Anne Boleyn is often remembered as Henry VIII’s “beheaded” wife or a cautionary tale about the dangers of ambition. In this episode of The Forgotten, Dr Becca Watterson revisits Anne’s story through the lens of coercive control.

This episode explores how power, surveillance, false accusation, and reputational violence shaped Anne Boleyn’s downfall, and how the law was used to turn a queen into a criminal. From Henry VIII’s pursuit to Anne’s trial and execution, this is a survivor-centred history of control, punishment, and erasure.

Blending rigorous historical analysis with modern understandings of abuse, this episode asks what Anne Boleyn’s story reveals about coercive control, then and now.

The Forgotten is a survivor history podcast uncovering hidden stories of abuse, coercion, and survival. Because every name, every story matters.

In September 1833, Catherine Doran stood in a Dublin courtroom and testified against her violent husband. She had two children, no money of her own, and what she got from the Recorder’s Court was not protection or justice — but five shillings a week and a promise.

In this episode of The Forgotten, I explore Catherine’s brief but powerful testimony: how respectability shaped her credibility, how her husband’s DARVO tactics undermined her voice, and how violence was bargained away as if it were just another household expense.

Nearly two centuries later, her story still echoes. Survivors today know what it means to be disbelieved, discredited, or forced to choose between financial survival and safety. Catherine’s voice reminds us that behind the euphemisms of “ill usage” and “unfortunate woman” were real women, real risks, and real resilience.

Every name, every story matters.

Catherine of Aragon is usually remembered in one word: divorced.
The first of Henry VIII’s six wives, she’s often reduced to a schoolroom rhyme or a glittering anthem in the pop musical SIX.

But Catherine’s real story is sharper, grittier, and far more important. She was a Spanish princess trained in theology, a queen who ruled as regent, a mother who turned letters into resistance manuals, and a woman who faced Henry’s gaslighting with scripture, stubbornness, and joy.

In this episode of The Forgotten, Becca explores Catherine’s journey: from triumph at the Battle of Flodden, to humiliation at Blackfriars, to exile at Kimbolton. Along the way, we’ll talk about coercive control, Tudor-style, DARVO before it had a name, and how Catherine’s life was defined not by the word divorced but by the word no.

Because Catherine of Aragon wasn’t just a cast-off wife. She was the queen who said no — and her story still resonates today.