Anne Boleyn: From Queen to History

The Lady in The Tower by Alison Weir
The imprisonment and execution of Queen Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII’s second wife, in May 1536 was unprecedented in the annals of English history. It was sensational in its day, and has exerted endless fascination over the minds of historians, novelists, dramatists, poets, artists and film-makers ever since. Anne was imprisoned in the Tower of London on 2 May 1536, and tried and found guilty of high treason on 15 May. Her supposed crimes included adultery with five men, one her own brother, and plotting the King’s death. She was executed on 19 May 1536. Mystery surrounds the circumstances leading up to her arrest. Was it Henry VIII who, estranged from Anne, instructed Master Secretary Thomas Cromwell to fabricate evidence to get rid of her so that he could marry Jane Seymour? Or did Cromwell, for reasons of his own, construct a case against Anne and her faction, and then present compelling evidence before the King? Following the coronation of her daughter Elizabeth I as queen, Anne was venerated as a martyr and heroine of the English Reformation. Over the centuries, Anne has inspired many artistic and cultural works and, as a result, has remained ever-present in England’s popular memory. In her impressive new book, Alison Weir has woven a detailed and intricate portrait of the last days of one of the most influential and important figures in English history.

This book has a VERY special meaning to me as I bought this book from the gift shop at Hampton Court. Anne Boleyn, the amazing, incredible, life changing Anne Boleyn spent some of her royal life at Hampton Court. She graced those long decorative hallways with her spirit and elegance, holding her head up high and proud as Queen of England. It was also within these walls that she allegedly held some of her affairs (I say allegedly because most of the dates are so inaccurate and have been disproven!)

The Lady in the Tower focuses on the fall of Anne Boleyn. This is an area in which I am extremely passionate and have read a great deal about. Not that I’m not passionate about all of Anne’s life, but the final six months would have to be my area of special interest. So to buy this incredible book from Hampton Court just added that special meaning for me. To hold the book as I strolled through the halls of the Palace, perhaps even where Anne walked, sat, witnessing the views (similar) to what she saw. Absolutely awe inspiring.

As always Weir commands the use of English literate to not just give the facts, but to weave and portray an emotional, gut wrenching story of the tragic downfall of Anne. There are a lot of reasons as to why Anne fell; many simply related to the woman that she was.  And what I love about Weir is that she does not try and portray Anne as a holy, saintly, completely innocent woman. Anne was a proud, vivacious, spirited woman with a temper, there is certainly no denying that! She was cruel and she was kind. She was who she was and for seven years that captivated Henry VIII… until they got married. Upon marriage Anne was expected to fall into the submissive role that Katherine of Aragon played – unfortunately that is just not who Anne Boleyn was and ultimately she payed the price for that. Her refusal to submit to Henry, her outspokenness, her temper, her ultimate inability to provide England with a male heir all worked together to bring about her downfall.

But there were others involved; Cromwell for a start was a huge player in Anne’s ultimate fall and execution. She argued and fought with Cromwell over a huge range of issues, especially the distribution of the wealth from the fall of the monasteries. Anne wanted it to go to the poor, to the furtherment of the reformation, to the universities and charities – Cromwell wanted it to go to the King and his treasuries. There were those about court, The Duke of Suffolk, the Duke of Norfolk and many others who all saw Anne as a threat to themselves, as to loud, to overreaching of the role of a woman and Queen and they quickly joined the Anti Boleyn faction. Anne was a woman of spirit, she liked to laugh, to flirt, to play and those against her used all of this in evidence to bring her down.

What I love about this book is the emotion weaved into every page. I read this book on the flight home from London. Once I picked it up I simply could not stop, there is no way you can put this book down so I suggest you read it when you have a long stretch of time free! I cried throughout this book, but I especially wept at the last moments of Anne’s life. These intricately researched, beautifully written details were written with such weight full emotion that I felt as though my heart was being squeezed. I sat in my seat on the plane crying, weeping, tissues crushed in one hand as I tried not to let my tears hit the pages. I failed and my tears stain the many pages of this wonderful book.

There was one paragraph in the book that really stood out to me; made me shutter and gasp in shock….

In 1905, a French doctor observed that a decapitated criminal’s eyelids and lips worked for five seconds before the face relaxed and the eyes rolled back, at which point he called out the man’s name, only to see the eyes fixing themselves on him and the pupils focusing before the lids fell and the pupils glazed over. The whole process had taken twenty-five to thirty seconds. In 1989, the face of a man decapitated in a car accident registered shock, then terror, then grief, as the living eyes looked directly at the witness before dimming. In 1956, two French doctors concluded: ‘Death is not instantaneous: every element survives decapitation. It is a savage vivisection.’ In 1983, another medical study found that ‘no matter how efficient the method of execution, at least two to three seconds of intense pain cannot be avoided’. However, once the spine is severed, the perception of pain recedes. Some victims have not responded at all to stimuli, so it must therefore be concluded that they were knocked unconscious by the impact of the blow, or fainted due to the dramatic loss in blood pressure, and felt virtually nothing, while others – including perhaps Anne Boleyn – did experience a few dreadful moments of awareness of what was happening.

When reading this I had to stop. It was the middle of the night, sitting in a plane and I cried, I wept and wept and wept. I pray to God above upon everything that is good in this world that Anne did not feel any pain. That her final moments were quick and painless and she knew nothing but happy memories.

This book inspired me to write my own piece about Anne Boleyn and her final days. It was such a huge source of inspiration and I have credited it heavily in my own writing. This book gave me the strength and the courage and the pure desire to write about Anne’s final nineteen days about this earth. And thanks to this book I have my own piece of writing (all 45 pages and 22 000 words!!) to treasure as my own.

I still use this book as my constant resource. I purposely bought the hardcover version as I knew I would be referring back to it many, many times and I was right. Everything I read about Anne now I refer back to this book. Every tiny detail, to the clothing she was wearing on certain dates, to the path she walked from the Queen’s lodgings to the scaffold, to her final prayer. This book is one of the best, well in my opinion, the BEST resource for Anne Boleyn’s downfall. I re read small sections of it regularly and find myself staring at the images contained within the pages often.

The Lady in the Tower is my absolute favourite book in the entire world. It takes pride and joy on my Tudor bookshelf (which is now getting so crowded that I’m going to have to make another one!) I love it to pieces and I would recommend that anyone who can get a copy of it give it a read. It is beautifully written, just as all of Alison Weir’s books are. It is captivating and within the pages are woven such extreme emotions that I would challenge anyone not to feel heartache and pain for Anne Boleyn as they read. I would boldly say this is the most comprehensive, detailed and emotionally written book detailing the fall and execution of Anne Boleyn.

The Tudor Chronicles 1485 – 1603: By Susan Doran
The Tudor period (1485 to 1603) marks in the minds of many the emergence of an English national identity. Defined by the totemic figure of the virgin queen - Elizabeth I - it witnessed the end of the dynastic uncertainties of the Wars of the Roses, the creation and triumph of the Anglican Church; the successful repulsion of foreign invaders and the beginnings of the adventure of empire; the blossoming of a sublimely gifted generation of musical composers, including Thomas Tallis and William Byrd; and the flowering of English poetry and drama, culminating in the glories of Ben Jonson, Christopher Marlowe and William Shakespeare. But it was also a period wracked by rebellion, invasion scares, sectarian strife, and - increasingly - by worries about dynastic succession."The Tudor Chronicles" is a compelling, year-by-year chronology of this tumultuous and critical period in the development of the modern English nation. Each year is covered by a concise, informative and accessible narrative, amplified by extensive quotations from contemporary sources and accompanied by generously captioned and stunning images of the period - including portraits, maps, illuminations, royal seals, tapestries and other artefacts. Authoritative, informative and sumptuous, and compiled by a scholar who is steeped in knowledge of the period, "The Tudor Chronicles" brings a glorious era of English history dramatically and vividly to life. It is the perfect gift book for anyone with a love of, or fascination for, 16th-century English history.

This is a book I would most certainly recommend to anyone who has an interest in the Tudor period of English history. This book is defiantly a keeper and a brilliant reference for Tudor history. Within these pages Susan Doran basically covers the reigns of Henry VII, Henry VIII, Edward  VI, Mary I and Elizabeth 1 – the Tudor period from 1485 – 1603. (She very briefly touches on Lady Jane Grey).

The downside of this book is that trying to cover a one hundred and eighteen year period makes it difficult to include a lot of detail – and detail is what this book lacks. While the book outlines a basic skeleton of each year of these amazing Tudor monarchs it is unable to go into any great detail about the events that transpired each passing year. Doran gives us a framework in which, as a Tudor fan, I am encouraged to go out and research more about the happenings she briefly mentions. I think it is a wonderful platform to step up from, to start learning about the Tudor period. I would defiantly recommend this book to anyone just learning about the Tudor reign as there are so many interesting moments and people and you can use this information to go out and learn more.

What I find absolutely captivating about this book is not so much the textual content but the incredible imagery. This book is filled, from the front cover right through to the back cover, with the most amazing, beautiful and interesting portraits, images, paintings, images of coins, medallions, artefacts, clothing etc. etc. right throughout 1485 – 1603. The images within these pages are what make this book a must have piece on anyone’s bookshelf! Every single page contains an image, portrait, painting, piece of literature taken directly from the Tudor period. Some of these images, portraits, paintings, medallions etc. are over five hundred years old and utterly breathtaking! The images are large and perfectly printed giving so much intricate detail that I found myself pausing and staring at a portrait or manuscript for long periods of time! Nearly all of the people that Susan Doran mentioned within the book have portraits and they are included so that as you read you can see just who the people were as well as reading a little about them.

Doran doesn’t just include English references, she includes portraits from people all over Europe – Kings, Queens, Religious members, manuscripts, books – stunning images from all sorts of people who played a role in the period of the Tudors.

I utterly LOVED this book, and although the text is not very detailed, the extraordinary amount of images, portraits, manuscripts, letters etc. etc. included within the pages more than makes up for the lack of detail. I would most certainly recommend this book to anyone who has an interest in the Tudor period. It is a great resource and more so that it gives you a complete and extensive collection of imagery during the Tudor period. It is a rather expensive book (actually very expensive!) but if you can buy it I would most certainly recommend you do, it’s a brilliant resource for any Tudor fan!

Anne Boleyn. God above I would love to learn everything that ever existed, would ever exist and has ever existed about Anne Boleyn. I would love to be like Starkey or Ives or Weir or Ridgway – to know Anne Boleyn in such depth that she is such a part of me like the blood that flows through my veins. I would like to know about Anne Boleyn so that every beat of my heart reflects that knowledge can share and teach and live that knowledge.

I admit I love Anne Boleyn (gee really?! What a shock!) She is for me my idol, my hero, the woman I respect, admire, adore and look up to. She was everything in a woman that I believe in. She was flawed, had her faults, her selfishness’s and yet all of that only makes her real, makes her a woman who was not a holy perfect figure, but a woman you can understand and admire, a woman you can learn from. 

I have read quite a bit about Anne, I have lots of books and read many articles but I want to go in more depth. I want to study her, to delve as deep as possible into her life, to learn every aspect. I would love to read the primary sources of information about her, letters and documents that are hundreds upon hundreds of years old. I would like to stay at the places she stayed at, spend days, weeks there learning about her, studying her, absorbing and soaking up everything that Anne would have known. I want to spend hours staring at her portraits, at the tiny trinkets that were related to her or may have existed in her lifetime. I want to know everything, to learn everything. I want to have such a strong knowledge of Anne that I can relate with such ease about the woman she was and what she did in her life. I just… I want to learn so much more.

Anne Boleyn – she is one of my greatest passions.

Claire Ridgway who runs The Anne Boleyn Files wrote the most BRILLIANT article entitled Anne Boleyn Portraits – Which is the True Face of Anne Boleyn? I would recommend anyone that is interested in Anne Boleyn please read this article as it is absolutely incredible. Claire knows her facts when it comes to Anne and she has laid out a very interesting and well researched article to present her thoughts on what Anne Boleyn really looked like.

No one can say for sure what Anne Boleyn looks like – After the death of Anne, Henry VIII went a little wild and had all and every memory of his second wife erased. Her crests, clothes, belongings and probably even her portraits were given away, melted down, removed or destroyed. In typical Henry fashion he did not want any memory of such a horrible time in his life. I can only imagine that it was because of this and many centuries of time that there is great confusion over the authenticity of the surviving images of Anne Boleyn.

There are sketches and portraits of Anne Boleyn, but it seems that many historians are not in agreement over which portraits and sketches are actually Anne Boleyn. In her article Claire Ridgway identifies several images of Anne and with incredible research identifies which images she believes are actually Anne Boleyn. Reading this article I have to agree whole heartedly with Claire, the images that she pointed out which are the most like Anne, I completely agree with.



Sketch by Hans Holbein the younger

I do not believe that the famous Holbein sketch is Anne Boleyn. In this image the woman has a double chin and is wearing very simple garments. In his book The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn, Eric Ives writes that Francesco Sanuto, a Venetian diplomat described Anne as ‘not one of the handsomest women in the world; she is of middling stature, swarthy complexion, long neck, wide mouth, a bosom not much raised and eyes which are black and beautiful’ (Ives 2005, p. 40). This description seems to paint the image of a simple yet quite beautiful woman with strikingly dark eyes – nothing is mentioned of a double chin or rounded face. But beyond this Anne was a proud woman who took great pride in her appearance and more importantly the way other people saw her. I could not imagine Anne willingly sitting for a sketch where she was wearing a plain cap and what looks like some sort of night gown! One look at that sketch and Anne would probably have shrieked and ordered it to be ripped up! The Anne Boleyn seemed to be very conscious about her appearance and how others saw her, as Ives states ‘Anne Boleyn had style, and continental style at that’ (Ives 2005, p. 45), for a woman whom had elegance, sophistication and style I cannot imagine she would let such an image be drawn of her!



Mary Boleyn and the Horenbolte (Horenboute) miniature of an Unknown Woman c1526/1527

I also do not think the Lucas Horenbolte (Horenboute) miniature of an Unknown Woman c1526/1527 is Anne either. In her book The Lady in the Tower, Alison Weir describes Anne as being ‘slender and dark’ (Weir 2009, p. 16) where as he woman in this picture has a much rounder face and appears to have more pale skin than Anne Boleyn’s ‘swarthy complexion’ (Ives 2005, p. 40). I agree with Claire that this image could in fact be Mary Boleyn.

Comparing the two images we can see that both women have a slight double chin, thin raised eyebrows, dark eyes, a high forehead and a slightly rounder face. Could the Horenbolte miniature actually be Mary Boleyn? It was painted around the time of Mary’s affair with Henry VIII ended.




The faces of Anne Boleyn. Image created by Claire Ridgway at The Anne Boleyn Files

I agree with Claire that the portrait of Anne Boleyn at the National Portrait Gallery in London, the image of the woman on Elizabeth I’s locket, the Hoskins miniature, the portrait of Anne at Hever Castle and the medallion showing an image of a woman are all very similar in appearance. They all show a woman with a long oval face, strong nose, thin lips, dark hair and dark eyes. The woman in each of the images is very similar in features, as though they are all showing the validity of each other.

Claire also recently wrote an article saying that the National Portrait Gallery in London has removed the famous portrait of Anne Boleyn perform some conservation work on it and to study the portrait. Claire informs us that the people researching the portrait have discovered that it was painted in the late 16th century, perhaps not long after Anne Boleyn’s death. Therefore it could be proposed that this image of Anne was painted by someone who had seen Anne Boleyn or even possibly by someone that knew her – thus suggesting that it could be a very good likeness of the Queen.



Elizabeth I by Marcus Gheeraerts, the Younger and Anne Boleyn

Claire did not touch on this, but I would also like to propose that the NPG portrait of Anne is the true face of Anne Boleyn because the woman in the portrait looks very similar to Elizabeth I. If we are to believe the medallion created most likely to celebrate Anne Boleyn’s pregnancy in the Autumn of 1534 is an image of Anne Boleyn, then we can see that the woman’s face on the medallion is ‘long and oval with high cheek-bones, much the sort of face that her daughter Elizabeth was to have according to some painters’ (Ives 2005, p. 42).

Ives writes that Elizabeth I looked a lot like her mother, stating that she had ‘her father’s complexion but her mother’s face’ (Ives 2005, p. 365). Weir 1991 writes that the portraits of Anne Boleyn show  her as ‘a dark-haired woman with a thin face, high cheekbones and a pointed chin – facial characteristics all inherited by her daughter, Elizabeth I, who resembled her in everything but colouring’ (Weir 1991, p. 152). Weir also states that when Elizabeth I was born she had ‘Tudor red hair and her mother’s features’ (Weir 1991, p. 258). It would seem that history has recorded Elizabeth has having the pale facial complexion and red hair of her father, but the facial features of her mother Anne. Therefore I would propose that the similarities between the Marcus Gheeraerts, the Younger portrait of Elizabeth and the NPG portrait of Anne Boleyn would help to argue what the real face of Anne Boleyn was – the image shown in the NPG of London.




For me the real face of Anne Boleyn is that portrait hanging in the National Portrait Gallery in London. I have had the pleasure and honour of standing directly in front of that portrait and although Anne Boleyn may have been dead for 473 years I could feel her presence as I stared at that image. I believe that is enough evidence to strongly suggest that the portrait in the NPG was based on either a true image of Anne or painted from someone’s memory of Anne. Descriptions recorded by those at court who saw Anne and knew her support the likeness of the woman in the NPG portrait as does the image in the ring that Elizabeth I wore. For me this portrait is the true face of Anne Boleyn.

Whatever people may believe I will always think it is very interesting to study the many faces of Anne Boleyn. I suppose no one will ever know what Anne Boleyn really looked like – unless of course a new image or piece of evidence appears! But until that day people will always speculate and hypothesis what Anne Boleyn looks like, giving more weight to the mystery and legend that is Anne Boleyn.




Ives, E 2005, The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn, Blackwell Publishing Ltd, Australia.

Ridgway, C 2010, The Anne Boleyn Files, viewed 5 September 2010, .

Weir, A 1991, The Six Wives of Henry VIII, Grove Press, New York.

Weir, A 2009, The lady in The Tower The Fall of Anne Boleyn, Jonathan Cape, London.

The Children of Henry VIII by Alison Weir
At his death in 1547, King Henry VIII left four heirs to the English throne: his only son, the nine-year-old Prince Edward; the Lady Mary, the adult daughter of his first wife, Katherine of Aragon; the Lady Elizabeth, the teenage daughter of his second wife, Anne Boleyn; and his young great-niece, the Lady Jane Grey. In this riveting account, Alison Weir paints a unique portrait of these extraordinary rulers, examining their intricate relationships to one another and to history. She traces the tumult that followed Henry’s death, from the brief intrigue-filled reins of the boy-king Edward VI and the fragile Lady Jane Grey, to the savagery of “Bloody Mary,” and finally the accession of the politically adroit Elizabeth I. As always, Weir offers a fresh perspective on a period that has spawned many of the most enduring myths in English history, combining the best of the historian’s and the biographer’s art. 

Thoroughly loved this book! It took me a while to read this book as about half way through Ellie fell and shattered her arm, needing surgery and a cast and lots of recovery. I stalled at this time but after she was doing better managed to get back into it.

Weir writes about the events that took place after Henry VIII’s death with the announcement that his son Edward VI would become future King. We are given insight into the lives of Edward and his reign, Mary and her tragic and yet stubborn life and the events that befell Elizabeth.

First we find out the tragic events that befall Catherine Parr with her ill fated marriage to Thomas Seymour and how he was nothing but unfaith to her. Weir delves into the flirting and torment that poor Elizabeth had to endure not only by Lord Seymour but also by Catherine Parr – which quite frankly disturbed me! Thomas and Catherine holding poor Elizabeth on her bed and cutting at her night dress should not be alright by the woman whom was supposed to help raise the young Princess! I am interested as to what ever happened to young Mary Seymour, daughter born to Catherine by Thomas – she seems to go into the care of Catherine Willoughby after her mother dies and her father is executed for treason. But at around age two she just seems to drop off of all records. It is presumed that she died and I am thinking that is probably what happened as records of young girls were often not bothered to be kept.

I was interested to read about Edward and his short ‘reign’, if you really want to call it that as the council, including Thomas and Edward Seymour reigned on his behalf. It seems like the poor boy was nothing more than a pawn and Edward let his nephew believe he was making just and good laws, but really Seymour was doing whatever he wanted to further the protestant movement and further his own wealth and causes.

During this time Mary Tudor was frightened for her life and at one point Charles V of Spain sent ships to come and rescue her, but Mary chickened out and decided to stay in England. This makes no sense to me, she wrote to Charles V utterly terrified for her life, begging to be rescued from England – she wrote MANY times, and yet when she finally had the chance to escape, safely and secretly she stayed? I found Mary all talk and such little action most of the time, it was frustrating to read as at points I just wanted to slap her!

I thoroughly enjoyed reading about Lady Jane Gray – my heart bled for this poor girl. She was literally thrust upon the thrown by her ambitious father and those that wanted the continue of the Protestant movement. She wanted no part of the thrown and did not believe God wanted her to take the crown – she truly believed that Mary Tudor was the next true and just Queen. And yet, even in tears and begging not to she was forced upon the thrown. I will give her credit that she tried to do her best during her short reign – what a sad end. In the end the only reason she was executed was because of her father staging another uprising in her name. Mary Tudor would have kept Jane safe and was even thinking of pardoning her when Jane’s father tried to rebel again. In all fact he signed his daughter’s death warrant and what breaks my heart is right until the end Jane felt no ill will towards her father. For a girl of only sixteen she was incredibly brave making her way to the block and facing her death boldly. Such a tragic end.

I was surprised to read that after Edward died Mary was welcomed to the thrown with open arms by the English people. I think they had grown tired of Edward Seymour and his ambitions and were glad to see him executed – I also think they had grown tired of the money hungry Dudley and the ruin he was bringing upon England. How funny that the same people whom welcomed Mary as their new Queen would, only a short time later be cursing her name openly.

I admit that I think very little of Mary Tudor. I think she is a horrible, cruel, nasty, weak woman who was utterly obsessed with her religion – so much so that she cared nothing for the common people. Yes her life was tragic and I would never wish for her to have endured all the heartbreak and pain that she did. To have her mother cast aside, never to see her again, disowned by her father the King, declared illegitimate, to be threatened with death if she did not agree to her father’s new church, to be cast aside and cared nothing for – what a horrible life. One can understand why she treasured and valued her religion so greatly; after all it was the only thing she could hold onto during such times of fear and heartbreak. But in the end I believe that clinging to her religion, that belief which shut out everything else is what destroyed her.

At first she was a kind Queen, treating her people well but as soon as she started sweeping away the Protestant faith and declaring that the Catholic faith be the only true and accepted religion in England her reign started to falter. She mercilessly burned innocent women, children and men all because of her faith. Because she held so steadfast to it that she would not accept any other religion. Even Edward her brother let Mary be a practicing Catholic – although it was not easy between brother and sister, he allowed her to do so (which some coaching from Charles V of course!) I just shudder at the massacre that Mary brought not only to her people but to her reign as Queen.

One cannot blame her for the famines and poor weather that lasted for three years during her reign, creating a famine and disease that ripped through the people of England. That was not her fault, it was no one’s fault but it certainly did not help her either. Nor did her marriage to Philip of Spain – the English people were against it and yet she went ahead to form an alliance with Spain and bring England back into the fold of the Catholic Church. Funny how this went utterly wrong in the end and Phillip wanted nothing to do with his old and aging wife and spend most of their marriage overseas and away from her. He used Mary time and time again, telling her that he would not return home unless she proclaimed him King and gave him equal rights. Oh to have kicked that bastard to the curb!

Not to mention Mary’s utter obsession with carrying a child. Yes it was her duty as Queen to provide England with an heir – but to think you were pregnant for ELEVEN months… now that is obsession! She was thirty seven years of age, the chances of her even having a child were remote (especially when your husband is overseas and rarely sharing your bed), but to fool yourself for so long – it’s actually really, really sad! It obviously broke Mary’s heart when she realised that she wasn’t pregnant. But not so much that a short while later she thought she was pregnant again and AGAIN believed she was still with child long after her bloated belly had gone down and the nine months had passed. So very sad.

Poor Mary really did get the bad luck – there seems to be so little happiness in such a life filled with sadness, loneliness and tragedy. 

Again it is no wonder that when Mary was on her deathbed and proclaimed Elizabeth, the sister she utterly despised and hated, as her successor – the people were overjoyed. People wanted an end to the Catholic faith and the massacre that went along with it. They wanted hope and joy and prosperity back in the Kingdom and Elizabeth was the very picture of all of that.

Weir does not go into Elizabeth’s reign, but I would imagine that would be because she has written a separate book entitled ‘The Life of Elizabeth I’ – which I’m sure talks in greater detail about Elizabeth’s younger years and then her proclamation as Queen of England and her rule which was dubbed The Golden Age.

I utterly loved this book – but then I love anything Alison Weir writes, she is just a brilliant historical author and she manages to capture the Tudor period with such vigour and interest. It was so interesting to read an overview of the years following Henry’s death and to get a better look at the short reigns of Edward VI, Jane Gray and Mary Tudor and also the teenage years of Elizabeth I. I would defiantly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in learning more about Henry VIII children. It’s an easy and interesting read and Weir provides a great depth if information and such emotion.

It is sad that these four children, three descends from Henry VII, one from his sister Mary Tudor had to lead such tragic and sad lives. So little happiness granted to four of the most important people of English history.

Also I would like to thank Mary for buying and sending me this brilliant book. She knows of my love of Alison Weir and sent me this stunning book to feed that love. Thank you sweetheart!