Leanda de Lisle reviews a book by Alison Weir
Alison Weir
Jonathan Cape 432pp £20
ISBN 978 0224063197
The historical novelist Jean
Plaidy first coined the title of this
book. But Weir’s
The Lady in the
Tower is no novel. It is part
polemic, part whodunnit, much
as she has done before in her
Mary Queen of Scots and the
Murder of Lord Darnley (2003).
Weir’s readers are true Tudor
enthusiasts. She knows instinctively
what these readers want
and has written this book for the
many Anne Boleyn obsessives out
there. It covers little more than
the last four months of Anne’s life
and its associated historiography.
The book opens with a brief
description of Anne Boleyn and
Henry VIII at a joust. Abruptly the
king leaves. Anne, we are told, is
never to see him again. She is
about to be annihilated in a brutal
coup, along with the young men
she has been watching in the contest.
What follows is a detailed
examination of the different arguments
over who managed that
coup. Those who are looking for
straightforward narrative history
should look elsewhere. Weir’s
focus is sources: which can be
trusted and which not.
Weir has changed her mind
about theories she has expounded
in the past. This is not surprising;
there is some excellent new
work out there. Her current views
are closest to those expressed by
Eric Ives in his 2004 biography of
Anne. The two books with which
she most quarrels are Retha
Warnicke’s The Rise and Fall of
Anne Boleyn (1989) and Julia Fox’s
revisionist Jane Boleyn (2007). It
would be advisable to read these
too, for it is often difficult to follow
Weir’s supporting evidence. She
rarely gives volume or page numbers
in her endnotes and sometimes
it is hard to be sure even
what book she is referring to. But
right or wrong, this is, as always,
pitched very cleverly.
Weir is ahead of the game in
spotting the interest that readers
have developed in the building
blocks of historical argument. It
will be interesting to see if other
popular historians follow suit.
Meanwhile readers who enjoyed
the Murder of Darnley will also find
The Lady in the Tower to their liking.