December edition of "Tudor Life"

Keith Michell as Henry VIII and Jane Asher as Queen Jane Seymour (1972)

The December edition of Tudor Life magazine, for members of the Tudor Society, is out. Sadly, the Australian actor Keith Michell, famous for his three on-screen performance as Henry VIII, passed away less than two weeks ago, which makes Roland Hui's article on Michell's work in Henry VIII and his Six Wives (1972) all the more poignant. Along with articles on piracy in Tudor England, the theory of the "little Ice Age", a review of a new study of Mary I, short stories, profiles of houses belonging to Anne of Cleves, banquets and carols, the magazine was also thrilled to host a wonderful piece of satire from Professor Susan Bordo, author of The Creation of Anne Boleyn. I am so pleased to post the excerpt from She, Anne, which formed the banner piece for this month's edition. The story is dedicated by the author to author Sue Grafton and Oscar-nominated actress, Genevieve Bujold.

Author’s note: In July 2015, Sue Grafton, author of the Kinsey Millhone mysteries, was interviewed in The New York Times. When asked about her favorite reading, she replied that she “has trouble passing up books about Anne Boleyn. I keep hoping for a different ending. So far, no luck.’ (New York Times, July 16, 2015, “By the Book”)

She, Anne, sits musing about preparations for the execution they say is to come in the morning.  She is troubled at the prospect that her bit of an extra fingernail, which has been gestating like a deformed fetus in the imaginations of her enemies, growing larger and more disfiguring each day, would be exposed for all as she spread her arms for the executioner’s well-timed blow.  She ponders which highly fashionable French execution robe would cover it most effectively.  “Looking good is the best revenge,” she cackled to herself (cackling being a human sound especially beloved by witches,) revealing as she did so small, feral teeth that she longed to put to best use by piercing the robust neck of her husband’s chief counselor TC.  Then she sighed, remembering that her days as a living body were soon to be over.  She can already feel her fictional self ascending, her teeth becoming sharper, her hair blacker, her motives meaner.  There were compensations, of course. She was pleased to note that her sallow skin and moles would disappear and she would grow more beautiful over the coming centuries.  Eventually, perhaps, even the sixth finger would disappear.

Interrupting her musings, a visitor to her Tower rooms!  Was it her jailer, Mr. Kingston, come to blather some more about the skill of her executioner? (French—of course he was skilled! Kingston himself--an idiot who doesn’t know a joke when he hears it.) Was it Cranmer, come to make her an offer of life in a convent should she agree to renounce her daughter Elizabeth’s claim to the throne? Cranmer was a dear man, but didn’t he know she, Anne, was a goggle-eyed whore who would as soon chop her own head off with a dull English hatchet as spend the rest of her life without a man to suck on her slender toes?  Is it Elizabeth, come to pose for a painting of a tearful parting from her martyred mother?  Is it her sister Mary, that simpering do-gooder (then again, might she be gulled into asking Henry to pardon her)? Perhaps it is TC himself, and they can together converse about the 21^st century alchemy that would transform him, Cromwell (She never calls him “Cremuel”; sometimes “Crumb” but never “Cremuel”), from unscrupulous factotum to a warm and dryly witty man for all seasons?  (Or was that TM?  It is so difficult to keep the Thomas’s straight as they mutate, along with Anne herself, over the centuries!) 

No.  The visitor is the beloved husband himself, come to make the offer of life “for old times’ sake.” He wants to marry again, they all know that.  But he is a fool if he thinks her daughter’s rights can be bought that cheaply. And—ah! —He also wants to know if the charges are true.  Has she, Anne, really been unfaithful to him? Henry appears bleary-eyed, as though he has been on a bender; he is speaking oddly, bellowing with eyes raised to heaven, much like a preacher or a travelling actor from the north, come to court to tell tales of Arthur and Guinevere. Anne, recalling those tales, is tempted to make an argument with herself: Guinevere was queen, Guinevere was condemned, Guinevere was saved.  Perhaps she, too….? 

No.  She, Anne, is not fooled by the poetic, impassioned performance of her husband (who also seems to have lost a bit of weight since her arrest.) She knows that future re-tellings will often make her look about anxiously as she walks to the scaffold, hoping for the savior/messenger, but she does not expect her husband to issue a last-minute pardon.  She knows too that the future will often make her colder, meaner, and more grasping than she is, but rarely will it fathom her intelligence.  She has “wit,” they always say.  But she, Anne, this Anne, has more than wit, and she knows how to conjure a real curse.  “Take it to your grave,” she tells him, excited and flushed by the perfect extravagance of her lie, “I was unfaithful to you with half your court.” Henry, who cannot bear to feel his mind waver—it isn’t Kingly or manly—does not now know what to believe.  Impotent with rage, he slaps her.  She hardly cares about the sting of the slap; she faces far worse in the morrow. Actually, it is quite a delectable moment, even more soul satisfying than when, barely a breath later really, in eternal time, she will see that snake TC with his head finally off his shoulders.  As for Henry, she cannot resist a final thrust, knowing it will stir the souls of later generations, with a persuasion beyond mere fact. “But Elizabeth is yours! And will rule an England far greater than any you could have built!” Henry’s expression is worth the coming blood on the scaffold.  

She, Anne, wishes she could do better than this for Sue Grafton.  Alas, there are some things—very few—that biographers and novelists cannot tinker with.  Whore, martyr, sister from hell, exploited innocent, ambitious predator, sexual temptress, religious reformer, rebel girl—she, Anne, can see her many strange future selves displayed before her, as she awaits the hour of her execution.  Fingers, moles, skin, swellings, teeth, nipples—up for grabs. The head, however, must come off.  She, Anne, is as sorry about this as you are. But think on this, as you count the books on your shelf:  Who, of all Henry’s wives, has lived the longest?  Ha!

Professor Bordo holds the Otis A. Singletary Chair in the Humanities at the University of Kentucky and she is the author of many well-known books and articles, most recently The Creation of Anne Boleyn: A New Look at England’s Most Notorious Queen, available both in U.S. and U.K. editions.

The death of George Boleyn: A guest post and blog tour

It's been quite the start to summer for fans of Tudor biographies, with studies on the lives of those usually defined by their relationship to the royal family's star players appearing to flesh out our knowledge of Henry VIII's dazzling but terrifying court. First, Lauren Mackey's biography of Eustace Chapuys, the prolific diplomat whose correspondence all historians owe a debt to, and secondly Clare Cherry and Claire Ridgway's biography George Boleyn: Tudor Poet, Courtier and Diplomat, which seeks to give a fairer understanding of Anne Boleyn's notorious brother, who perished in May 1536 on a fabricated charge of commiting incest with his sister the queen. Described by David Starkey as having all of Anne's confidence but only half her talents, George has recently been resurrected in popular culture in many different guises, featuring the novels, plays, television dramas and movies about the Henrician court.

With so much fascination and even more speculation about George Boleyn, Clare Cherry and Claire Ridgway (above) have teamed up to produce a biography of him, which I'm reading at the moment and which I can certainly recommend. To win your own signed copy of the book, read on to the end of this extract from George Boleyn, an account of his execution and interest in the Reformation. Thank you to the two Cla(i)res for this excerpt; it's a pleasure to host them as part of their blog tour to promote their new book.

***

George Boleyn was executed on Tower Hill on 17^th May 1536. He had gone from palace to prison to execution within 15 days, and it is a testament to his courage and strength of character that he was able to defend himself so well at his trial and give such an impassioned speech on the scaffold, when lesser men would still have been in shock. He made a long penitent speech, which found admiration with the vast crowd gathered to witness the executions. There are a number of different versions of George’s speech, but they all agree on the basic content. Only Chapuys has George confessing that he deserved death for “having so contaminated and so contaminating others with the new sects”, and praying everyone to abandon such heresies. That is clearly not what he said, and is more a matter of wishful thinking by Chapuys.

The site of George Boleyn's execution

 After stepping on to the scaffold, George addressed the crowd:

“I was born under the law, and I die under the law, for as much as it is the law which has condemned me.”

According to two eyewitnesses, he said this three times, almost as if he were collecting his thoughts before continuing. But there was another reason. To say he died “under the law”, rather than admitting his guilt, was the closest he dared go to declaring his innocence. Therefore, he ensured the point was reiterated to the vast crowd of spectators, many of whom knew him personally. He went on to say that he was not there to preach a sermon but to die. He told the vast crowd that he deserved death because he was a wretched sinner who had grievously and often offended. He did not relate his sins, telling the crowd that they would derive no pleasure from hearing them, and that he would derive no pleasure from stating them. He merely said that God knew them all. He warned everyone present to use him as an example, especially his fellow courtiers. He warned them “not to trust in the vanity of the world, and especially in the flatterings of the Court, and the favour and treacheries of Fortune”, which he said raised men up only to “dash them again upon the ground”. He blamed fortune for his current pitiful condition - or rather, he blamed himself, saying he had leaned too heavily on fortune, “who hath proved herself fickle and false unto me”. He said he prayed for the mercy of God, and that he forgave all men. He begged forgiveness of God and of anyone he might have offended. He begged those present to ask anyone not there to forgive him if he had offended them, and he told them that “having lived the life of a sinner, I would fain die a Christian man.”

There has been much speculation in the latter part of the twentieth and the early years of the twenty-first century about what it was to which George Boleyn was referring to when he said he was a wretched sinner who deserved death, but refused to name his sins. The condemned had their families to protect, and no protestations of innocence would have been acceptable to the Crown. Besides, it was the honourable thing to accept that death was deserved. The Christian doctrine was that we are all sinners deserving of death because of original sin. The shame and dishonour George says he dies for is clearly the incest conviction (“with worse shame and dishonour than hath ever been heard of before”), but at no point in the speech does he make an admission of the offence of which he had been found guilty.

Though one of the sins he refers to, but does not mention, is suggested to be sodomy, there is no evidence for this. George Cavendish suggests that George was referring to promiscuity. This may have been partly true, but the behaviour for which he apologises could refer to an amalgamation of supposed sins. Although George did not ask for the King’s forgiveness, he did ask forgiveness of anyone whom he might have offended. Indeed, he went further than this and virtually begged for forgiveness. As a Christian man about to face death, he would have been acutely aware of his flaws and faults. He was proud, and totally lacked humility. He was typically ruthless and self-seeking for a man of the age. He sat at the trial of Thomas More and was present at the appalling executions of the Carthusian monks, despite his protestations of being a “Christian man”. He showed no sympathy or compassion towards Catherine of Aragon or her daughter Mary. We do not know how he treated his wife, but his reputation as a high-living womaniser would support the notion that he was not ideal husband material. He had even turned his back on his sister Mary in her hour of need. When facing death, George Boleyn, a highly intelligent and religious man, would have been painfully aware of these failings. Hence his speech went above and beyond that which was expected of him.

He admitted he had relied too heavily on fortune and trusted too much in the vanity of the world and the flattery of the court. His positions of favour and power had resulted in sycophantic flattery by friends and enemies alike, and he had swallowed it whole. He had waltzed around the court with an air of arrogance in the certainty of his position, and because of his confidence in himself and the respect in which he was held. Yet those same people who had fawned over him were here now, watching him die. It was all false, and only at the very end did he realise this.

In his speech he went on to highlight his religious convictions, as previously quoted in the chapter on religion, before finishing by praying “God save the King”. Knowing the sort of irreverence to which George Boleyn was prone, this last sentence could be read with a great deal of irony; but whatever was happening to him, his upbringing would never have allowed him to think ill of the King. As far as George was concerned, this was his own fault.

Following his speech, he calmly and courageously knelt down, placed his head on the block, and submitted his neck to the axe. His head was removed with a single stroke, and his severed head was held up to the crowd as the executioner intoned the words, “So ends the lives of all the King’s enemies.” George Boleyn had many faults, but treason had never been one of them, and Henry must have known that. None of the men’s heads were put on display on spikes, as was usual with convicted traitors; this would surely have been the case if Henry seriously thought they were guilty, just as Thomas Culpeper’s would be five years later. It was the only small consideration that Henry showed his innocent friends. George’s body and head were taken to the Chapel of St Peter ad Vincula within the Tower, where his sister would join him two days later. The other men were buried in two graves, two men in each, in the chapel graveyard.

It is unlikely, as Chapuys alleges, that Anne was forced to watch the executions of her brother and friends, but she may have seen the men congregated together before they were marched out of the Tower - perhaps allowing her one last look at her beloved brother. One man who did witness the executions was Thomas Wyatt, who was imprisoned in the Tower still and who wrote about them in verse, illustrating the danger of being too close to the throne:

“These bloody days have broken my heart.

My lust, my youth did them depart,

And blind desire of estate.

Who hastes to climb seeks to revert.

Of truth, circa Regna tonat.

The Bell Tower showed me such a sight

That in my head sticks day and night.

There did I learn out of a grate,

For all favour, glory, or might,

That yet, circa Regna tonat.”

In a way this verse reiterates the words of George Boleyn on the scaffold, when he warned his listeners not to trust the vanities of the world and the flattery of the court. His “blind desire of estate” and his “haste to climb” had led him to this end. This was certainly the passage of his speech that was specifically remembered by most of those present, particularly courtiers. On 18 September 1536, John Husee had cause to write to Lady Lisle, “but now I remember my Lord of Rochford’s words, who exhorted every man to beware of the flattering of the court.” There was many a young courtier who heard those words with trepidation.

George’s body and head were taken to the Chapel of St Peter ad Vincula within the Tower, where his sister would join him two days later.

(Taken from George Boleyn: Tudor Poet, Courtier andDiplomat)

Notes and Sources

* Bentley, Samuel, ed. Excerpta Historica Or, Illustrations of English History. London, 1831, pp. 261–5.

*  LP x. 908

* Constantine, George. Archaeologia, Or, Miscellaneous Tracts Relating to Antiquity. Vol. 23. ed. T Amyot, The Society, 1831, pp. 64-6.

*  Gruffudd, Elis. “Gruffudd’s Chronicle”. The National Library of Wales.

*  St Clare Byrne, Muriel, ed. The Lisle Letters. Vol. 3. University of Chicago Press, 1981, p491.

* The Chronicle of Calais In the Reigns of Henry VII and Henry VIII to the Year 1540 (ed. Gough Nichols, John).

* Thomas, William, The Pilgrim, London, 1861, pp.116-17

* Wriothesley, Charles. A Chronicle of England During the Reigns of the Tudors, from A.D. 1485 to 1559. ed. Camden Society 1875., pp. 39-40.

COMPETITION

Win a signed copy of George Boleyn: Tudor Poet, Courtier and Diplomat by Clare Cherry and Claire Ridgway by answering this question. Please submit your answers like a comment, complete with your e-mail address; neither will be published. But when we use a generator to randomly select a winner from the entrants, it'll be helpful to have your e-mail address for me to let you know you've won! The e-mail addresses, perhaps needless to say, will not be passed on to any third parties. (Also please leave comments about the article, with any of your own thoughts or queries about George Boleyn, Lord Rochford. It's always a pleasure for authors to hear from people interested in their work!)
QUESTION: George Boleyn's sister Anne was played by English actress Natalie Dormer in the Showtime series "The Tudors". What is the name of the queen she is currently playing in HBO's medieval fantasy "Game of Thrones"? 

The competition closes on Thursday 12th June 2014. Thank you.

Two reviews from the archives

From the archives of History Today, two reviews of biographies of two of history's unluckiest queens - Anne Boleyn and Marie-Antoinette of France. Dr. Susan Walter Schmid reviews G.W. Bernard's 2010 biography of Boleyn, Fatal Attractions, taking particular issue with Bernard's comparisons between Anne Boleyn and the late Princess Diana and his use of extant translation of Lancelot de Carles's poem about Boleyn's downfall in 1536.

 

One wants to ask immediately: Why would Anne have become an adulteress? In a curiously presentist observation Bernard would have us believe that because of Princess Diana, moderns may not find it so hard to believe a queen would commit adultery (p. 156). Presentism occurs when we allow ourselves to interpret past people or events based only on our modern values and concepts. Granted, it is difficult to avoid; after all, the present is what we know best, but a historian simply must not fall into this trap. What an increasingly unhappy princess in the twentieth century did cannot automatically tell us anything about what a not necessarily unhappy queen in the sixteenth century might have done. Although there were some suggestions that Henry had a mistress while married to Anne, what she might have done in response must be understood in sixteenth-century terms, not those of today.

Meanwhile, John Rogister, author of Louis XV and the Parlement of Paris, 1737 - 1755, offers a generally positive review of Lady Antonia Fraser's 2002 biography of Marie-Antoinette, The Journey.

 

This absorbing and well-illustrated book is full of sharp insights about Marie Antoinette, her relationship with the handsome Swedish nobleman, Count Ferson (her romantic knight), her loyalty to those she loved. Georgiana, the Duchess of Devonshire, gave an apt description of the Queen facing her accusers: how, even when confronted with a disgusting allegation extracted from her impressionable seven-year-old son, ‘her answers, her cleverness and greatness of mind’ shone through.

 

Both reviews contain very good accounts of Anne and Marie-Antoinette's historical significance. The review of Anne Boleyn: Fatal Attractions is accessible here and Marie Antoinette: The Journey's is here.

Anne Boleyn's last secret

Leanda de Lisle, whose biography of the Grey sisters is one of my favourite reads, along with her wonderful account of the final years of Elizabeth I, has sent me a link to her new article in The Spectator about the execution of Anne Boleyn and her theory that the sword used to kill the queen probably had far less to do with the French aristocracy than most people suppose. You can read Leanda's post here and it's a fantastic read.

Leanda's new book, Tudor: The Family Story, is published in the UK on August 29th.

Obituary: Professor Eric W. Ives (1931 - 2012)

Meeting people who are gifted, bright and talented is always a pleasure and one I had always wanted to hear was Eric Ives - or Professor Eric William Ives, O.B.E., Emeritus Professor of History at the University of Birmingham. Eric Ives was a giant of Tudor history; his work included a short biography of Henry VIII, a political study of Lady Jane Grey's time as queen, a study of how faction influenced government in the 1500s, several studies of legal history in the sixteenth century, forensic examinations of Henry VIII's last will and testament, studies of courtiers in Anne Boleyn's circle and a co-written study of the history of Birmingham's university. His last book, The Reformation Experience, was an examination of what it was like to live through the Reformation and, unlike many works written today, it was marginally more sympathetic to the Protestant community. (Ives was, himself, a devout Christian.)

However, it was for his work on Henry VIII's second wife, Anne Boleyn, that Eric Ives was best known. He first became interested in her when he was writing about the career of Sir William Brereton, a sixteenth century networking politico who was executed in 1536 for being Anne's adulterous lover. Ives' research into Brereton showed that it was practically impossible that Brereton was ever romantically involved with the queen, which led to the question of why he died for that crime. The result was a seven year academic investigation into Anne's life, which produced the acclaimed biography Anne Boleyn, in 1986. Reflecting on it later, Ives said, "I have sometimes described Anne Boleyn as the third woman in my life, after my immediate family, and it is true that once she interests you, fascination grows, as it did for men at the time".

Anne Boleyn rapidly became seen as a kind of bible by Tudor history aficionados and the standard text on Anne Boleyn's life and historical importance. There were detractors, of course - and Ives ended up in a ferocious academic spat with Professor George Bernard and with Professor Retha Warnicke. Warnicke rebutted with her book, The Rise and Fall of Anne Boleyn: Family politics at the court of Henry VIII, published in Cambridge (Ives was published in Oxford) in 1989. She argued that Ives's account of Anne's death was too political and that Anne had been the victim of sixteenth century gender prejudices, stirred up by the disastrous end to her final pregnancy. Even less convincingly was Bernard's rejoinder, Anne Boleyn: Fatal attractions, published by Yale in 2010, which argued that Ives was wrong to see Anne as innocent, because she must have done something wrong for Henry VIII to treat her so badly. (See my review of Bernard's book, here.) In 2004, Ives re-issued and re-updated his original book on Anne, producing The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn: The Most Happy. He revised some of his original findings, but stuck to his conclusion that Anne was "the most influential and important queen consort this country has ever had. Indeed, Anne deserves to be a feminist icon, a woman in a society which was, above all else, male-dominated, who broke through the glass ceiling by sheer character and initiative." Whether one agree with Ives or not, his biography of Anne was so comprehensive that it became the standard reference point on any and all subject pertaining to Anne Boleyn and the politics of the 1520s - her date of birth, her childhood education, the lives of her parents and siblings,  the nature of her early romantic relationships, the reliability of Catholic sources against her, the chronology of Henry VIII's obsession with her, her personality, the downfall of Cardinal Wolsey, factional politics, the rise of Thomas Cromwell, the Break with Rome, which (if any) of her portraits were authentic, her appearance, the date of her marriage, the nature of her married life, her political influence, her charity, her wealth, her artistic patronage, her ladies in waiting, her influence on the church, her sense of Christianity, foreign policy in her lifetime and, above all, why she ended her life in such a tragic and bloody way. 

So, when I was invited to speak and co-host the 2012 Anne Boleyn Experience, a luxury holiday operated by History Tours of Great Britain, I was very, very excited to hear that one of the other speakers would be Eric Ives. I gave my talk on life in the queen's household on the Monday and Professor Ives was due to speak on the Tuesday, about Anne's downfall in 1536 and who was to blame. (It was Ives's controversial theory that Thomas Cromwell had far more to do with it than Henry himself and that Cromwell essentially framed Anne in order to stop her from ending his career.) It was therefore a surreal, and tragic, experience to be sitting in Anne Boleyn's family home when I heard the news that a man who had devoted decades of his life to studying her had passed away at the age of eighty-one. 

Eric Ives was an erudite, thorough and brilliant historian. His mind was as sharp as his writing and he helped keep history interesting, whilst also dismissing many of its sillier legends. Apart from the Tudor court, his other interests included the history of law and the development of higher education in Britain. He nurtured and supervised many of the best minds in the next generation of historians and in 2001, he was made a member of the Order of the British Empire by Her Majesty the Queen, in recognition for his services to history. A regular contributor to the BBC History Magazine and History Today, Professor Ives had sadly lost his wife, Ruth, a few years ago; he is survived by his daughter, Susan, and his son, John. 

Ives's passing has been greatly regretted by his colleagues. Dr. Suzannah Lipscomb, author of the book 1536, said, "Professor Eric Ives's death is a sudden and profound loss to the historical community. He was a brilliant historian and one of the leading lights of Tudor history: his work on Anne Boleyn and Lady Jane Grey is unsurpassed (and I say this even as one who disagreed with him on some points of interpretation!). It is deeply sad that The Reformation Experience will be his last book. But, even more importantly, he is also an exceptionally warm, kind, generous and courteous man. He will be greatly missed."

I never did get to hear Eric Ives speak, but I have his books and his wonderful, clever, written words. 

The Fall of Anne Boleyn (Day 19): The Last Curtsey

Above: A later woodcut showing Anne Boleyn's execution in the French style. In the corner, the artist depicts the betrothal of Henry VIII to Jane Seymour within the next twenty-four hours.

"So here he was – the last man in her life. In her time, she had known men of great faith, men of towering intellect, of compassion, purpose, charm, chivalry and sangfroid; she had also known men of cruelty, of ego, ruthlessness, duplicity, hypocrisy and vice. There had been men who had loved her, men who had hated her, men who desired her, men who feared her and there had been men who had done all four. Now, at the very last, it was this complete stranger who was to participate in the final tragedy of Anne Boleyn and to give her a death that would buy for her an immortality that many other queens might envy. Looking at him, Anne saw a quiet, respectful angel of death, a man a million miles removed from the macabre, gothic fantasy of a leather-clad, mask wearing exterminator; he, for his part, saw a fragile and rather lovely young woman, who no more looked like the strumpet, the harpy or the harlot than his wife, his sister or his daughter."

For this blog's full account of Anne Boleyn's execution, click HERE.

The Fall of Anne Boleyn (Day 18): Preparing to die

Above: British actress Merle Oberon in the role of Anne Boleyn in the Oscar winning The Private Life of Henry VIII (1933.)

"... As London slumbered and the summer stars twinkled over the head of the vast metropolis where so many of her family's triumphs had once been celebrated, the remarkable life of Anne Boleyn was drawing quietly to its close. All that was left were the events of the morrow, which would ensure that as her life ended, her legend began and the story of Anne Boleyn would thus commence its long, powerful course through British culture, history and national myth, carrying with it potent, intoxicating images of love, betrayal, lust, drama, religion, obsession, death, hope, deceit, power, wealth, tragedy and the final blood-soaked finale on the Tower Green."

May 18th was the last full day Anne Boleyn spent alive and I blog about it, HERE. 

The Fall of Anne Boleyn (Day 16): Preparing for the Queen's Murder

"On the morning of May 16th 1536, Sir William Kingston, Constable of the Tower of London, arrived at the Palace of Whitehall for an audience with the King. Being one of the few people allowed into the King's presence during the period of his wife's imprisonment, the Constable made his way through the opulent and recently re-furbished corridors of the palace which had once belonged to Cardinal Wolsey and then to Anne Boleyn. If ever there needed to be a more potent reminder of the turning of Fortune's wheel, then it lay in the gilt and marble corridors of Whitehall."

With the trials of the Queen and her co-accused now completed, the government began to make arrangements for the executions.  Click HERE for my full account of this, including an interview between Anne's husband and her gaoler.

Above: British actress Dame Dorothy Tutin in the role of Anne Boleyn in the BBC television series The Six Wives of Henry VIII (1970.)

The Fall of Anne Boleyn (Day 15): The Queen's Trial

"On May 15th 1536, twenty-six peers of the realm congregated in the King’s Hall of the Tower of London to serve as judges in the trial of Anne Boleyn, Queen of England... In the centre of the Hall, a chair had been placed on a raised platform before a bar. Nearby, glistening in the light was the Queen’s crown – probably the one made of gold and decorated with sapphires, rubies and pearls with crosses and fleurs-de-lis around the rim, which the Queen had ordered for her coronation three years earlier. In the specially constructed stands placed all around the Hall, two thousand of the citizenry of London had gathered to watch. Their hubbub died away as the Crown’s commission was read aloud and the Duke of Norfolk announced,"Gentleman Gaoler of the Tower, bring in your prisoner." 

The Queen entered the room, accompanied by the Yeoman Gaoler of the Tower, carrying his axe, with its blade turned away from her face to signify that she had not yet been condemned. Dressed elegantly in a gown of black velvet with a crimson damask petticoat, and small cap with black and white feathers, the Queen bore all the hallmarks of her education as an honorary member of the French nobility – elegant, sophisticated, imperious and very grand. Behind her followed her remaining ladies-in-waiting, headed by the wife of the Constable of the Tower, Lady Kingston, and the Queen’s estranged aunt, Lady Boleyn, who led four young women of the Queen’s own disbanded Household who had, finally, been allowed to join her in captivity. Watching this procession, the French Bishop of Riez, ensconced in the viewing gallery above, was impressed by the Queen’s behaviour: "She walked forth in fearful beauty," he wrote later, "and seemed unmoved. She came not as one who had to defend her cause, but with the bearing of one coming to great honour.""

For an account of Anne Boleyn's dramatic trial, within the precepts of the Tower of London, click HERE.


Above: A seventeenth century miniature of Anne Boleyn painted by John Haskins, believed to have belonged to the royal collection of King Charles I (r. 1625 - 1649.)

The Fall of Anne Boleyn (Day 13): The Disbanding of the Queen's Household

"She had surrounded herself with socialites and priests, poets and philosophers, rogues and prudes. Evangelicals had knelt as she passed and wept, proclaiming her to be the new Deborah, the new Esther, God's Nymph; ambassadors had leaned in to present her with gifts and assure her that their masters sent nothing but the very best of wishes; petitioners and peasants had kissed the hem of her skirt as she passed; poets and musicians had sighed in the most exquisite agony to receive so much as a glance from her and women in silks and diamonds and pearls whispered delicious intrigue in her ears."

On May 13th, eleven days after her arrest, the government formally dismissed the two hundred servants who had constituted the household of Anne Boleyn. For the full account of the end of an era, click HERE.

Above: Anne Boleyn (in an Oscar-nominated performance by Geneviève Bujold) with her ladies-in-waiting in the 1969 Oscar winner, Anne of the Thousand Days.

The Fall of Anne Boleyn (Day 12): The Trial of Anne Boleyn's "lovers"

Above: A portrait that may be a representation of Sir Francis Weston, a twenty-five year-old knight accused of being one of Queen Anne Boleyn's lovers in 1536.

"Built during the reign of King William Rufus, who had ruled England from 1087 until 1100, the Hall would now play witness to one of the most extraordinary and shameful trials in British history. Thomas Howard, 63 year-old Duke of Norfolk, sat as presiding judge and the King's representative over the four men accused of having committed treasonous adultery with Queen Anne Boleyn. According to the indictment created by the Grand Jury of Middlesex who along with the Grand Jury of Kent had jurisdiction over the trials (they were the closest two to London and thus the easiest to control and organise from the Crown’s perspective), the men had been partners in the Queen’s “frail and carnal appetites” and insultingly referred to them as “her adulterers and concubines”. Grim-faced and self-righteous, the Duke ordered the trial of the four men who had dishonoured their king to begin."

For this blog's account of the trial of the four men, click HERE.

The Fall of Anne Boleyn (Day 11): An attempt to bully the Queen

May 11th marks the day, I think, when Henry ordered the Privy Council to visit Anne in prison to try and intimidate her.

"Escorted into the imprisoned Queen's rooms by Sir William Kingston, the councillors perhaps expected to see her dishevelled, miserable or contrite after nine days of captivity. Instead, they were confronted by the sight of a waif-like brunette with cold, glittering eyes, regarding them with haughty disapproval. She had spent much of the day in prayer, but once told of the Council's impending visit, she had gone to get ready. The Queen knew the importance of appearances better than anyone and she had been waiting for the Council to come to her for over a week. Her would-be interrogators walked in to see Anne sitting on something very like a throne in her Audience Chamber, dressed immaculately, with some of her remaining jewels glistening from her fingers, wrists, ears and throat. "She did not give up her greatness," wrote an admiring chronicler, "and spoke to the lords as a mistress"."

Click HERE for the full account of the meeting.

Above: Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury (1489 - 1556), who was the Council's delegated spokesperson.

The Fall of Anne Boleyn (Day 10): The Queen's Brother

"32 year-old George Boleyn, Viscount Rochford, currently being held in the Martin Tower of His Majesty’s Tower of London, on a charge of incest with his younger sister, Queen Anne Boleyn, had been – until his arrest eight days earlier - a generally well-liked figure at the royal Court. Tall, muscular, wealthy, powerful, funny, confident, intelligent and impossibly handsome (the comparison to Adonis has been made before), it was difficult not to like him, at least on first impressions..."

Click here to take a look at my post "My Lord of Rochford's conscience," examining the imprisonment of George Boleyn on the charge of incest with his royal sister. 

Above: (Left) Padraic Delaney as George Boleyn in the Showtime series The Tudors, opposite Jamie Thomas King as Sir Thomas Wyatt. 

The Fall of Anne Boleyn (Day 9): The Blame Game

Historians still continue to debate about how far Henry VIII was involved in his second wife's murder. It may surprise many who are not well-acquainted with the academic debates surrounding Henry's personality to learn that in many modern histories he is presented as an essentially weak sovereign, who was easily manipulated by those around him. In this scenario, the chief culprit for orchestrating Anne's downfall becomes Thomas Cromwell, the King's chief adviser and her one-time ally turned mortal enemy. I do not agree with this interpretation of events and it seems to me that the arguments put forward by J.J. Scarisbrick and Derek Wilson, that Henry was the main architect of what happened.

"For me personally, however, the missing third of this tragedy is not Thomas Cromwell, but Henry VIII. It was, after all, Henry who signed the death warrants and whilst it may have been Cromwell who organised the interrogations, arrests and trials, it frankly beggars belief that Henry could have been so easily duped into believing in his wife’s guilty. As far as I’m concerned, Henry was neither a participant nor a victim in what happened in 1536 – rather, he was the chief architect and the author of the tragedy. Cromwell certainly organised the details and oversaw the execution of the plot, but under no circumstances could he have dared act so audaciously – and so manically (the entire thing was a swift, brutal mess, without any of Cromwell’s usual slow, brilliant, relentless tactics) – without having been told to do so, in so many words, by Henry and to do so quickly."

Click HERE for the post on Henry's role from last year.

Above: Australian actor Keith Michell as Henry VIII in the television series The Six Wives of Henry VIII (1971.)