John Reeks/The Conversation The long Tudor century (1485-1603) lasted 42,947 days and Lady Jane Grey reigned for nine of them. Jane’s cousin, the sickly boy-king Edward VI, named her heir to keep Protestantism alive. However, she ultimately proved nothing more than a minor inconvenience to his Roman Catholic sister Mary, who benefited from widespread popular acceptance of her own dynastic legitimacy. To most historians, therefore, Jane is a footnote at best. And while she has received some recent attention from scholars, the shortness of Jane’s reign means that their focus tends to be more on how she has been presented by others. My Lady Jane, Amazon Prime’s new historical fantasy, is based on the novel of the same name by Cynthia Hand, Jodi Meadows and Brodi Ashton. The real and fictional Janes are both exceptionally bright, though instead of religion and ancient languages we see talents in herbalism and medicine – both unsettled by the prospect of becoming queen. That is, however, where the similarities end. The setting for My Lady Jane isn’t so much a “reimagined” Tudor world as an entirely fictitious alternate reality. This allows the creators to do something completely unimaginable for historians: make Jane the center of the story. Read moreSection: NewsHistory & ArchaeologyHistoryFamous PeopleRead Later