"Lady Jane Grey" is how the woman who was
Queen of
England for nine days is usually referred to in history. When
Edward VI was very ill in
1553, some English
Protestants worried that the next person in line for the
throne, Edward's older half-sister
Mary, would forcibly reconvert the country to
Catholicism, the
religion their father
Henry VIII had left so that he could marry again after Mary's mother
Catherine of Aragon. John Dudley, Earl of Warwick and Duke of Northumberland, who had served as
Protector while Edward reigned, induced Edward to name 15-year-old Jane as heiress to the throne a few days before his death. Jane was the
granddaughter of Henry VIII's sister Mary, and had less of a claim to the throne than Edward's half sisters Mary and
Elizabeth, several descendants of Henry VIII's other sister Margaret, and Jane's own mother.
Jane herself was reluctant to take the throne, but Northumberland, who had earlier manipulated a marriage of Jane to Northumberland's 16-year-old son Guilford, persuaded her to be crowned queen on 10 July 1553 (though she refused to have her husband crowned with her, a surprising example of stubbornness from someone railroaded into this whole situation). Nine days later, she was deposed by nobles who wanted someone with a more rightful claim to the throne (and not someone under Northumberland's thumb); the people of England also generally supported Mary. Northumberland was beheaded by Mary after she became queen, and Jane and Guilford were imprisoned for a while. Though they had been pressured into the whole mess by family, Mary finally came to the conclusion that for her own safety, the two had to be executed, which took place on 12 February 1554.