In the past five thousand years in China, there have been nearly 500 reigning emperors. The longest reign was kangxi who reigned for more than sixty years, and there were also emperors who reigned for the shortest time, and the late Jin emperor Yan Chenglin reigned for less than a day. There is also a queen in European history who reigned for a very short time, who was deposed after fourteen days on the throne and executed at the age of seventeen, and this queen was named Jane Gray.
Jane Gray was born in October 1537, the eldest daughter of Henry Gray and Francis Brandon, Marquis of Dorset, and her mother was the daughter of Mary, the sister of King Henry VIII, and when she was born, Jane Seymour, the queen of Henry VIII, also gave birth to Prince Edward the Little, and Jane Gray's name was given in honor of the queen.
Jane Gray was studious from an early age, and according to her teacher Roger Askam, one day Jane Gray's parents and family went hunting. But Jane Gray did not go, and she quietly studied Plato's description of Socrates at home. Roger Askam asked her what she asked not to go hunting, and Jane Gray replied that I thought going hunting was insignificant with reading Plato at home.
In 1546, at the age of nine, Jane Grey was sent to the palace to be raised by Queen Catherine Parr. Catherine Parr was not an ordinary person, she was the most married queen in England, married four people, the previous two husbands died tragically, and when she fell in love with the queen's brother Thomas Seymour, the king fell in love with her, so Catherine Parr became queen. The queen married her old love Thomas Seymour after the death of Henry VIII, at a time when the king died only six months later.
When Thomas Seymour saw Jane Gray, who had previously been raised by Catherine Parr, he paid Jane Gray's parents and became Jane Gray's adoptive father, intending to marry Jane Gray to Edward VI in the future. But the brother didn't live long and was killed as soon as he got custody.
Jane Gray did not escape the vortex of power, and she was taken in by John Dudley, Earl of Warwick, who was in power, and asked his son to marry her, and later Jean Gray became the heir of Edward VI. Edward VI, although the long-awaited heir of the English royal family, was frail and sickly from an early age.
Edward VI, knowing that his young life was coming to an end, chose his cousin Jane Gray as heir to the throne in order not to let the country fall into the hands of Catholic forces, excluding his two sisters Mary and Elizabeth. What he did not expect was that his cousin Jane Gray was overthrown by his sister Mary I not long after his reign, but Edward VI could not do anything even if he knew, because his power had not been in his hands since he ascended the throne.
On July 6, 1553, as soon as Edward VI died, Jane Gray called herself Queen, but most people believe that Jane Gray did not want to be the queen, but that her parents and husband's parents demanded that Jane Gray's life be up to her. The first thing he did after ascending the throne was to find Princess Mary and imprison her.
Only they were one step too late, and Princess Mary escaped one step ahead of her, and found someone to support her. By blood, Princess Mary had more inheritance rights than Jane Gray, as she was the daughter of Henry VIII, and Jane Gray was the great-granddaughter of Cousin and Cousin. On 19 July 1553, Princess Mary was considered the rightful heir to the throne, and the populace supported it. Jane Gray's parents left their daughter and son-in-law to escape, and Jane Gray was imprisoned.
Mary I, after becoming queen, thought about giving Jane Gray a way to live, and she said to Jane Gray: You can live by abandoning your Protestant faith. But Jane Gray refused, and out of serenity prepared for death, refused to see her husband. On 12 February 1554, her husband was executed, and not long after she was also secretly executed. Jane Gray died at the age of seventeen, and at a young age she became involved in a power struggle because of her birth, and eventually died at a flower-like age.
Reference: Encyclopedia Britannica