Betwixt The Sheets: The History of Sex, Scandal & Society - The Real Anne Boleyn: Sex, Scandal & Betrayal

Episode Date: August 6, 2024

Anne Boleyn was smart, sophisticated and had SO much charisma.She kept Henry VIII waiting for SEVEN YEARS before they finally got together, and even then it was on her terms.So where did it all go wrong for Anne Boleyn? Were any of the wild accusations made against her true? And what do her last words tell us about her?Joining Kate today is the magnificent Tracy Borman, author of Anne Boleyn and Elizabeth I: The Mother and Daughter Who Changed History, to help us uncover the real Anne Boleyn.This episode was edited and produced by Stuart Beckwith. The senior producer was Charlotte Long.Voting is open for the Listener's Choice Award at the British Podcast Awards, so if you enjoy what we're doing, we'd love it if you took a quick follow this link and click on Betwixt the Sheets: https://www.britishpodcastawards.com/votingEnjoy unlimited access to award-winning original documentaries that are released weekly and AD-FREE podcasts. Sign here for up to 50% for 3 months using code BETWIXT.You can take part in our listener survey here.Betwixt the Sheets: History of Sex, Scandal & Society is a History Hit podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Do you want even more shocking and scandalous history? Like why the ancient Greek statues had such small manhoods? Or what went on behind closed doors in the Georgian era? We'll sign up to History Hit, where you can see me discover the scandalous side of history, as well as hundreds of hours of original documentaries, plus new releases every week, covering everything from prehistoric Scotland to the Treaty of Versailles.

Sign up to join me in locations around the world and explore the past. Just visit historyhit.com forward slash subscribe. Hello, my loveliest of lovely betwixters. How the hell are you doing? Well, I'm fine. Thank you very much for asking. I'm thrilled to be spending some more time with you, you fabulous beast.

But before we can continue on our merry way together, I have to tell you, this is an adult podcast spoken by adults to other adults about dutty things and an adult who ain't covering a range of adult subjects, and you should be an adult too. So don't be getting cross with us and don't be having your mum writing as angry letters if you listen to this and get offended

because fair do you were warned. But if you do listen and you don't get offended and you think, gee, that is a marvellous podcast. It really is. You could do us a humongous favour by voting for us for the Listeners Choice Award at this year's British Podcast Awards. And you can do that by simply going to the website

wwww-witishpodcastawards.com forward slash voting and clicking on betwixt the sheets. And just look at it this way. The sooner you vote, sooner we win, the sooner I can stop nagging everybody about this. Okay, on with the show. It is a calm morning on the 19th of May of 1536. The sound of birdsong around the Tower of London is soon interrupted by the gathering crowds. Making her way towards the scaffolding is a 35-year-old Amber Lynn. A woman who would usually dress so expressively in the latest French fashions is today wearing a dark grey

damask gown. As she ascends the stairs to where the execution awaits, a guy brought in from Calais, especially for the job, by Henry VIII, no less. She constantly turns her head, looking around her in hopes of a last minute pardon. It doesn't come. In fact, her final words are, I pray God save the king, for a gentler nor more merciful prince was there never. Gentle? Merciful? Fucking hell, love. No, he was anything but she must have known the irony of those words. These are the last moments of this remarkable woman's short life. But what led her to this point?

Execution is axes at the ready betwixt us. Let's find out. What do you look for a man? Oh, money of course. You're supposed to rise when an adult speaks to you. I make perfect copies of whatever my boss needs by just turning a knob. And pushing the fight. Yes, social courtesy does make a difference.

Goodness, my beautiful dance. Goodness has nothing to do with it, Terry. Oh, and welcome back to Betwixt the Sheets, the history of sex scandal in society. With me, Kate Lister. Of all of Henry VIII's wives, there is something about Amblin, isn't there? I mean, she does stand out.

With her French education and style, she had Riz, as Gen Z would say. Was there any truth to the wild accusations Henry levied against her? What was it about her that intimidated Henry the first time they slept together? And what is her legacy today? Joining me to take us deep into the Tudor Court and the bedroom is the rather wonderful Tracy Borman, author of Anne Boleyn and Elizabeth I,

The Mother and Daughter Who Changed History. And if you enjoyed this episode, why don't you have a listen to the previous episode we did with Tracy on the sex life of Henry the 8th? All right, kids, let's do it. Hello and welcome back to Betwixt the Shites. It's Tracy Borman. How are you doing? I'm very well, Kate, and I'm very excited to be back having a good old gossip of a historical nature with you. I'm thrilled you're back. You know, people couldn't get enough of the Henry VIII episode. They absolutely loved you. They thought that was brilliant.

Oh, well, that's very nice to hear. I think, you know, people just want to know the nitty gritty, don't they? You know, how people really lived behind closed doors, all their... Yeah, the kind of horrible history stuff, I like to call it. They do, don't they? And you really surprised me with the episode about Henry the 8th because he's got a reputation as being like a top shagger. And what you were saying is that he was actually quite prudish and a little bit squeamish about getting poorly. And that I thought was really surprising.

So of course we have to talk now about Anne Boleyn, this woman he was having sex with. because she's got a bit of a reputation as well, doesn't she? Well, she does, and is that deserved? I'm not sure it is. But Anne Boleyn was one of those who showed Henry up as being a prude. Okay, so go back to the beginning. Obviously, the story is portrayed as being one of love, passion, obsession,

and that Anne Boleyn was Henry's great love, the one he overturned the whole country for, set up the Church of England so he could marry Anne Berlin. But yes, she perhaps was not quite as innocent as Henry was expecting. So she had held him at bay for seven long years and he was begging her, please be my mistress. This woman who was so captivating, she'd arrived at the English court in 1522. Now, I wasn't love at first sight. we should say this about Henry and Anne Boleyn. It's only really four years later

that people are talking about Henry and Anne being a bit of an item. But by then, Henry definitely makes up for lost time and besieges Anne Boleyn with love letters, as I said, or begging her to be his mistress. But she says, no, thank you very much. And I love that about Anne. She's got bigger fish to fry. And so holds him at bay.

And yeah, and for seven years, that takes some doing to say no to a King of England for that amount of time. But I think, you know what? Anne was playing the rules, as we would describe them. She was playing hard to get whether intentionally or not, and it drove Henry Wilde. The more she said no, the more he wanted her. But then when they finally slept together, apparently she did something, and Kate, the mind-boggles, that surprised Henry and that made him think she was a bit more experienced, than a virgin ought to be.

And perhaps something she'd picked up in the French court, some kind of technique that he wasn't used to. I think he was a bit more of a wham-bam, thank you, ma'am, very traditional missionary position kind of guy. And I think Anne had a few tricks up her sleeve. Anne does have this reputation as being this femme fatale, this seductress, this woman that teased and tormented a king until he whipped the entire country apart.

Like, she's like a Tudor Yoko Ono. And I'm not sure that that's, is that entirely deserved? Because like she kept him at bay for seven years. And on one hand, and you can explain this and for exactly what you think was going on, is like, was she teasing him? Or maybe she just didn't want to sleep with him. And maybe she just wanted him to sod off. And let's explore that possibility, because I don't think it's disgusting.

often enough. I do think it's a very strong possibility that actually Anne just didn't fancy him. She didn't want to go there. Yes, we might say she was being very clever and playing the rules and all the rest of it. Seven years, though. Seven years. And the other sort of myth is that all the Boulins are in on this. Her father's pushing her forward. But actually, Thomas Boulin, Anne's dad, is trying to protect her and get her to go back to Heaver Castle on a regular basis. And I think Anne wants to. I really don't believe the more I research this, that Anne is like, you know, tunnel vision, right, this is a way I can get myself a crown.

I'm going to hold him at bay, drive him wild, and he'll marry me. I'm not convinced by that. I think perhaps she wasn't, you know, protesting too much. I think genuinely she wasn't that keen on the idea. And did she ever love Henry? I have big doubts about that. I think she came eventually to realize the potential of this because she was a very clever woman.

She was passionate about religious reform. And I think then ambition did take over. But I don't feel that for Anne, it was ever a love affair. And actually, did Henry really love her? Because the minute he'd slept with her, He was heard to remark, oh, she's just like any other woman. He's sort of, he built her up and built her up, and then finally he got what he wanted, and he was a little bit disappointed.

And then, of course, things start to unravel quite quickly. So I would like to, if not completely destroy this image of a love affair, at least question it. I think it's worth discussing. I think so, because I think that the kind of the clincher for me is it was seven years. It is. Because if you're playing hard to get, that is a well-known technique in dating. We all want what we can't have. But I don't, like for seven years, that's such a long period of time, isn't it?

It's going some, isn't it? And Anne is very aware during that time that she's getting past her best by Tudor standards. We don't know exactly her date of birth, but commonly accepted to be about 15.01. So she's in her very early 20s. when she enters Henry's court. And then, you know, by the time they married, she's in her mid-30s, which frankly has passed it in the Tudor court.

So, yeah, absolutely. I find it so depressing. You're described as being ancient at the age of 40. No, no, let's not go there. That's depressing. But paint me a picture of who she was. Like, what's Anne's background? Where did she come from?

So Anne is, I think, the most celebrated of the six wives, for a good reason. She's quite an extraordinary woman. She is one of three surviving children born to Thomas Berlin, certainly a prominent member of Henry the Eighth's court. And from the start, I think she stands out among the three siblings. There's Anne, Mary, her sister, also a mistress of Henry the eighth, by the way, and George. But Anne seems to be the clever one, the precocious one. And she's the one her father invests in. So he secures her a position in the course. court of the Netherlands, then she sent to France. And it was her years in France that helped her

develop a literal jeuniseiquot. She adopted French fashions. She spoke with a slight French accent, and she absorbed all of these quite radical religious ideas. And also, we would call them feminist ideas. That's anachronistic. Feminism wasn't a thing, of course, then. But there were lots of ideas circulating among the women who Anne was mixing with. that actually women shouldn't just be second-class citizens. They should hold positions of authority. And so Anne had all of this going on when she finally returned to England after almost a decade abroad.

And no wonder she stood out in Henry the 8th court because all the other women looked positively provincial next to this sophisticated woman from France who dressed differently, spoke differently. And what she had was, was charisma and self-confidence. And those were irresistible. Because if you look at the contemporary descriptions of her,

everybody's at pains to say, look, this is not a beautiful woman by the standards at the age. Yes, she's got long black hair, but actually blonde hair is more popular. She's flat-chested or has a bosom not much raised, as it was said. And she doesn't fit the profile of, certainly of Henry's type, or of a beauty in the Tudor court. But she has charisma in spades.

And it's like she has a secret. It's like she knows that she really has value. And it's like bees round a honeypot, really. She starts to attract quite a lot of male attention. And as I say, Henry's actually towards the back of the queue. He's pretty slow on the uptake. But there are others who, Absolutely think that Anne is just intoxicating.

You see that a lot with the, when you go back through the history and you see like the great courtisans or women and men who were regarded as like amazing lovers, you're Cleopatra, your Julius Caesar, you'll always find somebody going, look, they weren't actually that good looking. They've got this X factor to them somehow. Yeah, that's the thing. It's kind of ironic though, because when we look today at the portraits of the six wives, She kind of stands out, I think, is the best looking.

But anyway, taste change. And by the conventions of the day, she wasn't much to look at. But it's all about the personality. And that's really what entraps Henry. But ironically, it kind of then comes back to bite Anne, because what had been attractive in a woman who held him at arm's length, not attractive in a wife. He just wanted her to put up and shut up once she was married to him.

him and he didn't want a feisty woman then. He just wanted somebody he's going to churn out airs and spares. Thank you very much. And turn a blind eye to his various affairs and Anne was not that kind of woman. No, she wasn't. But let's talk about the woman that was currently putting up and shutting up with Henry's affairs when Anne enters the stage, which is his first wife. Couldn't your heart just break for this woman?

Catherine of Arrigan, because the thing that I find so human, But maybe you can explain, maybe this was just completely part of normal court life. Wasn't Anne her lady in waiting? Yes. You know your husband is shagging this woman that's... Oh, it's just... It must be so humiliating. I think you say that marriage was a bit crowded.

That's what you say. And honestly, I mean, what could possibly go wrong with this scenario? Anne Boleyn is appointed a lady in waiting. And there are these toe-curling episodes of Catherine and Henry and Anne playing cards together. And you can imagine Anne and Henry sort of playing footsy under the table. And oh, poor Catherine. But I think poor Catherine, but also I hugely admire her because goodness me, did she have backbone? And she knew what Henry was like.

She decided from the beginning she was going to turn a blind eye. And also she firmly. believed throughout the whole of what happened next that she was his true wife and she was not budging for anyone. And so hats off to Catherine of Arrigan. Actually, while we're on the subject, I would say she was probably the wife he loved the most, not Anne. I think she was his ideal woman. She was a true queen, impeccable pedigree, a daughter of the monarchs of Spain, knew how to behave as queen, but, you know, Achilles heel. It's that production or reproduction issue and her failure to give Henry a son.

That's really what sealed her doom. So Anne was a lady in waiting, which sounds a little bit like she was like a maid, but that's not what a lady in waiting was. Just for anyone that's unclear, what was a lady in waiting? No, they're sort of all manner of things, but really they're part decorative. They're part of the queen's entourage. So the queen would always be. Yes, exactly.

You'd be flanked by your squad and they would be there in the background to compliment their royal mistress. And often, well, certainly in the case of Anne Boleyn's daughter, Elizabeth, she made all of her ladies dress in much plainer outfits than her so that she would stand out. I love that. You would, wouldn't you? Yeah, of course you would, yeah. But you would appoint well-born women to be your ladies-in-waiting because that just then enhances your own status. But they would be there to keep the Queen company, to attend her, but not in a very menial way. They would select her clothes for the day.

They would help her to dress. Possibly, they would take charge of her jewels. And they would help to entertain her. They'd play cards with her, gossip with her, help her practice her dance steps. And so Anne would have been doing all of this. And of course, she was renowned for her ability to play music, to dance. she was the ultimate courtier, but unfortunately she very, very quickly outshone her mistress, Catherine. Thinking about them all sat around playing cards together, that's horrendous, however you look at it.

But it's just occurred to me, if Anne didn't really want the advances of Henry the AIDS, that makes it even worse because she must have just been sat there knowing that Catherine of Aragon, the Queen hates her. Yeah. The king's hitting on her. Like that's, I can't even imagine. I'd just leave. I'd quit. I'd go home.

I know. Why do they do it? Because it must have been excruciating. But I don't want to paint Anne much as I love her as being whiter than white in this situation. Yes, she might have had doubts, should we say, about Henry. But she was fiercely ambitious and she was fiercely aware of her status as she saw. You know, she's always wearing these necklaces with her initials on it. She's very proud to be a Berlin. And she doesn't hesitate. to have Catherine's royal arms scraped off her window panes in her apartments and her own arms painted in over them. So she was forthright and once she set her sights, I think, on the potential of her position, then she took no prisoners. And one of the reasons that she might have been a bit hesitant and decided to slow down, Hold Your Horses there, mate, is because her sister had been a mistress of Henry the end. Like, what Jerry Springer shit is this?

That's who was Mary Berlin? She often gets overlooked in all of this. Kate, it gets even worse because, you know, there were rumours also Anne's mother had been Henry's mistress. Oh, oh. Keep it in the family, Henry. Keep it in the Berlin family. Although Henry always said never with the mother. He always stoutly denied that he'd had an affair with Elizabeth Berlin.

But yeah, so Mary is, without doubt, she was a mistress of Henry VIII. Now, like Anne, she was a lady-in-waiting at the French court, not for as long as Anne was, but she became the mistress of the French king, Francis I. Didn't he call her the English mayor? Yes, that is rumoured to have been the case. Certainly she was rather less disciplined, should we say, and protective of her morals than Anne was. But Francis and Henry were great rivals.

So, of course, what Francis had, Henry had to have. So as soon as Mary Berlin came back to England, she was married off, but Henry bedded her all the same. And almost certainly she had one child, at least, with Henry. I think her daughter, Catherine, the dates match her affair with Henry. She had a son as well. It's possible Henry Carey, as well. as he was named, was Henry the 8th.

But I think if he had been, Henry the 8th would have claimed him. But either way, I think this was pivotal in Anne's relationship with Henry because she'd seen how quickly the king loses interest if you give way. So that's exactly what happened with Mary Berlin. He was passionate about her,

but it was a flame that burned bright but was soon extinguished, I think we would say. So Anne was thinking, yeah, I've seen what happened to Mary. I'm going to go down a different path. Smart. And was there anyone else who was in the picture for Anne Boleyn ever? Was there any sense that she was?

Oh, there was. Oh, really interesting. Absolutely. And one in particular, very significant, I think. But she was great friends with Thomas Wyatt. Now, he was like Anne. His family home was in Kent. And so the two families knew each other, the Wyatts and the Berlins.

Now, he was a courtier and he was a poet. And that's all the proof I need. Yes, exactly. You don't have to read too much between the lines of his poetry to see that he at least has a crush on Anne. Whether or not it goes further than that, there is one that it said, there is written her fair neck roundabout. Do not touch me for Caesar's I am. And, you know, that's a clear hint at, you know, Anne, if only she wasn't promised to Henry VIII,

then, you know, he would be. He'd be all over that. A good poet, but not too bright. Like, why are you writing that in a poem? Honestly. And then, well, this is a later account that claims that Wyatt then kind of taunts Henry the 8th. He taunts him by he obtains a jewel belonging to Anne.

And he sort of wears it in front of Henry. And Henry knows it's Anne's jewel. And so it's like Wyatt saying, ha-ha, there's something. going on with me and Anne and she won't sleep with you. And of course, Henry was furious. Howie got away with that. If that's not just an apocryphal tale, I don't know, he does, of course, end up in the tower. And of all of those accused of adultery with Anne, and we're jumping ahead a bit, but five men were accused of adultery. But Wyatt was almost a sixth. He ended up in the tower during that time under suspicion of having an affair with Anne. And probably,

of all of them, he was the likeliest contender because he certainly betrayed Henry in his heart, if not in body. So Thomas White, I think probably he was very fond of Anne, he fancied her rotten. I'm not sure that side of it was

reciprocated, but I think she seemed quite fond of him too. Now, there was more of a political suitor for Anne. When she came back from France, there were plans to marry her to James Butler. He was an Irish nobleman because the Billins had Irish descent and the Berlins and the butlers were arguing over

this earldom and a really neat way of solving that argument would be if Anne married James Butler but she didn't really like the idea the king actually Henry the 8th was in favour and he was kind of helping to organise this but the really significant other kind of courtship going on and what scuppered the whole James Butler scheme was that Anne chose somebody for herself. And that person was Henry Percy. Now, he was of the powerful Northumberland family and therefore a real catch. And arguably, Anne was punching here. This was a man of much higher status than she was.

And actually, he was already promised to Mary Talbot. and Henry wanted him to marry Mary Talbot. So this flirtation between Anne and Henry Percy upset the apple cart big time. Nobody wanted this to happen except apparently Anne and Henry Percy themselves. And there's a lovely little contemporary account of their flirtation, relationship, whatever it was, by Cardinal Walses' close servant, George Cavendish, who reports a, a quote, dalliance between Anne Berlin and Henry Percy. And he said, quote, there grew such a secret love between them, that at length they were

ensured together intending to marry. So was there a betrothal? Well, on this would hinge Anne's future fate because Henry the 8th chose to believe that there wasn't a betrothal when he wanted to marry Anne Boleyn. But then when he wanted to get rid of Anne Boleyn, suddenly he wanted Percy to attest that there had been a betrothal and therefore his marriage to Anne wasn't valid. But I think actually if Anne loved anybody, I think it was Henry Percy. I think it was that you sense the passion between them. They're both defying their families in pursuing this affair.

But ultimately, Henry comes along to break up the party and he has Percy sent away and sends Anne back to him. Heaver tells Woolsey to just basically scupper the whole affair, and poor old Percy has to go and marry for duty. And Anne kind of does likewise ultimately. But I think actually that there was, that's probably the closest Anne came to having a true love. I'll be back with Tracy and Ambelin after the short break. I would imagine that like you've got into this weird situation, a situation ship with the king of England. And once he's trying to divorce his wife And then once he comes up this idea of breaking with Rome

Which you can't understate how huge that was for the time It's like Brexit times a million It was such an insane radical thing to have done You can imagine being in And Berlin and just sit there going Shit Yes, exactly Like what are you going to tell him no I know

I know the genie is out of the bottle now isn't it? Oh dear Yeah what are we going to do the stakes are so high and the pressure. The pressure for Anne. On the one hand, she is pushing Henry along this road. She is showing him radical religious texts that prove that actually the king is above the Pope, that the king is only answerable to God.

The Pope can go do one because, frankly, who is he? And this gives Henry the justification he needs to break with Rome. And so we can't paint Anne as just this hapless victim swept along by events. Once she has made this decision to marry Henry and she sees the potential of being queen, then she absolutely pushes him towards this. And she puts Henry under enormous pressure, pointing out that she's getting past her childbearing years. You know, you're going to have to get on with it if you want me to give you a son.

And I just honestly, Henry doesn't come off well in this way. Because he's just fatally naive. When you read his love letters, which, by the way, he comes across as a love sick teenager. I mean, he goes as far as drawing a love heart around Anne's initial in one of them. And it's all like Henry Ford and forever kind of thing. But in one of the love letters, he says to her, okay, I get that you won't be my mistress. But how about you are my only mistress? I won't see anybody else.

And it's like, come on, Henry. Do you not realize that? And of course, yeah, Anne gives that short shrift. That's still not good enough, Henry. And so as early as 1527, Henry seems to have promised Anne marriage. But it would take him another six years to actually achieve that. So was she a Protestant then? Was that even like a thing at the time before Henry decided to do his big screw you to the Pope?

How involved in this? Did she radicalise the king? She did radicalise him. It would be inaccurate to say she was a Protestant in that that became the term for what Anne sort of was. She was a reformist. She wanted to reform the Catholic Church. And that ultimately kind of developed into Protestantism that was more firmly established by her daughter, Elizabeth. But yeah, absolutely, she was quite a radical. And she picked up these ideas. as I mentioned in France, very, very much hand in glove with Marguerite of Navarre, the French King's sister, who was a very like-minded, forthright woman and absolutely passionate about the corruption of the Roman Catholic Church and that it needed to be reformed. So Anne was a reformer, and she had a huge impact. And I think that has been completely overshadowed because, I know

we're doing this now, but people obsess about her love life and her relationship with Henry the 8th. But actually, far more important was the impact she had on England's religious life. And you could say the English Reformation would have happened eventually. It probably would. But not as dramatically, not as suddenly and not as far reaching as it did if Henry hadn't wanted to marry Anne Berlin. And I sort of get the feeling as well of like there's so much tension building up between these two, not just quite obvious sexual frustration after seven years of this,

but like he's broken with Rome, they've changed the religion, people are saying they're going to go to hell and be damn forever what they've done. They're having to murder people to, you know, keep this thing on the level left. And then, like, how much pressure does that put on a relationship? So like right now we've done all of that and now we're together. I don't think it was ever going to survive that ever.

I know. When all said and done, they're just two people. They are two people. And that pressure, as you say, it's kind of on. imaginable. And if at that first throw of the dice, Anne had given Henry a son, then happy days, I think the relationship without doubt would have endured. There's no question. There's no question about it. There's no way Henry would have got rid of Anbelin. If she'd had a son who'd survived, that would have been it. Perhaps, yes, their relationship might still have soured. They might not

have got on particularly well together, but he would never have got rid of the mother of his heir, she would have been forever protected, so it would have turned out incredibly differently. Of course, the beautiful irony in all of this is that her daughter Elizabeth would go on to be by far the most successful of Henry's heirs. So this obsession with a son was needless. He did have a son, but, you know, poor old Edward only lasts for six years and then dies age 15. And Elizabeth reigns for 44 years and is the absolute triumph of her mother, Anne Boleyn, who sadly doesn't live to see that day. So when does things start going tits up in this marriage then? Is like arguably the groundwork has been well-legged for this to go wrong. But how long are they

even married for? Well, yeah, it's really not long before the rot sets in. I've already said that Henry makes this remark as soon as he starts sleeping with Anne. And that's just before they get married, by the way. That, you know, she's perhaps a bit more experienced than a virgin should be. And also she's kind of just like any other woman. So he starts to look elsewhere. And certainly when she falls pregnant, which she does almost immediately, he has a mistress and he's seen hankering after this,

at least one other woman at court. And Anne knows about it. And she's furious and jealous as you would be. And then when she has Elizabeth, then absolutely that way. rot takes over. And it's not the end of Anne, I should say that. And so often it's like the wisdom of hindsight, oh, she has Elizabeth and then she's executed. She's not. And at least she's proved she can have a healthy child. But it feels like something fundamental has shifted in their relationship and they'll never get it back after that. And it's not long before Henry is, quote,

seemed to shrink from her in private. You know, you can't bear to be with her. He can't bear her touching him. He doesn't want to talk to her. And this was the woman who'd driven him to such passion that he'd turned the whole country on his head. So it all happens very quickly. I mean, she's known as Anne of a thousand days

after the sort of classic film. And that's pretty accurate because they're married for a little over three years. She is queen for a little less than three years. She's crowned on the 1st of June 1533. She's executed on the 19th of May 1536. So very, very brief. And in those three years, she has given birth to Elizabeth and then tragically suffered three miscarriages.

And the last miscarriage is really the thing that seals Anne's doom. That happens in January 15. 36. And last draw territory for Henry. That's it. And he says something to the effect of, you know, I see that this marriage doesn't please God. Warning bells. You know, this is what, as soon as he starts talking about God and whether he likes something or not, you know, you're for the chop or for an annulment in Catherine of Arrigan's case. So that's it instructs his faithful henchman, Thomas Cromwell, get me out of this marriage. And this is when Anne's, you know, kind of skill as a courtier. is actually turned against her because she has played the game of courtly love all of her years at the English court, as has every other woman, should I say. So she has flirtations,

but it's all within the kind of code of chivalry, you know, where the woman always keeps the man at arm's length. She's not an adulterous. Let's be clear about that. She's accused of adultery with five men, including her brother. So it's an incestuous affair, one of those affairs. And there are 17 counts of adultery in her trial.

On 15 of those occasions, she's not even in the same place as the man she's supposed to have slept with. So it's ludicrous. They're not trying. It wouldn't come to a court of law today. It's based on nothing more than gossip and hearsay, twisted into this case of adultery and treason. Anne is too clever for that.

She is not a woman lacking in self-control. She's kept the king at bay for seven years. She's not going to throw away her queenship on a thoughtless affair. No, that would be ridiculously stupid. Can I ask, like, was there ever any option for Henry to just divorce her, annul the marriage, ask her quietly to just, you know, sod off? Because what happens? Because the accusation of like, oh, you're cheating with everyone and your brother,

and you all throw a witch and you all this, it's, it's, seems so extreme and it seems like a personal vengeance. Do you think he went in there with the idea of like, I'm going to kill her? Like, I want this woman dead. Or did that snowball? Yeah, the big imponderable here is how much was Henry pulling the strings? How much was it Thomas Cromwell? Because in theory, yes, he could have had the marriage annulled. You know, the irony is he did. But he waited until he'd had her convicted for treason. And then, you know, day after, I'll have the marriage annulled, just for good measure. Why didn't he do that to start with? Well, Partly it would have sort of made a mockery of his first annulment, which, you know, he went to town in

getting rid of Catherine of Aragon and it wasn't a lawful marriage and his true wife was Anne Boleyn. And now he's saying, actually, she's not my true wife. So it would have made a bit of a mockery. But I think there's something else of play here. And I think it is Thomas Cromwell, much as I love him. He's, you know, a fantastic member of Henry's court, very clever man. And he and Anne start out as allies. effectively helps her to the throne because he spearheads the campaign for an annulment from

Catherine of Aragon. But they fall out and they fall out badly over a point of detail in religion. The dissolution, the monasteries. Cromwell wants all of the riches of the monasteries to go to the crown and wants them to go to charitable causes. Now that you might think, this is, come on, guys, you can get over this point of difference, but they can't. And it means so much to both of them. that actually Anne tells Cromwell she wants to see his head off his shoulders. And boy, does she live to regret that particular threat because Cromwell knows she's gunning for him. So I think what likely happened is Henry says to Cromwell,

come on, get me out of this marriage. And Cromwell has his own reasons to make it quite permanent. Anne Boleyn, it's not enough just to have an annulment. She's too dangerous to Cromwell. and he needs to go further than that. He needs to get her out of the picture for good. So I do think we can lay a lot of it at Cromwell's door. But let's not underplay Henry's role.

One of the most chilling things I've ever seen in all of my years as a historian is a warrant in the National Archives that Henry sent to the constable of the tower when Anne was a prisoner there, basically setting out in detail what he wanted to happen on her execution day. Oh, and this is where it'll take place. Oh, my God. The executioner will be wearing. And, oh, by the way, yeah, sword should be used.

This is not a man who is in agonies of conscience and thinking, oh, gosh, but she was my great love. And now I'm going to put her to death. It's like, no, no, it's going to happen at 9 o'clock in the morning. And, yeah, and the executioner will be dressed in black and, oh, yeah, I'll sell a few souvenirs. No, I'm overstating it now. What a twat. Well, quite, quite. So Henry was not hoodwinked into this by Cromwell.

Cromwell, I think, was carrying out Henry's will, and he did it with brutal efficiency. I get a sort of sense as well from it. The revenge is quite clearly in this, but because of everything that happened, what he had overturned, given up, and his dumping of his wife was so unpopular and played out on a global stage

that he was never going to be able to go, oh, yeah, sorry, It didn't work out with Anne. Sorry, sorry about that. It was going to have to be something. She's had sex with everybody and she's a witch and it's awful and she tricked me and it's like saving face as well. I think it was totally that. And also if he'd had his marriage to Anne annulled, then of course, all of those who had opposed the first annulment would say, oh, great then. So we're Roman Catholic again and he couldn't ring back Catherine because she was dead by then. But, you know, they'd have seen that as a reversal of all of. of these religious changes, seismic changes that had happened during Anne's ascendancy. So, no,

it had to be something more permanent than that. Very, very sadly, for Anne, because she was, as I said, just this exceptional woman actually way ahead of her time. And I do wonder if that's part of the reason that she is today by far the most popular of the six wives, because she's so relatable. She's not just going to put up with this male-dominated society and never expressing an opinion. She is a force to be reckoned with and you've really got to admire for that, I think. So she's accused of everything under the sun.

Now, once in a while I do encounter or read or speak to a historian who's being very brave and sort of suggests that there might have been some truth. Wow. In these allegations, just want to know. Okay, that's not me. That's not you. Yeah, I genuinely don't think so.

I think she was one of the world's greatest flirts. And I think her daughter Elizabeth learned for them. Of course, her daughter Elizabeth was a fantastic flirt as well. Loved the male attention. I think Anne was kind of a man's woman, really. She loved to be surrounded by men. She was quite cruel to some of her ladies, and she was very cruel to Catherine O'Araghan and her daughter, Mary.

She's not an adulterist. It just doesn't stack up. She's a clever woman. As I said, she has self-control. And also, she's too smart. The evidence doesn't stack up. I mean, it's all very salacious. When you look at the trial papers, which by the way, are in this leather bag from the time. And it's called the bag of secrets. I love that. That's what it was referred to at the time, the bag of secrets in the National Archives. And that's where Anderlans trial papers are. And it's salacious. It talks about how she entombed. her brother by putting her tongue in his mouth and he put his in hers and all the rest of it. And then to make matters worse and kind of laughs at what Henry's wearing. She pokes fun at the King's fashion sense. You know, that's just another nail in the coffin because, of course, a man as vain as Henry would hate that detail.

And it's also said that she talked about the King's lack of puissance. So, you know, hints that he was impotent. So they really went to town. But of course, Henry, he agreed to all of this, but it must have taken something because this doesn't do his image very much good at all. Because, yeah, he's coming across as a kind of cookhold and he's been cheated on and his wife saying that he's got crap dress sense and that he can't get it up. And it's not sounding good for Henry. So he must have really wanted to get rid of Anne to go through this slightly humiliating thing. And it's a complete show trial.

And Anne must have known that as it was going on, that this is just a full gone conclusion. But we'll finish this off by talking about how she died. Because you're just trying to imagine yourself in this situation of knowing everything they're saying is nonsense. It's politically motivated. And then you're going to cut your head off now that you're going to have to do that. It's horrendous. But tell me about her final day. Yeah.

I mean, poor Anne, because she was so brink. brave, really. I mean, she was, she kind of veered between calm acceptance and just hysteria. And when she became particularly hysterical is that her execution originally was set for the 18th of May. So imagine, okay, you know you're going to die the next day. And then that day dawns and goodness knows how you're preparing yourself, but you are prepared as Anne was. And then they postpone it. And that's when she loses it. That's when she's just, she can't cope. It's like she says, I thought, I thought I would be past my pain by now. You know, please just do it.

Do it if you're going to do it. And exactly. And it's delayed. But I think as well, on the morning of her execution, I think Anne has this fragile but very real hope that the whole thing is just Henry teaching her a lesson and he's going to call it off at the 11th hour. You would, wouldn't you? Yeah, because she'd agreed to this annulment.

after, as I say, she'd been found guilty, why the hell did she do that? I mean, what she got to lose? Why didn't she tell Henry to stick it? But she agrees to it. And I think she agreed to it because I think Henry said, I'll spare you life.

If you have the unmarriage and old, I'm going to commute your sentence to a nunnery. You'll just be banished to a nunnery. And when Anne was led to her execution, with every step she took the onlookers notice that she kept looking over her shoulder, you know, looking through the crowd, where's the messenger? Where's the royal pardon?

And so she thinks, yeah, she thinks that's what's going to happen and that she's going to be pardoned, which is just horrendous to imagine. See, I would explain as well why the fact she gave this very dignified speech, which says very nice things about the king. Because if that was me, and if my husband had done that to me, and I was about to have my head cut off, I would stand up and go, he was a shit shagg, I hated him. He nutted after three strokes and cried.

He's a horrible horrible. But she doesn't. She stands up and she goes, he's a good man and pray for him. I know, exactly. And you think that might be because she thought that it was going to be like, oh, we've let you off now. It's partly that I think as well. That was mostly about her daughter Elizabeth.

And you find this with scaffold speeches that people don't tend to criticize the monarch when they're about to die because they're thinking of those they're leaving behind. And Anne is desperate to protect Elizabeth. and she's very conscious. Elizabeth now is technically illegitimate. The marriage has been annulled. Her daughter is a bastard. So she's doing what she can for Elizabeth. It's not going to help Elizabeth if she antagonises Henry even more. So I think this dignified speech, but what I love is this cryptic line that

she adds because she says, if any person shall meddle of my cause, I require them to judge the best. So in other words, if anybody looks into what happened here in future, I hope they'll come to the right conclusion as to whether justice was truly served. And yeah, her daughter definitely did that and kind of rehabilitated her mother and her reputation. So it was dignified. It was courageous. And mercifully, it was brief because Henry, generous soul, had sent for this swordsman from Calais because a sword was much more reliable as a tool for beheading than an axe,

which, you know, it could take several blows, whereas in one very swift swing of the sword, Anne was decapitated. And didn't he send for that swordsman before the trial? Yeah, you've quite rightly said, you know, the trial, foregone conclusion, come on. Anne knew it, everybody knew it. And, yeah, so did the Cali Executioner, because we've worked out. how long it would have taken to get to Calais. And it can't have been after the trial.

He wouldn't have made it in time. Because the trial happens on the 15th, and's executed four days later. There wasn't time to send to Calais to get, you know, the turnaround, no, wouldn't have worked. So it had to have been before the trial. So, yeah, Henry has moved on already. He's betrothed to wife number three the very next day.

And that's it. He's compartmentalised, as I think he always did. And Anne Boleyn is no more. Now it's all about Jane Seymour. So final question, speaking of meddling into Anne's case, she's got, as we started saying right at the beginning of the episode, this reputation and a lot of her life is myth and fantasy. But as somebody that studied her and has got as close to her as pretty much anybody can do, what do you think that she would want us to know? about her that pushes past all the myth and mythology. She wouldn't want to be remembered, would she, as someone that got her head cut off? That would be awful. What do you think she'd want to be remembered for? And you know, I think the last thing she'd want to be remembered for, apart from her downfall, was her relationship with Henry the 8th.

Because actually, I don't think that was the most important thing to her. And I think she'd want to be remembered as she later was in the reign of her daughter Elizabeth. She was called the mother of the Reformation. And I think that was her lasting legacy. And they recognised it. And I think it's only sort of over the centuries. That's been overshadowed by the drama of her marriage to Henry VIII. But I think as well, she would want to be remembered as the mother of the longest reigning, most successful Tudor monarch.

And that was her greatest triumph. Absolutely. Oh, mic drop. Tracy, you have been incredible to talk to again. And if people want to know more about you and your work, where can they find you? Oh, thank you so much. It's always such a pleasure chatting with you

and it goes in a flash. So I have a website with all of my books and events and stuff like that and it's tracybormon.com. UK and I'm on social media, you know, at Tracy Borman. Usual thing. So you can find me in the usual places. Thank you so much for coming on again. Oh, thank you. It was a pleasure.

That was a great chap. Thank you for listening. Thank you so much to Tracy. joining me. And if you like what you heard, please don't forget to like, review and follow along, whatever it is that you get your podcasts. If you'd like us to explore a subject, or if you just wanted to say hello, then you can give us an email at betwixt at history hit.com. And if you are a fan of all things Tudor, then why not check out our sister podcast on History Hit, not just the Tudors? That's all they do. Their Tudor crackers over there. We have got episodes on everything

from the history of beds to the real Cleopatra, all marching your way. This podcast was edited and produced by Stuart Beckwith, the senior producer was Charlotte Long. Join me again, betwixt the sheets, the history of sex scandal in society, a podcast by History Hit. This podcast contains music from Epidemic Sound.