They were two women who belonged to one of the most powerful and ruthless families in Tudor England, who thought little of sacrificing them to the perils and uncertainty of the ambitious court.
They were both the wives and Queens of Henry VIII, but there Anne Boleyn's and Kathryn Howards' similarities ended
One was a sophisticated, witty, and alluring woman, who to modern historians would easily be described as a woman ahead of her time.
The other was a vain and precocious child, who was not long let out of the nursery, to preside over one of the most important roles in government, who failed to be not deterred by the infamous reputation, and fate of her kinswoman?
When Anne Boleyn returned to the English court in 1522 England was in a time of political and domestic harmony,
Despite the display of marital harmony, trouble was lurking beneath the surface. The Queen, Katharine of Aragon, had last been pregnant a few years previously and had ended in the all too familiar conclusion of a stillbirth. The country had an heir, though it was not the son that the conservative minds of England had hoped for, but a daughter, Princess Mary.
By contrast, the King, Henry VIII was in the prime of his life, he was young, fit, and most importantly virile!
How Henry first became attracted to Anne is not known. Her appearance of dark colouring, and slender body gave her a distinction amongst the English roses of Henrys court, and her exotic looks quickly began to draw admirers. One such was the future Earl of Northumberland, Henry Percy. Despite being promised to another young woman, Percy was set on marrying Anne, and there has long been furtive speculation that they intended to, or even did go through with a ceremony.
As soon as the affair was over, Henry began to pursue Anne with a passion, which would become the talk of the courts of Europe. He tried numerous times to seduce her, but always to his frustration, Anne refused to capitulate.
She would only surrender her virginity to him as his bride. She was playing for much higher stakes than her sister, another of Henrys discarded mistresses.
The notion of annulment began to circulate sometime around 1526, and both Anne and Henry were confident of swift action. However, in order to raise Anne, Queen Katharine, first needed to be displaced.
Henry based his grounds for an annulment, on a passage in Leviticus from the Bible, which prohibited a man from marrying his brother's wife, unless the marriage was unconsummated. Although they had Mary, a daughter was to Henrys mind as calamitous as having no children. No woman had ever successfully held the throne in history. A son was what Henry and England needed, and what Katharine could not provide, unlike Anne.
However, Katharine was not prepared to go down without a fight. She believed in the legality of her marriage. The Pope, God's highest representative on Earth had granted a dispensation for her to marry Henry. She concluded that God intended England to have its first female ruler under the Tudor regime, and it would be this belief that would she would cling to, as she fell from favour, and her treatment became ever more harsh.
By 1533, Anne had all but supplanted Katharine. The former Queen was banished to the country, living in derelict houses with spies disguised as servants. Anne was Queen in all but name, She went everywhere with Henry, and was accorded the same respect and privileges that Katharine had been. She was even ennobled with a title in her own right, Marquess of Pembroke. This patent would make her the richest woman in England as well as the most powerful. It was a sure sign that marriage could not be far behind.
Soon after the Christmas of 1532, Anne and Henry set sail for France, to enlist the help of the French King, Francis, in support of their marriage against the oppositions of the powerful Spaniards, who made little secret of the desire to avenge the wrongs done to Katharine. The visit was a success and either before their return, or shortly after it, Anne and Henry finally gave in to their seven, frustratingly long years of abstinence, and consummated their relationship.
