.:Lady Anne Boleyn:.

About me:

.... Anne Boleyn was born in England at Hever Castle around 1504. The daughter of Sir Thomas Boleyn later Earl of Wiltshire and Ormonde, and Elizabeth Howard daughter of Thomas Howard, Earl of Surrey later Duke of Norfolk. In 1514 Anne was sent to France to attended to Queen Claude as a lady-in-waiting. Anne spent most of her childhood at the French Court. She was well educated, and quite a tantalizing woman. Anne returned to England around 1521, where she attended court as a lady-in-waiting to Queen Catherine of Aragon. It is said that everything about Anne was French, the way she dressed, even her accent was French. Anne had many admirers and suitors. Among the former was poet Sir Thomas Wyatt, and among the latter, Henry Percy, heir of the Earl of Northumberland, a marriage with whom however, was stopped by the King. Anne remained unmarried, and a series of grants and favors bestowed by King Henry on her father have been taken, though very doubtfully, as a symptom of the Kings affections. Unlike her sister Mary, who had fallen a victim to King Henry. Exactly when and where Henry VIII first noticed Anne is not known, he sought to make Anne his mistress. But with Anne it would only be his wife, never his mistress. Queen or nothing for Anne. At first, the court probably thought that Anne would end up as another one of Henrys mistresses. But in 1527, Henry began to seek an annulment of his marriage to Catherine. In 1532, Anne accompanied Henry on a visit to France to meet with King Francis I, while Catherine was left in England, neglected and practically a prisoner. Anne showed real interest in religious reform and may have introduced some “new ideas” to Henry, and gaining the hatred of some members of the court. Anne was some what unpopular with the people of England. The waiting continued and Anne’s position continued to rise. On the first day of September 1532, she was created Marquess of Pembroke, a title she held in her own right. Sometime near the end of 1532, Anne finally gave way to Henry and was pregnant. To avoid questions of the legitimacy of the child, Henry married Anne around the 25th of January 1533. Although the Kings marriage to Catharine was not dissolved, in Henrys mind it had never existed in the first place, so he was free to marry whomever he wanted. On May 23, Henry and Anne’s marriage was declared valid and that with Catherine null. Plans for Anne’s coronation began. In preparation, she had been brought by water from Greenwich to the Tower of London dressed in cloth of gold. On the 1st of June, she left the Tower in procession to Westminster Abbey, where she became crowned and anointed Queen of England. Anne Boleyn had now reached the zenith of her hopes. By August, preparations were being made for the birth of Anne’s child, which was sure to be a boy. Anne took to her chamber, according to custom, on August 26, 1533 and on September 7, the Princess Elizabeth was born. Her christening service was scaled down, but still a pleasant affair. Anne’s day of triumph was destined to be even shorter than that of her predecessor. There was soon signs that Henrys affection, had cooled. He resented her arrogance for the way she treated the Lady Mary, that was now removed from the line of succession and claimed a bastard. Anne now knew it was imperative that she produce a son. By January of 1534, she was pregnant again, but the child was either miscarried or still born. In 1535, she was pregnant once again but miscarried by the end of January. The child was reported to have been a boy. The Queen was quite upset, and blamed the miscarriage on her state of mind after hearing that Henry had taken a fall in a jousting match. Anne had to have known at this point that her failure to produce a living male heir was a threat to her own life, especially since the Kings fancy for one of her ladies-in-waiting, Jane Seymour began to grow. Anne’s enemies at court began to plot against her using the Kings attentions to Jane Seymour as the catalyst for action. Thomas Cromwell began to move in action to bring down the Queen. He persuaded the King to sign a document calling for an investigation that would result in charges of treason. On April 30, 1536 Anne’s musician and friend for several years, Mark Smeaton, was arrested and under extreme torture confessed to revelations about the Queen. Next, Sir Henry Norris was arrested and taken to the Tower of London. Then the Queen’s own brother George Boleyn, Lord Rochford was arrested. On May 2, Queen Anne was arrested at Greenwich and was informed of the charges against her; adultery, incest, and plotting to murder the King. She was taken to the Tower of London by barge along the same path she had traveled to prepare for her coronation just three years earlier. Anne was taken to the same apartments she resided in just before her coronation. There were several more arrests in the days to follow. Sir Francis Weston and William Brereton were charged with adultery with the Queen. Sir Thomas Wyatt was also arrested, but later released. They were put to trial with Smeaton and Norris at Westminster Hall on May 12, 1536. The men were not allowed to defend themselves, as was the case in charges of treason. They were found guilty and received the required punishment, they were to be hanged at Tyburn, cut down while still living, and then disemboweled and quartered. On May 15th, Queen Anne and her brother were put on trail at the Great Hall of the Tower of London. Anne conducted herself in a calm and dignified manner, denying all charges against her. George was tried next with his own wife Lady Rochford testifying against him. They were both found guilty, with the sentence being read by their uncle, Thomas Howard, the Duke of Norfolk. They were to be either burnt at the stake or beheaded at the discretion of the King. On may 17, George Boleyn was executed on Tower Hill. The other four men condemned with the Queen had their sentences commuted from the grisly fate at Tyburn to a simple beheading at the Tower with Lord Rochford. Anne knew that her time would soon come and started to become hysterical, her behavior swinging from great levity, to body wracking sobs. She received news that an expert swordsman from Calais had been summoned, who would no doubt deliver a cleaner blow with a sharp sword than the traditional axe. Anne had regarded the prospect of death with courage and almost with levity, laughing heartily as she put her hands about her “little neck”. Interestingly, shortly before her execution, the Queen’s marriage to the King was dissolved and declared invalid. One would wonder then how she could committed adultery if she had in fact never been married to the King. But this was overlooked, as were so many other lapses of logic in the charges against Anne. They came for Anne on the morning of May 19, while Anne still strongly protesting her innocence, made her way to Tower Green. I have seen many men wrote Sir William Kingston, and also women executed, and all they have been in great sorrow, and to my knowledge this lady has much joy and pleasure in death Anne made her way up the specially built scaffold, that was draped in black cloth and laid with straw. As Anne stood there preparing herself, she spoke these last words, The swordsman cut off her head in one stroke. When Anne’s head fell onto the scaffold, the guns boomed at the Tower. Anne’s head and body were place in an old arrow chest and buried in an unmarked grave in the Chapel of St. Peter ad Vincula within the Tower. When Henry heard the guns, he quickly made his way to Jane Seymour, whom he would marry eleven days after Anne’s death. Anne was a self confident, determind, ambitious, quick-tempered, passionate and spirited person. She was pious but not rigid. Clever, conniving, and loyal to those she loved. She had a gentle heart when needed, showing kindness to the poor. Like her daughter Queen Elizabeth, she was adventurous, influential, and perceptive. Intelligence, wit, and impeccable style, love for her daughter, care for her advancement of a more tolerant religious point of view. Determined, ambitious, cultured, and musically talented. She was also well read, intellectually curious, politically sharp and highly capable, she was a woman born before her time. The woman who had once enthralled England’s King, who inspired him to move heaven and earth to have her, meant nothing in the end. Anne’s failure to provide a male heir for the Tudor Dynasty ultimately led her to her death. Anne Boleyn was a pawn caught in a dangerous web between a father who’s lust for power destroyed their entire family, and a King who at one time was so passionately in love with her. But his determination to have a son erased all common love and compassion he once had for her. Henry's fear of leaving England without a strong successor turned out to be unfounded. He did leave an heir, whom would rule over England for forty-five years. It was not the boy he yearned for, but the strong red-haired girl Anne gave him. Anne Boleyn’s greatest achievement was the birth of her daughter Elizabeth. When Elizabeth’s future seemed dire just prior and after Anne’s death, she would prove to be both her fathers and mothers daughter when she finally ascended the English throne in 1558. Elizabeth would become on of England’s greatest and longest serving monarchs in a time when a women was thought to be little more than adjuncts to their male counterparts. Although she had full power over her realm, Elizabeth managed to portray herself as a “mere woman” while at the same time ruling her country with great pride. Anne’s daughter possessed Henry’s red hair, but her mother’s dark eyes. The daughter of King Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn had a steely and more often than not brilliant determination that kept her safely on the English throne for more than 45 years. Left motherless at the age of 3. Elizabeth would endure bastardization at the decree of her own father, and many years of isolation, and disgrace before being reinstated to the line of succession upon her fathers death in 1547. Anne Boleyn’s great strength of character and unique intelligence would lend itself well to her only child, and would forever render Anne’s legacy into history and that of the English Monarchy.