Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.93 AVERAGE
3.93 AVERAGE
I loved this book from start to finish. Reading historical non fiction books is a recent interest and I could not put this book down. I have always been interested in the Tudors and the story of Anne Boleyn but didn't know the finer details of Anne's fall. I have learnt so much from Alison Weir and I cannot wait to get started on reading some of her other books. For a non fiction book it was written clearly and concisely and was very easy to follow.
I wanted to re-read [b:The Six Wives of Henry VIII|10104|The Six Wives of Henry VIII|Alison Weir|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1411088840s/10104.jpg|430173] but it wasn't available, so I got this instead. It reads kind of like excerpts of the aforementioned book that were left on the cutting room floor - kind of how [b:1776|1067|1776|David McCullough|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1306787560s/1067.jpg|3364186] felt after [b:John Adams|2203|John Adams|David McCullough|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1327953700s/2203.jpg|963375] - but it was still really interesting. I was most impressed by the last few chapters about Anne's reputation and how it has been alternately impugned and rehabilitated over the years.
Many books have been written on the Tudors, not least on Henry VIII's notorious second queen, Anne Boleyn. Weir revisits her subject with a closer focus, writing primarily on the last four months of Anne's life in 1536. I'm a huge fan of Anne--I've even toyed with getting a tattoo of her signature. But despite it's sometimes claustrophobic focus, this book does not expand my understanding of her, or tell me much that I didn't already know. That Anne had few friends and many enemies, that she had miscarried several times, that she had openly declared herself the foe of Cromwell, that the diplomatic envoys she had encouraged had just failed, and that Henry had fallen in love with another woman--other books have covered all of this already. Weir doesn't even manage to provide more information on the trial. She repeats herself often (in one paragraph, she says, "The author of the 'Spanish Chronicle,' never reliable and incline to embroider or make up details, claims that Rochford had been espied leaving her bedchamber in his night robe on several occasions." Only a few sentences later, on the very same page, she writes, "The 'Spanish Chronicle' states that George Boleyn [called Rochford for his title:] 'had been seen on several occasions going in and out of the Queen's room dressed only in his night clothes,' but it is not a reliable source." Very frustrating!) She spends chapter after chapter on conjecture and "possibly this means..." but so much of the record of this period was expunged or accidentally destroyed that little can truly be claimed. And most frustratingly, she quotes Anne very rarely. Oh, she quotes what other people said of her, the rumors, the poems, the songs. She devotes a full chapter to various claims of what Anne wore to the scaffold. She gives the versions of Anne's last words (most of which vaguely agree with each other in content, none of which match exactly). But she doesn't cite a single letter that we know Anne wrote. She sprinkles rumors of what men said Anne said throughout the book, but as to Anne herself? Nothing in her own words.
In the end, I was left frustrated and bored. I suppose this is a good book for a completist, or somehow who is interested in the Tudors but doesn't know much. But anyone who has already read even ONE of the biographies of Anne Boleyn will be left wanting. The one aspect of this book that I did enjoy was Weir's tangents on the law. There are all sorts of oddments and loopholes riddling English law. For instance, when Anne died her marriage to Henry had been annulled, but her status as Queen was assured in a Law of Succession...so technically she was Queen without ever having married the ruling king!
In the end, I was left frustrated and bored. I suppose this is a good book for a completist, or somehow who is interested in the Tudors but doesn't know much. But anyone who has already read even ONE of the biographies of Anne Boleyn will be left wanting. The one aspect of this book that I did enjoy was Weir's tangents on the law. There are all sorts of oddments and loopholes riddling English law. For instance, when Anne died her marriage to Henry had been annulled, but her status as Queen was assured in a Law of Succession...so technically she was Queen without ever having married the ruling king!
dark
informative
reflective
slow-paced
So much information in the space of a month, yet still so much we don't know.
I really enjoyed this book. Sometimes the middle of the book seemed to go a little slowly for me but in the end I loved it. It was very informative and gives the reader a bit of room to interpret what they think Anne Boleyn actually did in her lifetime. Even I have changed my theories about her a little bit. I would recommend this book to anyone who wished to learn more about the final months of Anne Boleyn. A great read.
Very good. First time I've seen the perspective of Jane Seymour considered - she must have indeed known that Anne Boleyn was being set up.
Also interested in knowing more about Jane Rochford - helping send her husband to execution here and yet still aiding Katherine Howard ~10 (?) years later - how stupid/cruel can you be?
Also interested in knowing more about Jane Rochford - helping send her husband to execution here and yet still aiding Katherine Howard ~10 (?) years later - how stupid/cruel can you be?
informative
reflective
slow-paced
Content Warnings
Minor: Death, Miscarriage, Violence
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!
The book focuses only in Anne's fall and execution. There's also different types of "ghost stories" about Anne.