, second wife of king Henry VIII. was born in 1507. She was daughter
, second wife of king
Henry VIII. was born in 1507. She was daughter of sir
Thomas Bolen, afterwards earl of Wiltshire and Ormonde,
by Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Howard, duke of Norfolk. When she was but seven years of age, she was carried
over to France with the king’s sister Mary, who was married to Lewis XII. And though, upon the B'rench king’s
death, the queen dowager returned to England, yet Anne
Bolen was so highly esteemed at the court of France, that
Claude, the wife of Francis I. retained her in her service
for some years; and after her death in 1524, the duchess
of Alenzon, the king’s sister, kept her in her court during
her stay in that kingdom. It is probable, that she returned
from thence with her father, from his embassy in 1527; and
was soon preferred to the place of maid of honour to the
queen. She continued without the least imputation upon
her character, till her unfortunate fall gave occasion to
some malicious writers to defame her in all the parts of it.
Upon her coming to the English court, the lord Percy,
eldest son of the earl of Northumberland, being then a
domestic of cardinal Wolsey, made his addressee to her,
and proceeded so far, as to engage himself to marry her;
and her consent shews, that she had then no aspirings to
the crown. But the cardinal, upon some private reasons,
using threats and other methods, with great difficulty put
an end to that nobleman’s design. It was prohably about
1528, that the king began to shew some favour to her,
which caused many to believe, that the whole process with
regard to his divorce from queen Catherine was moved by
the unseen springs of that secret passion. But it is not reasonable to imagine, that the engagement of the king’s affec
tion to any other person gave the rise to that affair; for so
sagacious a courtier as Wolsey would have infallibly discovered it, and not have projected a marriage with the
French king’s sister, as he did not long before, if he had
seen his master prepossessed. The supposition is much
more reasonable, that his majesty, conceiving himself in a
manner discharged of his former marriage, gave a full
liberty to his affections, which began to settle upon Mrs.
Bolen; who, in September 1532, was created marchioness
of Pembroke, in order that she might be raised by degrees
to the height for which she was designed; and on the 25th
of January following was married to the king, the office
being performed by; Rowland Lee, afterwards bishop of
Coventry and Lichfield, with great privacy, though in the
presence of her uncle the duke of Norfolk, her father,
mother, and brother. On the 1st of June, 1533, she was
crowned queen of England with such pomp and solemnity,
as was answerable to the magnificence of his majesty’s
temper; and every one admired her conduct, who had so
long managed the spirit of a king so violent, as neither to
surfeit him with too much fondness, nor to provoke with too
much reserve. Her being so soon with child gave hopes of
a numerous issue; and those, who loved the reformation,
entertained the greatest hopes from her protection, as they
knew she favoured them. On the 13th or 14th of September following, she brought forth a daughter, christened
Elizabeth, afterwards the renowned queen of England,
Cranmer, archbishop of Canterb ry, being her god-father.
But the year 1536 proved fatal to her majesty; and her
ruin was in all probability occasioned by those who began
to be distinguished by the name of the Romish party. For
the king now proceeding both at home and abroad in the
point of reformation, they found that the interest which
the queen had in him was the grand support of that cause.
She had risen, not only in his esteem, but likewise in that
of the nation in general; for in the last nine months of
her life, she gave above fourteen thousand pounds to the
poor, and was engaged in several noble and public designs.
But these virtues could not secure her against the artifices
of a bigoted party, which received an additional force
from several other circumstances, that contributed to her
destruction. Soon after queen Catharine’s death in Jan.
1535-6, she was brought to bed of a dead son, which was
believed to have made a bad impression on the king’s mind;
and as he had concluded from the death of his sons by
his former queen, that the marriage was displeasing to
God, so he might upon this misfortune begin to have the
same opinion of his marriage with queen Anne. It was
also considered by some courtiers, that now queen Catharine was dead, his majesty might marry another wife, and
be fully reconciled with the pope and the emperor, and
the issue by any other marriage would never be questioned;
whereas, while queen Anne lived, the ground of the controversy still remained, and her marriage being accounted
null from the beginning, would never be allowed by the
court of Rome, or any of that party. With these reasons
of state the king’s own passions too much concurred; for
he now entertained a secret love for the lady Jane Seymour, who had all the charms of youth and beauty, and
an humour tempered between the gravity of queen Catharine, and the gaiety of queen Anne. Her majesty therefore perceiving the alienation of the king’s heart, used all
possible arts to recover that affection, the decay of which
she was sensible of; but the success was quite contrary to
what she designed. For he saw her no more with those
eyes which she had formerly captivated; but gave way to
jealousy, and ascribed her caresses to some other criminal
passion, of which he began to suspect her. Her chearful
temper indeed was not always limited within the bounds of
exact decency and discretion; and her brother the lord
Rochford’s wife, a woman of no virtue, being jealous of
her husband and her, possessed the king with her own apprehensions. Henry Norris, groom of the stole, William
Brereton, and sir Francis W'eston, who were of the king’s
privy chamber, and Mark Smeton, a musician, were by
the queen’s enemies thought too officious about her; and
something was pretended to have been sworn by the lady
Wingfield at her death, which determined the king; but
the particulars are not known. It is reported likewise,
that when the king held a tournament at Greenwich on the
1st of May, 1536, he was displeased at the queen for
letting her handkerchief fall to one, who was supposed a
favourite, and who wiped his face with it. Whatever the
case was, the king returned suddenly from Greenwich to
Whitehall, and immediately ordered her to be confined to
her chamber, and her brother, with the four persons abovementioned, to be committed to the Tower, and herself to
be sent after them the day following. On the river some
privy counsellors came to examine her, but she made deep
protestations of her innocence; and as she landed at the
Tower, she fell down on her knees, and prayed Heaven
so to assist her, as she was free from the crimes laid to
her charge.“The confusion she was in soon raised a storm
of vapours within her; sometimes she laughejj, and at
other times wept excessively. She was also devout and
light by turns; one while she stood upon her vindication,
and at other times confessed some indiscretions, which
upon recollection she denied. All about her took advantage from any word, that fell from her, and sent it immediately to court. The duke of Norfolk and others, who
came to examine her, the better to make discoveries, told
her, that Morris and Smeton had accused her; which,
though false, had this effect on her, that it induced her to
own some slight acts of indiscretion, which, though no ways
essential, totally alienated the king from her. Yet whether even these small acknowledgments were real truths,
or the effects of imagination and hysterical emotions, is
very uncertain. On the 12th of May, Morris, Brereton,
Weston, and Smeton, were tried in Westminster-hall.
Smeton is said by Dr. Burnet to have confessed the fact;
but the lord Herbert’s silence in this matter imports him to
have been of a different opinion; to which may be added,
that Cromwell’s letter to the king takes notice, that only
some circumstances were confessed by Smeton. However,
they were all four found guilty, and executed on the 17th
of May. On the 15th of which month, the queen, and her
brother the lord Rochford, were tried by their peers in
the Tower, and condemned to die. Yet all this did not
satisfy the enraged king, who resolved likewise to illegitimate his daughter Elizabeth; and, in order to that, to annul his marriage with the queen, upon pretence of a precontract between her and the lord Percy, now earl of Northumberland, who solemnly denied it; though the queen
was prevailed upon to acknowledge, that there were some
just and lawful impediments against her marriage with the
king; and upon this a sentence of divorce was pronounced
by the archbishop, and afterwards confirmed in the convocation and parliament. On the 19th of May, she was
brought to a scaffold within the Tower, where she was
prevailed upon, out of regard to her daughter, to make no
reflections on the hardships she had sustained, nor to say
any thing touching the grounds on which sentence passed
against her; only she desired, that
” all would judge the
best." Her head being severed from her body, they were
both put into an ordinary chest, and buried in the chapel
in the Tower.