Anne Boleyn

Anne Boleyn (b. 1501–d. 1536), Henry VIII’s second wife, is an endlessly fascinating historical figure about whom we know very little with certainty, yet who has inspired countless works, both fictional and nonfictional. The significant events of her life and death—Henry VIII’s courtship and the momentous historical ruptures that followed, the birth of Elizabeth I, Anne’s beheading on charges of adultery and treason (not witchcraft, as is commonly thought)—are documented. Her life before Henry, much of it spent as a lady-in-waiting in the courts of some of the most influential women in Europe—can only be speculatively reconstructed. Her activities as Henry’s queen, including her support of the cause of reform, has only recently been carefully pieced together. Very little exists in Anne’s own words. Seventeen of Henry’s love letters to her survive, but only two letters that may be from Anne to Henry remain, and one is almost certainly inauthentic. Beyond these and some inscriptions in prayer books, most of our information about Anne’s personality and behavior is secondhand: Cavendish’s memoirs of Cardinal Wolsey, which credits Anne with Wolsey’s downfall; the far from unbiased reports of Eustace Chapuys and other foreign ambassadors; Constable Kingston’s descriptions of her behavior in the Tower; and various “eyewitness” accounts of what she said and did at her trial and her execution. Yet despite the absence of Anne’s own voice among the relics of the period, she is undoubtedly the most famous of Henry’s wives. She has been the focus of numerous biographies, movies and plays, a much-watched television series, and an ever-growing mountain of historical fiction. Internet sites are devoted to her, and she appears as a subject of feminist art. Throughout these different genres, and depending on whether or not the account is friendly or antagonistic, radically different pictures of Anne emerge. For supporters of Katherine of Aragon, Henry’s first wife, she was an ambitious schemer. For Catholic propagandists like Nicholas Sander, she was a six-fingered, jaundiced erotomaniac, who slept with butlers, chaplains, and half of the French court. For Elizabethan Lutherans, she was the unsung heroine of the Protestant Reformation. For the Romantics, particularly in painting, she was the hapless victim of a king’s tyranny. In postwar movies and on stage and television, Anne has been portrayed as both a spirited rebel and a cold manipulator. Who is the “real” Anne? While some accounts can be definitively disputed or confirmed, many more remain contested territory. Thus, any responsible bibliography must take account, as this one tries to, of radically competing perspectives on the elusive, compelling Anne Boleyn.

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