Boleyn Traitor by Philippa Gregory
She rose as a favourite. Will she fall as a traitor?
In the dazzling, dangerous world of the Tudor Court, nothing is more powerful than a secret – or more deadly.
Jane Boleyn has mastered many masks: loving wife, devoted sister, and obedient spy.
But as the king's rule advances into tyranny, Jane must decide: keep playing her part, or use the only power she really has – her voice.
Philippa Gregory brings the Boleyn traitor into the light in an explosive story of one woman’s survival in the treacherous heart of the Tudor court.
Review 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟
This was one of those historical novels that made me realise how easily I had accepted one version of a woman because history has repeated it often enough. I went into Boleyn Traitor knowing Jane Boleyn mostly as the woman accused of betraying Anne and George, and came away thinking far more about the person who might have existed behind that reputation.
There’s something almost claustrophobic about the Tudor court here. Everything is beautiful and extravagant, but nobody ever feels entirely safe. Jane learns to listen, observe and make herself useful, particularly to Thomas Cromwell, and I loved seeing how information gradually becomes her own form of power. She isn’t always likeable and she certainly doesn't always make sensible choices, but that made her feel much more human.
What stayed with me most was the constant need to survive. Jane watches people she loves fall, sees queens arrive and disappear, and somehow continues to find a place for herself. By the time Catherine Howard enters the story, Jane has survived so much that there is almost a sense that she has begun to believe she knows how to navigate Henry’s court. Knowing where her involvement with Catherine and Thomas Culpeper will eventually lead gives those later chapters a real sadness.
Gregory also captures how quickly loyalty can become dangerous when one man has so much power. Henry’s presence seems to hang over everything, even when he isn't actually in the room, and you constantly feel how carefully everyone has to speak and behave.
Boleyn Traitor made me curious about the real Jane Boleyn rather than simply the version of her that has survived through history. We can never really know what she thought or why she made some of the choices she did, but I loved spending time with Gregory’s interpretation of her. It left me wondering whether Jane was really a traitor at all, or simply a woman who became very good at surviving until, finally, she wasn't.
Philippa Gregory
Philippa Gregory is an internationally renowned historian and novelist. She holds a PhD in eighteenth-century literature at the University of Edinburgh and is a fellow of the Royal Historical Society and the Universities of Sussex and Cardiff, an honorary research fellow at Birkbeck University of London and she was awarded a CBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours for her services to literature and to charity. Her novels have been adapted for stage and screen and in 2023 she published her groundbreaking history book, Normal Women - 900 Years of Making History, which was also released as a podcast, a teen edition and a series for young children.
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