Our Monthly Edit Candle Club theme this year is "Women Throughout History"--real and fictional women with big impact in art, science, music and popular culture. I decided to highlight 12 women of importance not only because I get to stretch my history skills, but also to develop scents that would evoke the places they lived or worked and what it would smell like to be them.
The first edition is Anne Boleyn. The 2nd wife to King Henry VIII, Anne was a polarizing character in her time. Henry divorced his first wife Catherine of Aragon after many years of marriage and broke with the Catholic Church to create the Church of England in order to wed miss Boleyn. The move was unprecedented and caused quite the scandal throughout England and beyond.
I was always fascinated by the story of Anne Boleyn. Brought into court life by her family, she was pushed in front of royalty to climb her way up, thereby increasing her family's value. Her sister Mary was first mistress to Henry and later discarded after her marriage to a soldier of little public reputation and standing. In moved Anne, wanting to be legitimatized by the King in order for their relationship to begin.
Anne's struggle to produce a male heir for Henry resulted in just one child: Elizabeth--later known as Queen Elizabeth I. Henry's bad temper and increasing anxiety over his legacy caused Anne to be cast aside for his next future wife, Jane Seymour. Anne's later arrest for treason and adultery ended in her execution. Her tragic story resonates throughout time and is popular to retell in film and television.
The scent I chose was how I imagine Anne's rooms to have smelled. Black tea and bergamot, quintessentially English scents. Paired with heady florals of walled gardens where she no doubt took walks through during her time at court. This scent is soft, feminine and helps me imagine how Tudor England would have smelled.
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