Kay's Bookshelf

My favorite character in the book was Queen Katherine Parr, mostly because the easy way she offered her love to everyone around her. Historically, she was the one who insisted on bringing the two princesses, Henry’s daughters, back to their father’s side, contributing to their being accepted back into his favor. She was also a very smart woman, publishing two books with her religious views, which was quite a feat at the time. In the book, Katherine is like a second mother to young Jane Grey, and it is by her side that the latter has known her only happy times. As for Jane herself, I was very impressed by her erudition (although this didn’t necessarily show in the way she was talking) and also by her courage in the face of adversity (somewhat understandable since she’s had quite a hard life). What I didn’t very much like about her was the fact that she sometimes saw herself as superior to others on religious grounds (not in a bad way, just on the lines of “his/her soul needs to be saved”, and yet to me it seemed like she was somewhat on a high horse at times).

One of the disappointments in the book was the fact that everyone spoke in a very similar manner. If I didn’t pay attention at the beginning of each chapter I wouldn’t have known who was doing the talking at any given time, that’s how similar everyone was. From a four years old Jane to forty years old men (or perhaps even older), each and everyone of them used the same words and the same manner of speaking. The author has tried a bit to fix this but without any actual results (for example Mary complains about being shortsighted every time she has to read something; at least this way I always knew that it was Mary speaking but it got a bit tiring after a while). Nevertheless I didn’t let that bother me (a lot), especially as I know that the author is mostly famous for her non fiction rather than fiction, so she can be considered a beginner in this particular field.

I have very much liked the way the religious environment at the time was related (with a small exception, six years old Jane deciding that she wanted to be a Protestant for logical reasons; not only a six years old usually doesn’t even know what logic is, but there is nothing logical when religion is involved, nor will it ever be — at least there was a character telling this very thing to Jane somewhere near the end, leaving me satisfied in an “see, someone does get it” kind of way). Although I knew a bit about the role religion has played at the time, I found out many more things I had no idea about (such as Mary being excluded at first from her throne because she was a devout Catholic or the English people almost rebelling when faced with the possibility of her marrying the prince of Spain, since that was the country where Inquisition existed). While everyone boasts of worshiping the “true religion”, I couldn’t help but wonder about the effects of these changes on the average people in the streets — now we’re all Catholics but do not recognize the Pope, now we cannot celebrate Mass and you have to be Protestants, now Mass is mandatory and being Protestant is a heresy (which Mary, who remained in the history books as “Bloody Mary” took care to enforce by burning people at stake) and so on. Practically everyone with a decided view where religion was involved was persecuted at one time or another, and I cannot but find this sad.

What I liked most: The fact that it shed some light on that particular character and time in history. To my shame while I knew there once was a Lady Jane Grey that was the extent of my knowledge regarding her. She seems to have been a very interesting character though and I am very glad that I have discovered her via this book.

What I liked least: Alison Weir is a reputed writer of biographies about the British monarchs. I do not for a moment doubt her knowledge on the matter, nor do I want to imply she might have wanted to deliberately mislead her readers. This being said I couldn’t help wondering about what she said about the final days of King Edward (that his body has been replaced with another, “fresher” one by Northumberland in hopes that doing so will gain him more time). And yet there are some proofs that there has been an autopsy on the King’s body (see here or here) and his lungs were discovered to be gravely affected, a thing that I take to mean that this was definitely his body and not an impostor’s. Then why did the author choose to add such (sensationalist!) detail to her book, especially since she knew that people were going to believe her, given her reputation and the fact that she herself claimed at the beginning of the book that she has been faithful to historical events.

Recommend it to? Anyone. It’s written in a very accessible language and I found it quite captivating too (although I knew of course how it was going to end).

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