Recent research is shining surprising new light on Anne Boleyn, and Henry VIII’s motives for the break with Rome, writes Penelope Middelboe

Recent research is shining surprising new light on Anne Boleyn, and Henry VIII’s motives for the break with Rome

Anne Boleyn is having a moment, 485 years after her death; and if you thought you already knew her story, think again.  In Channel 5’s retelling of her story, to be broadcast later this month, she’s played by an actor of colour, Jodie Turner-Smith. The production opens a new perspective on a woman who has been ­imagined as manipulative, adulterous, profligate and locked in a power battle with Thomas Cromwell. Instead, Fable Pictures presents her as a deep thinker and a devoted mother.

Meanwhile research at Boleyn’s childhood home, Hever Castle, on the prayer book she appears to have had with her at her execution has revealed that after her death the book was handed down through a line of trusted female figures.

Reassessing Anne Boleyn is close to my heart.  With my partner Jon Rosebank I write and present the podcast History Café, questioning moments from history. The truth is that inside even the most learned historian there’s a real person who shares the myopia of his or her times.  No historian wants to say it out loud, but our narratives aren’t much more than guesses, overladen with the ­prejudices of different phases in the retelling. When it comes to Anne, it turns out a lot of the guesses have been misguided.

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