The Not-Quite-Historical 'My Lady Jane' Is an Enchanting Romp
Prime Video's adaptation of My Lady Jane is fiercely feminist, funny, and extremely creative with history, so don’t expect the right sort of gable hoods in this adventurous fantasy. Author Cynthia Hand is one of a trio of writers (with Brodi Ashton and Jodi Meadows) who collaborated on the New York Times Young Adult bestseller series that begins with this story. Loosely based (very, very, very loosely) on Lady Jane Grey, the "Nine Days Queen," Hand felt that Jane “deserves a different ending” and provided her with one. The cast is uniformly excellent, with newcomer Emily Bader in the title role, plus gorgeous costumes and settings (lots of CGI as you’d expect, but also some beautifully filmed historical locations), and the cast — newcomers and established actors both — give it their all.
In real life, Henry VIII's heir, Edward VI, son of Jane Seymour, inherited the throne at age nine and passed away at 15. This meant he never ruled; the country was governed by Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset, followed by John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland. The latter was determined not to let Mary and her Catholic advisors have the throne when he saw Edward was dying and had the boy name his first cousin once removed, Lady Jane Grey, a Protestant, as his heir. Dudley then married Jane to his son, Lord Guilford, giving his own family the throne over Henry's biological children. Unsurprisingly, Jane didn't last a fortnight.
However, this is a somewhat different reality. We meet Jane frolicking around with her books and herbs (can you think of any female character in popular historical fiction who isn’t a herbalist? But it is relevant to the plot, so I’ll shut up), somehow blithely unaware that she’s of marriageable age. As one of the King’s cousins, she's high up in the Big List of Heirs/Relatives/Usurpers, yet she's taken aback when her mother, Lady Frances Grey (played beautifully and voraciously by the great Anna Chancellor), announces Jane’s going to marry the son of Lord Dudley and burns her precious herb book. When they arrive at the Dudleys’ house, Guildford, the son in question, isn’t present, but the gorgeously affected and silly Lord Dudley (Rob Brydon) and his preening, equally silly son Stan (Henry Ashton) entertain them.
