About


Welcome to the Lady Jane Grey Reference Guide. The aim of this site is to provide a guide to the location of information about Lady Jane Grey, the nine days queen, including primary accounts, paintings, her own writings, legends, media representations and a general bibliography.

When I created the site in September 2001, there were only a handful of books available about Jane. The latest biography by Alison Plowden, ‘Lady Jane Grey and the House of Suffolk’ had been published in 1985 and Jane had also featured in Alison Weir’s ‘Children of England: The Heirs of King Henry VIII’ published in 1997.

My interest in Lady Jane began in 1994 and really took off in 1997 when I started to collect books about her. It was the lack of readily available books that led me to set up the site, so other people interested in the nine days queen, would know where to locate the information they required.

In the years since 2001, I am pleased to say that Jane biographies have been published by Leanda de Lisle, Eric Ives, Nicola Tallis and Alison Plowden. She has also featured in books by Stephan Edwards, Helen Castor, Linda Porter and John Guy and in historical fiction by Elizabeth Fremantle, Laura Andersen, Suzannah Dunn, Alison Weir, Susan Higginbotham and Ella March Chase.


Lady Jane Grey

Lady Jane Grey, born in 1536 or early 1537, was the daughter of the Duke and Duchess of Suffolk, granddaughter of Mary Tudor and great niece of Henry VIII. In May 1553 she married Guildford Dudley (son of the Duke of Northumberland). Edward VI changed the succession decreed by Henry VIII and leave the crown to Lady Jane, therefore ensuring the continuation of the Protestant religion by preventing the succession of the catholic daughter of Henry VIII, Mary Tudor.

Lady Jane reigned for only nine days in July 1553 before Mary Tudor succeeded to the throne. Lady Jane was imprisoned in the Tower of London until a plot to prevent Mary marrying Philip of Spain, involving the Duke of Suffolk, led to her execution on February 12 1554.