Anne’s almoner John Skip preached a controversial sermon in front of King Henry VIII on April 2, 1536. The theme had had been “Which of you can convict me of sin?” John Skip came to use the story of King Ahasuerus “who was moved by a wicked minister to destroy the Jews,” but Queen Esther stepped in with different advice and saved the Jews. King Henry VIII did happen to be King Ahasuerus, Anne Boleyn was Queen Esther, and Thomas Cromwell, who had just introduced the Act of the Suppression of the Lesser Monasteries into Parliament, was Haman, the “wicked minister.” This was sanctioned by Anne and thus a statement that although Anne believed in reform and tackling abuse and corruption, she did not agree with Thomas Cromwell filling the Crown’s purses rather than using the proceeds to aid the poor and for educational institutions.
King Henry VIII had a former meeting with Imperial
ambassador Eustace Chapuys and this was the only record meeting of Anne and
Chapuys who he had publicly acknowledge in the Chapel Royal for the first time.
As King Henry VIII became more and more disillusioned with Anne and more and more enamored with Jane Seymour, Anne's enemies made their move to attack Anne and bring about her downfall to remove her from her position of power.
According to author and Tudor historian Alison Weir, Thomas Cromwell had plotted Anne’s downfall while he feigned illness and detailed the plot had ended up taking place around April 20th to 21st, 1536. Anne’s biographer, Eric Ives, among others, believed that her downfall and her execution were engineered by Thomas Cromwell. The conversations between Imperial Ambassador Eustace Chapuys and Thomas Cromwell thereafter indicate that Thomas Cromwell was the instigator of the plot to remove Anne with evidence of this seen in the Spanish Chronicle and through letters written from Imperial Ambassador Eustace Chapuys to the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. Anne had argued with Thomas Cromwell over the redistribution of Church revenues and over foreign policy. She advocated that revenues be distributed to charitable and educational institutions and she favored a French alliance. Thomas Cromwell had insisted on filling King Henry VIII’s coffers with the revenues, while he took a cut for himself, and he preferred an Imperial Alliance. For these reasons Eric Ives suggested that, “Anne Boleyn had become a major threat to Thomas Cromwell.” Thomas Cromwell’s biographer John Schofield, on the other hand, contended that no power struggle existed between Anne and Thomas Cromwell and that “not a trace can be found of a Cromwellian conspiracy against Anne…Cromwell became involved in the royal marital drama only when Henry ordered him onto the case.” Thomas Cromwell did not manufacture the accusations of adultery, though other officials and he used them to bolster King Henry VIII’s case against Anne. Historian Retha Warnicke questioned whether Thomas Cromwell could have manipulated King Henry VIII in such a matter. King Henry VIII himself issued the crucial instructions: his officials, including Thomas Cromwell carried them out. The result, historians agreed, was a legal travesty. In order to do so the Master Secretary Thomas Cromwell would need sufficient evidence that would be convincing enough for her conviction or risk his own offices and perhaps his own life.
A time of line of the
catastrophic events that preceded Anne being arrested, brought to trial,
convicted on charges of adultery, conspiring the death of the King, high
treason, incest, and making fun of King Henry VIII’s clothes, music, and poetry are as follows:
-April 23rd, 1536- Anne’s
brother George Boleyn, Lord Rochford, is under the impression that he is to
become a new Knight of the Garter. George Boleyn was publicly snubbed upon his
arrival at the ceremony. He was told that Nicholas Carew, an enemy to the
Boleyn faction who did not accept Anne for who she was, cared nothing for her,
and despised her since he sympathized with Katherine of Aragon’s plight and he
was a support of Lady Mary, was to take his position as Knight of the Garter.
-Bishop Stephen Gardiner, abroad in
France, returned home to England when he was notified that King Henry VIII was
looking for a way out of his marriage to Queen Anne.
-On Monday, April 24th,
1536, on King Henry VIII’s orders Thomas Cromwell assembled a court to
investigate the matter of destroying the Boleyn faction. Henry Percy and Anne’s
former romantic relationship with each other was discussed in great order.
Henry Percy was ordered to testify that Anne and he had an understanding to
marry each other, but Henry Percy refused to comply.
-On Tuesday, April 25, 1536
King Henry VIII called Anne “his entirely beloved wife” in a letter to his
Ambassador in Rome, Richard Pate announcing “ the likelihood and appearance
that God will send us male heirs.”
-On Wednesday, April 26th,
1536, Sir Thomas Boleyn suspected that something was afoot in the English Court
and notified Matthew Parker of the turmoil ahead for Anne. Matthew Parker in
turn warned Queen Anne of it. He would later recount his great worry for Queen
Anne to Nicholas Bacon in 1559.
-Anne hastily made arrangements for
her daughter Princess Elizabeth’s care regarding her education and her
religious and spiritual care and sought promises from trusted friends that she
had to look after Princess Elizabeth for her if anything should happen to her
while meanwhile Anne’s ladies-in-waiting and her servants were being questioned
about her and her conduct at the English Court.
- On Thursday, April 27, 1536 Parliament was recalled.
A picture of Queen Anne
with her daughter Princess Elizabeth in her arms as she sought out King Henry
VIII to talk about the rumors surrounding their marriage to each other
-On Sunday, April 30th,
1536 Anne confronted her husband King Henry VIII about the rumors surrounding
their marriage after his cancellation of their planned trip to Calais. The
reformer Alaxander Aless was present at this tragic confrontation to see it. He
later re-told the episode to Anne’s daughter Queen Elizabeth I of England:
“ Alas, I shall never forget the
sorrow I felt when I saw the sainted Queen, your most religious mother,
carrying you, still a baby, in her arms, and entreating the most serene King
your father in Greenwich Palace, from the open window of which he was looking
into the courtyard and she brought you to him. The faces and gestures of the
speakers plainly showed the King was angry…”
A picture of Queen Anne
saying her final goodbye to her daughter Princess Elizabeth
A Flemish musician in Anne’s service named Mark Smeaton was arrested towards the end of April. He had been initially denying of being Anne’s lover, but he later confessed to it perhaps under prolonged torture or promised freedom. Anne last saw her husband King Henry VIII on May 1st, 1536 while they sat together watching the joust on May Day and she never saw him again after a message was delivered to him and he left with his attendants immediately after it.
Another courtier Sir Henry Norris
was arrested on May Day, but because he was an aristocrat he could not be
tortured. Prior to his arrest Sir Henry Norris was treated kindly by King Henry
VIII who offered him his own horse to use on the May Day festivities. It seemed
likely that during the festivities that King Henry VIII was notified of Mark
Smeaton’s confession and it was shortly thereafter that the alleged
conspirators were arrested upon his orders. Sir Henry Norris denied his guilt
and ended up swearing that Queen Anne was innocent. One of the most damaging
pieces of evidence against Sir Henry Norris was an overhead conversation with
Anne at the end of April where she accused him of coming often to her chambers
not to pay court to her lady-in-waiting Madge Shelton, but to herself.
The argument
between Anne and Sir Henry Norris had so worried her about the words she had
spoken in anger accusing Sir Henry Norris and mentioning her husband King Henry
VIII’s death that she went to see Norris and told him to see her almoner, John
Skip, and “swear for the Queen that she was a good woman.” Sir
Francis Weston was arrested two days later on the same charge, as was Sir
William Brereton, a Groom of the King’s Privy Chamber. Sir Thomas Wyatt, a
friend of the Boleyns and a poet who was allegedly infatuated with her before
her marriage to King Henry VIII, was also imprisoned for the same charge, but he
was later released, most likely due to his own friendship or his family’s
friendship with Thomas Cromwell. Sir Richard Page was also accused of having a
sexual relationship with Queen Anne, but he was acquitted of all charges after
further investigation was unable to implicate him with Anne. The final accused
was Queen Anne’s own brother George Boleyn who was arrested on charges of
incest and treason as he was accused of having a sexual relationship with his
own sister. George Boleyn was accused of two incidents of incest: November of
1535 at Whitehall and the following month at Eltham.
King Henry VIII had presented the
Bishop of Carlisle with a play that he had written entitled ‘The Tragedy of
Anne’ which dramatized Anne’s alleged evil before his wife’s arrest that nearly
made him faint from mortification at the King’s actions.
On May 2, 1536 Anne was arrested after luncheon and brought to the Tower of
London by barge. She had not been permitted to be able to pack any of her
clothes, jewelry, or other belongings, bring her ladies-in-waiting with her, or
say goodbye to her daughter Princess Elizabeth in the haste to get her to the
Tower of London. It is likely that Anne most likely had entered through The
Court Gate in The Byward Tower rather than The Traitor’s Gate according to
author and British historian of The Life
and Death of Anne Boleyn Eric Ives. Anne ended up saying, “My God, bear witness
there is no truth in these charges. I am as clear from the company of man as
from sin.” She famously asked, “Master Kingston,
do I go into a dungeon?” and he replied to her, “No, Madam, you shall go into
her lodging that you lay in at your coronation.” To which she said, “It is too
good for me, Jesus, have mercy on me!” In the Tower, she collapsed, demanding
to know the location of her father Sir Thomas Boleyn and her “swete broder” as
well as the charges against her.
A picture of
Queen Anne in the Tower of London
Anne was housed
in the Queen’s lodgings. Her lodgings had been clean and fairly decent with a
bed and probably some sort of fireplace and windows in them. Clearly Anne had
food to eat, clothes to wear, her jewels, and probably even things to occupy
her time with such as books, writing materials, cloth and thread for
embroidery, or her lute. She did have nine people to attend to her personal
needs in the Tower of London with four of them being ladies-in-waiting. Anne
ended up having no issues with Mrs. Mary Orchard and Mrs. Stonor, but she
fervently had issues with Lady Kingston, Mrs. Coffin, and her two aunts Lady
Boleyn and Lady Shelton whom she did not accept for who they are, cared nothing
for them, and despised and these ladies felt the same way about Anne. No other
lady got to speak to Anne unless Lady Kingston was present and Master Kingston
had been ordered by Thomas Cromwell to write down her every action and movement
and everything that she said. Anne had been hysterical and went between fits of
laughter and fits of tears. She ended up giving Thomas Cromwell the information
that he needed to make the charges against her stick when she started babbling
incriminating evidence as she struggled to understand the reasons for her
captivity. Anne took to make shocking threats such as it would not rain in England again for seven years if she was not released. The four ladies-in-waiting taunted and teased poor Anne.
Master Kingston came to visit her often and they did sit by the fireplace and start to talk. Anne complained of her disappointment to him about her living arrangements with four ladies who she did not accept for who they were, cared nothing for, and despised: “ I to be a Queen and as cruelly handled as was never seen!” Anne did express her fears over not knowing the whereabouts of her father Sir Thomas Boleyn and her brother George and ended up worrying about what the news of her arrest would do to the health of her already-ailing mother Lady Elizabeth Boleyn. “Oh my mother!” she exclaimed. “Thou wilt die of sorrow!” She also worried that her friend Elizabeth Browne, the Countess of Worcester, might miscarry her baby out of shock when she heard the shocking and terrible news of the Queen’s imprisonment.
A picture of the
Queen’s apartments where Queen Anne most likely have been imprisoned at in the
Tower of London
Anne was stated to have asked Master Kingston, “Shall I die without
justice?” He replied to her, “Madam, the poorest subject the king hath, had
justice.” Anne started to fall into a fit of laughter after that.
A picture of a copy of
the letter to King Henry VIII from ‘The Lady in the Tower’
In what is reputed to be her last letter to King Henry VIII, dated on May
6, 1536, she wrote:
"Sir,
Anne Boleyn"
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