Hi everyone and welcome to my blog!!
I loved how this book mainly brings you through Anne’s younger years, starting at I believe the age is 9 when she is sent to live at the French court with her sister Mary up until the age of 16 or 17 when she is to leave & head back to England.
Queen Claude of France
I thought the author did a really excellent job at bringing out Anne’s character. Even though she is young, Anne is very clever & learns quickly. She really starts to see the BIG PICTURE of her surroundings along with a little help from Queen Claude who she served for 7 years & her very religious ways along with Leonardo da Vinci & his unique ways of seeing life in itself.
Mary Boleyn
On a different note Anne’s oldest sister Mary I hate to say seemed very ditzy as if to almost seem clueless, until there father Thomas Boleyn decides that she will be King Francois I, mistress. You definitely can feel her pain, confusion & anger at the mere fact that she must do some unspeakable things with this king who has already has a queen, only to help better her father’s situation as a diplomat for England & there Kings Henry the VII & VIII. Only later to become once again the mistress to King Henry the VIII after already have been married. While Anne was able to find a different way of keeping her virtue after Francois starts to give her different looks & make certain comments, basically after almost loosing to a game of cards she pleads insanity which totally turns the king completely off, not only this, but he knows she is a favorite among many in his faithful court.
King Francois I of France
It was very interesting to read about Anne’s learning while at the French court. She was incredible at speaking the French language, also learning art, fashion, manuscripts, literature, music, poetry, and religious philosophy along with dance, etiquette & discovering the art of flirtation in the game of love.
The older she starts to get the more she becomes interested in King Francois’s sister Marguerite who had a much different outlook on religion along with being an author in her own right. Anne seemed very interested in the way Marguerite thought as far as a women of the royal court, because Marguerite was very independent & thought herself to belong to no one with the possible exception of her brother who she seem to have a much closer relationship with than usual. It almost seemed as well, that Marguerite did not care for the teachings of Catholic Religion, henceforth sometime later in Anne’s life she would bring about the Protestant Reformation after she had married King Henry the VIII.
King Henry the VIII of England
Also the fact that before she ever ended up with Henry the VIII she was first betrothed to her Irish cousin James Butler who was much older, but that was ended as her father Thomas who was hoping for a much better marriage proposal, one that would benefit him. There had been one other young gentleman by the name of Henry Percy, son of the Earl of Northumberland who she had truly fallen in love with. He had been serving Cardinal Wolsey. It is not spoken of in the book, but apparently the betrothal ended after his father refused to support their engagement & the Cardinal refused them for many other reasons.
Clearly this historical fiction talks more about Anne’s life growing up versus her later life in which most of us only know of the mere fact that she had her head lopped off because it was thought that she had committed adultery, incest & treason, which was originally brought on by her former ally Thomas Cromwell.
Thank you for reading! Hope you enjoyed, give a like/star, leave a comment if you like and hope you will follow for more posts to come.
Have a fantastic day everyone!! ♥
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