Beheaded

Anne of Boleyn was Henry VIII's second wife.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hey listeners, before today's episode, I wanted to let you
know about a brand new podcast called Strange Arrivals that's
produced by Aaron Manky and the entire team at I
Heart Radio. Strange Arrivals is a ten part mini series
about the occurrence that happened when Betty and Barney Hill
were driving through the White Mountains of New Hampshire when
they were faced with a flash of light in the

(00:23):
sky and said they were abducted by aliens. Host Toby
Ball will examine the Hills story and ask the question
what really happened that night in New Hampshire. So keep
listening after today's episode for an amazing trailer about the series,
and listen to Strange Arrivals on the I Heart Radio app,
Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to

(00:47):
Noble Blood, a production of I Heart Radio and Grimm
and Mild from Aaron Minky. Listener discretion is advised, they
say at after decapitation, the human brain can remain conscious
for several seconds, maybe even up to a minute, even

(01:08):
without fresh blood being pumped up from the heart. The
brain still has oxygen and neurons firing rapidly in confusion
her pain. They say that when Anne Boleyn's head fell
from her body into the straw waiting below, her dark,
intelligent eyes still flickered and blinked, and that her white

(01:28):
lips pressed together and apart, as if she was trying
to say one last thing. It seems fitting that even
in death, Anne would try to continue to speak. It
was her silver tongue that had initially charmed the king,
back when Anne was just a lady in waiting. No
one ever described her as the most beautiful girl at court,

(01:50):
although she was striking with her dark hair and her
milky skin so pale it was almost translucent. No, it
was her wit and her intelligence, her innate ability to
know exactly how to flirt without seeming like she was
trying to flirt. Anne engaged with poets and philosophers, and
debated issues of politics and religion. Henry had loved that

(02:13):
about Anne back when he was pursuing her, that she
had challenged and teased him, but he found those qualities
far less compelling in a wife. Henry the Eighth did
Anne one kindness in her beheading. He had brought in
the hangman of Calais, known for his skill and accuracy
with the sword to do her decapitation, to liberate her

(02:35):
head from her neck in one smooth motion, instead of
the typical englishman with an axe, who was known to
sometimes take two or even three swings to get the
job done. The five men accused of being Anne's lovers
had been executed by Englishmen back when Henry was in
love with Anne. He disposed of his loyal wife twenty

(02:58):
four years and come completely overthrew the foundation of religion
in England along the way. It was all for the
promise of being with Anne, and for the promise of
the son that she would bear him. When that son
didn't come, obsession soured in Henry into something corrosive and hateful.

(03:20):
It would cost Anne her life. She had played the
game well enough, masterfully really, to become a queen, but
in the end there was nothing she could do to
save her own life. I'm danishchwartz and this is noble blood.

(03:43):
When Anne Boleyn found out that Henry's first wife, Catherine
of Arragon, died, Anne exhaled with a mixture of relief
and pleasure. As head of the Church of England, Henry
had officially declared himself divorced from Catherine, and he had
married Anne. But Catherine still was calling herself the Queen
of England. And as much as Anne hated to admit it,

(04:05):
the people had loved Catherine. They hissed a Anne in
the streets, called her Henry's goggalied whore. But now that
Catherine was dead, there was to be no more confusion.
There was one Queen of England, one wife of Henry
the eighth, Anne Boleyn. Anne had entranced Henry when she

(04:26):
returned from a childhood in the French court, instantly astonishing
the English with her wit and daring French fashion and
her allegedly dazzling repertoire of sexual foreplay. When Anne arrived
all glamor and fresh promise, Henry the eighth was facing
the massive issue of his wife, Katherine. After two decades

(04:48):
of marriage and half a dozen miscarriages, Catherine was entering menopause,
having only given Henry a single daughter. The Tutor dynasty
started only by Henr His father needed sons if it
were to continue to survive. Without a clear line of succession,
England could once again be plunged into a miserable civil war.

(05:11):
But what were Henry's options. His Spanish wife was powerful
and connected. Her nephew was the Holy Roman Emperor who
had the Vatican under his thumb. But if everything was
supposed to work out with Catherine, if everything was so perfect,
then why hadn't God given them a son? That was
the nagging voice in the back of Henry's head. After all,

(05:33):
Catherine had been married to Henry's older brother, Arthur First
for six months, until Arthur died of the sweating sickness.
Didn't the Bible forbid marrying your brother's wife. Catherine had
sworn that the marriage had never been consummated, and the
Vatican offered special dispensation. But what if she had been lying?

(05:54):
What if that was the reason that God was cursing
Henry with a lack of sons? And then Anne appeared, flirting,
making Henry feel away that he couldn't remember feeling for
a long time. He was still in his thirties, vital.
With a new wife, he could have a dozen sons.
Although he begged Anne, she refused to be his royal mistress,

(06:17):
refused to even sleep with him unless they were married.
Unless you divorce Katherine and marry me, Anne said, Catherine
of Arragon was banished to a remote palace and told
she was no longer Queen. Henry declared himself head of
the Church of England. While the nation protested and hurled

(06:38):
insults Anne, Henry married her in a secret ceremony. Within months,
she was pregnant. All of Henry's advisers, all of the doctors,
and the soothsayers said that this would be the son
he was waiting for, the boy that would show that
God was pleased with him and that he made the
right choice. When the doctor nervously announced that Queen Anne

(07:04):
had given birth to a healthy baby girl, Henry couldn't
hide his disdain or his anger. But Anne loved her daughter,
the little girl they named Elizabeth. Anne played with her
dangling fingers over her bassinet, cooing at her beautiful daughter
with golden curls. Anne knew that there was still time

(07:25):
for her to have a son, still time for her
to secure her position, even if Henry's eye had already
begun to wander while Anne was on bedrest for her pregnancy,
while Catherine of Arragon had diplomatically turned a blind eye
to Henry's philandering, Anne became furious. She was jealous and

(07:46):
hot headed, with a biting tongue that never demurred from
a fight. But also, Catherine had been born and raised
a princess. Anne had once been a commoner. She had
been a lady in waiting who caught Henry's eye and
usurped a queen, and so she was perfectly aware that
the exact same thing could happen to her. Nothing protected

(08:07):
her except the possibility of a son. Anne got pregnant again,
and the court instantly began celebrating. When she miscarried just
three months later, it was so embarrassing that it wasn't
publicly announced, just a shameful whisper that circulated amongst the court,

(08:29):
starting with the woman who had changed Anne's bedsheets. Henry
and Anne both believed what everyone believed back in the
fifteen hundreds, that a miscarriage was a failure on the
part of the woman, a sign of God's ultimate displeasure.
The next miscarriage, too, was another tightly kept secret, and

(08:49):
the third was so well hidden that it's impossible to
trace when it actually occurred. By the time Catherine of
Arragon finally died, Anne was well aware that she was
carrying what could very well be her final hope. Anne
and Henry had been married for three years, but already
he had stopped coming to her bedroom. He ignored her

(09:11):
when he could, spending most of his time doating on
one of Anne's own ladies, Jane Seymour. Plain, obedient, soft spoken,
Jane Seymour, the exact opposite of Anne in every conceivable way.
Henry newly besott it gave Jane Seymour a locket containing
his portrait. Jane made the mistake of wearing it and

(09:34):
flicking it open and shut like a schoolgirl in love.
When Anne entered the room and saw the necklace, she
ripped it off Jane's neck with so much force that
Anne's fingers bled. The country already hated Anne, and she
had made powerful enemies in court. By pulling Henry away
from Catherine and away from the Catholic Church, Anne had

(09:57):
very few cards left to play. The old thing keeping
her in power was the child in her belly and
Henry's love for her, and that seemed to be diminishing
every day. Neither Henry nor Anne attended Catherine of Argan's funeral,
where she was laid to rest, not with the title
of former Queen but of dowager princess. That exact day,

(10:21):
miles away, Anne Boleyn miscarried a baby boy. Reports at
the time say that the cold, still tiny boy was
perfect and beautiful. Years later people would write that it
was misshapen, that it had physical deformities, evidence of its
mother committing some truly awful sin, adultery, incest, or witchcraft.

(10:47):
But at the time there didn't need to be any
further proof. The sun that could have saved her life
was dead, and Anne Boleyn's fate was sealed. A man's
behavior became panicked and erratic. The man who had once
been so wildly in love with her he overthrew the
entire religious foundation of a nation, was now writing love

(11:10):
letters to another woman. Henry had stopped coming to her bed.
She was the queen, but she was also becoming increasingly
aware of what a precarious position that was. When her
king was Henry the Eighth, Anne engaged one of the
king's close friends, Sir Henry Norris, one afternoon to ask

(11:31):
him why he was still unmarried. An flirtation was normal
expected even if a queen. A queen was meant to
be beloved by all the knightly men of a kingdom
to inspire love and loyalty in them. But when Sir
Henry Norris demered, Anne continued pressing closer to him in
the hallway than might have been prudent. I think, Anne, per,

(11:55):
that you're waiting to marry a rich widow, you look
for dead men's shoe. Is that so, Sir Henry Norris replied,
smiling just a little bit. Anne looked into his eyes.
I think if something were to happen to the king,
you would look to marry me. Sir Henry Norris's smile disappeared.

(12:16):
To even think such a thing would cost me my head?
He said. Anne had crossed the line from courtly flirtation
to outrighte treason. It was a good thing. Anne thought,
as she returned to her chamber that night, that no
one had heard them. Another night, one of Anne Boleyn's
ladies in waiting, Lady Wooster, spent a banquet drinking slightly

(12:39):
too much wine and dancing slightly too close to one
or two eligible men. The next day, Lady Wooster's brother
confronted her and told her that she needed to stop
her behavior before her reputation was ruined. Lady Wooster just laughed.
If you think I'm bad, she said, I'm nothing compared
to the Queen. Anne has men her bed chamber late

(13:01):
at night all the time, including a certain Mark Smeaton.
Smeaton was a court musician, and Lady Wooster wasn't the
only one who noticed that Anne seemed to particularly enjoy
his company. Within days of the conversation between Lady Wooster
and her brother, Mark Smeaton was taken in for questioning

(13:21):
by the King's Chief Minister, Thomas Cromwell. We don't know
what happened behind closed doors, whether Smeaton was tortured or coerced.
He might have even been telling the truth. It's impossible
to know, but Mark Smeaton confessed to Thomas Cromwell that
he had slept with Queen Anne Boleyn on three separate occasions.

(13:44):
Anne Boleyn was arrested while she was watching a tennis
match and brought to a dim room where she was
interrogated by three men on charges of adultery and treason.
They asked her about Mark Smeaton. Anne was completely baffled
and indignant. She denied ever sleeping with anyone except her husband,
the King. They asked about the conversation she had had

(14:08):
with Sir Henry Norris. This time Anne sputtered a little,
but still her point was clear. She hadn't sinned against
the King. The three men interrogating her were stony faced
and cruel, completely unmoved. Her lovers had already confessed, they
told her. Anne was escorted back to her chamber. She

(14:32):
and her ladies sat down to a silent dinner. None
of Anne's ladies made eye contact with her. The few
servants standing nearby barely managed to conceal her tears. That
very afternoon, Anne was brought to the Tower of London.
She was given no time to pack clothes or any

(14:52):
personal belongings, and though she begged to say goodbye to
her daughter Elizabeth, the guards pretended not to hear her.
Most criminals were brought to the tower in the middle
of the night. Anne was brought by barge down the
River Thames in broad daylight, with crowds gawking at her

(15:13):
and shouting as she went by. Anne begged to see
the king. If she could see Henry face to face,
if she could just talk to him, she could charm
him like she had before. She could remind him of
his love for her. He must have some tiny ounce
of affection for her left in his heart. Anne didn't
know that she and Henry would never lay eyes on

(15:35):
each other ever again. At five p m. She arrived
at the Tower of London, dazed and terrified. Am I
to be put in the dungeons? She said? The guards
shook his head. Anne was to be brought to the
Royal Apartments, the very same rooms that she had stayed
in the night before her coronation. The rooms had been

(15:57):
unused since. Hearing the Anne flung herself onto the cobblestones.
It is too good for me, she sobbed A cannon
on the tower wharf thundered. It was the sound that
rang when a person of nobility was brought to be
imprisoned in the fortress. It echoed through the city, causing

(16:17):
excitement and speculation. King Henry, deep inside the palace, didn't
hear it. He wouldn't make another public appearance until after
Anne was dead and buried. The man in charge of
Anne's custody while she was in the Tower of London
was a former knight named Sir William Kingston. Kingston was

(16:40):
tall and in his youth had been a strong and
triumphant jouster, even facing off against the king. He had
been devoted to Queen Catherine throughout his long career, but
even so during Anne's imprisonment he would only ever treat
her with courtesy and kindness. All of Anne's servants have
been dismissed replay eased by five new ladies, all spies

(17:03):
who were tasked with asking Anne about her alleged lovers
and her treasonous conversations, and then reporting back her answers
to Thomas Cromwell. But Anne never said anything incriminating. Instead,
her spies just reported that her mood shifted wildly from
wretching sobs to ecstatic laughter. Sometimes Anne would just burst

(17:24):
out laughing and say that history would remember her as
Anne the Headless. My innocence will save me, won't it.
I am innocent, and so the law will save me.
Anne thought maybe Henry was just testing her. He loved her,
didn't he. Even if he had tired of her, he
probably wouldn't kill her. Anne was accused of adultery with

(17:46):
five men, including her own brother, even though all of
the men, with the exception of Mark Smeaton, had proclaimed
their innocence the number was a calculated move on the
part of Thomas Cromwell and the King. One man could
be a mistake, but Anne being accused of intimacy with
five men the accusation alone cemented her guilt. When Anne

(18:10):
was called to her tribunal to stand before the jury
of twenty six men and listened to the allegations against her,
she didn't dress like she was walking to her death sentence. Instead,
Anne wore a black velvet gown and a red petticoat,
as if she were dressed to be awarded a medal
at some noble ceremony. She wasn't allowed to bring any

(18:31):
witnesses or have any legal counsel. All Anne could do
was continued to proclaim her innocence, to offer the best
defense she could, speaking with the eloquence and the intelligence
that Henry had once fallen in love with. Never before
in English history had a queen been sentenced to death.

(18:55):
Henry was just trying to scare her and thought, trying
to soothe herself to stave off the panic, maybe she
would just be banished. The Duke of Norfolk had tears
in his eyes when he read out the sentence. Anne
was his niece, his own sister's child. Some might have
thought that he was crying in grief or pity. Really,

(19:16):
though it was more likely he was crying for his
own lost honor and status. He read aloud, for offending
our Sovereign, the King, in committing treason against his person,
Anne Boleyn is sentenced to be burned within the Tower
of London on the Green, or else to have her
head cut off. Anne's expression didn't change when they read

(19:40):
her sentence. She lifted her eyes at the sky, but
she didn't cry. She maintained her innocence. I am ready
to greet death, she said. Finally, I am just sorry
for the others who are innocent and the King's loyal subjects,
that they should share my fate and die because of me.
Kingston escorted Anne back to her chambers, and Anne asked

(20:04):
to see a priest so that she could confess. The
Archbishop of Canterbury arrived to take Anne's final confession. Anne
was already sentenced to death. There was nothing she could
lose in confessing her sins now, and Anne knew that
if she told a lie in confession, she would be
damning her soul to eternal torment. She confessed to jealousy,

(20:27):
but nothing else. The archbishop asked if she was sure
she was done. Anne lowered her head. God knows that
I have not sinned against him in any other way.
Anne watched from her window as all five men, including
her own brother, were beheaded on the Tower Green. There
were whispers that Henry had put her in those rooms

(20:48):
specifically so that she could see those deaths. Anne's own
death was still aways away. They were specifically constructing a
new scaffolding for her so more OWDs could gather and
see their fallen queen end in a rush of blood.
Anne turned away from the constructions she could see from
the window. I wish all this was over, that the

(21:11):
pain would just be finished already, she said to Kingston.
Kingston softly replied that he believed that when the end
finally came, there would be no pain, and when that
day finally came, Kingston helped Anne up the wooden steps
to the stage on the Green, accompanied by four ladies.

(21:33):
The ladies helped Anne to undress her neck, taking off
her head dress and the small white fur cloak she
wore a symbol of royalty. They gathered Anne's hair in
a linen cap so it wouldn't get in the way
of a sword. Anne whispered to her ladies and asked
them to pray for her. Unlike in an axe beheading,

(21:54):
a decapitation by sword required the victim to kneel very tall,
a right on both knees. Anne took the position with
as much grace as she could, but there was still
fear in her eyes and knew she had to keep
very still if the death was to be quick, But
she kept looking around, terrified for the moment when the

(22:15):
man with the sword would make his attack. Madam, do
not fear, the swordsman said, I will wait until you
are ready. Anne said a few words before her death
to the crowd below the nearly two thousand Englishmen who
had gathered for the spectacle. She accepted death, reasserted her

(22:36):
innocence once more, and asked for the good people to
pray for Henry and those who were sending her to death.
While Anne was looking away, the swordsman pulled his blade
from a pile of straw, where it had been hidden
so Anne wouldn't see. He wore no shoes so that
his step would be silent, so that when he came

(22:59):
up behind Anne, she wouldn't hear him, and then in
one stroke, her head was gone, fallen in a bloody mass,
into the pile of straw and sawdust. Waiting to welcome it.
One of Anne's ladies threw a white handkerchief over the head,
and the crowd watched as it slowly dappled with red blood.

(23:23):
The Queen of England was dead. Eleven days later, Henry
the Eighth married Anne's lady in waiting, Jane Seymour. That's
the story of Anne Boleyn's death, but stick around after
a brief sponsor break to hear a little bit about

(23:44):
Anne's afterlife. Anne Boleyn is one of the most famous
and enigmatic figures in Alish history, and she's also one
of England's most ubiquitous ghosts. According to a Victorian legend,

(24:07):
on certain nights, if you're on the road towards Blickling
Hall in Norfolk, where Anne was born, you might see
a carriage passed by. If you happen to look inside,
you'll see Anne bathed in a red glow and wearing
a pure white dress, holding her head gently in her lap.

(24:28):
The moment that the carriage arrives at the front of
the house, it vanishes into Miss Anne can arrive at
her destination, but she can't stay. Alison Weir has written
extensively about Anne Boleyn and the myths and rumors surrounding
her death, and so I defer to her expertise on
the subject of Anne's ghosts, on which she writes as

(24:52):
a historian. I make no further comment on the veracity
of these stories or the existence of ghosts. Noble Blood
is a production of I Heart Radio and Grimm and
Mild from Aaron Monkey. The show was written and hosted
by Danis Schwartz and produced by Aaron Mankey, Matt Frederick,

(25:15):
Alex Williams, and Trevor Young. Noble Blood is on social
media at Noble Blood Tales, and you can learn more
about the show over at Noble Blood Tales dot com.
For more podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit the I
Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows. On September, Betty and Barney Hill cut

(25:45):
their vacation short and decided to drive home. They were
having difficulty finding their way around the city, and Barney
decided he just wanted to drive home, knowing that they
would arrive at their home on New Hampshire Sea Coast
at about two o'clock in the morning. What they saw
that night in the New Hampshire sky would change everything.
I began walking across the highway, looking up at the

(26:08):
object with the binoculars, putting them down, taking my head, saying, well,
this yet can't be true. I don't believe it. A
light in the sky. At first, she thought of a
falling star, but she realized that following stars don't fall upwards,
and that's what this one was doing. Two years later,
the Hills would undergo hypnosis. How a boy did you
regress that? Before? I started telling I just look back

(26:30):
to the starting point of Montreal. A sinister story would emerge.
He walk he's trying to start the car walked back.
I think, well, I can't get away for this. I
guess if I get the card or of like a
brother than wits and hide that became known the world over.

(26:51):
Doctor Simon gave me a post amatic suggestion. He said,
if I wanted to, I could sketch the star map,
but if I didn't want to, I didn't have to.
So about two weeks later, I sketched. Their account has
been scrutinized. Under the influence of hypnosis, especially if you're
highly hypnotize herbal you are even more susceptible to contamination

(27:13):
and distortion by scientists, skeptics, theorists, and believers. He wound
up building a total of more than twenty three dimensional
models and was able to find one and only one
pattern that matched what Betty had drawn. What happened on
that night journey in. Were the Hills confused about what

(27:36):
they saw? Or did they have an encounter with beings
not of this world? From My Heart Radio and Aaron
Manky's Grimm and Mild, this is Strange Arrivals. Listen to
Strange Arrivals March thirty one on the I Heart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.