Anyanka said

After Anne’s jugdical murder, Henry’s European reputation was at an all time low. And following Jane’s death…the vast majority of female nobility didn’t want to be shackled to him. And I don’t think their menfolk were too keen on that kind of allience either.

Can you really blame them Anyanka?. After all why would they want to risk their daughters/sisters lives just because a fat tub of lard couldn’t come up with the goods. He would say of course it was her fault not his. In truth he was just a big fat ugly barsteward with a microscopic penis, who was as ignorant as he was fat.
Small wonder really that Cromwell chose a wife for Henry from a small tucked up out of the way province, because if Cleves had been one of the big noises around the continent at the time I doubt her brother would have allowed Anne of Cleves to go within spitting distance of England.
Actually that makes me wonder, we know he was fed a bullplop story about her, but what did AOC know about him?.

Yep, I read somewhere some time back that the gender of the child was finalised in the last few weeks of pregnancy, and it was also believed that diet was partly responsible, and things that she did during her pregnancy for that choice. For instance. If a woman ate loads of red meat and did things such as hawking, archery, hunting (following the hunt in a carriage) and generally either doing or watching what were considered manly activities,they would have a boy. If they sat at home sewing, eating sweet things, and did all the things a lady was expected to do they would have a girl. Of course we now know that that is a load of spew the sex of a child is determined at conception, and it’s the Man’s sperm that carries the biological blueprint for the gender of the baby. Granted scientists can diddle with the DNA now too, and for some childless couples that is a Godsend.
HA HA I wonder how Henry would take the news if he told that the gender issues with his kids were not COA or A.B fault but his..

KellyMarie said

I always think what COA and AB’s thoughts were on why they hadn’t concieved a living son. We all know what reasons Henry gave but I wonder they they attributed it to?

THey possibly felt the same since those kind of attitudes were encouraged by the church’s teachings. And yet Katherine seemed determined to bring up her daughter as a queen regnant to succed her father in the Spanish manner.

How anne felt her daughter should be groomed for queenship is a matter of debate.

Jasmine said

Something else to consider regarding Anne’s supposed liaison with five men……I am currently reading ‘The Time Travelers’ Guide to Elizabethan England’. There is a very interesting section on women’s clothing. It is really astonishing just how many layers were normally worn and it must have been difficult to get in and out of them easily. Although women, if seems, didn’t wear drawers, there were still yards and yards of material, corsets, lacings etc between body and ‘exterior’. It hardly seems possible that Anne could have been involved with so many without it being noticed.

I suppose a hurried ‘fumble’ with skirts pushed up might have done, but that would not be ‘an affair’ but more something a chap might do with a ‘lady of the night’…….

This is true, but that is exactly what Henry wanted to say Anne was.. The word “slept with”, does not always mean the old romance and roses situation, where they take an hour to get undressed, in Henry’s case where Anne was concerned it was the knee tremblers against the wall with Smeaton, Brereton etc. The only exception there would be her brother who did spend enough time in Anne’s rooms to do the old romance and Roses, bit with the mattress mumbo thrown in. Remember the whole point about this whole trial fiasco (Leveson would rip the evidence against Anne to shreds, as it had more holes in it than swiss cheese) was to blacken and destroy not just Anne but the Boleyn faction as well, and the more depraved and un-natural Cromwell could make Anne look the better it was.

MizLiot said

My response to those who say Anne Boleyn cheated on Henry VIII – compare his indifferent reaction in that instance to the way he reacted when he realised Catherine Howard has been cheating on him. He was furious when he found out about Catherine, called for a sword to kill her himself, and broke down in front of his Privy Council. I think this suggests that not only did Anne not cheat on Henry, but he knew that. It was all a ploy to blacken her name. He’d spent years and years trying to get rid of Katherine of Aragon, and he was getting older. He didn’t want to waste any time in divorcing another wife.

Good point MizLiot. Henry did treat the 2 situations very differently. In Anne’s case he chose to believe the lies Cromweell put forward as evidence against Anne I even suspect that Henry may have even had a hand in putting the boot in as well. Yeah he knew alright that Anne was innocent, and to be honest I think the fact that he was the actual one who killed her (although not by his own hand) tormented him for the rest of his days. Perhaps that was one of the reasons to why he couldn’t bear the sight of Elizabeth, because he knew that his actions had murdered her mother unjustly, although I’m led to believe that of the 3 children she was perhaps his favourite. I wouldn’t say that Eddy was a disappointment to him but I don’t think he lived up to what Henry wanted in a son. Elizabeth on the otherhand had a man’s heart and stomach and showed the grit and determination that he would have perhaps like to have seen in Eddy.
His behaviour towards K.H was very difficult to fathom, but I think in her case his pride was wounded, and her behaviour made him look a bit of a tit in the rest of the world’s eyes.
His main sparring partner in pride stakes was of course Francis King of France. After if you look at it this rivalry between them started way back at the Val Dor conference, not so much to do with the wrestling match but that was part of it, but to do with Francis’s bedroom abilities. We all know the story of how Mary B became Henry’s mistress but we don’t actually know if what Francis said to Henry about Mary being his English mare is true or not. I’m inclined to think that Francis said it to get one upmanship on Henry in the sence of my doodle is bigger than yours and I can have any woman I please English, French or whatever, whilst you are stuck with a useless Spanish woman. Plus if you look at both of Francis’s marriages they were purely for polical reasons, his second wife being the sister of Charles V the Holy Roman Emperor a marriage that cemented peace between Spain and France. So Henry marriage to K.H was one to rub Francis’s nose in the dirt. It was a case of “Look at me Francis, you can have mistresses, but you will never have a wife as beautiful or as young as my Queen and she loves me too so there . Now who is the one who is stuck with a useless Spanish wife:P” So you can understand how he must have felt when he found out that that K.H had been playing him for a fool, so it was small wonder really he went off the deep end, and I think his anger towards her was made more intence by the fact it was only a matter of few weeks after K.H’s behaviour came out that he received a letter from King Francis saying that he was sorry to hear of the “wanton and naughty behaviour of the Queen” Henry felt betrayed and also very stupid that he allowed himself to be humiliated in such a fashion, and that for the last 2 years he had been walking around with his head in the shed. The younger Henry would have perhaps seen the truth of the matter before getting himself drawn into such a situation. The old saying is “There’s no fool like and old fool” and in this case it was true.

MizLiot said

My response to those who say Anne Boleyn cheated on Henry VIII – compare his indifferent reaction in that instance to the way he reacted when he realised Catherine Howard has been cheating on him. He was furious when he found out about Catherine, called for a sword to kill her himself, and broke down in front of his Privy Council. I think this suggests that not only did Anne not cheat on Henry, but he knew that. It was all a ploy to blacken her name. He’d spent years and years trying to get rid of Katherine of Aragon, and he was getting older. He didn’t want to waste any time in divorcing another wife.

I completely agree, Mizlot. In Anne’s case, Henry was happy to play the cuckold, which may speak to his determination to be rid of Anne as his wife. He knew it was coming and relished in the afterglow of being the poor, used husband, finally free of the woman who had bewitched him. Whereas with KH, he was totally blindsided. His true emotions showed here. There was none of the calculated precison of Anne’s downfall and murder.

MizLiot said

My response to those who say Anne Boleyn cheated on Henry VIII – compare his indifferent reaction in that instance to the way he reacted when he realised Catherine Howard has been cheating on him. He was furious when he found out about Catherine, called for a sword to kill her himself, and broke down in front of his Privy Council. I think this suggests that not only did Anne not cheat on Henry, but he knew that. It was all a ploy to blacken her name. He’d spent years and years trying to get rid of Katherine of Aragon, and he was getting older. He didn’t want to waste any time in divorcing another wife.

I agree completely. Henry’s reaction when Anne was in the Tower was to party his heart out. His partying made Chapuys comment that it didn’t seem to bother Henry at all that he had been cuckholded by Anne. No tears, no recriminations, certainly no anger. Just spite! He knew the charges against Anne were false and he was in on the planning of her death. The gaity was real. He was going to be rid of Anne sooner than he believed possible.
Henry reacted completely different when he found out Katherine had slept with Dereham before he married her. His reaction says it all. He was completely shocked. It was more the thought that his little rose had been with a man before him. The real blow certainly had to be when he discovered that Katherine was carrying on with Culpeper. Henry must have been absolutely crushed, probably for the first time in his life.

It seems to me that survival in the Tudor court was like playing chess, but with your life depending upon it. I believe Anne was innocent of the charges. Look at all the myths that were circulated about her that were absurd. Especially the one about the extra finger! There were different factions in the court and war was waged amongst them. The only guarenteed survivor was going to be Henry. Everyone else was fair game. Anne, unfortunately, had allies that turned against her. And mother nature didn’t help her one bit either by no son being born. So she found herself placed into check-mate and lost the game. She is just as vibrantly remembered in history as Henry is. In fact, I believe that she is more lovingly remembered than he. Most people think of him as crazy, tyrannical, and a glutten. And her daughter outshinned his other children by far. So Anne really does get the last laugh!!!

I agree, James. I read Bernard’s book on Anne, and was left feeling he was being deliberately provocative, but not necessarily believing it himself. It seems, in the constant output of Tudor books, Bernard wrote something exempt from the norm. In truth, the book was okay, but the use of a poem as factual information of Anne’s “guilt,” was questionable at best, considering there is no other information to corroborate such findings (expect more unsubstantiated myths, lies, and innuendos).

I agree: AB was innocent.

H8th was a cruel man, all he had to do was to declare their marriage null and void based on the grounds of either:

A. Her sister, Mary, had been his mistress.
B. At the time they got married, he was technically still legally married to KOA.
C. She had been engaged to Henry Percy.

But I guess he was afraid that if AB was exiled she would summon up supporters and have Elizabeth lay claim to throne.