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Did Henry really love Anne? I think not....
April 28, 2010
6:42 pm
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Bella44
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Anne was also charged with conspiring the kings death and as a traitor she could have been put to death for that alone.  Henry needed her out of the way totally, probably in his own mind he saw his second marriage as going exactly the same way as his first and as Anne had no powerful foreign allies as Katherine of Aragon did she was easier to get rid of.  In order to produce a legitimate son for the succession he needed a clean break from absolutely everything that went before so afterwards Anne was pretty much airbrushed from history and Elizabeth declared a bastard with no rights to inherit the throne.

Oddly enough I don't think that what he did to Anne was because he never loved her, I think he had loved her passionately but she failed to give him the one thing he wanted even more than he wanted Anne – and his passion was turned against her.

Forgot to say that Anne was not the first royal woman to be put to death for alleged indiscretions nor was she, unfortunately, the last.  If you want to try and get inside Henrys head in his behaviour towards his wives its worthwhile taking into account the attitudes towards women in general at that time.  We women were sometimes nothing more than goods to be bought, sold, abused or discarded as our male relatives saw fit.

Thank goodness some things have changed!

April 30, 2010
11:41 pm
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scarlettt
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I remember from a documentary the ambassador Chapious(sp?) writing that in the three months leading up to the charges filed against Ann, Henry had spoken to her no more than 10 times.
That averages out to approximately 3 times per month, and likely some if not most of those were official public -type events requiring a king and queens presence. This lack of intimate time must have been out of character for their relationship for the ambassador to bother relaying it.

Like many others here, I wonder if Cromwell / various anti -Boleyn factions didn't witness this evident cooling of affection and twist rumors that maybe were always there, but only now things H8 was finally willing to listen too due to his disappointment/disillusionment.
I also believe he hoped at the beginning that the rest of England and/or the rest of Europe would fall for Ann the way he did (or at least fall in line and come around), but underestimated the extent of her unpopularity. Sadly, things eventually devolved in such a way that it became more and more in his best interest politically to wash his hands of her, but I believe that his actions must have haunted him. <— Or, I'd like to think they did! Cool

May 1, 2010
12:01 am
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Jasmine
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Perhaps love is the wrong word. 

It seems Henry became obsessed with Anne, perhaps because she didn't give in to him.  What he couldn't have became more and more desirable, so he moved heaven and earth to possess her.  After a wait of several years, the political and religious things he had had to do to get to the point where she was his, perhaps the “possession” of her did not live up to expectations.

If she had given him a son, that may not have mattered.  But she didn't.  They tried again, but the child was stillborn.  So he had to get rid of her.  He probably spoke of this to his closest people and this probably encouraged Cromwell et al to proceed.

Whatever we think of his motives, Henry could have saved her.  He chose not to.  However, because she had been his obsession, thoughts of her probably haunted him all his life. 

May 1, 2010
5:06 am
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Claire
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I really love the chapters “A Royal Marriage” and “The Rival” in Eric Ives's “The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn” because there he dismisses the theories that the marriage was on the rocks before it had ever truly begun and Chapuys's comments about Henry not talking to Anne. Yes, Anne and Henry argued a lot but they were quick to make up and there are many quotes about how happy or “merry” the couple were, hope hopeful they were for the future etc. Ives also cites Chapuys as having to backtrack one time that he repeated gossip regarding the King neglecting Anne, he had to admit that the gossip was wrong.

I'm still convinced that Henry loved Anne passionately, a love that he never knew again.

Debunking the myths about Anne Boleyn

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