The House of Boleyn

Set in early sixteenth-century England, the novel traces the rise and fall of the Boleyn family through the lens of Hever Castle, their home in the Kent countryside. The narrative opens in May 1536, as Thomas Boleyn, Earl of Wiltshire, rides through the darkness to Hever after witnessing the executions of his daughter Anne, the former Queen of England, and his son George at the Tower of London. The castle is deserted, his court lodgings already reassigned, his daughter's portraits burned. He sits in Anne's chair, stares at the Boleyn crest, and is haunted by the question of whether he could have saved his children. The rest of the novel traces how the family arrived at this catastrophe.

The story begins in 1512, when Anne is about 10 years old, living at Hever with her grandmother Lady Margaret Butler, a formidable Irish noblewoman. Anne's elder sister Mary torments her, while her younger brother George is her closest ally. The family has already endured losses: An infant brother lies in the church crypt, and their eldest brother Tom died mysteriously while a ward of the Duke of Buckingham at nearby Penshurst. Anne discovers Mary's affair with the family steward and realizes her sister is pregnant. Lady Margaret arranges for the pregnancy to be ended in secret, provoking a bitter clash with her daughter-in-law, Lady Elizabeth Howard, that exposes deep resentment between the two women.

Thomas Boleyn, a rising diplomat in the service of King Henry VIII, arranges for Anne to serve as a lady-in-waiting to Archduchess Margaret of Austria in the Netherlands. He sees in his younger daughter an intelligence and ambition that he resolves to cultivate. Anne thrives abroad, later transferring to the French court, where she befriends Marguerite, King François I's sister, and absorbs reformist ideas about the Church. At Hever, Lady Margaret's attendant Aphra Hayes quietly sustains a longstanding love affair with Thomas, shielded by Lady Margaret herself.

Robert Cranwell, a new steward, arrives at Hever. Raised in the household of Elizabeth's brother, the Earl of Surrey (later Duke of Norfolk), Cranwell has been planted as a spy for the Howards. He seduces Anne's maidservant Esther through a handfasting, an informal betrothal pledge, impregnates her, then denies the child. When Esther tries to flee on a plan Anne devises, Cranwell intercepts her and lets her fall down an escarpment, leaving her for dead. She survives, rescued by a wise woman who nurses her back to health.

Cranwell's most damaging act is the theft of Lady Margaret's estate ledgers. In 1519, while Thomas is away, Elizabeth conspires with his younger brother James Boleyn, a lawyer named Galtry, and a physician to have Lady Margaret declared insane by the Court of Wards, a tribunal overseeing property of those deemed mentally incapable. The stolen ledgers serve as evidence of incompetence, and her estates are transferred to Elizabeth. Thomas returns to find the ruling irreversible, and the shock accelerates Lady Margaret's genuine decline.

Thomas learns the truth about his eldest son's death when he arrests the Duke of Buckingham for treason in 1521. The duke reveals that his own son threw a boulder at Tom's hand near a stream at Penshurst, causing the boy to fall in and drown. Buckingham concealed the death as an illness. Thomas gains a measure of vengeance when the duke is executed and the king grants him stewardship of Penshurst.

Anne returns from France in 1521 as a polished young woman, dismayed to find her grandmother diminished. Her uncle Surrey proposes she marry James Butler to settle the family's claim to the disputed Ormond earldom, but Anne resists. She reconnects with Tom Wyatt, her childhood friend who is now married, and their affection grows charged. At court, King Henry's attention fixes on her. Unlike her sister Mary, who briefly became the king's mistress, Anne refuses to surrender her virtue, inflaming Henry's obsession.

George confides to his mother that the king is pursuing Anne. Jane Parker, George's bride, overhears this conversation. Jane harbors a secret desire for Anne. Her marriage to George is loveless, though she bears him a son. The king's courtship intensifies over several years. At Hever, Henry reveals to Thomas his intention to annul his marriage to Queen Catherine and make Anne his queen. Thomas is torn between ambition and his instinct to protect his daughter. Anne consents while feeling deeply ambivalent, still drawn to Wyatt. The two consummate their love in a secret encounter in the Hever woods, observed by a spy in Norfolk's pay.

In 1528, the Sweating Sickness, a virulent epidemic, ravages England, and Anne contracts the disease at Hever. Aphra nurses her through the crisis but contracts the illness herself and dies. When Anne wakes from her delirium, she finds Esther at her bedside, alive and returned. Esther reveals that during years spent serving James Boleyn at Blickling Hall, she overheard Norfolk and James discussing Cranwell's role in stealing Lady Margaret's ledgers. Aphra, before her death, had discovered the hidden ledgers beneath the floorboards of Cranwell's room, confirming the conspiracy.

Anne's path to the throne proves arduous. Cardinal Wolsey's attempts to secure a papal annulment fail, and the cardinal falls from power. Thomas Cromwell, Wolsey's former protégé, visits Anne at Hever and pledges his service, arguing that the king should break from Rome entirely. George urges Anne to use her influence to advance religious reform. Anne marries Henry secretly and is crowned queen in June 1533, though the London crowds jeer. She gives birth to Princess Elizabeth in September, a crushing disappointment to a king who expected a son.

Anne's position deteriorates swiftly. She miscarries a second child after discovering Henry in the Hever gardens with Jane Seymour, a lady-in-waiting whose family is positioning her as Anne's replacement. A third miscarriage follows in January 1536. Norfolk and Cromwell close ranks against her. Norfolk pressures Jane Parker, now known at court as Lady Rochford, to testify that Anne and George's closeness is unnatural, threatening that her son's inheritance of Hever will be forfeit if she refuses.

In May 1536, Anne and George are arrested and taken to the Tower, along with five men accused of adultery with the queen. Jane petitions the king but is dragged away. She arranges for Esther to take her infant son to a chaplain in Lichfield, claiming the child has died of the Sweat to shield him from his father's condemnation.

After the executions, Thomas returns to Hever. Cranwell arrives to deliver an indenture transferring Hever to James Boleyn upon Thomas's death and confesses he has been Norfolk's agent from the beginning. Norfolk delivers Anne's prayer book, which Elizabeth asked him to bring, then abandons Cranwell, refusing to honor his promises. Thomas orders Cranwell escorted from the estate.

An epilogue set in 1540 finds Anna of Cleves, Henry's fourth wife, whose marriage has been annulled, settling at Hever as part of her generous settlement. Esther remains as a servant; Thomas Boleyn and Lady Margaret have both died. Princess Elizabeth, nearly seven, visits her mother's childhood home, wearing Anne's pearl necklace and reading the prayer book Anne once inscribed: "Remember me when you do pray / That hope doth lead from day to day."