Podcast Summary

Podcast: New Books Network
Host: Kristen Vitale Engel
Guest: Dr. Valerie Schutte
Episode: Valerie Schutte and Jessica S. Hower, eds., Mid-Tudor Queenship and Memory: The Making and Re-making of Lady Jane Grey and Mary I (Palgrave MacMillan, 2023)
Air date: September 23, 2025

Episode Overview

This episode features a conversation with Dr. Valerie Schutte about the edited volume Mid-Tudor Queenship and Memory, which examines the intertwined legacies and historical representations of Lady Jane Grey and Mary I. The discussion centers on the challenges and innovations in exploring queenship in the 16th century, the difficulties of editing collaborative academic volumes, the nuances of using unconventional historical sources, and how interpretations of mid-Tudor queens have shifted through time.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Valerie Schutte's Scholarly Background (01:32–03:13)

• Schutte’s research centers on Tudor queens, especially Mary I, with expanding interests in queenship and books.
• She completed her PhD at the University of Akron, initially through her dissertation on Mary and her books.
• Schutte’s wider body of work includes a forthcoming biography on Anne of Cleves with a unique focus on her literary habits.

Notable Quote:
“I’ve worked on all of the queens and this is reflected in my forthcoming biography on Anne of Cleves... So just kind of the queens and the Tudor queens and books in general are my main research interests.” — Dr. Valerie Schutte (02:26)

2. The Genesis and Structure of the Edited Volume (03:13–07:08)

• The book emerged from an earlier project about Mary I, which revealed the inseparable narrative links between Mary and Lady Jane Grey in both historical and literary sources.
• Schutte recounts the challenge of soliciting contributions for the new volume: while scholars saw the thematic gap, few felt equipped to fill it.
• The volume’s core question: Is it possible—and useful—to discuss Mary and Jane separately, and how has their intertwining played out in subsequent centuries?
• Editorial challenges included managing narrative balance and recognizing that comparison often forces bias, favoring one queen over the other.

Notable Quote:
“It’s really, really impossible to discuss Mary without Jane... Their histories in that July 1553 moment are just stuck together.” — Dr. Valerie Schutte (03:41)

3. The Practice and Meaning of Queenship in the Mid-Tudor Era (08:11–10:56)

• 1553 was a revolutionary moment: the first time England would have a ruling queen (excluding Matilda, often discounted).
• On Edward VI’s death, the succession had multiple female claimants—ensuring England couldn’t avoid a female monarch.
• Queenship required Mary and Jane to “invent” their roles: balancing masculine and feminine expectations, leading the Privy Council, and (in Mary’s case) being Supreme Head of the Church.
• The book interrogates how queenship “took shape, functioned, and was construed in the 16th century as well as its memory down to the 21st” across various cultural forms.

Notable Quote:
“She was going to have to be both king and queen or navigate what it meant to be a queen with power and perform both masculine and feminine roles...” — Dr. Valerie Schutte (08:11)

4. Schutte’s Chapter: Edward Underhill and Reframings of Mary and Jane (11:46–14:57)

• The focus is on Edward Underhill, a gentleman pensioner under Henry VIII, Edward VI, and Mary I—remarkably, he remained a servant through successive religious upheavals.
• Underhill’s 1561 memoir about serving Mary became a 19th-century source for both historians and novelists, notably William Harrison Ainsworth in The Tower of London (1840).
• Schutte’s analysis shows how Ainsworth used Underhill for a more nuanced representation of Mary, challenging the typical “Bloody Mary” stereotype.
• She highlights the transmission of primary sources and their reinterpretation over centuries, particularly how Ainsworth’s Victorian audience responded to a less-negative Mary.

Notable Quote:
“I show the connections between the historical Underhill and his memoir and Ainsworth’s novel as a comparison of a contemporary eyewitness view to Mary and Jane and then how that view was used 300 years later.” — Dr. Valerie Schutte (13:57)

5. Comparative Approaches to Jane Grey and Mary I (14:57–21:15)

• Discussions often default to comparing one queen unfavorably to the other—typically religious (Protestant Jane as martyr vs. Catholic “Bloody Mary”).
• In the 16th-century sources, Jane is rarely blamed for her brief reign; blame falls on political manipulators like Northumberland.
• Ainsworth’s novel departs from the main trend by granting Mary a nuanced, even sympathetic portrayal, a stance criticized at the time by figures such as Charles Dickens.
• The necessity and pitfalls of comparison: Schutte urges future scholarship to resist the binary, move beyond “one is always better,” and locate true complexity in each queen’s reign.

Notable Quotes:
“In later centuries, it is typically a religious comparison. So Protestant martyred Jane versus bigoted Bloody Mary... At the time... the comparison was between inheritance and tradition versus a usurper.” — Dr. Valerie Schutte (16:37)

“Ainsworth often has nice things to say about Mary, so he doesn’t fall into the stereotypical pitfalls... he kind of portrays the women much more nuanced and evenly.” — Dr. Valerie Schutte (16:37)

6. Edward Underhill’s Loyalty and Contemporary Perceptions (21:15–26:34)

• Underhill’s loyalty was to the monarchy, not religious doctrine—a pattern found in multiple contemporary courtiers.
• His social identity as the “Hot Gospeler” (passionate Protestant) made him a compelling literary figure.
• Underhill’s memoir describes relative harmony at the start of Mary’s reign; only as Protestant persecution intensified did societal friction escalate.
• Contrary to popular narratives, Underhill didn’t view Elizabeth’s accession as a national deliverance, suggesting more continuity and complexity in attitudes than the standard “Mary bad, Elizabeth good” paradigm.

Notable Quote:
“His duty was to the Queen and to the monarchy, no matter her religion... There was just more continuity than is acknowledged a lot of times.” — Dr. Valerie Schutte (22:16, 26:34)

7. Schutte’s Future Projects (27:08–28:02)

• Nearing publication: A biography of Anne of Cleves.
• Forthcoming edited collections: on Marian humanism, Tudors and myth, and Tudors in historical fiction.
• Working on a fourth monograph, again focusing on Mary I.

Notable Quote:
“I really like talking about the Tudors and historical fiction, which you’ll see more of that coming from me. And I just signed the contract for my fourth monograph, which will also be on Mary.” — Dr. Valerie Schutte (27:08)

Memorable Moments & Notable Quotes

• (03:41) “You can’t separate [Mary and Jane], but it’s also kind of hard to talk about them evenly because you have to compare. And in the comparison, you know, one woman you... either feel sympathy for or the other you don’t, or one woman should have got. Deserved it and the other didn’t.”
• (08:11) “You couldn’t get away from... there was going to be a woman on that throne and she was going to have to be both king and queen.”
• (16:37) “Ainsworth’s portrayal of Mary was actually met with criticism. So notably, Charles Dickens in 1853 basically said that Ainsworth’s novel was junk because Mary was terrible and he should have acknowledged it.”
• (22:16) “Underhill explicitly states that his duty was to the Queen and to the monarchy, no matter her religion.”
• (26:34) “He doesn’t necessarily say great things about Elizabeth’s reign either. So he... doesn’t say that the whole country rejoiced when Mary died because Elizabeth came to the throne.”

Segment Guide (Timestamps)

• 01:32–03:13: Valerie Schutte introduces her research trajectory and interests.
• 03:13–07:08: Origins and structure of the edited volume; challenges in collaborative scholarship.
• 08:11–10:56: What was queenship in 1553? Challenges for the first female monarchs.
• 11:46–14:57: Schutte’s chapter on Edward Underhill, literary transmission, and Victorian reinterpretation.
• 14:57–21:15: Comparative approaches between Jane and Mary; historiographical pitfalls and possibilities.
• 21:15–26:34: Underhill’s loyalty, religious/political context, and evidence of continuity between reigns.
• 27:08–28:02: Schutte’s current/future projects and focus.

Conclusion

This episode offers a rich, nuanced look at the dynamics of mid-Tudor queenship and the ways historical memory—and bias—shape our understanding of Lady Jane Grey and Mary I. Through discussions of primary sources, literary afterlives, and historiographical debates, Dr. Schutte and host Kristen Vitale Engel model both scholarly rigor and an openness to less conventional voices and sources. For listeners interested in gender, power, and the construction of historical reputations, this conversation is essential listening.