Anne Boleyn: A King's Obsession

Alison Weir's second installment in her Six English Queens series presents at technical problem. How can you write a compelling and original novel about whom there's very little reliable documentary evidence but scores of previous fictional portrayals? Weir draws on her previous biographies of Anne and her sister Mary, and fills in the rest with reasonable speculation.

What we do know about Anne is that she was an intelligent woman with ambitious parents.  That led to her positions in European courts where she acquired polish, and learned about both courtly love and the new learning from her first mistress, Regent Margaret. her frivolous sister Mary, who joined her when Anne moved to the French court of Henry VIII's sister Mary, did not learn these lessons but still did not deserve to be raped by one king and to become the  unwilling mistress of another. Using, in part, her sister's fate, Anne focused on fending off Henry's advances when she came to court as one of Catherine's Maids of Honor

Here Weir departs from the popular, romantic view of Anne's relationship with Henry. As the title says, Henry was obsessed with Anne, and she didn't love him. She held off his advances until, in a particularly manipulative move, Henry explains his theological qualms about his marriage to Catherine and convinces Anne to accept his proposal

As she waits for Henry's annulment, we see Anne change from the well liked lady she'd been to the suspicious, imperious woman who had little support available when she needed it.  Elizabeth's birth and a stillborn son leave Henry without the male heir he wants and needs, so he begins to doubt the validity of this marriage as well.  Anne becomes desperate, but her vindictive treatment of Catherine and Mary, along with her increasingly imperious behavior, leave her with little support. After two miscarriages, both of male fetuses, Anne finds herself accused of adultery with several men, including her brother George. As Weir outlined in The Lady in the Tower, most of these charges were impossible because Anne and the men in question weren't in the same place at the time of the alleged encounters and because Anne was pregnant or recovering from giving birth during at least half of them. The executioner had already been sent for, though, and it would be a waste not to convict. Weir ends her novel with a few seconds of Anne's final thoughts, where she rightly takes credit for some of Henry's religious reforms.  Anne Boleyn proves herself no less compelling than Catherine of Aragon.