00:03:44.480And that can be a tall order, because it's a familiar story.
00:03:47.200But I thought I wanted to show them as they really were, not when they're being clever courtiers and putting on a show, but as real people, a real family struggling to survive.
00:04:00.720And I thought, you know, placing them in the home where they felt safe, they could let their guards down, was a great way to achieve that.
00:04:10.400And it also enabled me to not only immerse myself during the research, but hopefully
00:04:15.580immerse my readers what it was like living in a place like Hever Castle in the 1520s
00:04:22.660and 30s and really the sights and sounds and smells, all of that.
00:04:27.900I just, I wanted to make it very atmospheric.
00:04:31.180So yes, it is the story of the Boleyns, the kind of rise and fall, but yeah, told through
00:04:38.000what I was also able to do is not just focus on the family above stairs, but weave in lots of
00:04:43.820different characters below stairs, the servants. And that's when I used my imagination because
00:04:48.740actually we know very little about the real servants at Heber. So yeah, it's this kind of
00:04:53.200upstairs, downstairs world that I hope to evoke. Well, and what's immediately by setting it in
00:05:00.180Heber, what I found so fascinating is, you know, the story of Anne Boleyn and her family has been
00:05:04.820told many times but it's always through a lens of at court what are they up to there which is not
00:05:10.100their home which is and also her whole family didn't travel there with her usually we just
00:05:14.700hear about her father and maybe her uncle but pivoting it over to the house we get to meet
00:05:18.960the people she grew up with because Hever is where Anne Boleyn spent so much of her time so
00:05:23.780what I would love because I learned so much and it's funny because it's a novel but obviously
00:05:27.560you did lots of research I was I learned a lot about Anne Boleyn's genealogy oh great yes good
00:05:33.140Yeah, because I did a lot of research into the Boleyns for this novel. I've spent a lot of my
00:05:38.980career researching and writing and talking about Anne Boleyn. I used to say it was my ambition to
00:05:44.340get through a whole day without saying her name because she's a lot of my life. But the other
00:05:51.220Boleyns, the sort of lesser known Boleyns, not so much. And I really became hooked with their story.
00:05:59.620And as well, there's this great myth that the Boleyns were nobody until Henry plucked them from obscurity and made them famous.
00:06:10.220In fact, they were a well-established family.
00:06:12.940They've been on the rise for the best part of four centuries.
00:06:16.740Pop French came over with William the Conqueror in 1066 and steadily built up their wealth, their connections, and were moving in royal circles.
00:06:27.240almost 100 years before Henry VIII came to the throne.
00:06:30.860So, yeah, they certainly weren't these kind of nobodies
00:06:33.900that history tends to like to think they were.
00:06:36.820And one of the women who really fascinated me the most
00:06:41.840was Anne's paternal grandmother, Lady Margaret Butler.
00:06:46.760Okay, I need to say you introduced me to Lady Margaret Butler in this book,
00:06:55.520and I can we start with her because she's from Ireland I don't I don't know how many people know
00:07:02.060that Anne Boleyn has this Irish connection to the butlers who are still a very prevalent family in
00:07:07.640that area where she's from in Kilkenny yeah I don't think people do know this Irish connection
00:07:12.380the ancestry of Anne Boleyn but yes it was hugely important because Margaret and I'm so pleased you
00:07:20.400liked her because honestly, she was probably my favourite. I shouldn't have favourites, but she
00:07:25.960was. What Margaret did for the Boleyns was to introduce some much needed pedigree because the0.83
00:07:34.720Boleyns were doing well. As I said, they're kind of building up their prosperity, their royal
00:07:39.280connections, but they were slightly looked down on as new money or trade, if you like. They weren't
00:07:47.300all that aristocratic. So it was Geoffrey Boleyn who in the 1400s decided to make this prestigious
00:07:56.120marriage for his son William to this Irish heiress, Lady Margaret Butler. She was the daughter and
00:08:03.240co-heiress of the Earl of Ormond, one of the most distinguished noblemen in Ireland. Their home was
00:08:10.220beautiful Kilkenny Castle in the Republic of Ireland. This was a masterstroke by Geoffrey
00:08:18.160Boleyn, securing this marriage for his son, because that's when you really get this injection
00:08:24.460of blue blood into the Boleyn family. Margaret, as well, was a huge influence on the Boleyns.0.58
00:08:34.820She and William had numerous children. There's really a sense of establishing a dynasty
00:08:39.960once Margaret comes over and she remains with her eldest son Thomas until the day she dies
00:08:49.360because her husband dies, Thomas becomes head of the family and he obviously adores his mother
00:08:55.100so he keeps her close. I think she's been lost to history but I think she would have been
00:09:01.900a pivotal influence on Anne Boleyn growing up, to have this matriarch, this landowner and
00:09:09.520titled Irish heiress. I mean, her will would have been law, I think, at Hever, really.
00:09:17.900I don't want to give too much away, but then something pretty catastrophic happens to Margaret
00:09:22.560in the year 1519. And I can tell you that was not fiction. I did not make up.
00:09:28.480honestly I when that happened I and you know listeners you can read the book and find out
00:09:33.720but I was like wait a minute so what was in this book I wasn't sure what is fact and what what is
00:09:39.480your imagination because these are these Margaret is a character I didn't know at all so I knew that
00:09:44.140she existed but I did have to fact check that because I thought oh that's a turn that's
00:09:48.320disappointing but yeah absolutely and and so we know what happened but but not the kind of
00:09:54.460whys and wherefores and what was behind it all. So that's when I spun a bit of a plot
00:09:59.660to explain this disaster that poor old Margaret suffers at this kind of midpoint when she's1.00
00:10:05.820riding high and her son is head of the family and she's got all of this wealth inherited from her
00:10:10.940father. And then suddenly, yeah, it all goes horribly wrong for her. So she does kind of
00:10:16.780fight on, but what a fascinating woman. And I love that little known Irish connection.
00:10:22.780And by the way, it's also thanks to Margaret that Anne Boleyn has that famous white falcon emblem because the white falcon was the buckler emblem.
00:10:33.340So she sort of borrowed it from her grandmother and that kind of Irish side of the family.
00:10:38.480So that's when, yeah, Anne rather liked that.
00:10:40.740She thought, yeah, that's pretty cool having a white falcon.
00:12:55.820Yeah, exactly. But yeah, one of those great what ifs. She might have just lived a very long and happy life. Who knows? Had lots of sons.
00:13:06.140Perhaps. So if we have Lady Margaret Butler, and you have to imagine, again, because your book shifts the focus to Heaver. And so we're seeing who are the people who were there when Anne Boleyn was coming of age.
00:13:16.240So I have to think, and I think you do, too, that seeing this indomitable matriarch would, that would rub off on Anne to see like, OK, women's roles can be powerful.
00:13:31.320It can't fail to be an influence because it was very rare for women to be heiresses in this period, to inherit land and property.
00:13:42.120So Margaret was quite extraordinary in that respect.
00:13:45.600And there's a real sense, even though the records are patchy, that her influence was pervasive at Hiva and been shaping the sort of future of the Boleyns.
00:13:57.280She was certainly the foundress of the kind of dynasty, really, thanks to that marriage to William Boleyn.
00:14:03.540And Anne must have looked up to her grandmother thinking, wow, look at this woman.0.97
00:14:07.960She's got all this money, all these lands, titles, and she's almost a woman living independently.
00:14:18.080Yes, she's living at Hiva with her son and his family, but I think that's through choice.
00:14:22.680She could have established herself in a nice country house somewhere else, but she's very much getting sense with Margaret.
00:14:29.460She is a family woman and she has ambitions for her family.
00:14:33.400So, yes, Anne must have looked and learned, I think, from Margaret.
00:14:40.060But if we look at her mother as well, which, again, this is as a women's historian, I was I loved learning about the women and her family from your book, because so often when we see Anne Boleyn at court, it's just her father and her uncle.
00:14:53.420Those are the only Boleyn relatives that we ever see in TV or film or fiction, usually.
00:14:58.400So I was I was excited to learn more about her mother.
00:15:01.400what can you tell us about Elizabeth Howard? So again, just like Thomas's father married into
00:15:07.820aristocracy, so did Thomas himself. So Elizabeth Howard, she was the daughter
00:15:13.460of the second Duke of Norfolk. I mean, the Howards, they're synonymous with power in the
00:15:18.620Tudor period. And they'd been close to the crown for centuries. It was a very, very distinguished
00:15:24.800family. And so Elizabeth brought that pedigree. So this is when really this match really starts
00:15:33.620to propel the Boleyns into the higher reaches of society. And like her mother-in-law, Margaret,
00:15:43.100she was very good at establishing a dynasty. Thomas later reflected, she gave me every year
00:15:50.160a child. So they seem to have had loads of kids. But of course, only three Berlin siblings survived
00:15:57.360to adulthood, they being, and not necessarily in this order, but Mary, Anne and George.
00:16:03.140We do know, though, at least two other boys were born to this marriage of Thomas and Elizabeth.
00:16:12.180But there are memorials to them in the church next to Hever and also in the church next to
00:16:17.820Pennshurst place, intriguingly, which was really the Boleyn's neighbour, the Duke of Buckingham's
00:16:23.340place. So there could have been other lost Boleyn children. Likely there were. But on the one hand,
00:16:32.320Elizabeth, yes, she ticked the box, the number one box for a wife. You know, you've got to give0.86
00:16:37.320your husband lots of heirs and spares. And she seems to have done that, including the vital
00:16:42.320male heir, George. And she does stay close to her daughter, Anne. So, when Anne starts to rise to
00:16:50.840prominence at court, her mother goes with her. Henry arranges for Elizabeth to have apartments
00:16:57.360close to her daughters. And it seems that they're quite a unit, her and Anne. So, again, another
00:17:06.340influence on Anne growing up and then when she's in her heyday. I would say that my portrayal of
00:17:14.060their relationship is quite negative in my novel because it's all about opposites. When you're
00:17:21.800writing fiction, heroes and villains, good and bad. You have Anne in my novel being very close
00:17:28.040to her father, so I had to juxtapose that with her not being quite so close to her mother.
00:17:32.820But the fact is, she probably was, she probably did get on pretty well with her. Certainly,
00:17:38.200Elizabeth Boleyn was close to her daughter Anne during her rise at court. So, interesting woman.
00:17:45.480Now, it was rumoured that Elizabeth Boleyn once had an affair with Henry VIII himself.
00:17:54.300And this is something he always strenuously denied because people said, you know,
00:17:59.040you've had an affair with Mary Boleyn and sister. Now you're after Anne. And also,
00:18:04.360didn't you have an affair with her mother? And Henry always said, never with the mother.
00:18:09.100He always denied that there was anything going on. But there was just a hint of scandal
00:18:14.380around Elizabeth Boleyn that the poet John Skelton wrote this fairly acerbic verse about her that0.86
00:18:23.560hinted at immorality but you know women didn't have to do much to be acute immorality as as you
00:18:31.540will know um so there's there's no firm evidence that uh elizabeth's virtue was ever compromised
00:18:39.280in that way well and something that comes across in your novel and i've heard some of the other
00:18:44.180interviews you've given talking about it is this charisma that the boleyns all had so when you
00:18:50.060think about someone like elizabeth maybe clearly she people noticed her whether or not she was
00:18:56.700doing these scandalous things and had it like can you talk a bit about this boleyn so they had you've
00:19:02.260described the you know the heiresses married in and they're this up-and-coming family but the
00:19:06.680people themselves like people were drawn to them like all of them yeah they were and i do believe
00:19:13.700they must have had charisma in spades because they made it all the way to the very top,
00:19:22.300the dizzying heights, and they stood out at court. And yes, there were clever and brilliant people
00:19:29.060and very skilled political operators, but so were lots of other people at court. So what made the
00:19:34.660Boleyns so special? And with Anne, and I'm sorry to bring it down to physical appearance, but
00:19:39.660people were at pains to point out she's not beautiful. It's not like this absolute stunner
00:19:44.600walks into Henry's court and everybody is completely under her spell. She's not conventionally0.99
00:19:51.420beautiful. That dark hair is not fashionable. It's all about blondes and pale skin and she's
00:19:56.460sort of swarthy as she's described. But she has this sort of self-confidence, this literal
00:20:06.100je ne sais quoi from the years she spent in the French court before coming to England.
00:20:13.240And I think that carries through into the rest of her family. They seem to have just that charisma,
00:20:20.240that perhaps irreverence. They're not afraid of the king. They're not afraid of figures of
00:20:27.040authority. They don't kowtow to them, even if they outrank them. There's a little bit of cheek
00:20:33.300there. And I think people like Henry can't resist that. And another example of him not being able to
00:20:38.480resist somebody irreverent is his all-powerful minister, Anne's future nemesis, Thomas Cromwell,
00:20:45.080who is definitely a commoner. But everybody talks about how cheeky and charismatic he was.
00:20:53.360I think you needed charisma to get noticed at Henry's court. Henry worked on personalities,
00:20:59.760not just politics. So I think that has a lot to do with this dazzling rise, meteoric rise
00:21:07.740of Peter England's most famous family. Well, and even I think if we're talking even before
00:21:14.000Henry begins pursuing Anne Boleyn, like the Boleyns as just as a unit, like the family is
00:21:20.280they're really stepping up, which is, can you talk about Hever, the house itself and how they
00:21:25.680acquire this beautiful palace yes yes so uh the the boleyns acquire heaver in the 1400s
00:21:32.680um it was originally in the 1380s which it was quite a turbulent period in english history um
00:21:40.780something called the peasants revolt uh and and that started in close to heaver castle and they
00:21:48.400were rebelling against this new tax that the government had introduced and uh john de cobham
00:21:54.100was the original owner of Hever and unfortunately he was a tax collector. So he had to kind of
00:21:59.460fortify his house of Hever and you can still see the three portcullises that John put in place at
00:22:07.400Hever to keep out those revolting peasants as they were. And then Geoffrey Boleyn, who was
00:22:15.460one of those who really started to advance the family's fortunes in the 1400s, he acquired two
00:22:21.180properties, Blickling Hall in Norfolk, which the Boleyns were a Norfolk family really,
00:22:26.820not originally a Kent family. But Geoffrey also thought, hmm, maybe we should get a place a bit
00:22:32.800closer to court. And Hever was within a day's ride of the court. And so he purchased it and he
00:22:42.440greatly embellished it, made it a sort of luxurious family residence, no longer any need for those1.00
00:22:49.820poor coulisses, but they kept them anyway. And then it remained in Berlin hands for quite some0.98
00:22:56.840time. And from the year 1505, Hiva became the Berlin's main residence. That's when Thomas
00:23:06.000Berlin thought, actually, let's move out of Norfolk and Blickling Hall. Let's take up residence in
00:23:11.680Hiva because it was just so much more convenient, both for the court. But by then, Thomas Berlin
00:23:17.700had a reputation as a diplomat. He was always being sent overseas. And Hever is also a day's
00:23:24.200ride from the coast where he was always setting sail. So, it's all about location. Nothing changes.
00:23:29.920You invest in a property that's got a great location. So, that's what Hever gave to the
00:23:36.000Boleyns. But if you visit today, I was going to say it's small. It's bigger than my house.
00:23:40.900but um it's it's it's kind of pocket-sized castle you know it's quite contained and and i think that
00:23:48.320must have lent itself to that kind of the the tight-knit nature of the berlin family you really
00:23:55.660get a sense that they're a close family well and that's where i've not i've not been to heaver yet
00:24:02.820myself it's on my bucket list of places i would like to go but i presume you spent an awful lot
00:24:07.480of time there when you were researching this so when it was described as a palace i was imagining
00:24:11.180something quite grand but yeah yeah it's sort of i mean it is a castle so don't get me wrong um
00:24:18.840i wouldn't be able to afford to buy it but it's it's not huge there's probably three or four
00:24:27.160bedrooms um at most and um you know just just one great hall and and a parlor and a great chamber
00:24:35.440But it's, you know, you can walk around it in 15 minutes, really, if you're losing through.
00:24:41.880It's not one of these great palatial homes, but it is absolutely fairy tale like, you know, it's surrounded by a moat.
00:24:51.900It has the turrets. It has those portcullises I mentioned and it's magical.
00:24:57.780It was the biggest joy to spend a lot of time there while researching my novel.
00:25:03.900and um owen emerson one of the curators there he gave me this behind the scenes tour which was just
00:25:10.320jaw-dropping because everyone wants to go those doors that say private on them or you know open
00:25:15.380up a door in the paneling that you haven't noticed and that gave me so many details for the book
00:25:20.520um including owen showed me a um a secret cupboard in anne boleyn's former bed chamber and it's hidden
00:25:28.460away in the paneling so of course i had to write that in that's where she keeps her love letters
00:25:32.580um not necessarily from henry by the way um and so yeah there was i think writing a novel like
00:25:39.680when it is so much about place not just people uh there was no substitute for for just spending a
00:25:46.420lot of time there and uh they say you should always write a book that's set somewhere that
00:25:51.860you want to spend time and i think that's good advice you know my next one's going to be venice
00:25:56.560i think or something like that well i did want to say like the you explained at the very beginning
00:26:02.300like the house of Berlin you know it's the double meaning it's the people but it's also the house
00:26:05.880and I do feel like the house itself is a character in this book you bring it to life so vividly
00:26:11.060yeah I was wondering because it doesn't surprise me you had this behind the scenes tour because
00:26:17.260like this book like there's a scene or a mention of every single corner and crevice in this building
00:26:22.700yeah yeah when you know that that was music to my ears when he said about it being a character
00:26:27.840in the book because literally that was my stated aim in my proposal when i was pitching this to
00:26:32.980the publishers i said i want i want heaver to be a character not just a backdrop with the occasional
00:26:37.740mention it has to be pivotal it has to be there and readers have to feel it um and and sort of
00:26:44.560get the texture of heaver so so thank you that's that's joyful i'm just curious i'm just imagining
00:26:53.020if I was in your shoes, walking around the house
00:26:55.360and being shown all of these secret, not secret passageways,
00:27:08.760And as I was going around with Owen, for example,
00:27:12.160saying like, where would Anna have been reading
00:27:15.000all these love letters that Henry sent her?
00:27:17.100You know, we still have 17 of them in the Vatican archives, intriguingly.
00:27:21.540So, you know, which rooms? And so, Owen was saying, OK, well, let's go in the best bedchamber, great name, which probably Anne had once she'd caught the attention of the king.
00:27:32.440She gets she gets an upgrade in her home. You know, she gets to sleep in a better bedchamber.
00:27:37.840But also, Owen took me up on the roof of the castle. I always love a castle roof, despite my fear of heights.
00:27:45.660And he said, you know, you can imagine Anne up there, you know, watching as the messenger is riding towards Hiva with these letters.
00:27:52.900And so he got really into it, kind of imagining scenes with me.
00:27:57.640So we were able to concoct a few of those together.
00:28:00.920But it got so that I knew the castle so well that even when I was back here where I am now at my desk, where I write my books, I was able to just kind of close my eyes and imagine it.
00:28:11.280And then, of course, I took millions of photographs. So I had a lot to look at and I tried to describe as many of the sort of original features as I could. So, yeah, it was so much fun. I found myself kind of missing Hiva once I'd finished the novel. It's like, oh, I quite enjoyed inhabiting that world for a few years.
00:28:34.000Well, and, you know, I don't think this is going to spoil anything in your book, but guess what? Henry VIII is drawn to Anne Boleyn and begins pursuing her. I think that's widely known.
00:28:46.940and in your book and there's also been some other recent books coming out that are sort of presenting
00:28:54.440it not as Anne Boleyn this seductive temptress luring him in because and it's always in those
00:29:00.440other older books nothing against them at all but the portrayal is often her father was almost
00:29:05.180pimping her out to try to get and your book your your I what I feel feels more true to me is that
00:29:12.300she got his attention and she didn't want it and she's trying to get rid of him yeah yeah exactly
00:29:18.740um history has painted it in a very odd way predictable way perhaps uh these these older
00:29:25.760history books are products of their time i think and and so of course you know anne boleyn just
00:29:30.660like her cousin catherine howard they have to be the kind of scheming seductresses um stealing1.00
00:29:36.740the man away from his lawful wife. Whereas, you're quite right, I don't get a sense Anne
00:29:42.980wanted Henry at all and wanted to be married to him. Definitely, there's no evidence. In fact,
00:29:50.520there's a lot of evidence to the contrary that Thomas Boleyn was basically using his children
00:29:55.900as collateral damage in his rise to power and pushing Anne into the king's path so that he
00:30:03.100would be greatly enriched by this, whether it was an affair or a marriage. Not a bit of it.
00:30:09.540I think Thomas Boleyn's already had one daughter ruined by Henry. Mary has an affair with the king
00:30:15.960and she's left with her reputation in tatters and possibly an illegitimate child by Henry.
00:30:22.700He doesn't want the same sort of thing to happen to Anne and even he doesn't want marriage because
00:30:27.460Thomas has worked at Henry VIII's court since the beginning of the reign. He knows how dangerous
00:30:33.980the king is. You wouldn't want that for your cherished daughter. And I think, you know,
00:30:40.900it wasn't just a deliberate ploy. The fact that Anne keeps going back to Hiva during the courtship
00:30:48.600and that's been presented as, oh yeah, treat her mean, keep him keen.
00:40:38.040And probably my favourite of the servants to create and to cast a web of intrigue around was Esther, who I make the lady's maid of Anne and indeed her sister Mary, but she becomes particularly close to Anne.
00:40:56.180Creating the world of the servants, it enabled me to get into Anne's mind as well, because
00:41:03.320when you're writing fiction, you can't just keep saying what people are thinking. You have to
00:41:09.620enable them to express it. And it's really helpful that masters and servants were much
00:41:15.460closer in Tudor periods than later periods when it was more of a sort of a deferential relationship.
00:41:22.160servants were seen and not heard whereas in the Tudor period servants were confidants and
00:41:27.340companions and friends so Anne would have been sharing her innermost thoughts and fears uh with
00:41:33.940with Esther um and having Esther there and indeed um Aphra um the the Irish servant of uh Lady
00:41:42.140Margaret's also enabled me to get across just the the the jeopardy at the peril of being a woman
00:41:51.100in in Tudor England and all the you know how little agency you had and and the danger that
00:41:58.840could befall you um and and indeed your reputation and yeah there's an awful lot that happens to0.80
00:42:05.200these poor female servants in my novel well I will say just the description you give you give
00:42:10.760notice on the podcast about the size of heaver and things like that so if you're not to spoil
00:42:15.540your book but let's say that you're a young female servant and one of and a man has got his
00:42:19.800sights set on you there's nowhere to hide yeah you're not in a huge you're gonna run into him
00:42:24.980constantly yeah yeah you'd have to absolutely you'd have to hope for an incredibly benevolent
00:42:31.400master who could either dismiss the predatory male or or make sure that he leaves you alone
00:42:38.300and that often didn't happen and so there are there are real dangers um and and women had so
00:42:46.300little power in this situation and nobody would have blamed the male servant or superior or even
00:42:54.740like the master of the house that was a thing certainly in the duke of norfolk's household
00:42:58.560where the you know that the master himself is sort of bedding all the the maids and you know
00:43:04.360what what are they going to do they've got no power to resist him so it's you know even at
00:43:10.380this micro level of a fairly small household women are in peril almost on a daily basis and
00:43:18.000I really wanted to convey that and and yeah um without spoiling it for your readers that's
00:43:23.780hence let's just say Robert Cranwell being quite such a yeah a despicable villain this was something
00:43:30.560else I did I told you I did like I did you know just kind of like double checking like okay Margaret
00:43:35.080Butler did this really happen to her Cranwell was someone else where I was just like who is this guy
00:43:39.320And I said, OK, this is the one name that is known, but we don't, probably not actually a villain, but for the purposes of your book, quite an effective villain.
00:43:48.840Exactly. And I do often apologize to Cromwell for saying, look, I'm sorry, you probably weren't a villain, but I made you one.
00:43:54.440But there is one piece of evidence, albeit brief, that he may not have been that nice a character.
00:44:01.980because he wrote a letter to Thomas Cromwell
00:44:05.560soon after the death of Thomas Boleyn, his master.
00:44:22.140I thought there's enough justification to make him nasty.
00:44:27.040Well, honestly, that reminds me in a way
00:44:29.840of the way that historians for a very long time have taken the evidence that Jane and George
00:44:36.080Boleyn didn't have any children is evidence that they must have hated each other. And he was
00:44:40.800probably gay. And she was probably like, yeah, can you explain how you approach their relationship
00:44:46.360and Jane Boleyn? Yes. And talking about the sort of, I was going to say lesser known female
00:44:52.640characters, Jane Boleyn is well known, but she has been vilified and misrepresented. I really
00:44:59.320wanted to set the record straight with this book because yes you're absolutely right um the fact
00:45:04.560that they probably didn't have children there is a merest hint possibly of a child um between jane
00:45:11.400and george um but they probably didn't have children which therefore the supposition is0.93
00:45:16.900miserable marriage and george was either gay or just constantly womanizing um i put a different0.67
00:45:23.620slant on this um as as you will know um not necessarily george who is gay in my book um and
00:45:30.860that yes that there isn't perhaps a great deal of affection between them for much of the book but
00:45:36.820then they do actually grow to be quite close towards the end but what i really wanted to
00:45:42.760get across with jane's story is she's not the piece and i think actually she only really became
00:45:49.560the villain of Anne's story during the reign of Anne's daughter, Elizabeth, when Elizabeth couldn't
00:45:54.980blame her father for getting rid of her mother. So she needed a scapegoat. And this is when this
00:46:00.280myth arose that Jane was the one who gave the incriminating evidence that sent Anne and her
00:46:07.120brother George, Jane's own husband, to their deaths. And actually, there's no evidence that
00:46:13.580she did that. In fact, what there is evidence is that Jane was pleading for her husband's life to
00:46:19.100Henry and petitioning him to allow her to go and visit him in the tower. She's been so maligned
00:46:25.340and I think so unjustifiably maligned. And people cite the fact that, oh, well, Jane,
00:46:31.660clearly she did it so that her own career was protected because then she went on to serve
00:46:36.960Jane Seymour and then Anne of Cleves and then Catherine Howard. But Jane probably didn't have0.94
00:46:43.180any choice whatsoever. She would have probably been just summoned back to court to serve the0.85
00:46:48.300next queen. That doesn't necessarily mean that she was guilty of stitching up her sister-in-law
00:46:53.260and her husband. So I really wanted to, you can tell how passionate I was about this, to give
00:46:58.160readers a different Jane. And I hope a Jane slightly closer to the truth than that villainous
00:47:05.780reputation. And I think that's something else too, that when you're Elizabeth or anyone like
00:47:12.040looking back, you can be like, okay, well, maybe this is what she wanted because this is how her
00:47:16.020life turned out but that would have been preposterous to think that Jane Boleyn would
00:47:20.660marry George and think here's what I'm going to do I'm going to frame I'm going to give this0.60
00:47:24.860deposition and then that will mean that Anne and George will be executed but I Jane Boleyn will0.66
00:47:29.640get this good job like that's not a plan like no one can foresee those results no that's it's a
00:47:36.840terrible plan I'm going to um I'm going to marry into this family and then destroy the same family
00:47:42.720and you know my name will be mud even if i have got a job at court still it it makes
00:47:49.600no logical sense whatsoever um so many myths around jane and i would say around the boleins
00:47:57.560full stop people think they know them um and we're just going on myths it's like chinese whispers
00:48:05.800over the centuries uh that have made the boleins something that i don't think they were at all
00:48:11.240And so in terms of the Boleyns' sort of rise and fall of this, over centuries, you know, they were making these good marriages and getting these more prestigious positions. But once Anne Boleyn, once her downfall, when she's executed, the whole family feels those ripple effects, like the Boleyns stop being a presence, right?
00:48:30.100Yeah. And it's quite sudden and brutal, really. It's the end of the Boleyns as any kind of political force in England. They don't have a renaissance, unless you count, you know, they certainly do in the form of Anne's daughter, Elizabeth, Queen of England. But the Boleyn family itself, no, it falls very, very rapidly.
00:48:53.080And even though Thomas Boleyn has served Henry VIII brilliantly from the beginning of the reign, he's out.
00:49:00.320He's kicked out of court when his children are executed.
00:49:03.440Poor Thomas, as well as suffering the loss of two children in the most horrific manner possible.
00:49:08.920He's stripped of all his titles, his positions, his wealth.
00:49:13.040Even a heaver is taken from Thomas and it's forfeit to the crown.
00:49:18.760Although Henry very generously allows Thomas to at least live out his days there, but very cruelly makes Thomas come back to court about a year, just over a year after his daughter's execution and his son's execution to attend the christening of his new son by the woman who had replaced his daughter Anne.
00:49:39.880And, you know, it's just mind boggling, the cruelty of Henry VIII.
00:49:45.020And then Thomas, he doesn't hang about at court.
00:49:50.520And that's where he dies in March 1539.
00:49:54.300So one imagines those three years or just shy of three years that he outlived his daughter Anne and son George must have been just heart rending.
00:50:05.400You know, he was a broken man, I think, from that day forward.
00:50:08.400Well, and then what I find really interesting, and I hadn't known this before, is that ultimately Henry VIII gifts Heaver to Anne of Cleves, his wife, who they amicably separate, they have a conscious uncoupling. And so in terms of the history of this home, Anne of Cleves lives there for some time.
00:50:31.080Yeah, there is more than one Queen Anne at Hever Castle. And I love this. And actually, if I'm honest, Anna Pleas is my favourite of the six. I just love her so much. I mean, what a success story. People dismiss her as the ugly wife. I don't think she was ugly at all. I think probably she was pretty horrified at the thought of marrying Henry VIII and that showed.
00:50:53.240got rid of that marriage very quickly.
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