As was customary, the condemned men were permitted to make a speech on the scaffold and all would have known that, by convention, they were expected to recognise the justness of their approaching death. George gave a good speech as befitted his education, saying:
‘Christian men, I am borne under the lawe, and judged under the lawe, and dye under the lawe, and the lawe hathe condemned me. Masters all, I am not come hether for to preche, but for to dye, for I have deserved to dye yf I had xx. lyves, more shamefully than can be devised for I am a wreched synnar, and I have synned shamefully, I have knowne no man so evell, and to reherse my synnes openly it were no pleasure to you to here them, nor get for me to reherse them, for God knowethe all; therefore, masters all, I pray you take hede by me, and especially my lords and gentlemen of the cowrte, the whiche I have bene amonge, take hede by me, and beware of suche a fall, and I pray to God the Fathar, the Sonne, and the Holy Ghoste, thre persons and one God, that my deathe may be an example unto you all, and beware, trust not in the vanitie of the worlde, and especially in the flateringe of the cowrte’.
George continued in a similar vein, recognising, as was expected, his worthiness to die, but never admitting guilt in the offences for which he died. Anne would have been glad to hear this. Norris, said very little on the scaffold but he also did not admit to the offences of which he died. Weston also refused to admit any guilt, saying ‘I had thought to have lyved in abhominacion yet this twenty or thrittie yeres & then to have made amendes. I thought little it wold have come to this’. Brereton even went so far as to indicate that he was not guilty, declaring ‘I have deserved to dye if it were a thousand deethes, but the cause wherefore I dye judge not: But yf ye judge, judge the best’. By denying his guilt, Brereton did not die a good death, as expected by his contemporaries, but he did get his point across. Smeaton said simply ‘Masters I pray you all praye for me, for I have deserved the deeth’, terrified to find that he had not, after all, been spared, in spite of his confession. Anne probably felt that he deserved death of all the men who died for her and when she was told of his words, she cried out ‘did he not exonerate me. Before he died, of the public infamy he laid on me? Alas! I fear his soul will suffer for it’. Anne heard all the details of the men’s deaths and she also determined that she would die a good death.
Anne spent the last few days of her life preparing herself for death. She also took steps to show the world her innocence of the crimes of which she was convicted. According to Sir William Kingston, writing on 18 May ‘I suppose she wyll declare hyr self to b[e a good] woman for all men bot for the kyng at the or of hyr de[th. For thys] morning she sent for me that I might be with hyr at [soche tyme] as she reysayved the gud lord to the in tent I shuld here hy[r speke as] towchyng her innosensy’. Anne did indeed declare her innocence both before and after receiving the sacrament, telling proof of her innocence in a woman as religious as Anne. Once she had made her point, Anne then spent her last hours on earth preparing for death, determined that she would not show anyone that she was beaten.
After declaring her innocence in front of Sir William Kingston, Anne summoned him again and said ’M. Kyngston, I he[ar saye I shall] not dy affore none, & I am very sory ther fore; for I thowth [than to] be dede [an]d past my payne. I told hyr it shuld be now payne it w[as so sottel. And then she said I] hard say the executr was very gud, and I have a ly[ttle necke, and put he]r hand abowt it lawyng hartely’. Kingston was astounded by Anne’s levity, writing that ‘I have sen[e mony men &] also wemen executed and at they have bene in gre[te sorrowe, and to my knowle]ge thys lady hathe meche joye and plesur in dethe’. By 18 May, with her brother dead, her daughter bastardised and herself divorced and discredited, Anne may well have desired death. Equally, her levity may simply have been an attempt to show the world that she was still Anne Boleyn and still the most fascinating woman in England. Anne’s conduct astounded her contemporaries and even Chapuys’ reports show a certain grudging admiration. According to Chapuys, Anne spent the last evening of her life talking and jesting and even suggesting that her nickname would be ‘Queen Anne Lack-Head’. Anne was defying the king in the only way she had left to her; by seeming to be happy in his treatment of her. It cannot have been entirely genuine and she must have spent her last night in an agony of apprehension as she prepared for her final big appearance.
On the morning of 19 May, most of Henry’s council, the Dukes of Richmond and Suffolk, and many of the earls, lords and nobles in the kingdom, along with the mayor of London and the Aldermen and sheriffs assembled to watch Anne Boleyn die. It was almost the same crowd who had attended Anne at her coronation and she may have noticed the irony as she stepped out of the royal apartments, attended by her ladies. Anne walked over to the scaffold, maintaining her dignity and composure and seeming every inch the queen. Once on the scaffold, she turned to face the crowd and began her meticulously prepared speech, knowing that this would be the last act of her life:
‘Good Christen people, I am come hether to dye, for according to the lawe and by the lawe I am iudged to dye, and therefore I wyll speake nothing against it. I am come hether to accuse no man, nor to speake any thing of that wherof I am accused and condemned to dye, but I pray God save the king and send him long to reigne over you, for a gentler nor a more mercyfull prince was there never: and to me he was ever a good, a gentle, and sovreigne lorde. And if any persone will medle of my cause, I require them to iudge the best. And thus I take my leve of the worlde and of you all, and I heartely desire you all to pray for me. O lorde have mercy on me, to God I comende my soule’.
As a special concession to the woman he had once loved, Henry had sent for a swordsman from Calais to carry out the execution. There was therefore no need of a block and Anne simply kneeled on the straw of the scaffold and said loudly ‘to Christ I commend my soul’. The headsman did his job well and, with one blow of the sword, Anne’s head was severed, her lips and eyes still moving in prayer as her head fell to the ground.
OUT OF HELL INTO HEAVEN
Anne’s death caused shock waves across Europe and her guilt was widely believed. For the rest of Henry’s reign and even during the reigns of his children, Anne remained despised and her entire life obliterated from history. As far as Henry and most of England were concerned, she had never been the king’s wife and she had never been queen. As one contemporary wrote, following Henry’s marriage to Jane Seymour which occurred only days after Anne’s death, ‘the king hath come out of hell into heaven, for the gentleness in this [Jane], and the cursedness and the unhappiness of the other [Anne]’. Traces of Anne’s life were quickly erased, but she did leave a legacy.
As Norfolk had predicted before Anne’s marriage, she was the ruin of her family. George, of course, died two days before Anne and his childless wife, Lady Rochford, followed them to the block in 1542. Thomas Boleyn was able to keep his rank as Earl of Wiltshire but, following the deaths of their children, both he and his wife retired from court for a time. They probably did so gladly, but Thomas, a career courtier, was unable to stay away from court for long and was back in favour by October 1537 when he played a prominent role at the christening of Edward, Henry’s longed for son. Thomas must have looked at his own grandchild, Elizabeth, who was also present, and once again regretted that it was not his own daughter who had brought about this triumph. Elizabeth Howard is little recorded after Anne’s fall and she probably kept away from the court. She remained a countess and she was given a grand funeral on 7 April 1538 as befitted her rank. Thomas Boleyn remained in favour after his wife’s death and there were even rumours that he might marry the king’s niece, Lady Margaret Douglas. Thomas never remarried and survived his wife by just over a year. He died a wealthy man but he cannot have been happy. Mary Boleyn, who had always been such a disappointment to her family, survived them as their sole heir and prudently spent the rest of her life in obscurity. She may not have been the grandest of the Boleyns, but she was almost certainly the happiest.
Following the deaths of Anne and George there was one further Boleyn survivor, and that was Anne’s daughter, Elizabeth. Anne had always been a devoted mother to her only child and while in the Tower her thoughts must often have turned to her daughter. Anne knew that Elizabeth would suffer for her fall, as Mary had suffered when Catherine lost favour, but Anne must have hoped that Henry would, at least, provide for Elizabeth as his daughter. Shortly after Anne’s death, parliament passed the Second Succession Act which declared Elizabeth a bastard and the lawful heirs the children of Jane Seymour. Elizabeth, in spite of her youth, also quickly felt her altered status. Soon after Anne’s execution, Elizabeth’s governess wrote to Cromwell begging for clothes for her young charge and stating that ‘she hath neither gowns nor kirtle [slip], nor petticoat, nor no manner of linen nor rails [nightdress], nor body stichets [corsets], nor biggens [night caps]’. Elizabeth presumably received some clothing, but not in the manner to which she had been accustomed to and not as Anne would have wanted. Although often neglected and ignored, Elizabeth survived her mother’s fall and in spite of her illegitimacy Henry always acknowledged her as his child.
Elizabeth was a survivor and she will always be Anne Boleyn’s greatest legacy. With the king’s sixth marriage to Catherine Parr, Elizabeth was finally returned to the royal family and reinstated in the succession, even if she remained illegitimate at law. To Henry, at his death, Elizabeth seemed the least of his children but with the death of Catherine’s daughter, Mary, in 1558, Elizabeth took the throne as perhaps the greatest ruler England ever had. Although Elizabeth never spoke publicly of Anne, she was kind to Anne’s Howard relatives and the descendants of Mary Boleyn. More poignantly, on her death, a ring that Elizabeth always wore was found to contain a miniature portrait of the queen facing an image of her mother. This is a testament to Elizabeth’s respect for her mother and Anne would have been proud of her daughter.
Elizabeth was not Anne’s only legacy and the English Reformation will always be associated with her. At the time of her death, leading reformers desperately struggled to disassociate themselves from the fallen queen but in the reign of Elizabeth she was restored to her rightful place as one of the architects of the reformation. The reform movement assisted Anne in providing a solution to the king’s divorce, but Anne’s interest in the reform was genuine and committed. She was never the Protestant saint portrayed by William Latymer, John Foxe or Alexander Ales and she did not go to her death as a martyr. However, she was committed to the reform and she helped steer the king towards the break with Rome.
Anne’s final legacy is one of which she would have been entirely unaware. Although Anne can never have realised, she was to be only the second wife of England’s most married monarch. When Anne met Henry he had been married to Catherine of Aragon, a foreign princess, for many years and Henry’s marital career was entirely conventional. Henry and Catherine had no son and, after Catherine’s death he would have been expected to quickly remarry, perhaps to a French princess or another lady of the imperial family. Anne Boleyn changed all this. By insisting on marriage and driving Henry onwards, she broadened the king’s horizons. Marriage to Anne showed Henry the possibility of choosing his own wife from amongst the noblewomen of his court. The marriage also showed other women, most notably Jane Seymour, the possibility of becoming a second Anne Boleyn. More pertinently, the break with Rome gave Henry the ability to rid himself of wives quickly and easily whenever he saw fit. Thanks to Anne, Henry never found himself married to another Catherine of Aragon clinging determinedly to her position. Instead Henry was able to change his wife whenever the mood suited him. This was the work of Anne Boleyn although she can never have expected or wanted it.
Anne Boleyn was the most vibrant and exceptional woman of her generation and she had the personality and drive to change history. She was no saint but neither was she a villain. Anne was simply very human. Anne Boleyn was extraordinary and her uniqueness fuelled a great obsession in Henry. Henry never knew another love like that which he felt for Anne and through his obsession he created an entirely unrealistic picture of his love. Even Anne Boleyn, as exceptional as she was, could not live up to this.
As Anne’s enemy, Chapuys himself pointed out, Henry was very changeable and, as his obsession dimmed, Anne lost her ability to manage him. She was no victim and she fought until the end for her political survival. Although ultimately she lost the battle, Anne was the winner in the end. Among all of Henry’s six wives, it is Anne who is remembered and it is Anne who changed England and left a truly lasting legacy. The price for Anne was high, but she would probably not have changed the course she decided upon back in 1527 when she first won Henry’s love. Just as Mary Boleyn in her letter to Cromwell stated that she did not envy Anne as the greatest queen in Christendom, it is inconceivable that Anne would have envied her sister her quiet life. Anne Boleyn wanted to be a queen and she ensured that that is what she became. She would not have changed this even if she could have foreseen the future before her marriage to Henry.
Anne Boleyn was always Henry VIII’s obsession and when he found that she could not live up to his high picture of her he brought her to her death. As Wolsey commented, the ‘anger of the prince is death’. Anne was as well aware of this as her enemy the Cardinal. For Anne, it was a risk worth taking. Anne Boleyn was truly Henry VIII’s obsession and when she failed to live up to this, his obsession turned to hatred. She was no helpless victim, she was a politician and she was the most exceptional woman of her time; a forerunner to her daughter, Elizabeth I.