Customer Reviews

The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn

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3 star:		(1)
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1 star:		(2)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

One reviewer here called this the best biography of Anne Boleyn ever. I'm not prepared to go that far, mainly because I haven't read them all yet. If you're a Tudorphile like me and you've been reading about Anne Boleyn since you were 10 years old, this book will be pure ambrosia. Ives has managed to combined genuine scholarship with an engaging narrative. While I can't say that Anne comes alive, she is rescued from myth and tales of depravity. In my opinion, he sets the record straight on several fronts from Anne's role in Wolsey's downfall to her own fall from grace.

Ives has his share of controversial theories, but he presents each with a persuasive amount of direct fact and circumstantial evidence. The disagreement between Ives and fellow Anne Boleyn biographer Retha Warnicke doesn't look like it's going to be resolved soon. That's good news for Tudorphiles.

All said, this may not be the best introduction to Anne Boleyn - Weir's and Fraser's bios of all six wives of Henry VIII may be better suited to the novice - but those with a deep interest in this fascinating woman will want to make this a permanent part of their library.

I have been reading about Anne Boleyn since 5th grade and I couldn't put this biography down. Her life and times come alive. Dr. Ives has a gift for detail and drawing one in that has only gotten better with each book. I couldn't wait for this book to be released and I wasn't disappointed. He was very balanced, letting the readers draw their own conclusions. His writing style is lively and highly readable, not always the case with historians. If you have any interest in these people or this era, this is the book to read.

Anne Boleyn was undoubtedly one history's most fascinating woman. She was not conventionally beautiful, she had a sharp-tongued, acidic personality, and she engendered both obsessive love and implacable hatred in the people around her. She also was caught in the middle of a bitter, bloody war between the traditional Catholics and the Reform Protestants. As a result, trying to know the "real" Anne Boleyn is a hard task indeed, as contemporary accounts are extremely biased. In the end, we don't even really know which drawings or portraits are accurate.
But Eric Ives has taken up this enormously difficult task of finding the woman behind the legend, and his book will probably be the standard for years to come. He has carefully considered all his sources, including the ones that are obviously extremely biased, and weighed what is probably true and what is not. He has started from scratch, using only contemporary (meaning, Tudor era) sources, and spends an entire chapter weighing which sources can be trusted, and which cannot. For instance, Eustace Chapuys's accounts are heavily biased towards Katherine of Aragon, but they also give a great timeline of the divorce proceedings. He spends anther chapter devoted to which portraits or images of Anne is likely to be the most accurate. His conclusion: a ring that Anne's daughter Elizabeth wore that had a cameo of herself and her mother. Little details like that make the book more human, for while Henry tried the best he could to erase Anne from history, it is clear that Elizabeth never forgot her mother. Ives also uses the poetry of Thomas Wyatt, an early admirer of Anne who seems to have always carried a torch for her, to great effect.
Ives' tone is that of a detached scholar, and while he is obviously fascinated by Anne, and eager to dispel the more vicious myths about her, this is no hagiography. He reports the ugly side of Anne's personality -- her imperiousness, her tendency to kick people while they were down. Of Katherine of Aragon, Anne once coldly remarked that she "wished all Spaniards were at the bottom of the sea." Yet the overall picture of Anne is that of a remarkable woman. Intelligent, independent, radical in her belief of the Protestant Reform movement, a mover and shaker.
That such an intelligent woman could fall so fast in fortune speaks volumes both of the cruelty of Henry VIII, the machinations of Thomas Cromwell (the book's villain), and the status of women in Anne's time. Henry loved Anne because she was outspoken, witty, elusive, and cultured (she spent her adolescence in the French royal court). But once they were married, she was expected to start bearing sons, and to tolerate infidelity. She was also expected to keep her nose out of political and religious affairs. She could not do any of the above. Her fall (three weeks from arrest to execution) is documented with astonishing detail.
Warning: although Ives' book is extremely well-written, it is not an "easy" read. It is extremely scholarly in tone, and if you want a more general overview of Henry VIII's wives, then Alison Weir, Antonia Fraser, and David Starkey have all written excellent books on the subject. The middle section, which goes into rather arcane detail about Anne's interest in arts, culture, court life, interior decorating and religious reform is on the dry side.
My other criticism of Ives is that in his eagerness to paint a picture of a larger conspiracy to dethrone Anne by Thomas Cromwell, the religious conservatives, and the ever-ambitious Seymour clan, he almost lets Henry VIII off the hook. In the end, one person could have stopped Anne the "beloved wife" from such a cruel fate and that was her husband. But despite these flaws, Ives' level of research goes above and beyond the call of duty. Anne finally had her fair day in court, and no doubt she would have been very proud.

This study of Anne Boleyn was not quite what I expected it to be. I did not find it a straightforward biography of this fascinating woman. Rather, the author chose to concentrate on Anne's tastes in, and patronage of, religious reform, art, politics etc. Intense detail was given to these subjects, but there was actually no consistency to the writing, and thus the book seemed "choppy". At times, I felt that I was reading an inventory of her estate after her death, rather then a true biographical book.

I might add that it gave me an insight and viewpoint of Anne Boleyn that no previous books have done, and I have come away with a new and more enlightened view of just how intricate and intelligent this woman was.

However, my disappointment lies in the fact that far too much was given over to details of her world, rather then to Anne herself. I certainly would not recommend this book to anyone not familiar with the storyline of Anne's life, as I feel the beginning student would find him/herself very confused. Although it seems the author takes a much too simplistic approach to her downfall (especially regarding Cromwell's role), only in discussing the people and forces that led to her destruction, as well as the description of her execution, did this book shine as a biography. If only the author had chosen to approach the writing of Anne's life as he did in the last one-quarter of the book, this would have qualified as the best biography ever written of Henry VIII's second wife. As it stands, it unfortunately falls short of the mark.

My recommendation is to look at other works on Anne Boleyn, learn the major details of her life (and death), and then read this volume. Otherwise one will learn much about Anne's likes and dislikes, but really too little regarding the timeline of the major and minor events in Anne's life.

If one is looking for mere entertainment, this is not the book to buy. I thoroughly enjoyed "The Six Wives of Henry VIII" written by Antonia Fraser, which contained only the most necessary historical facts in order to present the six Queens properly.

When I have given Eric Ives' book five stars, it's because this is probably the most detailed and enlightening book ever written about Anne Boleyn. But the book is not an easy read, not if one is searching for pure entertainment. For me it is more a book of facts about Anne which I can go back to whenever I'm searching for more information about her. That does not mean the book lacks for numerous enjoyable anecdotes from Anne's life and vivid descriptions of her as a person.

The book tells about Anne's family and background, which was far more important than one is often led to believe. Originally, the family made its fortune in trade, but later on its relations with the Tudors became significant and Anne was by no means an unsuitable match for King Henry.

What I found most interesting was the picture of Anne as a very cultured and highly educated young woman. The time she spent at the Continent and how this influenced her in her role as Queen of England. It thoroughly explains why she became as powerful and politically important as she did. And not the least, the circumstances leading to her death.

For a complete picture of Anne Boleyn, look no further. This book gives all the answers.

Eric Ives' book is probably the best book I've read that addresses Anne Boleyn's history. I must agree with another reviewer that towards the end of the book, when the author discusses Anne's involvement in religion, arts, etc, that it can seem choppy. The author makes up for this in his excellent assesment of events surrounding Anne's life. This is one of the few books I've read that doesn't simply state court chronicles as fact, since they were often written with preconceived ideas and prejudices. It definitely gives a more balanced view of Anne beyond the normal opinion of her as a power hungry temptress, and events themselves are put into more appropriate historical context, not simply how today's author interprets something. This book can be read by someone beginning to read Tudor history, however I would recommend one reads other books to see the many different points of view that authors, and history, can take, and then form an opinion regarding Anne Boleyn.

It has been very tempting for many Boleyn biographers to paint Anne as a feminist icon and victim of male power. It has been equally tempting in other generations to paint her as a conniving, power hungry witch who brought about her own donwfall and whose only value was sex-object and mother of one of England's greatest rulers. The truth one might rightly suspect lies somewhere in the middle. Ives gives us enough information-- at times, too much-- to find that middle ground, exploring not just Anne's family and social roots but the development of her tastes, values and beliefs. There can be no doubt Anne did plenty of scheming and had a thirst for prestige and power, and did not hesitate to wield it once she had it. But she was also a highly educated, engaging and interesting Renaissance woman, bringing the sophistications of the Continental Renaissance to the English court, a court which was in many ways, still Medieval in a world that had long passed into the era of "New Learning" and scientific exploration. There are rather extensive lists of her belongings, friends, writings, but that is what one would expect in a thorough study such as this (the most thorough yet done in all likelihood). Some of these listings might be better suited to an appendix rather than contained in the text but that was for editors to decide and one assumes they made their choices for informed reasons. And throught this dense documentation Anne emerges not as a stock Renaissance Comedia character, colored of one mood or dimension, but as a complex human being with the same appetites as any of us. And like any of us she is by turns infuriating, admirable, pitiable, likeable and annoying. In the end she proves tragic, but brave: after being offered a way out of her death sentence by the king himself, she goes to the scaffold and the swordsman rather than disinherit her blood and admit to any wrongdoing. If you've an interest in this period, and in this Court in particular, this is a biography worth owning.