Lady Jane Grey, also called (from 1553) Lady Jane Dudley, (born October 1537, Bradgate, Leicestershire, England—died February 12, 1554, London), titular queen of England for nine days in 1553. Beautiful and intelligent, she reluctantly allowed herself at age 15 to be put on the throne by unscrupulous politicians; her subsequent execution by Mary Tudor aroused universal sympathy.
Lady Jane was the great-granddaughter of Henry VII through her mother, Lady Frances Brandon, whose own mother was Mary, the younger of King Henry VIII’s two sisters. Provided with excellent tutors, she spoke and wrote Greek and Latin at an early age; she was also proficient in French, Hebrew, and Italian. When Lady Jane was barely nine years old,
she went to live in the household of Queen Catherine Parr, and on the latter’s death in September 1548 she was made a ward of Catherine’s fourth husband, Thomas Seymour, Lord Seymour of Sudeley, who planned her marriage to his nephew and her cousin, the young king Edward VI. But Seymour was beheaded for treason in 1549, and Jane returned to her studies at Bradgate.
