the eternal ingenue

“To describe Anne Boleyn as a feminist would be an anachronism - and not nearly as appropriate an anachronism as in the case of Marguerite de Navarre and others who openly championed female equality. Marguerite did not have the word, but she was conscious of a women’s “cause.” There’s no evidence that Anne felt similarly. But she had learned to value her body and her ideas, and she ultimately recognized that there was something unsettling about this for Henry and understood that this played a role in her downfall. “I do not say I have always shown him that humility,” she said at her trial, insistent even then on speaking what she believed. Anne wasn’t a feminist. But she did step over the ever-moving line that marked the boundary of the comfort zone for men of her era, and for all the unease and backlash she inspired, she may as well have been one.”