Status Updates From The Fall of Anne Boleyn: A ...

The Anne Boleyn I have come to know though my research is a far cry from the Anne of popular fiction, but she is certainly no saint, angel or martyr, and does not deserve to be put on a pedestal. Anne was stubborn, ambitious, impatient, hot-tempered, driven, calculating, spiteful at times, and a woman who would not suffer fools gladly.

I agree with Derek Wilson that the plot against Anne and the men was too complex to be down to Cromwell alone; if this were the case, there would certainly have been easier ways of ending the marriage. Adultery and incest were not even treason, so Anne and the men also had to be charged with conspiring against the King.

I've heard it said that Anne Boleyn has to take some responsibility for her fall in 1536 even though she was innocent of the crimes for which she was condemned. In his TV series on Henry VIII, "Henry VIII: Mind of a Tyrant",40 David Starkey spoke about how Anne's forthright character and ability to say "no" to Henry, when nobody else would, were attractive in a mistress but not what Henry found acceptable in a wife.

Anne's executioner was a French swordsman from Calais10,11 and for him to get to London by 18th or 19th May he would have to have been ordered before Anne's trial had even taken place.

Chapuys wrote to Charles V on the 19th May: "I hear that, even before the arrest of the Concubine, the King, speaking with Mistress Jane Semel[Seymour] of their future marriage, the latter suggested that the Princess should be replaced in her former position".8 So Henry had mentioned marriage to Jane Seymour before Anne was even arrested on 2nd May! Court gossip perhaps but it's interesting nonetheless.

Ralph Morice, secretary of Archbishop Cranmer, recorded the following warning issued by the King to Cranmer in 1546 when the conservatives targeted him and tried to bring him down: "Oh Lorde God ! (quod the king) what fonde symplicitie have you :

so to permitt yourself to be ymprisoned, that every enemy of yours may take vantage againste you. Doo not you thincke that yf thei have you ones in prison,

So, according to Henry VIII, the Queen had come to a sticky end from 'meddling' rather than being guilty of treason! As Eric Ives8 points out, Henry VIII also admitted years later that once a prisoner was in the Tower of London then false evidence could be used against him.

The imperial ambassador, Eustace Chapuys, in reporting the trials to Charles V, wrote that the men "were condemned upon presumption and certain indications, without valid proof or confession", that George Boleyn was charged "by presumption" and that "those present wagered 10 to 1 that he would be acquitted, especially as no witnesses were produced against either him or her".

Although Cromwell's propaganda machine had been working flat out, spreading the salacious and shocking news that the King of England had been saved from a conspiracy instigated by his own wife and Queen, there were those who were cynical and could not quite believe the official line.

On Tuesday 30th May, just eleven days after the execution of his second wife, Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII married Jane Seymour in the Queen's Closet at York Place, the property renovated by himself and Anne.

I suspect that Henry VIII saw nothing wrong with his actions as, after all, he was acting in the best interest of his country by providing England with a new Queen to give him a son and heir. What did it matter that he was planning a wedding while his current wife was in the Tower condemned to die? Henry had probably convinced himself that his marriage to Anne Boleyn was as cursed as his marriage

The royal palace where Anne Boleyn was imprisoned, and the Great Hall in which she was tried, no longer exist, having been demolished by the end of the 18th century. However, the Queen's lodgings stood between the Lanthorn Tower and the Wardrobe Tower, on the South Lawn behind the White Tower. The half-timbered Queen's House which overlooks Tower Green

Sir William Kingston was paid £100 by the Crown for Anne Boleyn's "jewels and apparel"10 and that was that. One queen was dead and another was about to take her place. Sir Francis Bryan took the news of Anne's death to her replacement, Jane Seymour; who knows what she thought of the bloody events of the past few days?

No casket had been provided, so a yeoman warder fetched an old elm chest which had once contained bow staves from the Tower armoury. Anne Boleyn, Queen of England and mother of Elizabeth I, was then buried as a traitor in an unmarked grave. The Tower cannons fired to tell London that its Queen was dead.

Unlike her brother, Anne did not protest her innocence and preach to the crowd; she simply did what was expected of her. Executions were carefully choreographed, with a set format for execution speeches which Anne followed to to the letter. There was no way that she would risk her daughter's safety by defying the King and proclaiming her innocence.

Anne then delivered her final speech:

"Good Christian people, I have not come here to preach a sermon; I have come here to die. For according to the law and by the law I am judged to die, and therefore I will speak nothing against it. I am come hither to accuse no man, nor to speak of that whereof I am accused and condemned to die, but I pray God save the King and send him long to reign over you,

Kingston knew full well that Anne was not being executed that day as he had received orders from Cromwell to clear the Tower of foreigners first, perhaps so that foreign diplomats could not send home sympathetic reports of Anne execution. Kingston kept Anne in the dark for a while longer and tried to comfort her by explaining that her execution would not be painful and that the blow was "so subtle".

As the highest in rank, Anne Boleyn's brother, George Boleyn, Lord Rochford, was the first to be executed. This at least spared him the ordeal of watching as his friends and colleagues were killed one by one. Before he knelt at the block, he made a speech, but it is hard to know exactly what he said; there are a few different versions of his final speech.

On 17th May 1536, Sir Henry Norris, Sir Francis Weston, Mark Smeaton, Sir William Brereton and George Boleyn, Lord Rochford, were led out of the Tower of London to a scaffold which had been erected on Tower Hill. I cannot imagine how they felt as they surveyed the scene and realised that death was closing in on them. Their only comfort was that their sentences

We have no way of knowing how Jane felt about the situation. She must have known that she was being groomed to take Anne Boleyn's place as queen and that Anne was in the Tower, but she may not have known all of the details. Did she feel guilty about Anne's predicament? Did she believe that Anne was guilty? Did she think that Anne deserved it for taking Catherine of Aragon's crown from her?

Also on 12th May 1536, the Duke of Norfolk, uncle of Anne and George Boleyn, was appointed Lord High Steward of England in readiness for ruling, as Lord President, over the trials of his niece and nephew.9

We also have to take into account the Tudor legal machinery. Defendants did not have counsel, they were not aware of what evidence was being presented against them, they could not prepare their defence case and all they could do was react to what was said in court. Talk about being at a disadvantage! When you combine this disadvantage with the hostile jury and the fact that the onus was on the accused to

The men's hearts must have sunk into their shoes when they saw the jury. Any hopes they had held of being acquitted and released must have been dashed as soon as they saw the men sitting in judgement on them. Although the jury included Thomas Boleyn, Earl of Wiltshire, a man who would certainly not benefit from these men being found guilty when it would prejudice the trial of his son and daughter,

On 12th May 1536, Mark Smeaton, Sir Henry Norris, Sir Francis Weston and Sir William Brereton were tried at a special commission of oyer and terminer, just a day after the Grand Jury of Kent had assembled and only eight days after Weston and Brereton had been arrested. The legal machinery had worked incredibly quickly.

Looking at the dates of Anne's alleged adultery I find it difficult to believe that a woman, never-mind a queen, could hop from bed to bed like that over a period of just over 2 years and not be caught sooner. How could she possibly have had five lovers and not have been gossiped about? It beggars belief.

The dates listed in the indictments are pure nonsense, but the catch-all phrases "and on divers other days and places" and "on several days before and after" meant that if the dates were challenged then the indictment was still valid. Interestingly, the date that Anne Boleyn argued with Sir Henry Norris and accused him of looking "for dead men's shoes", the 30th April, is not in the indictments,

The alleged offences were the same as the Middlesex indictment – seduction, adultery, incest, jealousy, plotting to kill the king etc. – just at different venues, so it is no wonder that the jury decided to send it to trial after the previous day's decision. The indictment also included the same catch-all phrase as the Middlesex Indictment, regarding various days before and after these dates.

Just as the Grand Jury of Middlesex met at Westminster on 10th May 1536, the Grand Jury of Kent met on 11th May in front of Chief Justice John Baldwin and six of his colleagues at Deptford. They met to rule on the alleged crimes committed at Greenwich Palace, East Greenwich, and Eltham Palace by Queen Anne Boleyn,Sir Henry Norris,Sir William Brereton,Sir Francis Weston,George Boleyn (Lord Rochford) and Mark Smeaton.

Some people believe that Wyatt's poetry is evidence of a relationship between Anne Boleyn and Thomas Wyatt. For example, his riddle poem "What wourde is that that chaungeth not" has the answer "Anna", and in "The Lover Confesseth Him in Love with Phyllis", he writes of "That Brunet" which is taken to refer to Anne. Further evidence (if you believe The Spanish Chronicle!) is the story of Wyatt visiting Anne at Hever,

Little is known of Thomas Wyatt's childhood, apart from the story of the lion. It is said that Wyatt, or his father, was raising a lion cub as a pet when it turned on Sir Henry as he entered Allington and knocked him to the ground. Thomas Wyatt had the presence of mind to grab his rapier and run it through the lion's heart. When Henry VIII heard of this story, he commented "Oh, he will tame lions".1