westmynster my lord Thomas Gray, the duke of Suffoke ('s) brodur...and cast to lose hjys hed".