Jane Shore

Penance Jane Shores, by William Blake , 1793

Jane Shore (* 1445 in London as Elizabeth Lambert ; † around 1527) was a mistress of King Edward IV of England , the first of three whom he described as the happiest, the most cunning and the holiest prostitute in his kingdom. When she was old, Thomas More wrote that an attentive observer could see traces of her former beauty in her wrinkled face.

Life

Jane was born in London to the merchant John Lambert and his wife Amy, daughter of the wealthy grocer Robert Marshall. She was baptized Elizabeth, but later assumed the name Jane for reasons unknown. Before she even grew up, she married the merchant William Shore, who was young, handsome, and wealthy but never won her affection. The marriage was annulled due to impotence in 1476.

Jane became the king's mistress in late 1475 or 1476. Eduard did not discard her, like his many other mistresses, their relationship lasted until his death in 1483. After that, Jane was the mistress of the Queen's eldest son, Thomas Gray, 1st Marquess of Dorset , and of William Hastings, 1st Baron Hastings who was imprisoned for treason in the Tower of London and executed there on June 18, 1483. The order of these relationships is unknown. Jane had to repent at Paul's Cross for her sexually permissive behavior . This could also be due to the suspicion that she had hosted the fugitive Marquess of Dorset. One Sunday she was walking the streets with a wax candle and her cloak and caught the attention of many men along the way. While in jail for her wrongdoing, she handcuffed the king's attorney, Thomas Lynom, and drafted a prenuptial agreement with him. We know this from a letter from King Richard to his Chancellor, written on the occasion to forgive Jane so that she could be released from prison under her father's guard, but also to discourage Lynom from marrying. Nevertheless, they married and had a daughter. Lynom lost his position as a lawyer when Henry VII. Richard III. struck, but was able to remain in the new government as a middle-level bureaucrat. Jane Shore probably lived the rest of her life as a respectable citizen.

Web links

• Rosemary Horrox: Shore, Elizabeth [Jane] (d. 1526/7?) , Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 , viewed 18 November 2011