How could Henry go from love to hate?
Rating: +3
Full question: How could Henry go from being so overwhelmingly in love with Anne to hating her? Christina
I can't quite understand how his love and passion could just disintegrate like that. I know love and hate are meant to be very close, but to have your former love executed and then to malign her memory!
Perhaps Henry felt let down by Anne and perhaps he had begun to think that the marriage was cursed. Perhaps also the fact that he had to execute people because of Anne (like More) and break with his beloved church started to eat away at him and cause him to begin to hate her. Anne's feisty nature must also have been tiring for a King who was used to getting his own way all the time. We'll never know what happened and whether Henry ever did miss Anne. Like you, I find it hard to believe that a man who wrote such love letters could end up killing his love.
I’ve read somewhere that the best way to describe Henry was as someone “in love with love itself.” He wanted to be in love all the time. Naturally, the heated passion that he and Anne had in the beginning probably waned over time (as it often does). As he set his sights on more new and exciting women, his feelings for Anne grew colder and colder. Eventually, he probably felt stronger (and newer) feelings for Jane Seymour, and the fact that Anne couldn’t give him the one thing he desired (a son) sealed his feelings on his “cursed” marriage (great way to describe it, by the way!).
This is all conjecture of course, but it might explain a tiny portion of why he could go from loving to hating Anne so “easily.” Had she given him sons, I truly think she would have been able to ask for the moon and Henry would find a way to give it to her.
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Mmmm…I’ve always thought that Henry missed her. Just a little bit. He spent so much time fighting for Anne that I can’t believe he would just forget her altogether. He must’ve missed Catherine of Aragon when he sent her away, because she’d been so faithful for so long. He obviously missed Jane Seymour, and quite possibly longed for Kathryn Howard (well, the days before she was arrested).
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One of the main reasons that Henry fell out of love with Anne was because he felt betrayed by her, as she promised hm a son and did not give him one, that was one of the main reasons she was made queen. And in Henry’s eyes, she did not uphold her end of the bargain. To Henry Anne was also one of the most intelligent women of her age, that was one of the things which attracted him to her, as Henry was vain and believed that he also was intelligent. So the games began, but due to this fact as well, this showed Henry how deceptive and scheming Anne could be, thus he fell out of love with her. This only increased when she failed to provide a male heir.
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I think the failure of baring of the son had the greatest impact on how Henry felt about Anne, but also that the passion, feistiness, out spokeness, opinionated, stubborness, involved in the political proceedings and views, and not looking away blindly when Henry dallyed with someone else may have been exciting and different and alluring in a mistress standing on her virtue and promising a son at first, but in a wife Henry was used to (as were all men in those days) the submissive, baby maker, smile and nod, you can do no wrong oh perfect handsome king. And Anne could not be that wife becuase it would be denying who she absolutely was and who Henry fell in love with. I am sure that when she saw Henry oggling Jane she could have tried to appease him and become more “english rose” more “turn a blind eye” but then why try to recapture the man who doesnt want you. I have literally yelled at my own boyfriend during a fight when asking why I couldnt be more sweet, less firey, more “taking the womans role” I have said “you want Jane seymore and got Anne. Dont ask me to be what I am not.” I like to think Anne felt the same. And this is the most rambling comment I have ever made…sorry about that.
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Chelsea Reply:
February 6th, 2012 at 12:50 pm
OH yeah. I also agree that Henry was “in love with love”. He enjoyed the chase but once he captured his prey it became boring for him. Instead of the “7 year itch” henry had the “whats new and exciting” itch. Too bad that every woman becomes familiar as you become closer. Typical bachlor.
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