William pushed me unceremoniously into one of the alcoves of the wall and thrust his way through the people who were gathering around to see Anne’s body wrapped in linen and laid in a box. He scooped Catherine up as if she were no more than a baby and he brought her back through the chattering shocked crowd toward me.
“It’s done,” he said tersely to us both. “Now walk.”
Like a man in a rage he forced us before him, through the gate and out into the City. Blindly, we found our way back to our lodgings, through the crowds which were seething around the Tower and shouting the news to one another that the whore had been beheaded, that the poor lady had been martyred, that the wife had been sacrificed, all the different versions that Anne had carried in one ill-lived life.
Catherine stumbled as her legs gave way and William picked her up and carried her in his arms like a swaddled infant. I saw her head loll against his shoulder and realized that she was half asleep. She had stayed awake for days with my sister as they had waited for the clemency which had been inviolably promised. Even now as I stumbled on the cobbles of the road into the City I realized that it was hard for me to know that the clemency had never come and that the man I had loved as the most golden prince in Christendom had turned into a monster who had broken his word and executed his wife because he could not bear the thought of her living without him and despising him. He had taken George, my beloved George, from me. And he had taken my other self: Anne.
Catherine slept for all that day and all that night, and when she awoke, William had the horses ready and she was on her horse before she could protest. We rode to the river and took a ship downriver to Leigh. She ate while we were on board. Henry beside her. I had my baby on my hip, watching my two older children, thanking God that we were out of the city and that, if we were lucky and kept our wits about us, we might escape notice in the new reign.
Jane Seymour had chosen her wedding clothes on the day that they executed my sister. I did not even blame her for that. Anne, or I, would have done the same thing. When Henry changed his mind he always changed it fast, and it was a wise woman who went with him and did not oppose him. Even more so now that he had divorced one faultless wife and beheaded another. Now he knew his power.
Jane would be the new queen and her children, when she had them, would be the next princes or princesses. Or she might wait, as the other queens had waited, every month, desperate to know that she had conceived, knowing each month that it did not happen that Henry’s love wore a little thinner, that his patience grew a little shorter. Or Anne’s curse of death in childbed, and death to her son, might come true. I did not envy Jane Seymour. I had seen two queens married to King Henry and neither of them had much joy of it.
And as for us Boleyns, my father was right, all we could do now was survive. My uncle had lost a good hand with the death of Anne. He had thrown her onto the gaming table just as he had thrown me or Madge. Whether a girl was fit for seduction or a sop for the king’s rage, or even to aim at the highest place in the land, he would always have another Howard girl at the ready. He would play again. But we Boleyns were destroyed. We had lost our most famous girl, Queen Anne, and we had lost George, our heir. And Anne’s daughter Elizabeth was a nobody, worth even less than the despised Princess Mary. She would never be called princess again. She would never sit on the throne.
“I’m glad of it,” I said simply to William as the children slept, rocked by the movement of the boat on the ebbing tide. “I want to live in the country with you. I want to bring up our children to love each other and fear God. I want to find some peace now, I have had enough of playing the great game at court. I have seen the price that has to be paid and it is too high. I just want you. I just want to live at Rochford and love you.”
He put his arm around me and held me close to him against the cold wind that blew steadily off the sea. “It’s agreed,” he said. “Your part in this is done, please God.” He looked forward to where my two children were in the prow of the boat, looking downriver to the sea, swaying with the rhythmic beat of the oars. “But those two? They’ll be sailing upriver again, back to court and power, sometime in their lives.”
I shook my head in protest.
“They’re half Boleyn and half Tudor,” he said. “My God, what a combination. And their cousin Elizabeth the same. Nobody can say what they will do.”
Author’s Note
Mary and William Stafford did live a long and happy life at Rochford. When her parents died (in 1538 and 1539), Mary inherited the whole of the Boleyn family holdings in Essex, and she and William became wealthy landowners.
She died in 1543 and her son, Henry Carey, rose to become a major advisor and courtier at the court of his cousin, Queen Elizabeth I, the greatest queen England ever had. She made him Viscount Hunsdon. Mary’s daughter Catherine married Sir Francis Knollys and founded a great Elizabethan dynasty.
I am indebted to Retha M. Warnicke, whose book The Rise and Fall of Anne Boleyn has been a most helpful source for this story. I have followed Warnicke’s original and provocative thesis that the homosexual ring around Anne, including her brother George, and her last miscarriage created a climate in which the king could accuse her of witchcraft and perverse sexual practices.
I am very grateful to the following authors, whose books helped me to trace the otherwise untold story of Mary Boleyn, or provided background for the period:
Bindoff, S. T. Pelican History of England: Tudor England. Penguin, 1993.
Bruce, Marie Louise. Anne Boleyn. Collins, 1972.
Cressy, David. Birth, Marriage and Death, Ritual Religions and the Life-cycle in Tudor and Stuart England. OUP, 1977.
Darby, H. C. A New Historical Geography of England before 1600. CUP, 1976.
Elton, G.R. England under the Tudors. Methuen, 1955.
Fletcher, Anthony. Tudor Rebellions. Longman, 1968.
Guy, John. Tudor England. OUP, 1988.
Haynes, Alan. Sex in Elizabethan England. Sutton, 1997.
Loades, David. The Tudor Court. Batsford, 1986.
———. Henry VIII and his Queens. Sutton, 2000.
Mackie, J. D. Oxford History of England, The Earlier Tudors. OUP, 1952.
Plowden, Alison. Tudor Women, Queens and Commoners. Sutton, 1998.
Randell, Keith. Henry VIII and the Reformation in England. Hodder, 1993.
Scarisbrick, J. J. Yale English Monarchs: Henry VIII. YUP, 1997.
Smith, Baldwin Lacey. A Tudor Tragedy, the Life and Times of Catherine Howard. Cape, 1961.
Starkey, David. The Reign of Henry VIII, Personalities and Politics. G. Philip, 1985.
———. Henry VIII: A European Court in England. Collins and Brown, 1991.
Tillyard, E. M. W. The Elizabethan World Picture. Pimlico, 1943.
Turner, Robert. Elizabethan Magic. Element, 1989.
Warnicke, Retha M. The Rise and Fall of Anne Boleyn. CUP, 1991.
Weir, Alison. The Six Wives of Henry VIII. Pimlico, 1997.
Touchstone
Reading Group Guide
The Other Boleyn Girl
DISCUSSION POINTS
Why does Philippa Gregory choose Mary to narrate the story? Keeping in mind the relationship between the observer and those observed, is Mary a good, trustworthy, narrator? As Mary ages, how is her loss of innocence reflected in her telling of the story?
Look at the exchange between Mary and her mother at the end of the first chapter. How does the author foreshadow what is to come? How do the events of the first chapter frame the entire story?
Discuss the Boleyn family’s scheming and jockeying for favor in the court. In light of these politics, discuss the significance of Mary’s explanation that she had “a talent for loving [the king]” (page 119). Is this simply a girl’s fantasy? Why does Mary call herself and George “a pair of pleasant snakes” (page 131)?
On page 29, Mary professes her love and admiration for Queen Katherine and feels she can’t betray her. In what ways are her honorable i
deals compromised as she embarks on her adulterous affair with the king? Recount the whirlwind of events preceding Anne’s becoming queen. Reading page 352, do you agree that “from start to finish” Mary “had no choice” but to betray Queen Katherine by taking the queen’s letter to her uncle?
Consider pages 38 and 82. How does the author create sexual tension? How do the narrator’s thoughts and feelings communicate the attraction between her and the king? Why is this important to the story of The Other Boleyn Girl?
On page 85, Anne tells Mary, “I am happy for the family. I hardly ever think about you.” Do you think she’s telling the truth? Later, Anne says to her sister, “We’ll always be nothing to our family” (page 310). Do you think she believes this, especially given her overwhelming desire to advance her own status?
Why does Mary say, “I felt like a parcel…” (page 60)? What happens later to make Mary think she’s no longer a “pawn” of the family, but “at the very least, a castle, a player in the game” (page 173)?
Look at the exchange between Mary and Anne about the king on page 72. Do you agree with Anne when she tells Mary that “you can’t desire [the king] like an ordinary man and forget the crown on his head.” What does this statement reveal about Anne’s nature? And what does it reveal about Mary’s?
In general, what are your impressions of the sisters? Keep in mind Anne and Mary’s discussion on page 104: “So who would come after me?…I could make my own way.” Also look at page 123, when Anne says, “Hear this, Mary…I will kill you.” Why are these statements significant, particularly given their timing?
Share some of the characteristics that you like about historical fiction. For you, what aspect of The Other Boleyn Girl stands out the most? How does the book change your impressions of life in King Henry VIII’s court? Looking at the letter on page 275, discuss the level of corruption in the court. Does it surprise you? Were you aware of Anne’s dogged and exhausting pursuit of the king? Did the way Anne became queen shock you?
How do you feel about the idea that a woman had to be married before she could bed the king? What do you think about the king changing the laws to suit his needs? When Anne states that “Nothing will ever be the same for any woman in this country again,” examine why she could believe she would be exempt from the same treatment. In other words, why didn’t she realize that “when she overthrew a queen that thereafter all queens would be unsteady” (page 519)? Do you think the family realized this but persevered anyway?
Discuss Mary’s evolution of thinking from when she realizes that after Queen Katherine’s departure, “from this time onward no wife…would be safe” with her later thought (on page 468) that “the triumph of Anne, the mistress who had become a wife, was an inspiration to every loose girl in the country.” What does this say about Mary’s state of mind? Is she being a reliable narrator here?
On page 303, George exclaims to Mary, “You cannot really want to be a nobody.” Why is this such a revolutionary idea in Henry’s court, and for the Boleyns in particular? What should the response have been to Mary’s question to Anne (page 330) about the rewards of Anne’s impending marriage to the king: “What is there for me?”
In King Henry’s court, homosexuality was a crime. Why do you think George essentially flaunted his preference? What do you make of the intimate kiss between George and Anne that Mary witnessed? What is the impetus behind George and Anne’s relationship? Discuss whether or not you believe that George slept with Anne so that she might have a son, and why.
Why do you think George declares that Anne is “the only Boleyn anyone will ever know or remember” (page 410)? Was that true for you before you read The Other Boleyn Girl? What about now?
After Anne is arrested, Mary pleads for her by saying, “We did nothing more than that was ordered. We only ever did as we were commanded. Is she to die for being an obedient daughter?” (page 650). What is your reaction to these arguments? Did Henry have no choice but to sentence her to death?
Q & A WITH PHILIPPA GREGORY,
AUTHOR OF The Other Boleyn Girl
What made you pick Mary, the other Boleyn girl, as the character to tell the story of Anne’s ascendancy and eventual fall?
I found Mary, rather than “picked” her. I was delighted to come across a character who was in the spotlight, but mostly in the wings of one of the most intriguing periods of British history, and her relationship to Anne was something that I knew would be stimulating and provocative.
Why do you think she’s the best narrator here?
I think history is always more interested when told by the “losers” or those on the margins. This is because most conventional history is that of the “winners,” so you get a different slant. But because she is badly treated by her family and by the king, it is possible to show her development from naive and trusting and very young girl, to a woman who is ready to turn her back on the court. The way she tells the story is also part of the story itself.
Is Mary a real person? If so, what is actually known about her?
We have the barest details about her. We know that she was born at Hever Castle in Kent, that she married William Carey, as in the novel, that she was the queen’s lady-in-waiting and the king’s mistress. That she was supplanted by her sister Anne, that her husband died of the sweat and she remarried a poor man for love and went to live in Essex, as in the novel. The invention of the novel is her motives and feelings; the broad facts of her life are accurate.
How about Mary and Anne’s brother, George? Did he really sleep with his sister so that she could give Henry a son?
Nobody can know the answer to this one. Anne was accused of adultery with George at their trials and his wife gave evidence against them both. Most people think the trial was a show trial, but it is an interesting accusation. Anne had three miscarriages by the time of her trial, and she was not a woman to let something like sin or crime stand in her way—she was clearly guilty of one murder. I think if she had thought that Henry could not bear a son she was quite capable of finding someone to father a child on her. If she thought that, then George would have been the obvious choice.
It’s uncommon to read about homosexuality in Henry VIII’s court. Why do you think it’s important to include it here?
This is based on the interesting thesis of Retha M. Warnicke, who suggests that the circle around Anne Boleyn was a homosexual group, and it is his homosexuality that George apologizes for on the scaffold.
The blending of fact and fiction in The Other Boleyn Girl is seamless. You manage to pull together an incredible amount of history and political and socio-economic information. How do you research such a wide-ranging story?
I always start by reading the secondary sources (the accepted histories of the period) and I aim to read all of the major works. Then I do a very schoolgirlish thing: I make an enormous chart, which I stick up on my wall with the schedule of dates on it. With one of my novels I did very fancy transparency overlays which showed the progress of the wars, the weather, the location of each character, and the profile of the plague years. With The Other Boleyn Girl it showed all the dates that the characters were at court, where the court physically was—since it is constantly moving from one palace to another—and the moving to and from court of the various characters. I also showed the rise and fall of various subplayers. Especially I note the dates of birth of the children and miscarriages, and count backward so we know when a child was conceived. I visit the principal sites of the story—the royal palaces and parks. I visit any museums, art galleries, and collections of the period, and sometimes I discuss with an expert historian as to what are the principal interesting issues of the period. Then I put my notebooks to one side and only consult them for factual detail, and try to write from memory and a sense of time and place. Otherwise, the detail of the research blocks the flow of the story. In the second draft I check everything all over again!
How do you determine what to use and where to fill in a piece of the story?
Your depiction of Anne’s exhaustive pursuit of Henry is wonderfully vivid; the reader actually feels the exhaustion and madness of it all. Do you think Anne was driven crazy with her desire for power, or had she always been so determined and single-minded?
The suggestion in The Other Boleyn Girl is that Anne’s disappointment when she cannot marry Henry Percy hardens her heart for the rest of her life. I think this is quite plausible. Also, I think that once she had started on her campaign to enthrall him there was no easy way out. She did not dare to sleep with him, which would have destroyed her chances of being his wife, but no one could have thought that it would take so long for him to get free. I think it turned into an agonizing and maddening marathon, I imagine at first she thought that if she could catch him, he would be free of Queen Katherine within a year.
Why do you think Anne was so blind to her own fate, especially after she saw what happened to Queen Katherine?
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