Oh, I don't think you sound mean at all! I'm enjoying the give and take.

We do get passionate here, but that's why we like it, right? Soapboxes R Us

I think he was a lot more indifferent and unemotional about Anne's downfall, and that strikes me as odd, considering the lengths he went to in order to have her. Under 'normal' circumstances (right – what am I saying?), you'd expect great love to swing to great hate or great rage or great grief or some similarly violent emotional response. Instead, we seemingly get nothing, which is surprising. 

That was an excellent comparison to Henry simply throwing out the trash, Claire. It seemed as if killing his wife was just another chore to check off his list: “Line up replacement wife – check. Arrest Anne and her brother, torture musician – check. Tell Norris I'll kill him unless he confesses to sleeping with Anne – check. Arrange betrothal party for Jane (ask her where she wants to get married) – check. Hire executioner – check. Make Elizabeth a bastard – check. (Get Jane a puppy?).”

Henry's violently emotional response to Katherine Howard's downfall is in stark contrast to that. To me, the increase in emotion seems more than one might write off to an old man feeling foolish, humiliated and used. And that makes me believe that he couldn't have believed Anne to be guilty or he would have been raging and screaming worse than he did with KH. *sigh* He makes my head hurt.

Makes you wish for a time machine to either go back and spy, or pull Henry forward and grill him, doesn't it? And now I know I'm tired, because I just got a visual of that Jay Leno interview years ago with Hugh Grant (after the prostitute incident) – “What the hell were you thinking?” So I'll see you tomorrow, ladies!

I think that what happened to Anne was also down to Henry “saving face”.  In order to get her, he had risked everything (in his eyes) – marriage links with the Holy Roman Empire, a powerful state, his immortal soul by severing links with Rome, his image as king.  If Anne had borne a son, everything would have been fine

As it was, after all that effort, all he had was another daughter and dead sons.

He couldn't use the same tactics he had with Katherine and send Anne to a remote castle etc as he would have been the laughing stock of Europe.  You can image the diplomatic small talk.

However, if it could be proved that Anne was a dangerous woman with “supernatural” powers who had “stolen” the king and then betrayed him with all and sundry, none of it would have been Henry's fault.  He didn't need to worry about a divorce, she could be tried and suffer the usual penalty in these cases. 

He was free and unencumbered with living wives, so third time lucky.

The thing which destroys Henry's case, I think, is the fact that he had his marriage dissolved before Anne's execution.  If they had never been married in the eyes of the law, then she had not committed treason against the king.

Is the Pope Catholic?   Henry was very angry when Anne miscarried.  Angry enough to order an investigation.  I can just hear him telling Cromwell..”Get rid of her any way you can.”  There is no proof he said anything of the sort, I know.  He did tell Chapuys he thought Anne was a witch.  Was he setting her up?  I think so.  At Easter, everything seemed hunky- dory between Anne and Henry.  Chapuys was ordered by Henry to give respect to Anne and he did.  Seems to me this was Henry's MO.  Lull the target (who at this point was Anne) into a false sense of security before the strike.  Snakelike.  He had moved on to Jane.  Anne was simply in the way.  She would not have gone gentle into the good night.  There was no shipping her off to a castle in the middle of nowhere.  She would never have stood for it.  It is my belief that Cromwell would never have approached Henry with the so-called evidence without Henry being aware of what he was trying to do.  When Cromell left Court at Easter time, everyone thought it was because Henry had bawled him out.  But I think he went home with Henry's orders to find evidence needed to rid himself of Anne. There is no proof of this either. But…  Wouldn't Henry want everyone to believe he was not involved in bringing down a second wife?  Let others take the blame?  Did Henry ever take the blame for anything?  Henry's lack of remorse proves to me he was involved up to his eyeballs in getting rid of Anne.

I could never accept that Henry was the innocent victim of Cromwell's scheme. The most overwhelming reason why I think he was the main instigator is because if Cromwell had been acting without Henry's blessing, then at some point he would have had to have gone to the King to inform him of Anne's alleged offences. If, by May 1536, Henry was still in love with Anne then I agree with E that there had to be a risk that he wouldn't have accepted the allegations unquestioningly. There was a huge risk Henry would have spoken to Anne and given her the opportunity to defend herself, in which case the outcome would have been very different. But he didn't.

For Cromwell to have risked going to the King with these allegations he would have had to have been 100% certain that Henry would swallow them without question, and without a proper investigation and without giving Anne the chance to defend herself. The only way he could have been 100% certain is if Henry had already shown a desire to be rid of Anne. Without that indication I don't think Cromwell would have been foolish enough to risk Henry's wrath at accusing his wife of adultery and incest.

Henry was many things, but he wasn't stupid. If he was convinced by people like Cromwell of Anne's guilt, and if he was as intelligent as his apologists give him credit for, then it was only because he let them convince him.   

Anne fan said:

I think the difference between Henry's reaction to Anne's 'betrayal' and his attitude to Catherine Howard's is explained by Chapuys writing after CH's downfall when he says that the difference is that Henry hadn't got the next one lined up (he puts it a bit more gently than that – but not much!).

 

I was reading a piece about Rupert Murdoch this week which made the point that tyrants do not do their dirty deeds themselves, others do the deeds for them because they think that is the way to please the tyrant. So it's possible that the people around Henry, seeing his pursuit of Jane, knowing Anne had just had a miscarriage thought they would please him by displacing her.

 

I like the theory but I'm not sure it fits the facts:

 

The writs of oyer and terminer were issued on 24 April – although not frequently used they were still standard court writs and had been since the reign of Henry II, so they wouldn't have required the king's signature, only the seal. No difficulty there then in exonerating Henry.

25 April, Henry writes to his ambassadors, including the one who is negotiating the Imperial alliance, referring to Anne as his most entirely beloved wife. So the day after the writs are issued, Henry is still committed to Anne.

30 April further instructions to France wanting Francis to end the French alliance with the Pope unless the Pope stopped all actions against England. As Ives says, if Henry knew about the moves against Anne at this point why on earth do this? Her death would change everything.

But 30 April is the date when Henry cancelled a proposed trip to Calais with Anne – Ives points to the argument between Anne and Norris in which she said if anything happened to the king Norris would look to have her. Anne, through holding Elizabeth, and Norris manage to pacify Henry enough for life to continue as normal but he's now suspicious.

Cromwell, who has been looking for an opportunity to bring down Anne as they now disagree on policy, seizes his chance to play on the king's suspicions and interrogates Smeaton, who eventually confesses and is carted off to the Tower and clapped in irons. Henry then succumbs to his suspicions and his own particularly attractive brand of maudlin self-pity. As it happens Anne breaks down and so Cromwell needn't have ordered the oyer and terminer writs to be sent out when he did.  Also Anne is giving him all the evidence he needs and he is able to further feed Henry's self-pity.

A few years later Henry himself admitted to Cranmer that once the judicial machinery starts it's very difficult to stop it – even for him. As in this case it was started without his knowledge that applies even more.

So, by that reckoning Cromwell is guilty of the plot but Henry is guilty of not stepping back and considering whether it could be true or not. Cromwell does seem to have got lucky but I suspect that Smeaton had been making a fool of himself over Anne and he always planned to strike there.

Working on the principle that Cromwell has effectively framed Anne, Henry's guilt lies in the fact he didn't demand to see the evidence and insist that better evidence was brought. If the best part of 500 years later we can find evidence that Anne and the men were in different places or that she was ill, surely Henry would have known? Anne's argument with Norris did condemn her of thinking of the king's death (treason) but it didn't condemn Norris nor the others – and, for me, that's where Henry's guilt lies.

I agree with you – I just can't believe Henry would rid himself of Anne – the woman he fought for – for so little. The way he behaved – I think he did believe the charges.

Jasmine said:

Quote:  I agree with you – I just can't believe Henry would rid himself of Anne – the woman he fought for – for so little. The way he behaved – I think he did believe the charges.  Quote

 

But that's the thing about Henry which comes across again and again – he had the ability to make himself believe anything he wanted.  EG, he wanted to marry Katherine of Aragon, so he made himself believe she was a virgin – until it suited him to believe she wasn't.  As for him saying it was too difficult to stop the judicial process once it began – that's very hard to believe.  He was King at a time when Divine Right was all the rage.  It was the King's Justice, after all!

Yes, he fought for Anne and if she had given him a son, he would have kept her.  But as she didn't, perhaps he decided the prize wasn't worth the wait and he tired of the fiesty spirit which had originally attracted him. 

I am sure Henry had a Henry II moment with Cromwell (“Who will rid me of this turbulent (here substitute Queen for priest)”  otherwise Cromwell would not have dared to act.  Henry had developed an alarming habit of ridding himself of advisors when they went against his wishes and Cromwell would have been very certain that Henry would be receptive of his “news” once he delivered it.

I studied legal history for my degree – wish I could remember what I've done with the books as I'm relying a bit too much on memory here for comfort. When Henry II reformed the legal system he established the king's courts which people preferred to the manorial courts as there were greater powers to enforce a decision. There were all sorts of mysterious assaults on horses to ensure cases went to the king's bench and not the nearest lord's court. H2 was quite happy to encourage this as he got the fees and it meant a standard form of justice, which appealed to his sense of order. But by H8's time the monarch had very little to do with the courts. In fact, a second system called equity had grown up which relied on appealing to the king or chancellor personally. Equity is still in force today and in areas of law where it applies (eg land) equitable interests still trump legal interests. Unfortunately, it didn't apply in Anne's case. There are incidences of Henry using his power to commute sentences but that was only after the judicial machinery had done its bit.

Louise – if I've got that wrong, please correct!

I think you're right about Henry tiring of Anne's feistiness. He seems to have expected her to change her character once she became queen – but I think it's precisely that combination of tiring of Anne and lusting after Jane that Cromwell exploited.  I also agree that Henry could make himself believe what he wanted to believe – that's probably the reason he didn't question too closely. Getting rid of Anne got him out of a repeating pattern of miscarried children and enabled him to start again, which probably did wonders for his bedroom performance!

Louise said:

 Add to that the fact that most of the jury members were also members of Henry's parliament and all of them relied on the Crown for their power and influence, they were certainly not independent. They did what they knew Henry wanted, including Thomas Boleyn.    

Under Magna Carta, English law created the system of judgement with a jury of your peers. Peers in this case meaning equals rather than a peer of the realm.

In Anne's case, her only peers were the highest nobility and the king. However Thomas Boleyn was allowed not to be part of ther jury in Anne and George's cases. He served on the jury for the other accused and in condemning them,he condemned his own children.