Much is known about Anne, but there are also vital gaps. Her date of birth was not recorded, and even the date and place of her marriage to the King were kept secret. The best-documented period of her life is the last seventeen days of it, which were spent in the Tower of London, when her courageous bearing at her trial and execution were in stark contrast to her hysterical fits on her arrest, and a world away from the days when she held sway over the court with such hauteur as the King’s mistress.
