Chapter 9: Anne Boleyn In Twenty-first-century Historical Fiction

chapter 9: anne boleyn in twenty-first-century historical fiction

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Now it seems I must cease to call myself Queen. Even though I was crowned so, and anointed. They say if I refuse the King will withdraw his fatherly love for my daughter.

I shall not yield.

“The fairest of all the King’s wives” (Sir John Russell )

For  just  on  sixteen  years,  Eustace  Chapuys  was  the eyes and ears of the Habsburg empire at the Tudor court, writing copious missives on a tumultuous period to Charles V, Mary of Hungary, and, eventually, Charles’s son, Philip. Chapuys’ two missions, from 1529 to 1545, initially saw him charged with defending, unsuccessfully, the claims of Charles’s aunt, Katherine of Aragon, as rightful Queen of England against Henry VIII’s planned annulment, and then, as Mackay argues, as lone champion for her daughter Mary, who was abandoned, in practical terms, even by her cousin Charles. The appointment brought Chapuys into close and regular encounter with a changeable monarch, a number of queens, an evolving line-up of administrators, fellow diplomats, ladies-in-waiting, and merchant communities, whom Chapuys appeared to convince to provide a wealth of information for the Imperial cause. Chapuys, a legally-trained man of the middling sort schooled in the humanist tradition, held admiration, it seems, for others regardless of their religious persuasion, and enjoyed sociable relations most notably with Thomas Cromwell.

Inside the Tudor Court: Henry VIII and his Six Wives through the Writings of the Spanish Ambassador Eustace Chapuys, by Mackay, Lauren (review). Susan Broomhall.  

Chapuys’  epistolary  prose  provides  the  thread  through  the  text.  It  is unclear if Mackay has translated these works afresh; the calendars are cited heavily among other, archival sources and original wording is not provided in the notes. The short introduction is limited to addressing the question of Chapuys’ accuracy as an eye-witness, recognizing his biases but rightly defending his importance as a source for the period. The work could certainly have benefitted from a conclusion separate from the last chapter, positioning Chapuys in the wider context of his time, among his fellow ambassadors. This would have made a stronger, analytical argument for his significance and value, beyond repeated assertions about the colour and life that his letters breathe into the court.

Inside the Tudor Court: Henry VIII and his Six Wives through the Writings of the Spanish Ambassador Eustace Chapuys, by Mackay, Lauren (review). Susan Broomhall.