She touched her coif, checking that her plait was still in place, as she continued her prayers. Nan Saville came forward, weeping uncontrollably, with a linen cloth to blindfold her, but her fingers were trembling so much that Anne took the cloth from her. She looked for a final time upon the world and the sea of faces gazing up at her, then covered her eyes. The last thing she saw before doing so was the sunny sky above the Tower roofs.
“Jesu, have pity on my soul! My God, have pity on my soul!” she prayed fervently. “To Jesus Christ I commend my soul.” She heard the executioner quietly bid her maids stand out of the way, and there was a shuffling and a fresh outbreak of loud weeping. It was terrifying not being able to see what was happening around her.
“Strike now!” she cried, her heart hammering so hard and painfully in her chest that she thought there might be no need for any headsman. “O Lord God, have pity on my soul! To Christ I commend my soul!”
She heard the executioner say, “Bring me the sword!” There was a movement in the direction of the scaffold steps, and she blindly turned her head that way.
She had believed Kingston when he had said there would be no pain, and prayed that the blow would be instantaneous and bring immediate oblivion, but when it came there was a choking explosion of searing agony and a dreadful warm gush of blood. She was aware of tasting it in her mouth and of its flooding her nostrils as she felt her head, horribly light now, hit the scaffold with a painful thud and the blindfold fell away. She would have cried out, yet no sound came apart from a terrible, silent gurgling, and she wanted to clamp her hands to the mortal wound that had been dealt her, yet she had no hands anymore. They were attached to the dark, bloodied, crumpled thing that lay on the scaffold next to her. She blinked and tried to look away. Through her torment she could still see the blurred shapes of people around her on the scaffold. And then her eyes dimmed and the merciful darkness descended.
I could write another book on how this novel was constructed from the historical sources. Over the course of my years of study, I have seen perceptions of Anne Boleyn change substantially. I am aware that in some circles, particularly on the Internet, she has acquired celebrity status, and that she has become many things to many people and, in the process, controversial. During the writing of this book, an admirer of Anne Boleyn expressed the hope that I would portray her accurately, to which I answered that historians might well differ when considering what “accurately” might mean. There is so much room for conjecture.
The problem facing any historian or novelist writing about Anne Boleyn is that, in some ways, she is unknowable. We do not have a wealth of her letters, unlike with Katherine of Aragon, whose inner thoughts were often passionately expressed. Much of the material on Anne Boleyn comes from a hostile source, the Imperial ambassador, Eustache Chapuys. Yet recent research on Chapuys shows that he was an observant, well-informed witness, close to the center of affairs, who cited his sources, so we can usually judge how accurate they are likely to have been. This presents those wishing to see Anne Boleyn in a sympathetic light with another problem: how does one get beyond the sometimes damning testimony of Chapuys?
In writing this novel from Anne’s point of view, I have tried to reconcile conflicting views of her, and to portray her as a flawed but very human heroine, a woman of great ambition, idealism, and courage who found herself in an increasingly frightening situation.
It has become fashionable to see Anne Boleyn as a feminist heroine, a concept that, until recently, I would have dismissed as anachronistic, arguing that feminism was unknown in Tudor England. That much is true, but in early sixteenth-century Europe, where Anne spent her formative years, there was an intellectual movement and debate that questioned traditional concepts of women and looked forward to an era in which they would enjoy more power and autonomy. This was an age of female rulers and thinkers, and Anne had two shining examples before her: Margaret of Austria and Marguerite of Valois. (Two sources mention her serving Marguerite of Valois, but no dates are given; I have placed her in Marguerite’s household from 1520 to 1522.) I have set Anne in this European context and focused on the cultural influences to which she was exposed. So yes, it is legitimate to see her as a feminist long before her time: it is a concept she would have understood, it underpinned her ambitions and self-image, and it was this Renaissance cultural background, not just the French fashions and manners, that would have made her stand out at the English court.
Anne spent seven years at the French court, serving Queen Claude, the wife of Fran?ois I, and Marguerite, but there are no contemporary French sources that mention her. I thought it would be helpful to track, as far as possible, the movements of her mistress, Queen Claude, who imposed an almost conventual rule on her ladies and shunned the court whenever she could, preferring the palaces of Amboise and Blois on the Loire. There is no doubt that Anne would have known these palaces well. But she probably traveled more widely in France too. In 1515, during a campaign to win Milan, Fran?ois I won the Battle of Marignano. Lingering in Italy, he was introduced to the great artist Leonardo da Vinci, and the following year we find Leonardo installed, at the King’s expense, in a house, Le Clos Lucé, near the chateau of Amboise. Leonardo remained in France and died in that house in 1519.
Early in 1516, Queen Claude traveled with Fran?ois’s sister, Marguerite of Valois, and his mother, Louise of Savoy, down to Provence to meet up with the returning hero and accompany his triumphal progress back through France. Anne Boleyn would almost certainly have been with them. It is likely too that she knew—at least by sight—Leonardo da Vinci, for she was often at Amboise, and he had close links to the court. The scenes in this novel are imagined, but they are not improbable.
Legend links Anne Boleyn with the chateau of Briis-sous-Forges south of Paris. There are all sorts of theories as to how the Donjon Anne Boleyn came to be so named, and I evolved a new one for this book. It proved, however, to be too long, and will be the subject of an e-short to be published separately. Did you pick up the hints in these pages as to what that story might be about? The novel stands alone without it, but in the e-short you can read a slightly different version of that chapter in Anne’s story.
Apart from a few fictional attendants at the courts of Burgundy and France, the characters in this book all lived. I have kept closely to the historical record, but have taken occasional minor liberties, so as not to slow the flow of the narrative. Given the sometimes awkward syntax of Tudor sources and letters, I have modernized the language in places to make the meaning clearer. Some quotes have been taken out of context or put in the mouths of others, but the sentiments are appropriate for the character or situation. The poetry is all authentic.