This poem is Part 26 in Esther Hyams’ series of poems on the life of Anne Boleyn.

Rages and Miscarriages

Anne BoleynWhen Queen Anne drove away the ‘handsome young lady’
King Henry was so angry, that his mood was black and shady.
Henry told Anne that if he could turn back the hands of time
He would not have made her his queen, with jewels so divine.
But all of the rage and frustration could be smoothed away
If only Anne could produce a prince that could save the day.
Her failed 1534 pregnancy was such a bitter and sharp blow
It was probably a still birth, and the public would not yet know.

From the hopeful autumn of 1534 and the beginning of 1535
Anne hoped for salvation in a 3rd pregnancy that could thrive.
Henry was becoming periodically impotent, how could Anne cope?
When producing the King’s son and heir was her only hope?
Anne spewed bitter insults, with a bravery she was faking
As she was blamed for a failure that was not of her own making.
Nothing was ever a King’s fault so everyone loved to blame Anne
Even as Queen Anne, she could only do what any woman can.

Then at 1536’s festivities and celebrations of the New Year
Queen Anne had more cause to expect and hope than to fear.
For shortly after the King’s visit to Mistress Seymour, so mild
The King Henry and Queen Anne had again conceived a child.
On 7th January 1536, Catherine of Aragon died at fifty years old
Henry and Anne wore matching yellow, in a move so bold.
But whoever thought this was a victorious triumph for Anne
Would be so wrong if they thought at this Anne’s heart sang.

As by Catholic standards, Catherine was Henry’s only wife
Despite the religious reform that had brought such strife.
Catholics felt that with Catherine’s death, Henry was free
To marry whoever he wanted his next more pious wife to be.
Particularly as he was a monarch with no legitimate male heir
And now also had much to nervously fear, and much to beware.
But there was now the Church of England and its head was Henry
Its standards were that the King of England was far from being free.

And the coming of a son and male heir was in motion once more
Resulting in a miscarriage that the frustrated King so abhorred.
The King of England had been in a joust and had had a terrible fall
Anne claimed that by this news she had been so worriedly appalled.
Anne cried out that this dreadful shock had made her lose the child
But Henry would not hear her tearful pleas, inside his temper was wild.
By this miscarriage, King Henry’s wrath Queen Anne had incurred
He suddenly said to another that he ‘would have no more boys by her.’

Henry began to say that he had been bewitched by Anne’s charms
Forced into a second marriage that had brought him nothing but harm.

By Esther Hyams

Click here to read the next poem in the series – “Mistress Jane Seymour”