Henry VIII has lost interest in his…
May 1536 CE
Henry VIII has lost interest in his second wife, Anne Boleyn, who, like Catherine of Aragon, has failed to bear him a son, miscarrying after the birth of her daughter Elizabeth.
Having developed an infatuation with twenty-eight-year-old Jane Seymour, a lady-in-waiting to Anne, Henry pursues her with gifts, but she discreetly rejects his proposals.
Rumors circulate at court during the early weeks of 1536 about Anne’s alleged infidelity to Henry, then become charges of adultery.
After Anne gives birth to a stillborn boy, Henry finally has his twenty-nine-year-old wife arrested, tried, found guilty of adultery, and condemned to death by Norfolk, her uncle.
Anne conducts herself with dignity throughout the proceedings, maintaining her innocence.
Her marriage to Henry invalidated by Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, Anne is beheaded on May 19.
No certain portraits of Anne Boleyn by Holbein survive, perhaps because her memory is purged following her execution.
That Holbein worked directly for Anne and her circle is, however, clear.
He designed a cup engraved with her device of a falcon standing on roses, as well as jewelry and books connected to her.
He also sketched several women attached to her entourage, including Jane Parker, Anne's sister-in-law.
At the same time, Holbein works for Thomas Cromwell as he masterminds Henry VIII's reformation.
Cromwell commissions Holbein to produce reformist and royalist images, including anti-clerical woodcuts and the title page to Myles Coverdale's English translation of the bible.
Images
Late Elizabethan portrait of Anne Boleyn, possibly derived from a lost original of 1533–36.
Locations
People
Topics
Subjects
Regions
North Europe
View →Subregions
