Lady Jane Grey: Nine Days Queen by Alison Plowden

Lady Jane Grey: Nine Days Queen by Alison Plowden tells a familiar story. The author has done a very good job of making a well-known piece of history seem fresh and new.

The book begins with a chronology of the family of Lady Jane. Jane is the great-granddaughter of King Henry VII. Her grandmother was Princess Mary, the sister of King Henry VIII.

Her grandmother was married to the elderly King of France as a young girl and married her brother’s great friend Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, as her second husband. Her daughter Frances Brandon married Henry Grey, the Marquis of Dorset, and Lady Jane was their eldest daughter.

Before you think Jane’s life was something to envy, you need to understand that she was, from the moment of her birth, a pawn to be used to further the designs of her power-hungry family. Her grandmother, the beautiful Queen Mary, had died before her birth, and her mother Frances was anything but a doting affectionate mother.

In the same month and year that Lady Jane Grey was born, a long-awaited male heir was born to King Henry VIII and his third wife Lady Jane Seymour. It is likely that Lady Jane was named to honor the new queen.

When Jane was still a young girl, she went to live in the household of the dowager queen, Katherine Parr. Princess Elizabeth, at age thirteen, was also a part of the household. This was perhaps the happiest time that Jane ever had. Katherine was an affectionate guardian, and this is probably the only time in her life that Jane felt safe and cherished. She would also have been exposed to the new religion which Katherine Parr has embraced. This can be seen as the beginning of the end for Jane.

It was her religious fervor for the reformation that would endear her to her cousin Edward, the boy king who would never grow old and lead to her being named by him as his successor. Katherine was indeed a motherly figure to all of her late husband’s children: she and Princess Mary had been friends for many years and Elizabeth and Edward were both motherless.

After the death of former Queen Katherine, Jane again became a pawn to be used by her parents in a tug of war with Thomas Seymour, Katherine Parr’s husband. His downfall gave the Greys the opening they needed to take control of Jane and to begin making plans on how best to use her. She was eventually forced to marry a man she despised, again forced to take the throne when Edward died, and then abandoned to her fate by her faithless family.

Lady Jane Grey: Nine Days Queen by Alison Plowden is a great read and even if you think you know all the details, you will find this worth taking the time to enjoy. You will put the book down feeling that this was much more of a tragedy than you ever realized because a fascinating young woman of great promise never got to fulfill her true potential.