Anne Boleyn: Architect of Reformation

Voices for change, prophetic voices, are rarely heard within the corridors of power. The powerful owe their status to a self-serving conservatism. Dictators and parliamentarians alike have a vested interest in the structures that got them there in the first place and that keep them there now. Change foments around the edges, not at the centre. Ordinarily.

The phrase, "speak truth to power" first appeared in a pamphlet published by the American Friends Service Committee (Quakers) in 1955. It outlined non-violent strategies for civil resistance, for instance, against the post-WWII proliferation of nuclear arms. Then the phrase was picked up by the civil rights movement in the early 1960s in the fight for racial equality.

Through the ages, those who have dared to speak truth to power have suffered for it, often with the full force of the law. In Canada, Luis Riel was hung for fighting on behalf of his people, the Métis, who, robbed of their land, were starving to death. In South Africa, Nelson Mandela was jailed for twenty-seven years for openly challenging the cruelty of apartheid. Their examples were foreshadowed in the ancient world by Socrates, Jesus, and Galileo. In modern times they are mirrored by Mahatma Ghandi, Rosa Parks and Malala Yousafzai.

From the early 16th Century, we might add Anne Boleyn to that illustrious list. Born to a noble English household, influenced in her teens by proto-feminists on the Continent, like Queen Claude of France, she absorbed both the civil unrest of her day and the potential for church reform. Returning to England to serve in the court of Catherine of Aragon, wife of Henry VIII, she attracted the eye of Henry. When Anne refused him the affair he wanted, Henry set about putting Catherine aside for Anne, a legal and ecclesiastical process that took him six years, leading to England's break with the Catholic Church.

Together, Anne and Henry reimagined the Church of England, promoting both scripture and worship in the language of the people and disinheriting the exalted structures and representatives of the Roman Church. Through Anne, the edgy voice of change had been ushered into the chambers of a king. That Henry eventually tired of Anne may have had to do with her inability to produce for him a son; or perhaps with her stridency around ecclesiastical reform; or perhaps because she inflamed his guilt-ridden Catholic soul. That he had her executed had to do with his being a king, and also, a man.

But why tell you all this, when Martha Tatarnic has done a far better job--more thorough, more nuanced, and more personal--in her new book, Anne Boleyn: Reputation, Revolution, and Religion and the Queen Who Changed History? Martha, an Anglican priest, a student of history, and a writer, has been both guided and haunted by Anne through most of her life. She regards the ordination of women as part of the legacy of church reform stretching back to Anne. But she recognizes the modern-day vilification of strong and influential women as, also, a legacy, though one to be resisted, no less today than in Anne's time. The prophetic voice can never remain silent.

To hear my conversation with Martha, click on the Play button, below. To learn more about Martha, Anne, and Martha's book about Anne, follow the More Info button to the show notes.