It portrays the brief reign of Lady Jane Grey, a pretender to the English throne following the death of Edward VI and her defeat and execution by Mary I in 1554.

[2] The cast also included John Mills as the Duke of Northumberland, Barton Booth as Lord Guilford Dudley and Lacy Ryan as the Earl of Sussex, Colley Cibber as Bishop Gardiner, James Quin as the Lieutenant of the Tower and Mary Porter as the Duchess of Suffolk.

Rowe was a staunch Whig and wrote the play in the wake of the Hanoverian Succession where George I had taken the throne ahead of his Catholic Jacobite rival James Stuart, who launched an unsuccessful rebellion later in 1715.

Rowe dedicated the work to Caroline, Princess of Wales drawing comparisons between her and Lady Jane Grey as a rightful Protestant heir.

The 1836 opera Giovanna Gray, with a libretto by Carlo Pepoli, was based on the play.