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The Rise, Reign and Fall of Anne Boleyn, Part V

© Ellen McDaniel-Weissler

By late August, 1533, all was in readiness for Anne to retire into seclusion for the birth of her child. In those days, queens took refuge in a sealed-up set of chambers during childbirth, waited on by none but women, not allowed to venture outdoors or even to have windows opened to the fresh breezes and cooling showers of an English summer. For one heavily pregnant during the hottest months of the year, this must have been torture - but in Anne's case it didn't last long. In early September she went into labor and was safely and thankfully delivered of the long-desired child. Edward had been chosen as its name.

The plans, at the last minute, had to be changed. In spite of the promises of the new queen to her liege lord, in spite of the prognostications of every forecaster in the country, in spite of the assurances of astrologers and seers, the unthinkable had happened. The queen, to her own dismay, was delivered of a healthy, beautiful, red-haired daughter.

Stunned and angry, Henry managed to control his temper long enough to bless the midwife, the servants, and to kiss his wife briefly before flinging himself out of the birthing chamber. An "s" was added to the word "prince" in the already-printed birth announcements ("princes" being an accepted spelling of "princess" in those days). The child was named Elizabeth, after both Henry's and Anne's mothers, and in time Henry came to believe that, as they had managed a healthy and perfectly-formed daughter, it was just a trial-run for the son who was surely to come.

But already his eye had begun to stray from his new wife, and before the first year of their marriage was out, he was already having a very secret affair with Anne's cousin, Madge Shelton, to be followed not long after by a very public yearning towards a new lady-in-waiting, one Jane Seymour.

Anne threatened, cried, screamed and harangued in vain. She was coldly informed by her once-doting husband that she had been raised to her present position by him, and, by God, she could be lowered just as easily! She had better just close her eyes and accept his infidelities, as her "betters" (meaning Queen Catherine) had done. The tormented, adoring and frantically besotted suitor had become the bored, annoyed and frustrated husband.

At some point Anne became pregnant once again, but the pregnancy must have ended in miscarriage rather early on, because it simply disappears from mention in the chronicles with no note of the birth or the sex of the child.