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she always signed herself with her husband’s surname, Jane Dudley. Most tellingly of all, she is thought of as a rebellious pretender to the throne, thrust into the limelight by her ambitious father-in-law, John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland.
    The truth is that, according to the provisions of Edward VI’s ‘device for the succession’, Jane was Edward’s rightful chosen heir and Mary the illegitimate rebel, and it was not only Northumberland, but the whole political establishment who originally backed Jane. When Edward died, it looked likely that Queen Jane would have a long and prosperous rule.
    Instead, Jane became one of history’s victims. Just sixteen years old, pretty, petite and slender, with brown eyes, auburn hair and fair, lightly freckled skin, she seems to have been a serious but charming bluestocking. Her extraordinary gift for study and languages is best illustrated by the fact that when Roger Ascham, Elizabeth I’s tutor, arrived at the Greys’ house at Bradgate in August 1550, he found everyone out hunting except for the fourteen-year-old Jane, who sat alone, reading Plato in the original Greek.
    But Jane’s eventual downfall had nothing to do with her character: it was a matter of birth. Her parents were Henry Grey, Marquess of Dorset (later Duke of Suffolk), and Lady Frances Brandon, daughter of Henry VIII’s younger sister, Mary [see T HE C HURCH OF S T M ARY , B URY S T E DMUNDS ]. When the sick andchildless Edward VI was looking to provide himself with a legitimate heir, his gaze landed on Jane, and her fate was sealed.
    Under Henry VIII’s last will, and a statute from 1544, if Edward died without children, the English throne was to pass to Mary, and then to Elizabeth. But Edward’s half-sisters were only in the line of succession because in 1536 Henry VIII had established that it was the king’s right to determine his successor beyond the usual principle of male primogeniture. This meant Henry could later add Mary and Elizabeth to the line of succession while retaining his profound belief in their illegitimacy — for they had been declared bastards when his marriages to their mothers failed. Their claim to the throne was not by right: it was a gift from the King, and what one monarch had given another could take away.
    As King, Edward also had the right to determine the succession, and since his half-sisters were officially bastards, he never seems to have considered their claim. Edward was also desperate not to hand the crown to his Catholic sister Mary, for he had been busy entrenching the Protestant reformation in England. When he fell ill in early 1553, and his mind turned to his mortality, his first plan for the succession intended that only male heirs would succeed. Later, when he realised his illness was terminal, he — or someone with his consent — made a crucial change to his ‘device for the succession’, amending it in favour of ‘Lady Jane and her heirs male’. On 21 June 1553, Edward signed and sealed this legal document, and 102 witnesses added their support.
    Yet, when Edward died a fortnight later on 6 July, the government was unprepared. For several days Edward’s death remained a badly kept secret. Jane was not informed that she was queen until Sunday 9 July. The council also underestimated Mary, failing to anticipate her bold and rebellious actions after sources told her that Edward was dying. When Robert Dudley was sent to collect her the day after Edward’s death, he found that Mary had alreadyescaped to her strongholds in East Anglia and, a day later, had had herself declared queen [see F RAMLINGHAM ].
    Meanwhile, in London, Jane was proclaimed queen on 10 July, and escorted, with her husband, Guildford Dudley, to the Tower in great pomp and ceremony to await her (and possibly his) coronation.
    Having let Mary escape, the government now needed to muster an army to tackle her rebellion, but they failed to do so with sufficient speed. Northumberland was given