The House of Boleyn (with Tracy Borman)

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1:50Listener discretion advised.

1:56Hello, I am so thrilled to be back again with one of my all-time favorite historians, the brilliant Tracy Borman. Correct me if I'm getting any of these titles wrong, but chief historian of historic royal palaces, executive of the Heritage Education Trust, chancellor and professor of tutor history at Lincoln Bishop University, and just all-around brilliant, best-selling writer, historian, and novelist.

2:23Tracy Borman:that is correct and really lovely to hear so thank you ever so much i'm really thrilled to be back your new book the house of boleyn is out in the u.s on august 4th and it is a novelization of historical fiction about the rise of the boleyn family i think i i speak for a lot of people interested in this period of history the tutors are sort of a gateway drug people are fascinated by that period, Henry's six wives and Anne Boleyn particularly. And so it was such a joy to read this book that presented the Boleyns in, I can say honestly, a light I had never seen them before. Yeah. Well, I'm so pleased that that really does make me very happy because of course, you're absolutely right.

3:14Tracy Borman:The Tudors are the gateway drug and the Boleyns are the gateway drug to the Tudors, sort of the most famous family in Tudor England. They've been written about, they've been shown on screen, they're on websites, they're on social media accounts, all sorts of things. So I thought, okay, what can I do that is different and is fresh? And that's why I decided to set the House of Berlin, which is a play on words, at Heber Castle, their beautiful home in the Southeast England countryside. And the reason I wanted to do this, apart from bringing a fresh perspective, was to show the Boleyns as they really were.

3:55Tracy Borman:Like when they're off duty, when they're not pretending to be these slick courtiers and political operators, Hever was their refuge and where they went to escape from all of that, to escape Henry VIII in Anne Boleyn's case. And so hopefully it's provided a more authentic view of this controversial family. To rewind a bit before the famous Anne Boleyn, who of course became Henry VIII's second wife, before Anne's meteoric rise, who were the Boleyns? What was their position in Tudor society? So one of the great myths is that Henry VIII basically plucked the Boleyns from obscurity and made them big.

4:41Tracy Borman:And this was definitely not the case because actually the Boleyns were probably northern French originally and came over with William the Conqueror in 1066. They settled in Norfolk, so east of England, in the east of England. And they gradually kind of built up their prosperity. They became traders in wool, farmers, landowners. And then they started to move in royal circles in the 1400s. So at least a century before Henry VIII, they were already on the rise big time. And they came into the orbit of such monarchs as Richard III and Henry VIII's father. And really just it built from there. So they were absolutely already established, both as a family and within royal circles by the time Henry VIII noticed Anne Boleyn.

5:38Tracy Borman:And we should say as well that Anne wasn't the first Boleyn who Henry noticed. Really, he was a very big fan of her father, Thomas, who was a rising star in Henry's court. And from the very beginning of his reign, because Henry came to the throne aged 17. So he's a very young king. And Thomas Boleyn then was in his mid-30s. So I think he was almost like a father figure for Henry VIII. He knew that he had a great deal of experience and he trusted him and promoted him. So, yeah, it's not just all this, oh, yeah, Henry falls in love with Anne and then her whole family rise. They're already rising.

6:18You know, there was a point, I think it was made in a Gareth Russell history book, where he points out that also the line between the nobility and the wealthy landowners like the Boleyns wasn't quite as stark as we might imagine with regards to intermarrying, just because there weren't that many elite aristocratic families at that time. They would run out of people to marry.

6:41Tracy Borman:Well, exactly. It gets a bit incestuous, really. And so Gareth's absolutely right. And actually, one particular moment does elevate the Boleyns socially. And that's when Thomas Boleyn's father, William, marries Lady Margaret Butler. And so she's the mother of Thomas Boleyn. And she's an Irish noblewoman and heiress. She's the daughter of the Earl of Ormond, one of the most distinguished nobles in Ireland. So I think people aren't that aware that the Boleyns have this Irish heritage. And that's what gave them that crucial bit of pedigree. So I think people still saw them as new money. They've made their wealth from trade.

7:25Tracy Borman:And then thanks to Margaret, that's when they become more socially acceptable. As you mentioned earlier, there's been plenty of depictions of the Bolins. Maybe the most surface level version of Thomas Bolin that sometimes appears in pop culture is that he's this conniving man who uses both of his daughters just to, you know, for lack of a better phrase, prostitute them for the king. Your Thomas Boleyn is a much more nuanced character, and it seems more accurate to how he actually might have been. Can you speak a little bit to how you imagine Thomas Boleyn might have actually been as a person? Yeah, absolutely.

8:08Tracy Borman:I should say I did a huge amount of research for this novel, even though I've been researching the Boleyns for years. I really wanted to go in deep for this. And everything I found out about Thomas Boleyn pointed to him being an affectionate father who was trying to protect his family, not use them as collateral damage in his rise to the top. And so you just have to look at the way he really invests in Anne Boleyn's education. And he sang abroad when she's 12 or thereabouts. And he also keeps one of Anne's letters. So Anne writes to him when she's just about 11, 12 years old. He cherishes that letter and keeps it with him always.

8:53Tracy Borman:And you can see how often he's read it as well. This is a man, lots of papers past his desk. There's no reason why he would keep this letter from his 12 year old daughter unless it meant something. And I do think as well, Thomas genuinely wanted to protect Anne when he kept bringing her back to Hiva, when Henry starts to show her interest and pursue her. This isn't a strategy, I don't think. It's always presented as, oh, yeah, you know, treat him mean, keep him keen, drive Henry mad with frustrated lust, and then he'll marry Anne. I don't think it was. I think genuinely Thomas knew how dangerous the king was and he wanted to protect his daughter from that.

9:33especially given how it ended with Anne which I don't know if anyone could have seen coming how the king would be quite that dangerous that that takes such a melancholy note

9:46Tracy Borman:absolutely I mean honestly I think even seconds before Anne died on the scaffold at the tower she didn't think it was going to happen eyewitnesses noted that as she walked to the scaffold she kept looking over her shoulder expecting a messenger from the king saying okay look I've taught you a lesson now uh and the whole thing's off and I'll just send you and I just think it's heartbreaking because it was unprecedented for a queen of England to be executed and I think it shocked everybody I do think uh you know I work at the Tower of London and we we've done a lot of research into this and the fact that they just use an old arrow chest as a coffin, says to me that nobody thought this was going to happen.

10:32Tracy Borman:They hadn't prepared for it. And, you know, Henry does go through with it. And it must have been just beyond shocking, I think. You speak about that retreat back to Hever Castle in this book. Obviously, the House of Bolin focuses on Hever particularly. So for those unfamiliar with the broad strokes of the story, after Anne comes back from France. She's very sophisticated. She's learned European courtly manners and fashion, catches Henry's eye. And then can you take us through the story about when she leaves court then? Yeah, absolutely. Anne arrives at the English court in the spring of 1522. And she stands out from the beginning because she has had these several years in France and before that in the Netherlands.

11:20Tracy Borman:And she literally has a je ne sais quoi. She's dressed in French fashion, and she probably speaks with a bit of a French accent, I like to think. And she has charisma. I would really like to emphasize this about the Boleyns, because yes, they were brilliant and politically shrewd and all the rest of it. But they were a charismatic lot. And I think that's a big part of the appeal for Henry VIII. And all of the commentators at the time are at pains to point out that Anne is not beautiful. They all say the same one. She's got dark hair when blonde hair is fashionable. Her skin is swarthy, not pale and all the rest of it.

12:00Tracy Borman:But she has this X factor, this allure. And soon she has a whole host of male admirers. I think she's just proved that, hey, looks don't matter. If you've got the kind of self-confidence and the charisma and you know you're special, you're going to get quite a few admirers. And that's exactly what happened. It's why men don't understand why women love Benedict Cumberbatch. Sometimes it's not the traditional leading man looks. I couldn't agree more. Absolutely. People who on paper shouldn't be, you know, heartthrobs, they end up being because of that, that kind of twinkle in the eye, that confidence.

12:40Tracy Borman:And that's definitely what Anne had. And, you know, one of her first suitors was sort of Irish cousin of hers, James Butler, so from her grandmother Margaret's family. But she didn't like that. She thought, I can do better than that. I don't really want to go and live in Ireland. So she sets her sights higher to Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland, one of the most eligible bachelors in court, and he seems to have fallen in love with her. But then Cardinal Woolsey, Henry VIII's minister, gets in the way of that. And then finally, in sort of about 1526, So four years after Anne first appeared at court, Henry notices her big time.

13:17Tracy Borman:He rides out in this joust wearing an embroidered heart that's in flames and a motto in French that means I declare I dare not. In other words, somebody has my heart, but I don't. So here it is. Everybody knows by then he's fallen for Anne Boleyn. And then the next several years are spent Henry trying to just persuade Anne to be his mistress because it's too difficult to get this annulment of his first marriage to Catherine of Aragon. So he's absolutely he's trying for the annulment, but he's desperate to have Anne. And this is when her visits to Hiva start to become more and more frequent. For those who maybe don't quite know how the story ends, from Anne's perspective, it is a daunting task to think I'm going to cast aside this Spanish princess of major pedigree with major world allies and break from the Catholic Church.

14:13Why wouldn't Anne just become Henry's mistress? Are there not? I mean, there are some material benefits to that, but there are costs as well.

14:22Tracy Borman:Yeah, I think there are, absolutely. And I think one of the biggest reasons why Anne wouldn't be Henry's mistress is she'd seen what happened to her sister. So Mary Boleyn was also a mistress of Henry VIII, one of a few ladies at court who had that distinction. and what it proved was that Henry quickly loses interest when he has what he wants. He's a natural hunter. He wants something that's out of reach and with Mary Boleyn, yeah, they have an affair for a while. They may have had a child. Her daughter Catherine could have been Henry's and then she's discarded her reputation in ruins and Anne from the very beginning and to her great credit wants more for herself than that.

15:10Tracy Borman:It comes back to that kind of self-confidence, that self-belief, which is rare, I think, in a woman at this time, or at least she might feel it, but society might not let her express it. But Anne is backed by her father in this. He doesn't want to see another daughter ruined. As well, I think there's another reason, though. During my research for the House of Boleyn, I found evidence to suggest that actually there was somebody else who had Anne's heart. And it didn't seem at all to me that there was any love on Anne's part, or even any attraction really on her part towards Henry. It seems to have been all one way.

15:48Tracy Borman:Now, the frustrating thing is, we have all of Henry's love letters to Anne, we don't have her replies. So that is a one sided story that history has left us. But I kind of explored the possibility that she doesn't want Henry. And she's coming back to Hiva genuinely because she wants to escape him. And perhaps because Hiva is quite close to somebody who does have her heart. It's also a very tricky situation because Henry is the boss. Even if you don't want to become his mistress, you don't want to make him upset. Exactly. And there's only so long you can say no to the King of England. he especially like Henry who I kind of think is a spoiled child really and yes he wants what he can't have and then he he gets very very angry and frustrated when things don't go his way and he is dangerous pretty early in his reign he he executes two of his father's ministers on no charge whatsoever really and people know this by the time that he starts courting Anne in the mid-1520s, and Thomas Boleyn certainly knows it.

16:58Tracy Borman:And what a dangerous world. He probably thinks Noanne would be better off just marrying a local nobleman and steering well clear. I mean, in retrospect, I think she would have been. I know. And it's those great what-if moments. If only she had been allowed to follow her heart, I think, yeah, things would have turned out very differently. And as you point out, Henry is not a patient man. I always found it interesting when reading about him constructing his castles, making his architects and everyone work overtime, because when he had an idea, he wanted it immediately. Absolutely. So impatient. He doesn't like waiting, whether it's palaces or wives.

17:41Tracy Borman:He wants it now. And then the thing, he kind of sates his appetite and then he moves on to the next thing. And that's why, you know, he builds more palaces than any other king. It's about 60 of them in his repertoire. And it's just the same with every, he has these great passions and then they burn out and then he's on to the next thing. And I think Anne noticed that and so did her father and thinks, yeah, I'm going to tread a bit carefully here. But as I said, there comes a point where you have to succumb to the inevitable. And that's eventually what happens with Anne.

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19:19This is Adam Devine. Blake Anderson. And honors home. From This Is Important. You know those moments when you realize you've been adulting too hard? Like getting excited about a new vacuum? Making a spreadsheet for a group trip? Saying, uh, let's circle back and meaning it? That's when you need a slice. And trust us, we all need a slice. Slice. is a soda you remember back and better for you and yes it's still soda the full flavor the fizz the whole thing but now it has grown-up benefits five grams of sugar or less plus prebiotics probiotics and postbiotics i personally love the orange soda flavor because it takes me back to my childhood.

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20:50Tracy Borman:So money is one of the gifts. Just give me the cash, you know, jewelry. And there is one particular gift that Henry, so the story goes, gives to Anne and it causes some controversy. see. So Henry has a rival for Anne's heart in the form of court poet Thomas Wyatt, who grows up very close to where Anne lives. They're childhood friends. Their fathers are friends. And Henry gives Anne a heart-shaped ruby on a chain. And then he's playing bowls with his rival, Thomas Wyatt. And Thomas Wyatt then just pauses in the game and reaches for something in his pocket. And it's that ruby on the chain that Henry had given Anne.

21:41Tracy Borman:And he kind of dangles it in front of Henry. Look what Anne gave me, something that she didn't care about, clearly. Henry is furious and he storms off the bowling green, refuses to finish the match. And yeah, he ups his game from that take forward. He said, OK, I've really got to try and get Anne because clearly I have a rival in Wyatt. So it's an intriguing little story. Especially because to fast forward a bit, it's Wyatt's son, isn't it, who leads the rebellion that almost costs Anne's daughter her life. The Wyatts are always causing troubles for these girls. Those Wyatts, yeah, they're troublesome, but it seems irresistible.

22:22Tracy Borman:But absolutely. And this is the point, you know, we were making earlier about just how tightly knit this world is. You see the same names and then the sons of that person, you know, cropping up again and again, and indeed the daughters. So, yeah, it's a very close knit world, the Tudor aristocracy. Hever Castle is so vivid in this novel. Obviously, you are chief historian of historic royal palaces. I've been lucky enough to visit Hever Castle, but even if I hadn't just reading this novel, I would have felt as though I were there. But for those who haven't been lucky enough to visit, can you describe what it is?

23:02Because I think when people hear Castle, they think different things.

23:06Tracy Borman:Yes, they do. They do. I'm so pleased it came across Vividly Few because that was absolutely my ambition for this book. In fact, I said to my editor, I want Hever to be like a character in the book. You know, more than just a backdrop. I really wanted the readers to feel immersed in this beautiful home. So Hever is sort of like a fairy tale castle. It's got turrets and a moat and a drawbridge. It's got three portcullises. But it is quite small and modest as castles go. So it's nothing on the scale of, say, Hampton Court or Annick Castle up in the northeast of England. It's kind of pocket sized.

23:48Tracy Borman:So that makes it feel very intimate. Now, it has been altered over the centuries, but in recent years, the curators have lovingly restored it to how it would have looked in the time of the Boleyns. And it is just amazing, even down to the rush matting on the floors where you get the scent from that. and I just found it wonderfully evocative. I spent, as you can imagine, a lot of time at Hever when I was researching this novel and visiting it at different times of the year was so important as well. It changes the smells, change the colours, the ivy on the outside of the castle. It sort of turns red in autumn, the inspiration for the book cover, by the way.

24:27Tracy Borman:And it was just a joy. Somebody once told me, you know, if you're writing a novel, you should set it somewhere that you want to spend time And so I thought, yep, Heaver, that would be a nice place to hang out for a while. But I'm really pleased it came across so vividly because it felt like that to me. And I got to know it so well that, you know, even when I was writing, as I often was sitting here in my study at home, I could just close my eyes and imagine it and smell the wood smoke as you pass through the courtyard and all the rest of it. So that was a joy bringing to life the world of Heaver.