Written By: Katelyn Abbott
Anne’s marriage to
King Henry VIII was only safe as long as King Henry VIII wanted it to be. As
long as Katherine of Aragon was alive, she was fairly safe, since if King Henry
VIII were to divorce Anne he would have ended up having to accept Katherine of
Aragon as his true wife. He would never admit he had made a mistake in
annulling his marriage to Katherine of Aragon and branding his daughter Lady
Mary a bastard and he was hardly likely to go back to the barren Katherine of
Aragon while he still had hope of Anne giving him a son. However Anne also had
difficulty in giving him a son. Soon after Elizabeth was born Anne became
pregnant again, but the baby was born dead around July of 1534. She again had a
failed pregnancy in June of 1535. To Anne’s dismay Henry had taken another
mistress in her cousin Madge Shelton, but the affair between them was a short
one and Madge was soon replaced by a far more dangerous mistress however for
King Henry VIII began to be come to accept in one of Anne’s own
ladies-in-waiting Jane Seymour for who she was, care about her, and develop
romantic feelings for her.
A picture of Jane Seymour
Jane Seymour
assumedly represented everything that was opposite of his wife Anne to King
Henry VIII. Jane was a conventional beauty with her blonde hair, her blue eyes,
her fair skin, and her milk-prettiness while Anne was an unconventional beauty
with her black hair, her dark brown eyes, her dark and exotic looks, and her
ivory skin. Jane was not bright, completely dull, and demure while Anne was
brilliant, charming, driven, and exciting. Jane ended up dressing simply with
few jewels, fully English, and greatly favored all things English from fashion
to food while Anne ended dressing in rich colors and silks with lots of jewels,
an enigma, nearly French, and greatly favored all things French from fashion to
food. Jane was humble and inevitably
modest while Anne was ambitious, boastful, and cocky. Jane was ill-educated
while Anne was highly gifted in the arts, impeccably well-educated, and known
for her refined and sophisticated ways. Jane was meek, obedient, and passive
while Anne was lively, opinionated, and passionate. Jane was reserved and she
was silent in holding her tongue and keeping her opinions to herself while Anne
had a sharp tongue and a terrible temper. Yet for all of Jane’s seemingly
meekness she was most likely just as ruthless and sly as Anne was in being able
to marry King Henry VIII and becoming the Queen of England. Her brothers Sir
Edward Seymour and Sir Thomas Seymour were very ambitious and had much to gain
by their sister Jane’s advancement and Jane was used as a pawn by the Catholic
enemies of Anne and groomed well to increase King Henry VIII’s interest in her
by not becoming his mistress since her good name and her honor made her refuse
as she only would give up her virginity to her husband. Jane was a maiden in a
fairytale to King Henry VIII as Jane’s brightness, calmness, delicate character,
empathy, submissive spirit, and sweet charms were endearing to him and erased
the fire that he once felt for Anne. King Henry VIII was getting older and he
needed peace in his life which he would not get from Anne who was too strong
for him to tame and Jane was all he needed to achieve the peace that he craved
to have in his life.
Anne and Jane did not
accept each other for who they were, cared nothing for each other, and despised
each other. Both of them were enemies with each other. Anne clearly feared the
threat that Jane represented to her marriage to King Henry VIII and her
position as the Queen of England and Jane had been sympathetic to the plight of
her former mistress, Queen Katherine, who she had once been a lady-in-waiting
to and she was still a supporter of the Lady Mary. She ended up calling Jane
names and degrading her by slapping her.
A picture of Queen Anne
wearing yellow in celebration of Katherine of Aragon’s death
On January 8, 1536
news of Katherine of Aragon’s death reached King Henry VIII and Anne who were
overjoyed. Anne had paid the
messenger a handsome reward that brought her the news of Katherine of Aragon’s
death and she declared triumphantly “Now I am indeed a Queen” while George
Boleyn and Sir Thomas Boleyn thought that it was a pity that Lady Mary did not
keep company with her mother. King Henry VIII and Anne apparently wore yellow, the symbol of
celebration and joy in England, from head to toe and celebrated Katherine’s
death with festivities such as a banquet, courtly games, and dancing on January 9, 1536. In Spain, the home country of Katherine of Aragon,
yellow was the coloring of mourning, in addition to black. For this reason
the wearing of yellow by King Henry VIII and Anne may have been a symbol of
mourning. Anne was said to have cried privately for Katherine of Aragon’s death
later on. With Lady Mary’s mother Katherine of Aragon dead, Anne for her part
attempted to make peace with her once again.
Anne, pregnant
again, was aware of the dangers if she failed to give birth to a son. As
Katherine of Aragon was dead, King Henry VIII would be free to marry without
any taint of illegality. King Henry VIII began to pay court to Jane Seymour. He
came to give her a locket with a miniature portrait of himself inside and Jane
did have the insolence to open and shut it in the presence of Anne. Anne ended
up being furious with her over it and got her revenge on Jane by ripping the
locket off Jane’s neck with such force her fingers bled and caused bruises to
appear on Jane’s neck and slapping her across the cheek. Lady Mary had rebuffed
Anne’s overtures of making peace with each other perhaps because of rumors
circulating that her mother Katherine of Aragon had been poisoned by Anne
and/or King Henry VIII. These rumors started after the discovery during her
embalming that her heart was blacked. Modern medical experts are in agreement
that this was not the result of poisoning, but of cancer of the heart, which
was something which was not understood at the time.
Anne was said to have declared menacingly, “If I
have a son as I hope shortly I know what will happen to her” though she was most likely ranting about her anger with Lady Mary's snubs at her desire for peace between the two of them.
A picture of
King Henry VIII and Jane Seymour about to kiss that an angry Anne walks in on
Later that month King Henry VIII fell off his horse in a joust (to which he had worn Jane Seymour's ribbon as a favor) and he was knocked unconscious for two hours which was a worrying incident that Anne had believed led to her miscarriage five days later. Another possibility for the miscarriage was an incident in which upon entering a room Anne saw Jane Seymour boldly sitting on the lap of King Henry VIII and then flew into a rage at the sight of it. King Henry VIII soothed her by saying “peace be sweetheart, and all will be well,” but the damage was done after she miscarried a fetus with all of the appearances of being male. Eustace Chapuys commented, “She has miscarried of her savior.” On the day that Katherine of Aragon was buried at Peterborough Abbey, Anne miscarried a baby which, according to the Imperial Ambassador Chapuys, she had borne for about three and a half months and which “seemed to be a male child.” For Imperial Ambassador Eustace Chapuys this personal loss was the beginning of the end of the royal marriage. King Henry VIII rather than being touched by his wife’s reaction to his near-death experience coldly said to Anne that, “I see clearly that God does not wish to give me male children. You will get no more sons from me.” Anne, full of sorrow over the loss of their child, snapped back at him that the loss of their son was not all her fault and he was to blame for it as well since she was distressed to see him with that “wench” Jane Seymour and because the love she bore him was so great that it broke her heart to see that he had loved others.
Anne bravely told her
ladies-waiting that it was all for the best and comforted them as they were
crying over the loss of a child that their mistress had suffered as she said,”
I shall be the sooner with child again, and the son I bear will not be doubtful
like this one, which was conceived during the life of the Princess Dowager.” Depressed, Anne
reportedly took to her bed on occasion and spent time in only the company of her fool and her ladies-in-waiting. Anne must have known that the end was
near for her as the Queen of England as King Henry VIII had come to not be able to accept her for who she
was, care nothing for her, and despised her for he saw her failure to give him
a son as a betrayal. The most she must have thought that would
happen to her was that King Henry VIII would annul their marriage and brand
their daughter Princess Elizabeth a bastard or feared that someone might poison
her to get her out of the way. There was no way that she could have conceived just
how steep of a terrible price that she would actually have to pay.
Given King Henry VIII’s desperate desire for a son
the sequence of Anne’s pregnancies has attracted much interest. Author Mike
Ashley had speculated that Anne had two stillborn children after Elizabeth’s
birth and before the male child she miscarried in 1536. Most sources attested
only to the birth of Elizabeth in September 1533, a possible miscarriage in the
summer of 1534, and the miscarriage of a male child, of almost four months
gestation, in January 1536. While Anne recovered from her miscarriage, King
Henry VIII declared that he had been seduced into the marriage by means of
“sortilege”—a French term indicating either “deception” or “spells.” Evidently
a credible recent theory as to Anne’s failure to give King Henry VIII a son was
because their genetics were incompatible for Anne might have been one of the few
women who are rhesus negative or if she was not that King Henry VIII had
suffered from syphilis along with modern
science revealing that it is the man’s sperm which determines the gender of the
baby so even if Anne were to only produce healthy female children the
determinate of their gender would have been on King Henry VIII. Anne ended up
celebrating the feast day of St. Matthias on February 24, 1536 at York Place
with King Henry VIII. She felt great
depression over her mother Lady Elizabeth Boleyn being ill. For in March King Henry VIII had sent Jane Seymour a
letter with a purse of gold sovereigns which made her kneel, kiss the letter,
and return both to the messenger as she had declared that she could accept a
dowry from King Henry VIII only when she had found herself a husband and
impressed by her virtue King Henry VIII had promised her that he would not
speak to her or visit her “expect in the presence of one of her relatives” to
protect her good name and her honor. His new mistress Jane Seymour had gone on
to be quickly moved into royal quarters at Greenwich in March since Thomas
Cromwell had given his rooms there to the Seymours which afforded secret access
to the privy lodgings and Sir Edward Seymour and Lady Anne Seymour were
installed there with her to act as her chaperones when King Henry VIII came
“through certain galleries without being perceived” to pay his chaste addresses
to Jane. Anne had tried to intervene to save William Tyndale’s life along with
Thomas Cromwell and their friends when he had been arrested, brought to trial,
and convicted of heresy from burning at the stake, but their efforts were vain
as he was burned at the stake in October 1536 with Anne focusing only on
protecting her own life when her position had become insecure after her
miscarriage in 1536. Inevitably Tristram Revell had dedicated to Anne his
printed translation of a radical work by Francois Lambert of Avignon though the
book was too extreme for Anne to accept particularly as this was in the
dangerous early months of 1536 as Katherine of Aragon was dead, Anne herself
had miscarried of a son, and King Henry VIII was showing favor to Jane Seymour.
Anne still supported the reform of the Church as while she believed in the
documented widespread corruption in the various abbeys, churches, and
monasteries, she did not believe that all of them should be dissolved without
revue as she deemed some worthy of saving such as Nun Monkton in Yorkshire
which made Anne according to Joanna Denny “.…more than an equal and too ready
to take a lead in political decision-making. Her intellect and involvement in politics
and religious reform seemed like presumptuous interference in affairs best left
to men. By advancing her appointees, Anne was creating her own power base. This
put her in competition not only with Thomas Cromwell, but with Henry himself.”
This was followed by Anne’s brother George Boleyn into being refused a
prestigious court honor the Order of the Garter which was instead given to
Anne’s enemy Sir Nicolas Carew.
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