Lady Jane Grey and Queen Mary I

Lady Jane Grey was born in 1537. When she was older she received a great education. By the influence of her parents, she later became a Protestant Christian. She did have an opportunity to become queen, but it did not last long. She wasn’t the original heir to the throne, but was appointed by Edward VI to be his successor. The only reason he appointed Lady Jane Grey as his successor instead of his sister Mary I was because Lady Jane Grey was Protestant so he greatly believed in that religion. But his sister Mary, she was a Roman Catholic so he did not want her religion to rule. Of course, Mary did not approve of Edward making the choice to not appoint her as queen so disagreement arose.

Mary I was determined to become queen, so she started gathering a following to back her. She even went to the Privy Council and convinced them to side with her instead of Jane. So now Mary had a better chance of taking throne. She decided to imprison Jane and her husband. This made Jane only be queen for 9 days.

During their imprisonment Mary decided to charge them of treason and execute them. Jane and her husband died in 1554. Within a short amount of time after Mary I became queen in September 1553.

So now Mary got her wish to be queen and married Phillip King of Spain. With this tie made she was able to be queen of Spain as well. 

During her ruling she persecuted many of the Protestants because she was a staunch Catholic. She didn’t agree with the ways of the Protestants so she even burned over 300 of them.

If you ever heard of this nursery rhyme before it is actually talking about Queen Mary I:

Mary, Mary, quite contrary,
How does your garden grow?
With silver bells, and cockle shells,
And pretty maids all in a row.

The nursery rhyme explains her persecutions to the Protestants and her loyalty to the Catholic Church.

Mary in the end was remembered as a tyrant and also received the nickname “Bloody Mary” because of all the executions she made in her lifetime. She was able to change everything into Catholicism but later on all of that got undone by her successor Queen Elizabeth who was Protestant. She later died from a sickness called Influenza in 1558.