SOURCE: Levin, Carole. “Lady Jane Grey: Protestant Queen and Martyr.” In Silent but for the Word: Tudor Women as Patrons, Translators, and Writers of Religious Works, edited by Margaret Patterson Hannay, pp. 92-106. Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 1985.

In the following essay, Levin argues that Grey was a stronger figure than history has given her credit for, a woman of considerable learning whose letters, prayers, and scaffold speech show her to be courageous and uncompromising in her religious beliefs.

John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, attempted to subvert the Tudor succession and make his daughter-in-law, Jane Grey, queen of England in 1553. The attempt failed, and Lady Jane was executed the following year at the age of sixteen. By the end of the sixteenth century, the English people perceived Lady Jane Grey as the ideal young victim: beautiful, modest, deferential, quiet, and passive. This image, presented in 1599 by Thomas...