The Fall of Anne Boleyn: A Countdown

by Ridgway, Claire

  Henry VIII also became betrothed to Jane Seymour on 20th May, the day after Anne Boleyn's execution, and then married her on 30th May. This ruthless and rather unseemly behaviour does suggest that his love for Anne had dwindled long before her death and that he had been planning marriage to Jane for some time. Of course, you could equally say that the paranoid King was manipulated by Cromwell into believing that Anne was guilty and so felt that she deserved everything that she got; and that Cromwell and the Seymours had been working on him for a while.

  Henry's Stamp

  John Schofield32 believes Henry's involvement is proven by the lack of logic in Anne being condemned for adultery even though Henry's marriage to Anne was annulled. Cromwell, as a lawyer, would have wanted a logical, "watertight case", yet the case against Anne made no sense. The blackening of Anne's name and the complexity of the plot bear the stamp of a husband who wanted his wife dead. The plot was down to emotions such as jealousy, fear, resentment and hatred, not Cromwell's rational and legal brain.33 It would have been far easier for Cromwell to annul the marriage and send Anne to a nunnery. Instead, he had to build a very complicated and nonsensical case.

  Henry Involved Himself in the Proceedings at the Start

  After receiving news of Mark Smeaton's confession, Henry chose to question Sir Henry Norris on their ride to Whitehall from the May Day joust, offering Norris a pardon if he would confess.

  Revenge

  Anne and George Boleyn had, allegedly, ridiculed Henry VIII's clothes and his ballads, and had also discussed his sexual problems. George had even joked that Elizabeth may not be Henry's daughter. Their fall could, therefore, be seen as Henry VIII's ultimate revenge. It could also be said that Anne had made a fool of Henry and let him down. He had abandoned his wife of over twenty years for her, broken with his beloved Church, executed former friends and advisers, all to be with Anne and yet she had failed to provide him with a son.

  The Gossip

  John Hill of Eynsham in Oxfordshire got into trouble for saying "that the King caused Mr. Norrys, Mr. Weston, and such as were put of late unto execution, for to be put to death only of pleasure" and "that the King, for a frawde and a gille, caused Master Norrys, Mr. Weston, and the other Queen to be put to death because he was made sure unto the Queen's grace that now is half a year before."34 So, the gossip spreading around England was that the King had got rid of Anne and the men so that he could marry Jane. Chapuys had noted on the day of Henry and Jane's betrothal that "everybody begins already to murmur by suspicion, and several affirm that long before the death of the other there was some arrangement which sounds ill in the ears of the people".35

  Henry's Own Words

  Henry later warned Jane Seymour against becoming involved in matters to do with the Kingdom. It was reported that "he had often told her not to meddle with his affairs, referring to the late Queen, which was enough to frighten a woman who is not very secure."36 In 1546, when the Conservatives were trying to bring down Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, Henry warned Cranmer that "false knaves" could be "procured" to stand as witnesses against him and to bring about his condemnation.37 It was obviously the done thing!

  Suspect 3 – Jane Seymour and the Catholic Conservatives

  Some believe that Jane Seymour and the Catholic conservative faction who supported the Lady Mary hold some of the responsibility for Anne Boleyn's fall.

  In April 1536, Chapuys reported to Charles V that Jane Seymour was being coached by Sir Nicholas Carew in how to behave towards the King, and that she was also being "advised to tell the King boldly how his marriage is detested by the people, and none consider it lawful".38 Carew, Courtenay, Montagu and the other Conservatives were evidently hoping that Jane would be the next Anne and that Henry's new flame could be used to bring down the Queen they detested so much. This would pave the way for the restoration of Lady Mary to the succession. The martyrologist, John Foxe, in his "Book of Martyrs", put the King's "assent" to the events of 1536 down to "crafty setters-on"39 who turned him against his wife and made him disinherit his daughter.

  Some say that Jane had learned from Anne's example in her courtship with Henry. When Henry VIII sent Jane a purse full of sovereigns, she sent it back to him with a message saying "that she had no greater riches in the world than her honor, which she would not injure for a thousand deaths" and that if the King wanted to send her gifts then she begged him to do so after she was married. Like Anne before her, Jane was holding out for marriage, perhaps in the hope that Henry would warm to the thrill of the chase. However, this could also have been Jane's natural behaviour. She did appear to be a genuinely humble, virtuous and chaste young woman. Whatever her family and the Conservatives were planning, Jane may not have been a willing participant, and, at the end of the day, she was simply a woman, a chattel and pawn.

  Suspect 4 - Anne Boleyn

  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. By 1536, it is said, Henry could no longer tolerate Anne's nagging, her hot temper and her jealousy. One documentary, "Days that Shook the World: Execution of Anne Boleyn",41 goes as far as to say that there were two reasons for Anne's fall: her refusal to "curb" her "bold manners" and her inability to provide Henry with the longed-for son and heir. However, how could Anne change? Henry had married her for love. He had been attracted to the feisty Anne, a woman who was willing to stand up to him and who was outspoken, if Anne changed her ways then she wouldn't be the woman he'd fallen in love with. It was an impossible situation – become the submissive wife, and lose what attracted Henry in the first place, or stay the same and risk annoying the King and making enemies.

  We know that Anne and Henry's marriage was volatile and that the couple argued regularly but even Chapuys put this down to "lovers' quarrels, to which we must not attach too great importance".42 It was a marriage based on love and passion, a real marriage rather than an arranged or diplomatic one, so it was bound to have its up and downs. Anne's jealousy, which is also sometimes seen as a factor in her fall, was a natural result of this love match. Anne had been a lady-in-waiting when she had caught Henry's eye, so how could she be sure that one of her ladies or another lady at court wouldn't steal Henry away from her? Whereas Catherine of Aragon had been able to turn a blind eye because she had a royal family and Emperor behind her, Anne could not. Anne had to fight for her marriage, she had to keep Henry interested. Although some historians, for example Alison Weir,43 write of the marriage being in trouble from the start, there is no evidence of that. George Wyatt wrote that the royal couple "lived and loved, tokens of increasing love perpetually increasing between them. Her mind brought him forth the rich treasures of love of piety, love of truth, love of learning. Her body yielded him the fruits of marriage, inestimable pledges of her faith and loyal love"44 and they were often described as being "merry". Volatile, yes, unhappy, no. Passionate rows, but equally passionate making up.

  As Eric Ives and Greg Walker have pointed out, the Queen's household was an "arena" for the courtly love tradition which Anne had learned in the household of Margaret of Austria. The courtly love tradition was a chivalric game where a courtier would choose a "mistress" to woo with poems, songs and gifts. It wasn't about sex, or even having a proper relationship, it was about chivalry and flirtation – a platonic relationship.45 Courtiers were expected to sigh over the Queen and praise her beauty, it was all part of the game. Unfortunately, courtly love seems to have got out of hand in the case of Anne Boleyn and also became twisted to bring her down.

  Mark Smeaton's mooning over Anne was used to force a confession, and her unthinking snub of him may have led him to hit back at her. Anne's reckless words to Norris regarding him looking for "d
ead men's shoes" were twisted to be evidence of a conspiracy to murder the King and Anne's ramblings in the Tower regarding Weston incriminated him and led to his execution. What started out as harmless courtly love and flirtation ended in six brutal deaths. Some blame Anne for allowing it to go on. Yes, her mention of "dead men's shoes" was reckless, but she was reprimanding Norris, not encouraging him; she was reminding him that she was taken. She may have mentioned the King's death, but it was unintentional and could in no way be seen as encouraging Norris to conspire with her. Anne panicked, realising that these words could be used against her, and went into "damage control" mode, ordering Norris to go to her almoner, John Skip, and swear that she "was a good woman". It also appears that she tried to explain herself to her husband, an argument which Scottish theologian, Alexander Alesius, witnessed. Gossip spread like wildfire at the Tudor court and it is easy to imagine Henry VIII getting wind of Anne and Norris's altercation. Anne was probably trying to explain herself, but perhaps someone beat her to it and gave the story a bit of a twist. As far as Sir Francis Weston was concerned, Anne had spoken to him about "Mistress Shelton", accusing him of loving her rather than his wife, "and he made answer to her again that he loved one in her house better than both. And the queen said, 'Who is that? '. ' It is yourself '." Surely, he was simply playing the chivalrous knight of courtly love, here, and flattering his queen.

  Greg Walker46 writes of how it was "unguarded speech and gossip", rather than adultery or incest, that condemned Anne Boleyn, quoting the words of Anne's aunt, Lady Boleyn, who attended Anne in those final days in the Tower: "such desire as you have ha[d to such tales] has brought you to this".47 We cannot know what Lady Boleyn was referring to. It may have been the courtly love tradition, or it may have been Anne and her brother, George, laughing at the King's ballads, mocking his dress and discussing his sexual inadequacies – definitely unguarded speech, and words that could easily have turned Henry's love for his wife into bitter resentment and hate. Anne had allowed inappropriate talk and behaviour in her household, she had been reckless and disrespectful regarding the King, and she had let her tongue run away with her in the Tower. Regardless, that's a far cry from being guilty of incest and murder. Anne had provided Henry and Cromwell with ammunition, but she didn't give them the gun.

  Historian Retha Warnicke gives another reason for Anne's downfall. Warnicke writes that "the sole reason"48 for the King turning against his wife was her miscarriage of a monstrously deformed foetus in January 1536. Warnicke believes that this deformed foetus would have been seen as evidence of witchcraft and unnatural sexual acts, acts which the King would obviously not have been involved in. Warnicke cites Nicholas Sander, a Catholic recusant writing in Elizabeth I's reign, as the source to back up the deformed foetus story. Sander wrote of Anne miscarrying "a shapeless mass of flesh", but he is the only source to say that and he wasn't even a contemporary of Anne's. The chronicler Charles Wriothesley recorded that Anne had miscarried a "man child" and that Anne "said that she had reckoned herself at that time but 15 weeks gone with child"49 and Chapuys backed that up, writing that Anne miscarried "a male child which she had not borne 3½ months".50 It beggars belief that the deformed foetus would not have been mentioned at Anne's trial, as evidence of sexual sin, if Anne had really miscarried such a foetus.

  Anne's miscarriage may have been a factor in her fall, in that it made her vulnerable and may have caused an already paranoid King to doubt his marriage, but it was not the one and only cause.

  I have read claims online that Anne Boleyn was a victim of a Papal conspiracy. This is similar to a storyline in "The Tudors" when William Brereton, who is actually a Jesuit priest in the series, is hired to assassinate Anne and then gives his life to bring her down by confessing to adultery with her. There is no truth to this story, or to those which claim that the Papacy caused Anne's miscarriages by poisoning her. However, Anne's religious views would have made her unpopular with the Catholic conservatives at court, people who were just waiting for an opportunity to get rid of her.

  Of course, there are those who believe that there is no smoke without a fire and that Anne may have been guilty of at least some of the crimes she was alleged to have committed. Possible reasons include desperation to provide the King with a son, jealousy at Henry's infidelity or just simple lust. However, there would have been no point in providing the King with a son who looked just like one of his courtiers; and would the intelligent Anne have really risked her position and marriage for a roll in the hay? No. Anne's guilt was a foregone conclusion, with her household being broken up and the executioner being ordered in advance of her trial. Anne was no saint, but I find it hard to believe that she was guilty.

  A Combination

  Some people may consider this sitting on the fence, but I choose to believe that Anne's fall was not down to just one person. In my opinion, there were a number of people who had a hand in it. Pamela Kaputska, on The Anne Boleyn Files Facebook page, describes Cromwell, Henry VIII and the Seymour faction as all coming together to form "the perfect storm" and I think that's spot on.

  Ultimately, I believe that the buck has to stop with Henry as he was the one in control. In my opinion, he wanted rid of Anne because he had convinced himself that their marriage, like his previous marriage, was contrary to God's laws and that God was showing him this by not blessing him with a son and heir.

  Henry wanted to move on to Jane Seymour, who was of fertile stock, and to have another chance at having a son and happiness. He had tired of Anne, who was too much work, and he felt that she had let him down. He had moved heaven and earth to be with her and she hadn't lived up to her promise. The miscarriage of January 1536 proved to Henry that the marriage just wasn't right; it made his doubts very real. By April 1536, he was open to the Seymours and Catholic conservatives feeding his paranoia, convincing him that the English people were against Anne. He came to believe that everything was all Anne's fault, that he had fallen under her spell and made a huge mistake, so he ordered Cromwell to use the law to extricate him from his marriage to Anne. Henry was the one who made the decision and Cromwell was his servant, the man who provided his master with the machinery to exercise his will. Cromwell was to blame for bringing Anne down so brutally, and for getting the five men involved, but Henry was the one who started it all and the Seymours influenced Henry and took advantage of his vulnerability and anxiety.

  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. Why would Cromwell have even bothered to accuse Anne of a charge that wouldn't lead to her death? The charges of adultery and treason were levied in order to blacken Anne's name completely, and they were the result of love turned to hate, the need to annihilate Anne entirely – they were Henry's idea and Cromwell had to make them work. If the adultery and incest bore Henry's mark, the legal machinery and the falls of Norris and Brereton bore Cromwell's.

  Conclusion

  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. 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.

  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, no
t 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.

  Anne and her brother, George, were people who enjoyed the limelight. They captivated those around them with their magnetism, their wit and their charm. As my good friend Clare Cherry once said to me, those ten years in the sunlight of the Tudor court would have been preferable to them than a lifetime in the shadows. They died before their time, they died brutally; but, oh, how they lived! Their names and their stories are still being remembered and told nearly 500 years later, and they are captivating generation after generation. Their magnetism, it seems, stretches through the ages and grabs us. I am proud to be telling their story on a daily basis.

  The Cast – After May 1536

  Henry VIII (1491-1547)

  Henry's third marriage was shortlived, with Henry losing Jane Seymour to puerperal fever in October 1537. He went on to marry Anne of Cleves in January 1540, but the marriage was annulled on 7th July of the same year due to an alleged existing pre-contract between Anne and Francis of Lorraine. Other reasons for the annulment included Henry's lack of consent to the marriage and the lack of consummation. On 28th July 1540, Henry VIII married his fifth wife, Catherine Howard, but she was executed on the 13th February after it was found that she had slept with Sir Francis Dereham before her marriage to the King and that she had been having an affair with Thomas Culpeper during her marriage. Henry VIII married his sixth and final wife, the twice-married and -widowed Catherine Parr, on 12th July 1543. Catherine outlived the King, who died on 28th January 1547. He was laid to rest alongside his third wife, Jane Seymour, in St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle. Henry's nine year old son, Edward, became King Edward VI and was crowned at Westminster Abbey on the 20th February 1547.