Featured on The Book Show on Sky Arts on 24 November 2011.
In this, the first full-scale biography of Mary Boleyn, Alison Weir
explodes much of the mythology that surrounds her subject and uncovers
the facts about one of the most misunderstood figures of the Tudor age.
Mary Boleyn : 'The Great and Infamous Whore' Synopsis
Mary Boleyn is remembered by posterity as a 'great and infamous whore'. She was the mistress of two kings, Francois I of France and Henry VIII of England, and sister to Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII's second wife. She may secretly have borne Henry a child and it was because of his adultery with Mary that his marriage to Anne was annulled. It is not hard to see how this tangled web of relationships has given rise to rumours and misconceptions that have been embroidered over the centuries. Alison Weir's extensive, forensic research has facilitated a new and detailed portrayal, in which she recounts that, contrary to popular belief, Mary was entirely undeserving of her posthumous notoriety as a great whore or the 'hackney' whom the King of France famously boasted of riding. Weir also presents compelling new evidence that almost conclusively determines the paternity of Mary's two oldest children. In this astonishing and riveting book, Alison Weir shows that Mary's story had a happy ending and that she was by far the luckiest of the Boleyns.
Praise for Alison Weir's The Lady in the Tower: The Fall of Anne Boleyn:
'[Weir] is well equipped to parse the evidence, ferret out the misconceptions and arrive at sturdy hypotheses about what actually befell Anne.' -- The New York Times
'Well-researched and compulsively readable . . . Acclaimed novelist and historian Weir continues to successfully mine the Tudor era, once again excavating literary gold.' -- Booklist
'It is a testament to Weir's artfulness and elegance as a writer that The Lady in the Tower remains fresh and suspenseful, even though the reader knows what's coming.' -- The Independent (U.K.)
'Compelling stuff, full of political intrigue and packing an emotional wallop.' -- The Oregonian
Author
About Alison Weir
Alison Weir is the top-selling female historian (and the fifth bestselling historian overall) in the United Kingdom, and has sold over 2.7 million books worldwide. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and Sciences and an Honorary Life Patron of Historic Royal Palaces, and is married with two adult children. Anne Boleyn is the second in the Six Tudor Queens series of novels about the wives of Henry VIII, which began with Katherine of Aragon: The True Queen - a Sunday Times Top Ten bestseller.
