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    The Lady in the Tower: The Fall of Anne Boleyn
    The Lady in the Tower: The Fall of Anne Boleyn
    The Lady in the Tower: The Fall of Anne Boleyn
    Audiobook16 hours

    The Lady in the Tower: The Fall of Anne Boleyn

    Written by Alison Weir

    Narrated by Judith Boyd

    4.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    The imprisonment and execution of Queen Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII's second wife, in 1536 was unprecedented in English history and never before has there been a book devoted entirely to her fall. But here Alison Weir has reassessed the evidence and created a richly researched and detailed portrait of the last days of one of the most influential and important figures in English history.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherW. F. Howes Ltd
    Release dateApr 1, 2010
    ISBN9781407455983
    The Lady in the Tower: The Fall of Anne Boleyn

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    Reviews for The Lady in the Tower

    4.5/5

    51 ratings25 reviews

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    • 5/5
      Spellbinding. Couldn't stop listening. Worth listening to again and again!
    • 5/5
      I never tire of Alison Weir! Very well told story of Anne Boleyn and her time spent in the Tower before her untimely and undeserving death
    • 4/5
      I do love Alison Weir's books. This one is no exception. In this book she concentrated on the last few months of Anne Boleyn's life, covering the downfall of her family and entire court faction.
      I am not convinced that Henry VIII was entirely unaware that his former love was being framed. He was too intelligent. But Anne does seem to have been taken out by Thomas Cromwell for a variety of reasons. I do believe TC ultimately got what was coming to him and have little sympathy, but that's another story.
      For the accomplished armchair Tudor historian, there is not a lot of new information here, rather a concentration of resources for a specific period of a short 5 months of Anne's life. Someone just starting out on the Tudor/Boleyn journey would find this book ideal. The writing is concise and easy to read. ( Much as I love the Eric Ives book it was slow going at times!)I would recommend this book to anyone.
    • 3/5
      Disappointingly Flawed Many have recommended Alison Weir's English histories to me, however, I had the misfortune to begin with reading The Lady In The Tower: The Fall of Anne Boleyn. Like other readers, I was perplexed at how the well respected author could have written this book, or at least allowed its publication. It's as though the editing process had not even begun.It's difficult to describe how much it lacks cohesion and narrative. It's rather like notes of a first draft of a book, where the author wrote numerous versions of the story to choose which was the best. In one chapter, there are many duplicate mentions and statings of the same ideas or actions. While acknowledging a majority of the research is based on gossip and revisionist writings well after the fact, the author presents contradictory statements within the same paragraph with little explanation. These restatements mercifully decrease in the final third of the book. This major issue aside, the book is full of interesting, well researched detail. For instance, Weir makes the case that the dates and places of the accusations of Anne Boleyn's sexual misconduct did not happen as she was in different locations and often pregnant or had just given birth then. The English justice system left a lot to be desired, what with two systems of justice for commoners and aristocrats, the accused only being told of the charges they were accused of when they attended their hearings, and not having the right to call witnesses or be defended. Weir makes a good case that Cromwell's case was concocted and Anne was innocent of the charges against her. I accept this conclusion and although it's likely Anne was flirtatious and arrogant, I am struck by the rapidity of her arrest, trial and execution, and more so by Henry's marriage to Jane Seymour within 10 days of Anne's execution. A dangerous time to live and for Anne, such a tragic outcome.
    • 4/5
      This is an exhaustive account of Anne Boleyn's last days. Alison Weir takes us on an extraordinarily detailed journey through Anne's final weeks. This book isn't about Anne's whole life, just the end of it. A staggering amount of research has led to the definitive book on the subject. It's heartbreaking to read of Anne's downfall and shocking when you think of how quickly everything came crashing down around her.At times the sheer magnitude of the research threatens to overwhelm the reader, but it is well worth the effort to press on.
    • 5/5
      I love Alison Weir's books; she has the ability to turn history into a fascinating story and not just facts. She has a few new ideas and concepts that I hadn't read before about Anne Boleyn. This was yet another treasure to add to all her other books.
    • 4/5
      Alison Weir has a knack for making history interesting and easy to read for the non-historian. I enjoyed her examination of Anne Boleyn's fall and ultimate death - especially the brief look at Anne's reputation throughout the intervening years since her death.
    • 3/5
      I think there were more "she must have known"s in this book than in Weir's biography of Eleanor of Aquitaine, of whom we know far less.
    • 5/5
      The book focuses only in Anne's fall and execution. There's also different types of "ghost stories" about Anne.
    • 4/5
      I have always been fascinated with British history and Anne Boleyn is one of the more intriguing historical figures. This biography by Alison Weir looks at the end of Anne's life, from the days leading to her arrest to her execution.Weir has done a very good job, as usual, of researching this book, however, I found her backing up everything within the text itself a little distracting and cumbersome at times. I would have preferred a healthy notes section at the end or, at least, footnotes. To have them embedded made the reading slower than I liked. All in all, this was worth the read as it answers a lot of questions about Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII and the people around them and the events surrounding the execution of Anne Boleyn.
    • 4/5
      My own interest level waned but if you find minute details about the last few months of Anne Boleyn's life and reign, you would enjoy this book. Meticulously researched, it seems to be Weir's scholarly statement on the various controversies related to Boleyn and her execution.
    • 5/5
      The Lady in the Tower: The Fall of Anne BoleynThis is a well written and closely argued account of the last few months of the life of Anne Boleyn. The author agrees with the majority view that Anne was a victim of a miscarriage of justice and that there is little or no evidence to substantiate any of the charges laid against her. However, she does go to considerable lengths to analyse how Henry and contemporary society would have seen it, and thinks that Henry must himself have believed, or been able to plausibly convince himself, that the charges were or might be true, based on what he knew or believed to be traits in Anne's personality. I felt that Weir rather bent over backwards to make this point, but I was not convinced by her assertion of Henry's essential rationality. I think that Henry's reign was rather more like a modern totalitarian regime than a Medieval monarchy, and that the best comparison with the charges against and trial of Anne Boleyn is with Stalin's show trials. Like with the victims of those travesties, the charges were presented suddenly and starkly, designed to cause maximum shock in the light of the mores of the society in question and were partly backed by confessions obtained under duress; the evidence presented contained numerous factual discrepancies that would not have stood up in a court properly subject to the rule of law; and the judicial system and public opinion (to the extent that the concept existed in Tudor England) were softened for and overwhelmingly accepted the shocking outcome. To my mind, the worst that Anne might reasonably be accused of in relation to the subject matter of the charges is a certain reckless naivety and flirtatiousness beyond the then acceptable morality; but the notion of her risking adultery with anyone, let alone with five men including her brother; or of plotting to overthrow Henry is grotesquely unbelievable. The book brings across very clearly the shocking suddeness of Anne's fall in a very short period of time indeed, a feature of modern totalitarian regimes. 4.5/5
    • 4/5
      Alison Weir delivers another well constructed, highly readable biography. The Lady in the Tower focus' exclusively on the last few months of Anne Boleyn's life. Her dramatic downfall is carefully reconstructed with Weir's usual attention to detail. Queen Anne is portrayed as being an entirely human person. A passionate woman who struggled with jelousies, insecurites, many enemies and few friends, who almost assuredly did not commit the crimes she was accused of and died a horrible, unjust death.
    • 4/5
      Native Americans are famous for using every last iota of the buffalo. Allison Weir seems to have adopted the same conservationist philosophy regarding the Tudors. This must be Ms. Weir's third or fourth go-around for Henry 8 and "the concubine", as her enemies liked to call her. As a result, we're digging pretty deep for new material -- such as exactly what Queen Anne was wearing on head-chopping day and who might have been her ladies in waiting on each and every day of her confinement. The theme is familiar -- Anne was framed, along with 5 men who happened to have estates and/or titles coveted by Secretary Thomas Cromwell and his cronies. Ms. Weir uses somewhat odd logic in coming to that conclusion, however. Surely, she says, if Anne had been so promiscuous as to have been conducting at least five simultaneous adulteries, there would have been plenty of people who had seen various evidences of her hanky-panky, considering the lack of privacy accorded royalty of that era. The fact that there were numerous witnesses who gave testimony against her, including at least one confession, doesn't seem to suffice. I tend to think that there was probably something untoward going on -- most likely a little canoodling with the virginal player. i.e. the fellow who played on the virginal, er, I mean the harpsichordist. All the rest was piling on for fun and profit.
    • 4/5
      Once again Alison Weir writes with authority and insight
    • 5/5
      A very detailed account of Anne Boleyn. This is not, however, a biography of her. It starts when she begins to lose favor with Henry VIII and ends with the events immediately following her execution. It includes details of the trials, descriptions of those accused with her, and explores the motives of those involved in her downfall (including Henry VIII, Cromwell, Lady Rochford, and even her own father). Overall, a very interesting and well researched book.
    • 5/5
      Detailed and comprehensive look at the fall of Anne Boleyn which Weir sees as a political move by Cromwell. Here is all the drama, the fright, the rumors, the facts and the lack of evidence told from multiple points of view by the different players. Weir has several books about Henry VIII and his family under her belt and this is a major work of scholarship, but very readable.
    • 3/5
      In The Lady in the Tower, Alison Weir presents an exhaustive study of the downfall of Anne Boleyn, Henry VII's second queen. Unlike many books that begin at the beginning and trace the king's courtship of Anne and her strategies of resistance, this one begins when the marriage is already in trouble: Anne had experienced several miscarriages (at least two of the fetuses were identified as male and the last reported to be severely deformed), and Henry, desirous of a male heir, already had his eye on Jane Seymour. Weir details the last four months of her life, from Henry's growing distance to the last miscarriage, from his efforts to have their marriage annulled to her trial, imprisonment, and execution, and even beyond to the various legends of ghostly apparitions. Although obviously biased in favor of Anne's innocence of the adultery/treason charges, Weir presents strong evidence to back up her opinions. If the book has a dominant flaw, it is its repetitiveness. The author returns to the same points again and again, sometimes with additional evidence (and sometimes not), and the effect is still rather tedious at times. (I actually put the book away for a few weeks, unsure if I would return to finish it.)Overall, I did not learn much about Anne or her last days that wasn't already familiar, but I did learn a bit more about the five men alleged to have been her lovers.
    • 5/5
      A very thorough and thought-provoking, if sometimes repetitive, account of the downfall of Anne Boleyn. She was arguably one of the most important figures in English history, but little is known about her and there are many myths and misconceptions about her life. Weir puts forth the controversial theory that Thomas Cromwell instituted a "coup" and trumped up the charges against Anne and the five men executed along with her, convincing the king that she was guilty of adultery and treason, and Henry VIII was as much a victim of the conspiracy as Anne was. I am not entirely convinced by this, but I grant she does an excellent job presenting evidence and interpretations for this theory. Tudor junkies will want to read this book.
    • 4/5
      Weir writes a fascinating look at the short period of time between Anne Boleyn's fall and execution; she is certainly a Boleyn fan, which provides a bias for which she is forthright and unapologetic. I read this shortly after Hilary Mantel's "Wolf Hall," and the two together provided a wonderful reading experience, glimpsing the tug of war between two immensely powerful and determined people (Boleyn and Cromwell).
    • 3/5
      I'm a fan of Alison Weir, but I found this book disappointing. This book primarily focuses on the time period following Anne Boleyn's last miscarriage to the time of her execution. Weir seems to be heavily promoting the point of view that Anne was innocent of the charges against her, and that she was framed by members of the court without King Henry's knowledge of consent. There is nothing wrong with this theory, except that she disparages the works of other authors, and her conclusions seem no more solid than theirs. The truth is that we will never find conclusive answers to all our questions about Anne Boleyn.
    • 4/5
      The allure of Anne Boleyn undoubtedly stands the test of time. Lo these 474 years after her beheading, historians still attempt to discern the "truth" of her fascinating allure, her mercurial character, her charismatic charm, her bitterly sharp tongue, her scathing, hurtful nastiness and the abiding fascination she still holds.Analogous to the present day rumors of her haunting the Tower of London and Hever Castle in Kent, so too are the cloudy, ill formed "facts" of her rise to power in the court and heart of Henry VIII and her consequent nefariously plotted demise.Weir focuses her historical insights on the details of Anne's swift, and rapid downfall. This extensively researched book cleverly balances the contradicting statements and attempts to shine a light on how a lady raised most high, who became such an obsession with Henry that he split the country away from the Pope and catholicism in order to make her his bride then with equal intensity was wrongfully accused, abandoned and "murdered.".A must read for those who are enamored with Tudor history, but, only if you have read many books prior to this one. The details can be hard to follow and boring if you don't have a previous knowledge base of the characters surrounding Anne.
    • 4/5
      The Lady in the Tower is the story Anne Boleyn—or, really, the story of her downfall, focusing specifically on the last four months of her life in 1536. It opens on the day of that now-famous joust, and continues through the executions of Anne and her supposed lovers, and gives a “what happened later” about some of the major players from one of the most infamous judicial trials of English history.It’s a pretty solid book, in which Alison Weir examines closely the primary source material in order to draw her own conclusions about what happened. In my case, she’s really preaching to the choir about Anne’s innocence in the charges laid against her (as Weir says, her highest ambition was to become Queen, so why would she have several meaningless affairs, without anyone knowing, in a court where secrets weren’t kept for long?). Although the story of Anne Boleyn has been told over and over again, in fiction and nonfiction books as well as film, Weir manages to make it interesting again. It’s not quite as groundbreaking as Alison Weir claims, but it’s excellent nonetheless.When I first started reading this book, I wondered how anyone could possibly write a 350-page book about such a short time period? That’s where Weir’s famous attention to detail comes into play: she really does examine the evidence thoroughly. People like Thomas Cromwell and Jane Seymour, as well as Anne’s family, don’t come off well in this book, but Henry VIII is treated rather compassionately, all things considered. I’ve always thought of Henry in the traditional, tyrannical sense, and Weir’s spin on Henry’s actions and reactions really made me think about things for a bit. For someone looking for a general biography of Anne Boleyn, they might be disappointed by this book; but otherwise it’s an excellent, in-depth look at the last days of one of Europe’s most famous queens.
    • 5/5
      The Sopranos and The Housewives of Orange County have nothing on the intrigue, backstabbing, and political maneuvering of King Henry's reign. I loved this book, and although it is the first that I've read by author Alison Weir, it will certainly not be the last. The book is a history of Anne Boleyn, the lady in the tower, who was imprisoned there after accusations of treason and infidelity against her husband, Henry VIII. The lady doesn't actually end up in the tower until almost halfway through the book, and the book continues past the end of the lady's life. The copy I read was an Advanced Reading Copy, uncorrected proofs, so the illustrations that are to be included in the published edition were not included. I think those illustrations will add greatly. The book was very well researched with extensive notes, references and bibliography. There is even an interesting little appendix detailing the legends of Anne Boleyn and where her ghost has reportedly been seen. Ms. Weir presents various theories and beliefs about Anne Boleyn and the other historical figures involved in the story, and gives insight into what she believes and why she agrees or disagrees with other historians. Not being as familiar as I could be with this period in history, the book was sometimes a hard read for me, especially keeping all the characters straight, even more so when they were sometimes referred to by name and sometimes by their shifting titles. (Weren't there any English men who were not named Henry or Thomas or William or James?) However, Ms. Weir often reminded the reader how the characters fit into the story so it was not as hard as it might have been. I also had some trouble interpreting the sentences, especially when original sources were quoted, but I very much appreciated those quotes. So what if I had to read them two or three times to understand? I especially enjoyed the letter “To the King from the Lady in the Tower,” whether or not it is authentic. The book contains a great deal of detail, and that can be challenging for the reader who is not familiar with the times, but I found it all fascinating. I can't wait to get my hands on the published edition so that I can see the illustrations, too. All in all, this is a great read for those interested in English history or just a really good story.
    • 5/5
      I always eagerly await the release of any book written by Alison Weir - both her fictional works as well as her historical, always well researched, books never fail to please. I am happy to be able to say that "The Lady In The Tower" has been no exception! I began to read it as soon as I got my hands on it and enjoyed this book all of the way through.I have long believed that Henry VIII was a narcissistic megalomaniac - especially in the way that he treated Anne Boleyn. Despite whatever faults Anne may have had, Henry quite literally,changed the course of history in order to make Anne his Queen. In this very well researched book, Ms. Weir postulates that it was, in fact, Thomas Cromwell, not King Henry himself, who was behind the allegations made against Anne that resulted in her death. This books covers a very small window in time - 1536- and it has been Ms. Weir's task to sift through voluminous, and sometimes very conflicting, historical accounts, reports & letters to formulate her opinion that Thomas Cromwell was the cause of Anne's meteoric fall from Henry's good graces. In referencing Anne Boleyn's inability to carry a second child, the longed for son & heir, to full term, Ms. Weir postulates a very likely theory that Anne's pregnancies were complicated by the RH negative antibody. There would have been no treatment let alone understanding for this sort of complication at this time and the theory goes a long way as an explanation for the still born son who, in effect, sealed Anne's fate.Ms. Wier has managed to make what really amounts to 19 days - from sham trial to execution - an engrossing read that will appeal to history lovers in general and, most especially, to those of us of thrive on Tudor and Elizabethan history. The wait for this book was worth it. I do highly recommend this book!