Anne Boleyn

Anne Boleyn was Q ueen Consort of England from 1533 to 1536 as the second wife of King Henry VIII  and M arquess of Pebroke in her own right .Henry's marriage to Anne, and her subsequent execution, made her a key figure in the political and religious upheaval that was the start of the E nglish Reformation.Anne was the daughter of Thomas Boleyn,Earl of Wiltshire and Elizabeth Howard,the sister of the Duke of Norfolk  and was educated in the Netherlands  and France, largely as a maid of honour  to Claude of France. She returned to England in early 1522  and secured a post at court as maid of honour to Henry VIII's wife, Katharine of Aragon. Early in 1523 there was a secret betrothal between Anne and Henry Percy  son of the 5th Earl of Northumberland. However, in January 1524, C ardinal Thomas Wolsey broke the betrothal. In February/March 1526, Henry VIII began his pursuit of Anne. She resisted his attempts to seduce her, refusing to become his mistress as her sister Mary Boleyn  <span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;line-height:19.1875px;">had. It soon became the one absorbing object of Henry's desires to annul  <span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;line-height:19.1875px;">his marriage to Queen Catherine so he would be free to marry Anne. When it became clear that P ope Clement VII<span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;line-height:19.1875px;"> would not annul the marriage, the breaking of the power of the Catholic Church in England began. <span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;line-height:19.1875px;">Henry and Anne married on 25 January 1533. On 23 May 1533, Archibishop Thomas Cranmer  <span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;line-height:19.1875px;">declared Henry and Catherine's marriage null and void; five days later, he declared Henry and Anne's marriage to be good and valid. Shortly afterwards, the Pope  <span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;line-height:19.1875px;">decreed sentences of excommuntication <span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;line-height:19.1875px;"> against Henry. <span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;line-height:19.1875px;">Anne was crowned Queen of England on 1 June 1533. On 7 September, she gave birth to the future Q ueen Elizabeth I<span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;line-height:19.1875px;">, whose gender disappointed Henry. <span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;line-height:19.1875px;">Three miscarriages followed, however, and by March 1536, Henry was courting Jane Seymour. <span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;line-height:19.1875px;">Henry had Anne investigated for hight treason <span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;line-height:19.1875px;"> in April 1536. On 2 May she was arrested and sent to the  Tower of London<span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;line-height:19.1875px;">, where she was tried before a jury of peers – which included Henry Percy, her former betrothed, and her own uncle, Thomas Howard – and found guilty on 15 May. She was beheaded four days later. Modern historians view the charges against her, which included a dultery<span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;line-height:19.1875px;">, i ncest<span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;line-height:19.1875px;">, and w itchcraft<span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;line-height:19.1875px;">, as unconvincing.

Season 1 of the Tudors
Young Anne Boleyn<span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;line-height:19.1875px;"> catches Henry's eye and she is encouraged by her father  <span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;line-height:19.1875px;">and uncle to  <span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;line-height:19.1875px;">seduce the King. Her shrewd refusal to his open invitation to become his mistress pushes him to use Cardinal Wolsey to take action against Queen Katharine of Aragon.T <span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;line-height:19.1875px;">he King instructs his trusted advisor to get papal dispensation for his divorce on the grounds that his wife did indeed consummate her marriage to his brother, A rthur.Thus,as Leviticus says,their marriage is unlawfull and incestuous.<span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;line-height:19.1875px;">In Episode 7, the mysterious  swaeting sickness<span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;line-height:19.1875px;"> arrives in England, killing both the high-born and low-born, and Henry, who is terrified of catching the plague, secludes himself with his homeopathy medicines in the deep countryside away from court. Anne Boleyn contracts the illness but recovers. A P apal Envoy<span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;line-height:19.1875px;"> finally lands on English shores to decide on the annulment and, at the end of a specially convened session at which both Henry and Katherine are initially present, eventually decides in favor of Catherine. Cardinal Wolsey is stripped of his office.

Season 2 of the Tudors
<span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;line-height:19.1875px;">Henry will do whatever it requires to marry A nne Boleyn<span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;line-height:19.1875px;">, even by defying P ope Paul III<span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;line-height:19.1875px;">. He prepares to take Anne on a royal visit to France, having demanded loyalty from the English clergy. The papacy in Rome organises an assassination plot against Anne but the assassins' attempts fail. <span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;line-height:19.1875px;">In Episode 3 the newly appointed Archibishop of Cantebury <span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;line-height:19.1875px;"> annuls Henry's marriage, clearing the way for Henry to marry a by now pregnant Anne, which also increases the growing rift between England and Rome. <span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;line-height:19.1875px;">In Episode 8, Henry  <span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;line-height:19.1875px;">starts to pay court to Lady Jane Seymour <span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;line-height:19.1875px;"> after Anne's two miscarriages following the birth of Princess Elizabeth. <span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;line-height:19.1875px;">It is his long-time friend,Charles Brandon <span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;line-height:19.1875px;"> and Cromwell who eventually alert Henry to Anne's indiscretions and her fate is sealed. She is conducted to the Tower of London and her four 'supposed lovers', one of whom is her own b rother<span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;line-height:19.1875px;">, are executed followed eventually by her own - delayed by some hours as a result of the French executioner's late arrival from Calais. <span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;line-height:19.1875px;">Her devious  father<span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:sans-serif;line-height:19.1875px;">, who shows little remorse at the death of his son and Anne's impending death, is allowed to go free but banished from court and is shown leaving the Tower without even acknowledging his daughter waving from her cell window.