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The Lady in the Tower: The Fall of Anne Boleyn
Unavailable
The Lady in the Tower: The Fall of Anne Boleyn
Unavailable
The Lady in the Tower: The Fall of Anne Boleyn
Audiobook16 hours

The Lady in the Tower: The Fall of Anne Boleyn

Written by Alison Weir

Narrated by Judith Boyd

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

3.5/5

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Currently unavailable

Currently unavailable

About this audiobook

New York Times best-selling author Alison Weir tells the spellbinding tale of the last days of Henry VIII’s second wife. Accused of adultery, incest, and treason, Anne Boleyn is locked in the Tower of London on May 2, 1536. Despite maintaining her innocence, she’s quickly condemned to death. Soon, one sword stroke sends her into eternity. But as her remains rot in the sun—unblessed by coffin, marker, or funeral—few know the truth behind her swift demise.
LanguageEnglish
Release dateJan 1, 2010
ISBN9781449815486
Unavailable
The Lady in the Tower: The Fall of Anne Boleyn

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Reviews for The Lady in the Tower

Rating: 3.5789473684210527 out of 5 stars
3.5/5

19 ratings11 reviews

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  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    Wow, Weir really doesn't like Richard! Really didn't like it and doesn't agree on many things. I've never read that there's been any reason to think that Anne was unfaithful...
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Quite a contrast to Josephine Tey's "The Daughter of Time". Tey directly contradicts Weir's sources and her conclusions. Both books are very convincing and the real facts, at least for me, are still in doubt. Tey's book is the more readable in my opinion.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Contrary to its title, this book focuses almost completely on Richard III not the life and death of the two princes. Correctly, I think, as the two princes were just innocent pawns in a murderous game about the English crown. Weir shows how the power struggle among the English nobles, an extended family feud, often ended with the losing side decapitated. It was a violent age of might made right. Richard III's main fault was his death in battle. Had he been victorious, his crimes would have been accepted, explained away as they are in the case of Henry VIII. The contrast in the public perception of Henry VIII and Richard III is astounding.As far as the murder of the two princes is concerned, I think we can never know with certainty how the crime happened. Weir's finger-pointing at James Tyrell looks fishy. Despite Henry VII's "looking forward, not backward" policy, a prosecution of Tyrell would have been in order if the case were as clear as presented by Weir. What is certain, however, is Richard III's control of the Tower and that he was the chief beneficiary of the princes' death ("cui bono"). The medieval acceptance of starving prisoners to death but horror from shedding blood is as strange as the current US practice of offering life-saving procedures to death row inmates in order to kill them properly. The poor princes were just some of the casualties of Richard III's murderous decent. He could only stay in power by eliminating more and more of his former allies - until not even a horse was left. The renaissance is full of those princes of darkness from Vlad Tepes to Charles the Bold and Henry VIII. In fairness to Richard III, one should not condemn him more than his peers. But do we have to be fair? No.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I would consider this a text book. Really informative and obviously very well researched.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I had never read anything about Edward V or his brother before I read this book. I was a very good introduction. I have read reviews about Alison Weir where people complain about the amount of speculation in her books but there is so little information from this time period that people must speculate about some things. However, Alison Weir speculates but she also covers every possible angle. This can let you draw your own conclusion about this great mystery. Above all, a very detailed and researched work.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    This book takes the debate, and approaches it in a very linear and logical fashion. The author lists all of the sources of reliable information and lists not only what she considers to be the best and worst sources, but why she considers them so.She then starts from fairly far back in history, with the crowning of the Princes' father, Henry IV and the story of the relationship he had with his brother Richard III. This turns out to be vital to understanding the psyche of Richard and helps the reader to understand decisions he made later in life.The author keeps the proceedings logical and explains away a lot of the "Richard is completely innocent" arguments about what must have happened at that time. By the same token she doesn't completely vilify the man, either.By the end of the book you realize that while some of this was the doing of a not necessarily evil man, it was also caused by feuds and bad circumstances. Richard was committing an act of self preservation against the Queen and the powerful Wydville influence.If you have an interest in England's history, or in the story of The Princes in the Tower, and if you are as detail oriented as I am, wanting the whole story, then by all means this is a book for you. If not then you probably won't like this book at all, and might even find it boring, hence the three stars.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    As usual, Weir has written a lively, readable book, but I think it is a very poor history. Weir makes some insightful remarks when the facts suit her, but I would only recommend the book to readers who know enough about the subject to carefully weigh her claims. Others have talked about the reliability of Weir's sources, but I'll just stick to the problems that are internal to the book, even if the reader knows nothing else about the topic.Weir constantly contradicts herself and her logic is often bizarre. On a general level, she tries to argue that the facts surrounding the death of the princes were at one and the same time, a closely guarded secret and known to everyone in Europe, depending on which is most convenient to her at any given point. At a more detailed level:She spends several pages arguing that the story that Edward IV's marriage to Elizabeth Woodville was bigamous is completely ludicrous and that no contemporary writer believed it. She then describes it as "well-conceived and plausible".Citing More, she claims that Margaret Beaufort was able to prove to Elizabeth Woodville that her sons (the princes in the tower) were dead. Later, Weir claims that Henry VII (Beaufort's son) didn't know whether or not they were dead. What happened to the evidence provided to Woodville?Weir claims that Louis XI knew that Richard III murdered the princes, in spite of the fact that she believes they were alive when Louis died.She claims that More got otherwise unknown information from knowledgeable people of his acquaintance. If it is obvious to Weir that these people might have known something, wouldn't it have been even more obvious to Henry VII and his advisors? Wouldn't he have questioned them? Would they have refused to answer the king and then babbled all they knew to More?She argues that no-one other than Richard III could have killed the princes during his reign, since no-one was tried for it. Then she claims that Henry VII knew who murdered the princes, at Richard's order, but never tried them because it would have raised embarrassing questions. Wouldn't it have been even more embarrassing for Richard to have tried someone during his reign? She also claims that Henry feared it might alienate other European rulers, in spite of her claim that those rulers already knew all about it while Richard was alive and continued to deal with him.She argues that More's friends read the manuscript and would have corrected any errors, in spite of the fact that (as she admits) it contains numerous errors as it is.There are more problems, but I can't sum them up in a few sentences.Since originally writing this review, I have looked into the issue of the textile evidence, i.e., Weir's claim that an unidentified person said that there were scraps of velvet in the coffin when it was opened; Weir does not bother to cite a source. I strongly fault her failure to provide documentation for this new and very interesting argument.She claims that an unnamed textile expert told her that velvet first came to England in 1400. She then argues that it was very expensive and custom limited its use to only "the very highest", so these bones must have been the princes. This contradicts her cherished quote from More that the princes were naked when they were strangled; I think it's unlikely that people committing murder in haste would dress the bodies before burial. Further, according to Textiles and Clothing, c.1150-1450 (Medieval Finds from Excavations in London) by Elisabeth Crowfoot, Frances Pritchard and Kay Staniland, the first WRITTEN records of velvet imports were in the late 13th century. The wardrobe records of Edward IV, the princes' father, show that pieces of velvet were common gifts to his followers, and the wardrobe records of Sir John Fastolf (d.1459) show that he had several velvet garments. [Fastolf was an extremely wealthy man, so his wardrobe can't be taken as typical for all knights.] Fabric of all types was relatively much more expensive prior to the industrial era and there was a very active trade in used garments and fabrics. So there had been something close to two hundred years prior to the deaths of the princes, and three hundred and fifty years prior to finding of the bones, for resold pieces of velvet to work their way down the social chain.I am therefore not convinced that small scraps of velvet prove that the bodies belonged to princes, even assuming that the unknown witness in the uncited source was correct in his/her identification of fabric as velvet and not some other nappy fabric. I am, however, convinced that Weir was suspiciously sloppy in presenting her case, particularly given that many of her other statements are carefully documented.If you're a student of the topic, as I am, it's worth reading. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone as an introduction. For that, try reading A.J. Pollard's Richard III and the Princes in the Tower. Pollard also believes that Richard III was guilty; my objections to Weir are not primarily based on the assumption that Richard was innocent, just a preference for good, well-documented research and logical thinking. Mysterious Deaths - The Little Princes in the Tower (Mysterious Deaths) by William W. Lace is also better than Weir, just realize that a lot of the illustrations are 19th century. I also recommend Royal Blood: Richard III and the Mystery of the Princes by Bertram Fields. Fields is more sympathetic to Richard III, and quite dismissive of Weir, but the exciting thing to me is that he tosses around ideas and thought-provoking possibilities without necessarily drawing conclusions. Some people find that irritating, but I find it very stimulating.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    This is a great follow up to Weir's Wars of the Roses. Thorough and doesn't lose me when discussing this duke or that earl like the Wars did.I am halfway through it and it still hasn't gotten to the Princes "death" although Edward is in the tower right now.That's how thorough it is.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I am ashamed to say that I've owned this book for 12 years, since I was 15, prior to reading it over the past week and a half.This book is part of my unabated curiosity regarding the actions of Richard III, who I have been fascinated with since I found out he was my ancestor. I do favor the viewpoint that Alison Weir scoffs at as "revisionist" - those who favor the view that history is written by the victors and that Richard III was not as much of a villain as More and Shakespeare made him to be. I want to know all sides of this famous debate.Even though I don't agree with her conclusions, I found this to be a fascinating book and very well researched. (I must say, no matter how much I read about the War of the Roses, all the contorted marriages and similar names make my head spin). I was bothered by the points where Weir presumed to read Gloucester's thoughts; is this fiction or nonfiction? I don't mind if theories are proposed - after all, a complete answer about the princes will never be known - but please don't engage in mind-reading unless you actually have a journal or some first-person perspective into someone's head. Fortunately, she didn't delve into his inner thoughts too often.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    An interesting study into the fate of the Princes in the Tower (Edward V & Richard, Duke of York) which concentrates heavily on the notion that Richard III was guilty of their deaths. All of the sources Weir uses support her claim and she appears to have a great dislike for 'revisionists', who take a more measured approach to who the murderer may have been. A more balanced approach may have made for a better book - you are left feeling she has a point to prove, rather than has weighed up all the available evidence.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This may well be my favorite book by Alison Weir. Here, she examines the 1483 disappearance of King Richard III's two young nephews. Richard came to the throne through violence, and his nephews were the rightful heirs; he was supposedly acting as their regent, until they went missing. Weir did meticulous research into the mystery, and makes a case for who was the culprit. Excellent!