The Fall of Anne Boleyn: A Countdown (23 page)

"The bones found in the place where Queen Anne Boleyn is said to have been buried are certainly those of a female in the prime of life, all perfectly consolidated and symmetrical, and belong to the same person.

"The bones of the head indicate a well-formed round skull, with an intellectual forehead, straight orbital ridge, large eyes, oval face and rather square full chin. The remains of the vertebrae, and the bones of the lower limbs, indicate a well-formed woman of middle height, with a short and slender neck. The ribs show depth and roundness of chest. The hands and feet bones indicate delicate and well-shaped hands and feet, with tapering fingers and a narrow foot."
²

He noted that she had been around 5' to 5'3 inches in height. Both hands were entirely normal and no extra finger was found.

After the work had been completed, the remains found in the chancel area were "soldered up in thick leaden coffers, and then fastened down with copper screws in boxes made of oak plank, one inch in thickness. Each box bore a leaden escutcheon, on which was engraved the name of the person whose supposed remains were thus enclosed, together with the dates of death, and of the year (1877) of the reinterment. They were then placed in the respective positions in the chancel in which the remains had been found, and the ground having been opened, they were all buried about four inches below the surface, the earth was then filled in, and concrete immediately spread over them".
³
Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford, Lord Redesdale,
⁴
recorded how a plan of the burials was deposited amongst the Tower of London records and a "solemn ceremony" was carried out, presided over by the chaplain, the Reverend E. Jordan Roberts. Beautiful memorial tiles were used to mark the resting places of those buried in the chancel and these can still be seen today, although a rope cordons off the chancel area and some tiles lie underneath the altar table. As you look at the altar, Anne Boleyn's tile is to the left of the table.

The royal palace where Anne Boleyn was imprisoned, and the Great Hall in which she was tried, no longer exist, having been demolished by the end of the 18th century. However, the Queen's lodgings stood between the Lanthorn Tower and the Wardrobe Tower, on the South Lawn behind the White Tower. The half-timbered Queen's House which overlooks Tower Green is not where Anne was imprisoned; these apartments were not built until after Anne's death. The men, however, were imprisoned in other parts of the Tower and there are two carvings in the stone which are thought to have been made by the prisoner in 1536 – one of a rose with what looks like a letter "H" and the name "Boullan" in the Martin Tower, and Anne's falcon badge in the Beauchamp Tower. Tellingly, the falcon is missing its crown and scepter; it is no royal bird.

I find it moving to make a 'pilgrimage' to Anne's resting place on 19th May. Every year, a basket of red roses is delivered to the Tower with instructions to lay it on Anne Boleyn's memorial tile. The card always has the same message: "Queen Anne Boleyn, 19th May 1536". According to a Sunday Telegraph article,
⁵
a former director-general of the Tower of London, Major General Chris Tyler, tracked down the roses to a florist local to the Tower who had been receiving an annual order for the roses since the 1850s with instructions to keep the sender's details private. In recent years, the order had been handled by the same florist company, but at a branch in Kent. Major Tyler was apparently able to track down Boleyn family descendants who admitted to sending the roses. It appears that the sending of the roses was part of a bequest and that there is enough money to send the roses for many more years. It is a beautiful tradition and one which the Yeoman Warders take very seriously.

For me, though, Anne isn't at the Tower; she's at Hever Castle, her family home. That is where I like to go to pay my respects to her and George, in the place where they grew up. Although Lord Astor renovated it in the early 20th century, adding a whole wing (the 'Tudor village'), creating the gardens and lake, the castle, or rather Tudor manor house, is still the structure Anne would have known. I feel close to her when I gaze at her Book of Hours and stand in the castle courtyard. This is the place Anne played with her siblings, where she spent time with her parents, where she retreated to get away from Henry's advances and where she fought off the deadly sweating sickness. This was her home.

20th May 1536 – The Betrothal of Henry VIII and Jane Seymour

On 20th May 1536, Eustace Chapuys, the Imperial Ambassador, wrote to Seigneur de Granvelle informing him of the latest developments in London:

"Has just been informed, the bearer of this having already mounted, that Mrs. Semel [Seymour] came secretly by river this morning to the King's lodging, and that the promise and betrothal (desponsacion) was made at 9 o'clock. The King means it to be kept secret till Whitsuntide; but everybody begins already to murmur by suspicion, and several affirm that long before the death of the other there was some arrangement which sounds ill in the ears of the people; who will certainly be displeased at what has been told me, if it be true, viz., that yesterday the King, immediately on receiving news of the decapitation of the putain entered his barge and went to the said Semel, whom he has lodged a mile from him, in a house by the river."
¹

From this one letter we know that as soon as the King heard that Anne Boleyn was dead he was on his way to see his new love and that at 9am on 20th May, just one day after the execution of his previous wife, Henry VIII and Jane Seymour became officially betrothed. Talk about moving fast! Chapuys also makes the point that there was gossip about the King's relationship with Jane long before Anne's death, which, although Anne was not the most popular of people, caused ill feeling and sympathy for Anne's plight.

I suspect that Henry VIII saw nothing wrong with his actions as, after all, he was acting in the best interest of his country by providing England with a new Queen to give him a son and heir. What did it matter that he was planning a wedding while his current wife was in the Tower condemned to die? Henry had probably convinced himself that his marriage to Anne Boleyn was as cursed as his marriage to Catherine of Aragon had been, and that he was doing the world a favour by getting rid of Anne. Henry could move on to a new love and a new life, but Anne had been denied that chance. It is no wonder that Henry neglected his daughter Elizabeth for a time. How could he look into those dark eyes and not think of the woman he had fought so hard to possess but had ended up killing?

30th May 1536 – Henry VIII Marries Jane Seymour

On Tuesday 30th May, just eleven days after the execution of his second wife, Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII married Jane Seymour in the Queen's Closet at York Place, the property renovated by himself and Anne.

The King and Jane Seymour had become betrothed on 20th May, a day after Anne's execution, but did not marry immediately because the speed of their relationship sounded "ill in the ears of his people".
¹
As if an extra ten days made any difference!

David Starkey
²
writes that Jane was probably kept in seclusion at Chelsea between the betrothal and her wedding day, after which she took her place at the King's side as Queen. Sir John Russell wrote to Lord Lisle:

"On Friday last [2nd June] the Queen sat abroad as Queen, and was served by her own servants, who were sworn that same day. The King came in his great boat to Greenwich that day with his privy chamber, and the Queen and the ladies in the great barge."
³

The chronicler, Charles Wriothesley, writes that, on 4th June, Whitsunday, "the said Jane Seymor was proclaymed Queene at Greenewych, and went in procession, after the King, with a great traine of ladies followinge after her, and also ofred at masse as Queen, and began her howsehold that daie, dyning in her chamber of presence under the cloath of estate."
⁴

Jane Seymour was now Queen of England. She had had an easier start than her predecessor, Anne Boleyn, who had waited seven years to be Queen. Jane's wait had been just a few weeks and her predecessor was dead, having first been labelled a traitor and whore. "Whereas the crowned, the most happy falcon was no more, a Phoenix was rising."
⁵

The Reaction

Although Cromwell's propaganda machine had been working flat out, spreading the salacious and shocking news that the King of England had been saved from a conspiracy instigated by his own wife and Queen, there were those who were cynical and could not quite believe the official line.

Etienne Dolet, the French scholar, printer, and Reformer, published an epigram, "Reginae Utopiae falso adulterii crimine damnatae, et capite mulctatae Epitaphium" ("Queen of Utopia condemned on a false charge of adultery, and deprived of an epitaph"). He knew of Anne through his friend, Nicholas Bourbon, a French Reformer, poet and scholar, who had been rescued by Anne in 1534 after he had got into trouble in France for his work, "Nugae". Bourbon's release from prison was down to Anne's influence over her husband, Henry VIII, and once Bourbon was in England she appointed him as tutor to her ward and nephew, Henry Carey. It is likely that it was Bourbon who told Dolet of the events of 1536 and that he knew Anne to be innocent of all of the charges.

The imperial ambassador, Eustace Chapuys, in reporting the trials to Charles V, wrote that the men "were condemned upon presumption and certain indications, without valid proof or confession", that George Boleyn was charged "by presumption" and that "those present wagered 10 to 1 that he would be acquitted, especially as no witnesses were produced against either him or her".
¹
He also reported that "there are some who murmur at the mode of procedure against her and the others". Therefore, there were definitely those who thought that Anne and the men were framed due to the King's relationship with Jane Seymour.

Mary of Hungary, Emperor Charles V's sister, who knew Anne Boleyn from their time together at the court of Margaret of Austria, wrote that "As none but the organist confessed, nor herself either, people think he invented this device to get rid of her" and added, insightfully, that "when he is tired of this one he will find some occasion of getting rid of her."
²
So she too was cynical and thought that Anne's condemnation was more to do with the King wanting rid of her than any actual guilt.

George Constantine, Sir Henry Norris's servant, commented that "few men would believe that she was so abominable" and that he had "never suspected". He also said that "there was much muttering at the Queen's death".
³
George Wyatt, Sir Thomas Wyatt's grandson, writing in Elizabeth I's reign, commented on how those "abroad" found Anne "guiltless"
⁴
and that he, himself, believed the charges of incest and adultery to be "incredible" and "partly by the circumstances impossible", since Anne was always surrounded by her ladies.
⁵
Martyrologist, John Foxe, also writing in Elizabeth I's reign, blamed "crafty setters-on"
⁶
for poisoning the King's mind and turning him against his wife.

As for Henry VIII, he simply moved on with his life, marrying Jane Seymour. Whenever the latter dared to ask him for something he warned her to learn from the example of Anne Boleyn. This was reported by the diplomat Jean du Bellay:

"At the beginning of the insurrection the Queen threw herself on her knees before the King and begged him to restore the abbeys, but he told her, prudently enough, to get up, and he had often told her not to meddle with his affairs, referring to the late Queen, which was enough to frighten a woman who is not very secure."
⁷

So, according to Henry VIII, the Queen had come to a sticky end from 'meddling' rather than being guilty of treason! As Eric Ives
⁸
points out, Henry VIII also admitted years later that once a prisoner was in the Tower of London then false evidence could be used against him. Ralph Morice, secretary of Archbishop Cranmer, recorded the following warning issued by the King to Cranmer in 1546 when the conservatives targeted him and tried to bring him down:

"Oh Lorde God ! (quod the king) what fonde symplicitie have you : so to permitt yourself to be ymprisoned, that every enemy of yours may take vantage againste you. Doo not you thincke that yf thei have you ones in prison, iij or iiij false knaves wilbe sone procured to witnes againste you and to condempne you, whiche els now being at your libertie dare not ones open thair lipps or appere before your face."
⁹

I find it rather telling that Henry VIII knew that it was 'the done thing' to procure false witnesses to condemn a prisoner!

A Foregone Conclusion

I am convinced that the removal of Anne Boleyn from her position as Queen by execution was a foregone conclusion and that Anne never stood a chance of clearing her name and escaping death. There was shock at the allegations against Anne Boleyn and the five men, as shown in a letter from Rowland Lee, Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield, written on the 7th May 1536, acknowledging receipt of letters from the Privy Council:-

"As the news in this letter is very doleful to this Council and all the liege people of this realm, God forbid it should be true."
¹

But records of another letter written on the same day by Sir Henry Wyatt to his son Thomas Wyatt, who was a prisoner in the Tower, show how Anne's guilt was generally accepted: