What Happened in the Final Weeks of Anne Boleyn's Life?

While people around the world celebrate the start of spring, dedicated historians of the Tudor period mark the beginning of May as a significant moment in history. That is especially true for the fans of Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII's second and most infamous queen. Arrested on the 2nd of May in 1536, she was put to death only a couple of weeks later - one of the first queens ever executed in England's history.

It's hard to imagine. Anne rose from obscurity, a second daughter so unimportant that the date of her birth isn't even recorded. Through her skills, charms, and wiles, she managed to capture the heart and mind of a king, placing herself on the highest seat a woman could hold in the land. Her death was not only recorded, it is marked as an infamous day in English history…as infamous as the queen who marked it with her life's blood.

Now we ask ourselves…what happened? How did this great queen fall? What part did she play in her destruction? Why was it done? For those who wish to see, it can be seen best in Anne Boleyn's final days.

A Timeline of Anne Boleyn's Final Days.

These next 2 weeks mark the most turbulent in Anne Boleyn's life. To understand how she felt in these final days, it's important to understand the build-up that led to her final moments. Anne Boleyn's fall was a swift one, a calculated one, and a storm that ripped the English court apart. No one was safe as Anne Boleyn's tower came crumbling to the ground, not friend, not foe, and certainly not anyone with intimate ties to the ill-fated queen.

Early April - The Quarrel

There is a major misconception that Anne was removed because of her inability to bear a son for Henry VIII, but that's not entirely true. While Anne's miscarriages were proving problematic, there is no evidence that Henry believed Anne could no longer bear him a son. Quite the opposite, early in April, Henry made a statement about his great faith that she would soon bear him a son.

The reality is that Anne's fall came down to 2 major quarrels that happened a short while after these quarrels. One with Henry (the king) and one with Thomas Cromwell (overseeing the dissolution of the monasteries).

The quarrel with Henry is generally thought to revolve around his new involvement with Jane Seymour. The girl, a member of Anne's household, was carrying on an open flirtation with the king and had been caught sitting in his lap and accepting extravagant gifts from him. Anne confronted the king about the affair and attempted to have Jane Seymour removed from court.

It went badly.

The king threatened Anne and told her that he had risen her up, and could lower her again if he desired. (A clear threat.) These quarrels took place in front of others, including members of the Catholic factions who desired Anne's downfall.

It is the second quarrel that Anne had, however, that would prove to be the most fatal.

Sometime after her quarrel with Henry, Anne was made aware that Cromwell's dissolution of the monasteries had become a corrupted transfer of wealth. Anne, being a staunch believer in the role of the church in providing for the impoverished, became irate and confronted Sir Thomas Cromwell. She accused him of stealing to enrich himself, then she threatened his life and threatened to expose him to Henry VIII.

It is claimed that Cromwell retorted quickly that the enrichment was the king's idea, and (allegedly) threw the threat back in Anne's face. After withdrawing from the fight, he retired to his estates and swiftly began the process of bringing down Anne Boleyn and her family once and for all.

April 26th - The Chaplain is Called

Thomas Cromwell's proceedings against Anne geared up in private. We know little about the king's involvement or how much he knew. There is also little known about the involvement of others. The question that has really plagued historians and students of Anne Boleyn, however, is what did she know? How much did she know? Could she know that death was coming with a sword?

There is one piece of evidence in the historical record that revealed a lot about what Anne perhaps knew about her future as queen.

According to records of the time, on April 26th, 1536, Anne Boleyn summoned her long-time chaplain, Matthew Parker, to her side. While making her confession and receiving absolution from the reformist chaplain, Anne made a surprising confession.

It is alleged that she asked Parker to look out for her daughter, Princess Elizabeth if anything were to happen to her.

It's a telling action on Anne's part.

To ask her chaplain to protect a princess of the blood shows that Anne was fearful of some type of major event. She wanted her child's soul looked after if that child were to be left in the hands of those who would not or could not look out for her soul. Did Anne believe that Elizabeth would be left at the mercy of the corrupt powers that had enriched themselves from the destruction of churches?

Perhaps, but Anne certainly knew that something ill was coming for her future.

April 28th - King and Council

After Parliament was closed on the 27th of April, another striking change came upon the court. From the 28th of April, from the hours of the morning until "nine or ten at night" the king began meeting in private with his council every single day. This was a striking difference because it was out of the norm for Henry to take on such intensive state work. He was a man known to prefer to leave the council work to his advisors, like Cardinal Thomas Wolsey (long deceased by this point).

The story was given out - per the records of Henry's councilors - that the lords were conversing over France. The French diplomat was summoned, but he seemed to know not why. There was a great deal of secrecy floating around the new development. What was so important that the king of England would give up his happy pastimes? Chapuys, the Spanish ambassador, suspected that Anne's time had come.

He wasn't wrong to suspect it, and he wasn't alone in speculation. Not only was Henry's mood toward the queen changing but her brother was also passed over at this time for The Order of the Garter. Becoming a part of the order was a great honor and one that both Anne and George had been given to expect.

They were both disappointed. The Order of the Garter was given to another man, a common lawyer named Mr. Caro. The snub was public and it was notable. Even Chapuys marked the event in his correspondence back to Spain.

April 29th - Anne & Norris Argue

Rumors would have been circling the English court by this time. The king was more often than not locked up with his council. The secret meetings were the topic of much discussion. What could be so important that the king must spend all his days with his council? Why was he calling parliament together? Were there really secret tribunals meeting in Kent and London?

While Anne was not being made privy to the proceedings against her, the cracks were certainly beginning to show in her household and the relationships around her.

Her court was thinning. Fewer people were gravitating around Anne and her presumed power as queen. The rumors, as well as the king's increasing distance, would have been a hint to stay away. Stay away people did. Anne's factions began to leak supporters by the dozens, leaving her only with her family and those also under the same shadow of suspicion.

Again, we see Anne being crushed beneath the mounting pressure of her position, demonstrated in yet another quarrel - this time with her good friend, Henry Norris.

While the origins of the argument have been lost to time (and much speculated on by Anne Boleyn fans and detractors alike) it is thought that the argument ended with Queen Anne yelling at Henry Norris,

"You look for dead men's shoes, for if aught came to the King but good, you would look to have me".

This has caused speculation over the centuries that Anne and Norris were arguing about a potential affair or the accusation of one. This is very possible. The English court was like a sieve when it came to secrets and information. Everyone was leaking the shadows to others, in hopes that it would bring them wealth or advance their career and power.

It is very possible that Anne was garnering whispers about the charges being made against her. She may have known of the adultery accusations coming and, in the stress of it all, may have begun to crack against those who had made that positioning possible for her.

April 30th - A Sudden Shift

The month of April ended even more catastrophically for Anne. The rumors of the king's change toward her showed no signs of slowing. Indeed, supporters were leaking away from Anne's faction, leaving her increasingly isolated. Anne may have been showing signs of stress, but one would not know it by the intensity of her schedule. As the month drew to a close, the queen was preparing for a progress to the north and a visit to Calais with the king.

Another visit to France was the further establishment of Anne as Henry's true wife and queen. On the original visit in 1533, Anne had been snubbed by the Queen of France and in this journey perhaps hoped to rectify that standing (after three long years as Henry's anointed queen).

This journey was never to be. On the 30th of April, the royal visit to Calais was canceled. It is unclear if Anne was given a reason for this cancellation. If so, it was certainly a lie. Perhaps Cromwell or one of his men told Anne it touched on the current matters with France, for which the king was in constant council.

Anne and Henry argued publicly at this point. Over what is unclear. The queen may have suspected Henry's shift against her. Perhaps she was confronting him over the shape the reformation was taking. Whatever happened, Anne was most certainly ignorant of one devastating fact.

On this same day, the 30th of April, Mark Smeaton - a lute player in Anne's household - was arrested and taken to Cromwell's private residence at Shepney. There, he was interrogated by knotting a cord around his head and tightening it with a wooden stick until the pressure threatened to crush his skull.

After hours of this "interrogation," Smeaton gave in and gave Cromwell what he wanted. A confession. The lute player agreed to every time and charge laid against the queen, including the confession that he himself had congress with her. Anne's doom was signed and sealed, through a series of immoral incidents that could not be corroborated or defended against.

May 1st - The Tower Falls

The first of May would have bloomed bright and cheerful at Greenwich Palace. There would have been a bight in the air, perhaps a gentle breeze, and the chirping of birds in the trees that filled the gardens and lined the walls of the tennis and bowling courts. It was into this early spring morning that Anne stepped, oblivious to the fact that it was her last day as a free woman and the acting Queen of England.

The day was celebrated as it always was, with a joust. Anne lorded over the event as the queen of "beauty" or "love" and the riders lined up to battle for her favor. First in a joust, and then in a melee. Anne gave out her favors, as did the other great ladies of her court (some certainly in secret). Henry, beside his queen, watched the whole affair, quiet and reserved.

Halfway through the event, there was a noticeable shift. King Henry summoned Henry Norris to his side and unexpectedly strode from the tourney grounds. He took to his horse immediately, Norris still by his side, and rode at haste for Whitehall.

Norris was arrested, either on the way or on arriving at Whitehall, and questioned about his involvement with the queen. He stood on his innocence and denied any involvement, but the denial came too late. Norris was accused of treason by way of a sexual relationship with the queen and sent to the Tower of London to be tried and executed.

May 2nd - The Trap Closes

Anne Boleyn was not a stupid woman, nor was she an unconnected and powerless bird trapped in a net. Not yet anyway. Right until the day of her arrest, her secretaries (and even Cromwell) were receiving requests for her favor and her help, showing people who still perceived Anne to have a great deal of power. That power yielded streams of information, and Anne would have been receiving trickling of hints and rumors from those inside the coming tidal wave.

So when the sun rose over Greenwich on May 2nd, it would have no doubt risen over a tense and paranoid Anne Boleyn. She might have been sitting up all night, a bible to hand, or maybe writing letters. Or, perhaps she spent the time with her ladies, making her final plans and doing what she could to protect the people she loved.

Anne's final moments as queen are lost to us, but we know that the trap closed around her and the rest of her family and friends on May 2nd - the day after the disastrous tournament.

The king was nowhere to be found and Anne was generally confined to her rooms. Her faction of power had abandoned her, sensing the stink of treason that was wafting down upon her. George Boleyn, Anne's brother, set out for Whitehall where the king was said to be meeting with his councilors. One can only assume the was intent on gaining the truth or establishing it in his name.

George Boleyn, the Lord Rochford, never got the chance. He was arrested and sent immediately to the Tower of London for questioning. They came for Anne next, while she sat in her apartments at Greenwich.

Sir Charles Brandon, Sir Richard Rich, and Sir Thomas Howard (Anne's uncle) were sent with a handful of others and a full guard to arrest Anne. It was said she did not understand at first and fainted when she realized the extent of the charges against her. The queen was then detained in her rooms until the tide was high enough to take a barge downriver to the Tower of London, where she was imprisoned in the rooms that housed her on the night of her coronation.

May 4th - 12th - Sweeping Up the Leftovers

The tide of chaos moved on swiftly between the days of May 4th and May 12th, 1536. The rest of Anne's accused conspirators were rounded up. First Francis Weston was arrested and sent to the Tower, where George Boleyn and Henry Norris were already prisoners along with Mark Smeaton. Weston was not the only other alleged co-conspirator of the queen's. Her other favorites were rounded up, too.

Sir Thomas Wyatt, the poet and lordling who had so infamously been sent away on Anne's account, was arrested and imprisoned in the tower. He was soon joined by Sir Francis Bryan and William Brereton, who were both summoned for questioning too. Bryan, with the favor of a family well connected to Cromwell, managed to walk free. Brereton, however, would not be so lucky.

All of the men supposedly guilty of helping Anne commit treason through word, deed, and sex were now arrested. Their names were attainted widely and leaks sprouted everywhere speaking of the queen's "bewitchment" and the great crimes she had committed against her husband.

May 15th - Making a Final Stand

After their "co-conspirators" were arrested and questioned, the last piece in the puzzle for Cromwell and Henry (widely acknowledged to be the two motivating hands behind this entire sad affair) was to try Anne and George Boleyn - the two lynchpins of the entire affair. The event came on May 15th, less than a month since we saw the first stirrings of Anne's suspicions.

Anne and George were both tried in Westminster's great hall. tried separately George is especially rousing in his speech and casts doubt over the crown's evidence and motivations

George's trial came last and remains a testament to the corruption of King Henry VIII's "justice system".

The hall was packed full of onlookers, both commoners and aristocracy alike. Anyone in London who could get a view did, even packing themselves in like sardines along the walls and aisles outside. They wanted to hear what Sir George Boleyn would say when he stood accused - and they got what they wanted.

George made a rousing speech and countered each accusation made against him so convincingly that all watching knew him to be innocent by the end. Henry's corruption was exposed by George who revealed the growing political cracks and paranoia that were playing behind the scenes at the English court.

His defense of himself made the panel of judges look foolish. Which, perhaps, is what really sealed his fate that morning.

George Boleyn was convicted of incest, treason, and plotting the king's death through jest. He was sentenced to be executed, along with his great friend Henry Norris, Sir Frances Weston, Sir William Brereton, and common little Mark Smeaton, at the king's pleasure.

Anne took the stand before her brother, while the crowd sat on the edges of their seats, bristling with suspicion. A great orator, the little queen defended herself admirably and even presented the limited evidence that she could dispute the accusations made against her. Many watching were convinced of her innocence and thought she would be sent to live in obscurity.

No queen of England had ever been executed before. Anne would be the first.

Her fate sealed, Queen Anne Boleyn was found unanimously guilty of the crimes manufactured against her and sentenced to be burned alive (the traitor's death for women in England). It is said that when the verdict was read, her once-rumored lover, Henry Percy, fainted and was carried from the room.

Nothing Anne said or did would have changed her fate that day at trial. The executioner had already been summoned from France and was already awaiting his orders nearby. Anne was found guilty of incest and treason. The hourglass was set and the sands of time were moving toward her inevitable death.

May 17th - A Preview of Death

Between May 15th and May 17th, 1536, carpenters were called to the Tower of London to commence the building of the scaffold that would see Anne, George, and 4 others executed. They built through the night, the sounds of their hammers ringing through the yards of the Tower of London. There is some debate as to where the prisoners were kept those nights, in what tower or dungeon, but one thing is certain - all would have heard the sound of their impending death in the hammering of the carpenters.

On the morning of May 17th, the building was completed and the first round of executions took place.

George Boleyn, Henry Norris, Frances Weston, William Brereton, and Mark Smeaton were executed on Tower Hill before the curious eyes of court members and dignitaries, ambassadors, and prominent men from abroad. All attested to the nobility of George Boleyn's death, and the deaths of the others. While fearful, all comported themselves with relative dignity. Even Smeaton, who had been subjected to torture.

Where was Anne in all this? The debate still rages.

Was she in the Beauchamp Tower? Imprisoned somewhere near her brother, given a bird's eye view of his death? Or did she remain in the Queen's Tower, in the rooms that had housed her the night before her coronation? The latter is the more likely, and if that is where Anne was imprisoned she is unlikely to have seen her brother's execution or the deaths of the others…certainly a mercy the eve before her own bloody death.

May 19th - The Queen's Lament

Anne's day came 48 hours later when she was finally led from her confinement into the open of the Tower yard. She dressed plainly, her hair covered in a white coif and her gown reserved and cut in a handsome black fabric. She climbed the platform and spoke, before removing her jewelry and paying the headsman for what would come next. Some said she looked for her husband as she prayed and waited for the end.

It's easy to understand why when one is given a little background on the day.

The hours between George Boleyn's execution and the execution of his sister were confusing and filled with chaos. Although the executioner was in the country and ready to do his duty, he was delayed by Henry and Cromwell for at least 2 days. In those two days, Anne was told to ready herself for death. In the evening, a messenger would arrive and tell her that she wouldn't die until the morrow.

It was a game of cat and mouse that no doubt taxed the anxious queen, who was said by contemporaries to be oscillating between peace and terrified, laughing madness.

The queen claimed that she was ready to die. Knowing that her brother was dead, her family was disgraced, and all her closest friends were damned to be executed, Anne was surely wracked with anxiety, guilt, and an overwhelming pain (or fear of what would come next).

Her peace in death mattered little to Cromwell or the man who had once been her husband.

As Anne's head was separated from her body and rolled across the ground, Jane Seymour - only a few miles away down the river at Kew - was being fitted for her wedding gown by the dressmaker that had once dressed Queen Anne Boleyn.

When it was all over, Anne's ladies scrambled to protect her body from the masses that would soon sweep upon it. Horrifically, it was realized that no provisions had been made for her body - meaning that there was no preparation for burial, no coffin, and no interment.

It was left to Anne's women to stuff her body into an empty arrow box that was found nearby. Those same women then carried the box into the chapel, where they watched over it until it could be interred beneath the chancel, beside her brother and (one day) other queens and infamous English figureheads.

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It is hard for one to put one's self in Anne's shoes. It's hard to slip into her skin and feel those final days closing up like the lid of a coffin all around.

Anne knew, with little doubt, that her life was in danger. The world created after Henry's exit from the Catholic church was an uncharted one. It left him the supreme and unquestioned lord of an isolated aisle, the unquestioned god of a people who were still figuring out what the concept of God truly meant.

Henry's rapidly deteriorating personality and mental health, along with this new dose of unquestioned power, left Anne in the jaws of a lion she could no longer control.

There was undoubtedly panic in these final days of power. Surely Anne bargained with her God, her family, her friends, her factions. Perhaps she bartered with the universe or even called out to old powers, malignant or benign.

We will never be there to imagine those final moments, to live them as Anne lived them, but we can see her clearly through the fear and the chaos of it all.

A woman who stood proud, even in the face of death. A queen who wore herself openly on her sleeve, and who sought for something greater than herself; a calling that was at once higher and entirely made of fleshly ambition.

That is the real magic of Anne Boleyn, in truth. Her duality.

Anne is, perhaps, more human than any other woman in history. At once proud and fragile, fierce and fearful, she was more than a queen. Anne Boleyn was a woman who blazed a path for others, and who lived to the fullest extent of her abilities and her sex in a time when women were denied the basics of a dignified life.

Did she make mistakes? Did she fail? Yes, and that is what makes Anne Boleyn the queen of so many hearts. She was human and to be human is to be vulnerable. Each of us knows what that feels like, at the very least, and in that experience, we are one with this queen who will forever live in the halls of history.

Long live Anne Boleyn.

© E.B. Johnson 2024

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References:

• Ives, E. (2005a). The life and death of Anne Boleyn : 'the most happy'. Malden, Ma: Blackwell Publishing.
• Morris, S. and Grueninger, N. (2013a). In the Footsteps of Anne Boleyn. Amberley Publishing Limited.
• Norton, E. (2017a). Lives Of Tudor Women. Head of Zeus.