The Other Boleyn Girl

This article is about the novel. For the 2003 television adaptation, see The Other Boleyn Girl (2003 film). For the 2008 film adaptation, see The Other Boleyn Girl (2008 film).

The Other Boleyn Girl
Author(s)	Philippa Gregory
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Series	Tudor Series
Genre(s)	Novel
Publisher	Scribner
Publication date	2001
Media type	Print (hardback & paperback)
Pages	664
ISBN	0739427113 (hardcover edition)
Preceded by	The Constant Princess
Followed by	The Boleyn Inheritance

The Other Boleyn Girl is a historical fiction novel written by British author Philippa Gregory, loosely based on the life of 16th-century aristocrat Mary Boleyn. Reviews were mixed; some said it was a brilliantly claustrophobic look at palace life in Tudor England, while others have consistently pointed out the lack of historical accuracy. Even so, it has enjoyed phenomenal success and popularity since its publication in 2002.

The Other Boleyn Girl concerns the sister of Anne Boleyn of whom little is known. Inspired by the life of Mary Boleyn, Gregory depicts the annulment of one of the most significant royal marriages in English history (that of King Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon) and the great need of a male heir to the throne, though most of the actual history is highly distorted.

Literary significance and criticism

Gregory has a high rate of success with using relatively unknown characters in her historical novels – often, they are not typical historical heroines. In The Queen's Fool, she used the character of Mary I in a sympathetic light, whilst she is usually demonised by admirers of Elizabeth I. The Other Boleyn Girl was unusual not only because it centred on the relatively unknown life of Mary Boleyn, but also because of the interest it sparked for the period and resulted in the adaptation of the book for the big screen and recognition for its little-known central character.

The novel has enjoyed high commercial success and it has a large and loyal fan-base. It has appealed to popular interest in the Tudor era, which is currently high in both Britain and America. It has been followed by a sequel called The Queen's Fool, set during the reign of Henry's daughter, Queen Mary. The Queen's Fool was followed by The Virgin's Lover, set during the early days of Queen Elizabeth's reign.

Gregory is also the author of The Constant Princess, story of Anne's predecessor, Catherine of Aragon and The Boleyn Inheritance, the tale of Anne of Cleves, Lady Jane Rochford and finally Katherine Howard's rise to the throne in 1540.

Historical accuracy

Mary Boleyn was the sister of the more famous Anne Boleyn. As such, she is usually mentioned in the numerous biographies that have been written about Anne, but never in any substantial detail. Mary, unlike Anne, was the mistress of two kings – Francis I of France and Henry VIII of England. She was born sometime between 1499 and 1508. A popular but unverifiable legend suggests that Mary was considered the more beautiful of the two sisters. Mary was married twice, first to William Carey, and secondly to William Stafford. She died in her early forties in 1543.

Philippa Gregory was intrigued by the story of a queen's sister who apparently has been forgotten by history because she lacked the political importance and impact of her sister. Gregory was fascinated by Mary's story and sought to write a novel on the "other Boleyn girl."

Specifics regarding historical accuracy

Some areas of disputed historical accuracy include the following:

• Birth order and early lives of the siblings. Many histories, including Eric Ives's biography of Anne Boleyn, suggest that Mary was almost certainly the elder sister, and the eldest of the Boleyn children, whereas The Other Boleyn Girl presents George as the eldest.^[1] George is portrayed as being born in 1503, Anne in 1507, and Mary in 1508. However, most historians agree that Anne was probably the younger sister.^[2][3]

• Sexuality of George Boleyn. The book depicts George Boleyn as being homosexual, in love with Francis Weston, but sexually attracted to his sister Anne and willing to commit incest with her. American academic Dr. Retha Warnicke postulated George Boleyn and his associates might have been homosexual, but no contemporary evidence supports the theory. However, George Cavendish in "Metrical Visions" wrote that he was a notorious seducer of women. Also, no contemporary records^[4] mention Anne Boleyn giving birth to a deformed foetus, which Gregory contends is possible evidence of incest.

• Paternity of Mary Boleyn's children. It has long been rumoured that one or both of Mary Boleyn's children were fathered by Henry VIII, originating from a report made in 1531 by an anti-Boleyn Prior and Catherine of Aragon adherent who had never seen the boy. There is some debate, with Sally Varloe, Dr. G. W. Bernard (author of The King's Reformation), and Joanna Denny (author of Anne Boleyn: a new life of England's tragic Queen and Katherine Howard: a Tudor conspiracy) arguing that he may have been Henry Tudor's son. Some writers, such as Alison Weir, consider it unlikely that Henry Carey (Mary's son) was fathered by the King.^[5]

• Role of Thomas and Elizabeth Boleyn. The Other Boleyn Girl depicts Mary's parents as devoid of affection for their daughters, and eager to use both as sexual pawns for political gain. Sources such as Anne Boleyn by Marie-Louise Bruce (1972)^[6] suggest that Mary's parents did not encourage her sexual escapades and were horrified when she was sent home from France in disgrace.

• Anne Boleyn's wardship of Henry Carey. Anne Boleyn took on Mary's son as her ward after the death of his father and supplied him with an education. This was a common practice in the Tudor nobility and one very similar to the situation faced by dozens of young aristocratic children, including Anne and Mary's cousin, Katherine Howard, who was raised by her grandmother when her father was penniless. Anne's actions are usually seen as kind by contemporaries and historians, but the novel re-imagines it both as a cruel act and as an adoption in the modern sense, in which the child's caretakers are considered his legal and social parents. Actually, Anne secured Mary a highly respectable pension of £100 a year.^[7]

• Sexual experience of Mary Boleyn. Mary is depicted in The Other Boleyn Girl as a sexually inexperienced young girl when she begins her affair with the king. However, history alleges that she had an affair with Francis I of France and a subsequent period of promiscuity at the French court. She is generally thought to have been dismissed from the French court because of this, shaming the Boleyn family.^[8] Genealogist Anthony Hoskins contradicts the claim that Mary Boleyn had a reputation as being sexually active at an early age, and indeed, denies that Mary was extensively educated at the French court like her sister at all. Hoskins claims, "It is now established that it was Anne Boleyn, and not her sister Mary, who lived at the Flemish and French courts as a child," and surmises that French King Francis I's comments on her reputation were not based on her early behaviour, as he possibly only had met her as early as 1520 at the Field of Cloth of Gold.^[9] However, most historians believe that both Anne and Mary spent time at the French court.^[10] The French king remembered Mary as "a great prostitute, infamous above all" and "the English mare."

• Motivations and characterisation of Anne Boleyn. The Guardian newspaper claimed Anne had been presented as "a scheming trollop," expressing incredulity at such a characterisation.^[11] In The Other Boleyn Girl, Anne Boleyn is presented as cold, vindictive, ruthlessly ambitious, vain, and given to physical violence; this is not supported by contemporary accounts. She was certainly complex: highly intelligent, fluently bilingual, politically astute, artistically gifted, loyal to her family, generous to friends, and known for her charm and elegance, notwithstanding arrogance and a notorious temper when stressed. During her time abroad, she was reported to have been sweet and kind. Feminist scholars objected to Gregory's characterisation and praise Anne Boleyn as a feminist icon.^[12][13]

• Incest between Anne and George Boleyn. Historically, Anne Boleyn was charged with committing incest with her brother. The novel heavily implies but does not state that Anne, convinced that Henry VIII could not give her a healthy son, resorts to incest with her brother. Both the 2003 BBC production of The Other Boleyn Girl and the 2008 Hollywood film with Natalie Portman clearly depict the two attempting but not committing incest.

None of the sources Gregory listed in her bibliography question Anne Boleyn's innocence. Gregory used two biographies of Anne, one by the American historian Retha Warnicke and another source by Marie-Louise Bruce (1972). Both these writers insisted that Anne was innocent, as did books by David Loades, Alison Weir, and Lacey Baldwin Smith that Gregory had used when researching the story. Gregory did not use Dr. Eric Ives's 1986 scholarly biography on Anne Boleyn, The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn: the Most Happy, in which Ives expounds the possible political motives for Anne Boleyn's fall. Ives describes Anne as an active and effective politician, and explains Anne's fall and execution as the result of minister Thomas Cromwell's determination to avoid a similar fate to that of Cardinal Thomas Wolsey.^[14]

There is no evidence supporting Gregory's assertion that Anne had three miscarriages. Gregory ignores the argument, as stated in Eric Ives's biography of Anne Boleyn,^[15] that part of the reason Anne was executed was because of her political and religious leanings, which her brother shared and supported.

Adaptations

Screen

A ninety-minute television drama based on the novel was broadcast by the BBC in 2003. It had a relatively low production budget of £750,000 and was filmed using modern camera techniques, with much of the script improvised. Jodhi May played Anne Boleyn, Natascha McElhone played Mary, Steven Mackintosh played George, Jared Harris played Henry VIII, and Philip Glenister played Stafford. It received mixed reviews.

A 2008 feature film adaptation starred Scarlett Johansson as Mary, Natalie Portman as Anne, and Eric Bana as Henry VIII. In Translating Henry to the Screen, a bonus feature on the DVD release of the film, screenwriter Peter Morgan discusses the dilemma he faced in adapting Philippa Gregory's 600-plus-page novel for the screen. He ultimately decided to use it merely as a broad guideline for his script, which Gregory felt perfectly captured the essence of her book, although many plot elements were eliminated, diminished, or changed. Among the more notable deviations in the film, Mary's marriage to William Stafford, a major part of the book, is mentioned only in a note just before the closing credits, there is no mention of Anne's "stealing" Mary's son to keep a grip on the king's favour (there was a scene designed to vaguely cover that, but it was cut from the film), Anne becomes pregnant with Elizabeth after being raped by Henry, Anne and George decide against committing incest, Mary adopts Elizabeth at the end of the film and there are no overt references to George's homosexuality. In addition to this, the character of Elizabeth Boleyn is almost the opposite of that in the book and she is portrayed as protective of her daughters against their father and uncle and critical of the family's social climbing at the expense of their moral integrity.

Other

A narrated version was recorded, voiced by actress Emilia Fox..

See also

Novels portal

• Anne Boleyn in popular culture

Sequels

• The Queen's Fool
• The Virgin's Lover
• The Constant Princess
• The Boleyn Inheritance
• The Other Queen

References

1. ^ Ives, Eric (2004) The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn ISBN 1405134631.
2. ^ Denny, Joanna (2004), Anne Boleyn: A New Life to England's Tragic Queen
3. ^ Ives, Eric (2004) The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn
4. ^ Hall, Edmund (1809) Hall's Chronicle. London : Printed for J. Johnson; F. C. and J. Rivington; T. Payne; Wilkie and Robinson; Longman, Hurst, Rees and Orme; Cadell and Davies; and J. Mawman
5. ^ Weir. Henry VIII: The King and His Court. p. 216. 
6. ^ Bruce, Marie-Louise (1972) Anne Boleyn; p. 13
7. ^ Lindsey, Karen (1995) Divorced Beheaded Survived: a feminist reinterpretation ...; p. 73
8. ^ Denny, Joanna (2004) Anne Boleyn
9. ^ Hoskins, Genealogists' Magazine, Vol. 25 (March, 1997), No. 9, reproduced on line at http://www.genealogymagazine.com/boleyn2.html
10. ^ Ives, Eric (1986). The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn. Basil Blackwell Inc. 432 Park Avenue South, Suite 1503, New York, NY 10016, USA: Basil Blackwell. pp. 420. 
11. ^ Chrisafis, Angelique (30 April 2003). "Thieves breach Boleyn castle defences". The Guardian (London). http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2003/apr/30/arttheft.arts. Retrieved 25 May 2010. 
12. ^ Ives, E. W. (2004) The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn
13. ^ Lindsey, Karen (1995) Divorced, Beheaded, Survived: a feminist reinterpretation ...
14. ^ Ives, E. W. The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn: the Most Happy; chap. xv
15. ^ Ives, E. W. (2004) The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn ISBN 1405134631

External links

• Philippa Gregory official website