The Nine Days Queen

At fifteen years of age, upon the death of her cousin, Edward, Lady Jane Grey was forced to accept the crown of England. She was queen for only nine days, however. Edward's eldest sister, Mary, soon challenged Jane for the throne, with tragic results. This is the true story of a bright and intelligent young woman who was manipulated and betrayed by the ambitious people who surrounded her.

Jane Grey’s tragedy was her royal blood. As Henry VIII’s great-niece she stood perilously close to the throne and from early childhood was used as a pawn in the deadly power game of Tudor politics. Jane was not happy at home – she once famously remarked that she thought herself in hell in her parents’ company – and sought consolation in her studies and the uncompromising Protestantism fashionable in the l550s. When it became clear that her cousin Edward VI was dying she was forced into marriage with a son of the powerful John Dudley Duke of Northumberland and confronted with the news that the king had made her his heir. So began her reign as the Nine Days Queen, leading to her imprisonment in the Tower and execution at the age of sixteen. Alison Plowden reveals with insight and skill the complex intensity of the woman behind the myth, the brilliantly gifted child who was developing into a passionate, forceful young woman.

I had freckles. I had sandy hair. I was too short. Would my feet even touch the ground if I sat on the throne? These are the words of lady Jane Grey, as imagined by celebrated author Ann Rinaldi. Jane would become Queen of England for only nine days before being beheaded at the age of sixteen. Here is a breathtaking story of English royalty with its pageantry, privilege, and surprising cruelty. As she did in her previous novel Mutiny's Daughter, Ms. Rinaldi uses powerful, evocative writing to bring to life a teenage girl caught in the grip of stirring times. Ages 12+

Published information on Lady Jane is scant and contradictory; here, primary sources including JaneOCOs own letters illustrate the drama of a high-born, high-minded and intelligent young lady sacrificed on the pyre of ambition by her kin. The teenaged Lady"

The tragedy of Lady Jane Grey is unquestionably one of the most poignant episodes in English history, but its very dramatic completeness and compactness have almost invariably caused its wider significance to be obscured by the element of personal pathos with which it abounds. The sympathetic figure of the studious, saintly maiden, single-hearted in her attachment to the austere creed of Geneva, stands forth alone in a score of books refulgent against the gloomy background of the greed and ambition to which she was sacrificed. The whole drama of her usurpation and its swift catastrophe is usually treated as an isolated phenomenon, the result of one man’s unscrupulous self-seeking; and with the fall of the fair head of the Nine Days’ Queen upon the blood-stained scaffold within the Tower the curtain is rung down and the incident looked upon as fittingly closed by the martyrdom of the gentlest champion of the Protestant Reformation in England. Such a treatment of the subject, however attractive and humanly interesting it may be, is nevertheless unscientific as history and untrue in fact. An adequate appreciation of the tendencies behind the unsuccessful attempt to deprive Mary of her birthright can only be gained by a consideration of the circumstances preceding and surrounding the main incident. The reasons why Northumberland, a weak man as events proved, was able to ride rough-shod over the nobles and people of England, the explanation of his sudden and ignominious collapse and of the apparent levity with which the nation at large changed its religious beliefs and observance at the bidding of assumed authority are none of them on the surface of events; and the story of Jane Grey as it is usually told, whilst abounding in pathetic interest gives no key to the vast political issues of which the fatal intrigue of Northumberland was but a by-product. To represent the tragedy as a purely religious one, as is not infrequently done, is doubly misleading. That one side happened to be Catholic and the other Protestant was merely a matter of party politics, and probably not a single active participator in the events, except Jane herself, and to some extent Mary, was really moved by religious considerations at all, loud as the professions of some of the leaders were.

Lady Jane Grey, is one of the most elusive and tragic characters in English history. In July 1553 the death of the childless Edward VI threw the Tudor dynasty into crisis. On Edward's instructions his cousin Jane Grey was proclaimed queen, only to be ousted 13 days later by his illegitimate half sister Mary and later beheaded. In this radical reassessment, Eric Ives rejects traditional portraits of Jane both as hapless victim of political intrigue or Protestant martyr. Instead he presents her as an accomplished young woman with a fierce personal integrity. The result is a compelling dissection by a master historian and storyteller of one of history’s most shocking injustices.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “Leanda de Lisle brings the story of nine days’ queen Lady Jane Grey and her forgotten sisters, the rivals of Elizabeth I, to vivid life in her fascinating biography.”—Philippa Gregory Mary, Katherine, and Jane Grey–sisters whose mere existence nearly toppled a kingdom and altered a nation’s destiny–are the captivating subjects of Leanda de Lisle’s new book. The Sisters Who Would Be Queen breathes fresh life into these three young women, who were victimized in the notoriously vicious Tudor power struggle and whose heirs would otherwise probably be ruling England today. Born into aristocracy, the Grey sisters were the great-granddaughters of Henry VII, grandnieces to Henry VIII, legitimate successors to the English throne, and rivals to Henry VIII’s daughters, Mary and Elizabeth. Lady Jane, the eldest, was thrust center stage by greedy men and uncompromising religious politics when she briefly succeeded Henry’s son, the young Edward I. Dubbed “the Nine Days Queen” after her short, tragic reign from the Tower of London, Jane has over the centuries earned a special place in the affections of the English people as a “queen with a public heart.” But as de Lisle reveals, Jane was actually more rebel than victim, more leader than pawn, and Mary and Katherine Grey found that they would have to tread carefully in order to avoid sharing their elder sister’s violent fate. Navigating the politics of the Tudor court after Jane’ s death was a precarious challenge. Katherine Grey, who sought to live a stable life, earned the trust of Mary I, only to risk her future with a love marriage that threatened Queen Elizabeth’s throne. Mary Grey, considered too petite and plain to be significant, looked for her own escape from the burden of her royal blood–an impossible task after she followed her heart and also incurred the queen’s envy, fear, and wrath. Exploding the many myths of Lady Jane Grey’s life, unearthing the details of Katherine’s and Mary’s dramatic stories, and casting new light on Elizabeth’s reign, Leanda de Lisle gives voice and resonance to the lives of the Greys and offers perspective on their place in history and on a time when a royal marriage could gain a woman a kingdom or cost her everything.