Anne Boleyn 1501-36
English queen

The daughter of Sir Thomas Boleyn and Elizabeth Howard, daughter of the Duke of Norfolk, she was at the French court from 1519 to 1521. On her return her suitors included Henry Percy, the heir to the Earl of Northumberland, and King Henry VIII, who began to shower favours upon her father, having already had an affair with her sister. Anne did not apparently respond until negotiations for Henry's divorce from Catherine of Aragon began (1527), but, as these dragged on, their association became more open and they were secretly married in January 1533. Thomas Cranmer soon declared the marriage legal (May 1533) and Anne was crowned with great splendour in Westminster Hall on Whitsunday. Within three months Henry's passion had cooled. It was not revived by the birth (September 1533) of a princess (later Elizabeth I), still less by that of a stillborn son (1536). On May Day that year the King rode off abruptly from a tournament held at Greenwich, leaving Anne behind, and the next day she was arrested and taken to the Tower of London. A secret commission investigated charges of Anne's supposed adultery with her brother, Lord Rochford, and four others. Her uncle, Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk, presided at her trial, and pronounced her guilty of treason. She was beheaded on Tower Green on 19 May. Eleven days later Henry was married to Jane Seymour. Anne actively favoured religious reformers during the 1530s and used her political influence to advance her family and friends.

Bibliography: Marie Louise Bruce, Anne Boleyn (1972)