ANNE BOLEYN - OR ANNE BOLEYN, SECOND OF THE WIVES OF KING HENRY VIII.
Anne Boleyn, was born on a date which is disputed, a lack of parish records of the period has made it impossible to determine with accuracy. Some authorities on the subject put forward the year 1501, whilst others dispute this, favouring instead, 1507, others as late even as 1512.It is widely accepted however, that she was born sometime within the 1501-1507, eight year time span. Anne's parents were Thomas Bolyn, (who would later become Earle of Wiltshire and Earle of Ormonde), and his wife, the Lady Elizabeth Howard, daughter of the 2nd Duke of Norfolk, one of the pre-eminent families in the land. Her great-grandparents were made up of a Duke, an Earl, a Knight, two Aristocratic Ladies and one Lord Mayor of London.
ABOVE:A PORTRAIT OF ANNE BOLEYN. Her pedigree made her of more noble birth than two of Henry VIII wives, Jane Seymour and Catherine Parr,but she was much less noble than Catherine of Aragon, who was the youngest surviving child of King Ferdinand II of Aragon and Queen Isabella of Castile. Much of Anne's childhood and formative years were spent in the Netherlands and France, whilst her father, who had been a firm favourite of King Henry VII, continued his career on the continent, as a very popular and well respected diplomat under the new King Henry VIII. His charms won the admiration of Archduchess Margaret of Austria, the daughter of Maximilian I, the Holy Roman Emperor. She was ruling the Netherlands on behalf of her father at this time. So impressed was she with Thomas Boleyn, that a place in her household was offered to his daughter, the young Anne Boleyn. Here then, Anne stayed with Margaret, from the Spring of 1513 until October 1514, during which time the Archduchess told Sir Thomas that his daughter was:"so presentable and so pleasant, considering her youthful age, that I am more beholden to you for sending her to me, than you to me" (E.W.Ives,op.cit.) Anne's father had arranged for his daughter to attend Mary Tudor, the sister of King Henry VIII, for her forthcoming marriage to Louis XII of France in the October of 1514, where she was Maid-of-Honour to Queen Mary. Here she was to join her sister Mary Boleyn who was already in the Queen's attendance. On the death of King Louis, Mary Tudor and Anne's sister Mary Boleyn returned to England, leaving Anne in France, attending to the new French Queen, Claude. Here she stayed in the Queen's household for the next six or seven years, allowing her to complete her French studies and to further her interests in fashion and religious philosophy. Anne Boleyn was recalled to London in an attempt by King Henry VIII, to resolve a dispute between Anne's father and Sir Piers Butler, a remote cousin of her family in Ireland. The dispute had erupted over the titles and estates of the seventh Earl of Ormond who had died in 1515. Henry's plan was to arrange a marriage between Piers's son James and Anne, who would bring her Ormond inheritance as dowry, ending the dispute. It all however, ended in failure. Anne was a charming and witty girl and these attributes won her many admirers, one of whom was Henry Percy, the heir to the powerful Duke of Northumberland. She fell in love with young Percy and they secretly became engaged and planned to marry. When Cardinal Wolsey and the Duke of Northumberland, discovered Anne Boleyn, and Henry Percy's plans, they both immediately put a stop to it. Neither of them felt that the Boleyn family were of high enough rank to be united to the Percy family by marriage. It has been suggested, that Henry VIII himself was behind the whole affair. This however is just conjecture, nothing has ever come to the surface substantiating this claim.
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