“The queen was…in command of herself and clearly of the situation. Her sparing and effective answers quietly dominated the court. Her manner [carried] conviction. […] Charles Wriothesley, who was temperamentally inclined to Katherine and Mary, expressed the common view: ‘She made so wise and discreet answers as to all things laid against her, excusing herself with her words so clearly as though she had never been faulty to the same.’ […] She knew that she had not been the waxen wife of conventional expectation, to be moulded or impressed a her husband’s will. What she did not say was that the king had pursued her precisely because of this; he had needed her steel and was only where he was because of it. | Eric Ives, The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn
“She managed, at her trial on May 15, after nearly two weeks in the Tower and the certain recognition…that she would be found guilty, to summon her renowned pride and dazzling confidence for the grim occasion. Dressed in black velvet over a scarlet petticoat…she ‘presented herself with the true dignity of a queen, and curtseyed to her judges, looking round upon them all, without any sign of fear…impatience, grief, or cowardice’ according to Crispin de Milherve, whom Alison Weir cites as an eyewitness at the trial but who may have been Lancelot de Carles.” | Susan Bordo, The Creation of Anne Boleyn
On 15 May 1536, Queen Anne Boleyn was put on trial for adultery with five men, including her brother, and high treason. Her behavior impressed her enemies and allies alike. The queen arrived “in fearful beauty” and “as though she were going to a great triumph.” Even after the preordained guilty verdict, she “preserved her composure.” There was less fortitude among the jury members, however: Henry Percy–Anne’s former suitor–collapsed, and her uncle Norfolk was said to have wept as he condemned her “to be burnt or beheaded at the King’s pleasure.”
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♔ “Gathering her daughter in her arms, Anne Boleyn ran to the King, desperate to convince him of her innocence. This scene was witnessed by Scottish theologian, Alexander Alesius, who later recounted what he had seen on 30th April 1536 in a letter to Elizabeth I, written soon after she had ascended the throne:
'Never shall I forget the sorrow which I felt when I saw the most
serene Queen, your most religious mother, carrying you, still a little
baby, in her arms and entreating the most serene King, your father,
in Greenwich Palace, from the open window of which he was looking into
the courtyard, when she brought you to him. I did not perfectly
understand what had been going on, but the faces and gestures of the
speakers plainly showed that the King was angry, although he could
conceal his anger wonderfully well.'
Perhaps Anne had seized upon Elizabeth as being the best means of persuading her husband that she was innocent. If Anne had used her daughter in a last, desperate attempt to save her own life, it was in vain.”
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A husband does not stray if he loves his wife
.・。.・゜✭・❤・✫・゜・。.
This man who loves his wife, is that you?
Who else would it be?
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