The Nine Day Queen
The warm white satin that pressed against her body as her maids held her was unsettling. Their weeping was almost silent to Jane as she thought how similar this dress was to the one she wore on her wedding night. The marital embrace between her and husband was long behind her now but a similar embrace with death was just ahead of her. How appropriate it should be to wear white to one’s death, after all to lie in the grave was to be married to the soil while her soul was commended to God. “Are you ready, my lady?” The gentle voice of Sir John Brydges woke her from her morbid thoughts. Jane nodded slowly, her strong resolve only making her handmaids cry all the more. She supposed she had been ready for some time despite the constant assurance that her cousin, the merciful Queen Mary, would spare her life. But, as fate would have it, it was the wrong family member that sealed her death sentence. In an attempt to return the nation’s faith to that of her predecessor, Edward...