Anne Boleyn

Anne Boleyn (1507-1536) was the daughter of Thomas Boleyn, the Earl of Wiltshire. Having entered the court as maid of honour of Queen Catherine of Aragon (1485-1536), Anne soon aroused the interest and passion of King Henry VIII of England (1491-1547), who asked for an annulment of his marriage to Catherine to Pope Clement VII (1478-1534) in order to marry her. Faced with the refusal of the Pope, Henry and Anne however celebrated their wedding in 1533, and in May of the same year, Bishop Thomas Cranmer declared null and void the previous king’s marriage with the Spanish princess. The pope responded by excommunicating Henry VIII, who in turn, with the Act of Supremacy of 1534, sanctioned the schism of the Church of England. The second marriage of the king, however, did not last long: in love with another courtesan, Jane Seymour, Henry had his wife arrested for high treason in 1536. Locked in the Tower of London and sentenced to death, Anne Boleyn was executed on May 19. She was only rehabilitated at the beginning of the reign of her only daughter, Elizabeth I (1533-1603).