BOLEYN (or BULLEN), ANNE (c. queen of Henry VIII. of England, daughter of Sir Thomas Boleyn, after wards earl of Wiltshire and Ormonde, and of Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Howard, earl of Surrey, afterwards duke of Norfolk, was born, according to Camden, in 15o7, but an earlier date (15o2 or isoi) is given by some later writers. She visited France with her father about 151g, and was attached to the service of Queen Claude for a short time. She returned in 1521 or 1522 to England. Among her admirers was the poet Sir Thomas Wyatt, and among her definite suitors was Henry Percy, heir of the earl of Northumberland. A series of grants and favours bestowed by Henry on her father between 1522 and 1525 have been regarded, with little justification, as a symptom of the king's affections. Anne, however, had no intention of being the king's mistress; she meant to be his queen. There is no absolute proof that Henry's passion was anterior to the proceedings taken for the divorce in May 1527, the celebrated love letters being undated. After the king's final separation from his wife in July 1531, Anne accom panied Henry on the visit to Francis I. in 1532, while Catherine was left at home neglected and practically a prisoner. Henry married her about Jan. 25, 1533 (the exact date is unknown), their union not being made public till the following Easter. Subse quently, on May 28, their marriage was declared valid and that with catherine null, and in June Anne was crowned at West minster Hall.
A weak, giddy woman of no stability of character, her success turned her head and caused her to behave with insolence and impropriety, in strong contrast with Catherine's quiet dignity under her misfortunes. She, and not the king, probably was the author of the petty persecutions inflicted upon Catherine and upon the princess Mary, and her jealousy of the latter showed itself in spiteful malice. She incurred the remonstrances of the privy council and alienated her own friends and relations. But there were soon signs that Henry's affection, which had before been a genuine passion, had cooled or ceased. He resented her arrogance, and a few months after the marriage he gave her cause for jealousy, and disputes arose. Fate had prepared for Anne the same domestic griefs that had ruined Catherine. In Sept. 1533 the birth of a daughter, afterwards Queen Elizabeth, instead of the long-hoped-for son, was a heavy disappointment; next year there was a miscarriage, and on Jan. 29, 1536, the day of Catherine's funeral, she gave birth to a dead male child.
On May it became known that several of Anne's reputed lovers had been arrested. On the 2nd Anne herself was committed to the Tower on a charge of adultery with various persons, in cluding her own brother, Lord Rochford. On the i2th Sir Francis Weston, Henry Norris, William Brereton, and Mark Smeaton were declared guilty of high treason, while Anne herself and Lord Rochford were condemned unanimously by an assembly of 26 peers on the i5th. Her uncle, the duke of Norfolk, presided as lord steward, and gave sentence, weeping, that his niece was to be burned or beheaded as pleased the king. Her former lover, the earl of Northumberland, left the court, seized with sudden illness. Her father had declared his conviction of his daughter's guilt at the trial of her reputed lovers. On the i6th Anne informed Cranmer of a certain supposed impediment to her marriage with the king—according to some accounts a previous marriage with Northumberland, though the latter solemnly and positively denied it—which was never disclosed, but was pronounced, on the i7th, sufficient to invalidate her marriage. The same day all her reputed lovers were executed; and on the igth she herself suffered death on Tower Green, her head being struck off with a sword by the executioner of Calais brought to England for the purpose. She had regarded the prospect of death with courage and almost with levity, laughing heartily as she put her hands about her "little neck" and recalled the skill of the executioner. "I have seen many men" (wrote Sir William Kingston, governor of the Tower) "and also women executed, and all they have been in great sorrow, and to my knowledge this lady has much joy and pleasure in death." On the following day Henry was betrothed to Jane Seymour.