For the Love of Anne

Most of us know that Anne Boleyn was the second wife of King Henry VIII and the mother of Queen Elizabeth I. We know that he disrupted the religion of the country, broke away from Rome, because the Pope would not give him a divorce from Katherine of Aragon. 

We also know that she lost her head on trumped up charges of adultery, treason and incest. The treason one is actually true, as she was overheard talking about the death of the King, an act of treason in the sixteenth century.

She was being flippant at the time; she was flirting with Sir Henry Norris, telling him that "you look for dead man's shoes, for if ought were to come to the King but good, you would think to have me". It was a stupid, thoughtless thing to say, and straight away she was begging him not to tell anyone. But it was too late; she had been overheard and her words condemned both her and Norris, who had been one of Henry's lifelong friends.

It was just another excuse to condemn Anne, as the King had grown tired of her, she had failed to give him a son and he wanted to marry Jane Seymour.

Those thoughtless words to Norris make Anne sound like a very self-absorbed and conceited female, and perhaps she was. After all, she had tempted a King to change the religion of the country for her.

But I tend to think that flirting in medieval times was nothing like flirting today. She has often been portrayed as a scheming woman, determined to bring down Katherine and become Queen herself.

I do not believe that. We know very little about her, but I think she was a girl given to flirting, who was in love with Henry Percy, the heir to the Earldom of Northumberland. And he loved her. They got engaged, secretly, even though he already had a marriage arranged for him by his father to Mary Talbot.

But when they asked permission of the King, he noticed Anne and decided he wanted her for himself.

After only three years of marriage, and no living son, he viciously allowed Thomas Cromwell to invent charges of adultery, incest and treason. The following day he went and got himself betrothed to Jane Seymour and he spent the night before the execution poring over plans for the scaffold.

I wonder what was his real reason for sending for a swordsman from France to cut off the head of his Queen. Was it an act of mercy? Or was it a slice of guilt stabbing into that well known conscience?

When writing For the Love of Anne I have stuck to the facts as they are known in this novel, but little or nothing is known about the feelings of Percy and Anne, about how he lived with Mary Talbot after he was forced to leave Anne and marry her.

This is my interpretation, my opinion. If there is one thing I dislike it is when historians give their opinion as fact. Henry Percy was forced to be on the jury at Anne's trial and when the verdict of guilty was pronounced, he fainted and had to be carried outside. 

That tells me that he still had more than a soft spot for Anne.

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