ANNE BOLEYN, or BULLEN, or BOULEYNE, one of the wives of Henry VIII., and mother of queen Elizabeth. The date of her birth is uncertain, 1500 to 1507 being given, but the earlier is most likely. She was beheaded, May 19, 153G. A. was a daughter of Sir Thomas Boleyn, who was viscount Rochford, and earl of Ormond and Wiltshire. She was one of the ladies chosen to accompany princess Mary when she went to France in 1514 to wed Louis XII. After the death of Louis, Mary returned to England, but A. remained in the household of Claude, queen of Francis I. She was recalled to England in 1522, or 1527, and admitted to the household of Catherine of Aragon, where she seems to have been circumspect, witty, and vivacious. Near the end of 1527, Henry declared to Wolsey his intention to marry her as soon as a divorce from Catherine could be obtained. After five years of effort the divorce came, but before this, Jan. 25, 1533, Henry and A. were married. The divorce was secured in May, and
on the first of June, A.'s coronation took place. Three months later the princess Elizabeth was born. A. led an easy life for a few years, until Henry fixed his eyes on Jane Seymour, when it was not at all difficult to prove A. dissolute with a view of put ting her out of the way. A committee of lords, one of them her own father, in 1536 reported her incontinent with half a dozen persons, including her own brother. She was of course convicted, degraded, and executed; but on the scaffold she behaved with dig nity and courage, protesting her innocence to the last. In the strange lack of authentic details of A.'s history, especially in regard to her alleged crimes, there has been room for differences of opinion concerning her among historians.