TL *Humaning the Best She Can*’s Reviews > The Fall of Anne Boleyn: A Countdown > Status Update
TL *Humaning the Best She Can*
is 92% done
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.
— Sep 03, 2025 07:17PM
2 likes · Like flag
TL *Humaning the Best She Can*’s Previous Updates
TL *Humaning the Best She Can*
is 92% done
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.
— Sep 03, 2025 07:16PM
TL *Humaning the Best She Can*
is 90% done
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.
— Sep 03, 2025 06:59PM
TL *Humaning the Best She Can*
is 83% done
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.
— Sep 03, 2025 07:39AM
TL *Humaning the Best She Can*
is 83% done
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.
— Sep 03, 2025 07:39AM
TL *Humaning the Best She Can*
is 81% done
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,
— Sep 03, 2025 07:34AM
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,
TL *Humaning the Best She Can*
is 81% done
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.
— Sep 03, 2025 07:32AM
TL *Humaning the Best She Can*
is 81% done
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".
— Sep 03, 2025 07:26AM
TL *Humaning the Best She Can*
is 81% done
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.
— Sep 03, 2025 07:24AM
TL *Humaning the Best She Can*
is 80% done
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.
— Sep 03, 2025 07:21AM
TL *Humaning the Best She Can*
is 80% done
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
— Sep 03, 2025 07:19AM
Comments Showing 1-2 of 2 (2 new)
date
newest »
newest »
message 1:
by
TL *Humaning the Best She Can*
(new)
-
rated it 3 stars
Sep 03, 2025 07:18PM
On the other side of the coin, she was also fiercely loyal to her friends and passionate about supporting the arts, poor relief and education. In short, she was not the typical Tudor housewife. She was a "power player"1 who would have seen herself as Henry's partner, an equal, rather than his submissive consort.
reply
|
flag
Whatever her faults, Anne Boleyn was not the victim of her own pride, ambition and conceit. Rather, she was the victim of a paranoid and desperate man, and of a political coup. Her personality and the rash things she said made her enemies, but it was her situation that killed her, not her temper. If she had been more submissive to Henry, would it have saved her? Of course not. She still would have miscarried; she would still have been seen as a usurper, the religious divides would still have existed and Henry would still have doubted his marriage. He would probably have got bored of her sooner! I cannot see how Anne could have prevented the events of 1536 in any way.
