The main events in this novel took place in and around London in the years 1526 to 1536. Wherever possible, I have kept original names and dialogue, and the sequence of events. However, for my own purposes, I have condensed these events down to the space of one year, so that all our energies may move to the heart of this story.
Some exact dates from the story are unknown. These include the date Henry met Anne, the indulgence sold in advance for the beating the priest would receive later, and Henry’s “pilgrimage” to the church on his knees. Who stole Henry’s love letters to Anne is not known; but they were indeed stolen and today are kept at the Vatican as the property of the Catholic Church.
By the time our story opens, Luther had nailed his 95 Theses to the church door and begun the Reformation in Germany. Hutchins had already dedicated himself to translating the Bible into English, although it set him against monarchs, emperors, popes, and nobles. He lived and died an outcast.
I worried the least about keeping an accurate timeline for Hutchins—because there isn’t one. A hunted man who never allowed his portrait to be made for fear it would be used by heretic-hunters to identify him, no one knows how Hutchins lived. We know only how he died. His movements across Europe, while both Church and State were seeding the land with spies to catch him, remain a mystery to scholars. Through records, we see only brief glimpses of him at work.
One worry that did stay with me during the writing of the novel was that Anne Boleyn’s story has become so familiar to so many readers. What encouraged me to push through, however, was all the research that told me the other versions had her quite wrong. They paint her as a scheming seductress, a master manipulator. She was an enemy of the religious establishment, remember, and her enemies had every reason to ruin her reputation. Today, we still teach history by casting her as a villain. But her crime, as they put it, was “manipulating” Henry by refusing to sleep with him until she was his wife. This proved, they say, that she was scheming for the crown. I say it doesn’t. I say it just might prove she took her Christianity more seriously than anyone else in that age. If you know the least bit about Christianity, you know that chastity before marriage is an obligation to God.
When a young, alluring woman steals the king’s heart, remains pure, and encourages common people to read the Bible, it was a threat to the established powers. Anne Boleyn challenged authority morally, politically, and spiritually.
What if modern historians and storytellers have accepted the lies her enemies circulated about her? What if Anne Boleyn is actually one of the greatest Christian martyrs ever to have lived? Tyndale certainly thought she was a friend of Christ. I hope we never cast dirt on her name again, and always remember it was her life and death that brought us closer to the right to own a Bible.
Finally, one secret to writing historical fiction is to choose your sources wisely—and judge all else by them. Doing research on the Internet is an unsteady business. Not everyone online is required to fact-check or cross-reference anything they write, and I’ve read accounts of Anne, Henry, and More that were wrong. I decided to use as my primary sources the books listed in my Bibliography. Of course, there were many others that I consulted, but these few provided the most solid research.
I checked everything against these scholars’ opinions. It doesn’t mean I agree with them, or accept their conclusions, including their dating of events. In fact, to read this selection of books is to get wildly different judgments of each person. But each of these books was invaluable to me.
Another resource was the writing of each character. Sir Thomas More left an extensive collection of work for us, some of which is deeply troubling, and some of which reminds us he was a nobleman in certain respects. I admire More, yet also remain aghast at his frightening hatred of the movement that came to be called the Reformation. I created him, in part, by incorporating some of the troubling thoughts his works raised to me. The assertion that he was responsible for Tyndale’s death is not a new one. In fact, it was put forth brilliantly in the book God’s Bestseller by Brian Moynahan. Finally, Henry’s letters to Anne are authentic, edited in the book a bit for clarity. Anne’s letter in reply to Henry is a work of fiction.
My hope for you, the reader, is that you will feel a compulsion to read the entire Bible straight through. It was bought for you by the men and women of the past, paid for in blood and tears. It remains the most powerful, and controversial, book ever written, and to neglect it is to do a disservice to our legacy of women, and the battle for our right to read it.
However, reading the Bible straight through is not an easy task. I heartily recommend Judy Reamer’s “Divide and Conquer” system of reading it. You can find more information at: www.judyreamer.com
This is the system I use personally, and have found it has impacted my ability to read Scripture a great deal. (You can visit Judy’s Web site and find the “Divide and Conquer” teaching available as a CD or DVD set. There are printouts on her Web site as well, but these won’t make sense until you’ve heard the teaching.)
Please note, I am not asking you to believe. I am not asking you to convert, whether you are agnostic, atheist, or of another religious persuasion. I remain convinced that God can and will speak for Himself as you read the Bible.
If we do not hold onto the victories our ancestors have won for us, we must fight their battles again.