Historians rely a lot on primary source evidence to interpret the past. But what do you do when multiple sources tell a different story of what happened? Learn about the many accounts of the execution of Anne Boleyn and consider what they tell us about a major moment in English history today on Footnoting History! Hello Footnoting History friends, it’s Kristin, back again with an exciting history adventure for you … it’s time to play: Choose Your Own Adventure, History Primary Source Edition.
I’m not sure if they’re still out there, but when I was younger, they had these books where the outcome of the story was different, depending on how you read the book, what decisions you made, what page you turned to and the story was different depending on what you chose. Some of my classmates liked these books because they only read one option and for book reports, it looked like you were reading a much bigger book than you actually were,
because they only read one of the outcomes. But I read them all, and I liked these books because you got different endings. Even though in reality, I wouldn’t have, say, chosen to follow the ghostly howlings down into the basement where they were coming from – no, you get the HELL out of there, you fool – I did like knowing that I was right, though. You always get killed when you run down into the basement in a mystery/ghost story. And
I did like seeing the different outcomes play out. And these inclinations have followed me to adulthood. I never go see what’s making a scary noise in the basement and I always like thinking about different possibilities when dealing with primary sources. And the good news is, in this context, it just means more reading, so yay!
Today’s lucky subject is the execution of Anne Boleyn. If you know me or have listened to my previous episode on the Other Anne Boleyn, you know that I find this 16th century English queen absolutely fascinating, and not gonna lie, a little bit of a badass. I probably would not have liked her in person but as an historical figure, I think she’s great. I also really love considering source material and thinking about how we know what we know
about history. I’m a medievalist, so my written source material is generally sparse – if it exists at all – and very – and I mean VERY – rarely do medievalists ever get multiple accounts of a single event. It does happen – there are a few versions of the Merovingian king Clovis’ conversion in the early 500s – but you usually don’t get to do a compare-and-contrast. Like we can with Anne. Anne Boleyn is a pretty famous figure, and you’ve probably at least run across her
name before. She is a very frequent visitor in pop culture and media, and she was pretty famous in her own time too. If you’re listening to this on episode release day, which is May 18, that’s the eve of the anniversary of Anne Boleyn’s execution. I didn’t even plan it that way, it’s just the way things worked out, but I guess it was meant to be. The brief rundown is this: Anne Boleyn was born either in 1501 or 1507, most likely at
Blicking which is in Norfolk, which is in the northern part of England. I know I just gave you a lot of uncertainty there when I just said that we know a lot about her – and both those things are true. We are still just at that point in history where people didn’t always write down the details we’d like to know now, as modern people, and birthdays and places were not usually things that people thought were important to mention in writing,
in the early 16th century. You don’t start to get really good consistent data like that until at least 100s of years later. But we have a good ballpark for Anne. Her parents were Thomas and Elizabeth – and Thomas was a rich landowner and politician who would
go on to acquire titles, and Elizabeth was a Howard whose father was an earl. The family was rich, well-off and connected, and Anne went abroad to be educated in foreign courts, most famously she was in France where she learned (or honed) her wit and the sophistication that would go on to attract the attention of King Henry VIII when she returned home to the English court in 1522. Henry, of course, was married at the time to Catherine of Aragon.
And that’s a Whole Big Thing that you can read about many other places, but if you’d like a few suggestions please visit the Further Reading for this page to get you started. If you like big drama and romance and betrayal, you won’t be disappointed, let me just say that. After years-struggle with the papacy, Henry also chose his own adventure, and set Catherine aside. The marriage was formally annulled in May of 1533, but Henry had already
married Anne a few months before. Details. Also, Anne was pregnant at the time with the future Elizabeth I. Anne was influential in many ways, one of which was her impact on the course of the English Reformation – and it was far more than just being an excuse for Henry to do
what he wanted, just … for the record. But being at the mercy of the whims of Henry VIII was no safe place to be and yadda yadda yadda Anne, her brother, and a few other men found themselves accused of treason, and in Anne’s case adultery, and therefore, at the business end of the axe in 1536. Although in Anne’s case, it was a fancy sword. Which brings us back to our focus today: the accounts of that execution.
And first, let me say that there are many. People either really loved or really hated Anne and consequently there was a lot written about her both during her time and after. In order to make this a bit manageable for us today, in no particular order, I’ll give you just a few and then talk about what they kind of agree on, what they don’t, and what exists only in their version, so who knows if its accurate or not. And then we can think about where we can go from there.
First up, I give you Eustace Chapuys’ letter to Emperor Charles V, dated 19 May 1536. Eustace Chapuys was born in the Duchy of Savoy, which in the 16th century, was part of the Holy Roman Empire – today it’s part of France. He was the Imperial ambassador to England, who arrived in 1529 and who was one of Katherine of Aragon’s biggest supporters. Which makes sense since Holy Roman Emperor Charles V was Catherine’s nephew. Both Chapuys and Catherine
– and her daughter, Mary, for that matter – were Catholic. Chapuys hated Anne with a passion and calls her “the Concubine” in this letter and other places. An interesting detail that Alison Weir points out is that Chapuys was good at some languages, but he wasn’t so fluent in English and had to have a secretary translate for him when he first got to England. He got better over the years, but Weir questions how much of English idioms
he ever really got. So, if you’re thinking about his interpretation of what was actually said, it’s a thing to keep in mind. He doesn’t give you word-for-word speeches, the way other writers do, but you get a paraphrase of some things. Maybe Chapuys was there at the execution
and maybe he wasn’t. In his letter, which he does write on The Day It Happened –he even gives you a time It Happened, 9 o’clock in the morning – Chapuys says that only the Chancellor, Cromwell, and others of the [king’s] Council were present – and that “foreigners were not admitted.” Chapuys would have definitely been considered a foreigner. Anne’s execution did take place within the Tower of London walls and was not considered
“public” by the standards of the day – and not just anyone could attend. He goes on in the letter to talk about things with the qualifier “it is said” or that other people told him, so he was present at court and writing in the moment, but he wasn’t an eyewitness. It seems. I suspect that if he could have attended, he probably would have, it would have been a big moment for him. Now. It is not clear that any of these writers that I’m
going to talk about today were there, in the moment. They maybe could have been, despite the attempt to keep the execution a very small, invite-only affair, but it was a big deal and people maybe snuck in, maybe scaled the walls to see, maybe caught a glimpse through the open Tower Gate, maybe were part of the many workers who were inside the Tower at any given time, maybe there were prisoners who had a good view, there are tons of possibilities
for people outside the official guest list to have witnessed the execution, but all of these are speculation. Next up, we have a very detailed description, dated 10 June 1536. So, pretty close to the event. It was written by an anonymous Portuguese person, who again, also would have been considered a foreigner and banned from attending the execution. We have no idea who this person was or how he (or she) got their information. When I say it’s detailed, it’s super detailed.
This writer tells you how many steps there were up to the scaffold, they tell you what Anne was wearing and how many ladies accompanied her, you get a verbatim final speech to the crowd and one she gives to her ladies, the very final moments before that sword fell, and then where Anne was buried. Another source, written by John Stowe, echoes the Portuguese Anonymous letter though it is much shorter and lighter on the detail. This account was included in The Annals of
England, written in 1592. So … a bit further away than our Portuguese friend and Eustace Chapuys. Stowe is considered an “antiquarian,” which is to say he was kind of doing history as we think of it, but the methodology was definitely not as developed as it is for modern historians. 20th-century historian A. L. Rowse considers Stowe “one of the best historians of that age,” and notes that Stowe did revise his writing when he thought he’d been wrong
about something he wrote years before. Stowe was writing during the reign of Elizabeth I, Anne’s daughter, and one of Elizabeth’s favorites, Robert Dudley, the earl of Leicester suggested to Stowe that he start writing histories. So, this may have affected how he portrayed Anne in her last moments. The next account is also anonymous and … slightly confused about what day it was. The account
is dated May 16, 1536. No one had been executed yet. This writer is identified as being “Imperial,” aka from the Holy Roman Empire, like Chapuys. Whoever this dude was, they did not like Anne either. The account begins with “The said Queen (unjustly called) …” so you know what this author thinks about her. There is a short, paraphrase of a final speech and an account of Anne’s last moments and what happened with her head and body after.
The final account we’ll talk about is from a very sympathetic writer, and it’s a poem by Lancelot de Carle. De Carle, as you may have guessed, was French, and he was at the court of the future Henry II, writing poems and descriptions of coasts of arms before he went to the French embassy in London in 1536. The poem – which was addressed to
the French Dauphin – was written in London on June 2, 1536, originally in French. Anne, if you remember, spent time in the French court and was known for her chic “French” style. De Carle’s poem is … flowery (I mean, it’s a poem) and Anne is described as beautiful and her final speech is quite eloquent. The poem is pretty long. You get a lot of detail in it. So, what do all these sources agree on? Well, in 1536, before Anne Boleyn was executed by
beheading, she said some stuff. We know that it was May 19 from other sources, some of the sources I mentioned here also give that date: Chapuys, Stowe, Portuguese Anonymous, our Anonymous Imperial source said it was May 17, but I’m not going to ding him too hard for that one, since people didn’t always know precisely what day it was. So fine, it was May 19. Chapuys said it was 9 o’clock in the morning. John Stow says it was 8 o’clock.
Close enough? De Carle and the Anonymous authors don’t say what time it was. Does it matter what time it was? Maybe. So, what stuff did she say exactly? The gist is more or less the same in these accounts.
Portuguese Writer says Anne said, “Good people, I am not come here to excuse or to justify myself … but I come here to die and if in my life I did ever offend the King’s Grace, surely with my death I do now atone” and she says she doesn’t blame her judges or the king who was just the most awesome prince ever and who was always so great to
her. (Yeah, I know. But this is how these speeches often went – Dying Well was A Thing in the medieval and early modern worlds, and plus you didn’t want to piss off the executioner in that moment, or the king who could make things really difficult for your surviving family.) Anne also had some sad last words for her ladies and Portuguese Anonymous’ Anne says that her head didn’t deserve to wear a queen’s crown in life. And she did
not make any confession of her fault. John Stow has a somewhat similar version without the final farewell to the ladies: his Anne says she “humbly” submits to the law and doesn’t blame other people and says basically God knows my offenses. Oh, by the way, Henry,
you’re the most awesome king ever, big thumbs up. De Carle’s version is flowery (of course) and has Anne asking people to forgive her if she ever offended them and that she’s not going to rehash why she was up on that scaffold, but God knows everything and hopefully will be merciful. Also, by the way too, Henry, you’re so amazing and best of luck in all
your future endeavors. Chapuys … well, his version seems to veer off a bit. He says Anne raised her eyes to Heaven and cried for God and the King to grant her mercy for all her offenses before giving Henry 5 out of 5 stars, would recommend. At first read, it kind of sounds like she’s admitting what she was convicted of – and I’m going to bet that’s
what Chapuys wants you to think. Especially since he ends his short letter with a by the way, the lady who told me all this, she said that Anne confessed to her she had been unfaithful before she received her last Communion. Chapuys’ Anne strikes the reader as a lamenting, fearful – and guilty as hell – Anne – and though Portuguese Writer’s Anne says she “submit[s] to death with a good will,” he describes her in his opening paragraph as “the unhappy
Queen.” De Carle’s Anne seems kind of serene, saying that she hopes G-d “blesses [her] and in His grace takes [her] to Him and receives [her] soul today” and De Carle describes people being moved and sorry for her but impressed by her “great faith.” Stowe doesn’t seem to editorialize too much. The Anonymous Imperial Writer gives a bare-bones, paraphrased version of the speech that is similar to Chapuys’, our other Imperial
friend. However, Anonymous Imperial describes Anne as “very much exhausted and amazed” and he did not mean “amazed” in a flattering way. He says she kept looking behind her as she walked to the scaffold. His Anne also raised her eyes to the sky and cried for mercy from G-d and had only good things to say about Henry. No matter what, in every version, “Henry You’re Just the Tops” seems to be quite the theme. In terms of what Anne wore, it varies a bit. So, Anonymous Portuguese says that she wore
a dress of black damask and a white cape. In his opening setting-the-scene paragraph, Anonymous Portuguese doesn’t mention anything else, but after her speech, they say that – “with her own hands, she took of her coifs from her head,” handed it off to one of her ladies and then then put on “a little cap of linen to cover her hair.” And Portuguese Anonymous says that one of her ladies covered Anne’s eyes with a bandage.
Anonymous Imperial writes that after Anne’s speech, she was “stripped of her short mantle furred with ermines and afterwards took off her hood, which was of English make.” Then one of her ladies gave her a linen cap – and Anne covered her own hair and knelt, making sure her dress was covering her feet. Then one of the ladies covered her eyes. De Carles talks a lot about Anne’s demeanor but has only passing mention of clothes. He
says she had on a “white collar and hood” which were removed. Then she knelt. When she knelt, one of her ladies removed her linen veil and used that to cover Anne’s eyes. John Stow had no comment on what Anne wore to the scaffold – and makes no mention of her eyes being covered. Just that she knelt down, prayed and off came her head with one stroke of the sword. Lucky Anne. Chapuys seems not to have cared less what Anne wore or who
covered her eyes, if they were covered at all. He spreads an unfounded rumor – that he had to have known full well wasn’t true – that “it is said” that Anne’s head was to be put on Tower Bridge with other common criminals’, at least for a little while. That is absolutely not what happened to Anne’s head and body. Portuguese Anonymous says that Anne’s ladies covered her body and head with a sheet, put them in a chest, and she
was buried in a church within the Tower. John Stow agrees that the body with the head were buried in the choir of the chapel in the Tower,” though he doesn’t mention a sheet or who did the burying. De Carles also talks about a sheet (he calls it a shroud but I’m going to say close enough), and he tells you that it was white. His Anne was put in “a sad place of burial inside the Tower,” near to her brother George, who was executed a
few days before. Imperial Anonymous says that one of the ladies covered Anne’s head with a white cloth and the body was taken by her other ladies. Both pieces were carried to “the church nearest to the Tower of London.” Piecing this together, historians figured that the location was the Chapel of St. Peter Ad Vincula within the Tower walls – and that was in fact confirmed in 1876 when, during renovations of the chapel, the remains of
several people were found under the altar. At the time, people identified the skeletons of Anne – as well as Jane Grey and Katherine Howard. The skeleton identified as Anne’s was found near to that of George Boleyn, her brother. This is an instance where, when written sources disagree or are silent or vague on an issue, you can use physical evidence to answer some questions.
Historical sources rarely give you everything you want – the few we’ve talked about today are all unique in some way, some agree with each other, some disagree, some give you descriptions that only exist only in their version. You can do some comparing and contrasting and piecing together an event through the written accounts and the archaeology, but even when you’re lucky enough to have multiple versions of an event, as an historian, you
still need to do some sleuthing and interpreting. Only one person mentions that Anne wore black. Does that mean she did or didn’t? Outlandish or known-to-be false things are the ones that jump out at us immediately for questioning, and it’s easy to accept mundane or plausible details as true when … maybe not. People agree on other details like the cap and the sheet, but you can’t discount that these writers were basing their accounts on what
someone else said … which maybe was right and maybe wasn’t. Agreement doesn’t mean accuracy, and eyewitness testimony doesn’t mean the person got it right or was even trying to or didn’t have an agenda coloring their account. Different people can watch the same
event and come away with different interpretations of what happened. It’s important to consider all the possibilities, and when you’re lucky enough to have multiple accounts of one event, you have to stitch them together, kind of like a quilt, and then stand back and look at the big picture. All of which is both fun and frustrating and makes the work of an historian … never quite
done. What did Anne say in those last moments? How did she say it? What did she wear? Weigh the evidence, read it again and read more, and Choose Your Own Adventure, Historians, but know that there’s always more to think about. And this May 19, keep a thought for Anne. This has been Footnoting History. If you like the podcast, please visit our website, where you can find further reading suggestions related to this week’s episode as well as a calendar
of upcoming podcasts. Please remember that you can find this – and all of our episodes – captioned on Footnotinghistory.com as well as our YouTube channel. Please like and subscribe and share with your friends. If you’d like to help us keep Footnoting History open access, you can join us on Patreon or Ko-Fi, or by purchasing some Footnoting History merch. And always remember the best stories are in the footnotes.