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message 1:
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Damask
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Sep 26, 2010 04:34AM
Well it is one of her Royal books.. and I liek it very mcuh. I read all the books on Anne Boleyn that I can.. I like her waiting woman Emma... anyone into a discussion?
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Sorry if I got it wrong, I thought maybe it shoudl be a "royal" theme?Does anyone have any feelings on NL's Anne? Is she too sympathetic? Is it likely that seh might just have committed adultery in the way described?
Damask wrote: "Sorry if I got it wrong, I thought maybe it shoudl be a "royal" theme?
Does anyone have any feelings on NL's Anne? Is she too sympathetic? Is it likely that seh might just have committed adult..."
I never thought she committed adultery but she was framed IMO by Henry. He just wanted to move on so anything to get rid of her. I still think he may have had syphilis. That wss a theory that I heard long ago.
Does anyone have any feelings on NL's Anne? Is she too sympathetic? Is it likely that seh might just have committed adult..."
I never thought she committed adultery but she was framed IMO by Henry. He just wanted to move on so anything to get rid of her. I still think he may have had syphilis. That wss a theory that I heard long ago.
Although The Concubine is my favorite novel about Anne, I doubt that she "tried to get herself pregnant again" the way NL describes. I think she had too much integrity and too much sense. For one thing, it would have been too risky, but beyond that, I just don't see her as selfish enough to try to hold onto her position by putting Heaven-knows-whose child on the throne.Incidentally, a close second on my list of favorite novels about her is Margaret Campbell Barnes's Brief Gaudy Hour. It begins earlier and gives some attention to the Henry Percy affair, and ir really brings to life the men who were accused with Anne. (And it describes a delicious moment during George's trial.)
Somehow, I doubt that Henry deliberately or directly ordered her framed. He just let it be known among his henchmen that he wanted to be rid of her and looked the other way when they went to work.
I found NL's Anne to be very sympathetic. I also found Henry to be a bit sympathetic. In Concubine and in The King's Pleasure.
I agree with Mary re the idea that Anne would have never taken the suicidal risk of getting pregnant by any other man than Henry. And I have always thought the idea that she and her brother were incestuous partners was an utter calumny. Some of the dates given for her supposed adultery were, I understand, physically impossible, she being still ill in bed after childbirth /miscarriage.
Sorry David, I don't understand your post. 'Seemingly innocent' no more equates with 'in fact guilty' than it does with 'in fact innocent '.Of course if adultery did indeed take place then by definition more than one person is involved, but the point so far of this thread has been that AB's adultery was never proven,and the accusation thereof well have been a political move to remove her , rather than a reflection of her actual behaviour.
of course there was a political motive for convicting her of adultery... but Lofts does suggest that perhaps she DID do it, not with the men she was accused of, but in a desperate atempt to get pregnant....I think it is unlikely...but perhpas Lofts was of the "no smoke without fire" shcool feelign that if Anne was accused, maybe there Was something "in it"...
Yes I wonder too Damask - about NL's feeling she MIGHT have ( but only to get a baby, not for fun for heavens sake )Still, in real historical terms the dates and times they gave at her trial were patently nonsense for the most part and could easily have been disproved
Mary says in message 5 above
"Somehow, I doubt that Henry deliberately or directly ordered her framed. He just let it be known among his henchmen that he wanted to be rid of her and looked the other way when they went to work"
I think that is dead right ( pardon the pun). Another case of "who will rid me of this turbulent.....
Damask wrote, "I like Anne's waiting woman Emma... anyone into a discussion?"Yes, Emma is a marvelous creation! I like the way NL presents her as first resentful at being "lent" to Anne without being consulted but coming to respect her, then seeing her as a way to advance the Protestant cause, and admitting to herself how much she cares about Anne as a person only after Anne is arrested.
Oh of course! not for fun! I think that perhaps Henry WAS a bad breeder.. HE had comparativley few children and I think he may have had bedroom problems. I dont think that she woudl have takne the risk even then of trying to get pregnant by soemone else.
As for the trial etc. I think that it was a case of Cromwell changing sides, due to feeling that Anne was a problem.. SHe hadn't produced a son, she was a hindrance to making alliances abroad, and Henry was now in love iwth Jane Seymour, so he looked around, as Lofts indicates to see what he could do to get rid of her.
I think that Anne's flirtatiousness however provided him with "evidenece" that was helpful to him and perhaps evidnece that he had not expected to get so easily...She DID apparently quarrel with Henry Norris, and say that he "looeked for dead mens shoes", she did flirt with her men freinds and so it was possible to imply that there was more than flirtation going on.. and Mark Smeaton did confess to adultery, probably because of torture but also because he was in love with Anne...
Damask wrote: "I think that perhaps Henry WAS a bad breeder.. HE had comparativley few children and I think he may have had bedroom problems."I've read several historians, medical experts, whatever, who say Henry's inability to have many children (and his queens' inability to carry many of them to term) was due to syphilis, which they say was also responsible for the fact that the wound on his leg never would heal.
Sure would've been nice to have that knowledge in the 15th and early 16th centuries, h'mm?!
See our thread on Tudors for more on this, especially the idea of what actually ailed Henry, which is now thought NOT to be syphilis it seems.
This is quite an interesting review I thought. Another Emma Arnott fan Mary and Damask! https://anneboleynnovels.wordpress.co...
Damask wrote: "Oh of course! not for fun! I think that perhaps Henry WAS a bad breeder.. HE had comparativley few children and I think he may have had bedroom problems. I dont think that she woudl have takne ..."
Have you seen our group read of The Concubine thread Damask?
