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Edward Charles Novels in History |
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‘In the Shadow of Lady Jane’-Author’s View |
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In the Shadow of Lady Jane
THE AUTHOR’S VIEW
Outline
“In the Shadow of Lady Jane” is set between 1551 and 1554, and follows the last three years of the short life of Lady Jane Grey, as seen through the eyes of a young servant boy.
Richard Stocker, able and unusually well educated son of a Devon gentleman farmer, and protégé of Dr Thomas Marwood, a famed local physician and neighbour, meets, is accepted into, and becomes increasingly influenced by, the Grey family. This comprises Lord Henry Grey, Marquess of Dorset, Lady Frances Grey his wife, and their three daughters, the pious Lady Jane Grey, the beautiful Lady Catherine Grey and the hunchbacked Lady Mary Grey.
The story opens during the family’s (only) visit to their small estate at Shute in East Devon. Richard takes an instant dislike to Lady Jane Grey, cold, withdrawn, pious and unforgiving, but quickly becomes infatuated with her younger sister, the vivacious and flirtatious Lady Catherine Grey. Both of these developments are carefully observed by Lady Mary Grey, the sinister, hunchbacked, third sister.
Richard’s relationship with Catherine blossoms after he saves her from drowning in the flooded River Axe. In reward for this act of bravery, Richard is appointed Second Master of Horse in the Marquess of Dorset’s household, under Adrian Stokes, the Greys’ dashing and ambitious Master of Horse, and travels to Bradgate Park in Leicestershire, where he is seduced by Lady Frances Grey, of royal Tudor blood, who dominates her husband and is having a poorly disguised affair with Adrian. Adrian discovers this and attacks Richard, who beats him badly in the ensuing fight.
Richard’s strong education and steadfast character win through and he becomes personal secretary to the Marquess, who in due course, (and thanks to his wife’s royal blood) becomes elevated to Duke of Suffolk.
As his unstable love affair with Catherine lurches from exultation to despair and back again, Richard’s respect for Lady Jane grows and their relationship strengthens into one of mutual protection, Jane taking on partial responsibility for Richard’s continuing education. This culminates in a fight with the sons of John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, when, taking an early morning walk on the banks of the River Thames, Richard and the sisters meet the drunken trio returning from the Bankside brothels, Guilford, the youngest, bragging lewdly about his multiple exploits. It emerges later that Jane’s revulsion at his boasts reflects her own childhood abuse by ‘The Admiral’ Thomas Seymour, Lord Sudely, then married to Katherine Parr, and who had been her guardian when she was a growing girl. Jane had shared this situation with Princess Elizabeth, who, being a few years older, was rescued from her guardian’s clutches, leaving Jane with him alone, during Katherine Parr’s pregnancy. Jane has not trusted men since.
Jane’s worst fears are confirmed when she is told that her long standing betrothal to Lord Hertford, son of the Lord Protector, Edward Seymour (and the only man who does not disgust her) has been put aside, and instead she has been betrothed to (of all people) Guilford Dudley. She refuses but is beaten into submission. At the same wedding ceremony, her sister Catherine is married to William, Lord Herbert.
King Edward VI dies, and Jane is proclaimed Queen by the scheming Northumberland. Guilford teases her that all her chosen personal followers are women. In retaliation, she selects Richard as her page boy and personal guard.
Mary Tudor rises against Northumberland’s ‘appointed’ Queen and Jane is deposed and imprisoned in the Tower of London. She is allowed four servant companions; Ellen, her nurse, two ladies in waiting, and Richard. From August until the following February they remain in gentlemanly imprisonment in the Tower, alternating between hopes of pardon and fear of execution. During this period, Richard, who is allowed to leave the Tower, becomes a regular visitor to Edward Courtenay, Earl of Devon, who needs riding lessons, having been released by Queen Mary from the Tower after spending 15 of his 25 years in prison there.
Finally, an attempted rebellion by Thomas Wyatt swings the balance of clemency against Jane and she and Guilford are told that their sentences of death will be carried out. They are executed on the same day and Suffolk follows his daughter’s fate a week later. Richard observes each of the executions with revulsion. In despair, he returns to the Grey family estate at Sheen in Surrey, where he finds Catherine alone, her marriage having been denied and she having been thrown out on the street. In shared grief at Jane’s death, they finally consummate their love affair. For one week, life exists only in their encapsulated world.
Adrian Stokes is summoned to Sheen from Bradgate Park by Lady Frances, who has returned from Court and (immediately becoming pregnant by him) marries him three weeks later. The Queen is appalled and sends Catherine and Mary to live at Hanworth with the Dowager Duchess of Somerset, her daughter Jane Seymour, and her son (the still unmarried) Lord Hertford.
Richard is now alone at Sheen with Adrian as his master. His position is untenable and he writes to his old mentor, Dr Thomas Marwood, asking for help and advice. It emerges that just as Marwood received his letter, he was about to leave for London, summoned by the Lord Chancellor to join two royal physicians to examine the Earl of Devon, (recently re-imprisoned by Queen Mary for his part in Wyatt’s rebellion) before a decision is made about his future.
Marwood collects Richard at Sheen and together they ride back to Devon. As they ride, he and Marwood review life’s big decisions. Topping a hill near Stonehenge, Richard looks back at the political swirl of the Court life he has left and forward to the Devon hills and the opportunity to become a doctor and serve people honestly. He is confident in his choice of the latter.
Footnote:
Most of the characters in the book are real and the majority of the scenes actually took place. Richard Stocker forms the imaginary thread joining them together.
In later years, Queen Mary released Edward Courtenay from Fotheringay Castle, and sent him to Brussels, as Ambassador to the Hapsburg Court of Charles V. According to local Devon historians, Marwood is said to have accompanied him. Together they travelled on to Venice, where Courtenay contracted a fever. He was taken to Padua (where Marwood was originally trained in medicine) where attempts to save him failed and he died on September 18th 1556.
Marwood (born 1512) returned to Honiton and lived to be 105. In his later years, his fame drew him to the royal Court in London, where Queen Elizabeth summoned him to cure the Earl of Essex of an illness that had baffled the royal physicians. He was successful and was well rewarded by the Queen, retiring back to Honiton a rich man.
I wrote the book top down, using the timeline as a framework. Each chapter was based on what I saw as a visual scene. It was written in the third person with Richard Stocker acting as narrator of the events he witnessed. It took eighteen months to write.
It didn’t work. I parked it for six months in disappointment, then went back to it. I realised that by writing in the third person, I was always describing the actions of Richard Stocker, much of the time (in status terms) the least important person in the scene . I took a deep breath and over the next four months re-wrote the whole manuscript in the first person. This allowed me to get further under the skin of Richard and to feel with him the effect his various experiences had on his formative years.
Like him, I grew to like Lady Jane much more by the end of the book and now truly believe she was abused by “The Admiral”, Thomas Seymour after the young Princess Elizabeth was rescued from his attentions. Unlike Elizabeth, who remembered Seymour fondly, Jane was appalled by his intentions. Both of their lives were changed by the experience.
Discussion points · Can a modern reader accept that in an England with a population of only 3 million people, a well-educated young man could rise so high and so fast through English society? · Does Richard Stocker appear to grow up and mature as the book unfolds? · Does the transfer of (one part of) Richard’s attentions from Lady Catherine Grey to Lady Jane appear fickle or does it reflect his growing maturity, increasingly influenced by ideas and learning and less by looks and sex appeal? · Does Richard’s growing appreciation of the qualities of “Celestial” Edmund Tucker work? Would the reaction of someone the same age today be different from the start? · What would be our reaction to the surviving Dudley brothers if we met them in a subsequent story? How much sympathy do we have for Edward Courtenay after spending over half his life in prison? |