Interview with Joanna Carrick, author of “Fallen in Love”

1.     What got you interested in writing a play focusing on the relationship between Anne and George?

Originally my interest was in writing about Anne.  I’ve always been mildly fascinated. There is a village very near here called Erwarton where Anne’s aunt and uncle lived and she visited them as a child. A school friend of mine lived in the hall and I went there a couple of times and was told stories about Anne haunting once a year.  The Church in Erwarton has a legend that Anne’s heart was buried there and I was taken there quite often as a child. There’s a Boleyn Close and a Queen’s Head Pub in the village and so I suppose from an early age Anne has been a part of the landscape for me. My interest turned to writing a play about Anne, after having written a historical play about Thomas Clarkson, a most inspiring person who devoted himself to achieving the abolition of the slave trade. This project got me really fired up about history and bringing it to life for a diverse audience. Having decided to write about Anne, I read extensively about her life and visited historical sites. At Red Rose Chain I work with recovering heroin addicts and run a women’s group for women moving away from drug addiction and street prostitution. Four years ago, five women involved in street prostitution were horrific ally murdered in Ipswich and the work we do today was initiated in response to those events. The women I work with, all non-achievers at school, have been inspired by the Anne Boleyn story and have become known recently as The History Girls, becoming very knowledgeable about the subject and developing their own theories about what happened to Anne. In our discussions, the subject of George and the accusation of incest regularly came up and the girls explored the idea in historical and modern improvisations as well as discussions. I became fascinated  by Anne and George’s relationship and why, if untrue, so many people believed the accusations. For a while I considered writing a play with four characters, Anne, George, Henry and Jane Parker but in time I realized that it was Anne and George I really wanted to portray and decided to create a two hander with the other characters off stage.

2.     What, if anything, annoys you/delights you about how Anne has been represented in other works?

I haven’t in all honesty dwelt much on other interpretations recently, as I’ve been finding out as much as I can and trying to develop my own idea of Anne for some time now. What I don’t relate to is the “horrible histories”  “let’s all enjoy a good beheading” approach. I’ve been trying to stretch out a hand over the last 475 years and emphasize the humanity we have in common.

3.     Why do you think interest in Anne has blossomed over the past few years?  Do you think Anne “speaks” to young women in some way?

I have certainly found this to be the case, working with my women’s group. Anne’s strength and modernity have made her extremely attractive to them, while her flaws of character seem to have endeared her even more. I think the intellectual parity of her relationship with Henry, coupled with her eventual total lack of equality with him makes her a feminist martyr to be celebrated and the act of celebrating her seems to me to empower young women today and especially those who have been victims of abuse and the sex industry.

4.     I love the fact that Henry is “missing” in your play.  Do you have any thoughts on his personality/character?

I don’t know where to begin! I also like the fact that he’s missing, because it enables the audience to create their own visions of him in their minds. At the end of the scene where Anne is about to marry Henry, both Anne and George turn and bow toward the door as music announces his approach and every night during the run the sense of excitement at this moment was palpable as the audience turned to see him, although of course he wasn’t really there. In rehearsals we worked on the idea of Henry a great deal. Both the characters impersonate him at different points and we needed to create a shared vision for them both. Personally I think he was utterly spoilt in the true sense of the word. A man with enormous abilities but totally corrupted by his own power and vanity.

5.     What was the most challenging thing about writing about Anne?

Once I’d got the history right, it was developing a voice for her which sounded real, which had a   sense of period about it but didn’t sound “cod” historical. I found myself imagining her sitting next to me in my car and got used to talking to her and showing her things.

6.     Has anything surprised you about audience/critic responses to your play?

I’ve been delighted by the response. The opening night was a wonderful experience. There couldn’t have been anyone more scary turn up than Alison Weir – unless Anne herself had put in an appearance – and to get such an overwhelming endorsement from her has had a really significant impact on me. It was also such an amazing experience to actually see Alison enjoying the play so much!  During the run, which played to over 2500 people the reaction just seemed to get better and better and we were inundated with letters and emails praising the show and urging us to take it on tour, which we are doing in 2012. People were very moved but also inspired by the ending. Lots of men cried!

May 17th, 1536: In tribute to George Boleyn, Henry Norris, Mark Smeaton, William Brereton, and Francis Weston

Who list his wealth and ease retain,

Himself let him unknown contain.

Press not too fast in at that gate

Where the return stands by disdain,

For sure, circa Regna tonat.

 

The high mountains are blasted oft

When the low valley is mild and soft.

Fortune with Health stands at debate.

The fall is grievous from aloft.

And sure, circa Regna tonat.

 

These bloody days have broken my heart.

My lust, my youth did them depart,

And blind desire of estate.

Who hastes to climb seeks to revert.

Of truth, circa Regna tonat.

 

The bell tower showed me such sight

That in my head sticks day and night.

There did I learn out of a grate,

For all favour, glory, or might,

That yet circa Regna tonat.

 

By proof, I say, there did I learn:

Wit helpeth not defence too yerne,

Of innocency to plead or prate.

Bear low, therefore, give God the stern,

For sure, circa Regna tonat.

May 13, 1536: Why bother with justice when “the appearance of justice” will do?

On this day in 1536, preparations were made for the trials of Anne and her brother. The grand juries were commanded to furnish the indictments, and Constable Kingston received a precept from Norfolk ordering him to bring the prisoners to trial on Monday, May 15th. Norfolk also sent a precept to Ralph Felmingham, sergeant-of-arms, to summon at least twenty-seven “peers of the Queen and Lord Rochford, by whom the truth can be better made to appear.” While these official legal steps were being taken, physical preparations

were also begun to make the King’s Hall in The Tower amenable to two thousand spectators, with benches lining the walls and a high platform for the interrogator and the condemned, so that all could see. “The King was determined,” Alison Weir writes, “that justice would be seen to be done” and was sure of the judicial strength of the evidence. “This was not to be quite the farcical trial that some historians have claimed it to be,” she writes.

Yet, for Henry the outcome was such a foregone conclusion that on the same day that these preparations were being made, he ordered Anne’s household dissolved, and her servants discharged. The next day, May 14th, he sent for Jane Seymour to “come within a mile of his lodgings” so that she would be near at hand when Anne was condemned.

We at “The Creation of Anne Boleyn” admire Weir’s scholarship, but think that if any trial deserves the designation of “farce,” this one was it! The only missing ingredient was humor.  This farce was not a comedy, but a deadly business.

 

A modern photo of where the Great Hall once stood.

May 10, 1536: “News” (!) travels

The Bishop of Faenza, in the Vatican, tells Signor Protonotario Ambrogio that “news came yesterday from England that the King had caused to be arrested the Queen, her father, mother, brother, and an organist with whom she had been too intimate.” (Letters and Papers of Henry VIII)

This is just one of many examples of how freely false gossip circulated around the arrests. Earlier, on May 2, Chapuys had reported to Charles that the reason for Anne’s arrest was that “she has for a length of time lived in adultery with a spinet-player of her chamber” and that Norris was arrested “for not having revealed what he knew of the said adulterous connexion.” Later on,  various dispatches report that “The so-called Queen was found in bed with her organist, and taken to prison. It is proved that she had criminal intercourse with her brother and others, and that the daughter supposed to be hers was taken from a poor man.” (to Charles, from Hannaert, LP) And:

“The reports from England are more than tragic.  The Queen in thrown in prison, with her father, brother, two bishops, and others, for adultery.” (Melancthon to Justus Jonas, LP)

A 16th century spinnet

April 27, 1536

As April drew to a close, Anne’s life was clearly in danger. The following is a list of those who would be accused along with Anne, and the charges against them.

Anne Boleyn: Then Queen of England, she had suffered a miscarriage earlier in the year. She, along with those who were accused of being her lovers, would be charged with high treason against the King for their supposed acts of adultery and other treasonous actions.

Mark Smeaton: The first to be arrested, Smeaton was a court musician. After being accused of adultery with the Queen, he was almost certainly tortured for information about his relationship with Anne, and confessed. The charge: high treason and adultery.

Henry Norris: Both a supporter of the Boleyn family and the Groom of the Stool in the King’s privy chamber, Henry staunchly denied the accusations against him. Because of his position, he would not be tortured. The charge: high treason and adultery.

Francis Weston: Weston was a Gentleman of the Privy Chamber, which meant he was frequently with Henry. At the time of his arrest, he was married to Anne Pickering and they had a baby boy, Henry. The charge: high treason and adultery

William Brereton: Brereton was a Groom of the Privy Chamber and had married a distant cousin of Henry. He was accused of being seduced by Anne on November 16, 1533, and of committing “misconduct” on November 27.   The charge: high treason and adultery.

George Boleyn: Boleyn was the Viscount of Rochford and Anne’s brother. George’s wife, Jane Rochford, would give evidence against him. The charge: high treason, incest, and adultery.

Thomas Wyatt: Wyatt was an advisor in Henry’s court and a poet who is credited with introducing the sonnet into English. It was rumored that he and Anne were romantically connected before Anne’s marriage to Henry.  Whatever Wyatt felt, there is no evidence that Anne reciprocated his feelings. Wyatt was brought in for questioning at the Tower of London, where he viewed the executions of the condemned men and wrote a famous poem about the “bloody days” that had “broken his heart.” He may also have viewed Anne’s execution. He was later released.

Richard Page: Page was appointed as a Gentleman of the Privy Chamber after supporting Anne against Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, the advisor who so greatly influenced Henry’s decisions early in his reign. Like Wyatt, Page was later released from the Tower.