Laura Wright 
06-03-2008
There is nothing particularly ominous about the name Jane.
It is simple, traditional and has been carried by countless women throughout history. Among European royalty and nobility, however, Jane and its equivalents, including Joan, Jeanne and Joanna, appear with surprising frequency in stories involving imprisonment, political intrigue, disastrous marriages, contested crowns and premature death.
This is not evidence of a curse.
Probably.
But history does seem to have been remarkably unkind to some of its Janes.
Lady Jane Grey: Queen for Nine Days
Perhaps no royal Jane had worse luck than Lady Jane Grey.
Highly educated and deeply Protestant, Jane became a pawn in the dangerous struggle over the English succession following the death of Edward VI in 1553. Edward attempted to prevent his Catholic half-sister Mary from inheriting the throne and named Jane as his successor.
Jane was proclaimed queen.
Her reign lasted only nine days.
Support rapidly shifted to Mary Tudor, and Jane was imprisoned in the Tower of London. Initially, Mary appears to have been reluctant to execute her young cousin. That possibility largely disappeared following Wyatt’s Rebellion in 1554, in which Jane’s father became involved.
Jane was beheaded on February 12, 1554.
According to accounts of her execution, the blindfolded Jane had difficulty finding the block and cried out for assistance before someone guided her hands toward it.
She was approximately sixteen or seventeen years old.
Death didn’t entirely end Jane’s association with the Tower. Her apparition has subsequently joined the formidable collection of ghosts said to wander the old fortress, and traditions of her spectral appearances continue today.
For a woman who ruled England for little more than a week, Jane Grey has proved remarkably difficult to forget.
Jane Seymour: The Queen Who Gave Henry VIII His Son
Jane Seymour achieved something Henry VIII had desperately wanted from his previous wives.
She gave him a legitimate son.
On October 12, 1537, Jane delivered the future Edward VI at Hampton Court Palace.
She would enjoy her triumph for less than two weeks.
Jane became seriously ill following childbirth and died at Hampton Court on October 24.
Henry had finally received his male heir, but the woman who provided him did not live to see the boy grow up.
Jane was ultimately given another distinction denied Henry’s other wives. When the king died in 1547, he was buried beside her at St. George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle.
She, too, acquired a ghost story.
Tradition holds that Jane’s spirit has been seen at Hampton Court, sometimes carrying a lighted taper as she moves through the palace where she gave birth and died.
Whether Jane still walks Hampton Court is another matter.
Considering what happened to Henry’s wives, however, dying as his favorite hardly seems much of a prize.
Joan Beaufort: A Queen Surrounded by Violence
The original list included “Jane Beaufort,” wife of James I of Scotland.
She is generally known today as Joan Beaufort.
Her story certainly belongs here, although the original description needs correcting. It was her husband, James I of Scotland, who was brutally murdered in 1437.
Joan was reportedly wounded while attempting to protect him.
James was attacked by conspirators at Perth in one of the more dramatic royal assassinations of medieval Scotland. Joan survived and subsequently became an important political figure during the minority of their son, James II.
So she wasn’t murdered.
But being present while assassins slaughtered your royal husband isn’t exactly evidence that the name brought good fortune.
Joan II of Burgundy: The Scandal of the Tour de Nesle
Another unfortunate Joan was Joan II, Countess of Burgundy, who became Queen of France through her marriage to Philip V.
Her life became entangled in the notorious Tour de Nesle affair of 1314.
Women of the French royal family were accused of adultery with knights of the royal court. Joan herself was accused primarily of knowing about the affairs and failing to reveal them.
She was imprisoned.
Unlike some of the others involved, however, Joan eventually regained her freedom. Philip continued to support her, and when he became king, she became queen.
So this Jane actually escaped comparatively well.
By medieval royal standards, imprisonment followed by restoration almost counts as a happy ending.
Joan of France: The Queen Her Husband Didn’t Want
Joan of France, daughter of Louis XI, married the future Louis XII.
The marriage was deeply unhappy.
When Louis became king, he sought an annulment so he could marry Anne of Brittany. The proceedings subjected Joan to humiliating claims concerning her body, appearance and the consummation of the marriage.
The marriage was annulled in 1498.
Joan did something rather remarkable afterward.
She withdrew from court, founded the Order of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary and devoted the remainder of her life to religion.
She died in 1505.
Centuries later, the woman discarded by a king was canonized as Saint Joan of Valois.
Perhaps Jane finally wins one.
Jeanne d’Albret: A Queen and a Mysterious Death
Jeanne d’Albret, Queen of Navarre, was one of the most formidable women of sixteenth-century Europe.
She was also the mother of the future Henry IV of France.
Jeanne openly embraced Protestantism and became an important political figure during the French Wars of Religion. In 1572, she traveled to Paris while arrangements were being made for the marriage of her son Henry to Margaret of Valois.
Then Jeanne suddenly became ill and died.
Almost immediately, rumors of poisoning began.
One particularly enduring story claimed that Catherine de’ Medici had arranged for Jeanne to be poisoned through a pair of scented gloves.
The story is wonderfully sinister.
It is also unproven.
Contemporary medical opinion attributed Jeanne’s death to natural illness, and no convincing evidence has established that Catherine murdered her.
Still, the poisoned-glove story has survived for centuries.
Sometimes history refuses to surrender a good murder even when the evidence does.
Joanna of Castile: The Queen Called “Mad”
The woman once commonly called Joanna the Mad deserves considerably more care than the original article gave her.
Joanna of Castile was the daughter of Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile.
She married Philip the Handsome and eventually became Queen of Castile.
Her life was dominated by political struggles involving the men around her. Her husband, father and eventually her son all had reasons to control the authority that legally belonged to Joanna.
Accounts of her mental condition are complicated by politics.
She clearly experienced periods of severe emotional distress, particularly surrounding Philip and his death. But historians have long debated the nature and extent of her illness and how much contemporary descriptions were influenced by people who benefited from portraying her as incapable of ruling.
What isn’t disputed is what happened to her.
Joanna spent approximately 46 years confined at Tordesillas.
She remained queen in name.
Other people governed.
The old label “Jane the Imbecile” says considerably more about historical attitudes toward mental illness than it tells us about Joanna herself.
Her story remains one of the saddest on this list.
Joanna I of Naples: A Queen Murdered
Joanna I of Naples had the sort of life that makes Game of Thrones look restrained.
She inherited the Neapolitan throne in 1343 and became entangled in decades of dynastic warfare, papal politics, disputed marriages and accusations surrounding the murder of her first husband, Andrew of Hungary.
Andrew was strangled in 1345.
Joanna was suspected of involvement, although her responsibility remains disputed.
Her own ending was equally violent.
After backing the wrong pope during the Western Schism, Joanna lost political support and was captured by forces loyal to Charles of Durazzo.
In 1382, she was murdered.
Accounts differ over precisely how.
One tradition claims she was smothered beneath mattresses or featherbeds. Another says she was strangled.
Even the manner of her death refuses to settle into certainty.
The War of the Two Joans
Then there were two women whose competing claims helped give a medieval conflict its wonderfully memorable name:
The War of the Two Joans.
The Breton War of Succession began after the death of John III, Duke of Brittany, in 1341.
The principal rival claims came through Joan of Penthièvre and the Montfort family, whose cause was vigorously championed by Joanna of Flanders.
These were not passive medieval ladies waiting for men to settle matters.
Joanna of Flanders became particularly famous for defending Hennebont during a siege and taking an active role in the military struggle.
The conflict dragged on for more than two decades.
Apparently one Jane fighting for a contested inheritance wasn’t sufficient.
History supplied two.
A Curse Upon Jane?
Of course, there is no reason to believe the name Jane carries a curse.
There are also plenty of Janes, Joans, Jeannes and Joannas who lived perfectly respectable lives without being beheaded, imprisoned, poisoned, overthrown, widowed by assassins or dragged into a medieval war.
But history has an odd way of creating patterns once we begin looking for them.
Lady Jane Grey wore a crown for nine days and lost her head.
Jane Seymour became Henry VIII’s favored queen and died shortly after giving him the son he wanted.
Joanna of Castile possessed a crown but spent much of her life confined.
Joanna of Naples ruled in her own right and was eventually murdered.
Jeanne d’Albret died suddenly amid rumors of poison.
Joan of France was publicly rejected by her husband.
And two Joans managed to get an entire war named after them.
Coincidence?
Almost certainly.
Still, if I found myself born into medieval European nobility and my parents announced that they had decided to name me Jane, I might ask them to reconsider.
History has already given the name quite enough material.
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