Anne Boleyn

ANNE BOLEYN. - Second wife of Henry VIII of England, b. in 1504 (?), d. in 1536. Daughter of Thomas B., an English gentleman of modest and recent nobility, in her early youth she was a lady-in-waiting at the court of Francis I of France. Having returned definitively to England in 1526 and been received at court, she was immediately noticed by King Henry VIII, who fell desperately in love with her. The vicissitudes of this love affair were the determining cause of the English Schism. The king was married to Catherine of Aragon and had had several children by her, of whom only Mary survived; but, obstinately determined to marry Anne Boleyn, he wanted the previous marriage annulled: and alleging the pretext that Catherine had been the wife of his elder brother Arthur, although for the marriage with his sister-in-law the dispensation of Pope Julius II had been sought and obtained, he demanded its annulment. The long debate led to the king's open rebellion against the Church and to his proclamation as head of the English Church. A group of rebellious bishops pronounced the sentence of annulment of Henry's marriage to Catherine and pretended to legalize the new marriage, which moreover had already previously been celebrated in secret, deceiving the good faith of a priest, who had been made to believe that a regular annulment of the first marriage, pronounced by the Pontiff, existed.

A. B. therefore became queen of England and was solemnly crowned by Cranmer, archbishop of Canterbury, who had adhered to the schism. A few months later she gave birth to her daughter Elizabeth, whom Parliament declared the legitimate heir to the throne, excluding from the succession Mary, born of Henry's marriage to Catherine of Aragon.

Subsequent events annulled this decree of Parliament; for the reign of A. B. was brief; after vain hopes of a new pregnancy, awaited by Henry in his anxiety to have a male heir, he became infatuated with a lady-in-waiting, Jane Seymour, and showed his evident weariness with A. B. Palace intrigues, hostility aroused against the Boleyn favorites, caused grave accusations of infidelity to circulate and even the infamous one of incestuous relations with her brother. It cannot be said that proof of such accusations was ever established, because the only testimonies were extorted by torture. The king nevertheless believed them and in a rapid trial condemned A. B. and her alleged accomplices to death. The queen was beheaded on 19 May 1536 in the courtyard of the Tower of London, facing death with great dignity.

Eucardio Momigliano