The execution of Queen Anne Boleyn.




The execution of Queen Anne Boleyn.

29 year old Anne, King Henry VIII's second wife, was the Queen of England from the 1st of June 1533 to 1536. By March 1536, Henry was having an affair with Jane Seymour, so Henry was looking for a way out of the marriage and had Ann investigated for High Treason.  On the 2nd of May she was arrested and imprisoned in the Tower of London. 

 She was tried there and convicted on the 15th of May on trumped up charges of adultery, incest and treason and was thus sentenced to death by burning at the stake or beheading at the King’s pleasure. Fortunately for Anne, he chose the latter and perhaps through a pang of conscience imported a skilled headsman from Calais in France to ensure the execution was performed as humanely as possible. British hangmen normally got the job of beheading those condemned but were generally very poor at it due to the rarity of such sentences.

Just four days later, on the 19th May 1536, Anne was led to the Parade Ground within the Tower with an escort of 200 Yeoman of the Guard (Beefeaters). She was wearing a loose, ermine trimmed, grey damask robe over a red underskirt. Her hair was "up" covered with a white coif and a small black cap and she wore a cross on a gold chain at her waist and carried a white handkerchief and a prayer book.

She had to climb 4 feet up the steps to the scaffold to meet her headsman who was wearing a black suit and half mask covering the upper part of his face. The long two handed execution sword was concealed under the straw on the scaffold.

Anne made a short speech to the assembled witnesses and then removed her cape and her hair coif and cap which was now replaced by a white cap. She knelt on the platform and prayed with her chaplain. When she had finished one of her ladies in waiting blindfolded her with a large handkerchief. 

All was now ready and the headsman took up the sword and beheaded her with a single blow. Below is a photo of her execution as portrayed in a film. Her ladies in waiting recovered her head and as there was no coffin provided, she was placed in an old arrow box and duly buried in the Chapel Royal of St. Peter ad Vincula, within the Tower.

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