Product Description

The imprisonment and execution of Queen Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII s second wife, in May 1536 was unprecedented in English history. It was sensational in its day, and has exerted endless fascination over the minds of historians, novelists, dramatists, poets, artists and film-makers ever since.

Anne was imprisoned in the Tower of London on 2 May 1536, and tried and found guilty of high treason on 15 May. Her supposed crimes included adultery with five men, one her own brother, and plotting the King s death. She was executed on 19 May 1536.

Mystery surrounds the circumstances leading up to her arrest. Was it Henry VIII who, estranged from Anne, instructed Master Secretary Thomas Cromwell to fabricate evidence to get rid of her so that he could marry Jane Seymour? Or did Cromwell, for reasons of his own, construct a case against Anne and her faction, and then present compelling evidence before the King?

Following the coronation of her daughter Elizabeth I in 1558, Anne was venerated as a heroine of the English Reformation. Over the centuries, her dramatic story has inspired many artistic and cultural works and has remained ever-vivid in England s popular memory.

Never before has there been a book devoted entirely to Anne Boleyn s fall. Alison Weir has reassessed the evidence and created a richly researched and detailed portrait of the last days of one of the most influential and important figures in English history.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #821 in Books
• Published on: 2009-10-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 432 pages

Review
"...Captivating, intelligent, no-nonsense prose...even readers with no prior knowledge will be drawn into the human drama..." --Literary Review

"The Lady in the Tower remains fresh and suspenseful."
--The Independant on Sunday

David Loades,`She [Alison Weir] is to be congratulated on her impartiality and sound judgement'.
--BBC History Magazine

"engaging... anyone who has been attracted to the Tudors through the cinema or television will enjoy... reading her account"
-- Irish Times

About the Author
Alison Weir was born in London and now resides in Surrey. Before becoming a published author in 1989, she was a civil servant, then a housewife and mother. From 1991 to 1997, whilst researching and writing books, she ran a school for children with learning difficulties before taking up writing full-time. Her books include The Six Wives of Henry VIII, Lancaster and York, Children of England , Elizabeth the Queen, Eleanor of Aquitaine , Mary, Queen of Scots, Henry VIII: King and Court, Isabella and, most recently Katherine Swynford.

Customer Reviews

Windows onto history
Meticulously researched, pithily written and with creative flair, Alison Weir turns in a wonderful close-up study of Anne Boleyn's fall.

One of Weir's hallmarks is her use of "mini-biographies," diverging from her main storyline to give lifelines and personality traits of the characters. Rather like "Windows" on a computer: a window is opened into another life, as it becomes relevant. There are judicious snapshots of the five men accused of adultery with Anne. George Boleyn (her own brother, Viscounnt Rochford), Sir Henry Norris, Sir Francis Weston, Sir William Brereton, Mark Smeaton. After filling in their background, Weir indicates how each was involved in some sort of illegality, or corruption, or had managed to arouse the jealousy of Thomas Cromwell, Henry's secretary, who orchestrated the trial against Anne.

Throughout the book, Weir masterfully uncovers motivations, starting at the top with Henry VIII, Cromwell, and the leading contemporary churchmen. She identifies Henry's affair with Jane Seymour as a pivotal element used by Anne's enemies to topple her. Then she also investigates the ready disloyalty of Anne's own ladies-in-waiting.

As with all Anne Boleyn biographies we get the fineries of the trials, though mercifully the bloody details are kept to a minimum as this book is focusing on Anne. However Weir does adduce medical evidence to show, with terrible pathos, that a person may feel pain for several moments after execution.

Some of the most riveting material follows Anne's beheading. In the last third of the book we learn the fates of such participants as Thomas Cromwell (executed a mere four years later), Thomas Wyatt, and Anne's sister-in-law Jane Boleyn (Lady Rochford), who provided damning testimony. Weir deals with the disposition of the estates of the executed men. The preparations for Henry's marriage to Jane Seymour and the erasing of Anne's name and initials on buildings, etc., are recounted. Even more fascinating are the longterm effects of her mother's execution on Queen Elizabeth I. She adopted Anne's motto (Semper Eadem - "always the same") and falcon badge, and showed favour to the Boleyn relatives - notably the Careys, who became the Lords Hunsdon (later patrons of Shakespeare's company, The Lord Chamberlain's Men).

Final chapters chart the exhumation of Anne's headless body in Victorian times, its reburial, and the growth of Anne's reputation over the succeeding centuries. Similarly, the reputation of Henry vis-a-vis Anne is also examined. In her interesting Appendix, "Legends," while refusing to be drawn on the subject of various ghostly hauntings, Weir asserts that Anne "has become a figure of romantic mythology and a symbol of national folk-lore." Every year since the 1960s, for example, on the "instructions of an undisclosed firm of Trustees," a bunch of red roses has been sent anonymously to the Tower and left till withered on her memorial.

This is a superb book in a very overcrowded field. You might think there is nothing new to say on this subject, but Weir forces you to think again. Skilfully done.

One of Alison Weir's Best.
I became fascinated by Anne Boleyn, as a fourteen year old many years ago, after reading The King's Secret Matter by Jean Plaidy and have to say that that fascination has never left me. Since then I've read widely about her and indeed all of The Tudors, both fiction and non-fiction and think this book is one of the best I've come across. It's very accessible and never over-wordy or stuffy.
Obviously this isn't a biography of Anne's life, as it concentrates solely on the period relating to her incredibly rapid downfall and gives the reader a very tense, almost palpable feel of menace, as her enemies closed in. Anne wasn't a saint and like most people had her dark side and could be incredibly vicious at times, but reading about court life and all the various factions, who were literally out to gain the upper hand at any cost, it becomes more understandable, and with her and Cromwell it became a case of kill or be killed. I always have two books on the go at once - a novel and some non-fiction and have to say I continually turned to this book first, even though the other one I'm reading is really gripping - I can offer it no greater compliment than that.

A page-turner that Anne's fans will love
Here, Alison Weir traces Anne Boleyn's fall in all its heart-stopping detail.

The book drew me in, from Anne's first suspicions that something was going horribly wrong - her middle-aged husband Henry was having a blonde moment in the form of wife-in-waiting Jane Seymour - to the nightmare circus of Anne's trial and execution, her despair and her ultimate dignified death.

Here you'll find every single detail about Anne's final days, and a joy that is, as I can't stand historians who withhold stuff as if it's not for us to know.

Alison Weir is a sensible and comprehensive historian, an excellent judge of character, and does not flinch from setting to right, the old romantic myths at times or pointing out that there is no foundation for certain stories. Fairly, she points out that by Tudor standards, Anne's trial was legally irreproachable, and dangles the mystery of what happened to so many of the contemporary documents. Was there actually some rather awful evidence against Anne, which has been lost? Probably not, but we may never know.

She is also sensitive - I liked her chapter on the impact on tiny Elizabeth, then not even three years old, which is uncharted territory. Her judgements are sound and her scholarship and research, reliable. This is a book that will grip and a real contribution to the archives of Anne Boleyn writing. Don't have nightmares!