Elizabeth’s royal cousin Jane Grey is faced with the choice of death or denying her faith after being forced onto the throne of England. It is left to Elizabeth to measure the threat posed to her by the remaining Grey girls – the famous beauty Katherine Grey and her sister, a little person, Mary. Alternately befriended and snubbed, the two girls thrive as the queen’s companions, learning to judge her moods and avoid her temper tantrums. But they each have a secret: Katherine is in love with an heir to the great family Seymour, and Mary with the queen’s sergeant porter. They come to realise that Elizabeth will never allow either of them to marry for fear of a Tudor heir to the throne. Their martyred sister’s advice is clear. ‘Learn you to die,’ Jane wrote in her famous letter to Katherine. But Jane’s tragic story and her fatal choice is only the beginning for her two beloved sisters …