Ah, my friends–gather ’round. It is time for the tale of a tragic queen.

The first mention of the second wife of the infamous King Henry VIII came from the movie Steel Magnolias when I was a child; Olympia Dukakis and Shirley MacLaine were talking about this person named Anne Boleyn–with six fingers on one hand! What? Bemusement reigned. But the image of deformity persisted.

I took a colloquium on Queen Elizabeth I (if you really wanna get me going on the subject, ask me if I think she died a virgin or not) during my senior year of college; The Tudors began its run on Showtime, and we perused it (privately, as it was extremely provocative–but hey, I discovered Henry Cavill) as part of our study. And thus Anne Boleyn surfaced again. As I learned more of her history, another image began to emerge–one of a woman who wanted…