cover image Documents of Lady Jane Grey, Nine Days Queen of England, 1553

Documents of Lady Jane Grey, Nine Days Queen of England, 1553

. Algora Publishing, $21.95 (208pp) ISBN 978-0-87586-334-4

Henry VIII's ill-fated great-niece left a modest collection of personal papers, assembled here for the first time by independent scholar Taylor. The book includes a recently discovered cache of undated letters, as well as missives about Jane penned by others and rendered here, for the most part, in modern English. Taylor succeeds in furnishing insights into the remarkable mind of this young, 16th-century Protestant noblewoman, whose piety (she began corresponding with religious scholars at age 13) sustained her through a fatal political crisis. Jane was well behind in the line of succession for the English crown, but she did not count on the royal ambitions of John Dudley--duke of Northumberland, the real power behind Edward's throne--and her devious parents. In 1553, Dudley, determined to preserve Protestantism--and his authority--married Jane to his son and convinced the dying Edward to name Jane his heir, supplanting Mary, a devout Catholic. But the coup failed. The following year, 16-year-old Jane (who once wrote that ""the bare possibility of being a Queen, is a source of uneasiness to me""), along with her husband, father and Dudley, were beheaded. Though Taylor's effort to catalog these poignant documents is impressive, the book is ultimately disappointing. In his introduction, Taylor promises to clear up the historical record, but readers learn little about the ""inconsistencies"" he noted in other books or how this work corrects them. In addition, he skimps on detailed explanations of the period's political events, and fails to sketch satisfying portraits of major personalities other than Jane. Nevertheless, serious students of English history will relish the new material offered here, which is best appreciated in tandem with works that provide a fuller overview of the political, cultural and religious dramas that enveloped Tudor England.)