THE EXECUTION OF LADY JANE GREY,SHE WAS ONLY 18 YEAR- OLD.IN THE VIOLENT  AND DRAMATIC  OF ENGLISH MONARCHY ,SHE WAS A TEENAGE QUEEN OF ENGLAND WHO RULED FOR ONLY NINE DAYS BEFORE SHE WAS DEPOSED AND ULTIMATELY EXECUTED.

When King Edward VI died, he named his cousin Lady Jane Grey as his true successor, passing over his sisters Mary Tudor and Elizabeth Tudor. While Mary did take the throne as Mary I, Lady Jane Grey held the power of queen for a short time. Her husband, Lord Guildford Dudley wanted to be officially King of England as a result. Queen Mary I had them both executed not long after she took power.The Nine-Day Queen,being the Queen is stressful. It's even more stressful when she's caught up in a religious crisis and her cousin is after your throne.

Lady Jane Grey (1536-1554) was queen of England for nine days during July of 1553. She was declared queen after the previous king, Edward VI, died, but she never reached her coronation, meaning she was never formally given the monarchy. Jane Grey was a devout Protestant at a time when England was fighting about being a Protestant or Catholic nation. Her Catholic cousin, Mary, took the throne and had Jane Grey beheaded. Rough family.Lady Jane Grey was the great-granddaughter of Henry VII of England and first cousin once removed to his grandson, the short-lived Edward VI. After the king's death she was proclaimed queen, being given precedence over Henry VIII's daughters, Mary Tudor and Elizabeth. Two weeks after the death of her brother, Mary, who had the support of the English people, claimed the throne, which Jane relinquished, having reigned for only nine days. Jane, her husband Lord Guilford Dudley, and her father, were imprisoned in the Tower of London on charges of high treason. Jane's trial was conducted in November, but the death penalty handed to her was temporarily suspended. In February 1554, Jane's father, who had been released, was one of the rebel leaders in Wyatt's rebellion. On Friday 12 February, Mary had Jane, then aged 16, and her husband beheaded. Her father followed two days later.It became clear that Edward was dying, and Northumberland was desperate to prevent the throne passing to Edward's half-sister and heir, the Catholic Mary Tudor. Northumberland persuaded the king to declare Mary illegitimate, as well as Edward's other half-sister Elizabeth, and alter the line of succession to pass to Jane.Later, Jane was proclaimed queen. However, Mary Tudor had widespread popular support and by mid-July, even Suffolk had abandoned his daughter and was attempting to save himself by proclaiming Mary queen. Northumberland's supporters melted away and Suffolk easily persuaded his daughter to relinquish the crown.To explain why this 18-year-old girl was beheaded after a 9-day reign as Queen of England, we first have to offer an all-too-brief primer on the political background of Tudor England up to this point.Jane Grey’s grandmother was Mary Tudor, Queen of France and younger sister of England’s King Henry VIII.Henry’s first wife, Catherine of Aragon, did not bear him a surviving son but only a daughter, Mary, born in 1516 (the year before Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the Wittenberg Castle door). When the Pope would not sanction an annulment of the marriage between Henry and Catherine, Henry rejected papal jurisdiction over ecclesiastical affairs in England and founded the Church of England.On February 12, 1554, 18-year-old Lady Jane Grey was beheaded after a nine-day reign as Queen of England.To explain why, we first have to offer an all-too-brief primer on the political background of Tudor England up to this point.Jane Grey’s grandmother was Mary Tudor, Queen of France and younger sister of England’s King Henry VIII.Henry’s first wife, Catherine of Aragon, did not bear him a surviving son but only a daughter, Mary, born in 1516 (the year before Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the Wittenberg Castle door). When the Pope would not sanction an annulment of the marriage between Henry and Catherine, Henry rejected papal jurisdiction over ecclesiastical affairs in England and founded the Church of England.In 1537, King Henry’s third wife, Jane Seymour, gave birth to a son, Edward. Upon the king’s death in 1547, the 9-year-old boy became King Edward VI. His Regency Council, designed to help him rule at a young age, was sympathetic to the emerging English Reformation.In May 1553, Jane’s ambitious father arranged for her to marry Lord Guildford Dudley, the son of John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, one of the most powerful men in England.Not long after, as the teenaged Edward VI lay on his deathbed, he named his beloved cousin, the Protestant Jane Grey, his successor, rather than his Catholic sister, Mary Tudor.On 9 July, three days after Edward’s death, Jane was informed that she had been named Edward’s heir and was persuaded to accept the throne, officially proclaimed queen the very next day.Her reign was short-lived, as Mary Tudor was proclaimed rightful queen on 19 July amid popular rejoicing and Jane and her husband, Guildford Dudley, imprisoned in the Tower of London, charged with treason. In November, they were condemned to death but it was largely believed that Queen Mary would pardon Jane, as it was clear that she was a victim of ruthless and ambitious men.However in January 1554, Jane’s father joined a rebellion that intended to prevent Mary’s marriage to Philip of Spain and replace Mary with her half-sister, Elizabeth – and although Jane had no knowledge of the rebellion – her fate was sealed and all possibilities of a pardon shattered. On the morning of 12 February 1554, Jane watched as her young husband was led from the Beauchamp Tower to his place of execution on Tower Hill.Now, dressed in a black gown and carrying an open prayer book, it was Jane’s turn. She followed the Lieutenant of the Tower, Sir John Bridges, to the scaffold and having mounted the steps turned to address the crowd.Good people, I am come hither to die, and by a law I am condemned to the same. The fact, indeed, against the queen’s highness was unlawful, and the consenting thereunto by me: but touching the procurement and desire thereof by me or on my behalf, I do wash my hands thereof in innocency, before God, and the face of you, good Christian people, this day’. (Chronicle of Queen Jane and of Two Years of Queen Mary.)She then wrung her hands, still holding her prayer book and continued:‘I pray you all, good Christian people, to bear me witness that I die a true Christian woman, and that I look to be saved by none other means, but only by the mercy of God in the merits of his only son, Jesus Christ: and I confess, when I did know the word of God I neglected the same, love myself and the world, and therefore this plague or punishment is happily and worthily happened unto me for my sins; and yet I thank God of his goodness that he has thus given me time and respect to repent.After kneeling down she recited the psalm of Miserere mei Deus in English and then stood and gave her gloves and handkerchief to Elizabeth Tilney and her prayer book to Thomas Bridges, the brother of the Lieutenant of the Tower.The executioner stepped forward to help Jane untie her gown but she ordered him to leave her, preferring, of course, the help of her ladies. After removing her gown, headdress and neckerchief, the executioner knelt and asked for Jane’s forgiveness, which she ‘most willingly’ gave.Jane was then directed to stand on the straw and there, for the first time, saw the block. One can only imagine the fear that must have surged through her small body at the sight of it. She turned to the executioner and said, ‘I pray you dispatch me quickly.’ Then knelt down and asked, ‘Will you take it off before I lay me down?’ To which he responded, ‘No, madame.’By this stage Jane’s ladies were too distressed to blindfold their mistress and so Jane was left to perform this final task herself.With one swing of the axe, the sparkle was extinguished – it was done.A contemporary of Jane’s recorded having seen ‘her half-naked corpse still lying on the scaffold later that day and commented on the extraordinary amount of blood which had issued from so small a body.Sometime before nightfall, Jane’s remains were buried in the Chapel of St Peter ad Vincula near to those of her husband and two other fallen Tudor queens, Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard.Eleven days later, Jane’s father, Henry Grey, met the same gruesome end and was buried near his daughter and son-in-law – a tragic family reunion.Jane was executed within the relatively private walls of the Tower of London rather than in the full glare of the crowds outside the walls on Tower Hill. Executions were large public spectacles that often drew huge audiences, so a private execution was considered a great favor to the condemned.What did she say in her final speech?
Here are her words:

"Good people, I am come hither to die, and by a law I am condemned to the same. The fact against the queen’s Highness was unlawful, and the consenting thereunto by me: but, touching the procurement and desire thereof by me, or on my behalf, I do wash my hands thereof in innocency before God, and the face of you, good Christian people, this day".

Lady Jane had a strict upbringing and she never developed a close relationship with her parents. She did, however, develop a close friendship with Catherine Parr. Academically, Jane excelled in languages. She had been tutored by John Aylmer and she spoke French, Greek, Latin and Italian fluently. Jane became a ward of Baron Seymour of Sudeley who tried unsuccessfully to arrange a marriage between Jane and Edward VI. Seymour was executed for treason in 1549.

Despite the heights she would (briefly) reach, Jane was not born to an important branch of the royal family tree. At the time of her birth, her parents weren’t really public figures, so her early life is unrecorded. Historians still debate whether she was born in October 1537 in Leicestershire, or if it was sometime in late 1536 in London. What is certain: Jane was the eldest of three girls born to Henry Grey, the 3rd Marquess of Dorset, and Frances Brandon, a niece of Henry VIII.Jane Grey was likely named after the third wife of Henry VIII, Jane Seymour. Seymour was the mother of Edward VI, and Henry’s only wife to deliver a legitimate surviving son. Unfortunately, this older Jane died from doing so due to childbirth complications.Jane’s maternal grandmother was the former Queen of France, Mary Tudor, who was also the younger sister of Henry VIII. After Mary’s first husband died, she eloped with Henry’s own best friend, Charles Brandon. Mary and Charles had several children together, including Jane’s mother Frances. This royal lineage made Jane a grand-niece to Henry VIII and a direct descendant of the first Tudor king Henry VII.Jane received one of the finest humanist educations for a lady of her day. She was fluent in French, Italian, Latin, and Greek—as was the fashion among learned ladies of the English Renaissance— but also in Hebrew.While Jane loved her studies, she disliked sports and was not a hunting fan like her parents. One day, the visiting scholar Roger Ascham asked why she was inside instead of on the family hunting trip. The young girl replied that “their sport in the Parke is but a shadoe to the pleasure I find in Plato. Alas! Good folke, they never felt what trewe pleasurement.” In other words, “Plato is better than guns, my guy!Lady Frances Brandon goes down in history as an abusive and cruel mother to Jane, even by 16th century standards, but this has less historical basis than most would believe. In fact, writers revolve their accusations of abuse around that one account, wherein Jane complains about her parents. On one hand, one shouldn’t totally miscount her recall of “pinches, nips, bobs, and other ways” of punishment. However, Ascham wrote about this meeting years after it happened, and he was writing a treatise to promote how kids thrived better under kinder tutors. No other accusations exist. This had led some scholars to more closely re-examine the accusations that Jane led an abuse-filled life.Although no one could have predicted it, Henry VIII’s Act of Succession (1544) changed Jane’s life forever. In the bill, the king famously re-inherited his daughters, Mary and Elizabeth. Additionally, he laid out that his sister’s descendants (i.e. Jane’s family) would inherit in the event that all three of Henry’s kids died childless. No one thought this was going to happen (although it actually did later on), so placing Jane 4th in line was seen as more of an insurance policy than a reality to plan for Welp.Despite popular belief, Jane never claimed to have been physically forced by her parents to marry Guildford Dudley. It might have saved her life to claim so before Mary I in order to make herself look more like a pawn, but no accusations of violent coercion were made. It’s fair enough to assume that Jane held just the average amount of agency that girls did in such 16th century matters.The nine-year-old Jane Grey was sent to the royal court as a ward of Queen Catherine Parr. Considering Parr’s own great love of learning (and Protestant opinions), it’s not a stretch to assume her time there had some influence on Jane.n February 1547, Jane was sent to live with Parr and her new husband, Thomas Seymour. It’s believed her parents sent Jane there with hopes of marrying her to the king, Edward VI, as Seymour was the maternal uncle to the king.When Jane moved in with Parr and Seymour, the young Princess Elizabeth Tudor was also living with her stepmother. Thus, it’s very likely these two book-loving future Queens of England were playmates.Jane had much in common with her cousin Elizabeth Tudor and might have enjoyed being ward to the similarly pious Queen Catherine. However, this bliss was not to last. Catherine’s new husband, Thomas Seymour, took an inappropriate interest in Elizabeth. His advances escalated as Catherine advanced in her pregnancy. Eventually, Catherine sent Elizabeth away. After this, we don’t know much about Jane’s interactions with her better-fated cousin.At approximately 11 years old, Jane acted as the chief mourner at Catherine Parr’s funeral in 1548. Parr had died a few days after giving birth to her only child, Mary Seymour.Jane remained with Thomas Seymour for several months after Catherine Parr’s death. There might have been a short power struggle over who still held the valuable chess piece of Jane’s custody. In theory, her parents were becoming impatient about her potential match with the king. They soon demanded Seymour send Jane back home. Others have put forward that her parents were also scared that the ambitious (and honestly creepy) Seymour might whisk Jane away and marry the heiress for himself, in spite of her young age.Two months after Jane returned to her parents’ home, her guardian Thomas Seymour was arrested and executed for high treason. In proposing Jane for Edward, he got caught in a dovetail of other bungled decisions, from allegedly plotting to marry Elizabeth Tudor without council permission to also shooting the king’s dog.Henry Grey’s connection to the disgraced Thomas Seymour put the Grey family under temporary suspicion. Henry was interrogated four times, after which he proposed that Jane marry the eldest son of Edward Seymour, Lord Protector and Duke of Somerset. This attempt to smooth things over was turned down.In 1553, Jane was finally betrothed—not to the king, but to Lord Guildford Dudley. Guildford was a younger son of John Dudley, the 1st Duke of Northumberland and the new Lord President of the young king’s council. Jane’s new husband was also the brother of a more famous Dudley: Elizabeth I of England’s future favorite and possible more-than-a-friend, Robert Dudley.Siblings are used to sharing, but few shared like this: Jane Grey and Guildford Dudley were married in a triple wedding. The co-brides were Jane’s younger sister, Catherine Grey, and Jane’s future sister-in-law, Katherine Dudley. The three couples (six people in total) were married to their respective spouses on 25 May 1553.Jane didn’t get along with her in-laws. The teenaged girl was said have shown some resistance to moving in with her new husband, which “enraged” her mother-in-law, the Duchess of Northumberland.Jane’s father-in-law, the Duke of Northumberland, had a lot riding on the marriage between Jane and Guildford. By early 1553, King Edward’s health wasn’t great; his living to produce an heir would be very unlikely. After him, either Mary or Elizabeth Tudor would rule, and that did not bode well for Northumberland’s career or his life expectancy. By aligning his son to the next ruler after Henry VIII’s daughters, he was securing his bases.In summer 1553, a dying King Edward VI was convinced that his crown shouldn’t go to a non-Protestant. After him, the Catholic Mary Tudor was set to inherit. Thus, Edward added a “device” to his father’s will that bypassed the crown from both his Catholic sister Mary and even his Protestant sister Elizabeth. Earlier in 1553, he specifically redrafted the will to go to the (future) male heirs of his cousin, Jane Grey; he was not willing to give the crown to a girl just yet. Unfortunately, sons take time to make and it became clear Jane could not pop one out by the time Edward died, which would be very soon. Thus, the king relented; Edward named “Lady Jane and her heirs male” to ascend after him, and perished on 6 July 1553.King Edward’s death was not officially announced for four days. Thus, Jane was one of the first to know her cousin was dead. On 9 July 1553, at approximately 16 years old, Jane was told she would be queen.However, the people of England rallied around Mary Tudor. England had enjoyed decades of stability under the Tudors and the name had become synonymous with England’s growing European standing. Mary’s surname alone would have been enough to gain her the support of the vast majority. On July 19th, Mary was proclaimed queen of England and Jane was sent to the Tower of London.Lady Jane Grey and her husband were beheaded on February 12th,1554, after being found guilty of treason. Guilford was the first to be executed followed by Jane. Before she was executed, Jane said that she had never wanted the throne of England and that she would die a “true Christian women”.

Lady Jane was executed within the relatively private walls of the Tower of London rather than in the full glare of the crowds outside the walls on Tower Hill. Executions were large public spectacles that often drew huge audiences, so a private execution was considered a great favor to the condemned.However, the people of England rallied around Mary Tudor. England had enjoyed decades of stability under the Tudors and the name had become synonymous with England’s growing European standing.

Mary I (1516–58) was the daughter of Henry VIII and his first wife, Catherine of Aragon. As she attempted to reverse the Protestant reforms started by her father Henry VIII, Mary had over 280 dissenters of the Catholic Church burned at the stake in what was known as the Marian persecutions. When Mary was only a child, Henry used Protestantism to divorce Mary’s mother. It’s likely this only fueled Mary’s staunch devotion to Catholicism.The first queen regnant of England, Mary succeeded the English throne following the death of her half-brother Edward VI in 1553. Married to Philip of Spain (later King Philip II of Spain) in July 1554, the couple had no children, so Mary was succeeded by her half-sister, Elizabeth. Mary is remembered for burning an estimated 300 Protestant men, women and children during her reign, which caused her to be known posthumously as 'Bloody Mary'. We bring you eight facts about the Tudor monarch.It seemed like a miracle that Mary I lived as long as she did, given that she was the only child of Henry VIII and his first wife (of six), Catherine of Aragon. Henry VIII famously separated from the Catholic Church to divorce Catherine in part because she could not produce a living son. Mary was the only surviving child after Catherine’s previous pregnancies resulted in either a stillborn or a short-lived infant. Catherine also suffered a number of miscarriages before giving birth to Mary.The only surviving child of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon, Mary I was effectively bastardised when her father divorced her mother in order to marry Anne Boleyn. Henry VIII claimed that the marriage had been incestuous and illegal, as Catherine had been married to his late brother, Arthur.Following the birth of Mary’s half-sister, Elizabeth (the future Elizabeth I), in September 1533, an Act of Parliament declared the 17-year-old Mary illegitimate and removed her from the succession to the throne (though she was reinstated by the 1543 Third Act of Succession and by Henry’s will). Mary was denied access to her mother, who had been sent by Henry to live away from court, and never saw her again.Mary was later named heir to the throne after her younger half-brother Edward – but only after she had agreed to recognise their father as head of the church. Nevertheless, Mary remained a devout Catholic. She and her brother had a tempestuous relationship as they differed greatly in their religious views. When, aged nine, Edward VI inherited the throne in 1547 and confronted Mary’s Catholicism, she declared that she would rather lay her head on a block than forsake her faith.The first queen to rule England in her own right (rather than a queen through marriage to a king), Mary acceded the throne following her brother’s death in July 1553 in what Anna Whitelock describes as “an extraordinary coup d’état”. Edward had written Mary out of the succession and instead named his Protestant cousin Lady Jane Grey as heir to the throne, but Mary enjoyed widespread popular support and days later, on 19 July, she was proclaimed queen.Mary also famously revived old heresy laws to secure the religious conversion of the country – heresy being a treasonable offence. Over the next three-and-a-half years, hundreds of Protestants – most accounts say around 300 – were burned at the stake.Aged 37 and unmarried when she ascended the throne, Mary knew that in order to prevent her Protestant half-sister Elizabeth from succeeding her, she needed to marry and produce an heir. Mary’s decision in July 1554 to marry Philip of Spain, who in 1556 was to inherit that nation’s throne from his father, Charles V, was “politically expedient.Mary was baptised and confirmed in the Roman Catholic Church shortly after she was born, and her sponsor was quite the figure. Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury, was one of only two women in 16th century England to be a peeress, or someone holding a hereditary title, in her own right and not through marriage. Clearly someone who could be counted on.Mary was given quite an extensive education when she was growing up. She learned to play musical instruments like the harpsichord, and studied with Juan Luis Vives, the Spanish humanist who was adored by Catherine of Aragon. As early as age nine, Mary was proficient in Latin, with the ability to both read and write the language.Since Henry VIII was holding out for a son, he saw the young Mary as a great opportunity to forge alliances with other European Kingdoms. By the time she was a teenager, she had already been offered to multiple courts around Europe. And that’s only officially speaking.So determined was Henry VIII to forge an alliance with France that he offered Mary up for marriage when she was just two years old. Given the volatile nature of the time, and especially the capriciousness of a man such as Henry VIII, it came as little surprise that the contract was rescinded only three years later.Mary eventually married Philip of Spain when she was 37, but several years before that it had been arranged for the young Tudor to marry Charles V of the Holy Roman Empire. Mary was just six at the time of the arrangement and Charles was 22, 16 years her senior. And just to make it clear how small the world of European monarchs was at the time, Charles V was the father of Philip of Spain, her future husband. Talk about awkward family reunions.As the marriage between Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon began to suffer, with Henry disappointed by the lack of a male heir, Catherine was sent away from the court. Starting around 1531, Mary became frequently sick (often with irregular menstruation) and was depressed from the inability to see her mother, since she was not allowed to visit.Mary’s rise to power was nothing short of a rollercoaster journey. After Henry VIII divorced Catherine of Aragon and married Anne Boleyn, he declared Mary illegitimate and demoted her rank to that of a lady, not a princess. Yet Mary would eventually become the first undisputed queen regnant of England. As opposed to a queen consort, who gains the position by being married to the king, a queen regnant holds all the cards in her own deck.After she already persecuted so many Protestants, Mary’s marriage to Philip of Spain stoked fears that England would be put under the rule of the very much Catholic Holy Roman Empire. Of course, Mary wanted a Catholic England, but she also wanted to maintain her grip on power. So she drafted up the “Queen Mary’s Marriage Act” and put it through the parliament. It stated that although Philip would be given the title “King of England,” he still always had to act with the consent of Queen Mary. The two shared “co-authority,” but the terms were pretty clear. This was Mary’s house.In the summer of 1554, the English court, and indeed most of Europe, was bracing for news of Mary’s first child. Mary started to show signs of a pregnancy months earlier, and everyone was taking precautions for the next heir to the throne. Philip was possibly even planning to marry Mary’s half-sister Elizabeth in the event that his wife died in childbirth (he was a real stand-up guy). The only problem? Mary wasn’t actually pregnant at all. Perhaps for psychological reasons, Mary had a rare case of false pregnancy, in which a woman shows many of the symptoms of a pregnancy without actually carrying a child.When Mary instituted the Heresy Acts, which saw many prominent Protestants around England burned at the stake, it caused a huge drain from the kingdom. A number of intellectuals, such as the historian John Foxe, decided it was better to leave England altogether than face martyrdom at the stake. All told, about 800 Protestants chose exile from England and went to various spots across Europe.Despite being the rightful heir to the throne after her brother Edward died young,  Mary was excluded from the line of succession at the behest of Duke John Dudley. Instead, Dudley convinced the ailing Edward that his daughter-in-law, Lady Jane Grey, would be a better fit for the throne because she could maintain the Protestant grip on England. The fear was that Mary could turn the kingdom back to Catholic hands. I mean, he wasn’t wrong.he ploy didn’t work out, and Lady Jane was infamously Queen for only nine days. After Mary took the throne in 1553, she had John Dudley immediately executed for high treason, but faced a difficult position when it came to Lady Jane and her husband, Guildford Dudley. Mary understood that Lady Jane was just a political pawn of the Dudleys, so although she was found guilty of treason, Mary initially kept her under guard at the Tower of London, not wanting to execute her. However, just as everything seemed to be settling after the whole Steal-the-Throne debacle, further tensions within England about succession forced Mary to execute Lady Jane once and for all.  She did so in quite some fashion: public beheading.Although Mary and Philip were married for diplomatic reasons, she came to love Philip dearly, and often expressed her pain when he was away looking after his other territories. Philip, for his part, seemed much more pragmatic—and did not often stay long in England.Mary was given the nickname “Bloody Mary” because she was so quick to burn Protestants at the stake, her weapon of choice. She certainly used the stake as a means of punishment far more than those who came before and after her. Henry VIII burned 81 people, while Elizabeth I only doled out that particular punishment on five occasions. As a reminder, Mary’s record stood around an impressive 280 people.