Anne Boleyn

Some people seeking to blacken Anne Boleyn’s name say that Anne must have been influenced by the loose morals and sexuality of the French court, but we have to remember that Anne Boleyn was serving Queen Claude, a woman known for her piety and a woman who was often away from court due to her annual pregnancies. Anne was serving in a morally strict household, not one of scandal. As well as her day-to-day duties, as a maid-of-honour, Eric Ives writes that Anne may well have accompanied Claude and her mother-in-law, Louise of Savoy, on their journey to Lyons and Marseilles to welcome back Francis I in October 1515 after his victory at the Battle of Marignano in Italy. While the women were in the area, they went on a pilgrimage to Saint-Maximin-la-Sainte-Baume to see the alleged tomb of Mary Magdalene. The story behind this tomb is that on the 12th December 1279 a sarcophagus proclaimed to be that of Mary Magdalene was found in the crypt. It was said that Mary Magdalene had fled the Holy Land on a boat with neither rudder nor sail, landed at Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer and then travelled to Marseilles where she converted the locals. According to legend, she retired to a cave in the mountains of Sainte-Baume later in her life and was buried in Saint-Maximin. The basilica of Saint-Maximin-la-Sainte-Baume was built in the late 13th century and early 14th century and the crypt was consecrated in 1316. (Read more: http://www.theanneboleynfiles.com/the-early-life-of-anne-boleyn-part-three-anne-boleyn-goes-to-france/6883/.)

Anne’s position as a femme fatale is too deeply ingrained in the public mind to ever be eradicated and, in all fairness, it must be said that it is not an entirely undeserved label. Given the potent allure attached to such an image, many historians have been all too eager to believe the more moderately salacious rumours concerning Anne’s personal life and have insisted that she must have been sexually active prior to her marriage. ‘It is hard to believe,’ wrote Alison Weir in her book Henry VIII: King & Court, ‘that she had remained virtuous and almost certain therefore that her calculated refusal to succumb to the King’s advances stemmed from self-interest and ambition rather than much vaunted moral principles.’ Others have asserted that she had ‘a universally bad reputation,’ that she was ‘a woman of light morals,’ with one writer boldly asserting, ‘Anne had several lovers … [and] she acquired a reputation for unchastity.’ Yet, the very same writers have not hesitated to portray Anne as a rabidly ambitious and manipulative figure – ‘an ambitious adventuress with a penchant for vengeance,’ ‘a prideful young woman.’

However, one cannot logically have it both ways. Anne cannot have been sexually disreputable and at the same time insatiably ambitious. One has got to give. There was nothing to be gained by promiscuity in the sixteenth century, and everything to lose – as the tragedy of Anne’s cousin, Catherine Howard, would show in the following decade. Virginity was power, sexual restraint was a potent weapon, and in the game of courtly love, the chase was everything. What people seem incapable of grasping is the simple fact that the kind of potent obsession Anne provoked in so many of the men around her is the kind that only comes from the unobtainable - a girl who gave-in in any way would never have been able to wield the kind of potent allure that Anne did. Thus, we should not separate Anne’s morals and her ambition as if they are two mutually-exclusive forces – they were two sides of the same coin. By following through her relationships with the men of her life, what emerges is a portrait of a woman who men found endlessly fascinating and endlessly frustrating. And in this, the biographer feels the same way as her long-dead suitors, I can assure you!

Anne: For six years, this year, and this, and this, and this, I did not love him. And then I did. Then I was his. I can count the days I was his in hundreds.
[picks up day counter]
Anne: The days we bedded. Married. Were Happy. Bore Elizabeth. Hated. Lusted. Bore a dead child... which condemned me... to death. In all one thousand days. Just a thousand. Strange. And of those thousand, one when we were both in love, only one, when our loves met and overlapped and were both mine and his. And when I no longer hated him, he began to hate me. Except for that one day.
~from Anne of the Thousand Days

I think what makes Anne of the Thousand Days stand out among the period films churned out by Hollywood is the outstanding screenplay by Maxwell Anderson. While a few historical liberties are taken for the sake of the flow of the story, Anderson captures the tumultuous rise and catastrophic fall of a young English aristocratic lady who once caught the glance of a king. Richard Burton totally projects Henry VIII's obsessive, all-consuming lust that is willing to destroy his wife, his daughter, his best friends, his church and thousands of his subjects in order to obtain his lady. Richard looks at Genevieve Bujold (Anne Boleyn) with such a mix of torment, passion and guilt that it is almost as if he were looking at Elizabeth Taylor, but such is the great actor's ability to become Henry VIII in this film. Bujold is magnificent as Anne, graceful, witty, winsome, and strong-willed. I was struck by the unhappiness of the couple when they were finally together, living in opulence from the confiscated monasteries. Henry's love of Anne seemed to die almost as soon as he finally sated his desire for her. Bujold's Anne goes to her death with brash dignity, while Henry moves on to another wife. An incredible tragedy in which many innocent people suffered is well-depicted with authentic costumes and stunning sets.