History vs Hollywood: Execution of Anne Boleyn

The Tudors are possibly the most famous royal family in British history. And they are consistently the subject of various dramatic works. Since the beginning of the 21st century alone there have been numerous TV serials and movies released, focusing on Henry VIII and his passion for the infamous Anne Boleyn, mother of Elizabeth I.

Here I will discuss the execution of Queen Anne and its portrayal in two very different drama series.

Wolf Hall: Anne Boleyn's final moments are played out through the eyes of Thomas Cromwell, the lead character of the series. We see her exit the tower and make her way to the scaffold, the whole time distracted and looking up towards the tower. She then makes her final speech and is subsequently beheaded.

The Tudors: The final moments of Anne Boleyn are told through her eyes, From her exit onto Tower Green through the throng of a large crowd to the scaffold where she makes her final speech and is subsequently beheaded.

Both series create a riveting scene that is memorable, but which one is more accurate?

The Facts:

Anne Boleyn is the most famous wife of Henry VIII. She gained the crown by supplanting Henry's first wife Catherine of Aragon and she gave him his daughter, Queen Elizabeth I.

Their love story is one of the most fascinating points in English history, a cornerstone that changed the direction of England forever. Henry disgarded his first wife, shunned his only legitimate daughter; brought down his most loyal minister; executed one of his closest friends and tore England away from the Catholic faith; all for the love of one woman.

The Fiction:

Her rise and fall has fascinated people for 500 years. In the wake of the 20th century came the media revolution. Over the next 110 years the exploits of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn have been romanticized on screen, mostly as a tragic love story to entertain the masses.

Anne Boleyn's first on screen appearance was in 1911 in the short silent Henry VIII played by Laura Cowie who reprised her role in the 1914 short Anne Boleyn. After the German production of Anna Bolena (Lubitsch) in 1920 Anne remained a supporting character in films such as The Private Lives of Henry VIII (Korda, 1933) and A Man For All Seasons (1966).

One of the most celebrated films centering on the love story of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn is Anne of the Thousand Days (Jarrott, 1969) starring Richard Burton and Gieneve Bujold, which chronicled their romance from its fiery beginning to its tragic end. After BBC's miniseries The Six wives of Henry VIII it was 37 years before a drama brought Anne Boleyn into the foreground in the same way as Anne of The Thousand Days.

A Modern Queen:

The Tudors (Hirst, 2007) first aired on the subscription channel Showtime and is the first in a long time to truly challenge the perception of Anne Boleyn and the factors behind her pursuit of Henry VIII. Actress Natalie Dormer played the iconic role of the Jezebel who bewitched a King; a woman who loved her husband so much it destroyed her. It's the first sympathetic portrayal that shows a multi-dimensional woman that is just as hard today to define in one category as it was 500 years ago. Dormer's performance is regarded as one of the greatest portrayals of Anne Boleyn in recent memory, leaving a hard act to follow.

January 2015 saw the BBC return to the story of Henry VIII, this time with Claire Foy as Anne Boleyn. Wolf Hall is based on the Pulitzer prize winning novel of the same name and its sequel Bring Up The Bodies by Hilary Mantel. It is told from the POV of Thomas Cromwell, one of Anne's strongest supporters and greatest enemies. Through this view the audience receive a very limited view of Anne Boleyn, a haughty and temperamental woman who's difficult for an audience to relate to.

Anne's Story:

Both series take very different approaches to the dramatization of the Tudors. Where The Tudors concentrates on the dramatic influence of events, often taking liberties with the timeline and period details, Wolf Hall expresses a strong emphasis on the historical facts above the drama, in the belief that the facts themselves are enough to entertain an audience.

With that in mind, both series take a very different take on Anne's final moments. It is certain that Wolf Hall wins in historical accuracy, showing the execution from an audience stand point, building up the tension as everyone waits for the final blow.

However, dramatically The Tudors gives a more emotionally charged scene, sympathizing with Anne as she lives out her final moments, making her way through a judgmental crowd towards the scaffold and giving her final speech, the camera offering a POV shot to give the viewer a glimpse of what Anne may have experienced in her final moments.

'I have come here to die': 

Overall, both series are well made and their creative differences both offer up scenes that are emotionally affecting. Despite the different POVs both scenes do follow the historical backdrop rather well. However, Wolf Hall does prove much more authentic. The execution itself with the executioner removing his shoes and Anne Boleyn having a blindfold over her eyes, to the accuracy of her final speech word for word. The Tudors alters the final speech slightly  and omits the blindfold, instead distracting Anne with 'Boy, fetch my sword'. As she turns she looks up to see birds flying away from the Tower. It's an effective scene that reinforces the image of Anne as a tragic heroine.

Where the BBC created a historically authentic costume piece, Showtime offered up a dramatic interpretation that modernized the story for a 21st century audience to relate to, which made the history easily accessible to those who didn't know anything about the Tudors to those who know and have a passion for their stories. This is where I feel that Wolf Hall falters slightly, because we see everything through Cromwell's eyes it changes the perception of Anne, making her less sympathetic, simplifying her character to that of a cold and arrogant person without much depth. I won't deny that these were aspects of her character but they were not the only traits she possessed. She believed in reform, desired to help unfortunate people and did much charity work, but Wolf Hall omits so much of Anne's various facets that it is hard to see how she managed to seduce the King of England with so little charm.

In the end, Wolf Hall does well with historical facts, but The Tudors succeeds in creating multi-dimensional characters for a modern audience. Therefore, Natalie Dormer's performance, for me, is by far the most affecting of the two portrayals, giving an opinionated, seductive, arrogant and at times sympathetic performance that stays with the viewer longer than Claire Foy's performance; though in her defense she worked with what she was given and did play the role well in Wolf Hall. But historically I think Dormer captured that complex nature of England's most infamous Queen.