King vs. Queen
The king had waited more than six years to be with Anne, but it would not be long after his marriage that the king, as Chapuys, the Spanish ambassador would remark, would be "sick and tired of that she-devil".
There were several reasons. Though Anne was obstinate and assertive, it was her inability to bear male heirs that most distressed the king. After Anne's second stillbirth in 1536, Henry, convinced she could not bear him sons, confided to his advisor Thomas Cromwell that "he had made this marriage seduced by her witchcraft."
International power politics also played a role in Anne's downfall. Holy Roman Emperor Charles V was eager to ally himself with Henry now that his relations with King Francis I of France had gone awry. Anne, whose title was never recognized by Charles V, was pro-French and stood in the way of a possible alliance.
Meanwhile, Henry's affair with Anne's maid-of-honor Jane Seymour intensified. Cromwell, taking his hint from the king, developed a plan to oust Queen Anne, his former ally in religious reform. On April 24, the king secretly signed a commission giving orders to Cromwell and others including Anne's uncle, the Duke of Norfolk, to investigate all cases of treason across the country. Confessions by Anne's maids that the queen "admitted some of her court to come into her chamber at undue hour" helped build the case Cromwell required. She would be charged with conspiracy to murder the king and adultery with four men: Anne's favorite musician, Mark Smeaton, members of the Privy Council Sir Henry Norris, Sir Francis Weston, William Brereton. Poet Sir Thomas Wyatt and Privy Council member Sir Richard Page were also implicated, but their friendship with Cromwell saved them. As a final, gruesome touch, a charge of incest with her brother, George, Viscount Rochford, was built upon evidence submitted by his wife, Lady Rochford, who was jealous of the siblings' close relationship.
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