9th Annual WML Academic Symposium

Time: 12:00
Room: 303
Presenter(s): Madalyn Brooks
Title: The Other Woman:Anne Boleyn as a Catalyst of the English Reformation
Developed under the guidance of Dr. Salvatore Mercogliano , History

King Henry VIII of England and Anne Boleyn are perhaps the most infamous pair to sit on the thrones of England in all of British history. Over centuries, historians have studied, researched, analyzed, interpreted and ultimately created a seemingly feasible narrative of both Henry VIII’s reign and Anne Boleyn’s life, including her rise in favor, fall to disgrace, and death. Unfortunately, these narratives are usually incomplete at best, each historian perpetuating his/her own reflection and interpretation of Anne Boleyn and too often, the stories coagulate around two distinct characterizations: Anne as the worldly seductress or Anne as the pious innocent. She is either the woman who bewitched Henry VIII into falling in love with her for devious personal and political goals, or the woman who was intoxicated by love and passion, steadfastly tied to the expectations of her noble family and absorbed into a state of affairs grander than she could have imagined. Whatever the underlying reasoning, Anne Boleyn gambled at an imperial level and lost, the resulting narrative as well as her involvement in the spurring on of the reformation in England is the focal point of this paper.