Anne Boleyn
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Many of the facts about Anne Boleyn are well known nowadays. As the second “wife” of Henry VIII, she was beheaded for treason by adultery in 1536. Their marriage was annulled shortly before her execution but it was quite possibly bigamous anyway and invalid by affinity in that Henry had previously slept with her sister.…
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We have posted before about the lives of noblewomen and how they were almost never executed before the “Tudor” era began – including how King Lear, featuring the death of Cordelia, reflected this changed reality. Here is as near as we can manage to a counter-example from 1003, after the St. Brice’s Day Massacre of…
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1) He created two peeresses in their own right – Margaret Pole as Countess of Salisbury and Anne Boleyn as Marquess of Pembroke (see point 2). 2) He gave noblewomen, such as the above, Lady Margaret (Stafford) Bulmer, Catherine Howard and Viscountess Rochford, an equal opportunity to be executed. 3) He gave women, such as…
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Fabricating Precontracts: Richard III vs Henry VIII
3rd Duke of Norfolk, adultery, Anne Boleyn, Anne of Cleves, Annette Carson, Archbishop Cranmer, attainder, bigamy, canon law, Catherine Howard, Claire Ridgway, Crowland, Earl of Northumberland, Edward IV, Edward V, executions, Francis Dereham, Francis of Lorraine, Henry VIII, Lady Eleanor Talbot, Lord High Constable, Lord Protector of the Realm, Mary Boleyn, mediaeval canon law, pre-contract, Richard III, Robert Stillington, Thomas Cromwell, Thomas Howard, treasonOn 10 and 11 June 1483, Richard duke of Gloucester wrote to his affinity in the North and asked for troops to support him against the Woodvilles who, he claimed, were plotting his destruction. On 22 June Ralph Shaa preached his “bastard slips” sermon, followed by similar speeches by the duke of Buckingham, and on…
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There were many good things about this programme. Dr. Janina Ramirez joined Dr. John Ashdown-Hill and the lawyer Bertram Fields. All three have studied the late medieval period in detail and in different ways. Then there was Dr. David Starkey. He is a renowned expert on the 1509-1603 period but tends to derive his views…
