#anytime men describe women and the first descriptor they use is 'vain'...

[fideidefenswhore]

Bordo argues that Dormer’s Anne is superior to the default version derived from Eustace Chapuys and Catholic polemicist Nicholas Sander, described by Paul Friedmann in Anne Boleyn (1884) as ‘incredibly vain, ambitious, unscrupulous, coarse, fierce, and relentless,’ and still found in fiction such as Philippa Gregory’s The Other Boleyn Girl (2001) and Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall (2009) and Bring Up the Bodies (2012). The real Anne, though fond of a good time, encountered evangelical thought in the French court, became an avid student of scripture, assisted importation of English Bibles, gave Henry copies of Simon Fish's Supplication of the Beggars and William Tyndale's Obedience of a Christian Man, sought to convert monasteries to educational purposes, and was a patron of evangelicals.

History, Fiction, and The Tudors: Sex, Politics, Power, and Artistic License

#tbf the sequel (butb) does include anne's charity but there's such an overt skepticism in the text that she might as well have #*and evangelicalism #omitted the same... #or they do but as an inherently skeptical device rather #do you really think what cranmer thinks of her is true as said by jane rochford and absorbed by cromwell #do you REALLY think she makes smocks for the poor because she 'cares' etc #anyway such a funny summation of her character... #one by one: #incredibly vain? probably but i don't. care? #ambitious sure unscrupulous no #coarse? such an odd attribute to ascribe to her #anne was erudite and sophisticated #even if she could be vindictive #fierce and relentless sure #vain being first is a tell tho #anytime men describe women and the first descriptor they use is 'vain'... #she becomes mother to me