This day in history 1547

Today, 29th January in 1547, momentous events were afoot behind the scenes at Whitehall Palace. Very very few people knew that Henry VIII, Great Harry to those who loved him, Old Coppernose to those who held him in less respect, had been dead for 24 hours.

Not even his heir, the 9 year old Prince Edward knew of his father's death. The Earl of Somerset, Edward's uncle, was hurriedly putting in place those plans that would make him Protector. There was a little jockeying for position, but in the end, when Somerset was confident he was in charge, he called the 13 year old Elizabeth and Prince Edward and told them that their father had died. The children immediately burst into long noisy sobs.

So far all this is well known, but there is a mystery of sorts and one which can never be clarified. In a previous post, I put forward the possibility that Anne Boleyn, executed for adultery in 1536, was always Henry's one great love. The evidence I used was that he kept some of Anne's possessions, large items that took up room and never discarded them.

Henry could not possibly have presented himself as ever being in the wrong, but I would love to know his real feelings on the subject of Anne when he had had time to consider her end. There is one contemporary comment that, on his deathbed, Henry expressed the opinion that Anne had been unfairly executed. Many other contemporary accounts - and here I would point anyone wanting more information to Alison Weir's 'The Lady in the Tower - say that until 2nd April 1536, Henry and Anne were "merry together". So why did Henry allow himself to be railroaded into executing a wife that many people, including me, think was innocent of all the charges against her?

Weir brings up the possibility that Henry and Anne had mismatched blood types and that was why she gave birth to Elizabeth, her first child, but subsequent pregnancies ended in miscarriage. Anne is also known to have been pious even though she did have an issue with her temper and that led to endless rows with her husband.

I think there is little doubt that "something" happened to enable Thomas Cromwell to frame Anne and I believe that Anne struck a bargain with Henry that if he undertook to bring a French swordsman to behead her and promised to look after Elizabeth, then she would go quietly to her death. What that "something" was is gold-dust for a writer who loves playing 'what-if'.

My own opinion is that there is a possibility Thomas Cromwell felt threatened by Anne's hold over her husband. Perhaps in a temper, she said more than was wise and this was used against her, with the charges being exaggerated beyond all recognition simply to paint her as an evil manipulator. There is little doubt that Cromwell, once he set the hare running, was also in danger and Henry warned him of this with a 'you'd better be right or it will be the worse for you' conversation.

In fact, I like to think that in 1540 when Cromwell could find no reason for Henry's divorce from Anne of Cleves, the King allowed Cromwell's enemies to bring him down and did nothing to save his most able councillor purely because he wanted some payback for what had happened to Anne.

We'll never know, but what a story it would make if it were true.