RC: Yet despite the patriarchal culture, strong women could and did emerge, women like Jane and her cousin, Elizabeth. What accounts for that, do you think? The device of having multiple narrators is a useful one, making it easy to reveal the thoughts of key characters, but I'm not convinced that Wier has the novel-writing expertise to pull it off. There were places where she showed her pedigree as an historian by having people describe the quotodian in a way that helped to set the scene but that no-one talking to a contemporary would have thought to do. For example, a subtle anachronism - a reference to the discomfort of travelling in an unsprung carriage at a time when few, if any, benefitted from this convenience - was the very one I remember being cautioned against by my Latin teacher. Hrm. I think I would've enjoyed this more if it had been a straightforward history textbook instead of an attempt at prose. The multiple POVs are mutually indistinguishable, Jane at age 4 sounding the same as her mother as the queen as the duke and so on. The dialogue all sounds scripted, and the emotions are overwrought and rarely wring true. When Mary rides into town proclaiming herself the rightful queen, Jane puts up no fight and is happy to relinquish the title to her cousin. Thinking Mary will be kind to her, Jane is not worried, even though she is confined to the Tower of London; she had spent her brief "reign" there, and the main change is that she is no longer living in the royal apartments.

Innocent Traitor by Alison Weir | Goodreads Innocent Traitor by Alison Weir | Goodreads

Reader’s Circle: After ten enormously popular and critically acclaimed nonfiction books, what inspired you to make the jump to fiction with Innocent Traitor? Lady Jane Grey, the grand niece of Henry VIII, and queen of England for just over a week in 1553 is the subject of Innocent Traitor, Alison Weir’s first work of historical fiction. With over ten works of history to her credit, Weir is one of my favorite British Renaissance and Reformation historians mostly because she presents the Catholic and Protestant theological differences of the era in an impartial manner without resorting to inflammatory or stereotypical rhetoric. she goes over, in her head~although she is exhausted and all she wants to do is sleep~i can definitely relate to that~for the thousandth time how she came to be there), beginning with Jane's birth up to her execution. This is the story about the nine day queen known as Lady Jane Grey. Her life was hard. She had a strict mother who essentially hated her because she wasn't a boy. She had a father that really couldn't care less about her. The only shining parts of her life were her books, Mrs. Ellen and Katherine Parr, King Henry's last wife. Logsdon, Alice. "Innocent Traitor". Historical Novel Society. Archived from the original on 19 October 2012 . Retrieved 19 February 2019.

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. AW: Because I knew it well, I was aware that it had all the elements of a compelling and poignant tale, and I needed a story that was not too long. Above all, I’ve always found Jane an intriguing character, for she was not always a sympathetic heroine, but a feisty and dogmatic teenager who could be uncomfortably candid, outspoken, and uncompromising. I wanted the challenge of writing about her in such a way as to excite my readers’ compassion, rather than having them pity her only on account of her youth and her being used as the tool of ambitious men. I enjoyed this book, sad and flawed as it was. I knew the bare outline of the life of Lady Jane Grey, although, in spite of having read some version or other of Foxe's Book of Martyrs several times in my childhood, had forgotten that she is considered a martyr by the Anglican Church. It was therefore interesting to read a more detailed version of her story. Yes, I know the account is fictional but with such a reknowned historian writing we can be fairly certain that the events, if not the motives for them, are fairly accurately recounted. AW: I believe that these queens rose above the constraints of a male-dominated age simply because they were exceptional, formidably intelligent, and talented women, and also because their royal birth ensured their entrance to the political stage.

Innocent Traitor - Penguin Random House Innocent Traitor - Penguin Random House

Evocative . . . a rich tapestry of a bygone age and a judicious assessment of her subject’s place within it.” These parents were down right horrible and my heart went out for Jane as well as the other two girls.

Retailers:

The finest historian of English monarchical succession writing now is Alison Weir. . . . Her assiduousness and informed judgment are precisely what make her a writer to trust.” Events in the book are portrayed first person, through the eyes of a number of people—from Lady Jane Grey to her parents to Mrs. Ellen to Queen Jane Seymour to Queen Mary to the Duke of Northumberland and so on. While this adds a personal perspective that works pretty well, it can sometimes be a bit too kaleidoscopic for my taste. Through these various characters, we learn of the great events of the day as they happen—Henry VIII’s marriages to Anne of Cleves, Katherine Howard, Katherine Parr, Edward VI’s brief reign, internal and external crises facing the country. I felt just so awful for poor Jane. Her parents plotted ways to get her on the throne to make themselves seem better. Her mother was so god awful to her. She was constantly hit and yelled at for the smallest infractions. How she managed to still go on everyday is an amazement to me. She is clearly much stronger than anybody gives her credit for. At first, a reluctant Jane instead proclaims Mary the rightful queen, but is forced by her elders to take the throne as her own. There is little support for her claim, though. Even many Protestant nobles, whose support had been counted on, rally to Mary.