The Forgotten Martyr: Lady Jane Grey

It's rare to find anything this bad. They could have put Jane Grey on roller skates and come out with a better film.

This film was produced by well-intentioned evangelical Christians with the very specific goal of "glorifying God," according to the producers' own official website, and "to educate viewers on the true story of this long forgotten martyr whose life has been shrewdly subjected to romanticism and falsehood by the propaganda of Hollywood screenwriters and liberal historical authors." Unfortunately, the narrative presented has itself been "shrewdly subjected to ... falsehood by the propaganda" required to advance a particular religious agenda. The film asserts that Jane Grey was executed specifically and exclusively "because of her refusal to acquiesce to the faith of her cousin, Mary Tudor." This claim is totally unsupported by documents from the period, including the actual handwritten transcripts of Jane Grey's trial for treason on 13 November 1553 (National Archives, Records of the Court of Kings Bench, Part 22). Jane was executed solely because she committed treason in accepting the Crown of England. It is simple historical fact that she would still have been executed even had she converted to Roman Catholicism. Indeed, John Dudley, the chief architect of the plan to make Jane queen, was himself executed on August 1553 on the same charge of treason even AFTER he had converted to Catholicism. The film is an amusing bit of historical fantasy, but it does NOT "educate viewers in the true story," at least not as that story is told by the original documents of the period. This film should be viewed as religious inspiration, not as fact-based history.