Friedmann is not very sympathetic to Anne either is he so it will be interesting to read it. Have you read G W Bernard's report on Anne's fall – see http://ehr.oxfordjournals.org/…..CCCCXX/584

He concludes by saying:-

“What we have then is the likelihood that Anne and at least some of her friends were guilty of the charges brought against them. But why should Anne have done it?

One explanation might be, as Sir John Neale suggested long ago, that aware of Henry's at least intermittent impotence, Anne was trying to beget a child by other men, in order to produce Henry's much wanted heir. Another might be that she was indeed a
loose-living lady. Yet another, and perhaps the most plausible, might be her jealousy of Henry VIII's continuing affairs, a defiant resentment of the double standard which allowed that freedom to men but not to women. The French poem records her saying of the King: 'Et que souvent je n'aye prins fantasie/ Encontre luy de quelque jalousye.'

To the charge that the general interpretation advanced here is just the surmise of a man lacking in understanding of female psychology, just a 'wicked women' view of history which sees nymphomaniacs everywhere, it could be countered that Anne's behaviour has been presented as defiant rather than passive, and Jane Seymour's very differently interpreted. Above ail, it has been an analysis of the evidence, not any prejudice, which has raised the possibility that Anne was unfaithful to her husband. That information came into the 'public domain' by chance, by the accident of a quarrel between one of the Queen's ladies and her brother. In explaining
what happened next, there is no need to portray Henry as a monster, no need to invent deformed foetuses, no need to elaborate 'factional' explanations: Anne's fall was surely inevitable once what she had been doing became known, once a prima facie case against her was accepted by the King.

The fall of Anne Boleyn is not just a salacious whodunnit: it has implications for our understanding of early Tudor politics. Perhaps Henry's reactions were harsh by our standards, but they were not irrational. Nor should we assume in advance of a critical scrutiny of the evidence that people who did unusual things must have been manipulated. The explanation offered here thus casts further doubt on the validity of the influential notion of faction as an explanation of political crisis in early Tudor England and raises the possibility that, on this and other occasions, Henry VIII was more in control and less the victim of factional manipulation than some recent accounts would claim.”

Hmmm…Looks like the book will be an interesting read.

I did a review on it, see /anne-boleyn-fatal-attractions-by-g-w-bernard/5216/ – it was an interesting read, and didn't make my blood boil, but it didn't make me change my mind about Anne. I disagree completely with Bernard's views on Anne's faith and also his views on George, but he is very good at backing up his opinions and it is quite a lesson in how we can look at the same sources and read them differently. Anyway, I do think it's worth reading as it makes you think.