Initial Quick, Non-Researched Thoughts on "Anne Boleyn" Episode 1

Quick Thoughts on Channel 5’s Anne Boleyn: Episode 1; Episode 2; Episode 3

I just watched episode 1 of Anne Boleyn, the new psychological thriller series from Channel 5 in the UK.* Thoughts so far: It's really well done (apart from the costumes, which lack historically accurate detailing, but they're not so bad that they're distracting). Jodie Turner-Smith is mesmerizing as Anne. She plays every facet of love, intelligence, humor, fear, anxiety, defensiveness, faith, joy, and devastation with subtle art. She also has that Anne charisma and power, taking your breath away just with her presence.

*The UK’s Channel 5 mini series “Anne Boleyn” has been causing a bit of uproar around Tudor communities for a while now because of the casting of a black woman in the lead role. I am incredibly over people being such asses about this (these comments range from repetitively close-minded and boring to HOLY SHIT THAT IS REALLY RACIST DUDE and they all piss me off), so I’m really just not going to get into it now. I would really rather just talk about content of the show itself.

(As an American, I watched this show via TV Mucho - apparently this only works if you set it to record in advance or watch it simultaneously with the UK broadcast. Also - you only get one free hour a day, which because of the 10 minute early start with the show, isn't actually enough, so I just broke down and bought one month's subscription. I have no idea how to access the show if you are out of the UK and didn’t already record it using TV Mucho, sorry.)

I COULD write thousands of words about this one episode, and I may later, but I'll just hit a few points briefly. I'm not doing in depth research on this but am only talking about a few items using my prior knowledge as a giant Tudor history fanatic. If you see anything inaccurate, let me know! I'm human, after all. I may go back and add sources to this later if there’s enough interest.

1. The episode opens with a flash forward to Anne’s trial. This scene closes out with an axe being turned around and Anne taking a sharp intake of breath. The turning of the axe actually was totally a thing at Tudor trials! When the accused walked into court, the accompanying axeman’s blade was faced away from them. Once they were declared guilty and sentenced though, the blade was turned to face toward them.

2. After the credits, a very pregnant Anne is shown wearing yellow at a formal event, which is held after the death of Catherine of Aragon. Henry is not wearing yellow. If I recall, one contemporary account from the time specified only that Henry wore yellow after COA’s death, and another only specified that Anne wore yellow. In addition, it’s up for debate whether this was meant for mourning (as some claim it was the Spanish color of mourning) or celebration.

3. While playing cards (using cards that are larger than modern ones and really do look like those used in Tudor times!), Anne casually asks Madge Shelton (who in real life was her cousin) whether the king had called for her lately. This refers to the fact that during his queens’ pregnancies, Henry would regularly sleep with other women, as sex with a pregnant woman was considered dangerous to the baby.
Anne also disses Jane Parker, Lady Rochford and her brother George’s wife, and implies that she’s just…a very nasty woman. This is a very common characterization of Jane for some reason, but we don’t really have any evidence to support it beyond the simple fact that Jane survived the Boleyns’ fall.

4. Symbol Count 1: The French king sends some tiny French children (?) to present a clock to Anne for her future child. This will become more important later.

5. Symbol count 2: Jane Seymour wins at cards. Anne: “You had the winning hand all along.” Jane: “I didn’t understand the game.” Anne: “You really mustn’t play.” This indicates that Anne is already aware of her husband’s attraction to Jane and is warning her away from him.

6. Later in bed, Anne and Henry talk about Cromwell’s plans for the monasteries. Anne says she has her own thoughts about what to do with the money from the monasteries, while Cromwell has other ideas. This disagreement really did happen. Anne wanted the money to go to charity and education. Cromwell wanted the money to go into the king’s treasury. It’s likely that this significant disagreement between Anne and Cromwell (who were formerly allied due to their common beliefs in reforming the church) may have contributed to Anne’s downfall.

7. Symbol count 3: The court is looking at some new horses outside while Anne and Cromwell talk, clearly still disagreeing. Anne is in a peacock blue and there are several peacocks wandering around and making loud noises. Anne complains about the peacocks and tells Henry she wants them removed or she’ll hunt them down herself. These peacocks will come back several more times.

8. Anne next talks to an older woman who appears to be Elizabeth’s governess (if this is the case, likely Lady Margaret Bryan) and specifically sends her sympathies to Mary (who at this point, is actually serving her younger sister, as a bit of a punishment for her obstinacy in refusing to accept the annulment of her parents’ marriage) on the death of her mother. Anne really did reach out to Mary after Catherine’s death, I believe she even encouraged Mary to reunite with her father.
Anne was not always kind to Mary honestly, but I believe at this point she wasn’t actually being a jerk.

9. George brings Anne the first full English bible, fresh from Antwerp. Antwerp was a hotbed of Protestant thinking. Anne is delighted and puts the bible on a pedestal in her room. This really did happen – Anne put it there for any of her ladies to read regularly. At this point though, she takes the opportunity to encourage Jane Seymour to read Psalm 55 (ESV) – which includes a subtle reference to Jane betraying her with Henry: “for it is not an enemy who taunts me—then I could bear it; it is not an adversary who deals insolently with me—then I could hide from him. But it is you, a man, my equal, my companion, my familiar friend.”

11. Henry has a jousting accident that leaves him unconscious and makes everyone freak out.
EVERYONE CITES THIS DAMN JOUSTING ACCIDENT but y’all, all the contemporary English sources indicate that he wasn’t even hurt and there are NO English reports about the king being unconscious. If it had actually happened that way, it would be in every person’s letters and diaries. The guy who started the thing about Henry being unconscious wasn’t in the country at the time and wrote about it several months later. UGH.
Anne panics as she overhears people talking about how she could never be regent because people hate her. She also overhears Ambassador Eustace Chapuys talking about sending for Mary, noting that she’d have Spanish backing. Chapuys was a big letter writer and is a source of information for a lot of what we know about Anne’s downfall. he was highly biased against her though so, so we have to take what he says with a grain of salt.
Anne asks her Uncle, who’s the Duke of Norfolk Thomas Howard (one of the most powerful men in the kingdom) to get rid of Chapuys.

Despite their spat over the monasteries, Cromwell is hanging with Anne and her family still and is part of their conversation. Anne says that all mail to Hatfield (where mary lives with princess Elizabeth) should be stopped and they shouldn’t let Mary see the king. She clearly is afraid that Mary will be captured and made the center of an uprising. This was wise, as this sort of thing actually did happen every time a Tudor monarch died.

12. Symbol Count 4: Anne sees the feisty horse that threw the king in the accident taken away and decapitated. When she asks the king about it later, he says “I have no use for an animal that won’t obey me.”
The king also says, “my leg will never be the same.” This is actually true, as he did get a leg injury in a jousting accident that would become ulcerous and infected and would basically weep pus, smell terrible, and cause him tremendous pain for the rest of his life.

13. A couple scenes go by without much for me to talk about historically until Anne confronts her uncle about his conversations with the king and yells at him. We do know that Anne and her uncle had a falling out in the months before her death. He later would be on the jury that sentenced her to death.
After getting past her uncle, Anne finds Jane Seymour sitting on Henry’s knee. There are accounts of this really happening. Anne tears a necklace from her throat and slaps her. Historically, Anne did pull the necklace away (the necklace was a portrait of Henry), but it was at a different time, when the king wasn’t there).

14. The incident leads to Anne miscarrying her child. This did happen pretty soon after CoA’s death and also was caused by the Jane Seymour knee-sitting incident.
Also HOLY TOKOPHOBIA BATMAN, if you are freaked out by pregnancy and childbirth, I would suggest skipping over this scene. It doesn’t show a lot but there are A LOT OF SOUNDS AND IT IS VERY DISTURBING. (yes, I probably have mild tokophobia).

15. Symbol returns: The clock has wound down and is stopped, probably referring to Anne running out of time. Anne looks out the window and sees Henry petting the peacocks she asked him to kill with Jane Seymour, indicating her loss of power and status with her husband.

16. I love that the show has Anne running to try to catch her husband to advocate for her plan with the monasteries, even though she’s just lost a baby, is very injured from childbirth, and she’s upset about the Jane situation. Anne really was very passionate about religious reform and charity and although this almost certainly didn’t happen, it’s a good way to show it.

17. Anne appears alone in several scenes in this episode. Realistically, she would not have been alone, pretty much ever, as the Queen would always be accompanied by several ladies. Honestly, she probably didn’t even use the bathroom alone. But it works for showing Anne’s isolation and growing paranoia about her role at court.

I hope you enjoyed that quick rundown! It ended up over 1,500 words, which was approximately 1,000 more words than I planned, but - whatever. I’ll probably do the same thing for the next two episodes as well!