Month: July 2019

Lady Jane Grey was born in 1537 in the reign of King Henry VIII (1491-1547). His immediate heir was Edward, followed by his daughters Mary and Elizabeth. Jane was related to Henry through his niece, her mother the Duchess of Suffolk. Jane had no thoughts of assuming the role of monarch, but by the age of sixteen had not only married but become Queen and been executed for treason!

These extraordinary events were engineered by her father and her father-in-law, both of whom were also executed, shortly after the beheadings of Jane and her husband, Lord Guildford Dudley in 1554. Three arranged weddings had taken place on 21st May 1553 at the Dudley home, with her sister Catherine and her sister-in-law Katherine also being married off to aristocratic partners.

Her father-in-law was in an extremely powerful position as regent to King Edward VI, who died when only fifteen in 1553, naming Jane as his Protestant heir instead of the Catholic Mary. Jane had been promoted up the list without her knowledge. She was proclaimed Queen on 10th July 1553, just a few weeks into married life. Mary was having none of this and she arrived to brutally remove Jane, a mere political pawn, and her family.

(Image: InternetArchiveBookImages at Flickr.com / Public domain)

The Battle of Trafalgar was won under the inspired leadership of Admiral Lord Horatio Nelson and, after he was shot dead, Vice Admiral Cuthbert Collingwood. It took place on 21st October 1805 off the coast of Cape Trafalgar in south-west Spain and was both a show of naval supremacy and a dismissal of Napoleon’s plans to invade England.

Nelson, a brave patriot, sent the message to his side: “England expects that every man shall do his duty”. Sailing in HMS Victory, he led twenty-seven British ships and not one was lost. His French and Spanish opponents had two-thirds of their thirty-three ships either captured and plundered, or destroyed. The Battle took five hours and was distinguished by a daring new strategy, typical of Nelson’s style. Instead of going head-to-head along a line, he went at right angles in two columns.

The bicentennial was celebrated in 2005 by various events, including the A30 from Falmouth to London being dubbed ‘Trafalgar Way’. This was to mark the journey taken by the messenger who had the first news of the victory and Nelson’s death. Trafalgar Square in London was so named in 1830 and Nelson’s Column, standing 169ft. 3in. high, was completed in 1843.

(Image: Louis-Philippe Crépin (1772-1851) at Wikimedia Commons / Public domain)