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.
My Research for “Queen Of Misfortune” – A Lady Jane Grey Novel – Part 3
by Peter Carroll
I have been involved in writing a novel about the life of Lady Jane Grey whose life was horribly extinguished when she was just 16, her head cruelly chopped off in the Tower of London 466 years ago, February 12th 1544.
I felt she deserves a better place in history – let alone a mention on the monarchs list although she only spent nine days as Queen.
Amanda Lindsay who lived opposite Bradgate Park , Leicester (where Jane was brought up) for 20 years feels as I do, that Lady Jane has been forgotten and ignored and should be recognized more thoroughly historically.
Michael Vernon, also of Leicester also feels the nine day monarch has been hard done by and another Leicester man, Robert Newton-Baca wrote to me stating that as a nation we have always been renowned for record keeping and firmly believes that much more information does exist somewhere along the line.
Yet I am sceptical, realizing the fears of Mary Tudor and how she felt about Protestants like Lady Jane, who could possibly have saved her own life had she agreed to convert to Catholicism. I feel possibly the catholic queen and her company destroyed most references to Jane including any portrait which may have been painted of her. No confirmation can be sustained that any of the portraits said to be that of Jane are genuine.
I spent many hours at Bradgate Park researching the site of her childhood home and have never felt any positive vibes there , and yet there is a certain ambiance about the place especially in the vicinity of Queen Ann’s Tower where she had her apartment – something I was unable to realise – yet there was, just that indescribable something! And I have tried to expand on this in my book.
One report from George Elks who lives in Leicester, mentions a time he and his wife were walking around the boundary wall there. They heard a young child crying over the other side of the wall. On clambering up the wall and looking over the other side however, Mr Elkes could see nothing. . The couple suggested I wrote to the park ranger who, they advised, kept a record of ghostly happenings and sightings. But when following this up the ranger denied this and suggested the sound attributed to a crying child was probably that of a peacock, several of which inhabit the area.
I do feel perhaps, because of Jane’s unhappy life as a child, she would not hang around Bradgate anyway – although she did experience some happy times there under the tutorship of her beloved John Aylmer.
There is another story too that, because it is uncertain Jane was buried in the confines of the Tower of London – because she was despised by the new Catholic Queen Mary Tudor in being a protestant, her body may have been buried elsewhere and the grounds of Bradgate Park come to mind, amid a clump of long felled trees, the roots of which, form a circle that can be traced beneath the covering turf.
Robert Newton-Baca believes she was possibly buried in some dusty archive in London and, if we could establish that, much more could be confirmed about the Jane Grey we don’t know about.
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...]
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