A Letter from the Author: Mary Boleyn on Film
Mary Boleyn has been
portrayed several times on screen. In Anne of the Thousand Days
(1969), Valerie Gearon plays her as the dark-haired, ‘pliant
eldest daughter’ of Thomas Boleyn. Henry VIII’s affair with her
is dated to 1523; Anne Boleyn complains: ‘We have had the King in
the bosom of this family for three years!’ When next we see Mary,
she has been banished to Hever and is pregnant with Henry’s
child. Sir Thomas tells her she must make no trouble about being
abandoned, to avoid putting her family at risk.
Mary warns her sister: ‘Learn from me, Nan. Lock up your
heart.’ She has clearly lost her own heart: when the King visits,
she sits weeping alone. It is inevitable that film makers make
dramatic capital from the scenario of one sister snaring the King
who has abandoned the other.
Watching the film today, one is struck by its integrity
and the efforts made to achieve a degree of accuracy, which are
markedly absent from some modern historical films.
Clare Cameron made a cameo appearance as Mary in Henry VIII
(2003). When the King (Ray Winstone) descends on Hever to court
Anne, Mary is big with a child he doubts is his--and faints at
the of him. This is one of many gratuitous scenes in the
series. The pregnant Mary is about to be married to ‘a provincial
book-keeper’. Later, bending the historical chronology, Henry
says he will grant Mary lands, a title and a good marriage; and
he titles her her Earl of Essex (his title was in fact Earl of
Wiltshire!)
In 2003, the BBC filmed Philippa Gregory’s novel, The Other
Boleyn Girl. Henry VIII’s interest in Mary (Natasha McElhone) is
dated to to 1524, and Katherine of Aragon (why is she always
shown as black-haired in films?) is improbably aware of the
affair. Mary is manoeuvred by her family into becoming the
King’s mistress, but she loves her husband, William Carey, and
only reluctantly succumbs. But as their intimacy deepens, she
comes to favour Henry, and a rift opens between her and Carey.
William Stafford, who will become Mary’s second husband, appears
early on in the unlikely guise of a servant of the Boleyns, when
he would have been about twelve years old!
Mary becomes pregnant in 1525. Her her is worried that the
King will stray while she is unavailable to him, so he pushes
Anne into Henry’s path. Inevitably, Henry falls for Anne. Mary is
shown being confined as a queen, taking to a darkened chamber in
readiness for the birth. Henry VIII was discreet in his illicit
amours, and these ordinances were laid down only for the Queen,
so this is just pure silliness.
Mary gives birth to a son, but the Duke of Norfolk tells her
that the King no longer desires her because he wants her sister.
Only Stafford is there to support her.
Mary is forced to wait on Anne, whom she now hates, and to
witness her flirting with Henry. Carey tells her to forget the
King, and forces himself on her, hering a daughter. But the
chronology is skewed, as is the likely paternity of the children.
Carey dies after Anne becomes queen in 1533 (in reality, he died
in 1528). When Anne tries to wed Mary to the fictional Lord
Farnley, she marries Stafford in secret. When she confesses, she
is banished for disgracing the family.
Mary is then seen suggesting that Anne lie secretly with another
man in order to conceive a son, when in reality, she was likely
in Calais during Anne’s fall. In the series, it is she who asks
their brother George, ‘Could you lie with her?’ Later, she
comforts Anne for the loss of the son George has incestuously
hered, and after Anne’s arrest, she attends her in the Tower.
There is no sense of politics in the film, as in the movie, The
Other Boleyn Girl (2008), starring lett Johansson as a rather
vacuous Mary. The costumes are often anachronistic and the
chronology shaky. The story is told on a superficial level, and
follows a similar plot to the TV movie. At the end, Mary is seen
watching Anne’s execution; but the real Anne did not weep on the
scaffold. The most far-fetched scene is where Mary rides back to
court afterwards and snatches Anne’s daughter Elizabeth, carrying
her off to be reared with her own children in the country.
In the TV series The Tudors (2007-2010), Mary Boleyn (Perdita
Weeks) appears in six episodes. From the moment you see the
eighteenth-century coach in the opening s of the series, you
know that historical integrity is going to be an issue. Hopeless
chronology, dated costumes and unforgivable factual errors spoil
a series that is often well acted by a strong cast. The Tudors
inhabits a world of its own: only occasionally do you get a sense
of Tudor England. Many of the female characters, like Mary, look
like modern fashion models with ims and teased hair.
We see the King of France pointing out Mary to Henry VIII at the
Field of Cloth of Gold in 1520. When Henry later asks Mary what
French graces she has learned, she offers him oral sex. Later, we
see Mary waiting on her sister Anne and visiting Calais with the
royal party. Anne and Mary are depicted as being very close and
affectionate, which may not have been the case in real life. In
the show it is Mary (not even recorded as being present) who
carries the Princess Elizabeth to her christening. Later on a
heavily pregnant Mary--had Anne not already noticed?--confesses
that she has married Stafford secretly, and the Boleyns banish
her from court.
Mary Boleyn is misrepresented in popular culture because of such
films. It concerns me that the demarcation line between
historical fact and fiction has now become blurred. Why would one
ever want to change history? The truth, as Byron famously said,
‘is stranger than fiction’.