Anne Boleyn Boleyn, Anne Author Melanee Raynes Supervising Editor Kate McPherson Editor Kate McPherson Copy Editor Leah Hamby Senior Encoder Leah Hamby Encoding and Metadata LEMDO Team Copyright Holder (Content) Kate McPherson Copyright Holder (XML and interface) University of Victoria Early Modern England EncyclopediaEMEE

Anthology Leads: Kate McPherson and Kate Moncrief.

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Early Modern England Encyclopedia

By Melanee Raynes and Kate McPherson, inspired by Michael Best’s Shakespeare’s Life and Times, Internet Shakespeare Editions

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Pencil drawing of a woman presumed to be Anne Boleyn, although it was likely drawn well after her death, attributed to portraitist Hans Holbein the Younger © The Trustees of the British Museum. Shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) licence.

Anne Boleyn, King Henry VIII’s second wife, was arguably the most controversial and famous of Henry’s six wives. Her impact on English politics and religion makes her a notable figure in England’s history, particularly in the person of her daughter, who would become Elizabeth I. Anne Boleyn (sometimes spelled Bullen) also appears as a character in the historical play Henry VIII, co-written by William Shakespeare and John Fletcher in 1613.

Early Life

Anne Boleyn was born in 1501 in Norfolk to Sir Thomas and Lady Elizabeth Boleyn, a prominent aristocratic family. Anne had two siblings, Mary and George, and grew up in Hever Castle in Kent. She may have received a humanist education alongside her siblings, one stressing languages and literature.

Anne began her more formal education in the court of Margaret of Austria, Duchess of Savoy in Mechelen, Belgium in 1513. Margaret was daughter of Maximilian I, the Holy Roman Emperor who ruled much of central Europe, and she maintained a sophisticated court, one rich with literature, art, and humanist ideals.

In 1514, Anne was selected to accompany Henry Tudor’s sister, Mary, as a maid of honor when Mary went to the French court to wed King Louis XII. When Louis died a few months later, Mary Tudor returned home to England, and Anne began to serve in the court of Queen Claude, where she spent the next six years. Anne’s years in France were fruitful, and she learned its language, art, and fashion. Anne learned the subtle arts required to interact at the court, as well as association with many powerful and influential European nobles and rulers, possibly meeting Henry VIII when he visited France for the Field of the Cloth of Gold ceremonies in 1518. In 1522, Anne returned home to England and became a maid of honor for King Henry VIII’s first wife, Catherine of Aragon.

Relationship with Henry VIII

After a couple of failed betrothals, Anne entered into an affair with King Henry VIII in about 1526, although he had already been involved in an affair with Anne’s married sister, Mary. Anne famously resisted his desire to consummate their affair until they were married. She and King Henry VIII were eventually married in secret in January 1533 while he was still married to Catherine. King Henry VIII’s marriage to Catherine was one he deemed improper, even incestuous, because she was initially married to Henry’s brother, Prince Arthur, before he died. That argument of an improper marriage was the basis for King Henry VIII’s appeal to the pope for a divorce.

The king’s desire to marry Anne and divorce Catherine was a major driver in the English Reformation because Pope Clement VII wouldn’t grant him a divorce. When Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer, declared the marriage of King Henry VIII and Catherine as null and void, subsequently validating the secret marriage of King Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, the split from the Catholic Church accelerated. The tides of religious reform in England led to the formation of The Church of England, which was made official in 1535 with the Act of Supremacy.

Anne Bolelyn’s Legacy

Anne and King Henry VIII had one child in September 1533 and named her Elizabeth; she would later become Queen Elizabeth I. After Anne experienced several failed pregnancies over the next two years, King Henry VIII began to believe that Anne would not be able to bear him a proper male heir, and so he became restless and desired to be rid of Anne.

King Henry VIII may already have been courting his next wife, Jane Seymour, when he initiated the legal investigation and prosecution of Anne. Anne was put on trial for charges, brought by the king, for the crimes of high treason, adultery, and incest. Anne was found guilty and sentenced to death. At her execution, Anne protested her innocence and praised Henry: I am come hither to die, for according to the law and by the law I am judged to die, and therefore I will speak nothing against it \ I pray God save the King for a gentler nor a more merciful prince was there never. On May 19, 1536, Anne became the first English queen to be executed when she was beheaded at the Tower of London. She is buried in the Chapel of St. Peter ad Vincula inside the Tower’s grounds. Many historians speculate that Anne’s difficult marriage and tragic end influenced her daughter Elizabeth’s decision to remain single.

Key Print Sources Ives, Eric. The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn. Blackwell Publishing, 2005. Shakespeare, William. King Henry the Eighth. Edited by and J. C. Maxwell. Cambridge University Press, 1969. Warnicke, Retha M. The Rise and Fall of Anne Boleyn: Family Politics at the Court of Henry VIII. Cambridge University Press, 1989.
Key Online Sources Anne Boleyn. Historical Royal Palaces. https://www.hrp.org.uk/tower-of-london/history-and-stories/anne-boleyn/. Accessed 6 Feb. 2023. Bevan, Richard. Anne Boleyn and the Downfall of her Family. BBC History. https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/tudors/anne_boleyn_01.shtml. Accessed 18 Sep. 2018. Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. Anne Boleyn. Encyclopedia Britannica. 17 May 2018. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Anne-Boleyn. Accessed 16 Sep. 2018. Grueninger, Natalie. On The Tudor Trail. https://onthetudortrail.com/Blog/. Accessed 18 Sep. 2018.
Image Sources Holbein the Younger, Hans. Portrait of a lady, formerly thought to be Anne Boleyn... 1532–1535. Chalk on paper. The British Museum. https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_1975-0621-22.