Hayley Nolan

Hayley Nolan is a Tudor historian, TEDx speaker and UN Delegate whose No1 Amazon History bestselling biography Anne Boleyn: 500 Years of Lies introduces her as an exciting new voice in the field. Her research led to working with Houses of Parliament launching the #BeMoreBoleyn campaign and correcting Anne Boleyn’s overlooked political efforts with the 1536 Poor Law, which has been wrongly attributed to Cromwell throughout history.

Anne Boleyn: 500 Years of Lies was selected as The Independent’s ‘Book of the Month’ and was highly received in TIME magazine, Wall Street International and BBC News amongst other global press coverage. Nolan’s thrilling new study is now the culmination of seven years extensive independent research into archival source material and secondary source analysis of the Reformation and 16th century politics.

In 2023 Hayley became TEDx alumni when she delivered a dynamic TEDx talk on stage at Kings College London. The 15 minute talk was based on Hayley’s specialist subject of Anne Boleyn’s activism and is now streaming worldwide on TED.com.

Hayley has partnered with some of the country’s most respected historical organisations including Historic Royal Palaces (Tower of London, Hampton Court Palace), Anne Boleyn’s childhood home of Hever Castle, the English Heritage site of Eltham Palace, Henry VIII’s childhood home and Houses of Parliament for the 2017 General Election. Hayley was also invited to work with the official French organisation Atout France, travelling abroad to research Boleyn’s early life at the Chateau Royal de Blois, France.

In her mission to disseminate academic research to the general public in an accessible and digestible way, Hayley became the historical researcher, writer and presenter of hit vlogumentary mini-series The History Review, which reached 3 million viewers in its first year. She has also written, produced and hosted the spin-off iTunes podcast of the same name. Recently, Hayley has collaborated with social media app Tiktok creating official history videos for their #LearnOnTiktok hashtag. She has now built an audience of over 200,000 followers on Tiktok and has over 10 million views on her historical digital content across all platforms.

In 2023 Hayley was appointed as a United Nation Delegate for the UN’s Commission on the Status of Women (CSW67). During the two week conference, Hayley volunteered at various events, collaborating at the ‘Future of Education’ meeting and speaking as a historian discussing her work highlighting Anne Boleyn’s little known political work, its impact on women today, whilst proposing action plans to ensure the accurate depiction of women in history in all forms of media.

Hayley has written history articles for The Telegraph, Readers Digest and Big Issue North, as well as leading a campaign against the romanticisation of Anne Boleyn’s murder for Women's Aid. She is now a frequent contributor to All About History magazine.

Hayley is also a trained scriptwriter, having graduated from London’s prestigious Royal Court Young Theatre Writer’s Programme, with further training in screenwriting at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA.)