The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn (Paperback)

~ Eric Ives (Author)
Key Phrases: noble tryumphant coronacyon, falcon badge, crowned falcon, Sir Thomas, Jane Seymour, Thomas Boleyn (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review

"[Ives is] splendidly successful... Ives's Boleyn, a portrait at all points supported by the evidence he gives, is clever, independent-minded and politically astute. Ives has gone as far as anyone can... in solving the enigma of Boleyn in a narrative at once profoundly researched and lively." Antonia Fraser, The Sunday Times

"Eric Ives has made it unnecessary for anyone else to even make the attempt [to write a biography of Anne Boleyn]. The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn is a stunning portrait of the most controversial woman ever to have been queen consort of England." The Independent on Sunday

"Eric Ives, a scholar utterly at home in early Tudor politics, has been writing about the Boleyns for more than two decades. His book represents a triumphant culmination of all that research, presented with clarity, wit and human sympathy." Diarmaid MacCulloch, The Telegraph

"Ives has written an excellent book on Anne Boleyn. Its great strength is its sophisticated understanding of aristocratic women's involvement in 16th-century politics, and precisely how this worked in practice. ...Ives rises effectively to the human drama of Anne Boleyn's life and in the process illuminates both the inner workings of the Tudor court and its relationship to the larger dramas of the Reformation and European politics." Jane Stevenson, Scotland on Sunday

"The best full-length life of Anne Boleyn and a monument to investigative scholarship." David Starkey

"Magnificently researched. Eric Ives has written the finest, most accurate study of Anne Boleyn we are ever likely to possess. He leaves no stone unturned in his quest to discover the truth. Never has the historical Anne been so satisfyingly portrayed." John Guy

"What is most exciting about The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn is not just that it has confirmed and solidified Ives's earlier work and presented it in a more accessible format. (Like John Guy, Ives has discovered that the Starkey model really does work and that popularisation -- 'to place among the people' -- should not be a term of opprobrium.) Rather, it is the development in methodology, the indication that cultural studies and the history of the book have provided us with new ways to evaluate evidence, to interpret the past." The Spectator

"Eric Ives achieves the notable feat of combining magisterial historical authority with a gripping style, and sets the reader's mind buzzing with debate about the complex reasons behind the astounding events of Anne's life." Times Literary Supplement

"[Ives] delicately pieces together a believable identity ... [and] gives, too, a lucid and coherent exposition of the circumstances that led to Anne's death." The Guardian

"What Ives doesn't know ... about the high politics and court life of Henry VIII's England will either never be known or is not worth knowing. If there is a truth about Anne Boleyn's rise and fall, he will tell it to us." London Review of Books

"There is no questioning the impact of Professor Eric Ives on the historiography of Tudor England. There is a keen sense of the evidence, of diplomatic affairs, of the minutiae of the record and its context. The writing is fluent and well-paced, drawing the reader along." The Tyndale Society Journal

"This is a moving and compelling account by an author who is the absolute master of his subject. I read it with great excitement and admiration." Susan Brigden, Lincoln College, Oxford

"Ives demonstrates triumphantly the potential of the biographical approach in a pre-modern setting. He evinces a deep empathy for his subject without ever becoming an apologist for her, and ... he provides a narrative which is genuinely moving. He has also given us a fully rounded and persuasive account of Anne’s life as a whole, and its significance for understanding the politics and political culture of the early Tudor decades." Reviews in History

"The best book on Anne Boleyn ever written. This is a must for all lovers of Tudor history, academics and general readers alike." Alison Weir, BBC History Magazine Books of the Year

"Eric Ives has cut through the myths and misconceptions. The result surpasses all previous work.When Ives describes Anne herself. he is utterly convincing." Renaissance Quarterly

Product Description

This definitive biography of Anne Boleyn establishes her as a figure of considerable importance and influence in her own right.

• A full biography of Anne Boleyn, based on the latest scholarly research.
  
• Focusses on Anne’s life and legacy and establishes Anne as a figure of considerable importance and influence in her own right.
  
• Adulteress or innocent victim? Looks afresh at the issues at the heart of Anne's downfall.
  
• Pays attention to her importance as a patron of the arts, particularly in relation to Hans Holbein.
  
• Presents evidence about Anne’s spirituality and her interest in the intellectual debates of the period.
  
• Takes account of significant advances in knowledge in recent years.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 480 pages
• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell (July 29, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1405134631
• ISBN-13: 978-1405134637
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (25 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #11,547 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

140 of 142 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Landmark Study, November 13, 2004

By	Irene Rheinwald (Montreal, Quebec, Canada) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn (Hardcover)

As a historian specializing in this period, I was delighted in this updated version of Dr. Ives' 1986 classic: from scholarship to presentation, it by far superior to any previous biography of this tragic queen (and I include Friedmann, Sargeant, Warnicke, etc.).

Here we see how Anne Boleyn moved within her milieu, the influences upon her and her consequent effect on the Henrician court: the power she wielded; her cultural accomplishments--and ultimately, why Henry, a refined man, chose her as consort. Unromantic in tenor, Ives presents the queen as relentlessly calculating her ascent, sure of her child bearing potential. A political animal, a forward thinking religious reformer, a woman convinced of the divine right of kings (anticipating her daughter's ostentatious presentation), an intellectual with a keen eye for aesthetics: no vulgar coquette, nagging shrew, homewrecker, or Sander's incestuous six fingered whore/witch here. Ives also avoids painting Anne Boleyn as tragic victim: the passive heroine, reluctantly raised from "lowly" station to queenship, sacrificed on love's altar.

Ives has the wisdom not to presuppose Anne Boleyn's character and motivations (as Joanna Denny's flighty and error ridden biography unfortunately does): we must draw our own conclusions. We shall never understand her inner life, her feelings towards the earl of Northumberland, the husband who hunted and slaughtered her, her opinions about power and queenship, or her attitude towards the new faith (genuine or pragmatic?). However, he points out, we can gain insights from observing how she acted and reacted to situations. Particularly welcome is Ives' attention to arts (she was undoubtedly gifted), culture and patronage, a throwback to her Margaret of Austria and French court days. As well, here we have the best analysis of her fall, much more precipitous than previously assumed--more a fight-to-the-death political struggle between her faction and Cromwell's (over Church revenues on the eve of the Dissolution), and less a matter of the simplistic, conventional view of Henry's disaffection. Apparently Anne Boleyn insisted upon church revenues being distributed en masse to the poor, rather than squirreled into the depleted royal coffers; her motives, of course, must remain mysterious: altruism, or ego? In any event, she was effective, giving more to the poor than Katherine of Aragon. That gesture did not appease the hostility, but her blood did: her trial and execution garned more than a modicum of sympathy on the part of Londoners.

Dr. Ives must be praised for his command of both primary and secondary source documents: he sifts and sorts, assesses and appraises the quality of information until a portrait of the woman, and the age, appear. He addresses the question of her appearance, which has long eluded historians: there are no extant contemporary portraits of the queen, and contemporary descriptions were mostly hostile. Ives does find an amenable middle ground. However, his greatest strength is assessing her role in history by virtue of her profound effect on Henry VIII, the break with Rome, and the English Renaissance. No more Pollard's supposition Anne Boleyn appealed only to the less refined aspects of Henry's nature; the traditional view. It all makes sense: she attended the brilliant court of the formidable Margaret of Austria, and the licentious, overwrought court of Francis I, in whose presence Leonardo da Vinci passed his final years. Undoubtedly she took notes from observing the kindly, but beleaguered and oft pregnant Queen Claude. More profound influences included Francis' sister and mother, strong willed, imperious women in their own right. Long before her ascension, Anne Boleyn planned her court: chivalry, study, music, arts and aesthetics, intellectual debate. An early salon. I would have, however, liked to see more attention paid to her musical inclinations: apparently she composed and performed. On the Continent, did she meet Josquin, de Sermisy, Mouton? Did she perform their music? Dr. Ives only mentions the contentious music book in passing.

Ives also holds suspect Dr. Warnicke's suppositions of a deformed foetus, the birth order of the Boleyn children, and George Boleyn's alleged homosexuality (promiscuity, yes, absolutely). Very convincing arguments. Also, he suggests many recorded incidents of Anne Boleyn's life were apocryphal, and explains precisely why.

This can be termed a true landmark study, just as much as Friedman's, but without the latter's Victorian moral sensibilities. Beautifully written and superbly researched.

63 of 67 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The power behind the throne..., September 24, 2004

By	FrKurt Messick "FrKurt Messick" (Bloomington, IN USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 10 REVIEWER)

This review is from: The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn (Hardcover)

Eric Ives' book `The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn' is a must read for people interested in British history, the British Royal Family history, the history of the Tudor period, and particularly for those interested in one of the key figures around that most colourful of English kings, Henry VIII. Anne Boleyn's influence in court, which dominated state and church affairs at a critical moment in European affairs, is shown here, in addition to the personal strife that Anne Boleyn both caused for others (her rival for Henry's affections, Katherine, is but the least of these) as well as the strife she herself endured.

Ives contrasts Anne Boleyn with Katherine of Aragon in terms of overall worldviews that they represented - Anne being far more a child of the Renaissance, intellectually curious and passionate, independent and full of ideas; Katherine of Aragon was representative more of the `old order', which included a staunch piety and adherence to Roman Catholicism in principle and political loyalty. This contrast is in part why Ives can state with reasonable certainty that Anne Boleyn was the most controversial woman ever to have been a queen of England (which, given that she's up against the likes of Eleanor of Aquitaine, among others, is saying something). Part of this controversy stems from the sources historians have for details about her life; being a pivotal person in the Catholic/Protestant split during the Tudor and post-Tudor world, she was constantly reinterpreted, and rarely for the better. Even the glorious reign of her daughter, Elizabeth, did little resurrect her image in popular or short-term historical opinion.

Ives' writing is lively and full of passion, as befits his subject. Ives also introduces new interpretations and contexts to the events of the time. For example, he describes the fall of Anne Boleyn as a coup, normally a term reserved for the removal of a reigning monarch or primary executive; it is a testament to the power of Anne Boleyn's influence over King Henry VIII that his advisors, such as Thomas Cromwell, saw need to remove her, for their own safety, as well as (possibly) the safety of the king. Ives concludes with Wyatt's elegy and a brief epilogue of the Tudor aftermath, not drawing too many conclusions, but rather, as a responsible historian, asking a few questions and leaving the reader to ponder the outcomes.

There is a good middle section of photographic plates, 64 in all, which includes many paintings, engravings and pictures of artifacts of Anne Boleyn. He also includes handy lists of titles and offices, genealogy charts of the European royal families, the Tudor court, and the Boleyn/Howard families (Henry VIII's last wife, Katherine Howard, was a cousin of Anne Boleyn). Scholars will appreciate the extensive endnotes, bibliographic/historical references, and index, together which comprise nearly 100 pages. However, this is a book for general readers as well as scholars, accessible and well-paced.

40 of 45 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Boleyniac!, October 4, 2004

By	L. B. Bridges (Fayetteville, PA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn (Hardcover)

I have read nearly every non fiction book on Anne Boleyn. I have Eric Ives first book also. This one is far better and has more color. I highly recommend this book to history readers. I am always mining any new biography for new nuggets of information about this most elusive of women. David Starkey's books Six Wives is also wonderful as were Antonia Fraser's and Alison Weir's biography. The more I read about Anne Boleyn, the more I want to know. A great read.