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Actor Jason's ironic link to executed Queen
Daily Express
|November 11, 2024
BAFTA-winning actor Jason Watkins was shocked to learn he has family connections to Jane Austen and the man who oversaw the execution of Lady Jane Grey.
The McDonald and Dodds star is related to famed Tudor Lieutenant of the Tower Sir John Brydges, the royal courtier who managed the imprisonment and beheading of England's shortest reigning Queen.
She ruled for just nine days before being executed at the age of 16 or 17.
It is an astonishing twist as the star, 62, narrates popular series Inside the Tower of London and has a spin-off show Jason Watkins and Lady Jane Grey: A Tower of London Special.
He and historian Tracy Borman go behind the scenes of the notorious royal castle and to Jane Austen's house.
They find he is also related to another Lieutenant of the Tower named Sir Edward Hales, who was the right-handman of King James II.
This story is from the November 11, 2024 edition of Daily Express.
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