HOW TO KILL A QUEEN

HOW TO KILL A QUEEN

Anne Boleyn’s fall from the king’s favour had been rapid.
Her miscarriage of a boy in January 1536, clouded her relationship with Henry, and would have been a traumatic experience to recover from.

Despite the setback, Henry VIII had continued to press for foreign recognition of his marriage to Anne.

Even in the weeks before her arrest, Henry was still pestering Spanish Ambassador Eustace Chapuys to secure the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V’s acceptance of Anne’s status as queen.

For the king’s chief minister Thomas Cromwell, Henry’s preoccupation with the validity of his relationship with Anne, threatened to stall all other royal diplomatic engagements.

Perhaps this distraction created an opportunity for Anne to assert herself, but it also created the route to her demise.

Anne voiced her opposition to Cromwell’s plans for the resources grabbed by the dissolution of the monasteries.
Anne believed the resources should be used to help her people, Cromwell disagreed.

Despite Anne being Cromwell’s former ally, especially in the area of religious reform, a struggle to influence the king put these powerful personalities on a collision course.

It seems likely that Cromwell decided to undermine the king’s confidence in Anne, primarily to clear the way for his own power to remain unchallenged.

Cromwell also needed to ensure that he could outmanoeuvre and dominate whatever factions formed around the king, after Anne’s removal.

The end to Anne’s influence had to be definitive and permanent, it needed to sweep away all her friends in high places – and weaken her family and Howard in-laws.

It was unclear at that stage, whether Cromwell planned to orchestrate her death, or if he simply intended to undermine Anne’s allies and power.

Cromwell soon devised a devilish plan against the queen, that used promiscuousness, adultery and secrecy as its basis.

This was guaranteed to arouse the worst elements of Henry’s characteristics of pride, anger and suspicion.

Cromwell used all his experience of the twists of Tudor power politics, to target the informal and playful aspects of Anne’s court.

He monitored and interrogated those who were on the periphery of Anne’s circle, such as the musician Mark Smeaton, or others like Henry Norris, who were familiar with Anne, but who moved in and out of her favour.

A case of adultery and incest was assembled by Cromwell.

Anne’s brother George Boleyn, and men of the king’s chamber ~ Francis Weston, William Brereton, Norris, and Anne’s musician Mark Smeaton, became her accomplices.

Cromwell hid his machinations from Henry until 1st May 1536.
Cromwell then revealed everything to Henry at the May Day jousts at Greenwich.

This very public celebration was quickly halted, while the full picture of truth and reality was worked out under Cromwell’s guiding hand….

When Queen Anne was convicted of High Treason in May 1536, the nation was deeply shocked.

Even if public opinion was still against Anne as a suitable choice for King Henry, the sentence of death was unprecedented for a crowned queen.

Anne had been condemned to die by a court of peers under the direction of her uncle, Thomas Howard ~ Duke of Norfolk.
The very man who helped orchestrate Anne into the king’s bed!

With the queen locked in the Tower, awaiting the king’s final decision on her fate, the officers of government were ready to do whatever the kings wishes were.

Or mostly, whatever Thomas Cromwell ordered them to do……

Mark Rylance as Cromwell & Claire Foy as Anne Boleyn, in ‘Wolf Hall’