Defending Anne Boleyn
January 1536 saw the death of
Catherine of Aragon, the first wife of Henry VIII. The year's beginning also saw
the second wife of Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn, 'big-bellied' with child, trying
hard to remain hopeful of the future.
Aware of Henry's wandering eye, Anne was intelligent enough to realise her
current pregnancy- most likely her third- needed the result of a living son.
That and only that would secure her position as Henry's Queen. She also probably
knew, with Catherine out of the picture, and a question mark lingering even to
this day over the legality of her marriage to the King, if she failed to give
her husband a living son it would be the death knell of her marriage. For the
King's great love affair with Anne Boleyn, a love affair turning his kingdom
upside down and cutting England's strong ties to the papacy, had not lasted
longer than the early days of their marriage, his passion now exhibited very
little signs of life.
But the son Anne hoped to be her marriage's 'saviour' and her own 'protector'
was born dead on the very day that Catherine's body was brought to its last
resting place. After the king visited his grieving wife, he proclaimed, "I see
God will not give me male children." Anne's unforgivable failure in the royal
birthing chamber began the King thinking on ways to free himself from her.
Freed, the King could then seek to make a 'bon fide' marriage to another woman,
and his lustful gaze and hands had already rested on Jane Seymour the previous
year.
Anne Boleyn, I believe, receives a lot of bad and undeserved press from the
Tudor propaganda machine. The bad press remains in place even today. Henry VIII
said, not long after the last of Anne's abortive pregnancies, 'I was seduced
into this marriage and forced into it by sorcery'. Anne Boleyn was no wicked
witch. She was a woman who loved her daughter, a woman who said children are the
greatest consolation in the world. I believe a lot of her 'bad' behaviour
stemmed from living on her 'nerves', plus the immense insecurities of her
position as consort to the king. Poor Anne also lacked the training of Catherine
of Aragon, who had been taught to take on a Queen's mantle from time she was in
her swaddling clothes. But Catherine and Anne shared one strong similarity. Both
of them behaved like lionesses with claws out when it came to ensuring their
daughters' rights.
Anne also knew she had many enemies, one her own uncle (the duke of Norfolk) who
didn't take kindly to her Lutheran leanings and independent spirit. And I
believe most wives would not behave well if their spouse expected them put up
with mistresses, saying- like Henry VIII did when she was heavily pregnant with
Elizabeth- "Shut your eyes, do as your betters had done, and endure."
Yes- she had a temper and a very strong personality, a person who liked to and
did speak her mind, but as the mother of Elizabeth could we expect any less? But
witch she was not, despite the excuses flung by Henry VIII to his subjects in
1536, inferring his main reason for marrying her, and a reason to rid himself of
her. His words prepared the ground for her juridical murder on trumped up
charges of adultery, making Anne Boleyn history's 'Anne sans-tete.'
Copyright Wendy J. Dunn 2001
First published at Tudor England Suite101.com
