Speaker 1: Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of iHeartRadio and Grimm
Speaker 1: and Mild from Aaron Manky. Listener discretion advised. Hello, I
Speaker 1: am so thrilled to be back again with one of
Speaker 1: my all time favorite historians, the brilliant Tracy Borman. Correct
Speaker 1: me if I'm getting any of these titles wrong, but
Speaker 1: chief Historian of Historic Royal Palaces, Executive of the Heritage
Speaker 1: Education Trust, Chancellor and Professor of Tudor History at Lincoln
Speaker 1: Bishop University, and just all around brilliant best selling writer,
Speaker 1: historian and novelist.
Speaker 2: That is correct. I'm really lovely to hear, so thank
Speaker 2: you ever so much. I'm really thrilled to be back.
Speaker 1: Your new book, The House of Bolin, is out in
Speaker 1: the US on August fourth, and it is a novelization
Speaker 1: of historical fiction about the rise of the Bolin family.
Speaker 1: I think I speak for a lot of people interested
Speaker 1: in this period of history. The Tutors are sort of
Speaker 1: a gateway drug. People are fascinated by that period, Henry's
Speaker 1: six Wives and Anne bull In particularly, and so it
Speaker 1: was such a joy to read this book that presented
Speaker 1: the Bullins in I can say, honestly a light I
Speaker 1: had never seen them before.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well I'm so pleased. That really does make me
Speaker 2: very happy, because, of course you're absolutely right. The Tutors
Speaker 2: are the gateway drug and the Ballins are the gateway
Speaker 2: drug to the Tudors, sort of the most famous family
Speaker 2: in Tudor, England. They've been written about, they've been shown
Speaker 2: on screen, there are websites, all the social media accounts,
Speaker 2: all sorts of things. So I thought, okay, what can
Speaker 2: I do that is different and that is fresh, And
Speaker 2: that's why I decided to set The House of Berlin,
Speaker 2: which is a play on words, at Heva Castle, beautiful
Speaker 2: home in the southeast England countryside. And the reason I
Speaker 2: wanted to do this, apart from bringing a fresh perspective,
Speaker 2: was to show the Ballins as they really were, like
Speaker 2: when they're off duty, when they're not pretending to be
Speaker 2: these slick courtiers and political operators. Heava was their refuge
Speaker 2: and where they went to escape from all of that,
Speaker 2: to escape Henry the Eighth in Anne Berlin's case, and
Speaker 2: so hopefully it's provided a more authentic view of this
Speaker 2: controversial family.
Speaker 1: To rewind a bit before the famous Anne Boleyn, who
Speaker 1: of course became Henry the Eighth's second wife before and
Speaker 1: meteoric rise, who were the Bolins? What was their position
Speaker 1: in Tudor society.
Speaker 2: So one of the great myths is that Henry the
Speaker 2: eighth basically plucked the Ballins from obscurity and made them big.
Speaker 2: And this was definitely not the case, because actually the
Speaker 2: Berlins were probably northern French originally and came over with
Speaker 2: William the Conqueror in ten sixty six. They settled in Norfolk,
Speaker 2: so east of England, in the east of England, and
Speaker 2: they gradually kind of built up their prosperity. They became
Speaker 2: traders in wool, farmers, landowners, and then they started to
Speaker 2: move in royal circles in the fourteen hundredth so at
Speaker 2: least a century before Henry the eighth, they were already
Speaker 2: on the rise big time, and they came into the
Speaker 2: orbit of such monarchs as Richard the Third and Henry
Speaker 2: Yate's father, and really just it built from there. So
Speaker 2: they were absolutely already established both as a family and
Speaker 2: within royal circles by the time Henry the eighth noticed
Speaker 2: Ann Berlin. And we should say as well that Anne
Speaker 2: wasn't the first Berlin who Henry noticed. Really he was.
Speaker 2: He was a very big fan of her father, Thomas,
Speaker 2: who was a rising star in Henry's court and from
Speaker 2: the very beginning of his reign, because Henry came to
Speaker 2: the throne age of seventeen, so he's a very young king,
Speaker 2: and Thomas Belin then was in his mid thirties, so
Speaker 2: I think he was almost like a father figure for
Speaker 2: Henry the eighth. He knew that he had a great
Speaker 2: deal of experience, and he trusted him and promoted him.
Speaker 2: So yeah, it's not just all this. Oh yeah, Henry
Speaker 2: falls in love with Anne and then her whole family rise.
Speaker 2: They're already rising.
Speaker 1: You know. There was a point I think it was
Speaker 1: made in a Gareth Russell history book where he points
Speaker 1: out that also the line between the nobility and the
Speaker 1: wealthy landowners like the Bullins wasn't quite as stark as
Speaker 1: we might imagine with regards to intermarrying, just because there
Speaker 1: weren't that many elite aristocratic families at that time. They
Speaker 1: would run out of people to marry exactly.
Speaker 2: I mean, it gets incestuous, really, and so Garret's absolutely right,
Speaker 2: And actually one particular moment does elevate the Ballins socially
Speaker 2: and that's when Thomas Berlin's father, William, marries Lady Margaret Butler,
Speaker 2: and so she's the mother of Thomas Berlin, and she's
Speaker 2: an Irish noble woman and heiress. She's the daughter of
Speaker 2: the Earl of Ormond, one of the most distinguished nobles
Speaker 2: in Ireland. So I think people aren't that aware that
Speaker 2: the Ballins have this Irish heritage and that's what gave
Speaker 2: them that crucial bit of pedigree. So I think people
Speaker 2: still saw them as new money. You know, they've made
Speaker 2: their wealth from trade, and then thanks to Margaret, that's
Speaker 2: when they become more socially acceptable.
Speaker 1: As you mentioned earlier, there's been plenty of depictions of
Speaker 1: the Bolin's. Maybe the most surface level version of Thomas
Speaker 1: Bolin that sometimes appears in pop culture is that he's
Speaker 1: this Kenai man who uses both of his daughters just
Speaker 1: to you know, for lack of a better phrase, prostitute
Speaker 1: them for the king. Your Thomas Bolin is a much
Speaker 1: more nuanced character, and I it seems more accurate to
Speaker 1: how he actually might have been. Can you speak a
Speaker 1: little bit to how you imagine Thomas Bolin might have
Speaker 1: actually been as a person.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, I should say, I did a huge amount
Speaker 2: of research for this novel. Even though I've been researching
Speaker 2: the Berlins for years, I really wanted to go in
Speaker 2: deep for this, and everything I found out about Thomas
Speaker 2: Bolin pointed to him being an affectionate father who was
Speaker 2: trying to protect his family, not use them as collateral
Speaker 2: damage in his rise to the top. And so you
Speaker 2: just have to look at the way he really invests
Speaker 2: in Annebolin's education, and he sunk her abroad when she's
Speaker 2: twelve or thereabouts, and he also keeps one of Ann's
Speaker 2: left so Anne writes to him when she's just about eleven,
Speaker 2: twelve years old. He cherishes that letter and keeps it
Speaker 2: with him always, and you can see how often he's
Speaker 2: read it as well. This is a man lots of
Speaker 2: papers pass his desk. There's no reason why he would
Speaker 2: keep this letter from his twelve year old daughter unless
Speaker 2: it meant something. And I do think as well, Thomas
Speaker 2: genuinely wanted to protect Anne when he kept bringing her
Speaker 2: back to Heava. When Henry starts to show her interest
Speaker 2: and pursue her, this isn't a strategy. I don't think
Speaker 2: it's always presented as oh, yeah, you know there's treat
Speaker 2: to me keeping Keen, drive Henry mad with frustrated lost,
Speaker 2: and then he'll marry Anne. I don't think it was.
Speaker 2: I think genuinely Thomas knew how dangerous the king was
Speaker 2: and he wanted to protect his order.
Speaker 1: From that, especially given how it ended with Anne, which
Speaker 1: I don't know if anyone could have seen coming. How
Speaker 1: you know the king would be quite that dangerous that
Speaker 1: takes such a melancholy note.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, I mean, honestly, I think even seconds before Anne
Speaker 2: died on the scaffold at the Tower, he didn't think
Speaker 2: it was going to happen. Eyewitnesses noted that as she
Speaker 2: walked to the scaffold, she kept looking over her shoulder,
Speaker 2: expecting a messenger from the King, saying, Okay, look, I've
Speaker 2: taught you a lesson now and the whole thing's off.
Speaker 2: Oh and I'll just send you Henri. And I just
Speaker 2: think it's heartbreaking because it was unprecedented for a Queen
Speaker 2: of England to be executed, and I think it shocked everybody.
Speaker 2: And I do think, you know, I work at the
Speaker 2: Tower of London and we've done a lot of research
Speaker 2: into this and the fact that they just use an
Speaker 2: old arrow chest as a coffin says to me that
Speaker 2: nobody thought this was going to happen. They hadn't prepared
Speaker 2: for it. And you know, Henry does go through with it,
Speaker 2: and it must have been just beyond shocking.
Speaker 1: I think you speak about that retree beat back to
Speaker 1: Hever Castle in this book. Obviously the House of Bolin
Speaker 1: focuses on Hever particularly so for those unfamiliar with the
Speaker 1: broad strokes of the story. After Anne comes back from France,
Speaker 1: she's very sophisticated. She's learned European courtly manners and fashion
Speaker 1: catches Henry's eye. And then can you take us through
Speaker 1: the story about when she leaves court them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, and arrives at the English court in the
Speaker 2: spring of fifteen twenty two, and she stands out from
Speaker 2: the beginning because she has had these several years in
Speaker 2: France and before that in the Netherlands, and she literally
Speaker 2: has a you know, jennase qua. She's dressed in French fashion,
Speaker 2: and she probably speaks with a bit of a French accent,
Speaker 2: I like to think, and she has charisma. I would
Speaker 2: really like to emphasize this about the Berlins, because yes,
Speaker 2: they were brilliant and politically shrewd and all the rest
Speaker 2: of it. But they were a charismatic lot, and I
Speaker 2: think that it's a big part of the appeal for
Speaker 2: Henry the Eighth. And all of the commentators at the
Speaker 2: time are at pains to point out that Anne is
Speaker 2: not beautiful. They all say the same one. She's got
Speaker 2: dark hair when blonde hairs fashionable, her skin is swarthy,
Speaker 2: not pale, and all the rest of it. But she
Speaker 2: has this X factor, this allure, and soon she has
Speaker 2: a whole host of male admirers. I think she's just
Speaker 2: proof that, hey, looks don't matter. If you've got the
Speaker 2: kind of self confidence and the charisma and you know
Speaker 2: you're special, you're gonna get quite a few admirers. And
Speaker 2: that's exactly what happened.
Speaker 1: It's why men don't understand why women love Benedict Cumberbatch.
Speaker 1: Sometimes it's not the traditional leading man looks.
Speaker 2: I couldn't agree more. Absolutely, people who on paper shouldn't be,
Speaker 2: you know, heart throbs, they end up being because of
Speaker 2: that that kind of twinkle in the eye, that confidence,
Speaker 2: and that's definitely what Anne had. And you know, one
Speaker 2: of her first suters was sort of irish cousin of hers,
Speaker 2: James Butler, so from her grandmother Margaret's family. But she
Speaker 2: didn't like the idea. She thought, I can do better
Speaker 2: than that. I don't really want to go and live
Speaker 2: in Ireland. So she sets her sights higher to Henry Percy,
Speaker 2: or Earl of Northumberland, one of the most eligible bachelors
Speaker 2: in court, and he seems to have fallen in love
Speaker 2: with her. But then Cardinal Woolsey, Henry the Yates Minister,
Speaker 2: gets in the way of that. And then finally, in
Speaker 2: about fifteen twenty six, so four years after Anne first
Speaker 2: appeared at court, Henry notices her big time. He rides
Speaker 2: out in this joust wearing an embroidered heart that's in
Speaker 2: flames and a motto in French that means I did
Speaker 2: declare I dare not. In other words, somebody has my heart,
Speaker 2: but I darn't, So here it is everybody knows. By
Speaker 2: then he's fallen for Anne Berlyn. And then the next
Speaker 2: several years I spent Henry trying to, you know, just
Speaker 2: persuade Anne to be his mistress because it's too difficult
Speaker 2: to get this annulment of his first marriage to Catherine
Speaker 2: of Arrogant so he's absolutely he's trying for the annulment,
Speaker 2: but he's desperate to have Anne. And this is when
Speaker 2: her visits to Heava start become more and more frequent.
Speaker 1: For those who maybe don't quite know how the story ends,
Speaker 1: from Anne's perspective, it is a daunting task to think,
Speaker 1: I'm going to cast aside this Spanish princess of major pedigree,
Speaker 1: with major world allies and break from the Catholic Church.
Speaker 1: Why wouldn't Anne just become Henry's mistress? Are there not?
Speaker 1: I mean, there are some material benefits to that, but
Speaker 1: there are costs as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think there are absolutely, And I think one
Speaker 2: of the biggest reasons why Anne wouldn't be Henry's mistress
Speaker 2: is she'd seen what happened to her sister. So Mary
Speaker 2: Berlin was also a mistress of Henry the Eighth, one
Speaker 2: of a few ladies at court who had that distinction.
Speaker 2: And what it proved was that Henry quickly loses interest
Speaker 2: when he has what he wants. He's a natural hunter.
Speaker 2: Is that he wants something that's out of reach. And
Speaker 2: with Mary Berlin, yet they have an affair for a while.
Speaker 2: They may have had a child, her daughter Catherine could
Speaker 2: have been Henry's and then she's discarded her reputation in ruins,
Speaker 2: and Anne, from the very beginning, and to her great credit,
Speaker 2: wants more for herself than that. It comes back to
Speaker 2: that kind of self confidence, that self belief, which is
Speaker 2: rare I think in a woman at this time, or
Speaker 2: at least she might feel it, but society might not
Speaker 2: let her express it. But Anne is backed by her
Speaker 2: father in this. He doesn't want to see another daughter
Speaker 2: ruined as well. I think there's another reason though. During
Speaker 2: my research for the House of Berlin, I found evidence
Speaker 2: to suggest that actually there was somebody else who had
Speaker 2: Anne's heart, And it didn't seem at all to me
Speaker 2: that there was any love on Anne's part, or even
Speaker 2: attraction really on her part towards Henry. It seems to
Speaker 2: have been all one way. Now, the frustrating thing is
Speaker 2: we have all of Henry's love letters to Anne, we
Speaker 2: don't have her replies, so that is a one sided
Speaker 2: story that history has left us. But I kind of
Speaker 2: explored the possibility that she doesn't want Henry and she's
Speaker 2: coming back to Heava genuinely because she wants to escape him,
Speaker 2: and perhaps because Heaver is quite close to somebody who
Speaker 2: does have her heart.
Speaker 1: It's also a very tricky situation because Henry is the boss.
Speaker 1: Even if you don't want to become his mistress, you
Speaker 1: don't want to make him.
Speaker 2: Upset exactly, and there's only so long you can say
Speaker 2: no to the King of England. He especially like Henry,
Speaker 2: who I kind of think is a spoilt child really,
Speaker 2: and yes, he wants what he can't have, and then
Speaker 2: he gets very, very angry and frustrated when things don't
Speaker 2: go his way, and he is dangerous. Early in his
Speaker 2: reign he executes two of his father's ministers on no
Speaker 2: charge whatsoever, really, and people know this by the time
Speaker 2: that he starts courting Anne in the mid fifteen twenties,
Speaker 2: and Thomas blind certainly knows it. And what a dangerous world.
Speaker 2: He probably thinks. No, Anne would be better off just
Speaker 2: marrying a local nobleman and steering well clear.
Speaker 1: I mean, in retrospect, I think she would have been, I.
Speaker 2: Know, and it's those great what if moments if only
Speaker 2: she had been allowed to follow her heart, I think, yeah,
Speaker 2: things would have turned out very differently.
Speaker 1: And as you point out, Henry is not a patient man.
Speaker 1: I always found it interesting when reading about him constructing
Speaker 1: his castles, making his architects never in work overtime, because
Speaker 1: when he had an idea, he wanted it immediately.
Speaker 2: Absolutely so impatient. He doesn't like waiting, whether it's palaces
Speaker 2: or wives, he wants it now. And then yet the
Speaker 2: thing he kind of sates his appetite, and then he
Speaker 2: moves on to the next thing. And that's why, you know,
Speaker 2: he builds more palaces than any other king. It's about
Speaker 2: sixty of them in his repertoire. And it's just the
Speaker 2: same with every He has these great passions and then
Speaker 2: they burn out and then he's onto the next thing.
Speaker 2: And I think Anne noticed that, and so did her
Speaker 2: father and thinks, yeah, I'm going to tread a bit
Speaker 2: carefully here, But as I said, there comes a point
Speaker 2: where you have to succumb to the inevitable. And that's
Speaker 2: eventually what happens with Anne.
Speaker 1: So Henry, while Anne is at Heaver begins sending her
Speaker 1: extravagant gifts to try to woo her. Yeah, it's a
Speaker 1: fascinating period of history just because it feels so modern.
Speaker 1: But what sort of gifts does a monarch send to
Speaker 1: woo a would be mistress.
Speaker 2: So money is one of the gifts, just yeah, give
Speaker 2: me the cash, you know, jewelry, and there is one
Speaker 2: particular gift that Henry, so the story goes, gives to
Speaker 2: Anne and it causes some controversy. So Henry has a
Speaker 2: rival for Anne's heart in the form of court poet
Speaker 2: Thomas Wyatt, who grows up very close to where Anne lives.
Speaker 2: Their childhood friends, their fathers are friends. And Henry gives
Speaker 2: Ann a heart shaped ruby on a chain and then
Speaker 2: he's playing bowls with his rival, Thomas Wyatt, and Thomas
Speaker 2: Wyatt then just pauses in the game and reaches for
Speaker 2: something in his pocket and it's that ruby on the
Speaker 2: chain that Henry had given Anne, and he kind of
Speaker 2: dangles it in front of Henry and look what Anne
Speaker 2: gave me, something that she didn't care about. Clearly, Henry
Speaker 2: is furious and he storms off the bowling green, refuses
Speaker 2: to finish the match, and yeah, he's game. From that
Speaker 2: take forward, he's Okay, I've really got to try and
Speaker 2: get Anne because clearly I have a rival in Wyatt.
Speaker 2: So it's an intriguing little.
Speaker 1: Story, especially because to fast forward a bit, it's Wyatt's son,
Speaker 1: isn't it who leads the rebellion that almost costs AND's
Speaker 1: daughter her life. Yeah, the Wyatts are always causing troubles
Speaker 1: for these girls.
Speaker 2: Those Wyatts. Yeah, they're troublesome. But it seems irresistible. But absolutely,
Speaker 2: And this is the point you know, we were making
Speaker 2: earlier about just how tightly knit this world is. You
Speaker 2: see the same names, and then the sons of that
Speaker 2: person you're cropping up again and again, and indeed the daughters.
Speaker 2: So yeah, it's a very close knit world. The Tudor aristocracy.
Speaker 1: Hever Castle is so vivid in this novel. Obviously you
Speaker 1: are chief historian of historic royal palaces. I've been lucky
Speaker 1: enough to visit hebre Castle, but even if I hadn't,
Speaker 1: just reading this novel, I would have felt as though
Speaker 1: I were there. But for those who haven't been lucky
Speaker 1: enough to visit, can you describe what it is? Because
Speaker 1: I think when people hear Castle they think different things.
Speaker 2: Yes they do, they do. And I'm so pleased it
Speaker 2: came across vividly few because that was absolutely my ambition
Speaker 2: for this book. In fact, I said to my editor,
Speaker 2: I want heav to be like a character in the
Speaker 2: book more than just a backdrop. I really wanted the
Speaker 2: readers to feel immersed in this beautiful home. So Heva
Speaker 2: is sort of like a fairytale castle. It's got turrets
Speaker 2: and a moat and a drawbridge, it's got three port coluses.
Speaker 2: But it is quite small and modest as castles go,
Speaker 2: so it's nothing on the scale of say Hampton Court
Speaker 2: or Annek Castle up in the northeast of England. It's
Speaker 2: kind of pocket sized, so that makes it feel very intimate.
Speaker 2: Now it has been altered over the centuries, but in
Speaker 2: recent years the curators lovingly restored it to how it
Speaker 2: would have looked in the time of the Blints, and
Speaker 2: it is just amazing, even down to the rush matting
Speaker 2: on the floors where you get the scent from that,
Speaker 2: and I just found it wonderfully evocative. I spent, as
Speaker 2: you can imagine, a lot of time at Heaver when
Speaker 2: I was researching this novel, and visiting it at different
Speaker 2: times of the year was so important as well. It changes,
Speaker 2: the smells, change the colors, the ivy on the outside
Speaker 2: of the castle. It sort of turns red in autumn.
Speaker 2: The inspiration for the book cover by the way Ah
Speaker 2: and it was just a joy I did. Somebody once
Speaker 2: told me, you know, if you're writing a novel, you
Speaker 2: should set it somewhere that you want to spend time,
Speaker 2: and so I thought, yeap, Heava, that would be a
Speaker 2: nice place to hang out for a while. But I'm
Speaker 2: really pleased it came across so vividly because it felt
Speaker 2: like that to me, and I got to know it
Speaker 2: so well that, you know, even when I was writing,
Speaker 2: as I often was sitting here in my study at home,
Speaker 2: I could just close my eyes and imagine it and
Speaker 2: smell the wood smoke as you pass through the courtyard
Speaker 2: and all the rest of it. So that was a
Speaker 2: joy bringing to life the world of Weaver.
Speaker 1: As chief Historian of historic Royal Palaces, what does that
Speaker 1: job consist of?
Speaker 2: Honestly, it's the best job I've ever had, and I
Speaker 2: kind of I've got major imposter syndrome about it because
Speaker 2: I get to research the history of the palaces. But
Speaker 2: what I spend most of my time doing is communicating
Speaker 2: that history. So I do a lot of filming. There's
Speaker 2: a long running series Inside the Tower of London that
Speaker 2: I'm part of. I make podcasts, I write content for
Speaker 2: our website, I do social media videos. We've got a
Speaker 2: YouTube channel now, so I spend a lot of my
Speaker 2: time talking about the history of the palaces, the people
Speaker 2: who lived in them, the events that took place. For
Speaker 2: a historian is a dream job, and that's why I
Speaker 2: just it's pinched me moment every day because I've worked
Speaker 2: for the palaces eighteen years and it still feels so
Speaker 2: new so old at the same time, bits of it,
Speaker 2: but it feels like there's always something new to discover.
Speaker 2: That Hampton Court has got one three hundred and sixty
Speaker 2: rooms and I still haven't been in all of them,
Speaker 2: and you know, that's just one of the sixth palaces.
Speaker 2: So it's an amazing, amazing privilege to be chief historian. Now,
Speaker 2: I kind of wish I could go back and tell
Speaker 2: my sort of hopeful but slightly disillusioned eighteen year old
Speaker 2: self while I was just applying for loads of jobs
Speaker 2: and getting knockbacks that yeah, be all right, it's going
Speaker 2: to be okay.
Speaker 1: Did you learn anything new about Heaver while you were
Speaker 1: researching this book?
Speaker 2: I did new for me, probably not new for heav
Speaker 2: because the curators their knowledge is so extensive. But I
Speaker 2: really went into every nook and cranny of that castle,
Speaker 2: and two particularly thrilling moments for me. We're standing in
Speaker 2: what's called the best bedchamber, which is probably the chamber
Speaker 2: where Thomas Berlin and his wife Elizabeth slept. But also
Speaker 2: it was a very hierarchical castle because the best bedchamber
Speaker 2: would then be given to whoever ranked the highest. So
Speaker 2: when Anne started to be courted by Henry the Eighth,
Speaker 2: she got bumped up and she got in the best bedchamber,
Speaker 2: and it was I've restored it so beautiful, and they
Speaker 2: think that it was in that room that Henry sorry
Speaker 2: that Anne would have been reading the love letters from Henry,
Speaker 2: and so to stand there and they've actually got some
Speaker 2: fact similars of those letters in the room, fine tingling,
Speaker 2: and then going up on the roof, which I'd never
Speaker 2: done before, and just looking out across the Wheeld of Kent,
Speaker 2: the sort of the it's in this valley you can
Speaker 2: see the sort of sweeping hillsides, and just imagining Anne
Speaker 2: up there sort of waiting and watching for yet another
Speaker 2: messenger to arrive with another letter from the king, because
Speaker 2: it was while she was at Heaver for Christmas actually
Speaker 2: in fifteen twenty six that she received one of those
Speaker 2: letters and for the first time Henry talked of marriage,
Speaker 2: and that must have been huge. Imagine those conversations around
Speaker 2: the dinner table that Christmas. So I guess what the
Speaker 2: King's just proposed. Of course it'll be a few years
Speaker 2: until she does actually marry him, but yeah, you get
Speaker 2: such a sense of their story at Heva. You can
Speaker 2: see how it kind of played out and how important
Speaker 2: Heava was to that family.
Speaker 1: What I find fascinating in this book is not only
Speaker 1: is Heaver a character, but you make the Bolins and
Speaker 1: their family members come alive so vividly in ways that
Speaker 1: I just hadn't seen before. One example that stuck out
Speaker 1: to me is Jane Bolin, the wife of Ann's brother,
Speaker 1: so her sister in law. I think in most other
Speaker 1: media she's usually portrayed as conniving and backstabbing. She testifies
Speaker 1: against Anne Bolin. I don't know if that's the proper phrase,
Speaker 1: but you're Jane is a more nuanced character. Can you
Speaker 1: speak a little bit about about the girl who married
Speaker 1: into the Bolins?
Speaker 2: Yes, so Jane Parker as she was before she married
Speaker 2: Anne's brother George. I feel very passionately about Jane because
Speaker 2: she has been so maligned. She is always a villain
Speaker 2: in every single portrayal you see, even my beloved wolf Hall,
Speaker 2: which I absolutely love, But she's still a nasty piece
Speaker 2: of work. There's no evidence for that. And I filmed
Speaker 2: a documentary about Jane a number of years ago, so
Speaker 2: I researched her in some detail, and actually she is
Speaker 2: always seen, You're quite right as the one who provides
Speaker 2: the vital evidence that really sends her sister in law
Speaker 2: and her husband to their deaths. That's not backed up
Speaker 2: by the sources. And in fact, what we do have
Speaker 2: is a letter from Jane to the King pleading to
Speaker 2: be allowed to see her husband George when he's in
Speaker 2: the tower and so pleading for his life. Really, her
Speaker 2: villainous reputation only gathered ground during the reign of Anne's
Speaker 2: daughter Elizabeth, and it was a difficult one for Elizabeth
Speaker 2: because she was passionate about rehabilitating her mother and proving
Speaker 2: to the world that she wasn't this wicked adulteress. But
Speaker 2: she couldn't criticize her father for putting her mother to
Speaker 2: death because her father's Henry the Eighth, that's the one
Speaker 2: she owes her throne to so instead she looks for
Speaker 2: other scapegoats. One of them is Thomas Cromwell, and the
Speaker 2: other is Lady Jane Berlin or Lady Rochford as she
Speaker 2: is then, and so that's when the villainy begins. It's
Speaker 2: much as I love Elizabeth, she's kind of to blame
Speaker 2: for the blackening of Jane's character, very very unfairly. So
Speaker 2: I was determined to present a different Jane in this book,
Speaker 2: and as you say, more nuanced. She has her own
Speaker 2: journey in this and I hope a more sympathetic version.
Speaker 1: I love it because it also reminded me how much
Speaker 1: history is just hearsay that people believe and repeat over
Speaker 1: and over. In the course of doing this podcast over
Speaker 1: too many years to admit, it's astonishing how often once
Speaker 1: you go back to the actual source you realize it
Speaker 1: doesn't say what you've been told.
Speaker 2: It says yeah, in fact earlier today. And I'm not
Speaker 2: just saying this to boast I within the archives at
Speaker 2: Westminster Abbey.
Speaker 1: It is a wonderful boast. I'm very jealous.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a good boast. The reason I'm saying this
Speaker 2: is because the archivist said exactly that what you've just said.
Speaker 2: He said. So often there's a so called fact and
Speaker 2: then you look into it and you look at the
Speaker 2: source of it, and you realize the source isn't there,
Speaker 2: and it's just one of those things that become established
Speaker 2: and it's not backed up by any of the archives
Speaker 2: stretching back for centuries. And it happens a lot. It happens,
Speaker 2: and there are I think there are so many myths
Speaker 2: about the Ballins, in particularly, we've already talked about that
Speaker 2: myth that they were these schemas, these social climbers who
Speaker 2: put ambition before everything else. You know. Then of course
Speaker 2: you have the myth that Anne was an adulteress, and
Speaker 2: then that she was a witch and that she had
Speaker 2: a sixth finger on one hand. Again, no contemporary evidence
Speaker 2: for that whatsoever.
Speaker 1: But if she did, that would have been irritight proof
Speaker 1: that she's a witch. We just done the record, of course.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean what else could it possibly mean? You know?
Speaker 2: So yeah, quite often you've scratched beneath the surface and
Speaker 2: there's nothing there to back up these myths. So even
Speaker 2: though the House of Berlin is a novel, I hope
Speaker 2: I've been able to dispel some of those myths, and
Speaker 2: I have included quite a lengthy author's note at the
Speaker 2: end to make it clear you know that these are
Speaker 2: the known facts. This is the evidence because personally I
Speaker 2: read a lot of historical fiction, and I always really
Speaker 2: appreciate an author's note at the end.
Speaker 1: One thing that I just want to ask you as
Speaker 1: a writer is how is your approach to writing fiction
Speaker 1: different from when you're writing a history book.
Speaker 2: One big difference is that when I'm writing a history book,
Speaker 2: I research and writers I go, and I suppose I
Speaker 2: do that with my novels. But the difference is with nonfiction,
Speaker 2: I don't write it in order, so I do the
Speaker 2: research and I might find something out that goes into
Speaker 2: chapter seventeen one day and then chapter two the next,
Speaker 2: and so it kind of comes together, but not necessarily
Speaker 2: in the right order, because it's led by the research,
Speaker 2: and then it does take shape by the way, I
Speaker 2: would highly recommend to any of your listeners this approach
Speaker 2: of research and write, because for my first couple of books,
Speaker 2: did I just spent months and months doing all the
Speaker 2: research and then I had the writing to do, and
Speaker 2: it's not as efficient. I don't think it produces such
Speaker 2: a good book in a way, because you're constantly editing yourself.
Speaker 2: If you write from the beginning novel, I'm writing from
Speaker 2: day one, but I write it sequentially. I start at
Speaker 2: the beginning, I work my way through, because with a novel,
Speaker 2: I do have a kind of skeleton of what it's
Speaker 2: going to be and the structure. But each chapter I
Speaker 2: don't know where it's going to go. So I started,
Speaker 2: and as I'm writing, ideas occur to me and I think, oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: that could be a nice little subplot. It's quite nice
Speaker 2: for the creative process to just leave lots of flexibility
Speaker 2: to develop characters and storylines. But I do for the
Speaker 2: sake of my sanity, I have to start at the
Speaker 2: beginning and just work all the way through. I know
Speaker 2: Hillary Mantel, for example, she was definitely not like that.
Speaker 2: She was a big fan of just writing up random
Speaker 2: scenes and then at the end knitting them all together.
Speaker 2: But yeah, and who am I to criticize Hillary Mantel
Speaker 2: at all?
Speaker 1: It worked for her, absolutely, But no, that does seem like,
Speaker 1: unless you're a Hillary Mantel, I think that would drive
Speaker 1: most of us a little insane. Yeah, yeah, you do
Speaker 1: mention inventing new characters. And before I let you go,
Speaker 1: one of my favorite characters that you invented was a
Speaker 1: character called Esther.
Speaker 2: Oh, I just loved her.
Speaker 1: I believe she was not there was no historical evidence
Speaker 1: for her. No, can you speak a little bit about
Speaker 1: the decision to invent that character and how she what
Speaker 1: roles you played in the novel.
Speaker 2: I'm so pleased you liked Esther because she was my favorite.
Speaker 2: So the reason I made Esther up is because there's
Speaker 2: hardly any evidence surviving for the household that served the
Speaker 2: villain the hever. So there's only one name of a
Speaker 2: servant that survived, and that's Robert Cranwell, Thomas's Stewart, who
Speaker 2: I made a pretty horrible villain in this novel. But
Speaker 2: Esther is the lady's made to Anne. And what I
Speaker 2: wanted with this novel, because the action never leaves Heaver,
Speaker 2: I needed to give the reader lots of other storylines,
Speaker 2: so even if Anne is away at court, there's still
Speaker 2: lots going on. And Esther's story, as you will know,
Speaker 2: is quite dramatic. It has a lot of tragedy, but
Speaker 2: it has hope as well, and I really wanted to
Speaker 2: convey this warm character. But also have her as a
Speaker 2: confidant to Anne, and that was entirely authentic. Servants in
Speaker 2: later centuries become much more deferential. They have to be
Speaker 2: seen and not heard by their masters. But in the
Speaker 2: Tudor period they're more like companions, and so you know,
Speaker 2: people like Anne would have been sharing her in the
Speaker 2: most thoughts and fears and secrets with her servant who
Speaker 2: I've made esther, And so it enabled me to get
Speaker 2: into Anne's head again. Rather than just have her constantly
Speaker 2: thinking to herself, she can be expressing what she feels
Speaker 2: to her trusted servant, her beloved servant, esther. So I
Speaker 2: really enjoyed drawing that particular character.
Speaker 1: And as you allude to, it gives the reader this
Speaker 1: delightful upstairs, downstairs, down to an abbey itch to scratch
Speaker 1: that I just loved.
Speaker 2: Please you said it, because down to Abbe was my
Speaker 2: inspiration with this. I'm a big fan, and I just
Speaker 2: thought you get so involved in the servants storylines as well,
Speaker 2: and so that's what I wanted to achieve with the
Speaker 2: House of Berlin.
Speaker 1: It was absolutely wonderful. You're just such a brilliant writer
Speaker 1: of history books. Your books truly have been invaluable in
Speaker 1: the research. As I'm writing episodes of this podcast. It's
Speaker 1: so wonderful to speak to you. I'm such a fan
Speaker 1: of your fiction as well. The House of Bolin is
Speaker 1: out in the US on August fourth. If you're a
Speaker 1: tutor lover like me, you will absolutely love this book.
Speaker 1: Tracy Burman, thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 2: Oh, thank you so much for having me. It's been
Speaker 2: an absolute joy.
Speaker 1: Noble Blood is a production of iHeartRadio and Grim and
Speaker 1: Mild from Aaron Mankey. Noble Blood is hosted by me
Speaker 1: Danash Schwartz. Writers for Noble Blood are Hannah Johnston, hannah's Wick,
Speaker 1: Paul Jaffey, Natasha Laski, and me Dana Swartz. The show
Speaker 1: is edited and produced by Jesse Funk and Nomes Griffin,
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