I found the portrayal of Jane’s husband, Guilford Dudley, interesting too. Unfortunately when she came to the throne she was only fifteen, not old enough or strong enough to be able to deal with the unscrupulous, manipulative people around her. She was intelligent and well-educated, courageous and dignified. The sad thing is that under different circumstances Jane might actually have made a very good queen. I have no idea what Jane was supposed to be like in reality but Alison Weir has created a very engaging and sympathetic character.
The book does focus more on the female perspective, but there are also one or two male narrators, the Duke of Northumberland (Jane’s father-in-law, John Dudley) being one of them. One minor criticism is that the early sections which are supposed to be narrated by a four-year-old Jane are not convincing at all, but I was able to overlook this. The use of multiple narrators to tell the various parts of the story worked very well. Much of the story is told from Jane’s point of view, but there are also sections narrated by her mother, Lady Frances Brandon, her nurse, Mrs Ellen, and several others, including Mary I, who is shown to have more compassion and humanity than she is usually given credit for – until, of course, she makes the final decision that will seal Jane’s fate. As Jane’s story unfolds, we are shown how terrible it must have been to be a girl born into the royal family in the 16th century and used as an innocent pawn in her parents’ selfish plans. Her ambitious parents never bothered to hide their disappointment that she wasn’t the son they had hoped for – however, they immediately began plotting and scheming, first to marry Jane to Henry’s son, the young King Edward VI, and when this plan failed, to have the order of succession changed so that Jane would become heir to the throne in her own right.
Jane was a great-niece of King Henry VIII. Alison Weir is best known for her non-fiction books but Innocent Traitor is her debut historical fiction novel from 2007 in which she tells the tragic story of Lady Jane Grey, the ‘Nine Day Queen’.
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