A Woman of PowerAs a woman born in 1500, Anne Boleyn should have been quiet and reserved, yet Anne was the opposite: a talkative, confident, and brilliant woman (Starkey 91) . With this captivating and aggressive personality, she managed to become queen instead of mistress and to have Henry VIII's marriage to Catherine of Aragon annulled. Henry's longing for Anne eventually led him to split England from the Catholic church. She was also jealous, short-tempered, and stubborn, which caused Henry's affection for her to slowly diminish when he would have an affair ("Anne Boleyn"). Anne Boleyn was a woman who demanded power and got it in her marriage to King Henry VIII; however, her attempt to become queen ultimately cost her dearly, and she paid with her life. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essayShe was not born into an extremely wealthy family. He was born to Sir Thomas Boleyn who became Earl of Wiltshire and Ormond and his first wife Elizabeth, daughter of the Duke of Norfolk, Sir Thomas Howard (Starkey 92; Marcham 159). His father had been part of the court since 1501, when he was 24 and served Prince Arthur; he was knighted at the coronation of the new king. It was said that he “had a talent that distinguished him from most of his English contemporaries. . . this was a talent for language and therefore, by extension, for diplomacy”, knowing French and Latin; this is where many say Anne received the gift of tongues. He had middle-class blood from his great-grandfather, Sir Geoffrey Boleyn, but after several noble marriages they were considered wealthy. His mother's side had many other noble relatives such as King Edward and a Duke of Norfolk to Richard III (Fraser 116-118). With these connections Anna was able to join the royal courts (March 159). She was born around the end of May or the beginning of June of the year 1500-1501, but no concrete records were taken then, so it is just a perceived guess regarding the dates that were taken in her life. He was most likely born in Blickling in Norfolk, where he spent most of his childhood (Fraser 115). During her adolescence she was sent to the courts of the Netherlands and France to learn to be a young, noble and respectable woman. (Starkey 92). In those days girls could only enter royal courts if they were blood relatives of the wealthy or if they had a noble relative such as her great-grandfather, Thomas Butler, 7th Earl of Ormonde and veteran of the Wars of the Roses who later became queen. Catherine's First Lord Chamberlain in 1509 (Fraser 117). Because of this lineage, he could join the royal courts. In 1513 she was sent to the court of Archduchess Margaret, regent of the Netherlands, where from the age of 12 or 13 she was taught to become a "fille d'honneur" and to learn French and to become refined by "one of the courts most sophisticated in Northern Europe” (Fraser 119; Starkey 92). She liked all the latest French fashions with “cut, embroidered and jewel-encrusted” dresses that remained fashionable at the French court (Ruby 29). Mademoiselle Bullan" and Archduchess Margaret wrote to her father that "I find her so presentable and so pleasant, considering her young age, that I am more obliged to you for sending her to me, than to you for sending her." Me . . . ” (Fraser 119-120) In 1514, however, she was sent back to help Henry's sister on her journey to become the next queen of France (Starkey, 92). " by Henry (Starkey 92). In the fall of that year she returned to France to join the royal court of King Claudius with his new queen, Mary. With this position she managed to secure aplaced at court with Claude thanks to his “linguistic talent. . . attractive personality and charming manner” (Fraser 120). It is not sure exactly whether she remained in France for the next six or seven years to become almost exactly like a French woman or whether she traveled back in 1519 with her father and remained there until 1522 due to the outbreak of a war in France (Fraser 121 ; Starkey 92). She returned to England as "a woman of honest reputation" and with the manners of a French woman (Fraser 121). Soon her father tried to find her a husband and found one in James, Lord Butler. There was a dispute over the Butler-Ormonde inheritance which was caused when the old Lord Ormonde died in 1515 and left his inheritance confused. The two families decided that if the two got married, the situation would be equal for both parties. Her father, Sir Thomas, wasn't exactly thrilled with the marriage because it didn't add name or wealth to the family. In September 1520 King Henry agreed to the marriage, but the marriage soon collapsed, perhaps because Sir Thomas thought he could secure all the inheritance without marriage, which would further the family's wealth. During this time Anne was the maid of honor at Queen Catherine's court, first appearing on March 1, 1522 (Fraser 121-122, 124). Another of Anne's suitors was Henry, Lord Percy who was the heir to "great estates and ancient names" and was one of the most eligible bachelors in England at the time. Soon one of his father's men. Cardinal Wolsey, put an end to this romance from the moment they met in the courts. Percy tried to fight for their relationship, but in 1524 he married Lady Mary Talbot against her will, for her family name (Fraser 124-125). When Anne separated from Percy, her character changed to become "cold, calculating and determined to a certain extent". she gained vivacity and her appearance improved and she focused on her career (Chapman 40). She was later said to have had a brief relationship with Sir Thomas Wyatt where they knew each other as children. Ultimately nothing came of it because Wyatt went abroad in 1526 and had previously married (Fraser 127). Her true love story began in 1526 with King Henry while he was at Queen Catherine's court. At the time he was thirty-five and she was twenty-five or twenty-six, with an age difference of about a decade. Their first meeting occurred during the Carnival of 1526 and they immediately felt a connection. Much of their relationship was kept private because Henry was still married to Catherine of Aragon, making it a secret affair. During the affair Henry wrote seventeen love letters to Anne, nine of them in French because they both had a passion for it and most nobles couldn't read them. These letters showed how strongly he felt for Anne at first and what he was willing to do to be alone with her, divorcing Catherine. According to biographer Antonia Fraser, in these letters he writes to her that he reread her letters with great agony, not knowing how to understand them. He pleads with her to let him know her true intentions towards him. He is not yet sure whether it will fail "or find a place in your heart and in your affection." But if the mistress likes to give herself "body and heart to me, who will be, and has been, your most loyal servant", she promises to abandon all the others: "I will take you as my only mistress", driving away all the competitors "and they serve only you." All the letters, however, are signed slightly differently: “HR, H Rex, Henry R, ​​Henry Rex, H seeks AB no other Rex, and A changeable H Rex.” All these different signatures could be possible to keep the relationship secret (Fraser 128-130). In May 1527 Henry decided to divorce his current wife, Catherine. Actuallyshe wanted their marriage annulled so that it would be declared that the marriage of Henry and her had never existed since their marriage in 1509. Catherine would lose everything, including her title and status, making her once again the widow of Henry's brother , Arthur, the Dowager Princess of Wales (Fraser 133). The cancellation took longer than expected, six years in total; this was due to the laws of the time. Henry appeared before many “papal” officials and tried to have Pope Lem VII marry him and Anne, but he refused. He then attempted to go through parliament to reduce Lem's powers, but the pope stood firm in what he believed (Marcham 159). During this time when Henry was looking for someone to allow him and Anne to get married, it was an unfavorable time in the story. It was during the English Protestant Reformation. His divorce request might have gone differently at a different time, because kings had obtained divorce decrees many times before, but Lem simply did not allow it (Fraser 134). During this time Catherine, Henry's first wife, was completely against leaving her throne. because for her "she considered herself the true and legitimate wife of the King, her husband". It wasn't easy for her not to be jealous of a much younger woman and the threat she had to her throne and her husband's heart (Fraser 150). Good news came in September 1528 when the first named Wolsey was appointed to the “secret decretal commission” of Henry’s marriage (Fraser 148). He secretly married Anne and Henry in 1529 in an intimate setting with Anne's mother, father, brother, two of her ladies and some members of the king's council. Henry knew that he would have to marry Anne during this time because she was pregnant and if the child was to be the next ruler, it had to be born into wedlock. The name of the place where they got married was never revealed due to secrecy, but it took place early in the morning on a January day. The clergyman who married them was Rowland Hill or George Browne, an Augustinian friar. This can be determined because both of these men received promotions soon after the secret affair (Lofts 102-103). The following year Henry and Parliament broke with the Catholic Church, and Henry became the head of the Church of England (Greaves 441). . Henry thought this was the only way to make things right with God because his first marriage had been to his brother's widower, and he thought God would bless him with a son for marrying her. Use Leviticus 20:21: “If a man marries his brother's wife, it is an act of uncleanness; he dishonored his brother. They will not have children." For Henry this is a legitimate reason to justify divorce (Fraser 135, 137). There are, however, some flaws in Henry's method. Deuteronomy 25:5-7 says: “If brothers live together and one of them dies without children, his widow must not marry outside the family. Her husband's brother will take her, marry her and fulfill the brother-in-law's duty towards her. The first son she gives birth to will bear the name of her dead brother so that his name will not be erased from Israel. But if a man does not want to marry his brother's wife, she will stand before the elders at the city gate and say: «My husband's brother refuses to carry on his brother's name in Israel. He will not fulfill his brother-in-law duty towards me.” This shows that Henry did what was right in the eyes of the Lord by taking Catherine as his wife. In support of this, Catherine believed that she had never consummated her marriage to her brother, so she was a virgin bride when Henry married her; furthermore, she was the mother of his only legitimate daughter, Mary (Fraser 138-139). It seems Henry tried to feel better about itto annulment and persuade themselves to believe that their marriage was wrong. His marriage to Catherine was officially annulled in May 1533, and Anne was made queen at "Westminster Abbey on Whit Sunday" of that June (March 159-160; Greaves 440). It was Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, who announced that Henry and Catherine's marriage was invalid. The marriage was able to take place publicly thanks to Thomas Cranmer, appointed Archbishop of Canterbury. On the day of his appointment he declared that he “had no intention of withholding any oath of obedience to the pope if it meant going against the law of the land, the will of the king and the law of God.” After taking the oath, he declared that everything he pledged to do was "subject to the protest he had made before the ceremony." This contributed to Henry's nullification because the land law could be changed by an act of parliament (Lofts 103-104). On May 29, Anne was crowned Queen of England and many people came to witness the coronation. The people in the audience were different from those present at Catherine's coronation because this time they only came to watch and not to applaud. They really didn't like Anne and thought Henry had thrown away such a good queen, so they just went for the free banquet and wine (Lofts 108-109). Henry and Anne's marriage was said to have started very well and people believed that they were very happy together (Bernard 72). Several things right from the start started making them fight and get jealous. One of these was their age and their religious beliefs; with the ten year gap between them it made it difficult for them to relate to each other. While religiously Anne was described as Protestant, Henry was a born and raised Catholic and remained so throughout his life (Fraser 143-144). However, Anne always wanted Henry to be by her side and this soon began to get on his nerves. He began having an affair in mid-1533 due to this annoyance with Anne. She claimed she was filled with jealousy and had no legitimate reason to be. He began “courting other women” and every time she confronted him about it, he would get angry (Bernardo 72-73). They had also married while Anne was pregnant to ensure that the child was legitimately capable of ruling. With all the jealousy Anne had for these other women, this played into another reason why their marriage failed: the lack of a son to become the heir to the throne. When Anne gave birth to her and Henry's daughter Elizabeth in September 1533, it only brought sadness to Henry due to his desire to have an heir to his throne (Bernard 74). Over the next two years Anna miscarried a couple of times. Soon after Elizabeth's birth, Anne told Henry that she was pregnant, but whether it was a stillbirth, miscarriage, or phantom baby was never recorded. This means that perhaps Anna invented the pregnancy to deceive Henry into still believing that there was hope of having a child (Bernardo 74-75). She miscarried again in January 1536, where rumors said the child was deformed. Nicholas Sanders describes the fetus as “a shapeless mass of flesh.” Although it is not a completely factual statement, as there are no proven documents describing miscarriage. It is however a reason why, when Anne died, Henry accused her of being a witch because this was one of the qualities found in a witch at the time. While this vision was exciting, it did not follow the lines of what witchcraft writers in that time period were saying. They believe that a witch would protect herself from what might happen to her own body (Bernardo 127-128). Another reasonso people believe that Henry and Anne were unhappy because of Henry's affairs with other women. One of his first lovers was Anne's cousin Margaret (Madge) Shelton, one of his ladies-in-waiting (Bernard 77). Anne tried to throw the girl out of court, but Henry told her he wouldn't do anything for her. She said he had given her so much that she could take it away from him and just close her eyes and "bear it as well as those better than her." He threatened to take away all her power and ended up not speaking to her for two or three days after the fight. With the help of Rochford's wife, his sister-in-law, he arranged for the girl to help Princess Mary instead (Bernard 73, 75-76). In the summer or fall of 1536, Henry began courting a young woman, Jane Seymour, who did her best to win Henry over, which is why he continued to pursue her. Henry was said to have spoken to Jane about future marriage before Anne's arrest (Bernardo 131-132). Many lords of the court did not like Anna because the king did not like her and because of her pride. They would help the king meet other women in hopes that Henry would leave Anne (Bernard 76). Although Anne tried to bring Henry the heir he was looking for, that never happened. This is what ultimately broke Henry and Anne's marriage. He believed that because he married Anne, God had punished him by not giving him a child. Henry felt that the only way to reconcile this problem was to eliminate it. On May 2, 1536, Anne began the day by watching a tennis match and when she returned to the council chamber, her uncle, the Duke of Norfolk, Sir William Fitz Williams and Sir William Paulet came and placed her under arrest and listed the charges. She responded by saying that she was the king's true wife, but was taken to the Tower of London in broad daylight. The journey lasted more than three hours and during the journey she fell to her knees to ask for forgiveness for these charges, “begging God to help her as she was not guilty of her charges”. The apartment she was taken to was the same one she had stayed in three years earlier for her coronation (Weir 136-142). The people in the apartment with her were people she knew, but didn't like and who hoped that with a little chat she would incriminate herself (Weir 142,144). This moment marked the first time a queen was arrested for adultery and imprisoned in the Tower of London. Henry also worked to annul his marriage to make Elizabeth a bastard daughter, unable to rule the throne afterward (Weir 147). The charges that had been brought against her were four counts of infidelity and one of incest with her brother (Marcham 160). Henry Norris was the first to be arrested for adultery, but he denied sleeping with Anne. Henry did not believe him because he had already made up his mind and sent Norris to the Tower of London. He was a man of integrity and was “Chief Gentleman of Henry's Privy Chambers” and was the closest person to the king (Weir 101,103-104). Another man accused of sleeping with Anne was Mark Smeaton, a musician, who confessed to sleeping with Anne on three separate occasions (Bernard 152). Another was Sir William Brereton, a member of Anne's inner circle and also a gentleman of the king's private chambers. He was in his fifties and a seducer of women, but he was married to the king's cousin, Elizabeth Somerset (Weir 106-107). Francis Weston was twenty-five years old and also a gentleman of the privy chamber and was crowned "Knight Companion of the Order of the Bath" at Anne's coronation. He was married to Anne, daughter of Christopher Pickering (Weir 105). The last was Anne's brother George Boleyn, Lord Rochford, who had appeared in court since his early teens and married Jane Parker in 1524. Rochford was accused of the worst”).