Jane Grey

Lady Jane Grey, born in 1537, was Queen of England, to some degree, for nine days in 1553. She was executed in 1554, aged 16.

Jane Grey was a great grand-daughter of Henry VII, and thus a cousin of Edward VI (born in the same year). She earned a reputation as a studious, pious lady: she was a considerable scholar: she could read Latin and Greek, was learning Hebrew; she corresponded with German reformers, and was a staunch protestant. Henry VIII had named her in his will as fourth in the line of succession, after his own children, Edward, Mary and Elizabeth. The Protestant Edward, fearing the catholicism of his sister Mary, "bequeathed the crown to 'the Lady Jane and her heirs masles' [sic]" (Nichols, 1857, cited ODNB). This made her a valuable commodity on the marriage market, although she herself was not aware of it till after Edward's death. In 1553, a month and a half before Edward's death, she was married, apparently with some reluctance, to Guildford Dudley (c.1535-1554), the son of the powerful - and ambitious - Duke of Northumberland. Guildford Dudley did know of the will. Northumberland had his daughter-in-law proclaimed, and raised an army to fight Mary's supporters; but popular feeling was against him, his army deserted, and all were arrested. Northumberland was executed quickly; Mary decided to spare Jane (and her husband) - until a rebellion led by Sir Thomas Wyatt to prevent the rumoured marriage of Mary to Philip II of Spain. As Jane's father, Henry Grey, duke of Suffolk (1517-1554) was a fellow-conspirator, and Mary wanted to assure Philip's safety, it was no longer sensible to have a protestant figurehead alive, and, in the words of the ODNB, "The judicial murder of sixteen-year-old Jane Grey, and no one ever pretended it was anything else" took place in 1554, shortly after that of Dudley.