Edward VI of England half-sister Mary would jeopardise the English Reformation, and Edward's Council and officers had many reasons to fear it. Edward himself opposed Mary's succession, not only on religious grounds but also on those of legitimacy and male inheritance, which also applied to Elizabeth. He composed a draft document, headed "My devise for the succession", in which he undertook to change the succession, most probably inspired by his father Henry VIII's precedent. He passed over the claims of his half-sisters and, at last, settled the Crown on his first cousin once removed, the 16-year-old Lady Jane Grey, who on 25 May 1553
Tunnelling the English Channel plays the leader of the Salvation Army parade. King Edward was played by a wash-house attendant who closely resembled the monarch, reprising a role he had played five years before in Méliès's film "The Coronation of Edward VII". Special effects used in the film include stage machinery, pyrotechnics, substitution splices, superimpositions, and dissolves. "Tunneling the English Channel" was released by Méliès's Star Film Company and is numbered 936–950 in its catalogues, where it was advertised as a "fantaisie burlesque à grand spectacle en 30 tableaux". For many of his longer films, Georges Méliès prepared a "boniment", a spoken commentary explaining