Do you ever wish you could rewrite history?

Well yeah, of course. We all wish we could rewrite history - I guess that’s what regrets are for. But what I mean is, every single time I read a nonfiction book about Henry VIII and his wives, I want to go back and return Anne’s head to her shoulders. I hate the fact that she was accused of infidelity, treason and incest and beheaded - when you come right down to it - because she didn’t give Henry his promised son. Yeah…yeah…yeah…succession and all that. No female rulers since Matilda versus Stephen and blah blah blah. Everyone hated her for supplanting Katherine, the acknowledged queen…

If Anne and Henry had not been forced to wait so long to consummate their relationship perhaps Anne would have born him a son and she would have remained forever the Queen of the King’s heart. If she’d given Henry a son, he would have felt utterly and completely justified in his treatment of his first and well, pretty much legal wife, Katherine, who also had to be gotten rid of because she didn’t give him a son.

Good God I’m glad I didn’t live back then…oh wait, since I believe in reincarnation and that period of history fascinates me, I probably did.

I guess when you come right down to it, if Anne had given birth to a male child, then England would never have been ruled by Anne’s daughter, Elizabeth, quite arguably the most successful British monarch of all time.

Anne was both brilliant and impolitic and was, unfortunately, much maligned in her time. She is by far my favorite historical figure, as opposed to that simpering Jane Seymour who learned well from her mistress, Anne, and played the same game to catch a king, not that it did her much good in the short or long run.

Just like Queen Mary was her mother’s very scary revenge, Elizabeth - although she always referred to herself as her father’s daughter, was her mother’s revenge and her greatest achievement.

Sorry - don’t mean to preach, it’s just that I’m reading The Lady in the Tower by Alison Weir and the book is fascinating from word one! But I must say that while I agree with the author’s well-researched theory as to who was the mover and shaker behind the plot to remove the queen, a son and heir or an heir and a spare would have made it all moot. Besides, as the King, Henry could have set aside the verdict and pardoned his wife or he could have made certain charges were never brought against her in the first place. I believe in Henry’s heart, he wanted to be rid of Anne and the international scandal his own pursuit of her had caused.

In other news - You can still win a copy of Beauty and the Feast by leaving a recipe for me.

Congrats Stacey Espino on your St. Patrick’s Day release: Fearless Desires, Siren Bookstrand.

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