Earlier this week I had the good fortune to be at a talk based on a new book – Anne Boleyn and Elizabeth I – The Mother and Daughter Who Changed History. The author, Tracy Borman, held my attention from the moment she began, her knowledge so fluent and easy to follow.

I was intrigued by the early life of Anne Boleyn, and horrified by the pressures she faced as a royal mother, beginning with the enforced separation from her daughter when she was just three months old. The chilling part was hearing about the steps Anne took to ensure her child would have the truest protectors possible around her as she grew up. It was as though she knew her own fate was uncertain, and sure enough the odds got worse with every day that passed. When the day of execution came Elizabeth was just two and a half years old.

We were then directed skilfully through Elizabeth’s childhood, and on to the major influences throughout her life. By the end of the evening I felt I had absorbed a new emotional awareness of the stresses and consequences of intrigues within the Tudor court. These were sharpened further by the realisation that the hall in which the talk was being given – the recently redecorated Great Chamber in the Charterhouse – was the very room in which Elizabeth I held her first Privy Council before being crowned Queen of England.

What was disturbing for me, and it must have been profoundly disturbing for Elizabeth I, was the realisation that the Tower of London – place of imprisonment and execution, and of vital importance to her reign – was just down the road.

I am looking forward to reading the book.

Copyright Georgie Knaggs & The Phraser 2023