Cultural depictions of Anne Boleyn

She has been called "the most influential and important queen consort England has ever had",[1] as she provided the occasion for Henry VIII to annul his marriage to Catherine of Aragon and declare the English church's independence from the Vatican.

Famous writers and novelists who subscribed to this view of Anne (which persisted into the 20th century) included Jane Austen, Agnes Strickland, Jean Plaidy and playwright Maxwell Anderson.

In the latter half of the 20th century, academic historians who were determined to study Henry VIII's government and court as serious political and cultural institutions argued that Anne Boleyn was one of the most ambitious, intelligent and important queens in European history.

The work of American academic Retha Warnicke focuses on the unmitigated gender prejudices of the early 16th century and how they formed Anne into being first a pawn and ultimately a willingly venal and unscrupulous agent for her own and her family's advancement.

There have been various treatments of her life by popular historians such as Marie Louise Bruce, Hester W. Chapman, Norah Lofts, Carolly Erickson, Alison Weir, Lady Antonia Fraser and Joanna Denny.