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3.93 AVERAGE
3.93 AVERAGE
informative
slow-paced
This was a great in-depth look at the fall of Anne Boleyn. I see that she was almost certainly innocent of all crimes against her, and may have been rhesus negative, which explains why only her oldest child, Elizabeth, survived.
I will definitely have to read more of Weir's work, as she is a fantastic historian and a wonderful writer.
I will definitely have to read more of Weir's work, as she is a fantastic historian and a wonderful writer.
I wanted so badly to enjoy this biography of Anne Boleyn, yet felt foiled by Ms. Weir at every turn. The crowing achievement of her book—namely, that it goes into a level of detail on Anne's final days never approached by other biographers—kept interfering with the more important goal of spinning a narrative. It's the double-edged sword of history: there are always two (or more) sides to every event, but in order to educate others you must relate that event as a story (ideally as accurately and even-handedly as possible). Weir frequently wanders off on tangents of detail, perhaps engrossing to someone steeped in the history of the period, but distracting and, when the relevant names balloon into the dozens, terribly confusing. She also has the extremely irritating habit of bringing up a topic only to promise that "it will be discussed in later chapters". By the time I've reached it again, any relevance to previous chapters has long been forgotten in a haze of detail. This came so highly recommended that perhaps I'm just out of my depth regarding background knowledge, but there were enough off-putting characteristics to her structure and prose that I doubt I would select another of Ms. Weir's books again.
I have always enjoyed all of Alison Weir's books and this one is no exception. She's a great writer and I appreciate her evenness and impartiality in dealing with her subject matter. I particularly enjoyed this book given the large number fictionalized accounts of Anne Boleyn's life I've encountered in my day. Objective facts! Political context! Power struggles! Bloody coups! All very exciting.
This book, about the end of Anne Boleyn's life, did not hold my interest as well as I hoped. I was skimming by the end. It did, however, awaken my interest in early British royal history. This author has several more books in this vein that I am going to try. I wish they were available as e-books through the library but no such luck.
Having read several fictional accounts of the Tudor era, including Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall and the Tudor mystery series by C.J. Sansom, I thought it might be interesting to get an actual historian's take on the period. Alison Weir is an actual British historian who has had an almost life-long fascination with that era and has written widely about it. This book, The Lady in the Tower, concerns the last four months of the life of the second of Henry VIII's six wives and Elizabeth I's mother, Anne Boleyn.
Anne Boleyn has, of course, been an iconic figure of great interest for historians, poets, playwrights, novelists, and, indeed, for ordinary people, virtually since her death by beheading in May, 1536. She was accused and adjudged guilty of treason against her king - specifically of having committed adultery with at least five men, one of whom was her own brother and of having conspired with them to kill the king. All five men were also judged guilty and beheaded. The truth of Anne's and the men's guilt has long been in question and has been debated endlessly over the last nearly five hundred years.
Weir explores and lays out the available evidence on the subject in her copiously footnoted and referenced work. Indeed, the first part of the book seems a rather dry recitation of the known facts about the events. She makes extensive use of the contemporary accounts and sources that are still available and she seems to scrupulously try to avoid leading or misleading the reader to one opinion or another.
In the end though, Weir makes clear that Henry, who was still married to Catherine of Aragon, had wooed Anne for six years while wrestling with the Church over trying to clear the way to marry her and who had now been married to her for three years, had by 1536 grown tired of her and was ready to put her aside. This could have had much to do with the fact that he had fallen in love - or perhaps in lust - with one of Anne's handmaidens, Jane Seymour, and now wanted to marry her. It also probably had much to do with the fact that Anne had failed to produce a male heir to the throne. A few months after their marriage, their daughter, Elizabeth, was born, and since that time, Anne had had three other pregnancies (four in all in three years) but all three had ended in miscarriages. At least two of the miscarriages and possibly the third as well had been male fetuses. Henry had become convinced that he would never have a son with her and he was ready to move on to someone with whom he might.
Henry's Master Secretary at this time, the man charged with making things happen for his king, was Thomas Cromwell, of whom Mantel's Wolf Hall was a sympathetic portrayal. Weir's examination of the evidence has led her to the conclusion that Cromwell, seeing what his king wanted, conjured a way to bring it to pass and, at the same time, to crush the power of the powerful Boleyn family. Cromwell, once a Boleyn ally, had fallen out with her, and, in 1536, he himself was not in favor with the king. Perhaps he saw the gambit of removing Anne Boleyn as a way of killing two birds with one stone, so to speak - he would do away with a personal enemy as well as again ingratiating himself with the king by removing an impediment to the king's desired marriage. Weir makes a strong case that the evidence against Anne may well have been trumped up by Cromwell to achieve his aim.
We can never know the truth with 100% certainty, but we do know that Anne Boleyn, an unpopular queen in her lifetime, accepted her fate and went to the scaffold bravely, always denying that she had ever been false "in her body" to her king.
In a way though, Anne had the last laugh. Public opinion which had been against her began to turn, especially when the populace saw their king marry Jane Seymour within ten days of Anne's death. But the lady in the tower's ultimate victory was achieved through her daughter. In Elizabeth I, perhaps England's greatest queen, a Boleyn sat on the throne of the country that had seen the first Boleyn executed.
Anne Boleyn has, of course, been an iconic figure of great interest for historians, poets, playwrights, novelists, and, indeed, for ordinary people, virtually since her death by beheading in May, 1536. She was accused and adjudged guilty of treason against her king - specifically of having committed adultery with at least five men, one of whom was her own brother and of having conspired with them to kill the king. All five men were also judged guilty and beheaded. The truth of Anne's and the men's guilt has long been in question and has been debated endlessly over the last nearly five hundred years.
Weir explores and lays out the available evidence on the subject in her copiously footnoted and referenced work. Indeed, the first part of the book seems a rather dry recitation of the known facts about the events. She makes extensive use of the contemporary accounts and sources that are still available and she seems to scrupulously try to avoid leading or misleading the reader to one opinion or another.
In the end though, Weir makes clear that Henry, who was still married to Catherine of Aragon, had wooed Anne for six years while wrestling with the Church over trying to clear the way to marry her and who had now been married to her for three years, had by 1536 grown tired of her and was ready to put her aside. This could have had much to do with the fact that he had fallen in love - or perhaps in lust - with one of Anne's handmaidens, Jane Seymour, and now wanted to marry her. It also probably had much to do with the fact that Anne had failed to produce a male heir to the throne. A few months after their marriage, their daughter, Elizabeth, was born, and since that time, Anne had had three other pregnancies (four in all in three years) but all three had ended in miscarriages. At least two of the miscarriages and possibly the third as well had been male fetuses. Henry had become convinced that he would never have a son with her and he was ready to move on to someone with whom he might.
Henry's Master Secretary at this time, the man charged with making things happen for his king, was Thomas Cromwell, of whom Mantel's Wolf Hall was a sympathetic portrayal. Weir's examination of the evidence has led her to the conclusion that Cromwell, seeing what his king wanted, conjured a way to bring it to pass and, at the same time, to crush the power of the powerful Boleyn family. Cromwell, once a Boleyn ally, had fallen out with her, and, in 1536, he himself was not in favor with the king. Perhaps he saw the gambit of removing Anne Boleyn as a way of killing two birds with one stone, so to speak - he would do away with a personal enemy as well as again ingratiating himself with the king by removing an impediment to the king's desired marriage. Weir makes a strong case that the evidence against Anne may well have been trumped up by Cromwell to achieve his aim.
We can never know the truth with 100% certainty, but we do know that Anne Boleyn, an unpopular queen in her lifetime, accepted her fate and went to the scaffold bravely, always denying that she had ever been false "in her body" to her king.
In a way though, Anne had the last laugh. Public opinion which had been against her began to turn, especially when the populace saw their king marry Jane Seymour within ten days of Anne's death. But the lady in the tower's ultimate victory was achieved through her daughter. In Elizabeth I, perhaps England's greatest queen, a Boleyn sat on the throne of the country that had seen the first Boleyn executed.
Full review to follow, but this was a great read for any student of Tudor England or of Anne Boleyn. I highly recommend all of Weir's work.
I always enjoy Alison Weir's books, although I do tend to read them with a certain amount of reserve as she does have a tendency toward bias. She writes with a very clear, intelligent style, and her books are always a pleasure to read - but as I said, I always read them with a pinch of salt in store, and this one is no exception.
Anne Boleyn is one of the most fascinating and probably most mythologised figures of the Tudor period. Indeed, the whole history of Henry VIII often gets reduced to mythology, little more than the 'divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived' rhyme that every schoolchild grows up knowing. This book covers the brief period of Anne's fall in incredible detail, analysing the evidence of her guilt and finding on the whole that Anne was the victim of dynastic manoeuvring and was quite probably blameless, of these crimes, at least.
My main criticism of this book is the whitewashing of Henry VIII, the absolving of almost any blame. Weir heaps most of the blame for Anne's downfall and execution on Cromwell, arguing that Henry was mostly reacting to the trumped-up evidence he was shown, believing what he wanted to believe. I personally find it hard to believe that a man such as Henry VIII, a man so wilful and dominant that he deliberately and with full knowledge of his actions isolated England from Europe, broke with Rome, turned his country upside down, dissolved the monasteries, executed a large swathe of English nobility, threatened to execute his own daughter on more than one occasion and certainly had no qualms about seeing her declared bastard - I find it hard to believe that he had no hand in Anne's downfall, and that Cromwell was acting entirely on his own initiative. And yet Henry in this book comes across as a man simply behaving within the law, even as Weir argues, acting with benevolence(!) in allowing Anne her own ladies at the end and permitting her to die by the sword instead of the axe. Spare us all from such benevolence!
Anne Boleyn is one of the most fascinating and probably most mythologised figures of the Tudor period. Indeed, the whole history of Henry VIII often gets reduced to mythology, little more than the 'divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived' rhyme that every schoolchild grows up knowing. This book covers the brief period of Anne's fall in incredible detail, analysing the evidence of her guilt and finding on the whole that Anne was the victim of dynastic manoeuvring and was quite probably blameless, of these crimes, at least.
My main criticism of this book is the whitewashing of Henry VIII, the absolving of almost any blame. Weir heaps most of the blame for Anne's downfall and execution on Cromwell, arguing that Henry was mostly reacting to the trumped-up evidence he was shown, believing what he wanted to believe. I personally find it hard to believe that a man such as Henry VIII, a man so wilful and dominant that he deliberately and with full knowledge of his actions isolated England from Europe, broke with Rome, turned his country upside down, dissolved the monasteries, executed a large swathe of English nobility, threatened to execute his own daughter on more than one occasion and certainly had no qualms about seeing her declared bastard - I find it hard to believe that he had no hand in Anne's downfall, and that Cromwell was acting entirely on his own initiative. And yet Henry in this book comes across as a man simply behaving within the law, even as Weir argues, acting with benevolence(!) in allowing Anne her own ladies at the end and permitting her to die by the sword instead of the axe. Spare us all from such benevolence!
I'm a big fan of Miss Boleyn and I could barely read this book. It was a bunch of regurgitated facts that seemed to repeat every few pages. It was far too long for such a short period of time.
The performance was interesting, with a mix of accents, but inconsistent. Not as good as her other books, unfortunately.