The Fall of Anne Boleyn: A Countdown (22 page)

Thomas Wyatt

Was Anne Boleyn a Witness?

The men were executed on Tower Hill, outside the confines of the Tower of London, so it would have been impossible for Anne to witness their harrowing deaths from her lodgings in the royal palace. However, Gareth Russell
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points out that Anne may have asked Sir William Kingston to move her to either the Byward Tower or Bell Tower so that she could witness her brother's last moments. In his report to the Emperor, Chapuys, the imperial ambassador, recorded Anne witnessing the executions: "the Concubine saw them executed from the Tower, to aggravate her grief".
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A Marriage Destroyed

Also on 17th May 1536, at Lambeth, Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, in the presence of Sir Thomas Audley, the Duke of Suffolk, the Earl of Oxford and others, declared that the marriage between Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn was null and void.
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This sentence of "nullity" meant that it was as if the marriage had never happened and automatically rendered the couple's daughter, Elizabeth, illegitimate. The King could now forget the woman waiting for her death in the Tower and move on with his life and marry again.

We do not know the grounds for the annulment. The Archbishop simply said that it was "in consequence of certain just and lawful impediments which, it was said, were unknown at the time of the union, but had lately been confessed to the Archbishop by the lady herself."
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Charles Wriothesley
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took this to mean that the Queen confessed to a pre-contract with Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland. However, the Imperial ambassador, Eustace Chapuys, believed that "the said Archbishop had pronounced the marriage of the King and Concubine invalid on account of the King having had connection with her sister, and that, as both parties knew of this, the good faith of the parents cannot make the said bastard legitimate."
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Thus, the impediment referred to here was that of consanguinity. In other words, the marriage was deemed incestuous because the King had had a previous sexual relationship with Anne Boleyn's sister, Mary Boleyn.

18th May 1536 – Anne Prepares

On the night of 17th May 1536, while the carpenters built her scaffold within the grounds of the Tower of London, Anne Boleyn prepared herself for her execution, which was scheduled for 9am on the 18th. At 2am, her almoner, John Skip (some say her confessor Father Thirwell
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), arrived to pray with her. She was still in prayer when Archbishop Cranmer arrived just after dawn to hear her final confession and to celebrate the Mass.

Anne Boleyn thought she would be dying in just a few hours, so she wanted the Sacrament. She asked for Sir William Kingston, the Constable of the Tower, to be present and he agreed. As Anne took the sacrament she swore on it twice, before and after receiving the body of Christ. She solemnly swore that she had not been unfaithful to the King, as Chapuys reported in a letter to Charles V:

"The lady who had charge of her has sent to tell me in great secresy that the Concubine, before and after receiving the sacrament, affirmed to her, on the damnation of her soul, that she had never been unfaithful to the King."
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Anne obviously wanted Kingston to pass this information on to Thomas Cromwell and he did:

"for this mornynge she sent for me that I myght be with hyr at [such time] as she reysayved the gud Lord, to the intent I shuld here hy[r] s[peak as] towchyng hyr innosensy alway to be clere."
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It changed nothing. Anne could have sworn her innocence until she was blue in the face but the swordsman of Calais was on his way, the scaffold was being erected and her marriage had been annulled. Anne had been abandoned by Henry VIII and she was to suffer death.

Anne then made arrangements for the customary distribution of alms using the £20 given to her by the King for this purpose, and then she waited for 9am, the moment she thought she would take her final walk. She went back to her prayers.

When nothing happened at 9am, Anne sent for Kingston. She had heard that her execution had been postponed until noon:

"Mr. Kyngston, I h[ear say I shall] not dy affore none, and I am very sory therfore, for I thowt[h to] be dede [by this time], and past my payne."

Kingston knew full well that Anne was not being executed that day as he had received orders from Cromwell to clear the Tower of foreigners first, perhaps so that foreign diplomats could not send home sympathetic reports of Anne execution. Kingston kept Anne in the dark for a while longer and tried to comfort her by explaining that her execution would not be painful and that the blow was "so subtle". To this, Anne replied with characteristic black humour, "I heard say the executioner was very good, and I have a little neck", after which she put her hands around her throat and laughed heartily.
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Kingston was impressed with Anne Boleyn's composure, commenting to Cromwell that "thys lady hasse mech joy and plesure in dethe"
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and writing of how her almoner was with her continually.

Anne's black humour in those dark hours showed through as she joked with her ladies that the people would be able to give her the nickname "la Royne Anne Sans Tete"
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or Queen Anne Lackhead, and then she laughed. Regardless, those hours of waiting and not knowing what was going on must have been pure hell for Anne, who had prepared herself to die that day.

She was finally put out of her misery when noon passed and Kingston informed her that her execution had been postponed until the next day, the 19th. According to Chapuys, "when the command came to put off the execution till today [19th], Anne appeared very sorry, praying the Captain of the Tower that for the honor of God he would beg the King that, since she was in good state and disposed for death, she might be dispatched immediately".
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Lanceleot de Carles has her adding that it was "not that she desired death, but thought herself prepared to die and feared that delay would weaken her". De Carles writes of how she then "consoled her ladies several times, telling them that was not a thing to be regretted by Christians, and she hoped to be quit of all unhappiness, with various other good counsels."
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There was nothing that Sir William Kingston could do to ease Anne's suffering; all Anne could do was return to prayer and wait.

Catherine's Tomb

Elsewhere on 18th May 1536, it was reported to Cromwell by a Frenchman that the wax tapers set around Catherine of Aragon's tomb in Peterborough Abbey "had been lighted of their own accord".
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Spooky!

19th May 1536 – The Execution of Queen Anne Boleyn

At dawn on 19th May 1536, Queen Anne Boleyn celebrated the Mass for the last time, receiving the Sacrament from her almoner, John Skip. She then ate breakfast and waited to hear Sir William Kingston's footsteps outside her door. At 8am, the Constable appeared, informing Anne that the hour of her death was near and that she should get herself ready. But Anne was already prepared. She had taken special care with her outfit – the ermine trim symbolised royalty and crimson, the colour of her kirtle, was associated with martyrdom. Her hood was the traditional English gable hood, rather than her usual stylish French hood.

Anne left the sumptuous royal palace for the last time, walking past the Great Hall, through Cole Harbour Gate and along the western side of the White Tower. There, ahead of her, was the newly erected black-draped scaffold.
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Kingston helped his prisoner up the scaffold steps and Anne stepped forward to address the crowd. The crowd fell silent as they gazed at their queen, a woman "with an untroubled countenance".
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Anne then delivered her final speech:

"Good Christian people, I have not come here to preach a sermon; I have come here 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 am come hither to accuse no man, nor to speak of that whereof I am accused and condemned to die, but I pray God save the King and send him long to reign over you, for a gentler nor a more merciful prince was there never, and to me he was ever a good, a gentle, and sovereign lord. And if any person will meddle of my cause, I require them to judge the best. And thus I take my leave of the world and of you all, and I heartily desire you all to pray for me."

(The speech is corroborated by Edward Hall, George Wyatt, John Foxe and Lord Herbert of Cherbury)

Unlike her brother, Anne did not protest her innocence and preach to the crowd; she simply did what was expected of her. Executions were carefully choreographed, with a set format for execution speeches which Anne followed to to the letter. There was no way that she would risk her daughter's safety by defying the King and proclaiming her innocence. Elizabeth's safety and her future relationship with her father, the King, were paramount in Anne's mind as she prepared to meet her Maker.

Anne paid the "distressed"
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executioner who asked Anne's forgiveness. Her ladies then removed Anne's mantle and Anne lifted off her gable hood. "A young lady presented her with a linen cap, with which she covered her hair, and she knelt down, fastening her clothes about her feet, and one of the said ladies bandaged her eyes."
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The crowd, who would have been well used to executions by this time, were moved by the Queen's plight, many of them crying.
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As Anne sank to her knees in readiness, the crowd too sank to its knees, following the example of Sir John Aleyn, the Lord Mayor. Only Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, and Henry Fitzroy, Duke of Richmond, remained on their feet.
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As Anne waited for the executioner to strike, she started praying, "O Lord have mercy on me, to God I commend my soul. To Jesus Christ I commend my soul; Lord Jesu receive my soul. "Eric Ives
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writes that her only show of fear was the way that she kept looking behind her to check that the executioner was not going to strike the fatal blow too soon. As Anne prayed, the executioner called out to his assistant to pass him his sword. As Anne moved her head to follow what the assistant was doing, the executioner came up unnoticed behind her and beheaded her with one stroke of his sword. It was over.

As the shocked crowd dispersed, Anne's ladies, who were described as "bereft of their souls, such was their weakness",
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wrapped her head and body in white cloth and took them to the Chapel of St Peter ad Vincula for burial. No casket had been provided, so a yeoman warder fetched an old elm chest which had once contained bow staves from the Tower armoury.
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Anne Boleyn, Queen of England and mother of Elizabeth I, was then buried as a traitor in an unmarked grave. The Tower cannons fired to tell London that its Queen was dead.

Sir William Kingston was paid £100 by the Crown for Anne Boleyn's "jewels and apparel"
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and that was that. One queen was dead and another was about to take her place. Sir Francis Bryan took the news of Anne's death to her replacement, Jane Seymour; who knows what she thought of the bloody events of the past few days?

Scottish theologian Alexander Alesius had woken up in the early hours of 19th May from a nightmare about the Queen's severed neck in which he "could count the nerves, the veins, and the arteries". He went to visit his friend Archbishop Cranmer in his garden at Lambeth. Alesius was unaware of Anne's imminent execution, having remained at home since the day of Anne's imprisonment, but as he told the Archbishop of his dream, Cranmer "raised his eyes to heaven and said, 'She who has been the Queen of England upon earth will to-day become a Queen in heaven.' So great was his grief that he could say nothing more, and then he burst into tears."
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The Archbishop who owed his rise to the patronage of the Queen and her family was a broken man, and perhaps he felt some guilt for his part in recent events. It is hard to imagine how he would have felt on hearing the cannons ring out over London, announcing the Queen's death.

Queen Anne Boleyn was gone, gone to a better place.

Anne Boleyn's Resting Place

Anne Boleyn's remains lay in peace in the Chapel of St Peter ad Vincula until 1876 when much-needed restoration work was carried out on the chapel. During the work, it was found that the pavement of the chancel area, where Anne Boleyn, Catherine Howard and Lady Jane Grey were buried, was sinking. It was decided that proper foundations were needed so the chancel area was dug up and the remains exhumed.

In the area where Anne Boleyn was recorded to have been buried, the bones of a female were found at a depth of about two feet. The remains were examined by Dr Mouat who confirmed that they belonged to "a female of between twenty-five and thirty years of age, of a delicate frame of body, and who had been of slender and perfect proportions". He went on to say that "the forehead and lower jaw were small and especially well formed. The vertebrae were particularly small, especially one joint (the atlas), which was that next to the skull, and they bore witness to the Queen's 'lyttel neck'."
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Although the bones were mixed up, they had been heaped together in a small space and there were no further female remains at that spot. Dr Mouat's memorandum said of Anne Boleyn's remains: