![]() There would still be a substantial crowd of courtiers and Tower officials and inhabitants. The execution of a queen for treason was an unprecedented event, and Henry and Cromwell ensured that it was carefully stage managed within the walls of the Tower, rather than at the public execution sites outside. Henry had granted her the ‘small mercy’ of dying at the hands of a skilled swordsman rather than an executioner’s axe. On the eve of her execution, according to the Constable of the Tower, Anne joked “I heard say the executioner was very good, and I have a little neck” before putting her hands around it and laughing heartily. This created shockwaves, which caused religious and political unrest in Britain for the next 200 years.Īnne's Imprisonment at the Tower of London The following year, Henry broke with the Roman Catholic Church, setting himself up instead as the Supreme Head of what would become the Church of England. Henry and Anne’s first child, born on 7 September 1533, was a healthy daughter, who would grow up to become Elizabeth I. Anne was crowned Queen in Westminster Abbey on 1 June, when she was six months pregnant. In May 1533, Anne was escorted by river to the Tower of London where she prepared for her coronation in the royal apartments before riding to Westminster in a triumphant procession. Henry's marriage to Anne was technically bigamous, as his marriage to Katherine was not annulled until May 1533. Anne marries Henry VIIIĪnne finally married Henry in January 1533, seven years after their courtship had begun. Henry defied the Pope and dismissed Katherine from court in 1531. This book argued that the supreme authority was not held by the Pope but by the words of God enshrined in the Bible. ![]() Driven perhaps by her own reformist faith, she gave Henry a copy of William Tyndale’s ‘Obedience of a Christian Man’. It was Anne who may have suggested a solution to the Pope’s refusal to grant Henry a divorce. How much did Anne influence the English Reformation? Henry sent his doctor to tend to her at Hever Castle. In 1528 Anne was struck with the ‘sweating sickness’, a mysterious and often fatal virus. It was signed with a loveheart around Anne’s initials. One, awkwardly and explicitly, declared that the King’s heart belonged to Anne alone, and that he hoped his body would soon also. In the Vatican Library, a series of 17 letters survives which detail Henry’s growing infatuation with Anne over the next couple of years. Anne Receives Love letters from Henry VIII Henry was becoming increasingly desperate for a legitimate son and heir to secure the future of the Tudor dynasty.Įither driven by her own virtue or ambition, or by her scheming relatives, and aware of the King’s dynastic dilemma, Anne refused to become a royal mistress and held out for the possibility of marriage. Henry VIII’s long marriage to Katherine of Aragon had produced only one surviving child, Princess Mary. In 1526, the King’s interest in Anne significantly upped the stakes. ![]() Her French education made Anne stand out on her return to England: she could sing, play musical instruments and dance, and introduced new French fashions at court. ![]() After Louis’ death in 1515, Anne stayed in France for seven years in the household of Queen Claude, wife of the new king, Francis I.įor an ambitious family like the Boleyns, this was a wonderful opportunity for their daughter to learn all the skills and manners expected of a lady at court, and to form a close connection with the French and English royal families. In 1513, Thomas Boleyn sent Anne to the court of Margaret of Austria, and then to the French court, originally as a companion to Henry VIII’s sister, Mary, who was married to Louis XII. She spent her childhood at Hever Castle in Kent. Her mother, Elizabeth Howard, was the daughter of Sir Thomas Howard, 2 nd Duke of Norfolk, one of the most powerful men in the country. Her father, Sir Thomas Boleyn, was a respected courtier. Anne was born in about 1500 (we don’t know exactly when). ![]()
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