Charlie Fenton’s Reviews > Anne Boleyn: Adultery, Heresy, Desire > Status Update

‘intercourse with a consenting queen was not an act of treason, and the term used during the men’s trials was that of violation, not rape. The only legal aspect to the case was that Henry’s life was in danger, as a result of their reputed plotting against him. Bernard has also entertained the possibility of Anne’s guilt, her weakening under duress, but majority of scholarship, and evidence, stands against this’

‘29 January, Catherine of Aragon was laid to rest in Peterborough Cathedral... Later that same day, Anne lost the child she was carrying, at around fifteen weeks, which had the appearance of being male... Court speculation suggested it was ‘owing to her own incapacity to bear children’ or due to ‘fear that the King would treat her like the late queen’, especially in the light of his recent interest in Jane Seymour.’

‘Whatever the truth of Anne’s pregnancy, by September 1534, she had no second child and Henry’s attention had strayed. Coming just sixteen months after her glorious coronation, it must have seemed that the wheel of fortune had turned decisively against her.’

‘By Christmas, Anne was already pregnant, and with Henry so keen to ensure their child would be legitimate, he showered his new wife with the visual signifiers of rank. It was accompanied by the declaration Catherine was no longer to be referred to as queen, but instead to be called dowager princess, her title from her marriage to Arthur, and she was to be treated accordingly.’

‘She became ‘fiercer than a lioness’, and dared to take a shot at her remaining enemy, saying that she ‘wished all the Spaniards were at the bottom of the sea’ and would rather see Catherine ‘hanged than have to confess that she was her queen and mistress’. Anne was in her ascendancy and did not see her own areas of vulnerability. With Wolsey it was class. With Anne, it would be gender.’

‘Verbal agreements were considered binding by the church and gave sufficient licence to allow the couple to indulge in various acts of foreplay, or ‘bundling’. It is very unlikely that Henry and Anne slept together this early, as they would have wanted to be certain of the legitimacy of any child she may conceive, but it is not impossible... it seems more likely that they indulged in limited intimate acts’

‘Louthe, and other writers including George Wyatt, present Anne as being the catalyst for the Reformation, reading her possession of this book, her influence over Henry and her approval of his break from Rome as significant. However, Anne’s actual degree of religious influence, and that of her faction, is difficult to determine.‘

‘In places, the letters read like the record of a developing love affair, in others, the gradual wearing down of a woman’s resistance. Henry loved the idea of being in love and, for the time being, he was content to place Anne on a pedestal in anticipation of her future surrender. Together, the seventeen letters make a compelling case for coercion.‘

‘Anne was in her mid-twenties. She had already seen two potential husbands disappear, and had been wooed by a married man who could not promise her a respectable future. In 1525-6, she was in no position to anticipate that Henry could offer her the ultimate prize of becoming his wife and while his attentions were flattering, he was ultimately attempting to talk her into his bed, as he had done her sister.’

‘The romance progressed through the end of 1522, into 1523. It was probably that spring or early summer that the pair (Henry Percy and Anne) reached an understanding that they would like to be married. Anne would have been aware that it was not the match her father had intended for her, and it did nothing to settle the Irish question, but it was at least an equal match in terms of status.’