Good Afternoon To You, My Lady,

Queen Anne was born in either 1500 or 1501 at Blickling Hall in Norfolk, or Hever Castle in Kent, as the third of four children and the second daughter of Sir Thomas Boleyn, who was later created the 1st Earl of Wiltshire and Earl of Ormonde, and his wife, Lady Elizabeth Howard, who was the daughter of Thomas Howard, the 2nd Duke of Norfolk. Sir Thomas Boleyn was the son of Sir William Boleyn and his wife, Margaret Butler, who was the daughter of Thomas, the Earl of Ormonde, (who was descended from Edward I).

King Henry VIII married Anne Boleyn on January 25, 1533, in the King's Private Chapel, in Whitehall Palace, by either Doctor Rowland Lee, a Chaplain, or Doctor George Brown, Prior of the Austin Friars of London. (Dr. Brown later became the Archbishop of Dublin). Their marriage was declared valid on May 28, 1533.

Anne was crowned Queen on Whit Sunday, June 01, 1533. Qneen Anne adopted as her motto: "Happiest of Women", and had it embroidered on all of her personal clothing and apartment walls.
Queen Anne was six months pregnant with their first child when she was crowned Queen.

The first child born to the couple was a girl, styled Princess Elizabeth (who would late become Queen Elizabeth I). This child was born on September 07, 1533, at about 3:00 P. M., at Greenwich Palace. The baby Princess was christened on September 10, 1533, with Archbishop Cranmer playing the role of godfather, and the matriarch of the Howard family, Agnes, Dowager Duchess of Norfolk (who was Queen Anne's step-grandmother) being Princess Elizabeth's godmother. At Princess Elizabeth's confirmation, which immediaely followed the baptism, Gertrude Marchioness of Exeter, stood as godmother.

Another pregnancy came, and a stillborn child was born in July, of 1534. A following pregnancy resulted in a baby, born dead, or who died shortly after birth (this is not clear), in June, 1535. Queen Anne had a baby boy, which was stillborn on January 29, 1536, at Greenwich Palace.

Queen Anne had indulged in light-hearted flirtations both before and after her marriage, but there is no real evidence of the charges brought against her of adultey with Henry Norris and an incestuous relationship with her own brother, Viscount Rochford.

On May 01, 1536, Queen Anne presided over the jousts at Greenwich; the next day, on May 02, she was arrested and taken to the Tower. She and Viscount Rochford were tried on May 15, and inevitably found guilty and condemned to death. Two days later, as if this was not enough, an ecclesiastical, convened at Lambeth under Cranmer, declared Anne's marriage to Henry to have been null and void, ab initio on account of the infinity created between them by his former relationship with her sister Mary. (King Henry had had quite a passionate relationship with her sister, Mary, prior to his relationship and subsequent marriage to Anne).

Queen Anne faced death bravely,even finding the courage to say of Henry that "a gentler nor a more merciful prince was there never; to me he was ever a good, a gentle and sovereign Lord". She was beheaded on Tower Green by a headsman brought from Calais, who used a sword rather than an axe. Her body was unceremoniously bundled into an oak chest and vuried in the Chapel of St. Peter-ad-Vincula in the Tower, where it remains.

(Courtesy of "The Wives of Henry VIII", by Antonia Fraser, Published by Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1992, Pages 199,200, 202).

(Courtesy of The Six Wives of Henry VIII", by Alison Weir, Published by Grove Weidenfeld, New York, 1991, Pages 143, 144).

(Courtesy of "Debrett's Kings and Queens of Britain", by David Williamson, Published by Salem House Publishers, Tiopsfield, Massachusetts, 1986, Pages 107, 131, and 132.)