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Jason Powell, Suzannah Lipscomb, 1536: The Year that Changed Henry VIII., Notes and Queries, Volume 59, Issue 1, March 2012, Pages 120–121, https://doi.org/10.1093/notesj/gjr195
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Extract
SPEAKING to the Royal Historical Society in 1994, Steven Gunn compared the historiography of early Tudor politics to ‘trench warfare,’ noting that the ‘most spectacular impasse concerns the fall of Anne Boleyn.’1 Following the late Geoffrey Elton, scholars have traditionally depicted Henry VIII as susceptible to domination by court faction. This was roughly the view of Eric Ives, whose biography of Anne remains a touchstone for historical scholarship. Retha Warnicke located the cause of Anne’s fall in her 1536 miscarriage: a deformed foetus triggered fears of witchcraft. Revisionist scholarship has instead depicted Henry as a strong king who believed in Anne’s guilt, and perhaps with good reason. These scholars further show Henry seeking the middle path between extremes in religious reform. G. W. Bernard was leading this charge in 1994, and he continues today, most notably in his 2005 book The King’s Reformation. His recent biography of Anne Boleyn argues that she might just have been guilty of adultery.
