Anne Boleyn
Encyclopedia
Anne Boleyn;
c.1501/1507 – 19 May 1536) was Queen of England from 1533 to 1536 as the second wife
of Henry VIII of England
and Marquess of Pembroke
in her own right. Henry's marriage to Anne, and her subsequent execution, made her a key figure in the political and religious upheaval that was the start of the English Reformation
. A commoner, Anne was the daughter of Thomas Boleyn, 1st Earl of Wiltshire
and his wife, Lady Elizabeth Howard
, and was educated in the Netherlands
and France
, largely as a maid of honour to Claude of France
. She returned to England
in early 1522, in order to marry her Irish
cousin James Butler, 9th Earl of Ormond; however, the marriage plans ended in failure and she secured a post at court as maid of honour to Henry VIII's queen consort, Catherine of Aragon
.
Early in 1523 there was a secret betrothal between Anne and Henry Percy
son of the 5th Earl of Northumberland. However, in January of 1524 Cardinal Thomas Wolsey broke the betrothal, Anne was sent back home to Hever Castle
, and Percy was married to Lady Mary Talbot, to whom he had been betrothed since adolescence. In February/ March of 1526 Henry VIII began courtly pursuit of Anne. She resisted his attempts to seduce her, refusing to become his mistress as her sister Mary
had. It soon became the one absorbing object of Henry's desires to annul
his marriage to Queen Catherine so he would be free to marry Anne. When it became clear that Pope Clement VII
would not annul the marriage, the breaking of the power of the Catholic Church in England began. In 1532, Henry granted her the Marquesate of Pembroke
.
Henry and Anne married on 25 January 1533. On 23 May 1533 Thomas Cranmer
declared Henry and Catherine's marriage null and void; five days later, he declared Henry and Anne's marriage to be good and valid. Shortly afterwards, the Pope decreed sentences of excommunication
against Henry and Cranmer. As a result of this marriage and these excommunications, the first break between the Church of England
and Rome took place and the Church of England was brought under the King's control. Anne was crowned Queen of England on 1 June 1533. On 7 September she gave birth to the future Elizabeth I of England
. To Henry's displeasure, however, she failed to produce a male heir. Henry was not totally discouraged, for he said that he loved Elizabeth and that a son would surely follow. Three miscarriages followed, however, and by March 1536, Henry was courting Jane Seymour
.
Henry had Anne investigated for high treason
in April 1536. On 2 May she was arrested and sent to the Tower of London
, where she was tried before a jury of peers and found guilty on 15 May. She was beheaded four days later on Tower Green. Modern historians view the charges against her, which included adultery
and incest
, as unconvincing. Following the coronation of her daughter, Elizabeth, as queen, Anne was venerated as a martyr and heroine of the English Reformation, particularly through the works of John Foxe
. Over the centuries, she has inspired or been mentioned in numerous artistic and cultural works
. As a result, she has retained her hold on the popular imagination. Anne has been called "the most influential and important queen consort
England has ever had," since she provided the occasion for Henry VIII to divorce Catherine of Aragon, and declare his independence from Rome.
, later Earl of Wiltshire
and Earl of Ormond, and his wife, Lady Elizabeth Howard
, daughter of Thomas Howard, 2nd Duke of Norfolk
. Thomas Boleyn was a respected diplomat with a gift for languages; he was also a favourite of Henry VII of England
, who sent him on many diplomatic missions abroad. Anne and her siblings grew up at Hever Castle in Kent. A lack of parish records from the period has made it impossible to establish Anne's date of birth. Contemporary evidence is contradictory, with several dates having been put forward by various historians. An Italian, writing in 1600, suggested that she had been born in 1499, while Sir Thomas More
's son-in-law, William Roper, indicated a much later date of 1512. However her birth was most likely sometime between 1501 and 1507. As with Anne herself, it is uncertain when her two siblings were born, but it seems clear that her sister Mary was older than Anne. Mary's children clearly believed their mother had been the elder sister. Most historians now agree that Mary was born in 1499. Mary's grandson claimed the Ormonde title in 1596 on the basis she was the elder daughter, which Elizabeth I accepted. Also, Mary was married first, and by custom, the eldest daughter would be married before the younger. Their brother George
was born some time around 1504.
The academic debate about Anne's birth date focuses on two key dates: 1501 and 1507. Eric Ives, a British historian and legal expert, advocates the 1501 date, while Retha Warnicke
, an American scholar who has also written a biography of Anne, prefers 1507. The key piece of surviving written evidence is a letter Anne wrote sometime in 1514. She wrote it in French
to her father, who was still living in England while Anne was completing her education at Mechelen
, in the contemporary Netherlands
, now Belgium
. Ives argues that the style of the letter and its mature handwriting prove that Anne must have been about thirteen at the time of its composition, while Warnicke argues that the numerous misspellings and grammar errors show that the letter was written by a child. In Ives's view this would also be around the minimum age that a girl could be a Maid of Honour, as Anne was to the regent, Margaret of Austria, Duchess of Savoy. This is supported by claims by a chronicler from the late 16th century, who wrote that Anne was twenty when she returned from France
.
These findings are contested by Warnicke in several books and articles, but the evidence does not conclusively support either date.
Anne's great-grandparents included a Lord Mayor of London
, a duke
, an earl
, two aristocratic
ladies, and a knight
. One of
them, Geoffrey Boleyn, had been a mercer
and wool merchant before becoming Lord Mayor. The Boleyn family originally came from Blickling
in Norfolk, fifteen miles north of Norwich. At the time of Anne's
birth, the Boleyn family was considered one of the most respected in the English aristocracy. Among her relatives, she numbered the Howards, one of the
pre-eminent families in the land; and one of her ancestors included King Edward I of England
. According to Eric Ives, she was certainly of more noble birth
than Jane Seymour
, Catherine Howard
, and Catherine Parr
, Henry VIII's three other English wives. The spelling of the Boleyn name was variable. Sometimes it was written as Bullen, hence the bull heads which
formed part of her family arms. At the court of Margaret of Austria in the Netherlands, Anne is listed as Boullan.
From there she signed the letter to her father as Anna de Boullan. She is also
referred to as "Anna Bolina" (which is Latin); that name is in most portraits of her.
Anne's early education was typical for women of her class. Her academic education was limited to arithmetic, her family genealogy, grammar, history, reading, spelling, and writing. She developed domestic skills such as dancing, embroidery, good manners, household management, music, needlework, and singing. Anne learned to play games, such as cards, chess, and dice. She was also taught archery, falconry, horseback riding, and hunting.
. During this period, she ruled the Netherlands on her father's behalf and was so impressed with Boleyn that she offered his daughter Anne a place in her household. Ordinarily, a girl had to be twelve years old to have such an honour, but Anne may have been younger, as the Archduchess affectionately referred to her as "la petite Boulin [sic]". Anne made a good impression in the Netherlands with her manners and studiousness, Margaret reported that she was well spoken and pleasant for her young age ("son josne eaige"). and told Sir Thomas Boleyn that his daughter was "so presentable and so pleasant, considering her youthful age, that I am more beholden to you for sending her to me, than you to me" (E.W. Ives, op.cit.). Anne stayed with Margaret from spring 1513 until her father arranged for her to attend Henry VIII's sister, Mary Tudor, Queen of France, for Mary's marriage to Louis XII of France
in October 1514.
In France Anne was a maid of honour to Queen Mary, and then to 15-year-old Queen Claude of France, with whom she stayed nearly seven years. In the Queen's household she completed her study of French and developed interests in fashion and religious philosophy. She also acquired knowledge of French culture
and etiquette
. Though all knowledge about Anne's experiences in the French court are conjecture, even Eric Ives, in his latest edition of the biography, conjectures that she was likely to have made the acquaintance of King Francis I
's sister, Marguerite de Navarre
, a patron of humanists and reformers. Marguerite de Navarre was also an author in her own right, and her works include elements of Christian mysticism and reform that, but for her protection as the French king's beloved sister, verged on heresy. She or her circle may have encouraged Anne's interest in reform, as well as in poetry and literature. Anne's education in France proved itself in later years, inspiring many new trends among the ladies and courtiers of England, and it may have been instrumental in pressing their King toward the culture-shattering contretemps with the Papacy itself. Eric Ives's latest version of his biography hypothesizes that Anne may have had evangelist conviction and a strong spiritual inner life. William Forrest, author of a contemporary poem about Catherine of Aragon
, complimented Anne's "passing excellent" skill as a dancer. "Here", he wrote, "was [a] fresh young damsel, that could trip and go."
Anne exerted a powerful charm on those who met her, though opinions differed on her attractiveness. The Venetian diarist Marino Sanuto, who saw Anne when Henry VIII met Francis I at Calais in October 1532, described her as "not one of the handsomest women in the world; she is of middling stature, swarthy complexion, long neck, wide mouth, bosom not much raised ... eyes, which are black and beautiful". Simon Grynée wrote to Martin Bucer
in September 1531 that Anne was "young, good-looking, of a rather dark complexion". Lancelot de Carles called her "beautiful with an elegant figure", and a Venetian in Paris in 1528 also reported that she was said to be beautiful. The most influential description of Anne, but also the least reliable, was written by the Catholic propagandist and polemicist Nicholas Sanders
in 1586, half a century after Anne's death: "Anne Boleyn was rather tall of stature, with black hair, and an oval face of a sallow complexion, as if troubled with jaundice. It is said she had a projecting tooth under the upper lip, and on her right hand six fingers. There was a large wen
under her chin, and therefore to hide its ugliness she wore a high dress covering her throat ... She was handsome to look at, with a pretty mouth". Sanders held Anne responsible for Henry VIII's rejection of the Catholic church, and writing fifty years after her death, was keen to demonize her. Sanders's description contributed to what biographer Eric Ives calls the "monster legend" of Anne Boleyn. Though his details were fictitious, they have formed the basis for references to Anne's appearance even in some modern textbooks.
Anne's experience in France made her a devout Christian
in the new tradition of Renaissance humanism
. Anne knew little Latin but, trained at a French court, she was influenced by an “evangelical variety of French humanism” which led her to champion the vernacular Bible. While she would later hold the reformist position that the papacy was a corrupting influence on Christianity
, her conservative tendencies could be seen in her devotion to the Virgin Mary
. Anne's European education ended in 1521, when her father summoned her back to England. She sailed from Calais
in January 1522.
- the ancestral seat of the earls. Sir Thomas Boleyn, being the son of the eldest daughter, felt the title belonged to him and protested to his brother-in-law, the Duke of Norfolk
, who spoke to King Henry about the matter. Henry, fearful the dispute could be the spark to ignite civil war
in Ireland, sought to resolve the matter by arranging an alliance between Piers's son, James, and Anne Boleyn. She would bring her Ormond inheritance as dowry and thus end the dispute. The plan ended in failure, perhaps because Sir Thomas hoped for a grander marriage for his daughter or because he himself coveted the titles. Whatever the reason, the marriage negotiations came to a complete halt. James Butler later married Lady Joan Fitzgerald
, daughter and heiress of James FitzGerald, 10th Earl of Desmond and Amy O'Brien.
Mary Boleyn
, Anne Boleyn's older sister, had earlier been recalled from France in late 1519, ostensibly for her affairs with the French king and his courtiers. She married William Carey, a minor noble, in February 1520, at Greenwich, with Henry VIII in attendance: soon after, Mary Boleyn became the English King's mistress. Historians dispute King Henry VIII's paternity of one or both of Mary Boleyn's children born during this marriage. Henry VIII: The King and His Court, by Alison Weir
, questions the paternity of Henry Carey; Dr. G.W. Bernard (The King's Reformation) and Joanna Denny (Anne Boleyn: A New Life of England's Tragic Queen) argue that Henry VIII was their father. Henry did not acknowledge either child, as he did his son Henry Fitzroy
, his illegitimate son by Elizabeth Blount
, Lady Talboys.
Anne made her début at the Chateau Vert (Green Castle) pageant in honour of the imperial ambassadors on 4 March 1522, playing "Perseverance." There she took part in an elaborate dance accompanying Henry's younger sister Mary, several other ladies of the court, and her sister. All wore gowns of white satin embroidered with gold thread. She quickly established herself as one of the most stylish and accomplished women at the court, and soon a number of young men were competing for her.
The American historian Retha M. Warnicke writes that Anne was "the perfect woman courtier... her carriage was graceful and her French clothes were pleasing and stylish; she danced with ease, had a pleasant singing voice, played the lute and several other musical instruments well, and spoke French fluently... A remarkable, intelligent, quick-witted young noblewoman... that first drew people into conversation with her and then amused and entertained them. In short, her energy and vitality made her the center of attention in any social gathering." Henry VIII's biographer J. J. Scarisbrick adds that Anne "revelled in" the attention she received from her admirers.
During this time, Anne was courted by Henry Percy
, son of the Earl of Northumberland
, and entered into a secret betrothal with the young man. Thomas Wolsey's gentleman usher, George Cavendish, maintained the two had not been lovers. If Cavendish is to be believed, it may be that their relationship wasn't sexual. The romance was broken off when Percy's father refused to support their engagement. According to Cavendish, Anne was sent from court to her family's countryside estates, but it is not known for how long. Upon her return to court, she again entered the service of Catherine of Aragon.
The distinguished courtier-poet Sir Thomas Wyatt
grew up at Allington, an estate nearly adjoining the Boleyn family's estate at Hever Castle
in Kent. Wyatt was estranged from his own wife, and unverifiable romantic legends about Anne and him abound, particularly in the writings of Wyatt's grandson. There is conjecture that some of the most yearning poetry attributed to Wyatt was inspired by their relationship and that it is Anne whom he describes in the sonnet Whoso List to Hunt, as unobtainable, headstrong, and belonging to the King: "noli me tangere for Caesar's I am/And wild for to hold though I seem tame". In 1526 King Henry became enamoured with her and began his pursuit.
Some say that Anne resisted the King's attempts to seduce her, refusing to become his mistress, often leaving court for the seclusion of Hever Castle. But within a year, he proposed marriage to her, and she accepted. Both assumed an annulment could be obtained within a matter of months. There is no evidence to suggest that they engaged in a sexual relationship until very shortly before their marriage; Henry's love letters to Anne seem to suggest that their love affair remained unconsummated for much of their seven year courtship. However, Anne was pregnant by the time of her marriage.
It is probable that the idea of annulment (not divorce as commonly assumed) had suggested itself to Henry much earlier than this and was motivated by his desire for an heir to secure the legitimacy of the Tudor claim to the crown. Before Henry's father Henry VII
ascended the throne, England was beset by civil warfare
over rival claims to the crown and Henry wanted to avoid a similar uncertainty over the succession. He and Catherine had no living sons: all Catherine's children except Mary
died in infancy. Catherine of Aragon had first come to England to be bride to Henry's brother Arthur who died soon after their marriage. Spain and England had, at that time, still wanted a union of their kingdoms, and, in 1509, Henry and Catherine were wed. But this marriage could not take place until the Pope had ruled about a passage in the Leviticus 20:21, which seems to forbid the marriage of a man to his brother's widow lest he and the widow be cursed. The Pope ruled that the passage was inapplicable as Arthur had not had relations with Catherine and so the Pope issued a dispensation
to that effect. However some years and a new Pope later, Henry was re-thinking things. Prodded by Catherine's inability to provide an heir, and possibly by Anne herself, Henry decided that no Pope had a right to overrule the Bible. This meant that he had been living in sin with Catherine of Aragon all these years, though Catherine hotly contested this and refused to concede that her marriage to Arthur had been consummated. It also meant that his daughter Mary was a bastard, and that the new Pope (Clement VII
) must admit the previous Pope's mistake and annul his marriage. Henry's quest for an annulment became euphemistically known as the "King's Great Matter."
Anne saw an opportunity in Henry's infatuation and the convenient moral quandary. She determined that she would yield to his embraces only as his acknowledged queen. She began to take her place at his side in policy and in state, but not, at least not just yet, in his bed. Confusing the issue of whether or not Anne and Henry had a sexual relationship, is the fact that there is no doubt that Anne was pregnant with Elizabeth (born on 7 September 1533) when she and Henry hastily and secretly wed in order to be married when Anne was crowned queen in May, 1533, since any child born before she was queen would not be able to succeed to the throne.
Various are the opinions of scholars and historians as to how deep was Anne's commitment to the Reformation, how much was she perhaps only personally ambitious, and how much she had to do with Henry's defiance of Papal power. There is anecdotal evidence, related to biographer George Wyatt
by her former lady-in-waiting Anne Gainsford
, that Anne brought to Henry's attention a heretical pamphlet, perhaps Tyndale's "The Obedience of the Christian Man" or one by Simon Fish
called "Supplication for Beggars," which cried out to monarchs to rein in the evil excesses of the Catholic Church. She was sympathetic to those seeking further reformation of the Church, and actively protected scholars working on English translations of the scriptures. According to Marie Dowling "Anne tried to educate her waiting-women in scriptural piety” and is believed to have reproved her cousin, Mary Shelton
, for “having ‘idle poesies’ written in her prayer book.” If Cavendish
is to be believed, Anne's outrage at Wolsey may have personalized whatever philosophical defiance she brought with her from France. Further, the most recent edition of Ives
's biography admits that Anne may very well have had a personal spiritual awakening in her youth which spurred her on, not just as catalyst but expediter for Henry's Reformation, though the process took a number of years.
In 1528 sweating sickness
broke out with great severity. In London the mortality rate was great and the court was dispersed. Henry left London, frequently changing his residence; Anne Boleyn retreated to the Boleyn residence at Hever Castle, but contracted the illness; her brother-in-law, William Carey, died. Henry sent his own physician to Hever Castle
to care for her, and shortly afterwards, she recovered. It soon became the one absorbing object of Henry's desires to secure an annulment from Catherine. Henry had set his hopes upon a direct appeal to the Holy See
, acting independently of Cardinal Wolsey, to whom he at first communicated nothing of his plans related to Anne. In 1527 William Knight, the King's secretary, had been sent to Pope Clement VII
to sue for the annulment of his marriage to Catherine, on the grounds that the dispensing bull
of Pope Julius II
permitting him to marry his brother's widow, Catherine, had been obtained under false pretences. Henry also petitioned, in the event of his becoming free, a dispensation to contract a new marriage with any woman even in the first degree of affinity, whether the affinity was contracted by lawful or unlawful connection. This clearly referred to Anne.
As the Pope was, at that time, prisoner of Charles V
, the Holy Roman Emperor
, as a result of the Sack of Rome
in May 1527, Knight had some difficulty obtaining access. In the end he had to return with a conditional dispensation, which Wolsey insisted was technically insufficient. Henry had now no choice but to put his great matter into the hands of Wolsey, who did all he could to secure a decision in Henry's favor. Wolsey went so far as to convene an ecclesiastical court in England, with a special emissary, Lorenzo Campeggio, from the Pope himself to decide the matter. But the Pope never had empowered his deputy to make any decision. The Pope was still a veritable hostage of Charles V, and Charles V was the loyal nephew of Henry's queen, Catherine. The Pope forbade Henry to contract a new marriage until a decision was reached in Rome, not in England. Convinced that Wolsey's loyalties lay with the Pope, not England, Anne, as well as Wolsey's many enemies, ensured his dismissal from public office in 1529. George Cavendish, Wolsey's chamberlain, records that the servants who waited on the king and Anne at dinner in 1529 in Grafton heard her say that the dishonour that Wolsey had brought upon the realm would have cost any other Englishman his head. Henry replied, "Why then I perceive...you are not the Cardinal's friend." Henry finally agreed to Wolsey's arrest on grounds of praemunire
. Had it not been for his death from illness in 1530, he might have been executed for treason
. A year later in 1531 (fully two years before Henry's marriage to Anne), Queen Catherine was banished from court and her rooms were given to Anne.
Public support, however, remained with Queen Catherine. One evening in the autumn of 1531, Anne was dining at a manor house on the river Thames and was almost seized by a crowd of angry women. Anne just managed to escape by boat.
When Archbishop of Canterbury
William Warham
died in 1532, the Boleyn family chaplain, Thomas Cranmer
, was appointed, with papal approval.
In 1532 Thomas Cromwell
brought before Parliament a number of acts including the Supplication against the Ordinaries
and Submission of the Clergy
, which recognised royal supremacy
over the church, thus finalizing the break with Rome. Following these acts, Thomas More
resigned as Chancellor, leaving Cromwell as Henry's chief minister.
During this period, Anne Boleyn did indeed play an important role in England's international position by solidifying an alliance with France. She established an excellent rapport with the French ambassador
, Gilles de la Pommeraie
. Anne and Henry attended a meeting with the French king at Calais in winter 1532, in which Henry hoped to enlist the support of Francis I of France
for his intended marriage. On 1 September 1532, Henry granted her suo jure
the Marquessate of Pembroke
, an appropriate peerage for a future Queen; as such she became a rich and important woman: The three Dukes and two Marquesses who existed in 1532 were the King's brother-in-law, the King's bastard, and other descendants of royalty; she ranked above all other peeresses. The Pembroke lands and the title of Earl of Pembroke
had been held by Henry's great-uncle, and Henry performed the investiture himself.
Anne's family also profited from the relationship. Her father, already Viscount Rochford, was created Earl of Wiltshire
. Henry also came to an arrangement with Anne's Irish cousin and created him Earl of Ormond. At the magnificent banquet to celebrate her father's elevation, Anne took precedence over the Duchesses of Suffolk and Norfolk, seated in the place of honour beside the King which was usually occupied by the Queen. Thanks to Anne's intervention, her widowed sister Mary received an annual pension
of £100, and Mary's son, Henry Carey
, was educated at a prestigious Cistercian monastery.
The conference at Calais was something of a political triumph, but even though the French government gave implicit support for Henry's re-marriage and Francis I
himself held private conference with Anne, the French King maintained alliances with the Pope which he could not explicitly defy.
Soon after returning to Dover
, Henry and Anne married in a secret ceremony. She soon became pregnant and, to legalise the first wedding considered to be unlawful at the time, there was a second wedding service, also private in accordance with The Royal Book, which took place in London on 25 January 1533. Events now began to move at a quick pace. On 23 May 1533, Cranmer (who had been hastened, with the Pope's assent, into the position of Archbishop of Canterbury recently vacated by the convenient death of Warham
) sat in judgment at a special court convened at Dunstable Priory
to rule on the validity of the King's marriage to Catherine of Aragon. He thereupon declared the marriage of Henry and Catherine null and void. Five days later, on 28 May 1533, Cranmer declared the marriage of Henry and Anne to be good and valid.
Catherine was formally stripped of her title as Queen and Anne was consequently crowned queen consort on 1 June 1533 in a magnificent ceremony at Westminster Abbey
with a banquet afterwards. She was the last Queen Consort of England to be crowned separately from her husband. Unlike any other queen consort, Anne was crowned with St Edward's crown, which had previously been used to crown only a reigning monarch. Historian Alice Hunt suggests that this was done because Anne's pregnancy was visible by then and she was carrying the heir who was presumed to be male. On the previous day, Anne had taken part in an elaborate procession
through the streets of London seated in a litter
of "white cloth of gold" that rested on two palfrey
s clothed to the ground in white damask, while the barons of the Cinque Ports
held a canopy of cloth of gold over her head. In accordance with tradition she wore white, and on her head a gold coronet beneath which her long dark hair hung down freely. The public's response to her appearance was lukewarm.
Meanwhile, the House of Commons
had forbidden all appeals to Rome and exacted the penalties of praemunire
against all who introduced papal bulls into England. It was only then that Pope Clement at last took the step of announcing a provisional sentence of excommunication
against the King and Cranmer. He condemned the marriage to Anne, and in March 1534, he declared the marriage to Catherine legal and again ordered Henry to return to her. Henry now required his subjects to swear the oath attached to the First Succession Act, which effectively rejected papal authority in legal matters and recognised Anne Boleyn as queen. Those who refused, such as Sir Thomas More
, who had resigned as Lord Chancellor
, and John Fisher
, Bishop of Rochester, were then placed in the Tower of London
. In late 1534 parliament declared Henry "the only supreme head on earth of the Church of England". The Church in England was now under Henry's control, not Rome's.
, to prepare for the birth of her baby. The child was born slightly premature on 7 September 1533. Between three and four in the afternoon, Anne gave birth to a girl, who was christened Elizabeth
, probably in honour of either or both Anne's mother Elizabeth Howard
and Henry's mother, Elizabeth of York
. But the birth of a girl was a heavy blow to her parents, since they had confidently expected a boy. All but one of the royal physicians and astrologers had predicted a son for them and the French king had already been asked to stand as his godfather. Now the pre-prepared letters announcing the birth of a prince had an s hastily added to them to read princes[s] and the traditional tournament for the birth of an heir was cancelled.
Nevertheless the infant princess was given a splendid christening, but Anne feared that Catherine's daughter, Mary
, now stripped of her title of princess and labelled a bastard
, posed a threat to Elizabeth's position. Henry soothed his wife's fears by separating Mary from her many servants and sending her to Hatfield House
, where Princess Elizabeth would be living with her own sizeable staff of servants, and where the country air was thought better for the baby's health. Anne frequently visited her daughter at Hatfield and other residences.
The new queen had a larger staff of servants than Catherine. There were over 250 servants to tend to her personal needs, everyone from priests to stable-boys. There were over 60 maids-of-honour who served her and accompanied her to social events. She also employed several priests who acted as her confessors
, chaplain
s, and religious advisers. One of these was Matthew Parker
, who would become one of the chief architects of Anglican
thought during the reign of Anne's daughter Elizabeth I.
Anne Boleyn presided over a magnificent court. She spent lavish amounts of money on gowns, jewels, head-dresses, ostrich-feather fans, riding equipment, furniture and upholstery, maintaining the ostentatious display required by her status. Numerous palaces were renovated to suit her and Henry's extravagant tastes. Her motto was "The most happy", and she had chosen a white falcon as her personal device.
Anne was blamed for the tyranny of her husband's government and was referred to by some of her subjects as "The king's whore" or a "naughty paike [prostitute]". Public opinion turned further against her following her failure to produce a son. It sank even lower after the executions of her enemies Sir Thomas More
and Bishop John Fisher
.
On 8 January 1536, news of Catherine of Aragon's death reached the King and Anne. Hearing of her death, they were overjoyed. The following day, Henry and Anne wore yellow, the symbol of joy and celebration in England, from head to toe, and celebrated Catherine's death with festivities. In Spain, the home country of Catherine of Aragon, yellow is the colour of mourning, in addition to black. For this reason, the wearing of yellow by Henry and Anne may have been a symbol of mourning. With Princess Mary's mother dead, Anne, for her part, attempted to make peace with her.
The Queen, pregnant again, was aware of the dangers if she failed to give birth to a son. With Catherine dead, Henry would be free to marry without any taint of illegality. Mary rebuffed Anne's overtures, perhaps because of rumours circulating that Catherine had been poisoned by Anne and/or Henry. These began after the discovery during her embalming that her heart was blackened. Modern medical experts are in agreement that this was not the result of poisoning, but of cancer of the heart
, something which was not understood at the time.
Later that month, the King was unhorsed in a tournament and knocked unconscious for two hours, a worrying incident that Anne believed led to her miscarriage five days later. On the day that Catherine of Aragon was buried at Peterborough Abbey
, Anne miscarried a baby which, according to the imperial ambassador Chapuys
, she had borne for about three and a half months, and which "seemed to be a male child". For Chapuys, this personal loss was the beginning of the end of the royal marriage.
Given Henry's desperate desire for a son, the sequence of Anne's pregnancies has attracted much interest. Author Mike Ashley speculated that Anne had two stillborn children after Elizabeth's birth and before the male child she miscarried in 1536. Most sources attest only to the birth of Elizabeth in September 1533, a possible miscarriage in the summer of 1534, and the miscarriage of a male child, of almost four months gestation, in January 1536. As Anne recovered from her miscarriage, Henry declared that he had been seduced into the marriage by means of "sortilege"—a French term indicating either "deception" or "spells". His new mistress, Jane Seymour
, was quickly moved into royal quarters. This was followed by Anne's brother being refused a prestigious court honour, the Order of the Garter
, given instead to Sir Nicholas Carew
.
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According to author and Tudor historian Alison Weir
, Thomas Cromwell
plotted Anne's downfall while feigning illness and detailing the plot 20–21 April 1536. Anne's biographer Eric Ives
, among others, believes that her fall and execution were engineered by Thomas Cromwell. The conversations between Chapuys and Cromwell thereafter indicate Cromwell as the instigator of the plot to remove Anne; evidence of this is seen in the Spanish Chronicle and through letters written from Chapuys to Charles V. Anne differed with Cromwell over the redistribution of Church revenues and over foreign policy. She advocated that revenues be distributed to charitable and educational institutions; and she favoured a French alliance. Cromwell insisted on filling the King's depleted coffers, while taking a cut for himself, and preferred an imperial alliance. For these reasons, suggests Ives, "Anne Boleyn had become a major threat to Thomas Cromwell." Cromwell's biographer John Schofield, on the other hand, contends that no power struggle existed between Anne and Cromwell and that "not a trace can be found of a Cromwellian conspiracy against Anne ... Cromwell became involved in the royal marital drama only when Henry ordered him onto the case." Cromwell did not manufacture the accusations of adultery, though he and other officials used them to bolster Henry's case against Anne. Historian Retha Warnicke questions whether Cromwell could have manipulated the king in such a matter. Henry himself issued the crucial instructions: his officials, including Cromwell, carried them out. The result, historians agree, was a legal travesty. In order to do so the Master Secretary Cromwell would need sufficient evidence that would be convincing enough for her conviction or risk his own offices and perhaps life.
Towards the end of April a Flemish
musician in Anne's service named Mark Smeaton was arrested, perhaps torture
d or promised freedom. He initially denied being the Queen's lover but later confessed. Another courtier, Sir Henry Norris, was arrested on May Day
, but since he was an aristocrat, he could not be tortured. Prior to his arrest, Norris was treated kindly by the King, who offered him his own horse to use on the May Day festivities. It seems likely that during the festivities the King was notified of Smeaton's confession and it was shortly thereafter the alleged conspirators were arrested upon order of the King. Norris was arrested at the festival. Norris denied his guilt and swore that Queen Anne was innocent. One of the most damaging pieces of evidence against Norris was an overheard conversation with Anne at the end of April, where she accused him of coming often to her chambers not to pay court to her lady-in-waiting Madge Shelton but to herself. Sir Francis Weston
was arrested two days later on the same charge. Sir William Brereton
, a Groom of the King's Privy Chamber, was also apprehended on grounds of adultery. Sir Thomas Wyatt
, a poet and friend of the Boleyns who was allegedly infatuated with her before her marriage to the king, was also imprisoned for the same charge but was later released, most likely due to his friendship or his family's friendship with Cromwell. Sir Richard Page
was also accused of having a sexual relationship with the Queen, but he was acquitted of all charges after further investigation could not implicate him with Anne. The final accused was Queen Anne's own brother, arrested on charges of incest
and treason
, accused of having a sexual relationship with his sister. George Boleyn
was accused of two incidents of incest: November, 1535 at Whitehall and the following month at Eltham.
On 2 May 1536 Anne was arrested and taken to the Tower of London. In the Tower, she collapsed, demanding to know the location of her father and "swete broder", as well as the charges against her.
In what is reputed to be her last letter to King Henry, dated May 6, she wrote:
Four of the accused men were tried in Westminster
on 12 May 1536. Weston, Brereton, and Norris publicly maintained their innocence and only the tortured Smeaton supported the Crown
by pleading guilty. Three days later, Anne and George Boleyn were tried separately in the Tower of London. She was accused of adultery, incest, and high treason
. By the Treason Act of Edward III
adultery on the part of a queen was a form of treason (presumably because of the implications for the succession to the throne) for which the penalty was hanging, drawing and quartering for a man and burning alive for a woman, but the accusations, and especially that of incestuous adultery, were also designed to impugn her moral character. The other form of treason alleged against her was that of plotting the king's death, with her "lovers", so that she might later marry Henry Norris. Henry Percy
, 6th Earl of Northumberland sat on the jury that found Anne guilty. When the verdict was announced, he collapsed and had to be carried from the courtroom. He died eight months later, leaving no heirs and his nephew became the next Earl of Northumberland.
On 14 May, Cranmer declared Anne's marriage to Henry dissolved.
Although the evidence against them was unconvincing, the accused were found guilty under the law and condemned to death by a jury of their peers. George Boleyn and the other accused men were executed on 17 May 1536. Anthony Kingston, the keeper of the Tower, reported Anne seemed very happy and ready to be done with life. The King commuted Anne's sentence from burning to beheading and employed a swordsman from St Omer
for the execution, rather than having a queen beheaded with the common axe. They came for Anne on the morning of 19 May to take her to the Tower Green
. Anthony Kingston
, the Constable of the Tower
, wrote:
However, her impending death may have caused her great sorrow for some time during her imprisonment. The poem "Oh Death Rock Me Asleep
" is generally believed to have been authored by Anne and reveals that she may have hoped death would end her suffering.
Shortly before dawn, she called Kingston to hear mass with her, and swore in his presence, on the eternal salvation of her soul, upon the Holy Sacraments, that she had never been unfaithful to the king. She ritually repeated this oath both immediately before and after receiving the sacrament of the Eucharist
.
On the morning of Friday 19 May, Anne Boleyn was judicially executed, not upon Tower Green, but rather, a scaffold erected on the north side of the White Tower, in front of what is now the Waterloo Barracks. She wore a red petticoat under a loose, dark grey gown of damask trimmed in fur and a mantle of ermine. Accompanied by two female attendants, Anne made her final walk from the Queen's House to the scaffold and she showed a "devilish spirit" and looked "as gay as if she was not going to die". Anne climbed the scaffold and made a short speech to the crowd:
This is one version of her speech, written by Lancelot de Carles in Paris, a few weeks following her death; he had been in London, but did not witness either trial or execution. All the accounts are similar, and undoubtedly correct to varying degrees. It is thought that she avoided criticizing Henry to save Elizabeth and her family from further consequences, but even under such extreme pressure Anne did not confess guilt, in fact subtly implying her innocence, in her appeal to historians who "will meddle of my cause".
She knelt upright, in the French style of executions. Her final prayer consisted of her repeating continually, "To Jesus Christ I commend my soul; Lord Jesus receive my soul." Her ladies removed her headdress and necklaces, and then tied a blindfold over her eyes. Anne Boleyn was executed by French expert swordsman Jean Rombaud. According to Eric W. Ives, Rombaud was so taken by Anne that he was shaken. Rombaud found it so difficult to proceed with the execution that in order to distract her and for her to position her head correctly, he may have shouted, "Where is my sword?" just before killing her.
The execution consisted of a single stroke. It was witnessed by Thomas Cromwell, Charles Brandon, 1st Duke of Suffolk
, the King's illegitimate son, Henry Fitzroy, the Lord Mayor of London, as well as aldermen, sheriffs, and representatives of the various craft guilds. Most of the King's Council were also present. Cranmer, who was at Lambeth Palace
, was reported to have broken down in tears after telling Alexander Ales
: "She who has been the Queen of England on earth will today become a Queen in heaven." When the charges were first brought against Anne, Cranmer had expressed his astonishment to Henry and his belief that "she should not be culpable." Still, Cranmer felt vulnerable because of his closeness to the queen. On the night before the execution, he had declared Henry's marriage to Anne to have been void, like Catherine's before her. He made no serious attempt to save Anne's life, although some sources record that he had prepared her for death by hearing her last private confession of sins, in which she had stated her innocence before God. However, on the day of her death a Scottish friend found Cranmer weeping uncontrollably in his London gardens, saying that he was sure that Anne had now gone to Heaven.
Henry failed to have organised any kind of funeral or even provide a proper coffin for her. Her body lay on the scaffold for some time before a man (believed to be working inside the Tower) found an empty arrow chest and placed her head and body inside. She was then buried in an unmarked grave in the Chapel of St Peter ad Vincula. Her skeleton was identified during renovations of the chapel in the reign of Queen Victoria
and Anne's resting place is now marked in the marble floor.
born c. 1530, was committed to deposing Elizabeth I and re-establishing Roman Catholicism in England. In his De Origine ac Progressu schismatis Anglicani (The Rise and Growth of the Anglican Schism), published in 1585, he was the first to write that Anne had six fingers on her right hand. Since physical deformities were generally interpreted as a sign of evil, it is unlikely that Anne Boleyn would have gained Henry's romantic attention had she had any. Upon exhumation in 1876, no abnormalities were discovered. Her frame was described as delicate, approximately 5'3", with finely formed, tapering fingers.
Anne Boleyn was described by contemporaries as intelligent and gifted in musical arts and scholarly pursuits. She was also strong-willed and proud, and often quarreled with Henry. Biographer Eric Ives evaluates the apparent contradictions in Anne's persona:
No contemporary portraits of Anne Boleyn survive. The only likeness is a medal struck in 1534 to commemorate her second pregnancy, though it appears to be severely damaged.
Following the coronation of her daughter as queen, Anne was venerated as a martyr and heroine of the English Reformation, particularly through the works of John Foxe
, who argued that Anne had saved England from the evils of Roman Catholicism and that God had provided proof of her innocence and virtue by making sure her daughter Elizabeth I became Queen regnant. An example of Anne's direct influence in the reformed church is what Alexander Ales described to Queen Elizabeth as the "evangelical bishops whom your holy mother appointed from among those scholars who favoured the purer doctrine". Over the centuries, Anne has inspired or been mentioned in numerous artistic and cultural works
. As a result, she has remained in the popular memory and Anne has been called "the most influential and important queen consort England has ever had."
(Arwarton) Church, Suffolk
by her uncle Sir Philip Parker.
In 18th century Sicily
the peasants of Nicolosi
believed that Anne Boleyn, for having made Henry VIII a heretic, was condemned to burn for eternity inside Mount Etna
. This legend was often told for the benefit of foreign travellers.
A number of people have claimed to have seen Anne's ghost
at Hever Castle
, Blickling Hall
, Salle Church, Tower of London, and Marwell Hall. The most famous account of her reputed sighting has been described by paranormal researcher
Hans Holzer
. In 1864, Major General J.D. Dundas of the 60th Rifles
regiment was quartered in the Tower of London. As he was looking out the window of his quarters, he noticed a guard below in the courtyard, in front of the lodgings where Anne had been imprisoned, behaving strangely. He appeared to challenge something, which to the General "looked like a whitish, female figure sliding towards the soldier". The guard charged through the form with his bayonet, then fainted. Only the General's testimony and corroboration at the court-martial
saved the guard from a lengthy prison sentence for having fainted while on duty. In 1960, Canon W. S. Pakenham-Walsh
, vicar of Sulgrave
, Northamptonshire
, reported having conversations with Boleyn.
|-
c.1501/1507 – 19 May 1536) was Queen of England from 1533 to 1536 as the second wife
Wives of Henry VIII
The wives of Henry VIII were the six queens consort married to Henry VIII of England between 1509 and 1547. The six women to hold the title 'queens consort' of King Henry VIII were, in order:* Catherine of Aragon ,* Anne Boleyn ,...
of Henry VIII of England
Henry VIII of England
Henry VIII was King of England from 21 April 1509 until his death. He was Lord, and later King, of Ireland, as well as continuing the nominal claim by the English monarchs to the Kingdom of France...
and Marquess of Pembroke
Marquess of Pembroke
Marquess of Pembroke was a title in the Peerage of England created by King Henry VIII of England for his mistress and future spouse, Anne Boleyn. It was the first hereditary peerage title granted to a woman.- Background :...
in her own right. Henry's marriage to Anne, and her subsequent execution, made her a key figure in the political and religious upheaval that was the start of the English Reformation
English Reformation
The English Reformation was the series of events in 16th-century England by which the Church of England broke away from the authority of the Pope and the Roman Catholic Church....
. A commoner, Anne was the daughter of Thomas Boleyn, 1st Earl of Wiltshire
Thomas Boleyn, 1st Earl of Wiltshire
Thomas Boleyn, 1st Earl of Wiltshire, KG was an English diplomat and politician in the Tudor era. He was born at the family home, Hever Castle, Kent, which had been purchased by his grandfather Geoffrey Boleyn, who was a wealthy mercer. He was buried at St. Peter's parish church in the village of...
and his wife, Lady Elizabeth Howard
Elizabeth Boleyn, Countess of Wiltshire
Elizabeth Boleyn, Countess of Wiltshire , born Lady Elizabeth Howard, was the eldest of the two daughters of Thomas Howard, 2nd Duke of Norfolk and his first wife Elizabeth Tilney. Through her marriage, she held the titles of Countess of Wiltshire, Countess of Ormond and Viscountess Rochford...
, and was educated in the Netherlands
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
and France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, largely as a maid of honour to Claude of France
Claude of France
Claude of France was a princess and queen consort of France and ruling Duchess of Brittany. She was the eldest daughter of Louis XII of France and Anne, Duchess of Brittany....
. She returned to England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
in early 1522, in order to marry her Irish
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
cousin James Butler, 9th Earl of Ormond; however, the marriage plans ended in failure and she secured a post at court as maid of honour to Henry VIII's queen consort, Catherine of Aragon
Catherine of Aragon
Catherine of Aragon , also known as Katherine or Katharine, was Queen consort of England as the first wife of King Henry VIII of England and Princess of Wales as the wife to Arthur, Prince of Wales...
.
Early in 1523 there was a secret betrothal between Anne and Henry Percy
Henry Percy, 6th Earl of Northumberland
Henry Percy, 6th Earl of Northumberland, KG was an English nobleman, active as a military officer in the north. He is now primarily remembered as the betrothed of Anne Boleyn, whom he was forced to give up before she became involved with King Henry VIII.-Early life:He was eldest son of Henry...
son of the 5th Earl of Northumberland. However, in January of 1524 Cardinal Thomas Wolsey broke the betrothal, Anne was sent back home to Hever Castle
Hever Castle
Hever Castle is located in the village of Hever near Edenbridge, Kent, south-east of London, England. It began as a country house, built in the 13th century...
, and Percy was married to Lady Mary Talbot, to whom he had been betrothed since adolescence. In February/ March of 1526 Henry VIII began courtly pursuit of Anne. She resisted his attempts to seduce her, refusing to become his mistress as her sister Mary
Mary Boleyn
Mary Boleyn , was the sister of English queen consort Anne Boleyn and a member of the Boleyn family, which enjoyed considerable influence during the reign of King Henry VIII of England...
had. It soon became the one absorbing object of Henry's desires to annul
Annulment
Annulment is a legal procedure for declaring a marriage null and void. Unlike divorce, it is usually retroactive, meaning that an annulled marriage is considered to be invalid from the beginning almost as if it had never taken place...
his marriage to Queen Catherine so he would be free to marry Anne. When it became clear that Pope Clement VII
Pope Clement VII
Clement VII , born Giulio di Giuliano de' Medici, was a cardinal from 1513 to 1523 and was Pope from 1523 to 1534.-Early life:...
would not annul the marriage, the breaking of the power of the Catholic Church in England began. In 1532, Henry granted her the Marquesate of Pembroke
Marquess of Pembroke
Marquess of Pembroke was a title in the Peerage of England created by King Henry VIII of England for his mistress and future spouse, Anne Boleyn. It was the first hereditary peerage title granted to a woman.- Background :...
.
Henry and Anne married on 25 January 1533. On 23 May 1533 Thomas Cranmer
Thomas Cranmer
Thomas Cranmer was a leader of the English Reformation and Archbishop of Canterbury during the reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI and, for a short time, Mary I. He helped build a favourable case for Henry's divorce from Catherine of Aragon which resulted in the separation of the English Church from...
declared Henry and Catherine's marriage null and void; five days later, he declared Henry and Anne's marriage to be good and valid. Shortly afterwards, the Pope decreed sentences of excommunication
Excommunication
Excommunication is a religious censure used to deprive, suspend or limit membership in a religious community. The word means putting [someone] out of communion. In some religions, excommunication includes spiritual condemnation of the member or group...
against Henry and Cranmer. As a result of this marriage and these excommunications, the first break between the Church of England
Church of England
The Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England and the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The church considers itself within the tradition of Western Christianity and dates its formal establishment principally to the mission to England by St...
and Rome took place and the Church of England was brought under the King's control. Anne was crowned Queen of England on 1 June 1533. On 7 September she gave birth to the future Elizabeth I of England
Elizabeth I of England
Elizabeth I was queen regnant of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death. Sometimes called The Virgin Queen, Gloriana, or Good Queen Bess, Elizabeth was the fifth and last monarch of the Tudor dynasty...
. To Henry's displeasure, however, she failed to produce a male heir. Henry was not totally discouraged, for he said that he loved Elizabeth and that a son would surely follow. Three miscarriages followed, however, and by March 1536, Henry was courting Jane Seymour
Jane Seymour
Jane Seymour was Queen of England as the third wife of King Henry VIII. She succeeded Anne Boleyn as queen consort following the latter's execution for trumped up charges of high treason, incest and adultery in May 1536. She died of postnatal complications less than two weeks after the birth of...
.
Henry had Anne investigated for high treason
High treason
High treason is criminal disloyalty to one's government. Participating in a war against one's native country, attempting to overthrow its government, spying on its military, its diplomats, or its secret services for a hostile and foreign power, or attempting to kill its head of state are perhaps...
in April 1536. On 2 May she was arrested and sent to the Tower of London
Tower of London
Her Majesty's Royal Palace and Fortress, more commonly known as the Tower of London, is a historic castle on the north bank of the River Thames in central London, England. It lies within the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, separated from the eastern edge of the City of London by the open space...
, where she was tried before a jury of peers and found guilty on 15 May. She was beheaded four days later on Tower Green. Modern historians view the charges against her, which included adultery
Adultery
Adultery is sexual infidelity to one's spouse, and is a form of extramarital sex. It originally referred only to sex between a woman who was married and a person other than her spouse. Even in cases of separation from one's spouse, an extramarital affair is still considered adultery.Adultery is...
and incest
Incest
Incest is sexual intercourse between close relatives that is usually illegal in the jurisdiction where it takes place and/or is conventionally considered a taboo. The term may apply to sexual activities between: individuals of close "blood relationship"; members of the same household; step...
, as unconvincing. Following the coronation of her daughter, Elizabeth, as queen, Anne was venerated as a martyr and heroine of the English Reformation, particularly through the works of John Foxe
John Foxe
John Foxe was an English historian and martyrologist, the author of what is popularly known as Foxe's Book of Martyrs, , an account of Christian martyrs throughout Western history but emphasizing the sufferings of English Protestants and proto-Protestants from the fourteenth century through the...
. Over the centuries, she has inspired or been mentioned in numerous artistic and cultural works
Anne Boleyn in popular culture
Anne Boleyn, the second wife of King Henry VIII of England, has inspired or been mentioned in numerous artistic and cultural works. The following lists cover various media, enduring works of high art, and recent representations in popular culture, film and fiction...
. As a result, she has retained her hold on the popular imagination. Anne has been called "the most influential and important queen consort
Queen consort
A queen consort is the wife of a reigning king. A queen consort usually shares her husband's rank and holds the feminine equivalent of the king's monarchical titles. Historically, queens consort do not share the king regnant's political and military powers. Most queens in history were queens consort...
England has ever had," since she provided the occasion for Henry VIII to divorce Catherine of Aragon, and declare his independence from Rome.
Early years
Anne was the daughter of Thomas BoleynThomas Boleyn, 1st Earl of Wiltshire
Thomas Boleyn, 1st Earl of Wiltshire, KG was an English diplomat and politician in the Tudor era. He was born at the family home, Hever Castle, Kent, which had been purchased by his grandfather Geoffrey Boleyn, who was a wealthy mercer. He was buried at St. Peter's parish church in the village of...
, later Earl of Wiltshire
Earl of Wiltshire
The title Earl of Wiltshire is one of the oldest in the Peerage of England, going back to the 12th century. It is currently held by the Marquess of Winchester, and is used as a courtesy title for the eldest son of the marquess....
and Earl of Ormond, and his wife, Lady Elizabeth Howard
Elizabeth Boleyn, Countess of Wiltshire
Elizabeth Boleyn, Countess of Wiltshire , born Lady Elizabeth Howard, was the eldest of the two daughters of Thomas Howard, 2nd Duke of Norfolk and his first wife Elizabeth Tilney. Through her marriage, she held the titles of Countess of Wiltshire, Countess of Ormond and Viscountess Rochford...
, daughter of Thomas Howard, 2nd Duke of Norfolk
Thomas Howard, 2nd Duke of Norfolk
Thomas Howard, 2nd Duke of Norfolk, KG, Earl Marshal , styled Earl of Surrey from 1483 to 1514, was the only son of John Howard, 1st Duke of Norfolk by his first wife, Katherine Moleyns...
. Thomas Boleyn was a respected diplomat with a gift for languages; he was also a favourite of Henry VII of England
Henry VII of England
Henry VII was King of England and Lord of Ireland from his seizing the crown on 22 August 1485 until his death on 21 April 1509, as the first monarch of the House of Tudor....
, who sent him on many diplomatic missions abroad. Anne and her siblings grew up at Hever Castle in Kent. A lack of parish records from the period has made it impossible to establish Anne's date of birth. Contemporary evidence is contradictory, with several dates having been put forward by various historians. An Italian, writing in 1600, suggested that she had been born in 1499, while Sir Thomas More
Thomas More
Sir Thomas More , also known by Catholics as Saint Thomas More, was an English lawyer, social philosopher, author, statesman and noted Renaissance humanist. He was an important councillor to Henry VIII of England and, for three years toward the end of his life, Lord Chancellor...
's son-in-law, William Roper, indicated a much later date of 1512. However her birth was most likely sometime between 1501 and 1507. As with Anne herself, it is uncertain when her two siblings were born, but it seems clear that her sister Mary was older than Anne. Mary's children clearly believed their mother had been the elder sister. Most historians now agree that Mary was born in 1499. Mary's grandson claimed the Ormonde title in 1596 on the basis she was the elder daughter, which Elizabeth I accepted. Also, Mary was married first, and by custom, the eldest daughter would be married before the younger. Their brother George
George Boleyn, Viscount Rochford
George Boleyn, Viscount Rochford was an English courtier and nobleman, and the brother of queen consort Anne Boleyn...
was born some time around 1504.
Retha Warnicke
Retha Marvine Warnicke is an American historian and Professor of History at Arizona State University. Warnicke graduated with a B.A. from Indiana University, magna cum laude, in 1961. She then moved on to Harvard University, where she earned her M.A. and Ph.D. in 1963 and 1969, respectively...
, an American scholar who has also written a biography of Anne, prefers 1507. The key piece of surviving written evidence is a letter Anne wrote sometime in 1514. She wrote it in French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
to her father, who was still living in England while Anne was completing her education at Mechelen
Mechelen
Mechelen Footnote: Mechelen became known in English as 'Mechlin' from which the adjective 'Mechlinian' is derived...
, in the contemporary Netherlands
Burgundian Netherlands
In the history of the Low Countries, the Burgundian Netherlands refers to a number of Imperial and French fiefs ruled in personal union by the House of Valois-Burgundy and their Habsburg heirs in the period from 1384 to 1482...
, now Belgium
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
. Ives argues that the style of the letter and its mature handwriting prove that Anne must have been about thirteen at the time of its composition, while Warnicke argues that the numerous misspellings and grammar errors show that the letter was written by a child. In Ives's view this would also be around the minimum age that a girl could be a Maid of Honour, as Anne was to the regent, Margaret of Austria, Duchess of Savoy. This is supported by claims by a chronicler from the late 16th century, who wrote that Anne was twenty when she returned from France
Early Modern France
Kingdom of France is the early modern period of French history from the end of the 15th century to the end of the 18th century...
.
These findings are contested by Warnicke in several books and articles, but the evidence does not conclusively support either date.
Anne's great-grandparents included a Lord Mayor of London
Lord Mayor of London
The Right Honourable Lord Mayor of London is the legal title for the Mayor of the City of London Corporation. The Lord Mayor of London is to be distinguished from the Mayor of London; the former is an officer only of the City of London, while the Mayor of London is the Mayor of Greater London and...
, a duke
Duke
A duke or duchess is a member of the nobility, historically of highest rank below the monarch, and historically controlling a duchy...
, an earl
Earl
An earl is a member of the nobility. The title is Anglo-Saxon, akin to the Scandinavian form jarl, and meant "chieftain", particularly a chieftain set to rule a territory in a king's stead. In Scandinavia, it became obsolete in the Middle Ages and was replaced with duke...
, two aristocratic
Aristocracy (class)
The aristocracy are people considered to be in the highest social class in a society which has or once had a political system of Aristocracy. Aristocrats possess hereditary titles granted by a monarch, which once granted them feudal or legal privileges, or deriving, as in Ancient Greece and India,...
ladies, and a knight
Knight
A knight was a member of a class of lower nobility in the High Middle Ages.By the Late Middle Ages, the rank had become associated with the ideals of chivalry, a code of conduct for the perfect courtly Christian warrior....
. One of
them, Geoffrey Boleyn, had been a mercer
Merchant
A merchant is a businessperson who trades in commodities that were produced by others, in order to earn a profit.Merchants can be one of two types:# A wholesale merchant operates in the chain between producer and retail merchant...
and wool merchant before becoming Lord Mayor. The Boleyn family originally came from Blickling
Blickling
Blickling is a village and civil parish in the Broadland district of Norfolk, England, about north-west of Aylsham on the B1354 road. According to the 2001 census it had a population of 136 and covers . Since the 17th century the village has been concentrated in two areas, around the church and...
in Norfolk, fifteen miles north of Norwich. At the time of Anne's
birth, the Boleyn family was considered one of the most respected in the English aristocracy. Among her relatives, she numbered the Howards, one of the
pre-eminent families in the land; and one of her ancestors included King Edward I of England
Edward I of England
Edward I , also known as Edward Longshanks and the Hammer of the Scots, was King of England from 1272 to 1307. The first son of Henry III, Edward was involved early in the political intrigues of his father's reign, which included an outright rebellion by the English barons...
. According to Eric Ives, she was certainly of more noble birth
than Jane Seymour
Jane Seymour
Jane Seymour was Queen of England as the third wife of King Henry VIII. She succeeded Anne Boleyn as queen consort following the latter's execution for trumped up charges of high treason, incest and adultery in May 1536. She died of postnatal complications less than two weeks after the birth of...
, Catherine Howard
Catherine Howard
Catherine Howard , also spelled Katherine, Katheryn or Kathryn, was the fifth wife of Henry VIII of England, and sometimes known by his reference to her as his "rose without a thorn"....
, and Catherine Parr
Catherine Parr
Catherine Parr ; 1512 – 5 September 1548) was Queen consort of England and Ireland and the last of the six wives of King Henry VIII of England. She married Henry VIII on 12 July 1543. She was the fourth commoner Henry had taken as his consort, and outlived him...
, Henry VIII's three other English wives. The spelling of the Boleyn name was variable. Sometimes it was written as Bullen, hence the bull heads which
formed part of her family arms. At the court of Margaret of Austria in the Netherlands, Anne is listed as Boullan.
From there she signed the letter to her father as Anna de Boullan. She is also
referred to as "Anna Bolina" (which is Latin); that name is in most portraits of her.
Anne's early education was typical for women of her class. Her academic education was limited to arithmetic, her family genealogy, grammar, history, reading, spelling, and writing. She developed domestic skills such as dancing, embroidery, good manners, household management, music, needlework, and singing. Anne learned to play games, such as cards, chess, and dice. She was also taught archery, falconry, horseback riding, and hunting.
Netherlands and France
Anne's father continued his diplomatic career under Henry VIII. In Europe Thomas Boleyn's charm won many admirers, including Archduchess Margaret of Austria, daughter of Maximilian I, Holy Roman EmperorMaximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor
Maximilian I , the son of Frederick III, Holy Roman Emperor and Eleanor of Portugal, was King of the Romans from 1486 and Holy Roman Emperor from 1493 until his death, though he was never in fact crowned by the Pope, the journey to Rome always being too risky...
. During this period, she ruled the Netherlands on her father's behalf and was so impressed with Boleyn that she offered his daughter Anne a place in her household. Ordinarily, a girl had to be twelve years old to have such an honour, but Anne may have been younger, as the Archduchess affectionately referred to her as "la petite Boulin [sic]". Anne made a good impression in the Netherlands with her manners and studiousness, Margaret reported that she was well spoken and pleasant for her young age ("son josne eaige"). and told Sir Thomas Boleyn that his daughter was "so presentable and so pleasant, considering her youthful age, that I am more beholden to you for sending her to me, than you to me" (E.W. Ives, op.cit.). Anne stayed with Margaret from spring 1513 until her father arranged for her to attend Henry VIII's sister, Mary Tudor, Queen of France, for Mary's marriage to Louis XII of France
Louis XII of France
Louis proved to be a popular king. At the end of his reign the crown deficit was no greater than it had been when he succeeded Charles VIII in 1498, despite several expensive military campaigns in Italy. His fiscal reforms of 1504 and 1508 tightened and improved procedures for the collection of taxes...
in October 1514.
In France Anne was a maid of honour to Queen Mary, and then to 15-year-old Queen Claude of France, with whom she stayed nearly seven years. In the Queen's household she completed her study of French and developed interests in fashion and religious philosophy. She also acquired knowledge of French culture
Culture of France
The culture of France and of the French people has been shaped by geography, by profound historical events, and by foreign and internal forces and groups. France, and in particular Paris, has played an important role as a center of high culture and of decorative arts since the seventeenth...
and etiquette
Etiquette
Etiquette is a code of behavior that delineates expectations for social behavior according to contemporary conventional norms within a society, social class, or group...
. Though all knowledge about Anne's experiences in the French court are conjecture, even Eric Ives, in his latest edition of the biography, conjectures that she was likely to have made the acquaintance of King Francis I
Francis I of France
Francis I was King of France from 1515 until his death. During his reign, huge cultural changes took place in France and he has been called France's original Renaissance monarch...
's sister, Marguerite de Navarre
Marguerite de Navarre
Marguerite de Navarre , also known as Marguerite of Angoulême and Margaret of Navarre, was the queen consort of Henry II of Navarre...
, a patron of humanists and reformers. Marguerite de Navarre was also an author in her own right, and her works include elements of Christian mysticism and reform that, but for her protection as the French king's beloved sister, verged on heresy. She or her circle may have encouraged Anne's interest in reform, as well as in poetry and literature. Anne's education in France proved itself in later years, inspiring many new trends among the ladies and courtiers of England, and it may have been instrumental in pressing their King toward the culture-shattering contretemps with the Papacy itself. Eric Ives's latest version of his biography hypothesizes that Anne may have had evangelist conviction and a strong spiritual inner life. William Forrest, author of a contemporary poem about Catherine of Aragon
Catherine of Aragon
Catherine of Aragon , also known as Katherine or Katharine, was Queen consort of England as the first wife of King Henry VIII of England and Princess of Wales as the wife to Arthur, Prince of Wales...
, complimented Anne's "passing excellent" skill as a dancer. "Here", he wrote, "was [a] fresh young damsel, that could trip and go."
Anne exerted a powerful charm on those who met her, though opinions differed on her attractiveness. The Venetian diarist Marino Sanuto, who saw Anne when Henry VIII met Francis I at Calais in October 1532, described her as "not one of the handsomest women in the world; she is of middling stature, swarthy complexion, long neck, wide mouth, bosom not much raised ... eyes, which are black and beautiful". Simon Grynée wrote to Martin Bucer
Martin Bucer
Martin Bucer was a Protestant reformer based in Strasbourg who influenced Lutheran, Calvinist, and Anglican doctrines and practices. Bucer was originally a member of the Dominican Order, but after meeting and being influenced by Martin Luther in 1518 he arranged for his monastic vows to be annulled...
in September 1531 that Anne was "young, good-looking, of a rather dark complexion". Lancelot de Carles called her "beautiful with an elegant figure", and a Venetian in Paris in 1528 also reported that she was said to be beautiful. The most influential description of Anne, but also the least reliable, was written by the Catholic propagandist and polemicist Nicholas Sanders
Nicholas Sanders
Nicholas Sanders was an English Roman Catholic priest and polemicist.-Early life:Sanders was born at Chariwood , Surrey, the son of William Sanders, once sheriff of Surrey, who was descended from the Sanders of Sanderstead...
in 1586, half a century after Anne's death: "Anne Boleyn was rather tall of stature, with black hair, and an oval face of a sallow complexion, as if troubled with jaundice. It is said she had a projecting tooth under the upper lip, and on her right hand six fingers. There was a large wen
Sebaceous cyst
A sebaceous cyst is a term that loosely refers to either epidermoid cysts or pilar cysts . Because an epidermoid cyst originates in the epidermis and a pilar cyst originates from hair follicles, by definition, neither type of cyst is strictly a sebaceous cyst...
under her chin, and therefore to hide its ugliness she wore a high dress covering her throat ... She was handsome to look at, with a pretty mouth". Sanders held Anne responsible for Henry VIII's rejection of the Catholic church, and writing fifty years after her death, was keen to demonize her. Sanders's description contributed to what biographer Eric Ives calls the "monster legend" of Anne Boleyn. Though his details were fictitious, they have formed the basis for references to Anne's appearance even in some modern textbooks.
Anne's experience in France made her a devout Christian
Christian
A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...
in the new tradition of Renaissance humanism
Renaissance humanism
Renaissance humanism was an activity of cultural and educational reform engaged by scholars, writers, and civic leaders who are today known as Renaissance humanists. It developed during the fourteenth and the beginning of the fifteenth centuries, and was a response to the challenge of Mediæval...
. Anne knew little Latin but, trained at a French court, she was influenced by an “evangelical variety of French humanism” which led her to champion the vernacular Bible. While she would later hold the reformist position that the papacy was a corrupting influence on Christianity
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
, her conservative tendencies could be seen in her devotion to the Virgin Mary
Mary (mother of Jesus)
Mary , commonly referred to as "Saint Mary", "Mother Mary", the "Virgin Mary", the "Blessed Virgin Mary", or "Mary, Mother of God", was a Jewish woman of Nazareth in Galilee...
. Anne's European education ended in 1521, when her father summoned her back to England. She sailed from Calais
Calais
Calais is a town in Northern France in the department of Pas-de-Calais, of which it is a sub-prefecture. Although Calais is by far the largest city in Pas-de-Calais, the department's capital is its third-largest city of Arras....
in January 1522.
At the court of Henry VIII: 1522–1533
Anne was recalled to marry her Irish cousin, James Butler, a young man who was several years older than she was and who was living at the English court, in an attempt to settle a dispute over the title and estates of the Earldom of Ormond. The 7th Earl of Ormond died in 1515, leaving his daughters, Margaret Boleyn and Anne St Leger, as co-heiresses. In Ireland the great-great-grandson of the 3rd earl, Sir Piers Butler, contested the will and claimed the Earldom himself. He was already in possession of Kilkenny CastleKilkenny Castle
Kilkenny Castle is a castle in Kilkenny, Ireland built in 1195 by William Marshal, 1st Earl of Pembroke to control a fording-point of the River Nore and the junction of several routeways...
- the ancestral seat of the earls. Sir Thomas Boleyn, being the son of the eldest daughter, felt the title belonged to him and protested to his brother-in-law, the Duke of Norfolk
Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk
Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk, KG, Earl Marshal was a prominent Tudor politician. He was uncle to Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard, two of the wives of King Henry VIII, and played a major role in the machinations behind these marriages...
, who spoke to King Henry about the matter. Henry, fearful the dispute could be the spark to ignite civil war
Civil war
A civil war is a war between organized groups within the same nation state or republic, or, less commonly, between two countries created from a formerly-united nation state....
in Ireland, sought to resolve the matter by arranging an alliance between Piers's son, James, and Anne Boleyn. She would bring her Ormond inheritance as dowry and thus end the dispute. The plan ended in failure, perhaps because Sir Thomas hoped for a grander marriage for his daughter or because he himself coveted the titles. Whatever the reason, the marriage negotiations came to a complete halt. James Butler later married Lady Joan Fitzgerald
Joan Fitzgerald, Countess of Ormond
Joan Fitzgerald, Countess of Ormond, Countess of Desmond was a Norman-Irish noblewoman and heiress, a member of the Fitzgerald family, who were also known as the "Geraldines". She married three times...
, daughter and heiress of James FitzGerald, 10th Earl of Desmond and Amy O'Brien.
Mary Boleyn
Mary Boleyn
Mary Boleyn , was the sister of English queen consort Anne Boleyn and a member of the Boleyn family, which enjoyed considerable influence during the reign of King Henry VIII of England...
, Anne Boleyn's older sister, had earlier been recalled from France in late 1519, ostensibly for her affairs with the French king and his courtiers. She married William Carey, a minor noble, in February 1520, at Greenwich, with Henry VIII in attendance: soon after, Mary Boleyn became the English King's mistress. Historians dispute King Henry VIII's paternity of one or both of Mary Boleyn's children born during this marriage. Henry VIII: The King and His Court, by Alison Weir
Alison Weir
Alison Weir is a British writer of history books, and latterly historical novels, mostly in the form of biographies about British royalty.-Personal life:...
, questions the paternity of Henry Carey; Dr. G.W. Bernard (The King's Reformation) and Joanna Denny (Anne Boleyn: A New Life of England's Tragic Queen) argue that Henry VIII was their father. Henry did not acknowledge either child, as he did his son Henry Fitzroy
Henry FitzRoy, 1st Duke of Richmond and Somerset
Henry FitzRoy, 1st Duke of Richmond and Somerset was the son of King Henry VIII of England and his teenage mistress, Elizabeth Blount, the only illegitimate offspring whom Henry acknowledged.-Childhood:...
, his illegitimate son by Elizabeth Blount
Elizabeth Blount
Elizabeth Blount , who was better known by her nickname of "Bessie", was a mistress of Henry VIII of England.-Early life:She was the daughter of Sir John Blount and Catherine Pershall, of Kinlet, Bridgnorth, Shropshire...
, Lady Talboys.
Anne made her début at the Chateau Vert (Green Castle) pageant in honour of the imperial ambassadors on 4 March 1522, playing "Perseverance." There she took part in an elaborate dance accompanying Henry's younger sister Mary, several other ladies of the court, and her sister. All wore gowns of white satin embroidered with gold thread. She quickly established herself as one of the most stylish and accomplished women at the court, and soon a number of young men were competing for her.
The American historian Retha M. Warnicke writes that Anne was "the perfect woman courtier... her carriage was graceful and her French clothes were pleasing and stylish; she danced with ease, had a pleasant singing voice, played the lute and several other musical instruments well, and spoke French fluently... A remarkable, intelligent, quick-witted young noblewoman... that first drew people into conversation with her and then amused and entertained them. In short, her energy and vitality made her the center of attention in any social gathering." Henry VIII's biographer J. J. Scarisbrick adds that Anne "revelled in" the attention she received from her admirers.
During this time, Anne was courted by Henry Percy
Henry Percy, 6th Earl of Northumberland
Henry Percy, 6th Earl of Northumberland, KG was an English nobleman, active as a military officer in the north. He is now primarily remembered as the betrothed of Anne Boleyn, whom he was forced to give up before she became involved with King Henry VIII.-Early life:He was eldest son of Henry...
, son of the Earl of Northumberland
Earl of Northumberland
The title of Earl of Northumberland was created several times in the Peerages of England and Great Britain, succeeding the title Earl of Northumbria. Its most famous holders were the House of Percy , who were the most powerful noble family in Northern England for much of the Middle Ages...
, and entered into a secret betrothal with the young man. Thomas Wolsey's gentleman usher, George Cavendish, maintained the two had not been lovers. If Cavendish is to be believed, it may be that their relationship wasn't sexual. The romance was broken off when Percy's father refused to support their engagement. According to Cavendish, Anne was sent from court to her family's countryside estates, but it is not known for how long. Upon her return to court, she again entered the service of Catherine of Aragon.
The distinguished courtier-poet Sir Thomas Wyatt
Thomas Wyatt (poet)
Sir Thomas Wyatt was a 16th-century English lyrical poet credited with introducing the sonnet into English. He was born at Allington Castle, near Maidstone in Kent – though his family was originally from Yorkshire...
grew up at Allington, an estate nearly adjoining the Boleyn family's estate at Hever Castle
Hever Castle
Hever Castle is located in the village of Hever near Edenbridge, Kent, south-east of London, England. It began as a country house, built in the 13th century...
in Kent. Wyatt was estranged from his own wife, and unverifiable romantic legends about Anne and him abound, particularly in the writings of Wyatt's grandson. There is conjecture that some of the most yearning poetry attributed to Wyatt was inspired by their relationship and that it is Anne whom he describes in the sonnet Whoso List to Hunt, as unobtainable, headstrong, and belonging to the King: "noli me tangere for Caesar's I am/And wild for to hold though I seem tame". In 1526 King Henry became enamoured with her and began his pursuit.
Some say that Anne resisted the King's attempts to seduce her, refusing to become his mistress, often leaving court for the seclusion of Hever Castle. But within a year, he proposed marriage to her, and she accepted. Both assumed an annulment could be obtained within a matter of months. There is no evidence to suggest that they engaged in a sexual relationship until very shortly before their marriage; Henry's love letters to Anne seem to suggest that their love affair remained unconsummated for much of their seven year courtship. However, Anne was pregnant by the time of her marriage.
Henry's annulment
Henry VII of England
Henry VII was King of England and Lord of Ireland from his seizing the crown on 22 August 1485 until his death on 21 April 1509, as the first monarch of the House of Tudor....
ascended the throne, England was beset by civil warfare
Wars of the Roses
The Wars of the Roses were a series of dynastic civil wars for the throne of England fought between supporters of two rival branches of the royal House of Plantagenet: the houses of Lancaster and York...
over rival claims to the crown and Henry wanted to avoid a similar uncertainty over the succession. He and Catherine had no living sons: all Catherine's children except Mary
Mary I of England
Mary I was queen regnant of England and Ireland from July 1553 until her death.She was the only surviving child born of the ill-fated marriage of Henry VIII and his first wife Catherine of Aragon. Her younger half-brother, Edward VI, succeeded Henry in 1547...
died in infancy. Catherine of Aragon had first come to England to be bride to Henry's brother Arthur who died soon after their marriage. Spain and England had, at that time, still wanted a union of their kingdoms, and, in 1509, Henry and Catherine were wed. But this marriage could not take place until the Pope had ruled about a passage in the Leviticus 20:21, which seems to forbid the marriage of a man to his brother's widow lest he and the widow be cursed. The Pope ruled that the passage was inapplicable as Arthur had not had relations with Catherine and so the Pope issued a dispensation
Dispensation (Catholic Church)
In the canon law of the Roman Catholic Church, a dispensation is the suspension by competent authority of general rules of law in particular cases...
to that effect. However some years and a new Pope later, Henry was re-thinking things. Prodded by Catherine's inability to provide an heir, and possibly by Anne herself, Henry decided that no Pope had a right to overrule the Bible. This meant that he had been living in sin with Catherine of Aragon all these years, though Catherine hotly contested this and refused to concede that her marriage to Arthur had been consummated. It also meant that his daughter Mary was a bastard, and that the new Pope (Clement VII
Pope Clement VII
Clement VII , born Giulio di Giuliano de' Medici, was a cardinal from 1513 to 1523 and was Pope from 1523 to 1534.-Early life:...
) must admit the previous Pope's mistake and annul his marriage. Henry's quest for an annulment became euphemistically known as the "King's Great Matter."
Anne saw an opportunity in Henry's infatuation and the convenient moral quandary. She determined that she would yield to his embraces only as his acknowledged queen. She began to take her place at his side in policy and in state, but not, at least not just yet, in his bed. Confusing the issue of whether or not Anne and Henry had a sexual relationship, is the fact that there is no doubt that Anne was pregnant with Elizabeth (born on 7 September 1533) when she and Henry hastily and secretly wed in order to be married when Anne was crowned queen in May, 1533, since any child born before she was queen would not be able to succeed to the throne.
Various are the opinions of scholars and historians as to how deep was Anne's commitment to the Reformation, how much was she perhaps only personally ambitious, and how much she had to do with Henry's defiance of Papal power. There is anecdotal evidence, related to biographer George Wyatt
George Wyatt (writer)
George Wyatt was a sixteenth-century writer.Wyatt was the first biographer of Henry VIII's second wife, Queen Anne Boleyn. His grandfather, Thomas Wyatt the Elder, had been a cousin and early admirer of Anne's.-References:...
by her former lady-in-waiting Anne Gainsford
Anne Gainsford
Anne Gainsford, Lady Zouche was a lady-in-waiting to Queen consort Anne Boleyn.She was in the household of Anne Boleyn, as early as 1528 before the latter became the second wife of Henry VIII of England five years later. She served Anne Boleyn before and after her own marriage to Sir George Zouche...
, that Anne brought to Henry's attention a heretical pamphlet, perhaps Tyndale's "The Obedience of the Christian Man" or one by Simon Fish
Simon Fish
Simon Fish was a 16th century Protestant reformer and English propagandist. Fish is best known for helping to spread William Tyndale’s New Testament and for authoring the vehemently anti-clerical pamphlet Supplication for the Beggars which was condemned as heretical by the Roman Catholic Church...
called "Supplication for Beggars," which cried out to monarchs to rein in the evil excesses of the Catholic Church. She was sympathetic to those seeking further reformation of the Church, and actively protected scholars working on English translations of the scriptures. According to Marie Dowling "Anne tried to educate her waiting-women in scriptural piety” and is believed to have reproved her cousin, Mary Shelton
Mary Shelton
Margaret Shelton and Mary Shelton were two sisters in Tudor England, one of whom may have been a mistress of King Henry VIII....
, for “having ‘idle poesies’ written in her prayer book.” If Cavendish
House of Cavendish
Cavendish is the surname of a British noble family, also known as the House of Cavendish, descended from Sir John Cavendish of Cavendish in the county of Suffolk Cavendish is the surname of a British noble family, also known as the House of Cavendish, descended from Sir John Cavendish of Cavendish...
is to be believed, Anne's outrage at Wolsey may have personalized whatever philosophical defiance she brought with her from France. Further, the most recent edition of Ives
Eric Ives
Eric William Ives, OBE is a British historian and an expert on the Tudor period. He is Emeritus Professor of English History at the University of Birmingham...
's biography admits that Anne may very well have had a personal spiritual awakening in her youth which spurred her on, not just as catalyst but expediter for Henry's Reformation, though the process took a number of years.
In 1528 sweating sickness
Sweating sickness
Sweating sickness, also known as "English sweating sickness" or "English sweate" , was a mysterious and highly virulent disease that struck England, and later continental Europe, in a series of epidemics beginning in 1485. The last outbreak occurred in 1551, after which the disease apparently...
broke out with great severity. In London the mortality rate was great and the court was dispersed. Henry left London, frequently changing his residence; Anne Boleyn retreated to the Boleyn residence at Hever Castle, but contracted the illness; her brother-in-law, William Carey, died. Henry sent his own physician to Hever Castle
Hever Castle
Hever Castle is located in the village of Hever near Edenbridge, Kent, south-east of London, England. It began as a country house, built in the 13th century...
to care for her, and shortly afterwards, she recovered. It soon became the one absorbing object of Henry's desires to secure an annulment from Catherine. Henry had set his hopes upon a direct appeal to the Holy See
Holy See
The Holy See is the episcopal jurisdiction of the Catholic Church in Rome, in which its Bishop is commonly known as the Pope. It is the preeminent episcopal see of the Catholic Church, forming the central government of the Church. As such, diplomatically, and in other spheres the Holy See acts and...
, acting independently of Cardinal Wolsey, to whom he at first communicated nothing of his plans related to Anne. In 1527 William Knight, the King's secretary, had been sent to Pope Clement VII
Pope Clement VII
Clement VII , born Giulio di Giuliano de' Medici, was a cardinal from 1513 to 1523 and was Pope from 1523 to 1534.-Early life:...
to sue for the annulment of his marriage to Catherine, on the grounds that the dispensing bull
Papal bull
A Papal bull is a particular type of letters patent or charter issued by a Pope of the Catholic Church. It is named after the bulla that was appended to the end in order to authenticate it....
of Pope Julius II
Pope Julius II
Pope Julius II , nicknamed "The Fearsome Pope" and "The Warrior Pope" , born Giuliano della Rovere, was Pope from 1503 to 1513...
permitting him to marry his brother's widow, Catherine, had been obtained under false pretences. Henry also petitioned, in the event of his becoming free, a dispensation to contract a new marriage with any woman even in the first degree of affinity, whether the affinity was contracted by lawful or unlawful connection. This clearly referred to Anne.
Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor
Charles V was ruler of the Holy Roman Empire from 1519 and, as Charles I, of the Spanish Empire from 1516 until his voluntary retirement and abdication in favor of his younger brother Ferdinand I and his son Philip II in 1556.As...
, the Holy Roman Emperor
Holy Roman Emperor
The Holy Roman Emperor is a term used by historians to denote a medieval ruler who, as German King, had also received the title of "Emperor of the Romans" from the Pope...
, as a result of the Sack of Rome
Sack of Rome (1527)
The Sack of Rome on 6 May 1527 was a military event carried out by the mutinous troops of Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor in Rome, then part of the Papal States...
in May 1527, Knight had some difficulty obtaining access. In the end he had to return with a conditional dispensation, which Wolsey insisted was technically insufficient. Henry had now no choice but to put his great matter into the hands of Wolsey, who did all he could to secure a decision in Henry's favor. Wolsey went so far as to convene an ecclesiastical court in England, with a special emissary, Lorenzo Campeggio, from the Pope himself to decide the matter. But the Pope never had empowered his deputy to make any decision. The Pope was still a veritable hostage of Charles V, and Charles V was the loyal nephew of Henry's queen, Catherine. The Pope forbade Henry to contract a new marriage until a decision was reached in Rome, not in England. Convinced that Wolsey's loyalties lay with the Pope, not England, Anne, as well as Wolsey's many enemies, ensured his dismissal from public office in 1529. George Cavendish, Wolsey's chamberlain, records that the servants who waited on the king and Anne at dinner in 1529 in Grafton heard her say that the dishonour that Wolsey had brought upon the realm would have cost any other Englishman his head. Henry replied, "Why then I perceive...you are not the Cardinal's friend." Henry finally agreed to Wolsey's arrest on grounds of praemunire
Praemunire
In English history, Praemunire or Praemunire facias was a law that prohibited the assertion or maintenance of papal jurisdiction, imperial or foreign, or some other alien jurisdiction or claim of supremacy in England, against the supremacy of the Monarch...
. Had it not been for his death from illness in 1530, he might have been executed for treason
Treason
In law, treason is the crime that covers some of the more extreme acts against one's sovereign or nation. Historically, treason also covered the murder of specific social superiors, such as the murder of a husband by his wife. Treason against the king was known as high treason and treason against a...
. A year later in 1531 (fully two years before Henry's marriage to Anne), Queen Catherine was banished from court and her rooms were given to Anne.
Public support, however, remained with Queen Catherine. One evening in the autumn of 1531, Anne was dining at a manor house on the river Thames and was almost seized by a crowd of angry women. Anne just managed to escape by boat.
When Archbishop of Canterbury
Archbishop of Canterbury
The Archbishop of Canterbury is the senior bishop and principal leader of the Church of England, the symbolic head of the worldwide Anglican Communion, and the diocesan bishop of the Diocese of Canterbury. In his role as head of the Anglican Communion, the archbishop leads the third largest group...
William Warham
William Warham
William Warham , Archbishop of Canterbury, belonged to a Hampshire family, and was educated at Winchester and New College, Oxford, afterwards practising and teaching law both in London and Oxford....
died in 1532, the Boleyn family chaplain, Thomas Cranmer
Thomas Cranmer
Thomas Cranmer was a leader of the English Reformation and Archbishop of Canterbury during the reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI and, for a short time, Mary I. He helped build a favourable case for Henry's divorce from Catherine of Aragon which resulted in the separation of the English Church from...
, was appointed, with papal approval.
In 1532 Thomas Cromwell
Thomas Cromwell, 1st Earl of Essex
Thomas Cromwell, 1st Earl of Essex, , was an English statesman who served as chief minister of King Henry VIII of England from 1532 to 1540....
brought before Parliament a number of acts including the Supplication against the Ordinaries
Supplication against the Ordinaries
The Supplication against the Ordinaries was a petition passed by the House of Commons in 1532. It was the result of grievances against Church of England prelates and the clergy...
and Submission of the Clergy
Submission of the Clergy
The Submission of the Clergy was a process by which the Church of England gave up their power to formulate church laws without the King's licence and assent. It was first passed by the Convocation of Canterbury in 1532 and then by the Reformation Parliament in 1534...
, which recognised royal supremacy
Acts of Supremacy
The first Act of Supremacy was a piece of legislation that granted King Henry VIII of England Royal Supremacy, which means that he was declared the supreme head of the Church of England. It is still the legal authority of the Sovereign of the United Kingdom...
over the church, thus finalizing the break with Rome. Following these acts, Thomas More
Thomas More
Sir Thomas More , also known by Catholics as Saint Thomas More, was an English lawyer, social philosopher, author, statesman and noted Renaissance humanist. He was an important councillor to Henry VIII of England and, for three years toward the end of his life, Lord Chancellor...
resigned as Chancellor, leaving Cromwell as Henry's chief minister.
Marriage
Anne Boleyn was able to grant petitions, receive diplomats, give patronage and had enormous influence over her future husband to plead the cause of foreign diplomats. The ambassador from Milan wrote in 1531 that it was essential to have her approval if one wanted to influence the English government, a view corroborated by an earlier French ambassador in 1529.During this period, Anne Boleyn did indeed play an important role in England's international position by solidifying an alliance with France. She established an excellent rapport with the French ambassador
Ambassador
An ambassador is the highest ranking diplomat who represents a nation and is usually accredited to a foreign sovereign or government, or to an international organization....
, Gilles de la Pommeraie
Gilles de la Pommeraie
Gilles de la Pommeraie, French diplomat and Baron d'Entrammes.-Biography:He is a member of Pommeraie family, from Britanny and serves Laval Family, and possessed land of Verger Castle of Montigné and d'Entrammes ....
. Anne and Henry attended a meeting with the French king at Calais in winter 1532, in which Henry hoped to enlist the support of Francis I of France
Francis I of France
Francis I was King of France from 1515 until his death. During his reign, huge cultural changes took place in France and he has been called France's original Renaissance monarch...
for his intended marriage. On 1 September 1532, Henry granted her suo jure
Suo jure
Suo jure is a Latin phrase meaning "in her [or his] own right".It is commonly encountered in the context of titles of nobility, especially in cases where a wife may hold a title in her own right rather than through her marriage....
the Marquessate of Pembroke
Marquess of Pembroke
Marquess of Pembroke was a title in the Peerage of England created by King Henry VIII of England for his mistress and future spouse, Anne Boleyn. It was the first hereditary peerage title granted to a woman.- Background :...
, an appropriate peerage for a future Queen; as such she became a rich and important woman: The three Dukes and two Marquesses who existed in 1532 were the King's brother-in-law, the King's bastard, and other descendants of royalty; she ranked above all other peeresses. The Pembroke lands and the title of Earl of Pembroke
Earl of Pembroke
Earl of Pembroke is a title created ten times, all in the Peerage of England. It was first created in the 12th century by King Stephen of England. The title is associated with Pembroke, Pembrokeshire in West Wales, which is the site of Earldom's original seat Pembroke Castle...
had been held by Henry's great-uncle, and Henry performed the investiture himself.
Earl of Wiltshire
The title Earl of Wiltshire is one of the oldest in the Peerage of England, going back to the 12th century. It is currently held by the Marquess of Winchester, and is used as a courtesy title for the eldest son of the marquess....
. Henry also came to an arrangement with Anne's Irish cousin and created him Earl of Ormond. At the magnificent banquet to celebrate her father's elevation, Anne took precedence over the Duchesses of Suffolk and Norfolk, seated in the place of honour beside the King which was usually occupied by the Queen. Thanks to Anne's intervention, her widowed sister Mary received an annual pension
Pension
In general, a pension is an arrangement to provide people with an income when they are no longer earning a regular income from employment. Pensions should not be confused with severance pay; the former is paid in regular installments, while the latter is paid in one lump sum.The terms retirement...
of £100, and Mary's son, Henry Carey
Henry Carey, 1st Baron Hunsdon
Henry Carey, 1st Baron Hunsdon, of Hunsdon was an English nobleman.He was the son of Mary Boleyn, the sister of Anne Boleyn and also the mistress to King Henry VIII of England...
, was educated at a prestigious Cistercian monastery.
The conference at Calais was something of a political triumph, but even though the French government gave implicit support for Henry's re-marriage and Francis I
Francis I of France
Francis I was King of France from 1515 until his death. During his reign, huge cultural changes took place in France and he has been called France's original Renaissance monarch...
himself held private conference with Anne, the French King maintained alliances with the Pope which he could not explicitly defy.
Soon after returning to Dover
Dover
Dover is a town and major ferry port in the home county of Kent, in South East England. It faces France across the narrowest part of the English Channel, and lies south-east of Canterbury; east of Kent's administrative capital Maidstone; and north-east along the coastline from Dungeness and Hastings...
, Henry and Anne married in a secret ceremony. She soon became pregnant and, to legalise the first wedding considered to be unlawful at the time, there was a second wedding service, also private in accordance with The Royal Book, which took place in London on 25 January 1533. Events now began to move at a quick pace. On 23 May 1533, Cranmer (who had been hastened, with the Pope's assent, into the position of Archbishop of Canterbury recently vacated by the convenient death of Warham
William Warham
William Warham , Archbishop of Canterbury, belonged to a Hampshire family, and was educated at Winchester and New College, Oxford, afterwards practising and teaching law both in London and Oxford....
) sat in judgment at a special court convened at Dunstable Priory
Dunstable Priory
The Priory Church of St Peter with its monastery was founded in 1132 by Henry I for Augustinian Canons in Dunstable, Bedfordshire, England. St Peter’s today is a large and impressive building, but this is only the nave of what remains of an originally much larger Augustinian priory church...
to rule on the validity of the King's marriage to Catherine of Aragon. He thereupon declared the marriage of Henry and Catherine null and void. Five days later, on 28 May 1533, Cranmer declared the marriage of Henry and Anne to be good and valid.
Queen of England: 1533–1536
Westminster Abbey
The Collegiate Church of St Peter at Westminster, popularly known as Westminster Abbey, is a large, mainly Gothic church, in the City of Westminster, London, United Kingdom, located just to the west of the Palace of Westminster. It is the traditional place of coronation and burial site for English,...
with a banquet afterwards. She was the last Queen Consort of England to be crowned separately from her husband. Unlike any other queen consort, Anne was crowned with St Edward's crown, which had previously been used to crown only a reigning monarch. Historian Alice Hunt suggests that this was done because Anne's pregnancy was visible by then and she was carrying the heir who was presumed to be male. On the previous day, Anne had taken part in an elaborate procession
Royal Entry
The Royal Entry, also known by various other names, including Triumphal Entry and Joyous Entry, embraced the ceremonial and festivities accompanying a formal entry by a ruler or his representative into a city in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Period in Europe...
through the streets of London seated in a litter
Litter (vehicle)
The litter is a class of wheelless vehicles, a type of human-powered transport, for the transport of persons. Examples of litter vehicles include lectica , jiao [较] , sedan chairs , palanquin , Woh , gama...
of "white cloth of gold" that rested on two palfrey
Palfrey
A palfrey is a type of horse highly valued as a riding horse in the Middle Ages. It is not a breed.The word "palfrey" is cognate with the German word for horse , "Pferd". Both descend from Latin "paraveredus", meaning a post horse or courier horse...
s clothed to the ground in white damask, while the barons of the Cinque Ports
Cinque Ports
The Confederation of Cinque Ports is a historic series of coastal towns in Kent and Sussex. It was originally formed for military and trade purposes, but is now entirely ceremonial. It lies at the eastern end of the English Channel, where the crossing to the continent is narrowest...
held a canopy of cloth of gold over her head. In accordance with tradition she wore white, and on her head a gold coronet beneath which her long dark hair hung down freely. The public's response to her appearance was lukewarm.
Meanwhile, the House of Commons
House of Commons of England
The House of Commons of England was the lower house of the Parliament of England from its development in the 14th century to the union of England and Scotland in 1707, when it was replaced by the House of Commons of Great Britain...
had forbidden all appeals to Rome and exacted the penalties of praemunire
Praemunire
In English history, Praemunire or Praemunire facias was a law that prohibited the assertion or maintenance of papal jurisdiction, imperial or foreign, or some other alien jurisdiction or claim of supremacy in England, against the supremacy of the Monarch...
against all who introduced papal bulls into England. It was only then that Pope Clement at last took the step of announcing a provisional sentence of excommunication
Excommunication
Excommunication is a religious censure used to deprive, suspend or limit membership in a religious community. The word means putting [someone] out of communion. In some religions, excommunication includes spiritual condemnation of the member or group...
against the King and Cranmer. He condemned the marriage to Anne, and in March 1534, he declared the marriage to Catherine legal and again ordered Henry to return to her. Henry now required his subjects to swear the oath attached to the First Succession Act, which effectively rejected papal authority in legal matters and recognised Anne Boleyn as queen. Those who refused, such as Sir Thomas More
Thomas More
Sir Thomas More , also known by Catholics as Saint Thomas More, was an English lawyer, social philosopher, author, statesman and noted Renaissance humanist. He was an important councillor to Henry VIII of England and, for three years toward the end of his life, Lord Chancellor...
, who had resigned as Lord Chancellor
Lord Chancellor
The Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain, or Lord Chancellor, is a senior and important functionary in the government of the United Kingdom. He is the second highest ranking of the Great Officers of State, ranking only after the Lord High Steward. The Lord Chancellor is appointed by the Sovereign...
, and John Fisher
John Fisher
Saint John Fisher was an English Roman Catholic scholastic, bishop, cardinal and martyr. He shares his feast day with Saint Thomas More on 22 June in the Roman Catholic calendar of saints and 6 July on the Church of England calendar of saints...
, Bishop of Rochester, were then placed in the Tower of London
Tower of London
Her Majesty's Royal Palace and Fortress, more commonly known as the Tower of London, is a historic castle on the north bank of the River Thames in central London, England. It lies within the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, separated from the eastern edge of the City of London by the open space...
. In late 1534 parliament declared Henry "the only supreme head on earth of the Church of England". The Church in England was now under Henry's control, not Rome's.
Struggle for a son
After her coronation, Anne settled into a quiet routine at the King's favourite residence, Greenwich PalacePalace of Placentia
The Palace of Placentia was an English Royal Palace built by Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester in 1447, in Greenwich, on the banks of the River Thames, downstream from London...
, to prepare for the birth of her baby. The child was born slightly premature on 7 September 1533. Between three and four in the afternoon, Anne gave birth to a girl, who was christened Elizabeth
Elizabeth I of England
Elizabeth I was queen regnant of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death. Sometimes called The Virgin Queen, Gloriana, or Good Queen Bess, Elizabeth was the fifth and last monarch of the Tudor dynasty...
, probably in honour of either or both Anne's mother Elizabeth Howard
Elizabeth Boleyn, Countess of Wiltshire
Elizabeth Boleyn, Countess of Wiltshire , born Lady Elizabeth Howard, was the eldest of the two daughters of Thomas Howard, 2nd Duke of Norfolk and his first wife Elizabeth Tilney. Through her marriage, she held the titles of Countess of Wiltshire, Countess of Ormond and Viscountess Rochford...
and Henry's mother, Elizabeth of York
Elizabeth of York
Elizabeth of York was Queen consort of England as spouse of King Henry VII from 1486 until 1503, and mother of King Henry VIII of England....
. But the birth of a girl was a heavy blow to her parents, since they had confidently expected a boy. All but one of the royal physicians and astrologers had predicted a son for them and the French king had already been asked to stand as his godfather. Now the pre-prepared letters announcing the birth of a prince had an s hastily added to them to read princes[s] and the traditional tournament for the birth of an heir was cancelled.
Mary I of England
Mary I was queen regnant of England and Ireland from July 1553 until her death.She was the only surviving child born of the ill-fated marriage of Henry VIII and his first wife Catherine of Aragon. Her younger half-brother, Edward VI, succeeded Henry in 1547...
, now stripped of her title of princess and labelled a bastard
Bastard (Law of England and Wales)
A bastard in the law of England and Wales is a person whose parents, at the time of his/her birth, were not married to each other....
, posed a threat to Elizabeth's position. Henry soothed his wife's fears by separating Mary from her many servants and sending her to Hatfield House
Hatfield House
Hatfield House is a country house set in a large park, the Great Park, on the eastern side of the town of Hatfield, Hertfordshire, England. The present Jacobean house was built in 1611 by Robert Cecil, First Earl of Salisbury and Chief Minister to King James I and has been the home of the Cecil...
, where Princess Elizabeth would be living with her own sizeable staff of servants, and where the country air was thought better for the baby's health. Anne frequently visited her daughter at Hatfield and other residences.
The new queen had a larger staff of servants than Catherine. There were over 250 servants to tend to her personal needs, everyone from priests to stable-boys. There were over 60 maids-of-honour who served her and accompanied her to social events. She also employed several priests who acted as her confessors
Confession
This article is for the religious practice of confessing one's sins.Confession is the acknowledgment of sin or wrongs...
, chaplain
Chaplain
Traditionally, a chaplain is a minister in a specialized setting such as a priest, pastor, rabbi, or imam or lay representative of a religion attached to a secular institution such as a hospital, prison, military unit, police department, university, or private chapel...
s, and religious advisers. One of these was Matthew Parker
Matthew Parker
Matthew Parker was Archbishop of Canterbury from 1559 until his death in 1575. He was also an influential theologian and arguably the co-founder of Anglican theological thought....
, who would become one of the chief architects of Anglican
Anglicanism
Anglicanism is a tradition within Christianity comprising churches with historical connections to the Church of England or similar beliefs, worship and church structures. The word Anglican originates in ecclesia anglicana, a medieval Latin phrase dating to at least 1246 that means the English...
thought during the reign of Anne's daughter Elizabeth I.
Strife with the king
The king and his new queen enjoyed a reasonably happy accord with periods of calm and affection. Anne Boleyn's sharp intelligence, political acumen and forward manners, although desirable in a mistress, were unacceptable in a wife. She was once reported to have spoken to her uncle in words that "shouldn't be used to a dog". After a stillbirth or miscarriage as early as Christmas 1534, Henry was discussing with Cranmer and Cromwell the possibility of leaving Anne without having to return to Catherine. Nothing came of the issue as the royal couple reconciled and spent summer 1535 on progress. By October, she was again pregnant.Anne Boleyn presided over a magnificent court. She spent lavish amounts of money on gowns, jewels, head-dresses, ostrich-feather fans, riding equipment, furniture and upholstery, maintaining the ostentatious display required by her status. Numerous palaces were renovated to suit her and Henry's extravagant tastes. Her motto was "The most happy", and she had chosen a white falcon as her personal device.
Anne was blamed for the tyranny of her husband's government and was referred to by some of her subjects as "The king's whore" or a "naughty paike [prostitute]". Public opinion turned further against her following her failure to produce a son. It sank even lower after the executions of her enemies Sir Thomas More
Thomas More
Sir Thomas More , also known by Catholics as Saint Thomas More, was an English lawyer, social philosopher, author, statesman and noted Renaissance humanist. He was an important councillor to Henry VIII of England and, for three years toward the end of his life, Lord Chancellor...
and Bishop John Fisher
John Fisher
Saint John Fisher was an English Roman Catholic scholastic, bishop, cardinal and martyr. He shares his feast day with Saint Thomas More on 22 June in the Roman Catholic calendar of saints and 6 July on the Church of England calendar of saints...
.
Downfall and execution: 1536
The Queen, pregnant again, was aware of the dangers if she failed to give birth to a son. With Catherine dead, Henry would be free to marry without any taint of illegality. Mary rebuffed Anne's overtures, perhaps because of rumours circulating that Catherine had been poisoned by Anne and/or Henry. These began after the discovery during her embalming that her heart was blackened. Modern medical experts are in agreement that this was not the result of poisoning, but of cancer of the heart
Heart cancer
Heart cancer is an extremely rare form of cancer that is divided into primary tumors of the heart and secondary tumors of the heart.-Primary:...
, something which was not understood at the time.
Later that month, the King was unhorsed in a tournament and knocked unconscious for two hours, a worrying incident that Anne believed led to her miscarriage five days later. On the day that Catherine of Aragon was buried at Peterborough Abbey
Peterborough Cathedral
Peterborough Cathedral, properly the Cathedral Church of St Peter, St Paul and St Andrew – also known as Saint Peter's Cathedral in the United Kingdom – is the seat of the Bishop of Peterborough, dedicated to Saint Peter, Saint Paul and Saint Andrew, whose statues look down from the...
, Anne miscarried a baby which, according to the imperial ambassador Chapuys
Eustace Chapuys
Eustace Chapuys was a Savoyard diplomat who served as the Imperial ambassador to England from 1529 until 1545 and is best known for his extensive and detailed correspondence.-Life:...
, she had borne for about three and a half months, and which "seemed to be a male child". For Chapuys, this personal loss was the beginning of the end of the royal marriage.
Given Henry's desperate desire for a son, the sequence of Anne's pregnancies has attracted much interest. Author Mike Ashley speculated that Anne had two stillborn children after Elizabeth's birth and before the male child she miscarried in 1536. Most sources attest only to the birth of Elizabeth in September 1533, a possible miscarriage in the summer of 1534, and the miscarriage of a male child, of almost four months gestation, in January 1536. As Anne recovered from her miscarriage, Henry declared that he had been seduced into the marriage by means of "sortilege"—a French term indicating either "deception" or "spells". His new mistress, Jane Seymour
Jane Seymour
Jane Seymour was Queen of England as the third wife of King Henry VIII. She succeeded Anne Boleyn as queen consort following the latter's execution for trumped up charges of high treason, incest and adultery in May 1536. She died of postnatal complications less than two weeks after the birth of...
, was quickly moved into royal quarters. This was followed by Anne's brother being refused a prestigious court honour, the Order of the Garter
Order of the Garter
The Most Noble Order of the Garter, founded in 1348, is the highest order of chivalry, or knighthood, existing in England. The order is dedicated to the image and arms of St...
, given instead to Sir Nicholas Carew
Nicholas Carew (courtier)
Sir Nicholas Carew KG was an English courtier and statesman during the reign of Henry VIII. He was executed for his alleged part in the Exeter Conspiracy.-Early career:...
.
Charges of adultery, incest and treason
Alison Weir
Alison Weir is a British writer of history books, and latterly historical novels, mostly in the form of biographies about British royalty.-Personal life:...
, Thomas Cromwell
Thomas Cromwell, 1st Earl of Essex
Thomas Cromwell, 1st Earl of Essex, , was an English statesman who served as chief minister of King Henry VIII of England from 1532 to 1540....
plotted Anne's downfall while feigning illness and detailing the plot 20–21 April 1536. Anne's biographer Eric Ives
Eric Ives
Eric William Ives, OBE is a British historian and an expert on the Tudor period. He is Emeritus Professor of English History at the University of Birmingham...
, among others, believes that her fall and execution were engineered by Thomas Cromwell. The conversations between Chapuys and Cromwell thereafter indicate Cromwell as the instigator of the plot to remove Anne; evidence of this is seen in the Spanish Chronicle and through letters written from Chapuys to Charles V. Anne differed with Cromwell over the redistribution of Church revenues and over foreign policy. She advocated that revenues be distributed to charitable and educational institutions; and she favoured a French alliance. Cromwell insisted on filling the King's depleted coffers, while taking a cut for himself, and preferred an imperial alliance. For these reasons, suggests Ives, "Anne Boleyn had become a major threat to Thomas Cromwell." Cromwell's biographer John Schofield, on the other hand, contends that no power struggle existed between Anne and Cromwell and that "not a trace can be found of a Cromwellian conspiracy against Anne ... Cromwell became involved in the royal marital drama only when Henry ordered him onto the case." Cromwell did not manufacture the accusations of adultery, though he and other officials used them to bolster Henry's case against Anne. Historian Retha Warnicke questions whether Cromwell could have manipulated the king in such a matter. Henry himself issued the crucial instructions: his officials, including Cromwell, carried them out. The result, historians agree, was a legal travesty. In order to do so the Master Secretary Cromwell would need sufficient evidence that would be convincing enough for her conviction or risk his own offices and perhaps life.
Towards the end of April a Flemish
Flemish people
The Flemings or Flemish are the Dutch-speaking inhabitants of Belgium, where they are mostly found in the northern region of Flanders. They are one of two principal cultural-linguistic groups in Belgium, the other being the French-speaking Walloons...
musician in Anne's service named Mark Smeaton was arrested, perhaps torture
Torture
Torture is the act of inflicting severe pain as a means of punishment, revenge, forcing information or a confession, or simply as an act of cruelty. Throughout history, torture has often been used as a method of political re-education, interrogation, punishment, and coercion...
d or promised freedom. He initially denied being the Queen's lover but later confessed. Another courtier, Sir Henry Norris, was arrested on May Day
May Day
May Day on May 1 is an ancient northern hemisphere spring festival and usually a public holiday; it is also a traditional spring holiday in many cultures....
, but since he was an aristocrat, he could not be tortured. Prior to his arrest, Norris was treated kindly by the King, who offered him his own horse to use on the May Day festivities. It seems likely that during the festivities the King was notified of Smeaton's confession and it was shortly thereafter the alleged conspirators were arrested upon order of the King. Norris was arrested at the festival. Norris denied his guilt and swore that Queen Anne was innocent. One of the most damaging pieces of evidence against Norris was an overheard conversation with Anne at the end of April, where she accused him of coming often to her chambers not to pay court to her lady-in-waiting Madge Shelton but to herself. Sir Francis Weston
Francis Weston
Sir Francis Weston was a gentleman at the court of King Henry VIII of England. He became a friend of the king and gained a sad fame by being one of the men accused alongside Anne Boleyn...
was arrested two days later on the same charge. Sir William Brereton
William Brereton (groom)
Sir William Brereton , who came from a Cheshire landowning family, was a Groom of the Privy Chamber of Henry VIII. He was caught up in the accusations against Anne Boleyn, tried for treason and executed with the Queen and four others...
, a Groom of the King's Privy Chamber, was also apprehended on grounds of adultery. Sir Thomas Wyatt
Thomas Wyatt (poet)
Sir Thomas Wyatt was a 16th-century English lyrical poet credited with introducing the sonnet into English. He was born at Allington Castle, near Maidstone in Kent – though his family was originally from Yorkshire...
, a poet and friend of the Boleyns who was allegedly infatuated with her before her marriage to the king, was also imprisoned for the same charge but was later released, most likely due to his friendship or his family's friendship with Cromwell. Sir Richard Page
Sir Richard Page
Sir Richard Page was an English courtier. He was a member of the Privy Council of Henry VIII of England and was the Vice-Chamberlain in the household of Henry FitzRoy, 1st Duke of Richmond and Somerset...
was also accused of having a sexual relationship with the Queen, but he was acquitted of all charges after further investigation could not implicate him with Anne. The final accused was Queen Anne's own brother, arrested on charges of incest
Incest
Incest is sexual intercourse between close relatives that is usually illegal in the jurisdiction where it takes place and/or is conventionally considered a taboo. The term may apply to sexual activities between: individuals of close "blood relationship"; members of the same household; step...
and treason
Treason
In law, treason is the crime that covers some of the more extreme acts against one's sovereign or nation. Historically, treason also covered the murder of specific social superiors, such as the murder of a husband by his wife. Treason against the king was known as high treason and treason against a...
, accused of having a sexual relationship with his sister. George Boleyn
George Boleyn, Viscount Rochford
George Boleyn, Viscount Rochford was an English courtier and nobleman, and the brother of queen consort Anne Boleyn...
was accused of two incidents of incest: November, 1535 at Whitehall and the following month at Eltham.
On 2 May 1536 Anne was arrested and taken to the Tower of London. In the Tower, she collapsed, demanding to know the location of her father and "swete broder", as well as the charges against her.
In what is reputed to be her last letter to King Henry, dated May 6, she wrote:
Four of the accused men were tried in Westminster
Westminster
Westminster is an area of central London, within the City of Westminster, England. It lies on the north bank of the River Thames, southwest of the City of London and southwest of Charing Cross...
on 12 May 1536. Weston, Brereton, and Norris publicly maintained their innocence and only the tortured Smeaton supported the Crown
The Crown
The Crown is a corporation sole that in the Commonwealth realms and any provincial or state sub-divisions thereof represents the legal embodiment of governance, whether executive, legislative, or judicial...
by pleading guilty. Three days later, Anne and George Boleyn were tried separately in the Tower of London. She was accused of adultery, incest, and high treason
High treason
High treason is criminal disloyalty to one's government. Participating in a war against one's native country, attempting to overthrow its government, spying on its military, its diplomats, or its secret services for a hostile and foreign power, or attempting to kill its head of state are perhaps...
. By the Treason Act of Edward III
Edward III of England
Edward III was King of England from 1327 until his death and is noted for his military success. Restoring royal authority after the disastrous reign of his father, Edward II, Edward III went on to transform the Kingdom of England into one of the most formidable military powers in Europe...
adultery on the part of a queen was a form of treason (presumably because of the implications for the succession to the throne) for which the penalty was hanging, drawing and quartering for a man and burning alive for a woman, but the accusations, and especially that of incestuous adultery, were also designed to impugn her moral character. The other form of treason alleged against her was that of plotting the king's death, with her "lovers", so that she might later marry Henry Norris. Henry Percy
Henry Percy, 6th Earl of Northumberland
Henry Percy, 6th Earl of Northumberland, KG was an English nobleman, active as a military officer in the north. He is now primarily remembered as the betrothed of Anne Boleyn, whom he was forced to give up before she became involved with King Henry VIII.-Early life:He was eldest son of Henry...
, 6th Earl of Northumberland sat on the jury that found Anne guilty. When the verdict was announced, he collapsed and had to be carried from the courtroom. He died eight months later, leaving no heirs and his nephew became the next Earl of Northumberland.
On 14 May, Cranmer declared Anne's marriage to Henry dissolved.
Final hours
Saint-Omer
Saint-Omer , a commune and sub-prefecture of the Pas-de-Calais department west-northwest of Lille on the railway to Calais. The town is named after Saint Audomar, who brought Christianity to the area....
for the execution, rather than having a queen beheaded with the common axe. They came for Anne on the morning of 19 May to take her to the Tower Green
Tower Green
Tower Green is a space within the Tower of London where two English Queens consort and five other British nobles were executed by beheading. The Tower Green is located on a space south of the Chapel Royal of St. Peter ad Vincula...
. Anthony Kingston
Anthony Kingston
Sir Anthony Kingston was an English royal official, holder of various positions under several Tudor monarchs.-Life:He was son of Sir William Kingston of Blackfriars, London...
, the Constable of the Tower
Constable of the Tower
The Constable of the Tower is the most senior appointment at the Tower of London. In the middle ages a constable was the person in charge of a castle when the owner - the king or a nobleman - was not in residence...
, wrote:
However, her impending death may have caused her great sorrow for some time during her imprisonment. The poem "Oh Death Rock Me Asleep
Oh Death Rock Me Asleep
"Oh Death Rock Me Asleep" is a Tudor-era poem, usually attributed to Anne Boleyn. It was written shortly before her execution in 1536.-Full Text: -Authorship:...
" is generally believed to have been authored by Anne and reveals that she may have hoped death would end her suffering.
Shortly before dawn, she called Kingston to hear mass with her, and swore in his presence, on the eternal salvation of her soul, upon the Holy Sacraments, that she had never been unfaithful to the king. She ritually repeated this oath both immediately before and after receiving the sacrament of the Eucharist
Eucharist
The Eucharist , also called Holy Communion, the Sacrament of the Altar, the Blessed Sacrament, the Lord's Supper, and other names, is a Christian sacrament or ordinance...
.
On the morning of Friday 19 May, Anne Boleyn was judicially executed, not upon Tower Green, but rather, a scaffold erected on the north side of the White Tower, in front of what is now the Waterloo Barracks. She wore a red petticoat under a loose, dark grey gown of damask trimmed in fur and a mantle of ermine. Accompanied by two female attendants, Anne made her final walk from the Queen's House to the scaffold and she showed a "devilish spirit" and looked "as gay as if she was not going to die". Anne climbed the scaffold and made a short speech to the crowd:
This is one version of her speech, written by Lancelot de Carles in Paris, a few weeks following her death; he had been in London, but did not witness either trial or execution. All the accounts are similar, and undoubtedly correct to varying degrees. It is thought that she avoided criticizing Henry to save Elizabeth and her family from further consequences, but even under such extreme pressure Anne did not confess guilt, in fact subtly implying her innocence, in her appeal to historians who "will meddle of my cause".
Death and burial
The execution consisted of a single stroke. It was witnessed by Thomas Cromwell, Charles Brandon, 1st Duke of Suffolk
Charles Brandon, 1st Duke of Suffolk
Charles Brandon, 1st Duke of Suffolk, 1st Viscount Lisle, KG was the son of Sir William Brandon and Elizabeth Bruyn. Through his third wife Mary Tudor he was brother-in-law to Henry VIII. His father was the standard-bearer of Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond and was slain by Richard III in person at...
, the King's illegitimate son, Henry Fitzroy, the Lord Mayor of London, as well as aldermen, sheriffs, and representatives of the various craft guilds. Most of the King's Council were also present. Cranmer, who was at Lambeth Palace
Lambeth Palace
Lambeth Palace is the official London residence of the Archbishop of Canterbury in England. It is located in Lambeth, on the south bank of the River Thames a short distance upstream of the Palace of Westminster on the opposite shore. It was acquired by the archbishopric around 1200...
, was reported to have broken down in tears after telling Alexander Ales
Alexander Ales
Alexander Ales was a Scottish theologian of the school of Augsburg.-Life:Originally Alexander Alane, he was born at Edinburgh. He studied at St Andrews in the newly-founded college of St Leonard's, where he graduated in 1515...
: "She who has been the Queen of England on earth will today become a Queen in heaven." When the charges were first brought against Anne, Cranmer had expressed his astonishment to Henry and his belief that "she should not be culpable." Still, Cranmer felt vulnerable because of his closeness to the queen. On the night before the execution, he had declared Henry's marriage to Anne to have been void, like Catherine's before her. He made no serious attempt to save Anne's life, although some sources record that he had prepared her for death by hearing her last private confession of sins, in which she had stated her innocence before God. However, on the day of her death a Scottish friend found Cranmer weeping uncontrollably in his London gardens, saying that he was sure that Anne had now gone to Heaven.
Henry failed to have organised any kind of funeral or even provide a proper coffin for her. Her body lay on the scaffold for some time before a man (believed to be working inside the Tower) found an empty arrow chest and placed her head and body inside. She was then buried in an unmarked grave in the Chapel of St Peter ad Vincula. Her skeleton was identified during renovations of the chapel in the reign of Queen Victoria
Victoria of the United Kingdom
Victoria was the monarch of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until her death. From 1 May 1876, she used the additional title of Empress of India....
and Anne's resting place is now marked in the marble floor.
Recognition and legacy
Nicholas Sander, a Roman Catholic recusantRecusancy
In the history of England and Wales, the recusancy was the state of those who refused to attend Anglican services. The individuals were known as "recusants"...
born c. 1530, was committed to deposing Elizabeth I and re-establishing Roman Catholicism in England. In his De Origine ac Progressu schismatis Anglicani (The Rise and Growth of the Anglican Schism), published in 1585, he was the first to write that Anne had six fingers on her right hand. Since physical deformities were generally interpreted as a sign of evil, it is unlikely that Anne Boleyn would have gained Henry's romantic attention had she had any. Upon exhumation in 1876, no abnormalities were discovered. Her frame was described as delicate, approximately 5'3", with finely formed, tapering fingers.
Anne Boleyn was described by contemporaries as intelligent and gifted in musical arts and scholarly pursuits. She was also strong-willed and proud, and often quarreled with Henry. Biographer Eric Ives evaluates the apparent contradictions in Anne's persona:
Following the coronation of her daughter as queen, Anne was venerated as a martyr and heroine of the English Reformation, particularly through the works of John Foxe
John Foxe
John Foxe was an English historian and martyrologist, the author of what is popularly known as Foxe's Book of Martyrs, , an account of Christian martyrs throughout Western history but emphasizing the sufferings of English Protestants and proto-Protestants from the fourteenth century through the...
, who argued that Anne had saved England from the evils of Roman Catholicism and that God had provided proof of her innocence and virtue by making sure her daughter Elizabeth I became Queen regnant. An example of Anne's direct influence in the reformed church is what Alexander Ales described to Queen Elizabeth as the "evangelical bishops whom your holy mother appointed from among those scholars who favoured the purer doctrine". Over the centuries, Anne has inspired or been mentioned in numerous artistic and cultural works
Anne Boleyn in popular culture
Anne Boleyn, the second wife of King Henry VIII of England, has inspired or been mentioned in numerous artistic and cultural works. The following lists cover various media, enduring works of high art, and recent representations in popular culture, film and fiction...
. As a result, she has remained in the popular memory and Anne has been called "the most influential and important queen consort England has ever had."
Legends
Many legends and fantastic stories about Anne Boleyn have survived over the centuries. One is that she was secretly buried in Salle Church in Norfolk under a black slab near the tombs of her Boleyn ancestors. Her body was said to have rested in an Essex church on its journey to Norfolk. Another is that her heart, at her request, was buried in ErwartonErwarton
Arwarton or Erwarton is a village and civil parish in the Babergh district of Suffolk, England. Located on the Shotley peninsula around south of Ipswich, in 2005 it had a population of 110....
(Arwarton) Church, Suffolk
Suffolk
Suffolk is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in East Anglia, England. It has borders with Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south. The North Sea lies to the east...
by her uncle Sir Philip Parker.
In 18th century Sicily
Sicily
Sicily is a region of Italy, and is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Along with the surrounding minor islands, it constitutes an autonomous region of Italy, the Regione Autonoma Siciliana Sicily has a rich and unique culture, especially with regard to the arts, music, literature,...
the peasants of Nicolosi
Nicolosi
Nicolosi is a comune in the Province of Catania in the Italian region Sicily, located about 160 km southeast of Palermo and about 12 km northwest of Catania....
believed that Anne Boleyn, for having made Henry VIII a heretic, was condemned to burn for eternity inside Mount Etna
Mount Etna
Mount Etna is an active stratovolcano on the east coast of Sicily, close to Messina and Catania. It is the tallest active volcano in Europe, currently standing high, though this varies with summit eruptions; the mountain is 21 m higher than it was in 1981.. It is the highest mountain in...
. This legend was often told for the benefit of foreign travellers.
A number of people have claimed to have seen Anne's ghost
Ghost
In traditional belief and fiction, a ghost is the soul or spirit of a deceased person or animal that can appear, in visible form or other manifestation, to the living. Descriptions of the apparition of ghosts vary widely from an invisible presence to translucent or barely visible wispy shapes, to...
at Hever Castle
Hever Castle
Hever Castle is located in the village of Hever near Edenbridge, Kent, south-east of London, England. It began as a country house, built in the 13th century...
, Blickling Hall
Blickling Hall
Blickling Hall is a stately home in the village of Blickling north of Aylsham in Norfolk, England, that has been in the care of the National Trust since 1940.-History:...
, Salle Church, Tower of London, and Marwell Hall. The most famous account of her reputed sighting has been described by paranormal researcher
Paranormal
Paranormal is a general term that designates experiences that lie outside "the range of normal experience or scientific explanation" or that indicates phenomena understood to be outside of science's current ability to explain or measure...
Hans Holzer
Hans Holzer
Hans Holzer was an Austrian-born, American pioneering paranormal researcher and author. He wrote well over 100 books on supernatural and occult subjects for the popular market as well as several plays, musicals, films, and documentaries, and hosted a television show, "Ghost Hunter".- Career...
. In 1864, Major General J.D. Dundas of the 60th Rifles
King's Royal Rifle Corps
The King's Royal Rifle Corps was a British Army infantry regiment, originally raised in colonial North America as the Royal Americans, and recruited from American colonists. Later ranked as the 60th Regiment of Foot, the regiment served for more than 200 years throughout the British Empire...
regiment was quartered in the Tower of London. As he was looking out the window of his quarters, he noticed a guard below in the courtyard, in front of the lodgings where Anne had been imprisoned, behaving strangely. He appeared to challenge something, which to the General "looked like a whitish, female figure sliding towards the soldier". The guard charged through the form with his bayonet, then fainted. Only the General's testimony and corroboration at the court-martial
Court-martial
A court-martial is a military court. A court-martial is empowered to determine the guilt of members of the armed forces subject to military law, and, if the defendant is found guilty, to decide upon punishment.Most militaries maintain a court-martial system to try cases in which a breach of...
saved the guard from a lengthy prison sentence for having fainted while on duty. In 1960, Canon W. S. Pakenham-Walsh
W. S. Pakenham-Walsh
William Sandford Pakenham-Walsh was a Christian clergyman, educationalist and writer, most famous for his work Tudor Story.- Life :W. S. Pakenham-Walsh was born in 1868 into a distinguished Irish clerical family. His middle name, Sandford, was given to him by his father who used to work as curate...
, vicar of Sulgrave
Sulgrave
Sulgrave is a village and civil parish in South Northamptonshire, England, about north of Brackley.-Parish church:The Church of England parish Church of St James the Less is part of the benefice of Culworth with Sulgrave and Thorpe Mandeville and Chipping Warden with Edgcote and Moreton Pinkney.By...
, Northamptonshire
Northamptonshire
Northamptonshire is a landlocked county in the English East Midlands, with a population of 629,676 as at the 2001 census. It has boundaries with the ceremonial counties of Warwickshire to the west, Leicestershire and Rutland to the north, Cambridgeshire to the east, Bedfordshire to the south-east,...
, reported having conversations with Boleyn.
See also
- Anne Boleyn in popular cultureAnne Boleyn in popular cultureAnne Boleyn, the second wife of King Henry VIII of England, has inspired or been mentioned in numerous artistic and cultural works. The following lists cover various media, enduring works of high art, and recent representations in popular culture, film and fiction...
- Anna BolenaAnna BolenaAnna Bolena is a tragedia lirica, or opera, in two acts by Gaetano Donizetti. Felice Romani wrote the Italian libretto after Ippolito Pindemonte's Enrico VIII ossia Anna Bolena and Alessandro Pepoli's Anna Bolena, both telling of the life of Anne Boleyn...
, an opera by Gaetano DonizettiGaetano DonizettiDomenico Gaetano Maria Donizetti was an Italian composer from Bergamo, Lombardy. His best-known works are the operas L'elisir d'amore , Lucia di Lammermoor , and Don Pasquale , all in Italian, and the French operas La favorite and La fille du régiment...
with lyrics by Felice RomaniFelice RomaniFelice Romani was an Italian poet and scholar of literature and mythology who wrote many librettos for the opera composers Donizetti and Bellini. Romani was considered the finest Italian librettist between Metastasio and Boito.-Biography:Born Giuseppe Felice Romani to a bourgeois family in Genoa,...
(1830) - Anne of the Thousand DaysAnne of the Thousand DaysAnne of the Thousand Days is a 1969 costume drama made by Hal Wallis Productions and distributed by Universal Pictures. It was directed by Charles Jarrott and produced by Hal B. Wallis. The film tells the story of Anne Boleyn...
, a 1969 drama distributed by Universal Pictures - List of English consorts
Further reading
- To Die For: A Novel of Anne Boleyn, (2011) by Sandra Byrd ISBN 978-1-439-18311-3
- Anne Boleyn, a Music Book, and the Northern Renaissance Courts: Music Manuscript 1070 of the Royal College of Music, London" Ph.D., Musicology, University of Maryland, 1997 ISBN 0-591-46653-8
- The Politics of Marriage by David Loades (1994)
- The Lady in the Tower: The Fall of Anne Boleyn by Allison Weir. ISBN 978-0-224-06319-7
- The Hever Castle Guide Book
External links
- The Anne Boleyn Files
- Queen Anne Boleyn Website
- Anne Boleyn at Salle church Norfolk, UK
- Anne Boleyn's indictment and other Tudor treasures online to mark the 500th anniversary of Henry VIII's accession
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