Essay Questions

Compare and contrast the characters of Mary and Anne.

Mary and Anne Boleyn are sisters from the Boleyn family. The family is not historically aristocratic but can be more correctly regarded as gentry: few have a title of "Duke", "Lord", or any other mark of nobility although recent generations have made themselves wealthy by service to England. Indeed, their father, Thomas Boleyn, became the first Earl of Wiltshire. The fact he was not descended from nobility meant that the other nobles regarded him, and his children, as upstarts. This means that the Boleyn children find it difficult to socialize with people who would otherwise be their social peers. They therefore have strong bonds with one another. Their father and uncle are wealthy, however the source of their income depends on the will of the English King Henry VIII. Both women are living in a culture in which their personal interests are dominated by the well-being of their families. They are expected to advance the interests of their blood relatives through marriages and social alliances including illicit affairs. They live in an era in which noblewomen do not necessarily have arranged marriages, but marriage has a business component.

In the book (and this is a literary license) Mary is married young and remains with her husband while her diplomat father takes Anne to France. Going to France and seeing the much more sophisticated court of Francis I prior to returning to England makes Anne far more fashionable and sophisticated than Mary and the other young women who wait on Queen Catherine of Aragon, the wife of Henry VIII. (Historically, Mary Boleyn accompanied her father to France. She was also the older sister; Gregory reverses the birth order in her novel.)

Whereas Mary is naïve and innocent, Anne is sophisticated and possibly more intelligent. She schemes and plots in a way Mary does not, and her manipulations advance her own interests at the expense of Mary's. Mary genuinely loves Henry and would have preferred to be married to him. Being a queen goes to Anne's head, and she becomes the most powerful woman in the kingdom after her coronation. Yet her marriage is not happy: she does not actually love Henry. Mary, by contrast, lives a longer and more stable life. She does not climb to social prominence but fades into obscurity, yet by doing so she avoids Anne's fate.

How does the execution early in the book foreshadow the rest of the events of the novel?

Mary and Anne are being forced to watch the public execution of Stafford, Duke of Buckinghamshire, a man close enough for them to call him their uncle. He has been convicted of treason on what Mary believes to be the flimsiest of reasons: he became too powerful. Although Mary and the rest of the family expect him to be pardoned, he is not: instead, he is publicly executed. To show loyalty to the King and to England, they are expected to control their emotions and not publicly mourn their relative. Indeed, in order to keep from being suspects themselves they must publicly turn against him once he is accused, distancing themselves in order to survive.

The King is the source of all power in England. Although many of his decisions must be ratified by Parliament, if Henry VIII wants to raise a commoner to noble status or destroy a powerful man or woman who becomes a threat or who is simply in the way, it generally happens. Thomas Boleyn, Mary and Anne's father, is an ambitious courtier who owes his ennoblement and social elevation to the King. Likewise, when Anne marries Henry she receives a high title of nobility with land and income in her own right. But if the King can give benefits, he can also take them away. Once he-- and other power players at the Court-- decide to get rid of Anne, the same social dynamic that causes Anne and Mary to distance themselves from their "uncle" Stafford causes the rest of the Boleyns to abandon Anne in her turn.

How does Anne's character develop during the course of the book?

Anne is first introduced as a sophisticated, well-educated young woman who has been brought up in the French tradition. She is one of the first to speak openly of Queen Catherine's ill health, and shocks Mary and George by remarking upon it in private conversation. She has no problem discussing the private medical issues of the Queen with her siblings, and when the King flirts publicly with Mary, Anne's first thought is how to turn the situation to her advantage.

Initially it is Mary who instructs Anne in the ways of the English court: how to bow, how to dress, and how to not act too French or too pretentious. But Anne quickly catches on and eclipses Mary in the art of reading people. She teaches her sister to tease the King and lead him on, making him pursue her. She explains the subtle signs and signals that are occurring within the Court.

In pressuring Mary to become the King's mistress, Anne shows that she is indeed "a Boleyn", willing to work with the other members of the family to advance the family as a whole. She does not share Mary's reluctance to be manipulated, and gladly takes part in the power play. She is direct, cruel, and almost verbally abusive in some of her remarks; indeed her antagonism toward Mary shows long before the King takes an interest in Anne. Anne's cutting remarks persist even after she becomes Queen: she no longer cultivates the good will of other people. Part of the reason for this is a key plot turn in which Anne loses the love of her life, Henry Percy. From that point onward, she becomes a hard-hearted person who cares very little for the feelings or fate of others.

Anne's ambition starts to show in the early chapters and continues through the course of the book, with her deciding to manipulate the King against Queen Catherine to take her place. However, like other ambitious people, she overreaches.

What is the role of religion in this novel?

All the characters are Christians and, initially, members of what later came to be known as the Roman Catholic Church. Yet because of ongoing bureaucratic problems in the Church including systemic corruption, various "heretical" people are experimenting with alternate points of view that, although Christian in outlook, did not conform with the world-view or doctrine presented by the Pope in Rome.

The marriage of King Henry VIII to Queen Catherine of Aragon was supported by a dispensation granted by the Pope allowing Henry to marry his brother's widow. The marriage, while initially satisfying to both parties, produced no living male children. Eventually Henry decided to annul his existing marriage, setting it aside so that he was free to remarry. The resulting nullity suit, rejected soundly by Catherine's allies in Spain and Rome, required Henry to split England away from the Roman Catholic Church and establish an official Church of England with himself as the head of it. This did not go over well: he had to execute Cardinal Wolsey and a number of prominent Catholic leaders who remained loyal to the Pope instead of to the King.

As a result of becoming the head of the Church as well as the head of state, King Henry VIII was even more powerful than before. When Anne is falsely accused of incest, treason, and adultery she cannot appeal to separate, independent religious authorities because such independent sources of protection no longer exist.