55 pages • 1-hour read
The Other Boleyn Girl
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Themes
The Cost of Conflicting Loyalties
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of antigay bias, pregnancy loss, child death, death, and gender discrimination.
The sibling rivalry between Mary and Anne that frames the book illustrates the consequences of when one’s loyalties or obligations put conflicting demands on a character or run counter to that character’s wishes. Several of the characters feel torn by obligations that place competing demands upon them. Likewise, the novel examines what subservience is required to established authorities—especially one’s family and king—and what this service costs when the commands of those in authority are capricious, tyrannical, or cruel.
George is the purest example of the cost of sacrificing personal inclinations to the obligations due to established authorities. Where it serves his interests to support his sisters, George provides companionship and humor in private moments and facilitates both Anne and Mary’s sexual relationships with Henry. He is rewarded for this with special favors and the trust of the king. His loyalty to his family in obeying the commands of Uncle Howard and George’s father is repaid by his secondhand enjoyment of their awards and elevations of title. But his loyalty to Anne puts George at odds with Henry when the king begins to regard his second wife with suspicion, evident when George fails to be awarded a knighthood that instead goes to a friend of the Seymour family. Moreover, George expresses his resentment that he must always serve his family’s ambitions and hide his affection for Francis Weston. This is because every Boleyn is expected to put all their efforts into service of the family and because this relationship, taboo in the eyes of the law, would bring scandal and suspicion to the family. George pays the ultimate price for his loyalty when he shares Anne’s fate in the end.
Mary deals with her conflicting loyalties when her family, particularly her uncle, commands her to act in ways that run counter to her sense of morality or decorum. She feels guilty for disappointing her young husband, William Carey, even as her family directs her to enchant the king. Becoming the king’s mistress falls in line with Mary’s desires, which makes things easier for a time. However, the family shows an ongoing lack of interest in Mary’s personal feelings when Uncle Howard directs Anne to divert the king. Mary is expected to put her feelings aside and instead lend her support to Anne, even when Anne’s actions directly hurt Mary, such as taking her son and revoking Mary’s source of income when Anne banishes her from court.
Mary’s hurt and bitterness at being valued only as a political pawn has no outlet until she meets William Stafford, who shares her priorities. Falling in love with Stafford forces Mary to interrogate her priorities and discover what she truly wants. She turns down his marriage offer initially on the grounds of her status as a Howard and a Boleyn. However, when she sees the unhappy future this leaves her, Mary trades this status for love and affection. This choice has its costs, as she must learn to live in a far humbler fashion without the income she once had, but she no longer feels conflicted about what she wants. Mary’s example emphasizes that, when the demands of public authorities cause tension with an individual’s inclinations, the higher authority should be not duty but the heart.
The Price of Personal Ambition
Anne’s loyalties are never in conflict because she has one overriding loyalty: her interests. Instead, Anne’s character arc in the novel illustrates the price of personal ambition. Anne shares this sacrifice in some ways with other ambitious members of her family. However, Anne most embodies this in the strategies she uses to gain status and what these calculations cost her in the end.
Uncle Howard would not call his personal ambition because he believes he is working for the advancement of his family. However, his direction to Thomas Boleyn to keep Mary the mistress of the king instead of brokering peace in the war with France emphatically states that he is willing to sacrifice English soldiers’ lives to keep a Howard girl close to the throne. Howard, the Duke of Norfolk, never has to pay a penalty for his ambition. He presides over Anne’s trial, staying on the side of Henry rather than the Boleyns, so the association does not taint him. As Mary observes, he’ll simply put another Howard girl forward. It is Thomas Boleyn who loses his heir and his famous daughter—the price of loyalty to the family he allied with through marriage—precisely because he thought this would advance his stature and improve his fortune.
Anne also pays the penalty for her ambition. She demonstrates early and often that she will take every opportunity and use every strategy she can to advance herself. For this, she is ultimately punished. Winning a proposal from Henry Percy, heir to the second most powerful property owner in the kingdom, is the first sign of her ambition. The price is heartbreak and disappointment when Cardinal Wolsey sets their vows aside. Mary senses something demonic in Anne’s single-mindedness, which further implies a dark side to Anne’s ambition. Anne alienates everyone except George in her pursuit to become queen and then realizes the consequences of this when there is no one in her court she can trust as queen—a parallel to the final fate of Queen Katherine. People interpret the stillbirth of the malformed boy, which could have a natural explanation, as a further sign that Anne has dabbled in witchcraft or something worse to conceive a prince. The penalty for this is the penalty law deals out to those accused of witchcraft or sorcery: death.
Anne and five other men pay the price of falling from Henry’s favor, as have several other men during the novel; this illustrates the risk of being close to the king. In addition to Anne, Cardinal Wolsey, Thomas More, and the Duke of Buckinghamshire, all described as Henry’s confidants, become the price tag on Henry’s relentless ambition to have a legitimate son. Yet Henry is never challenged, and there is no penalty for his ambition; no one has the power to stop him. This imbalance speaks to an injustice in gender roles that Gregory returns to throughout the book. Gregory illustrates this best through Mary’s example when she realizes that, as a daughter, wife, and courtier, she has little to no say over her own life and can hold no property of her own. That women pay the penalty for ambition while men can at times pass its costs along to others speaks to the gendered imbalance of power encoded into early modern British culture and law.
Support and Rivalry Among Women
The relationship between Anne and Mary as rivals—in which only one can ascend—illustrates sibling rivalry and the strategies available to women inside a culture where they have little agency and few powers. In response to the demands of convention and the patriarchal social structure under which they live, women either form alliances to preserve or advance their standing or create rivalries to try to advance themselves at the expense of others.
Anne and Mary squabbling for Henry’s favor feels to them like a bitter rivalry, but to their family, they are both pawns in a larger game; this leads them to feel like allies at rare moments. Likewise, Anne calls upon the sibling bond to compel Mary’s help and service when she needs attendants she can trust and someone to support her through childbirth. Their mother models this pattern of family bonds as goal-oriented, rather than governed by affection, as she never lets sentiment get in the way of duty. Lady Boleyn sent her daughters away to foreign courts to make them candidates for a good marriage, and when Anne miscarries, her mother doesn’t waste a moment on compassion. Instead, she swiftly calculates that the best move is to pretend Anne was never pregnant and demands the fetus be destroyed so there is no evidence. This is support not of a fellow woman’s feelings but rather of the overarching goal of family ambition. Their mother shows the same cold-bloodedness in their refusal to defend Anne against the charges against her. The Boleyn parents dare not risk the king’s wrath and have everything they’ve worked for taken away. Thus, they will sacrifice their children to preserve their titles and standing. This is explicable as calculated self-preservation, but it plays out as a rivalry—the same price Uncle Howard is willing to pay to preserve the Howards’ standing.
Queen Katherine is a foil to both Mary and Anne. She further illustrates the complex dynamics of women’s relationships, a pattern played out among the court as other women, like Madge Shelton, play ladies-in-waiting to the king’s consort and the king’s bedfellow. Katherine wishes to stay above petty rivalries and not acknowledge Henry’s sexual interest in other women. However, once Henry puts her aside, she has no support at court; this is why she anticipates Mary will spy on her and report to her powerful uncle. This refusal to play the typical game of alliances doesn’t spare Katherine sorrow. In an instance of dramatic irony, Anne—who becomes Katherine’s rival and usurper—encounters the same fate; her support vanishes as the court follows the king’s favor and switches their loyalty to Jane Seymour. Mary’s attempt to support the fading Queen Katherine is as fruitless as her final efforts to seek justice for Anne. This underscores that despite the alliances women can form for mutual support, rivalry is a stronger and more effective force in a game where the prizes are so valuable.
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