Top 10 Sad Facts About The Queen Of England For 9 Days
Lady Jane Gray was the niece of King Henry VIII of England, who was known for having six wives and separating his country from the Catholic Church. When he died, his younger son Edward VI took power. Being such a young and apparently quite ill king, Edward received much help from courtiers such as the Duke of Northumberland, who conspired to place Edward's cousin Jane on the throne after the king's death. Of course, not without getting Jane married to her son first. In the summer of 1553, Lady Jane Gray was crowned Queen of England.
Jane is remembered as the “Queen of 9 Days” because, she lived only nine days. Edward VI had a sister who believed that she should inherit the throne before her cousin, and she succeeded. That sister is known today as Mary I or Bloody Mary. He certainly earned his nickname, as he beheaded Jane and several others for trying to take the throne. Jane was only 16 years old when she died, but her story has several twists that prove to be incredibly surprising.
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10 Jane was almost the first queen of England
Apart from the possible reign of Queen Maud (or Matilda according to some accounts), which is often disputed, Lady Jane Gray would have been the first Queen of England in her own right, rather than by right of marriage to a king. She automatically became queen upon the death of her cousin Edward VI in July 1553, replacing her second cousin, Princess Mary, as queen by virtue of letters patent signed by Edward before his death. .
This was extremely controversial; By law, as one of Henry VIII's granddaughters, Jane was only 5th in line to the throne. However, it was very important to Edward VI that Jane become queen because she was a Protestant, and her sister was a Catholic. Edward was firmly determined that England would remain a Protestant country.
The then-Princess Mary (later Mary I) mobilized forces against Jane soon after her coronation. Initially, Jane's situation looked very promising. His supporters controlled the government, and the royal guard, the Tower of London, and the navy all took oath in his name. However, any confidence gained from this was quickly eroded by the aggressive advance of Mary's army. (1)
9 Jane became seriously ill, fearing her cousin would take away the crown
Several accounts describe the exact illnesses that Lady Jane experienced during her nine days as monarch. She was extremely paranoid about her husband's family and once even caused her skin to peel when she worried that her mother-in-law had poisoned her. She had extreme anxiety and experienced intermittent fevers due to the open gap at the Tower of London, where she was living.
On the eighth day of her reign, it is reported that her eyes were red from crying and she looked more dead than alive. Every night, she brought the keys to the tower with her for a sense of security.
Why she was so frightened could easily be determined, for her cousin Mary was soon becoming the more likely winner of this dispute. As Mary's forces organized and grew, the privy advisors who had supported Jane began to desert her in large numbers.(2)
8 Jane made her husband cry because she didn't want to call him king
On the morning of July 11, 1553, the third day of her reign, Jane's mother-in-law, the Duchess of Northumberland, approached her while she was using the toilet. While Jane and her husband, Guildford Dudley, had been married for six weeks at the time, it is clear that they had not yet married due to a long separation after the marriage.
The Duchess hoped that her son would be named king as there was not yet a queen in her own right, so she interrupted Jane's personal time to demand that Guildford be crowned. It was obviously a very dramatic scene, with a lot of abuse and shouting.
Despite this pressure, Jane was very well educated in matters of state. He absolutely refused and reminded the Duchess that only Parliament had the power to proclaim the king, so she was factually unable to do so. “The Crown,” she said, “was not a plaything for boys and girls. She could make her husband a duke, but only Parliament could make him king.
Jane's husband immediately began crying and fled the scene, but the Duchess made another attempt later that day. This ended when the Duchess took her son by the hand and led him away, saying that she would “not leave him with an ungrateful wife.”(3)
7 jane never wanted to be queen
Interestingly, Jane only learned that she was queen and that Edward VI had died three days after the fact. Jane was sad; She loved her cousin Edward very much and knew about his plan to name him his heir and what happened with it. The advisors knelt before him and offered him the crown and his punishment, but he said, “The crown has no right on me and it does not please me. Lady Mary is the rightful heir!” It took efforts from her parents, husband and in-laws to convince her that it was her duty to take the crown.
Nine days later, Jane's father told her it was time to give up, and she happily handed over the crown of England, even sighing in relief. The stress he had endured for a little over a week seemed to be at an end, although the consequences of his betrayal were soon to take him to his grave.(4)
6 Jane was very well educated in languages and religion
Jane knew five languages: French, Italian, Greek, Latin, and Hebrew, the last of which she was learning herself. She was also extremely intelligent and an avid reader. His religious knowledge far exceeded that of many adults of his time. In his last days imprisoned in the Tower of London, he debated a number of religious topics with the Catholic priest who was accused of attempting to convert him.
Her high intelligence is often forgotten in later retellings of her history, which were usually designed to emphasize her more ideal feminine qualities.(5)
5 Jane was officially queen but only by loophole
Jane was named heir to Edward VI by Letters Patent. However, according to Henry VIII's will, Edward's sister Mary was to succeed her brother. In the end, it was a competition between two dead kings to see which woman should be Queen of England.
An often overlooked aspect of Jane's queenship was that, according to English law, she did not meet the legal requirements of a king, which was the only status that needed to be defined up to that point. Even at the age of 16, she was still a minor. English law stipulated that any king under the age of 18 would be placed under a regency, which is when an adult close to the king would rule in his name until the child came of age.
However, Jane was a queen, not a king, and thus technically not covered by this law. It didn't really matter either way, as Jane's father-in-law, the Duke of Northumberland (also the man who encouraged King Edward to name Jane his heir), was intended to make most of the decisions. Some suggest that Jane's mother, who was in line for the throne but was deposed, should have been her ruler, or even her husband Guildford, who was 18 years her senior.(6)
4 In her last days as queen she was abandoned by everyone, including her father.
The closer Mary got to the Tower of London, the more Jane lost supporters, fearing any charges of treason if Mary established herself as queen. On the ninth day of his reign, he had only three prominent men left, his father-in-law, the Duke of Northumberland, a man named Cranmer, and his father.
However, by the afternoon, Cranmer was gone, and the Duke was seen throwing his hat at Cambridge and declaring Mary “the Merciful Queen”. Her father was the last one with her, but eventually, he too realized that the gig was over and told Jane that her time as queen was over.(7)
3 Jane had two sisters whose fate was also less than ideal.
Jane's two sisters, Ladies Katherine and Mary Grey, had troubling experiences of their own, even without the shock of losing their eldest sister. Catherine, the middle sister, was fully expected to never have Jane's fate, as both Queen Mary I and Queen Elizabeth I were expected to have children of their own to fill out the line of succession. However, as history will tell you, they never did.
In the end, Katherine was removed from the line of succession anyway when she married a man named Edward Seymour, against Elizabeth I's wishes. As Elizabeth's main heir, he would have been expected to follow the queen's wishes. But he did not do so, so Elizabeth threw him in prison and both sons born out of wedlock were declared illegitimate. Catherine died in prison at the age of just 28.
The youngest sister, Mary Grey, has historically been considered dwarf or disabled due to a disease such as scoliosis. His short stature is often commented on; However, she got married and lived at court. Mary Gray was only eight years old when her sister Jane was hanged, so it certainly weighed on her mind for most of her life. She also saw her sister Katherine go to jail for marrying a man without permission, but that didn't stop her from trying the same thing soon after.
She was also thrown into prison and then, later, allowed to live with several different aristocratic families. Her husband died several years later. However, after living as a single, independent woman for several years, she was allowed to return to court, as long as she continued to use her maiden name. He died at the age of 33 while serving the queen.(8)
2 Jane saw her husband's decapitated body just before he was hanged.
Before his execution, Guildford requested to see Jane and was granted permission, but Jane refused to see him, lest she lose her confidence and resolution. She was determined to die a martyr's death for Protestantism and needed to live out the last days of her life bravely, lest she be tempted to accept Mary's offer of mercy in exchange for Catholic conversion.
Despite this, on the morning of her and her husband's execution, she looked out the window and saw the carriage on which her headless body was being carried back to the Tower of London. It was a shocking scene and a source of regret for Queen Mary, as she did not want Jane to see her husband's body. Jane was hanged later that day.(9)
1 There are no actual surviving paintings or images of Jane
Despite his fame, no contemporary images or descriptions of his appearance survive to this day. There are several paintings said to be hers, but most of them were later found to be of other notable women. In fact, the most famous of them is now known to be a portrait of Catherine Parr, the sixth wife of Henry VIII, with whom Jane lived for a period in her childhood. However, later depictions of Jane are not based on historical facts, such as a painting by Paul Delaroche in 1833.
Coins are often used as important evidence relating to claims to European thrones. Despite rumors arising from counterfeiting in the 19th century and a film about Jane in 1986, no coins depicting her reign are known to exist. In the 19th century, there were many fictional accounts of her appearance in an attempt to idealize her as an ideal woman. In 1858, David Bartlett wrote that she had “the innocence of childhood, the beauty of youth, the firmness of middle, the severity of old age, and the life of a saint.”
Although there is a strong desire to show the face of the 9-day-old Queen of England, unfortunately, we only have accounts of her words and actions. She was a young woman who had the crown of England thrust upon her and lost everything for it.(10)
