On this day in Tudor history, 29th January 1536, Queen Anne Boleyn faced a devastating personal tragedy that would have profound implications for her future and the Tudor dynasty.
Anne suffered a heartbreaking miscarriage, losing a son, on the very day her predecessor, Catherine of Aragon, was laid to rest. This event marked a pivotal moment in Anne’s life, as her already precarious position as queen began to unravel.
In this video, I delve into the details of that fateful day, exploring the contemporary accounts that describe Anne’s miscarriage and the political ramifications it had. I also address the myths and misinformation that have surrounded this event over the centuries, including the unfounded claims of a deformed foetus…
Transcript:
On this day in Tudor history, 29th January 1536, Queen Anne Boleyn suffered a heartbreaking miscarriage. To make this tragic moment even more poignant, it happened on the very same day that her predecessor, Catherine of Aragon, was laid to rest at Peterborough Abbey.
For Anne, this was not just a personal loss – it marked the moment her already fragile position as queen began to unravel. Without providing Henry VIII with the son he so desperately craved, and with Catherine now gone, Anne’s future looked increasingly bleak.
Today, I’ll explore what happened, the devastating implications for Anne, and the myths that have surrounded this tragic event…
Contemporary sources describe Anne’s miscarriage in detail. Eustace Chapuys, the imperial ambassador, reported:
On the day of the interment [Catherine of Aragon’s funeral], the Concubine had an abortion which seemed to be a male child which she had not borne 3½ months, at which the King has shown great distress.
And herald Charles Wriothesley recorded:
Three daies before Candlemas, Queene Anne was brought a bedd and delivered of a man chield, as it was said, afore her tyme, for she said that she had reckoned herself at that tyme but fiftene weekes gonne with chield.
These accounts confirm that Anne miscarried a male foetus, likely around 15 weeks into her pregnancy. For Anne, who had likely suffered a stillbirth in 1534 and whose only surviving child was her daughter, Elizabeth, this loss was catastrophic. It had been her last chance to secure her position as queen.
The timing of Anne’s miscarriage couldn’t have been worse. Just days earlier, Henry VIII had suffered a fall during a jousting match. Although contemporary accounts played down the accident, stating that he wasn’t seriously hurt, it was a reminder to Henry VIII of his mortality and the fact that the future of the Tudor dynasty was not secure. This event would have intensified Henry’s obsession with securing a male heir – a son that Anne, it seemed, could not give him.
And all was not well in paradise. Henry may have once been obsessed with Anne, moving heaven and earth to make her his, but Chapuys had observed that Henry had grown increasingly distant from Anne in the months leading up to the miscarriage. According to the ambassador, he barely spoke to her, and, after the miscarriage, Henry coldly told her, “he saw clearly that God did not wish to give him male children.” These words must have been devastating for Anne. Without a son, she was left vulnerable to her political enemies, particularly Jane Seymour’s rising faction.
And Catherine of Aragon’s death on 7th January 1536 had removed a significant obstacle. With Catherine gone, Henry no longer had to worry about returning to his first wife or acknowledging her as queen if he set Anne aside. Ending his marriage to Anne suddenly became so much easier. He could move on to wife number three, someone who COULD give him a son.
Over the centuries, Anne’s miscarriage has been surrounded by scandal and misinformation, particularly the claim that the foetus was deformed. This idea has been used to portray Anne as a witch or an immoral woman capable of incest, but it has no basis in contemporary accounts.
The myth, which has been popularised in fiction such as Philippa Gregory’s “The Other Boleyn Girl”, actually originated nearly 50 years after the miscarriage, in 1585, when Nicholas Sander, a Catholic recusant, wrote that Anne “brought forth only a shapeless mass of flesh.” However, as Anne’s biographer Eric Ives pointed out, no contemporary source mentions any deformity.
Sander’s account is riddled with inaccuracies, including the infamous claims that Anne had six fingers and a wen under her chin. His goal was clear: to discredit both Anne and her daughter, Elizabeth I. His claims about the miscarriage are not credible and should be dismissed as anti-Protestant propaganda.
Anne’s miscarriage wasn’t just a personal tragedy, it was a political disaster. She had failed to produce the male heir Henry VIII believed was essential for the Tudor dynasty, and her political enemies were quick to exploit her weakened position.
Jane Seymour, one of Anne’s ladies-in-waiting, was increasingly capturing Henry’s attention, and the miscarriage gave the king an excuse to distance himself further from his second wife, and Anne’s inability to secure her role as queen left her dangerously exposed.
What makes Anne’s story even more tragic is how she was remembered—or, rather, how she wasn’t. Instead of being seen as Henry’s true queen, the mother of his son, Henry chose to erase Anne entirely from his life. Within days of Anne’s execution, Henry married Jane Seymour, a woman who, unlike Anne, was able to give him the son he desperately craved.
In stark contrast to Anne, Jane Seymour was remembered with reverence by Henry. When Jane died in 1537, just days after giving birth to Prince Edward, Henry ensured that she would always be regarded as his ‘true wife’, depicting her in paintings of the Tudor family and the Tudor dynasty, even when he was married to Catherine Parr. And he chose to be buried beside Jane at St George’s Chapel in Windsor, ensuring their eternal association. Anne, on the other hand, was executed as a traitor and buried unceremoniously in the Tower of London, her memory overshadowed by the scandal and accusations surrounding her final days.
Yet, in the end, it was Anne Boleyn who had the last laugh, don’t you think? Although Henry sought to erase Anne, their daughter, Elizabeth, became one of the greatest monarchs in English history. Elizabeth I reigned for 44 years, bringing stability and prosperity to England, far outshining her half-brother Edward and ensuring her mother’s legacy lived on.
Anne’s miscarriage on 29th January 1536 wasn’t just the loss of her child—it marked the loss of everything she had worked for: her position, her security, and her future. But through her daughter, Anne’s name would be forever tied to a golden age in English history, ensuring that her influence endured long after Henry and Jane were gone.
What are your thoughts on this tragic event?
Never was fate more cruel to Anne Boleyn, all she needed was this tiny precious infant inside her to make his exulted appearance in nine months and his mother would have lived, this little life was so frail and nestled in the warmth of his mothers womb he had no idea how much was expected of him, sadly for Anne and her family, including her vulnerable daughter, fate turned aside and she was left alone to her enemies, all baying for her blood, she who was once the darling of a besotted king, she had been crowned and anointed and the most powerful figure in the kingdom was now in a position so weak she must have felt the floor moving under her, I have always felt that the cruelty of Henry V111 was at its ultimate when he allowed his second queen to be stitched up in a way so vicious by his chief minister, so she had to die and by doing so her name was to be dragged through the mud was it not enough she was to lose her life? But no, his kingdom was at stake and the heinous charges were to ensure she deserved to die, but five other innocent souls were about to lose their lives also, the murder of Anne Boleyn did Henry V111 no favours, many suspected she was the victim of a terrible miscarriage of justice, even her enemies believed many of the charges levelled at her were suspect, and his hasty betrothal and marriage to her maid just two weeks after her death was seen as shameful, hundreds of years later Agnes Strickland wrote that Jane Seymour’s acceptance of the kings suit was shameful, but Jane cannot have any blame attached to her, she was ruthlessly used by her opportunistic family to pave their way to glory, she was but a dutiful daughter and did what was expected of her, the Boleyn’s had also seized their chance for glory when the king first courted Anne, but Anne died in shame and disgrace and Jane Seymour was revered by the king for giving him his precious son, yet Anne did have the last laugh after all, Jane lost her life like her predecessor albeit by natural means, and her son died before his sixteenth birthday whereas the forgotten and abandoned daughter of Anne Boleyn flourished and inherited her sisters crown in the November of 1558, twenty two years after her mother had lost her life, Anne’s legacy was the reformation in England and her brilliant daughter, but Janes legacy was no where, she lies beside her tyrant lord and master and she is depicted in the famous Whitehall mural, but her son although brilliant never made his mark on history, her brothers lost their lives by the axe and their power had gone after the death of Henry’s last queen, Anne by comparison although her name was never spoken of again at court, and her paintings were removed from the sumptuous palaces they resided in, the stonemasons chiselled out her emblems from the same palaces and castles is remembered for being Henry’s most iconic queen, and the mother of our best loved monarch, Jane merely as the queen who gave the king a son but perished like his older brothers and sisters, Mary Tudor ruled for only five years only one year longer than Edward, and Elizabeth ruled for forty four years and after the cruelty of her sisters reign, was seen as a golden age, Henry’s quest for a son made him abandon his first queen and murder his second, his third queen also became a victim of that ruthless quest by dying in childbirth, childbirth was extremely hazardous for mother and baby Katherine had endured it so many times and survived, sadly her children had not, only Mary, Anne’s tragedy was she lost her saviour it would have made all the difference to her future, as the lives of Katherine’s infants would have made to hers, Lady Luck is both playful and vicious which all of Henry’s queens found to their cost, fifty years after the disgraced Anne was laid to rest in her grave Elizabeth , who was called ‘the daughter of that infamous concubine Anne Boleyn’ had to endure more slandering of her mothers name by Nicholas Sander a catholic who had fled England and settled in that troubled realm Ireland, Elizabeth was seen as an heretical queen by the catholics and mud slinging was the only means he had of dis crediting her, the sad little infant Anne lost so tragically in the January of 1536 was embellished to look like he was deformed and this the mother was capable of sexual deviance, as if that were not enough, Anne even looked like a witch with raven hair and protruding teeth, a large mole surely the sign of the devil! And a sinister sixth finger on her right hand, another sign she was one of Satan’s handmaidens, she was sallow of skin and was described really as not very beautiful at all, yet strangely, he went onto write she has handsome to look at with a pretty mouth! Obviously this uneducated creature did not realise he was contradicting himself! But to Elizabeth’s Protestant subjects she was their darling and they did not care she was Anne Boleyn’s daughter, during her bleakest hours in the Tower Anne must have agonised over Elizabeth’s future, she was now bastardised like Mary, but if her spirit was watching over her daughter when she was crowned we know she must have felt the joyous and ultimate vindication of her memory.