The power behind the throne

 
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‘To get ahead in this world, you need more than fair looks and a kind heart.’

The Other Boleyn Girl begins with this pearl of wisdom from Sir Thomas Boleyn (Mark Rylance), father of two girls who would rise to unforeseen heights, become intimate with one of England’s most powerful and iconic kings, and change the course of history. Anne Boleyn (Natalie Portman) is well-known as one of the six wives of Henry VIII (Eric Bana), and her eventual fate is equally notorious. However, her sister Mary (Scarlett Johansson) is rather less well-known to have been mistress to the same king, and potentially the mother of two of his illegitimate children. The Other Boleyn Girl explores these historical characters in a very personal way, focusing on the motivations and emotions behind the events which would shape a nation. The film is based on a novel of the same name by Philippa Gregory, which is in turn part of a series of historical fiction novels about the women behind the scenes of the Tudor dynasty.

When Sir Thomas Boleyn and his brother-in-law, Thomas Howard (David Morrissey), discover that King Henry VIII is becoming increasingly unhappy in his marriage, they spy an opportunity to use the situation to the benefit of their family. The two men scheme to have Anne Boleyn seduce the king and become his mistress, hoping that this will bring power and privilege to the whole family. However, when King Henry comes to visit, Anne misses her chance by trying too hard, and instead it is the gentle, but already married, Mary who catches the King’s eye. Soon both sisters find themselves in the midst of the intrigue of court, and vying for the attentions of the most powerful man in the country. Family loyalties are quickly put to the test as Mary finds herself falling in love, and the lure of power starts to take hold of Anne. Lady Boleyn (Kristin Scott Thomas) looks on in horror as events escalate and her family’s actions spiral out of control. ‘When was it that people stopped thinking of ambition as a sin and started thinking of it as a virtue?’ she asks.

Today, ambition is certainly not seen as a major character flaw. One only has to watch an episode of The Apprentice to notice that a lack of ambition is now considered to be perhaps one of the greatest sins within the corporate world. We are constantly encouraged to aim higher and maximise our potential; Anne Boleyn would feel right at home. But why are we, and why was she, so ambitious, and how has ambition come to be seen as a positive thing? Looking closely at the actions and emotions of Anne, in The Other Boleyn Girl, it seems that she is driven by no more sinister motivations than her desires for security and significance.

The situation of women during the Tudor times was not a secure one. Their lives were controlled, to a large extent, by their fathers and husbands. To be ‘traded like cattle for the advancement and amusement of men’ meant that the women must either trust those men entirely, or try to find some security elsewhere. While people today tend not to face these specific challenges, we do all have times when we feel that our future is in someone else’s hands, and we all long to feel safe and secure by taking control of our own lives. Anne tells her family, ‘I’ll make my own way,’ but in order to do that she needs to have power and position to enable her to have a say in her destiny.

While Mary may feel that love will bring her fulfilment in life, Anne has a more cynical view of relationships, and trusts no one but herself: ‘A man’s love is worthless . . . love is of no value without power and position’. But Anne’s seemingly limitless ambition is motivated by more than just a desire for security; it seems that she also wants to assert her significance. Anne is not content to be a typical noblewoman, still less ‘the other Boleyn girl’. She is determined to make her mark on the world, to be noticed, influential and important. Ambition is, now as then, the route to making something of oneself, proving to the world that you exist and that you matter. Without ambition it is unlikely that we will rise to the top, and we may not get the recognition we desire. Thus when Anne is presented with the ‘challenge’ of seducing the king, she is unable to decline, and her brother George (Jim Sturgess) is quickly brought into line by the family through an appeal to his pride.

Not only does The Other Boleyn Girl explore some possible causes for the kind of ambition displayed by its characters, and by many today, it also considers some of the consequences of such behaviour. Putting herself above others in her bid for security and control over her own fate, Anne finds herself alienated from them. She has betrayed her friends and family, and is in turn betrayed by them. She sacrifices her relationships for power, and when she loses her power she is all alone at the last. Perhaps even worse, during her reckless pursuit of her dreams, Anne becomes someone unworthy of achieving them. Having sacrificed her morality for a greater end, Anne achieves high status and significance among others only to find herself filled with self-loathing and regrets. Ambition, like Henry’s court, ‘changes people. And not necessarily for the better’. We cannot aim even for good things and simply ignore whatever actions we take to get there because, as Sir Thomas Boleyn points out, ‘Only God knows how anything will end.’ And God pays attention to the way we live our lives; the people we become rather than the positions we achieve, as Lady Boleyn’s reply suggests: ‘God? He turned his back on all this a long time ago.’ In the end we see Anne judged and found ‘Guilty’. It is tragically clear from the events of the film that Anne has earned the judgment, if not the death sentence she receives. We recognise the justice, as Anne also seems to: ‘As for my offences, God knows them and I remit them to God, beseeching him to have mercy on my soul.’ However, we may also feel great empathy for this bright young woman who has ‘reached too high as always’, and finally comes crashing down. There are dangerous consequences to ambition, but is it possible to live a truly fulfilled life any other way?

In the film, Mary Boleyn is presented as the alternative to the ambitious power-seeking and treachery of the other characters. Her great virtues are an unshakeable loyalty and love in her relationships, and patient contentment in whatever situation she finds herself in. These are clearly much more desirable virtues than ambition, and are very much in line with biblical values too. Through watching Mary in The other Boleyn Girl, we recognise that Anne’s basic assumptions are wrong: love and our relationships with others are more important than power or position; contentment is a much better way of being happy than continually seeking more. The Bible consistently promotes love as the most important value in life (e.g. 1 Corinthians 13), and advises cultivating contentment and godliness rather than pursuing riches (1 Timothy 6:6-11). These virtues, love and contentment, will go some way towards satisfying our universal desires for security and significance as we learn to live with whatever faces us, and find our self-worth in mutually-fulfilling relationships. However, the Bible suggests that, ultimately, more is required from us. We are called to follow Jesus’s example and actively lay down the power and position we do have for others. That is how to find significance in God’s eyes. Paul, a follower of Jesus, writes:

Don’t be selfish; don’t try to impress others. Be humble, thinking of others as better than yourselves. Don’t look out only for your own interests, but take an interest in others, too.

You must have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had.
Though he was God,
he did not think of equality with God as something to cling to.
Instead, he gave up his divine privileges;
he took the humble position of a slave
and was born as a human being.
When he appeared in human form,
he humbled himself in obedience to God
and died a criminal’s death on a cross.
Therefore, God elevated him to the place of highest honour.

(Philippians 2:3-9, NLT)[1]

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