Six Tudor Queens II: Anne Boleyn - a King's Obsession by Alison Weir

From her early years on the continent as a maid of honour to Regent Margaret of Austria and then to Queen Mary of France, Anne Boleyn was determined to retain her independence and reputation. Anne grew up witnessing the behaviour of lords and even kings to women at court, including women of the highest rank. Rape and assault were far from unknown and, later on, when Anne is a maid of honour in England to Queen Katherine of Aragon, she sees the way that Henry VIII pursues and captures her sister Mary, almost right under the eyes of his wife. Anne Boleyn will not be used in the same way.

The story of Anne Boleyn is a familiar one but Anne Boleyn: A King’s Obsession is a novel I have been longing to read since reading and thoroughly enjoying Katherine of Aragon, the True Queen, the first novel in Alison Weir’s Six Tudor Queens series. That marvellous novel breathed new life into the ultimately tragic tale of this woman who refused to be beaten even when her daughter was taken from her and all she had left was her faith. Anne Boleyn is a less sympathetic figure to many, including me, and I did wonder how Alison Weir could make me engage with her. I needn’t have worried. I was riveted from the very beginning when we meet a young girl who manages to be both modern and belonging to her own time. Anne is presented as a wonderful observer of life, a witness to grandeur and intimacy, and increasingly she becomes a player in the world she has dissected.

Anne is fiercely intelligent and not a little intimidating. She is a contrast to her sister Mary, to the other Mary (Henry VIII’s sister and Queen of France) and to Queen Katherine. Katherine is bound to retain our sympathies, especially if you’ve read the previous novel. And it’s pitiable watching Katherine try to be such a good friend and patron to this young girl so newly returned from the French court. We all know what’s going to happen. Anne is friend to few.

Henry VIII looms over the novel as you’d expect and his character transforms through the novel from a young man in love to one bored and prepared to kill. It’s a compelling portrait and, at times, as Anne dangles the king on the end of a leash, it’s almost possible to feel sorry for him. But we’ve seen what he can do. Anne’s sister Mary Boleyn is a constant reminder of that. But while Henry changes through the book so too does Anne and what makes it so interesting is that she knows it. She is transformed by power and later by fear. She is aware of it and she hates it. She hates what she becomes. And it’s both painful and irresistible to read.

I love the way in which Alison Weir writes. She presents a great deal of historical detail and background while preserving the drama of the story and finding new ways in which to tell it. The Tudor court was full of incredible personalities and they’re all richly painted here, including Anne’s brother George, his wife Jane and their grand uncle the Duke of Norfolk. But it’s Anne and Henry who dominate the book, sweeping away anyone in their path.

We all know how Anne Boleyn’s story ended and those pages here tore my heart out. At times, this is an emotional novel and it pays to remind yourself when reading it that, although this is a work of fiction, these were real people. Anne has to adapt constantly and you can certainly understand why even if it makes her difficult to warm to. I was hoping to find a different approach to Anne in this novel and that’s what I found. Likewise, it provides an original perspective on the role of women in the Tudor and French courts. I also loved the novel’s size. Its substantial length allows the reader to wallow in this incredible story.

As this series continues it will be fascinating watching Henry’s progression towards his monstrous destiny as he discards his wives, and others, by the wayside. I can’t wait for the novel on Jane Seymour – to watch her emerge from the shadow of her more famous predecessor, Anne Boleyn.

Other review
Six Tudor Queens I: Katherine of Aragon, the True Queen

Just like her first book on Katherine of Aragon this is fictional biography at its most straight forward, written in an uncomplicated style. It is a long and detailed story told from Anne Boleyn’s point of view following her life from when she was eleven up to her execution in 1536.

Mainly I think because I didn’t know much about it before I really enjoyed the first part of the book detailing Anne’s time at the court of the Archduchess Margaret, Regent of the Netherlands, then at the French court where she served Mary Tudor (Henry VIII’s sister) and then she was transferred to the household of Queen Claude, the wife of François I. Anne became proficient in French, and accomplished in the art of pleasing, and witty, flirtatious conversation.

She also learnt from the Archduchess how a woman could rule, and about the ‘New Learning’, that is the texts of ancient Greece and Rome that had been recently discovered. She learnt from Erasmus about the corruption within the Church and she had access to the Archduchess’ library, where she found books written by Christine de Pizan, who had enlightened views on women’s education. The Archduchess encouraged her to show that women were just as capable as men, so that men would admire women for their courage, character and intellect and not just their beauty.

I’m much more familiar with the rest of her life story. As Alison Weir acknowledges in her author’s note in some ways Anne Boleyn is unknowable, we do not have ‘a wealth of her letters’ to get an insight into her inner thoughts and much of the material we do have comes from a hostile source, the Imperial ambassador, Eustache Chapuys. In writing this novel she has tried to reconcile conflicting views of her and I think she has succeeded, portraying her as a flawed and human character. Anne was ambitious and in her early years she had the example of the Archduchess Margaret who introduced her to ideas questioning the traditional ideas about women.

Alison Weir has kept closely to the historical record, although taking ‘occasional minor liberties’ and ‘modernising the language in places to make the context clearer. Some quotes have been taken out of context or put in the mouths of others’. And the scenes between Anne and Leonardo da Vinci are imaginary (much to my disappointment).

Perhaps it is because she kept closely to the records that the period when Henry was pursuing Anne is described at great length, whilst attempting to end his marriage to Katherine. I found it increasingly tedious to keep reading about how Anne left the court and went to Hever Castle, her parents’ home, then returned to court and then went back to her parents, etc, etc.

Overall, I enjoyed this book, but it is too long and in places very pedestrian and flat. At times it is a bit like reading chick-lit, for example as Mary Boleyn describes how Henry raped her and later as Henry complains to Anne that he has not ‘bedded with a woman in years’, looking at her with ‘anguish and longing in his eyes.’ He comes across as a weak character, truly obsessed with Anne but his passion soon cooled after their marriage when she failed to produce a male heir. And Anne is portrayed as a complex, intelligent woman but obsessed with her ambition for the power that came with being queen.

Loved the detail in this book, a thoroughly enjoyable read. It was so good to read Anne Boleyns story from a completely different view, normally depicted as some man eating witch but she was more than likely a pleasant but ambitious young woman and I enjoyed reading about her in this light. This novel is hard to put down so settle in for the long run!

I thoroughly enjoyed the first half of this book, the early years of Anne Boleyn found fascinating, however I ended up abandoning at about 60% through, something I have never done with an Alison Weir book, as it was just dragging on, I'm sure it was for Anne too! Perhaps a bit too in depth in this section of the book. I may go back to it but I felt like I was sat in a lecture rather than being entertained by literature sadly. Not one of my favourite Alison Weir books, but I will be back for more!

Informed by her trademark impeccable research, Alison Weir gives us her fictionalised account of the life of Anne Boleyn from her childhood to her tragic death at the hands of Henry VIII. .She details Henry’s pursuit of Anne, the political and religious consequences of his attempt to have his marriage to Katherine Aragon annulled and Anne’s eventual downfall. This is a long book and although I very much enjoyed the early sections covering Anne’s youth in the courts of Europe, I found the parts covering the “Great Matter” (Henry’s attempts to annul his marriage to Katherine) just a little too detailed. It felt as interminable to this reader as it must have done to Anne. Although I have enjoyed Philippa Gregory’s Tudor novels, I’ve sometimes found them a little light on historical accuracy. However, I found myself rather longing for some of Gregory’s sprightly inventiveness to enliven this book. I feel Weir redeemed herself in the final sections covering Anne’s downfall as these were much more enjoyable and the final pages recounting Anne’s execution were heartbreaking. Lovers of serious historical fiction will really enjoy this book.

This is the second book in Alison Weir’s new fiction series, following the stories of the Six Wives of Henry VIII. The first novel looked at Katherine of Aragon, concentrating on her as a young woman and wife. Of course, in this book, Katherine of Aragon appears too, as we are now looking at the story of Anne Boleyn; the woman who replaced Katherine – not as a mistress, but as a wife.

Like the previous novel, this is also very much a straightforward fictional biography. There is a real sense that Alison Weir is a master of her craft, and so knowledgeable of the time period that she easily makes you feel that you there, at Court, with the characters. This could bring new readers to historical fiction, in the way that, “The Other Boleyn Girl,” did when I first discovered the Tudors as a, much younger, reader.

Of all Henry’s wives, I personally find Anne Boleyn the most interesting. This takes her from a young girl of eleven years old, up to the end of her life. To many, Anne Boleyn is a feminist icon, to others, she is a scheming, ambitious woman, and many concentrate on her learning, intelligence and her religious reforms. I would say that Weir attempts to be fair in her writing – whether she is speaking of Katherine or Anne. She tells each novel from the point of view of the central character she is writing about and so gives us a fairly sympathetic portrayal of both. This is a difficult balance, but Weir is adept at balancing different characters and storylines.

We begin with Anne going to the court in the Netherlands as a young girl, and, later, France, before returning to England. She is always in competition with her sister, Mary, and closest to her youngest brother, George, This book is full of excellent characters – from George’s wife, Jane Rochford, to Wolsey, Cromwell and the Boleyn family; adept at advancing their place at King Henry’s court. Then, of course, there is Henry; capricious, difficult to read, changeable, emotional and unstable. The spider at the centre of a web that he knows he has ultimate control of.

Of course, you may not agree with all of Weir’s takes on events. Whether it is her early love for Henry Percy, her battles with Wolsey, the demands of her father and uncle or her feelings for Henry and Elizabeth. However, this is a fascinating, historical story and Weir tells it with flair. If you have not read the story of Anne Boleyn before, you are sure to learn a lot about a woman who gambled and, ultimately, lost. I look forward to reading the later books in this series and always enjoy Weir’s storytelling.

This is a very long and detailed fictional retelling of the life of Anne Boleyn: it's easy reading but at the same time is attentive to the historical sources. The problem is that Weir is not a natural fiction writer: she tends to the pedestrian ('whenever the Regent praised Anne's dancing skills, the songs she composed, or her skill with a lute, her cup ran over'), the simplistic ('she had given every appearance of being smitten with him'), and sometimes the hilariously mundane ('Madame Louise gave him a piece of her mind': that's Louise de Savoy and her son King Francois I!). Alongside that is an obsession with rape (poor Mary Boleyn is raped not once but twice by two separate kings) and murder, both of which would be positively libelous.

The backbone of the story in term of events and the re-use of sources such as Henry VIII's actual letters to Anne Boleyn seem to be somewhat at odds with the fictionalised characters, relationships and dialogue: there's a lot of Mills and Boon-esque descriptions ('pouting lips, and fair skin.. a tendril of flaming red hair') and while bodices are not actually ripped, all those rapes imply something similar. On top of that, we have a fictionalised calf-love between Anne and one of her courtiers where both of them gaze adoringly at each other for years, and we're expected to believe that during Henry's protracted courtship of Anne, not just does he not have sex with her but he doesn't have sex with anyone else either: '"You realise I have not bedded with a woman in years?" He looked at her in anguish, longing in his eyes'. But, then, on the other hand, another famous historical personage is a sex-addict: "It's as if I want to devour women; it's all I think about. day and night. I'm out of control, and powerless to change. I've - I've even forced widows and deflowered maidens".

As Weir says in her afterword, Anne Boleyn remains a historical enigma: we have few direct historical sources and many of those are themselves politically biased e.g. from Imperial ambassadors supporting Katherine of Aragon, the Emperor's aunt. Weir does, at least, know the sources and uses them in full, and also creates a young Anne Boleyn being educated at the courts of Margaret of Austria and the French court.

Ultimately, this fails to convince me that this *is* Anne: she's too petulant with her shrieking and her screaming and crying - from what we know, Anne was far more intelligent than this. Henry, too, is a weakened, emasculated figure, admiring 'her taste in furnishings' and crying when she's mean to him: "Really, you could be a little kinder. Katherine never in her life used such ill words to me." There were tears in his eyes'.

For all my giggles and misgivings, I romped through this in a couple of days' commuting: it may borrow imaginatively from chick-lit and romance, but the underlying bones of the story are based on the sources. I just wish the characters had had more stature and conviction about them: 3.5 stars.

Another fantastic book from Alison Weir. Having enjoyed the first book in the series, I wasn't disappointed by this second title. Following Anne Boleyn as she rises to power and spectacularly falls from grace, it was easy to read and just as enjoyable as the first book. I particularly enjoyed the beginning of the book, which delved into Anne's childhood, serving in courts around Europe, as well as learning more about the women she served. Infact, I could have read an entire book dedicated to that chapter of her life.

A wonderful read! The research is amazing, masses of detail as in all Alison Weir's books. I have always been fascinated by Anne Boleyn and read all I can find on her life, this is outstandingly the best yet. If you love me the Tudors this has to be read. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me the chance o read it read in exchange for a review

This was an excellent novel. With brilliant main characters brought to life and so well written, this book is a real page turner. I would highly recommend this book.

The young woman who changed the course of history.

Fresh from the palaces of Burgundy and France, Anne draws attention at the English court, embracing the play of courtly love.

But when the King commands, nothing is ever a game.

Anne has a spirit worthy of a crown - and the crown is what she seeks. At any price.

Anything done by Alison Weir is worth looking at - whether it is a novel or non-fiction. This second book in the series was brilliant and I look forward to the other four.