Jane Shore - Prison, Second Marriage and Later Life

Prison, Second Marriage and Later Life

Jane also had two other lovers: the queen's eldest son, Thomas Grey, 1st Marquess of Dorset, and William Hastings, 1st Baron Hastings. Grey's wife was the wealthy heiress Cecily Bonville, who also happened to be the stepdaughter of Hastings. Jane was instrumental in bringing about the alliance between Hastings and the Woodvilles, which was formed while Richard, Duke of Gloucester, was Protector, before he took the throne as King Richard III. She was accused of carrying messages between Hastings and the Queen. It was because of her role in this alliance that Jane was charged with conspiracy, along with Hastings and the Woodvilles, against the Protector's government.

Jane’s punishment included open penance at Paul's Cross for her promiscuous behaviour by Richard, though this may have been motivated by the suspicion that she had harboured Dorset when he was a fugitive or as a result of Richard’s antagonism towards any person who represented his older brother’s court. A clash of personalities between the lighthearted Jane and stern Richard also generated a mutual dislike between the two. Jane accordingly went in her kirtle through the streets one Sunday with a taper in her hand, attracting a lot of male attention all along the way.

After her public penitence, Jane resided in Ludgate prison. While there, she captivated the King's Solicitor General, Thomas Lynom. After he expressed an interest in Jane to the king, Richard tried to dissuade him for his own good. This is evinced by a letter to John Russell from Richard, where the King asked the chancellor to try to prevent the marriage, but if Lynom were determined on the marriage, to release Jane from prison and put her in the charge of her father until Richard's next arrival in London when the marriage could take place. They were married and had one daughter. It is believed that Jane lived out the remainder of her life in bourgeois respectability. Lynom lost his position as King's Solicitor when Henry VII defeated Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth in August 1485, but he was able to stay on as a mid-level bureaucrat in the new reign, becoming a gentleman who sat on the commissions in the Welsh Marches and clerk controller to Arthur, Prince of Wales, at Ludlow Castle. Thomas More, writing when she was still alive, but very old, declared that even then an attentive observer might discern in her shriveled countenance traces of her former beauty.