The Significance of Kent's Hever Castle in the Rise & Fall of Anne Boleyn

This August sees the world premiere of immersive theatrical experience, Anne Boleyn the Musical, performed in the grounds of the former Queen's childhood home - the magnificent Hever Castle.

Devised by Historalia Productions, the unique musical sets to chart the formative years of Anne Boleyn's life, exploring the transformation from young girl leaving England, into a young woman who returns to Hever Castle destined to attract a King. With the rise and fall forever altering the course of history, this fascinating new production will follow the story of one of history's most ambitious, intellectual and influential women against the backdrop of a location that played an important role throughout her life.

We spoke to historian and writer, Rosanna Heverin West, who gave an insight into the significance of Hever Castle in Anne Boleyn's turbulent life and how it is a fitting location for this ground-breaking piece of theatre:

A Childhood Home Which Forged A Sense Of Amibition

"For many, the name Anne Boleyn conjures a simple story— girl meets King, girl seduces King, King overthrows the Roman Catholic Church to marry girl; girl fails to provide a son; King executes girl. A simple, terrifying tale of Tudor power play gone wrong.

But if we trace Anne’s life back through her experiences at Hever Castle, the nuance and fascinating truth of Anne and Henry’s life and love come out, and much of the untold and unknown moments of Anne’s life fall into the light once more.

Anne was likely around four years old when her father, Thomas Boleyn, moved the Boleyn family to Hever. Boleyn was a rising star in the court of the young Henry VIII, and Hever was ideally placed between the glittering court of Henry and the continent, where Thomas Boleyn proved his usefulness as an ambassador and diplomat.

Immediately, we can understand so much about Anne’s formative years from this alone. Hever was not an ancestral home— her father earned it, power which came from the Continent; from his popularity and ability in foreign courts. But the fact it was not an ancestral home is important. By today’s standards, Hever would be an incredible home. For a Tudor courtier, it was modest by comparison. The Boleyns were not a noble family with generational wealth. They were ‘up and comers’ in the Tudor world.

At the age of around 12, Anne left Hever and went abroad to the courts of Margaret of Austria and Queen Claude of France, to spend her teenage years serving women of learning and power, surrounded by thinkers, painters, musicians, scientists, and artists. It gave Anne an education which was unattainable and unthinkable for most of the women at the English Tudor court. It’s easy to imagine the young Anne travelling from Hever in the grey light of an early Kent dawn, on her way to the nearby sea and ships which would take her away to become the woman who would ensnare the King through her wit, intellect, and charm, all learned in these years abroad."

Photographer: Daniel Watson

A Location In Which To Retreat In Disgrace & Plot Revenge

"When Anne returned to Hever in 1522, it was for a marriage— but not to the King. That would have been the furthest thought from her scheming family’s minds in 1522, as Anne’s elder sister, Mary, was currently Henry VIII’s mistress. Instead, the planned match was a marriage between Anne and her distant cousin, James Butler, contender for the vast and wealthy earldom of Ormond. The marriage would settle the ongoing dispute between the great-grandchildren of the 7th Earl— the Butlers and the Boleyns.

But here we see Anne’s independence and occasional lapse of judgement, which would characterise her rise to Queen of England. 

James Butler was handsome and only a few years older than Anne. He had served Henry VIII in battle against the French and was a member of Cardinal Wolsey’s household, who was the King’s right-hand man. It is tempting to imagine that the Butler/Boleyn match would have been very successful; they were well suited in status, intelligence, looks and temperament. The marriage would also have been politically astute, bringing some semblance of calm to a corner of Ireland. Anne would have been a queen in all but name of a beautiful and rich estate.

But Anne had a flirtation with the wrong person— Henry Percy, another gentleman of Wolsey’s household. Whether theirs was a love match, a piece of ill-judged flirtation or Anne’s determination to have agency in her affairs regardless of the consequences, the match was forbidden by Wolsey. The Percys were far too grand a family for a match with a second daughter from the Boleyns to have been allowed. Anne was banished from court and sent home to Hever in disgrace. It was there she could lick her wounds and cement her lifelong hatred of Wolsey, a decision which would see his death, the rise of Cromwell and the fall of the Boleyns and the Roman Catholic Church in England."

Photographer: Daniel Watson

Where A Passionate Love Affair Begins To Blossom

"When Anne returned to court from Hever, the story we all know begins. Anne beguiles Henry with her French fashions and manners; she challenges him with her intelligence and her ideas of a reformation of the Catholic Church. Henry falls in love, and Anne is playing for the ultimate prize. She has seen, firsthand from her sister Mary, the limits of being a king’s mistress, and she was not going to be bound by those limits.

It is at Hever that Anne and Henry’s relationship deepens. In 1528, the sweating sickness swept through England once again. This unknown illness, suggested by some historians to have been a now-extinct virus or a strain of the flu, was fast and deadly. Anne was at home, ‘self-isolating’, when she was struck down with it. Henry, heart-stricken, immediately sent his second-best physician to her bedside. Previously, the still-married-to-Katherine-of-Aragon Henry had been (relatively) discreet in his flirtation with Anne. Now his love and infatuation were clearly demonstrated to all of England. 

Whenever things got a little heated or awkward at court, or when Henry’s impatience with Anne’s firm decision not to consummate their relationship before marriage became fraught, Anne would retreat to Hever. Hever was her sanctuary; her place to regroup and strategise. She was playing for the throne, and the costs of a mistake were high. Hever was a place to catch her breath. 

In these ‘cooling-off’ periods, it was to Hever where Henry would send his very descriptive and fairly filthy love letters. It was to Hever too where Henry would visit Anne, and in those moments, with just the Boleyn family and a select few courtiers, Henry and Anne could have a few hours to be a young couple in love, away from the pressure of court. It must have been one of the only places in the world where they simply existed as any other young couple."

Photographer: Daniel Watson

Where It All Begins & Ends

"Hever was the place where the Bolyens announced to the world they were on their way up. It was where Anne left from to become the woman who would capture a king. It was where she would return to, again and again, to crystallise into the woman she is remembered as in history— the siren who stole a king’s heart, the undoing of the previously unbeatable Wolsey, the catalyst of the English Reformation. 

Hever was where she could, for a moment, just be a woman, standing in front of a man (who happened to be a king), hoping they would love each other. And, in a dark postscript, it is where Thomas Boleyn slinks back to in 1536, disgraced and having been heavily involved in the “investigating” commission who would find Anne, and her brother George, guilty of treason and executed at the Tower of London."

Anne Boleyn the Musical at Hever Castle runs from 2nd - 30th August with performances taking place at 7.30pm on select dates. Tickets are available to book here.

Hever Castle & Gardens is open daily for visitors to explore and discover more about this fascinating heritage site. Tickets can be booked here.