by G Lawrence
But for all this, there was another reason. Henry had grown older, and did not want a wife who behaved like Anne. I believe he wanted peace, quiet, and a meek and submissive woman who would obey him. All this he found in Jane Seymour. Any time Jane attempted to become more, or tried to assert herself, she was put firmly in her place and reminded of the fate of the woman she had supplanted.
Anne has been criticised for never becoming a wife in the model the times expected. This criticism is unfair. I believe Anne loved Henry, and their marriage came about not for ambition, even though I will not deny she held that vice or virtue, but because he fell for her and she for him. Anne could not cope with Henry taking mistresses, and told him so. What she failed to see was that she had married a man who, despite his many extreme acts, was deeply conventional. Anne was anything but. Their courtship and relationship had been nothing short of radical, so why should their marriage be conventional? In his early letters to Anne, Henry wrote of a relationship which was not only exclusive, but unique. Anne believed him. I have no doubt Henry, too, believed this at the time of writing, but later, as his lust for a wife who would obey him, as all people should, overcame his passionate, romantic ideal of a marriage of equals, he wanted her to submit to him.
Anne commented on his infidelity in public, and reproached Henry for it. This led to her being seen as unnatural, but she was, in fact, only reacting with understandable hurt as the man she loved betrayed her trust and broke his promises.
I believe Anne thought their love would forge a different kind of marriage, one where a husband and wife were equal, would not betray each other as so many did, and would stand the test of time. Anne was wrong.
Today, some people say that Anne should have accepted her role as wife and Queen and should not have criticised Henry for his marital failings, but would we slander a wife today, who, finding her husband with another women, protested? We would not. Strangely, we allow Katherine of Aragon to have been hurt and wounded by Henry’s infidelities, but deny this to Anne. Some people who support ‘Team Katherine’ over ‘Team Anne’ would say Anne got what she deserved, as she had done the same to Katherine. Perhaps this is true, but no one deserved the fate Anne was dealt. I think Anne fell in love with Henry, and believed all her subsequent actions to bring about their marriage and protect it were justified by that love. Love can bring out the best in us, but also the worst.
I, myself, am neither Team Anne nor Katherine. I like to think of myself as “Team of the Six Wives”. Never will I stand on “Team Henry”.
Anne’s Innocence and Legacy
Anne was the most controversial of Henry’s wives, both in her times and ours; people either love her or hate her.
But even her detractors admitted that Anne showed courage in life and death, and most serious historians now dismiss the accusations against her. Indeed, three quarters of the charges against Anne can be proved false by court records. Going back through them, we find that when she was accused of sleeping with men at Westminster, she was at Greenwich, and vice versa. She was also pregnant during a lot of the alleged offences. Some writers have protested that she might have taken a lover in order to conceive a son, and save herself, but if she was pregnant at the time of the alleged offence, why would she take the risk? The notion she took lovers whilst in her lying-in chamber, after the birth of Elizabeth, is also ridiculous. Not only was she segregated from the court, she was recovering from childbirth.
In the book, I had George visit her in her lying-in chamber. This was for narrative purposes, and was unlikely to have been permitted.
Even Chapuys did not believe the charges against her. One of his dispatches about Henry read; “You never saw a prince or husband show or wear his [cuckold] horns more patiently and lightly than this one does. I leave you to guess the cause of it”, and of the trial of George Boleyn, “no proof of his guilt was produced except that of his having once passed many hours in her [Anne’s] company, and other little follies.”
After Anne’s death, he wrote, “No one ever showed more courage or greater readiness to meet death than she did.”
In his last notes on Anne, there is a tone of respect. Although people are fond of saying that Chapuys only ever referred to her as ‘the concubine’ or other derogatory names, it is not really so. Certainly he used those terms, but he also called her by name more often. Chapuys had no reason to like Anne, but he was not quite as unfair to her as many suppose. Chapuys, her enemy, showed more emotion and reverence about Anne’s death than her husband. He also understood the cause. “The executioner’s sword and her own death were virtually to separate and divorce man and wife. However, if such was their intention, it strikes me that it would have been a far more decent and honest excuse to allege that she had been married to another man still alive.”
This, of course, had been done. Anne’s alleged pre-contract with Henry Percy was first used to attempt to annul her marriage to Henry, but it had not worked, so Cranmer was called upon to use Mary Boleyn instead. Since Anne had admitted in the Tower, that on this basis she and Henry were not married, we may ask why it was needful that she be executed at all. At the time of her trial, adultery, even for a queen, was not a capital crime, and if she had never been married to Henry she could not have committed adultery. The accusation of treason was still there, but it was clearly the weaker charge, with little to substantiate it, which is why her accusers tried to prove her guilty of adultery; if she was guilty of adultery, they could make the charges of treason stick. Guilty of one thing was guilty of another.
The truth is that Anne had to die because Henry did not want another Katherine of Aragon on his hands. Were Anne to be locked up in a nunnery, she might prove just as embarrassing as Katherine had, and might cause dispute about the legitimacy of any children Henry had with Jane, just as Katherine had with Anne. Anne’s enemies, Cromwell in particular I imagine, would also not have been keen for this to happen, as even during the last months of her life, Anne exerted a power over Henry that was hard to match. Indeed, no one would ever have the same influence over him again, not even Cromwell. If she were allowed to live, she might find a way to reach him, and if that happened, her foes would be in serious trouble. The only safe solution was death.
According to Chapuys, Cromwell later admitted he had made up the accusations, the events and dates which led to her death. “It was he [Cromwell] who, in consequence of the disappointment and anger he had felt on hearing the King’s answer to me on the third day of Easter, had planned and brought about the whole affair.”
Even allowing for Chapuys to be transcribing Cromwell’s words, this is a pretty revealing admission.
Another reason I believe in Anne’s innocence is because of her last confession. It is all too easy, in these days, to think that Anne might have faked her last confession and protested she had not sinned against Henry in order to bring about a pardon, or to clear her name. But to think such is to ignore that Anne was a woman of faith. God, Heaven and the afterlife were not theories to her and many of her contemporaries, they were truths. To die with a sin on one’s conscience, such as a lie, was to risk not being allowed into Heaven. Her immortal soul was at risk. Anne would not have gambled.
Another reason is the strikingly accurate nature of her last confession; that she had not offended against Henry with her body. Alison Weir postulates this may mean that she had grown to love another, but had not acted, physically, upon it… a theory I decided to follow in this book, threading together this idea along with Anne’s ramblings in the Tower about Norris. I do not know if she truly had feelings for him, but if she had fallen for another man I hardly blame her. Henry had been repeatedly unfaithful, had wounded her trust and love, and had shamed and threatened her. His threats we would now term as emotional or psychological abuse. It is not unsurprising to think that she may have taken comfort in a platonic, or romantic, love, but I think it went no further, and her last confession should be accepted as genuine.
There is a possi
bility that Henry’s crimes were worse than often believed. In Alison Weir’s book King and Court, the historian theorises that Anne might have been pregnant when she went to her death, having conceived again when the couple were reconciled after Anne’s miscarriage in January 1536. I chose not to follow this line of theory, as the evidence is by no means certain, but there are some facts that may cause one to wonder.
After her arrest, Anne was not subject to an inspection of her body, standard for the time, to ascertain if she was pregnant. This is unusual and worth note. It might seem impossible that if Anne was carrying his child, Henry would have moved against her. But if he believed she was unfaithful, and the child was not his, it remains possible that this insecure, jealous, and often shallow man might have seen her execution, and that of her child, as justice.
Various documents about Anne’s trial are missing, presumed destroyed. It is dangerous to suppose that mention of her pregnancy could be amongst them, and evidence was destroyed to protect Henry and Cromwell, but it remains a possibility. It is also possible these records were simply lost, or were destroyed in Queen Elizabeth’s reign.
A letter Henry wrote, speaking in high praise of his wife in February 1536, seems to suggest a child may come soon.
The favour Anne had in early 1536 seems odd when you look at the fact she had miscarried again.
I chose not to include this theory in my book because other historians disagree, and there is therefore a weight of doubt. Another reason is Anne herself. I cannot bring myself to believe that if she were pregnant she would have said nothing. There were 2,000 people at her trial, so had she said something there, pleaded her belly, as it was known, her execution would have been postponed until she bore the child. It is possible she might have said something in private, and it was ignored because Henry wanted her dead, but even if she was consumed by an intense desire to die, as she was at the end, having lost everything, Anne was a woman of abiding, genuine faith. She would not have taken an innocent to death with her. One could argue that three miscarriages/ premature births (some say only two, and some one, but I chose to follow the theory of three) may have brought her to a place where she could not bear the thought of trying again, but I do not think this would have been the case. Since she was so careful to confess her sins, and absolve herself of the accusations against her, I don’t think she would have allowed a child to die with her.
Another point in favour of her innocence is that on the scaffold, Anne made no protestation of innocence, which has sometimes been held against her, but she also made no admission of guilt, which was standard practise for the Tudor era. This omission is striking. In saying nothing, Anne proclaimed she was not guilty.
Anne’s choice of wardrobe, ever a high concern of this elegant woman’s, on the day of her death was also salient. Her ermine robe proclaimed her as royalty, and her kirtle, the Tudor under-skirt, was crimson. Red was the colour of Catholic martyrs. Anne was proclaiming to the world that she went to her death an innocent.
She was also demonstrating her faith. People claim Anne Boleyn for the Protestant faith, but she was an evangelical Catholic who believed in the rites of the traditional Church. Some points of faith she may have disagreed with, but Anne Boleyn lived and died a Catholic.
Another fact for Anne is that when she was arrested, none of her ladies were. Not one of them stood accused of aiding their mistress in adultery, and none were sent to the Tower. To understand how difficult it would have been for a queen of this era to commit adultery, one has to understand that this was not the sultry world portrayed in The Tudors, or racy films. This was reality. Queens were closely guarded. The women who served them were not there for show, nor were they there to merely provide handkerchiefs and serve drinks. They were usually chosen by the King, and were there to guard the reputation of the Queen. When Queen Catherine Howard was arrested on charges of adultery, her ladies, including the unfortunate Lady Jane Rochford, were arrested, and Jane Rochford died for aiding her mistress. With Anne, none of her ladies were. There is, naturally, the possibility that any ladies detained turned King’s evidence in return for their statements, but nowhere in the documents of the time does it seem this happened, and if it had, why would her accusers not troop out these women to speak against Anne in court? The truth is, because there were none who were detained, and none who were accused, because everything Anne, and the five men who died with her, were accused of, was nonsense.
The fact is, Henry sent his wife to her death, and he knew she was innocent. This is borne out when, much later, Jane Seymour, then his wife, begged for him to spare the ring-leaders of the Pilgrimage of Grace, a rebellion of peasants and lords which rose against Henry in 1537 in response to the dissolution of the monasteries. When Jane begged for these men, Henry allegedly told her not to meddle in politics, as her predecessor had done the same, and this had led to her death.
Henry knew what had been done to Anne, and to his friends, and he allowed it to happen.
About Europe, there was general rejoicing amongst Catholic monarchs about Anne’s death. She had been, in the eyes of many, the sole reason Henry had broken from Rome, and was a heretic husband-stealer. Not long after, however, in the wake of her execution, there was dissent in opinion. Chapuys, I have already mentioned, but there were others. A man named John Hill was brought to court a month after Anne’s fall for saying that Henry had put her and the men to death “only of pleasure”, and reformists thought her death was part of a plot dreamed up in Rome. Mary of Hungary, sister to the Emperor Charles said, “As none but her organist [Smeaton] confessed, nor herself either, people think [Henry] invented this device to be rid of her.” When Christine of Denmark was approached as a potential wife for Henry in 1538, she responded by saying that if she had two heads, one would be at the disposal of the King of England, and in 1544, the Abbot of Lvry frankly claimed that Henry had murdered his wife.
George Constantine, no supporter of Anne’s, said he had “never heard of queens that they should be thus handled,” and “there was much muttering of Queen Anne’s death”. Alexander Aless, speaking of her execution, said that Anne “exhibited such constancy, patience and faith towards God that all the spectators, even her enemies and those persons who had previously rejoiced at her misfortune, testified and proclaimed her innocence and chastity.” Aless went on to report that there were a lot of suspicions about the evidence, as it was no new thing for men to dance in the Queen’s chambers, and that George Boleyn had taken Anne’s hand in the dance was not proof of incest. Aless thought it was Henry’s desire for an heir which had led to Anne’s downfall, combined with the failure of the embassy to the Schmalkalden League, as he would tell her daughter, Queen Elizabeth I, some years later.
In the summer after Anne’s death, Parliament was concerned with showing Anne as guilty and re-working the succession. Elizabeth was declared a bastard, like her half-sister Mary, and excluded from the succession. Henry would later restore them, but he never made them legitimate. Mary, upon her succession, attempted to turn back time by proclaiming her mother’s union to her father legal, rendering Mary legitimate. Elizabeth, never one to live in the past, did not do this for Anne, probably realising that to dig up the past would do her fragile reputation more harm than good.
The great irony of Henry’s quest for a male heir is that it was his daughter by Anne who would go on to be remembered as the greatest monarch of the Tudor dynasty, rather than his son, or even himself.
One of the reasons Anne remains so fascinating is because of the mystery surrounding her fall. I based my story on my own theories and those of historians, but no one truly knows whether Cromwell was the only author of Anne’s death, or if Henry asked him to get rid of her. I should also note that no one knows for sure if Anne was innocent, although from the evidence I have collected I believe she was.
Anne was the first Queen of England to be tried, condemned and executed. She remains but one of two, her cousin Catherine being the second. Anne was a po
litical player, and in the last game she lost. I have no doubt that Henry wanted her gone, and this was why her fall was brought about so easily, but the swiftness of her fall was down to Cromwell. My theory is that he was asked to find a reason for Henry and Anne to separate by Henry himself, but, realising that a mere annulment would be dangerous, Cromwell took the game to its final conclusion, told Henry that Anne had been unfaithful, and had plotted his death.
Anne’s conversation with Henry Norris provided the last scrap of evidence Cromwell required. Henry Tudor was a paranoid man. To hear that Anne had jested about “dead men’s shoes” was enough to make him think, even for a short while, that she had plotted against him. And the idea that she might love another, or others, was unbearable. No matter who he betrayed or how often, Henry expected absolute love and devotion from his people, his wife most of all. And I think he loved her, and at least a trace of that love, which had endured so long and stood so many trials, was still within him. Reports, even from Chapuys, suggest that Anne and Henry were united in the last months of her life, and Henry was even seeking further recognition of her status and titles, a fact which is borne out by his insistence that Chapuys recognise her as Queen only a month before her arrest. Henry’s continued insistence that Elizabeth be recognised as Princess also show that until Cromwell provided the ‘evidence’ that Anne had been unfaithful, Henry was dedicated to Anne as his wife and Elizabeth as his daughter. Provisions had been put in place to ensure Elizabeth’s future, such as the request that a son of France be sent to England to be raised according to Henry’s ideals. The idea quite clearly was that Elizabeth and her future husband would rule England in place of a legitimate son.
