Anne Boleyn Doesn't Belong In Hell

Anne Boleyn's Tale

I beseech thee to listen to my story, to the shameful and cruel fate of which I had been subjected whilst I was queen of England.

Beloved by the people I was not, but I had no need for the affections of the masses when the king himself, Henry VIII, monarch of the Tudor Dynasty and husband to Catherine of Aragon, looked favorably upon me as his mistress and second queen.

My father was a diplomat of high regard and sought to elevate his position in the court of England, whereby opportunities for wealth and status could be attained. He had three children - me; my sister, Mary; and my brother, George; both my siblings had married some time ago and into societies that either did little or nothing for our family's image.

The time for my cousin, James Butler, 9th Earl of Ormond, and I to be matched had come in lieu of love but for the settlement of a dispute, between my father and James' father, over the title and estates of the Earldom of Ormond, a resolution - though political, appeared unnatural in mine eyes - that would secure my family of a lofty inheritance. Our union did not take place, for reasons unknown to me, and had my father been greatly upset, the sentiment was never disclosed, for though I had been a great favorite in the company of Queen Catherine, the gaze of the king I did wander in unexpectedly.

The king, so sweetly his pursuit of my love and affection, looked to nullify his marriage to Catherine, with whom he had a precious child, Princess Mary. It was no secret to the people that the king desired a male heir, of which Catherine of Aragon, after stillbirths and miscarriages, could not produce, and it was this unfortunate circumstance that my father advised me to use in convincing the king to divorce his queen. There could be no doubt that I, Anne Boleyn, sister to his previous mistress, Mary Boleyn, could offer all that which he sought, for my sister had conceived a son, whom she named Henry, and evidence against my ability to conceive of that same gender saw no proof.

Raised as I was under the cross and supervision of a godly man, my father, who aspired devilishly to attain all that could be given to him, short of the crown, the lust which festered in his body could contain itself no further, and in its search for fresh blood, corrupted my palette to insist upon the sacrilegious taste of power.

My would-be husband, the king, ineluctably obsessed as he was with me, parted with the Roman Catholic faith after his marriage to Catherine of Aragon was denied nullification, and instead, founded the Church of England and named himself Supreme Head, where no one, not even the church, not even God, could denounce his rules or deny him his wants. Though we would share this power when we were to wed, my lust callously hungered for more, and so, the king and I wed earlier than expected, and the people abused my lover as a bigamist for not waiting until, under the new law, his marriage to Catherine was annulled.

Sharp tongues besmirched me, too, for corrupting the king, whose devotion outweighed all and any that history could bring forth, even mistook me for a witch for my dark hair and eyes when the king's ideal mistress had once been the pale and beautiful Mary Boleyn. I banished her from the courts after her marriage to a lowly soldier named William Stafford, under the guise of shame that a queen's sister would marry beneath her station, but not before having employed her guidance in everything betwixt how the king fancied his amorous lover to behave, to the intimate details of love-making. I was most perfect in the king's eyes with this knowledge, cementing his beliefs in our union and taking pride in all he had sacrificed in making it so, and therefore, saw no further use for my sister, whose beauty posed a threat to the king's affection for me.

The king's advances and promises of unyielding devotion to me, and only me, had once placed me as a worthy ally to the king's chief minister, Thomas Cromwell, who aided me in my path to the throne, but later discovered how oft my power would rival his. In a dispute over the allocation of the king's purse, Thomas Cromwell and I threatened to have the other removed from their position if the direction on which we ardently persisted upon for the wealth of England did not adhere to the greater humanity, which he felt he knew best whereas I felt I could better ascertain. Thomas Cromwell egregiously contrived my downfall, in the time, following a bitter argument with the king, he had been sent away.

Many of Catherine of Aragon's ladies-in-waiting had become my own, the Princess Mary's becoming my daughter Elizabeth's, but I never thought to question their allegiance until the time they bruit rumors of my adulterous affairs with the king's best friend, Henry Norris, and the young musician, Mark Smeaton, whom I favored. Rumors built on hearsay and heresy lost ardour, reaching the king's ears like meaningless sounds, but still, I felt his affection wane. His chief desire was to have a son, which I found I also could not bear, or rather he could not bear because of his rumored impotence, when in the throes of passion with one of my ladies-in-waiting, Jane Seymour, she too did not conceive.

My father proposed a solution to sire a son with another man, a trustworthy man whose secrecy on the matter could be counted upon, but alas, we found none other than my own brother, George, and though we were raised to be God-fearing, God-loving disciples of Christ, the licentious and incentuous act was committed, only for me to suffer a miscarriage. Bereft of a son, I was imprisoned in a tower to await an execution for charges that were made known to me on the 15th of May, 1536, before a jury of my peers where I learned that Mark Smeaton had been indicted for a false confession he made of adulterous relations with me three times; Henry Norris, with whom I thought I could speak openly with, was tortured into not only confirming fabricated allegations of adultery with me but also of treason for a comment I made in regards to his betrothed, Madge Shelton, my cousin; and my brother, too, was imprisoned as word had gone out on what we had done, for nothing as vile and wicked in the sight of the Lord could remain hidden. All these men were beheaded two days later, and my superstitious king, persuaded by Thomas Cromwell, believed my miscarriages to be a punishment for his own impudence, our union shunned by God for the adultery committed with my sister, and so sought to divorce as well as execute me. The court of my peers - in attendance was Henry Percy, whom I had secretly been betrothed to for a time, and my uncle, Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk - convicted me of treason.

 As angry as I was for what would become of me, I realized death to be a sweet release, to join my unborn children in the realm to which they were sent, but now in death, I see there is no reunion. My king, for whatever remained of his love for me, sentenced me to death by the sword instead of the axe, for I'm certain he understood that I had broken no law but one, and that is that I indulged my father in his lust. I pray, take heed of my death as an example of what becomes of woman when she listens to the whims of any man other than God. If my husband should detest me for producing a girl, when the crown commanded of my womb a boy, I do not protest, wherefore a boy would grow into a man and lead a nation of men that wouldst not dare speak out against him, lest he lose his head, the way I lost my own.