Eric William Ives OBE (12 July 1931 – 25 September 2012)[1] was a British historian who was an expert on the Tudor period, and a university administrator.
[2][3] On 24 November 1955, as part of national service, he was commissioned into the Education Branch of the Royal Air Force as a pilot officer.
[6] Following his two-year nation service, he worked for a short time with the History of Parliament Trust as a research assistant.
[2] He was particularly noted for his work on the life of Anne Boleyn, the second wife and queen of King Henry VIII of England.
His theories on her life drew him into fierce debate with the American historian Retha Warnicke, who wrote The Rise and Fall of Anne Boleyn in 1989 to challenge Ives's findings.
His biographical writing on Tudor courtiers covers the Welsh land-owning magnate William Brereton, who was unjustly condemned to death in 1536 on the false charge of being Anne Boleyn's lover.