Martyr, Victim, Schemer, or Queen? Debating the Character of Anne Boleyn from Tudor England to the Present Day (thesis)

Abstract

This thesis is structured chronologically and divided into four main chapters corresponding with historical eras. The first focuses on her persona during her rise at court and time as queen. This section utilizes pamphlets, court documents such as Spanish ambassador Eustace Chapuys’ records, as well as letters and poems that mention Anne, in order to examine her image both as Henry’s paramour and as queen. . . . The second chapter examines the progression of her depiction during the forty-four-year reign of her daughter, Elizabeth I. During this time, Anne Boleyn was resurrected as a martyr for the English Reformation, a trend highlighted by sources like John Foxe’s Book of Martyrs and William’s Shakespeare’s A Winter Tale.18;19 The third chapter analyzes the eighteenth and nineteenth century, during which Anne was often portrayed in works like Selina Bunbury’s The Star of the Court as a romantic victim entangled in events out of her control.20 The last chapter dissects the increasingly complex, competing images of Anne Boleyn by both scholars and popular culture in the twentieth century, looking at the competing historical interpretation by Eric Ives and G.W. Bernard, as well as cultural images of Anne in films and television that sharply increased following the feminist revolution in the 1960’s. [From Introduction]