Lady Jane Grey
by Hester W. Chapman
My rating: 4 out of 5 stars
I have read widely for decades, tomes old and new, on Tudor royals and courtiers. Here was a girl forever pushed to the back of my reading cue. I, like many, knew Lady Jane Grey as 'that' girl who only reigned for nine days. That she was executed under Queen ('Bloody') Mary I whose ministers charged Jane with treason for usurping Mary. The knowledge I lacked involved the circumstantial details. Who was driving such a plot besides Jane's ambitious parents? Why? And to what extent Jane herself was a willing or unwilling participant.
Here is all of that explained plus more. We explore Jane's regal family background, her right royal education as an heir to Henry III's throne and her differing relationships with each of her three cousins, the main contenders for Henry's throne, who for much of Jane's life were ahead of her in the succession.
The succession became reordered along the way. By the premature demise of Henry's sickly primary heir, young King Edward VI, Jane's place had been manoeuvred, without her consultation, to the front.
This, most know, was a religio-political move steered by powerbrokers fervent to keep the crown from Catholic Mary and 'bastard' Elizabeth.
What many are often left wondering is: why did the famously reluctant Jane go along with this at all? And why, when her famously forgiving cousin Queen Mary, after only nine days, successfully took back her rightful place from the 'usurping' Jane, did Jane end up with her head on the execution block? I had hitherto felt to have been offered a varying range of partly subjective explanations by historians seemingly wanting to gloss over it all in their quest to discuss greater icons.
Like many of this period's complex, intertwined scenarios, this has a cast of thousands. That includes the religiously polarised English citizenry, Jane's dynastically ambitious family and the troublesome in-laws attached to her arranged marriage which could have been avoided. Not forgetting the wily foreign officials representing Queen Mary's husband-to-be, Philip of Spain. Queen Mary herself, it seems, had her hands tied and was not necessarily the all-vengeful monster history has passed down to us.
This is a meaty read for those seasoned in the main facts of Tudor England and wanting to fill in the classic gaps. Eruditely composed and researched, it escapes the trap of becoming too academically dry. Such are the makings of a high calibre, yet popular, historical biography.
A well detailed, entertaining and informative accomplishment. I was all the better for having read it.
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