Genre: Historical Fiction
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This book made for interesting reading as it is told from multiple points of view. We hear from Jane, her mother, her nurse, from Katherine Parr, from Lady Mary and others as well. The change in narrators was sometimes jarring but I think it painted a fuller picture of exactly what was happening politically after the death of Edward VI and how a young girl so far removed from the crown was set up as Queen of England.
Jane is depicted a pious, studious girl. From an early age, she is marked for her intelligence and thus her parents allow her education to include subjects that most girls of the time would not have studied. Her parents hope that this will allow Jane to make a great marriage, one that will also advance them in society, and as time goes on, they hope that Jane might make the greatest marriage go of all, to King Edward himself. It saddened me that despite her intelligence, and her strong convictions, that Jane is nothing more than a puppet.
Her parents greed for power truly angered me. They had no care for Jane in their ambition and it led them into very dangerous waters. When it was out of the question that Jane marry the young king, they force into a marriage with a man who will have much power--and perhaps all--once the king is dead, a marriage that is hateful to Jane. This is how Jane becomes queen, through subterfuge and impossible schemes. I found I could not forgive her parents.
I also found I could forgive Queen Mary I. I have always pitied this woman, though she has been dead so long. Separated from her mother, made from princess into bastard, forced to give up her faith, never given the chance at marriage and children which she desperately desired, I always felt her life must have been especially hard, and indeed I still do. However, later in life she also became tyrannical her in quest to stamp out heresy and burned hundreds at the stake. Had her hard life made her too unyielding? Was she faithful to the point of being a fanatic? I cannot say, but I will say that she does take what may have been the first step down this bloody road in this novel when she signs the execution warrant that leads to Jane's death.
A great addition to the novels about the Tudor world, Alison Weir keeps me coming back for more.
Happy Reading,
Jewels
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