490th Anniversary of arrest of Anne Boleyn

Thanks, Avi. I’ve always felt sorry for Anne Boleyn, but if it wasn’t for her marriage, England would not have had Queen Elizabeth I, a truly great queen and a very intelligent woman. It is sad, though, that Elizabeth never got to know her mother.

I just finished an entertaining new novel called The Beheading Game that takes place right after Anne was beheaded. She wakes up in her coffin, picks up her head, sews the head back on and heads out to seek her revenge.

I see a mention that the executioner was actually a Frenchman, but I haven't been able to find out who, specifically, it was.

Intrigued, I just did a quick Google search on “Who beheaded Anne Boleyn?” and got the following:

Anne Boleyn was executed by an expert swordsman brought from Calais, France, named Jean Rombaud (sometimes referred to as John Rombolt). She was beheaded on May 19, 1536, within the Tower of London, using a sword rather than an axe, a "mercy" granted by Henry VIII to ensure a quick death.The Executioner: Jean Rombaud was a renowned, highly skilled executioner specialized in using a sword for decapitation, which was less common in England than the axe.The Decision: King Henry VIII ordered the method change (from the traditional, often messy, axe) and hired the expert from France.The Location: The execution took place on a specially constructed scaffold at Tower Green, not the usual Tower Hill public site.The Charges: She was found guilty of treason based on fabricated charges of adultery, incest, and conspiracy against the King, orchestrated by Thomas Cromwell.Anne Boleyn was the first English queen to be publicly executed.

So that last bit, the first English queen to be publicly executed … does that mean there were some earlier queens who were privately executed?

It seems like there is a documentary about Anne Boleyn once a week on UK television and literally 100s of podcasts. As interesting as the story is it’s a slightly wierd obsession.

The latest, in the news only yesterday, was the announcement of the identification of a possible portrait of her, although there is some disagreement ( cue another 10 documentaries to discuss…..) On a more positive note it is an excuse to look at portraits by Holbein which I could do all day!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cp9pz53e891o

Interesting to let us know avirosemail.

I have visited Hever Castle two years ago and had a chat there with one of the stewards. Responding to my question that there is not much to see about Anne Boleyn, except a few items like her handwritings and her Book of Hours. She answered that everything that could be related to her was removed or destroyed after her death. Like it was she had never existed, including her family.

No idea if English queens were beheaded before Anne Boleyn, but the fifth wife of Henry VIII, Catherine Howard was beheaded too, six years later. Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots had a clash with Elizabeth I and was behead in Fotheringhay in 1587. That would have ment little or nothing to me, if didn’t stayed there last year near the ruins of the castle there. What was pure coincidence.

Poor Catherine Howard, I have always felt very sorry for her.
I read somewhere, I can’t remember where, that she spent some of her childhood in a house just by Lambeth Palace. The Novotel hotel is now built on top of the site and I often thought of her as l passed on the bus!

My reaction to these interesting historical anniversary messages is admittedly a bit pedantic, thinking that any English history anniversary before 1752 is actually about two weeks different due to change from Julian to Gregorian calendar, and the same for other countries as early as 1582.

much like Slate, I note the date discrepancy. Avirosemail, did you jump the date purposely to take account of the calendar change, or is just when you noticed?

The most reliable sources I’ve seen online give the date of her arrest as May 2, 1536, old (Julian) calendar, not May 6. In 1582, when Gregorian calendar was invented, the difference was 10 days later, i.e., May 2, 1582 became May 12, 1582. As these differences accrue very slowly over time, about 1 day every 128 years, May 2, 1536 would have been just a bit less than 10 days later under our current calendar (about 9 1/2), and definitely a later day than May 6.

Poor Catherine Howard, I have always felt very sorry for her.
I read somewhere, I can’t remember where, that she spent some of her childhood in a house just by Lambeth Palace. The Novotel hotel is now built on top of the site and I often thought of her as l passed on the bus!

She's another one I felt sorry for as well, and she was very, very kind to Elizabeth before she was executed. In fact, I think she was probably the only mother figure in Elizabeth's life after Anne was killed. She was certainly more caring to Elizabeth than Mary, who actually imprisoned Elizabeth once she was Queen.

I can't even imagine living in times like that where you were a privileged member of a society but constantly worried about who was out to get you. It certainly helped that Elizabeth was so intelligent though. She constantly managed to stay on top, appease her enemies and get herself out of difficulties.

My reaction to these interesting historical anniversary messages is admittedly a bit pedantic, thinking that any English history anniversary before 1752 is actually about two weeks different due to change from Julian to Gregorian calendar, and the same for other countries as early as 1582.

I think that Avi took the calendar change into effect, because when I looked it up, it says that Anne Boleyn was executed on May 19, 1536 according to the Gregorian calendar used today. The Julian calendar would place this date on May 6, 1536.

The OP did refer to the date of arrest, not the date of execution. But regardless, it is mathematically impossible that May 19, 1536 in the Julian calendar was May 6, 1536 in the Gregorian (which of course didn’t yet then exist). That is because while the difference between calendars is 13 days NOW, that difference slowly but surely increases over time. When the Gregorian calendar was invented in 1582, the difference was 10 days. For any time before 1582, the difference had to have been less; not a whole lot less than 10 days for Anne’s dates, because 1536 to 1582 is only 46 years, but less nevertheless. So the comparable date could not have been before May 9, 1536.
Edited: in fact I think the date conversion works the other way. A Gregorian date is later than the Julian date, not earlier. So the contemporaneously reported execution date of May 19, 1536 Julian, would be on or about May 29 Gregorian, rather than earlier in May.

• She was certainly more caring to Elizabeth than Mary, who actually imprisoned Elizabeth once she was Queen.

It was the time of the English Reformation caused by the divorce of Mary's mother Catherine of Aragon and Henry VIII. Mary was as her mother Roman Catholic, Elizabeth was Protestant. It was eaten or to be eaten, so I am not surpised about the bitter rivalry between the two.

Mardee I think it was Henry’s last wife Catherine Parr who was particularly kind to Elizabeth.
Catherine Howard was only a few years older than Elizabeth and was executed at 19.

Catherine Howard does slightly get her own back, apparently her ghost haunts Hampton Court running screaming through the palace.:-)

Catherine Parr was very educated for the age and very unusually she was a published author.
Unfortunately she died in childbirth after she remarried. Quite a loss.

Two clarifying items --

First, the '06 May' in the original post is a typographical error, I meant to type 02 May. (My left hand is not completely reliable yet for fine motor movements)

And B, the reason I left the switch in calendars unmentioned is because I wanted to leave that for subsequent commenters. -- thank you to those who picked up the baton. (This has happened more than once before when I share Julian era anniversaries.)

Regarding etiquette in our posts, do you think I should correct the original typo? How?

It is an interesting debate as to whether she was publically executed- the execution happened on Tower Green, close to the White Tower within the Tower of London, as opposed to on Tower Hill or on Tyburn.

Thus, while it wasn't private, the public were not admitted, it was "by invitation" if you like.

Regarding the execution of. Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, the Queen shaved her hair and wore a whig to her execution, so when the executioner tried to pick up her head after it was severed from her body, the executioner only picked up her whig. It was said that Mary got the last laugh.

Regarding the evidence for execution of Catherine Howard, I have read that it supported the charges. Note:
https://knowledgespectra.com/1542-execution-of-catherine-howard-a-tragic-tale-of-adultery-and-power-in-tudor-england/

It was the time of the English Reformation caused by the divorce of Mary's mother Catherine of Aragon and Henry VIII. Mary was as her mother Roman Catholic, Elizabeth was Protestant. It was eaten or to be eaten, so I am not surpised about the bitter rivalry between the two.

Wil, I definitely realize what the times were like then. Elizabeth's writings address it in great detail, but that doesn't make it less sad, though. And Elizabeth's intelligence helped her to pull through all that. There are not many people that would have had the foresight and knowledge she did to manipulate her relationships with all the people around her who had power and who wanted her out of the picture.

Mardee I think it was Henry’s last wife Catherine Parr who was particularly kind to Elizabeth.
Catherine Howard was only a few years older than Elizabeth and was executed at 19.

Emma, I agree that Catherine Parr probably was more of a mother figure to her than any of the others. But Catherine Howard was also kind to her as well. Really, all of her stepmothers were kind to her. Jane Seymour probably paid her the least amount of attention, but that was a unique situation.

That said, I don't think that Catherine Howard was only a few years older than her—there was more like a 9-12 year age difference. Elizabeth was 8 years old when Catherine married Henry and most accounts put Catherine at age 17-18 when she married Henry (there was a theory that she was only 15 when she was married, but that theory has been disputed since then by new research).

With regards to Catherine Parr, I do think that while she had a very beneficial effect on Elizabeth and was very kind to her and played the role of mother very well, don't forget that her husband, Thomas Seymour, behaved very inappropriately with Elizabeth, which caused Elizabeth a great deal of distress, and and Catherine Parr let it happen.

I just wanted to say that I always enjoy your posts about history, Avi……thank you for sharing them! 🙂

Mardee – I agree, in those circles you needed a lot of survival skills. Despite all the splendor there was not much room for compassion and empathy. Living then must have been often really hard.

Last Summer, we visited London and Westminster Abbey. We saw Queen Elizabeth's tomb. Elizabeth had her half sister Mary buried with her. Elizabeth had some kind words for. her sister, despite their religious differences.