20th April 2021
The unfolding saga of prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s exit from Buckingham palace has exposed the lengths to which the British media would go in order to manufacture controversy surrounding the country’s elite.
But the excessive public scrutiny perpetrated by British outlets does not stop with the royal family; Carrie Symonds, the 32-year-old fiancé of UK Prime minister Boris Johnson, has also found herself at the center of numerous new stories that often draw parallels between her and one particular historical figure: Anne Boleyn, the second wife of King Henry VIII and mother of Queen Elizabeth I.
At first glance, it is not difficult to identify what the two women have in common; both rose to fame through being engaged to a British leader and both are notorious for using that position to achieve political ends.
However, a deeper dive into the fascinating and controversial life of Anne Boleyn is necessary to determine whether the comparison should offend or flatter the future British first lady.
Born somewhere between 1501 and 1507 and raised in France, a young Anne Boleyn returned to London in 1522 where she managed to obtain a court position under Queen Catherine of Aragon, the wife of Henry VIII who had already become king of England.
At the time, no one could have possibly imagined that the simple arrival of a new palace maid would shape the country’s history for centuries to come.
Indeed, Boleyn’s presence among elite circles caught the eye of many noble suitors, chief among whom was King Henry VIII himself whose desire to abandon his first wife and instead marry her subordinate made him challenge the powerful Roman Catholic Church and ultimately led to the country’s split from Rome following the 1533 English Reformation.
It was 1527 when Henry’s ambition to annul his marriage to Catherine of Aragon, with whom he had failed to produce a male heir to his throne, put him at odds with Pope Clement VII who had his own political reasons not to authorize the generally allowed procedure.
The stalemate would last for six years, until King Henry decided in 1533 to override the will of the church, secretly marrying Anne in January, announcing their wedlock to the public by Easter, and officially nullifying his previous marriage by May.
While the story may appear to have all the making of a romantic fairy tale in which a young woman of humble descent gets swept away by a king who is willing to move mountains to be with her, the true nature of the pair’s relationship may not have been as perfect as it seemed on the surface.
In reality, historians have had dividing opinions on how 16th-century-England’s ruling couple came to be, few of which paint the rosy picture of a marriage motivated by pure love.
The most dominant accounts depict Anne Boleyn as a cunning, deceitful, almost devilish figure whose lust for power drove her to seduce the king and manipulate him into wrecking his marriage and destroying his and the country’s ties to the Roman Catholic Church.
However, a more contemporary examination of the events lays the blame on King Henry instead, portraying him as a sexual predator whose constant harassment of Boleyn coerced her into their contentious union at a time when women were powerless against the advances of men in higher positions of authority.
But regardless of the way in which Anne Boleyn ascended to the throne of England, few would deny that she made the most out of her prominent position and became one of the world’s most influential female figures during the 16th century, if not in all history.
Breaking away from the traditional hesitancy of previous queens from engaging in the kingdom’s affairs, Boleyn redefined the role of women in politics, and in the professional life overall; not only was she instrumental in shaping Henry’s views on the issue of Reformation, but she also became famous for her direct and heavy involvement in governmental affairs — an area which, prior to her arrival on the scene, had been completely male-dominated.
A feminist trailblazer in every sense of the word, the young queen even instated revolutionary gender-neutral protocols that banned her male servants from visiting brothels to remain as pure as their female counterparts.
But the weight of Boleyn’s accomplishments would be felt by all of England, males and females alike; her biggest legislative contribution arguably came in 1536 with the passage of the Poor Law, which, with her support, guaranteed nationwide employment for anyone seeking a job as a measure to eradicate poverty throughout the kingdom.
The legislation also challenged the authority of Chief Minister Thomas Cromwell by creating a new ruling body that threatened the power of his own council, thus earning the queen some very influential enemies inside the government.
Shortly thereafter, On May 2, 1536, Anne Boleyn was arrested for allegedly committing the crimes of adultery and incest, and was subsequently convicted by a unanimous jury of both charges, along with conspiracy to murder Henry VIII so she could secretly marry another man.
She was ultimately beheaded on May 19 of the same year by order of the king.
However, history scholars have long been skeptical of the legitimacy of the charges leveled against the queen and instead lean toward the theory that she was the victim of a plot by Cromwell who had a lot to gain from her early demise.
In the end, Anne Boleyn paid the ultimate price for meddling in the cutthroat world of politics, quite literally in her case.
But despite the undignified events that marked the end of her life, she remains a significant historical female icon, and the progressive accomplishments she enacted during her short three-year tenure as Queen of England should make any woman proud to be viewed as her peer.
