Anne Boleyn did WHAT?

Everything I have learned since watching The Other Boleyn Girl (2008)

DISCLAIMER! I DID NOT GET TO THE POINT! I AM NOW VERY BORED OF THIS TOPIC AND MAY RETURN AT A LATER DATE TO GET TO THE POINT! STILL READ THOUGH PLEASE BECAUSE IM WORTH IT!

I was not expecting to be flabbergasted when I picked this n*****x movie to accompany me while I rearranged my fabric drawers on a Friday night, but the level of drama was shocking. The stakes: enormous. The costumes: spectacular. The historical accuracy: deeply suspicious. Stirred within me were memories of the characters in historical context, from books and epic songs of my childhood. I knew that whilst the timeline and specific events of this movie weren’t very accurate, the main vibe was insane. The story raised many questions in my mind – a smoldering fire of question-shaped flames burning ever brighter on a bed of Wikipedia links. Stories within stories within artworks, portraiture, buried hordes of simple metals, ancient texts, demonstrating the breadth of time in their richness and mystery. Lifetimes click by, scroll by.

The painful stroke of reality in the other Boleyn girl (2008) is that Anne really was murdered. The movie portrayed Anne as quite silly and evil, but this cannot be true, I refuse to believe it. As of yet I havent discovered the story buried there, the details of the sisters relationship and Im not too hopeful that those facts are findable. But I know Anne was a young mother, an intelligent renaissance woman, who appears to have strong political beliefs that might be construed progressive, and she died a public death of domestic violence that her uncle voted yay for. The intersections of the situation boggle the mind. What impact did she have on the rising tide of Protestantism? Why did Henry viii exist? What even is the political and economic state of the world right now?

So here is a summary of what information I have gathered in the hopes of understanding. One great reassurance is that I am far from the first person to be interested in Anne Boleyn, or history in general, so there is lots to read out there!

The Beginnings of England

Let us quickly summarize the myriad of feet that have trampled English soil over the years. Signs of humanoid life have been dated to 800 000 – 900 000BC, when human-becomers walked and pooped and died for a good while. They became more human and did human-er things like build houses, conquer animals and place large rocks in circles. They really utilized rocks and stones for what seemed like an age.

Then bronze was born! Around 2500 BC. People figured out how to make stuff from copper, then they mixed tin into it and it became harder than the copper and that was bronze. There was a big trend of making bell-beaker-shaped vessels and being buried with them which I am claiming as the first wave of drink bottle culture and a distant but direct relative to stanley cups.

Farming and deforestation happened, people were settled in specific areas for long periods and had established societies, we just don’t know a lot about them because they didn’t appear to write anything down. We know that there was cultural integration between the people of the island and mainland Europe – they genetically and culturally influenced each other through some combination of trade and migration until the islanders were solidly Celtic. Of course, Celtic is an umbrella term under which many groups over time and space existed. Some of them on the island were called Britons, who’s name resonates today.

The breadth of this section of history impresses itself upon me, seems so mysterious and fantastical. I am in awe of the richness of what artefacts we have from them and what they tell us. Metalwork is gorgeous and now I really want a torc.

We mostly get accounts of celtic people from greco-roman sources who are propagandizing: those sweet little lambs are just begging to be conquered and to be civilized! They loved it soooo much and became better people who did roman shit now! heart emoji

Julius Caesar invaded Britain in 55-54BC, and the empire functioned there until around 400AD. They introduced their urban planning, architecture, and general culture. They tried but never quite managed to take over the whole north and west areas, leaving Celtic peoples to end up retaining their Gaelic, Scot-ish, Pictish type vibes. The people in Roman-Britain were forever changed, and when the economy and government of the Roman empire started to fade away the Roman-Brits were under threat of being intruded upon by those tribes again.

Enter Anglo-Saxons

The Angles and the Saxons were two flavors of Germanic peoples that came over to eventually conquer and rule the island. After Roman control floundered, there was a very unclear and confusing era of fighting between British warlords, Celtic tribes from the edges, and Germanic peoples over who could have all that nice land and coins and worker bee peasants.

Legend has it that Saxons were invited over from ole’ Saxony (North Germany) to help Britons protect themselves from Scots and Picts. Suuuuure they were. They were invited so hard that they got invited to rule the whole place. To over-simplify, there were six main Anglo-Saxon kingdoms fluctuating in their control and geography. Kent, Essex, Sussex, Northumbria, East Anglia, and Mercia.

Although there had been Christianity around with the Romans, the Anglo-Saxons were pagan and stayed that way for a long time. I believe they toyed with conversion throughout the kings but then towards the 8th and 9th century, they were getting attacked again by more Vikings. The Vikings were most successfully fought off by the Kingdom of Wessex, and in 927 Aethelstan i became the first king of a unified England and the heptarchy was dead.

This did not last very long because then the Vikings succeeded in overtaking the whole new England thing and the next few kings were Danish. These kings did mingle with the nobility of nearby European kingdoms, notably those on the other side of the pond such as Normandy.

Enter Normans

The kingdom of Normandy existed in an area within modern day France, close to the coast facing England. It was settled by Danes in the 800s after they raided the shit out of pre-french french areas and a treaty was signed saying sure, you can have that land up there but you have to convert to Christianity and play nice with us pre-french frenchies.

So Normandy was Christian, with kings descending from Danish Vikings who grew ever more french-ish as they traded female family members around and did rich-person stuff with their pre-french french neighbors. Down the track a little bit, Richard II Duke of Normandy sends his sister, Emma, over to marry Aethelred, a king of England. These two have two sons, who later return to Normandy when things in England get a bit more Danish and anti-Norman and daddy Aethelred loses the throne. The important thing here is that this line of Norman rulers now runs white with the SEMEN OF ENGLAND!!!

In 1066, the last Anglo-Saxon king dies childless. William the Conqueror was the child of one of those children of Aethelred, and he sets off to claim the English throne. After the Battle of Hastings and some other complicated stuff with multiple players involved, William emerges victorious. Lucky for him or his mother would have been a bit embarrassed after naming him that. We shall now call him William I.

William I now rules England and Normandy! Now everyone is definitely Christian, super fancy and pre-french frenchish. And all very related to each other.

The Line Continues, Crossed and Re-Crossed

People say William I was the start of an era. The first modern king! Whatever that means… I do NOT have time to google it. If I may generously lend myself to clumsy and poorly researched Christian themes, you could say he was like Adam – the first of something and also one of his sons murdered his other son. OR DID HE??? Two of his sons actually died in “hunting accidents” in the same forest, only the second son was king at the time and it is fun to imagine the third son may have orchestrated it and passed it off successfully. Third Son reigned until his own natural death.

Luckily, there’s always many relatives who might want the throne in unclear situations, because woman-swapping and childbearing was a tool for wealthy ruling families going back into the Bronze age. Not only did this create the potential for the family to inherit more wealth in the future, it was a strategy to avoid conflict between military powers. We are family, united in future generations and sharing our power, surely you don’t want to attack me.

Between 1066 and ~1455, things continued on like this. Williams dynastic house was the House of Plantagenet. From 1455, things got a bit disputed again and there broke out a civil war between two sub-houses, Lancaster and York. These were basically cousin groups who had comparative claims to the throne based on second-son-descendent-ness.

Lots of nastiness happened during the War of the Roses, there was some quick-fire king swapping, and a little bit of child murdering took place. Eventually, Henry Tudor defeated Richard III on the battlefield and became King Henry VII, first king in the Tudor line.

We Are Finally in the Tudor Period

Henry VII set about stabilizing his kingdom. He took Elizabeth of York as his wife, who was the daughter of the last solidly-established York king, in order to smooth things over. They promptly had 2 sons, Arthur and Henry.

Spain was apparently a big deal at the time, and England wanted to get some Hapsburg genetics into themselves quick smart. The Spanish Princess Katharine of Aragon was betrothed at the age of three to the child prince Arthur, and when they were both 15 she came to Enland for them to be married.

Five months later Arthur dies of the Sweating Sickness (a mysterious disease of the era). This means brother Henry is now lined up to succeed.

Henry III - A True Fancy Pants

Henry in his youth is described as a very well-liked, well-rounded guy who was good at stuff, smart, and charming, all of that. He did well in school and sports, jousting and hunting, and was generally very modern. One modern idea of his was to court, fuck and marry in the name of romantic love. Both his and Katharine’s parents were keen on them being married to keep hold of the political benefits, but Henry wasn’t into it and rejected the idea when he was 14. Katharine hung around in England in the hopes he’d change his mind.

Meanwhile, the parents petitioned the pope to annul the marriage between Arthur and Katharine on the grounds that they never consummated it, and thus Henry and Katharine were free to do whatever. In April 1509, when Henry was 17, his father died and he succeeded to the throne. He suddenly decided that yes, fine, he should marry Katharine. They had a chill lowkey wedding in June, and had a joint coronation later that month. Huzzah! Time to get fornicating.

Katharine was honestly was pretty good at getting pregnant. In no particular order, she had a healthy daughter, a son who died in infancy, and 5 miscarriages and stillborns. Great effort but in Henry’s eyes this was not good enough!

TO BE CONTINUED!!!

With great apologies I admit I went WAY too far back in history to begin this story and I am now thoroughly over this essay and it is already far too long. Perhaps I will revisit the topic of Tudor politics later.