Title: Innocent Traitor Author: Alison Weir
Published: November 6, 2007
Genre(s): Historical Fiction
Page Count: 400
Rating:
Summary from Goodreads:Historical expertise marries page-turning fiction in Alison Weir’s enthralling debut novel, breathing new life into one of the most significant and tumultuous periods of the English monarchy. It is the story of Lady Jane Grey–“the Nine Days’ Queen”–a fifteen-year-old girl who unwittingly finds herself at the center of the religious and civil unrest that nearly toppled the fabled House of Tudor during the sixteenth century.
The child of a scheming father and a ruthless mother, for whom she is merely a pawn in a dynastic game with the highest stakes, Jane Grey was born during the harrowingly turbulent period between Anne Boleyn’s beheading and the demise of Jane’s infamous great-uncle, King Henry VIII. With the premature passing of Jane’s adolescent cousin, and Henry’s successor, King Edward VI, comes a struggle for supremacy fueled by political machinations and lethal religious fervor.
Unabashedly honest and exceptionally intelligent, Jane possesses a sound strength of character beyond her years that equips her to weather the vicious storm. And though she has no ambitions to rule, preferring to immerse herself in books and religious studies, she is forced to accept the crown, and by so doing sets off a firestorm of intrigue, betrayal, and tragedy.
Alison Weir is most well-known as an author of historical nonfiction, and Innocent Traitor was her first attempt at a novel. Well. I haven’t read anything else of Weir’s nonfiction or otherwise, but I can certainly say that Weir put the “fiction” in historical fiction with this book. That, probably, is my most pressing complaint regarding the book.
In general, Innocent Traitor makes use of every last bit of Tudor-era gossip available, probably to make the book “juicier” and more exciting, but as so much of the things that happened in this book are honestly without real support, I felt very…dismayed by this book. I like historical fiction that’s accurate, not historical fiction that takes a line from a letter and takes it as face value. And one would think that a historian of Weir’s repute would do better than that—though perhaps she approaches her novels differently than her biographies.
The biggest thing I take issue to is how Jane Grey’s parents, particularly her mother, were portrayed. AKA, abusive, unintelligent, greedy, ambitious. As Susan Higginbotham, another well-known historian writes, the only existing evidence we have that the Greys were awful parents comes from something Jane herself said, at age 14. Which…what 14-year-old wouldn’t, if given the opportunity, complain about her parents? In any case, Higginbotham really rips apart the defamation of Frances Brandon’s (Jane Grey’s mother’s) character, and that article is really worth a read, especially as it cites Alison Weir’s writing several times. 10/10 recommended read for sure.
Another strange thing that Innocent Traitor did was claim that Henry VIII was a “kind and indulgent husband”, which…uh. Hmm. I’m not sure what Alison Weir’s views on marriage are, but I don’t consider Henry VIII to be a particularly kind or indulgent spouse. And that just goes to show how uncomfortable the book makes me in its “take” on various historical figures. Henry VIII was kind and indulgent, Anne Boleyn was a witch, Anne of Cleves was disgusting and smelled bad, Frances Brandon was cold and abusive. These are all, to my mind, stereotypes that often don’t have much contemporary historical sources to back them up. I expected better from an author with this level of reputation.
On a quality level, I’m also disappointed by this book. It’s just not written well, from its overwrought and sloppy prose to its messy scene continuity to its, frankly, too ambitious scope. A historical novel isn’t just relaying of facts with fancy language and dialogue (thus differentiating it from a biography)—it has to have the actual qualities of a novel. Like character development, tension, setting, etc. Just because you know the facts and can write nonfiction like a boss doesn’t mean you can write good historical fiction.
Firstly, the prose. Oh boy. Innocent Traitor is just a bunch of fluffy, florid nonsense. We have Jane Grey screaming “Oh, the bitterness of death!” on one page and then being all “How extraordinary it was that I, a humble child, should be honored above all these gorgeous and important-looking lords and ladies…” on another. Blah blah blah. That’s just not good prose, okay? It’s overdramatic and trying way too hard. Another thing that didn’t help was how Weir decided to have multiple first-person narrators in this book. On one hand, the narrators all sounded the same, so it was hard to remember if Jane Grey was speaking or if the Duke of Northumberland was. On the other hand, Weir was biting off way more than she could chew—Innocent Traitor isn’t just about Jane Grey, it’s about the entire Tudor dynasty between 1510-1554. The book is only 400 pages, so a lot was squeezed in. A lot of it unnecessary. For instance, the scene where the Dowager Queen Marie de Guise of Scotland comes to visit? Pointless, having no bearing on Jane Grey’s life or circumstance whatsoever. Or the when it’s mentioned that Anne Askew is about to be executed, and then the next day, Jane and her nurse just so happen to be taking a walk through London in time to witness said execution? Pointless and very sloppy.
Innocent Traitor is supremely frustrating to me because it could be good, but it’s not. It reads like a gossipy summary of some Tudor-y stuff, and lacks emotional insight and, possibly, historical accuracy. For someone as well-known as Alison Weir, I expected better. Like a well-crafted novel. And some historical nuance. Oh, the bitterness of death!
