Queen Jane

Edward VI died on 6 July 1553, and four days were to elapse before his death was announced. Jane was then duly proclaimed Queen, whereupon Edward's sister, Mary Tudor, quickly began to rally her supporters. John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland – Edward's chief minister, and Jane's father–in–law – left London to campaign against her, and in his absence the Privy Council (of which he was a member) switched its allegiance, proclaiming Mary as Queen in London on 19 July. Jane was accused of high treason as a usurper, and was tried along with her husband, two of his brothers, and the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer. All defendants were found guilty; Jane was offered the choice of execution by beheading or burning (the latter being the customary method of disposal for female traitors).

The sentence was still to be carried out in January 1554, when Jane's father – Henry Grey, 1st Duke of Suffolk – joined the rebellion of Thomas Wyatt the Younger against Mary's plans to marry Philip II of Spain. This prompted the authorities to go through with the verdict. Jane was offered the chance to convert to Catholicism, but she declined. She and her husband were both executed on 12 February 1554. Jane was no more than seventeen years old; Dudley was just two years her senior. Henry Grey was executed eleven days later, and Cranmer went to the stake in Oxford (as had bishops Latimer and Ridley six months before him) on 21 March.