Queens of Britain Series: Elizabeth I

Portrait after Levina Teerlinc at National Portrait
Gallery via Wikimedia Commons

For the last 400 years, Queen Elizabeth I has been celebrated as Gloriana and Good Queen Bess. Her comparatively placide 45-year reign followed the political and religious tumult of her father's and siblings' reigns and preceded the political and religious unrest of her Stuart successors, who would actually lose the monarchy within two generations.

The First Elizabethan Age was marked by England's rise as an empire, including the triumph over the Spanish Armada and a series of religious compromises that prevented the kind of warfare that continued to rock her contemporaries on the Continent. Brilliant at using diplomacy, symbolic artistic depiction, and the stagecraft of majestic pageantry, Elizabeth the real person is elusive. 

Her rise to the throne was rarely a certainty until the very moment of her succession. Her childhood and young adulthood consisted of cycles of abandonment and real danger. Throughout all of it, Elizabeth developed a level of cautious circumspection that neither of her parents ever displayed.

Born 10 months after her father King Henry VIII married his second wife Anne Boleyn was a cherished disappointment. Both parents adored her, but the fact that she was not a boy placed the couple in a precarious position. Henry had spent years attempting to annul his first marriage to Catherine of Aragon because he was convinced God was unhappy with that union. The evidence of God's disapproval was that he and Catherine had only a female child. The birth of another female child to his second wife was not what he expected. By the time Elizabeth was two, the second marriage had soured to the point that Henry was willing, nay eager, to believe trumped accusations of adultery. In a space of just 15 days, Anne was arrested, tried, and beheaded.

In the runup to Anne's execution, it was determined that she had bewitched the King and therefore their marriage was invalid. Like Catherine of Aragon's daughter Mary before her, Elizabeth was declared illegitimate. She was not yet three years old. Less than two weeks later, Henry married again to Jane Seymour, who presented him with the much-desired son before dying of childbed fever.

The young Elizabeth was raised by primarily by governesses and tutors while her father made his way through more wives. The central figure of her childhood was governess Kat Ashley, who remained a close friend and companion until her own death in 1565. The little girl has a very advanced education, especially for a girl, but the daughters of the Tudor Dynasty were all similarly learned. Elizabeth knew nine modern and ancient languages. By the end of her life, she may also have added the national languages of her kingdom to the list: Welsh, Irish, Cornish, and Scottish. 

Princess Elizabeth

presumably by William Scrots via Wikimedia Commons

Her father's final wife, Catherine Parr, sought to unite the royal children into a family. Both Mary and Elizabeth were welcomed under her care along with Jane Seymour's son Edward. When Henry VIII died a few years later in 1547 and young Edward became King, 13-year-old Elizabeth remained in Catherine's care at first, even after Catherine married Thomas Seymour. Thomas' attentions to the precocious and blossoming adolescent quickly grew to a state that we would call "inappropriate" today. He would come to her chamber in his nightclothes, frequently tickled her and slapped her playfully on her bottom. At first, Catherine would sanctioned and even joined in the horseplay, even holding Elizabeth down once while Thomas cut the young girl's dress to shreds. Once Catherine found the two in an embrace, her eyes were opened to the danger of the situation. Whether she blamed Thomas or Elizabeth is unknown, but it was Elizabeth who was sent away.

When Catherine died after childbirth a few months later, Kat Ashley suggested Elizabeth might marry Thomas herself. Elizabeth declared that she would not. It was not long until Thomas, who schemed to take control of his nephew King Edward's governance, found himself without a head.

Elizabeth lived with her own household at Hatfield House for the rest of her Protestant brother's reign and through the turbulent nine days of her cousin Lady Jane's brief stint on the throne. When her older half-sister Mary reasserted her right to the throne, Elizabeth rode into London at her side. 

Not surprisingly, their unity was short-lived. Always cautious, the Protestant Elizabeth conformed to Mary's demands that she worship as a Catholic. However, the English people had grown increasingly Protestant. As Mary began persecuting Protestants and married the Catholic King Philip II of Spain, her opponents focused on Elizabeth. This placed the young woman in danger. Mary could not trust her. After Wyatt's rebellion in 1554, Mary imprisoned her innocent half-sister first in the Tower of London and then in Woodstock. With no evidence against her, Elizabeth was granted mercy and recalled to court to witness the birth of Mary's first child in 1555. This was the first of two false pregnancies for Mary, who died in November 1558 after naming Elizabeth her heir.

The 25-year-old Queen Elizabeth showed wisdom beyond her years. In one of her first acts, she signaled her intention to put aside religious persecutions. Officially Protestant, she mixed a bit of Catholicism into her personal religious observations. Most importantly, however, she saw the futility and high cost of religious strife. 

The next greatest question of Elizabeth's reign was whom she would marry. It was almost inconceivable that a woman would remain single or that she would attempt to rule without a husband. Her two immediate predecessors were both married. It is hard to know Elizabeth's true intentions but she used the possibility of her marriage as a lynchpin in her governance and her foreign policy. She would string along potential suitors in negotiations, sometimes for years. The one man she might have married was her longtime friend Robert Dudley, whom she is thought to have loved. However, his first wife's death under mysterious circumstances -- some even accused Elizabeth of having her murdered -- made the choice too politically controversial. Nevertheless, she prevented him from remarrying for years. When she discovered he had secretly married Lettice Knollys, she was enraged. She never forgave Lettice, but she remained fond of Robert, whom she had created Earl of Leicester.

On the foreign marriage mart, she turned down a proposal from Mary's widower but held out her potential hand to the King of Sweden, the King of Denmark, an Austrian archduke, the future King of France, and that French king's younger brother. The last of these, Francois Duke of Anjou might have been the most serious. Elizabeth was already in her 40s at this point and the duke was two decades younger. It is unlikely that creating an heir featured much in her decision-making. 

By Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger
via Wikimedia Commons

In 1563, after Elizabeth suffered a serious bout of smallpox that left her scarred and might have killed her, Parliament pushed her to name an heir. She steadfastly refused to do so and attempted to exert strong amount of control over any cousins who might potentially succeed her, including the reigning Queen of Scotland, Mary Queen of Scots. When Mary abdicated her own throne and fled to England seeking Elizabeth's protection, Elizabeth had her kept under house arrest and later, with good cause, accused her of treason and had her executed. (See my post Killing Queens: A Bloody Tudor Heritage)

Instead, Elizabeth came to be celebrated as The Virgin Queen, whether technically true or not. She also gained the nickname Gloriana, in her later reign, as England began to exert its place around the expanding globe. Spain had dominated the expansion of overseas territories for most of the first century after the Spanish monarch's sponsored the voyages of Christopher Columbus. The riches they brought back from the New World had made Spain a formidable power. Elizabeth authorized privateers to harass the Spanish ships and redirect their wealth into her coffers. In 1588, Elizabeth's former brother-in-law King Philip set out to use his power to bring England to its knees. A bit of bad weather helped the English defeat the large Spanish Armada. 

This pivotal moment in history helped set England on the path to becoming the British Empire, upon which the sun never set. Under Elizabeth, the first English colonies were established in Virginia, named in honor of the Virgin Queen. The creation of the East India Company also spurred more English exploration and trade across Asia. 

Back home, the relative stability and increasing wealth of the nation helped to spur a great cultural revival. Poets and playwrights abounded. Spenser, Marlowe, and Shakespeare all rose to prominence.

Elizabeth's 44-year reign was the third longest up to that point in history. Basking in the praise of her courtiers and the strength of her political power, she continued to refuse to name an heir almost to the very last moment. It was only after her advisor Robert Burghley persuaded King James VI of Scotland to appeal to Elizabeth's vanity that she finally agreed for James to be her successor. James was Mary Queen of Scots son and a grandson of her aunt Margaret Tudor, who had married King James V of Scotland. 

The Tudor dynasty that had gained the throne through violence and bloodshed in 1485 ended in 1603 with a peaceful transfer of power to the king of an enemy nation. Finally, the crowns of England and Scotland were on the head of a single monarch. Amazingly, it was an achievement gained not by war nor by marriage, but by one woman's steadfast refusal to marry and her ability to build a nation that was both rich and powerful. 

QUEENS OF BRITAIN SERIES
Boudica, Queen of the Iceni 
Empress Matilda 
Margaret Maid of Norway 
Lady Jane Grey
Queen Mary I
Queen Elizabeth I
Mary Queen of Scots 
Queen Mary II
Queen Anne
Queen Victoria - coming soon
Queen Elizabeth II - coming soon

MORE ABOUT ELIZABETH
Elizabeth I on British Monarchy
Queen Elizabeth I Facts and Myths on Royal Museums Greenwich
Why Was Queen Elizabeth I So Important? on English Heritage

Queens of Britain Series: Mary I

By Master John via Wikimedia Commons

In their seventh year of her marriage to King Henry VIII, Catherine of Aragon gave birth to healthy baby girl whom they named Mary in 1516. Five years earlier, their only other child to survive pregnancy and birth died in infancy. A happy, bonnie baby, Mary delighted both of her parents. Precocious like both of them with reddish gold hair, Mary shared her parents love of learning and music. Before she was five, she was entertaining diplomats with musical performances. By nine, she knew French, Latin, Greek, and her mother's native Spanish. Still young and handsome, King Henry doted on her and often bragged of her accomplishments.  

In her early years, Henry negotiated royal marriages for her with France and then the Holy Roman Empire and then France again. As a princess, a diplomatic marriage would have been her expected path. But, as the years passed and it became clear that Queen Catherine, who was six years older than Henry, would have no other children, Mary's destiny changed. 

Mary became the first female heir to be treated as Princess of Wales, although she was never officially granted the title. In clear preparation for eventual succession to the throne, the nine-year-old princess was sent to Welsh Marches with her own household to rule over the principality as had happened with many male heirs before her. Although a female heir was very rare in English history, with only the disputed Empress Matilda as a predecessor, women were not uncommon in her mother's homeland. A daughter of King Ferdinand II of Aragon and Queen Isabella I of Castile, Queen Catherine would not have questioned the fitness of a woman for the crown. Petronilla had been the first female monarch in Aragon four centuries earlier and Urraca had been the first queen in Castile and Leon a few decades before that.

All seemed set for Mary to eventually succeed King Henry VIII. She would marry and have children and the Tudor Dynasty would have a bright and glorious future.

History went in a different direction.

While Mary was far away in the Welsh borderlands, her father began to question everything. Why had he had no sons? Had he actually sinned by marrying Catherine, who was his older brother Arthur's widow? Was the lack of sons God's punishment for lying with his "sister"? As Catherine lost her youthful bloom and became even more religiously devout, Henry met a flirtatious and lively young woman who reminded him of his youth. Anne Boleyn.

Soon, Henry became convinced that his soul and his kingdom were in danger because of his "incestuous" marriage to Catherine. Surely Catherine would agree as well? She did not. Didn't Henry remember that she had sworn that she and the 15-year-old Arthur had never lain together as husband and wife? Didn't Henry recall that he had received a dispensation from the Pope to marry Catherine, you know, just in case Arthur really had consummated the marriage? Wasn't that enough to assuage such guilt and cleanse such sin?

It wasn't.

When Catherine refused to grant Henry an annulment, he spent years exploring every path he and his councilors could devise to try to force it. When at long last, they settled upon the idea that the King of England should not be subject to the Pope in Rome, Henry thought he had found his solution. He, who had earned the title "Defender of the Faith" because of his defense of the papacy against the Lutheran reformers, declared himself Head of the Church of England. He divorced Catherine and married Anne. 

The impact on Mary was devastating. Because her father believed he had never actually married her mother, he declared Mary a bastard and removed her from the line of succession. His bright, beautiful young daughter whom he had raised to rule was cast aside. Now called The Lady Mary, her household was dismissed and, by the end of the year, the 17-year-old Mary was sent to live in the household of her new baby half-sister Elizabeth, Henry's daughter by Anne Boleyn. Convinced of her true place in the world, Mary refused to acknowledge Anne and Elizabeth. As punishment, Henry stopped speaking to her and refused to allow her to visit her ailing mother. The strain took a terrible toll on Mary's own health. She was not even able to attend Catherine's funeral when she died in early 1536.

By then, Anne Boleyn has suffered a couple miscarriages and another young woman had caught Henry's eye. Within a year, Henry had beheaded Anne on trumped-up adultery charges, declared their marriage void, added Elizabeth to his list of bastards, and married Jane Seymour. The speed of these changes must have been dizzying to Mary. However, Jane sought to reconcile the young woman with her father. Initially, Mary still refused to acknowledge her illegitimacy and her parents' invalid marriage, but she was eventually bullied into it.

With her acquiescence, The Lady Mary was welcomed back to Henry's good graces. When her half-brother Edward was born in 1537, Mary was named godmother. Then, when Queen Jane died from childbed fever, Mary acted as chief mourner. She was still illegitimate and still barred from the succession, but she was again "loved" by her increasingly mercurial father. She was once again granted her own household and budget. Marriages were even discussed with foreign princes, but nothing came of them. 

Over the next few years, Mary's life was relatively calm--although her former governess was executed on charges of treason due to the actions of her son. Henry's fourth marriage ended in a peaceful annulment and the fifth with another beheading for adultery (this time at least the charges were more accurate). With his sixth marriage to Catherine Parr, Mary's status improved even more. Catherine was able to convince the king to reinstate both his daughters to the line of succession immediately after their young half-brother Edward. 

With Henry's death in 1547, the Catholic Mary inherited many estates. Now in her 30s, she retreated to these as a Protestant Regency Council took control for the nine-year-old King Edward VI. She stubbornly refused to stop practicing her Catholic religion despite laws against it and the young king's insistence. Therefore, she was rarely at court. As Edward's health began to fail, he and his advisors feared what would happen if Mary were to succeed him. Shortly before his death, he, like his father before him, struck Mary and the Protestant Elizabeth from the line of succession in favor of their Protestant cousin Lady Jane Grey. (See my post Queens of Britain Series: Lady Jane Grey)

Mary was at her home at Hunsdon when Edward died and the Privy Council declared Jane queen. Both Elizabeth and Mary were warned to stay away from court, but Mary had no intention of surrendering her rights. She had been the heir to the throne as a child, she had been neglected and restored and rejected. In the end, the 37-year-old exhibited the tenacity of her mother and the self-assurance of her father. She sent orders asserting her claim to the Privy Council and rode for London. An army of supporters formed around her. Nine days later, the Privy Council had deposed Queen Jane and proclaimed Mary the rightful heir. She had not had to fight at all.

In early August, with her sister Elizabeth at her side, Mary arrived in London to public acclaim. Besides restoring Catholicism, one of her first priorities was to find a husband and start a family. She was quickly engaged to her cousin's son, Philip, heir to the Spanish throne. A thwarted uprising by Jane's followers led Philip to insist upon the death of the teenaged claimant. Mary ordered it so. (See my post Killing Queens: A Deadly Tudor Heritage) 

Wedding portrait of Philip and Mary
Woburn Abbey Collection

Mary's proposed foreign marriage caused further unrest as some sought to replace her with Elizabeth. Under the laws of the day, a woman's property belonged to her husband. Many did not want Philip's father, the Holy Roman Emperor, to add England to the expansive territories of his Empire. Mary was able to withstand the challenges, ordered more executions, placed Elizabeth under house arrest, and married Philip. She even had him styled King of England and ensured that all documents would bear both their names. However, the terms of the marriage would only be in place during her lifetime. He would not continue to rule England after her death. Perhaps as importantly, England could not be drawn into the Empire's wars. 

Philip arrived in England two days before their wedding in July 1554. They had never met before. She was 38. He was 27. His nine-year-old son Carlos by his first wife did not accompany him. Philip's first wife (and double first cousin) Maria Manuela of Portugal had died giving birth to Carlos. 

Within weeks, Mary reported feeling nauseated. She was bloated and her period ceased. Everyone rejoiced in her pregnancy. Philip was declared Regent for the child if Mary should die in childbirth. In the spring of 1555, Elizabeth was released from her arrest to attend the imminent birth. But, the child never came. Summer came and Mary's belly went away. The false pregnancy was a terrible blow to the queen, to her marriage, and to the realm. Philip returned to continent to lead his armies while the heartbroken Mary, much like her father, decided her childlessness was God's punishment. Only she was being punished for tolerating heretics in her kingdom. 

At the beginning of her reign, Mary had proclaimed tolerance for Protestants. By the end of 1555, she had officially changed her mind. Executions started early in 1556, even burning some, including Thomas Cranmer Archbishop of Canterbury, who repudiated Protestantism. Nearly 300 were executed and Mary earned the moniker "Bloody Mary" by which she is known to history. Such persecutions continued throughout her reign.

In 1556, Philip became King of Spain upon his father's abdication. He did not pay a second visit to England until March 1557. He only came to try to persuade Mary to send troops for his continental wars. Mary immediately wished to support him, but it took four months to convince her councilors. Initially, the English forces were successful but by early 1558 they had lost Calais, England's last stronghold on the Continent. 

Mary's reign was fraught with other problems, too, including especially poor weather that ruined the crops and led to famine. The nation's trade also faltered. Despite Spain's growing riches from its territorial subjugation of the old empires of the New World, England did not share in the wealth. 

Philip's brief visit in 1557 once again led Mary to believe she was pregnant. Now in her 40s and distraught, she finally recognized Elizabeth as her heir in 1558. She died that May, perhaps from ovarian cancer or uterine cysts, the symptoms of which might have fueled her second false pregnancy. 

Mary's reign is largely remembered for her zealous religious persecutions, but they were not really very different from the persecutions taking place on both sides of the Reformation across Europe. Her greatest legacy is that she was the first undisputed woman to sit upon the English throne. She acceded without violence and she was succeeded peacefully by England's second undisputed Queen, who would lead the nation over half a century of unprecedented glory. 

QUEENS OF BRITAIN SERIES

Boudica, Queen of the Iceni 
Empress Matilda 
Margaret Maid of Norway 
Lady Jane Grey
Queen Mary I
Queen Elizabeth I
Mary Queen of Scots 
Queen Mary II
Queen Anne
Queen Victoria - coming soon
Queen Elizabeth II - coming soon

BLOGS ABOUT MARY
Mary Tudor: Renaissance Queen

MORE ABOUT MARY
Did Queen Mary I Simply Need More Time on The Tudor Chest
England's First Official Queen: Mary Tudor on English Heritage
The Marriage of Queen Mary I and Philip II of Spain on The Tudor Enthusiast
Mary had a little lamb on Medieval Manuscripts Blog
Mary I on British Royal Family
Mary I on History
Mary I and Elizabeth on Norwich School Blog
Mary I Queen of England on Tudor History
Queen "Bloody" Mary I Tudor of England on King's College Women's History
Queen Mary I's Accession on Team Queens
Queen Mary I: The Journey to the Throne on Historic UK
Queen Mary I on Screen on The Tudor Chest
Queen Mary I - Reign of Faith and Fire on Old Royal Naval College Greenwich
Role of a Queen - Mary I and Anne on The National Archives
Was Bloody Mary Really so Bloody? on History Is Now
Was the Reign of Queen Mary I of England Really a Failure? on History Is Now
Why Is Mary I Known as 'Bloody Mary'? on Royal Museums Greenwich

Queens of Britain Series: Lady Jane Grey

The Execution of Lady Jane Grey

by Paul Delaroche at the National Gallery via Wikimedia Commons

Lady Jane Grey was only 16 years old when the people entrusted to look after her future set her on a path that would lead to her death.

In 1537, Lady Jane was born as the third child of her 20-year-old parents Henry Grey Marquess of Dorset and the former Frances Brandon, who was the oldest child of Princess Mary Tudor. Lady Jane's great-uncle King Henry VIII had resolved all of his problems a few years earlier by divorcing his first wife Catherine of Aragon, who had given him only a daughter, and then beheaded his second wife Anne Boleyn on trumped-up adultery charges. (See my post We Three Queens.)She also had given him only a daughter. In the year of Jane's birth, however, Henry was happily married to the docile Jane Seymour, for whom his new grandniece was named, and his new Queen would deliver him his longed-for son by end of the year. Then, she would promptly die from childbed fever setting a desperate Henry back out in the marriage market where he would eventually add three more wives to his famous collection.

Despite Henry VIII's feverish desire for a male heir, the Tudor Dynasty was replete with females. In addition to Henry's two daughters by Catherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn, respectively, his sisters produced three daughters and only one surviving son. Jane's mother produced two more daughters after her and no surviving sons. The women of the family were educated as well as the men. Jane learned seven languages, including Hebrew, Greek, and Latin so she could read ancient texts in their original languages. She was taught theology, philosophy, rhetoric, logic, and history. Having been born after Great Uncle Henry broke with the Roman Church, she was raised as a Protestant and was personally devout. 

After Henry's death, his nine-year-old son succeeded as King Edward VI. Soon after, nine-year-old Jane was sent to live with King Henry's widow, Queen Catherine Parr and her new husband Thomas Seymour, who was a maternal uncle to the new king. The 12-year-old Princess Elizabeth also joined the Seymour household. Under the guidance of the devoutly Protestant Catherine, Elizabeth's and Jane's humanist and religious education was continued with even fervor. Within a couple of years, Catherine tragically died after childbirth and Thomas was soon executed for treason when he tried to oust his own brother from his role as Protector to their nephew the King. Jane returned to the guardianship of her father, who was created Duke of Suffolk at around the same time. Jane found herself more frequently at court, where it was hoped she would find a noble husband.

Meanwhile, the young King Edward had never had very robust health. His reign would last only six years. The Protestant lords who surrounded the young king became concerned about what would happen if he died. All of the descendants of the Tudors were female and/or Scottish. Worse, the most senior, Edward's half-sister Mary was a devout Catholic who would certainly return the nation to Rome. His other half-sister Elizabeth was an unknown quantity as she had kept her personal religious convictions as quiet as possible. Besides, both Mary and Elizabeth has been declared illegitimate by their father, despite being added back into the line of succession before Henry died. 

During young Edward's last spring, his chief minister the Duke of Northumberland hatched a plan to maintain his own authority into the next reign. The plan included two parts: convince the Protestant Edward to set aside his sisters as potential heirs and declare his cousin Jane and her male heirs as the future monarchs. Then, Northumberland and Henry Grey set about getting Lady Jane some male heirs by marrying the 16-year-old to his 18-year-old son Guilford Dudley. 

Jane and Guilford were married in May 1553 in a joint ceremony that also included the marriages of her sister Katherine to the future Earl of Pembroke and Guilford's sister Katherine to the future Earl of Huntingdon. 

On July 6, 1553, the newly wedded teenager was proclaimed Queen when Edward died from tuberculosis. Despite the machinations of her father and father-in-law who had assumed she would be easy to control, Jane immediately showed her mettle by refusing to have her husband proclaimed King next to her. 

News necessarily traveled more slowly in those days, but it was not long before Mary Tudor learned of her brother's death and of her cousin's perfidy. As she made her way to London to assert her claim, the people rose with her. For all that had happened across her life to marginalize her and despite any fears of what a truly Catholic monarch could mean, Mary was still the daughter of old King Henry and a true princess in their eyes. 

In London, the same Privy Council that had proclaimed Jane Queen just nine days earlier, withered in the face of Mary's advance on London. Jane was deposed. She was arrested along with her husband, her father, and her father-in-law. All were convicted of treason and Northumberland was quickly executed. The newly proclaimed Queen Mary, however, spared the others. Mary had grown up with and remained lifelong friends with Frances Brandon Grey, Jane's mother. Jane's own sweet letter of apology also helped cement Mary's feeling that Jane had been a pawn in the hands of the conniving Northumberland. Sentiment perhaps kept young Jane alive although the three remained separately imprisoned at the Tower of London. 

As the long unmarried Mary rushed to find a Catholic royal husband, however, the tide would change quickly. Once she had settled upon her cousin King Philip II of Spain two things began to work against Jane. First, Philip did not relish the idea of a claimant to the throne being kept alive as a potential rallying point for uprisings. Second, there was an uprising. A man named Thomas Wyatt launched (or helped to launch) a rebellion against Mary's proposed marriage to a foreign king. With Jane's father as one of the conspirator's Mary could hardly oppose Philip's assertions that her throne and her own life would always be at risk as long as Jane lived. And, so it was, just six months after she had been proclaimed Queen of England and then deposed, Jane Grey was beheaded at the Tower of London not long after her husband had met the same fate. Their brief, ill-fated marriage found them buried together forever at the Chapel of Peter ad Vincula nine months after the wedding. Her father met the headsman 11 days later, while her mother Frances remained at Queen Mary's side. (For more about the Queens killed by the Tudor monarchs, see my post, Killing Queens: A Bloody Tudor Heritage.) 

Over the centuries, Jane's life has been greatly romanticized as the tragic heroine who was thrust into a role she did not choose but for which she paid the ultimate price. Given that she is also remembered for keen intelligence and her pious devotion to Protestantism, Lady Jane probably does not get enough credit for the path she ultimately followed. She would have been as keenly ready for the role as the two female cousins who followed her. The religious and political turmoil of the next decade might have been different, but still turbulent. The only likely conclusion we can draw is that, as a young married woman, she probably would have generated heirs which neither of her successors did. The Stewarts would have stayed in Scotland and union of the English and Scottish thrones would have been delayed or perhaps would never have happened at all. Jane's brief reign is one of the interesting "what if" questions in history.

To this day, her reign remains the shortest in English history.

QUEENS OF BRITAIN SERIES
Boudica, Queen of the Iceni 
Empress Matilda 
Margaret Maid of Norway 
Lady Jane Grey
Queen Mary I
Queen Elizabeth I
Mary Queen of Scots 
Queen Mary II
Queen Anne
Queen Victoria - coming soon
Queen Elizabeth II - coming soon

BLOGS ABOUT JANE
Lady Jane Reference Guide
Lady Jane Grey Revisited

MORE ABOUT JANE
Archive for Lady Jane Grey on Venetian Red
A Genius on the Throne: Lady Jane Grey Remembered on The Gale Review
Jane Grey: The Doomed Queen on Travel Through Time
Lady Jane: Famous Trials at Guildhall on Guildhall Library Blog
Lady Jane Grey on Historic UK
Lady Jane Grey on the Official British Monarchy site
Lady Jane Grey on Royalty Now
Lady Jane Grey, England's Forgotten Queen on Medieval Manuscripts blog
Lady Jane Grey and a Letter to Shock Victorians on a Place for Truth
Lady Jane Grey: The Nine Day Queen on Historic Royal Palaces
Lady Jane Grey: Nine Days Queen on On the Tudor Trail
Lady Jane Grey--Nine Facts about the Nine Day Queen on Odyssey Opera
Lady Jane Grey: Queen of England for Nine Days on Womenary
Lady Jane Grey's Correspondence on The National Archives
Lady Jane Grey's Letters from the Tower on Medieval Manuscripts blog
A Lesson from the Life of Lady Jane Grey on Learning Ladyhood
Meet...Lady Jane Grey on The Box Museum Gallery Archive
Nine Days a Queen and the "Execution of Lady Jane Grey" on Voegelin View
A Tudor Tragedy: The Life and Death of Lady Jane Grey on The Tudor Chest
Twelve Tips for Writing About Lady Jane Grey on Sharon Kay Penman