The Lady in the Tower

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A “well-researched and compulsively readable” (Booklist) biography of Anne Boleyn’s final days, from the renowned author hailed as “the finest historian of English monarchical succession writing” (The Boston Globe)

“It is a testament to Weir’s artfulness and elegance as a writer that The Lady in the Tower remains fresh and suspenseful, even though the reader knows what’s coming.”—The Independent (U.K.)

Nearly five hundred years after her violent death, Anne Boleyn, second wife to Henry VIII, remains one of the world’s most fascinating, controversial, and tragic heroines. Anne’s ascent from private gentlewoman to queen was astonishing, but equally compelling was her shockingly swift downfall. There remains, however, much mystery surrounding the queen’s arrest and the events leading up to it: Were charges against her fabricated because she stood in the way of Henry VIII making a third marriage and siring an heir, or was she the victim of a more complex plot fueled by court politics and deadly rivalry?

Drawing on myriad sources from the Tudor era, The Lady in the Tower explores the motives and intrigues of those who helped to seal the queen’s fate, unraveling the tragic tale of Anne’s fall, from her miscarriage of the son who would have saved her to the final, dramatic scene on the scaffold. What emerges is an extraordinary portrayal of a woman of great courage, tested to the extreme by the terrible plight in which she found herself, a powerful queen whose enemies were bent on utterly destroying her.

Horrifying but captivating, The Lady in the Tower presents the full array of evidence of Anne Boleyn’s guilt—and innocence.