Anne, née Boleyn, consort of King Henry VIII

Person

Anne, née Boleyn, consort of King Henry VIII

• Anne Boleyn

1500(?)-1536

The exact date of Anne Boleyn’s birth is unknown, but it was likely be around the year 1500. Her parents were Thomas Boleyn, earl of Ormond and of Wiltshire, and his wife Elizabeth. She was the second of their three surviving children, another of which was Mary Boleyn, a future mistress of King Henry VIII.
Anne learned the skills of a court lady in the households of Margaret of Austria, Mary Tudor, and Claude, queen of France. After leaving for Austria in 1513, she did not return to England until 1521. There, Anne’s continental education won her many suitors.

Her future husband, King Henry VIII, began to take an interest in Anne somewhere around 1526. At this time, Anne’s sister had just ceased to be Henry’s mistress, and it is likely the king was looking for a replacement. As well as this, Henry had already decided that his first marriage to Catherine of Aragon had to be annulled. Anne refused Henry’s advances until he made her an offer of marriage. The wedding did not take place until 1533, after Henry was able to divorce his first due to the English Reformation. Anne and her family had thrown themselves behind attacks on the church and their influence during the interim. Anne was already pregnant with the future Queen Elizabeth I at the time of her marriage, likely out of a belief that a pregnancy would encourage Henry to commit himself to her. The couple were married in January, and Anne was crowned queen later in the year.
After the birth of Elizabeth, Anne’s subsequent pregnancies ended in miscarriages. The marriage was strained by her failure to produce a male heir, a poor relationship with Henry’s daughter by Catherine of Aragon (the future Mary I), and Anne’s public unpopularity as queen. Despite this, she exercised public influence to engage in foreign affairs and religious reform.

By 1536, King Henry had become enamoured with Jane Seymour, who had served as lady-in-waiting to Queen Anne; and Anne had lost a powerful ally in the form of Thomas Cromwell. With many who wished to see her gone, Anne was accused of adultery several times over. She, her brother George, and several other men were arrested and sent to the Tower of London. Although Anne was innocent, and adultery by a queen would not be considered treason until six years later, she was beheaded at the Tower on the 19th of May, after her marriage to Henry was declared null and void. She died without ever confessing her guilt.

Ives, E.W., Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (2004): https://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-557
Beer, Barrett L., Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (2018): https://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-14647