#fridayfun – Poll: Do you think Anne Boleyn was innocent of the charges laid against her in May 1536?
Posted By Claire on May 5, 2023
This week’s #FridayFun is a poll. It’s time to have your say!
Please do vote to share what you think about the charges laid against Queen Anne Boleyn in May 1536.
Feel free to explain your viewpoint by leaving a comment on this post.
Other articles you might be interested in:
#fridayfun – Poll: With which man would Anne Boleyn have been happiest?
10 May 1536 – What were the charges laid against Anne Boleyn and the men?
#fridayfun – Anne Boleyn’s Early Life Quiz
10 May 1536 – The charges against Queen Anne Boleyn and the men – The Fall of Anne Boleyn
#fridayfun – Quiz: Anne Boleyn’s siblings
May 10 – The charges against Queen Anne Boleyn, George Boleyn, Lord Rochford and four courtiers
I would be interested to know which of the charges those who voted for “Some” include in that term. I think all of the charges were manufactured from gossip and innocent remarks taken out of context.
Most definitely Anne was innocent of the charges against her, her sad story has been analysed in great detail over the centuries since her death and in her own day, her unprecedented arrest trial and execution found her many people were sympathetic to her plight, she was disliked by those supporters of Queen Katherine and her daughter, she was hated by those of the Catholic faith but then as now, people do not like to see injustice done and many were shocked by the behaviour of their king as he cavorted about with Jane Seymour, ultimately becoming engaged to her the day after his second queens head rolled in the dust, the speed of her fall was dramatic and makes Henry V111 a man very difficult to understand, this was the woman he had waited to possess for nearly a decade, in the physical sense and he had pledged to marry her thus making her queen, the depth of his great love was evident in the way he esteemed her above all others, he showered honours on her family, she was elevated to Marchioness of Pembroke and was crowned uniquely with St Edwards crown, then within three short years of marriage that great love had whittled away, and a sword from Calais or St Omer ended her life, thus Henry V111’s psychology is intriguing, what sort of man murders the love of his life? How could he make his little daughter not quite three motherless? When Anne Boleyn died she took five innocent men with her and all of them swore till the end they were innocent, except her wretched musician, Henry and his chief minister orchestrated his second queens murder and there had to be scapegoats, it did not matter that they were long associates of the king, the safety of his realm was at stake the king had to have a prince, therefore his troublesome queen had to go, and he could not allow her to live, as one historian so aptly put it many years ago, it was the most revolting murder ever committed, the king was head of justice of his realm, as his first queen beseeched him years before in the court at Blackfriars, yet his second queen nor her alleged lovers had justice, how can a queen be accused of adultery in one place when evidence proves she was somewhere else and in the company of the king himself or others, vital evidence was dismissed and a great deal of hearsay and women’s gossip were put forward as proof of her so called adultery, even when she was going through the churching process following the birth of Elizabeth it was said she invited one of her paramours to copulate with her, yet this was a time of sacred ritual when the new mother would abstain from sexual relations and give thanks to god for her safe delivery, Anne’s piety was well known and yet these charges slandered her character dreadfully so she was portrayed as nothing better than a tavern whore, there was the silly tale about the queen calling for marmalade and that was the cue to bring Mark Smeaton into her bedchamber, the incest charge must have sickened both her and her brother and yet she rose above it so there was never any doubt of her innocence and her courage was great, her ‘cuckolded’ husbands reputation never quite recovered from the infamy done to his murdered queen and his next adventures into marriage hood were nothing more than a failure, the saintly Jane whom he married over the body of his wife’s corpse died from the travails of childbirth, and the following were both disasters, only with his last queen may he have found some peace of mind, but he has gone down in history as a king who killed not just one wife but two, and Anne Boleyn has been vindicated many times over.
I think that Anne was innocent of adultery and incest. However, the capital crime at issue was the charge of treason … and, IIRC, treason was defined as “imagining or compassing the death of the king”. Anne admitted to telling Henry Norris that “if aught came to the king but good, you would look to have me.” This sounds like “imagining the death of the king” to me.
Imagining or compassing meant plotting really and Anne was actually reprimanding Norris so I don’t believe you could take these words as treasonous unless you really twisted them. Also, the date of her conversation with Norris was not listed in the indictments.
Maybe the word “imagining” has changed its meaning over the years, but the words on their face are suspicious. Susannah Lipscomb, among others, thinks that the conversation with Norris was “courtly love gone wrong” — Henry thought her (and Norris) guilty based on this conversation, even though they weren’t (and Norris told Henry so to Henry’s face). I don’t think the lack of a date was fatal, though — if the wrong dates (of the acts of adultery) weren’t fatal, I doubt that an omission would be.