Reading Level: Adult Non-Fiction
Like most people who care about Tudor history at all, I have to admit that I have always loved the character of Elizabeth I. I have spent a lifetime admiring her courage in the face of such adversity - seeing her mother (Anne Boleyn) get her head cut off by her father (King Henry VIII) for a start, and then having to survive her siblings (Edward VI and Mary I) time on the throne. One would think having to live through all those hardships would have made Elizabeth a more empathetic, softer person. However, if this history of her cousins, the Grey sisters, is to be believed, it instead gave Elizabeth I a will of iron and a heart of stone.
The three girls in the title - Lady Jane Grey and her younger sisters, Katherine and Mary, were brought up in the shadow of the throne, and yet only one, Jane, would ever sit on it, and that for only a short period of time. However, due to their kinship to Queen Elizabeth I, the Queen kept the other two sisters locked up for most of their lives, along with their husbands. The book has totally changed my opinion of Elizabeth, and lost her much respect in my eyes. While Elizabeth was not responsible for the death of Lady Jane Grey, her older sister Mary did that while she was queen, Elizabeth did go out of her way to make the lives of the younger girls miserable. Both girls married without the Queen's permission - a mistake, for sure - but neither deserved the harsh and cruel punishments for that which the Queen metted out. And to lock up their husbands, too, and send their children to others to raise... it is shameful behavior on the part of Elizabeth.
A fascinating look at Tudor times, and the struggles that put and kept various figures on the throne. Leanda DeLisle does a good job of debunking various myths about the romantic but reluctant girl who would be Queen, Lady Jane Grey, and also about the Queens who followed her to the throne. Brilliant scholarship, if hard to read at times.
Submitted by Gerti
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