I’ve been thinking. Yes, I know that’s a worrying prospect, but here goes!

Henry started showing an interest in Anne around 1525/26. His letters show he was in love with her by mid to late 1527. They consummated their relationship towards the end in 1532 and were married in January 1533. By May 1536 he had consented to her judicial murder. Ten years in total from his initial interest in her to her death.

I’ve always wondered at what point his feelings for her cooled and at what point their relationship went sour. In April 1536 he was still calling her his ‘best beloved wife’. Ives uses this to suggest that meant Henry was still committed to Anne, and she still had his love and support. But after all he’d done to marry her he would hardly say, ‘oops I’ve made a mistake and I’ve gone off her.’

We hear time and again that he broke with Rome and the Pope so he could marry her. But did he do all that for Anne, or more importantly did he do it because he needed a legitimate son? I’ve no doubt he believed he loved Anne. He was besotted by her. But to break with Rome and risk his soul through excommunication for the love of a woman? Really?

The Pope wouldn’t give him what he wanted, whereas previously Henry had always got what he wanted. For the first time he was told ‘no’. It didn’t go down very well. He was being dictated to be foreigner’s who were telling him what he should and shouldn’t do, and what he could and couldn’t do. Bet that went down even less well. Breaking with Rome, and the creation of the Church of England, because of the love of a woman, or because it was simply a way of getting his own way and sticking his fingers up to Joe Foreigner (so very British when you think about it)!

So he did all that, and he got his own way, and he married Anne. He’d won!! He’d set all the religious upheavals in motion, and whether he tired of her in April 1536, or September 1533 or July 1534 or whenever, was completely irrelevant. By then it may very well have had nothing to do with Anne at all. It was about winning and besting the Pope and the rest of Europe who dared to challenge him. Once he’d set the thing in motion he couldn’t back down. He would have lost face, and he wouldn’t have risked that.

Admitting he wanted out of his marriage to Anne would mean he would lose face. To go through all that and then say he wanted out because he had fallen out of love with her would have made him look foolish. If she had given birth to the longed for son, Henry would have stuck with Anne no matter how he felt about her. But she didn’t. So if Henry wanted out of his marriage, not only would he be admitting he had tired of her, he would also be admitting that one of the reasons he wanted out was for the very reason he had got rid of Catherine; the lack of a son. He would have been the laughing stock of Europe.

So he didn’t admit he wanted to get rid of Anne. He didn’t admit he was tired of her. He didn’t admit he was disappointed in her failure to produce the longed for heir. People question why, if he thought she was innocent, Henry would have allowed a charge of multiple adultery to be brought against Anne. Why put himself in the position of cuckolded husband? How embarrassing for the King of England. But it gave him a justifiable reason to get rid of her. He wasn’t getting rid of her because she hadn’t produced the heir, just as with Catherine, and he wasn’t getting rid of her just because he was fickle and had fallen out of love with her; he was getting rid of her because she was an evil vile wanton wh*re who had committed adultery with five men including her own brother. No one could blame him for wanting to get rid of such a woman. The extend of the charges against poor Anne meant Henry wasn’t a mere cuckold. She wasn’t just an adulterous wife, she was a monster, and Henry was to be pitied married to such a creature.

He would have been a far greater mockery, and been ridiculed far more, had he admitted that after all he had done to marry her, he no longer wanted her, particularly as one of the reasons for that was the very reason he had got rid of Catherine. I think the plot against Anne was a cold, calculated plan, partly for Henry to save face and not look a fool in front of the whole of Europe.

So when did his affection for Anne cool? If what I’ve said above has an element of truth to it, then it could have cooled long before April 1536, but he didn’t want the embarrassment of admitting it. He could stick with it for the sake of a son, but once he came to believe that wouldn’t happen the gloves came off, particularly when he heard allegations that Anne and her brother were laughing at him behind his back. So throw revenge into the mix. He killed two birds with one stone. He may have risked being labelled a cuckold, but he did so to avoid a greater humiliation, and to get rid of a woman he had come to loath.

The only question for me is at what point did his feelings for Anne cool, and at what point did those cooling feelings turn to a loathing sufficient enough for him to have her murdered? I think the latter was around April 1536 when he believed she laughed about him and his virility, but what about the former?