Edward died on 6th July
1553 and Lady Jane ascended to the throne with her
husband Lord Guildford Dudley at her side - she was just
sweet sixteen.
Lady Jane was beautiful and
intelligent and had ambitious plans to rebuild the
English economy and return land to the farmers who had
been dispossessed by King Henry VIII.
But the country rose in favour of
the direct and true Royal line and the Council
proclaimed Mary Tudor Queen some nine days later.
Unfortunately
for Lady Jane, her advisors were grossly incompetent, and
her father was partly responsible for her untimely
execution as he was involved in an attempted rebellion.
This was the Wyatt rebellion, named
after Sir Thomas Wyatt, who was an English soldier and a
so-called ‘rebel’.
In 1554 Wyatt was involved in a
conspiracy against the marriage of Mary Tudor to Phillip
of Spain. He raised an army of Kentish men and marched
on London, but was captured and later beheaded.
After the Wyatt rebellion was
quashed, Lady Jane and her husband, who were lodged in
the Tower of London, were taken out and beheaded on
Tower Green on 12th February 1554.
Lady Jane’s husband was executed
first, and she was led past his body on her way to the
block.
She died, it is said, very bravely
…on the scaffold she asked the Executioner, ‘Please
despatch me quickly’.
She tied her kerchief round her
eyes and felt for the block saying, ‘Where is it?’ One
of the onlookers guided her to the block where she laid
her head down, and stretched out her arms saying, ‘Lord,
into thy hands I commit my soul.’
And so she died …she had been Queen
of England for just nine days …10th – 19th
July 1553.
The shortest reign of any English
monarch, before or since.
© EPC
