Summary of Greg Jenner's Ask A Historian

By IRB Media

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Book Preview:

#1 The real woman behind the myths of Anne Boleyn is surprisingly elusive. She was neither accused of witchcraft nor of having a third nipple. She was a Catholic exile in Rome, Madrid, and Ireland who launched rebellions and undermined Elizabeth’s monarchical integrity.

#2 The sixth finger is a staple fact in many modern novels and websites, but it seems to have come from a comment made by George Wyatt, several decades after Anne’s death. He wrote that there was some show of a nail on the side of Anne’s nail, which was so small that it was often hidden by her other fingers.

#3 The idea that Anne Boleyn had a third nipple is a product of the 1920s, when anthropologist Margaret Murray argued that Anne and other historical figures had belonged to an ancient, secret pagan cult. But in a trial that was a political witch-hunt, Anne was not tried for witchcraft.

#4 The story of Anne Boleyn is one of the most gossiped-about in history. She didn’t have three nipples, six fingers, or five lovers, and her story is already interesting enough. But writers are always looking for a fresh angle.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: Jul 8, 2022
• ISBN: 9798822544277

IRB Media

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Insights on Greg Jenner's Ask A Historian

Contents

Insights from Chapter 1

Insights from Chapter 2

Insights from Chapter 3

Insights from Chapter 4

Insights from Chapter 5

Insights from Chapter 6

Insights from Chapter 7

Insights from Chapter 8

Insights from Chapter 9

Insights from Chapter 10

Insights from Chapter 11

Insights from Chapter 12

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

The real woman behind the myths of Anne Boleyn is surprisingly elusive. She was neither accused of witchcraft nor of having a third nipple. She was a Catholic exile in Rome, Madrid, and Ireland who launched rebellions and undermined Elizabeth’s monarchical integrity.

#2

The sixth finger is a staple fact in many modern novels and websites, but it seems to have come from a comment made by George Wyatt, several decades after Anne’s death. He wrote that there was some show of a nail on the side of Anne’s nail, which was so small that it was often hidden by her other fingers.

#3

The idea that Anne Boleyn had a third nipple is a product of the 1920s, when anthropologist Margaret Murray argued that Anne and other historical figures had belonged to an ancient, secret pagan cult. But in a trial that was a political witch-hunt, Anne was not tried for witchcraft.

#4

The story of Anne Boleyn is one of the most gossiped-about in history. She didn’t have three nipples, six fingers, or five lovers, and her story is already interesting enough. But writers are always looking for a fresh angle.

#5

The 900s were a time of chaos in the Papacy, as seven of the twenty-four Popes weren’t doddery dudes with dodgy tickers, but were healthy men murdered by their rivals.

#6

Pope Stephen tried to execute Pope Formosus, but his corpse was instead tried and convicted in a show trial. The name Formosus translates as handsome in Latin, but there was nothing pretty about a rotting human being dragged from the ground and dressed up in papal robes.

#7

Pope Formosus was the first Pope to be tried posthumously, and he was killed for it. Pope John X and Pope John XII were also killed by their mistresses’ jealous husbands. Being a Pope in the late 800s and 900s was about as dangerous as being a fighter pilot in the First World War.

#8

Being a historian is difficult. There’s the learning of foreign and/or dead languages, the remembering of archaic legal terms, the decoding of scrawled handwriting, the