Boleyn Traitor by Philippa Gregory

“All that is needed to defeat a tyrant is the courage to say ‘no’.”

Confession time – this is my first Philippa Gregory novel! Recently, I was fortunate enough to be in York where she gave a talk about this book – how could I resist not only attending the talk, but buying the book and having it signed? It added considerable bulk to my luggage!

I think it’s safe to say we are more than familiar with Henry VIII and his six wives. The Boleyn Traitor looks at this familiar tale of lust, power and tyranny from the perspective of Jane Parker (known as Lady Rochford), wife of George Boleyn, Anne’s brother. She was a lady-in-waiting to five of Henry’s six wives.

The novel begins in 1534, when Queen Catherine sits beside Henry. After several stillbirths and the loss of a baby son, Catherine gave Henry a daughter, Mary. But no son. It doesn’t take Henry’s wandering eye long to rest upon the flirtatious Anne Boleyn as a suitable replacement. The rest, as they say, is history.

While Henry is busy losing wives and gaining new ones, Jane is proving herself to be a master spy for Thomas Cromwell. Her role as lady-in-waiting afforded her access to much that goes on between Henry, his cronies and his wife of the moment.

Gregory paints a picture of a court full of treachery and intrigue, lies and secrets. And masquerade balls – so much detail about all these silly balls and the practice of ‘courtly love’ which all sounds very shallow and superficial and a giant waste of time. Jane is portrayed as hugely ambitious: ‘This is the woman I wanted to be: at the centre of power, serving a woman of power’.

History has not been kind to Jane. Some say she betrayed her husband George and his sister Anne, helping to amass evidence that lead to their beheadings in 1536. Gregory takes a different view, suggesting that Jane was in no way complicit in their downfall. Jane feels increasingly isolated at court: ‘my husband’s body is buried with his decapitated head in the chapel in the Tower. His sister Anne lies beside him, in an old arrow box, her head pushed under her feet – they forgot to order a coffin for her. They are as inseparable in death as they were in life – and I am very far from them both.’

Henry is portrayed as a tyrant and, in later life, a monster; quick to ill-temper, corpulent with ‘an oozing ulcer’ which can be smelt from a distance. ‘He is a man rotting before he is in the grave.’ He loses any sense of right or wrong, and kills those that displease him without compunction.

I found Gregory’s continual descriptions of how abhorrent Henry became rather repetitive, particularly in the later part of the book. And herein lies my problem with this novel: too much information, often repeated. The author has obviously done an enormous amount of research, and she’s going to share it all with her readers! It becomes overwhelming. But, as I said, I haven’t read any of her other books, so a lot of the content of this book was new to me. I feel it could have been edited with a little more vigour.

Putting aside my niggles about the length and over-abundance of detail, I enjoyed this novel. I felt fully immersed in the court life surrounding Henry VIII – and grateful that I didn’t have to navigate its complexities as Jane did. Henry left few remaining survivors.

Reviewed by Gaby Meares
Murder on a Monday Reading Group