Have you ever stared at a portrait of a historical figure and wondered if that’s what they really looked like? Anne Boleyn is one of the most famous queens in all of English history. Her image of a woman with dark hair, wearing a dark gown with a French hood, and a B initial necklace. For many people, this is what Anne Boleyn looked like, but is that accurate? What did Anne Boleyn look like, and why does it matter? The most recent exhibit at Hever Castle explores these questions, and the book that accompanies this exhibit goes deeper into the research behind this exhibit. The book shares the same name as the exhibit, “Capturing a Queen: The Image of Anne Boleyn” by Owen Emmerson and Kate McCaffrey.

I would like to thank Owen Emmerson for sending me a copy of this book. I have been interested in this exhibit ever since it was announced that Dr. Owen Emmerson and Kate McCaffrey were researching portraits of Anne Boleyn. Since I could not visit the exhibit in person, I really wanted a copy of this companion book as a way to support the research that is ongoing at Hever Castle.

So how can we possibly understand what a woman who lived over 500 years ago looked like? Well, to begin with, we need to examine how her daughter, Queen Elizabeth I, brought her mother’s name and figure out of obscurity to solidify her own legitimacy as Queen of England. We get an exploration of corridor portraits and the famous Chequers Ring to show how the Elizabethans remembered Anne Boleyn. The book then moves to the term damnatio memoriae, which was a Roman practice to eliminate someone’s name and images from history. In the case of Anne Boleyn, her image and name were not eliminated, and in fact, we do have a few artifacts that survived to the modern day, including some that were recently discovered, and her personal books.

Now, we come to the main topic of the exhibition, what Anne Boleyn looked like. We get to examine physical descriptions of Anne, including her hair color, which might surprise people. We also get a glimpse of how Anne’s European education shaped her time as queen consort. Finally, Emmerson and McCaffrey give their readers a deep dive into contemporary portraits of Anne, what messages the portraits tell, and how the image of Anne transformed over the centuries through different media. This includes an in-depth analysis of the Hever Rose portrait, which is one of the most famous portraits of Anne Boleyn, that recently underwent more scientific research.

I loved this book so much. I learned a great deal from this book, and I am sure the exhibit is fabulous in person. The amount of research that went into this exhibit and this book was extraordinary, and I applaud the respect that they gave to those historians who came before in this field of research. If you are a Tudor nerd or an Anne Boleyn fan, the new exhibit at Hever Castle is a must-see exhibit, and “Capturing a Queen: The Image of Anne Boleyn” by Owen Emmerson and Kate McCaffrey is a book you must read.