Hunting the Falcon: Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn, and the Marriage That Shook Europe

I've read a fair bit of Tudor history, and Hunting the Falcon is among the more interesting bits of Tudor history I've read in the last few years. A key part of this accomplishment was that the authors spent as much time on Anne as they did on Henry.

A few of the topics covered and claims developed included

Re: Anne
• looking at Anne's experiences in French courts thoughtfully, when in a fair bit of such writing one usually finds a bit of "you know what went on over there, nudge-nudge, wink-wink"
• introducing the handful of formidable women in France at that time: mothers, sisters, and wives who spent time as a regent, sat in on council meetings, or engaged in serious, detailed political conversation with a husband
• taking seriously show more that spending time in these women's courts would almost certainly have shaped what Anne thought it meant to be a queen
• looking at Anne's actions as queen to see which might have been inspired by her French peers
• seeing more than a desire to land Henry in her embrace of religious reformation

Re: Henry
• doing a bit of "armchair psychoanalizing" that seemed logical and fact-based, rather than pretentious or overblown
• discussing the ways he explained and affirmed his thinking to himself, essentially doubling down on what might have begun as musings until they became certainties
• considering the ways his perception of Anne's intellect and self assertion might change when she became wife and not a lover pursued

One observation I want to make, having read the book in late 2025, is that the authors' considerations of Henry were useful in thinking about my current head of state. Understanding a person doesn't necessarily make resistance against them easy, but it certainly can help.

I received a free electronic review copy of this title from the publisher via Edelweiss; the opinions are my own. show less

The life of Anne Boleyn life was utterly remarkable, but it was not destined to be so. Initially the future queen seemed set for a conventional life as an upper class lady-about-court who might expect to marry into the nobility. What made the difference in Anne’s case was the time she spent in France at the court of Queen Claude. Arriving in 1515, Anne stayed at the French court for seven years. Whether or not Anne’s experiences in France made her particularly attractive to the men at the Henrician court on her return, we can only speculate. We have no evidence of what she did in France. Acknowledging that French court culture was richer than its English equivalent is about as far as we can go. What we do know is that Anne returned show more to England in 1521 and that sometime around 1525-26 – scholars have offered ingenious, but uncompelling, arguments for the precise dates – Henry fell passionately in love with her, as his letters show. Not only did she become his only mistress, Henry was prepared to break with Rome to secure her as his legitimate wife and queen.

That all makes for a substantial – and very well known – tale, but there was of course more. Three years after the break with Rome, Anne Boleyn and her alleged lovers (one of whom was her own brother, George, Lord Rochford) were accused and convicted of treason, adulteries and incest. It was a truly astonishing turn of events. One might say you could not make it up, but for the fact that many have suggested that either Henry, or his chief minister, Thomas Cromwell, did just that.

With a story this well known, and argued about for centuries, how should the modern historian approach Anne’s extraordinary life? In his 1986 biography, Eric Ives presented Anne as a leading player among factional rivalries. In my own Anne Boleyn: Fatal Attractions (2012), I adopted a forensic approach, comparable to that of a judge probing and then giving his verdict. The method chosen by John Guy and Julia Fox in this fine new study is to focus on narrative, adopting a biographical approach in which Anne’s story hurtles relentlessly forward towards her tragic end. The book is executed with consummate skill. As an exercise in storytelling, it is a formidable achievement.

Read the rest of the review at HistoryToday.com.

George W. Bernard is Emeritus Professor of Early Modern History at the University of Southampton. His latest book is Who Ruled Tudor England: Paradoxes of Power (Bloomsbury, 2021). show less

4.75

Großartige Doppelbiographie über König Heinrich VIII. von England und seiner zweiten Ehefrau Anne Boleyn. Man erfährt hier einiges über die junge Anne und ihre Zeit am französischen Königshof und ihrer Zeit am Hof von Erzherzogin Margarete, der Statthalterin der österreichischen Niederlande. Auch auf Annes Geburtsjahr wird eingegangen, es ist ja bis heute umstritten wann sie geboren wurde. Auch über Heinrich VIII. lernt man einiges hinzu. Das Buch kann ich jeden Tudor-Interessierten wärmstens Empfehlen.