Lady Jane Grey’s Pendant?

During an episode of unknown date from the popular British television series Antiques Roadshow, an elderly lady presented a small pendant made of silver and set with a broken cowrie shell. The reverse was inscribed “Jane Gray [sic] Obit 1554” plus the number 17, presumably identifying Jane’s age at the time of her death. The owner stated, “It’s supposed to have belonged to Lady Jane Grey.”

Appraiser Geoffrey Munn identified the item as a “talismanic jewel” intended “to ward off the evil eye.” And he rightly judged the association with Jane Grey as “stretching credibility to the limits.” Munn placed the manufacture of the pendant in the late sixteenth or early seventeenth century, or at least half a century after Jane’s death. He valued the pendant at “next to nothing, but loaded with interest.”

Prior to 1752, the English and British legal system recognized March 25 as the start of the new calendar year rather than January 1. Therefore, according to pre-1752 reckoning, the date of Jane Grey Dudley’s execution was customarily given as 12 February 1553, not 1554. But following the passage of the Calendar (New Style) Act of 1750 (24 Geo. 2. c. 23), the date of Jane’s execution began to be expressed as 12 February 1554, as seen on the pendant. We can thus be certain that the engraving on the pendant dates to no earlier than 1752, fully two hundred years after Jane’s death. Munn was entirely correct to dismiss the association with Jane Grey. The pendant is just one more among the many examples of items bearing hopeful but entirely spurious associations with Jane Grey Dudley.

Click here to see the original clip from Antiques Roadshow.

J. Stephan Edwards, PhD, FSA
Palm Springs, California
30 August 2024

Update, 31 October 2024:

I was honored to receive an email today from Geoffrey Munn, the Antiques Roadshow appraiser who had assessed the pendant for the television broadcast. Adding to what he had said on-air, he noted that the “cut card” setting, with its triangular prongs, “belongs to a range of apotropaic jewels” seen more commonly in the 16th and 17th centuries. “Belief in the power of such charms and talismans survived into the 18th century but the style of this example echoes those from the 16th and 17th century,” Mr Munn wrote, adding “It may have been an attempt to draw down some sort of protective power from her ‘martyrdom’.” I am very grateful to Mr Munn for this additional information.