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Queen Anne Boleyn is one of the most fascinating, scandalous women to have ever existed in history. Known for her significant impact on the English Reformation (although she is mostly viewed as the catalyst for it), Queen Anne Boleyn's life is shrouded in mystery and tragedy from the lack of information we have about her life. The most information we have of her lies within the years of which Henry VIII was courting and/or married to her and even her final days of life are still somewhat of a mystery to us. Nonetheless, she is still one of the most important and influential women in British history and someone whose relationships are fascinating to learn about.
When Henry VIII's wish for a divorce from his first wife, Catalina de Aragon, was finally granted, he swiftly married Anne Boleyn, making her his new Queen. Now Queen Anne, she was now the new stepmother to her husband's existing possible heir (although an illegitimate one alike her half-brother Henry Fitzroy), Lady Mary Tudor. It is a well-known fact that Anne Boleyn and the Lady Mary did not get along although we do know that Anne had made attempts to get her stepdaughter to recognize her as the new Queen rather than remain loyal to her disgraced mother. After those attempts failed, the sourness between the two women deepened.
Today to mark the birthday of Mary Tudor, the future Queen Mary I of England, we spoke about Mary's relationship with her first stepmother, Anne Boleyn, with the brilliant historian and author; Dr Linda Porter!
Enjoy!
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Whilst we do not have a precise date for when Anne Boleyn returned to England from her time in France, we do know that she returned before or sometime during the year 1522 when Princess Mary was around six years old. How would Anne Boleyn have first met her future stepdaughter and what was their relationship, if one existed, like prior to the announcement of Henry VIII’s intention to divorce her mother, Catalina de Aragon, in favor of Anne?
Linda: I have no idea how Anne Boleyn would first have met the future Mary I. Mary, in common with all royal children in England and Europe at the time, was rarely at court. Whether Anne caught a glimpse of the princess during the visit of emperor Charles V to England we simply don’t know. In 1525-6 Mary was in the West Country and Wales with her own household and servants. She wouldn’t have had any relationship at all with Mary at this time. As a lady-in-waiting she would have known better than to try any familiarity with the heir to the throne.
It is believed that Anne Boleyn first caught the King’s eye during the year 1526 when Princess Mary was around ten years old and it took a whole six years for Henry VIII to finally receive a divorce from Mary’s mother. Is there any evidence to suggest that Anne attempted to establish a relationship with Princess Mary since it was now becoming common knowledge that the King desired to marry Anne?
Linda: No, there is no evidence and it would have been unwise and undoubtedly repulsed by Mary.
There is a lot of uncertainty and confusion in regards to Queen Anne’s treatment of Princess Mary, now declared illegitimate and known as Lady Mary, following her marriage and coronation to the King. It is believed that she had attempted to establish a relationship with her stepdaughter who remained loyal to her mother and the Catholic church and that once it was made clear to Anne that her stepdaughter had no intentions of recognizing her as Queen, she (and those loyal to her) bullied and abused the Lady Mary, even to the point of physical abuse to curb “her proud Spanish blood”. It is believed that, prior to her execution, Anne Boleyn prayed and asked Lady Kingston, the wife of Sir William Kingston who was Constable of the Tower, to relay her plea for forgiveness to Mary for her ill-treatment of her, which would suggest she did treat Mary cruelly. Are any of these claims true and if Anne was cruel or abusive to Mary, what was the purpose behind this?
Linda: I think the general feeling now is that the extent of Mary’s ‘ill-treatment’ has been rather exaggerated. The loss of her status as a princess hit Mary very hard and she undoubtedly disliked Anne Boleyn intensely. There is some evidence that Anne attempted to improve the situation, without success, but she does not seem to have been a woman who fostered close relationships with other women and her rise from lady of the court to queen perhaps left her ill-equipped to deal with a proud and determined princess in Mary. Anne’s awareness of Henry VIII’s underlying fondness for his wayward daughter (even if he did have a strange way of showing it!) seems to have left Anne rather insecure. There is no evidence that I know of that Mary was ever physically abused while in the care of Madge Shelton, though she was undoubtedly threatened with physical abuse by the deputation that came to see her in the summer of 1536, to get her to agree that the Pope was no longer head of the church in England and that Henry’s marriage to Katherine of Aragon was unlawful, but Anne was, of course, dead by then.
Lady Mary Tudor in The Tudors
The famous quote ‘she is my death and I am hers’ has left many questions in regards to the deep hatred that lingered between the stepmother and stepdaughter with many believing that Anne had the intention of killing her stepdaughter or that she believed Mary would play a part in her own demise if she was left unsupervised by people loyal to her. Was Anne Boleyn a cruel stepmother who plotted the death of her teenage stepdaughter out of fear and did Mary wish her stepmother’s death also?
Linda: No, I don’t think Anne ever plotted Mary’s death. The phrase is dramatic and was probably uttered for dramatic effect. In fact, it made little sense. It may be an exaggeration to say that Mary wished her stepmother’s death but it is certainly true that she did not mourn it.
When the news finally came to the Lady Mary that her stepmother, Queen Anne Boleyn, had been found guilty of adultery and incest, it is undeniable that Mary must have felt some relief to know that the woman who had caused, in Mary’s mind at least, the downfall of her parents’ marriage and her mother’s subsequent death in exile. What information do we have of Mary’s reaction to Queen Anne Boleyn’s death and whether she felt any degree of pity or sympathy towards her stepmother?
Linda: Mary’s reaction was one of overwhelming relief: ‘I perceived that nobody durst speak for me as long as that woman lived, which is now gone: whom I pray our Lord, of his great mercy, to forgive.’ I don’t think she ever felt any pity or sympathy for Anne. But she was, of course, to be brutally disabused very soon that her own situation would suddenly be improved.
Anne Boleyn's execution in The Tudors
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You can find Dr Linda Porter via the following links:
Website - Linda Porter (historian) Home Page
Facebook - Linda Porter - historian | Facebook
You can also pre-order her latest book, The Thistle and The Rose: The Extraordinary Life of Margaret Tudor, on Waterstones using the link here: The Thistle and The Rose by Linda Porter | Waterstones
Are there any other figures in Tudor history you would like us to discuss?
Tell us in the comments below!
Until next time!
- Have a ‘Tudor-fic’ week!
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