Her Highness, the Traitor - By Susan Higginbotham Page 0,157
on religious tolerance?
4. Desperate to save her family, Frances tells Mary what she knows are dubious stories about Edward VI being poisoned and encourages Jane Grey to do the same. Did this make her a less sympathetic character to you?
5. Prisoners facing execution in Tudor England were expected to express their penitence on the scaffold and to profess their loyalty to the monarch, even if the prisoner believed his sentence was unjust. Most of the people executed in this novel dutifully follow this convention. Could you have done this?
6. Despite his misgivings, John Dudley carries out the dying Edward VI’s wishes and puts Jane Grey on the throne. Setting aside for the moment the hindsight that informs us of the disastrous consequences of his decision, do you believe he was right to do so? Or should he have honored the provisions of the dead Henry VIII’s will?
7. Though Henry VIII is dead when Her Highness, the Traitor opens, he casts a shadow over the novel. In what ways does the king continue to influence events?
8. Frances tells her stepmother that her relationship with the Lord is no different no matter whether she goes to mass, and Jane Dudley readily changes her religion in hopes of seeing her sons freed. Others choose to die for their religious beliefs. Are there principles, religious or otherwise, that you would never compromise?
9. Certain characters in this novel, especially Frances Grey and John Dudley, have traditionally been depicted hostilely by novelists and by popular historians. Were you surprised to see them treated differently here? What about the depiction of Jane Grey, who has often been depicted as meek and helpless?
10. What sort of ruler do you think Jane Grey would have been if Mary had not claimed the throne?
11. Mary promises to spare Jane’s life but executes her after Henry Grey participates in Wyatt’s rebellion. Was her action necessary to prevent future rebellions, as she tells Frances? As a ruler, would you have spared Jane’s and Guildford’s lives?
12. At the end of her life, Jane Dudley writes, “For whoever trusts to this transitory world as I did, may happen to have an overthrow as I did.” How, if at all, does Jane’s reversal of fortune change her? What about Frances’s reversal of fortune?
13. Which heroine did you prefer, Frances Grey or Jane Dudley? Did your feelings about them change as the novel progressed?
14. Most of the writings in this novel, such as Jane Grey’s letters, Northumberland’s last letter, Somerset’s prayer composed on the eve of his execution, and Jane Dudley’s letter to Lady Paget and her will reflect the actual words of the historical figures involved. Likewise, Somerset’s, Northumberland’s, and Jane Grey’s execution speeches are drawn from contemporary reports. Did you find that this brought you closer to the characters?
15. Henry Grey loves his daughter Jane dearly but puts her life—and his own—at risk by joining Wyatt’s rebellion. Do you believe that he willfully blinded himself to the consequences of his actions, that he underestimated Mary’s strength of will, or that he was simply naïve?
16. Frances Grey has often been criticized for her hasty marriage to Adrian Stokes. Did you find the motives given here to be convincing? Do you think she found happiness in her second marriage?
Acknowledgments
When I left behind medieval England (for the time being) to write about the Tudors, I worried that those I had enjoyed discussing history with online might fall silent. Happily, I found that I was wrong: the conversations only grew livelier. I would like to thank those with whom I have discussed the Greys and the Dudleys in the course of writing this novel. A special thanks must go to Judith Field, a commenter on my blog who pointed out that the discrepancies involving the date of Frances’s marriage to Adrian Stokes could be accounted for if the marriage were a secret one.
I would also like to thank Simon Neal, who has done a number of transcriptions of contemporary documents for me, thereby saving both my eyesight and my sanity, and Dr. John Stephan Edwards, who kindly answered some questions I had about Jane Grey. Several of my Facebook friends in a long-buried thread provided translations of a short Italian passage; I am grateful for their assistance.
As ever, my deepest thanks go to my family, particularly to my mother, Barbara Higginbotham, who did not live to see this novel in print. Although my mother would have much preferred me to write about Regency England and to leave all