Free Republic

February 12 is the anniversary of Lady Jane Grey‘s beheading at the Tower of London. The Protestant teenager was the designated successor of sickly boy-king Edward VI, but popular and aristocratic support went for Mary Tudor in a landslide. The Nine Days’ Queen landed in the Tower and copped to a treason charge on a tenuous deal for mercy (not applicable to her sponsors and allies, many of whom went to the block). But a January 1554 Protestant rebellion that had Protestant restoration as part of its programme made it a dangerous indulgence for Mary to keep her cousin’s neck...

Leicestershire's young Nine-Day Queen showed bravery and humilityShe was Leicestershire’s own monarch – and the very first reigning queen of England. But the tragic story of Lady Jane Grey is often overlooked by historians. Only now does a three-part TV series – the second part is tomorrow at 9pm on BBC4 – shed any new light on Jane. Born in Bradgate in October, 1537, Jane’s life was as short as it was tragic. Beautiful and intelligent, she was reluctantly proclaimed Queen of England in 1553, aged just 15. She reigned for just nine days, before being imprisoned in the Tower...