
Game of Thrones has featured many shocking moments across its eight seasons, but one particularly jaw-dropping scene in Season 5 was both a true reflection of the novels and a strikingly accurate recreation of a historical event: Cersei Lannister’s humiliating nude 'Walk of Atonement.' Not only did it faithfully mirror what was written in A Dance with Dragons, but it also mirrored a very real incident from the late 1400s.
Jane Shore, once one of King Edward IV’s numerous mistresses, found herself in a perilous situation following his death in 1483 and the mysterious passing of his son, Edward V. When Edward’s brother Richard III took the throne, he had little fondness for Shore and charged her, alongside two others, with conspiring against him. Richard accused her of sorcery, claiming that her witchcraft was causing his body to deteriorate, but he was unable to gather sufficient proof. Had he succeeded, Jane’s fate would likely have been sealed with execution at the Tower of London. Instead, she faced punishment for her perceived immorality.
To atone for her supposed sins, Jane Shore was sentenced to walk through the streets in a public act of penance, subjected to the jeers and insults of the watching crowd. Though she wasn’t entirely naked like Cersei, her attire was scandalously minimal by the era’s standards. She wore only a kirtle, a simple linen undergarment, or in some accounts, a plain white sheet. Like Cersei, Jane’s walk involved suffering on the harsh cobblestones, where the sharp flint stones tore at her bare feet as she endured public humiliation.
Unlike the storyline in Game of Thrones, Jane Shore’s suffering didn’t end with rescuers coming to her aid. Instead, she remained locked in Ludgate Prison until the King’s Solicitor General, Thomas Lynom, fell in love with her and proposed marriage. Through his intervention, she was granted a pardon and allowed to live the remainder of her life in relative peace (a luxury that Cersei never experienced).
Updated for 2019.