The Last Tudor by Philippa Gregory

The Last Tudor  My Rating: 4.8

Jane Grey was queen of England for nine days. Her father and his allies crowned her instead of the dead king’s half-sister Mary Tudor, who quickly mustered an army, claimed her throne, and locked Jane in the Tower of London. When Jane refused to betray her Protestant faith, Mary sent her to the executioner’s block, where Jane transformed her father’s greedy power-grab into tragic martyrdom.

“Learn you to die,” was the advice Jane wrote to her younger sister Katherine, who has no intention of dying. She intends to enjoy her beauty and her youth and fall in love. But she is heir to the insecure and infertile Queen Mary and then to her sister Queen Elizabeth, who will never allow Katherine to marry and produce a Tudor son. When Katherine’s pregnancy betrays her secret marriage, she faces imprisonment in the Tower, only yards from her sister’s scaffold.

Wow. I don’t know what’s more disturbing - the ruthless scheming to place children on the throne, or the sheer brutality required to stay there. Just when I thought no one could surpass Mary, who executed so many for being of the “wrong” faith, Elizabeth emerges with a cold determination of her own - unwilling to let anyone else find happiness if it threatens her power.