cover image Lady Jane Grey and the House of Suffolk

Lady Jane Grey and the House of Suffolk

Alison Plowden. Franklin Watts, $15.95 (0pp) ISBN 978-0-531-15000-9

The beheading in 1554 of Lady Jane Grey, the ""Nine Days Queen,'' was a horrifying episode in English history, yet her judicial murder caused no great stir at the time, even among staunch Protestants. Executed at age 16, after a hastily arranged marriage made her a pawn in a bloody royal power-game, Lady Jane was too closely identified with the Dudleys' failed coup to rouse much syumpathy. Earlier biographers have painted her as a model of forbearance, mild and calm, but Plowden (Tudor Women, The Young Elizabeth argues that she had the makings of a modern fanatic. Lady Jane's total ideological commitment to the Protestant faith is the key to understanding how a gifted child, starved of affection, developed into a forceful woman who sublimated all her energies to an ideal. Her tragedy is the centerpiece of this engaging chronicle of the House of Suffolk. Plowden compresses a century of domestic battles, intrigues, love affairs and political maneuvering into less than 200 pages with brio and aplomb. Photos. (March)