Born a Commoner

Died a Queen. A life of contrasts

A few weeks ago I wrote about my passion for a good story and how I once based a whole series of work on the stories of five famous women, both real and fictional. When I wrote about Persephone and the bodice she inspired, several people expressed an interest in hearing about the others and so I thought I would do an occasional series on the women’s lives that inspired me and the resulting bodices.

I never distinguished between these women’s stories because I have always found the line between what is fact or fiction can often be rather blurred, especially when we are considering the story of someone who lived many years ago. Obviously when writing about a character such as Persephone we all know she is entirely fictional, but the lives of real life women can also be shrouded in mystery and conflicting ‘facts’. The past is not fixed, and we can have unfolding memories. Our knowledge is constructed from a variety of contemporary sources and one persons account is not necessarily the same as someone else’s. In addition we now live in what is often termed as a post truth era where objective truths are less influential in shaping our opinions than appeals to our emotions or our personal beliefs.

Anne Boleyn, English School, c1550, Hever Castle

None of this is more evident than in the story of the life of Anne Boleyn, a woman whose name is known to us all, yet she is shrouded in mystery. Anne Boleyn’s life was one of contrasts. She was born a commoner but died a queen in a story of both romance and horror. A key figure in the Reformation she was also hated and vilified, accused of adultery, incest, treason and witchcraft. From the moment she was born we are left in doubt about the facts of her life. She was the daughter of two commoners Thomas Boleyn, who was knighted at the coronation of Henry VIII and Elizabeth Howard, a descendant of Edward I and a member of the household of Katherine of Aragon. It is believed she was born in 1501 at the family home, Blickling Hall in Norfolk. However, even about something we might think as incontestable as a date of birth there is doubt, as some historians claim she was not born until six years later in 1507, in which case her place of birth would have been Hever castle in Kent, because the family moved there in 1505 when Thomas inherited the estate from his father William. A surviving letter written by Anne in French in 1514 suggests a child older than seven, although some academics claim it is so full of spelling mistakes and errors it must have been penned by a young child. However, Thomas Boleyn wrote in 1530 that all three of his children were born before the death of his father in 1505. Who do we believe?

Whether aged twelve or aged six, we know she was sent to the continent in 1513, where the following year she joined her older sister Mary to become an attendant to the French queen, also Mary, when she married Louis XII of France. As it happens Mary Queen of France was Henry VIII’s sister. Mary Boleyn was called back to the British court, but Anne stayed on in France until 1521, where she received an excellent education speaking fluent French, returning to the court of Henry VIII and Katherine of Aragon’s household as a stylish, accomplished young woman with an intelligent quick wit.

The Nidd Hall portrait, late 16th century, Bradford Art Galleries and Museum.

Contemporary accounts of her give a contrasting picture and the Venetian Ambassador, Francesco Sanuto, describes her as

‘Not one of the handsomest women in the world. She is of middling stature, swarthy complexion, long neck, wide mouth and bosom not much raised.’

Whilst at the same time she is reported by other sources as being ‘beautiful with an elegant figure’, once again showing her to be a woman of contrasts. We cannot confirm her appearance as contemporary portraits were all destroyed by Henry VII in an attempt to erase her from history and any surviving portraits of Anne Boleyn were created after her death. Whether any of these are a true likeness we can never really know as any portrait is also subject to the motives of both the patron and artist as well as the sitter.

The ‘Moost Happi’ medal, 1534, British Museum

The only surviving contemporary portrait is on a medallion held in the British Museum. Known as the ‘Moost Happi’ medallion it was struck in 1534 when Anne was once again pregnant but the medal itself is very disfigured. It was created to celebrate the arrival of a son but the son never did arrive and the medal was never issued. A preparatory drawing by Holbein seems to be the closest image we have to that on the medal.

A sketch of Anne Boleyn by Holbein

Yet what is not in doubt is that this young, elegant, witty woman caught the eye of Henry VIII which suggests she couldn’t have been totally unattractive. Henry had married his first wife, the Spanish princess Katherine of Aragon and widow of his brother Arthur, the prince of Wales, in 1509 when he was aged just 18. Throughout their marriage she gave birth to six children, only one of whom survived, the future Queen Mary. Henry is known to have had several affairs including one with Anne’s sister Mary Boleyn but despite his pursual of her, Anne resisted Henry’s advances refusing to become his mistress until finally he promised marriage. Henry sought an annulment of his marriage to Katherine on the grounds that he should never have been granted permission to marry ‘his sister’ in the first place.

The Pope refused the annulment and so Henry, a man desperate for a son and obviously used to getting his own way, broke from the Catholic Church and established himself as head of the Church of England. He then arranged for his 24 year marriage to Katherine to be annulled and married Anne Boleyn in January 1533. She was crowned queen of England in June that year, visibly pregnant, giving birth to her daughter Elizabeth in September to huge disappointment. The king still didn’t have his longed for son. At least one, possibly two miscarriages and a still born son followed but by now Henry had given up on Anne producing him an heir and was courting Jane Seymour. Within three years of marrying, Henry brought charges of high treason against Anne, imprisoned her in the Tower of London along with seven men including her brother George, accused her of adultery, incest and witchcraft and had her found guilty and executed by beheading on May 19^th, 1536.

Anne was a controversial figure subject to mixed public opinion, and often demonised after her death. In 1585, Jesuit priest Nicholas Sanders, despite being only 9 years old when she was beheaded, famously wrote the following:

“Anne Boleyn was rather tall of stature, with black hair, oval face of sallow complexion as if troubled by jaundice. She had a projecting tooth under the upper lip and on her right hand six fingers. There was a large wen (lump) under her chin and therefore to hide its ugliness she wore a high dress covering her throat”

Talk about a character assassination! And given that when her body was exhumed many years later she was found to be only about 5’ 3” with all the usual number of fingers it does make you wonder what you can believe. Truth or fiction, it all starts to blend into one rich story.

My ‘bodice’ for Anne Boleyn, distressed Kunin felt and metallic silk tissue

Way back when I was doing my City and Guilds I had attended a talk about the life of Anne Boleyn, and it left me inspired to make something in textiles to represent or symbolise her life. I chose a bodice as a garment that traps and binds women, moulding them into a desired shape for the gaze or pleasure of men, in the way Anne was manipulated and trapped into her life with Henry VIII. I wanted to create something beautiful representing her appeal whilst also showing her torture and suffering. I made a classic bodice shape from a double layer of Kunin felt, a type of acrylic felt that melts and burns away when heated, with an outer layer of metallic silk tissue, which also partially melts away with intense heat. Each panel of the bodice was heavily machine stitched with a design of trailing ivy leaves, using a metallic heat resistant thread. I chose to decorate it with the ivy, a plant that will trap and suffocate other plants, to show how Anne was also suffocated.

My design for the trailing ivy

I remember my mother at the time saw the bodice at this stage and was horrified when I told I was going to take a heat gun to all my hours of beautiful embroidery, but that is exactly what I did. I heated the entire garment causing it to burn back and melt through all the layers, except where the dense stitching resisted the heat. The resulting burnt and slashed garment, whilst retaining a decayed beauty, represents the torture and anguish in Anne’s life. The texture is rough and scratchy and would be a torment to wear. The red and gold colour of the bodice, whilst chosen to look very Tudor in its richness also represents the loss of blood when she was beheaded.

Anne Boleyn is a character with a lingering appeal who continues to fascinate scholars to this day. Both religious yet aggressive, emotional but calculating, manipulating or manipulated, we shall probably never know what she was really like although I like to believe in Thomas Cromwell’s assessment of her character as a woman of intelligence, spirit and courage.

And of you want to read a couple of excellent fictionalised accounts of her life I can recommend Bring up the Bodies, the second in Hilary Mantels’ trilogy about Thomas Cromwell or The Other Boleyn Girl by Phillipa Gregory.

The bodice for Anne Boleyn was the first that I made, and then I decided the bodice or corset would make a good canvas to showcase various techniques inspired by the stories of different women. If you missed my retelling of the myth of Persephone you can find it here: Passions and Pomegranates. There are more to come!

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