The Lady in the Tower
I had to swing by the local library this week on an errand for the kids and found Lady in the Tower by Alison Weir on the shelves and picked it up because, hey, Anne Boleyn.
From what I've read so far, the book appears to focus on the days spent by Anne in the tower during her trial and then awaiting execution by her ex-husband, Henry VIII.
As I said over in a post on alternate history stories for Geek Dad, the Tudors seem to have not only a particular fascination for Western historians but for science fiction writers as well. There are any number of alternate history tales about Henry VIII, Elizabeth I and, most particularly, Anne Boleyn.
I think that's because it's impossible to figure out anymore who Anne really was. She's been portrayed as everything from a scheming harpy intent on stepping over the nice first wife on her way to power, to a woman genuinely in love with someone else who was persuaded to marry the King to advance her family, to a devout Protestant eager to marry the King to cement the Protestant revolution in England.
Not to mention an evil cursed witch bent on corrupting the King.
The fact after that her tumultuous fall, a lot of her papers, contemporary accounts, and even paintings of Anne were destroyed doesn't help at all.
Weir does a nice job pulling all the sources together and explaining where sometimes differing accounts of Anne and her trial come from. And she explains the possible biases of the accounts that she uses.
I must admit, I got a bit distracted already from reading about the trial and instead read a small chapter at the end of the book that talks about all the ghost stories that have sprung up about Anne. Fun reading but, apparently, none of the hauntings could be a true because Anne either didn't really live there, never was there, or her grave was not there either.
But the headless coachman story was still cool. As are the various stories about the headless apparition of George Boleyn, who was executed after being convicted of having sex with his sister.
This book will be nice brain candy for when I need a break from the final polish of Sky of Seneca this weekend.
And it started me thinking of all the places where you could break from real Tudor history off into an alternate version:
1. First one, obviously, is have one of Henry VIII's and Katherine of Aragorn's sons to survive.
2. Go back further and have Henry's older brother, Arthur, survive. (Katy Cooper did this in her two published stories for Harlequin Historicals, both excellent.)
3. Have Anne carry the son that was stillborn to turn.
4. This goes back to #3 but I recently watched a History Channel documentary where they researched all the injuries that Henry suffered during his lifetime and if those injuries might have affected his, well, semi-insanity in his later life.
The leg injury is well-documented and caused him constant pain until he died. But this show concentrated on his possible head injuries as well. Apparently, a fall that he took during a tournament caused him to lose consciousness for a couple of hours. (This led to a messenger telling the pregnant Anne that Henry was dead, which apparently led to Anne miscarrying the son that would have save her life.)
In the documentary, the researchers dropped the equivalent of the weight of Henry's armor plus the wight of his horse on a dead pig to see what injuries would result. (They didn't kill the pig. It was already dead when they purchased it.)
By studying what happened to the pig and pouring over contemporary accounts of Henry's injuries, they concluded he could have suffered from severe head trauma.
And, as recent studies have shown, head trauma can result in personality changes. It can also lead to depression, impulsive acts, and more than a little paranoia.
That sounds familiar....
5. Onto Elizabeth I.
Amy Robsart lives, Robert Dudley divorces her, and Elizabeth and Dudley get married and have kids.
I think this is unlikely. I believe the reason Elizabeth didn't get married is that she was afraid of giving a man any power over her, even Dudely who was supposed to be the great love of her life.
After all, once she had a son, she was not strictly needed. Elizabeth could be pushed aside and imprisoned by men perfectly happy to preside over a Regency.
That had happened to her cousin, Mary, Queen of Scots.
Still, there's a great short story that I read years ago in Asimov's about Amy Robsart's death.
6. Mary executes her sister, Elizabeth.
This nearly happened and, boy, would there every have been a mess. After Mary died, there would have been no clear heir (Henry VIII got rid of most of the leftover Plantagenet heirs) and Mary got rid of a few of her own cousins such as Lady Jane Grey. That leaves the field wide open for anyone with even a minor relationship with the past kings.
This would be fun to write about but England would be a very sad place. Just imagine, Shakespeare might never have come to London.
Okay, back to your regularly scheduled contemporary life. :)
From what I've read so far, the book appears to focus on the days spent by Anne in the tower during her trial and then awaiting execution by her ex-husband, Henry VIII.
As I said over in a post on alternate history stories for Geek Dad, the Tudors seem to have not only a particular fascination for Western historians but for science fiction writers as well. There are any number of alternate history tales about Henry VIII, Elizabeth I and, most particularly, Anne Boleyn.
I think that's because it's impossible to figure out anymore who Anne really was. She's been portrayed as everything from a scheming harpy intent on stepping over the nice first wife on her way to power, to a woman genuinely in love with someone else who was persuaded to marry the King to advance her family, to a devout Protestant eager to marry the King to cement the Protestant revolution in England.
Not to mention an evil cursed witch bent on corrupting the King.
The fact after that her tumultuous fall, a lot of her papers, contemporary accounts, and even paintings of Anne were destroyed doesn't help at all.
Weir does a nice job pulling all the sources together and explaining where sometimes differing accounts of Anne and her trial come from. And she explains the possible biases of the accounts that she uses.
I must admit, I got a bit distracted already from reading about the trial and instead read a small chapter at the end of the book that talks about all the ghost stories that have sprung up about Anne. Fun reading but, apparently, none of the hauntings could be a true because Anne either didn't really live there, never was there, or her grave was not there either.
But the headless coachman story was still cool. As are the various stories about the headless apparition of George Boleyn, who was executed after being convicted of having sex with his sister.
This book will be nice brain candy for when I need a break from the final polish of Sky of Seneca this weekend.
And it started me thinking of all the places where you could break from real Tudor history off into an alternate version:
1. First one, obviously, is have one of Henry VIII's and Katherine of Aragorn's sons to survive.
2. Go back further and have Henry's older brother, Arthur, survive. (Katy Cooper did this in her two published stories for Harlequin Historicals, both excellent.)
3. Have Anne carry the son that was stillborn to turn.
4. This goes back to #3 but I recently watched a History Channel documentary where they researched all the injuries that Henry suffered during his lifetime and if those injuries might have affected his, well, semi-insanity in his later life.
The leg injury is well-documented and caused him constant pain until he died. But this show concentrated on his possible head injuries as well. Apparently, a fall that he took during a tournament caused him to lose consciousness for a couple of hours. (This led to a messenger telling the pregnant Anne that Henry was dead, which apparently led to Anne miscarrying the son that would have save her life.)
In the documentary, the researchers dropped the equivalent of the weight of Henry's armor plus the wight of his horse on a dead pig to see what injuries would result. (They didn't kill the pig. It was already dead when they purchased it.)
By studying what happened to the pig and pouring over contemporary accounts of Henry's injuries, they concluded he could have suffered from severe head trauma.
And, as recent studies have shown, head trauma can result in personality changes. It can also lead to depression, impulsive acts, and more than a little paranoia.
That sounds familiar....
5. Onto Elizabeth I.
Amy Robsart lives, Robert Dudley divorces her, and Elizabeth and Dudley get married and have kids.
I think this is unlikely. I believe the reason Elizabeth didn't get married is that she was afraid of giving a man any power over her, even Dudely who was supposed to be the great love of her life.
After all, once she had a son, she was not strictly needed. Elizabeth could be pushed aside and imprisoned by men perfectly happy to preside over a Regency.
That had happened to her cousin, Mary, Queen of Scots.
Still, there's a great short story that I read years ago in Asimov's about Amy Robsart's death.
6. Mary executes her sister, Elizabeth.
This nearly happened and, boy, would there every have been a mess. After Mary died, there would have been no clear heir (Henry VIII got rid of most of the leftover Plantagenet heirs) and Mary got rid of a few of her own cousins such as Lady Jane Grey. That leaves the field wide open for anyone with even a minor relationship with the past kings.
This would be fun to write about but England would be a very sad place. Just imagine, Shakespeare might never have come to London.
Okay, back to your regularly scheduled contemporary life. :)