On this day in Tudor history, 31st May 1533, just three days after her marriage to King Henry VIII had been proclaimed valid, the six-month pregnant Queen Anne Boleyn processed from the Tower of London to Westminster.
It was a lavish eve of coronation procession with lots of entertainment, including pageants, orations, music, and wine flowing in the conduits and in fountains. Oh to have been a citizen of London on that day!
You can find out more about Anne Boleyn’s coronation procession in this video:
If you prefer to read articles, you can read all about this day in 1533 by clicking here.
This was the first time possibly that the citizens of London had the opportunity to see their new queen quite close up and I’m wondering what they thought, here was the woman who had made their king stray from the straight and narrow, who had so bewitched him he had left his faithful queen for her, but people love an excuse to party and with wine flowing fountains and the beautiful pageantry of the occasion, the intoxicating atmosphere would have been hard to resist, but how exhausted Anne must have been, it was a long walk and she was about six and a half months pregnant, we do not know if she had an easy pregnancy but she seemed to be doing well, apart from maybe swollen ankles and lethargy and she must have longed to sit down and rest, she was sung to and praised and there were classical references to, she was handed the golden apple which in Greek mythology the shepherd boy Paris handed to Aphrodite, his prize for choosing her out of Artemis and Athena was the most beautiful woman in the world, Helen of Troy, this golden apple signified discord but there was none of that and in fact it merely symbolised Anne’s beauty like Aphrodite’s, Anne was under a canopy decorated with little bells that chimed as she walked, and dressed in white and gold with her luxurious dark hair falling down her back, she must have looked like a vision to the poor folk that day and indeed she does sound like she could have rivalled Titania herself, the whole day wonderful though it was, must have been somewhat of an ordeal for the queen and she must have been so relieved when she arrived at her destination in Westminster, she knew the next day longed for though it was, was going to be quite an ordeal to get through.