A Biographical Dictionary of the Celebrated Women of Every Age and Country/Boleyn, (Anne)
She had been carried over to France by the king's sister, when espoused to Lewis XII. of France; and the graces of her mind, no less than the beauties of her person, had distinguished her even in that polished court. The time at which she returned to England is not certainly known; but it appears to have been after the king had entertained doubts concerning the lawfulness of his marriage. She became maid of honour to Catherine, and immediately caught the roving eye of Henry: but, as her virtue and modesty left him no other hope, he resolved to raise her to the throne, which her accomplishments, both natural and acquired, seemed equally fitted to adorn.
But many bars were yet in his way, particularly the divorce from Catherine, and a revocation of the bull which had been granted for his marriage with her, before he could marry Anne. The pope, however, empowered Campeggio and Wolsey, his two legates in England, to try the validity of the former union; but just when Henry, who was only more violently bent on his object for the difficulties in his way, was anxiously expecting a sentence in his favour, Campeggio prorogued the court, and the pope, at the intercession of the emperor, nephew to Catherine, revoked the cause to Rome. This finesse occasioned the fall of Wolsey, to whom both the king and Anne Boleyn imputed the failure of their expectations.
Amidst the anxieties which agitated Henry, he was often tempted to break off all connexion with Rome; and Ann Boleyn used every insinuation, in order to make him proceed to extremities with the pope, both as the readiest and surest means of her exaltation to the royal dignity, and of spreading the new doctrines, in which she had been initiated under the duchess of Alençon, a warm friend to the reformation. But Henry had been educated in a superstitious veneration for the holy see, abhorred all alliance with the Lutherans, and dreaded the reproach of heresy.
While he was thus fluctuating between contrary opinions. Dr. Thomas Cranmer, a man distinguished for his learning and candour, in a casual discourse with two of his courtiers, observed, that the best way either to quiet the king's conscience or obtain the pope's consent, would be to consult all the universities in Europe, with regard to that controverted point. Henry was delighted with this proposal. Cranmer was immediately sent for and taken into favour; the universities were consulted, according to his advice; and all of them declared the king's marriage invalid.
Wolsey's death, who had been some time disgraced, freed the king from a person whom he considered as an obstacle in the way of his inclinations, and supported by the opinion of the learned in the step he intended to take, Henry resolved to administer ecclesiastical affairs without having farther recourse to Rome, and abide all consequences; he privately celebrated his marriage with Anne, 1532, whom he had previously created Marchioness of Pembroke.
Cranmer, now become archbishop of Canterbury, annulled soon after the king's marriage with Catherine, (a step which ought to have preceded his second nuptials) and ratified that of Anne, who was publickly crowned queen, on Easter eve, 1533, with all the pomp and dignity suited to such a ceremony. To complete the satisfaction of Henry, on the conclusion of this troublesome business, the queen was safely delivered of a daughter, who received the name of Elizabeth, and afterwards swayed the British sceptre.
The reformation seemed fast gaining ground in the kingdom, though the king was still its declared enemy; when its promoters, Cranmer, Latimer, and others, met with a severe mortification, which seemed to blast all their hopes, in the untimely fate of their patroness Anne Boleyn.
This lady now began to experience the decay of the king's affections, and the capriciousness of his temper. That heart which she had withdrawn from another, revolted against herself. Henry's passion, which subsisted in full force, during the six years that the prosecution for the divorce lasted, and seemed only to increase under difficulties, had scarcely attained possession of its object, than he sunk into languor, succeeded by disgust. His love was suddenly transferred to a new mistress; but, as he could not marry Jane Seymour without getting rid of his once beloved Anne, she became the bar to his felicity.
That obstacle, however, was soon removed. The heart is not more ingenious in suggesting apologies for its deviations, than courtiers for gratifying the inclinations of their prince. The queen's enemies, immediately sensible of the alienation of the king's affections, accomplished her ruin by flattering his new passion. They represented that freedom of manner which Anne had acquired in France as improper levity: they indirectly accused her of a criminal dissoluteness of life, and extolled the virtues of Jane Seymour. Henry believed all, because he wished to be convinced. The queen was committed te the Tower; impeached; brought to trial; condemned without evidence, and executed without remorse. History affords no reason to call her innocence in question; and the king, by marrying her known rival the day after her execution, made the motives of his conduct sufficiently evident, and left the world in little doubt of the iniquity of her sentence.
If farther arguments should be thought necessary, in support of the innocence of the unfortunate Anne Boleyn, her serenity, and even cheerfulness, while under confinement and sentence of death, ought to have its weight, as it is perhaps unexampled, and could not well be the associate of guilt. "Never prince," says she, in a letter to Henry, "had wife more loyal in all duty, and in all true affection, than you have ever found in Anne Boleyn; with which name and place I could willingly have contented myself, if God and your grace had been so pleased; neither did I at any time, so forget myself in my exaltation, or received queenship, but that I always looked for such an alteration as I now find; for the ground of my preferment being no surer foundation than your grace's fancy, the least alteration, I knew, was fit and sufficient to draw that fancy to some other object."
In another letter, she says; "you have raised me from a private gentlewoman to a marchioness; from a marchioness to a queen; and since you can exalt me no higher in this world, you are resolved to send me to heaven, that I may become a saint!" This gaiety continued to the last. The morning of her execution, conversing with the lieutenant of the Tower on what she was going to suffer, he endeavoured to comfort her by the shortness of its duration. "The executioner, indeed," replied she, "I am told, is very expert; and I have but a slender neck," grasping it with her hand, and smiling. The queen's brothers, and three gentlemen of the bed-chamber, also fell victims to the king's suspicions, or rather were sacrificed to hallow his nuptials with Jane Seymour.