Anne Boleyn (1501 - 1536) was a queen consort of England, second wife of Henry VIII and mother of Queen Elizabeth I. She was a leading figure in the breakdown of the Roman Catholic Church that led to the English reform and the birth of the Church anglican.
She came to the English court as one of the ladies of Queen Catherine of Aragon in 1522. Years later King Henry VIII took a special interest in Anne Boleyn, although at first she rejected the offer to become the monarch's mistress..
In order to be with Anne, Henry VIII tried to get Pope Clement VII to annul his marriage to Catherine, but that request did not obtain a satisfactory answer for the King of England..
In 1533 Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn were married and this led to the excommunication of the king and the Archbishop of Canterbury. In response, the Church of England separated from Rome and put the monarch at the head of its hierarchy..
The couple produced a daughter named Elizabeth, but Henry VIII hoped that from his union with Boleyn a male heir would be born. After several miscarriages it became clear that Ana would not be able to give the king a child..
Henry VIII became interested in another woman and in 1536 ordered an investigation against Boleyn for treason. The charges against the king's wife were adultery, incest, and conspiracy to commit regicide. Ana Bolena was convicted of the charges against her and her sentence, to be beheaded, was carried out that same year..
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Anne Boleyn (Boleyn) was born between 1501 and 1507 in Blickling, Norfolk. The exact date of his birth is not recorded in the parish records, so it cannot be specified. She was the daughter of Thomas Boleyn, Earl of Wiltshire and Ormond, with Elizabeth Howard (daughter of the Duke of Norfolk).
Anne Boleyn's early years were spent at Hever Castle in Kent. He had two siblings, an older named Mary and a younger boy named George..
Thomas Boleyn was a diplomat and had been a favorite of King Henry VII. She also won the sympathy of other European aristocrats, such as Margaret of Austria, who had been appointed governor of the Netherlands..
Ana Bolena was sent in 1513 to the city of Mechelen, located in present-day Belgium, to be educated within the court of Margaret of Austria. The following year the girl traveled to France, where she joined the bridesmaids of Maria Tudor, who was engaged to King Louis XII..
At that time, Bolena learned to speak French and other subjects such as art, literature, music, and poetry. She was described as an intelligent, pleasant and elegant girl, although she was not particularly beautiful..
Thomas Boleyn ordered his daughter's return in 1521 and she left France in January 1522. Anne Boleyn's father intended to marry her to James Butler, an aristocrat who was related to the girl and lived at the court of Henry VIII..
The union of Butler and Boleyn was intended to end a dispute over Ormond County titles, but the marriage did not materialize. Mary Boleyn, Anne's older sister, married one of King Henry VIII's favorites in 1520 and has since become a lover of the monarch.
For her part, Ana Bolena drew the attention of many suitors when she arrived at the English court. One of his most prominent admirers of that time was Henry Percy, son of the Earl of Northumberland, to whom he became engaged..
When the Earl of Northumberland learned of his son's affair, he strongly objected and had him marry Mary Talbot, to whom his family had made a marriage offer years before. Also at that time, Ana Bolena was withdrawn from court and went to her family home.
The exact date of Ana Bolena's return to court as one of Catherine of Aragon's bridesmaids is not known. However, it is believed that around 1526 was when the King of England, Henry Tudor, began to take a romantic interest in Boleyn..
At that time the monarch was the lover of Mary, Ana's sister and other women of his court. It is thought that Boleyn initially rejected Henry VIII's advances and did not want to consent to an extramarital affair.
It is at this time that Henry VIII began to consider the request for the annulment of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon, with whom he had been married since 1509..
Although the real reason why the English king wanted to end his union with Catherine was that they had not had a son, they began to look for other excuses to achieve it. One of the reasons given was that Catherine's first marriage with Arturo Tudor was consummated..
That could not be confirmed, but despite that Henry VIII requested the nullity of his link with Catherine before Pope Clement VII and the request was rejected. Despite this, in 1531 Catherine was expelled from the court of the English king and Anne Boleyn took her place in it..
In 1532 several laws were passed that reaffirmed the superiority of King Henry VIII over the Pope and Rome. Among them was the so-called Clergy Submission, by which the Catholic Church in England renounced the power to formulate ecclesiastical laws without the approval of the king..
That is why the chancellor who had served Henry VIII until that moment, Thomas More, decided to resign from his position and was replaced by Thomas Cromwell, who was a supporter of the independence of the English Church..
Ana Bolena received a noble title in September 1532, since it was not acceptable that a future queen did not belong to the aristocracy. He was granted the Hereditary Marquisate of Pembroke, one of the highest ranks of the English nobility.
Other members of Anne Boleyn's family also received titles and financial favors from Henry VIII, even before their wedding. In addition, she began to act as a diplomatic host and achieved a rapprochement with France..
Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn are thought to have been secretly married in November 1532; then they held a second formal ceremony on January 25, 1533. In May the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer, declared void the English monarch's first marriage to Catherine of Aragon..
On June 1, 1533, Anne Boleyn was crowned Queen Consort at Westminster Abbey. By that time her pregnancy was already evident and in September Elizabeth Tudor was born, who years later became the first English queen..
Later, Pope Clement VII declared the union of Enrique Tudor and Ana Bolena invalid and excommunicated him, in addition to ordering him to return with Catherine, whom he designated as his legitimate wife.
The religious and political officials of England had to take an oath in which they recognized that the authority of Henry VIII was above that of the Roman Church. Those who did not were arrested and some sentenced to death.
In 1534 Henry VIII was declared leader of the Church of England and thus was formally separated from Roman Catholicism..
Ana Bolena's first pregnancy produced a girl. Disappointment at having a daughter was evident in King Henry VIII, especially as Boleyn gave him high hopes that he would have a son..
The position of little Elizabeth was not firm, because the clamor to the throne of Mary, the eldest daughter of Henry VIII, seemed more solid. Despite this, when the marriage between Catherine and the English king was annulled, Mary was stripped of her noble titles.
For her part, Isabel was sent to Hatfield House, a property of the English crown that was far from the city, so it was considered a healthier environment for the development of the princess.
At the end of 1534 Anne Boleyn had an abortion or gave birth to a stillborn child and at that time she began to distance herself from her husband. However, her conflict with the king was soon resolved and the following year she was pregnant once more..
Boleyn was considered an arrogant woman within the court after her promotion to queen. She aroused all kinds of resentments, since she tried to be part of the political actions, something that was not well seen by those around her.
Catherine of Aragon died on January 7, 1536, which represented a relief for both Ana Bolena and Henry VIII, who from that moment felt comforted and freer than the shadow of his union with the daughter of the hispanic kings.
Henry VIII began to get involved with Jane Seymour, one of his consort's bridesmaids. On the day the English king's first wife was buried, Boleyn had a miscarriage; it is thought that the creature was about three months old and was going to be a male.
That same year Henry VIII took the opportunity to declare that Ana Bolena had resorted to spells to deceive him until he managed to get him to marry her. Then he expelled her from the royal rooms, with what could be considered that their relationship was over.
Her place in the palace and in the heart of the English monarch was taken by Jane Seymour.
One of the ways that the king and his associates found to get rid of Ana Bolena was to accuse her of adultery and incest. Several members of the court were arrested, including a musician who confessed (probably under torture) that he had been Boleyn's lover.
The most terrible of the accusations against Ana was that of having committed incest twice with her brother, George, who was also arrested. Boleyn was taken prisoner to the Tower of London.
His trial was held on May 15, 1536, and he was charged with adultery, incest, and high treason. She was found unanimously guilty by a jury of peers of the nobility and two days later her marriage to Henry VIII was declared void..
Among those present inside the courthouse was her former fiancé Henry Percy, who had already received the title of Earl of Northumberland..
Ana Bolena was executed on May 19, 1536, she was granted a private death for her rank within the nobility, so she was beheaded inside the Green Tower. His mortal remains were buried in an unnamed grave.
Those accused of incest, including Anne Boleyn's brother, were executed on May 17, 1536. The penalty that the former English consort had received had been to be burned at the stake, but Henry VIII commuted it to beheading..
Before being executed, Ana Bolena received communion and before those present she swore that she had not been unfaithful to the king at any time. She also addressed those present and wished Henry VIII a long reign, of whom she said had been good to her during her lifetime..
Shortly after the death of Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII married Jane Seymour. Prince Edward was born from that marriage in October 1537, but the third wife of the King of England died days after giving birth to the only legitimate male heir to the crown..
The daughter of Anne Boleyn ascended to the English throne in November 1558 under the name of Elizabeth I, she was the last queen of the Tudor dynasty. Before Elizabeth I, Edward VI and Mary I reigned, but none of Henry VIII's three children had descendants.
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