Which Jane?

    

The falling sleet and occasional thunder made for a good reading day (click here to share the experience). 

           Earlier today I read about Lady Jane Grey, the "nine days queen" who ascended the English throne at sixteen. It was the first sort of autobiographical literature this semester that really fascinated me! From her biographies and personal letters I gathered that, she...


...was well-educated 
"I found her in her chamber reading Phaedon Platonis in Greek, and that with as much delight as some gentleman would read a merry tale in Boccaccio." --excerpt from Roger Ascham's Schoolmaster
...was bold
In a letter rebuking her former tutor for renouncing his faith, "Why dost thou now show thyself most weak, when indeed thou oughtest to be most strong? The strength of a fort is unknown before the assault: but thou yieldest thy hold before any battery be made. O wretched and unhappy man, what art thou, but dust and ashes? and wilt thou resist thy maker that fashioned and framed thee?"
...cared about her family

In a letter to her father, "In whose steadfast faith (if it may be lawful for the daughter so to write to the father) the Lord that hitherto hath strengthened you so continue you that at the last we may meet in heaven with the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost."
...was strong in her faith
Although she was executed for political reasons, this was her confession before she was beheaded "...bear me witness that I die a true Christian woman, and that I do look to be saved by no other mean but only by the mercy of God, in the blood of his only Son Jesus Christ..." --excerpt from Foxe's Acts and Monuments

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       When I read, I tend to take everything at face value. I naturally trust narrators. But I have to remind myself that narrators can build whatever identity they want for themselves, to suit their purpose or audience. In my reading of Lady Jane I imagined her as the Poor Heroine. My happy bubble got popped when I read other analyses on her and what kind of Lady Jane she more likely was. But I thought about it, and regardless of historical veracity I think I can still be inspired by her as I read her (The Execution of Lady Jane Grey, painting by Paul Delaroche).