THE OTHER BOLEYN GIRL starring NATALIE PORTMAN and SCARLETT JOHANSSON and ERIC BANA

If you aren't up to reading or you want to watch a film about the ambitious Bolyn family and King Henry VIII, you may love "THE OTHER BOLYN GIRL." I did! (Just keep in mind that this film isn't Alison Weir's book and she may have come to different conclusions about Mary Bolyn.)

The film shows that Anne tried to seduce her own brother hoping to concieve a child when she was married to Henry and he was through with her. That this brother could not go through with it. That his wife, ambitious for herself at court and frustrated in her arranged marriage with him because he would not have sex with her told the King what she saw. And so The Boleyn brother was then beheaded.

I'm linking to the IMBd (movie database) so you'll have a bit more information. Maybe if you read the book or watched the film, or done both, you will leave a comment - an opinion!

MARY BOLEYN : MISTRESS OF KING HENRY VIII MISTRESS OF THE MONTH

HENRY VII had so many mistresses, including Elizabeth Blount before her, and Mary's sister Anne Bolyn was one of them too. Mary is the one who had a happy ending to her life - marriage to a man she loved who loved her without so very many complications - and who SURVIVED. Anne's the one who married the King and got beheaded.

Henry married Anne after he finally gave up on his wife of many years, Katherine of Aragon, try as the poor woman did, giving him a legitimate MALE heir. (We know so many men still dwell on having a son!)

Then, unhappy with a mistress as wife, it was Anne Bolyn that he sent to the block - beheading!

Mary seemed to have survived all this and have his child, a daughter named Katherine Carey, while she was married to William Carey. Henry sent William Carey off somewhere so he wouldn't interfere in their affair. She was devastated when the King dumped her for her sister.

Because of their daughter Katherine Carey there are a few people alive today who are blood related to Henry. If the book author Alison Weir is right, today's decedents of Mary Bolyn include Camilla Parker Bowles and Princess Diana!

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Alison Weir's latest book called "MARY BOLEYN - Mistress of Kings" is fascinating. She has to tease out the details but is good at pointing out where other authors of the subject have run on assumptions. Kings is used because Mary may have been the mistress of the French King Francois I when she was a young teenager at his court. (The subtitle "The Great and Infamous Whore" turns out to be wrong)!

Mary, for all the details and historical research Weir did, remains a bit of a mystery. Was she simply compliant? Yet twice she married for love! Was she boring and without opinion or is it that she knew how to survive?

The book came out 2011 published by Ballantine Books and should be on your mistress bookshelf!

Linking to the Alison Weir site that has more details!