To be fair, My Lady Jane is so broadly comedic that the creators’ indifference to the facts is never in doubt. And historian Nicola Tallis, who published an acclaimed biography of Jane, Crown of Blood, in 2016, forgives them this. “We must remember that there is a lot we don’t know about Jane,” Tallis tells the . “Which in turn offers a relative degree of freedom when shaping a TV narrative. What we do know is that she was incredibly strong minded, and I think it’s quite refreshing to see her presented in a way that seeks to highlight this. We should be celebrating her as a young woman who wasn’t afraid to make her voice heard in a man’s world.”
The rise of romantasy
Tallis is echoing a broader point about the appeal of romantasy content. Asked to explain the phenomenon, the president of the International Association for the Study of Popular Romance, Professor Jayasheee Kamblé, tells the : “This kind of reimagining is a way to snatch female agency from the death and silencing that dominates so much of the past when it comes to women. That’s pleasurable in itself. It’s also a kind of fan fiction that creates powerful reframings of marginalised identities, and makes new lives seem achievable for the present generation of marginalised folks – who may know the existing history.”
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TV Jane has no difficulty defying authority. When Dudley, a man she has never met, is floated as a potential husband, she dismisses the whole idea of marriage saying, “I want my life to be mine, forever”. It’s only when she accidently encounters the man, played by Edward Bluemel, in a tavern, and discovers he is very attractive (another, less polite, term is used) that she will consider the match.
Completely absent from My Lady Jane is any mention of the questions of faith so central to Lady Jane Grey’s life. The English Reformation, which began with Henry VIII’s decision to break with Rome to divorce his wife, caused civil strife for decades – the clash between Catholic Queen Mary and Protestant Lady Jane being only a single chapter. But the scriptwriters, by contriving animosity between the Ethians (those magical people who can change themselves into animals) and the Verities (everyone else), gesture at the violent religious conflict of the 1500s.
This may be the silliest part of a very silly show – although the visual effects are impressive. Mantel, in her Reith lectures, acknowledged how difficult it is for those of us alive today to appreciate the religiosity of our ancestors. For them, she said, “this life was short and hard. Its aim was salvation. The single aim of salvation permeated their thinking and governed their actions day by day.”
