Anyone watching 'The other Boleyn girl'??

[Italiangreyhound]

Seems like a pretty crap time to be a woman (or a girl)!

Anyone know how true it all is??

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Other_Boleyn_Girl_%282008_film%29

Aargh, I can't believe I missed this thread.

My thought about this version of the book was that it turned it into a classic 'nasty uppity woman is punished by being raped and killed' narrative. It did this by making Anne so shallow and nasty, and making so much of the rape scene. (Did Henry rape Anne in the book? I don't remember.)

Kim, the Flanders mare quote doesn't appear till later (17th c I think) so is probably made up, though it is the case that Henry simply didn't fancy Anne of Cleves.

Badvoc, do you think Norfolk pulled the strings to get Katherine Howard on the throne? I think he went along with it after it was clear that was who Henry was going for, rather than instigating it. But I'm prepared to be convinced. On the one hand - Norfolk is generally too careful to use someone so ill-prepared (and with that past). On the other, he might have thought she'd be easier to control than, say, his daughter Mary who he complained about being wiser than a woman should be.

I am a bit obsessed with Norfolk at the moment.

I'm currently reading Suzannah Dunn's Anne Boleyn novel and not liking it as much as I liked her Katherine Howard one. Anyone else read any of hers?

it is historically unsound. mary Boleyn was not an innocent as she is portrayed as being in this film, she had already been the mistress of the King of France before she became Henry's mistress. nor is there any evidence at all that she was in love with Henry. She may have been, but we have no way of knowing. no evidence either that her children were fathered by Henry, if they were he never ackowledged them, which seems odd. his only acknowledged bastard was Henry fitzroy, his son by Bessie Blount, who was his mistress before Mary. there is certainly no evidence that Mary's parent encouraged Mary to become Henry's mistress, they seem to have been dismayed by her notoriety. certainly no evidence that either daughter was coerced by them to have anything to do with Henry. as for it being a bleak time to be a woman, life was tough for most people in those days, regardless of gender. And certainly upper class men were at least as much at risk as upper class women. Remember, five men were executed as Anne Boleyn's alleged lovers.

I really don't agree it was tough for everyone regardless of gender. Sure, men had it tough, but they weren't typically someone else's property, and while I expect men did get raped, it was a crime to rape an man and absolutely routine and 'normal' to rape a woman.

Thank you to whoever linked to the Mantel LRB review of the book on Jane Parker. It was excellent.

The best novelised version of the Anne Boleyn story is the concubine by Norah lofts.

I think talking as if it was shit for everyone so there's no difference is misleading.
Hard for everyone, but like all societies, worse for the less privileged classes - worse for the poor of both sexes than the rich, worse for the women of all classes than the men.

Chub - yes, Norah Lofts massively neglected and under-rated. The Concubine is excellent.

Have you read much of her other stuff? (Apols if we have already discussed this on another thread.)

Philippa Gregory, though.... She has a gift of pulling you up short with her details, making you think 'OMG was this what it was like to be that woman?'
I know a lot of the serious Anne Boleyn fans hate her, but she did bring the story alive for a wider audience. Sadly her later books have been less gripping.

it was not 'normal' to rape women, certainly not upper class women like Anne Boleyn. young girls of the upper classes were typically carefully safeguarded until they were married. And Anne Boleyn was a strong minded woman who made her own destiny, she refused to become Henry's mistress and kept him dangling until she was sure he would marry her. She played for high stakes and won, at least temporarily. not all women were downtrodden victims, there were plenty of tough women then.

It was, you know. It was perfectly acceptable to have sex with your wife whether she wanted to or not. The concept that she should consent was really not in there.

I do agree there were lots of tough women, but I think the two things are not the same. We can admire tough women and what they achieved without saying that life wasn't harder for women than men.

And how is it 'worse' for women than men in Anne Boleyn's case? she was only ONE woman, but FIVE men were executed with her - do their deaths count for nothing? The number of men executed during the Tudor period - in any period in fact - far exceeds that of the number of women executed.

I didn't say it necessarily was worse in Anne Boleyn's case.

I didn't know the stat about numbers of men and women executed - and it's interesting, I would like the source if I may - but I would say, you could count that against the deaths of women in childbirth and wonder what the positives are?

'it was not 'normal' to rape women, certainly not upper class women like Anne Boleyn. young girls of the upper classes were typically carefully safeguarded until they were married.'

Lady Catherine Willoughby D'Eresby and Charles Brandon Duke of Suffolk?
She was 13 or 14 and his ward. She had no choice about the marriage. Once they were married he could legally have sex with her whenever he wanted.
Given that after his death she wrote very passionately about the evils of arranged marriages, I think it's fair to assume she wasn't happy with the situation.
Forced sex is rape. Only they didn't call it that, because you were the property of the man.

We may have done, don't apologise I love to bore about historical romantic fiction

Crown of aloes is amazing. The bit when queen Isabella rides and rides to get to her son on his deathbed, and her horse dies in the effort. Gut wrenching stuff. Completely made up tosh no doubt. Very effecting though.

Anne of Cleves didn't even know what sex was! But she was savvy enough to know she didn't want to be returned to her brother and seemed to do the best out of all Henry's wives.

This book is quite good. It explains the mechanisms through which women were forced to marry against their will.

Well, and poor Margaret Beaufort, wasn't she 12 or so?

The definition of rape was different then, and there were much heavier penalties for the rape of a virgin than a matron or widow. Apparently cases rarely went to court and punishments were rarely carried out (sound familiar).

It is frightening how much wasn't defined as any kind of attack on a woman (or girl). In many ways rape was seen as an attack on a man, because his wife or daughter's honour had been taken.

And if you got pregnant it couldn't be rape because you only got pregnant if you enjoyed it.
Not sure exactly when that belief went out. I think it is still in force in the early Tudor period.

I rather like Phillippa Gregorys books (although I can never remember how many Ps and Ls she has), so I have just started reading Wolf Hall in an attempt to go for the more "highbrow" version!

you only got pregnant if you enjoyed it

I didn't think they were especially bothered about women enjoying it...?

I've just come across the charming story of a man in 1488 (too early, I know) who raped his servant and his neighbour's servant. He paid one of them a dowry, and the other one he just paid someone to marry her. Job done.

Isn't that awful? And terrifying.

(I think the belief about pregnancy being impossible if it was rape isn't consistent, but that's only my impression from canon law, which tends to be the dry side of things and probably as different from what the average person on the street believed as it can be today.)

Yes, far more men executed. As with today, more men commit crimes. If you look at penalties for comparable crimes, the women come off worse. As a woman if you kill your husband you are not just done for murder, you are done for petty treason, and burned

Anne Boleyn was lucky not to be burned - when Norfolk pronounced the sentence it was burning or beheading at the king's pleasure.

And death in childbirth - you're looking at about 1 in 60 for each birth at that period, average around 6 births per woman IIRC, so roughly 1 in 10 chance of dying in childbirth which is way higher than the chance of being executed.

That is terrifying.

Trills - yes, oddly. They believed female orgasm was necessary for conception to take place. It's later on that women's pleasure becomes entirely irrelevant to sex.

And didn't they have a point actually? Isn't conception more likely if the woman comes?

Have I imagined that?