Lady Jane Grey Reference Guide

Books 2017 – on sale today – The Girl in the Glass Tower (paperback) by Elizabeth Fremantle

Posted on 9th February 2017 by Tamise

9th February 2017 – The Girl in the Glass Tower (paperback) by Elizabeth Fremantle

‘Tap. Tap. Tap on the window.

Something, someone wanting to be heard. Waiting to be free.

Tudor England. The word treason is on everyone’s lips. Arbella Stuart, niece to Mary, Queen of Scots and presumed successor to Elizabeth I, has spent her youth behind the towering windows of Hardwick Hall. As presumed successor to the throne, her isolation should mean protection – but those close to the crown are never safe.

Aemilia Lanyer – writer and poet – enjoys an independence denied to Arbella. Their paths should never cross. But when Arbella enlists Aemilia’s help in a bid for freedom, she risks more than her own future. Ensnared in another woman’s desperate schemes, Aemilia must tread carefully or share her terrible fate . . .

The Girl in the Glass Tower brilliantly explores what it means to be born a woman in a man’s world, where destiny is strictly controlled and the smallest choices may save – or destroy – us.’

From Amazon.co.uk

Further details – Amazon.co.uk

Posted in Books 2017 | Comments Off

Books 2017 – on sale today – Isabella of Castille (paperback) by Giles Tremlett

Posted on 9th February 2017 by Tamise

9th February 2017 – Isabella of Castile: Europe’s First Great Queen (paperback) by Giles Tremlett

’ In 1474, a twenty-three year old woman ascended the throne of Castile, the largest and strongest kingdom in Spain. Ahead of her lay the considerable challenge not only of being a young, female ruler in an overwhelmingly male-dominated world, but also of reforming a major European kingdom that was riddled with crime, corruption, and violent political factionism. Her marriage to Ferdinand of Aragon was crucial to her success, bringing together as it did two kingdoms, but it was a royal partnership in which Isabella more than held her own. Her pivotal reign was long and transformative, uniting Spain and setting the stage for its golden era of global dominance. For by the time of her death in 1504, Isabella had laid the foundations not just of modern Spain, but of one of the world’s greatest empires. Acclaimed historian Giles Tremlett chronicles the life of Isabella of Castile as she led her country out of the murky middle ages and harnessed the newest ideas and tools of the early Renaissance to turn her ill-disciplined, quarrelsome nation into a sharper, modern state with a powerful, clear-minded, and ambitious monarch at its centre. With authority, insight and flair he relates the story of this legendary, if controversial, first initiate in a small club of great European queens that includes Elizabeth I of England, Russia’s Catherine the Great, and Britain’s Queen Victoria.’

From Amazon.co.uk

Further details – Amazon.co.uk

Posted in Books 2017 | Comments Off

Books 2017 – on sale today – So Great a Prince: England and the Accession of Henry VIII (paperback) by Lauren Johnson

Posted on 9th February 2017 by Tamise

9th February – So Great a Prince: England and the Accession of Henry VIII (paperback) by Lauren Johnson

‘The King is dead: long live the King. In 1509, Henry VII was succeeded by his son Henry VIII, second monarch of the house of Tudor. But this is not the familiar Tudor world of Protestantism and playwrights. Decades before the Reformation, ancient traditions persist: boy bishops, pilgrimage, Corpus Christi pageants, the jewel-decked shrine at Canterbury.

So Great a Prince offers a fascinating glimpse of a country and people that at first appear alien – in calendar and clothing, in counting the hours by bell toll – but which on closer examination are recognisably and understandably human. Lauren Johnson tells the story of 1509 not just from the perspective of king and court, but of merchant and ploughman; apprentice and laundress; husbandman and foreign worker. She looks at these early Tudor lives through the rhythms of the ritual year, juxtaposing political events in Westminster and the palaces of southeast England with the liturgical and agricultural events that punctuated the year for the ordinary people of England.’

From Amazon.co.uk

Further details Amazon.co.uk

Posted in Books 2017 | Comments Off

February 1554 – Lady Jane’s conference with Dr Feckenham

Posted on 8th February 2017 by Tamise

Both de Lisle and Ives agree that Jane wanted her dialogue with Feckenham to be published, ‘Given the little time she had to write between his final visit and the end, this says much of her determination that her death should have meaning. (p.257, Ives)

De Lisle suggests that perhaps ‘Jane had not forgotten Anne Askew, burned for heresy by Henry VIII in 1546, and whose arguments with her persecutors had been recorded for posterity. Jane intended to preserve the best of her exchanges also.’ (p.146, de Lisle)

Lady Jane’s conference with Dr Feckenham

Sources

De Lisle, L. (2009) The Sisters Who Would Be Queen: The Tragedy of Mary, Katherine and Lady Jane Grey, Harper Collins.

Ives, E. (2009) Lady Jane Grey: A Tudor Mystery, Wiley-Blackwell.

Posted in Lady Jane in her own words | Comments Off

A good reason to buy All About History Magazine…

Posted on 7th February 2017 by Tamise

(Imagine Publishing)

Issue 48 of All About History Magazine has an article by Nicola Tallis.

‘Bloody Mary on Trial: Henry VIII’s deadliest daughter or victim of Protestant propaganda’ looks at whether Mary deserves the reputation of ‘Bloody Mary.’

Lady Jane gets a couple of mentions.