Who's That Lady: Anne Boleyn

Though Anne Boleyn would refer to herself as having once been a "commoner," she could hardly have been called common. Anne was a woman who came from a very influential family, one of means. While it is well-nigh impossible to determine just how happy her upbringing may have been, she had certainly enjoyed substantial material comforts while growing up.

Anne's father, Thomas Boleyn, was a prominent figure in the court of Henry VIII. Intelligent, capable, and intensely ambitious, Thomas Boleyn was a man who was ever reaching for the stars, higher and higher, never satisfied with the status quo, he determined to shine brightly. Boleyn would use everything within his capacity to achieve those ends, not stopping at his own children. Still, Thomas Boleyn was not terribly different from other courtiers in his time, many who did attempt to thrust daughters and sons into the pathways of the nobility. Given the lowered status of women in the 16th century, a daughter was an undeniable liability for most men. If Mary Boleyn was as attractive as she was reported to be, undoubtedly Thomas Boleyn thought his family could capitalize on that factor. It certainly seems a very distasteful notion to our modern day sensibilities, but world of the Tudors was radically different from the world we now inhabit.

Anne, we have been told, while not as conventionally pretty as her sister, Mary, had attributes all her own. While she was never considered a great beauty, she certainly was considered attractive and desirable. There have always been women who create their own beauty, who are so knowledgeable and skillful at applying their feminine wits and charms, that men find them irresistible. Mary may have been blonde, and pretty. But Anne was a triple threat, vivacious, darling, wildly flirtatious. It is really not too difficult to understand how she eventually eclipsed her own sister, and eventually won the hand of a king in matrimony. Though the story would end badly, very badly, Anne did get Henry to marry her.

Catherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn: One time wives to the Great King Henry

Anne came into King Hal's life in a rather indirect way. I don't think it is fair to say that Anne Boleyn destroyed Catherine of Aragon's marriage, because her husband was disenchanted with Catherine long before Anne made herself known at the English court. As we all know, Mary was Hal's mistress long before he became enamoured of Anne. In fact, the Boleyn Family became interwoven into Henry and Catherine's estrangement in a complex and somewhat convoluted manner. That is not to say that Anne did not bear guilt, because she certainly did. Anne carried on for years with a still very married man, and simultaneously mistreated his daughter, Mary. I have wondered to what extent the miserable treatment Mary endured from Anne Boleyn, shaped her extremely disturbed personality in her adulthood.

King Henry was gracing the Boleyns and Howards with many favours quite some time prior to his fiery romance with the raven-haired Anne. To many, it seemed that as Henry was systematically ousting poor Catherine out of his life, he was almost creating a new family for himself among the Boleyn and Howard factions.

It is difficult not to feel great sympathy for Catherine. Almost any normal woman can relate to her dilemma. She was the wife of Henry's youth and had done nothing to deserve such shoddy treatment. She had been faithful to Hal in every conceivable way, had never complained of having a convenient headache when Hal's desires were for her, (and he would admit later that she had performed her wifely duties in every way when they were together,) and she had deferred to him on all matters. But, Boy Howdy, when Hal thought he was going to quietly send Catherine on her way and take up with sexy, young Anne Boleyn, the Great Henry found he had another thing a-coming. The formerly mild, almost timid Catherine stood up to him with a fury that few man ever had dared to. Again--as women, most of us can relate. Henry had impregnated Catherine over and again. Few of us modern day women would like to be pregnant as many times as the long suffering Catherine had been. The poor queen kept having miscarriages, or infants who would tragically die shortly after birth. All contemporary accounts report that being perpetually pregnant for many years had all but destroyed Catherine's looks. Once a bright strawberry blonde, with rose-gold cheeks and curvy figure, sorrow and over a dozen pregnancies had left Catherine prematurely aged, and hopelessly stout. Sadly, Henry had not the character to remain loving to his wife. We all know couples where the wife was once a Catherine Zeta-Jones, or a Christie Brinkley, and 3 children later, perhaps a career, loads of hard work and perhaps a few heartaches along the way, has thoroughly faded the wife's once radiant beauty. And yet the husband remains solidly in love with his wife. A real man knows and expects that his wife will not look the way she did in the honeymoon photos forever. Beauty fades, and quite fast, so many of us have found. True beauty comes from the heart, and this type does not fade. Catherine had true beauty to spare. But Henry was a superficial kind of guy. He found Anne's long shimmering black hair, her flashing eyes, and her sworn state of virginity, (probably not true,) to be an offer he couldn't refuse. It is worth mentioning, and considering that we know how the story ends, Anne would one day find herself in the same unenviable position. Discarded, cheated on, unwanted was the state Anne would become familiar with, just as Catherine had experienced not so many years before.

An Excellent Education, Early Life

It seems that since their earliest childhoods fate would have these two sisters on paths quite separate and ironically familiar at different time points. That Mary and Anne would both, at different time periods, be mistresses to King Henry VIII is certainly remarkable in and of itself. Though Anne would demurely maintain, during the early part of her relationship with Henry, that she was only a commoner, there was actually little that could be called
common about her.

The Boleyn children enjoyed educations which were typical the time they lived, for high born children. For Mary and Anne, this would include reading and writing, sewing, and embroidery. The finer points of their schooling would include singing, dancing, learning to play instruments such as the virginal and lute. Even outdoor activities were included, and Mary and Anne learned to ride in the nearby parkland, and learned archery and hunting.

During the time that Mary lived, the educating of daughters was still a new concept, although it was a trend that was gaining acceptance. Interestingly, Mary and Anne's education also included study of the family history and origins.