The Teen Queen Who Lost Everything in Nine DaysD
Jane gray was perhaps one of the youngest Queens to ever be publicly executed she was 16 or 17 years old when it happened blindfolded she fumbled a bit as awkward teenagers do to find The Executioner’s block with her hands and cried what shall I do where is it a deputy helped guide her right before her head was struck off James Drew her last heartbreaking words what did the Young Queen say before she died the full story is coming up Lady Jane gray holds an extremely dubious historical title she’s the queen with the shortest rain in history just nine days hence her nickname the nine days Queen yet for all the brevity of her time on the throne her story is one full of toxic love scandalous beaut and vicious plot
[Music] twists despite the heights she would briefly reach Jane was not born to an important branch of the Royal Family Tree though they were Royal born in 1537 Jame was the eldest of three girls born to Henry gray and Francis Brandon a niece of Henry VII although it didn’t help her in the end this connection did start out with some perks Jane received received one of the finest educations for a lady of her day she was fluent in multiple languages and seemed to prefer reading to more boisterous activities like hunting one day a visiting scholar asked why she was inside instead of a family hunting trip the young girl replied that their sport in the park is but a shadow to the pleasure I find in Playdoh Jane’s parents were incredibly
harsh and it made her utterly miserable Jane once confided the pressure she was under to perform every little act perfectly if she didn’t she was tormented and threatened and possibly outright physically abused by her parents she wrote that their taunts made her think that she was in Hell In 1544 King Henry VII altered the rules for his succession this would change Jam’s life forever in the bill the king famously reinherz beeth but also laid out that Jan’s family as his sister’s descendants would inherit the throne in the event that all three of Henry’s children passed before having heirs Jane was now technically fourth in line to the throne but no one thought she would ever inherit in fact her path to the crown
started in a very different place place at 9 years old Jane gray was sent to the Royal Court as Award of Henry’s last queen Katherine Parr par who was smart and steady was obviously a good role model for Jane but she was also Incredibly Close to the center of power at court which mattered immensely to Jane’s family soon after Jan’s arrival in court her world turned upside down King Henry the E died making his young son Edward the 6th King furthermore Katherine par quickly remarried Thomas Seymour Edward’s maternal uncle and an influential Court figure in his own right Jane followed par and semour into their new marital house likely because her parents hoped she would One Day end up marrying Edward v 6 when Jane moved into her new house the
young princess Elizabeth tutor was also living with her stepmother Katherine Parr the atmosphere quickly soured Thomas Seymour took an inappropriate interest in Elizabeth acting in a way that Catherine hated eventually Katherine sent Elizabeth away and Jane was alone without a playmate Katherine Parr though she was Advanced and aged for the time soon became pregnant with creepy Thomas Seymour and it would be her Doom a few days after giving birth to her only child Mary Seymour par died at just 11 years old Jane acted as the chief mourner in her surrogate mother’s funeral now Jane’s own fate hung in the balance Jane remained with Thomas Seymour for several months after Katherine pars passing though her parents wanted her back home eventually
they had to demand Seymour return her but there’s a creepier aspect to the story many think Jane’s parents wanted her back because they were suspicious of Thomas Seymour specifically they were afraid that the ambitious and clearly immoral Seymour might whisk Jane away and marry the ays for himself despite her young age they were right to worry as it turned out Jane escaped just in time two month after Jane returned to her parents’ home Thomas Seymour was arrested and executed for high treason besides attempting to marry Jane to King Edward v 6 he was also involved in several other plots from allegedly plotting to marry Elizabeth’s tutor without permission to weirdly enough shooting the king’s dog Jane’s father’s connection to the disgraced Thomas Seymour put the gray
family under temporary suspicion Henry gray Jane’s father proposed that Jane marry the eldest son of Edward Seymour Lord protector and Duke of Somerset this attempt to smooth things over was to turn down and young Jane was still single despite all the plots swirling around her but she wasn’t single for too long in 1553 Jane was finally betroth not to the king but to the handsome Lord Guilford Dudley Jam’s new fiance was also the brother of a more famous Dudley Elizabeth I’s future Favorite Robert Dudley still like so many things in James’s Young Life any fairy tale fantasies were soon crushed Jane gray and Guilford Dudley married on May 25th 1553 along with two other
couples after months of appeal Jane understandably showed some resistance to moving in with her new husband this reluctance absolutely enraged her new mother-in-law The Duchess of North umberland leaving her in a precarious position with her new in-laws Jan’s father-in-law John Dudley was a very powerful man in fact he was Chief advisor to King Edward I 6 moreover he had a lot writing on the marriage between Jane and his son Guilford by early 1553 King Edward’s Health wasn’t great and his living to produce an air seemed very unlikely after him either Mary or Elizabeth tutor would Rule and that did not bode well for Jon’s career or his life expectancy instead John hoped he could
use Jane as a pawn in his Game of Thrones his next move was jaw-dropping by the summer of 1553 the worst case scenario came true king Edward I 6 always sickly was now dying more than that as a devout Protestant he was determined not to pass the throne onto his halfs Sister Mary who was next in line but was also a Pious Catholic as Edward’s Chief adviser Jane’s father-in-law had just the solution Edward should Le frog Mary and his half-sister Elizabeth and his will and instead named Jane as his successor since she was distantly in line for the throne it was a recipe for disaster Edward apparently took Jon’s advice and when he died at just 15 years
old Jane was his Heir it happened so quickly Jane learned that Edward had passed and that she was the next Queen in the same moment for 4 days the palace kept Edward’s passing a secret hoping to come out as an organized front with Jane as the new Queen of England here’s where things got really interesting although we only have her claims after her crowning and the nightmare that followed according to Jane she was extremely reluctant to accept the Throne of England after all she was jumping ahead of King Henry VII’s smart headstrong daughters even her entrance into the palace was something of an omen at least for our Modern Eyes at the time in English History the infamous Tower of London wasn’t just used as a prison but also as a kind of
Royal Hotel more than that new kings and queens traditionally went through the tower in preparation for their decor ations as Monarch with Jane that day was her husband Guilford Dudley whose fortunes had risen since marrying Jane not so long ago dressed in tutor white and green Jane Amplified her royal lineage and her right to be on the throne the government declared her Queen on July 10th 1553 to the surprise of very few Mary tutor resisted being passed over in the line of of succession on the same day that Jane became Queen Mary delivered a letter to Parliament ordering them to Proclaim her as King Edward’s successor Mary was furious with the way things were going and Jane’s family was about to make things even
worse Jane’s in-laws were very happy that their daughter-in-law was in power and they would do anything to keep her there it drove her father-in-law to a derang plan he tried to lure Mary to London in order to seize and imprison her thereby protecting Jean’s claim to the throne princess Mary’s mother was none other than Katherine of Aragon Henry VII’s first discarded wife so Mary was used to surviving in a dangerous court and she grew wise to Dudley’s misguided plan after Gathering an immense amount of support Mary simply installed her Army outside the City somehow though that was currently the least of Jane’s problems shortly after Jane became Queen her husband’s family began to press her for even more power namely they fully expected Jane to
Crown Guilford and make him King Jane perhaps guessing that if she gave her in-laws an inch they would keep taking miles refused in return they made her life a living nightmare when Jane refused to put her husband into Power The Dudley took revenge on the advice of his mother Gilford now refused to share Jan’s bed since that meant she would never give England an all-important legitimate Heir unless she sueded to their demands however the Dudley forgot one little thing The Dudley hadn’t counted on Jane’s Iron Will or the fact that she was well Queen of England upon hearing about her husband’s pathetic power play Jane commanded he stay with her anyway we call Jane the nine days Queen in reality Jane’s Reign was all but over
just 2 Days in on July 12th 1553 by then Mary’s forces had fully assembled at suffk and overtaken the Dudley’s men the rest of the pieces fell into place at break next speed after Mary tutor’s show Force everyone even those who wanted to support Jane knew the jig was up if anything the rest of Jam’s time on the throne was just paperwork one week after Mary’s forces one on the battlefield Jane was formly deposed and Mary became Queen Mary and there was someone to blame Lady Jane gray had a Target on her back but very little of it was to do with Jane herself her father-in-law John Dudley wasn’t just constantly meddling at court he also had enemies in the privy counil enemies who quickly convinced the council to change allegiances and rally
behind Mary but whoever was at fault it was Jane gray who suffered the most the Tower of London now became Jan’s prison despite the fact she only obeyed Edward I 6 wishes and played into her father-in-law’s hands the still teenage Jane faced charges of high treason Queen Mary tutor’s New Palace government didn’t arrest just Jane they also brought in her husband Gilford and her father-in-law John these men were shocked by this turn of events and her father-in-law in particular was ready to do anything to save himself of all the sory truth of nobles now in the Tower of London John Dudley was by far the most ambitious Queen Mary knew this as well as anyone else and she dealt him a brutal hint she had him
executed on August 22nd 1553 barely a month after Jane lost the crown this was likely terrifying to Jane but for a little while it didn’t seem luck was on her side although Jane herself self was originally sentenced to be burned Mary was sympathetic to the fact that the young girl had simply gotten wrapped up in a Game of Thrones she couldn’t understand plus Jane was her cousin as a result Mary spared Jane and guilford’s lives at first Jane’s role in that rescue was bigger than you might think Whispers swirled around this time about the level of Jane’s agency in her rise to the throne and and Jane now did everything she could to prove she had very little say in the matter in front of her cousin Mary she may have even claimed that her parents forced her to
marry vord dudly in the first place starting this whole nightmare whether this was true or not Jane was helping solidify the narrative that she was innocent and deserving of clemency in the end it was all for not the tragedy of Jane is that when all was said and done her fate was still out of her hands in 1554 with James still sitting in the tower and hoping for release the so-called Wyatt Rebellion rose up against Queen Mary after she chose the unpopular king philli of Spain as her husband while this had little to do with Jane her father and uncles joined the Rebellion against Mary hoping to settle the score when the Rebellion failed Mary didn’t hold back her retribution after Jan’s family proved once again they couldn’t be trusted the
government decided that it would be best to go through with Jam’s original sentence yet despite later being known as Bloody Mary Queen Mary wasn’t as ruthless as you might think she threw Jane one last double-edged life line after the Rebellion the government said Jane’s execution date for February 1554 3 days before Jane got a devastating offer Mary sent her personal chaplain over to Jane’s cell to convince the girl to convert to her own faith Catholicism the conversion wouldn’t save Jane’s life but Mary believed it would save her soul Jane was young perhaps naive and facing certain death wasn’t about to back down from perhaps the one constant in her life her Protestant faith in the end Jane refused to repent her devout
Protestant beliefs but she did befriend Mary’s chaplain and let him be her escort when it came time for her execution before that happened however she’d have to face another harrowing ordeal right before Jane herself was sent to die Guilford Dudley was publicly executed at Tower Hill despite their Rocky marriage Jane was truly distraught at her husband’s execution though this may have had something to do with her own impending death Lady Jane gray was executed at the Tower of London in front of a group of her former subjects on February 12th 1554 just hours after her husband Gilford Dudley she was only 16 or 17 years old Jane asked her execution if he was going to take off her head before she could kneel down he replied no Madam
blindfolded she then fumbled a bit to find the blog with her hands and cried what shall I do where is it a deputy helped guide her right before the Executioner struck James spoke her last heartbreaking words the same last words of Jesus Christ Lord into thy hands I commend my spirit the alleged ghost of Jane gray has made several appearances at the Tower of London her most famous reported sighting was in 1957 when two guards said they spotted a phantom woman walking above the battlements since then many visitors say that her ghost pops up around the time of the anniversary of her execution Jane is the only English Monarch in the past five 500 years for whom a definitive portrait does not
exist a longtime believed picture of her turned out to be that of her guardian Katherine par perhaps because of this void one of many n Jan’s life centuries of artists have depicted her tragic story in music painting and literature thereby giving a face to a faceless [Music] Queen thank you for watching please please like And subscribe
