The great reformer of the Catholic Church, and Anne of the thousand days, are some of the ways in which she has been called one of the most important Queens in the history of England. The death of Anne Boleyn involved a bloody and cruel episode of the English monarchy, but His life and actions would trigger England’s break with the traditional Catholic Church, with the Pope’s mandates from the Vatican, and the birth of the new current of the Anglican Church. The details of how Anne Boleyn died have surprised historians for centuries, giving rise to many debates.
Anne Boleyn was one of Henry VIII’s wives. Perhaps the most controversial. Being a young woman from a good family, She was trained in the French monarchy and later also joined the English monarchy, as a court lady of the then queen, Catherine of Aragon. But Henry VIII went down in history not only for being a king with a bloodthirsty and cruel character, but also for his particular fondness for women. History even reflects that Anne’s own sister, Mary Boleyn, would be among her lovers. Join us at to discover all the details about the tragic death of Anne Boleyn.
Who was Anne Boleyn?
The story of how Anne Boleyn died was as controversial as her life itself. Her torrid romance with Henry VIII was marked by taboos, shadows and secrets. Some say that she was a cunning woman, who used tricks to reach the top of power. Others defend that she was only a maiden subdued by circumstances and the royal will, but still, with such a strong character that She has been considered the most influential and important queen consort that England has ever had.
Although at the beginning of her relationship with the king, she was branded a prostitute and usurper, the death of Anne Boleyn placed her in the position of a martyr in the society of the time. The young Anne was one of the ladies at the court of Queen Catherine of Aragon, when King Henry VIII noticed her. Arguing that Catherine was incapable of giving him a male heir, the king petitioned Rome to annul their ecclesiastical marriage. The Vatican extended its categorical denial.
Henry VIII’s response was insubordination to Rome and the Pope, and the birth of the Anglican Church, of which he was the ultimate regent. He then married Anne Boleyn, in a ceremony that took place on January 25, 1533.. But the romance would barely last three years. They had a girl whom they named Elizabeth, and who would later become Queen Elizabeth I of England. But the heir did not arrive and for the king, his wife began to become a burden. The death of Anne Boleyn was further proof that the king’s whims and interests dominated even over life.
How was the fall of the Queen?
The love affair between Anne Boleyn and Henry VIII was short-lived. The same reason why the King had abandoned Catherine of Aragon was repeated in this second marriage. The monarch’s offspring until now were only women. This is how he began to become interested in a young maiden, Juana Seymour, a lady of the court. But it was not possible to annul another marriage, so the death of Anne Boleyn was drawn as a convenient option.
The king, supported by the queen’s enemies in the Palace, promoted a trial against her. The event spread throughout Europe, becoming a scandal of great proportions. The queen for whom Henry VIII had turned his back on Rome and the traditional Catholic Church was being accused of adultery with five men.. Also of incest, arguing that one of the people with whom the queen had gone to bed was her own brother. She added the obvious charge of high treason. Apparently, the death of Anne Boleyn was the drawing of a labyrinth with no exit.
The path to how Anne Boleyn died was swift. Only 17 days passed between his arrest and his execution. The moments in which she was allowed to speak, she did so with such eloquence, poise and confidence, that the matrix of opinion began to be generated that the trial was nothing more than a trick by Henry VIII to get rid of her. After all, he had already begun courting the young Juana Seymour, to make her his third wife.
How did Anne Boleyn die?
After a trial that left a bitter taste for posterity, the queen was sentenced to death by beheading, when he was barely thirty years old and his daughter, Elizabeth I, was two years old. The details of how Anne Boleyn died still continue to generate interest among historians. It is believed that on the morning of her execution, 19 May 1536, the monarch sent for the person in charge of organizing her public execution, the Bailiff of the Tower, Sir William Kingston.
Before him, Anne Boleyn repeated what she had argued at the trial. She swore in the holy sacrament that she was innocent of all the charges of which she had been judged guilty. When it was time to leave the royal apartments in the Tower for the last time, on the way to the scaffold, the crowd that had come to witness the death of Anne Boleyn was surprised by her fortitude, serenity and poise. Many historians state that the queen waited until the last moment for a royal pardon, but in its absence, she never lost her dignity. It was on the scaffold where he spoke his last words:
«I have not come here to accuse anyone, but rather I pray to God to save my sovereign king and yours, and give him a long time to reign, because he is one of the best princes in the world, who always treated me so well that it couldn’t be better. Therefore, I submit to death with good will, humbly asking for forgiveness from everyone.
Among the details of how Anne Boleyn died, it is said that Henry VIII ordered a special swordsman to be brought from France to carry out the execution, as the ax did not always kill on the first try.. The queen’s head was separated from her body with a single sword cut. Her companions picked up her head and body and wrapped them in a white blanket. Anne Boleyn’s death occurred without honors. Her remains were not even deposited in a coffin, but in a trunk taken from the armory, which was used to store arrows.
Three hours after her execution, the queen’s mortal remains were buried in the Royal Chapel of St. Peter as Vincula, in London, in an unmarked grave. The body of her brother, executed in the Tower two days earlier, lay next to her. The death of Anne Boleyn returned to Henry VIII the freedom that allowed him to continue with the romance that he had already begun. The day after the queen’s beheading, the king announced his engagement to Joan Seymour. the only one of his six wives who would finally give him the long-awaited son. However, and as a paradox of fate, it would be Elizabeth I, Anne Boleyn’s daughter, who would later become one of the most important queens in English history.