Hello, I'm Professor Susanna Lipscomb.

If you'd like not just the Tudors ad-free to get early access and bonus episodes, sign up to History Hit.

With a History Hit subscription, you can also watch hundreds of hours of original documentaries,

including my own recent two-part series, A World Torn Apart, The Dissolution of the Monastries, and enjoy a new release every week.

Sign up now by visiting historyhit.com forward slash subscribe.

On the 6th of July 1553, King Edward VI died, and his death created a dynastic crisis.

Aged 15 and unmarried, he died without a direct male heir.

After all Henry VIII's preoccupation with the male air earlier in the century, in 1553, two women now contested the English throne.

Lady Jane Grey, Edward VI's first cousin, and Lady, or Princess Mary, Edward VI's half-sister.

So who was Lady Jane Grey? What was her claim to the throne, and why did her

tragic story unfold as it did? And was she ever the rightful queen? Queen Jane I'm

joined by Dr. Nicola Talis, with a PhD in history in which she examined the

jewellery collections of the Yorkist and early Tudor Queens, and as a previous curator at Soudley

Castle, Nicola has written three books on Tudor Women. Uncrowned Queen, the fateful

life of Margaret Beauford, Tudor Matriarch, the latest came out in 2009. Before that, there was Elizabeth's rival, the tumultuous tale of Lettis Knowles, Countess of Leicester.

But her first book was Crown of Blood, the deadly inheritance of Lady Jane Grey,

and all were published in the UK by Michael O'Mara Books.

And it's that deadly inheritance that we explore in today's podcast.

Nicola, welcome to Not Just the Tudors. It is lovely to talk to you in what I hope will be

the first of many chats because you've written so many wonderful books

but this chat today is about Lady Jane Grey and you make a point in your book that I am

always banging on about which is that to call Jane the Nine Days Queen is our first mistake

...