[1] Table showing the respective claims of Queen Mary and Lady Jane Grey to the crown.  By his last will Henry VIII left the crown to Edward VI, and (in case he had no issue) to his daughters, Mary and Elizabeth, followed by the issue of his sister Mary.  Edward VI’s will undertook to change this order of succession.

Henry VII
1 2 | 3 4
--------------=-------------------------------------
| H | |
Arthur, b. 1486 Henry VIII Margaret Mary, m. d. 1502, no H | Charles Brandon issue ======================= James V of |
H H H Scotland, Frances
Mary, b.  Elizabeth, Edward VI, d. 1542 Brandon, m.
1516, d. 1558 b. 1533, b. 1538, | Henry Grey
d. 1603 d. 1553 Mary Queen |
of Scots, JANE GREY,
b. 1542, m.  Lord
d. 1587 Guilford Dudley,
| beheaded 1554
|
James VI of Scotland
and I of England,
crowned 1603

369.  Question of Mary’s Marriage; Wyatt’s Rebellion (1554).

While they were confined there, the question of the Queen’s marriage came up.  Out of several candidates for her hand, Mary gave preference to her cousin, Philip II of Spain.  Her choice was very unpopular, for it was known in England that Philip was a selfish and gloomy fanatic, who cared for nothing but the advancement of the Roman Catholic faith.

An insurrection now broke out, led by Sir Thomas Wyatt, the object of which was to place the Princess Elizabeth on the throne, and thus secure the crown to Protestantism.  Lady Jane Grey’s father was implicated in the rebellion.  The movement ended in failure, the leaders were executed, and Mary ordered her sister Elizabeth, who was thought to be in the plot, to be seized and imprisoned in the Tower (1554).

A little later, Lady Jane Grey and her husband perished on the scaffold.  The name JANE, deeply cut in the stone wall of the Beauchamp Tower,[1] remains as a memorial of the nine days’ Queen.  She died at the age of seventeen, an innocent victim of the greatness which had been thrust upon her.

[1] The Beauchamp Tower is part of the Tower of London.  On its walls are scores of names cut by those who were imprisoned in it.

370.  Mary marries Philip II of Spain (1554); Efforts to restore Catholicism.

A few months afterward the royal marriage was celebrated, but Philip soon found that the air of England had too much freedom in it to suit his delicate constitution, and he returned to the more congenial climate of Spain.