Ultimate Fate
After several days of investigations, Lord Privy Seal Thomas Cromwell had the materials needed to oust Anne Boleyn. With the king's approval, Cromwell and the Duke of Norfolk, the queen's uncle, placed Anne under arrest and escorted her to the Tower of London. With evidence obtained from interviews, Anne was charged with adultery and conspiracy to murder the king.
At the Tower, Anne was lodged in the rooms she had used during her coronation festivities just three years ago. She was attended by four women who were to report everything she said or did to Cromwell. Anne was in hysterics -- laughing one moment and crying the next.
Two weeks later, Anne's trial took place at the Great Hall of the Tower of London. Special stands were erected to accommodate the 2,000 people expected to attend. Her uncle, the Duke of Norfolk, presided as the court's High Steward. No longer in hysterics, Anne answered her accusers calmly and remained composed even while her death sentence was read by her uncle. Her brother, Lord Rochford, was tried next and ably defended himself against his wife's charges of incest. Rochford might have been acquitted were it not for the fact that he read out loud his wife's testimony that Queen Anne had told her that the king was impotent -- long a subject of speculation. Two days after the trial, Anne watched from a window at the Bell Tower while her brother Lord Rochford, Privy Council members Sir Henry Norris, Sir Francis Weston, William Brereton and musician Mark Smeaton were beheaded on Tower Hill.
That same day, at the king's instigation, Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, declared Anne's marriage to Henry invalid. The ruling struck a considerable hole in the Crown's case. If Anne's marriage had been invalid, she could not have committed adultery as Henry's wife. Nevertheless, plans for Anne's execution continued. As a favor to his wife, the king sent for the hangman of Calais, who used a sword for executions instead of an axe -- bringing a faster, neater end. When Anne learned of the pick for executioner, she reportedly laughed heartily, glad since she had "a little neck." On Friday, May 19, 1536 before a crowd of 2,000 - 3,000 spectators, Anne was led to the scaffolds on Tower Green. She calmly delivered a speech in which she accepted her fate and asked all present to pray for the king, "the best prince on the face of the earth." She then took off her French hood and knelt before the beheading block. Moments later, she was dead.
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