Doomed Queen Anne
Carolyn Meyer
 The story begins when Anne is at an event called the "Field of the Cloth of Gold" in the summer of 1520. She has no great beauty (olive skin, dark hair and dark eyes in a time when pale-faced blonds were seen as the coveted image), no wealth and no title. She meets up with her older sister Mary, who is a lady-in-waiting in Queen Catherine's court. Anne's sister is rumoured to be the mistress of King Henry VIII of England. The King is tiring of his wife/queen because she has produced no sons, only a daughter, Mary (later known as Bloody Mary) Anne's somewhat difficult childhood before the event is outlined. Always ill-favored by her parents, constantly antagonized by her older sister Mary, and disgusted by her own "deformities" (a small sixth finger and mole on her neck) she develops an ambition to rise to the top. Anne, jealous of her sister's rumoured affair when Mary flaunts the fact that she has the King's favor, vows to become the second wife of King Henry VIII. Anne, too, is a lady-in-waiting in the Queen's court. When the King tires of Mary, Anne uses her wits to gain the King's heart. While courting the King (and strategically defending her virginity), Anne manages to persuade Henry to defy everyone, including the Queen and the Roman Catholic Church, and to marry Anne. Everybody hates her, claiming that she has magic powers and that she is wicked because of her sixth finger and the mole on her neck. She finally gets her way and becomes the wife of Henry and Queen of England. They have a child together, but it is a daughter, Elizabeth (who will later ascend the throne after the death of her half-sister, Bloody Mary). Anne's vow has come true, but the lack of male heirs causes it all to end badly for Anne Boleyn. Meanwhile, Mary Boleyn, Anne's sister who has now since been discarded by the king and widowed when her husband dies of the sweating sickness, remarries a commoner in secret. On learning that she is pregnant, she reveals this to Anne, who banishes her from court. The two never reconcile. When Anne fails to give Henry a son after three years of marriage, the Seymour family begins plotting. Jane Seymour catches the king's attention. Realizing that the king may toss Anne aside for her, Jane refuses to become the King's mistress and instead drops heavy hints of marriage. After Anne miscarries a second time, she is falsely accused by the King, and by his daughter Mary, and by Lady Rochford, the wife of Anne's brother George, of committing adultery with five other men, her own brother George among them. Anne is executed in the end as a result of her "adultery".