Queen for Nine Days
Lady Jane Grey was Queen of England for nine days.
King Edward VI was on his death-bed and he clearly wanted the Reformation in England to continue on. He and his protector, John Dudley, scrambled hysterically “to rearrange the future” (Diarmaid MacCulloch). They cooked up a scheme for Edward’s 15-year-old first cousin once removed to marry Dudley’s son, Guildford, making her “Lady” Jane Grey, and a letter was issued on this day, June 21, 1553, that Jane would succeed Edward as Queen. Jane was a convinced and articulate evangelical (Protestant) who had openly expressed her views, corresponded with Heinrich Bullinger the famous reformer in Zurich, and could be counted on to lead in the spirit of the 1552 Book of Common Prayer and the Articles of Religion. But there were big problems. First, Jane wasn’t particularly excited about her arranged marriage to Guildford, and neither was she ambitious to become queen. Secondly, Edward’s half-sisters, Mary and Elizabeth, both had more direct lines to succession. And finally, the people of England wanted political stability over theological succession and did not support the scheme to make Lady Jane queen. This young girl was collateral damage to other people’s greed and ambitions.
When she was removed by Mary Tudor she was imprisoned in the Tower of London, and finally killed. Reportedly, she was given a chance to recant her evangelical beliefs (beheading an 16-year-old girl is unseemly evenly by Mary's bloody standards). Mary sent John Feckenham, her personal chaplain, to talk to her in prison awaiting her execution to persuade her of the truth of Roman Catholicism, perhaps with the hope of saving her life. The "traitor-heroine of the reformation" (Albert Pollard's description of Jane) would not be moved from her Protestant convictions. Some 16th century Christians in England were willing to die for their new-found love for the Bible and its central teachings.
Paul Zahl comments beautifully and personally on Lady Jane Grey (Five Women of the English Reformation):
“I saw reflected in Jane my own solitude as a child who had once been regarded as a prodigy. I saw Jane’s isolation theologically, as an Episcopal minister who had always instinctively loved Martin Luther and his insight of grace by faith, or rather, unmerited love triggered by trust. I saw Jane in love, romantically, but awkwardly so; and regarded with a little more compassion my own first awkward attempts to love Mary, my wife. I saw Jane’s tragic destiny and wished to possess her courage. I saw the moment of compassion and even understanding that passed between Jane and Feckenham [Mary’s chaplain] at the end - an exchange I believe may actually have happened, on the grounds of something she said at the end of her interrogation. Through that moment I envisioned the possibility of reconciliation with my churchly enemies, the bishops and others who rejected so utterly my evangelical approach hooked as it was to an over-educated curriculum vitae. I wanted Dr. Feckenham to like me! I also wanted him to allow me to disagree with him.”