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 Encyclopedia EMEE

Anthology Leads: Kate McPherson and Kate Moncrief.

 Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Mitacs Globalink Research Internship Utah Valley University

Released with Early Modern England Encyclopedia 1.0a

 University of Victoria on the Linked Early Modern Drama Online Platform

Unless otherwise noted, intellectual copyright in EMEE Anthology pages is held by Kate McPherson on behalf of the contributors. Copyright on the TEI-XML markup is held by the University of Victoria on behalf of the LEMDO Team. The content and TEI-XML markup in this file are licensed under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license. This file is freely downloadable without permission under the following conditions: (1) credit must be given to the authors, EMEE, and LEMDO in any subsequent use of the files and /or data; (2) this availability statement must remain in the file; (3) the content cannot be adapted or repurposed (except for quotations for the purposes of academic review and citation); and (4) commercial uses are not permitted without the knowledge and consent of the authors, EMEE, and LEMDO. Neither the content nor the code in this file is licensed for training large language models (LLMs), ingestion into an LLM, or any use in any artificial intelligence applications; such uses are considered to be commercial uses and are strictly prohibited.

Early Modern England Encyclopedia

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

Encoded in TEI P5 according to the LEMDO Customization and Encoding Guidelines

This document uses Canadian English spelling

 Document Types All documents in LEMDO are either born-digital documents or primary documents. Within those two general categories, LEMDO offers additional ways to categorize a file. Born-digital Born-digital documents are anything other than primary texts Critical Critical material, such as a general introduction or a textual introduction. Responsibilities Responsibilities Author A person, family, or organization responsible for creating a work that is primarily textual in content, regardless of media type (e.g., printed text, spoken word, electronic text, tactile text) or genre (e.g., poems, novels, screenplays, blogs). Use also for persons, etc., creating a new work by paraphrasing, rewriting, or adapting works by another creator such that the modification has substantially changed the nature and content of the original or changed the medium of expression. LEMDO uses the term author in two contexts: (1) to indicate the author of a primary work or document (such as Hamlet), and (2) to indicate the author of a secondary text (such as the Critical Introduction to <title level="m">Hamlet, by David Bevington). Editor A person, family, or organization contributing to a resource by revising or elucidating the content, e.g., adding an introduction, notes, or other critical matter. An editor may also prepare a resource for production, publication, or distribution. For major revisions, adaptations, etc., that substantially change the nature and content of the original work, resulting in a new work, see author. LEMDO uses the general term editor only in edition metadata and only to indicate when a person is responsible for editing all parts of an edition. Otherwise, use the more granular terms to describe the precise nature of the editorial role. Supervising Editor An editor who supervises the work of a student editor. Copy Editor LEMDO uses the term owner for the person who checks facts, quotations, and citations; may make formatting changes; may convert from one citation style to another; may suggest wording changes; and enforces conformity with the project style guide. Markup Editor A person or organization performing the coding of SGML, HTML, or XML markup of metadata, text, etc. Gloss needed. Copyright Holder A person or organization to whom copy and legal rights have been granted or transferred for the intellectual content of a work. The copyright holder, although not necessarily the creator of the work, usually has the exclusive right to benefit financially from the sale and use of the work to which the associated copyright protection applies. Normally the editor is the copyright holder for an LEMDO edition. EMEE Keywords Culture Learn about the customs, beliefs, and daily lives of people in early modern England. Daily Life Adultery Published page. Updated metadata proofed began adding MCPH1 as a supervising editor. Added style to image as test Review of article finished. Added information and attribution to figure and citation Added date, pubPlace, and publisher tags to sources Created File. Leah Hamby Leah Hamby

Leah Hamby is the primary encoder for the Early Modern England Encyclopedia. Aside from encoding, she also works as an editor for the project and contributed several articles of her own. She has been working on the EMEE since February 2023. As of February 2026, she is soon to graduate with honours from Utah Valley University with a major in history and a minor in creative writing. Her other work with the LEMDO program includes remediating William Kemp’s Kemp’s Nine Day’s Wonder for the Digital Renaissance Editions.

 Navarra Houldin Navarra Houldin

Training and Documentation Lead 2025–present. LEMDO project manager 2022–2025. Textual remediator 2021–present. Navarra Houldin (they/them) completed their BA with a major in history and minor in Spanish at the University of Victoria in 2022. Their primary research was on gender and sexuality in early modern Europe and Latin America. They are continuing their education through an MA program in Gender and Social Justice Studies at the University of Alberta where they will specialize in Digital Humanities.

 Janelle Jenstad Janelle Jenstad

Janelle Jenstad is a Professor of English at the University of Victoria, Director of The Map of Early Modern London, and Director of Linked Early Modern Drama Online. With Jennifer Roberts-Smith and Mark Beatrice Kaethler, she co-edited Shakespeare’s Language in Digital Media: Old Words, New Tools (Routledge). She has edited John Stow’s A Survey of London (1598 text) for MoEML and is currently editing The Merchant of Venice (with Stephen Wittek) and Heywood’s 2 If You Know Not Me You Know Nobody for DRE. Her articles have appeared in Digital Humanities Quarterly, Elizabethan Theatre, Early Modern Literary Studies, Shakespeare Bulletin, Renaissance and Reformation, and The Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies. She contributed chapters to Approaches to Teaching Othello (MLA); Teaching Early Modern Literature from the Archives (MLA); Institutional Culture in Early Modern England (Brill); Shakespeare, Language, and the Stage (Arden); Performing Maternity in Early Modern England (Ashgate); New Directions in the Geohumanities (Routledge); Early Modern Studies and the Digital Turn (Iter); Placing Names: Enriching and Integrating Gazetteers (Indiana); Making Things and Drawing Boundaries (Minnesota); Rethinking Shakespeare Source Study: Audiences, Authors, and Digital Technologies (Routledge); and Civic Performance: Pageantry and Entertainments in Early Modern London (Routledge). For more details, see janellejenstad.com.

 Kate McPherson Kate McPherson

Kate McPherson is Professor of English and Honors Program Director at Utah Valley University (Orem, UT, USA). In 2015, she began working to redevelop Shakespeare’s Life and Times, created by Michael Best, into the Early Modern England Encyclopedia. Her other publications include commentary on Pericles and The Comedy of Errors for the New Oxford Shakespeare (2016); the co-edited volumes Stages of Engagement: Drama and Religion in Post-Reformation England with James Mardock (Duquesne University Press, 2014) and Shakespeare Expressed: Page, Stage, and Classroom in Shakespeare and His Contemporaries, with Kathryn M. Moncrief and Sarah Enloe (Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2013). With Kathryn M. Moncrief, Kate has also two edited collections, Performing Pedagogy in Early Modern England: Gender, Instruction, and Performance (Ashgate, 2011) and Performing Maternity in Early Modern England (Ashgate 2008). She has also published numerous articles on early modern maternity in scholarly journals. Kate participated in the 2008 National Endowment for the Humanities Institute, Shakespeare’s Blackfriars: The Study, the Stage, the Classroom, at the American Shakespeare Center. She also served as Play Seminar Director, a public humanities position, for the Utah Shakespeare Festival in 2017 and 2018.

 Melanee Raynes Melanee Raynes

Melanee Raynes was a student at Utah Valley University.

 LEMDO Team The LEMDO Team is based at the University of Victoria and normally comprises the project director, the lead developer, project manager, junior developers(s), remediators, encoders, and remediating editors. University of Victoria https://www.uvic.ca/
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.