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Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: BLA-BOS |
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BOLEYN (or BULLEN), ANNE (c. 15071536) , queen of Henry VIII. of England, daughter of Sir Thomas Boleyn, afterwards earl
earl
heir of the earl of Northumberland, a marriage with whom, however, was stopped by the king and another match provided for her in the' See Anne Boleyn, by P. Friedman; The Early Life of Anne Boleyn, by J. H. Round; and J. Gairdner in Eng. Hist. Review, viii. 53, 299, and x. 104. 2 According to the Chronicle of King Henry VIII., tr. by M. A. S. Hume, p. 68, she was his mistress. person of Sir James Butler. Anne Boleyn, however, remained unmarried, and a series of grants and favours bestowed by Henry on her father between 1522 and 1525 have been taken, though very doubtfully, as a symptom of the king's affections. Unlike her sister Mary, who had fallen a victim to Henry's solicitations,' Anne had no intention of being the king's mistress; she meant to be his queen, and her conduct seems to have been governed entirely by motives of ambition. The exact period of the be-ginning ofAnne's relations with Henry is not known. They have been surmised as originating as early as 1523; but there is nothing to prove that Henry's passion was anterior to the proceedings taken for the divorce in May 1527, the celebrated love letters being undated. Her name is first openly connected with the king's as a possible wife in the event of Catherine's divorce, in a letter of Mendoza, the imperial ambassador , to Charles V. of the 16th of August 1527,2 during the absence in France of Wolsey, who, not blinded by passion like Henry, naturally opposed the undesirable alliance, and was negotiating a marriage with Renee, daughter of Louis XII. Henry meanwhile, however, had sent William Knight, his secretary, on a separate mission to Rome to obtain facilities for his marriage with Anne; and on the cardinal's return in August he found her installed as the king's companion and proposed successor to Catherine of Aragon. After the king's final separation from his wife in July 1.531, Anne's position was still more marked, and in 1532 she accompanied Henry on the visit to Francis I., while Catherine was left at home neglected and practically a prisoner. Soon after their return Anne was found to be pregnant, and in consequence Henry married her about the 25th of January 15333 (the exact date is unknown), their union not being made public till the following Easter. Subsequently, on the 23rd of May, their marriage was declared valid and that with Catherine null, and in June Anne was crowned with great state in Westminster Abbey. Anne Boleyn had now reached the zenith of her hopes. A weak, giddy woman of no stability of character, her success turned her head and caused her to behave with insolence and impropriety, in strong contrast with Catherine's quiet dignity under her misfortunes. She, and not the king, probably was the author of the petty persecutions inflicted upon Catherine and upon the princess Mary, and her jealousy of the latter showed itself in spiteful malice. Mary was to be forced into the position of a humble attendant upon Anne's infant, and her ears were to be boxed if she proved recalcitrant. She urged that both should be brought to trial under the new statute of succession passed in 1534, which declared her own children the lawful heirs to the throne. She was reported as saying that when the king gave opportunity by leaving England, she would put Mary to death even if she were burnt or flayed alive for it.' She incurred the remonstrances of the privy council and alienated her own friends and relations. Her uncle, the duke of Norfolk, whom she was reported to have treated " worse than a dog," reviled her, calling her a "grande putaine." But her day of triumph was destined to be even shorter than that of her predecessor. There were soon signs that Henry's affection, which had before been a genuine passion, had cooled or ceased. He resented her arrogance, and a few months after the marriage he gave her cause for jealousy, and disputes arose. A strange and mysterious fate had prepared for Anne the same domestic griefs that had vexed and ruined Catherine and caused her abandonment. In September 1533 the birth of a daughter, afterwards Queen Elizabeth, instead of the long-hoped-for son, was a heavy disappointment; next yearOf this there is no direct proof, but the statement rests upon contemporary belief and chiefly upon the extraordinary terms of the dispensation granted to Henry to marry Anne Boleyn, which included the suspension of all canons relating to impediments created by " affinity rising ex illicito coitu in any degree even in the first." Fronde rejects the whole story, Divorce of Catherine of Aragon, p. 54 and see Friedman's Anne Boleyn, ii. 323. 2 Cal. of St. Pap. England and Spain, iii. pt. ii. p. 327. 3 According to Cranmer, Letters and Papers of Henry VIII. vi. p. 300, the only authority; and Cranmer himself only knew of it a fortnight after. The marriage was commonly antedated to the 14th of November 1532. 4 Cal. of St. Pap. England and Spain, v. 198.there was a miscarriage, and on the 29th of January 1536, the day of Catherine's funeral, she gave birth to a dead male child. On the 1st of May following the king suddenly broke up a tournament at Greenwich, leaving the company in bewilderment and consternation. The cause was soon known. Inquiries had been made on reports of the queen's ill-conduct, and several of her reputed lovers had been arrested. On the 2nd Anne her-self was committed to the Tower on a charge of adultery
governor of the Tower) "and also women executed, and all they have been in great sorrow, and to my knowledge this lady has much joy and pleasure in death." On the following day Henry was betrothed to Jane Seymour.Amidst the vituperations of the adherents of the papacy and the later Elizabethan eulogies, and in the absence of the records on which her sentence was pronounced, Anne Boleyn's guilt remains unproved. To Sir William Kingston she protested her entire innocence, and on the scaffold
confession .' Smeaton alone of her supposed lovers made a full confession , and it is possible that his statement was drawn
scaffold
heir , while the king's despotic power and the universal unpopularity of Anne both tended to hinder the administration of pure justice. Nevertheless, though unproved, Anne's guilt is more than probable. It is almost incredible that two grand5 Letters and Papers of Henry VIII. x. pp. 374, 381, 385. 5 According to the most trustworthy accounts, but see Letters and Papers, x. p. 382. The well-known letter to Henry VIII. attributed to her is now recognized as an Elizabethan forgery. Archaeologia, xxiii. 64. juries, a petty jury, and a tribunal consisting of nearly all the lay peers of England, with the evidence before them which we do not now possess, should have all unanimously passed a sentence of guilt contrary to the facts and their convictions, and that such a sentence should have been supported by Anne's own father and uncle. Every year since her marriage Anne had given birth to a child, and Henry had no reason to despair of more; while, if Henry's state of health was such as was reported, the desire for children, which Anne shared with him, may be urged as an argument for her guilt. Sir Francis Weston in a letter to his family almost acknowledges his guilt in praying for pardon, especially for offences against his wife;' Anne's own conduct and character almost prepare us for some catastrophe. Whether innocent or guilty, however, her fate caused no regrets and her misfortunes did not raise a single champion or defender. The sordid incidents of her rise, and the insolence with which she used her triumph, had alienated all hearts from the unhappy woman. Among the people she had always been intensely 'disliked; the love of justice, and the fear of trade losses imminent upon a breach with Charles V., combined to render her unpopular. She appealed to the king's less refined instincts, and Henry's deterioration of character may be dated from his connexion with her. She is described as " not one of the handsomest women in the world; she is of a middling stature, swarthy complexion, long neck, wide mouth, bosom not much raised, and in fact has nothing but the English king's great appetite, and her eyes which are black and beautiful, and take great effect."2 Cranmer admired her" sitting in her hair " (i.e. with her hair falling over her shoulders, which seems to have been her custom on great occasions), " upon a horse litter, richly apparelled," at her coronation .3 End of Article: BOLEYN (or BULLEN), ANNE (c. 15071536) If you wish, you can link directly to this article.
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