Historical Discoveries Show How Henry VIII Meticulously Planned Anne Boleyn’s Death
Wikimedia CommonsExperts long believed that King Henry VIII’s advisers planned the gory details of Anne Boleyn’s death, but uncovered documents say otherwise..
On May 19, 1536, King Henry VIII’s second wife Anne Boleyn was beheaded. The queen had been charged with witchcraft, incest, adultery, and treason — charges that Henry VIII likely falsified. The punishment was death. Despite the king’s refusal to pardon her, she praised him as a “gentle and sovereign lord.”
In October 2020, a historical discovery about Boleyn’s death stunned experts. This piece of history news claimed that Henry VIII had been intimately involved in planning his wife’s execution. The scale of his participation had been detailed in a 16th-century warrants book, all along.
Describing criminal records and punishments, the log showed that it was Henry VIII — rather than his controversial adviser Thomas Cromwell — who decided how and when the queen should die. Burning at the stake or beheading by an ax was the standard punishment. The king called for a sword.
“As a previously unknown document about one of the most famous events in history, it really is gold dust, one of the most exciting finds in recent years,” said Tudor historian Tracy Borman about the historical news. “What it shows is Henry’s premeditated, calculating manner. He knows exactly how and where he wants it to happen.”
The passage in question, overlooked for centuries, clarified that while the queen had been “adjudged to death…by burning of fire…or decapitation,” that the king had been “moved to pity” to spare her the more painful death of being “burned by fire.” He still instructed for “the head of the same Anne” to be “cut off.”
The careful instructions were handed to Sir William Kingston, who served as constable of the Tower — where Boleyn had been incarcerated on May 2, 1536, for adultery. Kingston was directly in charge of the captives and their impending executions.
Wikimedia CommonsA depiction of Queen Anne Boleyn’s beheading.
Ultimately, historians like Borman believe Boleyn’s only actual “crime” was not birthing her husband a son. As modern knowledge of reproduction has suggested, it was the king himself who seemed incapable of accomplishing as much. It took him six wives to yield one legitimate male heir, Edward VI, who died in his teens.
Furthermore, researchers have posited that Henry VIII instigated Boleyn’s legal proceedings himself. The trumped-up charges were merely a way to get rid of her without embarrassing himself to the public. Others believe that it was Cromwell who conspired to convince the king to leave Boleyn for Jane Seymour.
Ultimately, though the premise was monstrous and the penalty macabre, this historical discovery suggests that King Henry VIII made an effort to have his wife beheaded with a sword — and even sent for a specialist French swordsman. This historical news helps to deepen our understanding of one of the most fascinating and tragic marriages of all time.
