Jane followed the reform religious movement that is today known as Protestantism. She corresponded with numerous international leaders of that movement, including Martin Bucer and Heinrich Bullinger. Jane even translated a large number of Bullinger’s sermons from Latin into ancient Greek. By 1553, Jane had become an uncompromising follower of a reformist confession of faith known today as Zwinglianism.
Early in 1553, shortly after Jane’s sixteenth birthday, England’s young Protestant King Edward VI fell ill and faced the likely prospect of dying without issue. Under the terms of the Third Act for the Succession (1543/4), Edward’s Roman Catholic half-sister Mary would succeed him. But the First Act for the Succession (1534) had declared Mary illegitimate, and illegitimate persons were barred under English law from inheriting from blood relatives. Additionally, Mary was also unmarried, raising the prospect of England falling under foreign domination were she to become queen and to marry a foreign prince. Edward therefore set about attempting to alter the succession in favor of his cousin Jane Grey.
Jane married Guildford Dudley on 25 May 1553. Guildford was the fourth son of John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland and the king’s chief minister. Dudley was not well liked by the commons, for a variety of reasons, and many suspected him of plotting to exploit the king’s desires to alter the succession and thereby to establish a Dudley royal dynasty. Nonetheless, a majority of the political leaders of the period endorsed the letters patent of 21 June 1553 that attempted to transform Edward’s alteration of the succession into the law of the land.
Edward died on 6th July 1553, and Jane was proclaimed queen on 10th July. Most assumed during the first days of the reign of Queen Jane that Mary would not or could not resist the change. But within four days, support for Mary began to balloon, enabling her to challenge Jane’s place on the throne. The Privy Council therefore dispatched John Dudley at the head of a hastily assembled army to march on Mary’s stronghold of Framlingham Castle in Norfolk. But no sooner had Dudley left London than his fellow councilors turned against him and the new queen. The Council fractured, and a significant portion shifted their allegiance to Mary. Even Dudley’s own army quickly fell into disarray almost as soon as it passed out of the gates of London. Upon hearing of the dissolution of Dudley’s army, those Council members that had thus far remained loyal to Jane quickly declared instead for Mary. By 19 July, the reign of Queen Jane had ended and that of Mary had begun, with Mary proclaimed Queen in London to great public rejoicing.
Jane remained in the Tower, but as a prisoner rather than possessor. She was held in the private domestic quarters of two successive resident-employees of the Tower. John Dudley was executed for treason late in August 1553. Jane’s father Henry Grey was eventually pardoned and released, however, and most of Jane’s other supporters were likewise pardoned. But Jane was not pardoned. Instead, she was tried in November and found guilty of treason. Mary initially resisted allowing Jane’s execution, believing her to be a guiltless puppet of John Dudley. Only when a rebellion broke out late in January of 1554, known today as Wyatt’s Rebellion, did Mary consent to allow Jane to be executed. Jane’s father, Henry Grey, participated in Wyatt’s Rebellion and called for the restoration of Queen Jane, effectively sealing his daughter’s fate. Jane was duly executed on 12 February 1554 within the precincts of the Tower. Her remains are believed to have been interred inside the Chapel of St Peter-ad-Vincula within the Tower.
