It’s May Day, which was Anne Boleyn’s last day of freedom. She attended the annual May Day joust, but unbeknownst to her, the final “evidence” for her arrest on what were almost certainly false charges of adultery, incest and treason was being assembled by Henry VIII, Cromwell, and their cronies.
The Beheading Game, my debut novel, is a fantastical reimagining in which Anne Boleyn comes back to life after her execution, sews her head back on, and tries to kill Henry VIII. While a revenge plot is satisfying, the real Anne suffered greatly at the hands of a misogynistic and patriarchal court and legal system, and, in my opinion, her execution is an example of domestic violence brought to its pinnacle: a state sanctioned beheading of one’s own wife. Why was Anne Boleyn really executed, if she didn’t actually commit any crimes? I HAVE THOUGHTS! And if you want more of my feminist rants on that topic, you can read this essay published in
@crimereads (link in bio)
The infamous May Day joust is featured in The Beheading Game, as is the Green Man/Jack O’ the Green, a customary figure in early modern May Day celebrations (literally a man dressed up as a tree, probably a holdover from pre-Roman paganistic spring fertility celebrations). (My other pet theory is that the jolly green giant from American frozen veggie bags is a variety of green man, but that’s a topic for another day…)
