Lady Jane Grey
Jane Grey was queen for nine days, the smallest speed bump in history. She landed by barge at the Tower of London July 10, 1553 to assume the throne. By all accounts, this beautiful and intelligent teenager had no personal political ambitions, but it was Edward VI's dying wish that his cousin, a devout Protestant, be queen ahead of Mary and Elizabeth. This was supported by the Royal Council, but not by Mary Tudor and the people of England. Two months earlier Jane married Guildford Dudley the son of the Duke of Northunberland, making her “Lady” Jane Grey. After seven months imprisonment in the Tower, Lady Jane recited Psalm 51 in English and was taken to her death by order of Queen Mary. She was one of 280 Protestants killed in Mary’s five years as queen.
While in prison, 17-year old Jane was visited by Mary’s personal chaplain, John de Fenenham, who tried to persuade her of the truth of Roman Catholicism, perhaps with the hope of saving her life. "The traitor-heroine of the reformation" (historian Albert Pollard's description of Jane) would not be moved from her evangelical (Protestant) convictions. As you see by the record of her conversation with Fenenham below, some 16th century Christians in England were willing to die for their beliefs. The central doctrine of the Reformation, salvation by grace through faith alone, was the lens through which evangelicals saw the world, including the sacraments. Jane, as Thomas Cranmer before her, and as expressed in the Anglican formularies, understood that the real presence of Christ is not in the bread and wine on an altar to be gazed upon and adored, but spiritually real in the hearts and affections of those who receive the grace of the sacrament by faith.
“God forbid that I should say that I eat the very natural body and blood of Christ; for then either I should pluck away my redemption, or else there were two bodies, or two Christs. One body was tormented on the cross, and if they did eat another body, then had he two bodies; or if his body were eaten, then was it not broken on the cross; or if it were broken on the cross, it was not eaten of his disciples.”