Natalie Dormer

She still makes his shirts?

On this day, Anne Boleyn arrested. 2 MAY 1536.

• May 2nd 1536 - Accused of committing adultery with at least three different men, Anne Boleyn was arrested, and thus imprisoned in the Tower of London. Sir Henry Norris and Lord Rochford were also imprisoned to join Mark Smeaton.
• May 3rd 1536 - Upon news of the Queen’s arrest, Archbishop Cranmer wrote to Thomas Cromwell, stating: “My mind is clean amazed, for I never had better opinion in woman, than I had in her”. Anne Boleyn unknowingly implicates Sir Francis Weston.
• May 4th 1536 - Sir Francis Weston and Sir William Brereton join Lord Rochford, Sir Henry Norris and Mark Smeaton in the Tower. Lady Jane Rochford sent her husband, George Boleyn, a letter of comfort, saying she would petition to the King for him. 
• May 6th 1536 - Anne Boleyn is believed to have written a letter to her husband, stating her innocence and asking for a lawful trial. She also begged the King to spare the lives of the five men, and not to withdraw his love for their infant daughter.
• May 12th 1536 - Sir Henry Norris, Sir Francis Weston, Sir William Brereton and Mark Smeaton were tried for high treason, and without valid proof or confession, were all found guilty, and thus sentenced to be hanged, drawn and quarter at Tyburn.
• May 15th 1536 - Anne Boleyn was tried before a jury of peers, and despite pleading innocent, was sentenced to be burned or beheaded at the King’s pleasure. George Boleyn was also found guilty, and sentenced to be hanged, drawn and quartered.
• May 16th 1536 - Archbishop Cranmer visited Anne Boleyn to hear her confession, and to obtain her consent to dissolve her marriage and thus bastardise her daughter. Anne believed that she would be spared death, and instead be sent to a nunnery. 
• May 17th 1536 - The sentences of the five men were commuted, and Anne Boleyn is believed to have watched as her brother and friends were beheaded on Tower Hill. Her marriage to the King was declared null and void, and her daughter a bastard.  
• May 18th 1536 - Anne Boleyn heard mass and prepared for her impending execution, only for it to be twice postponed. Sir William Kingston tried to comfort her, to which she replied: “I heard say the executioner was very good, and I have a little neck”.
• May 19th 1536 - Shortly after 8am, Anne Boleyn ascended the scaffold, and after delivering a speech that praised the King in a last attempt to protect her daughter, the Queen was blindfolded, and beheaded with the single stroke of a French sword.

Thursday the 18th at 9am was Anne’s initial execution date, she had spent the night of the 17th in prayer, while the carpenters built her scaffold in the grounds of the Tower of London. At 2am, John Skip, her almoner arrived to pray with her and just after dawn, the Archbishop Cramner came to hear her last confession. Anne Boleyn asked Sir William Kingston to be present on her last confession where she swore on the holy sacrament twice, before and after that she had not been unfaithful to the King, and should she be lying, swearing eternal damnation of her soul. Anne then made arrangements for the customary distribution alms of £20 given to her by the King for this purpose, and then she waited for 9am, where she thought to take her final walk. She went back to her prayers, but 9am came and went she asked to see Sir William Kingston, to which he arrived and informed her that the execution had been moved until noon. He tried to comfort her by saying her death would be ‘so subtle’, to which Anne replied with characteristic black humour, “Yes, I heard say the executioner was very good, and I have a little neck”, to which she placed her hands around her throat and laughed heartily. She also joked with her ladies that the people would give her the nickname, ‘la Royne Anne Sans Tete’, or Queen Anne Lackhead.

Anne was finally put out of her misery when noon passed and Sir William informed her that her execution had been postponed until the net day, Anne was obviously distressed but could do little more than go back to prayer. Sir William Kingston was impressed with Anne and her composure and remarked, ‘Thys Lady hasse mech joyy and plesure in dethe.’ Anne was confident of her faith.

On this day 1536, Anne Boleyn was arrested, accused of adultery with three different men: Mark Smeaton, Sir Henry Norris and a third, unnamed at this stage. She was also told that Smeaton and Norris had already confessed but her pleas of innoncence left no affect and the Royal Commission ordered the arrest. Anne was then escorted back to her chambers until the tide of the Thames turned, and at two o’clock in the afternoon she was escorted by barge to the Tower, imprisoned in the Queen’s Apartments of the Royal Palace, the same quarters she’d stayed in three years previous, the night before her coronation.

"Perhaps you don’t understand but I can’t sleep, I can hardly breathe for thinking of you."