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NAME: Anne Boleyn
LIFETIME: c. 1501 – May 19, 1536
WHAT SHE IS KNOWN FOR: Anne Boleyn was the second wife of the infamous Henry VIII and mother of Queen Elizabeth I who was executed for treason. She was highly educated and a fierce supporter of the Protestant Reformation.
WHY WE LOVE HER: History remembers Anne’s as an enchantress, a seductress, an adulteress and a witch. However she was simply a woman who set her sights high and achieved them. She also learned that on the fortune’s wheel, what goes up must come down.
Educated in courts in the Netherlands and France, Anne was schooled in the highest societies of Europe. She was learned in not only feminine roles but also reading, writing, arithmetic and genealogy. Before she set her sights on the King, Anne was initially recalled to England to marry her cousin until the marriage fell through. She was then secretly betrothed to Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland, but the marriage was dissolved by the chief advisor of the king.
By 1526 Henry had begun to take an interest in Anne, assuming she would become his mistress. However, Anne had firsthand knowledge of what would happen if she became his mistress because she had seen her sister Mary set aside after a few years and the birth of two unrecognized children. When Henry proposed marriage, the couple assumed that his annulment would take months, not five years. But throughout their seven-year courtship, Anne refused to consummate their relationship.
During this time, Anne took Catherine’s place in policy and state; she granted petitions, received diplomats, gave patronage and heavily influenced Henry’s policies. She was made Marquis of Pembroke, an appropriate position for a future queen, and this made her one of the richest and most important women in England in her own right.
The couple secretly married in November 1532 and shortly thereafter Anne became pregnant. She was crowned Queen on June 1, 1533 and later that year gave birth to Princess Elizabeth, which was a blow to both parents, as they had expected a son.
However, the public despised Anne because she was everything that Queen Catherine was not; they publicly referred to her as “the King’s whore.” Soon, her sharp intelligence, political knowledge and forward manners began to grate on Henry and their marriage slowly began to dissolve. After three miscarriages, Henry decided that he had enough of Anne.
However, his second divorce did not go as smoothly as his first. He had former Queen and seven men – including Anne’s brother George Boleyn – arrested on suspicion of having carnal relations with the Anne. All were found guilty and sentenced to death on shaky evidence. Before her death, Anne stood before the crowd, praising the King, but in a veiled message protesting her innocence.
FUN FACT: Anne is one of the most infamous queens today and rumors swirl around her connection to witchcraft (having a sixth finger) and some report seeing her ghost walking around the Tower of London. It is believed that Anne herself gave Henry papers and pamphlets about the Protestant Reformation that convinced him to style himself as head of the Church of England. Throughout her life, Anne, like Catherine of Aragon, was devoted to her faith. However, she was sympathetic to those who wanted to break from the Catholic Church and even protected scholars who were working on an English-language translation of the Bible.
READ MORE: #WomenThatDid: Margaret Sanger
