My website will be 25 years old on 2 September.
To celebrate I will be asking historians and authors who have contributed to the site over the years for their answers to these questions:
1. Was Jane Queen for 9 or 13 days?
I will be posting their answers throughout July, to mark the 473rd anniversary of Jane’s reign.
2. Should Jane be known as Queen Jane or Lady Jane and why?
I will be posting their answers from 2nd September onwards to mark the quarter century of this website.
On 5th June 2026, ‘Royal Regalia: Signatures, Statecraft and Sovereignty’ Exhibition was held at New College, Oxford.
The exhibition included ‘New College MS 328’, which the exhibition described as ‘Royal wardrobe warrants of the Tudor monarchs, and a rare signature by the ‘Nine Days Queen’, Lady Jane Grey.’
Further details about the warrant can be found in New College MS 328 and ‘Jane the Quene’
Thank you to Sophie Bacchus-Waterman for letting me use her photo from the exhibition. Sophie is a historian and author of ‘Elizabeth Boleyn: The Life of the Queen’s Mother
30 August – The Tragic Life of Lady Jane Grey (paper back) by Beverley Adams
‘Lady Jane Grey, the nine-day queen is considered to be one of the most tragic characters in English history. In July 1553 when King Edward VI died at the age of just 15 years old, the Tudor dynasty fell into chaos. The king had no legitimate male heirs and was determined his half-sisters Mary and Elizabeth would not inherit his throne, despite his father Henry VIII stating in his will that they should. We are led to believe that on Edward’s instructions his cousin Lady Jane Grey was to be proclaimed queen. But who was she? Was she the innocent young girl that our history books tell us she was, or a religious fanatic with the aim of keeping Mary off the throne and England Protestant? Or was she nothing but a pawn to men in the game of power and politics, abused by her parents to marry against her will all for a crown she did not want? This book looks into her life from her early years in relative seclusion at the family home at Bradgate through to her tragic end on the scaffold at the Tower of London, executed on the orders of her cousin Queen Mary. What was her place within the Tudor royal family, was she ever entitled to claim the throne of England, and do we even recognise her as a true queen today?’
Further details – Pen and Sword
