Anne Boleyn, an important and somewhat controversial
historical figure, is most frequently characterized as either a scheming social
climber or an innocent victim of a mercurial king. As with anything, the truth
is probably somewhere in the middle. What we know of Anne’s life comes
primarily from two different camps with distinct agendas: Catholics loyal to
Katharine of Aragon and reformers loyal to the Church of England.
To try and find the true Anne would take more than what is
typical for a blog post. However, it is not my belief that she is entirely an
innocent victim, but it is also not true that she was a scheming social
climber. Anne became a victim of the machinations of the court that she had encouraged.
Was Anne guilty of the adultery and treason of which she was accused? By all
reliable accounts, probably not. She most certainly was not guilty of incest
with her brother. She was guilty of engaging in flirtations that were common at
Court and ones that she had used to capture the attention of Henry in the first
place. Anne grew up at the French court, one that was notorious for its
lasciviousness.
Despite that, there were no accounts of her being
promiscuous during that time. The same was not true of her sister, Mary, who
was also mistress to Henry VIII prior to Anne’s relationship. It makes it
curious that we then associate Anne with that type of behavior. Much of that
comes from the way she was discussed by Catholic sources in the historical
record: the tales of six fingers on her right hand, the massive moles, and
other various accounts of witchcraft. I would argue that the myth of Anne Boleyn
persists as it does because of something a bit more sinister: internalized
misogyny.
Part of what attracts audiences to the story of Henry VIII,
Katharine of Aragon, and Anne Boleyn is that it is one we know well, and it
plays out in a contemporary fashion. When we look at similar tales of
infidelity in contemporary times, there is a universal reaction of the public:
blame the mistress. It is rare that we ever blame the man in the situation.
As a society, we are conditioned to believe that the
unfaithful husband is only acting as any man would. It’s a “boys will be boys”
attitude that men cannot be held responsible for their own behavior when it
comes to sexuality. We mistakenly, and to their detriment, reduce our
expectations of male behavior to its basest form. The social structure treats
men as though they are slaves to their urges, animals that can’t help
themselves. This is a disservice to them. Men are more than their sexual
desires.
Yet, because we see men in this way, we naturally blame the
other woman for infidelity. This is where the internalized misogyny often comes
into play. Women are much harsher on the other woman in these types of
situations. Because men cannot be held responsible for their own part in
committing infidelity, it is up to women to take the moral high ground and not
engage in such behavior. Women who do so are characterized as whores and sluts.
When we look at the historical record regarding Anne Boleyn, particularly those
from Catholic sources, she is often called “The Great Whore” or “The Great
Concubine.”
Consequently, the wife of the unfaithful husband is then
characterized as the long-suffering victim of the situation. Portrayals of
Katharine, both in her own time and today, are often that of the devoted wife. With
this particular story, it isn’t an inaccurate characterization; Katharine was
indeed a devoted wife. We have access to the final letter to Henry when she was
dying in Wales. All she wished was to see him one final time. It is truly
heartbreaking.
It does make it easy to blame Anne for breaking up what
appeared to be a happy marriage. However, Anne was not the first instance of
Henry’s infidelity. He had a bastard son with Bessie Blount, who was given the
name Henry FitzRoy, a surname that indicated his position as a royal bastard,
and given the title of Duke of Richmond, a hereditary title of the Tudor
family. Henry had even engaged in an extramarital affair with Anne’s sister, Mary.
Although not acknowledged, some of the historical record surmises that Mary’s
two children, Catherine and Henry Carey, were Henry VIII’s offspring rather
than Mary’s husband William Carey’s.
Anne was just one in a long line of infatuations up until
that point. What made her different was her elevation to Queen in place of
Katherine. Looking at the love letters of Henry to Anne, this was primarily
accomplished by her refusal to bed Henry without being married to him. In other
words, it was her refusal to be a mistress that prompted Henry to seek an
annulment of his marriage to Katherine and set the wheels in motion even though
many at the time believed that Anne had slept with Henry much sooner than she
likely did. We can be certain of some pre-marital relations as Anne was about
two months pregnant at the private wedding ceremony earlier in 1533 and then about five or six months' pregnant after the annulment to Katharine and subsequent public
coronation in June 1533.
Anne’s story plays into the social idea that female
sexuality is dangerous. It is a consistent narrative in the Judeo-Christian
world with her playing the role of the seductress. This goes back to the idea
that Eve is solely responsible for original sin because she tempted Adam to
also eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Adam escapes
culpability in early Christian theology because of the dangerous sensuality of
woman. We see this echoed in other stories of the Old Testament when we look at
Delilah and Samson or Jezebel and Ahab. It continues with the narrative of Mary
Magdalene when she is identified as a prostitute solely based on proximity of two
stories.
No, Anne Boleyn isn’t a saint, but she isn’t the villain
either.
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