Wait a sec’ – let me finish blowing my nose. You know it’s coming, but the last page of Innocent Traitor is a tearjerker.
Lady Jane Grey is beheaded on February 12, 1554.
Since grade school, I knew it would happen, but it’s just such a waste of a sweet girl.
When Henry VIII dies he leaves three succesors to the throne of England. In order of ascendency , Edward VI then “Bloody” Mary, then Elizabeth I .
Henry VIII’s England was Protestant. His widow Katherine Parr, a protestant convert, brings the new religion to power. When she dies, few want to the crown to revert to catholicism, as it certainly would do under Queen Mary.
Political subterfuge abounds and a plot to put the protestant great niece of Henry VIII on the throne comes to fruition. She reigns for nine days before Mary takes back the throne and condemns the “Nine Day Queen” to death.
The Nine Day Queen is Jane, who becomes Lady Dudley, having been politically married to a spoiled mama’s boy. Jane is a 15-year-old pawn in a power-hungry mens’ game and pays the ultimate price.
In Innocent Traitor, we grow up with Jane. We see her live through the eyes of many people and grow to admire her. Even as a toddler, she has amazingly inappropriate expectations thrust upon her. Her short life is so different from the lives of our children today that early on, it is impressed upon us how hard life could be in the 16th century. Even for, or especially for, the peerage.
Her self-serving, conniving parents set out to make the best of her through marriage. She committed the sin of being born female so she can be of no other use to them. She must be molded into the ideal wife with which her family can barter. She can gain power and prestige for her family as a bargaining chip. They prod and poke and abuse her. They polish and educate her, while trying to break her spirit.
Part of their plan backfires as she is a very bright girl and through her education comes to recognize the foolish, immoral behavior that permeates the court. The more she learns, the more adamant she becomes that her integrity should not be compromised.
One can barely imagine a girl who would be less interested in money, power and rank.
Jane wants nothing whatsoever to do with her parents’ machiavellian proposals and is never happier than with her beloved nanny and her studies.
Sadly, the choice is never hers to make and she must obey. Jane must do what she abhors until the end, when she makes a decision to honor her convictions at any cost.
Her innocence abounds and it is heartbreaking to see her framed, denounced, and ultimately killed for the mercenarial actions of others.