The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn: The Most Happy [Hardcover]

Professor E.W. Ives, the author, is an acknowledged expert in Tudor history - specialising on the Boleyns. His 1986 biography, "Anne Boleyn," became the standard work on Anne's life - and deservedly so. It provoked two historical responses - George Bernard's "The Fall of Anne Boleyn" (which was quickly discounted) and Professor Warnicke's controversial "The Rise and Fall of Anne Boleyn" - which challenged much of what Ives had said.

The new book is an updated version of the 1986 copy, with extra chapters elaborating on Anne's role at Court and incorporating all the new research on Anne Boleyn's life and times. Ives writes well and the book (although long) is witty, insightful and extremely well-researched.

While I don't agree with everything Ives says in this book - I tend to believe she was born around 1507, not 1501 as Ives suggests and I think his famous version of her fall from the throne is a little too "neat" - it's clear that this book is the best currently in print about Anne Boleyn's life and death.

Ives convincingly shows that Anne was one of the most important women ever to sit on the throne of England and that she was far from the wicked-witch of legend. His greatest achievement is his complex exploration of her religious views.

In the end this book got 5* because of Ives' research, writing style and well-argued case. No-one who is interested in any of the Boleyn children or the era of Henry VIII should miss this book. Carlsberg-style, it is, probably, the best biography of Anne Boleyn in the world.

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.