It appears that Anne Boleyn was watching a game of real tennis on 2nd May when a messenger arrived telling her that the King had ordered her to present herself to his privy council. Anne Boleyn left the tennis match and presented herself in the council chamber in front of a royal commission. She was informed that she was being accused of committing adultery with three different men: Mark Smeaton, Sir Henry Norris and a third, unnamed at this stage. She was also told that Smeaton and Norris had confessed. Anne remonstrated with her accusers, but her words had no effect and the royal commission ordered her arrest. Anne was then taken to her apartments until the tide of the Thames turned and then, at two o’clock in the afternoon, she was escorted by barge to the Tower of London and imprisoned in the Queen’s apartments of the Royal Palace, the same apartments she’d stayed in before her coronation.
Sir Henry Norris was already imprisoned in the Tower, having been escorted there at dawn. Mark Smeaton had also been taken there and Chapuys wrote to Charles V on the 2nd May telling him that George Boleyn had been arrested and taken to the Tower three or four hours before his sister.
You can read more about these arrests in my article From Tennis to Tower.
