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This book is dedicated to every powerful woman whose truth has ever been suppressed and censored. It is also dedicated to every person who has had a hand in that censorship. Sit down. It’s over.
Divorced, beheaded, died; divorced, beheaded, survived .
But believe me when I say that Anne being ‘one of six’ is the least interesting thing about her.
Oh, but wait, what was that you say? Anne’s father joined her in France? Oh yes, as if a strict, religious upbringing at the hands of France’s leading reformists wasn’t enough to keep Anne in check during her years abroad, then her father living with her for nearly two years as an ambassador for King Henry VIII ought to do it! Sorry, what was that? No one’s told you that before? No, of course they haven’t.
Firstly, as if Wolsey would just announce the king’s supposed top secret to his entire workforce, even if it were true.
Henry was many things, but a cautious and slow mover he was not.
While the men could hang, draw and quarter someone in the name of faith, we appear to expect our religious women to have been peacekeepers, spreading their good mission calmly and in a loving manner. Like Florence Nightingale or Mother Teresa.
Sociopaths see the object of their desire as just that: an ‘object’ they must win, not a person for whom they have developed deep emotions.
No more cherry-picking of the highlights to twist the truth to fit preconceived ideas. No more diluting history on the assumption that readers aren’t interested in the bits that don’t involve a sex scandal. We’re a smart bunch; if we can handle the politics of the twenty-first century, I dare say we can keep up with the intricacies of international and domestic diplomacy of 1529. After all, they’re not too dissimilar.
Quite. Until he decapitated her.
So, it was in the belief that he would have unwavering public support in becoming the supreme head of the new Church of England that Henry finally made peace with the break from Rome.
But Anne didn’t have time to wallow over the failure to lure Henry to evangelism. The girl from Norfolk had been crowned queen of England. She had work to do.
Anne spent her time on the throne fighting for what she believed in: championing the young and the poor, placing key evangelicals in high-profile religious roles around the country and becoming patron to a long list of reformists, even bringing them into the inner circles of the royal court to work directly with her.
This was what she fought seven years for
Good Christian people, I have not come here to preach a sermon; I have come here to die. For according to the law and by the law I am judged to die, and therefore will speak nothing against it. I am come hither to accuse no man, nor to speak of that whereof I am accused and condemned to die, but I pray God save the king and send him long to reign over you, for a gentler nor a more merciful prince was there never, and to me he was ever a good, a gentle, and sovereign lord. And if any person will meddle of my cause, I require thee to judge the best. And thus I take my leave of the world and of
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One woman had the horrific experience of having to pick up Anne’s severed head and wrap it in a cloth. The other ladies wrapped her body in a sheet, and together carried her to the chapel a few hundred yards away. There, she shared the indignity of all victims of the Tower, and was stripped of her clothing. Her body was then placed not in a coffin but an elm chest and buried next to her brother, George, where Anne could finally rest in peace after, let’s face it, one almighty fight in this formidable lifetime of hers.631
They say few mourned her, but that’s not true. Many mourned Anne Boleyn.
Take note from what you’ve just read, for history has a nasty habit of repeating itself. This is why it’s so important we know the truth about what really happened, in order to make damn sure it never happens again. History is watching you.
