Speaker 1: Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of iHeartRadio and Grimm
Speaker 1: and Mild from Aaron Manky. Listener discretion advised.
Speaker 2: This is Danish Wort's host of Noble Blood. I'm taking
Speaker 2: a brief maternity leave right now, and so this week
Speaker 2: we're continuing our trip back to the archives, back to
Speaker 2: the series I did on Henry the Eighth's Six Wives.
Speaker 2: This week Anne Bolin. Anne Bolin is such an exciting
Speaker 2: and captivating figure. It truly is no wonder she receives
Speaker 2: the amount of attention from historians that she does. For
Speaker 2: this episode, I focused on the most notorious moment of
Speaker 2: her life, her beheading.
Speaker 1: Enjoy They say that after decapitation, the human brain can
Speaker 1: remain conscious for several seconds, maybe even up to a minute,
Speaker 1: even without fresh blood being pumped up from the heart.
Speaker 1: The brain still has oxygen and neurons firing rapidly in
Speaker 1: confusion her pain. They say that when Anne Boleyn's head
Speaker 1: fell from her body into the straw waiting below, her dark,
Speaker 1: intelligent eyes still flickered and blinked, and that her white
Speaker 1: lips pressed together and apart, as if she was trying
Speaker 1: to say one last thing. It seems fitting that even
Speaker 1: in death, Anne would try to continue to speak. It
Speaker 1: was her silver tongue that had initially charmed the king
Speaker 1: back when Anne was just a lady in waiting. No
Speaker 1: one ever described her as the most beautiful girl at court,
Speaker 1: although she was striking with her dark hair and her
Speaker 1: milky skin so pale it was almost translucent. No, it
Speaker 1: was her wit and her intelligence, her innate ability to
Speaker 1: know exactly how to flirt without seeming like she was
Speaker 1: trying to flirt. Anne engaged with poets and phalots, and
Speaker 1: debated issues of politics and religion. Henry had loved that
Speaker 1: about Anne back when he was pursuing her, that she
Speaker 1: had challenged and teased him, but he found those qualities
Speaker 1: far less compelling in a wife. Henry the Eighth did
Speaker 1: Anne one kindness in her beheading. He had brought in
Speaker 1: the hangman of Calais, known for his skill and accuracy
Speaker 1: with the sword, to do her decapitation, to liberate her
Speaker 1: head from her neck in one smooth motion, instead of
Speaker 1: the typical englishman with an axe, who was known to
Speaker 1: sometimes take two or even three swings to get the
Speaker 1: job done. The five men accused of being Anne's lovers
Speaker 1: had been executed by Englishmen. Back when Henry was in
Speaker 1: love with Anne, he disposed of his loyal wife twenty
Speaker 1: four years and completely overthrew the foundation of religion in
Speaker 1: England along the way. It was all for the promise
Speaker 1: of being with Anne, and for the promise of the
Speaker 1: son that she would bear him. When that son didn't come,
Speaker 1: obsession soured in Henry into something corrosive and hateful. It
Speaker 1: would cost Anne her life. She had played the game
Speaker 1: well enough, masterfully really, to become a queen, but in
Speaker 1: the end there was nothing she could do to save
Speaker 1: her own life. I'm Danish wartz and this is noble blood.
Speaker 1: When Anne Boleyn found out that Henry's first wife, Catherine
Speaker 1: of Aragon, died, Anne exhaled with a mixture of relief
Speaker 1: and pleasure. As head of the Church of England, Henry
Speaker 1: had officially declared himself divorced from Catherine and he had
Speaker 1: married Anne, but Catherine still was calling herself the Queen
Speaker 1: of England. And as much as Anne hated to admit it,
Speaker 1: the people had loved Catherine. They hissed Anne in the streets,
Speaker 1: called her Henry's goggle eyed whore. But now that Catherine
Speaker 1: was dead. There was to be no more confusion. There
Speaker 1: was one queen of England, one wife of Henry the eighth,
Speaker 1: Anne Boleyn. Anne had entranced Henry when she returned from
Speaker 1: a childhood in the French court, instantly astonishing the English
Speaker 1: with her wit and daring French fashion and her allegedly
Speaker 1: dazzling repertoire of sexual foreplay. When Anne arrived all glamour
Speaker 1: and fresh promise, Henry the eighth was facing the massive
Speaker 1: issue of his wife, Catherine. After two decades of marriage
Speaker 1: and half a dozen miscarriages, Catherine was entering menopause, having
Speaker 1: only given Henry a single daughter. The Tudor dynasty, started
Speaker 1: only by Henry's father, needed sons if it were to
Speaker 1: continue to survive. Without a clear line of succession, England
Speaker 1: could once again be plunged into one wan miserable civil war.
Speaker 1: But what were Henry's options. His Spanish wife was powerful
Speaker 1: and connected. Her nephew was the Holy Roman Emperor who
Speaker 1: had the Vatican under his thumb. But if everything was
Speaker 1: supposed to work out with Catherine, if everything was so perfect,
Speaker 1: then why hadn't God given them a son? That was
Speaker 1: the nagging voice in the back of Henry's head. After all,
Speaker 1: Catherine had been married to Henry's older brother, Arthur First
Speaker 1: for six months until Arthur died of the sweating sickness.
Speaker 1: Didn't the Bible forbid marrying your brother's wife. Catherine had
Speaker 1: sworn that the marriage had never been consummated, and the
Speaker 1: Vatican offered special dispensation. But what if she had been lying?
Speaker 1: What if that was the reason that God was cursing
Speaker 1: Henry with a lack of sons? And then Anne appeared, flirting,
Speaker 1: making Henry feel a way that he couldn't remember feeling
Speaker 1: for a long time. He was still in his thirties, vital.
Speaker 1: With a new wife, he could have a dozen sons.
Speaker 1: Although he begged Anne, she refused to be his royal mistress,
Speaker 1: refused to even sleep with him unless they were married.
Speaker 1: Unless you divorce Catherine and marry me, Anne said. Catherine
Speaker 1: of Aragon was banished to a remote palace and told
Speaker 1: she was no longer queen. Henry declared himself head of
Speaker 1: the Church of England while the nation protested and hurled
Speaker 1: insults Anne. Henry married her in a secret ceremony. Within months,
Speaker 1: she was pregnant all of Henry's advisers, all of the doctors,
Speaker 1: and the soothsayers said that this would be the son
Speaker 1: he was waiting for, the boy that would show that
Speaker 1: God was pleased with him and that he made the
Speaker 1: right choice. When the doctor nervously announced that Queen Anne
Speaker 1: had given birth to a healthy baby girl, Henry couldn't
Speaker 1: hide his disdain or his anger. But Anne loved her daughter,
Speaker 1: the little girl they named Elizabeth. Anne played with her
Speaker 1: dangling fingers over her basinet, cooing at her beautiful daughter
Speaker 1: with golden curls. Anne knew that there was still time
Speaker 1: for her to have a son, still time for her
Speaker 1: to secure her position, even if Henry's eye had already
Speaker 1: begun to wander while Anne was on bed rest for
Speaker 1: her pregnancy, while Catherine of Arragon had diplomatically turned a
Speaker 1: blind eye to Henry's philandering, Anne became furious. She was
Speaker 1: jealous and hot headed, with a biting tongue that never
Speaker 1: demurred from a fight. But also Catherine had been born
Speaker 1: and raised a princess. Anne had once been a commoner.
Speaker 1: She had been a lady in waiting who caught Henry's
Speaker 1: eye and usurped a queen, and so she was perfectly
Speaker 1: aware that the exact same thing could happen to her.
Speaker 1: Nothing protected her except the possibility of a son. Anne
Speaker 1: got pregnant again, and the court instantly began celebrating. When
Speaker 1: she miscarried just three months later, it was so embarrassing
Speaker 1: that it wasn't publicly announced, just a shameful whisper that
Speaker 1: circulated amongst the court, starting with the woman who had
Speaker 1: changed Anne's bed sheets. Henry and Anne both believed what
Speaker 1: everyone believed back in the fifteen hundreds, that a miscarriage
Speaker 1: was a failure on the part of the woman, a
Speaker 1: sign of God's ultimate displeasure. The next miscarriage, too, was
Speaker 1: another tightly kept secret, and the third was so well
Speaker 1: hidden that it's impossible to trace when it actually occurred.
Speaker 1: By the time Catherine of Arragon finally died, Anne was
Speaker 1: well aware that she was carrying what could very well
Speaker 1: be her final hope. Anne and Henry had been married
Speaker 1: for three years, but already he had stopped coming to
Speaker 1: her bedroom. He ignored her when he could, spending most
Speaker 1: of his time doting on one of Anne's own ladies,
Speaker 1: Jane Seymour. Plain, obedient, soft spoken Jane Seymour, the exact
Speaker 1: opposite of Anne in every conceivable way. Henry newly besought it,
Speaker 1: gave Jane Seymour a locket containing his portrait. Jane made
Speaker 1: the mistake of wearing it and flicking it open and
Speaker 1: shut like a schoolgirl in love. When Anne entered the
Speaker 1: room and saw the necklace, she ripped it off Jane's
Speaker 1: neck with so much force that Anne's fingers bled. The
Speaker 1: country already hated Anne, and she had made powerful enemies
Speaker 1: in court by pulling Henry away from Catherine and away
Speaker 1: from the Catholic Church. Anne had very few cards left
Speaker 1: to play. The only thing keeping her in power was
Speaker 1: the child in her belly and Henry's love for her,
Speaker 1: and that seemed to be diminishing every day. Neither Henry
Speaker 1: nor Anne attended Catherine of Argen's funeral, where she was
Speaker 1: laid to rest, not with the title of former queen
Speaker 1: but of dowager Princess. That exact day, miles away, Anne
Speaker 1: Boleyn miscarried a baby boy. Reports at the time say
Speaker 1: that the cold, sill, tiny boy was perfect and beautiful.
Speaker 1: Years later people would write that it was misshapen, that
Speaker 1: it had physical deformities, evidence of its mother committing some
Speaker 1: truly awful sin, adultery, incest, or witchcraft. But at the
Speaker 1: time there didn't need to be any further proof. The
Speaker 1: son that could have saved her life was dead, and
Speaker 1: Anne Boleyn's fate was sealed. Anne's behavior became panicked and erratic.
Speaker 1: The man who had once been so wildly in love
Speaker 1: with her he overthrew the entire religious foundation of a
Speaker 1: nation was now writing love letters to another woman. Henry
Speaker 1: had stopped coming to her bed. She was the queen,
Speaker 1: but she was also becoming increasingly aware of what a
Speaker 1: precarious position that was. When her king was Henry the Eighth.
Speaker 1: Anne engaged one of the king's close friends, Sir Henry Norris,
Speaker 1: one afternoon to ask him why he was still unmarried.
Speaker 1: Anne's flirtation was normal, expected even of a queen. A
Speaker 1: queen was meant to be beloved by all the knightly
Speaker 1: men of a kingdom, to inspire love and loyalty in them.
Speaker 1: But when Sir Henry Norris demured, Anne continued pressing closer
Speaker 1: to him in the hallway than might have been prudent.
Speaker 1: I think Anne purred that you're waiting to marry a
Speaker 1: rich widow, you look for dead men's shoes. Is that so,
Speaker 1: Sir Henry Norris replied, smiling just a little bit. Anne
Speaker 1: looked into his eyes. I think if if something were
Speaker 1: to happen to the King, you would look to marry me.
Speaker 1: Sir Henry Norris's smile disappeared. To even think such a
Speaker 1: thing would cost me my head? He said. Anne had
Speaker 1: crossed the line from courtly flirtation to outright treason. It
Speaker 1: was a good thing. Anne thought, as she returned to
Speaker 1: her chamber that night that no one had heard them.
Speaker 1: Another night, one of Anne Boleyn's ladies in waiting, Lady Wooster,
Speaker 1: spent a banquet drinking slightly too much wine and dancing
Speaker 1: slightly too close to one or two eligible men. The
Speaker 1: next day, Lady Worcester's brother confronted her and told her
Speaker 1: that she needed to stop her behavior before her reputation
Speaker 1: was ruined. Lady Wooster just laughed. If you think I'm bad,
Speaker 1: she said, I'm nothing compared to the Queen Anne has
Speaker 1: met in her bed chamber late at night all the time,
Speaker 1: including a certain Mark Smeaton. Smeaton was a court musician,
Speaker 1: and Lady Wooster wasn't the old only one who noticed
Speaker 1: that Anne seemed to particularly enjoy his company. Within days
Speaker 1: of the conversation between Lady Wooster and her brother, Mark
Speaker 1: Smeaton was taken in for questioning by the King's Chief Minister,
Speaker 1: Thomas Cromwell. We don't know what happened behind closed doors,
Speaker 1: whether Smeaton was tortured or coerced. He might have even
Speaker 1: been telling the truth. It's impossible to know, but Mark
Speaker 1: Smeaton confessed to Thomas Cromwell that he had slept with
Speaker 1: Queen Anne Boleyn on three separate occasions. Anne Boleyn was
Speaker 1: arrested while she was watching a tennis match and brought
Speaker 1: to a dim room where she was interrogated by three
Speaker 1: men on charges of adultery and treason. They asked her
Speaker 1: about Mark Smeaton. Anne was completely baffled and indignant. She
Speaker 1: denied ever sleeping with anyone except her husband, the King.
Speaker 1: They asked about the conversation she had had with Sir
Speaker 1: Hena hen Norris. This time Anne sputtered a little, but
Speaker 1: still her point was clear. She hadn't sinned against the King.
Speaker 1: The three men interrogating her were stony faced and cruel,
Speaker 1: completely unmoved. Her lovers had already confessed. They told her.
Speaker 1: Anne was escorted back to her chamber. She and her
Speaker 1: ladies sat down to a silent dinner. None of Anne's
Speaker 1: ladies made eye contact with her. The few servants standing
Speaker 1: nearby barely managed to conceal her tears. That very afternoon,
Speaker 1: Anne was brought to the Tower of London. She was
Speaker 1: given no time to pack clothes or any personal belongings,
Speaker 1: and though she begged to say goodbye to her daughter Elizabeth,
Speaker 1: the guards pretended not to hear her. Most criminals were
Speaker 1: brought to the tower in the middle of the night.
Speaker 1: Anne was brought by barge down on the River Thames
Speaker 1: in broad daylight, with crowds gawking at her and shouting
Speaker 1: as she went by. Anne begged to see the King.
Speaker 1: If she could see Henry face to face, if she
Speaker 1: could just talk to him, she could charm him like
Speaker 1: she had before, She could remind him of his love
Speaker 1: for her. He must have some tiny ounce of affection
Speaker 1: for her left in his heart. Anne didn't know that
Speaker 1: she and Henry would never lay eyes on each other
Speaker 1: ever again. At five p m. She arrived at the
Speaker 1: Tower of London dazed, and terrified. Am I to be
Speaker 1: put in the dungeons? She said? The guard shook his head.
Speaker 1: Anne was to be brought to the Royal Apartments, the
Speaker 1: very same rooms that she had stayed in the night
Speaker 1: before her coronation. The rooms had been unused since. Hearing that,
Speaker 1: Anne flung herself onto the cobblestones. It is too good
Speaker 1: for me, she sobbed a cannon on the tower wharf thundered.
Speaker 1: It was the sound that rang when a person of
Speaker 1: nobility was brought to be imprisoned in the fortress. It
Speaker 1: echoed through the city, causing excitement and speculation. King Henry,
Speaker 1: deep inside the palace, didn't hear it. He wouldn't make
Speaker 1: another public appearance until after Anne was dead and buried.
Speaker 1: The man in charge of Anne's custody while she was
Speaker 1: in the Tower of London was a former knight named
Speaker 1: Sir William Kingston. Kingston was tall, and in his youth
Speaker 1: had been a strong and triumphant jouster, even facing off
Speaker 1: against the King. He had been devoted to Queen Catherine
Speaker 1: throughout his long career, but even so, during Anne's imprisonment,
Speaker 1: he would only ever treat her with courtesy and kindness.
Speaker 1: All of Anne's servants had been dismissed, replaced by five
Speaker 1: new ladies, all spies who were tasked with asking Anne
Speaker 1: about her alleged lovers and her treasonous conversations, and then
Speaker 1: reporting back her answers to Thomas Cromwell. But Anne never
Speaker 1: said anything incriminating. Instead, her spies just reported that her
Speaker 1: mood shifted wildly from wretching sobs to ecstatic laughter. Sometimes
Speaker 1: Anne would just burst out laughing and say that history
Speaker 1: would remember her as Anne the Headless. My innocence will
Speaker 1: save me, won't it. I am innocent, and so the
Speaker 1: law will save me. Anne thought maybe Henry was just
Speaker 1: testing her. He loved her, didn't he. Even if he
Speaker 1: had tired of her, he probably wouldn't kill her. Anne
Speaker 1: was accused of adultery with five men, including her own brother,
Speaker 1: even though all of the men, with the exception of
Speaker 1: Mark Smeaton, had proclaimed their innocence. The number was a
Speaker 1: calculated move on the part of Thomas Cromwell and the King.
Speaker 1: One man could be a mistake, but Anne being accused
Speaker 1: of intimacy with five men, the accusation alone cemented her guilt.
Speaker 1: When Anne was called to her tribunal to stand before
Speaker 1: the jury of twenty six men and listen to the
Speaker 1: allegations against her. She didn't dress like she was walking
Speaker 1: to her death sentence. Instead, Anne wore a black velvet
Speaker 1: gown and a red petticoat, as if she were dressed
Speaker 1: to be awarded a medal at some noble ceremony. She
Speaker 1: wasn't allowed to bring any witnesses or have any legal counsel.
Speaker 1: All Anne could do was continue to proclaim her innocence
Speaker 1: to offer the best defense she could, speaking with the
Speaker 1: eloquence and the intelligence that Henry had once fallen in
Speaker 1: love with. Never before in English history had a queen
Speaker 1: been sentenced to death. Henry was just trying to scare her,
Speaker 1: and thought trying to soothe herself to stave off the panic.
Speaker 1: Maybe she would just be banished. The Duke of Norfolk
Speaker 1: had tears in his eyes when he read out the sentence.
Speaker 1: Anne was his niece, his own sister's child. Some might
Speaker 1: have thought that he was crying in grief or pity. Really,
Speaker 1: though it was more likely he was crying for his
Speaker 1: own lost honor and status. Hugh read aloud, for offending
Speaker 1: our sovereign, the King in committing treason against his person.
Speaker 1: Anne Boleyn is sentenced to be burned within the Tower
Speaker 1: of London on the Green, or else to have her
Speaker 1: head cut off. Anne's expression didn't change when they read
Speaker 1: her sentence. She lifted her eyes at the sky, but
Speaker 1: she didn't cry. She maintained her innocence. I am ready
Speaker 1: to greet death, she said. Finally, I am just sorry
Speaker 1: for the others who are innocent and the King's loyal subjects,
Speaker 1: that they should share my fate and die because of me.
Speaker 1: Kingston escorted Anne back to her chambers, and Anne asked
Speaker 1: to see a priest so that she could confess. The
Speaker 1: arch Bishop of Canterbury arrived to take Anne's final confession.
Speaker 1: Anne was already sentenced to death. There was nothing she
Speaker 1: could lose in confessing her sins now and Anne knew
Speaker 1: that if she told a lie in confession, she would
Speaker 1: be damning her soul to eternal torment. She confessed to jealousy,
Speaker 1: but nothing else. The archbishop asked if she was sure
Speaker 1: she was done. Anne lowered her head. God knows that
Speaker 1: I have not sinned against him in any other way.
Speaker 1: Anne watched from her window as all five men, including
Speaker 1: her own brother were beheaded on the Tower Green. There
Speaker 1: were whispers that Henry had put her in those rooms
Speaker 1: specifically so that she could see those deaths. Anne's own
Speaker 1: death was still a ways away. They were specifically constructing
Speaker 1: a new scaffolding for her so more crowds could gather
Speaker 1: and see their fallen queen end in a rush of blood.
Speaker 1: Anne turned away from the constructions she could see from
Speaker 1: the window. I wish all this was over, that the
Speaker 1: pain would just be finished already, she said to Kingston.
Speaker 1: Kingston softly replied that he believed that when the end
Speaker 1: finally came, there would be no pain, and when that
Speaker 1: day finally came, Kingston helped Anne up the wooden steps
Speaker 1: to the stage on the Green, accompanied by four ladies.
Speaker 1: The ladies helped Anne to undress her neck, taking off
Speaker 1: her head dress and the small white fur cloak she
Speaker 1: wore a symbol of royalty. They gathered Anne's hair in
Speaker 1: a linen cap so it wouldn't get in the way
Speaker 1: of a sword. Anne whispered to her ladies and asked
Speaker 1: them to pray for her. Unlike in an axe beheading,
Speaker 1: a decapitation by sword required the victim to kneel very tall,
Speaker 1: upright on both knees. Anne took the position with as
Speaker 1: much grace as she could, but there was still fear
Speaker 1: in her eyes. Anne knew she had to keep very
Speaker 1: still if the death was to be quick, but she
Speaker 1: kept looking around, terrified for the moment when the man
Speaker 1: with the sword would make his attack. Madam, do not fear,
Speaker 1: the swordman said, I will wait until you are ready.
Speaker 1: Anne said a few words before her death to the
Speaker 1: crowd below, the nearly two thousand Englishmen who had gathered
Speaker 1: for the spectacle. She accepted death, reasserted her innocence once more,
Speaker 1: and asked for the good people to pray for Henry
Speaker 1: and those who were sending her to death. While Anne
Speaker 1: was looking away, the swordsman pulled his blade from a
Speaker 1: pile of straw, where it had been hidden so Anne
Speaker 1: wouldn't see. He wore no shoes so that his step
Speaker 1: would be silent, so that when he came up behind Anne,
Speaker 1: she wouldn't hear him. And then in one stroke, her
Speaker 1: head was gone, fallen in a bloody mass into the
Speaker 1: pilot of straw and sawdust. Waiting to welcome it, one
Speaker 1: of Anne's ladies threw a white handkerchief over the head,
Speaker 1: and the crowd watched as it slowly dappled with red blood.
Speaker 1: The Queen of England was dead. Eleven days later, Henry
Speaker 1: the Eighth married Anne's lady in waiting, Jane Seymour. That's
Speaker 1: the story of Anne Boleyn's death, but stick around after
Speaker 1: a brief sponsor break to hear a little bit about
Speaker 1: Anne's after life. Anne Boleyn is one of the most
Speaker 1: famous and enigmatic figures in English history, and she's also
Speaker 1: one of England's most ubiquitous ghosts. According to a Victorian legend,
Speaker 1: on certain nights, if you're on the road toward Blickling
Speaker 1: Hall in Norfolk, where Anne was born, you might see
Speaker 1: a carriage pass by. If you happen to look inside,
Speaker 1: you'll see Anne bathed in a red glow and wearing
Speaker 1: a pure white dress, holding her head gently in her lap.
Speaker 1: The moment that the carriage arrives at the front of
Speaker 1: the house, it vanishes into mist Anne can arrive at
Speaker 1: her destination, but she can't stay. Alison Weir has written
Speaker 1: extensively about Anne Bolyn and the myths and rumors surrounding
Speaker 1: her death, and so I defer to her expertise on
Speaker 1: the subject of Anne's ghosts, on which she writes, as
Speaker 1: a historian, I make no further comment on the veracity
Speaker 1: of these stories or the existence of ghosts. Noble Blood
Speaker 1: is a production of iHeartRadio Anne Grim and Mild from
Speaker 1: Aaron Mankey. Noble Blood is hosted by me Dana Schwartz,
Speaker 1: with additional writing and research by Hannah Johnston, Hannahswick, Courtney Sender,
Speaker 1: Amy Hit and Julia Melaney. The show is edited and
Speaker 1: produced by Jesse Funk, with supervising producerrima il Kaali and
Speaker 1: executive producers Aaron Manke, Trevor Young, and Matt Frederick. For
Speaker 1: more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.