00:08:35.620so this made his various advisors uneasy because if he died without naming an heir0.74
00:08:40.620then his he would be succeeded by his catholic sister who nobody wanted
00:08:46.160and it was possible at this point because she was in her 30s and she also had a lot of various
00:08:51.720illnesses so it's possible that she might die without an heir and then the whole question
00:08:56.520would just be like who's going to be the king and or queen now so she was to a lot of people
00:09:00.860not an ideal candidate to succeed him and one of Edward's advisors was John Dudley who we talked
00:09:08.100about last time a little bit he was a highly ambitious and scheming aristocrat who was very
00:09:15.380influential over the king so it's partly Dudley's influence that led to Edward deciding to make his
00:09:21.160own document lining out who he wanted what the new line of succession was going to be this was
00:09:26.960one that would discount both of his sisters on the basis of them being kind of illegitimate
00:09:32.960to some people. He also continued what his father had said and didn't let any of the Scottish
00:09:38.660claimants become possible here. That's the Mary Queen of Scots of it all. And that's a whole0.87
00:09:44.820other season of the podcast, I'm sure. But what this will meant was that Edward's direct successor
00:09:51.040would be from the Gray family of which Jane was the oldest so it was gonna need to be her so she
00:09:57.880had been born in 1537 and her parents were Francis Gray and Henry Gray so her grandmother was Mary
00:10:06.140Tudor King Henry the Eighth Sisters so she was raised as a very privileged very wealthy person
00:10:12.920her childhood was typical for an aristocratic girl of this time and era she was the oldest of
00:10:19.420three sisters. The other ones were Catherine and Mary, and we're going to learn about them
00:10:23.480in later episodes. So they were raised on the family's country estate while their parents
00:10:27.960hung out in London, hanging out at royal court and that sort of thing. The first time that Jane
00:10:32.780is mentioned in any historical record in any major way was at age 10. She was sent to be a
00:10:39.080lady-in-waiting to Henry VIII's sixth wife, Catherine Parr. So this was when Catherine Parr
00:10:48.700had just married thomas seymour so henry the eighth was dead jane went off to be lady-in-waiting
00:10:55.540to katherine parr who's now living with her new husband so it was likely in this household so
00:11:00.660katherine parr we talked about before but she was a keen scholar super intellectual person and so
00:11:05.560she had a house where they had lots of events you know people would do debating different religious
00:11:09.760facts and stuff so it was a very it was an environment that really showed jane kind of what
00:11:16.280what an intellectual life could be maybe what a woman's life could be like
00:11:21.420and Jane was a very scholarly intellectual sort of person so she clearly flourished in this in0.56
00:11:28.480this environment Elizabeth the future Queen Elizabeth I who was also similar age of Jane
00:11:34.020also lived in the house at the same time and she was also a very intellectual person so Jane left
00:11:39.940her family home to live in this just really in many ways ideal situation for her just around
00:11:46.200this influential woman, Catherine Power, who is best friends with Catherine Willoughby,
00:11:50.760Jane's step-grandmother. So just getting to meet a lot of scholars, academics, and just women
00:11:55.900who were really intellectual and really vibrant and very much doing their own thing. Unfortunately,0.65
00:12:02.640in the same household was Thomas Seymour, who, if you are a member of my Patreon,
00:12:09.180you can find there, I did a whole special episode just about Thomas Seymour and how he was the worst.
00:12:13.840I have a thing on the Patreon so this asshole which are many podcast episodes about some of
00:12:19.180the gross men from these stories and I put that information in those many episodes so as to not0.86
00:12:24.160derail these main episodes too much by talking about how gross these men are but Thomas Seymour
00:12:29.920was awful and eventually so Jane wasn't living in Catherine Parr's house for
00:12:35.280for years and years it was a pretty short time comparably because Catherine got pregnant and
00:12:42.220then she died in childbirth and then Thomas Seymour ended up trying to kidnap the king
00:12:47.000except the king was rescued by a dog I get into this on my other podcast and Jane was sent back to
00:12:53.880live with her parents so at this point we learn more about what she was like and what she was
00:13:00.560like was a very opinionated uh some might say self-righteous teenage person and this is this
00:13:10.540is what her personality was like but I think also having been in the house of Catherine Parr
00:13:13.960would have helped her realize that this is the sort of person who she wanted to be she wanted
00:13:19.540to be someone who could debate religious stuff and lecture people all the time so she criticized
00:13:24.100her parents lifestyle her parents were big spenders who like throwing parties and Jane
00:13:28.640thought that they should be more religious sorts of people she voiced her displeasure to house
00:13:34.820guests so she complained about her parents to people who are visiting them she even apparently
00:13:40.400requested that the local chaplain use his sermons at mass to call out her parents for being such
00:13:46.160frivolous people that should be more serious so she was really this is the thing about lady jane1.00
00:13:51.200gray it's not she's well known and then especially in like artwork and stuff for being this like poor1.00
00:13:57.840victimized 16 year old who all these terrible things happen to but she was also and i mean0.97
00:14:01.760this in the most delightful way just like a real asshole and i i love how much her personality and0.61
00:14:09.020character comes through she ended up being used by a bunch of people but she was always entirely0.96
00:14:15.820herself like even if that meant that she was sort of unpleasant at times so her extreme piety
00:14:22.060was such that religious scholars of the day wrote about her admiringly um saying how she was this
00:14:29.080is you know young women should be like this so she was really leaning into a sort of personality
00:14:33.700and a sort of persona that was appealing to the people who she wanted to be accepted by,
00:14:39.320which were religious scholars, although it was probably annoying for her parents. But you know
00:14:43.400what? She was what at this point, like 14, 15 years old. So like, oh, surprise, she was kind
00:14:49.680of acting out a little bit like everybody does at that age. Meanwhile, John Dudley had decided
00:14:55.640that he thought, so the king is still alive, little boy king Edward is still there. And he
00:15:01.180had these gross advisors, one of whom was John Dudley. And John Dudley was trying to find ways
00:15:06.840that he himself could be more powerful. And he thought, okay, well, if I marry my son to Jane
00:15:11.920Gray, maybe that could work out for me. So he was sort of thinking he wanted Edward to name Jane as
00:15:20.640his successor, which I forget at this point if he had or not, but whatever. Dudley wanted him to,
00:15:26.440and he did so what John Dudley wanted to do was get himself closer to the crown and so what he
00:15:31.140decided to do is to marry Jane to his son Guildford which is a great name Guildford Dudley it's just a
00:15:39.280good name it looks nice it sounds nice and in the movie version of the story Lady Jane he's played
00:15:44.340by Carrie Elwes so he looks nice so Jane's parents who were always happy for to get new opportunities
00:15:52.260to advance their daughter especially jane um as their eldest and she's kind of the most
00:15:57.380she was the smartest and the most talented and they really put all their hopes and dreams onto
00:16:01.340her so they thought okay this is a good match like marrying john dudley said gilford is good
00:16:05.920good for them um gilford was around her age apparently he was handsome potentially less
00:16:12.380terrible than other husbands she might have wound up with but jane both feared and mistrusted
00:16:18.700john dudley for obvious reasons john dudley was a huge schemer and just not trustworthy person
00:16:26.340at all but she was 16 and this was the 16th century so she really wasn't able to stop this
00:16:33.900from happening and so they were married these two teenagers on may 25th 1553 so you might recall
00:16:41.600she was queen in 1553 so it this turns into sort of a ticking clock of just how fast all these
00:16:47.780events happen one after another so the first major date here is may 25th 1553 so at their wedding
00:16:53.840the boy king edward was invited but he was too ill to attend and it was actually he was sick
00:17:00.100at this point with the same bout of illness that would eventually kill him or that he would die of
00:17:04.700he had been at this point finalizing his own wishes saying that jane would be his heir although
00:17:11.320jane herself i don't think knew that at this point and just to know why he would have chosen
00:17:16.620jane specifically to be his heir instead of her mother because if you're going kind of in family0.97
00:17:22.480tree order her mother would be the next one francis jane's mother was not an ideal queen1.00
00:17:27.980firstly because presumably she was past childbearing age although she would have a1.00
00:17:33.640few more pregnancies later on but everything really hinged on someone having a male child
00:17:39.040and at this point i think you'd want someone to have like 12 male children so this sort of
00:17:42.780situation wouldn't happen ever again but the main thing in against Francis as a potential heir is
00:17:48.540that she was already married and there's that whole thing about like yeah a woman can be queen
00:17:53.140but whoever her husband is is kind of actually in charge and Henry Gray was also Francis's husband
00:17:58.740was seen as untrustworthy so he'd kind of be in control and that was not what Edward or his
00:18:05.880advisors wanted. So the document ended up saying, I think the wording is like, the Lady Jane and
00:18:14.420her heirs male as Edward's successor. And then he died, Edward, King Edward, shortly after this
00:18:22.640paperwork was finalized. He died of tuberculosis on July 6th, 1553. So that's about a month and
00:18:28.680a half after Jane married Guildford Dudley. So at this point, things are going well for
00:18:33.880john dudley jane's father-in-law because his new daughter-in-law would be now named queen meaning
00:18:39.600his son would be king meaning that guildford would kind of be the one who's in charge of everything
00:18:43.500but you know john dudley would be the actual person making all the decisions behind the scene
00:18:48.240but the main issue with this plan of john dudley's to become extremely powerful is the fact that
00:18:56.340Mary, King Henry VIII's oldest daughter, was still on the scene. She was alive and she was also
00:19:03.840really popular. So the thing with Mary, the future Queen Mary, is that she was the daughter of Henry
00:19:11.200VIII and his first wife, Catherine of Aragon. And Catherine of Aragon had been really popular. She
00:19:15.540was queen for a really long time. I want to say decades. Let me just check. Because the whole0.76
00:19:20.600thing of Henry VIII became the king when he was young and handsome and everybody was really
00:19:25.120excited about it. Catherine of Aragon was his young, beautiful wife. Yeah, she was Queen of
00:19:29.080England from 1509 until 1533. So she was the queen for a really long time. People really loved them
00:19:36.020as this young, hot couple. Their daughter, Lady Mary, everybody loved too. So Mary was popular
00:19:44.100on her own because she was kind of the child of this queen who everybody still had fond feelings
00:19:51.840about so she was still there and to make jane be the queen instead of mary like when jane was not
00:19:58.640famous jane was not beloved i mean she's no one knew who she was so this is a challenge lady mary
00:20:03.500was a mighty opponent so john dudley couldn't make the british subject stop supporting mary
00:20:09.580but he hoped that maybe by sort of hiding mary away would make people like forget about her
00:20:14.300so he sent out a messenger for mary asking her to come to be by her dying by the dying king's
00:20:19.960bedside which is like okay you know edward was dying he sent a letter like come be with your
00:20:24.620little baby brother but on the way there mary received word that this was actually a trap and
00:20:28.840so she doubled back she didn't show up so he wasn't able to kind of kidnap her and hide her
00:20:33.780away john delete tried to track her down but he was not able to because guess what she was actually
00:20:37.920pretty great too his whole plan to sort of steal control of the country was it was predicated on
00:20:44.560sort of like a surprise attack so he just kind of kept going with it because that was his entire
00:20:48.680strategy he was hoping that he'd kind of throw so much change like so many new things at the country
00:20:54.360all at once that they wouldn't have time to miss mary i guess so on july 9th so again the king0.97
00:21:00.740died on july 6th on july 9th john dudley had mary and elizabeth both publicly declared bastards0.97
00:21:07.580illegitimate at this point and he also highlighted how dangerous mary in particular was because she
00:21:13.980was catholic and she had ties to foreign catholic countries so he's just sort of paving the way for
00:21:19.640this surprise reveal that jane gray was going to be the new queen jane meanwhile did like literally
00:21:25.660i think did not know that this that she was going to be the heir to the throne everyone just assumed
00:21:30.780it would be mary so she was still coping with her very new marriage to gilver deadly
00:21:35.320they'd been married for again like a month and a half at this point so unlike in the film lady jane
00:21:41.320which again, I heartily recommend. It is a really sweet and good movie. And I randomly caught it on
00:21:47.380TV once decades ago. And it's one of the reasons why I fell in love with studying the Tudor period
00:21:52.640because Helena Bonham Carter and Carrie Elwes are so sweet in this movie. And they show this really
00:21:57.960sweet love story between them. But in real life, it was not a sweet love story. In fact, Guildford
00:22:02.020was awful. And Jane did not want to be married to him. And it was not a love story. And she would
00:22:07.560probably hate the movie, but it's a good movie. So Jane despised her husband. She despised the
00:22:13.140entire deadly family. Remember how much she was critical of her own family. The deadlies were
00:22:17.340like that, but even more so just like not, you know, religious enough, not godly enough. They're0.94
00:22:22.900always scheming and things. So she almost immediately ran back home to be with her
00:22:28.240parents. Like she ran away from her marriage entirely. At one point she fell ill. Well,
00:22:36.060So she went back to her parents and they made her go back to the Dudleys, obviously, because that's what they had kind of sold her off to be married to them.
00:22:44.560So, of course, they wanted her to go back there.
00:22:47.060At one point, she felt ill and she accused the Dudley family of trying to poison her, which is it's an interesting twist.
00:22:55.520I don't think that the Dudleys would have tried to poison her because John Dudley's entire plan was predicated on her becoming queen.
00:23:02.060he would not want to have killed her. But who knows, everybody, there's a lot of schemes going
00:23:06.920on. Anyway, so after the king had died, Jane rode with her sister-in-law, so one of the deadly
00:23:14.660sisters, to one of the deadly family estates just to like, I don't know, visit with the family and
00:23:20.380stuff. But as soon as she arrived, she was greeted by her family, like the greys, as well as all of
00:23:26.660the deadlies and a number of important aristocrats. And she's like, what's going on? Why is everybody0.98
00:23:30.820here and it was at this point she was told that the king had died and that she jane gray was now
00:23:36.600the queen her documented reaction because people who saw it wrote down what it was like
00:23:42.440she was not happy about this she's not even kind of like accepting you know just like with
00:23:48.580resignation like okay i guess but as they all knelt before her being like you're the queen
00:23:53.420she apparently said she was insufficient for the task she didn't want to do this she didn't think
00:23:59.340she should do this but she said a quick prayer promised to fulfill god's will and take the
00:24:04.760throne so the whole god chooses the queen thing i guess she was like okay this is i don't want this
00:24:11.020i don't think this is right but if god wants it then here we go overall her lack of enthusiasm
00:24:15.900was noted by the people who were there they were confused by this and kind of dismayed
00:24:21.020that she seemed to take this news kind of like they're like okay jane we need to like0.56
00:24:26.600I don't know we need to you know cut off all your arms and legs she's like I guess if you have to
00:24:31.220okay go right ahead it was just not something she seemed at all interested in but it was something
00:24:36.080that she agreed to do so July 10th 1553 this is what four days after Edward had died Jane was
00:24:44.200brought to Westminster Abbey and then to the Tower of London at this on a barge which was the custom
00:24:50.040for all new sovereigns sort of a parade an eyewitness account of her arrival said quote
00:24:55.820or she said that she was quote very short and thin but prettily shaped and graceful
00:25:02.220she has small features and a well-made nose the mouth flexible and the lips red the eyebrows are
00:25:08.100arched and darker than her hair which is nearly red her eyes are sparkling and reddish brown in0.96
00:25:13.260color her complexion was good unmarked by the pox but freckled she had sharp white teeth and a
00:25:18.800lovely smile her husband guildford was a very tall strong boy with light hair clothed in white
00:25:24.460and silver velvet who paid her much attention and then here's a really important thing so that same
00:25:30.220day jane was moved into the royal apartments in the tower of london so side note the tower of
00:25:34.740london was not like a jail at this point it was just another palace so she was moved in there
00:25:39.620and she was brought a sampling of royal jewels to try on including the crown john dudley was there
00:25:46.060urging her to try on the crown but she refused several times she just felt uncomfortable about
00:25:50.760it. She thought putting on the crown, she didn't want to do it. She felt weird about it for good
00:25:56.960reasons, which we will see. She finally agreed to have the crown put on her head, but she never
00:26:02.280actually requested it. So this is that detail becomes important later on, which is a weird
00:26:08.820detail, but just bear in mind, she never actually said, put the crown on my head. She just allowed
00:26:13.140someone else to do it. So in the course of the conversation, Dudley casually mentioned that his
00:26:17.800son, Guildford, would get a crown, too, after Jane made him king, because men weren't automatically
00:26:23.800named kings when their wives became queens. The queen had to decide to do this, but the assumption
00:26:29.240was that she would decide to do this. Jane, already, I just love this, that John Dudley had
00:26:35.060all these, all his plans were all set up, but he hadn't accounted for the fact that Jane Grey had
00:26:39.660her own personality and her own opinions and was not one to be led. She was not a good puppet1.00
00:26:45.320figure so jane said that she might name guildford a duke but that was it she was not going to name
00:26:52.060him a king guildford then freaked out about this he brought in his mother his mother screamed at
00:26:58.640jane but jane would not change her mind because she was great she was the 16 year old girl with
00:27:05.600very strong opinions and i think from even just the brief times when with katherine parr and
00:27:11.320probably from her the influence of seeing someone like ann ask you who just stuck to her guns she
00:27:17.580had developed this personality for herself that was very opinionated and very confident in her
00:27:23.300choices so then word came to jane that guilford and his mother were trying to flee she had guards
00:27:29.820stand by the exits to keep them inside so she was they thought that they were going to be able to
00:27:34.860boss around but in fact she was the boss and this is a nice moment two days later on july 12th
00:27:41.320John Dudley announced that he was going to muster an army and putting in charge of that was Henry
00:27:46.600Grey, Jane's father. So the army was going to go off to fight against Mary, I think, who is still
00:27:53.000very intent on trying to become queen instead of Jane. So Jane burst into tears, not wanting her
00:28:00.160father to go to war or burst into tears because everything is happening really fast and this is a
00:28:05.400wild situation. So the council decided to send, instead of her father leading the army, they sent
00:28:10.540john dudley to lead the forces instead i want to mention too that her mother francis was here with
00:28:15.980her this whole time supporting her so even though jane had been at times critical of her mother
00:28:21.100francis was right there with her supporting her so it it does follow maybe that jane didn't want
00:28:26.260her father to go off to war she was in the scary situations of course she wanted her parents there
00:28:30.060with her so these troops headed out across the country finding themselves in town after town
00:28:36.020which had decided on their own not to accept jane as queen but rather to declare lady mary
00:28:40.500as the true ruler so john dudley was leading these forces who were supposed to go around
00:28:44.940quashing these rebellions these pro-mary rebellions but he couldn't stop the popular
00:28:50.400opinion he just hadn't counted for how strongly people really supported mary in this situation
00:28:58.100so even those who were opposed to catholics could somehow sense the unfairness of jane
00:29:02.160being crowned instead of Mary so there just wasn't they didn't have the popular the popular opinion
00:29:08.340on their side the wind had clearly shifted back in London as well so while John Dudley was off
00:29:12.800with his troops members of the Privy Council attempted to flee the palace because they felt
00:29:16.760like if they were there caught supporting Jane they might get in trouble because everyone at
00:29:20.320this point was assuming Mary was probably going to take over somehow again Jane had guards keep
00:29:25.380them inside and she also locked the main gates of the tower to prevent anyone from escaping the
00:29:29.860members of the Privy Council finally snuck out one way or another.
00:29:33.120They ran into a Spanish ambassador and claimed to have always supported Mary, actually,
00:29:37.940and they said they were forced against their will by Dudley to back Jane.
00:29:42.280So everyone is just fleeing from supporting her entirely.
00:29:46.940Jane was then eating supper with her father when she learned that she had been deposed as queen.
00:29:52.620So what had happened was that Mary had her, she put together her own forces and army,
00:29:58.940and they were coming towards they were just coming to seize power effectively and the support for
00:30:05.560jane was so insignificant at this point that mary it was it was a bloodless attack like there wasn't
00:30:11.820even a battle jane's troops just kind of gave in right away because mary had the support of
00:30:17.420literally the whole country so her father went back to his home in london leaving jane alone
00:30:26.000she was removed from the royal apartments and brought to a different castle while everyone
00:30:31.100tried to figure out what to do with her now because mary had was queen jane was not anymore0.59
00:30:38.940so jane was brought to a different palace while everyone tried to figure out what to do with her
00:30:42.720mary was accepted by basically everyone as the true queen and was en route to the tower of london
00:30:47.860to officially take over john dudley and his entire family were arrested and jane's parents
00:30:53.400were arrested too briefly but the greys were released pretty soon after although jane was still
00:31:01.100kept there when mary arrived on august 3rd the crowds were cheering everybody was excited to see
00:31:06.640her and she ordered jane gray to be imprisoned in the tower of london jane herself appealed to
00:31:12.500mary in a letter outlining how she had never wanted any of this she accepted it was a mistake
00:31:17.920to accept the crown so remember earlier when they tried to put the crown in her head and she said
00:31:23.360no. And then finally they put the crown on her head. Like the issue here is putting the crown
00:31:26.620on her head. That was the act of treason, having the crown be put on her head. So Jane said it was
00:31:32.120a mistake. I shouldn't have let them put the crown on my head. And she said she was misled by others
00:31:35.700into thinking this was the right thing to do. Mary, for her part, believed that Jane was guiltless
00:31:40.520in this. Like she knew that it was all John Dudley and other people scheming. Jane was just kind of
00:31:44.540caught up in it. And Mary was reluctant to put Jane to death because she felt like Jane was
00:31:50.800innocent and all of this although she mary had no such doubts about john dudley who was put to
00:31:56.200death in august that august what is it now it's mary arrived on august 3rd later that same month
00:32:02.360john dudley was put to death for engineering this whole situation so jane's imprisonment was not
00:32:09.400it was in terms of imprisonments it was like an okay one she was permitted to have a small
00:32:15.620salaried staff and allowance and the freedom to go read and go for walks in the queen's garden
00:32:20.360So again, she was such a big reader and an intellectual and a scholar.
00:32:24.540So she spent much of her time either reading or writing.
00:32:27.200And it's through her writing from this period that we know as much as we do about her life
00:32:40.640When she became queen, she made England be a Catholic country again.
00:32:44.960But there were lots of people who would rather it be a Protestant country.
00:32:47.620And as long as there was a potential heir who could be a Protestant queen, that would always mean that there was people in opposition to Mary's reign.0.55
00:32:55.920So Jane, Jane was a threat as a, even just if she was sitting, you know, wandering the gardens, reading books, even just as a figurehead, she was a threat to Mary's power.0.63
00:33:06.200And also the fact that she had been named queen, it was, it was seen to as sort of like a sign of weakness if Mary let her survive.
00:33:14.960so reluctantly mary ordered jane guildford and the other deadly brothers to stand trial for the
00:33:21.700charge of high treason this trial was quick so each of the defendants pled guilty to the charge
00:33:27.640and then were sentenced to death however it was widely believed that jane's sentence would never
00:33:32.660actually be carried out her family had all converted back to catholicism and regained
00:33:37.860their position of privilege we talked about this last time about how her mother francis had worked
00:33:42.240so hard to really regain the family's reputation again. So Francis and Jane's sisters were given
00:33:47.940positions as ladies of waiting to the queen, and her mother was specifically noted as one of Mary's
00:33:52.840favorites, and the two of them had been longtime friends. So Jane was sentenced to be executed,
00:33:58.760but everyone kind of thought that was like theoretically only. But then, of course, things went
00:34:04.540poorly. Mary at this point was still unmarried, and she really wanted to marry the king of Spain,
00:34:11.400which despite the fact that she had been basically acclaimed queen because everybody loved her so
00:34:17.680much marrying the king of spain was a very unpopular thing for her to do it soured public
00:34:23.300opinion against her her advisors didn't want her to marry the king of spain her the people of
00:34:28.160england didn't want her to marry the king of spain just no one was a fan of this situation
00:34:31.560so again uprisings in the countryside began to rally against her which meant that jane's role
00:34:36.200as a figurehead started to become an actual threat, not just a theoretical threat, to Mary
00:34:41.680as queen. Making things worse, Jane's father joined in with this rebellion, actively working
00:34:48.440to try and depose Mary, which was just a bad decision on his part, obviously. And yet Mary
00:34:54.960was still reluctant to actually execute her cousin, Jane Grey. Mary sent a prominent Catholic scholar
00:35:01.220to speak with Jane in hopes of convincing her to convert to Catholicism, which would basically
00:35:05.920save her life because if Jane publicly said she was Catholic, then she wouldn't be a Protestant
00:35:10.060rival and then it wouldn't be an issue. But the thing is, Jane had at this point been basically
00:35:16.560preparing her whole life for this conversation, for somebody to challenge her religious faith.
00:35:20.940So she would look up to her heroines like Anne Eskew or Catherine Parr. And so she very capably
00:35:27.700rebutted every debate point over several hours with this person who was trying to make her be
00:35:32.820catholic and in fact she was so good at this debate and made such an impact on her visitor
00:35:37.300that their visit concluded and she obviously had not converted to catholicism but he was so
00:35:43.620won over by her that he offered to escort personally escort her up the scaffold for
00:35:47.800her execution and the date was set for her beheading on february 12th 1554 so jane was
00:35:56.560very organized in preparing for her death like she accepted this was going to happen and again
00:36:00.600And this is where I feel like she would have looked to the writing and the work and the
00:36:04.140example of Anne Askew of just accepting your death and becoming sort of a martyr for your
00:36:09.940faith and finding strength in accepting this.
00:36:30.600When she appeared for her own execution, she is said to have been poised and dignified, dressed all in black, carrying her own beloved prayer book.
00:36:39.780So again, I really feel like following the example of Anne, well, Anne Askew couldn't walk at the time, but she was very poised and very, very stoic in the face of execution.
00:36:51.380so her execution was witnessed by only a small crowd out of respect for her royal blood because
00:36:57.840she was the granddaughter of henry the eight's sister so at the top of the scaffold jane gave
00:37:03.560prepared remarks she admitted to committing treason by again like her crime was letting
00:37:10.580people put the crown on her head then she recited a psalm things were going as she had planned as
00:37:17.000she had organized for herself until the executioner stepped towards her to take her
00:37:20.680cloak. It was a custom at the time of the executioner to get to keep the victim's outer
00:37:25.980garments. I guess that was just a perk of the job of executioner. But Jane either didn't know this
00:37:31.760or forgot about it. She was surprised that he wanted to take her cloak. And so she jumped back
00:37:35.260asking him to leave her alone. The executioner did kind of what he's supposed to do, which is he
00:37:40.280knelt before her begging forgiveness, which is just kind of part of the theater of an execution.
00:37:47.000jane granted forgiveness because that was part of what she was supposed to do as the person being
00:37:52.360executed and then she was overheard then asking him to dispatch of her quickly but then things
00:37:59.160went it's just sad so jane asked the executioner for instructions about when and how to put on her
00:38:04.340blindfold after she put it on she couldn't find the wooden block where she was to lay her head
00:38:08.600because she was wearing a blindfold and she panicked she cried out for help asking what
00:38:13.500shall i do where is it and this was unexpected no one had seen no one expected her to do this and
00:38:19.480this was not what usually happened at executions and nobody on the platform came to help her and
00:38:23.820it's just sad finally someone came up from the crowd apparently and helped guide her into the
00:38:28.400proper position and lady jane gray's final words were lord into thy hands i commend my spirit so
00:38:36.100she'd planned for what she wanted to have happen to her body after the execution but the church
00:38:41.680that her body was supposed to plan for her body to be taken to had recently reverted back to
00:38:46.160Catholicism under Mary, and so her body may no longer be welcome because she was Protestant.
00:38:52.840And so her remains, her body remained on the ground, exposed for almost four hours as people0.92
00:38:57.160sorted out where they could take it. Her servants kept an eye on her body during this time.
00:39:02.180Finally, they were permitted to bring her body to the now Catholic Church, where she was laid to
00:39:06.660rest between two other beheaded queens, Henry VIII's second and fifth wives, Anne Beland and
00:39:12.040Catherine Howard. Her father was executed 11 days later. Just a few years later, Queen Mary died
00:39:18.800without children and Elizabeth ended up taking over as queen after her. She made the country
00:39:23.920Protestant again. And at this point, Jane Grey was celebrated as a martyr to the Protestant faith.
00:39:31.640and that's the weird story of lady jane gray aka how to lose a queen in nine days
00:39:39.980so we're gonna score her now on the scandalous scale and as per everybody this season it's it's0.94
00:39:47.320a challenging and interesting and different sort of thing to look at because she wasn't somebody0.67
00:39:50.940who like her actions were scandalous for the time like becoming queen like putting a crown
00:39:57.900in your head was apparently worthy of execution so we're looking at how scandalous was this given
00:40:03.840the place and time so scandalousness is where we look at kind of what of the the scandalousness of
00:40:11.000the story how um extreme was it kind of how juicy is it how much of a story was it that people would
00:40:16.620gossip about later and honestly i'm gonna give this a 9.5 jane gray gets that because
00:40:22.760oh I might even give her a 10 because she wasn't it's not like people in previous seasons who were0.95
00:40:28.620like murdered people or you know had secret weddings or whatever but the fact that she
00:40:33.240became queen and this is like not that she wanted to but she accepted it like to us like okay people
00:40:40.400kind of made her be queen and then put a crown on her head it's like what does that have to do with
00:40:44.780her but at the time it was entirely connected to her she was the one who took the blame for it
00:40:48.920she ended up being executed for it you know why not i'm gonna give her a full no 9.5 i think
00:40:55.760for scandalousness for scheminess this is where we look at not just literal schemes but just sort
00:41:02.480of how much this person had had their own plans and executed them and did them and this is where
00:41:08.320i don't think jane gray has a lot in her story about this because she just wanted to study0.69
00:41:14.440religious philosophy and have debates with people like she became queen not at all because of her0.96
00:41:20.520own schemes like there's lots of scheminess around her and then when she became queen and
00:41:24.320then she's like oh guess what i'm not gonna make guildford be a king like she had her plans if
00:41:28.040she'd been queen for longer we would have maybe seen what they were but i'm gonna give her i think
00:41:32.120just a five for scheminess which is sort of like the lowest i feel like i can go significance is
00:41:38.620an interesting one because she wasn't not everyone recognized her as having actually been the queen
00:41:46.400like she put the crown on so that kind of like that was treason well it was treason because
00:41:50.780she allegedly wasn't the queen but she kind of was the first sort of queen of england which is
00:41:58.740very significant it's tricky it's like to me personally i feel like she was a queen but she
00:42:05.940wasn't ever actually recognized as such and it was just nine days it's tricky i'm gonna say her
00:42:12.960significance i don't know but then also the way that she became queen like that at first it helped
00:42:18.520galvanize support behind mary where before other people might have not supported her as a catholic
00:42:22.780queen having jane be there made them like mary more but then they didn't like her later i'm
00:42:27.860gonna give her a seven for significance i think the sexism bonus is where we look at how much1.00
00:42:35.120bullshit did she have to put up with from the patriarchy and this whole situation0.98
00:42:40.020is so much sexism like if she had been a man or a boy a 16 year old boy so many more people would1.00
00:42:49.100have been okay with her taking over if any of the people in this like if there'd been any boy
00:42:53.520anywhere on the Tudor family tree if it was if any of the greys had been male if Mary or Elizabeth
00:42:59.860were boys like this whole chaotic succession thing would not have happened and that's entirely
00:43:04.400because of sexism it's not because women aren't just as capable as leaders it's just because
00:43:08.820there's so much more respect given to a male potential monarch than to a woman so the sexism
00:43:17.220like that's but then she did become queen so it's not like because she was a girl
00:43:22.920she couldn't but then mary was able to so capably dispatch with her because she was a girl like if
00:43:31.260she had been 15 year old sir james gray or lord james gray like it would have been a lot harder
00:43:38.000for mary to defeat him so the fact she was a girl a young girl acted against her i'm gonna give her
00:43:44.140i think a seven for the sexism bonus no eight eight for sexism bonus so let me just add this1.00
00:43:50.560up so that is 29.5 this is this is notable because that puts her tied at fifth place1.00
00:43:59.960in terms of the Scandalicious Scale.0.52
00:44:01.760I believe there are 20 people on this list now.0.87
00:44:04.540At the top of the scale is Joanna of Naples, has 33.
00:44:07.120Currently in fifth place was Queen Anne I with 29.5,
00:44:10.360and she is now tied with Lady Jane Grey in fifth place, 29.5.
00:44:15.020And so that's the highest score at all this season.
00:44:17.520The closest was Jane's grandmother, Mary Tudor, who got a 27.5.