The Lady in the Tower, Alison Weir
Mar. 2nd, 2010 09:20 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
marinessYesterday I chatted about Alison Weir's biography of Katherine Swynford. Today, I'll chat about
Weir's focus on the last days of Anne Boleyn, which fares rather less well.
Here, in contrast to Katherine Swynford, we have an abundance of documentation, far more than for most women of the period. The problem is, most of the surviving contemporary documentation comes from sources that had good economic and political reason to dislike Anne Boleyn, or genuinely were horrified at what they saw as an adulteress destroying a happy, contented marriage and later a church, or were just trying to get on someone's good side. It makes the surviving vitriol against Katherine Swynford look positively kindly by comparison.
The chief source for Anne Boleyn's fall and final days comes from one Eustace Chapuys, the Spanish Ambassor beloved by historians for his habit of writing lengthy, thorough and delightfully gossipy dispatches back home. Chapuys makes no pretense of unbias; he was actively plotting to get rid of Anne Boleyn to restore the king's daughter, Mary, to favor and her right to succession, on the correct assumption that Mary would favor Spanish policies. Using his dispatches as a chief source presents obvious problems (he continually called Anne Boleyn a Concubine and a Whore and gleefully reports every tiny nasty detail about her that he could dig up). Unfortunately, other sources often date from much later, are clearly wrong, and clearly untruthful (Chapuys is clearly biased, but does present the truth as he saw it.) This forces biographers to return to Chapuys, which in turn can lead them into a trap - the very trap Weir falls into.
The trap: a growing dislike of Anne Boleyn. Fairly clear from Weir's earlier take (The Six Wives of Henry VIII), this dislike is even more clear in the first chapters of this work. This dislike is understandable; as I've noted, the chief source for her life is invariably hostile, and from other contemporary documents, many other people did not like her either, or decided that they did not like her after her execution. Many objected to her role in what was widely accepted as adultery until the death of Catherine of Aragon; many blamed her for the deaths of religious and pious people who protested both the King's divorce and his takeover of the English church. In addition, it does seem that the entire dizzying experience of going from pursued lady in waiting to pregnant to queen to trial and execution did not do wonders for Anne's personality. These hostile sources describe her a difficult and edgy woman with a temper – not qualities admired in women in Tudor England. And she seemingly had little gift for making friends – although, then again, her position may have made that difficult, and here, the sources may fail us: contemporaries paid attention to Anne Boleyn's friends only if those friends appeared to hold political power, and after her death, very few admitted to befriending her until the accession of her daughter, Elizabeth I, to the throne, at which point numerous (equally dubious) sources sprung up portraying Anne Boleyn as a Protestant saint. (That role more correctly belongs to the scholarly, pious and deeply reformist Catherine Parr, Henry VIII's last queen, who supervised the education of the Protestant Elizabeth I.) Weir is correct to treat these later memories with suspicion.
But Weir apparently fails to recognize what feminist historians, and to a considerably lesser extent Catherine of Aragon, the Seymour family, and Catherine Parr have: Henry's relationship with Anne began as what we would now term sexual harassment, and moved to stalking shortly thereafter. It is not, therefore, entirely a surprise that he ended the relationship as many stalkers do (if with the advantage of having a terrified Parliament.)
As Karen Lindsey (in an otherwise not great book) noted, being a lady-in-waiting to Catherine of Aragon was Anne's job, a job she had spent years training for. Working as a lady-in-waiting meant the rare opportunity for an upper class woman to earn an independent salary, as well as enjoying the various entertainments and free food at the court, and the chance to meet and have some influence over the choice of a marriage partner. Anne's two potential marriage contracts had fallen through; her lady-in-waiting position represented her main chance at life. And Henry chose to pursue her as she was working, even after Anne made it clear that these intentions were not welcome, and even after Anne went to the lengths of leaving court. It is notable that the astute Catherine of Aragon said very little against her rival, focusing instead on Henry.
Note that the Seymours, in a position to observe exactly what was going on in the court, moved swiftly to show the king that they would be standing with their sister. They refused to let her be alone in his presence, guarding her at all times, and consistently emphasized her virtue. As did she, begging Henry to remember her reputation when he attempted to send her money and gifts. Many contemporaries, including Chapuys, were considerably more dubious about the morals of Jane Seymour, even prior to Anne Boleyn's death; she was in her twenties, and her contemporaries assumed that she was sexually experienced, although these tales were hushed up after her marriage. Obviously (and especially taking their later activities into account) some of the reactions of the Seymours were based in ambition and knowing that a commoner could be made queen, benefiting her family along the way, but it's also distinctly possible that the Seymours, watching and knowing Henry, moved to do what they could for a beloved sister stalked by a king.
Even today, women have difficulty with sexual harassment in the workplace. It was far worse for Anne, who was facing the most powerful man in the kingdom, a man with a temper known to execute his enemies. (This got worse after her own execution, but she would certainly have been aware of the multiple executions of courtiers for treason.) It is not remotely surprising that the stress of this, combined with the knowledge that the courts of England and Europe were specifically blaming Anne for breaking up the king's marriage, painting her as the Other Woman and far worse, would damage her personality.
And what a personality. After all, this was a woman who managed, against extraordinary odds, to put off the advances of a King – and especially this king and stalker – for years. (Her successors, including the cultured, intelligent and independently wealthy Catherine Parr, deeply in love with another man, did not even try.) And, if we take a slightly more romantic view (as some scholars have done), the woman who inspired her king to change the religion of an entire country and execute some of his top scholars along the way. (If I seem to be a bit anti-Henry VIII here, it's kinda that – I'm all for his gifts as a musician and for building up the Navy and rebuilding splendid palaces and even never losing hope in the redemptive power of marriages, but, when you start executing writers, which he did, I get mad.) She was also the woman who may have helped inspire Henry's decision to break with the Roman Catholic Church (some evidence suggests that she had a personal religious awakening, and was a reformist). And yes, the woman who by all of the generally hostile accounts turned into a severe bitch towards the end, before regaining her dignity at her trial and execution. (I like to think, romantically enough, that she remembered her daughter, and wanted to do what she could in the end for her.)
All of this is a digression to say that I tend to excuse Anne Boleyn far more than Weir does, even as I share Weir's fascination with her. (Weir at times seems to be trying to figure out why Henry ever liked Anne in the first place.) While agreeing that Anne was almost certainly not guilty of the crimes she was accused of (adultery, treason and incest), Weir follows the hostile sources (she continues to repeat the tale that Anne had an extra bit of a fingernail on one finger, the source for the later tales of Anne's six fingered hands), including hostile sources written well after Anne's death, and spends the first few chapters telling us what an awful, shrewish woman Anne was, almost completely without friends. Well, the woman lived in a cou And although she agrees that Anne's political battles with Henry's chief counselor, Thomas Cromwell, was one cause of Anne's fall, she does not focus on why: Anne the reformer was boldly attempting to reign in some of Cromwell's excesses against the monasteries and his redistribution of monastic wealth to his good friends and political supporters.
I don't want to suggest that Anne was a blameless victim, either. She handled matters with her stepdaughter Mary badly (which may have later helped intensify problems for her own daughter). As I've noted, she did not seem to have a gift for making friends, political or otherwise. That might not have helped her – certainly, friends and political connections did not help her predecessor much – but it perhaps increased her emotional instability, and also possibly led her, in an attempt to make friends, to make indiscreet statements. But I think it's critical to note that much of this probably stemmed from events in her later life. As a child, Anne was praised for her friendliness, charm, wit and pleasantness; the shrew depicted in the final sources is not only tinged by political hostility, but may very well have been formed from stress.
(It's only fair to note that my own image has probably been biased by other considerably more sympathetic biographies.)
I also continue to wonder just what Jane Seymour was thinking. We have an idea of what wife four, Anne of Cleves, was thinking – fear. It seems that wife five, Catherine Howard, just didn't think much (alas). From Catherine Parr, we have the confession that although she was in love with another man, she immediately realized that she had no choice. But of Jane Seymour, nothing, and I cannot help but wonder how much of her quietness and abjectness came from the sheer fear of remembering that her predecessor had been executed. Even while I cannot help but agree with the Victorian historian Agnes Strickland that Jane's marriage to Henry three days after Anne's execution, was, well, unseemly, although Strickland phrases it much better: "…given her hand to the regal ruffian before his wife's corpse was cold." Regal ruffian pretty much covers it, I think.
Weir's focus on the last days of Anne Boleyn, which fares rather less well.
Here, in contrast to Katherine Swynford, we have an abundance of documentation, far more than for most women of the period. The problem is, most of the surviving contemporary documentation comes from sources that had good economic and political reason to dislike Anne Boleyn, or genuinely were horrified at what they saw as an adulteress destroying a happy, contented marriage and later a church, or were just trying to get on someone's good side. It makes the surviving vitriol against Katherine Swynford look positively kindly by comparison.
The chief source for Anne Boleyn's fall and final days comes from one Eustace Chapuys, the Spanish Ambassor beloved by historians for his habit of writing lengthy, thorough and delightfully gossipy dispatches back home. Chapuys makes no pretense of unbias; he was actively plotting to get rid of Anne Boleyn to restore the king's daughter, Mary, to favor and her right to succession, on the correct assumption that Mary would favor Spanish policies. Using his dispatches as a chief source presents obvious problems (he continually called Anne Boleyn a Concubine and a Whore and gleefully reports every tiny nasty detail about her that he could dig up). Unfortunately, other sources often date from much later, are clearly wrong, and clearly untruthful (Chapuys is clearly biased, but does present the truth as he saw it.) This forces biographers to return to Chapuys, which in turn can lead them into a trap - the very trap Weir falls into.
The trap: a growing dislike of Anne Boleyn. Fairly clear from Weir's earlier take (The Six Wives of Henry VIII), this dislike is even more clear in the first chapters of this work. This dislike is understandable; as I've noted, the chief source for her life is invariably hostile, and from other contemporary documents, many other people did not like her either, or decided that they did not like her after her execution. Many objected to her role in what was widely accepted as adultery until the death of Catherine of Aragon; many blamed her for the deaths of religious and pious people who protested both the King's divorce and his takeover of the English church. In addition, it does seem that the entire dizzying experience of going from pursued lady in waiting to pregnant to queen to trial and execution did not do wonders for Anne's personality. These hostile sources describe her a difficult and edgy woman with a temper – not qualities admired in women in Tudor England. And she seemingly had little gift for making friends – although, then again, her position may have made that difficult, and here, the sources may fail us: contemporaries paid attention to Anne Boleyn's friends only if those friends appeared to hold political power, and after her death, very few admitted to befriending her until the accession of her daughter, Elizabeth I, to the throne, at which point numerous (equally dubious) sources sprung up portraying Anne Boleyn as a Protestant saint. (That role more correctly belongs to the scholarly, pious and deeply reformist Catherine Parr, Henry VIII's last queen, who supervised the education of the Protestant Elizabeth I.) Weir is correct to treat these later memories with suspicion.
But Weir apparently fails to recognize what feminist historians, and to a considerably lesser extent Catherine of Aragon, the Seymour family, and Catherine Parr have: Henry's relationship with Anne began as what we would now term sexual harassment, and moved to stalking shortly thereafter. It is not, therefore, entirely a surprise that he ended the relationship as many stalkers do (if with the advantage of having a terrified Parliament.)
As Karen Lindsey (in an otherwise not great book) noted, being a lady-in-waiting to Catherine of Aragon was Anne's job, a job she had spent years training for. Working as a lady-in-waiting meant the rare opportunity for an upper class woman to earn an independent salary, as well as enjoying the various entertainments and free food at the court, and the chance to meet and have some influence over the choice of a marriage partner. Anne's two potential marriage contracts had fallen through; her lady-in-waiting position represented her main chance at life. And Henry chose to pursue her as she was working, even after Anne made it clear that these intentions were not welcome, and even after Anne went to the lengths of leaving court. It is notable that the astute Catherine of Aragon said very little against her rival, focusing instead on Henry.
Note that the Seymours, in a position to observe exactly what was going on in the court, moved swiftly to show the king that they would be standing with their sister. They refused to let her be alone in his presence, guarding her at all times, and consistently emphasized her virtue. As did she, begging Henry to remember her reputation when he attempted to send her money and gifts. Many contemporaries, including Chapuys, were considerably more dubious about the morals of Jane Seymour, even prior to Anne Boleyn's death; she was in her twenties, and her contemporaries assumed that she was sexually experienced, although these tales were hushed up after her marriage. Obviously (and especially taking their later activities into account) some of the reactions of the Seymours were based in ambition and knowing that a commoner could be made queen, benefiting her family along the way, but it's also distinctly possible that the Seymours, watching and knowing Henry, moved to do what they could for a beloved sister stalked by a king.
Even today, women have difficulty with sexual harassment in the workplace. It was far worse for Anne, who was facing the most powerful man in the kingdom, a man with a temper known to execute his enemies. (This got worse after her own execution, but she would certainly have been aware of the multiple executions of courtiers for treason.) It is not remotely surprising that the stress of this, combined with the knowledge that the courts of England and Europe were specifically blaming Anne for breaking up the king's marriage, painting her as the Other Woman and far worse, would damage her personality.
And what a personality. After all, this was a woman who managed, against extraordinary odds, to put off the advances of a King – and especially this king and stalker – for years. (Her successors, including the cultured, intelligent and independently wealthy Catherine Parr, deeply in love with another man, did not even try.) And, if we take a slightly more romantic view (as some scholars have done), the woman who inspired her king to change the religion of an entire country and execute some of his top scholars along the way. (If I seem to be a bit anti-Henry VIII here, it's kinda that – I'm all for his gifts as a musician and for building up the Navy and rebuilding splendid palaces and even never losing hope in the redemptive power of marriages, but, when you start executing writers, which he did, I get mad.) She was also the woman who may have helped inspire Henry's decision to break with the Roman Catholic Church (some evidence suggests that she had a personal religious awakening, and was a reformist). And yes, the woman who by all of the generally hostile accounts turned into a severe bitch towards the end, before regaining her dignity at her trial and execution. (I like to think, romantically enough, that she remembered her daughter, and wanted to do what she could in the end for her.)
All of this is a digression to say that I tend to excuse Anne Boleyn far more than Weir does, even as I share Weir's fascination with her. (Weir at times seems to be trying to figure out why Henry ever liked Anne in the first place.) While agreeing that Anne was almost certainly not guilty of the crimes she was accused of (adultery, treason and incest), Weir follows the hostile sources (she continues to repeat the tale that Anne had an extra bit of a fingernail on one finger, the source for the later tales of Anne's six fingered hands), including hostile sources written well after Anne's death, and spends the first few chapters telling us what an awful, shrewish woman Anne was, almost completely without friends. Well, the woman lived in a cou And although she agrees that Anne's political battles with Henry's chief counselor, Thomas Cromwell, was one cause of Anne's fall, she does not focus on why: Anne the reformer was boldly attempting to reign in some of Cromwell's excesses against the monasteries and his redistribution of monastic wealth to his good friends and political supporters.
I don't want to suggest that Anne was a blameless victim, either. She handled matters with her stepdaughter Mary badly (which may have later helped intensify problems for her own daughter). As I've noted, she did not seem to have a gift for making friends, political or otherwise. That might not have helped her – certainly, friends and political connections did not help her predecessor much – but it perhaps increased her emotional instability, and also possibly led her, in an attempt to make friends, to make indiscreet statements. But I think it's critical to note that much of this probably stemmed from events in her later life. As a child, Anne was praised for her friendliness, charm, wit and pleasantness; the shrew depicted in the final sources is not only tinged by political hostility, but may very well have been formed from stress.
(It's only fair to note that my own image has probably been biased by other considerably more sympathetic biographies.)
I also continue to wonder just what Jane Seymour was thinking. We have an idea of what wife four, Anne of Cleves, was thinking – fear. It seems that wife five, Catherine Howard, just didn't think much (alas). From Catherine Parr, we have the confession that although she was in love with another man, she immediately realized that she had no choice. But of Jane Seymour, nothing, and I cannot help but wonder how much of her quietness and abjectness came from the sheer fear of remembering that her predecessor had been executed. Even while I cannot help but agree with the Victorian historian Agnes Strickland that Jane's marriage to Henry three days after Anne's execution, was, well, unseemly, although Strickland phrases it much better: "…given her hand to the regal ruffian before his wife's corpse was cold." Regal ruffian pretty much covers it, I think.