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1:44 am
December 17, 2009
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Just seen this article on the Daily Mail online website (I was checking my yahoo email account, I don't usually read the Daily Mail!)
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new…..other.html
It seems that because there have been many books written about Anne Boleyn recently that show her in a sympathetic light, Bernard decided to take the opposite approach to be 'a bit different'. Does anyone else feel the same way?
Sarah
8:29 am
February 16, 2009
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Hi Sarah,
Thanks for the link, I was looking out for a review or article on this book but must say I'm disappointed if Bernard is just going on about this poem again and his report “The Fall of Anne Boleyn” from 1991 is about that. I hope the book says a lot more than that.
He is a reputable academic so I don't think he would be purposely going against the “tide” just to sell a book but I do hope that he backs up his opinions with solid primary evidence.
I've just written an article on his 1991 report and what the Daily Mail say about his book – /did-anne-boleyn-commit-incest-with-her-brother/4670/
Has anyone else read his report? You can download it at http://ehr.oxfordjournals.org/…..CCCCXX/584 – it's worth a read but I don't agree with him. 
Debunking the myths about Anne Boleyn
8:57 am
December 8, 2009
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I dare not click on that link. Sometimes I'll be queueing in the newsagents, accidentally see the headline on the Daily Mail and it will be enough to ruin the rest of my week with its rabid right-wing, lunacy spouting nonsense. Sometimes, I will stand in the newsagents, having inadvertently glanced at the frontpages while reaching for my copy of “The Guardian”, and just scream at the top of my lungs. My mother used to read it before work, because it wound her up so much and got her blood pumping so fast, that only a hectic shift in Marks and Spencer could cure it (apparently this method was especially efficacious during the christmas season). No wonder she died young.
Anyway, I'm rambling on again. Whatever the Daily Mail has to say about Anne Boleyn, I cannot imagine it is particularly well researched or thought out. I doubt that they've checked any sources and I can just imagine the nauseating, moralistsic spoutings that they'll indulge in if they believe her to be guilty.
My only consolation is, that while pontificating about a subject they know very little about, at least they're giving the reugee's a break (another subject they know nothing about).
Be daly prove you shalle me fynde,nTo be to you bothe lovyng and kynde,
10:03 am
February 16, 2009
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Hi Hannah,
The Daily Mail article is just reporting on G W Bernard's findings and what evidence he provides in his new book “Anne Boleyn: Fatal attractions” – more of a book review/book publicity than a report by The Daily Mail. Wow, did I just stick up for a newspaper there?! So, they're Bernard's claims and he is just repeating what he has said in his earlier report, that Anne was probably guilty of something, possibly incest and also adultery with Norris, due to the poem written by Lancelot de Carles which in turn mentions the argument between the Countess of Worcester and her brother where she defended her so-called “loose morals” by saying that she wasn't as bad as the Queen who had even done it with her own brother.
I do think that basing an opinion on such a poem is like taking a gossip column or the front page of any tabloid newspaper as the gospel truth. De Carles was simply repeating the gossip of the time. I love Tudor Tutor's tweet on Twitter today about it: “So some horny court dude writes a poem & now Anne Boleyn is back up for Harlot of the Year?”. 
Debunking the myths about Anne Boleyn
11:03 am
February 16, 2009
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According to the Guardian article – http://www.guardian.co.uk/book…..phy-claims – Bernard also believes that it was Henry who said “no” to sex, rather than Anne:-
“His biography, Anne Boleyn: Fatal Attractions, due out from Yale University Press in April, also disputes the view that Anne held back from sexual relations with Henry until he agreed to make her his queen, claiming that it is “highly implausible”. He believes that it was Henry, not Anne, who held back, on the grounds that he wanted their children to be his legitimate heirs. “He would, I suspect, have been astonished and horrified to discover that later generations have supposed he did not sleep with Anne in those years because she would not let him,” Bernard says.”
Hmmm…
Debunking the myths about Anne Boleyn
8:40 pm
January 9, 2010
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It's weird; the more I read about this book the more I'm sure I'm going to violently disagree with Bernards 'findings', yet conversely the more I want to get my hands on a copy. Huh.
8:46 pm
September 13, 2009
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I have a hard time buying the theory that Henry said no to sex. It just doesn't sound like him. Why would a man who has one mistress after another suddenly decide to wait? Just doesn't make any sense. However, I do think that Henry was already thinking of getting his marraige to Katherine annulled when he met Anne. Anne's no gave him the excuse he needed to do it. Henry new an annullment would be an unpopular move since Katherine was very popular with the Engligh people. This way he could let people think Anne was pushing him do it.
When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.
12:03 am
June 20, 2009
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I want to read this, out of pure curiousity. I don't think Henry would've said no to Anne if she was willing to give in to him sooner.
Let not my enemies sit as my jury
1:29 am
February 16, 2009
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I'm dying to get my hands on this book so all of the publicity is definitely working on me, although I tend to buy anything that's about Anne whatever the press say.
Bernard is a serious academic, a history professor rather than just an author, so I'm sure he's done his research so it will be interesting to see how he can use the same sources as people like Ives and come to a different conclusion. You can see Professor Bernard's bio at
http://www.southampton.ac.uk/h…..rnard.html
and let me know here if you want me to email you his report on Anne's fall or another on Anne's faith.
Debunking the myths about Anne Boleyn
