Tudors week: Doomed Queens bitter wisdom – Anne Boleyn

Tudors week continues! Yesterday, Carlyn Beccia gave us a guest post about Henry VIII’s fourth wife. Tomorrow, it’s Catherine Howard’s turn: We’ll be featuring an interview and book giveaway with Alisa Libby, author of The King’s Rose, a new novel about Henry’s fifth wife who shared the same fate as Anne Boleyn — at the block.

(BTW, if you don’t have Showtime, you can watch the first episode of the new Tudors season here.)

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“There are no Rules for love.”

As I mentioned in Monday’s post, Anne Boleyn was perhaps the most polarizing of fair Albion’s queens. Was Anne a witch with six fingers? Or an anti-Rome holy roller? A political pawn of her grasping family? Or just plain bad news? Here’s my opinion, adapted from Doomed Queens.

Anne Boleyn was hot stuff in Tudor England. With her dark hair and sultry looks, she was her generation’s Angelina Jolie amid a sea of Reese Witherspoons. (No offense to Reese.) No sixth finger either. (No offense to the polydactylous.) And she certainly was not a witch. Instead, the queen was rumored to have viewed herself as a religious martyr-in-the-making, after being condemned to death:

The king has been very good to me. He promoted me from a simple maid to be a marchioness. Then he raised me to be a queen. Now he will raise me to be a martyr.”

Though born in England, Anne Boleyn spent her formative years on the Continent as a lady-in-waiting to Margaret of Austria and Queen Claude of France. This time abroad polished Anne into a sophisticated woman able to converse wittily in French, dance with élan, and flirt in the best courtly love tradition, where you promise everything but grant nothing.

Anne returned to England from France in 1521 to marry her father’s choice of a groom. But the engagement was brought to a grinding halt for unknown reasons. Again, Anne was sent to court to serve a queen, this time England’s Catherine of Aragon. More happily, she fell in love.

The object of Anne’s affection was Henry Percy, who was considered a catch since he would inherit an earldom. But their marriage was forbidden by the powers that be—there was someone else who wanted Anne, a Henry more powerful than Henry Percy. And what Henry Tudor wanted, Henry got.

Anne never had a chance. King Henry VIII stalked her like prey, ignoring her refusals. To protect herself, all Anne could do was apply The Rules. Anne’s rule number one was don’t put out. Rule number two was hold out for the big gold ring. After all, Anne had a front row seat for what happens when a girl doesn’t follow the Rules: Her sister, Mary, had been the king’s mistress and was rewarded with two bastards for her efforts. Anne was smarter than this—and smarting from the king’s ending of her engagement. She determined to make Henry pay by granting her the ultimate favor of the crown.

It took Henry seven years to disentangle himself from his first wife Catherine of Aragon to marry Anne—long, tumultuous years that involved papal entreaties, courtroom dances, bribes to Rome, and the death of a cardinal. To gain Anne’s hand, Henry eventually resolved that he, as king, was England’s absolute religious authority. Not surprisingly, the king’s decision led to his excommunication. It also sent seismic waves throughout Europe, since it effectively sanctioned Martin Luther’s Reformation—man no longer required a priest to win God’s grace.

Amazingly, during these seven years Anne refused to sleep with Henry until just before their marriage. But she conceived quickly; by her coronation in 1533, her belly was already swollen with child.

It is difficult to ascertain exactly when and if Anne fell in love with Henry. Maybe power was an aphrodisiac; maybe she was trying to make the best of the inevitable; or maybe her family did encourage her to seal the deal with emotional coin. She once admitted, “I never wished to choose the King in my heart.” One theory suggests that Anne believed God had chosen her to be queen. She saw herself like Queen Esther, reforming a corrupt church by influencing a besotted monarch. She even encouraged the translation of the Bible into English, so ordinary people could read it without a priest.

Anne’s pregnancy resulted in the birth of a daughter, Elizabeth. Soon after, Henry admitted that he believed Anne had used witchcraft to capture his heart—clearly the bloom was already off the rose. Two stillborn sons later, the king sprang into action.

When the king was seriously injured during a jousting match, someone overheard Anne hysterically wonder what would happen if Henry died. Henry decided this amounted to a treasonous plot to kill him. He also claimed Anne had messed around with numerous men, including her brother.

A sham trial resulted in a verdict of death by burning or beheading—the choice was Henry’s pleasure. He showed mercy and chose beheading. Strangely enough, Anne’s jury included Henry Percy, who was forced to vote for her conviction. Henry decided to be a nice guy and sent for a French swordman rumored to be so skillful that Anne would feel no pain. She bitterly quipped, “He shall not have much trouble, for I have a little neck.” The queen was killed with a single sword stroke while kneeling upright midprayer.

Anne Boleyn was beheaded on May 19, 1536—quite the comedown for a woman who had initially won so much attention at the English court for her je ne sais quoi and unusual beauty. However, Anne’s legacy lived on through her illustrious daughter, Elizabeth I, who grew up to become perhaps the greatest queen of all.

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This is part of an occasional blog series. The text was adapted from my book DOOMED QUEENS: Royal Women Who Met Bad Ends, from Cleopatra to Princess Di (Broadway Books, $14.95).

Learn more or purchase DOOMED QUEENS here.

You can also consult the queens for advice from beyond the grave at AsktheQueens.com. Make sure the check out the new royal videos!

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