Innocent Traitor
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4.5 • 15 Ratings
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- $15.99
Publisher Description
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A wrenching novel about the life and death of Lady Jane Grey, one of the most complex and sympathetic figures in Tudor England, by popular historian Alison Weir: ideal for fans of Wolf Hall
Lady Jane Grey was born into times of extreme danger. Child of a scheming father and a ruthless mother, for whom she was merely a pawn in a dynastic power game with the highest stakes, she lived a life in thrall to political machinations and lethal religious fervour.
Jane's astonishing and essentially tragic story was played out during one of the most momentous periods of English history. As a great-niece of Henry VIII, and the cousin of Edward VI, Mary I and Elizabeth I, she grew up to realize that she could never throw off the chains of her destiny. Her honesty, intelligence and strength of character carry the reader through all the vicious twists of Tudor power politics, to her nine-day reign and its unbearably poignant conclusion.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Popular biographer Weir (Eleanor of Aquitaine, etc.) makes her historical fiction debut with this coming-of-age novel set in the time of Henry VIII. Weir's heroine is Lady Jane Grey (1537 1554), whose ascension to the English throne was briefly and unluckily promoted by opponents of Henry's Catholic heir, Mary. As Weir tells it, Jane's parents, the Marquess and Marchioness of Dorset, groom her from infancy to be the perfect consort for Henry's son, Prince Edward, entrusting their daughter to a nurse's care while they attend to affairs at court. Jane relishes lessons in music, theology, philosophy and literature, but struggles to master courtly manners as her mother demands. Not even the beheadings of Anne Boleyn and Katherine Howard deter parental ambition. When Edward dies, Lord and Lady Dorset maneuver the throne for their 16-year-old daughter, risking her life as well as increased violence between Protestants and Catholics. Using multiple narrators, Weir tries to weave a conspiratorial web with Jane caught at the center, but the ever-changing perspectives prove unwieldy: Jane speaking as a four-year-old with a modern historian's vocabulary, for example, just doesn't ring true. But Weir proves herself deft as ever describing Tudor food, manners, clothing, pastimes (including hunting and jousting) and marital politics.
Customer Reviews
Faith & control
A story of faith and control, set in countryside and London during the Tudor era. Weir's portrayal of the life of Lady Jane Grey - the Nine Days' queen - explores the tension between Grey being a willing martyr of her faith, and a helpless victim of her parents' lust for power. While rich in historical detail, the pace never lulls, and the scaffold looms ever closer ...
Nine Days Queen
This is a beautiful, but sorrow-filled story. Jane rarely had a happy moment
in her life but even so, this book tells you the story of an honest, wronged girl who
was let down by everyone in her life; abandoned by those who placed her in the procarious
situations. She may have been a tiny in stature, sixteen year old girl when she died,
but she was remembered by everyone who had met her as a clever, pretty little girl whose
only fault was to have been born with royal blood and to believe in making a difference.
Five Stars!!!