6 Wives of Henry VIII Series - Second Wife Traditional Cache

(Detailed introductory information about the Six Wives of Henry VIII is located in the summary information of the geocache for Katherine of Aragon, Henry VIII’s first wife.  For those with interest, it may be helpful to read the background information in that geocache description).

Shortcut Summary:  Anne Boleyn was Henry VIII’s second wife.  They were a couple for several years, but officially married only for three (3) years.  During their “courtship,” Anne made it clear that she would not be Henry’s mistress, only his wife and queen, and she was apparently able to maintain the “chaste” relationship.  Henry desperately desired Anne, and she somehow made him believe that when she was the queen, she would give him his long-awaited male heir.  Once Henry was able to finally discard his first wife Katherine of Aragon, he married Anne.  Like Katherine, Anne didn’t produce the coveted male heir; she had a baby girl and then had an estimated three (3) miscarriages. Henry was bitterly disappointed.  He and Anne fought constantly, and, after three (3) years and while he developed another love interest in one (1) of her ladies-in-waiting, he decided he had had enough of Anne and her false promises and her mouth.  Other men who were around Anne on a regular basis (her favorite musician, guards, and her brother, with whom she was always close) were brutally tortured into admitting (it is thought that most falsely admitted, especially her brother, just to stop the torture) that they had carnal relations with Anne, which was treason for both parties.  She was arrested, thrown into the Tower of London, tried, found guilty of treason, and beheaded.  Her body was dumped in a communal grave near the church at the Tower of London.  She was 35 years old, and her only child with King Henry VIII was Queen Elizabeth I, probably England’s greatest monarch.  Funny how life works out sometimes.

THE FULL STORY:  SECOND WIFE:  ANNE BOLEYN

I will be honest and say I really, REALLY don’t like Henry’s second wife and most of her role in English history at all.  Strongly encouraged by the male members of her noble family, especially her father, Thomas Boleyn, Earl of Wiltshire, who greedily used his daughters to advance his own power and fortune, Anne Boleyn very actively pursued Henry while Henry’s first wife Katherine of Aragon tried desperately to save her 25-year marriage to Henry and her daughter’s role in the royal lineage.  Anne Boleyn was eventually successful in her pursuit of Henry, and, at the same time, she produced her own death warrant.

It is written by contemporary historians of that time that Anne Boleyn was not beautiful, but she was pretty enough for a king, very intelligent, witty, flirtatious, and deliciously socially-adept in royal court settings.  It is also written that she was very ambitious, very aggressive, and she had a nasty temper that she never learned to control.  Anne’s father sent pre-teen Anne and her sister Mary to live with relatives in the courts of the Netherlands and France, to learn the ways of court sophistication outside the prying eyes of their English brethren and to learn the French feminine wiles that would endear his daughters to lots of important men.  His strategy worked brilliantly.  When his daughters came back to England as young women eligible for marriage, Mary became a mistress to Henry VIII (it is believed they had two (2) children – a boy and a girl), and the Boleyn family fortune ballooned as Henry poured lands and offices and monies into the hands of Boleyn men to reward the family for Mary’s “favors.”  Anne was actually mistaken for a French visitor when she first moved back to England – her behavior, mannerisms, fashion, and language seemed French-born.  She was pursued by very wealthy, very powerful noblemen or their sons.

Henry became interested in Anne some time after he jettisoned her sister as a mistress, and Anne learned a very important lesson from her sister’s experience with Henry.  Anne decided that she would play with, entice, and cajole Henry, but she would not be his mistress – she would not be toyed with at will behind the scenes and then dumped as a ruined woman like her sister.  She decided that she must be Henry’s wife and queen, and, until they were married, she made it very clear to the king that they would not know each other carnally in the fullest sense.

Anne was amazingly successful with her plan (maybe it was all that French training), because Henry followed after her like a faithful, if impatient and energetic, puppy for SIX (6) YEARS before their actual marriage.  He was truly beguiled by her, and she gradually and effortlessly stepped into Queen Katherine’s role at court while Henry and his advisors desperately tried to get rid of Katherine through papal annulment of their marriage and official divorce under English law.  Anne, although she was raised Roman Catholic, and Henry’s senior advisor Thomas Cromwell seemed to be strong proponents of Protestant reform at that time.  They were nominally interested in religious reform; Cromwell mostly wanted the money stockpiling in the Catholic dioceses around England for the Royal Treasury, and Anne wanted to help Henry dispose of his marriage to Katherine, and forego papal dispensation, so she and Henry could marry. Anne actually completed in-depth research into religious texts to assist Henry in justifying his annulment efforts and then with his eventual decision to sever England’s relationship with Rome.

It turned out that Henry REALLY wanted both the Catholic coffers and Anne, and he grew very weary of waiting and dealing with his first wife’s powerful advocates, so, in desperation, he created the Anglican Church of England (still England's official church), which is considered Protestant, but adopted Catholic practices in most ways, except the king or queen of England was (and is) its leader, not the pope (Henry was ex-communicated by the pope for this action, of course). Henry granted his own religious annulment of his marriage to Katherine, as head of the Anglican church, then legally divorced Katherine, and officially married and then crowned Anne with great fanfare (although there is evidence to strongly suggest that they had married secretly a few months before, and she was pregnant by the time they officially married).  But controversy did not stop at their official marriage.  Suffice it to say that Queen Anne was a very unpopular monarch and that Henry’s behavior and decisions regarding his marriage to Anne greatly divided his court, his advisors, and the people of England, although there wasn’t much anyone could do.

All the political turmoil, personal heartbreak, and (inter)national religious angst that accompanied the marriage of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn resulted in naught.  The royal couple, once married, had a very tumultuous and rancorous relationship.  When the first baby was born, it was not the oft-promised royal male heir; it was a baby girl, and Henry was highly displeased.  As it turns out, this baby girl was probably the best thing to come out of all of Henry’s marriages, because she became Queen Elizabeth I; she inherited the best traits of both her parents (and the Tudor red hair); she was the queen of England for 45 years, and during her reign, her country was mostly dominated by stability, peace, reasonable economic growth, and progressive development in the arts (can you say Shakespeare?) and education.  Capable scholars have judged Elizabeth I to be one (1) of the best, if not the best, monarch who has ruled in England.

Henry and Anne were a couple for several years, but officially married for only 3 years (1533-1536).  Those (3) short years were filled with great marital discord, exacerbated by Anne’s temper and Henry’s philandering (which was rampant with all his wives). Anne had approximately three (3) miscarriages after the first successful pregnancy, and she became truly desperate to produce a son.  She sought assistance from every source she could think of, including witchcraft (spells for successful delivery of a boy).  Anne sought comfort and companionship and surrounded herself with people she trusted, including men, especially her brother, George, with whom she was very close, and a court musician named Mark Smeaton.  Henry became more frustrated and angrier after each miscarriage.  Rumors began that Anne was unfaithful to Henry with many different men.  Some historians argue that Anne Boleyn actually never betrayed Henry in relationships with other men, and some argue that she did, if only to increase her chances of producing a healthy son by someone, anyone, as she grew to believe that she and Henry could not, and it would take another male’s sperm to produce a healthy newborn boy.

Long, long story not short, but shortened, eventually everything came to a head and blew apart.  Henry decided to believe the rumors of Anne’s indiscretions, and several men of court (including her brother, who was eventually executed) were tortured into confessing that they had carnal relations with the queen.  Anne was arrested and committed to the Tower of London for treason, incest, and adultery; she was tried and convicted by a kangaroo court of Henry’s choosing; and on May 19, 1536, she was beheaded, at age 35, on the Tower Green by a French swordsman, brought to England for this royal beheading, which Henry thought was a favor for Anne (instead of beheading a person by forcing the placement of the head upon a wooden block and chopping down with an axe, the French beheaded with a sword “swing,” by a highly accurate and swift swordsman, using a long, extremely sharp sword, applied to the neck of a person who was kneeling, but whose upper legs, torso, and head were still upright – it was deemed a more elegant beheading than chopping a head on a wooden block like a piece of firewood. Whatever).  She was buried in a communal grave on the grounds of the Tower Church, St. Peter ad Vincula, with no ceremony at all.  There is a marble plaque in the church indicating that the church grounds are her burial site, but no one is sure where her remains are actually located. (There is a legend that Anne’s body was dug up in the dark of night a few days after she was executed, transported to a Boleyn family burial site in Norfolk, and re-interred in a midnight Christian ceremony, but this claim is not accepted by historians. Stranger things have happened, though).

Two (2) days after the execution of Anne Boleyn, Henry married his third wife, Jane Seymour.  She is called the love of his life.  But that’s a story for another geocache.

Anne Boleyn’s cache is located near an area that could be considered organized trash, which reflects how I feel about her.  But I upgraded a wee bit, because Anne was the biological mother of Elizabeth I.  Otherwise, you’d be looking for a geocache at Granger Meadows, close by the landfill.