(© Unknown Artist – The National Portrait Gallery)
Anne Boleyn is well known for being the second wife of the Infamous Henry VIII and, after three years of marriage, being tragically executed for committing ‘treason’. In this piece, I will discuss Anne’s time as Queen of England by taking a look at some of the changes she attempted to implement to improve her subjects’ lives during her reign and we shall also talk about Anne’s numerous pregnancies which included a possible phantom pregnancy!
Anne Boleyn and Henry VIII ‘officially’ married on the 25th of January 1533. However, it was rumored at the time that Henry and Anne secretly got married on the 14th of November 1532 upon returning from their triumphant holiday to France to get Francis I’s approval on their upcoming union.
Although Anne and Henry married in January 1533, it was not until Easter of that year that their marriage was officially announced to the English court. On the 12th of April, Anne was pronounced as the new Queen of England. Around this time, Catherine of Aragon was informed that her marriage with Henry VIII was annulled, and Henry was now married to Anne.
In June 1533, Anne was crowned Queen of England at Westminster Abbey. This was the moment Anne had been waiting for. She was pregnant, happily married to Henry and officially Queen of England. Although Anne had everything she wanted, she now had to deliver her end of the bargain and give Henry a son. We know the male carries the X/Y chromosome, but hindsight, as wonderful as it is, it’s all it is.
Anne gave birth on 7th September 1533 to a healthy baby girl, Elizabeth, but as we know her best, Queen Elizabeth I, one of the most famous Queens in British history. Contrary to popular belief, Elizabeth was not the disappointment she had been perceived to be for Henry and Anne. Elizabeth proved Anne could produce healthy children on her first go. Anne and Henry were smitten with their little girl, but Anne now understood she had even more pressure to produce a male heir.
Anne very quickly became pregnant for a second time, possibly even before Christmas 1533. Sadly, this pregnancy seems to end in mystery. It seems possible that Anne was pregnant until the summer of 1534, where it either ended in miscarriage, stillbirth. Another theory has been said that Anne had a phantom pregnancy where her body believed itself to be carrying a child when it was not. It is backed up in January 1534 that Anne is pregnant in a dispatch from a letter by the Spanish ambassador Eustace Chapuys, dated 28th January 1534, where he mentions a pregnant Queen Anne.
In April of 1534, George Taylor backed this up by writing to Lady Lisle in Calais saying, “The Queen hath a goodly belly, praying our Lord to send us a prince”. We get into July 1534 where Anne’s brother George is sent to France to postpone a meeting between Henry VIII and Francis I due to Anne being so far gone with a child that she could not cross the sea with the King. We don’t know what happened with this pregnancy, but with evidence to back up the fact she was pregnant, it is most likely Anne had a miscarriage and discreetly dealt with it.
We think Anne possibly got pregnant sometime again in 1534 and miscarried sometime in 1535, but there is no real evidence to corroborate this. The only evidence we have is a letter by Sir William Kingston, commenting on Anne’s fair belly, but this letter is possibly misdated as in the letter it mentions a man who died in October 1534, which could be further evidence to the fact Anne was pregnant in 1534.
Anne’s final pregnancy was in the autumn of 1535, and, unlike the previous pregnancy, we know exactly when she lost this baby. Thanks to the helpful Chapuys, we know Anne miscarried on the day of Catherine of Aragon’s funeral; 29th January 1536. Anne’s miscarriage could have been for a multitude of reasons and we know that Anne and Henry were both under extreme stress at this point. I want to explore two of the reasons as to why Anne miscarried.
Henry VIII was involved in an accident with his friends practicing for a jousting tournament in the next few weeks and this could have made Anne extremely worried for her position, and possibly for Henry. Anne was not a well-liked woman, so if anything did happen to Henry, Anne was in a precarious position, she needed to have a son during this pregnancy. Another reason is Jane Seymour. You cannot blame another woman for being the cause, but, Anne walked in on Jane and Henry, Jane was sitting on his knee, and he was possibly cupping her breast.
This would have been devastating for Anne. We do know that Henry had mistresses during his marriage to Anne but I think this was deja vu for Anne. Jane was withholding sex from Henry, just as Anne had done ten years earlier. I think this reinforced for Anne that, to secure her position as Queen, she needed to give Henry a son.
However, Anne’s ‘failure’ to give Henry a son was not the only reason she fell from grace.
For the majority of their marriage, Anne and Henry are reported to be merry together. Once Henry did marry Anne, they needed to prove that everything they had done was worth it or, to put it bluntly, Anne was worth it. The thing with Anne is, unlike Catherine of Aragon, she struggled to stay quiet and obedient. Anne was fiery, and she had ideas to give. When Henry did have mistresses, Anne would storm and shout at Henry, which was risky to do. To shout at a King and insult him, even if he was your husband, was treason, but Anne was a brazen woman.
A big part of Anne’s fall from grace is her ideas; how she went about those ideas and the fact Anne made enemies very easily. As I said earlier, Anne was fiery, and she is well known for having a sharp tongue. Anne may not have been a well-liked woman but the ideas that she had for the future of England arguably showed how intelligent and adaptable she was–something England needed when competing against an ever-changing world.
Unfortunately, Anne began clashing with Henry VIII’s new right-hand man, Thomas Cromwell. They initially got on like a house on fire as they both wanted reform in the church, but Anne felt like Cromwell did not care about the state of the churches and wanted to profit from the closure of the churches. Anne, on the other hand, wanted the churches to stay open and become hospitals and schools for the poor. Anne wanted the poor to profit from the corruption of the churches, so from 1535, Anne and Cromwell were at loggerheads. By April 1536, Anne wanted Cromwell’s head, so it very much became a who would kill who first.
Whilst Anne was an intelligent, fierce and determined woman who would always be fighting against those who wished her to fail, Thomas Cromwell proved to be an enemy that she could not outwit nor outlast as he would be the one who brought her time as Queen to an end and, tragically, send her to the executioner’s block. Whilst Thomas Cromwell would also suffer a similar fate many years later, it is Anne’s tragic fall from grace and inability to produce a male heir for the husband she loved so dearly that is remembered more fondly today.
References:
The Final Year of Anne Boleyn by Natalie Grueninger