Innocent Traitor: A Novel of Lady Jane Grey - Alison Weir
Format: EPUB
Popular biographer Weir (Eleanor of Aquitaine, etc.) makes her historical fiction debut with this coming-of-age novel set in the time of Henry VIII. Weir's heroine is Lady Jane Grey (1537–1554), whose ascension to the English throne was briefly and unluckily promoted by opponents of Henry's Catholic heir, Mary. As Weir tells it, Jane's parents, the Marquess and Marchioness of Dorset, groom her from infancy to be the perfect consort for Henry's son, Prince Edward, entrusting their daughter to a nurse's care while they attend to affairs at court. Jane relishes lessons in music, theology, philosophy and literature, but struggles to master courtly manners as her mother demands. Not even the beheadings of Anne Boleyn and Katherine Howard deter parental ambition. When Edward dies, Lord and Lady Dorset maneuver the throne for their 16-year-old daughter, risking her life as well as increased violence between Protestants and Catholics. Using multiple narrators, Weir tries to weave a conspiratorial web with Jane caught at the center, but the ever-changing perspectives prove unwieldy: Jane speaking as a four-year-old with a modern historian's vocabulary, for example, just doesn't ring true. But Weir proves herself deft as ever describing Tudor food, manners, clothing, pastimes (including hunting and jousting) and marital politics. (Mar.)
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From Booklist
*Starred Review* The title of this complex yet completely absorbing novel reflects the author's point of view as she reconstructs the life of the unfortunate Lady Jane Grey. That this is popular historian Weir's first novel is publishing news (see the adjacent Story behind the Story). Lady Jane Grey was a great-niece of King Henry VIII of England, and the term political pawn could have been invented for her. In alternating voices, each distinctively authentic, Weir lets Lady Jane and other individuals involved in her life and fate tell their sides of the story, and what a story it is. King Henry, it will be remembered, had succession problems: namely, until his marriage to his third wife, he had no male heir. Added to that was the age's seemingly irresolvable conflict between Protestants and Catholics. Therein lay the trouble for the teenage Lady Jane. She was thrust by her power-hungry and caustically Protestant parents into a plot to place her on the throne upon the death of the little king Edward VI, the late king Henry's Protestant son, instead of the legal heiress, the Catholic princess Mary. Mary won the day and throne, and Lady Jane went to the block. Weir finds Jane an intelligent individual, a thinker in her own right; but, tragically, given the times and the power available to the "grown-ups" around her, she ultimately could not resist the political currents swirling over her. A brilliantly vivid and psychologically astute novel. Brad Hooper
The Lady in the Tower: The Fall of Anne Boleyn - Alison Weir
Publisher: Ballantine Books; Reprint edition (December 21, 2010) | Language: English | ISBN-10: 0345453220 | EPUB
From Publishers Weekly
Rejecting as myth that Henry VIII, desirous of a son and a new queen, asked his principal adviser Thomas Cromwell to find criminal grounds for executing Anne Boleyn, the prolific British historian Weir (The Six Wives of Henry VIII) concludes that Cromwell himself, seeing Anne as a political rival, instigated one of the most astonishing and brutal coups in English history, skillfully framing her and destroying her faction. Ably weighing the reliability of contemporary sources and theories of other historians, Weir also claims that though perhaps sexually experienced, Anne was technically a virgin before sleeping with Henry. Anne was also, Weir posits, a passionate radical evangelical, with considerable influence over Henry regarding Church reform. Weir wonders if Anne's childbearing history points to her being Rh negative and thus incapable of bearing a second living child. Dissecting four of the most momentous months in world history and providing an eminently judicious, thorough and absorbing popular history, Weir nimbly sifts through a mountain of historical research, allowing readers to come to their own conclusions about Henry's doomed second queen. 15 pages of color photos. (Dec.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
From Booklist
Acclaimed novelist and historian Weir continues to successfully mine the Tudor era, once again excavating literary gold. This time around, Anne Boleyn falls under her historical microscope. Though Boleyn’s life has already been dissected by a bevy of distinguished scholars, novelists, and filmmakers, Weir nevertheless manages to introduce a fresh slant on the ill-fated second wife of Henry VIII. Focusing almost exclusively on Anne’s final months, she paints a portrait of an impassioned religious reformer who aroused the suspicions and the animus of a number of court insiders, including the influential Thomas Cromwell. Although it cannot be disputed King Henry desperately desired a male heir, it appears there were more politically complex motives behind the plot to derail the unpopular queen. Caught in an inescapable web of royal intrigue and maneuvering, Anne steadfastly maintained her innocence against a host of trumped-up charges. Weir’s many fans and anyone with an interest in this time period will snap up this well-researched and compulsively readable biography. --Margaret Flanagan
The Princes in the Tower - Alison Weir
Publisher: Ballantine Books (July 10, 1995) | Language: English | ISBN-10: 9780345391780 | EPUB
Proponents of Richard III will not be pleased by this book. Weir ( The Six Wives of Henry VIII , LJ 2/15/92) explores documentary evidence and various theories about the fate of the famous princes (Edward V and his brother, ages 12 and 10) in the Tower of London. Relying on contemporary accounts, Weir assesses credibility and compares details. Her sound research and rational arguments make a convincing case for Richard's direct involvement in the murder of his two young nephews. While she admits that there is no convincing evidence that Richard was hunchbacked or more evil than his contemporaries, Weir does show that he was supremely unpopular, largely because of the murder of the children. This is an excellent and persuasive book, one that belongs in all collections covering the history of Great Britain.
The Children of Henry VIII - Alison Weir
Publisher: Ballantine Books (July 8, 1997) | Language: English | ISBN-10: 0345407865 | EPUB
The tragedy of four accidental rivals to a throne, three of them children?by different mothers?of a much-married despot, seems to lose none of its drama by frequent retelling. Along with the royal siblings, Weir (The Six Wives of Henry VIII) includes their cousin, the doomed Lady Jane Grey. Guiltless of the intrigues committed in the name of religion, power and property, Queen Jane was forced at 15 to reign for nine days in a futile attempt to block the accession of the fanatically Catholic Princess Mary. The 300 burnings for heresy during the five years Mary ruled were eclipsed statistically by the hangings and beheadings for conspiracy and treachery. In the 11 years between the death of Henry VIII and the survival of his adroit daughter Elizabeth into the succession in 1558, rapacity had at least as much to do with the turbulence and the terror as religion. So many ennobled miscreants grasped for land, loot and legitimacy that readers will need a scorecard to match their names with their new titles. Weir adds nothing fresh to the story, but her sweeping narrative, based on contemporary chronicles, plays out vividly against the colorful backdrop of Tudor England.
Eleanor of Aquitaine: By the Wrath of God, Queen of England - Alison Weir
Publisher: Pimlico; Re-issue edition (2000) | Language: English | ISBN-10: 0712673172 | EPUB
Once again Alison Weir has produced another wonderful and exciting biography. In this book on Eleanor of Aquitaine she has told the story of this most interesting person in a manner that had me glued to the pages. I must state that I have not previously read any books on this subject, quite a few on Richard I but nothing on his mother. I usually enjoy military history but this was an excellent story, well researched and well presented with heaps of plots, fighting and treachery. The story may well be known to quite a few people out there but to me this book offered the first timer a grand and interesting panorama of this most interesting person during a most interesting period. The narrative was quick and exciting, moving along covering a vast period of time and people however I never got lost in the story. On a number of occasions points in dispute were threshed out and a common sense approach was adopted in trying to find the truth of the matter. Eleanor of Aquitaine had a number of detractors throughout history but I think the author tried to present her story in a non biased manner. This is a good book and I think that most people will enjoy the story and even those who know the whole story should gain something from this account.
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