Peter Carroll is the author of Queen of Misfortune, the fictional story of Lady Jane Grey as told by her beloved tutor, John Aylmer. The novel is due for release in January of 2011.
For more information on Peter Carroll and his work please see also his author page here on FrogenYozurt.com.
Discovering something that took my breath away …
by Peter Carroll
I knew in taking on the task of writing about the life of Lady Jane Grey would not be easy.
Other books written of her bring in fictitious characters, I assume to fill the book out and introduce some romance.
I wanted just to stick to the actual people who played a part in Jane’s short life. But my first write seemed to be purely academic and , with records of her so scarce, my first attempt was more of a novelette covering just 207 pages.
But to create something which would be more meaningful – and to fulfil my purpose in attempting to give Jane a real mention in the realms of history I needed to somehow discover more about her life.
But is seems, apart from a few letters she wrote and other scant records I could find nothing to really get my teeth into.
I believe when she came to power Bloody Mary Tudor confiscated much of Jane’s chronicles and every real life portrait of her, because she was inwardly ashamed she had given her authority to have a young sixteen year old girl who was related, executed..
It was difficult too in describing the way Jane looked, there being no proof that the paintings that are said to be of Jane really are her. The only description of her I could find were chronicled as mentioned by a French dignitary attending her coronation, that she was very short, pale and gaunt with red hair.
I just had to return to where Jane was brought up for a second time and find something, anything that would help me create those extra pages for a justifiable novel.
I went equipped to spend a long summer’s day – going over the ruins once more, simply sitting on a broken wall and revisiting the small chapel, the only part of the building that remains complete, deeply meditating and concentrating, hoping upon hope something would come of it.
I felt Jane, long gone, felt she was well away from the place in which she would remember an unhappy childhood – but surely out of the misery there would be some happiness.
Then there was something, I felt it, particularly in the chapel where she prayed, perhaps with John Aylmer and also in the corner tower which still remains in part, in which it is said she had her apartment .Then came the notion, a secret between her and John Aylmer, they did fall in love and all at once |I found the material to extend my book with the ingredient it so badly needed to make it more than just an academic read.
On scouring the huge park, where the Grey’s did their hunting, because initially Bradgate House was built as a hunting lodge, I discovered something else which took my breath away; I felt that maybe Jane’s body had been removed from unconsecrated ground and brought to a place in Bradgate Park – a place she would remember, a place where she walked her dog and shared those secret moments with her beloved.
I had in my mind a picture of a small area surrounded by oak trees, as being that special place Jane loved so much.
Walking up a gentle slope I felt I was guided to a certain place, but there were no circling trees, just a thick bramble bush in the centre of other small shrubs, disappointed I took a break and sat on the grass.
But all the time thinking I wonder if ever there were trees there, rains had recently fallen and the turf was quite moist, so it was relatively easy to peel some back in hope that just maybe there will be signs the oaks once stood there..
Sure enough I discovered the still apparent remains of a tree below the surface, then another, and another which sure enough did form a circle around the bramble bush in the centre.
Then I just felt that she could have been buried there, I wanted to see the place more clearly, but the bramble was too widespread.
But in my mind’s eye her spirit was there – and that of John Aylmer, together as if prompting me to tell their story, that they were now together.
And the rest of the story was there, just waiting to be written…
Queen of Misfortune
A Novel by Peter Carroll – Due for release in January 2011
Queen Of Misfortune is the fictional story of Lady Jane Grey as told by her beloved tutor, John Aylmer. At the time of her execution a stranger is recorded to have assisted her when, blind folded, she lost her way upon the scaffold. Was it the same ‘stranger’ who was also recorded to have visited her when she was imprisoned in the Tower? Little is known of this unfortunate girl who was beheaded for treason in the 16th Century. She was only 16. She is omitted from the list of monarchs but was actually queen for nine days. Author Peter Carroll, in his novel, follows John Aylmer’s close relationship with Jane as her tutor and later, as she grows up, her lover. [More...]
Sign up for the FrogenYozurt.Com Newsletter to receive information on the release.
