#tudor executions

[tudorblogger]

I am still here! Book Update.

Hello all! I feel like I’ve been very quiet recently, but I’ve been beavering away editing my second book and writing my third book, and I’m starting a new job in January at my alma mater, Northumbria University, so I’ve just been quite preoccupied. Thought I’d just quickly jump on here to give you an update on the writing process and some of the research I’ve been doing. My first book…

[crossedwithblue]

random thought bc I've been listening to Six on repeat: the queens claim that the only reason they're remembered is because of Henry, but would Henry be one of the most iconic and well-known English monarchs if not for them?

[annabolinas]

May 19, 1536 - Anne Boleyn is Beheaded

"Good Christian people, I have come here to die. For according to the law, and by the law, I am judged to die and therefore, I will speak nothing against it. I am come hither to accuse no man, nor to speak of that whereof I am accused and condemned to die. But I pray God save the King and send him long to reign over you, for a gentler nor a more merciful prince was there never. And to me he was ever a good, a gentle, and sovereign lord. And if any person will meddle of my cause, I require them to judge the best. And thus I take my leave of the world and of you all, and I heartily desire you all to pray for me. O Lord, have mercy on me. To God, I commend my soul.' And then she knelt down, saying, 'To Christ I commend my soul, Jesu receive my soul', divers times, till that her head was stricken off with the sword.” - Anne's execution, as reported in Hall's Chronicle (1548)

""On a scaffold made there for the said execution, the said Queen Anne said thus: 'Masters, I here humbly submit me to the law, as the law hath judged me. And as for mine offenses, I here accuse no man; God knoweth them. I remit them to God, beseeching him to have mercy on my soul. And I beseech Jesu, save my sovereign and master, the King - the most godly, noble, and gentle prince that is, and long to reign over you.' Which words were spoken with a goodly smiling countenance. And this done, she knelt down on her knees and said: "To Jesu Christ, I commend my soul'. And suddenly, the hangman smote off her head at a stroke with a sword." - Anne's execution, as reported in Wriothesley's Chronicle (1559)

"And so she went to the place of her ordeal

To obey the will of justice,

Still showing a serene countenance,

As if she did not grieve for this world in any way;

For her coloring and face were such

That never before did she seem so beautiful ...

There was no one who does not have firm hope

That her spirit will not be in agony,

Given her great faith and wise patience,

Which rose above womanly courage.

Everyone, on the basis of her mightily steady end,

Judges her life to have been prudent

And believes they have committed a great offense

In having thought so ill of her." - Lancelot de Carle's The Story of the Fall of Anne Boleyn (1536, trans. Joann Dellaneva)

"Anne, the late Queen, suffered with sword this day within the Tower upon a new scaffold and died boldly. Jesu take them [i.e. Anne and the five men] to His mercy if it be His will." - John Husee to Lord Lisle, May 19, 1536

[sictransitgloriamvndi]

[gutsofgold]

Today is the 488th anniversary of the execution of Anne Boleyn

I woke up this morning and I saw the sun coming through the window in my bedroom, and I smiled. I thought, ‘Today will be a fun day’.

When she woke up that day, and saw the sunlight, she knew it was the last morning she would ever see.

I've been thinking about that a lot today

[ancientorigins]

Why did Henry VIII really have Anne Boleyn executed? Papers held at the British Library show her death was the result of a conspiracy against her amongst Henry’s advisors.

[tiny-librarian]

The Victorian historian Thomas Babington Macaulay, referring to the chapel of St. Peter ad Vincula, famously wrote:

There is no sadder spot on Earth. Death is there associated, not, as in Westminster and St Paul’s, with genius and virtue, with public veneration and imperishable renown; not, as in our humblest churches and churchyards, with everything that is most endearing in social and domestic charities: but with whatever is darkest in human nature and human destiny; with the savage triumph of implacable enemies, with the inconstancy, the ingratitude, the cowardice of friends, with all the miseries  of fallen greatness and of blighted fame. Thither have been carried through successive ages, by the rude hands of gaolers, without one mourner following, the bleeding relics of the captains of armies, the leaders of parties, and the ornaments of courts.

Each year, since at least the 1960s, on the anniversary of Anne Boleyn’s execution, a bunch of red roses - such as appear on her coat of arms - has been delivered anonymously to the Tower, with a request that it be placed on her memorial. The flowers, sent by a shop in London on the instructions of an undisclosed firm of trustees, are always accompanied by a card bearing only the dedication Queen Anne Boleyn 1536. This request is complied with by the Yeoman Warders, who lay the flowers on Anne’s grave and only remove them when they have withered. 

The Lady in the Tower: The Fall of Anne Boleyn - Alison Weir

[elizabethan-memes]

It really bugs me when historians and novelists believe the worst about Anne Boleyn and their infallible Absolutely True source is fuckign CHAPUYS. Or straight-up Catholic hagiography.

"Anne Boleyn whispered malevolent things in the King's ear!! She wanted the blood of good Catholics!!"

An accusation is not proof you gullible fuckwits. Especially when the accused is a convenient scapegoat, because again, The King's Evil Ministers trope is useful for EVERYONE. it applies to Anne just as much as Cromwell or Wolsey or More.

[cosmic-walkers]

In both Wolf Hall and even historically I know Mary I and Thomas had a decent friendship. I always wondered what would've happened if Thomas wasn't executed and he lived under Mary's rule. This thought came to me because I know Crammer was burned alive, and Gardiner was thriving with Mary. Would Thomas face execution? Would he be executed? What would his relationship with Mary be like? They were friends, he helped her out but he was still protestant (and pretending he wasn't lutheran).

I just wonder what would've happened. Would Mary have turned a blind eye, would she have forced him to sign the oath? Would it have been a Thomas More and Henry situation?

[izzy140105]

On this day in 1536, this beautiful woman finally found peace 🤍

[vox-anglosphere]

Scholars now find messages in Anne Boleyn's execution prayer book

[annabolinas]

May 17, 1536 - The Executions of George Boleyn, Henry Norris, Sir Francis Weston, William Brereton, and Mark Smeaton

"Masters all, I am come hither not to preach and make a sermon, but to die. As the law hath found me, and to the law I submit me, desiring you all, and especially you, my masters of the court, that you will trust in God especially, and not in the vanities of the world. For if I had so done, I think I had been alive as ye be now. Also, I desire you to help … the setting forth of the true word of God. And whereas I am slandered by it, I have been diligent to read it and set it forth truly. But if I had been as diligent to observe it, and done and lived thereafter, as I was to read it and set it forth, I [would not have] come here. Wherefore I beseech you all to be workers and live thereafter, and not to read it and live not thereafter. As for mine offenses, it cannot prevail you to hear them that I die here for. But I beseech God that I may be an example to you all, and that all you may beware by me, and heartily I require you all to pray for me, and to forgive me if I have ever offended you. And I forgive you all. And God save the King." - George Boleyn's execution speech in Wriothesley's Chronicle

"Some say, 'Rochford, haddest thou been not so proud,

For thy great wit each man would thee bemoan,

Since as it is so, many cry aloud

It is great loss that thou art dead and gone." - Thomas Wyatt (?), In mourning since daily wise I increase

"These bloody days have broken my heart.

My lust, my youth did them depart,

And blind desire of estate.

Who hastes to climb, seeks to revert.

Of truth, circa regna tonat [about the throne, thunder rolls]." - Thomas Wyatt, Who list his wealth and ease retain

"Mr. Norris ... said almost nothing at all." - George Constantine

"I had thought to have lived in abomination yet these twenty or thirty years, and then to have made amends. I thought little it would have come to this." - Francis Weston's last words, as reported by Constantine

"I have deserved to die if it were a thousand deaths. But the cause wherefore I die, judge not. But if you judge, judge the best." - William Brereton's last words, as reported by Constantine

"Masters, I pray you all, pray for me, for I have deserved the death." - Mark Smeaton's last words, as reported by Constantine

Also on this day, Anne's marriage to Henry was annulled by Archbishop Cranmer, either on the grounds of a precontract with Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland, or Henry's affair with her sister Mary before he met Anne.

[fideidefenswhore]

Considering that many of those interested in Anne Boleyn are female and that many are young, Mayhew frequently shows a baffling disdain for them, repeatedly calling them Anne's "fanatical fans and groupies". The women of the past fare just as severely in Mayhew's narrative. Queen Catherine of Aragon is cruelly labelled as "dwindling rapidly into a rather unattractive dumpy middle age". Mary Boleyn, we are told, "managed to inveigle herself into Henry VIII's bedroom". Considering we know next to nothing about Mary's affair with Henry VIII, including who initiated it, it is bewildering that Mayhew has the confidence to tell his readers that it was all Mary's ploy. Anne Boleyn is accused of "gaslighting the King of England into religious revolution". 

jesus christ, what a fucking idiot.

[ancientorigins]

Queen Mary I (aka Bloody Mary) is certainly one of England’s more infamous monarchs. She’s remembered for her religious zeal and penchant for having people burned at the stake.

[coldhardbinch]

New rule for Tudor historians: keep Katherine Howard's name out of your fucking mouth unless you're willing to acknowledge the fact that she was sexually abused as a minor by men with authority over her

[anne-the-quene]

ALIONA BARANOVA as ANNE BOLEYN in HISTORIC ROYAL PALACES’ ANNE BOLEYN: THE DOWNFALL AND EXECUTION OF A TUDOR QUEEN (featuring Nigel Allen as Henry VIII)