Annette Ranald's Blog: Annette's History Reads - Posts Tagged "thomas-cromwell"

In the Other Boleyn Girl, by Philippa Gregory, is novel in which Anne Boleyn is so desperate to have a child that she commits incest with her brother George. The resulting child is miscarried and a witch-taker hired to preside over the birth convincing Henry or Cromwell that Anne is an adulteress, a witch, and should be executed. Part of this storyline is based on an actual theory raised by Dr. Retha Warnicke in her non-fiction book, The Rise and Fall of Anne Boleyn. Disclosure alert: I took classes from Dr. Warnicke as an undergrad at ASU, have an autographed first addition of the book, she inducted me into Phi Alpha Theta, the history honor society, and she was one of several of my professors that I invited to a thank you picnic put on by the Disabled Student Resources department at ASU for their work in reasonable accommodation to disabled students. I admired her then and I would still take a class from her today.

But even back then I wasn't sure I quite bought the theory behind the book. Her idea was that Cromwell had chosen the men to execute with Anne based on the fact that they, and Anne's brother George, were parts of a homosexual ring at court. This despite the fact that several of the men were married and all were accused of having been with the Queen. This thesis is in addition to the Anne and George insist with bewitched baby idea. I could see Anne maybe giving birth to a deformed fetus (or what people in her day thought was a deformed fetus), and Henry giving up on her. But her disastrous miscarriage happened in January, and she wasn't toppled until May.

I've read that in recent years, particularly since the publication of Gregory's work, the other Boleyn Girl, and the two movies based on it, one British and the other American with Scarlett Johanssen and Natalie Portman in the title roles, Dr. Warnicke has walked this theory back a little, which I'm glad. So, how would I play this, as a novelist writing a book about the rise of Jane Seymour. There would be no witch-takers, that's for sure. It's possible that there was a problem with the baby, which caused the miscarriage. And, it's possible that Henry was fairly upset when he heard about it. He'd just been injured in a tournament at the time, though, and wasn't really in a position to make decisions about anything. But the baby wasn't the thing that toppled Anne. Henry would have kept trying until Anne went into menopause. He'd risked too much for her.

The Other Boleyn GirlThe Rise and Fall of Anne Boleyn: Family Politics at the Court of Henry VIIIIt was Cromwell who figured out a way to drag her down. Anne had her good qualities. She was a charming, entertaining woman, well read, etc. But Cromwell said it himself. "She was a considerable woman when ired." Meaning, she had a tongue and a temper and she'd alienated too many people at court, including him. Cromwell needed a pawn, someone he could play. Anne, now become arrogant as Queen, was no longer malleable. She had to go. Allison Weir raises a theory that Anne was pregnant again immediately after the January miscarriage, but there was no way to prove it. However, if Cromwell knew and suspected, he had to act fast. Anne was a flirt who liked to have the men at court paying attention to her. Flirtation could be spun into illicit affairs. Incest today sounds like a farfetched accusation. Back in the day, when people studied Greek and Roman history and mythology, where incest is rampant, it's an easier case to make. Cromwell didn't have to have his facts or dates straight, since Anne had no right to view the evidence and cross examine his witnesses. With Catherine of Aragon dead, there was no need to keep Anne around anymore. Anne's miscarriage didn't doom her. Her own behavior spun into something more than it was, did.