Choose Your Own Adventure: The Many Accounts of the Execution of Anne Boleyn

(Host: Kristin)

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 with Kristin in this week’s episode of Footnoting History! 

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Historians rely a lot on primary source evidenceto interpret the past. But what do you do
when multiple sources tell a different storyof what happened? Learn about the many accounts
of the execution of Anne Boleyn and considerwhat they tell us about a major moment in
English history today on Footnoting History!

(00:20):
Hello Footnoting History friends, it’s Kristin,back again with an exciting history adventure

for you … it’s time to play (00:29):
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 thestory was different depending on what you
chose. Some of my classmates liked these booksbecause they only read one option and for

(00:54):
book reports, it looked like you were readinga 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 thoughin reality, I wouldn’t have, say, chosen
to follow the ghostly howlings down into thebasement where they were coming from – no,

(01:16):
you get the HELL out of there, you fool – Idid like knowing that I was right, though.
You always get killed when you run down intothe basement in a mystery/ghost story. And
I did like seeing the different outcomes playout. And these inclinations have followed
me to adulthood. I never go see what’s makinga scary noise in the basement and I always

(01:37):
like thinking about different possibilitieswhen dealing with primary sources. And the
good news is, in this context, it just meansmore reading, so yay!
Today’s lucky subject is the execution ofAnne 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

(02:00):
queen absolutely fascinating, and not gonnalie, a little bit of a badass. I probably
would not have liked her in person but asan historical figure, I think she’s great.
I also really love considering source materialand thinking about how we know what we know
about history. I’m a medievalist, so mywritten source material is generally sparse

(02:23):
– if it exists at all – and very – andI mean VERY – rarely do medievalists ever
get multiple accounts of a single event. Itdoes happen – there are a few versions of
the Merovingian king Clovis’ conversionin the early 500s – but you usually don’t
get to do a compare-and-contrast. Like wecan with Anne.

(02:46):
Anne Boleyn is a pretty famous figure, andyou’ve probably at least run across her
name before. She is a very frequent visitorin pop culture and media, and she was pretty
famous in her own time too. If you’re listeningto this on episode release day, which is May
18, that’s the eve of the anniversary ofAnne Boleyn’s execution. I didn’t even

(03:09):
plan it that way, it’s just the way thingsworked out, but I guess it was meant to be.

The brief rundown is this (03:14):
Anne Boleyn was born either in 1501 or 1507, most likely at
Blicking which is in Norfolk, which is inthe northern part of England. I know I just
gave you a lot of uncertainty there when Ijust said that we know a lot about her – and
both those things are true. We are still justat that point in history where people didn’t

(03:38):
always write down the details we’d liketo know now, as modern people, and birthdays
and places were not usually things that peoplethought were important to mention in writing,
in the early 16th century. You don’t startto get really good consistent data like that
until at least 100s of years later. But wehave a good ballpark for Anne. Her parents

(04:00):
were Thomas and Elizabeth – and Thomas wasa rich landowner and politician who would
go on to acquire titles, and Elizabeth wasa Howard whose father was an earl. The family
was rich, well-off and connected, and Annewent abroad to be educated in foreign courts,
most famously she was in France where shelearned (or honed) her wit and the sophistication

(04:23):
that would go on to attract the attentionof 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 canread about many other places, but if you’d
like a few suggestions please visit the FurtherReading for this page to get you started.

(04:46):
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 formallyannulled in May of 1533, but Henry had already
married Anne a few months before. Details.Also, Anne was pregnant at the time with the

(05:11):
future Elizabeth I.
Anne was influential in many ways, one ofwhich was her impact on the course of the
English Reformation – and it was far morethan just being an excuse for Henry to do
what he wanted, just … for the record. Butbeing at the mercy of the whims of Henry VIII
was no safe place to be and yadda yadda yaddaAnne, her brother, and a few other men found

(05:37):
themselves accused of treason, and in Anne’scase adultery, and therefore, at the business
end of the axe in 1536. Although in Anne’scase, it was a fancy sword. Which brings us

back to our focus today (05:49):
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 writtenabout her both during her time and after.
In order to make this a bit manageable forus today, in no particular order, I’ll give

(06:10):
you just a few and then talk about what theykind of agree on, what they don’t, and what
exists only in their version, so who knowsif its accurate or not. And then we can think
about where we can go from there.
First up, I give you Eustace Chapuys’ letterto Emperor Charles V, dated 19 May 1536. Eustace

(06:33):
Chapuys was born in the Duchy of Savoy, whichin 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 Katherineof Aragon’s biggest supporters. Which makes
sense since Holy Roman Emperor Charles V wasCatherine’s nephew. Both Chapuys and Catherine

(06:58):
– 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 thatChapuys was good at some languages, but he
wasn’t so fluent in English and had to havea secretary translate for him when he first

(07:21):
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 thinkingabout his interpretation of what was actually
said, it’s a thing to keep in mind. He doesn’tgive you word-for-word speeches, the way other
writers do, but you get a paraphrase of somethings. Maybe Chapuys was there at the execution

(07:44):
and maybe he wasn’t. In his letter, whichhe does write on The Day It Happened –he
even gives you a time It Happened, 9 o’clockin the morning – Chapuys says that only
the Chancellor, Cromwell, and others of the[king’s] Council were present – and that
“foreigners were not admitted.” Chapuyswould have definitely been considered a foreigner.

(08:07):
Anne’s execution did take place within theTower of London walls and was not considered
“public” by the standards of the day – andnot 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 writingin the moment, but he wasn’t an eyewitness.

(08:29):
It seems. I suspect that if he could haveattended, he probably would have, it would
have been a big moment for him. Now. It isnot clear that any of these writers that I’m
going to talk about today were there, in themoment. 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 thewalls to see, maybe caught a glimpse through

(08:55):
the open Tower Gate, maybe were part of themany workers who were inside the Tower at
any given time, maybe there were prisonerswho had a good view, there are tons of possibilities
for people outside the official guest listto 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

(09:20):
event. It was written by an anonymous Portugueseperson, who again, also would have been considered
a foreigner and banned from attending theexecution. 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 therewere up to the scaffold, they tell you what

(09:44):
Anne was wearing and how many ladies accompaniedher, you get a verbatim final speech to the
crowd and one she gives to her ladies, thevery final moments before that sword fell,
and then where Anne was buried.
Another source, written by John Stowe, echoesthe Portuguese Anonymous letter though it
is much shorter and lighter on the detail.This account was included in The Annals of

(10:07):
England, written in 1592. So … a bit furtheraway 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 wasdefinitely not as developed as it is for modern
historians. 20th-century historian A. L. Rowseconsiders Stowe “one of the best historians

(10:30):
of that age,” and notes that Stowe did revisehis writing when he thought he’d been wrong
about something he wrote years before. Stowewas writing during the reign of Elizabeth
I, Anne’s daughter, and one of Elizabeth’sfavorites, Robert Dudley, the earl of Leicester
suggested to Stowe that he start writing histories.So, this may have affected how he portrayed

(10:51):
Anne in her last moments.
The next account is also anonymous and … slightlyconfused about what day it was. The account
is dated May 16, 1536. No one had been executedyet. This writer is identified as being “Imperial,”
aka from the Holy Roman Empire, like Chapuys.Whoever this dude was, they did not like Anne

(11:15):
either. The account begins with “The saidQueen (unjustly called) …” so you know
what this author thinks about her. There isa short, paraphrase of a final speech and
an account of Anne’s last moments and whathappened with her head and body after.
The final account we’ll talk about is froma very sympathetic writer, and it’s a poem

(11:40):
by Lancelot de Carle. De Carle, as you mayhave guessed, was French, and he was at the
court of the future Henry II, writing poemsand descriptions of coasts of arms before
he went to the French embassy in London in1536. The poem – which was addressed to
the French Dauphin – was written in Londonon June 2, 1536, originally in French. Anne,

(12:06):
if you remember, spent time in the Frenchcourt and was known for her chic “French”
style. De Carle’s poem is … flowery (Imean, it’s a poem) and Anne is described
as beautiful and her final speech is quiteeloquent. The poem is pretty long. You get
a lot of detail in it.

(12:27):
So, what do all these sources agree on? Well,in 1536, before Anne Boleyn was executed by
beheading, she said some stuff. We know thatit was May 19 from other sources, some of
the sources I mentioned here also give thatdate: Chapuys, Stowe, Portuguese Anonymous,
our Anonymous Imperial source said it wasMay 17, but I’m not going to ding him too

(12:49):
hard for that one, since people didn’t alwaysknow precisely what day it was. So fine, it
was May 19. Chapuys said it was 9 o’clockin the morning. John Stow says it was 8 o’clock.
Close enough? De Carle and the Anonymous authorsdon’t say what time it was. Does it matter
what time it was? Maybe.
So, what stuff did she say exactly? The gistis more or less the same in these accounts.

(13:14):
Portuguese Writer says Anne said, “Goodpeople, I am not come here to excuse or to
justify myself … but I come here to dieand 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 awesomeprince ever and who was always so great to

(13:37):
her. (Yeah, I know. But this is how thesespeeches often went – Dying Well was A Thing
in the medieval and early modern worlds, andplus you didn’t want to piss off the executioner
in that moment, or the king who could makethings really difficult for your surviving
family.) Anne also had some sad last wordsfor her ladies and Portuguese Anonymous’

(14:02):
Anne says that her head didn’t deserve towear a queen’s crown in life. And she did
not make any confession of her fault. JohnStow has a somewhat similar version without

the final farewell to the ladies (14:14):
his Anne says she “humbly” submits to the law and
doesn’t blame other people and says basicallyGod knows my offenses. Oh, by the way, Henry,
you’re the most awesome king ever, big thumbsup. De Carle’s version is flowery (of course)
and has Anne asking people to forgive herif she ever offended them and that she’s

(14:37):
not going to rehash why she was up on thatscaffold, 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, hisversion seems to veer off a bit. He says Anne
raised her eyes to Heaven and cried for Godand the King to grant her mercy for all her

(15:00):
offenses before giving Henry 5 out of 5 stars,would recommend. At first read, it kind of
sounds like she’s admitting what she wasconvicted of – and I’m going to bet that’s
what Chapuys wants you to think. Especiallysince he ends his short letter with a by the
way, the lady who told me all this, she saidthat Anne confessed to her she had been unfaithful

(15:20):
before she received her last Communion. Chapuys’Anne strikes the reader as a lamenting, fearful
– and guilty as hell – Anne – and thoughPortuguese Writer’s Anne says she “submit[s]
to death with a good will,” he describesher in his opening paragraph as “the unhappy
Queen.” De Carle’s Anne seems kind ofserene, saying that she hopes G-d “blesses

(15:44):
[her] and in His grace takes [her] to Himand receives [her] soul today” and De Carle
describes people being moved and sorry forher 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 issimilar to Chapuys’, our other Imperial

(16:07):
friend. However, Anonymous Imperial describesAnne as “very much exhausted and amazed”
and he did not mean “amazed” in a flatteringway. He says she kept looking behind her as
she walked to the scaffold. His Anne alsoraised her eyes to the sky and cried for mercy
from G-d and had only good things to say aboutHenry. No matter what, in every version, “Henry

(16:31):
You’re Just the Tops” seems to be quitethe 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 anythingelse, but after her speech, they say that
– “with her own hands, she took of hercoifs from her head,” handed it off to one

(16:55):
of her ladies and then then put on “a littlecap of linen to cover her hair.” And Portuguese
Anonymous says that one of her ladies coveredAnne’s eyes with a bandage.
Anonymous Imperial writes that after Anne’sspeech, she was “stripped of her short mantle
furred with ermines and afterwards took offher hood, which was of English make.” Then
one of her ladies gave her a linen cap – andAnne covered her own hair and knelt, making

(17:20):
sure her dress was covering her feet. Thenone of the ladies covered her eyes.
De Carles talks a lot about Anne’s demeanorbut 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 linenveil and used that to cover Anne’s eyes.

(17:41):
John Stow had no comment on what Anne woreto the scaffold – and makes no mention of
her eyes being covered. Just that she kneltdown, prayed and off came her head with one
stroke of the sword. Lucky Anne. Chapuys seemsnot to have cared less what Anne wore or who
covered her eyes, if they were covered atall. He spreads an unfounded rumor – that

(18:03):
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 commoncriminals’, at least for a little while.
That is absolutely not what happened to Anne’shead and body. Portuguese Anonymous says that
Anne’s ladies covered her body and headwith a sheet, put them in a chest, and she

(18:25):
was buried in a church within the Tower. JohnStow 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 abouta sheet (he calls it a shroud but I’m going
to say close enough), and he tells you thatit was white. His Anne was put in “a sad

(18:47):
place of burial inside the Tower,” nearto her brother George, who was executed a
few days before. Imperial Anonymous says thatone of the ladies covered Anne’s head with
a white cloth and the body was taken by herother ladies. Both pieces were carried to
“the church nearest to the Tower of London.”Piecing this together, historians figured

(19:08):
that the location was the Chapel of St. PeterAd Vincula within the Tower walls – and
that was in fact confirmed in 1876 when, duringrenovations 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 KatherineHoward. The skeleton identified as Anne’s

(19:30):
was found near to that of George Boleyn, herbrother. This is an instance where, when written
sources disagree or are silent or vague onan issue, you can use physical evidence to
answer some questions.
Historical sources rarely give you everythingyou want – the few we’ve talked about
today are all unique in some way, some agreewith each other, some disagree, some give

(19:52):
you descriptions that only exist only in theirversion. You can do some comparing and contrasting
and piecing together an event through thewritten accounts and the archaeology, but
even when you’re lucky enough to have multipleversions of an event, as an historian, you
still need to do some sleuthing and interpreting.Only one person mentions that Anne wore black.

(20:14):
Does that mean she did or didn’t? Outlandishor 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. Peopleagree on other details like the cap and the
sheet, but you can’t discount that thesewriters were basing their accounts on what

(20:37):
someone else said … which maybe was rightand maybe wasn’t. Agreement doesn’t mean
accuracy, and eyewitness testimony doesn’tmean the person got it right or was even trying
to or didn’t have an agenda coloring theiraccount. Different people can watch the same
event and come away with different interpretationsof what happened. It’s important to consider
all the possibilities, and when you’re luckyenough to have multiple accounts of one event,

(21:02):
you have to stitch them together, kind oflike a quilt, and then stand back and look
at the big picture.
All of which is both fun and frustrating andmakes 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,

(21:22):
but know that there’s always more to thinkabout. And this May 19, keep a thought for
Anne.
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(21:44):
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