Mya-Elise. said:

If you could go back and be Anne Boleyn, what things would you [have] done differently with her life? 

I'm not sure I'd want to do this. I'm assuming you mean that knowing what would happen, would you try to do things “safer” the second time around? Laying low, stifling your true feelings, hiding your true beliefs – with no guarantee it would change anything – would be hell. I'd feel like a coward. Maybe I'd have married Percy or Butler, maybe I'd have died even sooner this time around giving birth, and making zero impact on history. Even being kinder to Katharine and Mary* wouldn't have changed her fate if she didn't give Henry the son he wanted. Jane Seymour would still be waiting in the wings.

*It's easy for us to sit and judge Anne with the benefit of knowing what would happen. Think of it from Anne's POV: if she believes Katharine's marriage to Henry to be unlawful and not valid, why would she treat kindly a woman standing in the way of her chance at love and marriage to the King of England? Why would she bend over backwards to be nice to Henry's disrespectful, illegitimate daughter (who wants nothing more than to deny Anne's own child's place in the succession)?

Nothing, because I think even though Anne died the way she did I feel sure knowing from what I know of her she would gladly have lived the life she did knowing that in the end she gave England one of the greatest monarch's that ever lived.

As Anne the only thing I would change is probably not having so many men hanging out in my quarters and not be so casual around them. I know I am guilty of sitting there while reading a novel or watching some movie/tv series involving Anne and saying 'Ooh you shouldn't have said that' but I would prefer her to keep saying the things she said. BUT if Smeaton, Dereham etc didn't visit her quarters or if she wasn't so nice to them, then it might have been harder to fabricate the charges levelled against Anne.

Mya-Elise,

You post some of the most thought provoking questions on this forum. I think you should just keep on questioning.  I did not take your question as criticism of any sort. 

This was a tough one because I feel there is nothing she could have done that would have changed Henry's mind.  Just like nothing Katherine did made him think twice about what he did to her.  Anne could have had an entirely different personality, but if she didn't give Henry a son, the outcome would have been the same. It wouldn't have mattered whether she promised Henry a son or not. 

I don't dismiss the fact that Anne could have done things differently.  Let's say I did go back as Anne, which makes me shiver to think it; and let's say I did all the things that would please Henry.  I'd get along with Mary.  I wouldn't wish all Spaniards at the bottom of the sea.  I would make sure I stayed friends with Cromwell.  I would trust that Henry knew what he was doing and I would keep my opinions to myself.  Well, I would try.  I wouldn't flirt. I wouldn't promise him a son.  I don't think any of this would have made a bit of a difference.  If I didn't give him the son he so desperately wanted, I'd lose my head anyway.  That's why my initial reaction was to stay in France. 

Very good point about Anne not expecting to be a queen.  I don’t believe she would change a minute of being queen.  I’m sure she had some regrets, but not enough to want to change her entire life. We may have a hard time with it, but she came to love Henry.  It wasn’t young love like I think it was with Percy.  She loved Henry deeply. I don’t think she’d want it to be any different.

  I was being facetious when I said Anne should have stayed in France.  When it came to marrying either Butler or Percy, the choice was not hers to make.  She came home from France on her fathers orders because of a planned betrothal for her to Butler. The marriage to Butler was not to be because of the manipulations of Wolsey, and Norfolk plus a lack of enthusiasm on Thomas Boleyn’s part.  The affair with Percy failed, not due to anything she did, but to the manipulations of Wolsey, Percy’s father, and possibly Henry himself.  We have to consider the times they lived in.  Women were told what to do, and they did it.  

Anne lived in a male dominated society, but she was able to rise higher than she ever dreamed.  I think she was fated to be queen and to die as she did.  Someone in another post said that Anne and George preferred the life they had and wouldn't have wanted to live life any differently than they did. (Paraphrasing, not quoting, sorry.)  I have to agree with this. I think they relished their lives at court.

If she did marry someone else, who is to say she would have had many babies and lived a long happy life?  Would her ability to carry to term have been the same?  Would she have lived through several rough childbirths?  Would Butler have been good to her?  Would Percy?  Would we have ever heard of her?

Mya-Elise, You must be a romantic at heart? 

I read a book recently where the author wrote her view of Anne as being very angry with Percy when he went home with his father and did not fight harder to be with her.  In this book, Anne thought Percy was a coward. She knew he was not the man for her.  He would never be strong enough to take proper care of her.  I cannot remember which book it was, but it was fiction.  I wonder?  Do you think that fits Anne's personality?  She was such a strong person. A fighter who was never willing to give up what she genuinely loved.  Seeing the man who claims to love her, slink away with his tail between his legs, may have been a heavy blow.  She may very well have been angry at the whole lot of them. 

We know Henry certainly had to fight all kinds of battles to win her.  He pursued her for years.  He proved he loved her by changing his life in order to marry her.  At least that is the way she would have seen it. And she loved him for it.  I think Henry took her very seriously.  Unfortunately, Henry became resentful.  He blamed her for everything going wrong. That's the Henry I wish she had seen in the beginning.