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The Age of Anne Boleyn. IV

© Wendy J. Dunn

Anne's relationship with the twenty-year old Henry Percy, later Earl of Northumberland, needs to be considered here too. This relationship, documented by George Cavendish as well as later brought up during the trial for Anne's life, possessed all the hallmarks of 'first love,' both of them entering into this relationship as if naive of how their lives were controlled by their place in Tudor society. Moreover, there are potent hints suggesting that Anne and Percy may have precontracted themselves to one another, which would have put into question the legality of any future marriage entered into by Anne and Percy. (13)

Disregarding Percy's loud protests that he had committed himself to Anne Boleyn, Wolsey broke up their relationship, Percy being married in quick haste to Mary Talbot. It was a marriage doomed to failure from the start. As for Anne and Percy? Because of their youth, this break-up apparently hit them both hard, making them never forget what had happened. Was it just a coincidence that the man leading the party to arrest Wolsey for treason was none other than Percy? And Anne said later that she rather had been Henry's Countess (meaning, Percy's wife) than Henry's Queen. When the verdict of Anne's execution was delivered, Percy, a judge at her trial, fainted.

In 1876, St. Peter's ad Vincula, a chapel situated at the north-end of Tower Green, was remodelled extensively. Part of the project involved repairing the floor, under which were the remains of - amongst others- Anne Boleyn, Katherine Howard and Jane Grey. Close to the choir chapel, a 'beheaded' woman's skeleton was found under a paving stone. A medical examiner described the exhumed skeleton as having a "delicate frame with a small neck, "as one would expect of a skeleton belonging to Anne Boleyn, a female beheaded in her middle or late twenties.(14)

Thus, it was concluded that these bones were indeed the bones of Anne Boleyn.(15) As Katherine and Jane Grey, both also buried at St. Peters and believed identified during these excavations, were teenagers (respectively, nineteen and sixteen) and executed before bearing children, I believe the differences between skeletons would have been apparent. I have no doubt the bones found in 1876 were indeed those of Anne Boleyn.

So how do we briefly summarise society attitudes to 'age' at this time? Life was far shorter then- with an average life expectation somewhere around forty years. However, just because life was brief does not mean people of the period automatically regarded those in their thirties as 'old.' Nevertheless, we have to keep in mind that life was much harder then and consequently people did age faster than what we see today in the Western world.