BBC Radio Lincolnshire
\n1st February 2009
\nHoward Leader<\/p>\n
You can listen to the 15 minute interview at BBCiplayer until 6pm Sunday 8th February 2009. It is 1 hour 14 minutess in to the show.<\/p>\n
BBCiplayer<\/a><\/p>\n The main points of the interview were:<\/p>\n \uf0a7\tKatherine and Mary Grey – Their stories weren\u2019t particularly well known because there were details in them that were embarrassing and principally it is that when Elizabeth I died in 1603, the Greys and their descendants were the heirs under English law to her and in fact the crown passed instead to the Stuart King, James I.<\/p>\n \uf0a7\tUnder the usual common law, (as illegitimate) Mary and Elizabeth could not inherit the throne. They only inherited because Henry VIII appointed them his heirs and he was given this right by parliament.<\/p>\n \uf0a7\tThe people who were in power at the end of Edward\u2019s reign were then called Evangelicals and are now called Protestants. They were determined that a Protestant would inherit the throne after Edward. This did not look likely as Mary, who was a Catholic, was his heir under the terms of King Henry\u2019s will. Edward did not want his illegitimate sisters inheriting his throne.<\/p>\n \uf0a7\tNumber of reasons why Edward might not have chosen Frances Grey, it was unlikely that she was going to have a son and he wanted someone who was going to produce a male heir. So she was passed over and it went instead to Jane, who was married off to the son of the principal man in his government, the Duke of Northumberland.<\/p>\n \uf0a7\tKatherine and Mary\u2019s stories are unfairly obscured. They are extremely dramatic and romantic and shed fresh light on the reign of Elizabeth.<\/p>\n \uf0a7\tElizabeth was particularly frightened of Katherine because she was concerned that if Katherine married and she didn\u2019t, that she in turn would be overthrown by her Protestant supporters and replaced by Katherine.<\/p>\n \uf0a7\tKatherine despaired that she would never be reunited with her husband and starved herself to death.<\/p>\n \uf0a7\tMary was the survivor of the three sisters. At the time Mary married, Elizabeth was so angry that parliament kept on pressing her to name Katherine as her heir, that she threw Mary and her husband into different prisons.<\/p>\n \uf0a7\tElizabeth did not act cruelly without reason and lived in genuine fear of her life, all her life.<\/p>\n \uf0a7\tEfforts that were made by Kings and male politicians to deprive women specifically of holding the absolute power of the monarchy. Eventually undermined the foundations of autocracy and led to our constitutional monarchy.<\/p>\n \uf0a7\tJane very much played a role in her own life, in her reign and in her fate. Understood the weapons of propaganda and was prepared to embrace martyrdom for her cause.<\/p>\n \uf0a7\tThere had been no Queen regnant before Jane. People had a very strong sense of hierarchy and in the hierarchy women were below men. How could a woman be a monarch and be above men?<\/p>\n \uf0a7\tThe crown became weaker because they thought that female monarchs needed to be controlled by male politicians. This meant the crown was being controlled by politicians. <\/p>\n \uf0a7\tWhen in the end there were no more female monarchs, when James I became King, English politicians had got into a particular way of thinking.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" BBC Radio Lincolnshire 1st February 2009 Howard Leader You can listen to the 15 minute interview at BBCiplayer until 6pm Sunday 8th February 2009. It is 1 hour 14 minutess in to the show. BBCiplayer The main points of the … Continue reading