Nicola many congratulations on the publication of your new book "Crown of
Blood subtitled the deadly inheritance of Lady Jane Grey", in it you argue that
the crown of England was in some ways a poisoned chalice? I think the term
poisoned chalice is perhaps a bit strong but I do certainly argue that royal
blood could be as much of a curse as a blessing and I think really that Janes'
example demonstrates that for any who aspired to a crown the axe could fall at
any time. in what ways was Lady Jane Grey a pawn
on a political chessboard? She was absolutely 100% a pawn she was
the traditional tale that Jane was forced into a queenship that she didn't
want is a hundred percent accurate she in no way wanted to be queen and for a
long time I don't think that her parents ever imagines that she would be queen
either or certainly not a queen regnant in her own right. I think that they had
visions of her marrying Edward the sixth and becoming a queen consort but never
Queen in her own right which was completely unprecedented at that time in
any case, so the whole situation was really manipulated primarily by
John Dudley the Duke of Northumberland and Janes' parents eventually fell in
with it too and of course Jane being a girl was expected to fall in with the
wishes of her parents and her male superiors and just expected to be
obedient. How significant was John Dudley in this tragic drama? Incredibly
significant, John Dudley really rises to power during the reign of Edward the
sixth and comes to the forefront of English politics through the fall of
Edward the sixth's uncle Edward Seymour the Duke of Somerset and he really
manipulated the whole situation in order to serve his own purposes and to keep a
grasp on the power that he had over the throne. What do you think it is about the
Tudors that centuries later has created such high drama for historians
to investigate? They're such a cutthroat family and such a cutthroat dynasty I
think and they've all got such strong personalities or most of them have
anyway so you've got Henry the eighth who's this larger-than-life figure but
almost in many ways the father of the Tudor dynasty and of course Elizabeth
the first is is well remembered too but actually Edward and Mary, Henry's son and
Henry's other daughter they were they were dominant personalities within their
own right it's just that their their reigns and their lives were cut short
and they didn't have much chance to demonstrate their characters but we have
to remember that within the five years that Mary was queen she did order the
burnings of nearly 300 Protestants and I think had Edward the sixth reigned
longer - then he probably would have done something similar in terms of
Catholics. It was an age of extremes wasn't it? Absolutely yeah absolutely
extremes and you know some historians estimate that Henry the eighth's ordered
the executions of up to 72,000 people almost certainly a great exaggeration
but needless to say by the end of his reign he had gone from a handsome and
liberal Prince to a tyrant. So what's next for you? My next book is a biography
of Lettice Nollys who was the wife of Elizabeth the first favourite Robert
Dudley Earl of Leicester so it's called "Elizabeth's rival: the
life of Lettice Nollys but that again is interesting too because she may have
been an illegitimate granddaughter of Henry the eighth's and so they may have
she already was a cousin of Elizabeth the first but actually the two might
have been closer than they maybe you know were aware of themselves and she
died at the age of 91, so her reign I'm sorry her life spans
from the reign of Henry the eighth right through to Charles the first.
Nicola Tallis thank you. Thank you.