There is the possibility that Anne mistakenly thought her execution would take place the day after her brother and the other men had died.  On the morning of the 18th she made her innocence known to Kingston while receiving the sacrament.  He passed this info on to Cromwell.  Maybe that is when the order came to rid the grounds of all foreigners.  Hence the delay.  Since she had proclaimed her innocence during mass, maybe they thought she would do so in public before she died.  They wouldn't want any ambassadors writing home that Anne had died bravely while proclaiming her innocence.

As to Henry and second thoughts?  The time for those thoughts had long since passed.  He never had any intention of stopping Anne's execution.  He couldn't get to Jane fast enough.  He heard that cannon go off announcing Anne's death, and maybe he felt a little pang, but that didn't stop him from getting on that barge to get to his new life with his soon to be new wife.  If he was feeling any kind of guilt or thoughts that Anne was innocent, he hid them well.  All I see is a cold-hearted, calculating so-and-so here. But that's just me with my thoughts about Henry. 

Ellie, Henry seemed to almost always have a rebound.  He had another woman to replace Katherine, one to replace Anne, another to replace Anne of Cleves, and he was quick to find another one after Katherine Howard.  The only reason there wasn't a woman to replace Jane quickly was, (A) He wasn't expecting Jane to die on him. (B) No woman in her right mind would have him.

Sharon said

  There is the possibility that Anne mistakenly thought her execution would take place the day after her brother and the other men had died.  On the morning of the 18th she made her innocence known to Kingston while receiving the sacrament.  He passed this info on to Cromwell.  Maybe that is when the order came to rid the grounds of all foreigners.  Hence the delay.  Since she had proclaimed her innocence during mass, maybe they thought she would do so in public before she died.  They wouldn’t want any ambassadors writing home that Anne had died bravely while proclaiming her innocence.

As to Henry and second thoughts?  The time for those thoughts had long since passed.  He never had any intention of stopping Anne’s execution.  He couldn’t get to Jane fast enough.  He heard that cannon go off announcing Anne’s death, and maybe he felt a little pang, but that didn’t stop him from getting on that barge to get to his new life with his soon to be new wife.  If he was feeling any kind of guilt or thoughts that Anne was innocent, he hid them well.  All I see is a cold-hearted, calculating so-and-so here. But that’s just me with my thoughts about Henry. 

Ellie, Henry seemed to almost always have a rebound.  He had another woman to replace Katherine, one to replace Anne, another to replace Anne of Cleves, and he was quick to find another one after Katherine Howard.  The only reason there wasn’t a woman to replace Jane quickly was, (A) He wasn’t expecting Jane to die on him. (B) No woman in her right mind would have him.

Nicely said and very true.. After Jane died Henry did have a little trouble finding a woman to marry him, I can’t say I’m suprised can you? Mary of Guise, who I understand had dithered for a while in marrying James 5th of Scotland, quickly made her mind up and married him, when Henry put forward his suit, Christina of Denmark, said of him that if she had 2 heads he would be welcome to one of them, and refused him too. To be honest I think if Anne of Cleves had been told the truth about Henry etc, she too would have refused him as well. AOC seems to me at least to be very much misunderstood, everyone assumed that she wasn’t clever, I don’t think she was as clever as KOA or AB but she certainly processed enough intelligence to know not to look a gift horse in the mouth and despite the disaster called her marriage she came out of it rather well, and I believe was happy with her lot. Henry was a little like a rubber ball bouncing from one woman to the next, and not just with his wives either his misstresses didn’t know if he would be bedding them or some other woman that night. Although as he got older and more like a blubber ball than a rubber ball I rather think his mistresses were thin on the ground too. Did he have mistresses, after Jane’s death? I don’t think he did when he was married to her, or at least I’ve never found any evidence of mistresses during that time? Poor K.H I think must have felt like a lamb at the slaughter, when she married Henry sure she liked all the shiny things and dresses etc, but I still think she must have felt totally horrified to be married to the discusting stinky blob Henry was, so you really can’t blame her for going off the rails, so to speak, she was a fool, but then don’t all teenagers make screwups? As for K.P perhaps again she felt like she had no choice, she was in love with Thomas Seymour, but Henry had made it clear he wanted her as his wife. How could she have said “NO” to Henry and come away without losing her head and Thomas’s too most likely, the fact that she said that “God” had told her to marry Henry was nicely done, and perhaps even appealed to Henry’s sence of humour, maybe. But again even K.P must have felt some revoltion, against old stinky blubber box, trying to get his way with her night after night.
However again as she had already had 2 elderly husbands she at least had the maturity to be able to deal with him, although it can’t have been pleasent having to dress his ulcerated leg, and put up with his irrational temper tantrums.. I suppose we can be thankful that he didn’t have a 2 year old temper tantrum like King John used to have, where he would roll around on the floor kicking out at anyone who came near him and screaming, and stuffing the rushes from the floor in his mouth and chewing them. If Henry did that I wonder how the heck and just how many men it would take to get him back on his feet again, personally if I was K.P if he had a temper like this I would just roll him into his room and leave him there to get on with it and let him sulk.

Anne was the first queen to suffer beheading so I think Henry wanted a show of his mercy in a public fashion.

He’d really got into the swing of beheading people with royal blood or title by the time he got to KH. He didn’t want to show Kathryn the same mercy since she had shown Henry how old and laughable he was. He simply wanted to close that chapter of his life and find the next missus.

Notice Henry didn’t attend any of these killings. It was easy for Henry to order the execution of people. He never had to see them again or give them another thought. Once he got the verdict he wanted, his job was done. I suppose he felt he was being merciful by not burning Katherine.

I was being fecitious. I do not think Henry would have burned Katherine. Yes, her punishment for her crimes, was death. No way around that.

Now see, I would go mad like Margaret if I had to watch someone I loved beheaded in front of me. It had to affect people. If Owen Tudor ‘knew’ this woman, she probably wasn’t nuts before they killed him. I can’t imagine him being with a crazy person. But who knows?
I don’t think Henry attended any of the death’s of the people he ordered executed. I just don’t think it was done. Women can be ruthless when they have been wronged. Isabella and Margaret of Anjou had definitely been wronged. I actually do understand Isabella. Edward treated Isabella, who was a princess of France, like a piece of dirt for years. She needed and received her revenge.

Sophie1536 said

Would Henry have thought different IF he’d have attended ANY of the executions? He loved More, could he have watched him die knowing HE had caused it?
It was all so easy for Henry to put pen to paper and order an execution (Even for people he loved) but would it have been so easy to witness it too???

Actually Sophie you could be onto something here. Perhaps if he’d of witnesssed Buckingham’s, Fisher’s and More’s death’s, and even going back as far as Dudley’s and Empson’s death’s at the start of his reign. (Dudley and Empson were his Father’s tax collectors) he perhaps wouldn’t have been so quick to sign his name to any death warrant. Which makes me think that even when he was younger before he became King did Henry actually witness any executions at all?

Sophie1536 said

Do you think the ordinary people of Tudor England would believe that Henry was REALLY going to execute a Queen of England?
I’ve often wondered if the public thought that Anne would be reprieved at the last moment?

Anne was the first Queen to be executed in England. Others had been accused of treason, adultery or witchcraft and got away with imprisonment or confiscation of property and title. It was unheard of that a Queen would suffer such a fate, but then to many she was not the ‘real’ queen anyway.