In the Tudor world, the month of May tends to be seen as Anne Boleyn month where the internet (and me, I have to admit!) goes a bit bananas over Henry VIII’s second wife. Of course, she was executed on the 19^th of the month in 1536 on what is now generally accepted as fabricated charges of adultery, incest and treason. Those hellish weeks were immortalised in verse by Sir Thomas Wyatt the Younger:

“These bloody days have broken my heart.

My lust, my youth did them depart,

And blind desire of estate.

Who hastes to climb seeks to revert.

Of truth, circa Regna tonat.”

Thomas Wyatt, ‘Circa Regna Tonat’

Those chilling last words translate from the Latin to “thunder rolls around the throne” – well it certainly did when Henry VIII was sitting on the throne.

But what else happened in May in England in the Tudor period?

• 3^rd May 1544 – Thomas Wriothesley was made Lord Chancellor of England
• 4^th May 1547 – Katherine Parr married her fourth husband, Thomas Seymour
• 6^th May 1541 – Henry VIII ordered a new Bible placed in every church
• 8^th May 1559 – Elizabeth I assented to new Acts of Supremacy and Uniformity
• 9^th May 1509 – Henry VII’s body was taken to St Paul’s Cathedral from his place of death at Richmond Palace
• 10^th May 1533 – The Dunstable enquiry opened under Archbishop Cranmer which resulted in the annulment of Henry VIII’s marriage to Katherine of Aragon
• 11^th May 1500 – Birth of Reginald Pole, later Archbishop of Canterbury under Mary I
• 13^th May 1516 – Henry VIII’s sister, Mary Tudor, married Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk at Greenwich Palace
• 15^th May 1567 – Mary Queen of Scots married James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell
• 16^th May 1532 – Thomas More resigned as Lord Chancellor of England
• 17^th May 1521 – Execution of Edward Stafford, Duke of Buckingham, for treason
• 19^th May 1499 – Katherine of Aragon was married by proxy to Prince Arthur, elder brother of Henry VIII
• 19^th May 1554 – Mary I released Princess Elizabeth from imprisonment in the Tower of London
• 25^th May 1553 – Jane Grey married Guildford Dudley
• 26^th May 1520 – Henry VIII and Katherine of Aragon met the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V at Dover
• 27^th May 1541 – Execution of Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury, for treason
• 29^th May 1543 – Katherine Parr’s ‘Prayers’ or ‘Meditations’ was published
• 30^th May 1529 – The court at Blackfriars opened to try the marriage of Henry VIII and Katherine of Aragon
• 30^th May 1536 – Henry VIII married Jane Seymour

So why Anne Boleyn?

With all these other events happening in May, why the focus on Anne Boleyn? Possibly because her fall was so spectacular and her execution so unexpected. Never before had an English queen been executed, and there was so much controversy surrounding the charges and the men accused with her. I mean, incest? And not just adultery with one man, but five, one her own brother? Unparalleled and shocking and still so many unanswered questions which draw historians back to her time after time, year after year.

Fascination with the unanswered and inherently shocking will never go away, no matter how old the mystery, and this one is now 484 years old.

Other posts which discuss Anne Boleyn

Undergraduate Dissertation Chapter – Why Did Anne Boleyn Fall from Power?

https://tudorblogger.wordpress.com/2012/10/11/undergrad-dissertation-chapter-1/

In Memory of Anne Boleyn – Why Does She Still Fascinate Us?

https://tudorblogger.wordpress.com/2019/05/19/in-memory-of-anne-boleyn/

The Legacy of Anne Boleyn

https://tudorblogger.wordpress.com/2013/05/19/the-legacy-of-anne-boleyn-died-19th-may-1536/