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berenikeasteria's review against another edition
2.0
I’ll be honest – I was dubious about this book before I even cracked it open. Why? Because the title is so sensationalist, clearly designed to be the Tudor history reader’s equivalent of irresistible clickbait. Although the book clearly sets itself against shallow attempts at portraying Anne’s life, such as The Tudors and The Other Boleyn Girl, decrying their convenient cherry-picking of facts and uncritical use of rumour and scandal without bothering to analyse the credibility of such gossip, it seemed to me that this book’s flashy headline is effectively doing the same thing: relying on shock to bring in the audience. But that’s just the title. I can’t dismiss a book on its title. Especially since debut authors have little say over the covers of their books, often forced to give way to the publishing house’s marketing department. I should reserve judgment for the actual content. Maybe it will be alright, I told myself.
Well… it was and it wasn’t. I find that I don’t disagree with the author’s driving motivation. Over the centuries plenty of people have grabbed on to any old nonsense about Anne Boleyn and run with it, or just plain conjured it out of thin air, from Catholic apologist Nicholas Sander writing in the late 16th century and inventing a snaggletooth and witch’s marks, to rather famous novelists in recent years who nevertheless assert in author’s notes their absolute devotion to historical accuracy and accusing Anne of being a murderess and her father of pimping out his daughters. These falsehoods have seeped into the general consciousness to the point where it is not unusual to come across casual comments to the effect that Anne Boleyn was a scheming harpy who deserved everything she got, or practised incest, or was a famous slut, and the commenter knows this because they watched an episode of a fictional drama on television once. And it isn’t just popular media. Non-fiction works written by authoritative historians have been surprisingly fictitious when it comes to imagining the gaps in Anne’s life, seeking to create some sort of satisfying overarching narrative in order to make a good story. Susan Bordo's book points out that the likes of David Starkey in his book Six Wives deliberately couches events in terms designed to rile up the reader and create a gripping dramatic narrative, by using allusions to Greek mythology and hunting. It is definitely long since time that such fairytales were put to rest. And Nolan’s book is in line with recent academic analyses of Anne’s life which note that she left court in hopes of escaping King Henry’s attentions, and that theirs was not a love story but one of a woman pressed into a relationship by a powerful man she couldn’t refuse, a man who ultimately decided to fabricate provably false charges against her and cry crocodile tears about how he’d been bewitched and deceived while ordering her murder.
So, all well and good then, a book worth reading? Well… not exactly. Nolan claims to be writing an “exposé” (her words, not mine), the first ever to treat the sources and their biases critically, and provide an account of Anne’s life as close to the truth as possible. The thing is she isn’t the first. Much of what she writes which is supposedly a revelation is not new information at all to those who have seriously studied Anne’s life, such as the fact that Anne most likely led a modest and pious life in France, or that she was educated by some of the finest minds of the Reformation and held deep and genuine convictions of faith. This is all contained in Eric Ives’ seminal biography, The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn, not to mention other books which in the 21st century have cast more light upon these little-known facts with a view to specifically dispelling popular myths about her and the Boleyn family. This is evident in Nolan’s footnotes – they often refer back to other recent biographies, rather than primary sources, including Lauren Mackay’s Among the Wolves of Court, Elizabeth Norton’s The Anne Boleyn Papers, Tracy Borman’s Thomas Cromwell: The Untold Story, Steven Gunn’s Charles Brandon: Henry VIII’s Closest Friend, Patricia and Rouben Cholakian’s Marguerite de Navarre, Diarmuid MacCullough’s Thomas Cranmer: a Life, Suzannah Lipscomb’s 1536: The Year That Changed Henry VIII, and many more, published within the last 20 years and often taking a more critical, objective view of Anne’s life. Despite highlighting the importance of critically examining the primary sources’ biases at the start of the book, Nolan seems to spend very little time doing just that, instead relying on and rehashing the works of other recent writers and their reappraisals of the evidence. This is why the book feels somewhat disingenuous to me: Nolan’s perspective is not new at all.
The proposition that Henry VIII was a sociopath is interesting. Still not a new suggestion; it has been suspected by historians and readers for years. However, it seems conceivable, given Henry’s childhood traumas and chilling actions as an adult. The problem is that just because it is possible does not mean it is the answer to the mystery of why Henry turned on Anne, why, indeed, he turned on so many friends and romantic partners. At a distance of five hundred years, we cannot definitively diagnose Henry as a sociopath, and there are other reasonable explanations that have been put forward. So while it may be an interesting suggestion, it seems likely that it will never be proved.
The account that Nolan presents of Anne’s life overall is plausible. That is, it is not just in line with the current thinking of other historians’ interpretations, but it is a legitimate interpretation that fits with the evidence. It could even be called convincing; certainly, some of its conclusions fit better than other past interpretations of Anne’s life. But it is basic. By that I mean that Nolan hits up the key points but does not go into a huge amount of detail and depth. This is not a deep dive of the material. The reading of Anne as an educated, religiously driven woman who initially wanted nothing to do with the king’s advances but eventually succumbed to his harassment for the promise of an honest match and the hope of influencing religious reform is a credible conclusion but one that has been laid out far better by other authors such as the ones that Nolan frequently quotes from.
I was surprised however to see how Nolan treats Jane Parker, Anne Boleyn’s sister-in-law. Like many biographies before, she takes the attitude that Jane Parker betrayed the Boleyn family, providing the evidence that got twisted at Anne and George’s trials that the siblings discussed Henry VIII’s virility. And yet this is a rather outdated interpretation. Julia Fox, Jane Parker’s biographer, and Claire Ridgway, have been working to thoroughly dispel this myth in recent years. But Nolan backs up this interpretation with several pieces of supporting evidence: one, that Jane Parker was arrested after taking part in a rowdy demonstration in London in favour of the Princess Mary’s cause, two, that George Wyatt, grandson of Anne’s peer Thomas Wyatt the Elder, in his biography of Anne directly accuses Jane Parker of having provided the above mentioned evidence and thus betraying the Boleyns, three, that Jane’s father Henry Parker, Lord Morley, sat on the jury at George’s trial, and four, Nolan believes that only Jane Parker could have provided the letter from Anne to George informing him that she was pregnant (this was twisted in the trial as proof of incest rather than a simple family announcement). Nolan admits that Jane was initially a supporter of the Boleyns, attempting to help Anne get rid of one of Henry VIII’s mistresses who was a well known supporter of the pro-Imperial faction, but decides that Jane must have turned against her sister-in-law when their efforts to get the lady dismissed by picking a fight with her only resulted in Henry VIII banishing Jane from court instead. Some of this pretty obviously flimsy – George Wyatt wrote decades after Anne’s downfall, late in Elizabeth’s reign or possibly even into the reign of James I, and was not himself a witness to events, it’s clearly not impossible that he picked up hearsay and mistakenly reported it as fact – while other points, such as Jane’s participation in a pro-Mary demonstration, seem pretty damning.
So what do Jane’s biographers have to say about it? Adrienne Dillard notes that there are only three writers who name Jane Parker as a traitor to her husband, but they were all written much later and all seem to have used George Wyatt as their source, meanwhile ambassador Lancelot de Carles (who was a contemporary to events) specifically says that the culprit was an unmarried woman and names the Countess of Worcester, and other contemporary sources do not mention the woman’s name at all. As for the pro-Mary demonstration; “there is no firm proof that she did in fact attend. The dispatch itself says that several of the ladies, “being of higher rank than the rest, had been sent to Tower.” While an accompanying notation from the ambassador merely reads “Note, my Lord Rochford…” This reference is far too vague to assume his meaning. Besides, if Jane had been among the ladies sent to the Tower, it certainly would have been reported.” (Adrienne Dillard, https://queenanneboleyn.com/2017/05/15/black-legend-lady-rochford-adrienne-dillard-2/ ). Julia Fox adds: “to speak out against her husband’s family would have been most uncharacteristic of her. Doubtless she heard about the brouhaha, but she knew her destiny lay with the Boleyns. To jump ship at this stage would have been folly… She was much more likely to have been at court than protesting for what seemed like a lost cause. In any case, if Henry and Anne were lovers again, the future most definitely lay with Anne, and not with Mary.” (Jane Boleyn: The Infamous Lady Rochford, Chapter 20). Fox also argues quite plausibly that Lord Morley could have been reluctantly pressed into jury duty, much as Henry Percy was, and that Jane would have been given little choice but to answer Cromwell’s questions delivered through bullying and intimidation, with any slight incident twisted to create scandalous charges. Besides which, it is extremely difficult to understand why, if Jane Parker were the culprit, she would then write letters of comfort to George Boleyn while he was being held in the Tower and stating that she would try to intercede for him, to which he even replied giving her his thanks. Would George really thank her if she was the “one woman” on whose report he was being condemned? Would Jane bother comforting a husband she wanted to get rid of and was soon to be executed? Hmmm. I think that Nolan has not been as determined as her pursuit of the truth when it comes to Jane Parker as she claims to have been when it comes to Anne Boleyn.
I’m left with the problem of how to rate the book. The myths it seeks to destroy are a laudable enough goal, and the basic picture it presents of Anne’s life is reasonable; certainly, it presents a more accurate picture than some of the aforementioned fictional portrayals of the past. However, despite what Nolan tells us this is not a new perspective, and it relies heavily on pulling together and summarising the recent reinterpretations done by other authors. It also succumbs to its own set of assumptions by relying on previous authors, most notably by condemning Jane Parker without rigorously examining the evidence that she bore false witness. The writing style is chatty and acerbic, and entertaining at times – how could it not be? It will always feel satisfying to point out silly mistakes and laugh at absurd misinterpretations. But that chatty style tells me something more; that the book’s title is no coincidence. This is a book designed to read easily, to come across as funny and gossipy. I can’t decide if this is actually genius, because this is a book, in short, that is intended to appeal to precisely the kind of reader who loves to click on clickbait, read novels and watch series about Anne Boleyn packed with every last juicy rumour. Such a reader may be unlikely to pick up a dry academic tome with the intention of rigorously researching the truth about Anne, but they might just pick this up, and it may just be educative. That said, anyone who is serious about researching Anne Boleyn should rather pick up the books in the bibliography, by Eric Ives, Lauren Mackay, et al., which are much more detailed, well-researched, and reliable.
4 out of 10
Well… it was and it wasn’t. I find that I don’t disagree with the author’s driving motivation. Over the centuries plenty of people have grabbed on to any old nonsense about Anne Boleyn and run with it, or just plain conjured it out of thin air, from Catholic apologist Nicholas Sander writing in the late 16th century and inventing a snaggletooth and witch’s marks, to rather famous novelists in recent years who nevertheless assert in author’s notes their absolute devotion to historical accuracy and accusing Anne of being a murderess and her father of pimping out his daughters. These falsehoods have seeped into the general consciousness to the point where it is not unusual to come across casual comments to the effect that Anne Boleyn was a scheming harpy who deserved everything she got, or practised incest, or was a famous slut, and the commenter knows this because they watched an episode of a fictional drama on television once. And it isn’t just popular media. Non-fiction works written by authoritative historians have been surprisingly fictitious when it comes to imagining the gaps in Anne’s life, seeking to create some sort of satisfying overarching narrative in order to make a good story. Susan Bordo's book points out that the likes of David Starkey in his book Six Wives deliberately couches events in terms designed to rile up the reader and create a gripping dramatic narrative, by using allusions to Greek mythology and hunting. It is definitely long since time that such fairytales were put to rest. And Nolan’s book is in line with recent academic analyses of Anne’s life which note that she left court in hopes of escaping King Henry’s attentions, and that theirs was not a love story but one of a woman pressed into a relationship by a powerful man she couldn’t refuse, a man who ultimately decided to fabricate provably false charges against her and cry crocodile tears about how he’d been bewitched and deceived while ordering her murder.
So, all well and good then, a book worth reading? Well… not exactly. Nolan claims to be writing an “exposé” (her words, not mine), the first ever to treat the sources and their biases critically, and provide an account of Anne’s life as close to the truth as possible. The thing is she isn’t the first. Much of what she writes which is supposedly a revelation is not new information at all to those who have seriously studied Anne’s life, such as the fact that Anne most likely led a modest and pious life in France, or that she was educated by some of the finest minds of the Reformation and held deep and genuine convictions of faith. This is all contained in Eric Ives’ seminal biography, The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn, not to mention other books which in the 21st century have cast more light upon these little-known facts with a view to specifically dispelling popular myths about her and the Boleyn family. This is evident in Nolan’s footnotes – they often refer back to other recent biographies, rather than primary sources, including Lauren Mackay’s Among the Wolves of Court, Elizabeth Norton’s The Anne Boleyn Papers, Tracy Borman’s Thomas Cromwell: The Untold Story, Steven Gunn’s Charles Brandon: Henry VIII’s Closest Friend, Patricia and Rouben Cholakian’s Marguerite de Navarre, Diarmuid MacCullough’s Thomas Cranmer: a Life, Suzannah Lipscomb’s 1536: The Year That Changed Henry VIII, and many more, published within the last 20 years and often taking a more critical, objective view of Anne’s life. Despite highlighting the importance of critically examining the primary sources’ biases at the start of the book, Nolan seems to spend very little time doing just that, instead relying on and rehashing the works of other recent writers and their reappraisals of the evidence. This is why the book feels somewhat disingenuous to me: Nolan’s perspective is not new at all.
The proposition that Henry VIII was a sociopath is interesting. Still not a new suggestion; it has been suspected by historians and readers for years. However, it seems conceivable, given Henry’s childhood traumas and chilling actions as an adult. The problem is that just because it is possible does not mean it is the answer to the mystery of why Henry turned on Anne, why, indeed, he turned on so many friends and romantic partners. At a distance of five hundred years, we cannot definitively diagnose Henry as a sociopath, and there are other reasonable explanations that have been put forward. So while it may be an interesting suggestion, it seems likely that it will never be proved.
The account that Nolan presents of Anne’s life overall is plausible. That is, it is not just in line with the current thinking of other historians’ interpretations, but it is a legitimate interpretation that fits with the evidence. It could even be called convincing; certainly, some of its conclusions fit better than other past interpretations of Anne’s life. But it is basic. By that I mean that Nolan hits up the key points but does not go into a huge amount of detail and depth. This is not a deep dive of the material. The reading of Anne as an educated, religiously driven woman who initially wanted nothing to do with the king’s advances but eventually succumbed to his harassment for the promise of an honest match and the hope of influencing religious reform is a credible conclusion but one that has been laid out far better by other authors such as the ones that Nolan frequently quotes from.
I was surprised however to see how Nolan treats Jane Parker, Anne Boleyn’s sister-in-law. Like many biographies before, she takes the attitude that Jane Parker betrayed the Boleyn family, providing the evidence that got twisted at Anne and George’s trials that the siblings discussed Henry VIII’s virility. And yet this is a rather outdated interpretation. Julia Fox, Jane Parker’s biographer, and Claire Ridgway, have been working to thoroughly dispel this myth in recent years. But Nolan backs up this interpretation with several pieces of supporting evidence: one, that Jane Parker was arrested after taking part in a rowdy demonstration in London in favour of the Princess Mary’s cause, two, that George Wyatt, grandson of Anne’s peer Thomas Wyatt the Elder, in his biography of Anne directly accuses Jane Parker of having provided the above mentioned evidence and thus betraying the Boleyns, three, that Jane’s father Henry Parker, Lord Morley, sat on the jury at George’s trial, and four, Nolan believes that only Jane Parker could have provided the letter from Anne to George informing him that she was pregnant (this was twisted in the trial as proof of incest rather than a simple family announcement). Nolan admits that Jane was initially a supporter of the Boleyns, attempting to help Anne get rid of one of Henry VIII’s mistresses who was a well known supporter of the pro-Imperial faction, but decides that Jane must have turned against her sister-in-law when their efforts to get the lady dismissed by picking a fight with her only resulted in Henry VIII banishing Jane from court instead. Some of this pretty obviously flimsy – George Wyatt wrote decades after Anne’s downfall, late in Elizabeth’s reign or possibly even into the reign of James I, and was not himself a witness to events, it’s clearly not impossible that he picked up hearsay and mistakenly reported it as fact – while other points, such as Jane’s participation in a pro-Mary demonstration, seem pretty damning.
So what do Jane’s biographers have to say about it? Adrienne Dillard notes that there are only three writers who name Jane Parker as a traitor to her husband, but they were all written much later and all seem to have used George Wyatt as their source, meanwhile ambassador Lancelot de Carles (who was a contemporary to events) specifically says that the culprit was an unmarried woman and names the Countess of Worcester, and other contemporary sources do not mention the woman’s name at all. As for the pro-Mary demonstration; “there is no firm proof that she did in fact attend. The dispatch itself says that several of the ladies, “being of higher rank than the rest, had been sent to Tower.” While an accompanying notation from the ambassador merely reads “Note, my Lord Rochford…” This reference is far too vague to assume his meaning. Besides, if Jane had been among the ladies sent to the Tower, it certainly would have been reported.” (Adrienne Dillard, https://queenanneboleyn.com/2017/05/15/black-legend-lady-rochford-adrienne-dillard-2/ ). Julia Fox adds: “to speak out against her husband’s family would have been most uncharacteristic of her. Doubtless she heard about the brouhaha, but she knew her destiny lay with the Boleyns. To jump ship at this stage would have been folly… She was much more likely to have been at court than protesting for what seemed like a lost cause. In any case, if Henry and Anne were lovers again, the future most definitely lay with Anne, and not with Mary.” (Jane Boleyn: The Infamous Lady Rochford, Chapter 20). Fox also argues quite plausibly that Lord Morley could have been reluctantly pressed into jury duty, much as Henry Percy was, and that Jane would have been given little choice but to answer Cromwell’s questions delivered through bullying and intimidation, with any slight incident twisted to create scandalous charges. Besides which, it is extremely difficult to understand why, if Jane Parker were the culprit, she would then write letters of comfort to George Boleyn while he was being held in the Tower and stating that she would try to intercede for him, to which he even replied giving her his thanks. Would George really thank her if she was the “one woman” on whose report he was being condemned? Would Jane bother comforting a husband she wanted to get rid of and was soon to be executed? Hmmm. I think that Nolan has not been as determined as her pursuit of the truth when it comes to Jane Parker as she claims to have been when it comes to Anne Boleyn.
I’m left with the problem of how to rate the book. The myths it seeks to destroy are a laudable enough goal, and the basic picture it presents of Anne’s life is reasonable; certainly, it presents a more accurate picture than some of the aforementioned fictional portrayals of the past. However, despite what Nolan tells us this is not a new perspective, and it relies heavily on pulling together and summarising the recent reinterpretations done by other authors. It also succumbs to its own set of assumptions by relying on previous authors, most notably by condemning Jane Parker without rigorously examining the evidence that she bore false witness. The writing style is chatty and acerbic, and entertaining at times – how could it not be? It will always feel satisfying to point out silly mistakes and laugh at absurd misinterpretations. But that chatty style tells me something more; that the book’s title is no coincidence. This is a book designed to read easily, to come across as funny and gossipy. I can’t decide if this is actually genius, because this is a book, in short, that is intended to appeal to precisely the kind of reader who loves to click on clickbait, read novels and watch series about Anne Boleyn packed with every last juicy rumour. Such a reader may be unlikely to pick up a dry academic tome with the intention of rigorously researching the truth about Anne, but they might just pick this up, and it may just be educative. That said, anyone who is serious about researching Anne Boleyn should rather pick up the books in the bibliography, by Eric Ives, Lauren Mackay, et al., which are much more detailed, well-researched, and reliable.
4 out of 10
tinycelery's review against another edition
1.0
DNF at 10%
truthfully, this book reads like a 9th grader who just discovered misogyny and is now berating your history class with salacious news about how women used to be oppressed. it’s written in a strange faux-woke white feminist style and the call-and-response format of her writing weakens every point the author make. i found myself rolling my eyes at in-text hashtags and commentary when i was hoping for an interesting non-fiction read. now i’m simply saddled with buyer’s remorse.
truthfully, this book reads like a 9th grader who just discovered misogyny and is now berating your history class with salacious news about how women used to be oppressed. it’s written in a strange faux-woke white feminist style and the call-and-response format of her writing weakens every point the author make. i found myself rolling my eyes at in-text hashtags and commentary when i was hoping for an interesting non-fiction read. now i’m simply saddled with buyer’s remorse.
francaharris's review against another edition
medium-paced
4.0
rip anne boleyn you will always be famous
eloise_falcone's review against another edition
5.0
Nolan makes Anne's story approachable and digestible to everyone who dares to learn without biases.
I've read some books on Anne, as well as watched movies, documentaries, TV shows and such, but this one, along Eric Ives', will go down as one of the best so far.
No sugarcoatin', no lies, no soap opera worthy made up plots. Just the raw and messy and good and awesome and bad details of a marvelous woman's life.
Safe to say I loved it.
I've read some books on Anne, as well as watched movies, documentaries, TV shows and such, but this one, along Eric Ives', will go down as one of the best so far.
No sugarcoatin', no lies, no soap opera worthy made up plots. Just the raw and messy and good and awesome and bad details of a marvelous woman's life.
Safe to say I loved it.
katiewithhats's review against another edition
5.0
Incredible. Though I rarely find myself desiring to read nonfiction works, I had always been intrigued by the story of Anne Boelyn as a teenager. Nolan's research has managed to turn what otherwise seemed a fairytale into a realistic look into what could have been.. what likely was. Incredibly relevant in today's times, and never shying away from calling out the sexism and mysogeny of the "popular" spin on the story of Anne's life, I would highly recommend this book to any and all of my friends.