The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn: The Most Happy

Anne Boleyn is the most notorious of England s queens, butmore famous for her death as an adulterer than for her life.Henry s second wife and mother of Elizabeth I, Anne was thefirst English queen to be publicly executed. Yet what do we know ofthe achievements and the legacy of her short reign?

In The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn, Eric Ives providesthe most detailed and convincing portrait we have of the queen. Hereveals a person of intellect with a passion for the new culture ofthe Renaissance, a woman who made her way in a man s world byforce of education and personality. She played a powerful andindependent role in the faction–ridden court of Henry VIII and theunceasing struggle for royal favour that was Tudor politics. Theconsequences can still be detected today. Indeed, Ives shows thatit was precisely because Anne was a powerful figure in her ownright that it needed a coup to bring her down. She had to bestopped even by a lie.

Preface.

List of Illustrations.

Part I: Background and Beginnings.

1. A Courtier s Daughter.

2. A European Education.

3. Debut at the English Court.

4. The Sources.

5. Passion and Courtly Love.

6. A Royal Suitor.

Part II: A Difficult Engagement.

7. A Marriage Arranged.

8. Anne Boleyn and the Fall of Wolsey.

9. Stalemate, 1529 1532.

10. The Turning–point, 1532 1533.

11. Wedding Nerves.

12. A Coronation and a Christening.

Part III: Anne the Queen.

13. A Royal Marriage.

14. Anne the Queen: Influence, Power and Wealth.

15. Anne Boleyn: Image.

16. Anne Boleyn: Art and Taste.

17. Anne Boleyn: Life at Court.

18. Anne Boleyn and the Advent of Reform.

19. Personal Religion.

Part IV: A Marriage Destroyed.

20. The Rival, 1535 1536.

21. The Coup, April May 1536.

22. The Response, January April 1536.

23. Judgment.

24. Finale.

Epilogue.

Bibliographical Abbreviations.

Eric Ives is Emeritus Professor of English History at the University of Birmingham. Ives has written widely on Tudor history, the history of law, and on the development of modern higher education. In 2001 he was awarded an OBE for services to history and the University of Birmingham.

"[Ives is] splendidly successful... Ives′s Boleyn, a portrait atall points supported by the evidence he gives, is clever,independent–minded and politically astute. Ives has gone as far asanyone can... in solving the enigma of Boleyn in a narrative atonce profoundly researched and lively." Antonia Fraser, TheSunday Times

"Eric Ives has made it unnecessary for anyone else toeven make the attempt [to write a biography of Anne Boleyn]. TheLife and Death of Anne Boleyn is a stunning portrait of themost controversial woman ever to have been queen consort ofEngland." The Independent on Sunday

"Eric Ives, a scholar utterly at home in early Tudor politics,has been writing about the Boleyns for more than two decades. Hisbook represents a triumphant culmination of all that research,presented with clarity, wit and human sympathy." DiarmaidMacCulloch, The Telegraph

"Ives has written an excellent book on Anne Boleyn. Its greatstrength is its sophisticated understanding of aristocratic women′sinvolvement in 16th–century politics, and precisely how this workedin practice. ...Ives rises effectively to the human drama of AnneBoleyn′s life and in the process illuminates both the innerworkings of the Tudor court and its relationship to the largerdramas of the Reformation and European politics." JaneStevenson, Scotland on Sunday

"The best full–length life of Anne Boleyn and a monument toinvestigative scholarship." David Starkey

"Magnificently researched. Eric Ives has written the finest,most accurate study of Anne Boleyn we are ever likely to possess.He leaves no stone unturned in his quest to discover the truth.Never has the historical Anne been so satisfyingly portrayed."John Guy

"What is most exciting about The Life and Death of AnneBoleyn is not just that it has confirmed and solidified Ives′searlier work and presented it in a more accessible format. (LikeJohn Guy, Ives has discovered that the Starkey model really doeswork and that popularisation –– ′to place among the people′ ––should not be a term of opprobrium.) Rather, it is the developmentin methodology, the indication that cultural studies and thehistory of the book have provided us with new ways to evaluateevidence, to interpret the past." The Spectator

"Eric Ives achieves the notable feat of combining magisterialhistorical authority with a gripping style, and sets the reader′smind buzzing with debate about the complex reasons behind theastounding events of Anne′s life." Times LiterarySupplement

"[Ives] delicately pieces together a believable identity ...[and] gives, too, a lucid and coherent exposition of thecircumstances that led to Anne′s death." The Guardian

"What Ives doesn′t know ... about the high politics and courtlife of Henry VIII′s England will either never be known or is notworth knowing. If there is a truth about Anne Boleyn′s rise andfall, he will tell it to us." London Review of Books

"There is no questioning the impact of Professor Eric Ives onthe historiography of Tudor England. There is a keen sense of theevidence, of diplomatic affairs, of the minutiae of the record andits context. The writing is fluent and well–paced, drawing thereader along." The Tyndale Society Journal

"This is a moving and compelling account by an author who is theabsolute master of his subject. I read it with great excitement andadmiration." Susan Brigden, Lincoln College, Oxford

"Ives demonstrates triumphantly the potential of thebiographical approach in a pre–modern setting. He evinces a deepempathy for his subject without ever becoming an apologist for her,and ... he provides a narrative which is genuinely moving. He hasalso given us a fully rounded and persuasive account ofAnne s life as a whole, and its significance forunderstanding the politics and political culture of the early Tudordecades." Reviews in History

"The best book on Anne Boleyn ever written. This is a must forall lovers of Tudor history, academics and general readers alike."Alison Weir, BBC History Magazine Books of the Year

"Eric Ives has cut through the myths and misconceptions. Theresult surpasses all previous work.When Ives describes Anneherself. he is utterly convincing." RenaissanceQuarterly