Admittedly, it was all legal. But it was murder. A teenage girl – a particularly intelligent one at that, accomplished in Latin and Greek, with a decidedly independent mind – the victim of others’ ambitions and circumstance, executed. Circumstance – in this case, the accident of a relative’s early death, not to mention her own family and their inheritance. If the boy king hadn’t died, if her grandfather hadn’t divorced his first wife, if her distant cousin wasn’t a Roman Catholic and if her own learning hadn’t reinforced her own Protestantism – the list goes on and on… then she wouldn’t have been led out that February morning onto Tower Green to be beheaded. Lady Jane Grey, February 12 th 1554 As I cross these old cold stones and climb the final steps bible in my hand, for now accompanied, silently I wonder at the accident which has brought me here. Like you, I had no choice in who my parents were. I have been obedient and follow in