Special Guest Post by Wendy J. Dunn, Author of The Light in the Labyrinth: The Last Days of Anne Boleyn. (The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn Book 3)

Available from Amazon UK and Amazon US 

In the winter of 1535, young Kate Carey lives with her mother and her new family, far from the royal court. Unhappy with her life and wanting to escape her home, she accepts the invitation of Anne Boleyn, the aunt she idolises, to join her household in London. But the dark, dangerous labyrinth of Henry VIII’s court forces Kate to grow up fast as she witnesses her aunt’s final tragic days — and when she discovers a secret that changes her life forever.

Why is Anne Boleyn one of my life’s heroes?  

 

For me, there is really only one answer to this question: the inspiration of her life.

I thank God for Anne Boleyn because her life gave me the life I live today. I mean this seriously. Achieving our authentic lives is indeed the hero’s journey for all of us. I was lucky. Anne Boleyn and her daughter blazed bright a light of inspiration to me as a child and sent me on the road I have walked every day since. It has not been an easy road, but the road I needed to walk to ‘know myself’ and become the person I am today.

So why is Anne an inspiration to me? Her story hooked me as a child because I saw a strong, intelligent woman who was not afraid to speak and stand up to the men in her life. Yes—her story does not end well, but even the tragedy of her death inspires me. Anne was not afraid to live, and—at the very end, when she stood on a scaffold with a French executioner waiting to earn his fee — she was not afraid to die.

 
Anne’s story inspired me and continues to inspire me. She lived when women's lives were controlled by their patriarchal world (Ward 2013). The patriarchal society of the Tudors told women silence was a virtue, and the only form of eloquence appropriate to women (Hannay 1985; Jordan 1990). Society taught Tudor women about their inferiority and sinful natures, emphasizing their inequality to men (Fantazzi & Vives 2000).

From high to low, women who tried to make their voices heard put themselves into the dangerous position of nonconformity. They risked physical punishment, if not their lives (Jordon 1990). People could accuse women of witchcraft, as happened to Anne Boleyn, for refusing to be silent.
English pubs once even reminded women about what could happen if they forgot to bridle their tongues. Named as Quiet Woman or Silent Woman, the pubs often brandish a couplet, a couplet that seems related to Anne Boleyn:

Here is a woman who has lost her head
She’s quiet now—you see she’s dead (Rothwell 2006, p. 54).
With silence a matter of life or death, it is not surprising the Tudor period left women historically voiceless.

 
Despite so much against her, Anne empowered her life and seized more than simply ‘the possibility of a voice’ (Heale 1995, p. 305). For years, Anne broke free of the control of her times and became an extremely powerful woman.

Anne risked her a lot by refusing silence. Burstein (2007) reminds us there has always been a prejudice against the woman who refuse silence. This is a reality even in our modern age. But history shows this prejudice in action in Anne’s life – with the added complication she lived in a time which equated a woman’s virtue with silence (Hannay 1985). Her rejection of silence combatted not only her gender but also underlined her failure to bear a son for her husband. Unfortunately for Anne Boleyn, her female gender ultimately stripped her of power to dictate her own destiny.

In the months leading up to her execution, there is no question in my mind that Anne would have been well aware of her weakened influence with her husband. But that did not silence her. She continued in her efforts to keep Cromwell contained and do right by England as its queen. I believe one of her most hard life lessons was realizing her success as queen equated to her success in the birthing chamber. When she began to fear for her life, she did what she could to protect her infant daughter.

My two Anne Boleyn novels (Dear Heart, How Like You This? and The Light in the Labyrinth) attempt to illuminate how Tudor women’s lives were determined and controlled by their gender. Researching and constructing her story in fiction has brought me to a place where I see Anne Boleyn more than ever as a woman who was determined to claim her identity – a woman who refused to give up the voice given to her by the years of waiting for her marriage to Henry VIII to take place.

I also now see Anne as the harbinger of her daughter, Elizabeth. Anne, too, was a politician – a woman with a vision for England. She was also England’s Queen. Ives, Anne Boleyn’s best biographer, saw Anne as a woman ‘who broke through the glass ceiling of male dominated society by sheer character and initiative’ (Ives 2004, p, XV). I see this too. Yes – Anne was not perfect, but I believe history provide the evidence for us to see Anne Boleyn as an intelligent, self-made woman who understood the image of majesty almost as well as her daughter, a woman also responsible for encouraging the early years of the English reformation. Anne Boleyn will always be an inspiration to me.

Ives, EW 2004, The life and death of Anne Boleyn: ‘the most happy’, Malden, MA, Blackwell Pub.

Ward, AE 2013, Women and Tudor Tragedy: Feminizing Counsel and Representing Gender, Fairleigh Dickinson Press, Madison, New Jersey.

Wendy J. Dunn

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About the Author

Wendy J. Dunn is an Australian author, playwright and poet who has been obsessed by Anne Boleyn and Tudor History since she was ten-years-old. She is the author of two Tudor novels: Dear Heart, How Like You This?, the winner of the 2003 Glyph Fiction Award and 2004 runner up in the Eric Hoffer Award for Commercial Fiction, and The Light in the Labyrinth, her first young adult novel. While she continues to have a very close and spooky relationship with Sir Thomas Wyatt, the elder, serendipity of life now leaves her no longer wondering if she has been channeling Anne Boleyn and Sir Tom for years in her writing, but considering the possibility of ancestral memory. Her family tree reveals the intriguing fact that her ancestors – possibly over three generations – had purchased land from both the Boleyn and Wyatt families to build up their own holdings. It seems very likely Wendy’s ancestors knew the Wyatts and Boleyns personally. Wendy tutors at Swinburne University in their Master of Arts (Writing) program. Find out more at her website http://www.wendyjdunn.com/ and find her on Facebook and Bluesky @wendyjdunn.bsky.social