Non Fiction

In Brief: Jane Seymour and Anne Of Cleves by Elizabeth Norton {0}

The first full biography of Jane Seymour written by Elizabeth Norton comes in at 158 pages. Technically it is the first biography dedicated entirely to Jane Seymour, but the page count will give you an idea of exactly how much we know about Queen Jane, which is of course, very little.

She does make a challenging subject for a biography. While Jane had a place at court with both Katherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn during their reigns, with nothing really recorded about her at the time,  she seems to have been quite an unremarkable figure. That is, of course, until she caught the attention of King Henry VIII and was instrumental in one of the most infamous marriage breakdowns in history.

Tudor Reading – Alison Weir and Alison Plowden on Mary Boleyn and Lady Jane Grey {0}

I went to the library intending to get a copy of the Mary Boleyn biography by Alison Weir. After enduring a long wait and an irritating conversation with the librarian who kept telling me that I should read Philippa Gregory’s The Other Boleyn Girl as was completely historically accurate, I left the library completely exasperated and with a copy of Innocent Traitor by Alison Weir, as they had lost the Mary Boleyn book. With about six of her non-fiction books at home I wasn’t sure why I decided to pick up one of her historical fiction titles to start off with, but little Lady Jane Grey has always fascinated me.