Ladies-in-Waiting

Women Who Served Anne Boleyn

By: Sylvia Barbara Soberton

Narrated by: Naomi Madelin

The aspects of Anne Boleyn's life and death are fiercely debated by historians, yet her ladies-in-waiting remain an understudied topic. Much emphasis is usually put on Anne's relationships with the men in her life: her suitors, her royal husband, her father and brother, and her putative lovers who were executed on May 17, 1536. By concentrating on a previously neglected area of Anne Boleyn's female household, this book seeks to identify the women who served Anne and investigate what roles ladies-in-waiting played in this Queen's household.

©2022 Sylvia Barbara Soberton (P)2023 Tantor

Captivating reading

This book is written in a way that allows you to close your eyes and time travel to the 16th century and I also enjoyed the narrators skillful handling of this journey picking apart the circumstances of Anne's rise and fall.

Inconsistently Researched

I only made it partway through this due to the number of false or unsubstantiated claims that were stated as fact in this. In some places, I was impressed by the solid research and evidence used to support the author's claims. But those instances only made the inaccuracies and unsupported opinions that much more jarring.

I would also argue that this is less about Anne Boleyn's ladies than it is a biography of Anne. There could have been a lot more covered for the women mentioned, but they're heavily glossed over despite being the subject of the book.