On 19 May 1536 the English Queen was taken from her room in the Tower and beheaded. Was she a heretical whore (the Catholic tradition), a heroine (the later European view), an incestuous adulteress (Henry VIlI's position) or the more or less innocent victim of faction in the Tudor court? These and many other questions are definitively answered in this, the first full scholarly biography this century.
Ihe book opens with a vivid description of Anne's early life and education at the courts of Flanders and France, the most fashionable in Europe. Her training there gave her a style and elegance which, together with the force of her own personality, made her unique at the English court. E. W. Ives explores the growth of Anne's often turbulent relationship with Henry VIII and shows how she increasingly used her influence to determine policy and events. She rapidly entered into the faction politics that dominated Henry's court and brought down Cardinal Wolsey; in promoting religious reform and reformers, she furthered the progress of the Reformation in England. Finally, the author considers the circumstances of her disgrace and death: Anne fell victim not to Henry's waning interest but to a brilliant and dangerous court coup led by the king's minister, Thomas Cromwell.
Research on the complex motivation and manoeuvres of Henry VIlI's momentous divorce from Katherine of Aragon (and, incidentally, England's from Rome) has appeared to reduce Anne's importance in the story and to present her as little more than a precipitating agent. Based on substantial original research, this book establishes Anne as a figure of considerable importance and influence in her own right