Book Review – ‘Becoming Anne: Connections, Culture, Court’ by Owen Emmerson & Kate McCaffrey

A brilliant study of Anne Boleyn’s early years at Blickling, Hever, Mechelen, and in France, up to her debut at the English court. Been a while since the exhibition which this book was designed to go alongside, but I’m really glad I’ve read it now. It’s a lot of information but still easy to read and engaging.

It is sometimes difficult to write about Anne Boleyn and try and bring a new angle to it. But there is not generally a lot written about Anne’s early years on the continent – it’s said she came back to England with a sort-of exoticism which captured Henry VIII and that she may have developed reformist religious ideas while there, but not much more is said in many books. This book is different; it only focuses on the period before Anne appears at the English court, and on the people that she was around during this pivotal period like Louise of Savoy, Claude of France, and Marguerite of Angouleme.

There is work from various historians brought together, like Elizabeth Norton, Tracy Borman, Claire Ridgway, and Lauren Mackay, as well as Emmerson’s and McCaffrey’s views. There are also a lot of primary sources used including Anne Boleyn’s letter to her father from 1513, the accounts of George Wyatt, and George Cavendish, and excerpts from the Letters and Papers which can be accessed on British History Online.

Emmerson and McCaffrey have done an inspired job of bringing together the existing research with new insights. It’s a brilliant book to add to my collection, and one I’ll return to in order to better understand Anne’s earlier years and the influences that shaped her into the famous English queen we know today.

Chapters:-

1. Le Temps Viendra
2. ‘Fortune Favours the Bold’: The Boleyn Family Origins
3. ‘Now Thus’: Thomas Boleyn: a Career Courtier
4. ‘He That Will Thrive, Must First Ask His Wife’: The Boleyn Women
5. ‘A Good Seed Makes a Good Crop’: The Boleyn Children
6. ‘A Princely School and a Centre of High Culture’: Anne in Mechelen 1513-1514
7. ‘You Would Have Never Taken Her for an English Woman’: Anne in France 1514-1521
8. ‘Perseverance’: Anne’s Debut at the English Court 1522