Anne Boleyn: Fatal Attractions by G.W. Bernard

by G.W. Bernard

In this groundbreaking new biography, G. W. Bernard offers a fresh portrait of one of England’s most captivating queens. Through a wide-ranging forensic examination of sixteenth-century sources, Bernard reconsiders Boleyn’s girlhood, her experience at the French court, the nature of her relationship with Henry, and the authenticity of her evangelical sympathies. He depicts Anne Boleyn as a captivating, intelligent, and highly sexual woman whose attractions Henry resisted for years until marriage could ensure legitimacy for their offspring. He shows that it was Henry, not Anne, who developed the ideas that led to the break with Rome. And, most radically, he argues that the allegations of adultery that led to Anne’s execution in the Tower could be close to the truth.

Genres: History, Biography, Tudor Period, Nonfiction, Royalty, Historical, British Literature

Mass Market Paperback

First published May 25, 2010

About the author

Professor George Bernard is Professor of Early Modern History at the University of Southampton.

Reviews

[Sue · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was really interested to read Bernard's new bio on Anne because he is a well respected historian and for him to say that he had a thesis to suggest that Anne and the men who were executed along with her were actually guilty, must mean he had some evidence to back it up. But no. In his own words : "It remains my own hunch that Anne had indeed committed adultery with Norris, probably with Smeaton, possibly with Weston, and was then the victim of the most appalling bad luck when the countess of Worcester, one of her trusted ladies, contrived in a moment of irritation with her brother to trigger the devastating chain of events that led inexorably to Anne’s downfall.” A hunch? Yes folks, that's what he said. Why does he have this hunch? It seems to be mainly based on a french poem which Ives says was basically the official French line based on Cromwell's information sent to the French Ambassadors. Despite the fact that Chapuys, the Imperial Ambassador who hated Anne with a passion didn't believe she was guilty. My over riding impression is that Bernard's own admiration for Henry himself has blinkered him in his view of Anne. Its a short read ...so go ahead and read it, but if you are looking for real evidence, you won't find it. In my opinion it's an unsubstantiated hunch.

[Sarah u · Rating 5 out of 5]

Can there be smoke without fire?

Fatal Attractions by G.W. Bernard is the newest biography of Henry VIII’s second wife and queen, Anne Boleyn. Bernard is a skilled historian, a professor and the editor of the journal English Historical Review, and has previously written about Anne Boleyn and the English Reformation professionally. From the outset, then, his book promises a fresh interpretation of a known, and important, historical personality from a skilled academic. Fatal Attractions has become controversial with Tudor history lovers and Anne Boleyn fans because, rather than taking the official party lines, it challenges what we think we know about Anne’s life, her religion and her downfall. The list of points about Anne that Bernard takes on in his book is huge. He asks many questions, including; how influential was Anne during the Reformation? How responsible was Anne for the fall of Cardinal Wolsey? Was it really Anne who stopped the king from consummating their relationship, or was it the other way around? Most controversially, he asks if Anne was actually guilty of the crimes she was executed for.

In all of his arguments, Bernard cites his evidence and explains his reasoning. In many chapters, he challenges the work of Eric Ives, David Starkey, Retha Warnicke and others; scrutinising their claims and looking again at the evidence they present for their arguments. Where some reviewers have called this ‘trashing’, I call it good, solid academia; what is history if we cannot discuss our differing points of view, or take part in debates? Personally, I enjoyed Bernard’s challenges of other works about Anne. In all honesty, some of the ideas presented in Bernard’s book mirror my own, especially when he discusses the reformation and break with Rome and Anne's influence at this time. I have also seen it said that Bernard backs his arguments up, especially when he discusses Anne’s suspected guilt, on a single poem. That is simply not true, Bernard uses several sources when putting forward this argument. Yes, one of them is the poem, but it is used alongside Tower records and the writings of Master Kingston, the Constable of the Tower at the time. His arguments, whether we like them or not, do stand up under some scrutiny. This is all part of the debates surrounding Anne, and they are not likely to go away while she is still so hugely popular, so the best we can do is listen, read, and potentially learn from them. Ideas are constantly evolving about the Tudor period, both favourable and no.

Some of the arguments in Bernard’s book make an awful lot of sense when you are presented with his take on the evidence. There are a few eyebrow raising moments in there too, though, especially when Bernard talks about Elizabeth I’s parentage- I don’t think many of us believe for a minute that Elizabeth was not the king’s daughter! This, and a couple of other ideas in the book, did not add up to me, and though I did not necessarily agree with all of Professor Bernard's ideas, I embraced them and the thought processes they inspired in me.

In conclusion, this book is a sound work of academia and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It challenges events surrounding Anne’s life and challenges what we think we know, often in a sensible way that is backed up with evidence. Don’t be put off by the bad reviews; this book is definitely worth a read, especially if you're interested in the Tudor period. If you think you know Anne Boleyn, this may make you think again, and think hard. An excellent book.

[Meaghan · Rating 2 out of 5]

I would not recommend this book to readers not already familiar with the story of Anne Boleyn's rise and fall, as I don't think it gives a broad enough picture. For those who are already knowledgeable about Anne, I'm still not sure I would recommend this book.

I found the author's reasoning flawed and his habit of criticizing other historians without naming them or their works (which he quotes from) annoying. It seems almost as if he made these arguments more to be contrary than for any other reason -- the entire book had this defiant "prove me wrong" attitude about it. I also noticed certain errors -- very small ones, it's true, but they still made me doubtful of Bernard's research. (For instance, he said Anne's dog Urian was a "lapdog." I highly doubt this. The reason we know the dog existed was because there's a record of Henry compensating a farmer after Urian killed the farmer's cow.)

I think this book would be for Tudor completists only. Bernard's arguments are worth thinking about, but I can't really take any of them seriously.

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bernard, as many probably know, takes the tack that Anne Boleyn was guilty of adultery with some of the men who were accused with her. Though I still have my doubts, I thought the author presented his case well, and he didn't make the mistake of regarding his thesis as definitively proven.

Though the book has garnered the most attention for its stance on the allegations of adultery, Bernard also examines such issues as the treatment of Mary Tudor and Anne's religious beliefs.

All in all, this was a thought-provoking book that's worth reading, even if one doesn't agree with the author's conclusions.

[Kara · Rating 2 out of 5]

If this book was an action movie, the tag line on the movie poster would be: "Everything you thought you knew is wrong!"

G.W. Bernard timidly offers the theories that Anne Boleyn DID commit adultery, was NOT a Protestant, and was much more of a cipher than active politician.

The problem is he seems almost afraid as he makes his argument, as if expecting a horde of angry Tudor fangirls to come crashing though his door. He also, I feel, ignores the evidence that doesn't fit his theory, while, without naming names, he criticizes all the other Tudor historians who he feels ignored evidence. Also, the idea of resting the bulk of his theory on a poem, is, well, iffy, at best.

[Gareth Russell · Rating 3 out of 5]

According to most of her contemporaries, Anne Boleyn was a woman of many talents. As well as being articulate, well-read, and intelligent, she was also, at least according to William Thomas, clerk of the privy council, ‘a woman endued with as many outward good qualities in playing on instruments, singing and such other courtly graces as few women of her time’. Yet Anne Boleyn’s most enduring and most important talent was also her most indefinable. Elizabeth I's mother had a unique and, frustratingly for the historian, unquantifiable talent for provoking obsession. In life, it generated an attraction which first propelled her onto the throne and then, as the subtitle of this biography from Yale University Press makes clear, onto the scaffold. In death, it has helped sustain her as an icon of popular fascination. And it is this talent of Boleyn’s, if no other, which George Bernard is prepared to acknowledge in his new book "Anne Boleyn: Fatal Attractions". Contrary to most studies of her life, it is Professor Bernard’s contention that although Anne Boleyn was undeniably highly attractive in terms of her appearance, there was nothing about her personality, intellect, interests, or accomplishments that marked her out as exceptional, except for the fact that in the 1520s Henry VIII happened, inexplicably, to fall obsessively in love with her.

This, Bernard’s first foray into the biographical genre (Bernard is a professor of English History at the University of Southampton and his best-known previous work was the magisterial "The King's Reformation") will, of course, always be best known for the fact that it is thus far the only academic biography of Anne Boleyn to seriously suggest that she might have been guilty of at least some of the charges for which she and five men were executed in May 1536. Yet although five of "Fatal Attractions’" twelve chapters are devoted to expounding this controversial hypothesis, there are other aspects of Boleyn’s life and career which Bernard studies and in three other key areas, he offers a potentially valid revisionist interpretation of a woman who was described by one of her other modern biographers as ‘the most important and influential queen consort this country has ever had.’

The strongest sections of "Fatal Attractions" are the ones in which Bernard draws on the works of his academic peers. His treatment of Anne’s youth, aristocratic background, and education in the Low Countries and France, relies heavily on the work of Hugh Paget and Eric Ives. Coming to Boleyn’s early adulthood, Bernard cogently dismisses, on chronological grounds, David Starkey’s recent attempt to resurrect the romantic legend that it was Henry VIII who intervened to break-off her early betrothal to Henry Percy, later the 6th Earl of Northumberland, because he had already developed a strong romantic interest in her himself. Interestingly, given his later assessment of Anne's sexual morals, Bernard agrees with the arguments put forward by Eric Ives and, much longer ago, C.S. Lewis, that the famous poetry of Sir Thomas Wyatt the Elder concerning Anne probably reflects an unreciprocated infatuation on Wyatt’s part.

Bernard is constantly querying whether Anne was the shrewdly manipulative political operator of Eustace Chapuys’s assessment or of later more sympathetic histories. In examining her early political career, Bernard offers a convincing portrait of Anne’s relationship with Cardinal Wolsey in which he rejects Ives and Starkey’s narratives that see Anne as the key agent of Wolsey’s downfall in 1529, first organising his loss of favour and then in preventing any possibility of restoration throughout 1530. Bernard’s more compelling version of events admittedly owes much to the research of Wolsey’s modern biographer, Peter Gwyn, but Bernard goes further and analyses the surviving letters and gifts exchanged between the two throughout 1528 to paint a convincing portrait of the premier and queen-to-be enjoying an amicable, even tentatively friendly, relationship. He also credibly manages to rehabilitate a rather touching anecdote from contemporary diplomatic dispatches in which Anne is recorded as visiting the ailing Cardinal, after his dismissal, to convey her regret that his health was in such a poor state.

As with most of his assessments of Boleyn’s political involvements, however, Bernard’s critique of her relationship with Wolsey is persuasive in its origins, but not in its conclusions. In attempting to show that Henry VIII was the sole architect of Wolsey’s disgrace, the author incredibly dismisses as irrelevant even Wolsey’s own fears in 1530 about ‘the displeasure of my Lady Anne’. That Anne and Wolsey may have enjoyed a warm working relationship prior to the fiasco at Blackfriars and that she may, as Bernard convincingly suggests, have felt personal sympathy for the cardinal during his final illness, does not negate the fact that contemporaries like George Cavendish, Inigo de Mendoza, Eustace Chapuys, Jean du Bellay, Thomas Cromwell, Francis Bryan, and Wolsey himself all stated, quite unequivocally, that Anne was disappointed and angered by the Cardinal’s failure to secure an annulment of Katherine of Aragon's marriage from Rome. Bernard, who is determined to show that Anne’s political influence over the course of the “Great Matter” was, from start to finish, minimal, thus disregards the very same sources which he earlier relied upon to construct a believable dynamic between Anne and the Cardinal she is often credited with destroying.

The same problem – that of a strong start and weak finish – bedevils "Fatal Attractions’" discussion of Anne Boleyn’s religious faith. Bernard stridently rejects the position taken by David Starkey and Maria Dowling, who see Anne’s sense of Christianity as practically Lutheran. However, he also dismisses the more moderate portrait of her spirituality offered by Eric Ives and James P. Carley, who see Anne’s faith as reformist Catholicism, with a strongly evangelical flavour. In rejecting Ives’ interpretation of Anne’s faith as being progressive, personal and political, and seeing it instead as quintessentially nothing more than traditional late medieval Catholicism jazzed up with some radically chic accessories, Bernard critiques with mixed levels of success the long list of episcopal, university, and parish level appointments that Boleyn is supposed to have been responsible for and which, according to Ives and Dowling, allegedly show her to have been deliberately exerting a strong influence on the theological character of the emergent Church of England.

Professor Bernard also justifiably queries why so much attention has been paid to the theological books Anne purchased, rather than the sermons she commanded to be preached, some of which show a much more conservative theological bent than the books she so famously ordered from France and the Netherlands. By examining what Anne herself said, a technique which he unfortunately does not employ useful elsewhere in the biography, Bernard is able to persuasively argue that there was a lot more which was traditional and orthodox in Boleyn’s Christianity than the image of a proto-protestant offered in many alternative histories. He is one of the few academics to correctly assess her rejection of a gift of Lambertus’s "Farrago rerum theologicarum" from the Cambridge academic, Tristram Revell, in 1536, because it rubbished Transubstantiation and Bernard’s arguments that Anne’s own conversations and letters reveal that she believed strongly in the miracle of the Mass, the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the existence of Purgatory, and the efficacy of good deeds, pilgrimage and almsgiving, are convincing. However, his total dismissal of the Protestant hagiographies of her life, such as those written by her one-time chaplain, William Latymer, means that he produces a portrait of Anne’s spirituality which, if not exactly incorrect, is unfortunately incomplete. Anne Boleyn’s Catholicism does not necessarily mean that she was either indifferent or irrelevant to the English Reformation and it certainly does not mean that she had no interest in the emerging protestant philosophies of the late 1520s. Indeed, her rejection of Revell’s work, which Bernard wisely cites as proof of Anne’s conservatism, shows that she was quite capable of making an informed decision on what works of theology she chose to patronise; her knowledge of Lambertus’s position on Transubstantiation indicates that she was well educated in the theological debates of her era, rather than being the spiritual dilettante suggested by Bernard.

As has been mentioned the most controversial of Bernard’s argument is that Anne Boleyn was very probably guilty of the crimes for which she was executed in the early summer of 1536. Bernard dismisses the charges of incest against her and her brother, Lord Rochford, as being the least probable of the five, but concludes by saying: ‘it remains my hunch that Anne had indeed committed adultery with Norris, probably with Smeaton, possibly with Weston….’ The key problem with Bernard’s argument is that he is fighting against one of the central orthodoxies of modern Tudor historiography – namely that Anne Boleyn was innocent. That does not mean, of course, that central orthodoxies should not be challenged, particularly by gifted academics like Bernard. However, as the book progresses, it becomes more and more clear that in this case, Bernard is not so much leading a crusade as tilting against windmills.

In contrast to others’ exhaustive use of sources cited in defence of their arguments concerning Anne’s downfall, Bernard relies almost entirely on one poem written about Anne’s downfall by Lancelot de Carles, Bishop of Riez, a French diplomat stationed in London in 1536. De Carles seems to have been an eyewitness to Queen Anne's trial, but unfortunately author and subject never met. Regardless, Bernard cites the Bishop’s rather lurid descriptions of Anne selecting her lovers as being reflective of the Queen’s actual behaviour during her three-year marriage to Henry VIII. He then argues that the errors in the prosecution’s case regarding the dates and locations of the Queen’s crimes might have the result of scribal error; an argument which rather loses its power to convince when one considers that there were eighteen such alleged oversights in the indictments. He fails to engage with the question that if Anne was guilty of adultery with some of the men, then why was it necessary to add the others? He ignores entirely the evidence of other people involved in her trial, some of whom stated quite clearly that they believed Anne to be innocent. He does not mention the attempt by the King to reach a plea bargain with Anne's co-accused Henry Norris on 1st May or a similar attempt by the council with the queen on 11th May, neither of which are the actions of a government who felt it had a convincing case. And whilst finding time to draw rather snide comparisons between Anne and the Empress Josephine Bonaparte, and even Anne and the late Princess Diana, Bernard does not carry out any meaningful comparison between Anne’s case and that of Catherine Howard five years later. When allegations concerning Catherine’s misconduct surfaced at the start of November 1541, she was investigated over the course of three months, during which time she was interrogated many times and extensive searches of the possessions and residences of her family and intimates were carried out at the council’s behest. In contrast, Anne was arrested, condemned, not once interrogated and executed within eighteen days. Most revealingly of all, given a queen’s lack of privacy, an accomplice would be needed from amongst her own household to facilitate her adultery. In Catherine’s case, Lady Rochford was executed alongside her; in Anne’s, not one of her ladies-in-waiting were even asked to testify, let alone accused of aiding her. Bernard claims that those who facilitated Anne's adultery were spared because they turned King's evidence and provided the prosecution with the information they needed. However, Lady Rochford did precisely the same thing to Catherine Howard and Thomas Culpepper in 1541 and she was still sent to the block three months later. All of this suggests very strongly that what happened in 1541-1542 was a genuine government investigation into a queen who was sincerely suspected of planning adultery, while the events of 1536 correspondingly read as the swift deposition of an innocent one.

Had Professor Bernard been able to show that there was, as he contends, at the very least room for reasonable doubt concerning Anne Boleyn’s alleged adulteries then he might have revolutionised our understanding of one of the great crises of Henry VIII’s reign. As it is, the arguments offered in "Fatal Attractions" ironically reinforce the idea it sets out to dispel - that Anne Boleyn was the victim of ‘an unimaginably grotesque miscarriage of justice.’

Errors and typos bedevil most books, even one as fine as this. On three separate occasions in this work, Bernard gets the date of Anne’s execution incorrect – variably placing it to the twelfth, fifteenth, or seventeenth of May. On page 57, he inaccurately refers to Anne’s father, who was viscount Rochford from 1525 to 1529 and earl of Ormond and Wiltshire after 1529, as “Viscount Wiltshire," and on page 40 he describes the emperor, Charles V, as Katherine of Aragon’s uncle, rather than her nephew. Far more seriously, in his account of Anne’s imprisonment on page 191 he confuses Anne’s mother, the Countess of Ormond, with Anne’s estranged paternal aunt, Lady Amata Boleyn. The latter was one of four women assigned by Thomas Cromwell to watch over the Queen during her incarceration and to report on her actions at that time. It is these reports, written down by William Kingston, Constable of the Tower of London, which have formed the cornerstone of all modern analyses of Boleyn’s downfall. For Bernard to confuse Lady Boleyn with the Countess of Ormond, when earlier in the same collection of sources William Kingston specifically mentions Queen Anne’s distress at being separated from her mother, indicates that the author quite simply has not read these sources with the necessary care or understood the crucial significance of the household arrangements during Anne’s imprisonment.

George Bernard concludes his biography by reflecting that the current fascination with Anne Boleyn has turned her into something similar to a modern celebrity, a development which he finds both distasteful and perplexing. Despite this biography's subtitle, it is not clear that the author can understand that there was ever anything particularly attractive about Anne Boleyn. The Anne who emerges from "Fatal Attractions" was a vapid, self-centred idiot, either too stupid or too reckless to have exerted any kind of political or religious influence. There was nothing special or remarkable about her beyond her physical beauty, certainly nothing to justify the fascination with her during her lifetime, much less in the five centuries since. And yet, it is this very fascination which poses the ultimate question of Bernard’s Boleyn: if she really was so unremarkable, then what was all the fuss about?

The main failings in "Anne Boleyn: Fatal Attractions" are caused by Bernard’s attempts to make the facts fit his theory, rather than vice-versa, and to prove that his controversial theory concerning Anne’s downfall is worthy of the same academic consideration as those it is challenging. In order to achieve this, Bernard is forced to resort to an incomplete analysis of the available sources, something which is particularly obvious in chapters ten and twelve. However, Bernard's previous works, particularly "The King's Reformation" are magnificent works of Tudor history and much of what "Anne Boleyn: Fatal Attractions" says about the less dramatic parts of its subject’s life is worthwhile for those interested in considering afresh the milieu in which Anne Boleyn existed. It would be a shame if this biography’s most controversial aspects were deemed sufficiently improbable to negate all of its research.

[Doreen Petersen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I absolutely loved this book! Well worth checking out.

[Roman Clodia · Rating 2 out of 5]

Bernard's revisionary view of Anne Boleyn revolves around three arguments:

a) that Anne wasn't particularly religious and had little to do with the Reformation;
b) that it was Henry who withheld from a full sexual relationship with Anne for five or so years until they could be decently married;
c) that Anne really did sleep with the five men with whom she was accused of committing adultery, including her brother.

It has to be said that the evidence to support these positions is a little fragile, to say the least, so this book is primarily based in interpretation.

I don't know enough about the religious evidence to accept or fully reject the first point. But that it was Henry who refused to sleep with Anne for about five years doesn't feel convincing. Bernard suggests that Henry was so concerned about only having sex within marriage so that any children would be free from the stain of illegitimacy - but that assumes that from the moment he saw Anne, Henry knew that he wanted to marry her. His letters to Anne (from the late 1520s) as well as his previous and later behaviour with other women don't really support this. Henry, as king of England, doesn't appear to have been a man used to or even wanting to restrain any of his appetites, and on Anne's first arrival at the English court she was just another attractive girl for him to consume. Why would he then hold himself back?

The third proposition that Anne really was stupid enough to commit serial adultery in the face of the public court equally doesn't really stand up, in my view. Bernard's `evidence' here is a single poem written after the events. To believe this, we would also have to believe that Anne took her first lover, Mark Smeaton, just a month after having given birth to Elizabeth in 1533. Apart from the physical issues here, the argument relies on the idea that the marriage was already faulty: but Henry seems to have been delighted with baby Elizabeth, even though she wasn't the male heir he required. Anne was only about 26 or so at this point, and there was no indication that she wouldn't go on to have more children, including the desperately-wanted boy. So why would she, mere weeks after having given birth, sleep with Smeaton?

As for the idea that Anne committed incest with her brother and got pregnant - we're now in Philippa Gregory territory. Bernard suggests that she was so desperate for another child that she slept with her brother, and then the child was spontaneously aborted because of its `unnatural' provenance. No evidence to support this, other than the trial accusations.

So this is worth reading for its revisionary approach: Bernard is, of course, right to assert that we shouldn't take `history' as a given, that we should still interrogate the records. I simply don't find his arguments convincing, lacking, as they do, evidence for his suppositions.

This is a book with `talks back' to previous scholarship, particularly Ives (The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn: The Most Happy), and Warnicke (The Rise and Fall of Anne Boleyn: Family Politics at the Court of Henry VIII), so it's not really a book for anyone wanting to take their first steps into this period: it assumes we know the story and the literature to date.

It's also not a particularly well-written book in terms of prose style; it feels a bit jagged and rough to me, perhaps the result of lots of editing and cutting.

So this is definitely worth a read, but I'm afraid it didn't convince me at all.

[Téyo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lecture intéressante mais parfois assez lourde (normal c’est un livre d’historien). L’auteur avait envie de proposer une autre lecture de la vie d’Anne Boleyn, qui va à l’opposé de celle qui est généralement proposée. C’est parfois assez pertinent et ça permet de remettre des choses en perspective. Parfois, ça semble trop arbitraire et prétentieux. Peu importe l’analyse des preuves ou les raisonnements théoriques, on ne me fera pas croire que Anne Boleyn n’était pas amoureuse de Henry et on ne me fera pas croire qu’elle était coupable des accusations d’adultère.

[Susanna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Although Bernard based most of his work on wide historial speculations, this book is still very interesting to me. Bernard dissected Henry VIII's infatuation with Anne Boleyn, his divorce with Catherine of Aragon, England's religious upheaval from the Roman Catholic church, Anne's own religious belief, and the most importantly, the allegations of adultery that led to her execution in the Tower.

Despite the lack of evidence, all five alleged lovers were executed. Musician Mark Smeaton; Sir Henry Norris, a courtier who was head of the King's chamber; Sir Francis Weston; and Sir William Brereton, a Groom of the King's Privy Chamber; and George Boleyn, her own brother; were executed on May 17, 1536. Queen Anne was charged for adultery and executed in the Tower Green of London on May 19, 1536.

Apart from Mark Smeaton, all others denied their charges. Were they really innocent or were they hoping for King's pardon till the end? Was Thomas Crowell the real culprit in plotting Queen Anne's downfall?

Tudor England is always a mysterious and mesmerizing period. Great book for Tudor enthusiast.

[Dr G · Rating 5 out of 5]

There are, I suppose, two principal new theses GW Bernard is presenting in this work. The first is that it was Henry VIII, rather than Anne Boleyn, who was the primary mover for sexual abstinence up until their marriage. Barnard’s argument for this is based on logic rather than on evidence, and it is highly improbable that any documentary evidence is going to appear now to substantiate his thesis. Or to disprove it.
It is, however, an interesting argument which relies on a Henry whose lusts can be ruled by his logic. That is a big jump from the orthodox Henry, so my final position was to accept the possibility of the argument rather than being convinced of its truth. Certainly, the point that Henry would have been jeopardising the legitimacy of any heir conceived extra-maritally does seem significant and therefore a likely element in any logical, rather than lustful, thinking in Henry’s mind, rather than loins, at the time.
The second new thesis is that the accusations against Anne of multiple adulteries contain some truth. Bernard is pretty lonely amongst historians on this thesis. Bernard tends to be contrarian on a number of issues in his books, but he does explain every step of his reasoning, and he explains why he differs from orthodoxies when he does. He is a very fair debater. It is then up to the reader to adjudicate (although, of course, there are no opposition speakers! The opposition’s case is presented by him.)
Personally, I was inclined to accept that the reliance by historians on testimony from the Spanish ambassador to Henry’s court, Eustace Chapuys, has been unwise, given his proclivity for passing on gossip. Thus Chapuys’s judgment that Anne was innocent of the adulteries of which she was accused is relevant and interesting, but not persuasive.
Secondly, I was definitely persuaded by Bernard’s argument that it is highly unlikely that Cromwell orchestrated the whole matter, starting with arranging false accusations. Cromwell was a pragmatic strategist and it would have been extraordinarily risky for him to contrive such a story, at the great risk of incurring Henry’s fury. Bernard argues lucidly that religious differences between Anne and Cromwell do not offer a remotely plausible rationale for Cromwell to take such a path, thereby dicing with his own death.
Bernard reports Archbishop Cranmer’s amazement at the charges and his guess that Henry would not have pursued the matter to such a conclusion if there were no truth to it. However, Cranmer’s capacity for independent commentary at this time was not notable, and it seems unwise to discount any barbarity from the king. For Bernard, more important is the fact that one of the accused, Mark Smeaton, confessed and did not recant his confession, even on the scaffold.
For me, Bernard’s book’s outcome should be that historians’ near-unanimity that the charges were fabricated should now be subject to considerable qualification.
In reading GW Bernard’s work, I was struck by the degree to which I have mistakenly represented the time-line of these events in my mind. Henry married Catherine in June 1509 and she served as regent in 1513. It was not until 1525/6 (at least sixteen years after Catherine and Henry’s marriage) that Henry’s infatuation with Anne Boleyn began. There followed several years of machinations as Henry sought to have his marriage annulled, first by the pope and then by his Reformed English church. This finally occurred in 1533 (twenty-four years after the marriage to Catherine), with the coronation of Anne taking place a month later. The accusations then related to the years 1533-6 and came from rumours, the source of which was an argument between a lady of Anne’s privy chamber and her brother, not intended by the lady to be an accusation against Anne; Henry activated an enquiry in 1536. Anne was executed in 1536 and Henry married Jane Seymour in the same month; she died following childbirth in 1537. So the marriage to Catherine was of many years, while the period from Anne’s appearance to her demise, to Jane’s marriage and Jane’s death was very brief.
I find all of GW Bernard’s histories fascinating and thoroughly documented and argued. Anne Boleyn. Fatal Attractions is perhaps less successful for me than some of his others, probably because it is a refutation of two elements of the relationship between Henry and Anne, rather than a sustained thesis about broader issues. Nevertheless, I found it stimulating reading, and it has impacted on my judgments about the issues it reviews. My one, very minor quibble about the book is that, from time to time, Bernard adopts what I consider a slightly patronising approach to his reader as, for example, “If you are not an historian teaching at the University and keeping up with the books and articles written by university historians on Tudor history, you might be surprised that few of them…”
Overall, however, I consider this to be very fine history.

[Alison · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5
The first chapters give rather convincing arguments that Anne may not have been the force behind England'd reformation, Henry's divorce from Catherine of Aragon and the break with Rome BUT the last chapters undo the work of the first part of the book. Bernard says we cannot say things like "probably" "should have" and "surely" when there is no sound evidence of what is said. However this is exactly what he does in the end - and with the superb endin "it remains my own hunch that Ann had indeed committed adultery".
Besides, it really takes a man to say some of the things he did and to misunderstand so widely the functioning of a woman's body, then or now.

[Luke Nichol · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting account on Boleyn as evangelical rather than Protestant. How similar and different Boleyn was to her Catholic predecessor on the throne, Bernard brings to light the religious subtleties between the use of relics, religious ceremony and use of the bible between orthodox Catholicism and Evangelicalism, which was branded as Protestantism. Perhaps Bernard makes a convincing case and maybe we can know see Anne of Cleves and Catherine Parr as Henry's first true Protestant Queens?

[Undine · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a long-overdue breath of fresh air in Tudor studies. "Fatal Attractions" is not a conventional biography of Anne Boleyn (Bernard himself tacitly admits that the paucity of reliable information about her life makes such a project difficult, if not impossible.) Rather, it is an effort to take a new look at many of the traditional assumptions surrounding her marriage to Henry VIII and her subsequent arrest and execution.

Bernard's Anne is a more helpless figure than is generally imagined, a woman who had some share of influence but, from first to last, was entirely in the control of her king. The most controversial part of his book is undoubtedly his suggestion that she was guilty of at least some of the charges made at her trial, and--although he does not belabor the point--he indirectly casts doubt on the paternity of the future Queen Elizabeth I.

The author is forced by necessity to resort to speculation throughout the book, but his arguments are logical, intelligently and responsibly argued, and, on the whole, convincing. He rejects most of the elaborate (and often quite bizarre) theories that have sprung up in recent years about Anne (I was particularly pleased to see him debunk the ridiculous claim that her downfall was precipitated when she miscarried a deformed child.) Instead, he argues that the most obvious, most simple explanations are the ones most likely to be true.

This book is far from being the "last word" on Anne Boleyn's oft-disputed life--that "word," unfortunately, can never really be written--but it is a novel and welcome addition to the historical debate.

[Stephanie Kline · Rating 2 out of 5]

Before I say anything, I hate hate hate reading books by historians who just slam other historians' opinions and analyses, and this is exactly what I think G.W. Bernard is doing with this book. Throughout the whole book, he quotes (without naming authors) and then talks about why they're wrong. Even I, who haven't read a huge amount of Anne Boleyn biographies, recognized Eric Ives' quotes throughout this book. He frequently says "Much has been made of the fact that...." whether it relates to Anne's Protestantism and reform ideals, or the controversy of her alleged adultery... Bernard always seems to take the road less travelled, by making assertions that Anne DID in fact commit adultery, and that she WAS NOT in fact an evangelical. These assertions, by the way, are made because of his "hunch" that he is correct. While I firmly stand beside Eric Ives and believe that he is 100% the best source on Anne Boleyn's life, death, and legacy... I simply cannot support or recommend Bernard's book, which goes against everything that Ives says. One of the pieces of "evidence" that Bernard uses to allege that Anne was an adulterer, is a French poem. ...This does not seem "plausible" to me - (that seems to be one of his favorite words). I think I might just have a thing against catty and snobbish historians who consistently bash other authors' opinions. If you can relate to that feeling in any way, don't read this book.

[Joanna · Rating 3 out of 5]

A book which has excited controversy, judging by some of the reviews here. Many people have their own points of view of events, and it is interesting to read the historian's argument whether, or not, you agree with it. The argument made by Bernard is plausible, if out of synch with that of other historians. His view of the influence wielded by Anne Boleyn is one which would seem to be a more rational one, i.e., that the influence she would have had was minimal and has been overstated by historians in the past. I will go on to read other studies of Anne, in order to compare. The Eric Ives study is slightly scary (it's huge) and I may also try Retha Warnicke's book, but those are for later - I need to move on to someone else now!

[Vince · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty good. At last an author who straight ahead says that maybe just maybe she was shacking up with all sorts of guys. At the time no doubted her guilt, even the King's enemies and she desperately wanted to produce a male heir to solidify her place in court. The author conjectures that the evidence against her started to dissappear during Elizabeth's reign. Elizabeth needed her mother to be seen as above reproach so that she could rule with clear title to the throne. Fascinating read.

[HelenaBasket]

Not loving this book so far. Bernard is taking what could be extremely interesting material and extracting all the umph and emotion making it read like an overcooked Thanksgiving turkey - dry as a bone, and not tasty at all.

[Lauralee · Rating 2 out of 5]

The story of Anne Boleyn’s fall has fascinated many historians and history buffs alike. Henry risked everything for Anne Boleyn, including his break from Rome that would change the course of English history. Three years after he married Anne, he executed her. The motivations for Anne’s execution has many historians speculating that it was a political coup to bring Anne down. However, Mr. Bernard argues in this biography that Anne had indeed committed adultery and that was the reason why she was executed.

In Fatal Attractions, Anne plays a passive role. It was Henry who held off Anne Boleyn until his marriage to her seemed secured. I did not agree with this claim because evidence proves that Henry wanted Anne as his mistress rather than his wife. If Anne was not the one who held back, she would have been nothing more than a mistress. Mr. Bernard also claims that it was Henry and not Anne who broke with Rome. It was also Henry, not Anne, who brought about the downfall of Cardinal Wolsey. Lastly, it was Henry, not Anne, who treated Princess Mary harshly. Mr. Bernard argues that Anne was not a Protestant but a traditional Catholic. The reason is because before Anne’s death, Anne requested the host. She also wanted to know if she would go to heaven based on her good deeds and not on her faith alone. The theories that Mr. Bernard puts forth in his book are different but seem very convincing.

Anne Boleyn: Fatal Attractions suddenly goes downhill when Mr. Bernard claims that Anne was guilty of adultery. As Mr. Bernard refutes the conspiracy theory that many historians have written about, I couldn’t help but feel that the conspiracy theory is much stronger than his theory of Anne committing adultery. He believes that Anne is guilty because her position as Henry’s queen seemed secure. However, Anne’s position did not seem secure to me. She was very unpopular, and it looked like the king was tiring of her. There is also no evidence that Anne was guilty of adultery. Mr. Bernard’s evidence was a French poem and reading between the lines of Anne’s jailers, as well as the testimonies of Anne’s enemies, and the forced confessions from people under torture. Many of these claims have been disproven by other historians. In the end, he even admitted that there is no evidence of her adultery, and it is his gut feeling (which he states on p. 192) that tells him Anne was indeed guilty. Thus, for him to admit that it is his gut feeling that proved that Anne had committed adultery lends no credit to the theory. The fact that he accuses all of those men including her brother for having an affair with Anne is really an injustice to those men who died.

Overall, there is really nothing groundbreaking in this biography. Anne Boleyn: Fatal Attractions was interesting for about two thirds of the novel. Then, it became speculation rather than fact. The author was so carried away by his beliefs of Anne’s guilt that he did not describe her execution. The biography seemed incomplete and that the real reason he wrote this was to make Anne Boleyn fans angry. This is made clear when most of his Epilogue is spent on attacking Anne Boleyn fan websites. Anne Boleyn: Fatal Attractions is an interesting biography for those who want to see a different side of Anne Boleyn. However, for those who want a serious study on Anne Boleyn this is not the book for you. There are better works out there that give us a better understanding of Anne.

[Alexandra · Rating 2 out of 5]

I want to apologize for my comment about Eustace Chapuys ghostwriting this; he would have been more literate.

Okay - I do respect Bernard's constant refrain that there is just so much we don't know about many of the circumstances of Anne Boleyn's life. He's correct. What "facts" we have are, when investigated, born of apocryphal and mythical "accounts." I agree with him - and in fact, Susan Bordo argues the same thing when she deconstructs this history in The Creation of Anne Boleyn. And to be fair to Bernard, there are instances where I think his argument has credence - it would be ludicrous for me to sit here and assert that Historical Person I Like must be innocent Because I Like That.

What's frustrating is that even when he makes good points, he makes them so badly and with such dismissive smugness, that its difficult to give them credence. Tone aside, he spends quite a bit of time denigrating "other historians" for relying too heavily on one or two sources, then bases almost his entire argument for Anne Boleyn's guilt on the poem of a Frenchman (De Carles)!

He smugly states in his epilogue that his book is a non-conventional treatment of Anne - it's not; we've just come full circle back to the original, medieval point of "Anne was a whore and nothing more." It's tired and its lazy. In several instances I was inclined to agree with him, because I do think its a retroactive bit of wishful thinking for some people to idolize Anne as a dogged feminist reformer, but he spends almost no time deeply examining the texts and evidence that brought others in his same class of historians to the same conclusion.

He's guilty frequently of vaguely referring to "other historians" and what they say, and then using one line in one document, taken only at face value, to "prove them wrong" - but those other historians (Ives, Starkey, Weir, etc.) spent hundreds upon hundreds of pages analyzing the full context of the primary sources available to us to draw careful suppositions based on multilayered analysis - more often than not, Bernard eschews deep analysis because it might require him to concede their points, and his book is clearly predicated on being "not like other Boleyn girls" (did Bernard write this so Ms. Gregory could feel like a historian?).

I do think there are some interesting aspects of the charges made against Anne to explore, but Bernard biffs any meaningful, interesting deep dive entirely. He waffles between portraying Anne as a witless milksop with no influence (the first few chapters) or a licentious, reckless, and vapid whore, neither of which can be reconciled. He's also ludicrously prone to licking Henry Tudor's blood soaked boots, even comically implying that Henry was the one who demanded full bodily chastity until he could safely marry Anne.

Put simply, given that this book is a paltry 290-ish pages and written in the tone of a petulant young man arguing that HIS idol WASN'T THAT BAD, its difficult for Bernard to make a convincing argument against Anne Boleyn. It comes off as a beta male pick-me screed that a wanna be page boy wrote to gain favor at whatever court Henry VIII is holding in hell.

[Becca · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 / 5

I was intrigued by this book originally because, although I’d never heard of the historian who has written it, they claim that they had new evidence to explain that Anne Boleyn was indeed guilty of the crimes she was beheaded for on the 19th of May 1536.

It was going well whilst reading, the book flows well and is reasonably short. Many historians when writing about Anne, like to give a detailed description of every day of those 1000 she was Queen (and also for those days leading up to her crowning). This book is made up of short, snappy summaries within chapters focusing on one area (such as religion) with the key details noted.

It wasn’t until the end, that I clicked that the “new evidence” was in fact a hunch, which has stemmed from a French poem around Cromwell’s information sent to the French Ambassadors.

A. Hunch.

In his own words: “It remains my own hunch that Anne had indeed committed adultery with Norris, probably with Smeaton, possible with Weston, and was then the victim of the most appalling bad luck when the countess of Worcester, one of her trusted ladies, contrived in a moment of irritation with her brother to trigger the devastating chain of events that led inexorably to Anne’s downfall.”

A disappointing end to, what could have been, a well thought out book discussing Anne in a different light.

[Karen · Rating 2 out of 5]

Anyone can make something plausible if they dismiss all evidence that rebuts their claim. This was an extremely frustrating book. It started out okay and I can get on board that Anne didn't have anything to do with the break from Rome and that Henry did not orchestrate her execution. However, there were multiple times where there was evidence stating that Anne was innocent and the author goes... well they are probably lying. Then, in another situation he would say, well why would they lie? He seems to completely dismiss the possibility that some Men of court were pissed off that Anne was Queen and were plotting to bring her down. He said even though there are letters, we can't read too much into them. My favourite was... why would Smeaton confess if he was innocent? Could it be he was lying? coerced? jilted? nah, he had to have been telling the truth because why else would he say it. ummm have you never heard of false confessions, sir? then he's like, anne said she didn't do it and never wavered. Was she lying, or was she telling the truth? It's more likely she was as lying because she said it with defiance instead of piety. This guy's misogyny showed hard throughout the book. Don't bother with it.

[Kourtney · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think Bernard had some interesting theories, but I did not agree with other theories. For example, some of the evidence he relies on when postulating that Anne Boleyn had actually had committed adulteries, is a poem printed in 1545 in France, supposedly written in June of the year Anne was executed. It's just not enough evidence for me, and at the same time, he says that many other historians do not give enough evidence that Anne could not have possible have had an affair. He just doesn't convince me enough with his evidence.

[Shaina · Rating 1 out of 5]

I rarely put down a book before finishing it, and that’s especially true of Tudor history. But this book is chock full of specious sources and baseless conclusions that it felt insulting to a reader wanting to learn. I bought it expecting to read about Anne Boleyn. Halfway through, I had still had not learned anything substantial about her. I did read a lot of gossip but not so much fact.

Writing this kind of review makes me sad. Normally, I’d say kudos to a historian with a novel approach. But that’s only if the author makes a strong case for that approach.

[Katie Hopkins · Rating 3 out of 5]

A different look on the infamous Anne Boleyn. From this historian's view we question how much we really know about Henry's second queen. How big of a role did Anne actually play in Wolsey's downfall and Henry's break with Rome? Was she guilty of any of the crimes against her? This biography makes you question if the view of Anne as a formidable woman responsible for sparking the Reformation is in fact true. I enjoyed reading it but I'll say again how frustrating it is not to have concrete evidence or much of anything that has survived telling us who Anne Boleyn really was.

[Lia]

Disagree with a few points of analysis - at one point he argues that the only way to visibly tell if someone’s had sex is if they were pregnant. To that I say: hickies. He also thinks that Henry wanting Anne acknowledged by Spain late in the marriage means he wasn’t planning to get rid of her at that point. I think that Henry was an egomaniac used to getting his own way and even if he was sick of Anne, he’d still want Spain to acknowledge her as a point of principle.

[nina · Rating 4 out of 5]

soooo this book seems to be a bit controversial (valid) but I honestly really enjoyed the author’s extensive research on Anne; most importantly, he always keeps questioning his sources and their validity (we love critical thinking) and I have to say that I quite like his portrayal of Anne (it is still funny tho that his conclusion is based on his HUNCH) (but for more objective review I would have to read Ivers or Starkey sooo)

[R J Burley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very well reasoned.

Careful study,by the author, not only fills in gaps that others have bridged without so much thought, but enriches the picture of what Anne’s life and motives could have been. His conclusions are hard to resist,and give many extra human dimensions to this very old story.

[Kyra · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've read so many books about Anne Boleyn, and there has not been one that I have not loved! I love this book. It is well written and can be easily understood. Careful and intriguing study, G.W. Bernard provides a different concept to whether Anne Boleyn was as innocent as most historians say she was.

This book also provides an enriched picture of what Anne’s life and motives could have been.

[Tabitha · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting idea but not one I can agree with completely. Yes she wasn't either sinner or saint and was like everyone a human who was a bit of both but not for a moment do I agree with his reading of the evidence with regards to her affairs! Still worth a read even if you don't agree