Welcome to the History Tricks, where any resemblance to a boring old history lesson is purely coincidental.

And here's your 30-second summary.

An accident of birth and the ambition of others tossed Jane Grey onto the throne of England.

Nine days later, Queen Mary pushed her off stage and ultimately onto the scaffold.

The End.

Today, we are going to talk about Lady Jane Grey, who was or perhaps was not the Queen of England for nine whole days.

Nine whole days.

Lady Jane Grey was born in October of 1537, unless she was born in May of 1536.

Recently, historians have started to doubt the birth date, underlining what we often say.

You can pick and choose what you believe of history.

So we've got some eminent, respectable historians, including people at the BBC, calling for October and others like Leandre DeLiel, also respected historians, saying,

oh no, she was born in 1536.

At some point, in the 1530s, Lady Jane Grey was born.

And she was born sometime around the same time as Prince Edward, the first and only son of King Henry VIII.

Her parents were Henry Grey and Frances Grey.

Now, even more important is her grandparentage.

Yeah, a word on grandparents.

Before we get going, this will come in really handy later.

Henry VIII had two sisters, Margaret, who became the Queen of Scotland.

This is goodbye, Margaret.

We won't see you later.

And Mary, the younger sister, also known as the French Queen, because of her brief excursion to Mary, the King of France, and then she came right back.

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