Mysterious portrait could be of ‘Nine Days Queen' Lady Jane Grey

A mysterious portrait of a woman now on public display could be the only painting of Lady Jane Grey before she was executed, according to research.
Lady Jane was Queen of England for just nine days, from July 10 to July 19 1553, and was proclaimed Queen as part of an unsuccessful bid to prevent the accession of her Catholic cousin, Mary Tudor.
English Heritage said research including dendrochronology (tree ring dating) and infra-red reflectography, has provided 'compelling evidence' in favour of confirming that the portrait depicts Lady Jane.
Existing depictions and the few known representations of Lady Jane – including The Execution of Lady Jane Grey, a painting by Paul Delaroche – are all known to have been painted after her death.
Lady Jane was executed on Tower Green at the Tower of London on February 12 1554 at the age of 17.
English Heritage said analysis of the panel upon which the woman is painted – comprised of two Baltic oak boards from two different trees – suggests a likely usage date for the panel between 1539 and circa 1571.
The back of the panel displays a merchant or cargo mark, identical to a mark used on a royal portrait of King Edward VI.
Analysis also shows significant changes were applied to the painting in later years, perhaps to depict Lady Jane as a Protestant martyr.
The portrait, on loan from a private collection, is on display at Wrest Park in Bedfordshire, alongside six other paintings.
Rachel Turnbull, English Heritage's senior collections conservator, said: 'Working alongside the Courtauld Institute of Art, and Dendrochronologist Ian Tyers, English Heritage has undertaken remarkable research in an effort to determine the identity of this portrait.
'While we can't confirm that this is definitely Lady Jane Grey, our results certainly make a compelling argument!
'From the newly discovered evidence of a once perhaps more elaborate costume and the dating of the wooden panel from within her lifetime, to the deliberate scratching of her eyes, it is possible that we are looking at the shadows of a once more royal portrait of Lady Jane Grey, toned down into subdued, Protestant martyrdom after her death.
'Regardless of her identity, the results of our research have been fascinating.'
Historical author Dr Philippa Gregory said: 'This is such an interesting picture posing so many questions, and if this is Jane Grey, a valuable addition to the portraiture of this young heroine, as a woman of character – a powerful challenge to the traditional representation of her as a blindfolded victim.'

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The Herald Scotland

a day ago

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Kincora horror: MI5, Mountbatten and sex abuse of boys during Troubles

The Belfast care home for boys was the site of a notorious paedophile ring. The central figure was a loyalist paramilitary called William McGrath. He was a house master at Kincora as well as an agent for the British intelligence service MI5. Moore, an award-winning BBC investigative journalist, has just published a new book alleging that MI5 colluded in the rape of children from the Kincora home as part of a long-running intelligence operation. He has also interviewed former Kincora residents who say they were sexually abused by Lord Mountbatten, the close relative of the royal family. Moore met with The Herald on Sunday to discuss his new book 'Kincora Britain's Shame: Mountbatten, MI5, the Belfast Boys Home Sex Abuse Scandal and the British Cover-Up'. (Image: Chris Moore, an award-winning BBC investigative journalist) One hour before the meeting, news emerged that a victim of abuse at Kincora, Garry Hoy, now aged 63, had received an undisclosed settlement after claims that paedophile house master William McGrath was protected from prosecution due to being an MI5 agent. Moore says the finding has huge significance as it is an effective admission by the government for the first time that McGrath was an agent of the British state while carrying out his crimes. At least 29 boys were abused at Kincora from the day it opened in 1958 to 1980, when McGrath and two other staff 'wardens', Raymond Semple and Joseph Mains, were jailed. McGrath received just four years. McGrath – a prominent member of the Orange Order and an evangelical preacher – was a leading far-right loyalist who had set up his own paramilitary organisation called Tara. He was also linked to powerful unionist politicians like Reverend Ian Paisley. Moore says British security sources told him that 'at the time intelligence on the Protestant community stretched to a number of cards in a shoebox'. He explains that at the start of the conflict in Northern Ireland, known as The Troubles, 'the British had no real intelligence on Protestant paramilitaries. They wanted to get on top of that. They also wanted to know which unionist politicians were allied to the men with guns'. Evidence of McGrath's involvement with MI5 first emerged, according to Moore, in 1975, when a British military intelligence officer called Captain Brian Gemmell came across reference to McGrath in army files. Perversion Gemmell, who Moore interviewed, spoke to a source in Tara who suggested McGrath was working for MI5. Gemmell also uncovered claims of McGrath's 'sexual perversions'. Moore says that Gemmell became 'worried about the safety of the children at Kincora and wanted his intelligence report about the potential sexual abuse danger McGrath posed to underage boys to be given to the police'. However, MI5's chief in Northern Ireland is said to have summoned Gemmell. Moore quotes Gemmell claiming: 'He was rude to me. He told me that the kind of information that I submitted was not proper intelligence, that we had nothing.' Gemmell was told to 'drop the investigation into Tara'. (Image: Chris Moore's revelatory new book on the scandal) Although married, McGrath was homosexual. Moore says of MI5: 'If they could find a means of putting pressure on individuals who were from the unionist community, if they were homosexual, that would be a nice bit of leverage that they could use to make sure that person would comply with what MI5 wanted.' Moore says the notion that MI5 did not know that McGrath was committing sexual offences against children is 'difficult to believe'. He cites a report from the Irish desk of MI5 dated April 14, 1972, under the heading 'Extreme Protestants', in which it is stated that McGrath 'had been accused of assaulting small boys'. Tara was involved in smuggling arms from apartheid South Africa into Northern Ireland via The Netherlands. One of the Kincora victims who Moore interviewed, Richard Kerr, explained how he was raped from the age of eight. He told of being taken to bars in Belfast where he was abused by men. 'It's grim beyond belief,' Moore adds. McGrath was a sexual sadist who inflicted extreme violence on the children he abused. One victim told Moore how he was left bleeding and crying after being 'brutally raped' by McGrath. The victim has since been awarded compensation from the authorities. Kincora, Moore believes, was 'part of a much larger operation to secure information about what was going on in the loyalist community, what the connections were between unionist parties and loyalist gunmen'. In 1975, Moore explains, 'allegations by a young teenager that he was being sexually abused' eventually led detectives to start looking into Kincora. A police officer was tasked with surveillance. 'He took pictures of men going in and out. He was able to establish through car registration numbers the identity of some of the men – for example, two Justices of the Peace. 'He saw two police constables going in. These men were going in and out of Kincora at a time when they had no reason to be there. He saw businessmen going in and, most important of all, he saw two officials from the Northern Ireland Office.' It would later emerge that 'they were also MI5'. Postings at the Northern Ireland Office were used as cover for MI5 officers stationed in Northern Ireland, Moore explains. Surveillance MOORE has interviewed the police officer who carried out the surveillance. The officer was later told by his superiors to 'forget Kincora. That's what he did because he followed orders. At the same time across the city, the army intelligence officer Brian Gemmell was asking MI5 'should we not get the police to go in and investigate'. He too was told, forget about Kincora'. Had the police been instructed to do their job properly in 1975, Moore believes, 'five years of sexual horror and torture would have been removed for the boys in Kincora'. It's important to note that action on Kincora was only taken after reporters in Ireland brought the issue to public attention in 1980. (Image: Kincora abuse survivor Gary Hoy outside the former boys' home) Once the allegations emerged, McGrath and the two other 'house wardens' were charged and eventually prosecuted and jailed. Joseph Mains received six years, and Raymond Semple five – both longer terms than McGrath, who died in 1991. After the three were jailed, the then secretary of state for Northern Ireland Jim Prior began moves for a public inquiry. However, says Moore, 'MI5 was fiercely opposed to the plan'. Moore says that documentation shows that MI5's legal adviser 'was fighting a battle on two fronts… one attempting to press the government to drop its plans for a powerful judicial inquiry into Kincora, and the other justifying why MI5 officers should not be interviewed by police even if they are aware of criminality'. A note by MI5's legal adviser, dated May 9, 1983, detailing a meeting with the Home Office legal department, read: 'I explained that as a result of stupid investigations by the RUC [Northern Ireland's then police force], we now had an interest in the Kincora inquiry… An inquiry with the power to call witnesses could cause problems.' An internal MI5 memo by its legal adviser read: 'If terms of reference were too wide one might well find the Tribunal having to examine the conduct of intelligence operations in Northern Ireland… The consequences of this would not be confined to the operation of the intelligence services but might well expose operations whose purpose was to obtain intelligence about the activities of prominent Protestant politicians.' Moore adds: 'This is how MI5 went about convincing Margaret Thatcher's government to ignore Prior's plans to have a proper judicial inquiry. And it appeared to work. 'The consequence was a watered-down public inquiry in which [a retired English judge] was given very narrow terms of reference restricting him to social care matters and systemic failures in the social services. MI5 won the day and… the inquiry was kept safely away from other state issues linked to Kincora that needed to be exposed and investigated.' He adds: 'MI5 and the British government worked together to make sure the people of Northern Ireland, England, Scotland and Wales had no idea what was going on. The British government protected MI5. But the problem with protecting MI5 is that there are enough people who know the truth and are prepared to take a risk to tell it.' Moore says that a telex sent in June 1982 by a very senior MI5 officer referred to the possibility of creating 'false files' in anticipation of lines of inquiry which police might seek to follow in subsequent investigations. Read more Neil Mackay: Gangsters are terrorising Scotland, but do our politicians care? Neil Mackay: Nazi salutes and why you should believe the evidence of your own eyes Neil Mackay: English nationalism will be the death of the union Neil Mackay: We're not an island of strangers. But I'm now a stranger in my own land Sacrificed MOORE says the revelation meant 'it's difficult to believe a single word MI5 says. This shows they were embarrassed. One has to suspect the embarrassment of the intelligence service could indicate that they knew boys were being raped and sexually abused, but chose to put national security and the integrity of the state above the integrity of young men from broken homes or who had lost parents'. He adds: 'They could be the sacrificial lambs so that we as a nation could keep up with what was going on in the loyalist community. It beggars belief.' Moore says the Northern Ireland Office destroyed files linked to Kincora. 'They said these files were related to newspaper coverage of Kincora. I don't believe that. I think there were other motives.' He notes that existing Kincora files have been 'locked away' until 2065, or even in some cases to 2085. 'I can't get over this,' says Moore. 'It's crazy. Maybe I'm being cynical but by the year 2085, nobody is going to be alive to remember. So another secret goes away.' Perhaps the most shocking claims made in connection to Kincora focus on Lord Mountbatten, a close member of the royal family circle, great-uncle to King Charles, former admiral of the fleet, and the last Viceroy of India. (Image: Lord Louis Mountbatten) In total, says Moore, allegations have been made by five men that they were sexually abused by Mountbatten as boys – three were Kincora residents. Moore has interviewed three of the alleged victims. The testimony of two appear in the book. He was contacted by a third after the book had been written, so could not include his claims in time for publication. Moore says he 'struggled to believe' the claims against Mountbatten until he met a man called Arthur Smyth, who he interviewed in Australia. As a child, Smyth's family lived in 'abject poverty', before finally collapsing in 1977. A judge told Smyth: 'I'm going to put you in care somewhere that you're going to be safe.' He was sent to Kincora, aged 11. At first, Moore says, Arthur loved the home, where he got 'three meals a day and could play in the garden. His joy came to an end the day he was brutally raped by McGrath'. Smyth had been separated from his sister and desperately wanted to see her again. McGrath told him to comply with his orders or he would never be reunited with her. 'It was particularly cruel,' says Moore. 'I hate any form of cruelty.' As the abuse continued, Smyth was later introduced to a man who McGrath called 'Dickie'. McGrath told Smyth 'to do the same for the man as you do for me'. He was ordered to undress and 'was then raped by this man Dickie, he says', Moore explains. 'This happened a second time in a week.' Smyth told Moore that he'd bottled up the truth for decades but could no longer hide what happened after his grandchildren were born. 'I tell my kids and grandkids to be honest. If something is bothering you, stand up for your rights – I'd be a hypocrite if I didn't stand up for my rights,' Smyth said. Assassination It was only when Smyth saw TV news reporting the assassination of Mountbatten by the IRA that he realised it was the same man who had raped him. Mountbatten was killed when Republican terrorists planted a bomb on his boat at his Irish estate. Moore also interviewed Richard Kerr, another survivor, who now lives in America. Kerr agreed to be 'interviewed openly on camera' for a BBC investigation. 'What he revealed was extremely significant. For the first time in public, a former Kincora resident let it be known that some boys were taken out of the hostel to provide sexual services to men.' Kerr told Moore that he was taken to a house in Belfast where he was abused by a soldier. Kerr was also abused at hotels, including at the seaside resort Portrush and at the famous Europa Hotel in Belfast, where he said he was 'plied with drinks'. (Image: Richard Kerr, who was just eight when he was first sexually assaulted) Kerr arrived at Kincora, aged 14, in 1975. He told Moore that he and another Kincora boy, Stephen Waring – who would later kill himself – were driven to Mountbatten's home called Classiebawn Castle near Mullaghmore in County Sligo in the Irish Republic. The man in charge of Kincora, warden Joe Mains, drove the boys as far as Fermanagh on the Northern Ireland side of the border. Mains was instrumental in the paedophile ring being run out of Kincora, Kerr explained to Moore. 'Joe took our pictures to show to his clients so that they could see his boys at a glance and pick out the boy they wanted. These pictures were taken when we were naked.' Richard Kerr, Moore says, claims that he and Stephen Waring 'were requested' by Mountbatten 'to attend him at his home'. Mains drove to a hotel car park in Fermanagh where two men arrived and drove them to Classiebawn. 'They were taken individually from a guest reception room to the boathouse where they were sexually assaulted and then returned,' Moore claims. Back in Belfast, it emerged that Stephen Waring knew who the assailant was while Kerr 'had no idea until he told me… I just knew he was just another high-profile 'client' like the businessmen, politicians, doctors and lawyers'. On August 9, 1977, Queen Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh travelled to Northern Ireland for a two-day visit for the Jubilee celebrations. Moore says: 'The diaries of Lord Mountbatten reveal that he and others in his party travelled north from Classiebawn on August 7 to stay for three nights.' Moore also met with the author and historian Andrew Lownie who wrote a book on Mountbatten. In 2019, the Garda [Ireland's police service] refused Lownie's request to view security logs of Northern Ireland-registered cars which travelled between Belfast and Classiebawn. Trafficking LOWNIE wanted to access the files to pursue inquiries into the trafficking of boys from Kincora to Mountbatten. Lownie revealed recently released FBI files which alleged American intelligence had information that Mountbatten was a paedophile. Lownie says he spoke to boys who had been trafficked to Mountbatten including a boy known as Sean from Kincora, and a boy called Amal who was allegedly trafficked from London to Sligo. Richard Kerr's friend Stephen Waring committed suicide shortly after he was allegedly abused by Mountbatten. He absconded from Northern Ireland, but was picked up by police and put back on a ferry to Belfast. 'Waring was reported as having jumped overboard midway. His body was never recovered,' Moore says. Richard Kerr, however, 'did not believe his friend Stephen would end his life like that, and Stephen's death and the manner of it spooked him'. In addition to Richard Kerr and Arthur Smyth, Moore interviewed a 'third man living in the Republic of Ireland' after he finished writing the book. He told Moore that he had also allegedly been 'a survivor of abuse' by Mountbatten. This man had not been in Kincora as a boy. 'His abuse took place in London by Mountbatten,' Moore adds. 'There are at least five people who claim they were sexually abused by Mountbatten,' Moore says. 'Mountbatten is dead. I cannot stand over whether he was an abuser or not, but I have to say, I've spoken to three people who claim they were sexually assaulted by Mountbatten. I think that's good enough to raise questions about his conduct.' Another victim Moore interviewed, Clint Massey, said 'he heard English voices at Kincora'. Massey is now dead. But like Massey, Arthur Smyth also claimed he heard English voices downstairs on a night he says he was drugged, tied up and abused. Moore says that Britain's secret service was established in part to 'protect the monarchy'. He asks: 'Is that still going on today? Is that what happened with Mountbatten?' (Image: Joe Mains ran Kincora from 1958 to 1980) Moore has chosen not to name many of the high-profile public figures who were identified to him as paedophiles who abused boys at Kincora as he has not yet got enough evidence on them through multiple sourcing as he has with Mountbatten. Some are dead, some are still alive. Many are known to the public. 'They were other important people in the establishment,' he says. 'However, I cannot stand over any of the claims yet. I would hate to allow someone who is a child abuser to sue me, so I've been very careful.' The key question for Moore is whether MI5 'turned a blind eye in order to maintain a flow of intelligence deemed too important to lose, despite the heinous actions of its agents'. Moore says that he had a discussion over lunch once with the former chief constable of the RUC Sir John Hermon. 'I put it to him that McGrath was an agent of MI5. He said, 'oh no, that can't be because I would have known about it.' However, a year later, Hermon met with Moore and said: 'I owe you an apology because I've checked. McGrath was working with MI5.' Paisley ANOTHEr high-ranking police officer who investigated Kincora once told Moore to 'keep going' with his investigations as he was 'annoying the right people – in London. He was talking about MI5. He told me that MI5 had obstructed his investigations'. A source for Moore in the Northern Ireland Office unexpectedly cut contact with him at one point after he started asking questions about MI5. When Moore was finally able to ask his source why he'd cut contact, the senior civil servant told him that an 'MI5 officer took him into a room and suggested that he break all contact with me and stop asking dumb questions if he wanted to keep his job and pension'. Another source in the RUC cut contact with Moore as well. The policeman's boss had told the officer he was aware he was speaking to Moore. A BBC executive, Moore claims, had given information on the contact between Moore and the policeman to a high-ranking officer. 'That horrified me,' says Moore. On another occasion, Moore learned that a BBC executive had also leaked that he was in possession of the identities of 'four under-secretaries' from the British government who were suspected of involvement in Kincora. 'Someone in the BBC was leaking to the security service,' Moore claims. Moore later discovered that an MI5 officer who had been photographed going into Kincora in the 1970s had been fined for exposing himself at a railway station in London. McGrath had links to one of the highest-profile politicians in Northern Ireland's history, Ian Paisley. McGrath, says Moore, had a 'close association' with Paisley. He also had links to James Molyneaux, leader of the Ulster Unionist Party, and senior figures in the Orange Order. In 1982, as journalists began asking questions about Paisley's links to McGrath, Paisley staged a pre-emptive press conference, Moore explains. 'It was a tactic he had used successfully in the past: identify an issue with potential for causing embarrassment and stage a loud media event with theatrical bluster in order to intimidate the press.' Two Irish journalists, Moore explains, had spoken to a woman who was a missionary in Paisley's Free Presbyterian Church. She had claimed that, prior to 1980, she had alerted Paisley to 'McGrath's corrupting sexual influence on young men attending evangelical meetings'. Before the story could be published, Paisley staged a press conference at his church. 'When asked at this conference how well he knew McGrath, Paisley tried to distance himself by saying he 'knew of him when he ran a place called Faith House'… That suggested his knowledge of McGrath began and ended in the 1950s. This was simply untrue.' (Image: Reverend Ian Paisley)Lies MOORE says that McGrath's family were 'members of Paisley's Martyrs Memorial Church. Moreover, I would later discover that he had officiated at the marriages of two of McGrath's children some years earlier, something he conveniently appeared to have forgotten. Nor did he seem to recall how McGrath had once accompanied him to a meeting with Northern Ireland prime minister James Chichester-Clark'. Moore adds: 'Paisley sat in that news conference and told us lies – f*****g porkies.' Today, Kincora no longer exists. It was knocked down shortly before Moore started writing his book. Anyone who lived through the Troubles, though, knows its name. The scandal haunts memories. However, Moore worries that as time passes and the conflict becomes history, what happened at Kincora may be forgotten. 'There are young people nowadays who don't know about Kincora,' he says, 'or the significance of Kincora, the lies and obfuscation of MI5 and the British government. 'Kincora tells you that MI5 is above democracy, it is above democratic rule. They do what they want, that's clear from the secret state documents which show how they influenced the Conservative government away from allowing any investigation of MI5 and their relationship with Kincora. 'Such an inquiry would have proved that the residents of Kincora were let down time after time. It shows you the lengths to which the mother of all parliaments will go to keep itself clean from the sexual assault of children which lies at the heart of this all. 'Society failed Kincora's boys. They were poor and they were vulnerable. It's deplorable that the state, and those responsible for protecting the state, should lose all integrity and allow young boys to be raped and go through mental torture, life-changing events that will never leave them. 'In return for their squalid little intelligence operation, MI5 got to listen in to what politicians on the unionist side were doing with loyalist paramilitaries. It's disgusting.' MI5, Moore says, 'has questions to answer', not just about running McGrath as an agent, and allegations of covering up what was going on at Kincora, but also whether any of its officers offended against children. There's another strand of this story which has yet to be properly aired and which Moore is investigating: the so-called Lost Boys of Belfast. Four boys vanished in Belfast in the late 1960s and early 1970s and were 'never seen again'. The dismembered body of a fifth boy was found in the River Lagan. One man who Moore interviewed said that, in 1973, he was a child playing in the street in Belfast when McGrath tried to snatch him. 'He managed to get away,' says Moore, 'but McGrath may well have been the man who abducted some of these boys.' Moore says all he ever wanted to do over the 45 years he's spent investigating this horrific case was 'highlight the suffering of children' and attempt to get justice for them. Reporting on such terrible events took its toll on him, though. Thirty years ago, as Moore was covering another story of sexual abuse, this time an investigation into a notorious paedophile priest, he realised he needed therapy. 'I stopped covering the Kincora story for a time,' he says, 'but the need to tell the truth for the survivors just kept dragging me back.'

NBC News

2 days ago

• NBC News

8 killed, 13 injured after hot-air balloon catches fire and falls in Brazil

RIO DE JANEIRO — A hot-air balloon caught fire and tumbled from the sky on Saturday in Brazil 's southern state of Santa Catarina, killing eight people, firefighters said. Footage shared by local news outlet G1 showed billows of smoke coming from the balloon in flames as it hurtled toward the ground in the municipality of Praia Grande. Thirteen people survived and were taken to hospitals, Santa Catarina's military fire brigade said, adding that 21 people were on board including the pilot. 'We are in mourning. A tragedy has happened. We will see how it unfolds, what happened, why it happened. But the important thing now is for the state structure to do what it can,' Gov. Jorginho Mello said in a video on X. Mello said he has asked authorities to head to the municipality 'to do as much as possible to rescue, to help, to take to hospital, to comfort the families.' Praia Grande is a common destination for hot-air ballooning, a popular activity in some parts of Brazil's south during June festivities that celebrate Catholic saints such as St. John. Last Sunday, a balloon came down in Sao Paulo state, killing a 27-year-old woman and injuring 11 other people, G1 reported.